Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive112
DHeyward[edit]
| No action taken. T. Canens (talk) 18:39, 1 April 2012 (UTC) |
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Request concerning DHeyward[edit]
Editor is fully aware of the discretionary sanctions per his AN request above to lift the topic ban where he repeatedly cites the discretionary sanctions, his commenting on an AE case above to push for a topic ban against me, and I also asked him on his talk page to stop his actions or I would report him, to which he responded by saying "begone troll" claiming that he was just responding to a peer review.
I should note that Dhey's actions above only concern his harassment towards me and are not the only issues with his conduct. The AE case above filed against MONGO includes details of his editing actions with regards to a warning section in the main 9/11 article on top of his close of the RfC. He appears to have edited sporadically with month-long gaps prior to this recent spurt with the vast majority of his recent edits being somehow related to going after me. Whether his motivations are general disagreement with my contributions to the 9/11 topic area or a desire to get revenge for Tom's topic ban, which has since been lifted, is unclear to me. I was more than willing to tolerate his frustrations in the 9/11 topic area, but his persistence in being involved in an unconnected article I created and that I am trying to get to Good Article and hopefully Featured Article status has exhausted my patience.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:22, 26 March 2012 (UTC) The conduct is at issue here Tom and Toa. Hounding can mean going to articles that have nothing to do with the topic area just to go after an editor. It is DHeyward's conduct that falls under the discretionary sanctions in the 9/11 topic area. He plainly admits that he got to that article from looking over my contributions. Why do you think he was looking over my contributions except due to my involvement in the 9/11 topic area?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 03:38, 27 March 2012 (UTC) @Elen I suggest you take a second look at the diffs as many do pertain directly to the topic area. Particularly, check diffs #1 and #2 (the other editor mentioned was also frivolously accused of sockpuppetry by DHey after becoming involved in the 9/11 topic area) and diffs #5 - #8. "Hounding" and "harassment" can certainly expand beyond the concerned topic area and that is what this is and nothing more. There is no "personal dispute" here.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:40, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Discussion concerning DHeyward[edit]Statement by DHeyward[edit]I'm not quite sure what this has to do with 9/11 or an arbcom decision. I'll stand by this copy edit which TDA believes is the root of all evil and subverting his will. I don't even know what part of the article is his though I do admit to following a problematic POV editor to BLP's and other articles that have specific policies against POV and defamation. I submit that my version as edited is superior to the one that he insists on using to cast aspersions on a living person. This is an encyclopedia, not a forum to direct highly charged, partisan rhetoric at political opponents. Even quotable highly-partisan rhetoric is not acceptable when neutral language accomplishes the same goal of informing the reader. Insisting on calling a candidate an "insurgent" is beyond the pale regardless of the source. Burn me at the stake if NPOV and BLP are can be ignored because partisan editors wish to convey their version of reality. BTW, TDA's first edit is the indication that he wasn't a new user when he started. His obtuse style and general lack of social skills lends me to believe he is an editor that has changed account names frequently (though legitimately) and I am not prepared to name him at this point. Once again though, the abuse of process rears it's ugly head. --DHeyward (talk) 02:37, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Comments by others about the request concerning DHeyward[edit]
Result concerning DHeyward[edit]
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AndresHerutJaim[edit]
| Existing topic ban is extended to indefinite, AndresHerutJaim blocked for a month. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:17, 3 April 2012 (UTC) |
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Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning AndresHerutJaim[edit]
In summary, the editor edit warred, was blocked, topic banned, evaded their block via an IP, was blocked again, and has subsequently returned to violate their topic ban repeatedly having been let off the hook. They are not going to stop. I think they need to be topic banned indefinitely so that editors don't have to waste time dealing with their advocacy and inability to understand or stubborn unwillingness to comply with rules. The topic area can't function properly when editors won't follow the rules that restrict their actions. The topic ban probably needs to be described in very simple and explicit terms so that there are zero degrees of freedom. Additional comments added 06:29, 2 April 2012 ...apparently the time for patience and tolerance is over.
I'll also add that I only file AE reports as an absolute last resort in cases where, in my view, the only option left is for admins to come down on an editor like a ton of bricks. There was a very recent case of a currently indef topic banned editor who I won't name violating their ban multiple times. There was no report because, in my view, they genuinely didn't realize their edits were topic ban violations, with hindsight they understood that they were topic ban violations, they said they would stop, they did what they said, and they have continued to honor it. It was all resolved peacefully in minutes with little drama and no admin overhead.
Discussion concerning AndresHerutJaim[edit]Statement by AndresHerutJaim[edit]A blockade won't be necessary. I promise not to edit any other Israel-related article.--AndresHerutJaim (talk) 22:25, 31 March 2012 (UTC) I just realize my topic ban only includes the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, but doesn't include the Arab–Israeli conflict nor every Israel-related article. I would like to know what articles I can't edit, because War of Attrition (for example) is not necessarily linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I was already punished with a blockade and I'm not carrying out an edit war anywhere (the reason for my original blockade in the first place).--AndresHerutJaim (talk) 21:47, 1 April 2012 (UTC) Per this AE thread, I was topic banned from all areas falling under the Israeli-Palestinan conflict on 29 February, while this AE thread was made on 31 March. I'd like to know why I was topic banned in the first place? Because this has nothing to do with the blockade imposed by HJ Mitchell.--AndresHerutJaim (talk) 01:16, 2 April 2012 (UTC) Comments by others about the request concerning AndresHerutJaim[edit]In response to AHJ's wikilawyering above, he should note that the arbitration result clearly states "The area of conflict in this case shall be considered to be the entire set of Arab-Israeli conflict-related articles, broadly interpreted." RolandR (talk) 22:11, 1 April 2012 (UTC) Result concerning AndresHerutJaim[edit]
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Nagorno-Karabakh article[edit]
| Nagorno-Karabakh is placed on 1RR per day restriction for all accounts under 500 edits per EdJohnston (talk · contribs) proposal and will be noted on talk page and edit notice. --WGFinley (talk) 17:30, 7 April 2012 (UTC) | ||||
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Request concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh article[edit]
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Xebulon/Archive#08 February 2012 has a fuller description of the issue, courtesy of Golbez (talk · contribs). See also #Nagorno-Karabakh, above. Opening a formal report to allow for fuller discussion as to potential sanctions to address this situation. T. Canens (talk) 10:48, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Discussion concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh article[edit]I have two objections against this idea, and one proposal.
