Request concerning Conzar[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

JzG (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 07:54, 1 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience#Discretionary Sanctions

Pseudoscience and fringe science are considered together. The article in question ticks both boxes: it promotes pseudoscientific work (more specifically pathological science) within the fringe fields of anti-vaccine activism and alternative views on the causes of autism.

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

1. 08:57, March 31, 2016 removes factual basis of opposition to the film cited to reliable independent sources.
2. 09:56, March 31, 2016 adds conspiracist characterisation of reasons for pulling the film, at odds with other reliable sources.
3. 10:57, March 31, 2016 Reverts to whitewashed version.
4. 22:09, March 31, 2016 Reinserts link to conspiracist explanation.
5. 22:16, March 31, 2016 Reinserts conspiracist explanation after it was reverted.
6. 22:47, March 31, 2016 Inserts commentary by anti-medicine conspiracy theorist Mike Adams at Natural News
7. 22:49, March 31, 2016 Reinserts conspiracist explanation after it was reverted.
8. 23:00, March 31, 2016 Reinserts conspiracist explanation after it was reverted.
9. 23:03, March 31, 2016 Reinserts Mike Adams content.

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

DS alert 09:58, March 31 2016

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

In response to a warning re WP:NPOV, Conzar states: "You are the one writing an article that is not forom a nuetural point of view. The article is clearly 1 sided and pro-vax. Its funny that you post this information about neutral editing as you are the one doing such things." (diff). Pro-vaccine is the neutral point of view, there is no significant informed dissent from the view that vaccines are one of the most important health interventions ever devised, saving millions of lives annually. The subject of the film, the purported link between the MMR vaccine and autism, is refuted (see MMR vaccine controversy).

Conzar also states that we are "denying information from the film makers side" (diff). The film maker in this case has had his medical license revoked after conducting unapproved invasive tests on vulnerable children, and his most prominent published work has been retracted due to evidence of research fraud. He was also found to have accepted substantial payments from lawyers promoting a link between vaccines and autism, and not to have declared this conflict. Per WP:UNDUE we cover is views only in the context of what reliable independent sources say about them. The film maker has, for example, stated that the withdrawal of the film from the Tribeca film festival is a freedom of speech issue. He is English, so this profound ignorance of the First Amendment can be excused, but that doesn't oblige Wikipedia to repeat it.

Overall I think Conzar should be topic banned from this article for a minimum of six months, by which time there should be a wider discussion in the media resulting in contextualised discussion of crank views like those of Mike Adams and less risk of bias from cherry-picking of sources. Guy (Help!) 07:54, 1 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

diff

Discussion concerning Conzar[edit]

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

Statement by Conzar[edit]

Pseudoscience Claim The claim that "Pseudoscience and fringe science are considered together" is fallacious. The edits that I have made do not express my opinion nor promotes pseuodoscience and fringe science. My edits are only to provide an objective view of the movie which is the topic of the page.

Diffs

1. 08:57, March 31, 2016 Removed irrelevant information. This information is NOT about the film and is an attempt to discredit the film.
2. 09:56, March 31, 2016 Provides an alternative reason for the film being pulled other than the main stream media's version.
3. 10:57, March 31, 2016 Reverts to removing irrelevant information.
4. 22:09, March 31, 2016 Reinserts an alternative reason for the film being pulled.
5. 22:16, March 31, 2016 Reinserts an alternative explanation after it was reverted.
6. 22:47, March 31, 2016 Inserts commentary by an outspoken consumer health advocate, award-winning investigative journalist, internet activist and science lab director Mike Adams at http://www.healthranger.com/Health-Ranger-Biography.html
7. 22:49, March 31, 2016 Reinserts alternative reason after it was reverted.
8. 23:00, March 31, 2016 Reinserts alternative reason after it was reverted.
9. 23:03, March 31, 2016 Reinserts Mike Adams content.

Neutral View The statement by Guy "Pro-vaccine is the neutral point of view" is also incorrect and illogical. Its essentially double speak. There are obviously two view points to the issue of vaccination. Those that oppose it and those that support it. A neutral point of view would take no stance on the issue of vaccination, neither opposing it nor supporting it. This is basic logic and reasoning.

Debating Vaccination Guy believes this article is about vaccination. However, this article is about a documentary about vaccination. The content of this movie has net yet been shown and therefore, debate on the content of the topic is uninformed at best. Statements such as: "there is no significant informed dissent from the view that vaccines are one of the most important health interventions ever devised, saving millions of lives annually." are irrelevant to the topic of the wikipage.

Refusing to allow Film Maker's comments Guy also censors the information that is allowed on the page regarding statements and comments made by the film maker. He does this in order to support his view on vaccination. Again, he shows his bias towards vaccination so much that he is unable to allow the film directors comments on a wiki page about the film he made! He justifies this by saying the film maker is 'not credible'. Censoring someone's speech in relation to their own work is a classic free speech issue and is being perpetrated on wikipedia by Guy who also is clearly English so this profound ignorance of the First Amendment cannot be excused.

Banned Overall, I think I should not be topic banned from this article because I have NOT broken any wiki rules. I have NOT added my opinion at all to the wiki page. I have only tried to make the article unbiased.

If anyone should be banned, I would recommend Guy to be banned. The topic of course is the film NOT vaccinations. There is a completely separate wikipage for vaccinations. Guy is trying to impose his views about vaccination on a wiki page that should only contain information about the topic which is the VAXXED movie.

Mistakes I have made two mistakes which he calls fiction. There is a difference between factual and mistakes. I mistyped the author's name and auto-correct must have choosen national instead of natural. As the link clearly points to the natural news web site. Lets not be disingenuous here. What do you mean by, 'not a recognized organization'? Recognized by who? What authority? Why is the person not a reliable source? Please substantiate those claims.

Competency User Capeo has accused me of being incompetent. I have a Masters of Science and a Batchelors of Science in Computer Engineering from the Clemson University, South Carolina, USA. Clemson University is ABET accredited. This means that I have met the world wide standard for being an engineer which includes taking the necessary courses in science. Now that I have shown my educational background, lets discuss the false claim. User Capeo stated that I use Natural News as an authoritative source on vaccinations. I have NOT made this claim anywhere. This is called a strawman attack. In his statement, he is unable to support this claim.

Red Flag The idea that my edits of a wikipage can be compared to edits on the talk page are fallacious. My unfamiliarity with Wikipedia does NOT demonstrate my ability to research which is the claim laid by MjolnirPants. Again, I am well educated. It seemed to me that Guy's signature indicated a new user without any edits. It also seemed to me that his account had been deleted after reverting my changes. This is why I made the association of a sock puppet account. If this assessment is incorrect, than I fully accept that I am wrong and apologize.

Conspiracy Guy often uses the term conspiracy as evidence against me. He uses the main stream media's approach of silencing criticism by associating 'conspiracy theory' with the idea of craziness or insanity. Its very disingenuous to use conspiracy theory in this contest. Conspiracies happen every day. The FBI, CIA, NSA, etc's JOB is to commit conspiracies. IE, secret organizations conspire on a daily basis. So the question is, are there conspiracies that happen outside of government organizations? Well, did big tobacco commit conspiracies when trying to deny the link to cancer? What tactics did big tobacco use? What tactics are big tobacco still employing today? Is Big Tobacco conspiring to keep their products on the shelves despite the scientific evidence of the negative health effects?

I think I have shown why this idea of conspiracy theory and linking it to 'crazy' people is NOT a valid justification as Guy continuously uses. Guy might have bought into the mass media's interpretation of conspiracy theory. Or perhaps, he is well aware of this concept and uses it as an attacking point.

Statement by Krelnik[edit]

I've edited on the article a small amount, but haven't reverted anything so far. I just wanted to point out that in diffs #6 and #8 not only is the source not reliable, but the text being inserted isn't even factually correct! The editor repeatedly referred to "Mike Adam" (it's Mike Adams) and "National News Forensic Food Lab" (it's "Natural News Forensic Food Lab"). In any case, this lab is not a recognized organization and the person is not a reliable source. --Krelnik (talk) 12:50, 1 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Capeo[edit]

Anyone who uses Natural News as an authoritative source on vaccinations, or anything medical at all, does not have the competence to edit articles that have even a cursory connection to medical science. Capeo (talk) 13:55, 1 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You are not supposed to write in other people's sections. You quoted an NN source that claims this "medical documentary" was subject to some kind of censorship due to it's factual content. NN is not an RS for such claims. Capeo (talk) 14:19, 1 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by MjolnirPants[edit]

A big red flag I've seen is this edit, in which this user demonstrates the approach he takes towards editing. Without doing any research beyond clicking on Guy's signature, he came to the conclusion that a longstanding editor and admin of this site with a nigh-sterling reputation among those of us who prefer an objective, accurate encyclopedia is somehow just some fly-by-night sockpuppet account.

Another red flag is this edit. I'm not going to summarize it because there's no need. Anyone who's read WP:THETRUTH already knows what it says.

A topic ban seems perfectly reasonable to me. With enough time an experience editing areas which this user might be less ideologically invested it, they may very well be able to request a lifting of the ban and be able to edit constructively in this area. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:01, 1 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Geogene[edit]

This diff [7] and this one [8], in particular, are strong evidence of a WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS mentality. The remarks about Wikipedia being influenced by Big Pharma to suppress Conzar's POV are particularly troubling. A topic ban is probably necessary. Geogene (talk) 20:45, 1 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Result concerning Conzar[edit]

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

• It seems rather soon for a topic ban. Conzar made five edits 2012 — 2014, but from his return to editing 08:50, 31 March 2016 (UTC) he has been a single purpose account, editing exclusively the article Vaxxed and its talkpage, plus a few related edits on user talkpages. Altogether 61 edits in the last 36 hours, all devoted to the film Vaxxed. That's a lot. He seems unaware of the proper way of editing and discussing on Wikipedia, making remarks like this and this. He assumes bad faith of people who argue with him, and of the creator of the page: "The author of this page clearly is trying to discredit the movie"[9] (this in his very first edit on the subject)… "Its my opinion that several editors are trying to frame this movie in a negative light"[10]… "Who are you exactly? You haven't seen the movie yet you are already judging it without knowing what's inside."[11] I can appreciate that people find his input and stubbornness on the talkpage overwhelming, especially because he has dominated the talkpage: 30 of 46 edits on it are his.

His response above on this page shows that he doesn't understand the Wikipedia definition of neutral point of view ("A neutral point of view would take no stance on the issue of vaccination, neither opposing it nor supporting it. This is basic logic and reasoning."), and seems frankly uninterested when he's told about it.

Conzar needs to realize that a topic ban will be coming his way if he continues in the same tonedeaf whirlwind way. Still, he has been doing this SPA editing less than two days. I would prefer to wait before imposing the fairly draconian restriction of a topic ban, and first see what effect narrower restrictions may have. I propose a 1RR restriction on the article page (where he has been reverting a lot) plus a limit of 7 edits per 24 hours on the talkpage. That's really plenty, for anybody who gives a bit of thought to their contribution before hitting "Save". And I strongly, strongly recommend him to click on the policies and guidelines that people direct him to, and to read them in good faith, rather than focus on telling us what he thinks they ought to say. Bishonen | talk 22:58, 1 April 2016 (UTC). (My numbers above may have been overtaken by events while I was typing this.) Bishonen | talk 23:00, 1 April 2016 (UTC).Reply[reply]

• Conzar seems to be a fighter for the anti-vaccination cause. This is his chance to respond and agree to follow Wikipedia policy in the future. From what we've heard so far, that doesn't appear likely. If they have no idea about policy, I wonder if they will be able to understand or follow a 1RR restriction. Unless there is a change of heart, I support doing a topic ban. EdJohnston (talk) 04:35, 2 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• This remark alone is sufficient grounds for an immediate topic ban. CIreland (talk) 20:03, 2 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Closing: Conzar (talk · contribs) is indefinitely banned from the topic of vaccination (broadly construed) on all pages of Wikipedia, including talk and noticeboards. Our articles on Andrew Wakefield and on the movie Vaxxed are included in the ban as well as the talk pages of those articles. EdJohnston (talk) 17:21, 4 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Request concerning ԱշոտՏՆՂ[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Parishan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 14:53, 4 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 :

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

The user has been engaged in heavy edit-warring on a semi-protected page dealing with a current issue, in clear violation of WP:3RR and well as of WP:Redflag (given the controversial nature of the edit):

1. [12]
2. [13]
3. [14]
4. [15]
5. [16]
6. [17]
7. [18] - Note: this revert was done already after the user was warned (and acknowledged being warned) that there had been an arbitration request pending regarding his edit-warring.

...and resorting to incivility when asked to remain NPOV:

1. [19]

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

• Mentioned by name in the Arbitration Committee's Final Decision linked to above.
• Previously blocked as a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict, see the block log linked to above.
• Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on Date by Username (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).
• Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, see the system log linked to above.
• Gave an alert about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on Date
• Participated in an arbitration request or enforcement procedure about the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on Date.
• Successfully appealed all their own sanctions relating to the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on Date.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[20]

Discussion concerning ԱշոտՏՆՂ[edit]

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

Statement by ԱշոտՏՆՂ[edit]

Hi, sorry for the violation of WP:3RR . Per WP:NPOV I have added the claims of Armenian side based on reliable sources. It was not written like that it is a absolute truth, it is what the Armenian side claims.--ԱշոտՏՆՂ (talk) 15:07, 4 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

WP:Redflag stipulates that "surprising claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources" and "challenged claims that are supported purely by primary or self-published sources or those with an apparent conflict of interest" must be additionally verified. In addition, your wording of this information was extremely POV. Parishan (talk) 15:16, 4 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Parishan, this is not a surprising claim or challenged claims . It is what Armenian side claims, as I have written it is according to Armenian side. There are many of this type of claims in this article.--ԱշոտՏՆՂ (talk) 15:21, 4 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There is a difference between reporting on warfare and reporting on a crime against humanity. Especially in the presence of sources which may lead us to believe otherwise. Parishan (talk) 15:25, 4 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Guys, why can't we write the official views of the Republic of Armenia? If there are Azerbaijani reliable sources that reject this claim, please put them in the article to make English Wikipedia more neutral․ Unfortunately I do not know Azerbaijani language and can't do it by myself.--ԱշոտՏՆՂ (talk) 15:45, 4 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The Azerbaijani troll Parishan tries to delete the war crimes of the Azeri side. In the internet you can watch every day new videos of Azeris behading Armenians and glorifying genocide against them. You can clearly see the war crimes in the photo set published by reliable sources[21]. If the Azerbaijani side would not denying their nasty crimes, we would not discuss this here. I request the banning of user:Parishan because of this troll acting. --2A02:8108:1900:170:9404:9AD5:9878:6364 (talk) 16:29, 4 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Edit: The photos of the war crimes commited by the Azeri side documented by a Hetq Online journalist. A reliable source.[22]

EdJohnston, yes, I have to blocked per 3RR, but what about the natural point of this article? I only added the official point of Armenia. ԱշոտՏՆՂ (talk) 19:08, 4 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by (username)[edit]

Result concerning ԱշոտՏՆՂ[edit]

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

• In my opinion the user should be blocked for 3RR violation on 2016 Armenian–Azerbaijani clashes and alerted to the discretionary sanctions under WP:ARBAA2. EdJohnston (talk) 17:52, 4 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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

Request concerning FreeatlastChitchat[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Mhhossein (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 06:30, 29 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan :

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

1. 07:41, 25 March 2016 A user made a change.
2. 10:49, 25 March 2016 First revert by nominated user.
3. 16:40, 25 March 2016 Second revert by nominated user.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

1. 7 March 2015 Blocked for edit warring.
2. 18 April 2015 Blocked for edit warring.
3. 9 May 2015 Blocked for edit warring.
4. 19 December 2015 Blocked for edit warring. He was then unblocked manually provided that he "will attempt to self-adhere to WP:1RR," what he failed to do on several occasions.

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

• Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on 24 March 2016 by Slakr (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The nominated user is ignorant enough to know that we should revert only when necessary. Just look at his contributions to see how many reverts he does per day. That's why he is nominated in noticeboards on a weekly basis.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

This is the notification diff.

Discussion concerning FreeatlastChitchat[edit]

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

Statement by FreeatlastChitchat[edit]

I am quite aware of AE and its enforcement therefore I undid my reverts myself when I realized I had gone past 1PR. I did this about three days before this humongously bad faith AE was filed and before anyone else edited the said article, I did not even engage in a TP argument as the person who was reverting my edits said that he meant to continue reverting me on a daily basis, therefore I just left the article in the hands of others, there are no edits on TP or the article from my account after my self revert. The nom should look at the article history before wasting my time. nom has been told at least seven times that he should stop reporting me without proof but he continues his hounding. FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 07:06, 29 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

(should i reply here or above?) @Spartaz where have i reverted ? I have been staying clear of Indo-pak pages only reverting obvious vandals using rollback vandal. Can you plz point out where I have reverted thrice? No one asked me to self revert, I was making sure I was not in violation of 1PR, I saw that I was and self reverted myself, I wanted to take it to TP, but then thought to just leave the article alone. On List of Islamist terrorist attacks I am reverting a sockpuppet who has been since blocked. As I said earlier, my only reverts are vandalism which everyone will call vandalism and removable material. If something can be debated about I am leaving it be. FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 11:58, 29 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by D4iNa4[edit]

I can see that he has been blocked for a week, but I think that more sanctions are needed. He loves to wikihound and removed by abusing rollback just anything that he WP:DONTLIKE.

