Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests

Dispute resolution
Tips for dispute resolution
Use etiquette Assume good faith Be civil Be open to compromise Ask for editor assistance Discuss on talk pages
Content disputes
Get a third opinion (⇒) Request comments (⇒) Dispute resolution (⇒) Formal mediation (⇒)
Conduct disputes
Get a third opinion (⇒) Comments on user conduct Administrator assistance Arbitration (⇒)

Wikipedia arbitration
About arbitration Arbitration policy Arbitration requests Current proceedings Guide to arbitration Noticeboard
Committee
About the Committee Rules & procedures Motions History / Elections
Subcommittees
Audit (AUSC) (t) Ban Appeals (BASC) (t)
Clerks
About the Clerks Clerks' noticeboard
Sanctions
Discretionary sanctions Active sanctions
Records
Archive of proceedings
Related changes

A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution on Wikipedia. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The entire process is governed by the arbitration policy. For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and dealt with, please see guide to arbitration.

Please make your request in the appropriate section: Request a new arbitration case Request clarification or amendment of an existing case This includes requests to lift sanctions previously imposed Request enforcement of a remedy in an existing case Arbitrator motions Arbitrator-initiated motions, not specific to a current open request

Requests for enforcement

Click here to add a new request

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Apteva

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

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

Appealing user 

Apteva (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) – Apteva (talk) 18:42, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed 

and from advocating against the MOS being applicable to article titles.

This was applied at the request of one editor with no supporting evidence, and was apposed by a non-involved admin as being non-content neutral. See Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Dicklyon. While it is obvious that MOS and article title policy cover different aspects of Wikipedia, it is a fringe theory that MOS does apply to article titles. It is not something that I have advocated or opposed to any undue length, and no diffs were presented to indicate that taking a stand one way or the other was a problem. Logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation#Log of blocks, bans, and restrictions

Administrator imposing the sanction 

Gatoclass (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Notification of that administrator 

15 May 2013

Statement by Apteva

The sanction is absurd, meaningless, and without merit. Were it to stand I would call it "the sky is blue topic ban", a ban against stating an obvious fact. As noted, the issue at hand was not my behavior, but the persistent "gratuitous comments on contributor[s] in discussions", and it sets a bad precedent to automatically give out sanctions to the complaintant in addition to or instead of the complaintee. Doing so has a chilling effect on bringing complaints, and is contradictory to the good of Wikipedia. Not one diff was presented that I was "advocating against the MOS being applicable to article titles", and even if I was, there is nothing wrong with that. Advocating the opposite is what would be bizarre, but it would also not be sanctionable. The topic ban simply follows the typical approach of "topic ban everyone who disagrees with us and then pretend that we have reached consensus." I request that this additional ban be lifted, as unsupported, misguided, and unwarranted.

"The arbitration process, and admins generally, have no authority over content issues, including over the question as to how we apply the MOS to content. We must therefore not enact sanctions that ban a user from voicing a particular opinion. But, if their conduct in discussions about this topic is deficient, we can ban them from discussing the topic altogether, irrespective of the opinions they put forward"

There is no evidence that my conduct in discussions about the MOS or article titles is deficient. I am a frequent contributor to all RM discussions, and appropriately suggest improvements to the MOS when I see deficiencies, although that is done only very rarely, as my interests lie in other areas than in the MOS guidelines. Apteva (talk) 18:42, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

None of the links provided are evidence of any current behavior that needs to be checked, as all of them are from January. In the last three months, I have made over 2,000 edits, hundreds of them RM discussions, and if this was an issue my talk page would be riddled with complaints by now. This request is completely out of the woodworks and is totally unsupported by even one diff that exhibits a problem that needs to be addressed.

On February 15 I was canvassed to participate in a MOS discussion titled WP:NCCAPS → "shorter than five letters" rule, which I had contributed to in December, and I declined, stating that "we use wp:article titles policy, not MOS to choose titles". Is that a problem? (that was on my talk page) NCCAPS is a naming convention, part of article title policy, and not a part of the MOS guidelines.

