Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning Future Perfect at Sunrise[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

JCAla (talk) 19:05, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Afghanistan-India-Pakistan discretionary sanctions [9]

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

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

1. [10] Starting yet another edit war - completely changing the lead and massively removing information - shortly after an article protected because of this very same edit war[11][12][13] was unprotected.[14][15] Starting an edit war although a discussion on the article's talk is still in the process of reaching a consensus.[16] The admin who unprotected the article did so under the premise that any "complicated bits" – such as the lead issue undoubtedly is – would be discussed on the talk page.[17] But Fut.Perf. restored his favourite version without taking any note of the input, information and objections by other editors. He had previously been reported twice for edit warring (as a result of which the article was protected the one time and the other time serious warnings were issued).[18][19]
2. [20] Source falsification and attempted defamation of another editor. Fut.Perf. states:

“ … the Rome Process, as a neutral, non-belligerent party, were holding parallel peace talks both with Massoud and the Taliban. Their proposal was not an anti-Taliban "alliance" (as JCAla has persistently tried to present it) but a "Loya Jirga" that would include the Taliban together with all other parties.”[21]

The sources clearly identify the group involved in the Rome Process as planning to overthrow the Taliban and as involving Massoud.

This comes as backdrop to this previous, unjustified attack and defamation attempt.[22]

3. [23] Again starting an edit war - removing reliably sourced, notable information -, bullying and blanket reverting mere 10 minutes after information was added.[24]

4. [25] Starting yet another edit war by unnecessarily reverting out a completely uncontroversial term which is central to the bio of the man in question from the first summarizing sentence of the lead after the term had been added mere hours before.[26] Note the man in question is primarily known for being the anti-Taliban leader.[27]

5. [28] Continuing the massive removal of information without discussion although parts of the previous content removal have already been strongly opposed, resulted in an edit war with protection of the article and the very recent discussion about it hasn't been resolved yet. (see 1.)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Consistent bullying by Future Perfect at Sunrise

Future Perfect at Sunrise is hounding and bullying people who have opposed him on content. An image deletion discussion let to the first dispute and direct interaction between Fut.Perf. and me. The image was uploaded by me and depicts the two senior Afghan anti-Taliban leaders Massoud and Qadir. Fut.Perf. wanted the image deleted, I wanted it to be kept as a sign for trans-ethnic peace. The first time the image was nominated, the consensus was for the image to be kept. Fut.Perf., although being involved in the discussion, closed the discussion as "delete". The closure was contested by many different editors and a review (DRV) of the deletion found the closure to be in contradiction to consensus. The closing statement noted that Fut.Perf. seems to confuse statements with which he disagrees as being invalid. ("S/he [Fut.Perf.] must not confuse arguments that are truly invalid with arguments that s/he merely disagrees with.")[29] As the image was restored. Fut.Perf. immediately renominated the image for deletion. The new discussion was speedily closed as "keep".

Though consensus had been established, Fut.Perf. suddenly came to articles he never edited before (which I had regularly edited) - among them the Ahmad Shah Massoud article in question - and started, among other things, to remove the image.[33][34] After the image deletion discussion Fut.Perf followed me to several other articles. He i. e. came to the Peshawar Accord article which I had just created some hours earlier and to which he could have only have come by stalking my contributions.[35]

When Darkness Shines started to provide his input on the Massoud article[36], Fut.Perf. suddenly also started to hound DS.[37] Before there had never been a direct interaction on article space between Fut.Perf. and DS, just like there had never been a direct interaction between Fut.Perf. and me before the image deletion discussion. When DS got a DYK promoted by several established editors reviewing it, Fut.Perf. - coming to an article he never edited before DS did - immediately discredited it including all those that had reviewed it.[38][39] As the closer of the DRV noted, Fut.Perf. keeps confusing opinions/statements with which he doesn t agree as being generally invalid and therefore has admitted that he thinks he has the right to hound people.[40] He also acts rather smug on the articles created by DS, for nothing which others would just note as a CE edit. [41]

There are several other editors who have a problem with Fut.Perf.s actions.[42] At one point User:Alanscottwalker suggested an IBAN to be placed between us.[43][44] Fut.Perf. told him "Any possible honest answer I could give you to this would break civility rules, so I won't."[45]

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

Was listed by some editors as an involved editor in the topic area in the Arbcom thread imposing discretionary sanctions [46]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified: [47]

Discussion concerning Future Perfect at Sunrise[edit]

Statement by Future Perfect at Sunrise[edit]

Obviously not worth a comment. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:27, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others about the request concerning Future Perfect at Sunrise[edit]

• Killer Chihuahua, I was the one to suggest to an admin to look into Fut.Perf.'s history[48][49][50] before Fut.Perf. opened the AE case here. So, I also brought my initial grievance to AE. JCAla (talk) 16:47, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning Future Perfect at Sunrise[edit]

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

• Propose speedy close of this case, as a duplicate of the one above; any objections from other admins active here on AE? Remember that all parties are equally examined in any case; this bears the flavour of a retaliatory action. There is no need to open a second case reversing the names of the parties. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:04, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  Already responded here. There is no need to bring the same issue up across different venues. This is the third place you have made the same statement. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:04, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Request concerning London Victory Celebrations of 1946[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 21:46, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

N/A

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

I am asking for amendment or repeal of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement&oldid=378153617#Result_concerning_Russavia, summarized by the box at Talk:London Victory Celebrations of 1946, which I am copying here, for ease of reference.

Pursuant to the Arbitration Committee's decision at WP:ARBEE#Discretionary sanctions, all editors with "Eastern Europe" sanctions are hereby banned from editing the article London Victory Parade of 1946 or its talk page. For the purposes of this ban, these editors are all who have at any time been the subject of remedies or sanctions logged on the case pages WP:ARBEE, WP:EEML or WP:ARBRB, irrespective of whether or not these sanctions are still in force or whether they were imposed by the Arbitration Committee or by administrators. Violations of this restriction may be reported to the arbitration enforcement noticeboard and may result in blocks or additional sanctions without further warning. This sanction can be appealed as described at WP:ARBEE#Discretionary sanctions. See here for the background of this ban.  Sandstein  10:04, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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

N/A

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

N/A

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

It appears that around 2010 some editors (not me) were edit warring at London Victory Celebrations of 1946 and submitted an AE request. Sandstein ended this conflict invoking a rather nuclear option, permbanning anyone who was associated with several ArbCom cases from editing this page. To quote from his closing comment at AE: "This is likely to affect some innocent editors, but these are not very likely to want to edit to edit this obscure article in particular, and the benefit to Wikipedia of not having constant wars over the article outweighs that drawback".

Looking at the article's history, the two editors involved in editing that article and edit warring were Varsovian (talk · contribs) (a party to ARBEE, eventually topic banned from a large body of related articles, inactive since 2010) and Chumchum7 (talk · contribs) (semi-active, not sanctioned by of the letter soups Sandstein named, never sanctioned in any other form with regards to editign this article - so I assume his reverts were not seen as disruptive). In 2009 Varsovian edit warred there with Jacurek (talk · contribs) (a party to EEML, perbanned in 2011). The immediate trigger of his sanction seem to have been edits by Russavia (talk · contribs) (a party to EEML, permbanned this year). The article is also semi-protected to deal with socks and such.

