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83.147.186.140

mark nutley

Request concerning mark nutley

User requesting enforcement

The Four Deuces

User against whom enforcement is requested

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

Sanction or remedy that this user violated

Digwuren case 1RR on Mass killings under Communist regimes.

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

First revert: 17:45, 13 October 2010 (remove POV pushing "Some anti communists"? Seriously?)

Second revert: 15:37, 14 October 2010 (rv this is being discussed, why insert it before a consensus is reached?)

Third revert: 17:12, 14 October 2010 (rv BLP exemption you can`t call a BLP an anti communist without solid reliable sourceing)

Enforcement action requested (block).

Additional comments by editor filing complaint

mark nutley is well aware of the 1RR restriction on this article having earlier warned another editor.

TFD (talk) 16

22, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Reply to mark nutley

There are two discussion threads concerning this edit, in which you and I and other editors have participated, and as your comments there make clear is a continuation of the ongoing disagreement over neutrality of the article, particularly the lede. TFD (talk) 17:08, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes there is is a continuation of the ongoing disagreement over neutrality of the article, so why did you choose to make matters worse by reinserting contentious text which was under discussion? mark (talk) 17:26, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment

Following mark nutley's reply below, he has now reverted a third time, which I have added to the list above. TFD (talk) 17:52, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

You think removing a BLP violation ought to be sanctioned? How peculiar mark (talk) 18:07, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

If you believed that referring to a specific scholar was a BLP violation, you could have merely removed his name. TFD (talk) 18:14, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Or better yet, you could have simply removed the word "anti-communist" you objected to. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 04:29, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Reply to SPhilbrick

Three other editors have also reinserted the sentence. While the sentence is unsourced so is the rest of the lead with one exception. I realize that I should have added sources and in fact provided them in the discussion pages. TFD (talk) 18:14, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Reply to 2over0

This article is under a 1RR restriction and you have now complained about editors on both sides who made one edit. If you believe the article should be under a 0RR restriction then please add one, rather than penalize editors using a retroactive ruling. Also, editors new to the article may not realize that 1RR will be interpreted as 0RR. The best way to impliment a 0RR restriction is of course to lock down the article. It is further unfair that you have listed editors who have had no opportunity to reply. If you do not remove these warnings I will complain at the ANI noticeboard. TFD (talk) 02:01, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Mark Nutley

Well obviously i made a mistake here and seeking a block over this is petty beyond belief, blocks are meant to be preventative not punitive and i am obviously not edit warring here. The first diff shows when i removed the text. However i went straight to the talk page to begin discussing what is obviously a contentious addition. The only remark TFD has made in this debate was This is a topic that does not exist in the academic mainstream and the article should not pretend that it does. TFD (talk) 15:28, 14 October 2010 (UTC) then he proceeded to reinsert the text knowing full well it was contentious and under debate. This is disruptive behaviour. This was an honest mistake on my part and i think a block is a bit much mark (talk) 16:52, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

One other thing, two editors recently broke the revert someone go straight to talk rule, i told them of it and even though they did not go to the talk page to explain i did not seek enforcement against them. Because everyone makes the odd mistake. Trying to get someone blocked because you disagree with them is a bit much for me. mark (talk) 19:04, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Collect

The insertion of an unsourced claim involing living people into the lede is the real problem. I would suggest the "some anti-communists" phrasing was to indicate that only a minority of an extreme class of some sort supported the statement. Nikita Krushchev is clearly, in this context, an "anti-communist." I suggest the seven or so AfD discussions about the page are germane in understanding the conflict between those who have iterated desires to delete the page as being "anti-communist" and (the prevailing view) that the article is proper in Misplaced Pages mainspace. Collect (talk) 18:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

WRT any belief that only the person being complained about can be sanctioned - such has not been the prior rule. Collect (talk) 18:57, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

WRT "mechanical enforcement" it is clear that User:Petri Krohn is in the category of "two reverts in under ninety minutes" per at 18:22 today and at 16:57 today (the Rummel addition was in addition to a specific revert - not just an addition to extant text). Collect (talk) 21:46, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

WRT any claim that introducing the same sentence twice after it had been removed is somehow not two reverts bends the definition of "revert" as used in WP on its head. There is no question that the reverts each introduced the same language which had been removed - though the second also added a few more words. That does not, however, change the fact that each was, indeed, a revert under WP policies. Collect (talk) 23:35, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

