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Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
[[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Longstanding POV and behaviour dispute at veganism|Longstanding POV and behaviour dispute at veganism]]		25 February 2016	{{{votes}}}
Long-term pattern of tag-teaming between Volunteer Marek and My very best wishes		27 February 2016	{{{votes}}}

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Palestine-Israel articles 5	(t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t)	14 Dec 2024	04 Jan 2025

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Motion name	Date posted
Arbitrator workflow motions	1 December 2024

Longstanding POV and behaviour dispute at veganism

Initiated by Martin Hogbin at 15:53, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Martin Hogbin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Viriditas (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• SlimVirgin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Sammy1339 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Drmies (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• [1]
• [2]
• [3]
• [4]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• [5]
• [6]

Statement by Martin Hogbin

Since before I started editing the article in October 2012, two users, Viriditas and SlimVirgin (later joined by Sammy1339) have been dominating the page. Their edits were well sourced but came almost exclusively from extreme vegan or animal rights authors. Back in 2007 it was delisted as a GA because of pro-vegan concerns[7]. These have never been properly addressed since. Anyone who argued against them was treated harshly and told that they are only giving their personal opinion [8] or that their sources are unreliable. SlimVirgin has often asserted that most other editors are pushing their own POV [9]. Throughout the history of the page at least 12 editors have specifically raised the question of pro-vegan bias and the lack of criticism [10], [11] and some have pointed out that dissenting editors were being driven away by the atmosphere on the talk page [12] and that one regular editor was showing signs of page ownership[13].

After I arrived and tried to present a less pro-vegan POV I was greeted with personal attacks [14], threats [15], spurious accusations[16] and finally a claim on ANI [17] that my editing (of the talk page) was disruptive. In fact, the only difference between myself and most other 12 editors who have tried to make the same point as me is that I was more persistent in trying to get the page to present a more mainstream view of the subject. Rather than edit warring I have consistently tried to resolve disputes by civil discussion[18] and by using the standard dispute resolution methods such as an RfC. The result of the ANI was that, on the bizarre basis that 'Martin's edits there [on the talk page] outnumber his edits to the actual article by almost a factor 10', Drmies, acting I suggest somewhat in haste, handed me a year long topic ban.

Recently an editor who presented sources criticising veganism [19] had their sources summarally dismissed [20].

I have removed my replies to those below at the request of the Arbcom clerks. I would just like to make clear that this case is not aimed specifically at my topic ban or Drmies, but at the long-term tactics used by some editors on the Veganism and associated articles. Martin Hogbin (talk) 11:03, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Sammy1339

I think Drmies' action was a measured response to the concerns brought up by several editors in this AN thread concerning Martin's behavior on the talk pages of several articles. The ominous prediction made by Viriditas here is also troubling. However, I have previously suggested mediation to resolve the content dispute at Talk:Veganism, and I don't object to opening this case instead. --Sammy1339 (talk) 17:09, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

• Seeing the comments below which focus on the article's POV, I'd like to modify my statement to say that, if this turns into a content dispute, I would rather have it via WP:M than here. I am responsible for very little of the content of the article, and I would have written it very differently - in fact one of my first suggestions was about restructuring it. However, whether or not the whole article is biased, Martin has never raised concrete suggestions for fixing this, and has instead created a series of distractions on the talk page. (The one exception that proves the rule is this recent edit, which introduces as "criticism of veganism" a source written by a vegan, which says that veganism is morally obligatory for everyone in nearly all actual cases. He later implied he hadn't read it.[21]) I would like to have a discussion based on sources instead of just opinions and feelings. --Sammy1339 (talk) 02:20, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
• In response to this comment above by Martin Hogbin: I would like to dispute the POV allegation and I would like to dispute it constructively, elsewhere, with reference to details instead of broad accusations. It seems as if this case is destined to be a dispute about content, and I would like to have a fact-based, source-based conversation about whatever substantive changes Martin would like to propose. To give just the most recent and acrimonious example of the sort of non-conversation we have been having:

On 28 June, Martin makes this edit:[22].

On talk, Martin argues that animals are not "really" commodities; this is just vegan rhetoric:[23].

After much discussion, this thread ends on 7 July with a unanimous consensus against his opinion, which is not supported by any sources at all.

On 12 July, Martin proposes an RfC which raises numerous issues, but offers no suggestion of how to fix them. It is closed as "pointless".

On 13 January, Martin raises the "commodity status" issue again in this thread, arguing it is "specialist vegan rhetoric".

On 17 January, Martin opens this RfC. The discussion ends up spanning multiple threads and hundreds of posts. Martin also soapboxes about the issue elsewhere in an effort to influence the RfC:[24][25].

On 25 January, Martin frivolously nominates a related article for deletion.

As Martin ironically notes in this diff, the term is not actually used much by vegan or animal rights organizations, who use stronger language like "exploitation". Many of the "no" votes in the RfC come from vegans who prefer this stronger language. Yet Martin continues to insist that this neutral and benign description of what (ethical) veganism opposes, which is supported by secondary sources, is "rhetoric". He does not provide any source to back up this view.

If there are POV issues worth discussing, I'm happy to discuss them in the appropriate place (I suggest formal mediation) but so far there has not been discussion of substance. --Sammy1339 (talk) 16:24, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

• In response to Snow Rise who has brought up issues of my alleged misbehavior on carnism and psychology of eating meat: I would like to point out that the former dispute has been resolved by large cuts, against my opinions, and I let it go, and I don't recall having ever edited the latter article. I will also point out that in these disputes, invariably, one side has sources and the other only opinions. --Sammy1339 (talk) 12:54, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

@Snow Rise: I compromised very extensively on carnism, on many occasions, but I did insist that the article be based on RS. Your arguments, in particular, involved appeals to your personal expertise and a large body of evo-psych literature which was promised but never materialized.[26] I did my very best to address your opinion-based concerns. I reiterate that the dispute there appears to be settled. --Sammy1339 (talk) 13:33, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Drmies

Numbers are secondary. The metric of Hogbin's TP edits contributions outweighing article contributions by 10 is only part of the rationale. Hogbin's total contributions to the article are a low 1100 bytes, for 296 talk page edits (3.71 article bytes/TP edit), compared to Viriditas's 7800 bytes/275 TP edits (28 bytes/TP edit): Hogbin's productivity is negligible.

But this talk of numbers skips over the letters: the metric is item c., and a. and b. precede c.; if no a., then no b. or c. That Hogbin's appearance on various talk pages, and Talk:Veganism in particular, is deemed disruptive is amply supported in the AN thread. I don't know Hogbin, and never edited Veganism or its TP. Drmies (talk) 18:40, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

• Hammersoft, the evidence of disruption is presented in Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive278#Martin_Hogbin; I determined consensus. Below, in the hatted section, are some examples.

Links to TP discussions with accusations of POV, cherrypicking, promotional editing; and repeated propositions in lengthy, ill-formed RfCs.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Early edit establishing a pattern about article and editors: "Were those sources cherry picked by someone who wants promote veganism or were they a selection of representative sources on the subject?" "this article still reads like a promotional article for the Vegan Society" A few weeks later, accusations of POV/promotional editing: [["There is a great fuss made in some places about paid-for editing and how companies are said to pay people to promote them in WP. Here we have unpain editors giving commercial organisations free adverts" Two-week discussion on the word "commodity", which delivers no change in the article because the consensus is that the word "commodity" does not, pace Hogbin, carry a rhetorical value promoting the philosophy of veganism in Wikipedia’s voice. Even innocent little questions on the talk page get turned into accusations. This RfC runs from 12 to 26 July 2015 and is finally closed because it is too vague to deliver anything meaningful. Another discussion that runs for two weeks and goes nowhere.

• Resolute, plenty of editors agreed that Hogbin's contributions were disruptive--that progression was stymied by endless article talk page filibustering, especially on Talk:Veganism: Hogbin made tons of TP edits, and consensus was that it impeded article progress. ([Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive278#Comments_from_Martin_Hogbin|Here's three editors]] saying so. I wonder if everyone read over the entire discussion.) GoodDay's comment gave me pause, but their comment was rather general and did not seem to point at specific behavior in the areas signaled as problematic. And look at comments by Gandydancer and Coretheapple: consensus is clearly that Hogbin's edits are disruptive.
• Resolue, not absurd. Your restatement is incorrect: my position is simply that the editor was interested in hindering progress and was loath to a. doing the kinds of things that get one in trouble in article space (like edit warring) and b. actually finding the appropriate sourcing to make article edits. For instance, accusations of cherry-picking were made without evidence, as in "However may sources there may be supporting this view, there is no indication of how many sources have taken an opposing or neutral view". But Hogbin gave no indication that "opposing" or "neutral" sources exist: he hadn't found such sources. (Note the conflation between "neutral" as in "neutral source" and "neutral" on whether a vegan diet is beneficial or not. This slippage is exhibited throughout; anything citing evidence that supports vegan claims is POV and not-neutral.)

  There are ways to work on article neutrality (you are convinced it's not neutral, I have no opinion), but I see no evidence that Hogbin tried anything other than making minor article edits and major talk page filibusters. If this case becomes about the article and supposed POV, fine, but I as yet see no reason to consider Hogbin as a lone crusader against pro-vegan promotional evil. Besides, Hogbin wasn't banned from editing the talk page--he was banned from abusing the talk page, and set to a limit.

• Masem, no, not "simply." Kindly read the whole discussion, the whole close, the whole litany here. And don't make me some party in some kind of veganism-pushing conspiracy. Silencing the opposition? Hogbin wasn't "silenced", only limited.

Statement by uninvolved Hammersoft

I find the close of the AN/I thread by Drmies [27] to be curious, especially with regards to point 'c' where he says "Martin's edits there outnumber his edits to the actual article by almost a factor 10". Using any numerical comparison as a basis for applying a talk page restriction is fraught with all sorts of problems. If this be a valid basis on which to apply such a talk page restriction, then one could just as easily say that Viriditas (not singling you out Viriditas, but using you as a case example) should also be under such a restriction; the number of bytes Viriditas has contributed to Talk:Veganism is 12 times as much as they have made to Veganism [28][29]. If one can conclude based on pure numbers that Martin Hogbin is more interested in talk than veganism, then certainly the same conclusion can be reached about other editors as well. Where, wise Solomon, would you like to draw the incision?