I believe that the sanction is harmful to Wikipedia. It affects a good number of editors (from the letter soup arbcom cases named by Sanstein), who are most likely unaware of this weird sanction (I am pretty sure I was never notified of it). Take my case, for example. I haven't edited that page since 2007 and weren't part of the 2010 dispute. I am nonetheless interested in this general topic, and today, in the midst of my wiki wanderings, I decided to fix the article references by running some automated tools (REFLINKS and such) - only to see this weird warning, and be forced to self-revert myself (or potentially face some sanctions, for daring to fix the references, which apparently I cannot do due to an old arbcom case and a weird AE ruling I was never notified of). I don't understand why I (or anyone else who wasn't involved in that 2010 dispute) should be banned from editing this (obscure, as Sanstein noted) article. It's not more likely to attract future troubles than any other slightly controversial article. That few editors edit warred there few years back should never have been a reason for a wide range sanction back then (this could've been handled with article bans targeting the specific few editors involved in edit warring instead), and it makes even less sense now.

Thus, given the fact that majority of editors who edit warred there in 2009-2010 have retired or been permbanned, I would like for this sanction to be repealed. I could ask for its modification to exclude edits by myself, but frankly, I don't see why we should bother with modification of this piece of weirdness, when scrapping this would solve this more permanently. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 21:46, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

N/A, but I notified Sandstein of this thread here: [69]. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 22:09, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Sandstein: the edit warring in question, while perhaps going overboard, has nonetheless concided with the article doubling in size ([70]). You say that you stabilized the article, but I think the case could be just as well made that you prevented it from being improved further. In any case, asking for permission is deterimental; I for once would be much less likely to be inclined to work on an article given such troublesome restrictions. In the time spend here I could've probably cleaned up all the citations to use cite templates, and such, but when I think I'd have to go through the added trouble of having to list those citations and explain to another editor how to add then, or deal with a sandbox and a chance of edit conflict through it, I very much don't want to bother. If you want, feel free to topic ban the editors who edit warred there, and let the rest of us edit in peace. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:14, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Chumchum7: my apologies, my look at the edit history was a bit cursory. I am not sure how to rephrase what I wrote, you were engaged in some rerting there, although I note (and stressed it in this refactoring attempt) that your edits were apparently not judged as disruptive. Oh, and I didn't realize Varsovian was topic banned, this explains a lot (as in - why his harassment and disruption finally ceased). And yes, I agree with you, the failure of Wikipedia dispute resolution to deal with him for several years was a major annoyance. On your semi-retirement note, I'd like to invite you to come back, the EE topics are quite peaceful now, as after all those years, most disruptive editors were finally banned or retired, and luckily, no new crop of trolls have arisen to replace them (keeping the fingers crossed this will last...). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:10, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion concerning London Victory Celebrations of 1946[edit]

• The heavy duty sanctions seem to have outlived their usefulness. The standard discretionary ones should be fine in dealing with any potential new flare-up. Tijfo098 (talk) 22:37, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• As an editor of the article who is not associated with any of the relevant arbcom cases, this is just a note that I do not have any objections to the sanction being repealed. (However, I do find that Piotrus repeatedly referring to the arbcom cases as "alphabet soup" is not especially helpful.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:40, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• (edit conflict) I implemented that sanction at a time when the article was subject to intense nationalist edit-warring by several editors with prior sanctions in the topic area. The sanction seems to have been effective at preventing that, and the article has not seen much editing by others since. Consequently, I don't think that it would help much to repeal the sanction. In the rare event that one of the few affected editors wants to make productive edits (as in the instant case) they can ask somebody else to make the proposed edit, as has now happened. I'm fine with whatever may be decided here, though.  Sandstein  22:41, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• First of all it appears that Piotrus has made a good faith, small error above by suggesting I was one of the people who was 'edit warring'. The term 'edit war' for WP purposes has a very specific definition as distinct from 'revert' - afair it does not apply to my conduct at the time. Moreover, not only was I never sanctioned on the article, I never have been sanctioned on Wikipedia, period - precisely because I have made a huge effort to take care even when trying to tackle difficult cases such as this article. The "nuclear option" on the article did not apply to me, I've always remained free to edit on it and I have never abused that power. So please Piotrus, kindly redact and rephrase that line. Am certain it was an innocent mistake.

The enormous amount of time wasted on disputes about this article is precisely what put me off Wikipedia and caused my semi-retirement. If WP admins want to retain editors they need to find solutions to conflict much quicker by targeting the troublemakers, rather than allowing the conflict to drag on and on until the 'nuclear option' has to be used.

Secondly, the article involved only one especially difficult editor. This article appears to have been the very starting point for their descent through ever more sanctions until they were eventually banned from all Poland-related subjects. The article would not be under such restrictions, and so many people's time would not have been massively wasted, if that editor had been barred from it much earlier on; though of course, singling out troublemakers is terribly difficult and can appear unfair to those not deeply involved in the case.

This said, I have to question the appropriateness of Sandstein's phrase 'nationalist editors', above. The banned editor was no 'Polish nationalist': quite the contrary, they appear to have found some kind of sport in winding up Polish editors about their country (the sport was taken to other Poland-related articles once restrictions were put on this one). It was a classic case of ethnic "baiting", and the biggest problem with the article was first the baiter, then the inability of others not to take the bait.

So, in short: provided the most serious proven troublemaker remains barred from it, am fine with sequentially easing the restrictions on the article month by month provided an admin is prepared to watch it very closely indeed. Anything less than that risks more of our lives getting stolen by unnecessary conflict over this article. -Chumchum7 (talk) 09:44, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Question to Chumchum: when you say "provided the most serious proven troublemaker remains barred from it", can you please clarify, for the benefit of others who may be not so well acquainted with the case, which editor you are referring to? Also, are you saying a restriction barring that editor from the article independently of the general restriction under discussion is currently in place, or are you saying one should be imposed now? (Because, I have a hunch who you might mean, but I can't find anything about another such sanction regarding him right now.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I think you know I wanted to avoid using Varsovian's name in the interests of keeping things cool and not bringing him out of dormancy. But here you go. As far as I recall Varsovian was sanctioned a few times precisely because of his behaviour on this article, then barred from it with others as a consequence of Sandstein's 'nuclear option', then after elsewhere continuing his sport of provocation around Polish subject areas he was banned from Eastern Europe topic pages for 6 months (and breached the ban and was sanctioned for that as well and even tried to appeal). These six months have elapsed. So, as far as I'm aware, if the restrictions were lifted he could pile right back in to this article, which appears to be the very article where he first got his addiction to baiting Poles in the first place. One should not assume that just because he has been dormant since 2010 he won't be back. I could not support the lifting of restrictions on this article without Varsovian being banned from it. The problem with this article was behavioural (trolling and reactions to it) rather than ideological (nationalism).

Sandstein may have imposed such a broad ban to appear to be as equitable as possible, and that is admirable - it is indeed very difficult for an administrator to police a disingenuous troll, whose behaviour might not appear to be as bad as the reactions he provokes.-Chumchum7 (talk) 13:38, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I personally never made a single edit in this article. However, according to this restriction, it is about all editors "who have at any time been the subject of remedies or sanctions logged on the case pages WP:DIGWUREN, WP:EEML or WP:ARBRB, irrespective of whether or not these sanctions are still in force". So, even if sanctions by Arbcom for specific editor has already expired, they still remain in force, as imposed by this restriction, even if an editor was never sanctioned for anything on AE. Therefore, I think this particular restriction oversteps the boundaries provided by Arbcom for discretionary sanctions by penalizing people who are not supposed to be under any sanctions. This request probably could be filed by Piotrus as a clarification request to Arbcom, but it would be a good idea just to save some time and simply lift it as an obviously unnecessary restriction. My very best wishes (talk) 19:09, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm not really sure one way or the other about the continued need for the sanction, but it should at least be amended such that it does not apply to editors who have no remaining qualifying sanctions in force against them. Doing so would reduce the collateral damage and should be low risk. Monty₈₄₅ 03:04, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• The problems that precipitated the special article-level sanctions here do not seem to be present anymore. I'd recommend a trial period (perhaps 3 months?) without this specifically-tailored remedy, maybe just a warning banner outlining the applicable WP:DISCSANC under WP:DIGWUREN. After that, we may decide which method will be most useful going forward. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 04:29, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If it turns out that easing of restrictions plus a warning banner is the solution, the banner should say any previous troublemakers on the article will be policed in an especially hawkish manner (immediate, very tough sanctions for minor infractions such as disingenuous edit summaries, misrepresenting sources, tendentious OR, etc). -Chumchum7 (talk) 06:21, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I guess, to be on the safe side, we could just convert this into a topic ban for the non-permbanned editors who were sanctioned for being disruptive in that article in the past (Varsovian?). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:38, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When you say topic ban, do you mean article ban? Afair either Jacurek or Loosmark (and possibly others) might also have been sanctioned for taking Varsovian's bait at this article. Personally, I have fractionally more of a problem with country-baiters than those who then take the bait by emotionally defending their national pride (and I don't care if their country is France, America or the Tuvan People's Republic). -Chumchum7 (talk) 20:11, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jacurek has been indeffed for recurrent socking, and Loosmark has been community-banned for operating a massive sockfarm. The point is moot. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 20:32, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I meant article ban, yes. And while Lothar is right the others are permbanned, a article ban could be helpful if they are ever unbanned. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 22:42, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning London Victory Celebrations of 1946[edit]

