Today Youreallycan (talk · contribs) was accused of outing another editor, and repeatedly revert warring with other editors to reinsert this information. The outing diffs were oversighted by Alison (talk · contribs). A discussion has been started at ANI, but there is no clear consensus, and revert warring over closing part of it has begun.

The fundamental ~~questions~~ issues here that determine the appropriate response are:

Was this outing? I don't see this as something the community can resolve, because the community cannot review oversighted diffs.
Was this outing if the "outed" information was already public, as is alleged at the ANI?
Has Youreallycan broken his 1RR agreement that came out of his RFC in terms of revert warring? This is a contentious issue that is highly divisive in the community, and a RFC has already been filed. An interaction ban has already been proposed and has consensus so far, but the site ban is divisive. --Rs chen 7754 03:53, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Noting that Ironholds blocked Youreallycan indefinitely. --Rs chen 7754 23:06, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Jclemens: A completed ANI discussion was what I was hoping for, but it's spiraled out of control with revert warring over hatting, an interaction ban being proposed, another interaction ban being proposed, and the discussion continues drawing more heat to the issue of Prioryman's outing, and outing isn't exactly something we want to draw public attention to on ANI. --Rs chen 7754 04:15, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Further comment: we have a {{checkuserblock}}; why not have a {{oversightblock}}? --Rs chen 7754 07:52, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ArbCom: Any voluntary interaction ban needs to be made official, in my opinion, or we'll be back here in a few months. --Rs chen 7754 07:59, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Dominus Vobisdu

User has been blocked NINETEEN times before (under this and his previous account), and very narrowly escaped a community ban by making abundant promises never, ever to slip up again in the slightest, or he would be community banned per his own proposal. He violated three of the conditions of his settlement.

1) He outed another user. Not once, but four more times after being reverted and warned not to.

2) He was expremely uncivil in doing so, blatantly taunting the target of the outing.

3) He reverted four times after being warned not to, in spite of the fact that he was under a 1rr resriction, proposed by himself as part of the settlement.

This user has amply demonstrated, time and time again, that, regardless of any promises he might make, he is completely unable to control his behavior, which is highly combative and incivil, even stooping to anti-semitic and homophobic comments and attacks on other editors.

That makes TWENTY blocks now, and literally HUNDREDS of hours of editor and administrator time wasted on ANIs, RfCUs, appeals, etc. etc. etc. and now arbcom.

This user is a net loss to the project, and that will never, ever change. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 04:14, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ironholds

In my (admittedly, not-worth-much) opinion, if this is a case solely to consider the questions Rschen has brought up...it's sort of a waste. Iff arbcom want to discuss the wider issue of outing, what it is, what it isn't, and what to do with people who engage in it (in good faith or bad faith), that's certainly a case matter. But if arbcom doesn't want to look at the wider picture and instead plans on answering these specific questions (which is not, imo, a bad or good thing in and of itself) then a motion would be more appropriate - particularly since some of the questions relate to an ongoing community discussion and the ability of the community to hold it, and are thus time-sensitive.

I'll have more to say about how everything went down and what my perspective is after the dust settles around the community ban discussion and ArbCom makes clear how they plan on hearing this, if at all. I would note that on the question of whether the now-OSd diffs constitute outing, we've had two arbitrators chip in and say "they were outing", and the mere fact that they were oversighted should be a hint. Ironholds (talk) 04:03, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Snowolf

For transparency purposes, as I have not intervened in the ANI thread or anywhere on-wiki, I think it's appropriate to disclose that I performed (indipendently) part of the suppression of the edits in question. As for the case at hand, I believe the matter is being discussed effectively on WP:ANI and the nature (not content, nature) of the suppressed edits has already been disclosed by the affected party (Prioryman) there, and as such there seem to no need for an Arbitration case to discuss the private aspects. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 10:10, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jayen466

Could I request that the committee confirm one simple thing: that the mere mention of User:ChrisO's (and thus Prioryman's, as ChrisO redirects to Prioryman) surname on Wikipedia does not constitute outing? There are some of you who were active in ARBSCI, and who probably have a fairly good memory of that case. For those of you that weren't:

The surname is perfectly apparent from an arbitration finding of fact noting that ChrisO linked to self-published material.
It is even more apparent from a previous draft of that finding of fact.
It is apparent from statements ChrisO and others made in the course of the arbitration that he was the author of those works; see e.g. Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Proposed_decision#ChrisO_findings_of_fact, diff link 67, and the attendant statement by ChrisO himself.

So there are disclosures by the 2009 arbitration committee, and a voluntary disclosure by ChrisO himself on a very high-profile community page. YRC was well aware of this history.

In addition, people like Tony Sidaway and Terryeo have used ChrisO's full name to his face, with him and others acknowledging it, on multiple occasions in Wikipedia, and it remains present on multiple pages of Wikipedia to this day. I fail to see how referring to his previously disclosed name can possibly be outing. But the good folks at ANI seem to have real trouble with that.

Our community processes around this sort of thing are extremely erratic, and regularly gamed. Prioryman recently used Volunteer Marek's real-life name, was indefinitely blocked for outing, and got unblocked by claiming in his unblock request that he did not know that Marek objected to the use of his name on Wikipedia.

Unlike Prioryman, however, Marek had redacted a previous reference he had made to his own name here, had asked Prioryman to stop using that name, and Prioryman had promised to comply with that request. This was only a few months ago. [1][2] And the administrator who unblocked Prioryman is well aware of that.

Diffs do not lie. Prioryman either has a significant memory problem, or a significant honesty problem. From where I'm standing, Prioryman got away with an actual outing, by the letter of WP:OUTING, and succeeded in having a wiki-enemy blocked indefinitely for something that wasn't an outing. And the community is in the process of compounding the error. If giving away ChrisO's surname is outing, would you not have to block all the editors who were arbitrators in 2009, including some members of the present committee?

I am asking this question because Youreallycan is an online friend. I am not saying he is blameless, but I would not like to see him leave Wikipedia like this, on trumped-up charges. AndreasKolbe JN466 16:52, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tijfo098

I think that if the latest ANI thread fails to adopt any community measures, then ArbCom should accept the case or at least rule by motion. This is a long-term drama/feud between two editors, Prioryman & Youreallycan, sucking a vast amount of community time and being very polarizing. The community is in fact so polarized that some voters even reject the solution of an interaction ban between the two because they think that one party should be site-banned. Tijfo098 (talk) 19:18, 27 October 2012 (UTC) (Amusingly, both Prioryman & Youreallycan now support an interaction ban, but somehow the ANI crowd opposes it. Tijfo098 (talk) 22:53, 27 October 2012 (UTC))[reply]

I see that Ironholds blocked YRC indefinitely [3] while leaving a message at ANI. I don't know if in the "no consensus" back and forth this is a long-term solution. Any admin could unblock YRC, as it often happens with controversial editors. Tijfo098 (talk) 19:24, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Wnt: Off-topic here, but so was your post. Dan Murphy disagrees with you that the article is any good even now, after Prioryman's work on it. See Talk:Ya`fūr. Tijfo098 (talk) 22:24, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Prioryman

The facts of this incident are simple enough. YRC is on a community-imposed restriction that prohibits BLP editing, incivility and edit-warring, among other things. The penalty for breaching the restriction is a site ban. This restriction was proposed in an RfC that I started, was overwhelmingly supported by a large number of editors and was agreed to by YRC.

My present choice of username makes no link with my RL identity. If Collect says that in a single edit "some years ago" (how many? 4? 5? more?) I might have made a linkage, I'm not going to argue - he may well be right (it's hard to tell without seeing the edit). So was what YRC did outing? I considered it to be, because of the context. I had had no contact with him since August. He had had no previous involvement in the discussion that was taking place on Jimbo's user talk page. His very first post to that discussion - not even in response to me - was to name me on a page with over 2700 watchers. He also falsely claimed that I had edited under that name. My RL identity was not under discussion and wasn't even relevant to the discussion or to any point he was making. It was completely gratuitous and plainly intended to be antagonistic. I told him to stop posting it and did what WP:OUTING says ("Any edit that "outs" someone must be reverted promptly, followed by a request for Oversight to delete that edit from Wikipedia permanently"), citing WP:OUTING in my edit summary. While I was talking with an oversighter YRC began edit-warring with five different editors to restore it to Jimbo's talk page and to his own, with edit summaries along the lines of "Prioryman, you are [NAME_REDACTED]. You should look in the mirror=LOL". I consider his conduct a gratuitous personal attack and overt harassment. There was no prior "baiting" because I'd not even interacted with him since the RfC back in August.

This incident is very similar to the one that precipitated the RfC. It simply isn't true that I had some kind of feud with YRC. I had previously defended him against bids to ban him and had sought to help him with constructive criticism and assistance to Dennis Brown in mentoring him (see [4]). Back in August, he made what I considered to be an unprovoked personal attack on Jimbo's user talk page. I contacted Dennis Brown, only to be told that YRC had "fired" Dennis, and I found that he had racked up yet more blocks. That's why I started the RfC, and at no point did I propose to ban him or even wish to do so (see the desired outcome [5]). The purpose of the RfC was to create a framework for him to become a more collegiate editor. He agreed to the outcome, but he hasn't complied with it.

A very final important point is that I did not ask for YRC to be blocked for outing. A thread which accused him of outing was started by Nomoskedasticity. I later retitled it to clarify that the issue was his violation of his RfC conditions.[6] I proposed a site ban on the grounds of violating two of those conditions through incivility and edit-warring (he is on a 1RR).[7] Ironholds blocked him on a different basis, that of outing, which I had not asked for. But this dispute is ultimately about labels. Was YRC repeatedly incivil? Yes, clearly. Did he edit-war? Obviously. Did this breach the RfC conditions? Categorically so. Was a site ban justified? Since that was the remedy that he agreed to, it's hard to see how it couldn't have been. If Ironholds had chosen to block on the grounds of a breach of the RfC conditions, I don't think we'd be having this discussion, since the violations are plain to see. An indefinite block was the right thing to do, as that was the agreed-upon remedy for a violation of the RfC restrictions, but it's arguable that Ironholds may have chosen the wrong reason to do so. If so, then perhaps a solution to this problem would be to unblock him for the outing violations and reblock him for the restrictions violations - though that seems a bit of a token effort. The bottom line is that he repeatedly and intentionally disclosed my personal information, against my explicit wishes, using taunting language in a deliberate bid to cause confrontation and distress. That's not just incivility, that's textbook harassment. It was completely unnecessary and gratuitous. Prioryman (talk) 08:21, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Collect: It is absolutely, unequivocally false to claim that I outed myself to the Village Voice. I didn't even find out that they'd mentioned me until months afterwards. They certainly didn't contact me, and nobody mentioned it to me at the time; I have no idea why they made that mention (I guess someone else, I have no idea who, suggested it). Their piece makes no connection with my Wikipedia username. Ironically it was YRC who brought it to my attention. And why are you describing L. Ron Hubbard as a BLP when the man has been dead for 26 years? Prioryman (talk) 14:37, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@AndyTheGrump: Bare-Faced Messiah is not my own work. It's a book by Russell Miller, published in 1987. I had absolutely no involvement in writing, researching or publishing it. My sole involvement was putting it on the web with the author's permission. That's no different in kind to uploading something to Wikisource or Project Gutenberg - there's no COI involved. Nor did I add the link you mentioned. It was added in the very first edit to the article back on 15 July 2005‎. When I rewrote the article earlier this year I simply moved the link up in the text. I might add that before this May I had never touched the article. Prioryman (talk) 18:28, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Update: I think this is moving towards a solution. YRC has now been unblocked and has agreed not to repeat his original actions. An interaction ban has been proposed on AN/I and has widespread support, and both YRC and I have agreed to it. I have offered to withdraw my request for a site ban in order to ensure that the matter can be resolved amicably without wasting any more of each other's, or the community's time. If he is agreeable then all that remains is for the IBAN to be formally put into effect. I have asked Dennis Brown (YRC's former mentor) to make it official. Prioryman (talk) 07:49, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Peter cohen

I think Arbcom needs to take this case as Prioryman's behaviour needs scrutinising in as much detail as YRC's. As Courcelles says below, the community has not been told clearly exactly would happened. If all that was given was what the "O" stands for, then this is public information already stored on Wikipedia. Prioryman has given that impression in his reply to my first comment in the ANI thread. He has then gone and redacted the name from just one of the pages on which it appears (a 2006 archive) and incidently redacted the evidence that he was being dishonest back in 2006[8]. Given that he outed Marek recently it makes his behaviour seem hypocritical and displays the same tendency to selectively interpret the rules that was visible in the Fae case. Given the whole business of how the banned ChrisO reincarnated as Prioryman whilst apparently banned by Arbcom, this is another matter that really lies in Arbcom's territory without our having to first go around the houses with an RFC/U. Prioryman has also been quite inflamatory around the Gibratarpedia business.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:34, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Wikiwind

I think that you should accept this case if the AN/I discussion is closed as no consensus or something among those lines, because that means that community is unable to resolve this dispute.--В и к и T 20:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Youreallycan

I think as the whole discussion was removed from view its unfair that people have to support a ban when they can not see the diffs - I did not WP:OUT anyone - As I have protected many living people from attack I have a lot of opponents in my almost 100 thousand edits to this project I don't support the ANI hanging party and as there are issues also regarding Prioryman's hounding of me. I request a Arbitration case to resolve this - I would appreciate an interaction ban from him. ChrisO/Prioryman has been identified and the user himself has pointed to his real name on-wiki, he's been addressed by his real name on multiple occasions, claims and a block for outing is simply false. Also is false is that I have violated my conditions - I am allowed to edit the BLPNoticeboard, allowed to discuss edits to BLP articles, and allowed to remove clear BLP violations/vandalism and I am on a one revert condition - consider my own talkpage exempt from this - Youreallycan 19:35, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

At Brad - New york - I sent brad a email - entitled - nonsense - in response to his comment in this diff - this diff - Youreallycan 22:08, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Dennis Brown

