Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement

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This page is used to report:

• conduct that violates an Arbitration Committee decision
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Information for administrators processing requests

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Adrummond67

Adrummond67 blocked for indefinite duration as arbitration enforcement--Ymblanter (talk) 10:50, 13 February 2020 (UTC) The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

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

Request concerning Adrummond67

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

FDW777 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 19:50, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

Adrummond67 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles#Standard discretionary sanctions :

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

1. 18:39, 29 January 2020 Adds monarch field to someone who held one of the positions of First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. Editor was specifically pointed here to Talk:Martin McGuinness/Archive 2#Monarch/ appointed by, regarding the consensus regarding FM and dFMs not being appointed by the monarch.
2. 18:39, 29 January 2020 As above, to a different person who also held one of the offices
3. 18:41, 29 January 2020 As above, to a different person who also held one of the offices
4. 18:43, 29 January 2020 As above, to a different person who also held one of the offices
5. 18:43, 29 January 2020 As above, to a different person who also held one of the offices
6. 18:44, 29 January 2020 As above, to a different person who also held one of the offices
7. 18:45, 29 January 2020 As above, to a different person who also held one of the offices

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

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

• Notified here

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Based on articles edited and the edits made, they also edited as Special:Contributions/2A00:23C4:AB9C:F100:C592:536:29F4:4D2F prior to creating an account. They are a single-purpose account dedicated to adding "monarch" fields to infoboxes. They were requested here to stop edit-warring and discuss their proposed changes on the relevant talk page of the articles concerned. They ignored this and made the edits noted above.

@Ymblanter: That edit could be excused as simply being new, and I did notifty them of MOS:TERRORIST here on 20:30, 2 February 2020. However they have chosen to ignore my message and repeat the edit today. FDW777 (talk) 18:46, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

@Seraphimblade: I do think this is someone's first account, due to the clumsy nature of their editing. For example this edit caused their addition to be invisible due to using "Monarch" rather than "monarch" for the infobox field name. There are also three failed attempts to add a monarch field to the infobox at President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, none of which was successful as it's not a valid field for the article's infobox. I would have expected any reasonably experienced editor to have seen their changes weren't actually visible and to have attempted to work out the problem. FDW777 (talk) 19:11, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notified

Discussion concerning Adrummond67

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

Statement by Adrummond67

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Adrummond67

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

• As Adrummond67 has continued editing after being notified of this request but has said nothing here, I believe we should proceed on evaluating this request without their input (though they are, of course, still welcome to provide it now if they wish to do so). Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:51, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

  I tend to agree with Ymblanter, and also find myself rather skeptical that this is someone's first account. Jumping directly into a contentious topic like this is relatively common for sockpuppets of those previously excluded from those topics, or from the project entirely. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:33, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

• The user only made 33 edits, and one of the last edits, already after the request was filed, is [1]. I conclude that they are not net positive to the English Wikipedia. My first choice would be an indefinite block; the second choice would be a topic ban on everything related to Ireland (note that they have zero edits in topics not related to Ireland).--Ymblanter (talk) 20:24, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

  Looks like indefblock remains the only option.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:55, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

• An indef block would be okay with me, but I am worried that this is stale now --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 18:35, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
• I will block indef now. The fact they have not edited for five days is not a free pass.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:48, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

QuackGuru

QuackGuru is blocked for three months. Thryduulf (talk) 12:16, 19 February 2020 (UTC) The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

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

Request concerning QuackGuru

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

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

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Editor conduct in e-cigs articles :

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

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

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

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

• Mentioned by name in the Arbitration Committee's Final Decision linked to above.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

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

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

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Done, 2020-02-06

Discussion concerning QuackGuru

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

Statement by QuackGuru

Talk:2019–20 vaping lung illness outbreak#Removal of update section tag - I removed the tag because no new source was presented. The content Beland added "though individual cases do not provide strong evidence of causal relationships"[2] was unsupported by the source. I tagged the content and replaced it with verifiable content.

Belend merged the article on 21 December 2019.[3] After the merge was undone it was merged again after the AFD close.[4] The merge was overturned.[5] Beland merged the article again on 13 January 2020[6] and deleted the entire Patients section.[7] The talk page consensus limited it to three cases.[8]

I removed the tags from the Hospitalized cases in the vaping lung illness outbreak because I did not believe there was a serious enough issue to justify the multiple tags. FULBERT removed two of the tags.[9]

Talk:Nicotine pouch#Alarming amount of Ownership and unreliable source about Kenya - The word "lobbies" is a general term and it does not specify who made the claim. Beland wrote in part: "It would be unwise to attribute claims made by "lobbies" to KTCA..."[10]

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

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

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

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

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

The matter involving Seraphimblade was resolved here. On 29 December 2019 Seraphimblade reverted to an older version. It was undone by Doc James.[11]

Andy Dingley says "I've certainly avoided pod mod, QuackGuru, and their personal space of vaping articles ever since...".[12] According to talk page consensus a sentence fails verification. Andy Dingley made a comment about the pod mod article on 14:38, 6 December 2019. Soon after, Andy Dingley removed the FV tag on 14:54, 6 December 2019. The source mentions nicotine salts on pages 95-96 but it does not verify the claim.

The content and the quality of sources is under dispute at the nicotine pouch article. KristofferR added commercial websites and added nettotobak.com that sells LYFT products. I tagged the unreliable source and other unreliable sources. Beland removed the unreliable tag added to the nettotobak.com commercial website and other tags were removed. Beland also added commercial websites. I requested verification for "Unlike vaping products".[13] Beland asked me "Why would that require verification?"[14] The PDF file does not verify the claim "Unlike vaping products" added by Beland.

