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Discretionary sanctions appeal by MapSGV (India-Pakistan case) (April 2018)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Initiated by MapSGV at 16:45, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Case or decision affected
India-Pakistan arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:MapSGV&diff=828410043&oldid=828409525
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Information about amendment request
  • Consider the block and topic ban as invalid; removal of topic ban.

Statement by MapSGV

I have spent some time evaluating policies and practices. Given the many problems with the sanction, I am finding that this sanction should be appealed.

Sandstein first blocked me indefinitely and then unblocked and topic banned me from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan by finding sense in a frivolous report filed by a ban evading sock[2] who was already going under an SPI investigation[3] for being a suspected sock of an editor who is himself indefinitely topic banned from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan.[4] It was also clear the the user was going to end up getting blocked per WP:DUCK. The version of the SPI report at the time when Sandstein sanctioned me clearly shows that the user has a long history of deceiving, harassing, wikihounding, filing frivolous reports and he even trolled on SPI by claiming that CheckUser absolved him.[5] Clearly, Sandstein shouldn't have relied upon report filed by this sock without identifying the motives and background first.

In place of removing that report per WP:G5 or just blocking the reporter as a sock and also for filing a frivolous report, or at least waiting until the SPI was sorted per GoldenRing's suggestion,[6] Sandstein claimed that the report is actionable[7], and the didn't even checked statements of anyone, nor he checked the diffs properly. WP:ARE clearly says that, "Requests reporting diffs older than one week may be declined as stale," and "your own conduct may be examined as well, and you may be sanctioned for it." But Sandstein also ignored these policies throughout this report. Here is the accurate analysis of all those "18 diffs" that Sandstein has frequently pointed to justify his actions.[8][9]

Analysis of diffs reported in ARE by sock.
  • diff 1: User was a sock, who was earlier calling me a sock without evidence.[10][11] No violation.
  • diff 2: same as above. No violation.
  • diff 3: same as above and when the user is WP:WIKIHOUNDING your contributions to violate WP:COPYVIO, WP:EDITWAR, misrepresent sources you would obviously see it as agenda. There is nothing wrong with using the word "agenda". There was recently an ANI thread with this title "Political agenda editor", "INDICATOR2018"_(II) and no one questioned the OP. No violation.
  • diff 4: outdated diff from 20 February. No "personal attack" involved, although next editor had falsely claimed the reliable sources to be "WP:FAKE"[12] which is clearly sanctionable. No violation.
  • diff 5: outdated diff from 20 February. Though there was some incivility but I was not the one to start but next editor who was continiously making personal attacks[13] even after I told him to "focus on content".[14] No violation.
  • diff 6: outdated diff from 20 February. The message made in response to a false off-topic accusation[15], so that editor can talk about the content. No violation.
  • diff 7: outdated diff from 20 February. Clearly no violation here.
  • diff 8: outdated diff from 20 February. It was response to a problematic comment that read "I see is a concerted effort to push WP:POV into a longstanding article, and a POV that is being caused in part due to WP:OR and WP:SYNTH of sources",[[16]] contrary to WP:V, WP:RS, I was a little but blunt, but I had soon realized I had to be better. But still, no violation.
  • diff 9: outdated diff from 21 February. It was a response to "replaced by the horrible POV and OR edit",[17] despite it was correctly sourced.[18] No violation.
  • diff 10: outdated diff from 21 February. It was made in response to personal attacks (and misleading accusations of being SPA) by other user that read "time you drop your POV stick, because an SPA whose first edits involve adding contentious OR and POV".[19] Though incivil, but both sides, but no actual violation from me.
  • diff 11: outdated diff from 21 February. Made in response to frequent personal attacks and false accusations such as "''You are not only a POV warrior, but an [[WP:SPA]] whose only purpose is to cause disruption. And you are definitely [[WP:SOCK|not a new user]]'"[20]. Since I have edited subjects about multiple continents in last 4 years and yet I was seeing an years old editor making frequent false allegations of socking and being SPA. As usual, no violation.
  • diff 12: removal of WP:COPYVIO, self-published sources/opinion pieces, unreliable sources and what Wikipedia is not, recently added by an editor with unusual edit summary.[21] No violation.
  • diff 13: same as above, and this time removal of misrepresentation of source too. Where did the source was "10.2 million" or "recording a growth of 15.9%"? Source said "10 million" and 12%.[22] (though 12.49 should be corrected to 12.36 and I didn't got chance following these sanctions) No violation.
  • diff 14: when next user provides you self-published, unreliable, outdated sources for making claims as though the problem is prevailing, you happen to let them know why the article has been rid of such information to this day and we need better sources, WP:RS, for inclusion. No violation.
  • diff 15: per WP:DENY, I removed RfC tag of the RfC started by this obvious sock after the seeing the convincing SPI where I was pinged. No violation.
  • diff 16 same as above.
  • diff 17 same as above.
  • diff 18 not even under scope of Arbitration sanctions and otherwise no violation.

I responded to Sandstein,[23][24] highlighting both sides and the credibility of this report. Sandstein made a response and closed the report in just 16 hours[25] and blocked me indefinitely by making disparaging remarks about me in his comment,[26] and also making contrary claims like " rather than convince us that it will not reoccur", despite he never even asked, and "incivility by others is no excuse for incivility of one's own", however, when a user is reported to WP:ARE, conduct of all parties is observed so it is necessary to highlight conduct of others when allegations have been made against you.

In short words, there was not even a single diff for which I could be sanctioned. Anyone can misrepresent more than a dozen of diffs about any user but admin's work is to properly judge them and Sandstein failed there. If the user was not a sock then still, Sandstein had to remind all involved parties of the dispute about relevant policies of conduct than singling me out and blocking me in violation of blocking policy. Since I had no earlier sanctions or blocks, he had to leave a note per WP:BEFOREBLOCK and make it clear that it should not happen. What Sandstein deemed as "incivility" didn't even involved any use of the seven dirty words, nor I think you will find anybody else on Wikipedia getting blocked over that. Sandstein also topic banned me from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, despite I never even edited Afghanistan. Given all these problems, I request Arbcom to consider both the block and topic ban to be invalid and request Arbcom to remove the topic ban. MapSGV (talk) 16:45, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Sandstein you are still misrepresenting me and my edits to justify your unwarranted actions.

18 diffs do not make "10%" of "223". None of the diffs involved any violation. Are you saying that if I had 1000 edits then you wouldnt be sanctioning? Which policy says that higher edit count can save you from getting sanctioned? Many of my edits have nothing to do with this subject[27][28][29][30] hence I am not SPA but you are falsely claiming me to be. You seem to be asserting that users can be topic banned from whole India, Pakistan and Afghanistan but not any one of them, which is also wrong. WP:NOTTHEM is for unblock requests and here it is relevant to give details on background. MapSGV (talk) 17:45, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Newyorkbrad, Sandstein never gave me a single warning and indeffed me right away. I never had a warning from any other admin or user either. MapSGV (talk) 21:04, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Sandstein, Siachen conflict was improved because of me and there are chances it will be improved when I will be able to edit it again. All diffs from Siachen conflict were outdated and not one sided. Leave out a couple of messages with petty civility issues, have you read my most messages there? Majority of editors there [31][32][33][34][35] agreed with my scholarly accepted WP:RS based content. Is that is why you topic banned me from there or you see something that no one else can see? There's no reason why you should single me out. MapSGV (talk) 21:04, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@Alex Shih: Do you have any diffs to prove my edits as "stronger than desired POV"? Evidence suggests that my edits were agreed by most editors and they are backed by scholarly WP:RS.[36][37][38] That's not a POV, but representation of mainstream academic view. – MapSGV (talk) 16:45, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

@Alex Shih: You should look into the problem with the sanction that is being appealed. Since you have read a discussion on talk page, you must have also seen that most editors supported my comments. "how you present that perspective" is immaterial to the policy (WP:NOPOV) when you are talking about "POV". It will be a POV only if it contradicts any of the points mentioned at WP:NOPOV and none of my edits contradict any of the points mentioned there.
By reading the discussion on talk page, you must have also seen one editor frequently calling verifiable references a fake,[39][40] and one other editor frequently making personal attacks[41] on multiple editors, falsely accusing of socking, putting his personal opinion over reliable sources. If these users were not sanctioned for their much worse conduct despite past blocks concerning same subject, then there is no way I have to be singled out, and Sandstein had the opportunity to look into this, he had to see the root of the problem and also see that who was being undoubtedly offensive and disruptive, but Sandstein didn't. That's why the "personal attacks" that you are referring, they were not one-sided, nor I am the one to start them and instead I tried to avoid them[42] despite I was being attacked. The diffs from Siachen conflict also seemed outdated, no action had to be taken. Rest of the reported diffs involved a ban evading disruptive sock who was harassing, edit warring, misrepresenting sources and violating copyrights.
Except these important reasons, sanctions are unwarranted also because I never even had a prior warning. All of this has been already clarified by other arbitrators. – MapSGV (talk) 09:38, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein

At Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive227#MapSGV I outlined my reasons for what was initially a non-AE indef block and which I later changed to a topic ban. Specifically, MapSGV had then made only 223 edits, and of these, some 10% had been problematic as reported in the AE thread. This is not an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio, especially in a high-tension topic area subject to discretionary sanctions. I concluded then that MapSGV's contribution to this topic area is not a net benefit to Wikipedia.

What is being submitted here on appeal does not make me change this view. The discourse about supposed socking by others is beside the point because the conduct of others is not relevant to sanctions imposed on MapSGV; see WP:NOTTHEM. The comments on the individual diffs are also immaterial, because it is the number of problematic or at least questionable edits by MapSGV, in proportion to their other editing, that made me impose the sanction, and not the particulars of any one of these edits. Afghanistan is included in the topic ban because it is part of the real-world conflicts affecting the topic area.

Moreover, the fact that MapSGV has not made any edits unrelated to the sanction since being sanctioned 18 days ago indicates that they are not interested in productive editing outside of issues related to the conflicts in India and Pakistan. We do not need more WP:SPAs dedicated to ethno-nationalist conflicts.

I therefore recommend that this appeal be declined. Sandstein 17:18, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Newyorkbrad: The conduct at issue was mainly about Siachen conflict, a conflict between India and Pakistan. I suppose one could omit Afghanistan from the ban, but a frequent practice at AE is to make the scope of topic bans correspond to the DS topic area to avoid issues of boundary-testing, gaming, etc. Sandstein 19:30, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
@BU Rob13: You ask me to comment on whether "the block is no longer preventative". The block has already been lifted. What is being contested here, insofar as I understand it, is the subsequent topic ban. In my view, MapSGV's edits linked to in the AE request indicate that they would not be a net benefit to Wikipedia if they were to continue to contribute to articles related to India-Pakistan conflicts. I would therefore prefer to maintain the topic ban until MapSGV has demonstrated substantial productive editing in other topic areas, but would be open to restricting its scope further if MapSGV intends to edit uncontroversial India- or Pakistan-related articles. Sandstein 15:04, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
@Newyorkbrad: In response to your question on my talk page, I have taken note of the comments made so far but do not have anything to add to what I wrote above. Sandstein 15:29, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Lorstaking

@Mkdw: Most of the diffs concerned a ban evading sock who was on verge of getting blocked, hence the credibility is not just limited with reporting but the evidence itself. SPI showed that the sock was Wikihounding every page that had been edited by MapSGV,[43] and had the tendency of Wikihounding other editors and then calling them a sock for justifying his harassment and he was calling MapSGV a sock as well.[44]

As for other diffs, anyone can point out a number of diffs about just anyone from a heated content dispute where a couple of editors are engaging in original research, making personal attacks and disregarding reliable sources. You need to read what MapSGV was replying to, and he tried not to fall into their level at first.[45] I don't see any "personal attacks" for which he could be sanctioned by any other admin and Sandstein himself refuses to take action against users engaging in long term pattern of egregious personal attacks, misrepresentation of sources, gaming of system, edit warring, and other forms of disruption as seen in these two [46][47] recently closed AE reports. One of them[48] directly involving a user who had offensive interactions with MapSGV as well as other editors not only on Talk:Siachen conflict, but also an AfD. If other users are allowed to scot-free for their egregious personal attacks and long term pattern of problematic editing, then MapSGV should not be singled out just for trivial civility issues.

Later on, MapSGV had interactions on AfD of Research and Analysis Wing activities in Pakistan, where the AfD result ended up supporting MapSGV's opinion and not his opponents. Here, MapSGV was again attacked by the same user[49] but MapSGV remained civil.[50]

WP:IDENTIFYUNCIVIL describes how to make judgement on incivility and MapSGV couldn't be sanctioned in this regard if we go by the policy and standards.

Again, I have also never seen anyone getting sanctioned like MapSGV has been and without even a single warning. That's why this topic ban as well as the block lacks any merit and contradicts the policies and standards. Lorstaking (talk) 03:41, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by D4iNa4

Blocking and then topic banning a well-meaning editor over small civility issues (that weren't one sided) without even a prior warning and solely relying on report lodged by disruptive ban evading sock is objectionable and also out of process. Sandstein should've considered making a discussion with MapSGV first and had to make similar discussion with other involved users that engaged in incivility.

Most editors agree with MapSGV's contributions to Siachen conflict, because they were important and his edits brought back focus on result of the battle, which is also emphasized by scholars and academics. MapSGV's edits contradicted the long term POV version that was pushed by FreeatlastChitchat,[51] and MapSGV became target of FreeatlastChitchat who would abuse his sock to harass MapSGV and then file an AE report after failing to get his POV on articles. Since incivility is judged after reviewing entire incident and MapSGV was clearly provoked by others who made false accusations against him, there was no way he had to be singled out while leaving others. The AfD pointed out above is a good example, where MapSGV was again attacked but he was civil.[52] FreeatlastChitchat always had a tendency of filing frivolous complaints and he had done same with me with his main account.[53] Talk:Roti#RfC about the origin of the roti also ended up supporting MapSGV's opinion, hence MapSGV should be allowed to edit this subject since he happens to be correct with his edits, unlike those who engage in disruption to right great wrongs.

