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Comments by uninvolved editors

Statement by AMbroodEY

User:Unre4L has been unnecessarily odefying some dumb statements i did make. I apologised to him for those statements and decided to wipe the slate clean and give the whole situation a new try. Yet User:Unre4L and his friends have continued on their confrontational attitude. Whats more they've engage in petty revert wars over talk-page tags. I've had a hard time convincing these guys that talk-page tags are not meant to signify page ownership.

User:Unre4L for his part has engaged in bltant genocide denial of my people, the Hindu Sindhis, during partition in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan . Given my personal and academic commitments it will be difficult for me to participate in this Arbitration case until mid-March. I request a continuation till 13th of March, as I believe in my absence my role in this whole business may be misrepresented.

Response to Nadirali: I'm nobody's associate. I'm here to write an encyclopedia not engage in nationalist flamewars. Misplaced Pages is not a battle ground. I'm always willing to co-operate on any article of mututal interest, whatever differences we may have on others.

Amey Aryan DaBrood 05:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Dangerous-Boy

In response to Szhaider's comment I would like to note that I never removed any pak tag and I only added the india tag since pak and indian history overlap. Szhaider repeatedly removed the indain tag even though it was generally agreed that the tag should stay.--D-Boy 06:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

In response to Szhaider's latest comment, those were honest mistakes since you get removing the india tags.--D-Boy 07:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Fowler&fowler

I notice that the title of this Request for Arbitration has been changed to "Pakistani Nationalism." I think the new title unfairly tilts the balance in favor of the initiator, Rama's arrow. I am not sure if everyone knows that the RfArb was initiated by Rama's arrow at 16:59, 12 February 2007 (UTC), a full 16 minutes after (and therefore likely in reaction to) an incident at WP:ANI, against Rama's arrow (See here:"Admin abusing his privileges") filed at 16:43, 12 February 2007, by the other editors (Pakistani) now involved in this RfArb. As a neutral editor who has battled both sides in this dispute at different times and occasions, my own view is that nationalism exists on both sides of the Pakistan-India border and both sides are equally prolific in edit-wars on Misplaced Pages. In my perspective, Rama's arrow has been selectively aggressive towards Pakistani editors and, correspondingly, selectively benign towards Indian editors. I think the way that this RfArb is framed, Rama's arrow comes out looking as a concerned, but, perhaps, neutral administrator and his "interlocutors" as somewhat rabid nationalists. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:58, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you have an alternate suggestion that does not involved naming particular editors (we try to avoid Tom and Dick vs Harry for example). Ultimately, however, the title is just a bit of necessary bookkeeping, and I have never seen a case where the title alone framed the outcome. Thatcher131 22:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, how about "India-Pakistan Nationalism" or "Pakistan-India Nationalism" or "South Asia Nationalism?" Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Since "South Asian" and "India-Pakistan" nationalism indicate a sort of "united nationalism" between the 2 sides,I suggested that we rename it to "Indo-Pakistani" disputes.--Nadirali نادرالی

I'm thinking just India-Pakistan at this point. We'll see if it get a fourth vote to open. Thatcher131 03:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I see no competing nationalisms afoot. Just couple of irredentists demarcating 3000 yrs of shared history based on a 60 yr old line. Its not simple "pox on both your houses" as F&F tries to construe the situation. Amey Aryan DaBrood 13:41, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by JFD

I've had disputes with Indian nationalists on Misplaced Pages and I can say with confidence that Rama's Arrow is no Indian nationalist.

He's the admin who slapped the indefinite ban on Hkelkar, the Indian Wikinationalist par excellence.

What I have noticed is that Wikinationalists throw around cheap—not to mention hypocritical—accusations of vandalism and bigotry with abandon.

Misplaced Pages is lousy with Indian nationalists, but Rama's Arrow is not one of them.
JFD 06:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Outside Statement by Just H

I'm not sure if it's common to do so here, but I would like to offer to help mediate here. I have no prefence to India or Pakistan. Just H 03:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Amendment request: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Initiated by Magog the Ogre (talk) at 20:09, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Case affected
India-Pakistan arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. Remedy
List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request
Information about amendment request
  • Requested amendment: Standard discretionary sanctions may be placed on any editor by an uninvolved administrator, including revert limitations, civility parole, and outright topic ban. the wording from WP:ARBPIA is a good one: " uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict 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. The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project."

Statement by Magog the Ogre

ArbCom previously denied a request to hear a new case . At the time, I opined that I thought this issue would remain unresolved, and it has. Since that time, numerous discussions, blocks, and threads on ANI have occurred, and yet the only difference between now and then is that both TopGun and Darkness Shines have received a 1RR probation.

It is my opinion the editor Darkness Shines is an unrepentant POV-pusher who sees the world through the lens of "us" vs. "them", an opinion echoed by other editors at ANI threads and other editors not involved in this dispute (cf. Talk:British Pakistanis). JCAla has been just as bad, but has not edited as much in the past several months. TopGun faces POV-pushing issues himself, as does Mar4d.

As you can see from the links below, this has been a huge drain on community time, and I respectfully ask Arbcom to amend the remedy of the case to allow the sanctions. All previous attempts at fixing the issue have failed, and the only reason RFC's have not been tried is that everyone knows they would fail. To not allow an amendment would leave the community once again to try to implement a fix, something which it has failed at before (cf. with the interaction ban, which was eventually lifted as ineffective).

The following has a link to the discussions that have occurred just revolving around a few different users, all attempts to get the parties in line with proper conduct (the noticeboard links are just the ones that have occurred since ArbCom's rejection of the case 6 months ago; there are more in the archive, if an arbcom member wishes to look at the link I provided above of the previous decline):

PS. I am willing to remove myself from any action related to any one or more of the above parties regarding enforcement if ArbCom, the community, or any non-involved party whatsoever thinks this is important. Magog the Ogre (talk) 00:00, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

PPS. FPaS is entirely correct about filibustering: the common tactic I've seen in use is textbook WP:SOUP, and it has been marvelously successful at confusing ANI and pushing blocks ever further away. Also, I forgot to mention there is rampant sockpuppetry in the area (User:Nangparbat and User:Lagoo sab). Finally, you will note below the traveling circus of POV-pushers that FPaS speaks of which all find no fault in editors on their own side. But you decide for yourselves if this editor (DS), which everyone below maintains if a bastion of neutrality, is a POV-pusher: his requests for unblock are mostly denied, he's been blocked by other admins on several occasions, he would have been blocked by other admins at some points if I hadn't stepped in, (Personal attack removed), and he makes wildly POV-pushy edits like this one (which I'll note he still maintains was a completely legitimate and neutral edit). His and JCAla's tactic of claiming that I am biased (which is ludicrous, seeing as I give not a single fuck about the parties in this dispute; JCAla in his diffs below cherry picked the two admins who didn't support my block versus the ~9 who did.) and trying to leverage that into claiming I'm too involved to block has been employed against other admins (e.g., User:TParis), in an attempt to chase off anyone who looks closely enough into the area to recognize their WP:BATTLEGROUND agenda. Magog the Ogre (talk) 20:15, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Fut.Perf.

Yes, please, do something. The situation is out of control . Last time I suggested imposing discretionary sanctions on a community basis, the ANI folks couldn't agree on anything. Admins have been curiously reluctant to use their tools in a decisive fashion – people in this field can collect seven or eight blocks in a row for disruptive editing within a few months, but admins will still not escalate the block lengths beyond a week or two, when it's pretty obvious that indef would be the only rational response . The topic area is poisoned by the presence of a small number of determined, incorrigible agenda editors, whose constants fights with each other have led a larger number of associates/allies/enablers into joining the "travelling circus", conforming their own editing to that same "us-versus-them" mold defined by their ringleaders' obsessions. The ringleaders need to be taken out. Don't ask us to take them to RFC/U first – an RFC/U works only on the optimistic assumption that a person might be prepared to listen. These guys have known their editing is offensive for ages; if they haven't begun listening yet, what reasons have we for hoping they ever will? Don't ask us to wait for mediation between them – that's a colossal waste of time, serving only to pamper their egos and train them to become even better filibusterers. We are dealing with a number of people here who are deeply, fundamentally unwilling to accept or even to conceive of "neutrality" as a desirable goal to strive for.

Do something. No matter what: take a full case, or decide per amendment motion. Ban the central figures yourselves, or just impose disc-sancs. But do something. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:47, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and before it gets forgotten, please make sure to include also Afghanistan in the scope of this; the disruption there is intimately related. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:24, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
To SilkTork and Risker: if you see the mediation as a reason for holding off with the discretionary sanctions, please consider the following:
  • The mediation only attempted to deal with one highly limited content issue. After three months, it is nowhere near solving even as much as that. It's moribund, and has been so for a while. The last bit of dialogue between the parties on the case page was almost two weeks ago.
  • Meanwhile, the travelling circus is busy moving elsewhere. Currently it's at Rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War, India and state terrorism and no doubt several other pages I've not been keeping track of.
  • Parties are still engaged in personal squabbles, exchanging accusations and spurious warnings, block-shopping and all sorts of similar noise (e.g. here, here).
Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:36, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Vibhijain

I have to disagree with Magog the Ogre's statement. I don't think that DarknessShines is a "unrepentant POV-pusher". Magog has blocked him many times, and this one specially raises concerns. So does this. As of TopGun, he shows serious neutrality concerns. Along with attacking editors on the basis of their nationality, he has a history of making highly controversial and questionable edits and reverts, citing WP:BRD; and when someone reverts him, he harasses him crying hounding. The sad point is that he also gets support for his false accusations. The main purpose of TopGun, while editing Misplaced Pages, is evidently to push Pakistani POV, and he is also supported by other editors. This, and even this, shows some signs of blockshopping. Another point which I noticed, is that this case case came when DS was all set to open a case against MTO. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ 14:28, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

On accusations of hounding

Now I hope that no one other will put such allegations, and still if he/she wants, then I will be more happy to solve out those too. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ 14:18, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Reply to TopGun's accusations

A user puts tons of sources in the favour of keeping an article, despite the fact that they have no mention of the topic, and when a user does nothing rather than blindly accusing me of hounding, I think I am supposed to term those comments as baseless. Also watching someone' talk page is completely allowed, and its not my headache if you are involved in every dispute of this topic's articles. TopGun’s accusation that I am following his DYK noms is another baseless one. Please note that I have around 20 DYK credits and various DYK reviews, I am an active contributor to the DYK page, and I have reviewed various dyk noms. 1, 2 and 3 to name a few. Most, or I should say all DYK noms by TopGun have highly non-neutral hooks, and the article also aren't different. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ 10:45, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by JCAla

  1. The editors in the mentioned content area are currently engaged in a mediation process. An arbitration process for these issues is currently not warranted because it would be a parallel process disrupting mediation efforts. There is no urgent dispute which would cause disruption going on currently. Editors are discussing content disputes on talk pages.
  2. This arbitration request was initiated by Magog the Ogre not because of any urgent need with regards to a specific content issue (as mentioned above, mediation is already proceeding as a means of dispute resolution). Instead this request was made because Magog the Ogre's administrative competence has been questioned just yesterday by Darkness Shines. This was, according to Magog himself, the "that's it" that compelled him to open this arbitration request.
  3. Both administrators asking for sanctions, Magog the Ogre and Future Perfect at Sunrise, are involved editors/administrators in the topic area. Uninvolved administrators have said that Magog the Ogre appears to be involved and to lack neutrality. Magog bears bad feelings towards one part of the editors which makes him take unbalanced actions. Future Perfect at Sunrise is himself involved as an editor in a content dispute.
  4. Conclusion from me: An arbitration process for the content area is currently not warranted as a mediation is in full process. During the mediation period any wrong behavior can be dealt with by uninvolved administrators according to normal policy and procedure as agreed on at ANI just a short time ago. If the mediation fails, arbitration can still be requested. On Magog, he keeps refusing to accept that he is neither considered neutral nor uninvolved by several editors and administrators. Starting arbitration to get an editor who has criticized oneself off wikipedia is yet another sign. There are plenty of uninvolved administrators who have successfully acted in the content area, which do not lack the appearance of being neutral. Please accept this. JCAla (talk) 16:34, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by TopGun

