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A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution for conduct disputes on Wikipedia. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The entire process is governed by the arbitration policy. For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and dealt with, please see guide to arbitration.

To request enforcement of previous Arbitration decisions or discretionary sanctions, please do not open a new Arbitration case. Instead, please submit your request to /Requests/Enforcement.

This page transcludes from /Case, /Clarification and Amendment, /Motions, and /Enforcement.

Please make your request in the appropriate section:

Arbitration Committee proceedings

Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

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Currently, no requests for clarification or amendment are open.

Motion name Date posted
Arbitrator workflow motions 1 December 2024

Current requests

Abd and JzG

Initiated by Jehochman Talk 15:47, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Jehochman

I've been watching this dispute ever since it spilled onto my talk page a few months ago. Abd is incensed concerned with the way JzG has used admin tools at Cold Fusion. (I brought a case here about that article.) After at least one community discussion failed to generate the result Abd wanted, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG 3 was started, and in spite of all guidance, Abd remained at the forefront of the dispute. My advice was that Abd's personal presence was harmful to resolution of the dispute due to the personal conflict between him and JzG. On the other side, I asked JzG to back down a bit, but that was not possible without a loss of face. In the background we have a few editors, such as Jed Rothwell, who continue to play games at Cold Fusion.

I request the Committee help untangle this mess. Nothing the community has done seems to have lowered the temperature of the dispute. We need enforced mediation, but such thing does not exist on Wikipedia, so I come to arbitration as the next best solution. Issues:

  • Were JzG's disputed administrative actions proper, or not?
  • Has Abd engaged in dispute intensification and forum shopping?

The committee, especially you newcomers, should read through Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman and try to avoid repeating those blunders. At present, the opinions at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG 3 seem to favor JzG's interpretation of matters. The committee should respect community opinions. If we, the community, have gotten it wrong, don't take this out on JzG. Use the opportunity to set down clearer standards. Jehochman Talk 15:47, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting conversation here for those of you who are diff connoisseurs. Subsequent actions by JzG are understandable in the context that his prior administrative actions in the cold fusion venue were blessed (perhaps incorrectly) by Thatcher and a few arbitrators. Jehochman Talk 17:57, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Since a few people seem to misunderstand: whether or not JzG's actions were wrong, he has at no point received consensus feedback that he was wrong. A few editors, notably Abd and Durova have stood up and given him criticism. That's fine, but they have not yet achieved a consensus for that position. They seem to be seeking sanctions against JzG. That should be off the table because JzG has not received feedback, to my knowledge, that his action was wrong, nor has he been given a chance to correct himself. Likewise, I think that talk of sanctioning Abd is unhelpful. Editors should not be discouraged from raising complaints, though I think Abd's prosecution has been excessive and unhelpful to a degree. If he is told that, and stops, then nothing further is needed. At this point, there is no consensus on either issue. That's why we are here. Jehochman Talk 21:31, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Abd

See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG 3 for diffs and detailed listings.

JzG was long involved in editing Cold fusion (64 edits) and Talk:Cold fusion (140 edits).

JzG has used administrative tools with respect to Cold fusion and related articles, including protecting a preferred version (of Condensed matter nuclear science), and blocked an editor involved with Cold fusion, with whom he had long-term dispute and a history of incivility, plus he blocked another IP editor on the unlikely claim that they were the same.

JzG was asked to undo actions or recuse himself by three editors in January, 2009, as shown in the RfC. He denied involvement and refused in all cases but one to recuse.

The last of the actions while involved, covered by the RfC, took place after most of these efforts, and after the RfAr he filed for confirmation was declined, JzG declared that it had confirmed his actions.

In addition, JzG removed a comment in the RfC itself from an IP editor,[3] and the edit summary and his block of the IP referenced an off-wiki dispute, thus showing that even after the RfC was filed, he did not show due caution in avoiding use of tools while involved.

JzG thus continues in violation of admin policy. Arbcom should therefore consider the consequences of JzG's continued administrative status, or clarify the policy on administrative involvement.

I agree with Jehochman that this matter requires arbitration, I understand that my behavior may come under scrutiny, and I appreciate Jehochman's prior efforts to resolve the dispute.

Beyond a few warnings, mostly from involved editors, on my Talk page, there has been no process followed beyond raw complaint to resolve disputes over my behavior. Hence I suggest a focus, at this time, on whether or not the allegations made regarding JzG are true, and the determination of appropriate response, and allow normal dispute resolution to clarify and possibly resolve issues over my behavior before wasting ArbComm time on it; to my knowledge, I have followed WP:DR with care, caution, and minimal disruption, given the seriousness of the violations.

If the editors who are complaining about me have attempted to resolve disputes on my Talk page, and some have, then RfC is open to them. I'd rather not be a distraction from the fundamental issue of recusal, which is more important than my editorship. These issues should be separated, or, if combined, handled sequentially. If JzG did not act while involved, if he did not violate admin policy, then my actions were truly outrageous and I should be topic banned until I come to my senses. But if he did violate, and if this was a matter of import, then I have served the community, by not allowing it to be swept under the carpet, where the lumps could trip us for years. --Abd (talk) 02:05, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JzG

I'm not sure this is ripe for arbitration; it is, however, not really a bilateral dispute, in that Abd is doing all the work of keeping it going. Possibly relevant: Abd has ADHD (as he states in User:Abd/Rule 0). And yes, I am stubborn.

Is it obstinacy to defend a blacklisting decision reviewed by independent admins at Meta and enWP, or a topic ban reviewed by ArbCom, when the same user keeps making repeated requests for reversal? Is it obstinate to post large amounts of text opposing a blacklisting decision, then to go to the whitelist as soon as the blacklist decision closes against you, then to go back to the blacklist and request removal as soon as the whitelist decision goes against you, each time using exactly the same arguments? Sure, WP:NBD, but eventually the line is crossed into disruptive crusading.

Abd has a history of failing to accept consensus with which he disagrees (see Special:Prefixindex/User:Abd/ for examples. It seems to me that Abd wants to have pages where he controls the medium and the message, and only his POV is reflected, e.g:

All this would probably not be a problem if it weren't for two aggravating factors:

  • WP:DEADHORSE (e.g. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG3, where each complaint had already been raised at the relevant noticeboards and dismissed as not requiring action. I was criticised by one arbitrator for asking for review of an "obvious" topic ban on Jed Rothwell; now you know why.
  • Abd's tendency to extreme loquacity, often simply restating arguments already discussed. This is circular argument. Abd also engages in forum shopping.
On Abd

I think that the community could probably handle this by limiting Abd to a certain number of attempts on any given crusade, and to stop keeping laundry lists of grudges and abusing / WP:OWNing user space pages.

On addressing the issue

I addressed the issues at face value in the RfC, as I had previously addressed them at m:Talk:Spam blacklist, mediawiki talk:Spam-whitelist, mediawiki talk:spam-blacklist, WP:ANI, WP:AN, each in multiple iterations. The RfC raised by Abd was a result of his failing to gain traction in any of those venues. WP:STICK.

Admin actions re cold fusion

This is stale, but raises a point worthy of consideration: What is the proper balance between maintaining transparency and fairness, and enabling POV-pushers by allowing them to claim each successive admin who tries to rein them is as immediately being "involved" and therefore prevented from taking further action? I suspect the solution is simply to encourage greater use of the existing functions available for peer review, such as the noticeboards.

I have no offsite agenda to pursue and no outside interest to promote, I came to this solely in response to a request for admin intervention due to POV-pushing (which led to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion). The two editors who caused that problem, Pcarbonn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Jed Rothwell, are both now topic banned. Other admins are now watching that page. These are the actions I took with respect to this dispute:

  • Blacklist lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.org due to abuse, posted for review at blacklists. Note that lenr-canr.org is now blacklisted at meta, not by me. Both decisions reviewed and endorsed by blacklist regulars.
  • Jan 09: Topic ban of Jed Rothwell, not strictly an admin action but one week sprot of talk:cold fusion referencing [4] in enforcement of same.
  • Jan 1 08: Protected redirect at Cold fusion research (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), a POV-fork.
  • Dec 12 07: Semiprotected talk:Cold fusion due to disruption by Jed Rothwell
  • Dec 6 07: Semiprotected cold fusion due to threats of disruption from an anonymous editor

I don't think this is evidence of abuse. It is evidence that my dispute resolution skills could do with some work; in the old days one could tell a kook to go away and they would go, these days the profile of Wikipedia is such that the stakes are simply too high for a POV-pusher to be deterred with anything less than nuclear force. I think this is WIkipedia's single largest problem right now.

on meta blacklisting

A red herring, the meta blacklist is outside the scope of the enWP arbitration committee and my meta sysop bit was not used anyway. Guy (Help!) 22:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Fritzpoll

This statement is made with the disclaimer that I have been in contact with Abd via e-mail in regards to this dispute. I also commented at the RfC that Jehochman has linked to above. This entire dispute appears to be about inflexibility: JzG will not engage specifically with the issue presented by Abd as the result of a personal perception of Abd's motives. In a sense this is understandable, but it gives the appearance of obstinacy when faults are pointed out. Since administrators are not infallible (or meant to be), I don't think we'd be here if JzG just said that he regretted giving the impression of bias, and will strive not to do it again. We could end this drama here and now if he just says that in a statement to this RfAr, and we can all settle back to what we're doing.

For Abd's part, there are some issues. I have no doubt that Abd has the best interests of the project at heart - absolutely none. However, the means by which he goes about defending the project leave a lot to be desired at times, with mentions of arbitration from the get-go, and an apparent unwillingness to compromise on views when faced with overwhelming opposition about them. Such behaviour exists beyond this request, and it may be worth examining so that Abd gets feedback from the Committee and the community on this issue.

Overall, it is worth looking at both parties if neither backs down - but we can end the dispute right now with a single sentence from JzG, which would be preferable.

Statement by Durova

As a certifier of the conduct RfC, I urge the Committee to accept this case to examine the conduct of all parties. Specifically, I encourage the Committee to weigh Abd's concerns about administrative recusal at face value, as I did. I do not edit cold fusion and, if anything, am sympathetic toward JzG's POV on the content dispute--but interpretations of policy must not pass through a filter of personal POV. Administrators must not cut corners for the sake of expedience. Additionally, I strongly object to this assertion made by JzG on April 5. JzG did not attempt to contact me about concerns regarding certification prior to making that serious allegation to third parties, nor did he notify me of it afterward. On April 16 I posted objections to that assertion at the RfC; he failed to respond. It is not the first time JzG has assumed bad faith in a public setting and lent the weight of his reputation to divisive accusations which he neither attempted to support with evidence nor attempted to clarify through normal means.

Followup: now that JzG has commented at this RFAR, it is worth noting that he still refuses to discuss the basis for RfC at face value. He dismisses my input with additional conjecture: Durova seems to have a bee in her bonnet. A bonnet is an item of female headgear; to quote Jane Austen (from an era when women wore bonnets and often had difficulty getting taken seriously), "I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere". DurovaCharge! 20:36, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Response to Mathsci: It would have been simple for JzG to have avoided any appearance of impropriety by taking his request to one of the admin boards, disclosing his involvement, and seeking independent review and action. What JzG and Jehochman posit amounts to an argument that WP:UNINVOLVED is dead letter--that only the merit of an administrative decision itself may be subject to review, and that any attempt to question the failure to recuse is presumptively posed in bad faith. If we allow that rationale in one situation (however meritorious the action may otherwise be), then we must allow it in every situation--and that would be an open door to deliberate abuse of power. I took Jossi to ArbCom because he weighed in toward administrative consensus at an AE thread while Jossi failed to disclose a prior history of dispute resolution with the Wikipedian whom he was denigrating. It would be untenable to turn a blind eye to this. DurovaCharge! 18:06, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Request by uninvolved Rootology

If the committee accepts this, can we please, pretty please, pretty please with a heaping of sugar on top, get some clear guidance on what circumstances in the Proposed Decision it is acceptable for "involved" admins to use tools on articles or on people involved with the articles? This is a constant tug of war, with some admins in favor of looser standards, and what always feels like a growing number of us desiring bright-line boundaries.

Statement by uninvolved Jim62sch

While I have made a couple edits on Cold Fusion (I think), I'm still uninvolved in this case.
From what I can see JzG's actions have been appropriate, but Arbcom should be able to decide whether that is true.
The uninvolved mantra is an interesting one, but not always relevant. How many of Guys edits were as an editor and how many as an admin trying to diffuse a problematic issue?

Disclosure: I know Guy personally, but that has nought to do with my above comments. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;dissera! 18:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Verbal

Abd is a problematic editor and I fully encourage ArbCom to review his actions and take action to stop him from continuing his disruption, proxy editing for banned editors, process lawyering, threats, and suffocating verbiage which amounts to ownership of certain pages. From what I've seen of JzGs/Guys edits they have been appropriate - he is certainly a lot less "involved" than certain other admins that get involved in more contentious areas. ArbCom should be able to see the truth in this matter easily. Verbal chat 19:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement of partially involved Beetstra

I have been involved in several discussions on de-listing discussions for two involved external links which were blacklisted (or for which blacklisting was requested) by JzG: lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com, and in some whitelisting requests on specific pages on these sites. Most of the blacklisting requests have been declined (some by me), one is still open. Whitelisting was granted for one, while all others I have been involved in were either declined or withdrawn.

My take on this sites is based partially on a ruling by our Reliable sources noticeboard (for newenergytimes: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_14#www.newenergytimes.com) which deemed newenergytimes not a reliable source. lenr-canr.org contains mainly copies of articles which are available elsewhere,

When looking at contributions of editors like User:Pcarbonn, I see that they have a huge preference for using sites which are either unreliable sources, or copy-sites like lenr-canr.org. Typical reliable sites are used much, much less (for some accounts, if any).