By writing that, I do not imply that no sanctions are needed. However, these sanctions should be in accordance with the discretionary sanctions' spirit, i.e. they should be directed against the users who had already committed some violations in this area, and who had alrfeady been properly warned. In the case of WP:DIGWUREN, we already have a list of such users, so it would be quite natural to restrict only those users (more precisely, those who had been warned during last 2-3 years). For other users no restrictions should exist (although, probably, article's semi-protection to exclude IP vandalism would be useful). For Karabakh articles, I suggest to create a similar page (if no such page exists yet): starting from some date, every user committing 3RR or similar violation is added to this list, so s/he cannot make any edit to this article until the change s/he propose is supported by consensus as described by Sandstein. I fully realise that that may initially create some problem for the admins, however, that will allow us to develop Karabakh related articles, which is much more important.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:56, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
@ T. Canens. Thank you for providing a link to the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 discussion. Unfortunately, I overlooked this discussion and was not able to present my arguments timely. Let me point out, however, that Kirill's idea that "(a) that the editnotice on the article constitutes a sufficient warning as required by ¶2" is not fully correct: ¶2 implies that a warning is issued to the editor, who "repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia". In other words, the full sequence of the events that lead to discretionary sanctions is:
However, in a case of article wide sanctions the edit notice is being issued to everyone and in advance, so the user appears to be sanctioned simply by virtue of his interest to this topic. That is a blatant violation of our WP:AGF principle. Moreover, whereas one can speculate if 1RR itself or block for its violation is the actual sanctions, the article's full protection is already a sanction, which has been applied to whole WP community. I have a feeling that the idea of a possibility of article wide sanction should be re-considered as intrinsically flawed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:47, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
I would like to ask admins to have a look at the most recent SPI request by an uninvolved user on one of the accounts engaged in Nagorno-Karabakh article: [18] While there's no technical evidence to prove sockpuppetry, behavioral evidence provided by The Devil's Advocate is pretty alarming. There are user accounts that only act as revert machines. What are we supposed to do with those? The fact that 3 unrelated editors, including an admin, filed SPI requests mentioning the same accounts I believe demonstrates that there are reasons for concern. Grandmaster 16:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
I appreciate the comment by WGFinley, but I want to ask a question. Is it Ok to create SPAs just to rv or vote? Should the votes by such accounts count, and the rvs in highly contentious articles amidst heated disputes not considered disruptive? Everyone can ask his friends, relatives, acquaintances, etc create accounts to promote a certain position. How can disruption by SPAs be stopped? Shouldn't the activity of new accounts be restricted on contentious articles? As for SPIs, admins are involved in filing them as much as everyone else is, see for instance this: [20], the very first SPI was filed by the advice of the admins. And later SPIs were filed by unrelated users, some of whom do not even edit AA articles, and a wikipedia admin. That shows that there are serious reasons for concern that make all these people file the SPI requests. When one sees new accounts that pop up one after another to rv contentious articles or take part in AFDs, it makes him think that it is not just a mere coincidence. And also, filing SPIs is pretty useless nowadays. There are so many mass puppeteers (Paligun, Xebulon, Hetoum I, Ararat arev to name just a few), that figuring out who's who is almost impossible. But something needs to be done to stop disruption. Grandmaster 17:13, 2 March 2012 (UTC) I find certain statements by Winterbliss to be a rude violation of WP:AGF. For instance, a generalizing statement like "Azerbaijanis are not interested to develop the article Nagorno-Karabakh because academic sources are not on their side" are unacceptable. He implies that a user cannot be a good contributor to an article because of his ethnicity. And secondly, there's no consensus at talk for the edits of the banned user, who was using a number of socks to have the article his way. Please note that the edits by Bars77, Vandorenfm, and Gorzaim were made after their master (Xebulon) was banned, so the sock accounts were editing in defiance of the ban, which justifies the revert. Not a single established editor supported the edits of the banned user. Those supporting are all recently created accounts. Vandorenfm and Gorzaim were banned as socks on 15 and 18 September 2011, and here are user creation logs of all accounts currently supporting the edits of the banned user at talk of NK article: October 1, 2011 Dehr (talk | contribs) created a user account I find it highly unusual (to say the least) that all those editors created accounts and flocked to a certain page to support edits of a certain editor, who happened to evade his ban using multiple sock accounts. Grandmaster 22:46, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
I would like to propose a solution that could possibly reduce the disruption on the article in question. As one could see from the evidence posted here, this article attracts a lot of sock and meat puppetry, and it is not a recent problem. This happened in the past as well: [26] I think we need a solution that would bring to minimum the disruption that could be caused. There was a proposal here that I think made a lot of sense. To decrease sock/meatpupetry, the accounts that have less than 500 edits, including substantial number of edits outside of AA area, should not be allowed to revert the article. This would prevent accounts like Oliveriki from coming out of nowhere and reverting the article back to the 5 months old version created by the socks of banned user. If new users have any ideas, they are free to propose them at talk. Also, no large rewrites should be allowed without the general consensus on the talk of the article. And by consensus I mean not the agreement reached by 5 recent accounts among themselves, but the consensus reached by both sides of the dispute, or when that is not possible, consensus reached with involvement of a larger Wikipedia community in accordance with WP:DR. At present what we see is that the article is still being reverted to non-consensus version, sometimes with misleading edit summaries: [27] Grandmaster 17:26, 6 March 2012 (UTC) Statement by Winterbliss[edit]This report filed by User:Grandmaster represents yet another spasm of