Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive183

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Cirt (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 16:56, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

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Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Placing_sanctions_and_page_restrictions:

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

1. 20:50, 28 September 2015 Adds info violating WP:BLP to page, sources that blatantly fail WP:RS (eg Townhall.com, Breitbart.com), to back up his WP:EXTRAORDINARY claims.
2. 20:59, 28 September 2015 Adds unsourced info to WP:BLP article, with unsourced description, attempting to connect an innocent living 14-year-old-boy to claims of terrorism.
3. 21:06, 28 September 2015 Adds info violating WP:BLP to same page, sourced to what editor admits is "Conservative blog Weasel Zippers.
4. 16:34, 29 September 2015 Adds back, again, same unsourced info to WP:BLP article, as above.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

Numerous previous talk page warnings for disruption:

1. May 2010 - edit warring warning.
2. June 2010 - canvassing warning.
3. July 2010 - spam links warning.
4. August 2010 - canvassing warning.
5. November 2010 - Wikiquette alert.
6. June 2011 - Disruption at BLP warning.
7. May 2015 - edit-warring and WP:NOR warning.

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

• Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on 01:39, 29 September 2015 by Liz (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

• NOTE: Bachcell (talk · contribs) is wrong, he most certainly was informed of this request, per my DIFF. Note that most recent WP:BLP violations were after discretionary sanctions warning by admin Liz. — Cirt (talk) 17:22, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

User notified, see DIFF. Thank you, — Cirt (talk) 16:58, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

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

Was not informed of this request, will not contribute to the clock incident if my contributions are not wanted. Bachcell (talk) 17:20, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Again we see Gamaliel jump to apply sanctions in a content dispute involving TheRedPenOfDoom, Aquillion and MarkBernstein against an editor on the other side of that content dispute? This is becoming a pattern. 168.1.99.212 (talk) 17:34, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

@Gamaliel: I see little evidence of IP involvement or sockpuppetry at the article (Ahmed Mohamed clock incident) or talk page and none directed at the editors in question. Certainly nothing rising to the level of the Nazi-related? (I don't see the relevance) conspiracy suggested by Mr. Bernstein. 168.1.99.212 (talk) 18:58, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

@TheRedPenOfDoom: Quite right of you to call that out - one of the dangers of a dynamic IP, I didn't even think to check but I assure you the edit was not mine. 168.1.99.212 (talk) 22:47, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

The one violation after notification, while unsourced/poorly sourced, is a claim about a clock rather than a living person. I agree with Gamaliel's ban (temporarily) as a preventive measure against further disruption, but procedurally I question whether this is actionable under BLP discretionary sanctions. Rhoark (talk) 17:41, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

An IP from the same block, presumably the same editor, made a neatly identical complaint yesterday at AN/I . Presumably, this is another little reddit quest -- this topic is now at the top of one of the Gamergate planning boards under a long, long post by the fellow whose name commemorates the sweet music of Nazi dive bombers.

I'd like to call the attention of administrators to the chilling effects that the continual threats of sanctions -- or at least time-consuming complaints at WikiLaw -- have on editors who are, as here, trying to prevent Wikipedia from being embarrassed by conspiracy theories. MarkBernstein (talk) 18:05, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

To the IP editor, if in fact, there is a group of people who are consistently editing in compliance with our policy regarding content about living people, and other editors who are consistently editing in contravention of the policy regarding content about living people, one would expect that one group would be praised for their work and one set would be sanctioned. When this happens, that would be a sign that the system is functioning as it should and everyone who cares for the encyclopedia should be happy! IP, you don't sound very happy, and that is troubling. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:25, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

As an IP who has made very few edits, but among those edits is , your unhappiness with the situation outlined above is probably to be expected. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:28, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Of course it wasn't. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:56, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I would like to echo the comment made by MarkBernstein above, vis a vis allowing low-tolerance for the block-shopping of editors attempting to enforce some minimal standards in terms of the injection of conspiracy theories and innuendo to the encyclopedia, a battle we are (IMO) losing. I have recently, myself, endured this when confronting a SPA/IP Editor duo (sock investigation active here) attempting to sanitize and legitimize the articles for Frank Gaffney and Center for Security Policy, well-known conspiracy theorists. The editor in question in this arbitration action, Bachcell, just today left a congratulatory aplomb on the SPA's Talk page in that case , seemingly underscoring his intent to continue participation in this "bad boys club." I'd ask the arbitrators to consider whether, given the established profile and edit history of Bachnell, he is currently in a position to immediately make an adjustment to his editing patterns and sourcing standards if nothing more than a warning is given? There is a journey of intellectual maturation on which Bachnell needs to embark and limiting his editing privileges to articles outside this topic area for a year or so will allow him to develop the skills in identifying RS and composing NPOV prose that will give him the best chance at reintegration into the mainstream of WP. LavaBaron (talk) 18:58, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

What area of conflict is this topic under Discretionary Sanctions from Arbcom? This is forum shopping and doesn't belong here. No ArbCom case is cited for Arbitration Enforcement. Where would a "topic ban" be logged? --DHeyward (talk) 22:22, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

As the "IP Editor" is totally unrelated to the alleged "SPA" (i.e. not the same, nor related any way whatsoever) other than through correlation due to erroneous claims presented by LavaBaron after coincidental edits on the two pages mentioned – seemingly post hoc ergo propter hoc among other potential or actual fallacies – the commentary concerning innocent parties, exacerbated by the fact similar allegations have been posted multiple times on several boards and/or pages, could be perceived as an attack on the character of the "IP Editor" (et al) or in the least (each, some, if not all of those when viewed in total) seems uncivil. Therefore, I respectfully request references to the "IP Editor" be stricken from this discussion!

As for Bachcell posting a comment on the talk page of supposed "SPA", the reason is unclear, only Bachcell would know for certain. What I propose, as a potential explanation is that in having taken an interest in the "clock incident", Bachcell may have observed a fringe theories discussion on same subject matter, where LavaBaron posted on the thread commenting "I'd love to get into this but I have my hands full with the CSP (above), at the moment" (perhaps foreshadowing future involvement?), next clarifying "CSP" by using the full name and (what could appear to be a developing or adopted modus operandi of possible ad hominem?) when adding "uffice to say, WP is on LoonWatch Level 5 right now." Later on, posting an RfC notice directly below the "clock incident" discussion. Note: This was done prior to the post by Bachcell on user talk page referenced by LavaBaron. Considering the aforementioned theory, which seems plausible (only Bachcell would know for sure), then I do not think any undue weight should be given to an editor becoming involved in what seems to be unrelated matters, or where relevance provided by an interlocutor seems to focus on extraneous issues LavaBaron brought into this discussion, i.e. why should Bachcell be called out for what appears to be simply a comment of support for an uninvolved editor when that may have been influenced by previous actions of LavaBaron, now commenting against Bachcell. 99.170.117.163 (talk) 23:43, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

User:DHeyward asks what is the area of conflict for Discretionary Sanctions for this topic. The answer is American politics 2 (as per my comment on Talk:Frank Gaffney in response to a Third Opinion request that appeared to be a conduct issue rather than a content issue). This concerns a controversial political organization since 1932 that is still active and is within the scope of the ArbCom case. (It is true that the filing party doesn't identify the case, but that is where any sanctions would be logged.) Robert McClenon (talk) 01:55, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

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

• Given the sensitive and inflammatory nature of these edits, which appear to link a 14-year-old to acts of terrorism, I'm issuing an immediate topic ban, but I will leave this matter open for discussion so editors and admins can evaluate whether or not that ban should stay in place long-term. Gamaliel (talk) 17:10, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

• 168.1.99.212 Yes, it is an unfortunate pattern when certain editors are stalked by an army of sockpuppets and IP editors. Regardless, I did not scan the article history to see which editors were participating before responding to the sanctions request here, but I doubt conspiracy HQ will believe such inconvenient facts. Gamaliel (talk) 18:13, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

• Do you actually have a relevant comment on the sanction or do you merely wish to provide more proof of this phenomenon? Gamaliel (talk) 21:13, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

• I endorse the topic ban as self-evidently justified. Poorly sourced negative content in a controversial WP:BLP. Guy (Help!) 22:36, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
• User:Bachcell was notified of the BLP discretionary sanctions at 01:38 on 29 September by User:Liz. So the last of the edits by Bachcell shown above was made after the notice was given. I favor User:Gamaliel's topic ban of Bachcell, phrased as "indefinite topic ban from all edits related to Ahmed Mohamed, broadly construed, while this matter is being considered at WP:AE" and recommend it be made permanent. EdJohnston (talk) 15:19, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
• @Gamaliel: It's easiest (per the DS procedure) if you modify the sanction yourself. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 02:12, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

• Done. Gamaliel (talk) 16:54, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

• Closing. Gamaliel has now made Bachcell's topic ban from Ahmed Mohamed indefinite. EdJohnston (talk) 02:23, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

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

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Alexikoua (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 13:00, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

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User:Burridheut displays an extreme battleground mentality, while his activity is limited to a very narrow set of articles in Albanian related topics and especially to Spiro Koleka. The specific article appears to be his personal obsession with wp:own reaching a high level of disruption, in a typical wp:SPA fashion.

Attempts for discussion with the specific editor have been fruitless while his talkpage is full of warning messages from multiple co-editors. His battleground mentality is also obviously in the quality of the arguments he provides accompanied with trolling expressions:], ], ], ], ], ]. As part of his endless personal attacks and harassment activity he received a 31h block ], a block he never understood ].

Nevertheless, he continued with the usual aggressive tone in his comments: ] (ironically claiming that a wikipedia editor should visit the library of Tirana fist), ] and finally this ] where he accuses that 3rd part editors were hijacking his preferred version in S. Koleka. All this in combination of extreme wp:own & sterile reverts in the same article. Inevitably his talkpage is full of warning messages including ARBMAC warning ].

Burrit. among several other personal attacks he launched, accused me directly of being a payed government agent of enemy state propaganda in his typical aggresive fashion ]. Although he was latter kindly warned to remove such comments ] he didn't care and continued posting disruptive comments in the specific talkpage.Alexikoua (talk) 13:00, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

This kind of disruption warrants at least an article ban of the specific editor in Spiro Koleka, as also suggested by .Alexikoua (talk) 13:00, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

The battleground nature of the editor is also obvious in his first reaction after I've notified him about this case ]. He immediatelly called only the specific editors that according to him would defend his positions, which falls clearly into wp:canvass.Alexikoua (talk) 08:38, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

]

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

This situation is going on for months, it is a mountain of propaganda that I and other editors have to fight here against. I have complained several times and cried out loud for solving this situation. I have appealed to ANI, the Dispute Resolution Board, and specific users within the talk page. Some of these users have helped a lot. I was the first who asked for an article ban of these two editors, it was followed by a counter-ban request from them within 10 minutes. Users Alexikoua and Zoupan seem to have immunity of any actions and seem to be given an unlimited number of reverts to other editors posts. Why is there no restriction for these editors? I have contributed over 90% of the article in question. I started to write the article in 2012. There are no disputes on the information I have provided, all referenced by historical documents, personal certificates and even gravestone pictures I had to provide as the two editors complaining here even changed the identity of the person in the article from their lack of knowledge.

Is wikipedia all about finding links over the internet that confirm our nationalistic biasses and then start an ethnic war by destroying an informative article about a dead figure? I don't think so.

Zoupan and Alexikoua don't seem to agree with me though. They have undermined EVERY attempt to settle disputes impartially and have fought or offended every other user that did not agree with them. Every few days they go back to the article and bit by bit they erode the article from its important information and they put inside their trojan horse of Balkans propaganda. This is not acceptable, Greek propaganda in articles about Albania/Albanians has to stop! The talk page looks like a war zone because of these two editors that are so destructive (and the rest of us who don't let them continue their way of course). But will consensus ever be achieved by them? I don't think so, looking at the how problematic they are all over wikipedia articles related to Albania. In my opinion they enjoy the conflict because I cannot explain otherwise what these Greek editors are they doing since early July fighting about the ethnicity of a dead man from another country that they know nothing about (yes, they even mixed his identity with someone else in the beginning, see talkpage) Burridheut (talk) 15:50, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

The below is some examples to just illustrate what I am talking about. Gamaliel, as per your request.

1. Zoupan adds "Vorio Epirotes" tag to the article here. This term of "Northern Epirus" started to be used by Greeks in 1913. It did not exist before and it is exclusively used by Greeks to mark an imaginary area which they have tried for over 100 years to annex as part of Greece. I want to emphasize that this term is >>extremely provocative<<. I removed it because besides being provocative it was also incorrect and unfounded.

2. Zoupan mixes the identity of Spiro Koleka with another important figure by the same name. He changes the name to Spiro Jorgo Koleka here. I notify him that he is mixing people. Instead of thanking me he changes the name again (wrong person again) and rewrites a whole paragraph about Spiro Koleka by saying that now he is the son of the Spiro Jorgo Koleka, from a Greek family. He finds some innacurate publications by Pettifer to back his claims. I notify him repeatedly that he got the wrong man, he ignores the facts presented. I write him here in the revision field. This goes back and forth with countless reverts. I go and get a picture of Spiro's grave stone where the father name is Thoma and he still reverts my edit! Finaly he gives up confronted with the evidence, but still claims this Spiro is Greek, although he had the claim originally about the other Spiro. New man, same history. Logic right? ....

3. Zoupan revengefully removes a whole paragraph about Spiros engineering carrer (never added back) and basically restructures the whole article to his wishes here.

4. Zoupan removes Spiros spouse name from wikipedia here. Why? No clue. I add it back he reverts twice.

5. Zoupan writes "Himara, a predominantly Greek town" here. Why? To provoke again. Himara is not predominantly (meaning over 50%) Greek AND this is irrelevant info since Spiro was not born there. I informed Zoupan that even the latest official state census of 2011 shows that only 24.56% declare themselves as Greeks. See here. No success, this editor only recognized a census if it is made in Greece.

6. Zoupan adds the same author as a source several times when he writes the Greek belonging of Spiro Koleka. He makes it look like it is different sources, for example he writes: "...into an ethnic Greek family." If you check all these sources, they are from the same author!