  • Since back in around November since I edited the Taliban article, the two editors who disputed my edits there (DarknessShines and JCAla) now have a dispute with me in all the articles I edit after they followed me there one after another. I reported DS's admitted and unrepentant stalking/hounding which resulted in an IBAN, after the administrators failed to enforce the IBAN (through which the stalking continued with vios only being on DS's part), the IBAN was removed on the pretext that admins would act on normal vios to make decision making easy for them. Yet many many requests to deal with the situation of the editors have been rejected with the excuse that it is difficult to gauge hounding/stalking even after I've presented with hard evidence of diffs . Another editor Vibhijain has started hounding me soon after his interaction with DS and who did not back off after a civil warning ( ) and is not being dealt with the very same way . This has gone a step further and the editor continues to unambiguously follow me around to revert my edits or oppose me. The same was the case with DBigXray who now tries not to appear following me around but games my 1RR restriction when ever he can with edit summaries about some thing completely different . As noted in his SPI he has also been suspected of meat and sock puppetry and only got away with it because I was reporting him and had content/conduct disputes with him. This user also pretended to be an administrator clearly lying . Based on this and the subsequent administrative failure I very strongly oppose discretionary sanctions as admins have already shown that they've been extremely poor in enforcing sanctions with the filibustering that goes around in this specific dispute and support that either arbcom takes the fully case or asks admins to make swift blocks when provided with hard evidence of diffs and patterns of diffs. Also agree with Fut perfect that the Afghanistan topic is very much in the range of this dispute. --lTopGunl (talk) 13:29, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Reply to DBigXray's statement
  • The editor never assumes good faith on part of any editors opposing his views and calls any allegations on him with diffs as "baseless" some thing that Vibhijain does too now. Whenever warned civilly for editwar aor any other matter he instead chooses to point out my blocklog in reply to the warnings which actually contains many reverted blocks.
  • The "Blockshopping" as being called here are actually formal reports to administrators as it was explicitly said at ANI that me and Darkness shines should better stay off that page after I reported an IBAN vio with diffs and it was turned into a thread for topic bans instead of acting out on the actual vios. The point being about the further sanctions instead of enforcing the previous ones. --lTopGunl (talk) 10:35, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Reply to Vibhijain's statement
  • So we have a second user who agrees he stalks (atleast) my talkpage and follows my disputes. All other incidents also still categorize in hounding as they have short time difference and all oppose my edits. Just more reasons to take a case rather than hand over the power of handing out sanctions to the administrators who couldn't enforce them before either. It is quite funny to find the allegations of POV pushing on me when I am trying to get an NPOV or a combination of all POVs in balance while these editors simply want to remove any views they don't like and state Indian POV as neutral. Something to do with WP:MPOV. --lTopGunl (talk) 10:57, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Reply to TheSpecialUser's statement
  • Last I checked, opposing something against the majority was not a reason to believe the editor had bad faith and neither is the wikipedia a majoritarianism. I discussed the edit more than any of the users who commented there and actually found agreement with atleast 2 users who initial opposed my edit at Talk:Pakistan Zindabad#Controversial Usage. Also funny that none of my blocks were because of incivility. Such false accusations make me doubt TSU's intervention here in the first place. --lTopGunl (talk) 12:11, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Darkness Shines

Regarding blocks

  1. His first block was for edit warring which was completely unfounded in policy. I had but one revert on that article, and it has been my first revert in four days.
  2. His second block was also a violation of policy, wherein he accuse me of hounding I explained that I had gotten to the article in question via an RFC which had been posted on a user talk page He ignored this and allowed the block to run it's course.
  3. His third block was again entirely wrong. Accuses me of edit warring and stalking. I explained how I had gotten to the article in question via internal links and it was obvious an article on a non existent word would be deleted. There had been no stalking nor edit warring on my part at all.
  4. The fact the Magog so blithely calls me a bigot in his statement above shows he has not an ounce of neutrality towards me whatsoever, such a blatant personal attack is proof of his attitude towards me. Darkness Shines (talk) 02:28, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

On accusations of hounding

  1. . Edit wars uncited content into an article.
  2. Reverets in unsourced content.
  3. Other states of India:- Citation needed. Various editors arguing with TG over his edit warring uncited content into an article.
  4. When pointed out on his talk page his habit of reverting unsourced content into articles he says "Blah"
  5. Reverts out reliably sourced content. He did not like it.
  6. Files an AN3 report, even though 3R was never broken by myself.
  7. Misrepresentation of sources
  8. Battlefield mentality, talks of "sides"
  9. Inter-Services Intelligence was locked for two weeks due to TG edit warring, his first action upon the article being unlocked, He reverts again. I endeavor to use only the best of sources, all are from academic publishing houses.
  10. Taliban we have the same issue again, TG reverts out huge amounts of content, all of which is sourced to academic publishers. He quite simply reverts out content which he thinks sheds a poor light on Pakistan.

As I pointed out to Magog I began to look into TG's edits after the fiasco at the Taliban article per WP:HOUND Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Misplaced Pages policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles. Magog ignored all the above infractions of policy by TG and focused on my actions for reasons known only to himself. Darkness Shines (talk) 14:05, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Salvio giuliano

Well, to tell the truth, I'm not sure discretionary sanctions will be particularly helpful in this case due to the peculiarities of the topic area. First of all, it has been plagued by constant blockshopping, with users complaining about their opponents' edits on the talk pages of many different admins — disclosure: I have received several requests to examine somebody else's edits —. This is the area where an interaction ban between two editors had to be lifted because it was creating more drama than it was preventing, after all. Furthermore, only very few sysops have acted in an administrative capacity and, on top of that, some, though not all, have not always appeared neutral when brandishing their mops — disclosure: and in a couple of circumstances, I have commented to that effect on the blockee's talk page —. This does not mean they were not neutral, merely that they did not appear to be. Besides, owing to the incredible litigiousness of all editors involved, the sanctions imposed have not always received the appropriate level of review by the community. Actually, the reaction on ANI has been either aww, jeez, not this **** again or a chorus of let's ban them all and be done with them. Moreover, the editors involved in this topic area are very few (fewer than ten). I realise that the ongoing disruption needs to be stopped; however, as I have already said, I'm not sure the imposition of discretionary sanctions is the best way forward. That said, if the Committee were to consider them unavoidable, I'd like to urge you to consider not imposing the standard set of discretionary sanctions, but to shape them in a way that takes into account the peculiarities of the topic area (particularly the litigiousness, lack of appearance of neutrality and blockshopping). Salvio 22:11, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by DBigXray

  • I was not a party to this case as the nominator Magog had only mentioned 5 names as involved users and TopGun has wrongly dragged me here by adding 2 more names to make this a soup and distract the case. This also comes after I was recently threatened by topGun for commenting at ANI. I hope the arbcom members will note this and remove the extra names as attempts to distract, noting that I have never been blocked or accused by any editor other than TopGun (who because of a few content disputes likes to take my name everywhere)
  1. User:TopGun (previously edited as User:Hassanhn5) keeps pushing Pakistani POV in Wiki articles (and can be clearly seen in his edits) using unsourced or poorly sourced (blogs, SPS) contents and is often met by resistance from other editors. In past I had disputes when he tried to disrupt (insert POV and remove sourced content) in india related articles under my watchlist. To get me out of his way he had desperately tried all attempts of getting me blocked by all possible means and failed in all of them.
  2. Its not easy for a such edits to go un noticed on wikipedia. And whenever the other editors complain of his behavior he prefers calling them Sockpuppets and . TopGun has made failed attempts to get me blocked by falsely accusing me for Sockpuppetry . Inspite of the fact that I was cleared and the case was closed, he keeps wrongly accusing me for his imaginary socks.
  3. TopGun has tried block shopping against me by canvassing on talk pages of admins and editors , ,(many more..) and called me a vandal and presented a content dispute at AIV for a quick block on me
On accusations by TopGun
  1. TopGun makes controversial edits on articles and whenever the page watchers revert him he accuses everyone else (with whom TopGun has content disputes) of hounding. this observation has also been supported by Magog himself . In past also TopGun tried to get me blocked my making a concocted report at ANI hoping that he might get me banned by incorrectly accusing me of "hounding", for editing my watchlisted articles and failed.
  2. In response to an 11 month old diff presented by TopGun above on accusing me of posing as admin where I was trying to warn a proven Vandal about Vandalism is yet another ill-intentioned attempt to show me in a bad light. I was new to wikipedia and was trying to discourage a vandal only account from vandalizing wikipedia. later on I learnt that there are templates to warn them so started using them. The very next day that account was blocked indefinitely for being a Vandalism only account. But the Arbcom members must also note that TopGun brings this incident with carefully worded phrases every time he makes a complaint against me and here as well.
  3. The diff of the revert pointed by TopGun above was done by me in accordance with the talk page discussion here, when other editors had pointed source misrepresentation by TopGun.
  • Unlike TopGun who follows WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality and has a block log filled with edit warring and disruptive editing, I have never been blocked neither have I been warned for any issue.
  • It is to be noted that TopGun makes regular visits to Magog's page for block shopping instead of taking the issue to the ANI as his attempts of block shopping have a much higher success rate at Magog's page than at Admin notice boards.
  • It must be duly pointed out that block shopping at admin's talk pages need to end and if there is a genuine concern then it should be posted at appropriate noticeboards where "uninvolved" admins can take proper actions (or boomerang if appropriate). I am in complete agreement with Salvio's comment above. --DBigXray 07:52, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Request

As it is evident by the diffs provided by the many editors here, this is more of a user conduct issue which could have been handled in a better way by uninvolved admins. The block shopping and subsequent blocks by involved admins have brought this here. It will not be appropriate to put up Discretionary sanctions to block any of the editors in this topic area, just by the wrong doings of individual users above. The action by Arbcom if any should be taken on the erring users and not the topic area as a whole.--DBigXray 17:34, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Request 2

AS evident by the comments of admins User:Magog the Ogre and User:Future Perfect at Sunrise above, I will also request the arbcom to prevent these two admins from taking administrative actions against the editors in this topic area, as they are clearly involved and their admin actions are biased while dealing with few specific editors in this topic area. --DBigXray 19:59, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by TheSpecialUser

I completely disagree when MTO calls DS an "unrepentant POV-pusher who sees the world through the lens of "us" vs. "them"". DS's edits may look controversial but none of them are disputing neutrality or using unreliable sources. As far as his reverts for TGs edits are concerned, TG's edits were controversial and subject to eventual talks or RFCs at talk pages or user talk pages. MTO being an admin has made few uncivil kind of personal attacks to DS (). Especially this didn't look appropriate at all as the editor wasn't even warned or asked for clarification prior to the block. This isn't my main point at this statement. I will have to say that it is actually TopGun and at times Mar4d who have pushed POV and they seem to remove addition of any content that sheds a poor light on Pakistan. They have also been adding data which is not so in favor of Indian authorities at Jammu & Kashmir or related issues negatively. The best example of this "biased behavior" can be found at where TG and M4 introduced links (I Protest, Rape in Jammu and Kashmir, Human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir and Media curbs and usage of social networking sites in Kashmir) which have no connection whatsoever to separatist movement. These links don't even have any content related to the movement and still get a place in the template. Another example is Pakistan Zindabad where TG removes data which is completely sourced with WP:RS and the incident is notable enough to have a mention but still it was removed just because it was proving a bad point for his country, I was totally shocked by such biased behavior (Pakistan Zindabad incident lead to a Talk:Pakistan_Zindabad#Controversial_Usage RFC where editors are in clear support of inclusion). This is nothing but clear POV pushing. He also accused Vibhijain of HOUNDING which was not a case there. HOUNDING says that edits that are intended to dispute or badger the editor in a wrong way is HOUNDING but addition of material and other fixes in good faith are not HOUNDING. Since long TG has accused people of HOUNDING and still does as he doesn't seem to understand what WP:HOUND is. Since long TopGun has followed such behavior and has faced many blocks due to incivility or personal attacks (hostile editing against Darkness Shines, improper calling of "sock") or breaking IBAN or Disruptive editing. He has since long continued to make this site WP:BATTLEGROUND and one of the instances can be found here. This dispute doesn't look like it is going to end. I believe that a ban from Indo-Pak related articles will be the best possible solution to this continued conflict.  — TheSpecialUser  05:23, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Anir1uph

I have been an active Misplaced Pages editor for the past 6 months. I edit many articles, and that includes articles about my country, India. I have observed the process of edits, reverts and ANI proceedings from the sidelines for some time. I am here as an editor whose willingness to edit, add content and removed vandalism/violations from these articles has been diminished. This is because of two reasons:

  1. Fear of swift administrator intervention, due to a complaint against me by an opposing party. I am here to devote my time on Misplaced Pages's article space. Being caught up in ANIs, with a possibility of being handed out blanket bans is terrifying to me. I would not like to be dragged into an official mess for cases that ideally require more discussions on the talk pages.
  2. Distractions caused to regular editing, by users who hold opposite views but are reluctant to discuss them, and are willing to enforce them using tactics like talk page intimidation (as illustrated in the examples linked in the previous sections).
In my opinion,
  1. Placing blanket sanctions on the topic area will not be very effective as it won't solve the root of the problem, which, in my opinion is a user conduct issue here.
  2. Administrators on Misplaced Pages are like administrators anywhere. In all progressive democracies, there is a time-bound change of guard, of elected politicians and behind the scene bureaucrats. This i believe is done to ensure that an administrator appointed to a particular 'region' does not become all-powerful and start to 'intimidate' his/her subjects. Similarly, when an administrator on wikipedia remains associated with a disputed subject for a long time, any action by him/her that might even appear to be biased causes further agitation among opposing users. The problem is made worse by the fact that other/uninvolved Misplaced Pages administrators do not like to intervene on seeing an admin already 'handling business'. A vicious cycle is formed, which might discourage other editors from contributing to such articles/topics.