endless bad-faith, baseless complaints pushed over, over, and over again by a tightly-knit team of Azerbaijani users who target unrelated accounts in a coordinated fashion with the purpose of limiting editing activity on specific pages. They falsely accuse unwanted editors in sockpuppetry and try to discredit their productive work by making false statements about their editing practices. Now these efforts are getting really desperate and disruptive because Grandmaster’s earlier pranks to discredit his opponents and filibuster consensus-building on talk Nagorno-Karabakh pages are failing. But regardless of Grandmaster's filibustering and manipulating (e.g. WP:WL) discussion and consensus building on Nagorno-Karabakh talk pages proceeds as planned and according to Golbez's earlier recommendations (despite his declared exit from the scene). Various issues and parts of the texts are discussed one by one, and neutral, third-party and high-quality sources are used to support write-ups. This may not be am super-ideal process but most people involved seem to try hard to comply with the earlier guidelines set by Golbez. All participants were CU-checked and are unrelated. Golbez asked to "re-own" earlier texts and one of the participants (Zimmarod I beleive) did that promptly, explaining rationale of every good-faith addition that was deleted → [28]. Grandmaster’s report is based on lies, and he came to AE forum with unclean hands. One is that User:Xebulon “has been disrupting Wikepedia for years.” Xebulon’s account was created 10.24.10 and closed on 7.7.11, and no connections between him and earlier accounts were established. Grandmaster filed and SPI request [29] accusing as many as 9 (!) editors of being sockpupptes but not only his effort went bust but his SPI was categorized as disruptive when CU showed lack of any relation among the editors by User:Tnxman307. Furthermore, per User:Tnxman307’s comment [30] “As far as I can tell, the same group of users accuse the same opposing group of being sockpuppets. Nothing has ever come of this. Frankly, I think it's disruptive and pointless and am inclined to decline these on sight.” It has been known that Grandmaster was coordinating editing of a large group of Azerbaijani user in Russian wiki from here information on meta-wiki and here [31] by being the head of 26 Baku Commissars. There is also evidence that Grandmaster uses off-wiki coordination on the pages of English wiki as well: take a look at this curious exchange - [32], [33], which are requests of off-wiki communication between Grandmaster and User:Mursel. In the recent past such reports, mainly AE and SPI requests, were routinely filed by Grandmaster’s friend User:Tuscumbia, who got recently topic banned for one year on the charge of WP:BATTLEGROUND and racist comments about ethnic origin of academic references [34]. Just a few examples of Tuscumbia's fishing trips: [35], [36], [37], [38], [39]. That is how Tuscumbia’s practice of harassing SPIs was described by an independent Lothar von Richthofen:
User:Grandmaster who was so far editing on an on-and-off basis with rather long periods of absence from WP suddenly hit the Nagorno Karabakh talk pages one day after Tuscumbia’s removal from AA area, picking up right where Tuscumbia left off [41]. Grandmaster’s and Tuscumbia’s behavior is identical: conspiratorial accusations in sockpuppetry, repeating the same points over and over again, a method of filibustering a consensus used most recently by User:Tuscumbia in talks on Murovdag. User:Grandmaster acts as User:Tuscumbia’s placeholder, if not as his loudly quacking meatpuppet who came to man the post of his banned comrade as soon as Tuscumbia got into trouble. It is high time to restrict Grandmaster’s disruptive conduct by limiting his access to editing AA-related topics.
Zimmarod's point of view[edit]User:Paul Siebert said it well above [42]. Sanctioning simply by virtue of someone's interest in a topic, or because of loose suspicions that there are some users who are proven not to be sockpuppets in multiple SPIs but can theoretically be found socks or meats in an unspecified time in the future is a blatant violation of the WP:AGF principle. This is in fact total absurdity. Imagine a court issuing a verdict clearing the accused of charges; but then the complainant pops up and suggests to incarcerate or execute the formerly accused right away simply because of his lingering suspicions or because in the future the accused can be found guilty of something else. It is like I may suggest to run a CU on Golbez or T. Canens accusing them in being Grandmaster's socks, and when it turns out that they are not socks, I will propose to get rid of their administrative powers on WP:DUCK charges simply because I am not happy with the results of SPIs and want to get rid of Golbez or T. Canens anyway. We on the Nagorno-Karabakh article try to be as constructive as possible and work toward a consensual input of edits after discussion. I now own the old edits, not some Xebulon. Many are tempted to restore the old edits at once but we decided not to do that and be selective and work incrementally, discarding non-consensual parts as we go. What is the problem? Ah, I know. All this runs counter to the strategy of User:Grandmaster who is unhappy. Instead of him writing long passages on this topic he could be more succinct, and say honestly: "I want to own the article Nagorno-Karabakh by excluding everyone from editing. I tried to play the old game of accusing a bunch of users in being socks, and that did not work out. Now I want them all excluded on absurd excuses simply because I exhausted my arsenal of disruptive tricks, and my meat-pals like User:Tuscumbia cannot help me since they are (again) banned for racism and wp:battleground." Zimmarod (talk) 20:40, 26 February 2012 (UTC) Comment by George Spurlin[edit]
Comment by The Devil's Advocate[edit]My assessment of this situation is that SPI has proven inadequate at dealing with some of the obvious sockpuppetry going on. Vandorenfm and Gorzaim were two accounts that got subjected to three separate checks before it finally came to light that they were socks of Xebulon once new accounts popped up to compare them with. This suggests these sockmasters have proven very capable at evading detection from checkusers. I am not sure how many of these editors are socks, but there is definitely something shady going on with some of them. Not sure if doing anything about this one page will address that issue.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 18:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
