Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement

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See also: Logged AE sanctions

Important informationShortcuts

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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,
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Important notes:

For a request to succeed, either

(i) the clear and substantial consensus of (a) uninvolved administrators at AE or (b) uninvolved editors at AN or

(ii) a passing motion of arbitrators at ARCA

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While asking the enforcing administrator and seeking reviews at AN or AE are not mandatory prior to seeking a decision from the committee, once the committee has reviewed a request, further substantive review at any forum is barred. The sole exception is editors under an active sanction who may still request an easing or removal of the sanction on the grounds that said sanction is no longer needed, but such requests may only be made once every six months, or whatever longer period the committee may specify.
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Andrew Davidson

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 Andrew Davidson

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Sitush (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 19:19, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested: Andrew Davidson (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: WP:ARBIPA :

What appears to be a long-term fundamental inability to understand the complexities of the Indian caste system leads to often lengthy and wikilawyered discussions such as here, here and here. There is no easy way to explain the complexities in 500 words, sorry, but, for example, in the last diff AD argues use of sources that simply do not refer in any meaningful way to the subject, in the linked Samra discussion he argued at length to use unreliable sources, causing Drmies to issue a sanctions alert, and in the first of these diffs he argued using both unreliable sources and with a clear lack of understanding of how the caste system functions. As some of those diffs infer, they are not the only examples but I'm struggling with the interaction tools at the moment - they keep timing out or simply not returning a result.

We've currently got this, where AD is perpetuating his previous stances, again without any apparent understanding of the caste system. In that discussion, he seems even to think that we should keep an invalid statement rather than remove it and so cause an article to be blank. He has also been arguing at length about the validity of the most recent sanctions alerts here, indulging in yet more time-consuming litigation of dubious merit.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

None known

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)

Gave an alert about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months here, soon after expiry of one issued issue a sanctions here.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I have filed this under the username Andrew Davidson but some past discussions were under another username, Colonel Warden, which he allegedly agreed with ArbCom to stop using but actually has not. The AD account is more active of late.

It is ok to have an opinion but to tendentiously pursue it can be problematic, as can misrepresenting what sources say even if it is due to a lack of understanding. I'd like to see a topic ban from caste-related matters, broadly construed, because I and probably others feel like we're banging our heads against a brick wall.

Replying to AD's edits here. It is nothing specifically to do with one AfD. It is a general pattern of lack of comprehension that, in fact, you are even demonstrating in your comments here. The problem is, you mention expanding your interests into editing caste-related articles but you cannot even demonstrate understanding in the AfDs, throwing in irrelevant sources (the Oxford book being one), unreliable ones and arguments that are non-starters because the caste system does not operate in the manner that you seem to believe. - Sitush (talk) 20:46, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

@Sandstein: then you are unwittingly part of the problem. I know that CIR is not a policy but when someone like Andrew Davidson gets involved it just creates a shedload of issues that need to be addressed. Just one example: this not only fails WP:V on the relevant point but makes a grossly incorrect assumption that "important" = something special in terms of Reservation in India. It doesn't. There are plenty of "important" communities - politically, economically etc - that do not conform to the original research which AD insists makes this impossible list meet LISTN. Yes, AD is a quite extreme inclusionist and, yes, way back he gave me my first barnstar for rescuing an article at AfD, but if people cannot understand that caste-related issues need understanding then there is no hope, sorry. And when the same easily verifiable point is made again and again but AD refuses to accept it, well ... It is just a timesink and it is a timesink that can have quite peculiar consequence because these articles are not particularly well watched (Catch 22?). In this instance, I strongly suspect that AD's fake references in the first AfD caused it to be determined as not suitable for deletion, yet he protests when the thing is blanked because there is nothing verifiable. Then comes back umpteen years later and says he can make it verifiable but in fact he cannot, as anyone familiar with the topic would know. The same applies to his insistence that unreliable sources are in fact ok to use.

I admit that I am struggling to explain here. I know for sure that there are people who think AD is being absurd but this is a topic area where scrutiny is poor and one of the consequences of that is examples such as the current AfD, which comes out of a previous AfD that had no merit other than the fake refs, a complete lack of comprehension, and an admin who presumably saw some mention of sources and thought "that's ok". But, as I said at the outset, this is not a one-off issue. - Sitush (talk) 00:31, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

@Sandstein: I acknowledge your comment about a lack of diffs. I was utterly bemused regarding how I could possibly give specific diffs in such a complex matter but if you can suggest a way to disentangle then that would be great. As it is, I am sort of hoping that common sense could prevail here: if people really cannot see the problem just reading a few example threads then, frankly, I despair and may as well give up. We have two sets of sanctions regims for the topic area for a reason.

@D4iNa4: I have had little involvement in this process and couldn't possibly comment except to say that I used the word unwittingly on purpose. - Sitush (talk) 01:34, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

@Andrew Davidson: regarding the FloridaArmy situation, you are being economical with the truth, as so often. Plenty of admins are aware of that situation, eg: Deb, Ritchie333, Drmies. Given your long-term ability to frustrate people with your contrarianism at RfA etc, I really don't think you should be raising your head above the parapet in this manner. - Sitush (talk) 10:41, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified here

Discussion concerning Andrew Davidson

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 Andrew Davidson

What we have here is an AfD – note that I have not edited the article in question at any time. I'd be quite happy to stop arguing about the matter and just let the AfD process take its usual course but it's Sitush that keeps coming to my talk page to belabour the matter (8 times already today). There are some content issues and I understand them just fine. What Sitush doesn't seem to understand is our policies and guidelines such as WP:PRESERVE and WP:BLANK and he states openly in the discussion that he's not heard of them before. My position is that there's some scope for improvement here and so our policy WP:PRESERVE would have us prefer this alternative to deletion. In the course of discussion, I have produced good sources such The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies – a respectable and recent work from a university press. I have also pointed to other related pages such as List of Other Backward Classes in Sikhism which no-one else seemed to have noticed. I'd be quite content to have both these pages merged to Sikhism#Sikh_castes which contains a similar list of Sikh castes and so am quite flexible about the outcome. All that needs to happen now is a period of quiet so that other editors can contribute to the AfD and then the closer can settle the matter in the usual way. Compare, for example, Manchu studies, which is about a similar weak page but for which I have found a good source. I have no strong feelings about these topics but am entitled to my views on them, as is common at AfD, and I contribute usefully to the discussions, arguing from sources and policy, as we're supposed to. Note that the previous AfD referred to (Samra) was over two years ago and so these issues don't arise often enough to warrant special measures. What might require attention is Sitush's insulting incivility, for example, "how dense can you be ... your incompetence". In that previous AfD, I noted that Sitush seemed to be violating WP:OWN, WP:PA and WP:BLUDGEON and we have the same pattern again here. Andrew D. (talk) 20:37, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

@RegentsPark: should please move their contribution from the section reserved for "uninvolved admins" because, as they recently discussed the specific topic in question, they seem involved. Note that, when they stated their opinion of the topic, they did not provide any evidence, whereas I provide and cite examples, sources and policy. Note that I don't just google in a crude way, as RP supposes. I have an extensive personal library, including multiple, respectable books on the specific subject of caste. I have good access to research libraries in London which I regularly visit, such as the BL, the Senate House Library, the Wellcome Library and more. Through these and other resources such as the Misplaced Pages Library, I have good access to online resources such as JSTOR. I am therefore able to read and quote sources when needed to develop or support a position, as in this case. I fully appreciate the ramifications of this topic area but my general position is that we should explore alternatives to deletion so that topics can make progress, rather than being stuck in an unproductive cycle of creation, blanking, reversion and deletion. Andrew D. (talk) 18:07, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
Uanfala notes that he has found Sitush to be over-zealous. I also noticed another spat yesterday between Sitush and FloridaArmy. That seems to have nothing to do with India or castes but is some minor dispute about long-dead US dignitaries such as Walter M. Digges. FloridaArmy became so exasperated that they just banned Sitush from their talk page: Sitush I am tired of your lies, harassment and disruptive editing. ... Please don't post on my talk page again. So, we see that there's a pattern of Sitush getting into vitriolic disputes with other editors about anything. Myself, I don't usually get so much trouble in other AfDs with other editors. For example, Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Manchu studies (2nd nomination) has now closed as keep. In that case, I found a reasonable source, cast my !vote and it seemed to help resolve the discussion. That's the way these things ought to go, right? Andrew D. (talk) 10:26, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Uanfala

I know absolutely nothing about the situations that led to this case, but Andrew's comment about Sitush coming to their talk page to belabour the matter rings a familiar bell. My only interacation with Sitush in the last couple of months was a more or less procedural !vote in an RfD they started, and a deprodding of an article that apparently was on his watchlist . As a result, he came to my talk page with a series of bad-tempered comments (see User talk:Uanfala#Chib). I'm not providing any diffs as none of it is sanctionable, but I don't think occasional minor disagreements should lead to so much drama. We all have better things to do here than endlessly bicker with one another, right? – Uanfala (talk) 21:00, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Andrew Davidson

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

I don't see how this is actionable. To begin with, the request contains no diffs of edits by Andrew Davidson. As to the caste-related discussions linked to in the request, I don't see anything substantial, at first glance, that might amount to sanctionable misconduct by Andrew Davidson. Even if one assumes with Sitush that Andrew Davidson is mistaken or ill-informed with respect to the questions at issue, that is not a violation of Misplaced Pages conduct policy. I don't see how this is more than a content dispute coupled with strong disagreement on the inclusionism / deletionism axis. Such disputes should be resolved through normal dispute resolution rather than through arbitration. Sandstein 22:49, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
Sitush, AE is a bit strict on policy, evidence, etc for pretty good reasons. To act, we need clear cut diffs that show obvious misconduct. Nebulous patterns of behavior don't fit into WP:AE very well. Keep in mind. AE isn't a consensus board, when an admin acts, they act unilaterally, and they have the authority to ignore everyone else, or take those opinions to heart. We usually work together and often a majority agrees with the outcome, but whichever admin closes and acts, s/he owns those actions, and must be able to articulate the issue via WP:adminaccct. Looking briefly at your case, I don't see a solid case being presented, even while admitting one might exist. My advice is to have actual diffs along with SHORT explanations for each, and take it to ANI, which is better suited for long drawn out ordeals, and allows input from everyone. ARBPIA restrictions can still be issued from there, but if this situation is as you describe, it transcends ARB and would be getting into general policy, which is easier to deal with. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:45, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
While I don't see anything actionable here, I do see some cause for concern. Looking through the edits, it appears that Andrew Davidson, though editing in good faith, doesn't understand the domain. Caste in India is a complex subject, continuously confounded by interest groups, government action, and poor quality judgements made during the Raj era. It is because of this complexity that we have imposed community discretionary sanctions on this area and most uninvolved admins, like myself, issue warnings and blocks solely based on sourcing, i.e., whether edits are sourced or not and, if sourced, whether there is consensus on the reliability of those sources. Editing by googling the way Andrew Davidson is doing is not going to work very well in this area because it invariably pulls up unreliable sources. Insisting on Raj era sources when consensus is against using them is not going to work very well either. But, like I said, there is probably nothing actionable here right now because Andrew Davidson appears to be editing in good faith. However, if this continues, a topic ban from caste related articles is likely in the future. --regentspark (comment) 15:27, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
AndrewDavidson, I don't consider myself involved because I have no opinion on caste matters and an occasional drive by comment doesn't change that. Also, like I state above, I don't think you're editing in bad faith here. Rather, regardless of the quality of access you may or may not have to sources, you seem to be editing with a shallow understanding of the complexity of the topic area, particularly with your "if we build it the sources and content will come" approach which is practically an invitation to the POV editors out there. Also, if I may point out, the three sources you include here are all google books sources which, unfortunately, do give the impression of being found through a google search rather than through visits to the various libraries you list above. That you are editing against consensus is fairly well borne out by comments from other editors such as in this edit summary and this one. Regardless, all I am saying is that when you have a shallow understanding of a topic area, it is generally better to edit with a light touch than with an aggressive one.--regentspark (comment) 19:33, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
Actually, since you asked for diffs I looked a little deeper. The AfD in question is a second nomination. In the first nomination, you !voted keep with the same three sources that you've listed in the 2nd nomination and with the same "if we build it the sources will come" rationale but, in the three plus intervening years, you have neither edited the article nor done anything with those sources (nor has anyone else). That, it seems to me, pretty much backs up my "shallow editor" hypothesis. A shallow understanding of the content and an aggressive editing style are not a good combination. --regentspark (comment) 19:48, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
Reading through this request, I'm not seeing a consensus for any blocks, topic bans or similar but I am seeing consensus that Andrew should not carry on as they have been doing. So unless there are further comments I suggest closing this with some form of advice to Andrew to gain a deeper understanding of the topic area and review past consensuses about the quality of sources* before commenting (contributing?) further if he wants to avoid a topic ban in future. How should this be phrased? Should it be highlighted as advice, encouragement or a warning? *A summary of these with links to the discussions would be a useful resource for a Wikiproject to collate if they haven't done so already (I haven't found one but didn't look particularly deeply). Thryduulf (talk) 14:46, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
I agree with RegentsPark's "shallow editor hypothesis", and with Thryduulf's finding. I think it should be a warning, and preferably logged. My impression is that the editor is too pugnacious to benefit from mere advice. This is an overall impression, but contributory examples are their attempt here to paint RegentsPark as involved, and what I see as a tendency to call everything and nothing "personal attacks" and "aspersions". Bishonen | talk 15:39, 10 March 2018 (UTC).
@Bishonen, RegentsPark, Dennis Brown, and Sandstein: (and anyone else) How about "Andrew Davidson is warned that before commenting further in the Caste system in India topic area (broadly interpreted) they need to (a) gain a deeper understanding of the subject, and (b) review past consensuses about the quality of sources. Failure to do this will result in a topic ban or other sanction."? Additionaly, I think something about only including (or proposing to include) material supported by sources judged to be reliable and of high quality (sources about which there is not a recent consensus should be presented for review first), might be good but I can't think how to phrase this cleanly or concisely at the moment. Thryduulf (talk) 23:57, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
- That seems ok. I find it difficult to recommend doing anything more. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:01, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, that's a good warning; it's a bit elaborate, but that's probably needed for it to be effective. (I could almost wish it applied to everybody editing the area.) How about an addition to make it "Andrew Davidson is warned that before commenting or editing further in the Caste system in India topic area (broadly interpreted), they need to (a) gain a deeper understanding of the subject, (b) review past consensuses about the quality of sources, and (c) only offer material supported by sources judged to be reliable and of high quality. Sources without recent consensus must be presented for review first. Failure to comply with these conditions will result in a topic ban or other sanction."? Bishonen | talk 12:05, 12 March 2018 (UTC).
- Sounds good. Bishonen's added c looks good as well. --regentspark (comment) 12:20, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
How do you determine whether someone has "gained a deeper understanding of the subject"? Would a test be set? That seems a very vague requirement, subject to gaming. And the second requirement isn't much better; how can you tell whether someone has "reviewed past consensuses"? It would be better to address the behaviour. Option (c) from Bishonen is a good one, as it is clear and measurable, and addresses behaviour rather than mindset. If you have to have (a) then at least say "demonstrate he has gained a deeper understanding of the subject". Fish+Karate 12:30, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
- I agree with Fish and karate. Sandstein 14:04, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Willard84

No admin has expressed an interest in taking action. See also the result of the request concerning Mar4d below. Sandstein 08:49, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
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 Willard84 User who is submitting this request for enforcement Excelse (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 05:43, 3 March 2018 (UTC) User against whom enforcement is requested Willard84 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log Sanction or remedy to be enforced Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan#Standard discretionary sanctions : Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it Warned by EdJohnston in July 2017 that: "If you continue to edit war on any topics related to India or Pakistan you are risking a topic ban." Template:History of Pakistan: Back in September 2017 when he was edit warring on Template:History of Pakistan: by Wikihounding other editor to the template. Template ended up getting fully protected due to this edit warring. There was a huge discussion regarding his disruption on this template and other namespaces on EdJohnston's talk page. But nothing has improved. Once this protection was removed, he resumed edit warring against consensus. Claiming there is "no consensus" regardless of the majority agreement of 8 editors against the non-consensus version of an editor who was topic banned from the subject and remains blocked indefinitely for sock puppetry. Template ended up getting protected again due to his edit warring. Misleading an admin that "consensus was actually not reached", and continued deception on talk page where he claimed that there was no consensus because, "Pakistani editors seems to be in unison that these changes were not warranted, though despite this being a template on Pakistani history, Pakistani editors’ opinions are actually in the minority here." This argument about ethnicity of involved editors is an example of WP:BATTLEGROUND. The template editor rejected the request and said, "I see a consensus above which contradicts your request". Nanga Parbat: Removes long term sourced content by falsely asserting that "This has been discussed", regardless of any discussion. Removes it again in middle of new-born discussion. After that he removed the content from lead again, by moving it to section. (I added this sentence on 05:22, 5 March 2018 (UTC) after reading below comments ) Added an image without explaining the "puffery" he added. Edit warring to restore the puffery: Bludgeoning on talk page for adding the puffery against policies. Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any From block log: 23:48, 6 July 2017 EdJohnston (talk \| contribs) blocked Willard84 (talk \| contribs) with an expiration time of 4 days (account creation blocked) (Edit warring: at Godhra train burning per a complaint at WP:AN3) 07:31, 3 June 2017 El C (talk \| contribs) changed block settings for Willard84 (talk \| contribs) with an expiration time of 72 hours (account creation blocked) (Block evasion: Violation of the three-revert rule) 02:29, 3 June 2017 El C (talk \| contribs) blocked Willard84 (talk \| contribs) with an expiration time of 24 hours (account creation blocked) (Violation of the three-revert rule) If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts) Additional comments by editor filing complaint These are the two most recent incidents that I can name. The long term edit warring, stonewalling, civil POV pushing, misrepresentation of consensus, and demonstration of WP:INCOMPETENCE shows that Willard84 is truly careless about how much disruption he is causing. I believe that a topic ban is clearly warranted now. Excelse (talk) 05:43, 3 March 2018 (UTC) @Sandstein: I don't know anything about the report against Mar4d, though his messages and comparison of the report against him with this report about Willard84 is described in the first point of WP:SANCTIONGAME. We have a "clear-cut case" here that Willard84 had made 4 reverts in less than 24 hours on 1988 Gilgit Massacre right after coming off from a 4 days block back in July 2017. But he wasn't blocked for edit warring because EdJohnston thought it would be better to give him a stringent warning that further edit warring will lead to topic ban. With Willard84's demonstration of his incompetence here we can simply agree that there are no chances of improvements. Since he has continued to edit war and there are many other issues with his disruptive editing and he has completed enough requirements for a topic ban, I am not sure what else needs to be clarified here. Excelse (talk) 05:22, 5 March 2018 (UTC) Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested Discussion concerning Willard84 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 Willard84 I’m confident the arbitrators will find this complaint to be unwarranted and not done in good faith. This is an editor who engaged me in a heated discussion months ago who now appears to be seeking some sort of discretionary sanctions based upon sour feelings. He’s making accusations essentially on behalf of others who didn’t find my behavior so disturbing that they themselves would file a request. Instead we have an editor with whom I haven’t interacted for many months randomly appearing out of the blue and stalking my edits to build a frivolous case against me. Out of many months of edits, and literally hundreds, if not thousands, of edits, he pulls out a few cherry picked examples to build a case. I think this violates the spirit of collaboration and I find this sort of stalking to be very objectionable - even worthy of sanctioning to be frank. If the arbitrators seriously feel these accusations warrant actual disciplinary measure against me, please ping me back to this page and I can dedicate more time to a rebuttal. So much of what he said is an inaccurate depiction that completely neglects so much, but just as a quick illustration of the sort of details that he neglects to mention, he didn’t inform you that the issue on the Nanga Parbat page that he complained about was resolved cordially via discussion with that other editor.Willard84 (talk) 08:37, 3 March 2018 (UTC) And as for the issue of consensus on the Pakistani history template page, once the third party declared they had seen consensus, I dropped the issue without further debate. This complainant neglects to mention that fact.Willard84 (talk) 11:29, 3 March 2018 (UTC) In response to User:Capitols00 below - this is a user who has tried and failed to get me blocked in the past. His friend User:Excelse, also jumped in that argument to join the witch hunt, and now roles are reversed. These two users act in unison to make these accusations every few months. His list of accusations seems impressive but is a paper tiger. He’s complaining that I removed Sanskrit from the Mt Kailasha page, which isn’t true. As shown on the talk page, I actually just moved it out of the lead because a few months back someone had removed this Chinese script and replaced it with Sanskrit, despite this being a Chinese mountain. He also claims claims that I removed Punjabi from a page about “Sikhism” though the Punjabi is still on that page about a temple in Pakistan. What he neglected to mention is that a user had tried to remove the Urdu name, and replace it only with Punjabi script. He also claims I removed a sectio about a Hindu temple - probably in an attempt to convince you of anti-Hindu bias, but he seems to neglect that the page it was removed from was about a fort, and that the temple in question has its own page, Prahladpuri Temple. Another ridiculous attempt to malign me is when he claims I removed Sanskrit from the Peshawar page, when it was actually changed to version of Sanskrit which is exceedingly commmon practice. He then claims I downplay the number of burushaski speakers in India, despite the fact that the NPR source in the article did indeed say 100. He tried to confuse you by pointing to a different source that says 300-400. That wasn’t the source in the article - but he’s using this new source to make a point.The rest of his list of accusations is similarly misconstrued. That’s probably why he’s scraping the bottom of the barrel for edits from months ago to build his case. That isn’t exactly the same sort of malicious intent Capitols00 tries to portray. Those are two random ones I chose. I can dedicate more time to a point by point rebuttal. But judging by how frequently Capitols00 joins these witch hunts (three cases in just a few days!), it should be no surprise that he’s jumping on the band wagon again. This sort of behavior, and misrepresentation of facts, ought to be themselves sanctioned like WP:BOOMERANG.Willard84 (talk) 23:15, 4 March 2018 (UTC) Statement exceeding 500 words removed as an admin action. Sandstein* 23:25, 4 March 2018 (UTC)* Statement by Raymond3023 Willard84's on-going attempts to deceive others are concerning. He is still misrepresenting incidents and trying to throw mud on OP's report by falsely claiming the existence of the incidents that didn't even occurred when the report was filed. See WP:GAMING. The report was filed at 05:43 (UTC). At 08:37 (UTC) Willard84 changed timestamp of his 1 hour older response and makes a misleading claim that OP "neglects to mention, he didn’t inform you that the issue on the Nanga Parbat page that he complained about was resolved", after leaving a message on talk page at 08:32 (UTC), despite the report was filed almost 3 hours ago. Willard84 is now attempting to get away from the article by claiming that he "resolved cordially" when he is clearly giving up on the article and he failed to remove the sourced content and failed to get his puffery accepted because his disruption has been highlighted in this report. But I am sure he will resume his disruption on that article for his WP:OR. Furthermore, edit warring of Willard84 didn't even stopped with this one edit and one revert, because after he failed to remove the content from lead, he still removed it from lead by creating a new section called "Etymology" and moving material there and he provided no reason for his edit. Since his aim was to get rid of the meaning of the word from the lead, I would count it as 2 reverts for removing the meaning of the name, and 2 additional reverts for adding puffery. In total, he made 4 reverts. Seeing he is clearly working on deceiving others not only on articles but also here now, he is leaving me with no choice other than to support topic ban which would be still lenient because editors also get indeffed for such shenanigans. Raymond3023 (talk) 10:33, 3 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by D4iNa4 Willard84 you can't ignore your long term pattern of your nationalistic editing by making false accusations against others. Even if you had never edited the the main Template:History of Pakistan, your behavior on it's talk page has been purely disruptive, though you edit warred enough to get the template protected twice by restoring to a pseudohistorical nationalist version written by an editor who used a sock to notify you recently. The template should be totally unprotected the way Template:History of India is, even though it is much more edited and visited than Template:History of Pakistan. But due to your disruption I think we will never reach there unless you are topic banned. I am really seeing no justification for your actions. D4iNa4 (talk) 18:25, 3 March 2018 (UTC) Response to D4Nai by Willard84 Nationalistic editing? The Template discussion revolved around whether consensus had been reached - don’t misconstrue this into a question of competing nationalism. I think the arbitrators here are well aware of how to spot arrogant nationalism - and it isn’t coming from me. The debate has been ongoing since October, yet you made a change in late February after months of stalemate and resurrected a version which was objectionable for its inclusion of minor empires like the Marathas who ruled for not even 2 years and left essentially no trace of their presence,while you suggested that the Indus Valley Civilization (with its major sites in modern Pakistan) be removed from a template about Pakistan. In fact, the changes you made aren’t the changes you put forward for discussion - you made a set of changes that hasn’t been discussed in their entirety. I was pushing for a reversion to status quo - I think you’ll need to do a better job of demonstrating how this was pushing a nationalist viewpoint. Even the comment about Pakistani viewpoints was explained in the debate as a point brought up simply because this fell under wiki project Pakistan. And anyway, once the third party had stated they thought consensus had been reached, I dropped the issue even though I think that third party did not consider the context behind it. D4iNa4 has had his own history of belligerent POV editing against me. Here another reviewer had to explain to D4iNai and another user that Washington Post is a reliable source when D4 had sided with another user to ensure the page only reflected claims that the train was burned as a result of a pre meditated “conspiracy” by Muslim passengers, by ensuring that any mention of events prior to the burning which cast other non-Muslim passengers as rowdy were not included. Willard84 (talk) 20:54, 3 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by Kautilya3 I would acknowledge that Willard84 is a bit quick to hit the revert button, but he is a good productive editor otherwise. Perhaps a warning should suffice for now. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:34, 3 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by Lorstaking I agree with the filer, Raymond3023 and D4iNa4 but I disagree with Kautilya3. Another warning would be a waste of time since he has been already warned and blocked enough times for what he has been doing and he is not still not understanding the serious problems with his editing. According to his own statements here, he still believes that even if none of his edits were accepted they were still correct and also that others are engaging in misconduct by not accepting them. He still believes his edits are correct where he is treating princely states and their subdomains (Phulra, Khanate of Kalat, Dir, etc.) during British Raj as the main power as per his own edits to paint a wrong picture that Pakistan was never really colonized by British and was mainly ruled by these vassals. Willard84 also wants to mention initial and outdated rumors about Godhra train burning as facts even after being told otherwise by Edjohnston and not just the involved editors. You just can't expect him to collaborate without creating enough problems. His input on talk pages can be also described as mass bludgeoning just like his statements here, some of them have been already removed by Sandstein. I am also noting that his accusations against others of misconduct without giving any evidence constitute personal attacks. He is saying in one of his statements here that everyone is allowed to revert but he is now gaming 3RR by not reverting 3 times in 24 hours. Clearly that is how he managed to revert 4 times on Nanga_Parbat In short words this is a clear case of disruptive nationalist POV pushing and WP:CIR. Lorstaking (talk) 02:15, 4 March 2018 (UTC) Willard84's further deceptive approach can be described by his recent statement here on this page, falsely claiming that I "had commented on just an hour earlier" before MapSGV reverted him, (: seems more than 22 hours to me) despite the fact that I had commented on the template against the problematic version in 6 October 2017. Also that he deceptively cherry picked this diff to claim the request was "was quickly shut down", when I was the one to "shut down" the request. I must also add that Willard84 was edit warring, bludgeoning and misrepresenting consensus on talk page for restoring problematic version of an indefinitely blocked topic banned sockmaster upon the request from his sock. Months ago, he was doing this same thing when this editor was blocked indefinitely for being WP:NOTHERE. Willard84 attempted to get his topic ban overturned before, despite being the only person to oppose any sanction on him at WP:ANI. Willard84 has really left me in no doubt now. He is a case of WP:CIR whose deceptive approach is harmful for this project. Lorstaking (talk) 04:35, 4 March 2018 (UTC) Response to Lorstaking by Willard84 I don’t have time to rebuke rehashed accusations that were already brought up above, but it’s clear what Salem 1620 must have felt like. Anyway, I would like to draw attention to the fact that this user, Lorstaking, has been spending an unusual amount of effort to defend User:MapSGV, whose account has been blocked above, by petitioning arbitrator User:Sandstein above to rescind his decision. The accusation that I tried to downplay British rule is exceedingly ridiculous- as a review of the edits would make very clear. Lorstaking and MapSGV have an unusually deep relationship that appears to have only developed in the end of February 2018 when MapSGV started making a significant number of edits. He randomly jumped back into editing after a 2 year hiatus on 19 February 2017, and seems to have somehow rapidly developed a deep relationship with Lorstaking, who took the unusual step of writing a lengthy character defense of MapSGV. Lorstaking even opened a case to challenge sanctions against MapSGV, although this was quickly shut down. Yet now, Lorstaking finds his way on here to join a witch hunt. Perhaps in retaliation, because MapSGV somehow randomly appeared on the Template:History of Pakistan that Lorstaking had commented on just an hour earlier, and reverted my edit before threatening me with blocks on the talk page. He also seems to be unusually well-versed in Misplaced Pages lingo for someone who apparently just parachuted back in after a making a few dozen edits.Willard84 (talk) 04:09, 4 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by Capitals00 While a number of recent examples of continued disruption have been already provided, I think it is nonetheless worth it to describe the problem to be bigger and continuous. I have observed Willard84’s edits over a long period of time and many of them have proved to be problematic. Here are a few examples of nationalist editing over a broad range of articles: Removed "India" from the Xuanzang article. Removes Sanskrit from article about ancient Indian city in modern-day Pakistan citing a policy that doesn’t exist Removes Sanskrit word from Mount Kailash. Pushes his POV above what reliable sources state Removes a section about a Hindu temple from an article Removes “ancient India” from an article about a city formerly part of the Indian cultural sphere Replaces Puruṣapura with Peshawar in an article. This is another example of Willard84 purging anything related to India from Pakistani-related articles. Edits the Burushashki langauge article to state that only 100 people in India speak Burushashki when the source mentioned around 300-400. Removes the Gurmukhi script from an article about Sikhism. These edits show Willard84's problematic editing behavior across many articles. Despite previous warnings and blocks, it has continued and Willard84's own comment indicates that this problem will remain. I would recommend a topic ban on India and Pakistan related articles broadly construed. Capitals00 (talk) 04:55, 4 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by Mar4d I will second Kautilya3. These are content disputes, not conduct disputes if it all. In the limited time I have known Willard84, he has been an extremely productive editor and the majority of his contributions, particularly to Pakistan topics, have been outstanding and one of the best I've seen on Misplaced Pages. One only needs to go through his contributions log and his article creations to appreciate this user's presence in this topic area, and his expertise in finding reliable sources to improve under-covered subjects. What I see here is mostly a collection of stale, cherry-picked diffs cobbled together to form a mudslinging contest, by a group of editors who belong to the most controversial topic area on Misplaced Pages which is riddled with content disputes and nationalist edit warring. The timing, content and structure of this ARE is clearly suspect and in extremely bad faith, as I have raised below. Mar4d (talk) 09:24, 4 March 2018 (UTC) Result concerning Willard84 This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above. Both in this case and in the one concerning Mar4d below, it appears to me that we have several areas of problematic editing that are probably best addressed with topic bans for a number of editors. However, in both cases the report mixes genuine potentially problematic conduct such as edit-warring and personal atacks with what seem to be mere content disputes, which means that we don't have a clear-cut case. Moreover, a thorough investigation of several article histories would be needed to identify everybody who needs sanctioning. I don't currently have time for this. As such, I can't currently propose any specific action, which is not to say that action is not necessary. Sandstein 17:27, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

