Knowledge:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment/Archive 16

7870:

goes away after he learns again that such disruption will be reverted by more numerous, neutral editors. That said, it is a fact that such storms are stressful and may result in a good editor taking a long wikibreak or even permanently leaving, fed up with flaming and harassment. It is very, very difficult to get a user on the Digwuren's warning list and later, blocked - even if one produces a big list of very clear diffs you get the usual "random admin decision", usually erring on the case of 'let's give him another chance' or 'he was warned few month ago and inactive recently, so let's just warn him again'. And certainly, other admins may be to timid or afraid to apply the remedy to experienced editors who have proven their skills with wikilawyering. Thus I do think that the Digwuren sanction ended up being relatively pointless. Just as before, what we need are a few blocks (or topical ban - see who creates little to no content but flames and revert wars) - and the problem would cease to exist. Perhaps some conclusions from

6016:

subjects. A broader subject category, like all pseudoscience/alternative science, becomes muddled with lots of other issues (see my statement). The discretionary sanctions for the narrow topics say any percieved " to adhere to the purpose of Knowledge", by any admin who feels strongly about it. There's lots of admins who feel strongly about their interpretation of NPOV, whether they're involved or not, and especially if they're involved in the broader discussions though not technically involved in the given page at the given time. The discretionary sanctions don't discriminate between bad editor practices like incivility, edit warring, etc. and good faith content disputes. Good faith content disputes can easily be seen as a "conduct problem", as that happens all the time. Maybe I am making a mountain out of a molehill, but hopefully you can see where the concern comes from. On a side-note, if we already have tools available for getting problem editors off these articles, why aren't they already banned? --

5237:- In many cases it is not our intention to permanently deprive a user of their tools, else we would say so. It's not enough to just say "they may reapply via RFA" and wash our hands of it; some users may never realistically have a fair chance in open debate after an Arbcom desysopping. We wish to ensure that if they do their part and change, they will have a fair chance to get the bit back. For example a user who is active in dispute resolution and blocking, may have made many enemies who will be only too glad to "stick the knife in" on their one mistake. When we say "temporary desysop", we want to make sure they do in fact have the reasonable chance we have promised, that if their conduct is good they may stand a chance to regain their bit, even if this takes time and involves going slowly. "By application" is one way to ensure a user can instead in the course of time, have a discussion and re-hearing by the same Committee that originally endorsed the desysopping. 8092:

plagued by "a few persistent trolls and borderline disruptive users". Those are not a problem that requires ArbCom's involvement. It is plagued by a few long-standing and dedicated editors whose sole aim is to glorify their country and to skew the perspective with their tendentious editing. For a start I'd be for putting Piotrus under editing restrictions, for it would go a longer way toward lightening up the atmosphere than any of the proposed motions. Since I had not been editing English Knowledge between November and June (apart from inserting interwiki links to my articles in Russian Knowledge), nobody can call me the mastermind of all the problems, as Piotrus had insinuated in the previous cases. If nothing has changed for the better, what was the purpose of ArbCom's ousting me out of English Knowledge during the Digwuren case? That screw-up highlighted ArbCom's incompetence and inefficiency, and the proposed motion will have a similar effect. --

6224:

wrong, and determining what actually is wrong to begin with. That's what RfCs are all about. If the goal is to relieve the burden on the ArbCom, that can be done without dropping the discussions altogether. A very simple way to do that is to say "If after a RfC about applying sanctions on the user, allowing for community input and consensus-building, an uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict." Anything less is setting the bar for deleting a user from a topic lower than deleting a topic itself. The RfC also has the benefit of providing the banning/blocking admin with a summary of the issues surrounding the user so they could make an informed decision. The admin could, of course, in their discretion, interpret the RfC anyway they wish and impose their discretionary sanctions, but at least there'd be a discussion on the matter. --

2503:), This is a major escalation from a civility remedy with blocks no longer than a month, to discretionary sanctions allowing blocks of up to one year for any reason with a very narrow definition of involved admin. This proposal was brought on the back of a single Polish/German topic dispute (which is not even within the scope of the original locus of dispute), so why should it be applicable to the Baltic States or Russia, but not Ireland? Where is the reward for those areas that have improved since 2007, if anything we should be seeing a narrowing of the scope of the current remedy to reflect these improvements, not introducing heavier sanctions. There is also an additional concern expressed by some quarters that certain admins may abuse this provision to settle some old scores, which in my view is valid given the bad blood generated in past conflicts in EE. 2310:

reliable sources ("source X opined that they are axe scars"). We have neither. A google search shows nothing except blogs. There is apparently not one reliable source in Google News. The actual article statement is backed up by a source of no merit whatsoever (a video purporting to be an Israeli TV recording), but no evidence backing this exists in any reliable source I can find. We have no real evidence it was "channel 10" or any Israeli TV channel (much less a reputable one), what its provenance and reliability are. There is a channel ident on the video, but that doesnt matter - I (or any video editing hack) could fake that. A website saying "I am official" doesnt make it official. A video saying "I am channel 10" doesnt make it channel 10. We need a reliable source - ie, provenance - not just a source that claims to be reliable.

5719:. LP protests that the Black and Tans article did not directly relate to the conflict in Northern Ireland. While the Black and Tans were clearly operational only prior to the creation of Northern Ireland, I interpreted that articles "related in any way to the conflict in Northern Ireland" would include about the recent history of conflict that resulted in the creation of the constituent country. If the edits had been non controversial then I would probably had overlooked it, but they content was clearly a continuation of the "habitual point of view editing" that was found during the ArbCom. If the remedy is to be upheld, I would ask that ArbCom clarify whether they meant that remedy to be interpreted narrowly, or to include articles that relate to the conflict in Northern Ireland more generally. 2202:

talk page and article in her judgement of the handling. Bans and the like are preventative, and ChrisO sounds like he may have done mostly the right thing this case, but with poor and misleading communication, even though in prior instances he was breaching good practice and needed warning. I urge both to re-affirm that they are working together, and to collaborate better, which would make the sanction perhaps less necessary to uphold. But the bottom line is, I feel it's best to leave the final decision in Elonka's hands to decide (she's admining on this dispute area, and is doing it well). My own feeling is that if appropriate and if she feels ChrisO may have now learned from this about the importance of good communication in sensitive, already-restricted areas, she might feel like giving

1617:

this case Elonka) are the gatekeepers for the article. To avoid this, I suggest a system of rotation, whereby the uninvolved admins move on to different areas and different articles every few months. This will ensure things do not go stale, that grudges do not fester and build up, and that the admins involved get a fresh look on different articles rather than deal with the same things over and over again (ie. avoid burn out). This would also address the perennial question of whether admins are truly uninvolved and committed. If the admins in question are uninvolved, then they will not mind moving on a different article every few months. Possibly all this has been suggested elsewhere. If not, please do pass it on to whatever board is considering these things this month. :-)

6121:

throw up a report just to see what sticks; only truly legit reports would get filed if this were to occur. For example, maybe you wouldn't mind being called "braindead", but it would offend a lot of people. Also, you (you as in everyone, both sides) may consider your efforts on wiki non-POV, but others may not. If everyone involved here would take a step back, take a deep breath, and admit that the world of wiki is plenty big for everyone, things would be a lot calmer. These types of disputes start and go on and on when no one allows room for the other side. I see this not only in the pseudoscience area, but Mid-East, East Europe, Sri Lanka, etc disputes. On top of all this, there's about disagreement about the civility here. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

3807:. I am at a loss for how to solve these problems. Could the Committee please review this situation and provide guidance. Perhaps an additional remedy is needed to expedite clean up of the messes. Ideally, we need the ability to blank, revert, or delete articles to a state that is untainted by misrepresented sources. It is neither efficient nor scalable to have to go through all the same arguments as we faced at arbitration for each instance of the problem. By now, there should be a presumption that PHG's information on East-West cultural connections from the time period prior to arbitration is not reliable. Additionally, I think PHG needs to stand aside and not obstruct clean up efforts in any way. 6161:

and axes to grind. I'm sure many of them would love to ban their opponents on content disputes for up to a year. What sort of assurances can one like myself who edits paranormal-related articles as a hobby, not advocacy, be given that the new powers won't be abused? I don't edit war, am civil, but I've irritated admins in the past simply by disagreeing with them in content disputes, particularly that Knowledge can also cover folklore neutrally without having a solely science point-of-view. Some admins adamantly reject that eventhough most agree that such a prospect is entirely neutral. AGF went out the window about two years ago on these topics, so frankly I'm a little concerned.

4700:

via the usual means or he would not have accepted the RfA nomination. It is rather frustrating for the body making decisions to also announce that these decisions are not ambiguous after they have seen the community struggle to agree on the correct interpretation. I do not think my request here is complicated or unreasonable, I simply want answers to two questions: (1) is Shoemaker's Holiday able to request adminship via the normal means and (2) what guidance can ArbCom offer bureaucrats in interpreting their decisions where they choose not to specifically mention whether or not the usual means are available? So far I distill the following from your answer:

4172:

the last clarification a few months ago, PHG has been doing a very good job at abiding by his sanctions. He is still creating articles at a rapid rate, but he is staying out of the medieval topic area, has not been engaging in excessive debate at talkpages, and appears (last I checked) to be sticking to reliable English-language sources. I do agree with Shell Kinney that since PHG's old mentor appears to be inactive, that it would be wise to choose a new mentor (I recommend Shell, if PHG would accept). As for cleanup, I recommend that anything new that is found, that requires cleanup from PHG's past efforts, be added to the list at

5194:

community to allow it to be hidden if he sought RFA); there was repeated mis-use which is not acceptable to allow to recur and regardless of good intentions, without clear conditions and help, he might accidentally do so again in the course of time, under stress; he might not get a fair chance at the tools back (both usual admin concerns, and also other users with concerns, in the areas he edits); he might be over-stressed by RFA and have problems with the process. It was for these reasons -- and it should be emphasized heavily, to protect and help mostly him -- that this remedy was stated to be "by application".

4947:. The user also posted what I hope was only a summary of that information on Knowledge at one time (and a commentator above notes that it has since been oversighted), and even that summary, which I recall is material and significant. Editors who don't have access to the private data, which I probably don't have in full, really don't know what they are talking about. So 1) passers by can't usefully comment and 2) there really is private data that should keep this out of the communitys hands unless (which I think would be a really really really bad idea) the affected editor chooses to release that data publicly. 7413:, of which "Knowledge is an encyclopedia" and "Knowledge has a neutral point of view" are the first two, and arguably the most important ones, compared to "Knowledge has a code of conduct" as fourth. Thus, as we try to write an encyclopedia, I think it is necessary that much more attention is given to the content that editors add or remove, rather than to civility or the lack thereof, or the skill with which some editors can provoke uncivil responses while getting judged civil themselves. For example, Molobo repeatedly denied that there was a by-election to the Polish parliament in 1920 5307:

and without any help or protection we might have arranged for them), or if it was to protect others, then we will have to explain our concerns on the wiki or in exceptional cases (I don't know if this has happened to date) perhaps summarily state conditions rather than amicably discuss them, or even request directly that the user in fact not be resysopped due to concerns of a privacy- or abuse-related nature, or due to concerns we are unable to state on-wiki which are private or to protect some other user(s). Whichever it is, ignoring the decision might lead to a mess.

