Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests

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Motion name	Date posted
Arbitrator workflow motions	1 December 2024

Current requests

SemBubenny

Initiated by ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} at 11:10, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Ameliorate! (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• SemBubenny (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

[1]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• [2]
• Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive488#Abuse_of_administrator_tools
• Relates to long-term abuse of administrator tools

Statement by Ameliorate!

Administrator SemBubenny, formerly "Mikkalai", has for over many years been deleting articles related to specific phobia. Often these deletions are outside of policy, process and on numerous occasions were made without providing a deletion reason. This thread on ANI provides most of the information related to this. The gist of the situation is that SemBubenny believes these articles are garbage, that he is entitled to delete them as long as he restores them when asked and that there is nothing wrong with him pushing his point of view. SemBubenny has been unresponsive about this, choosing to blank his talkpage during a discussion about his deletions (which is what prompted me to start the ANI thread). During the discussion at ANI SemB admitted that unilateral deletion was wrong and stated what he would have done in hindsight:

"After reading the arguments presented here and in the section below, #DYK hoax article?, I admit that my course of actions was wrong. I still insist that an occasional deletion of a silly article created by and anon is well within WP:IAR. However since the creation of fake phobia articles is a rather persistent and ongoing problem, I should have invited other wikipedians to a discussion how to deal with this problem in a systematic and consensus way."

However, on November 20 2008 (17 days after the ANI thread) SemB deleted Kabourophobia and yesterday (January 25 2009) he deleted Metathesiophobia - his deletion summary states "wiktionary" however the article has, from as far as I can tell, not been transwikied (and this is the second time he has deleted the article without discussion).

Given SemB's unwillingness to fully discuss this issue, his reneging on what he said at ANI whilst admitting he was incorrect to delete the articles (meaning an RFC would be a waste of time), his continued and long-term abuse of the delete function and that there is no other process of reviewing administrator actions I offer this to the committee.

@ Carcharoth - This is not a content issue (the subject matter is an irrelevancy), this is an administrator deleting articles because they conflict with their point of view (see the diff above). It would be a difficult situation if any administrator was permitted to delete any articles they wish with the only recourse to be DRV.

@ Vassyana - The only thing I can see coming out of an RFC is an assurance he will stop deleting articles like this, SemB already provided this and then continued along the same track. I therefore fail to see what an RFC would accomplish.

@ FayssalF - Good faith was assumed at this point and the issue dropped. However, SemB went against what he said he would do going forward, which is why we are here now. 04:07, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by SemBubenny

I think that the position of Ameliorate! has nothing to do with improvement of wikipedia content (he apparently thinks that the article "Kabourophobia is a persistent fear of crabs" is something to be vigorously defended up to RFA) and is aimed solely against the perceived admin abuse, disregarding the existence of be bold rule. Since his vigilance is impossible to deceive even with my name change, in order to prevent further waste of time of other people I hereby declare that I comply with Ameliorate!'s demands and what is more, I am removing phobia topics from my watchlist.

To all other withchunters and hound dogs with long memory: be it known that I removed myself from all other areas of former conflicts. I would have removed myself from phobia topics earlier if I expected that Ameliorate!'s zeal is so unquenching and sleepless (he even came back from being retired in order to give me a beating). Until now the creators of phobia pseudo-articles used to be gone without trace. - 7-bubёn >t 17:48, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Answer to "Comment" by Jayvdb

I am aware of my limitations, related to my age and the corresponding state of my brain. Therefore, as I explained above, last year I radically changed my edit pattern: I removed myself from all heated topics and limited any admin activity, to limit my involvement in any interpersonal conflicts, which mightlead to disruption of wikipedia from my part in any perceived form. I didn't recognize the last piece of conflict left, in which I got emotionally involved: the topic of fake phobias. Now I stated remove myself from it. This is my planned way of behavior: whenever I am to enter in a possible conflict, I am to remove myself from the topic, recognizing that I am not "the last man standing" in defense of wikipedia content or whatever. - 7-bubёn >t 15:59, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