On the Sandstein restriction, one thing I think makes sense is having a 1RR per week limit on the article.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 15:27, 3 March 2012 (UTC) Comment by Dehr[edit]This issue has now clearly transformed into a WP:TROLL and WP:AGF concern, when a coordinating cluster of editors attack and harass the other group on highly suspicious pretenses (e.g. the conspiratorial but baseless "SPIs do not show anything but SOMETHING is going on"). The loudly QUACKING User:Grandmaster and The Devil's Advocate shoot one foul-faith SPI after next attempting to disrupt the development of the Nagorno and related articles. One of these SPIs was filed today by The Devil's Advocate. I am calling on the administrative operatives to stop these attacks and deal with the disrupting account User:Grandmaster. Dehr (talk) 21:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC) Comment about User:Golbez and WP:CIVILITY[edit]User Golbez has acted as a self-appointed watchman of the article for some time and there are people who believe that his participation had been generally helpful. But as of late he has been outright disregarding WP:CIVILITY which casts serious doubt on merits of his endorsement of this AE request. Some examples of incivil conduct by Golbez:
It would be helpful if Golbez could act as an arbiter distinguishing filibustering from honest disagreements on talk pages but he failed to be such an arbiter. Instead he chose profanities and sided with disruptive users. So far he supported felonious User:Tuscumbia and User:Brandmeister (each are/were recently topic banned of one year for disruptive conduct), and was freezing the Nagorno-Karabakh article on the versions supported by these two users. He praised User:Tuscumbia as someone who “follows the rules” on the very day (!) when Tuscumbia got banned after exhausting himself in multiple WP:BATTLEGROUNDs [51]. Here Golbez teams up with Grandmaster, supporting his disruptive idea [52]. Just too many inconvenient facts. I would also like to bring you comment by User:Meowy who well characterized Golbez as a careless and failing administrator [53]:
Winterbliss (talk) 04:54, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
I am amused that my attack on irredentism and revanchism is somehow incivil. Or that thanking you for giving me a good larf is somehow bad. So, I'm not sure what the point of this subsection is, seeing how I'm pretty much out of the Caucasian clusterfuck at the moment - are you suggesting there be sanctions placed upon me, or are you just filling space? If the former, there's an actual place to go to do that; if the latter, you've at least made me grin. I seriously thought this was going to be about all the time I've characterized the editors of those articles as children, so this really could have been done better. I give it a C-. Also, I've been here a skosh longer than you, so I actually know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I think the fundamental problem here is, for some reason I thought the provisions of AA2 had expired or at least had been tempered; if I knew I could throw any of you kids on a 1 revert restriction, my sanity might still be with us. Is this still the case, anyone who is familiar with the situation? Then again, looking at the list of bans and blocks placed because of AA2, and still no long-term change... clearly it would seem that AA2 has failed. Meowy, I accepted the finding that the accounts weren't related... that doesn't change the fact that at the very least, Oliveriki should be blocked for disruption - reverting back to a four-month-old version with a blatant lie for an edit summary on an AA-related article should be an instablock. My failure was not in executing it, but actually trying to get people to discuss before going all revert happy. I guess I've burnt bridges on my way out, so I probably won't be able to go back in with the same cachet I had before (You know, the cachet that got me accused of being both Armenian and Azeri? Those were the days. You don't know how hilarious it is that you accuse me of being pro-Azeri. Oh, newbies, what would life be like without their naivete?), but ... eh. It's Wikipedia's loss, not mine. If I really was THE only person holding those articles together, then that appears to be a structural problem that the whole project needs to figure out how to fix. Someone else can pick up the pieces; I have maps to make and governors to list. --Golbez (talk) 22:41, 1 March 2012 (UTC) Reply to Gatoclass[edit]Hello Gatoclass. Thank you for taking the time to take another look at the issue again. However, I regret to notice that you at times misreport on the facts and have taken an approach that is not well balanced.
Statement by EdJohnston[edit]As some participants may be aware, I've been working up a proposal that is intended to make it more arduous to create socks that would tilt the discussions in the AA domain. Some conversations have been happening at User talk:Timotheus Canens#Next steps for WP:AE#Nagorno-Karabakh and at User talk:EdJohnston#"low-seniority single-purpose accounts". Here is the proposal:
A requirement of 500 article edits is similar to what is needed to get approval for WP:AWB. It is accepted that people need to be experienced to use AWB. My proposal would give an advantage to experienced editors when working the Nagorno-Karabakh article, while still allowing all editors to make uncontroversial improvements. So far, a number of editors who often support the Armenian side of the dispute have expressed unhappiness about this proposal, and User:Grandmaster, who is often associated with the Azeri side, has been in favor. I hope that editors can temporarily set aside their outside loyalties to see what is most likely to lead to the creation of neutral articles. A fault of this proposal is that long-running socks may be entrenched, but the long-running socks are those for which we can see a behavior record and apply sanctions. It is the brand-new accounts that cause the most trouble for admins, since there is no time available to review every edit by a brand-new account that might have been created to evade previous sanctions. The SPI system can be evaded by people who have a strong incentive to do so, and some rather flimsy-looking new accounts have been reported at SPI and the case closed due to lack of evidence. It is the brand-new accounts where lack of evidence is the main problem. I am just suggesting a way that the brand new accounts can be given a slightly higher hurdle, so that the existing climate of sock charges and countercharges can be ameliorated. If you are wondering whether concerns about socking are important, please see all the comments above me in this thread. EdJohnston (talk) 18:56, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Statement by Paul Siebert[edit]
Statement by Dehr[edit]
Statement by Grandmaster[edit]
Statement by Paul Siebert[edit]I am not sure the EdJohnston's proposal to comply with our policy. The only non-discriminative editing restrictions stipulated by our policy is article's semi-protection or temporary full protection. I am not familiar with the policy that allows restrictions of a whole sub-category of users. The text of standard discretionary sanctions explains that any sanctions can be applied to some concrete editor, not to an unspecified number of them or to some sub-category of users. The sanctions can be applied only after giving due warning, not before or concurrently with the warning (#2); this clear and unambiguous warning should identify misconduct (#3); it should contain the advise how the editor may mend their ways (#4); and, finally, when the sanctions are applied, they should contain an explanation or the appeal process (#6).