6118:, trying to see what will stick. Many admins are wary to block because of fears another admin that is sympathetic to the blockee will unblock. The remedies in place are not working and something has to be done about it. There are also significant agreements among admins about what constitutes civility. This leads to users who have mastered the art of being borderline incivil and getting away with it for years. A firm policy about this sort of incivility being blockable, long term if necessary, need to be put in place. Copied from my comment at WP:AE archive 20..." 6249:. Editors active in this area should write their comments assuming that their own actions, and those of whom they agree with on content, will be reviewed and possibly sanctioned. I know of multiple editors in each faction who have effectively developed enemy lists of other editors they want banned, which is a bad sign for the ability of the editors in these areas to work together. We need to clear out those who can't or won't work with those who disagree with them so that a reasonable communal editing environment exists for current and future editors. 4968:, rather severe, and this causes occasional periods, up to a month long, where I am largely bedridden or nearly bedridden, with the corresponding difficulty in responding in a timely manner. The arbcom case was opened after Charles Matthews contacted me in one such period about a block, then again in a later, second period. Having forgotten about the first messages after I came out of the bad period, I felt I should make some effort to respond, even if I was still in a bad period. However, because I was severely ill, made a hash of it. 6198:). Talking about the folklore on those articles is sometimes called POV pushing by admins who say that the article should predominantly be about methane gases, etc. So, yes, there is a potential for abuse based solely on ideologies and old grudges. If the goal is to just to refresh the editor pool on these topics regardless of whether they're productive Wikipedians, that's fine, that goal will be served if no oversight is in place. But if the goal is to only target disruptive editors, there will need to be some sort of oversight. 7734:

and the heavy threat of desysoping other admins who may overturn a sanction. A very profitable outcome to any baiter compared with the current situation. Arguing for additional sanctions across all Eastern European articles because of a dispute about some German/Polish topic is akin to arguing for discretionary sanctions across all North American related articles because of disruption in some US related article like 9/11. I'm sure those editing Canadian or Mexican topics would not be happy about that prospect.

6566:

occasionally disrupted, but not nearly enough for the scope of this proposal to be anything more than a hindrance. The areas that this will apply to need to be better spelled out. There are probably thousands of articles that fall within the pseudoscience area, especially if broadly defined. And if BLP's are included in that, ie the ones of proponents of pseudoscience, there are an even greater number of articles. I would wager that it is pretty clear the the biggest problems lie in the

3797:) has ended. Coren appears to have been inactive since May 8, 2008. The mess of damaged articles remains. Attempts to fix this mess meet with resistance because editors are unaware of the problems. I have been asked to prove, yet again, that sources have been misrepresented. Please excuse me for not having 8 hours to drive to a research library, find an obscure book, and go through the article line by line to yet again demonstrate the same problem that was demonstrated at arbitration. 39: 8223:

Knowledge, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process. The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project.

7972:

6895:

6729:

1574:), and everyone else is back to work. I acted in the best interest of the project, and got rapid control of a situation that was in near chaos, with only very minor course corrections on my part. I wish that ChrisO could recognize that my system works. That he is continuing to escalate and is now trying to spin this as a BLP issue, is disappointing. There were many ways that he could have edited the article to remove anything that he found problematic, by 4176:. We are still working our way through the dozens of other PHG-edited articles with NPOV problems, so it couldn't hurt to add a few more, perhaps in a section like, "Additional articles for review", to make it clear that these may be in slightly different topic areas. At least that will provide a depository where identified articles can be clearly listed as still needing review, and will help identify the scope of the problem. -- 1767:

like "conspiracy theories" to describe other viewpoints; I believe this provokes other editors into inappropriate actions). This is not to say that the editing of his "opponents" has not also been problematic. But, as an experienced user, ChrisO should know better. Frankly, I'm impressed with how Elonka has handled the situation, and feel this approach should be used with other contentious articles. No ArbCom action needed here.

6311:

seen obviously biased admins who are supposedly "outside" the debates come in and give sanctions. For example, some of those banning people relative to the 9/11 or Homeopathy issues. In other words, I have no fear of neutrality, but I have fear of hidden bias. If even Nealparr is scared, I certainly am, because I've been deionized all over the place irrespective of my actual edits, beliefs, ideas or intent.

3996:

events related to the Siamese revolution over the 40 or so pages which he personnally authors. For some details, I also sometimes relied on the translations themselves. As far as I know, this is accepted by Knowledge, provided that the primary accounts have been published by a reliable secondary source, and that the primary sources are used for purposed of factual documentation, which is the case here (see

6485:

on religious beliefs to paranormal articles. For instance, I suspect that not even members of the WikiProject Rational Skepticism would attempt to make Knowledge say that the Catholic Church is not real. Can you apply a similar standard to the EVP article without characterizing as real or not real? Can you just say what it is reported to be? Doing so would certainly stop a lot of the content disputes.

8266:), or the Committee. Administrators are cautioned not to reverse such sanctions without familiarizing themselves with the full facts of the matter and engaging in extensive discussion and consensus-building at the administrators' noticeboard or another suitable on-wiki venue. The Committee will consider appropriate remedies including suspension or revocation of adminship in the event of violations. 8015:), or the Committee. Administrators are cautioned not to reverse such sanctions without familiarizing themselves with the full facts of the matter and engaging in extensive discussion and consensus-building at the administrators' noticeboard or another suitable on-wiki venue. The Committee will consider appropriate remedies including suspension or revocation of adminship in the event of violations. 6938:), or the Committee. Administrators are cautioned not to reverse such sanctions without familiarizing themselves with the full facts of the matter and engaging in extensive discussion and consensus-building at the administrators' noticeboard or another suitable on-wiki venue. The Committee will consider appropriate remedies including suspension or revocation of adminship in the event of violations. 6772:), or the Committee. Administrators are cautioned not to reverse such sanctions without familiarizing themselves with the full facts of the matter and engaging in extensive discussion and consensus-building at the administrators' noticeboard or another suitable on-wiki venue. The Committee will consider appropriate remedies including suspension or revocation of adminship in the event of violations. 5228:

happen and might repeat, and, because a user is hitting a bad patch and needs time to regain calm and balance, ride out their instable period, and gradually ease themselves back into tool use following a "bad time" or a gross misjudgement under stress. (The latter may happen when an administrator misused their tools, and seems likely to repeat it again, next time they are faced with serious stress.)

8238:, and the desire to allow responsible contributors maximum freedom to edit, with the need to reduce edit-warring and misuse of Knowledge as a battleground, so as to create an acceptable collaborative editing environment even on our most contentious articles. Editors wishing to edit in these areas are advised to edit carefully, to adopt Knowledge's communal approaches (including appropriate conduct, 7987:, and the desire to allow responsible contributors maximum freedom to edit, with the need to reduce edit-warring and misuse of Knowledge as a battleground, so as to create an acceptable collaborative editing environment even on our most contentious articles. Editors wishing to edit in these areas are advised to edit carefully, to adopt Knowledge's communal approaches (including appropriate conduct, 6910:, and the desire to allow responsible contributors maximum freedom to edit, with the need to reduce edit-warring and misuse of Knowledge as a battleground, so as to create an acceptable collaborative editing environment even on our most contentious articles. Editors wishing to edit in these areas are advised to edit carefully, to adopt Knowledge's communal approaches (including appropriate conduct, 6744:, and the desire to allow responsible contributors maximum freedom to edit, with the need to reduce edit-warring and misuse of Knowledge as a battleground, so as to create an acceptable collaborative editing environment even on our most contentious articles. Editors wishing to edit in these areas are advised to edit carefully, to adopt Knowledge's communal approaches (including appropriate conduct, 2995: 1643:

leeway was given to him (presumably because of his status as an admin) than to other editors, who were subjected to similar sanctions for behavior that was, in my opinion, much less disruptive than ChrisO’s. He has clearly edit warred on the page, and reverted on multiple occasions, despite being notified of both the 0RR restrictions and the general ArbCom decision related to I-P articles.

1720:

removing such violations is a serious error in judgment. Mediating in this or any I-P related article is a thankless task that few if any have the time, patience, or willingness to undertake, and Elonka should be commended for taking a stab at a difficult task. But a bit more flexibility is called for here, and a hard "no reverts ever" is simply bad practice and completely unworkable.

5045:", by application to the Committee, or by some other means. In this case the method specified was "by application to the Committee, upon demonstration of six months editing in compliance with communal norms and conduct standards", and as such a request for adminship is not permitted within that decision. I would suggest that if people disagree with the decision they should appeal it. -- 2817:(eg from his talk page), and doesn't change the communication problems at all. It can't be assumed that a blocked user who has checked and found Emailuser was not working, would think to read a user page in detail as well. A working and validated emailuser address is a norm for RFA; likewise so is good responsive communication for active administrators. Examples where this is stated: 2165:

description of the reason that anyone can follow, and by willingness to discuss collaboratively after removal. Where it may not be clear to others, a good talk page description should usually be provided and ideally posted within moments of the edit and noted in the edit summary, so that the two will be seen together by other editors, and so it doesn't get mistaken for edit warring.

7767:

need to be revert-paroled, some incorrigible trolls topic-banned, and some baiters blocked", he should name them here, as I know of none in the Baltic states topic area that requires the imposition of addtitional discretionary sanctions. I'm not aware of issues in the areas either, e.g. like Ukraine, certainly nothing serious enough to warrant reporting to ANI or other boards.

1736:

exclusions that go far beyond just BLP: "If something is added that is unsourced, that is obviously troublesome (such as very biased or potentially untrue), it can be deleted on the spot." Chris’ initial arguments seem to be that his edit was within the limits of Elonka’s restrictions. I think this is just a simple disagreement over the nature of Chris' particular edit.

6363:

every forum possible, just as present. And i do not think the problem is that hopeless either, because I think the community is evolving standards. The problem is not individual topics--the problem is what degree of tolerance we should have for disruptive actions by good editors. Personally, I don't think they should get the essentially free ride they have at present.

6469:

would be comfortable with a venue in which I could present my viewpoint to a panel, editors with a contrary viewpoint could do the same and the panel would decide the article based on their "fair and informed" decision of what was presented. Give each presenter 500 words and ten diffs. I think I could find a way to live with that and I am certainly willing to try.

2352:

points coming out of it to go forward. ChrisO especially could have notified it better, and explained it more on the talk page. It wasn't well explained and was in a contentious area. An exceptional issue may need exceptional communication. Editing a contentious area with poor communication following on from prior breach of restriction is a risky proposition.

2970:

the meantime there can't be more blocks of this kind, there needs to be communication and sorting this out back to normality before blocking gets used further, some reassurance it's okay. As I think we all agree, clown' is a good and long standing user, so it's more perplexity than anything, and "no blocking in the meantime till discussed and all okay again".

5190:

handling. Whilst less could have gone wrong, it is not clear whether the end result would have been much different in terms of remedy provisions. The decision was probably right, but despite many people trying to be accomodating, the mishandling led to a lot of avoidable anger and upset that didn't help the user at all, and that aspect deserves an apology.