@Alex Bakharev

Please don't defend me. OK, I forgot that I promised not to delete these pages: I dont' have a constant focus on some peet peeves: I edit a broad spectrum and big numbers. If Ameliorate! instead of reminding me my promise decided to punch me in the nose with a big gun, so be it. If arbcom decides that I am rogue admin, deleting pages on a whim left and right, well, what can I say? In a way it is a good sign that arbcom does not have an overflow of more serious cases to consider. - 7-bubёn >t 07:59, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

@Biophys & Postlethwaite - I clearly stated that last year I decided to disengage from any conflicts. Yet you keep dragging dust covered cases. Can someone notify Romanian, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian wikipedians, as well as pseudoscience editors, user:Jossi and who else? I bet they have some more nasty words to say. - 7-bubёn >t 18:09, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Jehochman

Suggestion: if you think an article might be borderline for speedy deletion, WP:PROD can be tried first, falling back to WP:AfD. It is possible to AfD a group of articles at once if the arguments for deletion and the subject matter are closely related. This may be more efficient than arguing about speedy deletions. If there are a few tendentious accounts that habitually object to valid speedy deletes, they should be dealt with under the disruptive editing guideline. You can leave evidence on my talk page if you want me to review such accounts. I see nothing arbitratable here.Jehochman ^Talk 15:30, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by SoWhy

As far as I can see by SemBubenny's reaction, he does defend that those articles he deleted are not encyclopedic. But I think why Ameliorate! opened this case was not the question about whether those articles should be deleted or not, but on the way SemBubenny did it, citing WP:BOLD as a reason to ignore speedy deletion criteria. As it is within ArbCom's authority, I think the question that should be answered by the Arbitrators is whether ignoring a policy like WP:CSD citing reasons of WP:BOLD or WP:IAR does in fact constitute an abuse of admin privileges. The problem I see is not those articles, it's the fact that SemBubenny repeatedly ignored all appeals to not delete articles outside the deletion policy and yet continued to do so. If he deleted Wikipedia citing "silly article" as a reason, I doubt anyone would doubt that this were abuse. Just because the articles he deleted are less "important", does not mean the deletions are okay, does it? So I think an ArbCom ruling as to if and if so, how far WP:CSD can be ignored by admins would be helpful, not only in this case but in further cases where admin's decide to ignore the criteria and just delete things. SoWhy 21:44, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

@ Vassyana

The ANI thread that Ameliorate! cited is pretty community-feedback-y imho and several users there agreed that those deletions were incorrect and he should stop doing them. I have to agree with the filing party that an RfC will probably yield the same responses (and SemBubenny ignored the community's response to stop it on ANI as well). SoWhy 21:44, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

@ bainer

Actually, policy does not allow deletion of dictionary definitions unless transwikied (see A5). They are never covered by A3 though because all reasons derived from WP:NOT are explicitly listed at WP:CSD#Non-criteria. Regards SoWhy 21:48, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

@ FayssalF / John Vandenberg / Alex Bakharev

I think Ryan's last comment indicates that SemBubenny has not honored a similar promise in the past, so I don't understand, why we should assume that he will know. Also, he promises not to delete these pages (i.e. phobia-related) but the problem seems to be deletion out of policy in general. SoWhy 14:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Biophys

I must admit that Mikkalai is a difficult user who constantly removes a lot of valid content, no matter how well it was sourced (please see an example), without any explanations.Biophys (talk) 02:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Alex Bakharev (talk)

I think Mikkalai was wrong blankly using IAR in the case of marginaly notable phobias. There was no pressing need to disregard our criteria of speedy deletion in this case. Many phobia-related articles are hopeless not-notable neologisms or dictionary definitions (fear of number 283, fear of three oranges, fear of giant octopuses from outer space, etc.) Still all those articles are harmless and some of them have potential to be extended into normal wikiarticles. Thus, some collective decisions via prods or afds were much better.

