Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement: Difference between revisions

Content deleted Content added

Inline

Revision as of 22:25, 22 February 2013

Click here to add a new enforcement request
For appeals: create a new section and use the template {{Arbitration enforcement appeal}}
See also: Logged AE sanctions

Important information

Shortcuts

Please use this page only to:

request administrative action against editors violating a remedy (not merely a principle) or an injunction in an Arbitration Committee decision, or a contentious topic restriction imposed by an administrator,
request contentious topic restrictions against previously alerted editors who engage in misconduct in a topic area designated as a contentious topic,
request page restrictions (e.g. revert restrictions) on pages that are being disrupted in topic areas designated as contentious topics, or
appeal arbitration enforcement actions (including contentious topic restrictions) to uninvolved administrators.

For all other problems, including content disagreements or the enforcement of community-imposed sanctions, please use the other fora described in the dispute resolution process. To appeal Arbitration Committee decisions, please use the clarification and amendment noticeboard.

Only autoconfirmed users may file enforcement requests here; requests filed by IPs or accounts less than four days old or with less than 10 edits will be removed. All users are welcome to comment on requests except where doing so would violate an active restriction (such as an extended-confirmed restriction). If you make an enforcement request or comment on a request, your own conduct may be examined as well, and you may be sanctioned for it. Enforcement requests and statements in response to them may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator. (Word Count Tool) Statements must be made in separate sections. Non-compliant contributions may be removed or shortened by administrators. Disruptive contributions such as personal attacks, or groundless or vexatious complaints, may result in blocks or other sanctions.

To make an enforcement request, click on the link above this box and supply all required information. Incomplete requests may be ignored. Requests reporting diffs older than one week may be declined as stale. To appeal a contentious topic restriction or other enforcement decision, please create a new section and use the template {{Arbitration enforcement appeal}}.

Appeals and administrator modifications of contentious topics restrictions

The Arbitration Committee procedures relating to modifications of contentious topic restrictions state the following:

All contentious topic restrictions (and logged warnings) may be appealed. Only the restricted editor may appeal an editor restriction. Any editor may appeal a page restriction.

The appeal process has three possible stages. An editor appealing a restriction may:

ask the administrator who first made the contentious topic restrictions (the "enforcing administrator") to reconsider their original decision;
request review at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") or at the administrators' noticeboard ("AN"); and
submit a request for amendment ("ARCA"). If the editor is blocked, the appeal may be made by email.

Appeals submitted at AE or AN must be submitted using the applicable template.

A rough consensus of administrators at AE or editors at AN may specify a period of up to one year during which no appeals (other than an appeal to ARCA) may be submitted.

Changing or revoking a contentious topic restriction

An administrator may only modify or revoke a contentious topic restriction if a formal appeal is successful or if one of the following exceptions applies:

The administrator who originally imposed the contentious topic restriction (the "enforcing administrator") affirmatively consents to the change,^[a] or is no longer an administrator;^[b] or
The contentious topic restriction was imposed (or last renewed) more than a year ago and:
- the restriction was imposed by a single administrator, or
- the restriction was an indefinite block.

A formal appeal is successful only if one of the following agrees with revoking or changing the contentious topic restriction:

a clear consensus of uninvolved administrators at AE,
a clear consensus of uninvolved editors at AN,
a majority of the Arbitration Committee, acting through a motion at ARCA.

Any administrator who revokes or changes a contentious topic restriction out of process (i.e. without the above conditions being met) may, at the discretion of the Arbitration Committee, be desysopped.

Standard of review
On community review

Uninvolved administrators at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") and uninvolved editors at the administrators' noticeboard ("AN") should revoke or modify a contentious topic restriction on appeal if:

the action was inconsistent with the contentious topics procedure or applicable policy (i.e. the action was out of process),
the action was not reasonably necessary to prevent damage or disruption when first imposed, or
the action is no longer reasonably necessary to prevent damage or disruption.

On Arbitration Committee review

Arbitrators hearing an appeal at a request for amendment ("ARCA") will generally overturn a contentious topic restriction only if:

the action was inconsistent with the contentious topics procedure or applicable policy (i.e. the action was out of process),
the action represents an unreasonable exercise of administrative enforcement discretion, or
compelling circumstances warrant the full Committee's action.

^ The administrator may indicate consent at any time before, during, or after imposition of the restriction.
^ This criterion does not apply if the original action was imposed as a result of rough consensus at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard, as there would be no single enforcing administrator.

Appeals and administrator modifications of non-contentious topics sanctions

The Arbitration Committee procedures relating to modifications and appeals state:

Appeals by sanctioned editors

Appeals may be made only by the editor under sanction and only for a currently active sanction. Requests for modification of page restrictions may be made by any editor. The process has three possible stages (see "Important notes" below). The editor may:

ask the enforcing administrator to reconsider their original decision;
request review at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") or at the administrators’ noticeboard ("AN"); and
submit a request for amendment at the amendment requests page ("ARCA"). If the editor is blocked, the appeal may be made by email through Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee (or, if email access is revoked, to arbcom-enwikimedia.org).

Modifications by administrators

No administrator may modify or remove a sanction placed by another administrator without:

the explicit prior affirmative consent of the enforcing administrator; or
prior affirmative agreement for the modification at (a) AE or (b) AN or (c) ARCA (see "Important notes" below).

Administrators modifying sanctions out of process may at the discretion of the committee be desysopped.

Nothing in this section prevents an administrator from replacing an existing sanction issued by another administrator with a new sanction if fresh misconduct has taken place after the existing sanction was applied.

Administrators are free to modify sanctions placed by former administrators – that is, editors who do not have the administrator permission enabled (due to a temporary or permanent relinquishment or desysop) – without regard to the requirements of this section. If an administrator modifies a sanction placed by a former administrator, the administrator who made the modification becomes the "enforcing administrator". If a former administrator regains the tools, the provisions of this section again apply to their unmodified enforcement actions.

Important notes:

For a request to succeed, either

(i) the clear and substantial consensus of (a) uninvolved administrators at AE or (b) uninvolved editors at AN or

(ii) a passing motion of arbitrators at ARCA

is required. If consensus at AE or AN is unclear, the status quo prevails.

While asking the enforcing administrator and seeking reviews at AN or AE are not mandatory prior to seeking a decision from the committee, once the committee has reviewed a request, further substantive review at any forum is barred. The sole exception is editors under an active sanction who may still request an easing or removal of the sanction on the grounds that said sanction is no longer needed, but such requests may only be made once every six months, or whatever longer period the committee may specify.
These provisions apply only to contentious topic restrictions placed by administrators and to blocks placed by administrators to enforce arbitration case decisions. They do not apply to sanctions directly authorized by the committee, and enacted either by arbitrators or by arbitration clerks, or to special functionary blocks of whatever nature.
All actions designated as arbitration enforcement actions, including those alleged to be out of process or against existing policy, must first be appealed following arbitration enforcement procedures to establish if such enforcement is inappropriate before the action may be reversed or formally discussed at another venue.

Information for administrators processing requests

Thank you for participating in this area. AE works best if there are a variety of admins bringing their expertise to each case. There is no expectation to comment on every case, and the Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) thanks all admins for whatever time they can give.

A couple of reminders:

Before commenting, please familiarise yourself with the referenced ArbCom case. Please also read all the evidence (including diffs) presented in the AE request.
When a request widens to include editors beyond the initial request, these editors must be notified and the notifications recorded in the same way as for the initial editor against whom sanctions were requested. Where some part of the outcome is clear, a partial close may be implemented and noted as "Result concerning X".
Enforcement measures in arbitration cases should be construed liberally to protect Wikipedia and keep it running efficiently. Some of the behaviour described in an enforcement request might not be restricted by ArbCom. However, it may violate other Wikipedia policies and guidelines; you may use administrative discretion to resolve it.
More than one side in a dispute may have ArbCom conduct rulings applicable to them. Please ensure these are investigated.

Closing a thread:

Once an issue is resolved, enclose it between {{hat}} and {{hab}} tags. A bot should archive it in 7 days.
Please consider referring the case to ARCA if the outcome is a recommendation to do so or the issue regards administrator conduct.
You can use the templates {{uw-aeblock}} (for blocks) or {{AE sanction}} (for other contentious topic restrictions) to give notice of sanctions on user talk pages.
Please log sanctions in the Arbitration enforcement log.

Thanks again for helping. If you have any questions, please post on the talk page.

Arbitration enforcement archives

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40
41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50	51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60
61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69	70	71	72	73	74	75	76	77	78	79	80
81	82	83	84	85	86	87	88	89	90	91	92	93	94	95	96	97	98	99	100
101	102	103	104	105	106	107	108	109	110	111	112	113	114	115	116	117	118	119	120
121	122	123	124	125	126	127	128	129	130	131	132	133	134	135	136	137	138	139	140
141	142	143	144	145	146	147	148	149	150	151	152	153	154	155	156	157	158	159	160
161	162	163	164	165	166	167	168	169	170	171	172	173	174	175	176	177	178	179	180
181	182	183	184	185	186	187	188	189	190	191	192	193	194	195	196	197	198	199	200
201	202	203	204	205	206	207	208	209	210	211	212	213	214	215	216	217	218	219	220
221	222	223	224	225	226	227	228	229	230	231	232	233	234	235	236	237	238	239	240
241	242	243	244	245	246	247	248	249	250	251	252	253	254	255	256	257	258	259	260
261	262	263	264	265	266	267	268	269	270	271	272	273	274	275	276	277	278	279	280
281	282	283	284	285	286	287	288	289	290	291	292	293	294	295	296	297	298	299	300
301	302	303	304	305	306	307	308	309	310	311	312	313	314	315	316	317	318	319	320
321	322	323	324	325	326	327	328	329	330	331	332	333	334	335	336	337	338	339	340

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Yerevanci

The consensus of the uninvolved administrators is that this topic ban was appropriate and your appeal is declined. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 16:54, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

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

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

Appealing user: Yerevanci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Երևանցի ^talk 23:57, 12 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sanction being appealed: topic-banned for one month from everything related to Armenia or Azerbaijan, broadly interpreted. The reason for this sanction is recorded in the administrators' noticeboard thread you started, specifically here.

