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Current requests

BJAODN

Initiated by Thatcher131 at 14:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Georgewilliamherbert (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Alkivar (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Xaosflux (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Obviously not possible to discuss the reverting before it happened. Post-restoration discussions are here:

• MfD
• User_talk:Georgewilliamherbert#WP:BJAODN

Statement by Thatcher131

On 14 August at about 10:00 UTC, Alkivar deleted Misplaced Pages:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense and around two hundred subpages that were part of BJAODN. log. About 8 hours later, Georgewilliamherbert restored the pages without first discussing with Alkivar. log Alkivar's talk page GWH's explanation on Mackensen's talk page

The existence of BJAODN had been discussed numerous times on the Admin noticeboards with no particular consensus to delete. In June, Jeffrey O. Gustafson (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) deleted BJAODN. After 3 days of discussion on the noticeboard, it was restored by Sj (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). Therefore, Alkivar's actions were at least unwise and possibly an error in judgement. By reverting the deletions without consulting Alkivar or going through deletion review, Georgewilliamherbert wheel-warred. This had led to the predictable escalation of wiki-drama:

• Deletion review
• Admin noticeboard
• MfD
• User_talk:Georgewilliamherbert#WP:BJAODN

The deletion and restoration of BJAODN in June arguably represents another instance of wheel warring, although at least here the restoration was a couple of days after the deletion, following discussion on the Admins noticeboard. I suspect the actions in June are too stale for consideration but they are the context in which yesterday's deletion and undeletion ocurred.

• May 30 Admins noticeboard
• May 31 Admins noticeboard
• June 1 Admins noticeboard
• June 2 DRV

There has been a growing disregard by admins for each others' actions, leading to minor wheel wars over various minor issues, and several other admins have commended Georgewilliamherbert for his action. It seems that the community of administrators will not take admonishments to avoid wheel-warring seriously until some admins get spanked. I will not be popular for suggesting this, but I suggest desyopping Georgewilliamherbert for 10 days for wheel-warring. Any temporary desysopping of Alkivar should be of a shorter duration as single instances of bad judgements are generally not punished. Admins need to have respect for each other's actions and consult before unilaterally overturning each other's actions, unless it is an emergency. I am not confident that the community of administrators will take the Committee's warnings about wheel-warring seriously unless there are definite consequences for overturning another admin on a non-emergency basis. Thatcher131 15:06, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment on whether one revert equals wheel-warring How many administrative reversals does it take to make a wheel war? I am under the impression that ArbCom looks very dimly on admins reversing each other without discussion and consultation. Certainly, I feel this is poor practice as it can lead to (or is perhaps already a symptom of) a loss of respect, deference, and collegiality. If it takes two reversals to make a wheel war, that means that any admin action can be reversed without consequence. The first reverting admin (in this case Georgewilliamherbert) would always "win" because a wheel war would occur only if the original admin (Alkivar here) reinstated his action. The principles on deletion and undeletion here seem relevant as well. I do agree that "Wheel-warring" is an inapt name for a single action. (Although only in a specific narrow sense does the deletion or undeletion of over a hundred pages constitute a "single" action.) I suppose that whether the Arbitrators consider a single administrative reversal without discussion and short-circuiting the proper venue to be actionable will be revealed by their votes. Thatcher131 18:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by involved party Georgewilliamherbert

I am both glad this larger issue is being addressed at higher levels and confused as to the specifics of the case being proposed against me.

Wheel warring requires two or more admins to use admin-specific functions in repeated conflicting actions. There has been no repeated use of admin functions. One operation was performed (delete) on a set of articles, and then one operation was performed (undelete) on a large subset of those. There have been no repeat deletes or repeat undeletes by anyone as of last I looked.

Suggesting that responding to an admittedly highly controversial WP:BOLD admin action with an admin rollback constitutes wheel warring seems to me to be a misinterpretation of longstanding policy. Admins are allowed and encouraged to use their initiative (the longstanding BOLD policy), however that's coupled with a "...until someone pushes back..." caveat. I believed Alkivar went too far (once) and reverted (once).

As I discussed on Mackensen's talk page, there was nothing sterile about my actions. The order they were performed in did start with undeletion and then proceed to notification. Alkivar was as far as I can tell not logged in at the time. Shortly after undeleting BJADON I left a note on his talk page, as my next edit in fact. I then noticed that a DRV had started and once that appeared to be gaining momentum stopped the subpage undeletions I'd started.

I have also promptly responded to all the questions posed to me on my talk page, discussed the situation promptly on WP:AN and on DRV.

Policy strongly encourages us to discuss another admin's actions with them prior to overturning, if we believed they were in error. In this case, Alkivar was not apparently online, and I believed that the magnitude of the controversy of the actions justified taking the more aggressive but reasonably polite undo-first-notify-and-discuss-promptly-afterwards approach.

WP is striving to be neither too legalistically policy bound nor too free-form and ruleless. We have WP:BOLD, but understand that bold actions need to be undoable by admins who strongly disagree, and we have a community consensus and policy mechanism as well. Real wheel warring, particularly sterile wheel warring, is a breakdown of those processes. This incident was not a breakdown. We had one controversial delete (page + subpages), one restore, and the community process kicked off to review the situation about the same time as the restore. That process is proceeding normally so far.

It has been proposed in the DRV that this issue is too controversial for normal community process to come to a proper conclusion on what is to be done with the BJAODN pages, specifically referring to disagreements about what we can or must do about the GFDL issues with credit and edit histories. If so, it may be necessary for Arbcom (or higher authority such as Jimmy, the Board, etc) to review the situation and make a decision on what to do about it.

I believe that Alkivar and his supporters feel that this was too controversial and required admin-level initiative to simply impose a solution. I disagree - this is too controversial to simply impose an admin-level imposed solution. If we cannot come to a workable consensus on DRV or MFD or wherever it ends up, then I support using WP's processes and higher authority to answer the questions.

But trying to simply impose a BOLD solution to something of this magnitude, literally in the dark of the night, was very badly the wrong way to do this. It needed to be undone. It may well be true that either process or higher authority will decide to re-do the deletions, but a legitimate decision on this issue cannot come from any one admin's personal actions.

Georgewilliamherbert 18:16, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment on comment on whether one revert equals wheel-warring It is neither consistent with prior policy nor common sense to require that an administrator always engage in a two-way conversation with another administrator before reverting any admin action. For one, the first admin may not be active, and it's unreasonable to expect that admins wait an arbitrary length of time given an apparent problem which is serious enough that undoing it seems like the right solution. Alkivar was idle for a long period of time and did not subsequently make another edit for a long time after the undeletes in this particular case.

The proposition that BOLD admin actions are immutable absent two-way discussion or community process seems absurd and inconsistent with the way everyone's operating their admin accounts.

There are clear and evident reasons to prefer discussion first - it reduces the risk of true wheel wars in the multiple-repeated-admin-actions sense, and it's polite. Had Alkivar evidently been active at the time I would have attempted to discuss with him. But he evidently was not, and as has been admitted by the filing party, the original action was highly controversial.

In this specific case, my acting-first-discussing-second did not lead to a true wheel war (only one delete and one undelete per article) and would not have (I would not have re-undeleted if someone else deleted, doubly especially as the DRV process started rolling effectively).

Alkivar is welcome to let me know if he considers my actions rude; I was pretty terse, but I have tried on his talk page and elsewhere to not personally attack him over this. I believe that he made a mistake, but I still respect him and his contributions, and I don't think that desysopping him for the mistake is appropriate at all, even temporarily, though that's Arbcom's call.

If I had to hazard a guess, I bet he's embarrassed at the resultant drama. I am ... not exactly embarrassed, but frustrated at the drama aspects of how this is playing out on DRV; a significant fraction of both the keep deleted and overturn deletion arguments put forth are not helpful. Which was probably predictable given the prior round of discussions a couple of months ago.

Georgewilliamherbert 19:12, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment on GFDL issues - I have just said this in the DRV and am including it here for completeness.

BJAODN is the only section of the encyclopedia where questions about being able to trace the source of content moved from one page to another have ever seriously come up. This does happen on a regular basis, and nobody tracks what is being done well or consistently. If this is in fact a legitimate issue we need to address, the way that large portions of the editors and admins edit and expand the encyclopedia will have to be reviewed and corrected, and large portions of the encyclopedia are vulnerable to history-tracing challenge.

Maybe we legitimately have to do that, but please acknowledge that if you open that can, there are many many worms in it beyond BJAODN, and that the worms are carnivorous... Georgewilliamherbert 23:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Moreschi

Heaven's sake, wheel-warring over BJAODN? That's even lamer than wheel-warring over user categories, and I believe that's been done as well. If silliness were a blockable offence...

Then again, it might be worth establishing whether BJAODN was a violation of the GDFL. That's a reasonably serious issue, and there does seem to be a view (perhaps even the majority) that it was. There's probably enough to arbitrate here. Moreschi 14:57, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Radiant

I maintain that wheel warring is a very bad idea, especially over something as relatively unimportant as BJAODN. That goes for both sides. Being bold is certainly useful, but it has its limits, and using it for (un)deletion of several dozen well-known pages is quite a bit beyond those. Such actions generate needless wikidrama, as evidenced in the ongoing deletion review. I suggest that some people need a strong reminder that wheel warring is inappropriate behavior.