I had to oppose at ANI, and expect everyone should since even admin can't see the diffs. That alone is enough reason to accept. Essentially, everyone who is supporting the ban is having to based on zero information except one opinion. It doesn't matter if the community was unanimous here, as anyone without oversight access simply can not review the very material necessary to make a fair and equitable decision. There simply is no way WP:AN/WP:ANI can be fair without all the info. It is literally impossible. I would expect the same opportunity for any member of the community, no matter how popular or unpopular, as every editor facing a ban deserves that the evidence against him be accessible by those deciding his fate. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 01:06, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ Newyorkbrad I wrote an essay on that, Don't bludgeon the process, 4 years ago. But it is just an essay, as YRC himself has recently noted. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 01:33, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

My involvement in this matter has mostly been limited to comments as well as providing evidence and analysis regarding the case. I believe that, whatever the ANI decision, it would be a good idea to accept this case to examine some of the underlying issues and this could be considered a de-facto appeal should there be deemed to be a consensus for a site-ban for YRC. Dennis gives a good reason for why the claim about outing should be brought before ArbCom, but there is another aspect to it as Prioryman's last name seems to be the only thing being noted as outing and if so this allegation is based on an overly rigid, and apparently selective, adherence to the letter of the policy in defiance of common sense. Under the circumstances, when such a claim is disputed it would be reasonable to expect ArbCom to make a finding. Another point to consider is whether this would have to be accepted as a case about Youreallycan or about the Prioryman-Youreallycan dispute as the latter more appropriately touches on the nexus of the problem, in my opinion. There should also be an evaluation regarding the integrity of the RfC/U and "self-imposed" restrictions as Prioryman's manipulation of the evidence and misuse of the process, both things I would be more than willing to elaborate on during a full case, put a giant cloud over the whole matter.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 03:29, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here are some cases that can give some background as to the dispute between Youreallycan/Off2riorob and Prioryman/ChrisO: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Cirt and Jayen466/Evidence, Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Cirt, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manipulation of BLPs/Workshop. Notably they all relate to their differing attitudes on BLP editing. I also think if this were accepted as a case Jayen would have to be named as a part given his prominent connection with this dispute.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:53, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jehochman

The ANI discussion is a mess. This case needs arbitration. The involvement of oversight is another confounding factor. The "don't block him" faction are citing "we can't review the evidence, so there's no proof of outing" as an argument. Please accept this case before anybody else does anything silly. Swift acceptance will help avoid collateral damage. Youreallycan would presumably be unblocked to participate. That way he can state his case and get a final resolution. It also may be necessary to look at the other party to see if there has been needling. Jehochman ^Talk 03:40, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't matter if an editor once used their real name on Wikipedia. Each of us is free to reconsider. After an editor says, "please don't use my real name", somebody who reposts it again, and again, and again is engaging in harassment, and needs to be blocked. Jehochman ^Talk 13:10, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by very marginally involved Beeblebrox

I was the closing admin at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Youreallycan, and it was clear to me then that we have here two users who very much despise each other.

I think a thorough examination of this antagonistic relationship is needed, and that ANI is not going to give us that. We need you guys to do it, more so since a suppression action is at the center of it. Regardless of whether or not YRC is banned the situation should be thoroughly examined. The two of them seem to me to share a trait of digging in to entrenched positions, with YRC blaming his "haters" for his own poor decisions and Prioryman engaging in endless wikilawyering. I don't think the community is going to do a good job of handling this or they would have done so by now. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:16, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Collect

Beeblebrox is absolutely correct. There are now monthly proposals to ban YRC, all involving the same cast. This is not a productive situation, and what is needed is for ArbCom to make a single bold motion:

Prioryman and YRC are mutually banned from mentioning each other directly or indirectly on any pages other than those under the 'direct aegis' of ArbCom proper.

This motion would have prevented many hundreds of hours of discussions in just the past few months. And end the use of noticeboards to make repeated demands based on complaints from the same people over and over. Cheers. Collect (talk) 06:05, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@NYB see WP:Collect's Law. Collect (talk) 06:06, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@JClemens: IIRC, the editor in question removed material some years ago, which had been written by him as the source for claims in the article, and so noted the fact that the material had been written by him. The cite for the source noted the author's name - which suggests that the editor was making a direct connection between himself and that name. This would make the connection between the editor and the name overt and done by that editor. Wikipedia is not skilled at putting genies back into bottles. Collect (talk) 22:55, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@JClemens et al: Prioryman above has dropped the "outing claim" and now asserts that Nomo was the one who made the charge (though I suspect Prioryman's comments at AN/I were strongly asserting "outing" as a rationale for a ban). Now he sticks to "RFC violation" i.e. that a person under 1RR can not be allowed to add or remove material from his own user talk page. This is quite plainly a silly interpretation -- we allow people, for example, to remove "warnings" etc. without any penalty therefor, and to remove posts ad libitum from their user talk pages, and we do not assert "edit war" fr people who edit their own user talk pages. At this point, with the absolute withdrawal of "outing" as a charge, the committee should pretty well assert that the "ban" is improper, and that it should adopt the resolution I propose above. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:05, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Noting [9] where ChrisO removes a reference as "non-RS source". [10] shows ChrisO's concerns. [11] pretty much completely demolishes "outing" concerns as he someone appears to have given the information to the Village Voice. He was "outed" on Wikipedia by Terreo at [12]. [13] shows ChrisO making comments about his research and his FOIA request ... and outing by CSI LA, Justanother, Antaeis Feldspar, and others back in 2007. What I find troubling is that ChrisO was acting as major talk page participant, editor and as admin at the time - which would be cause for immediate desysoping if done today. With his own website as one of the reliable sources for the ~~BLP~~ biography. And Prioryman still edits the same article as recently as 29 Aug 2012. So much foir any claim of "outing" whatsoever at this point - and long past time now for the "outing" block to be excised. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:10, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also noting Bare-faced Messiah with a foreword by "Chris Owen" (and which is on Owen's website [14]. [15], [16] ) - and which article has been extensively edited by Prioryman. Quelle surprise! So much for keeping away from any COI, I suppose? Collect (talk) 14:03, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I emended the above in response to Prioryman's concerns, though whether a subject of a biography is alive or dead would seem, to me, to have zero connection to a COI problem for an editor. Clearly he feels that COI does not count on BDPs? And I note he makes no apologies for heavily editing an article on a book for which he, himself, wrote the foreword. Collect (talk) 14:48, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Anthonyhcole

@Jclemens, Prioryman pointed out his RL name on-wiki at 11:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC): "My first edit to it was in September 2006, specifically to remove my own work as a non-reliable source.[68]." (68 links to his real name.)

His real name has since been used on-wiki with no challenges or drama from him, by Tony Sidaway here and here. There may be others, I haven't looked. These were pointed out in the current ANI discussion by Andreas Kolbe (Jayen466) here and here, and in his statement above. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 07:53, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

YRC has abided by his BLP editing restriction, Prioryman now concedes that on ANI. He did edit war to protect his user talk content though. The 1RR provision was in place to control a behaviour problem in article space – not user space, where there was no edit-warring problem. Edit-warring to preserve your user:talk comment is something most of us would do. Prioryman did it a week earlier under eerily-similar circumstances – somebody redacted his comment that was believed to be outing, and Prioryman reverted. And it wasn't even his talk page. It, too, wasn't actually outing, it was just Prioryman being disrespectful to Volunteer Marek. (He had been asked not to link VM with VM's previous account name because that was associated with VM's real name. He agreed. Then did it again a week ago and edit-warred to keep it on the project.)

Though editors are often addressed here by their real life names, it may have been inappropriate for YRC to address Prioryman thus because he seems to want to keep his real name off-wiki now. If it was inappropriate, was it inappropriate enough to warrant permanently banning YRC, considering that level of offensiveness is never sanctioned here usually? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 14:43, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

YRC has said he will never use Prioryman's real surname on-wiki again, and has asked for an interaction ban between them, and between himself and Nomoskedasitcity (the editor who opened the thread at ANI that caused all this, and who has been gunning for YRC for years). Prioryman is agreeable, ~~we're waiting to hear from Nomo~~. Nomo has rejected the proposed mutual interaction ban. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 06:40, 30 October 2012 (UTC) Added 10:13, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

YRC's behaviour has been minutely scrutinised and he has come out of it intact. I did an edit-by-edit analysis of what he's done on BLPN since returning from his break, and it has been in perfect accordance with his topic ban. He tidied pages, argued on many policy grounds (but not BLP), and reverted unambiguous vandalism; all of which is exactly the kind of behaviour prescribed by his RfC undertaking. His "edit-warring" was shown to be the kind of thing most of us would have done under the circumstances. His "insult" was found to be exactly the same insult that Prioryman had visited upon Volunteer Marek a week before. In short, YRC has come out of this well. Prioryman's behaviour has not been subjected to the same degree of focussed, formal attention. At ANI, the boomerang discussion is unresolved. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 08:39, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Alanscottwalker

I have voted for the ban in the AN/I (but am otherwise uninvolved). The user is under community restrictions (1RR, Civility Parole, BLP issues) subject to a ban remedy. In the view of many, he has violated his restrictions. That issue could be decided here by motion. (See also, WP:USERBIO; WP:UP#POLEMIC (bullet point 2); WP:NPA and WP:Civility). The attempt above to "relitigate" the adoption of the community restrictions should be rejected. (I did not participate in the RfC that resulted in the restrictions but there is lots of evidence there for them, and that was the community resolution to that matter -- it would be very damaging to the community to now have a collateral attack on the RfC outcome.)

The "break the back" issue, which would appear to surround much of this, is battleground/importing of grievances/politics issues related to the governance of an outside group, WMUK (See eg.,this discussion). That should all stop, as those grudges have nothing to do with editing EN:Wikipedia, and all editors on this project are enjoined from pursuing those outside grudges on Project, or involving other editors in them, here. Discussion here is focused on edits and policy, not these off-wiki political disputes. For that, though, you would need a case, perhaps expand the parties, and consider recusals. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:02, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Mark Arsten

As with Alanscottwalker above, other than having supported YRC's banning at ANI I'm uninvolved. Last I checked, it looked like the ban discussion on ANI was heading for no consensus, so I urge Arbcom to take this. The community has tried to resolve this situation through an RFC/U and possibly dozens of noticeboard reports ... and has failed. We need Arbcom to solve this. Mark Arsten (talk) 13:40, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hell in a Bucket

I personally see gaming the rules of wiki by Prioryman. This is WP:COATRACK claim, it covers a nominal breakage of policy and used as a beard to meet a end, the end in this case a banning of a user they have a disagreement. I'd also like to say that yet again we have hasty Admin like Jehochman and making overt threats to other admins considering a unblock before a consensus is made. Based on experiences with him on other arb cases I really think he is unsuitable for the bit cause a big part of what he's done here and in the past is act like a child with a can of gas fanning the flames for his own entertainment but unltimately making the situations far worse.

Background by Wnt

A month ago, during the riots over Innocence of Muslims, I started an article Ya'fur to explain where the story about the donkey first originated. This wasn't my field and I simply scraped together such sources as I could find to get things going, but I was able at least to verify that it was a real story, but one seen as a fable, and put up a DYK. So it sat for a month unnoticed, until some people on Wikipediocracy put up a thread mocking it. Then all of a sudden it was raining nasty arguments at Template:Did you know nominations/Ya`fur. This was on October 24, two days before Youreallycan's redacted comments. But among the nasty comments there was one exception - Prioryman, though he disagreed with me about covering the partisan opinion sites on the Web, managed to add a whole lot of stuff about the story itself, tracking it back to at least the 12th century, perhaps much further, and really made a respectable looking article about it. I'm not sure if that's the reason why he was graced with top billing on their Wikipedia Governance forum after that (they have a lot of different axes to grind). What's pretty clear is that the gloomy, argumentative attitude that ensues from canvassing on their forum continues to rain down here now, as now this page is being linked from there. Wnt (talk) 20:06, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@AndyTheGrump - I had not known, but if your assertion is true, then Prioryman is one of the great heroes of the Internet, and we should be honored to be in his presence. The very notion that he could be singled out for special penalties for a good edit, a very basic edit that stands in the article to this day, solely because you think you have an ID card for him - that is why Wikipedia editors must remain scrupulously anonymous, even when it means forsaking access to resources such as free Highbeam memberships or involvement in Wikimedia chapters or meetings. We must always keep our commitment to the project as a distant second to avoiding bullying by groups hostile to Wikipedia's mission. ArbCom, by failing to acknowledge policy against "opposition research" in the Fae case and sticking to a tautological standard that only editors who can avoid any possible detective work to their identity are entitled to remain anonymous, has given this type of attack the green light across the board. Wnt (talk) 17:34, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by usual suspect Nobody Ent

Also commenting "early" due to Hurricane Sandy.