Sandstein stated on his talk page that I was blocked, because [sic] "I tried to add quite pronouncedly non-neutral material, or by making statements about "Azerbaijani pseudo-scientists" or that "the Azerbaijani government promotes clear Anti-Armenian policy in almost every aspect of life"

Administrator imposing the sanction: Sandstein (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Notification of that administrator: notified

Statement by Yerevanci

I don't think I deserved getting banned because

I was not the creator of the article (as claimed by Sandstein)
I only advocated it to be recovered, as I believe it had numerous reliable sources, though it was far from perfect
I provided alternatives to the article such as renaming it, because "falsification" seems to be POV and use more neutral language and provide more English third party sources, in addition to already existing ones.
"pseudo-scientist" and "the Azerbaijani government promotes clear Anti-Armenian policy in almost every aspect of life" are my personal opinion and as I already said to Sandstein "my emotions and opinions do not reflect in my edits on articles"
I have made no intention to add my POV to any article. Nevertheless, I always believed I am entitled to write my point of view in talk pages and noticeboards. My language doesn't and never reflected this in any of the articles I edited or created.
You can see from my long-time activity on Wikipedia that my goal isn't to be disruptive, insult other users, or push my point of view. I always discuss with others. And in fact, in my 4 year activity in Wikipedia, I have been blocked twice. However, if there is anything I have said that might have offended someone, I am open to apologize.

P.S. : If I will not get unblocked, my only wish is to let me edit Armenian American, on which I have worked for months and it is now a Good Article nominee and if it gets reviewed I will not be able to respond and make any necessary changes to the article as I'm banned from Armenia-related articles. Thank you. --Երևանցի ^talk 23:57, 12 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Gatoclass, as I stated above, my goal was not to push my POV and I only advocated for it to be recovered and then cleaned up and renamed if agreed by the community.

What concerns my voting pattern. See in the Anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan page, there are tons of quotes from the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance. One of them says "In general, hate-speech and derogatory public statements against Armenians take place routinely". I don't see why that European agency would take sides. Now go to Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia, I do not see any third-party sources proving that "anti-Azerbaijani sentiment" exists in Armenia. In fact, I will to vote 'keep' on that article if a user provides us with ECRI reports or any other third-party statements proving that "anti-Azerbaijani sentiment" exists in Armenia. But now the article looks more like original research than an actual encyclopedic article. That is the reason why I voted in favor of deletion.--Երևանցի ^talk 21:13, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Gatoclass, what I mean is I documented the facts presented by non-involved parties. I don't see how this can be considered WP:FORK, when the Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia was created few days later by User:Brandmeister, who was recently blocked for a month and topic-banned for two years. I think this alone says alot.

Take a look at articles like Anti-American sentiment in Korea, Anti-American sentiment in Pakistan, Anti-American sentiment in Iran. Just because I'm an involved party, doesn't make the articles I create POV. If there are clear POV signs, then I should like to hear them and I promise I will work to the end to remove them.

And what if the Anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan is, in fact, "legitimate whereas the "mirror" article created in response to it is not"? The whole problem is there. The content itself is the main issue here. "both articles look to me like POV forks which by definition exclude a balanced treatment of the issues" why don't we first discuss the content of those articles and see what is balanced and what is not. I think Wikipedia is a community and just because they "look like POV forks to you", doesn't mean they are such.

Blocking users isn't the best solution, believe me. Unless they have clearly disruptive behavior, they shouldn't be blocked. I believe this in case of Brandmeister, too. Blocking or banning users don't make the problems go away. As you can see, I'm not here to vandalize all articles and put the blame on Azerbaijanis for everything. Both sides have done this or that, but when ECRI, for example, says that "In general, hate-speech and derogatory public statements against Armenians take place routinely", then we should take that into account. If the X, Y organization or a non-involved party says that "bla bla bla there is K in L and U in H", then yes I will have to deal with it to whichever side it may concern. --Երևանցի ^talk 05:26, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@DeltaQuad, I didn't even know what DRV was. I just asked the question in the Administrators' noticeboard, because I didn't know that there is a special place for such requests. This might not interest you, but I'm just saying that if I knew about it, I would go there instead. --Երևանցի ^talk 21:16, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sandstein

I recommend that this appeal be declined as concerns the question of whether the conduct at issue is sanctionable, though I have no objections to any adjustments my colleagues may wish to make regarding the type, scope or length of the sanction.

I imposed the sanction – this is also in response to Lord Roem below – because Yerevanci sought to have undeleted a very obviously non-neutral article to which he had contributed, Falsification of history in Azerbaijan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (which assigns fault to one side of the conflict, with no mention of any opposing views), and also because he used the respective AN thread as a soapbox for his personal views about the underlying real-world conflict, writing inter alia that "The fact that the Azerbaijani government promotes clear Anti-Armenian policy in almost every aspect of life isn't my fault. Why you are advising me not to document their vandalism? What is Wikipedia for? There are numerous cases of Azerbaijani pseudo-scientists trying to present Armenian cultural monuments as Caucasian Albanian and even old Turkic". Although I've tried to convey to him at my talk page why in this particular topic area it is especially important to observe WP:NPOV and avoid using Wikipedia as a forum for re-fighting the underlying conflict, the statement of appeal reflects no understanding of this. Sandstein 07:16, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Gatoclass: You make valid points. There may well be an academically notable subject matter at the core of the deleted article. If there are competent editors who are willing and capable of developing it neutrally, I think a userfication could be a good idea. That's not central to the conduct issues examined here, though. I am not sure that anyone who thinks that "Falsification of history in ..." could be a good title for a Wikipedia article should edit in highly contentious topic areas at all, and given the past problems in this area, as seen on the case page, I tend to err on the side of the banhammer in such cases. We should expect not only defensible, but exemplary conduct from anyone who wishes to edit in this area. However, if other admins prefer to apply a higher threshold of concern, I could understand that too, although it could lead to more trouble in the long run. Sandstein 17:54, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (involved editor 1)

Statement by (involved editor 2)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Yerevanci

I would like to add my 2 cents. The history with this deleted article in some regards reminds me of what's going on in the article about Caucasian Albania, and also in 2 AFDs, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia. A while ago a number of sock accounts inserted in Caucasian Albania a strongly POV section which they called "Caucasian Albania and Azerbaijani historical revisionism" (now changed by others to more neutral "Caucasian Albania in Azerbaijani historiography"). At the first glance it looks like verifiable info, but that is until you look at the sources quoted. The fact is that every source quoted speaks about both Armenian and Azerbaijani historical "revisionism", or whatever it might be called, but the section only mentions Azerbaijani authors. I.e. this is a violation of WP:Cherry, when an editor takes a source and quotes only the parts that suite the purpose of denigrating one side, saying nothing about the other, while the source clearly mentions both sides. The reason why I mention Caucasian Albania is not because of socking, as it has nothing to do with the editors involved here, but because the POV section that was inserted there and the issues with it have never been addressed and it is now being made into a separate article, and the same WP:CHERRY is being violated. Now with regards to the articles Anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan and Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia, one can see that we have 2 articles describing pretty much one side of the story leaving out the context. For instance, sources such as HRW make it clear that anti-Armenian sentiment in Azerbaijan is a result of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, while the article makes no mention of it. One can see at AFDs that uninvolved editors tend to support the merge of both articles into one dedicated to either to a particular ethnic group in a country, or general relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. I think the community needs to look into the issue in a wider context and decide what to do with WP:CHERRY style articles and article sections which attempt to denigrate one side of the conflict and present the other in a better light, using selective quoting, etc. Otherwise articles like Falsification in ..., Anti-.... sentiment in ...., or similar kind of articles will continue to be created, and this will escalate tensions in AA area. Grandmaster 09:32, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Without commenting on the original topic-ban itself, I don't think Yerevanci's request for an exemption for Armenian American during its GA process is unreasonable. Unless it can be substantiated that there are serious concerns with his editing there, preventing him from participating in the process is purely vindictive and not "preventative" of anything. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 22:37, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Gatoclass: I'm willing to provide the info about selective quoting and WP:Cherry in Caucasian Albania. The sources there are mostly the same as those used in the deleted "Falsification" article. I'm just not sure whether we should discuss it here or elsewhere. In any case, I want to initiate a discussion with involvement of a wider community about POV section in Caucasian Albania, where we can decide what to do with it. As for Yerevantsi's comment about Anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan being better sourced than its mirror, it is not so. As I explained in DYK nomination of that page, the article contains gross misinterpretations of sources, and presents opinions as facts. Just look at the first line of the article: Anti-Armenianism (Armenophobia) exists in Azerbaijan on an institutional level[8] and permeates daily social interactions in that country, where opinions of individuals and groups are presented as facts, which is not in line with WP:NPOV. Why the opinion of some journal editor in chief in Russia should be presented as a fact? And further the line in HRW report which reads "The unresolved conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh stimulated "armenophobia" is interpreted as "However, contemporary Armenophobia in Azerbaijan traces its roots to the last years of the Soviet Union, when Armenians demanded that the Moscow authorities transfer the mostly Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in the Azerbaijan SSR to the Armenian SSR", while the actual source says nothing of the sort. The line "In response to those Armenian claims, Azerbaijani nationalist groups, most prominently the Azerbaijani Popular Front,[13][14] organized anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad and Baku" refers to 2 sources, neither of which supports the claim, moreover, there was no Popular Front in Azerbaijan in February 1988, i.e. during the Sumgait events. HRW clearly states that any negative sentiment towards Armenians in Azerbaijan is related to the ongoing conflict with Armenia (Due to the unresolved conflict, there was still suspicion towards ethnic Armenians, especially those coming from outside of the country), while the article makes no mention of this. As you can see, selective quotes and questionable interpretations of the material make this article very POV laden, and the suitability of the topic for a stand alone article also remains a question. The above concerns may not be directly relevant to the topic of Yerevantsi's ban, and I will not express any opinion about that, this is just a response to the claim that one article is better sourced or written than the other. Grandmaster 11:00, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I read the article "Falsification of history in Azerbaijan" before it was summarily deleted, and I thought that the content was not bad, although the title was inappropriate. The English was not brilliant, but a core pillar here is that everyone can contribute, so it just needed to wait for renaming and copyediting.

@Gatoclass, it's totally possible that there's more anti-Armenian sentiment in Azerbaijan than the reverse. As an analogy, there's a lot of anti-Chinese sentiment in India because of the 1962 border war, but the different media and political climate in China means that most Chinese don't remember or care about that history, so there's little negative (or any really consolidated) sentiment towards Indians there. Point is, Yerevanci's vote on the Azerbaijanophobia AfD might just reflect a judgment on the quality of a non-notable, problem-ridden article that was created in a hasty, retaliatory fashion without much thought.