Other people who may be considered involved include User:Jeffrey O. Gustafson, who first boldly deleted it on May 30th, as well as User:Sj, who boldly undeleted it a few days later, ironically saying "please discuss before wheel warring" in the undeletion summaries. >Radiant< 15:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Quick comment: Sj wrote "please discuss before wheel warring" because Jeffrey O. Gustafson deleted BJAODN for the second time, after The Cunctator undeleted it the first time. See the deletion log. Shalom 19:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Chacor

While wheel warring is bad and is rightly frowned upon, the best way to chase away a productive admin and editor for no good reason would be to desysop him for something he did to reverse a decision which itself was not discussed and really, really stupid. Further given that that's where the deletions/restorations stopped, desysopping - however temporary - is excessively harsh in my view. A strongly-worded warning to both sides is more than enough. – Chacor 16:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Response to ^demon

Hang on now, ignoring overwhelming community consensus has suddenly become a right of an admin? Since when? – Chacor 16:55, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Amarkov

Wheel warring is bad. Deliberately carrying out a speedy deletion which you know will be widely disputed (even if that deletion is eventually endorsed) is at least as bad, and arguably worse. -Amarkov moo! 16:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by GRBerry

I note that we've been round this wheel once before. See Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2007 June 2, where the closer noted that the wheel had already spun a full cycle before he closed the discussion. GRBerry 16:50, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by ^demon

I agree that wheel warring over this is a very bad thing, but I do heavily endorse Alkivar's actions. The issues raised with BJAODN still exist and have not been fixed in years of promising they will be. Why should we allow yet another chance? MfD has proven undo-able, as far too many people have some weird attachment to keeping it and essentially say I like it. However, policy trumps consensus every time, and what Alkivar did was within policy and (I believe) his rights as a sysop. The undeletion of content may be what the community wants, but it caused more drama than was already surrounding a very contentious and--quite frankly--stupid issue. ^demon 16:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Reply to Chacor

When it comes down to issues of policy, yes. If policy says one thing, but the community says otherwise (as we're seeing in BJAODN), policy rules. ^demon 19:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Messedrocker

You know something is wrong if we have admins that wheel war. Admins who wheel war should not stay as an admin for long (of course, there is always the case where a wheel warrer takes a step back and cries in a deep, melodramatic voice "What have I done?", but how often does that happen?). Why do I have such a harsh view? Let me put it this way: the wiki is about trust. Breach the trust and you get blocked. Likewise, adminship is about trusting users to cope with power to really do something. Breach the trust and you get desysopped. Formulaic way of thinking? You bet. But after all, that's just a basic summary of power on wikis. MessedRocker (talk) 17:17, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Misza13

I will re-iterate what I've said in several places already. This was not a wheel war. WP:WHEEL states that such requires a "struggle" (after all, it's about struggling over the wheel or whatever) and the admins undoing each other's actions. In this case, there was only one action (deletion, with all pages treated reasonably as one "atomic action") and one counter-action (restoration). In fact, common sense dictates that admins have the right to one revert, and for several reasons. Noone would call a wheel war the reversions of actions by a compromised sysop account. Neither would when an admin fixed honest mistakes done by a n00b sysop. In any case, admins are not infallible - as much as we claim to trust admins for their good judgement, we must go one step further and say: "if another admin strongly disagrees with an action, trust his judgement as well, let him revert and start a dicussion". This is exactly what happened: BOLD, revert, discuss. Nothing to see here, move along. Миша13 17:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• Quick note: No, there's more than one action. It got deleted three times, undeleted three times. See . >Radiant< 07:51, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
  • From 60 days ago? Argument stretched and broke.... Georgewilliamherbert 07:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Not really. Essentially the same thing happened back then as it did now, and apparently people haven't learned from back then. Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. >Radiant< 09:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
      • I would agree with GWH that these are separate incidents and cannot be summed up to a wheel war. But as the note on top of the page says, this is not a place for discussion - I have made my statement. While at it, I wish to amend it (per AnonEMouse below) as follows: I ask the ArbCom accept the case and clear up the contentious definition of a wheel war (or say "what wheel war is not") for the sake of all admins - I wouldn't want to lose my sysop bit because of what I consider a healthy interpretation of WP:WHEEL. Миша13 09:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Shalom

On the Deletion Review, I compared the recent brouhaha to the Daniel Brandt deletion wheel war, which everyone here still remembers. There seems to be some lingering confusion about how to handle a controversial speedy deletion. In both cases, we had strong opinions and simultaneous XFD and DRV discussions. I do not endorse the initial deletion, but once it was done, it should not have been reversed during an active DRV. There is no deadline, and if the result of the discussion is to restore the pages, they will be restored.

I think it needs to be made clear that no deleted page should be permanently undeleted (as opposed to a history-only temporary undeletion) unless the admin who performs the undeletion is prepared to close any active discussions regarding the deletion (at WP:AN, WP:DRV, or elsewhere). That did not happen in the Daniel Brandt deletion wheel war, and it did not happen here, either.

As others have noted, various admins have strongly endorsed the actions of Alkivar or Georgewilliamherbert. Obviously there is no consequence for saying you might have done something that you didn't do. However, these opinions need to be considered as evidence of a cultural trend among a group of administrators. Shalom 17:57, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Melsaran

One deletion and one undeletion isn't "wheel warring". Like ^demon pointed out, the current community consensus is probably that BJAODN should be kept. Then why is it "within policy" to delete it anyway? As far as I know, policy is that we go through the normal processes to delete something controversial (in this case, MfD) and don't leave it up to the decision of one particular administrator. I see no ArbCom case here. What should the ArbCom do now? Desysop someone? You can't call this a "wheel war", one deletion and one undeletion is something that's very common. Melsaran 19:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by AnonEMouse

Please accept. The decision doesn't have to be long, but it clearly needs to be made, if even highly respected clerks don't know what wheel warring is. ("Do not repeat an administrative action when you know that another administrator opposes it.", repeat being a key word.) I recommend a clean, crisp 3 points in the decision. 1) Bold, Revert, Discuss is not Wheel Warring. 2) Don't undelete pages while a Misplaced Pages:Deletion review is going on. 3) Everybody play nice, or else. --AnonEMouse 19:33, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comments by Splash

1. Disagreement ${\displaystyle \neq }$ wheelwarring. To correct what one sees as a series of erroneous actions requires another series of actions.
2. Done → undone is not a viable theory of wheel warring since it places 100% of the blame on the undoer. Some things need undoing.
3. Admins do not own their actions. You do not get to do something, get all precious, and start insisting that the Committee has ruled that no one may undo your action without first doffing their cap to you. Certainly, discussion is the better part of valour, but there exists a class of action that is, simply, wrong. There is no reason to leave a simply wrong action in place when it is found. A note to the admin, post-reversal, would be useful for educational purposes.
4. Clerks are not Prosecutors General. They have no role in advocacy on either side. They have no role in constabulary, either. This was one of the key bones of contention when the bureaucracy of the position was being constructed. This is not merely a matter of hat-wearing and recusal. The Arbcom has no bulldogs.

The above with an overwhelming lack of interest in the details of this particular case. Splash - tk 22:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment from Mr. Gustafson

I do not believe Alkivar's recent deletion of BJAODN represents a "wheel war." There was a period of more than two months between the restorations, and his deletions. More importantly, Sj's restorations were done during, and in complete defiance of, the community discussions taking place at the time. If the community had definitively said that the pages should remain, and an admin came along and re-deleted everything anyway, that would be an issue, but it is not because the community discussions were rendered moot.

I believe this recent round of restorations, as Sj's, were inappropriate, especially in light of the growing consensus (up to those points) on DRV and the AN's that the material should remain or be deleted.

I may be a party to this case because of my initial deletions, and because of an unnecessarily foolish period of a couple of minutes not long after the initial deletions: Cunctator began restoring a few of the pages (a rather tiny percentage of the totality of the BJAODN), I redeleted... At the same time that Cunctator stopped, I independently ceased redeleting and even had myself blocked (later re-blocking myself for a longer period), though some questioned whether the block was necessary.

I find the language being used about the import of the issue of whether or not we, as a community, should allow BJAODN somewhat offensive. I believe the deletions are important - I would not have put myself on the chopping block in the way I did - and opened myself up to the attacks I received both on-wiki and off - if I did not believe that the deletions were both necessary, and fully supported by policy. This is a matter of copyright, this is a matter of GFDL compliance, this is a matter of maintaining our integrity as a Project, as a Community, and as an Encyclopedia. I could go into the arguments in support of the deletions and discuss the policies involved, but it appears the focus is on the "wheel warring," which, while important as well (especially in terms of the latitude allowed in reversing decisions of other administrators), is a distraction and a shame.

--Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 23:00, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Ryan Postlethwaite

Please can I ask how this is heading for arbitration? The initial deletion and undeletion was months ago, so it's hard to say that parties who were involved this time should be left accountable due the issues a while back. Getting down to the latest episode - Alkivar was bold and deleted BJAODN, but it was perhaps out of process, so GWH restored - I really can't see the need for arbitration. If this was part of wider poor behaviour from the parites I could understand, but, quite frankly - it's not. If people have some issues with the conduct here - they should file an RfC against the involved parties. Any sanction by the arbitration committee at this stage would be punitive. Ryan Postlethwaite 07:03, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Kusma

Alkivar is experienced enough to know that controversial speedy deletions of material that has been previously discussed and kept at MfD are going to cause trouble, and that somebody was going to undo his deletion (some may call that wheel warring, but we should always be allowed to revert bold actions once, and then discuss). It is not necessary to do deletions in clearly controversial cases in such an aggressive manner. The many endorsements of the deletion show that MFD might have arrived at the same result with far less disruption. We should try to avoid fighting over silly stuff like BJAODN, and deletions against previous consensus that can be expected to be disruptive should be reserved to emergency cases only, which this one was not. Kusma (talk) 07:48, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by CBDunkerson

There is alot of discussion above about what is and is not 'wheel warring'. As I've said many times before, people get entirely too hung up on the 'bean counting' over number and sequence of 'reverts'. In truth that stuff is (or should be) irrelevant. What we are trying to avoid is disagreements involving use of admin powers. That's what all policies about 'wheel warring' really boil down to. Admins fighting amongst themselves looks bad and can be extremely disruptive. Thus, if there is a discussion and alot of people say 'do not do this', the participant who goes and does it without consensus anyway is causing a problem. It doesn't matter that they 'only took one action'... how is that at all significant? The one action they took was something they knew could cause exactly the sort of admin in-fighting we seek to avoid. In contrast, an admin who unprotects a page because the problem cited in the most recent protection has been resolved isn't doing anything wrong... even if it turns out there were a dozen older protections and unprotections prior to that for issues which hadn't all been sorted out yet. The admin unprotecting at the end isn't knowingly taking any sort of controversial action. We need to get away from 'revert counting' and look at whether admins are taking actions they knew, or should have known, were going to result in a mess. Admins should be empowered to take 'bold' actions and reverse each other... where it seems appropriate and unlikely to be widely controversial. One or two people might object, but policy is clearly in favor? Go ahead. What we need to put a stop to is admins doing things that they should know in advance many other admins would strongly object to and might 'war' over. --CBD 16:48, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Xoloz

I am the closer of the relevant prior DRV cited by GRBerry. For the record, I view the deletion by Alkivar as unwise in light of that closure, but I don't think the above described events constitute a "wheel-war" by either Alkivar or Mr. Herbert. I concur with Splash. Only "repeatedly" undoing another admin constitutes wheel-warring under policy, and my long-time understanding. One admin reversal is, I think, a fundamental feature of the "wiki-nature" of adminship: "that which is done, may be undone." As against Thatcher's view above, I believe that allowing "one action/one reversal" returns affairs to their original status quo, and that this is the better state from which extended discussion should proceed if there is extended dispute. Of course, discussion is always optimal, but one reversal may undertaken without fear. As Misplaced Pages is a collegial project, the admin whose action is undone should accept that reversal gracefully, even if further discussion is needed to discover where consensus, or greater merit, lies.