He has massively violated his 1-rr restriction on many articles, and wasn't blocked. I would just name these few:-

Indo-Pakistani War of 1947

[23] reverted to [24], then reverted again,[25], then again[26](and telling other user not to "disrupt")

Indo-Pakistani War of 1971

[27] reverted to [28], then reverted again,[29] to a copyrights violating version. After reverting to his version by going against consensus, he asked for protection.[30]

List of converts to Hinduism from Islam

[31], then reverted again[32], and again.[33] Everytime without gaining consensus to remove sourced entries.

All the time, he is either removing the sourced content,[34][35] abusing WP:ROLLBACK,[36][37] and gaming the system. What's more disturbing, that he went to these articles by wikihounding my edit history. I don't see any improvement in him, despite many recent complaints on ANI.[38][39][40][41] D4iNa4 (talk) 05:07, 31 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by (username)[edit]

Result concerning FreeatlastChitchat[edit]

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

• Self revert or not, this looks like a clear 1RR vio. Who asked you to self revert and where. I'd also like an explanation for the double reverting on List of Islamist terrorist attacks before I consider whether a block is appropriate. Since Slakr blocked the other editor you were reverting against, I'd be interested in their view. Spartaz ^Humbug! 10:08, 29 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • FreeatlastChitchat you have reverted 3 different times since I left this message. Perhaps you didn't notice that your input was requested? Spartaz ^Humbug! 11:52, 29 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • Your edit summaries do not suggest that the edits were made with a view to BANEX and there is no general exemption for suspected socks. It has to be a banned user. Vandalism has to be clear too and your summaries make no mention of vandalism. Your edit summary for the self revert was "as you wish. As per request restoring content)" but now you say you did it yourself. You are too free with the revert button and that is continuing to be disruptive. I'm blocking you for a week for the violation and would like input from other admins whether a permanent 0RR is now required to reign in excessive reverting. Spartaz ^Humbug! 12:43, 29 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• User:Spartaz, I see you've issued a one week AE block under WP:ARBIPA, which seems appropriate. If you are considering a 0RR under the same arb case, I would support. (Search WP:DSLOG for examples where 0RR has been imposed). EdJohnston (talk) 04:01, 30 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Request concerning Askahrc[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Manul (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 03:43, 6 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience :

1. 2 March 2014 "Askahrc (talk · contribs) is strongly admonished for using an IP address to harass other users and waste the community's time (see the SPI). Askahrc is warned that any attempt to harass other users, waste the community's time or edit logged out or with another account in contravention of WP:SOCK will result in an extended block. Askahrc is also restricted to using the Askahrc account only when editing pseudoscience or fringe science related topics and is banned from notifying any user of pseudoscience or fringe science discretionary sanctions. See the warning for further information."
2. 5 March 2014 (Previous AE request) "Tabled for now, with the understanding that there is a low bar for reporting newer disruption."

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

[Arbcom has extended the word count limit to 1000 for this case.]

Askahrc has orchestrated a number of deceptions on Wikipedia. I once asked at WP:AN about the loophole in the "disruption must be current" rule: Can one conduct an unlimited number of abuses on Wikipedia without repercussions, provided there is a sufficient time lag between the disruption and its discovery? The consensus was clearly "no", so I present the following evidence. Askahrc was sanctioned for the first item below; the second has not been addressed before, and only the third is recent.

1. Askahrc harassed editors with a sockpuppet, for which he was given the sanction listed above. By issuing threats under the disguise of the sock, Askahrc was trumping up the "bullying" evidence for his Arbcom case, "Persistent Bullying of Rupert Sheldrake Editors". (Three admins affirmed the sockpuppetry: two in the SPI and one in the tabled AE listed above.)
2. Askahrc knowingly permitted Tumbleman's sockpuppet SAS81 to disrupt Wikipedia, standing by while Tumbleman (as SAS81) attacked editors with whom he and Askahrc had prior grievances (evidence to follow). Admins at Tumbleman's AE called him "pure WP:SOUP", "likely just a troll", and "a thoroughly disruptive editor, and either a troll or else someone with serious WP:COMPETENCE issues".[42]
   • Askahrc and Tumbleman had already been affiliated via their off-site harassment (addressed later in this request) prior to the appearance of the SAS81 sock.
   • Askahrc is the founder of ISHAR[43] where Tumbleman worked.[44]
   • Out of the millions of topics on Wikipedia, Askahrc "just happened" to become involved with the topic of Deepak Chopra soon after Tumbleman (as SAS81) appeared. Askahrc's first Chopra-related comment on Wikipedia is at BLPN where he replies to Tumbleman.[45] Hours later he jumps into a COIN discussion to defend Tumbleman and "help mediate".[46] And after joining forces with Tumbleman, Askahrc was effectively an SPA for Chopra.
   • An example of the disruption this produced: in a thread in which Askahrc participated, Tumbleman strongly attacked me with wild and false accusations, calling me "unscrupulous".[47]
3. Presently Askahrc has relaunched his campaign to falsely paint me as someone who files fraudulent SPIs.
   • This began with his campaigning in favor of Tumbleman after Tumbleman's block,[48] e.g. "a large number of innocent editors have been blocked as collateral damage".
   • Other examples from the long campaign:
     • Suggesting I have an "an inappropriate tendency to accuse people who disagree with them of sockpuppetry"[49]
     • Suggesting a "high number of editors who have been accused and blocked" by me for sockpuppetry.[50] (In fact it was just one person with multiple socks.)
     • Suggesting the SPI was somehow equivocal, and falsely claiming that an admin told me to "stop".[51]
     • Suggesting that I engaged in misconduct by filing SPIs.[52] (No admin has ever suggested this.)
   • Finally the recent campaigning (my account was renamed from Vzaak to Manul):
     • Falsely claiming that it was "eventually proven" that I had been "citing inaccurate information".[53]
     • Falsely claiming that the SPI evidence was "solidly debunked" and making the misleading statement that "the SPI conviction was not supported by a Checkuser"[54]. There was no checkuser request, of course, because checkusers won't link usernames to IPs due to the privacy policy.

Much of the motivation behind Askahrc's deceptions may be found in his off-wiki harassment activities. Askahrc identified himself when he brought attention to his contributions to an off-wiki harassment site containing his name,[55] and an Arbcom member had recorded the page.[56] Arbcom is aware of this request. Out of courtesy I will not mention the name in clear text here.

• In the link to the harassment site just mentioned, Askahrc calls editors "unethical" and "pisspoor bastards".[57] By citing the evidence he fabricated from his socking (first item above), he attempts to provoke outrage and rile up support: "Nearly a dozen editors who have disagreed with the skeptical majority's opinion on the Sheldrake page have been threatened with banning." To be clear, Askahrc himself issued the threats and then complained about them in order to generate "buzz", and indeed the story was picked up by blogs.
• More recently Askahrc has taken to writing polemics at the Huffington Post,[58] e.g. "The fact that an innocent man's character is being assassinated is apparently irrelevant to these skeptic editors. He is famous, after all, and therefore not truly human."
• And in another HuffPo article[59] he says, e.g., "Wikipedia's dishonest biography on Deepak Chopra", "the orthodox-skeptics have grown even more aggressive", "Go here to learn how to edit Wikipedia and, if the above behavior seems unethical, remedy it." Note the last one is a direct violation of Wikipedia policy: recruiting new editors to influence decisions on Wikipedia is prohibited.

From these writings we learn that Askahrc holds the view that Wikipedia is overrun by "skeptics" and that it's dreadfully important to right this great wrong. I suspect this is the impetus behind his deceptions. Now that Askahrc has a financial conflict of interest, I find it doubly reprehensible that he would continue the pattern of falsely defaming me. I do consider it harassment, and I am citing Askahrc's current sanction, "Askahrc is warned that any attempt to harass other users..."

A final note: when confronted with his behavior, Askahrc tends to respond by making a slew of false claims. This puts me in a Catch-22: if I debunk each point, the result is a wall of text that repels anyone who might evaluate the matter. If I leave the points unanswered, it gives a sense of false balance. It is a phenomenally successful method of trolling Wikipedia editors, and I discussed this with Callanecc.[60] I would just implore admins to follow the evidence while not taking what Askahrc says at face value. Manul ~ talk 05:49, 15 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The original case submitted to Arbcom (who sent it here) contained private evidence showing an even greater extent of bad faith behavior. For instance Askahrc had been colluding with Tumbleman even way back during the Philosophyfellow socking, and had proxied edits for the SAS81 sock. I have asked Doug Weller or another arbitrator to comment. Manul ~ talk 17:44, 21 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

1. 2 March 2014

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

• Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on 2 March 2014 by Callanecc (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Askahrc&diff=708535683&oldid=696033693

Discussion concerning Askahrc[edit]

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

Statement by Askahrc[edit]

There's quite a bit to respond to, though it appears all but two diffs (1, 2) are years old, and those two were me asking an admin for clarification. For the sake of brevity I'm going to ignore issues from years ago that have already been discussed in front of admins several times.

1) The "harassment" Manul/Vzaak references was a request for review I sent to the enforcing admin of the SPI from 2 years ago. I was not trying to attack Manul/Vzaak, I didn't even know they were still on WP; Vzaak being inactive. In it I mentioned the original slew of SPI's and AE's from Vzaak seemed to show a level of WP:GRUDGE. This is the fourth SPI/AE Manul/Vzaak has charged me with: I think WP:GRUDGE is not an unreasonable conclusion.

2) On that page I explained my problems with the SPI's Manul/Vzaak brought against me. In addition to this being a far-cry from "harassment", I simply used factual statements. The first SPI accused me of having an IP in Long Beach, CA that I was socking from, and I was warned on the basis of Vzaak's massive list of clues, but with no Checkuser evidence. In the 2nd SPI Manul/Vzaak claimed I was again using a Long Beach IP to "suppress edits" and threaten to murder people. This time there was a Checkuser, and admins confirmed that I was Unrelated to the IP and far from Long Beach at the time of the edits (3, 4), and there was absolutely no evidence I had suppressed edits (5, 6). No need to trust my word, please review the diffs and linked archive. I presented this information and the admin said it was too long ago to revisit, a decision I accepted. That's the whole story.

3) As far as off-wiki harassment goes, I don't know what to say that hasn't been said already (7). I spoke in Tumbleman's defense years ago, before the full scope of his behavior was known, and have since publicly severed all ties with him and his actions. I apologize if you feel I'm somehow engaged in a "campaign to discredit you," I'm not. The recent "harassment" Manul/Vzaak is upset about boils down to two edits explaining to an admin why the old SPI's against me ought to be reviewed (with no charges v. Manul/Vzaak). It is not WP:HARRASS or WP:ASPERSION to civilly disagree with Manul/Vzaak's opinions (8, 9, 10). I have no interest in tracking down and bothering Manul, but the opposite does not seem to be true. I'd rather not have to spend my days worrying about their walls of accusations, so I'd request an WP:IBAN. If they are honestly concerned about me "harassing" them, this would also resolve that concern. the Cap'n ^{Hail me!} 11:17, 6 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I apologize if I misinterpreted the issue of suppression, but you did directly argue I was issuing death threats (11). Worse, you continue to insist (even here) that, despite the fact I was unequivocally absolved, the evidence is still very strong that I committed this criminal act.

My issue is not about "blaming" or "faulting" anyone. It's when admins tell you I have no connection to a sock, by either geographical region or user agent, and yet you won't drop the WP:STICK. I've asked you in the past to agree to a voluntary WP:IBAN, but you did not (12), and I've repeated the option here, with the only response another list of accusations. This is exhausting... the Cap'n ^{Hail me!} 17:20, 6 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Jytdog, I find your statements here and on my Talk Page confusing and not particularly civil. You've asked me questions (13, 14), then when I replied told me that you wouldn't believe whatever garbage I said regardless (15, 16). You told me that unless I dropped the WP:APPEAL you would attempt to get me TBANNED (13), then when I told you I had already dropped the APPEAL you declared you'd pursue the TBAN anyway (16). I'm trying hard to AGF, but you seem to be taking your frustration with another editor out on me. the Cap'n ^{Hail me!} 21:54, 9 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

EdJohnston, it's perfectly reasonable to question whether I can and will conform with NPOV matters relating to Chopra, though I feel my current conduct answers that. While I do feel there are some WP:BLP concerns that could be addressed on that page, I have always emphasized upholding policy and have not used the kind of battleground language found in the Huffpo article. I try to focus on building consensus, participating in RFC discussions, offering sources, and explaining how I see policy/guidelines applying to the page. While some of my conclusions differ from editors on that page, I have backed off of topics when it seemed to skirt my COI, as well as supported positions that would make it harder to upload positive content about Chopra if it helps NPOV. I value NPOV, and strongly feel that editors with an opinion (as many on that page do) can still meaningfully contribute if they focus on policies and sound sourcing rather than their own POV's. the Cap'n ^{Hail me!} 00:58, 12 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

EdJohnston, I've got to admit I don't quite understand what I would indef-banned for. No one has presented any diffs of me ever editing or proposing anything on Deepak Chopra that was inappropriate and I've voluntarily withheld editing the page itself, so is the concern that I would say something POV on the Talk Page? A review of that page will show I've been focused on policy and sourcing, while half of what any editor says there is POV, for or against. I'm concerned the case for my TBAN is a matter of hypothetical disruption I haven't actually done and guilt by association.

Also, just as a clarification, what about the original intent of this AE? Completely aside from the Chopra topic, Manul has been filing complaints against me for various things for years and this time brought an AE for harassment because I mentioned their old username to an admin; I'd be very grateful for a decision on whether my conduct was actually harassment. Manul has been accusing me of very serious wrongdoings (socking, death threats, harassment, lying, etc), and this AE indicates they will not stop doing so until there's a clear answer. the Cap'n ^{Hail me!} 07:40, 30 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by olive[edit]

This is very strange. Almost all of these diffs are years old; the filer seems to be attempting to use stale information and diffs to implicate an editor. When I first looked at this case I thought I had somehow stumbled onto an old case. Might be expedient to withdraw this complaint before more time is well.... wasted?(Littleolive oil (talk) 06:27, 6 March 2016 (UTC))Reply[reply]

Statement by JzG[edit]

Askahrc is indeed waging a one man battle against reality-based criticisms of Chopra, but he is open about his COI, polite and in general a decent person. There is a worrying tendency to stonewall and endlessly make the same or very similar requests, but I don't see this as actionable at this point - perhaps an admonition to accept consensus and not spin things out forever might be justified, but no more that that IMO. Guy (Help!) 10:38, 6 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@EdJohnston: Askahrc is not, and cannot be, neutral. He has not, as far as I can tell, edited the article directly, certainly in recent times, because of an admitted COI. That's fine up to a point, the point being where it becomes disruptive. Are we at that point? I'd say not, but we are at the point where Askahrc should be reminded to accept consensus and move on,rather than repeat rejected claims or stonewall discussions. He seems to be a decent enough person and his input is not, as far as I can tell, preventing us from accurately representing the consensus view on Chopra, namely that pretty much everything he says is faux-profound bullshit. Guy (Help!) 20:42, 15 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Looie496[edit]

The enforcement request comes to well over 2500 words. Looie496 (talk) 15:25, 7 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Jytdog[edit]

No Askahrc you did not "drop" your appeal. Per your contribs to Callanecc's Talk page, the last thing you wrote there was continuing your argument to have the "conviction" overturned. That is not "dropped". If you had written there, "Hey Callenecc I am dropping this, but thanks for your time" -- that would be dropping it.

I was hoping Askahrc would just walk away from the past or come clean, but instead they are dug in and have doubled down above and at their Talk page. I do not believe that this editor is WP:HERE to benefit the project, and has not been for a while. This is a first batch of stuff and there is more. This is enough for now. A timeline.

• Tumbleman was blocked October 2013.

• Dec 2013 Askahrc worked with Rome Viharo aka Tumbleman aka soon-to-be-SAS81 to post this to Viharo's blog. Askahrc acknowledged this on his WP talk page here at the time.

• Feb 2014. As documented in Manul's SPI posting (that resulted in sanctions against Askahrc, and the contesting of which by Askahrc led to Manul filing this AE) Askahrc disclosed that he was in contact with Viharo, discussing Viharo's banning.

• April 2014 in this piece on Viharo's blog, Viharo approvingly quotes Askahrc's comments at Arbcom made in this dif in particular. Which has the great bit where Askahrc tells another editor that it is "unrealistic to claim ignorance." That's from the part that Viharo quoted, too.

• April 2014 is also when SAS81 created their user page. SAS81 and Askahrc start working in tandem at the Chopra page to "improve it". (I will not provide difs, there are too many)

• July 2014 Askahrc offers to help Viharo/SAS81 write an article about the Chopra Foundation article at COIN (!), prepares it in his sandbox, apparently posts it, and then reported to Viharo/SAS81 SAS81's talk page that the article was posted. I can't see the article b/c it was deleted and redirected per the AfD, where Askahrc was the only one arguing to keep it. btw, SAS81's last contrib to WP was thanking Askahrc for creating that article, on July 15. (If admins don't know, ISHAR is "a Chopra Foundation Initiative" per its webpage.)

• Per his contribs from that time, Askahrc too vanished after July 30 (after having made some more arguments at the Chopra talk page in late July), and then appeared briefly on August 20 and 21 to fiddle with his sandbox and with his talk page.

• November 2014 is, according to Viharo, when Viharo separated from ISHAR, see this blog posting.