Indeed, when there is dispute about the content of an article (which appears to be the case here), we strongly encourage editors to take it to the talk page. I'm hard pressed to understand why we should be sanctioning an editor for doing what WP:DR tells them to do. Is there any evidence that Martin Hogbin has been abusing the talk page in any way? Unless there is compelling evidence Martin Hogbin has been disruptive on the talk page, the restriction should be removed. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:52, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

• If Martin Hogbin's abuse of Talk:Veganism is so rampant as to warrant a year long talk page restriction on that page, then evidence should be trivial to produce. I welcome anyone to produce such. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:51, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
• Drmies, I've read that. I don't see disruption. I see disagreement. I've reviewed the diffs provided in the AN/I thread you noted, and not a single one appears to be disruptive in any respect. Could you please point to the rampant evidence of disruption? One diff would suffice. Thanks, --Hammersoft (talk) 20:55, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
• Disruption isn't proven just by people saying it's disruption. Come on. We're placing a restriction on someone without evidence other than people saying it's true? Please tell me that bar is higher than that. Please tell me we don't wantonly apply restrictions to people just because regulars at an article don't like a newcomer to it? Maybe Martin is being disruptive. I don't know. I'm not involved in this (and frankly don't want to be). But, the restriction seems without basis in fact. There should be at least something concrete to point to. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:04, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
• Consensus isn't a suicide pact anymore than AGF is. Still awaiting proof of any disruption. One diff will do. One. Please? Pretty please? --Hammersoft (talk) 00:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Finnusertop

Additional information: Viriditas has not edited in almost two weeks. His last edit was interaction with me, when he informed me that he cannot finish a Good Article review he had started, because of health issues. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:01, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by onlooker Mangoe

I haven't edited this article at all, but in a very quick skim it comes across as presenting the diet as uncontroversial, and it leans towards advocacy. I think our complainant is right to question that, ignoring other aspects of his behavior.

Comparison of article edits to talk page edits is invalid. There are a bunch of articles where I don't do much article editing, largely due to the time involved, but where I am to some degree involved in talk page discussion. It's often the case that said discussion is in response to others who are making problematic edits. Mangoe (talk) 21:19, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Resolute

I haven't followed this article's history at all, however this RFArb got me curious. I just did a quick read through of the article. The only evidence I can see of any criticisms of veganism as a diet are a pair of brief statements that some people might require supplements for calcium and vitamin D. Under philosophy, there are is a timidly worded criticism of "strict adherence to ethical veganism", based around the arguments of a vegan. Highly conspicuous in its absence is any actual critical commentary on veganism itself. In fact, virtually the entire article exists to either extol the virtues of veganism or offers advice on what sorts of foods can be used to replace non-vegan equivalents. Given the state of the article, it is incredibly reasonable for an editor seeking to discuss the addition of criticisms associated with the topic would have a far greater ratio of talk space edits to main space. I don't even need to go through the talk page to realize that this article is written from a specific POV.

That said, I did go through the last few pages of the talk archives anyway. What I see there is clearly a case of Martin being persistent in his arguments, and a collection of editors growing increasingly frustrated by said persistence. I think some of the complaints were justified - Martin did seem to have a penchant for time sucking RFCs (the one trying to compare the state of the veganism and carnism articles was particularly absurd) - but on the whole, I would characterize the interactions with Martin as being one of persistence vs. condescension. Without going deeper into the archives to get a greater view of the history of this dispute, however, I can't actually say whether that condescension was justified. I am not sure there is a great deal for Arbcom to look at here, though given my admittedly superficial and extremely recent self-education of the topic history, I am not a fan of Drmies' rationale for topic banning Martin. Whether or not the topic restriction is justified, the "he's more interested in talk than veganism" statement is absurd in the extreme. What is the implied argument there? That Martin should have been battling with the cadre of article regulars in the article itself? Resolute 21:24, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

@Drmies:. Even if I accept completely that Martin needed to be topic restricted - and that may very well have been the case - I still find your stated reasoning to be absurd. I took your rationale as arguing that Martin was disrupting the talk page because he wasn't disrupting the article. Even if you came to the right conclusion, the path you took to get there was problematic. But then, given the current status of the article as an advocacy page rather than neutral encyclopedic article, it would have been very difficult to restrict Martin on the basis of something like civil POV pushing without catching others in the same net. Resolute 15:31, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Coretheapple

I was pinged on the ANI mentioned by Martin, and commented on it briefly based upon my experiences at BP. Martin is apparently upset because of the restrictions that were correctly placed upon him as a result of that ANI, which found that he had behaved disruptively. Other than that, he appeared to be involved in a content dispute at the Vegan article in which he is in the minority. Being a content dispute, I don't see any role for arbcom here, but I guess I could be wrong. Perhaps there is some subtlety that escapes me. The topic ban was not arbitrarily imposed. Coretheapple (talk) 00:31, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Softlavender

I've never edited on Veganism or any related article, so I'm not a party here. My concern is related, however. In the past 6 to 8 months there has been a proliferation of POV articles related to "veganism": Carnism; Psychology of eating meat; Commodity status of animals. (There may be others that I haven't noticed.) Most started and/or substantially contributed to by the named parties in this Arb request. All of them appear to me to be highly POV, agenda-pushing, coatracky, and disturbingly inaccurate and/or cherry-picked in terms of encyclopedic information, sourcing, and footnotes. I share the OP's concern in that I feel Veganism is being highly politicized here on Wikipedia, and highly agenda-ized. Wikipedia is in effect being used as a platform to endorse and advance vegan "politics" -- when in fact veganism per se is not political or a philosophy, but simply a dietary choice like vegetarianism or raw foodism or paleolithic diet. I don't like to see such misinformation and such POV-pushing on Wikipedia, especially for a dietary choice which is very much an extremely fringe choice worldwide in terms of percentages. I'd also like to point out that the Veganism article itself falsely politicizes and characterizes the dietary choice, even right in the opening sentence, and extremely so (note one related RfC). (By the way I say all of the above as someone who has been a vegan for at least a decade [but not anymore].) I'm not going to comment further or answer questions, because I think the problem is too widespread and too entrenched on Wikipedia to spend my Wikipedia time on, but I did want to make this statement/observation. Softlavender (talk) 08:00, 26 February 2016 (UTC); edited 08:12, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Only in Death

This is two issues being sandwiched together. The first is a content dispute at Veganism in which Martin Hogbin changes did not gain traction in the face of fairly rigid opposition. ARBCOM (in)famously does not make rulings on content disputes. Except when they do. The second is regarding if his subsequent ANI ban was improper - attempts to resolve this (which have not been tried) prior to ARBCOM would be appealing this at AN as it was the result of a community discussion which led to the closing by Drmies. Given the evidence of civil POV-pushing (not limited to Veganism) that was provided by the supporters there, there was enough support for some sanction. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:09, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

On a related note, the previous case request linked by Ncmvocalist below was declined because it didnt deal in content issues, and behavioural issues had not been dealt with at prior venues (in fact Thryduulf's comment there is practically identical to mine here). Here the only difference is that in this case it has gone to ANI and been acted upon. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:05, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Ncmvocalist

The matter concerning Martin Hogbin's talk page participation has been raised on this very page, just about a year ago.

The first issue was relating to a different dispute - being over 2 words in an article's infobox, which managed to incite a 17-revert edit-war between several editors including Hogbin, a 27,000 word discussion on the article talk page primarily by Hogbin and another editor, and multiple threats by Hogbin to take the matter to ArbCom. He carried out his threat and a request was made to last year's ArbCom, which was declined as seen here. At that request, my comment here covers any evidence which is needed to verify whether or not the conduct I've described (as a whole):

1. was a proportionate response to the 2 words in issue; and
2. has the effect of driving away editors from participating in editing the article in question or any RfC.

Personally, I think the community wanted him restricted across all article talk pages, not just on the topic which is the subject of this second issue. That said, any assistance by uninvolved administrators like Drmies is better than the lack thereof provided by others within the community to-date on this particular matter. The type of problematic editing conduct which the community wants curtailed is remarkably exhausting. If this appeal is going to be entertained, I think the restriction and rationale ought to be widened; otherwise the appeal should just be rejected to avoid further resources being unnecessarily expended.

That said, I have not reviewed the conduct of other editors referred to in the second issue so do not comment on that aspect. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:31, 26 February 2016 (UTC)I just noticed my comment originally said "restricted across Wikipedia article talk pages" but I intended to say "restricted across all article talk pages". I've modified to reflect the intention just now for clarity. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:29, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

@Masem: Martin Hogbin is subject to a talk page editing restriction which limits the high quantity and high frequency of his posts at the article's talk page; he is not subject to a "blocking action". Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Martin Hogbin has now stated that his request for arbitration is not aimed specifically at Drmies or the editing restriction imposed - which I understand to mean that he does not intend this case to be an appeal; and that his case is about "the long-term tactics used by some editors on the Veganism and associated articles". But this does not explain why Drmies was listed as a party (and why he remains listed as a party by Martin Hogbin), particularly when Drmies has had no involvement in the subject matter of the topic area and Martin Hogbin previously told Drmies he intended to (in effect) appeal. Unless Martin Hogbin can demonstrate the evidence he has against Drmies or intends this to be an appeal, Drmies should be removed as a party (which should address any question of recusal). Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:20, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Uninvolved Masem

Without considering the content of the debate but only the nature of the behavior, this has unsettling similarities to the GamerGate case, particularly how I myself was claimed by some of those involved that I was being disruptive at the talk page, simply for using the talk page for discussion regarding POV aspects. Asking Martin to make more succinct discussions, or similar improvements in their talk page discussions as to avoid repetitive discussions, that's completely fair, but I find it very concerning that blocking actionharsh editing restrictions was taken simply based on volume of discussion and ratio of talk-to-mainspace edits, and seems a way to silence what seem to be reasonable counterpoints to at least discuss (at the surface, I have no idea of the nature of internal controversy on vegan diets, etc.) --MASEM (t) 16:31, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

