I'm not going to file a request against one particular person, because we have a situation where disruption is caused by more than one user. I would like to draw the attention of the community to what is going on in the article Nagorno-Karabakh. This is a very troubled article that was a subject to a number of arbitration cases. For quite a while now it is an arena of endless edit wars, which are waged by a number of recently created or brand new user accounts, which try to push a version, originally created by the banned user Xebulon, who has been disrupting Wikepedia for years. What is going on there was described in much detail by the admin Golbez, who has been watching this article for many years: [1] I will not repeat here what Golbez has already said, please check his account of the events. The CU showed no connection between the accounts engaged there, yet it is quite obvious that something is going there, and that actions of all those accounts are coordinated. The most recent example, the account of User:23x2, who never edited Nagorno-Karabakh, pops up out of nowhere to rv: [2] And it is nothing unusual, this happens in this article all the time. The edits of the banned user are restored by users who have been inactive for a long time, or who have never edited this article before. I listed a number of edit warring accounts at my own SPI request that I by coincidence filed at the same time as Golbez did: [3] All those accounts look pretty much the same, act the same, and edit the same. I have a strong impression that they are all operated by the same person, who somehow manages to evade the CU. But even if we assume that it is not one person, but different ones, it is still quite obvious that their actions are well coordinated, and they keep on bringing in new accounts to edit war. I think this article should be placed under some sort of community control, and no edits that have no consensus should be allowed. Also, the activity of accounts that previously never edited this article should be restricted. I would even recommend that only well established accounts with at least 1 year of active contributions to Wikipedia, including outside of AA conflict, should be allowed to edit such contentious articles as Nagorno-Karabakh. I was advised to raise this issue here, which is what I do now. Grand master 23:17, 25 February 2012 (UTC) reply

I endorse this because these articles need help and I'm tired of trying to hold them together alone. I would love for some form of enforced edit restriction on these articles. -- Golbez ( talk) 01:10, 26 February 2012 (UTC) reply

One possibility is some form of sanctions similar to that employed by Sandstein on Mass killings under communist regimes, but I'm not sure how practical it is. T. Canens ( talk) 08:59, 26 February 2012 (UTC) reply

That is actually quite a good solution for the problem. I would support something similar to what was done at Mass killings under communist regimes. Grand master 10:05, 26 February 2012 (UTC) reply

Opening a structured thread below, with the standard AE format adapted to this situation. Further discussions should be had there. T. Canens ( talk) 10:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC) reply

Request concerning 76.102.173.102

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

 Kiefer. Wolfowitz 23:56, 25 February 2012 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European articles (TBA)#TBA

• Kiefer.Wolfowitz has trouble finding the Eastern European discussion in Signpost, and needs to sleep. Below, another editor suggested that this editor may be a banned editor, who has had his own ArbCom case, DigWuren (sic.). 00:11, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

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

1. 25 February 2012 Editing warring, re-inserting nationalistic claims without references
2. 25 February 2012 First personal attack from this account, alleging that User:David Eppstein is a pro-Russian, pro-Putin, anti-Ukrainian, and anti-Western, etc.
3. 25 February 2012 Edit warring in Stefan Banach article: Changing name of then Polish University to the name of a present Ukrainian University, without reference, again.
4. 25 February 2012 Edit warring at Lviv University (also a conflict in the Banach article), reinserting anti-Polish, anti-semitic, and ultra-nationalistic bullshit.

• All of this IP's edits seem to be disruptive editing with the same agenda.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warned on 25 February 2012 by Tgeairn ( talk · contribs)
2. Warned on 25 February 2012 by Tgeairn ( talk · contribs)
3. Warned on 25 February 2012 by Sodin ( talk · contribs) (Sasha)
4. Warned on 25 February 2012 by Kiefer.Wolfowitz ( talk · contribs)
5. There are other warnings on the related talk pages of articles and David Eppstein, of course.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

• I suspect that this is just a bored teenager-troll posing as an ultra-nationalist.
• This sounds like the fellow who called David a "commisar-stein" last year.
• I read about the EE case in the SignPost. Another precise reference for enforcement is suggested below (DigWuren). Thanks,  Kiefer. Wolfowitz 23:56, 25 February 2012 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

The user has been notified.

Discussion concerning 76.102.173.102

Statement by 76.102.173.102

Comments by others about the request concerning 76.102.173.102

Just use WP:DIGWUREN -- this would clearly fit this area. Also this edit is enough to show that this is nothing more than a wannabe-troll. Oleh Antoniv -- really? Block IP, and be done with it. Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 00:03, 26 February 2012 (UTC) reply

FYI, I wasn't suggesting that this is User:Digwuren, but rather that it could be handled under the Digwuren case, as is the standard for EE topics...in particular Wikipedia:DIGWUREN#Standard_discretionary_sanctions. Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 00:29, 26 February 2012 (UTC) reply

Result concerning 76.102.173.102

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

Obvious troll is obvious. I'm blocking the IP for 5 days for the obvious NPA violations and will issue a WP:DIGWUREN notification. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 00:35, 26 February 2012 (UTC) reply

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning Dalai lama ding dong

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Shrike ( talk) 14:02, 27 February 2012 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

Dalai lama ding dong ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:ARBPIA

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

1. [4]
2. [5]
3. [6]

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warned on 16 September 2011 by EdJohnston ( talk · contribs)
2. Warned on 18 February 2012‎ by HJ Mitchell ( talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Clear 1RR violation and edit warring the same goes with user:AndresHerutJaim.Both users probably should be blocked and article protected.I am not sure about topic bans.-- Shrike ( talk) 14:02, 27 February 2012 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[7] [8]

Discussion concerning Dalai lama ding dong

Statement by Dalai lama ding dong

Comments by others about the request concerning Dalai lama ding dong

Result concerning Dalai lama ding dong

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

• Seems to me like a pretty clear 1RR violation on both Dalai lama ding dong and AndresHerutJaim, as you say. Dalai lama ding dong has been warned about this already, so a 90-day topic ban on either the article or the general subject would be fine. AndresHerutJaim has been blocked more than once for ARBPIA issues, so something stiffer would probably be in order; I'm open to suggestions, as I'm not sure what I think is right just yet. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 17:10, 27 February 2012 (UTC) reply
  • I've blocked both for the 1RR violation (Dalai lama ding dong for 24 hours, since it's his first block; AndresHerutJaim for two weeks because he has several previous blocks for the same). I think a 90-day topic ban each is reasonable—AndresHerutJaim has a longer block log but doesn't appear to have been sanctioned recently, whereas Dalai lama ding dong was very recently the subject of an AE thread. I'll leave this open for long enough for others to comment, though. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC) reply

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning Zenanarh

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 23:40, 29 February 2012 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Applicable discretionary sanctions

• Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Macedonia#Standard_discretionary_sanctions
• Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Digwuren#Standard_discretionary_sanctions

Violation

1. Dispute resolution in depth

Notifications of his actions

1. Warned on 31 December 2011 by Whenaxis ( talk · contribs)
2. Warned on 19 January 2012 by DarkFalls ( talk · contribs)

Statement by Whenaxis

This has been brought here from request for arbitration (RFAR) by the request of the arbitrators. Click the link in the header "Violation" for more information on the violations. Zenanarh has been sockpuppeting through anonymous IP addresses as confirmed by Elen of the Roads in the aforesaid link, so it is currently difficult to notify and/or track Zenanarh's actions.

A suitable solution would be either a) blocking Zenanarh, b) topic banning Zenanarh, or c) emplacing an interaction ban between Zenanarh (and all sockpuppets) and Silvio1973 (because these two are the ones who usually have conflict with each other. I think this would be the most effective).

Notification

Notification

Discussion concerning Zenanarh

Yes. I agree with EdJohnston as well. Can we also have this template: {{ Article discretionary sanctions}} be put on the three articles as a reminder to the editors? Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 19:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC) reply

 Done Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 02:20, 2 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Statement by Zenanarh

Comments by others about the request concerning Zenanarh

Result concerning Zenanarh

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

• I recommend that Zenanarh be banned under the ARBMAC discretionary sanctions for six months from the topic of the former Yugoslavia. This will include biographical articles on people born in what is now Croatia such as Luciano Laurana.
• In a comment in the RFAR, Elen of the Roads stated: "Regarding the IP editors at Zadar, two are Italian. I believe the others are Zenanarh." Due to the strong possibility that Zenanarh has edited the disputed articles using IPs, the three articles mentioned in the RFAR should be semi protected for six months. These are Zadar, Luciano Laurana and Schiavone. If this protection turns out to be an inconvenience for any good-faith contributors working as IPs, they should be encouraged to register an account. EdJohnston ( talk) 02:49, 1 March 2012 (UTC) reply
• I'm inclined to agree with EdJohnston here; Zenanarb has clearly been causing a lot of problems in this area, and a six month break would do everyone some good. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 15:22, 1 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Request concerning Rejedef

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Mathsci ( talk) 06:28, 4 March 2012 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

WP:Eastern Europe, indefinite topic ban from all articles and their talk pages related to Eastern Europe, broadly construed

Problems with editing

These have been discussed recently at WP:ANI in this thread. Recent edits: [9] [10] Talk page contributions from November 2011: [11] [12] [13], etc.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

Warning of a report being made here has already been discussed at WP:ANI in the thread mentioned above, where Rejedef has participated. [14] He had also been warned in the threads on Talk:Europe (linked above) that editing of this kind could result in a report here

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Rejedef has for some time now been editing uncontentious articles on wikipedia, like Europe, trying to remove references to Eastern Europe. He has stated that his belief is that "Eastern European" is used as an ethnic slur. That apparently has been the basis for his disruptive edits. Further examples are given in the WP:ANI thread listed above. In the diff above from that thread, Rejedef writes: "My nickname will be illegally (in EU's law) processed by Wikipedia, apparently." He also suggests that "Western European" is a racial slur. (Very little of this seems to make any sense at all.)

Rejedef gives further evidence below of his disruptive stance. He shows no understanding of the problems this is causing on multiple articles. Administrators should read the ANI thread for the comments of Jayjg, Jayron32 and Qwyrxian. Mathsci ( talk) 02:21, 5 March 2012 (UTC) reply

The disruption has not changed (the persistent stance on Eastern Europe) and the problem is of a nationalistic nature. The same applies to editors like Andriabenia ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), eventually identified as the sock of a banned user. They complain about transcontinental countries (i.e. Georgia is completely in Europe, Armenia is not, long synthesized list of references, repeat ad infinitum every six months, etc, etc). Mathsci ( talk) 02:09, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[15]

Discussion concerning Rejedef

I find all of it incomprehensible and very biased. I am severely disadvantaged because I have no contacts on Wikipedia, and only this form of support (other user's support) is apparently accepted. Why don't you delete my account, as I wanted? -- Rejedef ( talk) 03:37, 5 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Statement by Rejedef

I have nothing to say but direct to resources that will speak for me best, although there is a number of them. A travel over Europe is also compulsory to be able to write about it anything.

Number 1. Milan Kundera's essay: 'The tragedy of Central Europe': is.cuni.cz/studium/predmety/index.php?do=down&did=18219

Number 2. Christopher Lord, Central Europe: Core or Periphery? http://www.ce-review.org/00/36/books36_nilsson.html

Number 3. Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, book

Number 4. Michal Buchowski, The Specter of Orientalism in Europe: From Exotic Brother to Stigmatized Brother: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/anthropological_quarterly/v079/79.3buchowski.html

Number 5. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8507.html

Number 6. Scholarship http://amu.edu.pl/en/year-at-amu/a-year-at-amu/amu-pie/offer/amu-pie-offer-20102011-winter-semester/european-orientalism

Does any of you have any paper to say that we should still use the term 'Eastern' and 'Western Europe' and if you have one, did the same author changed his opinion over time, like Timothy Garton Ash, or admitted actually no expertise on 'orientalism' (or European semi-orientalism), being under fire from the critics like Edward Said? -- Rejedef ( talk) 02:10, 5 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Problems with editing All changes were justified.

National geographic is popularising (lat.populus-mass, people) science. It is meant to be simplistic and negligent. There is a lot of problem with it, not only including Reading National Geographic, Catherine Lutz and Jane Collins but also@ http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138051#.T1Qrl_GDj8c http://www.countercurrents.org/lieberman120507.htm http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/taxlr41&div=22&id=&page= It admits it has a viewpoint: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/18/g912/readingnews.html shall I find more resources? Also, the atlas was published in 1999 when the geopolitics of Europe was just 10 years after the start of communism fall? If the book was published in 1999, then the date would have been at least 1 year old. We must always look at the newest resources. Imagine that few countries emerged in Europe since 1999, namely Montenegro and Kosovo, which is quite controversial to date. In addition Yugoslavia ceased to exist. Why don't you look at Collins Atlas of the World published in 2011? -- Rejedef ( talk) 03:20, 5 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Additional comments by editor filing complaint 'Eastern European' is a subtle racial slur, this is why it should be removed, unless it is accurate. The more acceptable is geographical 'eastern European'; still, it relates to predominantly European Russia (as the centre of Europe is located in Lithuania or Estonia). 'Eastern Europe' is a synonym for nasty adjectives. Similarily, yet less commonly, Western European is also relegating but it is not perceived as a slur that often, as a synonym of 'shallow', 'stupid' or 'immoral'. It is illegal in EU law to not to have the opportunity to be forgotten, including just deleting your account. My edits have been NOT disruptive at all. I find the critics totally incomprehensible. -- Rejedef ( talk) 03:20, 5 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Comments by others about the request concerning Rejedef

Result concerning Rejedef

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

• @Rejedef, AE can't judge matters of content—that's for the relevant talk pages. We can only look at matters of editor conduct, so your best bet would be to defend yourself against the claims Mathsci makes and/or showing us how your presence in the topic area (from which he is requesting you be banned) is beneficial. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:36, 5 March 2012 (UTC) reply
• This seems to be a user with a fixed idea that he is going to continue to promote by edit warring, even if he never persuades a single person to support him. The discretionary sanctions under WP:DIGWUREN were explained to Rejedef in this post to Talk:Europe in November, 2011, which he must have read since he responded just below that comment. Rejedef's response above (in the Statement by Rejedef) gives us no reason for optimism about his future contributions, and gives no hint he is open to discussion. I would suggest an indefinite ban of Rejedef from the topic of Eastern Europe. Of necessity, such a ban would include reference to the topic of Eastern Europe or the countries that make it up in more general articles such as Europe or Central Europe. EdJohnston ( talk) 03:19, 5 March 2012 (UTC) reply
  • I agree. T. Canens ( talk) 09:27, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply
• Question: I was just about to block Rejedef indefinitely for continual disruption after numerous warnings and previous blocks, based on the ANI thread, when I saw that there's an AE thread open too. I've closed the ANI thread; we shouldn't have two separate processes open. My block wasn't going to be based on an Arb remedy, but simple disruption. Now that I see this thread, with admins advocating topic bans rather than blocks, I take it that such a block doesn't have consensus here, and I should defer to this page? Or can I make a non-AE decision that seems pretty crystal clear to me, but which essentially over-rides this page? Not sure why it was necessary to turn this into a DIGWUREN thing. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 22:20, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I would support a block. In fact I was also considering blocking him when I saw this was here. I don't think it falls within the scope of the DIGWUREN sanctions - maybe in letter, but not in spirit, as the heart of DIGWUREN is editors taking nationalistic stances. This is just plum disruption in support of a nonsense theory, plus the hoax articles listed at ANI. Elen of the Roads ( talk) 23:16, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

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

FkpCascais ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – FkpCascais ( talk) 08:34, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Sanction being appealed

Topic ban from the subject of Yugoslav Partisans, imposed at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive106#FkpCascais, logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia#Log of blocks and bans

Administrator imposing the sanction

Wgfinley ( 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.

[16]NB, diff added, as appellant apparently forgot, but did notify the admin. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:15, 8 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Statement by FkpCascais

I come here gentleman in order to appeal to the sanction I was imposed to. I beleave the decition was precipitated and the involved administrators have been mislead and may also have confused me with the actions of another user. I decided now to follow the recomendation of the sanction imposing admin and appeal here at AE, along with the recomendation of another admin who was uninvolved in this episode who advised me to acknolledge and apologise for my mistakes. I wouldn´t have had any problems to follow the advice, and I am willing to do it as I am a person who acknolledges his mistakes, however, after numerous examinations by my side of all the events, I really don´t see one single fault on my behalve, and I see acusations wrongly attributed to me, not to say that my actions were actually positive and recomended by the policies. The problem is that the accusations are vague, none concrete diffs of evidence were presented to me despite numerous requests on my behalve, and I see no policy having been broken in any action of mine. All the time I asked for evidence for the charges against me, I was not provided any specific diffs, and allways when I presented diffs showing the charges were not appropriate I was allways provided with other unfounded charges.