In all fairness, Sandstein is clearly incorrect and his failure to understand the errors with his actions is concerning. This is not happening for the first time but just another time, despite issues have been raised before about his mishandling of AE reports,[54][55][56] and given Sandstein's disappointing responses here, I am inclined to think that Sandstein's mishandling of AE reports is going to create problems in future. D4iNa4 (talk) 16:51, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by GoldenRing

Although I disagree with this sanction in the sense that it's not what I would have done, I think it was within administrator discretion and would be unlikely to be overturned on appeal at AE (I would certainly opine that way in an appeal there). I still think it would have been better to let the SPI play out before taking action on this request, because although it is true that we expect editors to behave calmly and civilly even with socks of disruptive editors, and the fact they were responding to disruption does not excuse or give them license for being disruptive themselves, it should IMO be taken as a mitigating circumstance when deciding a sanction for that disruption. To do otherwise is to be seen to be enabling harassment. I would therefore urge Sandstein to commute this to time served plus a warning not to respond to disruption in kind. GoldenRing (talk) 09:17, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

DS appeal by MapSGV: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

DS appeal by MapSGV: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • I am reviewing this appeal, bearing in mind the discretion accorded to administrators in AE/DS areas. As I read the history, however, the sanction against MapSGV was based primarily on incivility and allegations (at least some of which proved correct) that other editors were socking. As the sanctioning administrator, Sandstein, himself recognized while unblocking MapSGV, the editor has agreed to improve his level of civility. I see no prior warnings and there is no prior block history, and the sanction does not seem to have been based on substantively improper content editing. A lengthy topic-ban based primarily on first-offense civility concerns strikes me as an unusually severe sanction. ¶ In addition, I note that while Sandstein has expressed concern above about MapSGV's editing on "the conflicts in India and Pakistan" and about MapSGV's failure to edit on other subjects since being sanctioned, the scope of the topic-ban goes well beyond "the conflicts in India and Pakistan." Rather, the topic-ban specifically bars MapSGV from any editing about "everything related to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan." (Emphasis added.) That scope goes far, far beyond a topic-ban from editing about conflicts between India and Pakistan. (The equivalent in scope might be my being topic-banned from "everything related to the United States," or Sandstein's being topic-banned from "everything related to Europe.") I would ask Sandstein to comment on whether, even assuming a topic-ban is otherwise warranted, the one imposed is overbroad in scope to the extent indicated. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:39, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
    • I've belatedly modified the title of this request, for clarity. I invite Sandstein to provide any further input in light of the comments added since he last posted to this page. As a general response to another arbitrator's comment, a decision to overturn a particular discretionary sanction is not a "rebuke" of the administrator who issued it, but merely a disagreement with a particular judgment call. Admins are not expected to take things personally when there's a consensus on ANI to lift a block or on DRV to restore a deletion, and this situation shouldn't be any different. On the procedural issues, please note the current discussion on the motions subpage; I hope editors with thoughts on the proposed motion, particularly admins active on AE, will comment there. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:11, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
    • As the discussion seems to have come to rest, and Sandstein has indicated he has no further comments, I've proposed motions below. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:13, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I consider the issue with the block and its duration to have already been addressed; MapSGV was blocked, concerns were primarily raised about the duration (not about the validity), and the block was changed by the blocking admin. Any remaining complaints about administrative misconduct should be deferred back to the community at the appropriate venue. If the community is unable to reach a consensus to address the issue, it may be continued in the form of a case request to ArbCom, although, I expect the community deems this aspect already resolved.
In regards to AE/DS, the primary basis of MapSGV's request relies on two arguments: the filing was done by a disruptive party and the diffs used should be deemed "stale". It is not uncommon at AE, ArbCom case, and AN/ANI requests, to continue to be reviewed by administrators or the Arbitration Committee if there are merits to the request. The Arthur Rubin case as a recent example. As for whether the evidence submitted to AE is inadmissible, the operative word "may" in the instructions means possibility, not absolute requirement. Using such a technicality to argue "there was not even a single diff for which I could be sanctioned", when it comes to personal attacks and disruptive editing, is not reasonably going to extricate the party from sanctions. I see a troubling pattern of behaviour where MapSGV fails to acknowledge their part in the dispute with comments such as "... I am confident that I was blocked for no reason", despite a lengthy list of personal attacks listed at AE. The topic ban expires after 6 months of problem-free editing. I welcome other comments from the community, but I am inclined to uphold the sanction. Mkdw talk 22:25, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Personally, I think the sanction probably shouldn't have been imposed. A block was imposed, and the editor promised to correct their behavior. That's usually the time where we let them show us they will correct their behavior or won't, after which we can act accordingly. This is especially relevant where most of the problematic behavior was directed at a now-blocked sock. To be clear, the block does not excuse incivility, but if most of the behavioral problems centered around a now-removed editor, it's very possible that continued sanctions are not preventative. Having said all that, I see nothing here that makes me think this goes beyond something that can/should be handled by the community. I think ArbCom's role in appeals should be as a final venue to correct gross misuses of administrator discretion. While I may not agree with this particular sanction, I don't think it's indefensible. There was disruptive behavior here, and an admin made a difficult decision in a difficult area. Without taking a negative stance on his use of discretion here, I would ask Sandstein to read this and reflect on whether there's a good chance the block is no longer preventative because the locus of it has been blocked. If he were willing to reduce or remove the sanction, I think that would be best, especially if he was willing to keep an eye out on new activity after the easing of sanctions to see if they should be replaced. ~ Rob13Talk 14:40, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
    • @Sandstein: Sorry, I meant the topic ban; typed my comment relatively quickly due to an engagement I had to get to. ~ Rob13Talk 23:00, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Well, I had hoped not to address this as a Committee, but accept. Yes, the behavior wasn't good. Personal attacks are not okay, though it's worth noting that they were directed at a sock who was rather clearly goading him. The editor received zero warnings followed by an indefinite block. That block was clearly disproportional and has already been lifted by the blocking admin, but it was replaced by an indefinite topic ban that is itself rather dubious. It is the burden of the sanctioning admin to show their sanction is preventative, and with zero warnings prior to the sanction and zero chances for the editor to change their behavior, that burden can't be met here. I would like to remind Sandstein that, while arbitration enforcement is unique in many ways, it's not unique in the sense that editors should generally be given a chance to correct their behavior before being sanctioned for it. There are some exceptions for short-term sanctions needed to put an immediate stop to active disruption (e.g. a 31-hour 1RR violation block, if edit-warring is ongoing), but long-term sanctions should almost always occur only after at least one warning that the specific problematic behavior needs to change. ~ Rob13Talk 16:47, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • While there's nothing wrong with bringing this here, it probably could have been more efficiently handled by appealing directly at AE. (Arbs are slowpokes, after all.) The disputed block has already been undone, so I gather this is intended as an appeal of the topic ban. Now, I don't like that decision at all; it's much too heavy-handed for my taste, and made worse by the fact that the original complainant was a sock. MapSGV has not responded very gracefully to this outcome, but that's common and unsurprising when someone feels that a member of the community with more 'power' has treated them poorly. All that said, I do think this decision was broadly within administrative discretion; "not to Opabinia's taste" isn't a violation of anything. I think this would be better off overturned, but as a gesture of good faith, not as some kind of rebuke on anyone involved. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:28, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I agree with OR. I don't think the topic ban was necessary although I understand why it was placed. I too think it would be better overturned, or at the very least, reduced in scope to cover only the India-Pakistan conflict rather than everything about India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, as NYB suggested. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 02:42, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm going to concur with some of my fellow arbs here. The topic ban I feel was a bit on the heavy handed side, and should be at the most reduced to cover the I/P conflict, if not removed all together. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:10, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
  • MapSGV, here is not the venue to re-visit specific details of a content dispute. I have been reading through Talk:Siachen_conflict#Recent_Edits, and my conclusion is that sometimes it is not about the perspective you present, but how you present that perspective. Reading through this particular discussion, I see several instances of personal attacks that makes it difficult to revoke the topic ban, regretfully. Alex Shih (talk) 16:58, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

DS appeal by MapSGV: Motions

Motion 1

The discretionary sanctions appeal by MapSGV is sustained, and the topic-ban imposed on MapSGV on March 2, 2018 is lifted. MapSGV remains on notice that the India/Pakistan topic-area is subject to discretionary sanctions, and is reminded to edit in accordance with all applicable policies.

For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators, not counting 1 recused. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Enacted - Miniapolis 17:13, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Support
  1. Per discussion above. First choice. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:13, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  2. ~ Rob13Talk 16:50, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  3. First choice. RickinBaltimore (talk) 16:51, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  4. First choice. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 17:08, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  5. Let's give this a try. Of course, granting this appeal does not mean similar sanctions can't be re-imposed if there are further problems. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:29, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
  6. only choice. DGG ( talk ) 05:46, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Neither option offers the option to reduce the sanction duration as indicated by several Arbs as one possibility. In that absence, I prefer Motion 2. Mkdw talk 04:16, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
  2. Doug Weller talk 14:00, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Abstain
  1. Alex Shih (talk) 16:24, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Discussion by arbitrators
Community comments

Motion 2

The discretionary sanctions appeal by MapSGV is sustained to the extent that the topic-ban imposed on March 2, 2018 is modified to provide, "MapSGV is topic-banned from editing regarding conflicts between India and Pakistan until September 2, 2018." MapSGV may edit regarding other topics involving India, Pakistan, or Afghanistan, but remains on notice that the India/Pakistan topic-area is subject to discretionary sanctions, and is reminded to edit in accordance with all applicable policies.

For this motion there are 11 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Support
  1. Per discussion above. Second choice. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:13, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  2. Second choice. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 17:08, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  3. First choice. It can't harm the encyclopedia for the topic ban to continue and allows MapSGV plenty of articles to edit.Doug Weller talk 14:00, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  4. First choice. I disagree with some of the justifications for this topic ban, but for a contentious area like conflicts between India and Pakistan, MapSGV certainly edits with stronger than desired POV; the modification looks fine to me. I have a feeling that first motion will pass, and ideally I would like to support both; although if I was to make a choice, I would prefer to make a weak support for this motion instead. Alex Shih (talk) 16:30, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  5. Mkdw talk 04:16, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
  6. Second choice. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:29, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. ~ Rob13Talk 16:50, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  2. RickinBaltimore (talk) 16:52, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  3. Too elaborate DGG ( talk ) 05:47, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
Abstain
Discussion by arbitrators
Community comments
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clarification request: Race and intelligence (April 2018)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Initiated by Captain Occam at 09:17, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Case or decision affected
Race and intelligence arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

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

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Statement by Captain Occam

I was advised by a member of ArbCom to ask about this here, so I may as well give it a shot.

In a current AE thread, admins are reaching a consensus that I have violated my topic ban from articles related to race and intelligence by discussing them over e-mail, and by editing in the topic of human intelligence and psychometrics in general. The question of whether topic bans extend to e-mail is currently being discussed in a RFC, but I would like ArbCom to address the second question, regarding the exact scope of my topic ban. I've included user:Ferahgo_the_Assassin as a party because she is under a topic ban identical to mine, so whatever decision ArbCom makes about the scope of my topic ban presumably applies to the scope of hers also.

The edits I've made that are being considered topic ban violations are this edit to the Oliver James article, and my former participation in the psychometrics task force, where my involvement focused on making it possible to tag articles within this task force's scope, and also searching for other editors who might be interested in participating in the task force, as per user:Everymorning's suggestion here. The discretionary sanctions from the race and intelligence arbitration case are defined as covering "the intersection of race/ethnicity and human abilities and behaviour, broadly construed". I had assumed that the scope of my topic ban was the same as the scope of the discretionary sanctions, and that it therefore covered only articles about psychological traits in relation to race. Psychometrics (including in relation to genetics) is a far vaster field than the small subset of this research that deals with group differences, so this difference between the two possible interpretations of my topic ban is not trivial.

I recognize that whether these edits were within the scope of my topic ban or not, it was unwise for me to get involved in a topic so close to the area of my topic ban, or to engage in a behavior that looked similar to canvassing. For 14 of the 15 months since my site-ban was lifted, I've avoided editing anything related to human intelligence, but my attention was recently attracted back to that topic because of a discussion about it at Wikipediocracy, and also an article I recently was invited to write about the topic for an unrelated website. Regardless of the outcome of the AE thread, from now on I intend to avoid the topic of human intelligence and psychometrics entirely for as long as my topic ban remains in effect. However, I think it's important for ArbCom to clarify the scope of my topic ban for the purpose of that AE thread, because this affects the question of how harshly I deserve to be sanctioned there.

Does the scope of topic bans from the race and intelligence arbitration case apply to the same set of articles that are covered by discretionary sanctions (articles that discuss both race and psychological traits), or does it have a broader scope (race or psychological traits)? --Captain Occam (talk) 09:44, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Responses

@Sandstein: My intention with this proposal isn't to evade the possibility of being sanctioned, and if you're concerned it might have that affect, I have a suggestion about how to make sure it doesn't. Based on the discussion thus far in the AE thread, I think it's clear that at a minimum, I'm going to receive a month-long arbitration enforcement block for having violated my topic ban by discussing R&I articles over e-mail. I would accept it for you to close the AE thread with a month-long block for me, as long as I'm able to continue participating in this clarification request via my user talk. If ArbCom determines that I've engaged in additional violations of my topic ban and that I deserve an indef block, the indef block would be a non-AE action, so it could be done after the AE thread has been closed.

I'm obviously reluctant to advocate a block for myself, but I'm proposing this because it's very important to me that others not assume bad faith about this request for clarification. Please let me know if you'd accept the solution I'm proposing. --Captain Occam (talk) 10:09, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

@Euryalus: As I said in response to your e-mail, that's what I'm intending to do after this issue is over with, the same as I was doing from the time when my ArbCom lifted my site-ban until a few weeks ago. But it's a bit difficult to be motivated for that at a time when I know that any edits I make are about to get cut short by a block, and possibly an indef one. --Captain Occam (talk) 10:25, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

@GoldenRing: There is something I think it's very important to clarify here. Aside from my recent e-mail to Beyond my Ken, my contacting of other editors via e-mail has been specifically about the psychometrics task force, not about the race and intelligence topic. Influencing editors in the R&I topic via e-mail is something that I used to do, and I mentioned this to ArbCom when I appealed my ban to them in December 2016, but it isn't something I've been doing in the time since my ban was lifted. Aside from my e-mail to Beyond my Ken, I have only sent one other e-mail to a Wikipedia user in the past year that directly concerned the race and intelligence topic. It was an e-mail to Everymorning in which I made a general suggestion that he pay attention to that article, during a lengthy correspondence about the task force that was mostly unrelated to race and intelligence. That e-mail was sent directly to his e-mail address, not through the Wikipedia e-mail feature.

I'm willing to provide the e-mails that are coming under scrutiny here, so that you and other admins can see that what I'm saying about them is correct.

Now, I know that the psychometrics task force might possibly be covered by my topic ban also, so that e-mailing other users about that could be considered a topic ban violation, but this wasn't something that I had been aware of. You and the other AE admins are basing your decision on the assumption that I presently have a pattern of deliberately circumventing my topic ban with the e-mail function, and that isn't the case. I would like the AE decision about me to be based on the reality of the situation, and not based on an incorrect assumption. --Captain Occam (talk) 12:30, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

The e-mails

@GoldenRing: Actually, since I could potentially be indeffed at any moment, I guess I'll go ahead and do what I was offering to do. Aside from Everymorning and Beyond my Ken, I have only e-mailed two Wikipedia users in in the past year in relation to anything related to human intelligence. One was my e-mail to Rvcx that he mentioned in the AE thread. It was sent directly to his e-mail address, not through the Wikipedia e-mail feature. The content of the e-mail was as follows:

Dear (name redacted),

I'm no longer banned from Wikipedia, and I'm helping a few other editors create a psychometrics task force in the psychology wikiproject to help improve Wikipedia's articles related to personality and intelligence. The task force is mostly set up at this point, so now we're contacting other people who might be interested in participating.

There isn't any specific article or editor I'm wanting you to pay attention to now; I just thought you might like to participate in that task force in general. Are you interested?

--(name redacted) / Captain Occam

The other e-mail that I sent was to user:BlackHades. This, too, was sent directly to his e-mail address, not through the Wikipedia e-mail feature.

Hi Blackhades,

Remember me? I'm wondering if you're still interested in editing Wikipedia. If you are, there's something going on there that I think you might like to participate in.

Just in case people are inclined to assume bad faith about what I meant, the "something going on" that I mentioned is the psychometrics task force. Like my e-mail to Rvcx, this e-mail did not discuss any of the articles from which I'm topic banned.

The reason I chose to send these messages via e-mail, instead of posting them on-wiki, was not because there was anything in them either of that I thought was worth hiding. It was because both editors had been inactive for a few years, and I thought that if I posted in their user talk they might not notice it.

