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Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.

Request concerning QuackGuru[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Beland (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 20:59, 6 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

QuackGuru (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/Editor conduct in e-cigs articles :

I started a section on Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#QuackGuru and was informed about the arbitration case and advised that was the wrong forum and this was the correct one. The discussion there is still ongoing, so apologies if this is inappropriate duplication.

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

• Talk:2019–20_vaping_lung_illness_outbreak#Removal_of_update_section_tag - removing problem tags on excessively narrow grounds
• 2020-02-03 Removal of problem tags without consensus even though discussions are underway on talk page
• Talk:Nicotine_pouch#Alarming_amount_of_Ownership_and_unreliable_source_about_Kenya - editors are complaining about ownership; appears to be wikilawyering by applying the requirement for citations in a way that ignores the common-sense meanings of words and collections of words
• Talk:2019–20_vaping_lung_illness_outbreak#Predicting_the_future_in_a_scary_way - wikilawyering to argue WP:CRYSTAL allows any speculative claim because it only prohibits "unverifiable speculation", and willfully obtuse semantic arguments ignoring common-sense meanings of words, grammatical tense, and neighboring sentences
• Talk:Hospitalized_cases_in_the_vaping_lung_illness_outbreak#NPOV_issues - Started out constructive, but devolved into arguments that are overly narrowly focused on particular sentences and ignore the meaning of the word "some".
• Talk:Hospitalized_cases_in_the_vaping_lung_illness_outbreak#Vaping_among_teenagers - exhibits strong anti-vaping POV, which is a theme - having a personal POV is welcome, and I happen to agree with this one, but combining that with obstructionism seems to have resulted in this article being far from neutral (rather than balancing out pro-vaping commercial interests, as some QuackGuru supporters are hoping); also exhibits the "try every conceivable argument even if obviously wrong to wear down the opponent" strategy, which in this case defending a claim as neutral on the grounds that it is factual (which is true but it should be glaringly obvious that a fact that people were advocating for one point of view could be considered non-neutral; a constructive discussion would focus on whether this anti-vaping fact is or should be balanced by pro-vaping advocacy facts, or how context affects neutrality).
• Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Proposed_boomerang_topic_ban_for_Beland which responding admins have complained is disruptive and illustrative of the "try every argument even if obviously wrong" strategy

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.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Interactions with QuackGuru appear to have contributed to the departure of User:Mfernflower from this topic. While looking into the reasons for their dissatisfaction with the resolution of previous disputes, I found a long discussion in case starting in September 2019 at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1021#QuackGuru and disruption over e-cigs and pod mods which I'll let speak for itself. The closure on that also suggests taking up the issue here.

QuackGuru is clearly smart and some interactions have been constructive—it often takes experienced editors from different perspectives to polish a text to be well-referenced and neutral. But sometimes they will veer from constructive to what appears to be deliberately obstructive. I would hate to lose the useful contributions of this editor, but I also hate to lose the contributions of other editors who don't have the patience to argue past the obstructionism or rope in third editors or start dispute resolution proceedings.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Done, 2020-02-06

Discussion concerning QuackGuru[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 QuackGuru[edit]

Talk:2019–20 vaping lung illness outbreak#Removal of update section tag - I removed the tag because no new source was presented. The content Beland added "though individual cases do not provide strong evidence of causal relationships"[1] was unsupported by the source. I tagged the content and replaced it with verifiable content.

Belend merged the article on 21 December 2019.[2] After the merge was undone it was merged again after the AFD close.[3] The merge was overturned.[4] Beland merged the article again on 13 January 2020[5] and deleted the entire Patients section.[6] The talk page consensus limited it to three cases.[7]

I removed the tags from the Hospitalized cases in the vaping lung illness outbreak because I did not believe there was a serious enough issue to justify the multiple tags. FULBERT removed two of the tags.[8]

Talk:Nicotine pouch#Alarming amount of Ownership and unreliable source about Kenya - The word "lobbies" is a general term and it does not specify who made the claim. Beland wrote in part: "It would be unwise to attribute claims made by "lobbies" to KTCA..."[9]

The discussion at Talk:2019–20 vaping lung illness outbreak#Predicting the future in a scary way involved content cited to a 2019 review. The content is stating that the lung injuries could be more widespread and the lung injuries in various countries is not clear. It is not stating anything in a scary way. All the content from the review was deleted and the unverifiable content not vitamin E acetate was added by Beland.

I started a RfC to help resolve the matter for Talk:Hospitalized cases in the vaping lung illness outbreak#NPOV issues and Talk:Hospitalized cases in the vaping lung illness outbreak#Vaping among teenagers by proposing verifiable content for the lede.

The matter involving MelanieN for the e-cig lede was about updating the text. I objected to including a US-centric warning in the lede since the outbreak is not worldwide.

The matter involving KristofferR at the e-cig article was mainly about misleading content. The misleading content was fixed and I added a note to clarify the outbreak content.

The matter involving Sunline09 at the e-cig article was more about WP:SYNC. All previous versions were a SYNC violation. I copied content from the lede of the subarticle for the Frequency section.

The matter involving Seraphimblade was resolved here. On 29 December 2019 Seraphimblade reverted to an older version. It was undone by Doc James.[10]

Andy Dingley says "I've certainly avoided pod mod, QuackGuru, and their personal space of vaping articles ever since...".[11] According to talk page consensus a sentence fails verification. Andy Dingley made a comment about the pod mod article on 14:38, 6 December 2019. Soon after, Andy Dingley removed the FV tag on 14:54, 6 December 2019. The source mentions nicotine salts on pages 95-96 but it does not verify the claim.

The content and the quality of sources is under dispute at the nicotine pouch article. KristofferR added commercial websites and added nettotobak.com that sells LYFT products. I tagged the unreliable source and other unreliable sources. Beland removed the unreliable tag added to the nettotobak.com commercial website and other tags were removed. Beland also added commercial websites. I requested verification for "Unlike vaping products".[12] Beland asked me "Why would that require verification?"[13] The PDF file does not verify the claim "Unlike vaping products" added by Beland.

On controversial topics there are usually content disputes. Editors have different interpretations of policy. I am concerned that there may be no opportunity to examine in detail whether the content I tagged as failed verification did indeed fail verification. However, I accept that people disagree. I understand other editors' frustration and I am looking for a way to resolve the issue. Would it help if I don't add or remove tags for a year? QuackGuru (talk) 01:11, 11 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Barkeep49: The reason I am concerned is because I and others have submitted evidence before and the response was a resounding yawn. I am also concerned that the commercial websites at Nicotine pouch will not be thoroughly examined. For example, the 3rd citation at Nicotine pouch is this commercial website. Websites that sell these products are kind of spammy and are poor sources.

I did not want to immediately fix the failed verification at Nicotine pouch because KristofferR was reverting my edits[14][15][16] (as well as Doc James[17][18]) at Electronic cigarette after the failed verification content was redacted. I did not want to get into an edit war at Nicotine pouch after what recently transpired at Electronic cigarette. KristofferR copied the discussion from my talk page over to the nicotine pouch talk page. KristofferR thought the word "lobbies" is likely inaccurate and a language error. I thought verifiability policy is applicable rather than trying to seek truth. QuackGuru (talk) 01:35, 12 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Additional comments by QuackGuru: Unsourced content and failed verification content are continuing to be introduced to this topic area and I don't see others trying to redact the problematic content. In the edit summary Beland wrote "this variation is in fact mentioned in the body in the Construction section".[19] The Electronic cigarette article is not the Construction article. A rewrite of the content is also not a summary of Electronic cigarette and it is unsourced. A similar change to Safety of electronic cigarettes fails verification and it is not a summary of content in the body the Safety article. See discussion.

@Barkeep49: The word "also" fails verification because the organisation did not "also" make the claim. They made one of the claims in the paragraph. One of the sentences was attributed to Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance when the source made a broader claim it was "lobbies". Once that would be fixed it would no longer be "also". The word "also" has since been removed from that paragraph. You believe I am right a real % of the time to challenge the text. A personal consensus requirement would not allow me to revert failed verification content. If you read the talk pages involving failed verification content or other issues the editor who added the problematic content almost always disagrees there is any problem with the content. There is still failed verification content in the nicotine pouch article such as the part "Unlike Vaping product". After verification was requested, I was asked Why would that require verification? rather than provide verification or removed the disputed content. A "personal consensus required" will not allow me to update a few numbers in an article because I reverted a citation added by another editor and changed numbers. The "personal consensus required" commentary was made before I had a chance to respond. Now that I have responded uninvolved sysops may want to review my response and additional commentary before coming to a final conclusion. QuackGuru (talk) 14:26, 12 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Levivich[edit]

I clicked, at random, on the third link, to Talk:Nicotine_pouch#Alarming_amount_of_Ownership_and_unreliable_source_about_Kenya

• Article text at issue: "The Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance objected to the entrance of nicotine pouches in Kenya.[citation needed] They are concerned that the nicotine pouches may raise the risk of cancer, heart disease, and reproductive or developmental harms.[failed verification] They also[failed verification] stated that there is no reliable research that demonstrates nicotine pouches are safer than regular cigarettes.[1]"
• What the cited source says: "Lobbies have raised an alarm, saying the pouches could result in increased risk for cancer, heart disease and reproductive or developmental effects. Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance (Ketca) protested the introduction of nicotine pouches, saying there is no adequate data to show the smokeless pouches were a less risky alternative to cigarettes. Ketca Chairman Joel Gitali said tobacco pouches, illegal in parts of Europe, could have lower levels of some potentially harmful chemicals compared to cigarettes. He said the pouches contained higher amounts of arsenic, cadmium and nicotine. 'The US Food and Drug Administration said there is not enough data to prove they are safer than cigarettes and, therefore, we call upon the government not to license these products that are a threat to public health,' he said."
• In the talk page discussion, QG argues that the text fails verification because It is "Organizations in Kenya" not "They" and The word "Lobbies" does not mean "Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance". Maybe it's a language issue or just not reading carefully enough, but I can see how this sort of argumentatoin would prompt editors to raise WP:TE or WP:CIR concerns. – Levivich 00:12, 7 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • @Johnuniq: I ec'd with your comment rewriting my statement; it now includes the relevant text from the source. The source says that Ketca is one of 'the lobbies" that has concerns about pouches raising the risk of cancer, etc. Levivich 06:38, 7 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • @Johnuniq: The Kenyan Tobacco Control Alliance is, as the name suggests, an alliance of tobacco control groups. They are the "lobbies" that are being referred to in this passage: "Lobbies have raised an alarm, saying the pouches could result in increased risk for cancer, heart disease and reproductive or developmental effects. Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance (Ketca) protested the introduction of nicotine pouches, saying there is no adequate data to show the smokeless pouches were a less risky alternative to cigarettes." Also, Ketca is the only group that is mentioned in the entire article. The entire article only puts forward two points of view: that of the tobacco companies, given by the managing director of a tobacco company, and that of the anti-tobacco lobby, given by the chairman of Ketco. The article does not mean lobbies other than Ketco are concerned about the pouches. Ketca is speaking on behalf of "the lobbies" – they are "the lobbies". Maybe this is an engvar thing? Levivich 07:20, 7 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

How is the "consensus required" sanction different from WP:BRD? ... if an edit you (QuackGuru) make is reverted, you may not reinstate that edit without consensus on the talk page ... doesn't that already apply to me, QG, and everyone else? Levivich 19:15, 15 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Doc James[edit]

And than we have the tagging issue on the other side. User:Beland requests that an "update" tag not be removed as the that section ONLY has sources from September 2019.[20] Was tagged in this edit.[21] Seriously if you have newer sources than add them. September is only a couple of months ago. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:20, 7 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• It seems like this one issue is resolved.[22] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:50, 8 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by MelanieN[edit]

I’ll chime in here to share my own experience with QuackGuru. I was also driven away from an article by his relentless ownership. Last September I went to the Electronic cigarette article, intending to see that the coverage of the vaping-related lung illness was being reported accurately. I made six edits over a three-day period, most of which were immediately reverted by QuackGuru. His resistance to anything not contributed by him was total. One battle that I lost was his insistence on retaining a lot of outmoded information in the lede; see the second paragraph in the lede, which to this to this day consists mostly of outmoded studies from years ago indicating that vaping is pretty harmless, with a single sentence at the end of the paragraph mentioning the vaping-related illness outbreak in the U.S. last summer. Another example: he totally rejected my attempts to insert the warnings issued by the CDC and AMA, insisting that warnings couldn’t be in the lede, or had to go in a different article entirely, or were non-neutral, or were silly, or were WP:NEWS, or whatever other argument he could think of. In this talk page exchange you can see my fruitless attempts to bring the article up to date and put the relevant information in the lead. I summoned Doc James to the article’s talk page, but his recommendations were also rejected. I don’t really know what can be done about this situation, because the entire article, and its multiple spinoffs, are totally QC's creation, and the articles are written in his almost unreadable style, which consists of dozens or hundreds of single sentences, each summarizing a report and sourced to that report, with no context or summarizing allowed. Trying to rewrite the article to make it more readable would be an enormous job even if it wasn’t fought by him at every turn. Trying to do any editing at all is pretty much impossible. -- MelanieN (talk) 06:45, 7 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In reply to El C's question about whether QG has continued to behave as I describe here: The issues I described were in early September. The ANI thread was closed October 24. So I checked to see if he is still doing what I described - “owning” the article and refusing to accept any editing or input from anyone else. Answer: yes, he is. Most recent activity:

• Jan 30: User:KristofferR pointed out on the talk page a new report from the CDDC, saying it should be added to the article. QG disagreed. [23]
• Over the next few days: KristofferR repeatedly added information to the article from the new CDC report and QG repeatedly removed it (in fairness, two other editors including Doc James also removed it).[24]
• Feb 2: KristofferR posted at the talk page with additional references, and he and QG argued.[25]
• Feb. 5: Another user, User:Sunline09, added sourced content to the article page.[26] QG immediately tagged all three additions “failed verification” and asked Sunline to “post all the new sources here on the talk page.”[27]

My conclusion: yes, he is still behaving as I described. He is still “owning” the articles and challenging everything anyone else tries to do. I should also note that electronic cigarettes and spinoff articles (Category:Electronic cigarettes lists 56 articles on the subject, virtually all created by QG) are pretty much the only things he is editing about. In his past 500 edits I found only three or four on any other subject. This is not just ownership; this borders on obsession. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:14, 7 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Comment on the draft sanction proposed in the "results" section by User:Johnuniq: I see a problem with the wording That is, if an edit QuackGuru makes is reverted, QuackGuru may not reinstate that edit without a positive consensus on the talk page. The problem with QG's editing is not edits that he makes and other people revert; it is edits that other people make and he reverts. His version of Ownership is to reject everything that is done by anyone other than him. So the wording of any sanction needs to deal with his reversions of other people's edits, not just edits that he makes. You might also try to deal in some way with his attitude at article talk pages. Also pinging @El C, Awilley, Thryduulf, Barkeep49, Guerillero, In actu, and Black Kite: -- MelanieN (talk) 05:11, 17 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Seraphimblade[edit]

I had considered the course of action of an AE filing myself, based upon what I've seen of QuackGuru at Hospitalized cases in the vaping lung illness outbreak. I will first say that I believe QG has the best of intentions in keeping the encyclopedia free of pseudoscience and woo, and I have often myself seen QG do good work in those areas. However, in this area, QG has been a problem there as well. QuackGuru has the habit of, rather than participating in discussion, continuing to repeat himself with claims like "failed verification", even after being shown the specific portion of the reference which confirms the article text, as here. QuackGuru's conduct can have the effect of driving other good-faith contributors away entirely as well [28]. While I see that Thryduulf has proposed sanctions related to tags and reverts, those are not in my view the primary issues. Rather, the core issue is ownership of articles and I didn't hear that during discussions, as well as reverts with a simple statement of "failed verification" without any explanation of what QG believes failed verification and why, which make interaction with QuackGuru, especially in this area, a phenomenally frustrating experience. 1RR and a prohibition on tag removal will not solve those problems. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:23, 7 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Johnuniq, that proposal doesn't solve any of the actual problems. The issues include conduct on talk pages, driving other editors away via tendentiousness, and too many edits and too many reverts. Requiring people to engage in more discussion with QG, when the issue is the way QG engages in discussion, doesn't address that. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:54, 14 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Andy Dingley[edit]

My experiences echo those of MelanieN. I've had little to do with QuackGuru, and that was too much.