• Askahrc's next edit is on Dec 9, where he first deletes a bunch of stuff from his Talk page, including [the posting in the dif I gave above, where Askahrc acknowledged posting on Viharo's blog... and his next edit was at Talk:Chopra - the second post at Talk:Chopra - after announcement of SAS81's block as a sock was posted there. Here is Askahrc's dif. No disclosure of COI there, which was a violation of the Terms of Use. A small thing but part of this whole bad faith enterprise. Askahrc's next dif is at Manul's page, asking if Manul is concerned about Askahrc's acknowledgement of his connection with Viharo via that blog posting. Only then does Askahrc post his COI notice, in this dif, where he wrote: Please note that I am not currently affiliated with SAS81, nor is that user currently affiliated with ISHAR. As of August, 2014 I work for ISHAR, the Integrative Studies Historical Archive and Repository, as an archivist. As soon as I was approached for a position with ISHAR I ceased editing any articles or Talk Pages on Wikipedia but my own to prevent any WP:COI issues. (note - I removed original bolding)

• I'll note here that in fall 2014, after Askahrc says he joined the organization ISHAR was busy with an indiegogo campaign That campaign targets Wikipedia's "bias", front and center. There are also public records of Viharo promoting ISHAR in August and September. It was not a big shop, and there is no plausible way that Askahrc could have not-known (in other words, Askahrc must have known) that Viharo was SAS81 - especially given Askahrc's own relationship with Viharo documented above. Even without that, "SAS81" was all over ISHAR's webpage, as their Wikipedia editor. ISHAR did not have gobs of staff and Viharo's history with WP is clear. Viharo even says on his blog that Chopra hired him because of his Wikipedia experience getting banned as Tumbleman. (see here: "A few months after this occurred and I published Wikipedia we have a problem – Deepak Chopra contacted me via twitter. He offered to give me a small grant to continue my work. I created a new Wikipedia editing account called SAS81 – and within 30 days, I completely resolved his ‘wiki war’ and returned his article to neutrality.")

• Anyway, Askahrc didn't stick around much after December and the revelation that SAS81 was Viharo, per his contribs. He was mostly gone til May 2015, edited a few days in July, August, and Sept, but starting in Oct 2015 and continuing til now, he has been back pretty full press trying to make the Chopra article more positive, exactly continuing the work of SAS81/Viharo, who bragged on his blog that he dramatically changed the article as SAS81.

• I find that timeline to be telling. Really telling. What was the phrase? It is "unrealistic (for Askahrc) to claim ignorance" about SAS81's SOCKing with all that on-Wiki evidence of interaction, especially since the two definitely overlapped at ISHAR for August, September, October, and at least part of November. Yet in his statement above, and at his Talk page, Askahrc denies knowing anything about this, says he is not associated with SAS, blah blah blah. Says his role at ISHAR has nothing to do with WP, blah blah blah. ISHAR ethics, blah blah blah.

There is some stuff I want to say that i am pretty confident is OK per OUTING, but to be safe I am checking first. Will be back afterwards.

My bottom line here is that Askahrc has dug up the past, in the present. That past appears to me, to be very sordid. It appears to me that Askahrc has lied to the community about his relationship with SAS81. I believe that Askahrc probably knew that SAS81 was a sock from the beginning in April 2014, but there is no way they could not have known this beginning in August 2014, when they joined ISHAR. Yet they did nothing. This to me belies any claim that Askarhc or ISHAR actually respects Wikipedia's policies. If they did, Askarhc or ISHAR would have identified SAS81 as a sock (with on-wiki evidence or emailing off-wiki evidence to an arb or clerk), and the editing community would not have had to dig that up itself and only in December 2014. And yes, with the Huffpo pieces and the indiegogo campaign, it is obvious that ISHAR is deeply opposed to WP's NPOV policy when it comes to altmed. I believe that Askahrc should be be topic-banned from the Chopra article and from altmed topics as well. If I am able to get the other things I want introduced, that will support that even more strongly, but I think the evidence is clear already. Jytdog (talk) 05:45, 17 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• OK, I have been reflecting on this. And here we go. As I noted above, in this dif on 3 January 2014, Askahrc pointed the community to a posting he had made on Viharo's blog. Looking at Viharo's blog today, I provided a diff to this because the current index at that blog showed that this was the posting closest in date prior to Askahrc's acknowledgement. There actually was an earlier posting by Askahrc to Viharo's blog. It is here (captured by Internet Archive on 20 Dec, 2013. Askahrc revealed in that posting that he is Ryan Castle in the real world. For belt and suspenders with regard to OUTING, for three and a half years, from the day he put content on his user page in Sept 2010 til he removed it in April 2014 Askahrc disclosed on his user page that his name is Ryan. He has not had that oversighted. As noted above, Askahrc has disclosed that he is "an archivist' at ISHAR on his userpage. ISHAR's webpage clearly states that Ryan Castle is their chief archivist. There is absolutely no doubt, within the bounds of OUTING, that Askahrc = Ryan Castle.

The reason I am introducing this, is that Ryan Castle is the one who wrote those two articles at HuffPo that Ed cited below, here (which says "Wikipedia is free for all to edit and get involved in, so the power to fix it lies with everyone." - please note that the second link there is to instructions at ISHAR for how to use their refs in Wikipedia) and here (which ends with the clarion call: "Anyone reading this article is capable of contributing to Wikipedia, all that is necessary is patience and the will to act. If there is misinformation occurring, it is the responsibility of all who know better to do something about it. Go here to learn how to edit Wikipedia and, if the above behavior seems unethical, remedy it. There’s a common saying on Wikipedia: if someone notices a problem and asks why it has not been fixed, the traditional answer is “Because you haven’t fixed it yet.” Let’s fix it."), that made Ed wonder if someone affiliated with ISHAR could be neutral. I am taking that a step further, and saying that those two pieces are obvious violations of WP:MEAT, in that they are clear efforts to recruit people to change the Chopra article. Per MEAT: "recruiting new editors to influence decisions on Wikipedia is prohibited."

Please TBAN Askahrc from all alt-med topics under the CAM DS. I would even more like to see Askahrc banned from Wikipedia since he obviously colluded with SAS81's socking, but that may be asking too much. Jytdog (talk) 20:13, 22 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• User:EdJohnston About the stuff that was oversighted - I had asked Askahrc to lay out the timeline of his recruitment to ISHAR. He provided a timeline that was also filled with all kinds of argumentation about what he knew about SAS81 and when. I found none of it credible and said so. I did not say anything there about his real life identity and neither did he. I assume, but do not know, that Askahrc asked for the timeline to be oversighted since there was something he regretted writing there. Only things he wrote were oversighted; I have not relied on any of it because as I said I found none of it credible. Also, please be aware that while ISHAR is very focused on the Chopra article, their mission is altmed topics in Wikipedia generally as described in their indiegogo campaign and mentioned in this one of the two huffpo pieces; that is why I am seeking the broader topic ban. Jytdog (talk) 16:06, 25 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Amanda would you please comment here on the nature of the material you oversighted at Askahrc's Talk page, just to provide comfort that there was no OUTING violation there? Just the general nature, no details. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 23:24, 28 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I recognize the developing admin consensus for a TBAN from Chopra, and will not push for more than that. Jytdog (talk) 18:39, 30 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User:Askahrc You have violated WP:MEAT on a grand scale, as i noted above. That is the immediate thing. Not to mention your collusion with SAS81 with respect to whose SOCKing it is "unrealistic to claim ignorance" for you. Jytdog (talk) 07:25, 31 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by (username)[edit]

Askahrc: Clerk notes[edit]

• Both parties statement lengths have been extended to 1000 words by agreement of the arbitrators. Amortias (T)(C) 22:24, 8 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Result concerning Askahrc[edit]

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

• The original complaints about User:Askahrc arose from editorial disputes at Rupert Sheldrake. This report doesn't mention Sheldrake and doesn't speak about any recent problems with editing articles. It appears that Manul's report is way over the 1000-word limit, and I suggest he condense it. If he does there is a chance it will become more persuasive. Askahrc has an admitted COI about Deepak Chopra due to his connection to the ISHAR organization, and since March 1 he has engaged in vigorous commentary at Talk:Deepak Chopra. My question is whether he is capable of working neutrally on Chopra-related topics. If not, then a topic ban from Chopra under WP:ARBPS might be considered. For a person with only 1200 edits in nine years, Askahrc gives the impression of being in a lot of disputes. The term 'battleground editing' was mentioned by one admin in the March 2014 AE. A writer who identifies as the founder of ISHAR wrote about the Chopra article in two Huffington Post blog posts, one in November 2015 and one in December. He harshly criticizes the Deepak Chopra Wikipedia article and concludes with "Let's fix it". The term used about our article by the ISHAR founder was "open-source character assassination." If Askahrc is affected by an ISHAR COI and has any of these views himself, you might be asking how neutral he can be. EdJohnston (talk) 20:06, 11 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I see the new post by User:Jytdog and am hoping to say something later about it. EdJohnston (talk) 05:57, 17 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• It looks that some of Askahrc's user talk has been oversighted. What's been allowed to remain is shown in this diff, in a March 21 edit by User:DeltaQuad. Since the clock is running and there's been no decision yet, I now favor an indefinite ban from the topic of Deepak Chopra on all pages of Wikipedia. There is enough evidence of Askahrc's situation inhibiting him from editing neutrally in the topic area. I make this recommendation while aware that he's not edited the article directly for a while. It's hard to overlook the implications of off-wiki collusion to make an article go a certain way. The Huffington Post blog posts don't inspire confidence that people who are part of ISHAR can be trusted to follow Wikipedia policy. EdJohnston (talk) 14:17, 25 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I'm now ready to close this out but I don't see enough reason for a broad ban across all of alternative medicine. The COI stuff and the off-wiki posts by a colleague encouraging people to edit Chopra articles a certain way gives enough reason to exclude Askahrc from editing on the topic of Deepak Chopra. There is nothing in the above complaint showing questionable edits to non-Chopra-related topics. EdJohnston (talk) 03:16, 30 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• @Jytdog: You did see the material that was oversighted prior to the actual oversight, as is still publicly available, because the last comment that was modified was before your last edit to the thread. That said, there is nothing sanctionable in the diffs, otherwise I would have taken such an action as an oversighter. That should satisfy what is needed to be known for this AE request. @EdJohnston: courtesy ping for information for your dissemination. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 03:23, 30 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Support indefinite topic ban from all pages and discussions related to Deepak Chopra. Bishonen | talk 11:04, 30 March 2016 (UTC).Reply[reply]

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

Request concerning No More Mr Nice Guy[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Nableezy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 20:24, 28 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

No More Mr Nice Guy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Topic wide 1RR :

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

BDS article

1. 18:34, 26 March 2016 Initial revert
2. 18:39, 26 March 2016 Self revert to perform a larger revert
3. 20:54, 26 March 2016 Final revert

Exodus from Lydda and Ramle article:

1. 16:57, 25 March 2016 revert
2. 18:28, 26 March 2016 revert
3. 04:12, 28 March 2016 revert

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

• Participated in an arbitration request or enforcement procedure about the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on 22:00, 5 June 2015.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

In the BDS set of edits, NMMNG self-reverts a revert he made earlier so that he can make a larger revert. That same thing happened here and it was found to be disruptive behavior that merited a 4 month topic ban. At the Exodus page, through the time of those last 3 reverts, NMMNG was arguing by himself against 5 different users on either the talk page or through reverts. I realize he never actually broke the 1RR, but like the 3RR nobody is entitled to 3 reverts every 24 hours, and when you're alone reverting against 3 different users with more arguing against you on the talk page I think that qualifies as edit-warring.

As far as the rather curious line unlike what Nableezy and Nishidani did at L&R, I'd like to note I have exactly 0 reverts at that article. Also, as far as the supposed long-standing version, NMMNG actually completely removed the well supported text, not just in bold in the first sentence, but later on in the lead as well. nableezy - 21:24, 28 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes, I removed it when it was repetitive. You said you restored the long standing version, I was pointing out that in fact you didnt, you reverted the inclusion at the beginning of the article but did not restore it to where it had been later. nableezy - 21:40, 28 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The diff is the difference between what you claimed was the long-standing version and what your edit resulted in. My point in this little side excursion that really doesnt serve a purpose here was to demonstrate that your claim that you were simply restoring the long-standing version "per BRD" is not true. I said you completely removed the term from the lead, which is emphatically true (heres the diff). Im pretty sure my browser's find function works but maybe Im wrong and you didnt actually remove it from the entire lead. Where in your edit is it? nableezy - 22:36, 28 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified

Discussion concerning No More Mr Nice Guy[edit]

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

Statement by No More Mr Nice Guy[edit]

• This seems like an attempt to preempt my reporting another editor for his behavior at one of the articles mentioned here, so if the admins could address everyone's behavior in the two articles mentioned, that would be awesome.
• Nableezy is incorrect regarding my second revert at BDS. I self-reverted because I was in violation of 1RR, not because I was planning to make a different revert like he did and was topic banned for. The third revert (actually the second) was slightly different than the previous one since there were a couple of intervening edits. I just reverted back to the version to prior to when I inadvertently violated 1RR.
• On the Lydda and Ramla article, my first revert was initiation dispute resolution per BRD. The second revert was of a driveby revert of someone who claimed he OWNs the article and didn't engage in discussion, and restoring the longstanding version again, per dispute resolution and arguments made by Nableezy's mates on the BDS article [61] [62] [63] he generously brought up here. Note that there a month went by with dozens of intervening edits and they still considered it the longstanding version. An RfC was started there with the article at what was claimed is the longstanding version state, and nobody tried to edit war the version that's being discussed back into the article, unlike what Nableezy and Nishidani did at L&R. The third revert 2 days later, was me trying to initiate what I thought would be a more respected dispute resolution procedure, since more driveby reverts were made. Then Nishidani edit warred the disputed version back in.
• Please note that at the L&R article, all this happened on a holiday weekend. Apparently is was super urgent to get this wording into the article despite my multiple attempts at dispute resolution. If they had taken a couple more days and gave a chance for other editors to participate, none of this would have happened.
• If any admin would like me to expand on any of the points above, please let me know (and if you could relax the word limit for that purpose, that would be awesome). No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:59, 28 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Point of order: I collapsed some responses to Nableezy after he responded. I hope that's ok. I am now at my limit (not counting sigs or collapsed content). No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 22:21, 28 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Like I said above, I would be extremely happy if the admins looked at everyone's behavior at the L&S article. Particularly the two driveby tag team reverts, Nishidani inserting new content twice over objections, and Nableezy declaring after 3 days of a holiday (and spring break) weekned that a new consensus has formed and my policy based objections are invalid. These are all things that have been discussed at AE in the past and were found to be disruptive editing. Meanwhile, this report just sits here and I can't take these issues elsewhere because I'll be told they're stale. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 16:52, 31 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• This won't go away if you just ignore it. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 05:15, 5 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• ... No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:50, 8 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• @Ryk72, the behavior you described is (or used to be) grounds for sanctions, and it seems this obviously meritless AE report was opened to stop me from reporting those editors. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 16:40, 9 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• In his third reply Nishidani freely admits he reverted before looking at the talk page, despite knowing there was discussion ongoing. Or in other words, he didn't care what other editors may or may not have said, he just reverted. His explanation as to why he refused to self-revert back to the longstanding version is devoid of any actual explanation. He thought the request was "odd". Apparently, this is his first time encountering WP:BRD? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 06:07, 10 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Sir Joseph[edit]

A 1RR violation usually requires one to violate 1RR. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 20:35, 28 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Nishidani[edit]

It is not policy, but the essay Wikipedia:Status quo stonewalling explains much of what is going on here (and at the (talk page). A majority of 5 were in favour of a change to the lead, there was only one objection. The objector NMMGG reverted to keep his preferred version in, and immediately opened an RfC so that change could be blocked.

The editor then repeated insinuations that the 5 opposing him were editing in bad faith, acting as a concerted gang.

‘you people abusing your numbers advantage’/ ‘you guys just couldn't wait.’

NMMGG threatened to take me to this page if I didn't revert to his preferred version.

When Nableezy reported him for edit-warring he repeated this accusation

(This seems like an attempt to preempt my reporting another editor for his behavior at one of the articles mentioned here, so if the admins could address everyone's behavior in the two articles mentioned, that would be awesome. . . .

Almost immediately User:Brewcrewer made a counter-report against Nableezy using stale edits, which had all the appearance of ‘retaliating’ to ‘balance the equation’, giving the impression of a kind of ‘If you report one of my buddies, I’ll report one of your buddies’ mentality. The report was summarily dismissed. The RfC so far gives the same picture. NMMGG won’t address the evidence with any sound policy objection while pettifogging to challenge the overwhelming source evidence for a change. The only way NMMGG can make head or tail of the fact his position, both on the talk page and the RfC is minoritarian, is to insinuate that those who oppose him are tagteamers using a numbers game. There's one sure way of discerning who is tagteaming in these circumstances: examine the talk page to see those who 'vote' with just a vague opinion or waving some spurious policy and those who address the concrete issues by a reasoned argument accompanying their vote. Those who support the minority view are clearly ‘voting’, without any comprehensible policy rationale or response to the meat of the sourcing issue. I don’t expect this case to go one way or another. But I would challenge any disinterested reader to make sense of the extremely obscure, subjective set of arguments NMMGG alone has kept raising to sustain a pointless objection. Persistently approaching editing here in terms of some hypothesis that those who disagree with you have ulterior motives, and act as a gang, is one reason why NMMGG's recent work is problematical. He appears to have a WP:BATTLEFIELD mentality and automatically assumes this is what those who disagree with him have. I haven't examined the BDS material and can't judge the merits of the general complaint. I do think NMMGG requires, as in an earlier case, a strong reminder to keep his personal animosity and theories about conspiracy off the talk pages, and focus on source evidence strictly in terms of policy requirements.Nishidani (talk) 08:18, 31 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Of course, if clarification of those 9 things /5 from 2007-8) on my collapsed indictment sheet require clarification (mostly regarding oncer IPs and sockpuppeting editors like User:Zeq since permabanned, and User:Armon, since happily no longer here, I'll do so. The other 4 from a year ago again concern a banned sockpuppeter,User:Ashtul, the known Japanese article tagteamers,User: TH1980 User:CurtisNaito, an IP (31.44.143.180) who followed me around for a day until I remonstrated, and User:Plot Spoiler's revert of my edit to a version that, as showed was garbled English and rife with errors. PS, though recently we have worked together intelligently, patently had not read the version he had reverted back to. I think NMMGG should spend time familiazing himself with the source for articles, rather than spending inordinate time ransacking contribs back 9 years for incriminating diffs. Tagteaming is recognized as a problem. That does not mean that being in a minority means automatically the 'other guys' are tagteaming. Nishidani (talk) 20:27, 31 March 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Re NMMGG’s 'thwarted threat'. he wrote Kindly restore the longstanding version to 1948 Palestinian exodus from Lydda and Ramle, which you changed while discussion was ongoing (for all of 3 days). When there's an RfC we keep the longstanding version in the article until a clear consensus is reached

This was extremely odd, because it confused 2 distinct things and therefore I did not take it seriously. He was accusing me of reverting while a discussion was underway for 3 days, when he reverted 3 times (Nableezy's evidence above)while that discussion was underway, where only he opposed the evidence given in 10 book sources.