5537:, and I don't understand why. What is the point in restricting an editor who does not edit? By the time the decision was reached, I had not edited for two months. A further thirteen were to pass before I returned. Simple misunderstandings on the parts of the ArbCom members could have been cleared up, such as the seeming belief of one that " 1593:), who had been banned for 90 days. We instructed him to work on other articles for awhile, and he did, so we lifted his talkpage ban to allow him to resume discussions. But evidently ChrisO would rather stir things up here at ArbCom for a few weeks, rather than just waiting until the weekend to participate at talk, so here we are. -- 2179:). This goes double when 0RR is in operation and also when a prior history of warnings for editing conduct has taken place. ChrisO had previously been warned about editing conduct on the article. He then posted a revert of multiple edits to the introduction, with an edit summary "blatant POV-pushing". Some of the reverted material 6650:

also be useful for some of the religion and pseudoscience content as well, given the often disparate opinions there. Might it be possible to expand the remit of the existing cultural disputes group, and possibly its membership, to include these other matters as well, or alterntely create similar groups for these matters?

5624:

are calling for an investigation into their claims of a rise in the number of birth defects", "The evidence is anecdotal because there are no records from the era of Saddam Hussein to compare their stories against", "The indications remain anecdotal, in the absence of either a study, or any available official records") -

4639:. There seems to have been no view that MONGO is prevented from applying through RfA due to those remedies. It seems to me logical to presume that Committee intends the community to be able to restore access unless it expressly says otherwise but as other interpretations have been put forwards in discussion surrounding 7667:. If this ruling was already accepted, he or his allies would simply block me or anyone else for a year, and this is it. Giving so much power to Moreschi is fine. But giving so much power to nationalist administrators is not a good idea. That is why I insisted on a different definition of "uninvolved administrator". 7800:" raises some valid issues with Moreschi's views on ethnic diversity of viewpoints in Knowledge. We all want to build an encyclopedia without drama, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and applying discretionary sanctions aimed at particular national groupings is a step in the wrong direction. 2119:) is textbook edit-warring. Policy and practice grant much leeway to people to deal with BLP problems, but they have to have a sound basis for exercising such leeway, and they have to communicate that they think there's a BLP issue when they take action so that other editors understand what they're doing. 1708:, for example, where he has blocked an editor with whom he has an active content dispute) – I think that ChrisO got off extremely lightly (a 30 day ban from a single article), and that a more appropriate sanction would be a topic ban, from all I-P related articles, for a substantially longer time period. 1444:

essentially unknowable since at the time I knew of no original copy of the video. The source was unusable and the information in it uncorroborated. It would be appreciated if arbitrators could address whether this is a BLP and probable copyright violation and if so, whether removing it was reasonable. --

6593:

scientists do not publish papers saying that hokum is hokum. The result is a series of in-universe articles on fictional topics. Added to that, we have believers in these paranormal ideas whose primary function on Knowledge is to attempt to have them documented as reality, not a fringe belief system.

7958:

discretionary sanctions have passed (by virtue of having six support and one abstention, which reduces the majority to six), and the case is moving towards being closed. Per Kirill below, who said that the Committee was waiting to see which version of discretionary sanctions was prefered, I think the

7931:

I agree with Moreschi, the Digwuren sanction encourage editors to bite other parties into the civilty violations and does not help to solve the underlying problem that many editors consider Eastern European articles as battleground and soapbox instead and insert deliberately inflammatory edits to the

7826:

in his usual style in support of his compatriots, right or wrong. If only Kirill had at the very least widened the definition of involved admin and narrowed the scope to specific topic areas, like Russia, I could support this motion, but as it stands, I can not. The problem with this approach is that

7553:

and on responding to various RfCs and posts on noticeboards - perhaps half a dozen articles altogether. It would be more except for the (a) blatant wikilawyering and misrepresentation of sources that happens as a matter of course and (b) outright baiting and misapplication of civility. I'm not one of

6711:

6538:

This has too much potential for abuse the way it is worded. Some people consider anything they disagree with to be pseudoscience and would attempt to apply this far beyond its scope. (For example, most evangelical Christians believe in something other than atheistic evolution, therefore someone who

6043:

Regarding the concern about appeals, they should generally be appealable like any other admin action enforcing ArbCom sanctions: 1) Post to AN to ask other admins to review it. 2) Appeal to ArbCom. Excessive, repeated or otherwise disruptive series of appeals are not appeals at all; they are stumping

5336:

that Shoemaker's Holiday is ready for adminship at this time. A significant part of my lack of confidence is the user's failing to come to terms with the fact that his behavior with the admin tools, for which he was de-sysopped, was unacceptable and inexcusable. Instead, he has fixated on perceived

5081:

Re Durova, I can't speak to what the then members of the Committee were thinking nineteen months ago in the Seabhcan case. All I was saying is that in every single case since then involving a desysopping, the Committee has expressly identified the methods by which the relevant user could re-apply for

4979:

expect was for everyone to take this information, and then, by the way they discussed it (which, particularly as arbcom itself recommended its suppression, one would think you would know better than to bring it up in the first place), created a strong impression that I had some deep, dark secret that

4926:

Virtually the only other recent case that closed with a prohibition on RFA was the Alkivar case; the off-wiki evidence regarding Alkivar was entirely or almost entirely my own submission and I assembled it from public records. I have been never been under any pledge of confidentiality regarding that

4922:

At this juncture I wish to remind the Committee it has been my opinion for many months that the Matthew Hoffman case was the worst-handled arbitration I have ever seen, and rather than remedy any of its numerous errors the Committee appears intent upon compounding them. Hollow apologies mean little;

4851:

Bainer, what announcement did ArbCom ever make about that? And why didn't it either clarify the Seabhcan case or expressly forbid resysopping through RFA in the Matthew Hoffman case? The rest of us aren't privy to the Committee's private deliberations; we cannot intuit a secret change that abandons

4699:

the community seems to have been pretty split in interpreting whether an RfA is permissible. I would not, as a bureaucrat, have felt the remedy was clear enough that the RfA was a defacto nullity. It also obviously was not unambiguously clear to Shoemaker's Holiday that he could not request the tools

4605:

4) Vanished user's adminship will be waived at this time, and the case provisionally closed. Vanished user may regain his sysop access by application to the Committee, upon demonstration of six months editing in compliance with communal norms and conduct standards. If regained, he will then be placed

3995:

with Preface by Smithies, an English translation of the account by de la Touche with Preface by Smithies, an English translation of an account by Vollant des Verquains with Preface by Smithies, a Conclusion and Chronology by Michael Smithies. Altogether, Smithies gives a rather precise account of the

2857:

He has had a month to reply since this came up before and has not done so. Several users emailed him and left talk page messages for him, including me. There was pretty much unanimous agreement that if it happened again, he should be blocked and/or desysopped forthwith. Finding one - essentially a

2845:

Please take note that as this was being written and posted, I found an e-mail address on a mailing list, that he used to use. He has been e-mailed, so it might be wise to give him some time to reply, even though it would seem unlikely that he will due to the actions he has been taking despite notices

2201:

I hope Elonka and ChrisO will talk and sort matters out, having seen first-hand the consequences of this communication issue. It's easy to learn from and both are good editors capable of insight. I note the sanction Elonka chose is reasonable and not excessive, and that Elonka carefully distinguishes

2154:

Yes, 0RR is an appropriate choice available to an uninvolved administrator, within the sanctions provided. Elonka has correctly understood both the purpose of the discretion given, and the extent of the tools made available for that purpose, and has applied them following appropriate prior warnings,

2010:

Prior to the ban ChrisO violated 3RR but escaped a block for technical reasons (report filed too late). He intimidated other editors using his admin "rank". His contribution page (prior to the ban) almost all his 500 edits are in one article. (or this request for arbitration plus related talk page -

1819:

and establishing a consensus that the application of the sanction should be reversed. I don't think the Arbitration Committee's input is needed unless the community is unable to resolve the matter, or clarification of the remedy is needed. Neither appears to be the case here. The Committee will waste

1331:

In hindsight my edit summary was poorly written and did not make sufficiently clear that the removed material was a BLP and copyright violation. As WP:BLP mandates that "The three-revert rule does not apply to such removals" (by extension the same would apply to a 0RR regime), I did not consider this

7869:

For the most part I agree with Marting. I don't think that CE/EE area is much more inflamed then many others; we just have a few persistent trolls and borderline disruptive users. We have weeks of quiet punctuated by an occasional week when one of them "wakes up" and disrupts an article or two, then

7554:

those who believes that civility is pointless when dealing with POV-pushers, but what we have in these articles is that any statement of fact - "that source is obviously irrelevant" - is met with head-shaking reminders to be civil in the hope that some form ArbCom-mandated sanction will be required.

7358:

Judging by recent edit-war patterns, it's articles relating to the conflicts between Russia, Poland, Germany, Ukraine, Romania, and Moldova that are most in need of this. I suggest this as the "area of conflict" for now. AFAIK Baltic-Russian articles have gone quiet since the Digwuren case, but this

7334:

To Martintg: it's not bloody misanthropy. Chimpanzees are welcome to edit Knowledge provided they grok the principles of neutrality, objectivity, and verifiability. If people can't manage this, then they have no place here, no matter if they offer an ethnically diverse viewpoint from Alpha Centauri.

6484:

Guy, most of us "believers" just want to have the articles you are complaining about explain what the subject is said to be or thought to be without trying to say what you think it is or what you want the public to believe. I would be interested in how you would apply the treatment used for articles

6160:

Sure, if by "uninvolved administrator" you mean administrators not involved in "pseudoscience and alternative science topics, broadly construed" as a whole, or regularly, rather than a given page at a given time. After years of this madness, Knowledge has collected some ban-happy admins with grudges

6035:

Requesting or advocating that such discretionary empowerment be limited to consensus discussions is essentially the same as opposing this request. The community already has the power to impose bans and other sanctions via community discussion. I tend to think that over time, using such a method will

5623:

none of which make the link as a 100% fact, merely that there are calls for an investigation (eg, the sources state "Families in Fallujah are calling for an investigation into the rise of birth defects after the US used phosphorus over the Iraqi city in 2004", "Families in the Iraqi city of Fallujah

5189:

In the present case, the problem was, there was genuine and repeated misuse of the tools. The other problem was, the case was badly handled, disjointed, it is hard to see any kind of satisfactory-ness to it, and the resulting process was unfair to a stressed user who needed above all good and steady

5014:

Being ill is not a violation of Knowledge policy, and forcing me to reveal full details of my illness as a requirement for a request for adminship violated my privacy with no Knowledge policy justification. Indeed, you should never have talked about secret evidence, as noone would ever presume that

4774:

In one part, the one arbitrator oversighted a diff where I volunteered to give up my sysop for health reasons, but did not forward it on to the other arbitrators. As the stress-levels caused by the case made my health problems far worse - I moved from ill, but just about coping to having to drop out

2900:

CSCWEM has been asked numerous times to explain his use of admin tools, specifically related to a fair number of inappropriate blocks. He's continued to use the tools without communicating with anybody, including those IPs and accounts that he has blocked. CSCWEM should be desysopped, and preferably

2562:

Given the nature of the change being made in the case (ie just updating the wording of the general article sanctions), I can't really see that there is a problem here. The remedy has already been adopted and all that is happening now is a tweak to the way it works. Even if there was a clear conflict

2351:

To sum up, ChrisO has admitted that he was at fault for stepping over previous restrictions. But in removing this item, and persisting, he's on target and has got BLP right, and given it the priority it needs. I put the issue down to communication and forethought rather than anything else, with good

2301:

the kind of thing BLP policy was set up to deal with quickly and override other concerns on. Let's look at the case. A living person, the joint subject of an article, has a part of the article saying that medically and factually, an Israeli doctor has examined his scars and they are not bullet scars

2122:

Thirdly, I agree with Carcharoth's view. Speaking generally, in these types of situations, the appearance of non-involvement is often as important as actual non-involvement. Perhaps, in the light of the increased number of discretionary sanctions remedies the Committee has passed over the last year,

1467:

I've been watching these discussions from afar, as I'm way too busy with RL to contribute to Knowledge on a solid base. Elonka has been reasonable and helpful in moving the page forward, though it would be even more helpful if people stopped making sarcastic and pejorative comments on the talk page,

1359:

Knowledge's BLP and copyright rules cannot be overridden by an individual admin's restrictions, and an admin-imposed 0RR cannot supersede the long-standing rule that the removal of BLP violations is not counted towards reversions. Elonka's action has the unfortunate effect of penalising a good-faith

8226:

Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning with a link to this decision by an uninvolved administrator; and, where appropriate, should be counseled on specific steps that he or she can take to improve his or her editing in accordance with relevant policies

7975:

7247:

currently shows nicely, the Eastern Europe flamewars cannot be dealt with by the current provisions of the Digwuren case. At any rate, I cannot cope, and I don't think anyone else can either. Isolating civility in the way the case does has simply encouraged users to bait other users in an effort to

6898:

6732:

6649:

Given the occasionally contentious nature of the discussions regarding this subject, perhaps it might be possible for the ArbCom to help in the selection of a group of editors who would be able to function in much the same way as the recently created cultural disputes group is supposed to. It might

6464:

Lets face it, an arbitration takes way too long, and as I can see, they have hardly any effect except to more clearly define the sides. If an admin blocks an appeal to authority, then the person making the appeal is discredited and the abusive editor becomes more bullet proof. In fact, Knowledge is

6403:

I'd also like to echo GRBerry's comments above. There are multiple editors who have developed "watch lists" of other editors and administrators that they either want banned, or removed from various positions at Knowledge. I will not go into specifics here regarding that, but it's a statement that's

6310:

little confidence in the ability of admins 1) to be neutral if they are involved and 2) to get it if they are not. Indeed, I have seen editors like Zvika who did my interview struggle with the issues in these cases, and find it nearly impossible (many many hours of work to get up to date). I have

6223:

discussion than what it takes to delete an article. This is essentially a "speedy delete" applied to a user, in spirit. It's always harder to correct a mistake than it is to prevent a mistake. Community discussion is essential when dealing with users who may not be aware that what they are doing is

6120:

Closing comment...enough already. This has descended into a finger-pointing complaint session by both sides. Before writing anything about someone else, ask "Would I want to be called that?". If not, don't write it. If it's borderline don't write it-this would stop all the attempts here where users

5984:

I believe relying on more than common sense for the definition of "uninvolved" will only lead to wikilawyering. All of the proposed definitions I've seen essentially leave massive loopholes that anyone looking to game the system or skirt the rules could use. If there is a disagreement about whether

5664:

That's from a quick look at his contribs, and there's many, many more controversial edits especially in the Israel/Palestine area and articles relating to the war in Iraq. What ArbCom (or any admins reading this) should really consider is whether Lapsed Pacifist should be banned from Knowledge as a

5306:

Either way a desysopped user whose remedy says "by application to the Committee" is given that remedy for good reasons, and ignoring it will usually have one of two results: - if it was to protect them, they will lose whatever protection they might have had (they are essentially on their own at RFA

4171:

I'm not entirely understanding why this is at ArbCom again. The article that Jehochman is talking about, has not been edited by PHG in several months. So what exactly is it that Jehochman wants the arbitrators to do? Ban PHG for something he's not doing anymore? As near as I can tell, ever since

3176:

perform any administrative action prior to the Committee confirming the matter has been satisfactorily closed, then his administrative privileges will be suspended, pending resolution of the concerns that have been raised. In such an event, he may apply for them back by application to the Committee

2969:

That's my impression too. I really don't understand, either, hence why the note - and the motions below discussed on the list - assume there will be a good reason, and why they aim to protect users from problematic blocking, and hope for some good explanation and a return to normal activity. But in

2343:

NPOV issues do not by themselves reach the standard needed for summary deletion/reversion per BLP, when 0RR is in operation. The exception is when the overall effect is BLP breaching. Here it may well have been, since the introduction had been generally negatively shaded in tone against the subject

2146:

There are several matters in this clarification: compatibility of 0RR with the case sanction (was Elonka within her rights?) and balancing of that sanction with BLP (if imposed, would 0RR preclude BLP reversion?). A question also exists, per ChrisO's statement, whether the specific item in question

2111:) or to the Committee. While the remedy didn't spell it out explicitly, the usual understanding is that one would start with the individual administrator, and then proceed "up" the chain of review from there, with review by the Committee being the last step, if others have not produced a resolution. 1896:

With the recent court decision, the release of the raw footage, and the latest articles, the equation has changed such that to continue to insist that that the opposing viewpoint is "fringe" or "conspiracy theory" becomes not only insulting, but rather a barrier to productive editing. Thus I tried

1494:

that I placed on this article. So I wouldn't mind hearing from ArbCom as to whether or not I have been working in accordance with the Discretionary Sanctions that they envisioned in January. To describe the situation in a nutshell: ChrisO, an admin who was participating as an involved editor, was

1384:

us to reliably source statements about living people ("Be very firm about the use of high quality references"). It wasn't possible to remove the unusable source while leaving in place an unsupported, potentially libelous claim - that would have been a BLP violation in my part. The only recourse was

8141:

For the purpose of imposing sanctions under the provisions of this case, an administrator will be considered "uninvolved" if he or she has not previously participated in any content disputes on articles in the area of conflict. Enforcing the provisions of this decision will not be considered to be

7766:

in the first half of 2008. This is a testament to the improvement that has been made since 2007, and thus no comparison to other problematic areas such as Arab-Israeli, for example, which has had already 2 Arbcom cases in 2008 so far. If Moreschi believes there are a "whole pile of revert-warriors

7733:

Alex Bakharev contends the current sanction encourages editors to "bait" other parties into civility violations. If this is the case, then discretionary sanctions will be an even bigger encouragement to bait editors into violation, since it only requires the discretion of a single uninvolved admin

7717:

Experience has shown that in the case of EE, disruption is usually caused by one or two individuals, and if they are banned/blocked harmony quickly returns. This is clearly a case concerning the behaviour of an individual and has no relevance to any other topic areas like Ukraine, Poland/Russia or

7662:

So far, the discretionary sanctions in the Digwurien ruling only drive away several good editors like Turgidson, but they did not really resolve anything (as Moreschi said). However, this amended ruling will only make things worse unless you can deal with nationalist administrators who edit in the

7276:

for a list of EE-related ArbCom cases. The problem goes back years, and is easily comparable to other problematic areas such as Arab-Israeli, Balkans, or India-Pakistan. At the moment a whole pile of revert-warriors need to be revert-paroled, some incorrigible trolls topic-banned, and some baiters

6677:

and related articles, and I have to admit I was somewhat underwhelmed. I have also encountered a fair number of administrators who are FRINGE proponents or antiscience themselves, so just giving all administrators more power is not a very well-reasoned response. I would like to see a more measured

6627:

My own personal sentiment is that the current options for enforcement have not yet been applied in a stringent way, and should not be broadened until they have been fully tested. That said, I share Vassayana's frustration, and would hope that this will serve to push administrators to use the tools

6460:

Any effort that would make it possible for administrators to more effectively arbitrate content disputes would help. I have been treated as poorly by some admins as I have by some rank and file editors, so I am not in favor of giving any individual admin more authority. Perhaps a cadre of three or

6015:

If I may comment directly (if not you can move this to my section). I'm more concerned about abuse-through-misunderstanding rather than abuse-abuse. It's not always clear what's neutral, and the discretionary sanctions designed for Homeopathy and the Palestine-Israeli issue are designed for narrow

5999:

In reply to Neal's oppose, I simply cannot understand that point of view, though I have tried. We permit administrators to impose full site blocks without an expiration date at their discretion. I fail to see how giving administrators lessor options (such as a topic ban instead of a full block) in

5980:

Regarding the concerns about potential admin abuse, I would expect that if ArbCom accepted this request that they would be open to reviewing complaints about related admin abuse. I believe this would increase the oversight and reduce the potential abuse of sysop discretion. Sysops would have to be

5007:

I hereby ask for this case to be reopened, every finding of fact rewritten in order to honestly state what you made me look far worse by attempting to conceal - acting as if I was part of a sneaky campaign to gain power, instead of simply an admin with poor guidance as to what conflict of interest

4863:

To the arbitrators who have commented below, you fail to explain the reasons why Shoemaker's Holiday merits prohibition from RFA (which you never made explicit until now). The only reason I have ever seen put forward privately or publicly for this extraordinary prohibition regards his own health,

3832:

The pattern in this article is very obvious, given my close attention to the prior case. Regrettably, uninvolved editors like yourself generally don't see the problems on quick inspection. This is the great danger of subtle misrepresentation and insertion of original research. As you point out,

2925:

It is regrettable to see this action being undertaken. I have been on Knowledge almost 3 years and CSCWEM has always been a conscientious, trieless worker out to help the site. A question to the Arbitrators though; is this the first time CSCWEM has been bought before the ARBCOM, or have their been

2338:

Other edits reverted were POV. Whether or not serious doubt exists (it may well), these edits placed this doubt in Knowledge's voice, and implied a negative slant to the bio throughout much of its introduction. Likely ChrisO's version is better in that it cites facts and statements, more neutrally

1964:

Concerning the issue of what ChrisO refers to as "ongoing litigation" in his statement. There is currently no ongoing litigation. Until and unless France 2 takes this to the Supreme Court, the issue has been decided. On the point of BLP, the latest court decision says of the main figure in this

1766:

I fully endorse Elonka's actions - as someone who tried to make a foray into this article as an uninvolved party, I can testify that a firm hand is needed in handling this article. ChrisO's behavior has been problematic at times, as Elonka states (particularly his continual use of derogatory terms

1743:

I am sympathetic to Chris’ feelings. I think that his general concern was having the article within policy. But I think that an admin in Elonka’s position would have had to have given Chris the benefit of the doubt to think that his edit was not a reversion. And at that point nobody on the talk

1658:

on the same article (prior to the recent restrictions and Elonka’s involvement). He did not claim he was reverting BLP issues in any of his 5 reverts, 3 of which consisted of removing "Category:Violence in media", which is clearly pure edit warring over a content issue that has nothing to do with

1642:

Elonka has done a commendable job of stepping into a controversial article and, through the imposition of strict editing conditions, eliminated edit warring while allowing for continuous improvement of the article. As she notes, ChrisO was given plenty of warning about his behavior, and much more

1616:

Just a brief comment here. Elonka's system is interesting, and is in fact similar to what I have advocated elsewhere. I'm glad to see that some of these (rather obvious) ideas are at least being put into practice. I am concerned though that sometimes it can end up looking like some individuals (in

1443:

This makes the father out to be a liar, it states a purely anecdotal claim made by an interviewee in the report as fact, no other reliable source that I know of has made that claim, it's sourced to a Youtube-style video hosting site (ergo, a probable copyvio), and the reliability of the source was

6468:

I have only edited on a few paranormal articles so I may be unaware of some of the grievances. Nevertheless, from my viewpoint, it is unrealistic to imagine that it is possible to arbitrate content disputes without deciding on content--not taking sides, but saying what the article will include. I

5286:

Essentially it's a safeguard - sometimes it protects the user from misjudgement of the community, sometimes it protects the community (or specific users/disputes) from the reintroduction of a disruptive problem, sometimes it just gives us the chance to ensure private matters are wrapped up and

5197:

That said his feelings are understandable. If he emailed us that he wished to take his chance with the community, and is able to disclose to the community without minimizing, the relevant information that others would need to make a fully informed communal decision (or will accept conditions that

5193:

The condition of "by application to the Committee" in this case was for multiple reasons: the user had disclosed personal matters which directly pertains to appropriate use of the tools (it would not have been fair to him to force disclosure as a prerequisite to regain the tools, nor fair to the

4971:

As I had such health issues, I offered to Arbcom to resign my adminship, if they felt that these occasional difficulties meant that I would be unable to fulfil admin actions in a timely manner. Flonight felt that it was a bad idea to admit my illness under my own name, and oversighted it. At the

3844:

I thought about stubbing the article, but as you can see from the AfD discussion, blanking and starting from scratch has significant opposition. I do not think changing the forum of discussion from AfD to the article talk page would have helped in any way. At least AfD helps bring in some fresh

3037:

I did attempt to contact CSCWEM by the email address given on the userpage. I got no response, including no failure message regarding delivery. I realise that this does not mean it didn't get caught in a spam filter or was otherwise not read, but it seems that it was another line of communication

2788:

also continued to be uncontactable, and has failed to respond to the concerns expressed about the merits of some of the blocks as well as the prior and present concerns about communications, when raised on his talkpage and elsewhere. Five of these blocks took place after the June 12 notice, which

1935:

I didn't challenge my ban until discovering ChrisO had received a much lighter restriction despite numerous warnings. Indeed, one might suppose he could have been expected, as an administrator and experienced editor, to have required fewer warnings, to have been held to a higher standard than I.

8274:

For the purpose of imposing sanctions under this provision, an administrator will be considered "uninvolved" if he or she is not engaged in a current, direct, personal conflict on the topic with the user receiving sanctions. Enforcing the provisions of this decision will not be considered to be

8222:

Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict (defined as articles which relate to Eastern Europe, broadly interpreted) if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of

8091:

Daniel's motion is far too wide in scope. I'm afraid it will have the effect of shifting the power from ArbCom to the legions of IRC-recruited admins, with bans randomly flying like rifle shots in passing. This is based on a flawed idea of justice. I don't agree with Piotrus that the EE field is

8023:

7971:

7705:

So what has happened since February? A scan through the WP:AE archives reveals only a small number of cases reported to the AE board have anything actually to do with Eastern Europe. Out of 126 cases since February, only 4 are EE related, particularly Poland, and of those 4, 3 are concerned with

7639:

Still, this might be a good idea if the area is clearly defined (e.g. Russia-Ukrainian conflict). But the definition of "uninvolved administrator" is terrible. There are many highly opinionated administrators who edit in the area. They will simply block all others. An "uninvolved administrator"

6946:

6780:

6592:

There is a long-standing issue with pseudoscience, fringe and paranormal articles. The sources which discuss these subjects are typically either wholly uncritical, or dedicated sceptics. The fact that the mainstream science community does not accept paranormal claims is hard to source, because

6565:

I'm going to have to agree with B on this one. There are some areas which qualify as pseudoscience but which do not need this sort of protection. The ID related articles are stable for the most part, because there are a great number of fine editors who are very active on those pages. They are

6399:

I believe that, if implemented properly, could be an effective tool in finally ending the heated disagreements between the "anti-science" and "pro-science" camps. I do not believe it will lead to an end of hidden bias or blatant bias -- nor should it -- but that the implementation of a topic ban

6369:

If we do something of this sort, I would not leave it to individual admins. or editors. What I think we'd need is the equivalent of a topic ban noticeboard, and some degree of practical consensus would be required. I remember the fate of the community ban noticeboard and I'm a little skeptical.

6362:

I think the "endorsements" above show why it might not actually work--the disagreement between different arbitrators over the standards for these articles is fairly complete. Everyone things that they are neutral. I can predict what will happen, which is continual appeals from it, carried on in

2519:

In reply to FayssalF, Petri Krohn is actually Finnish, not Russian. The Digwuren conflict at its core was primarily between an Estonian and a Finn, were the Finn recruited some Russian editors to his cause. (Krohn is even now continuing his battle off-wiki in the Estonian press with his opinion

2367:

were impeccable - Elonka managing the dispute, ChrisO spotting the genuine serious BLP issue and persisting with removing it. The communication and understanding failed. Above average care, and above average communication, are needed on more sensitive contended areas... a person who doesnt, will

2247:

almost, and to deal with a range of behaviors that need strong action. If an uninvolved administrator feels 0RR/1RR may resolve problems (for example by compelling discussion of all points that become visibly disputed) then that may well be exactly whats needed. If not, we'll find out. Default =

2170:

The revert by ChrisO does include material that was a clear violation of BLP (negative and unsourced/poorly sourced content). It also included reverting a number of edits that by themselves were not BLP violating, but taken together had a very one-sided negative effect that possibly did meet BLP

2164:

The caveat is, a user who claims "BLP-vio!" to do this, takes the chance they could be deemed edit warring unless the case is obvious. "Exceptional claims" (which include the claim "we have to ignore sanctions and restrictions, delete this now, and discuss later") should be accompanied by a good

1320:

requires that "if you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work". Elonka's own restrictions state that "If something is added that is unsourced, that is obviously troublesome (such as very biased or potentially

8068:

to provide set of tools that could be applied generically, without having to trigger a full-scale arbitration to achieve that end? I don't think it would be appropriate to allow an individual arbitrator to impose such a regime by him- or herself, but perhaps it could be triggered if there was a

6894:

Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict (defined as articles which relate to pseudoscience, broadly interpreted) if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of

6728:

Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict (defined as articles which relate to Pseudoscience, broadly interpreted) if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of

6600:

documents the verifiable facts which are undisputed, being the identity and martyrdom, documented in local Roman records; discusses the mythology of the Holy Well; and discusses the cult of Alban. I think we can document the paranormal belief system in the same way, but we have too many people

5341:

I would support that, too. It would not be fair on the user community to ask them to decide whether to support his regaining admin status without the benefit of such full knowledge. By submitting private evidence to the Committee, a user must understand that keeping such confidences binds the

5294:

which cases it is fine (but at their own risk), and which cases we actually know of real concerns we want to check out quietly first, or private factors we want to consider off the wiki. The way to look at it is, we are hoping to work with such users to try and get the best result all round. We

5227:

In all but the most serious cases, there is often a hope the user will return to adminship. Even desysopping is protective. Temporary desysopping is often used two ways: as a means to give a final warning rather than going directly to permanent desysopping, for a user who may not believe it can

4888:

When you previously forbade normal RFA, you made that explicit. You're changing the rules as you go. If I'm mistaken, show me one announcement--anywhere onsite--stating when this supposed innovation in the decision formula came into existence. The Alkivar case closed only three months before

2589:

If the case was limited to Digwuren I'd have had recused myself of course. The scale of this case goes far beyond that and involve a dozen of editors and many (hundreds?) of articles. Please bear in mind that I am neither a Russian, Estonian or a Polish editor. Also note that I had blocked both

1814:

This seems to be about the imposition of a fairly routine discretionary sanction as provided for by the remedies in the case in question. If someone thinks an administrator erred in imposing such a sanction, their first avenue of redress is surely to seek input from other administrators, say by

1578:

the text rather than just reverting. It is also disappointing that he's going to the trouble of filing what will probably be a lengthy appeal, which will probably take weeks to resolve. I had pointed out to him that an easier route would be to simply avoid the talkpage for the rest of the week

6437:

I understand the intention, and fear the result. I think that in order to maintain standing as an encyclopedia, we need be more specific, and actually take a side in favor of facts. Discretionary sanctions should be made available, targeted towards editors that make edits stating or implying a

6404:

been made numerous times previously, here and elsewhere, and that it is leading to a serious divide in how, as editors and administrators, can resolve this long-standing conflict. I'd like to see a "topic ban noticeboard," but I am afraid that it would fall to either inactivity or hidden bias.

6000:

long-disputed areas with persistant conduct problems would increase abuse potential. I should additionally note that we're discussing long-term problems, involving users who either know better by know or almost assuredly are never going to get it, not newbies who are unfamiliar with Knowledge.

5145:

The point of the remedy as written was to require the user to contact ArbCom prior to gaining administrator tools again by any means. The Committee now does this whenever the Committee makes a decision from information that is not available to the whole community. In every case, contacting the

4987:

While I don't blame GRBerry, I really feel that Arbcom's actions with this evidence - taking an admission that someone was severely ill, suppressing it, then, when questioned about me, referring to secret evidence that they can't go into, only served to make me look bad - far worse than if the

2309:

The article is citing this as fact in Knowledge's voice. Its effect is to discredit the subject of the article. We need a high quality and reliable source to support a claim that roughly speaking this is either 1/ considered the case by the medical world ("they are axe scars"), or 2/ backed by

1944:

If three months is acceptable for one party in a mediated dispute, how is a week and one month from the article so egregious? I believe that ChrisO abused his administrative powers to shoe-horn his POV into this article, and is now trying to break an agreed-upon mediation. He should accept the

1719:

I find it rather hard to believe that, in the name of "mediation", one administrator can simply ignore policy and guidelines on NPOV and BLP and such. All edits and/or reverts are not created equal; if someone edits in violation of Knowledge policy, to sanction someone else for addressing and

7783:

To clarify, the other person banned in this case, Petri Krohn, is actually Finnish, not Russian. The Digwuren conflict at its core was primarily between an Estonian and a Finn, were the Finn recruited some Russian editors to his cause. (Krohn is even now continuing his battle off-wiki in the

2072:

I half expected to see this request when I commented on the issue a little bit ago. I'm not sure on the specifics, but I will say that a blanket no-revert rule on an article, applied to all editors, isn't wise. Sometimes someone will make an edit with no redeeming qualities at all, negatively

6036:

only open up another battleground. Enforcement threads have already become another place to argue for the disputants in heated areas. I shudder to think what kind of response would be received after the first couple of sanction discussions make it "real" to such parties. (For an example, see

5327:

Since the full circumstances of the de-sysopped user were disclosed to the AC in confidence, the only appropriate way for this user to regain the tools is to convince the AC – the only group of users with full knowledge of the situation – that the circumstances have changed such that we have

4618:

I would also appreciate guidance for future reference as to how bureaucrats should interpret ArbCom remedies that are silent as to the availabiliy of the usual remedies. I note that it is usually the Committee's practice to deal with this matter expressly. For instance the relevant remedy of

1735:

When I first read Chris' statement I thought it did raise an interesting policy question: can editing restrictions override our policy restrictions. But, having looked everything over once again, I'm not sure that there is an actual policy difference here. Elonka's conditions seem to have

5862: 2036:

I do not know the background, but let's assume for the sake for the argument that the editing sanctions were rightfully applied. If a removal is done per BLP, and it is recognized as such by the mediator and others, then it is a granted exception to the editorial ban. This has to be a very

5683:. Does not to me appear to be demonstrating that they would be editing without problems in this area. This restriction is broader than the discretionary sanctions in The Troubles arbcomm case, so it is not an adequate substitute. See the WP:AE archives related to the two recent blocks: 5960:

threads, only from the AE noticeboard, only involving a very limited number of users involved in the broader dispute. I believe ArbCom explicitly endorsing discretionary sanctions would empower and embolden sysops and the community to resolve these long-standing issues, once and for all.