@Grandmaster: It doesn't look like you've proved that Yerevanci misinterpreted HRW. The source made a compact reference to a "conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh", and Yerevanci described the same general conflict with a fuller description. This difference from the source's wording is even necessary because of the close paraphrasing danger.

@Sandstein: I think "pseudo-scientists" is poor wording, but it is a fact that there is an ecosystem of nationalists in such conflicts who masquerade as trained historians, archaeologists, or sociologists, and whose publications are critiqued by mainstream academe. As I mentioned before, one group in a bilateral conflict might be much more excited and active in their propaganda (giving us more to document) than the other.

I think Yerevanci was banned rather reflexively, and a deeper inspection of his work will reveal consistent good-faith efforts to "write for the enemy", to request third-party neutrality review at venues like DYK, and to accept suggestions by those third parties for the purpose of making his writing more encyclopedic. The most shocking aspect of these sanctions is that Yerevanci wasn't even the one who created the now-deleted article. He just mistakenly brought what should have been a DRV to a trigger-happy noticeboard for administrators. Shrigley (talk) 22:18, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree, because google books return plenty of hits for Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia: [1] Also, how can you describe a conflict with a fuller description referring to a source that made, as you say, a "compact reference" to it? According to WP:V, we must "use sources that directly support the material presented in an article and are appropriate to the claims made". You cannot take a short mention and build on it a history of the conflict, making very questionable interpretations. For instance, how could Popular Front of Azerbaijan be involved in Sumgait events in February 1988, if it was only formed in July 1988? The sources make no mention of this, it is just Yerevantsi's own interpretation. So I stand by my opinion that Anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan is not well written, and sourcing is also questionable, as one can see from the above examples. And those are only the ones from the intro. Grandmaster 09:43, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Grandmaster, the article says the following:

“

In response to those Armenian claims, Azerbaijani nationalist groups, most prominently the Azerbaijani Popular Front,^[1]^[2] organized anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad and Baku. An estimated 350,000 Armenians left between 1988 and 1990 as a direct result of the violence directed towards them.^[3]

^ Olson, James Stuart (1994). An ethnohistorical dictionary of the Russian and Soviet empires (1. publ. ed.). Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p. 73. ISBN 9780313274978. For months, the APF remained a groups of intellectuals with neither official status nor a mass following. Its singular appeal centered on anti-Armenianism, a problem that became more acute after the fall of 1989 when some 200,000 Azerbaijani refugees arrived from Armenian and the NKAO. Since Azerbaijanis were not particularly interested in political reform and since these refugees tended to be very activist and vocal, emphasizing anti-Armenianism became the quickest way to blind some semblance of mass appeal. The Azerbaijanis government's unwillingness to adopt the APF's anti-Armenian agenda resulted in a series of strikes, including a transportation strike aimed at blocking the shipment of supplies to both Armenia and the NKAO.
^ Human Rights Watch (1995). Playing the "Communal Card": Communal Violence and Human Rights. New York. pp. 148–149. ISBN 9781564321527. By January 1990, Azerbaijan, especially its capital, Baku, were in turmoil. Large rallies by the Azerbaijani Popular Front, the main opposition group, crowded Baku's streets. The rhetoric of these gatherings was heavily anti-Armenian. On January 13, 1990, a second set of anti-Armenian pogroms convulsed the city, taking forty-eight lives.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ Human Rights Watch (1994). Azerbaijan: seven years of conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. New York: Humans Rights Watch. ISBN 1-56432-142-8.

”

These sources make it clear that the Azerbaijani Popular Front had a significant role in organizing the protests during which anti-Armenian rhetoric lead to the pogroms in (at least) Baku. I agree, it does not say that the PF was responsible for the Sumgait Pogrom and the article doesn't claim that either. The article says "Azerbaijani nationalist groups, most prominently the Azerbaijani Popular Front,[1][2] organized anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad and Baku" and I think from reading this sentence, hardly anyone will assume that all everything was organized by the PF. The phrase "Azerbaijani nationalist groups, most prominently the Azerbaijani Popular Front" makes it clear that other groups or individuals were active at the time as well.

Maybe the wording isn't that great and that's what makes it complicated. We can change it to "In response to those Armenian claims, Azerbaijani nationalist groups, including the Azerbaijani Popular Front,[1][2] organized anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad and Baku. An estimated 350,000 Armenians left between 1988 and 1990 as a direct result of the violence directed towards them.[3]" --Երևանցի ^talk 17:04, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to discuss the content here, because it is not the right place to do. But I must note that what you wrote above again is not an accurate interpretation of sources, and the article created by you does say that AFP organized the pogroms in Sumgait, while AFP did not even exist back then. It is quite obvious from the quote that you provided. Whether you name AFP one of the nationalist groups or the only one, you still place the blame for the violence on them, while the sources you quote don't. The sources say that AFP organized rallies where anti-Armenian rhetoric was present, but they never say that AFP had anything to do with the actual violence. This is the problem that I see with your editing, you present the material in a non-neutral fashion, and refer to sources that do not directly support what you write. Grandmaster 18:35, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is the problem that I see with your editing, you present the material in a non-neutral fashion, and refer to sources that do not directly support what you write. Perhaps, you should care more about your own editing style, dear Grandmaster. I have witnessed you misinterpreting facts, according to your own personal believes. Such as the Persian mosques' issue, Aliyev's statement about main enemies being "Armenians of the world", Nizami identity. --Երևանցի ^talk 19:17, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I assembled the main English sources here, Azerbaijanian sources a few later. Divot (talk) 17:17, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to add one observation here. Most of the sources quoted by Divot describe revisionist historical schools both in Armenia and Azerbaijan, in particular Philip Kohl, Robert Hewsen and Victor Schnirelman. For instance, once can check Kohl's book online at google books and see that it has a whole chapter on Armenia (from page 155 onwards): [2], same as on Azerbaijan. So why should we have an article on Azerbaijan, and not one on Armenia? If we really need to describe the revisionist historical schools in Armenia and Azerbaijan, would it not be better to have a section in Armenia–Azerbaijan relations, dedicated to this subject? The thing is that users supporting the Armenian position here try to create articles directed against Azerbaijan, but object to creation of similar articles on Armenia. I personally do not see much use in having such attack type articles here. Any controversy could be described within the existing articles dedicated to Armenia-Azerbaijan relations, which are quite numerous. Grandmaster 18:35, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Of course there are revisionism in Armenia and Azerbaijan and the United States, etc.. But these sources say "Patently false cultural origin myths" (Kohl), "replacement of the term "Armenian state" by "Albanian state" and with other distortions of the original manuscripts" (Shnirelman), "Not only has he not translated any of the poems in the text, but he does not even mention that he has not done so, while he does not translate certain other prose parts of the text without indicating this and why. This is in particular disturbing because he suppresses, for example, the mention of territory inhabited by Armenians, thus not only falsifying history" (Floor). This is not revisionism, this is fake. There will be more sources. Divot (talk) 20:36, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Result of the appeal by Yerevanci

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

@Sandstein: was there anything besides the creation of that article that triggered your topic ban? --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 01:20, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

After reading through Sandstein's reply, I think he made the right call. I see no reason to reverse or alter the topic ban he's imposed. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 15:02, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If the AN thread had solely stuck to the topic of the deletion of the article and the process of that deletion, I feel we would not be here. But the issue is that the political conflict was not only played out on the noticeboard, but on Sandstein's talkpage. It was the biased non-neutrality that had to be dealt with, not backing up of "statements" in the article or the title. Yerevanci continued to try and make a point by asking for another user to be banned also. I therefore agree that the appeal should be declined. I won't speak as to the length of the topic ban, as I'm not completely familiar with them, but the ban does seem appropriate. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 18:54, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm probably not going to make any friends by saying this, but I am somewhat uncomfortable both with the original deletion of the article and the topic ban of Yerevanci. A preliminary review of the article in question suggests to me that it is based on mostly academic sources, and while the academics seem to be mostly Armenian or with likely Armenian sympathies, that does not necessarily disqualify them as reliable sources. It would of course be better if the article included some Azerbaijani sources but for a topic of this nature, they may well not exist. The article title is of course POV but the addition of the word Alleged might arguably be sufficient to address that problem. Certainly there are also some POV statements in the article but these could be modified according to the usual BRD cycle. My overall impression is that "falsification of history in Azerbaijan" is a topic of genuine academic interest. In accordance with Froggerlaura's suggestion on Fut. Perf's talk page, perhaps a DRV would be justified in this case?

With regard to the ban on Yerevanci, though I think it is true his comments at AN were somewhat hyperbolic, it seemed to me that the general thrust of his comments were attempting to address the question of the validity of the topic rather than an example of WP:SOAPBOXing per se, though again I think a more suitable venue for his concern would have been DRV. As for the overall quality of Y.'s contributions to the topic area, I am unable to make a definitive judgement at this time but note that he has managed to get quite a number of articles past the DYK process, indicating that he is at least capable of NPOV editing. Gatoclass (talk) 13:53, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the quick response Sandstein. I am currently re-reviewing the evidence in order to make a more considered comment, which I hope to provide either later today or tomorrow. Gatoclass (talk) 08:43, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

On reflection, I think I have probably seen enough evidence already to come to a conclusion.

Firstly, I think the validity of the sanction imposed by Sandstein hinges on the question of whether or not one considers the now-deleted article Falsification of history in Azerbaijan to be inherently or irredeemably POV or not. If one proceeds from the assumption that it was, then I think Sandstein's topic ban would be both justified and proportionate, since haggling over the deletion of an irredeemably POV topic could readily be considered disruptive. If on the other hand, the article dealt with a legitimate encyclopedic topic or contained substantial legitimate content, Yerevanci's calls for restoration might be considered reasonable and the topic ban excessive.

My concern derived primarily from the fact that when I looked at the deleted article, while I could certainly identify some obvious POV issues, including the article's name, it was not immediately obvious to me that the topic was inherently POV or that outstanding problems could not be rectified, and I felt obliged to express this concern.

Then again, while I have not done an exhaustive examination of Yerevanci's contributions in this topic area, I have looked at a number of his articles. On the one hand, I found some admirable examples of writing for the opponent in this article of his. But I also stumbled upon his latest DYK submission, Anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan, an article about which I have a number of concerns - concerns which are obviously shared by others given that the article already has multiple tags and is currently up for WP:AFD. Suffice to say here that I have serious reservations both regarding the topic and content of this article. Moreover, the article has almost inevitably spawned an equally dubious topic on the other side of the fence, Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia, also with multiple tags and currently up for AFD. I also note that while Yerevanci authored the first article, he has !voted delete on the second.