I would urge the ArbCom to ponder over these issues.

Thanking you all,

Anir1uph (talk) 21:37, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Strike Eagle

I completely disagree with Magog the Ogre's description of Darkness Shines as a unrepentant POV-pusher.Darkness Shines has been doing great service to neutralize the POV pushing that plagues many(most) of the Indo-Pakistani articles.Magog the Ogre was always involved in the dispute when he repeatedly blocked Darkness Shines.There was obviously some kind of blockshopping due to which Darkness Shines was indiscriminately blocked many times.MTO ridiculously accuses DS of Anti-Pakistani editing while he supports TG and Mar4d who openly push anti-india propoganda.

User:TopGun has always been trying in extreme magnitudes to push Pakistani POV in any article he finds..TopGun has been Templaring and warning regular and established editors as they stand against his pov pushing. .He regularly(and baselessly) accuses DBigXray and Vibhijain(sysop elsewhere) for hounding .TopGun has a good history of edit-warring due to which he was blocked quite a good number of times and was even stripped off his rollback privelages.It's ridiculous to see him accuse another established editor for edit-warring and hounding.

Mar4d's follows a different pattern of POV pushing where he pushes his point silently so that no one notices his edits.He doesn't appear on other user talk pages as frequently as TG but his effect on articles is quite high too.

I hereby request the ArbCom to take necessary action against TopGun and Mar4d-Discrete Sanctions or Ban.Darkness Shines and JCAla, who have been working for NPOV in the conflicted articles must be freed of the charges.Vibhijain and DBigXray who were dragged into the dispute by TG have no major role in it and hence I think must be removed from the list. Sincerely, TheStrikeΣagle 13:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

On Accusations of POV Pushing by Mar4d

The only major POV dispute I have ever been involved was a userbox I created.Mar4d nominated it for deletion saying that it was not in use and unnecessary.Who is he to decide what is necessary here? Unfortunately(for Mar4d) the MfD was closed as keep with no delete !vote other than Mar4d's.perhaps his friends were off-wiki that time .It is clear that Mar4d accuses other users for POV pushing while he himself does it all the time.Hope this clears the accusation. Regards TheStrikeΣagle 13:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Smsarmad

I don't know why my name was added here as none of the statements given up till now state my name. As I edit in this topic area so I will like to share my observation: that whenever an editor persistently pushes his/her POV in a topic area giving an impression that he/she is working on some agenda here at Misplaced Pages, the editors contributing to the same topic area how much neutral they may be but a time will come that they will be forced to push the opposite POV instead of coming to neutral ground. The problems in this topic area are so difficult to handle that most of the admins avoid using their tools in this area or even try to understand what the actual problem is and what is its cause? I have been viewing Darkness Shines’s (DS) edits in the Pakistan topic area, for the last 7 months. Per my observation he is continuously pushing his POV and disrupting any good effort put by most of the other editors working in this topic. I have raised this issue previously many times (some other editors also did this). Some of his edits that don’t need much explanation describing his POV: , , , ,

Not to mention his uncivil behavior, creation of article to piss other editors, hounding other editors, as they are separate and lengthy chapters.

On calling an admin involved I will just say that DS calls anyone involved/not neutral admin whoever supported Bwilkins idea of blocking him for six months,in the last discussion at ANI so that includes: Bwilkins,The Bushranger, Dennis Brown, Future Perfect at Sunrise, Magog. Though till now he has called only Bwilkins, Magog and Future Perfect as involved, with this argument but I don’t see it far that all the other admins who supported his block will be accused of being involved whenever they take some action against him. So I think an editor should not be given the right to call an admin being biased/involved just because he/she blocked or supported/upheld a block of that editor previously. It will set a bad precedence leading to problems for the administrators dealing with disruptive editors.

There is much more happening in this topic area that most of the outside editors are possibly not aware of, like creation of retaliatory articles, hounding, teaming up, defending an editor or his/her actions whenever an action is (or going to be) taken by an admin, accusing any admin who takes action of being involved/biased, accusing editors (including admins) of being friend of the other editor, giving barnstars to each other with inflammatory comments against other editors soon after a discussion is concluded, etc. All this is now increasing with more editors following the path of others who did this successfully and have become a role model. Also the frequency of these kind of disruptive activities is increasing. Actually this is one of the reasons that my contributions are declining too as I avoid these disputes as much as I can. That is why I think Arbitration Committee should take a thorough look into this (that unfortunately most of the admins avoid), that I guess is possible if a full arbitration case is taken. Apparently it looks like that discretionary sanctions will solve the problems in this topic area but it will not be plugging (only) the right hole, instead it is like plugging all the holes, that will have collateral damage to some extent as issues which arise in this topic area are so complex sometimes that it is difficult for an admin to act without thoroughly checking the lengthy history of the events, so sometimes they avoid using the (sysop) tools. So my only concern about giving admins the powers of discretionary sanctions is why ArbCom is leaving this case once again for the admins, majority of whom are probably reluctant to act in this topic. Besides I would like to mention about the more visible display of Battleground mentality .i.e. the addition of my name to the involved/affectee list that apparently looks like an "us vs them" approach. --SMS 22:14, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Stfg

In addition to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, I suggest including Bangladesh in the list of countries covered by the motion. There has been extensive battling by the same editors over articles related to it. --Stfg (talk) 09:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Nyttend

Just ran across this by accident while looking for more context on the change-of-username motion; I'm not at all involved with Indo-Pakistani disputes. If this motion pass, does that mean that this arbitration decision would be binding on random people who dispute sports stats for Vijay Singh or who disagree on the US political aspects of business process outsourcing in India? Nyttend (talk) 02:37, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Ignoring rules to respond inline here: see the discussion at the very bottom by the arbs. Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 13:58, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment by The Blade of the Northern Lights

Although I haven't been particularly involved in the situations leading up to this, I do have a lot of experience dealing in the closely related topic specifically covered already. I'm fine with adding discretionary sanctions, but I'm not sure how effective they'll be. Setting aside the problems that Salvio giuliano says above about experienced editors, anyone who's done any NPP or editing in the topic area will recognize the substantial problem created by new users as well. Many seem to treat Misplaced Pages articles as a place to practice their English, which wouldn't be a bad thing were it not for the fact that most of their English skills are atrocious and create another layer of communication problems; looking at Talk:Nair and its archives is fairly demonstrative of the problem. Discretionary sanctions can only do so much to solve those sorts of problems; what's needed is more admin attention, which from what I can see isn't forthcoming. So while I think discretionary sanctions will help, the underlying problem to me seems more like the lack of admins willing to head this off at the pass. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:37, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment by user Fifelfoo

Arbitrators ought to be aware that there is an existing community sanction of general discretionary sanctions regarding caste and sub-groups. This community sanction will of course keep running regardless of your decision—some day you may reverse yourselves, correspondingly the community must reverse itself on its sanction that overlaps with this one to some extent. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:15, 26 July 2012 (UTC)


Comment by Volunteer Marek

Ugh. Usually I do an excellent job of avoiding controversy, contentious topics, disputes, and anything that remotely smells of "trouble" but it seems I have somehow stumbled into this, mostly because I began editing some articles related to Bangladesh out of a personal interest.

So.

First, whatever is done, you should add Bangladesh to the "India, Pakistan, Afghanistan" list since this stuff has already began spilling over there.

Second, I'm torn between, on the one hand, my established disdain for "discretionary sanctions" and the sincere belief that these often do nothing but pour gasoline on the fire - in many cases instituting "discretionary sanctions" is like exporting arms to war torn countries, it just provides another weapon for people to fight with - and, on the other hand, the obviousness that there's plenty of trouble going on here. So it's a sort of 60% Salvio Guiliano 40% Future Perfect kind of thing going on here.

What really would work at this point is involvement in the topic area of some knowledgeable, respected and diplomatic uninvolved editors. If you know of any, you should hire them. Or just record their existence, before that species goes extinct (again). In absence of that, discretionary sanctions *could* work as long as it's not just a "we'll put in the discretionary sanctions and then abandon the issue and pretend it's solved" ... kind of thing. If you do put in discretionary sanctions, be prepared to deal with follow up complaints, with a whole new slew of WP:AE reports (most of which, but not all, will be petty and stupid, and further proof that Misplaced Pages IS in fact a battleground) and more work for yourselves (which you can always evade by pointing out that the ArbCom is not concerned with content disputes).

Honestly, to deal with these perennial consanguineous areas you're going to have to start appointing "Tsars" (like the "Education Tsar" or "Drug Tsar") or at least "Surgeons Generals". Or maybe Consuls. And with the consuls, there was always two of them. So I nominate Salvio Guiliano and Future Perfect as the first two Consuls of the "India-Pakistan-Afghanistan-Bangladesh" topic area. With Fifelfoo as the tribune, just to watch over them.VolunteerMarek 03:30, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Ncmvocalist

Were the relevant Wikiprojects notified (eg via noticeboards for related topics) - that you intend on putting this DS regime on anything related to these countries? Next, should we expect you to also put the entire project on DS without properly consulting community first? Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:43, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment by RegentsPark

Like Ncm above, I'm a little disappointed that we have arbs voting on sanctions without seeking wider input from the community that will be affected by those sanctions. However, if that's the way things are then that's the way they are.

I think discretionary sanctions are unnecessary. To the contrary, I think the problem in this area has been an excess of admin involvement and admin action. Punitive blocks applied at will, restrictions imposed on the various participants that are really not warranted, gratuitous lectures about behavior that are better suited to parent child interactions than to admin/editor interactions, stuff like that. This has lead to a poisonous atmosphere marked mainly by block shopping and a constant low grade complaining about other editors. My suggestions, perhaps too late since arbs seem to have already made up their minds, are the following:

  1. Remove all restrictions on all participants in these areas. This has more or less been done through ANI though there may be other restrictions on these editors that I am unaware off.
  2. Remind admins that they should use their tools minimally, only when there are clear transgressions.
  3. Remind admins that they should be sparse in their comments. Comment only on the transgression not on editors.--regentspark (comment) 16:51, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Additional note

Now that I've had the time to look at this further, I think Magog is overstating the "disruptive" nature of what is going on here. A look at the block log of both DarknessShines as well as TopGun shows that most of l the blocks were for violating one restriction or another. The restrictions were the problem and the predictably unfortunate effect of discretionary sanctions is going to be more blocks not less. The ANI cases were largely initiated by two of the editors, DarknessShines and TopGun, probably because block shopping on technical violations of the restrictions was, partly anyway, turning out to be an effective weapon against each other. I believe this is better handled on a case by case basis using the normal way of dealing with edit warring or tendentious editing rather than through adding to the bureaucratic overhead by placing more restrictions on both these editors (and, incidentally, on any other editor who may happen to be editing these pages). --regentspark (comment) 18:36, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Fowler&fowler

This very bizarre. Discretionary sanctions are being considered for India and Pakistan related pages, yet, none of the significant contributors to these pages (see, for example, here) know about this. No announcement had been made on WikiProject India, until NCMvocalist just made his. Most editors making statements above (who edit South Asia-related pages), on the other hand, seem to be relatively new users; all are seasoned at edit-warring and POV pushing; all know enough wikilawyering to template me for writing this sentence. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:43, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Statement by other user

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

Motion (India-Pakistan)

1) Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, broadly construed.

For this motion, there are 12 active non-recused arbitrators, so 7 votes are a majority.