4923:

I would like to see for starters Charles Matthews withdraw the repeated personal attacks he posted to the case pages. Ideally you ought to be vacating this case because it was requested in a non-emergency situation with no prior attempt at dispute resolution--thus outside your mandate.

3220:

CSCWEM would have had to be logged in to perform blocks, and would therefore be aware of talk page communication expressing concern. The blocks have continued. This situation would still be a problem if the blocks were all good; as shown on the Administrators' noticeboard, and by my own

5985:

an administrator is involved or not, a brief community discussion or appeal to ArbCom should suffice. I simply fail to see the point of creating a limited definition prone to gaming, which would require other admins and the community to employ their natural power of reason regardless.

1662:

His behavior on this article has been problematic from the get go. He has abused his admin privileges by posting warning notifications on the Talk pages of all those who opposed him, even though he was an involved admin. This behavior was found problematic by several uninvolved admins

5757:

No statement by Lapsed_Pacifist saying the reason that editing restrictions should be removed. On my first review, I'm not seeing any reason for the sanction to be lifted at this time. Right now, the community is dealing with current issues. I see no reason to intervene at this time.

7557:

As a general rule, any section of the 'pedia permanently plagued with clashing historical narratives requires our most stringent controls. These are more difficult to administer and keep clean, because of the free availability and difficulty in recognising dubious sourcing, than the

4883:

For showing consistently poor judgment in performing administrative actions, Alkivar's (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves • rights) administrative privileges are revoked. He may apply to have them reinstated by appeal to the Committee, but not through the usual

1557:

I would also like to point out that when I first learned of the situation, the article was already protected, the talkpage was in the middle of a severe dispute, and ChrisO was begging for an uninvolved administrator to help out. When I offered my assistance, he said it would be

3065:

There are 13 active arbitrators, so 7 is the number of votes needed for the motion to pass. Given the circumstances, the arbitrators may choose to activate any motion that passes as soon as there is a seventh vote in favour, should they decide not to wait the standard 24 hours.

6818:

Do we seriously need a horse and pony show over this? The fact of the matter is, the encyclopedia comes first. In an encyclopedia, established facts backed up by evidence comes first. Scientific academia is making a more significant effort than the alternative to adhere to the

5525:

I'd like to appeal this ban, because it was decided upon and imposed while I was on an extended break. I was not given the opportunity to confront my accusers (whose exaggerations, distortions and outright falsehoods I was therefore unable to refute), and was presented with a

3924:

Per Mathsci's report below, I request PHG to be blocked until a mentor is appointed. It is not fair to those cleaning up his messes in article space to allow this pattern of editing to continue without any sort of restraint. PHG is using up a huge amount of volunteer time.

4992:, developed after I caught flu while working as a farm labourer, and was literally dragged out of bed to help with the milking, making the illness far worse. I would question whether that rises to the level of evidence, let alone how it was treated - as secret evidence 3833:

PHG has not touched the article for a long time, but it has not been fixed yet because the damage is not obvious. I really do not have the time to engage in lengthy discussion on each and every tainted article while attempting to fix it. There has to be a better way.

1511:. Most editors complied, but ChrisO kept reverting. Since he's an admin, I tried to give him lots of leeway, but it's obvious that he felt that the restrictions were for other people, and not for him, and he kept on with warring and incivility, such as referring to 4864:

and he has disclosed that to me freely and fully himself. Furthermore, if this is the rationale, his adamant desire is that the Committee refrain from further interference in a matter none of you are qualified to deal with and that you have consistently mishandled.

2326:

source refers to any of this at all... all we have is one anonymous video of a person who says they were a doctor in the 1990s holding up an X ray and making a claim. On this basis the introduction states the subject has been in effect, proven untruthful. We need a

7699:

A similar motion to impose discretionary sanctions across all of Easter Europe, on the back of a single 3RR violation in that case, was attempted back in February, but was archived due to lack of interest and some important questions of scope remaining unanswered

5172:

To Shoemaker's Holiday: I'm very sorry for the pain and distress this situation has caused you. The removal of your administrator privileges was well warranted — but your case could certainly have been handled better — for that I'm sorry and for that I apologize.

1579:(until June 22), and then if he resumed participation in a civil and constructive manner, that I would consider lifting the article editing ban early, rather than requiring that he sit out the full 30 days. I've already done this with one of the other editors, 4322:

Getting a new mentor asp seems to be the obvious solution. And in the future, PHG needs to let the Committee know if his mentor stops working with him. In the future, not letting us know might result in loss of editing privileges or other editing restrictions.

4214:

of this translation makes it clear that it requires the skills of a professional historian to interpret these first-hand accounts, plagued by rivalries and jealousies between different French factions. Other sources are not mentioned, e.g. Hutchinson's classic

3038:

that wasn't responded to. I would also take the opportunity to re-iterate both my concerns regarding CSCWEM's behaviour and the plea to make any sanction without prejudice to a resysopping upon reasonable explanation/undertaking given in the earlier Request.

7846:, which was a surprise to me since I originally assumed he was American born. Not an issue for me, ofcourse, but I do wonder if this sensitivity has led to the introduction of sanctions that are more draconian and wider in scope than they really need to be. 7841:

Biophys is right, if this remedy is adopted, the definition of involved admin needs to be expanded, being an admin doesn't magically make one forget their national origin or the desire to defend their view. Even Kirill admitted to me his background made him

5337:

injustices in the process and minimized his own culpability. This leads me to believe that should he regain admin tools, further problems will occur. However, as with several other arbitrators above, if Shoemaker's Holiday wishes instead to submit to RFA

1739:

Chris does acknowledge that he did not adequately construct his summary. If he did alter content beyond what was necessary to satisfy BLP concerns, it is easy to see why Elonka would have felt this was a reversion in violation of the editing conditions.

7620:"Blocks of up to one year" on discretion of a single uninvolved administrator... Such drastic measured could only be used for users with long blocking history (say 6+ blocks). Besides, the area of conflict should be clearly defined. I asked previously if 6833:, then it should be regarded as such. Violations of the principle of undue weight should be treated with editorial treatment so that due weight is restored. People should be blocked from editing articles when their edits are more trouble than it's worth. 2040:

I have no problem with banned ones requesting others to make edits, BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT the proxy editor must acknowledge that they have passed the request through their own judgment and they are willing to be responsible for their edits. That way, it is

7819: 3910: 5096:

Re WjBscribe, apologies if I caused offence; I now realise you've been interpreting the remedies to permit everything that is not absolutely prohibited, instead of only permitting what is expressly allowed. The answers you've distilled are essentially

2590:

warring parties before; Digwuren (Estonian) and Petri Krohn (Russian) who were both banned for one year afterwards as a result of an ArbCom case. However, I am ready to recuse myself but would that change the outcome? If yes, then I'd gladly do it. --

3398:

Desysopping until we get an explanation from CSCWEM is the best recourse here in order to prevent further questionable blocks without any sign of communication. I've also sent him an email today and waiting for a satisfactory or positive response. --

2783:

to the incidents since that time, and an examination of a number of blocks by various users also identified a significant proportion as untenable, questionable, or poor judgement. The Committee re-examined these and concurred some blocks were flawed.

4211:, there do still appear to be problems with his edits. He appears to have used as his principal source translations of primary documents, reports by french soldiers present at the time, recently translated from French by Michael Smithies. A review 2321:

that this is a doctor, or the doctor, or that there was a surgery case as described, or that the interview is of a reliable nature and not tampered, no confirmation that the claims in the video are endorsed by any reliable source, not one reliable

7401:, trying to take advantage that I had been added quickly to the Digwuren list shortly after it was opened, and got immediately blocked, while he and well known other editors have, well, since been overlooked somehow? I perceive the composition of 5878: 3880:

This bears checking. It looks a lot like PHG is sill using Knowledge to publish original research. The past ruling may be insufficient to solve the problem. I'd like to see mandatory mentorship for PHG's editing in all areas of the encyclopedia.

4980:

meant that I could never be trusted. If you say that there is secret evidence, and this secret evidence means I shouldn't be an admin, then it makes it sound like I had, say, intentionally acted to damage Knowledge. The fact of the matter is

4707:(2) If ArbCom is totally silent as to any means for regaining adminship, the usual means are permitted. If however the Committee makes a provision for appeal as a means of reinstatement but says nothing about the usual means, they are excluded. 2114:

Secondly, I agree with the substance of what Elonka has said. From what I have seen this does not appear to be a BLP situation, but one of simple edit-warring. Reverting simply so your preferred version can stand (here, with an edit summary of

7516: 3585:, voluntarily resigns all rights to adminship for one year from this date. After that time, should I wish to become an admin, he may apply by RfA or request to the committee. In either case, he and the committee will select a suitable mentor. 7558:

pseudoscience/scientific consensus articles that people have wailing conniptions about all over the noticeboards. Not to mention there are fewer people able and willing to keep an eye on it, and its much tougher to recognise POV-pushing....

7252:

style to counter this, though with a good definition of the area of conflict (I would suggest, at the least, that it covers Polish-German disputes, in addition to Polish-Russian and articles relating to the Baltic states and Ukraine). Best,

5122:

As for cases that are silent as to methods, well, there haven't been any since the Seabhcan case in December 2006. It may be that we need to go back now and clarify those, but every case in the past eighteen months has been quite explicit.

7475:

despite other editors providing evidence that the was wrong, very wrong. Is such behavior acceptable? Molobo almost got permabanned two years ago. He returned after his one year block, and seemingly was allowed to do as he pleases since.

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directly and indirectly calling each other's position into ideological questioning. I haven't been following up on the page with enough persistence to make any further comment but I felt a vote of confidence in Elonka's efforts was due.

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Re Wjbscribe and Durova's point about the Seabhcan case, that was the last case to include the old, ambiguous wording regarding desysopping. Beginning in early 2007, cases have expressly identified the method for reapplying. I believe

1364:

I would therefore be grateful for outside views on this matter. Please note that I fully support Elonka's mediation efforts; this unfortunate misunderstanding should not be taken as criticism of the rest of her work on the article. --

7523:

instant messenger. One of the biggest weaknesses of Knowledge policies is that they treat editors as isolated individuals, especially in 3RR cases, while highly questionable forms of cooperations are overlooked, ignored, or denied.

4747: 7127: 5265:, for example in ensuring a generally good user will have support, refine their judgement and avoid mistakes or a second desysopping, in areas of past weakness (mentorship, parole, Arbcom resysopping without stress of RFA, etc), or 4727: 1431:

However, scars that were supposedly caused by the Israeli gun-fire, were not left by bullets. Instead, they're the same scars identified by an Israeli doctor who treated Jamal after he was attacked by a Palestinian gang armed with

6037: 1731:

Like everyone else, I have to say that Elonka has done a wonderful job on the talk page. This was definitely a mop and bucket job. I can see how the editing conditions may seem a little draconian but the alternatives are worse.

5379: 4343:. Will be a good idea to get several people to help, since this is an ongoing situation. Any one else that is interested can contact me on my talk page, email the arbcom mailing list or me, or leave a message on PHG's talk page. 3469: 2304:"scars that were supposedly caused by the Israeli gun-fire, were not left by bullets. Instead, they're the same scars identified by an Israeli doctor who treated Jamal after he was attacked by a Palestinian gang armed with axes" 1553:

saying that it excuses his total revert. I disagree. The case is pretty simple as far as I'm concerned, and has nothing to do with BLP. ChrisO was edit-warring, he was told to stop, he didn't, I put a brief page ban on him.