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

• This is an appeal of Sandstein's sanction and so subject to the rules governing AE appeals, set out below. T. Canens (talk) 10:00, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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).

• I'd say it's been long enough that we should try lifting it, especially since the general environment of the topic area has been a lot less troublesome in the last few months than it was back then, and several of the main protagonists are no longer active. Of course, any renewed flare-up should be met with very quick and decisive sanctions again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Check this list of the most frequent editors of London Victory Celebrations. Out of the top five, two are currently blocked - Jacurek and Loosmark. The #4 guy, Howelseornotso, was most likely a sock of Loosmark but is not currently active. No blocks or topic bans (except for Sandstein's restriction) affect Varsovian but he has not edited Wikipedia since 2010. I don't recall whether Russavia played any role in the trouble on this article but he is currently blocked anyway. Chumchum7 is still active but he was never sanctioned, and I don't believe that his edits caused any concern. I favor lifting Sandstein's restriction at this point, per the rationale given above by Future Perfect. If Piotrus wants to improve the article I assume he will make reasonable efforts to ensure he has consensus. EdJohnston (talk) 02:45, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Agree with FPaS. NW (Talk) 17:32, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• • Okay, I guess we can call it a consensus then, especially since Sandstein indicated he'd be okay with it too (though not actively advocating it). Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:37, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning JCAla[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:08, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Afghanistan-India-Pakistan discretionary sanctions [71]

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

1. [72]

   In this edit, JCAla chose to make a blanket revert of several intervening edits. which I had done separately deliberately so as to make them more easily discussable and revertable individually. This edit:

   • reinserted a piece of textual plagiarism that presented the opinions of an unreliable source as a fact in the article's own editorial voice [73]
   • removed a justified POV tag [74]
   • reinserted a dead link to an obviously unreliable self-published source [75]
   • removed a recently added bit of uncontentious, well-sourced and obviously pertinent, neutral information [76]
2. [77] talk page posting making a blatantly WP:OR argument about why we should ignore an obviously reliable and pertinent source criticizing Massoud
3. [78] talk page posting making yet another blatant OR argument about why he chose to quote an important source selectively, using it for sourcing criticism of Massoud's opponents but omitting the obviously pertinent fact that it also criticizes him (cf. [79])

(more instances of source falsification listed in the discussion section below)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

JCAla is a single-purpose agenda editor whose purpose on Wikipedia is to glorify the memory of Ahmed Shah Massoud, one of the warlords of the Afghanistan wars of the 1980s and 1990s. Over the course of two years, single-mindedly, he has turned this article into a POV screed, unabashedly tendentious, written in a tone of fawning admiration throughout, a quote-farm crammed full of block-quotes and pull-quotes from opinion pieces revelling in admiration; in short, a hagiography (his version from early May: [80]; most recent version of his: [81]). His editing has included severe distortion and falsification of sources, in an attempt to gloss over one of the last remaining bits of criticism of Massoud that he couldn't simply ignore (see earlier report at ANI here)

He has remained almost entirely unopposed for years, owing to the shortage of good-faith editors in this topic domain. Since May 2012, I have made attempts to clean this article up. These efforts have been faced with a brazen-faced campaign of filibustering and stone-walling from JCAla and his sidekick Darkness Shines (talk · contribs). JCAla's tactics include blanket reverts of just about any change I propose [82][83][84][85][86], excessive walls of text on the talk page and on related noticeboard threads, and an extreme display of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.

His edit-warring has earned him two blocks since May (with five earlier blocks since September 2010, all for the same topic), and has forced full protection on the article three times. For the last few days, talkpage discussion has been done under close surveillance by Casliber (talk · contribs), who clearly warned JCAla that he must allow the article to be cleaned up from non-neutral elements and that continued tendentious editing might get him blocked [87]. His most recent revert clearly demonstrates that reasonable cooperation towards neutrality is simply not possible with this person. JCAla is completely impervious to the idea that having a tendentious quotefarm for an article is bad. He simply doesn't want the article to sound neutral.

Re. to Salvio giuliano and RegentsPark, about my alleged "refusal to use dispute resolution": I stand by the way I acted; it was the only option available. All known methods of dispute resolution on Wikipedia rely on a combination of two factors: (a) a minimum degree of common ground and shared commitment to the values of the project between the parties involved, and/or (b) availability of clueful outside opinion to break any impasses. When neither of the two factors are given, as was the case here, conventional dispute resolution necessarily fails. This is demonstrably what happened here. If you have one side whose attitude is simply an impermeable brickwall of denial and a downright refusal to even acknowledge the idea of NPOV as a goal to strive for, and if all attempts at mobilizing outside help have repeatedly failed, then the time for dispute resolution is over, and the time for administrative action has come. In that case, the task of administrators is to take action against the root causes of the problem – the tendentious editing –, not against its symptoms (the reverting). That moment, when administrators ought to have become active and blocked the offenders, was several months ago. If administrators are too damn lazy to get their act together and take the ten minutes needed to understand the root cause of a situation, and act accordingly, as happened several times in this affair, then don't blame us if we resort to reverting. In such a situation, for an administrator to stand idly by pontificating about the need for "discussion" or "dispute resolution" to a good-faith editor who knows for a fact that any such discussion can be no more than a waste of time, is nothing but a show of cynical laziness and incompetence. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:33, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re. to Dennis Brown: I have to question your statement that Darkness Shines used the talkpage to discuss things. The large majority of his postings, and virtually all of the ones he made in the beginning of this mess (I stopped counting at about 12 out of 14) actually had no substantive content regarding the disputed content whatsoever. They were merely repeated demands that I explain and justify things – things that were either self-evident or had been explained already. That's not discussion; it's a well-known filibustering tactics and nothing else. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:24, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re. the suggestion of "mandated external review" brought up by Salvio Giuliano: this proposal is spectacularly ill-conceived. First, MER is for editors who have a known record of making objectively problematic edits (tendentious, poorly sourced, etc.) and need to be supervised to avoid those. While that is obviously true for JCAla, the implication that my own edits have such problems is breathtakingly absurd – no serious observer has ever suggested any such thing – quite to the contrary [88]. Second, MER is for situations where talk page discussion can be expected to ensure proper correction and legitimate consensus. That's fine for articles with a high level of outside participation, but it's disastrous for a case like here, where the lack of clueful outside involvement and legitimate providers of third opinions has always been the central problem. There is no reason to expect that there should be more such involvement in the future. MER requires that all edits have to be proposed and find consensus first. But whose consensus? In the absence of fresh outside involvement, that is simply carte blanche for each party to block any and all proposed article improvement forever. JCAla has made it abundantly clear that he will never "consent" to anything that dilutes his POV. You could just as well pass him an official certificate of article ownership right away and keep the article locked as it is. This will make the desperately needed NPOV overhaul of this article impossible forever. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:30, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ RegentsPark: you say that "most of the useful content in the article has also been contributed by JCAla". This [89] is the version of the article before JCAla started editing it, blowing it up from 41,000 bytes to 126,000 bytes. Can you please indicate which parts of the added content are (a) useful, (b) non-tendentious, (c) not simply copy-pasted (=internally plagiarized) from other, existing Wikipedia articles, and how these parts now constitute "most" of the useful content? True, without JCAla the article will probably see little further addition of content, but addition of content is also the last thing it needs now. What it needs is gutting. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:07, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Just for the record, I just found yet another rather blatant case of source misrepresentation in one of those old edits [90][91]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• And yet another [92], just in one of those recent content additions that JCAla is citing as examples of his positive work in his statement below. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:11, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• And more old stuff, just because JCAla asked to be shown what was wrong about his article expansion: [93], serious BLP violation, combining an unsourced claim about the actions of a named, living US official with a WP:SYNTH statement about an unrelated affair involving her, clearly added in order to insinuate sinister ulterior motives behind her actions. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:39, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Oh wow. Just scratch the surface and find yet more source distortion. Another one in a recent edit: [94] talks about Osama Bin Laden, in 1992, as "Massoud's adversary", sourced to this book. But the very same sentence in the source makes it clear that Bin Laden was by no means an "adversary" of Massoud at that time (although of course he was later to become one; no doubt about that). The source says that Bin Laden had just tried to mediate between Massoud and his opponent Hekmatyar, so he was evidently on friendly terms with both; moreover, just on the preceding page it is said that persons close to the political circles of Massoud (including his mentor Rabbani) had been the moving forces in inviting Bin Laden to Afghanistan in the first place. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:14, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