@Ncmvocalist: Thanks, corrected that, though I still feel we're talking about something extremely punitive for using talk pages to try to solve disputes which is the whole point, as well as having a higher degree of talk page edits to mainspace. Martin's talk page usage would have been something that WP:RFC/U would have been used to try to address and correct without engaging in any admin actions, but that doesn't exist any more, and instead its just being labeled "disruptive" and having punitive action taken. --MASEM (t) 17:16, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

@Drmies: I never implied you were involved (beyond being the closing admin) or there is a conspiracy. Your close, on first blush, looks like it followed the consensus. The problem is the larger one, not limited to this case, of groups of editors seeking means to remove valid voices from discussions simply because the voice is contrary to their view, which is completely counter to the intent of WP. As Hammersoft's arguments above list, filibustering talk pages may be something to discourage , but it is far from disruption. I am not saying that Martin's behavior is beyond review - it should be for certain as a fair review if this case is taken - but we need to stop this pattern of trying to use admin actions or sanctions to hamper discussion when there's no real disruption going on. --MASEM (t) 03:48, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by MarkBernstein

The question before ArbCom is whether endlessly repetitive talk page filibustering is a desirable or an undesirable tactic. If it is deemed desirable, then naturally we will see more of it, since Gamergate demonstrated how effectively it can drive other editors to distraction, to abandon efforts on the page, or to retire, leaving the field to the allies of the filibuster. Encouraging this sort of editing does increase Lila Tretikov's metric of "highly active editors", and perhaps that metric is what we care about.

On the other hand, a general guideline that limits individual editors from overwhelming a talk page for months on end might greatly improve the atmosphere on Wikipedia. Does anyone often need to post on a Talk page more than, say, 60 times per month? How often is it desirable for an editor to post most than, say, 10,000 words a year on a talk page? MarkBernstein (talk) 17:49, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by FourViolas

Martin’s talk page contributions have impeded consensus-building and generated a lot of frustration among editors trying to resolve concerns based on RS, both those who agree with him and those who don't (I have been both). Drmies’s box gives a good overview of the filibustering tactics he uses. His concerns are based on his subjective opinions about the article's wording, notwithstanding RS, as he more or less explicitly states.[30][31][32] He impedes consensus-building by accepting a point, and then after weeks of discussion based on this common ground rejecting it again.[33] His few edits to the article are based on his opinion and usually do not refer to any source;[34][35][36] when he did add a source to the article,[37] he misrepresented it and defended himself by explaining that he had only read the abstract.[38] Because of this, and his polite disregard for the many uncontroversially high-quality sources I and others typed up for him,[39][40] and this disruptive and frivolous AFD, I weakly supported weak talk page restrictions in the hopes that they would encourage him to provide concise, RS-supported arguments instead of opinions.[41]

With all that said, there's a difference between being frustrating and being disruptive. On several occasions, Martin raised points which led to improvements of the article, proving his good faith. Furthermore, I believe some editors who disagree with Martin have expressed their frustration less civilly than they should have,[42][43] although I don’t think any of this rose to an ArbCom leveI; I just went back to look at diffs, and found them more restrained than I remembered.[44][45] I agree that Drmies's metric (c.) was unusual and probably not a good general principle, but also that it's something of a red herring here. FourViolas (talk) 19:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Looie496

I would just like to suggest that if arbs vote to accept this case, they make it clear that they are accepting in order to examine the behavior of all parties, not just DrMies. (Unless, of course, they don't actually want to do that.) Looie496 (talk) 20:06, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Pldx1

Discussing veganism/vegetarianism without any reference to Cao Xueqin, Chaucer, Rabelais or Omar Khayyam seems slightly unilateral and/or uninformed. But this is a remark about contents. Concerning the behavior, this is the usual red herring for derailing a discussion about contents into a drama board opera. Ergo, Bismark herring and beer, instead of accepting such a case. Pldx1 (talk) 20:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Moreover, it's amusing to see how quiet are some people that were so vocal on the talk page. Brother Jade, any comment ? Pldx1 (talk) 18:14, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Ched

re to Looie496: I really don't see any issues with Drmies administrative action here, so any examination of that would likely be the obligatory rudimentary type.

As far as a case? ... from what little I've seen I'd likely be leaning toward accept. Martin has been offered plenty of WP:ROPE, and chooses to be here of his own volition. — Ched :  ?  20:32, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

• note to clerks - please don't bother with formal notices on this request for me. Thanks. — Ched :  ?  21:08, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Snow Rise

My experience with the underlying disputes here is incidental, so I'll keep my comments brief. Mostly I want to reinforce some of the points already made by Softlavender. I have not participated in the discussions at Veganism which precipitated the AN discussion of Martin's conduct (nor the AN thread itself), but I did have occasion to participate very briefly on the talk pages for the more recently added articles Carnism and Psychology of eating meat, which involve largely the exact same selection of contributors as are involved here and converge on the same oppositional perspectives. My impression is that those articles contain a great deal of content which, at the least, raise not insignificant questions of POV, original research, coatracking, reliable sourcing, cherrypicking and synthesis of some fringe research (of one academic in particular) in an improperly weighted and represented manner. I say this despite the fact that A) the supporters of that content include some of my favourite people to collaborate with on this project, and B) I am highly sympathetic to the animal protectionism and ecological underpinnings of an opposition to meat eating. I did observe a certain degree of entrenched argumentation from Martin, but then I also saw a fair bit from the other side during my (admittedly brief) involvement in those discussions. My main observations were that Martin and Sammy1339 represented the two "poles" of the various disputes, often speaking in largely unmovable absolutes, while most everyone else fell at various points in the middle, trying to bridge that gap, but pretty much failing to bring the two sides together on a consensus view or reasonable compromises.

All of that said, looking over the AN thread, I can't find much cause to fault Drmies, who was, afterall, making a judgement call based on their interpretation of the community consensus of that discussion, not a personal assessment. I still urge the committee to take up the case though; the parties here have (admirably) stayed mostly quite civil despite their disparate and passionate views, but there's a contest of wills now spanning across numerous articles that needs to be addressed in some way, and having observed a bit about how it has played out so far, I'm skeptical the normal dispute resolution mechanisms are up to the task. If ArbCom declines the case, I would urge the matter be advertised in central discussion spaces so some new blood can be brought in to hopefully break the various deadlocks and form a more stable and productive consensus. Snow ^{let's rap} 06:52, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

@Sammy1339: I don't think I "alleged misbehaviour" on your part above (certainly it was not my intent). I was only noting that (in my short experience on those two TPs) yours and Martin's opinions were the farthest apart, and together you were the least likely to be swayed by the arguments of others from those absolutes. That's not necessarily bad-faith or disruptive (though if you want my opinion, it was not for the best here either). Snow ^{let's rap} 13:15, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by non-party Martinp

Based on a quick review, this feels like exactly the type of case that we need Arbcom to take on: it is about con*duct* with important con*tent* implications. One the one hand we have accusations that an editor's collaborative style, while civil, is disruptive (and may be habitually so in multiple arenas). On the other hand, accusations that a group of editors sharing a POV dominate an article and discourage dissenting voices. An intervention on ANI that was doubtless well-intentioned, but imposed a significant restriction with rather unusual justification. The outcome is an article on a significant topic which is, and appears to have been for years, far from neutral, with various attempts to address this going nowhere. And the whole situation is intertwined together in a way that makes a random outsider's head spin.

Wikipedia has become sensitized in the past few years to the deleterious impact of *paid* POV pushing, which is indeed a problem. Waiting in the wings, but equally important, is *unpaid* POV pushing, where content or discussions about content implicitly become controlled by those voices who have more time and more knowledge of WP processes. This may or may not apply to either side in this specific situation; it seems to need Arbcom to sort it out, hopefully in a way which could serve as a guide in other such current and future situations.

(I have not participated in the article in question and have no particular knowledge in the topic. Posting this outside view in particular given some arbs' comments below that they are awaiting further statements, which I assume means uninvolved ones) Martinp (talk) 17:07, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by {Non-party}

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

Clerk notes

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

• Fixed request formatting. Amortias (T)(C) 15:56, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Longstanding POV and behaviour dispute at veganism: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <3/7/1/2>

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

• Accept I see issues all around that need to be addressed. I am particularly troubled by the POV pushing here and what appears to be an offbeat interpretation of RS --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 00:31, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
• I'm going to hold off on my accept/decline vote until people have had a bit longer to comment. However, I would like to remind people that we will not be evaluating the article content itself, as that is not within our scope. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:23, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Decline. I am not seeing much in terms of attempts at dispute resolution. Martin Hogbin did attempt to do this, though it seems to have been distracted by concerns about his behavior and his ban. I would like to see some other editors attempt resolution, preferably someplace where the content itself can be sifted through, before bringing it here. GorillaWarfare (talk) 08:09, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
• Would like to hear from SlimVirgin and Viriditas (if he's around), and others involved in editing the article... but I am leaning toward a decline here; this doesn't seem ripe for arbitration. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:46, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
  • While I agree with Cas that "how people use sources" can be a conduct matter within our scope, this is still not looking to me like a matter that's ready for arbitration. I see three overlapping questions:
    1. Martin Hogbin's style of talk-page usage and RfC participation: this is not something that the community is unable to handle.
    2. Drmies' imposition of talk-page restrictions on Martin: we don't need a case to decide this is within normal administrative discretion and is part of the process of #1.
    3. Allegations of POV-pushing on the topic of veganism: I don't think we've seen real, substantive attempts at dispute resolution on this issue yet. A thoughtfully constructed RfC or a mediation case - with participation from editors experienced at dealing with health-related content - seems more likely to be useful than an arbitration case. Opabinia regalis (talk) 23:54, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Decline. On further review, updating to an actual bolded, updated-the-tally-and-everything decision. I think this is better addressed at this stage in a forum where the content issues can be discussed, but would be inclined to accept a future case if the matter isn't resolved. Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:46, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
• I think I am leaning to an accept pending further statements as the issues are possibly too drawn out and complex to be dealt with by other means. Agree we wouldn't rule on content as such, but it would be necessary in this case to examine how people are using sources and (hopefully) not misrepresenting them. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:58, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

  Decline The more I read, the more I think a structured RfC with wider input is the way to go before coming back here. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:36, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

• Awaiting statements, but a note I have updated Drmies to recuse per this. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 11:47, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Decline, largely per GorillaWarfare and Cas. An RfC brought forth by someone other than Martin Hogbin may be the best next step, and failing that, it may end up on our plates again. But I would like to see this tried first. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 14:12, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
  • [Updated/tweaked after rereading old and reading new comments:] Thanks K--of course I'm recused in as much as the case is about my close. If this really becomes about the article (Martin Hogbin announced on my talk page a while ago that he was going to challenge my close) I may call in a sick day, though I am not involved with the article or its subject matter and have little interest in it. If the case about the article is accepted I'll gladly recuse if my fellow Arbs or the community think that's a good idea. However, I do NOT believe ArbCom should accept a case about the article yet since, as far as I can tell, no other means of dispute resolution have been tried.