7561:

If ArbCom suggests that I present a few diffs of the sort of occasion where (a) civility restrictions have led to baiting and (b) discretionary sanctions would have been helpful - just from my own experience - I am willing to.

1561:

I am proud to say that since I placed my conditions on the article on June 10, the article has become much more stable, with some very constructive conversations going on at the talkpage. And all of this was accomplished with

7502: 6672:

Although I understand the desire to come up with a quick fix or a magic bullet here, I do not think that more enforcement is the answer. I have observed how well more enforcement and greater empowerment of admins worked at

1701:, after he had been told by the responding admin that “I would tread on the cautious side and say that if it's not obvious, then note it to someone else and let others do it, if 0RR applies to one of the editors involved.” 1653:

after the fact, and used it as an excuse for a revert that encompassed much more than any potential BLP issues. I’d like to highlight he fact that this is apparently a common modus operandi with ChrisO. On May 23rd, he was

1156:

A number of previously uninvolved editors have recently been editing the article. Some of the editing and talk page contributions have been very problematic. The article was fully protected for a time and two new editors,

7796:". And it is a pity that some ArbCom members have apparently bought into it rather than look at the facts on the ground. Regardless of one's opinion of Sarah777, her rebuttal of Morsechi's thesis in her lampooning essay " 2260:

because nothing less seems powerful enough to work, and (provided it is fairly used) to support a strong hand which may actually be what is needed for admins to do their job managing conduct on an article, without being

2037:

cut-and-dry case, though, where it is unambiguously in compliance with the ArbCom statement which goes along the lines of "BLP must be enforced at all costs". Otherwise, it is a breach of the ban and should be reverted.

5066:

was the first case to do so. In any event, regardless of any ambiguity in old cases (that may or may not need resolving now), the remedy here did not have that ambiguity, as it was express about the methods available.

4761: 4694:", I'm sorry but I find that comment fairly insulting. I came here asking ArbCom to clear up the ambiguity in one of their decisions. I think my reasons for doing so are fairly clear: in the two places this has arisen 5272:

that it is safe to "trial" them having back the tools under some kind of supervision (which in some cases is the only fair way to do so), or that they will be desysopped if they repeat the same conduct with any other

3559: 3891:

Thank you for suggesting places to list articles for cleanup, and I like Shell Kinney's idea that PHG needs to find a new mentor. This should be mandatory, and include all editing. The mentor needs to speak French.

8254:) in their editing, and to amend behaviors that are deemed to be of concern by administrators. An editor unable or unwilling to do so may wish to restrict their editing to other topics, in order to avoid sanctions. 8003:) in their editing, and to amend behaviors that are deemed to be of concern by administrators. An editor unable or unwilling to do so may wish to restrict their editing to other topics, in order to avoid sanctions. 6926:) in their editing, and to amend behaviors that are deemed to be of concern by administrators. An editor unable or unwilling to do so may wish to restrict their editing to other topics, in order to avoid sanctions. 6760:) in their editing, and to amend behaviors that are deemed to be of concern by administrators. An editor unable or unwilling to do so may wish to restrict their editing to other topics, in order to avoid sanctions. 4755: 8150: 7918: 6852: 5751: 5034: 4286: 5287:

history before the user goes back, and sometimes it ensures there is a gradual reacquisition of tools under some kind of parole, probation or mentorship that helps ensure the user avoids the same mistakes again.

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Based on the user's comments below, I guess I would ask why Tundrabuggy's sanction was so much more severe than ChrisO's, for what seems to be a much lighter offense. If anything, Tundrabuggy should have gotten

5779:

To answer the other question:User conduct is the driving force behind our remedy, so we need to include the articles that bring out the user conduct problems. I suggest the broader interpretation of the topic.

2094: 5202:(parole) specified in the remedy would hold either way since those are intended to protect others rather than the user in question, by making it easier to take action if he did slip back after regaining them. 4959: 4670:. I would appreciate guidance here, are the two editors in that case (and others where ArbCom does not specify whether or not the usual means are available) able to apply for their access to be reinstated via 2411: 2388:

Agree with the above, especially FT2's expression of hope that Elonka & ChrisO can resolve; in light of this consensus in the those of the Committee who have posted, I think we should remove this request.

4613: 1917:

Elonka stepped in and volunteered to mediate. She was accepted by all including ChrisO. As part of her ongoing mediation, she lifted protection on the article in exchange for some simple edit restrictions.

5040:

While I did not participate in that case, I can say that desysopping remedies are always explicit about the methods by which the person concerned can reapply to be a sysop, identifying that it may be by the

3025: 2792:

As a result of the above, a number of users have indicated that the Committee may need to revisit the case and review the user's actions. This is in addition to the prior request which was deemed premature.

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factual basis for pseudoscientific or paranormal topics. If we did that for a while, the heat and rancor would die down, because people attempting to corrupt the encyclopedia would eventually be eliminated.

4758: 4146:

Elonka makes a good suggestion - we already had a de facto central area where we were listing articles to review and I'm sure no one would mind if Jehochman has other articles he wants to add to the list.

3956:. This is old stuff, and I will be glad to discuss if there are any specific issues to be addressed. We're all here to contribute content as best as we can. For some of my latest contributions, please see 2556: 2104: 2606:

I don't see any good reason to go down the road of "jury selection", or allowing arguments to be brought on the recusal of Arbitrators. There is no particular problem with the current system of recusals.

1144:

concerns a controversy that is currently the subject of libel litigation in France as well as an off-wiki campaign that accuses several individuals of criminal and professional misconduct. Personal abuse

7359:

may flare up again, so we should keep the option open of extending the area of conflict to include these states, as well as any others - such as Czech Republic and Slovakia - that may need it in future.

6201:

I'd like to see what DGG mentioned below, a Topic Ban Noticeboard and some degree of practical consensus to prevent a single editor/admin, or ideological group of editors/admins, from going ban-happy. --

1541:

with a misleading edit summary of "blatant POV pushing" (his edit summary didn't describe it as a revert, but it was clear that he had cleanly wiped out 8 intervening edits, back to his own last version.

7827:

mere assumed membership of a group is then sufficient to cast suspicion. Institutionalize this approach by adopting discretionary sanctions for Eastern Europe and the result will be disastrously clear.

6884: 1459: 7541: 5586:, all based on nothing more than his POV. He is single minded in pushing an anti-British, anti-Israeli, anti-American, anti-almost anything POV. For example relating to Americans in Iraq, he changes " 1389:

Elonka's action is likely to have on any future efforts to ensure that BLP is followed. We need a clear statement on whether or not editing restrictions can override BLP and copyright enforcement. --

4227:, both translations of contemporary accounts. So apparently most of the article seems to be derived from primary sources and not a secondary text by a professional historian. The Thailand article in 1659:

BLP. But once the 3RR report was filed, he suddenly came up with the "BLP" angle, to excuse his behavior ex post facto, and without pointing to any actual BLP issues that his reverts were aimed at.

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What if the scope were limited to areas and users that have severe long-running and/or perpetually recurring behavioral issues? I believe that would keep the scope from being too broad or limited.

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logical fallacy. I have not suggested banning PHG here. Could you look a bit more closely at some of PHG's recent contribution. Actually go get the source and look at it. For just one example,

1921:

On June 10th I made the first single-word edit on the newly unprotected article -- "reported" -- and was surprised by a 90 day edit-ban on both article and talk page by previously uninvolved admin

6956: 6790: 6641: 6557: 4591: 1860: 7792:). It is unfortunate that the remedies in the Digwuren case were extended to broadly cover Eastern Europe, and is now being exploited by Moreschi to further his agenda as expressed in his essay " 5925: 2532:". And it is a pity that some ArbCom members have apparently bought into it rather than look at the facts on the ground. I think Sarah777's rebuttal of Morsechi's thesis in her lampooning essay " 2528:). It is unfortunate that the remedies in the Digwuren case were extended to broadly cover Eastern Europe, and is now being exploited by Moreschi to further his agenda as expressed in his essay " 1500: 1291:

requires the removal of "unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material" from talk pages and articles. I therefore redacted them and asked Julia1987 not to post unsourced allegations in future.

7497:(actively?) "a big list" of (not so clear) diffs collected until December to take advantage of the restrictions, and managed to have Dr. Dan listed as the very first extension to the list, with 7472: 6452: 5696: 4795:

As to bainer's statement below, After that case, I want as little to do with arbcom as possible, and would decline any re-sysop that ties me to the people involved with that case for 6 months.

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I would like a clarification of how the arbcom thinks these problems happened, how they plan to avoid them in future, and, if possible, an apology for the severe negative effects on my life.

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above all should have been given. Especially given the circumstances, he should have made exceptional efforts to be clear. ChrisO did not communicate and the result was a foregone conclusion.

2073:

effecting the article, but without it being vandalism (or a BLP issue). My suggestion to Elonka was to make this restriction more.. restricted. Apply it to certain editors, certain texts, or

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could finally kill the endless attacks against other editors and administrators, and could finally open the door for new editors, with fresh viewpoints and dialogues, to come in and edit.

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a lot of time if they're to agree to provide "first instance" review of every discretionary sanction imposed by an administrator. I think other avenues of redress should be explored first.

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This provision supersedes the "General restriction" remedy, but does not affect any other provisions of the case, or any sanctions already imposed under the "General restriction" remedy.

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We usually decide "by application to the Committee" to give this a chance of happening appropriately and fairly, and to protect the user, the community/other users, or both, as necessary:

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The list of users in affected areas is too large to collect, list and notify conveniently. I will place notices of this request, so the community as a whole is aware, on the village pump,

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I guess you could always just de-ref the article, i.e. yank all the references (not added in the past 11 months) and put them on the article talk page, and then replace them all with

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effort to remove material that indisputably violates BLP, COPY and NPOV. This risks sending a message to editors that BLP doesn't matter and attempts to uphold it will be penalised.

1356:. Elonka has argued that my edit was an impermissible reversion and constituted "edit-warring", but has not acknowledged any of the NPOV, BLP or copyright issues that I have raised. 6584: 6429: 6352: 4743:

In it, a 2-month-old block was the cause of a rush to voting in 12 hours, before I provided any evidence, and a refusal to grant another couple weeks so that I could sit my exams.

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There is no justification to extend discretionary sanctions to other topic areas such as the Polish/Russian articles, Ukraine or particularly the Baltic states. An examination of

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and that ArbCom case came into effect in March of this year. The case explicitly doesn't forbid him from commenting on Talk page, so I'm sure commenting on AfD's is fair game. --

3289: 2984: 1634: 3436: 6144: 4910: 4895: 4870: 4858: 4138: 2849: 2059: 1453: 1398: 6123:"...Something has to be done here, this long term situation is highly divisive to the encyclopedic and takes way too admin effort to keep it within harmonic editing boundaries. 5208: 4373:

PHG has agreed on Angusmclellan as a new mentor. I notified the rest of the Committee and there were no objections. So let's go forward with the mentoring arrangement for now.

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Per Lapsed_Pacifist's request on my talk page, I'm commenting further. I think the editing restrictions are needed so that collaborative article work can happen on this topic.