WRT "Digwuren" - I would suggest that the use of Digwuren as a piece of lycra may be stretching it further than the arbitrators who desiced that case ever intended. Digwuren was primarily about Estonian history, and was stretched to be for Eastern Europe. The further stretching to encompass primarily pre-WWII Soviet history and post war Asian history seems like having a person put a size 12 foot into a size 2 shoe. Further Digwuren states " if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process." Where a 1RR exists on an article which should not even be under Digwuren, that "normal editorial process" has been abrogated as a standard. Also the actual behaviour dealt with by the decision was "in particular, by making generalized accusations that persons of a particular national or ethnic group are engaged in Holocaust denial or harbor Nazi sympathies " which has not occurred on the article in question. Indeed, Digwuren does not anticipate 1RR restrictions being placed on an article but refers to restrictions on editors after warning has been given. Indeed zero articles were placed under general restrictions until three years after the decision - thus it is clear the original arbitrators did not anticipate this as a "solution" at all. I would note that for some odd reason I am now banned from editing anything about the London victory parade of 1946 as an example of the lycra being used. Clearly the use of Digwuren has now reached "reductio as absurdam" to be sure. Collect (talk) 12:01, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Discussion concerning mark nutley

• The original insertion of the sentence Some anti-communists assert that these mass killings in communist states are a direct result of communist doctrine. could charitably be construed as the first step of BRD cycle, although most editors would realize such a statement requires a solid reference.
• Nutley's first revert is the logical next step in a BRD cycle.
• Nutley's post to the talk page, two minutes later is the initiation of the third step of the BRD cycle, in a timely way.
• TFD's reinsertion of the material is quite inappropriate, given the lack of consensus of the discussion. Had TFD not seen the discussion, perhaps it could be forgiven, but TFD participated in the talk page discussion.
• Nutley's removal of the material, under current discussion, but not yet agreed to, is technically a violation of the1RR, because, while the next calendar day, it is less than 24 hours later. For that MN should be admonished lightly, but the edit summary (this is being discussed, why insert it before a consensus is reached?) makes clear that MN was trying to follow the BRD cycle. TFD deserves more serious admonishment for knowingly re-inserting unsourced contentious material even while a discussion is in progress.--SPhilbrickT 17:30, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

• - Well presented, from your evaluation I support a block for the User:The_Four_Deuces for escalating the dispute and then making a report in an attempt to have user Mark Nutley blocked. User:Petri_Krohn reinserted it again also, replacement of disputed content as disruptive in the middle of a discussion. Off2riorob (talk) 17:53, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

<-I urge avoidance of Misplaced Pages:Coatrack. The action of Mark are clearly relevant, as are the actions of The Four Deuces, both because TFD brought the action, and because the TFD insertion and revert of the insertion are the edits in question. While others are involved in what is shaping up to be an edit war, if not there already, dragging in Petri's edit should not be done here. If someone find's problems with Petri's edits (and I do not), I think they should be addressed separately, to avoid turning this into a tar baby.SPhilbrickT 19:41, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

• I'm not a fan of those who block shop to get the upper hand in content disputes, particularly when they themselves have also been involved in edit warring. FWIW, recent practice on this board has seen the requesting party and other involved parties sanctioned. Given that there is no evidence of any formal warning having been previously logged (discretionary sanctions explicitly require a formal notice to be placed on a user's page before being blocked under the provision), the best course of action is to formally warn both TFD and Marknutley via formal notice and protect the article for a month. --Martin (talk) 20:27, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be a raging edit war at that article right now. Participants should be summarily blocked for disruption. Those who have previously been warned should get a logged block under the sanction. Edit wars like this should never happen on articles under discretionary sanctions, because they shouldn't be allowed on any article. Tasty monster (=TS ) 19:05, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

• I agree that a case can be made, that we would need a source in the lede section if we were to imply, as I did, that R. J. Rummel is an anti-communist. If this truly was the issue, it would have been remedied by removing the word "anti-communist" from "some anti-communist scholars". Instead, Mark chose to make the third blind revert to his preferred version in less than 24 hours. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 21:05, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

None of the reverts were blind reverts petri, in fact on the one were i erred (the second) i went straight to the talk page to explain why. As i had with the first. If you wish to imply the a BLP writes anti communist propaganda then you need solid sources, it was a clear BLP violation and you should not have added it in mark (talk) 21:09, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