7. User Alexikoua comes to help Zoupan propagate disputed material and revert/undo ENDLESSLY, it starts here. He takes the liberty to talk like he owns the place here and writes in the revision edit field "until Burridheut sends an email to the authors (as claimed in talkpage) and conveince them to publish a new version, there is no reason to remove this part". WOW, this is decided now. Let's pack and go home (?)

8. I added later on new text about Spiro Koleka saying that he was an "important Albanian statesman, communist politician and a high ranking military officer during WWII". I also add that he was serving "as well as Vice Prime Minister.", see here. I also add a section about Medals and Awards and add two medals with verifiable sources online. Here comes Zoupan again and deletes this information and replacing it with his own text! This was after several edits also including the ones from Resnjari, which I personally found very constructive. Zoupan among other things writes in the revision text "emphasis on WWII officer is unsupported". Clearly he has no clue yet who Spiro Koleka was. He has received two medals of honor for taking part in the war and was "Elected member of the General Council of the National Liberation Movement and of the ANLA General Staff at Conference of Labinot", see source nr. 13, it is in the same wiki article. I revert it back at some point and then Alexikoua comes to the rescue. He says here "No neef for wp:peacock intros". I revert it and reply "Please don't touch the article again. The word "important" is not to show off. If this man was not important we would not write about him and you would have stopped vandalizing this article." Then Zoupan comes back and immediately reverts mine, see here.

9. After this horror-edit-war I lose my patience and while reverting write in the revision field "Get out of here, vandal. You have been warned by several users many times to stop this shameful campaign of yours." A couple of hours later I got banned. Zoupan went back to the article and put everything back, see here.

The above is what happened until 10 of August. From there on the provocations of these two editors have continued not only against me but also against other editors who have been giving real contribution to the article. The latter ones have asked the two Greek editors (Zoupan and Alexikoua) repeatedly to stop editing against consensus and third party arbitration, see an example here, alse read here. The last issue preceding this ban request was the manipulation of content in the "Ethnicity Claims" section, who was renamed to just "Ethnicity" just to lose trace of the previous dispute. This technique has been used repeatedly on this article (Deform, Move around, Rewrite) from the two Greek editors. I reverted this here back to the previous version last edited from another user and wrote the reasons for it. The next thing that happens is this ban request. I have no clue what to do here at this point, they are the perpetrators and they claim to be the victims here. I repeat that their propaganda edits are extremely offending for the people related to the people living in the village of Vuno and for the family members of the public figure in the article. There is absolutely no ethical reflection from the Greek editors though, no respect for either living or dead it seems. It is deeply saddening. Burridheut (talk) 21:28, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I'll keep an eye on it, in case you get banned. User:Burridheut you need to tone down some of the language at times and not to personalize it otherwise proposed bans will come your way like this. Nonetheless, your contributions have been most productive regarding the article and keep the good work up.Resnjari (talk) 11:23, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Resnjari thank you for your knowledgeable contribution to the article and for your patience in dealing with difficult people, patience I seem not to have as much as you do. From my experience related to the Spiro Koleka article, I think wikipedia needs more people like you, otherwise it is doomed to be overtaken by internet trolls. Burridheut (talk) 11:40, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Don't worry about its all good. At first i got a little serious about it earlier this year when i came across the Turco-Albanians article as it was presented as a "ethnographic" term (by certain editors, you can have a guess as to who), while most of the academic material describes it as a pejorative word. Wikipedia does not do racism, yet there it was ! Its fixed now and the Cham Albanians page too which had a copy and paste job done from Serbianna.com. and plagiarism, and racism here and there, unsourced claims etc, i might add. My point is if you have access to peer reviewed material even to one topic, bring it to the fore but take it in stride and do it according to Wikipedia policy. After reading the policy extensively it actually guards editors like us from a other editors ganging up and creating a fake consensus and blocking peer reviewed material. Many Albanian editors have been intimidated and its why so few are left today. Just ignore the personal attacks and let the sources do the talking. I have noticed when that happens its usually editors (known to bring cases such as yours here and with privileges) often doing the personal attacks. And edit articles where your strengths are regarding being able to back it up with peer reviewed source like i am at the Northern Epirus article (Its funny how other editors are trying to make the process as slow as possible. I will continue though.) But i will say that a ban is uncalled for. A final warning would best be served here as the editor who has brought the case against you does not have a clean record themselves (for example as was borne out in the Souliots article when editing was occurring and that particular editor resorted to making up policy in a attempt to prevent peer reviewed material going in ! See: Talk:Souliotes). I am not sure if they have banned you User:Burridheut, yet i urge the administrators here to take such matters into account before proceeding with any ban or a long lasting one at the very least.Resnjari (talk) 12:05, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

It is very interesting because I never used the words "payed government agent of enemy state". This is new information added here by yourself. Do you care to explain where you found the words "agent" and "enemy"? Burridheut (talk) 11:12, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

I called those two editors as they are the top contributors of the article content and have a good historical overview. What is the problem with this? You know that there are not many editors editing the Spiro Koleka article, and the remaining editors who I have not called are the ones I accuse of disruption, one being you. Burridheut (talk) 11:12, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

The user shows lack of understanding of key policies, particularly WP:IMPARTIAL and WP:NOTVAND. Moreover, in discussions on the user's talk page they seem unamenable to self-reflection or receiving guidance from others. I do not anticipate this can be resolved without a topic ban of some duration. Rhoark (talk) 19:06, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I have participated in the article's talk page a couple of times but is not possible to reach a consensus. Other users as User:Rolandi+, User:Resnjari, have as well beside the others already mentioned above.
User:Alexikoua and User:Zoupan have done as many reverts and substantial content removal as User:Burridheut. Some of them:, , , , . The history of the Spiro Koleka article shows they share the same opinion and alternate their edits..

Also, what Burridheut says above about User:Zoupan and the Category:Northern Epirotes is true. Zoupan marks left and right articles with this category, i.e. the Himara Revolt of 1596. Northern Epirus is a term of early 20th-century after the southern Epirus went to Greece and north to Albania.

Instead of banning anyone, can the article be frozen, talk page archived and new discussion topics (with shorter comments) started again? Mondiad (talk) 23:26, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I agree with the statements made by User:Mondiad regarding the matter. There has been tit for tat edits between some of the editors involved. The wording of the article has been resolved for the most part after and lengthy and exhaustive process. The contentious part was even taken to third party deliberation and dispute resolution where non Balkan editors decided to create a separate Ethnicity section for the contentious part as a resolution to the matter. It has not been User:Burridheut who has now attempted in recent times to undo that. See edit by User:Zoupan ] or to tamper with peer reviewed sources regarding the village of Vuno by adding "described" when the literature clearly outlines that its inhabited by a Albanian Orthodox population as that scholar Kallivretakis has done fieldwork there.Mondiad's solution of the article being frozen for a period of time to best for some editors to have a cooling of period followed by the other recommendations that Mondiad proposed.Resnjari (talk) 03:32, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

User:EdJohnston suggested that Burridheut be banned although his contributions have been noted as being productive. Some kind of sanction and last warning about following better dialogue should occur instead and for Burridheut to refrain from personal attacks (as to be in line with Wikipedia policy). Regarding the sources Burridheut has brought to the article, the Albanian encyclopedia article in the end was not used due to it being from the communist era. The Obituary article however by Anastas Kondo meets the criteria for being in the article, as that person is a Albanian academic and native of the same village as Koleka. Newspaper articles are used in Wikipedia. And the Kondo article was used in reference to outline the familial connection to another Sprio Koleka, not to his identity per se. Just thought i would outline that so as to keep it in mind about that source.Resnjari (talk) 07:36, 16 October 2015 (UTC) Forgot to say that regarding the Northern Epirus article one should be cautious regarding its contents as the article's neutrality is under dispute due to peer reviewed sources contradicting some of its contents and little content about the Albanian factor as well in a region that is located wholly in sovereign Albania.Resnjari (talk) 08:02, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

A REPLY TO Athenean's COMMENTS. Its interesting that you call for some kind of sanction regarding myself. Anyone can read the posts on my talkpage or its history page. I stated clearly to Mondiad that we ought to work on articles together. The Albanian Wikipedia portal is no longer active and there are many articles in need of attention with so very few Albanian editors out there. There were articles like Turco-Albanians until recently that were promoting that racist term as something non offensive and "ethnographic" ! Does Wikipedia promote racism ? For all those editors doing page patrols how i wonder did that escape everyone's notice ? Mondiad is active and i do want to collaborate on articles. I replied to a request posted on my talkpage and not the other way around. It is the same when a editor gets bombarded with article requests. As for vandalism, i pointed to a real example in my reply to Mondiad and the "unnamed" editors to which you refer are that. Unless one can hack into someones computer Athenean, how can one know their identity? Many a time vandalism occurs by editors who do not have a registered Wikipedia account and only an IP adress appears. I merely go by facts, not fiction. I saw no other editor deal with it. As i recall many of you are constantly on page patrol regarding Albanian articles, and that's good. As such, i wonder regarding an article how is it that on the Cham Albanians page there was plagarism from the Roudomentof source, racism by referring to Chams as Turko-Albanians while not explaining that its a pejorative term for Albanians, the existence of a sizable copy and paste job from Serbianna.com, and also that unsubstantiated allegation that Chams where perpetrators in in the Holocuast (again a copy and paste from Serbianna.com) that stayed there for over two years unchecked ! Now who got rid of all that POV pushing and racism? I don't think it was you. You were a guardian of the old content if one looks at the history page. For you my actions consisted some thing not right as you did say in the Northern Epirus talk page that somehow i might turn that article (i still don't know on what you based this on, considering Cham territory in southern Albania consists of only a few villages) "a content fork of Cham Albanians. This habit of yours of copy-pasting the same material all across Wikipedia ends here." I never copy and paste material that constitutes plagiarism (i add to inline citations from a source) and have always sourced everything. All sources i bring are of the highest integrity and quality and that can be checked and i frimly stand by them. I challenge anyone to disprove them, even you based on Wikipedia policy. In the article i write something and then i cite it. I also provide a inline citation for it. Yes regarding these articles it has happened more than it should. But if it does not, you and others will say i am lying and no change can occur. Or is it i am damned if i do and damned if i don't? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a place where articles are propaganda pieces based on opinion. Now unless the administrators have a solution or monitor when we dialogue with each other on the talk page, its the only way to get content that is not POV pushing and scholarly. But yes you oppose me doing that, i wonder why ?

Nonetheless its great you bring up the topic of behavior. Now lets look at your long list of colourful commentary toward me, when i have turned the other cheek. But for this forum i will indulge everyone here. You have questioned my cognitive abilities you you stated and i quote "You're not as clever as you think you are, and others are not as dumb as you think they are." So much for good faith. This had absolutely nothing to do with the article or discussion of the content. Why where you commenting and being so concerned about my cognitive facilities? Apart from being offensive what did that have to do with the article ? You have never explained this. Moreover i did not call anyone "dumb". Your words, your accusations. And i wondered what this comment was based on? Was it due to me asking you in good faith (as i have always done) to present your point of view based on Wikipedia policy(i am the one always quoting exact passages when you go all dismissive) which you in the end could not? Now lets look at another article of which at i have proposed changes to based on peer reviewed sources that are non Albanian, but Greek !. For those wondering its the Northern Epirus article. As some of its talk page is archived, i will copy and past it here as to place focus on it. You said for example that "Your proposed additions, are as usual way off-topic. So no, we are not going to include them. Wikipedia is meant to be an encyclopedia, and present information in summary style. Please familiarize yourself with this guideline and stop wasting everybody's time." For one that is your opinion. My edits where done on other articles have stuck as they meet Wikipedia criteria. Regarding the Northern Epirus article I had provided numerous peer reviewed sources and had outlined the need for their consideration and was asking for input with much discussion. All i got was the usual dismissive commentary and am never sure if you had read what i wrote before posting your reply or that you're are saying no for the sake of no. As the Northern Eprius article is based on a irredendist concept (already outlined in the article before i came to it for change) about Southern Albania encompassing an area that is inhabited substantially by a sizable Albanian (speaking) population (as noted in Greek sources of which you dismiss such as your Albanian are "irrelevant" comment), you then tried to thwart every attempt at making the article be inclusive of such material (to make it balanced) that now extensively exists on the topic that has been done by non-nationalistic Greek scholarship ! You have even said to me and i quote "Bottom line is, I won't let you turn this article into yet another unreadable wall of text". As my dialogue with you on that talk page ] and others show i have engaged with you in good faith (i have even not placed the edits in an article as even Wikipedia policy states to do, but repeatedly asked for editor input as proposed edits in the talkpage in the name of good faith and common decency and yet i still get this commentary) and repeatedly turned the other cheek to your offensive commentary and attempts at intimidation. However this time i will ask. Who are you to dictate to another editor about making edits to a article if the material they bring is according to Wikipedia guidelines for reliable sources and relevant to the article ? Have you got an answer for that or was that intimidation ? I have shown in the talk page that the article Northern Epirus has serious POV issues making controversial claims that are unsourced and only presenting a view that is reminiscent of the Northern Epirote lobby and not that of scholarship. Yet according to you i can not do those edits based on, now lets see your personal opinions of my cognitive faculties, or Albanians being "irrelevant". These comments of yours if placed alongside the policy regarding WP:BATTLEGROUND would they constitute to use your words "thinly veiled insults" such as accusing me of "to push Albanian nationalist POV" ? Please do us the honour of showing everyone in here examples of what you mean regarding this last point. Or is it another accusation without merit from you ? More to add from your repertoire, i take it. Maybe its one set of rules for some editors, but another for me. So in light of this, I am also wondering if some kind of sanction is in order for Athenean ?Resnjari (talk) 20:05, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

