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General discussion - community ban discussion durations

Existing policy ( Wikipedia:Banning policy#Community bans and restrictions ) says that if the community initiates a discussion to ban a user from Wikipedia, that the discussion should be allowed to run for a minimum of 24 hrs and then be closed by an uninvolved administrator. To quote the relevant paragraph:

Community sanctions may be discussed on the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. Discussions may be organized via a template to distinguish comments by involved and uninvolved editors, and to allow the subject editor to post a response. Sanction discussions are normally kept open for at least 24 hours to allow time for comments from a broad selection of community members. If the discussion appears to have reached a consensus for a particular sanction, an uninvolved administrator notifies the subject accordingly. The discussion is then closed, and the sanction should be logged at the appropriate venue, usually Wikipedia:Editing restrictions or Wikipedia:List of banned users.

In recent discussion on the Arbcom announcements talk page ( Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Community ban enacted ) there was some discussion and concern regarding the duration of 24 hours. I wanted to float the topic here with a wider audience to see if there's interest in changing the duration.

In my opinion - The fundamental tension here is between keeping discussions relatively civil and constructive, and between letting them run long enough that all persons and all perspectives are aired thoroughly. Some ban discussions end up being relatively unambiguous unanimous supports, but many involve people for whom some segment of the community feels some remaining friendship or respect, or where some feel that the prospective banned party was baited or picked on in ways that have not been addressed yet; those ban proposals are more contentious. There has been an unfortunate but clear trend that the longer such discussions go, the more combative they become. I believe that this was a good part of the reasoning by which the duration was set at 24 hrs - as a balance between including enough people, and keeping it short enough that the larger more hostile discussions didn't develop.

24 hrs is not enough to guarantee that all parties who might want to have some comment will actually be able to do so, however. We let many other contentious issues (article deletion, approving new admins, etc) run for days or weeks. This particular policies time line is almost uniquely short, in terms of community-input decisions on Wikipedia.

There is also the question of how civility issues - in this case, how respectful and constructive the discussion is (or is not) collide with a desire to have an opportunity for all viewpoints to be aired fairly and reasonably completely.

We have had incidents in the past where comments in ban discussions were clear personal attacks on the proposed banned party, or on other discussion participants, and where the tone of the discussion degenerated into nonconstructive insults rather than topical conversation. We have existing policy and precedent that insulting or attacking blocked or banned users is not permitted ("dancing on people's graves").

So - posed for discussion and review - is the 24 hr minimum run the best choice for length of time? Would switching to a longer time be better, say 3 days to a week? Would switching to a longer soft minimum time (say, 3 days or a week) but with uninvolved admins allowed to terminate it and determine consensus early in case of increasingly hostile discussion (say, after 24-48 hrs at hard minimum) be better? Can we come up with policy, discussion format, or other ideas that help focus discussion in constructive forms and minimize the disruptive or abusive behaviors we've sometimes seen in such discussions? Are there other aspects, or other forms of solution, that people can think of and would like to propose as alternatives?

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:52, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd maybe change the wording to use a phrase such as "a bare minimum of 24 hours". But as with many things, I think it comes down to judgment. Any discussion, if closed too soon, is prone to creating more problems than it solves. But after 24 hours, if consensus is clear, then there probably isn't much to be gained from keeping a discussion open. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 21:17, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

24 hours does seem short, and out-of-step with other such discussions. In this particular case, I think that there was a clear consensus: opposes were clearly outnumbered, and were primarily based on redundancy, an issue that I think was well addressed by the supports.

Thinking over the general case, 24 hours actually is fine for the normal ban discussion, because most generate no opposition whatsoever. I think a period of 72 hours would be more appropriate for a ban discussion that has generated some opposition.—Kww(talk) 22:15, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

24 hours is ok when it's unanimous. In the case at hand users with strong opinions on the user showed up in mass and there's been no real discussion on the reasons for the ban. There were clearly a strong minority in opposition so it should have been opened for at least a week so as to reach an informed, representative community consensus. One week is a minimum when there's a significant opposition. Anyway the policy meant this as a minimum. Cenarium (talk) 00:09, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

If it were not for the apparent negative effects of leaving contentious discussions to go longer, I would personally be happy with a week or longer; these are not usually time-urgent cases. But you seem to be overlooking that part of the rationale for the policy. These are not specious issues - we have had to block people and in one case indefblock someone for abusive behavior in a ban discussion, though I think they eventually came back. The shorter discussions are proving less hostile.

If you place no value on those concerns, I would appreciate it if you outright said so, rather than ignoring them. They are (as I understand it) the driving value that got us the short time in the first place, so not addressing them at all is not terribly useful in developing a new consensus. It's fine if your response is that we should ignore that and tough it out with potentially abusive discussions; I disagree, and existing consensus does, but re-evaluating consensus and discussing it more is what we're here for.

If you can address this point I would appreciate it, thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:38, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't find the discussion which discussed this, could you please give the link if you have it ? Those concerns are legitimate but they have to be put into perspective with fairness and representativity. Also, even if discussions are short they can be brutal, and have been in the case at hand, on the other hand keeping open longer gives the opportunity to people with less abrupt views to weigh in. My personal opinion is that we should leave ban decisions to elected committees/courts. Cenarium (talk) 01:40, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

24h as a minimum is fine; it would be reasonable to run for a second, or possibly even a third day if there is significant opposition, but a week is far too long, as I've said (dramafest). See WP:ANI#Community Ban of indef blocked user Frei Hans which is quite ripe at over 48h. Consider also the case of a discussion that's a lead balloon; it will be closed in minutes to hours. The purpose of bans is to protect the project from disruption and to enforce community norms. This is correct. I speak from experience here. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 04:04, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

you can get to a consensus in 24h in really obvious stituations ... otherwise most discussions need a lot of talking beteen the violator and the person who brought the case and an admin might even need to ask questions to probe the case... the major threat to civility has nothing to do with 24h but has everything to do with groups of friends trying to taking sides.. we need to find a way to keep the tag teams out of ANI... the admin noticeboard just needs a report of what they did and maybe some explanation for why they did it... anything else just turns into a vote.. or worse it turns into a circus Arskwad (talk) 04:38, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

My view is that ban discussions can and will turn nasty given the wrong conditions, but the answer is not to keep them short to reduce the impact, but to step up to the plate and bite the bullet (and any other metaphor you can think of) and address the underlying conduct issues that lead people to make attacks on each other and the editor being discussed. I would also distinguish between ban discussions where the editor is blocked (and unable to respond to such attacks, except maybe by off-wiki actions that should be ignored as taunting) and ones where the editor under discussion is allowed to participate. When an editor is blocked, we still need to avoid attacking them. Rather than say "X is a <insert personal attack here> so and so", say "the RfC on X showed consensus that he repeatedly engaged in behaviour Y" or "the SPI demonstrates that socking has taken place and continues to take place". It might seem like unnecessary verbosity, but if you take the time to lay out the reasons for the instinctive response you would type first, then it helps reduce the tension of such discussions. Also, subthreads should be kept under control and shut down if they become unproductive, and hectoring (where someone responds to all those disagreeing with them and tries to start an argument with them) should be avoided as well.