This means I also disagree, with greatest respect, with Radiant's contention above. Although I believe that the prior DRV made Alkivar's choice unwise, I think the lapse of 60 days does prevent one from calling the action a "wheel war." Consensus can change -- DRVs are important and should be respected, but they are not the final word. Alkivar's deletions caused uproar -- for which he should be made to justify his choice -- but I don't think it is fair to say that "policy was obviously violated", which is what labeling his action a wheel-war would entail.

I offer my view hesitantly, knowing it may be of little importance, but feeling compelled, since my DRV closure is related to the events and has been mentioned in evidence. Xoloz 17:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Until(1 == 2)

This has everything to do with foundation issue #4. The requirement that our content is compatible with with a copyleft license is not something for the community to override, it is a foundation issue. Both sides of the dispute acknowledges that there are GFDL violation issues. An admin should ignore a consensus that goes against a foundation issue. Since much of the attribution history sits in deleted articles, those who wish to source the page must be an admin anyways and thus will not be hindered by the deletion. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 19:12, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comments by Rickyrab

While Until (see above) has a point, the work of sourcing the page material would go more quickly with both administrators and non-administrators working at it. Furthermore, not all of the pages that are sources were deleted, and thus a non-admin can help with the sourcing. I am a contributor to BJAODN myself and I would like to have access to my own contribs, so I am admittedly a party to this. Furthermore, I helped with some sourcing on BJAODN. I expected others to come in and help, though. — Rickyrab | Talk 19:19, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I know I shouldn't be commenting here, apologies to the unfortunate clerk on this case, but I simply cannot let the comment "I would like to have access to my own contribs" go without saying something here. The contributions are not yours, unless you are actively vandalising Misplaced Pages. You might be involved in collating the work. It's nothing more than making up a mix-tape, the songs aren't yours, just the selection. Nick 19:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Not all of BJAODN is necessarily vandalism. Some of it is funny conversation. — Rickyrab | Talk 19:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC) Furthermore, one can self-revert one of his or her own vandalisms promptly after making it. It's not like vandalism in the real world, where it is expensive to fix. — Rickyrab | Talk 19:41, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I am not a deletionist, unlike Mr. Gustafson, and I do not consider the deletion of BJAODN to be necessary or desirable. I do, however, believe it has a place off of Misplaced Pages, rather than on Misplaced Pages; it looks awkward being on the current wiki, and I favor the founding of a wiki adhering to the GFDL that would harbor BJAODN. — Rickyrab | Talk 19:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

As for wheel warring, I'd say there was wheel warring on both sides. It was a long, drawn-out wheel war with much more bickering than actual wheel warring, but I consider some of my own user pages to be victims of an early assault (when Gustafson torched some of my user pages without listing them for MfD or notifying me of the deletion; furthermore, he did so while I had been blocked for trolling over the issue). I had trolled because I was unaware that it was wrong to do so or that it was trolling, until someone pointed it out to me. Anyhow, Gustafson had since cooled down, but other admins apparently couldn't help being bold themselves and wheel-warring (or at least rattling their wheel sabers). — Rickyrab | Talk 19:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Hemlock Martinis

There is a larger issue at work. BJAODN was, by and far, a violation of the license on a scale never before seen. The community tried to resolve this issue three months ago, with the compromise that sourcing the original vandalism would be required to bring it into GFDL compliance. That has not occurred to the vast majority of the pages. Do we let this violation stand, in the vain and wistful hopes that someday our prince will come and bring it all into compliance, when a minimal effort has been shown so far? Or do we delete the violations rather give in to a fool's hope? ArbCom does not need to rule on the value of BJAODN as a whole (and indeed, since it is a content dispute, ArbCom cannot rule on the merit of the material anyways), but we do need to have resolved the issue at hand: How aggressive should administrators be in deleting GFDL violations? --Hemlock Martinis 19:44, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Coredesat

I do not think the "wheel war" mentioned by the nominator of this RFAR is as much of a concern as the copyright issues apparent in BJAODN. There was one deletion, and one undeletion followed by admonishment of the deleting admin - that isn't exactly a wheel war, and no one should be forcibly desysopped for it (think of what was deleted, as well). As for the copyright issues, the basic question is: is BJAODN a copyright/GFDL violation? If so, it is a foundation issue, as stated by Until(1==2), and foundation issues and GFDL absolutely cannot be ignored simply because people like it or think it's funny. Something being funny should not give us leave to willfully violate licenses or copyrights, nor should it encourage juvenile vandalism by enshrining it on over 60 subpages. Given that process has repeatedly failed in this respect, an arbitration may be necessary. --Coredesat 19:45, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Mr.Z-man

I don't think wheel warring is the main concern here. I'm not sure if it should be a concern at all. Many people, including myself would not even refer to the dispute as "wheel warring". However, something needs to be done here. To adapt my comment from the August 14 DRV: BJAODN needs to be dealt with. It has caused far too many divisions and arguments for something that's supposed to be funny. There are only a few things we can really do to it. We can leave it as is but it would violate the GFDL, a serious matter. We can assemble a team of editors and admins to make it GFDL compliant, but this seems like a huge waste of effort on something not all that important to the encyclopedia (which after all is what we are trying to make here). Or we can delete it, removing years of work. (That's not to say we couldn't start it over, making any new BJAODN GFDL complaint from the beginning.) Unfortunately, I don't see any community discusion getting any consensus. It's been through 5 MFDs, 2 DRVs, a myriad of discussions elsewhere, and this arbitration request. All that has been determined through discussion is that we need to do something. There are just too many issues here for the community at large to decide on anything: GFDL, Misplaced Pages history, WP:DENY, the amount of work put into it, vandalism, humor for community togetherness, etc. Hopefully, an arbitration case will come up with an enforceable solution and we can stop wasting so much time debating this. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 21:30, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Black Falcon

I personally favour the deletion of BJAODN and am not too particular about how it occurs: speedy deletion, Miscellany for deletion, server crash, or divine decree.

I will not comment on the actions of Alkivar and Georgewilliamherbert beyond expressing:

1. My confusion at how one can accuse one of wheel-warring but not the other.
2. My opinion that neither of them wheel warred, since wheel warring requires a repetition of administrative actions and I do not consider this incident a continuation of the one two months ago.

I will, however, note that a broad application of 0RR could have the unintended effect of discouraging discussion. When any first action is protected, it may be more logical to act first and only then negotiate from a position of advantage. Instead of getting a consensus to delete, delete first and force others to obtain a consensus to undelete. Instead of having to justify a block, block first and force others to justify an unblock.

If the ArbCom accepts this case to clarify the definition of wheel warring, I hope its members will seek to arrive at a wording that balances the need for administrators to have sufficient discretion to undo clearly inappropriate actions without permission (after all, we are a wiki that promotes ideas such as WP:BOLD and WP:IAR) with the need for discussion to figure prominently in any administrative disagreement. — Black Falcon 00:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Grandmasterka

I tend to agree with Until 1==2 and Hemlock Martinis that the GFDL violations are the biggest issue being decided here. Personally, I think it would be inappropriate to desysop anyone for this, and it seems to me that this is one of the rare situations where what's best for the encyclopedia may not jibe with what the community decides -- when does this become a Foundation issue, not a community issue? Are the GFDL problems serious enough to warrant an outright and immediate deletion? The "wheel warring" and individual infractions are of lesser importance. Please accept this case. Grandmasterka 00:47, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Proabivouac

Per Jeffrey O. Gustafson, Until 1==2, Hemlock Martinis and Grandmasterka, it is straightfoward to observe that BJAODN violates GFDL. A very compelling case would be required to overlook that, but this page serves no discernible encyclopedic purpose at all.Proabivouac 01:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Recused, obviously. Thatcher131 14:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I have shortened the name of the case from "BJAODN wheel war" to simply "BJAODN" because whether the actions here constituted a wheel war or not is part of the controversy. My doing so is not a comment on the merits of the case. Newyorkbrad 20:20, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (4/0/1/0)

• Recuse. Mackensen (talk) 16:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
• Accept. My personal view is that "wheel war" is an overused term. I oppose the idea that there is 0RR for admin actions, since I oppose all unnecessary limitations of admin discretion. Consistent with that, I will look at cases to see if admin discretion is well or badly used, when there is serious doubt. Charles Matthews 19:04, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
• Accept; Charles speaks my mind. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 04:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
• Accept. - SimonP 13:57, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
• Accept. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 23:00, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Digwuren and Tartu based accounts

Initiated by Irpen at 17:59, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Digwuren (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• impossible to precisely know number of Tartu-based accounts. Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/DLX and Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Digwuren must include the legitimate users too. Exhaustive list of accounts requires the ArbCom investigation.
• Community

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Digwuren
• community informed in the ANI thread

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Current ANI discussion permalink updated as of 9:31 August 15, 2007 (UTC) (note, may have changed in the current version.)
• Last ANI discussion: four threads starting from Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive272#Complaint about user Petri Krohn, and this thread at the same ANI archive page
• Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/DLX and Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Digwuren impossible to sort out due to the networking issues.

Statement by Irpen

Digwuren (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a notoriously abusive POV-pusher and a fierce revert warrior with the record of gross disruption.

The case here is crystal clear. Without spending time going over details of his past disruption and block log (his last one-week block being not even a month ago) it is enough to take a look at Digwuren edits within the last 12 hours. There are a total of 93 edits.