First of all, Burridheut should have been banned from the article long ago per WP:COI. In addition, Burridheut is a classic redlinked Balkan SPA that is WP:NOTHERE to build to a neutral encyclopedia, but rather to "defend" his family's "honor" (apparently being Greek is an "insult"). The content dispute at Spiro Koleka is irrelevant here, what is relevant is Burridheut's behavior. I have taken a thorough look at Talk:Spiro Koleka and every single one of Burridheut's posts contains one or more of a) aggressive language, b) insults, c) threats, d) assumptions of bad faith, or e) conspiracy theories. Everything is a Greek conspiracy to "insult" Spiro Koleka, or take Albanian territory These are not isolated lapses: It is his modus operandi. At one point he goes so low as to refuse to capitalize "Greek" and "Greeks" while making sure to capitalize "Albanians" and "Albania" (all the while railing about "chauvinist Greek agendas"), and when confronted, replies with aggressive sarcasm . Similarly on his talkpage, there is a total lack of ability or willingness to understand and abide by wikipedia policies. Neither there nor here at this AE thread is there any admission of fault on his part, or that he needs to change his ways. It's always about how he's right and they're wrong, about how he's a victim and they are vandals. This thread on his talkpage is particularly illuminating : Numerous experienced editors try to politely and calmly reason with him to no avail. He even refuses to or cannot understand that what the editors that oppose him are doing is not vandalism. So in addition to WP:COI, we have a major case of WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior. So far the disruption has been confined to Spiro Koleka, a fairly insignificant article, but I can't even imagine the level of disruption that would result if this spread to other articles. There is a need to send a message here, that this sort of behavior is unacceptable in a collaborative project, though I'm not sure any kind of sanction would deter this user, it would probably make him see himself as even more of a victim. Athenean (talk) 18:03, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

I am also wondering if some kind of sanction is in order for Resnjari. Here he is quite openly stating his motivation to set up a tag-team to fight "vandalism" (i.e. to push Albanian nationalist POV). Thus the appeals for Burridheut to be given a "final warning" instead of a sanction: He needs muscle to fuel those future edit-wars. I also note that Resnjari's posts here are laced with thinly veiled insults against other (unnamed) editors, showing a clear "us vs. them" WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality. Athenean (talk) 18:08, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

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

• Burridheut please provide some diffs supporting your allegations against other editors. Gamaliel (talk) 17:47, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

• On the evidence there is enough reason to ban User:Burridheut from the topic of Spiro Koleka. This may be ironic, because it looks to me he could be right about the content matter. Having perused the ANi discussion from July, and the ethnicity discussion at Talk:Spiro Koleka#Separate Ethnicity-section I end up with the impression that Burridheut is correct about the Albanian nationality of Spiro Koleka. His claim is that Koleka was born in the village of Vuno, in the area of Himara. Our article on Himara says the town is primarily ethnic Greek, but our article on the village of Vuno hints at the ethnic complexities of this region. Vuno is in a contested area that is sometimes referred to as Northern Epirus. Some of Burridheut's sources probably don't qualify under WP:RS. In the past we've had trouble with some pro-Albanian editors who wound up indef blocked, but Burridheut seems to be trying to do the right thing, though with numerous personal attacks and misunderstandings of Wikipedia policy. I wish that editors had the wisdom to follow the precedent of the German Wikipedia, which has chosen to omit all discussion of ethnicity from de:Spiro Koleka. The Spiro Koleka article has some credible-looking sources in the reference list, many in English. With enough patience somebody could sort this out. EdJohnston (talk) 16:09, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Mondiad (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 21:05, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Placing_sanctions_and_page_restrictions:

User DenisGusinje since his recent account creation in the last two weeks has been performing disruptive editing on articles related to his home town Gusinje and involved in WP:EW. The main article he has been editing is Battle of Novšiće, of Mid-Importance for WP:Albania, also Ali Pasha of Gusinje and Rexho Mulliqi. Below are some of the main diffs from the "Battle of Novšiće" article where the user reverted other users' changes or performed substantial content change, clearly violating any warning and the WP:3RR:

1. 2015-10-08
2. 2015-10-08
3. 2015-10-11
4. 2015-10-11
5. 2015-10-12
6. 2015-10-12
7. 2015-10-12
8. 2015-10-12
9. 2015-10-14
10. 2015-10-14
11. 2015-10-14

The user shows WP:OWN due to the fact that the event described in the article happened in the user's home town. He ignores the fact that the event described in the article was of 1879 when the area belonged to a different political/social/ethnic context. Beside altering text, the users goal is to shift the article out of the League of Prizren (of Top-Importance for WP:Albania) focus by removing all links to it. In all his comments there are statements like is my ancestor on my mothers side / I know he was not, because my mother is from that family / I would not really waste my time discussing who do my people /my great grandfather was wearing the same plis and he was not Albanian, and others of this family biased allegations without keeping in mind WP:NOR, WP:NPV, or WP:COI. Beside that, his contribution list shows WP:SPA as he is focused only in 3 interrelated articles as stated above.

He neglected all warning from several users in his talk page., , , , , and in the article's history, while continues with the aggressive editing.

He was initially not reported due to the fact that he was new. Discussion are carried the article's talk page by several editors, meanwhile DenisGusinje keeps on reverting and disruptive editing, even claiming "you can't stop me". As suggested also by User:NobleFrog, user DenisGusinje is being reported.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

User DenisGusinje was notified:

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

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

• This user has not been made aware of discretionary sanctions so we can't use them. I'm actually inclined to decline this report and instead instruct Mondiad to report DenisGusinje to the edit warring noticeboard if they edit war (especially if they violate 3RR) again. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:27, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

• User:DenisGusinje performed 13 reverts in about one week (Oct 8 through 15) at Battle of Novšiće. Though he can't be sanctioned under DS since he wasn't alerted, he can be conventionally blocked for edit warring. I suggest leaving this request open a day or two to see if he will respond. EdJohnston (talk) 02:44, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

• DenisGusinje's account was newly created on October 8 and so far his main activity is edit warring on Battle of Novšiće. I tried to reason with him at User talk:DenisGusinje#You have been reported, hoping to get some assurances about his future behavior. His response was disappointing. I've issued a 48-hour block for the edit warring and alerted him of the ARBMAC sanctions. EdJohnston (talk) 15:42, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

SpacemanSpiff (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 04:09, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to limit editing of Caste pages

This concerns the topic area covered under Category:Social groups of India and Category:Social groups of Pakistan. I propose that uninvolved administrators should be empowered to limit editing of an article about an Indian or Pakistani social group (and/or its talkpage) to accounts older than 30 days and with at least 500 edits. This is similar to the Gamergate 500/30 restriction and can be implemented through an edit filter similar to Filter #698.

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan : standard discretionary sanctions

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This is a proposal that some of us editors and uninvolved administrators who patrol this area came up with and is reflective of what seems reasonable to all of us. Discussion can be found at User talk:SpacemanSpiff/sandbox2. (Contributor list: Abecedare, Bishonen, NeilN, Philg88, Sitush, The Blade of the Northern Lights, SpacemanSpiff)

Background

• The environment around caste articles has been found to be toxic and disruptive numerous times at various venues.
• We have Arbcom-imposed WP:ARBIPA that covers all India-Pakistan-Afghanistan topics and thereby the caste-related topics.
• We have WP:GS/Caste imposed by the community to cover caste-related topics across South Asia (which includes Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, as well as India and Pakistan) but the overlap with India makes the coverage similar to ARBIPA.

Current issues

• While the sanctions are helpful in dealing with stuff post facto, they do not prevent disruption which results in time and effort of editors and admins being wasted as well as bytes on ANI and other related forums
• Caste-based off-wiki discussion groups are dime a dozen and we often see coordinated edits. Worse than that, though, are the off-wiki attacks that editors and admins in this space have had to suffer. A few such incidents have been brought up to ANI or Arbcom on an ad-hoc informational basis, but very rarely are they brought up for remedial purposes as the people targeted by them don't want to take the extra effort.
• With our low level of policing of such articles in the past, numerous mirrors have sprung up and are now regularly being used as sources for contentious material within the same articles. An extreme problem of this can be seen from this CCI, pending for five years.

• Article gets written on the Jatland open wiki --> gets copied to en.wiki--> gets mirrored to Encyclopedia of Martial Races or Encyclopaedia of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh --> Some good faith editor cleans up the related Jat article here --> New editor comes back and uses Encyclopedia of Martial Races or Encyclopaedia of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh as a source--> talk page conversation goes in circles as every time this mirror has to be discredited.

• Another example where this sanction would have been useful over the past five years is at Nair. The talk page history shows just how many SPAs and socks come up and how few "regular" editors are there to deal with this problem.
• We have to create an environment where our regular editors are not driven out by such activity, and also keep our articles at a reasonable level of cleanliness.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

NA

Courtesy pings to contributors: @Abecedare, Bishonen, NeilN, Philg88, Sitush, and The Blade of the Northern Lights: —SpacemanSpiff 05:24, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Replies

@Ryk72 and Floq: If you look at Talk:Nair and the talk page history you will notice how this would have helped in the past (let's ignore the standard vandalism in the pages for now). Almost all the new accounts and/or IPs have been part of a sock/meat collective (with one exception that I see) and you can see how much time "regular" editors have to spend discussing the same issue multiple times. In addition, you can also see how uninvolved editors get dragged into the discussions while responding to semi-protected edit requests. The latest sock was not identified by any of the page regular editors. I just happened to patrol that page and noticed that to be a sock and filed an SPI, but I was wrong in identifying the master. This isn't to say that the restriction has to be concurrent -- both article and talk page. My recommendation is that it is a possibility, let the patrolling admin decide whether it is required and/or if they should be imposed for varying duration. —SpacemanSpiff 16:53, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

@Liz: Proactively case-by-case. I don't think we need to wait for the disruption to reach a boiling point before implementing this. Admins who patrol this area generally have an idea when there's a sock/meat or other disruptive uptick etc but can not take things to SPI. Sometimes we know that disruption in one article is going to mean that another follows. e.g. Ezhava will follow suit when there's group editing at Nair and it's just sensible to apply the sanctions then. Likewise when something pops up on Mukkulathor, Agamudayar isn't far behind. On the other hand, I don't see why it should be applied for something like Kadiyan even though there's a history of poor content, but just not enough disruption. —SpacemanSpiff 03:28, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

@EdJohnston:I think any time we add this restriction to an article and/or talk page it would be appropriate to post a banner notification on the talk page, that could perhaps be linked to a category that's included at EDR. There is a bit of paperwork involved with adding and removing entries from edit filters and that part of the process will also have to be documented. On the other point regarding appeals etc, the suggestion here is to treat this as a standard AE process: the sanction can be imposed by an uninvolved admin or through AE, and follows the standard appeals process also -- imposing admin/AN/AE/ARCA.—SpacemanSpiff 15:39, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

@EdJohnston and Callanecc: I've created {{Ds/talk caste}} as a start to document this. This would place the article in the necessary cats and the categories could simply be linked from WP:AC/DSL/2015 and any future logs. Of course placing the template on the unprotected talk page of a 500/30 article might not be the best idea as it could be removed without anyone noticing it, so a simple transclusion of a template similar to {{Pp}} on the article might be an option too.

And for clarity: The proposal here is to add individual articles and individual talk pages by name to the edit filter. cheers —SpacemanSpiff 11:45, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

• Note: Lowercase SigmaBot was eager to archive this and I've reverted; timestamping so that the uninvolved admins have another week to close this before the bot tries to archive it again. —SpacemanSpiff 13:14, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

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

I support this proposal. Disclosure: I took part in the preliminary discussions, and I'll repeat a little of what I said there. The area is dogged by socking, off-wiki canvassing and WP:CIR issues. New editors on caste articles need, and get, a lot of advice from experienced editors and admins, but are unfortunately often too suspicious of our intentions to accept it. I've come to realise people who edit Wikipedia with a caste agenda tend to assume anybody contradicting them has a caste agenda of their own, and in extreme cases this is the lens through which they view all other editors. I've seen both Sitush and myself accused of inflating the claims of our own caste and despising other castes… apparently Sitush is a brahmin — yes, I've seen that confidently asserted — and god knows what I am, but I seemingly have no respect for this, that and the other caste. On a good day, I may have heard of these castes, but usually not. I only admin the area, I don't edit it, and so it's water off a duck's back for me, but it must be terminally frustrating for the editors in the trenches. A 500/30 restriction should forestall some of the worst waste of their time and patience. For instance, I've been watching Sitush's talkpage for years, and I frequently see new users (I can't tell how often they're genuinely new) complaining there about being reverted on some caste article — sometimes complaining politely, indeed — but more usually with angry accusations about how he must "hate" their caste, or must be paid to defame it. It's downright depressing. An ounce of prevention would be worth a pound of cure here. Bishonen | talk 11:22, 29 September 2015 (UTC).

Response to User:Floquenbeam and EdJohnston: I take a notion from your comments that you may be willing to approve stronger measures than we have actually requested. We don't want a blanket 500/30 restriction across caste articles. (And to User:Liz; this is what you ask about.) When SpacemanSpiff asked some of us to look at his draft proposal, I originally suggested it should be a blanket restriction across the articles in Category:Social groups of India and Category:Social groups of Pakistan, but that was because I didn't know any better: these categories are huge. The non-comprehensive Category:Social groups of India by state includes over a thousand pages, mostly probably quite unproblematic, and we may add something like 10-20 every month. What we want is to be able to apply the restriction to the problematic articles, starting with a few notorious hotspots — say Nair, Jat people, Vanniyar, Bhumihar — and then see how that goes and whether more are needed. Nobody wants to restrict the whole area, or in any way be aggressive about this. As far as I know, the (few, overworked) admins who enforce discretionary sanctions on caste articles aren't known for being trigger-happy, and I don't believe they would be wrt to this restriction either.

To make this reasonably smooth to administer, I think two things are important: firstly, single uninvolved admins need to be empowered to put an article under the restriction without asking for consensus, going to AE, or any other pushing-a-locomotive-up-an-incline nonsense; simply per admin discretion, which I hope is considered as trustworty in this area as others. (And to remove restrictions without any special by-your-leave, too.) And secondly, it's quite important that talkpages can also be restricted if needed. @Ryk72: you ask why editors should be restricted from discussion of content. This is because bloating-up of talkpages by disruption and eternal repetitiousness by meatpuppets and throwaway socks prevents useful discussion of content. Look at Talk:Nair and its archives. It's only when talkpages are in imminent danger of becoming unusable that we would want to restrict them. Bishonen | talk 14:14, 30 September 2015 (UTC).