A more radical proposal, but in my view the single biggest step that could be taken to reduce the tension in ban discussions, is to not have them start immediately after a precipitating incident (when emotions are running high - and let's be frank here, some people are adept at taking advantage of emotions to whip up support for bans). When you start ban discussions immediately, you get inherent bias towards those involved in that precipitating incident. A very simple step would be to introduce a delay (24 hours) before a ban discussion is started (though frivolous ban proposals could be removed immediately, and for any ban proposal to stay there, you would need someone to second it, like you do for an RfC - the 24-hour clock would start once the proposal had been seconded). Anyone who felt they had to comment IMMEDIATELY in support or opposition of a ban proposal would have clearly lost perspective and they are better off sleeping on what they want to say.

So you would have (i) proposer (with rationale and evidence), (ii) seconder, (iii) someone watching the noticeboard would formally certify it as a valid proposal for a community ban discussion and set a start time and add a standard warning to keep the discussion civil and check that the editor concerned had been notified (they can add their statement at any time). People then consider what has been said and once the start time arrives they make their comments and things go as normal. Now, this may seem too formal, but in my opinion the delay is crucial to decouple the subsequent discussion from the drama associated with the precipitating incident (usually the latest in a long string of such incidents). A ban discussion is a serious matter, and there should be a delay to allow calm and sober reflection. Carcharoth (talk) 05:46, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments.

I understand the interest in keeping the discussions productive and not attacking the potential banee; I am somewhat concerned about the practicalities of shutting down subthreads, calming down hectoring and provocations in the discussion, etc. I think we've got agreement that these things would be positive throughout Wikipedia discussions, yet we still have problems with them, even over a year into a general civility improvement drive. I don't believe it's necessarily hopeless to fix it in a particular area like this one, but it's a challenge.

Along the lines of "it's not hopeless", one thing I thought of was to separate out the opinion poll part (support, oppose, whatever and a position justification statement) from the discussion part (a following section, which allows freeform responses etc). Have it be a format standard both that nobody responds to another editors opinion poll statement in that section (response has to go below in the discussion), and that any comment which is felt to be in violation of reasonable decorum will be collapsed by any uninvolved administrator (leaving only the support/oppose/neutral and signature).

Responding to the delay ideas, I think a delay since last active incident is a good idea. Even a week wouldn't hurt.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 07:01, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

The delay idea is a noble concept, but too subject to gaming. It would make any problematic editor that screwed up royally every six days difficult to ban. Some of the most problematic editors have a real cadre of supporters, and there's no reason to give them another reason to attempt to declare a ban invalid or unenforceable.—Kww(talk) 16:09, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't get your reasoning here. A ban discussion looks at an editor's entire editing history (or it should do), not just the past six days. I'm not saying ignore the precipitating incident. Just have a discussion in x hours time about what happened x hours ago. People don't forget what happened in the past, you know, and they can link to what happened then. In my mind, the key is whether ban discussions should be held while emotions are running high, or when people have calmed down. It seems obvious to me but then I have the patience to wait. I'm not so sure (given the instant gratification culture that we have today) that everyone is capable of going away, noting down their reasoning, and coming back later. I know that when article deletion discussions are going on, I sometimes take notes and don't comment until a few days have passed or I've been able to research the matter a bit more. I think the same should apply to ban discussions. If you were unsure about a ban discussion, would you oppose it on the grounds that you needed more time to look into the editing history, or are ban discussions just a poll of people's subjective opinions? There is an argument that community ban discussions are just a poll of opinions (has this guy exhausted our patience), rather than a careful analysis of the evidence (some say that is what ArbCom is for). But I think that the community increasingly needs to be seen to have presented a fair and careful analysis during ban discussions (sometimes it is possible to point to an RFC, sometimes not), rather than carrying out a poll of subjective opinions. I would say that in the case of established users, an RFC first is needed. Carcharoth (talk) 06:42, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I was reacting to the "last active incident" language, which would imply that a new incident would restart the clock. In this proposal, I'm curious as to how you would handle discussion of disruption that occurred after whatever you chose as the trigger incident that started the clock.—Kww(talk) 15:26, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

• Our current system is generally fine, both theoretically and practically. Whether there is a single user in the form of a clerk, admin, or more or otherwise, all noticeboards have inadequate regulation. Changing that system does not change anything because at the end of the day, most uninvolved admins/users are either reluctant or hesitant to enforce civility in relation to certain users (sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it's not); that is why that regulation will consistently be inadequate. On the other extreme, the option of excessive and unnecessary process wonkery and formality is always an available option in arbitration, should ArbCom deem it necessary for their processes. We have a million matters going on at any one time; ArbCom have a percentage of those matters, most of which are raised on the mailing list. We need something that works in practice, and does not drag down our resources with unhelpful process wonkery. Succinct issues are addressed; verbose ones and complex ones are the ones that end up at ArbCom anyway - if ArbCom does not have enough, we'd be very happy to pass more disputes to them to resolve, even the simple ones that require a straightforward ban. As the consensus that is developing here already suggests, 24 hour minimum is fine; discretion needs to be used when consensus isn't straightforward, so it can go for a bit longer in those cases. Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:24, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
• I would say 24 hours bare minimum is fine (and would support the word "bare" being inserted). Stifle (talk) 09:16, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