No admin has expressed an interest in taking action. See also the result of the request concerning Mar4d below. Sandstein 08:49, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Request concerning Willard84

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Excelse (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 05:43, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested: Willard84 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan#Standard discretionary sanctions :

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

Warned by EdJohnston in July 2017 that: "If you continue to edit war on any topics related to India or Pakistan you are risking a topic ban."

Template:History of Pakistan:

Back in September 2017 when he was edit warring on Template:History of Pakistan: by Wikihounding other editor to the template.
Template ended up getting fully protected due to this edit warring.

There was a huge discussion regarding his disruption on this template and other namespaces on EdJohnston's talk page. But nothing has improved.

Once this protection was removed, he resumed edit warring against consensus.

Claiming there is "no consensus" regardless of the majority agreement of 8 editors against the non-consensus version of an editor who was topic banned from the subject and remains blocked indefinitely for sock puppetry.

Template ended up getting protected again due to his edit warring.

Misleading an admin that "consensus was actually not reached", and continued deception on talk page where he claimed that there was no consensus because, "Pakistani editors seems to be in unison that these changes were not warranted, though despite this being a template on Pakistani history, Pakistani editors’ opinions are actually in the minority here." This argument about ethnicity of involved editors is an example of WP:BATTLEGROUND.

The template editor rejected the request and said, "I see a consensus above which contradicts your request".

Nanga Parbat:

Removes long term sourced content by falsely asserting that "This has been discussed", regardless of any discussion.
Removes it again in middle of new-born discussion.
After that he removed the content from lead again, by moving it to section. (I added this sentence on 05:22, 5 March 2018 (UTC) after reading below comments )

Added an image without explaining the "puffery" he added.
Edit warring to restore the puffery:
Bludgeoning on talk page for adding the puffery against policies.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

From block log:

23:48, 6 July 2017 EdJohnston (talk | contribs) blocked Willard84 (talk | contribs) with an expiration time of 4 days (account creation blocked) (Edit warring: at Godhra train burning per a complaint at WP:AN3)

07:31, 3 June 2017 El C (talk | contribs) changed block settings for Willard84 (talk | contribs) with an expiration time of 72 hours (account creation blocked) (Block evasion: Violation of the three-revert rule)

02:29, 3 June 2017 El C (talk | contribs) blocked Willard84 (talk | contribs) with an expiration time of 24 hours (account creation blocked) (Violation of the three-revert rule)

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

These are the two most recent incidents that I can name. The long term edit warring, stonewalling, civil POV pushing, misrepresentation of consensus, and demonstration of WP:INCOMPETENCE shows that Willard84 is truly careless about how much disruption he is causing. I believe that a topic ban is clearly warranted now. Excelse (talk) 05:43, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

@Sandstein: I don't know anything about the report against Mar4d, though his messages and comparison of the report against him with this report about Willard84 is described in the first point of WP:SANCTIONGAME. We have a "clear-cut case" here that Willard84 had made 4 reverts in less than 24 hours on 1988 Gilgit Massacre right after coming off from a 4 days block back in July 2017. But he wasn't blocked for edit warring because EdJohnston thought it would be better to give him a stringent warning that further edit warring will lead to topic ban. With Willard84's demonstration of his incompetence here we can simply agree that there are no chances of improvements. Since he has continued to edit war and there are many other issues with his disruptive editing and he has completed enough requirements for a topic ban, I am not sure what else needs to be clarified here. Excelse (talk) 05:22, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Discussion concerning Willard84

Statement by Willard84

I’m confident the arbitrators will find this complaint to be unwarranted and not done in good faith. This is an editor who engaged me in a heated discussion months ago who now appears to be seeking some sort of discretionary sanctions based upon sour feelings. He’s making accusations essentially on behalf of others who didn’t find my behavior so disturbing that they themselves would file a request. Instead we have an editor with whom I haven’t interacted for many months randomly appearing out of the blue and stalking my edits to build a frivolous case against me. Out of many months of edits, and literally hundreds, if not thousands, of edits, he pulls out a few cherry picked examples to build a case. I think this violates the spirit of collaboration and I find this sort of stalking to be very objectionable - even worthy of sanctioning to be frank. If the arbitrators seriously feel these accusations warrant actual disciplinary measure against me, please ping me back to this page and I can dedicate more time to a rebuttal. So much of what he said is an inaccurate depiction that completely neglects so much, but just as a quick illustration of the sort of details that he neglects to mention, he didn’t inform you that the issue on the Nanga Parbat page that he complained about was resolved cordially via discussion with that other editor.Willard84 (talk) 08:37, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

And as for the issue of consensus on the Pakistani history template page, once the third party declared they had seen consensus, I dropped the issue without further debate. This complainant neglects to mention that fact.Willard84 (talk) 11:29, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

In response to User:Capitols00 below - this is a user who has tried and failed to get me blocked in the past. His friend User:Excelse, also jumped in that argument to join the witch hunt, and now roles are reversed. These two users act in unison to make these accusations every few months. His list of accusations seems impressive but is a paper tiger. He’s complaining that I removed Sanskrit from the Mt Kailasha page, which isn’t true. As shown on the talk page, I actually just moved it out of the lead because a few months back someone had removed this Chinese script and replaced it with Sanskrit, despite this being a Chinese mountain. He also claims claims that I removed Punjabi from a page about “Sikhism” though the Punjabi is still on that page about a temple in Pakistan. What he neglected to mention is that a user had tried to remove the Urdu name, and replace it only with Punjabi script. He also claims I removed a sectio about a Hindu temple - probably in an attempt to convince you of anti-Hindu bias, but he seems to neglect that the page it was removed from was about a fort, and that the temple in question has its own page, Prahladpuri Temple. Another ridiculous attempt to malign me is when he claims I removed Sanskrit from the Peshawar page, when it was actually changed to version of Sanskrit which is exceedingly commmon practice. He then claims I downplay the number of burushaski speakers in India, despite the fact that the NPR source in the article did indeed say 100. He tried to confuse you by pointing to a different source that says 300-400. That wasn’t the source in the article - but he’s using this new source to make a point.The rest of his list of accusations is similarly misconstrued. That’s probably why he’s scraping the bottom of the barrel for edits from months ago to build his case.

That isn’t exactly the same sort of malicious intent Capitols00 tries to portray. Those are two random ones I chose. I can dedicate more time to a point by point rebuttal. But judging by how frequently Capitols00 joins these witch hunts (three cases in just a few days!), it should be no surprise that he’s jumping on the band wagon again. This sort of behavior, and misrepresentation of facts, ought to be themselves sanctioned like WP:BOOMERANG.Willard84 (talk) 23:15, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement exceeding 500 words removed as an admin action. Sandstein 23:25, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Raymond3023

Willard84's on-going attempts to deceive others are concerning. He is still misrepresenting incidents and trying to throw mud on OP's report by falsely claiming the existence of the incidents that didn't even occurred when the report was filed. See WP:GAMING.

The report was filed at 05:43 (UTC). At 08:37 (UTC) Willard84 changed timestamp of his 1 hour older response and makes a misleading claim that OP "neglects to mention, he didn’t inform you that the issue on the Nanga Parbat page that he complained about was resolved", after leaving a message on talk page at 08:32 (UTC), despite the report was filed almost 3 hours ago. Willard84 is now attempting to get away from the article by claiming that he "resolved cordially" when he is clearly giving up on the article and he failed to remove the sourced content and failed to get his puffery accepted because his disruption has been highlighted in this report. But I am sure he will resume his disruption on that article for his WP:OR.

Furthermore, edit warring of Willard84 didn't even stopped with this one edit and one revert, because after he failed to remove the content from lead, he still removed it from lead by creating a new section called "Etymology" and moving material there and he provided no reason for his edit. Since his aim was to get rid of the meaning of the word from the lead, I would count it as 2 reverts for removing the meaning of the name, and 2 additional reverts for adding puffery. In total, he made 4 reverts.

Seeing he is clearly working on deceiving others not only on articles but also here now, he is leaving me with no choice other than to support topic ban which would be still lenient because editors also get indeffed for such shenanigans. Raymond3023 (talk) 10:33, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by D4iNa4

Willard84 you can't ignore your long term pattern of your nationalistic editing by making false accusations against others. Even if you had never edited the the main Template:History of Pakistan, your behavior on it's talk page has been purely disruptive, though you edit warred enough to get the template protected twice by restoring to a pseudohistorical nationalist version written by an editor who used a sock to notify you recently. The template should be totally unprotected the way Template:History of India is, even though it is much more edited and visited than Template:History of Pakistan. But due to your disruption I think we will never reach there unless you are topic banned. I am really seeing no justification for your actions. D4iNa4 (talk) 18:25, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Response to D4Nai by Willard84

Nationalistic editing? The Template discussion revolved around whether consensus had been reached - don’t misconstrue this into a question of competing nationalism. I think the arbitrators here are well aware of how to spot arrogant nationalism - and it isn’t coming from me. The debate has been ongoing since October, yet you made a change in late February after months of stalemate and resurrected a version which was objectionable for its inclusion of minor empires like the Marathas who ruled for not even 2 years and left essentially no trace of their presence,while you suggested that the Indus Valley Civilization (with its major sites in modern Pakistan) be removed from a template about Pakistan. In fact, the changes you made aren’t the changes you put forward for discussion - you made a set of changes that hasn’t been discussed in their entirety. I was pushing for a reversion to status quo - I think you’ll need to do a better job of demonstrating how this was pushing a nationalist viewpoint. Even the comment about Pakistani viewpoints was explained in the debate as a point brought up simply because this fell under wiki project Pakistan. And anyway, once the third party had stated they thought consensus had been reached, I dropped the issue even though I think that third party did not consider the context behind it.

D4iNa4 has had his own history of belligerent POV editing against me. Here another reviewer had to explain to D4iNai and another user that Washington Post is a reliable source when D4 had sided with another user to ensure the page only reflected claims that the train was burned as a result of a pre meditated “conspiracy” by Muslim passengers, by ensuring that any mention of events prior to the burning which cast other non-Muslim passengers as rowdy were not included.

Willard84 (talk) 20:54, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Kautilya3

I would acknowledge that Willard84 is a bit quick to hit the revert button, but he is a good productive editor otherwise. Perhaps a warning should suffice for now. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:34, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Lorstaking

I agree with the filer, Raymond3023 and D4iNa4 but I disagree with Kautilya3. Another warning would be a waste of time since he has been already warned and blocked enough times for what he has been doing and he is not still not understanding the serious problems with his editing. According to his own statements here, he still believes that even if none of his edits were accepted they were still correct and also that others are engaging in misconduct by not accepting them. He still believes his edits are correct where he is treating princely states and their subdomains (Phulra, Khanate of Kalat, Dir, etc.) during British Raj as the main power as per his own edits to paint a wrong picture that Pakistan was never really colonized by British and was mainly ruled by these vassals. Willard84 also wants to mention initial and outdated rumors about Godhra train burning as facts even after being told otherwise by Edjohnston and not just the involved editors. You just can't expect him to collaborate without creating enough problems.

His input on talk pages can be also described as mass bludgeoning just like his statements here, some of them have been already removed by Sandstein.

I am also noting that his accusations against others of misconduct without giving any evidence constitute personal attacks.

He is saying in one of his statements here that everyone is allowed to revert but he is now gaming 3RR by not reverting 3 times in 24 hours. Clearly that is how he managed to revert 4 times on Nanga_Parbat In short words this is a clear case of disruptive nationalist POV pushing and WP:CIR. Lorstaking (talk) 02:15, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Willard84's further deceptive approach can be described by his recent statement here on this page, falsely claiming that I "had commented on just an hour earlier" before MapSGV reverted him, (: seems more than 22 hours to me) despite the fact that I had commented on the template against the problematic version in 6 October 2017. Also that he deceptively cherry picked this diff to claim the request was "was quickly shut down", when I was the one to "shut down" the request.

I must also add that Willard84 was edit warring, bludgeoning and misrepresenting consensus on talk page for restoring problematic version of an indefinitely blocked topic banned sockmaster upon the request from his sock. Months ago, he was doing this same thing when this editor was blocked indefinitely for being WP:NOTHERE. Willard84 attempted to get his topic ban overturned before, despite being the only person to oppose any sanction on him at WP:ANI.

Willard84 has really left me in no doubt now. He is a case of WP:CIR whose deceptive approach is harmful for this project. Lorstaking (talk) 04:35, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Response to Lorstaking by Willard84

I don’t have time to rebuke rehashed accusations that were already brought up above, but it’s clear what Salem 1620 must have felt like.

Anyway, I would like to draw attention to the fact that this user, Lorstaking, has been spending an unusual amount of effort to defend User:MapSGV, whose account has been blocked above, by petitioning arbitrator User:Sandstein above to rescind his decision. The accusation that I tried to downplay British rule is exceedingly ridiculous- as a review of the edits would make very clear.

Lorstaking and MapSGV have an unusually deep relationship that appears to have only developed in the end of February 2018 when MapSGV started making a significant number of edits. He randomly jumped back into editing after a 2 year hiatus on 19 February 2017, and seems to have somehow rapidly developed a deep relationship with Lorstaking, who took the unusual step of writing a lengthy character defense of MapSGV. Lorstaking even opened a case to challenge sanctions against MapSGV, although this was quickly shut down.

Yet now, Lorstaking finds his way on here to join a witch hunt. Perhaps in retaliation, because MapSGV somehow randomly appeared on the Template:History of Pakistan that Lorstaking had commented on just an hour earlier, and reverted my edit before threatening me with blocks on the talk page. He also seems to be unusually well-versed in Misplaced Pages lingo for someone who apparently just parachuted back in after a making a few dozen edits.Willard84 (talk) 04:09, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Capitals00

While a number of recent examples of continued disruption have been already provided, I think it is nonetheless worth it to describe the problem to be bigger and continuous. I have observed Willard84’s edits over a long period of time and many of them have proved to be problematic. Here are a few examples of nationalist editing over a broad range of articles:

Removed "India" from the Xuanzang article.

Removes Sanskrit from article about ancient Indian city in modern-day Pakistan citing a policy that doesn’t exist

Removes Sanskrit word from Mount Kailash.

Pushes his POV above what reliable sources state

Removes a section about a Hindu temple from an article

Removes “ancient India” from an article about a city formerly part of the Indian cultural sphere

Replaces Puruṣapura with Peshawar in an article. This is another example of Willard84 purging anything related to India from Pakistani-related articles.

Edits the Burushashki langauge article to state that only 100 people in India speak Burushashki when the source mentioned around 300-400.

Removes the Gurmukhi script from an article about Sikhism.

These edits show Willard84's problematic editing behavior across many articles. Despite previous warnings and blocks, it has continued and Willard84's own comment indicates that this problem will remain. I would recommend a topic ban on India and Pakistan related articles broadly construed. Capitals00 (talk) 04:55, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Mar4d

I will second Kautilya3. These are content disputes, not conduct disputes if it all. In the limited time I have known Willard84, he has been an extremely productive editor and the majority of his contributions, particularly to Pakistan topics, have been outstanding and one of the best I've seen on Misplaced Pages. One only needs to go through his contributions log and his article creations to appreciate this user's presence in this topic area, and his expertise in finding reliable sources to improve under-covered subjects. What I see here is mostly a collection of stale, cherry-picked diffs cobbled together to form a mudslinging contest, by a group of editors who belong to the most controversial topic area on Misplaced Pages which is riddled with content disputes and nationalist edit warring. The timing, content and structure of this ARE is clearly suspect and in extremely bad faith, as I have raised below. Mar4d (talk) 09:24, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Result concerning Willard84

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

Both in this case and in the one concerning Mar4d below, it appears to me that we have several areas of problematic editing that are probably best addressed with topic bans for a number of editors. However, in both cases the report mixes genuine potentially problematic conduct such as edit-warring and personal atacks with what seem to be mere content disputes, which means that we don't have a clear-cut case. Moreover, a thorough investigation of several article histories would be needed to identify everybody who needs sanctioning. I don't currently have time for this. As such, I can't currently propose any specific action, which is not to say that action is not necessary. Sandstein 17:27, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Mar4d

Enough is enough. This entire report has become a wall of minutia, none of it actionable by itself, and frankly I'm left with the choice of doing nothing, or topic banning everyone who was foolish enough to participate in this mud slinging mess. WP:AE reports need to be concise, need to be convincing, need to be as simple as possible. This isn't ANI or a bar brawl, and frankly, there is enough blame to go around. Dismissing everything without action. Everyone who participates should consider themselves fully informed of the sanctions available, and if needed, sanctions can be issued to individuals without additional prior notice. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:43, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Request concerning Mar4d

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: MBlaze Lightning (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 03:29, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested: Mar4d (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan#Standard_discretionary_sanctions

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

20 February 2018 Falsely accusing other editors of POV pushing "in complete mockery of WP:ARBIPA" instead of rebutting their arguments. This is the first of the many ad hominem comments made by this user on the article's talk page.
20 February 2018 Another ad hominem attack directed against the other editor, and this was after he was told to focus on the content.
21 February 2018 Again launches ad hominem personal attacks on MapSVG with unfounded accusations in place of rebutting his arguments.
21 February 2018 Doubles down on the personal attacks, calling MapSVG, among other things, a sock without evidence.
22 February 2018 Deliberately falsified the numbers with a misleading edit summary that he was fixing "per ref" and the "numbers are unsourced", when in actual fact the sources (both in the infobox and in the India–Pakistan military confrontation (2016–present)#2018 section) clearly supported the numbers.

And, the explanation that he gave on the talk page — that there were no figures available for 2016 — gave the impression that he didn't even read the refs because the figures from 2016 were already sourced in the infobox (see refs –), and this was discussed already a couple of months ago. He never replied when I quizzed him asking if he had even read the sources.

Added objectionable material on Rape in India by adding his opinion, "However, in reality", "further exacerbated the crisis", and using unreliable sources. One editor reverted him for using unreliable sources and he reverted that editor saying that his sources are "RS" and made another controversial edit, another editor reverted him pointing out the use of unreliable sources, he again restored the reverted content and left a firovolous warning on the talk page of the editor that he didn't provided any reason to revert him, after that the discussion on talk page was held, where everyone opposed his edits, and in middle of the discussion he again removed the content that was being supported by the involved editors though required a little bit of improvement that took no time, but unnecessary edit warring from Mar4d clearly making 3 reverts in such sensitive article is concerning.
On Kashmir conflict:

Reverted King Zebu because he made his edits "without consensus"
Reverted Kautilya3 because he made his edits without adhering to "WP:NOCON and WP:BRD"
RegentsPark criticized Mar4d that his "reversion does not make sense"
Reverted Kautilya3 by disregarding WP:NOCON and WP:BRD himself, the content was being discussed and had no consensus. And, it took him ony two minutes to post a request at WP:RFPP for full page protection of his preferred version, despite that version had no consensus.
Quickly reverted the IP's revert of non-consenus controversial content by disregarding the sanctions placed on this page. The first point of the sanctions clearly reads "A second revert without discussion restriction. A second revert of any edit, however minor, that is done without an explanation on the talk page will lead to an immediate block."
What's even more concerning is that the content dispute was raised on WP:DRN on 14 February but Mar4d never commented on it, despite being a party of the dispute.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

See Mar4d's block log

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)

Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on .