I have therefore argued lately, that I strongly suspect that these sites were used to give undue weight to the articles they were used in (and basically, that is the thought behind earlier declines as well). Some of the editors, like Pcarbonn, have been banned from these articles just for that reason, giving UNDUE weight. I therefore believe that these sites, when they are used, should be used with a big, red, blinking due care (and maybe it is for the best to keep the sites blacklisted and whitelist specific links after scrutinising them)!

I therefore don't find it unthinkable or far-fetched, especially at the time of blacklisting, that blacklisting these sites could improve the content on Wikipedia (WP:IAR).

De-blacklisting discussions by Abd however have focused on 'procedural errors' and 'JzG is involved, so he should not have added it' (using the latter as another procedural error: delist because he should not have added it). We are, however, not a bureaucracy: "A procedural error made in posting anything, such as an idea or nomination, is not grounds for invalidating that post.". I even question if JzG was involved in the article, or, as an admin, trying to solve the problems with the article in an attempt to improve this article on Wikipedia (or to keep it in good shape). I also still think that the editors who request de-listing (with Abd at the forefront) insufficiently make clear that the site abuse has stopped totally (which would be nice, we don't want abuse to start again), and that we really need these links (or is the article just as good without them), instead involved editors insist in finding scapegoats. Abd's discussion techniques in these (and other) cases is often, to say the least, direct and accusing, seemingly not willing to listen to other arguments, or consider other arguments at least partially valid. It is black ... or white. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement of partially involved Dtobias

The spam blacklist has, in my opinion, been abused as a method of enforcing content decisions made by a handful of people without broader community consensus. Intended as a manner of dealing with obvious spam of the "Buy Viagra Now" variety, it's being misused to squelch links to sites judged as too "fringe" or "unreliable" by subjective judgment, removing the ability to decide this from the place it belongs, on individual articles and their talk pages. A tight clique, with JzG a dominant member, decides whether to blacklist or whitelist sites, with a strong tendency to make these decisions with little or no discussion, then insist that a heavy consensus is needed to reverse the decision; and any attempt to bring more than the tiny number of editors who frequent the spam blacklist page into such "consensus" discussions is decried as "canvassing" and "venue shopping". Furthermore, whenever holes are poked in the justifications for any particular spam listing, an ever-shifting set of new rationalizations is concocted to justify keeping sites blacklisted indefinitely. *Dan T.* (talk) 23:41, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by outside observer but probably biased Cla68

I'll simply link to my statment in the recent RfC, which statement I stand behind. Cla68 (talk) 00:00, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note by uninvolved Ncmvocalist

I was about to close the RfC later today, given the motion to close I proposed on the talk page. If the case is accepted, then I will include that in the summary of the RfC; the only other place this could have escalated to was ANI. At this point, I have nothing much to add than that. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:21, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Mathsci

I have never edited cold fusion, but am aware as a research scientist that the mirror site lenr-canr.org is run by a promoter of fringe science, with no formal scientific training at the required level. It seems quite clear that what is on the site cannot be used for writing encyclopedia articles on a subject which in most professional scientific circles has been declared defunct. Blacklisting the site was one way to proceed, although perhaps this should not have been done by JzG himself. This possible procedural faux-pas has now been used by Abd in a long-planned attack here, backed by Durova. I am very puzzled why this particular issue has been pushed so far (or indeed why it is Jehochman that has initiated this particular request). It could reflect frustration that the editing of fringe science and in particular cold fusion has been reined in on wikipedia, in line with the real world and mainstream science. On the RfC, there were two extremes of behaviour: non-participation and silence from JzG; and interminable screeds of unreadable prose and spurious accusations from Abd on the RfC talk pages. (User:Coppertwig has argued that Abd has ADHD.) ArbCom could presumably rule on blacklisting, but in a very general way, since in this particular case there is a convincing argument that it was warranted. Mathsci (talk) 07:29, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by partially involved Ronnotel

I was tangentially involved in some ofobserved the original blacklist discussions and have contributed occasionally at the Cold fusion page. I disagree with Guy's assertion that either blacklisting had consensus. In fact, newenergytimes.com is now proposed for delisting, an action that appears to have rough consensus at this time. I accept that neither lenr-canr.org nor newenergytimes.com can generally be considered a reliable source. However, we don't use the blacklist to censor content with which we might happen to disagree, which is what I feel happened in this case. Administrators should be careful to use their tools to sanction behavior, not content.

Jehochman speaks of Guy's "loss of face" being a deterrent preventing him from taking the correct administrative action. Since when are administrators allowed to put their vanity ahead of their duty? I thought the whole point of being an admin was checking your ego at the door.

Statement by "ghost of incivility past" Alecmconroy

I haven't been particularly actively lately on wikipedia (due mostly to fatherhood! yay!!!), so as an mostly-inactive user these days, a grain of salt is in order.

I think it's non-controversial to say that JzG has, in times past, been habitually incivil. I'm not involved in the cold fusion dispute-- no comment for or against Abd or the underlying content dispute. But it seems to me that the "final warning" that was issued to JzG hasn't succeeding in changing his behavior.

Within 30 seconds of seeing this page, I quickly find JzG accusing other users of being ADHD or Autistic. Ad hominem attacks are repugnant; alleging that those you disagree with suffer from developmental disorders is even more disgusting. And if the person he's attacking actually does suffer from ADHD-- that's even more cruel-- to try to use someone's own self-admission of medical problems as a way to try to dismiss the validity of their views by suggesting they are mentally incompetent and unable to participate in rational discourse.

And of course, the autistic & ADHD thing is just one of many many many such personal attacks. I'm a multitude of other examples exist.

Incivility among random users may not be much of a problem-- if two ip address editors start calling each other names, I think the damage is probably pretty limited. But an administrator, in some ways, speaks _for_ the encyclopedia, applies our policies and, theoretically, serves as an example to others.

When an admin, such as JzG, is habitually incivil, I believe that they leave behind them a trail of demotivated wouldbe contributors. It's easy to look at the admin actions and see how many positive things an individual has done in their tenure as admin. Harder to see is the multitude of toes that may have been stepped on along the way. Harder to see is all the good work that would have gotten done, all the positive contributions that would have been made by all the individuals who were bitten by an incivil admin. Harder to see are all the people who read discussions and realized that extreme levels of incivility-- levels that that would get a novice blocked on sight-- such incivility can be condoned and even encouraged if the person is an admin or has the right friends.

Hardest of all to see is the potential for users that, if not disheartened by incivil admins, would have gone on to become admins themselves and dedicated huge portions of their time to the project.

And as always-- JzG is in no way a "bad" person or a "bad editor" and really, his persistent incivility isn't even really JzG's "fault", -- it's our fault for letting it get to this point. JzG has his admin style-- it's combative, some people don't like his style, but thus far it has always served him well. JzG loves Ad Hominem arguments-- so have many of histories greatest orators and leaders. Some people group-hug to resolve disputes, some people hurl insults-- but both instincts are natural.

The question is for us-- do we want our admins to exhibit this level of incivility or not? If we choose to allow the chronically incivil to remain admins, then we implicitly condone that behavior, we should expect more of it in the future.

Alternatively, if we don't want our admins to be incivil, then we should desysop those who continue, despite warnings, to be incivil. If we choose that course, and stick to it, then soon admins will recognize that choice has been made, and in time our admin corps will be free of any chronic incivility.

Incivility or abuse from administrators is , for me, probably the most poisonous single aspect I've encountered of the wikipedia community. I suspect it's a major barrier that prevents people making the jump from "occasional editor" to "hardcore, full-time-editing, foundation-donating, wikimania-attending, wikipedia addict".

Controversial, chronically incivil admins cost us _far_ more than the relatively minor benefit that comes from them having the admin bit. There's plenty of work to do on the project that doesn't require admin tools-- why ask that one of the less civil members of the community attempt the extremely difficult, very frustrating role of admin? Instead, let's leave the adminning to the people who have an easier time fulfilling the role of being a "trusted, unbiased, non-controversial, respectful, and civil member of the community."

--Alecmconroy (talk) 13:36, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Enric Naval

Screenshot of Talk:Cold fusion in 9 April. Abd's comments are colored in light blue.

I have to say that Abd has good insights and it's good to work with him... until you try to stumble upon something that he doesn't agree with, in which case he will engage in long long looong meandering argumentations that can finish your patience as he examines and twists any argumentation or source put forward. The good points get regretfully lost in walls of text as he tries to push some pre-conceived view of how the world should be.

As others have pointed out, Abd writes too long comments rehashing old arguments, changing topic several times in the same comment, writing as he thinks, etc. My particular complaint is that his comments have filled Talk:Cold fusion, dominating other commenters by sheer size. He also appears to believe that writing a lot means that he is working a lot [5]. Also, insistance that there is no problem with putting very long comments in talk pages because people can choose not to read them[6], despite all the people telling him that it's annoying and that he should try to write shorter comments.

About Jed's ban, Abd doesn't like the ban, he keeps trying to run loops around it, and he keeps trying to insert Jed's comments while insisting that ban is not valid (see latest discussion).

I keep having the disturbing sensation that all this trouble is being caused only by Abd's refusal to accept wikipedia's rules and consensus.

Comment by Spartaz

I have been highly active in the RFC and also closed a lengthy discussion from Abd complaining about JzG and the blacklisting at ANI. In the latter case I tried to engage with Abd and show them that they were beating a dead horse but disengaged when Abd started to attack my motives and engaged in mild personal attacks.

The basic tenet of dispute resolution is that editors who cannot resolve a dispute should disengage and that is exactly what Guy has done. There is no credible evidence that Guy continues to use administrative tools while engaged and, while there might be arguable concerns about the original blacklisting, the action has been de facto endorsed by meta admins, who have decided to blacklist themselves and discussed ad nauseum at ANI. Guy has not acted as an administrator in subsequent black/whitelisting discussions and the topic ban of Jed Rothwell was tacitly endorsed by the committee when Guy listed it for clarification.

While Guy seems to be someone who generates opinions about their actions, the evidence is that this a dispute that is only ongoing because Abd continues to wage a relentless vendetta against Guy and is refusing to see that the horse has been flogged to death. Their actions have now gone way beyond harassment.

Since it is clear that the case is going to be accepted, I hope the committee will seriously consider the real locus of the dispute, which is Abd's refusal to let this go and seriously consider appropriate measures to stop the harassment - including a topic ban preventing Abd from interacting with or discussing Guy in any way. (Similar to Everykings ban from Phil Sandifer).

I strongly urge the committee to pass an immediate injunction requiring Abd to confine all comment and discussion of Guy and his actions to the arbitration pages so that this long running waste of time is consigned to one location and does not spill over to disrupt activity elsewhere on the project.

Comment by Badger Drink

As should be patently obvious to everybody, the success of an encyclopedia is measured in the percentage of people who feel good about themselves during its creation, and not (allow me to repeat for emphasis: NOT) the "quality" of the content within ("quality", mind you, as determined by the oppressive, facist dictatorship-cum-clique of Big $cience). A 9th grader can tell you, quite plainly, that truth is entirely relative - like beauty, truth is in the eye of the beholder, and there is obviously no such thing as objective fact. As such, I recommend ArbCom accept the case with the premeditated intent of permanantly banning JzG, whose rude statements and occasional bending of the rules to suit his nefarious POV threaten to drive off excellent contributors whose only desire in Wiki-life is to make sure that the figurative "child in Africa" knows full-well from reading this magical project that tribal superstition and other such flim-flam is on equal footing with the conclusions of well-trained scientists - and, as a nod to JzG's tyrannical disregard towards bureaucratic process, I urge that ArbCom deliver an eye for an eye, and trump the WP:RfA process by declaring Abd an admin, recognizing his commendable attitude and dedication to the true focus of this encyclopedia project. Badger Drink (talk) 19:43, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (11/0/1/1)

Macedonia naming dispute

Initiated by Yannismarou (talk) at 03:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Yannismarou

I'll be as brief as I can. After an extensive edit-war, a straw poll on the application of the name "Republic of Macedonia" on the article Greece took place but it bore no fruit. No adm closed the poll; the article was protected twice by User:Horologium to avoid ongoing edit-wars, and no solution to the problem was found. After endless discussions, it was consensually agreed that the case should be presented on 22 April before the ArbCom for the reasons exposed in the above thread. It was not conclusively decided who will file the request.

Pending the filing of the case, User:ChrisO moved the article Republic of Macedonia to Macedonia. The issue was brought to AN by User:John Carter, and then a "centralized discussion" started in the Talk:Macedonia page. Unfortunately, this discussion bore no fruit, and edit wars ensued.

I regard the issue of major importance. It is not only the legitimacy of User:ChrisO's move and its adherence to our policies which is judged here, but also the avoidance of further and collateral damage this action may entail. I thus decided to bring the case in front of you now, although not all the proper series of "dispution mechanism resolution" actions has been followed. I do think, however, that this case falls under the categories "Sensitive or "drama prone" issues requiring advice on handling" as well as "Unusually divisive disputes among administrators".