I will explain the events:

• An article found on my watchlist, Yugoslav Partisans, has been experiencing an edit-war between several editors, divided in two sides (3 vs 1) with both sides actually inserting and removing eachothers disputed texts.
• I promote discussion and consensus building at the talk page, as seen at Talk:Yugoslav_Partisans#mediation. Here we can already see two wrongly attributed charges to me, the first one being tendentious editing (WGFinley at his sanction notification - User_talk:FkpCascais#Arbitration_Enforcement), when in fact I didn´t edited the article, and another, which is that I "pushed pretty heavily for mediation" (EdJohnston at his "Review findings" at the AE report), which is absolutelly contrary to my actions, as it was another user LAz17 who pushed for mediation, while I did exactly the opposite, as clear in my first comment at the artcle talk page discussion. Another users action seem to have been atributed to me by mistake.
• At the discussion at article´s talk page, the unwilingness of some editors to discuss is clear from the begining, and my attempts to discuss are sabotaged by derailing comments with personal remarcs directed from Direktor to me. As LAz17 was blocked in the meantime, and the article was protected for 3 days by Causa sui because of the previous edit-warring, the editors left were all part of the same side of the dispute, so they clearly showed the intention of avoiding discussion and waiting for the protection to expire so they could insert again the same disputed text. Just as note, for an outsider this can easily seem as if I was along LAz17 in that dispute, however I shall inform that I only limited myself on looking objectively at the dispute and acknolledging some reasons he had, however LAz17 is ideed a young inexperianced editor who´s disruption I even reported in the past. Direktor had a much closer relation with LAz17 than myself, so the entire gesture of putting myself and LAz17 as friendly editors is phalse, however the other side used this on their favour as on this ocasion both of us were not agreing with their edit.
• The view on the dispute was affected due to the bad reputation of LAz17, as clearly indicated by Causa sui who without getting into the dispute details assumed that by having him removed the dispute would be solved, and declined my extension of protection request, Talk:Yugoslav_Partisans#Protection. Hoping to archive at least some progress in the discussion, I aksed the intervenients to focus strictly on content, I opened a new subsection Talk:Yugoslav_Partisans#Content_dispute, I analised the existing sources and mentioned the applicable policies. As my concerns were ignored and other sources were only announced as to be brought but actually never brought to talk page, I saw myself in a situation where I was actually sabotaged. The issue is as controversial as it can get, they insist to add ethnic cleansing accusation flashing for attention directly to the lede, knowing that they don´t have a scholar consensus on the issue, and just as I feared, they didn´t had any new sources but were rather gaining time for the protection to expire so they could bring the same old ones which were already debated at another discussion ( Talk:Chetniks/Archive_5#Discussion_of_content) where another senior editor, Nuujinn, has expressed many concerns for them, as most weve local and non-scholar. The best sources on the matter actually fail to describe the events as such, and it is important to notece that troughout the dispute my attitude was absolutelly correct, as I never opposed that they add the text into the article body, correctly transponded of course, but not at the lede, as the subject lacked scholar consensus and as per the policies I cited in the discussion. I was the one being flexible and trying to arhive consensus, while they wanted nothing more than lede. To be honest, what they actually did was that Nuujinn announced his departure for hollydays, and they took the advantage of his absence to insert the edit he was opposed to, knowing that without him, they would more easily eliminate and ignore me over that issue.
• Seing that situation, and with Direktor escalating the trolling by posting in middle of the discussion an offensive image where he indicates that opposing him is as stupid as saying world is flat, see diff, along with a threat of reporting me, I decided to ask for help at ANI report. Anyone can see that I don´t ask for no one to be blocked (seing things back, I should have done it) but rather that some admin assist us at the discussion. After an initial positive response, admin AniMate commented at the report by saying that Direktor has brought sources, something he didn´t, and defending him. As that has not been the first time that admin has intervened in a report against direktor allways excusing him, I may have overeacted a bit, but I had to expose that he was providing phalse statement because no sources were brought to the discussion, however after that, AniMate insisted on it, providing again a phalse statement about the sources and clearly trying to turn it now into a boomerang to me.
• Finding this attitude of AniMate wrong, and because this has not been the first time he did that at ANI (he once even intervened in a report of mine against Direktor where he ignored all the disruption I presented and "advised" me to edit somewhere else because I had no English language skills) I opened a thread on Jimbo´s talk page asking for advice on how to deal with this kind of behavior: diff.
• Afterwords, the article protection expites, and despite admin Causa sui clear recomendation of discussion, or even DR, over edit-warring (as seen in Talk:Yugoslav_Partisans#Protection), it lasted only 5 hours for Direktor to edit-war his same disputed version (which was even admitedly badly sourced even by one of the editors from his side of the dispute).
• I don´t edit-war, I continue discussing for some days, and by seing that no admin wants to help, I end up leaving the discussion despite having the same concerns and the edit was not in the agreement with the policies I cited.
• During the following weeks I fully remove myself from the discussion, including all related ones, and I edit other areas of WP. Not sure why, PRODUCER, one of the ediors from the dispute, feels that is not enough, and starts a campaign to get me blocked, first at ANI and when that report fails, by recomendation of AniMate, he bring it to the AE report that got me sanctioned. Ironically I was accused of forumshopping, while he, by doing two very similar reports isn´t. Even EdJohnston at the AE itself in the "Result concerning FkpCascais" section mentions: "The warring parties are not giving us much usable information to work with" words that explain well the weight of PRODUCER´s accusations at his report.
• I discuss with Producer at the AE report, and when it looked finished, already more than 2 weaks of any of my involvement in any of those disputes, I sudenly get sanctioned with a 6 months topic ban.

Now, as far as I see, I was sanctioned for Wikipedia:TE and Wikipedia:FORUMSHOP. I didn´t edited the article, neither I beleave I had recently, including years time, any edits which would be considered tendentious. My attitude at the discussion is not tendentious either, but I rather back my position with policies. It is actually the other side, which has a completelly tendentious approach to the entire subject and which actually edits by searching the most extreme wording and gives it maximal importance. The tendentious nature of editing can clearly bee seen in this exemple:

• Template:Yugoslav_Axis_collaborationism where they fully insist in adding the Chetniks and their leaders in equal manner as the other collaborators, while in the
• Template:Resistance_in_Yugoslavia_during_Second_World_War they completelly deny them any resistance status, as seen by Direktor who promtly after my sanction went there and removed them using an outragious phalse excuse to remove sources as well: diff. He knows very well that both, Roberts and Pavlowich deal with resistance activities of them, not to mention David Martin who´s entire book is about their is about it, to a point of Direktor allways protesting to eliminate him as source as he consideres him unrealiable because, Direktor´s words, he glorifies them.

The Chetniks were a monarchic resistance movement in Yugoslavia during WWII, opposed to the communist Partisans, and what happends is that during the war they engaged in both, resiatnce and collaboration acts, as that was basically a war of all vs all. Now, as the royal family was Serbian, and most members of them were Serbs, Croatians, like Direktor and Producer and probably others, tend to exagerate for most their collaboration activities, while deniying them their resistance ones. Also, whoever opposes the Croatian POV on this is immediatelly declared as "Serbian nationalist" by him, as he often did and as many users can confirm. The extremism of Direktor went as far as trying to remove the Yugoslav flag from the royal period from the Flag of Yugoslavia article, and when one user opposed him, he inmediatelly accused him as seen in his first comment here: Talk:Flag_of_Yugoslavia#The_flags_of_the_Kingdom_of_Yugoslavia_should_be_restored_to_the_article. Now, for some time the only way to get the article to work fine was to separate the articles, by recomendation of admin Zscout370, and you can see that shortly after you imposed me a ban, Direktor went to the article and changed it despite opposition of other users. This is how it looked before, we had two articles, just as many other countries in this situation have:

• K. of Yugoslavia: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Flag_of_the_Kingdom_of_Yugoslavia&diff=471385175&oldid=471041708
• SFR Yugoslavia: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Flag_of_the_Socialist_Federal_Republic_of_Yugoslavia&diff=471502034&oldid=471403929

Now, after Direktors edits and Producer participated as well, we have one article: Flag of Yugoslavia. (Link in case someone changes it: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Flag_of_Yugoslavia&diff=472069226&oldid=472013447) See the royal flag at bottom and the communist ones well displayed? How can one be more tendetious than that?

Should I explain that as much as Direktor may want to convince you that I am "tendentious", I dare to say that I am all but nationalist. I live for more than 25 years out of the region, and in a place where I don´t have many Yugoslavs at all. Also, in this particular dispute Chetniks/Partisans ; Royalists/Communists I am completelly free, as my father side of the family were moderate monarchists, while my mother side were Tito fans (my grandfather even worked and travelled with the guy). However the problem here has to do with the fact that a number of users disguised as anti-nationalists are promoting their own extreme views, and I am being punished for opposing them. I am defending the NPOV in the interest of WP, and I challenge anyone to present one edit of mine where the contrary can be seen. The major problem is that because you gentleman have lack of time and patience to get involved and check facts, the side using agressivity and manipulation gets their way. So by removing me you think you are providing peace, but you are actually leaving room for all those extreme views and biases to get unchallenged. I could provide you plenty of exemples of these. For instance, they massivelly edited the Chetniks article unopposed, and you can just make a test, see our article here on WP and see the Britannica one...

Now, I apologise to this lenghty post, but this is not easy to explain. I usually work alone, so I don´t have "friendly" admins supporting me, but I supposed I would never need them, because I agree and follow all WP principles and policies. I only had 2 blocks and they were years back, both related to Direktor, while I got 1 ARBMAC warning, which was attributed to all participants of one discussion, and the 1RR/48 hours sanction which was also in a dispute with Direktor, which was given to me at a report Direktor made without notifiying me, and with the decition being made without me even knowing what was happening. What happend was that I made one edit and 2 reverts in a article, and Direktor reported me for edit-warring. Assuming he was right, I got that sanction, but when I analised the events, I even noteced Direktor had made 4 reverts in the same period, and even the admin, FPS I think, acknolledge it when I explained it, but nothing was corrected. That sanction passed to me unnoteced, as I am not an edit-warrior, and that fact should even work in my favour, as I honestly doubt who would pass that sanction without breaking it of any of the other usual intervenients. And those sanctions are used against me, so I find it unfair, unfair to have now another one, without knowing exactly why.

Now, I may have not proceded the best way regarding AniMate, but I honestly didn´t knew what to do, and the episode was definitelly worth reporting as it was not cool at all to try to turn things againts me in the report by using phalse statements. I will be more carefull in the future, and I will try my best not to react while heated from another dispute in such situations. But regarding my reports, I am sorry, but I do feel they were the best response. In all of them, I am actually asking for help, for someone to assist us at the discussion as way to avoid further personal remarcs and trolling images being displayed to me. I actually fought hard not to respond in that hard environment, and I didn´t, but instead I reported disruption and asked for help.

I tryined to explain this to WGFinley and EdJohnston, but it is very much possible that my disapointed-mad-a-like approach didn´t help me at all. But I do feel that the situation is extremely unfair, because not only I don´t quite understand why exactly was I punished (and it was punishement, because I had been out of all discussions for weeks when the sanction was imposed, so it was not preventive in any way as advised by policies), but rather the other side had all their attitutes rewarded, and you can all see they didn´t lost time to undo many consensuses when found themselfs alone. So his action directly influenced a thin balance that was somehow found in a dispute, awarding one of the sides. The report itself was basically the collection of all of mine most polemical comments for the last year or so, and they are the worste one can digg about me, and even so I dare to say that I don´t see anything out of policy at any of the diffs. Much less to deserve an extremely harsh 6 months ban. I beleave all the trust was provided to them, and actually none of my actions were seen in detail and in context. I really hope you provide me at least some credit.

I apoligise for the enormous comment, but this is really painfull for me. FkpCascais ( talk) 08:34, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

But User:HJ_Mitchell, I am actually claiming troughout my post that the sanction is at least unduly harsh. I don´t see what here possibly backs a 6 months sanction. Regarding the issue itself, I limited myself to disucuss my concerns at the talk page, and consensus builduing has been allways the way I approached the discussions, and it will obviously be in future, as well. The problem is that my concerns were ignored and I ended up leaving the discussion weeks before the sanction was imposed to, making it thus purelly punitive. I was accused of FORUMSHOP, and I was also accused of TE, something I was not even presented any evidence of that. The FORUMSHOP could eventually be considered, however I never doubled any thread, and rather than asking for blocking (something I clearly don´t state anywhere) I am rather asking for help. The SPI report is quite understandable from my view, as the similarities seen there between the two users are there, so should I be punished for reporting something I beleaved? I was the one who actually ended up dropping it all, with the other side actually hounting me down at ANI and later here, until they got me... I don´t understand the reasoning behind this, I hardly see any policy being broken by me, and I see no ground for a harsh punishment. If there is any policy being broken by me, it should be clearly presented to me (diffs). FkpCascais ( talk) 11:10, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

For the sake of WP, I should even report Peacemaker67 for bringing phalse statements into this AE report in order keep me sanctioned. Their attitude towards me is allmost continuosly such, and I pretty much ignored most of it, but by that time I got tired and I did reported Direktor and made a SPI report on Peacemaker67 to check it. This sanction of mine is clearly interfering with the dispute itself, protecting and ignoring the disruption of one side while sanctioning me for some, still for me, highly doubtfull reason. I am aware that admins hardly go against other admins decitions, but I am being honest in my defense, and I wan´t say I am sorry (something I know goes well in this cases) for something I don´t se worth of this hard sanction. I actually provided all evidence and diffs for my defense, while I am being refused to be provided of any clear evidence for my 6 months topic. Honestly, the only excuse I see for this WGFinley´s sanction is that "no other admin opposed it" and that is hardly convincing without diffs prooving any wrongdoing on my behalve. FkpCascais ( talk) 11:25, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Statement by Wgfinley

In the interest of brevity I made all my points when I closed the prior AE case. It was up for several days for any uninvolved admins to comment, the only other one supported. I'm pretty sure the statements made in this appeal indicate the ban is still appropriate and there's no indication anything has been learned yet. -- WGFinley ( talk) 05:41, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Statement by Peacemaker67

I'm afraid that Fkp's essay above does not adequately reflect his continual failure to bring sources for his edits. In this article space (Yugoslavia WW2), pushing a POV with no sources or one source that varies widely from others just doesn't cut it. Scholarly, reliable sources published outside the former Yugoslavia must be preferred over locally published and/or uncritical POV sources. Peacemaker67 ( talk) 02:22, 8 March 2012 (UTC) reply

What "his" (mine) edits? Please point one edit of mine that was poorly sourced. It was your and Direktor & Producer edits that were poorly sourced, and you even admited it. If it wasn´t for me raising the issue, you would have been happy leaving things the way they were, and seems to me that it is you who want´s to avoid having one user chacking your claims and sources. We have been extensively using the best available sources for years during the mediation, and it wasn´t me ever having problems with them. The issue here was you wanting to atribute the "ethnic cleansing" claim to the Chetniks, and I can present you a list of reliable authors which do not use the term to describe the events as such, and that has nothing to do with "not having sources". I don´t need a source saying "they did not commited ethnic cleansing", it is you who needs to demonstrate that it is accepted among scholars that they did it.

You know very well the same concerns about your sources were expressed by User:Nuujinn at Talk:Chetniks/Archive_5#Discussion_of_content, so it is not an issue of "FkpCascais" but it is rather a case of you having taken advantage of him having made a wiki-break and you took the advantage of adding the same disputed edit into the articles, and you got upset that I followed Nuujinn´s reasoning, as I find it correct. So you find more easy to eliminate me, than to conclude the discussions and apply wp policies.

This was a clear case of WP:REDFLAG, and all you did to support the claim was to find a few local authors, while the vast majority of reliable authors do not use the term, so sorry, but I can´t see how your addition of "Chetniks commited ethnic cleansing" directly to the lede supported by a few sources is correct. Beside, it goes against WP:LEDE as well. And you wanted nothing less than putting it in the lede, which clearly shows your tendentous editing, as there was absolutelly no need to include that polemical claim in the lede. Btw, this is the edit in question, diff and what I discussed was the lede section. I limited myself to discuss, and you want me sanctioned for discussing your edits just because I disagree with you.

Also, curious you mention "non-local sources" as that was exactly what I defend for years, and that you and Direktor are the only side who brough local sources to back your claims (Banac, Mulaj, Velikonja...). I ask please admins to confirm this, as this is a pure malitious phalse statement in order to ruin my appeal. FkpCascais ( talk) 16:23, 8 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Statement by PRODUCER

Two months into his ban and Fkp still claims he has done nothing wrong and even threatens to report Peacemaker67 for simply voicing his opinion on the matter. If this shows anything, it is that he has learned absolutely nothing from this ban and will only continue this sort of behavior after the ban. He continues this view that he's on a battefield of sorts with a "me against them" mentality where we carry out "offensives" by simply posting. He assumes the worst in all the individuals who disagree with him, including admins, and views them as being out to get him. Evidently he's continued his forumshopping behavior where, after failing to persuade WGFinley [17] and EdJohnston [18] to unban him, he went off to get WGFinley blocked for "admin abuse" [19] and went to "lobby" another admin, GiantSnowman, to help him here. [20] [21] -- ◅PRODUCER _{( TALK)} 17:44, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Yes, by not having any single diff showing any clear breaking of any policy by me, all you can do is to try to put all my discussions together to make them look like FORUMSHOP. Also, "voicing his opinion" at reports has responsabilities, it is not a place where you can trow phalse accusations tring to influence the decition and then expect to go impune. Btw, you are the ones confirming this "me against you" situation, as you were doing the best to ignore my concerns at the discussions, then to remove me, and now you got me removed, to keep me from coming back. FkpCascais ( talk) 18:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

The diffs are given in the AE report and I do not try to make your actions look like something they are not - the fact that you tendentiously edit and forumshop is not only my opinion but also the opinion of numerous impartial admins. It appears you are either incapable or unwilling to see what you have done wrong and given this I can only see you repeating this inappropriate behavior in the future. In my interactions with you, I have never seen you post anything resembling a reliable source that would support the claims you make or contradict sources that others have brought to the table. At the discussion you weren't ignored and your "concerns" were addressed. My report was made after the discussion was concluded, not during, and after you went on this spree. -- ◅PRODUCER _{( TALK)} 19:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

"You tendentiously edit" - please point one edit of mine which can back this accusation of yours. FkpCascais ( talk) 21:39, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

"Tendentious editing". The term refers to a behavioral pattern, not a single infraction. Evidence regarding said behavior has been submitted at the report, you can review it there. If you do not agree that this is tendentious editing, perhaps you do not quite understand what that means? -- Director ( talk) 05:54, 10 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Yes right, it must be me not understanding English... No diff means you are making ampty accusations in order to missinform the admins here, something many of you have done constantly troughout the dispute. I am really sorry and disapointed that WP admins are not taking this serously enough... FkpCascais ( talk) 10:12, 10 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Statement by Director

I submit for everyone's review my above exchange with FkpCascais. The user asked for evidence. I directed him as to where he might find it. In response to this, FkpCascais "declares" matter-of-factly that if I do not post a diff right here and now, I'm "making ampty accusations in order to missinform". Of course, not only was he there when the evidence was first presented, but just a short while ago he was also informed as to where he may review it (several times by several other users).

Even if I were to present the diffs here, FkpCascais' WP:BATTLEGROUND disposition makes it impossible for him to ever admit they constitute an infraction. FkpCascais can never ever admit he is actually wrong, either in his debates themselves, or on the issue of whether they constitute WP:TE (or any infraction whatsoever). The user is (perhaps unlike myself) a very polite and courteous person, and I dare say highly skilled at victimizing himself. That alone, however, does not absolutely nothing to mitigate his extremely disruptive influence.