1RR doesn't mean "no blind reverts." I don't know why these arguments are being made. I cannot believe that participants in this edit war are still discussing it here now and have not been blocked. --TS 21:14, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I was not edit warring tony, i made a mistake is all. And i believe people ought to be allowed to say their piece before being blocked, don`t you? mark (talk) 21:20, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Strangely enough. no. Participation in edit wars is a trigger for a block. Participation in edit wars when you've been warned of discretionary sanctions is a trigger for a good long block. --TS 21:22, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I was`nt warned about discretionary sanctions, just the 1r restriction and that if you revert you have to go to the talk page mark (talk) 21:32, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

It's now two days after the original report so if the bad behavior has stopped suggest that a warning is appropriate, but obviously not a block. If he does this again I suggest a summary block will be adequate. No need to have yet another turgid discussion. --TS 11:19, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Petri Krohn

Some people are making very serious accusations against me, namely that I have

1. edit warred
2. broken the 1RR rule

Both claims are unfounded. My edits fall within WP:BRD, as I will demonstrate with diffs. Per Misplaced Pages:Edit warring, BRD is not edit warring: This is known as the bold, revert, discuss (BRD) cycle, and is not edit warring. My edits were intended to produce a compromise version everyone could agree on, and thus end the revert cycle. I was also fully aware, that if I failed to stop the edit warring by a suitable compromise, the article would be protected from editing.

Here is a list of edits today, with a diff to the previous version closest to the new version:

My two edits. Both edits introduce new content.

• 1 – introduces R. J. Rummel, addresses weasel words issue objected to by Collect
• 2 – totally deferent content: "Cold War anti-communists propaganda", + new reference.

For comparison, here is a list of edits by other editors today. All are blind reverts to a previous version.

• The Four Deuces
• mark nutley
• Jrtayloriv
• 72.20.28.22
• Rick Norwood
• Collect
• mark nutley (2)
• 72.20.28.22 (2)

With eight blind reverts (+ Mark's original revert), it is clear that an edit war has been going on. I have not been involved in this edit war.

-- Petri Krohn (talk) 22:54, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

• - Comment - WP:BRD is only an essay and is not an excuse to violate one revert article restriction. Off2riorob (talk) 23:20, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

  Response – Misplaced Pages:Edit warring is a policy, that is where my citation originates from. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:24, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

• Response to T. Canens – Re: "R. J. Rummel, which has been a disputed point" – No, there is no dispute that R. J. Rummel sees a causality between communism and mass killings, this is the central topic of the article and the one and only thing everyone working on this article can agree on. What was disputed by Mark Nutley was the characterization of R. J. Rummel as an anti-communist. My second edit made no such claim or inference. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:50, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
• Response to EdJohnston – One can only "technically" break WP:3RR of 1RR if one is edit warring. Misplaced Pages:Edit warring#What edit warring is – a Misplaced Pages policy – explicitly states that "This is known as the bold, revert, discuss (BRD) cycle, and is not edit warring." I follow a voluntary 0 RR rule on all disputed topics and edit to find compromise solutions. I feel that it is a serious missrepresentation to portray either one of my edits, least both of them, as edit warring. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 04:23, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

  P.S. – I have asked the arbitration committee for clarification on the issue here: Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification#Request for clarification: DIGWUREN. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 22:08, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment by Zloyvolsheb

Collect's accusation that Petri Krohn has violated 1RR appears to be unfounded. The two diffs he provides and for Petri Krohn's edits on that day are simply showing us that Petri made two different edits to one section of the article.

The first is a general statement that "Some anti-communists assert that these mass killings in communist states are a direct result of communist doctrine", the second the referenced assertion that "Linking communist ideology to mass killings became a recurring theme in Cold War anti-communists propaganda. " These edits are actually expressing two semantically different propositions, however otherwise related thematically they may be. (No terrible wonder, given that they are both propositions inserted into the same article by Petri Krohn, whose background, personality, and interest in history are much the same as Petri Krohn's.) It's very true that Petri's earlier edit is partially a revert to text that someone inserted earlier, but that, unlike Marknutley's editing, still counts for only one revert. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 23:07, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment by SandyGeorgia