My filing concerns mainly the User:ChrisO's move, but it is the ArbCom itself which will determine the scope of its competence, and if and how it is going to examine the related issue of the "Greece" article. Although I try to present the case as neutrally as I can, I cannot hide that I am an involved party, and that I have commented on ChrisO's actions here. I apologize for acting in the way I act before the 22 April, when the Greece article issue was planned to be brought here, but I strongly believe that any delay to bring User:ChrisO's move to your attention would entail irreversible damage to the project (collateral edit-warring already ensued, the title's name may affect many articles where uncontrolled edit-wars most probably will erupt, and a controversial adm action of major importance for many articles cannot remain "on the air" for so many days). Thank you.--Yannismarou (talk) 03:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Coren: The link here answers to your question. Yes, one administrator's action precipitated this early filing. Yes, the consensus was to bring the naming issue to ArbCom the earliest on 22 April because of the Orthodox Easter. There seemed to be a consensus the filing to be made by a non-involved user (maybe User:Horologium, the protecting administrator), but this was not conclusively decided.--Yannismarou (talk) 03:42, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Response to FloNight, bainer (arbitrators), Fut (involved party) and others: I see here that there is a question about what we ask from the arbitrators. As I see things, there are two issues: 1) ChrisO's move which precipitated the filing, and 2) the underlying issue (naming dispute). I believe that both should be dealt by the Committee. As far as (1) is concerned, LessHeard vanU's perspective is interesting (but needs some development and clarifications). As far as (2) is concerned, I've exposed how I personally regard ArbCom's extent of competence here. I am not sure if my interpretation keeps pace with how ARBCOM itself regards its competence, but I personally tend to see it in the broadest possible sense, because it is a matter of policy application everywhere. If the Committee decides to deal with the naming dispute issue, then it should issue concrete guidelines about how the country should be referred not only in the "Greece" article but throughout the project. Eventually, these guidelines will decide the naming dispute itself. So, directly or indirectly, the ARBCOM will have to deal with the heart of the problem: the naming dispute (and I agree on that with Sept). At least, this is what I believe.--Yannismarou (talk) 01:03, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ChrisO

The Macedonia naming issue is one of the oldest and ugliest POV disputes on Wikipedia. It has been ongoing since as far back as 2002, when the Macedonia article was first created. The dispute centres on the name of the country Macedonia, which shares its name with a Greek region and a wider historical region. The Greek and Macedonian governments have been involved in a fairly bitter diplomatic dispute over the issue for the last 17 years, which has spilled over onto Wikipedia. Years of discussions between Wikipedians over what name to use for the country have been largely fruitless, with some Greek editors insisting on adopting the Greek government's preferred terminology across Wikipedia or just within a "walled garden" of Greece-related articles. POV vandalism and disruption in support of the Greek position across the whole of Wikipedia is endemic on this issue, as an abuse log shows. Any article that mentions Macedonia is a target for disruptive editing, which generally involves replacing the term "Republic of Macedonia" with "FYROM" or made-up terms like "Vardarska". This has even extended to anonymous vandalism from the Greek Parliament on an article that appeared on the Main Page recently. [7]

The situation outside Wikipedia regarding the country's name is straightforward - it's called simply "Macedonia" by the great majority of English-language reference works and media. Wikipedia's policy is also clear about how terminology should be used. (See Talk:Macedonia#Article move for a summary.) Unfortunately any movement towards a solution that reflects external sources has been blocked by Greek editors, essentially for POV reasons. Policy has been and is still being ignored - all of the editors who have objected to the article's new name have so far refused to discuss the policy rationale for the move. It is clear that attempts to reach a consensus have failed and are unlikely to succeed without external stimulus. I undertook a WP:BOLD editorial action to cut the Gordian Knot by moving the article to a name that matches policy and real-world usage. What we need now is to obtain a definitive, binding ruling on the policy dispute and preferably to tackle some of the disruptive behaviour - POV-pushing, wikilawyering, vandalism - that is occurring daily across Wikipedia on this issue. The issue is far wider than just the article move; there will be no resolution of this matter without addressing the underlying policy problems. Note that this doesn't imply solving the naming issue itself - ultimately this dispute comes down to whether policies should in fact be followed (the answer to which should be obvious but is being clouded by wikilawyering and a simple refusal to discuss policy requirements). -- ChrisO (talk) 07:03, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(add) I should add that this issue is rather different from the other naming disputes that the Committee has looked at - Samaria and Ireland. Samaria appears to be a much more complex issue and the arbitration case is a hopeless mess, frankly. In Ireland, the Committee remanded the issue to the community for further discussion. This stage has already happened for Macedonia - a lengthy attempt to reach agreement failed some time ago (see WP:MOSMAC, now defunct). The consensus-seeking mechanism has been tried repeatedly but as others have already noted, it has been stymied by an intransigent ethnic-nationalist block of editors. I should also add that a couple of Yannis's claims are misleading - there has been no "collateral edit-warring", merely an unrelated dispute over content in the ancient history section of the article, and I have already stated that I will voluntarily reverse the article move if its policy rationale is found to be faulty. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:31, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Carcharoth. I would have no problems with a delay until the originally planned date of 22nd April. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:31, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement from 100% uninvolved Grsz11

I've never worked on a Macedonia or Greek article, I have no interest in doing so. I saw this come up on ANI several times today. From what I can tell, Chris made the move and after, explained himself on the talk page. Not really the standard procedure, but how often has "procedure" failed in these cases? He made a legitimate, even compelling argument backed up with statistics, etc. It earned support then, even from some (as far as I can tell) neutral editors. Obviously the relevant articles are subject to endless ethnic and cultural battles. Why let them even attempt to solve this any longer? I don't see why ArbCom couldn't settle the naming issue. Grsz11 04:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Man with one red shoe

First of all I'm confused by this filling. this is not the issue that was supposed to be brought to ArbCom, it's only a tangential issue. Second, it was clearly agreed by all the parties to wait till the end of this weekend for practical reasons. Third, I was named a party in this discussion, but I don't even watch the Republic of Macedonia page, and I don't even have yet a formed opinion over moving it to Macedonia. Thus, this case filling has to me a distinct feeling of either scoring points against the opposite party or panic that the real case will be submitted soon and thus this was an attempt to preempt it from being filled (BTW, it was agreed that the case will be filled by a neutral party, this doesn't seem the case here either). Sorry for the meta-comment, but these things had to be mentioned.

I will only comment on what the initial issue was supposed to be: I don't see the issue in Greece page (see talk:Greece) as a simple content problem, I see it as a matter of principle, whether Wikipedia allows a group of people to "own" their national page and keep them as walled gardens and enforce their national POV there. If it's not evident to you that's the case here, please examine the use of the name of "Republic of Macedonia" or "Macedonia" in the majority (or maybe even "all") of the other articles and even in foreign language Wikis. I also made the case that biased polls serve no use (for example it serves no use to ask Palestinians about Israel's right of existence or to ask Chinese about Tibet independence and so on, there are many national POVs out there) While assuming good faith in Wikipedia is a good policy, assuming that national editors will excuse themselves automatically from debates where their POV would influence the result is ludicrous and will only encourage same national(ist) editors to watch over "their" national pages like eagles (again I don't accuse anybody of bad faith, the problem here is POV, national POV at that) I only hope that we can find some way of removing or reducing this kind of POV and have a procedure for deciding this kind of sensible national items, maybe in case of doubt by enforcing the standard used in the rest of the articles or having a more balanced straw-poll that involves more 3rd party nationals, that's all. Now, people will complain about national profiling, I think I made a clear case why the national POV can be a problem in Wikipedia, I don't ask for excluding people based on their nationality, I ask for bringing more 3rd party people or using solutions from other articles, or finding different ways to decide content in the case there's suspicion that national POV plays an important role in the debate as it is pretty clear from the simple common sense analysis of the issue. If you can't make this kind of sweeping decision maybe you should decide in this specific naming matter and put it to sleep in a merciful manner, cause otherwise the edit wars and debates will continue endlessly. man with one red shoe 05:04, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Fut.Perf.

I request that Arbcom accept this case under the perspective previously agreed by all participants of the sub-dispute that had arisen at Talk:Greece. To Coren: No this is not a request for the committee to settle the naming dispute (i.e. the content issue) itself. It's a request for guidance in a more general matter of Wikipedia governance: how to deal with content decisions where a dispute is overwhelmingly dominated by pre-existing real-world political positions polarised along national lines. This is a situation where the standard Wiki model of consensus procedures regularly fails, and we need to figure out how to deal with that. Regarding the Greece article, we clearly found that this dispute was between a single, deeply entrenched and extremely determined, national faction of Greek editors, against a consensus of everybody else. However, the Greek faction is strong enough to block all regular consensus mechanisms threatening their POV island: by gaining at least "no consensus" status in any vote-like procedure through sheer strength of numbers, and by derailing any discussion-based procedure through sheer tenacity of filibustering, until neutral editors are bored away. We need to figure out how to deal with polls dominated by national factions, and we need to figure out where the line is to be drawn between healthy debate and disruptive WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT filibustering with people advocating nationally-based POVs.

ChrisO's move is just an expression of exasperation with this situation: he tried to cut the gordian knot, by doing the correct edit in a situation where he knew normal procedure would simply never lead anywhere. Arbcom needs to deal not so much with the legalities of this move itself, but with the underlying causes: why do we regularly have situations that make such rouge moves look like the only way out? Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:04, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.: For what it's worth, my views on the content issue are expressed here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:55, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Heimstern

Looking just at ChrisO's action, a single administrative action, isn't going to make much of a case. What really needs examining here is a complete failure in the wiki model to get us through a problem (here I am talking about the dispute at Talk:Greece, not the move at the other article, where I've had no involvement). Attempting to follow traditional methods of dispute resolution has led to roadblock because of a sizable nationalist faction that insists on using a name not used elsewhere in Wikipedia. Where two separate consensuses, one consisting almost entirely of people with a vested interest in a certain nationality, the other consisting of more or less everyone without any vested interest in that country, something is broken. The Wikipedia community needs better tools to deal with nationalistic editing if we are to have any hope of truly being a neutral encyclopedia in cases like this. I ask ArbCom to help us with this. At least, point us in the direction we should go next (and please, don't ask us to go to mediation or RFC. This issue has been discussed out, and certain parties absolutely will not listen.) Heimstern Läufer (talk) 07:02, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PS: If this case is supposed to include everyone with involvement in the naming dispute, I suppose I should be added, though having that many parties sounds exceedingly unwieldy to me.

Since it seems clear to to me that this case is going to happen, I'm really hoping the Arbs will listen to this: treating this like any ordinary case is not going to produce good results. The traditional methods of counting reverts, uncivil remarks and questionable admin actions is not going produce any answer that meaningfully solves the real problem here; namely, that this article is under siege from a group of nationalists for whom no way save that endorsed by Greek foreign policy is acceptable. We need something new. More of the same will at best leave us where we are now, and at worst may bolster the nationalists. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 15:02, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by PMK1

Personally I was hoping that this whole issue could wait until the Orthodox Easter, which begins this weekend. As a sort of respect to users from both "sides". But in further reading the comments by Yannismarou and ChrisO, both have vigourously defended their actions. It is true that a walled garden has been established by many users, all from a similar POV and ethnic background, whereby the term "Macedonia" has been claimed as an exclusively Greek one, despite the prevalent opinion in the English-speaking world. Macedonia, without any appelations, is the self-identifying term for the country officially known as the Republic of Macedonia. ChrisO's actions are justified as they follow suit behind the practises featured in the English version of Wikipedia. The addition of "Republic of" was used to disambiguate it from other Macedonias, however usage of the full name of a country is not common wiki practise. Although officially "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", the article is United Kingdom. There are dozens of similar examples, "United States of America" => United States, "Commonwealth of Australia" => Australia, "United Mexican States" => Mexico. In this case the term "Macedonia" has been appropriately chosen, acting in line with other developments on Wikipedia and accordance with WP:NAME. PMK1 (talk) 08:10, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jack forbes

I originally came across the naming dispute on talk Greece where I disagreed with listing editors nationalities taking part in a straw poll. I have no allegiances to either country, so no matter what decision is made I won't lose any sleep over it. I took some interest in the name change made by Chris0 to the Macedonia article as many of the same editors where involved. My concern is the way he went about it without any prior notice and his comments since making the change. I saw his statement here that any admin reverting his change could be desysopped for wheel-warring. I later noticed him making this change to his opening statement implying it was not an administrative action which he confirmed here after I asked him just that. He did though reassert it could be wheel-warring in a conversation on J.delanoy's talk page [8]. The question for me is, did he use his tools in the proper manner and after using those tools was he right to infer that it would be wheel-warring and possibly frighten off other admins from reverting his preferred version. Jack forbes (talk) 09:44, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Horologium

In the previous arbitration (WP:ARBMAC), the Arbitration Committee explicitly and specifically declined to discuss the central issue, that of the name of the country, because it was a "content issue", and ArbCom doesn't deal with content issues. They referred that matter back to the community for resolution. The result was an epic failure of the community to come to such a resolution, and there are good-faith editors on both sides of the dispute (or perhaps all three sides, seeing the new wrinkle introduced yesterday by ChrisO's move). The problem is that the content dispute is now a behavioral dispute, which is clearly under the purview of ArbCom.

My involvement in this issue is minimal; I protected the article Greece (three times now) to stop the edit warring over "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"/"Republic of Macedonia", and I have commented on the article's talk page about my personal preference, but I have not edited the article or any other article which relates to the naming issue. In fact, I question whether I qualify as an involved party at all, but that is something which I do not have the ability to explore at 6 AM (local time). Horologium (talk) 10:09, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In reference to the second proposed motion, I cannot possibly emphasize how strongly I support such a motion. Although it is not entirely clear in the presentation of the problem here, the move of the Macedonia article was secondary; the primary dispute was at Greece, and the back-and-forth there was to be the topic of the arbitration. The page move has overshadowed the edit warring over "Republic of Macedonia"/"former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" that has occurred over dozens of pages, some of which are only tangential to either country. This arbitration should not focus solely on ChrisO's page move, because doing so would fail to address the root cause of the edit warring, which will continue until a resolution of the name issue occurs. Horologium (talk) 00:00, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by GK1973

This issue has many dimensions and should all be dealt with by the ArbCom.

1. Whether ChrisO abused his position as an administrator to disturb the consensus achieved in Wikipedia.

I wholly support that his actions were a direct breach of 4 out of the 5 pillars which form (or have formed until now) the only firm rules of Wikipedia. He intentionally changed the status quo of an article which had been stable for years and was not disputed by any side in this conflict. He did this in a most provocative way, deprived of the editors the right to revert/modify his edits and directly threatened other admins not to do so either. He clearly acted in bad faith, choosing the start of a holy day for the Greeks to act and he totally disrupted Wikipedia to illustrate a point, whatever this might be.