Wikipedia does not have a (choose your favorite villian) Party that dictates what everyone has to think and anyone who disagrees must be censored from saying otherwise. This ban is completely ridiculous. I have not been "discussing whether MOS should be applied to titles", and should not be sanctioned for doing so. Where are the diffs that I have made one such edit in the last month? Or two months, or even three? Is this really an ongoing problem, or is it simply in someone's imagination that my thinking the obvious is actually a problem, just because they have a fringe view of how Wikipedia works, and want to stifle all other views? Apteva (talk) 18:14, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

And if I can not discuss whether MOS should be applied, I would be free to unequivocally state that it was, and was not, but could not discuss whether is was or was not? This is getting even more silly. I can not quote MOS anywhere in Wikipedia??? How am I supposed to edit anything? Apteva (talk) 18:19, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

As to the April edit, that was the revert of an undiscussed bold edit. If anyone has a campaign, it is not me. As there is absolutely nothing unique to band names, as apposed to any other article capitalization, there is no need for a band name capitalization section at all, and it was appropriately removed. Apteva (talk) 19:57, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Check the history. There was nothing on the talk page about adding to the capitalization section at the time that addition was made. The proposal on the table was to delete the section.[23], which was added because the page looked like this.[24] The appropriate step would have been to say, no, and I think it should be expanded, because punk rockers can't get band names right, and we don't like the capitalization they use, and want to use our own, or whatever reason, and this is different from say, book titles, and need to have the information repeated here (so that someone can make different rules here and create a content fork from NCCAPS)... It is like changing the name of an article while there is an AFD – pointless. Unless disrupting Wikipedia to make a point is the objective. Apteva (talk) 16:21, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Gatoclass

I will try to keep this brief as I don't want to waste any more time on this than I already have. I had a number of reasons for modifying the original sanction to include the phrase and against the MOS being applicable to article titles. Firstly, that wording was included in the originally proposed topic ban, which received strong consensus at AN/I, here. I don't know why Seraphimblade chose to omit the phrase when imposing the actual sanction and was unable to query him on it since he is not currently active; however, in coming to the decision I did, I was influenced by Seraphimblade's comment later in the AN/I discussion[25] when he described a proposal by Apetva to remove references to MOS in WP:TITLE as clearly related to Apteva's activity in the area of dashes/hyphens, and ... a violation of the ban. While Seraphimblade went on to state that he felt no extension of the ban would be necessary before imposing a sanction for such edits, I am of the opinion that it is generally better to remove ambiguities in the scope of a topic ban in order to avoid any possible chance of misunderstanding and thus potential future wikidrama.

I was further influenced in my decision by a couple of recent edits by Apteva, one of which removed reference to MOS in the WP:Naming conventions (music) guideline,[26] which might be interpreted as a renewal of the same campaign, and also by some comments at Talk:Suicide of Kelly Yeomans, where the user made what I considered to be some ill-informed comments regarding policy, particularly that WP:BLP applies to articles about the deceased.[27] Apteva is also in the habit of making absolutist statements on talk pages which indicates possible ongoing difficulties with collaboration. It was for these reasons I initially considered a broader MOS- or TITLE-related ban for Apteva, but after they assured me on my talk page that they no longer belabour a point I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and merely modify the original ban to reflect the originally proposed wording.

Apteva states that they have made "hundreds of edits in RM discussions" in the past few months without complaint, if that is the case I suppose the above handful of edits might be considered unrepresentative; nonetheless the extension of the ban I made would not impinge on their ability to continue contributing to such debates; the extension only prohibits them from advocating a particular view related to a meta-issue on which they have been deemed disruptive in the past. Given Seraphimblade's comments, I am still inclined to view this modified wording as more of a clarification than an extension; however, I don't feel strongly about this issue, and if the consensus among reviewing admins is that Apteva's recent conduct is not sufficiently problematic to warrant the rewording, or that the rewording is unnecessary, I won't argue the point. Gatoclass (talk) 13:54, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Dicklyon

The evidence of the problem, and of the community's support for this ban as a partial solution, is plentiful, starting with the section under my name above, and including, going back in time: [28], [29], [30], [31], among other places. Dicklyon (talk) 03:49, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

The most recent anti-MOS-in-titles disruption that he says there's no evidence of is this section blanking in naming conventions. (remarkably, he now claims above that his section blanking was a revert of an undiscussed bold edit, which it most clearly was not; it was neither a revert nor was the prior change undiscussed; my edit before his blanking was in fact a clarification prompted by his own initiated discussion, in which he pointed out a potential problem that I fixed, at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (music)#Capitalization. par for the course.)