On the other hand, the dispute seems to be already resolved: Mikkalai accepted that he was not correct and promised not to delete the phobia-related articles out of process again. I do not see any possible good of further arbcom processing. The dispute is already solved, why fix it again? Alex Bakharev (talk) 04:39, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Ryan Postlethwaite

This should certainly be accepted. There's been problems with Mikkalai's conduct for months now. I actually filed a request for arbitration last March (seen here). The committee then thought it was just simple burnout, but this has obviously continued over nearly a year. Regardless of the cause, the conduct of Mikkalai isn't compatible with that of an administrator. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 14:00, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (7/3/1/2)

• Recuse on the phobias issue - took part in ANI thread on the phobias, and gave SemBubenny (Mikkalai at the time) advice on his talk page. Additionally, don't think deletion of phobia articles out of process needs to be dealt with by ArbCom (AfD and DRV should handle content issues like that). If the deletions get regularly overturned, then that would be a problem. Will check back here to see if SemBubenny makes a statement. Carcharoth (talk) 12:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Responding to Ameliorate - the majority of your request is focused on the phobia articles (none of which seem to have been undeleted). If you are aware of deletions that SemBubenny has done unilaterally that were later overturned, then please add that to the request. See the comment by bainer for the reasons why the deletion of these dicdefs were probably supported by policy. In addition, see here and here for the argument that these are fake phobia definitions, and that by having these articles in Wikipedia, we are supporting content spamming. Other ways to resolve the phobias issue are to use PROD instead of immediate deletion, or to "assemble a list of any unreference-able phobia stubs and AfD them all at once" (from the ANI thread). Essentially, I agree with SemBubenny here about the phobias, which is why I've recused. For the general "administrator deleting articles" issue, suggest you ask SemBubenny to use (valid) CSD deletion reasons in the deletion logs, or to use PROD tags, or a mass AfD for unreferenced phobia articles. If that fails, a summary motion here requiring SemBubenny to do this, may resolve that issue. Carcharoth (talk) 14:47, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
• Comment. At the current time, I am leaning strongly towards declining this request. An RfC has not been attempted and I see no indication that SemBubenny would be unresponsive to community feedback. I will wait on further statements before making a final decision. Vassyana (talk) 12:14, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• Reject at this time. There are two issues here. The first is that SemBubenny is not going to be winning any awards for congeniality; his communications skills could do with some improvement. The second is the propriety of the deletions; looking at the ones linked above, and the ones linked from the ANI posting, almost all of them are mere dictionary definitions, which don't really count as proper stubs (and are thus eligible for speedy deletion, criterion A3 I believe) and quite a few had sourcing problems. There are deletion debates for some of these pages and the results seem to back up SemBubenny's deletions, save for those that have been expanded beyond mere dicdefs. Neither of these issues are suited to arbitration. The former (save perhaps more evidence being presented here) is something for RFC. As for the latter, as indicated it's my understanding that policy supports deletions of mere dicdefs, so if that's something people here want to change they should raise that at the appropriate policy page. --bainer (talk) 13:49, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• Comment The claims of admin abuse coupled with behavior shown in the diffs, especially problems in communicating with an admin, really concern me. I'd like to see more hard evidence at along this line. It is crucial that admins communicate when concerns are brought to them about their actions. As for the phobia articles themselves, which is a separate issue, I checked "Papaphobia" and it is in Webster's online, so that to me is a valid phobia. I also checked "Kabourophobia" and it is not in Webster's online, so that one is questionable. However, as my colleagues have stated, what to do with the articles themselves is a community issue and they offer good advice on this, so I reject hearing that issue. As for the admin abuse issue, I await more info. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Accept in line with my earlier statement. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Accept to look at conduct of parties, though note that there will be no rulings on content. Wizardman 21:46, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
• Accept per Wizardman. We can help here better than the Community can, I think. FloNight♥♥♥ 22:59, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
  • I continue to prefer to open a case. I think we need to make our thoughts about the matter official, and I don't think a motion should be used in this instance, so that leaves us to handle the situation with a full case. FloNight♥♥♥ 20:01, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
• Accept. I'm not certain, but I think there may be an issue here which we should look into. Sam Blacketer (talk) 00:41, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
• Comment. SemBubenny, you have said you will "comply with Ameliorate!'s demands" — could you please clarify what changes you will make going forward? John Vandenberg ^(chat) 14:50, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