Was a listed party in the Arbcom thread imposing discretionary sanctions [95]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

• Notified: [96]
• (Notified Darkness Shines (talk · contribs) too, now that sanctions against him have also been suggested [97]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:06, 3 October 2012 (UTC))[reply]

Discussion concerning JCAla[edit]

Statement by JCAla[edit]

Consistent hounding/bullying by Fut.Perf.

Image deletion discussion: "S/he [Fut.Perf.] must not confuse arguments that are truly invalid with arguments that s/he merely disagrees with."

Future Perfect at Sunrise is hounding and bullying people who have opposed him on content. An image deletion discussion let to the first dispute and direct interaction between Fut.Perf. and me. The image was uploaded by me and depicts the two senior Afghan anti-Taliban leaders Massoud and Qadir. Fut.Perf. wanted the image deleted, I wanted it to be kept as a sign for trans-ethnic peace. Fut.Perf., although being involved in the discussion, closed the discussion as "delete". The closure was contested by many different editors and a review (DRV) of the deletion found the closure to be in contradiction to consensus. The closing statement noted that Fut.Perf. seems to confuse statements with which he disagrees as being invalid. ("S/he [Fut.Perf.] must not confuse arguments that are truly invalid with arguments that s/he merely disagrees with.")[98] As the image was restored. Fut.Perf. immediately renominated the image for deletion. The new discussion was speedily closed as "keep".

Start of hounding behavior and attempted defamation even against consensus of multiple uninvolved established editors

Though consensus had been established, Fut.Perf. suddenly came to articles he had never edited before (which I had regularly edited) - among them the Ahmad Shah Massoud article in question - and started, among other things, to remove the image against consensus.[102][103] After hounding me to the Ahmad Shah Massoud article, he engaged in several edit wars, some of these are very recent and a clear policy violation as pointed out in below section. Fut.Perf. started hounding me to several articles i. e. to the Peshawar Accord article which I had just created some hours earlier and to which he could have only come by stalking my contributions.[104]

When Darkness Shines started to provide his input on the Massoud article content dispute[105], Fut.Perf. suddenly also started to hound DS to several article showing the same supervote behavior.[106] Before there had never been a direct interaction on article space between Fut.Perf. and DS. When DS got a DYK promoted by several established editors reviewing it, Fut.Perf. - coming to an article he never edited before DS had done so[107] - immediately discredited it including all those that had reviewed it.[108][109] As the closer of the DRV noted, Fut.Perf. keeps confusing opinions/statements with which he doesn't agree as being generally invalid and therefore has admitted that he thinks he has the right to hound people.[110] He also acts rather smug on the articles created by DS, for nothing which others would just note as a CE edit. [111]

There are several other editors who have a problem with Fut.Perf.s actions and he was listed by some editors as an involved editor in the topic area in the Arbcom thread imposing discretionary sanctions.[112][113] At one point User:Alanscottwalker suggested an IBAN to be placed between us.[114][115][116]

Current dispute

1. Fut.Perf. removes thousands of bytes of information among them as one prime example that the Soviets launched nine offensives against Massoud that were defeated[117] and rewrites the lead completely.[118] The mass removal and rewrite is being objected to, the article is being protected.[119] What part of the removal is being objected to is laid out on the talk page. In the example of the nine Soviet offensives both DS and I provide reliable sources. In the case of a quote by Sebastian Junger I say it needs to be paraphrased instead of the information given being removed completely.[120] The article is being unprotected under the premise that any "complicated bits" – such as the lead issue and mass removal of content undoubtedly are – would be discussed on the talk page,[121] Fut.Perf. reverts to his favourite version removing the nine Soviet offensives, Sebastian Junger, and other information again without consideration of any of the input given by others on the talk about some parts of that removal.[122] Fut.Perf. on top of that tags Webster University Press as unreliable[123] although consensus on the talk was that it meets WP:RS.He also tags U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher´s government website as unreliable[124] although it was pointed out to him that the congressman is even a chairman in the U.S. Congress Foreign Affairs Committee. I revert him once, asking him to wait for the discussion to yield a result.[125] Fut.Perf. reverts again.[126] I do not revert again but ask Casliber to take a look.[127] Fut.Perf. makes this report. Fut.Perf. has previously been reported twice for edit warring on that article and warned to follow DR procedures.[128][129]
2. Fut.Perf. - issuing yet another defamation "blatant source falsification" - says Massoud wasn´t part of the Rome Process.[130] Continuing on this issue he states very recently: “ … the Rome Process, as a neutral, non-belligerent party, were holding parallel peace talks both with Massoud and the Taliban. Their proposal was not an anti-Taliban "alliance" (as JCAla has persistently tried to present it) but a "Loya Jirga" that would include the Taliban together with all other parties.”[131] The sources clearly identify the group involved in the Rome Process as planning to overthrow the Taliban and as involving Massoud.