Late last year there was a backlog drive at AfC, which I took part in. QuackGuru objected strongly to the pod mod article, blanked it as a "hoax" (a farcical claim) and then was persistently disruptive afterwards, with clear behaviours beyond OWN and IDHT. Several times they deleted a claim or section made by others, only to add it back again themselves later on. Their attitude to sourcing is peculiar, seemingly regarding anything that isn't a literal text copy as then not supporting the claimed content. Yet nowhere else on WP do we seem to have a problem in avoiding close paraphrasing like that. They also relied on that old favourite MEDRS for issues, such as the aesthetic design of commercial products which are outside the MEDRS scope.

A long ANI thread was the result: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1021#QuackGuru and disruption over e-cigs and pod mods

I've certainly avoided pod mod, QuackGuru, and their personal space of vaping articles ever since, even to the point of avoiding AfC (which still has a backlog) altogether. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:26, 8 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks to WhatamIdoing (below) for the detailed critique of the Samantha Ford vaping case. This is a classic example of "anecdote is not data", per our requirements of MEDRS. I can only imagine how fast QuackGuru would be complaining of this if another editor had written such a section. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:51, 17 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by KristofferR[edit]

I deliberately took a break from Wikipedia for a few days because I found dealing with QuackGuru so exhausting. I was relieved to go back and find this discussion, and the issues I consider QuackGuru to have introduced to the articles I participated in, to be fixed.

I won't beat around the bush too much, as my experiences completely echo those of others here. Suffice to say to say I found him to inherit an alarming amount of ownership to the articles in question, and fight participation by abusing sourcing requirements by adding "failed verification", "unreliable source", or similar tags, to every sentence added, despite the sources being undeniably reliable (government sources for example) or not needed at all due to WP:BLUE, and subsequently add complaints about overcitation when too many sources are added as a last ditch resort to satisfy him.

The nicotine pouch article was especially egregious, he threatened a revert of all my edits to the article, to an objectively inferior version (where health statements from an anti-tobacco lobby was listed under "Research" for example), due to his abuse of sourcing tags. Thankfully this discussion happened, Beland stepped in, and fixed the real issues with the article while also leaving in the relevant content I contributed. Thanks again Beland! KristofferR (talk) 05:19, 9 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Answer to question from Johnuniq by Beland[edit]

@Johnuniq: It's a bit unfair to judge remarks taken out of context, but if it helps here are some examples.

Based on two news articles that each relate stories from several patients hospitalized with vaping injuries, in this edit I combined "Teenagers who were admitted to the hospital due to vaping-induced lung illnesses are sharing their stories and telling others to quit vaping." and "People who came close to death from a vaping-induced illness are also telling their stories." into "Some patients are sharing stories of hospitalizations and life-threatening symptoms." dropping "and telling others to quit vaping" because the source didn't explicitly say they were doing so, just that they had inspired people to do so (and this did not sound neutral). Quoting from Talk:Hospitalized_cases_in_the_vaping_lung_illness_outbreak#NPOV_issues:

• Combining different claims to come to a conclusion that it was "some" is a SYN violation. Both sources don't support the same claim. QuackGuru (talk) 23:42, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
• BuzzFeed News verifies teenagers and telling others to quit vaping. The other does not verify that claim. No source verifies "some" patients. QuackGuru (talk) 00:00, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
• None of the sources presented verifies the word "some". It is about verifiability not truth. I am arguing we don't conduct our own review of the presented sources and come to a conclusion not found in any source. BuzzFeed News also verifies that they are telling others to quit vaping. QuackGuru (talk) 00:47, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Refusing to apply the meanings of words and pretending that proposed changes resultingly cause a sourcing violation is probably the most vexing pattern of obstruction; slavish copying can also (as in this case) act as a backdoor to import the POV of a source. Slavish sourcing also results in very choppy articles with no summarizing allowed. Though strong sourcing is awesome, QuackGuru seems to have an interpretation of sourcing requirements that does not align with the consensus policy:

• ...why not just have an unreferenced summary of the contents of the article here (in particular the list of cases), as is usually done on Wikipedia articles? It's allowed by MOS:LEADCITE for uncontroversial content, which a summary of well-referenced details presented later in the article usually is. -- Beland (talk) 01:42, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
• I moved it to the body. Unsourced content in the lede not supported by any source is strictly forbidden. QuackGuru (talk) 01:47, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
• I would not characterize unsourced content as "strictly forbidden", though for many claims it is indeed needed. MOS:CITELEDE says in part: "information in the lead section of non-controversial subjects is less likely to be challenged and less likely to require a source; there is not, however, an exception to citation requirements specific to leads. The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus.". -- Beland (talk) 02:10, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Comments by Beland on remedy[edit]

For the benefit of administrators trying to decide on a remedy, I can provide a little perspective from having to clean up some articles which have been heavily edited by QuackGuru. I'm afraid a topic ban would simply refocus the problematic behavior on a different topic, as apparently has happened before. A general 0RR would help solve problems like removing content from other editors for bogus reasons (whether immediately or shortly after tagging), mass reverts that throw away useful contributions, excessive arguing over minor wording tweaks like consolidating sentences, and preventing other editors from chipping away at well-referenced but excessive or off-topic details. There is a major problem with "crying wolf" and sometimes nonsensical and self-contradictory arguments trying to look legitimate just to prevent other editors from restoring their own edits (whether rightly or wrongly). Currently overcoming that requires finding a third editor; with a 0RR it would just require reverting. QuackGuru would still have the opportunity to argue for restoration, but if they continue to cry wolf editors will just ignore those arguments rather than being forced to dispute them. I think in the long term this will help QuackGuru prioritize arguments that other editors find convincing.

Another possible remedy is simply a ban from editing article pages but not talk pages. Some of the articles I'm cleaning up have a lot of excessive detail and choppy writing that editors are complaining is unreadable, and that wouldn't happen in the first place if it has to be filtered through other editors. To avoid being ignored, QuackGuru would have to learn what type of material is considered quality writing, and would still be able to contribute references and point out problems. This article space ban might mean more work for other editors, at least at first, to find and copy helpful improvements, but it would eliminate the need to come back and un-revert one's own edits every time one edits an article on a topic of interest to QuackGuru.

I hope some remedy can be applied. After cleaning up Nicotine pouch I realized despite extensive involvement QuackGuru hadn't removed obvious legitimately spammy content, but had used spamminess as an argument to remove good citations to commercial web sites (documenting claims about what products were for sale in Norway). What QuackGuru has done to ward off commercial entities attempting to spam Wikipedia seems to have been done inconsistently, and doing that actually seems easier for other editors to do compared to cleaning up the piles of bad writing by fighting talk page disputes one sentence at a time. -- Beland (talk) 06:38, 11 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

(To clarify, by 0RR, I mean not that reverts would not be allowed for a 24 hour period, but reverts would not be allowed indefinitely; other editors would have to make them.) -- Beland (talk) 17:09, 11 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Question from S Marshall[edit]

Is this editor ever to be given a decisive and effective sanction? You lot keep coming up with novel remedies to avoid doing something that'll actually work. He's been on his very last chance ever since 2015. It's pathetic. Your endless patience with QG's behaviour equates to a callous disregard for his victims.—S Marshall T/C 10:00, 13 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• The "consensus required" idea, if implemented, will need to come with a clear and specific definition of consensus, because as Awilley rightly says he has a long history of gaming his editing restrictions and he's very good at it.—S Marshall T/C 10:06, 14 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• If you're going to insist on this novel "consensus required" remedy, please can it come with a definition of "consensus" that will stand up to QG's interpretation of the word. In the matter of warnings, I have remarked on how many times he's had those, and how little effect the frowny face and waggy finger of administorial disapproval has on him: this is just water off the quack's back. Considering the likelihood that QG will simply continue his various behaviours to other topic areas, there's an opportunity for you to restrict this habit of using ((fv)) tags on individual words here, if you had a mind.—S Marshall T/C 19:03, 15 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by WhatamIdoing[edit]

I've been thinking about this. I don't think there are good solutions. Solutions imply that an editor has a genuine capacity to become a constructive member of the community. Desirable skills in this community include:

• Being a good writer
• Knowing how to accurately represent sources
• An awareness of your biases, coupled with a stronger commitment to neutrality than to your POV
• Technical skills
• Understanding people

You really only need one of these skills. A good copyeditor is always welcome, even if the person does little more than eliminate comma splices or fix idioms. We need people who know that youth are young people , but who won't call the Odds an Odds ratio. We admire editors who can say that they hate tobacco (and I do) and still not blame smoking for climate change (but let me know if you find a good source, 'kay?). We don't expect bot ops to create FAs, and we encourage the anti-spam folks to keep the spammers at bay even if that means never adding content to articles. And while we overlook a lot on the "being nice" front, in the end, if you can't understand the other people in the community, you will end up wasting everyone else's time in needless disputes, and you will screw up articles because you won't correctly understand and interpret the community's policies and guidelines.

QuackGuru has none of these skills. I'm thinking it's hopeless, and that what we need in the end is to say thanks for trying, but you aren't cut out to be a good editor, and you never will be.

I just replied to one of the RFCs at Hospitalized cases in the vaping lung illness outbreak. It's basically two lists in paragraph form. Here's one bit of the content added by QuackGuru:

In October 2019, 16-year-old Samantha Ford from Phoenix, Arizona was found unconscious by her mother in her bedroom.^[1] Her mother was unable to give her CPR because of all the blood and mucus seeping out of her mouth.^[1] Her mother dialed 911 for an ambulance^[2] and by the time the teenager arrived at the Phoenix Children's Hospital she went into cardiac arrest.^[3] Doctors said her condition was induced by vaping.^[1] Her mother did not know her daughter had been vaping for two years.^[1] Her heart was working at only 30% and she was bleeding from the lungs.^[3] She was placed on life support and was taken to the ICU.^[2] On October 14, 2019, she was taken off life support and doctors stated she will stay in the hospital for at least the next 35 days.^[3]

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Navarrete, Karla (16 October 2019). "Valley teen newest victim of vaping-related illness". KNXV-TV.
2. ^ ^{a b} Hein, Alexandria (15 October 2019). "Arizona teen in ICU with vape illness, mom feels like 'total failure'". Fox News.
3. ^ ^{a b c} Martinez, Jennifer (15 October 2019). "Valley teen hospitalized after being found unresponsive due to vaping-related illness". KSAZ-TV.

Fine, right? Every single sentence is grammatically correct, and every sentence is followed by an inline citation. That's what Wikipedia wants, right?

No. That's not really what we want. None of this should have ever been in Wikipedia at all.

I really want to dispell the idea that QuackGuru is doing a good job, so we're going to go through this one paragraph (which was not selected for being unusual) in detail:

• All of these sources are local WP:PRIMARYNEWS. They are the opposite of WP:MEDRS. Most of them are next door to breaking news. We should not be using them at all.
• The sources don't match the content.
  1. Let's start with the first sentence: "In October 2019, 16-year-old Samantha Ford from Phoenix, Arizona was found unconscious by her mother in her bedroom."
     • "In October 2019": The date is correct.
     • "16-year-old": Her age is probably correct, assuming that she didn't have a birthday in between when she was found and when the news story was written, because technically the source reports her age at the time of publication, not her age at the time of being found in her bedroom. So this has ((failed verification)), even if I think that the 2% chance of an intervening birthday isn't worth bothering about.
     • "Samantha Ford": QuackGuru just assumed that the mother and daughter have the same last name. None of the cited sources actually gives the girl's own last name. ((Failed verification)) again.
     • "from Phoenix, Arizona": Look for proof that the girl is actually from Phoenix, and not from one of the suburbs or surrounding unincorporated areas. You won't find it. The dateline on the Martinez source is from Phoenix, but that's not the same thing as the girl's own home address. The Navarette source's headline identifies her as a "Valley teen", which is not the same thing as saying she's from Phoenix.
     • "was found unconscious": The cited source says unresponsive, not unconscious. None of the sources use the word unconscious. ((Failed verification)) again.
     • "by her mother": The cited source does not say who found her. The Martinez source says that she was found by her friends. So this is both factually incorrect and it has ((failed verification)).
     • "in her bedroom." Well, at least we got something else right.
       • Are you keeping count? The only parts of the first sentence that are actually verified in the cited source are "In October 2019, in her bedroom". Everything else is from a different source or not present in any source. If you feel like adding "by Colonel Mustard with the vaping products", you've got the right idea.
  2. Time for sentence #2! Click that first ref, to the article by Navarette. See if you can find any of these words: CPR, blood, mucus, mouth. I couldn't! That's because that information comes from a quotation from the girl's mother, which isn't in that source. It appears only in the other two sources. Oh, and the mother didn't say anything about blood. She said "I tried to do CPR but I couldn't because there was so much mucus and fluid coming from her mouth". So it's cited to the wrong source, and even if you decide that's an unimportant error, the contents are wrong, too.
  3. Now we get to the really tricky stuff.
     • The sources contradict each other about who called 911. One says the mother told her friends to call 911, and another says the mother did it herself. But none of the sources include the world ambulance, so that part has ((failed verification)).
     • Now open the article by Martinez and find what it says about cardiac arrest. Do you see anything that connects cardiac arrest with any temporal circumstance, i.e., that it happened "by the time the teenager arrived" at PCH? I don't either! ((Failed verification)) again. Also, I am concerned that might be factually wrong, given that PCH was the third hospital the girl was taken to. It's quite possible that the cardiac arrest happened at one of the earlier locations.
  4. Sentence #4 says "Doctors said her condition was induced by vaping". Sounds plausible, right? It's not in the source. Her own healthcare providers don't say a thing in that source. I think that "doctors" is supposed to mean "the Arizona Department of Health", which presumably talked to this girl's doctors and does employ some. It might also mean "Cara Christ, MD, MS, Director of the Arizona Department of Health", but she's only one person, so she can't be "doctors" in the plural. (User:Johnuniq, I'm suddenly thinking of that "lobbies vs one specific lobby" question.)
  5. Sentence #5 is the first sentence in this paragraph that is actually verified by the cited source.
  6. The real problem with this sentence is that it confuses the timeline. The bleeding-lungs problem (which is not necessarily "bleeding from the lungs"; you can also have "bleeding within the lungs") was probably at the time the girl collapsed. The 30% heart function was at the time the mother was interviewed for the news story. The way it's written, it sounds like these happened at the same time, i.e., that she's still bleeding from the lungs, and maybe both of these happened the day she collapsed.
  7. This sentence implies a chronological order: first "life support" and second "go to ICU". These two items are mentioned in the opposite order in the source. But perhaps they happened simultaneously?
  8. Two subjects:
     • The sentence begins with "On October 14, 2019, she was taken off life support..." This is based upon a publication date of 14 October 2019 (the date in the citation is wrong) and this quotation in the source: "They first had her on life support and this morning they took the tube out". Now let's imagine this. Imagine that someone you know is in the ICU and it's scary-bad. If you get a text message saying "They finally took her off life support this morning", is your response going to sound more like "Great news!" or "I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do to help with the funeral?" If you don't believe me, then put the quoted phrase "taken off life support" into your nearest search engine, look at the results and come back here when you figured out that what QuackGuru actually wrote here was that further medical treatment was deemed futile and the girl was going to be allowed to die without so many tubes stuck in her. So, no, she was never actually "taken off life support" in the normal meaning of that phrase. She had recovered to the point that one single piece of equipment involved in her supportive therapy program could be removed. That's not being "taken off life support". This has ((failed verification)).
     • The other bit has a problem of false precision, in addition to being out of date. The source says "at least the next five weeks", which was translated into the overly precise "35 days" for no good reason. It is mathematically equal and clinically wrong.
• Okay, but it's fixable, right? Everything could be re-written to accurately reflect the sources. We could re-write it to say "In October 2019, an Arizona teenager, Samantha, was found unresponsive by her friends in her bedroom", and so forth, through all eight tediously analyzed sentences, to correct everything. But:
  1. This is a pile of unimportant WP:TRIVIA. It should not be in Wikipedia at all. Do we need to report which phone number was used to call for an ambulance? Would the story be materially different if she'd been found in the living room instead of her bedroom? Does it matter that the mother didn't know that her daughter was vaping, or are we just acting out our roles in the latest of the Urban legends about drugs, in which we warn people about how dangerous the world is, and Do you know where your children are? Is there an encyclopedic point behind saying that one healthcare team, at one time, estimated a minimum of five more weeks in the hospital for one patient? None of this matters. If this kind of information mattered, we would have academic sources instead of television stations. This isn't even anecdata! This is a partial medical history of one kid, as told by her mother, without the consent of the person named (or mis-named) in the article, to a person in a profession notorious for being bad at science. We should have none of it!
  2. Why's it still there? I haven't tried to remove it because I am already spending more of my time dealing with QuackGuru's problems than I want to. Previous experience has taught me what to expect: I'll remove bad content, and Quack will hit the Undo button as soon as possible. Maybe there will be a slight change – unresponsive will be swapped in for unconscious; "blood and mucus" will get turned into "mucus and fluid"; "doctors" will be replaced by ""the Arizona Department of Health". But the big problem, which is that this should not be in Wikipedia AT ALL, will not be an acceptable outcome. I and other editors have already told Quack that we think this is wrong, and that it is unencyclopedic, and that it does WP:NOT belong on Wikipedia, but we get nowhere. The response we get is that it can be cited, so it's okay. I don't have time for another of these fights right now.

