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Case requests

Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
QuackGuru		12 April 2015	{{{votes}}}

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Open cases

Currently, no arbitration cases are open.

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Recently closed cases (Past cases)

Case name	Closed
Venezuelan politics	25 May 2024

Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: Article titles and capitalisation	none	(orig. case)	7 June 2024
Clarification request: mentioning the name of off-wiki threads	none	none	4 June 2024
Amendment request: India-Pakistan	none	(orig. case)	7 June 2024
Clarification request: Contentious topics restrictions	none	none	10 June 2024

Arbitrator motions

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

QuackGuru

Initiated by Levelledout (talk) at 12:26, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Levelledout (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• QuackGuru (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• diff of notification QuackGuru

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Two most recent ANIs (many more here):

• link1
• link2

Statement by Levelledout

QuackGuru has a long block log and an even longer section history at ANI. I don't know his full history of ArbCom cases but he has been sanctioned and banned at least twice previously diff1 diff2.

I can only speak of my personal experiences with him at the Electronic Cigarette article where he has become incredibly disruptive of late. Considering the 500 word limit I provide a summary of his actions since his last ANI section was closed in March 2015:

• Abuse of the page (un)protection process and thus WP:GAMING. Also forcing through large-scale changes without consensus and edit-warring, thus violating WP:CONSENSUS and WP:CAUTIOUS. Sequence of events as follows:
  1. Single handedly getting page protection removed, no notification of discussion on article talk page.
  2. Immediately dumping massive (9k) amounts of error-ridden material into article, no notification/discussion on article talk page.
  3. After article was consequently reprotected, immediately running straight back to requests for page protection without notifying article talk page and getting expiry date reduced.
  4. Intensely editing article in sandbox for next ten days until protection expired again, no notification or discussion to article talk page.
  5. Dumping vast (17k) error-ridden sandbox edits into article as soon as protection expired again, no prior discussion, in direct violation of instructions given by admin.
  6. Edit-warring the changes back into the article after they were reverted.
• Removing a POV tag 5 times within a few days thus edit-warring - diff1 diff2 diff3 diff4 diff5. On at least two occasions (diff2/talkpagediff and diff3/talkpagediff) doing so purely due to a personal fued, thus disrupting Wikipedia to prove a WP:POINT.
• Breaching WP:NPOV, likely in order to try and prove a WP:POINT in a personal feud with the insertion of the following into the article, sourced from an editorial:

"They (e-cigarette users) also undertake in uncivil online attacks on any person who implies that e-cigarettes are not an innovation, with at least one person associated to an organization that receives donations from the tobacco industry."

• WP:COMPETENCE issues regarding language and grammar, error-ridden edits (see above) and failing to understand the concepts of WP:OR and paraphrasing - diff1 diff2 diff3 diff4 diff5
• WP:FILIBUSTERING, often to the extreme, stating one objection, then when that is shown to be redundant, coming up with a different one, then when all else fails simply telling all other editors that their objections are invalid and inadmissible - diff1 diff2 diff3 also diff1 diff2 diff3
• Personal attacks and incivility diff1 diff2.

QuackGuru obviously has a good deal of adversaries but some editors support him, some of whom are well respected and/or admins. ANI has proved ineffective in dealing with him and no firm action has been taken against him for any of the above by admins, even in consideration that there are discretionary sanctions in place on electronic cigarette articles. Therefore I think that this is the right place to raise this matter.