I'll be brief -- look at the sequence. Before retraction of the edits Prioryman posts a notice on a page with lots of watchers (141 the day of the incident) that seems more concerned about sanctions than the fact that YRC used a name that appears to be pretty much an open "secret." Nobody Ent 02:35, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Nomoskedasticity

Far too much attention has been focused on whether it "was outing" or "wasn't outing", as if there were an "ontological truth" of some sort here. For those who knew the RL identity, it looks like it wasn't outing -- but a great many editors did not know it. The effect of YRC's action, then, was outing -- and that effect could have been large, if not for the oversighting. It is also clear that this was YRC's intent. Seen that way, it was a hostile -- and thus deeply uncivil -- act, particularly when it was repeated 4 or 5 times after Prioryman first removed it. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 09:20, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by AndyTheGrump

I'll not comment on the merits of any action against Youreallycan. However, if Collect is correct in asserting that Prioryman is the author of the introduction to the online editions of Bare-faced Messiah, it would seem on the face of it that this edit [17], where Prioryman provides a link to the book is in violation of WP:COI, and more specifically of the Scientology arbitration case guidelines. Can I ask that Prioryman's apparent undisclosed promotion of his own work be investigated further? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:04, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Stephan Schulz

@Andy: I fail to see any problem with WP:COI and WP:ARBSCI. Bare-faced Messiah is a generally well-regarded biography, originally published by Penguin (under an imprint) and the Sunday Times. It is a reliable and useful source. The half-page foreword to the internet edition is very much irrelevant. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:41, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Dayewalker

Please take this case. You have a user who seems to thrive on conflict who's been blocked twenty different times yet the community can't decide to cut loose, simply because the other side of the argument may or may not be manipulating names, things, events, Wikipedia articles, COI links, current events, and entire timelines of parallel universes. YRC's situation seems pretty easy to discern, Prioryman's is stunningly complex, and ANI isn't deep enough decide one without the other. ANI has become the quagmire it always becomes, and there's enough attention there to indicate a major problem with this situation, and enough confusion to assure everyone that nothing will happen. Please make a decision. Dayewalker (talk) 03:55, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Deryck

This case request reveals a deeper problem which I've urged ArbCom to consider for a while. The current boundaries of "outing" are unclear: distinctions need to be made between the outing of information that have not previously been made public, and outing of information which are public on the internet (or even on past revisions of Wikipedia pages which haven't been deleted).

It is a basic principle in journalism and copyright that one cannot "unpublish" things that have been made public. It is extremely hypocritical that we regularly deny public figures' requests to delete Wikipedia articles about them, yet go heavy-handed on Wikipedians who post information about one another that were (often intentionally) made public in the past.

Of course, at a simple level, YRC's repeated attempt to re-insert personal information, after being told to stop, obviously constitutes harassment. However, at a deeper level, we clearly have double standards about what constitutes "outing" on Wikipedia, and I would urge ArbCom to take this case to clarify the boundaries. Der yck C. 10:07, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Heads up from Salvio giuliano

I have just closed the remaining ANI discussion and enacted an interaction ban between Prioryman and Youreallycan. $Salvio$ ^{Let's talk about it!} 18:05, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/7/2/2)

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)

Isn't this just a wee bit premature, since the ANI discussion is still open? Jclemens (talk) 04:06, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- @YRC, I'd like to see diffs of Prioryman, under any incarnation, announcing his RL name on-wiki. If you have such evidence, please email it to Arbcom. Jclemens (talk) 03:05, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- @Prioryman, whether you've ever used your real name on-wiki is a key element of the accusation of outing "... unless that person voluntarily had posted his or her own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia." being the operative clause. Hence, I'm asking a very pointed question of YRC, yet not giving him any excuse to repeat any allegedly inappropriate posting of such information. Jclemens (talk) 05:00, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- @Anthonyhcole, (and anyone else who has relevant information) that statement does not qualify, in that it is simply one username removing a link to a similarly named author. In neither the edit nor its summary does the user explicitly self-identify with the author. Whether or not Prioryman's RL name is reasonably easy to discern from his pattern of editing isn't as important as whether he himself ever explicitly made that linkage. Also, in the future, would everyone please direct such correspondence to the committee via email? I recognize that nothing posted in this response is suppressed, but I would still prefer to avoid the discussion of real names on-Wiki in an OUTING-relevant case. Even though I do not support retrospective suppression of previously freely disclosed information, there's also no need to add to it. Jclemens (talk) 19:36, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- @Collect, Ah, I see now. Yes, the combination of edits does seem to establish the user's self-disclosure. Prioryman, any comment on that? Jclemens (talk) 01:13, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - Decline per the community-forged remedy. This can be closed by a clerk at any time, as acceptance, even under the revised rules, is now mathematically impossible. Jclemens (talk) 02:58, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Why is this here? The edits in question have been suppressed, YRC has been blocked, and a ban discussion is ongoing at ANI. If there are concerns that the suppressions were made inappropriately, those concerns should be sent to the Audit Subcommittee (although it's probably worth noting that the request for suppression was discussed on the oversight mailing list prior to any action being taken). As for the rest, those are community restrictions which the community is discussing how to enforce or if they should be at all. I see no reason for the Committee to intervene in any of this, certainly not with discussion ongoing. Unless it can be demonstrated that the community is unable to answer those three questions, and the matter hasn't been rendered moot by the continued presence of YRC's block, I'm voting to decline this. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 04:18, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Somewhat inclined to accept this as falling on the ArbCom docket, though not necessarily as a case. The issue that would make us look at this is purely that the case stands or falls on oversighted information. ANI is competent for a lot of things, but asking people to express opinions on a ban that is based largely on edits they cannot see is tricky. No matter which way the ANI goes, this Committee will almost surely see this issue again, either after the ANI thread ends and someone comes back here, or as an appeal to BASC if ANI does ban, or just leaves Ironholds' block as-is. But for now, I sort of think wait-and-see what comes out of ANI is best. Courcelles 05:15, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Conditional Accept. This is unusual, but, I'm in the sights of Sandy, and may not have power from tonight for a few days. So, if the ANI goes to the no consensus it looks like it is doing, I'm willing to accept this as a case. So, provisional accept fearing a week without power. If by some miracle I have power for the early part of next week, I'll revisit. Courcelles 20:27, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Recuse due to interactions with both parties. SirFozzie (talk) 07:39, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
decline as in the process of being resolved by the community. Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:37, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hold pending the ongoing ANI discussion, but I expect that the discussion will be inconclusive, in which case we may need to get involved, whether via a case or via a motion. Two random thoughts in the meantime:
- I dislike the term "outing" as used in the Wikipedia context, for a number of reasons, and I know I'm not the only one. Unfortunately, in six years of trying, I haven't been able to coin a better name for it. In decisions, I've resorted to something like "revealing the identity of contributors who have chosen to edit anonymously," which is in using eleven words for one is Bradspeak at its worst. Can someone come up with a better term?
- The ANI discussion has been marred by some of the poor practices that afflict many such discussions. New rule, effective immediately: No individual user, whether involved or uninvolved in the dispute, may post to the same ANI thread more than 85 times. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - Decline as otherwise resolved. As several people have observed, it's not quite clear why two editors who don't want to interact with each other need a formal community sanction in order to resolve not to interact with each other ... but if it works, fine. I will add that while Youreallycan narrowly escaped a community ban (or a case before this Committee that could have resulted in a ban), his conduct toward Prioryman was gratuitous and objectionable and should never be repeated, vis-a-vis him or any other user. I will also add that Prioryman should do his best to steer well clear, not only of Youreallycan, but also of a handful of others with whom he has been in conflict. I hope not to see any aspect of this entire debacle come before us again. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:30, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - I've received Youreallycan's e-mail have replied to it. I don't think it will be helpful to him to post on-wiki again regarding this soon-to-be-closed request. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:30, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Recuse. AGK [•] 17:05, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hold, per NYB. If the ANI discussion does peter out, I would prefer to start a full case, looking at the behaviour of all the usual suspects who seem to be connected to this kerfuffle. Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:49, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Decline Let's try the community remedy first Bold text
Decline - I gather that Youreallycan and Prioryman have agreed a voluntary mutual interaction ban. In this context, I think we should allow some time to see if this arrangement is sufficient to solve the problem. PhilKnight (talk) 12:55, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Decline per Phil. Parties working things out voluntarily is always an option that should be given time to see if it's effective. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 13:39, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is very close to the sort of dispute that ArbCom is intended to deal with: a user who has been a problem for some time, and which the community are split over in deciding how to deal with. It is a waste of the community's time and energy to have to focus on problematic users, especially when the same users crop up again and again. However, ArbCom is not intended to be a replacement for community decisions - indeed, it should not be forgotten that ArbCom is a part of the community and the Committee members are also community members; what ArbCom is for is when the community are completely unable to resolve a matter and so ask some members of the community (ArbCom) to make a final and binding decision in order to stop the disruption. It's not that the Committee will make a better or fairer or more intelligent decision - simply that whatever decision we make will (by policy) be accepted by all (bar the necessary criticism to ensure we are not sloppy in our decision making). However, while this matter is close to what ArbCom should accept, the community are still actively working through solutions, so we should wait to see what transpires. It looks like an interaction ban is agreeable to both parties, and that is what the community are voting on, and appears to be getting consensus; so I think it's appropriate to hold deciding on taking or rejecting this until the community have either resolved or failed to resolve the matter.
I note that there have been several case requests this year while the community are still actively engaged in reaching a solution. It is generally better all round to wait until community discussions have been resolved before opening a case request. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:19, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Decline, now that an interaction ban has been agreed. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 20:10, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Race and intelligence 2

Initiated by Cla68 (talk) at 22:24, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Cla68 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
Mathsci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
The Devil's Advocate (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Zeromus1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Collect (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
MastCell (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
Timotheus Canens (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
NuclearWarfare (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
Nyttend (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
Wee Curry Monster (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Cla68

In the May 2012 modification to the Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence, Mathsci was admonished for BATTLEFIELD conduct. The conduct has continued and has caused unnecessary disruption. Unfortunately, Mathsci's conduct has been enabled by the actions of a few administrators.

Evidence in the case was presented that Mathsci had been wikihounded by a now banned editor. Since the case closed, administrators, notably Future Perfect at Sunrise, have done a good job at reverting edits made by the banned editor and blocking the IPs used for the edits. Nevertheless, Mathsci has repeatedly reinserted himself into the conflict with the banned editor, including reverting comments on editor's talk pages, then requesting administrator intervention when editors disagree with his actions. In the AN thread linked above, he complained about an administrator (Nyttend) who objected to his conduct. Although Mathsci has stated he will no longer edit the Race and Intelligence articles, he still takes an active role in policing them and pursuing involved editors with which he does not agree. In the AE requests linked to above, evidence was presented that he has wikihounded The Devil's Advocate. Collect was formally warned when he had done nothing more than criticize Mathsci's actions, and the warning was logged in the case sanctions section.

The most recent AE request was closed yesterday. Mathsci opened the request after interjecting himself in an unrelated AE request in which The Devil's Advocate was involved. Evidence was then presented in that request that Mathsci was mischaracterizing editor's actions and using their disagreement with his interpretation of an ArbCom action in order to push for their sanction. During the request, Mathsci selectively reverted a suspected banned edit from my user talk page. When I complained, he again used the tactic of saying that I was violating an ArbCom mandate and pushed for my sanction (a debate between I and Mathsci in my evidence section was hatted by Future Perfect at Sunrise). Once I realized that he was using a baiting/bear poking tactic with me that he had used before, as the above threads illustrate, I provided evidence of it (all the links/diffs are in that evidence). The evidence includes a link to an AE action that Mathsci attempted to initiate against me for disagreeing with him, which Future Perfect at Sunrise speedily closed. Five minutes later, Wee Curry Monster hatted my evidence section, then, about an hour later, Timotheus Canens imposed one-way interaction bans on me, The Devil's Advocate, and Zeromus1 and closed the request without allowing time for the other admins who had commented to comment on the new evidence. In a similar example, one of the AE requests linked above, MastCell decided to block an editor before that editor had even responded to the AE request. As far as I know, I have never edited the Race and Intelligence topic area.

Mathsci states repeatedly that the stress from the Race and Intelligence topic area has caused him heart trouble and other kinds of hardship. Yet, he repeatedly involves himself in pushing for administrative action against involved editors, actions against banned editors, and aggressively pursuing administrative action against editors who have concerns with his behavior. If he really does have a heart problem, I believe some intervention may be necessary before he harms himself, which is of course more serious than the disruption he is causing with his continued, BATTLEFIELD conduct. For example, since the imposing of the interaction ban yesterday, when The Devil's Advocate asked the sanctioning administrator for clarification on the admin's talk page Mathsci responded with a confrontational comment. Mathsci responded to this case request by filing another AE request.

If the case is accepted, I believe the evidence will show that:

Mathsci is treating the issue with the banned user as an ongoing battle that he must win through his own, constant, personal intervention
Mathsci wikihounds, hectors, baits, and pokes editors who disagree with or criticize his actions
Two or three admins have been effectively rubber-stamping his AE requests, (such as MastCell approving that block before the target even had a chance to defend himself) and intimidating or unfairly sanctioning editors who get in the way, such as the formal warning to Collect, almost blocking The Devil's Advocate based on shaky evidence, then imposing one-way interaction bans instead of mutual interaction bans

I'm kind of confused as to how someone could counsel one of the parties here for being too aggressive, yet at the same time say that only a one-way ban is better. If one checks the AN and AE links above in the "prior dispute resolution" attempts section, plus some supporting statements by others here on this page, I think one will note that one of the parties here is extremely agressive and confrontational in pursuit of editors with whom he disagrees. AE admins, please compare the measured, calm responses from The Devil's Advocate, Zeromus, and SightWatcher on this page with the behavior of the other party. I believe one of the reasons that Treveylan was banned was because he violated his one-way interaction ban to warn TDA of the wikihounding he should expect from having disagreed with Mathsci somewhere, a warning which appears to have come true. Cla68 (talk) 13:37, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Responses to Arbitrators

SirFozzie, as far as I know, I haven't filed any other ArbCom requests or AE actions against Mathsci. If I have, someone please point it out to me. I believe most, if not almost all, of the AN and AE requests linked to above were initiated by Mathsci. Cla68 (talk) 04:43, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I understand what you mean. The problem is, in the most recent AE request, Mathsci had almost convinced the participating admins into blocking The Devil's Advocate (TDA), even though the evidence Mathsci presented had serious problems when examined in any great detail. Somebody has to speak up when someone is about to be unfairly trampled. And yes, I do believe the evidence shows that that was the case (see TDA's statement below, which I think is fairly clear). Is it always fair or accurate to label the people who speak up as holding grudges? Cla68 (talk) 05:51, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

AGK, I agree with you. If interaction bans are going to be used as a reactive remedy for AE requests, then, as this diff shows, they should be mutual, not one way. Cla68 (talk) 11:19, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Committee, based on this, do you think it might be a good idea to ask Mathcsi to stay away from Spar-Stangled at least until the SPI is concluded? I think labeling someone's user page as a banned editor's sock when an SPI has so far been inconclusive lends support to two of the allegations I made above about Mathsci's behavior. Cla68 (talk) 22:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Collect

As noted, I have essentially zero connection to the R&I controversy, and found the "warning" issued to me to be incomprehensible. I would leave it to individual editors to try explaining precisely why it was made at the time, though I suspect Cla68 may, indeed, be correct in his assessment thereof. If any motions are made, I would appreciate one removing my name from the "sanctions" page at this point. Cheers. Collect (talk) 00:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

TC misstates the actual facts behind the "warning" since my posts regarding a case were on point, and actually further demonstrate litigiousness on the part of Mathsci, and had absolutely no connection whatsoever with R&I at all -- in fact the use of such a "warning" is against Wikipedia policy that some actual rationale be given other than "he attacked a person who was routinely attacking others." In any event - the presence of my name on the R&I board is not only risible, it is a sign that the complaint here about that editor is proper and well-founded, alas. BTW, thet TC finds that having one's name mentioned in a case is a "transparently weak justification" for giving a comment is also risible utterly. That sort of claim would mean that one could say anything about anyone at all and charge then with a "transparently weak justification" when they dare to give a comment. I find such a claim to be contrary to the five pillars of Wikipedia ab initio - the aim is to edit in a collaborative and collegial manner, not to charge then with "transparently weak justification" for daring to post where their name has already been brought up. Cheers.