• I think that 24 hours as a bare minimum is fine; but I think that ban discussions really ought be held here (WP:AN) rather than WP:ANI. –xeno^talk 13:12, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
  • I agree. I can't be the only admin who prefers to keep up to date via AN rather than ANI. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 13:49, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
    • Would having a pointer posted at AN be good enough, or should the whole discussion only be done at AN? Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 17:14, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
      • If a community ban discussion erupts in the middle of an ongoing ANI thread, a pointer from AN to the ANI thread would be fine. For a ban proposal made from scratch, I don't see why it wouldn't start at WP:AN. ANI is for incidents, a ban proposal is typically initiated only after several incidents. –xeno^talk 20:58, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
        • Technically, WP:AN is for notices (or should be), and WP:ANI for incidents. Where to have longer discussions that start from scratch has never been clear, and attempts to start a separate venue are met with cries that it is an attempt to resurrect WP:CSN (when something off-putting like that happens, it can hamper future attempts to make changes as people point to that and say "no" without actually engaging in discussion). Your point that some ban discussions "erupt" from ANI threads is exactly the point I was making about actions being taken in anger and the need to have a cooling-off period before such discussions start. You will typically get those who are participating at the ANI thread participating at the ban discussion, and that sometimes skews things towards a knee-jerk decision, rather than a calm and reasoned decision. I would at least support the right for any administrator to step into a contentious ban discussion and say "ok, this is getting silly, let's stop this now, everyone should calm down and come back in a few days/week's time" (though that administrator may need to carry out a block if the editor in question is being currently disruptive, or if people edit war to keep an argumentative discussion open). Clearly, the same thing shouldn't be done the second time round, and the discussion should be left to run. Carcharoth (talk) 06:32, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
        • My thoughts on the appropriate venue have not changed since Wikipedia talk:Banning policy/Archive 4#What is the correct venue for a community or topic ban proposal? –xeno^talk 17:30, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
• Another voice to agree with the "bare minimum" interpretation. It is a judgment call; the more consensus is fully clear, and the more continuing discussion is creating more heat than light, the more it makes sense to close fairly soon (with 24h as a bare minimum). However, by and large we tend to leave longer time for discussions since not everyone spends every single minute on wikipedia. In the case at hand, I'm pretty convinced further discussion would not have changed the outcome. However, the discussion was not publicized at other locations the same person was being discussed, the comments (while not all wonderful) were not spiralling out of control, and the numerical balance of opinions was in the zone we consider discretionary in those areas where we do have to count noses. So, going forward, I think we should adjust our policies so that future discussions similar to this one would tend to run for longer. I don't think we need to be prescriptive, but changing the wording so that it more clearly says "you should not close before 24h" rather than necessarily recommending closing after 24h would make sense. Martinp (talk) 20:56, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales does not edit everyday. Neither does many well known Wikipedians. So 24 hours bypasses some. The number of different periods in Wikipedia should be kept to a minimum. AFDs and RFAs are 7 days. Too many different periods and we risk having a complicated bureaucracy. The risk of short periods is that the exchange of information gets short changed. The risk of long periods is that the goal of banning people may be made a bit more difficult, particularly if unwarranted. I think the worst editor known to man would be banned whether the discussion period is 24 hours or 24 days. Why not ask Newyorkbrad's opinion. He is a lawyer and knows the theory behind due process and fairness. I'd like to hear his opinion before I cast a vote. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 22:43, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

One of the reasons 24 hours was settled upon was that 24h is the length of a day, so a ban discussion won't get closed when half the world was asleep during say, an 8-hour ban discussion. I think 24h is long enough for most discussions, major points will in all liklihood have been raised and if a consensus can be determined it can be closed. These sorts of discussions are especially contentious and quickly become a quagmire with they involve editors who are in the all-too-frequent ethnic wars on wiki. These things are often a judgment call, balancing factors aplenty. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:27, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

What Rlevse said. 24 minimum, but not 24 hours bare minimum (implying that 24 hours is seldom enough time). If a discussion has a consensus after 24:01 hours (and they usually do, or else never will), close it. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:59, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

And I'll repeat what I said. If a discussion is becoming contentious, shutting it down in a minimum time is akin to sticking your head in the sand and hoping the problem will go away. If a discussion bogs down (e.g. at AfD or FAC) what is done is to restart it with warnings to anyone who has been disrupting it (though the option to close and ignore the disruption is also available). Quite why the restart option is not used with ban discussions, I'm not sure. I would encourage those who close ban discussions to at least consider closing them as "restart later" if that could be considered helpful. Carcharoth (talk) 06:51, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Rlevse, Floquenbeam. Our own article on consensus includes 3 key ideas in the first 2 paragraphs: a) general agreement, b) group solidarity of belief, and c) need for "serious treatment of the considered opinion of each group member". Now, we are a huge community and not everyone (fortunately) will be motivated to participate in each discussion. However, as long as we want to call something consensus we have a pretty strong obligation not only to ensure "major points" have been raised, but that those who want to participate can, and that those who have participated can revisit, read other opinions, and judge how their own thinking is evolving. That is hard to do in 24h. We may in exceptional cases decide the community disruption caused by a genuine consensus-seeking discussion is so high that a faster, more expedient resolution is needed. But when we close a discussion at 24h, we do not have consensus: we are doing some form of opinion sampling, preferring the snap opinions of those involved in a situation and above-average in wiki activity. I have wondered whether standards of community behavior would not improve if we had a "community ostrasicm" process, whereby e.g. any user would be obligated to sit out for 3 months if they were perceived as disruptive by at least 50 (or other number) other community members. But I'm not sure if on balance that would be a good idea, and it is something quite different than the philosophy behind community banning. Martinp (talk) 11:08, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it would in actuality be helping the project (in response to both of the ideas/arguments/approaches presented by Carcharoth and Martinp); the so-called problem really does not rest with the current system. Ncmvocalist (talk) 03:31, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Martinp, you may want to have a look at Wikipedia:Quickpolls, which had its test period before you came aboard. It was something similar to the "community ostracism" you propose, & had mixed results. -- llywrch (talk) 04:54, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