Support
  1. Proposed per discussion above. Kirill  00:18, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
    Added Afghanistan per the comments below. Kirill  03:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
  2. Necessary to maintain order. Courcelles 00:22, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
  3. Per Fut Perf's comment this should include Afghanistan as well. PhilKnight (talk) 00:32, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
  4. + Afghanistan too Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:53, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
  5. Jclemens (talk) 05:34, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
  6. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 12:24, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
  7.  Roger Davies 07:14, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
  8. I'm disappointed (though not surprised) that discretionary sanctions for these topics were recently proposed as a community measure at ANI, but failed to achieve consensus. It is so obviously needed. AGK 13:21, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. There are a number of statements saying that this is not needed, and there is a call to wait until the Mediation case has finished. If the community are in the process of resolving this dispute, then it is too soon for the Committee to be stepping in. SilkTork 19:35, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
  2. Concur with SilkTork - we should not be acting while this is being actively discussed in a lower level of dispute resolution. Risker (talk) 19:12, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Abstain
Comments
  • I support the intent, but shouldn't this be limited to pages or edits concerning national, ethnic, or similar disputes between or within India and Pakistan? I wouldn't think the discretionary sanctions would be needed for every single article relating to India or Pakistan. (At least I hope not!) Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:57, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
    Our other geographic discretionary sanctions are purely region-based, with no reference to the specific nature of the edit. Given how disputes of this nature can pop up on otherwise seemingly uncontroversial articles, it seems more straightforward to authorize discretionary sanctions for the entire area rather than requiring administrators to individually add articles once a dispute flares up. Kirill  02:02, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Amendment request: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan

Initiated by Darkness Shines (talk) at 21:43, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Case affected
India-Pakistan arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. Principle 1
  2. Finding 2
  3. Remedy 3
List of users affected by or involved in this amendment
Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request
  • Mar4d (diff of notification of this thread on Username2's talk page)
Information about amendment request
  • Link to principle, finding of fact, or remedy to which this amendment is requested
  • Details of desired modification

Statement by Darkness Shines

During this initial case mention was made of how editors should not restore edits by sockpuppets. I recently discovered that a motion was passed by the committee regarding this behaviour on articles pertaining to R&I I request an addition to the arbitration enforcement be laid down for the India-Pakistan which is the same. "no editor may restore any reverted edit made by a banned editor" As recently edits made by the banned user:Nangparbat are continually being restored. And there have been others previously. Darkness Shines (talk) 21:43, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

  • In response to the The Devils Advocate, I am not trying to chip away at anything. Sockpuppets have been a bane on the topic area for years. If nobody can restore their edits it is one less reason for them to sock. Darkness Shines (talk) 23:14, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Really? Under which policy would that be then? I have already reported that sock to Elockid who is now keeping an eye on it for when it returns. If I suspect a sock I will tag it as such. Or would you have blocked me for tagging these I believe I have had a few wrong, and self reverted. Darkness Shines (talk) 06:07, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
O shit tim, I did it again Really. what a wanker I am, I accuse people of being socks, ask yourself , how often am I wrong? Darkness Shines (talk) 17:04, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

This appears to be an issue for AE to decide based on the principle that an editor restoring edits by a banned editor takes responsibility for those edits, as well as the issue of edit-warring. If Darkness objects to these edits and Mar restoring them repeatedly then it should be examined in that respect and not be used as a way to slowly chip away at the exemptions allowed in WP:BAN through bureaucratic fiat.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 22:56, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Sockpuppets are typically a bane in every topic area.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:38, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Mar4d

The analogy present here is incorrect; any user who restores a sock's edit does so on their own behalf and it is usually when he/her feels that this edit was valid. What if a sock revert vandalism, will you revert that too? Furthermore, an amendment like this will not go down well because Darkness Shines has a history of targeting innocent IP editors 86.x, 109.x, 39.x IP ranges who were not related to a sock. There are hundreds of people using these ranges and if this gets passed, then DS will pretty much revert anyone whom he thinks to be a sock on hindsight without evidence, as he is doing with another long-established User:Jozoisis using his poor judgement. He is kind of topic banning all editors from editing using the sock label even when usually in those cases there is nothing to suggest that this particular editor may be a sock. Mar4d (talk) 01:56, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Richwales

Per WP:BAN#Edits by and on behalf of banned editors: "Anyone is free to revert any edits made in defiance of a ban.... This does not mean that obviously helpful edits (such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism) must be reverted just because they were made by a banned editor.... When reverting edits, care should be taken not to reinstate material that may be in violation of such core policies as neutrality, verifiability, and biographies of living persons. Editors who reinstate edits made by a banned editor take complete responsibility for the content."

The above general policy has, admittedly, been made more stringent by ArbCom in the Race and Intelligence topic, where they have enacted a blanket prohibition of all reinstatements of edits by banned editors. The Race and Intelligence motion was, as best I can tell, passed in response to a particularly troublesome situation which was originally dealt with in an arbitration case. Quoting from the originally enacted remedies in that case: "his topic has previously been subject to extensive disruption, which created a hostile editing environment." While I understand Darkness Shines's concerns over endemic sockpuppetry on India-Pakistan-related articles, I don't see any similar finding in the India-Pakistan arbitration case comparable to what happened at Race and Intelligence, so I believe that leapfrogging to a similarly draconian regime in this topic would be premature at the present time.

Regarding tagging of suspected sockpuppets, I am strongly inclined here to agree with Mar4d — if you (Darkness Shines) are going to accuse someone of being a sock, you need to also report the suspect at WP:SPI, and you need to present "clear simple evidence" supporting your suspicion — see the "Important notes" section at the start of the WP:SPI page. And since you presumably have such evidence readily at hand (you've got no business tagging someone as a suspected sock in the first place if you don't have evidence!), you should present your evidence at SPI first — or, at the very least, simultaneously with the user page tag. You cannot simply do a drive-by {{sock}} tagging, and then object to people removing the tag because you have said "an SPI is underway" but have not actually shown anyone any evidence yet. I looked at the SPI page for Highstakes00 (the puppet master who you allege is behind Jozoisis), and I don't see any report from you there to back up your suspicions — so as best I can tell, you have not yet provided any evidence, and Mar4d was right to quote policy and challenge your tag on Jozoisis's user page, and you should not have reverted him, but you should instead have put your evidence together and presented it at SPI.

Finally, I would remind Darkness Shines that edit-warring / revert-warring is not appropriate even in situations where you are convinced you are right and others are wrong. — Richwales 04:10, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Following up on the above, Darkness Shines posted a comment on my talk page saying: "The SPI is being done off wiki as this particular master is highly proficent at evading detection. That is all I am willing to say on the matter." Since (as I said) he posted this to my talk page, I am not violating any confidences by reposting it here.
Even in a case like this, something should still have been mentioned at WP:SPI — even if only to say something like "evidence has been e-mailed to ArbCom owing to its sensitive nature". If the situation is so sensitive that you don't even believe you can post something as vague as that at SPI, then (in my opinion) it would be better for you not to say anything at all publicly — not even to leave a tag on the suspected sock's user page — and instead leave the tagging to be done later, by the SPI clerks, once your evidence has been followed up on. Again, people have a right (per policy and common sense) to expect substantiation of any public allegation of sockpuppetry; and if you publicly accuse someone of being a sock while at the same time refusing to say anything about your reasons (not even saying that you have evidence and have communicated it off-wiki), then no one has any reason to accept your allegation, and you have no grounds to be surprised or upset if others cite policy and take down the tag which you are declining to back up with any evidence. — Richwales 05:12, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
@T.Canens — In DS's defence, I will note that the {{sockpuppet}} (or {{sock}}) template does include a default option which advises that "An editor has expressed a concern that this account may be a sock puppet". Since this option still exists, I assume it is still permissible to use it — if that is no longer considered appropriate, then someone needs to revise the template and remove this option. I will stick to my earlier statement that if one is going to tag a user as a suspected sock, this action absolutely must be accompanied by appropriate evidence (or notice of an off-wiki submission of evidence) on the accused sockmaster's SPI page. Additionally, IMO, a "suspected" sock should not have his edits reverted on sight, on the grounds that they are the work of a banned user, until and unless said suspicion is confirmed through the SPI process. Anyone who accuses another editor of being a sock, starts reverting that person's edits on this basis without bothering to wait for SPI, and reverts/rebukes others who object to such misbehaviour, needs to stop right now — and if I were to observe someone doing such a thing, I would give them a final/only warning (if they hadn't already been warned) and then block them. — Richwales 06:30, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
@DS — Replying to this notice on your talk page, I did not say I would block you (or someone acting as you've been doing) "for using a %^€*!%@ template for the reason it is there". I said I would block someone for the combination of using the {{sock}} template to accuse someone of being a sock and not submitting evidence to SPI (or giving notice that said evidence had been submitted off-wiki) and reverting the accused's work without waiting for an SPI determination and publicly objecting to other people not accepting all this. That's not making up policy AFAIK, it's following policy. I'm sorry if I've offended you by explaining why I don't think what you've been describing is in keeping with the policies — and if the consensus turns out to be that I've seriously misinterpreted the relevant policies here, I'll readily offer an apology — but this is what I currently understand would be the only appropriate way to handle such a situation. Have faith in the SPI process; if your evidence is clear, the socks will be definitively labelled as such soon enough, and you or others can clean up their mess at that time. — Richwales 07:01, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
I also brought up a related general question at WT:SPI (see Misplaced Pages talk:Sockpuppet investigations/Archives/Archive12#When to tag a suspected sock on user's talk page?) — people contributing here might also want to comment there. I should probably have mentioned that other discussion here earlier; sorry about the delay. — Richwales 19:39, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by TC

If there's to be an restriction here, it needs to be on DS, who had been restricted from filing SPI requests related to Nangparbat because it was getting disruptive.

So what did they do? Why, reverting edits by new accounts as Nangparbat socks, of course. Tagging them, too. The catch is, they've done all this without any actual case or checkuser done, as far as I can tell. In fact, the account he reverted as a sock remains unblocked to this day. This is, to put it simply, not how things are, or should be, done.

It is simple common sense that sockpuppet tags should never be placed on a user page, unless the sockpuppetry is established and the account is blocked. Twinkle used to have an option to tag accounts at the time of filing an SPI report; that option was removed and for a very good reason: tags when socking has not been established provides virtually no benefit, yet alienates innocent editors and clutters the tracking categories. I fully intend to block DS the next time he tags an account as a sockpuppet that is not currently blocked. T. Canens (talk) 06:00, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by DeltaQuad

I was the administrator who put the original restriction on DS because of there being issues of baseless SPIs being filed. One of the conditions was that DS may not file against Nangparbat. This is now worse off than it started, we are going from baseless SPIs to not even presenting evidence, but making a closed decision on who's a sock of who. While I admit (although I haven't looked for the behavior to verify it, i'm trusting the administrator's judgement) that DS has done some correct reverts like User:109.145.251.152 which was blocked, reverts and tags like those to User:Desiray09 are not appropriate as there is no trail of evidence to link this to the master, and it's one edit. If there is a block or something because DS emailed another admin or something, that's fine. It shows a second step in the process which is critical, especially when users can present bias from editing in the subject area. This is why a ruling that "editors may not remove suspected sockpuppet tags from suspected sockpuppet user pages", as requested by DS, would be problematic. It also creates a horrible restriction if people are wrong and need to remove the tags, which i've had to do in my wiki-lifetime a few times.

On to the actual request for clarification, the request for a restriction that "no editor may restore any reverted edit made by a banned editor" actually undermines the policy at WP:BAN in which the community policy says that editors take responsibility for any edits restored. While I agree it's not optimal to restore banned editors contributions, if it's a good improvement, then why should we chuck it out the door? Were already blocking them, or protecting articles, making it harder for them to edit, it's not like we are giving too much attention to the issue. I haven't specifically looked over the R/I ArbCom motion yet, but as Rich stated above,

The Race and Intelligence motion was, as best I can tell, passed in response to a particularly troublesome situation which was originally dealt with in an arbitration case. Quoting from the originally enacted remedies in that case: "his topic has previously been subject to extensive disruption, which created a hostile editing environment."
— User:Richwales

. There has been no presented evidence to indicate that this area is hostile, and further more, I don't see the extensive disruption. So there is no precedent to go on, and it undermines community policy in a way that would hurt it, not help it. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 09:19, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Smsarmad

Now that this issue has been brought here I request attention of people (who allowed administrators to issue discretionary sanctions in this topic area) to look how this (current) issue began. About a month back a probable sock of Nangparbat removed this massive POV links from the see also section, which was reverted by User:Darkness Shines. Just take a look at pre-sock edited version (I am referring to note at the top of the page and links in the see also section) and tell me how effective Discretionary sanctions are to stop disruption and POV editing in this topic area. Edit war still continues on this issue at multiple articles by some editors avoiding the talkpage discussion. --SMS 17:49, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by Elockid

Tagging suspected socks even before they blocked or confirmed is not an uncommon practice. However, I do not advise in tagging socks until there is sufficient evidence to warrant a tag. By sufficient evidence I mean something usually in the case of more than one edit though there are exceptions. In the particular case where DS asked me to take a look a suspected while subsequently tagging it, I feel that perhaps tagging the account was a bit early. It might be possible that the suspected account is indeed a sock but I feel the evidence isn't really there at the moment. Was the tagging inappropriate? Some would say yes, some would say no. IMO, there really isn't an established standard on when to tag socks. I believe that DS is helpful in the aspect that he's reporting suspected socks to me, however as I said previously, greater caution should be taken.