• Of his 58 article space edits, over one half of which are purely non-content formatting changes, I still counted 18 pure reverts, most of them using popups, undo or TW, thus implying opponents' vandalism (none are actually vandalism-related)
• His talk page edits made in the same time frame include:
  1. grossly offensive entry directed at one content opponent saying: "How come that a Great Russian Patriot like yourself does not live in Russian Federation but in Canada?"
  2. accusation of stalking
  3. non-repentant resentful response to a long overdue admin warning. In response to being cautioned for an offensive talk page entry and characterizing his opponent's edits as vandalism, Digwuren wrote: "I stand by all these characterisations, and resent the accusation of incivility. Digwuren"
  4. This was soon followed by offensive accusation towards the warning admin: "It would seem that you've taken up an anti-me crusade, likely triggered by the situation at Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Don't you consider such WP:POINT-making contrary to Misplaced Pages policy? Digwuren"

Looking at the edit summaries of his reverts, one sees that he routinely accuses his opponents in vandalism and not by merely using the undo button, but specifically using the vandalism undo option in twinkle:

• To his most frequent content opponent: reverted 1 edit by Petri Krohn identified as vandalism (make sure to look what he "identifies as vandalism")
• six more of the exact same vandalism accusations of his opponent

You are welcome to dig deeper to find more of the same. After the last debacle, he promised to solicit opinions from other editors to rectify the situation. The promise earned him an unblock but he failed to deliver on his promise. He was later reminded of it by an unblocking admin and promised again to rectify the situation with no result to this day.

A devoted revert warrior, he is as of the day of this submission, Aug. 14, 2007, one step under 3RR at Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Occupation of Estonia by Nazi Germany, and Alyosha Mirny and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The disruption would not have reached the current level if he was not receiving a consistent encouragement and support from a small but well coordinated group of editors that feel sympathetic to his fringe POV. Judging from the past record, I believe this encouragement and support is bound to continue. What prompted me to submit this case for arbitration without further wait is the extent of disruption, meatpuppeting in edit wars, discussions of deletion, renaming or ANI, thus effectively bombing those discussions. Just today I noticed a fresh single-purpose account Ptrt (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) whose entire short activity consists of the support of Digwuren in edit wars followed by the immediate joining of the 5-edit old account to the ANI discussion, once the appearance of a new SPA was mentioned there.

The fact of multiple users editing from the Tartu University from behind firewall makes even a checkuser less than conclusive to sort out this mess. Immediate appearance of the familiar faces at any discussion, board, talk page, edit war that involves Digwuren is mind-boggling. There is also an undeniable evidence of the permanent line of the off-wiki connection among the POV-pushing (even legitimate) accounts as the coordination in synchronous revert warring, talk and board page postings is impossible to explain otherwise. Sure enough, coordinated posting will follow below.

Finally, there is an unprecedented fact of the complaint by the blocking admin that his computer faced the intrusion from Estonia-based IPs during the block period.

This is all too messy and complex for ANI and warrants a more thorough look by the ArbCom members armed with the checkuser tool and experience in dealing with POV-pushers of the most disruptive pattern. I did not even go into Digwuren's edits themselves, which are notorious for extremely blatant pattern of POV-pushing on all fronts, to save space as the ArbCom intervention is clearly warranted by the facts outlined above in their own right. I don't believe there is even a need at this stage to analyze content-wise this tsunami of POV-pushing while Digwuren's friends are to attempt circumventing the discussion of his disruption by presenting it in terms of some global content conflict. This is nothing like the much more complex in assigning faults and finding remedies Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus. The Piotrus' case involves top-notch editors from all sides dangled into their content disagreements and largely revolves around the notion of ethical conduct, also very important but much more difficult to judge or remedy. However, this case is about a clearly disallowed pattern of behavior spelled out very well in our policies and guidelines.

The mess of the egregious POV-pushing and disruption by Tartu-based accounts has got to be sorted out at last with the illegitimate accounts banned, valid disruptive accounts placed on various paroles and Digwuren receiving the punishment called for by the degree of the disruption caused by him.

Comment by Moreschi

Eastern Europe is something of a battleground (understatement of the decade), and I'm sure everyone's heartily sick of the sight of this sort of thing (not another case...), but I don't think this can be ducked. Yes, ANI does not equate to dispute resolution, but I think the Arbitration Committee is needed here to sort things out. This has been coming for a while. Moreschi 18:20, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Martintg

This seems like a snowjob. No evidence of any real dispute resolution such as mediation or RFC being attempted by the complainant in the first instance. Do we really want to short circuit this and go straight to Arbitration for what is essentially a content dispute over the interpretation of Soviet history? Martintg 20:05, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks to Bishonen for resurrecting Petri Krohn's RFC, which btw was deleted due to insufficient prior mediation before bringing case for RFC/U. As an aside, it must be said there was a good faith attempt at mediation by one side during the existance of the RFC/U, thanks to the efforts of DrKiernan, but was subsequently ignored by the other party, as indicated here . However, I don't see how Petri Krohn's RFC could in any way be possibly used as a substitute for an RFC on Digwuren. Irpen wasn't a party in that previous RFC and Petri Krohn is not a party to this current RfA. The kernel of this complaint is the interpretation of Soviet history, in this instance concerning Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, the rest, such as the so called "Tartu based accounts" and groundless accusations of computer intrusion is just fanciful embellishment with no basis in fact. Certainly Digwuren's behaviour is comparably better than Petri Krohn's as documented in his disqualified RFC/U.
• If Irpen was serious about this he should have taken it to mediation as a first step, therefore I propose this RfA be declined and mediation attempted first. Martintg 22:56, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
• Irpen mentions the nebulous "Tartu based accounts" in the title of this RfA and as one of the parties to this RfA. Who are they? It's not clear to me, what has this mysterious group allegedly done to warrant ArbCom intervention? Where is the evidence of mediation, as required by ArbCom when groups are involved. And the accusation of intrusion and hacking an admin's computer, as if a regular editor would know the IP address of an admin, what a complete joke. This RfA is ill considered, malformed and premature, and a waste of time until other dispute resolution methods are exhausted. Martintg 10:08, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
• p.s. Digwuren appears to be presently offline, so I doubt he is even aware of this RfA. Martintg 10:13, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Alexia Death

There have been threats of Arbcom from almost the very beginning I and other Estonians now labeled "Tartu accounts" or "Korp!Estonia" became active and I personally am sick and tired of the constant attacks, the accusations and the mindless POV pushing based an national level animosity of certain editors. It needs higher level attention, and it needs it NOW. If it is to be a an ArbCom, very well! Lets air this matter for good.

Lets get the facts straight

• Editing from behind UT firewall - I graduated from University of Tartu two years ago and have NEVER edited WP from its infrastructure or knowingly used its proxy. These claims are plain WRONG. I have never knowingly met any of the editors associated with me in his manner.

• Accusations of "hacking" - Making an accusation of hacking against someone and refusing to release details sounds like slander to me... FayssalF-s assumption that Digwurren would "hack" him shows that he has failed to assume good faith. User:Suva insists knowing the ATTACKERS ip in question, not FayssalF-s. There is no obstacles releasing info on the attack he claims as it did not happen on Misplaced Pages. So, what kind of an attack from what IP? Hacking accusation is a far fetched thing in the era of zombified computers. A directly internet connected machine(not a smart move, you really should firewall&NAT you connection) will be constantly scanned for open ports and if you have SSH on port 22, soon there will be bots and zombies trying to force it. You can see the attacks coming from all over the world. Saying that one one of these random attacks is Digwurren trying to hack you is silly. If it is something more that makes you say this, you better show proof. Also, to attack you, Digwurren would need to know YOUR ip. He is not an admin so he has NO ACCESS to that information. FayssalF MUST be mistaken and owe Digwurren an apology, unless he shows some proof.

Comment on Digwuren and his woes

I became active on Misplaced Pages pretty much on the same time as he did. I've participated in the same "battles". The difference between him and me is that I refuse to follow the examples set by opposition. With Ghirlas and Petri Krohns attacks constantly tolerated and double standards enforced, I'm not surprised that he now tends to act almost like the gentlemen above, but with at least some discretion. Ghila tried in an AfD to sort voters by the voters nationality, in an effort to show witch votes would be worth more than others. Result? Just a a moderate "Don't do it!". Petri Krohn Wrote a long tirade accusing Estonian editors of having "Nazi skeletons in the family closet". Result? - 72 hour block. First actual action to make the animosity stop. And these are just the highlights. The constant name calling("extreme nationalist Estonians", "Korp!Estonia", "socks on wheels" - this I actually found to be funny), constant accusations of vandalism ... no wonder it has rubbed of on someone fairly new to Misplaced Pages. We tried RFC/U with Petri, but in spite the overwhelming amount of evidence, the case was rejected because, apparently we had not tried hard enough to make up... Another proof that acting like this WORKS on Misplaced Pages... Please prove me wrong, enforce the rules fairly on all parties. May it be noted that this is not an excuse, its a reason and as long as the rules are not enforced fairly and equally on everybody, there will be others leaning from current "role models".

Comment on now undeleted RFC/Petri_Krohn

The "outside" views are actually views of two camps that voting clearly displays. One side acknowledges that these views are really not outside, the other not. And then there are just plain racist slanderous slurs like this. When things like this are okay, with accusations that make every civil person outraged, what compromise can there be? And how come this a valid RFC/U to be displayed against Digwurren but not valid enough to be actually certified? I had high hopes for this RFC/U to resolve the situation. I worked hard in trying to put it together and I was seriously disappointed with he whole process when it failed. Now the failing happens all over again. Something that I and others hoped would solve the situation is now put to use of aggravating it. This all is rather sad.

Comment on RJ GC-s accusation of collaboration.

Take a peek at Wikiproject Estonia. There is a really helpful script for monobook.js that shows at your watch page a list of Wikiproject Estonia recent changes. Its writen by Sander Säde. Thats how Wikiproject Estonia members are so operative, they always have an overview of whats going on in the topics in its scope. This accusation is rather ridiculous. (PS: not thanks needed for restoring Bishonen-s comment you accidentaly overwrote.)

Last modified: --Alexia Death the Grey 18:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Question by GRBerry

Would the proposed findings at Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus/Proposed decision be sufficient (if so, reject the case), or is more needed?

The cases cannot be compared. User:Piotrus is one of Misplaced Pages's most valuable contributors. User:Digwuren on the other hand had absolutely no contributions to article space when I took up the issue in June. (See: ArbCom or block?) Since then there has been notable improvement in his contributions, but his uncivility and disrespect for WP:NPOV have remained. -- Petri Krohn 23:11, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

"absolutely no contributions", !!! Wow, what an amazingly audacious lie! Digwuren is one of the most competent and balanced editors in Misplaced Pages, with over 4000 edits to his credit since joining in May. A great contribution by any standard. As for you claims of incivility, it is certainly a case of the pot calling the kettle black! Martintg 23:54, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by FayssalF

I have to say that i've spent around 90 minutes to get all the following facts posted as they look below now. That's really a hard and unencyclopaedic task. I'd have rather gone editing. But well, for the benefit of Misplaced Pages? Hell, yes. There you go...