• I've never seen a ban discussion (including topic bans) that I thought went according to a fair, open, and reasonable process. I think a lot of the process around here could be improved (see suggestions), but the banning process seems particularly problematic. Typically ban discussions start off with what seems like an off-the-cuff suggestion with no evidence or detailed summary brought for uninvolved people to get an idea what's going on (the example brought up of Frei Hans' ban is a case in point; having briefly searched ANI and his RfC/User, I was unable to find the smoking gun). In many cases no attempt is made to solicit a defense from the user in question (as in Frei Hans). Since no evidence is provided upfront and the user often does not submit a defense, typically all the editors who do weigh in have inside knowledge from their long experience (involvement) with the user in question. There's no requirement that the editors who weigh in to disclose their prior involvement or even provide their reasoning on the basis for the ban - note in Frei Hans most reasons could be summarized as "he's disruptive and assumes bad faith". In comparison, one could expect to detailed reasoning at an AfD for some hardly-notable article which could then go on for several days, which seems incongruous. It's not clear that bans are recorded (or proposed for notification) in one central place for the scrutiny of people who are interested in offering uninvolved opinions in the interest of maintaining justice, meaning that such people have to keep a continuous eye on AN or ANI instead. A notification board dedicated to notifying and recording these incidents is something that would be easy to do and it is hard to understand why it is not done. In comparison, I can keep a continuous eye on all sorts of articles of all sorts of topics which go through AfD (e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Websites). If there's a user who I particularly like and I worry that he could get banned for being extra-bold, the only recourse I have is to watch his userpage, which is rather hit or miss. Bans are awfully serious and I don't see why are treated so casually. Someone said to avoid a drama-fest, but there are currently several drama-fests on ANI that have been there for days, and they just continue since people keep posting, even though some of them are obviously pointless and based in few diffs or evidence and should be closed and redirected to some other forum. Obviously I'm way in the minority here but I don't understand it. I keep an eye on ANI and I don't see many bans so I can't see how handling bans in a graceful manner which does not appear to an outsider (or an insider) to be lynching would be an overwhelming burden. II | (t - c) 07:59, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I've been asked to provide some input into this discussion, but most of what I would have said has already been said by others. I agree that 24 hours should be a presumptive minimum for community-ban discussions, in the absence of extraordinary circumstances, and that the discussion should go on longer if there is useful dialog still taking place (i.e., input from new commenters and/or people making new points, as opposed to the same small group of people making their points more and more stridently). Ideally, at the end of a ban discussion, editors might still disagree in good faith whether a decision to ban or not to ban was warranted, but there should not be room to disagree whether the process was fair or whether a consensus to ban was or wasn't reached.

A point occasionally overlooked is that often a user who is the subject of a community-ban discussion is blocked at the time. When this is the case, other editors participating here should monitor that user's talkpage, and copy any relevant comments here so that they can be part of the discussion (this is what we ask the arbitration clerks to do when a comparable situation arises on the arbitration pages).

Administrators are told that "blocking is a serious matter," and of course banning is as well, even more so. We describe Wikipedia as "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit," but to a banned user (who is respecting the ban), Wikipedia has become "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit—except you." Obviously, that doesn't mean that we won't ban people who need to be banned, when the net weight of their participation is negative (whether through offensive or nasty behavior, POV pushing, inability to contribute competently, or whatever) and there is no meaningful prospect of improvement. But such a decision may never be made lightly (and I do not suggest that it is).

The ArbCom's ban appeals subcommittee (BASC) that was formed one year ago has been working efficiently and is the appropriate place for users who have been community-banned to submit appeals for lifting or modification of the ban. One issue on which policy is not entirely clear, as I perceive it, is whether the community expects arbitrators to address reinstatement requests themselves or whether, and under what circumstances, they should be returned to this noticeboard for further discussion. At some point there should probably be some further discussion of this issue. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:24, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Timestamp to keep this open another 48 hrs - Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 16:05, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Template Series uw-idt

Hi all. I noticed we do not have a standardized set of user warnings addressing the removal of image/media file deletion tags (non-speedy deletion tags - e.g. Template:Di-no license) by editors without first addressing the concern noted by the tag. I've drafted a set of templates (loosely based off the uw-tdel template series) in my userspace:

• User:Fastily/Sandbox/uw-idt1
• User:Fastily/Sandbox/uw-idt2
• User:Fastily/Sandbox/uw-idt3
• User:Fastily/Sandbox/uw-idt4

Any input/thoughts/improvements (feel free to make changes directly to the drafts) would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, FASTILY ^(TALK) 01:03, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

This should probably be brought to, and discussed at, WT:UW. –xeno^talk 14:49, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Left notice at WT:UW. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 00:47, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

There's a backup at WP:AIV

Could somebody kindly take a look at WP:AIV? Thanks. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 18:09, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice,  Done! ;) -- Cirt (talk) 18:47, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Accidental page moves

Resolved

 –  Done as requested. –xeno^talk 20:37, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I had accidentally moved two articles and their talk pages, could somebody please restore them properly so their edit histories are repaired? Sorry for the mayhem, should have read the article names more carefully...

The articles I had moved are:

• Blah Blah Blah (song)
• Bla Bla Bla

Thanks in advance. ~ ► Wykebjs ◄ (userpage | talk) 20:33, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Keegscee - community ban proposal

Administrative note - uninvolved admins reviewing this for closure should examine the community comments above at WP:AN#General discussion - community ban discussion durations, which have somewhat evolved the community ban best practices. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:59, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Keegscee (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has had a very problematic recent history. User:PCHS-NJROTC recently asked for an Arbcom case to ban them, but was redirected back to the community as a more appropriate venue at this time. I am opening this proposal to seek a community ban of Keegscee at this time.

A previous AN ban proposal was floated, probably somewhat prematurely, on Feb 22nd ( [1] ). This more or less immediately followed his indefinite block by myself ( see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive598#Questionable comment at User:Keegscee.27s userpage ) for his openly self-admitted behavior of using open proxies and sockpuppet accounts to WP:HARASS and WP:HOUND editors he felt were not editing constructively here. Since then he has made threats on his talk page to continue that activity with other accounts, and continued to be abusive using sockpuppets including Cryogenic phil (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), 68.28.187.112 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), PhoenixPhan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), LHSgolf2009 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), and probably others I have missed.

See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive599#Obvious_sock_is_obvious, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Keegscee/Archive and PCHS-NJROTC's case diffs immediately below.