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Mar4d was adamant in his personal opinion that the Siachen conflict is an "ongoing conflict" and adding a result "is like adding a conclusion on Kashmir conflict", despite multiple reliable sources saying to the contrary that the conflict ended with the ceasefire in 2003. One just has to take a glance at the talk page to notice the outright personal attacks he made on others (including false accusations of socking, SPA, etc), not to mention that he kept engaging in stonewalling, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT behavior, repeating the same personal opinion over and over again, and resorting to ad hominem strategies in place of refuting the arguments of others.

As per discussion with Sandstein on MapSVG's talk page, Sandstein told that he "will take a look" if a separate report is filed against those who also engaged in misconduct. The report against MapSVG was filed by a user who was already under a SPI investigation and the report resulted in sanctions on MapSGV despite much of the diffs were showing his responses to ad hominem personal attacks and false accusations made by Mar4d, despite objections by multiple editors, and Mar4d's misconduct is much more than just incivility because it also concerns edit warring, treatment of Misplaced Pages as battleground, use of unreliable sources, misrepresentation of sources and lack of collaborative approach to resolve content dispute. For all these factors Mar4d should be sanctioned. —MBL 03:29, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Mar4d, will you stop beating around the bush and tell us how your ad hominem attacks, false accusations of WP:SPA, socking, etc do not constitute personal attacks and why you should not be sanctioned for them?

He has made a lot of baseless accusations and engaged in deception. I will just rebut a few of them:

Mar4d was the one who was actually engaged in "provocative conduct", as evident from the diffs I supplied above. I never defended anyone's "personal attacks", as Mar4d claims. I provided a multitude of reliable sources to back up my claims so did the other editor, MapSVG, unlike Mar4d, who is still WP:NOTGETTINGIT and repeating his personal opinion. I focused all my comments on the content, unlike Mar4d, who was simply resorting to ad hominem strategies.
Mar4d is simply deceiving, when he says, "MapSGV's additions which MBL later pursued, apart from constituting tendentious editing, contain basic factual inaccuracies including WP:SYNTH." Either Mar4d do not understand what WP:SYNTH means or he is just deceiving like I said, and if it's the former, he shouldn't be editing in this topic area at all. He is the one who engages in tendentious editing all the time. He really ought to stop making allegations that he cannot substantiate.
The version prior to my edit had the death count at "193–201 soldiers killed". Mar4d deliberately changed the numbers, in this edit with a misleading edit summary, to 158. His version contained the following refs in the infobox: "c". These refs clearly supported the death count of 195 (not including the BSF claims). His claim that there were "lack of 2016 figures" is obviously false as demonstrated in the refs. The fact that he did not responded when I quizzed him just strengthens my claim that he didn't even read those refs.
Such deception alone is grounds enough for a sanction, in my opinion.
And, lastly if Mar4d thinks that I'm engaging in "BATTLEGROUND", "problematic editing" etc then he should file an ARE report and present evidence, and if he fails to do so then he should be sanctioned as soon as possible, because such groundless accusations are completely unacceptable. —MBL 12:41, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement exceeding 500 words removed as an administrative action. Sandstein 22:40, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

@Dennis Brown: you asked to provide the outcome of an RFC that went against Mar4d's preferred choice and then you will have something to make your decision on. However, misconduct is not just limited to Siachen conflict, it also concerns other subjects, as others have already noted. In particular, concerns have been raised regarding Mar4d's misconduct on Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Research and Analysis Wing activities in Pakistan, and I would urge you to read the closure of the AfD and compare the closing admin's note with every comment of Mar4d as well as a few others who !voted there and have also participated in this report. This case seems already crystal clear that who is engaging in sanctionable disruptive behavior. —MBL 05:18, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
@Dennis Brown: as you can see, at least a couple of editors have already mentioned that Mar4d refused to respond at the DRN that Kautilya3 had filed following a series of edit-wars, where Mar4d was a party (along with Dilpa kaur, NadirAli, Kautilya3) since he was also making reverts on the article that led to DRN. But I'll repeat it again:

You can see in the edit summaries of Mar4d in the reverts that he made:

"Restore longstanding text; please do not make such unilateral changes involving major content removal without consensus on talk"
"AFAIK, there is a section on talk where modifications to this entire section are under discussion, disputed content is in complete disregard and violation of that; please note WP:NOCON and WP:BRD"
Following these edit wars, Mar4d had been notified on 14 February via his talk page about the filing of this dispute on WP:DRN by Kautilya3. But Mar4d was not participating on DRN and he was still making controversial reverts on article during the course of DRN.
Here's the timeline:
On 24 February, NadirAli made major edits that were reverted by Kautilya3, saying: "Rv; I don't agree this is WP:NPOV; please wait for the discussion to be concluded".
On 24 February, Mar4d reverted Kautilya3 without gaining consensus for the controversial edits, and like I already said, it took him only 2 minutes to request full protection for his preferred version, then some IP reverted Mar4d, but Mar4d reverted the IP in violation of the first point of the page sanctions.
While NadirAli and Kautilya3 discussed a lot, Mar4d never participated in the DRN until it ended on 1 March as failed. Clearly Mar4d had enough time to respond and since he is interested in this article and wanted to retain the controversial content, he had to make efforts in solving the content dispute raised in DRN. —MBL 16:52, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified here

Discussion concerning Mar4d

Statement by Mar4d

As Willard84 noted above, this is yet another unsubstantiated, half-baked report with absolutely no substance. Note the same recurrent theme of allegations and accusations by a highly-involved editor(s); and the same, usual pattern of misrepresentation, and near-farcical cherry-pickings. What is deeply regrettable is the constant misuse of forums like arbitration, ANI, and other noticeboards, for settling personal vendettas and mudslinging over content disputes, to the extent of a WP:WITCHHUNT. The ultimate objective, it seems, is to drive out experienced, well-meaning editors from a topic area plagued by nationalist edit-warring. MBL has an axe to grind over their multiple content disputes and problematic editing, and in my defence below, I'd like to point out why:

The article in question is Siachen conflict, where the infobox summarised the conflict as following: Ceasefire since 2003. This has been the longstanding version of the article as covered by WP:RS, and is predated by three separate discussions on talk (please see this, this, and more particularly, this consensus). It is therefore surprising when MapSGV, an account with barely 80 edits prior to February and no history on the article (yet strangely well-versed with editing norms and Misplaced Pages jargon), turns up and replaces the "ceasefire" on the infobox with "Indian victory". There is no edit summary let alone any explanation. Any admin who is remotely familiar with WP:ARBIPA knows these sanctions are in place to prevent exactly this type of disruption. This edit was later raised on the talk by another editor (as it rightfully should be), and MBL was one of the first editors to defend MapSGV's editing and personal attacks. Since a large part of this complaint actually seems to focus on my interactions with MapSGV, I'd like to point out MapSGV has just been topic banned for 6 months (which was downgraded from a block). Since MBL apparently wasn't satisfied with that sanction, the timing of this A.R.E. is honestly questionable. Please note that so far as my interactions with MapSGV are concerned, I am not the only user, neither the first one, who raised red flags over his editing . The allegation of "unfounded accusations" holds no ground, and should there be any doubt, please do revisit the provocative conduct which actually led to MapSGV being sanctioned in the first place. .

I won't get too much into the nitty-gritties of the content dispute here, but the core of the dispute mainly stems from the issue that MapSGV's additions which MBL later pursued, apart from constituting tendentious editing, contain basic factual inaccuracies including WP:SYNTH. The article is on the current, ongoing conflict over the disputed Siachen glacier (part of the Kashmir conflict), whose status quo has been dicated by a ceasefire since 2003. Any editor well-versed in WP:MILHIST knows what a ceasefire means. It is not on the 1984 operation whereby India occupied the glacier (also summarised), which has a separate article under Operation Meghdoot. There's a difference between both.

As for this edit, this took into account the existing references supplied, which cited 138 casualties for 2017 and 20 casualties for 2017. The confusion appeared to stem from the (lack of) 2016 figures, as the sources did not appear to indicate how the updated figure of "206–212" was calculated by MBL. Again, this was perfectly reasonable, and I left a query in regards to this.

Please refer to this discussion which, unsurprisingly, MBL is not even part of. There is no foul play here. There were consistency and summary issues with the lead of that article as seconded in that discussion, and if you have any doubt, please refer in particular to the comments and sources there left by admin Vanamonde93.

Lastly, you really need to read and understand WP:CONSENSUS if you want to edit with the "collaborative approach" you talk about. Because as it stands, you visibly have no idea let alone even a fraction of involvement in the discussion on Kashmir conflict. Perhaps, just perhaps, if you had even bothered to read the talk page, you would've at least been informed enough to know what issues around half a discussion editors there are talking about. And thinly-veiled threats/stunts like this hardly qualify as WP:CON. Mar4d (talk) 09:12, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Response to AshLin by Mar4d

- I am unfortunately out of time owing to real life commitments. However, just a short note regarding AshLin's statement: we had no interaction on this AfD until I simply left this comment under an existing comment of mine: Also, far too many users voting on this AfD seem to be involved. Would be good to get neutral views... This was AshLin's response, which automatically assumed bad faith on a genuine concern: This is not true. An attempt to generally discount those editors who have not agrred with Mar4d's views. This was the first interaction, not the comment linked below. Again, if you want to skew anything to make it sound how you want it, then anything will work. Also, I have seen little to no acknowledgement of what led to the Siachen article content dispute - it was MapSGV's modification of the infobox without any discussion or edit summary, and in disregard of an existing consensus. It is disappointing to see experienced editors condoning this behavior. Mar4d (talk) 10:29, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Other comment/s

- I also concede that the conversation at Talk:Siachen conflict got heated, and out of hand too quickly. Revisiting it, it certainly could have been more toned down and succinct, at least on my part, irrespective of what was being dished out left and right. And sure, if there are outstanding concerns with regards to a user's editing history, I'll try to keep it contained to an WP:SPI or relevant noticeboard. Point taken. Mar4d (talk) 10:53, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

That being said, there's some tremendous level of cherry picking going on, on behalf of deeply involved parties. Therefore, much of the accusations and diffs here are completely skewed, one-sided, and extremely out of context. I have neither the time nor resources to go back and dig out every "he said, she said" diff. This vain exercise is essentially cherry-picking one edit of a hundred to build a case, but one does not equal a hundred. Mar4d (talk) 11:22, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement exceeding 500 words removed as an administrative action. Sandstein 22:39, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

@Dennis Brown: There is no bad faith at all here, and this is not conduct based. The case at the WP:DRN was genuinely (and positively) put forth by NadirAli, which covered the main points under contention. The purpose of DRN is to complement or help form consensus where there's an existing, and in this case longstanding, dispute, and any involved party is free to add as much or little summary of the issues they feel need to be raised, if compelled. If something is achieved from this mediation, the merrier. The main issues were raised sufficiently as you can see. Unfortunately, I have been inactive the entire last week of February owing to real life engagements, so there was no voluntary commitment I could provide. However, I did leave my two cents and a suggestion on the talk page prior, on 24 February , to indicate a way forward for all. Mar4d (talk) 15:14, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Capitals00

His conduct on AfD of Research and Analysis Wing activities in Pakistan has been also concerning where he is tirelessly defending an article that is surely going to get deleted. Some of his comments over there are:

"another disposable !vote for the sake of !voting"
"too many users voting on this AfD seem to be involved."
"you acquainted with all these acronyms in your such short time of editing"

These comments seems to be unnecessary assumption of bad faith and attempts to dispute the credibility of the editor who made their vote!, and that is also a violation of WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL. These comments had to be made on content or why the article should be kept or deleted.

While other recent examples of disruption have been already provided, there are also some examples that date a bit earlier, but still relevant enough to show the long term pattern of nationalistic POV editing.

The scenario of censoring result parameter that mentions "Indian victory" (with reliable sources), then making personal attacks on his opponent by calling them an SPA or sock and using his own personal opinion against tons of reliable sources, such disruption is not new or limited to Siachen conflict.

Just like this he was also removing "Indian victory" on Umayyad campaigns in India and then edit warring the editor while removing the reliably sourced content and not getting consensus for his edits that were likely never going to be accepted.

On talk page, he made personal attacks against the editor such as, "I haven't asked for a brushdown on WP:NPOV, least of all from an obvious WP:SPA", while there was no incivility from this editor and he was not an SPA either.

Continued to have WP:LASTWORD on talk page despite disagreement from 3 editors who supported what reliable source state, not personal opinions of Mar4d.

Independence Day (India): Edit warring against IPs that were removing the problematic content added by a paid editing sock. I reverted Mar4d and opened a section on talk page, where he made no response. Point is that why he even defends the problematic content that is not actually defensible or he thinks of stopping only when the objections have been made by one of his common opponent?

2016–18 Kashmir unrest: Invoking WP:BANREVERT by restoring problematic edits of a paid editing sock , he reverted Mblaze Lightning who removed the problematic content and then Mar4d restored the same content again without gaining consensus on talk page.

If Mar4d had been sanctioned for such disruption earlier, I am sure that we wouldn't be having the problems highlighted by Mblaze Lightning above. Capitals00 (talk) 06:01, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement exceeding 500 words removed as an administrative action. Sandstein 22:40, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by WBG

And, it took him ony two minutes to post a request at WP:RFPP for full page protection of his preferred version, despite that version had no consensus.--This is definitely non-actionable.See WP:WRONGVERSION.
What's even more concerning is that the content dispute was raised on WP:DRN on 14 February but Mar4d never commented on it, despite being a party of the dispute--DRN is voluntary.
I don't see how Mar4D's behaviour at the article and corresponding discussion at Talk:Rape in India#Revert or at 2016–18 Kashmir unrest is remotely disruptive/sanctionable.
I will agree though, that his conduct at Talk:Siachen conflict could have been somewhat better.
At any case, I don't suppport MapSVG's T-ban and will neither support any over-the-top action over here.A reminder to Mar4D to comment on content and not on contributors will be probably sufficient enough.~ Winged Blades 06:56, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by NadirAli

This looks like the latest effort in MBlaze Lightning's series of spurious reports against opposing editors.

None of the diffs show any sort of problematic statements from Mar4d, who is one of our encyclopedia's most productive editors. If there are some statements from him about MapSGV's provocative behaviour that should not be a call for alarm because even the administrator Sandstein is suspicious of that account.. I do wonder why users like MBlaze Lightning and Capitals00 are so desperate to support MapSGV and so quick to file spurious reports. Capitals00 left no stone unturned to argue against MapSGV's block and topic ban. Such desperation was in their tone as if it was their own account they were defending. But none of these 2 had any presence on his talkpage before the block.

Content disputes such as those in Talk:Rape in India do not belong to WP:AE. I do not see any wrong done by Mar4d.

As for the reverts shown on Kashmir conflict there is nothing wrong with them because there is a policy of reverting contentious new edits while they are being discussed on the talkpage according to WP:NOCON.

Reverting Kautilya3 here was not a problem because contrary to MBlaze Lightning's claims, the version Mar4d restored did have WP:CONSENSUS from the deeply involved editors. No less than five users wanted it. Only one user, Kautilya3 himself, opposed it and he even refused to explain his objections (He said So, if and when I come to review the proposed paragraphs, these are the principles I will use. When we run into disagreements, I will take them to WP:DRN. For the time being, let me just say that none of the proposed sections is ready for the mainspace). WP:1AM does not overturn the WP:CONSENSUS of everyone else.

Reverting this disruptive IP ought be the action of any normal Wikipedian.

There was also no 1RR violation. No second reverts within 24 hours.

I do think a WP:BOOMERANG should be this case's outcome. Owais Khursheed filed an WP:SPI last year which the administrators ignored. The SPI claimed that the filer was using IP socks to harass opposing editors. Now we saw this behavior from an Indian IP again today at Talk:Kashmir conflict. I translated it and reported it To editor CambridgeBayWeather:. I would suggest a full investigation. Enough is really enough.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 07:09, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Response to Kautilya3

I am not surprised by Kautilya3's comment given the content disputes he has. Pakistani editors are receiving threats from Indian

IP in the background of WP:WITCHHUNTS such as these involving false accusations against opposing editors by Kautilya3, MBlaze Lightning and Capitals00. A lot is explained, especially when there are suspicions of WP:TAGTEAM and IP socking. No tagteaming from Mar4d who has a long and lengthy involvement in the content dispute at Talk:Kashmir conflict unlike those who turn up to do reverts and deliver one liners in support of Kautilya3's position with hardly any other talkpage input..

I took an analysis of Talk:Siachen conflict. I found Mar4d's side of the discussion very constructive. He was very polite and far more interested in sourcing than the other users whose obsession was sneaking in 'Indian victory'. Granted there were a few times he made comments outside of content but that was in response to incendiary comments from MapSGV , MBlaze Lightning and Capitals00.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 00:15, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Response to Kautilya3 again

To editor Dennis Brown: The claims made by Kautilya3 are wrong and the diffs shown are out of context. The DRN dispute was over a sentence while the later 2 reverts (none on the same day) by Mar4d concerned three larger sections. I will provide the context here.

A large dispute over three POV sections began in late October between me, Mar4d, KA$HMIR and Kautilya3, which led to two Rfcs. After the Rfcs ended KA$HMIR started on the 11th of January a new section on Talk:Kashmir conflict where an alternative text for three POV sections were being discussed. I was keeping an eye on the talkpage because I had previously been part of these discussions with Kautilya3. Meanwhile discussion between KA$HMIR and Dilpa kaur on the alternative texts continued with some uncooperative input from Kautilya3. The discussion went dormant. We later found out that KA$HMIR had been busy when he responded to Dilpa kaur's ping 13 days later.

During the dormancy period there was a dispute over a sentence modified by Kautilya3 in one of the three sections awaiting alternative texts. Mar4d first reverted that edit on the 9th of February because there had been text which was deleted in the process of Kautilya3's edit, which had the misleading edit summary of Copy edit and add sources. The edit actually deleted text. That is when the smaller dispute began in the background of the larger dispute since October.

Kautilya3's addition of new material was first objected to at the talkpage by Dilpa kaur at 1:45 10 February 2018. It was only after the talkpage objection was raised to Kautilya's edit that Mar4d made this second revert, which was appropriate as a discussion had begun over the new contentious edit.

After this the discussion on the sentence went to DRN (note not the three sections), in which I participated. As Winged Blades points out DRN discussion is voluntary and it was probably wise that Mar4d did not participate, as the discussion between me and Kautilya3 failed, as had all other previous discussions on the talkpage between me, Kautilya3 and Mar4d at Talk:Kashmir conflict.

While the DRN on the sentence (the smaller dispute) was getting nowhere, KA$HMIR who says he had been busy arrived and gave us his alternative texts (for the sections contested as part of the larger dispute). Everyone except Kautilya3 agreed to them so I added them into the mainspace. The new text had gained WP:CONSENSUS. That Kautilya3 was WP:STONEWALLING, by giving vague declarations that the text was ″not ready for mainspace″ (without even explaining his objections to the text), does not change anything because his was a case of WP:1AM which does not affect WP:CONSENSUS.

Kautilya3 reverted my addition of the alternative text which had consensus, following which Mar4d asked him to explain his specific objections to the text, which Kautilya3 did not, only giving vague statements like ″it was not ready for mainspace″.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 22:42, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

A call for behavioural investigation

Following that a mysterious IP from India arrives to revert Mar4d and threatens to get him blocked like Xinjao if he does not keep Kautilya3's version. Mar4d reverting that should not be a problem.

But the question that leads us to is who is this mystery IP? What this mystery IP threatened is unfolding as we speak on this AE thread. I would call for a behavioural investigation on the filer and his supporters with the IPs. They have already been taken to SPI because of similar activity of the Kautilya3-supporting Indian IPs but the administrators closed it because they thought in December that there was insufficient evidence to link the accounts. I would call for a fresh new investigation.

I will be keeping an eye on Kashmir conflict and Talk:Kashmir conflict because we have just received threats that some Indian accounts are going to turn up to support Kautilya3 this time to get ″rid″ of the consensus version.. Translation provided {{to}CambridgeBayWeather}} here.

This is not surprising. The filer and Capitals00 have rocked up to the article before to do reverts to Kautilya3's versions They also have hardly any major input on the discussions at talkpage, dropping by to give one-liners in support of Kautilya3 and his reverts . This shows evidence of a WP:TAGTEAM. And I will be keeping an eye to see who turns up on the page and I will report them for a behavioural match with the bully IPs.

It is also interesting to see here that Kautilya3 supported the editor MapSGV. Kautilya3 claims MapSGV's personal attacks are not so ″egregrious″ to warrant a block. This is even though several admins find his behaviour worthy of a block.. Then again Kautilya3 admits that the people Mar4d is reverting are pro-Indian editors-″reverting and name-calling any pro-India editors that he runs into″. Yet he does not say anything to these tendentious pro-India editors (all editors are required to be NPOV in their editing) but chooses to support action on the productive Mar4d instead, my guess is to get less opposition in his content disputes. With the number of content disputes Kautilya3 has with Pakistani/Kashmiri.Chinese many editors would say that his editing is not always neutral.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 22:58, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by TripWire

Another WP:WITCHHUNT attempt by MBL (see previous one), no wonder Capitals00 has also joined the bandwagon. They have become so desperate in casting WP:ASPERSIONS that they will say anything to put across their point (I dont even know Capitals00). I think there's a dire need to implement WP:BOOMERANG strictly so that such frivolous reports are avoided in the better interest of WP.—TripWire 09:37, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Additional comments

Mar4d shouldn't be compared with MapSGV (even though his banning apparently seems the cause behind this report). Below are some edits by MapSGV (any sensible editor would feel offended at such a tone, a + for Mar4d for not loosing his cool); Mar4d was just trying to bring MapSGV to the table so that the issue(s) could be discussed:

Do you have anything sensible to say?

You are fooling yourself if you really believe such nonsense

Why? You feel hurt? Your problem.

I am not going to bother with your apparent dislike of the results which is evidenced by your laughable claims

Given your own record of blocks and inability to discuss content

He even accused an Admin of helping Takeaway (an editor) evade 3RR.—TripWire 14:19, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Note: If this report has been filed in response to banning of MapSGV (as can be seen from above and comments like: It is better if we only focus on the report against Mar4d. Major point is that this report wouldn't have been filed if the report against MapSGV had been procedurally closed - so they agree that this is a retaliatory measure?), then why this report is still open? Are we allowing a new trend on WP; One ban on this side will automatically mean that a report, however frivolous, must be filed to get a ban on the other side too? Seems like, what this IP threatened to do is unfolding already.—TripWire 08:16, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Statements by wearied passers-by

How about a 6-month topic ban from AE for everyone involved? Uanfala's sock (talk) 16:00, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Peoples colony

Blocked sock. Dennis Brown - 2¢

Accusations are over the top to the extent that I started laughing immediately. Come on every one behave like community not rivals. I strongly support Mard for many reasons I observed while reading all relevant contributions and edit history

Self less Dedication to wiki cause (Like every good wiki contributor)
Dealing with difficult discussions
Trying best to avoid few hard nut users.

At any case, I don't support any ban on Mard. I encourage MBlaze Lightning to cheer up and be sport. Peoplescolony (talk) 17:32, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Kautilya3

There was a time when Mar4d and I used to jointly defend India-Pakistan conflict pages from going toxic. Those days are long gone. Mar4d's fall from grace began with an atrocious article called India and state-sponsored terrorism that he created jointly with another editor. Since then I have been hard put to find any objective edits made by Mar4d. He basically edits along national lines, reverting and name-calling any pro-India editors that he runs into.

On the Siachen conflict article, Mar4d was basically battling reliable sources with WP:OR.
On the Kashmir conflict article, he is basically tag teaming with NadirAli, who in turn is doing edits for KA$HMIR and Dilpa kaur. All these editors call themselves "deeply involved editors". As MBlaze has pointed out, Mar4d reverted a fairly innocent edit citing WP:NOCON and reinstated a highly problematic edit ignoring WP:NOCON. You can just check the amount of reliably sourced content that has been removed in the second edit with not a single word of explanation.

Winged Blades of Godric states that participation in WP:DRN is voluntary. That it is. But it would have been polite for Mar4d to mention either on the talk page or at the DRN that he has conceded the points at dispute. Instead, if he just lets the others carry the burden, then I am afraid it reinforces the impresison that he didn't actually dispute anything, he was just WP:TAGTEAMING. Doing so in a highly contentious subject like Kashmir conflict is very problematic.