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

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

I did not want to immediately fix the failed verification at Nicotine pouch because KristofferR was reverting my edits[15][16][17] (as well as Doc James[18][19]) at Electronic cigarette after the failed verification content was redacted. I did not want to get into an edit war at Nicotine pouch after what recently transpired at Electronic cigarette. KristofferR copied the discussion from my talk page over to the nicotine pouch talk page. KristofferR thought the word "lobbies" is likely inaccurate and a language error. I thought verifiability policy is applicable rather than trying to seek truth. QuackGuru (talk) 01:35, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Additional comments by QuackGuru: Unsourced content and failed verification content are continuing to be introduced to this topic area and I don't see others trying to redact the problematic content. In the edit summary Beland wrote "this variation is in fact mentioned in the body in the Construction section".[20] The Electronic cigarette article is not the Construction article. A rewrite of the content is also not a summary of Electronic cigarette and it is unsourced. A similar change to Safety of electronic cigarettes fails verification and it is not a summary of content in the body the Safety article. See discussion.

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

Statement by Levivich

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

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

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

Statement by Doc James

And than we have the tagging issue on the other side. User:Beland requests that an "update" tag not be removed as the that section ONLY has sources from September 2019.[21] Was tagged in this edit.[22] Seriously if you have newer sources than add them. September is only a couple of months ago. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:20, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

• It seems like this one issue is resolved.[23] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:50, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by MelanieN

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

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

• Jan 30: User:KristofferR pointed out on the talk page a new report from the CDDC, saying it should be added to the article. QG disagreed. [24]
• Over the next few days: KristofferR repeatedly added information to the article from the new CDC report and QG repeatedly removed it (in fairness, two other editors including Doc James also removed it).[25]
• Feb 2: KristofferR posted at the talk page with additional references, and he and QG argued.[26]
• Feb. 5: Another user, User:Sunline09, added sourced content to the article page.[27] QG immediately tagged all three additions “failed verification” and asked Sunline to “post all the new sources here on the talk page.”[28]

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

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

Statement by Seraphimblade

I had considered the course of action of an AE filing myself, based upon what I've seen of QuackGuru at Hospitalized cases in the vaping lung illness outbreak. I will first say that I believe QG has the best of intentions in keeping the encyclopedia free of pseudoscience and woo, and I have often myself seen QG do good work in those areas. However, in this area, QG has been a problem there as well. QuackGuru has the habit of, rather than participating in discussion, continuing to repeat himself with claims like "failed verification", even after being shown the specific portion of the reference which confirms the article text, as here. QuackGuru's conduct can have the effect of driving other good-faith contributors away entirely as well [29]. While I see that Thryduulf has proposed sanctions related to tags and reverts, those are not in my view the primary issues. Rather, the core issue is ownership of articles and I didn't hear that during discussions, as well as reverts with a simple statement of "failed verification" without any explanation of what QG believes failed verification and why, which make interaction with QuackGuru, especially in this area, a phenomenally frustrating experience. 1RR and a prohibition on tag removal will not solve those problems. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:23, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

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

Statement by Andy Dingley

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

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

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

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

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

Statement by KristofferR

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

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

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

Answer to question from Johnuniq by Beland

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

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

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

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

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

Comments by Beland on remedy

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

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

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

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

Question from S Marshall

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

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

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

Statement by WhatamIdoing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In terms of remedies, I have little hope.

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

WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:05, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by TracyMcClark

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

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

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

Statement by SandyGeorgia

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

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

Result concerning QuackGuru

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

@QuackGuru: thanks for responding. I'm not sure what you mean by I am concerned that there may be no opportunity to examine in detail whether the content I tagged as failed verification did indeed fail verification. I can tell you that I looked at every diff and the sources behind them which is why I came to my conclusion that I would be against a topic ban if some other solution can be found. However, for why I think a solution needs to be found let's dive into an example already discussed by Johnuniq and Levivich. In the creation of Nicotine pouch (by you) there are the sentences Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance objected to the entrance of nicotine pouches in Kenya.[2] They stated there is no reliable research to demonstrate nicotine pouches are safer than regular cigarettes.[2] as part of a research section. You then tweaked these a few minutes later [30] [31] [32] and then moved it a few hours after that [33]. It then stays that way for a couple of months. In the midst of a series of back and forth edits between you and KristofferR he makes those senteces part of a new section called opposition [34] after which you tag them with citation needed [35]. A while later you add a further tag saying the word also fails verification [36]. Considering it was content you were responsible for and had worked on previously, why didn't you fix it if you decided upon a re-examination of the source that it was not sufficient? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:16, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Cleisthenes2

The appeal is declined. Any future appeal is unlikely to succeed without evidence of productive collaborative editing in other topic areas. Thryduulf (talk) 13:17, 13 February 2020 (UTC) The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

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

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

Appealing user

Cleisthenes2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction being appealed

Topic Ban from Toby Young

Administrator imposing the sanction

Galobtter (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.

Statement by Cleisthenes2

I was topic banned from Toby Young after trying to work towards a satisfying compromise on the language of the lede. As I think the record shows, I repeatedly suggested alternative wordings that would restore NPOV (all were almost immediately rejected), was always calm and polite in my comments, and was consistently open to compromise wordings. I did try to counter repeated reverts and attacks from one user called Fae, and this got me banned (together with a good number of attacks from Fae herself and a couple of close allies). Though I'd rather not talk about other users, I think it's worth pointing out a) that Fae has a long record of disruption on articles of this sort, and was eventually banned from all articles to do with sex and gender and b) that she seems particularly incapable of neutrality or compromise when it comes to Young (see e.g. her comment on Young's talk page that "Young is absolutely desperate to appear controversial, when any real analysis shows he's just a sad troll that confuses right wing politics with hating all minorities"). Obviously, she has a right to her opinions, but I'm not sure that it's good for Wikipedia if someone with that kind of burning antipathy can get someone banned from editing a topic, especially someone who was working very civilly to move towards a change that it looked like most of the other users were sympathetic to. Thanks for considering this. If the ban is removed I intend to continue to work towards consensus in a reasonable way, but I also don't see why I shouldn't act to counter the kind of bullying that I was exposed to by Fae (and that many others on here have also apparently experienced). Cleisthenes2 (talk) 19:07, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