Statement by Wee Curry Monster

I have no idea why I have been named as a party, my only role in the matter was to hat a thread with a suggestion that Cla68 drop the stick. He had been warned about his comments and as a neutral 3rd party who unfortunately happened by, it seemed obvious to this bystander he seemed to have a fixation on Mathsci, for what seemed a bizarre reason to me (ie that Mathsci following policy was somehow involved in a vendetta against a banned user). My only motivation in doing so was to try and stop an editor who I previously thought of as a good content creator, self-destructing and being sanctioned. Frankly I wish I hadn't bothered, I would urge arbcom not to take this on as a waste of everyone's time. Cla68 received more than fair warning where his conduct was headed and I am unsurprised it ended as it did. A good close in my book, lets not waste any more editing time on this drama fest. Remember the encyclopedia we're supposed to be building people? Wee Curry Monster talk 00:54, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum

An addendum resulting from a conversation with Cla68 yesterday evening. See [18], where I invited anyone who thought my intervention inappropirate, including Cla68, to simply revert me. I believe I made it plain why I hatted the conversation, that I considered Cla68 had clearly lost perspective and appeared to have a fixation on Mathsci. From a personal perspective, it saddens me to see an editor who I considered in good standing at WP:MILHIST for his work on WWII self-destructing like this. Please could someone hit him with a clue stick and shut down this drama fest quickly. Wee Curry Monster talk 09:56, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nyttend

Ditto the first half of WCM's first sentence; I'm quite confused. I've never even read a summary of the original race and intelligence case; I assume that it's something about an alleged correlation between people of some races being more or less intelligent than people of other races, and if that be the issue, I've never edited anything close to that. Nyttend (talk) 04:02, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Fut.Perf.

Why, oh why can't people just shut the f... up?

This filing is a breach of the ban just imposed, and I hope that arbitrators will have the sense to decline it speedily. There is a difference between an appeal (which of course Cla is entitled to file, on AE or here), and this kind of request for a full case. An appeal would be narrowly restricted in scope to discussing the justification of this particular sanction, and would involve only Cla and the administrator(s) who imposed it. But what he's asking for instead is a whole big case with everybody involved, with the scope of discussing not Cla's sanction, but Mathsci and everybody else. Mathsci and everybody else hacking on each other again and again is precisely what these sanctions were meant to stop, so no, "Cla must not discuss Mathsci" means precisely what it says, and it does include Arbcom pages.

For the same reason, I hope Arbcom members will leave no doubt about it that this request is also not a free pass for the other sanctioned editors to misuse it for resuming their behaviour here. Please close this down quickly. Every day this whole ugliness is allowed to keep boiling is a day too much. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:56, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: At this time, I strongly oppose the idea brought up by some arbs, of making the interaction ban two-way, for two reasons:

It unduly and unnecessary interferes with the discretion of administrators at AE. If the committee trusts us with administrating discretionary sanctions, it should not arbitrarily override admins' decisions without good reason. Good reason, in this case, would be concrete evidence – and not just somebody's guesswork – that the one-way interaction ban is unworkable. That would be the case if Mathsci were seen unduly taking advantage of the situation, e.g. by initiating unwanted contact with the other parties, hounding them, etc. Such evidence does not exist, because since the AE decision Mathsci evidently has not engaged in any contacts with Cla68 or any of the others beyond this process, which was initiated by Cla68, not by him. For now, let's see how Mathsci behaves when left alone. If and when he becomes a problem, that can be swiftly dealt with.
Such an add-on sanction would effectively reward Cla68's misuse of the Arbcom process in filing this case. What we have here is a pattern that I'm sure we've all seen in other cases before, and it needs to be stopped: (1) Editor A is engaged in a pattern of inappropriate conflict with editor B. (2) Editor A gets an interaction ban against B. (3) Instead of disengaging from B as intended, A files an Arbcom case against him. (4) As a result, A now gets a free ticket out of jail: the Arbcom process offers him a privileged forum where he can continue exactly what he was asked to stop – pursuing his conflict with B –, at least for the week or so until case acceptance/dismissal, if not for the whole duration of a case; moreover, he gains immunity from administrative enforcement because the admins who imposed the sanctions will now be listed as "parties" to an Arbcom case (and other previously uninvolved admins will be unwilling to do anything for fear of interfering with Arbcom). Finally, while A runs only a small risk of ending up with a heavier sanction than the one he already has, with only a bit of luck he may end up with the satisfaction of having his opponent sanctioned too.

The only reasonable course of action against this pattern is for Arbcom to make it a rule that such case filings in breach of an existing interaction ban be thrown out summarily and speedily. Of course people must have a right of appeal, but an appeal is something different from what happened here. An interaction ban does not mean: please shift your conflict with editor B to another, more formal venue, such as Arbcom. What an interaction ban means is: you have no business pursuing conflicts with B at all, anywhere. "Disengage" means just that: disengage. (Or, more directly: "shut up" means just that, "shut up".) Arbs, please restore some sanity here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:48, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

For a variety of reasons I don't really want to participate here, it gives me a headache just thinking about having to deal with even more of this drama, but I think we should all understand how this recent situation went down. After weeks of me having no contact with Mathsci, not even so much as speaking his name as I recall, he suddenly decided to accuse me of tag-teaming and meatpuppetry without a shred of evidence at an AE case where I was not involved, an AE case that concerned an article I have not even edited. I responded to ask him not to make such serious claims without evidence and he reacts to that civil request by bringing up all the garbage from the request for amendment that ended weeks before his comment and making a bunch of other bizarre accusations. At one point he accuses me of putting forward a "grotesque conspiracy theory" that he was lying about his heart condition as part of some "morbid game" on my part, despite me plainly acknowledging his health problems in the comment directly preceding that one. In fact, what I stated was that he keeps pursuing me at multiple noticeboards and I did not in any way try to cast doubt on the seriousness of his health issues.

After his attempt to hijack that case didn't pan out, Mathsci initiated an AE case against me and Zeromus claiming it was enforcing the new remedy on restoring edits from banned editors, even though neither of us had done such a thing. One of the two diffs concerning me was me clarifying on Zeromus' talk page that the new restriction does not prohibit interactions with any editors, including Trev, after Mathsci claimed it did. Mathsci claimed this was me encouraging people to talk to Trev. The other diff he cited was a comment from several weeks ago at the request for amendment where I stated that Trev had requested via e-mail that I file an RfC/U against Mathsci, but that before Trev even made this suggestion I had already considered such action may prove necessary at some point should Mathsci's conduct continue unabated. Mathsci claimed that diff showed me threatening to file an RfC/U on Trev's behalf. Neither of these explanations were accurate descriptions of my comments. Beyond that, Mathsci left additional comments making all sorts of accusations about harassment and proxy-editing that he made no effort to substantiate with actual evidence.

This was just forum-shopping after Mathsci's numerous attempts to get me sanctioned during the request for amendment didn't pan out, plain and simple. In the AE case I provided the very same diff above demonstrating that Mathsci was the one who started this recent mess by trying to hijack another AE case to go after me on completely frivolous claims of tag-teaming and meat-puppetry. For any admin to take Mathsci's vexatious, evidence-starved request for enforcement seriously was a major lapse in judgment.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 07:10, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Let's clear things up a bit here. The only reason I mentioned Trev's request for an RfC/U was to be clear that if I should pursue such a measure in the future it would be because I felt it was necessary because of the conduct I had witnessed and not because anyone else requested it. I told Zeromus that the recently-passed restriction did not prohibit interactions with banned editors or Trev because other editors were seemingly trying to mislead Zeromus into thinking that interacting with Trev or banned editors was a violation of the restriction and thus could lead to sanctions. That is essentially the whole basis for the indefinite one-way interaction ban.

While I don't expect or want an arbitration case on this matter, would the Arbs consider putting forward a motion on this interaction ban, either to lift it or make it mutual? Honestly, I think any sort of interaction ban was pointless as I am more than happy to ignore Mathsci as I did in the weeks preceding this latest flare-up and in the numerous instances before that where he showed up at unrelated noticeboards to go after me. Hell, I ignored the vast majority of his comments about me on the request for amendment as well. Still, if Mathsci was just prevented from interacting with me as well I would be willing to accept the sanction, though I would prefer if it had a time limit rather than being indefinite.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 16:09, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Future and Tim are exhibiting questionable judgment in their defense of the one-way nature of the interaction ban. The claim that they supported allowing Mathsci to interact with us when we could not reciprocate because they wanted "to see how he behaves if and when he is finally left alone" seems to be completely ignoring my statements and evidence at the AE case where I plainly said that I had ignored Mathsci for weeks until he tried to hijack an AE case to go after me with spurious accusations (see evidence above). In particular, Future had previously suggested that Mathsci had followed me to unrelated articles in an inappropriate manner so his comments are even more questionable.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 13:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Elen, I think we can safely say that the star-spangled account is somebody's sock, most likely Echigo mole, and without question the comment below is just disruptive trolling on an arbitration page. The last thing alone is enough to justify removing the comment and blocking the account if you aren't yet satisfied that this is Echigo mole. Knowing who the account belongs to is more of a formality at this point and doesn't justify keeping such absurd accusations on an arbitration page.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:33, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A little less conversation, a little more action please. All this aggravation ain't satisfactioning me.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 03:20, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Future and Tim aren't relenting on their position in spite of the evidence I provided above that directly contradicts their alleged basis for supporting the restriction and in spite of my subsequent response to them noting that evidence. Would they please explain why they apparently think the evidence above doesn't point to a likelihood that Mathsci will abuse a one-way restriction? I mean, the whole reason Mathsci is going after me is because I provided evidence and argumentation that he had abused another one-way restriction with Trev in order to get that editor indeffed.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 18:20, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@AGK If your suggestion to not amend the one-way interaction ban at this time is referring to Mathsci's professed intention to stop contributing then I find that acceptable, but if he should return to editing I would very much not want a situation where Mathsci is free to confront and provoke me as he sees fit, while I am unable to report him for it. The admins at AE should have been more than familiar with the evidence that Mathsci was initiating incidents with me as evidence was presented right at the outset of the AE case and another was familiar with a previous such incident. Please make it mutual.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:33, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mathsci plainly stated in this very discussion that he had talked to Calisber about exercising his right to vanish and made numerous other comments suggesting that he was going to stop contributing altogether. I fail to see how I have misrepresented anything.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 22:04, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I commented on the RFAR talk page a few hours ago in response to Future's claims about this case not being used to address the sanction in question to clarify that I had been doing just that and asking him to address what I have said in this case. Mathsci commented just two hours later above my comment in a way that made it look like I was responding to him so I moved my comment up so it would be clear that was not the case. Unfortunately, the diff makes it look like I moved Mathsci's comment instead, but I moved my comment up to avoid the appearance that I was responding to Mathsci.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 03:26, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Zeromus1

I know I'm expected to provide a statement here, but I won't be able to if I'm not allowed to comment on the case's other parties. I assume interaction bans have an exception for commenting on arbitration requests in which I'm a party, especially as The Devil's Advocate already has done so.

I think that Arbcom should accept this case, but it should be called something other than Race and Intelligence II. A lot of the editors involved, such as Nyttend and Collect, appear to have not edited articles in the R&I topic area. The focus of Cla68's complaint is Mathsci's apparent battleground attitude, and the way admins seem to enable it by sanctioning any editor who Mathsci reports without carefully examining the situation. If this is the case, then it can't be resolved at AE, because the way AE requests are handled is part of the problem. But the problem also applies to more topic areas than R&I, so if Arbcom accepts the case its name should reflect that.