As for ErikHaugen's suggestion, I don't mind it being more neutral, but the trouble with replacing "advocating" with "discussing" is that it doesn't prohibit steps like the one I just linked above, in which the anti-MOS advocacy was in the form of section blanking, not discussion. Dicklyon (talk) 19:00, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Ohconfucius

oh boy, the circus is back in town again just as the Big Top was being dismantled. Do you think it's wise? You have lots of seats to fill, and few of us want to see the show again after the clown disgraced himself and the tiger pissed all over the audience. ;-) -- Ohc ^¡digame!_{¿que pasa?} 04:12, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved A Quest for Knowledge

<Sigh>....the inability to let things go is the cause of most topic bans. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:05, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved ErikHaugen

I want to address a couple of points that Apteva raised.

• it sets a bad precedent to automatically give out sanctions to the complaintant in addition to or instead of the complaintee — This precedent is already quite well established. This happens all the time. See wp:BOOMERANG. Regardless of the merits of the rest of this appeal, this should not be considered to be an issue.
• apposed by a non-involved admin as being non-content neutral — I was a bit surprised to see this, too. I think it would be a reasonable outcome of this appeal that and from advocating against the MOS being applicable to article titles be replaced with something like and from discussing whether the MOS is applicable to article titles. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:34, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

  Per Dicklyon, this should probably be something that would prohibit any edits related to the issue, if it's changed. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:44, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved SmokeyJoe

It is appropriate that there is a chilling effect on bringing a complaint. Weak complainants deserve a bucket of cold water. If you are going to complain about another editor and seek a formal sanction, you ought to be at least several shades better in standing. WP:BOOMERANG. Bringing a formal complaint is an aggressive act. An alternative is to ask another for help.

I admit to not understanding the ban in question. "the MOS" reads as a contradiction, because there is no single MOS. The multiple MOSs are guidelines, WP:AT is policy, guidelines are usually considered to defer to policy pages where there is there is discrepancy, which sounds a tad legalistic and should be read instead as "where there is discrepancy, fix the guideline to remove the discrepancy". It is very unclear as to what it is that Apteva would like to do that the sanction prevents.

Apteva appears to have been found guilty of filing a weak request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Dicklyon. WP:BOOMERANG requires a response. I think that WP:TROUT would have been better, that the longer-lasting insult of a sanction was a little bit strong. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:07, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved editor Dirtlawyer1

This comment is directed to Gatoclass. WP:BLP does, in fact, explicitly apply to the recently deceased. In pertinent part, the introductory paragraph of WP:BLP states:

"We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be explicitly attributed to a reliable, published source, which is usually done with an inline citation. Contentious material about living persons (or in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion."

The added emphasis is mine. Whether this is relevant in a talk page discussion about someone who died in 1997 I leave to the sound discretion of the reader. I take no position on the merits of this appeal. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:10, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Result of the appeal by Apteva

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

I've reviewed the information provided, and the evidence from both Apteva and Gatoclass, and my inclination at this time is to decline the appeal, however, I will leave this open in case other administrators wish to comment on it. SirFozzie (talk) 05:06, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by IranitGreenberg

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

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

Appealing user 

IranitGreenberg (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log) – IranitGreenberg (talk) 15:03, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed 

Topic ban from the subject of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, imposed at

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#User:Pluto2012 reported by User:IranitGreenberg (Result: Topic ban of IranitGreenberg)

Administrator imposing the sanction 

EdJohnston (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Notification of that administrator 