The bottom line for me is that I am uncomfortable with the notion of defending a user whose record of editing in the relevant topic area looks inconsistent at best. While I therefore maintain my concerns about the deletion of the "Falsification of history" article and the ban it led to, I am prepared to defer to the judgement of my fellow admins in this case. Gatoclass (talk) 13:14, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I do want to reply to Gatoclass' comments, I just haven't had the chance to yet with being tired coming home the past few days, and i'll try to have my comment in by morning. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 22:20, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@DQ - I refactored the above comment slightly as I felt the original comment didn't express my position with sufficient clarity. @Yerevanci - it is notionally possible to take the view that the article you created was legitimate whereas the "mirror" article created in response to it is not. My concern however, is that both articles look to me like POV forks which by definition exclude a balanced treatment of the issues. I also have concerns about some of the content, such as failure to attribute statements appropriately and so on, but this is not the right venue for discussing those concerns in detail. Gatoclass (talk) 04:18, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Grandmaster - thankyou for adding your viewpoint. I am unable to test the veracity of your claim that the "Falsification" article is an example of WP:CHERRY, because most of the sources are either in a foreign language or offline. You would need to provide more concrete evidence of a claim like that, but such a debate is probably beyond the scope of this appeal. My impression of the deleted (now userfied article, I think) is still that much of the content is legitimate and not obviously POV, regardless of whether or not it needs to be balanced by content from Azerbaijani sources or presented in a different context. That was the basis on which I was willing to provide some support for Yerevanci's appeal, but if the consensus of uninvolved admins here is that Yerevanci's actions were nonetheless problematic, I won't take issue with that. Gatoclass (talk) 08:35, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Bearing in mind Gatoclass's points, Yerevanci's topic ban is for battleground behaviour at WP:AN and frankly I see good reason for it to stand - thus I would decline this request. I agree with Sandstein that in areas under multiple ArbCom mandated probations: "We should expect not only defensible, but exemplary conduct from anyone who wishes to edit [them]". The principles of the second RFAR for this topic make that clear, as they do the issues wrt sourcing of articles for neutrality in this instance btw--Cailil ^talk 17:59, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Gatoclass I was not completely comfortable with the original deletion either (though respect the decision), and I took a while to pour over it. Yerevanci had the chance to take it to the proper venue at deletion review, but instead he continued on AN, then Sandstein's talk with the battleground behavior like mentioned by Cailil above. That's how I came to my conclusion. Had he used DRV instead, I would most likely not be supporting the ban if there were one. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 21:04, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Grandmaster

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

Request concerning Grandmaster

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Zimmarod (talk) 00:58, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Grandmaster (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Wikipedia:ARBAA2#Standard discretionary sanctions

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

Grandmaster's stalking of User:Oliveriki with repeated un-actionable AE requests. Second (recent) AE request: [3]. First request: [4].
Edit-warring or/and WP:TE, with no attempt to discuss on talk pages, in the highly contentious article Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia largely authored by the topic-banned User:Brandmeister [5], [6].
Display of bad faith via continued labeling of several accounts for two consecutive years despite several warnings and multiple negative SPIs [7], [8], [9]
Conflict-related advocacy in the thread regarding Yerevanci's appeal, as per User:Sandstein [10]
Promotion of bona fide POV sources, such as the Azerbaijani state news website 1news.az [11], while suppressing peer-reviewed Western academic references by gaming a consensus-building effort, per WP:GAME, WP:NPOV, and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT [12].

Example of disruptive behavior that went unaddressed in 2012:

On 18 April 2012, as previosly reported by several editors, Grandmaster vandalized the Nagorno-Karabakh article by removing 38Kb of material, in the process undoing the edits of User:Oliveriki, User:Dehr, User:Winterbliss, User:Sprutt, User:Vacio, User:VartanM, User:Sardur; User:Hablabar; and User:VahagnAvedian. These edits were supported on talk pages, in a consensus negotiated for over a month by most above-mentioned accounts, plus User:Nocturnal781 and User:Zimmarod [13]; summary of the consensus-building effort is here [14].

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

Warned on 7 February 2013 by Zimmarod (talk · contribs)
Warned on 5 February 2013, 10 February 2013 by Sandstein (talk · contribs) and by Lord Roem (talk · contribs)
Warned on 7 March 2012 by Aghetrichter (talk · contribs)
Warned on 18 April 2012 by Zimmarod (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

This discussion is a follow-up on User:Sandstein's [15] suggestion to more closely inspect User:Grandmaster, in light of his recent abuse of AE process by filing the second un-actionable AE request against User:Oliveriki [16]. This was preceded by Grandmaster's edit-warring or/and WP:TE [17], [18], with no attempt to discuss on talk pages, in the highly contentious article Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia. The article was started and heavily edited by User:Brandmeister - a repeatedly topic-banned account, now for two years. User:Grandmaster maneuvers almost exclusively within the most contentious AA2 topics, editing articles from a partisan viewpoint as per WP:TE. Here is just one example provided by User:517design that illustrates Grandmaster's aggressive style: [19], [20], [21], [22]. Despite multiple warnings, Grandmaster continues harassing a group of editors, including User:Oliveriki and myself, implying that their participation in WP should be ignored or restricted, because of edit count and other real of imaginary issues; at the very same time Grandmaster has aggressively defended the previously topic-banned User:Brandmeister who was sanctioned for the second time just recently because of edit-warring [23]. Grandmaster applies double standards regarding academic sources as well. Here [24] he promotes a bona fide POV Azerbaijani state website 1news.az [25] as reference, while here [26] he tried to suppress the use of a high quality work by peer-reviewed Western academics [27] by gaming the system as per WP:GAME and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.

Recent AE actions against User:Yerevanci and User:517design showed a trend toward the use of stricter standards in regard to AA2. User:Cailil said: I agree with Sandstein that in areas under multiple ArbCom mandated probations: "We should expect not only defensible, but exemplary conduct from anyone who wishes to edit [them]" [28]. Given that Grandmaster partisanship, intermittent display of anger and other breaches of WP rules are hardly defensible, his continued editorial participation at WP comes under questions.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[29]

Reply to Gatoclass and Sandstein

Yes, some of the diffs are old but relevant since they illustrate the continuity of patterns of disruptive behavior. True, some of the recent concerns – regarding Oliveriki - were lightly reviewed and a warning to Grandmaster has been mentioned in the closing AE paragraph; this review, however, did not amount to a full assessment since actionable assessments need separate AE requests. Neither was there a formal warning on Grandmaster's webpage - please place it there so that everyone could see it. In other words, both older and newer issues are relevant and should be carefully examined. Grandmaster's WP:TE editing of Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia is the most recent issue. There, instead of explaining himself on talk pages as a response to a bold action by Eupator [30], Grandmaster simply yanked back this highly controversial, WP:OR-based paragraph, thus continuing an edit war in which parts of the text were deleted and then restored again without any attempt at proper consensus building [31]. It also seemed that the definition of vandalism has been changed, and in its present edition I would qualify Grandmaster's actions on Nagorno-Karabakh as an especially disruptive case of WP:TE instead of vandalism. Zimmarod (talk) 01:54, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to Devil's Advocate

The Devil's nickname is a symbol of a commitment to be unfair, and the Devil does not fail to live up to that moniker. The Devil was warned by User:Sandstein that his unreasonably partisan style and aggressive language is not helpful in AE forum [32]. I urge the Devil to retract his emotional statement, and think that AE administrators should limit Devil's participation in delicate topic areas such as AA2 due to his intention to provoke and to confuse. Zimmarod (talk) 01:55, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to Grandmaster

Yes, there were those like Golbez who to this day entertain various theories about meating and socking. This is a violation of WP:AGF. However, neither Golbez nor Sandstein did file two meritless AE requests against Oliveriki. Zimmarod (talk) 01:53, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion concerning Grandmaster

Statement by Grandmaster

To tell the truth, I do not understand what exactly I'm being accused of. I'm not the only one who thinks that the activity of Zimmarod, Oliveriki and 517design in Shusha looks very suspicious. Sandstein agreed "that the history of the article gives the impression that sock- or meatpuppetry may be involved". [33] Golbez also stated that he believed Zimmarod was a sock account. [34] I wonder why Zimmarod does not report those admins, they expressed the same or even harsher opinions than myself about Zimmarod? With regard to the article Nagorno-Karabakh, the situation there was dealt with in this thread: [35], by imposing article level sanctions that would limit the ability of editors with less than 500 edits to rv the article. Admins made it clear that this was done to stop socking and meatpuppeting in the article: [36], while my activity did not lead to any sanctions. Also, Zimmarod does not mention that back then he 3 times restored the edits of the sock of the banned user, without any consensus at talk. In any case, we are talking about something that took place 1 year ago, and most of accounts that Zimmarod says were supporting him are now banned either from editing the whole Wikipedia, or AA topics. That also demonstrates that those accounts were engaged in disruptive activity. My reporting on Oliveriki was dealt with in the appropriate report, where I was warned, so I do not understand what the point is in repeatedly filing enforcement reports on issues that have already been reviewed? If Zimmarod thinks that the edit warring in Nagorno-Karabakh 1 year ago or me filing a report on Oliveriki were not dealt with properly, he needs to file an Arbitration enforcement action appeal and contest the decisions of the admins. Grandmaster 19:44, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I consider accusations of vandalism to be a personal attack, because there's a clear definition of what vandalism is, and my actions 1 year ago did not fit that definition, and admins believed that it was "not appropriate in such a contested article to add so much content in a single edit without discussion, and that the additions need to be discussed section by section by the parties concerned so that outstanding issues can be properly addressed". So clearly the disruption was caused by accounts that tried to restore the edits of the banned editor and mass puppeter, and not by those who tried to get them to discuss and reach consensus first. So I believe admins also need to look into bad faith assumptions and personal attacks by the editor who filed this report. Grandmaster 19:59, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In response to Zimmarod. Golbez filed this SPI request: [37], where he described in much detail what was going on in the article about Nagorno-Karabakh. And since you raised here that old story, the edit warring on NK was started by Vandorenfm (talk · contribs) and Gorzaim (talk · contribs), who were banned as socks on 15 and 18 September 2011. And then it was picked up by a group of accounts that were created around the same time in October-November 2011.