This situation demonstrates one of the downsides of trying to enforce a topic ban over e-mail actions. Since none of you had actually seen the e-mails involved, it was easy for you to assume I was sending dozens of them and that they were a deliberate attempt to influence edits on articles from which I'm topic banned. I expect that even now that I've posted these, I'll most likely get indeffed anyway, but I hope other people reviewing this situation can recognize what was problematic about sanctioning me based on your assumptions about evidence that you weren't able to see. --Captain Occam (talk) 12:51, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Ferahgo the Assassin

Statement by Sandstein

I am one of the admins who have commented on the currently open WP:AE thread in which the enforcement of the topic ban applying to Captain Occam has been requested. I am concerned that this clarification request is intended to be an attempt to preempt or delay action on the enforcement request, which the participating admins so far have determined is warranted. I would appreciate it if arbitrators could indicate whether the enforcement request can be acted upon without regard to this clarification request. Sandstein 09:46, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by EdChem

CO notes that the discretionary sanctions from the race and intelligence arbitration case are defined as covering "the intersection of race/ethnicity and human abilities and behaviour, broadly construed." However, I don't think the follow-on claim that he had assumed that the scope of my topic ban was the same as the scope of the discretionary sanction is much of an excuse when the unban conditions were very clear:

The scope of his 2010 topic ban is modified from "race and intelligence related articles, broadly construed" to "the race and intelligence topic area, broadly construed".

and this was explicitly posted on his user talk page upon unbanning by Opabinia regalis. About 10 hours later, the notification posted onto his user talk page again by an ArbCom clerk, who then removed the duplication and uncollapsed OR's original post so that this is how his user talk page appeared. CO then archived the talk page and the notification is still present in archive 7 of his user talk page. Maybe CO forgot the terms of his unbanning. Maybe he did make an assumption of what the scope of his ban was. But, in either case, he received the notification – which was presumably also covered in off-wiki discussions of his site ban appeal with ArbCom – and if he truly believed that interfering even at the edges of the area of the case and topic ban was within the bounds of acceptable behaviour following his long site ban, then he deserves the sanction that must follow.

I have posted at AE on a subject related to the one Sandstein raises. If comments from BMK are to be believed, CO emailed to comment on edits in the R&I area, which certainly should be prohibited by the terms of his ban. If it is not covered by the letter of the rules, ArbCom should look at closing this hole in all of its topic bans. Even if it is not, however, the spirit of a topic ban after an ArbCom case and years of site banning must cover such actions. I think the following is appropriate:

  • If ArbCom wants to take this situation on, BMK should be approached to provide the email directly to ArbCom for evaluation.
  • ArbCom would then be in a position to decide whether the emails are sanctionable, and to also take on the diffs from the AE of alleged topic ban violation.
  • Under this approach, I recommend ArbCom calling up the situation for determination and closing the AE. ArbCom has the authority to apply a block of longer than a month, or craft another response that seems warranted (including modifying the scope of the topic ban, if necessary), or even re-instituting the site ban.
  • Alternatively, if ArbCom does not want to take over the situation, consideration should be given to closing the AE and moving to AN for a decision by the community. I agree with Sandstein that the authority of AE extends only to a block of one month, and I am not convinced that the options available at AE should be the only ones available. The community at AN could issue a ban, or impose another sanction, and a no consensus conclusion would not necessarily preclude an AE action from an administrator. The AE could be closed, for example, noting that a consensus of AE administrators is a one month block which is suspended for an AN discussion (allowing CO to participate) and that the block will be imposed at the end of the AN discussion unless the community reaches consensus to substitute some other action.
  • If a change of venue is considered, I wonder whether Captain Occam would express a view on it being taken to AN or taken over by ArbCom at ARCA or left at AE, if it were up to him to choose?

EdChem (talk) 10:43, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by GoldenRing

I think it is worth noting that BMK has said that the original email from Captain Occam was not in itself particularly offensive, except that it dealt largely with a topic from which CO is banned, but that at the same time other users have come forward on the AE request to report similar email experiences with OC. This is a pattern of attempting to influence the R&I topic through email lobbying.

Such emails are not, on my reading, currently covered by topic bans; but it is looking likely (see the current state of the RFC CO links above) that policy will be amended to explicitly include use of Wikipedia email in the scope of bans. At the very least, the committee should wait and see what the outcome of the RFC is; if it clarifies policy either way then there is nothing for arbcom to do here.

As for this incident, it is looking likely that the AE will close with Captain Occam being indeffed as a normal admin action for disruption / NOTHERE. If that is the outcome, there is a lot of ground to cover between there and an appeal to the committee. GoldenRing (talk) 12:05, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by OID

The point of broad topic bans is to keep the editor away as far as possible from the topic. As it is clear Occam isnt interested in obeying the spirit of the ban from the topic, and you cannot monitor what he sends via the email this user feature, just disable his email access, reiterate the topic ban covers anything related to race & intelligence and let the AE action take its course. If he wants to pursue his R&I crusade offwiki, make it so he does it off-wiki. But he will keep doing it, as anyone with half a brain knew he was going to when he was unblocked. It really doesnt matter what restrictions you place, he will continute to try and further his agenda. All you are really doing is pushing the problem elsewhere. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:54, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by TonyBallioni

Just noting for the committee that I closed the AE thread as an indefinite block as a regular admin action (not AE) per the emerging consensus there, and disabled access to email. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:56, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Beyond My Ken

It seems to me that by opening this ARCA, Captain Occam has given his tacit permission for the text of his first e-mail to me to be shared with the Committee if they decide to take this on. If I am correct in this assumption, I have no objection to this, and will forward it to the Commmittee in whatever way they desire. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:46, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I do have some questions which, if the Committee decides to deal with this Clarification, may or may not be pertinent: If Captain Occam didn't think that putting together a task force to patrol articles relating to psychometics wasn't a potential violation of his topic ban, and if the purpose of the task force was innocuous -- i.e. not to push a hereditarian POV, but simply to put articles into good order -- why was there a need to contact editors via e-mail? Why the secrecy? Why not simply post the invitation on their user talk pages? Was Captain Occam afraid that doing so would reveal that he was inviting only editors of a certain POV, or that a public invitation would attract the "wrong" kind of editor to the task force? Or was he concerned that such a public invitation would reveal that he was intending to delve into a subject matter very closely related to "race and intelligence", and that someone might raise questions about that, so he wanted to get the task force set up and running before that happened? Again, why the need for screcy? Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:21, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

Race and intelligence: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Race and intelligence: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Mildly, the full advice from a member of Arbcom (me) was that while you could post this request here, it would probably be better not to, and instead to go edit some of the five million other en-WP articles on totally unrelated topics like fish, or joinery, or medieval art. Still reckon that's good advice, this arca request notwithstanding. -- Euryalus (talk) 10:14, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
@Sandstein: other views welcome, but I don't personally see a reason to delay the closing of the AE thread if it's otherwise time to do so. This arca can be resolved independently of the AE outcome. -- Euryalus (talk) 10:27, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Agree with Euryalus on both accounts, noting that if we make a clarification that makes clear the editor did not violate their topic ban, they can always appeal at AE noting the new information. As far as the substance of the request, it seems clear that this is a topic ban of "race and intelligence", meaning the article must contain information about both aspects to be included under the scope. It seems unlikely the Committee intended to separately topic ban the editor from both race and (separately) intelligence. ~ Rob13Talk 13:18, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Captain Occam has been indefinitely blocked at AE. Please see Special:Permalink/834221440#Captain_Occam. Mkdw talk 16:04, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
  • This request is moot as long as Captain Occam remains blocked. (I haven't reviewed the block.) If he is ever unblocked, he has indicated he will stay away from the areas at issue, which is a good idea, and so the request will still be moot. Under the circumstances I don't think we need to spend time on this. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:26, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
  • With Captain Occam's indef block, I do not see any reason for the committee to look into this issue at this time. RickinBaltimore (talk) 15:50, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
  • I agree with Nyb. Captain Occam's blocked, he says he'll stay away from the areas, so we're finished. Doug Weller talk 15:51, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Moot given the block per above. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 16:48, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clarification request: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Niteshift36. (April 2018)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Initiated by Cinteotl at 19:10, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

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

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Statement by Cinteotl

In this AE case, I provided multiple cites to objectively tendentious editing, where Niteshift36 ignored my reasonable requests to provide sources for material he wanted to include in the article. He did not dispute any of this in his AE statement. The AE was closed with the notation "no violation," Which I don't believe is consistent with the evidence. I'm asking for a clarification of the finding, Specifically, I'm looking for answers to the following:

  • Was Niteshift36 responsible for sourcing content he sought to include in article?
  • Were my multiple requests that Niteshift36 cite sources for content he sought to include in the article "good faith questions?"
  • Did Niteshift36 repeatedly ignore or refuse to answer my questions?
  • In repeatedly disregarding requests to cite sources a violation of WP editing or other policies?

If the answer to any of these is "no," please explain.

Newyorkbrad This is not an appeal. It is a request for clarification. If this is not the proper venue for clarification, please point me to the proper venue. Cinteotl (talk) 17:55, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

In response to Kevin: I just found the procedure you mentioned, about an hour or two ago. I will contact the enforcing admin. I've also requested on the Clerk's message board that this matter be closed. Thank you. Cinteotl (talk) 00:18, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Niteshift36

This is starting to look like harassment. Even an editor that I quite often disagree with in terms of content didn't see a violation. Since this is not a discussion of the content, there's really little for me to contribute. The complainant apparently has questions for the closer, not me. Niteshift36 (talk) 21:14, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Lord Roem

Agree with Newyorkbrad below, don't think this is worth the Committee's attention. AE request presented limited evidence, none of which was actionable, and the two other admins who opined before I closed the thread felt the same way. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:33, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Niteshift36.: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Niteshift36.: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • I don't think we've ever accepted an appeal from an AE finding of "no violation," and this request is not the time to start. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:02, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
    • Cinteotl, you state that you are seeking clarification. What I find clear is that aspects of your position are obtuse, that your hectoring style of questioning is objectionable, and that your questions above do not warrant further attention. In a prior arbitration case involving your editing in an unrelated topic-area, you were found to have "cast aspersions and made disruptive accusations of POV editing and vandalism without evidence or backing of policy," and were "warned to not engage in personal attacks or cast aspersions of bias and intent against other editors." Please be sure you aren't heading again down that same path. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:23, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Wrong forum, and not actionable. You're not seeking a clarification of the Arbcom decision, you're seeking a rerun of an AE outcome you didn't agree with. Appreciate it wasn't the outcome you wanted, but coming here to give it another try won't get any of us very far. -- Euryalus (talk) 11:42, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Actually, our procedures explicitly allow editors to appeal AE reports that closed with no action to the Arbitration Committee. See Kevin's note above. I see our role in such situations as ensuring that the admin's close was reasonable, not to provide an alternative opinion if the report is borderline. In any event, the filer asked for this to be removed, so that can probably be done. ~ Rob13Talk 12:07, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Not sure I agree with that in this case. There would need to be an issue with the case outcome, relevant to the AE close, that actually needs clarification or amendment. It's conceivable that such an issue might arise in a closed AE, but it's equally conceivable that an AE can close without there being any issue with the case outcome that requires clarification. This request falls into the second of those categories. The procedures are written as a catch-all; they don't make every appeal mechanism equally valid in every circumstance. -- Euryalus (talk) 12:54, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Amendment request: Anythingyouwant (May 2018)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Initiated by Anythingyouwant at 23:01, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Case or decision affected
American politics 2 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
[58] (AE in April)
[59] (AE in January)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. [60] (my user talk re. April)
  2. [61] (my user talk re. January)


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


Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request


Information about amendment request
  • The desired modification is that I am no longer indefinitely topic banned from all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people, broadly construed. A lesser sanction would be less objectionable.


Statement by Anythingyouwant

This is the edit at issue to the Donald Trump article. And this is the edit at issue to my user talk page.

Regarding the article edit, I don't recall that any admins in this case disputed that I was correcting an extremely obvious BLP violation; I also don't recall any of the admins disputing that the BLP violation was biased (3RRNO exempts "Removing violations of the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy that contain libelous, biased, unsourced, or poorly sourced contentious material"). Based on this AE proceeding, I gather that correcting even the most obviously biased BLP violation will not be exempt from sanctions unless the violation is simultaneously very extreme (like replacing Trump's image with that of a chimpanzee), and I promise to infer this from 3RRNO in the future, though I urge that 3RRNO be edited to actually say so. Please note: I took this to the article talk page after citing "WP:BLP" in an article edit summary only once, so it’s obvious I wasn’t jamming the material back in repetitively.

Regarding the comment at my user talk page, I have always known that user talk comments can be blockable if they are nasty or irrelevant enough, but I don't recall getting any civility warning in the past regarding comments at my user talk. Once I realized that my user talk might arguably be subject to the Trump-page sanctions or the post-1932 sanctions (i.e. more than usual civility restrictions) I deleted this relatively mild comment,[63] and told NeilN I had deleted it.[64]

Neil notes that, "On January 20th they were given a one month topic ban from Donald Trump." Here's a link to that January proceeding at AE. That one-month block was not for any edit I made to any article or any talk page, but rather was for an allegedly inaccurate edit summary, which I honestly and reasonably thought was indeed accurate. Anyway, jumping from that kind of narrow, limited-duration topic-ban at the Trump page to this kind of broad topic-ban is a huge and unwarranted leap under the circumstances. Incidentally and FWIW, I do enjoy editing other non-political areas of Wikipedia, but only in combination with the political ones, so it seems that this would be a lifetime ban from the project. It's rather punitive given that I removed my user talk comment and will consider myself warned about that, and given that I also promise to interpret 3RRNO as exempting correction not of all obviously biased BLP violations, but rather only the most egregious of those violations. Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:01, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