  Decline. SemBubenny has agreed to discontinue the administrative actions that prompted this request; this self-imposed remedy to the problem is ideal. I appreciate that SemBubenny did indicate at ANI that a prior action wasnt ideal and yet performed a similar action after that, however if the self imposed remedy provided here is broken in the future, I expect that it would be hastily accepted at RFAR. If a different problematic use of admin tools is encountered, RFC is strongly recommended unless it is an emergency, as explained by Vassyana. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 12:29, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

• Accept per Wizardman. Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
• Accept. Other methods are unlikely to resolve this. Cool Hand Luke 01:13, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Accept; I agree there are worrying behavior issues, and I concur with my colleagues that the propriety of the various articles can be entirely handled by the community and will not be examined. — Coren ^(talk) 01:18, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Hold temporarily pending additional input per John Vandenberg. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:11, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Decline SemBubenny is stating that he'd be stepping back and communicates his planned way of behavior. I assume good faith and believe in what he's saying though I feel it is necessary to remind him that emotions —as explained by him above— should never affect the way of involvement or admin actions. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 03:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

---

Clarifications and other requests

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Motion name	Date posted
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Cold fusion topic bans

Statement by JzG

This concerns the topic ban of Pcarbonn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cold fusion.

Note, current dispute is here. Thatcher 14:05, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

As the evidence page makes clear, Pcarbonn's agenda was supported by Jed Rothwell of lenr-canr.org - in fact, it was rather the other way round. For many months, Rothwell has promoted his site on Wikipedia through talk page postings solely related to cold fusion. He and Pcarbonn also collaborated on a knol which seeks to "balance" the newly NPOV'd article on cold fusion, see [3]. I believe it was Rothwell who published Pcarbonn's self-congratulatory article on how he had "won the battle" on Wikipedia. Rothwell's relentless promotion of his website was a factor in it being blacklisted ([4]) and since Pcarbonn's topic ban Rothwell has resurfaced several times at different IPs (he has been IP-hopping for a long time, his account JedRothwell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is essentially abandoned). I have extended the topic ban to cover Rothwell on the grounds that:

• He is furthering the same WP:BATTLE that got Pcarbonn sanctioned
• He is effectively editing on behalf of a banned user
• He is a disruptive single-purpose account
• He assiduously promotes his own website

It would seem to me to be utterly perverse to fail to do this. A restriction would be in order anyway due to trolling, WP:SPA concerns, WP:FRINGE violations, questions over linking to copyright material hosted in violation of copyright and so on; as it happens the behaviour of Jed Rothwell is also precisely analogous to that which got Pcarbonn topic-banned only less civil.

I thought this was simple and obvious, but there is some kickback. I'm somewhat puzzled as to why, but I think it's probably worth requesting clarification that, in cases where someone exhibits similar behaviour and supports the same agenda as a topic-banned user, and that person is known to be a close collaorator of the restricted user in an area where the restriction applies, and the individual is a single-purpose account, then the same restriction may be applied. Guy (Help!) 22:24, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

View by Thatcher

This is obvious. The principle you want has been made explicit in many cases and I see no reason to force a long process and vote here. Apply the topic ban. Thatcher 23:34, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Dan, we're not talking about getting rid of all proponents of cold fusion, and we're not even talking about the applications of discretionary sanctions. We're talking about an editor whose edits and agenda are substantially the same as an editor who was topic banned by a 7-1 vote of Arbcom in the actual arbitration case. Having a friend, colleague or business associate make edits on your behalf after you have been banned from making them is certainly grounds for extension of the topic ban to the second editor. Thatcher 14:01, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Enric Naval