2. Whether his edits should be reverted

I firmly support that his edits should be reverted at least until the ArbCom reaches a decision. His goal was to create a status quo which would manipulate the opinions of those not directly interested in this matter and it seems he has succeeded, since editors already talk about "not changing things yet", thus accepting that his edits will be the start of any new "negotiation". The former, stable for so many years, status of the article was accepted by all parties and created no problems. The constitutional name of the country was used, respecting the self identification of the ethnic Macedonians and a disambiguation table was introduced respecting the Greek claims. This formula worked for so many years with minimal protest, so the situation had miraculously been resolved in a way only possible in Wikipedia.

3. How the name issue of the existing "Macedonias" should be treated from now on.

This problem exists and is in no way unique in Wikipedia. The ArbCom should make its recommendations and I will assist in every step. The only question is how we can expect respect for this decision when there have already been such recommendations and these tend to be disrespected by all sides and ChirsO. What will the difference be from the last dictates of WP:ARBMAC, which was clearly not respected by ChrisO when he disrupted the article. Should the ArbCom deem this time that stricter guidelines are necessary, I will stand by it, although I understand that such a decision is difficult to take because of the possibility that it will clash with the pillars of Wikipedia.

Finally, the ArbCom and all editors assisting in this process should keep in mind that although the name problem exists and is a serious issue for both sides, this was not the case in the specific article in question, whose title, name, position and general status quo had been accepted by all sides. GK1973 (talk) 14:03, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Taivo

How ironic. The Gordian Knot was a tangled Greek mess solved by a Macedonian who bent, if not broke, the rules. (And of course I realize that Alexander was not a Slavic Macedonian, but it's still a beautiful irony, nonetheless.)

There are several layers to the issue before us here. First, there is the real-world conflict over a single word--started by Greece so long ago that it almost seems to date from Alexander's day. This issue is totally irrelevant to Wikipedia's policies, but it is mentioned time and time again as motivation for the uncompromising stand of the nationalist editors as here, here, here, and (my personal favorite) here illustrate. They self-identify themselves as Greek (as here and here), but then complain loudly when others identify them as Greek (as at Talk:Greece passim). Second, there is the continual attempt by the entrenched nationalists to paint international usage as the standard for Wikipedia naming (as here). This issue is also totally irrelevant to Wikipedia's policies, but is repeatedly used to sidetrack the issue of common English usage as found throughout Talk:Greece. Third, there is the Greek vandalism that occurs nearly daily throughout Wikipedia against Macedonia. The abuse log is cited elsewhere here, but I have personally been watching Staffordshire University and was forced to revert this on four occasions before getting the article protected from anonymous IPs. Staffordshire University is not even within the Greek "sphere of interest", but it was cited (along with other irrelevant articles such as 2007 Fort Dix attack plot) by Avg as a reason for reporting Future Perfect to "the authorities" when he changed "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" to "Republic of Macedonia". This is a serious problem and further illustrates the nationalistic fervor of this community when anyone tries to treat Macedonia as an equal entity within Wikipedia. But none of these issues is relevant to the discussion at hand.

Finally, we come to the real issue of this arbitration–how does Wikipedia deal with a parochial group of editors (whether nationalistic, as in this case, or religious) that blocks all attempts at productive editing that violates some self-proclaimed interest? In this case, we have a group of editors who refuse to reach any consensus on following Wikipedia policy using consistent wikilawyering, WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, and other diversionary tactics without addressing the fundamental policy issue. Wikipedia's policy is very clear to me concerning naming an entity (WP:NCON)–1) Use the most common English name, and if that isn't available for some reason, 2) Use a self-identification. The policy specifically excludes political, moral, and legal arguments in deciding on a name, but the Greek editors continually cite 1) the political views of Macedonia and Greece, 2) the moral rights of Greece, and 3) the legal name imposed by international organizations as reasons for ignoring Wikipedia naming policy. Consensus is impossible when you are talking to a wall. It is my sincere hope that this arbitration will result in a clear and unambiguous interpretation of Wikipedia naming policy. (Taivo (talk) 13:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Statement by John Carter

I first came to this discussion after Future Perfect at Sunrise requested additional eyes and voices in the discussion on the Talk:Greece page regarding how the Republic of Macedonia was to be named in that article. At the time, the two choices being considered were "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" and "Republic of Macedonia". I and other new arrivals seemed to consistently favor the latter, but to the best of my knowledge and memory the simple name "Macedonia" was never really even spoken about, except to dismiss the article being named that out of hand. Although there were heated voices on both sides, and I am ashamed to admit that I was one of them at times, there did seem to be some real discussion taking place, and there were hopes, at least on my part, that a real solution could be arrived at.

Then, out of the blue, without any discussion, ChrisO moves the page, locks it in place himself, and says that he is doing this in the interests of following policy, and is forced to justify how his move is in compliance with policy. I and several others called into question the move, and there were several comments from various parties indicating that it might be an attempt to basically game the system and take advantage of the fact that many or most of the editors from the Greek side would be celebrating the Orthodox Easter before they noticed the change had been made, thus in effect making it a stable page for several days before the Greek editors returned and noticed the move. Several editors have very clearly stated that these actions of ChrisO's undermine their trust in the fairness and effectiveness of the wikipedia.

I beg the ArbCom to accept this case. The article in question was one of the top 300 in hits for March, and it is thus one of our most important articles. Such radical moves as have taken place on such an important article are at best questionable. That they take place under a cloud such as the one cast by ChrisO's actions damages the trust of several experienced editors, and even more so newer editors, and we should all do our best to address ensuring that such damaging behavior not happen any more often than necessary. John Carter (talk) 13:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Addition to statement

It is I believe clear to everybody that there are two distinct, related, things being considered here. They are ChrisO's behavior and the broader naming question. It seems to me as a comparative outsider to the ongoing dispute who has only recently become involved in it, that the former issue may be easier to resolve than the latter. If I am correct in that opinion, and if ArbCom rules allow it, I would request that, if a decision regarding the former issue is resolved before the second issue, any implementation of a decision regarding the former issue not be delayed until the resolution of the second issue, but be carried out as soon as a clear decision is reached. John Carter (talk) 15:54, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I call to the attention of the arbitration committee this material questioning the terms of Future Perfect's proposed renaming here. In it, I mentioned that Future Perfect agreed extremely quickly with the rather sudden renaming of the article, within 45 minutes as the records will show, and requested additional information to help eliminate the possibility that he might be acting on a potential POV and COI. The conversation continued until I was called by Future Perfect "idiotic". When I called that into question, this was his response. John Carter (talk) 23:51, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by J.delanoy

I really do not care where the article ends up. I have my own personal opinion, but I do not have a vested interest in this topic, as I am a fourth-generation American with German/French ancestry. What I would like to see come out of this case is a definitive method to deal with disputes like this, where consensus clearly fails to produce results. As much as I know the Committee does not like to step into content disputes, something desperately needs to be done to end the relentless wikilawyering that surrounds topics like this. J.delanoygabsadds 15:05, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Nathan

A useful precedent for this case is the stubbing and protection by Fut. Perf. of the Liancourt Rocks article, subject to a similarly disruptive and long-term naming dispute. While that step was unilateral and without substantial prior discussion, it had the effect of shutting down the dispute. While it may not have permanently settled the issue, the fact that I haven't seen it back here or on the admin noticeboards suggests it was an effective step.

ArbCom typically doesn't decide content disputes, and it seems like this issue can be resolved without changing that tradition. Simply endorse ChrisO's, or decide not to overturn it, and it will become the new status quo without an explicit content decision on the part of the Committee.

I do understand that endorsing this type of action (essentially resolution of a content dispute by administrator fiat) is a difficult proposition for the committee and the community to accept. I think this case, and the problem of endorsing fiat actions, can both be resolved by committee motion: resolve that the decision in this instance will stand, caution ChrisO and other administrators against making unilateral decisions without discussion in the future, and further admonish ChrisO for choosing to take this action at a time when many of the key involved editors are away on holiday. Nathan T (formerly Avruch) 15:30, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SheffieldSteel

On the face of it, the underlying issue (M, ROM, or fYROM) looks like a pure content dispute, but I feel that the conduct of many participants needs to be considered, with numerous incidents and/or accusations of nationalism, bad faith, and personal attacks having taken place. There is additionally a policy aspect to this: editors and admins have been unable to establish a consensus as to how our naming conventions should be applied to this case - uniformly, or making exceptions.

I hope that ArbCom will consider this case in its entirety, rather than focussing solely on (getting distracted by?) the issue of ChrisO's move/protect protected move of the article currently at Macedonia. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 15:21, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hiberniantears

ChrisO did the correct thing, even though it has stirred a hornet's nest. Look at Taiwan as a case in point. This all comes down to a long, long edit war concerning an entrenched camp(s) of nationalist editors. There cannot be consensus on this. There will not be consensus on this. So the only responsible thing to do is to take the warring camps out of the picture and view how we treat every other article on Wikipedia concerning a country. That is what administrators exist for, and it is what ArbCom exists for. Hiberniantears (talk) 15:33, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved user Knight of the Wind

After noticing a thread on AN/I, I decided to look farther into this. It seems to me that ChrisO's action was done according with policy, and that the move protection was applied to prevent edit-warring. Reading through the talk page, I saw no consensus to move or to keep as is. For me, in my opinion, in an area where there is no consensus, policy takes priority. However, reading through the talk page, it seems a large number of the editors involved in the naming dispute are Greek/Macedonian. This, is an issue due to nationalism. I believe this could represent a conflict of interest to many users. I do not believe ChrisO abused his admin tools in this situation. What I want to see come from this RFAR is a clear consensus on the name, and though I hate to say it, topic bans on users with obvious COI may be in order. Knight of the Wind 16:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Avg

I would like to start by expressing my firm belief that this action by ChrisO was not simply a random "bold" move nor a move by a passing-by, uninvolved administrator. It was a carefully planned and premeditated move, by a heavily biased editor, with the objective of acting as a fait accompli. It is also the culmination of a serial disregard of any sense of the consensus process and it has been accompanied by a host of accusations, insults and threats against an ethnic group of editors. It was not the first time he abused the admin tools to settle this dispute in his favour. And finally, it was based in deceit and in an outright lie to the community. I'm prepared to prove my claims with diffs when the arbitration enters the evidence phase. ChrisO has completely lost my trust.

I would also like to draw the attention of the ArbCom to the somewhat established tactics even in the statements of certain involved parties here, in labelling a group of editors as "Greek nationalists". The issue of ethnic profiling is something that I feel ArbCom should address. Mud is a difficult thing to remove when someone throws it at you. I would ask ArbCom to protect me and anyone else insulted from the continuous abuse and ridicule we get, just because we happen to have a certain opinion, which has always been based on policy and which we have never tried to impose to anyone. I would challenge anyone to find any of the "Greek nationalists" reverting any article where "Republic of Macedonia" was the established naming. On the contrary, the other side (which mainly comprises of two users who enjoy immunity, ChrisO and Future Perfect at Sunrise) has engaged in extensive edit wars, mass renames and intimidation tactics in order to push their POV and reverse the status quo. Again, diffs will be provided in detail.

Regarding the content dispute, never, ever has "Macedonia" been discussed as a choice for naming the country, because it was common ground to everybody even remotely involved with the issue that there is a high degree of ambiguity. Again, I will present as evidence many diffs where even ChrisO himself strongly advocates that Macedonia should not be used as the name of the country. I will also present my arguments on the naming issue (of course I disagree with the current naming) if the content dispute is discussed, however I very strongly believe the behavioral issue has to be tackled first. I find appalling to be forced to enter into a content dispute with the tables turned to ChrisO favor, just because he abused the admin tools.

Request: I specifically request User:ChrisO to revert back to the status quo ante (stable for the last 7 years) before the arbitration starts on the 22nd of April. He will then prove to the arbitrators and to the community that his action was not intended to promote a certain POV and trick the arbitrators into upholding the newly changed name.