@DS This isn't NP. That's MohammedBinAbdullah (talk · contribs) if memory serves me right. Elockid 14:28, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by RegentsPark

Commenting on the narrow clarification and amendment request by DarknessShines. It is true that these areas are plagued by socks of banned editors and that DS is good at detecting their presence and therefore we should cut him some slack for the occasional error, but that doesn't mean he gets a free ride to template at will. However, since these banned editors are merely here to cause disruption (as Elen writes, this is unlike in the R&I case where the banned editors are committed agenda driven pov pushers), I think that we need only assert a couple of principles that are already self-evident rather than escalating it with revisions or extensions of the original sanctions.

  1. It is true that any edit by a banned user is subject to reversion, however useful it may appear to be. But, a corollary to this is that if a banned user's edit is restored by an editor in good standing, with an explanation as to why the content is useful, then that edit may no longer be considered to have been made by a banned user and inclusion or exclusion of the material should be determined solely on its merits. However, as a matter of prudence, I'd suggest getting consensus on the talk page before attempting to restore the material.
  2. If someone restores a banned editor's content addition then, rather than getting into an edit war over the material, ask for help from an admin. These topic areas are under discretionary sanctions and any uninvolved admin can take whatever action (blocks, protection, topic bans) that is necessary to restore order.--regentspark (comment) 15:10, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Statement by {yet another user}

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
  • I've asked the clerks to delist this request as declined after 24-48 hours, absent any change in the balance of arbitrator opinion in the next section (or objection to archival from my colleagues). AGK 01:29, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • Without a clear pattern of abuse and disruption, and evidence of the community trying and failing to deal with that disruption, ArbCom would not get involved. ArbCom are not the Misplaced Pages police, nor any form of authority - we are a group of fellow Wikipedians who have volunteered to temporarily act in a committee which by agreement of the community makes final and binding decisions in cases of dispute which the community have been unable to resolve. The nature of our role is that we do not step in too early. This request appears to be too early. SilkTork 11:55, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
  • In the Race & Intelligence case, a set of banned editors were continuing to cause a great deal of problems with wholly disruptive edits being restored by editors in breach of their own topic bans. The evidence doesn't suggest that we are at this stage yet in this area. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:32, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I think the request here demonstrates that the former prohibition should be appropriately narrowly drawn: since edits relating to a topic made by a banned editor and later removed would be considered edits on that topic, editors topic banned from that particular topic would be in breach of that topic ban by restoring them. Blanket prohibitions on non-sanctioned editors restoring banned user edits would foreclose the ability of editors in good standing to proxy the useful contributions of banned editors, an option the committee has extended to banned editors in the past. Full disclosure: I did not support that motion, for this reason and other concerns. Jclemens (talk) 03:51, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I would decline this amendment request, per my three colleagues above. AGK 09:19, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Agree with my colleagues - I think we should decline this amendment request. PhilKnight (talk) 23:16, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I agree with most of the commenters and with my colleagues that we should not act on this request. With regard to the more general issue, the observations by Richwales and the other administrators who have commented are generally sound. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:44, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clarification request: Ancient History of India-Pakistan (January 2015)

Original discussion
The arbitrators who commented agree that there is no historical time frame limiting the applicability of discretionary sanctions. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:10, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Initiated by Robert McClenon (talk) at 17:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Case or decision affected
India-Pakistan arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
§Standard discretionary sanctions

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

Statement by User:Robert McClenon

There are currently multiple WP:ANI threads concerning the hypothesis that the Indo-European languages originated in India, as opposed to the hypothesis accepted by most scholarship that these languages originated to the west of India and spread both east into India by migration and west into Europe by migration. They include Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents# Massive POV pushing problem at WP:FRINGE and Indo-Aryan topics. My question is whether tendentious and disruptive editing about this aspect of the ancient history of India is subject to WP:ARBIPA, in which case discretionary sanctions are applicable, or whether WP:ARBIPA only applies to the modern history of the subcontinent. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by User:Future Perfect at Sunrise

No need for clarification: of course DS applies. The ideological fight over the origins of the Indo-Aryans is a classic hotspot of modern nationalist discourses in India, and the backdrop of modern Hindu nationalism is the one thing that keeps these disputes alive on Misplaced Pages and makes them so much politically charged. This is precisely what the DS are for. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:19, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Sitush

I am surprised to see this asked. The sanctions are exactly what they say. Time is not of the essence and, as Fut. Perf. notes, the particular issues being referred to are a well-known hotspot on WP, certainly in part because of what is often descrived as the Hindutva "revisionist" approach to history. - Sitush (talk) 21:57, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by {other user}

< !-- Leave this section for others to add additional statements -->

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Ancient History of India-Pakistan: Arbitrator views and discussion

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Amendment request: Imposition of an Arbitration Enforced Sanction against me by Bishonen (July 2015)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Initiated by Soham321 at 20:23, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Case or decision affected
India-Pakistan arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)
Clauses to which an amendment is requested
  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Soham321#Notice_that_you_are_now_subject_to_an_arbitration_enforcement_sanction
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request


Information about amendment request
  • Removal of the Arbitration Enforced 6 month topic ban on all India related articles which has been imposed on me by Bishonen

Statement by Soham321

Bishonen accuses me of "battleground editing","tendentious editing", and an "aggressive discussion style" while imposing the ban. With respect to the first two accusations, i will point to Jawaharlal Nehru; all my edits have been accepted on this page even though it is a very disputed page and even the major political parties in India have commented on the editing on this page. I will also point out that even though i earlier had some personal friction with Ogress and Sitush i now have cordial relations with both of them. With respect to Sitush, one may see the talk page on Eckankar where we have interacted in a very civil way. Regarding Ogress one may see the talk page of Two Truths Doctrine where i express confidence in her editing and she endorses a source used by me in the main article. Bishonen's claim that i have an aggressive discussion style is totally undercut by my two responses to two different editors as per this diff: . Additionally, Mohanbhan with whom i have collaborated on some WP pages has argued that Bishonen's action against me was completely unjustified: . In the present case, there is an editor Ms Sarah Welch who repeatedly called Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya a fringe source on the talk page of Carvaka and proceeded to delete content in Carvaka that was sourced from Chattopadhyaya. Mohanbhan and i have repeatedly pointed out to her that Chattopadhyaya is not a fringe source in the talk page of Carvaka giving various pieces of evidence. I showed her that Ogress has endorsed Chattopadhyaya's scholarship. When Sarah Welch continued with her tirade against Chattopadhyaya in the talk page of Carvaka and also on my talk page i referred her to lacking in competence and mentioned that i would be henceforth referring to lacking in competence if she continued her tirade against Chattopadhyaya. This resulted in Bishonen imposing a 6 month ban on India related articles on me.

One clarification: Regarding diff1, one notes that Sitush had thrown lacking in competence at me when i had simply expressed disagreement over whether the book India as a Secular_State is 'outdated' or not. SpacemanSpiff, declaring himself to be an uninvolved Admin, has expressed the view that i deserve a one year ban for my present infraction. SpacemanSpiff, who is occasionally found exchanging friendly exchanges on Sitush's talk page, will i am sure reconsider his clearly biased opinion when comparing Sitush's behavior with mine and studying the provocations involved. I will also point out that Spaceman cannot declare himself to be an uninvolved Admin considering our somewhat rough interactions on my talk page, and considering his comment concerning me to another Admin (Dennis Brown) on Dennis's talk page which he later retracted (https://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Dennis_Brown/Archive_35#Caste_system_in_India). Spaceman, Bishonen and others are welcome to cherry pick my edits to portray me in a poor light; what cannot be denied is that i happen to be a content creator, and content creators need to be respected and protected.Secondly, i would like uninvolved Admins to compare my behavior towards other editors with the behavior of the highly experienced editor Sitush towards me (prior to our new friendship as revealed by the recent editing on the talk page of the Eckankar page). The diff that i gave (diff1) is fairly typical of my interactions with Sitush (prior to our editing on the Eckankar page)--leaving aside my tiff with Sitush when i was a new WP editor. I have almost always been at the receiving end of Sitush's barbs, for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk:Jawaharlal_Nehru&diff=671007963&oldid=671007789 If no action is being taken against Sitush for behavioral issues, and concurrently action is taken against me, then the process smacks of double standards and hypocrisy. Bishonen had earlier created a unique pseudo complaint generator to protect Sitush: https://en.wikipedia.org/User:Bishonen/Clueless_Sitush_complaint_generator So many complaints came up in this complaint generator--complaints of a serious nature as revealed by the history of this page--that the page had to be shut down. This is further evidence of double standards and hypocrisy and not treating all editors as equals.

Bishonen had earlier insinuated that i was editing anonymously using an IP address and when i protested against this she had withdrawn her accusation and even deleted the edit summaries, and from what i can tell even her edit. Please see Link1: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Soham321&dir=prev&limit=500&action=history ; and do a Ctrl-F for Bishonen. When i was new to WP, i had been involved in an ANI dispute. Not knowing WP rules I wrote a review of the discussion together with my thoughts on my talk page and Bishonen deleted my comments with what i thought to be an unduly harsh edit summary considering i was new to WP. This edit summary may be seen in Link1 (if you do a Ctrl-F on Bishonen ). There were also some harsh words exchanged on Bishonen's talk page relating to her insinuation or accusation that i was using an IP address to do editing (which she later retracted after my strong protest), but since this was on her talk page it will take me forever to retrieve the diffs. But as evidence for this one may see this diff containing two separate comments of mine: , one of them in reply to Kim Dent-Brown. Bishonen mentions the one year topic ban on Digvijaya Singh imposed on me by Kim Dent-Brown;my answer is that i was new to WP at the time and didn't know the rules. I also respected the topic ban and didn't approach Kim for a review after 6 months even though he offered to review my topic ban in 6 months. Finally, i am pinging Kenfyre, Twobells, and Agtx since i have done collaborative editing with them. Soham321 (talk) 21:40, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

i thank Agtx for the prompt response. I just wish to clarify that he is wrong when he says he did not have access to the full source when editing the Sach Khand article. The paraphrasing was being done from only one page of the book and he did have access to that page when he placed the close paraphrasing tag since he gave a link to the same book and same page (viewable online through google books) which i was using to make my edit: diff1

So my exasperation was as to why he was not paraphrasing himself when he had access to the source, and instead preferred putting paraphrasing tags. It is true also that initially he put two tags of non-neutrality and POV ( diff2 ) and then seemingly abandoned the discussion on the talk page which i initiated to try and resolve the tagging issue. In the one response he had given me as to why he had put the POV and non-neutrality tags, his rationale was coming across as being puerile.

This was when i told him that he has to continue participating in the talk page because of the POV and non-neutrality tags he had placed else we can opt to go for Dispute Resolution. I will point out, incidentally, that the article Sach Khand was created by me. I will also state that had i not been proactive the tags could very well have been in place in the article as of today. I also wish to refer to what Agtx had written on the talk page of the article (diff3):

That looks a lot better, thank you for doing that. You're definitely more knowledgeable on this topic than I am. I went ahead played around some with the language and cleaned up some formatting.Should add that if my changes made anything inaccurate, obviously please feel free to fix it.