Two editors are defending that the ban does not exist because:

1. there was not enough discussion at the AN thread discussing the ban
2. the ban is not listed at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions
3. none of his previous IPs were blocked
4. his abandoned account User:JedRothwell is not blocked

It should be made clear that none of the above are requirements for a WP:BAN. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:04, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Jehochman

The relevant policy is WP:MEAT. A meatpuppet account may not be used to circumvent a topic ban. Any such accounts may be blocked to enforce the ban. Jehochman ^Talk 13:14, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Dtobias

Banning people because they have a strong opinion on one side of a contentious issue, while leaving those with similarly strong opinions on the other side with free rein, seems hardly like a good way to ensure balanced NPOV on that topic. A famous case in the past history of Wikipedia of that vein was the Naked short selling, Mantanmoreland (et al) vs. Wordbomb (et al) case, where some of the same people arguing for a tough line against Rothwell (et al) were supporters of the "Zero tolerance, shoot on sight" slanted policy in that earlier case... see where it ended up. *Dan T.* (talk) 13:52, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I've seen similar sequences of events in lots of cases. When a tight clique of well-connected Wikipedians wants to marginalize some viewpoint as "fringe", the thing to do is first get a leading advocate of that position banned (or at least topic-banned). Perhaps he even deserves it; it's advantageous to pick the most uncivil, unreasonable, COI, obsessive-compulsive person as the designated target. However, it might still be necessary to goad him a little; be uncivil to him in the hopes he retaliates in kind to give an excuse to ban him; quote heaps of acronym-soup Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and essays at him and then accuse him of wikilawyering if he actually tries to rigorously comply with them; and keep moving the goalposts around until he gets frustrated and lashes back. Then, get him banned, preferably with a minimum of actual community discussion. If discussion is needed, present a slanted, biased account of how pernicious he is; don't worry about getting facts straight because it's your word against his, and you're the respected Wikipedian. Then, once the ban is solid, apply the "If a banned user says 2+2=4, everybody else had better say it's 3 or 5, or else they're acting in concert with a banned user to promote his agenda!" rule to suppress all other viewpoints of a similar nature, even if expressed civilly. If you can blacklist all outside sites that have such opinions in them, all the better. *Dan T.* (talk) 18:18, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by TS

I think we're going to have to go to a motion. The contrarian tendency has the bit between its teeth, so it's best to go by the book in such cases. I'm sorry, I'm a great fan of "Ignore all rules", but that doesn't work in cases like this. --TS 14:10, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

For evidence, all that is needed is this edit on User talk:Phil153 in which Jed Rothwell completely misses the point made by Phil153 in the comment to which he is replying, refers to Phil153 and others as "you skeptics", and promotes an extremely partisan position (his own). This is not the purpose of Wikipedia, and comments of that sort should not be made on Wikipedia. A topic ban would be appropriate, if only to spare the valuable time those who have already done excellent work in salvaging the cold fusion article. Wikipedia is not a battleground. --TS 17:02, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Abd

There is no apparent meat puppetry, no evidence has been presented of that. Rothwell and Pcarbonn are unrelated, as far as anything I've seen. JzG is an involved editor and, if needed, evidence can be provided (it's blatant from Cold fusion article history). JzG is bringing this here prematurely; only the first step of WP:DR had been applied. There are many examples of abuse of admin tools in the record, in my opinion, but attempts to resolve this at a low level were far from complete. ArbComm should not decide on a ban of an editor without the necessary process protections. JzG has asserted block violation by Rothwell, but the record shows the opposite, apparently. Rothwell apparently complied with JzG's involved (and therefore improper) block on December 18, and did not return to editing except after a month. JzG appears to have blocked a different IP editor based on presumed similarity of position, when the behavior of that other editor was clearly different and there is no sign that Rothwell would partition his behavior in that way; then JzG asserted block violation as a reason for his new block. The problem is that an involved administrator has become prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner, pursuing his own clearly expressed bias and POV, which apparently warps his administrative judgment. All of this could be established with clarity from the record. I was hoping to avoid that, but JzG has pushed the issue here. There are many other related issues, as well, of major import. The blacklist is being used to assert a content position, not merely to prevent linkspam; it's been applied, by JzG, to back up his edits removing sources that were considered acceptable by editorial consensus. Talk page edits by Rothwell, not containing a link but merely the name of his domain -- his title -- are the only evidence presented for linkspam, and another simultaneous blacklisting, of newenergytimes.com, was also accomplished by him -- not following the blacklist procedure -- without any evidence of linkspam, not even weak. This is a personal agenda and content position being implemented with admin tools, without consensus, and it is damaging the project.