I am certainly no single-purpose editor. I have edited over 270 different pages. The version of May 2012[132] of the Massoud article he wrongly calls "my version" (as like any wikipedia article that article has been edited by different editors) is actually more or less the version that has been there since December 2010[133] (a time when I was relatively new to wikipedia). My two earliest blocks were due to reverting the sock puppet (farm) master User:Lagoo sab (at a time when admins didn't know about the socks but it was already apparent to Afghanistan editors). Other than that contrary to what Fut.Perf. claims I was blocked once for edit warring over a Massoud issue (with him) while Fut.Perf. was reported for edit warring on the issue twice himself. Ahmad Shah Massoud was one of the best-known anti-Soviet resistance leaders and the main anti-Taliban and anti-Al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan[134] Fut.Perf. labelling him with the pejorative term "warlord" shows us where he stands politically on this issue. I have created several articles, among them:[135][136][137][138] I cleaned up many Afghanistan-related articles, as an example most recently this one:[139][140][141] Just some months ago, I had started to clean-up parts of the Massoud article also.[142][143][144] JCAla (talk) 20:14, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re Fut.Perf.'s answer to Salvio and Regentspark: Supervote

We had the very same behavior by Fut.Perf. in the image deletion discussion - only that it was more visible because there were more outside eyes. I can only cite what User:Sandstein stated: "Clearly there was a consensus that this image, in this article, was contextually significant. The closing admin [Fut.Perf.] must abide by that determination, even if they disagree with it, and may not impose their own opinion by supervote."[145] User:S Marshall said the same: " ...not a licence to supervote."[146] Fut.Perf. is again trying to ignore normal DR procedure and trying to get his opinion through in a content dispute by supervote trying to take advance of the "credibility" given to him by those who are not familiar with the situation because of his mere admin title and taking advantage of an ArbCom case which came about only because of a very difficult topic area India-Pakistan, it was Fut.Perf. who single-handedly asked for Afghanistan - though there was no disruption there then - to be added to the list. Neither DS nor I did anything wrong, we merely per normal DR procedure rejected a part of the massive content changes and explained why on the talk. JCAla (talk) 06:41, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re mandated external review

I think the idea of "mandated external review" on this article for both Fut.Perf. and me is a good solution to pin-point the problems in this content dispute and end the disruption. It will ensure a fair DR process for content disputes. Contrary to what Fut.Perf. claims above I have always immediately accepted any consensus or outcome reached by means of dispute resolution, most recently that was Casliber´s ruling by "third opinion". It is Fut.Perf. who has repeatedly shown a problem accepting consensus decisions (see image discussion) and is failing to go by normal wikipedia DR guidelines. Even though this case is still in the process of being reviewed, Fut.Perf. has continued the removal of information as "irrelevant" from the article i. e. the information about the different approaches followed by different factions of the Islamic movement.[147] JCAla (talk) 09:58, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re regentspark

In my recent editing history I - among other things - added this content to the Massoud article.[148][149][150][151][152][153][154][155][156] If we take out the book by Volmer, the content is based on the most reliable of sources and experts: Ahmed Rashid, Roy Gutman, Oliver Roy, Library of U.S. Congress, etc. Please point out to me what is problematic about those edits. BTW, sources such as "massoudhero.com" were in that article before I ever edited it.[157] (This may be due to the fact that he is the official National Hero of Afghanistan.) As said above, I am completely fine with mandated external review, I have got nothing to hide, have no hidden agenda and it would ensure that Fut.Perf. cannot mispresent my edits any longer. As noted by others, for Fut.Perf. our dispute on issues - badly enough for himself - became personal for him[158] before he ever came to the Massoud article. JCAla (talk) 09:42, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re Fut.Perf.´s latest accusation

• As Fut.Perf. above points to this sentence: "The international community in the form of the United Nations and most Afghan political parties decided to appoint a legitimate national government, to succeed communist rule, through an elite settlement among the different resistance parties." Did the United Nations not try, from 1991 onwards, to get an elite settlement to appoint a post-communist government (although their very own plan failed)?[159] Did most Afghan political parties not in the end through an elite settlement drafted in Pakistan establish the post-communist Islamic State of Afghanistan which was then internationally recognized[160] as the legitimate government of Afghanistan and welcomed by the United Nations?[161] Does Saikal not write: "The only hope for stability lay in an elite settlement, whereby various leaders, not only acting on behalf of their respective Mujahideen groups but also in effect claiming representation on behalf of different ethno-linguistic categories, would construct a power structure .... The result was the Peshawar Agreement of 24 April 1992, forged between the Pakistan-based Mujahideen leaders, but with the heavy involvement of the Pakistani government ... The Agreement was designed essentially to provide a framework for an interim government, to be implemented in two stages."[162] Or do you, Fut.Perf., simply try to get me banned because I only gave the Saikal ref for the elite settlement finally reached but forgot to also give the ref for the UN's earlier attempt at an elite settlement? I have added the ref and added further information.[163] JCAla (talk) 13:12, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• No, Fut.Perf., I didn´t ask for you to search my thousands of contributions to wikipedia to supposedly find something in my edits when I had merely edited a couple of weeks in August 2010 (is this normal?). Even though I could still source that statement and it is certainly interesting when a later lobbyist for supporters of the Taliban represented U.S. policy in Afghanistan at one time. I asked for regentspark to please have a look at my recent contributions as he was right in his original statement that most of the useful content was added by me to the article. JCAla (talk) 14:09, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re MBisanz and about Bin Laden-Massoud

• Re MBisanz and about Bin Laden-Massoud: This happens when people decide on issues they are obviously not familiar with. That Bin Laden was Massoud´s adversary and Hekmatyar´s friend since the 1980s is COMMON KNOWLEDGE of everyone familiar with the issue, so that was not what was supposed to be sourced to Roy Gutman. That Bin Laden urged Hekmatyar to reach compromise was what was supposed to be sourced to Gutman. Again, that Bin Laden was Massoud´s adversary was added to the sentence as commong knowledge. Just like you add "anti-Taliban leader" as common knowledge to a sentence even if it is not in a specific source. I would ask MBisanz to review this case as a perfect example for how things are being distorted by Fut.Perf. to misrepresent it as some kind of source falsification. Of course if you want to make the wikipedia article a laughing stock for anyone familiar with Afghan history by letting Fut.Perf. getting away with saying Bin Laden and Massoud were on friendly terms ... Decide for yourselves who is presenting it right. Was Bin Laden "Massoud´s adversary" since the Soviet times (as I wrote) or was Bin Laden "evidently on friendly terms" with Massoud (as Fut.Perf. writes above[164])?

Ideological and personal dispute between Massoud/Azzam vs Bin Laden/Al-Zawahiri[165]

Al Qaeda was controversial among Muslims long before it became a priority for Western security services. The establishment of the organisation marked the climax of the ideological and personal dispute between some of the anti-Soviet jihad´s iconic figures: Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri on one side, and Abdullah Azzam and Ahmad Shah Massoud on the other.

— "Countering Militant Islamist Radicalisation on the Internet" by Johnny Ryan (Institute of European Affairs), p. 133

Bin Laden "hated Ahmad Shah Massoud"[166]

A few months before Azzam was murdered there was some sort of bad vibrations between bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri against Azzam. Azzam wanted unity between the Afghan groups, but by 1989 bin Laden and Zawahiri hated Ahmad Shah Massoud.

— Faraj Ismail in "The Osama Bin Laden I know" by Peter Bergen, p. 93

Bin Laden siding with Hekmatyar in inner-Afghan war (1989) ([167])

Tensions rose between bin Laden and his mentor, Abdullah Azzam [...] The rising civil war between Hekmatyar and Massoud drew in the Arab volunteers and divided them. [...] Hekmatyar continued his assassination and intimidation campaign against moderate and royalist rivals in Peshawar. Inside Afghanistan he attack Massoud´s forces. [...] Hekmatyar continually denounced Massoud in Peshawar before audiences of Arab volunteers [...] Increasingly Osama Bin Laden sided with Hekmatyar, alienating his mentor Azzam.