@User:Beyond My Ken, you were involved at AE.[65] Am I supposed to also list everyone involved at article talk? Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:45, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
I’ve shortened the list of involved parties per suggestion of BMK. So not everyone who was involved in the AE discussion is now listed here. Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:29, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
@User:NeilN, you place great weight upon the January proceedings at AE. Here are the two article edits I made: [66][67]. Are you really saying now that I was not fully entitled to make those edits, putting aside what I said in the edit summaries? As best I recall, no one alleged that I was not fully entitled to make those two edits, and if they did allege that then I disagree, because there is no reason why I would not have been entitled to make those two edits. A new section had been added, so I cut and pasted it elsewhere. That's it. The only controversy was because I believed that no one would be entitled to put it back in the original location without consensus per the discretionary sanctions (which forbid restoration of reverted material without consensus). So I tried to indicate that in the edit summaries. User:MelanieN, for example, acknowledged that those two edits were fully permissible, putting side the edit summaries. I am glad to obey the January consensus that moving the material should not be considered a revert within the meaning of the discretionary sanctions, but my moving the material was itself perfectly fine. Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:24, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
@User:NeilN, if you're going to heavily rely upon and quote from the January matter, please at least answer my brief question: Are you really saying now that I was not fully entitled to make those edits, putting aside what I said in the edit summaries? No need to relitigate, just yes or no would be fine. Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:35, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
@User:NeilN, my personal belief that Wikipedia hosts numerous POV-pushers and propagandists, along with many other good people, ought to have exactly nothing to do with the present matter. Your argument would be more plausible if you’d acknowledge that (1) the comment I made was at my user talk, (2) you have not cited any past civility issues or warnings involving me, (3) I deleted my user talk comment immediately when I realized that the Trump discretionary sanctions and the post-1932 discretionary sanctions might arguably apply to my user talk page, and (4) I have consistently advocated reasonable solutions to the systemic bias problem in Wikipedia’s political articles including at the very AE proceeding that is now being appealed. Banning me for believing Wikipedia has a systemic bias problem does not make a lot of sense to me. NPOV violations and BLP violations usually do not happen by accident, and if there are enough editors at a particular article who support those violations then they often succeed. Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:06, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
@User:NeilN, I deleted the comment at my user talk when I realized the political discretionary sanctions might apply to my user talk; that happened before the April AE proceeding was closed, so I hardly see how you can reasonably accuse me of lying now about it. You sanctioned me after I already deleted the user talk comment, as I recall. As for whether there was any basis for the user talk comment, that comment was in response to what I reasonably considered to be a BLP violation, rather than being some mindless bullshit, and my understanding currently is that something can be a BLP violation (even an obvious violation), without rising to the extreme level of a 3RRNO exemption. That’s my honest understanding, not a lie. But feel free to continue painting me as a liar, as others have done at this page. It doesn’t make me one. Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:30, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
@User:MelanieN, during the January AE proceeding, you said “Anything, I might well have done the move in two edits. But my edit summaries would have said that was what I would [sic] doing: ‘deleting section preparatory to a move’, ‘moving’.”[68] Thus, regardless of what Melanie finds it convenient to say now, she only objected then to my edit summaries. Whether I moved the material in one edit or a series of two consecutive edits (which was easier), I was entirely entitled to move the newly-added material, and entirely reasonable in thinking that removed or moved material could not be restored to its original placement without consensus per the discretionary sanctions. The proceeding in January at AE was incredibly nasty and punitive, including when I was blocked for merely correcting a small typographical error in my own comment at AE (the block was overturned as you can see in my block log). Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:32, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@User:MelanieN, if I misunderstood what you were trying to say in January, then I apologize, and I’m glad that I pinged you when I said that you “acknowledged the edits were fully permissible”. But let me say this loud and clear: the idea makes no sense to me that new content inserted into the Donald Trump article cannot be edited or moved merely because it is under discussion at the article talk page where there is no consensus it should remain untouched. The more you repeat this idea, the more perplexed I become. Frankly, I think the whole proceeding in January was a farce, given that editors are free to edit new content when there is no consensus that it should be left alone. Duh. Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:56, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
@User:MelanieN, you say “He still claims that when I said ‘two-step edits are permissible,’ it was the same thing as saying ‘Anythingyouwant’s edit was permissible’.” You either did not read my comment just above this one, or you are lying. Which? Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:30, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
@User:MelanieN, thanks for clarifying which.[69] Anythingyouwant (talk) 10:58, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
@User:Volunteer Marek, Neil says here at this page (referring to my edit inserting Trump’s denial): “Anythingyouwant was not sanctioned for that edit....” So there doesn’t seem much point in discussing it further than what I already said above. Regarding the Moore BLP, I agreed with User:GoldenRing: “this is not Anythingyouwant pleading BLP against the whole world; there are other editors in good standing who agree with him and so we should AGF and not dismiss the BLP claim out of hand.... we should not be in the business of sanctioning editors for clarifying that someone has not confessed to a crime.” Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:38, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

@User:My very best wishes, usually I don’t come to ArbCom, because it’s not such an onerous penalty, and anyway (frankly) I don’t have huge confidence in ArbCom. But, as Neil said here at this page, this is “[p]robably the best place for this one as WP:AE would largely be a rehash and WP:AN would likely become a mess.” Anyway, where are your best wishes for me??? Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:25, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

@User:My very best wishes, anyone can read what the admins said at AE, so I haven't tried to summarize. You on the other hand, have given an inaccurate summary here at this page: "At the end of this AE discussion, two experienced admins agreed with NeilN and one suggested a softer restriction." That's false, and anyone can go see that more than three admins responded to Neil. The admins commenting there were Sandstein, RegentsPark, Masem, Bishonen, GoldenRing, and Fish + Karate. Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:57, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
User:My very best wishes, if you’re going to alter your comment after it’s been responded to, please indicate that alteration with strikethroughs or underlines, thanks. Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:23, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

@User:SPECIFICO, watch out, this page might be just as much under discretionary sanctions as my user talk page. Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:33, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

@User:Shock Brigade Harvester Boris, please don’t delete comments by other editors.[70] Thanks. Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:16, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

@Arbitrators, User:Mastcell says here at this page, "Anythingyouwant is lying. He's lying. To you." I would appreciate an opportunity to respond carefully to that charge, which is very false, and which relates to events of January 2018. I have to get some sleep now, but hope you will give me time tomorrow to briefly prove Mastcell wrong. As for the pre-2018 events that Mastcell cites (none of which Neil brought up), I'm not sure that ArbCom is interested or willing to hear anything I have to say about them; Mastcell omits a great deal, just like Neil has declined to address or acknowledge here any facts that might not work in his favor. So, unless ArbCom indicates willingness for me to address pre-2018 events (including when I have successfully invoked the BLP exemption, and also Mastcell's own involvement in some of the matters he has mentioned), I won't. But I do plan to address Mastcell's false accusation that I am a liar, which I find extremely offensive, and which relates to events of January this year. That accusation by Mastcell is apparently designed to inflate a relatively tame comment at my user talk page (Neil explicitly says he is not disputing the BLP exemption) into an indefinite and broad topic ban. I almost hope that ArbCom endorses Neil's indefinite topic ban, so that my Wikipedia nightmare will be over. For now, I must sleep. Then I will disprove Mastcell's accusation, which I find very typical of him. Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:14, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

@Arbitrators, okay, since you have not indicated willingness for me to address pre-2018 events (including when I have successfully invoked the BLP exemption,[71] and also Mastcell's own involvement in some of the matters he has mentioned), I won't. Anyone who is interested can read about how MastCell and I long ago began our conflict here. Anyway, I will rebut MastCell's current false and hurtful accusation ("Anythingyouwant is lying. He's lying. To you.") within the hour assuming I'm not forbidden. Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:57, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

MastCell wrote at this page: "[L]ook at Anythingyouwant's behavior in this request: These two statements can't both be true; either MelanieN 'acknowledged the edits were fully permissible', or she called them out as an attempt to game the system. Anythingyouwant is lying. He's lying. To you."

MastCell is wrong. Here is a link to that January proceeding. Unlike MastCell, I will describe this matter chronologically. MastCell is correct that MelanieN called my two articleedits “a ‘cute trick’, a two-part move based on attempts to game the DS sanctions.” She did so at 01:21, 23 January 2018.[72] I then responded to MelanieN:

Coffee said "I fully understand using the two edits to have to copy then paste", but you attribute the two separate edits to conniving and scheming on my part. Would you have done it in one edit or two? Obviously, it was much easier to do in two edits. Please, I have no problem considering them as one single edit for purposes of retrospective analysis, in which case my same rationale justified the edit summary: I was reverting the insertion of this new material by moving it, given that "An edit or a series of consecutive edits that undoes other editors' actions—whether in whole or in part—counts as a revert." Please, a week-long ban for a mere connotation via edit summary? I can't believe you seriously think that's appropriate. Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:51, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Then Melanie answered:

Anything, I might well have done the move in two edits. But my edit summaries would have said that was what I would doing: "deleting section preparatory to a move", “moving”. I would not have claimed that the first one was challenging content by reverting it, as you did. As a matter of fact, in discussion at your talk page you doubled down on that claim, insisting to me that your “main objective was to remove disputed material”,[11] because it was “riddled” with “biased POV-pushing” that you would rather have removed from the article.[12] One minute later you restored that horribly biased section back into the article, while proclaiming that nobody else could restore it because … well, because one minute earlier you had challenged the content as so biased and POV that it shouldn’t be in the article. --MelanieN (talk) 04:14, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Yesterday, here at this page, I said, “User:MelanieN, for example, acknowledged that those two edits were fully permissible, putting side the edit summaries.” MastCell says this last statement cannot be true while MelanieN's statement at 01:21, 23 January 2018 is also true. MastCell surgically omits that I disputed that statement by MelanieN at 01:51, 23 January 2018 (UTC), and surgically omits that she then answered at 04:14, 23 January 2018 (UTC): “I might well have done the move in two edits. But my edit summaries would have said that was what I would doing.” MastCell has cherrypicked a statement by MelanieN without telling ArbCom that her statement was followed by further discussion. The admin who brought that charge against me in January has left the project;[73] and MastCell’s accusation now that I have lied is absurd. It is also very characteristic of MastCell's tactics once he sets a goal for himself. I also still disagree with Melanie that there’s anything inconsistent about moving a section lower down in an article, while arguing that the material in the section ought to be selectively scattered chronologically throughout the article. Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:56, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

@User:MastCell, my statement that you are repeatedly and shamelessly calling a lie was that MelanieN “acknowledged the edits were fully permissible”. Do you know the difference between “permissible” and “acceptable”? Of course Melanie disagrees with my edit, and I’ve never said otherwise. But both she and the admin who accused me acknowledged it was a permssible edit. Why the hell wouldn’t it be permissible to move new content down? And what the hell is unreasonable about thinking it couldn’t be moved back up without consensus? Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:50, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

A comment from AE: “Wikipedia’s most effective means of censorship is not to directly modify content, but rather to get rid of editors. You can judge for yourself how true that is.“ Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:06, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

@User:Mdann52, I strongly object to your removal of evidence presented that I am a civil editor. On what grounds do you remove it? User:SPECIFICO specifically thanked me for restoring that useful and pertinent information. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:50, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
@User:Mdann52, thanks for your reply. When an editor makes a personal attack in the midst of a larger statement, I think it's much more appropriate to redact the personal attack rather than delete the entire larger statement, as you did. For the record, you deleted the following opinion of User:SPECIFICO: "Dear Arbcom: I've said this at AE, but now I get the chance to say directly to you. Anythingyouwant, who is reasonably civil and emotionally stable....". This seems very credible coming from someone who has such a low opinion of other alleged aspects of me. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:36, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

I have no idea why I cannot get an answer to my question here, nor why the outrageous personal attack against me on this page by User:MastCell has been met with complete silence thus far. So sorry to be inconvenient. So sorry to question the limits of discretion. Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:20, 3 May 2018 (UTC). I suppose it’s within arbitrator discretion to not explain why something is within admin discretion. I didn’t do anything in January other than move down some new material when there was no consensus to keep it where it was, and I don’t think anyone ought to have discretion to sanction me for doing nothing wrong. Just my opinion, of course. Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:11, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

User:Mdann52, why has my request for amendment been modified without explanation and without pinging me? At 14:08 on 5 May 2018‎ you made this edit deleting User:Sandstein as a party in this matter, deleting the diff of my notification to Sandstein, but leaving Sandstein's imposition of a month-long topic ban as a case or decision affected. If you're going to alter my appeal here without asking me, wouldn't at least pinging be appropriate in order to make me aware that you've altered my appeal? Moreover, I do not understand why these changes were done. Your edit summary simply says, "Fix per email" which really does not give any explanation. And why not use strikethrough instead of removing any trace that I wrote that stuff? At the talk page for this page, I wrote in April, "There was a January proceeding at AE that is now moot in the sense that my one-month topic ban from the Donald Trump article has ended, but it’s not moot in the sense that User:NeilN is presently relying on it to give me a broader and indefinite topic ban in response to a since-deleted comment at my user talk page. Can I or should I explicitly include that January AE proceeding in my request for Amendment of Neil’s sanction that is currently under way, or is such inclusion already implied?" User:Doug Weller responded here at this page by saying, among other things, "make the choice yourself." Am I now not allowed to make that choice? I have explained above why I think the sanction imposed by Sandstein on me was wrong: all I did was move down some new content when there was no consensus that it remain where it had been put, and I tried to indicate in my edit summaries that it should not be put back in the higher position without consensus per the discretionary sanctions. I don't understand why anything I did was wrong, and yet User:NeilN has explicitly said that sanctions for the comment I later deleted at my user talk are being piggybacked on Sandstein's sanction, resulting in a very onerous penalty on me. I strongly object all around. The comment at my user talk was not unsupported, given that WP:BLP had just been violated, and I deleted the comment anyway when I realized that discretionary sanctions might apply at user talk, just to be on the safe side. Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:08, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

I don’t understand why arbitrators are suggesting to appeal at AE. The sanction was dished out at AE, and whoever heard of appealing at the same place as the original matter? As User:NeilN already said here, “WP:AE would largely be a rehash”. Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:12, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by NeilN

I'm going to copy some of my rationale for the topic ban here: "...I had another look at Anythingyouwant's editing history. On January 20th they were given a one month topic ban from Donald Trump. On January 27th they took a break from editing. They returned on April 13th and went back to Donald Trump a couple days after. On the 19th they started the attacks that landed them here. This indicates they will simply wait until their topic ban expires and then continue their disruption. When reading their "discretionary sanctions applies to user talk pages? really??" comments above, I was struck how similar this was to their behavior outlined in the last case here. Same gaming, same wikilawyering. I don't think a short block will work here based on their Jan-Apr editing history but an indefinite topic ban might. Let them edit in other areas to show they can contribute non-disruptively and have them appeal rather than having the ban simply expire. I'd go with a blanket American Politics ban."

No admin agreed that Anythingyouwant's edit could claim the BLP exemption and there is a civility restriction on the article, making their comments both on their talk page and at the AE request unacceptable. I originally proposed a three month topic ban on Donald Trump but their subsequent comments, along with those of other participants in the request, changed my thinking. In particular, Anythingyouwant asserts and continues to assert above that his one month topic ban "was for an allegedly inaccurate edit summary". Looking at the appeal, members will see that admins unanimously rejected this thinking, with Timotheus Canens stating, "We have indeffed people for shenanigans like this". Given Anythingyouwant had approximately fifty-sixty edits in total between the time the topic ban was imposed and the start of the enforcement request in question, and that they simply stopped editing for over two months, I believed the sanction should not be time-limited so it could be simply waited out but rather indefinite so any appeal had to be bolstered by evidence of constructive contributions in other areas. --NeilN talk to me 00:08, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

@Anythingyouwant: I'm not going to re-litigate the January enforcement action and appeal unless the arbs indicate I should do so. --NeilN talk to me 00:29, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
@James J. Lambden:
  1. Yes.
  2. Yes with strong caveats. The "yes" is not an invitation to claim BLP until every section, paragraph, and sentence is perfectly balanced to an editor's satisfaction. This is not reasonable.
Anythingyouwant was not sanctioned for that edit but for stating, "Wikipedia is the biggest propaganda outfit on Earth, thanks to folks like [MrX]" soon after their return. Hours of editors' time, numerous enforcement requests, and pages and pages of discussion have resulted in the current version of the article. If Anythingyouwant believes that it's blatant propaganda then their view of NPOV is decidedly at odds with the general community and they shouldn't be editing in the area. If it was hyperbole, then the attack came almost immediately after they returned to the area after being forced to take a one month break. If that is acceptable then we might as well revoke the civility restriction and get rid of decorum. --NeilN talk to me 20:05, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
@Volunteer Marek: Appeal instructions say this is a possible venue. Probably the best place for this one as WP:AE would largely be a rehash and WP:AN would likely become a mess. --NeilN talk to me 20:52, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
@Mr Ernie: Are you really arguing that user talk pages are anything goes zones where behavioral expectations don't apply? --NeilN talk to me 17:33, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
  • @Mr Ernie: As SBH suggests below, the sanctions were levied for an ongoing pattern of behavior. I stated as much in my initial comment in the request: Given the past sanctions, I am disinclined to overlook "Wikipedia is the biggest propaganda outfit on Earth, thanks to folks like you". This is much like when an editor gets blocked for WP:3RR, reverts immediately after their block expires, and gets blocked again. That single revert in isolation did not earn them the second block - continuing the past behavior did. I've cautioned SPECIFICO about making inappropriate comments in the past (recently, in fact) but if you think enforcement action is needed, open a request at WP:AE. However since this is an Arbcom page, presumably they or their clerks will take action if needed. --NeilN talk to me 13:55, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