WP:DUE WEIGHT requires judgment. Quack, as we have proved over (and over and over) just doesn't have enough skill in the "editorial judgment" category to figure out that it's not okay to make a laundry list of every single person with EVALI that you could find via Google News. "All the news that's fit to cite" is not what an encyclopedia is for. It is occasionally okay to give an example of a historically important individual case study. A few cases, such as Patient HM, are WP:Notable; others, such as the case described in the first-ever medical description of a condition or in a novel treatment, are worth mentioning briefly inside other articles. But it's not okay for an encyclopedia to drown in trivia just because it's in this week's news.

In terms of remedies, I have little hope.

• 0RR/1RR will lead to a lot of disputes over what, technically, is a "revert". Also, it becomes unwieldy for a high-volume editor, unless the timeframe is so short that it doesn't serve the purpose of stopping the behavior. Nobody can remember every detail they added and someone else changed. There's also a "big garden" problem: if Quack adds content, and someone removes it, then that same content might appear on a different page. It's not a bad idea; it just isn't enough, and it doesn't address the core problems, which are adding bad content and apply POV-motivated double-standards to other people's contributions.
• The consensus required idea is that if Quack adds something and gets reverted, then there must be a talk page discussion, and Quack can't restore it until there is a positive consensus to restore it. However, I want to point out that one of my main problems is that Quack's years-long inability to work constructively with other editors means that the process of finding consensus spills out to many pages and spoils everyone else's day.
  • At one point last summer, Quack had ten (10) separate RFCs open related to ecigs. Ten. I'm one of the (very) old hands at WT:RFC, and I do not ever remember anyone else doing this. Flooding the community with RFCs is Very Bad Behavior Indeed and it must never happen again. Quack has two open at the moment, and I would actually be happy to have Quack banned entirely from starting RFCs on any subject.
  • Quack's disputes regularly appear at WT:MED. This happens when, for example, someone disagrees with Quack and does not want to keep (re-re-re-re-)explaining why an encyclopedia should not have that kind of content, so one or the other of them will post a request for help with this endless explaining. We should stop being asked to explain. ** I'm ready to give up. Quack is never actually going to grasp the difference between an encyclopedia article and a magazine article. So I'm looking for damage control: Whatever we attempt, let's not have it be something that floods the RFC process or that means that my mornings begin with more complaints about Quack's inability to take 'no' for an answer at WT:MED. If you want to try "consensus required", then it should be spelled out with something along the lines of "You may post one comment on the article's talk page, once, and wait for the other person to reply. If they reply, you may have a discussion. If they do not reply, or you do not come to a consensus, then you lose and may never restore that material or anything like that material to the article. You are specifically prohibited from starting any RFCs, mentioning the dispute on any other page, asking the other person to start an RFC related to that reversion, or asking other people to mention the discussion at any other page, explicitly including WT:MED, any Village pump, or anyone's user talk pages. If someone reverts you, that editor is not required to discuss the reversion, and you are definitely not entitled to a response that will WP:SATISFY you." And it would probably be a good idea to have some suitably worded warning posted on the talk pages of the ecig articles, so that people will know to report future problems here instead of at ANI.
• Very stringent volume limits, like "maximum of one edit to the entire mainspace per day, and maximum of three edits anywhere on the English Wikipedia per day" would slow down the costs to the community, but it wouldn't do anything to help Quack figure out what an encyclopedia is for. There would be fewer edits, and they would be just as inappropriate.
• Topic bans are probably warranted, but as Beland notes, this just means transferring the problem to another, probably also controversial, subject area. This would be, what, the fifth time? It's probably time, and we should probably do it, but it does not actually solve the underlying problem. Or we could sum up religion, pseudoscience, alternative medicine, chiropractic, and ecigs and make the topic ban be for "science" (plus whatever's still in force on the previous religion TBAN). It might be a good idea for those restrictions to be more visible to everyday editors, too. Our enforcement mechanisms have to stop relying on the chance that one of the editors who sees a dispute will remember that Quack has a long list of editing restrictions (and a block log to match). This transfers the problem; it doesn't solve it.
• A site ban would be effective, but it would be unpopular (and the AE admins get yelled at enough for me to have a lot of sympathy on that front), because there are still lots of editors who seem to think that Quack's a good editor precisely because he drives away other editors, and besides, anyone who nitpicks other editors about the difference between youth and young people surely wouldn't make up the name of an underaged BLP when it's not directly stated in the source? Anyone who still believes that gets to read the tedious exposition of those eight sentences again. It's not true, and it's never been true. We need to stop pretending that. But if you jump there, without a really-truly-final-this-time-I-really-mean-it intermediary step, then you'll get yelled at unfairly. I don't think these editors are ready to face the fact that if Quack were capable of improving, then he wouldn't still be making such stupid mistakes, so the rational response is to read up on that unfortunate tendency to fret about sunk costs and just give up and amputate now.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:05, 13 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by TracyMcClark[edit]

How comes that the now proposed remedy is several steps down from the last one when he was topic banned for 6 month? What happened to "Enforcement of restrictions: 0) Should any user subject to a restriction in this case violate that restriction, that user may be blocked, initially for up to one month, and then with blocks increasing in duration to a maximum of one year."?--TMCk (talk) 21:53, 15 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

And by the way: He'll easily gets "consensus" on talk with his few but staple enablers from wp:med and and a SPA popping up whenever he needs an edit reversing hand. That's how it's been for many many years. So no, that won't do shit, as usual. Looking forward for another half decade or more of pain and suffering caused by a single editor driving away editors way more valuable than he ever was or could ever be.--TMCk (talk) 23:24, 15 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@:Johnuniq: El_C said: "I have no immediate objection, but I have not reviewed this request since writing the above, so I may not be up to date about everything here. (my bolding). You seem to ignore this and several other comments made by several editors.

Statement by SandyGeorgia[edit]

I am generally aligned with WhatamIdoing, but feel that, per TracyMcClark's remark about the "enablers", it is time for the unpopular but courageous decision WAID alludes to. My anti-fringe, pro-MEDRS stance aligns with QuackGuru's, but WP:MED has for too long tolerated and enabled misbehavior for the sake of anti-woo. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:16, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The reason any 1RR, volume limit, or consensus-required restriction won't work has to do with the anti-woo dynamic, where editor X encounters pushback, posts at WT:MED, and multiple others come in and "agree with editor X", often with no other input or discussion or attempt to work collaboratively towards a compromise or consensus. And, this occurs not only on article talk pages, with reverts in articles, but in other discussions as well. Also, as TracyMcClark mentions, there are always IPs, SPAs and likely socks circling such that no sort of editing restriction will make any difference. While the conclusion reached is often the correct one, with respect to MEDRS, WAID's example above shows that is not always the case, and the problem is that the "why we are here and what our content and behavioral policies allow" has been lost as this dynamic has taken hold. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:38, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by JzG[edit]

I am going to do a Bad Thing and just include my general commentary without diffs, because there are bundles of diffs above that support this.

There are two problems here:

1. E-cigs is a topic subject to quasi-religious advocacy that constantly butts heads with a more skeptical scientific and medical view supported by high quality sources.
2. QuackGuru is far and away the most annoying and vexatious of all the editors-who-are-usually-right.

That's a recipe for drama, and, unsurprisingly, drama is the result.

The problem is that every area QG edits, seems to have the same issue. From his insistence on adding ((failed verification)) to every statement that doesn't meet his personal interpretation of the source, to his endless stonewalling, to his utter, utter certainty on everything.

It has been my view for a long time that it is a matter of when, not if, we show QG the door. I've tried a few times in the past to get some sort of sanction that would reduce the problem and keep him onside, since he's right in so many cases and tirelessly defends against pseudoscience, but that hasn't happened. And frankly that was probably naive anyway. So I agree with Whatamidoing, with great sadness. Guy (help!) 12:24, 19 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Result concerning QuackGuru[edit]