@ Softlavender The SPA accusation is brought up against practically everybody that opposes QuackGuru, whether they actually are an SPA or not. In my case, I'm still a relatively new editor with relatively few edits. I have a relatively high number of edits to the main e-cig article talk page but the large majority of my main wiki editing is not on e-cig related articles diff. Overall so far most of my edits have gone on e-cigs because it's a topic that interests me and because there have been long protracted debates on the talk page. But I do not advocate for e-cigarettes, I recognise that there are both potential risks and benefits in line with the majority of sources. I also try to implement the NPOV that QuackGuru is intent on preventing. QuackGuru edits mainly what he would consider pseudo-science topics, does that make him an SPA? Your claim that QuackGuru is not the real problem and that he is causing less disruption than other editors is categorically wrong. Take a look at this page and this page and you will realise nobody is adding more material than QuackGuru and no active editor (Fergus M1970 is blocked and AlbinoFerret is on a voluntary ban) is contributing more to the talk page. Combined with the fact that QuackGuru violates many important policies and guidelines as demonstrated above, this means that QuackGuru is the most disruptive editor on the whole article at the moment. I do not believe that FergusM1970 was shown to be a paid e-cig advocate, although I could be wrong I think he was shown to be paid to be editing the Derwick Associates article. In any case, you seem to be arbitrarily accusing me of being a paid advocate simply because one other editor was at some point in the past, even though you have no evidence to suggest that I am.Levelledout (talk) 13:59, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

@ Softlavender It is difficult to respond to a re-assertion that I am an SPA except for to re-assert that I am a relatively new editor and am here to improve the encyclopedia. I am not sure why you have provided a link to an old copy of my sandbox but it was a result of this discussion on the talk page. I later decided to abandon the copy-edit since there was no point in attempting it all the time that QuackGuru was editing the article.Levelledout (talk) 14:31, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

@Zad68 Since this is the only place I have raised the issue then by definition it is not forum shopping. There are several reasons I believe that ArbCom is the appropriate place:

1. QuackGuru's conduct issues are multiple, serious, protracted and therefore somewhat complex.
2. A substantial amount of the diffs presented are dated before discretionary sanctions were enforced and therefore would not be actionable under discretionary sanctions.
3. A substantial amount of the diffs presented are also dated after discretionary sanctioned were enforced, i.e. most of the POV tag removals and competence diffs, all of the filibustering diffs. The diffs show that QuackGuru's conduct has not improved since April 1st but despite admins patrolling pages no action has been forthcoming under discretionary sanctions.
4. QuackGuru has at least some amount of admin support
5. The allegations presented are serious and discretionary sanctions only allows for blocks of up to one year for instance.
6. QuackGuru has a long history of ANI cases as recent as March 2015, blocks and bans, ArbCom sanctions clearly demonstrating that the community has struggled to deal with his conduct previously.Levelledout (talk) 15:48, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

@QuackGuru I'm not sure why QuackGuru states that it wasn't entirely accurate to suggest that he dumped 17k of information into the article with this edit. The revision history clearly shows +17,183 bytes of data. He remarks that I received a final warning. I have in fact received two warnings. The first was for reverting QuackGuru's 9k of edits referenced above on the basis of WP:CAUTIOUS. This was in fact the first wholesale revert I have ever made on Wikipedia. It certainly was not edit-warring since it was only one revert and I'm still slightly at a miss as to what I did wrong. The admin that made the warning appeared to concede that I was not edit-warring and that the warning was for informational purposes to prevent the situation descending into an edit-war. The second warning was for again reverting QuackGuru on his 17k of edits two weeks later. Once again I only reverted the once. I assumed that since I was not edit-warring the first time round and that QuackGuru was in direct violation of instructions received by an admin and also WP:CAUTIOUS, that reverting would be OK and the right thing to do. In all honesty it feels like I have received two warnings simply for trying to implement WP:BRD and to stop QuackGuru from forcing through large-scale changes without consensus.Levelledout (talk) 17:27, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Statement by QuackGuru

I did explain my significant changes on the talk page. I spotted original research in the article and I did rewrite the text closer to the source. I cited the sources that confirmed the wording was original research or at least a bit misleading. I also made follow up edits that improved the wording to my original significant changes. User:Levelledout has been given a final warning. I added numerous high-quality sources, including MEDRS compliant reviews. Levelledout says I added about 17k. That's not entirely accurate because the edit history shows I added a total of about 25k.[1] I added a more information recently. The page was 90,260 bytes. Now it is 115,982 bytes. I started a new discussion on the talk page for the 3 tags. See Talk:Electronic_cigarette#No_evidence_has_been_presented_that_this_article_has_multiple_issues. More later if this case is accepted. QuackGuru (talk) 16:55, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