October 1, 2011: Dehr (talk · contribs) created a user account
November 11, 2011: Sprutt (talk · contribs) created a user account
November 16, 2011: Zimmarod (talk · contribs) created a user account
November 19, 2011: Winterbliss (talk · contribs) created a user account
November 22, 2011: Hablabar (talk · contribs) created a user account

I’m just presenting the facts here, and letting others judge. But the question is, what are the odds that a group of unrelated people could create those accounts and start editing the same page in order to restore the edits of sock accounts of a banned user? It is also of interest that those accounts appear after long absence to support each other, like it was in Shusha recently. Sometimes they are joined by older accounts, which also demonstrate only sporadic activity. Just an example, Zimmarod appeared on 13 December 2012 to support Sprutt at AE: [38] But Zimmarod's last edit prior to that was on 8 October 2012, i.e. he was absent for more than 2 months. So did 517design, who was absent since 28 October 2012, but who appeared on 14 December 2012 to support Sprutt at AE: [39] How did these users become aware of that AE report? We may consider these facts to be just coincidences, but aren't there too many such coincidences? Grandmaster 00:12, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others about the request concerning Grandmaster

Comments by The Devil's Advocate

I once more call for a WP:BOOMERANG on Zimmarod. Talk of "vandalism" and "stalking" is completely beyond the pale and does not match the facts by any measure. Honestly, I feel Sandstein's warning about filing reports against Oliveriki was misguided given the level of disruption created by that account in so few edits. Action against Grandmaster on the basis of Zimmarod's report, even if Zimmarod is sanctioned, would be a mistake, in my opinion.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 06:00, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning Grandmaster

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

Most of these diffs either look very old or concern conduct which has already been reviewed. Linking to an article history page is not a very helpful method of demonstrating "edit warring". Which particular edits on that page in your view constitute evidence of edit warring? Gatoclass (talk) 02:17, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewing the diffs presented, I'm not convinced that there is something actionable here. The request uses very strong or even hyperbolic language, accusing Grandmaster of severe misconduct such as partisan editing, gaming the system, vandalism, stalking, harassing or edit-warring. Yet the evidence submitted is not sufficient to substantiate such severe accusations. For example, the charge of edit-warring is only supported with a link to a history page and one diff. We can't determine edit-warring on that basis. Zimmarod alleges that at [40], Grandmaster engages in "promotion of bona fide POV sources" such as 1news.az. Yet even assuming for the sake of argument that this news medium is indeed biased, Grandmaster only cites it to attribute a statement allegedly made by a person to that news medium, which appears unproblematic. The edit at [41], which Zimmarod characterizes as vandalism, seems to me to reflect, at most, editing contrary to an (alleged) consensus. That is not in and of itself sanctionable, because consensus can change. It only becomes problematic if it is done repeatedly (by edit-warring), or as part of a pattern of tendentious editing. But that would need more than one diff to establish. Likewise, Zimmarod alleges that Grandmaster is "editing articles from a partisan viewpoint as per WP:TE", but cites as evidence only edits to an AfD page (i.e., not an article), which moreover do not appear unduly partisan or aggressive to me.

Only one part of the evidence is more concerning. It is not acceptable to allege abusive sockpuppetry on the part of an editor, as Grandmaster did at [42], without evidence, and in an inappropriate context (on an article talk page, which is supposed to be about content, not conduct issues). As a positive counter-example, at [43], Grandmaster did supply (what he considered to be) circumstantial evidence of sock- or meatpuppetry, and did so in a contextually appropriate forum.

On that basis, I recommend closing this request with a warning to both Zimmarod and Grandmaster not to accuse others of severe misconduct (such as vandalism or sockpuppetry) unless such accusations are made (a) in the appropriate dispute resolution or enforcement forum, and (b) with adequate evidence to support these accusations. Failure to heed this warning could lead to a topic ban for either editor. Sandstein 15:31, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

While I've been waiting for Zimmarod to respond to my request for specific diffs, I have been considering laying a brief topic ban for filing what appears to be a meritless report. However, the pattern of his evidence, including heavy reliance on old diffs, suggests a lack of familiarity with this process, which requires evidence of recent misconduct. I guess we could give him the benefit of the doubt but I think a warning not to file meritless requests would be appropriate. With regard to the "comments on contributor", given the tensions in contentious topic areas it is not surprising that users might be inclined to vent a little once they arrive at a dispute resolution forum, so rather than a warning I would probably lean to a reminder to both parties that charges made against other parties need to be backed up by evidence. Gatoclass (talk) 16:13, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Zimmarod has been here before, several times. I think a warning is merited, and an action may be. Editors who have been here before surely know that diffs are required and brevity and clarity is strongly encouraged. Killer Chihuahua 18:18, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Given that Zimmarod's intemperate commentary in this request has just been flagged by Sandstein as possible grounds for a warning, I am not at all impressed by Zimmarod's response, where he says of another user: The Devil's nickname is a symbol of a commitment to be unfair, and the Devil does not fail to live up to that moniker.[44] That strikes me as a totally gratuitous and indefensible breach of WP:AGF, not to mention WP:BATTLEGROUND. It seems the message is not getting through here. Gatoclass (talk) 04:22, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sandstein explained very well how this request is not actionable towards Grandmaster. I also have to agree with Gatoclass that Zimmarod's comment about "the Devil" is inappropriate, and very much playing with a battleground mentality. At the very least, a warning needs to be issued to Zimmarod. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 15:50, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Don't see anything actionable against Grandmaster. Also agree that the clearly inappropriate and inaccurate interpretation of another editor's name Zimmarod made above probably does qualify for at least a warning, and probably more, although I guess I would probably lean toward lighter rather than heavier sanctions. John Carter (talk) 20:10, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nado158

Nado158 is banned from all articles and discussions related to Serbia, Kosovo, and Albania, broadly construed, for a period of one year. Killer Chihuahua 22:25, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Request concerning Nado158

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:30, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Nado158 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:ARBMAC

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

While looking at the recent Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Persecution of Serbs and other non-Albanians in Kosovo, it came to my attention that Nado158 should be cautioned for persistent battleground mentality in WP:ARBMAC topic areas.

My old warnings about it are already gone from their User talk:
- In November 2012, they blithely accuse me of editing based on ethnicity. In response to my warning, they walk back on it with a few platitudes. The context is described at Talk:Ante Gotovina#Del Ponte, Haradinaj, ...
- In January 2013, they try to blank an article instead of proposing deletion (despite having seen AfDs before); no response to my warning. User:Praxis Icosahedron complained to me about them then.

They were involved in the coattails of the recent User:Oldhouse2012 flamewar by making these kinds of edits for which User:Shokatz complained to them and to myself already.

In this latest discussion, first WhiteWriter makes a largely pointless accusation (who in turn has something of a history of being so wrong to be disruptive on the topic of sockpuppetry), and then Nado158 proceeds to copy and paste the same pointless accusation later in the discussion, despite the fact WW had at that point already been criticized for making such accusations.

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

already linked above

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

I didn't analyze the entire contribution history of the user, but the common thread with these incidents appears to be Serbian nationalism topics and talking points - Ante Gotovina is someone who must be a villain; Bošnjani can't have existed in the 14th century because Serbian historians know it was all Serbia in the 9th; Zemun is Serbian today, so its history as part of other states can't be but a worthless concoction of Hungarian and Croatian irredentists (both!); Kosovo is, well, Kosovo, so there (no analysis of WP:SYNTH necessary).

(I apologize if the readers don't appreciate my sarcasm. I've been exposed to this stuff for a long time now, and I have to find some humor in it, otherwise it's just too depressing.)

Given the problems, Nado158's contribution in these topic areas does not seem like a net positive for the encyclopedia. I've tried to do due dilligence and tried to find proof to the contrary, and found only some more gems of the unrelated kind in the Persecution... article:

In [45], they added a chunk of information, seemingly sourced, but accompanied with a huge blockquote that is essentially soapboxing
[46] - lots of broken English
[47] and [48] - lots of copy&paste from an OSCE Report, whose reference is in turn copied and pasted each time
[49] - copy&paste from Radio Netherlands Worldwide
[50] - copy&paste from The Guardian

I suggest an initial temporary topic ban on anything related to such talking points. I have no prejudice against other topic areas - although I did just notice this incident while searching for their AfD history.

I'm not enacting such a topic ban myself because a possibility of WP:INVOLVED, and because any such action by myself could be generally construed as persecution of a poor Serbian user by the evil Croats, which would just compound the problem, regardless of the notion being baseless. It's best for this to be reviewed by neutral editors.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[51]

Random discussion comments

WhiteWriter, the part that made your accusation largely pointless was that you wrote a generic clause invited here off line by one of "Delete" users above. If you have doubts in the good faith of any particular "delete user", you should say that clearly and precisely. Casually lumping them all together and throwing around an unspecified accusation of sockpuppetry is simply bad form. It subtly perpetuates the illusion that there are "delete users" and "keep users", and it's all too easy to extend that into an "us vs. them" relationship - battleground mentality. And as we can see from this example, once you do something like that, someone like Nado158 can pick up the cue and make things worse. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:39, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

...and I should also mention, User:Peacemaker67 already told you this a week ago over there:

as I am one of those "delete" users you have referred to, I am offended by your suggestion that I might have invited a sock or SPA to !vote here. You are attacking the man, not the argument, which is always the tactic of the desperate. Either produce the evidence you have of the canvassing of the SPA/sock or strike your attack on the integrity of all of the users that happen to have recommended "delete".