• Response to Bishonen, moved here from Cleisthenes2's talkpage:
• You ask how it computes that I have made several edits on one article, but claim that my purpose is to defend NPOV. I think that pattern is pretty easy to produce if (as is the way I see this) you make a sincere effort to reach compromise language on an important issue, supported by many other editors, and find your every effort to find middle ground abruptly rejected and reverted. The way I see it, I was just trying to stand my ground (and abide by norms like NPOV, building consensus, civility, etc.), and not cede that ground to (and have those norms subverted by) a couple of editors who seemed to have an extreme antipathy for the subject, an inability to discuss the topic in an objective way, and no compunction about using force rather than engaging in good-faith discussion. (In Fae's case, this tendency is extensively documented). I don't edit all that much on Wikipedia by some standards (though I have a bit over the years), so obviously there won't be that many other cases where I've stood up for NPOV just as a statistical matter, though there are a few (and not always from one side politically: see e.g. my concern about neutrality on the talk page of the entry on Salazar). The reason I haven't spent more time in the past few months editing other articles (though I have a bit: see my contributions file for new sections on ancient Greek democracies and ancient historians) is because I've been bogged down trying not to be bullied away from what I see as a perfectly reasonable attempt to engage with other good-faith Wikipedians on a lede that many others see as violating NPOV (see the relatively recent edits by Collect and the related discussion on the Toby Young talk page). Behind this, there's also a very important principle that needs defending: that a small minority of especially energetic and unscrupulous editors shouldn't be able to derail a constructive discussion by abusing editorial power, making irrelevant comments, and engaging in speculation about other editors' motive. So, that's why I've often come back to the Toby Young piece. If Fae and Black Kite had been open to reasonable compromise and hadn't resorted to constant reverts, snide comments, and edit-warring, I wouldn't have had to do this, and you would have had more new sections on ancient Greek democracy. Anyway, thanks for seeming genuinely open to an answer to your question. Best, Cleisthenes2 (talk) 15:07, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Galobtter

Statement by Black Kite

I'm posting in the involved section because it was myself who raised the original WP:ANI report that led to the sanction (which can be seen here). My observations;

• Until a week or so again, Cleisthenes2 had made no edits to Wikipedia after being topic-banned from Toby Young some ten months ago, bar one edit which was an appeal to the admin concerned. This may be seen as unsurprising as for the year prior to the sanction, 90% of their edits had been to Young's article, effectively acting as a SPA.
• They still don't understand why they were sanctioned, which was for persistent edit-warring against multiple other editors (I count at least five established editors involved over the nine months or so that this was happening).
• They violated their topic ban by editing Talk:Toby Young (diff) 15 minutes before posting this appeal.
• Irrelevant to this appeal, but despite two previous requests (one at each ANI) not to do so, they have misgendered User:Fæ yet again in this appeal.

Black Kite (talk) 20:47, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for this contribution, Black Kite. My observations:

• I don't have much time to contribute to Wikipedia. When I do, as you'll see from my contributions, I try to turn create well-sourced sections on ancient Greek democracies and ancient historians. However, if an edit has been reverted without explanation when I've tried to work towards compromise, I do try to support Wikipedia norms. If it looks like a lot of my time has been taken up with the article on Young, that's mainly because I've had to spend a lot of time defending these basic norms (as well as NPOV, which is what the whole dispute has been about). I'm obviously not SPA, having made hundreds of edits and created a dozen entries and sections over more than a decade.
• It's true that I don't understand why I was sanctioned, which is why I've appealed it. Anyone who hasn't taken a side already can see from the history of the Toby Young article what has been happening: editors listed as Collect, 2a00:23c6:8a08:1100:21dc:ac8e:5651:3361, 82.35.253.166, and Graham Ball have made repeated, polite attempts to work towards more neutral language in the lede. These attempts were continually and very swiftly rejected out of hand, usually by Fae, more recently with Black Kite in support. Most of these other users apparently decided they didn't have time to contest the immediate reverts by Fae or to argue with Fae's reasoning (e.g. that Quillette can't be cited because it's just a blog, even though it's a well-known magazine that gets a couple of million hits per day). I've decided that it's important to defend NPOV and Wikipedia norms, though, and have done so with pretty consistent civility. Note also the pattern (very visible in the history of the Young article) where I make an edit, explain why, and express a willingness to discuss or consider other options. These are then immediately rejected by Fae or Black Kite, either with no reasoning, or simply with statements like 'We can stick with misogynistic and homophobic.' (But why? You'd think it would have been better for Fae to explain reasons to think we could stick with that, when so many other editors suggested changing that to abide by NPOV.) In sum, both I and Fae engaged in some editing. I did so politely, always trying to work towards consensus. Fae did so without showing any willingness to compromise. So yes: I don't understand why I've been topic-banned instead of Fae (especially if we consider Fae's past record of vandalism and bad faith with respect to anything touching on sex and gender, which I may go into more later). As wumbolo said to BK, 'As for edit warring, you're more or less just as responsible for it as Cleisthenes2.'
• Black Kite has shown a similar unwillingness to think seriously about whether the lede violates NPOV, something a good number of editors have agreed with (and, indeed, have tried to act on constructively). In fact, I'm not sure Black Kite should be allowed to post on this topic at all, since she seems to have a deep-seated antipathy towards Young which has compromised her ability to abide by NPOV. For example, on the talk page to the Young entry, Fae argued 'there is no reason to censor these famously misogynistic and homophobic' tweets (even though the discussion was never about censoring them, or even whether they were misogynistic or homophobic, but rather as to why Wikipedia (an encyclopedia) needed to take sides on the issue). Black Kite responded: 'Not to mention that he's still at it' (with links to Young's comments on Greta Thunberg). This is revealing: it shows that Black Kite is motivated by an political antipathy to Young, and that she views the decision to keep the 'misogynistic and homophobic' language, not as a matter of Wikipedia norms (like the crucial NPOV). But as a way of punishing and publicly shaming Young. In a way that's fair enough: she has the right of free speech. But maybe a better place to engage in such activism would be Medium, rather than an encyclopedia.
• I'm sorry, I didn't realize I had been banned fro discussing the topic on the talk page. Now that you mention it, though, what I posted there was a response to Fae's argument that lots of 'sources' claim Young's tweets were m&h. But you can usually find sources supporting one side of a controversy: that's what makes it a controversy. Our job isn't to take sides (in fact: our job is to specifically NOT take sides) but just to indicate that Young's tweets were controversial.
• As you say yourself, your last point is 'Irrelevant to this appeal.'