I am afraid, at this point, Mar4d is part of the problem rather than solution. Sandstein has drawn parallels between this case and that of Willard84 above. But I don't think there is any comparison. Willard84 is a highly productive editor as I pointed out above. On the other hand, Mar4d has not producing anything worthwhile in the last couple of years. His role seems to be limited to reverting edits and noise-making on the talk pages. A sad fall for a once-great editor. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:07, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Dennis Brown, here are the details of the DRN referral regarding Kashmir conflict (not Siachen conflict):

9 February 2018: copy edit done by me
9 February 2018: First revert by Mar4d
11 February 2018: Second revert by Mar4d
13 February 2018: Third revert by NadirAli
14 February 2018: DRN Notice given to Mar4d (also to NadirAli and Dipla kaur)
21 February 2018: DRN opened with no participation from Mar4d or Dilpa kaur
24 February 2018: Extensive edits made by NadirAli
24 February 2018: Reinstated by Mar4d
24 February 2018: Reinstated again by Mar4d
1 March 2018: DRN failed, partly because the article was editing during the dispute

It is also worth pointing out that at the time when Mar4d claims AFAIK, there is a section on talk where modifications to this entire section are under discussion, the concerned talk page section was empty . (Why there should have been an empty talk page section is another issue, but let us ignore that.) -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:53, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Ma'az says Mar4d is a "very productive" editor, citing a high edit count. This is clearly a fallacy. I have pointed out that Mar4d has contributed extremely little content to Misplaced Pages in the last couple of years. His edit count has been going up due to reverts and talk-page battles. Nevertheless, he is clearly the leader of the pack. And, as a leader, he needs to take responsibility for the increasing viciousness on the India-Pakistan pages. His increasing arrogance on talk pages has been visible for a long time. Here, for instance, he removed long-standing infobox entry citing "Indian victory" in October 2017, resorted to name-calling opposing editors including me. Even earlier in April 2017, he was brushing aside my legitimate concerns regarding the status of Gilgit-Baltistan saying, I'm not even sure why we are debating this; and it is a rather unproductive dispute raised on your part,.... I warned him in December 2017 about his tendency to take responsibility for POV edits of topic-banned editors, and was once again confronted with obstinacy. This degeneration has been long in coming. At this point, Mar4d is a net negative for Misplaced Pages. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:58, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Samee

The report is frivolous with no tangible evidence for anything actionable against a single user. I do not expect good faith from MBlaze Lightning pro tem for their multiple pointless warnings over a single incident of routine patrolling. Ironically, they’re taking a wikibreak to attend their education and don’t have enough time yet they find it at ease to file such reports. Perhaps WP:NOTHERE and in retaliation to MapSGV t-ban. samee 05:00, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by AshLin

Support. Its been years since I have had any interaction with User:Mar4d. I recently returned to editing WP and came across Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Research_and_Analysis_Wing_activities_in_Pakistan. Here I saw him up to his old tricks once again. He attempted to discredit all dissenting voices as can be seen in this diff. After my own vote which was succint, he tried to paint my vote as meaningless for not being verbose via this diff. Mar4d has a long history of edit warring and wikilawyering. He has been blocked 5 times to date. From above it appears that he has got into contentious disputes over seven articles this year alone. He routinely attacks or undermines the editors and their posts in the debate. This is not the one-time behaviour of an editor who gets swept into a dispute through misplaced emotion. This is the behaviour of a serial offender, who intends to get away with whatever he can. This behaviour of his is most commonly seen in the field of India and Pakistan articles. Hence I support a discretionary sanction to topic ban him from India-Pakistan articles. AshLin (talk) 09:24, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by D4iNa4

Edit warring against consensus or edit warring when your edits are obviously not going to receive any support is also disruptive and Mar4d had been doing that on Rape in India, by showing clear failure to realize that the problems that had been already told to him during reverts and further discussion.

I have to disagree with above comments by Winged Blades of Godric, because seeking protection for your non-consensus version after edit warring yourself for it is called disruptive editing. Mar4d also violated page restrictions with his 2 reverts by restoring the controversial version that had no consensus.

Mar4d's conduct as detailed by Capitals00 and AshLin above on an on going AfD is also problematic. He has created a toxic environment on this AfD by assuming bad faith towards other editors. He is still not getting per this comment on AfD that he is attacking other editors.

@Dennis Brown: Evidently Mar4d was uncivil since his first comment on Talk:Siachen conflict and MapSGV was still committed to "focus on content", but Mar4d continued making personal attacks, along with pushing personal opinion over WP:RS. He was attacking multiple other editors , but MapSGV was supporting what WP:RS say and unlike Mar4d he didn't engaged in original research. Evidence shows that Mar4d was a bigger problem not only for talk page but also for the main article.

@Dennis Brown: Mar4d also avoids participating in DRN, and it is evidenced by above diffs regarding the incidents that took place in relation to Kashmir conflict, where Mar4d was a party of dispute resolution that spanned its duration from 14 February to 1 March, it was expected that Mar4d would respond there and help resolving the content dispute. It seems that Mar4d was not interested in resolving content dispute but rather keeping his preferred version, which is also apparent with his edit warring against consensus and seeking protection very soon after making the revert.

The diffs provided above concerning India–Pakistan military confrontation (2016–present), shows source misrepresentation from Mar4d and further establishes that Mar4d cannot be trusted with these controversial and sensitive subjects.

There are more issues with Mar4d than what has been highlighted here. Mar4d is Wikihounding edits of Störm by disrupting every of his AfD nominations even when most of those AfDs ends up against Mar4d's vote!, Störm had already asked Mar4d before to stop this but Mar4d is not willing to.

Also after reading these personal attacks from NadirAli, TripWire, Samee, I find it obvious that you can't justify the actions of Mar4d. You can only make personal attacks and false accusations against others in order to defend him.

How many times Mar4d has been already blocked for his disruption? No one has time to have a watch over him, just to find out how much trouble he is creating. When Mar4d was blocked indefinitely from November 2015 to July 2016, the environment was much better but since he has returned we are only having more problems.

Given the evidence here, as well as Mar4d's outright rejection of any misconduct and further misrepresentation despite being the root of many problems. When more better editors like Darkness Shines get topic banned indefinitely from this same noticeboard, I am really seeing no reason why Mar4d should not be sanctioned for his long term problems. D4iNa4 (talk) 13:29, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

@Sandstein: RegentsPark is WP:INVOLVED and appears have to have been canvassed to this report by Mar4d himself. RegentsPark has been involved with Mar4d as an editor for a long time by participating in same content disputes. In one of the above incident cited as evidence of misconduct of Mar4d, RegentsPark was also involved in content dispute. I think his comments should be moved due to his close involvement. I am amazed that he is marginalizing the widespread issues into content dispute of a single article where he was canvassed by Mar4d, who posted a non-neutral and disparaging message on his talk page attacking other editors. D4iNa4 (talk) 00:40, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by 1990'sguy

Mar4d has been badgering votes on the AfD where I participated, and he is belittling the editors who are actually making policy-based argument unlike him. There seems to be a long pattern of edit warring and disruptive editing, even his block log speaks about it and it also includes a block for long term sock puppetry that Mar4d carried out for almost 7 years. I think any editor would be very cautious after incidents like that, but Mar4d has shown a lack of improvement and like Kautilya3 noted above, Mar4d has been more problematic than what he was before. His responses above further confirms my assessment, and I recommend a topic ban on Mar4d. --1990'sguy (talk) 02:31, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by code16

I was involved on the Siachin dispute briefly. He was arguing a point based on the relevance of sources presented by the other side, and I supported him on that. I did not see anything worth topic-banning Mar4D over. Code16 (talk) 13:29, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Ma'az

Mar4d is a productive editor and his conduct is satisfactory and cooperative. Regrettably, some editors have possibly reported this for their own interests. Differences exist but they can be resolved with sincerity and respect for each other. If anything needs to be done here, it's to end what is quite obvious. Mar4d is one of Misplaced Pages's most productive editors (ranked 800th on edit counts). If any unilateral action is taken against him, it would be certainly against the principles of equality and justice. M A A Z T A L K 16:42, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: Very aggressive reply. VICIOUSNESSS, ARROGANCE, I think you need to calm down a bit. Emotional rhetoric adds fuel to fire. I think we should respect each other, assume good faith and lean towards resolving controversies instead of exaggerating them. M A A Z T A L K 18:52, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by SheriffIsInTown

Note: This report is filed on 4 March 2018 regarding edits ranging between 20 February 2018 and 25 February 2018, there is a nine day difference between latest reported edit (25 February 2018) and the date of filing (4 March 2018), please decline this request as stale per Requests reporting diffs older than one week may be declined as stale.

This report seems to be a frivolous attempt to get a tit for tat ban for Mar4d in response to the ban on MapSVG and deserves WP:BOOMERANG. Mar4d’s comments referenced here, here, here and here are very decent comments and more of an advice to the editor in question than an attack. MapSVG’s behavior has been proven to be problematic by the ban on him. If he was doing all things right then there is no reason for a ban.

Mar4d’s comments should be considered as friendly warnings and pieces of advice for MapSVG by an experienced editor such as Mar4d. Editors like MapSVG and MBL should learn from his experience so they do not get banned at the end for their badly behavior. If he would have paid heed to Mar4d’s advice, today he would have been ban free. Mar4d’s statement about POV pushing was a generalized statement and not an attack against specific editor(s).

The warning given here to Capitals00 was accurate in that situation. That is what the template is for. He removed the content without giving adequate explanation and he received the warning, I don’t see any threats to life in that warning.

Mar4d advising MapSVG

20 February 2018

I am surprised that such edits are even being made, in complete mockery of WP:ARBIPA.

please do not initiate an edit war whilst this issue is up.

20 February 2018

Edits like these are a textbook case of invoking topic bans, so the least you can do is adhere to guidelines and tread carefully. Thanks

Mar4d’s reported edits

Edits which are reported as objectionable edits are clearly not objectionable at all. When there is a conflict, edits by any party can look objectionable to another party. Edit in Rape in India is clearly supported by many reputable sources.

but unnecessary edit warring from Mar4d clearly making 3 reverts in such sensitive article is concerning., only two edits were in 24 hour period, the third was many hours into the second day.

On Kashmir conflict, the reporting editor himself accepts that Mar4d gave valid policy reasons for the reverts made on different days, actually many days apart, these edits also involved different material, for example 4 February 2018, 11 February 2018 and 24 February 2018 Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 21:42, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Result concerning Mar4d

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

Both in this case and in the one concerning Willard84 above, it appears to me that we have several areas of problematic editing that are probably best addressed with topic bans for a number of editors. However, in both cases the report mixes genuine potentially problematic conduct such as edit-warring and personal attacks with what seem to be mere content disputes, which means that we don't have a clear-cut case. Moreover, a thorough investigation of several article histories would be needed to identify everybody who needs sanctioning. I don't currently have time for this. As such, I can't currently propose any specific action, which is not to say that action is not necessary. Sandstein 17:27, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Sock stuff. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 12:20, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Hello admin my blocked friend mapSVG told me edit on his behalf to let all admin know that mard and his friends are isi spy working for pak agencies to spread propaganda against India please unblock mapsvg and block all pak editors on this page. Thanks advance. KarunArjun (talk) 18:03, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

- Hello there, KarunArjun. Whatever that comment may or may not say about any other editors, it tells me that you are here for no good. Blocked. Bishonen | talk 18:16, 4 March 2018 (UTC). Also, as long as I'm here, I might as well inquire of @Peoplescolony: whose sock are you, please? Bishonen | talk 18:20, 4 March 2018 (UTC).
{{checkuser needed}}. Blocked User:PAKHIGHWAY looks interesting. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:06, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
- KarunArjun is Confirmed to Saltpot99 and Rayanakho/Hranday8. This is Nangparbat.
- Peoplescolony is LanguageXpert. This edit restores a version from 2013 that was curated by PPPPMLN/Maria0333. The CU log shows LanguageXpert using the same range within the last six months.
- PAKHIGHWAY looks like Mfarazbaig and/or another account from the Liborbital SPI that uses an ISP in a country from a different part of the world than one would expect. They edited articles that were created by Bk2006 and Faizan which may be more than a coincidence. Previous PAKHIGHWAY SPI case.
  — Berean Hunter (talk) 01:46, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
  - I blocked and tagged Peoplescolony. Almost collapsed this SPI like section, but it may be related to the merits, so didn't. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 02:10, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

I haven't read all the available information, but from what I have, MapSGV is a bigger problem than Mar4d as far as talk page behavior. The core of this is a content dispute which needs to go to WP:DRN. Probably the most effective thing an admin could do is full protect the article and force everyone to DRN, an option I won't rule out. It is either that or a handful of sanctions. I strongly suggest the interested parties simply take this to DRN now before someone else gets ham-fisted with the tools. As usual in this topic area, there are no saints. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 12:20, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
- It still needs to go to DRN. I don't think any admin is going to pour over all the available sources to make a decision on sanctions when there isn't a clear consensus or decision on a complicated issue. If you can show that you tried to go to DRN and he refused to participate, or you had an RFC it it went against his version, then we have something to base a decision on. Otherwise, you are asking us to get involved in a content dispute. As for civility, everyone there is a bit uncivil but nothing so extreme I would take action. These are heated topics, a bit of minor push and shove is expected. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:01, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
- MBlaze Lightning, do you have links to the DRNs he refused to participate in, including the invite on his talk page? If he has been refusing to participate in DRN and still warring over content, that would be enough for me to consider a topic ban for bad faith editing. That doesn't rule anyone else out, but that is a bright line from my perspective. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:29, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
It is hard to make any sense of what's going on here (to my untutored eye, the who won the Siachen conflict imbroglio borders on the ridiculous) and I'm tempted to agree with Uanfala and just topic ban everyone. But that's not really practical. Either topic bans for several, though not all - editors, perhaps leaving Kautilya3 and Mar4d to argue it out, or DRN as per Dennis seems to be the way to go. --regentspark (comment) 15:03, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
Actually, the only workable solution (I think) is that we have two editors discussing content with a mediator overseeing the discussion. No mediator will be able to follow the discussion if all the editors involved are allowed to comment. --regentspark (comment) 15:20, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
@D4iNa4: I don't see myself as involved (I've probably overlapped with most of the editors in this mess and it would be odd anyway considering that the DS in the areas here have been imposed by me). But, of course, if other admins think I am then I will withdraw my comments. --regentspark (comment) 16:47, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Born2cycle