Yet you nevertheless now accused me of misrepresenting and misleading. You too need to lay off the battleground mentality. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 08:54, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Nado158's questions - I'm willing to do a point-by-point answer/rebuttal session if anyone else confirms that they want an answer to anything. In the meantime, I'll just give you a general answer: you say this behavior is the product of 'errors' and that you can improve, but at the same time you freely admit that you seem to hold some sort of a grudge against myself for "writing anti-Serbian". I'm doing no such thing; I generally try to use the encyclopedia for what it's for: to describe things that exist in the real life. If I (or anyone else) describe something relevant that is negative towards Serbia, Croatia, trees, toasters, or any number of other things or concepts, you should not automatically attribute that to an inherent bias. Assuming bad faith is a fairly typical sign that you need to steer away from some topics. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:25, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I not to hold some sort of a grudge against you for "writing anti-Serbian" but you do it with me and I wonder why? I do not write "anti-Croatian". I generally try to use also the encyclopedia for what it's for like you: to describe things that exist in the real life. You said: "If I (or anyone else) describe something relevant that is negative towards Serbia, Croatia, trees, toasters, or any number of other things or concepts, you should not automatically attribute that to an inherent bias." The same is also true for me and I have not bad intentions.--Nado158 (talk) 20:28, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion concerning Nado158

Statement by Nado158

Reply to Joy

@Joy - You looked at the recent Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Persecution of Serbs and other non-Albanians in Kosovo, and you recognize that I persistent "battleground mentality"? I have just answered and I just defended my opinion. This falls on you that I used "battleground mentality", but you not saw that the users have to start before with this mentalitiy, and have used the same language? I wonder why? I have offended nobody, and have dealt respectfully with each. I was the one who actually proposed to end this without meaningful discussions and I answered politely and always ended every sentence reasonable. So why complain only to me and represent me as if I the user treat bad what is not true?--Nado158 (talk) 12:04, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Joy - About the Gotovina topic: You had removed a comment by Carla del Ponte (soruces from The Guardian...[52]), who was a very important person to this case, and my suspicion was that you've only done this because they had judged negatively about Gotovina. I do not knew you and just bevore I meet many users from all the ethnic group who write is not objective, use the POV or NPOV. I unfortunately made the mistake and react too quickly. I realized my error and I apologized to you. It is 3 months ago and I have since then, specifically to the Carla del Ponte topic, did not return right? Did I continou to discussion with you about this? No. I learned from it so make me please not so bad or that there would be a constant problem-with me. About the Bošnjani topic: It was my mistake. I have not read the sources, not the talk page etc. I was too fast and made rookie errors. After I read the sources and the Talk Page, I saw that I was wrong. I have apologized for it and also I never returned again to this page. About the Zemun topic: I dont know who is Oldhouse2012. I came to this site because I wanted to write about sports because I mainly for 80% write about sports and this topic very interrested me. I finally done this, but also I saw a large part of the text without sources and who was added again and again by someone, or from the new user Shokatz. To me its looked like POV, I thought it was a sock. And because there are no sources for this was given, I decided to remove it. But I was never rude, etc.--Nado158 (talk) 12:04, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Joy - About the topic Sockpuppet: Your accusation that WhiteWriter is rightly criticizes was wrong, because he was right. I saw the accusation of WhiteWriter was not meaningless, because they led to discovery to a sock. Also User Peacemaker67 was agree with WhiteWriter. The suddenly emerging user Kosovo 2008 Albania 1912 has been blocked [53]. I also saw the other users have expressed their opinion on suspicion. So I thought I also have the right if there is suspicion. My suspicion was mainly related to Keithstanton, and what eventually happened? He has been blocked due to abuse of editing privileges [54]. I was right. And I wonder very much about your accusations, because you yourself complained about him as you can se here.[55]. So why you may that and I not?I would add further....--Nado158 (talk) 12:04, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Joy - You said, that you didn't analyze the entire contribution history of me, but you saw my beginner errors while you overlooked a lot of my good articles have which nothing to do with these topics. You've picked out the 5% of the "bad things" and all the other good things omitted represent bad about me. You've been looking for a hair in the soup. You overlooked that I worked already with Croatian, Hungarian an other users. You made allegations that I have maybe Nationalist background, that I want to Gotovina look bad, although 98% of anything I not wrote about him (I could also say that you want to let Gotovina look much prettirt or? And I remind you that Carla Del Ponte said the things about him which I want to add at that time. Why can her opinion appear at other politicians and not on his page? However) You make me all the allegations even though I do not edit anything or 98% of pages which are in relation to Croatia, ist history, the wars etc.? At the same time you make me the reproach even though you edit numerous Serbian articles (about politicians etc). There you write often anti-Serbian and confront the things are worse as they are. You make me the allegations even though I even already written Pro-Croatian ect and I can prove this? In addition I have hardly anything (98%) ever written about Republic of Kosovo. Why do they try to transfer a stereotype to me? I am willing to work with all of you. With me about everything can be arranged. I respect every one here, but I would add that I also have a rights.--Nado158 (talk) 12:58, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Joy - About the broken English: I improve my English every day and if I make a grammatical error, then I am pleased if another user corrects me and and I happy if I learn from it. You could have improved my fault instead of criticizing me for such a thing. I also wrote numerous articles which showed a good English, and nobody complains about this. Also that you overlooked. I would appreciate if you let me upgrade and I learn from it.--Nado158 (talk) 13:11, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Joy - About the copy allegations: The copy allegations are exaggerated. There are 1-2 sentences or few words but that all. How should I rewrite 1-2 sentences from Radio Netherlands Worldwide and The Guardian? The goal was to add a source who proved the act. I have not invented this. Similarly, the OSCE report. How should I write this? And as you see I have mentioned there the persecution of Croats, as you can see your accusation that I had a problem with Croats is wrong. And at least I work with sources in contrast to some other users.Thank you.--Nado158 (talk) 13:25, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to others

@ZjarriRrethues - About the topic: "In August 2005, two Serbs were shot dead and two injured when their car was taken under fire". Please do not twist my things. I've already added a new source from Germany which describes these things etc. These things are written there. If I have made a mistake then say it to me please? Here the source. The answers to all the rest coming soon. Thank you.[56]--Nado158 (talk) 20:04, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@To all of you - I am willing to work with all of you, and of course in accordance with the laws. I not realized really that my changes are a problem or that they are a big problem. Where I realized that I made mistake (I made rookie errors) I have apologized and stopped it, and you can see this. With me about everything can be arranged. I respect every one here, but I would add that I also have a right to reply to the entire mentioned problems and to defend myself, because I see some misunderstandings and I want to solve these things peacefully.--Nado158 (talk) 20:53, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Zero - About the topic: Gnjilane Group: The sense of the source was, that the various ethnic groups in Kosovo were killed by the Gniljane Group, and where have I made a mistake? It was written in the source. There are also enough other sources. The article is about the persecution of ethnic groups. I understand not my error here? And when I made it, then you can explain it to me yet and improve this thing. Where is the problem? I desire to learn and to work high quality. Thank you!--Nado158 (talk) 09:51, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@KillerChihuahua - You've listened to me at all and not condemn me already in advance. I think that's not fair. You have to know that I am a beginner and then not know the rules or known very bad. I just looked out from other users how they act and failed to notice the error. There was an error. Today, I know a lot more, and I have not repeated some errors. I learn every day something new to it. I am willing to work with all of you. With me about everything can be arranged.--Nado158 (talk) 10:04, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You said to Joy he should ignore any further aspersions or attacks by me, who is rapidly sinking his ship even deeper. Dear KillerChihuahua, which attacks and aspersions do you mean please? Besides this, you said nothing I have said which could change your mind. Please read all my comments again. Thank you!--Nado158 (talk) 17:35, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Zjarri - About the attack with a bombs on Serbian house topic: I have given first a soruce and you not. And if you done this, then I may have overlooked it and you would have me point out more precisely. The accusation, better the the arrest of the suspect from the same ethnic group was sharply criticized by the affected family etc. They have condemned and rejected the arrest. The offender is free again and there are enough sources to this topic etc.I should add that an another user explained it to me better and we are then removed this and there were no problems from both sides. What do you say? I whish to add that...--Nado158 (talk) 13:50, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Zjarri - About the Kosovo-Albanian topic: Yes, I put the source to show that it is called Kosovo Albanian. You can put also an other source which proved that. Where is the problem? It is called Kosovo-Albanian. About the mass accusations of sockpuppetry: Which mass accusations of sockpuppetry? Whith the help of WhiteWriter and Peacemaker67 we discovered a sock. The suddenly emerging user Kosovo 2008 Albania 1912 has been blocked [57]. I also saw the other users have expressed their opinion on suspicion. So I thought I also have the right if there is suspicion. My suspicion was mainly related to Keithstanton, and what eventually happened? He has been blocked due to abuse of editing privileges [58]. I was right. And the last of your accusations, the topic about "In August 2005, two Serbs were shot dead and two injured when their car was taken under fire by Albanians during a tire change"...I already refuetes with a new source. If you want you can write take under fire by unknown persons, although the injured Serbs said it was Alabanians. I can finde sources but who you wish.--Nado158 (talk) 16:32, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@EdJohnston - I now understand the problem, and I admit that the source is unfortunate and we can replace it with another source, but is not add from my side to assume ethnic bias. In addition, can you explain to me where I misreading the source about the Gniljane Group? Please read ALL my comments again, check it etc. I whish only to understand. Besides this, I already refuted some allegations here. I worked also with Croatian, German, Hungarian, Englsih etc an other users. I am willing to work with all of you and to improve myself. Why am I so quickly sentenced? or put in a drawer? Please read ALL my comments again. Thanky you--Nado158 (talk) 16:56, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Lord Roem - Please wait? Please see also my opinion (and please read my comments above). By the way, we both have worked together a few weeks ago. In this collaboration, they have given me even partially right. I, another user and you have found a solution in the end. There were no problems. I do not think that I deserve such hard punishment.--Nado158 (talk) 17:08, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others about the request concerning Nado158

ZjarriRrethues

Nado had added an event that had no culprits and motives and wasn't labeled as a persecution or ethnic crime in an article under a list of incidents of persecutions. When I removed it, explained that his argument contained much original research and even provided a news piece that stated that a suspect from the same ethnic group was detained as the crime seems to be related to a dispute between two families[59], he reverted me[60] and asked for a source which I had already brought forth.
There are also plain ethnic-battleground type edits like adding a source about a Kosovar committing a crime right on the lead of the article because it will show that it is called Kosovo Albanian.
Blatant source misrepresentation: In August 2005, two Serbs were shot dead and two injured when their car was taken under fire by Albanians during a tire change.[61], source:Two Serbs shot dead and two injured when their car is fired at.

--— ZjarriRrethues — ^talk 18:37, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

NE Ent

Proposed sanction by puppy (1 week block followed by 1 year topic ban) seems inappropriate; while the ban is reasonably preventative, adding a block to the mix seems punitive (what will a block accomplish that a ban won't?) NE Ent 16:45, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thehoboclown

While I don't know anything about Nado158's recent actions regarding this Serbia-Kosovo issue, I can say it's not the first time he edited in a somewhat ethnic related battleground mentality. In fact he removed links pointing to Hungarian-related articles, sometimes even doing it blindly, without checking what he is really doing – here he just undid the link removal carried out by an IP minutes before. I also submitted an ANI report, where I described the situation and warned the involved users that their actions might fall under WP:ARBEE, therefore they should be aware of being on thin ice. The report eventually concluded without getting any attention, later, however, the reported users (except Nado158) turned out to be Oldhouse2012's socks and got blocked.