I had been considering whether or not to take the issue of the block of Rothwell IP to AN, given that a request to JzG didn't accomplish reversal, but had not concluded that it would be worthy of the possible disruption. I was considering finding another editor to mediate the dispute, then possible formal mediation, and only if these failed would I have considered escalating. But JzG apparently considers this worthy of immediate ArbComm attention. I would strongly object to a premature decision here. --Abd (talk) 14:20, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

• The suggestion "Apply the topic ban" implies a judgment on the merits of the claim made by JzG that alleged similarity of POV is sufficient to establish meat puppetry, a very dangerous judgment in a field where there are many with the POV, including authors being published in peer-reviewed journals. I see only two reasonable courses for ArbComm: decline the case as premature, given that all that existed is that two editors requested an unblock from JzG, no wider review had been undertaken except a little discussion on Talk:Cold fusion, and the protesting editors had not escalated; or take the case and examine it in detail, based on issues of possible administrative abuse, or, on the other hand, the possibility that JzG's allegations are true and his behavior appropriate even if outside of normal process. --Abd (talk) 15:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

• The suggestion that Rothwell published Pcarbonn's article is false. The article was published on newenergytimes.com, an on-line magazine, and the editor of that is certainly not a friend of Rothwell. --Abd (talk) 15:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

• The WP:SPA argument is irrelevant and specious in context. Rothwell is an expert in the field, published, and the "librarian" of the most complete bibliography and repository of permitted copies for free access of published papers on the internet, on the topic (positive and negative or neutral). As someone with a COI, he's expected not to contentiously edit the article, and he doesn't. He only comments in Talk. So, ArbComm is being asked to ratify an exclusion of COI and SPA editors from Talk, based on POV, which would seal and enshrine a general exclusion of minority opinion, no matter how notable. Rothwell is sometimes uncivil, but that's common with experts. It should be addressed directly, not complicated with matters of "fringe" and the rest. He's been treated uncivilly with, for example, false or unsupported allegations of copyright violation; if we could stop and prevent that, we might be able to engage with him more positively. Or not, and then he'd be properly blocked for that, not for merely expressing his allegedly fringe opinion. --Abd (talk) 16:11, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

• No claim is made by me that Rothwell should not be banned, though it would set a bad precedent. It's moot at the moment, he's blocked, properly or not. However, a topic ban would deserve careful consideration, and the situation is complicated by long-term incivility against him, prior action against him by an involved admin that wasn't questioned and was thus assumed to represent the whole community (which appears to have not noticed it), false allegations of copyright violation (this is actually libel in context), and other issues that could easily explain incivility or rash comments in response. Normally, we wouldn't ban from an RfAr request like JzG's, without prior community process, and without opportunity for full presentation of evidence, etc. The only prior process that I can find is an inconclusive AN report, low participation, there was no neutral closing admin, no binding warning to the editor, and only an involved admin who argued for a ban, decided it, and acted on it. --Abd (talk) 18:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by User:GoRight

I came into this as a completely uninvolved editor. I only became aware of the controversy surrounding the Cold Fusion case through User:Abd. I have not made any content contributions to the page because I am familiarizing myself with the topic. As part of that effort I was reading the talk page for Cold Fusion where I came upon the "reminder" that Rothwell is topic banned. As someone who is currently under an editing restriction I am familiar with the normal process for instituting such a thing. As a point of interest I decided to look into the specifics of this ban. What I found was disturbing, IMHO.