Short version: indef block of Born2cycle by myself. See final statement for details. This is not an WP:AE action, it is a normal admin action. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 02:04, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
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 Born2cycle User who is submitting this request for enforcement TonyBallioni (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 17:37, 6 March 2018 (UTC) User against whom enforcement is requested Born2cycle (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log Sanction or remedy to be enforced Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article_titles_and_capitalisation#Born2cycle_warned Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it Special:Permalink/829071352#Closers:_Determining_CONSENSUS_rather_than_"consensus" Permalink to WT:RM, where he continued to bludgeon the discussion, not appreciate that others could have different views on policy than him that were legitimate. Permalink to discussion on my talk page as of 6 March 2018 acceptable challenging of a close of a controversial move, but quickly became a back and forth, and led to the eventual conversations elsewhere, including for background. Special:Permalink/829095159#Criteria_for_determining_whether_someone_is_"commonly_called_X"_for_WP:NATURALDIS Permalink to WT:DAB discussion as of 6 March 2018: shows continued forum shopping and trying to move a specific close he didn't like to a policy discussion. 2 March 2018 at WT:RM We just have to figure out how to get the community to select one: shows inability to understand the consensus based process of RMs and that people can have legitimate differences of opinion on naming policy and guidelines. 6 March 2018 at WT:DAB: Stop trying to rationalize around this. again, failure to understand that other editors may legitimately disagree with them. the behavior they were warned for, and which has caused this dispute to be on three different pages currently. Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive977#Born2cycle: previous discussion at ANI around the behavior in this RM Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts) Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article_titles_and_capitalisation#Born2cycle_warned Mentioned by name in the Arbitration Committee's Final Decision linked to above. Additional comments by editor filing complaint For full disclosure, I am one of three editors who closed the requested move at Sarah Jane Brown. I'm filing this AE request not because of criticism of me or because of B2C's views that we got the close wrong, but because he has refused to drop the stick and has now engaged in conversations on three pages (my talk, WT:RM, and WT:DAB) about the correct understanding of policy, has insisd that everyone who doesn't understand it like he does is wrong, and is now attempting to change policy (or clarify) policy based on the outcome of an RM that he didn't like. He has gone from pages with successively less page views and visibility as he has continued to fight the outcome of this move and argue over the policy surrounding it (my talk is more active than WT:RM and is where you'd expect people to come to see discussion over an RM close and he has basically been shut down at WT:RM, so he shifts the conversation further to WT:DAB, which is even less visible). Through this process, he has consistent shown the very attitude that the committee warned him about years ago: he is unable to see why people might view the article naming policies and guidelines different than him. An ANI was opened which can be found at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive977#Born2cycle, which discussed his behavior at the specific RM and in general to RMs.As a procedural matter, the DS are only authorized around policy discussions, which while this was triggered by a specific RM, B2C has tried to shift it into a larger policy discussion around natural disambiguations on multiple forums, and this has become disruptive. Additionally, as he was warned as a party in that case years ago, his general behavior in this process that matches that should be subject to enforcement of the warning.I'm not sure what the best outcome is here: the DS apply to article title policy discussions, and I think a full topic ban there might be beneficial, or if a more tailored restriction might be better. Obviously not asking for blocks. Apologies to the reviewing admins for linking to the archived discussions mainly instead of diffs: there is so much back and forth here that the entire discussion seemed easier to link to than many diffs, and the template said it was allowed. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:37, 6 March 2018 (UTC) @Iridescent, NeilN, and Thryduulf: I went with AE over ANI as I felt the structured format would be more likely to actually stop the current disruption than the freewheeling nature of ANI would be given the sheer amount of text that has already been poured into the SJB issue. In terms of a sanction that I think could work, would end the current mess, prevent this from happening in the future, and would be within the discretionary sanctions limitations would be Born2cycle is banned from discussing Misplaced Pages article naming policies, guidelines, and conventions outside of individual WP:RMs and WP:MRVs. A quick review of their project space contributions over the past year shows that this would be unlikely to limit their views in RfCs and the like, and it would also prevent user talk messes where they continue musing about naming conventions after seeking an initial clarification. This would also seem to fall pretty clearly within the scope of Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article_titles_and_capitalisation#Discretionary_sanctions, even as amended. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:22, 6 March 2018 (UTC) B2C: the issue is that you shopped the close around in places that would not be normal to discuss it (namely the RM talk page and WT:DAB). WT:RM was essentially a rant about how people need to agree with what you think consensus is when they close discussions, and the WT:DAB was you trying to change consensus when you were told that you were wrong on what it was at WT:RM, even though there had just been a massive communitywide discussion that addressed the very topic at least in one case. While I think you are in good faith trying to help achieve community consensus on these issues, your approach actually causes the opposite to happen: people just disengage from the conversation because it becomes too tedious, and the result becomes whatever you and the small group that sticks with it wants. That isn't healthy for our page naming conventions.Re: the First Amendment and muzzling thing: I don't really care at all what our policy is, nor do I care the title for SJB. I filed this because your obsession with this title and attempts to fix the ways closers close RMs and when that doesn't work fix the policy itself to your liking make it so that it is difficult for others who have equally valid views as you to comment without getting exhausted and giving up. That is disruptive, and that was dealt with in the ArbCom case. That is why we are here. To the First Amendment point: this isn't like the government telling you what you can and can't do. This is like a private non-profit you volunteer for telling you that you can't continue volunteering in one area because you made mistakes and are likely to continue to make mistakes because you don't view them as mistakes. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:06, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Dennis Brown, I'd support that, but I would add a topic ban from article naming policy, guideline, and convention discussions outside of RMs as I proposed above in addition to your wording. The whole problem here is that he went from RM to talk page, to WT:RM to discuss RM closing practice to WT:DAB to try to change the policy since he thought everyone got it wrong. As I said above, a quick review of his contributions shows that he isn't a major RfC participant or anything of the sort. In other words: it would prevent us from being back here after the next RM close he disagrees with, while not having that much impact on his everyday editing. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:00, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested Discussion concerning Born2cycle 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 Born2cycle I think Tony means well, but he is totally misunderstanding my efforts. I suggest that when he has an issue with someone's behavior, he at least first try to resolve it by reaching out on that person's talk page, which he has not done with me. By the way, I did do that with him, and he suggested the discussion continue "in other forums", which is exactly what has happened, and now he's complaining about that. I think my statements speak for themselves, but it's clear Tony and others misunderstand. I am accepting the opinions of others, I'm just trying to bring attention to certain issues. Building consensus through discussion, or trying to do that, is all I'm doing. This is how WP opinions evolve, for better or for worse. Nobody is required to participate in these discussions. Some people are interested. I'm open to changing my opinions - and I like to know what others think and why. This is all part of the process. I'm not demanding anyone see anything any particular way. I hope this is all I'll have to say about this. --В²C ☎ 18:07, 6 March 2018 (UTC) Regarding the Faberge situation, my recollection (it was over a year ago) is I reverted some page moves, my moves were reverted, so I started an RM. Consensus did not agree with me, and that was the end of it. --В²C ☎ 18:39, 6 March 2018 (UTC) In general, I have some strong opinions about how to improve WP in the area of titles. This is no secret; see my user page. Naturally, not everyone agrees with my opinions and ideas. Sadly, some develop animosity towards me personally as a result. So, you're seeing some of them pile on here. After the Sarah Jane Brown RM, I had three different major points to make, which I tried to make at the appropriate places. I expressed my concerns with the close at the closer's talk page. I shared my belief that closers should be encouraged to look for community consensus in discussions rather than counting raw !votes at the Misplaced Pages talk:RM. And I raised my question about the interpretation of WP:NATURALDIS at WT:D. As far as I know, all these are normal and appropriate issues to raise and discuss. --В²C ☎ 19:16, 6 March 2018 (UTC) Folks, not one person has even requested I change my behavior on my user talk page. I assure I would have responded by changing my behavior had that happened. I honestly don't get what the issue is with me commenting as much as I do, I do feel each of the recent discussions I started and participated in were fruitful (and I appreciate participation from everyone else), but I can certainly stop without being required to do so. I'm disappointed that so many people see my behavior as "rolling the dice" until I get "my way". I've tried to explain myself everywhere I post, my user page and my FAQ, but to little avail, apparently. But I get the message. Thank you. --В²C ☎ 19:51, 6 March 2018 (UTC) Iridescent, pardon my lack of clarity. Yes, of course people have commented on my behavior on my talk page in the past. Above I meant no one came to my user talk page in regard to my behavior in discussions since the SJB decision, which is what apparently sparked this. More specifically, Tony did not come to my user talk page about this. On his talk page he suggested discussion continue on other forums ("People are free to continue the conversation in other forums.") , and then, when I continued discussion on two other forums (WT:RM and WT:D, just as he suggested, he found my behavior to be problematic in those discussions. But instead of Discuss with the other party on my talk page, he came directly here. That's what I meant. I would have appreciated a far less contentious approach to addressing this issue by starting on my user talk page. As to sanctions, none are necessary. If I'm not abiding by any policies, anyone and everyone including you and Tony is of course free to notify me on my talk page of what policy I'm violating, how I'm in violation, and I will immediately comply. Speaking of policies I might be violating, I'm reviewing WP:TE. WP:REHASH seems close, but even it seems to embrace exactly what I believe I have been doing: "If your arguments are rejected, bring better arguments, don’t simply repeat the same ones." What I started at WP:RM was a totally different argument than what was argued at the SJB RM. And the WP:D was focusing on one particular aspect, and was more a question than argument. I thought that discussion was particularly fruitful, by the way. Did you read it? Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation#Criteria_for_determining_whether_someone_is_"commonly_called_X"_for_WP:NATURALDIS. The issue of whether NATURALDIS needs to be updated, or whether SJB is an unusual exception, continues to be discussed there, and not just be me. I honestly don't see how my efforts there, starting it or participating in it, is a violation of any policy. But again, if it is, please let me know which one and how. I promise to comply. --В²C ☎ 22:04, 6 March 2018 (UTC) PROPOSAL: Dennis Brown, et al, what if I agreed to comment usually only once per RM and in any title-related discussion on policy/guideline/style talk pages, and never more than three times, not including correct edits? "Usually" would mean that more than half of two or more participations in such discussions over any given period of time. For example, if I commented more than once in 5 out of the last 8 such discussions, I would be in violation. Would that address your concerns? --В²C ☎ 21:44, 7 March 2018 (UTC) General response to all comments I'm probably going to bury myself by saying this, but I'm just astonished by all the responses here. People I've respected and thought I had many productive discussions with are characterizing me and my behavior in a way that is totally foreign to me. I have no idea what most of you are talking about. And it's like you forget there is a real live human being behind the persona of "Born2cycle". Yes, I have strong opinions that I'm passionate about. I care about Misplaced Pages and want to make it better. I care about the community - the editors and the user. Yes, my opinions about improving WP, especially in the area of title decision-making (an area I'm guessing most of you don't care much about), are based on reasons, and I go out of my way to explain them. See my user page. And FAQ. This is a crime? Pardon my French, but WTF? You guys are literally talking about muzzling someone because you don't want to be forced to read what he has to say any more (as if anyone is forced to read anything anyone comments about), or because you don't care about what I do care about. Please keep in mind that we're talking exclusively about my "Tendentious Editing" on TALK pages, where, you know, we're supposed to TALK. In discussions, I tend to err on the side of clarity. Again... this is a crime? What's the point of talking if you're not even understood? Sometimes my opinion is with the majority; sometimes it's with a minority. Sometimes I'm persuasive; sometimes I'm not. Isn't all this normal? How it's supposed to go? It has been claimed, below, that discussing with me is a waste of time because "discussions are weaponized to defeat enemies". First of all, I have no enemies. Some may think of me as an enemy, but that's a one-way street, I assure you. The idea of using a discussion as a weapon is inherently preposterous, at least in my mind. The whole point of diplomacy (i.e. discussion) is to avoid use of weapons! Discussion is the methodology of peacemakers. That's how I see it. but if people are seeing discussion as "weapons", well, that explains much (smh). And I certainly am not trying to defeat anyone. All I'm trying to do is make title decision-making less problematic and less contentious. Yes, I realize the irony in that, but the road to peace is often built with debate. I realize I often I hurt my own position by being too verbose, but, again, I tend to err on the side of clarity. And it's not like I'm copying/pasting the same text all over the place. Every single one of my talk page posts is an original edit; each character typed in one by one, like this one. I care deeply about what I'm writing about and I put an inordinate amount of my personal time into it; I get that not everyone else appreciates this. So the solution is to muzzle me? What is the matter with you people? Is that how you treat people in the real world? If so, I'm glad I don't know you in real life, but I doubt you do. Thankfully, for the 1st Amendment. If we had freedom of speech equivalent to 1st Amendment rights on WP, there would be nothing to discuss about my "behavior" here, would there? Consider that. It's not like I'm yelling "Fire!" in a theater, am I? Or, think of it like this. What if my exact same comments were made not by me, but by, say, three different people, A, B and C? The exact same words, but randomly signed by A, B or C instead of by just one person. How would anything be any different? All those who choose to be involved would still have to read the same text, consider the same arguments. There are claims that my postings are disruptive. But if they were made by A, B and C instead of by me, they wouldn't, would they? So, what is it about what I'm doing that is so problematic? What's the fundamental problem? If you're going to go through sanctioning someone, how about clearly explaining what the reasons are for the sanctioning - what is the real problem you believe you're addressing? Because, other than an apparent desire to muzzle me for tribal emotional reasons that we thankfully counter in the real word with recognition of free speech, I, for one, have no idea. --В²C ☎ 17:02, 7 March 2018 (UTC) MelanieN, somebody, please help me. I understand what "better receptiveness to compromise and a higher tolerance for the views of other editors" means. What I don't get is how I am not receptive to compromise or how I am not tolerant for the views of others. Being tolerant does not mean agreeing. For example, I'm tolerant of the decision at SJB - I just don't agree with. And I dropped it (though some feel I didn't, so we disagree about that too - how about some tolerance for my views?) --В²C ☎ 20:02, 7 March 2018 (UTC) FORUM SHOPPING? From WP:FORUMSHOP: "Where multiple issues do exist, then the raising of the individual issues on the correct pages may be reasonable, but in that case it is normally best to give links to show where else you have raised the question." I've been accused of forum shopping below, more than once. This is a charge made in good faith, but in error. Per the above, there were multiple issues involved, and I raised each at the appropriate place. I questioned the close of Sarah Jane Brown at the lead closer's talk page, User_talk:TonyBallioni#Sarah_Jane_Brown. This is the appropriate place to do that. I considered and discussed continuing with a Move Review with another editor, Amakuru, on his talk page, User_talk:Amakuru#SJB, also an appropriate place for that. The series of closes at SJB culminating with this one inspired me to post about the responsibility of closers to determine community consensus per WP:CONSENSUS and Misplaced Pages:Requested_moves/Closing_instructions#Determining_consensus rather than counting raw !votes. I did this at WT:RM, also as appropriate. See Wikipedia_talk:Requested_moves#Closers:_Determining_CONSENSUS_rather_than_"consensus". One of the specific issues at that close had to do with how WP:NATURALDIS applied in that case, and, more generally, in cases like this, where the middle name is not commonly used in reliable sources. I wanted to explore this general issue further, and so I raised it at WT:D (the home of WP:NATURALDIS, specifically at Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation#Criteria_for_determining_whether_someone_is_"commonly_called_X"_for_WP:NATURALDIS. In retrospect I can understand given the timing and the fact that I raised each of these issues related to the close it can appear to be forum shopping, but it's not at all. Each is a separate general legitimate issue to raise at each of the respective venues, and raised appropriately after the close. If you actually look at each of the discussions, particularly at what I initially posted at each, you'll see that you couldn't reasonably do that at any of the other forums. It's not like I posted the same thing at multiple places; not at all. That is, each one was different and belonged where I posted it. Unfortunately, because of the timing and the participants, the discussions often did tend to drift back to the topic of rehashing the SJB close, but that was not my intent, and I stated as much in most if not all instances. Thank you. --В²C ☎ 17:36, 7 March 2018 (UTC) TonyBallioni: despite my explanation here, you still claim that I "shopped the close". You describe in your own slanted way what I did at WT:RM: "... essentially a rant about how people need to agree with what you think consensus is when they close discussions". Even if true, how is that shopping the close? My statement speaks for itself, there was no "need" for anyone to agree with me about anything; not implicitly nor explicitly. I'm sorry you read it that way, but I can't be responsible for words you read that are not there. The dearth of you quoting any of my actual words to back up your claim of me "shopping the close" and ranting about others "needing to agree with what I think" is telling. What, by the way, do you even mean by "shop the close"? The close was done. There was nothing left to say about it, especially not at WT:RM. If I wanted to challenge it beyond what I said at your talk page, I would have gone to MRV. Other than being most recently inspired by that close, my "rant" was not about the close. Do you really not see that? Perhaps read it again. As to WT:D, you claim that was me "trying to change consensus when told that wrong on what it was at WT:RM". Again, I'm bewildered that that is what you think that was about. It's like you didn't even read what I wrote there. Exactly what consensus do you think I was trying to change? The only issue there was the wording and meaning of NATURALDIS. This happens all the time after RMs. When RMs seem to go contrary to what policy says, a reasonable issue to pursue is whether some policy wording might need to change. For example, that's how WP:PRIMARYTOPIC got expanded at WP:D to include the historical significance criteria. Because at some RMs the consensus was that a certain topic should be "primary" due to its historical significance even if it's not the one most likely to be sought by users searching with the term in question. So the policy was updated accordingly, but only after someone (perhaps even me - I can't remember) brought it up on the WT:D talk page. The same kind of thing here. In fact, as a result of my starting that discussion, at least one editor even suggested an actual edit to address the issue I raised. You know, the issue my post was raising, as opposed to the one you imagined it to be about (to change some unidentified consensus about who-knows-what). --В²C ☎ 19:43, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by Primefac Another related incident (B2C refusing to accept the results of an RM) was at Fabergé egg. I had closed an RM at Danish Palaces (Fabergé egg), part of which resulted in a new/procedural RM to codify some questions raised at that RM. Following the close of the second RM (RM2), B2C calls into question the result of RM2, claims that it's not valid, and undoes all of the moves resulting from RM2 (see Talk:Fabergé egg/Archive 2). They then proceeded to start a third RM attempting to reverse the result of RM2, which was strongly opposed. These two RMs (the eggs and Brown) are the only two major interactions I've had with them, and I have consistently seen a battleground attitude where if it doesn't 100% absolutely match the written law of page naming, it's wrong and everyone who believes otherwise is wrong. It's not conducive towards a productive working environment, and undoubtedly has a chilling effect on RM participants. Primefac (talk) 18:08, 6 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by SarekOfVulcan Considering the lengthy discussion you started on Tony's talk page, B2C, I'm not sure what you think would have been accomplished by him re-starting another discussion on essentially the same topic on your talkpage. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:01, 6 March 2018 (UTC) Those aren't "three different major points", B2C, they're pretty much the definition of WP:FORUMSHOP. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:26, 6 March 2018 (UTC) I honestly don't see how my efforts there, starting it or participating in it, is a violation of any policy. But again, if it is, please let me know which one and how. For some reason, that feels an awful lot like sea lioning to me. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:20, 6 March 2018 (UTC) @Born2Cycle: Um, no, it's unfair to everybody else here to run an algorithm to figure out if you're being disruptive. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:04, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by Thryduulf (Commenting here as I proposed sanctions in the most recent AN/I discussion, I'm uninvolved with the specific move discussions). It's less than a month since B2C was brought to AN/I where in a lengthy thread he was reminded (several times) about the arbcom finding and that his behaviour was not well thought of by a significant number of editors. Yet now we're here with evidence that he hasn't learned a single thing and continues to display the exact same behaviour. I think it's time that some restrictions were imposed - the AN/I showed some support for a restriction on the number of comments he may make in any single RM or other article titling disucssion, a prohibition on nominating articles at RM that have had a recent previous discussion (1 year iirc), and a limit to the number of concurrent RM nominations he may make. I'd consider adding to that a requirement that he may challenge the result of an RM discussion only through a formal move review nomination, with a maximum of one such discussion per page. I don't know whether AE has the authority to do that in this case or not though. Thryduulf (talk) 19:16, 6 March 2018 (UTC) @Born2Cycle: Folks, not one person has even requested I change my behavior on my user talk page. Maybe, maybe not. However many people did at the recent AN/I, it was clearly implicit in the discussion you were involved with on TonyBallioni's talk page and the Arbitration Committee did so several years back. The evidence suggests that you haven't been taking the hint. Thryduulf (talk) 19:58, 6 March 2018 (UTC) I would agree that TonyBallioni's suggestion of Born2cycle is banned from discussing Misplaced Pages article naming policies, guidelines, and conventions outside of individual WP:RMs and WP:MRVs. has merit, but I'd place it in addition to the suggestion I made earlier rather than as a replacement for it. Thryduulf (talk) 21:04, 6 March 2018 (UTC) @Beyond My Ken: yes, this has been going on for years. The arbitration case concluded in March 2012 (6 years ago) and a quick glance at some of the evidence presented there shows behaviour essentially identical to today from October 2011. Thryduulf (talk) 02:38, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Based on B2C's most recent comments, and in agreement with iridescent I withdraw my previous proposal and now support a complete topic from all discussions related to (a) article titling policies, guidelines, conventions and similar; and (b) the title of any page on Wikipeida, including but not limited to requested moves and move reviews. The sole exception is a single, short comment in a move review, intiated by another editor, of an RM he closed. Such a comment must be confined to his own actions and reasoning and must not comment or speculate on the actions, motivations or reasoning of any other editor. If he chooses to demonstrate he can edit collaboratively in other areas, that's excellent, if he chooses not to then that's his choice. He's had all the rope I'm prepared to extend. Thryduulf (talk) 23:03, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Comment by SN54129 Sup Born2cycle. Just an FYI, put per the arb guidelines, "If you must respond to some statement by another editor on the arbitration request, then you must do so in your own section. There may be no threaded discussion (that is, comments in any section but your own) on any arbitration request; any such threaded discussion will be summarily removed by a clerk or arbitrator." Also, I thikn the point that SoV / TB are making is that it would be qualitatively the same discussion—where ever it actually took place. Unfortunately, it's almost never the case that the "clock of sanctions" is re-set by merely moving the discussion to a different page. Further, I draw from that they believe that such an effort would be unhelpful as it would merely retead existing ground. ...SerialNumber54129 19:29, 6 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by ValarianB As a participant in the Mrs. Brown discussion, and reading some of the following discussions on other talk pages and such (what a fascinating, years-long topic people have invested in this!), a line at User_talk:TonyBallioni#Sarah_Jane_Brown that was most concerning was this, Very similar claims were made in most of the multiple "no consensus" closes for the RM proposals listed below when they were closed based on trying to find "consensus" (and failing) rather than trying to find WP:CONSENSUS (like they should have), yet in each case eventually there was an RM in which WP:CONSENSUS was finally recognized, and the disputed finally resolved.. This person seems to have an end goal in mind, the "Right Decision", and will initiate discussion after discussion after discussion until that comes about. It seems antithetical to the Misplaced Pages to just roll the dice every few years hoping that the right set up people will show up, while the "wrong" set of people fail to. ValarianB (talk) 19:33, 6 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by Beyond My Ken When B2C writes above: "...I meant no one came to my user talk page in regard to my behavior in discussions since the SJB decision, which is what apparently sparked this.", in all probability that's because anyone who has ever dealt with B2C, or followed the long-running B2C saga on the noticeboards, is aware that asking B2C to change their behavior is essentially like talking to a brick wall, and almost never results in any change in behavior. I mean, this has been going on for, what, years? Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:43, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by Awilley I also commented in the AN/I discussion so I'm putting myself here. My only involvement that I can remember was as part of a 3-admin close panel some years ago at an RM where B2C had participated. I only remember it because they were so overbearing and tendentious in their approach. Anyway, I second support for the limited sanctions of the type proposed by User:Thryduulf that would limit the creation and participation in RM discussions but without shutting them out completely. It is their field of expertise and passion after all, I just think they need a throttle for the sake of everybody else. ~Awilley (talk) 05:04, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by Jayron32 Discussions with B2C involved are not fruitful, because he's not interested in compromise or even consensus. For him, discussions are weaponized to defeat his enemies, which is not a productive way to move a consensus-built organization forward. As can be demonstrated with the most recent move discussion, even if consensus is against him, his argument is that it isn't a real consensus, because <reasons>. And he's quite willing to use discussion as a bludgeon to wear down those that hold different positions than he does, to the point where he thinks he can win by default because people don't want to deal with that, not merely because the concede that he has valid points, but that through the sheer repetitive weight of his arguments, he's got to be right. He may even be right some times; but that's irrelevent when his discussion technique does not foster a collaborative working environment. --Jayron 32 14:46, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by MelanieN I have not interacted with B2C for years and have no opinion on the SJB title. I’d just like to note, reading this discussion, that he is his own best evidence against himself. In his latest comment, he continues to display exactly the behaviors that he has been accused of and warned about for at least six years. Instead of reflecting a "better receptiveness to compromise and a higher tolerance for the views of other editors," he accuses others of "an apparent desire to muzzle me for tribal emotional reasons". Illustrating his persistent IDHT attitude, he says "I have no idea what most of you are talking about." --MelanieN (talk) 19:00, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by andrewa The discussion between myself and B2C at Talk:Sarah Jane Brown#See wt:DAB#Criteria for determining whether someone is "commonly called X" for WP:NATURALDIS is relevant I think, and my views are expressed there. Andrewa (talk) 22:29, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by (SmokeyJoe) I first encountered born2cycle at wt:consensus (Wikipedia_talk:Consensus/Archive_11), where I remember being intrigued at his interesting new perspective, before soon deciding that he has a fundamental misunderstanding of concensus, that he was pushing for an algorithmic method for deciding consensus that eliminated human opinion and compromise for minority views. To quote his fourth statement from his first day there: “I don't think so, and, in fact, suggest de-emphasizing if not eliminating other references to "compromise" on the page. I mean, what exactly in the consensus building process is supposed to be compromised? What standards are to be lowered? What principles are to be ignored? What policies dismissed? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:54, 7 November 2011 (UTC)” Also I note in passing that he has 90 posts on that archive in less than one month. Working towards consensus is a tricky art, but this editor burst onto the scene, and dominated the conversations telling everyone how is should be done, with a pathological inability to comprehend “compromise”. He also doesn’t understand that policy is meant to describe, not prescribe, best practice. Looking back at the details, nothing has changed. The B2C problem is complicated because he is often right about something, if that something is the detail of titling policy. Where I think he is lacking is with the concept of “consensus”. B2C has complained that no one has reached out to him to explain the problem. This is not true. I have made a number of such posts on his talk page. It was not productive, because if he doesn’t like the direction of the conversation he archives or deletes the thread. More productive conversations were being held on my talk page, although he would disengage after taking a point but not learn anything, not change any behaviour. Examples of failed attempts to explain things to him on his talk page include: Edit warring to hide posts on his talk page to refuse to acknowledge criticism of his opening a fresh discussion on a title so immediately following a proper close of a preceding titling discussion, driving away article-interested editors cutting a completely accurate point “ignoring the reasoned views of others and arguing that your particular view must be correct.” from his talk cutting a fair suggestion to compromise rejects advice to tolerate others’ viewpoints A topic ban is desperately needed. However, I don’t think banning him from RM discussions is completely necessary. Possibly, he could be limited by posts or kilobytes to single discussions. I propose that instead he should minimally be banned from all policy and guideline pages relating to titling, closing discussions, and consensus. It's on these pages that he crosses from obnoxious to long term disruption. Probably, a ban from all Misplaced Pages policy and guideline pages would be better. It’s not as if he attempts to contribute to policy areas other than on titling, and if his new hobby were to be telling the community how to do things on some other matter, I predict it will not be net-productive. While occasionally, the community has to tell a volunteer that their particular efforts in a particular area are not wanted, it’s not a good for any one volunteer to tell another volunteer, it can be helpful to provide some suggestions. My suggestions for B2C would include: Cycling, roads, highways, or any other mainspace pages. WP:AfD I wish him well, but he needs to broaden his hobbies. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:47, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by (username) Result concerning Born2cycle This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above. Quite aside from whether this breaches the sanctions or not, the attitude expressed in Not everyone agrees with my opinions and ideas. Sadly, some develop animosity towards me personally as a result. is about as clear-cut an embodiment of the tendentious editing mentality as I've ever seen. I'd be inclined to take this to ANI to get consensus for a "Born2cycle is restricted from commenting on page naming disputes outside of the formal Requested Move process" restriction, rather than trying to put a band-aid over the issue here; sure, I can block for a week, a month, a year, but it's fairly clear that the problem will immediately restart as soon as the block expires if there isn't a formal restriction in place. ‑ Iridescent 19:23, 6 March 2018 (UTC) Born2cycle, you claim that not one person has even requested I change my behavior on my user talk page—forgive my sarcasm, but you are aware that at the time of writing a large part of your userpage consists of a list you've created of instances of assorted people requesting you change your behavior? I really don't want to do this, but your apparent unwillingness here even to admit the possibility that it's possible that you could be wrong and everyone else could be right is pushing me towards an indefinite block ("undefined" not "infinite") unless you're willing to accept a restriction along the lines proposed by Thryduulf above. ‑ Iridescent 20:52, 6 March 2018 (UTC) OK, in light of this I think we're done here unless anyone other than B2C has anything further to add. That after all this you specifically explain that you can't understand the difference between "me versus the world" and "opinion held by multiple people"; that you somehow think that the First Amendment (which relates to the US government and has not the slightest relevance to Misplaced Pages's internal administration; we'd be perfectly within our rights to ban users from using the letter "w", or to block all editors with eight-character usernames, if there was community consensus for it) is relevant here; and that you think that those criticising you are operating from "an apparent desire to muzzle me for tribal emotional reasons that we thankfully counter in the real word with recognition of free speech", not a unanimous consensus that you're acting inappropriately and against both the spirit of Misplaced Pages in general and against your restrictions in particular, makes me feel that if you don't get it now you're never going to. Despite recognising that it would be a de facto site ban unless you choose to work in a different part of Misplaced Pages, I'm now of the opinion that at least a temporary total ban from everything relating to article renaming is the only thing that's going to put a stop to this. ‑ Iridescent 20:33, 7 March 2018 (UTC) The "Born2cycle's editing on the disputed pages and related subjects has hampered efforts at resolution, specifically by excessive responses and not following the spirit of WP:BRD" finding of fact in the Arbcom case seems to be highly relevant here, specifically the "excessive responses" part. Initially I thought banning Born2cycle from all meta-discussions involving the title of the Sarah Jane Brown article would be sufficient but Primefac's statement has me leaning towards a broader restriction. --NeilN 19:26, 6 March 2018 (UTC) I opined at the ANI, but little good it did, and I consider myself uninvolved. We do have the authority to topic ban him from RM and moves in general, and anything else his behavior has touched on in 4.2 of the Arb finding. I think Iridescent is correct that this is a textbook case of WP:TE, which means any sanction would be on the table but as a standard admin function, not an AE action. I don't think going back to ANI is required as the evidence is fairly clear, although a sanctioning admin could volunteer for review at WP:AN afterwards. I don't think kicking this can down the road is going to benefit anyone, and something firm that covers a broad enough scope, needs to be done. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:54, 7 March 2018 (UTC) How about: "For an indefinite period of time, you are topic banned from discussing the moving or renaming of any page, while on any page of the English Misplaced Pages website." Zero talk about any move, anywhere on the domain, from anywhere on the domain, so it is a broad ban, yet narrow enough to allow him the opportunity to participate in the 98% of the encyclopedia that isn't about moves/renaming. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 20:54, 7 March 2018 (UTC) I participated in the RM but I have not interacted with B2C further, so I consider myself uninvolved. Looking through all that has been presented in this request, this seems to be one of the most obvious cases of WP:FORUMSHOP and WP:STICK I have seen to date. B2C basically voiced their disagreement with the way a certain RM was closed everywhere but WP:MRV, the only place it fits. And as Primefac points out, the SJB discussion was not the first time B2C acted this way (as, of course, basically does Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation which included a warning that B2C's contributions to discussion must reflect a better receptiveness to compromise and a higher tolerance for the views of other editors.). As Iridescent says, this has WP:TE written all over it. I don't think acting here is like putting a band-aid over the issue though. Per Dennis Brown, topic banning B2C from all article titles related discussions is a possible sanction that can be imposed by the currently allowed DS on the aforementioned case and should be sufficient to either get them to drop the stick or be forced to drop it. Regards So Why 08:21, 7 March 2018 (UTC) A topic ban from naming discussions would, of course, effectively be an indefinite block - it's all he does here. His last 500 mainspace contributions take you back to July 2012, and most of those were related to article naming as well. On the other hand, of course, someone who's only really here to argue amount article naming - whilst not quite approaching WP:NOTHERE - isn't exactly improving the encyclopedia either. Black Kite (talk) 19:53, 7 March 2018 (UTC) I think that the last observation by Black Kite is the most pertinent. Somebody who is apparently here only to quibble (at excruciating length) about article naming really, really needs to find another hobby. Or professional help. I support a topic ban about anything related to article titles. Sandstein 22:14, 7 March 2018 (UTC) This has been a long and tedious report. As per remedy 4.2 it the above named Arbitration case Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to the English Misplaced Pages Manual of Style and article titles policy, broadly construed. The scope of this remedy refers to discussions about the policies and guidelines mentioned, and does not extend to individual move requests, move reviews, article talk pages, or other venues at which individual article names may be discussed. Disruption in those areas should be handled by normal administrative means. we are not authorized to use discretionary sanctions in the manner I have described above. Therefore, I have no choice but to either take a case to WP:ANI or use standard admin discretion. I think there is sufficient evidence that Born2cycle has violated the principles in WP:TE, and to the point that it violates WP:DE in a clear and convincing way, and that a larger ANI discussion is not required. I note that there is a consensus to this effect here. Therefore, I have indefinitely blocked them. Of course, any admin may unblock them with any condition, including the condition I mentioned above, that they 100% avoid all rename/move discussions at any level, on any page. To be clear, this is a standard admin action, not an WP:AE action, thus reviewable on his talk page or at WP:AN. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:58, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Short version: indef block of Born2cycle by myself. See final statement for details. This is not an WP:AE action, it is a normal admin action. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 02:04, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Request concerning Born2cycle

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: TonyBallioni (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 17:37, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested: Born2cycle (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article_titles_and_capitalisation#Born2cycle_warned

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

Special:Permalink/829071352#Closers:_Determining_CONSENSUS_rather_than_"consensus" Permalink to WT:RM, where he continued to bludgeon the discussion, not appreciate that others could have different views on policy than him that were legitimate.
Permalink to discussion on my talk page as of 6 March 2018 acceptable challenging of a close of a controversial move, but quickly became a back and forth, and led to the eventual conversations elsewhere, including for background.
Special:Permalink/829095159#Criteria_for_determining_whether_someone_is_"commonly_called_X"_for_WP:NATURALDIS Permalink to WT:DAB discussion as of 6 March 2018: shows continued forum shopping and trying to move a specific close he didn't like to a policy discussion.
2 March 2018 at WT:RM We just have to figure out how to get the community to select one: shows inability to understand the consensus based process of RMs and that people can have legitimate differences of opinion on naming policy and guidelines.
6 March 2018 at WT:DAB: Stop trying to rationalize around this. again, failure to understand that other editors may legitimately disagree with them. the behavior they were warned for, and which has caused this dispute to be on three different pages currently.
Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive977#Born2cycle: previous discussion at ANI around the behavior in this RM

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts): Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article_titles_and_capitalisation#Born2cycle_warned

Mentioned by name in the Arbitration Committee's Final Decision linked to above.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

For full disclosure, I am one of three editors who closed the requested move at Sarah Jane Brown. I'm filing this AE request not because of criticism of me or because of B2C's views that we got the close wrong, but because he has refused to drop the stick and has now engaged in conversations on three pages (my talk, WT:RM, and WT:DAB) about the correct understanding of policy, has insisd that everyone who doesn't understand it like he does is wrong, and is now attempting to change policy (or clarify) policy based on the outcome of an RM that he didn't like. He has gone from pages with successively less page views and visibility as he has continued to fight the outcome of this move and argue over the policy surrounding it (my talk is more active than WT:RM and is where you'd expect people to come to see discussion over an RM close and he has basically been shut down at WT:RM, so he shifts the conversation further to WT:DAB, which is even less visible). Through this process, he has consistent shown the very attitude that the committee warned him about years ago: he is unable to see why people might view the article naming policies and guidelines different than him. An ANI was opened which can be found at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive977#Born2cycle, which discussed his behavior at the specific RM and in general to RMs.As a procedural matter, the DS are only authorized around policy discussions, which while this was triggered by a specific RM, B2C has tried to shift it into a larger policy discussion around natural disambiguations on multiple forums, and this has become disruptive. Additionally, as he was warned as a party in that case years ago, his general behavior in this process that matches that should be subject to enforcement of the warning.I'm not sure what the best outcome is here: the DS apply to article title policy discussions, and I think a full topic ban there might be beneficial, or if a more tailored restriction might be better. Obviously not asking for blocks. Apologies to the reviewing admins for linking to the archived discussions mainly instead of diffs: there is so much back and forth here that the entire discussion seemed easier to link to than many diffs, and the template said it was allowed. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:37, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