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

• @Beland: Sorry to overwhelm with you with bureaucracy (similar to my response at ANI) but those links show a lot of comments which are difficult to disentangle. Please pick one point which best illustrates the issue and outline what edits or comments are a problem and why. Personally, I can't get excited about a battle over tags—are there edits or comments that show QG to be repeatedly incorrect about an article assertion or that show QG pushing a "strong anti-vaping POV"? Johnuniq (talk) 23:25, 6 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • @Levivich: I know that QG's style and rigidity frustrates other editors but QG is often right about sources. Please correct me if I'm missing something but the key point in your example concerns QG's failed verification on "They are concerned that the nicotine pouches may raise the risk of cancer...". In context, "They" refers to a specific organization and the article does not say that organization is concerned about an increased risk of cancer etc. The article reports that the organization said "there is no adequate data to show the smokeless pouches were a less risky alternative". That is a long way from the assertion and unless there is other text that I can't see, the source fails verification. The article says that (unspecified) Lobbies are concerned that pouches may raise the risk of cancer etc. Johnuniq (talk) 06:32, 7 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • @Levivich: I'm afraid the changed comments confuse me. Please spell out what text in the source verifies that a specific organization (Ketca) is concerned that nicotine pouches may raise the risk of cancer. The source has two mentions of Ketca and two of cancer. The subheading (probably not written by the author of the article) is "Lobby has raised an alarm, saying the introduction of pouches could result in increased risk for cancer" but the article does not assert that Ketca is the lobby in question. One might infer that but it's a stretch and "failed verification" is correct. Johnuniq (talk) 07:11, 7 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • @Levivich: That's a big stretch. It might be right but that conclusion is not in the source, aka failed verification. Johnuniq (talk) 08:29, 7 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• If what MelanieN says is representative of overall interactions, then it's probably time other editors got a chance to also edit the article without effectively being restricted by QG. A topic ban for a few months, or more leniently, a 1RR restriction, could prove worthwhile. At any rate, this request is actionable. El_C 07:36, 7 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I could see how Awilley's suggestion of a personal "consensus required" sanction could serve as an effective middle way between a full topic ban and 1RR/0RR. El_C 19:27, 7 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• @MelanieN: noted. Note that if QuackGuru fails to submit a (any) statement in response to this request, that would sway me more toward the topic ban end of the sanction spectrum. I would like to get a sense that they understand and are willing to work toward resolving the critical input here. As for their "borderline obsession," I'm fine with them having a narrow focus for significant duration — but, if they get so attached to their own works to the point that it hinders editorial collaboration, then indeed that is a problem this request ought to address. El_C 21:30, 7 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• @Johnuniq: I have no immediate objection, but I have not reviewed this request since writing the above, so I may not be up to date about everything here. El_C 23:16, 14 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Thryduulf, Awilley, I have no immediate objection to a topic ban, either. Since I no longer consider myself currently informed (am not up to date with the last week-worth of comments to the request), my position can be effectively voided, for now. Unless, of course, I catch up before this request is closed, which seems like a 50:50 proposition at this point. El_C 09:54, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Back in October there was a lengthy AN/I thread about QG engaging in exactly the same behaviour as lead to this request, and his conduct was significantly criticised by the Arbitration Committee who warned him "that continuing to engage in a pattern of disruption to Wikipedia will result in further sanctions." It is evident from the above that he is continuing to disrupt the topic area so further sanctions are necessary. I would suggest a standard 1RR and a prohibition on adding or removing any tag disputed by any other editor (excluding editors blocked as a sock or meat puppet), unless there is a clear consensus to do so on the talk page of the article concerned. "Disputed" defined as (a) added or removed by another editor acting in good faith, and/or (b) subject to discussion on the article talk page. "Tag" applying to both inline tags (e.g. failed verification) and banner tags (e.g. needs additional citations) that apply to articles and/or sections. Both restrictions applying to the e-cigs topic area broadly interpreted and subject to appeal (together or individually) after 6 months. There would be no restriction on him starting or contributing to discussions about tags he or another user disputes, as long as he does so in good faith. I would also issue a warning that if these restrictions are not abided by or there is further disruption that a topic ban will very likely be the result.
  Indeed having said all that, while I don't think a topic ban is required now, I will support one as a second choice if that is the consensus of other admins. Thryduulf (talk) 11:59, 7 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Based on others comments, I'm tending now to agree that the tagging restriction I suggested should be expanded to Awilley's suggested personal consensus required suggestion, but I'm also less against a straight topic ban than I was. Thryduulf (talk) 13:28, 8 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • The more I read about the experiences of people who interact with QG frequently, the less inclined I am to think it worth spending the effort to work out what specific set of sanctions we can craft to keep him as an editor without him driving off other editors. If we can't agree to something soon though, it will probably be best to kick it up to the Arbitration Committee. Thryduulf (talk) 01:42, 14 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• I haven't engaged with QuackGuru for a couple of years now at least, but it looks to me like things haven't changed much since then. I think at the root of the problem is extreme OWNership of a topic area. Every battle, no matter how small, is fought to the bitter end. Every talk page comment is responded to. Every edit is reverted. Every nit is picked. In trying to mitigate behavior like this in the past I tried a 0RR rule, but quickly found that was being cleverly gamed. (This was back in 2015.) I think the previous topic ban from E-cigarettes and the ArbCom warning is probably enough that the next sanction should be a topic ban. But I would prefer to start with an attempt to throttle the most disruptive tendencies in a way that still allows constructive editing. My first thought would be something like a personal "consensus required" sanction (if an edit you make is reverted you may not reinstate that edit without consensus on the talk page). In my mind that would force a person to either become successful in building consensus or to drop disputes and move on. (And yes, I realize there are people in the topic area who will never agree with QG no matter how much they discuss, but I don't think those types of editors are in the majority.) ~Awilley (talk) 19:08, 7 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• How practical is a "personal consensus required" sanction if Every battle, no matter how small, is fought to the bitter end. Every talk page comment is responded to.? We have evidence here of editors giving up on the topic because of this mentality and so they should not be able to claim consensus because those who disagree with them simply stop fighting. I am, however, in favor of trying to find some way to let QG still participate in the topic because in looking at the diffs presented here some real % of the time QG is right to challenge the text as compared to the source. For my out of the box thinking, I wonder if an ERRORS2 sort of situtation could be viable here. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 05:42, 9 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@QuackGuru: thanks for responding. I'm not sure what you mean by I am concerned that there may be no opportunity to examine in detail whether the content I tagged as failed verification did indeed fail verification. I can tell you that I looked at every diff and the sources behind them which is why I came to my conclusion that I would be against a topic ban if some other solution can be found. However, for why I think a solution needs to be found let's dive into an example already discussed by Johnuniq and Levivich. In the creation of Nicotine pouch (by you) there are the sentences Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance objected to the entrance of nicotine pouches in Kenya.[2] They stated there is no reliable research to demonstrate nicotine pouches are safer than regular cigarettes.[2] as part of a research section. You then tweaked these a few minutes later [29] [30] [31] and then moved it a few hours after that [32]. It then stays that way for a couple of months. In the midst of a series of back and forth edits between you and KristofferR he makes those senteces part of a new section called opposition [33] after which you tag them with citation needed [34]. A while later you add a further tag saying the word also fails verification [35]. Considering it was content you were responsible for and had worked on previously, why didn't you fix it if you decided upon a re-examination of the source that it was not sufficient? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:16, 11 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Quack - thanks for explaining what you meant in terms of the ArbCom evidence (and an ANI thread which I closed as lack consensus for action, for which I had no opinion at the time on the merits). As for the exchange I examined above, your explanation doesn't assuage me. You added a citation needed for a sentence you wrote The Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance objected to the entrance of nicotine pouches in Kenya. The source for it is right there. It's the only source in the paragraph. And I would hope you would know a source is out there- you had already found it. I also don't get how the word also needs its own verification. It is being used as a transition. Maybe it's not needed - this strikes me as a language preference - but it definitely doesn't fail verification and adding a tag saying it does seems like the wrong way to go about arguing for your writing preference. I'm not weighing in on the middle sentence because I think it's a reasonable enough disagreement to have, but to me these other two sentences are a cast study of what Melanie suggested as a problem. Both you and Beeland have suggested remedies short of a topic ban. So far the kind of remedy short of a tban that seems to have any support among uninvolved sysops is Awiley's "personal consensus required". I'm not thrilled by that but also don't feel great substituting your tag ban unilaterally when overall consensus seems to be supporting Awiley's idea. Barkeep49 (talk) 03:26, 12 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• We need to either topic ban QG or kick this upstairs to ArbCom --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 22:13, 14 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• @El C, Thryduulf, Awilley, Barkeep49, and In actu: The consensus is that something is required. How about six months of the "personal consensus required" sanction? Paraphrasing Awilley, QuackGuru would be subject to a personal consensus requirement for six months for all articles related to e-cigs, broadly construed. That is, if an edit you (QuackGuru) make is reverted, you may not reinstate that edit without consensus on the talk page. Johnuniq (talk) 23:06, 14 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I'm only in favor of a topic ban. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 00:15, 15 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • @Levivich: That is one of my problems with this more novel sanction --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 19:18, 15 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Re Seraphimblade's comment at 23:54, 14 February 2020 that the issue includes "conduct on talk pages": I would say, let's see about that. The point is that currently other editors need to respond so QG cannot restore their edits claiming there are no objections. The intention of this sanction is that there would need to be a positive consensus (not absence of objection). That means one objection on talk would balance QG's counter objection so QG could not repeat that edit. If QG disruptively writes walls of text that can be handled in a new report (hint to QG: the mood here is such that it would be a very good idea to avoid that). Re "too many edits", that may be a problem. I would try seeing if QG reads the mood here and is able to restrain from dominating articles or talk pages. Let's see what other admins say. Johnuniq (talk) 00:27, 15 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I'm willing to try the consensus required as noted, but only with strong warnings that any attempt at gaming or other disruption will result in blocks. I'd also prefer it to be indefinite with an appeal possible after the later of 6 months after implementation or 6 months after the latest sanction for disruption. Thryduulf (talk) 10:54, 15 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• OK, let's draft some wording and finalize this. How about: QuackGuru is subject to an indefinite personal consensus requirement for all articles related to e-cigs, broadly construed. That is, if an edit QuackGuru makes is reverted, QuackGuru may not reinstate that edit without a positive consensus on the talk page. QuackGuru is warned that any attempt at gaming or other disruption will result in blocks. The sanction may be appealed after six months. El_C wrote above "I have no immediate objection" so we should be able to wrap this up soon. Johnuniq (talk) 23:17, 15 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• @Johnuniq: While user:El_C has no immediate objection, several experienced and knowledgeable editors posting above the fold very much do have objections - and good ones at that. The point that this sanction really wont have much effect beyond BRD other than making it clear that absence of objection is not consensus, which wouldn't really have much effect is particularly striking. As such I'm withdrawing my support for the consensus required remedy as too little too late. While a ban is not justified when looking at this incident in isolation, when we look at the totality of QG's editing over an extended period the picture is very different. I'm getting close to just blocking for six months as a normal admin action off my own back, but I'd prefer a consensus here first. Thryduulf (talk) 00:00, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• E-cigs is a contentious area where enthusiasts on both sides battle so I think a block should be based on more than claims about QG. I agree with WhatamIdoing's point about volume limits but that's what "gaming or other disruption" is for. Some more admin thoughts would be helpful. Johnuniq (talk) 00:16, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Ihardlythinkso's point about QG's 10(!) simultaneous RFCs definitely made me think twice about the consensus required idea. So much so that I think I slightly prefer an indef topic ban. But the consensus required plus an explicit warning that gaming/bludgeoning will lead to the CR being converted into a full topic ban works just as well for me, and I would support that too. ~Awilley (talk) 06:41, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I now don't think that the warnings will - unless we want endless discussions about whether RFCs or threads at WT:MED count as gaming and how many simultaneous questions need there be for it to be bludgeoning. I've still not seen any evidence that QG understands why their behaviour is problematic. The goal is not the only thing that matters. I support only a block or a topic ban. Thryduulf (talk) 09:44, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I agree that the ten RfCs is a problem. Do you want to close this with a three-month AE block? Johnuniq (talk) 22:53, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • If people would rather not topic ban him, I could live with an multi-month AE block. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 23:58, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I haven't got a problem with any sort of e-cigs topic ban, it might focus QG on some of the pseudoscience articles where he does good work. Black Kite (talk) 00:28, 17 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• I think I prefer a 3 month AE block. I certainly prefer that to consensus required which I was always against. My own analysis plus WAID's analysis makes me more receptive to a TBAN than before. What I think WAID's analysis misses is the woo that Quack keeps out of ecigs. The combined with the concern QG might just move to a new controversial area makes the block my preferred sanction at this time. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:04, 17 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• I support a 3-month block. The personal consensus thing would be too complicated to manage for both QG and his opponents, IMO. Keep it simple. Bishonen | talk 12:01, 19 February 2020 (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 RolandR[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Chess (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 03:05, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

RolandR (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#Discretionary sanctions :

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

1. 2007-05-12 Adding a very inflammatory image/caption combo. Comparing Jews to Nazis, regardless of beliefs of it being a fair comparison or not is very inflammatory and doesn't contribute to the encyclopedia. It's also currently a massive part of his userpage. Its continuing presence also violates discretionary sanctions imposed by User:Sandstein that haven't been enforced.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

1. 2010-04-07 He was warned that inflammatory images aren't OK and had discretionary sanctions imposed on his use of images.
2. 2010-04-08 Appeal had failed meaning the sanction is still in effect.

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 2010-04-07 by Sandstein (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The user has already been warned that this image isn't constructive and has had discretionary sanctions relating to their use of inflammatory images on their userpage before which is why I'm going directly to WP:AE. I'm not sure whether or not the discretionary sanctions imposed by User:Sandstein were meant to apply to this specific image but were never enforced, or whether the discretionary sanctions were only meant to apply to crossed out flags of parties to the Israel-Palestine dispute (this being only a technical violation of that sanction as the crossing out isn't anti-Palestine), but regardless I believe it should be made clear that this image isn't appropriate or helpful to building an encyclopedia and is unnecessarily WP:POLEMIC.

I've also notified the administrator who originally imposed the discretionary sanction ([36]).

For what it's worth, I disagree with the image's combination with the caption and I believe the best remedy here is removing the image + caption. It contributes nothing to the project and has been brought up numerous times over the past years. The phrase "Let's say louder that we are fighting against those racist Jews who deny human rights to Palestinians, AS WELL AS racists who deny human rights to Jews" is equivocation of Jews with "racists who deny human rights to Jews", the racists being Nazis as evidenced by the image. In response to his second and third points, Sandstein has said "I am therefore formally prohibiting you, acting under the authority of WP:ARBPIA#Discretionary sanctions, from using this image or substantially similar ones (i.e., crossed-out flags of countries involved in the Israeli-Arab conflict) in your user space."

I am not familiar with Wikilegalese and I'm not going to pretend that I am. However I fully believe that this image needs to be removed from this user page. Whether this is by enforcement of the existing discretionary sanctions or creating an entirely new one doesn't really matter to me; this is a useless, inflammatory, and divisive image/caption that shouldn't be placed front&centre on a user page. The ADL considers it anti-Semitic to make this type of comparison to Nazis so it's reasonable to assume many people editing would also consider this cartoon/caption combo to be anti-Semitic. Heck, I'd be fine with just removing the caption as that's the most inflammatory part at issue here. Regardless a cartoon/caption considered anti-Semitic by the ADL drawn by someone who won second place in the International Holocaust Cartoon Contest isn't appropriate here as it's an obvious WP:POLEMIC. Chess (talk) Ping when replying 15:43, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[37]

Discussion concerning RolandR[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 RolandR[edit]

1 The cartoon explicitly does not equate Jews with Nazis. It is an image of a Nazi thug, who represents just that - a Nazi thug. The caption states that Palestinians do not need, and do not want, the support of Nazis and antisemites. It is not directed against Jews, Zionists or Israelis, but against a small number of vocal racists who are using pretended support for Palestinian rights as a cover for their visceral hatred of Jews. I am precluded by Wikipedia policies from naming these people, but anyone who is aware of my activity and writing on and off Wikipedia for a long time will know who I am referring to. To see this cartoon as an attack on Jews is to display a remarkable lack of analytical reading skills.

2 I have never been sanctioned, by Sandstein or anyone else, for my use of images. Another image on my user page was indeed removed by Sandstein many years ago, although it is still in use elsewhere on Wikipedia. The image now challenged was already on my userpage at the time, and was not affected by this. This was a standard admin act, and was not performed under any discretionary sanctions provision. Indeed, at the time there were no discretionary sanctions available.

3 The request does not specify which sanction I have breached. Indeed, it cannot do so as I have not breached any. Regardless of any arguments about the nature of this cartoon, it has never been the subject of any statement or ruling under any discretionary sanction. Nor, to the best of my recollection, have I. This request is out of the scope of this page, as it does not relate to any Arb Com remedy or instruction, and it does not relate to any discretionary sanction imposed by an admin under an arbitration decision. The request should therefore be struck out as invalid. RolandR (talk) 09:45, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Huldra[edit]

Whaw. Just whaw. Chess are bringing out diffs from the digital stone-age..10-13 years ago.

• Point 1. that 19:49, 12 May 2007 diff quotes Latuff: ""We can not allow nazis to use dignified Palestinian cause as a platform to launch racial hatred. I beg you all to reproduce this cartoon all over Internet. Let's say louder that we are fighting against those racist Jews who deny human rights to Palestinians, AS WELL AS racists who deny human rights to Jews" Carlos Latuff, 27 December 2002

• How Chess can turn that into "Adding a very inflammatory image/caption combo. Comparing Jews to Nazis, regardless of beliefs of it being a fair comparison or not is very inflammatory and doesn't contribute to the encyclopedia. It's also currently a massive part of his userpage." ....is far beyond my comprehension.

• Point 2. Sandsteins warning about inflammatory images concerned "crossed-out flags of countries involved in the Israeli-Arab conflict", ie, pictures like to the right, here.
• How Chess can get a warning about picture 2 to be relevant for picture 1; well, again: that is far, far beyond my comprehension, Huldra (talk) 22:51, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by ZScarpia[edit]

Further to the points made by Huldra above: the ADL has been presented above in a way implying that it should be regarded as a neutral, disinterested party; consider the tag at the top of the webpage, "Israel advocacy and education."     ←   ZScarpia   13:04, 19 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by (username)[edit]

Result concerning RolandR[edit]

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

• The diff adding that image is nearly thirteen years old. It was also there when the original sanction was imposed, so I presume had the sanctioning admin considered that image to violate it as well, action would have been taken at that time, not to mention when additional scrutiny was applied during the process of appeal. It's now been on the editor's user page for coming up ten years since that sanction was imposed, so I think any action here would be well beyond stale. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:03, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• I don't see anything actionable here --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 01:37, 19 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Concur with Guerillero and Seraphimblde. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 07:38, 20 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• If anyone needs to be sanctioned here it's the filer for bringing one of the most vexatious and (likely) bad faith requests I've seen in a long while. Thryduulf (talk) 11:11, 20 February 2020 (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 Mbsyl[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Grayfell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 00:57, 24 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

Mbsyl (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/Editing of Biographies of Living Persons#Final decision :

A BLP topic ban was imposed by Acroterion.

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

• All of these are violations of the BLP topic ban, if not worse. For context, all of these are about the surviving stabbing victim of the 2017 Portland train attack. He was stabbed in the neck while confronting the attacker, who was shouting racist insults at strangers.

1. 18 February 2020 to Talk:Rose City Antifa - Regarding the surviving victim, Mbsyl says that his "violence-against-speech helped contribute to people dying". There is no evidence of this callous claim.
2. 18 February 2020 - Mbysl tries to cast doubt about the victim's reliability based on personal opinion.
3. 20 February 2020 - Compares the victim to a Nazi.
4. 21 February 2020 - Doubles down on Nazi comparison. Mbsyl says getting stabbed is somehow similar to a Nazi "stabbing minorities". Mbysl further says that this living person belongs to a "movement based around violence".
5. 21 February 2020 to 2017 Portland train attack - This edit tries to paint the stabbing victim (who is definitely a WP:BLP1E) in a negative light by emphasizing the defense attorneys' unsuccessful court arguments, stripped of context.
6. 23 February 2020 - Says on talk that More evidence that he is part of this new movement on the left that embraces tactics involving violence, intimidation, and doxxing. These are serious allegations about a living person which are unsupported by sources.
7. 23 February 2020 - Similar doubling-down and further insinuations about the victims, including claiming that the victim's past unrelated protest activity can be fairly compared to "promoting drunk driving".