FkpCascais has not shown any willingness to correct the disruptive aspects of his behavior, or even accept the hypothetical possiblility that he might be in the wrong. Even now, as WGFinley suggests [22], he is in essence evading the topic ban through any means at his disposal (such as numerous user talkpages, and yes, even threads like this). Far from lifting it, this topic-banned ought to be extended, perhaps even indefinitely. If not, we will likely be back here shortly upon its expiration. -- Director ( talk) 21:35, 10 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by FkpCascais

Result of the appeal by FkpCascais

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

• Noting here that I intend to look into this. I've had a look at the archived AE discussion that resulted in the topic ban that's being appealed, and will look at the appeal itself later on. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:26, 8 March 2012 (UTC) reply
• From reading the original AE report (linked by FkpCascais at the beginning of this appeal), it appears to me that he tried to use various processes to "win" in a dispute by having his opponents blocked, and when he failed to achieve this through ANI and SPI, he pestered the admins who refused to block his opponents, and even accused one of them of bias. The wall of text above does not attempt to address this. FkpCascais, I would at least hear you out if you tried to present mitigation, a plea that it was out of character, credible assurances that you will participate in disputes reasonably in future, or even claimed that the sanction was inappropriate or mistaken or unduly harsh. That's not to say I would agree, but it would at least be some attempt to address the concerns that led to the topic ban. As it is, you've given a wall of text, but it appears to be an attempt to rehash the original AE thread (or, if I were being less charitable, to re-write history), not an appeal of anything resulting from it. As such, I recommend this appeal be dismissed without prejudice to a future appeal which addresses the reasons for the sanction.

  This appeal has been open for three days already, during which time multiple uninvolved admins have commented on other threads, so if there are no dissenting comments in this section in the next 48 hours (five days in total), I will assume that no uninvolved admin believes the appeal should be granted and close this thread accordingly. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:45, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

• I'm not seeing any actual appeal here; if there's nothing here by this evening (48 hours from HJ Mitchell's comment is around 10 in the evening my time) I'll shut it down if someone hasn't by then. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 20:35, 10 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Request concerning Tiamut

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 12:22, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

WP:ARBPIA#Purpose of Wikipedia under Wikipedia:ARBPIA#Enforcement

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

1. 11:46, 6 March 2012 Reinsertion of text in violation of WP:UP#POLEMIC following a unanimous, 5 to 0, support by uninvolved admins to have it removed.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

Tiamut was among the involved parties in the original WP:ARBPIA and has been blocked for a week in 2010 following a WP:AE report (The block is missing from the Wikipedia:ARBPIA#Log_of_blocks_and_bans).

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

In the WP:ANI thread summarized here [23] all of the 5 uninvolved admins were unanimous in their view on this text. Reinsertion of the text by Tiamut after such a clear consensus is disruptive conduct. The talk page summary for this edit is, in my honest opinion, inappropriate as well.
Correction: I've missed one uninvolved admin who was in the opposing view.

Extra Note 1: I'm hoping this thread will not devolve into a chain of like-minded editors (i.e. on the same side of the political fence), chanting "bogus!" in unison. In that regard, Gatoclass presenting a link to a spat I may have had with Tiamut in 2008 is a complete red herring. Would be nice if it were possible to have uninvolved admins dominate the discussion.

@ErrantX: Here's the consensus view from uninvolved admins regarding the content:

• [24] - Hello Tiamut. As an uninvolved administrator, I would politely request you remove the quotes section from the top of this page. It serves no purpose but to stir up emotions from the other side of the Judaism debate. Thank you. — foxj 18:00, 5 March 2012 (UTC) reply
• [25] - rm polemic material. This is politically-motivated and intended to divide. Revision as of 22:21, 5 March 2012 (edit) (undo) Crazycomputers (talk | contribs)
• [26] - Frankly, I would say that both of those talk pages need to be blanked. There's no need for such incendiary talkpages. Black Kite ( talk) 22:57, 5 March 2012 (UTC) reply
• [27] - Wikipedia is not for advocating our political opinions. If Tiamut wishes to do that, then I suggest they start a blog and keep it there, but any remotely objectionable content in userspace that is not directly related to improving the encyclopaedia should be removed in my opinion (regardless of whose userspace it is in and what it is advocating). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 04:45, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

It is quite shameful where some editors insist anti-Jewish propaganda is somehow conductive to the purpose of the project. This has very little to do with whether or not I interact with Tiamut (I don't).

@ErrantX 2:

• The methodology of uninvolved admins is applied on many instances relating Arab-Israeli issues. The majority of non-admins who commented, e.g. RolandR and Zcarpia, are wiki-advocates for the same content Tiamut is promoting. In that respect, almost any discussion which is based on involved parties will gain no consensus. Wikipedia is full of examples where only the final conclusions of of uninvolved admins were used for deciding if there was a consensus.
• Tiamut's talkpage makes a mockery of the immense suffering of the Jewish people and his quotes end with 'sharpen the weapons' type battle cries. Imagine what one could do with WP:POINT edits that insult Palestinians on a similar level.

@Timotheus Canens,

• I am simply interested that extremely offensive content will be removed after a consensus was reached (see above).

@univolved admins,

• I've left notes for the admins who supported the removal of the content and request their input would be considered.
• I can see where my removal of the content was not the best approach and can see where a mutual IBAN would be beneficial. I am actually voluntarily complying with such an arrangement for quite some time. Clearly, I only acted out of real distress and requested the input of uninvolved administrators -- why otherwise would I go through so much bureaucracy? Regardless, I am not against making it official for the both of us.
• A topic ban, however, has no valid article or talk page basis and is a strictly punitive suggestion. I've collaborated quite well with all of my recent edits (disregarding an issue with Gatoclass), which were beneficial to the project (Samples: [28], [29]).
• Regardless of my own errors in handling of this issue, I am simply interested that extremely offensive content will be removed after uninvolved administrators expressed a consensus (see above).

Offtopic: I'm thinking that the block Tiamut incurred in 2010 should be added to the log file. Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 19:54, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Tiamut has a history of defending antisemitic commentary: It is not often clear that comparing Jewish actions during the Arab-Israeli conflict with that of horrible historical large scale killings (e.g. colonial France in Algeria) is extremely offensive propaganda. While I have not acted in the best way, editors here have injected their political perspective in a way that tipped the debate in a certain seemingly inconclusive direction. But Tiamut has a history of defending antisemitic "undertones" and the content at the top of the talkpage clearly falls under WP:UP#POLEMIC. Had the wheel's been reversed and my page was decorated with a cleverly outlay-ed comparison of Palestinians with Nazis, I'm more then certain an outcry would soon follow.

• Sample 1: [30] - "NSH001 may have soapboxed but he is entitled to his opinion. Don't like it? Ignore it." - 21:17, 22 February 2010
• Sample 2: [31] - I find this remark to be incredibly disingenuous.

Here Tiamut went as far as to, on article, push the narrative that Israel "enjoyed" the 9.11 attacks. [32]

@Elen of the Roads,

• It is extremely naive to count !votes of editors who have been collaborating with Tiamut, promoting the same arguments as them in a matter where Tiamut's page promotes offensive content. In a case like this, where one "side" is being reviewed -- it is not common practice to count votes of the partisans involved. In that sense, separating the perspectives of uninvolved admins from the rest of the group is not the worst of ideas.

Invovled editors and "consensus":
Apparently, a group of editors is insisting I've made a big judgement error discounting the views of Tiamut's wiki-buddies on ANI. Discounting the views of a few who have collaborated in defense of a long blocked editor called 'PalestineRemembered' -- after he repeatedly suggested I was a war criminal in real life. "Surprisingly", there is some type of consensus among those people that offensive content is fine if it offensive to their politically opposite rival group (aka colonialist(!!) Jews), and in that regard -- I should not have made any changes to anything after they commented on ANI -- more so on a user's page who is a focal point of the clique. [33][ [34] [35] To be frank, I am concerned at how people can even consider such heavily involved editors as !vote givers.

Closing note

Neither I not Tiamut have a clean bill of history but we're both contributing editors currently. I have made a bad mistake of approaching edits myself and perhaps presenting the ANI in a fashion not immediately understood, though I hope the above comment regarding Involved editors and "consensus" clarifies it a bit -- mostly with This Moment of Clarity. Considering this is a second time I file a complaint against Tiamut that has issues, I accept upon myself an IBAN from anything Tiamut related for at least a year regardless if it is imposed officially or not. Still, as far as I am concerned, the current matter boils down to whether or not that policy, about using the talkpage for ill purposes (WP:UP#POLEMIC]], has any meaning when someone puts text that suggests 'sharpening of weapons' and 'victory' against another race. Mine, in this case. If you haven't lost your entire family tree in Poland, then you might have a hard time understanding why, when someone called your single state a colonialist enterprise and equates it with the French colonialism in Algeria, offensive. This is what Tiamut's talkpage banner was doing and four uninvolved admins have clearly expressed requests/opinion to have The material taken down -- and it should be taken out. The only difference between a Hamas Sheikh saying Palestinians will drive the "descendants of apes and pigs" out of Palestine and Tiamut's talkpage welcome message is that the first alludes to an Islamic text (where Jews sin and are transformed to apes and pigs) and the latter used a book about the Algerian War of independence -- as their source material. This is wholly inappropriate as a welcome message to a talkpage and should be removed. Consider the following replacements and honestly say they are not a problem as a welcome message to talkpages:

• Timaut's welcome message: "I am a [[Palestinian people|Palestinian]]. ... as a Jew is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that -- the villainy you teach me, I will execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."
  • Another offensive paraphrase: "I am a [[9.11 Attacks|Muslim]]. ... as an American is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that -- the villainy you teach me, I will execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction."
• Timaut's welcome message: "It is not enough for the [[Israeli settlements|settler]] ... colonial exploitation the settler paints the native as a sort of quintessence of evil ... The native knows all this ... he knows that he is not an animal, and it is precisely at the moment he realizes his humanity that he begins to sharpen the weapons with which he will secure his victory."
  • Another offensive paraphrase: "It is not enough for the [[Turkish invasion of Cyprus|settler]] ... colonial exploitation the settler paints the native as a sort of quintessence of evil ... The native knows all this ... he knows that he is not an animal, and it is precisely at the moment he realizes his humanity that he begins to sharpen the weapons with which he will secure his victory."
• Timaut's welcome message: "A Jewish youth in the Arab countries expects from Zionism nothing other than colonialism and domination."
  • Another offensive paraphrase: "A Jewish youth expects from Pan Arabism nothing other than terrorism and domination."

My concerns, and misstep, are a result of the fact that propaganda in the Arab-Israeli conflict kills people. It is not something you can say "false" and move on. [36] Here is an example from just 20 hours ago in which a woman 'sharpened her weapon' and luckily got caught before she could kill someone. [37]

Regardless of my own errors in the handling of this issue, these are wholly inappropriate as a welcome message to a talkpage and should be removed per WP:UP#POLEMIC.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

I'm thinking someone else should do this considering Tiamut's demand was "don't touch my user page again" [38]

Discussion concerning Tiamut

Statement by Tiamut

Statement by Tiamut

I'm going to try to keep this short, but may fail. My history of interaction with Jaakobou spans many years now, and has been singularly unpleasant, rather tiring, and all together unproductive. There was a time long ago when he could really get under my skin. I even kept a page titled User:Tiamut/Jaakobou in my user space at the ready to file at AE in the hopes putting an end to an editing pattern characterized by tendentiousness, mischaracterization, and unnecessary melodrama and hyperbole (the latter of which I can also be prone to from time to time, though less so I hope these days).

In the last couple of years, despite attempts by Jaakobou to provoke me into engaging him (like the bogus AE report he filed last year), I have managed to avoid spending too much time dealing with him. I was surprised when he first deleted the quotes on my talk page, as he had raised the issue nowhere previously and they have been there for years. When Fox7 came to my talk page to ask me to remove the quotes, citing one part as particularly offensive, I removed the quote he had highlighted. I did this because I can see how it might be offensive to Jews who survived the Nazi holocaust. I did this despite knowing that Fox7's intvention was due to Jaakobou's chat canvassing, which he resorts to everytime he wants to get something done while bypassing the scrutiny of the community at large. Its something he has been doing for years, ever since the Arbcomm that led to the Israel/Palestine article being adjudicated here. An arbcomm that was in large part prompted by Jaakobou and my interactions at Palestinian fedayeen (see archive 1 of talk there) among other articles. His off wiki canvassing probably has a lot to do with how he has managed to stick around here so long without any serious sanctions.

On the current issue, I do not feel that the quotes on my user talk page are so grossly offensive that they inhibit a collaborative editing environment here. I have productively edited Wikipedia with them on my page for years and have seldom heard a complaint about them. I can see how they might be offensive to someone who does not view Palestinians as equal (the first quote) or someone who thinks all Palestinians are terrorists (who can only read the first quote as a real threat) or someone who does not view Israel's actions in occuiped territory as colonial in nature (the second quote) or someone who sees political discourse as periphal to day to day life and the inclusion of political opinions as needlessly provocative or aggressive (all 3 quotes together). I'm willing to risk offending individuals from among these groups, not out of antipathy (though those who have problems recognizing Palestinian humanity aren't great loves of mine) but out a belief that being direct about one's sympathies is beneficial to the project. It cuts through the bullshit and it keeps my editing honest as it is subject to greater scrutiny. I try my best to keep my personal feelings in check when developing an article. I do try to express even those viewpoints I don't agree with, though I'm sure my own additions don't give them as full as an exposition as those viewpoints to which I am sympathetic. I think that's the case with everyone though, bar the most personally uninvested of individuals.

Finally, I'd like to point out that Jaakobou is now claiming that the quotes on my user page are anti-semitic. In my opinion, this constitutes a personal attack. Even if one's world view (see above) could permit them to interpret the first and second quotes as having anti-semitic overtones, such an interpretaton fails completely on the third quote, which makes it crystal clear the issue is ideological. There is no doubt that Jaakobou is offended because his preferred ideology is being depicted in terms that are alien to soul. Too bad ... Zionism is alien to my soul, but I deal with it all the time in life and at Wikipedia. If he cannot countenance seeing the view expressed on my user talk page, he certainly cannot countenance it in article main space and very often doesn't, even when its expressed by reliable sources, which has been the root problem underlying most of our interaction over the years.

I think I've said enough. and probably too much. I'd ask that after this AE is over, my user page on Jaakobou be deleted. I should not have kept it this long anyway. Tiamut ^talk 18:45, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Comments by others about the request concerning Tiamut

Comment by Gatoclass

Tiamut's (very longstanding) text box may or may not be considered too polemical, depending on one's POV, but given Jaakobou's history of harassment of Tiamut, he is absolutely the last person to be taking it upon himself to be making deletions of personalized content from her user page. How much longer is this user's WP:BATTLEGROUND conduct to be tolerated? Gatoclass ( talk) 14:50, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Further inspection reveals a considerably more disturbing pattern than at first evident:

At 11:25, Jaakobou misrepresented the AN/I discussion by cherry picking the nics from a number of comments that happened to favour his POV and listing them under the misleading header "Uninvolved admins (summary of this discussion)". [39] Four minutes later, at 11:29, without waiting for further discussion or for the AN/I thread to be closed, Jaakobou raced to Tiamut's talk page to delete the text box himself, using the cherry picked list he himself had created a few minutes earlier to justify the deletion. [40] At 11:46, Tiamut reverted him, warning him "not to touch my talk page again". [41] 26 minutes later, at 12:22, Jaakobou filed this case.