    PS: Martin Hogbin, I meant no insult when I cut your first name from my response: I simply needed to save words. I don't know you so I don't really want to presume and use your first name, but I will gladly change my response if you prefer my using your first over your last name. Drmies (talk) 15:56, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

• Also awaiting statements (as I said I would a few weeks ago on some talk page in some galaxy). I'll review this tomorrow. Doug Weller talk 15:37, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Decline per Gorilla Warfare, Opabinia regalis and Drmies. I also am loathe to accept a case about a party who might be too ill to respond. Doug Weller talk 12:03, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
• Accept the specific content of an individual article is not our domain. Whether there is a concerted effort to push dissentors from an article or group of articles might be. Advocacy is a behavioral as well asa content question. DGG ( talk ) 18:03, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
• Accept to look into the entire situation. Courcelles (talk) 04:45, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
• Waiting for statements from all major parties. Gamaliel (talk) 21:47, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
• Decline per GorillaWarfare and Casliber. If a more structured approach to dispute resolution doesn't help, then we can take another look at the matter. Kirill Lokshin (talk) 02:09, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
• Decline per GorillaWarfare and Casliber also, with that RFC being a a second venue preferably. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 06:08, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Long-term pattern of tag-teaming between Volunteer Marek and My very best wishes

Initiated by Étienne Dolet (talk) at 18:56, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Involved parties

• EtienneDolet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• My very best wishes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Volunteer Marek (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• My very best wishes
• Volunteer Marek

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• My very best wishes' TP
• Volunter Marek's TP

Statement by EtienneDolet

Beginning mid-2014 (and possibly earlier), Volunteer Marek and My very best wishes appear to be helping each other out in edit-wars by tag-teaming. VM is the more active of the two, and the tag-teaming typically has the form of VM getting involved in an edit-war in an article that My very best wishes has not previously edited. Once the edit-war is under way, My very best wishes appears out of nowhere and reverts on VM’s behalf. In a minority of instances, it is VM that steps into an edit-war that Mvbw is involved. Since mid-2014, the tag teaming has occurred over a large number of articles (at least 40 in 2015 alone, although there are possibly more), some of which are quite obscure (e.g. Philip M. Breedlove, Khan al-Assal chemical attack, The Harvest of Sorrow). Initially the tag-teaming was restricted to Eastern Europe-related articles, particularly the Ukraine crisis, but as of 2015 it has spread to non-EE articles (example), hence I'm inclined to believe that it's not merely mutual interests that guides them. Furthermore, though both these editors have edited for a long time, they edited few articles in common in the period 2012-mid 2014, with the number of articles they edit in common skyrocketing after that. It should be noted that VM edits a far larger variety of articles than Mvbw does; however, most of the articles Mvbw chooses to edit after mid-2014 appear to be articles VM edits, especially of those he is facing contention (i.e. the April contributions of Mvbw and VM are noticeably similar). The disruption this has caused is considerable. Some of it can be exemplified as follows:

1. Outnumbering lone opponents (sometimes having them blocked; example)
2. Article protections (example)
3. Gaming the system (most noticeable at 1RR articles; example)
4. Hampering the consensus building process (most noticeable through NINJA-style reverts with no TP participation; example)

I have identified approximately 40 articles and more than 70 instances where these two editors have tag teamed in a year. In some articles, like in the Donetsk People's Republic, there are at least 5 such cases in just one year (Feb. 2015-Feb. 2016). I will provide an extensive list of all of them as evidence in my report. I warned both these users to stop the tag-teaming, but it continues (i.e. [46][47]) even after the advisory. Therefore, as this is a particularly serious user conduct issue across multiple articles, such that the evidence is quite complex, ARBCOM is the proper forum to investigate this. I should also point out that both VM and Mvbw have engaged in this sort of thing in the past, as one of the main protagonists of the notorious Eastern Europe Mailing List (WP:EEML) as User:Radeksz (VM's old user name) and User:Biophys (Mvbw's old user name before being renamed to Hodja Nasredin). Though in this case I do not have evidence of off-wiki collaboration, it is clear these users are tag-teaming and coordinating their edits in a similar manner and contrary to the spirit of the encyclopedia.

Comment The discussion about referring this over to AE under EE would mean that this case is not being understood in its proper context. AE under EE is not the proper venue to solve this long-term problem since there are several non-EE articles where tag-team edit-warring took place. I’ve also said, in my report, that there are multiple users, multiple articles (both EE and non-EE), and extensive but complex amount of evidence which can only be processed and analyzed here. I also find it rather odd that an admin, who appears to be pushing the same POV these two users have been pushing and tag-team reverting over at Putin ([48][49][50]), who I also thought would be more familiar with the ArbCom process, would say that there’s no evidence. There’s more than enough evidence. It’s actually overwhelming. It just needs to be presented when the case gets accepted. That is all. Étienne Dolet (talk) 20:00, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Comment @DeltaQuad: You have not seen the evidence because I have only presented a few examples of it thus far. Under ArbCom procedure, I'm only allowed to provide snippets of it in my report, which is hardly enough to display such an extensive pattern of tag-team edit-warring stretching back all the way to mid-2014. This is not some dispute at a single article during a short period of time. Let's not forget that we're not talking about isolated incidents of tag-teaming here, we're talking about a pattern, and it's across many articles during a very long period of time. Therefore, that pattern must be exposed and it can't be done with a 500 word limit and under the advice of "you are not trying to exhaustively prove your case at this time." So I am more than willing to provide all the evidence I have gathered. Would that be okay? Étienne Dolet (talk) 21:14, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Statement by My very best wishes

During last years I had no any meetings or off-wiki communications with VM, former EEML members or any other participants of the project. There was no illegal coordination.

Yes, I watched editing by many contributors in the project, including VM. I did it without their consent because I thought these users needed my help. I usually helped them with a piece of advice, most recently here. It did not matter to me what they edit (some edited Chinese subjects). However, if I knew the subject, I also tried to help them with editing certain pages. In all such cases I checked the sources and edited to improve the content. In many cases I happened to agree with another contributor, especially if he/she was an experienced one, in others I happened to disagree. I thought about it as a productive collaboration to improve the content. If it was not, and I should not help other users (this is essence of any collaboration), please tell me, and I will not do it again. Thanks, My very best wishes (talk) 10:55, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Let's explain this differently. Did I insert unsourced and irrelevant information on pages? No. I acted in a good faith to improve content. Did I talk impolitely to other users? No. Did I edit war against consensus? No. In content disputes mentioned by the complainer I agreed with majority of other contributors. Was I blocked or sanctioned during last three years? No. Did anyone complain about me on ANI or AE? That was only once, on a minor and totally unrelated matter that has been resolved. Did anyone explain me with diffs what I am doing wrong? No. But then why is someone listed me as a guilty party for the arbitration? My very best wishes (talk) 06:43, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

@EtienneDolet. Do you have concern that user X was improperly blocked or sanctioned? That's fine. Please bring the case on WP:ANI and wait what admins have to tell about it. Do you think that I disrupt the project, edit war or whatever? That's fine. I made these edits in a subject area covered by discretionary sanctions. Please bring the case on WP:AE. My very best wishes (talk) 14:35, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

P.S. EtienneDolet accuses me and VM of "tag teaming". I should remind that WP:Tag team is a highly controversial essay, not a policy. Even so, this essay tells that tag-team "is a controversial form of meatpuppetry in which editors coordinate their actions to circumvent the normal process of consensus". No. There was no meatpuppetry, and there was no any actions "to circumvent the normal process of consensus" by any of us. Which policies did I allegedly violate? EtienneDolet tells that I edited pages unrelated to EE subjects only because VM edited them. No. These pages (related to events in Syria, NATO, CIA operations and Robert Conquest) are actually related to Russia and within my interests. My very best wishes (talk) 05:10, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Volunteer Marek

This is stupid. MVBW and I edit the same topic area. Yes, MVBW often edits the same pages as I do. So what? I have never asked them to make edits on my behalf, I have no off-wiki contact (and hardly any contact on Wiki) with them and I don't even "thank" them for any edits. He does his thing, I do mine, sometimes those things overlap. There have also been quite a number of cases where we've disagreed on things.