Comment by briefly and tangentially involved LessHeard vanU

I was the first respondent to the notice posted by John Carter at the Noticeboard, and it was I who moved the discussion - after a few false starts - to Talk:Macedonia after it became apparent that there was little in the way of neutral admin reaction to the move against the amount of partisan comment that was being generated on the Noticeboard. The opportunity for uninvolved community comment on ChrisO's actions has passed, and it therefore falls to the ArbCom to decide if it was in line with the admin remit (understanding that any evidence or comment that may be made in the process will again be dwarfed by those responding to the long standing dispute). It may be that ArbCom will need to divorce the review of ChrisO's admin actions and that of ChisO as a party to the dispute to gain a proper perspective of those actions. At the time of writing I am assuming the Committee will accept this request. LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:12, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Húsönd

I reiterate my brief comment on Talk:Macedonia: the timing of the move by ChrisO was inadequate. Furthermore, being ChrisO clearly involved in this dispute, he should have refrained from an unilateral move that was guaranteed to produce a very heated outcry. That said, I fully understand the frustration that led to such reaction. The naming issue of the Republic of Macedonia and its application on Wikipedia has been a long-lasting dispute, as the Greek POV is fiercely defended by a large group of Greek users that effectively block any consensus from ever occurring. The recent straw poll clearly demonstrated this. Yet, outside attention was only drawn when the straw poll issue was brought to ANI by Greek users, irked by my rather visual analysis (now deleted) of the ethnicity of the straw poll participants. Consensus was easily formed at ANI that Greek users had their own walled garden and were creating an obstacle to Wikipedia's natural consensus building process. Despite overall agreement, the poll ended, no admin ever closed it, no decision was ever made, and the heated discussion unsurprisingly died out. It is very frustrating to see core values of Wikipedia be manipulated by one ethnic group, but even more frustrating to see everybody (expect that ethic group) acknowledge the manipulation and still do nothing about it. On top of that, those who point the obvious fact that the problem lies with one ethnic group still have to bear with the usual accusations of racism and censorship. And then they become "involved" and can take no unilateral actions such as... move an article. Thus, although I do not approve ChrisO's rush, I think that his action attempts to bring rightful attention to a problem that should earn far more disapproval. I am glad that this is finally back at the Arbcom and I do expect that at last we may have some results, and some peace. Húsönd 21:44, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by BirgitteSB

Responding to an RFC on this naming issue was one of the first really heated disputes I ever came across in Wikipedia. That was in April 2006. I am a strong believer in consensus but we must find a way resolve areas of perpetual "no consensus". Chris O's actions were neither with nor against consensus here, because there has never been anything more stalemate achieved in regard to the issue. I don't know that ArbCom intends to touch the content issue here. But they may be able to help the resolution of the content issue by at least framing the question properly. I found a diff from Talk:Macedonia back in 2006 were I tried to share some insight on that See here is where you and I at an impasse. I am looking at the article attached to this talk page (BTW take a minute and read the article one more time). I read this article and think how to best direct the average English speaker who is looking for this information to this article. While I believe you are thinking more about what people who have already found the article will think about the concept of Macedonia. There is a place to deal with the concept of Macdonia, but it is not here; it is on the disambiguation page. I think the reason that the issue has been so problematic for so long is that no one has enforced people from sidetracking productive discussion by asking irrelevant questions or by presenting evidence that is irrelevant to the useful question. I believe the solution here is the one used at Talk:Evolution put together an FAQ on a sub-page figure out the answers by consensus and once it is done quickly and firmly redirect misguided questions or objections there.--BirgitteSB 23:40, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jim62sch

I'm innocent I tells ya, I wuz framed. Seriously, I've noted elsewhere that I thought the move was a bad idea, both in its timing and in its intent: I understand why Chris did what he did, but I see no consensus for the move. Yes, as a potential political tactic it was smart in the sense that a move to the center takes us back to Republic of Macedonia, but in this case it wasn't necessarily the best idea. The real issue is precisely what User:John Carter and User:Taivo have explained. To be more blunt: should the Greece article be a walled garden, one that can ignore the realities and policies and logic? I say "no". Period and EOS. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;dissera! 23:53, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Septentrionalis (Pmanderson)

If ArbCom does not choose to address the content dispute, they should reconsider accepting the case. There is no hope of consensus otherwise, and the sanctions of WP:ARBMAC, which have caught at least of the parties to this case, have not produced decent or civil behavior.

This includes something like providing a Special Master to decide the content dispute for them; but I think the settlement is only likely to prevail if it is backed by ArbCom's full authority. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:33, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by harej

I would like to begin by introducing words to live by for all warring parties. By editing Wikipedia, you are not a Greek, a Macedonian, an Albanian, Serbian, Montenegrin, Croatian, Pole, Russian, or whatever you may choose to call yourself, but a Wikipedia editor. You are a writer who must be capable of collaborating, compromising, apologizing and forgiving. If you are not capable of that, you are not wanted here.

This is a problem which Wikipedia will not solve and will never solve by itself. This is a bitter debate, fueled by national interests, thousands of years in the making, and currently manifested on Wikipedia. As a collaborative reference work made possible by the positive contributions of people of all ancestral stock, and used by people of all ancestral stock, Wikipedia and its editors must consider that they will go nowhere with continual self-assertion of what they personally want. They must put down the editorial firearms, sit at a table, and consider what the best approach to solving this is. I want ArbCom to promote this atmosphere of solving the debate by actually solving the debate instead of solving the people.

After all, this is Wikipedia. It does not have to be an exact duplication of the real world (as long as the articles, er, reflect the real world sufficiently). Therefore, while it will never be able to end the arguing in its entirety, it can ameliorate it.

World peace rhetoric aside, if the editors cannot work together to solve it, ArbCom should be pushing to solve it. Let's decide on a naming convention, agree on it, and enforce it.

Statement by Politis

Statement forthcoming on Monday, 20 April 2009. Many editors who argue for this article to be called RoM, as it was until a few days ago have outstanding contributions to wikipedia. Many were involved in making Macedonia (terminology) into a featured article. The map of one of those editors has even found fame beyond wikipedia in (Slav) Macedonian blogs and sites and is happily used. Users came together to agree on a line of conduct over when to use Macedonia, RoM, Fyrom, Greek Macedonia, etc. It worked. Users, such as myself, then went on to revert some reference to Fyrom into RoM because we had agreed. Now, those users seem to be vilified for wishing to abide by the status quo as agreed. That seems wrong. Please reconsider.Politis (talk) 17:57, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by jd2718

I have edited Macedonia-related topics, but I am not involved in the immediate dispute.

The first Macedonia arbitration produced quite a bit of enforcement, but nothing as far as resolution. As ArbCom creates ARBMAC2, it should do so with the intent of providing editors with a clear path towards resolving this naming dispute. And that would almost be enough to make this arbitration worthwhile. But there is more: 1. editors whose primary work here is advocacy, not editing (can we look at the behavior, not the individuals?) 2. groups of editors acting as advocates in concert, making normal DR, finding consensus, etc, 'challenging' 3. Names. Can we get some direction on resolving naming disputes, which are an especially frequent, especially vexatious element in these nationalist edit wars, more expeditiously? Should there be a names project? A names board? Naming mediators?

But to take a whole case to create a process to decide on the name of one article, that would be an unfortunate use of time. Jd2718 (talk) 17:47, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Statement by AndreasJS

This case is only vaguely related to previous disputes about the choice between "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" and "Republic of Macedonia" within articles; its subject is whether the entry under the name "Macedonia" should lead directly to the country or to a disambiguation page (or, as a third alternative, to the region, as is the case with Micronesia). This is important for a casual user who reads or hears about "Macedonia" and is curious about what this term stand for. This is especially important for a controversial term, as is the case here. I want to quote from Wikipedia:disambiguation: "If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic, and that the disambiguation page should be located at the plain title with no '(disambiguation)'". The Wikipedia:Naming conventions referred to by ChrisO do not apply to this issue, because they do not deal directly with disambiguation. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#disambiguation does not specify how to determine what is the primary topic.

I want also bring to the attention of the committee that a similar case involving Macedonians has been explicitly given as an example for the need of a disambiguation page in Wikipedia:Naming conflict#Overlapping names.

ChrisO's action clearly contravened a guideline, thereby breaking a consensus that had prevailed over several years. Also, ChrisO abused his privilege as an administrator if he moved an edit-protected page without any previous discussion. Quote from Wikipedia:Naming conventions: " Any edit to it should reflect consensus." I would like to ask the committee to encourage the Wikipedia community, and especially administrators, to adhere to policies and guidelines.  Andreas  (T) 18:41, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I would like draw the committees attention to its previous decision in a similar case at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ireland article names.  Andreas  (T) 15:34, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Shadowmorph

I'm the proverbial new editor. I was previously anonymous but Macedonia is protected from those for ever. I was trying to improve Macedonia dab page and along with the guardians there after bold edits and talks we finally spitted for the adjective to have it's own page like Irish and Ireland (an improvement). ChrisO made two moves. First he moved Macedonia to Macedonia (disambiguation) and lied to us about the reason (in addition to ignoring the talk page). Then he moved the Republic of Macedonia article to Macedonia. That way he ridiculed me as a new editor, and showed me the door together with all other potential new editors. He did this on an Orthodox Good Friday, to avoid confrontation, since all those that would care enough to object would be from Greece (religion) or Bulgaria (religion). He effectively started an edit war, with a tactic I parallelized (in a figure of speech) similar to Yom Kippur War.

That can't be acceptable behaviour from an admin. Furthermore he wasn't being bold in making an edit like I did with moving Macedon to Macedonia (ancient kingdom) which I discussed too. That can be reverted. Rather ChrisO was bold in deciding and locking to a new name for a move-protected page. The way to go, on an encyclopedia "anyone can edit"? Is Wikipedia now written by the admins, do they get to chose the names only?. He knew that there would never be consensus to move it back, therefore he was bold in creating a new status quo for the page. The funny part is that there never was in 5 years any talk or reason to move it, Republic of Macedonia was the consensus (in the wiki way). But aside from that, the name issue is important. Why do I bother? The first result from Google to anyone uninformed on the matters of Macedonia (region) is always the Wikipedia entry named "Macedonia". So, ChrisO's move can be seen as a Google bomb, not an administrative move.

"Macedonia" is used in a wide context (chronically). Is Wikipedia just a reference or is it a learning tool? Do the uneducated users learn anything on the historic region, when they go to Macedonia like they do with Georgia? ChrisO also opened the statistics Pandora's box, with many flaws. Statistics also showed Georgia (country) over Georgia in the stats for August 2008, and the name of Republic of Macedonia is right now on the news (elections, NATO & EU ascension, etc)

In the time pressure, I had to become creative, finding new statistical arguments WP could use elsewhere. Please see my discussions here and here for the actual English common usage of the word Macedonia.Macedonia, Ohio is favored (that's not a "Greek nationalist" thing to say, but people called me that in WP)

If WP has to have a Macedonia (terminology) article, that is by itself a reason to say that there is no single main topic It's just like the American (word) situation. Besides the policy on WP:Naming conflicts was broken by the move. It cites Republic of Ireland as a good example and says "chances are there isn't that great of a need to move it in the first place". Another example is Micronesia.

The naming dispute might be resolved soon. Let me just say that other neutrals like the UN resorted to temporary solutions, and Wikipedia is not on a WP:DEADLINE. What's with the rush, if not to create a new Wikipedia status quo? WP should remain as neutral as it can be. "Republic of Macedonia" is not the neutral solution either, but the very one that is disputed, since the dispute is over the name (not the existence of the state, like in Kosovo). But since RoM is the self-identification, constitutionally, RoM is as neutral as it gets for an encyclopedia. Shadowmorph (talk) 18:40, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by NBahn

I was perusing "Abd and JzG" when I came across "Macedonia Name Change". Without reading anything I immediately knew two things: First of all, that there are Greek ultra-nationalists involved; and second, that whatever said ultra-nationalists are peddling in regard to Macedonia (republic or otherwise) is a fresh, steaming pile of bovine feces. Then, while perusing the statements, I see that User:ChrisO and User:Future Perfect at Sunrise are among those opposing the aforementioned Greeks. For me, that's more than enough right there. I hold both User:ChrisO and User:Future Perfect at Sunrise in the highest of regard; even if there weren't Greek ultra-nationalists involved in this Macedonian issue (peddling Greek Foreign Ministry talking points) then knowing which side User:ChrisO and User:Future Perfect at Sunrise stand is good enough me. As far as I am concerned, anything that User:ChrisO and User:Future Perfect at Sunrise say can be taken at face value while anything proffered by the Greek ultra-nationalists needs to be confirmed through multiple and independent sources.
--NBahn (talk) 20:46, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Dr.K.

The plethora of detailed statements and excellent rationales by Yannis, AndreasJS, John Carter and Shadowmorph fully address my concerns. Therefore since these excellent points were made by them as well as others I will avoid repeating many of their arguments here. I would like however to expand on a point John Carter made about trust. As John Carter so eloquently and diplomatically mentioned the actions of ChrisO damage the trust of established as well as newer editors. Administrators in Wikipedia hold a very special place in the community. Their authority is maintained and respected when they excercise their power with measure and discipline and always upholding the policies of the community as well as the trust of the editors. Most admins do this job remarkably well and so even though Wikipedia is not a democracy most editors feel as if they are on an equal editorial footing with the administrators because they trust that the administrators will follow due process at all times. In the few instances where administrators undertake to act in a heroic fashion and start using heroic terminology like cutting the Gordian knot, you know instinctively something went wrong. When administrators use their tools as super-powers then Wikipedia becomes Smallville, Metropolis or Gotham city. Nice places all but they seem not very suitable models for encyclopedia building. To paraphrase Tina Turner: We Don't Need Another Hero, because we are not in Thunderdome but in Wikipedia. Even Future Perfect commenting on ChrisO's actions called them a coup (italics not mine). As I said before, I know Wikipedia is not a democracy but I hope it will not soon become a banana republic either. There are many other issues remaining that I will not address in detail here, such as the use of nationality/ethnicity (or even suspected ethnicity) based statistics to cast a wide pall over a group of editors and other similar anti-intellectual tactics employed by certain admins and which I consider particularly harmful to the project, to logic and to any intellectual pursuit in general. In closing I urge Arbcom to address these points that I raised, as well as many other peripheral issues so capably enunciated by the other participants, for the good of this project. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Cacharoth for his helpful guidance regarding the background of this controversy and his comments concerning the Easter celebrations. Dr.K. logos 00:05, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Caspian blue

I'm not sure as to why I'm called an involved editor, but have an interest in how ArbCom would handle the long-term and tendentious nationalistic dispute. I expect that whatever remedy comes from the case would be a precedant for other heated naming disputes. The recent two ANI reports on administrators' conducts regarding the issue - Húsönd's ethnic filling and ChrisO's unilateral move of the page - attracted me to take a look at the case. Some say ChrisO and Húsönd's conducts enforced "obvious is obvious, so let's endorse for them to fix it". I have to disagree with this view because of several reasons. First, the dispute in reality is not settled yet, so we have to respect the both side and reflect the current situation without any bias. Second, administrators are supposed to assist editors to resolve disputes, not to inflate them. However see what results have been generated by their conducts; flaring the flame. They mix administrator's roles with their editorial POV and emotions too much. The page move under the protection is not a fair play even considering the fact that he knew the Greek holidays. The pointy and unilateral action based on his firm belief that he is doing right is arguable enough. ChrisO argues that if any administrator move back the title, that would be "wheel war" which can be a ground for de-sysopping. I'm very concerned about his ethics and interpretation of our policies. I feel uneasy that many tend to blame the dispute all to Greek as calling ultra-nationalists. How so? Name accompanies identity matters, so we can not attribute this dispute to just one side. One thing to remind that not every state members of UN recognize Republic of Macedonia, and English is unarguably the current lingua franca in the world. So I expect ArbCom examines the case thoroughly and handle it fairly.--Caspian blue 02:43, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ev

On 9 April I commented on the gestating arbitration at Talk:Greece (diff., scroll down: it's the last comment of the page).