I have to agree w/ my fellow admin Moreschi in that Arbitration Committee's intervention is needed here to sort things out. Estonia-related articles have witnessed a massive edit warring w/o any attempt from any side to take that seriously and try to go through WP:DR. It has been a ground for multiple accusations from multiple parties.

Well, in brief. I was the admin who blocked Digwuren back on July 2007 as well as a couple of 2 other users which i'd identify as the "other side" in what follows.

Timeline

• I don't know about all past behaviors of User:Digwuren but i know since a couple of weeks that Digwuren's first edit was at Talk:Bronze Soldier of Tallinn on May 1st, 2007. A good start for a first edit. Trying to discuss!

• The first time i heard about the conflict was on 11 July 2007 ? AN/I thread. The thread was started by User:Suva claiming that User:Ghirlandajo pushing his political POV in inappropriate places. As you'd see from that thread, admin Bishonen and myself saw no admin intervention was needed.

• I can't recall the which lead to the following but i'll leave that to maybe someone else who can find the link. This is the link which i got from user:Irpen. That's the link and that's the one i referred to. One of the keys to this enigma is there.

• Blocked Digwuren (talk · contribs) for 1 week.
• Blocked RJ CG (talk · contribs) for 48h (the other side)
• Blocked Petri Krohn (talk · contribs) for 72h (the other side)

• User:Dc76 accuses me of bias and posts a thread at the AN/I. According to reviewing admin Tom harrison FayssalF rocks!.

• Admin Deskana convincing me of letting Digwuren edit conditionally. After a few hours, i accepted and Deskana posted it at the AN/I as per my request.

• On July 19, 2007, i received a kind of a "barnstar" from User:Petri Krohn (the other side). According to , i am an Administrator with balls.

• On July 20, 2007, i've experienced some online intrusion attempts made against my machine (for what i could record, the experience lasted no more than a couple of hours). I've already got a C# userbox posted at my userpage. I am saying this responding to User:Suva's request to know about the IP in question. I am a programmer. I know about hacking but please don't accuse me of hacking anyone. The problem is that User:Suva insists in knowing about the exact location of the IP in question. No, that's IMPOSSIBLE as long as you are not an ADMIN. I've explained to everyone that any admin can contact me to know about this issue. Suva, i am an admin and admins are trusted by the community. Only an admin can get that kind of information. So please, stop insisting. I've already explained that it was not my intention to talk about that but since matters arrived to this point then i considered it is right to talk about it.

• August 14, 2007, A new AN/I thread involving the issue. And here we are.

I could have easily blocked User:Ptrt indef as it is clear that the account has been created for a single purpose as explained above by User:Irpen. Anyways, this case would make that clear. -- FayssalF - 22:57, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by JdeJ

I must agree that Digwuren is a particularly unhelpful contributor. Looking at other comments here, it's obvious that he's defended by some other Estonians as Alexia Death (whom I consider a very good editor) for taking part in conflicts regarding Estonia. For the same reason, it's clear that those who have held the opposite views on some of these matters aren't too fond of him. Personally, I find some articles where I disagree with his opinions and others where I do disagree, but that's beside the point because: regardless of whether I think his opinions are right or wrong, I always find his way to behave out of line. My first contact ever was when he left a message on my talk page, calling me a "crackpot" . The reason he did so was that I had dared to request a source for the claim that Estonians are the oldest people in Europe. After that, I've seen him revert pages he doesn't like with no explanations given, I've seen him call other users vandals for reverting his own edits etc. So the user is a consant POV-pusher who often attacks other users. JdeJ 07:30, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Comment on Digwuren and his woes

In reply to Alexia's statement, I'm not familiar with the user Ghirlas but it's true that I've been surprised by Petri Krohn's actions many times. Looking at the topics in which Digwuren and Petri have both been involved, my sympathies have almost always been with Digwuren as I consider Petri to be engaged with very weird kind of ]. Having said that, it does nothing to defend Digwuren. I can understand him becoming frustrated, but that is no reason for him to start acting in a disruptive and uncivil way himself. There are people you don't like at Misplaced Pages. If you cannot deal with that without copying their behaviour, Misplaced Pages might not be the best place. So I understand the frustration he must have felt but I can't see it being very relevant to this discussion. JdeJ 17:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by RJ CG

I would like to bring to community's attention another example of coordinated efforts of group in question , see times of edits , , , . Within 3 minutes after one member of the team exhaused his revert limit (and within a minute after I, being an author of a change not to the goup's liking, reverted), another member of the group popped up, failed to identify his changes as a revert in edit history but did not contribute anything BUT a revert. RJ CG 16:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Sander Säde

• "Behind Tartu University firewall" accusation is ridiculous and can be easily verified by a checkuser. I have never edited Misplaced Pages from Tartu University - I've even been in Tartu only twice during last year, both times less then three hours and without using a computer. I guess that Martintg (from Australia) is also flying daily to Tartu? Tartu University cache servers are 193.40.5.245 (talk · contribs) and 193.40.5.100 (talk · contribs) (both IP's from DNS queries). Afaik, all Tartu University IP's should start with 193.40.* (hey, I just remembered my old IP from while I was in Uni, 193.40.8.80 (talk · contribs). Sad, isn't it? I can remember an IP I haven't used in years...).
• As for RJ CG's accusations of "coordinated efforts" - I have my watchlist as a RSS feed in FF live bookmarks, I tend to check it every 15..30 min or so when I am using the computer. Also, some time ago I wrote a script, cleverly named "Estonian articles to watchlist page" that utilizes AJAX to display changes in all WikiProject Estonia articles on top of your watchlist. Said script can be easily changed to support any WikiProject or category. That helps people easily to see changes in WP:E-related articles without a need to add them to watchlist.

For both "Korps! Tartuensis" and "coordinated efforts", I think that next user who accuses us to be sock/meatpuppets or coordinating "attacks" outside en.wikipedia without rock solid evidence must apologize. If he fails to do so, I think that he should be warned by a block.

• Now, as for hacking accusation, I see no way to verify that it actually happened. Even if it did, there is no way to link it with any Wikipedian - as none of so-called "Korp! Tartuensis" is not an admin and therefore just would not know FayssalF's IP. I recommend that he creates a checkuser case with all of us and the IP. However, note that checkuser admin must do a reverse DNS and actually check what IP's are proxies (major ISP's redirect all traffic through proxy servers) and what are geographically close to each-other. Last checkuser cases involving Estonia were ridiculous, accusing basically all Estonian editors to be sockpuppets. Note, that I am unaware what data do admins doing checkuser queries see - or how knowledgeable they are of networking in general.
• And finally, to Digwuren. I fully agree with Alexia and Martintg - Digwuren followed the behavioral patterns of users such as Ghirlandajo and Petri Krohn (I could mention few other users, some who have given their statements here as well). There is no forgiving for behavior such as this, for all three of them. But, there seems to be a special "out-of-the-jail card" if you have a lot of edits - and Digwuren does not have yet 20000+ edits. Others do.

However, he always sources his edits, is fully willing to overturn his own edits when new sources contradict them and follows NPOV guideline by trying to give a neutral viewpoint and sources from both "sides". He is also willing to discuss controversial edits in talk pages. All that cannot be said by far most Misplaced Pages editors. If you follow his edits, then you can see how he gradually became more and more frustrated when other editors (so-called "other side" or "opponents") are making unsourced or one-sided edits - or even insert clear falsehood to the articles.

In many ways it is Digwuren, who revived WikiProject Estonia - although I wish us WP:E editors could have more time to actually contribute, instead of wasting our time to patrol for pro-Soviet/anti-Estonian edits and be involved in cases such as this. He has contributed to great many articles. If he stops behaving in the same way as those Estophobic users, I see him as a very valuable editor to Misplaced Pages - in future, perhaps among most valuable contributors. He is relentless in chasing sources and improving articles.

I've said it before, my recommendation is for an admin to warn Digwuren about his edit summaries - and clearly state that he will be blocked unless he stops those. It might be useful, though, if an uninvolved administrator follows all changes in WP:E articles for a while - if not for nothing else, then to actually witness what we have to go through daily.

Sander Säde 19:06, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Previous attempt at dispute resolution pointed out by Bishonen: RfC/Petri Krohn

There is no RFC on Digwuren to point the ArbCom to (and it's no wonder people can't face starting one). There is, however, an RFC from June 2007 on User:Petri Krohn, brought and certified (inadequately) by Digwuren, Suva, Alexia Death, and E.J.. This RFC was deleted after 5-6 days, by DrKiernan, for want of good-faith attempts at dispute resolution, but before then it was used for lively discussion of the issues at stake here, especially on the talkpage. As RFCs will, it scrutinized the behavior of both sides, and the accusations of Digwuren et. al. against Petri Krohn throw light on their own practices. Therefore I think it serves quite a bit of the same purpose as an RFC on Digwuren would do. I have temporarily undeleted it so it can be referred to for this purpose. Bishonen | talk 10:30, 15 August 2007 (UTC).

Clerk notes

Under the format of this page, each user should please edit in his or her own section only. Threaded dialog will be removed. Newyorkbrad 10:51, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/0/0/0)

Artaxerex

Initiated by Shervink at 14:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Artaxerex (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Shervink (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• SG (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• The Behnam (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Mehrshad123 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Rayis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Dfitzgerald (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Numerous discussions on , , , and finally an RfC on user conduct , all of which failed to bring about any progress.

Statement by Shervink

Artaxerex (talk · contribs) has continuously attackd me and others by making personal attacks, false accusations of vandalism and sockpuppetry, and has himself resorted to sockpuppetry several times, and pushed his POV and OR. He has accused others of fascism, racism, anti-semitism, and revisionism. While continuing on the same line after being blocked twice for sockpuppetry, he increasingly attacked me personally and systematically tried to tarnish my image on wikipedia. He has attempted to divide wikipedia along political lines, accusing other editors of setting up a "monarchist gang". (Even on his statement regarding this arbitration request, he is again accusing me and others of sockpuppetry, setting up a gang or group, racism, and brings up a case of uncivility on my part for which I apologized to him at least three times.) His behavior did not change the slightest bit over several months. Even after issuing a half-hearted apology under the pressure of the user conduct RfC case, he repeated his personal attacks towards me and another editor who tried to engage in a new discussion with him. Considering the fact that all the efforts so far to convince him to improve his behavior have failed, I would like to ask for the ArbCom to have a look at this matter. Shervink 14:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Artaxerex

• Shervink and his group (meatpuppets?!)' are trying to ban me by whatever means possible. The sole issue is my focus on the POV tone of the two articles on Pahlavies which I am trying to balance with solid academic sources. I have been called A****, and a Wana-be-historian by shervink, a "Palague", and a "worst kind of human being" by SG, and other names by Merhrshad 123. I have offered various suggestions for improvement of the article but shervink has alwayes refused any change. He finds all my western academic references unreliable. His group specifically has asked me to provide only Persian sources. They use their majority to veto every slight change by resorting to edit wars. They have not provided a single reliable source for thier claims. etc. etc.
• He accuses me of Sockpuppetry, due to the fact that I am sharing a wireless IP with a number of students and researchers, some of whom had participated in these discussions and are banned unfairly due to accusations by shervink and his group. It is unfortunate that no attempt was made by anyone to contact these people in order to assess their qualifications.