The latest statement by Anythingyouwant is another example of continued misrepresentations. "The comment at my user talk was not unsupported, given that WP:BLP had just been violated, and I deleted the comment anyway when I realized that discretionary sanctions might apply at user talk, just to be on the safe side." No admin agreed that the edit met the WP:3RRNO BLP-exemption criteria and they deleted the comment well after discussion had started about the AE request. [74], [75]. This is not Anythingyouwant deleting the comment "anyway" after having an epiphany and "just to be on the safe side". The deletion came after they were explicitly told multiple times that user talk pages were not free-for-all zones. This is the same type of behavior that got their one week topic ban in January put back up to a month upon appeal. --NeilN talk to me 21:06, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Masem

I commented on the AE related to the fact that while one can argue that the edit was resolving a BLP violation, 3RRNO does not consider it the type that is exceptional under 3RR or for any article under a edit-warring DS concern. While I fully agree with the edit, 3RR is pretty clear that edit warring over it was not appropriate. Some type of action was necessary, and AYW's prior record here (the previous 1 month ban in the area) does warrant a longer one That said, the jump from a suggested 3 month topic ban to indef makes little sense based on the AE discussion, particularly given that the edit AYW did was eventually accepted and added to the page after talk page discussion. I feel this is punishing AYW for having a certain POV, which from their edits seems difficult to necessarily identity, outside of the fact they end up not disagreeing with the majority of editors in that space. I do agree their behavior at their previous appeal [76] feels like gaming and agree with how that closed, I'm just not seeing anything like that here. They felt omission of a certain statement violated BLP, did a 1RR to retail it believing they were right per 3RRNO, and then went to the talk page. That's not gaming anything. Some short topic ban is needed, but not an indef. --Masem (t) 23:48, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

  • Based on the past issues with AYW that MastCell brings up, which includes twice trying to claim 3RRNO exemptions, I think I have to agree an indef in the area is proper at this point. They should know their judgement of what 3RRNO related to BLP does allow from both of those, this case was more of the same. That unfortunately edges on gaming. I will express concerns that nearly all of AYW's BLP concerns are very much valid and important issues (at least three of these cases is where it seems the consensus of editors readily do not want to include denials or refuting of allegations made against BLPs, which BLP policy is pretty explicit about their inclusion), but again, 3RRNO does not have the allowance in there to edit war about. Those BLP issues are for a discussion well outside of AE/ARBCOM. --Masem (t) 05:23, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Beyond My Ken

Since I have never edited Donald Trump [77], and I have never edited User talk:Anythingyouwant [78], I have no idea why I'm listed as a party to this request. Unless something tying me to this dispute can be presented, I would ask that my name be removed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:29, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Looks like I did comment on AYW's AE action below, but commenting on an AE discussion doesn't make one a party to the dispute which is the subject of that discussion. Allowing AYW to include everyone who commented there is a very bad precedent to set, as it could have the effect of inhibiting people from commenting freely. I would suggest that everyone thrown into the list of parties for that reason alone should be removed, and AYW trouted for adding them. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:46, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
I am not involved. I am removing myself from the parties list. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:54, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by MelanieN

I am an involved editor with regard to the Donald Trump article. I am commenting here since I was pinged by Anythingyouwant. I would like to set the record straight. Anything’s description of my input at the January discussion is incorrect. He claims that I found his two edits “fully permissible” and disapproved only of the edit summaries. The truth is that I described his two edits as a “cute trick” and an “attempt to game the DS sanctions.” His goal was to move material within the article - a move that had been disputed at the talk page and consensus had not been not reached. His method of moving it was, first to delete it as a “challenge by reverting,” claiming the material was riddled with bias and POV pushing - and then to immediately re-add it, without any changes, to the location where he wanted it to be, with an edit summary saying that nobody could put it anywhere else in the article without consensus. I regarded this as basically fraudulent and said so. The fact that he is now trying to re-litigate that situation by blatantly misrepresenting my input does not argue well for a relaxation of his sanctions. --MelanieN (talk) 03:44, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Sigh. OK, I’ll respond to Anythingyouwant one more time. For starters, when he describes me as having said his move was “fully permissible”, that is not what I said. What I did say is that, generically, making a move in two steps is permissible. (He had been trying to change the subject to “making a move in two steps,” as if that was the only thing people had objected to.) I certainly did not say that his specific move in this case was permissible, because it was not. Whether to move that section, “Public profile”, was under discussion at the talk page, and there was not yet any consensus to move it. If he had simply gone ahead and moved it at that point, he would have been in the wrong. The move would have been immediately reverted and he would have been scolded for making the move while it was still under discussion. So instead he tried to justify the move with deceptive edit summaries. First, he deleted the whole section, claiming that he was “challenging the material by reverting it.” In other words, he was stating that in his opinion the material should be removed from the article. He later doubled down on that claim, saying that his “main objective was to remove disputed material” because it was “riddled” with “biased POV-pushing”.[79] [80](Oh, and I almost missed this: He is now claiming that his real intent was to have the material “selectively scattered chronologically throughout the article.” That’s a new one! I wonder how many more versions of what he was trying to do he can come up with?) But he immediately exposed the “challenged, biased, POV, must be removed!” nonsense as a lie, since he restored the entire section to the article one minute after deleting it. Come on! Either he thought it shouldn’t be in the article, or he thought it should; he can’t have it both ways. Apparently he really thought he could get away with pretending to object to the section one minute, then restoring it somewhere else the next, as a way of carrying out a move that would otherwise have been impermissible. He even thought he could impose his will on the article by invoking the DS to say that nobody was allowed to move it back. This whole episode was worse than gaming the system; it was an attempted scam. The fact that he is still - STILL! - trying to litigate it or justify it shows his true nature and intent. Clearly he is always going to continue with this kind of shenanigans, he will always deny it, he will appeal and appeal, and we will be here again and again, until the community finally gets tired of it. --MelanieN (talk) 22:46, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
I can’t believe he’s still at it. He still claims that when I said “two-step edits are permissible,” it was the same thing as saying “Anythingyouwant’s edit was permissible”. Which I have clearly and unequivocally stated was not the case; it was not permissible because of the ongoing discussion which he was violating, quite aside from the deceptive edit summaries. His logic is like saying “Crossing the street is permissible, therefore it was permissible for me to cross the street against the red light.” Or how about “It is permissible for me to swing my arm, therefore it was permissible for me to swing my arm and hit you in the nose.” Folks, at this point Anythingyouwant is his own best evidence of the need for sanctions. --MelanieN (talk) 00:26, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
In case anyone missed it, here was his response to me: [81] [82]. I rest my case. --MelanieN (talk) 10:42, 1 May 2018 (UTC) ...and [83] --MelanieN (talk) 11:00, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

And another cute one by Anythingyouwant: In the "Statement by SPECIFICO" section, Mdann removed SPECIFICO's comment as a clerk action. Anythingyouwant then selectively restored part of the first sentence of SPECIFICO’s comment - namely, the part that was a little bit complimentary.[84] Is it permissible for an editor to write in another editor’s section like that, and to manipulate that editor’s comment for their own purposes? Just wondering. --MelanieN (talk) 17:39, 1 May 2018 (UTC) P.S. I guess not since Mdann has now reverted it. --MelanieN (talk) 17:44, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Atsme

I am not a party to this dispute, but I did comment at the AE discussion, have made a total of 7 edits to Donald Trump since September 2017, and have participated on the TP of that article. I much prefer editing equine articles where the whole horse is the topic. [FBDB] I did request leniency for Anythingyouwant at AE as evidenced by this diff, and will repeat the crux of my comment: "My perception of AYW's attempt to add the denial to the lede was that it was a GF edit based on NPOV and BLP. AYW did go to the article TP in an attempt to discuss the inclusion. I don't think irritating another editor at a TP justifies a block or TB. My interest in this case is more focused on the NPOV argument which I see as being inseparable from BLP. Prior to this case being filed, I posted a tough question on the TP of TonyBallioni hoping to get some thoughtful input. The diff I used in that same discussion included AYW's edit as an example." I quickly learned that AP2 articles can be highly controversial, so stepping over the DS restriction line is not unexpected; however, in this case, I truly believe it was done inadvertently. Atsme📞📧 03:40, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

  • Good question, Volunteer Marek - perhaps AE and DS are not the best options, especially if it opens the doors to gaming, and stifles improvement/expansion of articles that may have fallen into the clutches of dominant OWN behavior, which almost always has a negative impact on editor retention. It is extremely difficult to save a political article from a dominant POV despite trying to strictly adhere to NPOV. I think a big part of the problem is the ever-present ambiguity in some of our policies and the varied perceptions of editors. I empathize with our admins and what they have to deal with - it is not an easy task to decide who/what is actually at the root of the disruption when one lives under RL time restraints which afford them just enough time to see a limited view of the whole picture. I understand that disruptive behavior is not conducive to a collegial editing environment, and action must be taken. I also understand that it typically stems from content issues. Admins do not focus on content issues so what we really need are content admins (wishful thinking); however, I'm still of the mind that we need to focus more on the root cause rather than the resulting symptoms which may/should open the doors to a bit more leniency. Our job at WP is to maintain the quality in our articles and per NPOV, to assure that significant views are included in our articles, the latter of which has been an effort that is barely a centimeter shy of being a root canal. TBs and blocks to end disruption may have inadvertently favored one POV, an opinion strictly based on appearances, but the results seem to support it. Please prove me wrong because the fence post I'm sitting on is very uncomfortable. Perhaps this data collation will shed more light on this issue. Atsme📞📧 22:08, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Ok, so I was thinking the BLP edit was the reason for Anythingyouwant's indef TB from AP2 but now realize that it was for telling another editor to stay off his TP per this diff, adding what NeilN said above that triggered an indef TB from AP2. Quite frankly, I have been the target of far worse and no action was taken against the offending editors, but that's beside the point. What I don't understand is what justifies an indef from AP2 for something he said on his own TP?? How is it even related? Are we subject to AP2 DS civility sanctions on our own TP? Atsme📞📧 11:58, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
  • After reading MastCell's well-researched conclusion and Masem's decision in support of it, both of whom I look to for guidance and mentoring on difficult topics, I can now see that this case is much more involved than I first thought and far above my pay scale. While I believe editor retention is important, the indef does not prevent AYW from being able to edit other topic areas which will enable him to turn a new leaf and establish that he is capable of collaborating without disruption. My advice to him at this point is to withdraw this case, respect the indef and work in other topic areas to demonstrate that he is capable and willing to be a productive editor. Atsme📞📧 14:18, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by James J. Lambden

Today in an AE complaint against editor "KEC" one of the responding administrator said:

"I think KEC's belief that the edit was supported by consensus was at least defensible and reasonable, even if it's possible it was mistaken. I don't see a need for any action here."

To assist those responding in offering informed commentary, can administrators who commented here (or in the original complaint) please clarify:

  1. Whether in their opinion Anythingyouwant believed he was correcting a BLP violation
  2. Whether in their opinion such a belief is defensible and reasonable

Thank you. James J. Lambden (talk) 19:13, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Volunteer Marek

First, this isn't a "Request for Clarification and Amendment". Is there something unclear about the sanction (which would need clarification) or self-contradictory (which would require an amendment)? No. This is a straight up APPEAL of the sanction. And the place for APPEALS is WP:AE itself.

Second, this is becoming a pattern. Fairly recently another user - Dheyward - also got sanctioned, then appealed to like fifteen different venues (yes, that is a purposeful but illustrative exaggeration), then finally came here and you guys granted his appeal (though it's not really your job to do so, except in extraordinary circumstances). I warned you then this would happen. Anyone who gets sanctioned at WP:AE will now come running to ArbCom with an appeal - if they can't get one anywhere else - which sort of defeats the whole purpose of WP:AE in the first place (which was, if any of you where around long enough to remember, precisely so that ArbCom wouldn't have to deal with this kind of stuff and could concentrate on the "big stuff"). If you persist in second guessing admins at WP:AE (and god knows they make mistakes), what's the point of having WP:AE? Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:45, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

NeilN, sure, it is "possible". Still bad practice.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:26, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
As to the "the user believed it was a BLP issue" issue - I can't recall of the top of my head, so I'm not going to say it was Anythingyouwant specifically without double checking, but there have been users who have tried to WP:GAME both the standard 3RR restriction as well as imposed discretionary sanctions by claiming BLP many many many times before and it didn't fly. Presumably the admins at WP:AE already took into consideration whether or not it was really a BLP issue or whether the user is just making up an excuse. This, in my opinion, is NOT a clear cut BLP issue, it's a judgement call. I see no reason for ArbCom folks to second guess AE admins here. Appeals, if they're going to be heard by ArbCom - since this is what this is - should focus on review of potential procedural errors (was the user notified of DS, was there reasonable consensus of admins, etc.), rather than a re-litigation of the underlying issue.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:35, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Right, here it is. At least one previous instance where Anythingyouwant tried to do the exact same thing, claim BLP to get his way, when in fact it was pretty clear he was trying to just GAME the DS restriction: "Since Sandstein has asked that I handle this, and there does seem to be agreement that this was not BLP exempt and that Anythingyouwant knew what they were doing, I'll go ahead and resolve this: Anythingyouwant is placed on 0RR for 1 month on Roy Moore and any topic related to the United States Senate special election in Alabama, 2017, broadly construed. ". Closed by User:TonyBallioni.

Now, given that this exact sequence of events unfolded before (sans winding up here) what do you think are the chances that when Anythingyouwant made their latest-DS-violating-edit that led to their ban, they were thinking "gee shucks, I can't possibly be violating discretionary sanctions here because this is such an obvious BLP issue no one will ever object by golly!" The dude did exact same thing before and got sanctioned for it. He was trying again (you got to ask him why he though it'd work this time). It didn't work this time either. Hell, if anything he deserves another sanction for trying the same game twice (points off for lack of originality!), just as a lesson to be more creative about his WP:GAMEing in the future.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:46, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by My very best wishes

The issue here is not the diffs provided by Anythingyouwant in their statement, but this AE discussion about Anythingyouwant. Was anything improperly done by admins? At the end of this AE discussion (at the very bottom of the thread), two experienced admins agreed with NeilN and one suggested a softer restriction. No doubts, such sanctions are always a matter of personal judgement (the "discretion"), and the judgement can be different. According to current rules, such sanctions do not require a consensus of admins. Thinking logically, everyone who has been sanctioned on AE should complain to Arbcom in a hope that the consensus of Arbcom administrators will be different from the good faith judgement by a few or a single AE administrator. But of course not everyone runs immediately to Arbcom, because at least some people tend to admit their own mistakes and value time of other contributors.

Should such complaints be encouraged? Yes, if there is an obvious error of judgement by an AE administrator. However, when it happens, the most appropriate way is to make an appeal directly on WP:AE. In this particular case, I think Anythingyouwant knew that his appeal on WP:AE will not be granted because the sanction was a reasonable judgement by several admins, and it would be harder to argue his case here after the decline of appeal on WP:AE. Therefore, Anythingyouwant went directly to Arbcom. My very best wishes (talk) 16:50, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

  • P.S. @Anythingyouwant. Yes, sure, several other admins also took part in this discussion. I never said they did not. There was strong consensus on WP:AE that you made a violation of the editing restriction for the page, but opinions about remedies were partly different, as frequently happens during such discussions. My very best wishes (talk) 22:44, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Mr Ernie

Sanctioning administrator User:NeilN makes it explicitly clear above that AYW was sanctioned for a comment on his talk page. However, since that talk page is not under discretionary sanctions, then the sanction placed as “arbitration enforcement” seems out of process. Many editors, including a couple who have commented here, have certainly made somewhat uncivil posts recently. Are we really going to be sanctioning editors on this basis? Mr Ernie (talk) 17:29, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

User:NeilN no that's not what I meant. But the way I understand you, you sanctioned AYW for a comment on his talk page "I am tired of you and your POV pushing." The same type of comments as User:SPECIFICO writes below - "One of the most dogged and resourceful POV pushers and disruptive presences," "diehard...activist," "poster child for NOTHERE editing," "relentless POV-pushing wikilawyer," with "years of misbehavior." Tell me how this isn't a double standard. Mr Ernie (talk) 13:35, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Galobtter

I don't know why so many people seem to think that user talk pages are somehow exempt from DS, but, while yes Anythingyouwant's entire talk page isn't under DS, certain edits are per: standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people. Thus, Anythingyouwant's edit on his talk page was certainly about American Politics, and thus under the discretionary sanctions, and under the many other policies we have.