After 3 days, he reverted to the text he wanted and simultaneously (04:12, 28 March 2016‎) opened an RfC (04:12, 28 March 2016‎). This is in my view, sheer stonewalling manipulation of policy, when all the evidence, and a consensus, is against you. The first edit I noted on waking up was his revert, against the page consensus, and I reverted it (08:42, 28 March 2016). I then noticed his RfC and commented (08:54, 28 March 2016‎).Nishidani (talk) 19:31, 9 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Kingsindian[edit]

On the Lydda and Ramle page, there seems to be an RfC addressing this. There is no need to hurry, let the RfC play out. On the BDS page, it is unclear what is going on. I don't really see what NMMNG did wrong there. I suggest closing this report with no action. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 07:24, 5 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Ryk72[edit]

Concur with KingsIndian; close as no action or caution only. The Lydda and Ramle RfC should be allowed to play out - there is no WP:DEADLINE. I also note that at that page, editors pushed through changes to the article while an active Talk page discussion was in progress. Such behaviour is to be discouraged as much as any technical breach of xRR rules. There is nothing to see in the diffs of the BDS article. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 05:04, 9 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by (username)[edit]

Result concerning No More Mr Nice Guy[edit]

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

• I'm closing this no action due to lack of input. The message when that happens is that the vio is insufficiently clear. Its generally not fair on anyone leaving an AE open that isn't getting attention. Spartaz ^Humbug! 06:44, 10 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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

Request concerning HughD[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Springee (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 20:42, 11 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

[[77]] :

[[78]] of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

Editor banned from edits related to conservative politics post 2009 [79] and the political activities of the Koch family in particular [80] (" I am imposing a one-year topic ban on you from all articles related to the Tea Party movement broadly, including but not limited to anything at all related to Americans for Prosperity, Koch Industries, the Koch brothers.").

The Fraser Institute is described as a conservative think tank in the article lead. The editor has previously added Koch related content to the article (example [81]) which makes the general article a violation of "broadly". The violating edit was related to a 2014 article about the institute which would violate the 2009 and later conservative topic's portion of the ban.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

Previous issues with topic ban violations.

1. Oct 11, 15 Violation of topic ban resulting in warning.
2. Oct 29, 15 1 week block for violation of ban. Appeal of block was rejected [82]
3. Jan 7, 2016 1 week block for violation. Appeal of block was rejected [83]

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see [[84]])

• Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on Date by Ricky81682 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).
• Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, see the system log linked to above.
• Gave an alert about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on Date
• Participated in an arbitration request or enforcement procedure about the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on Date.
• Successfully appealed all their own sanctions relating to the area of conflict in the last twelve months, on Aug 28, 2015.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notification: [[85]]

Discussion concerning HughD[edit]

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

Statement by HughD[edit]

No topic ban violation. Complainant cites a superseded topic ban; the sanction currently in effect on the reported editor as of 11 December 2015 is a topic ban from conservative US politics post 2009 under WP:ARBAP2; please see Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions/Log#2015. The Fraser Institute is Canadian, conspicuously omitted from the complainant's filing. In any case, the edit reported above as an arbitration enforcement issue by the complainant was a good faith effort to restore content deleted, by an IP, with no edit summary, while improving sourcing, clearly an improvement to our encyclopedia, and not directly or indirectly related to conservative American politics, or to the Kochs or the Tea party movement for that matter.

Given the complainant's obsession with the reported editor, it is highly unlikely the complainant was unaware of the scope of the applicable sanction, or the nationality of the Fraser Institute; this filing therefore appears to be deliberate misrepresentations in an AE filing. Important context for understanding this filing is that complainant is the current subject of a proposed 2-way interaction ban at WP:ANI proposed by uninvolved editors to address copiously documented obsessive following and other harassment behavior issues. Colleagues are respectfully requested to please support the 2-way interaction ban proposed at WP:ANI#Springee campaigning; respectfully request snow close of this filing. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 21:33, 11 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by (username)[edit]

Statement by Fyddlestix[edit]

Please note this ongoing ANI thread, in which an Iban between Springee and HughD has received some support and both editors have alleged harassment by the other. It seems to me exceedingly poor judgment in Springee's part to file a new AE report against HughD right now. Fyddlestix (talk) 21:17, 11 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Also, the Fraser Institute is a Canadian think tank, focused on Canadian politics. It has nothing to do with the Tea Party or the Koch family, or American conservative politics. Neither does HughD's edit. This is just another example of Springee's hounding of HughD. Fyddlestix (talk) 21:31, 11 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Springee[edit]

The admin, Ricky81682, made it clear that this is a broadly construed topic ban that applies to all Koch related articles. " I am imposing a one-year topic ban on you from all articles related to the Tea Party movement broadly, including but not limited to anything at all related to Americans for Prosperity, Koch Industries, the Koch brothers." [86] HughD previously tried to push the limits of the topic ban by adding links to Koch related material (but not a specific Koch statement in his edit). When HughD was blocked a second time for violating his ban he was told, "Second, your comments at my talk page that it's not a part of the topic ban because it "makes no mention of the Kochs" is ridiculously disingenuous if you are going to be adding content related to Donors Trust which is directly related to Tea party politics and to the Kochs in general." This article is clearly one that HughD feels is Koch related given that he added Koch related content last year. "Broadly" is certainly means cases where the Koch's are considered funders of the group. Certainly Ricky81682 should be given a chance to weigh in before this is closed. Springee (talk) 00:27, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Request close per Ricky81682's comments: Because the article is Koch related (based on HughD's own edits) I had assumed it would fall under the topic ban. It appears that outside of the US Koch related activities are allowed for HughD. HughD, please accept my apologies for this error. Laser brain, please close as a mistaken ARE request on my part. Springee (talk) 00:49, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Ricky81682[edit]

I'm no fan of HughD but HughD is correct on all accounts. As noted, the relevant topic ban is for all conservative US politics post-2009 which is a permitted subdivision of the larger US politics arbcom case. There is no case about Canadian politics and thus no basis for Fraser Institute to be in any such topic ban as it would not be included in the original Arbcom case and so on. While the US-based Koch foundation donated to the institute, it remains related to Canadian politics to me and I don't see a basis to claim a topic ban violation. A separate issue of disruptive editing about that page can be argued but it seems like the concurrent ANI report is the appropriate place for that argument. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:41, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Result concerning HughD[edit]

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

• No technical violation and certainly seems to be a vexatious report given the ongoing conflict. I'm inclined to close swiftly unless anyone has objections. I can't help but to note, however, that characterizing an edit that adds negative information to the "Controversies" section of an article as "improving the sourcing" is causing quite a bit of eye-rolling on my end. --Laser brain (talk) 23:42, 11 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I don't think being the topic ban enacting admin makes me involved but eye-rolling is a typical reaction in these cases. Support a swift closure and deferral to ANI. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:43, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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

Request concerning MarkBernstein[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Starke Hathaway (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 17:08, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate#Discretionary_Sanctions :

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

MarkBernstein is by now an inveterate Wiki-warrior in the Gamergate topic area. He has demonstrated time and again his apparent inability to refrain from lengthy WP:FORUM and WP:SOAPBOX diatribes about Gamergate, full of both sesquipedalian wordplay and naked aspersions against other editors, despite being asked numerous times, at numerous venues, to stop. For this he has been topic-banned, un-topic-banned, blocked, unblocked, blocked again, unblocked under conditions, given four final warnings for violating those conditions, and ultimately had the admins enforcing those conditions apparently throw up their hands in exasperation. His involvement anywhere in the Gamergate topic area invariably brings with it more heat than light. He has recently also begun interrogating journalists on twitter about their (unflattering) coverage of persons associated with the topic (Note: MarkBernstein's twitter handle is prominently listed on his personal webpage, which he links on his Wikipedia userpage). This has to stop. The following diffs are just the most recent of his grandstanding and generally disruptive behavior.

1. April 12 SOAPBOXing at Talk:Gamergate controversy.
2. April 12 Soapboxing is (properly) hatted.
3. April 12 Reverts the hat to restore the soapboxing.
4. April 10 Opposing a navbox because of "clueless Gamergate recruits."
5. April 8 SOAPBOXing at ANI about Gamergate.
6. April 8 More Gamergate SOAPBOXing at ANI, also in violation of his topic ban about DHeyward.
7. April 6 SOAPBOXing about Gamergate at ANEW, also a violation of his DHeyward topic ban.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

1. November 28, 2014 Topic banned from Gamergate under GS:GG.
2. January 3, 2015 Blocked for violating Gamergate topic ban.
3. January 24, 2015 Blocked again for violating topic ban.
4. March 8, 2015 Topic banned from Gamergate again under Gamergate DS.
5. March 13, 2015 Topic banned under Gamergate DS from discussing DHeyward and Thargor Orlando.
6. March 21, 2015 Blocked for "topic-ban violations and repeated personally directed comments/battleground mentality" under Gamergate DS.
7. September 5, 2015 "Officially admonished" under Gamergate DS "not to be a jerk."

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

• Has been the subject of multiple DS enforcement requests and sanctions.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

MarkBernstein seems to believe that the righteousness of his cause overrides any concerns about civility, collaboration with others, and building the encyclopedia generally. He's been given plenty of chances to bring his behavior in line with expectations, and has declined to do so. Enough really is enough.

If we're concerned about the DHeyward topic ban, MarkBernstein was still mentioning him in comments as recently as today. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 20:13, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The Wordsmith, I understand your hesitation to apply sanctions, especially if (as seems to be the case) you are coming to this dispute with entirely fresh eyes. The issue with MarkBernstein's behavior in this topic area is admittedly difficult to nail down in individual diffs, not least because MarkBernstein is actually quite clever and skilled at not making comments that will result in immediate sanctions for him. Nevertheless the cumulative effects of his edits, which continually fail to assume good faith from other editors and use the Gamergate talk pages for grandstanding about how awful Gamergate is rather than discussing the article, is far more disruptive than any positive contributions he has made in the topic area. MarkBernstein's modus operandi, especially since his most recent block for personal attacks and topic ban violations, is to constantly nettle those who disagree with his position on the article topic with grandstanding, insinuations about their character, and at times outright aspersions that maintain just enough deniability that he can claim he didn't mean anything by it.

You need to understand that he has now been doing this, essentially without interruption except for his blocks, for better than a year and a half. Others have been indefinitely banned from the Gamergate topic area for far, far less disruption than he has caused. In fact I would say the only reason he has escaped lasting sanction is that Gamaliel (who has pretty much always been the main admin enforcer in the Gamergate topic area) has never failed to show up and defend him whenever other editors complain, as he has here. I understand that it might be difficult to appreciate this without having seen it happen in real time, but I assure you that the exasperation you have probably noticed from me and other commenters here is both real and well-founded. It might help you to understand where we are coming from if you were to review the previous AE discussions concerning his disruptive behavior in the Gamergate topic area. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 01:30, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

As usual, Ryk72 demonstrates that they can be relied upon to actually put in the legwork and assemble the facts needed to decide a difficult or complex issue. I subscribe to Ryk72's very detailed accounting below. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 17:55, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

By my count, MarkBernstein's combined statements below come to more than 1500 words, well over the 500 he is allotted. I am not suggesting that any of his comments be removed but I do think he should be encouraged to use less Milton and more simple declarative language. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 22:33, 13 April 2016 (UTC) Reply[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[87]

Discussion concerning MarkBernstein[edit]

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

Statement by MarkBernstein[edit]

Good grief!

Gamergate has repeatedly sought to use Wikipedia to harass its targets and to exculpate its actions. You may recall that the first murder threat sent to the first Gamergate target was delivered through Wikipedia. The Gamergate Controversy page, and the pages of Gamergate’s victims, continue to be used to threaten women in the software industry and to rehash their sex lives in order to demonstrate the fate that will befall women who accept employment in this field -- or indeed anyone with whom Gamergate becomes displeased.

Gamergate’s long-planned operation against "the five horsemen of wiki-bias", again thoroughly documented in newspapers, magazines, and academic journals, was rewarded last year by ArbCom’s infamous decision. In recent months, the fora used to coordinate that campaign (and some new ones) have planned a fresh assault on their new Wiki targets. An ArbCom case was brought against Gamaliel yesterday over a supposed BLP violation in the Signpost involving Donald Trump’s small hands, and (surprise!) here we are today.

Civility to other editors does not preclude condemnation of campaigns of misogynist harassment coordinated with ruthless energy on shadowy web sites and chat boards. I have worked to write firmly and honestly but -- especially since my block -- with scrupulous civility. I have done my best to find humor where I can, and have worked on-wiki and off to find a path to ending this protracted and unproductive dispute. Those overtures have been rebuffed by many, including some of those whose names appear here.

I have many calls on my time, and may occasionally and unintentionally have written ambiguously or unclearly. I apologize. I am hardly alone. I sometimes write allusively; I am accustomed to writing for an educated audience. I am sometimes sloppy; I am, after all, a volunteer. I do not apologize for writing forcefully in defense of The Wiki Way and, in point of fact, in defense of common decency.

I note in passing that scarcely a day passes in which Gamergate boards and media accounts fail to question my sanity, cast aspersions on my professional credentials, insinuate that I am a pedophile, caricature what they believe to be my religion, call for new editors to hound me on wiki and off, or speculate that I am engaged in a homosexual relationship with Gamaliel. When I have spoken at universities, Gamergaters have sent letters to their chancellors or presidents demanding that my host be fired. When I reluctantly agreed to speak at a Gamergate event (since cancelled), they openly planned my downfall in the most vivid terms. All this is childish and vexatious, but it is also fatiguing, and since Gamergate's rhetoric is prone to violence, it would be imprudent completely to ignore it all. Though a few Wikipedians have been helpful and sometimes sympathetic, Wikipedia has seldom lifted a finger to help or offered any expression of thanks for arduous work defending Wikipedia's own principles against this pernicious menace.