What you got here is an attempt by EtienneDolet to abuse ArbCom to win a content dispute, specifically on Vladimir Putin (which as User:Maunus has pointed out a week or two ago has been over taken by WP:BATTLEGROUND editors such as ED) by going after his opponents. Now, if you do want to see tag-teaming then you can look at the edits by EtienneDolet, User:Athenean and User:Tridek Sep on that article, along with User:SaintAviator.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:05, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

This is not really relevant to the request, just annoyance
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I should also point out that EtienneDolet has tried to engage in WP:OUTING in his comment above (which I removed). There's no reason to do that except to intimidate others and such actions should be subject to immediate block.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:10, 27 February 2016 (UTC) DavidLeighEllis - the username was changed because of real life harassment. Bringing it up here, even if it isn't "outing" according to some strict interpretation of policy (I guess you can Wikilawyer that), is clearly done as a form of intimidation. And if you think that me removing this from ED's comment "merits restriction" what restriction would that be? What does that have to do with anything? Why would that concern ArbCom?Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:38, 28 February 2016 (UTC) David, you said you had no dog in this fight. So why are you here? Just for shnitzengiggles? If there's anything more annoying than battleground POV pushers on Wikipedia it's annoying busy-bodies who have to stick their damn nose into every issue they have no clue about just to amp the drama. I'm not surprised that the fact of real life harassment doesn't even resonate with you. You - and ED - are bringing up a SEVEN year old case. And whatever sanctions were there once, were lifted long ago (pretty quickly I might add, since they were sort of BS to begin with). So no, there's no reason to post my old username except to intimidate. As to the case itself - look, show some real evidence or drop it. Right now ED's complaint boils down to "I really don't like it that these two users are editing in a topic area over which I want to have POV control". ED has not provided a single shred of evidence of any wrong doing. It's just his way of intimidating users that disagree with him. He's ran to AN/3RR, AN/I, AE and several other noticeboard trying to get people who disagree with him sanctioned, and this is just a continuation of that WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior.Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:56, 28 February 2016 (UTC) David, I am NOT "edit warring on ANY articles I used to edit war on", in fact, I'm not edit warring on any articles, old or new. On the Putin article I've tried to observe 1RR for the past few weeks (aside from reverting one user who was following my edits around). Others haven't. And no, as far as I recall, I haven't edited the Putin article until recently (back in 2009 that article wasn't as much of a joke as it is now). And while I appreciate your sympathy and regrets they ring a bit hollow, especially since you appear intent on pursuing that matter. You also haven't explained why exactly you decided to jump into this.Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:04, 28 February 2016 (UTC) Yeah and all those "uninvolved users" commenting left and right is part of the reason why Arbitration is such a freakin' mess, David. If everybody else cheered someone on to jump off a cliff does it make it okay for you to cheer them on also? Personally I never got that. Why jump up and comment about something you have no clue about? Is it just wanting attention or something? Is it the love of drama for drama's sake? Is it there some serendipitous utility to publicly wallowing in one's ignorance? I don't get it.Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:27, 28 February 2016 (UTC) Also you should probably consider the "experienced user" thing - it's a relative metric.Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:28, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Let me say this one more time - I do not have any contact with MVBW on or off Wiki. I don't even look at their contributions. We edit in the same topic area. You could file a similar request claiming tag-teaming between a whole number of users who edit in the topic area and who wind up on the same articles. If they follow my edits - and I have no idea whether they do or not - that's their business (and AFAIK there's nothing wrong with that as long as it's not done with the purpose of harassment). There's literally a dozen users that the same kind of "evidence" could be presented for. RGloucester. Iryna Harpy... I almost hesitate to name them as they might find themselves dragged into this ridiculous request. You'll find a high "correlation" between the articles these people edit simply because it's the same topic area.

So here's my question. How am I suppose to prove a negative? Exactly what kind of evidence can I show to prove the fact that I am NOT tag-teaming with anyone or talking to anyone? This whole request is bunk precisely for the reason that it's set up in a way which make it impossible to defend against the charges, except for saying, "no, that's just not true". So really, that's all I'm going to do here - say, no, none of this is true.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:56, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

it's not a pleasant thing to be lied about
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
MyMoloboaccount - as you well know I left the list before you did. So your comment is quite dishonest - you were on there last I know off (which admittedly was seven years ago) and I wasn't. I have not had any contact with MVBW as I've said repeatedly. I don't know what their email address is. I haven't exchanged a word with them. This is all just evidence-free mud slinging. And it's really ironic that you of all people would show up here and try to use membership in the EEML against other editors when you were one of its founding members, and *you* made quite a use of it. Remember this article? Remember being accused of coordinating edits on that article by another user? Remember me arguing for you to get unblocked? Remember me arguing for your sanctions and restrictions to be lifted? You wouldn't be editing Wikipedia today - including showing up here to attack me - if it wasn't for me. Man, was that a mistake.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:04, 28 February 2016 (UTC) Molobo. Wow. That comment [51] ... I don't know how to respond to it. It's just on another level. I manipulated you? Apparently by supporting your unblock requests back in the day. I pretended something ... I don't even know what you're going on about. And saying that I am "working against the interest of your countrymen" just makes you look ridiculous. And this "stains your conscience"? You know what should "stain your conscience"? The fact that you are trying your hardest to repay my acts of support and kindness - defending you back when no one else would - with this kind of vitriol. I'm not asking you to be grateful or even thankful or appreciative or anything like that. But the fact that you are showing up here to lie about me and agitate against me really shows the kind of character are. Normal people don't return kindness by back stabbing those who helped them when no one else would.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:37, 28 February 2016 (UTC) Molobo, we both know that you were one of the original five members of the list. It was you, Digwuren, Piotrus, Hillock and I forget who was the fifth (this is really ancient Wikipedia history). You guys started the list.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:54, 28 February 2016 (UTC) I'm not going to even address the rant made by User:Tiptoethrutheminefield because... well, because it's impossible to respond to something that ridiculous except to say "that's ridiculous". This user appears to have some kind of obsession with me [52] whereas I've hardly noticed them before. Whatever. As to the statement by Athenean - who has been tag-teaming with EtienneDolet on the Putin article - first, Athenean, as you very well know, I didn't add anything about Charles Taylor to the Putin article. That was actually added by an administrator [53]. So I resent the fact that you're trying to falsely imply I had anything to do with that. How about you strike that false insinuation? Second at Donetsk People's Republic, there's at least half a dozen editors involved. Am I "conspiring" with all of them? The basic issue is that someone or someone(s) (a lot of brand new accounts) keeps making reverts in the middle of an ongoing RfC. I actually have no strong preference as to the infobox. So again, you're trying to insinuate something which just isn't true. And saying that a case should be opened because of the "severity of allegations" is basically saying "hey, if we make up claims which are outrageous enough then ArbCom will have to take the case". And subject several long standing editors to the greatly unpleasant Two Months of Hate where you and your buddies get to attack and slander people you don't like with impunity. I can make some "severe allegations" against you and EtienneDolet as well. That it's easy. All it takes is a nasty streak and a WP:BATTLEGROUND attitude.Volunteer Marek (talk) 04:23, 1 March 2016 (UTC) Note: Athenean amended their comment (not much): [54]. Tiptoethrutheminefield, if you got some mailing least to leak, then leak it (or send it to ArbCom). Otherwise present actual evidence rather than your own fantasies. Your whole statement - and EtienneDolet's and Athenean's - amounts to "they could be doing some thing wrong, I got no evidence but I just know it! Ban'em so I can push my POV in peace!".Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:10, 1 March 2016 (UTC) Athenean - take your personal attacks ("intellectual dishonesty") and shameless lying and stuff'em. Yes, I think there's tag teaming and off wiki coordination between you, EtienneDolet and another user. To me it seems obvious, but can I prove it? No. But then again, I'm not the one filing a spurious request for a case here, am I? And NO, there's no tag teaming between myself and any other user - all you got is a whole bunch of people disagreeing with you - and there is no evidence to support that (because it doesn't exist).Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:20, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

• Note: After I point out things which are untrue in Athenean's statement, he keeps going back and changing his statement to make it look less false (and hence to make my objections look trivial) [55] [56]. The proper thing to do in those circumstances is to strike one's comments and indicate new text which is being added so that it doesn't look like someone's responding to something which isn't there anymore. Anyway, just the fact Athenean has to keep going back and "amending" their comments so that they're not outright falsehoods, sort of evidences the quality of their comments here.Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:16, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

---

Look. It's actually pretty simple. If there was any basis to this request, if it wasn't frivolous, if there was any truth here, if it wasn't just a lame attempt at block shopping and intimidation, then EtienneDolet, or Athenean, or Tiptoe, would bring it to WP:AE, since the topic area is already covered by discretionary sanctions. And they all know all about WP:AE since they're veterans over there ([57], [58], [59]). So it's not like they're avoiding that venue and coming here out of ignorance (as someone else pointed out, EtienneDolet is quite prolific when it comes to running around the drama boards with requests against anyone who disagrees with them). No, they're coming here precisely because they know how WP:AE works. They know that if you bring a frivolous BS request to WP:AE, you're quite likely to get WP:BOOMERANGed and blocked yourself for WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior. In fact, at least Athenean has been warned precisely about that before [60]. So the only reason why they're here is because they see this as a venue where 1) they get to make all sorts of baseless accusations and WP:ASPERSIONS and get away with it and 2) they're hoping the ArbCommers are not as familiar with their behavior as the admins over at WP:AE. That's it. That's all there is to it, it's just a nasty WP:BATTLEGROUND tactic.Volunteer Marek (talk) 09:43, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Fitzcarmalan - yet another user showing up here to make completely baseless accusations with zero evidence. Where is the evidence Fitz? There isn't a single bit of it in your statement. Just because you are capable of attacking people doesn't make it true. Just because you are capable of lying about others doesn't make it true. I especially like the part about how "evidence ... is meaningless" - geee, could the reason you say that be because THERE IS NONE?!? And as Geogene's link shows EtienneDolet and Athenean have edited something like 50 articles together. I also ran the edit interaction tool on myself and a couple other editors. Myself and RGloucester have edited about 100 articles together. Myself and ... hmmm, maybe I'll stop right there lest I accidentally drag some poor innocent editor into this mess and subject them to this circus. Basically if you edit as much as I do and you concentrate on just couple topics (EE topics, Race and Intelligence, some broader history), yeah, it's not going to be that hard to find a lot of overlap with other users who are active in a given area. And that don't mean squat (except that some people will try to use anything against you on Wikipedia to win their battles).Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:30, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Fitzcarmalan - first of all, WOW! You have what appears to be a pathological obsession with my edits. You pulled some diffs from four years ago on some obscure articles that I can't even remember editing. In fact, this is even creepier because I really have no idea who you are. I mean, holy crap, you must've spend hours pouring through ten years worth of my edits to find those diffs. I'm sorry that you didn't spend them in more productive pursuits. And funnily enough, you only began editing in 2013 but many of them are from disagreements I've had long before that. Yeeeeessshhhh.