User:S Marshall wants to significantly shorten the lede and delete a lot of text from the page.[2] I disgreed.[3] This was the response by S Marshall. This previous edit by S Marshall was not an improvement to the lede. Now that his edits did not gain consensus he tagged the lede with 3 tags. Now it appears that S Marshall wants me banned without providing evidence. QuackGuru (talk) 18:00, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Softlavender (uninvolved party)

Hi, I've never edited any of the various e-cig articles, but I have observed the obvious pattern of WP:SPA editors who advocate for e-cigs and/or the e-cig industry, of which Levelledout is one, and of which at least one has been banned from Wikipedia because of paid advocacy for the e-cig industry, and of which another has had to swear off his SPA advocacy for six months. Although he has his own problematical behaviors, the real problem on the e-cig articles isn't QuackGuru, but rather the e-cig SPA advocates. And if one has been proven to be paid, how can we not suspect that the others are or may be as well? (Smoke/fire, and all that.) QuackGuru is a convenient target for the SPAs, and a convenient smokescreen to haul into ANI while masking the real issues at hand. It would also be very convenient for the e-cig SPAs to get rid of QuackGuru or topic ban him, because then they would have much more free reign to outnumber the non-SPAs, and to re-write the articles in the industry's favor. The sorry fact of the matter is, the issue that should be an ArbCom request is the obvious (and possibly paid) WP:SPA advocacy across all of the e-cig articles, not QuackGuru. Softlavender (talk) 13:12, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

@Levelledout: No, we don't call people editing the e-cig articles SPAs unless they are SPAs, and it takes no time at all to scroll through your contributions history and your sandbox to determine you are an e-cig SPA. Other than to mention the fact that there are other e-cig SPAs besides you and the two whom I've mentioned above, I've said what I wanted to say and have no interest in any further back and forth or discussion here. Softlavender (talk) 14:15, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Zad68

Compared to many at that article, I'm relatively lightly involved, holding the #8 position for Talk-page commenters by edit count but not even ranking in the top 20 by article edits.

This request is premature and the specific complaint against QG should be rejected because Community Sanctions were just authorized 11 days ago pursuant to a request at ANI, and the article has just picked up active monitoring from an uninvolved admin Bishonen. Bish has made warnings to other editors in the topic area, but not QG. Not a single AE request has yet been made regarding the topic area. Why not let the community-authorized DS have a chance to work first? A case can be made that this request is a bit of forum-shopping. Zad68 14:51, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Mr. Stradivarius

I closed the ANI discussion authorising the community sanctions on April 1. (And no, that wasn't an April Fool's joke.) I think 11 days is a little too soon to say whether the sanctions have worked or not. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 15:34, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Statement by S Marshall

We'll end up here, but QG hasn't had enough rope yet.—S Marshall T/C 17:49, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Statement by {Non-party}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information.

Clerk notes

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

QuackGuru: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/1/0/1>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)

• Awaiting more statements, but my initial thoughts are that something needs to change regarding the e-cigarettes topic area, and if the community sanctions aren't working then it's probably up to us to usher that in - but I want more opinions about whether they truly have failed, and if so what might work? @Softlavender: (and anyone else) whether someone is being paid is irrelevant to resolving this dispute - either they are editing in a manner that is improving the article(s) (directly, or indirectly) or they are not, and it is possible for someone who is being paid to edit to fall into either of those groups. Please also bear in mind WP:ASPERSIONS and WP:OUTING when making allegations against editors. Thryduulf (talk) 14:21, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
• At the moment inclined to decline. I think it's too early to say that community sanctions aren't working. Dougweller (talk) 15:14, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Decline I really want to give community sanctions more time. Dougweller (talk) 18:01, 12 April 2015 (UTC)