— "Ghost Wars" by Steve Coll, pp.201-203

• There is so much more distortion in what Fut.Perf. writes. Fut.Perf. writes that Rabbani then in 1992 was Massoud´s mentor,[168] however, that was no longer the case. They had a very difficult relationship.[169][170] Roy Gutman writes that Abdul Rasul Sayyaf (a factional ally of the government) and Rabbani - not Massoud - invited Bin Laden (hoping he would influence the Taliban to cooperate with the Islamic State, which he obviously didn´t do). The hope was based on the fact that Bin Laden earlier had tried to influence the Taliban´s predecessor Hekmatyar to cooperate with the Islamic State. JCAla (talk) 09:05, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Re MBisanz: In the diffs presented by Fut.Perf. on my recent editing, can you point out to me where exactly lies that disruption that goes beyond Fut.Perf.´s own disruption? And do you think it is fitting for an admin to falsify the historic issues such as the Massoud/Bin Laden relationship to misrepresent the editing of another editor? Re regentspark: In the above very exemplary case, who falsified how the relationship between Massoud and Bin Laden was? Fut.Perf. or me? Were they adversaries or friends? JCAla (talk) 14:39, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• re MBisanz: So basically you are saying you want to get me banned for one revert (which was because I said the talk page discussion should be able to yield a result first) and two postings on a talk page which are completely reasonable (even according to BorisG & others) and which I could back up with reliable sources if asked to?! This you wanna do one-sidedly though Fut.Perf. has conducted more than 4RR there recently and completely failed to show any respect for wikipedia DR procedures?! You do know that all those edits that supposedly made the article one-sided were done in 2010, and that I recently had already started to clean-up the article in general (the version created by a variety of editors)?! You do see that Fut.Perf. above has been falsifying historic relations and circumstances to misrepresent my recent editing?! Why is it that, in the case of the prime example of this policy-violating tactic of Fut.Perf., you can´t answer the question who presented the above described historic circumstance i. e. the Bin Laden-Massoud relationship correctly and who falsified it(?) - which is the one case really easy to look through even for people who are not familiar with the topic. And of course the same goes for Ed & TCanens. It seems as sometimes there is no interest to take a real look at the issues. JCAla (talk) 06:28, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by me[edit]

Fuck off. struck as some think this offensiveWhat we have here is the usual, admin covers admins ass. Topic bans suggested for those willing to discuss, no mention of sanctions for the admin involved. nihil novi sub sole, my alternate was named such for a reason. Why discussion of sanctions for those who discuss and follow policy, yet none for the edit warrior? The answer is obvious, two legs better. Darkness Shines (talk) 21:40, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Struck the "offending comment" but quite simply I am very busy at the moment and on the move all over the place. I have no time for these theatrics. Look at the talk page of the article in question, look at the article history. Then decide whom to sanction. I have done all of two reverts, I have used the talk page extensivly, It is not me who refuse to discuss, it is not me who hounds and causes issues with other editors. Darkness Shines (talk) 22:48, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Moved from Uninvolved admins section by KC

Perhaps you should look at the talk page of the article in question and see if I am willing to discuss? Perhaps if you do then "fuck off" would in fact be understandable given the person who filed this case has point blank refused to discuss, but of course he is an admin so it is OK. Darkness Shines (talk) 22:16, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Diffs as requested.

1. FPaS removes the fact that Massoud fought off nine soviet offensives in one year.[171] I ask on talk after reverting him why he removed this he says there are no context and it is a deadlink[172] I provide two academic sources which give the context, so FPaS rather than using the academic sources reverts the content out of the article again[173]
2. FPaS removes the fact that Massoud was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
3. Tags Webster University Press as unreliable.[174]
4. Tags U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher .gov site as unreliable[175]
5. FPaS reproted for edit warring on the article[176] The second edit war he was in. The third was of course just a few days ago.
6. Fpas says he will not discuss[177] which he has said quote a few times now.

• Akhilleus, I not only said sorry to you for telling you to go fuck yourself I also explained that I was quite drunk when I said it. It is still on the talk page in fact. Darkness Shines (talk) 17:15, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others about the request concerning JCAla[edit]

• I suggest a six-month topic ban for JCAla and Darkness Shines from this article. Too many obscure articles are WP:OWNED by POV pushers these days, who amusingly then invoke WP:LONGTIME. A google books search for "Ahmad Shah Massoud warlord" quickly finds serious academic publications using that label for him, e.g. this book, which is published by a far more reputable publisher than Webster University Press. The various labels given to him should probably discussed, e.g. using [178], but the resident wiki-hagiographers definitely need a vacation. Tijfo098 (talk) 12:50, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interestingly, this source you cite, says itself that the term is used in a pejorative sense. Afghanistan experts normally have a different kind of vocabulary.[179][180] [181] JCAla (talk) 14:14, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The book which says "warlord" is pejorative has received a very poor review in WaPo though [182]. So I wouldn't hold my breath on its accuracy in general. Two of the three books you cited don't seem to call him anything in particular. Amin Saikal indeed calls him only "Commander" with capital C. Bruce Riedel has no qualms about calling him warlord [183]. I'm not buying that this so pejorative we can't use it. Tijfo098 (talk) 14:45, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Let's not get this side-lined. Nobody proposed calling him a "warlord" in the article, and there's never been a debate over it either. I used that term here in a talkpage posting. JCAla's attempt at constructing some ulterior political motives on my part based on that choice of word is preposterous, is all. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:49, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• • I'd strongly recommend placing any sanctions not just on this individual article, but on all of Afgan history. The conflict over POV cleanup has so far only been fought out over the Massoud article, but JCAla has filled a substantial number of other articles with pretty much the same kind of stuff (sometimes literally the same stuff, copying over large swathes of text). This goes for Afshar Operation, Taliban, Civil war in Afghanistan (1992–1996), Civil war in Afghanistan (1996–2001) and others. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:33, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • As I told Fut.Perf. multiple times before, these articles are not owned by me. The content has been brought together by different editors over years. He also removed content once added by third party editors in his recent edits. I suggest anyone to read the history of hounding and battleground mentality by Fut.Perf. outlined in the below threat. He is clearly using this venue to get people he has a content dispute with banned. JCAla (talk) 14:11, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am also starting to get fed up with this constant bashing and attempted defamation by Fut.Perf. who makes it look like as if I had been working with only one source (Webster University). Among other, I introduced content from the following sources to the article are:

      Oliver Roy. Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan (1990 ed.). Cambridge University Press

      Shahram Akbarzadeh, Samina Yasmeen. Islam And the West: Reflections from Australia (2005 ed.). University of New South Wales Press

      Roy Gutman. How We Missed the Story: Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban and the Hijacking of Afghanistan (1st ed., 2008 ed.). Endowment of the United States Institute of Peace, Washington DC

      Neamatollah Nojumi. The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan: Mass Mobilization, Civil War, and the Future of the Region (2002 1st ed.). Palgrave, New York

      Amin Saikal. Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival (2006 1st ed.). I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd., London New York

      Ahmed Rashid. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. Yale Nota Bene Books

      Steve Coll, Ghost Wars (New York: Penguin, 2005)

JCAla (talk) 14:32, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

More WP:SOUP. I never charged JCAla with using only this one source. Another red herring. I do maintain, however, that he has been over-reliant on this source, which is of dubious reliability, as shown on talk. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:06, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Ahmad_Shah_Massoud#Bootheel_Publishing_book should be relevant for this case. Tijfo098 (talk) 16:04, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• As mentioned below, re KillerChihuahua, I was the one to suggest to an admin to look into Fut.Perf.'s history[184][185][186] before Fut.Perf. opened the AE case here. So, I also brought my initial grievance to AE. JCAla (talk) 16:52, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm not going to say anything about JCAla because I have nothing positive to say and not enough time to look up diffs. As far as Darkness Shines goes, though, I have encountered him in this topic area on Taliban and my experience with him is that he can be very reasonable and work in collaboration with his 'opponents' (like me) when he isn't influenced negatively by others. I strongly suggest that he not be topic banned just yet and given a stern warning instead.--v/r - TP 19:07, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since it looks like some admins need to be spoon-fed here, here are the problematic diffs from my very brief collaboration with JCAla:

• [187] dismissive tone presumably for failing to understand WP:SELFPUB and the relevance of the fact that the book doesn't seem to be held in any academic libraries.
• [188] assumption that because the book got a fact "right" (which apparently it doesn't actually contain), we should use it as source. Also note the claim by JCAla that the birth date is not controversial, when academic sources do disagree about it. Note also the aggressive edit summary: "fitting caricature of the pseudo-know-it-alls" presumably addressed at myself or Fut.Perf. Such issues are the hallmarks of a WP:TRUTH campaign.
• In a related discussion, JCAla seemed very eager to attack Fut.Perf. [189], personalizing the discussion. (It turns out that the "account" by Puig that JCAla refers to is a brief sentence indirectly cited with no page number from the Webster University Press book, which indeed Fut.Perf. had tagged as possibly unreliable. Puig however wrote a whole chapter about Massoud in a book edited by Gérard Chaliand, which isn't cited in the Wikipedia article, and which is what the Columbia University Press book was recommending.) Again JCAla's apparent tendency to be gratuitously dismissive was striking to me.