The unseemly haste with which this case was concocted is underlined by the fact that the AN/I thread itself was closed as "no consensus" only a couple of hours after the case was filed. [42] Gatoclass ( talk) 16:12, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

It seems a non admin decided to abruptly close the thread as "no consensus" after 5 uninvolved admins supported the content removal. Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 16:16, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

There was no support for content removal, only statements saying it was somewhat controversial. FunkMonk ( talk) 17:00, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Comment by Maunus

User:Jaakobou is misrepresenting consensus by cherrypicking among the editors who commented Wikipedia:ANI#Polemic_material_at_User_talk:Tiamut and ingnoring that it was closed as "no consensus for removal". It seems clear that Jaakobou has a personal stake in this issue and cannot be trusted to act in good faith in this regard. I think this falls under WP:BOOMERANG and WP:BATTLEGROUND. And by the way I have no previous involvement with either Jaakobou, Tiamut or ARBPIA related articles. ·ʍaunus· snunɐw· 14:55, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

It seems a non admin decided to abruptly close the thread as "no consensus" after 5 uninvolved admins supported the content removal. [43] Is this intentional disruption or just a bad joke? Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 15:53, 6 March 2012 (UTC) +fix link 16:04, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Admin's voices do not have more weight at ANI than non-admin's. 6 Non admins had commented against removal. That means 5><6 = no consensus. ·ʍaunus· snunɐw· 20:18, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Tiamut's highly partisan wiki-buddies can't be considered as individual !votes into portraying an uninvolved admin consensus into a seeming no-consensus status. That type of methodology quickly devolves into editors calling their buddies to drive !votes in favor of their political perspective. Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 20:50, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

The same reasoning applies to the other side. ·ʍaunus· snunɐw· 20:57, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Certainly, I would hate to see a situation where a pro-Israel editor is abusing his wiki-buddies to tilt a conversation and claim a false state of "no consensus" as is being done here for Tiamut. Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 22:05, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I am sorry but you are obviously the last person who will get to decide who counts as "neutral" and whose voices should be discounted in deciding the outcome of an ANI or AEthread regarding a topic related to Tiamut or the to Israel/Palestine question. ·ʍaunus· snunɐw· 22:18, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Comment by asad

This request should be speedily closed as it has nothing to do with a user requesting Arbitration Enforcement. - asad ( talk) 15:45, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Comment by ZScarpia

When I struck out a personal attack against another editor on an IP article talkpage, I was advised here that doing so was likely to be disruptive and therefore not a good idea. Jaakobou has now twice deleted text from another user's own talkpage which was not a personal attack, but which he/she merely found offensive personally. Could somebody, if they feel it is appropriate, please advise Jaakobou on the desirability or otherwise of his act. I think that it is reasonable that grossly offensive material is deleted, but I don't think that description fits the quotes that Jaakobou has been deleting. I should think that allowing the deletion of text which isn't grossly offensive isn't a precedent which it would be desirable to set in the IP area. Looking at Jaakobou's user talkpage, it looks to me as though insisting on editing other editor's talkpages over their objections has become a bit of a bad habit.     ←   ZScarpia   16:53, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Comment by Nil Einne

Errant has already said nearly everything I wanted to say except to note that it's not clear foxj supported removal. foxj appears to believe it would be best if Tiamut voluntarily removes the content (or never posted it in the first place), as did some people in the ANI discussion and for that matter so do I. But from what I've seen, foxj has never opioned on whether the content should be removed if Tiamut doesn't do it voluntarily. I'm guessing they were hoping it wouldn't be an issue. It seems this probably isn't going to be the case which is unfortunate although similar to what Errant said on Jaakobou's actions preventing any chance of consensus, I'm guessing they also potentially turned Tiamut away from voluntarily cooperating. It seems likely HJ Mitchell and Black Kite (and probably all of those cited) don't consider Jaakobou's actions a good way to address the problem. Nil Einne ( talk) 17:35, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Comment by Boing! said Zebedee

As an uninvolved admin, I have just had a read over the ANI report, and there was clearly no 5/0 support for the removal of that content from Tiamut's Talk page. Yes, there were some people opining that it would be better if Tiamut removed it, but there was clearly no consensus in favour of any action such as forced removal. I really don't see how it could be read any other way - Jaakobou's "5/0" claims are at best a misunderstanding, and at worst tendentious. (I offer no opinion on Tiamut's quotes themselves.) -- Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 17:47, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

At the time when the summary was made, it was 5 editors either saying it should be removed (see 4 diffs above) and/or that it is a soapbox that is unhelpful to the project. One uninvolved admin I managed to miss and have made note of that on this post as soon as I realized it (see "correction"). Regardless if you count 4 or 5, it is still a clear 5:1 or 4:1 majority. Currently, the list includes 6 uninvolved admins who mentioned that the text is not entirely proper with two admins maintaining that the thread should be about whether or not to implement WP:UP#POLEMIC and not just about the nature of the text. Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 18:33, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

The contributors had expressed concerns about the content, yes. But at no stage was there anything close to a consensus supporting the forced removal of it, which is a very different thing altogether - as everyone apart from you can apparently see. (And I checked the revision of the ANI report from the time you made your 5/0 claim.) -- Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 18:49, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Just to repeat what has been said below by Errant, ANI is not ARE. It doesn't really matter whether or not they are admins, their opinions still matter in determing if there is consensus for a decision. I'm not sure if you understand this since you said editors, but still seem to be ignoring non admins. To be clear, [44] shows that 6 editors (FunkMonk, Malik Shabazz, ʍaunus·snunɐw, ZScarpia, RolandR, Ravenswing) were seemingly not supportive of deletion at the time of your summation. You replied to most of them, so must have been aware of the comment. And this excludes the one admin you already acknowledged you missed.

Of course, using the opinion of someone who was seemingly opposed to deletion (Graeme Bartlett) to support your actions seems quite questionable anyway. (And as said above, also a user who asked someone to delete the content themselves on their talk page saying it was problematic but didn't otherwise express an opinion.) Do remember consensus isn't about counting votes and really 5 !votes and a few hours is too short for a decision anyway. And as plenty of people have said, as a somewhat involved user, you definitely shouldn't have been making it. (Particularly not if you have a poor understanding of how to determine consensus.)

P.S. I've been generally avoiding Israeli-Palestinian issues for a long while. But if you look far back enough you'll find my views are quite far from yours. However please don't ignore my comments because of this. I'm not advocating sanctions against you nor trying to stir up trouble. I simply think it's important you understand why what you did was a mistake in the circumstances. As I said above, it has made it difficult to achieve what I AGF you are trying to achieve (removing the content and reducing community strife in this area).

Nil Einne ( talk) 19:14, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

• Jaakobou also looks to have been canvassing - Foxj, Crazycomputers, HJ Mitchell, Black Kite, saying "Regardless if I am sanctioned, I would really like the antisemitic content removed" -- Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 20:29, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Comment by Fluffernutter

At least one, and likely more than that, of the users involved in removing the content from Tiamut's talk page were acting on a specific request from Jaakobou, via IRC, that such action be taken. I saw him request removal twice - the first time, it seemed to be a standard case of someone looking for an admin to help them out via IRC, and it is indeed within the realm of reasonable actions to have disputed and removed the content, but after I saw him ask for someone to remove the content a second time, I spoke privately to Jaakobou and recommended that he use on-wiki processes instead of IRC to pursue this issue, as using IRC to handle it could appear to be forum-shopping or coordinating other editors into revert-warring on his behalf. For that reason, I was pleased to see the issue brought to ANI (and now AE) instead of back to IRC, but I share the concerns noted above that Jaakobou seems to be applying a healthy dose of POV to his analysis of the ANI thread, especially in regard to citing editors who acted at his request as supporting him. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! ( talk) 18:05, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Whom do you feel should be excluded from my list of people considering the text problematic? Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 18:11, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

The issue is that you presented it as a list of people who agreed that the text should be removed, not as a list of people who find the text problematic. I think you are being deliberately obtuse now though.-- Atlan ( talk) 18:29, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

There were at least two more uninvolved admins who expressed it was problematic on top of the ones mentioned above who explicitly said it should be removed. If there were any places where I've misstated this, it was an oversight that does not really change the general uninvolved administrator's majority perspective. Anyway you count it, there is a majority who expressed the text was problematic and a smaller majority who expressed it should be removed. Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 18:40, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I'm not counting anything. It was a discussion of which the general consensus reached should be considered, not a head count. Besides, everyone but you says that there was definitely no majority or consensus for the text to be removed in the ANI discussion. Even the ones you listed as supporters say they feel misrepresented. You should really drop that argument.-- Atlan ( talk) 21:10, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I wouldn't say that this "misstatement" was an "oversight" so much as a bald-faced misrepresentation. In any event, consensus ≠ "losing side +1." Come to that, I just reviewed the discussion again. Including Jaakobou and Tiamat themselves, of the editors who gave their opinions, only four explicitly stated that the quotes should be edited off the talk page. A full eleven editors demurred, including two (Graeme Bartlett and Errant) whom Jaakobou claimed supported his POV, both subsequently objecting to the characterization.

Peculiarly enough, Jaakobou also claimed that Foxj voted to support removal, an admin who hasn't made any edits on ANI this calendar year, let alone in the discussion under question. WTH? Ravenswing 21:36, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I'm left wondering how many of those have in the past collaborated with and promoted Tiamut's perspective on an article space. Surely RolandR, ZScarpia, and a few others are commonly jumping in to support his views and cannot be considered as external observers to a situation where someone says he is offended by text promoted on Tiamut's talkpage. Four uninvolved admins made diffs which explicitly stated preference / request the removal of the text (links above) -- fox's diff was presented on ANI by Chris, btw. Two more uninvolved admins stated that the text is polemical/soapbox/etc. but did not promote its removal. One uninvovled admin stated he sees nothing offensive/problematic with the text. Most of the other contributors are known parties to the WP:ARBPIA and counting them is "bald-faced" misrepresentation. Considering input from uninvolved admins is a reasonable way to consider a clear majority noting the text is problematic, and a soft majority for removal of the content. I agree that my actions were not the best idea, but between that and between your promoting a false idea of "no consensus" because a certain clique participated on the discussion, there is a wide gap. Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 21:54, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Are you quite sure that you want to toss AGF aside and make accusations of bias and cliquish behavior? With you hopping on board on ANI, having a proven history of antagonism towards Tiamat, when you hadn't otherwise made any edits to ANI since August of last year? Are you genuinely arguing that you'd just, quite by accident, stumbled onto this ANI discussion?

That aside, Foxj's diff from another location on Wikipedia isn't pertinent. Only those opinions registered in that particular discussion are, something that after five years and 15,000 edits on Wikipedia, I'm surprised you hadn't known. We don't, for instance, get to claim in an AfD that any other editor's POV from any other deletion discussion or talk page is relevant to gauging consensus. Ravenswing 23:27, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Hello Ravenswing. I would like to note that the content in question here was brought to my attention over IRC. At this point I was, as any administrator should, assuming good faith. I personally do not have any objection to the content now left on this user talk page; Tiamut removed all that I considered polemical and I consider the issue resolved. I would agree that Jaakobou is now taking this issue too far and to too many forums. — foxj 01:27, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Hi FoxJ,

Let me start by agreeing that my action in this one has been haste-full and far from perfect and for that I am sorry. That said, my motivation should still be considered for the purity of which it derives...

Please compare the following:

"A Jewish youth in the Arab countries expects from Zionism nothing other than colonialism and domination."

"A Jewish youth in the Arab countries expects from Arabs nothing other than terrorism and domination."

"A Scottish Australian expects from Arabs nothing other than terrorism and domination."

I am sorry if you can't see the problem with this text but I take considerable offense from it and from the other text as well. There's simply no justification to put such divicive comments as a welcome note at the top of the talk page.

With respect, Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 09:11, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I think you're sensationalising just a tad. — foxj 10:02, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

That is also a false analogy. "Zionism" is an ideology, "Arabs" are a people. -- Saddhiyama ( talk) 10:06, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

That is "very subjective" (quoting someone from ANI). Would you prefer "Pan Arabism"? Zionism is the belief that Jews are allowed to have a state. Common propaganda is to try and portray is as something much worse. Example 1, Example 2.

Example no.3 is currently sitting at the top of Tiamut's talkpage. Sure, it might not be as obvious as the first two, but it is one quote among a few that present the same technique applied throughout the middle east.

With respect, Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 10:18, 7 March 2012 (UTC) +clarify further. 10:26, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

We are slowly moving away from the matter at hand and moving into the highly volatile and far from savoury world of POV. Jaakobou, your analogy makes no sense to me for both the reason already stated (regarding Arabs) and the fact that I am atheist; my nationality/ies mean nothing in this case. — foxj 11:15, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

In addition - where we differ is if I read what you have just written I would instantly know it to be false and move on, ignoring the material, while you would crusade to get it removed, going to the extent of filing requests at this page doomed to fail thanks both to your poor history with this user and their apparent triviality. — foxj 11:18, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Propaganda in the Arab-Israeli conflict kills people. It is not something you can say "false" and move on. [45] Here is an example from just 20 hours ago in which a woman 'sharpened her weapon' and luckily got caught before she could kill someone. [46] Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 12:11, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

With respect, I highly, highly doubt that someone will stumble upon Tiamut's user talk page on Wikipedia and immediately gun someone down. — foxj 17:09, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

The community laid out a policy -- WP:UP#POLEMIC -- which says (in so other words) that race directed delegitimization and battle cries should not be used as welcome messages on user talk-pages. That a clique of like minded editors (with a history of reverting for each other and giving each other barnstars) can circumvent it based on their political affiliation is not a very good idea for the encyclopedia. In fact, ARBCOM made clear it was a violation of Wikipedia:ARBPIA#Purpose_of_Wikipedia if done in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Maybe I'm doing the same mistake as before, but it seems this discussion consists of a disproportional amount of editors with a clear political affiliation with Tiamut's worldview. At 15:34, 7 March 2012 one of them asserted my presentation on the text in question was offensive, so he wants Tiamut's offensive content to stay, but for my text, explaining why it is offensive, to be removed. Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 18:17, 7 March 2012 (UTC) +c 18:19, 7 March 2012 (UTC) +time. 18:23, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

In all honestly by going to the lengths you have, you are simply showing yourself to have the same biases, just on the other side of the fence. Frankly I think you're gifting yourself a lot of rope here. — foxj 18:31, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I am sorry for my errors in this case. Certainly, I do not deny my own subjectivity here either. Still, my lack of decorum should not be abused to ignore the trigger for it -- i.e. "It is not enough for the [[Israeli settlements|settler]] ... colonial exploitation ... The native knows ... he begins to sharpen the weapons with which he will secure his victory.". -- which still sits as Tiamut's 'welcome to my talkpage' message. You may find it all a harmless virtual message, but just recently Israel commemorated the slaughter of 5 family members (baby included) by 2 knives yielding Palestinians. [47]

With respect, Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 18:47, 7 March 2012 (UTC) +link 18:51, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

• The bottom line is that - by a large margin - the community does not feel that Tiamat's comments are objectionable enough to warrant removal. By a near-unanimous margin, however, we seem to find Jaakobou's actions objectionable and, indeed, actionable. I was startled when looking it up to find that having registered over 15,000 edits and having been on Wikipedia over five years, scarcely a quarter of Jaakobou's edits are in articlespace; indeed, in the last year, he has made less than 90 edits in articlespace all told, including reversions, minor edits and deletions. It would appear he is far less focused on building an encyclopedia than in arguing about it. Ravenswing 20:27, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply
  • You assertion that my interest is arguments is without merit. Here are a few examples to show I have collaborated and reasonably well. [48] [49] [50]
  • Secondly: I agree that my response to this distressing matter was poorly thought through, possibly because this matter hits very close to home -- literally. Disregarding my feelings that Tiamut is putting very offensive themes/techniques of slander into nuance and wedges them into the project, I fully accept that I should take up an interaction ban from all things Tiamut related at least for a year.
  • Lastly, it is disturbing to again and again see a rather large number of editors affiliated with Tiamut lumped up as part of "the community consensus".
  • Cordially, Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 20:56, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply
    • What do you fancy my affiliation with Tiamut is? We have never before, as far as I recall, had any interaction whatsoever.

      That being said, we are supposed to be creating an encyclopedia here, collaboratively, and not functioning as if we're bands of supporters from competing football teams. Each and every one of us gets to chime in on pertinent discussions, and we do not get to automatically dismiss the views of anyone just because they're "affiliated" with one side or another ... or whether, as much to the point, that we claim that they are. After all, you were allowed to register your opinion on the ANI, weren't you, despite your history of hostility with Tiamut? Ravenswing 22:19, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I suppose he means that by taking his side in a dispute you have "affiliated yourself" thereby becoming biased for which reason your voice doesn't count... Same thing happened to me once except then I was all of a sudden "affiliated" with "the wikipedia Jews" and had my name appear on Stromfront.org. ·ʍaunus· snunɐw· 22:56, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

A few questions:

Where on ANI did I count my opinion as an uninvolved !vote?

Does an owner of jewsagainstzionism.org count as involved enough to be affiliated?

What about someone who reverts for Tiamut on multiple articles?

As for the two of you, I have not checked your history but did see neither was an admin. Should I check it??

Regards, Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 00:13, 8 March 2012 (UTC) reply

"Does an owner of jewsagainstzionism.org count as involved enough to be affiliated?" Oof. What a question. If you really do perceive the world in terms of "Those Who Agree With Me" and "The Enemy," that speaks very poorly for your ability to manage a consensus-driven, cooperative project such as Wikipedia. Quite aside from that I reject the premise that "affiliation" is an concept worthy of consideration here, nowhere in Wikipedia policy or guideline will you find the revolting notion that an editor's private life should be reviewed for political, social or religious affiliations one party or another in a dispute might not like. For my part, if you think the best use of your time is to delve into my editing history in search of Incriminating Evidence!, you go right ahead; knock yourself out. Ravenswing 01:13, 8 March 2012 (UTC) reply

My curiosity has got the better part of my discretion, unfortunately. Above, you have referred to two editors by name, Roland and me. I'm taking a guess that Roland might be the owner of the jewsagainstzionism.org site (which looks as though it was last updated in July 2006), so am I the minion of Tiamut who's been reverting on her behalf, in which case, how many reversions have you counted (hopefully, by multiple, you mean more than twice)? You also referred to a clique of editors who've been reverting for each other and awarding each other barnstars. I'd like to point out that I've never given anyone else a barnstar, nor (sadly) received one myself. You, on the other hand, don't seem to be lacking for barnstars. Is it possible that you, yourself, might be a member of the type of clique described?

Tiamut is an editor who I admire for her intelligence and articulateness, though our paths don't cross very often. Her's is one of a number of editors' user talkpages that I put on my watchlist after the Jidf published their names on its "(s)hitlist".

    ←   ZScarpia   02:30, 8 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Comment by Ravenswing

One would think that an editor who has been placed on interaction bans, admonished and warned as often as he has would change his ways and become a less combative editor. While I have no say in what goes forward from here, this looks like a classic WP:BOOMERANG case, and I think that sanctions should go beyond an interaction ban - repeated reversions and attacks of this nature would have resulted in an indef block had a new editor been responsible, and experienced editors should be held to a higher standard of conduct than that. Ravenswing 19:13, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Comment by Tarc

IMO this is a deliberate deception and misrepresentation of the ANI discussion, as one of the alleged 5 pointed out. Even if it were a legitimate finding following an ANI discussion, Jaakobou himself would never be allowed to be the one to make the reversion. That kind of in-your-face activity has seriously inflamed what should have been a straightforward discussion. Tarc ( talk) 20:19, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Comment by Zero

The material on Tiamut's personal talk page represents a political opinion. It is not more offensive than typical political opinions, and classifying it as "antisemitic" is a gross personal insult. People with opposite political opinions, like Jaakobou (whose political motivation here is blatantly obvious), won't like it. Given that there is no general policy against political opinions on user talk pages, Tiamut has no case to answer here. Jaakobou's behavior, on the other hand, is appalling as several other people have noted. Also, I don't agree that Tiamut's personal talk page is a page in the topic area of ARBPIA. Tiamut is in fact one of the best long term editors in the IP part of Wikipedia: very industrious and thorough, always looks for the best possible sources, etc etc. Zero ^talk 23:11, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

ATTN Admins

Jaakobou has multiple times slandered editors as (be it directly or indirectly) anti-Semites, these comments should be redacted, and Jaakobou be given warning that he should not continuing slandering editors per WP:NPA. - asad ( talk) 15:34, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

The theme or technique of role reversal, comparing Jews with Nazis and others responsible for vast numbers of killings -- e.g. French colonialism in Algeria -- are commonly considered antisemitic in nature.