@Iridescent, NeilN, and Thryduulf: I went with AE over ANI as I felt the structured format would be more likely to actually stop the current disruption than the freewheeling nature of ANI would be given the sheer amount of text that has already been poured into the SJB issue. In terms of a sanction that I think could work, would end the current mess, prevent this from happening in the future, and would be within the discretionary sanctions limitations would be Born2cycle is banned from discussing Misplaced Pages article naming policies, guidelines, and conventions outside of individual WP:RMs and WP:MRVs. A quick review of their project space contributions over the past year shows that this would be unlikely to limit their views in RfCs and the like, and it would also prevent user talk messes where they continue musing about naming conventions after seeking an initial clarification. This would also seem to fall pretty clearly within the scope of Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article_titles_and_capitalisation#Discretionary_sanctions, even as amended. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:22, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
B2C: the issue is that you shopped the close around in places that would not be normal to discuss it (namely the RM talk page and WT:DAB). WT:RM was essentially a rant about how people need to agree with what you think consensus is when they close discussions, and the WT:DAB was you trying to change consensus when you were told that you were wrong on what it was at WT:RM, even though there had just been a massive communitywide discussion that addressed the very topic at least in one case. While I think you are in good faith trying to help achieve community consensus on these issues, your approach actually causes the opposite to happen: people just disengage from the conversation because it becomes too tedious, and the result becomes whatever you and the small group that sticks with it wants. That isn't healthy for our page naming conventions.Re: the First Amendment and muzzling thing: I don't really care at all what our policy is, nor do I care the title for SJB. I filed this because your obsession with this title and attempts to fix the ways closers close RMs and when that doesn't work fix the policy itself to your liking make it so that it is difficult for others who have equally valid views as you to comment without getting exhausted and giving up. That is disruptive, and that was dealt with in the ArbCom case. That is why we are here. To the First Amendment point: this isn't like the government telling you what you can and can't do. This is like a private non-profit you volunteer for telling you that you can't continue volunteering in one area because you made mistakes and are likely to continue to make mistakes because you don't view them as mistakes. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:06, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
Dennis Brown, I'd support that, but I would add a topic ban from article naming policy, guideline, and convention discussions outside of RMs as I proposed above in addition to your wording. The whole problem here is that he went from RM to talk page, to WT:RM to discuss RM closing practice to WT:DAB to try to change the policy since he thought everyone got it wrong. As I said above, a quick review of his contributions shows that he isn't a major RfC participant or anything of the sort. In other words: it would prevent us from being back here after the next RM close he disagrees with, while not having that much impact on his everyday editing. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:00, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Discussion concerning Born2cycle

Statement by Born2cycle

I think Tony means well, but he is totally misunderstanding my efforts. I suggest that when he has an issue with someone's behavior, he at least first try to resolve it by reaching out on that person's talk page, which he has not done with me. By the way, I did do that with him, and he suggested the discussion continue "in other forums", which is exactly what has happened, and now he's complaining about that. I think my statements speak for themselves, but it's clear Tony and others misunderstand. I am accepting the opinions of others, I'm just trying to bring attention to certain issues. Building consensus through discussion, or trying to do that, is all I'm doing. This is how WP opinions evolve, for better or for worse. Nobody is required to participate in these discussions. Some people are interested. I'm open to changing my opinions - and I like to know what others think and why. This is all part of the process. I'm not demanding anyone see anything any particular way. I hope this is all I'll have to say about this. --В²C ☎ 18:07, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Regarding the Faberge situation, my recollection (it was over a year ago) is I reverted some page moves, my moves were reverted, so I started an RM. Consensus did not agree with me, and that was the end of it. --В²C ☎ 18:39, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

In general, I have some strong opinions about how to improve WP in the area of titles. This is no secret; see my user page. Naturally, not everyone agrees with my opinions and ideas. Sadly, some develop animosity towards me personally as a result. So, you're seeing some of them pile on here. After the Sarah Jane Brown RM, I had three different major points to make, which I tried to make at the appropriate places. I expressed my concerns with the close at the closer's talk page. I shared my belief that closers should be encouraged to look for community consensus in discussions rather than counting raw !votes at the Misplaced Pages talk:RM. And I raised my question about the interpretation of WP:NATURALDIS at WT:D. As far as I know, all these are normal and appropriate issues to raise and discuss. --В²C ☎ 19:16, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Folks, not one person has even requested I change my behavior on my user talk page. I assure I would have responded by changing my behavior had that happened. I honestly don't get what the issue is with me commenting as much as I do, I do feel each of the recent discussions I started and participated in were fruitful (and I appreciate participation from everyone else), but I can certainly stop without being required to do so. I'm disappointed that so many people see my behavior as "rolling the dice" until I get "my way". I've tried to explain myself everywhere I post, my user page and my FAQ, but to little avail, apparently. But I get the message. Thank you. --В²C ☎ 19:51, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Iridescent, pardon my lack of clarity. Yes, of course people have commented on my behavior on my talk page in the past. Above I meant no one came to my user talk page in regard to my behavior in discussions since the SJB decision, which is what apparently sparked this. More specifically, Tony did not come to my user talk page about this. On his talk page he suggested discussion continue on other forums ("People are free to continue the conversation in other forums.") , and then, when I continued discussion on two other forums (WT:RM and WT:D, just as he suggested, he found my behavior to be problematic in those discussions. But instead of Discuss with the other party on my talk page, he came directly here. That's what I meant. I would have appreciated a far less contentious approach to addressing this issue by starting on my user talk page. As to sanctions, none are necessary. If I'm not abiding by any policies, anyone and everyone including you and Tony is of course free to notify me on my talk page of what policy I'm violating, how I'm in violation, and I will immediately comply. Speaking of policies I might be violating, I'm reviewing WP:TE. WP:REHASH seems close, but even it seems to embrace exactly what I believe I have been doing: "If your arguments are rejected, bring better arguments, don’t simply repeat the same ones." What I started at WP:RM was a totally different argument than what was argued at the SJB RM. And the WP:D was focusing on one particular aspect, and was more a question than argument. I thought that discussion was particularly fruitful, by the way. Did you read it? Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation#Criteria_for_determining_whether_someone_is_"commonly_called_X"_for_WP:NATURALDIS. The issue of whether NATURALDIS needs to be updated, or whether SJB is an unusual exception, continues to be discussed there, and not just be me. I honestly don't see how my efforts there, starting it or participating in it, is a violation of any policy. But again, if it is, please let me know which one and how. I promise to comply. --В²C ☎ 22:04, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

PROPOSAL: Dennis Brown, et al, what if I agreed to comment usually only once per RM and in any title-related discussion on policy/guideline/style talk pages, and never more than three times, not including correct edits? "Usually" would mean that more than half of two or more participations in such discussions over any given period of time. For example, if I commented more than once in 5 out of the last 8 such discussions, I would be in violation. Would that address your concerns? --В²C ☎ 21:44, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

General response to all comments

I'm probably going to bury myself by saying this, but I'm just astonished by all the responses here. People I've respected and thought I had many productive discussions with are characterizing me and my behavior in a way that is totally foreign to me. I have no idea what most of you are talking about. And it's like you forget there is a real live human being behind the persona of "Born2cycle". Yes, I have strong opinions that I'm passionate about. I care about Misplaced Pages and want to make it better. I care about the community - the editors and the user. Yes, my opinions about improving WP, especially in the area of title decision-making (an area I'm guessing most of you don't care much about), are based on reasons, and I go out of my way to explain them. See my user page. And FAQ. This is a crime? Pardon my French, but WTF? You guys are literally talking about muzzling someone because you don't want to be forced to read what he has to say any more (as if anyone is forced to read anything anyone comments about), or because you don't care about what I do care about. Please keep in mind that we're talking exclusively about my "Tendentious Editing" on TALK pages, where, you know, we're supposed to TALK. In discussions, I tend to err on the side of clarity. Again... this is a crime? What's the point of talking if you're not even understood? Sometimes my opinion is with the majority; sometimes it's with a minority. Sometimes I'm persuasive; sometimes I'm not. Isn't all this normal? How it's supposed to go?

It has been claimed, below, that discussing with me is a waste of time because "discussions are weaponized to defeat enemies". First of all, I have no enemies. Some may think of me as an enemy, but that's a one-way street, I assure you. The idea of using a discussion as a weapon is inherently preposterous, at least in my mind. The whole point of diplomacy (i.e. discussion) is to avoid use of weapons! Discussion is the methodology of peacemakers. That's how I see it. but if people are seeing discussion as "weapons", well, that explains much (smh). And I certainly am not trying to defeat anyone. All I'm trying to do is make title decision-making less problematic and less contentious. Yes, I realize the irony in that, but the road to peace is often built with debate.

I realize I often I hurt my own position by being too verbose, but, again, I tend to err on the side of clarity. And it's not like I'm copying/pasting the same text all over the place. Every single one of my talk page posts is an original edit; each character typed in one by one, like this one. I care deeply about what I'm writing about and I put an inordinate amount of my personal time into it; I get that not everyone else appreciates this. So the solution is to muzzle me? What is the matter with you people? Is that how you treat people in the real world? If so, I'm glad I don't know you in real life, but I doubt you do. Thankfully, for the 1st Amendment. If we had freedom of speech equivalent to 1st Amendment rights on WP, there would be nothing to discuss about my "behavior" here, would there? Consider that. It's not like I'm yelling "Fire!" in a theater, am I?

Or, think of it like this. What if my exact same comments were made not by me, but by, say, three different people, A, B and C? The exact same words, but randomly signed by A, B or C instead of by just one person. How would anything be any different? All those who choose to be involved would still have to read the same text, consider the same arguments. There are claims that my postings are disruptive. But if they were made by A, B and C instead of by me, they wouldn't, would they? So, what is it about what I'm doing that is so problematic? What's the fundamental problem? If you're going to go through sanctioning someone, how about clearly explaining what the reasons are for the sanctioning - what is the real problem you believe you're addressing? Because, other than an apparent desire to muzzle me for tribal emotional reasons that we thankfully counter in the real word with recognition of free speech, I, for one, have no idea. --В²C ☎ 17:02, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

MelanieN, somebody, please help me. I understand what "better receptiveness to compromise and a higher tolerance for the views of other editors" means. What I don't get is how I am not receptive to compromise or how I am not tolerant for the views of others. Being tolerant does not mean agreeing. For example, I'm tolerant of the decision at SJB - I just don't agree with. And I dropped it (though some feel I didn't, so we disagree about that too - how about some tolerance for my views?) --В²C ☎ 20:02, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

FORUM SHOPPING?

From WP:FORUMSHOP: "Where multiple issues do exist, then the raising of the individual issues on the correct pages may be reasonable, but in that case it is normally best to give links to show where else you have raised the question."

I've been accused of forum shopping below, more than once. This is a charge made in good faith, but in error. Per the above, there were multiple issues involved, and I raised each at the appropriate place.

I questioned the close of Sarah Jane Brown at the lead closer's talk page, User_talk:TonyBallioni#Sarah_Jane_Brown. This is the appropriate place to do that.
I considered and discussed continuing with a Move Review with another editor, Amakuru, on his talk page, User_talk:Amakuru#SJB, also an appropriate place for that.
The series of closes at SJB culminating with this one inspired me to post about the responsibility of closers to determine community consensus per WP:CONSENSUS and Misplaced Pages:Requested_moves/Closing_instructions#Determining_consensus rather than counting raw !votes. I did this at WT:RM, also as appropriate. See Wikipedia_talk:Requested_moves#Closers:_Determining_CONSENSUS_rather_than_"consensus".
One of the specific issues at that close had to do with how WP:NATURALDIS applied in that case, and, more generally, in cases like this, where the middle name is not commonly used in reliable sources. I wanted to explore this general issue further, and so I raised it at WT:D (the home of WP:NATURALDIS, specifically at Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation#Criteria_for_determining_whether_someone_is_"commonly_called_X"_for_WP:NATURALDIS.

In retrospect I can understand given the timing and the fact that I raised each of these issues related to the close it can appear to be forum shopping, but it's not at all. Each is a separate general legitimate issue to raise at each of the respective venues, and raised appropriately after the close. If you actually look at each of the discussions, particularly at what I initially posted at each, you'll see that you couldn't reasonably do that at any of the other forums. It's not like I posted the same thing at multiple places; not at all. That is, each one was different and belonged where I posted it. Unfortunately, because of the timing and the participants, the discussions often did tend to drift back to the topic of rehashing the SJB close, but that was not my intent, and I stated as much in most if not all instances. Thank you. --В²C ☎ 17:36, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

TonyBallioni: despite my explanation here, you still claim that I "shopped the close". You describe in your own slanted way what I did at WT:RM: "... essentially a rant about how people need to agree with what you think consensus is when they close discussions". Even if true, how is that shopping the close? My statement speaks for itself, there was no "need" for anyone to agree with me about anything; not implicitly nor explicitly. I'm sorry you read it that way, but I can't be responsible for words you read that are not there. The dearth of you quoting any of my actual words to back up your claim of me "shopping the close" and ranting about others "needing to agree with what I think" is telling. What, by the way, do you even mean by "shop the close"? The close was done. There was nothing left to say about it, especially not at WT:RM. If I wanted to challenge it beyond what I said at your talk page, I would have gone to MRV. Other than being most recently inspired by that close, my "rant" was not about the close. Do you really not see that? Perhaps read it again. As to WT:D, you claim that was me "trying to change consensus when told that wrong on what it was at WT:RM". Again, I'm bewildered that that is what you think that was about. It's like you didn't even read what I wrote there. Exactly what consensus do you think I was trying to change? The only issue there was the wording and meaning of NATURALDIS. This happens all the time after RMs. When RMs seem to go contrary to what policy says, a reasonable issue to pursue is whether some policy wording might need to change. For example, that's how WP:PRIMARYTOPIC got expanded at WP:D to include the historical significance criteria. Because at some RMs the consensus was that a certain topic should be "primary" due to its historical significance even if it's not the one most likely to be sought by users searching with the term in question. So the policy was updated accordingly, but only after someone (perhaps even me - I can't remember) brought it up on the WT:D talk page. The same kind of thing here. In fact, as a result of my starting that discussion, at least one editor even suggested an actual edit to address the issue I raised. You know, the issue my post was raising, as opposed to the one you imagined it to be about (to change some unidentified consensus about who-knows-what). --В²C ☎ 19:43, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Primefac

Another related incident (B2C refusing to accept the results of an RM) was at Fabergé egg. I had closed an RM at Danish Palaces (Fabergé egg), part of which resulted in a new/procedural RM to codify some questions raised at that RM. Following the close of the second RM (RM2), B2C calls into question the result of RM2, claims that it's not valid, and undoes all of the moves resulting from RM2 (see Talk:Fabergé egg/Archive 2). They then proceeded to start a third RM attempting to reverse the result of RM2, which was strongly opposed.

These two RMs (the eggs and Brown) are the only two major interactions I've had with them, and I have consistently seen a battleground attitude where if it doesn't 100% absolutely match the written law of page naming, it's wrong and everyone who believes otherwise is wrong. It's not conducive towards a productive working environment, and undoubtedly has a chilling effect on RM participants. Primefac (talk) 18:08, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by SarekOfVulcan

Considering the lengthy discussion you started on Tony's talk page, B2C, I'm not sure what you think would have been accomplished by him re-starting another discussion on essentially the same topic on your talkpage. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:01, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Those aren't "three different major points", B2C, they're pretty much the definition of WP:FORUMSHOP. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:26, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I honestly don't see how my efforts there, starting it or participating in it, is a violation of any policy. But again, if it is, please let me know which one and how. For some reason, that feels an awful lot like sea lioning to me. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:20, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

@Born2Cycle: Um, no, it's unfair to everybody else here to run an algorithm to figure out if you're being disruptive. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:04, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf

(Commenting here as I proposed sanctions in the most recent AN/I discussion, I'm uninvolved with the specific move discussions). It's less than a month since B2C was brought to AN/I where in a lengthy thread he was reminded (several times) about the arbcom finding and that his behaviour was not well thought of by a significant number of editors. Yet now we're here with evidence that he hasn't learned a single thing and continues to display the exact same behaviour. I think it's time that some restrictions were imposed - the AN/I showed some support for a restriction on the number of comments he may make in any single RM or other article titling disucssion, a prohibition on nominating articles at RM that have had a recent previous discussion (1 year iirc), and a limit to the number of concurrent RM nominations he may make. I'd consider adding to that a requirement that he may challenge the result of an RM discussion only through a formal move review nomination, with a maximum of one such discussion per page. I don't know whether AE has the authority to do that in this case or not though. Thryduulf (talk) 19:16, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

@Born2Cycle: Folks, not one person has even requested I change my behavior on my user talk page. Maybe, maybe not. However many people did at the recent AN/I, it was clearly implicit in the discussion you were involved with on TonyBallioni's talk page and the Arbitration Committee did so several years back. The evidence suggests that you haven't been taking the hint. Thryduulf (talk) 19:58, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I would agree that TonyBallioni's suggestion of Born2cycle is banned from discussing Misplaced Pages article naming policies, guidelines, and conventions outside of individual WP:RMs and WP:MRVs. has merit, but I'd place it in addition to the suggestion I made earlier rather than as a replacement for it. Thryduulf (talk) 21:04, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: yes, this has been going on for years. The arbitration case concluded in March 2012 (6 years ago) and a quick glance at some of the evidence presented there shows behaviour essentially identical to today from October 2011. Thryduulf (talk) 02:38, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Based on B2C's most recent comments, and in agreement with iridescent I withdraw my previous proposal and now support a complete topic from all discussions related to (a) article titling policies, guidelines, conventions and similar; and (b) the title of any page on Wikipeida, including but not limited to requested moves and move reviews. The sole exception is a single, short comment in a move review, intiated by another editor, of an RM he closed. Such a comment must be confined to his own actions and reasoning and must not comment or speculate on the actions, motivations or reasoning of any other editor. If he chooses to demonstrate he can edit collaboratively in other areas, that's excellent, if he chooses not to then that's his choice. He's had all the rope I'm prepared to extend. Thryduulf (talk) 23:03, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Comment by SN54129

Sup Born2cycle. Just an FYI, put per the arb guidelines, "If you must respond to some statement by another editor on the arbitration request, then you must do so in your own section. There may be no threaded discussion (that is, comments in any section but your own) on any arbitration request; any such threaded discussion will be summarily removed by a clerk or arbitrator."
Also, I thikn the point that SoV / TB are making is that it would be qualitatively the same discussion—where ever it actually took place. Unfortunately, it's almost never the case that the "clock of sanctions" is re-set by merely moving the discussion to a different page. Further, I draw from that they believe that such an effort would be unhelpful as it would merely retead existing ground. ...SerialNumber54129 19:29, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by ValarianB

As a participant in the Mrs. Brown discussion, and reading some of the following discussions on other talk pages and such (what a fascinating, years-long topic people have invested in this!), a line at User_talk:TonyBallioni#Sarah_Jane_Brown that was most concerning was this, Very similar claims were made in most of the multiple "no consensus" closes for the RM proposals listed below when they were closed based on trying to find "consensus" (and failing) rather than trying to find WP:CONSENSUS (like they should have), yet in each case eventually there was an RM in which WP:CONSENSUS was finally recognized, and the disputed finally resolved.. This person seems to have an end goal in mind, the "Right Decision", and will initiate discussion after discussion after discussion until that comes about. It seems antithetical to the Misplaced Pages to just roll the dice every few years hoping that the right set up people will show up, while the "wrong" set of people fail to. ValarianB (talk) 19:33, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Beyond My Ken

When B2C writes above: "...I meant no one came to my user talk page in regard to my behavior in discussions since the SJB decision, which is what apparently sparked this.", in all probability that's because anyone who has ever dealt with B2C, or followed the long-running B2C saga on the noticeboards, is aware that asking B2C to change their behavior is essentially like talking to a brick wall, and almost never results in any change in behavior. I mean, this has been going on for, what, years? Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:43, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Awilley

I also commented in the AN/I discussion so I'm putting myself here. My only involvement that I can remember was as part of a 3-admin close panel some years ago at an RM where B2C had participated. I only remember it because they were so overbearing and tendentious in their approach. Anyway, I second support for the limited sanctions of the type proposed by User:Thryduulf that would limit the creation and participation in RM discussions but without shutting them out completely. It is their field of expertise and passion after all, I just think they need a throttle for the sake of everybody else. ~Awilley (talk) 05:04, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Jayron32

Discussions with B2C involved are not fruitful, because he's not interested in compromise or even consensus. For him, discussions are weaponized to defeat his enemies, which is not a productive way to move a consensus-built organization forward. As can be demonstrated with the most recent move discussion, even if consensus is against him, his argument is that it isn't a real consensus, because <reasons>. And he's quite willing to use discussion as a bludgeon to wear down those that hold different positions than he does, to the point where he thinks he can win by default because people don't want to deal with that, not merely because the concede that he has valid points, but that through the sheer repetitive weight of his arguments, he's got to be right. He may even be right some times; but that's irrelevent when his discussion technique does not foster a collaborative working environment. --Jayron 32 14:46, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by MelanieN

I have not interacted with B2C for years and have no opinion on the SJB title. I’d just like to note, reading this discussion, that he is his own best evidence against himself. In his latest comment, he continues to display exactly the behaviors that he has been accused of and warned about for at least six years. Instead of reflecting a "better receptiveness to compromise and a higher tolerance for the views of other editors," he accuses others of "an apparent desire to muzzle me for tribal emotional reasons". Illustrating his persistent IDHT attitude, he says "I have no idea what most of you are talking about." --MelanieN (talk) 19:00, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by andrewa

The discussion between myself and B2C at Talk:Sarah Jane Brown#See wt:DAB#Criteria for determining whether someone is "commonly called X" for WP:NATURALDIS is relevant I think, and my views are expressed there. Andrewa (talk) 22:29, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by (SmokeyJoe)

I first encountered born2cycle at wt:consensus (Wikipedia_talk:Consensus/Archive_11), where I remember being intrigued at his interesting new perspective, before soon deciding that he has a fundamental misunderstanding of concensus, that he was pushing for an algorithmic method for deciding consensus that eliminated human opinion and compromise for minority views. To quote his fourth statement from his first day there:

“I don't think so, and, in fact, suggest de-emphasizing if not eliminating other references to "compromise" on the page. I mean, what exactly in the consensus building process is supposed to be compromised? What standards are to be lowered? What principles are to be ignored? What policies dismissed? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:54, 7 November 2011 (UTC)”

Also I note in passing that he has 90 posts on that archive in less than one month. Working towards consensus is a tricky art, but this editor burst onto the scene, and dominated the conversations telling everyone how is should be done, with a pathological inability to comprehend “compromise”. He also doesn’t understand that policy is meant to describe, not prescribe, best practice. Looking back at the details, nothing has changed.

The B2C problem is complicated because he is often right about something, if that something is the detail of titling policy. Where I think he is lacking is with the concept of “consensus”.

B2C has complained that no one has reached out to him to explain the problem. This is not true. I have made a number of such posts on his talk page. It was not productive, because if he doesn’t like the direction of the conversation he archives or deletes the thread. More productive conversations were being held on my talk page, although he would disengage after taking a point but not learn anything, not change any behaviour.

Examples of failed attempts to explain things to him on his talk page include:

A topic ban is desperately needed. However, I don’t think banning him from RM discussions is completely necessary. Possibly, he could be limited by posts or kilobytes to single discussions. I propose that instead he should minimally be banned from all policy and guideline pages relating to titling, closing discussions, and consensus. It's on these pages that he crosses from obnoxious to long term disruption. Probably, a ban from all Misplaced Pages policy and guideline pages would be better. It’s not as if he attempts to contribute to policy areas other than on titling, and if his new hobby were to be telling the community how to do things on some other matter, I predict it will not be net-productive.