Ask yourselves if you'd want to work alongside someone like that. Tijfo098 (talk) 18:41, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Excuse me, as noted by others it has been Fut.Perf. who has been issuing personal attacks since the first time we encountered each other in a content dispute.[190] So pardon me, if a little cynism has been shown from my side now. Ask yourself if you´d want to work alongside someone who from the start onwards makes personal attacks, completely refuses to see any validity or competence in the opinion of others and starts to hound different people to different articles in order to discredit them. JCAla (talk) 10:06, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by BorisG[edit]

I think we need to look at conduct of both sides. I also note that the request mentions comments deemed WP:OR on article talk pages. I think WP:Original Research policy applies to article space. Explnations on talk pages often involve in-depth argument, which can often be considered original research. I have read the first of the comments and it seems it is a perfectly legitimate analysis of what is reasonable to include in the article. I have not formed an opinion of whether I agree with the comment or not, but the WP:OR label is neither here nor there. Also, in my book calling someone a sidekick is much worse than fuck off. Cheers. BorisG (talk) 12:43, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have now read some of the mutual discussions and it appears the WP:IDHT and personal attacks are at least as much characteristics of Fut.Perf's discussion style as of his opponents (for instance in deletion reviews discussed above). I have no idea what made this respected and veteran editor lose his cool in this specific area, but he needs to abandon his battleground approach, respect the consensus even when he disagrees, and refrain from edit warring. Having said that, it appears that the allegation of tendentious editing against JCAla (including misrepresentation of sources) has some substance and needs to be dealt with. - BorisG (talk) 16:36, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning JCAla[edit]

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

• Without commenting on anything else or proposing any sanctions at this time, I note that calling a fellow editor a liar is unlikely to encourage mutual respect and a positive outcome. Strongly suggest you strike that, JCAla. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:00, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• I am inclined to enact the suggested 6 month topic ban for JCAla and Darkness Shines; certainly for JCAla, who has compounded the error of his actions by calling an editor who holds an opposing view a liar, and opening a duplicate case in apparent retaliation. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:54, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  I have already responded to JCAla here on my talk page. There is no need to repeat the same issue on different pages. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:02, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  Thank you, FuturePerfect, I thought DarknessShines had already been notified. I appreciate your notifying him. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:10, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  I really don't think the case is that clear-cut. While I unfortunately lack the time to elaborate more in detail right now, I emphatically don't think we should lay the entire blame on only side, especially when the other has repeatedly refused to follow WP:DR, despite the suggestions he got from uninvolved admins, preferring to resort to edit warring instead; so, although I agree the other report should be closed as redundant, I believe that we should also examine FPaS's conduct. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!}