Sample 1:

• "Israeli policies toward the Palestinians provide a reason to denounce Jews generally as perpetrators, thereby questioning their moral status as victims that they had assumed as a consequence of the Holocaust. The connection between anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment lies in this opportunity for a perpetrator-victim role reversal. "

Sample 2:

• "This is only one of a myriad examples I found of overt anti-Semitism in the Arab world. The Jews are worse than Hitler. The Jews invented the myth of the Holocaust to gain sympathy. The Jews were behind 9.11. The Jews spread AIDS and other diseases. The Jews murder babies in bizarre rituals."

Maybe I'm making the same mistake as before, jumping to conclusions, but it seems you are saying subjectively divisive content -- such as Tiamut's promotion that Israel enjoyed the 9.11 attacks (presented in my evidence), or their talkpage welcome message -- should be deleted.

With respect, Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 16:30, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I may have missed it, so could you please point out to me where Tiamut promoted that "Israel enjoyed the 9.11 attacks" on his talkpage? And those completely unrelated videos that you keep linking to have nothing to do with the current dispute here on Wikipedia. -- Saddhiyama ( talk) 19:09, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

This is getting ridiculous. An entire thread -- groundless in the first place -- has now been turned into a forum about the alleged subjective response of Jews to criticism of Israel. It would help, if, instead of hunting for non-existent antisemitism in Tiamut's user page, editors were to put some effort into challenging and combating the very real antisemitism displayed in edits such as these: [51] [52] [53] [54]. RolandR ( talk) 19:35, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Hi Saddhiyama:

I added that link into my text which was labelled "Tiamut has a history of defending antisemitic commentary" The actual edit added the following into a wikipedia article space:

• Repeating similar sentiments in April 2008, Netanyahu said, "We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," citing these events as having "swung American public opinion in our favor." [55]

Tiamut is highly experienced in putting his views into nuance. Much like the replacement of the word "creation" with "intelligent design", it is reminiscent of the way creationists admittedly apply Wedge strategy in order to eliminate the theory of evolution from science classes.

p.s. RolandR, please avoid lacing the conversation with red herrings.

With respect, Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 20:25, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

That dif shows a sourced edit to an article, with a claim about one quotation by a named politician, not an edit to Tiamuts talkpage where the editor promoted that "Israel enjoyed the 9.11 attacks". That you can twist that to a summation that "Tiamut has a history of defending antisemitic commentary" is beyond belief. That has absolutely nothing to do with the current dispute. The foundations of this request was quite frivolous at the onset, but this is getting beyond absurd. -- Saddhiyama ( talk) 20:39, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

• What is the purpose of a pro-Palestinian advocate cherry picking "We are benefiting from ... the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon" made one Israeli Knesset member if not to push in the wedge? Jaakobou ^{Chalk Talk} 20:46, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

That is an article content dispute, and it has nothing to do with this current discussion. Sheesh, talk about red herrings. -- Saddhiyama ( talk) 20:51, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Result concerning Tiamut

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

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the wording at Wikipedia:ARBPIA#Standard_discretionary_sanctions is such that standard discretionary sanctions only apply to "All Arab-Israeli conflict-related articles, broadly interpreted." While this does extend to article talk pages, I do not believe it covers pages in userspace. -- Elen of the Roads ( talk) 15:18, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Per an email discussion on clerks-l (and I think arbcom-l too) sometime last month, WP:AC/DS was updated to reflect longstanding practice: that discretionary sanctions apply to all pages in the topic area, not just articles (or even articles + talk pages). NW ( Talk) 15:48, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Thanks. Must have missed that. -- Elen of the Roads ( talk) 18:12, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

The AN/I doesn't really give any strong support for removing the text. In any case, Jaakobou seems to have pretty much shot himself in the foot with his sequence of actions (putting together a somewhat dubious summary and trying to make the removal - rather than waiting for someone uninvolved to decide a consensus was reached). That's not done much except inflame the situation - and this AE has had much the same effect. Switching forums so quickly gives the perception of baiting Tiamut into action that AE could sanction. I am sure Jaakobou means well; but he's not acted well here. I suggest an interaction ban between the two editors. -- Errant ^{( chat!)} 16:21, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

• This is pretty blatant forum shopping, and considering the contents of that ANI thread, also pretty obviously meritless. At a minimum an interaction ban is in order, and I'm thinking that a topic ban is probably more appropriate since Jaakobou has been warned previously for making a plainly meritless AE request against the very same editor. T. Canens ( talk) 16:43, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply
  • I agree with Timotheus Canens. This needs to stop now – and, besides, the consensus emerging from the ANI thread was not that the material was inappropriate and should be removed. I'd support, as a minimum, an interaction ban, but also a topic ban. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 17:22, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

@Jaakobou; hmm, the discussion included multiple editors - some of whom didn't think (despite being AN/I anyone uninvolved is invited to comment, so don't worry too much about "admin") a mandated removal was warranted. Elen's advice on that thread is excellent; what counts as offensive is incredibly subjective. For example; quite a lot of our editors carry user pages with certain strong quotes/comments about God, or religion, which I personally find problematic - and even offensive. Rather than pursue such material it is better to let is slide; Wikipedia has always allowed a certain amount of expression of ones own opinion in user space. This comment by Tiamut is worth reading and taking on board, I think. Particularly I have no problem considering the feelings of others. I expect that they will consider my own as well. . Realistically you undermined any chance of AN/I reaching a decision to remove that text by pre-empting the community. What *is* concerning though is that despite consistent comments that you have no interaction with Tiamut it is emerging that you do have a history of interaction; much of which seems focused on getting him sanctioned. -- Errant ^{( chat!)} 17:15, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I would support a sanction against Jaakobou. Apart from his complete misrepresentation of the ANI outcome, his last three posts here [56] [57] and [58] consist of nothing but attacks on other editors. Elen of the Roads ( talk) 23:53, 6 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Excuse my newbie-ness here at AE but, how do we close out this? Clearly there is agreement for an interaction ban and a topic ban from AE(?). Can someone just enact that? -- Errant ^{( chat!)} 19:46, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I'm going to do it tonight, unless someone else gets to it first. T. Canens ( talk) 20:19, 7 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Per the consensus of uninvolved administrators above, this request on Tiamut is dismissed as meritless. Under the authority of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions, as incorporated by WP:ARBPIA#Standard discretionary sanctions,

Topic ban

For repeatedly filing meritless AE requests and persistent battleground behavior, Jaakobou ( talk · contribs) is banned indefinitely from all articles, discussions, and other content related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly construed across all namespaces.

Interaction ban

Jaakobou ( talk · contribs) and Tiamut ( talk · contribs) are indefinitely prohibited from interacting with, or commenting on, each other, broadly construed, anywhere on Wikipedia, except in cases of legitimate and necessary dispute resolution, and are further indefinitely prohibited from seeking any admin action related to each other, broadly construed, either publicly or privately through any means, except through the arbitration enforcement process or by email to the Arbitration Committee.

Appeals

These sanctions may be appealed at WP:AE after twelve months, and every twelve months thereafter. They may also be appealed to AE once within twelve months of their imposition, and may be appealed to the Arbitration Committee at any time. T. Canens ( talk) 04:08, 8 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning Lazyfoxx

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Shrike ( talk) 19:48, 8 March 2012 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:ARBPIA

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

1. 8 March Reverting in the middle ongoing RFC.
2. 8 March, [59] Canvassing other people to revert.
3. Date Violation of WP:NPA

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warned on civility [60]
2. Blocked [61] by The Blade of the Northern Lights ( talk · contribs) for violation of 3RR in Jesus article.

Though user was not warned officially but the user edited the Palestinian People article that have the warning on the talk page.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

The user disruption not only in Palestinian People article but in other articles he insert word Palestinian to various articles using them as WP:COATRACK as Jesus that he was blocked for it [62], [63], [64], [65]. I think the very least he should be warned about the sanction the best solution is to ban him from the Palestinian People and adding word Palestinian.-- Shrike ( talk) 19:48, 8 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[66]

Discussion concerning Lazyfoxx

Statement by Lazyfoxx

Comments by others about the request concerning Lazyfoxx

Comment by Malik Shabazz

I was disappointed, but not entirely surprised, to see an edit conflict break out today when the protection of Palestinian people ended, and while the RfC is still ongoing. Since Lazyfoxx started the conflict today by reverting to the contentious infobox image—and then canvassed other editors to assist— I think Lazyfoxx should be sanctioned. Lazyfoxx was blocked earlier this week for edit warring. I think a longer block, followed by a brief topic ban, is in order. —  Malik Shabazz  ^Talk/ _Stalk 20:08, 8 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Result concerning Lazyfoxx

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

• I very, very nearly indefinitely blocked Lazyfoxx for repeatedly and loudly accusing anybody who disagreed with them a pro-Israel POV pusher and for the blatant attempt at canvassing to avoid a 1RR violation and the inevitable block that would have followed it. However, I decided to give them one last chance, and set the block for one week. I think Lazyfoxx has the potential to be a good contributor here, so if anybody thinks they can convince them that Wikipedia is not a battleground and that other people legitimately have deeply held opinions contrary to their own legitimate, deeply held opinion, please do—while blocking editors is not something I enjoy, I won't be so lenient next time. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:07, 8 March 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Concur with HJ's action. Also agree with disappointment folks can't seem to work with each other on this article. -- WGFinley ( talk) 23:05, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply
  • I'm the one who blocked Lazyfoxx for trying to drag the I/P fight into the Jesus article. I too think that Lazyfoxx has some potential, but needs to drop the battleground mentality. I had offered to help him after the initial 31 hour block, and I'm somewhat disappointed that he didn't take me up on it. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 20:30, 10 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Request concerning Eraserhead1, HiLo48, Chipmunkdavis, TechnoSymbiosis, N-HH, Timrollpickering, etc.

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

61.18.170.116 ( talk) 12:10, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

Eraserhead1, HiLo48, Chipmunkdavis, TechnoSymbiosis, N-HH, Timrollpickering, etc. ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Macedonia 2, and Ireland

Comments by editor filing complaint

This is a request to enforce the previous decisions regarding Macedonia and Ireland and to apply it to Taiwan / Republic of China, and possibly China / People's Republic of China.

There have been a large number of talk page discussions (including move requests) where a large gang of editors insist to mis-apply WP:COMMONNAME. Such discussions happened at Talk:China, Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese), Talk:Taiwan and Talk:Taiwan (disambiguation), and is still ongoing at Talk:Republic of China. Bad languages and personal attacks appear throughout the discussions (both in the main texts and in the edit summaries), and the group insist not to consider more details, such as the historical and geographical background information of the ROC, or the spillover effects to other articles about Taiwan and/or the ROC. They call people disagree with COMMONNAME as "fighting a 60 year old war". Contributions from IP editors were crossed out or simply deleted, and votes from IP editors were disregarded. All these are exactly what had happened before with Ireland and Macedonia.

I would therefore like to request the ArbCom to apply for previous decisions in those two cases in the case of Taiwan / ROC (and, if possible, to review the previous move from People's Republic of China to China too), particularly the decisions on purpose of Wikipedia, neutral point of view, naming disputes, editorial process, naming conventions, Wikipedia's content governance, and etiquette/conduct/collective behaviour. If in case previous ArbCom decisions cannot be applied as a matter of procedure, please advise whether I should file this in the form of a new arbitration request.

Discussion concerning Eraserhead1, HiLo48, Chipmunkdavis, TechnoSymbiosis, N-HH, Timrollpickering, etc.

Statement by Eraserhead1, HiLo48, Chipmunkdavis, TechnoSymbiosis, N-HH, Timrollpickering, etc.

Comments by others about the request concerning Eraserhead1, HiLo48, Chipmunkdavis, TechnoSymbiosis, N-HH, Timrollpickering, etc.

Result concerning Eraserhead1, HiLo48, Chipmunkdavis, TechnoSymbiosis, N-HH, Timrollpickering, etc.

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

China has nothing to do with either Macedonia or Ireland; you'll need a fresh arbitration case. WP:A/R/C is the right place. T. Canens ( talk) 12:45, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Attention: This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.

Request concerning Chesdovi

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

asad ( talk) 15:57, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

WP:ARBPIA#Discretionary_sanctions

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

1. 09/03/12 Removes the "Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque" ( Rachel's Tomb) from the template Mosques and Israel and the Palestinian territories, and creates a section called "Former Mosques" and puts it there.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Topic banned on 29/06/12 for one year by Timotheus Canens ( talk · contribs)
2. Blocked on 07/01/12 by Wgfinley ( talk · contribs)
3. Topic banned indefinitely on 15/01/12 for violation of previous topic ban by Wgfinley ( talk · contribs)

Additionally, the log at WP:ARBPIA#Log_of_blocks_and_bans will show the many other times where Chesdovi has been sanctioned for editing in the subject area.

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Clear violation of topic ban. Chesdovi continues applying their own WP:OR to say that the Rachel's Tomb is not a mosque, despite UNESCO classifying it as such. I frankly don't care if it is a mosque or a synagogue, or was never a mosque, this kind of tendentious editing is getting really annoying, and is a clear violation of Chesdovi's tban. - asad ( talk) 15:57, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[67]

Discussion concerning Chesdovi

Statement by Chesdovi

Comments by others about the request concerning Chesdovi

Many other edits by Chesdovi appear to breach the topic ban. See for instance the scores of edits to 1834 Safed pogrom and 1834 Hebron pogrom (far too many to link to, and related articles. RolandR ( talk) 16:10, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Those articles has nothing to do with the conflict.The events happened well before the conflict has started.-- Shrike ( talk) 16:20, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I don't want to turn this report into a forum, but I fail to see how you can argue that articles about Arab/Jewish communal violence in Palestine have "nothing to do with" the Israel-Palestine conflict. RolandR ( talk) 16:32, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

In any case it was already brought to attention of administrator and he didn't acted upon it. [68].-- Shrike ( talk) 17:17, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Shrike's preceding statement may leave the reader with the mistaken impression that the specific edits and articles cited above were already presented to admin WGFinley. But the IP who posted under the heading "topic ban" to WGFinley's talk page merely asked a very general question, saying, "How does this comply with this?" That is, the IP didn't mention any specific edits or even articles at all, but simply asked WGFinley to compare Chesdovi's overall contribution history to the entire 2012 ARBPIA Block/Ban/Sanction log. That's not really specific enough to be of much use, and it's understandable that WG ignored such a vague request.  –  OhioStandard ( talk) 20:04, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Result concerning Chesdovi

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

Obvious violation of the TBAN, blocking for 3 months. -- WGFinley ( talk) 22:07, 9 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Request concerning So so glos

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

OhioStandard ( talk) 11:17, 13 March 2012 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

So so glos ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

WP:ARBPIA#Discretionary_sanctions

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

1. 00:48, 12 March 2012 (UTC) Soapboxing at Joseph's Tomb re Obama and claimed "murderous rampage" by Muslims.

2. 01:03, 12 March 2012 (UTC) Reinstates Obama/rampage soapboxing; replaces "West Bank" location with "Israel", & etc.

3. 01:16, 12 March 2012 (UTC) Responds to admin warning re soapboxing with, "I do not listen to threats made by Muslim imperialists." reply

4. 01:30, 12 March 2012 (UTC) Adds Obama/rampage soapboxing 3rd time, repeats replacement of location info and removal of link to Arabic Wikipedia; & etc.

5. 05:26, 13 March 2012 (UTC) Adds Obama/rampage soapboxing 4th time to same article; reinstates similarly reverted material.

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

• 01:04, 12 March 2012 (UTC) Warned by admin Drimes against disruptive editing, soapboxing, and NPOV violations. reply

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

New account with just eight edits. Extreme POV editing. At Joseph's Tomb article repeatedly replaces "Disputed tombs" category with "Jewish shrines" category; repeatedly removes Arabic names for the tomb from article; repeatedly removes link to corresponding article page at Arabic Wikipedia; repeatedly removes cited info (that had supporting quote) that Christians and Muslims have venerated the site through the ages, but leaves the part of the sentence saying that Jews and Samaritans have done so. Edit warring on Joseph's Tomb to reinstate soapboxing re apparent wish for apology from Obama for the "murderous rampage" that user asserts of Muslims; reinstatement of other reverted edits.

In Rachel's Tomb article repeatedly adds "UNESCO lied and named the Jewish site 'Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque'. This was a politically motivated move to disenfranchise Israel and Jewish religious traditions." In same two edits to that article, repeats removal of U.S. condemnation of announcement that the tomb would become a part of the national Jewish heritage site, replaces location information. Similar and extensive changes to that article in those linked edits.

Very aggressive response to user and admin warnings, along with other behavioral factors seems unusual for someone entirely new to Wikipedia. Account hasn't received formal ARBPIA warning that I'm aware of in addition to admin Drimes' warning of a possible block, but behavior out of the gate, and the response to the warning the account did receive has been so aggressive that I can't see that this is someone who will ever contribute in any collaborative way. NOTHERE to build an encylopedia, imo, but to push an extreme POV in this already highly contentious topic area.  –  OhioStandard ( talk) 11:17, 13 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[69]

Discussion concerning So so glos

Statement by So so glos

Comments by others about the request concerning So so glos

Result concerning So so glos

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

• I've indef'd them. They're clearly not here to contribute constructively, and I see no need to allow them to continue to edit disruptively by sticking rigidly to AE procedures. This is a "normal" admin block, not an AE block for the record. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:00, 13 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Request concerning ‎Frizstyler

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:51, 16 March 2012 (UTC) reply

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

WP:ARBMAC#Discretionary sanctions

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

• Edit-warring to include polemic POV material on Macedonian language: [70] [71] [72] [73]
• Revert-warring on article talkpage to keep polemic off-topic material that had been speedily archived per long-standing practice on that page: [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81]
• Revert-warring on another related talkpage: [82] [83] [84]
• Threatens to keep reverting forever: [85] [86]
• Threatens to resort to canvassing: [87]

Diffs of notifications or of prior warnings against the conduct objected to (if required)

1. Warned on 16 March by myself

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Stereotypical nationally motivated pushing of POV grievances. Previous anon edits from 94.70.97.22 ( talk · contribs · WHOIS) are the same user.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[88]

Discussion concerning ‎Frizstyler

Statement by ‎Frizstyler

i initially went to clarify a bit more the disambiguation guide in the top of page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonian_language (also changed some title to monkey-donian by mistake , as i'm new in wikipedia,something the guy here is using to harrass me)and as a Greek add to the greek opinion showing the only proof i could find on the internet regarding this. I then after my change was reversed went to the talk page to discuss,but users future perfect ,taivo and dr.k Kept deleting my writings (IN THE TALK PAGE!!) without stating any opinion. and now they move against me here as if they are some kind of order. These internet clowns won't pass. I have let them know i spread it to other Greeks in internet blogs and they will face more people than me stating viable claims against them. To conclude, they also went in a rage of deleting what i wrote in THIS TALK PAGE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Macedonia. Seems they "handle" everything that has to do with FYROM in wikipedia. Really, who ARE THESE PEOPLE? WHO GIVES THEM JUSTIFICATION TO PLAY WITH WIKIPEDIA ON DEMAND? IS THIS THE WIKIPEDIA THAT ASKS DONATIONS EVERY YEAR CLAIMING IT'S OBJECTIVE? and finally, i wonder, ARE THEY WORKING FOR SOMEBODY?? BECAUSE THEY SEEM TO BE HERE AS A FULL TIME JOB!!