The first thing I did was check Wikipedia:Editing restrictions to verify that the ban was recorded. This seems a simple thing. As one would expect we find User:Pcarbonn listed there, but not a word about Rothwell. Thinking this might have been an oversight I went back and reviewed the community discussion where the topic ban had supposedly taken place here and here. What I found was a small handful of mostly involved editors expressing general support for a topic ban but no particular declaration thereof as one would expect. I assume that a community ban requires more than just a handful of editors complaining on WP:AN. In response to queries for additional evidence of a ban I was directed to this. This is the only place where I have found a direct assertion of a ban having been imposed. On it's face this appears to be User:JzG simply making a unilateral declaration of a topic ban. Again, I assume that a community ban requires more than just one administrator, no matter how well meaning, to institute a ban.

Even so, I did not want to assume anything so I sought direct confirmation of the ban from User:JzG who was the administrator making the assertion, and asked him to clarify whether he believed that an enforcible topic ban was in place for Rothwell and, if so, to please record that fact at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions so that uninvolved administrators would have the benefit of this clear identification of such and thereby facilitate the enforcement of the ban, if it existed. This too seemed straight forward if such a ban actually existed. Failing to record a topic ban will only aid the banned user, no?

Well no such clear recording of the ban has been forthcoming, which leads me to the conclusion that the ban does not actually exist despite the best intentions of those making the claim. I have taken no particular action based on this conclusion other than to assert it and to repeat my request that, if a ban actually exists, that it be properly recorded. I have reverted nothing of Rothwell's.

I claim that there is no policy that directly makes a topic ban transitive from one use to another. The action taken against User:Pcarbonn does not mention any other users, so to assert that User:Pcarbonn's ban is actually also a topic ban for some other editor seems ludicrous. What is the basis for deciding which other users should formally have a ban on them as well? There is none. It is completely arbitrary. Therefore in my view it should be obvious that the action taken against User:Pcarbonn in no way restricts the ability of other users to express their own independent opinions. There is no disagreement that User:Pcarbonn and Rothwell are separate individuals. Rothwell is thus free to express his own opinions.

Now, WP:MEAT certainly could apply IF there is clear evidence that Rothwell is merely editing on User:Pcarbonn's behalf (as opposed to expressing his own personal views). I have requested that such evidence be put forth, but to the best of my knowledge no direct evidence of this has been provided. The fact that Rothwell and User:Pcarbonn share similar views and may even have interacted off-wiki is certainly not clear evidence that Rothwell's actions are being directed by User:Pcarbonn as WP:MEAT would require. We can't just take a ban on one user and use that as a mechanism to silence other users who happen to share similar views.

In the end, my only purpose in all of this was to get a clear and unambiguous statement as to whether Rothwell actually does have a topic ban, or not, and if so to have that recorded at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions so that all of this senseless and time consuming bickering over the point can be put to rest.

While I accept that User:JzG has the best interests of the encyclopedia at heart and is acting in good faith, I also believe that he is clearly involved in the dispute and has been using his administrative tools against a user who, as far as I can see, does not have a topic ban against him. In that sense this is merely a content dispute between User:JzG and Rothwell. I am not seeking any actions be taken against User:JzG in this case, but I would certainly think that all of the following principles which were expressed in prior arbcom rulings are applicable in this case:

• Compliance
• Use of administrative tools in a dispute
• Bad Blood
• Good intentions
• Harassment is disruptive

I offer these merely for your review and consideration. --GoRight (talk) 19:00, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