I removed it, because there are not the a Hunagrian minority etc., the same for Zrenjanin and therefore there was no reason to keep them there.--Nado158 (talk) 10:44, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, Nado158 was active in a "name-removing" game in the Subotica article (here and here) and also got involved in a war over the usage of the Hungarian name of Srbobran, which actions are also very likely to fall under discretionary sanctions. Given these, I think if the the topic ban comes into effect, it should cover this area as well. Thehoboclown (talk) 20:22, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

About Subotica, the problem has been resolved. Why do you not tell the here users that I have left after the name and that I have improved the whole page with 2 other users? among them an Hungarian? Why do not you mention that? you say I was in a war because of Srborban? I have DISCUSSED with others about the topic. On the Talk Page is everything visible and where there is a war please?--Nado158 (talk) 10:52, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WhiteWriter

Off topic.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Regarding questionable accusation of my contribution by user Joy, you should see contribution of the user in question. You will see that user WAS INDEED the sock puppet SPA, so accusations WERE NOT largely pointless. Therefor, i am asking from Joy to quickly remove this misrepresented info from this request. --WhiteWriter^speaks 19:32, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I was talking about this:

comment from above
In this latest discussion, first WhiteWriter makes a largely pointless accusation (who in turn has something of a history of being so wrong to be disruptive on the topic of sockpuppetry), and then Nado158 proceeds to copy and paste the same pointless accusation later in the discussion, despite the fact WW had at that point already been criticized for making such accusations.

I don see what is wrong with recognising sock-master in questionable area. User:Sinbad Barron have 50+ socks, so it is essential to mark them as fast as possible. He is as we speak on WP:AN to be community banned, so, there is nothing wrong with Nado commenting same thing again. Also, after finding all those socks and reporting them, i know that user reappear each time to vote in some questionable area, often with months pause. So, someone invite him off wiki. You should not be genius to see that... :) Anyway, all of those are unrelated to this request... --WhiteWriter^speaks 19:48, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, but far as i know guidelines, i cannot just remove it now, its on ARE... And i added this much only as you asked for explanation. Anyway, Joy comment was misleading, and i will not talk about this anymore. All best. --WhiteWriter^speaks 20:19, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Evlekis

Moved out of the admin section. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 23:09, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If I can request that any admin dealing with this exercise restraint because Nado158 is very much a good faith editor who has made mistakes and realises these. Part of the problem regarding "battleground editing" is that this occurs in sensitive areas where rival factions exist in the first place. To this end, comments submitted by users perennially opposed to Nado158's outlook on article presentation should be taken with a pinch of salt. I know a lot about slinging mud because less than a year ago, I found myself at the dirty end of four AN/I inquiries and one editor to have dished out filth on this very post was instrumental in these purges - thankfully they all failed miserably but one did land me with an ARBMAC warning. I just wanted to add that not every idea of mine corresponds to Nado158's but we have been able to discuss and agree between each other and I can say that he has never reverted me when I have removed his contributions. Please see this thread which I add is live as I send this. Disciplinary at least, temporary ban at most, but indef is plain cruel. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 21:46, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning Nado158

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

A quick first look shows a definite problem. Consider this edit. It says "The Gnjilane Group ... committing brutal crimes and murders against killing dozens of Serbs, Roma, and also ethnic Albanians civilians..." but the source says that a court had just overturned a conviction for such crimes and ordered a retrial. This is a blatant misrepresentation of the source. Zero^talk 11:22, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please move your comment out of this section. My answer: I can read the source myself and you misrepresented it. Zero^talk 00:49, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Such flagrant misuse of sources to promote a POV require equally strong measures, IMO. I cannot see any situation in which Nado158 can explain away such edits with any plausibility. Propose ~~a 1 week block followed by~~ a 1 year ban from the topic area. Killer Chihuahua 18:21, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
WhiteWriter, your post is a bit opaque. Please rephrase so I can puzzle out what you're talking about. Killer Chihuahua 19:41, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is completely unrelated to this request and I would prefer you simply remove it, and remember not to add off topic posts here. Such posting may lead to sanctions for you. Killer Chihuahua 20:04, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nado158, I said I couldn't imagine you being able to explain away your edits. Had you surprised me and done so, then I'd be willing to reconsider. Unfortunately, nothing you have said has changed my mind. You can gain experience by editing other topics, after your block expires. May I suggest you also work on your English language skills, which you will find helpful in editing the English Wikipedia. Killer Chihuahua 13:09, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Joy; Oh please no; refrain from any point-by-point rebuttal (unless you see a question from an admin in this section) and indeed, simply ignore any further aspersions or attacks by Nado158, who is rapidly sinking his ship even deeper. Killer Chihuahua 16:31, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
ZjarriRrethues: Although the BBC source does not support the edit about the two youths in a car, there is another source there too. Unfortunately it is behind a paywall; can you read it? Zero^talk 00:49, 21 February 2013 (UTC) Added: I see it is visible here. It could be cited for this incident but following the source more closely. It says they were shot by "Unbekannten" (strangers) not by Albanians. Zero^talk 01:05, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This diff brought by ZjarriRrethues is a real gem. Nado158 added a source "Kosovan Albanian admits killing two US airmen in Frankfurt terror attack" right on the first two words of the article! KillerChihuahua, I agree to your proposed sanction. Zero^talk 00:58, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Zero0000 that Nado158's change to the opening sentence of Kosovo Albanians is certainly inappropriate. Anyone seeing this edit is likely to assume ethnic bias on the part of the editor. Nado158's misreading of the source about the Gniljane group, which he seems to repeat in his own comment just above, is also a concern. A person reading the press article should be careful enough to tell whether a conviction is being upheld or overturned. A sanction against Nado158 is justified. EdJohnston (talk) 01:37, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
After looking through the comments and diffs above, I concur with Ed's description of the situation and feeling that a sanction is necessary. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 04:37, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nado158 may be well intentioned and may not completely understand the effect of some of the words he is writing or copying, but several issues such as 1) copying from other sources, even if it's one sentence here and there is not appropriate 2) having a battleground mentality towards other users that they are meat or sockpuppets without proving them 3) blatantly biased sourcing within the first two words of an article as mentioned by Ed above. These issues combined alone have me supporting a sanction. Can I get my fellow admins' comments on a 6 month topic ban on Kosovo-Albanian relations broadly constructed, and a final administrative (aka non-ArbCom) warning for copyright issues and for sock accusations without evidence. Maybe I am overdoing it, but I'm willing to consider lifting the ban early if they can clearly demonstrate change in the area and the consensus of current admins here when it appeals agree. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 20:47, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I suggested a year and no one flinched, so I imagine 6 months would be agreeable to most. I'm withdrawing my initial block proposal tho. Either one, I'm agreeable. But the article intro edit has me leaning towards the year. Think about it: If you were from ethnic group X, and I edited the article on X to make sure the very first thing anyone learned about your people is that you're murderers and terrorists.... Seriously, this is a big deal. Killer Chihuahua 12:06, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is true. 1 year does sound more appropriate. Joy has a point on my talkpage though that some of the problematic area is not covered through Albania-Kosovo relations, and I'm not exactly sure how to word that in to this proposed topic ban. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 16:18, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's covered, and we add "broadly construed" anyway, but I'll make a point of making it as clear as possible. If there are no objections, I'll close this shortly. Killer Chihuahua 18:05, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sprutt

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

Request concerning Sprutt

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: Parishan (talk) 09:55, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: Sprutt (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2

[62]

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

[63]
[64]

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

Topic banned and notified on [65] by NuclearWarfare (talk · contribs)

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

User:Sprutt was banned indefinitely from the topic of Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts. Despite this, he removes information from the article which mentions the support of the Armenian organization for encouraging separatist movements in Azerbaijan.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

[66]

Discussion concerning Sprutt

Statement by Sprutt

Armenia Fund is a charity and has nothing to do with Armenia-Azerbaijan topic in Wikipedia. Sprutt (talk) 15:47, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is directly involved in sponsoring projects in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is an Armenian-occupied part of Azerbaijan, and was criticised for supporting separatism in Nagorno-Karabakh, as mentioned in the paragraph removed by you. Parishan (talk) 16:17, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others about the request concerning Sprutt

I also agree with the submitter that this violates Sprutt's topic ban. Regarding my edits on the article Armenia Fund, I didn't put biased sources. Most of the sources are from blogs, videos, articles, papers, researches done by Armenians (not by Azerbaijanis) and have lots of proof & evidence for the listed facts. Therefore I don't think that my edits lack neutrality and don't understand why I have to receive warning (even formal one). Best, Konullu (talk) 17:46, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My intention wasn't to warn WP readers not contribute to Armenia Fund. I just didn't want to paraphrase that sentence assuming that it will be deleted claiming that it is my "own work" and I might be accused for bad faith. Therefore I left that sentence as it is, you can easily check on Google and see that I used the same wording used by Armenian researcher regarding the fund. Best, Konullu (talk) 22:56, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Since there are doubts with regard to the scope of AA sanctions, this request for clarification might be helpful: [67] My understanding of this is that any tendentious editing related to Armenia or Azerbaijan or related regions falls within the scope of AA2 sanctions. In this regard, Sprutt did violate his restriction, as his edit was related to AA topics, from which he was banned. Grandmaster 22:04, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I honestly find it downright amusing that Konullu would write that he didn't "want to paraphrase that sentence assuming that it will be deleted claiming that it is my 'own work' and I might be accused for bad faith." This is exactly what we encourage editors to do: to paraphrase, not copy and paste and pass the work off as your own. Konullu's edits place such obvious undue emphasis on the negative aspects of the Armenia Fund that it's possible that it didn't quite matter to him so long as he thought the content of the edits spoke for itself. To add this text without placing it in quotation marks is not only plagiarism but, as the administrators below have noted might be construed to be an endorsement of Wikipedia's views.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 03:31, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Result concerning Sprutt