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 27 January 2020 by Acroterion (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The attacker was recently found guilty on all counts. The victims were never, as far as I know, credibly accused of any crime related to this attack.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notifed at 01:00, 24 February 2020

Discussion concerning Mbsyl[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 Mbsyl[edit]

Statement by (username)[edit]

Result concerning Mbsyl[edit]

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

• It appears that all of the edits by Mbsyl listed above violate the BLP topic ban imposed by Acroterion on 27 January. The wording of the ban makes it apply to living persons both in articles and on talk pages. I suggest a one-month AE block. EdJohnston (talk) 03:19, 24 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• I concur with EdJohnston. El_C 03:38, 24 February 2020 (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 Zarcademan123456[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Huldra (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 23:14, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

Zarcademan123456 (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/Index/Palestine-Israel articles :

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

• Zarcademan123456 changes confiscated --> expropriated in countless West Bank villages/towns, in spite of the fact that the source (=ARIJ) says "confiscated". Examples:

1. 09:40, 22 February 2020 change confiscated --> expropriated
2. 09:44, 22 February 2020 change confiscated --> expropriated
3. 21:14, 22 February 2020 After s/he is told to stop, s/he continues with edit-line: "according to google "confiscate" means the action of taking or seizing someone's property with authority; seizure. "a court ordered the confiscation of her property" "expropriation" means the action by the state or an authority of taking property from its owner for public use or benefit. "the decree provided for the expropriation of church land and buildings" by using "confiscation" instead on "expropriation" is a bias that denies Israel its legitimacy as a state"

1. 22:37, 22 February 2020 edit line: "(put the word "confiscate" in quotations because of the loaded political connotations (the accepted term is "expropriations", as noted in the wikipedia page land expropriations in the West Bank)"

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

1. blocked 22 December 2019 with an expiration time of 72 hours (account creation blocked) (Disruptive editing)
2. blocked 28 December 2019 with an expiration time of 2 weeks (account creation blocked) (Disruptive editing)

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

• Alerted, 28 August 2019

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

• Comment: I understand that Zarcademan123456 does not like the word "confiscated" (According to Zarcademan123456: "by using "confiscation" instead on "expropriation" is a bias that denies Israel its legitimacy as a state")
• Nevertheless, the source (=ARIJ) use the word "confiscated", when Zarcademan123456 changes "confiscated" to "expropriation" over lots of West Bank villages/towns, without any source, then they are being highly disruptive, IMO. We cannot go around changing things in the IP area just because WP:IDON'TLIKEIT, Huldra (talk) 23:14, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• It is interesting that some editors here claim that "confiscated" is equal to "expropriated", when Zarcademan123456 explicitly have stated multiple times that they consider them unequal, and that "confiscated" is implies a more critical attitude to Israel than "expropriated", and that is the reason why they change the words in dozens of articles. (See my diffs above, and Zero0000's diffs below.)
• If we all are allowed to change words according to "what we like", then that will open for complete anarchy in the I/P area, Huldra (talk) 20:33, 23 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Comment: User:EdJohnston I'm fine with closing this report, IF (and it' a big IF!) Zarcademan123456 has understood that he cannot change wording because "WP:IDONTLIKEIT", nor can he continue making up stuff (like what I undid here). I tried to make him understand this, (both on my talk page, and on his), but he totally ignored me, and continued making the same changes to dozens of articles. Hence this report. Zarcademan123456 hasn't really been editing since I filed this report, but if closing it without action it taken as a sign that he can continue what he was doing, then I fear we will be back here on AE in no time, Huldra (talk) 21:02, 26 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

• Notified, Huldra (talk) 23:16, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Discussion concerning Zarcademan123456[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 Zarcademan123456[edit]

first of all, if this is the wrong place to post this i apologize. while i continue to disagree with the term "confiscate" Nableezy is absolutely correct...the occupation (I prefer disputed territories, but one must pick one's battles, lol) began during the war, not afterZarcademan123456 (talk) 23:46, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Nableezy[edit]

Besides these edits, the user has introduced factual errors in a huge number of article. For example, this is just false. The occupation began during the war not after, and the reason for the change is to not include that the territory remains occupied. The user has been doing this to every article about a village or settlement in the West Bank, and cleaning up after his or her edits is becoming less of a joy, especially as he or she persists without offering even the semblance of discussion. nableezy - 23:42, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Well I take that back, the user responded on my talk page just now. So forget my comment here. nableezy - 23:43, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Number 57[edit]

• I see no problem with the word 'expropriate'; it's more commonly used for government intervention, as is the case here. Bringing someone to WP:AE over semantics like this is a bit much. We do not have to use the exact same words as sources if there are appropriate (or more appropriate as may be the case here) synonyms, although I seem to recall that this point has fallen on deaf ears when made to the complainant previously. Number 57 01:08, 23 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Levivich[edit]

ARIJ might use the word confiscate, but they’re not the only source, and confiscate is definitely not the word used by the consensus of sources. I would provide links and examples to back that up, but this is so obviously a content dispute and thus not appropriate for determination at AE. Levivich (Talk) 01:14, 23 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Also worth noting that Huldra is the editor who added “confiscate” to all these articles in the first place, and if you look at the articles’ histories, you can see various attempts to change it, combined with the usual edit warring we see in almost all PIA articles. And, as always, it’s very difficult to say definitely that one side in the edit war is right or wrong (not unlike the actual war). I don’t envy admin asked to regulate in these situations. How do we get PIA editors (on all sides) to edit collaboratively instead of this constant battleground? Levivich (Talk) 04:18, 23 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Zero0000[edit]

It is obvious that AE is not the right place to decide whether "confiscate" or "expropriate" is the best word in this circumstance. However, it is highly relevant to AE that Zarcademan123456 gave an explicitly political reason for going against the source on many occasions [38] [39] [40] [41]. This is disruptive editing. Zarcademan123456 must learn to seek consensus before undertaking changes to multiple articles that are likely to be disputed. Zero^talk 02:13, 23 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Levevich wrote "Also worth noting that Huldra is the editor who added “confiscate” to all these articles in the first place". Wow, Huldra used the same word that the source uses! Multiple times even! I'm shocked to the core. Zero^talk 08:49, 23 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by ZScarpia[edit]

By the look of it, the case turns upon the following behavioural issues:
- Edit warring: whether Zarcademan123456 carried on repeating the same change in multiple articles after the point they should have realised there was significant opposition.
- Misrepresentation of cited sources: substituting a term with a different meaning to the cited sources.
With regard to the latter, it has been asserted above that the terms "confiscation" and "expropriation" are equivalent. Sources such as [42] and [43] point out that there are important differences: both involve a change in ownership, but, with expropriation, compensation is usually paid and it is not necessarily carried out against the wishes of the original owner.
    ←   ZScarpia   11:34, 23 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by selfstudier[edit]

I have noticed that this editor has a habit of making edits based on his own personal opinion rather than on sources; I mentioned that to him a couple times recently on his talk page. I have been nevertheless assuming good faith on his part up to now.Selfstudier (talk) 11:38, 23 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by (other user)[edit]

Result concerning Zarcademan123456[edit]

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

• I guess the core question here is this: is Zarcademan123456 edit-warring or editing in defiance of consensus. The OP does not provide evidence of this. Guy (help!) 02:08, 23 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• This appears to be a content dispute. We often paraphrase sources rather than quoting them exactly, and the best way to do that is a content decision. It is not up to AE to decide what wording an article should use. If the two here can't come to an agreement, an RfC may be the way forward. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:10, 23 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• The editor has used language in edit summaries about 'deligitimization of the state of Israel' that appear to be pro-Israeli. In other words, the editor is showing they don't intend to edit neutrally. Though the actual change of 'confiscate' to 'expropriate' might be a matter of word choice, the reasons for the change seem to be to promote the Israeli view of these activities. The legitimacy of the state of Israel is not a matter for our articles to resolve or for Wikipedia to have an opinion on. EdJohnston (talk) 03:40, 24 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I checked to see if Z was continuting this type of edit after the filing of User:Huldra's complaint. I didn't notice any. Also relevant are the talk threads at User talk:Nableezy#expropriate vs. confiscate and User talk:Zarcademan123456#changes to west bank articles. He promised that 'I will cease with the changing of the terms'. It seems to me that the editor might have got the point. Certainly the block record is concerning, but we can keep an eye on further events. This AE might be closed with no admin action. EdJohnston (talk) 14:18, 26 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Closing with no action per my comment above. EdJohnston (talk) 20:58, 27 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved administrators" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.

To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).

Appealing user

Oldstone James (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅} 01:39, 21 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sanction being appealed

Year-long block (and subsequent indefinite admin block), imposed at WP:AE#Oldstone_James, logged at [44].

Administrator imposing the sanction

Guerillero (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Notification of that administrator

I have copied this appeal from Oldstone James' talk page and have notified Guerillero of this.[45] El_C 02:03, 21 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Oldstone James[edit]

The main reason for my indefinite block is my editing at the article Race and intelligence, as per this statement by the blocking administrator. The specific reason why my editing was disruptive is edit-warring, as per the block summary by El_C.

Indeed, it has been explained to me by El C that my editing was unacceptable: reverting - whether following WP:BRD or not - is synonymous with edit-warring, and edit-warring is prohibited by WP:EW - especially at such a contentious article as Race and Intelligence; I had indeed made several reverts at the article, and so was duly blocked from editing for a week.

However, although I now realise that my editing was disruptive, I did not know that at the time of editing: my last sanction was a creationism topic ban imposed 10 months ago, after which several experienced editors, the most vocal of which I recall as being Guy Macon, suggested that I stick to WP:BRD to avoid edit-warring. I had taken this advice to heart, and in the past 10 months, during which I was editing extensively, I had violated WP:BRD only on very select occasions, and even on those rare occasions I had a clear reason for doing so (e.g. re-reverting an obvious misunderstanding/misreading of my edit); on these occasions also, I didn't go beyond one re-revert even a single time. For example, even out of the diffs listen in the AN report] that led to my block, the only edit that violated BRD was a reversion of a clear case of misunderstanding, whereby my edit was originally reverted for being inadvertent, even when it was in fact intentional. Needless to say as well, no bright-line rule such as WP:3RR or the WP:1RR restriction since it was imposed (after which only 1 revert was made) was violated. Now, none of this is an excuse to justify my editing at Race and Intelligence; it was wrong and won't be repeated in the future. However, I honestly thought that I wasn't edit-warring at the time because I simply wasn't told that all reverts not covered by WP:3RRNO are considered acts of edit-warring, and was instead specifically advised to follow the BRD-cycle, so my consequent edit-warring was an example of my genuine misunderstanding and confusion rather than a disregard for the rules or a general disruptive tendency.

Speaking of a lack of disruptive tendency, I had been editing constructively for 10 months without encountering any problems whatsoever; the only occasion on which my editing was found to be problematic was the one that led to the indefinite block, which was a result of my misunderstanding of the rules. Now, I had received earlier blocks than the one that eventually led to my topic ban 10 months ago, but I was just figuring out how Wikipedia works, with my lack of experience as well as persistence getting me in trouble. I am a totally different editor now, which is reflected by the fact that, despite editing many times a week consistently throughout the past year, I didn't encounter any problems up until now. My last topic ban taught me a lot of things, such as that I should never assume consensus by myself, that I should take to the talk page instead of re-reverting regardless of whether the edit that I don't agree with was part of an edit war or was made without or against consensus, and that a respectful and civil attitude is a key determinant of the community's views on my editing even if the editing itself isn't problematic (that's not to say that the editing that led to my topic ban wasn't problematic).

In light of all of the above, my proposition is simple: given that I have proven that I can learn from my mistakes and edit constructively, I believe that it is reasonable to give me one last chance and a fragile benefit of the doubt (WP:ROPE), by which I mean allow me to edit but block me indefinitely at the first shadow of a doubt. This will guarantee that my unblock is a net positive for Wikipedia: I will certainly improve many articles, by wikignoming, i.e. fixing punctuational and grammatical errors, if by no other means, and if I somehow disrupt Wikipedia in any way, shape, or form, it will only take a simple user complaint and/or admin click to get me off Wikipedia entirely. Surely, this can't be too bad for the project? ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅} 01:39, 21 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Guerillero[edit]

There was a discussion open for 3 days where the only suggestion was an indef block. Several people in the discussion above brought up bludgeoning on the talk page in addition to the edit warring. There was a general sense that Oldstone James was pushing a POV within the topic area of R&I.

I see more introspection in this appeal than the previous draft on their talk page, and that is a positive sign. I would suggest that any unblock come with a topic ban from R&I. --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 15:57, 21 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I would rather not have a topic ban that applies in some places, but not others --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 18:46, 27 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Guy Macon[edit]

I have had previous disputes with Oldstone James, and am quite familiar with the circumstances that led up to the block. In my considered opinion all sanctions should be lifted. I think that we are going to look back a year from now and be glad that we did. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:00, 21 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

As a second choice, I would support a lifting of the ban combined with a six month topic ban from race and intelligence, creationism, or both. I would advise Oldstone James that if he gets unblocked without the topic ban, he voluntarily avoid those areas for at least six months.

I do have one concern about a topic ban. Normally an editor with a TB has to completely avoid a topic, but I wouldn't mind an exception that allows him to post questions about the banned topics on my talk page. As I have worked on the various pages listed at WP:YWAB I have occasionally had the experience of someone who opposes what Wikipedia says about a topic correctly identifying flaws or errors in the page. And of course I can always say "stay off my talk page" if things go south...

A question was raised about mentoring. I do intend to watchlist his talk page and offer advice as needed, but I have no intention of following his edit history looking for trouble. I would really like to see how any such advice is received before making any commitment past that. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:07, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There is a related discussion at User talk:Guy Macon#Interesting comment. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:35, 25 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Grayfell[edit]

• "(e.g. re-reverting an obvious misunderstanding/misreading of my edit)" - Oldstone James's opinion of what's "obvious" is precisely the problem here, so this isn't reassuring.
• "However, I honestly thought that I wasn't edit-warring at the time because I simply wasn't told..." - Oldstone James was told by several editors, but regardless, Oldstone James' block history shows several missed opportunities to figuring it out without being told. Grayfell (talk) 04:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by ජපස[edit]

I think there are a few things we need to take into consideration.

• WP:AE is instituted because it is sometimes important to make dramatic action for topics under discretionary sanctions (believe me, I know how this works). Second-guessing an admin who takes an action via WP:AE will undermine this intention, so I think we need to tread very cautiously here if that's what others think we should do.

• I have some sympathy with people who think that OJ might change. I have had that hope as well. However, the user has adopted a level of arrogance that makes him very difficult to work with. For example, consider the conversation I had with him: User_talk:Oldstone_James#jps_discussion_(cont.). OJ simply does not listen to other editors who do not have the WP:PUNITIVE authority over him and continues to argue that he will only listen to admins. He acts as though he is entitled to a detailed explanation of every considered opinion made about his actions, and does not know when to WP:DROPTHESTICK. Time and again, this has been the patterned reaction. I don't think that bodes well.