As to your "diffs" - please, they don't show anything that you claim they show. Standard tactic - make an outrageous accusation and then tack a "diff" at the end to make it seem like there's support for it whereas in fact you're just hoping others will be too lazy to actually click on them and look (and who could blame them with how much of a mess this became so quickly). So let's see: how does this prove "gaming"?. You just linked to an article's edit history. What is that show? Hey, I know! Let me try it! Claim: User:Fitzcarmalan is a horrible editor: [61]. Now I've proven it! Or this one, which is suppose to show "ninja reverts" [62]. Do you even know what "ninja revert" is or did you just see the term used by EtienneDolet and are now repeating it for him? Same for the rest of your "diffs" which are frankly ridiculous and the only evidence they constitute is evidence that you're not a very good liar.Volunteer Marek (talk) 20:57, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

And for the benefit of the committee here is the editor that Fitz claims has been unfairly blocked: for disruptive editing, sock puppetry, "agenda-driven POV editing" originally blocked by one of the current ArbCom members. What that has to do with me, except that I reverted him once or twice? Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:11, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Oh yeah, did any of you ever hear of my idea that anyone filing or commenting on an ArbCom case should be automatically check-user'd? That'd save the committee a lot of time in the future.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:11, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

---

As far as the specific content dispute at Putin's article goes, it's pretty clear that it's not going to get solved without help. That much I agree on. But rather than trying to "solve" the dispute by BLOCKSHOPPING with frivolous requests, I filed a request for mediation.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:13, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Statement by DavidLeighEllis

I have no dog in this fight. However, if accusing another editor of WP:OUTING and redacting their statement over the disclosure of a publicly logged rename were typical of Volunteer Marek's behavior, it would definitely warrant some serious examination. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 23:50, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I've reviewed a bit of the EEML case. It seems that Radeksz/Volunteer Marek had a rather serious finding against him for off-wiki coordinated edit warring and disruption. If there were any recurrence of this misconduct, which EtienneDolet's statement certainly suggests, this would be worthy of further investigation by arbcom. Connection of the two usernames is certainly relevant to this case, and does not, in context, suggest "a form of intimidation". Since EtienneDolet and other editors have been edit warring on the other side of the same articles, I suggest acceptance of the case to examine the behavior of all involved parties. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 00:45, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Volunteer Marek, while "real life harassment" is certainly regrettable, I hardly understand how a user rename, with the connection between the two accounts in the rename log for everyone to see, is any solution to it. If you want to hide, you need to stop editing under any accounts that are publicly associated with you. If you create a new account, you should do it quietly, and stop edit warring on the articles you used to edit war on. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 00:57, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Correction to my statement: you should stop reverting any of the sort of articles that you have previously edit warred on. This includes any article within the purview of the EEML case. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 03:42, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Real life harassment certainly resonates with me, since I am editing under my full real life name, and thus quite potentially in danger of it. But if I were to request a user rename, then recreate template:uw-unwelcome in the form the community found so objectionable two and a half years ago, would I really have any basis to object to the connection of the two accounts in the course of dispute resolution processes? DavidLeighEllis (talk) 01:05, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

As far as why exactly I decided to jump into this, you should note the large numbers of statements by uninvolved users in the arbitration request immediately above this, and for many other cases. It is an accepted practice that uninvolved users, particularly those with as much experience on Wikipedia as myself, participate in the various phases of arbitration. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 01:17, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

No one here is asking anyone to jump off a cliff. In fact, I am not even connecting accounts that are not already publicly linked through the user rename log and every talk page signature prior to the rename. If I had concerns about a new account being a non-public reincarnation of a previously sanctioned user repeating the same sort of behavior, and the apparent prior account had "retired due to harassment" or something similar on the userpage, I would email arbcom privately, rather than making a public allegation. What we do have here is a subject matter with incessant edit warring by multiple users on both sides. This is a topic which has been previously subject to massive, coordinated disruption detailed in the EEML case. At least one, and maybe more, of the users involved in the current edit warring was sanctioned in the EEML case. Irrespective of whether off-wiki coordination of the current edit warring can be shown or inferred, I would suggest that there is a case to be investigated. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 04:06, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Softlavender

I have no current opinion on this matter, and I am not involved in the situation. (To my knowledge I have only edited, briefly, on one or two articles the two named parties frequent.) I would like to mention however that the OP initiated an ANI filing against VolunteerMarek less than two hours after opening this Arb Request [63]. In fact, I just discovered that the OP has opened an astonishing number of noticeboard threads, all over Wikipedia, about editors involved in editing Putin-related articles, in this month alone. Regardless of the merits of this particular case, this raises a red flag for me personally, although I don't have the time to investigate further. Softlavender (talk) 04:28, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Also this edit-war over factual cited material, noted by EdJohnston on the OP's talk page, doesn't bode well either: [64]. -- Softlavender (talk) 04:54, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Hopefully this is my last comment. I noticed that My very best wishes left a goodbye notice on his talk page a few days prior to this ArbRequest being filed [65]. I was concerned about that possibly interfering with this investigation, but upon further review I found something even more problematical: My very best wishes has been repeatedly retiring and unretiring, often several times a week or several times a day, since September 2013 [sic]. He has been editing his userpage and/or talk page to that effect several times a week/day continuously since then -- even though he continues to edit Wikipedia an average of at least 8+ to 10+ times a day since then, and his participation on Wikipedia article space and article-talk space has increased since November 2013. I find this "I'm not here"–notice behavior and continued changing of the retired/away messages to be deeply problematical: It's not only a form of game-playing and borderline trollery, it's a form of evading interaction, scrutiny, talk-page discussion, and responsibility. Not to mention dishonest. There was actually an ANI thread about this three months ago [66], and he agreed to stop faux "retiring", but it has continued and increased, simply in a different/disguised form. In my opinion this needs to be dealt with and stopped, either in the ArbCom case or elsewhere. If not for this venue, perhaps someone can suggest the venue this issue belongs in. Softlavender (talk) 10:23, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved MrX

Completely uninvolved observer here. I think it would be difficult to prove collusion between Volunteer Marek and My very best wishes, but on the surface, there is evidence of that possibility [67]. Arbcom should consider taking this case to give Étienne Dolet an opportunity to present evidence and to afford the accused parties an opportunity to have their names cleared.

The case is broader than tag teaming though. It should examine conduct of all parties in some of these articles. Volunteer Marek's conduct seems especially concerning, even on this very page. Evidence recently presented at ANI [68][69][70][71] seems to show a WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality, however, it's possible that Volunteer Marek feels harassed by Étienne Dolet, and perhaps others: [72]. Based on some of Volunteer Marek's comments,[73][74] he views Étienne Dolet's editing to be problematic and should have an opportunity to make the case here.

Something this complex cannot be solved at ANI. I'm not sure if it might be better solved at AE, because I'm not familiar with the applicable cases under which it might fall.- MrX 13:42, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by MyMoloboaccount

Please note that Volunteer_Marek has been warned under discretionary sanctions regarding incivility and personal attacks as per below

You are warned that further comments which constitute personal attacks or incivility, such as [75] this will result in a block or other sanction. This is a logged warning issues under the discretionary sanctions authorised by the Arbitration Committee's decision on Eastern Europe (which you are "aware" of due to this alert). The procedure to appeal this sanction are here. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 05:54, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[76]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions/Log#Eastern_Europe

I am not uninvolved as I have previously filled a request regarding Volunteer's Marek comments which I found incivil and constituting personal attacks[77] --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 15:08, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

MVBW was part o EEML too

Since other users noted that VM was part of the EEML, they should probably be aware, that user My Very Best Wishes was part of that group as well, under his other user name Biophys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Biophys. I do not believe this forms any outing as this is not his real name and I am not aware of any ruling that his former user name should be forbidden to use. For the record I was part of EEML group too. At the time of me leaving(in part due to hacking of my email account), both Volunteer Marek and Biophys were part of this mailing list. --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 20:17, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Response to VM

Let me say this one more time - I do not have any contact with MVBW on or off WikiDoes it mean that EEML has been closed and you are not exchanging emails anymore ? Last time before I left it was still ongoing. --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 20:33, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

"Remember me arguing for your sanctions and restrictions to be lifted? You wouldn't be editing Wikipedia today - including showing up here to attack me - if it wasn't for me. Man, was that a mistake" Being manipulated by somebody pretending to be somebody he is not and from a place he is not for goals and interests opposite to the well-being of my countrymen was a mistake for me. To this day those events stain my conscience.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 22:20, 28 February 2016 (UTC) "And it's really ironic that you of all people would show up here and try to use membership in the EEML against other editors when you were one of its founding members, and *you* made quite a use of it" I was invited there long after it was founded. --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 22:31, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Alex Bakharev

Firstly, I would like clerks to redact out any outing of editors, especially connections between previously outed accounts connected with real people and their hypothetical active accounts. If this information is relevant please deal with it confidentially.