Comments by others about the request concerning ‎Frizstyler

Result concerning ‎Frizstyler

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

• I've blocked indef, clearly not here to edit productively. I don't think an immediate indef block is inappropriate, but I'm open to other opinions, so I won't close and hat this quite yet. I'll do my best to log it correctly, but if someone wants to doublecheck, that would be great. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 14:22, 16 March 2012 (UTC) reply
• The naming of Macedonia-related articles is well settled due to decisions by Arbcom and by the community. In his statement above Fritzstyler has asserted that "I have let them know i spread it to other Greeks in internet blogs and they will face more people than me stating viable claims against them." Fritzstyler made this statement after being given a proper ARBMAC warning, so there's no reason to expect him to defer to the consensus on Macedonia in the future. Floquenbeam's action seems correct to me. EdJohnston ( talk) 15:55, 16 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Consensus is quite clear that the interpretation of the topic ban's scope by the enforcing administrator is within reason, that the edits made given this interpretation violated it (and were also an unacceptable attempt to push the boundaries), and given the editor's history of misconduct and ban violations in the area before, that the length of the sanctions are well within reason, if not lenient. I strongly urge Chesdovi to stay well away from any area having remotely to do with areas dealing with Israel or Palestine upon returning from the block, as it seems patience is nearly exhausted here. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:42, 22 March 2012 (UTC) reply

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

Chesdovi ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Chesdovi ( talk) 18:34, 11 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Sanction being appealed

3 month block due to violation of Arab-Israeli conflict topic ban per this AE report.

Administrator imposing the sanction

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

Notification of that administrator

diff.

Statement by Chesdovi

Under the accepted scope of the A-I TB, only edits relating directly to the conflict area are prohibited. The edit in question was not.

• Jeremy, it has been clarified elsewhere that a page like "Template:Mosques in Israel and the PT" is not covered by the TB. Neither is Rachel's tomb off limits to me. Documenting whether the tomb was built as a mosque or synagogue or whether it today functions as a mosque or synagogue is also not covered by the TB. Such things are not deemed sufficiently related to the conflict area to prevent me from editing about them. Chesdovi ( talk) 23:15, 11 March 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Jeremy, while one purpose of a topic ban is to attempt to rehabilitate a users manner of editing, or “sorts of edits”, the topic ban itself does not address editing style, and it only relates to content. The ban only prevents me from making edits directly related to the conflict. You have unfortunately confused editing which may warrant a topic ban with the actual non-violation of a topic ban, as has WGFinley. While it was originally assumed that any page bearing the Template:Arab-Israeli Arbitration Enforcement would be off-limits to those under ban, it was later clarified that such a designation was not in fact the case. I have noted this clarification in a few places, not least here in another attempt by Asad to get me blocked. This is the second time WGFinley has imposed a sanction on me without explaining why I am in violation of my topic ban. He confidently states it is an "obvious" violation, yet, quite clearly he has wrongly blocked me twice under these false pretenses: He said "The standard is "broadly construed", I don't think I even need to go to broad for this one as Rachel's Tomb is in the West Bank!! A holy site that has also been a Muslim mosque and cemetery? You can't really be serious that you don't think this is falls under the Palestinian-Israeli conflict?" Well, for the purpose of the topic ban, as I have mentioned umpteen times before, Rachel's tomb does not fall under the topic ban. I understand he may not have been aware of this, but I cannot continue to assume that he is acting in good faith. He has simply avoided trying discuss this point with me for clarification of my position. This is not fair or what one expects from those given the task of administration. T. Canens stated one can edit in articles that “deal with Israel/Arab, but [which are] not related directly to the Arab-Israeli conflict” so long as "edits do not relate to the conflict in any way.” The only way I can suggest is that the issue here is that my edit was seen to be under "content related" in a permissible article or template, while I sincerely contend my edits are not related, that my edits do not stem from partisan positions in the A/I conflict. Chesdovi ( talk) 12:12, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

• Carwil, the fact that Rachel's Tomb is under Arab-Israeli conflict remedies and is located in Israel/Palestine does not mean those under TB cannot edit it. Please review my comments above and the discussion at Archive95. Chesdovi ( talk) 16:33, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

• Wgfinley: "I'm not certain what source Chesdovi is using to decide this area isn't subject to his ARBPIA topic ban."
  If you are not certain, why on earth have you not asked me to provide it to you until now?! You could not have reviewed the related discussion at Archive95. Please do. The conclusion there reached by the two participating admins ( T Canens & EdJohnston) clearly dispels any notion of error on my part. Your interpretation of what is covered by the ban has been shown on numerous occasions to be too narrow. My editing under the ban (issued on 29/06/12) has been based upon these previous digressions at AE. You cannot just come along and issue two successive blocks without providing an explanation as to why my edits to Rachel’s tomb are prohibited, when I have been led to understand that they are fully compliant with my ban. The last AE report was a total sham. So please don’t bring it here as incrimination. You did not get "nothing but cryptic emails" from me. That is a lie. You also did not bother to comment at all at my appeal of that block which I find totally unacceptable. When JamesBWatson did not respond to my explanation, I was under the impression that I was vindicated. You cannot block someone and then stay out of any discussions when the block is appealed. It is not professional of you to continue to assert that “the exact reason Chesdovi is making the changes is tendentious editing in the Palestine-Israel conflict” when I have disputed that suggestion as out of hand. You say "I just can't stay away from TE in this topic area." I find that totally unfair and unacceptable. The two edits upon which you blocked me were 100% NPOV. If you feel they are not, please bother to explain why, instead of leaving me to guess. Besides, it is not for you to implement a block for TE cause I'm under TB. If you feel I engaged in TE, file a complaint elsewhere. You have no right to use my TB as an excuse to block me for a diffrent infraction. By your comments, you are the one who seems to be sure you are in the right and they show how you are not taking into consideration my comments. You do not respond to them, but just announce your take on them. Very wrong indeed. I am sorry if you are upset I have used information from a private email exchange, but that stems from the fact that you have dealt with this in a totally unsatisfactory fashion which causes me to rely on it. Being the blocking Admin, don't you feel you should have done more to put across my view on the matter? And maybe show some willingness to understand my position? This is not encouraging. Incredible that WGFinley is faulting me on my behavior by citing my user page. I have highlighted to anyone who cares that WGFinley blocked me on an unsound basis, dealt with a block appeal in an unsatisfactory manner and implemented an indef-t-ban which was based on factual, and I mean real factual, errors. What else am I to do? I notice he recently linked “recall” on his userpage, but all I am asking is that he deal with the blocks he has implemented in the proper way. WGFinely is not dealing fairly with my case, and more importantly, he is not providing answers. This is wrong. Does he not care that the indef-t-ban he put on me was based on a wrong assumption? A pervious ban was not a violation of a TB, rather an IB. I specifically stated he was to move my email appeal over to AE – he did not. The list goes on and on. Chesdovi ( talk) 17:13, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

• The Blade of the Northern Lights, it is all very well you having your opinion on the matter, but can you please understand the fact that I was not basing my edits on your just disclosed view. You cannot fault me as I have been led to believe very clearly months ago by the Admin who implement my TB that editing on pages related to the conflict was allowed. Even if you disagree with them both, you will have to accept that I did not violate my ban as I was following their guidance. Chesdovi ( talk) 18:01, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

• Question for HJ Mitchell: How can you concur with WGFinley's actions when two other admins have indicated to me that editing an article like Rachel's tomb under TB is okay? Chesdovi ( talk) 19:02, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

• --Floquenbeam, you refer to an earlier block – but how can you gave that block any credence when my position was firstly not put forward at AE, and secondly, when a discussion was later initiated, there was not input from the blocking admin explain why the block was indeed valid. I don’t believe you have followed the history of these blocks. I’m afraid it is you who does not understand the scope of the topic ban. You are the third admin here to state the words "broadly construed". That definition has been accepted as not extending to articles like Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Western Wall, Dome of the Rock, Falafel, Yarkon River or any other similar subject relating the Israel/Arab. I want you to explain to me why my edit on the template is viewed by you as disruption, or as a biased, skewed edit. I have been the one who has been plying through the sources about the history of Rachel’s tomb. Have you? I know that no Muslim worship takes place inside the tomb. You may want to call a Jewish place or worship a mosque, but I think that rather inaccurate. Please show me where else this occurs, that a place of worship of one religion is called as a place of worship of another, if you expect to take your assertion that I disrupted the template seriously. Chesdovi ( talk) 19:37, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

• MichaelNetzer, says "there exists a content dispute about Rachel's Tomb being a Mosque." Admins commenting below have simply not read the discussion that ensued after the previous unjust block issue by WGFinley. Let me set the record straight: There does not exist a dispute about whether Rachel's Tomb is Mosque. A dispute does exist about whether the tomb and ante-chamber ever functioned as a mosque in the 19th-century and in the period between 1948 and 1967. Today there can be no dispute as to what the site functions as. Many East End Jews fondly recollect of what they call Brick Lane Synagogue, but we would not put Brick Lane Mosque in a template about "Synagogues in London", neither would we categorise it a “Synagogues in London.” Plenty of RS may still refer to the building as Brick Lane Synagogue, but for the purpose of the template and category, there is no question that the building would only be categorized as a mosque. Asad does not believe Rachel’s tomb is a former mosque. He thinks it is currently a mosque. I challenge him to explain his position. It is obvious that the term used in the UNESCO text, (which was not a unanimous vote by any means), referred to what Arabs call the site. It did not affirm the current usage of the site. It is so wrong, and I mean so very wrong, of various people here, WGFinley included, to suggest my edits here were based on a partisan slant I wish to enforce regarding the conflict. That is a lie. Nothing could be further from the truth, as I have made clear elsewhere. (It was myself who added the name “Bilal ibn Rabbah mosque” to the lead.) I have no time for people who scan material here without having knowledge of the background to this issue. You are all very good at counting my blocks and bans, but had you a real will to be fair and do what is in the projects best interest, you would first question my actions before passing judgment, and you would not be leaving comments supporting the lamentable actions of Asad and WGFinley. Chesdovi ( talk) 20:55, 12 March 2012 (UTC) ( copied to AE from Chesdovi's talk at 00:18, 13 March 2012 (UTC) ) reply

• Floquenbeam , you may be correct when talking about the main article text, but classifying the undisputable current function of a religious building in a category or template, be in in Bethlehem or Timbuktu, should not form part of a conflict area. I understand as you say this is not about content or "truth", but if you would have bothered to read my response to JamesBWatson who raised your very point of non-contentious edits in the conflict area, you will see that I contended that on the basis of a previously concluded AE, I am currently under the impression, vouched by other good admins like yourself, that Rachel's tomb is okay to edit under TB, despite the presence of the ARBPIA template, as it is not sufficiently related to the A/I conflict. This was stated crystal clear at the time. I have not seen it repealed. You must have, please show me where. If I were contesting the number killed in the Deir Yassin massacre, yes, that would be a violation. If I added "it was a sunny day" to Gaza War, yes, that would be a violation. Now, let go into this ARBPIA template that was added by User:Supreme Deliciousness. Who is SD to decide for all of us that this article in its entirety is forms part of the conflict? Shall I remove it and everything will be okay? Shall I add it to Holocaust, since that is what resulted in the favorable UN vote to partition Palestine. What about Ovadia Yosef – did he not once make racist remarks about Arabs? The list will never end. You see, a connection can be found to the conflict in everything, even in humble Za'atar. Users must use their common sense here, and some are refusing to do so. Chesdovi ( talk) 21:18, 12 March 2012 (UTC) ( copied to AE from Chesdovi's talk at 00:18, 13 March 2012 (UTC) ) reply

• Jeremy, I have provided enough information in my comments to other users here. Please read them if you are troubled by "contradictions". There are a few examples I have come across which back my position, here is one: [89] (issued the admin that topic banned me). I don't see how my edit is related to the conflict. You obviously do: Please explain - no'one else has. Chesdovi ( talk) 21:42, 12 March 2012 (UTC) ( copied to AE from Chesdovi's talk at 00:18, 13 March 2012 (UTC) ) reply

• In the first paragraph, Asad has not concentrated on the edit at hand, but has introduced his statement with a host of personal recollections. I am a slanderer and up to mischief. He ends off by reminding me of NPA and to comment on “edits rather than the editor,” although I would not call a reference to his “lamentable actions” a PA. I would very much like to respond to Asad’s summary of our checkered relationship, but this is not the place to elaborate on this. (I also personally don’t like my rewords being called “mutilation” – that’s the dreadful result of what happens to the bodies of kids who riot in Syria.) I would mention that it does seem odd that he wrote "I am now starting to find it slanderous and mischievous" and then goes ahead and provides two diffs nearly 1 year old. I mentioned he "complained" of there ever being Jews in Anabta after he seriously questioned the source I added which mentioned there were 6 Jews who lived there in 1931, (I think this was cause his grandmother didn't know them). Sure, I was irritated at the time and should have used a more neutral word, but I did not accuse him of being an anti-Semite. (That is what another user accused me of for describing Isaac Luria as a Palestinian rabbi.) He has now suggested I grossly misrepresented his stance about the current function of the site. He claims he "doesn’t care" what it whether it is a mosque or not. Well, why did he re-add the erroneous category back to the article claiming the fact that it is a mosque is supported by RS? I have challenged him to provide a source which states that this site is a mosque. If it is "supported by RS", let’s have them. If Asad doesn’t care whether it is a mosque or not, why did he add an unsourced and unsubstantiated claim that "Palestinians […] believe [the site] is a mosque." to the lead? [90] All Asad has ever presented is the term used in the UNESCO vote, which I have never had a chance to discuss with him and explain how that wording does not address functionality. And it is functionality which determines what is placed in cats or templates. So both my edits were not tendentious, they did not attempt to insert biased on skewed slant on the matter. Asad has now run to AE on two occasions over this very point without ever raising the point at talk. So we have two AE reports based on an erroneous interpretation of terminology used in one UNESCO vote which was not directly assessing or commenting on the actual site, rather its location alone. The countries did not vote on whether the building is a mosque or not. As the vote was tabled by Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syrian and Tunisia, it is not surprising the term mosque was chosen. Do the opposing votes of the other 13 nations have some bearing on the sites use?! The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement (1995) does not call the site a mosque, neither did the British call it such in 1930 [91], (although they did mention the mosque in Hebron.) Not even the comprehensive 1922 British status quo document ever referred to the site as a mosque. [92] But even if they had done, the matter at hand is dealing not what the building is called by various peoples, but what its use is. Surely that is the most important thing we need to know about a religious site? I don’t think we would add Category:Fortresses just because the tomb has been widely described as resembling one?
  