In this amendment request made by The Devil's Advocate, nine editors commented that this was something which Arbcom should address, most of them editors who have not participated in R&I articles as far as I know. But Arbcom chose to not address it, and instead addressed the (mostly) separate issue of Echigo Mole's socking. In that amendment request, some people also commented that if Arbcom did not address the concerns of the community, this conflict would likely continue to expand and come back to Arbcom again and again. That appears to be what's happening now. Considering the multiple arbitration requests there have been about this conflict already, I think Arbcom should carefully consider, can the community really be expected to resolve it without arbitration? And if so, where? (Certainly not at AE.) Up to this point, the effect of Arbcom's reluctance to take on this conflict seems to be that there's a new arbitration request about it from a new group of editors every few months, and I see no reason to assume that would be different in the future. Zeromus1 (talk) 10:22, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am a little troubled by Mathsci's comment here, "I will not respond now except privately through you or other AE administrators." This comment appears to be saying he can get AE admins to post what he wants in this thread by contacting them privately. Isn't part of the point of AE that admins there are supposed to be impartial judges of the situation? The fact that some admins are willing to post what he tells them to seems to imply they aren't truly impartial, which might explain what Cla68 has complained about that they effectively rubber-stamped his AE report about us. Zeromus1 (talk) 04:26, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mathsci, how am I "twisting your words"? What does it mean for you to say you are "responding privately through AE administrators", except that you privately tell them what to post here? Zeromus1 (talk) 09:51, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I recently took a look at the past amendment requests listed at Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence, and apparently this conflict has been ongoing for almost two years. The behavior in question and one of the parties never changes, although the group of editors that he's in conflict with has changed a few times. This issue was brought before ArbCom in November 2010: [19] February 2011: [20] August 2011: [21] September 2011: [22], and July 2012. [23] That doesn't count the review that happened this spring, which would be a sixth time, and also doesn't include the dozen or more AE threads. The issue that's before ArbCom now has come before them an average of once every four months for the past two years. I think it's apparent that if the committee decides to take no action, this cycle will continue indefinitely, either involving the current group of editors or a different group. I think the committee should carefully consider whether allowing that to happen really is what they want. Zeromus1 (talk) 01:29, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mathsci, I can see that most of the editors you've been in conflicts with have eventually quit the project or been blocked. What I'm saying is that these conflicts always seem to go the same way. First you choose an editor you don't like and follow them to various unrelated parts of the project. In the case of the Devil's Advocate, you followed him to unrelated threads at WQA [24] BLPN [25] AE [26] and brought him and me up in an AE thread that had nothing to do with us or you. [27] After a while, whoever you're doing this to starts to react, and then they get sanctioned or blocked by AE or ArbCom. A lot of the time admins seem to think the easiest way to resolve the conflict is by sanctioning whatever current editor your conflict is with, and maybe ArbCom thinks that also. But what can be seen with a big-picture perspective is that this does nothing to prevent the same cycle repeating with whatever editor you choose next. If it were enough to always sanction the other party, and just give you warnings and admonishments, the same cycle wouldn't have repeated with at least eight different editors over the past two years. Zeromus1 (talk) 05:03, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by TC

I broadly agree with Fut. Perf., and do not have much to add to his comment. I'll just add a few points:

Collect was warned because he hijacked an AE appeal by TrevelyanL85A2 with unrelated complaints on Mathsci with a transparently weak justification (that his name was mentioned in passing in the appeal). He was free to start a new complaint on Mathsci, but not derail an existing one.
As to the sanction on Cla68, AE surely has the inherent power to sanction editors for disruption on its own case pages. Cla68 was already warned by Fut.Perf. to disengage; when he refused to heed that warning, resorting to sanctions is necessary to control the disruption on the AE process.
As to the one-way nature of the interaction bans, I'll just quote Fut. Perf.'s comment on his talk page, which is exactly my intent:

Well, I'd say to test that we first need to see how he behaves if and when he is finally left alone. If he misuses that then, we can still add something to the sanctions. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:08, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Also, @Penwhale: If you are expressing an opinion on the merits of the case ("which is odd", "one-sided IBAN never seems to work"), I don't think it's appropriate for you to continue acting in a clerk capacity. T. Canens (talk) 10:25, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly agree with Fut.Perf.'s additional comment, especially his first point. If arbcom is going to modify AE sanctions based on nothing more than a hunch that the particular sanction employed may not work, then the word "discretion" becomes meaningless. I, for one, would certainly reconsider my participation at AE if the committee is going to micromanage every sanction applied by motion. Why spend time reading and evaluating AE requests when arbcom will just substitute their judgment for yours instead? T. Canens (talk) 13:01, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@NE: I don't mind being overturned. What I do mind is being overturned on a flimsy rationale that "two-way ban is more likely to be successful". In handing out the one-way bans, I decided that there's a good chance that one-way bans would be sufficient to address the issue. No arb has yet bothered to explain exactly why in this case a one-way ban is so unlikely to be successful as to be outside my discretion, or why the fact that I'm planning to keep an eye on it and make it two-way if necessary is not enough to address any potential for gaming from the one-way ban. All I see are generalized statements about how one-way bans are easily gamed (without any explanation how Mathsci is likely to game it) and are less likely to be successful than two-way bans. Well, arsenic trioxide is a deadly poison, but is also be used to treat certain diseases. If this committee is going to modify AE actions based on essentially nothing more than a collective hunch, then it can enforce its own decisions. T. Canens (talk) 11:46, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {Party 10}

Statement by {Party 11}

Statement by Count Iblis

So, what is this dispute about? Count Iblis (talk) 22:29, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cla68, so if I understand it correctly, your involvement in the topic area as far as editing articles is concerned, is minimal; the dispute is primarily about dealing with banned editors like when they post on user talk pages as happened in the recent incident? Count Iblis (talk) 00:32, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Question by TheRedPenOfDoom

I thought the filer was indefinitely prohibited from commenting on, or interacting with, User:Mathsci, broadly construed, anywhere on Wikipedia. You may appeal this ban at AE or to the arbitration committee at WP:A/R/CA. This does not appear to be either of the approved forums for addressing the filers concerns.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:47, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If this is the standard procedure, then fine. By the wording of the notice, however, the filing here seems to be jumping to one of the most vexatious methods of interacting in an attempt to bypass the AE sanctions. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:06, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from The ed17

@RedPen, this seems to be an appropriate venue for the filer, despite the nominal restriction. Arbitration enforcement was tried (and failed, in the filer's view), and this isn't a request for clarification or an amendment. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 23:59, 22 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MBisanz

Red Pen seems to point out a technical flaw in the filing that I'll defer to Arbcom on depending on how rigidly they want to interpret the rules. That said, I think the Committee should just make it so IBans done under this case are mutual, not unilateral and that only the individual upon whom the ban is personally placed may appeal the ban. This would prevent professional advocates or opposing parties from gaming the system to negate the effect of the decision. MBisanz ^talk 00:05, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Johnuniq

Rather than finding matters than might need arbitration, those interested in Mathsci should empirically determine whether any perceived battlefield conduct would be apparent if Mathsci were left alone. Mathsci only commented on Cla68 because the latter chose to make a statement at AE (diff—a complaint that Mathsci had removed a message from a banned user at Cla68's talk). That statement followed a comment at the same AE made by Cla68 two days earlier with the implication that Mathsci's behavior should be examined (diff). It may be the case that a different strategy for dealing with socks should be employed, but blaming the victim is never helpful, and WP:DENY is the best strategy. Particularly given the history, why would anyone consider that the removal of "a harmless remark" warranted a statement at AE? Johnuniq (talk) 00:47, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Mathsci

Short version: A frivolous and probably malicious request. Cla68 is angry that he has been banned from discussing me. He believes that the community banned wikihounder Echigo mole is the object of battleground conduct from me, because I report his socks at SPI and revert his disruptive posts per WP:BAN. Although that is wikipedia policy, because it is me and because Cla68 dislikes me, it must also have strong elements of BATTLEGROUND behaviour which warrants some kind of site-ban, perhaps a double or triple site-ban. Instead of appealing the ban at WP:AE, which would be the normal course of action here, Cla68 decided to stage a stunt by spreading the disruption that led to his ban to an even more visible project page. Cla68 has violated WP:CANVASS by including parties that were not involved in the WP:AE thread that led to this stunt.

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

A frivolous, malicious and disruptive request. Cla68's recent poor conduct at WP:AE resulted in a one-way interaction ban being imposed on Cla68 [28]: he is not permitted to discuss me anywhere on wikipedia. He has done so here by making a request unambiguously centred on me. He has therefore been reported at WP:AE for a gross violation of that ban. I have requested a block of one month or possibly longer because of the scale of the violation. The request itself would seem to have nothing at all to do with the editing of articles covered by WP:ARBR&I and also very little to do with connected problems in project space (sockpuppetry, proxy editing, etc). I am not sanctioned, so there are no sanctions that have been violated. If Cla68 objected to his interaction ban, the natural next step would have been a formal appeal at WP:AE. That is what most users do. He has not done so. There does not seem to be an underlying dispute, just aggressive bullying to settle some old score on the part of Cla68. This particular grudge has been around for some while.[29] Cla68 placed a quote from me on his "threat charges" page [now deleted]. That undercuts his disingenuous claim not to know me or to have interacted with me. We have particpated in several arbcom cases together (eg MBLPs). My impression of Cla68 from our first contacts on Wikipedia Review in 2009, when he asked me pointed questions about William M. Connolley, is that at some stage he developed a dislike towards me. His recent actions confirm that: they have been uncollegial, designed to maximise stress (here he has stage managed a pile-on by his choice of parties), drama-escalating and unduly aggressive. His attempts to describe the wikihounding by Echigo mole as some kind of "battle", with some form of parity between me and a community banned user, show that Cla68 is deliberately choosing a perverse misreading of WP:BAN as well as the spirit behind the recently passed motion. Cla68's disruption can be dealt with directly at WP:AE. If The Devil's Advocate or Zeromus1 (an SPA with barely 200 edits) comments here, they will also be reported at WP:AE, since they are also under one-way interaction bans.

Much of the commentary that Cla68 has provided seems incorrect. I commented about editing in an WP:ARBR&I request on tag teaming in one article (not involving any parties mentioned here); I added a parenthetic comment about possible tag teaming at Talk:Race and intelligence. The ipsock 80.237.226.76 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) who posted on his page had already been blocked as a tor-node by Materialscientist (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). Two SPI reports on Echigo mole (one on Oct 16 and one on Oct 20) had already been started. The post was reverted with a clear explanation in the edit summary.[30] Echigo mole was using 2 tor-nodes, one open proxy and two sockpuppet accounts at that stage. Cla68 was informed of the motion, was informed multiple times by Future Perfect at Sunrise that I was perfectly entitled to remove the notification by this banned user, since the context of the parallel socking made it clear it was trolling by Echigo mole. Echigo mole's disruption was to advise users likely to be ill-disposed towards me of a venue where they could criticize me (that is his style). Cla68 chose to disregard the advice of Future Perfect at Sunrise and when advised to drop matters, twice added inflammatory material at WP:AE. The first time it was reverted by Future Perfect at Sunrise and the second time it was hatted by Wee Curry Monster. Then Cla68 lodged a complaint at User talk:Timotheus Canens.[31] The Devil's Advocate also left a message, requesting sanctions against me, but without justification. I informed both of them that if they objected to the ban the standard method of appeal was at WP:AE. I advised The Devil's Advocate that his request was a violation of his ban, that I was not goig to report it, but that he should be more careful in the future. Cla68 did not wait for a response from TCannes, but simply cut to this request. There was no dispute, only Cla68's perverse misreading of WP:BAN, even after being gently advised by FPaS. (He had also requested that I be blocked at WP:AE for posting in what he regarded as the wrong section.) Since this is related to the WP:AE request that resulted in Cla68's interaction ban, he should really have contacted all those involved in that thread. Despite what Sir Fozzie is suggesting, no administrators commenting there criticized my {{WP:AE]] request (The Devil's Advocate agitating behind the scenes for an RfC/U because TrevelyanL85A2 had asked him to do so by email; Zeromus1's request for the same thing after a trolling post from an Echigo mole sock). Making some general statement about interaction bans without checking the facts is not a good idea. I have not suggested RfC/U's on Cla68, The Devil's Advocate and Zeromus1. I have suggested that all three are editing disruptively, but that does not warrant any kind of sanction on me. If Cla68 shouts out that removing a tor-node post by an identified banned user from his talk page is "BATTLEFIELD" conduct and that being the object of a malicious wikihounder is also an example of "BATTLEFIELD" conduct on my part, that would seem to be an example of one-sided disruption, with all good faith suspended. I am powerless to do anything about that kind of conduct which is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Cla68 chose to express himself in that obnoxious way and has been sanctioned as a result. In this case his conduct has been appalling. But is this not just a resurfacing of the conduct that led to sanctions under WP:ARBCC?

Cla68 has previously received several warnings from administrators, but has not heeded those warnings. Placing himself above arbitrators and administrators, he has escalated matters in a disproportionate way, simply because I removed a notification left by an indefinitely blocked tor-node ipsock of Echigo mole. I understand that Cla68 has been itching to stage a stunt like this. He already made a request to make a submission during the review,[32] which was denied by Roger Davies. His unduly aggressive actions towards me seem to come from old grudge going to William M. Connolley and Will Beback. It's quite hard to know, because the current sequence of actions seem completely irrational. He is aware that I am recovering from triple bypass surgey performed within the last few days. He seems to be taking advantage of that.

Looking at the background to this, I have one small suggestion to make here connected with the amendment I requested immediately after the close of the review. Please could the arbitration committee reformulate its finding on me concerning battlefield conduct and borderline personal attacks? The previous amendment that I requested asked for the precise context of that to be made clear by a quliafying phrase ("towards those who in his perception were acting as proxy editors", etc). [The previous qualifying phrase referred to "ideological differences" which was inaccurate and was removed.] Cla68 has chosen to apply the phrase "battle" to the interactions with the community banned wikihounder Echigo mole, whose activities and their consequences were behind the recently passed motion. He suggested parity between Echigo mole and a user in good standing (me). The qualifying phrases requested in the original amendment could be added now and that would prevent time-wasting requests like this. That phrasing, through no fault of Roger Davies, has unfortunately resulted in too many problems so far. It has been used out of context by Collect (who was given an official warning logged at WP:ARBR&I), by The Devil's Advocate and by Cla68 (both subject to ineraction bans), as well as by others.

Reply to Sir Fozzie: Cla68 is not using this page to appeal sanctions at WP:AE at a higher level. He is using it as a general attack page on me.

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

@Sir Fozzie: TrevelyanL85A2 crossed the line multiple times in the last amendment request and the arbitration committee did not take charge of matters. Shortly after the third motion was passed, TrevelyanL85A2 made further violations of his ban elsehwere and was indefinitely blocked after a report at WP:AE. As far as I am aware this RfArb is not a request for an interaction ban to be reviewed, nor a case cocerning editors involved in WP:ARBR&I. It looks like a grudge-fest solely concerning Mathsci, a cynical escalation by a user who knows I am in ill health and wants to cause me even more distress for a nonexistent dispute and non-existent incident. That's how it looks from here. If it were an appeal, then all the participants in the AE thread should have been informed or listed as parties. Cla68 is just playing silly little games on wikipedia.