EdJohnston, I agree with what you say about having a category for the restricted articles, and restrictions being appealable at AE, and very much about the importance of spelling out the rules clearly. I'm not sure about logging restricted pages at WP:EDR; I only see individual restrictions there. The GG restriction is logged in the discretionary sanctions log, which does have provisions for page-level sanctions. Do you think that would work for our articles? Btw, I want to thank you for pinpointing the problem: "Everybody wants their own caste to be descended from warriors". That's it in a nutshell. :-) Bishonen | talk 15:39, 30 September 2015 (UTC).

P.S. @EdJohnston yet again: I just realized you speak of excusing innocent violations. But there shouldn't be any violations, innocent or otherwise, because the restriction is supposed be automatically enforced by a filter, as it is for Gamergate. This is an important part of our proposal, because for admins to enforce the restriction by hand would be arduous. If the responding uninvolved admins below haven't taken hold of the filter proposal, could they please say whether they support it or not? Pinging NeilN: you understand these things, could you please explain in simple terms how the filter would work? Bishonen | talk 10:03, 1 October 2015 (UTC).

W.r.t the limitation as applied to WP:MAINSPACE, this is a de facto Semi-protection 2, and I suggest that it be documented as such at WP:Protection policy; with the same caveats & advice as listed there for Semi-protection. Similarly, given that this is a de facto change in WP policy, suggest that it should follow the normal process for such changes - RFC at the policy page (as I understand it).

While the limitation as applied to MAINSPACE is easily understandable in terms of protecting the integrity of the Encyclopedia, it is less obviously so w.r.t the limitation as applied to Talk space.

Would supporting editors be able to advise the reasoning by which editors should be restricted from discussion of content? - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 11:57, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

This is a sensible proposal. Caste related articles are a problem because most of us don't understand the web of relationships between various caste articles and cannot effectively act as administrators on those pages. The articles are plagued by SPAs - often with off-wiki relationships - and an inordinate amount of time is wasted by very productive editors in dealing with these SPAs, filing sock reports, and trying to separate out the good editors from the not so good ones. This proposal will keep the articles open for editing by editors who have an encyclopedic purpose for being here while closing off editing - when necessary - by SPAs and off-wiki cabals. The proposal is simple, easy to implement, and will be effective. --regentspark (comment) 15:15, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Neither endorsing nor rejecting the present proposal, some retrospective of the GG restriction's motivation and effects is in order. Essentially, the restriction was an extraordinary measure to salvage a problematic editor by depriving him of newbies to bite. It failed, inasmuch as Zad68 (talk · contribs) who instituted the rule would eventually topic ban the editor in question. In ancillary comments, he confirmed the whole thing had been an experiment in extending rope. Nor did it seem to particularly improve the conduct of other similarly problematic established editors assuming opposition was based in nefarious motives. In the case of castes, it seems to be the fresh rather than established editors who fail to assume good faith, so the situation is not parallel. (Which is not to say it must be parallel to be considered.) The restriction did have a salutary effect in that it reduced the velocity of the talk page, making it more convenient for the remaining participants. I wouldn't personally choose to reverse that change, but I can see how others might not balance convenience opposite core wiki principles. Ultimately, I think the question is whether the problem is large enough as to make the page(s) impossible to maintain. If so, IAR. Rhoark (talk) 16:28, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Explanation of caste edit filter as requested by Bishonen. It would be modeled off the GG edit filter which editors can see here. When an editor clicks Save to save their edit they see a message, "Sorry, editors with accounts that have fewer than 500 edits or are less than 30 days old may not edit the Gamergate controversy article, its Talk pages or subpages at this time. This page restriction is an Arbitration Enforcement action. We apologize if your edit was well-intended. Please gain experience editing other areas of Wikipedia before considering returning to this article. Thank you." For caste articles, the filter should probably look for a category. Pinging MusikAnimal to see if that's possible. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 13:09, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Masem, the disruption experienced at caste articles is different from GG. GG as a topic is not that complicated and basically all the sources are in English and can be judged by any experienced editor with an awareness of pop culture. Caste warriors constantly bring sources only a select few Wikipedians can evaluate. Plus, as opposed to GG, Palestine/Israel, India/Pakistan, Greece/Macedonia, etc., there's usually no "other side" to keep things in check. The caste warriors are interested in promoting their own caste and that's about it. And since the topics are obscure and unimportant from a Western point of view, many of them suffer from a "too hard to understand, not worth figuring out" attitude. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 05:03, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

In response to NeilN (I guess this is how it works at ArbCom?), you can certainly target categories using edit filters. We should try use the combine the proposed filter with the Gamergate one, simply for performance and that they do exactly the same thing. The new copy should read something like "Sorry, editors with accounts that have fewer than 500 edits or are less than 30 days old may not edit this article, it's talk page, or subpages at this time..." The part we're missing is the clarification of what subject they are unable to edit, but the upside is performance for what is otherwise an expensive filter. Just a thought, and obviously that can be discussed later — MusikAnimal ^talk 14:01, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

There is an increasing trend to restrict Wikipedia to new users and it is fundamentally against the spirit of the project. Excluding new users will not solve problems, it may make it quieter but it wont solve anything. Just look at the first application of that rule at GG page. It's still a mess that no one can understand. What do you think will happen to new editors who want to contribute because they are interested in this topic? Will they continue to contribute after being chastised for no apparent reason. It is against AGF and it is contradictory with the "everyone can edit" motto. New editors and IP editors are a tremendous source for this project, and yes it comes with a price. But I think the price doesn't outweigh the benefits and so does the foundation, since they are firm on not changing the "anyone can edit" rule. 500/30 rule has no place in a free encyclopedia and if it becomes a norm, it will eventually be the end of the project. So if you want to speed up the slow death of Wikipedia, you are on track, if not please reconsider. This rule might seem convenient, but it's much more destructive than a couple of socks and agenda pushers in the long run Darwinian Ape ^talk 15:58, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Sitush & Masem: I understand it can be extremely frustrating to deal with bad faith or just downright unexperienced editors, but preemptively baning every single new editor from a topic just seems to me unfair, and it's a bit of an overkill at any rate. I proposed this for the original GG sanction at the imposing admin's talk page:

We let any auto-confirmed editor to edit, but implement a zero tolerance policy for disruption and impose 500/30 sanction only to those who seem to be disruptive or unfamiliar with the Wikipedia rules to comprehensively discuss the topic.(Note that this would not be count as a sanction, only giving time to a new user to familiarize themselves with the Wikipedia rules just as it was meant to be in the original sanction) Therefor we would be assuming good faith and let new editors say their piece and give them a chance to constructively contribute to Wikipedia, while simultaneously protecting the article from people who, willingly or unwillingly, disrupt the work of others.

I understand this will be an inconvenience for the admins monitoring the topic, but at least we can filter good contributions in and not drive new editors from the project. Darwinian Ape ^talk 16:47, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Sitush, No I've never edited the subject area, I am against the restrictions of this kind in principle. I am not against sanctions being imposed in problematic areas, least of all in this subject. I am against sanctions of this magnitude becoming the norm. Darwinian Ape ^talk 16:53, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

@Masem, okay perhaps I am being naive, I tend to be naive sometimes. But this rule has the potential to ruin WP for good. I was a happy IP user a few months ago and this restrictive attitude made me use this account, because I thought one day I may not be able to contribute as I like. Darwinian Ape ^talk 17:10, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

@Darwinian Ape: no, sorry. I understand your concern about creep but you have two choices here: either introduce something along these lines or watch the caste articles descend into even more chaos because I, for one, am fed up of the do-gooding attitude destroying them. Nowadays, I spend most of my time re-arguing and reverting, and there are very few other experienced contributors involved in the subject area. You either support this proposal or some derivative of it or you watch me walk away. And without me, you might as well scrap all policies when it comes to caste articles because newbies in the subject area almost always do not give a shit and experienced people avoid them.

Wikipedia has gone past the "anyone can edit" phase - accept it or watch it become absolutely pointless as a repository of knowledge. - Sitush (talk) 16:12, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I notice your edit summary for Darwinian Ape's post says Wikipedia: The encyclopedia anyone can edit, unless it's a contentious topic. Most caste articles are not contentious in the sense that DA means - the disputes and disruption, prolific socking and meating etc occur because people are unwilling to accept our policies, even when they are explained to them. I also notice that DA seems not to have edited in the topic area at any time in at least the last three months, and I can't recall ever seeing them edit in the area: do you really know what is going on? - Sitush (talk) 16:30, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

@Liz: problematic caste articles, such as Nair and Rajput, will always be problematic: it is the nature of the beast. Reviewing any imposition of editing restrictions every six months is just bumptious officialdom. Far better to review if challenged by an editor in good standing. - Sitush (talk) 18:31, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

@Masem: the proposal is not intended merely or even necessarily to combat off-wiki co-ordination. This is not GG Mark 2. - Sitush (talk) 18:34, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

@Masem: no, semi-protection and "careful observation" do not work for caste articles. Nor is the issue always COI. That is why this proposal has emerged. I'm sorry but I find it very frustrating that people who have no clue about the things are weighing in here with comments that are miles off course. Please take some time to dig through the history at, say, the Nair article and its related talk page. Then comment. - Sitush (talk) 18:49, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

@Masem, I think your past investment in Gamergate is showing and it is overwhelming your opinion. If you don't think that the Nair article has been a time-sink for a very small number of experienced contributors for many years, you're missing something. - Sitush (talk) 19:25, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Liz, I don't really care why you suggested six months. The fact remains that it should be indefinite by default because of the nature of the beast. - Sitush (talk) 19:29, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Actually, I'm out of this. My tolerance for the clueless is pretty poor at the moment, and too many have appeared in this discussion today. I just hope common sense prevails and that people are not put off by irrelevancies that are being raised. - Sitush (talk) 19:34, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

• ... and I'm back again. Is anyone going to close this discussion or is it going to end up being archived yet again? - Sitush (talk) 14:12, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

@Darwinian Ape: While the 500/30 rule is antithesis of "the encyclopedia anyone can edit", if we are clearly aware of outside influence that are engaging in long-term attempts to alter an article, as was the case in GG and appears to be the case here for castes, then we do need stronger measures to counter that to avoid a flood of new accounts and IP that can be used to support that outside influence (even if it necessarily is for the right reasons and/or in line with policy) that simple semi-protection and 3RR/1RR limits on an article cannot stop. But that influence must be something that is readily evidenced, otherwise asking for such protection is a chilling effect. I know we could readily demonstrate it for GG, and I would expect that such can be demonstrated for these caste articles where the 500/30 rule would be proposed. But if editors are simply asking for that type of 500/30 protection without any strong evidence of that influence, we should not allow that 500/30 rule to be used; it should be seen as a last resort to handle something that is outside of WP's control. --MASEM (t) 16:21, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

@Darwinian Ape: I'm not sure if a "acting in bad faith" is an easily discernible metric, and to me invites both false positives and negatives that make it more of a headache. Sometimes it takes many edits of the individual in question to figure this out. 500/30 sets a rather objective bar that the editor has learned the ropes about how WP functions (and that we can readily detect gaming the system to get to 500/30 as one ArbCom enforcement for GG showed); an editor with an earnest interest in improvement to WP can still participate elsewhere to get to that point and then participate fairly. But I will stress that if this is to be adopted at caste articles, there has to be a clear set of evidence of off-wiki organization, and that it should be the last resort after other page protection methods have been tried. It keeps articles to be those that anyone can edit, once they've shown us they've learned enough elsewhere on WP to participate usefully, in contrast to a full-protection that absolutely limits participation. --MASEM (t) 16:55, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

@Sitush: If we're talking about using this just because it is a caste article that attract COI-like issues (which assuming we're talking either an editor that is a member of that caste, or a member of a caste that is in disagreement with the caste article that is at attention), and we cannot find evidence of outside collusion that are trying to impact the article specifically, that's overkill. We have other tools at our disposal that should work. (Prior to 500/30 at GG, it was semi-prot on the mainspace space with careful observation on the talk page). Now, as I'm reading here, we're talking 500/30 on the mainspace page only and leaving the talk page open, and to that, a half-step between semi-prot and full-prot on mainspace, I think is a fair concern if all available methods are unable to cope with the volume of IP/SPA changes. But again, that volume also needs to be demonstrated. There are pages that I watch that are a constant target for "slow" vandalism by IP/SPA, and I'd never consider the need for something like 500/30. --MASEM (t) 18:46, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

@Sitush: When I look at the Nair talk page (which was given as an example of SpacemanSpiff) and consider it by itself, I don't see anything that triggers a need to lock down the page that is not already covered by the above ArbCom motions. Compared to GG, where it was both volume and civility of the IP/SPAs activity that required a novel solution, that doesn't exist here. But that's purposely not considerign the statement that there is off-site coordination happening. Given everything else said (the sparsity of editors on these pages to start, the nature of them being castes, etc.) then as long as the off-site collusion can be readily demonstrated, 500/30 makes sense. But to say that just based on the Nair history and talk page alone, I would not support that, because there's thousands of non-controversial articles that have the same exact type of behavior (a random IP or new editor coming along and trying to have the article making a specific point without sourcing or the like), making the 500/30 a potential thing that can be abused if we are not careful. Critical is the demonstration of the off-site influence to justify the 500/30. --MASEM (t) 19:12, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