PCHS-NJROTC's case

(cut and paste of PCHS-NJROTC's arbcom reference links / diffs section - summaries are his description)

• Keegscee was apparently a reformed vandal
• warning about incivility
• first warning about unacceptable humor; he was encouraging people to vandalize another wiki
• IP disputes action on Keegscee's talk page, and raises concerns about bias against religion
• warned again about immaturity unacceptable humor (encouraging people to vandalize another wiki)
• third warning about encouraging vandalism on other wikis
• uncivil reply to one of Keegscee's unacceptable warnings; looks like Keegscee was assuming bad faith and it got heated
• fourth warning about Keegscee's encouragement of vandalism
• AN/I about Keegscee's prolonged encourgement of vandalism at another wiki, an attempt to get along with Keegscee
• barnstar left by me, despite previous disputes, for getting along with a member of the wiki that he has demonstrated hate for
• AN/I about comment on Keegscee's userpage, ended in his indef block
• AN/I thread: Keegscee sockpuppet is blocked
• Keegscee's SPI
• community ban proposal at AN
• discussion took place on his talk page
• He is ulitmately blocked from editing his talk page and emailing users due to abuses of these privledges.

Current situation and ban proposal

We have persistent sockpuppetry, ongoing abuse of other editors, an explicitly stated opinion that using abuse to push other editors out of the Wikipedia project is a good thing. He has explicitly and openly adopted an abusive vigilante attitude towards others here and worked actively to pursue it, to the great detriment of the community and many individual users.

I believe that, though it will not put another physical barrier between this person and further abuse here, a community ban is appropriate and desirable at this time. I propose that he be indefinitely banned from editing, subject to the usual appeals process should he reform himself and desire to return. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 20:46, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

• Support community ban, obviously. The user is not here to build an encyclopedia, nor does he demonstrate even a minimum level of maturity required to contribute here. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 21:10, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

• Comment Support I maintain, per my suggestion on reforming AN and ANI currently on the AN talkpage, that Georgewilliamherbert should have attempted to contact Keegscee to allow him to submit a defense concurrently with the accusations so that this starts off on the right foot. My suggestions also include a requirement to disclose prior involvement. PCHS-NJROTC has a long history and was involved in collecting the evidence on both the sockpuppet investigations (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Keegscee/Archive). All of the evidence is from PCHS-NJROTC and much of it focuses on sockpuppetry. For the first SPI no CU was done because apparently little initial evidence was presented; the second found connection to the IP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/68.28.187.112; however, the SPI report says Keegscee admitted to editing from his phone prior to the SPI investigation, and I don't think that's really sockpuppetry. That IP does have an odd edit, though. There's a statement at the end of the second CU that a list of editors (LittleTommyC, PhoenixPhan, Cryogenic phil, LHSgolf2009) are confirmed to be the same editor, but the CU Alison says "I'm not seeing any link to the previous accounts above". It's not entirely clear whether all these are, in addition to being connected to each other, also connected to Keegscee since Alison does not say that? Further confusing the issue is that the category Category:Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_PhoenixPhan does not include Keegscee, only the 3 confirmed sockpuppets. This should not be changed without a clear clarification from Alison. The ANI thread by Crossmr (Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive599#Obvious_sock_is_obvious) references a diff of someone immaturely teasing Crossmr but that's not evidence of sockpuppetry. One of the diffs which was not highlighted, but which I think should have been, is Keegscee's statement that he uses proxies to harass "not good faith editors", although he later implied that he might have been joking and questioned whether he should be banned for making a silly statement. I guess the question is whether he was joking or not, and the main way to answer that is to look for evidence that he has been harassing people under proxies. Which I guess is what the SPI investigations are about? Anyway, I'm leaning towards supporting the ban, but I wish it had been set up in a way that made it easy to understand. <underline>Looking back at the contributions, even though the SPI case and userpages don't clearly connect them to Keegscee, it seems clear that they are from Keegscee based on the contributions. I maintain that all ban discussions should attempt to start with both an accusing case and a defense if possible.</underline>II | (t - c) 21:42, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

PCHS-NJROTC was listed as a source of the Arbcom case and is clearly involved in the various AN / ANI prior discussions; I'm not sure how much more explicitly that should be disclosed?

Keegscee was notified [2] promptly after initiating the discussion. I'm going to add to that notification an email link to the Arbcom ban appeals subcommittee, as I now see on rechecking that his account is currently blocked from posting to its talk page or sending emails; if BASC gets any comments he wants posted to the discussion they can forward them here.

The sockpuppet category was created some weeks after Keegscee was banned; his being credited with being the root account is not terribly controversial but could be incorrect.

Keegscee went back and forth a bit claiming he was joking, but seemed to settle on a stance that he had not been joking but that we could not "prove it" therefore he should be let off without sanctions. We don't have perfect proof tying this all together; IMHO this meets our usual standards for evidence to make a reasonable conclusion and act on it, but that's up for discussion.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:05, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

My suggestion involves not only notification, but also waiting a basic amount of time to see if the accused editor wants to submit a response concurrently. By the time Keegscee notices the notification and submits a defense, there could be 10 supports. It's entirely likely and I don't think it makes sense for that to happen. As far as PCHS-NJROTC's involvement, yes, it is clear that's he's involved but I would prefer not to look at involvement as a binary yes/no, in the same way we don't look at AfD as Keep/Delete. That's a first step, but I would prefer that PCHS-NJROTC offer a brief summary of the issues leading up to the dispute and if possible the length of time they've been interacting. If PCHS-NJROTC thinks this is too much information or invades his privacy, then he should also say that to make it abundantly clear to everyone that he's not giving the full story. There's a narrative here which isn't being told - it appears that PCHS-NJROTC is angry at Keegscee partly because of PCHS-NJROTC has a close relationship to Conservapedia and Keegscee doesn't like it or something. Getting this information out is relevant in the long-term because banning can be used as a wikilawyering tactic to avoid NPOV when a content editor has a position that the initiating editor does not agree with, and it also allows aids in mediating the dispute if there is no consensus for the ban. II | (t - c) 22:17, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Support community ban. User has commented that he is only here to disrupt. As per other comments, subject to the usual appeals process should he reform himself and desire to return. Off2riorob (talk) 22:22, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