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

The request is actionable. Contrary to Sprutt's statement, the edit at [68] concerned the topic of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict if only because it removed the following text: "Support for separatism. The financial assistance does not only go to Armenian Republic, but also to non-recognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. As it is considered integral part of Azerbaijan Republic by all international law and organizations, Armenian Fund is claimed to finance separatism." This violates the topic ban imposed at [69]. I suggest a two-week enforcement block. Also, although this isn't relevant to this particular request, the wording of the topic ban ("the topic of Armenia-Azerbaijan and related ethnic conflicts") doesn't make clear whether the ban also extends to anything related to each of the two countries, or only to their conflict(s). I suggest rephrasing it as "anything related to Armenia, Azerbaijan or related ethnic conflicts" to make clear that we mean the former. Sandstein 16:14, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the submitter that this violates Sprutt's topic ban. @Sandstein, I suggest not widening the ban, because Sprutt has also made edits about Armenian architecture. This seems harmless, and it fits with advice we have given in the past. We sometimes remind topic-banned editors that non-conflict-related edits are OK. Note that the material Sprutt reverted was recently added by User:Konullu and it exhibits obvious lack of neutrality. Konullu was warned for AA following an ANI report in 2012. I suggest that we formally warn Konullu for his non-neutral edit at Armenia Fund. I will notify him that he's been mentioned here. Some of his material may be able to stay but he is accepting all criticism at face value and putting it in Wikipedia's voice. EdJohnston (talk) 16:51, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Konullu: Here is the actual wording of the 'Criticism' paragraph that you added: "Despite their willingness to lend a helping hand, numerous contributors tend to think twice before making a donation, due to multiple reports and evidence of corruption linked to the activities of the Fund." Do you think Wikipedia should be warning our readers not to contribute to the Armenia Fund? Should we be announcing in Wikipedia's voice that the Fund is corrupt? This needs to be given in indirect speech and cited to the source. If there is any rebuttal, we should include that also. Cherry-picking negative material about the Armenia Fund is obviously non-neutral. EdJohnston (talk) 18:47, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No objection to a warning of Konullu on that basis. Sandstein 20:52, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I concur that this is actionable and that the edits violate the topic ban. The Armenian Fund article's content, as mentioned above, is clearly within the realm of the injunction on Sprutt's editing. Unlike Ed though, I also support Sandstein's proposed rewording of the topic ban. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 17:38, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what exactly justifies for an extension of the topic ban, can someone explain this? -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 21:05, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not necessarily an extension, but rather a clarification. The wording "the topic of Armenia-Azerbaijan", which is unfortunately also found in the ArbCom decision, is unclear as to whether it refers to only the relationship between these two countries, or also to everything related to either country alone. I've assumed that the latter is what was originally meant, but if not we should clarify the scope in the former sense. I'll ask the admin who imposed the topic ban to comment. Sandstein 21:14, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This edit violated the topic ban, but the primary issue last time was with Sprutt's tendentious behavior. Any extension of a topic ban should be tailored to addressed that if possible. If you think you can find a better way to do it, by all means please feel free to change the wording of the ban.
Agree with Ed that Konullu ought to be warned or sanctioned. NW (Talk) 21:22, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Tha'ts not exactly what I was asking regarding the intended scope of the ban, but never mind, that's probably better asked as an ArbCom clarification request. Sandstein 13:15, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I'm sorry. Let me clarify: I believe the topic ban ought to cover anything relating to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, whether that covers the actions that the governments have taken with respect to each other or individual citizens doing things that antagonize citizens of the other country. The scope of the ban attempted to be narrowly tailored enough to cover where Sprutt was being most tendentious. If it needs to be expanded to cover Armenia or Azerbaijan as a whole to stop that kind of behavior, that is one option, but I'm not seeing it as particularly necessary. His edits clearly related to antagonism between peoples of the two countries and as such violated the topic ban as it currently stands. NW (Talk) 17:42, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that clarifies it for me. If there are no objections, I'll close this with a two-week block for Sprutt, with a clarification that the topic ban applies to anything relating to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and a warning to Konullu to observe WP:NPOV closely when editing in this topic area. Sandstein 18:09, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

bg:user:Алиса Селезньова

Closed as not actionable. Functionaries of this Wikipedia have neither the ability nor the authority to remove the administrative rights of users on another Wikipedia. Please use that other Wikipedia's dispute resolution processes to resolve your problem. Be advised that misusing this Wikipedia's dispute resolution processes for personal attacks against others may lead to sanctions against you. Sandstein 20:43, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

User who is submitting this request for enforcement: --Aleksd (talk) 20:13, 22 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User against whom enforcement is requested: bg:user:Алиса Селезньова

Sanction or remedy to be enforced: removal of administration rights of the user

The user is administrator of Bulgarian Wikipedia who together with bg:user:Мико were continiously harrasing me on religious basis (I am Buddhist), threaten me with the words "Its your time" usually in both English and Bulgarian used as part of the fraze "time to die", reverted my edits in Buddhism to imply irony in issues and harassed my talk page with finally blocking me from Bulgarian Wikipedia. In Bugarian Wikipedia there isn't any type of arbitration and generally administrators act like little 'dictators' and in the case of Bulgarian Wikipedia they are pro-socialist, Orthodox Christians who largelly don't believe in diversity and multiculturalism, and use irony, reverts and deletion to suppress information that doesn't fit what they like. I also made a complain about the situation prior to the ban here, in the English Wikipedia, User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 126#Religious intolerance in Bulgarian Wikipedia

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

[70] - using '' to imply irony on Buddhist term, 29 January 2013

[71] - the user says "it's Your time", 21:01 13 February 2013
[72] - deletion by the user of my statement that I don't want to discuss any more since they were starting a quarrel (my talk page), 21:59 13 February 2013
[73] - deletion of the statement again (my talk page), 23:26 13 February 2013
[74] - 3rd deletion, 12:14 14 February 2013

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

There was no warngs because of the administrator status of the users, only pleads:

Warned on 17:04, 25 January 2013 by Aleksd (talk · contribs) - asked to stop with irony

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

Users and administrators bg:user:Алиса Селезньова and bg:user:Мико where continuously stepping over my edits in Buddhism making fun and irony of both the religion and my religious believes (not only in Metta article but there mainly), with making fun of me too and trying to make me nervous to have a reason to 'get rid of me' in Bulgarian Wikipedia and stop me from contributing in the area of Buddhism. I admit that they were successful in this but also I think the lack of arbitration and diversity among administrators in Bulgarian Wikipedia should be intervened with a type of arbitration.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

I am unable to notify the user since I am blocked there.

bg:user:Алиса Селезньова

[1] The administrator may indicate consent at any time before, during, or after imposition of the restriction.

[2] This criterion does not apply if the original action was imposed as a result of rough consensus at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard, as there would be no single enforcing administrator.

[3] Olson, James Stuart (1994). An ethnohistorical dictionary of the Russian and Soviet empires (1. publ. ed.). Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p. 73. ISBN 9780313274978. For months, the APF remained a groups of intellectuals with neither official status nor a mass following. Its singular appeal centered on anti-Armenianism, a problem that became more acute after the fall of 1989 when some 200,000 Azerbaijani refugees arrived from Armenian and the NKAO. Since Azerbaijanis were not particularly interested in political reform and since these refugees tended to be very activist and vocal, emphasizing anti-Armenianism became the quickest way to blind some semblance of mass appeal. The Azerbaijanis government's unwillingness to adopt the APF's anti-Armenian agenda resulted in a series of strikes, including a transportation strike aimed at blocking the shipment of supplies to both Armenia and the NKAO.

[4] Human Rights Watch (1995). Playing the "Communal Card": Communal Violence and Human Rights. New York. pp. 148–149. ISBN 9781564321527. By January 1990, Azerbaijan, especially its capital, Baku, were in turmoil. Large rallies by the Azerbaijani Popular Front, the main opposition group, crowded Baku's streets. The rhetoric of these gatherings was heavily anti-Armenian. On January 13, 1990, a second set of anti-Armenian pogroms convulsed the city, taking forty-eight lives.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

[hrw-5] Human Rights Watch (1994). Azerbaijan: seven years of conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. New York: Humans Rights Watch. ISBN 1-56432-142-8.

[a]

@@ Line 225: / Line 225: @@
 == Nado158 ==
+{{hat|Nado158 is  banned from all articles and discussions related to Serbia, Kosovo, and Albania, broadly construed, for a period of one year. [[User:KillerChihuahua|Killer]][[User talk:KillerChihuahua|<font color="415651">Chihuahua</font>]] 22:25, 22 February 2013 (UTC)}}
-''Attention:  This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.''
 ===Request concerning Nado158===
@@ Line 369: / Line 369: @@
 *::This is true. 1 year does sound more appropriate. [[User talk:DeltaQuad#AE_Nado158|Joy has a point on my talkpage though]] that some of the problematic area is not covered through Albania-Kosovo relations, and I'm not exactly sure how to word that in to this proposed topic ban. -- [[User:DeltaQuad|<font color="green">DQ</font>]] [[User_Talk:DeltaQuad|<font color="blue">(ʞlɐʇ)</font>]] 16:18, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
 *::: It's covered, and we add "broadly construed" anyway, but I'll make a point of making it as clear as possible. If there are no objections, I'll close this shortly. [[User:KillerChihuahua|Killer]][[User talk:KillerChihuahua|<font color="415651">Chihuahua</font>]] 18:05, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
+{{hab}}
 == Sprutt ==

v t e Noticeboards
Wikipedia's centralized discussion, request, and help venues. For a listing of ongoing discussions and current requests, see the dashboard. For a related set of forums which do not function as noticeboards see formal review processes.
General	Administrators Main Incidents Bots Bureaucrats Centralized discussion Closure requests Education Interface admins Main Page errors Open proxies VRT Oversight User permissions
Articles and content	Biographies of living persons Copyrights Questions on media Problems Dispute resolution External links Fringe theories Neutral point of view Original research Pending changes Reliable sources Resource requests Scalable vector graphics Spam Blacklist Whitelist Style Titleblacklist Translation
Page handling	History merges Mergers Splits Moves Protection Importation XfD Articles Redirects Categories Templates Files Miscellany Undeletion
User conduct	Conflict of interest Contributor copyright Edit warring and 3RR Sanctions Personal restrictions General sanctions Contentious topics Sockpuppets Usernames (Requests for comment) Vandalism
Other	Arbitration Committee noticeboard Requests Enforcement Edit filters Requested False positives Questions Help desk Teahouse Reference desk New articles Requests for comment Village pump Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous WikiProject proposals Discussions for discussion
Category:Wikipedia noticeboards