The major advantages of this proposal are that (i) it is in full accordance with the letter and spirit of discretionary sanctions; (ii) it does not affect good faith users, independently on their experience, (iii) it applies escalating restrictions on problem users, both old and new; (iv) it allows the users whose behaviour has improved to appeal these sanctions; (v) it may become a universal approach to the problem articles of that type.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:49, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Reply to EdJ's proposal, by Winterbliss[edit]What in the beginning was an AE report filed by User:Grandmaster in bad faith, gradually mutated into a process that poses a risk not only to the article in question but to the existence of Wikipedia as a free intellectual resource. Although EdJohnston's proposal is well intentioned, its effects will likely be counterproductive and long lasting. This is because of the new and unprecedented suggestion to rank accounts by "seniority." First, as argued by Paul Silbert and Meowy, this will signal a shift from intellectual merit and quality of references to a system where textual inputs will be evaluated based on longevity of accounts. I also agree with Paul S. on that “The idea to apply some article-specific or topic specific restrictions that affect a whole category of users majority of whom committed no violation of our policy is extremely flawed and dangerous for Wikipedia; in my opinion, such step directly contradict to the letter and the spirit of the discretionary sanctions.” Flawed as the seniority idea is on its own, it is also dangerous for AA2 specifically since some user accounts in this area evidently enjoyed prolonged existence due to a division of labor in cabals. In such cabals, junior accounts are assigned the higher-risk role of edit warring all the while cabal leaders are in business of chain-slamming opponents with SPIs and AE reports over, over, over and over again to have them banned and their edits erased. In other words – I think Meowy or Dehr mentioned that – some accounts with higher “seniority” in AA2 are likely to be those who found a method to game the system in the most cynical way. This report targets “new” accounts but the fact is that the most troublesome accounts for this article specifically have been the veteran “higher seniority” users not coincidentally clustered around Grandmaster. The history of contributions to the article shows that edit warring in Nagorno-Karabakh was done by a group mentioned in ruwiki as members of the notorious 26 Commissars cabal information on meta-wiki, [69]). These accounts include User:Grandmaster himself, User:Brandmeister, User:Tuscumbia, User:Quantum666, User:Parishan, User:Interfase and others. All these users, which have matching account names both in English and Russian wikis, were sanctioned by ruwiki’s Arbcom as a meat team that coordinated edit wars and engaged in vote-stacking. User:Brandmeister, User:Tuscumbia, and User:Quantum666 ended up banned in enwiki several times. If administrators in this report decided to treat accounts created in 2011 prejudicially, it would be fair if the edit warring “higher seniority” accounts from User:Grandmaster’s Russian cabal that have matching user names in other wikis are treated with equal if not higher level of concern. While we all understand that ruwiki and enwiki are two different projects, by no means should these matching accounts in EnglWiki be given an advantage over any other accounts. I intend to raise this issue on all levels in Wikipedia. Secondly, EdJohnston’s suggestion will actually stimulate edit wars - higher seniority accounts are already misinterpreting the proposed rules as a carte-blanche for removing the edits of lower seniority accounts (designated bad guys) regardless of the quality of contributions. This will stimulate more needless AE complaints and more administrator involvement. Then the administrators will get really mad (as happened already with Golbez, who proposed to start banning “every nationalist”), and will raise the edit count requirement for "higher seniority" in order to further limit participation in the article to wash their hands of this trouble. Lastly, the article will simply be forever locked with all the crap inside. Alarmingly, EdJohnston or T.Canens (don’t remember) hinted that such scheme can be extended to ALL AA2 articles. This fate will gradually spread to ALL more or less controversial subjects in WP - a recipe of WP's slow and agonizing death. Third, see how Grandmaster has already begun intentionally misinterpreting proposals from peer users and administrators. So far Grandmaster and his suspected meats harassed opponents with SPIs and AEs to get them banned as socks or impose sanctions upon them. When bowing to this pressure sysops banned foes of Grandmaster and his suspected meats (I inspected and roughly half sock bans lack sufficient ground), Grandmaster would make sure that viewpoints associated with edits of the wrongfully banned users are forever erased regardless of their quality. See how Grandmaster already mis-interpreted Ed’s proposal as a notion that newer editors are ostensibly required “gain the support of the established users” [70]. And he already began acting on this mis-interpretation. See how Grandmaster trashed and removed my reply to his comments on Nagorno-Karabakh talk pages [71], already behaving as an empowered “higher seniority account.” His excuse was that in his opinion a reply cannot be posted inside/within a commentary. Also, my comments about a couple of statements by EdJohnston and Paul Siebert:
My suggestions:
EdJohnston’s proposal: the rule of unintended consequences and self-fulfilling prophecy[edit]That's what I think. So far EdJohnston's proposal targets just one article Nagorno that is. Ok. But what if tomorrow I or someone else from the group of accounts that are considered suspicious by [User:Grandmaster] decide to edit OTHER articles in the process running into conflict with Grandmaster? Will you propose to extend the 500 edit and 1RR rule to that article as well giving advantage to so-called seniority users?? Consider the Shelling of Stepanakert article. User [Nocturnal781] started it, and users [Winterbliss], [Grandmaster] and [Brandmeister] all contributed and re-edited. What if I decide to edit it too and bump into a dispute with Grandmaster and Brandmeister, the two meatshop buddies from ruwiki who kept the Nagorno article in a f*cked up condition for years (just take a look at the history of the article)?? Will you extend the 500/1RR rule to ALL ARTICLES which Nocturnal781, Winterbliss and I choose to edit?? This is just one example of how quickly EdJohnston’s proposal can metastasize into a true mess. Also, by keeping this AE request open for some many weeks and by putting a pressure on several accounts like mine you are inadvertently creating a common identity for all these accounts which did not exist in the first place. Now after being treated unfairly in the numerous SPIs and in this AE report this group of users are more likely to follow each other’s edits, which makes this AE report is a Self-fulfilling prophecy with a toxic potential for unintended consequences. Will you risk spreading the 500/1RR rule to the entire AA universe to simply satisfy the whimsical impulse of Grandmaster, a convicted meat-puppeteer in ruwiki?? Or will you start arbitrarily and randomly banning every new account that begins editing in AA without any evidence of misbehavior simply because someone thinks that “something is going on”?? Think about it … Sincerely yours, Dehr (talk) 18:52, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