@Sitush: All I'm trying to point out is that as long as we are aware this is coordinated off-site influence (which I'm not denying, I just want to make sure we have that evidence), as was the case in GG, the 500/30 rules seems reasonable because that is narrowed aimed to cut off that influence. Without knowing that, the problems otherwise described for these pages appear to be the otherwise unfortunate side effects of our open wiki nature that to put further measures that are beyond existing means (3RR, page protection, and arbcom decisions) does impact our openness. 500/30 is a good concept but should only be a last resort. --MASEM (t) 19:55, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I would like to add my own comments to disagree with those of Darwinian Ape. They appear to be focused on the words "which anyone can edit", but those words have always been hyperbole, a slight rhetorical exaggeration. There has always been an exception to the "anyone can edit" concept for users who were banned by Jimbo Wales. Wikipedia is not an experiment in anarchy or an experiment in democracy. It is an experiment, mostly successful but with a mixed record, in crowd-sourcing an encyclopedia. As such, it is necessary to learn from the results of the ongoing experiment. Since the early days, it has been found necessary to impose a few restrictions on the "anyone can edit" rule, such as banned users, topic-banned users, and sockpuppets. GamerGate may illustrate the limits of the experiment; there may be a few areas that are so contentious with so much off-wiki coordination that it has become impossible to develop a satisfactory crowd-sourced encyclopedic article even with 500/30. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep trying in other areas. If we need 500/30 to maintain NPOV in caste-related articles, then we should try 500/30. I think that I agree with Masem in that 500/30 is a draconian restriction, but occasionally we need draconian restrictions in order to maintain the encylopedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:46, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

As someone who has tried to deal with caste article problems, over several years, I fully support the 500/30 proposal.
Many new editors over-enthusiastically promote their caste, adding puffery descriptions such as "brave", "intelligent", "generous" etc., as if these could be universally true about any group. They also add the names of famous people, merely on the strength of their family name, and often add themselves as well. There are also attempts to promote one caste (presumably "their" caste) above others. These additions/changes are almost always totally unreferenced, although some do cite Victorian British Empire writers, whose sweeping generalities are not considered reliable sources. Attempts to revert these changes as unsourced, or for not using reliable sources, are almost always reversed with, as Bishonen reports, frequent accusations of bad faith and even claims that they don't need reliable sources because as a member of that caste, they "know", and only members of their caste should be allowed to edit that article. This frequently leads to multiple IPs and SPAs edit warring.
I have also seen negative edits, adding derogatory descriptions to castes, adding criminals/terrorists to them, and demoting them in the "pecking order". 500/30 would prevent all the drive-by editing, and most sockpuppetry, and would, I believe allow us to retain the best new editors, who are often frustrated/appalled that their genuine work, within the guidelines, is being over-written/undone by COI editors trying to push their cause. - Arjayay (talk) 17:50, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I too wanted to add my support for the proposal as an admin who has been involved in monitoring the area, and as someone who has great regard and sympathy for editors who try to keep wikipedia's article on the subject well-sourced and neutral.

Instead of repeating the points others have already made about why such a proposal is needed, I'll just like to highlight/clarify a few points that seem to have caused some confusion:

1. It is not proposed that the 500/30 rule be applied automatically to all articles under Category:Social groups of India or any similar category. It is only proposed that uninvolved admins be allowed to apply such a rule on articles and/or their talkpages on case-by-case basis.
2. It is important that admins have the ability to apply the 500/30 rule to talk-pages and not just articles, because the most common/frustrating problem seen in this area is IDHT behaviour and endless/circular arguments by a roving band of SPAs/sock-/meat-puppets who are convinced that they know the TRUTH about their caste (case in point: see edit-summary by IPsock of User:Truth only 1). Again the talk-page restriction would not be automatic, but would depend upon the particular form of disruption being seen.

As other have already pointed out, the proposed restriction is partially motivated by the type of off-wiki co-ordination and sock/meat-puppetry that has been seen in the GG area. In addition though, unlike the GG area, these set of articles also attract participation by truly inexperienced editors with marginal language skills and limited experience in searching for scholarly sources. It is both rude and ineffective to point such editors to WP:CIR. And blocking/topic-banning them individually is far from ideal, since doing so too early risks false-positives, while waiting till disruption from each individual SPA has reached conventional blockable level makes the cumulative disruption an unbearable burden for editors actually following and explaining wikipedia policies in this lightly patrolled area. That is another reason I am in favour of the 500/30 rule since, (a) it is not a logged sanction against an individual editor and makes it clear that it is only inexperience that is keeping them from editing an article, and (b) it separates editors who are willing to gain that experience from ones who believe they already know all the TRUTH they need to know. Abecedare (talk) 21:10, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I took this long to comment here as I was trying to make up my mind whether it is appropriate to apply the 500/30 restriction to both the article and talk pages. I finally came to the conclusion that it is appropriate. We are mainly trying to combat the disruption caused by the POV-pushers, not just the damage caused to the main space. However, this does have the unfortunate effect that a new editor trying to suggest an edit to the article has no place to go. That is concerning.

On the other hand, my experience is that well-meaning new editors make casual and sporadic edits for years before they become active Wikipedians (if at all). The new editors that start battling on contentious issues from the get-go are the ones with pre-formed agendas. There is no harm in asking such editors to gain experience before we allow them to participate in highly problematic areas. If they are serious about Wikipedia they will stay and gain the necessary experience. If not, they will disappear. This is merely an instance of WP:PACT.

This obviously has my wholehearted support, seeing as I helped out a little with the draft. The only major thing I want to add is, in addition to Sitush's work, these are massively difficult topics to administrate. The number of e-mails I've gotten accusing me of being all kinds of shit are too many to count, and I'be mostly been on the fringes for the last couple years (though I'm intending to change that). Although intended as humorous, at one Wiki-meetup I was telling the truth when I said I'm nearly fluent in Hindi swear words from talkpage comments and e-mails directed at me. Putting this in place will cut so much of that out it might just make the area a bit more palatable for other admins, which will make things even that much less difficult. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:15, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Not saying this isn't a good idea -- but what exactly authorizes ya'll to put a 500/300 restriction on an article. Hint: the answer definitely isn't WP:AC/DS as written, cause of the whole notification requirement thing. NE Ent 16:33, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

EdJohnston ... except for the gamergate thing (which I just learned about this morning), any action which predates 3 May 2014 was not taken under the current policy. It enumerations the page level allowable sanctions at Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Page_restrictions and I'm not seeing anything the can be construed as matching the proposed 500/300. NE Ent 17:48, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

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

• I've seen enough problems with caste articles over the years to make this an easy choice. We have evidence that this particular threshold is adequate to get them up to speed while only being mildly inconvenient to that editor. We are more likely to gain and keep more editors this way, as fewer will be getting blocked due to inexperienced editing. It's a Win/Win sanctions. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 11:38, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

• So it is clear, I support the 500/30 rule in this case whether or not the talk pages are included, and trust the judgement of my peers to define the scope. I'm wikibreaking, so didn't want it to be bogged down due a lack of support or clarity. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 16:15, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

• I'm supportive in general, for two reasons. First, because I sympathize with the people on the front lines dealing with this. And second, because I think it would be a very useful limited trial to see if this can be used more broadly. I'd like the 500/30 rule to be considered a possible tool in many other AE areas of constant SPA's and sockpuppetry, like Israel/Palestine, etc. But we'll never know if this is productive - or too restrictive - if we don't try it in more places than GamerGate controversy and see. I'm not familiar with the type of disruption on caste articles; my immediate uninformed impression is that it seems different from the type we see on GamerGate controversy. What do people more on the front lines of this think about Ryk72's idea of limiting it to article space at first, and see if that's sufficient? I mean, it wouldn't be perfect, but neither is a full 500/30 rule on both articles and talk pages. If implemented, this would be an AE enforcement, so I don't see the need to change policy pages. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:57, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Per Bish's and SMS's clarifications, I support giving uninvolved admins the option to impose this 500/30 restriction on editing a covered article, or a talk page, or both, at their discretion. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:14, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
• Concur with Floquenbeam on this matter. The restriction has been an enormous help with Gamergate articles and we should try it elsewhere to determine if it is a universally effective method at combating SPAs. Gamaliel (talk) 16:58, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
• SpacemanSpiff, do you foresee this restriction being imposed on a case-by-case basis for articles that are facing disruption or do you see this editing restriction being applied pro-actively to all caste articles? My basic question concerns how many articles/talk pages this would affect...a dozen? a hundred? more?

In the case of Gamergate, there are several associated articles but the editing restriction only affects the Gamergate controversy article. I'm not familiar with how extensive caste articles are so it's unclear to me how much of an impact your proposal would have if enacted. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:58, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

My concerns are about "editing restriction creep" and while I can see that applying this filter would be a judgment call by an admin, I hope it would only be used for articles that are experiencing persistent disruption (trolling), not ones where there are simple arguments and disagreements that are a natural part of determining consensus. It worries me that we don't have an easily determined method of knowing when and when not such an editing restriction would apply but I understand that longtime editors working in this subject area have a good sense of when there might be off-wiki attempts to influence article content.

It looks like this editing restriction will be accepted and I just hope that it is used selectively and not liberally. Also, articles with such a restriction (and this would include Gamergate, too) should be reviewed after 6 months to see whether the restriction is still warranted. That is, editing restrictions should be a temporary solution (even if temporary means 1 year or 2) and not a permanently existing condition for an article or talk page. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 17:45, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Sitush, I just mentioned, as EdJohnston suggested, that these editing restrictions can be appealable or reviewed if an editor believes they are no longer necessary. I said "after six months" because I think it would add to the disruption if an editing restriction was challenged on a more regular basis (as Gamergate controversy was for the first three months it existed). Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:09, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

• I agree with Floquenbeam. There should be a full 500/30 rule on articles. (Talk pages could be omitted from the blanket ban, but admins would have discretion to include specific talk pages). Wording should be the same as the ARBGG 500/30 rule if that is possible. For comparison, here is the scope of the community's caste restrictions: "..all pages about social groups, be they castes, communities, tribes, clans, kootams, gotras etc., explicitly including caste associations and political parties related to India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal." A template should be created that can be placed on the talk page of affected articles. New editors not familiar with the rule could be excused for some innocent violations. To get some idea of the scope of the problem, notice that Talk:Nair is up to 20 archives. Everybody wants their own caste to be descended from warriors, and we have to keep explaining the WP:RS rules to a very unwilling audience. EdJohnston (talk) 22:38, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

• Bishonen's further comment sounds right. Just need to spell out whatever the rules are. Perhaps there should be a category for articles that are placed under the 500/30 restriction. Also WP:EDR could be used to record which articles are restricted. Single admins could add or remove the restriction, but restrictions should be appealable at WP:AE. EdJohnston (talk) 14:58, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

• If the same sanction (ie 500/30) is used then the names of the articles could be added to the same filter which provide a public list (if you know where to look, but we can put that link in various places, also has the benefit of not needing to be advertised). I'd hesitate to put them on EDR since other discretionary sanctions, both ArbCom and community authorised aren't recorded there. Regarding how the filter would work, it'd check every account (assuming it's semi protected as well) which edits the article for 500 edits and for 30 days of registration, if the account doesn't meet that requirement the filter will prevent the edit from being made. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:19, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
• Having the filter apply to all caste article could be very difficult unless there is something specific which is included on all those pages (which could be gamed quite easily, c.f. the reason there's no cascading semi-protection). It might be better filter enforcement as an option for all caste articles and individual pages can be added to the filter as needed. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:22, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

• Fully support the 500/30 concept here. — Ched :  ?  23:10, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

• In agreement with this post at User talk:SpacemanSpiff I am ready to close this request with (a) general approval for admins to place caste articles under a 500/30 restriction and (b) article restrictions for Nair, Jat people, Vanniyar, and Bhumihar. There would also be a 500/30 talk page restriction at Talk:Nair. The discussion that came up with these titles was at User talk:SpacemanSpiff/sandbox2#Yet another modification. People who participated there were User:Sitush, User:Bishonen, User:Abecedare and User:Philg88. No objection if anyone wants to improve this language, and post their own text of a proposed closure in their section above. EdJohnston (talk) 16:27, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Reply to User:NE Ent: See WP:Requests for arbitration/Eastern Europe#Log of article-level discretionary sanctions for some previous use of article-level discretionary sanctions. The 500/30 restriction on Gamergate is also an article-level restriction and is currently visible in WP:DSLOG. EdJohnston (talk) 17:35, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Just thought I'd point out that in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 3/Proposed decision#Proposed remedies, the 500/30 editing restriction is being proposed, applying to editing any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
If the remedy passes, this would greatly increase the number of articles covered by editing restrictions like this. The PD was just posted and it will take days before the voting concludes but since it involved a proposal of similar restrictions, I thought I'd share it with this discussion. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:54, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

• Closing:

A 500/30 restriction is authorized for use with caste articles, per the following details:

• An administrator may place an individual caste article or talk page under the restriction by making an entry for it in WP:DSLOG, under the authority of WP:ARBIPA.
• Articles eligible for the restriction are caste articles per the definition at WP:GS/Caste.
• The restriction says that only editors who have made at least 500 edits and have been on Wikipedia for 30 days may edit the page. For a precedent, see a May 2015 AE request in which the restriction was applied to Gamergate controversy and its talk page. The Gamergate restriction is enforced by an edit filter. Eventually an edit filter may be considered for caste articles. The caste 500/30 restriction may be enforced by blocks until such time that an edit filter is in place.
• Per the present decision we are applying indefinite 500/30 restrictions to the articles at Nair, Jat people, Vanniyar, Bhumihar and to the talk page at Talk:Nair.
• The discussion that came up with these titles was at User talk:SpacemanSpiff/sandbox2#Yet another modification.
• The 500/30 restrictions apply to articles but they limit what any editor can do, even a brand new one who has never been alerted under WP:ARBIPA. These are page-level restrictions but they may be appealed like any other discretionary sanction through the procedure at WP:AC/DS#Appeals and modifications. EdJohnston (talk) 23:50, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Appealing user

Kyohyi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Kyohyi (talk) 22:53, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed

I have been given a 6 month standard gamergate topic ban.

]

Administrator imposing the sanction

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

Notification of that administrator

]

The edit for which I received the topic ban has been deleted so I'm going off of memory.

If I'm wrong in my summary I would appreciate an administrator emailing me what I actually wrote so I can amend this appropriately.