While occasionally, the community has to tell a volunteer that their particular efforts in a particular area are not wanted, it’s not a good for any one volunteer to tell another volunteer, it can be helpful to provide some suggestions. My suggestions for B2C would include:

Cycling, roads, highways, or any other mainspace pages.
WP:AfD

I wish him well, but he needs to broaden his hobbies. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:47, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Born2cycle

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

Quite aside from whether this breaches the sanctions or not, the attitude expressed in Not everyone agrees with my opinions and ideas. Sadly, some develop animosity towards me personally as a result. is about as clear-cut an embodiment of the tendentious editing mentality as I've ever seen. I'd be inclined to take this to ANI to get consensus for a "Born2cycle is restricted from commenting on page naming disputes outside of the formal Requested Move process" restriction, rather than trying to put a band-aid over the issue here; sure, I can block for a week, a month, a year, but it's fairly clear that the problem will immediately restart as soon as the block expires if there isn't a formal restriction in place. ‑ Iridescent 19:23, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
Born2cycle, you claim that not one person has even requested I change my behavior on my user talk page—forgive my sarcasm, but you are aware that at the time of writing a large part of your userpage consists of a list you've created of instances of assorted people requesting you change your behavior? I really don't want to do this, but your apparent unwillingness here even to admit the possibility that it's possible that you could be wrong and everyone else could be right is pushing me towards an indefinite block ("undefined" not "infinite") unless you're willing to accept a restriction along the lines proposed by Thryduulf above. ‑ Iridescent 20:52, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
OK, in light of this I think we're done here unless anyone other than B2C has anything further to add. That after all this you specifically explain that you can't understand the difference between "me versus the world" and "opinion held by multiple people"; that you somehow think that the First Amendment (which relates to the US government and has not the slightest relevance to Misplaced Pages's internal administration; we'd be perfectly within our rights to ban users from using the letter "w", or to block all editors with eight-character usernames, if there was community consensus for it) is relevant here; and that you think that those criticising you are operating from "an apparent desire to muzzle me for tribal emotional reasons that we thankfully counter in the real word with recognition of free speech", not a unanimous consensus that you're acting inappropriately and against both the spirit of Misplaced Pages in general and against your restrictions in particular, makes me feel that if you don't get it now you're never going to. Despite recognising that it would be a de facto site ban unless you choose to work in a different part of Misplaced Pages, I'm now of the opinion that at least a temporary total ban from everything relating to article renaming is the only thing that's going to put a stop to this. ‑ Iridescent 20:33, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
The "Born2cycle's editing on the disputed pages and related subjects has hampered efforts at resolution, specifically by excessive responses and not following the spirit of WP:BRD" finding of fact in the Arbcom case seems to be highly relevant here, specifically the "excessive responses" part. Initially I thought banning Born2cycle from all meta-discussions involving the title of the Sarah Jane Brown article would be sufficient but Primefac's statement has me leaning towards a broader restriction. --NeilN 19:26, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
I opined at the ANI, but little good it did, and I consider myself uninvolved. We do have the authority to topic ban him from RM and moves in general, and anything else his behavior has touched on in 4.2 of the Arb finding. I think Iridescent is correct that this is a textbook case of WP:TE, which means any sanction would be on the table but as a standard admin function, not an AE action. I don't think going back to ANI is required as the evidence is fairly clear, although a sanctioning admin could volunteer for review at WP:AN afterwards. I don't think kicking this can down the road is going to benefit anyone, and something firm that covers a broad enough scope, needs to be done. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:54, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
- How about: "For an indefinite period of time, you are topic banned from discussing the moving or renaming of any page, while on any page of the English Misplaced Pages website." Zero talk about any move, anywhere on the domain, from anywhere on the domain, so it is a broad ban, yet narrow enough to allow him the opportunity to participate in the 98% of the encyclopedia that isn't about moves/renaming. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 20:54, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

I participated in the RM but I have not interacted with B2C further, so I consider myself uninvolved. Looking through all that has been presented in this request, this seems to be one of the most obvious cases of WP:FORUMSHOP and WP:STICK I have seen to date. B2C basically voiced their disagreement with the way a certain RM was closed everywhere but WP:MRV, the only place it fits. And as Primefac points out, the SJB discussion was not the first time B2C acted this way (as, of course, basically does Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation which included a warning that B2C's contributions to discussion must reflect a better receptiveness to compromise and a higher tolerance for the views of other editors.). As Iridescent says, this has WP:TE written all over it. I don't think acting here is like putting a band-aid over the issue though. Per Dennis Brown, topic banning B2C from all article titles related discussions is a possible sanction that can be imposed by the currently allowed DS on the aforementioned case and should be sufficient to either get them to drop the stick or be forced to drop it. Regards So Why 08:21, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
A topic ban from naming discussions would, of course, effectively be an indefinite block - it's all he does here. His last 500 mainspace contributions take you back to July 2012, and most of those were related to article naming as well. On the other hand, of course, someone who's only really here to argue amount article naming - whilst not quite approaching WP:NOTHERE - isn't exactly improving the encyclopedia either. Black Kite (talk) 19:53, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
I think that the last observation by Black Kite is the most pertinent. Somebody who is apparently here only to quibble (at excruciating length) about article naming really, really needs to find another hobby. Or professional help. I support a topic ban about anything related to article titles. Sandstein 22:14, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

This has been a long and tedious report. As per remedy 4.2 it the above named Arbitration case Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to the English Misplaced Pages Manual of Style and article titles policy, broadly construed. The scope of this remedy refers to discussions about the policies and guidelines mentioned, and does not extend to individual move requests, move reviews, article talk pages, or other venues at which individual article names may be discussed. Disruption in those areas should be handled by normal administrative means. we are not authorized to use discretionary sanctions in the manner I have described above. Therefore, I have no choice but to either take a case to WP:ANI or use standard admin discretion. I think there is sufficient evidence that Born2cycle has violated the principles in WP:TE, and to the point that it violates WP:DE in a clear and convincing way, and that a larger ANI discussion is not required. I note that there is a consensus to this effect here. Therefore, I have indefinitely blocked them. Of course, any admin may unblock them with any condition, including the condition I mentioned above, that they 100% avoid all rename/move discussions at any level, on any page. To be clear, this is a standard admin action, not an WP:AE action, thus reviewable on his talk page or at WP:AN. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:58, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by ScratchMarshall

Appeal unanimously declined. Sandstein 08:45, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
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 ScratchMarshall (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – ScratchMarshall (talk) 19:43, 6 March 2018 (UTC) Sanction being appealed Topic ban from the subject of Biographies of Living Persons, imposed at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive977#ScratchMarshall_promoting_conspiracy_theories logged at special:diff/828627380 Administrator imposing the sanction NeilN (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) Notification of that administrator special:diff/829121439 Statement by ScratchMarshall Neil posted this 19:24 March 3rd: User_talk:ScratchMarshall#Notice_that_you_are_now_subject_to_an_arbitration_enforcement_topic_ban after MrX posted this 18:19 March 3rd https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=828626868#ScratchMarshall_promoting_conspiracy_theories which was 1 hour 5 minutes afterward. I am appealing this sanction because I do not believe my 2 redacted to the article about this person violated BLP policy. This was the keystone in the allegations made against me, and I believe it is grounds to have the case reviewed because it was a fraudulent accusation. I tried to talk directly to NeilN to appeal but special:diff/829060226 shows he denied my stage 1 appeal of direct communication. At special:diff/828310006 MrX left me a warning on my talk page on March 1st. MrX accused me of violating BLP policies. At special:diff/828529765 Acroterion banned me for 48 hours on March 3. Acroterion was an involved administrator. He alleges I posted defamatory speculation. These actions center around these edits. I must link the history page directly because of the lack of 'prev'. Presumably Acroterion scrubbed the history, I don't know how to check that. Neither of them would give any sort of detailed explanation as to how they supposedly thought I was violating BLP. MrX had mentioned: Removed per WP:NOTSCANDAL and WP:BLP. Heavy.com is not a reliable source and you can't use Misplaced Pages to speculated about conspiracy theories about living people. I hadn't seen a problem with linking to heavy because the "5 Fast Facts" article was (and still is) cited on the article, I was merely duplicating the source in the talk page to discuss it. I will not edit the BLP article or its talk page until the sanctions are lifted, but it is essential that I am able to LINK to it, since it contains important evidence required for my appeal. https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=David_Hogg_(activist)&oldid=828083696 shows a version of the page as MrX left it on February 28. It includes 2 articles by Stephanie Dube Dwilson from Heavy.com, one of which was the one I had mentioned on the talk page. I submit this as evidence that MrX had absolutely no problem with Heavy, because he left these sources intact. Yet when I cited them merely on the talk page, this was somehow a BLP violation? I hadn't noticed that at the time, but had respected the objection as there were plenty of sources to cite and I had no attachment to Heavy. So that is why I created the "Business Insider" section, to provide an alternative more reputable-sounding source to see if MrX objected to it. So far, the citation of Allan Smith's article has not been redacted, so I assume no. You can read at User_talk:MrX#I_require_some_clarification how I attempted to learn more information about MrX's objection. Everything except what he erased in special:diff/828524383. This surrounds my addition of a talk page contribution citing an article on wusa9.com by a reporter named Eliana Block. This is not visible in the BLP talk page because of the removal of diffs, presumably by Acroterion. This was a Washington DC news source which is the largest market-size affiliate of CBS. It's been around since 1949. I was using these sources to report on notable debunkings. This has been twisted as if I were promoting the material which was debunked. I ask uninvolved admins, what serves to propogate conspiracy theories more? reporting on proof from reliable sources which debunks said theories, so that people will know they are false claims and not repeat them removing proof from reliable sources, interfering with the debunking, so that people will not know they are false claims and may keep repeating them What I did in this removed post, what Eliana Block did, was point out that some troll took a photograph of the Stoneman Douglas yearbook and said it was another school's yearbook, that a bunch of gullible people ran with that, and then a Stoneman Douglas student disproved the allegation by doing a live video showing the page was from the SD yearbook and not any other school's. Twitter is not a reliable source on its own, but it is when verified by reliable sources. Eliana Block of WUSA 9 is a reliable source, so it is grounds to link the the secondary source she cited. I am perplexed by these accusations and how nobody has spoken against them, because it is entirely clear that I was presenting reliably sourced debunkings of false accusations for discussion on the talk page, the exact opposite of promoting the accusations. This was not in any way promoting conspiracy theories. Debunking false accusations innoculates against conspiracy theories. Any theory based on "Redondo Yearbook" claim falls apart with the proof of it being a Stoneman Yearbook. Response 1 of 1 to D4iNa4 I do not believe the citation of Eliana Block's article or her Joey Wong video source was a BLP violation. If there was some aspect besides posting this which Acroterion believes was a BLP violation when he rolled back my edit, I leave it to Acroterion to clarify that. So far Acroterion's comments on this that I'm aware of are limited to: Reposting defamatory speculation verbatim is a gross violation of BLP. Veiling it as discussion of conspiracy theories doesn't make it complaint with policy. Acroterion might take this opportunity to rephrase the nature of objection to the suppressed diffs if it was something other than citing from Eliana Block. If that's all it was, then yes, I do not believe doing so was a BLP violation, so suppressing that citation seems like an abuse of admin tools. ScratchMarshall (talk) 20:18, 6 March 2018 (UTC) Response 1 of 3 to NeilN Re we don't debunk fringe conspiracy theories by mentioning them in a BLP and then saying "but this is all unproven" - we simply ignore them. I direct Neil to look at some statements presently included in articles, which I did not add. David_Hogg_(activist)#Attacks_and_conspiracy_theories Claims were also made that Hogg was being "coached" by his father A video was published mischaracterizing a 2017 Los Angeles CBS television report posts that wrongly claim that Hogg and other students are crisis actors Stoneman_Douglas_High_School_shooting#Conspiracy_theories,_disinformation,_and_harassment false claims that it never happened or that it was staged by "crisis actors" Harrison, sent an email to the Tampa Bay Times stating "oth kids in the picture are not students here but actors that travel to various crisis when they happen Kingston suggested student demonstrators were paid by billionaire George Soros or were supported by members of Antifa. A video with a description espousing a conspiracy theory that Stoneman student David Hogg was a "crisis actor" reached No. 1 on YouTube's trending page Here we can see specific details of false allegations are reviewed rather than ignored. Do you have plans to remove all of this and issue BLP warnings to whoever added these details? ScratchMarshall (talk) 20:29, 6 March 2018 (UTC) Response 1 of 1 to Mr X Your ANI appeal was a farce because only admins could view what was deleted. The opinions formed by people unable to see the suppressed diffs hold no weight. You actively misrepresented my edits as being BLP violations when they were not. You poisoned the well, ensuring there could be no neutral discussion at ANI. That is why an admin-only discussion is important. Acroterion was involved. Your calling him "uninvolved" is a falsehood. Response 1 of 1 to Acroterion More vagueness from you: an unnecessary catalog of speculations, in considerable detail, on the conspiracy theories associated with Mr. Hogg If my words are so detailed, why do yours remain so vague? The only thing I recall speculating on was why Hogg could've been in Redondo in 2017. I said I thought it was probably a summer vacation but that I would not add that to the article unless I found a source with that. I did end up finding said source. That's not a conspiracy theory, that's an ANTI-conspiracy theory. So really, be specific, because I think you're avoiding any specific details or examples of what I allegedly pushed because they don't exist. Extensive discussion of BLP-violating allegations of this kind are unnecessary and are a lightly-veiled way of placing conspiracy theories about living people into Misplaced Pages namespaces These aren't BLP-violating allegations. The most offensive claim, that Hogg was a crisis actor, remains up on the page, and I did not put that there. All I did was bring up on the talk page was the debunking of memes. You keep talking as if you could read my motives, yet to anyone who understands this, debunking theories against Hogg would be the last thing someone would want to do if they wanted to promote conspiracy theory. Someone wanting to promote conspiracy theories would only post un-debunked theories, or only post theories in isolation without their debunking. Acroterion, please explain why the source you removed and the action you took (what I will term the "Block Block" because you blocked me after reverting an addition of an article by Eliana Block) are in line with BLP. How did Eliana Block's article endanger Hogg's reputation? As SarekOfVulcan has pointed out, there is no obvious BLP violation in those diffs. I have reconsidered my redaction of some of ScratchMarshal's edits as essentially futile, in that, clothed as they are in refutation, they aren't blatant BLP violations Thank you for admitting that you abused your admin tools. I see these are no longer redacted. If you un-redacted the diffs, that should weigh in your favor, but that you only did so after your abuse was highlighted is no longer worth much. You still haven't actually restored the sections to the page though, which I think you should do, since you have admitted they are not BLP violations. They are not "clothed". You are assuming bad faith. These are reliable sources and I was responsibly trying to discuss how notable they were on the talk page instead of rushing to put them in the article. ScratchMarshall (talk) 02:36, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Response 2 of 3 to NeilN When you said "what you advocated here" you linked to a diff where the only URL I added was https://heavy.com/news/2018/02/david-hogg-florida-school-shooting-california-video/ The title of that article is "David Hogg: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know" by Stephanie Dube Dwilson, from 20 February 2018. This was a source ALREADY PRESENT IN THE ARTICLE. I may as well go track down who added it... @CookieMonster755: appears to be the one who added it, on February 25: special:diff/827485615 Notably MrX edited directly after this (less than 2 hours later): special:diff/827498926 and did not object to this source in any way. So this source remains in the article for 7 days and when I reproduce this same source (untouched in the article for a full week, nobody voices any problems with it) suddenly MrX has a problem with it! Interesting. Were you aware that this source was already in the article for a full week, that I had not added it, that MrX had been aware of the source and had no problem with it being in the article? Is there not an obvious double standard being applied where it's okay for CM755 to add this to the article and for MrX to tolerate it, but citing the same article on the talk page is suddenly sinister? ScratchMarshall (talk) 02:32, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Am I in trouble? :( CookieMonster755 ✉ 05:46, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Response 3 of 3 to NeilN The source is currently used as a reference for factual material, not as a reference for reports on fringe/conspiracy theories presented by fringe sources. MrX claimed Heavy was an unreliable source and reverted my edit. You can see this Feb 1 at special:diff/828309263 Either it's a good source or a bad source. That Hogg was the target of an easily disproven yearbook claim IS factual material. However fringe LagBeachAntifa9 was is irrelevant, because enough people ran with it that it ceased to be fringe, as enough people were repeating the claim for Stephanie Dwilson to report on it, as well as other sources. The problem here is you are insisting it is "fringe" based on your own WP:OR, in direct contradiction of other sources which prove it is not fringe. That was why I followed up Heavy.com with BusinessInsider.com and WUSA9.com. The way we resolve disagreements on notability is by weighing sources, not injecting personal opinions. I took careful note of what Acroterion said. It was a "lightly-veiled" attack against me, and you are clearly endorising this form of personal attack against me. I was discussing widely-covered debunkings of theories which had caused enough waves to be worth reporting on to debunk by these reporters. There is no 'veiling' going on here. I was not and am not promoting those theories. Promoting discredited theories by posting the proof which debunks them would not make any sense. Why would someone promote a toothless theory? The theories which seem more dangerous to me are the broader ones without associated 100% debunkings of specific facts, like the allegation Hogg was coached or that he was a crisis actor. I never added those to the page, and their presence concerns me. These are the allegations which hold BLP risks, not "a video proved a page of photos was from the Stoneman Douglas Yearbook and not the Redondo Shores yearbook". That holds 0 risk to Hogg. ScratchMarshall (talk) 03:09, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by NeilN I looked at the report filed by MrX at here and agreed with their statement, "ScratchMarshall has largely spent his time on Misplaced Pages subtly pushing far-right propaganda and conspiracy theories in the style of a concern troll" based on the evidence presented. The "concern troll" description is apt as we don't debunk fringe conspiracy theories by mentioning them in a BLP and then saying "but this is all unproven" - we simply ignore them. Editors have tried to communicate this to ScratchMarshall and their reactions can be read in the linked ANI thread. I feel a BLP topic ban is needed and justified as this editor needs to learn what "it is not Misplaced Pages's job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives" means. --NeilN 20:14, 6 March 2018 (UTC) @ScratchMarshall: Fringe as largely presented in fringe sources. Like what you advocated here. --NeilN 20:42, 6 March 2018 (UTC) @ScratchMarshall: You're not getting the point. The source is currently used as a reference for factual material, not as a reference for reports on fringe/conspiracy theories presented by fringe sources. You are constantly using the same technique (another example). You should take careful note of what Acroterion said below, especially the last three sentences. --NeilN 02:50, 7 March 2018 (UTC) And now we have this. --NeilN 03:05, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by MrX I carefully documented the fringe POV-pushing and disruption, at AN/I. Several editors reviewed the evidence and supported the same conclusion that I made. An uninvolved admin applied discretionary sanctions in accordance with policy. There is no legitimate basis for this appeal, so it should be denied.- Mr X 🖋 21:20, 6 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by Acroterion ScratchMarshal has been spitballing BLP-violating conspiracy theories on talkpages and in articles since last summer. MrX has amply documented this behavior over a range of topics. It has long been best practice on conspiracy-infused topics to refrain from quoting the conspiracy allegations in any more than the briefest terms. At Talk:David Hogg (activist) ScratchMarshal opened discussion by posting extensive quotes discussing the CTs with no clear emphasis other than getting it on the talkpage. The comments by ScratchMarshal at Talk:David Hogg (activist) are an unnecessary catalog of speculations, in considerable detail, on the conspiracy theories associated with Mr. Hogg, and taken in mass they are fringe gossip on a BLP talkpage. When warned of BLP concerns by MrX, ScratchMarshal waited a couple of hours and reposted the discussion MrX objected to on the talkpage. This kind of gaming of other editors' clearly-stated concerns is disruptive and led directly to my block. In reviewing ScratchMarshal's edits at Talk:David Hogg (activist) I have reconsidered my redaction of some of ScratchMarshal's edits as essentially futile, in that, clothed as they are in refutation, they aren't blatant BLP violations, but it doesn't change my reasons for blocking. ScratchMarshal's backhanded practice of framing the allegations as debunked reports posted in full for discussion is a way of skirting the letter of BLP. Extensive discussion of BLP-violating allegations of this kind are unnecessary and are a lightly-veiled way of placing conspiracy theories about living people into Misplaced Pages namespaces. Talkpages are not fora for speculating about conspiracy theories. Acroterion (talk) 00:58, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Statement by (involved editor 2) Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by ScratchMarshall @ScratchMarshall: do you still believe that you were correct here? D4iNa4 (talk) 19:49, 6 March 2018 (UTC) @D4iNa4: Correct about what? There's a whole lot of text there to be opined on. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:53, 6 March 2018 (UTC) Asked if ScratchMarshall really believes that he was not involved in BLP violation and Acroterion was abusing admin tools when he suppressed the diffs of talk page, due to BLP violation. D4iNa4 (talk) 20:04, 6 March 2018 (UTC) I don't see a BLP violation in those suppressed diffs. What do you think is the vio? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:12, 6 March 2018 (UTC) So, the problem is that ScratchMarshall is trying to end-run BLP by pushing fringe POV links (and thus muddying articles with bad stuff); this here - this proceeding - is exactly what they want to have happen. Discussing this is doing their work for them.--Jorm (talk) 03:26, 7 March 2018 (UTC) Result of the appeal by ScratchMarshall This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above. Based on the linked ANI thread and NeilN's statement, I would decline the appeal. ScratchMarshall's statement of appeal is confusing at best. Sandstein 20:48, 6 March 2018 (UTC) I concur with Sandstein. NeilN has laid out a reasonable case for why the sanction was placed. It is my view that this appeal should be declined. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:03, 6 March 2018 (UTC) As a note, I've blocked ScratchMarshall for disruptive editing for forum shopping over this and unwarranted attacks on Acroterion. This is a regular admin action, and I do not think makes me involved re: this appeal. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:49, 7 March 2018 (UTC) I also concur. I see no basis for granting this appeal. Thryduulf (talk) 21:35, 6 March 2018 (UTC) I now think that a one-way interaction ban with Acroterion would be of significant benefit - SM seems barely able to comment without making yet another personal attack against them. This is in addition to the present 1-week block and any other block or ban proposed. Thryduulf (talk) 04:27, 7 March 2018 (UTC) I saw the ANI report yesterday, and I've now had time to examine User:ScratchMarshall's relevant editing history, the case made by User:NeilN for the sanction, the original report made by User:MrX and the evidence presented (and in which I would judge the assertion "ScratchMarshall has largely spent his time on Misplaced Pages subtly pushing far-right propaganda and conspiracy theories in the style of a concern troll" as accurate), and comments made by User:Acroterion (among others). I think a solid case for a BLP topic ban has been made and adequately supported, and I would decline the appeal. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:41, 7 March 2018 (UTC) I've been quietly watching this and the ANI thread; and looking over ScratchMarshall's editing history, and think the enforcement was spot on here; the assessment of his editing is accurate and his editing needs to change. I would deny the appeal as well. --Jayron 32 13:59, 7 March 2018 (UTC) I've had the time to look at a cross-section of this editor's work and I agree with the assessments above. Taken in isolation, each edit is generally benign enough. When you look at the editing pattern as a whole though, it is clear that the intent is concern trolling and the inclusion of a particular political POV in the subject area. I would decline this appeal on those grounds. Lankiveil 00:12, 8 March 2018 (UTC).

Appeal unanimously declined. Sandstein 08:45, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

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: ScratchMarshall (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – ScratchMarshall (talk) 19:43, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed: Topic ban from the subject of Biographies of Living Persons,

imposed at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive977#ScratchMarshall_promoting_conspiracy_theories logged at special:diff/828627380

Administrator imposing the sanction: NeilN (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Notification of that administrator: special:diff/829121439

Statement by ScratchMarshall

Neil posted this 19:24 March 3rd: User_talk:ScratchMarshall#Notice_that_you_are_now_subject_to_an_arbitration_enforcement_topic_ban after MrX posted this 18:19 March 3rd https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=828626868#ScratchMarshall_promoting_conspiracy_theories which was 1 hour 5 minutes afterward.

I am appealing this sanction because I do not believe my 2 redacted to the article about this person violated BLP policy. This was the keystone in the allegations made against me, and I believe it is grounds to have the case reviewed because it was a fraudulent accusation.

I tried to talk directly to NeilN to appeal but special:diff/829060226 shows he denied my stage 1 appeal of direct communication.

At special:diff/828310006 MrX left me a warning on my talk page on March 1st. MrX accused me of violating BLP policies.

At special:diff/828529765 Acroterion banned me for 48 hours on March 3. Acroterion was an involved administrator. He alleges I posted defamatory speculation.

These actions center around these edits. I must link the history page directly because of the lack of 'prev'. Presumably Acroterion scrubbed the history, I don't know how to check that.

Neither of them would give any sort of detailed explanation as to how they supposedly thought I was violating BLP.

MrX had mentioned:

Removed per WP:NOTSCANDAL and WP:BLP. Heavy.com is not a reliable source and you can't use Misplaced Pages to speculated about conspiracy theories about living people.

I hadn't seen a problem with linking to heavy because the "5 Fast Facts" article was (and still is) cited on the article, I was merely duplicating the source in the talk page to discuss it.

I will not edit the BLP article or its talk page until the sanctions are lifted, but it is essential that I am able to LINK to it, since it contains important evidence required for my appeal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=David_Hogg_(activist)&oldid=828083696 shows a version of the page as MrX left it on February 28. It includes 2 articles by Stephanie Dube Dwilson from Heavy.com, one of which was the one I had mentioned on the talk page. I submit this as evidence that MrX had absolutely no problem with Heavy, because he left these sources intact.

Yet when I cited them merely on the talk page, this was somehow a BLP violation?

I hadn't noticed that at the time, but had respected the objection as there were plenty of sources to cite and I had no attachment to Heavy. So that is why I created the "Business Insider" section, to provide an alternative more reputable-sounding source to see if MrX objected to it. So far, the citation of Allan Smith's article has not been redacted, so I assume no.

You can read at User_talk:MrX#I_require_some_clarification how I attempted to learn more information about MrX's objection. Everything except what he erased in special:diff/828524383.

This surrounds my addition of a talk page contribution citing an article on wusa9.com by a reporter named Eliana Block. This is not visible in the BLP talk page because of the removal of diffs, presumably by Acroterion.

This was a Washington DC news source which is the largest market-size affiliate of CBS. It's been around since 1949.

I was using these sources to report on notable debunkings. This has been twisted as if I were promoting the material which was debunked.

I ask uninvolved admins, what serves to propogate conspiracy theories more?

reporting on proof from reliable sources which debunks said theories, so that people will know they are false claims and not repeat them
removing proof from reliable sources, interfering with the debunking, so that people will not know they are false claims and may keep repeating them

What I did in this removed post, what Eliana Block did, was point out that some troll took a photograph of the Stoneman Douglas yearbook and said it was another school's yearbook, that a bunch of gullible people ran with that, and then a Stoneman Douglas student disproved the allegation by doing a live video showing the page was from the SD yearbook and not any other school's.

Twitter is not a reliable source on its own, but it is when verified by reliable sources. Eliana Block of WUSA 9 is a reliable source, so it is grounds to link the the secondary source she cited.

I am perplexed by these accusations and how nobody has spoken against them, because it is entirely clear that I was presenting reliably sourced debunkings of false accusations for discussion on the talk page, the exact opposite of promoting the accusations.