Result concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh article[edit]
Having found the time to do a little more research on the history of the article and the users concerned, it seems the following has occurred: Between about June and August 2011, the article was gradually taken from about 60k to 95k bytes by several users since banned for sockpuppetry, including Bars77, Vandorenfm, and Gorzaim. After these accounts were banned, Ehud Lesar reverted the article back to the 60k version in September, per WP:BAN.[75] Lesar then found himself in an edit war with several other users, most of whom also turned out to be socks. The article then remained relatively stable on the 60k version for about five months, until January 24, when Oliveriki, a user with only a handful of edits, reverted back to the 95k version with the misleading edit summary "rest references".[76] This triggered a renewed edit war over the two versions, with the participants this time including Tuscumbia (currently serving a My initial conclusions are, firstly, that Oliveriki renewed an old edit war and did so with a highly misleading edit summary,[77]] also failing to explain his reasons for restoring about 30k of content on the talk page. The fact that this user has only a handful of edits is also a concern. Secondly, Zimmarod restored the contested 95k version three times,[78][79][80] the last time justifying his restoration per WP:BAN due to Tuscumbia's ban,[81] ignoring the fact that the content he was restoring was itself originally added by sitebanned users. Zimmarod has also made disparaging remarks on the article talk page about his opponents, in breach of WP:SOAPBOX AND WP:NPA: "Azerbaijani editors always discard anything that runs against the spirit and letter of official state propaganda of their bizarre oil dictatorship headed by the uncrowned KGB monarch Aliyev. Azerbaijani futile fight against Western academia is like the objections of of the state-brainwashed Chinese or Soviets against Western accusations of human rights abuse"[82] and "I think five editors spend a month in empty talk with a stubborn POV-pusher."[83] As a consequence, I think both editors should as a minimum be formally warned of AE sanctions. With regard to the edit warring, most of the reverts on both sides have been made on the grounds of WP:BAN, presumably from the clause which states that Anyone is free to revert any edits made in defiance of a ban. I do not see however, where the policy states that edits made by a user before his ban can be reverted on sight. Regardless, the policy also states that Wikipedians in turn are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor (sometimes called proxy editing or proxying) unless they are able to confirm that the changes are verifiable and they have independent reasons for making them. From this, I conclude that if an edit originally made by a since banned user is restored by another user in good standing, then that edit should be discussed as a legitimate edit and not simply re-reverted per the first WP:BAN clause. Finally, with regard to the contested content itself, I agree with Golbez,[84] who suggested that it is not appropriate in such a contested article to add so much content in a single edit without discussion, and that the additions need to be discussed section by section by the parties concerned so that outstanding issues can be properly addressed. Gatoclass (talk) 08:39, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Before making any further comments on this case, I intend to wait for resolution of my recently filed request for clarification. Anyone with an interest in the topic area is welcome to comment on the request. My apologies for any inconvenience while this issue is being resolved. Gatoclass (talk) 08:23, 8 March 2012 (UTC) Had I realized my request for clarification would still be open almost two weeks after filing it, I would have withdrawn from the case at the outset. I think it best that I do so now since I have no way of knowing when the request will be closed, and I think it unfair to the respondents to expect them to wait any longer. Once again, my apologies to all concerned for the inconvenience. Gatoclass (talk) 10:04, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
Now that I see this is specific to the article in question I am in favor of Ed's proposal. It could be a good trial to be used elsewhere in highly problematic areas. --WGFinley (talk) 14:12, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
Venue[edit]
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Oliveriki[edit]
| Closed, no consensus for action --WGFinley (talk) 15:24, 6 April 2012 (UTC) |
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Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning Oliveriki[edit]
There is a request about article level sanctions on Nagorno-Karabakh above, but I believe that the behavior of this particular user needs to be reviewed by the admins on a personal basis because of all the disruption that he caused. This user has made to date only 13 edits, but the disruption caused was massive. Oliveriki was registered on October 2, 2010, and the same day he made 3 edits: first two were deredlinking his user and talk pages, and third edit was a revert on Culture of Nagorno-Karabakh in support of Xebulon (talk · contribs), the mass sock puppeter, banned from wikipedia: [86] Next 2 edits were also reverts on the same page in support of the same banned user. [87] [88] After making those 3 rvs he disappeared for almost a year, reappearing in October 2011 to make a few cosmetic edits here and there. On December 2, 2011 he makes another revert: [89] of this edit: [90], and disappears until January 24, 2012, when he emerged again and reverted Nagorno-Karabakh back to a 4 months old version by the banned user Xebulon with a false edit summary: [91], thus starting a massive edit war. Admin Golbez described what went on that article here: [92] I agree with Golbez when he said that "at the very least, Oliveriki should be blocked for disruption - reverting back to a four-month-old version with a blatant lie for an edit summary on an AA-related article should be an instablock". [93] Considering all the disruption caused by this user, I believe that at the very least Oliveriki should be permanently topic banned from all AA related articles. Indeed, his minimal contribution was mostly edit warring on most contentions AA articles, proxying for the banned user, reverting articles to the versions made by Xebulon or his socks. Oliveriki came clean out of checkuser, but according to WP:BAN#Edits_by_and_on_behalf_of_banned_editors, "new accounts which engage in the same behavior as a banned editor or blocked account in the same context, and who appear to be editing Wikipedia solely for that purpose, are