Please, do not dedicate too much of your time to the bold actions by ChrisO that precipitated the filing of this case: whether adequate or not, it is one single, easily reversable action made in good faith. — Little harm can come out of it.

Instead, focus on the subjacent reasons that led ChrisO to take such action: the general editing environment around these topics, the existence of a group of Greek editors determined to have our articles reflect their biases (as described by others above). — This is the source of much (most?) of the constant problems, and harm does come out of it. - Ev (talk) 19:30, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.
Opening clerks, User:Tiptoety and User:KnightLago, name this case "Macedonia 2" and make a short cut from WP:ARBMAC2 to the case final decision section, just as WP:ARBMAC redirects to Wikipedia:ARBMAC#Final_decision. Thanks. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:39, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Unless otherwise directed, open this case at 00:01 22 April 2009 UTC or as soon as feasible thereafter. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:21, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Motion below has passed and it has been up for 24 hours. Please can a clerk make the necessary announcements. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 10:48, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
When the case opens, add it to the injunction section of the PD page and add the Inj option to RFARTasks template. — Rlevse • Talk • 13:37, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I will. I had also planned to update the announcements so they point to the right place. KnightLago (talk) 13:49, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Rlevse has made a motion, I've refactored to clarify it (this functions as an amendment to the already active motion). If case is opened before motion passes or fails, votes can be transferred directly into proposed temporary injunctions.--Tznkai (talk) 00:56, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (13/0/0/0)

  • Accept, primarily to examine the use of administrative tools in this matter—I note that the article was, and remains, move-protected—but also to try and move the broader dispute towards resolution. Yannismarou, please add as parties (and provide appropriate notification to) the editors involved in the naming dispute, as well as any others who have expressed interest in participating in the case that was to be filed on the 22nd. Kirill [pf] 03:15, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, I need to understand something here that's of critical importance, I think: is the community requesting that ArbCom settle the naming dispute itself? I understand that one administrator's action precipitated this early filing of a request, but the intent was to bring this to ArbCom all along? — Coren (talk) 03:23, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Accept; It does seem that the community methods have broken down in this area, and that ArbCom might help. — Coren (talk) 13:18, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept, I am never surprised when these areas of real world ethnic/political strife come here. As Fut Perf says, this is an area where wiki consensus building regularly fails and we as a community need to find better ways to work with this type of situation. The consensus model regularly fails here because each side, due to long term centuries-old strife in the area/topic, perceives the truth, as they see it, being twisted. Focus should be on admin behavior and conduct of all users, not what the titles should be. — Rlevse • Talk • 10:01, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept To examine admin conduct, and to assist the Community in finding a solution to the naming conflict (not select the name). FloNight♥♥♥ 10:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept, both to look at the recent move but also the underlying issue in the sense that it would have been brought to us anyway next week. As Flo says, we will, as always, not be resolving the content dispute, but we can provide a framework for resolution. --bainer (talk) 12:46, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept Wizardman 16:19, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept. Please note that when the case opens I will post some questions thay I will be asking the parties (and interested others) to address. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:31, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 18:21, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept. Risker (talk) 23:10, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept. Would like to suggest here that the opening of the case is delayed until 22nd April, for several reasons: (1) So ArbCom can finish off some other cases that need our attention; (2) To fit in with the original intention to file on 22nd April - mainly, as I understand it, to fit in with the dates of Orthodox Easter; (3) To give those involved time to gather their thoughts; (4) To enable discussion of the case name (request name conflicts with an article of that name), the case scope and who should be the named parties; (5) To enable people to read the megabytes of discussion that has taken place around this topic; (6) For arbitrators and the editors involved at this topic to read the following articles: Macedonia naming dispute, Macedonia (disambiguation), and Macedonia (terminology); (7) For those involved in the naming dispute to consider whether time spent discussing the name of the article might be better spent improving articles, as was done with Macedonia (terminology) (a featured article). In general, a way does need to be found to resolve these perennial disputes for set periods of time (say two years) so that in between the periodic debates, work is actually done on other articles instead. Whether by Gordian Knot-type resolution or otherwise. But these nationalist naming disputes need to be settled because they are a large drain in time and resources (several recent and current arbitration cases have been disputes over article names). Carcharoth (talk) 00:11, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept.  Roger Davies talk 11:37, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept per flonight. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:38, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept. --Vassyana (talk) 19:08, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept. --John Vandenberg (chat) 09:41, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Motions

There are 16 arbitrators, so 9 is a majority

1) No Macedonia-related article, broadly defined, shall be moved/renamed until after the "Macedonia 2" case closes. If it does occur, any uninvolved administrator can expeditiously revert it. After the case closes, Macedonia-related moves/renames can occur as prescribed in the final decision.

Support:
  1. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:28, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Noting here that ArbCom won't say what the name(s) should be, but that we will almost certainly be laying out a framework, or urging that a framework be set up, for achieving a lasting resolution to this issue (or at least for a set period to allow editing energies to be productively channelled elsewhere for that period). Discussions on how to resolve this should still continue, but no moving or renaming (with obvious exceptions such as typos on newly-created articles). Carcharoth (talk) 11:34, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  3. With minor copy-edit.  Roger Davies talk 11:37, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  4. John Vandenberg (chat) 11:41, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Since there is a delay in opening the case, this proposal seems sensible as there was likely to be a similar injunction proposed soon after the case opened. FloNight♥♥♥ 13:20, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    We can just move this to the injunction, no need to revote. — Rlevse • Talk • 13:21, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, there will be no need for another vote. This motion covers the situations. We are doing it this way instead of an injunction because of the delay. FloNight♥♥♥ 13:28, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Wizardman 14:40, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Risker (talk) 14:53, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Sam Blacketer (talk) 22:50, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:00, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  10. FayssalF - Wiki me up® 11:52, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Enacted 09:18, 19 April 2009. KnightLago (talk) 13:29, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose:
Abstain:

2) Motion 1 above is amended to include prohibiting edits that change how Macedonia is referred to within those articles.

Support:
  1. In order to reduce the drama. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:22, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  2. That includes "incorrect" entries. --Vassyana (talk) 07:22, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Wizardman 01:57, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose:
Abstain:
  1. This strikes me as going a bit too far in the direction of content management rather than behavioural management; I am willing to be persuaded, but haven't seen sufficient evidence to support at this stage. Risker (talk) 07:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I am very sympathetic to this concern. I would agree with an alternative measure encouraging administrators and the community to nip any brewing edit war over such a conflict in the bud with topic bans and blocks. (I would even indicate my preference for such a measure over this one.) Would you be more supportive of something along those lines? Regardless, I do feel the area needs some increased management going forward. This is bound to be a large case with numerous parties that will take a fair bit of time to resolve. I would like to see a stop-gap to prevent disruption involving this limited issue. --Vassyana (talk) 22:25, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I think the first motion is needed because pagemoves are especially troublesome, and they usually set of updates to other articles to reflect the new page name. However I dont think we need to put strong limits on editing. It should be suffice to say that disruptive edits in this topical area will be become evidence in this case, and recent evidence usually results in strong remedies. John Vandenberg (chat) 10:11, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion
  • If this motion is passed, enforcement needs to be discussed. I don't want to see half the potential participants to the ArbCom case blocked by admins who are also participating at the ArbCom case because the editors in question have been edit warring over wording in the articles while the case is in progress. Uninvolved admins are needed to deal with this. I have noted the evidence that such changes are indeed taking place, so I suggest the examples in question are presented as evidence in the case. Crucially, the editors who are making such changes need to be told to stop and explain their changes at the arbitration case. If the motion is amended to make such enforcement explicit, I will support it. Carcharoth (talk) 08:25, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clarifications and other requests

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Request to amend prior case The Troubles

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

Statement by SirFozzie

The Troubles, are not as contentious as they once were, thanks to the tight lid on edit-warring that was created by User:Rlevese Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/The_Troubles#Final_remedies_for_AE_case here, that subjected the whole subset of articles covered by The Troubles to a 1 RR. This has blunted a lot of the constant edit-warring. However, six months after the fix was applied, someone wants to rip the band-aid off and let the (metaphorical) blood flow anew. User:Sandstein has stated that he will not act on AE requests regarding this remedy, because it is not an ArbCom remedy. We've already seen several folks using IP's to edit war and then when the IP is blocked, use throw-away accounts. The sanctions are needed.. there are 10+ sections in the archives where this is used since December alone.

So, despite my utter distaste of time-wasting bureaucracy such as this, would the ArbCom please vote in the following as a formal ArbCom remedy, as posted by User:Rlevse:

  • All editors on Troubles related articles are directed to get the advice of neutral parties via means such as outside opinions.
  • All articles related to The Troubles, defined as: any article that could be reasonably construed as being related to The Troubles, Irish nationalism, the Baronetcies, and British nationalism in relation to Ireland falls under 1RR. When in doubt, assume it is related.
    • Clear vandalism may be reverted without penalty
  • Blocks may be up to 1 week for first offense, 1 month after the first 1 week block, and then ban options may be considered.
  • As there are hundreds of articles potentially subject to this, I leave it to the community to tag the talk pages of the articles and to decide how to go about that. Code for a template that can be used for that is here: {{Consensus|This article is currently subject to '''[[Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/The_Troubles#Final_remedies_for_AE_case]]''', as laid out during a previous [[WP:AE]] case that closed October 05, 2008. If you are a new editor, or an editor unfamiliar with the situation, please follow the guidelines laid out in the above link. If you are unsure if your edit is appropriate, discuss it on this talk page first.}}

Statement by Ryan Postlethwaite

If one admin chooses not to act on a particular enforcement request, it doesn't stop another administrator stepping in. Whilst Sandstein might not agree and therefore decide not to take action, if another administrator believes the editor in question has broken the case remedies (In this case it is enforcement of discretionary sanctions) then that is up to them and they may block for that. From what I can see, Sandstein hasn't said he'll overrule other administrators and I suspect he wouldn't even challenge other administrators if they made blocks as part of Rlevse's restriction. It looks like Sandstein merely doesn't agree and doesn't feel comfortable enforcing the decision - that's his prerogative and feel free to simply block if someone goes against the 1RR restriction. Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter 22:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by other user

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion


Request for clarification: User:Thomas Basboll

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

Statement by Tom harrison

Last April, User:Thomas Basboll was banned[9] from articles and talk pages related to the September 11 attack. Since then he's hardly done anything else, limiting his work to user pages. He's always civil and articulate; individual edits can seem reasonable. But his goal here has been and remains to get the truth out about the collapse of the World Trade Center. Whatever his motivation, no matter how he describes or intends his edits, their invariable result has been to promote conspiracy theories about 'controlled demolition'. He has shown no interest in contributing in any other area; he's banned from that area; he continues his work in a sandbox,[10], and invites others to edit on his behalf.[11] If encouraging others to apply edits he can't make himself doesn't violate the letter of his topic ban it's at least contrary to its purpose, and continually beating the drum for the 9/11 conspiracy theories is a continuing disruption. Tom Harrison Talk 14:12, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thomas Basboll

I'm not sure an all out arbitration is necessary. If the topic-ban applies to user talk pages and my own sandbox then I am in the wrong and will stop immediately. If it does not, I think Tom Harrison needs to provide a bit more evidence that, on balance, the "invariable result [of my edits] has been to promote conspiracy theories about 'controlled demolition'". In the one case where a user has objected to my use of his talk page, I have respected that wish, but otherwise my suggestions have been met with understanding and have been implemented (or not) as the user I contacted chose. I have not asked users to edit "on my behalf"; I have pointed out errors in articles to them and sometimes suggested prose that I believed could express an idea they were defending in talk discussions. I'm really am just trying to help.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 14:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MONGO

More of the same...Basboll has been topic banned from editing all pages related to the events surrounding 9/11...this includes conspiracy pages, where he has been an advocate. Arbcom may not be familiar with this issue, but I surely am, and our server space is not to be used to sidestep topic bans using personal sandboxes or others usertalk to rally a cause for which one has been topic banned...topic bans should mean just that...one is banned from the topic, regardless of the location. I have stated repeatedly that AFTER Basboll was topic banned that, based on his obvious articulateness, that he must be educated and surely...surely, he could and should help out with other areas that are not related to those he is topic banned from. I tried to encourage him to do so...but instead, he continues his fixation on this subject matter...though of course, outside main article space. WP:MEAT applies in this case...a topic banned editor, especially one who has been known to advocate fringe theories, shouldn't be encouraging others of similar POV [12] and discouraging those that base their work on known evidence...as Basboll did to me here...which resulted in my asking him to avoid my usertalk if he was going to use it for his 9/11 issues. Furthermore, major collaborative pieces should be worked on in article space in my opinion...creating sandboxes pages when we already have working long standing pages that can be improved only allows topic banned people a way to avoid sanction from being topic banned...

So can arbcom help clarify for Mr. Basboll what a topic ban implies and maybe succeed where I failed and encourage him to find some other topic to edit? I'm hoping that this is the case...--MONGO 00:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statements by other user

Comment by Cs32en

The ban against Thomas Basboll had been based on reasons "described by Jehochman" [13]. However, Jehochman has advised Thomas Basboll as follows: "I think it might be worthwhile to write a crisp version of the article in your sandbox ..." [14]. So this is, in my opinion, best left to the community to sort out, at this point of time. --Cs32en (talk) 14:45, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

Request for clarification: EddieSegoura ban appeal attempts

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:


Statement by TML

EddieSegoura (talk · contribs) was banned back in 2006 (the discussion that led up to the ban can be found at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive104#Exicornt Vandalism/EddieSegoura. Since then, he has expressed a desire to appeal his ban to the Arbitration Committee, but I noticed that he has made his appeals on-Wiki rather than off-Wiki. His current appeal attempt, made about two months ago, is on the current version of his userpage. Here are some of his past appeal attempts: [15] [16]

About two years ago I sent him an e-mail advising him to appeal off-Wiki rather than on-Wiki (I can forward this e-mail and his response to the committee upon request), but it appears that he still desires to make his appeals on-Wiki.