I made an edit to the Zoe Quinn article changing the sentence "Based on claims in the post, Quinn was falsely accused of receiving positive coverage from a journalist she was in a relationship with.", and deleting the following sentence " These accusations sparked the Gamergate controversy." My edit comment was "Tightening text to match source, removed unsourced sentence". I changed the sentence "Based on claims in the post, Quinn was falsely accused of receiving positive coverage from a journalist she was in a relationship with." to "Based on claims in the post, Quinn was falsely accused of X" where X is what is stated specifically in the source.

My rationale for this is that while X can be viewed as subset of "receiving positive coverage from a journalist she was in a relationship with.", the two are not equivalent, and our use of X as a source is a composition fallacy. Which in turn makes it Original Research, and ultimately a BLP violation.

My understanding is that I was topic banned for using the terminology of the source, and I believe that this is inappropriate since there is nothing more accurate in our documentation than using what the source uses. In turn I believe my sanction should be lifted because I was enforcing BLP, and not adding defamatory material. However should X be viewed as defamatory material, I request that the source be deleted because that is exactly what it says.

After re-reviewing the source, I realize there was more content related to the subject in the source than I initially read. As such, my edit was in error, and I retract this appeal.

As always, I am willing to reconsider sanctions if it can be shown that there is a good-faith misunderstanding or if it can be shown that this is a one-off. I'll expand my response when I have a little more time. Acroterion (talk) 22:57, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Follow-up: It appears to me that Kyohyi was too focused on literally following sources, while forgetting that policy requires BLPs to be written conservatively, with regard for the subject. Articles should avoid repeating gossip about peoples' private lives, something that has plagued that particular article, and which editors must bear in mind. I am prepared to remove the sanction if I can be assured that Kyohyi will be less bold with BLPs. In reviewing their recent history I don't see a pattern of trouble, but given their participation in contentious BLP-related topics I was surprised that they thought their "tightening up" in the terms used would be appropriate. I am disappointed that their explanation is focused on literal repetition of sources instead of understanding that there are relatively simple, if slightly wordier ways of resolving the inconsistency that they're worried about, without using Wikipedia's voice to repeat gossip. Acroterion (talk) 00:40, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

@Gamaliel: This sort of thing is only a valid recommendation when the editor in question has shown a consistent poor understanding of policy. In my interactions with Kyohyi I've generally found them to be aware of policy and if anything usually overly cautious when dealing with sensitive BLP issues. A brief look through their contribution shows nothing too horrific either. The entire topic ban is based on a single edit after a sizeable track record of good editing. I can't see why the edit itself (as Kyohyi describes it) is topic ban worthy. The language added could be considered overly tasteless, but it's the same language the source uses. The removal of the claim that the accusation sparked Gamergate while lazy (there's tonnes of sources out there that state this), is hardly scandalous. Unless there's something big I'm missing here, I can't see how this could warrant a topic ban. Looking back on Kyohyi's past edit history combined with the edit in question would you have topic banned them? Brustopher (talk) 23:49, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

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

• This editor's contributions are in an extremely limited topic area, mostly restricted to articles related to Gamergate or the men's rights movement. I'd like to see this user gain policy and editing experience in other topic areas before they return to editing some of our most contentious articles involving living individuals. Gamaliel (talk) 23:00, 22 October 2015 (UTC)
• Recommend declining this appeal. But in any case, User:Kyohyi has stated above that he wants to withdraw it. So in my opinion it ought to be closed. EdJohnston (talk) 02:00, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

• Closing: Marking the appeal as withdrawn. EdJohnston (talk) 17:05, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.
To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).

Appealing user

Burridheut (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Burridheut (talk) 16:55, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed

indefinitely topic banned from the topic of Spiro Koleka

Administrator imposing the sanction

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

Notification of that administrator

The appealing editor is asked to notify the administrator who made the enforcement action of this appeal, and then to replace this text with a diff of that notification. The appeal may not be processed otherwise. If a block is appealed, the editor moving the appeal to this board should make the notification.

1. The admin that banned me indefinitely has listed the case under the section of "Macedonia". Last time I checked there is absolutely no relation between the article and the topic of Macedonia. I would like this to be clarified because to me it is confusing.

2. The admin that enforced the ban uses as reference my statements for which I have been already blocked earlier this year in August. Why am I being punished twice for the same? See here:

3. The indefinite topic ban is totally unjustified considering that I have contributed more than 90% of the article content and I was accused by people who did not do any less reverts than me. I feel discriminated because I am new here. I don't want to believe that I am being discriminated for other reasons but that might be possible. There have been some racist edits well highlighted by some other users (see the "request for ban" sections concerning my case) that somehow had escaped the admin filter. Well, if you allow racist or otherwise provocative edits you must allow for people to get angry about them too.

4. My banning from the article does not contribute to a balanced article, on the contrary, disruptive reverts followed it. One of these disruptive users created an anonymous account today only to write on my user page, see here:

5. I have repeatedly asked for help against disruptive propaganda edits coming mainly from two nationalistic editors that have exercised countless reverts, non-consensual edits and patronizing speech in the talk page of the article. There was no support from admins regarding this leaving me on my own against disruptive editors.

I hereby request the sanction to be lifted. I sincerely think it is way disproportionate as a measure and it just feeds more certain editors that are plaguing the internet with articles that promote hate and nationalistic agendas. Burridheut (talk) 16:55, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

EdJohnston, I left a comment below, I have nothing more to add. I will not apologize for standing up to my individual rights. Wikipedia rules do not overrule my rights, even when I am presented under a random nickname. Burridheut (talk) 11:36, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Mondiad, I appreciate your advice. At this moment I have a very bitter taste of the way business is conducted here in wikipedia. I have seen untouchable editors with privileges, ethnic propaganda disrupting simple articles that are strictly biographies of people, I have seen unbelievable disrespect for the dead people and their family members who try to contribute with first hand information (based on evidence and published materials). I have also seen biased admin decisions that tend to punish the rookie and tolerate the senior troll. I understand that creating a living encyclopedia out of anonymous contributions is not easy, but wikipedia has to be very strict against propaganda editors that disseminate hate and thrive in endless destructive debates. You perhaps think I am getting personal here, but the truth is that few editors from the Balkans would ever contribute to something positive related to a neighboring country, when that would diminish the prestige of their own country. This is exactly what is happening to the Spiro Koleka article. I asked to have removed any propaganda from that article. It was not possible, we NEED to have Greek propaganda as it seems, we cannot live without it as it turns out. We need those Greek editors to confirm to us what language we should speak in our homes, what religion we should have, who our heroes should be, what our culture is (if we have any), who are our family members and where they came from. Let me be clear: These things are much more offensive than me calling the two Greek editors trolls or vandals (a term wikipedia uses). Having said this, I am not sure if I will contribute much more to wikipedia. I have spent months browsing rules and forums to try to find out how to make sure that trolls don't revert everything that I write. Life is too short to deal with anonymous internet trolls and since I cannot avoid them every time I log in here, I perhaps should avoid wikipedia. The trolls will cheer this, the admins will probably ignore this as they have ignored my cries for help, whereas the rest of the editors like yourself or @Resnjari, who I respect for his patience and knowledge, perhaps will not like it. I see not much choice given here though as long as the revert-trolls go unpunished. Burridheut (talk) 11:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Resnjari thank you. I have talked to Spiro's daughter and she is unable to prove that her father is not greek more than what she already did by providing me with the certificate which I posted in the article talk page earlier this year. There is no shred of evidence that Spiro was Greek or from a Greek background and I have challenged the sources as well as the editors who reuse the same author source over and over. And how can the controversial term vorio-epirote be allowed here in wikipedia? Or the racist term Turco-Albanian? The pattern is clear here. This is propaganda, we like it or we don't. The Greek state has been patronizing and interfering in Albanian politics for many years, this is hardly a secret. But not only Albania, perhaps Macedonia even more. During the weekend one of the main contenders of becoming leader of the "New Democracy" party called Vangelis Meimarakis openly claimed “Macedonia is greek”, he was applauded of course. And this is not just the opposition claiming such things, as few days ago the Foreign Minister of Greece released from duty their own ambassador in the EU for not sticking to the state-dictated line regarding Macedonia and Albania. Greek ultranationalist politics and propaganda not only exist, but they intrude in the lives of the people in neighboring countries, such as myself and other local people living in the southern part of Albania. Now this discussion is endless, but I just want to say that politics and propagandistic materials should be strictly avoided in wikipedia. Edits that promote hate, conflict or otherwise offend native populations or people should be rejected at once. Regarding my ban, I strongly believe it does not solve anything and it is feeding the real offenders. Remember that I tried everything before that (Ani/Dispute resolution board/request for article freeze/appeal to admins/...) and in the process I got even accused of forum shopping. I had to check that one out since I did not even know what it meant. The rules in wikipedia are many, the acronyms used even more, it is not easy to argue only based on logic and facts. I learned here that you can merely win by knowing the rules and forming alliances. I don't like this, it is not following any scientific principles. If one challenges a source for credibility and the source has no references in it to back its claims up, it should be just removed. Spiro Koleka coming from a Greek family? Ok, where is the evidence? Vuno/Himara are Greek towns? Ok, where is the evidence? I need to see it because I claim the opposite. Anyway, I got into details too much now, sorry about that Resnjari and keep up the good work. In the end the truth always prevails, that is my opinion :) Burridheut (talk) 17:41, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

I think that the previous decision whereby the article of Northern Epirus was taken into consideration by administrator EdJohnston toward making a final decision of Burridheut's status may have prejudiced the final outcome. The article Northern Epirus has its neutrality challenged at the moment and its contents should not have been used toward Burridheut's situation. Care should be taken in such situations and there is merit hence in Burridheut claiming that discrimination could have occurred. Any revaluation of Burridheut's status should not encompass contents from the Northern Epirus article, so as for the decision to be considered a impartial and fair outcome.Resnjari (talk) 17:12, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Mondiad makes a valid point about @Burridheut being allowed to contribute in the talk page. One last warning should be given that personal attacks are not on and should be refrained from. Only content and Wikipedia policies should guide discussion and input. Its important as already for example the ethnicity section on the article Spiro Koleka (created by non-Balkan editors last time it went to dispute arbitration as a neutral solution, due to the issues with some of the sources and so on) is not being respected. See recent comment by user User:Zoupan ].Resnjari (talk) 07:33, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Burridheut, don't be disheartened. The main issue here is to avoid some terminology that you use when in dialogue with those editors. You use terms like "Greek propaganda". That is unnecessary. You give those editors fodder to be able to do thing like they did before. When they use a source, ask them is it peer reviewed, like they always have done in the past. Really don't be disheartened. I will invoke an example. In the past, the Souliotes article is to get repeated vandalization. Why, some Albanians from time to time did not like the content because it was giving a slanted view regarding their origins and so on. Then earlier in the year, some editors decided to rewrite part of the article and i went along for the ride. I brought sources that where peer reviewed and western (some Greek too) to the article and now barely any vandalism. Not only that it finally takes in the scholarship written on the matter and its not POV pushing, even though some editors like to allege from time to time that i am engaging in "Albanian nationalist propaganda" without providing a shroud of evidence (as comments by a certain editor tried to do very recently). I wonder how that is considering i mainly use peer reviewed Greek academics. But then again Wikipedia has its funny moments like that. Burridheut, if the disinformation was removed from the Cham Albanians page (and that was a up hill task, believe me, you can read the archived talk page for that), the racism from the Turco-Albanians page and so on one can do so for many more articles. Just tidy up some of the language and keep it strictly about the topic and refrain from emotive language. Its that latter part that has resulted in this situation. You can contribute greatly to topics relating to the Himara region as a whole. But using personal experience at times wont do for editing a article, otherwise i could write heaps for Prespa related stuff. Since Koleka is your main interest, just make sure that the ethnicity section stays separate and no shenanigans occur to tamper it as some are now trying to do by reintegrating it. You have an advantage in this area. When in Vuno speak to the relatives, word will pass on to Koleka daughter about Western academic material calling her father a Greek. She might publish something, a biography etc on Koleka etc showing commentary by her father to the contrary. Anyway this is open ended and you know as well as i do that stuff on the communist era is only now starting to be published. Stay in the game, just be cautious about the language. The administrators have acknowledged that your concerns are legitimate. The ban occurred due to rapport. Avoid that, its unnecessary.Resnjari (talk) 15:58, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Burridheut, i understand the concerns you raise. The issue of Greece and Albania and the complicated relations is a long discussion. Greece's has many complications these days, with Germany Turkey, Macedonia etc. Nonetheless, we can discuss those on my talk page on english or best on my talkpage on Albanian Wikipedia, i check that more often) and i can suggest peer reviewed sources and so on if you want to do further reading on the matters/issues. Regarding Koleka's daughter, even if no book gets publish she does from time to time appear in Albanian media to talk about her father. Some commentary by her about it cited in a newspaper would do for its addition in the article. Suggest that to her. (Kondo wrote a obituary article, if its something to go by, or ask her if her dad gave an interview where he said something about being Albanian that you could look up and use in the article) Primeinster Edi Rama did some thing similar when he talked about his mum's Koleka family, which is cited in the article. Like i have said its no rush can can be returned to with time. As the article stands at the moment, it does not breach neutrality. Pettifer does fit the criteria to be there for now, though reasons for a possible or eventual removal have been outlined. Take heart in that your concerns where recognized as legitimate by the administrators. This process only occurred due to the rapport thing. Just keep discussion on the subject matter and don't go into personal attacks. You will get much more done that way and cause less to no angst on yourself. As for the Turco-Albanians article i don't object to it existing. As long as it it outlined what that word meant and how it has been used. Those elements where missing and instead before my very detailed additions, the article denoted that the term was some kind of warm, fuzzy term for a group of people. Ok i admit some sources were beyond the reach of people placing them in. But some were with the use of google scholar and books. That annoyed me, and i admit it got me worked up (because something similar was also on the Cham Albanians page) because Wikipedia states clearly that it does not promote racism. As for the Northern Epirus article, it can exist. However its content needs to takes into account peer reviewed scholarship written on the matter and not pushing the agenda of what at the moment is stuff that the Northern Epirote lobby advocates but different from peer reviewed literature. Anyone can check the talk page there that is have engaged in good faith and been more than generous in the way i have gone about it. Wikipedia says stuff about being bold, then the revert occurs and so on. I instead sought input in the talkpage before even doing that so a robust discussion can be had. Taking Greek sensitives into account i have refrained from using Albanian sources and instead only peer reviewed Greek and Western ones. And yet, comments such as Albanians are "irrelevant" to a topic that is inhabited by a sizable amount of Albanian speakers and wholly in sovereign Albania does not merit inclusion or discussion. As i noted one editor stated that they will "not let me". So much for good faith.