Secondly, I have no idea whether VM and MVBW have any connections off-wiki but even if this is true I see no problems if two prolific editors exchange their views about wiki articles. The problem with WP:EEML was the sheer size of the mailing list and their battleground intentions (according to the surfaced emails) to chase out some editors rather then improve articles. Most of the EEML participants have been quite productive editors for many years and their contributions are good. Whatever is the character of alleged communications between VM and MVBW (if they exist) they are certainly not a part of conspiracy of tens active editors - otherwise there will be wider support for their edits. Alex Bakharev (talk) 23:48, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Just to make myself clear, I am against accepting the case as I do not see any evidence of wrongdoing by VM and MVBW. Alex Bakharev (talk) 03:42, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by RGloucester

I urge that ArbCom not accept this case. Whilst Volunteer Marek can be brusque, he is a prolific editor who has done much to improve the quality of articles in areas that he edits. I have had difficulties with MVBW in the past, but I do not doubt his good faith. The idea that these editors have co-ordinated is absurd. They have similar interests, and that's all. I've edited many of the same articles as these two, but that doesn't mean I agree with either of them on anything or that I am "co-ordinating" or "tag-teaming" as part of some cabal. Of course, these recurrent accusations of a WP:EEML-style cabal that is out to skew the POV of articles in the Eastern Europe area have been repeated near constantly since the start of the Ukrainian crisis. I know, as I've been part of the development of those articles from the start of the crisis, and have been accused of being part of both pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian (western, &c.) cabals numerous times. These accusations have always been groundless, are essentially WP:ASPERSIONS meant to cast a shadow on good faith editors working in a topic area plagued by single purpose accounts and sock-puppetry. Please do not associate the EEML business, which happened before I even began editing here, with what's going on now. I would ask that ArbCom not indulge in these kinds of rumours. If there truly is a behavioural issue, it can be dealt with at AE under the DS that already exist for Eastern Europe-related articles. RGloucester — ☎ 02:52, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Dave Dial

I echo RGloucesters points here. In fact, after reading this case request and events elsewhere that have the same issues under EE AE/DS, there are several editors who should be sanctioned with DS under AE for EE articles, and neither of them are the named parties for this case. Kick it to AE and have an uninvolved admin start issuing topic bans. Dave Dial (talk) 17:42, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

• Note -- If Arb members are looking for off-site coordination, within 24 hours of this case being filed User:Fitzcarmalan emailed the filer. Which, so far, is the strongest bit of off-site coordination this case has presented. I do think something fishy is going on here, but not by the accused parties. Dave Dial (talk) 06:02, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Tiptoethroughtheminefield

Some have been saying here that citing Volunteer Marek's past editing history amounts to WP:ASPERSIONS. However, administrators routinely cite long past editing histories as a basis for deciding on current cases. In addition, Volunteer Marek himself routinely brings up the editing history of other editors, while at the same time denying blemishes in his own past. Here he is boasting that there has never been anything wrong with his editing history. [78], a boast made in the context of attacking the editing history and aims of other editors. Volunteer Marek's denialism continues even here - he says he was just a "member" of the EEML. However, he was not sanctioned for being a "member" (nobody who was just a member was sanctioned), he was sanctioned for manipulating Wikipedia procedures including canvassing, 'tag team' edit-warring, and abuse of dispute resolution processes. He also says here that his sanctions "were sort of BS to begin with": none of this suggests acknowledgement of past errors, or any recognition that a change in editing behavior and attitude was required. Volunteer Marek (as Radeksz) was a core planner within an extensive, long running, and well organized off-Wiki conspiracy to manipulate Wikipedia article content related to Russia and Eastern Europe, and to manipulate Wikipedia procedures to sustain their pov edits and oppose and block editors they deemed were acting against their pov. My very best wishes (as Biophys) was an active member of the mailing list set up to organize, co-ordinate, and progress the conspiracy. This is not an accusation (as RGloucester's wording suggests) but a proven fact. Volunteer Marek and MVBW were not "good faith editors" back then, they were co-creators of the biggest editing-related scandal to have affected Wikipedia to date. Since then both have displayed an unrepentant attitude about their disreputable pasts - why then should we believe that their editing aims and methodologies have reformed. They continue to edit the same subject area that they were convicted of manipulating, they continue to edit the same articles, they continue to support each others edits when opposed. I find it astonishing that the editors (such as Volunteer Marek) who were found to be core conspirators within the EEML are allowed to edit in the same subject areas that they were found to have been manipulating. But even without such restrictions, former EEML editors should have been doing the decent thing and refraining from editing in those subject areas. But Volunteer Marek wanted his topic ban part-rescinded a mere month after it was imposed, and got it completely rescinded less than 6 months after it was imposed. Which I suppose does back up his assertion that it was a BS sanction. From the outset, the Wikipedia response to the EEML scandal was marked by victim blaming. Administrators held the attitude that the victims were really the guilty ones (for leading so many "fine" editors astray) and the guilty were all innocent victims guilty of nothing more than having an eager passion for editing Wikipedia. So, all the EEML guilty were very quickly let off their very mild sanctions (or not given any at all - just being an active contributor to the list was not punishable), and most of the intended and actual victims of the EEM list's activities were eventually blocked (or threatened off). The treatment of Russavia was particularly vindictive and petty (for example, under his Russia-related topic ban administrators blocked him from uploading non-Russia related PD photos because they were by a Russian photographer, and articles he created had RfDs for no other reason than because Russavia created them). The correctness of this response has become an article of faith amongst senior administrators, to the extend that anyone who subsequently questions the edits or editing aims of any the guilty (whether in the context of talking about EEML or not) are quickly dealt with by blocks or bans or other remedies. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:11, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

About the statement by Athenean, I don't believe Wikipedia has intentional systemic bias. However I do believe that Wikipedia has an organizational flaw that allows a perception of systemic bias and an acceptance of topic bias and article bias. Administrators seem to not like disruption of any kind, so attempts by editors to disrupt a sustained bias within certain topics are not encouraged and tend to be perceived as being disruptive to Wikipedia and thus instinctively opposed. This explains the victim blaming that can be seen being expressed in an almost knee-jerk way by some administrators when the EEML leak became public, the very light sanctions dished out at the end of the investigation, and the desire to file it all away as "past history" when actually the problems within the affected topic area continue. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 04:02, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

About the statement by RGloucester, things like "These accusations have always been groundless", we should not "indulge in these kinds of rumours", the existence of "cabals have been accused many times", and similar were being said prior to the EEML leaking in order to dismiss claims of organized pov editing and manipulation of Wikipedia procedures. Then the EEML was leaked and the allegations that had been so dismissively discounted were revealed to be true and in fact an underestimation of the problem. Administrators should not rely on the leaking of mailing lists to do their job for them. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 04:24, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Athenean

There is ample evidence to suggest that Volunteer Marek and My very best wishes (and perhaps several others) collude and tag-team to push an anti-Russian POV on Eastern Europe related articles. A good example of the disruption this causes is here: VM reverts first [79], followed by Mvbw [80], who then reverts again [81], and who in the same edit also removes sourced material (the polling information) without any discussion or explanation (the old "edit-concealed-within-another-edit" trick). When VM reverts next [82], he reverts to MVbw's version that had the polling information removed. Such tactics make it very hard to assume good faith on the part of these editors. This is far from an isolated incident. At Donetsk People's Republic they are colluding to edit-war over the type of infobox to be used ("country/territory" versus "war faction") [83] [84] [85] [86], the reasoning being that the "war faction" infobox is also used for ISIS, i.e. the intent is to make the DPR look like ISIS [87]. This infobox change was done without any consensus in the talkpage, it was just rammed through by brute force edit-warring. There are numerous other examples as well, as pointed out by EtienneDolet above. Especially telling are those articles where VM gets embroiled in an edit-war and Mvbw appears out of nowhere in short order to revert on his behalf, even though Mvbw had never edited that article before (e.g. Khan al-Assal chemical attack [88] and many others), or obscure articles where both users appear within a few hours of each other (e.g. The Harvest of Sorrow [89]). Thus the claims by VM's and Mvbw's supporters that there is "no evidence" stretches credulity and calls into question the impartiality of the commenters. The crux of the problem has been correctly identified by Tiptoethrutheminefield above. Due to wikipedia's systemic (i.e. western) bias, these editors are allowed to get away with behavior that would have seen other editors indef blocked long ago. It is thus little wonder that they are not shy about their intentions [90]. Given their reverting firepower, the end result is a surreal situation where the lede of the Vladimir Putin article discusses the performance of the Russian economy in 2015, the body of the article mentions the decrease of 8% in the average Russian monthly income over the past year, and parallels are drawn between Putin and Liberian warlord Charles Taylor (not added by VM himself, but indicative of how far out of control the situation at Vladimir Putin has gotten). Given the severity of the allegations, the long-term nature of the problem, and the entrenched support network VM and Mvbw have, the only venue capable of resolving this is Arbcom. AN/I is completely unsuited to resolve an issue like this, and any attempt to do so would rapidly turn into a shouting match, while AE does not have the large number of admins needed to investigate an issue of this magnitude and complexity. However, if this is not addressed, the encyclopedia risks losing control of Eastern Europe articles (in fact it would appear that this is already the case, Vladimir Putin being a case in point), thereby damaging its credibility. Athenean (talk) 01:23, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

I find it extraordinary that in one paragraph VM states how basically allegations of tag-teaming are impossible to disprove and hence inappropriate to make by their very nature, and in that in the very same thread he proceeds to make (completely unfounded) tag-teaming allegations against me, User:EtienneDolet, and User:Tridek Sep. The difference of course being that there is evidence of VM's and Mvbw's tag-teaming, and apparently lots of it. Athenean (talk) 05:47, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

And just to set the record straight: In his above comment VM mentions this AE request [91] as "proof" that I have been warned about filing frivolous AE requests [92]. However, in the request he cites as proof, I was the target, not the initiator of the request. In fact practically every AE request I have filed has issued some kind of sanction against the individual named therein (and I think the last time I filed such a request was 2011). Even after I explain to him that his statement is incorrect [93], he's not getting it [94] (seeming to think I should somehow strike through the new comments I am adding?). At this point, I can only assume this is a deliberate attempt to misinform admins reading this thread. I have seen people blocked for making less outrageously false or unfounded statements at arbitration proceedings before. Athenean (talk) 15:35, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Comment by Bishonen

Taking this matter to ANI or AE has been suggested, but I do believe it's too complex for that. You all know an ANI thread in this type of area is likely to devolve into a slugging match between the parties + their supporters, with uninvolved editors and admins being drowned out in the noise, and/or backing away. (@Kirill Lokshin: perhaps you don't frequent ANI very much?) As for AE, I'm not sure I've ever seen a filing against more than one editor dealt with there — feel free to tell me if you have — I would think the admins would be inclined to shut it down as too complex. I know I would. If this is going to be dealt with at all, it'll surely have to be by an arbitration case to examine the conduct of all parties. Bishonen | talk 11:53, 1 March 2016 (UTC).