subject to the remedies applied to the editor whose behavior they are imitating". This means that Oliveriki should be placed on the same remedies as indefinitely banned Xebulon, which ones exactly I leave to the discretion of the admins. Grandmaster 00:04, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Discussion concerning Oliveriki[edit]Statement by Oliveriki[edit]Grandmaster’s AE report is unreasonable and the sysops should really take care of his own highly problematic account. Grandmaster is a user with a long history of upsetting activity in the most contested AA2 articles. It is laughable what Grandmaster is accusing me of. It is the second report on Nagorno-Karabakh that he filed just recently. Isn’t it just about too much for one user? Reverts are not forbidden, and I never reverted on “behalf” of anyone, especially Xebulon. And please note that Xebulon had not been banned at that time when I reverted. Xebulon got banned as late as on 11 April, 2011 [95], i.e. 5 months after I reverted in places that Grandmaster mentioned in diffs. Please also see that I reverted edits of WP’s highly disruptive accounts, which were all sanctioned both before and after my reverts, including User:Brandmeister, banned before for 6 months before his edits in diffs and for one year after [96]; and User:Quantum666 who is banned from AA2 area indefinitely and was sanctioned around the time when I reverted his edits [97]. My reverts were all explained in edit summaries. Yes I am an infrequent editor, but editing infrequently is not a onjectionable. I have recently published my first article, Azgapet. Grandmaster misinterprets WP:BAN which mentions new accounts specifically but I am not a new account. I was a new account when I participated in the Culture of Nagorno-Karabakh debate but the editors like Xebulon who were active on that page had not been banned at that time as mentioned before. When WP:BAN talks about such matters it mentions sock puppets but I am not a sock puppet of anyone which was proven in several SPIs. Grandmaster also mentioned a “warning” issued by User:Tuscumbia; User:Tuscumbia had been a highly disruptive account and he got banned for 6 months shortly after issuing his “warning” to me, and now he is banned for edit warring from AA2 for one year [98]. Tuscumbia’s “warning” was a way of being disruptive. All in all, it is a report as meritless as it is troublesome and I ask for a remedial measure for Grandmaster’s bad faith action. Oliveriki (talk) 18:03, 26 March 2012 (UTC) Comments by others about the request concerning Oliveriki[edit]
Result concerning Oliveriki[edit]
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Shuki[edit]
| Shuki (talk · contribs) is banned from all articles, discussions, and other content related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly construed across all namespaces indefinitely, this ban replaces all previous WP:ARBPIA bans. --WGFinley (talk) 15:28, 6 April 2012 (UTC) | ||
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Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning Shuki[edit]
Violation of the 1RR restriction and disruptive behaviour on the Israeli settlement article.
On 25 March], a discussion started about a statement in the Lead of the Israeli settlement article. The principal problem is that the statement is asserting a condition currently persists despite the fact that the source cited dates back to 1997 and that other sources contradict the statement. After a discussion, the sentence containing the statement was deleted. Shuki re-inserted the deleted sentence, ignoring the previous objections raised, in particular, the policy requirement that, as other sources contradict the statement, it cannot be expressed as an unqualified statement of fact. In the following ten hours, Shuki made a number of other reversions. A couple of these were, based on the edit comments left and the remark made by Shuki beforehand on the article talkpage, done for a WP:POINTy reason. The second of these was senseless; a citation to a Human Rights Watch document used to verify that a statement made by that organisation had been made by them was deleted and a fact tag inserted. When Dlv999 reverted Shuki's re-insertion just outside the 24-hour 1RR limit, Shuki requested that Dlv999 be given an ARBPIA warning. I pointed out to Shuki that, whereas he was complaining that Dlv999 had come close to violating the 1RRR restriction on the article, it looked to me as though he had actually violated it. On listing the edits which I thought might violate the 1RR restriction, Shuki replied that the edits shown by the third diff listed above are "not a reversion at all, merely a copyedit" and that (my interpretation) the edit shown in the second diff doesn't count because it reverts part of the text that Shuki had (before intervening edits by others) added back in in his previous edit. Unfortunately, I can't remember all the precedents set here which determine what does or does not count as a reversion as far as the 1RR restriction is concerned, so Shuki may be right about the edit in the second diff, but I feel pretty sure that his claim about the edits in the third diff is fairly incredible. Sometimes it looks to me as though editors are projecting their own behaviour onto others. I think that this is a classic case. Shuki is accusing other editors of POV-pushing and ignoring what other editors have written. Given that Shuki ignored issues other editors had raised and the supplied sources which contradict the statement he re-inserted, I think that those descriptions can fairly be applied to him. By pointing out to him that it looked to me as though he had broken the 1RR restriction, my behaviour has become aggressive. I think that the one acting most aggressively is Shuki. In my opinion, he shows a distinct lack of self-awareness. At one point, he takes a pop at Nishidani over the indefinite ban he was given. Perhaps, as someone with a less than salubrious ban and block history himself, including a block for sockpuppeteering, should show a bit more reserve over pointing the finger. I think that Shuki shows some signs of having had a bit of a meltdown. He lapses into incoherence at one point. He gets confused about who has said what. And he seems to take Zero, a long-term admin and contributor in the IP area, as a new editor. Shuki has asked for a retraction of the suggestion that he may have violated the 1RR restriction. I think that there is a case that he did and, therefore, I have brought it here. ← ZScarpia 14:35, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
Discussion concerning Shuki[edit]Statement by Shuki[edit]I'm organizing my thoughts on this frivolous battleground AE but first I'd like to ask that The Blade of the Northern Lights not handle cases regarding ARBPIA. The admin either has a POV on one side or is simply not informed in the area and has shown it on the few AEs that they have participated here already. The admin makes quick and uninformed character judgments without bothering to first verify if the claim even holds water. This is the second time I've seem a blatantly ignorant comment from Blade. --Shuki (talk) 23:11, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