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On 13 June, Julia1987 posted unsourced allegations on the article talk page that an individual mentioned in the article was a drug dealer who had been attacked by a drug gang.

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no source in Polish wikipedia and I can just as well edit that article that Martians invaded Działdowo in 1920. They were no elections in 1920 in Poland to Sejm. Case closed.

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the Baltic States. Massive intervention that risks totally chilling a broad subject area is not required, particularly when precise targeted action is more than sufficient.

7211: 6722: 6478: 5949: 5868: 5733: 5575: 4656: 3776:, I spotted a familiar a pattern of original research, original maps that have no sources, and copyright violations in the form of book cover uploads. Sure enough, I found 2915: 2419: 1753: 1626: 6813: 3052: 2654: 7433:

also on talk, and stubbornly refused to acknowledge that after the Versailles Treaty made Soldau/Dzialdowo Polish, a by-election was held, which apparently is also stated

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Some of those commenting seem not to have noticed that the committee has pointed out that its decision was based in part on private information submitted to the committee

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Personally I think that ChrisO is wasting his time here, but this appeal might actually benefit from an ArbCom review, as a few editors have been sharply critical of the

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participation in a dispute. Any doubt regarding whether an administrator qualifies under this definition is to be treated as any other appeal of discretionary sanctions.

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In response to Elonka's comment below, I couldn't source Julia1987's allegations to anything other than the pirate video, an unusable source which had to be removed. BLP

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I would like an advocate that I can agree is neutral, such as LaraLove or DGG or maybe Vassyana to review things before any action is take against me. Same for others.

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will fully cover this problem area, or will take his chances on his future conduct without any "safety net"), then I would endorse a committee decision to allow it. The

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it was in a biographical article or shaded negatively towards a living person, I would expect it to be removed. Caveat - I would not expect it edit warred over or gamed.

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Russia-related subjects belong to Digwuren case, but there was no answer. I trust Moreschi judgment, but we need some safeguards if this is adopted as a general policy.

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The case was handled in an extremely disjointed manner that added extra stress for Shoemaker's Holiday at a time when he least needed it. For that I'm extremely sorry.

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by David K. Wyatt (117-118). Detailed secondary sources (such as the detailed account of Hutchinson) have not been identified by PHG. I hope these comments are useful.

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Given this extremely disruptive behavior, the length of time it has been going on, and the fact that similar behavior has been exhibited on other articles as well (see

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I would also ask an apology for forcing me into a corner whereby the only option available to me was to make private matters public, lest I end up looking far worse.

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We need more than that. We need a statement of neutrality toward the subjects themselves. I've seen mediators come in and say essentially "Well it's bunk so..." ——

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Since then I've had a quick lesson in navigating, editing, rules and general "culture" of WP. I believed my half-dozen edits on the article were fair and neutral.

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Reply -- I only asked because given his previous work on here, this seems very uncharacteristic. I wanted to know if he had ever had a previous spell like this.

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I heartily endorse this request for stronger measures re editors on both sides of this issue. More details to follow. I'll be on wiki break much of this weekend.

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I would like to request that ArbCom explicitly permit discretionary sanctions on all pseudoscience and alternative science topics, broadly construed, similar to

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says (citing WJBScribe), this should probably not be brought here first. This dispute is probably not an RFAR matter (at this time). But now it's here, so be it.

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is editing an article on pseudoscience, right?) It needs to be spelled out what this applies to - theories of origin, alternative medicine, paranormal, etc. --

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Sanctions imposed under the provisions of this decision may be appealed to the imposing administrator, the appropriate administrators' noticeboard (currently

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Sanctions imposed under the provisions of this decision may be appealed to the imposing administrator, the appropriate administrators' noticeboard (currently

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Sanctions imposed under the provisions of this decision may be appealed to the imposing administrator, the appropriate administrators' noticeboard (currently

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Sanctions imposed under the provisions of this decision may be appealed to the imposing administrator, the appropriate administrators' noticeboard (currently

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ISBN 9745240052. The book is organized as follows: a Preface and General Introduction by Michael Smithies, an English translation of the account published by

2867: 2837: 2243:.) 0RR is a restriction that would apply only to existing or new editors on the article. The aim of an ultra-broad remedy is to get the article back on track 8275:

participation in a dispute. Any doubt regarding whether an administrator qualifies under this definition is to be treated as any other appeal of sanctions.

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participation in a dispute. Any doubt regarding whether an administrator qualifies under this definition is to be treated as any other appeal of sanctions.

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participation in a dispute. Any doubt regarding whether an administrator qualifies under this definition is to be treated as any other appeal of sanctions.

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participation in a dispute. Any doubt regarding whether an administrator qualifies under this definition is to be treated as any other appeal of sanctions.

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In determining whether to impose sanctions on a given user and which sanctions to impose, administrators should use their judgment and balance the need to

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In determining whether to impose sanctions on a given user and which sanctions to impose, administrators should use their judgment and balance the need to

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In determining whether to impose sanctions on a given user and which sanctions to impose, administrators should use their judgment and balance the need to

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by envious researchers who want to do no more than to destroy other researchers). Alternative thought still has a place in articles, but while it still is

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In determining whether to impose sanctions on a given user and which sanctions to impose, administrators should use their judgment and balance the need to

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I was shocked and surprised to find on 15 June that Elonka had banned me for one week from the article's talk page and thirty days from the article itself.

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would usually be visible as a "new messages" banner presented on the blocking page on each occasion, and upon the "block successful" pages that followed.

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I wish to appeal a page ban applied by Elonka after I removed an obvious copyright, BLP and NPOV violation from an article. The background is as follows:

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On 14 June, Julia1987 made a series of edits in which she deleted some sourced material and added essentially the same allegations, this time sourced to

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model - has never been involved in a content dispute on any article in the pseudoscience/paranormal topic area with that topic area broadly construed.

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requires that "Editors should remove any contentious material about living persons that ... relies upon sources that do not meet standards specified in

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Committee has decided to this effect (the other discretionary sanctions proposal in that case only recieved one support, so the disparity is evident).

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Committee has decided to this effect (the other discretionary sanctions proposal in that case only recieved one support, so the disparity is evident).

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I can only assume this is some sort of bizarre joke on the part of Lapsed Pacifist, given he is a tendentious editor in virtually every area he edits.

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I've asked FloNight (on her talk page) about this issue's status since PHG seems to have ignored the one offer of mentoring by Angus (see PHG's talk).

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They are replaced with the following: Due to several incidents of poor judgement, possibly aggravated by severe illness he was suffering at the time,

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it would be worth setting aside a page somewhere to discuss discretionary sanction "best practice": what has worked, what hasn't worked, and so forth.

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and to reiterate the substance of the investigations that the court decision used to determine its verdict would not seem to me to be in violation of

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My block appears to be one that precipitated this appeal, so I will comment to explain that. I noticed that request for Arbitration Enforcement at:

4583: 1981: 7759: 7710: 6190:). Presenting information regarding just the "beliefs" is sometimes called POV pushing by admins. There's also the cultural, folklore perspective ( 5864: 5465: 3768:

We have a big problem in that PHG's convincing looking citations can fool a majority of good faith editors. In attempting to clean up the article

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Regarding Piotrus' statement: it was Piotrus who made the most effective use of the new Digwuren case as soon as October 2007. It was him who had

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Comment -- it doesn't really matter. Admins are expected to communicate with the community if they are going to be actively using their tools. --

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of online intrusion by Digwuren. Whether or not these allegations were prompted by his earlier heated conflict with some editors over claims of

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It's a stretch of the F-Ma case to declare that everything he ever touched is permanently sullied, and he was right to call you out on it. --

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criteria. (See below: "detail".) I'm willing to accept ChrisO's statement that despite describing it as "POV", this was what made him revert (

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and brought the Committee up to date on ArbCom mailing list today. Will try to get the mentoring arrangement finalized in the next few days.

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Along with the emerging consensus here, all we need to do is to find a volunteer to replace Coren as PHG's mentor. Are there any volunteers?

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mediator's decision(s) in good spirit, and abide by them. To me the terms seem generous, and I think he could use his time to consider his

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material. Until now I have chosen to handle it with discretion because of its sensitive nature; that does not oblige me to remain silent.

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protesters (where he has a conflict of interest) despite it being complete original research on his part, and edit warring to retain it -

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I think Mathsci's comments are telling. They suggest an ongoing problem. Yes a new mentor — but PHG must be made to understand and follow

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I've counted him as un-recused so far as I can't see anything which would make him involved in the dispute, or a direct recusal from him.

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Minor amendment: Clown's email address is on his user page. However this wouldn't help a user who looks for it on the standard place, at

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I do believe we can make this work by applying the same methods as are applied in articles on religious belief systems. The article on

2175:). A person reverting others' work should be very careful at the best of times not to do so unnecessarily nor to revert valid material ( 1544:) I then put him on (what I felt was) a mild ban of avoiding the talkpage for one week, and avoiding edits to the article for one month. 8235: 7984: 7755: 6907: 6741: 6678:

and careful approach for dealing with this kind of problem, such as those potential options being considered at the discussion lead by

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I would like ArbCom to clarify whether this remedy precludes the desysopped user from requesting adminship through the usual channels:

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would be better. The translation issue is not a problem (we can check it, like any other non-English source.) But note - we still have

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to be a revert. I did not revert to a previous version, as I retained Julia1987's and another editor's non-problematic additions. (See

5901: 3165:) is directed not to perform any further blocks or administrator actions pending his communicating with the Arbitration Committee, at 2457: 6219:

per Vassyana's replies on it's intended use. It seems fundamentally wrong that blocking or banning a user, a person, would have less

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I think this might be solvable by having PHG choose a new mentor, since Coren does not appear to be performing that duty any longer.

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of users using the administrative tools, either all or mostly without visible communication with the blocked users or other users. A

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and other boards will reveal that these areas are relatively harmonious, and the existing mechanisms such as 3RR are working well.

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area of conflict. For example, this administrator threatened me with block while making himself his fourth revert in 24 hours

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Decline appeal; it seems fair to read the restrictions imposed as including the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War.

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and death threats have been directed against some of those involved. I have monitored the article for BLP reasons since April 2007.

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leniency than ChrisO, given that Tundrabuggy is relatively new and ChrisO is, and has been, well aware of editing practices here.

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Committee prior to starting a RFA can be useful since frequently we have knowledge about ongoing issues that may not be obvious.

3329: 3166: 1904: 1901: 1686: 6184:). Presenting that historical information is sometimes called POV pushing by admins. There's also the sociological perspective ( 5243:- There may be private issues we want the chance to chance to check out, so we don't have to raise them in the middle of an RFA. 2708: 8176:

It must be reminded that this is not a place for discussions as it is mentioned on top of this page. It doesn't help a lot. --

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have been reverted (but on well-explained grounds), some should have been discussed but not reverted -- and a good explanation

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I have recused myself once and I believe that at least I can say that this area needs more strict measures. I also agree with

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sysophood. I don't think there was any "announcement", it's just been included explicitly in all the remedies passed since. --

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Elonka has since restricted Julia1987 for deleting sourced content in the same series of edits as the BLP/copyright violation

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for a semester of university - this attempt to protect me from others learning about my state of health backfired severely.

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This is not some minor tweak or "just updating the wording" as claimed by Sam Blacketer, (who also voted in favour claiming

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MZMcBride said of my ban of three months: "There truly isn't any need for this level of discussion for something so minor."

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