I note that ten minutes after The Four Deuces reverted Marknutley, Jrtayloriv made his first edit ever to this article to make the same revert. This is similar to the editing that occurs at the Venezuela/Hugo Chavez articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:40, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I made my first edit to the article after being involved in the talk page discussion for a week, to revert a non-consensual change by a long-term disruptive editor. I'm not sure what you mean by "This is similar to "editing that occurs at the Venezuela/Hugo Chavez articles". Were you trying to say that there has been a time where myself and TFD have agreed that an edit should be reverted? (GASP!) -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 04:23, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

• Response to EdJohnston, given that all participants have all been formally notified on their talk pages as a consequence of the AE report and the notifications logged, your proposed additional blocks appear to be somewhat punitive in nature and serves no real purpose since the page in question has now been protected for a month. --Martin (talk) 04:24, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree with Martin. In addition, the very way the term "revert" is defined frequently creates a situation when a good faith editor violates a 1RR only technically. I agree that this rule makes the administrator's life easier, however, since the administrators are just a service personnel who provide normal conditions for good faith editors' work, something is definitely wrong with this rule. In any event, I doubt technical 1RR violation should be taken into account in the situation when the editor has no opportunity to self-revert.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:47, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Result concerning mark nutley

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

Arbitration sanctions are not negotiable, and marknutley has clearly violated this one after acknowledging that it applies. Misbehavior by other editors is not at issue here: if they have violated the sanctions, a separate enforcement request should be opened. My inclination is to impose a 1 week block. Looie496 (talk) 18:36, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Looie496's comment above. It's hard to see how we will get people to respect an article-level Digwuren sanction unless it is mechanically enforced. (Also, most people who are editing this article would know this is a hot-potato article that has caused lots of trouble in the past). So I support the 1-week block of Marknutley for a 1RR violation. It is hardly shocking to put down R. J. Rummel as an anti-communist even though the wording about him might be tweaked. BLP is not usually accepted as an excuse in 3RR situations unless it is blatant defamatory material. Even if we were to accept the BLP excuse then Nutley's three reverts in 24 hours would be reduced to two, which is still a violation of 1RR. EdJohnston (talk) 20:30, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree with one week block. I also notified MN formally about the discretionary sanctions. Note that notification is not required for the 1RR block; the editnotice on the page serves as the warning, per ArbCom clarification. T. Canens (talk) 21:57, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Also note that I have blocked 72.20.28.22 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) for 24 hours for 1RR violation. That's the only two 1RR violators I can see from the history. T. Canens (talk) 22:12, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I missed the one Collect pointed out. I'm inclined to impose a 1 week block on Petri Krohn (talk · contribs) as well, given the history. T. Canens (talk) 22:18, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Let me note that, having been an admin for all of four days, I don't yet feel quite ready to take actions in cases like this, so in spite of the wording of my initial statement, I am going to leave this to somebody with more experience to resolve. Looie496 (talk) 22:23, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

So far as I can tell, the disputed clause first appeared in the article in this edit by Rick Norwood (talk · contribs) as part of a largely stylistic update to the lead. Marknutley (talk · contribs) removed that sentence three times over the next day, claiming the BLP exemption on the third. As noted above, no attempt was made to edit the remaining text to bring it in line with policy; reading Rummel's article, I do not think that the characterization qualifies for the exemption, but I think that its assertion is credible. The some anti-communists sentence was added today by The Four Deuces (talk · contribs), Jrtayloriv (talk · contribs), and Rick Norwood, and was removed by Marknutley, Collect (talk · contribs), and the IP noted above. Petri Krohn (talk · contribs) attempted compromise wording twice, responding to both the weasel words and the lack of sourcing. He might have been better served with a little more patience, but I do not find fault with Petri Krohn's edits here, despite his history with the article. T. Canens has already added Marknutley to the Digwuren case, and I am adding Jrtayloriv, Rick Norwood, The Four Deuces, and Collect as well for participating in an edit war.