Comments on The Devil's Advocate and Zeromus1

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

The Devil's Advocate has also broken his interaction ban. TDA was banned for discussing me because, following a post-ban email from TrevelyanL85A2 suggesting as RfC/U should be started about me, TDA continued to (a) say it was OK to confer with TrevelyanL85A2 despite the AE-ban and (b) he intended to start an RfC/U at some point. Zeromus1, an SPA with barely 200 edits to his name, received a trolling email from a sockpuppet of Echigo mole also suggesting that the DeviantArt campaign to "write me out of the equation" should be continued with an RfC/U. TDA and Zeromus1 have discussed at length whether they should proceed on the advice of Trevelyan and Echigo. They were both banned from discussing me and TDA almost blocked for having these disruptive discussions. Instead of not interacting with the pair of banned users, Zeromus1 and TDA were acting as their enablers. I presume that is why administrators vetoed those discussions or any future actions. Zeromus1's account has many aspects similar to the DeviantArt editors: his first edit was already a problem. [33]

The Devil's Advocate continues to wikilawyer, dressing up his disruptive proxy-editing for TrevelyanL85A2 as if it was some kind of human rights issue. He has no right to act as a proxy editor for Captain Occam, Ferahgo the Assassin and their friends, particularly if that involves the campaign that was one of the contributing factors to their site-ban. Here is what he wrote:[34] "Not saying that certain editors should not be prohibited from editing, but that no one should demand that people not talk to another human being off-wiki solely because of some sanction against that person on here." The Devil's Advocate only intention in having such off-wiki discussions was to create disruption on-wiki. He has continued to do that for almost four months.

Zeromus1 has now commented and violated his ban on discussing me. In his comments he has actually gone further than before discussing events that predate his own editing. His editing patterns are odd, but the views he expresses and particulalry the fact he mentions on the User talk:The Devil's Advocate the unjustices done to SightWatcher, Ludwigs2 and Miradre, suggest that this is either a sockpuppet from the DeviantArt group or a close associate. The language on project pages is indistinguishable from that of TrevelyanL85A2. That he is referring to the requests for amendments of The Devil's Advocate both of which were turned down is disturbing. A motion was passed. He ingnored that motion in enabling the ipsock of Echigo mole. Given that this account is an SPA and yet, after less than 200 edits, is at home on project pages, the interaction ban is clearly warranted. A look at their conduct on Talk:Race and intelligence shows that they are breaking almost every principle set out by arbcom in 2010. The discussion of events that predated their appearance on wikipedia is bizarre. My view is that this must be more disturbance from the DeviantArt group. There is an Occamesque reference to a nonexistent "dispute", without there being any dispute at all. That aspect of the campaign was continued by Ferahgo. Then SightWatcher and TrevelyanL85A2 grumbled about something that wasn't quite right but which they couldn't quite put their finger on. However, TrevelyanL85A2 in the end, having forgotten his topic ban, was unable to conceal the fact that his role on wikipedia was that of an attack-only account, with me as the victim. Zeromus1's project space edits seem to have too many features in common with the DeviantArt editors. Zeromus has no experience concerning WP:AE. Many people report case on WP:AE and Zeromus1's claim that WP:AE isnot working is exactly what I would expect Occam, Ferhago and their friends to say. Perhaps Zeromus1 can explain which AE cases he is thinking of and why he has any familarity with those cases. Why did he mention Ludwigs2 on TDA's talk page? Ludwigs2 was site-banned for his interactions with a host of different editors and administrators. I supplied diffs of some of his perosnal attacks related to images during an arbcom case. Is Zeromus1 referring to me because he was told to do so? [35][36][37]

According to the motion, users can now be sanctioned for enabling or attempting to profit from Echigo mole's trolling and mischief-making. However, as has happened here, part of their sanction can include not following Echigo mole's suggestions, such as RfC/Us. If that sanction is administered through a one-way interaction ban preventing them from filing such an RfC/U, there is no point in simultaneously imposing sanctions on me just because of their enabling of the wikihounder. Otherwise whenever somebody makes such an attempt, I will tot up more arbcom sanctions because of the antics of the wikihounder. That would essentially reward the wikihounder and would be unreasonable for me. On the other hand TrevelyanL85A2 was also prohibited from filing such requests. His extended topic ban prohibiting comments on me was one-way and did not involve a mutual interaction ban. At no stage have I sought to file RfC/U's on other users like The Devil's Advocate, Zeromus1, TrevelyanL85A2, SightWatcher, Cla68, etc. I wouldn't see the point. If, however, they attempt to wreck or challenge the arbitration committee's solution for maintaining stabilty and clamping down on the DeviantArt campaign, then WP:AE reports are to be expected. Without a flicker of self-doubt, The Devil's Advocate has continued to act as an advocate and apologist for TrevelyanL85A2: as it turned out TrevelyanL85A2 was just a disruptive user, pursuing only the DeviantArt campaign, which led to him being AE-banned. At no stage has The Devil's Advocate acknowledged the underlying problems. taking instead the side of the DeviantArt group of editors. That is a disruptive stance and The Devil's Advocate has given no reasonable explanation of why he has continued to favour banned users.

The measures used at WP:AE to sanction those enabling Echigo mole or other banned users cannot result in a sanction on me each time. Some form of sanction for enabling, other than an interaction ban, should be devised.

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@ SilkTork: No administrators at WP:AE are going to issue interaction bans on me as the result of others disruptively enabling socks of Echigo mole, a user who has consistently wikihounded me for coming on to four years. If SilkTork has misunderstood that I have been the object of harassment, continuing now with Echigo mole's postings even on this page, I will be left no choice except formally to request an amendment to the arbcom review so that the long term harassment by Mikemikev and Echigo mole is spelled out explicitly in the findings. That was one of the five explicit questions in the review and it's easy enough to formulate a finding. Similarly the editors TrevelyanL85A2 and SightWatcher had one-way bans and no arbitrator is suggesting those should have been made two-way. This case involves banned users trying to harass me through others, so there is no "symmetry" in this situation nor any reason why I should have sanctions heaped on me as a consequence of the actions of others. Indeed SilkTork has just written a recipe to shoo me off wikipedia and label me without justification as a disruptive user. Is that really what he was intending?

In this particular case three users have disruptively sought to further the aims of two banned users, TrevelyanL85A2 (prohibited from mentioning me by arbitrators) and Echigo mole (my wikihounder and a community banned users). No reasonable person would suggest my editing be sanctioned each time a disruptive user chooses to enable either of these banned users. The motion was not passed to punish me. According to SilkTork each time I point out that someone has violated the motion, vis-a-vis my wikihounder, I will be sanctioned by arbcom. No administrators at WP:AE will follow that directive, since it's counterproductive and ill thought out. If SilkTork is intending to circumvent umanimous consensus amongst administrators at WP:AE by proposing some form of motion, then the request for amendment I mentioned would be started almost automatically. I hope that SilkTork will think things through a little more carefully in the meantime.

One possible way out of this conundrum is that, instead of imposing a one-way interaction ban, some form of part of the restriction placed on SightWatcher and TrevelyanL85A2 be devised to apply in the case of the motion. Otherwise everytime the motion is applied, I am liable to be sanctioned, which is obviously not what was intended. Instead of an interaction ban, I would propose some variant of the following "XXXXXX is indefinitely banned from participating in any discussion concerning the conduct of editors who have worked in the topic of WP:ARBR&I. This editor may however within reason participate in dispute resolution and noticeboard discussions if their own conduct has been mentioned." Alternatively, arbitrators can modify the motion so that I am explicitly named and the banned users are identified as engaged in long term harassment of me. That's another way of efectively making the amendment, re Echigo mole, Mikemikev and banned DeviantArtists.

SilkTork is perfectly aware of the motion and the distinguished role played be me, Echigo mole and Mikemikev in that motion, even if we are not mentioned explciitly. I am not enabling banned or AE-banned users, but the three sanctioned editors users have done exactly that and that is exactly what the motion was designed to prevent. Why make remarks about a general situation which is clearly not applicable in any way here? SilkTork speaks anbout a "dispute". But the report at WP:AE was not concerned with a dispute: the report concenred three editors each of whom had violated rules set out by the arbitration committee. Please could SilkTork do his homework a little more carefully instead of coming out with inappropriate remarks that contradict the unaminous consensus at WP:AE and show no understanding of what was at issue there. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 16:40, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@AGK. Your anaylsis misses the point. The root cause of this disruption is agitation, on or off wiki, by two banned users, in this case TrevelyanL85A2 (an off-wiki email to The Devil's Advocate suggesting an RfC/U on me) and Echigo mole (trolling posts on user talk and project pages, also suggesting the same thing). Any posts of Echigo mole, problematic or not, can be removed by any user per WP:BAN and the motion. Following the agitation, three editors (The Devil's Advocate, Zeromus1 and Cla68) sought to enable the two banned users. They were reported at WP:AE and unanimously sanctioned. None of them appealed their sanction at AE (the normal procedure), but Cla68 escalated matters here in an unprecedented way by an out-and-out whatever-will-stick grudge-fest concerning me. He must have hesitated before using a title other than Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Mathsci, since this RfAr has nothing at all to do with WP:ARBR&I.

So essentially the issues here concern the first application of the the newly passed motion and how it can be administered at WP:AE. To say it is an issue of personalities misses the point entirely. The arbitration committee has created a difficulty itself by proposing a motion that cannot be enforced in a straightforward way at WP:AE. Administrators had no difficulty there in reaching a unanimous decision. The details of that WP:AE request are now being ignored in a general muddying of the waters. As I wrote above, the root causes here were the disruptive actions of two banned users. AGK is perfectly aware that both TrevelyanL85A2 and Echigo mole are set on harassing me, so his words here are both unthinking and unkind, particularly in view of the circumstances mentioned by Newyorkbrad. Mathsci (talk) 17:22, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cla68 tries totake advantage of the editing of Spar-stangled (talk · contribs), an indef blocked troll sock of Echigo mole

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Given the overlap between the edits of Spar-stangled (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Fancy Smith (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), which also correlate with edits of A.K.Nole, Quotient group, Julian Birdbath and Ansatz, it seems highly likely that Spar-stangled is, like Fancy Smith and these other users, a sockpuppet of Echigo mole. His contributions to project space are pure trolling and I expect sooner or later the account will be blocked. Elen of the Roads revealed that the IPs used have been in the range 94.196.0.0/16, like other previous socks, but apparently she needs more information that this. Hard to know what that might be. Mathsci (talk) 22:31, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cla68's keeps demanding sanctions against me. On WP:AE he requested that I be blocked for posting in the wrong section. That speaks volumes about Cla68. He was unanimously sanctioned at WP:AE and shunned the usual route of an AE appeal that ordinary folks would have used. No, he was going to waste time with a meritless RfAr in which the animosity supposedly placed in check by the AE ban could be given free rein. That is exactly what he's doing now. This is not an appeal against an WP:IBAN at a higher level but a thinly disguised way of continuing a one-side feud. That is why he is constantly whining for sanctions against me.

Cla68 is now playing alphabet soup to fire insults at me. Yes, Spar-stangled is almost certainly an Echigo mole sock, given the common subjects with past socks and the most recently blocked sock and his general trolling (he has now been indef blocked as an Echigo mole sock by NuclearWarfare). His edits are imitations of statements I have made rearranged on this page in the style of another sock William Hickey (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Here are some samples of William Hickey trolling on arbcom pages, [38] on ANI,[39] and creating an SPI report on Echigo mole.[40] On other occasions Echigo mole has lied to administrators in unblock requests and created significant amounts of disruption. Cla68 is using this RfAr not as a means to appeal his WP:AE ban to q higher authority but instead as a means of compiling an attack page on me. That way he can continue to take cheap potshots and thus evade the WP:AE ban which was supposed to control that kind of disruption. This page is not dissimilar from his puerile "threat charges" page, except that Cla68 has exercised no restraint here. His submission here is certainly not the basis for any kind of arbcom case.

In fact another user, who showed far more restraint than Cla68, already attempted to start a case similar to this one, centred on me, with a similar list of parties. That user was Keystone Crow (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). The case was entitled Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Mathsci and Echigo Mole. Keystone Crow informed 10 people of that request, many of whom were on Cla68's list. However, sadly for Keystone Crow, Courcelles blocked him indefinitely as a sockpuppet of Echigo mole and the request was reverted.

By relying now on his analysis of the edits of a blatant sockpuppet of Echigo mole, now indef blocked as such by NuclearWarfare, Cla68 is not only enabling Echigo mole in a highly disruptive way (the very reason he received a sanction at WP:AE), he's also acting in an even more disruptive way than Echigo mole himself. To accuse me of wikihounding a confirmed sockpuppet of Echigo mole shows just how far Cla68 is prepared to abandon normal codes of ethics and honour to accomplish his goal. Cla68's conduct on this page scrapes the bottom of the barrel. Any person with a modicum of decency would have stopped playing games of this type and backed off. Administrators at WP:AE could see some while back that Cla68's case had no justification but was just a thinly disguised excuse for attacking another user. That was why he was sanctioned. None of my responses matched Cla68's outrageous and obnoxious statements; that was why I was not subject to any kind of sanction. The attacks of Cla68 have been and still are one-sided. Instead of complying with AE administrators, Cla68 decided he was justified in coninuing his attacks on me and moved on to launch this RfAr. If Cla68 cannot voluntarily withdraw from his one-sided guerilla war, then I hope that some kind of sanction can be placed on him so that other users with whom he feels he has a score to settle do not have to experience this kind of disruption in the future. Mathsci (talk) 02:11, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

SightWatcher violates his extended topic ban by discussing TrevelyanL85A2 and me. He blames me for his lack of content editing and tries to get sanctions imposed on me on behalf of site-banned users. He is not under an interaction ban but a ban that prohibits him from discussing all articles and users connected with wp:ARBR&I.