• I would also say that I agree with the observation below that the existing policies are sufficient to deal with this editor if his behavior continues unabated. Specifically WP:CIVIL and WP:DISRUPT and, if proven, WP:MEAT are more than sufficient to address the concerns here. I, personally, would not favor the introduction of a topic ban on this editor since such action is, again in my view, unnecessary. --GoRight (talk) 19:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

statement by DGG

There is a secondary issue here which is I think of the utmost importance. JzG is not an uninvolved editor on this subject and has no business making blocks or bans in this area. This is blatant abused of admin privileges, slightly ameliorated by his voluntarily bringing it here. I have no view on the underlying issue of what to do about Rothwell, but I think a topic ban against JzG is called for--and least an injunction of any further actions in this area that do are appear to make use of the admin bit. DGG (talk) 19:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by User:Objectivist

There is no doubt that Pcarbonn and Jed Rothwell have a particular POV. There is also no doubt that other editors have a conflicting POV. Has anyone considered the possibility that there simply might not be an acceptable way to state certain things about "Cold Fusion" without injecting one POV or the other? Even the very definition of that name has been edited multiple times. Perhaps a phrase like "cold fusion proponents claim" could be used extensively, in order to present relevant information in a neutral way, and a similar phrase could be used with regard to claims made by opponents of cold fusion. However, those phrases would likely have to be used in so many places as to be literally (literarily?) cumbersome --yet without such qualifiers, we are left with POV statements only, which leads to an edit war, and bannings, and proposed bannings.

Isn't there a famous quote to the effect that "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch?" All it takes to institute a ban here, apparently, is enough users of one POV clique or the other. The "losing" POV can be decimated that way, one banned user at a time. My Statement here is: "This is what seems to be happening now."

Would it not be better simply to divide a controversial article into an introductory section (neutral POV should be relatively easy there), followed by POV-pro and POV-con sections? Then Wikipedia can ban users who mess up the "other side's" POV, when doing so is simply senseless --it could only be vandalism. V (talk) 19:53, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by MastCell

This seems like a pretty basic, if important question. Can we take staightforward actions to protect the encyclopedia's goals and standards? Or have we reached the point where such action, as often as not, bogs down in [REDACTED - I can't think of a charitable way to characterize it]? Do we have to flog all the old warhorses every single time? I'm actually about to lose a $5 bet with another admin because no one has mentioned BADSITES yet - I should have bet on Mantanmoreland instead. :P

We're talking about a clear case of WP:ADVOCACY, and violations of this site's standards and purpose over more than 2 years. Blocking IPs used by this editor to commit further violations should be an uncontroversial call. If the concern is that Guy, an involved editor, made the blocks, then I propose that he contact me the next time one of this editor's IP's pops up. To argue that blocks are inappropriate because the editor's abandoned account has never been indef-blocked seems - again, I can't think of a charitable term, but I have rectified that concern ex post facto. MastCell ^Talk 20:54, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrator views and discussion

• I agree with Thatcher. It is quite clear that Jed Rothwell, editing through various IP addresses, has been responsible for all the above. In the event that it is not generally accepted to be an application of ignoring rules then I would propose a motion to give the topic ban the formal endorsement of the committee but at the moment I see no reason to engage in pointless procedure on an obvious decision. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:43, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
  • To clarify something raised by Dan T., it does not matter which side editors are on; if we have a dispute where those on one side remain reasonable while those on the other side push their POV and edit-war, then the sanctions are not going to be balanced among the sides. All editors, regardless of their own POV, are supposed to write neutrally. Sam Blacketer (talk) 14:28, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
• I too concur with Thatcher and Sam Blacketer here. This is an excellent example of a situation where sensible application of our policies and procedures covers the issue, and a special sanction is probably not required; I'm not even sure one would have to resort to ignoring rules to do the job. Having said that, if necessary, I would support the formal endorsement of a topic ban. Risker (talk) 23:48, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• Where is the "kickback" that JzG mentions? John Vandenberg ^(chat) 13:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

• John, I think Guy means "pushback". See Talk:Cold_fusion#Topic_ban_reminding. Thatcher 14:04, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

• At the risk of being redundant, I'll also concur with Thatcher; this is a reasonable action that lies well within community norms. No further action appears to be needed from the Committee at this time. — Coren ^(talk) 20:53, 29 January 2009 (UTC)