• Already de facto banned, why are we doing this? Is it just me, or are there more and more ban discussions lately about people who are already indef blocked for socking, vandalism, harassment, etc.? These discussions seem to me to be a waste of perfectly good electrons; per another discussion somewhere around here, now we have to talk about this for a "bare minimum" of 24 hours. For someone who is already indef blocked. I hope people will consider limiting these discussions only to cases where it will do more than negligible good. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:23, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
  • There is some slight difference in how we handle socks of indef blocked sockpuppeteers versus banned ones. Also, the message sent is potentially of useful import - that this was not just some administrator doing it, but a community consensus. Some indefinitely blocked users have weaseled around claiming a particular admin was out to get them and that there was no reasonable review. This goes on record against that. It also reduces the chance that some lone admin without enough history awareness or checks may mistakenly unblock them at some point in the future. I understand not wanting to community ban everyone we have indef blocked; I think we're acknowledging and making use of a shift in community expectations and standards. Figuring out where that settles out is worthwhile. Perhaps this is a step too far, but it's not obviously wrong to consider IMHO. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:47, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
    • The difference in how we handle socks is, indeed, fairly slight, and I'm pretty sure when someone gets to this level of disruption, they could not care less whether the're indef blocked or banned. Or, if anything, they might feel freer to hold nothing back now. If some lone admin unblocks in future, then we can have the ban discussion; if not, then we've saved a discussion and all the bureaucracy it entails. I'm not saying ban discussions are always a waste of time; I'm saying a ban discussion of a currently indef blocked abusive sockpuppeteer probably is. The only real benefit I can see is the feeling of camaraderie we create in saying bad things about a "community enemy", like a Two Minutes Hate, but that doesn't seem like a good thing to foster. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:18, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

• Hmm. Would it be useful to expand on this in the general discussion above about ban discussions? Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:23, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

• As an ordinary editor dealing with sock puppetry, a community ban is easier. A community ban gives editors a clear mandate to revert on sight. An indef block means we need to worry about being seen as edit-warring. Your 1984-point is well made; they may well care less, we should care more, but editors - we should care about them/us too. TFOWR^propaganda 23:25, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse He's all but announced the rules don't apply to him. Sorry, they do. Blueboy96 03:49, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
• I do not support the ban. There was a discussion of a ban months ago and it was dismissed. What has changed? Checkuser has not confirmed any socks and it seems like we're just wasting our time here. If Keegscee is watching this, he is probably delighted at the attention he is getting. ) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Orangmike (talk • contribs)
  • The above is NOT Orangemike. The edit was made from this account and needs to be blocked immediately. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 05:20, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
    • Struck the impersonation account of Orangemike's comments (who has been blocked) as they shouldn't be allowed. Anyone who disagrees, please feel to revert. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 05:28, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
      • I've discussed this with a Checkuser and he tells me that Orangmike = a PCHS-NJROTC impersonator. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)} 05:33, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
        • Wonder who is next....the plot thickens, kinda like one of them old timey radio shows. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 05:35, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support - From what I'm seeing and from what I'm hearing from User:J.delanoy in private, Orangmike and PHCS-NJROTC are both Keegscee socks. Enough is enough. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)} 05:43, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support - After dealing with the Orangmike sock and then reading through the proposal, I definitely support banhammering this Keegscee guy. Could someone ask J.delanoy if a range block on Keegscee's range can be done to lessen these socks for awhile? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 05:56, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
  • No-go on the rangeblock. Quoth he, Sprint "doesn't have anything smaller than a /13". —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)} 06:08, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
    • Damn. Cell phones, tricky. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 06:11, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support. I've taken a look and came to my own conclusion that this user is repeatedly engaging in disruptive sockpuppetry. (Checkuser is not an exclusive means of picking up socking. I don't think the imperfectly informed concerns about process wonkery, substantive issues or previous statements are helping. That said, J.delanoy seems to have resolved some of those concerns.) When an user exhausts the community's patience with this sort of behavior, it seems logical that the community deal with it per this usual route. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:01, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

• We already know that a one-sided story doesn't work in articlespace. That's why we have WP:NPOV. I don't see why it is controversial to insist upon a similar stance in this case, or why we should make it easy for the accusers stand as the judge and jury. And it's not like I don't think we should clean house either. I'm fine with supporting bans if they're presented fairly and I think the fair process doesn't involve much more work but rather just a slightly different approach. If there's a fair process it makes it more difficult to appeal and avoids future drama. In fact, I would probably support a 1-year ban on an above voter, Neutralhomer (talk · contribs), for continued rampant edit-warring, bad faith, marking non-vandalism as vandalism, and a refusal to admit the issues (see User_talk:ImperfectlyInformed#Re:_My_.22Unreasonableness.22 for further details). II | (t - c) 16:47, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

• II, this isn't about me, move on. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 18:39, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I think this sock is based on me. I've been called "Keegsie" on IRC many times, and it is known that I use Sprint Mobile Broadband. Whoever owns this account, if I know you, email me please. I'm not exactly pissed off, but this is just immature. Keegan (talk) 07:29, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
• Comment Can someone share here -- in summary or detail -- what is this material J.delanoy has furnished to at least two people in this discussion? Two different people have alluded to her/his findings, & those of us who aren't "in the loop" deserve to see this information. (I'd like to add my vote as an uninvolved & hopefully objective party, but knowing that I haven't heard the entire story makes me reluctant to do so.) -- llywrch (talk) 21:08, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support community ban; persistent socking, an outright ban will clarify, hopefully with little DRAMA. As suggested by Carcharoth, I will "Keep things boringly calm and simple", and say no more.  Chzz  ►  05:51, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Merge request

Can an admin please look at the discussion at Occupied Palestinian Territory regarding the proposed merge to Palestinian territories? The discussion is mainly several months old but was never closed, and the merge was never completed. Since it is quite controversial and I foresee objections, I'd appreciate if an admin would close the discussion and gage consensus rather than do it myself and go ahead with the merge on my own. Thank you, Breein1007 (talk) 02:08, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Note: there is also a small discussion of the merge here. Breein1007 (talk) 02:09, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Reversion restriction on an article?

The Tony Abbott article was recently fully protected due to edit warring. Per a message left by the protecting admin on his talk page, and a request at WP:RFUP, I've reduced the protection level to semi-protection, backed up by an edit notice.

The question of 3RR has been raised on the talk page in response to this change. I know that we can place editors under revert restrictions, but what about articles?