I noticed in comments to you that administrator EdJohnston said that Balkan articles or the contentious ones are monitored by the administrators. If ever one of those editors brings me to this forum (for a similar thing was attempted without evidence within the context of your case), i will hold those words of administrators to account in accordance with Wikipedia policy and will make my case strongly. I am prepared for that eventuality occurring especially from that editor. Anyway do not look at the task at hand as daunting Burridheut, i have held my own against all the odds if you have read the talk pages, because in the end, its the policy of credible and reliable sources that counts most (apart from importantly conducting oneself in a refrained manner). Its why some editors are not to fond of me. Other Albanian editors fall into a trap of making it very personal and then in these things occur. Regarding Himara i must a few words. Because Vuno and the other Orthodox Albanian villages had close relations with the Greek speaking villages (Himara, Palasa, Dhermi etc), both communities have a close sense of belonging and strong collective identity based on Orthodoxy which in times past has superseded ethnic and linguistic differences, due to the Ottoman state and disturbances with the Kurvelesh area villages. As such in later times with the age of nationalisms those other identities of ethnic and linguistic lines started to challenge primary identifications based on just Orthodoxy. Greek speakers in the area adopted a Greek orientated identity which for them was synonymous with Orthodoxy, while some Orthodox Albanians made common cause with the Albanian national movement like Spiro Jorgo Koleka. Spiro Spiromilo is a example for the Greek speaking side and fought for it, while his grandson former prominent politician Paskal Milo fully identifies as an ethnic Albanian. We have to keep that in mind otherwise when making edits to those topics that its complicated. The personal wont stick in here, only peer reviewed scholarship. Its unnecessary to always come here. Just keep at it, they may reverse your ban, do some edits here or there, make use of google scholar, books and Wikipedia has offered access to databases like Taylor and Frances (gain access to it and a few others. I got university access and it has great journal articles). Then certain topics can be revisited and scholarship builds in years (see Cham Albanians page. Most sources i placed in there that finally made the article balanced where only proceeded very recently and could not have been done before, just like the Souliotes). Don't see things as an issue and this is coming from me of all people. :) PS: Anyway send me a message on my Albanian talkpage, i need to ask you about some Orthodox church terminology in Albanian regarding an article i am working on if i got it right.Resnjari (talk) 16:08, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm posting in this section because I'm one of the admins who joined in the original decision that's being appealed. Here are some points:

The admin that banned me indefinitely has listed the case under the section of "Macedonia". Last time I checked there is absolutely no relation between the article and the topic of Macedonia. I would like this to be clarified because to me it is confusing.

• WP:ARBMAC covers all of the Balkans, as you can find by viewing Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia#Area of conflict.

The admin that enforced the ban uses as reference my statements for which I have been already blocked earlier this year in August. Why am I being punished twice for the same? See here:

• If there's a pattern of behavior the closing admin is allowed to refer to it in making his or her own decision.

The indefinite topic ban is totally unjustified considering that I have contributed more than 90% of the article content and I was accused by people who did not do any less reverts than me. I feel discriminated because I am new here. I don't want to believe that I am being discriminated for other reasons but that might be possible...

• It's unfortunate that you wound up banned but certain topic areas like the Balkans are watched very strictly by admins. Per WP:NOTTHEM it's not an excuse to say that others also behaved badly.

I have repeatedly asked for help against disruptive propaganda edits coming mainly from two nationalistic editors that have exercised countless reverts, non-consensual edits and patronizing speech in the talk page of the article. There was no support from admins regarding this leaving me on my own against disruptive editors.

• The two people you are complaining about are long-term editors who often work on issues concerning Greece. These issues are often contentious. They do have some knowledge of sources and of Wikipedia policy. You are brand new and you seem to be denouncing anyone who disagrees with you, while you work in an extremely contentious area. You are expected to have some diplomatic skills you can call on when you encounter disagreement.

I hereby request the sanction to be lifted. I sincerely think it is way disproportionate as a measure and it just feeds more certain editors that are plaguing the internet with articles that promote hate and nationalistic agendas. Burridheut (talk) 16:55, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

• I don't see a case for lifting the ban at this time. Try working on something else for a while and try to show how you can negotiate well with others when there are disagreements. Some of your comments here are borderline personal attacks, and this is not a wise choice if you are hoping to return to good standing on Wikipedia. EdJohnston (talk) 23:17, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

I would suggest that User:Burridheut maintains the right of discussing on the talk page of the article. It would be great if the article is freed from any ethnic content so to avoid future massive discussions and any WP:COATRACK paragraph.

@Burridheut. There are so many WP:Albania related articles that need attention and a lot of work. I am sure you can give a valuable contribution to those too, not only to Koleka's article.Mondiad (talk) 23:26, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

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

• On review as a completely uninvolved admin I see no basis for lifting this ban and no grounds for appeal. EdJohnston's points above are accurate. As this appeal has been open for ten days I'll close this as declined in 12 hours unless there are any contrary comments by uninvolved sysops--Cailil ^talk 00:28, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

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

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

RolandR (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 12:32, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles:

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

1. 01:02, 28 October 2015‎ First reversion
2. 01:26, 28 October 2015‎ Second reversion
3. 11:19, 28 October 2015‎ Third reversion
4. 11:59, 28 October 2015‎ Fourth reversion
5. 00:38, 28 October 2015‎ First reversion
6. 01:32, 28 October 2015‎ Second reversion
7. 11:18, 28 October 2015 Third reversion
8. 11:59, 28 October 2015 Fourth reversion
9. 11:33, 28 October 2015‎ First reversion
10. 11:36, 28 October 2015‎ Second reversion
11. 11:56, 28 October 2015 Third reversion

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

1. 02:34, 20 October 2015 Blocked by Drmies for disruptive editing

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

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

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This IP editor is edit-warring on multiple articles, of which a sample is listed above.

I submitted this report several hours ago, but there has been no response and the editor is continuing with POV edit-warring, including yet more reversions on the articles listed above.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified here.

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

Khalidi 1992 seems to be an actual book extremely likely to contain the claim it's cited for. The Max Blumenthal edits obviously violate 1RR. Most troubling are the irrelevant edit summaries on "List of violent incidents". That takes it from garden variety POV warrior to either vandalism or a competence problem. Rhoark (talk) 00:02, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

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

• Blocked 1 week for edit warring across articles (I was looking at at RFPP request rather than this AE report) --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:52, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

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

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Kingsindian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 16:49, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

E.M.Gregory (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

WP:ARBPIA :

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

1. 12 Oct WP:NPA, WP:BATTLE
2. 9 Oct WP:NPA, WP:BATTLE
3. 4 Oct Article creation, see explanation below
4. Sometime in Sep/Oct Article creation, see explanation below
5. 17 September Article creation, see explanation below
6. 21 July Article creation, see explanation below

(and many more in this vein - see this for the articles created by this editor)

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

None

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

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

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Let me state at the outset that the editor might be acting in good faith, probably due to some personal experience and I dislike prosecuting people, but this can no longer be ignored. I am not asking for any harsh sanctions.

The editor creates a spate of articles on rock-throwing in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Obviously only one side uses rocks, the other side uses bullets. When this was pointed out here and here, the user gave this answer (ignore the WP:BATTLE in the edit summary for the moment): "I make articles about rock throwing regardless of ethnicity", which is patently ridiculous. Their justification is not tenable because they also create a spate of WP:MEMORIAL and WP:NOTNEWS articles - not involving stone throwing - on one side of the conflict (see diffs above for examples - many more can be found by their article creation link).

When I again point out the WP:NPOV problem this creates here, the user dismisses my point and accuses me of whitewashing murder. Now, I don't mind any insult thrown at me (I have a pretty thick skin), but the repeated behaviour through article creation and behaviour at WP:AfDs is becoming unmanageable (see the first diff). Moreover, other people are posting messages on their talk page asking if they are going create more articles. WP:AE should clarify whether it is permissible to create one-sided articles like this based on skewed sampling. This is an endemic problem in this area (see this POV travesty for instance - not created by EMG), and something needs to be done here. Kingsindian ♝♚ 16:49, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

@Callanecc: Firstly, I am not sure how this edit which accuses me of whitewashing murder is not a personal attack. But, as I said, I care little for insults. Secondly, tell me, how does one go about demonstrating one-sided editing here? Last I checked, WP:NPOV is a policy here. It states: "Editors, while naturally having their own points of view, should strive in good faith to provide complete information, and not to promote one particular point of view over another." Tell me, how do the articles created satisfy this in any way? Firstly, they are all WP:MEMORIAL articles about how Palestinians are terrorists. Secondly, I already gave three examples where these articles have been deleted/redirected. Thirdly, Palestinians are not even quoted, let alone discussed. Pretty much the only Palestinian news organization Ma'an News Agency is objected to for inclusion (see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Lions.27_Gate_stabbings). One of the people accused in the stabbing (Fadi Alloun) for instance, was determined by Amnesty International to be extrajudicially killed, with no mention in the article, of course. Kingsindian ♝♚ 08:52, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

There has been another article Beersheva bus station shooting in the same vein. Can we get some closure on this case? I will nominate it for deletion sooner or later in any case, but it would be good to see where the WP:ARBPIA stands regarding the continued creation of such articles. If the editor is going to create a WP:MEMORIAL article on every attack in Israel, is this OK? Kingsindian ♝♚ 15:03, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

And now the editor has recreated an article which was deleted/redirected earlier at WP:AfD, claiming that it is notable because it was the first in the unrest. Keep in mind that now there already exists a main article Israeli-Palestinian conflict (2015) which is a comprehensive and more balanced article - though still lacking many things. EMG just wants to keep creating WP:EVENT articles and will latch on to any justification. Obviously the other articles created, like the Beersheva bus station shooting is not the first in the unrest. Can someone at least weigh in whether this sort of thing is allowed? If WP:AE refuses to act, I will pursue this through normal WP:AfD channels. Kingsindian ♝♚ 08:20, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notification

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

The accusation does not merit a response, as my editing record will bear out.E.M.Gregory (talk) 16:58, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Revisiting this, the one thing I wish to add for the record is that it is routine on Wikipedia for editors to create articles on deadly terrorist attacks (such as: 2015 Parramatta shooting) and dramatic crimes (such as:Death of Chris Currie) that draw significant, sustained media attention. Terror attacks that are instant international headlines routinely have articles started when the news breaks. And are very rarely deleted. It is distinctly odd to be brought to this board on charges of creating such a a routine type of article.E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:17, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

As long as the articles themselves adhere to NPOV, there is no requirement to balance article creation between pro- and anti- sides of any issue. Wikipedia is not mandatory. Rhoark (talk) 18:39, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

These articles will continue because the criteria of WP:NOTABILITY, WP:EVENT, WP:NOTNEWS, are never taken seriously in the AfDs. The larger point is WP:NPOV, as an editorial obligation. I can remember Sandstein stating, some years back, that this means editors in the I/P area are under an obligation to contribute neutrally. I expect that means that we are obliged to ensure an article is constantly monitored for balance, and (b) more saliently here, that article creation by an editor cannot harp on one POV. Since you like creating these articles, E. M. Gregory, why is it they deal exclusively with Israeli victims of terror or stone throwing? I would expect that if you write an article like Death of Binyamin Meisner because of a horror of death from stoning, then it would surely tempt you to write a parallel one, The Death of Edward Ghanem. The Palestinian Christian boy after all was killed in exactly the same manner as the soldier Binyamin Meisner. A block of concrete was dumped on his head, falling from an Israeli outpost. That would be evidence that you contribute with encyclopedic neutrality, and not to abuse wiki for a set of articles as a political statement.(I should add that I don't think this kind of article be it for Meisner or Ghanem, should be written)Nishidani (talk) 18:47, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Gaijin/Roark. All of these articles start out as POV messes, remain so unless someone steps in and starts to fix them. I've had to do this on dozens of such articles, since the editors themselves either do not understand WP:NPOV or don't care to edit towards NPOV. So this kind of article always translates into a Fix it obligation on external editors who would like myself prefer to do something genuinely useful for an encyclopedia round here (e.g.Qos (deity) ). The sources say the Bennetts lived in a West Bank settlement. This doesn't interest Gregory. The sources provide a contradictory set of descriptions of the event. Gregory gives just one version. The sources tell a much more complicated background than just the version Gregory cherrypicks (Palestinians started it by barricading Al-Aqsa etc) If you search Bennett at List of violent incidents in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, July–December 2015 you'll get everything you get in here. Why try to make an encyclopedic article when the story is summable in a paragraph. Why persist in jerryrigging articles that scream for editors to fix them per NPOVNishidani (talk) 19:15, 12 October 2015 (UTC)?

Gaijin, showing NPOV violations would just spin out into a content dispute argument. I have tried to solve this chronic obsession with rushing to create dozens of independent Israeli victim articles (User:ShulMaven did several in a similar period of killings last year, and now one can expect a surge this time round. All that is needed is to create a list of all incidents, succinctly and neutrally listed, covering all incidents reported in the mainstream press (List of violent incidents in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, January–June 2015 and List of violent incidents in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, July–December 2015). That aspires, precisely, to meet encyclopedic balance per WP:NPOV, as opposed to the numerous (13) articles we have on Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel where one side's violence is listed, without any mention whatsoever of the violence related to these events from the other side. When I did that, what was the reaction. No collaborative effort to improve the balance, which fell to me, but merely insistent drive by POV tagging! This may not be an AE problem but it is certainly an issue ARBPIA ought to look at, perhaps by clarifying for us peons whether we can ignore the other version in any article, or whether WP:NPOV does impose on us a non-negotiable policy of covering both sides in this endless, stupid conflict.Nishidani (talk) 20:05, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

E. M. Gregory. Your 'editing record' bears out many things. Generally it is excellent outside the I/P area, but there you intrude on what was a remark by me on a 3rd editor's page suggesting he has compledely misread and reverted one of my edits, and the intrusion was simply to make the usual personal attack and egg on admiringly the other editor's 'taking me on' or 'facing me down'. That is a battlefield attitude where allies are encouraged and the common enemy identified.I.e.