I have no direct opinion on his ban, but I do have a few questions:

  • Is the committee aware of his request(s) to appeal his ban?
  • Has he ever e-mailed the committee to appeal?
  • If his appeals have been rejected, has the committee ever informed him about the rejection(s)?

I have no relation to this user, nor was I ever involved in his banning, but I've noticed that he seems to have a genuine desire to appeal his ban, but his methodology appears to be flawed. If he truly desires to appeal, I would like to help him do it properly. TML (talk) 07:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Eddie has sent a reply to the e-mail I sent him several days ago regarding this inquiry. Should I post it here, or should I forward it by e-mail? TML (talk) 01:04, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JzG

In case anyone is not aware, Eddie Segoura made efforts over an extended period to publicise a protologism he had coined, "exicornt". He did this on enWP, Wiktionary, and by his own admission he added it to hundreds of pages on various Wikimedia sites. It was added to the meta:Spam_blacklist in 2007, and meta:Meta:Requests for CheckUser information/Archives/2006 suggests that the problem was pressing enough to raise the granting of emergency granting of CheckUser rights on Wiktionary. One account he now admits was a sockpuppet is Voltron (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). The unblock requests at User talk:Voltron appear to deny this, though Segoura now admits it openly. The user was banned for completely exhausting the community's patience, including by sockpuppetry, Wikistalking and baiting. I suggest that we should ask user:Jon Harald Søby about this as he appears to have dealt with much of the disruption this exceptionally persistent vandal caused.

  • More recent vandalism referencing exicornt:

Google Exicornt for more. If the current exicornt references are a joe-job (not unlikely) then we still have a massively disruptive history.

I have unprotected user talk:EddieSegoura to facilitate a request for unblock. This was, I believe, a community ban, so any appeal should probably be handled in the first instance by the community. Guy (Help!) 22:10, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by uninvolved Ncmvocalist

If we were to unblock the user who is appealing, as suggested by Roger Davies, that would disrespect the community's view; the community spent the time to have them banned in the first place so that the user could not be unblocked without a community consensus to that effect. I agree that they should be allowed to participate in an appeal discussion, however, all that is needed is for them to be willing and able to use their talk page. Discussions can then be transcluded from/to the noticeboard - wherever the community is considering the appeal. But unblocking just to participate in the ban appeal is something that there is strong disagreement with, not just by myself either. I agree with much of the remainder of his comments though. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:21, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by other user

Clerk notes

Per the comments below, this will be sent over to WP:AN sometime later tonight or tomorrow. Not using ANI so as to keep the drama levels down as much as possible. Hersfold (t/a/c) 21:15, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Comment - Someone that was presumably EddieSegoura (though after this length of time, some independent confirmation is needed) e-mailed ArbCom on 2nd February 2009. He provided the text of an appeal to be publicly posted. He then (editing through an IP address) posted that appeal to his user page here on 3rd February 2009 (the talk page was protected back in 2006). He was told on 7 February that ban appeals are conducted over email rather than by opening a case. On 16 February, another user added themselves to the "case" and made suggestions for terms of return. However, ArbCom would need to have more background information than this. The links provided by TML are useful (and I wish every user appealing a ban had someone that could provide the background in this way - in my view, either the user, or the blocking admin, or someone else willing to dig out the history, should provide the full background to each appeal). From a brief look over the older discussions, I would say that any ban appeal will have a lot of resistance to overcome, but this sort of appeal of very old bans is one of the things ArbCom should be looking at, in my opinion (unless there are editors in the community with the time to review the appeals carefully and properly). I suggest this is continued by e-mail to the arbitration committee mailing list, and the ban appeals subcommittee will look at this. If the appeal is declined, we will explain why and advise on where to go from there (including limits to prevent excessive appealing). If things are taken further, the community will be asked to comment on the terms of any proposals (as is required when looking at community bans). If there is strong resistance from the community for any return under any conditions, there will not be much ArbCom can do. Could the clerks and anyone else reading this please notify those who were involved in earlier discussions on this issue, including the blocking and user talk page protecting admins, and the user who posted to the "case" at User:EddieSegoura's page? Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 11:12, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks, Guy. Those links are also very helpful. If you do handle any community discussion of any unblock request, could you make sure it is allowed to run for a reasonable length of time and not closed early? Also, during such a discussion, clear and polite explanations would be better than disparaging remarks, flat acceptance, or flat denials without explanations. One other thing: given that the original incidents and discussions were back in 2006, could some thought be given as to who should be notified about this? Some users are still here, some are no longer here, some are only semi-active. Carcharoth (talk) 23:43, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • If he wants a community ban review, this request can be taken to AN or ANI. If he wants the committee to review the ban, this request can be continued via email. John Vandenberg (chat) 13:45, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I am just noting my agreement with the above. I have nothing further to add. --Vassyana (talk) 07:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'd like to see appeals of this nature handled by the community, with the editor temporarily unblocked for full participation, and the discussion held open for a reasonable time (say, three or four days minimum). Providing enough eyes get on these appeals, the community is usually very good at handling them. Appeals to ArbCom should only really be made if there was a serious procedural flaw in the community process or significant new evidence comes to light. In both these instances, wherever possible, ArbCom should still pass the appeal back to the community for another look, perhaps with recommendations about how it might proceed.  Roger Davies talk 07:17, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Request to take a look at : The Alastair Haines situation


Statement by Privatemusings

per this email and this note, I gather arbcom have received some information ahead of this request - but every little helps, right :-)

An OTRS ticket ( #2009040310049955 ) has somewhat divided the OTRS agents, with confusion as to whether or not it constitutes a legal threat. Regardless, because it comes from a publisher of this user's work, a decision has been made to ban the user indefinitely. A simple examination of the ticket by the arbcom would be helpful. You might also like to review this diff noting that it was posted subsequent to the OTRS request, and clearly by the protaganist!

Please review this asap and consider further steps to improve systemic performance in this area - overall it's just been totally unacceptable in my view.

@risker and MB - for what it's worth, the outcome of a good conversation on IRC in the OTRS channel was that the OTRS folk are divided, and unlikely to take any action (it was important to note that this was not an impasse, but it's hard for me to explain why not!) - the simple fact is that two users have been indefinitely blocked over this - one clearly in error, which, despite being fixed after 5 days is still a ginormous stuff up. At the very least, I'd hope the committee might lean towards taking some responsibility towards resolving this situation speedily and smoothly, it would speak well of us, no? Privatemusings (talk) 05:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Outstanding Issues

to be explicit, I am swallowing a degree of distaste for this process in asking the committee to attend to the following gigantic boobs outstanding issues;

  • A good faith user was blocked for 5 days based on an administrator's hunch that they might have sent an email. They hadn't, and I would like to committee to strongly underline how inappropriate this bungle was. It's the sort of thing that can cause unnecessary drama, I reckon.
  • Alaistair Haines has been indefenitely blocked, with the stated rationale that someone else sent OTRS an email. I'd like arbcom to examine this interesting reading of site policy.
  • A couple of days after someone else sent OTRS an email, Alaistair posted this diff explaining his current position in regard to legal action. Only a gigantic boob could have missed this - it's linked some 5 or 6 lines up :-)
  • The Pièce de résistance - as a response to another somebody (me) asking a few questions, some people note that maybe it's a good idea to open up Alaistair's talk page, and some people think 'hey, the exact opposite might be just the ticket' - right now the talk page is protected from all editing. Way to go wiki dispute resolution!

Finally, I have to pass a wry comment on Brad's note - it's interesting that the vagaries of this project lead such a wise chap to state that editing under your own name is not a good idea. It took me maybe 30 min.s yesterday to sift through and realise the scale of the boobage in this situation - please try to attend to it, dear arbs :-) Privatemusings (talk) 21:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)hopefully the section title will have captured at least someone's attention.....[reply]

more hmmmmm..... I headed over to Coren's talk page to ask for his rationale for a block, and wondering if he could outline the best next-steps for an unblock, where he mentioned "The matter is currently in discussion within the Committee." - is it? Perhaps I'm wrong to read into that the intimation that arbcom are currently discussing this, but I'm not sure how not to! cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 03:30, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
any news? My reading of the below is that the arbcom doesn't consider this an arbcom matter, which is in tension with Coren mentioning that arbcom are indeed discussing it. Are you discussing this?
It's my opinion that there's a systemic problem in how you (arbcom) choose to communicate around requests such as these, right now I (as initiator) have no way of knowing if anyone is actually attending to any of these issues. Meanwhile, while thumb twiddling, head scratching and general procrastination and avoidance continue, a good faith user remains indefinitely blocked. This shouldn't be acceptable to any of you.
If anyone flicks me an email letting me know when we can expect an update (ideally with some explanation as to why) I'll be patient, otherwise cage rattling is the only avenue available, I guess :-) Privatemusings (talk) 00:30, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
well no email (yet), and no surprise there, I guess :-) - as I noted on the administrator's noticeboard thread, several reviewing admin.s are of the opinion that this is now an office and arbcom matter, and are unwilling to take any action. My reading of the arbcom's comments below is that you're not minded to take any action either, which is odd considering Coren mentioned that you were discussing it. Coren, as the blocking admin. is now completely unresponsive, although the good news is he's amused by the situation. Coren notes in her edit summary that 'this does not need to proceed further' - oh good, so it's all sorted out then?
what I have noticed is that it's easier to get a conversation going about a shaven vagina round here than it is to resolve the indefinite blocking of a long standing valuable editor. Come to think of it, that sounds like this wiki :-) Privatemusings (talk) 02:54, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JzG

The only potential concern I can see here is that Mr Haines apparently can't edit his own talk page, I am always wary of impeding attempts by living individuals to correct inaccuracies about themselves. Mr Haines has contacted OTRS through his representatives, but if we believe that there is a pressing problem with his communications being impeded then there is no reason not to ask Coren to change the block parameters.

A quick look through the history suggests the following interpretation of events: Alastair Haines has a series of blocks for legal threats, and has been warned many times about them. When another comment was made which he considered defamatory, rather than make another legal threat and get blocked, he appears to have asked a colleague to make the threat on his behalf. The colleague was perhaps more moderate than Mr. Haines himself, and in any case the request was a reasonable one and handled to to correspondent's apparent satisfaction. It seems to em that the concern here is that rather than exploring ways of not making legal threats, Mr Haines has decided to explore other ways of making legal threats without consequences. That is plainly unacceptable. That is how I read it from the current comments, anyway; we'd have to ask Coren for his take I think.

The supposed controversy or debate is not evident to me as an OTRS agent and subscriber to otrs-en-l, and I don't see any suggestion that Coren has gone WP:ROUGE on this. It looks like a standard response to legal threats, and it also looks as if all parties are already mindful of the WP:BLP implications. What prior attempts have been made to resolve this dispute? Has it been raised at the admin noticeboards? Has anyone asked Coren about the specific issue of talk page locking?

In any case, I can't see what ArbCom is intended to do here, this seems like the first step in a dispute resolution process, not the last. Attempts to resolve the dispute by argumentation on WR are not, as yet, a part of Wikipedia's dispute resolution process are they? That seems to have been the major venue for this debate thus far, by my reading of the comments.

I would also note that the ticket referenced above has been closed as successful, with a comment from the individual who raised the ticket complimenting Wikipedia on our enforcement of policies. Is there any evidence of a continuing issue requiring resolution, other than a user who is blocked and doesn't like it? I'm not seeing anything here which makes this an "OTRS needs ArbComming" type case. There are three tickets relating to Haines, being 2009040310049955, 2007062910002018 and 2007062810015248; all are "closed successful", none are long threads, none show evidence of outstanding issues. On what basis is it claimed that this block is a response to OTRS? Unless I have grabbed the wrong end of the wrong stick, this does not seem to me to have anything to do with OTRS, it looks like a standard case of an on-wiki argument which has generated a single email complaint which was swiftly resolved by removing some talk page text. I think invoking OTRS is a red herring, we should focus on the user himself and his history of inappropriate legal posturing. I think that's what Coren has done. Guy (Help!) 13:37, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Addendum: Having worked this out from first principles, as it were, I think the best course is to protect AH's talk page as being the locus of the disputed content, and to ensure that he is given the information necessary to request any courtesy blanking that may be necessary. I will do this and post at the admin noticeboards. Guy (Help!) 16:02, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Coren

Guy has, in fact, nailed the matter with no small amount of precision. While the OTRS ticket itself is closed and has been resolved, the block to AH's account is a matter of continuing pattern of legal and pseudo legal bullying being continued through an agent or proxy. If someone in a clear (and admitted) business relationship with an editor who has repeatedly been blocked for legal threats picks up the same language (and, indeed, much of the same wording) as the previous threats immediately after the editor has been obligated to withdraw them, those threats can rightly be considered as made by proxy.

(There was also another editor blocked by myself, SkyWriter, which has since been unblocked. I had apparently misidentified them as AH's publisher.)

As for the block parameters (that is, excluding editing the talk page), I've simply implemented the specific conditions made by the originally unblocking admin, Theresa knott. I do not feel strongly about it either way, but I do believe that the matter is now best handled entirely off-wiki (either with the Office, or with ArbCom — as a ban appeal, not as anything to do with OTRS). — Coren (talk) 14:05, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On timing: I realize the email arrived before AH was unblocked; I was referring to it arriving after Alastair had been blocked for making essentially the same claims. — Coren (talk) 17:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mathsci

The OTRS ticket was received on April 3rd. User:Alastair Haines made his second unblock request on April 8th. User:Theresa knott left time on WP:ANI for any objections to her proposed unblock on April 8th, posting the strict conditions on Alastair Haines' talk page when she unblocked. Coren blocked Alastair Haines and User:Skywriter on April 9th because of the prior OTRS ticket. There seem to have been various crossed wires here, probably because of different time zones (Europe, Australia, USA). Mathsci (talk) 14:44, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Cailil

I'm not going to add much more since I think everything has already been said. And basically I agree with Guy, Coren and Mathsci. Also as John says below I have asked Alastair to give me a list of diffs - I'm yet to recieve any and am about to ask again.