Special thanks to those reading this with an open mind, and a willingness to look back at the history of the entry on Young. Cleisthenes2 (talk) 10:22, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Fæ

I have not been made a party to this case and did not know this request was made until a ping today. Adding to this section just because my name has been used so much, but I do not consider myself involved apart from attempting to handle the massive amounts of disruptive editing to the Toby Young article a year or so ago, which appeared to be a spin campaign and I was interested in checking against better sources using my access to LexisNexis. As far as I am aware, none of my activities over the last 10 months has been anywhere near Cleisthenes2, so there is no edit that could possibly be linked to that Cleisthenes2 could claim is an argument or dispute.

Others have said enough, there is no extra evidence that I am aware of that would be useful to this case one way or the other. This is a single-purpose account, clearly with no interest in Wikipedia apart from repeatedly "massaging" the Young article in one direction.

With regard to the claim about "bullying", this is a serious claim of harassment that should have serious evidence, but there are zero diffs because it's nonsense. An appeal that opens with tendentious griefing against another editor and promotes a secret-cabal conspiracy with "close allies", but offers no verifiable evidence, shows that this is not a meaningful appeal.

By the way, this should be irrelevant considering how easy it is to avoid speculating about sex or gender of other editors when you are uncertain, but could everyone just stick to User:Fæ#Pronoun? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 13:18, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

With respect to the later (misplaced) statement from Cleisthenes2, the claim that I am a vandal is a personal attack. There are zero diffs because it's yet more nonsense deliberately misusing this Arbcom enforcement page to cast aspersions. The maligning of Black Kite and myself as being incompetent is bizarre. The decision to keep the simple fact that "[Toby Young] resigned over a week later after misogynistic and homophobic Twitter posts" is fully based on the best quality sources available and has been validated as a community decision after several lengthy discussions and votes.

This has never been about "sides", getting the article in the best state possible has always been about reliable sources and BLP policies. That Cleisthenes2's default position is to demean other contributors and attempts even now to reuse self publications as sources to prefer over basic facts of precisely the words published over several years in Toby Young's own twitter stream, and how good quality journalists have correctly and factually summarised the controversy, shows this appeal is a non-starter.

Wikipedia is tolerant of alternative viewpoints being expressed in order to ensure encyclopaedic articles are wide-ranging, but it should not tolerate the disruption caused by casting aspersions, or gaming the system.

--Fæ (talk) 12:02, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by (involved editor 2)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Cleisthenes2

Result of the appeal by Cleisthenes2

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

• Note I've blocked this editor 72 hours for violation of the topic ban, so any questions here will have to be answered at the talk page during that time frame. For me, the editor has both violated the topic ban and once again misgendered Fae after being repeatedly told Fae was male, during the process of this appeal. That gives me no confidence allowing the editor back into the area would be wise, and I would decline the appeal. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:50, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  Actually, I've just noticed that the sanctioning admin was never notified as required, and Cleisthenes2 had plenty of time to do that between filing this request and being blocked. Since they're now blocked I'll take care of that, but inability to follow simple instructions sure doesn't give me much confidence either. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:53, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

• The idea of topic banning a user from one particular article is that they'll be able to edit the rest of Wikipedia to show that they can edit constructively altogether, and then appeal the article ban. Clearly Cleisthenes2 has not done this; they were an WP:SPA before the ban, and remained an SPA after it. (Note that User:Galobtter explicitly advised Cleisthenes2, as early as August, to edit elsewhere in order to bolster any coming appeal: "A record of productive editing on other articles would help any appeal".) I'd really like to see some actual, and good, editing before I'd consider an appeal. Also, I wonder what the exclusive, tunnel-vision interest of this article, alone, could be for Cleisthenes2, as they deny having a COI and claim to have only the loftiest of goals with editing it. In 2018, Fæ inquired here if Cleisthenes2 had any personal or professional connection with Toby Young, and was told no, "I'm only interested in the language in this piece because I'm keen to keep Wikipedia a politically neutral and respected source". I'm sorry, but it's extraordinary to me that an editor tries to achieve such a generalized, and virtuous, goal by focusing so exclusively on one article — to the point, even, of editing virtually nothing for a year when one has been banned from that one article. It just doesn't compute for me. Would you like to have a shot at explaining how it computes for you, Cleisthenes2? Do you not feel that any of our other 6 million articles make a difference as regards keeping Wikipedia a politically neutral and respected source? Bishonen | talk 20:40, 10 February 2020 (UTC).