• It is unfortunate, that nobody has looked to the way this group operates. From shervink's talk page one can see how this group operates. They target various minority groups like Kurds and impose their own extreme Pan-Iranist and Aryan nationalist views to silence them.

• Nevertheless, the real isuue is a content dispute on extremely biased page in Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Reza shah pages as it is clear from the evidence shervink has posted above. In particular, I object strnogly to the racist tone of these editors who claim and insist that "Iranians are Aryans" which implies Iranians of Jewish, Arab or Assirian roots are not Iranians. This is of grave concerns for me and, I hope, for any decent arbitor (as I am certain it is). Apart from this issue I have apologized in good faith to him for everything that he asked me to apologize for. But he refuses any attempt for the balancing of the lead. He always find a way to evade or install the discussion.
• I am not a Jew, an Arab, or an Assirian, but the pro-Aryan remarks made by these editors greatly offends me, as it should offend any decent individual. They cannot claim that they are unaware of the impact of their remarks, as I have provided them with the memoirs of a young Jewish by during Shah's regime that was forced to sing "We are Aryans!".

• I wonder why editors like Melca (who has supported my edits in his RFC submission) are not invited here!!
• I pledge to abide by the verdict of this arbitration committee, and I do hope that we can find a way to go back to edit.

It appears that Shervink has been succesful again to prove that I have used a sockpuppet (since a person who shares my IP has posted in a totally unrelated page). Behnam has promised him that he will ban me for at least six month for this abuse. I have informed them that should they fail to ban me I continue to provide valid sources to stop the spread of the Aryan-racist propaganda by shervink and his cohort. and will try to balance the articles with an open mind.

Statement by SG

I enjoy it when Artaxerex takes comments out of context. Yes, I called him a plague and the worst kind of human being, along with a full explanation of my thoughts in four paragraphs (and explained it again later in three more paragraphs). Artaxerex does not work well with others. If the history of the Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Reza Shah talk pages are viewed from the time Artaxerex began editing, it will become very clear that the other editors maintained proper etiquette and were quite kind towards Artaxerex at the beginning. However, as time progressed, Artaxerex never backed down from his position and began engaging in an edit war through the use of sockpuppets, thus we have all become incredibly tired of this user and his actions. Due to Artaxerex, I have not edited the actual article since April, and several other editors have left the page in its entirety. It is also rather irritating when he refers to us as "Shervink et al", "Shervink and co", "Shervink and his gang", "Shervink and his group", even though we have told him to stop several times.

My attempts to reason with Artaxerex and prove that what he is writing is false have been futile, as he has completely ignored me in the talk pages and instead argues with Shervink or talks to The Behnam directly, rather than actually responding to my points; this way, he can actually avoid any meaningful discussion which proves him and his statements wrong. We have on many occasions agreed with Artaxerex, though he has never done so with us, even after we have proven him wrong. We have even collaborated with him in writing a more neutral article, yet he always refuses to accept anything and instead rewrites the page (particularly the lead) in a manner which he finds acceptable. Artaxerex himself has at times agreed that what he is writing is not neutral (and that he'll make it more neutral "later", or that we should make it NPOV for him, or even that we should balance his statements by writing the opposite, ie. praise for the Shah).

My problem with Artaxerex is not his prior use of sockpuppets, nor do I care about his insults. My main issue is that he brushes off all meaningful discussion, he never accepts that he could be wrong, and he refuses to listen to our suggestions or arguments. In short, as I said before, he does not work well with others, period. ♠ SG →Talk 21:49, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/1/0/0)

• Decline. RFC shows a lack of community support for this matter. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 04:30, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Jmfangio-Chrisjnelson

Involved parties

• Jmfangio (talk · contribs)
• Chrisjnelson (talk · contribs)
• Seraphimblade (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Chrisjnelson:
• Jmfangio:

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Discussion between editors on talk pages, including Template talk:Infobox NFLactive, User talk:Seraphimblade, User talk:Jmfangio, and User talk:Chrisjnelson.
• Several unsuccessful intervention attempts by other editors.
• Community enforceable mediation (closed unsuccessfully)
• Rejected mediation request
• Request for comment

Statement by Seraphimblade

While I believe that both Jmfangio and Chrisjnelson do have a wish to improve the encyclopedia, at this time, their behavior regarding one another has been wholly unacceptable. Problems include revert warring , , hostility, incivility, and personal attacks in any discussion in which the two engage, (, as examples but by no means an exhaustive list, see the above-listed talk pages as well), and a general lack of respect and assumption of good faith. It appears that at this time is nowhere near resolution , and attempts at intervention and discussion from other editors have failed to solve the problem, as have the above listed attempts at dispute resolution. ArbCom cannot, of course, decide the content issues on which the two disagree, but at this point, I believe that arbitration is the only step which will stop the creation of a poisonous atmosphere at several pages from the bickering and edit warring. Seraphimblade 09:09, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Jmfangio

It essentially boils down to this: weeks of discussion have been futile. Said user is convinced that his way is not only right, but that it is the only right. Several others have presented a valid/viable alternative. The fact that both sides are valid results in edit conflicts (as confirmed by a person not named in this case). An impartial solution has been proposed, and despite no other suggestion, it has been rejected by Chrisjnelson simply because he feels he has the only correct "answer". The neutral solution seems acceptable to most "commentators", and they have agreed that the best way to satisfy Chris and "the other side" is to find a neutral solution. The arbcom would have been asked to address the behavior issues revolving around this, not the content. Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  09:32, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Status??

What else can I do to move this forward? The tension continues to escalate and now others are getting attacked. The hostility, wikistalking, and edit warring is starting to spread to other articles. Can anything be done to expedite this process? Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat  19:46, 8 August 2007 (UTC

Statement by Chrisjnelson

First, I will explain the debate as I see it. I believe in listing out Pro Bowl years in a players’ infobox. Further, I believe that the link should look something like this ], or in other words, the link should ‘’show’’ one year and link to the Pro Bowl the following calendar year. Jmfangio feels that this is confusing to some, and that there is an equally valid argument to keep the years the same, as in ]. As a compromise, he feels all infoboxes should only list the number of total Pro Bowl selections, as in 8x Pro Bowl selection or something to that effect. It is my belief that the two sides Jmfangio feels to be valid are not in fact equal. It is my intent to show that my style of edit, the kind in my first example, is much more valid and accurate than the alternative, and thereby showing a “compromise” to be unnecessary. Keep in mind that linking Pro Bowl years as I do has been a fairly common practice here at Misplaced Pages, and that this dispute only arose with this new template on which I collaborated with Jmfangio. To get a visual idea of each side, see these:

-Junior Seau – This is my style of edit in use. Each Pro Bowl selection uses the regular season year, but links to the correct Pro Bowl.

- – this is the side Jmfangio feels has equal validity to my own. You can see that years shown are identical to the ones in each Pro Bowl linked.

-Brett Favre – this is Jmfangio’s compromise in use. Only the number of Pro Bowl selections is shown, with no individual years.

Now, a basic explanation as to why I link the Pro Bowls the way I do. As you may or may not know, the NFL’s regular season begins in September and runs through the end of the year. The Pro Bowl occurs in early February, after the Super Bowl. Therefore, the years of the regular season and corresponding Pro Bowl are not identical, but rather the Pro Bowl is in the calendar year after any given season.

Please note that I am not arguing against the naming of Pro Bowl articles or to how they are referred. The 2007 Pro Bowl was in fact the one played this past February, and I think we can all agree on that fact. But what I am saying is that, when listing Pro Bowl years in a player’s infobox, one is not referring to the game itself. Rather, the years are there to list the SELECTIONS of that individual player. I personally feel that a list of Pro Bowl years in an infobox is basically a sentence saying “Player X was select to the Pro Bowl in this season, this season, this season, etc.” In that case, the year should correspond with the regular season in which the player earned the Pro Bowl selection.

For example: In the 2006 regular season, Peyton Manning was rewarded with a selection to the Pro Bowl (which took place in February 2007). However, the regular season in which he earned he selection, and the selection itself, occurred in 2006. As evidence, here is a link, dated December 18, stating that “The teams will be announced at 4 p.m. ET Tuesday, Dec. 19 on NFL Network.” This proves that the selection for the 2007 Pro Bowl began, and was completed, during the 2006 season.

This is why it is factually inaccurate to list 2007 in Peyton Manning infobox under Pro Bowl selections. He has not played in the 2007 regular season, and no voting or selecting has taken place in 2007. Peyton Manning was in fact a Pro Bowl selection in 2006, and played in the 2007 Pro Bowl. His selection was a REWARD for the 2006 season, and without that season he could not have played in the 2007 Pro Bowl. Essentially, it was the 2006 regular season that earned him the reward of a Pro Bowl selection – a selection which occurred in 2006.

I must say I am astounded this has even become such a giant issue, because those that follow or cover the sport nearly always refer to it this way. Here are some examples of player bios on their official teams’ websites, and how they convey the Pro Bowl information:

• Peyton Manning – Colts.com bio – The very first sentence states: “Started 16 games for ninth consecutive season in 2006 and earned seventh career Pro Bowl selection (1999-2000, 2002-06).” A look at the season-by-season highlights shows that these years mentioned in the first sentence correspond with regular seasons, NOT years of Pro Bowls.

• Michael Vick - AtlantaFalcons.com bio – The first section has a paragraph which states “Earned his second consecutive and third overall Pro Bowl nod in 2005” and the 2002, 2004 and 2005 seasons sections all indicate that the Pro Bowl selections occurred during these regular seasons.

• Jason Taylor – MiamiDolphins.com bio – Not far down this page, there is a section that states “CAREER PRO BOWL SELECTIONS: 5 (2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006).” As you can see by looking at the year-by-year highlights, these years correspond to regular seasons, not Pro Bowl years.