• In principle, a wikignoming OJ would be fine. But what guarantee do we have right now that he will stick to this? In the past he has promised to steer clear of controversial articles only to wander back. He seems to have a general issue with forgetting about things such as topic bans: User_talk:Oldstone_James#Topic_ban which means there will have to be someone that needs to monitor his work if/when he returns. He also generally does not seem to understand basic rules and ideas on Wikipedia. He was advised to follow WP:BRD, but took this as a license to revert any other editor on sight without so much as a consideration of WP:3RR. He still seems to think that he did not violate WP:3RR, even though he was judged to have done so by an administrator in Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/3RRArchive403#User:Oldstone_James_reported_by_User:ජපස_(Result:one_week,_partial). I am pretty amazed at the audacity it takes to claim, I had been editing constructively for 10 months without encountering any problems whatsoever. This is simply false, he has encountered many problems including a denied topic ban appeal, some admin warnings, and now an AE+indef ban. Crucially: This all happening in the context of a topic where he was warned there were active discretionary sanctions.

So what do we do here? I think we need to encourage OJ to work in a more collaborative fashion outside of the places he is attracted to. Wikicommons, wikisource, even en.simple would, perhaps, be possibilities for him to work within a community and establish some experience to retrain his approach to work better here at en.wp.

jps (talk) 16:13, 21 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by PaleoNeonate[edit]

There seems to be an offer by Guy Macon to mentor and a good reception by Oldstone James of the initiative. If Guy makes it a little more official and James engages to retract from a situation when Guy recommends it (versus debating with endless justifications including with Guy), I think that an unblock could be promising. That said, another topic ban may also be difficult to avoid, but that is a reasonable alternative to not being able to edit at all for a year... —PaleoNeonate – 07:21, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Adding: I wasn't sure where to comment, I don't consider myself directly involved but am also active in the topic area and have edited on Race and Intelligence and its talk page recently. —PaleoNeonate – 07:26, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by JzG[edit]

My starting point is always the edit counter: [46]. 3789 edits as of right now, an average of less than two per day. I'm not convinced that is enough to earn a pass for the quantity of disruption and argumentation, and Guerillero's block is clearly defensible and proportionate.

A large chunk of OJ's edits are to Answers in Genesis (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and consist of often WP:MANDY-level apologia for creationist pseudoscience, leading to a topic ban. And a lot of the rest appear to promote racist pseudoscience. But let's be charitable. A dual topic ban from creationism and race / intelligence would be OK by me, and see if he can work productively with others outside his hot-button areas. On the other hand, I don't think he's a loss to the project if that doesn't happen. He needs to learn, and quickly, why his edits have been considered problematic. Mandruss is right to note the illusory competence issue here. Guy (help!) 17:03, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Dlthewave[edit]

I still have concerns about OJ's characterization of the situation.

• In this appeal: "Needless to say as well, no bright-line rule such as WP:3RR or the WP:1RR restriction since it was imposed (after which only 1 revert was made) was violated." and "I had been editing constructively for 10 months without encountering any problems whatsoever; the only occasion on which my editing was found to be problematic was the one that led to the indefinite block, which was a result of my misunderstanding of the rules." Both of these comments were made while under a partial block for violating 3RR and show that this user does not fully comprehend the problems with their editing.
• Also in this appeal: "if I somehow disrupt Wikipedia in any way, shape, or form, it will only take a simple user complaint and/or admin click to get me off Wikipedia entirely." This is a common refrain from editors facing an indef and, as evidenced by Oldstone's talk page, blocking an editor doesn't put a swift end to their disruption. Instead, I'm afraid we would see a series of wall-of-text appeals, and the time spent dealing with them would outweigh the benefits of any Wikignoming.
• In Oldstone's reply to Guerillero [47]: "I just want to give a quick overview of the situation at R&I: there currently seem to be two camps; one camp accuses the other of censorship, science denialism and POV pushing, and the other camp accuses the other party of racism, promotion of pseudoscience, and POV pushing. The two camps are roughly equal in numbers, with a slight numerical majority of editors being on the former camp (which I am on). You can get a very nice overview of the opinions and size of these two groups of editors here or, perhaps less clearly, here. Either way, it is far from unanimous that my editing constituted POV pushing." This statement takes a battleground view of the dispute and implies that the number of editors on each "side" matters. We need to be talking about the merits of each position in accordance with policies and guidelines, not counting how many editors are accusing whom of what. This is not an attitude that is conducive to collegial editing.

Oldstone seems to be working towards a better understanding of BRD but I don't think this is sufficient to continue editing at R&I. This editor needs a topic ban at the very least. –dlthewave ☎ 17:38, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by (involved editor 5)[edit]

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Oldstone James[edit]

I was involved in none of the article activity that led to the indef, so take my comments with a small grain of salt.

What I see is a guy who perhaps has failed to grasp the extent of what he has yet to learn about Wikipedia editing, and so has overestimated his competence level. This, in turn, resulted in an overly-aggressive approach to the editing process. This is a fairly common failing, and he is only 20 years old if his UP is to be believed. We have to be prepared to show some tolerance for this in 20-year-olds or institute a 30-year age minimum (which would reduce the problem but not eliminate it).

This points to the serious flaw in the current culture, which tolerates a large degree of aggressiveness, even abusiveness, when one is in the right, while we always believe we're in the right.

OJ was very cooperative when I approached him about his signature, and this was in stark contrast to the hostile, entitled, and self-occupied reactions I have received from many editors. Taking his comments here at face value, he gives every indication that he gets it and is willing to learn. His appeal lacks the defensiveness, persecution complex, and accusations of corruption that are so common in appeals (those are core-personality indicators that tell me an editor is probably beyond help). If we dismiss that because of the context, I don't know how an appeal could ever be successful, and we might as well get rid of that due process as a waste of time. He does have some history of behavior issues, but that's true in all cases of appealed indefs.

I generally feel we are too tolerant of chronic disrupters, but this may be a case where we have erred in the opposite direction. Maybe I'm too late, but a temporary topic ban would've seemed more appropriate to me. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:19, 21 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Call for close[edit]

Pretty much everyone has said what they wanted to say, and we shouldn't leave OJ hanging. Could someone uninvolved please evaluate the consensus make a decision, and close this? --Guy Macon (talk) 17:31, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Mr Ernie[edit]

I reviewed the circumstances leading up the block, as well as what took place shortly after, and find the block to be absurdly strict. Additionally, Guerillero has made no attempt to provide any sort of meaningful feedback about the block when requested. I would overturn the block. Mr Ernie (talk) 08:01, 21 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Result of the appeal by Oldstone James[edit]

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

• I could support supplanting the block with a broadly construed topic ban in the ARBR&I topic area, per WP:ROPE. El_C 16:38, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• @JzG: I'm fine with ARBPS also being bundled with the topic ban. El_C 17:03, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• @Black Kite: I'm not sure that I agree with your assessment. I think multiple topic bans could actually do the trick. It's a sizable enough 'pedia that Oldstone James could happily edit with those restrictions in place without needing to violate them at any point. El_C 03:42, 24 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• RexxS, I was just about to say something very similar. El_C 13:09, 1 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I think you would need a broadly construed Creationism topic ban as well. That's why I supported a block to begin with; when you need to apply more than one topic ban, you have to consider how much of a positive the editor actually is. Black Kite (talk) 18:26, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I'm inclined to believe with the broad topic ban(s), over an indef. Even in AE, where more dramatic steps are utilised, I'm inclined towards what the least, dramatic, option is. The fact that there were multiple users above who felt this user was at least capable of wiki compliant discussion ultimately pushed me to feel that there is hope for this user. Obviously an R&I TBAN, I'm fairly neutral outside that area to what is best covered. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:52, 24 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

As an addendum to that, I've no objection to slight exemption to the TBANs to allow them to discuss it on Guy Macon's talk page, to the degree that they're willing to do so. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:56, 24 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I don't think that we do the project any favours by allowing appeals to sit undecided for lengthy periods. Given User:Guerillero's "I would suggest that any unblock come with a topic ban from R&I.", I believe a rough consensus may exist to replace the block with a topic ban from the areas covered by race and intelligence and pseudoscience, broadly construed. If this proposal isn't contested within the next 24-hours, I'll unblock and apply the topic bans (unless somebody beats me to it). --RexxS (talk) 21:17, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• @RexxS: Seconded, feel free to close this up. --qedk (t 桜 c) 17:31, 1 March 2020 (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 PainMan[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

FDW777 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 11:52, 25 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

PainMan (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/The Troubles#Standard discretionary sanctions :

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

1. 18:45, 22 February 2020 Changes "Taoiseach" to "prime minister"
2. 02:40, 23 February 2020 Same as first diff on another article, claiming in the edit summary "No one outside of Ireland knows what taoiseach means"
3. 04:22, 23 February 2020 Same as second diff on another article
4. 05:12, 23 February 2020 Same as second diff on another article
5. 04:40, 23 February 2020 Adds completely incorrect translation of an organisation's motto to an article
6. 10:18, 23 February 2020 Edit warring to repeat second diff
7. 10:19, 23 February 2020 Edit warring to repeat third diff
8. 10:22, 23 February 2020 Edit warring to repeat fourth diff
9. 10:23, 23 February 2020 Edit warring to repeat first diff
10. 07:24, 24 February 2020 Same as second diff on another article
11. 11:13, 25 February 2020 Exports his campaign to an article about Basque separatists claiming "No one outside of Ireland knows what taoiseach or these other Gaelic words mean. They are almost never used in English language media outside of Ireland", as the edits relating to republican leader Gerry Adams it's reasonable enough to include it here, especially as that type of change has been reverted on numerous previous articles
12. 11:27, 25 February 2020 Edit warring to repeat eleventh diff

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

• Alerted about discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict in the last twelve months, see the system log linked to above.

Alerted here at 10:27, 23 February 2020‎

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The editor was also pinged at 10:33, 23 February 2020 of the discussion I started at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Ireland-related articles#Use of Taoiseach. They ignored this and proceeded to make the edit in diff#10 to Ulster Special Constabulary. It stands to reason if a particular change has been reverted on multiple Troubles related articles already that you don't just carry on making the same edit on more articles, especially when you've been directed to the discussion. I further notified them at 08:23, 24 February 2020 on their talk page, they ignored this and carried on making the constantly reverted changes at another article. They did eventually reply on their talk page at 11:33, 25 February 2020, described as patronizing, belligerent by @Elizium23:.

The editors claims that nobody outside Ireland uses the terms Taoiseach or Dáil Éireann is totally false as has been demonstrated in the discussion, they are commonly used in English language media outlets across the words. There's a reason Dáil Éireann is actually at that location while many other European (and presumably others worldwide, I haven't checked everywhere) parliaments are located at "Parliament of x", because it's the commonly used name in English, with the same applying to Taoiseach.

Regarding the fifth diff, this was subsequently corrected here by myself with two of many available references confirming that the UDA's English translation of their motto was "Law before violence". When there are multiple possible translations of a Latin phrase, it stands to reason you have to choose the one that references say is correct, there are zero references that say the UDA's motto was ever "let military power give way to civil power".

Also, this editor is not some "innocent" editor who's ignorant of Irish affairs who made a good faith challenge as to why certain words are in Irish, as their self-admitted background makes clear. FDW777 (talk) 03:43, 28 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified at 11:53, 25 February 2020

Discussion concerning PainMan[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 PainMan[edit]

Statement by (username)[edit]

Result concerning PainMan[edit]

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

• PainMan I would be interested in a response from you. --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 18:58, 27 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  I agree with Johnuniq and RexxS --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 21:55, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I left a note at User talk:PainMan#Arbitration enforcement notification (diff) requesting a response from PainMan. Without an explanation and commitment to avoid such problems in a topic under discretionary sanctions, I would support an indefinite topic ban. Johnuniq (talk) 02:11, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Given that PainMan has been editing since the last notification, it will take quite an explanation to persuade me not to support an indefinite topic ban from the Troubles, broadly construed. --RexxS (talk) 21:25, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• PainMan has edited since RexxS' ping above, so unless they respond here with a very convincing explanation here very soon then I will give them an indefinite topic ban from the Troubles. Thryduulf (talk) 13:00, 1 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• PainMan, indeed, you cannot be compelled to participate, but failing to do so could result in sanctions, nonetheless. El_C 13:06, 1 March 2020 (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 Peregrine Fisher[edit]

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Dlthewave (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 18:36, 26 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested

Peregrine Fisher (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/Race_and_intelligence#Editors_reminded_and_discretionary_sanctions :

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

These diffs demonstrate a pattern of disruptive editing at Race and intelligence that mimics WP:BRD, but no valid arguments for reversion are ever given:

8 February:

• [48] Revert: "revert, please seek consensus for major changes"

• [49] Opened talk page discussion: "Do we like these new changes? I think we should undo them and discuss. Personally, I do not think they are an improvement."

14 February:

• [50] Revert: "don't delete huge chuncks without discussion"
• [51] Talk page comment, when asked to discuss revert: "I reverted. I haven't seen you actually wanting to improve the article. You seem to just want to destroy it. But if some editors who are not in favor of destroying this article think you did a good thing, I would abide by that no problem."

23 February:

• [52] Revert: "I think this should be included. Let's talk about it."
• [53] Opened talk page discussion: "What are the policy and guideline reasons this should be removed?" (No rationale provided for reversion)

26 February:

• [54] Revert: "Undo giant removal. Please don't do that. Obviously this whole situation is contested."
• [55] Talk page discussion: "I reverted, again. Do you like it? Do you not like it? Seems the same as the last 10 times. Arguing particular policies and guidelines doesn't seem to have any postive effect."

Series of ANI posts attempting to canvass support and making vague accusations:

8 February: [56] "Seems like editors are taking this as a green light to gut the article."; "Most recent consensus on whether or not a chainsaw should be taken to the article (answer no). Talk:Race_and_intelligence#Let's_go_back_to_a_previous_version"

11 February: [57] "Aticle is at DRV currently. Looks like editors may be trying to take a chainsaw to article again. Keep an eye on us please."

13 February: [58] "Looks like editors are not impartial when it comes to this article. I think you can imagine why. So, Afd voters aren't impartial, closing admin is not impartial and just takes a moon shot delete, and now we're at DRV."

Accusing admins of bias at DRV:

13 February: [59] (Barkeep49) "Seems like you might be involved in some sort of AfD/DfV thing. Are you impartial to the subject? Like, the subject doesn't matter you're just going to evaluate arguments based on how they match up to our rules?"

14 February: [60] (Jo-Jo Emerus) "Are you anti right wing? I did a google search for your name and people are saying you anti intelligent design."

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

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

• 19 January 2020

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Peregrine Fisher's editing pattern at Race and intelligence appears to be a type of "civil POV pushing" designed to keep hereditarian content in the article. Although their edits superficially resemble the BRD process, a valid reason for removal is never given and the discussion usually consists of "I like/don't like it" or "I removed this, what do other people think?"

In a recent talk page discussion mentioned above ("I reverted" permalink), Peregrine Fisher asks "What are the policy and guideline reasons this should be removed?"; after multiple editors cite policies that support removal of the content in question, Peregrine refuses to engage and simply gives variations of "There's no policy based reason to remove it."

Other concerning patterns of conduct include repeated canvassing at ANI and accusing admins of having biases that would preclude them from closing a DRV discussion.

Multiple attempts have been made to address this behavior: [61] [62] [63] [64]

-Dlthewave 26 February 2020

• As with most conduct issues, there is indeed a content dispute at the heart of the matter. I didn't come here to resolve it but I will give a summary since other editors have brought it up.

A major concern is that the Race and intelligence article relies heavily on what I call the "he-said-she-said" format in which a debate is presented using quotes and paraphrasing sourced directly to the individuals involved, instead of using secondary sources that discuss it from an independent point of view. This is problematic because it gives equal weight to the fringe and mainstream viewpoints with no attempt to identify the minority view as such. One example is found here where I removed fringe statements including "Jensen and Rushton argued that the existence of biological group differences does not rule out, but raises questions about the worthiness of policies such as affirmative action or placing a premium on diversity." (I later removed the rest of the section after it was pointed out that only one side of the "debate" was left intact.)