With regard to the issue at hand: Apparently, ZScarpia seems to be using AE to fish for a sanction and innocently verify with the project if I have violated 1RR rather than actually risk accusing me of it. And he has made a few misleading personal comments in the process trying to discredit me. ZScarpia is claiming that I violated 1RR when in fact I reverted once (reinserting the sentence while a discussion was underway) and then shortly after removed problematic wording that does not appear in the source anyway. The second edit of the same sentence was not a rerevert (2RR) of anything or any other edit beforehand. The two edits had no related intervening edits and should be not be considered a R at all. Peculiar though that in this case, the 'not pro-settlement' editors claiming the sentence was not accurate had decided to first remove and then discuss instead of leaving in and discussing. They similarly did not object to another like-sided editor who had just previously insisted [100] that we leave in the 'original' wording of another line while a discussion was underway, and I had accepted that as the 'Jewish-Israeli' discussion was indeed underway. This is a content issue that can be discussed collaboratively instead of combatively. One editor suggested a compromise [101] and another editor posted an opposing opinion but the 'not pro-settlement editors' would not have anything to do with that, especially the Dlv999 editor who waited 24hrs +6 min, to make a revert insisting that the sentence be removed. DLv999's edit was clearly gaming though I chose to AGF him when I refrained from being antagonistic when I chose to warn him and did not run to open a kneejerk AE instead. ZScarpia did not have a problem with that skirting of 1RR. Blade automatically chose here to remark about ADL 'an organization with an obvious agenda' instead of reviewing the actual issue whether any settlements had been created after the ADL source date. Blade, in fact, a side-discussion had almost started about settlements and outposts (are settlements?) but at that time, but I was already pulling back since I found that the other editors continued to make article edits ignoring the discussion and it was frankly overwhelming. I think we could have civily discussed if the ADL line was accurate or not (if any real settlements had been established afterwards or not) but I was already distanced from taking part, not feeling that I was talking to editors who were even willing to hear reasonable opposing voices (who were scared away). In the last two paragraphs of this AE, ZScarpia has made unfortunately uncivil claims, including a direct personal insult of my use of the English language he calls a 'lapse into incoherence', and merely dragging up my history, some of which has nothing to do with the discussion at hand, in order to attack my character. His perception of my 'confused' interaction (another personal attack judgement on my mental state) between other editors is frankly, none of his business, irrelevant to the 1RR claim (if this really is the issue here or not). His accusation of belittling Zero is preposterous. If I was aggressive, I'd open an AE about ZScarpia. I choose not to be. --Shuki (talk) 01:13, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Comments by others about the request concerning Shuki[edit]Comment by The Devil's Advocate[edit]Calling the removal of a source a "copyedit" seems like a blatant lie. It is clearly a pointy revert so it seems Shuki not only violated 1RR with that edit, but lied about the nature of the edit. Seems like a topic ban is definitely in order absent a vociferous apology.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 15:45, 29 March 2012 (UTC) Comment by Cptnono[edit]
Comment by Dlv999[edit]In my opinion Shuki's defense and re-insertion of the statement and associated ADL reference does not reach the level of tendentious editing. The statement in question had been part of the article for some time, so Shuki was defending the status quo, not seeking to insert new material. As a content dispute, Shuki had every right to advocate and re-introduce the material that he/she honestly believed was best for the article. The issue with Shuki's conduct arises in his/her behavior once it became clear that the weight of evidence and editors was against his/her position. Instead of acknowledging that consensus was broadly against inclusion, Shuki decided that all the editors that had disagreed with him/her were "POV editors making edits without bothering to take this discussion seriously" variously accusing us of "animosity", "battleground mentality", "combative POV insertion". He/she decided to start deleting other references in the article to make a WP:POINT by claiming to use "Zero's logic", but at the same time still arguing for the retention of the statement in question (thus denying "Zero's logic"). One of these deletions was particularly egregious as ZScarpia has already pointed out. I think the violation of 1RR is pretty clear, but had it not been for Shuki's aggravating behavior I doubt the issue would have even been raised, let alone reached this noticeboard. As it was, Shuki essentially goaded Zscarpia into bringing the complaint. Even now he/she refuses to acknowledge breaching the rule and seems to have brought the same problematic behavior from the talk page to this noticeboard, now even accusing admins of POV, when they do not support his/her interpretation of events. I have already addressed the accusation that my edits were an attempt to "game the system".[102]. Dlv999 (talk) 09:52, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Result concerning Shuki[edit]
@Shuki: You are TBAN'd by Tim on 29 Nov 2010 from ARBPIA[103]. On 2 Dec 2010 an SPI request was filed against you and found to be valid by Tim. [104] Coming here accusing admins of misrepresenting clearly established facts is not very productive. --WGFinley (talk) 03:02, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
Cptnono[edit]Regarding the comment by Cptnono (talk · contribs) above, invoking m:DICK is a dick move and has earned him a 7 day block from me despite any claim to be retired for disrupting AE. --WGFinley (talk) 15:45, 2 April 2012 (UTC) |
Uishaki[edit]
| Uishaki (talk · contribs) warned of WP:ARBPIA remedies. --WGFinley (talk) 14:01, 4 April 2012 (UTC) |
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Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below. Request concerning Uishaki[edit]
I made a sincere effort to resolve this with User:Uishaki one-on-one, leaving him this message on his Talk page. I specifically directed him to the AFP source that his edits distorted, and I instructed him to read the Template:ARBPIA message on the article's Discussion page before making further changes that conflict with the RSes. He's disregarded my advice, and at a WP:BLP no less, so I don't know what else to do other than keep reverting him, which obviously isn't a solution.—Biosketch (talk) 13:00, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Notified.—Biosketch (talk) 13:05, 4 April 2012 (UTC) Discussion concerning Uishaki[edit]Statement by Uishaki[edit]Comments by others about the request concerning Uishaki[edit]Result concerning Uishaki[edit]
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