Subject to consensus, I'd like to place this article under a 1RR/24hours restriction (i.e. a "day" to be defined as 24 hours from the time of reversion, not as between 00:00 and 23:59 that calendar day) applicable to all editors. If this is agreed to, the edit notice can be amended to notify editors of the restriction. Mjroots (talk) 10:00, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I support putting this article under a 1RR/day restriction. The edit warring appears to have started in early May. Suggest leaving a note about the 1RR on the article talk, so that new editors will be aware of it. EdJohnston (talk) 18:11, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Ed, what I propose is to extend the edit notice that appears whenever an editor tries to edit the article (try editing the article and you'll see the notice). I'll not add the notice yet, want to give time for more comments. Mjroots (talk) 19:05, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

A bit of context may help in making a decision. Abbott is the federal Opposition Leader of Australia in a pre-election environment - an election is expected in September or October by most analysts. Abbott's own party is divided almost 50/50 between religious conservatives (including himself) and free-market liberals and the leadership has changed three times since the last election, to the delight of the local media. The media here unfortunately isn't of the highest standard, leading to one dispute after another over content, which then becomes disputes about where the content came from, and such (as some outlets and commentators are pretty biased towards the Opposition, but it's further confused by some Opposition supporters in the media wanting a change of leadership.) As such, if only to prevent silly arguments and get people to discuss stuff on the talk page, I'd be agreeable to a 1RR on this article. Orderinchaos 04:24, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I've imposed the restriction and added to the edit notice. Logged on the article's talk page and at WP:RESTRICT. Admins and above are not subject to the restriction (to allow us the ability to deal with any issues that need attention) and the reversion of clear vandalism is also excepted from the restriction. I envisage the restriction remaining in place until the underlying issue is settled, at which time 3RR can be reapplied. Mjroots (talk) 08:18, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

1RR for at least a few months looks like a good idea, but I am not sure we should be exempting admins and above from normal editing rules. If a problem arises, I hope that our admin corps knows how to use discretion and seek review if their actions are potentially questionable. Put more simply, any admin acting as an editor at that article is an editor, while anyone acting as an uninvolved administrator should not be making substantive content edits anyway. I am going to tweak the language in the edit notice a little - fix it or talk there if it needs more. - 2/0 (cont.) 16:00, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. All editors need to be held to the same editing rules. I would categorically oppose any such exemption. Resolute 16:04, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I would expect that admins and above would have the common sense not to abuse their positions and edit war on the article. The reason I posted that exemption was explicitly to allow an admin to intervene if it proved necessary. The article is only semi-protected until 1 June, after which IPs will be able to edit it. If consensus is that the restriction will apply to all, it could create a problem in future. I've got no personal interest in the article, and am not intending to get too involved in it if I can avoid doing so. Mjroots (talk) 17:02, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

As an admin myself, I'm happy to abide by the restriction and don't see why it shouldn't apply to all involved. Nobody should be above taking things to the talk page to discuss them, and reversion of clear vandalism is a reasonable exception for any editor anyway (it's built into 3RR and other similar guidelines/policies). Orderinchaos 18:02, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Appeal by TheDarkLordSeth

Appealing user

TheDarkLordSeth (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – TheDarkLordSeth (talk) 22:35, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed

Tobic ban from the subject of " Armenian Genocide" article. [3]

Editor who imposed or found consensus to impose the sanction

Tim Song (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) / Tim Song (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Notification of that editor

[4]

Statement by TheDarkLordSeth

Please bear with me for a while and read it all.

I will start from the beginning and explain everything to be thorough. On 6th of April, I made one edit concerning two sections of the article I'm banned from. Both were mostly based on two BBC links. (1st one: [5], 2nd one: [6]) The first part of my edit was about the the notion that the accuracy and factuality of the article being a dispute due to unequivocal opinion of historians. The second part of the edit was to simply fix a what I thought to be a typo which turned out to be a deliberate act of misuse of sources(On the link it writes "Armenia says" but it's used to indicate that "Western scholars say" just because the link is from a Western source here: [7]). I wanted to show the nature of my edit to show that it's not disruptive. This edit was reverted in matter of hours with no discussion. I reverted the revert asking for involvement in the discussion page before reverting. Nonetheless the edit was reverted multiple times with no involvement in the discussion page or simply calling the edit denialist propaganda. I saw this as violation and did not think it falls under the 1RR rule imposed on the article. I stopped after 9 reverts to wait for the outcome as another member who reverted my edits 3 times appealed for sanctions against me. I got warned by PhilKnight after an hour: [8]. As a result of the appeal I and CheesyBiscuit got blocked for 31 hours due to violation of the revert rule. For some reason 4 days after the block decision I got banned from topic indefinitely: [9]. Apparently the reason was that I am showing disruptive behavior continuously even though I hardly edit.

In the meantime a completely uninvolved member who became involved in the current situation posted a discussion on the talk page concerning the possible differences between the same topic in different languages: [10]. I pointed out that due to nationality of the majority of members editing a certain language version the article may differ and that due to the English version being controlled by Armenian members the content and the POV differs from that of the versions from other languages such as Turkish one. My use of my observation concerning the nationalities of the members who are editing and reverting started from there. I got warned for it and stopped making such remarks after this: [11].

I appealed this before([12]) only to be ignored by the same admins that the discussion was already covered before. The 31 hour block was covered but the indefinite ban was not nor any explanation why I was banned. I'm gonna also ignore the fact that I was harassed by one of the deciding admins just to show AGF.

I'm not asking for a second chance. I'm asking for what's right. I was to abandon Wiki for good but the fact that there are way too factual errors spurring from nationalistic agendas of many members in Wiki and an admin change my mind to follow this issue further. Any of you can check my history and see that I rarely edit and none of them are major or disruptive. You can also see that I almost always try to engage in a discussion in the talk pages before making any edits and try to be as civil as possible. I always assume faith but as you can also read from WP:AGF that there is a limit to that. It tells you to assume good faith as long as there is no evidence contrary and that's what I've been doing from the start. I find the topic ban completely baseless and being punished twice for the same violation as absurd. You may not like my ideas or my findings but as long as I back them with impartial sources you at least have to respect them and act neutrally. I can only expect that.

Now, if you think that it's appropriate to ban me from this topic I need you to explain to me how I fit the banning policy: "If a user has proven to be repeatedly disruptive in one or more areas of Wikipedia, the community may engage in a discussion to site ban, topic ban, or place an interaction ban or editing restriction via a consensus of users who are not involved in the underlying dispute." [13]. To some it up, I'm being banned from a topic where I only had very few edits with the accusation of continuous disruptive behavior which was reverting a revert when I was already blocked for 31 hours for the violation of the 1RR rule.