[33]

Statement by IranitGreenberg

After Pluto2012 warned me against 1RR violation in an article, I saw he broke the rule himself so I reported him, but somehow I ended topic-banned because of my edits in this article. I already promised not to make controversial editions in that article and to look for consensus before introducing material that could be considered POV-pushing. I'm sorry for what I've done, I won't do it again. I want to have another chance to make valuable contributions to this encyclopedia with patience and dialogue.--IranitGreenberg (talk) 15:03, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Statement by EdJohnston

My rationale was already given in the AN3 complaint. The present AE appeal was filed right after my closure of the report at

• WP:AN3#User:Pluto2012 reported by User:IranitGreenberg (Result: Topic ban of IranitGreenberg)

In the complaint, six people besides myself commented on IranitGreenberg's editing of I/P articles. For more background, you could also check the discussion at User talk:IranitGreenberg#Complaint about your edits at WP:AN3. EdJohnston (talk) 18:19, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

@Sandstein: Since May 1 IranitGreenberg has been blocked twice for 1RR violations on I/P articles. The rapid pace of these violations from a relatively new account (April 6) and the tone-deaf attitude they exhibited in the AN3 discussion about POV matters encouraged me to believe that some kind of topic ban was necessary. I won't be upset if others feel that the parameters of the topic ban need to be adjusted, or if anyone perceives a genuine opportunity for negotiation. It is striking that IG has toured through so many hot-button I/P articles in a short time, including Zionism, Israel and the apartheid analogy, Palestinian people and Arab-Israeli conflict. From the beginning IG appeared to be familiar with Wikipedia, using stock phrases such as unexplained removal of content. On her first edit she did the usual thing that socks do to avoid a red link for her user page. She reverted other editors 16 times in her first four days on Wikipedia. To her credit she has done a couple of self-reverts when others pointed out that she could be sanctioned. EdJohnston (talk) 02:35, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Pluto2012

IranitGreenberg should learn wikipedia principles out of a topic that seems to touch him too much. In this section, after I informed him of the 4th pillar and the fact that it was a problem he considered openly there were too many pov-pushers on the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he succeeded in accusing directly 6 contributors namely of pov-pushing. He is much more agressive than any of the standards that are accepted on wikipedia and he focuses on the very polemic arena of the I-P conflict. He should try to prove he can collaborate on easier topics before coming back on this one. Pluto2012 (talk) 16:57, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I deeply regret my accusations. From now one, I'll discuss everything on the talk page before making an edit.--IranitGreenberg (talk) 17:11, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment by 1ST7

I think it would be harsh and unfair to ban IranitGreenberg from the topic, as he/she has promised to be more careful and to make the effort to improve. He/she is relatively new to Wikipedia and is still working to improve his/her own editing abilities.

It should be noted that most of the other editors who complained against this user are hardly neutral parties in this issue, one of which ranted about their own political views on IG's talk page for no apparent reason.

If anything, let IranitGreenberg be on probation for a few weeks, but give him/her the chance the go through with the promises he/she made and continue to improve. --1ST7 (talk) 21:57, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

1) The edit you link to is hardly "a rant"

2) In any case, that editor has not been involved in this complaint

3) Having commented several times in the discussion under consideration here, stating "I agree with IranitGreenberg", you really shouldn't describe yourself as an "uninvolved editor". RolandR (talk) 22:27, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

1) It still seems rather rude to write a long and somewhat offensive post about one's own political opinions on someone else's talk page for no apparent reason.

2) That user complained about IranitGreenberg in the Administrators noticeboard and participated in the discussion that ultimately resulted in this ban.