• decent people are driven away by intense ideologues pushing their monomaniacal POV by fair means and foul.
• I do admire the aplomb with which you deal with User:Nishdani's incessant WIKIHOUNDING and his bad, POV editing

Now you are quite entitled to these views about me. I get them too regularly to worry about them. What you should not be doing is interrupting an attempt at clarification on a user's page between me and that person, regarding editing issues, to attack me, with no consideration of the merits of the contended edit. Nishidani (talk) 10:27, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Do I have to make a formal complaint about what is going on here? I noted above User:E.M.Gregory applauding User:No More Mr Nice Guy for going at me. I also see that, as mentioned en passant, NMMNG is now egging on User:Igorp lj to edit in a way that NMMGG appears to think would annoy me.

• proffering advice to a third party to use videos on an article I edit, while making a personal attack. The impression I get is of both a WP:AGF issue and WP:Canvass, to use User:Igorp lj as a proxy or meatpuppet to make an edit NMMGG appears to think would be vexatious to the main editor, myself, at List of violent incidents in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, July–December 2015 bordering on WP:HOUNDING. That is 3 editors in this area opening making personal attacks, and explicitly endorsing a collective solidarity against an editor they dislike.Nishidani (talk) 16:53, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

I have struck out the above for a technical reason. NMMGG cannot respond per an AE ban to claims/accusations/ against him here, and thus this evidence places him in an unfair position. Of course, this ethical issue, though I think obligatory at least on my part, creates its own ironies. If an editor is banned from appearing on the AE board, and ethics disallows one from accusing a person who cannot reply, it translates out as an immunity from AE complaints. I'll never cease to be amazed at this place.Nishidani (talk) 10:26, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

My very best wishes. I started Jewish Israeli stone throwing after problems including that matter on the Palestinian stone throwing page, which itself began as an attack page created by User:ShulMaven and which to bring back into perspective I had to write up from 10 to 100,000kb just to get the practice into multiple academic RS perspective. JST should be incorporated of course in the latter article in some generic Stone throwing in the IP conflict, because most of these pages only begin as attempts to screw one side. There is a general concord by the P of I/ P articles, repeatedly made at AdFs, not to write up victim articles of the kind we see here, which would easy outnumber the Israeli-victim articles by sheer weight of numbers of civilians killed in dubious circumstances. It would be extremely easy to do articles like The Death of Hadeel al-Hashlamon, for example, who was shot at a distance of 2-3 metres as she apparently backed away from 2 soldiers from whom she was separated by a metal barrier, or on any number of recent cases which Amnesty International has defined as "extrajudicial killings". There's unanimity not to do this, and to relegate these instances to general articles. The I side doesn't follow this, but puts WP:MEMORIAL, WP:NOTNEWS, WP:NOTABILITY repeatedly to the test. Gregory's articles on this always start out as attack articles on Palestinian terrorists, as the language used, and the selective bias in source use shows to those that follow this stuff. So what you have here is a divide between editors with one POV wanting victim articles, and editors with the opposite POV saying this violates our protocols. And the latter position is not grounded in 'fear' that these victim articles make Palestinians look bad, as I suspect many sceptics here might be tempted to think, for the reason given: if one wanted to play that victim game, by numbers, an activist pro-Palestinian mentality driven editor or set of editors would win hands down.Nishidani (talk) 20:35, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

'Complaining about creation of new pages shows a serious bias by people who brought this complaint.'

That's a serious insinuation, and I failed to address it. Article creation of news even ts have elementary criteria, to observe both WP:NOTABILITY and WP:NOTNEWS. When one of these is lacking (see the closing judgement at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Armanious family massacre) technical deletion is the proper course. At AfDs, however, WP:EVENT and WP:NOTABILITY are ignored, though cited, and articles are conserved or deleted according to the consensus of votes. The problem is not in bias: the problem is in the irrational, random citation of policies and their application, Death of Alexander Levlovich andBeersheva bus station shooting both fail these criteria, but no doubt they will pass muster if the usual mood voters roll up. I couldn't give a fuck one way or another, though it is abundantly clear the selection of victims from one side of the conflict to make victim articles is programmatically in violation of NPOV obligations, and the rules are not being applied consistently.Nishidani (talk) 09:36, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

This appears to be a cross-article content dispute, where the complaintants do not like the articles being created. There is little to no behavioral evidence of a problem, and the community can adequately handle article creation issues unless they are massive and frequent disruption. Indeed, per Nishidani's statement, the articles are being KEPT at AFD. NPOV across articles (tit for tat) is not required, and would any case be WP:FALSEBALANCE Suggest this be declined, with a boomerang trout. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:56, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Nishidani - if you want to claim NPOV violations that are actionable, then you would need to show concrete examples of them to be evaluated. But in general articles are edited under WP:EVENTUALISM. That he puts in some information, and you put in other, is the way things are supposed to work. It only becomes an (actionable) NPOV issue if he is somehow preventing your ability to provide balance, or if he is grossly misrepresenting sources Gaijin42 (talk) 19:27, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

To further Gaijin42's above comments, I believe that while E.M.Gregory can be seen as a little abrasive at times, he is acting in good faith. samtar ^(msg) 19:21, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Rhoark. In addition, the list of pages created by E.M.Gregory does not look problematic; only 3 of them have been deleted. Everyone who creates legitimate pages on any subject must be encouraged, not punished. Complaining about creation of new pages shows a serious bias by people who brought this complaint. A couple of comments by E.M.Gregory (diffs #1 and #2) seem to be problematic, however his refusal to continue making such claims on this page may be seen as an argument in his favor. My very best wishes (talk) 20:33, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

@Kingsindian. E.M.Gregory created 122 pages (3 deleted). They are sourced and seem to satisfy our notability guidelines. I have seen a lot worse. This is not a case when someone makes BLPs of non-notable individuals or creates pages to disrupt the project. My very best wishes (talk) 02:08, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

@Kingsindian. Pages created by him in ARBPIA area, e.g. Lions' Gate stabbings, 2003 Route 60 Hamas ambush, Saleh al-Arouri, 2015 Shvut Rachel shooting, Interstate 80 rock throwing, Death of Adele Biton and Death of Binyamin Meisner are well sourced, legit and in good condition. Hence removing this user from ARBPIA could negatively affect creation of new content. This user seem to have a particular interest in Criminal rock throwing (another good page crated by him; see also Darmstadt American rock-throwing incident in Germany). That's fine. Who cares? My very best wishes (talk) 02:56, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

P.S. I do not see any proof that articles in this subject area are generally biased toward Israel. For example, we have page Jewish Israeli stone throwing created by user Nishidani . My very best wishes (talk) 18:25, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

@Huldra. Contrary to your statement here , E.M.Gregory was one of several contributors who voted to keep this page (please see the closing remark by Sandstein). Regardless, I do not think anyone can be sanctioned for voting to "keep" or "delete".My very best wishes (talk) 02:37, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

@Nishidani: "NMMNG is now egging on User:Igorp lj", "to use User:Igorp lj as a proxy or meatpuppet" (16:53, 13 October 2015)

It's Nishidani and his method of "cooperation" with those colleagues who does not share his "Only Correct Opinion" (OCO) (:(

FYI: I do not need any one (including NMMGG), to repeat what I've already said you many times, before No More Mr Nice Guy appeared at my Talk page:
your not-wp:NPOV and wp:DIS edits disgrace Wiki and harm its reliability:

• All what I've written in Palestine-Israel_articles_3/Evidence (NPA, NPOV / DISRUPT / EDITWAR, RS) is about your such a way & edits (Sept 2015).
• About your favorite, but foul-smelling sources, what you permanently try "to sell" to Wiki, rejecting (unjustifiably dirtying) those ones what you do not like ("Unfortunately, for some editors, such words as ...") (Sep 2015).
• And this is what I've answered to NMMGG at 11 October 2015, just after his 1st appearance there:

"2. I have another proposal :)

• "It seems me a reasonable to initiate their ("POV disaster" articles according to someone's definition :( - (Jan 2015--)) removing at all, as it's done for such their sisters as List of deaths and critical injuries caused by Palestinian stone-throwing & List of Palestinians killed and injured by Israelis in connection with stone or Molotov cocktail throwing ". - Igorp_lj"

Btw, are all those whom Huldra's offered: "to coordinate on a Talk page who will make a next revert in an article" - the same someone's "meatpuppets" (@Nishidani)?
(unlike you, I'd not remind about regular meetings at your Talk pages, for me it's a legal way to offer RS, to ask & notify about someone's suspicious edits, etc.)

Resume: I demand an immediate apology for your next personal attack and libel right here. --Igorp_lj (talk) 22:48, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

We recently had two AfDs (both were deleted):

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of deaths and critical injuries caused by Palestinian stone-throwing
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of deaths and injuries caused by Israeli forces firing at alleged Palestinian stone-throwers

From what I can see, E.M.Gregory was the only editor who voted Keep, on one article, (the first one), while voting Delete on the other. I wrote on that AfD, that “anyone who votes "keep" for this article, while voting delete, or not at all, on the other article .., or vice versa, has, IMO, made a very strong application for a topic ban from the I/P area.”

And other editors agreed Huldra (talk) 20:38, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I'll note that editors actually have been penalised for article creation in the past such as during Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Wifione. But as that was a case of SEO this may be a different kind of situation. I don't really think much can be done about people selectively making articles on a topic they're passionate about. Huldra raises an interesting point about AfD biases though. If E.M.Gregory is systematically !voting to delete articles that make Israelis look bad, and keep articles that make Palestinians look bad then that would be a problem. Brustopher (talk) 12:38, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

The record will show that I have done no such thing.E.M.Gregory (talk) 02:23, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

As Kingsindian mentions, WP:MEMORIAL articles is a problem and it keeps going on. Some background on the issue can be read on Wikipedia: All murdered Israeli children are murdered by… Arabs by Wikipediocracy.

The perhaps biggest issue is what E.M.Gregory did to the article Saleh al-Arouri. I wrote about this on that article's talk page 1,5 months ago and just updated the article.

The horrible war in Gaza last year was triggered by attacks like 2014 kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers, which Israel accused Hamas of being responsible for and Hamas denied that. This was a central point so to only write that "Al-Arouri was responsible for the 2014 kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers" is not true and honest.

It should have been impossible to miss Hamas' denial and also that al-Arouri's claim was doubted by experts. It is of course in the lead of the main article (2014 kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers) but lets forget about that for now. Just look at the six sources E.M.Gregory added. Three of the sources (http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.611676, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/21/hamas-kidnapping-three-israeli-teenagers-saleh-al-arouri-qassam-brigades and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/11048705/Hamas-kidnapped-three-teenagers-leading-figure-says.html) contain doubts and there is much in the two British sources. From the listed articles:

"So far Hamas has refrained from taking responsibility for the abduction and murder, even though it had expressed support for the attack", "Arouri's name came up as a possible key player in the abduction shortly after it had transpired. Nevertheless, Hamas may have chosen to claim responsibility at this point to leverage its position" - Haaretz

"Claim by Saleh al-Arouri, a founder of Hamas's military wing, is doubted by experts and not supported by other Hamas sources", "His claim has not been supported by any other member of Hamas", "Hamas has so far refused to confirm or deny its involvement, and a spokesman could not be reached for comment on Thursday", "Hugh Lovatt, Israel and Palestine coordinator at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that while al-Arouri was a significant Hamas figure – serving as the group's most prominent representative in Turkey – the former militant could have an ulterior motive for making his claim" and he continues - The Guardian

"His remarks marked a departure from the non-committal public statements of other Hamas leaders, who have praised the abductions while stopping short of admitting responsibility", "Haaretz newspaper questioned the timing of Mr al-Aruri's comments, suggesting they may have been designed to strengthen Hamas' position at a time when hostilities with Israel in Gaza have resumed following this week's collapse of ceasefire talks", "Mitchell Plitnick, a former US director of B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, dismissed Mr al-Aruri's comments in a blog post, pointing out that Israeli investigators had already identified members of the al-Kawasmeh family - a well-known Hebron clan - as being responsible: "The Kawasmehs are connected with Hamas' military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades," he wrote. "So all al-Aruri said was what we already knew: the Kawasmehs carried out the act"" - The Telegraph

So how was all of that just described as "Al-Arouri was responsible for the 2014 kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers"? This what we don't want on Wikipedia, namely WP:CHERRYPICKING. --IRISZOOM (talk) 18:36, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

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

• I'm not seeing a problem here. While E.M.Gregory's responses may not be ideal there's nothing which shows me that action is needed (and I can't see the personal attacks Kingsindian refers to. This seems primarily to be a content dispute where the editors involved need to discuss this, which it appears they are. If the article creation becomes a problem (for example, a vast majority are being deleted) then we can deal with it. However, with the evidence presented so far I'm not seeing a reason to sanction. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:37, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
• Clearly a content dispute. Whereas the behavior of E.M.Gregory can not be commended, I do not see here anything actionable. I recommend to close this ASAP, it stays open for way too long and is getting into a mud-throwing contest.--Ymblanter (talk) 01:59, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
• I agree that this request should be closed with no action. While some of the diffs raise concern, the AfD process is expected to be able to deal with articles that should not exist. In principle we should be prepared to sanction an editor if they always add material to favor one side, but a complaint needs to be well-focussed to be persuasive. This request ranges over a large area and sweeps too much material into one complaint. Most of the individual items are in a gray area; there is no smoking gun. EdJohnston (talk) 00:43, 30 October 2015 (UTC)