• Brian Urlacher – ChicagoBears.com bio – in the first paragraph there is a sentence that states: “Fifth player in franchise history to receive Pro Bowl selections in each of his first 4 NFL seasons.” This sentence’s wording clearly goes along with my style of edit, and there is further support of this on that page for you to see but I feel this is sufficient.

• Ray Lewis – BaltimoreRavens.com bio – Various evidence to support my kind of edit, for example: “Ray earned his 5th consecutive Pro Bowl in 2001 when he led the NFL in tackles (196).” Again, using the regular season year when referring to the selection.

I could go on and on, and if you are still unsure I urge you to look up any former Pro Bowler on any official team website and I’ll wager you’ll find more of the same. Google something like “earned Pro Bowl selection” and see what you find. I did, and what I found were various news articles from all kinds of sources referring to selections by the season. From ESPN to Yahoo to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. This is common practice. The Pro Bowl may be the year after the regular season, but Pro Bowl selections refer to regular seasons themselves.

I believe Jmfangio’s objection to my method is that that it is confusing to the common reader. On this, I disagree. The common reader will see the years of selection and will probably naturally assume it was those regular seasons that he was selected in. But if he clicks on the links, he will also be taken to the correct Pro Bowl for those selections. I will admit that occasionally, someone will see this kind of edit in place and will change the years to match each Pro Bowl. But I do not believe it occurs enough to warrant tossing out years all together. I for one am willing to watch these pages, revert them if someone unknowingly changes the years to be incorrect and post on their talk pages explaining why the original edit was correct. I do not believe that we should avoid putting in accurate information on the chance an uninformed person might come along every once in a while and change it. If we did that, there would be no Misplaced Pages.

I’m not saying Jmfangio’s compromise of “Pro Bowl selection (x8)” is wrong. It’s not, and there’s nothing wrong with it. But it is my belief that having the years in the infoboxes enhances the articles, and as I have shown they are factually accurate and can be sourced as well. My proposal is to basically continue what we’ve been doing. This has been pretty standard practice for years and I see no reason to discontinue it based on what I feel is one person’s misunderstanding of the situation. No offense to you, Jmfangio, but I do feel you are incorrect in saying both my way and the way with matching years are equal. Research pretty much shows this to be true. If there were differing and equally valid views on how to list years, then Jmfangio’s compromise would definitely be satisfactory. But has been my goal to show that one view is much more accurate and valid than any other, and I feel I’ve done that sufficiently here.►Chris Nelson 18:23, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I have a feeling that I'm going to lose this thing, possibly in large part to my behavior of late. But it's unfortunate, because I know I'm right on this and this is what is best for these football articles.►Chris Nelson 18:23, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Navou

I encourage the committee to look at the user conduct of all involved. Prior dispute resolution attempt ended at WP:CEM with one participant stating he would not budge on the issue, after asked to look at compromises. The mediation closed unsuccessfully at that point and quickly degenerated into an uncivil atmosphere on that mediation page. I believe the arbitration committee can successfully diffuse the abrasive editing atmosphere. I encourage the committee to open this case.

Statement by uninvolved Isotope23

This may be worth looking into for the user conduct issues that have arisen out of the core content dispute. I observed a bit of this last evening at Brett Favre where the two editors proceeded to edit over each other and generally bicker over edits. As evidenced by their posts here today, I don't see much reason to believe they can amicably resolve this and work together on their own.--Isotope23 20:01, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Dagomar

Hon. Arbitrators;

I humbly suggest the acceptance of this case to at the very least, keep the peace and stop the unproductive fighting that is going on.

Dagomar 01:42, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Durova

Endorsing the statements of Seraphimblade and Navou: three different methods of dispute resolution have already been tried without success. That's more than many cases the Committee has accepted in the past. One consideration worth bearing in mind is the upcoming football season: an unresolved "hot" conduct dispute on prominent articles there would not be a good thing.

On August 10 I found it necessary to full protect Peyton Manning. The unintended consequence of this action is that it blocks newcomers' access at a popular first point of entry to Misplaced Pages. Misplaced Pages isn't Usenet, but first impressions often set the tone for new editors' expectations. So in the broader picture, sending this back for yet another (unlikely) attempt at dispute resolution would be a net loss for Misplaced Pages. Durova 01:19, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (3/2/0/0)

• Accept to consider behavior of all involved. Kirill 18:05, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
• Decline. I would like to see a user-conduct RFC first. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 03:53, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
• Decline, per UnivitedCompany. Paul August ☎ 01:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
• Accept. I don't think any more preliminary steps at dispute resolution are going to fix this. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 22:57, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
• Accept. I think we can help here as other good faith attempts to resolve the issue seem to have failed. FloNight 23:05, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Requests for clarification

Place requests for clarification on matters related to the Arbitration process in this section. Place new requests at the top.

The pseudoscience category precedent

The pseudoscience RFAr contained some rulings related to the use of Category:Pseudoscience (specifically, principles 15, 16, and 17) that are being used in the arguments in a CFD for Category:Denialism. There are obvious similarities between denialism and pseudoscience, e.g. both present arguments that run contrary to what is widely accepted. However denialism is arguably a more strongly pejorative term and is less well-defined (to the extent that no one has identified any dictionary that defines it). While Timecube may serve as "obvious pseudoscience" deciding what is "obvious denialism" (aside from say Holocaust denial) would be difficult and there isn't exactly a community of experts to turn to for deciding what is or isn't denialism.

Given that a substantial fraction of the argument at this CFD is based on drawing parallels to Category:Pseudoscience, I think it might be helpful if one or more of you would express an opinion on whether or not you find those parallels compelling in this instance. Dragons flight 22:14, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Renaming of User:COFS

As per the proposed remedies on Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/COFS, the user has requested renaming prior to the completion of the case. Do you want us to do it now or hold off until the case is closed, or case closed and any ban finished? Secretlondon 19:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Paranormal Clarification on the use of qualifiers as discussed in various holdings

Five arbitrators voted to take on the Paranormal case; the two who stated their reason for taking the case indicated it was for "conduct issues". Of the 29 principles, findings of fact, and remedies that passed, most did deal with conduct issues; however, an important minority dealt with some of the content that has been at the core of the protracted disputes about paranormal-related articles. I apologize for the length of the following explanation of what I see as the core content paradox within the ArbCom holdings, but I have used examples in order to, I hope, make the situation as clear as possible:

The Misplaced Pages article on psychic raises issues with the recently closed Paranormal ArbCom. Finding of Fact #5, "Cultural artifacts", states: ""Psychic" or "clairvoyant" and similar terms are cultural artifacts, not people or things which necessarily exist. A psychic may not have psychic abilities, nor does use of the term imply that such abilities exist." Principle #6.2 states, in part, "Language in the introduction of an article may serve to frame the subject thus defining the epistemological status. Examples include ... "paranormal", "psychic" ... or "parapsychological researcher". ... "Purported psychic" or "self-described psychic" adds nothing."

Lemma 1 the Arbitration Committee sees the label "psychic" as a cultural artifact. Saying that Jeane Dixon is a psychic does not imply that she has psychic abilities or powers, or even that such abilities or powers exist. This is true to such an extent that clarification, such as "Jeane Dixon is a self-described psychic", is disallowed.

In reading the article on psychic, however, I became confused and concerned. The psychic article's lede itself states that psychic denotes paranormal extra-sensory abilities that are inexplicable by "known natural laws". This doesn't seem like a typical cultural artifact, in that this statement implies that there may exist some unknown natural law to explain it (i.e., the description invokes science, not culture). However, several sentences later we learn that the existence of this ability is highly contested. Does this resolve the situation?

No. While this skepticism helps a reader understand that psychic abilities may or may not be real, it still leaves the reader with the impression that "psychic" means "someone with scientifically inexplicable powers" - it's just that now we recognize that such people may not exist. That is, thus far, the word "psychic" has always been used to mean "someone with paranormal powers". The infobox on the right side of the page is even more explicit: "Definition: An ability or phenomona said to originate from the brain, but to transcend its confines. Primarily in relation to Psi" (see the box on the righthand side of the article).

Lemma 2: So what is a psychic? The article repeatedly indicates that a defining feature of a psychic is "an ability". There is no ambiguity. It does not say that psychics have an apparent ability. It does not say that psychics may or may not have abilities. It says that a psychic has these abilities.

Imagine that instead of psychic we were talking about a rare device, the PerpetualMotionMachine (psychic). An article states that the PerpetualMotionMachine is an infinite (paranormal) power-output device (ability). The article also has an infobox that defines PerpetualMotionMachine as "A device or product that originates from the Midwest and is capable of infinite power-output." At this point, it's pretty clear that a crucial quality of any PerpetualMotionMachine is that it is an infinite power-output device. Then, I get to the sentence, "the possibility of infinite power-output is highly contested." Now, I still believe that PerpetualMotionMachines are infinite power-output devices, but now I recognize that the term "PerpetualMotionMachine" may have no real-world referent. I now understand that there may not be even one single PerpetualMotionMachine, but if there were one, a defining quality of it would be that it could output infinite power.

Likewise with the paranormal article. It asserts that psychic powers are paranormal abilities, inexplicable by known natural laws. It also tells me that there may not actually be any psychic abilities in the real world. However, from the definitions, I still gather that if there are psychic abilities in the real world, then they cannot be explained by known natural laws. The phrasing here does not strike me as a simple cultural artifact. Just reading the sentence, I am inclined to think that scientists of various disciplines must have looked into this and decided that known natural laws cannot explain the results.

This is in contrast to the holdings of the Arbitration Committee, which found that the term psychic is just a cultural artifact. The Committee held that "psychic" may not imply that the "a psychic" actually has scientifically inexplicable abilities. Therefore, even if a psychic does exist in the real world, they may not have psychic powers. ArbCom: "Psychic means someone who has, or claims to have, these powers. These powers may not exist, but the term still refers to real people." Article: "Psychic means someone who has these powers. These powers may not exist, and in that case the term has no real-world referent."

Lemma 3: The ArbCom's operative understanding of psychic differs in a subtle but crucial way from the psychic article. Actual paranormal powers are an intrinsic quality of a psychic according to the psychic article (although the existence these powers is contested), whereas paranormal powers are not intrinsic to the ArbCom's understanding of psychic (so even if these powers don't actually exist, there still may exist psychics).