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SIghtWatcher's name was mentioned en passant but his actions were not mentioned. He has violated his topic ban by participating here. He is also appealing on behalf of an AE-banned editor TrevelyanL85A2, whose editing had degenerated to that of an attack-only account. SightWatcher has not addressed that point, but in fact his topic ban prohibits him from discussing TrevelyanL85A2. Presumably SightWatcher had carefully discussed his strategy with his two site-banned friends Occam and Ferahgo before participating here, out of the blue. They presumably decided that is was worth exploring another loophole to see whether their campaign of "writing Mathsci out of the equation" could be pushed through another channel. Below SightWatcher writes about me, "Even when I've avoided both Mathsci and the R&I topic for many months at a time, he hasn't stopped paying attention to me and seeking sanctions against me. TrevelyanL85A2 gave more detail about our situation in this comment. [41] This situation makes me very uncomfortable at Wikipedia, and is part of why I haven't edited much for the past few months. I have no desire to return to the R&I topic area, but making my interaction ban with Mathsci mutual would make it easier for me to return to constructive editing elsewhere." There SightWatcher's links to one of the attacks on me by TrvelyanL85A2 which preceded TrevlyanL85A2's WP:AE ban. (He did not appeal that indefinite block.) Like TrevelyanL85A2 he places the entire blame for his own lack of content editing at my doorstep and takes no responsibility for his own tag-team proxy-editing that generated his extended topic ban. It is not an interaction ban since it applies to all editors that have made a contribution within WP:ARBR&I, but hats off to Occam & Ferahgo for trying to dress it up as such. Nice try! TrevelyanL85A2 is a 30-year old perfectly capabale of getting up off his backside and adding content to wikipedia: I play no part in that operation. SightWatcher is a 20-year old perfectly capable of getting up off his backside and adding content to wikipedia: again I play no part in that operation. Yet SightWatcher is whining below that his failure to add content to wikipedia is entirely my fault. What SightWatcher forgets is that TrevelyanL85A2 whined in exactly the same way, which smells like another failed ploy of Occam & Ferhago. In actual fact, the bulk of SightWatcher's contributions in kbs added this year have just concerned the DeviantArt campaign against me. I would assume that if that continues, like TrevelyanL85A2, he will just notch up some form of site-ban. In 2012 he made only 5 very minor content edits to wikipedia and 13 lengthy edits in project space and on arb talk pages, militating against me.[42] MBisanz warned him in May that he would be blocked if he continued militating. That is exactly what he's doing here. He and his site-banned/AE-banned friends Occam, Ferahgo and TrevelyanL85A2 are clamouring for more sanctions on me. But why exactly does SightWatcher feel that he should be editing on behalf of banned users? Why not try some content editing for a change? I cannot do any at the moment because I'm too ill, but he's young with his whole life ahead of him. Mathsci (talk) 06:26, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As FPaS has mentioned, arbitartors are suggesting that I be sanctioned each time a disruptive user like Cla68 or Zeromus (a probable sockpuppet) enables the edits of Echigo mole, a community banned editor who has been wikihounding all over wikipedia for approaching three and a half years. I would quickly end up with ten arbcom sanctions to my name since the banned user mentioned in the motion, Echigo mole, has as his only goal to cause mischief and general discomfort for me in whatever way he can. He is a liar and a creep. Given that the motion applies almost entirely to edits of Echigo mole, this is an extraordinary decision for arbitrators to make and a fairly rapid way of losing one of the top mathematics editors on wikipedia. I have already indicated to Casliber that I wish my account to be disappeared fairly shortly, because of the arbitration committee creating ideal circumstances for Echigo moles' wikihounding. Since they don't mention names, arbitrators don't actually have to face up to the fact that Echigo mole is the principal banned user or that I am his long term victim. Perhaps they can now apply a little more thought to the motion and admit for once that it applies to Echigo mole and not some generalised situation involving a host of banned users. at the moment the proposed multiple sanctions on me are effectively feeding the troll. I certainly will cease editing wikipedia and have my account disppeared if any sanctions are on record against me as a result of Echigo mole's trolling. Inserting names into the motion for the banned users (Echigo mole, Mikemikev) and for their intended victim (Mathsci) would help: it would make clear that an anomolous situation whad been created which rewarded easily Echigo mole's disruption. It's hard to believe that that is what arbitrators intended, talking as they are doing now in abstract terms, but that is the outcome.

The way out of this conundrum might be to propose some form of sanction other than an interaction ban specifically tailored to Echigo mole's trolling. For example a ban on commenting on any project pages on users connected with WP:ARBR&I would be adequate. During this RfAr, we had other problems. Elen of the Roads was unwilling to accept that Spar-stangled was a sock of Echigo mole even when it was blatantly clear from his edits. How helpful then is the arbitration committee in protecting users from wikihounders? The answer seems to be: not at all. They are here proposing measures which will encourage Echigo mole to find new ways of using WP:ARBR&I to continue his mischief-making and be a blight on my editing. And here Cla68 was claiming that the banned user Echigo mole was somehow ebing treated improperly on wikipedia, that he was being wikihounded by me. That is the "ethos" arbitrators are encouraging on wikipedia. Cla68 has conducted himself in an obnoxious and aggressive fashion. He was allowed to magnify the bad behaviour that had already led to his WP:AE ban. As FPaS has said, that kind of disruption needs to be stamped out and not allowed to fester. If, as happened here, Cla68 decides further to game the system and perversely speak out for the rights of highly disruptive community banned miscreants, it is to be expected that he should forfeit more of his editing privileges on wikipedia. Mathsci (talk) 12:30, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FPaS advised me not to comment further here except through him (I have nevertheless added some comments below on Echigo mole's recent activities). Zeromus1 is already attempting to put a sinister spin on that. He might remember that I am still quite ill, so I'm not content editing. That for me is extremely exhausting and requires a lot of concentration. It is also slightly wearing to edit here. Can Zeromus1 please stop twisting my words?[43]

@Elen of the Roads. Vigilance is required with Echigo mole because of outing issues (eg Julian Birdbath, Southend sofa, etc). His socks follow me to mathematics articles and interfere with my edits, eg Ansatz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) followed me to Grunsky matrix and Contraction (operator theory) and then attempted to edit Quasicircle without any knowledge of Teichmuller theory. When an editor such as Ansatz insists on inserting a wrong definition in an article beyond their competence and then arguing about it, his edits can be reverted but it's not possible to ignore him, although a waste of time to argue with a troll. Other troll accounts were C.D. Tondela who started an SPI on Echigo mole,[44] having edited oscillator representation several times. Then there were Sansodor, I'm sorry about your trousers, South Jutland County and G.W.Zinbiel and Recapitulation theory, water marble nail, The Ringer, Static web page, Explanatorium, Speed climbing, Flexural strength. These were all confirmed by CU. Some of these accounts were related to hoax articles on Aix-en-Provence. When active, Echigo mole is a user out of control. It is highly unlikely that an interaction ban with The Devil's Advocate or Cla68 would make the problem of Echigo mole go away. Imposing an interaction ban without conduct problems would be a novel departure. The logged warning to Collect has worked without any repercussions. Perhaps a similar logged warning would also work with Cla68, The Devil's Advocate and Zeromus1. The sanctions on SightWatcher anf TrevelyanL85A2 include a whole series of interaction bans and nobody is suggesting all of those be made 2-way. The 2-way argument applies where there has been some form of dispute. But that has not been the case here where 3 editors have of their own volition deecided to enable 2 banned or AE-banned users. Mathsci (talk) 05:26, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Zeromus1, please read what FPaS wrote. He told me that the main points had been made and that there was no reason to continue posting here. I completely agree with him. The recommendation outside periods of intensified disruption like this was for possible sockpuppetry issues to be dealt with off-wiki with checkusers or administrators. Private communication with administrators stops potential misreadings on-wiki. Alessandra Napolitano was a sockpuppet account dealt with off-wiki by arbitrators. Elen checked the first guess which was geographically slightly out: it was also based on editing history. I finally realised when in the US who it might be and AGK ran a CU and blocked the account. All that happened off-wiki. Why should sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry be dealt with on-wiki? It just feeds the troll when the account is evidently a sock. That Echigo mole had to be mentioned in the review was perhaps regrettable, but that was the way the review was framed. Mathsci (talk) 10:36, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Devil's Advocate is reporting things that I have not said and suggesting more of his highly improbable conspiracy theories.[45] I have mentioned to some editors that I do not at present envisage editing any articles in the foreseeable future because of health issues. I have no idea whether I might comment in project space in circumstances other than this "Mathsci" RfAr. I can't see why I would at present, but I have no idea. Mathsci (talk) 20:24, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Disappearing my account was a very remote possibility that could only happen in exceptional and, at this stage, highly unlikely circumstances. My main concern now is in recovering my health. The above paragraph is an accurate summary of my intentions or viewpoint at this juncture. Mathsci (talk) 22:55, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Above The Devil's Advocate's falsely claims TrevelyanL85A2's AE ban is my fault.[46] He wrote, "I mean, the whole reason Mathsci is going after me is because I provided evidence and argumentation that he had abused another one-way restriction with Trev in order to get that editor indeffed'" In reality, TrevelyanL85A2 chose to discuss topics covered within his extended arbcom topic ban outside arbcom space (a grey area) on User talk:The Devil's Advocate. TrevelyanL85A2 had been encouraged to do so by The Devil's Advocate. As a consequence TrevelyanL85A2 was reported at WP:AE and consequently was indefinitely blocked at AE. That decision was made by administrators acting fairly rapidly. TrevelyanL85A2's block can be appealed either at AE or through BASC. The Devil's Advocate has pushed this gambit of "blame everything on Mathsci, and see whether anything sticks" even further. In yet another of his wild conspiracy theories he has suggested that TrevelyanL85A2's indefinite block was just part of a carefully planned plot on my part. According to the Devil's Advocate's "theories", if I do not permanently vanish my account and entirely disappear from wikipedia as promised, he will be the next victim.[47] Suggesting such a highly distorted view of things, unsupported by any diffs, is unhelpful and disruptive. It is not very different from the distorted views he presented during his failed WP:ARB911 topic ban appeal at WP:AE, where he lashed out at administrators and other editors. At the time his R&I sanction was imposed at WP:AE, some administrators there suggested that his editing at that stage might already warrant a block. Such a measure would have prevented the disruption he is currently engaged in here. Mathsci (talk) 04:37, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Zeromus1 has made 148 edits to wikipedia. The very recent edits in project space[48][49][50][51] mention Ludwigs2, Miradre and Captain Occam, who stopped editing before Zeromus1's account became active. Ludwigs2 was site-banned by arbcom for matters unrelated to R&I.[52] Miradre now edits as Acadēmica Orientālis and has been on wikibreak since early July, following a report by Maunus at WP:ANI.[53] Captain Occam was site-banned first by Risker and then by arbcom.[54] Is Zeromus1 asking for the site-bans of Captain Occam and Ludwigs2 to be reviewed here? On SilkTork's talk page he refers to some imagined "conflict" or "dispute". Those are the same disruptive terms used in the DeviantArt campaign which ended in several site-bans and AE-bans. Mathsci (talk) 03:49, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Tijfo098

The TLDR version: Cla68 started to attack Mathsci [55] [56] in an AE thread in which Cla68 showed up after being canvassed from a tor exit node [57]. FPaS tried to hat the conversation [58], but since Cla68 would not drop the WP:STICK [59] [60], he was banned by T. Canens from commenting on Mathsci [61]. The last thing we need are enablers for Echigo Mole's trolling; he was simultaneously active at that WP:AE, probably with two accounts and several IPs. There is a SPI ongoing. Tijfo098 (talk) 08:10, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@SirFozzie: I think Mathsci should take the time to file a WP:LTA report on Echigo Mole, so others can have easier access to the background info. Mathsci's behavior in this case has been a bit sub-optimal, first by making an aside about TDA, Zeromous1 and YvelinFRance in a R&I case involving a different group of editors [62] (which degenerated in a large side-conversation, but was eventually filed as a separate report) and then by filing an AE thread on Cla68 [63] (eventually merged with the ongoing one on TDA and Zeromus1 [64].) I suspect this was a contributing factor to Cla68's continued presence at AE. But I think Mathsci's behavior is not out of the ordinary and is perfectly understandable under the circumstances, so I don't think it warrants further committee attention. Finally, Mathsci filed a 2nd AE request against Cla68 [65], this time for Cla68's filing of the present Arbitration request; AE admins can deal with that request on its merits. Tijfo098 (talk) 09:13, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Request: Since nobody seems to want to block User:Spar-stangled, we might as well add him as a party per [66] [67]. Tijfo098 (talk) 16:10, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I see he is blocked now. Tijfo098 (talk) 09:29, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Enric Naval

This request completely fails to address the real reason for the ibans. The Devil Advocate's was restoring a edit by a Echigo Mole's socks, and telling Zeromus1 that it's ok to do so and that Mathsci doesn't have any right to undo the edit of a banned sock in someone else's page. The Devil's Advocate was explaining to Zeromus1 that an indef blocked editor is not banned, and "The restriction also does not prohibit interactions with such editors, only restoring their edits". Here TDA is missing the goal of the last motion, where the goal is discouraging banned socks from participating in wikipedia. Encouraging Zerosmu1 to interact with indef-blocked editors, for that matter is bad advice and it's just throwing gasoline to the flames. Specially when the edit had already been identified as originating from Echigo Mole, who is a banned sockmaster, not from an indefblocked editor. Zerosmus1 seems to have believed completely this incorrect idea that it's OK to interact with editors that have been indef-blocked from editing wikipedia, and TDA is reinforcing this belief. And Cla68 was basically defending the whole thing and attacking Mathsci. Cla68 seems to have lost the perspective, in his request he claims that this comment by Mathsci is confrontional, when its actually helpful and contains good advice. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:10, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When the problems originate just from one of the parties, the logical sanction is a 1-way interaction ban. You should establish a 2-way iban only when both parties are responsible for causing the problem, which is not the case here. AE es perfectly well-equipped to upgrade to a 2-way iban if necessary. Please don't start applying gratuitous sanctions to people who haven't earned them, just because it's "fair" or "unfair" to someone who has made merits to receive a sanction. Please don't repeat one of those cases where you simply ban a few people in both "sides" without looking at who is really causing the problems, thus rewarding the troublemakers. That motion would just make play right into Echigo Mole's hands. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:02, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Penwhale

This was moved from below, by myself, at requests towards me. I think filers were asking "How can editors, who did not edit articles related to the original request, be put on sanctions from that case?", which is odd. Furthermore, one-sided IBAN never seems to work (especially when stalking is not really the case here). As to this case's filing - well, T. Canens specifically said in his post that it can be appealed to AC, so personally I think it's okay...? Either way, one-sided IBAN does not work, in my opinion, and creates cans of worms. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 14:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Heim: As far as I could remember, when IBANs are issued by ArbCom, two-way IBANs (instead of one-way) are issued, generally, to prevent gaming. Remember that IBANs include replying to editors which generally implies that editors much work in different areas (as IBAN will prevent them from working on the same article together, generally speaking). One-way IBAN, however, could allow editors to "drive" others out (if you couldn't reply to me, and I add a comment to anything, would prevent you from refuting me - unless, of course, it's discussion about the ban itself, etc). I'm not saying MathSci would do it, but if you stare down the center you'd get why IBAN generally needs to go both ways. Also - IBAN isn't technically a "sanction" in this sense, or at least I don't think it is. I feel it's more "people need to take a step back from the center and carry on with their separate lives" - without destroying each other. It's not a good analogy, but it would have to do, for now. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 05:22, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by SightWatcher

As Mathsci has mentioned me by name in his statement above, I assume I'm allowed to comment here.