Even beyond the wording, the point of DS is reduce this sort of crap — bad faith accusations of POV pushing, subverting the rules etc— and to instead have have decorum where we can constructively build the encyclopedia with civil discussion. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:45, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by SPECIFICO

Removed by clerks - feel free to rewrite per talk. Mdann52 (talk) 15:06, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Comment by MONGO

The edit that led to this was soon added anyway to the article by consensus decision. Anythingyouwant erred here and has erred before as have many of us so it seems to me the penalty was excessive.--MONGO 03:08, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Amazed the character assassinations going on here, with editors like Mastcell calling Anythingyouwant a liar, saying he's lying, etc., "Anythingyouwant is lying. He's lying. To you. Right here, in the course of trying to convince you that he shouldn't be sanctioned for deceptiveness." and SPECIFICO with their personal attacks as well, stating clearly above that Anythingyouwant, "most dogged and resourceful POV pushers and disruptive presences" "Anythingyouwant is a poster child for NOTHERE editing. He is a relentless POV-pushing wikilawyer." Very odd that some of the people Mastcell seems to call good faith editors I might not feel the same about. Very discouraging.--MONGO 12:38, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

@Mastcell:, Anythingyouwant addresses this very issue above in their section. I am almost always inclined to agree with your general assessments but this instance could also be a general misunderstanding of MelanieN's meaning during that exchange. Feel that its bit of a stretch to denigrate outright, but I have been wrong before.--MONGO 20:58, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Comment by Shock Brigade Harvester Boris

Several editors have stated that sanctions at issue were imposed because of one or two specific edits (one article edit and possibly one talk page edit; see AYW's original post to this appeal). The admins who assented to the sanctions also cited other factors including "the WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT attitude and continued jibes on display here" (User:NeilN), "AYWs long history of battleground editing, and for the 'one of the anointed ones' crap" (User:Bishonen), "the aspersions and general battleground attitude on display is deeply unimpressive" (User:GoldenRing), and so on. The impression is that the sanctions were levied for an ongoing pattern of behavior and because briefer or less severe sanctions had proven ineffective, rather than a single edit (or two). But I could be wrong so you Arbcom folks might want to ask the admins themselves. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:09, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

@Anythingyouwant:, that was a copy-paste accident. Apologies. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:20, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by MastCell

First review some of Anythingyouwant's relevant history:

So it's well-documented that Anythingyouwant has a recurring issue with trying to game the system, and that he knows, or should know, that his judgement is poor when it comes to invoking the BLP exemption for edit-warring. In that context, his indefinite topic ban (for, again, misusing the BLP exemption to justify editing violations) seems proportionate and appropriate, if not long overdue.

Now look at Anythingyouwant's behavior in this request:

These two statements can't both be true; either MelanieN "acknowledged the edits were fully permissible", or she called them out as an attempt to game the system.

Anythingyouwant is lying. He's lying. To you. Right here, in the course of trying to convince you that he shouldn't be sanctioned for deceptiveness.

I see MelanieN also called this out above, more politely than I have, but there is no polite gloss for this, and it's part of a pattern of behavior (which I've linked, in part, above). I don't know why Anythingyouwant seems incapable of engaging forthrightly with his fellow editors, but I'm not sure it matters. This sort of behavior is poisonous to the editing environment, and good-faith contributors deserve to be protected from it. MastCell Talk 05:08, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

@MONGO: I choose my words carefully, and I don't use words like "lying" unless I feel I can justify them. I provided an example in which Anythingyouwant lied. There is no credible, innocuous explanation for his misrepresentation of MelanieN's position. (Yes, he's doing his usual gamesmanship thing to try to spin it, but seriously; no reasonable person would read MelanieN's comments and come away honestly thinking that she found those edits acceptable.) If someone is lying, then pointing out the lie, with supporting evidence, is not "character assassination". Personally, I'm more bothered by dishonesty than I am by strong language. Does it bother you that Anythingyouwant lied? Or do you not believe that the statement in question was a lie? As for other situations where you feel I'm off-base, you are welcome on my talk page anytime if you'd like to discuss further. Seriously. MastCell Talk 20:41, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Fish and karate

I was messaged by AYW, asking me to come here as a party to the dispute. Not a party, I just commented at AE (and I do see this has already been addressed, and AYW has amended the list of parties). I think a topic ban is entirely appropriate, although I would suggest NeilN may wish to avoid closing AE sanction discussions and implementing the outcome when he has been participating in the discussion. In this instance, it would not have made much difference, as AYW does need to be restricted from editing in areas where he is mentally incapable of maintaining a neutral approach to editing, such as politics; I think indefinite is more than I would have gone for, but it's within the realms of reasonableness, and so the ground for appealing this AE sanction are very shaky. Note that I don't care about the incivility on the talk page, which is a red herring, that should not have been a reason for the sanction, and shouldn't have been listed in the AE submission by MrX, as it just muddied the waters. But we are where we are. This edit was sufficient for the article editing restrictions to be triggered. Their previous shorter-term sanctions clearly did not induce AYW to amend their behaviour, and so a longer-term measure is appropriate. Fish+Karate 09:42, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by power~enwiki

I have read some of this incredibly lengthy thread; I'd recommend the committee simply take up American Politics 3 if they feel this appeal has merit. As a separate suggestion, perhaps a "post-2000 American politics" topic area would be beneficial? power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:58, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

Anythingyouwant: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Anythingyouwant: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Decline. Outcome was not outside the scope of reasonable admin discretion at AE. Btw, while this is one possible venue for this kind of appeal, per the AE instructions you'd be better off appealing this kind of thing there. -- Euryalus (talk) 02:08, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
@Alex Shih, DGG, Newyorkbrad, BU Rob13, Opabinia regalis, and Worm That Turned: Plenty of discussion above, might be time to move this along. -- Euryalus (talk) 13:57, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Decline. I've read over this a few times now. Ultimately, like Euryalus, I don't see the sanction as being outside of AE discretion. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:19, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Decline. I agree that the sanction was within AE discretion. AYW, some of your comments here display the battleground mentality you've been criticised for. For instance, you had a choice when I didn't reply to your ping to politely ask me again, but that's not the choice you took. My observation also applies to your last comment today. In any case I would have told you to make the choice yourself and that so far as I could see you were already discussing the January proceeding, so asking about it was simply confusing. Doug Weller talk 14:55, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Decline Reviewing all the info given here, I don't see anything that says the sanction was outside AE discretion. RickinBaltimore (talk) 15:06, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Decline I've read this a couple of times as well and I recall the January AE case. I see nothing here that falls outside admin discretion. Katietalk 19:51, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Decline Per Doug Weller. Alex Shih (talk) 14:09, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Decline per above. We give administrator's discretion to make such decisions and this is within that discretion. Per Euryalus, if you wish to appeal, try at AE. WormTT(talk) 14:33, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clarification request: Civility in infobox discussions (May 2018)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Initiated by GoldenRing at 22:18, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Case or decision affected
Civility in infobox discussions arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

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

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

  • [diff of notification Sandstein]
  • [diff of notification SchroCat]
  • [diff of notification Cassianto]

Statement by GoldenRing

This case introduced infobox probation, which restricts an editor subject to it from making more than one comment in discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article. A recent AE request has been closed with a sanction imposed on Cassianto because he commented three times in an infobox discussion on Mary Shelley (diff, diff, diff) and twice in an infobox discussion on Stanley Kubrick (diff, diff, diff).

Whether this closure is correct turns on whether "more than one comment in discussing the inclusion of exclusion of an infobox" means more than one comment in such a discussion, or more than one comment which directly addresses the inclusion or exclusion of such an infobox. I and another admin (Sandstein) have taken the former interpretation, but others have taken the latter and it does seem there is some ambiguity in the wording. It would therefore be useful if the committee could clarify what is the intent of this wording.

Statement by Sandstein

I interpreted the sanction the same way as GoldenRing above and Euryalus below. In this regard, it seems clear enough to me. Sandstein 05:59, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by SchroCat

As I stated at the AE request, this restriction really is poorly phrased. As it was written and voted on, Cassianto is "indefinitely restricted from ... making more than one comment in discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article".

The comments made on Shelley and Kubrick are not about "discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article", and so bringing measures against him for a supposed breach is a very poor step.

Now, if the aim of the committee was to make sure Cassianto made no more than one comment in an IB discussion, then the restriction is poorly phrased and should be ditched or re-written to actually say what you meant it to mean. Given the restriction wording is so imprecise, and given Cassianto has not breached that wording, I struggle to see how action can be taken against. Bad law leads to bad decisions, and that is just as true when it is an ArbCom restriction. - SchroCat (talk) 22:39, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

@ power~enwiki: while it may have been what the restriction was "supposed to address", it is atrociously written, if that is the case. When I first read the proposal, my first thought was as I have outlined: that it doesn't stop multiple comments, if those comments are not about the IB. It's nonsense to hang a man on such a spuriously phrased diktat, and if ArbCom can't hold their hands up and say 'yes, we screwed up on that, let's fix it' (and Euryalus' comments suggest at least one member can't), then I see nothing but the restrictions being twisted however someone wants it, rather than addressing the problem.

@Euryalus: Well done on finally realising that one of the problems with IB discussions is the "reopening recently closed infobox debates": something that has been raised time after time, and something I emailed a couple of Arbs about directly, and they agreed it was a problem. What ArbCom did is to almost completely ignore the pushing, the ongoing grief time after time on the same articles (by the same individuals, many of whom were pushing for a pound of Cassianto's flesh here and at the case). It's something that is completely obvious to anyone who has looked at a couple of the threads and archives. It's a shame this simple step wasn't undertaken by ArbCom, because—as we've seen on a couple of articles already—it doesn't matter what ArbCom decided, there is still the ongoing ignoral of any consensus by users as long as the question is raised again and again and again (and yes, often with the use of IPs and sock puppets). And when people like Cass get frustrated at the ongoing pushing, it's the lazy and easy way to crucify him, rather than look at the root problem of the pushers. To be entirely honest, all the ArbCom decision has done, is to hand the pro-IB brigade an easier way to badger and push people to overstep a nebulous line and allow any of the more heavy-handed admins to put another notch on their block stick.

I suggest that you, and your colleagues, gather the strength to say that you messed up on the wording here ("indefinitely restricted from ... making more than one comment in discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article" is crap and means two things – and you can't just say 'we didn't mean that, so we'll just hang anyone out to dry we don't like'. You should have done something like: "indefinitely restricted from ... making more than one comment in a discussion about the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article".)

Now I have pointed out one of the many errors in the original decision (there are others that I am sure I'll have to point out at later clarifications), and given you better wording, it's time for you to put your collective heads together, to lift the sanction on Cassianto, and implement the new wording, which is more than sufficient. I have no doubt that ArbCom will try and slither out of what is quite clear and obvious, but hope—while not springing eternal—does still flicker that you can do the right thing at last. – SchroCat (talk) 07:32, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

  • @Euryalus: "endlessly reopening infobox discussions" isn't a content issue, any more than behaviour within those discussions is a content issue. The behaviour of constant disruptive re-opening of discussions on the same topic and ignoring a stated consensus is squarely within the behaviour side of things, which is something ArbCom should have looked into. Otherwise you're giving carte blanche to the status quo of users pushing over and over in order to push editors over the rather nebulous line of "acceptable" behaviour. ArbCom have enabled and supported such bad behaviour by putting all the onus into punishing people using rude words out of sheer frustration, rather than POV pushing while (just about) remaining within what someone else decides is "civil". - SchroCat (talk) 08:24, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @Euryalus: I'll also add that this could have easily been headed off; the two pages where Cassianto didn't breach the restrictions as they are currently written are heavily watched (and it's fairly obvious that Cassianto's edits are "tracked" by a few people too) - yet when the "discussions" were initiated again and again, no admin, let alone Arb, thought to promptly step in and quieten it? Not even the issue of the friendly (read intimidating, we are waiting to block you) DS alerts to the 'new' editors? How many of the stalkers, admins and members of ArbCom thought of stepping in to threaten advise the POV pushers on those pages that they were being problematic? Or were the IB warriors and Cassianto-haters just sitting back, with their supply of popcorn at the ready, waiting for the moment when frustration at the endless pushing from socks and logged out editors reaches boiling point? And people wonder why I get cynical about this place and the behaviour of those who should know better. - SchroCat (talk) 08:46, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @Euryalus and Worm That Turned: An RfC was attempted on this - See Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Infobox RFC, particularly "Discussion intervals", which was rejected by four opposes to one. The RfC is now moribund and awaiting closure. So we are still left with the ongoing disruption of POV pushers who are able to keep banging the drum time after time in a disruptive manner, while ArbCom wrings its collective hands and says "there's nothing we can do about the disruptive behaviour in opening a thread, but we'll create a shit-storm for anyone we deem gets frustrated about having to deal with the disruption over and over again.