@Newyorkbrad: I was momentarily under the mistaken impression that the tridirectional DHeyward topic ban had been waived for noticeboard complaints. It had in fact only been waived for initiating noticeboard complaints. I did and do apologize for the error on April 6, though the remark itself was intended only to explain the subject in dispute, a context that had not to that point been made clear. On April 8, I was responding to an unprovoked personal attack from Sitush, or more accurately deflecting it with a humorous allusion to a remark that Gamaliel had made a little earlier about Gamaliel’s having once kicked DHeyward's dog. The comment is not directed at DHeyward, whose name only appears to clarify a sentence which would otherwise be obscure. No doubt I should have used one of the dog’s three different names [88] rather than identifying it by its owner (if dogs in fact share this nomenclatural oddity with cats), but I have not had the honor of being introduced to that august animal. MarkBernstein (talk) 20:06, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@StarkeHathaway: You link to a comment I made today. It contains nine sentences. The subjects of those sentences are (a) Gamergate’s actions, (b) Gamergaters, (c) Gamergate’s actions, (d) none, (e) We (few, we happy few, we editors), (f) I, (g) We, (h) We, and (i) You, dear reader. Nor is DHeyward plausibly a direct object of any of these sentences. The specific edit I am criticizing here was written by Ryk72, but the criticism applies very broadly to a number of editors who are inclined to support or excuse Gamergate’s harassment campaigns. MarkBernstein (talk) 21:45, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Sitush: Wikipedia has, as I recall, rules against linking to sites where WP:outing is planned, people are doxxed, opponent's naked images (stolen or faked) are distributed, and Wikipedians threatened. All admins who have read the sources know the urls, as do journalists who have covered Gamergate. At the board most focused on Wikipedia this week, Gamaliel and I were the subject of 7 of the top 10 threads. (Has action been taken, incidentally, against the habitue of those boards who outed Gamaliel today on social media? ) MarkBernstein (talk) 07:03, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Drmies: I'm sorry I don't amuse you. I'm trying. With respect to the diff in which you say I use "GG advocacy accusations rather haphazardly," I believe you are mistaken. I was responding to an assertion, immediately above, that harassment is not intrinsic to Gamergate, or is the fault of some small splinter of Gamergate. You will find this argument, made by other editors, advanced dozens of times in the archives. It is, as I explained once more, completely incompatible with the consensus of reliable sources and also incapable of proof. We cannot know who a typical or representative Gamergater is, or what they believe:. We only know what they have done. Even then, we don't know that a threat attributed to Gamergate was actually the responsibility of Gamergate; in principle, one could assert that the real Gamergate is (say) a graduate journalism seminar in Biloxi, and everything the newspapers and journals attribute to Gamergate is actually the work of impostors. This premise has actually been advanced in the archives, incidentally, though for obvious reasons it gained little support. In set-theory terms, this situation is the dual to WP:NOTRUESCOTSMAN. Again, many administrators are coming to this afresh, while those of us who have been trying to defend Wikipedia policy have been through these discussion many times before and for this reason the discussion can seem even more cryptic than it is. MarkBernstein (talk) 19:36, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Again, :@Drmies:, I'm simply responding to the previous editor who had asserted as a fact that “the activities appear to have been carried out by "several dozen" persons;even if all of these were also part of the wider "Gamergate movement", they would be a tiny, lunatic fringe.” How could we know whether the opposition researchers and the harassers are a small fraction of Gamergate, or the entirety? With no governance, spokesperson, leadership, headquarters, or platform, we cannot; the editor is asserting as fact something they cannot know. When Ryk objected to form of the rhetorical question, I was happy to rewrite it. Would it be better to reply with acronyms? Perhaps, but I've already replied that way in some of the numerous past discussions of this same question. Would it be better to have said, "Neither you nor I know whether this is a fringe or the whole of the conspiracy?" Perhaps, but that might have been objected to as well. The stakes are very high indeed for Gamergate's targets; this isn't a matter of info boxes or redirection wars, but threatens the careers and futures of many, many people. You may not find me much fun -- again, I'm sorry about that, I really am -- but I've done a ton of work to prevent these pages from being used for harassment and to uphold Wikipedia policy. For more than a year, I've been quietly working with various admins and oversight to minimize continuing efforts to abuse Gamergate pages. What have my detractors done? I deserve better from all of you. MarkBernstein (talk) 22:21, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

By my count, I'm using 1575 words, of which 833 are responses to queries and 417 were an attempt, apparently unsuccessful, to lighten the mood. It's gone now; my statement per se is (I think) 325 (or maybe 489) words. It apparently has escaped the perspicuous StarkeHathaway’s notice that Masem chimes in at 1112 words, Ryk72 at 633. Imagine that!

If anyone has further questions, or if I can oblige you in any way, kindly email or call my office; if I don't reply to an email with 24-36 hours, it's in the spam filter and a phone or twitter ping would help. MarkBernstein (talk) 23:13, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

And.... we’ve just seen what, if I can read the illiterate scrawl correctly, what appears to be a death threat arising from this charming discussion. I have notified Oversight. You folks sure expect a lot from volunteers, and we receive very scanty thanks. MarkBernstein (talk) 22:04, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Masem[edit]

I had brought Mark Bernstein to AE before, which resulted in the Sept 5 2015 diff linked by Starke above; I voluntarily took a break from the page for a minimum of 3 months but only returned in March 2016, when I saw a WashPost article I felt was interesting in its neutral take ([89]). That was met with ad hominem comments from Mark Bernstein (among others) that had nothing to do with the policy issues I raised. [90], [91]. Further discussion brings more of these ad hominem comments [92], [93]. In particular, this ad hominem statement is based on the original personal attack he made against me ("rape apologist") that got him blocked in November 2014 (linked by Starke above) simply because I explained the factual nature of a certain image and colors used by GG (which by no means implies that I support that, but that's how this is being taken). I want to stress again that this block occurred simultaneously to the GG Arbcom case, so his behavior was not the subject of any review there. Several of Starke's diffs are statements that continue this type of ad hominem attack against other editors as a means of discrediting them instead of talking about policy issues on what is a very difficult subject to cover by a neutral encyclopedia.

I have purposely, pursuant to the previous AE I raised and its conclusion by ArbCom, avoided any direct response to any of Mark Bernstein's comments and otherwise potentially engaging with him on any topic, simply letting them go and focusing on policy aspects with other editors. (The GG page is actually still off my watchlist to avoid any urge to engage routinely). I did this purposely to avoid recreating the situation that led to the first AE, at least from my own end. I would hope that evidence here shows that while normally it takes two to tango in heated discussions, that Mark Bernstein appears to rather snipe at editors that don't take up his very specific POV, instead of discussing the nuances with covering the topic neutrally. He is creating more discourse than needed, and he should not be participating in this topic area. --MASEM (t) 17:50, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

To address some of what The Wordsmith has asked, I believe most of the diffs provided by myself and others demonstrate Mark Bernstein's personalization of the issues. While each in isolation is an edge case of what might be taken as a personal attack and thus unenforcable or only worth a warning, this behavior as a whole, in addition to having been blocked several times before (including the first block in Nov 2014 by Gamaliel), shows no sign of stopping this personalization. But in considering the GG Arbcom case resolution, I would specifically highlight Mark Bernstein's situation in comparison to the findings and decision regarding NorthBySouthBaranof, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate#NorthBySouthBaranof, specifically on "battleground conduct" and "improper use of sources".

The latter was recently demonstrated at Christina Hoff Sommers who would easily fall under the GG topic area since she is an outspoken feminist and critic speaking in favor of the GG movement. It's clear from sources that not all other feminists consider Sommers a "feminist" with some even calling her anti-feminist. But Mark Bernstein and other editors wanted to use these opinions of other feminists as to label her an anti-feminist in the lede, going against Sommer's self-claimed statement about herself. This discussion Talk:Christina_Hoff_Sommers/Archive_6 led to a some issues at ANI regarding the edit warring on a BLP page (Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive915#Alleged_BLP_vios_on_Talk:Christina_Hoff_Sommers). This is basically misrepresenting the sources, particularly on a BLP page, as demonstrated by talk page discussions there and at the BLP/N (Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive236#Christina_Hoff_Sommers). But moreso, this statement by Mark Bernstein (diff on Sommer's talk page) summarizes what I believe identifies the motivations of his actions over the last 1.5 years: We are asked here to endorse an extreme political ideology in which an individual’s specious and self-serving redefinition of feminism -- a redefinition that have been broadly rejected -- is required to be taken at face value.. Mark Bernstein seems to believe that if editors or Wikipedia present an unpopular, fringe or extreme view, that we (editors or the work as a whole) are endorsing that view, and thus his modus operandi has been to fight hard to assure that Wikipedia does not present at all any view that is from these extreme sides, and call out editors that suggest that we should include such views as supporters of this view. This applies to his "rape apologist" statement about me for simply explaining a color scheme, and this applies to how he wants to call GG as a terrorist organization, and considers any editor suggesting a more neutral term a GG sympathist. This is, of course, patent nonsense if Wikipedia is meant to be neutral. We document plenty of horrific and ghastly topics that are morally deplorable with sourced information on why people do these things anyway; that doesn't mean Wikipedia supports these concepts at all, as we are not censored, but we do need to make sure such criticism is also included if it is by far the popular view. There is no way to work towards consensus with editors that take that view and use those tactics to personalize the issue and attempt to discredit editors; for example he has refused to consider a detailed analysis that Rhoark conducted in June 2015 of high quality reliable sources to seek neutral wording based on those sources (see Talk:Gamergate_controversy/Archive_40#What_reliable_sources_say and particularly Talk:Gamergate_controversy/Archive_40#Revisiting_The_Pinnacle_of_Whimsical_Delight.)

To add one more aspect, Mark Bernstein seems to want editors to take him to AE [94], [95], [96], which is simply not helpful as it is gaming the system and taunting. I'm sure other editors have been wary about starting yet another AE against Mark Bernstein, as the committee has expressed very low tolerance for petty claims in the GG topic area, and I believe Mark Bernstein knows very well that because of this, he can behave just beyond the line of civility set by the ArbCom case, since it's a waste of time to bring one or two slights of that line to AE. But key is that this has been persistent, it was there before well before I took my break, and while I haven't reviewed all the page logs over that 5-6 months, it's clearly happened since I've been back. Again, this is a battleground attitude that does not serve to improve consensus, atop his personalization and ad hominem statements towards editors. --MASEM (t) 17:14, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

To add to @ColorOfSuffering's point here, the continued accusations that editors that speak against him are in some way "plann[ing] a fresh assault" were he to be blocked from the article, using the opportunity to promote GG and/or continue the type of harassment that is associated with GG on Wikipedia, is absolutely inappropriate without any evidence to back this up - that's basically more personal attacks and refusal to accept any effort to work in good faith. Mark Bernstein is absolutely right that there are offsite forum posts that do seek ways to alter WP's GG page (I see one trending today suggesting this in the usual place), but that's why 500/30 was added to prevent offsite brigading, and now as of last week that's enforced by software taking a load off from admin enforcement. Thus to cast aspersions that editors are leading charges to use the GG Wikipedia page to continue the actions of GG movement requires evidence that established editors are in fact doing so, or otherwise these are unfounded personal attacks, which have been going on for well over a year. It goes to my point above that Mark Bernstein refuses to accept that writing about a topic neutrally does not bind editors or Wikipedia to endorse those principles. --MASEM (t) 00:23, 14 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Brustopher[edit]

@Gamaliel: I went AWOL for 4 months so I might have missed something but when did DHeyward violate the iban and not get sanctioned? I can only recall one case of him violating the IBAN (in the signpost comment) and he got blocked for that. Brustopher (talk) 20:05, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In light of recent evidence I would support a topic ban. If MarkBerstein dislikes an editor he seems to manage to find a way to twist everything they say or write as condoning Gamergate Harassment (mainly Masem). This disappeared to an extent when Masem took a break from the topic area but now it's come back with a vengeance. Even in THIS VERY AE request he is doing so talking of "a number of editors who are inclined to support or excuse Gamergate’s harassment campaigns"!

• Take this totally benign and seemingly apolitical talk page section, in which Ryk72 suggest a navbox. MarkBernstein immeadiately spins this as an attempt to allow gamergaters to "harass people more efficiently."
• In this one he implies Masem thinks sending rape cartoons to female developers isn't harassment because rape cannot be depicted in art.[97] What Masem actually said (over a fucking year ago at that) was that he didn't think a purple and green stripes on a t-shirt of a cartoon character was something that could imply rape, in reference to this image.
• Here he is implying that because someone disagreed with him they're in on a secret Gamergate harassment plot. He does this quite a bit. If you want I can try and find all the times this occurs in the archives.[98]

Admins have raised concerns that everyone engages in such low key incivility on the talk page, but if that's the case I invite them to take us all to AE and provide diffs and the like.Brustopher (talk) 23:21, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Ryk72[edit]

MarkBernstein's original statement is, to quote an old friend, long on commentary and short on diffs.

While I join that editor in deploring harassment, and threats to any person anywhere (including threats to women in the software and journalism industries), none of these are exculpatory of:

• continued personal attacks and aspersions towards other editors [99][100][101][102] (particularly Masem [103][104][105][106][107]);
• nor do they excuse constant use of the article Talk page as a WP:FORUM for WP:SOAPBOXing [108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115][116];
• nor do they excuse disruptive hatting of ongoing discussions [117] or deleting discussion about their potentially having a conflict of interest [118];
• nor disruptive, derailing shitposting and "directions to AE" [119][120][121][122][123][124];
• nor suggestions that core policy (WP:NOR, WP:NPOV) not be followed [125][126][127].

I am not a member of the Gamergate movement; Masem, DHeyward and other editors are not a members of the Gamergate movement. It is utterly inappropriate for MarkBernstein, or any other editor, to treat us as if we are; or as if we are responsible for or apologists for any of the actions of the Gamergate movement.

We are Wikipedians and should be treated with the same respect as any other editors.

Multiple editors have requested many times that MarkBernstein's disruptive behaviours cease. (My own most recent requests:[128][129][130]) . It is time that they did, preferably voluntarily, but if not, then by administrative action.

I began with a quote, and should finish with a quote, from a respected editor: Sometimes we (and I put myself at the top of this list) act in ways that aren't helpful or in the best interests of the encyclopedia when in the midst of a heated conflict. It is difficult to realize or admit what you may have or have not done wrong when you feel you are being attacked, and sometimes you think cannot make any admission or concession because you think your opponent will take advantage of it or not do the same. That's when I know it's time for a Wikibreak.[131]

If MarkBernstein sees Gamergaters in every shadow and beneath each rock, then it's time for a Wikibreak. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 12:26, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Gamaliel:, With respect, and regret, it is clear that you no longer have the required level of objectivity with regards to either the Gamergate controversy or User:MarkBernstein.[132][133][134][135] I respectfully request that you either strike your statements or move them from the Uninvolved Admins section to a new Statement by section. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 21:49, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@The Wordsmith:, With regards to question of involvement, I would consider that a Wikipedia administrator:

• reading Reddit forums related to the Gamergate controversy is fine;
• having identified themselves as an individual Wikipedia administrator, posting on Reddit forums related to the Gamergate controversy, both pro- & anti- is borderline involved;
• having posted on Reddit forums as above, then taking on-Wiki administrative action based on unspecified threads on Reddit forums is unacceptably involved;
• having posted on Reddit forums as above, then taking on-Wiki administrative action to unilaterally apply 30/500, based on unspecified threads on Reddit forums, to a Talk page on which the immediately previous edit is the deletion of a COI discussion by the editor being discussed, when the only contemporaneous Reddit threads discussing that particular page were focused solely on the deletion of the COI discussion, is beyond the pale.[136][137][138][139][140][141] - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 12:26, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Drmies and Dennis Brown: As two respected administrators who have previously been involved in AE discussions on MarkBernstein's behaviours, your input may be valuable.[142] - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 12:26, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by MONGO[edit]

There is such a thing as fighting the right fight in the wrong way or with excessive zeal in which we see boogeyman in places where there aren't any. A six month vacation from GG topics is long overdue for Bernstein. Its not like the topic will implode with his temporary hiatus...they may just get better.--MONGO 22:33, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Carrite[edit]

I've got no idea whatsoever, none, why Mark Bernstein has been allowed to once again edit on the Gamergate topic. The Gamergate crew may well be the biggest band of jackwagons on the planet, but NPOV is NPOV. If one can't set aside their biases, but rather continues again and again and again to engage in polemics and to make one-sided claims, it is time for that editor to be removed from that topic. We're at least a year past that juncture here. Carrite (talk) 00:08, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by ColorOfSuffering[edit]

This has gone on long enough. The fact that MarkBernstein is allowed anywhere near Gamergate-related articles continues to confound me. I don't have much more to add beyond the evidence that has already been provided in this and previous AE requests. MarkBernstein's behavior has not changed, and it will not change. His edits are not productive. He is frequently attacking other editors and questioning their motivations. Given the diffs provided, I don't know how anyone could expect this editor to hold even a shred of neutrality in this space. He has demonstrated time and time again that his contributions to any Gamergate-related article will never be productive due to his oft-admitted bias. WP:NPOV is a core content policy. We have to be better than this. ColorOfSuffering (talk) 00:19, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@The Wordsmith:I count at least 40 diffs in this discussion with actionable infractions by MarkBernstein -- the 35 diffs provided by Ryk72, in particular, merit a second look. But you need look no further than the obvious battleground mentality present the response MarkBernstein posted above. He actually uses battleground terminology to justify his actions: "...those of us who have been trying to defend Wikipedia policy have been through these discussion many times before..." "I do not apologize for writing forcefully in defense of The Wiki Way and, in point of fact, in defense of common decency." "...the fora used to coordinate that campaign (and some new ones) have planned a fresh assault on their new Wiki targets." I would love to hear an explanation as to how this does not violate WP:BATTLEGROUND. This was the second principle outlined during the original arbitration case, and it has been cited in previous indefinite topic bans given to DungeonSiegeAddict510, TheRedPenOfDoom, NorthBySouthBaranof, Ryulong, Tarc, The Devil's Advocate, Tutelary, Loganmac, Willhesucceed, Singdavion, 09I500, and TaraInDC (obviously we're well past the point of "candy"). MarkBernstein appears to hold a sincere belief that Gamergate agents are using Wikipedia to harass women, and any editor who disagrees with him is ipso facto complicit in the conspiracy. When an editor views dissenting editors as the enemy, productive discussion is impossible. That's why WP:SOAP, WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:FORUM, WP:BITE, WP:DAPE, WP:OWN and WP:AGF (policies and guidelines repeatedly violated by MarkBernstein as shown in the diffs already provided) are vitally important in controversial articles. If you read nothing else, I would beg you to read the Gamergate Controversy article from top to bottom. Do not skim it. Read it. The mess you are seeing is the byproduct of a year-long failure to equitably enforce these behavioral guidelines. ColorOfSuffering (talk) 23:42, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by GamerPro64[edit]

I don't think I've ever seen a comment made by MarkBernstein where he doesn't bring up GamerGate into a discussion. I think he has reached the point of obsession and should find a different topic to take part of here. I echo ColorOfSuffering's comment on his contributions on anything GamerGate being productive. I suggest topic-banning him. This has gone on far too long. GamerPro64 01:05, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@The Wordsmith: I want to point out how rather problematic it is to have MarkBernstein be part of GamerGate topics when he has a section in his user page dedicated to GamerGate. The last paragraph alone where he imagines a meeting with Zoe Quinn scolding him doesn't show a person unbiased. GamerPro64 20:01, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by CoffeeCrumbs[edit]

The editor in question already has *7* hits on his block log on this topic and Starke Hathaway could have put three times as many diffs in his statement if he wanted to -- it would actually save a good deal of space to post the diffs in which Bernstein *wasn't* soapboxing or casting aspersions on others. These are among the reasons he received those previous blocks, this isn't new behavior. If you find an uncivil Gamergate discussion, Bernstein's usually at the heart of it. Let Bernstein and his Gamergate rivals go have their feud elsewhere.