I have gathered, without being able to see the OTRS ticket, that the publisher was concerned about content on Alastair's talk page but I know that Alastair has issue with other comments elsewhere. Comments including the ArbCom proposal to ban him (a proposal that was rejected). I believe he has sent an email to the Committee - if he has not speciified what diffs / comments are problematic in that message I can ask him to do so. If he does send them - I will pass them on to John and/or the Committee (as long as Alastair doesn't have a problem with that). But that said we can only really judge if it breaks our rules (WP:BLP, WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL, WP:TALK) not if it is defamatory in a legal sense--Cailil talk 16:29, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that I have not been able to locate the specific proposal (from the previous RfAr) that Alastair objects too - so he will need to spell out which one he has issue with. I think allowing him to post to his talk page might help progress matters--Cailil talk 16:40, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note of Clarification. I page banned User:LisaLiel from User talk:Alastair Haines - I didn't block anyone. Also I don't know if Lisa's or specifically any other user's comments were the issue. Lisa was page-banned per the RfAr for being disruptive and pointy - nothing else--Cailil talk 19:58, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tiptoety

To Risker: While I agree that this is not the correct method, WP:OTRS does state that any actions by an OTRS volunteer on-wiki are reviewable by the Arbitration committee. Please see [17]. Tiptoety talk 18:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Casliber

I feel the 1 week block from JHunterJ which was the initial flashpoint for this dustup was incorrect (however I note my involved status) - mainly as it put a content builder with a genuine interest in the article in question, and a content remover who has been guilty of stalking another user, on the same level. Things have spiralled out of control since then, with other issues being drawn in. This breakdown in communication has become a massive timesink and I can see further confrontation on arb pages as no different. I do think some negotiation is possible in order to defuse the situation, calm it down and return an equilibrium of sorts. I apologise I have had limited time with this but believe we can sort it out by email. Open discussion has drawn a peanut gallery so far which has not been helpful. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:20, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Had I thought of it earlier, a Request for Clarification on the 1 week block might have resulted in an earlier resolution. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:21, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ottava Rima

I was, as far as I know, the first to notice the User:SkyWriter block. I contacted Coren and discussed the matter with a few others. I was glad that others stepped forward and that the matter was handled calmly until Coren's return. I am not a friend of Coren's. Most people will know that Coren and I do not get along. However, Coren proceeding in a fair manner and reacted quickly after he returned.

I am not a fan of NLT related blocks, nor am I a fan of people having their block logged marked up over the matter, let alone from being removed from contributing to the Wiki over it. I believe that these matters can prevented in the future if there is a clear statement about taking something to court and there is a clearly identified person. NLT is to prevent matters from being taken onto Wiki or disrupting the Wiki. Legal matters require individuals, and cannot happen behind pseudonyms in such a way. So, there should be a higher burden of actual legal matters to warrant an indef ban. As for the "threat" part, in casual conversation, they should be taken as a breach of civility in general, as they can be, in their title, threatening and are rude in general. There should be a difference between actual legal matters (indef block until they are resolved) and threats (in extreme cases warranting a block related to civil like disruptions but not an indef block). Ottava Rima (talk) 19:56, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SkyWriter

Here is what I understand from information given in discussions:

  • On April 3 someone opened an OTRS requesting that an administrator follow Wikipedia guidelines and remove personal attacks against Alastair Haines.
  • The OTRS administrator Daniel refused on the grounds that they represented [encyclopedic] content.
  • On April 8 Calil page-banned one editor from Alastair's talkpage for 6 months.
  • On April 8 Alastair Haines issued an extraordinarily comprehensive legal waiver that he would never take legal action – covering the past, present, and future.
  • The problem possibly solved by both Calil and Alastair -- Alastair was then unblocked.

NO INTERVENING STATEMENTS FROM ALASTAIR OCURRED

  • On April 9 Coren blocked Alastair for the April 3 OTRS, wiping out the entire talk page (including the personal attacks).
  • Sometime after this the OTRS emailer thanked Wikipedia for its prompt response and praised the site for following its own policies against personal attacks.
  • Both Daniel and Coren have failed to explain:
  1. What threat (i.e. an "or else" statement) was associated with the OTRS.
  2. How a "thank you" after blocking Alastair shows collusion with Alastair.
  3. How a "thank you" constitutes a legal threat.
  4. How a "thank you" prevents arbcom from lifting the Alastair block.
  5. How personal attacks on a talkpage constitute unremovable encyclopedic “content.”
  6. How Alastair’s extraordinary legal waiver constitutes ongoing legal posturing.

I therefore recommend that Alastair be unblocked, and that Coren and Daniel be required to read Wikipedia guidelines regarding personal attacks and unequivocally promise to enforce those guidelines before being allowed to work an OTRS or block a user.SkyWriter (Tim) (talk) 14:53, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The following was moved from the clerk notes section. KnightLago (talk) 21:17, 20 April 2009 (UTC) [reply]

Clerk notes

Yes, please notify Cary Bass on his page at Meta, and he can determine which other OTRS volunteers should be informed. Risker (talk) 05:48, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Notified at m:User_talk:Bastique#en-wiki_RFAR. MBisanz talk 10:19, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just a general note: Please don't edit other people's comments; bring issues to our attention. And Privatemusings, please reword the level five heading in your section. MBisanz talk 06:47, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
done - and for the record, whilst the adding of gigantic boobs, where appropriate, is most welcome, their removal may well be reverted. Take note, lurkers. Privatemusings (talk) 08:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Comment: OTRS is outside of the scope of the Arbitration Committee and is a creature of the Wikimedia Foundation. Any comment on this situation made by the Committee must obviously exclude any OTRS information, as several Committee members do not have OTRS authorization to see the ticket involved. Risker (talk) 05:04, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Response to Privatemusings and Tiptoety: The initial request, upon which my comment above was made, was for the Arbitration Committee to review an OTRS ticket and make a decision on what to do about it. That is outside of the scope of the Committee. Each OTRS volunteer is responsible for his or her own actions and, just as with any editorial or administrative behaviour issue, could be reviewed by this Committee. The arms-length relationship between OTRS and the Committee is one that protects the individual who submits information to OTRS; if the person who initiated correspondence with OTRS wishes to send a copy of their email to the Arbitration Committee then we will review it and respond where appropriate, but I do not believe the Committe should muscle its way in to this area without the direct request of the party involved. Risker (talk) 14:58, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. This seems to be a matter for Cary or a member of the OTRS team to handle, as would be true for most OTRS ticket related situations. What, exactly, is ArbCom being asked to review? (Are we being asked to make a determination about the legal threats, or lack thereof, in the ticket? Are we being asked to review the block? Are we being asked to review the substantive relation between the submitter and Alistair Haines?) Also, please understand that this matter involves an OTRS ticket and private correspondance, which may limit our ability to full explain or comment upon the situation on-wiki (and impede full access to all of the evidence available). --Vassyana (talk) 10:14, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is being discussed among the arbitrators. However, this situation does involve confidential and identifying information, which may not be appropriate to discuss on-wiki due to its nature. --Vassyana (talk) 07:16, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment In no way is this issue ripe for consideration by ArbCom in this form. I have no reason to think that OTRS agents would not be able to work through the issue as it relates to them. Sensible people disagreeing with each other (if that is the case) is a strength of the system not a concern. IMO, no action needed at this time. FloNight♥♥♥ 13:20, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recuse; I have acted in the matter of the OTRS ticket as an administrator and an OTRS agent. — Coren (talk) 13:53, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recuse; I was involved in the last arbitration case and initiated the clarification request. One of the unresolved problems has been that Alastair Haines finds a few comments left around the project to be inappropriate. If he is unblocked, but these objectionable comments are not identified and discussed, I fear we will be back here again soon enough. In case it is still outstanding, Cailil says he is waiting to be advised of a list of problems so that the community members can assess and possibly fix them. He could also send them to arbcom if he prefers, or he could send them to me. John Vandenberg (chat) 14:59, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: A substantial amount of the problem here involves the fact that Alastair Haines, an editor who has gotten into more than his share of editing disputes, edits Wikipedia under his full name. (Not merely that he discloses his real-life identity, but that his username is actually his name.) This automatically and overtly transforms any dispute involving A.H. the Wikipedia editor into an accusation against A.H. the individual, a fact that has consistently been unhelpful. I repeat the recommendation that has been made in the past that however this particular block is resolved, he consider requesting a rename. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:24, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • CommentA mere rename will help but not solve the issues here. I have to pretty much agree with Flo, Coren,and Guy, this is not ready for arbcom and I would be uncomfortable unblocking AH this time. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recuse as a non-impartial friend of Alastair. I will add a comment above later. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:20, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - nothing substantive to add, except to say that a full and frank discussion of the grey areas of the 'no legal threats' policy is long overdue, including what to do about legal posturing, and those who are litigious by nature, but still want to edit Wikipedia. At some point, repeated arguments over legal threats and possibilities of legal threats, distracts too much from what we are meant to be doing here - working together to write an encyclopedia. Carcharoth (talk) 23:55, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, agree with Carcharoth. Wizardman 16:18, 17 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I agree with JzG that the OTRS aspect here appears to be a red herring. 'No legal threats' is an absolute principle and one with a very clear boundary. Sam Blacketer (talk) 16:19, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Per my colleagues; OTRS is within not our bailiwick; however, NLT is and probably could use reviewing.  Roger Davies talk 07:20, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Request for clarification: Motion on Macedonia 2

Statement by Avg

Since the relevant page has not been initiated yet, I put my request here and I kindly ask the clerks to move or refactor if necessary. I would like to ask the Committee if the injunction on renaming articles can be expanded in avoiding renaming how the Republic of Macedonia is referred within an article. Please advise if I have to notify any/all parties involved about this request.

Comment to Statement by ChrisO: The proposed motion clearly mandates to revert any rename, so that would obviously include vandalism, in order to return to the status quo ante. Not only it doesn't prevent, but it encourages reverting any user who unilaterally modifies the name, in order to restore the article's current status, pending resolution of the issue in ArbCom. Its purpose is the exact opposite of what you are advocating.

Statement by Man with one red show

This is a good idea, please extend the injunction. Hope this will also make clear that this issue (which was actually the initial issue) will be examined too and will not be let without a clear resolution. man with one red shoe 03:16, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Question by jd2718

Please clarify: "within an article" or "within the article"? The latter is quite clear, but if the former, could this extension be limited to parties to this arbitration? Jd2718 (talk) 05:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Fut.Perf.

I'm open to such a moratorium, but I ask that if it is enacted, it should be with a clear rule that violations can be reverted. That's because the situation is asymmetrical: most moves to rename, say, an instance of "f.Y.R." to "R.o.M., or an instance of "R.o.M." to plain "M.", have been coming from established users in good standing, who would feel bound by such a rule, whereas renames in the other direction, especially to "FYROM" and variants, come from a shadowy army of hit-and-run single purpose accounts, socks and IPs, who can easily risk a warning or a block. If we couldn't revert those, the wiki-wide situation would be shifted in a matter of few weeks; see the activity registered daily at the abuse log. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:14, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further to the discussion ongoing above, especially Carcharoth: I don't think enforcement is a problem in the sense that you risk having participants blocked by involved admins. Come on, we involved admins may be wiki-suicidal, but we're not that wiki-suicidal. But yes, enforcement is an issue, and I repeat my plea above, when it comes to regulating how reverts to the status quo ante are to be done. If I read Rlevse's motion literally, it would seem that such reverts could be done only by uninvolved admins? That would introduce a huge bureaucratic overhead. Are we going to have to run to ANI for every little piece of everyday semi-vandalism to be cleaned up? Plus, there would also be the issue of where to draw the line between "normal" POV-pushing and true vandalism. For instance, just today I had to revert this: [18]. Now, say what you will, this one I do consider vandalism in the full sense, and there is simply no way on earth I'd accept an injunction that would prevent me from cleaning up this kind. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:50, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Taivo

I agree that a moratorium is good in principle, but completely concur with Future Perfect's assessment that the problems are often one-sided and waged by sock puppets, anonymous IPs, and other hit and run types. As an example, two different anonymous IPs removed a Macedonian alumnus from Staffordshire University within the course of 48 hours. While Staffordshire University would, conceivably, not be included in "Macedonian-related topics", it is indicative of what happens to anything labelled "Macedonia" or "Republic of Macedonia" without provocation, without justification, and without any type of control. We must be able to revert these types of nationalistically motivated hit and run anonymous attacks. (Taivo (talk) 06:43, 20 April 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Statement by ChrisO

I concur with the above, but I'd like to ask the arbs for a further clarification - does this motion still permit reversion of the anonymous hit-and-run vandalism that is occurring daily, renaming "Republic of Macedonia" as "FYROM" and its inhabitants as "FYROMians"? If not, a lot of our articles are going to deteroriate badly. -- ChrisO (talk) 06:53, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(add) This diff is a perfect example of what I am referring to - Greek editors repeatedly deleting any reference of the term "Macedonia" for POV reasons and using the unexpanded acronym FYROM in its place. Note the edit summary. Please also see User talk:Rlevse#Persistent vandalism and disruption for an overview of the problem, which is widespread and fairly intensively ongoing. -- ChrisO (talk) 07:51, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

Should this be left as a stand alone request for clarification, or merged somewhere into the main RFAR above? KnightLago (talk) 00:15, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'll leave it here, and move and start a new motion, in effect a sub motion to the first one. Arbs please continue this discussion/voting above. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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