Yet all is not lost, it seems Asad has had a change of heart. Now, in response to the whole fuss, he says "fair enough." Fair enough: Chesdovi's claim is indeed "fair", just and valid. Yes, we should not be putting synagogues in mosque categories. It is fair that the Umayyad Mosque is not categorised as a church; it is fair that Al-Muallaq Mosque (my creation) is not categorised as a synagogue. If it is indeed fair, why is he opposing a similar classification of the tomb of rachel? He cannot bring proof from Eshtemoa synagogue, it being a deserted ruins known in RS only as a synagogue, (for accuracy Category:Former synagogues in the West Bank or Category:Synagogues ruins in the West Bank could be used). Note that reference to "mosque" in the category does exist: Category:Conversion of non-Muslim places of worship into mosques. This is the same with Jawatha Mosque where I added Category:Mosques in Saudi Arabia [93] long before I knew it was still in use: [94]. Ruins are obviously different from functioning buildings. I guess that is why Gaza synagogue was renamed. Religious buildings are categoriesd after their current function, if the site had been used as a place of prayer by another religion, it is not categorised as both, e.g. Nabi Yahya Mosque where Category:Mosques converted from churches by the Ayyubid dynasty is used. If it is currently shared, then both are used, Cave of the Patriarchs. It is not a “utterly hypocritical and disingenuous argument.” It make good sense. My edits did not touch upon the conflict – I did not remove “mosque” from the article. If Arabs claim “it is a mosque”, that does not mean they claim it functions as one. Again, even if Cathedral–Mosque of Córdoba is known by such a name, it should not be categorised as Category:Mosques in Spain until Mulsim worship is allowed in the building. I sincerely hope Asad repudiates his unfounded allegations of me attempting to circumvent the ban (!) and of POV pushing. Chesdovi ( talk) 21:07, 13 March 2012 (UTC) reply

• WGFinley: I had my "appeal denied"? I cannot fathom why that was. I followed the instructions and you called my communications "cryptic". You never responded to my appeal or moved it over to AE. I started emailing you as I wanted you to deal with the block and appeal. You did start to respond, but then when I filed a comprehensive appeal, you changed tact and did not opt review my appeal, as I naturally presumed you would. You instead said you would prefer my email to be transferred to the AE page so everyone is aware of the discussion. I then told you "if you want to duplicate my correspondence at AE, you may now do so." You then told me anything would only happen on your part if I "said the word." Well, I had already said you could move over my appeal – what you had preferred to do. And, nothing. Therefore "appeal denied". Great. And by the way, 5+ is a bit hefty don’t you think? My sanctions not as a novice only started after your blocking error of 22 August 2010. The ones which weren’t mistakes on my part, have been reduced. (It is difficult trying to get admins to admit they have acted unfairly.) I wonder what exactly your position is now. It had seemed I was blocked for merely editing ARBPIA protected Rachel’s tomb. Now it’s the edits themselves ("whether a holy site is a mosque or not") which are the problem. So you have surreptitiously changed your opinion with announcing it. Well, now that it’s clear that Rachel's Tomb, albeit a contested holy site in the West Bank, is not directly related to the ARBPIA conflict (it having a wealth of information dating from 3000BCE), and those under TB can edit that page, we need to assess whether my edit was directly related to the conflict: The conflict is whether the site should be a mosque or not, not whether it is a mosque or not. There a distinct difference – one would violate the TB, the other most certainly does not. I have read the UN on this: They clearly say the site has been turned into an exclusive Jewish place of worship. So you tell me, where is the dispute about whether the tomb "is a mosque or not." You are getting confused about what people call the site – well, what people merely call the site does not determine what the site is categorised as. To accuse me of being a "blatant partisan" is incredible and hurtful. I know the all edits I have made at this page – do you? I suggest you trawl through some of them so you can see for yourself what a baseless allegation you make. If you don't think I am capable of productive and NPOV editing, you should think again. You just read the 50,000kb productive discussion I had before I was blocked without trail, is that your idea of the "space has been disturbed"? Chesdovi ( talk) 22:02, 13 March 2012 (UTC) ( copied to AE from Chesdovi's talk at 02:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC) ) reply

• Floquenbeam, things can only be "controversial" if they there is a dispute or "perhaps" regarding that fact. In this case, there is no "dispute" or "perhaps" involved. It is therefore not "controversial." This is important, because it determines what is covered by the ban in permitted articles – i.e. only things related to conflict or controversy. That Arabs don’t want a synagogue to exist at the tomb does not warrant that by classifying it as such, one breaks the TB. That is taking it too far. The Arabs would like a lot of things in the conflict, does that me I cannot make edits about them? It's current status is indeed part of the overall I/P dispute, and so is the current status of the whole of Israel. You suggest a harsh sanctions against me (block indef) in the face of my TB admin specifically saying I can edit on Israel, even though it's current status is part of the overall I/P conflict. Again, you cannot fault me on that. I again emphasise, there is no dispute over the sites current status. That that current status fuels conflict is irrelevant. Chesdovi ( talk) 22:23, 13 March 2012 (UTC) ( copied to AE from Chesdovi's talk at 02:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC) ) reply

I am in the process of putting together a comprehensive account of why I believe the way in which WGFinley implemented the indef-ban was unreasonable, which in turn will allow me to rely on the scope of the original ban issued by Tim. I will not be able to finish it tonight as I have a family occasion to attend. Please bear with me. I would just add that I don't know what type of fool WGFinley takes me for. By his latest comments, does he think I can simply not help myself from purposefully breaking the topic ban? Does he think I would break it intentionally? I have been doing quite okay under ban for 7 months and then WGFinley imposes a block and indef-ban without caring to review or post my appeal. Yet as support for his actions here, he refers to my earlier appeal and claims that it was "denied". That is a 100% bogus claim. Why is it bogus? Because he did not review it. Neither was it posted to AE for consideration. In fact it was not even closed. So who was it denied by? This is shameful. I am no fool and am quite capable of staying within what I have been led to believe is the scope of the topic ban. Something is not quite right here and I hope to clear it up tomorrow. Chesdovi ( talk) 17:58, 14 March 2012 (UTC) ( copied to AE from Chesdovi's talk at 19:37, 14 March 2012 (UTC) ) reply

Putting a side my opinion that based on a previous "test case" I did not violate my topic ban (TB), I proceed to demonstrate how WGFinley's (WGF) indef-ban (IB), which "superseded" Tim's original ban, was constructed unreasonably. The chief points I wish to highlight are

a) the unfairness of implementation of the IB due to the absence of my appeal at AE;

b) the erroneous claim upon which the IB was based, namely that I had been blocked previously in November for violating my TB.

Disregard of my appeal

Below I wish to demonstrate that there was a significant lack of intervention by WGF with regards to the way he dealt with my appeal of the block; this of course impacted on the implementation of the IB. It will be shown that WGF did not respond to my block appeal either by way of personally responding to it or by posting it at AE.

I was blocked by WGF 48 minutes after Asad filed a report against me before I had a chance to make a statement. Three days after corresponding with WGF by email, I emailed him a comprehensive appeal assuming he would either accept it or reject it. Neither happened. Instead he responded that he "would prefer it go on the AE page so everyone is aware of the discussion." I replied to him that "ultimately any decision re. the reversal of the block lies with you" ... but went on to say "…But if you want to duplicate my correspondence at AE, you may now do so." WGF responded by saying he had not reviewed my appeal and that he would neither respond to it himself or post it at AE unless I instructed him to do so, I just had to "say the word" to get the ball rolling (this, despite that fact I had previously told him he could post it at AE - his preferred action.)

On Jan 12 after being blocked for 5 days, I informed WGF that I did not quite understand what was holding back the appeal process by telling him I was not following his course of action. (I had emailed an appeal and after two days it still awaited a response, either personally or at AE.)

Three days later on Jan 15, having sat on my unanswered appeal for 5 days, instead of posting my appeal, WGF informs AE (not me), that "I've gotten nothing but cryptic emails from Chesdovi," and, in addition to the leaving the (seemingly uncontested) block in place, imposed an indef-topic ban. This IB was imposed without my appeal being considered by anyone. My appeal was basically ignored by the blocking admin.

Apparently WGF ignored my appeal as it was "cryptic" in nature. In response, I emailed WGF querying his use of the word "cryptic." When he replied, he did not explain what he meant by "cryptic", but instead said I needed to "to put what you want said on your talk page and not in emails to me." This, despite the first instruction at WP:AEBLOCK being "address your appeal by e-mail to the blocking administrator." (I had also emailed the Arbitration Committee without response).

Following WGF’s instruction that I utilise my talk page instead, on Jan 16, I stated on talk that I wanted some answers from WGF. Yet it would be another 12 days until WGF was in contact again. Feeling that my block appeal was not being dealt with properly, On Jan 19, I posted at talk:

"My block has gone unchallenged by myself despite email correspondence with the blocking Admin which indicated that he should duplicate my response at AE, which he subsequently closed without doing so saying he had only gotten "cryptic messages" from me. I still wish to challenge my block and an indef t-ban which was implemented without any participation of myself at AE...."

More significantly, I subsequently filled out the Arbitration enforcement appeal, but for some reason it was never actually posted to AE, but remained on my talk page. The person who deserves praise here is JamesBWatson (JBW) who actually took up my concerns about my perceived invalidity of the block. From my point of view, my appeal was now being discussed in the correct setting, yet the blocking admin still did not see it necessary to comment on, accept or reject my appeal. Upon my response to JBW on Jan 23, there was no further communication and in my last note of Jan 26 I said "You are wrong. Now please get Mr Finley to unblock me."

Finally on Jan 27 I received a message from WGF:

"Are you seeking to have the block appeal you have on your talk page above posted at AE? You haven't notified any admin of that and it doesn't belong here on your talk page being discussed, I can post it there but given the way it has already grown here on your talk page I wouldn't recommend it. Your emails to me have been cryptic and you never stated in them you wanted to appeal your block. You need to be specific in your request on if you are appealing your block or your ban or both."

WGF explained that I had not notified an admin to move over the talk discussion to AE. I actually was unaware that this was needed, surely JBW would have done what was necessary. Instead of offering or automatically moving the discussion to its proper place, WGF recommended that my appeal be left undealt with. He again suggested my emails were of a cryptic nature without explaining why and claimed I never stated I wanted to appeal my block. I am at a loss as to what gave him the impression I did not wish to appeal my block. The fact is, I had clearly insinuated in my correspondence that I wished to be unblocked: "ultimately any decision re. the reversal of the block lies with you." Why else would I have sent emails to him in the first place if not to dispute my block?

False assumption of previous TB violation

WGF implemented the IB based on the assumption that I had violated my TB in November 2011. This is a false assumption I have highlighted earlier and received no subsequent clarification about from WGF. In providing a support for implementing the IB, WGF stated at AE:

"[Chesdovi] is also fresh off having a 30 day block reduced in November with a warning from Tim that future violations would likely lead to reinstatement of the block. I'm going to put that 30-day block back in place. I am going to leave this open though because I think it's time for discussion of an indefinite TBAN since Chesdovi shows no signs of reforming."

Yet in fact the November block was not for a violation of ARBPIA, but for an inadvertent violation of an interaction ban! Yet this "fact" was used as a reason to implement the IB?!

In addition to the above two points, I want to mention that it seems that WFG has come to a negative conclusion about my behavior by counting the number of times I have been "blocked for ARBPIA violations." Upon closer examination, I wish to show how this negative perception is unfair.

I have not been blocked 12 times for ARBPIA violations

WGF makes a wild claim that "This is the 12th time by 7 different admins Chesdovi has been blocked for ARBPIA violations." That is an inaccurate accusation. If my previous "10 blocks" is what WGF based his IB upon, he is most certainly mistaken.

Blocks:

Besides myself only counting a total of 7 previous blocks (not 10) in total, only 3 previous blocks related to ARBPIA.

2 were for 1RR under ARBPIA – (and my edits then were made in error), and

1 other for disruptive editing which was lifted early after I strongly questioned the fairness of the block.

The other blocks (I discount the two recent blocks issued by WGF) cannot be used against me in this instance of my editing in the I/P conflict area:

• 19 December 2006 - block was not linked to ARBPIA
• 22 August 2010 – block was an error by WGF
• 27 October 2011 - block did not relate to the I/P conflict
• 10 November 2011 – block was for an interaction violation, not ARBPIA.

Bans:

Furthermore, on imposing the IB, WGF stated: "Given the vast number of previous bans." I want to question WGF's use of the term "vast", a description used to support the IB. I had been given only one I/P topic ban. I therefore do not understand why WGF uses the word "vast." I hope he is not including two other bans I received which were not part of or related to the I/P conflict area (although they are listed at the ARBPIA log). Does 1 topic ban constitute "vast"?

WGF also mentioned the "repeated violation of the existing [TB] ban." This no doubt relates to some diffs provided by SD, which were construed as violations, but probably fell short of breaking the ban as I had understood the scope of the ban. In conclusion, there were not 12 ARBPIA blocks, just 3, and there have not been a "vast" number of bans, just 1.

I therefore conclude that the IB was unfairly imposed and based in irregularities and unfounded assumptions. It was unreasonable to impose an IB based on a) not responding to my appeal of the block; b) fraudulently claiming a previous TB violation and c) exaggerating the number of time I have been blocked under ARBPIA.

WFG has since claimed that my appeal was "denied". But in truth, it was not "denied". It was never reviewed by the blocking Admin, neither was my appeal opened at AE. He has also claimed I remained blocked for a full 30 days which is simply not true, WGF having lifted the block 7 days early. He also falsely claimed 60 days ago I was "warned and sanctioned on this article", but in truth no warning left on my talk page regarding Rachel's tomb before the sanction was placed.

I would add that OhioStandard has made a statement in which he raises 3 points. I would be happy to respond to each, but in the interest of time saving, will only do so if the reviewing admin thinks it is necessary and informs me to do so. In such a case, unless I hear otherwise, it would not be correct to take Ohio's comments into consideration at this stage. Chesdovi ( talk) 12:05, 20 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Statement by Wgfinley

I'm not certain what source Chesdovi is using to decide this area isn't subject to his ARBPIA topic ban, it's on Rachel's Tomb again which was the subject of his last AE report and his actions resulted in a one month block. One need not go to "broadly construed" to consider this part of ARBPIA, the exact reason Chesdovi is making the changes is tendentious editing in the Palestine-Israel conflict concerning this disputed site.

90 days is appropriate to prevent further disturbance in the ARBPIA space. His user page seems to reflect he has no interest in changing his behavior, he continues to use information from a private email exchange and thinks he is being wronged here. I'm not even certain 90 days will be sufficient to rectify this but I thought I would give him a chance to remediate. It's too bad because he has made many great contributions, he just can't stay away from TE in this topic area. -- WGFinley ( talk) 14:20, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

@ MichaelNetzer ( talk · contribs) I should point out is fresh off a 45 day TBAN and is currently under ARBPIA probation, it should come as no surprise he will carry it over to here on AE where he will tendentiously edit some more. Comparing this to the "Joseph" issue is ridiculous. Chesdovi was blocked and had an appeal denied on this very topic of Rachel's Tomb, he went and made substantive changes that are directly related to the ARBPIA conflict (whether a holy site is a mosque or not). Again, one need not go to "broadly construed" to deem this battleground beehavior Chesdovi has found himself subject to sanction over for the past 5+ years. At a certain point the space has been disturbed enough with blatant partisans and they need to change their behavior or find another topic. In this case Chesdovi refuses to find another topic, he wants to continue to be involved in this one. The only solution left is to block, it's the only action left. -- WGFinley ( talk) 18:42, 13 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Fundamental Misunderstanding of TBAN

Gentlemen, please go and review the WP:TBAN policy, and also my very unambiguous statement of what the ban is:

Chesdovi ( talk · contribs) banned from all articles, discussions, and other content related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly construed across all namespaces indefinitely.....

1. There simply is no debate the article itself is related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, we're talking about whether Rachel's Tomb is a mosque or not.
2. Talk:Rachel's Tomb unambiguously states the article is subject to ARBPIA sanctions.
3. Chesdovi was previously warned and sanctioned for his actions on this article but 60 days ago, 30 of those days he spent blocked.
4. This is the 12th time by 7 different admins Chesdovi has been blocked for ARBPIA violations, he's very familiar with the process and that he is under scrutiny.
5. The only shred of an argument that could be made is if Chesdovi made an edit to the article that was not related to the dispute over the site. His edit is precisely about the disputed nature of the site and is a blatant, clear and obvious violation of his TBAN.
6. Chesdovi has been given numerous opportunities to remediate his behavior and edit in ARBPIA harmoniously, he is clearly unable to do so and 90 days is a light action in light of these clear and indisputable facts. It's become clear to me that perhaps only an indefinite block will rectify this matter.

This is my final comment on the matter, I hope it is concluded soon. -- WGFinley ( talk) 04:20, 14 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Statement by asad

I have tried to stay away from engaging with Chesdovi and ignore him as much as I can. I have endured many a personal attack and elitist language that he has thrown at me for the better part of eight months now. But one thing I will not tolerate any more is further distortion of my words by him. Besides just being annoying, I am now starting to find it slanderous and mischievous. He toyed with allegations of antisemitism by claiming I have purposely white-washed Jews out of the history of my hometown [95] and accused me of not knowing how to use English [96]. That's fine, you know, all water under the bridge. But now this thing has come up. The latest accusation is that "Asad does not believe Rachel’s tomb is a former mosque. He thinks it is currently a mosque." [97]. Of course, this is a gross misrepresentation of what I said as well. As in the original report I said, "I frankly don't care if it is a mosque or a synagogue, or was never a mosque, this kind of tendentious editing is getting really annoying, and is a clear violation of Chesdovi's tban." [98]. I ask that Chesdovi by reminded that per WP:NPA, that he comment on the edits rather than the editor.

As far as the synagogue vs mosque thing, I would like to sum up how I understand Chesdovi's arguments. 1) Rachel's Tomb (or at least part of it) may or may not have served as a mosque at some points in the early 20th century 2) It is not "currently" being used as a mosque, so therefore it shouldn't be included in a category/template of "Mosques in the Israel and the Palestinian territories".

Fair enough, so if Chesdovi wanted to apply the same standards all around, he would have certainly omitted the "Synagogues in the West Bank" cat from the Eshtemoa synagogue article, right? Wrong. The article, in which Chesdovi created, states that, "The Eshtemoa Synagogue, located 15km south of Hebron in as-Samu, West Bank, was an ancient synagogue dating from around the 4th-5th century CE." As per Chesdovi, a building that once functioned as a mosque, but no longer does, does not deserve a cat describing it as such, but ruins that were once used as a synagogue, but no longer do, do deserve a cat describing it as such. It is an utterly hypocritical and disingenuous argument.

It is no secret that the something like this would fall under the scope an WP:ARBPIA tban, and the continuous denying of such connection and attempts to circumvent the ban is WP:GAMING and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT on Chesdovi's part. This coupled with the obvious POV pushing and personal attacks, I find a 3-month ban to be incredibly light. - asad ( talk) 14:15, 13 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Statement by (involved editor 1)

Statement by (involved editor 2)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Chesdovi

The topic ban explicitly notes that any edit about or on articles related to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict (broadly construed) is verboten. See [99], which has been extended to indefinite because of his refusal to abide by it. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 22:07, 11 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Where has that been said, Chesdovi, and by who? Nothing I have seen thus far suggests any such thing, and you were sanctioned because of those sorts of edits specifically. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 03:29, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

1) That's a dodge. Give me a diff. 2) Your statement to Carwil immediately after is such a blatant contradiction in and of itself that I will not respond to it - it speaks for itself. — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:20, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Note that I said, and noted, that edits about or on the conflict are forbidden - as in, no edits about articles in the topic area and no editing pages related to the issue, which it looks like Rachel's Tomb is. No matter how much you try to spin it, there is no way in Creation that that edit was in any way acceptable, no matter what T. Canens says (wishing no offense to the man). — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:58, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Rachel's Tomb is under Arab-Israeli conflict remedies and is located in Israel/Palestine. The fact that the mosques template is not isn't particularly convincing here.

However more importantly (and here is where my interest begins), one of the problems that ARBPIA seeks to address is the continuous exporting of WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior to an increasingly wide swath of Wikipedia. If present remedies don't require banned editors to cease and desist in such boundary cases, they should.-- Carwil ( talk) 14:03, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I agree with your last point, and if you notice the Israel-Palestine conflict being exported to other articles, please do bring it up here—I for one take an extremely dim view of that sort of conduct, and I would have no qualms about sanctioning an editor for it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:29, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Comments by MichaelNetzer

HJ Mitchell and Blade: In the precedent of the archive 45 case that Chesdovi cited, Ed Johnston and T. Canens both agreed that a TB allows editing a page in the topic area if the edit is not associated with the conflict itself. In that case, even the filer of the complaint (the same filer of this complaint) acknowledged this view and withdrew the complaint. In that same case, Chesdovi's previous TB was also "broadly construed". Your statements here about a "broadly construed" TB thus do not seem to reflect the facts in the precedent case, as viewed by the two admins who agreed to close it, and under which Chesdovi made the template edit in question.