And per Ryk72, Gamaliel should not be pretending he's not personally involved in this topic and this editor. Even now, he's using Gamergate as his bogeyman in an unrelated arbitration case request against himself and requesting another administrator take concerns about his level of involvement behind closed doors rather than out in public. Gamaliel is certainly entitled to express his opinion, but not presenting it under the guise of an impartial, uninvolved administrator. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 01:59, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Some diffs that haven't yet popped up:

1. [143] on April 6th, casting aspersions about the "cadre."
2. [144] on March 19th, more taunts and some WP:OWN.
3. [145] on March 19th, accusing Masem of outside coordinated support without evidence

And it keeps going. And more than just Gamergate page itself, it's a problem with any related page. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 06:58, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Kingsindian[edit]

It is virtually impossible to find a thread on the Gamergate talk page in which Mark Bernstein does not engage in soapboxing or unfounded accusations about Gamergate collusion off-site. Maybe Mark Bernstein has reasons to be paranoid or careful, but when every thread is like this, it gets tiring. To give a few months old example of some rather egregious behaviour by MB, here is one where he implies another editor (Sitush), is anti-Semitic, without actually saying it explicitly. This kind of passive-aggressive behaviour is par for the course and is long-standing. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 05:37, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Sitush[edit]

What Kingsindian says above and Spartaz below. I've no idea why MB is still allowed anywhere near any of his pet topics. He's clever with his words, insinuations, passive-aggressiveness, suggestions of something similar to martyrdom etc but ultimately highly toxic. Things are never going to stand a chance of improving while he is permitted to operate in areas such as Gamergate. It has gone on for long enough.

I also think Gamaliel is far too involved to act as an admin in this area. - Sitush (talk) 05:46, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@MarkBernstein:, you say above "In recent months, the fora used to coordinate that campaign (and some new ones) have planned a fresh assault on their new Wiki targets." Prove it. - Sitush (talk) 06:17, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@MarkBernstein:, thanks for your reply. In response, please find some uninvolved admin to whom you can pass on the info. Not Gamaliel. As for this sort of thing, right here in this request, well, it is typical of the sort of tripe you write. If you could perhaps try not to go all round the houses with irrelevant commentaries, aspersions, intellectual meanderings and the like then maybe you'd not piss so many people off. You'd still annoy a lot because you're a POV pusher of the extreme variety but at least you wouldn't tire out everyone. - Sitush (talk) 13:22, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Only in death[edit]

Its openly acknowledged that Bernstein enjoys the protection of Gamaliel (except of course, by them) due to their shared POV and idealistic crusade against all things gamergate. If at this point his previous blocks and the diffs supplied above (let alone his off-wiki actions where he bullies his opponents through social media) are not enough to get someone a topic ban from an area under discretionary sanctions, then there really is no point in AE as a noticeboard, as it is failing in its purpose to enforce sanctions. Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:32, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by AnonNep[edit]

The statement by Sitush caught my eye. Let's change the username. To wit:

" I've no idea why (Eric Corbett) is still allowed anywhere near any of his pet topics. He's clever with his words, insinuations, passive-aggressiveness, suggestions of something similar to martyrdom etc but ultimately highly toxic."

Just saying. AnonNep (talk) 15:59, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Mr Ernie[edit]

It's time to take action or close this request. There has been ample evidence presented. The longer this goes on, the more off topic it will become. Topic Ban or close with no action, but be ready for the next one in a few weeks. My recommendation is a 6 month topic ban or so, with a continued plea to experienced editors that help is clearly needed at the Gamergate article. The reference to Eric Corbett is entirely unnecessary and is only intended to derail this report. Mr Ernie (talk) 16:05, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Torchiest[edit]

@The Wordsmith: I wasn't going to comment here, but the diff Drmies provided after "Mark Bernstein uses GG advocacy accusations rather haphazardly", the diff you quoted in your most recent reply, is the very first diff listed in the original request by Starke Hathaway. That is, in fact, the comment that I found unacceptable enough that I collapsed it (the second diff in the original request) and warned MB that further such comments would force me to bring him here. That's the comment that he repeated almost word for word (minus the most personal attack), the third diff in the original request. That is in fact that straw that broke the camel's back and finds us here. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 20:01, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by (Username)[edit]

Result concerning MarkBernstein[edit]

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

• WP:DROPTHESTICK. Gamaliel (talk) 17:55, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• I have removed a personal attack from an IP. Casting aspersions without providing evidence is unwelcome here. As to the complaint, I'll look over the statement and diffs. I'm baffled, though, that GamerGate is still this contentious after all this time. Stricter sanctions may be necessary if editors in that area are incapable of policing their own conduct. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:22, 12 April 2016 (UTC) EDIT: The filer has voluntarily reinstated the comment, so i'll respect his/her wishes at this time. Future comments of this nature will, however, result in blocks. Proper decorum is not just a suggestion. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:24, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• April 8 & 6 edits appear iban vios. There is unnecessary invective and battlefield language in the other diffs. Personalisation of disputes and labelling enemies might be a useful tactic in the playground or in politics but is not compatible for encouraging a collaborative environment. There have been enough warnings. I support an indef topicban from all things gamergate and a 1 week block for the Dheyward iban vios. Spartaz ^Humbug! 19:42, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I should note that MB redacted his possible violations at the request of EdJohnston and seems to have had some confusion over the current status of the topic ban, which I did modify and was not a traditional iban in the first place. I should also note that DHeyward has also violated the ban numerous times and has not been similarly sanctioned. It would not be appropriate to impose different sanctions on different users for the very same offense. Gamaliel (talk) 19:52, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

*And the vio from today that Hathaway Starke mentioned? Spartaz ^Humbug! 20:24, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I do not believe that is a violation. I told both editors I specifically designed the ban so they could productively discuss each other's edits, so it wouldn't turn into a game of gotcha or you had a scenario where the first editor who comments on a subtopic "owns" it because the other cannot reply. In that diff I see only a mention of "DHeyward's comment" which Mark Bernstein redacted. He did not reply to it or discuss the editor, he merely mentioned an action he had taken. He could not quote the comment, because the comment in question was deemed to be a BLP violation (and later revision deleted). Gamaliel (talk) 20:40, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• One person not being sanctioned for an Interaction Ban violation has no bearing on whether or not another user should be sanctioned. If there was a separate violation by another user, then anyone is free to bring an AE request about that. However, it seems that the ban itself was not entirely clear, and perhaps clearing it up would be sufficient remedy.The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 20:05, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Ethically, I believe it does, if we are talking about a small group of users interacting with each other in a contentious topic area. That's not "other stuff exists", that's the same stuff, in the same place. Gamaliel (talk) 20:10, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Also, perhaps it would be productive if we could collectively come up with a better ban that is superior to my clearly half-assed and ineffective attempt. Gamaliel (talk) 20:13, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

*Lets go for a TBAN then. Simple and not open to gaming. Spartaz ^Humbug! 20:24, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I'm disinclined to support a topic ban, but I ask Mark Bernstein to respond to the allegation regarding DHeyward. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:45, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I also do not think the evidence presented supports a topic ban at this time, but things are getting close. Enforcing admins need to break the back of the dispute in this topic area if we want to keep Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Gamergate 2 a redlink. Perhaps we need to be more proactive in the future about removing tendentious editors from the topic area. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 20:05, 12 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Note to editors: I have absolutely no problem invoking the "At wit's end" measure the Committee is so fond of (See WP:DIGWUREN for the first known example of this precedent) and handing topic bans out like candy. However, the evidence presented here is a little light. Provide something actionable, show me Mark or any other editor is violating policies or Arbcom rulings with clear and convincing evidence, and I'll ensure those editors are removed promptly. Enough is enough, no uninvolved admins are going to indulge the POV pushers in this topic area anymore.. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 01:12, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• @Starke Hathaway: I know what you're saying, I really do. I dealt with the same type of editors when I was policing the Climate Change area. However, I'm sure you can understand that I simply can't issue a topic ban based on hearsay from involved editors; that would be against the spirit of the discretionary sanctions even contrued as broadly as possible, not to mention general Wikipedia policy. Even if I were inclined to do so it would be overturned instantly on appeal. If, as you claim, Mark is one of these editors, there must be evidence of such. Give me diffs, links to entire discussions, whatever you can find that points to tendentious editing or other policy violations. I promise I will carefully read every link and make a fair determination. I don't care if an editor is pro-, anti- or otherwise, the patience of the community has been thoroughly worn out. Few others seem willing to step on toes and take action, so I'll take up the banner again. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 02:11, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I for one am tired of seeing GamerGate brought into everything, but Mark Bernstein isn't the only to do so--in some of the six thousand diffs above he's pontificating in an unproductive manner ([146], [147]), yes, but it was Gamaliel who brought it up first in that part of the thread (the ANI discussion over Gamaliel's edits that are now themselves up for scrutiny). Having said that, I see plenty of occasions where Mark Bernstein uses GG advocacy accusations rather haphazardly ([148]) and I think he was indeed the first one to go GamerGating in the Gamaliel thread ([149])--and I am bored with the attempts at playfulness which for me are failing. I have no comment on possible iBan violations since my head is already spinning, but the use of talk pages as a forum (diffs above, some of them stronger than others) is, in my opinion, established. Such foruming around is certainly unproductive and leads to yelling back and forth, hatting and unhatting, whatever. I do not oppose a topic ban for Mark Bernstein but, if this happens, I think we should see topic bans being spread more liberally to other editors as well. And now I have to go unspin my head. Drmies (talk) 18:13, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Mark, when I said "rather haphazardly" I was being euphemistic in characterizing your comment, "But perhaps you have secret knowledge of the scope of Gamergate’s membership?" If you want to amuse me, tell me the one about the pirate with the missing leg, the hook, and the missing eye. Drmies (talk) 21:31, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Mark, I pointed at a pretty serious allegation you made, and you answered with 1511 characters of "it wasn't me". This is the kind of thing that has gotten editors topic-banned or worse. Drmies (talk) 00:55, 14 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• [Redacted at the request of Drmies]The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 21:52, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• See, those diffs actually do show a disturbing pattern of bad faith (warranted or not). AGF is not a suicide pact, but behavior such as this is clearly unacceptable by any reasonable standard, especially from an experienced Wikipedian. Statements like "Gamergate's reprehensible, criminal and evil actions need no scare quotes. Gamergaters aren’t boogiemen; they are a real and immediate danger to their numerous targets and victims." demonstrate a clear bias and call into question Mark's ability to participate in accordance with policy and without contributing to the toxic atmosphere. I had previously been leaning towards not sanctioning based on weak evidence, now I'm considering whether an indef topic ban might be the better option for the topic area. I'll need to look into it further, but if you or anyone else has additional evidence (actual diffs, not just insinuation), then please post them. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 19:34, 13 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I've watched the topic from afar, from the first Arb case to now, only participating in one AE and never in any GG article. I've said before and will repeat that Mark needs to be topic banned. I also believe that Gamaliel is too close to both Mark and the GG topic area that he should be considered WP:INVOLVED when it comes to both, and recuse himself from acting as administrator in both areas. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:15, 14 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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

Request concerning TripWire[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

D4iNa4 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 14:53, 10 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan:

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

Edit warring and WP:GAMING to have consensus, continues to reinstate something for which he has gained no consensus. Such as:-

[150] reverted here:[151]

Reinstated reverted edit again[152], got reverted again[153], then reinstated same edit again[154], then reinstated once again[155] after being reverted, and again[156], while sure that he was sure that his edit will be reverted.[157]

WP:NPA, WP:SOAP violation.

"Like I have said many times, stop wasting time. The best you can do is to support socks and their contentious edits, unfortunately you'll fail in that too."[158]

"I'd suggest that you keep your Mullah Raj theory with you and act maturely."[159]

Use of very hostile language, WP:BATTLE.

"I know a dear friends of yours was blocked for socking and one does get jumpy at times."[160]

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

1. Topic banned from all "edits related to Pakistani politics and Indian/Pakistani conflicts, for a period of 6 months".[161]

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

Just came off a topic ban this year.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Once he would realize that his topic ban is no more in force, he would go back to making those same kinds of edits that led to the topic ban, he would make three objectionable edits to Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1965 at first,[162][163][164][165] then he disrupted the article Bangladesh Liberation War by edit warring and making hostile comments on talk page, after that he would falsely accuse @Volunteer Marek: of harassment.[166][167] And now he seems to be missing no chance to attack editors like @Ghatus and Kautilya3: and others. D4iNa4 (talk) 14:53, 10 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[168]

Discussion concerning TripWire[edit]

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

Statement by (TripWire)[edit]

A highly bad-faithed report. D4iNa4 was:

• Never in conflict with me
• Was not involved in the edits he has quoted
• Never interacted directly or at talk-pages.
• Has dug out events from history/past which has no bearing on policy vio.

One cannot but wonder what prompted him to file this report?

Please note that edits referred by D4iNa4 were made as 3 others and myself were in conflict with MBlaze Lightning - a blocked sock. His master KnightWarrior25 was blocked for POV/edit-warring, NOT for socking. So, these edits were challenges to a blocked POV-pusher/habitual edit-warrer and were mainly done to fight a sock while following WP:BRD, WP:CONSENSUS. If left uncheck, MBL threatened Wikipedia as project. All this was done while talking it out with involved editors. At no place did I edit-war as being claimed or else I must have been reported to ANI. MBL being a sock & his master being blocked for POV-pushing/edit-warring is altogether a confirmation that I was correct in my approach.

The policy for filing a report here says that "diffs older than one week may be declined as stale" but D4iNa4 has quoted weeks old diffs.

Reply:

Accusation-1:

1

Reply-1:

Edit 1 was made per WP:UNDUE following WP:BRD while reasoning in the edit-summary. 2 was a revert by MBL, which led to the 'D' part and he was convinced he was wrong.

Accusation-2:

[3][4][5][6][7][8]

Reply-2:

Note: D4iNa4 has quoted random unrelated edits and pieced them together to incorrectly show I edit-warred.

• Edit 3: MBL added word-to-word DUPLICATE content and was (obviously) reverted. It took a talk page section and 3 editors (Kautilya3 diff and Ghatus diff - both Indians) to explain MBL that he was adding duplicate info.

Hence my revert was correct/justified, and complainant is manipulating facts.

• Edit [5]:

- First, complainant says that edit 5 & 3 are same (i.e. I reverted twice) to prove that I edit-warred which is incorrect. As [3] was made on 24 March whereas edit [5] was made on 1 April. Both concerned two DIFFERENT issues which were being discussed SEPARATELY at talk.

- Second, 5 was made to restore "sourced" content removed by MBL (sock), per consensus at talk. Check edit-summary.

• Edit 6 was per WP:NOTTRUTH and is also not connected with either 7 or 8 as these three concerned three different issues and were made weeks apart. One being as early as 1 April and the latest one on 10 April. Complainant has just dug-up my entire history and pieced random edits together in sheer bad-faith to show that I edit-warred. BTW, none of the edits mentioned violated any policy as all were being discussed per WP:BRD, not to mention that the edits were made to challenge a blocked sock whose master was also blocked for pushing POV.

Accusation-3:

"Like I have said many times, stop wasting time. The best you can do is to support socks and their contentious edits, unfortunately you'll fail in that too."

Reply-3

Kautilya3 has a history of supporting socks. He has been pushing MBL's edits even after he was blocked and also supported Ghautus' WP:OR here. He had supported POV edits of User:Akbar the Great- User:Bazaan's sock, been in contact with User:Greek Legend- a sock of User:CosmicEmperor and now he openly owned edits of MBL. He's been exchanging emails with socks-admitted on an Admin's page.

Moreover, I made the above reply when Kautilya3 had attacked me first:

"Oh, good. You are dodging my question (which i did not) . That is what I thought you would do. For me to say anything on talk, you need to state an objection first, which you never did. Frankly, I don't think you have any clue what is going on here." diff.

Accusation-4:

"I'd suggest that you keep your Mullah Raj theory with you and act maturely."

Reply-4:

This was made in response to Kautilya3's following comment:

"We are not going to have a Mullah Raj on Wikipedia."

I'll leave it to the admins to decide who was attacking whom.

Accusation-5:

"I know a dear friends of yours was blocked for socking and one does get jumpy at times."

Reply-5:

Background: I removed a WP:FAKE content added by MBL, but Kautilya3 immediately reverted me in a knee-jerk reaction. Like any good editor, I opened a discussion. After talking with Kautilya3, he accepted his mistake and agreed to self-revert. As he was restoring a sock's edit and have admitted of being in contact with him, I simply pointed out that a senior editor like him should be careful before he reverts in favour of a blocked user. In short, I was correct in making that edit. Kautilya3 agreed too.

Point scoring by D4iNa4 in Bad-Faith:

"Just came off a topic ban this year"

Reply:

• First, I didn't come off topic just this year. I was banned on 3 July 2015 which ended on 4 January 2016 (3 months from now). I remained semi-active on Wiki during my topic-ban avoiding the topics I was banned from. When my ban ended, I still didnt start editing the pages I was banned from immediately, instead participated on these topics from 20 February 2016 (1 month 12 days after the ban ended). I used this 1 month to develop more understanding of polices and didnt just jump back to editing. Even then too my first edit after my topic-ban ended was reverting vandalism - MBL had POVed against longstanding consensus (see my edit-summary). I revert vandalism but still get reported by D4iNa4?