Regardless of that, we're still left with the very poor wording that has led to a situation where an editor has had sanctions applied to him for not breaching a restriction as it is currently written. Worm, You may think "one comment is all they get if they're under probation. Not "one comment on topic", just "one comment"", but if that's what you wanted, you should have voted for it and pointed out that the restriction as it is written is capable of more than one interpretation by an honest reader. What you and your colleagues voted on is certainly not what you want it to be. If you want to turn a blind eye to such an egregious error, that's all well and good, but it does make even more of a mockery if you can't collectively hold your hand up and accept responsibility for your errors. - SchroCat (talk) 16:33, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @Worm That Turned: As it's not just me who has pointed out just how crap the wording is, I struggle to parse that with your use of "perfectly clear" when describing it: particularly true given the people who have said it's poorly written (including Euryalus who said the y"agree re the need for a rewording" and GoldenRing who has said that "there is some ambiguity in the wording"). I guess you're still only seeing what you want to see, or maybe you just can't see that there may be ambiguity – although several others have said that while the intent may have been one way, the crap wording is not as clear as you may want it. I'm not sure why you see the need to class an honest interpretation that differs from yours as a "willful misinterpretation" [sic] – perhaps you need to remind yourself of WP:AGF, even if you can't bring yourself to admit that the committee have made an honest mistake with the wording that they would be well advised to examine more closely. Such sloppiness only aids in the making of poor administrative actions. – SchroCat (talk) 19:21, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @Katie, it's not a question of "elegance", it's a question of clarity, which is what several people have questioned. As for "you all know what we're saying", obviously not - and the confusion your wording generates is something you really should take a little more seriously. I wouldn't sanction a dog on the basis of this wording, and it's shame we are seeing the wilful application of blinkers by the people who are simply reapplying what they thought they read when they voted on it, rather than an appreciation that you may have voted in a phrase so badly worded it does the opposite of what you wanted. The committee may be embarrassed about voting in such poor wording (and if you're not, you should be) but doubling down by re-confirming that wording is laughable. – SchroCat (talk) 19:51, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @SarekOfVulcan, Yes, we are having the discussion, because they mean two very different things. One misreading of the poorly written restriction has led to sanctions being levelled against an editor (and just imagine how you would feel if this supposedly august body were so slap-dash in their approach to passing something that had an effect on your volunteer time). Despite what the ostriches with their heads buried in the sand are trying to argue ('well, we meant something, and we don't really give a toss that we've fucked up, as it takes too much for us to acknowledge that we are only human and capable of making a mistake'), there is a problem with ArbCom refusing to face up to the responsibility of making a mistake. – SchroCat (talk) 18:48, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Forgive me for saying so, BU Rob13, but I find your presence at this whole case to have been rather.... curious (for want of a better word). Considering you are quite pro-IB, and went so far as to put in a rather spurious oppose at FAC because of an IB discussion (after arguing to the nth degree with two people who were named as parties in this case), then I'm really not sure why you did not recuse from this case, and from any subsequent discussions about it. I find your comment below ('feck it, let's string Cassianto up, regardless of the fact that the current mess is partly because we cocked up') rather distasteful, if I'm honest. I would be much happier if you did the decent thing and strike your comment and withdraw from further comment on someone who you have been in hot disagreement with on a subject where you are likely only to take one side. – SchroCat (talk) 17:42, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
(And, BU Rob, could you please not delete parts of your comment once others have commented: you have changed the thrust of your comment significantly with your subsequent edit. In future, as many people are aware, could you please strike your comment through if you have second thoughts. - SchroCat (talk) 20:05, 7 May 2018 (UTC))
  • @BURob, I disagree. You don't just have to be separate from the problem, you have to be seen to be separate, and I don't think you are. I've been involved in a few IB discussions in my time, but there are only a very, very small number of people who have ever used the discussion as an excuse to try and sink an FAC. You should have recused at the beginning. Thank you, however, for the link to the point where I could have requested it. I make it a point to avoid ArbCom, AN and ANI whenever I can (I am not a ArbCom wannabe or peanut gallery member, posting walls of text on subjects I have only a partial grasp of), so I really know little about (and care much less) about the process of the star chamber. Given the very recent comment of one of your members, it's a body who has sunk even lower in my estimation, given that looks more like trolling than a well-judged comment that aids any situation, and that's rather shameful. - SchroCat (talk) 06:41, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • "I just don't think the underlying complaint is serious" what horseshit. Thank you OR for proving just what a joke ArbCom are, and just how unseriously you take the things that are put in front of you. I suggest you read WP:AGF a minimum of three times., Next time, write shit like that on a scrap of paper and throw it in the bin before engaging your brain and writing something that makes sense. If you've been part of the process that hasn't actually dealt with the "infobox problem" in toto, and voted in favour of such a piss-poorly worded decision, then best to keep your involvement to a minimum, if you can't be useful. Fuck me - I thought Arbs were supposed to bring light to a process, rather than heat - this is one of the most ridiculous posts I've seen in a long time, and that includes the dross I have to read from trolls, POV pushers and IB warriors. Still, at least you've made one editor happy (and one who posts most heavily on IB's, particularly as they make up 10% of all posts on to your talk page); they've recently managed to re-align all arguments to say "I wrote the article, it's my choice". It's nice to know that OWNership can be used to add an IB, but woe betide anyone who even hints it can be used to remove one that is superfluous. Good to see double standards from IB warriors and the sarcastic ramblings of a member of ArbCom. - SchroCat (talk) 06:41, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Cassianto

Incompetent, corrupt, malicious, and biased. The entire case summed up rather succinctly, I think. CassiantoTalk 23:38, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

  • Euryalus, ArbCom didn't deal with the infobox issue as it was too difficult to deal with. Sanctions could've been imposed on both sides of the argument. Instead, they name a case with the word "infobox" in it - presumably to kid themselves that they are dealing with it - vote that the case isn't about me, and then impose sanctions on the very person the case is not about, whilst at the same time ignoring the title of the case by not dealing with it. Also, whatever happened to the DS alerts? They seem to have died a death too. Or maybe, like infoboxes, they are also in the "too difficult" box. CassiantoTalk 08:23, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

@Banedon, well arn't you a charming individual. So not only do I receive sanctions for a case that has nothing to do with me, but if you had your way, I'd also receive sanctions in case I break sanctions in the future. Do you have anything constructive to say, or are you here just to troll? CassiantoTalk 09:09, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Worm That Turned, a "poorly written remedy and a willful misinterpretation" often go hand in glove. If you and your friends had taken more care over the wording, this situation wouldn't have occurred. Can you prove it was willful? If not, I'd care for you to assume good faith. The wording says: "making more than one comment in discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article". I've looked at the diffs above and I can't seem to find where this has occurred? Maybe you could point them out? Or maybe, like the rest of your chums, you'll find it easier to ignore me, just as you all did with my emails I've been sending to the committee email address. CassiantoTalk 19:22, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

power~enwiki, how about "you are only allowed to make one comment in any one infobox discussion". Done. Simple. Precise. Intelligible. None of this smoke and mirror, licked finger in the air nonsense. Had the committee have answered me emails to them, rather than do what they usually do and take the easy option to ignore them - they seem to be quite good at taking the easy option - then this could all have been avoided. CassiantoTalk 06:29, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Seeing as I'm being ignored on email and here, I'll take the unuasual step to ping all of you, individually. Alex Shih, BU Rob13, DGG, Doug Weller, Euryalus, KrakatoaKatie, Newyorkbrad, Opabinia regalis, Premeditated Chaos, RickinBaltimore, Worm That Turned, in light of your eventual acknowledgement that the wording was below par, and this motion to now fix the ambiguaous wording, despite what you, KrakatoaKatie, rather pompously, assume to be easy enough for everyone to understand, I trust Sandstein's topic ban will now be lifted? As things stand now, not only would this whole new motion be counter productive, as I can't discuss infoboxes at all now, but the terrible way in which it was written - acknowledged by at least two of you over the last week or so - resulted in you all setting me up to fail. Secondly, my "offending" comments were not about "removal or adding" an infobox, but we're responses to other editors. For a committee that prides itself on fairness and impartiality, ignoring this, or allowing it to stand, would be wholly unfair and would only go some way in reinforcing people's perceptions that each and everyone one of you have been thoroughly dishonest. CassiantoTalk 07:57, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Doug Weller, don't bother, I'll do it:

2 April 2018 @ 09:55 "Now that the committee have managed to make the infobox situation even worse than it was before, maybe a representative from this joke of a committee can be so kind as to visit Stanley Kubrick and tell the troublesome (I doubt that I'm afforded "parliamentary privilege", so redact) person on the talk page, who's causing more trouble, to go away and do something else. SchroCat is introducing some very good arguments that are being disruptively ignored. It's also not fair on him having to wax lyrical with this person when it's ArbCom's incompetence to address the real problem that has caused all this."

30 April 2018 @ 08:38 "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Stanley_Kubrick&diff=838905735&oldid=834215524 Where are any one of you with your box of stupid DS alerts? Or was that just a flash in the pan? Maybe, seeing as the case was about me all along, and nothing to do with infoboxes or the behaviour of other editors, none of you can be arsed anymore as I'm no longer around? Job done guys and girls, well done. You've played a blinder and really sorted this problem out."

So, why no response or explaination for your dishonesty? CassiantoTalk 09:35, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

BU Rob13, sorry to have to remind you, but this case, apparantly, was never about me. It was about civility on all sides. That is why this case, you, your colleagues, and the sanctions are all dishonest. CassiantoTalk 19:19, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Premeditated Chaos, those at AN were there to grind axes and not to preside over the committee's sloppy writing. More dishonesty. CassiantoTalk 19:22, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

BU Rob13, incorrect. I was the only one to walk away with sanctions, one of which was not to delete infoboxes. Kindly, you allowed me to retain the right to add them, presumably, because the committee are biased when it comes to boxes. How about the disruption of continually starting sections on the talk pages, every few months, by people who delete hidden notices not to add infoboxes prior to consensus forming? How about the fraudulent way in which this case was filed? What makes you think Volvoglia gives a shiny shit about your silly "admonishment"? What about the harassment of content creators who regularly have to kowtow to a bunch of unknowns who have never even so much as fixed a punctuation error on the article they seem to care so much about? None of that was addressed. If I were to start section after section, RfC after RfC, in order to get my own way to delete a box on an article that had one, I would've been here in next to no time. I think you need to face the fact that your case has achieved nothing at all and has only aided more confusion for the future. CassiantoTalk 19:38, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

BU Rob13, please do tell me how naming a case "civility in infobox discussions" address' the issues infobox discussions have? Surely, it is arbcom's job to get to the root cause of civility in infobox discussions and not concentrate on the by-product of such discussions. I will put it to you that you are biased and dishonest in equal measures. But I take my hat off to you for engaging here; it seems the rest of your chums are conveniently ignoring the issues I've raised. CassiantoTalk 22:01, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Alex Shih, BU Rob13, DGG, Doug Weller, Euryalus, KrakatoaKatie, Newyorkbrad, Opabinia regalis, Premeditated Chaos, RickinBaltimore, Worm That Turned, tell me, what does the committee think of edits, such as this, where a hidden notice is ignored and a box added regardless? look, it happened here, too. And here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here (with note deleted), and here, and here (added by the saintly Volvoglia). Or maybe you'd all like to offer a comment about this edit where the hidden note is edited to the contrary, and a box added? What about this, where the hidden note is deleted altogether? All this is from 2018...alone! How about we move onto Cary Grant, with this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, repeat ad infinitum. This is since July 2017, but goes back further. With as much disruption as that - and this is just on two of the many articles - is it any wonder sane, rational people like me lose their temper from time to time? But you did the right thing in imposing sanctions on me as clearly, I'm the real problem here. CassiantoTalk 07:39, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Euryalus, you say: "The aim of the restriction is to prevent those on 'infobox probation' from endlessly re-engaging in the debate and helping turn it into a slugging match." really? So how does this restriction cure the problem of the disruption occurring in the first place? As I've proved above, people are disruptively adding boxes, despite a consensus being in place. Oh, but wait, consensus can change, can't it, despite it not changing on the various attempts to shoe-horn in an infobox every week. Wikipedia's lame fucking attempt to half-acknowledge an infobox problem, but not actually deal with it, is the real reason I am subject to these sanctions. This is why, people, you are a lame duck; sitting there, pontificating over civility, whilst at the same time, avoiding the elephant in the room. CassiantoTalk 08:02, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Premeditated Chaos, I think you'll find, as per my emails to you all, I was trying to report the disruption on Kubrick, which you all ignored. So don't give me all that old tosh. It's a reaction I've become oh too familiar with since this pantomime began. CassiantoTalk 15:39, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by TRM

I think this point of clarification sums up the futility and stupidity of the original ruling. The Committee seem quite incapable of pulling together unambiguous sanctions, and this has been the case for quite some time (i.e. many ex-committees managed to foul up sanction wordings too). I wonder if we should lodge a case against Arbcom for rendering such hopeless and badly-phrased sanctions. Perhaps some training in how to write such proposals would be a good idea (I have considerable experience of this, should Arbcom wish to solicit my advice). Write down, in bullet form if it makes it easier, precisely what this sanction means. Leave no room for ambiguity. Essentially Arbcom are writing laws, or at least diktats here, and they should be bullet-proof. Go back to the drawing board and relate to the five pillars, don't create a stupid "one comment only" ruling which is absurd and unhelpful to just about everyone. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:35, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Davey2010

The "One comment" rule is utterly stupid and should never have been added in the first place

We're basically saying "You cannot add, delete, restore or collapse infoboxes and you also cannot discuss it either"

It's one thing banning someone from infoboxes but it's another to also ban them from so much as discussing it either,

Delete the pointless rule, Untopic ban Cass and close this case. –Davey2010Talk 23:00, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Comment by Moxy

Perhaps best the wording is modified...dumbed-down if you will. Or a qualifier added. The current wording is lawyerish in nature and maybe confusing to some. Most will understand it's one comment per talk section about inclusion or exclusion. But there may be some that see it as one comment about the info box. ...and thus are free to post again about some other topic (for example claiming shock puppetry during the discussion). I am sure we all agree the spirt of the ruling is to suppress this type of behavior .... not leave the door wide open to posts about personal actions or behavior patterns.--Moxy (talk) 23:19, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Banedon

Maybe add an extra sentence at the end: "...making more than one comment in discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article. This includes the entire thread and all subthreads, even if they are not directly related to infoboxes."

Having said that I interpret Cassianto's statement above as implying that he will reoffend, in which case it might be time to change the sanction to something harsher. Banedon (talk) 23:59, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

If Arbcom likes this remedy, Arbcom could just fix the ambiguity. If there are more ambiguities that surface later, Arbcom could fix those too, until there are none left. I personally don't see what we are discussing. Arbcom has already made it clear what the intended meaning is. Amend it appropriately and we can move on. Banedon (talk) 21:46, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Mr Ernie

I have to wonder at what point Sandstein's contributions to AE are no longer useful. As seen many times before, Sandstein is quick on the trigger with a (usually) harsh sentence, without waiting for input from other admins. I thought best practice was to wait for input, especially with editors with as many valued contributions as Cassianto. It appears that Sandstein regularly receives so many questions about his AE actions that he had to create a FAQ. Surely this isn't the best we can do. Mr Ernie (talk) 01:57, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

@Worm That Turned: You say If the discussion is about inclusion or exclusion of an infobox, then they only get one comment. but that is NOT what the restriction states. The restriction states more than one comment in discussing the inclusion or exclusion... (emphasis mine). To have the restriction mean what you says it mean it should read more than one comment in a discussion about.... As it currently stands, as long as Cassianto is not "discussing" the inclusion or exclusion, which the diffs prove he was not, then there is no need for sanctions. I don't get the rush to enforce unclear or confusing restrictions, instead of simply improving or clarifying the restrictions. Mr Ernie (talk) 19:10, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Since some of the arbs do seem to agree the wording was a bit unclear, I expect the sanction from the old restriction will be lifted shortly? Also I do not think including the word “substantially” in the proposed motion would help. Mr Ernie (talk) 18:51, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by power~enwiki

I agree with TRM that "infobox probation" is needlessly complicated; particularly compared to the alternative of a straight TBAN from infoboxes. While I found the wording of "one comment" fairly clear, apparently others did not; I have no suggestions as to how to improve that wording.

The problem of Cassianto over-reacting to (potentially bad-faith) new users discussing infoboxes was EXACTLY what the recent case was supposed to address; regardless of the exact wording of "infobox probation", imposing a topic ban under Discretionary Sanctions is a reasonable action here.

The ability for admins to make unilateral actions is the very essence of discretionary sanction as currently written; I'd advise those editors upset with that to suggest replacements for the wholesale replacement of DS, rather than making (IMO spurious) complaints about the specific action here. power~enwiki (π, ν) 06:15, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Eric Corbett

I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Ernie that Sandstein's involvement in these discretionary sanctions is a negative and unduly harsh one, and in this particular case I find his interpretation of what is certainly a poorly worded sanction to be completely without merit. Mixing trigger-happy administrators and incompetently worded sanctions is a recipe for disaster. I too have suffered from this kind of stupidity, enabled by the infamous "broadly construed" catch all. What the hell is that supposed to mean? How broadly? Eric Corbett 09:43, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Coretheapple

The wording was clear, but if you want to change it? Sure, go ahead. This is just the beginning. There will be more of this wikilawyering and hair-splitting going forward because Arbcom failed to act effectively by issuing a ban though it was more than warranted, and showed compassion in the face of contempt.. So get used to it. Whatever you decide will be tested further. Nothing ever will be clear. Coretheapple (talk) 13:14, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by GoodDay

We do need an Rfc on the infobox matter. Be willing to begin one, if anybody can suggest a location & the wording of the Rfc question. GoodDay (talk) 15:27, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Now that the wording of the Arbcom decision is being clarified. Would it not be allowable to return to AN & see if the community would agree to lifting Cassianto's current t-ban? GoodDay (talk) 15:24, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Mr rnddude

Oh, how I loathe these proceedings. Y'all can work this out amongst yourselves, I'm here to correct some bad grammar (morphology?).

making more than one comment in discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article. If the discussion is about inclusion or exclusion of an infobox, then they only get one comment. That bolded bit should read in a discussion about if your intent was to restrict comments "in discussions" rather than comments "discussing".