The caveat given by T. Canens was that "if the exportation of disputes from Arab-Israeli conflict becomes a substantial problem" then a TB would become more absolute. Given these facts, how can you blame Chesdovi for adhering to this decision in good faith? If admins choose to now decide, due to this case or others, to limit the TB even further, then this should only become enforceable from this point forward (and made accessibly known across the topic area) and not used to retroactively punish Chesdovi for an edit before this conclusion was made.

Admin comments here do not seem to reflect the situation based on the precedent Chesdovi relied on. Chesdovi had no reason to believe there was a problem with his last edit. There exists a content dispute about Rachel's Tomb being a Mosque. To many editors, one UNESCO RS, cannot rewrite a 1500 year history of the site devoid of the Mosque that some claim to be there. But it is a content dispute about a Mosque template - not an issue of violating a TB. And certainly not deserving such a harsh block precipitated by hostile assumptions about the editor that seem to ignore the basis for his edit. -- MichaelNetzer ( talk) 20:06, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

How is a holy site within a half-mile of Jerusalem not part of the Palestine/Israel conflict, Michael? And how can an that changes a site from a mosque to a synagogue be anything but a proscribed edit? — Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 22:06, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

I think you're citing the wrong edit, Jeremy. This edit is the one brought here for sanction. The one you cited is from 7th of January and not under contention here. In the recent template edit that this complaint is based on, Chesdovi only moved the category item listing to "Former mosque". There is no RS, nor any Arab claim that Rachel's Tomb is presently a mosque. The dispute is only about whether it was one during some point in history. Everyone agrees there is no mosque there presently, so it looks like Chesdovi's edit was only to correct a technical issue not related to the wider P/I dispute or conflict. -- MichaelNetzer ( talk) 23:02, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Floquenbeam: Chesdovi's edit was not to exclude Rachel's Tomb from the Mosque category, rather only to move it to a new group within that category "Former mosques". There is no dispute that it is not presently a mosque. The edit was only to correct a technicality that is not related to either the wider conflict or the specific dispute over the site. There are no RS, nor any Arab claims that there is presently a mosque there. This is not at all different from the previous case Chesdovi cited about a technicality relating to the Arabic name of Joseph's Tomb, where the filer of the complaint and closing admins all agreed the edit did not violate the topic ban. Your opinion is worthy and respected but Chesdovi operated under a previous AE precedent that he was involved in and that he relied on to make the edit. If admins wish to change the rules now based on diverging admin opinions, it should not be done retro-actively. Perhaps if a clear AE statement is released that Ed Johnston and T. Canens decision on that case is no longer valid, then it can be enforced from this point forward. To apply such a decision retroactively and without warning seems a disservice to the AE process. -- MichaelNetzer ( talk) 23:02, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

@Floquenbeam: A dispute as to the site's more ancient history is not the same as its factual current state. The Palestinian claims about it having been a mosque, that arose in 1996, were respected by Chesdovi by adding the new sub-category "Former mosques". Meaning that he did not engage in the conflict or dispute, but only corrected a technicality that it is not currently a mosque. Again, no RS and no Palestinians claim that it is currently a mosque. It does not currently operate as a mosque and has not done so at least since 1967. The edit only referred to its current state, not to the dispute over its past history. This is the same type of technicality he corrected with the Arabic name of Joseph's Tomb and for which he was acquitted of violating the Topic Ban. There seems to be a reluctance to address this all too important detail. Chesdovi appears to have believed his edit was allowed under the previous case admin decision. Regardless of what needs to be fixed for the future, Chesdovi should be given the benefit of the doubt as to his motives because they are supported by the case history. I appreciate that AE admins are in a difficult spot and can sometimes make mistakes but the block seems extremely unfair to an editor whose contributions have earned him a little better, given the circumstances. -- MichaelNetzer ( talk) 00:41, 13 March 2012 (UTC) reply

@Blade: You are naturally and respectfully entitled to your opinion as to what a topic ban means. Other admins who've given decisions on topic bans do not agree with you. One such case cited here repeatedly (which for some reason is being ignored or dismissed) involved Chesdovi in an almost identical technical edit. Ed Johnston and T. Canens both agreed that although the page he edited carries the ARBPIA template, his edit does not violate the TB. I'm bringing the quoted decision here in hopes that yourself and other admins will at least explain why Chesdovi cannot rely on this decision or why you apparently think it is not valid:

Source: There is now a school of thought that people under an I/P topic ban like Chesdovi are allowed to edit articles with the ARBPIA template on them so long as they don't modify anything related to the conflict. User:T. Canens who issued the [broadly construed] topic ban thinks this is OK. The present dispute over the wording of Joseph's name is not directly related to the I/P conflict, so I would not want to apply a sanction. Since the submitter Asad112 is OK with closing this, I suggest we do so. EdJohnston ( talk) 03:38, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

It's understandable that not every AE admin agrees with this. But it is certainly enough to have given Chesdovi a green light for a similar edit without fear of sanction. However it most certainly cannot be enough to ignore this precedent and assert contrary opinions about topic bans in this case. Yourself and other admins would need to explain why this previous decision is invalid. But even so, it is extremely unfair (and borders on tendentious arbitration) to apply this block without giving the editor due warning that the previous decision he relied on was invalid. Please take this into consideration. -- MichaelNetzer ( talk) 15:43, 13 March 2012 (UTC) reply

@ Wgfinley ( talk · contribs)

1. It was good to see an admin finally address the Joseph's Tomb case. But your comment that the comparison with the mosque template edit in this case is ridiculous, failed to explain why. The reason you gave was Chesdovi's ban history. What does that have to do with the edit he made to the mosque template in this case? Is this case about Chesdovi's ban history or about the edit to the template that user:asad112 filed this complaint about?
2. asad112 ( talk · contribs) now concurs that it's fair enough to say Chesdovi's edit was not a violation of the topic ban accurate. He has other issues that Chesdovi just responded to. Asad has displayed an integrity beyond compare by giving due thought to the issues explained here and accepting explanations that seem reasonable to him. Is this not a good example for all of us to consider?
3. I remember the previous block Chesdovi tried to appeal. You stated here that you were in email contact with him and would post his responses. When the time came, you said his emails were "cryptic" and didn't post them. Now Chesdovi claims that you'd agreed to post them, but by failing to do so, along with your "cryptic" comment, it shut the lid on his appeal. Was it fair of you to make that decision alone, being the blocking admin, instead of posting his comments here so other admins could better understand his position also?
4. Assuming you are correct about Chesdovi needing to be stopped, is it proper to judge him unfairly and without due consideration for an edit that's not a violation of the topic ban, in order stop him? If an admin violates WP policy to correct a problem, by misrepresenting a case or refusing to hear it, what kind of an example are they setting for everyone else?
5. You say it's understandable that after a topic ban, I would return to AE for tendentious editing. How is that understandable? Is this a pattern you've noticed by other editors who've been topic banned? Have you looked at my edit history since the ban and seen this pattern? Or is this your personal character assessment of me? And if so, what might it be based on? Is it your opinion that good faith should not be extended to editors who've been previously banned?
6. You seem to comment a lot about editors' past violations as justification for personal attacks that you make against them, like in this case with Chesdovi and myself. The guidelines in this page warn specifically about such attacks against editors who've been sanctioned here. I'm trying, and I believe Chesdovi is also trying, to explain the particular issue of this case, without making personal remarks about anyone, in the face of severe and unfair characterizations by admins, who do not seem to be aware of the specific details of the mosque template. Most everyone, including yourself, is speaking in general terms of past violations and character attacks. Wouldn't it be more productive and efficient to simply comment on the specific facts of this case?
7. I ask these questions because I know you to be a thoughtful and fair administrator. -- MichaelNetzer ( talk) 04:16, 14 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Comment by The Devil's Advocate

Seems to me that this was a clear-cut violation. Rachel's Tomb was under Muslim control until 1967 and I will give everyone three guesses why it changed control in 1967. The exemption above appears to be about a centuries-old issue, as opposed to a recent issue like this one. It also stretches credulity that Chesdovi would not expect this recent edit to be a violation, given that a block was previously issued for the same kind of edit as this one just two months prior. I don't think this requires "broadly construing" the issue as the whole issue of whether it is a mosque or a synagogue arises from its switch from Arab control to Israeli control during one of the Arab-Israeli wars.-- The Devil's Advocate ( talk) 04:00, 14 March 2012 (UTC) reply

Comment by OhioStandard

One of Chesdovi's supporters quoted Timotheus Canens' and EdJohnston's comments from over six months ago, now moved to AE archives, about his edits to a different article. That prompted me to have a look at other, more recent archives of multiple pages. The process revealed the following discoveries, which are new to me, at least:

(1) Chesdovi also appears to be in violation of a set of admin prohibitions and warnings that say, in part:

"You are banned for six months from adding categories to articles having to do with any notions of Palestinian or Israeli, broadly construed. You are allowed to ask neutral questions of others as to the tagging of articles which they have created or meaningfully edited themselves. Otherwise, you must stay silent on this topic." Gwen Gale 20:59, 5 November 2011 UTC ( emphasis in the original )

But Chesdovi has not stayed silent re these kinds of category edits: He's repeatedly added, replaced, and removed such categories. It's hard to imagine that he had merely forgotten these restrictions at the time, since he followed these late February and early March (2012) category edits with a request for a one-time exemption just four days later.

(2) Since EdJohnston's six-months-ago comment was quoted in boldface, above, let's also read Ed's much more recent AE comment:

"Noticing that Chesdovi has been in trouble under ARBPIA so many times and has been constantly at AE, I am surprised that he is not yet under an indefinite topic ban. If past blocks and sanctions were going to improve his behavior, they surely would have done so by now." EdJohnston, 03:58, 12 January 2012 UTC (emphasis added) ( edit summary: Support indefinite ban ).

For the full context of Ed's comment, find the "Result concerning Chesdovi" section in the previous AE request about him. Briefly, Ed's comment was in response to ( and in support of ) admin WGFinley's suggestion that an indef topic ban be implemented.

I've discovered a few other points through this process that are at least as relevant: I'll try to add those later today if I can find the time.  –  OhioStandard ( talk) 14:14, 14 March 2012 (UTC) reply

It appears I can be a bit thick, at times: It's only now occurred to me that any reasonable being would construe Gwen Gale's November 2011 unblocking condition (see item 1, just above) as also prohibiting removal of such categories. And, of course, the edit for which WGFinley first re-blocked Chesdovi, and then, with EdJohnston's concurrence, extended his TBAN to indefinite back in January comprises the removal of such a category, viz. "Mosques in the Palestinian territories". So WGFinley, or any other admin, could have sanctioned Chesdovi in January 2012 for that edit on the basis of his having violated Gwen Gale's unblock conditions, as well as for a TBAN violation, if he'd known of those conditions at the time.  –  OhioStandard ( talk) 15:56, 14 March 2012 (UTC) reply

After being blocked for editing Rachel's Tomb in January 2012 in violation ( as admin WGFinley found, and Chesdovi disputed ) of the TBAN imposed by Timotheus, Chesdovi wrote in a block appeal he made on his talk page,

"I understand that I should be staying as far as possible from the A/I area, but in this instance it seems that a debate regarding an 1841 building caused SD to come to an erroneous conclusion about the buildings current designation. I am fully aware about my ban and had no intention to violate it." (emphasis added)

(3) There's simply no "but in this instance" that's admissible in the face of such a TBAN, even if one thinks it was unjust, or sees a statement in article space that one finds erroneous or even outrageous. Chesdovi should have just stayed "as far as possible from the A/I area", to use his own words, rather than again editing content related to Rachel's Tomb, as he did in the 9 March 2012 edit that touched off the action he's appealing here.

Admin JamesBWatson comments similarly, on the January 2012 block and its appeal, observing, in part:

Chesdovi is not just banned unless he/she believes he/she is right... Therefore the arguments put forward are irrelevant: "The edit was rectifying an undisputable fiction", and "It is a fallacy and deception to categorise this site as a mosque"... Chesdovi seems unable to grasp the fact that the ban was for all edits on the topic, not just for controversial ones. (emphasis in original)

JamesBWatson had become aware, the previous day, of Chesdovi's desire to appeal the January 2012 block imposed by WGFinley when he responded to an "adminhelp" template Chesdovi had posted to his own talk page to request assistance in appealing that 30-day block. In that adminhelp response, Watson wrote, in part,

I should also point out that you quite unambiguously violated the terms of your topic ban. If you thought that the topic ban was unreasonable, you could have appealed against it: ignoring it, being blocked as a result of doing so, and then appealing against the block on the grounds that you never agreed with the topic ban is not likely to be successful.

Timotheus says essentially the same thing when he writes, below, "The proper way to challenge a sanction is to appeal it directly, not to violate it and then challenge it when appealing the resulting block." If Chesdovi had simply exercised the humility to accept that administrative counsel back in January, instead of first arguing with it, and then again editing content concerning Rachel's Tomb, two months later, the block he's appealing now would never have been imposed, and the drama and huge time sink over the present matter would not have arisen. This entire problem was eminently avoidable.  –  OhioStandard ( talk) 10:45, 17 March 2012 (UTC) reply

( Please note: If you wish to respond to any of the points raised above, kindly add those comments to your own "comments by" section. )

Result of the appeal by Chesdovi

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

• I can't say I disagree with the sanction in question. Rachel's Tomb is rather clearly marked as falling under I/P, and the topic ban is "broadly construed". At the very best, it's pushing the boundaries to their absolute limits, and I agree with the admin who imposed the sanction that Chesdovi not only pushed but crossed said boundaries. Based on that, I wouldn't be inclined to overturn the block or ban extension. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 17:36, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

  @MichaelNetzer; it really doesn't matter if the specific edit was technically not editing for or against one side in the ARBPIA area. It was an article clearly marked with an ARBPIA template on an article that, as Floquenbeam elucidated below and as the article itself says, is the source of contention between Israelis and Palestinians. While topic banned editors aren't supposed to edit anything in the topic area at all. Anything else I'd say here has been written by Floquenbeam, so I'll save the electrons and stop here. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 03:19, 13 March 2012 (UTC) reply

• I concur with Blade, and with WGF's actions. The article is very clearly being marked as being subject to ARBPIA, and even if weren't "directly related" as Chedovi claims, the topic ban is "broadly construed". Nobody could read the wording "broadly construed", see the warnings on that article's editnotice and talk page, and then in good faith claim that editing it was not a violation of Chesdovi's topic ban. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:54, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply
• When you have been topic banned, and previously blocked multiple times (the latest for nearly a month, ending only a month and a half ago) for violating said ban, it is your responsibility to not test the boundaries of the topic ban, especially one to be "broadly construed". This looks to me to be a clear violation, and the escalation from 1 month to 3 does not seem excessive. In fact, while I've never spent much time at AE, so there is probably some AE-specific culture that I don't understand, I'm rather stunned that this hasn't been upped to indef by now. if this was just "normal" disruption, and not ARBPIA-related, and had been brought to a normal admin board, I'd have blocked them indef long before now. Either Chesdovi just doesn't understand the ban (in which case, block indef to prevent guaranteed future violations), or he's trying to game the system (in which case, block indef for trying to game the system). But the 3 month block is certainly not excessive. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 19:20, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Re to Chesdovi: It is quite possible to make an edit in violation of a topic ban that would not be a problem for an editor not under a topic ban. I haven't looked at reliable sources about Rachel's Tomb because the "truth" about the edit is not what this is about; it is about you editing in an area you've been banned from. It is disingenuous to say that describing something in Bethlehem as a mosque, or not a mosque, is not part of the "Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly construed". Talk:Rachel's Tomb specifically says that it is part of ARBPIA, and has had that tag for quite a while. If an article is covered by the topic ban, then it's inclusion or non-inclusion in a template of mosques is pretty obviously part of the topic ban as well. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 20:36, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Re to MichaelNetzer: You say "There is no dispute that it is not presently a mosque." That doesn't appear to be correct; the current status of that site appears to be an active area of disagreement between (some) Israaelis and (some) Palestinians [100] [101]. The article says so, the reference in the article says so, and some Googling says so. It's current status is part of the overall I/P dispute. I do not care if it is actually a mosque or not; I do not care how reasonable or unreasonable the claims are. Claiming it is, or isn't, is part of the dispute. If I was participating in a discussion about the content dispute, I would care deeply. But I'm not.

    I suspect it makes more sense in the future to not try to be reasonable, and instead just forbid someone under a topic ban from making any edits, even non-controversial ones, to such articles or about such articles, in order to save time arguing about whether it was controversial or not. But that doesn't matter here, because this is clearly a controversial edit. Perhaps it is obviously right, perhaps not, but it is a part of the IP dispute, and anyone who knows about the subject can't help but know is is part of the dispute, and Chesdovi is not allowed to make edits related to the dispute. -- Floquenbeam ( talk) 23:53, 12 March 2012 (UTC) reply

• We should defer to the administrator who imposed the topic ban in the first place on questions about the scope of the ban, unless his construction of it is patently unreasonable, which is not the case here. I therefore agree that this appeal must be declined. T. Canens ( talk) 05:35, 14 March 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Whether Wgfinley's extension of the topic ban was proper is irrelevant. That would be a proper question if this were an appeal of that topic ban, but it is not. In an appeal from a block applied for violation of a discretionary sanction, the merits of the underlying sanction should be presumed, at least unless it was plainly ultra vires. The proper way to challenge a sanction is to appeal it directly, not to violate it and then challenge it when appealing the resulting block.

    This has been up for a while and there is certainly not the requisite level of consensus to overturn the block. Barring any objections from uninvolved admins, I'm going to close this in 24 hours. T. Canens ( talk) 07:10, 17 March 2012 (UTC) reply

    • I think Chesdovi misunderstood what I meant by the word "construction". I was using it in the sense of "interpretation", see sense #9 of wikt:construction. T. Canens ( talk) 04:43, 21 March 2012 (UTC) reply