I apologize for the long thread. I was directed here by the page descriptions for ban discussions and I was also advised to use the sanction appeal template. I also want to point out that I'm not fishing for admins but thought that I can get more admin opinions here rather than avoiding the old ones. This will be ultimately my last attempt to see this issue solved and will determine my existence in Wiki as an editor. Thank you for your time.

• I would like to warn anyone who reads Marshall's comment below. You can simply check my comments on cases he's referring to and see that he's wrong about his accusations. A simple check would show you that his accusations are unfounded. I don't really need to say more about them. Thank you. TheDarkLordSeth (talk) 18:41, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Comments by others about the appeal by TheDarkLordSeth

I feel compelled to voice my opposition to lifting TheDarkLordSeth's ban. It is not just the technicality of the revert war that land TheDarkLordSeth in hot war but the entire battleground mentality that he brings with him.

For one, what he has conveniently omitted from his narrative are his comments on the Armenian Genocide talk page prior to the beginning of the edit war. A simple look through its talk page will demonstrate how he did not spare a single opportunity to sow doubt regarding the genocide's veracity and actively and aggressively tried to insert information which was not supported by any reliable sources. Judging by his comments, his interests in the Armenian Genocide-related articles stemmed from no genuine desire to improve upon the sources used or the information present, but to drive home a point of view which is not supported by an serious academics. His edits are, unfortunately, symptomatic of the Republic of Turkey's attempts to quash, obfuscate, or distort any mention of the genocide, a cursory glance through the Denial of the Armenian Genocide demonstrates this adequately.

If his ban were to be lifted, I don't think that he would be any more amenable to changing his views to reflect scholarly consensus but would be comparable to privileging a Holocaust denialist the opportunity to present the Holocaust as something which still remains in doubt. Why else did TheDarkLordSeth revert other established users 9 times in a single day? All because of the fact that he wanted the reader to distinguish Armenian scholars from Western ones? No, as demonstrated in his reverts, he went on to insert the words "claim of" in the lead paragraph to present the Armenian Genocide as nothing but an allegation. He did this 9 times over (e.g., [14], [15], [16], etc.) without so much as any even initiating a discussion on the words' insertion, however untenable they may be.

In addition to the above outlined problems, his behavior has shown little to no signs of improvement. While he has been less inclined to accuse the administrators of supporting this or that side, he still is treating Wikipedia is as a nationalistic battleground. This was best seen during a discussion on his talk page with a fellow editor to delete a POV-related article. The advice he imparted was, once again, aggressive and combative, essentially telling him to game the system, for example, "May I also advise renaming of the "Genocide of Ottoman Turks and Muslims" to "Prosecution of Ottoman Turks and Muslims" ? It would show a lot of good faith by you and would make all the opposition shut up.", despite the fact that that article had a long range of problems, one which the "opposition" had no trouble in enumerating.

An even more egregious example of this combative mood was seen in his comments during an Arbitration Enforcement complaint filed against me (which was subsequently dismissed as being frivolous; see here for the full case). After an administrator named Stifle dismissed the flimsy case against me, TheDarklordSeth placed his own comments, agitating that some sort of retribution be carried out against me. Observe the wording and how he essentially accuses me of vandalism: "Stifle, I beg you to reconsider your verdict...The reason I'm posting here is not just to defend the article but to point out the non-neutral act by Marshall bordering vandalism...Marshall merged it because it was against his POV and that is vandalism..." After I commented on the rudeness of such agitation and told him that the case had already been dismissed, he stated the following and continued on with the agitation to have me banned or blocked. He was repudiated by other editors for so inserting his views in such a manner but his participation was deemed a non-violation of his topic ban.

After digesting all this information (I do not have the time to go through ever problematic remark he has made thus far), how, one thinks, can a responsible editor be asked to put up with such irresponsible editing? The warfare-like atmosphere is certainly not appropriate for the healthy discussion of how to improve an article and this mentality of negationism, opportunism, and deep-seated enmity against other ethnic groups (Armenians, Greeks, etc.) clearly illustrates how TheDarkLordSeth's promises to improve himself ring hollow. The history of his contributions on the Armenian Genocide article has been one endless crusade rant against the perfidious nature of the Armenians, Greeks and other perceived enemies of Turkey. Would Wikipedia ever indulge a Holocaust denier and accord him the right to vent his views and present them as legitimate positions in the scholarly world? I don't see any benefits in lifting his ban and I fear that were he to be allowed to edit the same articles, the troubles will once more be resurrected. Regards, --Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 17:08, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Result of the appeal by TheDarkLordSeth

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

MediaWiki:Bad image list

Resolved

 – Image is working now. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 13:24, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I've just added File:Pullcondom2.jpg to en:Portal:Sexuality/Featured picture. Please could this be added to the exceptions on the bad image list. The use is not vandalism. --Simon Speed (talk) 11:36, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Done. Garion96 (talk) 11:50, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, it doesn't seem to be working. The image is there on the subpage, but not on the portal. Maybe it needs to have Portal:Sexuality added as an exception as well? --Simon Speed (talk) 12:06, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Done- and on my end, it appears to have worked. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 12:27, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help. It seems to be working now. --Simon Speed (talk) 13:11, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Unblock of User:Verbal performed

A review of my actions is welcome. I don't want to undermine anyone's actions. Have a look at User talk:Verbal (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 16:34, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Request for upload help

I would like to post a picture of myself on this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Idaho,_2010 Is there an administrator that would be willing to post if I were to send them a picture?

Thank you,

Tom Sullivan —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alipse (talk • contribs) 17:57, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

My User page

I have just relaised it is still protected from years ago, could someone kindly unprotect it as I want to edit it. Thank you.  Giacomo  18:43, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

 Done Rodhullandemu 18:46, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much, and if any of you want to sign up to my new category - be brave and encourage others to realise it they know the facts others can sorth the spelling and grammar and writing. - Category:Dyslexic editors.  Giacomo  18:50, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Conference: Invitation to Wikipedians

Feel free to attend. User:Suomi_Finland_2009/Wikipedia_Improvement_Conference_2010 Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 19:22, 29 May 2010 (UTC)