• Adding: I've just moved over Cleisthenes2's IMO rather unsatisfactory reply to me to their own section above. I should also mention that they say they're short of time and hope this appeal discussion can "stick around for a few weeks" until they have time to reply to others.[37] For myself, I don't think it's reasonable to put it on hold — for weeks, yet — and so I've told them. After all, this is not some unexpected initiative from an opponent; it's an appeal that Cleisthenes themselves determined the timing of, and now doesn't have time for. Bishonen | talk 16:28, 12 February 2020 (UTC).

• This is an easy decline. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 18:29, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
• (Not commenting on the specific case, process point only.) Going forward, if an editor needs to be topic-banned from one article, has there been discussion of when the new "partial blocks" function should be used instead of (or as a means of) imposing a limited topic-ban? I see pros and cons to both ways of doing it: on the one hand, any block (even a partial block on one article) becomes a black mark in the block log in a way that an enforcement sanction by itself may not; plus a topic-ban from editing about a person goes beyond the actual article on that person. On the other hand, when editing of one article is the issue, imposing a partial block could eliminate the possibility of inadvertent, or even advertent, breaches and the potential need for threads like this one. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:06, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
• I've read all the above and am not at all convinced.I'd decline the appeal. @Newyorkbrad: the problem is that if we blocked for just one article, an editor could still edit about that subject or discuss it elsewhere. Doug Weller talk 17:56, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Calton

Calton is reminded to not edit war and to engage civilly with others --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 16:37, 15 February 2020 (UTC) The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

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

Request concerning Calton

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Springee (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 04:46, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American_politics :

Request enforcement of WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA related to article that is subject to Discretionary Sanctions. Per recommendation here [[38]] I brought this civility complaint to ARE vs ANI. The diffs in question related to the Andy Ngo article which is currently subject to DS and 1RR per AP2.

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

1. 31 January 2020 Bad faith attack placed on my talk page in response to a concern that editor is restoring material against BRD. Accusing me of being on a "whitewashing crusade".
2. 11 February 2020 Same as above but different material 2 weeks later, "Not my problem, POV pusher."

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

1. 28 January 2020 Aggressively accusing another editor of pushing a POV on a Bernie Sanders related topic. "And you have a problem with anything that gets in the way of whatever POV you're trying to push at the time." This accusation of bad faith isn't related to my edits but it's evidence that Calton's uncivil behavior was directed at other editors during the same time period.

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

[[39]], BLP and AP2.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This is a long term editor with an extensive history of civility related blocks taking what should have been a simple Bold, Revert, Discuss and turning it into a personal attack.

The Andy Ngo article is subject to DS and 1RR (reduced from BRD required 29 Dec [[40]]). In both of the above incidents new edits were added by one editor then rejected by another then restored by Calton. In both cases I asked Calton to self revert in the spirit of BRD. In both cases I was met with bad faith comments on my talk page.

The first diff I listed accused me of a "whitewashing crusade" via my talk page.

It was related to the following chain of events. In the January the BOLD material was originally added here [[41]]. First removal here [[42]]. Restored here [[43]]. Second removal here[[44]]. At that point the ONUS should have been on any editor wishing to restore the change. Calton restores [[45]]. I remove it noting the addition has now been challenged by 3 editors [[46]]. The original editor restores it 5 days later [[47]]. I revert noting NOCON and suggesting they start a talk page discussion for inclusion [[48]]. Calton reverts again while suggesting the burden to get consensus is on me for rejecting the change [[49]]. At this point I ask them to self revert via their talk page [[50]]. The reply was an accusation on my talk page of whitewashing. [[51]]. I raised a civility concern with El_C as they are an admin familiar with the article [[52]]. As it was a single incident I was hoping for a "That did break the rules, don't do that again" informal warning.

Two week later a similar situation occurs and Calton posts "Not my problem, POV pusher" to my talk page.

It starts with a BOLD edit [[53]] which was quickly rejected by another editor [[54]]. Another editor restores it [[55]]. I revert with edit summaries [[56]]. Calton quickly restores [[57]]. I again ask that they follow BRD, self revert and open a discussion [[58]]. The quick response on my talk page was an accusation of POV pushing [[59]].

I'm afraid that Calton took the lack of response the first time as license to repeat the behavior.

Calton has an extensive history of civility issues per their block log [[60]]. Blocks related to civility on:

• 3 Aug 2006, blocked for repeated personal attacks
• 23 Aug 2008, Persistent incivility and taunting of other users
• 19 Sept 2009, Continued incivility and taunting after previous block
• 7 Mar 2013, Personal attacks or harassment: racist edit sumamries & general awful attitude to others. This was an indef block then reverted per ANI but included the following warning, "any further use of edit summaries to make any sort of disparaging comments about other editors will lead to another block"
• 15 Apr 2015, Further use of edit summaries to make disparaging comments about other editors, after being clearly infomred that doing so would lead to another block.
• 27 Jan 2016, Personal attacks or harassment
• 25 May 2019, Same aggressive inperpersonal behaviour as last time

It is understood that some topics are inherently going to get people's emotions up. However, this is why it is critical to strictly follow rules like WP:FOC, WP:NOCON, WP:BRD etc. If new material has been rejected the next step should be take it to the talk page. Refusal to do so while posting bad faith comments to the talk pages of others should result in a topic ban or similar sanction. If the comments directed at me were isolated examples I would hope any admin would given them a mild rebuke with an understanding that they not do it again. Calton, however, has a long history of incivility and rather than taking my first admin talk page discussion as a sign they were crossing a line, they seem to take it as proof their posting to my talk page was OK to repeat. That is why I decided this should come to here (though I originally asked about ANI).