This was not in any way promoting conspiracy theories. Debunking false accusations innoculates against conspiracy theories. Any theory based on "Redondo Yearbook" claim falls apart with the proof of it being a Stoneman Yearbook.

Response 1 of 1 to D4iNa4

I do not believe the citation of Eliana Block's article or her Joey Wong video source was a BLP violation. If there was some aspect besides posting this which Acroterion believes was a BLP violation when he rolled back my edit, I leave it to Acroterion to clarify that. So far Acroterion's comments on this that I'm aware of are limited to:

Reposting defamatory speculation verbatim is a gross violation of BLP. Veiling it as discussion of conspiracy theories doesn't make it complaint with policy.

Acroterion might take this opportunity to rephrase the nature of objection to the suppressed diffs if it was something other than citing from Eliana Block.

If that's all it was, then yes, I do not believe doing so was a BLP violation, so suppressing that citation seems like an abuse of admin tools. ScratchMarshall (talk) 20:18, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Response 1 of 3 to NeilN

we don't debunk fringe conspiracy theories by mentioning them in a BLP and then saying "but this is all unproven" - we simply ignore them.

I direct Neil to look at some statements presently included in articles, which I did not add.

David_Hogg_(activist)#Attacks_and_conspiracy_theories

Claims were also made that Hogg was being "coached" by his father

A video was published mischaracterizing a 2017 Los Angeles CBS television report

posts that wrongly claim that Hogg and other students are crisis actors

Stoneman_Douglas_High_School_shooting#Conspiracy_theories,_disinformation,_and_harassment

false claims that it never happened or that it was staged by "crisis actors"

Harrison, sent an email to the Tampa Bay Times stating "oth kids in the picture are not students here but actors that travel to various crisis when they happen

Kingston suggested student demonstrators were paid by billionaire George Soros or were supported by members of Antifa.

A video with a description espousing a conspiracy theory that Stoneman student David Hogg was a "crisis actor" reached No. 1 on YouTube's trending page

Here we can see specific details of false allegations are reviewed rather than ignored.

Do you have plans to remove all of this and issue BLP warnings to whoever added these details? ScratchMarshall (talk) 20:29, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Response 1 of 1 to Mr X

Your ANI appeal was a farce because only admins could view what was deleted. The opinions formed by people unable to see the suppressed diffs hold no weight. You actively misrepresented my edits as being BLP violations when they were not. You poisoned the well, ensuring there could be no neutral discussion at ANI. That is why an admin-only discussion is important. Acroterion was involved. Your calling him "uninvolved" is a falsehood.

Response 1 of 1 to Acroterion

More vagueness from you:

an unnecessary catalog of speculations, in considerable detail, on the conspiracy theories associated with Mr. Hogg

If my words are so detailed, why do yours remain so vague? The only thing I recall speculating on was why Hogg could've been in Redondo in 2017. I said I thought it was probably a summer vacation but that I would not add that to the article unless I found a source with that. I did end up finding said source.

That's not a conspiracy theory, that's an ANTI-conspiracy theory.

So really, be specific, because I think you're avoiding any specific details or examples of what I allegedly pushed because they don't exist.

Extensive discussion of BLP-violating allegations of this kind are unnecessary and are a lightly-veiled way of placing conspiracy theories about living people into Misplaced Pages namespaces

These aren't BLP-violating allegations. The most offensive claim, that Hogg was a crisis actor, remains up on the page, and I did not put that there. All I did was bring up on the talk page was the debunking of memes.

You keep talking as if you could read my motives, yet to anyone who understands this, debunking theories against Hogg would be the last thing someone would want to do if they wanted to promote conspiracy theory.

Someone wanting to promote conspiracy theories would only post un-debunked theories, or only post theories in isolation without their debunking.

Acroterion, please explain why the source you removed and the action you took (what I will term the "Block Block" because you blocked me after reverting an addition of an article by Eliana Block) are in line with BLP.

How did Eliana Block's article endanger Hogg's reputation? As SarekOfVulcan has pointed out, there is no obvious BLP violation in those diffs.

I have reconsidered my redaction of some of ScratchMarshal's edits as essentially futile, in that, clothed as they are in refutation, they aren't blatant BLP violations

Thank you for admitting that you abused your admin tools. I see these are no longer redacted. If you un-redacted the diffs, that should weigh in your favor, but that you only did so after your abuse was highlighted is no longer worth much.

You still haven't actually restored the sections to the page though, which I think you should do, since you have admitted they are not BLP violations.

They are not "clothed". You are assuming bad faith. These are reliable sources and I was responsibly trying to discuss how notable they were on the talk page instead of rushing to put them in the article. ScratchMarshall (talk) 02:36, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Response 2 of 3 to NeilN

When you said "what you advocated here" you linked to a diff where the only URL I added was https://heavy.com/news/2018/02/david-hogg-florida-school-shooting-california-video/

The title of that article is "David Hogg: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know" by Stephanie Dube Dwilson, from 20 February 2018.

This was a source ALREADY PRESENT IN THE ARTICLE. I may as well go track down who added it...

@CookieMonster755: appears to be the one who added it, on February 25: special:diff/827485615

Notably MrX edited directly after this (less than 2 hours later): special:diff/827498926 and did not object to this source in any way.

So this source remains in the article for 7 days and when I reproduce this same source (untouched in the article for a full week, nobody voices any problems with it) suddenly MrX has a problem with it! Interesting.

Were you aware that this source was already in the article for a full week, that I had not added it, that MrX had been aware of the source and had no problem with it being in the article?

Is there not an obvious double standard being applied where it's okay for CM755 to add this to the article and for MrX to tolerate it, but citing the same article on the talk page is suddenly sinister? ScratchMarshall (talk) 02:32, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Am I in trouble? :( CookieMonster755 ✉ 05:46, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Response 3 of 3 to NeilN

The source is currently used as a reference for factual material, not as a reference for reports on fringe/conspiracy theories presented by fringe sources.

MrX claimed Heavy was an unreliable source and reverted my edit. You can see this Feb 1 at special:diff/828309263

Either it's a good source or a bad source. That Hogg was the target of an easily disproven yearbook claim IS factual material. However fringe LagBeachAntifa9 was is irrelevant, because enough people ran with it that it ceased to be fringe, as enough people were repeating the claim for Stephanie Dwilson to report on it, as well as other sources.

The problem here is you are insisting it is "fringe" based on your own WP:OR, in direct contradiction of other sources which prove it is not fringe. That was why I followed up Heavy.com with BusinessInsider.com and WUSA9.com.

The way we resolve disagreements on notability is by weighing sources, not injecting personal opinions.

I took careful note of what Acroterion said. It was a "lightly-veiled" attack against me, and you are clearly endorising this form of personal attack against me.

I was discussing widely-covered debunkings of theories which had caused enough waves to be worth reporting on to debunk by these reporters. There is no 'veiling' going on here. I was not and am not promoting those theories. Promoting discredited theories by posting the proof which debunks them would not make any sense. Why would someone promote a toothless theory?

The theories which seem more dangerous to me are the broader ones without associated 100% debunkings of specific facts, like the allegation Hogg was coached or that he was a crisis actor. I never added those to the page, and their presence concerns me. These are the allegations which hold BLP risks, not "a video proved a page of photos was from the Stoneman Douglas Yearbook and not the Redondo Shores yearbook". That holds 0 risk to Hogg. ScratchMarshall (talk) 03:09, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by NeilN

I looked at the report filed by MrX at here and agreed with their statement, "ScratchMarshall has largely spent his time on Misplaced Pages subtly pushing far-right propaganda and conspiracy theories in the style of a concern troll" based on the evidence presented. The "concern troll" description is apt as we don't debunk fringe conspiracy theories by mentioning them in a BLP and then saying "but this is all unproven" - we simply ignore them. Editors have tried to communicate this to ScratchMarshall and their reactions can be read in the linked ANI thread. I feel a BLP topic ban is needed and justified as this editor needs to learn what "it is not Misplaced Pages's job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives" means. --NeilN 20:14, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

@ScratchMarshall: Fringe as largely presented in fringe sources. Like what you advocated here. --NeilN 20:42, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
@ScratchMarshall: You're not getting the point. The source is currently used as a reference for factual material, not as a reference for reports on fringe/conspiracy theories presented by fringe sources. You are constantly using the same technique (another example). You should take careful note of what Acroterion said below, especially the last three sentences. --NeilN 02:50, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

And now we have this. --NeilN 03:05, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by MrX

I carefully documented the fringe POV-pushing and disruption, at AN/I. Several editors reviewed the evidence and supported the same conclusion that I made. An uninvolved admin applied discretionary sanctions in accordance with policy. There is no legitimate basis for this appeal, so it should be denied.- Mr X 🖋 21:20, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Acroterion

ScratchMarshal has been spitballing BLP-violating conspiracy theories on talkpages and in articles since last summer. MrX has amply documented this behavior over a range of topics. It has long been best practice on conspiracy-infused topics to refrain from quoting the conspiracy allegations in any more than the briefest terms. At Talk:David Hogg (activist) ScratchMarshal opened discussion by posting extensive quotes discussing the CTs with no clear emphasis other than getting it on the talkpage.

The comments by ScratchMarshal at Talk:David Hogg (activist) are an unnecessary catalog of speculations, in considerable detail, on the conspiracy theories associated with Mr. Hogg, and taken in mass they are fringe gossip on a BLP talkpage. When warned of BLP concerns by MrX, ScratchMarshal waited a couple of hours and reposted the discussion MrX objected to on the talkpage. This kind of gaming of other editors' clearly-stated concerns is disruptive and led directly to my block. In reviewing ScratchMarshal's edits at Talk:David Hogg (activist) I have reconsidered my redaction of some of ScratchMarshal's edits as essentially futile, in that, clothed as they are in refutation, they aren't blatant BLP violations, but it doesn't change my reasons for blocking. ScratchMarshal's backhanded practice of framing the allegations as debunked reports posted in full for discussion is a way of skirting the letter of BLP.

Extensive discussion of BLP-violating allegations of this kind are unnecessary and are a lightly-veiled way of placing conspiracy theories about living people into Misplaced Pages namespaces. Talkpages are not fora for speculating about conspiracy theories. Acroterion (talk) 00:58, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by (involved editor 2)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by ScratchMarshall

@ScratchMarshall: do you still believe that you were correct here? D4iNa4 (talk) 19:49, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
@D4iNa4: Correct about what? There's a whole lot of text there to be opined on. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:53, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
Asked if ScratchMarshall really believes that he was not involved in BLP violation and Acroterion was abusing admin tools when he suppressed the diffs of talk page, due to BLP violation. D4iNa4 (talk) 20:04, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
I don't see a BLP violation in those suppressed diffs. What do you think is the vio? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:12, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
So, the problem is that ScratchMarshall is trying to end-run BLP by pushing fringe POV links (and thus muddying articles with bad stuff); this here - this proceeding - is exactly what they want to have happen. Discussing this is doing their work for them.--Jorm (talk) 03:26, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Result of the appeal by ScratchMarshall

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

Based on the linked ANI thread and NeilN's statement, I would decline the appeal. ScratchMarshall's statement of appeal is confusing at best. Sandstein 20:48, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
I concur with Sandstein. NeilN has laid out a reasonable case for why the sanction was placed. It is my view that this appeal should be declined. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:03, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
- As a note, I've blocked ScratchMarshall for disruptive editing for forum shopping over this and unwarranted attacks on Acroterion. This is a regular admin action, and I do not think makes me involved re: this appeal. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:49, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
I also concur. I see no basis for granting this appeal. Thryduulf (talk) 21:35, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
- I now think that a one-way interaction ban with Acroterion would be of significant benefit - SM seems barely able to comment without making yet another personal attack against them. This is in addition to the present 1-week block and any other block or ban proposed. Thryduulf (talk) 04:27, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
I saw the ANI report yesterday, and I've now had time to examine User:ScratchMarshall's relevant editing history, the case made by User:NeilN for the sanction, the original report made by User:MrX and the evidence presented (and in which I would judge the assertion "ScratchMarshall has largely spent his time on Misplaced Pages subtly pushing far-right propaganda and conspiracy theories in the style of a concern troll" as accurate), and comments made by User:Acroterion (among others). I think a solid case for a BLP topic ban has been made and adequately supported, and I would decline the appeal. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:41, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
I've been quietly watching this and the ANI thread; and looking over ScratchMarshall's editing history, and think the enforcement was spot on here; the assessment of his editing is accurate and his editing needs to change. I would deny the appeal as well. --Jayron 32 13:59, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
I've had the time to look at a cross-section of this editor's work and I agree with the assessments above. Taken in isolation, each edit is generally benign enough. When you look at the editing pattern as a whole though, it is clear that the intent is concern trolling and the inclusion of a particular political POV in the subject area. I would decline this appeal on those grounds. Lankiveil 00:12, 8 March 2018 (UTC).

Thewolfchild

Request concerning Thewolfchild

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: K.e.coffman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 00:08, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested: Thewolfchild (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Remedies to be enforced

Diffs of edits

The diffs are from Talk:AR-15 style rifle where comments by TWC have created a hostile atmosphere; they were directed at me and other contributors:

06:27, 8 March 2018 Needless personalisation: "I could as the same of you and your wild and false accusations. (...) If someone doesn't agree with what you edit or the way you edit it, do you always take it personally?" (I had posted to TWC's Talk page , which he moved to the article's Talk page creating diff #1).
04:07, 8 March 2018 Aspersions: "...the non-stop POV content you and a couple other users have been dumping onto articles like this..." & "You seem to care more about getting a message out (...) Don't preach guidelines and "neutrality" to me until you are willing to follow the policies & guidelines here yourself..."
07:54, 7 March 2018 Belittling: "Didn't you write an RfC about this? How's that going anyway?"
17:01, 5 March 2018 Aspersions (please scroll to the bottom): "Yes, as a matter of fact, I do have issues with ownership you and some others editors here seem to be asserting over this article".
15:44, 5 March 2018 Accusations of bad faith: "That is not "good faith editing', it's not editing by consensus, the content is not neutral, it's disputed and therefore controversial, and yet it's still there, and now the only "discussions" I'm seeing is these editors insisting that even more WEIGHTy content being added."
00:37, 28 February 2018 Accusatons of bias: "...significant content is also being removed as "promotional", by editors such as "K.e.Coffman", who have clearly taken a position on this issue" (I didn't remove content from the page as "promotional"; in fact, I last edited AR-15 style rifle on 22 February).
18:38, 22 February 2018 Aspersions: "K.e.coffman had no business making a controversial page move (and with such POV-ish reasoning)" & "...his needless page-move-warring and combative POV-attitude...".
02:24, 22 February 2018 Accusations of bias: "All your reasoning for moving it is based on your opinion, which is clearly biased".

Previous sanctions

Block log

DS alert

Alerted about relevant DS on 0:55, 22 February 2018.

Additional comments

Prior to the DS notification, TWC showed similar behaviour at WP:GUNS, directed at me and another contributor: permalink: "repetitive, off-topic nonsense"; "Give it a rest. It's these kind of prechy, off-topic comments..."; "anti-gun editors"; "You're still going on about this?"; "disruptive"; etc. I raised my concerns on his Talk page; my comment was removed with "don't preach guidelines to me until you start following them yourself".

Re: diff #1, another contributor attempted to collapse it as "non-content-related discussion". TWC uncollapsed the comments twice and ; the discussion then proceeded on the editor's Talk page, i.e.: "If I say 'I feel your edits are POV-ish and have an anti-gun tone', that's not an attack".

Notification

Discussion concerning Thewolfchild

Statement by Thewolfchild

Hello, my first time here, but I’ll my best to help get this resolved. The first thing comes to mind that afaic, this more of content dispute. I’m under the impression that content disputes weren't mediated here, the preferred locations were article talk, Dispute Resolution, AN/I. Anyway, I tried, twice, to pursue resolution with K.e.coffman, which he ignored. When I copied K.e.coffman’s reply to article talk, I did because most of it discussed content, sourcing, supporting guidelines, but as for anything in my comments that have upset him personally, I offered to address that. He didn’t respond so I tried again, specifically;

"…you noted concerns about one of my replies. If you could point out the exact problem, I'm more than willing to make changes, if this will help move things forward. Thanks."

I pinged him to ensure he aware of this, but again, he didn’t reply. Instead, he waited a full day, came here filed this complaint. This has been contentious issue for many, and some may have gotten caught up in it when it started (a month ago), but I don't think anything there, recently, requires this committee's attention. My position's been neither ‘pro- or anti-gun‘, but instead to push for articles to remain neutral, balanced, encyclopaedic, and collaborative, consensus-based editing. That hadn't been happening. I’d been critical of some of the content thats been edited as well as the way it was edited. He may view these criticisms as “personal attacks”, I don’t see that way, but just the same I’ve already stopped the direct editing criticism and instead posted generalized content concerns.

I’m willing to try resolve disputes, and I’ve already shown that; when Dlthewave advised me of a revert summary he thought inadequate, I posted a reply that explained both the revert and edit summary, and included an apology. I posted to article talk because the reply, with guidelines included, was relevant to the content. (supported by; another revert, and similar changes after). When Dlthewave collapsed my post, I disagreed, for the same reason I posted there the first place. I discussed this on their talk and thought it resolved (he made no further replies, but now he’s posting here, so I don't know) Additionally, there was a minor misinterpretation of reply I posted to BullRangifer, but I made a pre-emptive effort to resolve it and we did.

So, as shown above, I’m willing to work toward resolving disputes. Had K.e.coffman responded, I’m sure that we could’ve resolved his issue also. I’ve been mindful of the concerns expressed, as seen in the examples provided, and reflected my most recent replies. The last editor who’s proposal I disagreed with, replied;

"Thank you for the polite and well-reasoned responses."

I'm still willing to discuss K.e.coffman's concerns, as I’ve shown, and in hopes of moving forward I haven't raised any counter-complaints (I'm hoping that won’t be necessary, I don‘t want this to drag on), Or, we can just leave things be and move on altogether. Thank you - WOLFchild 16:35, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Dlthewave

As one of the "other contributors" mentioned above I agree with K.e.coffman's description of the situation. I would also add that Thewolfchild's unnecessarily long comments are disruptive to the discussion process. Two particular examples are and from the list of diffs. Although he does arguably address a previous comment, he goes off on so many tangents that the discussion is no longer focused on a specific ways to improve the article. These comments can be seen in context at permalink. –dlthewave ☎ 04:26, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by BullRangifer

This should also be seen in light of press reports discussing how a "group of pro-gun Misplaced Pages editors tried to hide the true number of mass shootings associated with the AR-15 rifle." (Newsweek) There is extensive wikilawyering and gaming the sytem going on. It's persistent, extremely aggressive and personal, and violates policies. Refusal to allow mention of mass shootings using the AR-15 in the AR-15 article is an obvious one. The very existence of that lack proves there is a serious problem and requires no further evidence or diffs. Just look. Something needs to be done. Here are some articles. It started with The Verge:

How gun buffs took over Misplaced Pages’s AR-15 page. After Parkland, gun control information was strangely hard to find. The Verge

Pro-gun Group Edited AR-15 Misplaced Pages Page to Hide Mass Shootings, Newsweek

A gun group has been editing Misplaced Pages's firearms pages to sanitize mass shootings, for months. Daily Kos

BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 05:16, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Mandruss

I am uninvolved in the content issues, but on 19 February I somehow ran across behavior that I felt needed to be called out, and I did so. I think I'm the "another contributor" mentioned at "Additional comments" and my one comment can be seen at that "permalink". I believe that my characterization "imperious and combative tone" is supported by that brief exchange. Beyond saying that I feel that tolerance of such behavior is bad for the project, I have nothing to add. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:02, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Result concerning Thewolfchild

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

I just don't see a reason to swing the ban hammer here. In a perfect world, Wolf would be more concise and bit less excited, and perhaps they would be a little more polite sometimes, but being passionate about something isn't ban-worthy. If I were the other editors, yes, I might be a little annoyed at times but that is true on any hot topic page. Looking the diffs in their full context, I see spirited debate on both sides, maybe a little boundary pushing but I don't see any bright lines crossed. The long block log and the magazine articles don't really apply here. Looking at Talk:AR-15 style rifle, I see that Wolff had replied about twice as much as K.e.coffman, which really isn't enough to be considered bludgeoning. As he seems to be in the minority on that page, that makes me more understanding of the extra edits, and less prone to just banhammer him without clear evidence of disruption. Controversial topics are going to have friction on the talk page, this can't be avoided, even if it can be managed. I recommend closing with no action, other than to recommend that Wolf pull back a bit and go the extra mile here to avoid rambling on so much, and to avoid incivility. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:03, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm sorry, Dennis, but I can't agree with you about closing with no action. There is a real problem here. The diffs and discussions linked by K.e. coffman show a pretty evident battleground attitude. Thewolfchild's actions (and, to a lesser extent, those of other WikiProject members) have been described as an effort to subvert WP:NPOV by downplaying material linking AR-15-style weapons to mass shootings. That description seems entirely plausible, having reviewed the editing in question. External reliable sources have already come to the same conclusion (see BullRangifer's statement). So these actions not only subvert fundamental content policies (by stonewalling appropriately sourced content in the service of an evident political agenda), but also have brought Misplaced Pages into disrepute. (I don't attach a lot of weight to DailyKos, any more than I would to a partisan website from the other end of the political spectrum, but the pieces in the other two sources are concerning).
If this were an isolated incident, then I think a warning would be appropriate. But it looks like Thewolfchild has been blocked 6 previous times, for various combinations of edit-warring, personal attacks, "incendiary" and combative behavior, and so on. He was indefinitely blocked, in fact, and let off with the promise of good behavior, in 2012. In other words, he used up his last chance six years ago, and some more last chances after that. So I don't see this as an opportunity to give him one more last chance.
There's a well-documented active conduct issue here, and a well-documented pattern of similar behavior stretching back at least 6 years. There's also absolutely zero evidence that Thewolfchild has any insight into the problem, and thus zero reason to expect improvement in his conduct. (His responses in this discussion were particularly disappointing in this regard.
When an article is under discretionary sanctions, we should be trying to raise the bar and hold editors to appropriate standards, not finding reasons to give disruptive editors a 7th "last chance". I don't think "no action" is acceptable. Given the track record here, a warning is meaningless, and tantamount to "no action". I would favor an indefinite topic ban from firearms-related material, which could be appealed in 6 months. MastCell 22:46, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
- There is a history of problem behavior, but what I don't see is recent behavior that is ban-worthy. It isn't about giving another chance, it's about accepting there is going to be some disagreement on the talk pages. I don't see edit warring, I don't see personal attacks, so I am not so likely to get involved. There is a fine line between protecting the integrity of the process, and being a school marm. I don't think using DS tools for relatively minor issues is helping the encyclopedia. And an indef topic ~~block~~ ban where someone has never been topic ~~blocked~~ banned seems excessive, to say the least. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 02:28, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
  - Thewolfchild has been blocked 6 times already, including an indefinite block. An indefinite topic ban would be neither the first sanction he’s received, nor the harshest. I therefore don’t see it as “excessive”. As for being a “school marm”, I can tell you first-hand—as someone with extensive experience editing contentious topics—that this sort of behavior is far more damaging than you seem to realize when you dismiss it as “minor”. MastCell 21:18, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
    - But in the issue at hand, with the diffs provided, there isn't a major issue. Some minor incivility but no worse than the others, and an obvious POV but haven't opinions on social issues isn't against against policies, bad editing is, and even that isn't being called into question here, just his behavior. GoldenRing sums it up well below. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:27, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
@Dennis Brown: We don't have anything called "topic blocks", but we do have topic bans. – My view is somewhere in between the two opinions above. While I agree that systematic tendentious editing to make Misplaced Pages non-neutral is sanctionable, that's not what the evidence concerning Thewolfchild before us establishes, and any AE cases on such a basis need to be very clear-cut to prevent AE from interfering in content disputes. But what is before us is evidence of confrontative, battleground-like conduct by Thewolfchild. Still, it is less serious than many other cases we see here at AE, many of the diffs do seem to be related to content issues rather than purely personal disagreements, and Thewolfchild's response is, while noncommittal and overlong, at least indicative of some recognition that their conduct might not be perfect. I would close this with a logged warning to Thewolfchild to observe WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL and related conduct policies. Sandstein 09:38, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
Having read about 4/5 of the linked talk page, I'm not seeing a case for sanctions here. Yes, Thewolfchild has a clear POV but much of their frustration is with editors who make edits to the article and ignore the ongoing discussions about the same or similar material. It's a fair point. They do sometimes tread the edges of personalising the discussion but, IMO, only at the very mildest end of things. At the other end, sections such as this are IMO examples of very good editor behaviour. The only real problem I'm seeing is the voluminous and tangential nature of some of Thewolfchild's comments and I'd advise them to keep more on-track, but again it's not sanction-worthy at this point.On a side note, the worst thing I'm seeing on that TP is this comment by User:BullRangifer and I'd like to hear what they have to say about it. It looks pretty unacceptable to me. GoldenRing (talk) 10:36, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
I largely agree with Sandstein - Thewolfchild needs to tone it down a bit. I don't see anything sanctionable or warning-worthy about BullRangifer's comment. --NeilN 13:51, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Nor do I, unless one considers the invocation of the NRA's wrath a legal or physical threat, but this seems far-fetched to me. Sandstein 14:05, 12 March 2018 (UTC)