Although the source was published in a peer-reviewed journal, I consider it to be a primary source for the authors' opinions on public policy. I'm willing to discuss the finer points of what constitutes a primary source and where it can be used on Wikipedia, but the discussion regarding this section (permalink) is full of comments that are not based on policy ("This material had been in the article for years, until Dlthewave removed it a few hours ago"; "I generally oppose removing content"; "Peer reviewed journals are our gold standard. What's one awesome way to know if an opinion is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia? When it's published in a peer reviewed journal." "Her opinion became OK to include when it was in the peer reviewed article"but what about WP:WEIGHT? or deny that these are primary sources without addressing the arguments for why they are: "I'm seeing people calling secondary sources primary sources. And I'm seeing people saying primary sources need to be removed, which is also not true. If you think I should feel chagrined, I don't."

Regardless of the dispute, these comments by Peregrine and others are disruptive and do not move us toward resolving the POV issues that were a large part of the recent AfD discussion. –dlthewave ☎ 17:56, 27 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• I am not subject to a prior AE warning. The AE log shows that a warning was issued and withdrawn within 40 minutes after the issuer reread the discussion.

• I agree with Grayfell's opinion that a "consensus required" restriction would not be helpful here. The disruption lies within the consensus-building process itself: Although there may appear to be consensus to include hereditarian-POV content or restore the article to an older version, a thorough reading of the talk page and its archives will reveal that the "consensus building" discussions are full of non-policy-based aguments, fallacies and personal attacks. This is a classic case of false consensus and does indeed resemble the situation we dealt with a year ago at firearms-related articles.

I would encourage admins to independently evaluate the claim that it's disruptive or counterproductive to remove large amounts of long-standing content. The article has had large amounts of fringe content for many years and its removal is an improvement. –dlthewave ☎ 15:10, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• @Black Kite: PF is aware that POV forking is a valid reason for deletion, I mentioned this on his talk page on 5 February (permalink) after he brought it up at AfD. He acknowledged.

• The comment by My Very Best Wishes regarding discourse taking place in letters to the editor and popular science publications illustrates the need for a MEDRS-like sourcing restriction. A major issue with the article, which has been discussed on the talk page, is that it relies heavily on these primary sources instead of scondary sources that cover the overall discourse. If a letter to The New York Times really played a noteworthy role in scientific discourse, then it should be easy to find coverage in scientific sources. –dlthewave ☎ 03:13, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

• [65]

Discussion concerning Peregrine Fisher[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 Peregrine Fisher[edit]

I think what Doug Weller said about how Mankind Quarterly shouldn't be used despite our policies is informative. People do not agree with how our policies treat this subject. Jo Jo was in the middle of writing an elaborate SUPERVOTE, when Spartaz wrote a short SUPERVOTE and closed it. That's some good evidence that this article is not being looked at through the lens of policy, but something else.

Looks like I'm about to get topic banned even though I've only defended our policies, against people who ignore our policies. And AE voters seem to think that's the legit way to go. I don't see the AE voters listing a lot of policies that I've broken either. I bet if I had broken a bunch of policies, it wouldn't take 10 of you hemming and hawing before you ban me. The first AE voter would have said "they've been breaking policy X, so permanent topic ban. Done." Whatever. I'm frustrated.

Finally, I think people will read this and say "he likes Mankind Quarteryly". This is not true. Don't know barely anything about. It's peer reviewed, and people don't think it's reliable? I guess. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 21:10, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Black Kite: not sure how I'm being pointy. It's not a fork, so I think that rules out POVFORK entirely. Maybe I'm missing something. @Liz: I don't think the article is evil, or that an article can be evil. But I feel that editors on the other side think it shouldn't be covered on wiki becuase it's an inherently bad (is that a better word?) subject to cover. That basically it shouldn't be covered regardless of our policies. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 19:17, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I want to reiterate that when JzG said I've been adding racist SYN, that's not true. Because I haven't added anything to the article. Just reverted giant against consensus deletions. I'm not that good of an advocate for myself, but if I were, I might say something like this on my talk page. 20:53, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Looks like I may get banned either way, but if you guys do something to protect this article, I'll ban myself. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 20:25, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This was written later than what I wrote below.

We need help on this article. Our policies and guidelines almost mandate the article we currently have. But a lot of editors feel in their gut that this article is evil. That's a recipe for endless edit warring.

I guess I'd like to tell my story on this article. I took a 10 year wiki hiatus. I came back. Did a DYK. Other stuff. But...I believe in academic freedom and I had a wild hair, so I went looking for something that's against NOTCENSORED. I checked a few controversial articles (gender, LGBT, etc.), and found that Race and Intelligence was being deleted, from the inside out, right then! A user not discussed here was deleting roughly 3000kb chunks, several chunks per day. Day after day. Against talk page consensus. Similar to what's going on now.

So, I started a talk page thread to determine consensus. After lots of discussion, 8 vs. 4 people thought deleting the article from the inside out was bad. I guess you can't take my word for it, but the 8 were using policies and guidelines to justify their positions, and the 4 were misusing and misunderstanding our rules. Similar to how "X" is a POVFORK of "History of X" at the AfD was the winning rational. That would be considered silly if this wasn't possibly the most controversial article on all of WP!

So we went back to the older "stable" version (the completely referenced one that existed for 10 years). That lasted a week or two, then the article was nominated for deletion. Things calmed down for a while. It was sent to DRV: good time to wait for the entire article to possibly be deleted? No, for whatever reason, dlthewave decided it was time to start deleting the article from the inside again. They removed huge chunks, I reverted, someone else reverted that, etc. And now we're caught up to the present. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:40, 28 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There's a group of editors who are trying to delete all the well referenced information in the article that's on one side of the argument. They delete 2000kb here, 5000kb there. Kind of an ISCENSORED. You can probably imagine on an article on this topic. I sometimes revert those giant removals.

We talk about it on the talk page. They do not have policy and guideline based reasons for these deletions. They do have about 50 percent of the people on the talk page though. And they are dedicated.

This is all info from peer reviewed journals. I don't feel like doing a bunch of diffs, but you can read all this on the talk page and the last couple archives. Also, it's been taken to the RS noticeboard and impartial editors have deemed this stuff reliable.

There's a contentious DrV on the subject now. If they don' delete, they may give us some guidance on whether info from highly regarded peer reviewed journals and university presses should be treated differently on this article than the rest of the wiki. We'll see.

Anyways, editors keep coming along and taking a chainsaw to the article. I revert them when I can. We go to the talk page. There's certainly no consensus to remove the info. Frequently there's consensus to keep it. They delete a huge chunk of the article again...Rinse, repeat. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 19:20, 26 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Ok, I'm too lazy for diffs, but here's a link. Just imagine the sound of a chainsaw in the background as you look at it. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Race_and_intelligence&curid=26494&action=history Peregrine Fisher (talk) 19:25, 26 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

And this one for more. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Race_and_intelligence&offset=20200216022540&curid=26494&action=history Peregrine Fisher (talk) 19:27, 26 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I don't really want to be talking back to each person. But Guy said I've been adding racist stuff to the article. I haven't added anything. Unless you count reverts to non consensus giant blankings. Again this is a well refed article that's sat well refed, NPOV, everything good for 5-10 years without a problem. All of a sudden people think peer reviewed journals and books written by scientists are fringe. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:26, 28 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Pudeo[edit]

Apparently the filer, Dlthewave does not understand what WP:PRIMARY sources are (based on the edit summaries of the 9 February and 24 February reverts). The source that is claimed to be a primary source is:

• Rushton, J. Philippe; Jensen, Arthur R (2005). "Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability" (PDF). Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. 11 (2): 246–8. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.186.102. doi:10.1037/1076-8971.11.2.235. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-11-03. ((cite journal)): Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law is reputable peer-reviewed journal published by the American Psychological Association. A scientific review article released in such a journal, even if authored by controversial authors, isn't a primary source. This was explained on the talk page, yet the content was removed anyway. And in fact, among the passages removed in the February 24 reversion was an article by the environmentalist James R. Flynn released in Nature.

Peregrine Fisher reverted and opened a thread on the talkpage. That isn't disruptive. Your WP:PRIMARY argument was false, so what kind of a valid argument do you expect from the other person other than that the sources are valid (WP:RS) and that their inclusion is warranted (WP:NPOV)? This is a normal content dispute (WP:LIKE/WP:IDLI) which WP:BRD has failed to resolve, so a request for comment could be opened. --Pudeo (talk) 20:44, 26 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Just a point of order James R. Flynn (academic) isn't an environmentalist nor do I believe they have ever claimed to be so. Perhaps you meant something else? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 23:43, 1 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by IP editor[edit]

Dlthewave's pattern of editing on this article has been to repeatedly remove large chunks of content with no prior discussion, and to demand a consensus for its inclusion before it can be restored. This has included blanking three entire sections, that had been in the article for something like a decade ("Spearman's hypothesis", "Global variation in IQ scores", and "Policy relevance and ethics"). Because of the rapid-fire nature of these removals, it has been nearly impossible to have a coherent discussion about any of them. When we begin discussing any one of his removals, before the discussion can progress very far he removes something else.

Here are diffs of some of his large removals:

• February 8: [66]
• February 8: [67]
• February 9: [68]
• February 12: [69] (section blanking)
• February 15: [70] (section blanking)
• February 15: [71] (section blanking)
• February 15: [72] (section blanking)
• February 24: [73]
• February 25: [74] (section blanking)
• February 26: [75] (section blanking)
• March 2: [76] (section blanking)

I'd like to call attention to Dlthewave's blanking of the "Policy relevance and ethics" section in particular, in the diff on February 25. Dlthewave's edit summary for this removal falsely asserted that I had suggested on the talk page this section should be removed. It's well known that the ethics of research in this area has been a major topic of the race and intelligence debate. It was, for example, the subject of an exchange between Ceci & Williams and Steven Rose in the journal Nature, and the article's section about ethics included citations to both these papers. How could any reasonable person think that it was appropriate to remove this entire section of the article?

Peregrine Fisher has not been the only editor objecting to these removals. Most significantly, they were undone in this edit by user:Snowded, an uninvolved admin who has had no other participation in the article or its talk page. (Snowded's edit undid removals by both Dlthewave and one other editor who's been making similar removals.) However, aside from Peregrine Fisher, none of the editors opposing these removals have been as active and determined as Dlthewave has been.

The person whose behavior is the main problem here is Dlthewave, not Peregrine Fisher. Dlthewave has already voted Delete in the AFD for this article, so as per Snowded's edit summary, he should await the outcome of the AFD instead of trying to delete the article one section at a time. Dlthewave was notified of the Discretionary sanctions here: [77]. 2600:1004:B107:64A3:ED2C:F2BD:D1B5:7B42 (talk) 00:19, 27 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It's important to be clear what Grayfell means by "improving this topic" in his comment below. What typically happens on this article is that someone makes an attempt at removing several paragraphs or an entire section that had been stable for years, and then after the removal is reverted, several more editors restore the removal without any regard for the talk page discussion about it. In this discussion, one of these editors explained why he considered it acceptable to edit war to restore the removals even though it was clear that consensus opposed him. As discussed here, when some of the editors restoring the removals were openly disregarding the talk page consensus, it seemed that the only way consensus could be upheld was with a huge multi-party edit war. (What happened instead was that the article was locked for three days.)

Grayfell is one of the editors responsible for this situation. As I described in my comment here, he has been one of the editors restoring these removals while refusing to participate in the talk page, when it was clear that a majority of editors on the talk page disagreed with him.

If Wikipedia is going to have an article on this topic at all, there is a minimum standard of stability and decorum that ought to be upheld. That includes avoiding a situation where talk page discussion becomes irrelevant, leaving edit wars as the only possible way to resolve disputes. 2600:1004:B15A:4656:E1D4:7A87:DF8B:277D (talk) 01:44, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Admins, please note that Dlthewave's section blanking has continued while this report is open. He is being evasive about his reason for the removals, such as arguing that nobody has provided a source showing the section is relevant to the article's topic, after I had provided five such sources in this discussion. 2600:1004:B12D:741A:C15B:1789:8738:CD03 (talk) 14:38, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Jweiss11[edit]

There's been a long history of contentious editing at the "Race and intelligence" article because of fundamentally conflicting viewpoints on the subject. And I wouldn't expect the conflict around this article to cease anytime soon, provided it survives deletion. Dlthewave's efforts to either delete the article outright or gut it of well-sourced substantive content so that it has no reason to stand alone have been stalemated more or less by Peregrine Fisher and others, so he's turned here to eliminate a key opponent, so that his view can prevail. That's what this report is about. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:14, 27 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Grayfell[edit]

Race and intelligence is a broken article which fails to summarize even its own sources. The AFD shows that the community wants it to change dramatically. Every single edit spawns interminable discussion, and the end result is that nothing can change. It's impossible not to see Peregrine Fisher's overall behavior as tactical.

Peregrine Fisher uses superficially neutral language to request other people's attention, or he asks leading questions when the answer is obvious. As a few of examples, we have [78], [79], [80], and plenty more available. Judging by his user page, he seems to take pride in being antagonistic and lacking self-reflection. Grayfell (talk) 03:18, 27 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• A discussion required restriction would make it even harder for anyone to improve this topic. The AFD showed that outside editors recognize the serious problems with our coverage of these topics, while a handful of WP:SPAs have congregated to defend the status quo. The talk page is already filled with wikilawyering and tedious rehashing of old issues. Forcing editors to discuss every change would drive away good-faith participation, and would be a tacit endorsement of the current state of the article.

Comparing Donald Trump to Race and intelligence is a mistake. The Trump article is a BLP, it has many new sources coming out every day, hundreds of times more page views, and hundreds more active editors. Grayfell (talk) 23:41, 28 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by JzG[edit]

To my reading, Peregrine Fisher is adding material that is basically WP:SYN, in support of a fringe (and racist) idea. A topic ban would be a good idea. A better idea would be to nuke the entire article from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Guy (help!) 21:01, 27 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Ferahgo the Assassin[edit]

@In actu: If the goal is to improve the stability of the article, then topic banning Peregrine Fisher but not Dlthewave won’t accomplish that. Instead of topic bans, I would suggest a new restriction to be applied to the article: that significant changes should not be made to a stable version of the article without first achieving consensus on the talk. The Donald Trump article is currently under a similar restriction that appears to have been helpful.

24-hr BRD cycle: If a change you make to this article is reverted, you may not reinstate that change unless you discuss the issue on the talk page and wait 24 hours (from the time of the original edit). Partial reverts/reinstatements that reasonably address objections of other editors are preferable to wholesale reverts.

I suggest that something along the same lines should be applied to the R&I article. - Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 21:16, 28 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Mr rnddude[edit]

This is evidently a tactical attempt to remove opposition from the topic area. This is not the first time that Dlthewave has attempted this either, they have done the same thing to editors who hold an opposing viewpoint on "gun rights". Specifically, the incident that comes to mind is this which led to a sort of boomerang sanctioning of Dlthewave resulting in a userpage being deleted for polemics, as well as a warning to all parties involved.

For this specific incident, the article history shows three editors removing material (Dlthewave, Grey fell, and Horse Eye Jack) and another three editors reinstating those removals (Peregrine Fisher, Pudeo and AndrewNguyen). This is a multi-party editwar. I think Ferahgo's solution may be useful in that it addresses the underlying conduct issue which is edit-warring, and not opinion-having.