I protected the article earlier today unrelated to this thread. That protection was not taken under the auspices of discretionary sanctions, and may be reversed without invocation of wheel warring (though I would appreciate a note letting me know). - 2/0 (cont.) 22:57, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

is a revert because it restored text removed by Collect; and is a revert because it reintroduced the reference to R. J. Rummel, which has been a disputed point. I agree though that there is an attempt at compromise wording here - which ought to be encouraged - but the proper way to do so is to propose such wording on the talk page, especially after the first attempt was reverted; I would agree to a shorter block here, say, 31 hours? T. Canens (talk) 23:28, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I think that the change in context and attempt at compromise in the second edit are enough to get him off the hook, but only marginally. I would not object to your proposed block if you think it best. An article-but-not-talk ban might also work, but I worry about dragging this case out too much. - 2/0 (cont.) 23:43, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree this is edit warring, but I am concerned this is stretching Digiwuren beyond its intent. The sanction was written somewhat broadly, but the infractions that generated it were much more narrow. The aspects of this article that relate to the Digiwuren related topic material more specifically, I can see a case for applying it to, but this was a generic section in the lede of an article which covers much more ground than Digiwuren applied to.

I'm willing to go with consensus on this, but ... Let's think it through a bit, ok? Whacking everyone for edit warring a bit is fine, I agree that happened. But we shouldn't stretch AE out of whack on marginal cases. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:30, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

In response to the other admin comments, I suggest one week to MN, but a shorter block (24-31 hours) to Petri Krohn who technically violated 1RR, but was trying to add new material to address others' objections. (In response to him, BRD does not confer an exception to 1RR). The month of full protection imposed by 2over0 would be maintained unless peace breaks out. EdJohnston (talk) 03:49, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree. T. Canens (talk) 12:34, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree. --WGFinley (talk) 16:30, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, this is an interesting question. We know that discretionary sanctions may be applied to an editor editing in a topic area regardless of whether the specific action barred by the sanctions falls within that area, at least as long as the action has some connection to it (e.g., interaction bans). We also know that article-level sanctions, such as 1RR, are permitted. So the question, then, is whether an 1RR imposed on an article that has some parts, but not all, within the area of conflict, for good cause, applies to the entire article or only the related parts? I think it is preferable to apply it to the whole article, for otherwise we might get countless disputes over whether a specific edit is "related" enough to trigger 1RR when it is supposed to be a bright-line rule that is easily administered. This would be utterly unworkable in practice. T. Canens (talk) 12:34, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

1RR at Climatic Research Unit email controversy

Per the Climate Change arbitration I've removed the probation notice from Climatic Research Unit email controversy. There was a related notice imposing a 1RR rule on that article under the probation. I've decided to bring that here to let uninvolved admins decide whether to renew the 1RR on that article under the discretionary sanctions. --TS 11:51, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it best to renew all the (article and user) sanctions imposed under the probation under the discretionary sanctions; appeals can then be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. This is probably less time and resource consuming than the alternative. T. Canens (talk) 12:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Specific to the Climatic Research Unit email controversy article, given the recent reverting of the article (see history) the 1RR rule needs to stay on this article. FloNight♥♥♥♥ 12:26, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I note that in this discussion, Kirill indicated that all the sanctions imposed by the now closed Climate change sanctions noticeboard would continue to be in force. Cardamon (talk) 17:49, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree with T. Canens. --WGFinley (talk) 16:28, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Question about notice

If I may ask, what is the deal now with issuing warnings in regard to the new climate change enforcement? Does everyone need a new notice that now the arbitration sanctions apply? I currently have an issue that I raised on AN/I, but I believe I would not have been able to raise here unless the editor has been put on notice by an uninvolved administrator. Mackan79 (talk) 02:18, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

If somebody hasn't been formally notified of the sanctions, such notification can be given as a result of a posting here. --TS 10:39, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I understand you to mean that a request can be made here without there having been a warning, and upon such request being made the first remedy could not be anything more than a warning. That's interesting if it's the intent. Mackan79 (talk) 04:04, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

My understanding is that in the most blatant cases any uninvolved admin (maybe even any admin – I am not sure about this detail of the CC case outcome and uninvolved would certainly be better) can simply block directly, since there is no need to even mention the CC restrictions. In less blatant cases this extra step is not going to kill us. It is a structural advantage for anyone operating with sockpuppets, but IMO not enough so to be a big problem in practice – provided the all regular contributors to the CC area act responsibly. That means (1) not using the appearance of a number of suspicious new users who happen to agree with you as a signal for trying to change a previous consensus. It also means (2) not over-reacting to suspicious new users.