And finally, i will state that the changes Agtx made to the Sach Khand article (after i had condensed and edited it further after my discussion with Agtx)--as can be seen from the edit history of the page-- ended up making the article inaccurate because of which i had to do further editing on the page. I explained why i had to make changes to Sach Khand, after Agtx's editing in the talk page of the article. (Essentially, Agtx had introduced inaccuracies into the article.) To his credit, Agtx yielded to my corrections and did not place any further tags on the page. Soham321 (talk) 23:00, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

I am unable to do any trimming which Thryduulf is suggesting i do. I am allowed 1,000 words in my appeal on this forum as per the rules and i wish to take full opportunity of discussing my case while respecting the 1,000 word limit. Soham321 (talk) 23:10, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

I have two points to make in response to Ogress's post. First, it is inevitable to have a point of view and to therefore be "tendentious" when it comes to philosophy. But the fact that i have not let my point of view affect my editing on philosophy articles is seen when i have edited the Carvaka page presenting the Charvaka point of view and also the Sach Khand page (i created this article) presenting the Sikh point of view. The view of Sach Khand has nothing to do with the view of the Charvakas since the former is a spiritual view and the latter is a materialistic view. With respect to mentoring, there is only one Admin who has spent time mentoring me and that is Dennis Brown. However, the maximum mentoring i have received is from my interactions with the veteran editor Sitush since Sitush is the editor i have interacted with the most ever since i started editing on WP. Soham321 (talk) 03:56, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

This is a response to Ogress's most recent post supporting sanctions against me, slamming Mohanbhan, and talking of "gang editing". I had mentioned in my appeal that Ogress and i had had some initial friction before we started enjoying cordial terms as is evident from the talk page of Two truths doctrine where i express confidence in her editing diff1 and she had endorsed a source i had used in editing this page diff2. I wish to now refer to the initial friction i had with Ogress--about which i mentioned in my appeal without giving details-- prior to our having cordial relations. These pertain to Ogress undoing an edit of mine from the talk page of Carvaka with the following edit summary: "Deleting personal attack. DO NOT MAKE PERSONAL ATTACKS." diff3. Ogress's undoing of my edit was in turn reverted by Mohanbhan with the following edit summary: "It is not a personal attack, he is stating a grievance, do not censor wiki by using strong words" diff4. The conversation had not remained confined to the talk page of Carvaka since Ogress saw it fit to take it to my talk page: diff5 and diff6. Prior to this Ogress and i have had issues pertaining to the Caste system in India article. None of my edits were being allowed to be inserted into the main article because of what i considered a collusion of around five editors who seemed to be working in tandem on this page; one of these editors was Ogress. I had mentioned Ogress by name and referred to the collusion taking place here: dif7. To protect myself as to why i took up that case on that forum (in which i mentioned Ogress by name and the collusion taking place in Caste system in India) i give this diff of an edit written by me and addressed to one of the Arbs: diff8. The peculiar thing was that i was not the only person who felt like this. This is ABEditWiki writing about this collusion and mentioning Ogress by name: "I again reverted and user Ogress came and reverted. No engaging on talk page." diff9. And this is Kenfyre and Twobells discussing the collusion that was taking place in the Caste system in India article: diff10 (i had also subsequently participated in this discussion and so had Sitush).Soham321 (talk) 09:55, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

My thanks to Salvio for clarifying the procedure in place. I was hoping to show that the fact that earlier i had unfriendly relations with Ogress but subsequently i had developed cordial relations with her (and likewise in the case of Sitush) would be something taken in my favor. But if the Arbs, in their wisdom, find my defense worthless than so be it. Soham321 (talk) 11:15, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I wish to make one more point about Salvio bringing up WP:ASPERSIONS in reviewing Mohanbhan's criticism of Sarah. WP:Aspersions says that "An editor must not accuse another of misbehavior without evidence." But here, Mohanbhan is casting the aspersions on Sarah on the basis of WP:CIR, specifically when WP:CIR talks of 'bias based'. Here, contrary to all available evidence, like the scholar Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya's scholarship being endorsed by giants like Joseph Needham and Louis Renou, Sarah was continuing to launch constant tirades against Chattopadhyaya and repeatedly destroying content in the Carvaka page which used Chattopadhyaya as a source--without any consensus on the talk page. Three editors, Mohanbhan, Ogress, and me--had endorsed Chattopadhyaya's scholarship.I am mentioning this because i had brought up WP:CIR before Sarah on two occasions and this has resulted in what i believe to be an unreasonable 6 month ban on all India related articles on me. Even if i made a mistake, the quantum of punishment is surely disproportionate. And if you want to go by past history, even then it is disproportionate. Soham321 (talk) 11:59, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

My response to Ms Sarah Welch: With respect to Joshua Jonathan, it is my genuine belief that the article Two Truths doctrine was becoming worse because of his editing since in my opinion he did not understand the content because of which he was introducing inaccuracies into the article. (This is similar to what happened after Agtx did some editing in the Sach Khand article--after i had condensed it following our discussion-- and introduced inaccuracies into it ). I explained why i felt this way, in the talk page and first asked suggested that we let Ogress do the editing, and subsequently pinged every person who had ever edited that page after Jonathan continued to edit on the page and continued to introduce more inaccuracies when doing so. I did not do any editing on this article after i had pinged every person who had ever edited this page. Shrikanthv has written a comment on the talk page addressed to Joshua which to my mind reads like a polite request to him to refrain from editing the article: diff1. On the Adi Shankara page there was a content dispute was over whether it can be mentioned in the main article whether Shankara borrowed/plagiarized certain arguments that had been first invented by Mahayana Buddhists. I gave in the talk page of the article references to various scholars (extracts from books) who maintained this. But Joshua, Sarah Welch and Abecedare were not willing to accept the introduction of the plagiarism accusation even after i posted the book extracts from three different scholars on the talk page in this connection. Sarah Welch was claiming here also that Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya cannot be used as a source, claiming he is a fringe source and an unreliable source and she was also raising a question mark on the book's publisher. I then gave her evidence of Chattopadhyaya's scholarship: Unreliable sources I also wanted an introduction into the main article a reference to a section of Adi Shankara's philosophical rivals calling him a demon. My source for this was the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. Demon accusation However, since i was unable to gather consensus with my respect to my edits i did not force the issue and simply left editing this page. I had made my points on the talk page, and some day someone could see them and place the content in the main article.

With respect to edit warring with Sarunfeldt on the Eckankar page, first Sarunfeldt was simply reverting without even leaving an edit summary initially and secondly Sarunfeldt had a COV because he had declared he is member of the clergy of this religion. So it was his prerogative not to do any edit warring and instead have discussions with me on the talk page. I will point out though that i have not attempted to put back into the main page any of the content on Eckankar which i had placed and which Sarunfeldt had deleted (although i gave details of this content on the talk page of Eckankar) after Sarunfeldt was temporarily blocked although i had an opportunity for doing so. I was waiting for him to appear on the talk page of the article and have a discussion before attempting to place the deleted content back into the main article.

With respect to Ogress, my comment was after she had deleted my edit on the talk page of Carvaka, which was subsequently reverted by Mohanbhan and then taken it to my talk page claiming i was making personal attacks which i maintained i was not. I got tired of the personal attack accusation and hence i made the comment which Sarah Welch mentions. However, subsequently i apologized for the comment to Ogress on my talk page and told her to bury our differences and work together on enriching the Encyclopedia (i have already given the necessary links in my second rejoinder to Ogress) and i will point out again that Ogress and I had developed cordial relations.

Blade of the Northern Lights and Dennis Brown issued warnings to me with respect to my editing on the highly disputed Caste system in India article about which as i have mentioned earlier there were other editors who had expressed unhappiness about the collusion that was taking place in editing this page. I respected the warnings, and i refrained from adding any content on the main article after i received the warnings confining myself to the talk page of the article. They then had a problem with my comments on the talk page of the article also--this was after i gave a quote of the Harvard scholar Michael Witzel slamming "revisionist scholarship" for a second time-- and Dennis said i should consider taking a break from the talk page also, which i did. In fact i have not edited that article at all (not even the talk page) since Dennis asked me to consider taking a break from it.

SpacemanSpiff's warning to me was immediately after my conflict with Ogress. He essentially wanted me to be more civil with other editors. It is true that i had made a comment to Ogress belittling her after she posted an inflammatory edit summary when undoing my edit on the talk page of Carvaka (which was reverted by Mohanbhan) and after she continued accusing me of making a personal attack which i believed was untrue. But then i had also subsequently apologized to Ogress and appealed that we should bury our differences and work collaboratively. We even developed cordial relations. I do not believe i have been uncivil with Sarah Welch since she has repeatedly questioned Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya's scholarship on one ground or the other--despite being shown ample evidence that her assessment of Chattopadhyaya was incorrect-- and repeatedly sought to destroy any content sourced to his writings. On the Carvaka page she was doing this without consensus which is when i pointed out WP:CIR to her. Soham321 (talk) 18:09, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

My thanks to Joshua Jonathan for contributing to this discussion. With respect to Two truths doctrine, i have already explained on the talk page of the article why Joshua was introducing inaccuracies into the article through his editing because he did not understand the content in my opinion: diff1 The fact that Shrikanthv politely requested Joshua to abstain from editing this article on the talk page gives additional credence to my assessment: diff2 Finally, i have never edited this article after i pinged every single person who has edited this page after my content dispute with Joshua. With respect to the plagiarism allegations against Adi Shankara i had given references, links, and book extracts from the writings of three different scholars for this claim on the talk page of the Adi Shankara article.. These were Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, Surendranath Dasgupta and Fyodor Shcherbatskoy. With respect to the Caste System in India article, five editors(Twobells, Kenfyre, ABEditWiki, Intelligent Mr Toad 2, and myself) have expressed a viewpoint differing from the five editors who were not allowing edits by others into this page-- on the talk page of this article, on Kenfyre's talk page or in ANI discussions. With respect to the Carvaka talk page, it is true that Abedecare had initially sided with Ms Sarah Welch but this support was conditional. Ms Sarah Welch did not want Chattopadhyaya to be used as a source at all; Abedecare was fine with using him as a source providing this sourcing was done with some discretion. After Mohanbhan wrote that Chattopadhyaya was making hermeneutic claims about Indian philosophy which cannot be refuted, Abedecare did not refute Mohanbhan suggesting that he agreed with Mohanbhan. Also, Abedecare stopped providing any support to Ms Sarah Welch's claim about not using Chattopadhyaya as a source possibly because he was persuaded by Mohanbhan and myself to consider Chattopadhyaya as a legitimate source. On Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya's talk page, Abedecare had sided with Mohanbhan and me against Ms Sarah Welch. Soham321 (talk) 20:47, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

This is a belated response to Mohanbhan's comments. Mohanbhan, commenting on Ms Sarah Welch provoking me, writes:

When she repeats her "Chattopadhyaya is not a valid source" comment for the third time, Soham says this, "Your repeated tirades against Chattopadhyaya have exhausted my patience. Whenever you declare him to be a fringe source i reserve the right to point out lacking in competence to you."...He has been provoked to lose his cool, and he should not be punished for it.

Mohanbhan is completely right that i did lose my cool. However i would like Arb to compare my reaction when i lost my cool with when Bishonen had earlier lost her cool and was subsequently blocked by Jimbo Wales. Bishonen, as an Admin, had written to an editor:

Yes, I do, you little shit. Don't interfere with Giano's page. Now get lost. Shoo!

for which Jimbo Wales had blocked her as per this diff: diff1

Bishonen had subsequently successfully appealed against the block. I am mentioning this because in any quasi-legal or quasi-judicial decision making it is valid to show precedence. Soham321 (talk) 21:14, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

This is a response to the Talk Page Etiquette link which has now been added in Joshua Jonathan's comment. The background to this is that on the talk page of Adi Shankara Joshua Jonathan was was moving edits on the talk page--his and also mine--from one section to another. Section headers were being deleted by him, new section headers created, and edits being transferred from one section to another. Secondly an edit written in response to a comment was transferred and made to appear as if it is a response to some other comment.This was creating a lot of confusion and so i simply started reverting him on the talk page asking him in the edit summary and also in the talk page to stop doing what he was doing since it was becoming impossible to have a discussion on the talk page. We were unable to come to an agreement. I then took him to ANI (simultaneously he also appealed against me on a page related to India asking for an Admin to take action against me--i will have to find the diff for this). An admin closed my appeal asking me to sort it out with Joshua. I went to the talk page of this Admin and said i have tried discussing with Joshua, and we are not being able to come to an agreement. I then specifically asked him: is there any intervening authority before i approach ArbCom since my appeal had been denied in ANI. He replied in the negative. I then posted on his talk page that i am taking it to ArbCom which i did. (I should add that Joshua rearranged the edits in their original form in the talk page of Adi Shankara after the matter went to Arb.) I gave the background to this to one of the Arb members with the request that this should not be held against me and he said 'it was an error of inexperience' and he would not be holding it against me. And this is the diff: Diff1 Soham321 (talk) 22:13, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

This is a response to Floquenbeam. I have strictly followed the rules of this forum. I respected the 1000 word limit in the initial appeal. There is, however, no restriction on the word limit when it comes to replying to other editors. I have not violated any rule. In any legitimate quasi judicial or quasi legal decision making you cannot make up new rules once an appeal has been filed. Soham321 (talk) 23:03, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

This is a response to Abecedare. I would specifically like to highlight that Abecedare and i have been involved in content disputes on the talk page of Adi Shankara and Carvaka. In the Adi Shankara talk page, i gave references (including links and book extracts) to the writings of three different scholars who claimed that Shankara had borrowed philosophical content from Mahayana Buddhists in his writings. This included an extract from a book by Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya which included the following words about Adi Shankara:

What is really not so indisputable about him is his actual philosophical ability. Though he reinterprets Upanishadic idealism in a really advanced form, there is nothing practically worthwile in this reinterpretation that is not borrowed from the Mahayana Budhists. This fact of large scale borrowing is sought to be concealed by Shankara himself with the demonstration of a great deal of contempt for these Budhists, often accusing them of preaching precisely the same views which he himself wants to preach with great gusto...The usual defense of Shankara by his modern admirers is that he admits the truth or logic as well as of the material things from the standpoint of practical life: but this very distinction between "two truths" is an innovation of the Mahayana Budhists, from whom Shankara borrows it only with some terminological alteration.