Reply to Calton

1. In both cases we had a clear disagreement between at least 4 editors regarding a revision. In both cases you were not restoring the long standing consensus version of the text per NOCON. In both cases you did not open or participate in a talk page dialog to justify why the edit should stand. In both cases I requested that you restore the previous consensus text absent any discussion to support the new text.

2. POV pushing example. One was a short term 1RR restriction from 5 years ago. The other is retracted warning. It was retracted once the admin saw that I wasn't the one who made the comment in question.[[61]].

3. Accusing others of being a POV pusher is an accusation that they are acting in bad faith.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

Notification here [[62]]

Reply to Bishonen

Bishonen, I understand. I admit this isn't some sort of egregious CIVIL violation (as well as a violation of NOCON). I would be content if the closing is no action but with a warning that this behavior is not acceptable and if it continues some type of action will be taken. My concern is that Calton's behavior is a catalyst for incivility. If others reply as they have we end up with edit wars, and larger scale CIVIL problems. I think this is exactly what Red Rock Canyon was concerned about. I think Wikipedia might be a more civil place if we were quicker to point out civility violations even if no administrative action (official warnings, blocks, tbans etc) are taken. Springee (talk) 16:09, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Discussion concerning Calton

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

Statement by Calton

User:Springee -- long-time POV pusher (two quick examples)-- twice came to my talk page to demand that I reverse my undoing of his reversions, which he could not do because 1RR. That's his problem, not mine. --Calton | Talk 11:49, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and a reminder for Springee about the misuse of terms: it's "bad faith" in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Now, anyone who's edited in any topic touching on American Politics knows about Springee's POV pushing. I'm still getting over the flu so don't want to waste time on this, but if I have to, I can simply go through the noticeboards for more than theses tidbits picked up from the Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log regarding gun control and American politics. --Calton | Talk 11:59, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

P.S.: Maybe you shouldn't repeat that BS bit about "racist edit summaries", which was an absolute garbage claim.

Statement by Red Rock Canyon

This looks pretty clear-cut to me. Calton edit-warred to reinsert challenged material without discussion and then attacked Springee when called on it. That article is an unpleasant enough place to edit already without behavior like what Calton has shown here. Additionally, there's this edit summary [63] ("pro-male myass") from a few weeks earlier. That certainly isn't sanctionable on its own, but it's clear from Springee's evidence and from Calton's reply above that this editor has exhibited a pattern of incivility, personal attacks, and battleground behavior and has no intention of changing. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 17:15, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Looking through the talk and article histories, it appears that Calton's only contributions to this article were reverts, and they have never once posted on the talk page to discuss those reverts. Some of those were justified, but as shown in Springee's evidence, they also repeatedly reverted against consensus to reinsert contested material. This article has been the subject of numerous edit wars and has been protected several times. Drive-by reverts and incivility only makes an already unpleasant situation worse. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 19:40, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Calton

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

• No uninvolved admins have so far commented on this report. I'm not sure how long we need to watch the cobwebs growing over this section, but I suggest waiting for another 24 hours and then, unless there are other admin proposals, closing as "no action". Calton has quite the block log for "personal attacks or harassment" over the years. He's sharp-spoken and sometimes rude. But for myself I don't think the diffs Springee complains about here rise to that, and puffing up the complaint with detailed extracts from Calton's block log is not highly relevant. An accusation of "whitewashing" is not a personal attack, Springee. Calling you a "POV-pusher" is one, theoretically (=namecalling), but, well, it's a common one, which doesn't usually get taken to AE. I would invoke De minimis non curat lex. Bishonen | talk 11:55, 15 February 2020 (UTC).

Oldstone James

Oldstone James is blocked for a year as an AE block and then indefinitely as an admin block --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 01:29, 19 February 2020 (UTC) The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

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

Request concerning Oldstone James

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

ජපස (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 18:35, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

User against whom enforcement is requested

Oldstone James (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence#Editors_reminded_and_discretionary_sanctions :

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

1. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/3RRArchive403#User:Oldstone_James_reported_by_User:Grayfell_(Result:_) Indicating edit warring from Feb. 13
2. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:Oldstone James reported by User:ජපස (Result:) indicating edit warring from Feb. 15
3. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive316#Oldstone_James_creationism_topic_ban_appeal Discussion where a topic ban extension was requested by myself to show that this is an ongoing and chronic provlem with this user's behavior.

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

1. 24 April 2019 Topic ban from creationism.

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

• 7 October 2019.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I filed an AN3 and then realized that this is probably not going to work to fix the problems with this user's disruptive tendentiousness at R&I. Enough is enough. This user is a menace to the topic area and needs to be ushered to other more productive fields to work on at Wikipedia. Please extend his topic ban to race and intelligence to see if he can improve. jps (talk) 18:35, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[64]

Discussion concerning Oldstone James

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

Statement by Oldstone James

I would be happy to hear how my editing can be improved, without the need of an enforcement. If I've done something wrong, please tell me, and I will surely listen to you. Personally, I don't see how my editing is problematic: I don't edit-war, and I don't push a fringe POV on the talk page. If you think I am doing any of the two things, or that I am engaging in some other type of problematic behaviour, please let me know. But, as of right now, I am bit baffled as to why I, of all editors of the Race and intelligence article, am under consideration of a page ban (or even an indef ban?), aside from the fact that myself and jps haven't historically been on good terms. I believe the problems that exist, if they exist, can be solved by discussion without the need for any additional sanctions, as I am willing to listen to any suggestions as to how my editing strategy can be improved.