In actu - It's unclear to me what PF's !vote on a RfB has to do with their editing in this topic area (and yes, I am aware that PF is referring to the AfD for the article "Race and Intelligence"). There are several others opposing the RfB for the same reason, including one specifically citing PF's rationale as a reason to oppose. Mr rnddude (talk) 12:32, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Dlthewave has left a message on my talk page indicating that the warning administered to Dlthewave, and also Springee, was rescinded by Sandstein.12 Mr rnddude (talk) 17:28, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by SMcCandlish[edit]

I've taken a long break from that article and entire topic area, after watchdogging it for a while for trolls and vandalism and PoV pushing and such. Though a techie and civil liberties activist by profession for most of my working life (kind of by accident, really), I'm a cultural anthropologist by most of my educational background, and am in particular a critic of IQ tests and similar artifices as culturally biased. I'm more than well aware that "our" (especially everyday Americans' and to a slightly lesser extent Europeans') ideas of "race" are a social construct that don't align with genetic reality; I wrote WP:Race and ethnicity. So, I'm obviously not going to come at this from a "Let's suggest, or by shitty writing allow the reader to infer, that race X is more intelligent than racy Y" angle.

Yet I have to generally agree with Jweiss11 and Mr_rnddude. There's obviously an attempt here to gut any attempts to have WP cover the topic at all, and this AE is part of a strategy of opposition-elimination. This is an "unclean hands" AE report. If anything, I would reverse the T-ban suggestion, or at bare minimum have it cover both parties, if we were really going to T-ban land. I can agree with the generalized concern (not methods) of Dlthewave that we have a bit of a "he said, she said" article structure problem that is leading to a WP:WEIGHT issue, but that is WP:SURMOUNTABLE. The ongoing "censor this article at all costs" multi-pronged approach to trying to delete nearly all of it without consensus from within, while trying to delete the page itself (with an obvious WP:SUPERVOTE, no less – and never mind that we have another article, at History of the race and intelligence controversy that covers the same stuff (with a viewpoint divergence and some missing information but some additional information, and presumably would be the next target) is just not how we do things. WP has an actual responsibility to cover this topic, and to do it well. That the article is not yet doing it as well as we'd like does not mean "Hide the topic! Hide it now!" I means do it better. If that means banning people who insert racist bullshit, so be it. If that means banning people who cite predatory journals and far-right "news" and century-old pseudo-science as so-called sources, so be it. If that means banning people who intentionally skew things in an undue manner using reasonable sources manipulatively, so be it. But it does not mean banning people who revert mass-deletion of properly sourced content when all that is actually needed is some DUE massaging to put the material into perspective. Even getting to where the article is now has been a long and nearly constant consensus struggle, and we're not done yet by a long shot.

Honestly, I would prefer it if neither of these editors were T-banned, but just put on notice to dial it down and to stop revert-warring. I think the behavioral issues on both sides are remediable. Do not make massive changes to the article without consensus. But do not stonewall incremental improvements. If you want to add something, the onus is on you to source it properly and without OR (and to drop the stick if you can't do the real work). If you want to remove something, the onus is on you to demonstrate that the sourcing is inadequate or being misused (and to try to fix that before just nuking it, especially if it's just a DUE matter that has to do with wording, focus, attribution, position in the article, relation to other sources, etc.) Most of all – this is really obvious, folks – focus on fixing the overall UNDUE problem of giving equal "A says X, B says Y" time, and also on merging the content fork (possibly even PoV fork) at the "History of..." article. We absolutely do not need that as a separate page, and having it be one just doubles the difficulty of policing this topic area for PoV warring. PS: No, a literature review, especially a systematic review, in a reputable journal is not a primary source. If someone doesn't already understand that, they are not yet competent to be editing in a controversial science topic.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:07, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

PPS: Ferhago's idea could be workable, if it really comes to that. Maybe it has.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:40, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by K.e.coffman[edit]

The issue at hand is not a particular content dispute, but a pattern of tendentious editing by Peregrine Fisher (PF for short). This includes treating Wikipedia as a battleground and an us vs them mentality. Here's a response to me, for example: "Coffman spoke the truth for you guys. There are no policy reasons to remove a secondary source, but you don't like the authors."[81]. (This statement also shows apparent confusion about the WP:UNDUE policy).

Here are more examples from PF's Talk page: "To put it bluntly, we probably need some edit warring to take to AE." [82], and "that's basically saying 'fine, we'll let the 4 win, then see if they will discuss things reasonably'. They wont."[83]. It's worth noting that these two diffs are taken from a discussion with the dynamic IP who is commenting above; in one such post, the IP offers his assistance to PF and notes that he's helped another editor to file an AE report pertaining to Grayfell: [84]. --K.e.coffman (talk) 23:48, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Paul Siebert[edit]

I am not an expert in this topic, so I've just analyze a couple of randomly picked arguments. First, I analyzed the edits made on 23th of February. This revert restored the text removed under an od pretext ( rm off topic section, see talk page discussion): how can the section "Global variation of IQ scores" be irrelevant to the "Race and Intelligence" topic? The removed section is focused mostly on a comparison of IQ in sub-Sacharian Africa and Western countries, so it hard to see why it is "off-topic". Furthermore, the section was properly sourced, and the sources are of a very good quality. A couple "citation needed" tags are actually not needed, because the tagged sentences provide a brief summary of the subsequent text, which is properly sourced. Therefore, irrespective to the arguments presented on the article's talk page, restoration of the removed text was per se not a violation of our policy.

Second, I agree with Pudeo that dlthewave's vision of what primary sources are contradicts to our policy and guidelines. Our policy clearly says that peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources. The sources that provide author's own thinking based on primary sources are secondary sources. An exceptions are editorial and op-ed materials published in newspapers or magazines. They are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact. However, the same cannot be said about articles published in specialized peer-reviewed journals. It seems dlthewave's accusations are based, at least partially, on their own (incorrect) understanding of our sourcing policy. Thus, contrary to what dlthewave says, the Peregrine Fisher's statement: Peer reviewed journals are our gold standard. What's one awesome way to know if an opinion is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia? When it's published in a peer reviewed journal directly follows from what WP:SOURCES say. I didn't go into details of that conflict, but a possibility cannot be ruled out that that poor understanding of the sourcing policy by dlthewave could be one of the reasons of that conflict.

Third. I frequently see that many edit wars are the result of usage of poor sources by one party, or by an opposition to inclusion of good sources by another party. In connection to that, I am puzzled by the fact that admins are too reluctantly applying sourcing restrictions similar to the ones proposed by Barkeep49. In my opinion, that is the first thing that should be done when a conflict starts in a serious topic where many good quality reliable sources are available, and "Race and Intelligence" belongs to that category. Indeed, if we prohibit usage of non-peer-reviewed journals, obscure newspapers, or popular magazines, the "Race and Intelligence" article will only benefit from that. In my opinion, that step alone will be sufficient to stop the conflict.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:41, 1 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Doug Weller: Whereas Mankind Quarterly looks more reliable than an average newspaper, it is by no means a good peer-reviewed journal. Its impact factor is very low, an average article is being cited very rarely by others. Therefore, if materials from better peer-reviewed journals contradict to what MQ says, the latter can be easily rejected.

Obviously, peer-reviewed journals is a very unhomogeneous set of sources, reliability of articles published in, e.g. Nature and e.g. Mankind Quarterly is just incomparable. However, the same can be said about any other category of sources (for example, newspapers). What makes peer-reviewed journals different is the mechanism of cross-references: you can always see how widely some article is being cited by peers, and if the citations contains criticism or support. That provides you with a tool to evaluate credibility and reliability of what peer-reviewed journals say. Journal ranking by impact factor is also a useful criterion. Although not a universal one, it is definitely better than nothing.

And, by the way, our guidelines always addressed the predatory journals issue.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:38, 1 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Guettarda[edit]

It's been 7 years since I touched that page or its talk page, so I wouldn't really consider myself involved, but it's probably better for me to post here. Looking at that page, I've noticed that almost all the sources are from 2010 or earlier (probably because the page still mostly reflects Professor marginalia's massive re-write. This pre-dates massive developments in genetics, and the replication crisis in psychology.

I feel like a simple solution would be to impose a MEDRS-type standard for sourcing in this article. Purely historical information could be sourced by older material, but scientific content should be based on recent sources, preferably systematic reviews. That would eliminate a lot of the back-and-forth and the desire of editors to add their own interpretations to sources that are now decades old. While it's impractical to require a total re-write of what's there, we could impose a requirement on new additions. Guettarda (talk) 15:38, 1 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by My very best wishes[edit]

I do not think WP:MEDRS applies automatically to the page because the subject does not belong to medicine. However, making MEDRS-type sourcing restrictions, specifically for this page, is entirely within the discretion by the admins. Personally, I think it would be a bad idea, precisely because human races have been considered a "social construct" in many sources and the discourse here resulted in letters by scientists sent to NYT, discussions in popular science and journalistic sources, etc., all of which should be included if we want to have a complete coverage and comply with WP:NPOV.

As about user Peregrine Fisher, some of their comments are clearly not good, however I do not think they rise to the level of a topic ban. My very best wishes (talk) 02:16, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

It was suggested to make a sourcing restriction: "Only high quality sources may be used, specifically peer-reviewed scholarly journals, academically focused books by reputable publishers, and/or articles published by reputable institutions....". Questions:

1. Do something like New York Times qualify as a "reputable institution"? How about other reputable newspapers?
2. Do you know that WP:MEDRS discourage using peer reviewed scientific articles (unless they are reviews), and for a good reason?
3. "academically focused books" and "reputable publishers". What does it mean? Would everything published by "Moscow University Press" automatically qualify?

• Here is my point. This is an editing restriction you are going to use to sanction contributors. This can be only something very clear and obvious for everyone. Even 1RR/3RR restrictions cause a lot of disputes. Someone may think in a good faith that the source was OK per WP:RS. My very best wishes (talk) 18:15, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Springee[edit]

I am not involved with this topic and I don't recall interacting with PF but I have interacted with other editors here. This looks like a case where both sides are being problematic. I read this as PF is getting frustrated with editors who are trying to change long standing material without following BRD. Take this section blanking by Dlthewave earlier today [[85]]. Look at the history of the interaction. Dlthewave blanks the section here (26 Feb) [[86]]. PF restores (next edit) and starts a discussion [[87]]. Horse Eye Jack immediately reverts the restore. I'm not sure how anyone can reasonably claim that talk page consensus was established for that restoration. Several days later Jweiss11 restores the content to the previous stable state (2 March) [[88]]. This looks like a reasonable NOCON restoration. The discussion certainly has not resulted in a new consensus. Dlthewave places several tags in the newly restored section the decides to redeletes the whole thing [[89]] a few hours later. As part of this they also left a questionable warning on Jweiss11's talk page [[90]].

I absolutely see how an editor would be frustrated with interactions like this. Dlthewave's preferred version of the article may be correct but that doesn't mean they can ignore BRD and NOCON to in the face of opposition. Dlthewave may legitimately feel that PF's comments are problematic and may not mean this report to be a way to strategically remove someone who is opposing their desired changes. Regardless the optics are there and the effect would be the same. Dlthewave's second removal of long standing material in absence of consensus makes all editor interactions here worse, not better.

What's the solution? I'm not sure but it isn't to punish PF for their bad behavior and ignore the bad behavior of others. I'm not sure that PF's comments should warrant anything more than a warning to avoid personalizing, don't ascribe motives to others etc. Basically focus on content. They should not face a topic ban. Dlthewave, and others, needs to remember that CONSENSUS is policy. If they can't get consensus to make a change then they need to accept it and move on. Based on what I'm seeing as an outsider to this article, I think a consensus required structure for changes is needed here. I wouldn't want to see topic bans start first since I think both sides have legitimate complaints in the form of content policies (DUE, RS etc), how editors are making changes (following or ignoring BRD, NOCON) and to a lesser extent CIVIL/editor interaction issues that seem to have resulted from people ignoring BRD, NOCON etc. Springee (talk) 14:34, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by DoubleCross[edit]

I'm not involved with this article/topic, but I agree with Jweiss11, Mr rnddude etc. that this AE was filed in an attempt to take out the opposition.

Also Liz, I believe Peregrine Fisher is saying that it's the "other side" that believes the article is "evil" (due to the controversial material in question). - DoubleCross (talk) 19:07, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Result concerning Peregrine Fisher[edit]

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

• It is increasingly hard to muster up the energy to wade into this mess when I don't know if the article in question will be gone tomorrow. I will say that no one involved here looks great, right now. --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 18:53, 27 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Is there any appetite to topic ban Peregrine Fisher? I was on the fence, but this is a fairly obvious pointer that PF needs a vacation from the topic area. There is an argument for a topic ban for Dlthewave as well, but I have seen less evidence in this thread --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 16:36, 28 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Interesting idea Ferahgo the Assassin. I would be amenable to something like that. --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 21:33, 28 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • @Mr rnddude: It looks like classic battlefield conduct to me --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 15:02, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • I wonder if a version of MEDRS for this area (and potentially other fringe areas) would be better suited for a RFC. --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 15:00, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Yes, I have an appetite, I'd definitely topic ban Peregrine Fisher. Bishonen | tålk 11:36, 29 February 2020 (UTC).Reply[reply]
• The AfD 4th nomination has been re-closed as keep. I have not yet full examined this AE discussion in full so no comment on the two editors under discussion at this moment. However, in really thinking through the discussion I had been preparing to implement Only high quality sources may be used, specifically peer-reviewed scholarly journals, academically focused books by reputable publishers, and/or articles published by reputable institutions. English-language sources are preferred over non-English ones when available and of equal quality and relevance. as an individual arbitration enforcement action. I think such a restriction could be useful and could work in conjunction with a 24 Hour BRD cycle restriction. Barkeep49 (talk) 22:07, 29 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have now read more into this request. In thinking about the 24 Hour BRD cycle more, I am opposed to such a sanction in this case. The AfD discussion made clear, both from those who supported keeping the articles and loudly from those who wished to see it deleted, that the content is troubling and needed changing. We should not be putting up barriers that make it harder to disrupt a status quo that has been identified as troubling by the community. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:56, 1 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Having now had a chance to really dig in to the conduct issues presented in this case, I am in favor of a topic ban for Peregrine Fisher. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:00, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Having watched this article for years I have to agree with Barkeep, a 24 hour BRD sanction wouldn't work. The idea about high quality sources sounds good but I can see problems with that. Is Mankind Quarterly the sort of source we want used? Our article describes it as "a peer-reviewed academic journal that has been described as a "cornerstone of the scientific racism establishment", a "white supremacist journal", an "infamous racist journal", and "scientific racism's keepers of the flame". I've left out the sources, if people want to see them they are there in the lead. I'd argue that peer-reviewed isn't always enough, and I don't want to get started on predatory journals. However, if this doesn't seem a problem or can somehow be avoided. I'd agree to it. Otherwise I'm with Guerillero. Doug Weller talk 13:49, 1 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Mm, the diff provided by Guerillero above is problematic; PF seems to be unaware that POVFORK is a completely valid reason for deletion, but then appears to assume that deletion of an article via policy violates NOTCENSORED, which is clearly nonsense. Since I assume that PF is clearly not dim enough to believe that, that comment is being made deliberately and to make a point. I'm with Guerillero and co. here. Black Kite (talk) 15:15, 1 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Just a side question in this intricate, involved discussion about reliable sources: Peregrine Fisher, you say in your statement, "But a lot of editors feel in their gut that this article is evil." Do you feel that the Wikipedia article on this subject is evil? I don't even know how to adjudicate a dispute with an editor who thinks of any content in an encyclopedic articles as something "evil" or would put it in those terms. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:55, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]