A comment was made on the psychic talk page that I think exemplifies the potential for confusion: "When we call a person a psychic we convey a constellation of meanings, all or only some of which may apply. We might be saying the person has psychic powers, performs on stage as a psychic, makes their living doing readings, fraudulently bilks people out of money by claiming paranormal abilities etc. The word has "a" meaning which is multifaceted and contradictory, and all notable ones should be contained somewhere in the psychic article. One part of the meaning of "psychic" is that a person has powers. Another part is that the person may be self-deluded or a fraud. Another is that the person may be an entertainer, comforter, psychologist..... All of these things, or any one of them, may be conveyed by use of the term psychic. It is largely up to the reader to decide which is appropriate." Such a multifarious term could reasonably, from time to time, be misunderstood.

For consideration: Due to subtly different interpretations, there exist diverse understandings of the word psychic which persist, even within Misplaced Pages. Judicious, appropriate, and infrequent qualification of "psychic", "paranormal", and similar terms should be allowed when such qualifications are contributory to the clarity and meaning of the epistemological status of a subject. This is especially true given the content of the psychic article. This is suggestion is closely in line with Principle #6.1, and Findings of Fact #6, #8, #9, but somewhat at odds with Principle #6.2 and Finding of Fact #12.

Thank you, Antelan 08:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Heaven, Soul, and a whole host of other terms that refer to something that may or may not exist do not bother saying that it is "claimed" to exist. Only terms that show up on a skeptical watchlists do. It's an issue on Energy (spirituality) but not on obscure terms that don't make it to the list like Prana. Psychic is a cultural artifact because everyone in the world already has an opinion on whether or not psychics are real, or totally bogus. Misplaced Pages does not have to inform them that psychics may not exist. They are quite aware of it already. No one will realistically read a technical definition at Misplaced Pages of psychic that says it refers to "supernatural forces, events, or powers" and walk away thinking "Holy cow, Misplaced Pages says psychics are real!" It's not even plausible. They have already formed their own opinion. All the other encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. that don't bother saying that it may not exist don't waste the reader's time, or insults their intelligence, by pointing it out. If nothing else, it fails to meet the notability standard. --Nealparr 09:11, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

When we call a person a psychic we convey a constellation of meanings, all or only some of which may apply. We might be saying the person has psychic powers, performs on stage as a psychic, makes their living doing readings, fraudulently bilks people out of money by claiming paranormal abilities etc. The word has "a" meaning which is multifaceted and contradictory, and all notable ones should be contained somewhere in the psychic article. One part of the meaning of "psychic" is that a person has powers. Another part is that the person may be self-deluded or a fraud. Another is that the person may be an entertainer, comforter, psychologist..... All of these things, or any one of them, may be conveyed by use of the term psychic. It is largely up to the reader to decide which is appropriate.

So to state it the way I have at other times that the meaning of the word "psychic" is "A psychic is someone who has psychic powers, but those powers may not really exist," is not quite accurate. Rather, the word psychic conveys many meanings. The two most important to skeptics and believers, however, are the two I stated- powers and doubt about thier reality. Both of those meanings are contained in the word psychic, and both are reflected in the current Psychic lead, which is well-framed per the ArbCom. –––Martin _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 19:29, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Nice prose, but I'm still not buying it. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 21:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for giving it your consideration. Antelan 00:00, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Who are you talking to? Me or Antelan or Nealparr??

The psychic article says "People who are thought to have these abilities or to be able to produce these phenomena are often called "psychics". " Thus, if we call someone a psychic, is is saying just what Antelan says it should say: "psychic" = "thought to have these abilities," and of course the full understanding would be that the person might or might not. –––Martin _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 21:04, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Antelan's was the nicest. --Nealparr 21:18, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes, that's true -it was very well done- and UninvitedCompany said "still," which must have been referring to his having not bought it before either. –––Martin _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 21:42, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Clarification on ED

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not an ED troll, but an interesting question was raised at a recent DRV (see bottom) for it. In Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/MONGO, it was ruled that ED links and material is banned from Misplaced Pages. However, it was questioned in the DRV that even if reliable sources that established notability were found, would it come in conflict with the ArbCom ruling in that case? Kwsn 04:10, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The ED article itself has clearly posed internal problems for us. I think the turning point for me would be this: Are there sufficient reliable sources about ED which demonstrate that ED so clearly inside our inclusion guidelines that our project would be incomplete without it? If that were the case, I myself would support an amendment to the MONGO decision to permit an article. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 21:08, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh my goodness. Well, I can't see much more reason to edit this website if the arbitrators are going to support the recreation of an article about that website which has attacked a number of our contributors in ways that simply cannot be put into words. Oddly enough, the article on me there is hardly one of the worst.--MONGO 22:09, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Relax. We have lots of articles about things, people, and organizations we don't like, and your concern is hypothetical since there aren't reliable sources covering ED. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 04:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

In my own opinion, the ArbCom way overstepped its proper bounds in imposing a flat and absolute link ban, and this has had ongoing pernicious consequences; one of them has been to turn me from a strong supporter of Misplaced Pages to somebody who's largely disillusioned and disgruntled, because of my scuffles over this silly policy. Also, labeling people "trolls" for disagreeing with a clique here is hardly productive. *Dan T.* 18:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

You don't see us linking pages to uncyclopedia all the time. Having links to ED in individual pages outside of the ED article (if it is re-created mind you) is pointless. Part of the reason for the ban is the numerous amounts of attack pages on the site, how would you feel if someone posted the link to a page blatantly attacking you on your userspace (talk included). Regarding the "trolls", in a nutshell, what they are doing is trolling, just not on-wiki. Kwsn(Ni!) 17:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd find it funny, actually... a while back when I was on both Daniel Brandt's Hivemind and Jeff Merkey's Merkeylaw, with some silly attacks on me in both places, I actually linked to them on my own userpage to laugh at them, something that wouldn't be permitted these days under the silly "no links to attack sites" policy. *Dan T.* 19:51, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

To each their own then. Kwsn(Ni!) 19:53, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Instantnood3

The arbitration committee has closed the above case.

Restrictions applying to Huaiwei:

• Huaiwei (talk · contribs · logs) is restricted to proposing only one page move, poll of editors, or policy change relating to Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Chinese) per week. he may be blocked, for up to a year in repeat case, if he violates this restriction.
• Huaiwei (talk · contribs · logs) is placed on Misplaced Pages:Probation indefinitely. Any administrator may ban him from any article he disrupts, for cause.
• Huaiwei (talk · contribs · logs) is placed on General Probation indefinitely. Any three administrators may, for good cause, ban him from the site.

The above is the shorthand restrictions placed on Huaiwei after an ArbCom case more than a year ago. Several months ago, it was found that Instantnood was not only being generally disruptive but also running farms of sockpuppets to disrupt votes/discussions and Instantnood is now permanently banned. Huaiwei hasn't been in any other kind of dispute resolution before or since the Instantnood issues.

It's clear to me that while Huaiwei was wrapped up in Instantnood's belligerence (as were a half dozen others on the periphery) it was Instantnood's wiki-stalking of Huaiwei (which continues with sockpuppets even now) that caused the problem, and not a general problem with Huaiwei as an editor. Without the instigation of a bad actor, Huaiwei is an excellent and dedicated Wikipedian who has been with the project for several years. These restrictions and potential punishments hang on him like an albatross.

I'd like ArbCom to review Huaiwei's contributions since the permanent banning of Instantnood and remove the previous restrictions.

SchmuckyTheCat

• You mean, like, the six blocks for edit warring he's received since then, most recently a month ago? --jpgordon 07:57, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Instantnood was banned on 16 April. Huaiwei was blocked only one time after Instantnood was banned. --Kaypoh 09:54, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Right, Huaiwei has one 3rr with one user that is not Instantnood. I think the sequence of that one was, slow revert, Huaiwei realized he went over and reported it, both got blocked. He was also using the talk page to try and work out what was going on with someone belligerent.

One instance does not justify such harsh restrictions. SchmuckyTheCat

Well, that one instance is not the justification, the entire history is. I'd like to see three clean months before I support lifting the restrictions, though. --jpgordon 16:43, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe that in a similar situation recently, the committee voted that someone's probation from a prior case would be ended if he remained out of trouble for a specific period of time. That might work here. Newyorkbrad 16:17, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

• I'm nowhere near a neutral party here (too many underlying reasons), but I second what NYB says. - Penwhale | 23:58, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Note: See motion in arbitrator voting section, below. Newyorkbrad 05:50, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Motions in prior cases

(Only Arbitrators may make and vote on such motions. Other editors may comment on the talk page)

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

Note: See also the discussion in Section 2 above.

I move that the restrictions, now over a year old, from the Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Instantnood 3 case on editor Huaiwei be lifted. While Huaiwei appears to have been involved in some edit wars and has received a number of 3RR blocks, I do not believe that the probation and limits on participation remain relevant at this point.

As there are presently 12 active arbitrators, of whom one is abstaining, a majority is 6.

Support:

1. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 05:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
2. James F. (talk) 09:56, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
3. Paul August ☎ 13:31, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
4. Kirill 17:07, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Oppose:

1. First, I would like to see a clean block record for at least 3 months and no evidence of edit warring. FloNight 11:20, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Abstain:

1. As I suggested above, I'd like to see a bit more time. --jpgordon 16:11, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Betacommand

With the passage of time and Betacommand's continued contributions to Misplaced Pages, the Committee hereby restores Betacommand's administrative privileges under these stipulations:

• Betacommand may not operate any bot that utilizes administrative privilege without prior approval. For the avoidance of doubt, the term "bot" is to be construed broadly to include any full or partial automation of the administrative functions not already in widespread use by other administrators. Prior approval may come from the Bot Approvals Group (BAG), or for bots that provide partial automation that would not ordinarily require BAG approval, this committee.
• Betacommand must observe the notification requirements and delay periods specified in policy prior to deleting images.

Clerk note: There are 12 active Arbitrators and none were recused in the original case; the majority is 7. Thatcher131 15:39, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Support:

1. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 15:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
2. Raul654 15:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
3. --jpgordon 15:54, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Oppose:

1. Uncomfortable with this, given his continually controversial behavior. Kirill 17:07, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
2. Paul August ☎ 03:11, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
3. Oppose. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:13, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Abstain:

1. Abstain until I discuss with Betacommand by email his views on blocking established users. FloNight 21:56, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Archives

• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Completed requests
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Rejected requests (extremely sparse, selective, and unofficial)

• Misplaced Pages arbitration
• Misplaced Pages dispute resolution
• Misplaced Pages Arbitration Committee