Could the mutual interaction bans please cover me and TrevelyanL85A2 as well? We're also under one-way interaction bans, and are basically in the same boat as Cla68, Zeromus1 and The Devil's Advocate. Even when I've avoided both Mathsci and the R&I topic for many months at a time, he hasn't stopped paying attention to me and seeking sanctions against me. TrevelyanL85A2 gave more detail about our situation in this comment. [68] This situation makes me very uncomfortable at Wikipedia, and is part of why I haven't edited much for the past few months. I have no desire to return to the R&I topic area, but making my interaction ban with Mathsci mutual would make it easier for me to return to constructive editing elsewhere.

Comment by SB_Johnny

Mathsci's comment above describing Cla68's request as "a cynical escalation by a user who knows I am in ill health and wants to cause me even more distress for a nonexistent dispute and non-existent incident" is concerning on a number of levels. I suggest enacting the ban 2 way quickly and without drama, and perhaps revisiting when he has recovered from his procedure.

Comment by Heim

I too am rather concerned about the arbs' statements in favour of making this a mutual iban. As FutPerf and TC say, it's undermining the AE admins with no refutation of their actions, suggesting there's no good reason at all. I can say that I too would rethink my willingness to participate at AE if ArbCom's going to micromanage like this. That's a mild loss coming from me, since I rarely have time to, anyway, but you really ought to listen to TC, at least, since he's one of the more active admins there. At the least, if the Arbs are truly convinced one-way ibans don't work, they ought to spell that out in the discretionary sanctions.

I also am rather concerned the committee discussing placing Mathsci under sanctions, as far as I can tell, purely on procedural grounds. Sanctions leave a mark on your record, whether deserved or not, and no one should be tarred with that brush without good behavioural grounds, which I haven't found any arbs have cited at all. It's a particularly poor way to reward someone who's being harassed by a banned user. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 03:15, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Community input from Nobody Ent

Per AGK's solicitation

While I am sad to hear that Mathsci is in poor health and wish him a speedy recovery, health issues should not be a reason for steering the course of dispute resolution. References to them come across as condescending (as in the request) or patronizing (elsewhere here). If WP editing has become a significant stressor for Mathsci (or any other editor), I urge them to just stop. It's just a website, the pay sucks, and real life health and happiness are far more important.
I'm sympathetic to the perspective that restrictions, such as interaction bans, leave a "mark" on an editor's record. However on Wikipedia, the quest for "Justice" is too frequently a Siren leading to hazard. There is not, and should not, be justice here. Common sense should indicate the beneficiary of a one-way ban does not edit the bannee's talk page. The committee should either extend the bans to two-way, or make strong suggestions to Mathsci that he be more discreet in the future.
The anyone can edit ethos of Wikipedia which, if I recall correctly, is mandated by the foundation, means that socks and trolls will be with us always. Again, while sympathetic to the stress cause by chronic harassment, Mathsci's behavior is reminiscent of the person whose car is stolen after being left running in the street keys with the door unlocked. Mathsci's actions -- going around reverting edits, frequent posts on Elen's talk page et. al. are providing positive feedback to the harasser(s). As he suspects socks, he should simply file SPIs and let the rest of the community deal with rest of it.Nobody Ent 12:13, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Per the consensus ethos of Wikipedia, the actions of every editor are subject to review. No topic ban not imposed directly by the committee should be considered to apply to the ArbCom spaces: complaints of ban violation because a case was filed are frivolous bureaucracy. Wikipedia:Arbitration spaces are actively monitored and managed by the clerks, so banning is not necessary to prevent disruption.
Likewise, review of AE actions by the committee are not, and should not be perceived, micromanagement but rather just part of the consensus process. The majority of AE actions are upheld with little comment; that the committee occasionally takes a look at a particularly contentious issue should not be taken personally. Nobody Ent 12:26, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Alanscottwalker

If the commitee is interested in "evening" the burden (regardless of merit) it should just consider rescinding one or more of the one way interaction bans, altogether. On another matter, it seems frankly bizarre, patronizing, or insulting to try to make the case that Mathci needs to be saved from himself. The only question should be whether others need to be saved from him? (Or alternatively whether others need leave him alone). But if Mathci is "harassing" you would need a case (and lots more evidence) to establish that. In particular, more than isolated AE spats. - Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:07, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Professor marginalia

Just noting: Zeromus1 couldn't make themselves more conspicuous if they were busting these moves wearing nothing but headphones and a "Sock.I.Am" sandwich sign. Professor marginalia (talk) 04:29, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

*I think filers were asking "How can editors, who did not edit articles related to the original request, be put on sanctions from that case?", which is odd. Furthermore, one-sided IBAN never seems to work (especially when stalking is not really the case here). As to this case's filing - well, T. Canens specifically said in his post that it can be appealed to AC, so personally I think it's okay...? - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 21:31, 23 October 2012 (UTC) Moving this upwards; Recuse at suggestions given to me. - Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 14:56, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/5/1/3)

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)

I tend to think that while this issue is not ripe for a full case (in my opinion, Mathsci probably would best be served in letting other people do the banned user hunting). I would suggest that the parties agree to completely disengage from each other and stop filing nine billion ArbRequests in the various flavors. SirFozzie (talk) 04:22, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As to the charge that filing a case is a violation of the one way interaction ban.. we allow folks to appeal AE sanctions to us when they feel it's justified, as this is the final stop of dispute resolution. Normally, we have a high bar towards accepting these requests (as we would have to be shown that the AE admins were clearly outside of reasonableness when placing or enforcing a sanction). However, one sided interaction bans are so game-able (as this request shows), that it would probably be best to make the interaction bans mutual. SirFozzie (talk) 04:36, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I was referring to everywhere in the RfArb family, including this request, Cla.. :) SirFozzie (talk) 04:45, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Mathsci, please do not do that. We are aware of the situation, and we can review the interaction bans placed at AE as part of our mandate. Should they cross the line here, we will take care of it. SirFozzie (talk) 04:51, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Recuse. If accepted as a case, I would be providing evidence. Jclemens (talk) 04:36, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Decline as a case. One effect of opening a case here would be to provide entertainment value for the malicious banned user(s) who has, wittingly or otherwise, provoked this entire drama. A second effect might be to cause stress to an editor with a self-identified serious health issue. Whether or not there are issues here that would otherwise be worth arbitrating, they are not of such importance that it is worth doing either of these things. I urge the AE administrators to resolve related threads there in as drama-free a fashion as possible for similar reasons. Most of the editors involved in this situation need to step back and ask themselves whether they may have lost their sense of perspective. If this doesn't happen then at some point we may have to do something, but opening a Race and intelligence 2 case is unlikely to be the best way to do it. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:52, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Having caught up on the discussion of the past few days, I stick with my vote to decline the case, and I do not see the need for any kind of motion. (I think that Mathsci would be well-advised to step back a bit from the fray here and leave some of the burden of dealing with the banned user(s) in question to others, but that is personal advice and not something that needs to be addressed by formal means.) I would like to strongly second the sentiment that for the ArbCom to modify a decision at AE is not any form of reflection on the administrators who made the decision at AE—just as when I as an arbitrator make a proposal and it is voted down by my 14 colleagues, I do not take it as a reflection on me. The work of the administrators who assist the Committee and the community by participating in arbitration enforcement, which is one of the more thankless administrator tasks, is appreciated by the Committee, and that is no less so even if we modify a decision made at AE on occasion. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:54, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Decline nothing here of such complexity as to warrant a new case. Standard mechanisms are sufficient. Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:42, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
While I do not agree with Cla that a full arbitration case is necessary, I do believe that some amendment to our current decision is necessary, because the current remedies seem to be as large a source of drama as the dispute itself was (before it came to arbitration). In my mind, the problem has morphed from a prolific content dispute into a more limited "personality" dispute, and in mulling over how to resolve that, I think SirFozzie's suggestion that the interaction bans be applied both ways has merit. I'd be interested in views on the prospect of extending the I-bans from my colleagues and the community. AGK [•] 08:26, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Decline and prefer not to amend the current sanctions at this time. In response to the AE administrators' concerns about this review of your work, I fully echo NE's last point (above); we have enormous respect for your judgement, and a solicited review of a single action should not be interpreted to be anything other than part of Wikipedia's usual arbitration process. AGK [•] 09:24, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interaction bans are generally best applied to both users as it does generally take two to cause a dispute. When people's interactions are distracting users from building the encyclopaedia, and then end up here, it does seem appropriate to consider an interaction ban on all the involved users, so I would agree with my colleagues views above to decline the request, but open a motion making the bans two way. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 12:54, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think SilkTork got this exactly right. One way ibans do not work, and that needs to be addressed, but otherwise, decline as a case, and draft a motion to enact this. Courcelles 02:39, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I also agree with SilkTork, one-way interaction bans are rarely successful, while two-way bans have a much better success rate. Of course, very often the parties on the receiving end of a two-way interaction ban aren't equally guilty, and there is sometimes a tension between imposing a remedy that is practical and a remedy that is entirely equitable. In this instance, I think we should replace the one-way interaction ban with a two-way ban, which would make the remedy more practical, although I accept this isn't entirely equitable. PhilKnight (talk) 11:01, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
While I can see that mutual ibans might not be considered fair, they may well reduce the overall drama. I also think that Mathsci and Mole are locked in a pattern that isn't doing Mathsci any good. Mole undoubtedly intends that Mathsci spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, and Mathsci is giving him that satisfaction by putting massive energies into sock hunting, where ignoring him would probably do more good. As it is, anyone (not just Mole) who wants to get at Mathsci knows exactly how to do it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:07, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 385: / Line 385: @@
 I recently took a look at the past amendment requests listed at [[Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence]], and apparently this conflict has been ongoing for almost '''two''' years.  The behavior in question and one of the parties never changes, although the group of editors that he's in conflict with has changed a few times.  This issue was brought before ArbCom in November 2010: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence#Request_for_clarification:_WP:ARBR.26I.2Fscope_of_topic_ban_of_Mathsci] February 2011: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence#Request_to_amend_prior_case:_Race_and_intelligence_2] August 2011: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence#Withdrawn_request_for_clarification:_August_2011] September 2011: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence#Request_to_amend_prior_case:_Race_and_intelligence_.28September_2011.29], and July 2012. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence#Amendment_request:_Race_and_intelligence]  That doesn't count the review that happened this spring, which would be a sixth time, and also doesn't include the dozen or more AE threads.  The issue that's before ArbCom now has come before them an average of once every four months for the past two years.  I think it's apparent that if the committee decides to take no action, this cycle will continue indefinitely, either involving the current group of editors or a different group.  I think the committee should carefully consider whether allowing that to happen really is what they want. [[User:Zeromus1|Zeromus1]] ([[User talk:Zeromus1|talk]]) 01:29, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
+*Mathsci, I can see that most of the editors you've been in conflicts with have eventually quit the project or been blocked.  What I'm saying is that these conflicts always seem to go the same way.  First you choose an editor you don't like and follow them to various unrelated parts of the project.  In the case of the Devil's Advocate, you followed him to unrelated threads at WQA [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette_assistance/archive121#Problem_with_a_repeat_GA_nomination_for_Krista_Branch] BLPN [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive161#Wikimedia_UK_.28Ashley_van_Haeften_and_Roger_Bamkin.29] AE [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement&diff=prev&oldid=506320961] and brought him and me up in an AE thread that had nothing to do with us ''or'' you. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement&diff=prev&oldid=517873512] After a while, whoever you're doing this to starts to react, and then they get sanctioned or blocked by AE or ArbCom.  A lot of the time admins seem to think the easiest way to resolve the conflict is by sanctioning whatever current editor your conflict is with, and maybe ArbCom thinks that also.  But what can be seen with a big-picture perspective is that this does nothing to prevent the same cycle repeating with whatever editor you choose next.  If it were enough to always sanction the other party, and just give you warnings and admonishments, the same cycle wouldn't have repeated with at least eight different editors over the past two years. [[User:Zeromus1|Zeromus1]] ([[User talk:Zeromus1|talk]]) 05:03, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 === Statement by TC ===