3) I wasn't involved with the discussion that originally led to this ban. --1ST7 (talk) 22:45, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Just wanted to clarify that I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble by pointing out the issue with the talk page; the purpose of that was only to point out that it's unlikely that everyone who participated in the original discussion was an unbiased commentator. --1ST7 (talk) 00:42, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Someone who has been involved in articles related to the topic of the ban, as you have at Children in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, even referring to IranitGreenberg by name on the talk page there, you are not an "uninvolved editor". I'm not questioning your right to comment here, but you should move your comment to before the "uninvolved editors" subheading. Zero^talk 03:07, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

No problem. Should I move this entire conversation there or just my original statement? --1ST7 (talk) 03:47, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Keeping it all together is best. I did it. Zero^talk 05:03, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Bbb23

Just a brief statement for the moment to partly address Sandstein's request to Ed. Wikipedia believes in escalating sanctions, e.g., a 24-hour block for one's first edit war, a 72-hour block for one's second battle, etc. In Iranit's case, the topic ban represents an escalating sanction as previous sanctions have failed to stop the disruption. Iranit has been blocked by two different admins in this month. Both were arbtiration enforcement blocks for edit warring in the area of the topic ban, I-P articles. His last block expired on May 12. Since that time, here are some examples of his edits (please bear in mind I know very little about the subject matter):

• revert by Dlv999 regarding with an edit summary "Gross POV pushing"
• same material after Iranit supposedly tried to tone down the POV-pushing, now removed entirely by Sean.Hoyland
• revert by Pluto2012 of Iranit's recharacterization of a caption with Pluto's edit summary "pov pushing" - no editor has agreed with Iranit since the reversion of May 12
• reversion of Iranit's addition by GreyShark09 - note Iranit's edit summary, "Syria is an Arab enemy of Israel"

I have to stop now. I've only gotten as far as May 12, and there are lots more edits, but I have to go eat dinner. Perhaps someone else can add more diffs to assist Sandstein.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:17, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Keithbob

While I see value in IG's admission of wrong doing and apology I do not think that it is grounds for a reversal of an AN discussion where there was a clear, strong consensus for a topic ban. IG would do well to collaborate constructively in other areas and then make her appeal after some months. -- — Keithbob • Talk • 18:52, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Glrx

A topic ban is appropriate. I was a bit concerned that EdJohnson suggested a 3-month ban and Bbb23 suggested 6-months, but the resulting ban was indefinite with 6 months between reviews. There may be good cause for the extension. After Bbb23's comments, IG suggested that strong PoV editors are needed to counter other strong PoV editors; WP wants neither extreme. In addition, IG promised to not add controversial material, but Dlv999 points out a subsequent-to-the-promise edit that needlessly injects "Israelite kingdom" in an article on Palestinian people. That edit colors the apology and whether IG can be more careful with edits; maybe IG doesn't recognize controversial edits; maybe IG wants to be close to the line. In the above statement, IG is mystified about the boomerang, but I would expect IG to understand why. I welcome the apology, but it doesn't explain why it happened or why it will change. Glrx (talk) 19:52, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

@EdJohnston: No qualms about parameters now. Glrx (talk) 03:44, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved A Quest for Knowledge

I don't see a reason to lift the ban. Further, I'd be curious to know what other account(s) they've edited under. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:21, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Result of the appeal by IranitGreenberg

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

EdJohnston, it appears that you topic-banned IranitGreenberg for non-neutral editing. That is a valid reason for a topic ban, but it's not easy for me to find the evidence on the basis of which you imposed the ban. In the AN3 discussion, I find this edit of 17 May 2013, which does appear non-neutral, in that the personal history of the presiding officer has no apparent relation to the topic. Is there other recent evidence that you took into consideration?  Sandstein  19:02, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. While can't speak to the plausibility of the sockpuppetry concerns (that would need a WP:SPI), an examination of the general pattern of editing by IranitGreenberg reveals that they are a single-purpose account entirely dedicated to making changes in favor of the position of one particular side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Such a pattern of editing violates WP:NPOV. On that basis, the topic ban is appropriate (or at least defensible enough that interfering with the exercise of a collegue's discretion is not warranted), and I would decline the appeal.  Sandstein  15:04, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree with Sandstein, that the topic ban is appropriate in this case of Non-Neutral Point of View Editing, and recommend that this appeal be closed as such. SirFozzie (talk) 05:08, 22 May 2013 (UTC)