  Like Salvio, I don't have the time to look at the specific diffs presented here but I agree that the case is not a clear cut one sided one. Personally, I would urge both editors to return to the talk page and seek other methods of dispute resolution rather than making an AE report. I'll try to research this latest flare up (will need to see the content diffs to figure out what's what) but can't really get to it till this weekend) but, based on past editing patterns, I don't believe a ban on any of these editors from editing these articles is appropriate. --regentspark (comment) 17:27, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• As JCAla has expressed his desire to add evidence, and DarknessShines must be given a chance to post here prior to enacting any sanctions, I will of course not be enacting anything as yet, regardless of my initial inclination. Rest assured, I will not act in haste. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:05, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  While I respect TomParis' views and judgment, I can't help but feel that DarknessShines' statement of "Fuck off" is unnecessarily hostile, and does not make much of a case for DS being a team player willing to discuss with others. KillerChihuahua^?!? 22:02, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  As an uninvolved admin who has been viewing from a distance, DS has actually tried to discuss. Reading the full talk page archives are a must to get the whole picture here. I've been less impressed with FPaS unwillingness to use DR and JcAla's circular arguments. DS has a foul mouth at times, but that is a different issue. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 23:10, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm more concerned about the apparent lack of desire to even respond, as both "fuck off" and "read the talk page" are hardly a strong explanation of his view of the situation. I will see what I can sift out of all this and post here again; I request all parties please be patient. To all parties: I note FutPerf is at least willing to offer diffs and specific responses; I would urge all parties to do the same insofar as they are able. Vague accusations of bad faith and instructions to "read the history" are singularly unhelpful. Point blank, it is up to you to mount a defense, not up to me to do the due diligence. That is not to say I won't read through the talk page history; but if there are salient points you wish me to observe you really should point them out; trusting that I will read through a morass of edits and not miss the key points is rather trusting a bit too much, as well as placing the burden on the wrong party. KillerChihuahua^?!? 02:09, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  I've tried to get involved in editing Ahmad Shah Massoud, but haven't been able to devote much time to it; I've also found acquiring high quality sources on this topic difficult. But because I've contributed to the talk page I have to say that my impression of Darkness Shines is quite different than Dennis Brown's--I think DS can present a facade of being willing to discuss, but this is a facade. His edits to the article are mostly reverts, and his edits to the talk page are often demands for Fut. Perf. to explain something, rather than an explanation of the problems that he sees with Fut. Perf's edit, e.g. [191]. If editor A makes a substantive edit to an article, and B reverts it and demands an explanation from A, or demands that A get a consensus for the edit before it goes into the article, this doesn't signal a willingness to discuss. Of course, it's worth taking into account that Darkness Shines' response to my first post to the article's talk page was "Akhilleus, sorry but you are wrong, so go fuck yourself." DS later struck the obscenity, but I didn't get the feeling that he regretted his language all that much: [192] [193] "Sorry you find blunt speech so problematic..." It's not really a big deal to be told to fuck off on Wikipedia, but it doesn't exactly foster a cooperative spirit. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:33, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I haven't looked at the merits yet, but I just want to reinforce what KC said. Admins "are not like pigs, hunting for truffles buried" in the talk page archives and page history. When you are taken to AE and you refuse to present actual, concrete evidence, you do so at your own peril. T. Canens (talk) 04:24, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• My experience in this topic area has been that the harshest option is usually the most effective. A topic ban of fixed duration for JcAla isn't going to do any good, because JcAla will just wait it out and resume foisting his hagiography onto us. I'd be for an indefinite ban from Ahmad Shah Massoud for JcAla; as to Darkness Shines, I'll have to do some more reading, but from what I've seen elsewhere DS isn't someone who needs to be editing contentious articles. More on DS later. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:17, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Now that I have reviewed the issue more in depth, I can comment in a more complete manner. First of all, FPaS, I see a bit of WP:IDHT behaviour on your part; JCAla's conduct has been examined by various admins in the past (you reported him to ANI, once, which is one of the most watched noticeboards there is) and yet no sysop determined he should be blocked as a POV-pusher. It can either be that those admins are just incompetent and lazy or it may be that this is just a normal content dispute, where each side thinks he's right and the other is wrong. Frankly, I think the latter is more likely. Nonetheless, even assuming that JCAla was a POV-pusher, the correct way to act would have been to open a request for comment, not to edit war with him and, when he complained, to report him here. You may stand by the way you acted, but it was disruptive nonetheless — furthermore, since it takes two to edit war, it's not really accurate to say that only JCAla's conduct resulted in the article being protected. That said, JCAla is not blameless either as he did edit war as well. Quite frankly, I think that both editors should be restricted, because, though I don't doubt for a moment you were both acting in good faith, you edited in a disruptive fashion. I'd be inclined to subject both FPaS and JCAla to mandated external review regarding this article for six months, but I'm also open to considering the possibility of an outright topic ban. However, as I said earlier, I firmly oppose sanctioning only one side of this dispute. Regarding Darkness Shines, my preference would be to just warn him that should he violate the civility policy again he may find himself sanctioned as well. I understand you may be frustrated, but certain expressions can only inflame the discussion. However, I am willing to consider harsher sanctions. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 13:37, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Now that I've reviewed the topic in more depth, I have to admit that this is one heck of a complicated situation!. First, I agree that FPaS is less than pure here and that the evidence suggests that it is possible that this has become personal for him/her with numerous personal comments and allegations of bad faith that are best left at the door when editing Wikipedia. However, that said, I agree with FPaS that JCAIa's approach to the article is problematic. There is no question in my mind that there is a hagiographic element in his/her approach to the article (all you have to do is to look at the before and after of this as an example). There are also clear problems with the way JCAIa frames information (see this long detour into the history of the DOD operative's trip history, the reference to a congresswoman's statement, and the at length quote, all of which are gratuitous). There is also the tendency for OR and long posts on the talk page (here as well!) that are, at best, borderline tendentious. All these are evidence of problematic behavior. but that behavior has to be weighed against the fact that most of the useful much of the content in the article has also been contributed by JCAIa and the unfortunate fact that we have too few editors focusing on neglected areas like Afghanistan. If we ban JCAIa from this article and from Afghanistan articles in general, we're going to see little by way of content added in that area so that's probably not a good solution for the encyclopedia. What we need is a managed solution where JCAIa is clearly put on notice that tendentious editing and edit warring will lead to escalating blocks and ensure that there is admin oversight that will implement those blocks quickly (and mercilessly). --regentspark (comment) 14:03, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  @FPaS. What I mean is that much of the content (more than half in my estimation) has been added by JCAIa. I'm no expert, but presumably some of it is useful. But, I'll scratch useful and modify the statement above because I just don't know. --regentspark (comment) 15:45, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I've reviewed the evidence submitted and the comments of my colleagues. Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs) contributes in a wide variety of areas and while his conduct in this instance could have been better, I do not believe AE action is required. Also, while Darkness Shines (talk · contribs) could have acted better, I do not think his conduct rises to the level of requiring sanction. On the other hand, JCAla (talk · contribs) conduct does rise to the level requiring sanction. I therefore intend to enact an indefinite topic ban on JCAla from the article Ahmad Shah Massoud and from adding content concerning Ahmad Shah Massoud to other articles. I'll wait 24 hours for comments from my colleagues before enacting the ban. MBisanz ^talk 17:19, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  JCAla, thank you for your additional comment, but my decision stands. I am unpersuaded by your additional comments and evidence. As RegentsPark alludes to, the goal of this enforcement request is to determine if sanctions are required with respect to these parties and what, if any, sanctions are appropriate. Topic banning you from the article of one specific person is a very narrow topic ban in the context of an encyclopedia containing over four million articles. Put more bluntly, if you cannot contribute to the encyclopedia outside of promoting this one article in a non-collaborative manner and are unwilling to diversify your editing into other areas (even other people from Afghanistan), then there is a strong question of if your involvement in the project is a net positive relative to the time involved in handling your bad conduct. That is why I decline your invitation to enact Salvio's mandated external review. You've shown yourself to be a problem in editing this one article and the sanction with the best fit is to ban you from it to see if you can engage collaboratively in the other four million articles. Mandated external review is a significantly more costly sanction in terms of having to have other editors editors continue to review the contents the sanctioned person intends to add and the content of a single article is not worth that additional cost. Only if the single-article topic ban were to fail to be effective by your continued bad behavior in other Afghanistan-related articles, would I consider mandated external review for all Afghanistan-related articles, however, I would also be considering a general block from editing at that point as well. I'll also note that the arguments of your time to edit Wikipedia and that no damage can be done with a mandated external review are also rejected. When you have more time, you can edit whatever articles you desires; that is not linked to FutPerf's conduct. Additionally, damage can be done by continuing to permit you to disrupt the article and therefore requiring further time of other editors to manage your bad behavior. MBisanz ^talk 13:57, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  Pretty much agree with MBisanz - sanctioning the others is overkill. And with RegentsPark's comments in mind a targeted ban for JCAla from the Ahmad Shah Massoud topic should calm things down, with a reminder that if JCAla's conduct in the wider Afghanistan topic follows the same pattern then a wider ban may follow. Also a final warning to DarknessShines to be civil should be issued - I concur with Akhilleus above on that matter--Cailil ^talk 17:49, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  I think the ban suggested by MBisanz above is the best solution. It is simple to implement, a ban on all edits and discussion related to a single individual is hardly onerous, and JCAIa can always appeal it in, say, six months or so of demonstratively responsible editing. --regentspark (comment) 14:47, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• To respond to JCAla's points on my talk page, the assertions Fut Perf describes in points 1-3 are evidence are unacceptable conduct on your part. I am not judging your behavior in comparison to his, I am judging all three parties behavior relative to what is required of collaborative editors. Unless DGG can agree to supervise you or find you a supervisor, you will be topic banned from the article. MBisanz ^talk 01:39, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  I do not agree with MBisantz. I do not like many of the edits that JCala has been making, and I agree that he has been trying to distort the article. I think he's added good information, as well as information that is just intended to create a good impression for one side of the picture. But what I also see is a very experienced editor basically trying to force a less experienced opponent off an article by using arbitration enforcement, and I think that an unfair way of proceeding. The content needed DR, not removal of an inconvenient and troublesome opponent. What I'm saying is that FP is basically right about the article, but wrong to come here about it. I would remand the issue to some kind of supervised editing. DGG ( talk ) 00:33, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  DGG, are you volunteering to supervise him? It's one article of four millions and if JCAla is truely interested in improving the encyclopedia and not promoting a certain view of one person, it should be no problem for him to be constructive in other articles. There are simply not the resources to monitor his problematic behavior in his one selected area of promotion, unless you're agreeing to do it. MBisanz ^talk 01:34, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is not he who needs supervising but the article in question, & it is not in my field. DGG ( talk ) 03:41, 8 October 2012 (UTC) .[reply]

That Fut Perf decided to bring it here and not some other forum is not the question. JCAla's conduct is the question at hand and it must be resolved at AE now that it has been brought here. MBisanz ^talk 04:39, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree with MBisanz's view of this, and support an article ban that keeps JCAla from editing the Ahmad Shah Massoud article, allowing appeal after six months. Admins do not have the time to keep babysitting this article forever. While you could imagine other steps that might stop the endless turmoil at Massoud, given JCAla's current style of editing it is not easy to see him as being part of the solution. If the dispute continues in the absence of JCAla, more steps might be considered. EdJohnston (talk) 03:04, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree with MBisanz & EdJohnston. T. Canens (talk) 04:17, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm sorry JCAla, but I've answered your repetitive questions, reviewed the situations, DGG has declined to supervise your editing and I have made a decision. I am therefore enacting a topic ban under WP:ARBIP with respect to you and the article Ahmad Shah Massoud and contents of other articles that concern the person Ahmad Shah Massoud. Your options are to abide by the topic ban, appeal the topic ban to Arbcom, or be blocked until you agree to abide by the topic ban. MBisanz ^talk 07:45, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]