Accusation-6:

Edits [13][14][14][16] [17][18] and D4iNa4's personal opinion without proof.

Reply-6:

• Note:14 & 15 are same edits but quoted TWICE to add false weight to report.
• Edit14/15 was made per WP:WEASEL on 28 Feb 2016 and has been unchallenged to-date. Why the complaint then?
• Edit 16 was made when Kautilya3 removed content saying it was unsourced. I reverted it by citing a source, to which Kautilya3 agreed - so, which policy did I violate? Complainant has deliberately skipped this fact. The content is unchallenged to-date)!
• Edit 17 is same as edit 10, and has already been replied at Accusation-4.
• Edit [18] is true as VM did indeed harass me and I took the matter to FPAS' talk-page. Self-explanatory details can be seen in the edit itself.

To Admins: I'll ask for boomerang as this report is vindictive and D4iNa4 implied that just because I was topic banned before, he can hound me on that basis even after the ban ended.

Reply to Capitals00[edit]

First, hey there, havent seen you much, thankyou for waking up. How did you know about this report by the way? Coming over to your accusations:

• Edit [20,21,22,23,24,25]: Adding an image twice in the same article disrupts Wikipedia. Here's why:

Image "1971 Instrument of Surrender.jpg" was already present in the article, but MBL (banned sock) added it again without removing the one already present. Dont know if you didnt see it or was it done deliberately to push POV. It was removed by someone but was then re-added by VM here. Yep, the same image twice.

I then undid it giving full explanation in the edit-summary. But Capitals00 re-added it. Yep, the same image twice in the same article.

When my edit-summaries couldnt make you understand that the image was a duplicate, I then opened a talk-page section for discussion 20 - the same link that now you have quoted accusing me of 'disparaging' titles, which indeed was a plus for me as I followed WP:BRD (though WP:BURDEN of consensus for adding a duplicate image was on you or MBL per WP:BRD). As you engaged in WP:DE by adding a duplicate image repeatedly without talking, thus the title "Disruptive Editing by Capitals00", especially when you not only added a duplicate image but also made a blanket revert.

After opening the talk-page section, I undid (23) the image and explained that the image was a duplicate. But surprisingly MBL again added the image without responding at talk!

The image was again removed and I warned you guys to stop or I will take this matter to ANI. Only then did VM removed the duplicate image and I backed-out while the already present (same) image was moved up to the infobox i.e the sock succeeded!

Now Admins, please tell, was I wrong in asking them to remove a duplicate image and even invited them to discuss the issue? Why did Capitals00 not mention this and instead cherrypicked the 'title' (which was fine BTW)?

Admins, none of the edits I made above violated 3RR.

• Edit [21]: Was made per WP:CON. We all had reached consensus on various Bangladesh talk-pages that per WP:HIST newspapers would not be taken as RS when adding content to historical topics, rather books would be preferred. Kutilya3 will back me on this. The edit was per consensus, my edit-summary made it clear too.
• Edit [26]: MBL and Capitals00 were adding a duplicate image, WP:BURDEN of consensus was on them, not me. But I still backed-out even when no consensus was reached.
• Edit [27]: Why? Did you even read my reply to Di4AN4?
• WP:ASPERSION: Both Ghatus and Kautilya3 are Indians - even their user-page says so. So was MBL. All I said was that MBL's POV-pushing was so bad that even they agreed/supported with me against MBL at times.
• false accusations of meat puppetry and sock puppetry: MBL is blocked for socking. Di4AN4 and I never crossed paths, neither did Capitals00. How the report then, who informed Capitals00 of this report?

Reply to Kautilya3[edit]

Out of the 1,381 edits I have made, 286 are on unique pages, but that makes me an SPA?

Spartaz, I cannot possibly reply to 18 accusations, most of which are false/bad-faithed, in less than 500 words. I request you to un-hat my reply, please in the interest of clarity.—TripWire ︢ ︢ ︡ ︢ ︡ ︢ ︡ ︢ ︡ ︡ ︢ ︡  ^ʞlɐʇ 14:54, 11 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Kautilya3[edit]

Some general remarks concerning TripWire. As far as I can see, they are an SPA, whose contributions are limited to Indo-Pakistan conflicts. Secondly, the majority of their contribution are to edit-war over the content that the others have contributed, very little of their own content. How much of that the project can tolerate is a big question. TripWire has barely come off a 6-moth topic ban. Whether their behaviour has improved as a result is another question. I think it has. There is less edit-warring and more participation on the talk pages, even though I would say it is still far from ideal. The over-aggressive behaviour in discussions continues.

One factor that is currently playing out at the moment is that MBlaze Lightning has been indeffed, rightly, and the pro-Pakistan editors favour reverting all of his edits wholesale. I have objected to that approach and said that we need to discuss specific objections in an issue-based way. That has not gone down well with the pro-Pakistan editors, and they have taken to calling me a supporter, even a "meatpuppet," of MBlaze. However, ironically, TripWire has been forced to point out on this page how often I have opposed MBlaze and supported their stance instead. That is poetic justice, it seems.

Given that TripWire's behaviour shows improvement, I don't believe any serious sanction is warranted at this stage. However some cautionary remarks to TripWire to tone down their rhetoric and be more collaborative in their approach would be welcome. A recognition that editors like me are willing to listen to all sides would also be useful.

Statement by Freeatlast[edit]

We can see from the get go that the entire "evidence" here is fabricated.

1. The first claim of gaming cleverly and conveniently fails to say that in actuality Tripwire was undoing vandalism by a sockpuppet and trying his best to refrain from even touching the article. You will see that many of his reverts are to versions that are from uninvolved editors.
2. As far as the so called "personal attacks" go we have someone who is asking for a t-ban based on an editor saying "please act maturely". I do not know whether to laugh or cry at the copious amounts of bad faith oozing from this. This is a highly volatile area and truth be told if every editor who asked another to "act maturely" was banned from topics we will have to T-ban almost 75% of editors. So this is just a "filler" used by the nom to "beef up" his accusations, and make them look big. more space=more suspicion. The reaction usually is "There are so many diffs, he MUST have done something".
3. As far as the accusation of WP:BATTLE is concerned firstly you can see that once again it is a filler. Why not include it with NPA? no Sir! We are going to make a new accusation. Secondly it is clearly the exact opposite of what the nom claims, Tripwire is actually saying "no harm, no foul" at the end leading to quite a good faith ending to a heated discussion. Including such a diff here is mind bogglingly bad faith.

My advice is that the nom should spend time actually improving the encyclopedia instead of filling this kind of bad faith requests. I was going to suggest boomerang but then I though why ask for a block? he only comes online once or twice a week to revert etc. FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 23:54, 10 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Capitals00[edit]

While I have nothing to say about the long and non-convincing explanations of TripWire other than that he is trying to reject any fault with his editing, he is also denying that he recently came off from a topic ban.

TripWire's discussions on talk page has been WP:BATTLEGROUND, he even prefers opening the sections with disparaging titles.[169]

His edit warring is too widespread that he removes what he doesn't like,[170] not to forget that he made four reverts only for removing an infobox image that he didn't liked,[171][172][173][174], despite he had no consensus to do that[175] and infobox image still exists on the main article.

WP:ASPERSION is being violated on this page alone.

• TripWire: "including Ghatus and Kautilya3 - both Indians"

And also false accusations of meat puppetry and sock puppetry.

• TripWire: "dragging me here to settle his personal scores on the direction of someone"[176]

I don't see how one can deal with such user after they create such a toxic environment. Blocks and topic bans are the only way. Capitals00 (talk) 09:16, 11 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by SheriffIsInTown[edit]

By looking at WP:ARBIPA, there were five decisions made in it. The number 2 decision was specifically about sock-puppetry which reads as below:

"2) Abuse of sockpuppet accounts, such as using them to evade blocks, bans, and user accountability–and especially to make personal attacks or reverts, or vandalize–is strictly forbidden."

By reverting the edits of the sock, TripWire was actually upholding WP:ARBIPA's decision number 2 and i don't think he should be held accountable for that and when we look at this the other way around, people who are reinstating the sock's edits are actually violating WP:ARBIPA and instead they should be t-banned for doing that. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 02:25, 15 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Result concerning TripWire[edit]

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

• TripWire your statement is 1900 words. Reduce it to 500 or I shall cut it off at that point. Hint - spend less time casting aspertions at your opponants and just stick to explaining why you think your edits were not a vio. Spartaz ^Humbug! 06:06, 11 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• FreeatlastChitchat I have hatted your section as there is ample evidence that the OP has used socks - but they have done their time and you know where SPI is if there is new cause for concern. At first blush your section appears aimed at discrediting the OP rather than discussing the complaint. I'm sure you don't really mean to expose yourself by doing that do you so I must be mistaken but please don't do it again.
• SheriffIsInTown I have removed your section entirely. Making a nationality based slur on an AE page? Really? Perhaps you could leave a short note on my talk page explaining how your participation in this area adds any value whatsoever as I'm strongly minded to impose a TBan for that edit. Please don't post to this discussion again. Spartaz ^Humbug! 06:05, 11 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• TripWire, I moved your writing into your own section as required by the instructions here. Please pare everything down ASAP. I think you'll find that if you focus on explaining why your edits were not violations and remove any text referring to the actions of others, you will rapidly be in compliance. --Laser brain (talk) 23:29, 11 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• TripWire, I've unhatted your statement and will be reviewing it within the next one or two days to consider what action should be taken. Please ensure it reflects what you really want to say (without expanding it) in terms of why your actions are not violations, without referencing the behavior of other editors. Any such text will be disregarded. --Laser brain (talk) 17:28, 17 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Thus far I am disinclined to sanction TripWire. I see a lot of disagreement and somewhat heated rhetoric on the locus of dispute, but nothing so egregious as to warrant a sanction. --Laser brain (talk) 11:47, 20 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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

Request concerning Monochrome Monitor[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Oncenawhile (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 20:46, 15 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

Monochrome Monitor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Palestine-Israel_articles#Standard_discretionary_sanctions :

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

(1) WP:1RR at Modern Hebrew:

1. 15:57, 15 April 2016, 16:21, 15 April 2016, 16:26, 15 April 2016, 16:32, 15 April 2016, 16:41, 15 April 2016: A group of edits removing a large amount of text and sources which were discussed at great length by various editors, including Monochrome Monitor, in June 2015 in this talk thread
2. 19:26, 15 April 2016 Second reversion of the same set of edits, with edit comment suggesting page has been turned "into an arab-israeli battleground"

(2) Deletion of a TfD template, just 10 days after being warned against the same behaviour by User:Fayenatic london in a similar situation

1. 19:16, 15 April 2016 Removal of TfD template
2. Previous behaviour recently warned against:

• 07:53, 29 January 2016
• Warning #1 14:59, 29 January 2016
• 18:52, 17 February 2016
• Warning #2: 12:06, 5 April 2016

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

Previous blocks and warnings:

• 15 November 2015, 1 week block (here), "Edit warring Violation of the ARBPIA WP:1RR", later "converted to two week ARBPIA topic ban"
• 24 June 2015, 2 weeks block (here), "abusing multiple acounts" and being caught lying about the same
• 7 June 2015, 3 month topic ban (here), "banned for three months from the topic of the Arab-Israeli conflict on all pages of Wikipedia including talk and noticeboards. She does not seem able or willing to obey the 1RR rule on these articles, since this is the third violation."
• 14 May 2015, 24 hours block (here), "Violation of the ARBPIA WP:1RR at Israel, per a report at WP:AN3)"... "The advice given to this editor is well-meaning but is not having much practical effect. She has been warned for a previous 1RR violation at Israel per an AN3 report just five days ago. People who respond and clearly acknowledge the problem are usually not blocked. Her response above indicates she doesn't understand what the 1RR is, and feels that her edits are OK."
• 11 May 2015, Warning (here), "Warned for technical violation of the ARBPIA WP:1RR at Israel. The pattern suggests this editor often gets into trouble. Did you have no idea that adding the category 'Jewish physicists' could be controversial? We don't identify people as adherents to a religion against their will. I hope this pattern doesn't continue. People seem to be cutting her some slack on grounds of being new. This can't go on forever."
• 31 July 2014, Warning (here), "Monochrome monitor is warned that they may be blocked or banned if they continue to edit in a confrontative manner in the Arab-Israeli topic area"
• 10 July 2014, 36 hours block (here), "Arbitration enforcement: Violating the 1 revert rule at Rachel Corrie"

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Reading this editor's previous block and AE history, the editor has historically responded to criticisms by claiming inexperience and ignorance of our rules. The editor has received the support of a more level-headed "mentor", User:Irondome, who has similar editing interests, but who by now has a similar level of editing experience with 4 years' experience and 10,000 edits, versus Monochrome's 3 years and >9,000 edits.

In the past, I, like many others, have cut this editor significant slack, e.g. [177].

However, four blocks and many warnings later, we are still dealing with the same lack of respect for Wikipedia norms, time and time again. Oncenawhile (talk) 20:46, 15 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In case there is any doubt that the topic Modern Hebrew falls under the ARBPIA definition, Monochrome's own edit comment in the 19:26, 15 April 2016 diff above refers to the article as having become "an arab-israeli battleground". This likely refers to Wexler's theory, which the editor removed in both diffs above. Wexler believes that his theory has met with hostility in the academic world "in part because of the pressure of Zionist ideological needs" (source) Oncenawhile (talk) 22:32, 15 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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

• [178] Diff of the most recent ARBPIA reminder, after the four blocks above

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

• [179]

Discussion concerning Monochrome Monitor[edit]

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

Statement by Monochrome Monitor[edit]

I know the rules, I wont make any excuses because I don't need any. Firstly, Modern Hebrew isn't under Palestine/Israel discretionary sanctions. It has as much to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict as Gaelic has to do with the Troubles. Secondly, yes I was warned of reverting your edits adding deletion templates, but you shouldn't have made them in the first place, since they fit none of the Deletion criterion (it's also a long-standing template used on many articles that many users have contributed to). That fact that you believe (falsely) that the ethnolinguistic grouping of Semitic peoples is a psuedo-scientific racist construct comparable to "Aryans", does not entitle you delete every mention of Semites from wikipedia, especially if your "source" is the article Semitic people. (I can't fully explain the ridiculousness, see here). As for modern Hebrew, you're a rogue editor on that page too, zealously promoting the minority view that Modern Hebrew isn't Semitic because it fits your view of Jews as European interlopers.

It goes on and on, others call the page a "dumping grounds for minority views", a "mess", and a "soapbox". You consistently refused to acknowledge the argument of the majority, and edits which went against your status quo were reverted because of a lack of the very consensus that you sabotaged. You staved off discussion with empty promises of diplomacy and showed no flexibility in making compromises. You follow the letter of the law but not its spirit, exploiting the inherent inertia of a lawful wikipedia, meant to protect it from radical views, not to protect the radical views themselves. You're an agenda editor, nearly all of your edits are Israel-Palestine. I have my own position on I/P but I am always willing to compromise, and I edit other topics. The way you edit on one agenda alone is more contrary to the spirit of wikipedia than my edit warring. You turn articles like Modern Hebrew into proxy wars for the Arab-Israeli conflict. I said the page had BECOME an arab-israeli battleground because YOU ARE MAKING IT ONE by politicizing it. I am not going to treat it with kid gloves as if it were an A/I article simply because you've corrupted it. I wanted to remove the source of the politicization alltogether, as others did in the excerpt I provided from the talk page.

TL;DR The template Semitic Topics met none of the criterion for deletion, and the page Modern Hebrew does not fall under Israel/Palestine sanctions.

Have I edit warred in the past and violated rules? Yes, usually because I was ignorant of the rules, but also because I was simply foolish and impulsive (which I take full responsibility for). But those were my past sins and I did my time then to atone for them. This time I did not violate any rules, and I stand behind the principle of my edits, which I made for a more informative, less politicized encyclopedia.

About Irondome:

Statement by Kautilya3[edit]

This is not a statement, but rather guidance to the participants, because no admin seems to be supervising this page at the moment. The rules say that each participant in the case needs to use their own section to make a statement. No threaded discussion is allowed. All statements are limited to 500 words. Longer statements may be truncated at 500 words by the supervising admin.