Oh, I see I'm not the only one who noticed that issue. I very much back what Mr Ernie is saying (about enforcement, I have no comment on Sandstein). Mr rnddude (talk) 20:09, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Oh dear. Guys, the proposed reword is even worse then what was there before. where that discussion is substantially - what qualifies as substantial? is it one comment in a discussion? five comments? >50% of all comments? Call this advice, but heed it: Don't add more qualifiers to sanctions. Write the most concise, and least subjectively interpret-able sanction possible. Mr rnddude (talk) 22:44, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by SarekOfVulcan

Honestly? We're trying to distinguish between "discussing" and "a discussion"? This is not a useful debate to have. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:35, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by TonyBallioni

Just a note that I have closed the appeal at AN of the sanction in question as declined. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:51, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by SMcCandlish

I agree the wording could use some clarification, even if the intent really is to keep someone subject to the restriction entirely out of these discussions after their initial comment due to a history of disruptiveness in such discussions. And that may well really be the intent. I don't particularly prefer that, and would rather see it be narrowed to infobox-related comments. Simple illustration of why: If someone posts "I think this should have an infobox. Oh, and were's the source for the claim that this subject was born in Botswana?", and someone subject to the restriction answers with "Infoboxes are stupid", then later answers with "PS: On the sourcing question, see [link to RS here]", the second isn't a response that should be actionable, since it wasn't about i-boxes and it was [at least potentially] helpful. My only concern, given the party in question and the real reason for the RfArb that lead to this result, is that such a tweak to the wording should not be gameable to engage in hostile pot-shots at other editors for infobox-related reasons while cleverly avoiding actually mentioning infoboxes explicitly; that would be WP:SANCTIONGAMING. So, the wording will need to be mulled over carefully. (That said, it is true that the broader interpretation is simpler, and a regular topic-ban would have been even more so.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:48, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

PS, to Davey2010: What you characterize as "utterly stupid" is actually just a standard topic ban, but made narrower and less restrictive than usual. The more usual approach is to just ban people from all discussions and other edits involving the topic (infoboxes in this case), broadly construed. So, yes, "don't change it and don't talk about it" is the entire point of a topic ban, which is instituted when a particular party seems constitutionally incapable or defiantly unwilling to not be disruptive when a particular topic is under discussion (or being edited directly). This special topic restriction – a topic ban but with a "you get one comment" escape valve – was narrowly crafted to be less of a blunderbuss, and that's the furthest thing from "utterly stupid". It just needs to be worded a bit more clearly (hopefully in the even narrower direction).

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:48, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Laser brain

Something troubles me about this restriction and how its worded: Those who are opposed to including an infobox in an article are at a disadvantage from the start. Take an article like Stanley Kubrick where an editorial decision was made not to have an infobox. We have people buzzing by practically once a month re-starting this debate. An RFC just closed on April 4 and on April 30 someone is already in there asking about it again. The effect on someone who's opposed to the infobox is mentally exhausting. It costs nothing to drive by and go, "How about an infobox?" but it costs a lot to continually monitor and participate in these debates if you're against the proposal. Comically enough, through all the discussion on the wording of this remedy, it's still not clear to me if the sanctioned party is allowed to state their preference each time someone re-opens the discussion or if they're supposed to state it once and force everyone to presume that's their position on it for eternity. --Laser brain (talk) 17:25, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

Civility in infobox discussions: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Civility in infobox discussions: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • The aim of the restriction is to prevent those on "infobox probation" from endlessly re-engaging in the debate and helping turn it into a slugging match. So yes, the restriction has been breached in this case - Cassianto should have commented once in these discussions, at whatever length, and then left it to others to carry it forward. Separately, is this a good and popular sanction as written? No - but the alternatives of outright blocks or bans were worse and there were no other very useful proposals on the table. Worth noting that while the case had remedies for individual editor conduct re infobox discussions, regrettably it didn't have anything on what to do when editors breach the second sentence of WP:CCC by reopening recently closed infobox debates, as we're seeing on some of these pages. -- Euryalus (talk) 23:04, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
FWIW, agree re the need for a rewording. The aim is to prevent more than one contribution to any infobox discussion. No need to parse the content of comments: those with the restriction should post once in the entire discussion (comprising the thread and any subthreads), share their views on anything and everything they think relevant, then leave it alone. -- Euryalus (talk) 23:09, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
@Power~enwiki: Agree. I imagine the simplest remedy for infobox warfare would be: a) a rigid civility standard in infobox discussions, enforced by blocks, and b) a ban on relitigating consensus for or against any article's infobox for a period of (say) twelve months after the previous discussion closed. That'd bring the current nonsense to an end, but the first would also cost Wikipedia some excellent content contributors and the second is outside Arbcom's authority. So we're left with this current somewhat tortured outcome. As always, alternative proposals welcome, and if they're any good let's put them in place of what we have. -- Euryalus (talk) 06:44, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
@SchroCat: Arbcom didn't impose a ban on endlessly reopening infobox discussions because it's a content issue and Arbcom isn't authorised to decide it. It's my personal view that the community should impose exactly that restriction, to stop the current pointless nonsense of new editors wearing everyone out by proposing exactly the same infobox inclusion or removal as the person two weeks before them. If someone proposed this restriction in an RfC I reckon there'd be strong support. It's a major missing piece in resolving the infobox conflict - it just needs the community to get it under way. -- Euryalus (talk) 08:09, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
@Cassianto: Thanks for the question. See the comment immediately above this one, which was in response to the same thing. Personally, I've added an infobox to every article I've created, but unlike some I recognise they're entirely optional and shouldn't be forced onto pages where other major contributors to that article disagree. So I agree with you that there should not be an endless reopening of infobox discussions, and wish the community would impose just such a restriction by amending either wp:cons or wp:infoboxuse, as a content decision. In addition, Arbcom has authorised discretionary sanctions re infoboxes so it's open to any admin to exercise their discretion and stop people from seeking to subvert consensus in the way you describe, if they feel anyone's actions are genuinely disruptive to the editing environment. -- Euryalus (talk) 09:38, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I absolutely concur with everything Euryalus is saying. Arbcom can't restrict discussion of content, that's a content decision. We have recommended time and again that an RfC happens, and the idea of stopping repeated discussions of infoboxes is definitely something that the community could enforce and an RfC could decide. Arbcom has a different remit, and what we can do is to move individuals away from the discussion.
    On the subject of moving individuals away from the discussion, one comment is all they get if they're under probation. Not "one comment on topic", just "one comment". Both of the examples given were more than one. WormTT(talk) 15:24, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
    @SchroCat:, I disagree, I believe it's perfectly clear what the wording says, making more than one comment in discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article. If the discussion is about inclusion or exclusion of an infobox, then they only get one comment. They don't get to refute other people's arguments, make comments about the contributors, or whatever else they may want to do in that discussion, they get one comment to state their view and they're done. I'm always willing to hold my hands up and say that my writing of decisions is sub-par, and I'm especially aware as I wrote the first draft of the probation - but there's a difference between a poorly written remedy and a willful misinterpretation. However, we're at a clarification page, and I believe Euryalus and I have clarified. WormTT(talk) 18:42, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Agree with Worm and Euryalus. Maybe the language could have been more elegant, but you all know what we're saying – one comment, period. Not one per subsection, not one per paragraph. Just one. I greatly prefer this remedy over blocks and outright topic bans. And as Euryalus said, if there are alternatives, propose them. I'm open to ideas. Katietalk 19:36, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
  • With regards to lifting the topic ban now: the community has already declined to reverse the sanction at AN. I see no reason to go against the community now and lift it just because we've decided to clarify the wording for the future. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:39, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @Cassianto: I notice you haven't reported any of the possible violations you have mentioned here to AE for discussion and enforcement. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:48, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Civility in infobox discussions: Motion

Remedy 1.1 of the Civility in infobox discussions case is amended to replace dot point 3: *making more than one comment in discussing the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article. with the following: * making more than one comment in a discussion, where that discussion is substantially primarily about the inclusion or exclusion of an infobox on a given article.

For this motion there are 11 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Enacted: Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 17:44, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Support
  1. Proposing a slightly modified version of SchroCat's alternative wording, to clarify that the "one comment" restriction is per discussion and is regardless of the content of the comment. Also noting here for clarity that the one-comment-per-discussion restriction would cover subthreads of the same discussion as well as substantive rewordings of that single comment if made in a subsequent edit. Put more simply, when an infobox-related discussion is under way, those on infobox probation should comment once, in one edit and in one place, and then move away from the discussion and leave it to others to resolve. Other views welcome, as always. -- Euryalus (talk) 14:36, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  2. Good and clear clarification, I hope. WormTT(talk) 17:08, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  3. I think that this was our original intent; it seems to me that the original wording was clear enough, but since it has been questioned, I support the change to make it even less ambiguous. DGG ( talk ) 21:05, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  4. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:05, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  5. RickinBaltimore (talk) 22:33, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
  6. I am not generally a fan of this particular type of restriction and hope it will seldom have to be imposed, but I certainly prefer it to outright blocks or bans where they can be avoided. The revised wording is consistent with what was intended in the decision, so I'll support the motion. But, per Alex's vote comment below, I'd support changing "substantially" to "primarily." Alternatively, if a discussion is partly about infoboxes and partly about something else (say, a GA or FA review of an article), I'd support an interpretation that allows one comment about the infobox but doesn't restrict comments about other aspects. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:21, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  7. I'm not sure how it should be worded, but I'd support the version Nyb suggests. @Newyorkbrad:, can you come up with a suitable wording? Doug Weller talk 15:34, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  8. Our intent was very clear during the case. We wanted people to stop being toxic in infobox discussions, and the sniping by Cassianto in the provided diffs certainly doesn't accomplish that. That behavior alone would be worth discretionary sanctions whether or not a specific restriction on number of comments was in place, since such snide and unproductive remarks contribute heavily to the overall issues in this topic area. For those reasons, I don't see our clarification here as affecting Cassianto's topic ban, which is warranted under discretionary sanctions. We can clarify this if it will reduce future issues, but if Cassianto continues to push the boundaries of his specific restrictions, he should expect to face escalating discretionary sanctions consistent with his behavior. (I prefer "primarily", as an aside.) ~ Rob13Talk 16:39, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  9. Also prefer 'primarily' per Alex, but this is an improvement. Katietalk 21:08, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. This motion will pass, so I would like to morally oppose for two reasons: 1) The addition of "substantial" is going to be subjective, which was also noted by Mr rnddude 2) The revised wording also does not really cover the tendency of re-litigating Infobox discussions by persistently opening new threads without addressing any previous opposing arguments (opening a new thread can be "discussing", but is it a "discussion"?). My concluding thoughts is that any amendment at this stage is not going to be ideal, but if it is going to provide more clarity for administrators working at AE to impose necessary sanctions, then I suppose it is the only option. Alex Shih (talk) 05:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
Abstain
  1. I don't oppose this - the new wording is perfectly fine - but I doubt its effectiveness, because it takes the "confusing" line at face value and I just don't think the underlying complaint is serious. People who are making a genuine effort to follow the rules ask for clarification, people who are trying to push boundaries choose to follow whatever interpretation they find most favorable to themselves and then are shocked, shocked, shocked!! to find that others disagree with their creative reinterpretation of what "one" means. The behavior that led to this request is the equivalent of seeing something you think might stick to the wall, throwing it, and then wondering why those lame, incompetent arbs can't even keep the floor clean around here. I mean, I can't be too judgey about that behavior - if I were subject to an arbcom sanction, and for some reason, despite months to years of consistent feedback, nevertheless continued to believe in the rectitude of my cause - I'd look for ways to thumb my nose at the arbs too. But recognizing the pattern doesn't mean I have to play along. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:08, 8 May 2018 (UTC)


Discussion by arbitrators
  • @Mr rnddude: thanks for the additional comment. I suppose it's possible to wikilawyer almost anything, so application of this or any other wording will require a degree of "plain English" interpretation. There's always a balance between wording that is clear and simple but leaves loopholes, and wording that is wildly lengthy and tries to cover every possible creative interpretation. In this specific case not everyone seems to agree that there was actually a need for clarification, but to the extent there was it's hopefully addressed in the above. -- Euryalus (talk) 01:09, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @Mr Ernie: The sanction was appealed to AN, and that discussion closed around a day ago. It doesn't look like the participants in that discussion had difficulty interpreting the remedy wording, but if you disagree please discuss with the closing admin. Arbcom is unlikely to unilaterally overrule a legitimate community appeal process, and nor should it. -- Euryalus (talk) 02:45, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Changed the wording to "primarily," based on comments above. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:28, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @Cassianto: for the sake of transparency and because it might help others understand the context of our failure to reply to your emails, may we copy them here? Of course I'll understand if you don't want others to see them. Doug Weller talk 08:46, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @Cassianto: Correct, and your conduct is a part of the whole – the only part that continued after the case was over, to my knowledge. ~ Rob13Talk 19:22, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
    • You are restricted from adding infoboxes, actually. We went based off of the evidence presented. Very little evidence was presented of systematic wrongdoing since the previous case by those other than you, but nevertheless, we put in place discretionary sanctions so anyone else behaving disruptively can be sanctioned appropriately. ~ Rob13Talk 19:46, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @SchroCat: Participation in a single RfC about a single infobox years ago makes me no more involved than anyone who has created an article with an infobox. I thought that particular infobox was beneficial at that time, but that doesn't mean I have a broad opinion on infoboxes. To be a bit blunt, I have better things to worry about. Recusal is reserved for matters where an arbitrator feels they cannot be impartial about an issue. I didn't even recall the discussion when the case started, so that is not an issue. It was mentioned at one point during the case, and I saw my brief participation when I read through it. I queried other arbitrators about whether they felt I should recuse at that time, but they did not. I agreed with their assessment. It's worth noting that the community reviewed my participation in that RfC at my RfA, and they saw nothing concerning or even partisan there. The overwhelming consensus was that my comments were appropriate and that I attempted repeatedly to de-escalate the situation.

    You appear to be claiming I'm somehow biased, but my voting record on the case doesn't back that up. I was the first to oppose sanctions for yourself. I was one of only a few arbitrators who opposed suggesting a project-wide RfC on infoboxes, one that would be far more likely to enshrine infoboxes in policy than favor the removal of infoboxes. I proposed the admonishment of the case filer for canvassing. I opposed all of the more draconian sanctions proposed against Cassianto (1RR in the proposed decision, a civility restriction in the workshop). My voting record is more "anti-infobox" than average on the Committee, if anything, which contradicts a claimed "pro-infobox" bias.

    If you believed me to be biased, the time to ask for my recusal would have been months ago, when the case was getting started. You were silent. Requests for recusals usually aren't considered after a case enters the voting stage, and we're well past that, given the case is closed entirely. ~ Rob13Talk 20:13, 7 May 2018 (UTC)


The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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