That's the stage we have reached now at homeopathy. It used to be the case that every enthusiastic new pro-homeopathy editor was immediately greeted with a barrage of warning templates, sockpuppet investigations and insinuations that they are Dr. Jhingaadey. Sometimes this was merely an ineffective way of dealing with what everybody could see was a new sock of that user. He didn't pose a threat because from a certain point on most regular pro-homeopathy editors new better than to side with him, even where they agreed with him. Often it was a completely unfounded witch hunt. Hans Adler 08:11, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

User:Flower taster

The user posts WP:COPYVIO attack material (see e.g. , ), and this series of edits makes it fairly plain that they are a sock of blocked User:Jones.liam. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:46, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I blocked them as vandalism-only and locked JL's talkpage. I am not familiar with this user - is it worth an SPI? - 2/0 (cont.) 16:34, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Newcomers Rendahl and Poznan edit warring on climate change articles

This is a delicate one. There are two new editors:

• Rendahl (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Poznan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Strictly speaking Poznan's account goes back a couple of years but in that time he had only made 18 edits on two articles, one about an Aberdonian artist and the other about a researcher in psychology from Dundee, which latter article Poznan himself created.

I've warned Rendahl about his edit warring on Scientific opinion on climate change. Now he is joining in with complete newcomer Poznan in what looks like an incipient edit war on The Hockey Stick Illusion. For new editors this is especially fraught activity in a topic area that has so recently been a battlefield. I suggest that an uninvolved admin might notify them of the discretionary sanctions and ask them to use the talk page more. --TS 21:04, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Neither one appears to hit "edit war" status from this vantage point. Perhaps seeing two new people in the area intrinically evokes "they must be up to something" type gut reactions? And they do not appear to be avoiding talk pages - perhaps AGF has been neglected in that area a bit too much. Collect (talk) 22:09, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Both accounts have very similar styles of writing. Both support the "negative bias" school of thought on the most recent dispute at The Hockey Stick Illusion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), with one supporting that "side" by reversion and the other by talk page argumentation. There is good cause to suspect that these are the same account, and I would recommend filing a suspected sockpuppet report in order to receive verification from users more experienced with sock puppetry or from a checkuser. (Sock puppetry is not, I am sure, a matter for AE, although if it is discovered that the sockmaster is a regular editor of the climate change topic, then it would then become one.) AGK 23:50, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

What you say has been rather obvious but may in principle be just an accident. In another contentious area I found that the most effective approach in such cases was to give suspicious new users quite a bit of rope and learn a bit more about them. Occasionally they become productive members of the community after a while, putting Misplaced Pages above their own bias. And sometimes they don't, and at the point when they are blocked after all we have enough behavioural information to deal with further incarnations reliably, efficiently, and without false positives.

The main problem with this approach is that every established editor has a de facto veto right, so that for it to break down it takes only one who panics because he thinks he is the only one who sees the problem, and that it's being ignored until after the deadline for interventions. Hans Adler 00:18, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we can all use this style of communication. I hope it's not too off-putting for genuine new users. At the same time it is a more or less subtle sign for established users that someone has noticed the potential problem and is assuming responsibility for monitoring it. Apparently it was too subtle to work without explanation, or maybe my ideas for dealing with such situations are too eccentric. Hans Adler 00:25, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm less worried about the possibility of socking. They're rather less aggressive than socks we've had in this area, and a little more communicative. However their editing is still rather more aggressive than our editing guidelines for the sanctions area, having both restored disputed material, and so I think it would be good to inform them and advise them on how to proceed without getting into edit wars (albeit rather minor ones) on the topic. --TS 09:33, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

As another indicator of the potential problems going forward, see this edit which is blatantly incorrect. The cited source does not refer to alarmism at all. And in this edit a description is removed with the edit summary "could not find in reliable source" for a journalist's retired status although in fact the writer himself in the cited source says he retired in 2000. They really do need to discuss things more. These mistakes indicate a boldness that is inappropriate in view of their failure to check for basic errors. --TS 09:45, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

The quality of Rendahl's editing seems to be improving since we engaged with them on their talk page. Of the last four edits, one removed a potentially problematic description from an environmental organisation (seems to originate from the organisation's website; the fact that many books uncritically reprint that shouldn't give more weight to it; we would need an intellectually independent source). Another removed what does in fact appear to be original research. (I tried to verify it but only found several competing explanations in reliable sources.) Let's not do anything that could keep the user from continuing to learn at this pace. A lot of users first come here with the expectation that Misplaced Pages is a disorganised heap of crap and quality editing is wasted. Some become valuable members of the community once they have understood how things really work. Hans Adler 11:19, 17 October 2010 (UTC)