(I will strike off this comment when a supervising admin takes charge.) -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:14, 16 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Nishidani[edit]

In loco parentis. MM broke 3R. Forget the block log, that relates to a flurry of woes over several months as she tried to get the hang of things. She's a young, competent and dedicated editor, we need them, because she's a hard worker, which most banned editors aren't. Apply a ban (not indefinite) on the page just where she broke 3R, and leave it at that. I'd like Oncenawhile to say whether this might be acceptable. Nishidani (talk) 19:22, 18 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

MM. It doesn't matter what Oncenawhile's POV may be in this case. It is a matter of a strict rule, which you appear to have broken (but then again, I'm a duffer re IR and 3R interpretation), If by your own lights you did, then admit it, and ask for clemency. If not, then persuade the arbs with a diff analysis. It's been a long day. And I fucked up. MM hasn't broken any rule for that page. She did remove a substantial amount of matter, and the edit summary dismissing Paul Wexler, emeritus prof of linguistics as Tel Uni as fringe, unreliable on this area, and removable, was very poor judgement. She did revert, after a note on her page, to the prior text. My apologies to MM, and the admins for being too quick in reading the diffs (and not looking at intermediate edits)Nishidani (talk) 19:45, 18 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I checked through the diffs without looking for intermediate edits, and got the wrong impression. My apologies. Still, big changes should be preceded by a close study of the talk page, and a note of explanation. Nishidani (talk) 19:48, 18 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

What you think about Wexler is not important. You haven't read his 4 volumes either. Neil Jacobs has, and after expressing his deep appreciation for Wexler's stimulus in his Acknowledgements, and dedicated a good deal of attention to his work in his survey of Yiddish. I noted this to the page some years ago, and it's one of the things you really should have remembered, if only to remind me when I forget it.Nishidani (talk) 20:17, 18 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Sir Joseph[edit]

The section of 1RR on Modern Hebrew should be struck-out. Modern Hebrew is not under 1RR or ARBPIA sanction. The use of this just seems to be a way to sanction an editor. Decisions should be based on articles under AE jurisdiction. Just being Hebrew or Jewish doesn't make it applicable to the ARBPIA arena. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 19:32, 18 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by (username)[edit]

Result concerning Monochrome Monitor[edit]

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

• Monochrome Monitor, your statement is not in compliance with the 500 word rule and will not be considered unless you shorten it. Oncenawhile, your filing is a mess and difficult to read. Please trim it down and format it. You can just link to the block log if you want, for example—we don't need to see a copy/paste in addition to the link. --Laser brain (talk) 17:26, 17 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Monochrome Monitor: You must add statements in only your own sections. Please move any comments and replies to your own sections. --Laser brain (talk) 20:31, 18 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• I'm disinclined to sanction Monochrome Monitor based on examining the disputed page. There may have been some less-than-ideal behavior as noted, but this doesn't seem to fall within the scope of DS. --Laser brain (talk) 11:54, 20 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Your topic ban is expanded to include a ban on editing everything related to conservative US politics from 2009 to the present, broadly construed, on any article. Your topic ban is extended to Jan 1, 2017. This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning HughD[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Safehaven86 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 21:17, 15 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

"You are now banned from editing everything related to conservative US politics from 2009 to the present, broadly construed until August 28, 2016" [180]

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

1. April 15 edits Institute for Energy Research, which he was warned for editing in a previous AE filing because it contains content on Koch brothers.
2. April 15 edits American Petroleum Institute, an article which contains information about conservative U.S. politics/advocacy/lobbying
3. April 15 Edit wars against consensus on API

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

1. Oct 11, 15 Violation of topic ban resulting in warning.
2. Oct 29, 15 1 week block for violation of ban. Appeal of block was rejected [181]
3. Jan 7, 2016 1 week block for violation. Appeal of block was rejected [182]

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

• Previously blocked as a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict, see the block log linked to above.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

HughD currently has a broad topic ban in place that is supposed to prevent him from editing about conservative U.S. politics, 2009-present. The topic ban started out as a tea party/Koch brothers ban, but was broadened. HughD has been blocked multiple times for failure to comply with the ban. Today, he edited Institute for Energy Research, even though in a previous AE filing in October 2015, he apologized for editing that article in violation of his topic ban and got off with a warning. The diffs of complaints against and violations against HughD are too numerous to assemble. Suffice it to say, previous sanctions have clearly not worked. I think I speak for a large part of the community when I say we've lost our patience. I don't know what should be done, but I do know that the current topic ban is not working, and HughD is wasting a lot of peoples' time, and none of this is improving the encyclopedia. I even gave him a chance to self-revert today's violations, but he didn't take it. Instead, he attempted to badger me into explaining why I thought it was a topic ban violation. He'd already been warned by an admin for editing the very same article, for crying out loud. Maybe I should be posting this to ANI, I don't know, but something needs to be done. Safehaven86 (talk) 21:17, 15 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The topic ban was broadened, not narrowed. When you say "The earlier issue involving the Institute for Energy Research was under a earlier, Koch topic ban, since superseded; the topic area was changed from Tea Party Movement to American Politics," understand that the Kochs and Tea Party movement are part of U.S. politics. They are encompassed within it. So since you were reprimanded for editing the IER article while under the Koch/Tea Party ban, after your ban had been broadened (made more comprehensive, not less), certainly areas previously forbidden to you would remain so. Surely you are not under the impression that when your Koch/Tea Party ban was expanded to include all of U.S. politics, that you would be allowed to once again edit Koch/Tea Party articles? That would be a reduction in scope, not an expansion. Safehaven86 (talk) 01:46, 19 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

HughD writes that "Important context for this AE filing is that complainant is our project's leading patroller and sanitizer of articles on conservative American organizations." Is this an admission that he considers IER and API to be "conservative American organizations"? Because that seems to be an admission of violating the topic ban. Safehaven86 (talk) 15:39, 20 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

HughD: This is an AE complaint about your editing. If you have complaints about my editing, as you seem to, I suggest you find a more appropriate venue to discuss those complaints. This isn't the place. Please don't hijack this legitimate AE complaint as a way to air your many grievances against my editing. Safehaven86 (talk) 15:44, 21 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Re. "It would be illegal for Institute for Energy Research to operate as an instrument of American conservative politics given its status," take a look at the IER article. It literally says "The Institute for Energy Research has a political arm, the American Energy Alliance (AEA). According to its website, the AEA engages in 'grassroots public policy advocacy and debate' regarding energy and environmental policies." The article further says it is funded by the Kochs, petitioned John Kerry, advocates for the Keystone XL, and opposes a wind energy credit. Those are all political activities. Further, a reference in our article is titled "Conservative Spotlight: Institute for Energy Research". The NPOV dispute you mentioned on the talk page says IER is "a right wing organization presenting themselves as a 'research institute'". This article on IER and its political arm, AEA, says the groups targeted politicians who supported a carbon tax and "The timing of the IER and AEA operation is designed to get energy issues on the agenda when lawmakers meet with voters in their congressional districts." That's conservative, and that's political. Bloomberg describes IEA as a "free-market think tank." The Washington Times calls IER "conservative" and "a leading critic of the Obama administration’s spending on renewable fuels and of the president’s energy policy more broadly." There's much more where that came from. If you're unable to see how your editing of this page, in light of a topic ban on conservative U.S. politics, is problematic, than your ability to ever successfully and voluntarily adhere to a topic ban is highly suspect. Safehaven86 (talk) 20:41, 21 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notification of AE filing

Discussion concerning HughD[edit]

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

Statement by HughD[edit]

No topic ban violation, no edit warring, no disruptive editing.

The topic ban scope is "conservative US politics from 2009 to the present" under WP:ARBAP2. I understand the scope and respect it. Since the topic ban I have refocused my volunteer work on the environment and global warming. I am proud of my contributions in this area including, among others, a recent good article review of Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand, a pending WP:GA nomination at Global Climate Coalition, and a WP:GA drive at ExxonMobil climate change controversy, one of the most significant environmental stories of 2015 and 2016.

The above reported diffs have to do with environmentalism, and have nothing to do with conservative American politics, or the Kochs for that matter. The topic of the environment is not subsumed by the topic of American conservative politics. The Institute for Energy Research and the American Petroleum Institute are not in scope of the topic ban. In no sense are the above reported edits in scope, unless perhaps you agree with Thomas Mann that "Everything is politics." Neither article is tagged by WP:WikiProject Conservatism.

Institute for Energy Research[edit]

The Institute for Energy Research (IER) is an explicitly non-political, non-partisan, non-profit, 501(c)(3) charity that conduct research into energy issues, as stated by the lede paragraph:

The Institute for Energy Research (IER), is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization that conducts research and analysis on the functions, operations, and government regulation of global energy markets. IER maintains that the free-market provides the most inexpensive solutions to global energy and environmental challenges.

At no point in the lede, nor at any point in our article, is IER described as conservative. In fact, given its legal status, it would be illegal for IER to operate in any manner as an instrument of American conservative politics. No political parties or ideologies are mentioned in the article, and the only politician mentioned is John Kerry, not generally considered conservative. The specific edit of 15 April 2016 which complainant deems worthy of sanction, with changes bolded for emphasis:

In 2009, an article in Mother Jones magazine said IER was among the most prominent organizations promulgating climate disinformation.

...with edit summary "WP:SAY, more accurate, neutral paraphrase of source." The edit as well as the article are unrelated to conservative American politics. Complainant argues "none of this is improving the encyclopedia." This edit is a clearly an improvement in compliance with policy and guideline in neutrality, accuracy, and completeness. The consensus at Talk:Institute for Energy Research is that our article has serious neutrality issues. Complainant reverted, without talk page discussion or alternative proposed. There was no edit war. There was no disruption to our project. Complainant argues "he attempted to badger me." This is false.

Ownership issues may have contributed to motivating this filing WP:OWN. Complainant is the leading editor of IER, but is third in terms of adding content; most of complainant's edits are deletes. Important context for this AE filing is that complainant is our project's leading patroller and sanitizer of articles on conservative American organizations (please see for example Club for Growth, State Policy Network, her top two articles, and about a hundred articles affiliated with the State Policy Network), and seems to consider IER as part of her beat (please see for example 28 October 2014, 09:42 4 December 2015, 09:50 4 December 2015). In this noticeboard filing, complainant reports on the results of taking to the Googles with "Institute for Energy Research" and "conservative" in defense of her area of ownership, and suggesting new content and new sources for our article she believes support a fundamental characterization of the subject as a subtopic of American conservative politics, yet somehow to date this characterization and those sources are missing from our article. Ironically, bringing new content to our article which speaks to the fundamental characterization of the subject is what she is attempting to block a colleague from doing, via a noticeboard filing rather than through good faith talk page discussion of neutrality and sourcing.

October 2015[edit]

After reading the talk page consensus on WP:NPOV concerns at Talk:Institute for Energy Research, on 8 October 2015 I tagged 3 promotional statements in the lede sourced only to the organization's website, requesting improved sourcing from 3rd-party sources, 3 statements unrelated to the Tea Party or the Kochs. The edit was an improvement in verifiability and neutrality. Complainant reverted without discussion within minutes.

At the time, I was topic banned from "Koch-related" topics under WP:ARBTPM, and the ban was new. Complainant noticed that the body mentioned that Politico said that the IER was partly funding by the Kochs, the owners of the world's largest privately-held fossil-fuel company, and filed at WP:AE. I apologized for the tagging. Complainant here attempts to portray the above reported diff as some kind of continuation of disruption, which it is not.

American Petroleum Institute[edit]

The American Petroleum Institute (API) is a similarly an explicitly non-political, non-partisan, non-profit, 501(c)(6) trade association, as stated in the lede paragraph:

The API is the largest U.S trade association for the oil and natural gas industry. It claims to represent about 400 corporations involved in production, refinement, distribution, and many other aspects of the petroleum industry.

API employs lobbyists who advocate on behalf of its members in opposition to environmental regulation. Although the API is permitted limited legislative activism, it would be illegal for political activity to be its focus, and it may not endorse any politicians or engage in partisan politics. API is clearly not an agent of conservative American politics.

Complainant argues that our project's article API "contains information about conservative U.S. politics/advocacy/lobbying." No connection between the API and conservative American politics is made. Congress is mentioned, but no politicians, political parties or ideologies. No funding of the API by conservative American politics or vice versa is mentioned.

Disruption including disruption of dispute resolution[edit]

Involved commenter below urges uninvolved administrators to thoroughly review recent editor behavior at API. Above, "If you make an enforcement request or comment on a request, your own conduct may be examined as well, and you may be sanctioned for it." Before taking at face value the noticeboard claims of involved commenters of disruptive editing at API, kindly perform due diligence, and please review the edit history; see who is who is engaging at talk versus who is reverting on sight, who is laying out proposed edits supported by reliable sources and policy and guideline, who is talking about content versus editors, who is editing other's talk page comments, who is edit warring versus pursuing dispute resolution, and who is disrupting dispute resolution. Highly characteristic of involved commenter's editing is disruption of dispute resolution.

Conclusion[edit]

Missed the notice, sorry, no one is thumbing their nose at anyone, thanks.

No topic ban violation, boundary testing, or other disruptive editing is reported here. The above reported edits are clearly good faith efforts at improving our project's coverage of environmental issues and wholly respect the topic ban. Sincerely, I have no intention of boundary testing, and I respectfully requested that my edits be viewed in good faith in the context of a demonstrated, months-long productive editorial involvement with environmental topics.

Refining arguments is not disruptive, it is the editorial process; requests for comment are not disruptive, they are dispute resolution. Attempts to broaden community discussion beyond a local consensus of one or two should not be feared or reported to noticeboards as disruptive. I should not be sanctioned for disagreeing with a local consensus by civilly pursuing legitimate dispute resolution steps. I have respected the community, I have been civil, I have pursued dispute resolution where necessary, I have justified every edit with policy and guideline and sourcing; I am part of the solution.

Complainant claims "I speak for a large part of the community"; I think this is false, she speaks for herself and a very few, who view noticeboards as a backstop for content disputes; I would respectfully recommend we move this to a case to assess this claim and to more thoroughly examine the behavior of involved commenters. Responding uninvolved administrators are respectfully requested to comment on any potentially actionable editor behavior of commenters to this filing they may or may not have encountered during the investigation phase of their due diligence in their evaluation of this filing. I would prefer that sanctions not be expanded or extended. Respectfully request clarification of the boundary if any between WP:ARBAP2 and WP:ARBCC and a warning; I respectfully offer to self-revert the above reported edits if a consensus of colleagues agree they are in scope. Hugh (talk) 19:45, 21 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Springee[edit]

Because of my long and disagreeable history with HughD I'm not going to offer an opinion but I will note that HughD continues to edit American Petroleum Institute and the associated talk page including 4 reverts in 27 hours and continued abuse of the RfC postings by revising old arguments which didn't go his way. [183][184][185][186]. Springee (talk) 20:42, 18 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hugh, as I understand it, Ricky81682 expanded the Koch related ban into the current ban. Springee (talk) 21:41, 18 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by William M. Connolley[edit]

HD claims The above reported diffs have to do with environmentalism, and have nothing to do with conservative American politics. That is not true. HD's edits, such as [187], are to do with climate change denial and promulgating climate disinformation. These are solidly political concepts that are strongly associated with conservative American politics. They are also connected to environmentalism, and to global warming, but they cannot escape being political, let alone the implausible nothing to do with conservative American politics.

As a more minor matter, I think HD's The American Petroleum Institute is a similarly an explicitly non-political, non-partisan is also false. Certainly, our article makes no such explicit claims. Nor do I find the API explicitly making such claims William M. Connolley (talk) 19:24, 24 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by (username)[edit]

Result concerning HughD[edit]

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

• I see evidence here of breach of topic ban and am inclined to issue a two-week block. HughD, your statement is needed as to why you think you did not violate your topic ban. --Laser brain (talk) 21:13, 17 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• HughD, your statement thus far is unsatisfactory as you've spent very little time explaining how you didn't violate your topic ban (compared with excessive time pointing to the behavior of other editors, which is irrelevant to this filing). I'm willing to support the proposal of a month block and extended topic ban. --Laser brain (talk) 20:23, 19 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Seems very clear that he violated the ban, knew at least the one article was off limits based on the outcome of a previous AE. In fact, he continues to edit Talk:American Petroleum Institute instead of make any type of statement here. These aren't obvious articles, as far as the scope goes, but when I look at his edits [188] (part of a 3rd revert war, it seems) and [189], I see a problem. That problem is that the edit's aren't focused on the core of the article, but instead, the political ramifications of the topic. That makes it pretty clear (when you consider the bias in the edits) that he is violating the topic ban, willingly, knowingly and as we speak. I would recommend extending the topic ban for up to 6 months and up to a 30 day block, with the hope that would get the point across and serve to prevent future disruption. If one doesn't like the sanction, there is a system in place to appeal it (and I think it was already appealed unsuccessfully). That isn't a license to thumb your nose at the sanction itself. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:14, 18 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Support Dennis Brown's block and topic ban extension suggestion. As the admin behind the escalating topic bans, this is clearly part of the long-standing pattern of a refusal to clearly object and respond to any sanction (which do not succeed) and instead to play around the edges of each sanction as a way of protest. Again, the topics themselves are not related to conservative politics but the nature of HughD's edits are within them related to conservative politics (Mother Jones categorizations at the very are conservative politics even if you don't consider climate change issues per se related). Note that I came here due to Springee's ping so feel free to move me if I'm not considered uninvolved. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:09, 18 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • HughD, what is the point of further adding this kind of evidence? Springee didn't make this report, the report doesn't discuss Chrysler at all and it seems like you are completely ignoring the concerns expressed here (in particular whether or not you actually care about the length or scope of any topic ban on you) in favor of just extending your arguments about the same issues. I'm not certain how an RFC on the inclusion of vehicle recall information is related to this subject. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:05, 24 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• I am enacting Dennis Brown's topic ban extension, and explicitly expanding it to include addressing conservative politics on non-conservative-politics articles. I am not convinced a block is necessary but going to leave the formal close open to let another admin make the call on that. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 18:56, 20 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  I can see the logic in not blocking, as he is engaging now and in good faith. While he disagrees, he has every right to as long as he isn't being disagreeable. and the behavior is reasonable. Blocking might actually be a bad thing at this point. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:09, 20 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I endorse GWH's extension of the topic ban to Jan 1 2017 and recommend quite prompt enforcement with blocks if there are any more violations. HughD, please note specially that the ban from "conservative US politics from 2009 to the present" is (still) broadly construed. The kind of playing round the edges of the previous ban (which was for the same area, but shorter) that led to this AE filing won't be tolerated. If you're in doubt whether the ban allows you a particular edit, please ask an admin before making it. There's a kind of logic in not blocking now, yes, but it also means the user has got away with a lot. Bishonen | talk 15:53, 21 April 2016 (UTC).Reply[reply]
• These statements go WAY over the 500 words and 20 diffs limit required for this page. Unless there is a swift resolution here, you both should cut down your statements way down to meet this requirement. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 17:05, 23 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]