Also, as per IP editor, please take a look at the proposer's behaviour as well, and particularly at their tendency to edit-war without consensus and unwillingness to collaborate in a civil manner. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅} 17:28, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by JzG

I support this restriction. My impression of Oldstone James' edits has been that they are advancing fringe ideology, and his engagement on the talk page tends towards bludgeooning. Guy (help!) 23:02, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Note: the majority of editors who have engaged on the Race and Intelligence agree with my assessment of consensus on the issue (which is that differences in IQ scores between between different ethnic groups and self-identified races exist, and that the causes of these differences are not well-understood, with not enough evidence supporting either an all-environmental or a partially-genetic viewpoint). ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅} 17:39, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by IP editor

@El C: Now that we're here at AE, I think the behavior of the person making this report needs to be examined as well, because it is worse than Oldstone James' behavior is. He has less tendency to edit war than Oldstone James does, but his activity on talk pages is constantly assuming bad faith about other editors, whereas Oldstone James is always civil. Here are a few diffs showing the problem:

• [65] This post is a veiled threat against those who disagree with his view that it's acceptable to edit war against consensus in some cases.
• [66] Justifying the deletion of a page with an assumption of bad faith against the person who created it.
• [67] Inappropriate removal of another person's talk page post, with a baseless accusation of sockpuppetry.
• [68] "Start an account and we'll take you seriously"
• [69] "It is either the mark of an inveterate racist or an ignorant person who claims otherwise"
• [70] "Begone, fascist!"
• [71] Repeating the "Begone, fascist" comment after it was removed for being an off-topic personal attack.

Looking at ජපස's block log, he apparently has been sanctioned several times under the "fringe science" arbitration case. Not everyone considers race and intelligence a "fringe" topic, but he indicated in his post here that he personally considers it an example of that.

Could you please examine whether ජපස is repeating the type of behavior he's been sanctioned for in the past? He was notified of the discretionary sanctions here, if that matters. 2600:1004:B117:10E5:D530:D014:5920:FA1 (talk) 23:29, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

@El C: Actually, in those diffs the only two that were directed against me are the third and fourth. The first two were directed against user:Peregrine Fisher, and the last three were directed against a different IP user. (Compare our respective geolocations.) I don't know anything about who the other IP is. 2600:1004:B117:10E5:D530:D014:5920:FA1 (talk) 00:02, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Grayfell

I said at AN/EW that this user was trying to game the system by selectively applying rules and policies. I still think that, but it appears to be unwitting. Oldstone James came very close to a fringe topic ban, and instead of learning from that or adjusting his behavior, he appears to have ignored the whole thing, which is unfortunate. At that AN discussion, Oldstone James said, as part of a very lengthy comment, that "I am super-attentive of what others are saying", which is a big red flag if every I saw one. Another editor described this comment as "a massive WP:IDHT monologue", and shortly after we get a second massive IDHT monologue, this time a pseudo-civil rant about some other editor's problems. This isn't the behavior of someone who knows how to take advice. Grayfell (talk) 00:48, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Dlthewave

It's becoming increasingly clear that Oldstone James is unwilling or unable to acknowledge and correct his behavior. "Just tell me what I'm doing wrong and I'll stop doing it" is a common refrain when one is facing a ban, but his recent comments show that he's been told plenty of times and refuses to listen. He actually argued that "I was a different editor then than I am now, which is reflected by the fact that all conflicts and content disputes which I have had in the past year were quickly resolved, without the need for edit-warring, which I would've reverted to, say, two years prior" while under a partial block for edit warring.

OJ has established a pattern of setting special expectations for other editors that he refuses to follow himself. A recurring theme is insisting that editors gain consensus before making major edits, a restriction that is not in place at R&I. For example, I removed an off-topic section from the R&I article on 14 February and opened a discussion when it was challenged. OJ reinstated the content, without participating in the discussion, on 15 February with the edit summary "Please, PLEASE don't remove such large chunks of the article without any consensus, much less edit-war these chunks out. This section is relevant because many geographical areas, such as sub-Saharan Africa, contain inhabitants of predominantly one race. If you don't agree, discuss the issue on the article - don't just edit-war your changes back in." He did eventually join the discussion after receiving a personal invitation, but not before whacking me with a wet trout for violating his made-up rule.

My final concern is a comment made here, "Note: the majority of editors who have engaged on the Race and Intelligence agree with my assessment of consensus on the issue (which is that differences in IQ scores between between different ethnic groups and self-identified races exist, and that the causes of these differences are not well-understood, with not enough evidence supporting either an all-environmental or a partially-genetic viewpoint)" This shows not only that OJ subscribes to and promotes the fringe view that there is a plausible genetic connection, but also that the R&I talk page is frequented by others who share this view. OJ's behavior is part of a larger pattern of "civil POV pushing" by a number of editors. –dlthewave ☎ 04:50, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Let me address your points briefly:

• I indeed am willing to listen. So far, I have been advised things such as refraining from making compromise edits, but these piece of advice to me seem to contradict principles that I've also been advised to follow, such as WP:BRD. However, if an admin can confirm that such actions are indeed not advisable, I will immediately stop engaging in such behaviour.
• I set no special expectations for myself. I expect other editors not to reinstate edits that do not have consensus, and I have not done so; in your example, I reverted such an edit. This rule is not made up: see WP:CON and WP:EW. Being bold and making an edit without consensus is fine, but reinstating it constitutes edit-warring and should be avoided. Not removing large chunks from the article was my personal plea (a few other edits made similar requests), but that's not what I trout-slapped you for - that would be for your reinstatement of an edit that you'd made in the past that was reverted, something which I'd specifically asked you not to do minutes prior.
• I apologise for not engaging in discussion sooner. The truth is: I simply didn't pay attention to the talk page, which is my fault, given that that's exactly where I redirected you to make further progress. I will pay more attention to talk page discussions next time - especially when I revert others' edits asking them to engage in a talk page discussion.
• I won't address the last point in detail, but I'll just paraphrase what I said earlier: a great number of users don't agree that this is a fringe view, and nor does a recent comprehensive survey of 102 randomly selected experts, and nor does the American Psychological Association. However, this is not the right place to discuss these sorts of issues. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅} 14:35, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