Abecedare's response to the above quote includes the words "What we are objecting to is the use of the word "plagiarism" that you introduced, which does not make any sense when applied to classical philosophical ideas and is not used by any of the sources you quote."

To which i responded with the words: "I am truly amazed that you are unable to see the plagiarism accusation. I would have imagined Chattopadhyaya at least makes the point very clear. I am glad i am giving the full quotes of these scholars instead of giving summaries or paraphrasing, so that at least other editors can see what you claim you are unable to see."

I leave it to Arb to judge whether i was civil or not with Abecedare.

And this is the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Adi_Shankara#Shankara_and_Buddhism

Abecedare and i have had two or three conversations on my talk page, and also in the talk page of Rigveda, where when i point out that an authority he is citing--Klostermaier-- is regarded a fringe historian (please see the Reception section of Klostermaier's WP page), he responds by saying he often mixes up Klostermaier with Elst who is another fringe historian as per Elst's WP page. (Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Rigveda#Reference_to_Hinduism ) I do not believe i was uncivil with him in these conversations. Soham321 (talk) 20:50, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

This is a response to Yunshui who is mischaracterizing my position in my opinion. My position is not that the problem lies with other editors; my position is that unless you are ok with the quality of several important WP articles (which are of a disputed nature) remaining mediocre and inaccurate (serving thereby to discredit the reputation of WP as a whole), you have to be prepared to tolerate a certain amount of friction and "heat" due to the inevitable intellectual debate that takes place in the talk page of the article and also occasionally in the main article through reverts with associated edit summaries. Soham321 (talk) 15:25, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Link from Bishonen

Here's the conversation on my page from 2013 that Soham321 mentions above. Bishonen | talk 07:46, 21 July 2015 (UTC).

Statement by Ogress

Soham321 has been a tendentious and difficult editor. He also has been improving, albeit slowly, and I think one day might be a very solid editor. He has shown to learn from his mistakes, albeit slowly on some occasions. I do not know that this statement impacts a temporary ban on India-related editing.

Soham321, if your temporary ban is upheld, I hope you will take the time to continue to edit Misplaced Pages in other places. Admins have been extraordinarily patient with you - perhaps you do not realise how much mentoring you have received, I think I got about zero - and I urge you to learn the same patience. Also, pretty much everyone has suffered bans of one sort or another. Continue to improve your skills in areas where distance from your subject might help you improve as an editor; you are nothing if not committed to passionate editing on topics you are committed to, which can sometimes actually be a hindrance, especially to new editors who are learning. You are, as I said above, continuing to learn how to Wiki, and I would be lying if I said it came naturally to anyone. Ogress smash! 03:32, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I am going to add more content. I am deeply troubled by the long responses by both Soham321 (talk · contribs) and Mohanbhan (talk · contribs), who are using this discussion to continue a very inappropriate attack on other users such as Ms Sarah Welch (talk · contribs), most particularly Mohanbhan, whose entire response is a tirade against Ms Sarah Welsh.
I am disappointed and angry that this is being turned into a forum to point fingers at Ms Sarah Welch and others. I have changed my position from neutral to support sanctions - although this is not a vote - as I think this very Arb request is being used as another chance to continue what is a grudge match.
I would also like to point out that the behavior of Mohanbhan (talk · contribs) has been very particularly inappropriate both in and outside this Arb board as well. I'm not sure why his behavior has not been examined more closely as he has been posting in a manner not befitting a Misplaced Pages editor.
Lest anyone think I am partisan in this situation, I wish to be clear that Ms Sarah Welch and I are on the opposite side of disputes most of the time, even on the very article Carvaka that is being dragged around, and not in a minor disagreement kind of way. I have avoided editing pages she is involved with in order to avoid conflict with her. I nonetheless find the ongoing gang editing direly troublesome and extremely distasteful. Ogress smash! 08:27, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Sitush

Statement by Mohanbhan

This is Sarah Welch's revert to the Charvaka article. There is no doubt that Soham's contribution to the article had enriched it, making the article a systematic exposition of Charvaka philosophy. Charvaka philosophy itself is unrelentingly critical of the Vedas and Vedantic thought, which, as I have suggested on Charvaka talk page, may have ticked off Sarah Welch who usually edits pages related to Vedantic philosophy. She has made it her one-point agenda to denigrate and exclude references from the greatest authority on this topic Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya. Whenever I have edited or tagged the article she has shown a tendency to make the argument personal by adopting an aggressive hysterical tone, positioning responsible editors as vandals, and herself as the custodian of the page. Instead of discussing the cited references objectively and responding to the specific objections she repeatedly makes statements like "'The book @Mohanbhan likes' is not Misplaced Pages's definition of RS". She also quotes selectively and distorts the sources to push her POV, as can be seen in the discussion. She also uses the word "tainted" to refer to Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya's dialectical materialist/Marxist viewpoint, and in spite of our objections repeatedly uses theis word] to refer to Chattopadhyaya. She is explained here that Chattopadhyaya is a philosopher who has made hermeneutic claims about Charvaka philosophy, and, as such, his work can't be said to be dated. After this discussion on 9th July Sarah Welch stops her disruptive edits and the article is substantially improved with sourced content. She shows up again on 20th July and starts haranguing about Chattopadhyaya as an unreliable source in spite all our previous explanations. She indulges in disruptive edits and her edits are reverted by Soham when she has no consensus for her view on the talk page. She then continues her rant on Chattopadhyaya, which I ignore, but which Soham responds to by advising her to read WP:CIR. But Sarah Welch repeats her rant, calling Chattopadhyaya "controversial and fring-y", citing non-existent "abundant evidence and review summaries" on the talk page. When she repeats her "Chattopadhyaya is not a valid source" comment for the third time, Soham says this, "Your repeated tirades against Chattopadhyaya have exhausted my patience. Whenever you declare him to be a fringe source i reserve the right to point out lacking in competence to you."

Soham has contributed constructively to the article, his content is cited and includes direct quotes from sources -- and he has used sources other than Chattopadhyaya like Bhattacharya and M Hiriyanna -- to avoid disputes about POV, and his arguments for their inclusion have been erudite and sophisticated. Sarah Welch, as can be seen on the talk page, has distorted the sources and pushed a POV; she has also indulged in disruptive editing, canvassed against me when her edits have been challenged and her rationale refuted, and has generally adopted an inflammatory tone, denigrating certain sources for their viewpoint instead of discussing the content and sources objectively. Given all this, I think it is Sarah Welch who is to be blamed for edit-warring and being disrespectful to other editors rather than Soham who has contributed constructively to the article. He has been provoked to lose his cool, and he should not be punished for it. I sincerely hope that ArbCom takes an impartial view of the matter and does justice to Soham. -Mohanbhan (talk) 02:29, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

  • Salvio: I am not casting aspersions on anyone; everything I have written is supported by links to the Carvaka talk page. I have found Sarah Welch's actions disruptive, and not constructive, and I have stated that with evidence. I have always avoided making content disputes and disagreements personal, and I have avoided that even on this page. I have also chosen to ignore Ogress's personal and inflammatory remarks about me. -Mohanbhan (talk) 12:04, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
  • I concur with Twobells' statement that "2 or 3 ideologically like-minded editors have 'taken over' the articles and proceeded to go to any length to undo any independent editors attempt to introduce neutrality and balance to said articles." The same has happened with Carvaka article as can be seen by looking at the revert mentioned in the first line of my statement. There has been a systematic attempt by these editors at historical revisionism as is evident from this discussion on Template talk:Hindu philosophy. -Mohanbhan (talk) 15:02, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
  • I would like the arbitrators to please look at this discussion to see how some writers whose work is critical of Brahminical and far-right Hindutva ideology are being systematically excluded from wiki articles. Please notice how the other editor indulges in WP:TENDENTIOUS editing by repeating again and again that 1. the books of Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, S.N. Dasgupta and Scherbatsky are more than 100 years old 2. that Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya's book What is Living and What is Dead in Indian Philosophy is self-published and 3. that DC is not a reliable source -- all of which are false. People's Publishing House, a very prominent publishing house in the 1960s and 70s, has its website hosted on blogspot; this is being pointed out to claim that its books aren't "peer-reviewed", but Permanent Black, one of the most respected academic publishers in South Asia, is also hosted on blogspot. So spurious and silly reasons are being cited to keep out certain writers from wiki articles, and a far-right ideology is being forwarded through these articles. Soham is the victim of this cabal of ideologically motivated editors and their tendentious editing of articles related to Hinduism and Hindu philosophy. -Mohanbhan (talk) 17:08, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Statement by SpacemanSpiff

I did not want to post on here earlier, but as Floq brought up the length issue I'll slightly modify and transfer my post from the RfAr filing that preceded this to provide a summary and some general info.

Soham321 has been issued multiple warnings by multiple admins and other editors for various forms of disruptive behavior as well as on ARBIPA sanctions. He has had a topic ban in the past, yet the disruptive behavior has not stopped. The warnings and disruptive behavior have dated to at least as far back as mid to late 2013 by my checking. While demeaning other editors is part of the disruption, it is not the only one. There's a refusal to accept any form of feedback as well as misrepresenting opinions(including here where he says in the complaint above that I retracted something while I was just saving the ever so polite Mr Brown the necessity of replying.)

(Pinging Dennis Brown, The Blade of the Northern Lights, Abecedare, Kautilya3, Philg88, Shrikanthv as some of the warnings/notes have been from them in the diffs listed above.)

A little over two weeks back, I was ready to issue an AE block and six month topic ban, but switched to a warning instead, thinking that some of the input he has received will have some impact. Despite his response I expected that the warning will probably cause an impact. However, that has proved to be not the case. Today, I was ready to issue an ARBIPA one week block and a one year topic ban from India articles and was getting the explanation and diffs ready, but Bishonen beat me to it with a lighter sanction.

The issue here is Soham321's behavior, which has been disruptive over the course of two years. He has received blocks, topic bans, and numerous warnings. The question for this appeal is should other editors have to spend time and effort on this going forward as that is essentially what the ARBIPA sanctions are for. It's still a light sanction as Floq says, but that's what's on appeal, and I think ArbCom should decline that.—SpacemanSpiff 12:31, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Statement by agtx

Soham321 placed a message on my talk page asking for my commentary, presumably because of our brief interaction editing Sach Khand. I would say that if Soham is reaching out to me to show an example of collaborative editing on an India-related topic, then he needs to do some work on his collaborative editing skills. I tagged the page in question first because it was presenting Sikh views on religion as though they were true, and then because it was a close paraphrase of a book (something about which Soham had already been warned). I would characterize our interaction as following along the lines described in Bishonen's talk page post imposing sanctions. Four talk page posts and less than 36 hours into the discussion, Soham was accusing me of abandoning the discussion, and threatening to invoke dispute resolution. When I pointed out the copyright problem, Soham's response was to tell me to fix it myself instead of tagging it, even after I said that I didn't have access to the full source.

To Soham's credit, after the initial interaction, which I would characterize as relatively unpleasant, things got more productive. He did change the article so as to avoid the close paraphrasing, and he edited collaboratively after that. No further accusations followed, and while the article needs expanding, I think it's not an unreasonable stub at this point. Soham obviously is knowledgeable about the topic, and he was able to fix errors that I introduced in clean up (because my grasp of Sikhism is, to put it mildly, tenuous).