Comment by XavierGreen

I think the diffs from the various pages speak for themselves in this regard, there is clearly a cadre of editors attempting to strong arm their views on various eastern European related matters. I would also note that in regards to the matter at hand, my experience has shown that User:Iryna Harpy is usually also involved in supporting the efforts of User:Volunteer Marek and User:MyVeryBestWishes in edit warring over Eastern European related pages. Whether that is coincidence or collusion, i'll leave to the ArbCom folks to decide. From my observations, it seems that User:Volunteer Marek, Iryna Harpy, ect will frequently put vandalism notices and edit warring notices up on the pages of editors who attempt to make good faith edits on relevant articles.XavierGreen (talk) 17:54, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Comment by Geogene

Running the interaction analyzer on @EtienneDolet: and @Athenean:, neither of whom I recall interacting with before, produces a result [95] very much like the one that MrX shows for VM and MVBW. Are they coordinating edits off-wiki? I doubt it. There's clear evidence that MVBW and Volunteer Marek are both prolific editors with similar areas of interest. That isn't against policy, but inventing conspiracy theories based on it may be. And as far as the "Retired" banner goes, users have a wide latitude in what they put in userspace, subject to some reasonable limitations. So far as I know, this is not covered by those limitations, and ArbCom surely has better things to do than enforce userspace template instructions. If it annoys you, don't watch that page. Geogene (talk) 02:39, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Fitzcarmalan posted the retired banner on their user page in June: [96]. 26 minutes later: [97], proving my point. Geogene (talk) 05:09, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Comment by Iryna Harpy

It appears that I've now become an 'involved' party by virtue of XavierGreen's WP:ASPERSIONS in his statement above. This is from an editor who doesn't even know how to write a neutral statement for an RfC (see this as an example of bad faith editing... unless "A faction of editors are attempting to change the infobox from the country/geopolitical organization infobox to the warfaction one." is deemed to be a neutral summary as to what the RfC is about). I note that there a many fellow editors commenting here with only one common factor between us all: being that they are regular editors who have worked together collaboratively, and at times have disagreed vehemently with each other. Per Geogene's observation, all this attests to is that everyone is a regular editor with huge amounts of experience under their belts. What it does not amount to is a cabal conspiring in dark corners to OWN articles. This ARC has already brought in a lot of GRUDGE by uninvolved editors who seem to be more interested in dragging in all the ammunition they can muster in order to get rid of editors they have had conflicts with. Frankly, this has been turned into a HUNT. Softlavender, if you check through MVBW's user and talk pages carefully, you'll find that he's a self-confessed Wikipediaholic. This is not a sign of gaming, or any other form of devious intent on his behalf, it's a personal problem he has which is not reflected in his editing practices, kind demeanour, nor knowledgeability in the area of Eastern Europe or politics in general. Yes, VM, MVBW (and I) are going to be involved in articles surrounding all things Eastern Europe (including the long and intricate history articles) that other editors who have commented here have had nothing to do with simply because it is not their area of expertise. Accusing editors who know their way around these subject areas of being part of a cabal because they actually know multiple languages and sources is counterproductive. Is the premise behind Wikipedia that anyone who is as close to being an expert in these fields as Wikipedia will get should be persecuted and eliminated because editors - who only have a stake in a single aspect of the entire knowledge-base - don't like the idea of there being anyone who would dare to challenge them because they believe themselves to know THE TRUTH about current politics? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:06, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

@Fitzcarmalan: What is your 'involvement' in this ARC? I can't see how you're involved other than cherry picking a few diffs by two prolific Wikipedians in order to create the illusion of "there's something really, really naughty going on". I'm sure I could grab a few diffs between you and other editors to create the same illusion, except for the fact that you haven't actually have very much editing experience here. It's easy to criticise from the sidelines, but you're creating cases against other editors just because you're in the luxurious position of picking and choosing bits and pieces you've found. That is by no means related to the ability to evaluate a case, but a case of HUNT. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 05:31, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

@Fitzcarmalan: I see. According to your argument, when it's editors you agree with, it's obviously all above board. When it's VM and MVBW, it must be a devious, co-ordinated effort. I've taken a cursory look through some of the editing patterns of your personal selection of 'above board' editors, and I wouldn't have any problem in slapping a few diffs together in order to make a case for suspicious interaction between them on articles. I wouldn't do so because, just as I have great respect for VM and MVBW, I also have great respect for editors such as Athenean. Your presence here, along with personal interpretations of how to read interactions, speaks to nothing outside of GRUDGE. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:03, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Fitzcarmalan

This report should be treated as any other collaborative team of POV pushers should be treated. The EEML is only useful in the sense that the overt disruption, whether through off-wiki contact or not, remains the same. Let alone the fact that tag-team edit-warring is in itself highly disruptive. I've been following this case for some time now, and I've been uninvolved so far in any Eastern Europe-related dispute.
We should be asking ourselves the following:

• Is the gaming still going on? Yes.
• Are there ninja reverts? Yes.
• Consensus getting derailed? Yes.
• Users being outnumbered through edit-wars? Yes.
• Articles being unnecessarily protected? Yes.
• Users getting blocked? Yes.
• Is the 3RR being circumvented? Yes.

So, at this point, hard evidence of leaked off-wiki coordination is meaningless to me (not that it should have mattered to begin with). Yet My very best wishes somehow claims that there's never been disruption in his/her edit-warring with Volunteer Marek. These recurring patterns of disruption are more than enough to merit a case. And some of the reactions on this thread are also hard to believe:

• Marek's response where he claims that he hasn't "thanked" Mvbw for reverts on his behalf, which is indeed true, is baffling in itself. It actually makes me even more convinced that these tag-team reverts are coordinated and anticipated. Why should someone thank a user who expects his tag-team partner to revert on his behalf? I mean, if someone has made over 70 reverts on my behalf during my year's long duration of editing, I'd probably thank him at least once, wouldn't I?
• Mvbw's recent comment says that they just edit together. But they're not just "editing together," which Mvbw wants us to believe, they're edit-warring together, and this is hard to deny. Namely, "I edit with him" is not the same as "I edit-war with him."

From what I see through the interaction analysis is that Marek and Mvbw edited 60 or so articles together since 2015, and if at least 40 of these articles contain tag-team edit-warring, as claimed by the filer of this report, then it's a cause of serious concern. Mvbw's whole "vacation" and "retirement" templates are also fishy, especially considering that Mvbw made drive-by reverts [98][99] with no talk page participation at Vladimir Putin a couple of hours after he took his supposed break. Marek was quick to warn Etienne of 3RR, even though the latter's revert can perhaps be justifiable under WP:BRD misuse. But then it is Etienne's edit-warring that becomes a cause of concern, making this a prime example of the issues Tiptoe raised, and of the disruptive patterns highlighted in the report itself (i.e. teaming up against one user so his/her edit-warring looks worse than theirs). In conclusion: I see no rest at Vladimir Putin, or at the EE for that matter, until the larger forces at play are dealt with and handled accordingly, and that can only be done through the acceptance of this case. Fitzcarmalan (talk) 04:36, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

@Geogene: Hardly a "drive-by revert," so your analogy falls flat. Fitzcarmalan (talk) 05:13, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

the strongest bit of off-site coordination this case has presented - @Dave Dial: It sure is, isn't it? That sure is one hell of a revelation. What was I thinking, leaving the "evidence" lying around like that for editors like you to fetch out?

Yes, I did e-mail him about this case. Actually, I was the one who told him that Mvbw was part of the EEML. I e-mailed him because I didn't want to get involved back then, but now I do (sorry Iryna, I just couldn't help being 'involved' for some reason).

As for you, Marek:

I especially like the part about how "evidence ... is meaningless" - geee, could the reason you say that be because THERE IS NONE?!? - Well, as it turns out (and you can thank Dave for that), I'm no expert when it comes to "hiding the evidence." I doubt that the editors who frequently get sanctioned for tag-teaming had anything other than behavioral evidence in their accusers' reports. I mean, what kind of idiot would leave the evidence lying around on Wikipedia like I did. After all, you're the one who "knows what tag-teaming looks like," don't you?

And as Geogene's link shows EtienneDolet and Athenean have edited something like 50 articles together. - That you won't make a case about it is of absolutely no interest to me. In other words; I really don't care. All I can say is that I seriously doubt that over 90% of their interactions involved reverts on the other's behalf, unlike yours and Mvbw's.

Basically if you edit as much as I do and you concentrate on just couple topics (EE topics, Race and Intelligence, some broader history) - Do articles ranging from Xinjiang conflict, to Use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Civil War and Human rights in Venezuela count?

WP:BATTLEGROUND, you say? I guess that edit which restored crappy text with crappy sources doesn't fall into that category now, does it? Fitzcarmalan (talk) 20:34, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

So let's see: how does this prove "gaming"? - Let me see: self-reverting at 1RR articles [100][101][102] just so Mvbw can revert for you. [103][104][105] Then you rush your opponents to 3RR and try to have them blocked.[106] That's textbook gaming 101, champ.

Do you even know what "ninja revert" is or did you just see the term used by EtienneDolet and are now repeating it for him? - Umm, yes I do, or else I wouldn't have used the WP:BRD misuse wlink in my initial statement. You really, really need to stop insulting my intelligence. Fitzcarmalan (talk) 23:01, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

• @Alex Bakharev: Discussion has been held and the statements made do not amount to outing as the information is publicly available in the renaming logs. Amortias (T)(C) 13:34, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Long-term pattern of tag-teaming between Volunteer Marek and My very best wishes: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <1/2/0/1>

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

• Still catching up with this one, so no opinion yet; would like to see more comments first. But, here's a reminder to all commenters that this is not a forum for back-and-forth arguing and not the place to be rehashing the history of the EEML case. Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:58, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
• Decline as premature. Two talk page messages posted a day before this case was filed are not adequate prior dispute resolution. As there is no off-wiki evidence to be considered, I see no reason why this can't be hashed out at AN/I or some similar venue. Kirill Lokshin (talk) 02:16, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
• Accept The interactions and behavior here are very long standing, have been dealt with here before, and need to be dealt with again. We are much better placed than AN/I to make an attempt to actually settle this. DGG ( talk ) 02:21, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
• Decline My concern with accepting a case as the original request was made is that two people editing on the same side of an argument for an article is not tag-teaming. Without evidence of collusion, I don't see the basis to proceed here. I also echo Kirill's comment also. And if there are further issues with EEML or any other subjects under ArbCom history, then a new request should be made presenting why current sanctions aren't working. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 06:36, 2 March 2016 (UTC)