The "comprehensive" survey was authored by Heiner Rindermann, who per that article, "has been a frequent contributor to Mankind Quarterly" among other controversial activities. There are plenty of problems with that particular survey, as well. These dubious statistics, of which there are many, take time and effort pick-apart. It is much easier for editors to link to these obscure studies as though they proved something, and then walk away by saying this is not the right place to discuss these sorts of issues when challenged. This is pseudoscience at work. Grayfell (talk) 21:27, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Let's leave this discussion to R&I's talk page. Regardless of who the survey was conducted by, it's the only one that we've got, and the results won't change based on the conductor's sentiments, given that the procedure is rigorous. If you want to discuss the issue in more detail, you can create a new section on R&I's talk page, but it's been previously agreed upon that the sentence "the causes of differences in IQ test scores are not well-understood" is worthy of being in the article. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅} 22:09, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Oldstone James this is a perfect example of setting expectations for other editors that you yourself do not intend to follow. Even after Grayfell explained why this is manipulative, you insisted that they raise their objections on another page "Let's leave this discussion to R&I's talk page" while continuing to argue your points here "Regardless of who the survey was conducted by, it's the only one that we've got, and the results won't change based on the conductor's sentiments." Whether you realize it or not, the effect is that you get to make your point but others aren't able to engage or offer a counter argument without being accused of going off topic. Don't bring it up here if you're not willing to discuss it here. Folks are taking the time to point out exactly what behaviors need to change and you're choosing to ignore them, which doesn't exactly instill faith in your promise to change your ways. –dlthewave ☎ 22:56, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

What expectations do I not follow? I don't agree with Grayfell that my comments were manipulative. Once again, if an admin confirms that me being manipulative is one of the major underlying issues of my behaviour, I'll listen to them. But, in this case, I think I've just given my opinion on the matter, something which I believe I am entitled to doing. Grayfell was welcome to post their opinion on the matter, too, but I just didn't want this to turn into a long-winded discussion about something which isn't completely relevant to the central issue. And now that both I and Grayfell have expressed our opinions, I thought we could discuss the rest on the R&I talk page. That's all that I wanted to say. I understand that, given that I somehow ended up on this thread, users will see bad faith in every little thing that I do or say, but I honestly had no intent of being manipulative in this case, nor did I set any expectations of other users that I myself did not follow. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅} 23:20, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by ජපස

I think this very enforcement page shows the problem in stark relief. Oldstone James refuses to listen to anyone who doesn't have the block button (if an admin confirms that me being manipulative is one of the major underlying issues of my behaviour, I'll listen to them. Implication is that this user only listens to administrators which means that further activity from Oldstone James is likely to be at this level of combat until there is administrative sanction. Needless to say, this is a highly problematic attitude to adopt when working on contentious topics. The documented problems with his rhetoric, style, and, unfortunately, competence (e.g. not understanding that WP:3RR even after having an administrator explain it to him) are not abating. If there is no application of judicious disciplinary actions, this will just become an ever more enormous time sink. jps (talk) 01:08, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

• @El C: The sockpuppetry accusations are given with strong evidence at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Race_and_intelligence_(4th_nomination)#Race_and_intelligence. Elsewhere, I asked for help to learn how to put together a sockpuppetry case against a dynamic IP. I have yet to receive a straightforward answer about this. If you have some advice for how to accuse a dynamic IP of sockpuppetry using the standard reports, I'm happy to know what it is. As it is, I cannot seem to figure out how to do it when the IP changes from moment to moment. jps (talk) 01:12, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Statement by (username)

Result concerning Oldstone James

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

• I have partially blocked Oldstone James from Race and intelligence for one week via AN3. El_C 18:48, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

• IP, from those diffs, I see both you and jps sniping at each other — exchanges which do not reflect well on either of you. As for the socking claim, perhaps jps can clarify what that is about (master is presumed to be...?) Sanctions may be due, however, regardless. El_C 23:44, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

• IP, correction noted. Thanks. Anyway, clearly tempers flare when it comes to this article, but I'm still unsure about whether sanctions are due or not. El_C 00:08, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

• This editor is a net negative and a waste of everyone's time, frankly [72]. Personally, I would simply indef them. Black Kite (talk) 00:31, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
• User talk:Oldstone James#Partial block from Race and intelligence doesn't give me much hope that spilling bites here is worth our time --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 00:46, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
• It's a funny coincidence, but I was just about to say exactly the same thing as Black Kite says above. It's not worth fiddling with partial or otherwise tailored sanctions any more. Bishonen | talk 17:46, 17 February 2020 (UTC).

RolandR

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

Request concerning RolandR

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

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

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles#Discretionary sanctions :

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

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

Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any

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

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

• Previously given a discretionary sanction for conduct in the area of conflict on 2010-04-07 by Sandstein (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

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

I've also notified the administrator who originally imposed the discretionary sanction ([73]).

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

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

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[74]

Discussion concerning RolandR

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

Statement by RolandR

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

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

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

Statement by Huldra

Picture 1: on R's user page

Picture 2: Sandstein warned against

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

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

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

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

Result concerning RolandR

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

• The diff adding that image is nearly thirteen years old. It was also there when the original sanction was imposed, so I presume had the sanctioning admin considered that image to violate it as well, action would have been taken at that time, not to mention when additional scrutiny was applied during the process of appeal. It's now been on the editor's user page for coming up ten years since that sanction was imposed, so I think any action here would be well beyond stale. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:03, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
• I don't see anything actionable here --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 01:37, 19 February 2020 (UTC)