From my interactions, I think that Soham is capable of contributing productively here, and I think he has a desire to get things right. However, I also think that he gets angry (or what others perceive as angry), and makes changes and comments rashly. Further, I think that he has trouble understanding Misplaced Pages policies, like copyright and reliable sources, when they don't align with his views. I also understand that some of these edits are in a heated topic subject to discretionary sanctions. Between my personal experiences, Soham's previous topic ban, and Soham's participation in the discussion at Talk:Cārvāka, I think the sanctions imposed are warranted. I hope that Soham will take these six months to edit articles in other areas to which he has less emotional attachment, so he can understand the kinds of talk page discussions and consensus building that are productive here. agtx 22:26, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Ms Sarah Welch

Allow me to skip an analysis of the content @Soham321 has recently tried to delete, replace or add to various wiki articles from RS, NPOV and other wiki policy perspectives.

In this admin-issued-sanction arbitration matter, allow me to focus on: Are there facts to persuade that the admins of wikipedia in recent past have been reasonable? Is @Bishonen's latest sanction in this matter reasonable? My answer: "Yes, abundantly". Here is some of the recent evidence relating to @Soham321 sanction:

  1. Edit warring with @Joshua Jonathan, despite @JJ request to stop edit warring in early July here, here and here
  2. Edit warring with @Sarunfeldt in mid July here, here and here
  3. Edit warring warning by @Shrikanthv here
  4. Uncivil behavior and personal attack on a wiki article's talk page against @Joshua Jonathan here in Carvaka article, and more recently here in Two truths doctrine article; Quote of edit summary: "Joshua Jonathan's editing is making this article worse as i have explained in the talk page. The more he edits, the worse this article becomes in terms of clarity, accuracy, and cogency. - @Soham321"
  5. Uncivil behavior and personal attack against @Ogress here; Quote: "I will say though that my assessment of you is that you have very little to contribute to the encyclopedia in terms of knowledge at least on pages concerning Indian philosophy. You bring very little to the table. - @Soham321"
  6. Uncivil behavior and personal attack against me, see links here
  7. Request to be civil with other wikipedia editors by admin @Abecedare here
  8. Warning in June 2015 by admin @Dennis Brown here
  9. Warning in June 2015 by admin @The Blade of the Northern Lights here
  10. Warning in July 2015 by admin @SpacemanSpiff here

How has @Soham321 responded to recent comments and warnings? @Soham321 has been combative with admins as evidenced here, and to requests by @Sitush here. Quote: "Soham, I am trying and trying to show you how to write well and you simply keep fighting it at every opportunity. I'm not known for a saint-like patience and sooner or later I will snap unless you start to come to your senses. - @Sitush"

Summary: The veteran members of the Misplaced Pages community have been patient. Admin @Bishonen's sanction on @Soham321 was reasonable.

FWIW, when I began considering evidence for this statement, my intent was to request reduction of the 6 month sanction to a 3 month sanction on @Soham321. But, after looking at @Soham321's pattern of behavior with numerous wiki editors over the recent months, I now feel that @Bishonen has already been kind and generous. The evidence points to a stronger case of WP:NOTHERE than what I felt a while ago. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:36, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Twobells

  • Comment It is a real shame I have not had the time to develop my Rfc on the Indian articles, perhaps then Soham321's patience would not have been quite so tested. I have found he has demonstrated a clear and concise willingness to present a neutral, balanced edit doing so with good manners and a clear methodology, however, he is energetic, a state some might wish to use against him. In my experience he has the patience of a saint when dealing with Sitush and others who have shown themselves to be prejudicial, labelling other editors as incompetent if they do not agree with their dogmatic position and quick to suggest bad faith. I have found Soham to have been a victim of combativeness rather than as presented a perpetrator, particularly on Indian history articles. With that in mind, together with my experience collaborating with Soham who has been a study in Wiki best practice, I would recommend you approve his appeal. Twobells 18:36, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

edit. In response to Joshua Jonathan's comment The situation couldn't be further from factual truth, I sourced (please see my Caste System In India and British Raj diffs) numerous up to date citations on the latest works, however, these were based on empirical and priori evidence rather than ideology and for this they were removed along with their conclusions. Unfortunately, what has happened on the British Raj and Caste System in India articles is that 2 or 3 ideologically like-minded editors have 'taken over' the articles and proceeded to go to any length to undo any independent editors attempt to introduce neutrality and balance to said articles. Essentially, what we have now are two articles so biased that they fail to stand up to independent review and display what can only be termed as a dogmatic and misguided attempt at historical revisionism. In closing, as they stand I would call these articles Examples of Morton's Demon At Work, regards. Twobells 10:06, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

In response to Floq's Comments: Hello, pleased to meet you. With respect, are you aware of the issues pertaining to the articles concerned? Trust me, when I say an in-depth response such as Soham321's is required in order to give the neutral observer a proper background into what has been going on over there. A situation, which can only be described diplomatically as counter to best wiki practice, regards. Twobells 15:08, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Joshua Jonathan

After the reply by Soham321 to Ms Sarah Welch, I think it's time for me to respond too.

  • At the Carvaka talkpage, Ms Sarah Welch has explained her doubts about Chattopadhyaya as a source, and suggested that he should appended with more up-to-date sources, a proposal which has been endorsed by Abedecare. neither Soham321 not Mohanbhan has seriously responded to this proposal; instead, MSW has been accused of "incompetence." Given the quality of her edits, this is a gross misqualification.
  • Caste System in India: five editors agreed that the Caste System in India, as it exists today, was shaped by the British. This was based on reliable sources. And, as Sitush mentioned, also to our surprise. Yet, Soham321 and TwoBells kept insisting that this wa suntrue, and that we were biased. Despite repeated requests, they were unable to present reliable sources which gave a different opinion.
  • Adi Shankara: Soham321 introduced a section on "Allegations of plagiarism." A wildly anachronistic qualification. Abecedare and I immediately responded, see Talk:Adi Shankara#Shankara and Buddhism. We responded so soon, very short after each other, that I hadn't even noticed that Abecedare had already responded, and I opened a new thread. When I found out, I merged the sections, to the dismay of Soham321, who wrote he became confused. He reverted me twice at the talkpage, meanwhile removing my comments twice. Incredible. Anyway, it ended with Soham opening an ArbCom-case on "talkpage etiquette (yes, serious!).
  • At the Two Truths Doctrine article, Soham321 made a series of edits, based on one single source, in a writing-style which was difficult to follow. I smoothed his contributions; Soham321 reverted them en masse, with the statements he's already been given. At this point I'd already given up to discuss with him; it's impossible. Soham321 doesn't discuss, he makes statements, and seems to be incapable to understand what other editors are saying. And to say that I don't seem to understand the topic - well, had he taken the care to check my edit-history, he would have known that I'm one of the top-editors on Buddhism-related articles. Or just User:Joshua Jonathan/Sources.

All in all, I've seriously been wondering if Soham321 just doesn't understand at all how to work at Misplaced Pages (I put it friendly here), or that he is simply trolling. I'm still not sure that it is a lack of understanding.
I had refrained from responding here so far, since I've had my share from POV-pushers and the like. But now that he also mentions me, I felt I had to respond too. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:20, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Further response:

  • " i have already explained on the talk page of the article why Joshua was introducing inaccuracies into the article" - incorrect. The Madhyamaka theory was already described; you doubled it, which was unnecessary. When you pinged dozens of editors (including B9Hummingbird Hoovering, who's been indeffed years ago already, as I'd already told you), you forgot to explain what the "content dispute" is about;
  • "he did not understand the content in my opinion" - read WP:ICANTHEARYOU;
  • "The fact that Shrikanthv politely requested Joshua to abstain from editing this article on the talk page gives additional credence to my assessment: diff2" - Shrikantv wrote "not supporting anyone in particular", and further wrote "would suggest to abstaining from concretising philo/spiritual concepts but rather giving only an Idea or a possibility (giving the reader to decide or finding out on his own) would be a better way of going ahead ". To read this as "politely requested Joshua to abstain from editing this article" is a misinterpretation. Read WP:OWN;
  • Plagiarism: none of these authors uses the term "plagiarism." It is a wildly anachronistic term here. It's astonishing that you don't get that;
  • "Ms Sarah Welch did not want Chattopadhyaya to be used as a source at all" - that's not true; she proposed to supplement him with additional sources;
  • Talk Page Etiquette - I merged two sections, which was completely reasonable, as several admins have told Soham321. If you had simply said "Hey, please keep these two sections separate, it's confusing to me!" and simply reinserted the header, I'd said "Of course, fine." Instead, we ended the day at ArbCom...

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:35, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Response #3 - "ideologically like-minded editors" - usually I get the heat from Vedic POV-pushers; this time I'm apparently considered to be in the other camp, of those Vedic sympathisers. That's nice, for a change. And "the patience of a saint" - where? And no, I'm not going to mentor Soham321. I've wasted enough time on official mentoring. He's welcome, though, at my talkpage, if he needs any help. @Shrikanthv: thanks for your thrust, of course; hoghly appreciated. Best regards, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:15, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Comment by Floq

I saw yesterday that Soham321 had squeaked in just under the 1000 word limit. However, counting responses, he's now up to 4100 words. If "Decline - TL:DR" is a legit vote, that's what I would suggest. 6 pages (single spaced, 11 pt type), with no sign of stopping... if that's what people he's editing with have had to put up with, then getting off with just a topic ban is generous. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:56, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Comment by shrikanthv

I would suggest Soham321 would be better put under a mentorship with an admin or senior editor related to topics he is editing, I see that he edits with passion and sometimes(most of the time) steps on wrong foot ! with some exp he could be well off rather than banning him ! would suggest JJ as mentor for him Shrikanthv (talk) 16:54, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Comment by Abecedare

I see my name mentioned a few times, so here are my 2c, based on my interactions with and observations of Soham321 since July 2nd, when I first came across the editor.

Soham's article space edits have some problems (reliance on a single and often dated source; quote-farming; undue weight; (good faith) misinterpretation of sources etc), but these are routine issues that are typically handled easily through talk-page discussion. The main problem is that Soham doesn't react well to even the politest of feedback and responds by

All this makes collaborative editing with Soham321 virtually impossible, and I'm afraid the issue is unlikely to be confined to India-related pages covered by the current topic ban. Frankly Soham's statement above, by itself, provides ample examples of IDHT/TE/Battleground conduct that led to the topic ban, and the fact that the editor doesn't even realize this is not a promising sign. As I have recommended a couple of times earlier, and as Shrikanthv advises above, Soham should consider getting a mentor who they trust and can consult, because unless their conduct changes drastically, I see a perma-block or site-ban coming a few months down the line. Abecedare (talk) 20:24, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information.

Imposition of an Arbitration Enforced Sanction against me by Bishonen: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Imposition of an Arbitration Enforced Sanction against me by Bishonen: Arbitrator views and discussion

  • @Soham321: that's rather a large wall of text you've written there. Could you please trim it down to focus on the essentials, thanks. Thryduulf (talk) 22:25, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
  • For the benefit of those who may be unfamiliar with our procedures, I'll clarify that the standard of review employed by ArbCom when dealing with appeals against discretionary sanctions is "was the action we are reviewing reasonable?", rather than "would I, under the circumstances, have imposed the same restriction". In this case, Soham, examining your conduct, I do see a pugnacious approch to editing and disputes and some tendentiousness to top it off; for that, I find the sanction reasonable and vote to decline your appeal.

    Incidentally, Mohanbhan, please note that casting aspersions on other editors is disruptive and sanctionable. Salvio 10:56, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

  • Decline per Salvio - I also see a pugnacious approach as well as a failure to AGF which suggests that removing the sanction would not benefit the encyclopedia. Mohanbhan, you need to pay attention to what Salvio has said. Doug Weller (talk) 13:27, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Decline. Soham321, if your approach to editing bears any resemblance at all to your approach during this appeal, I would rethink it, quite quickly. Pugnacious is if anything an understatement. I would also strongly echo Salvio's point regarding casting unsupported aspersions, and all who have raised that you need to make your point reasonably concisely. Seraphimblade 00:03, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Decline Soham321's response to the topic ban (to fight it tooth and nail in any available venue, and to argue from the outset that the problem lies with other editors) is for me ample indication that this was a sensible call by Bishonen. Yunshui 水 11:37, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Decline -- Euryalus (talk) 11:57, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Decline , per Yunshi and Seraphimblade DGG ( talk ) 14:21, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Decline LFaraone 20:16, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.