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Case Opened on 19:21, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Case Closed on 09:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

Contents 1 Involved parties 1.1 Complaining witness 1.2 Nominal defendant 1.3 Summary by Jguk 2 Statement by Jguk 3 Statement by Sortan 4 Preliminary decisions 4.1 Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (6/0/0/0) 4.2 Temporary injunction (none) 5 Final decision 5.1 Principles 5.1.1 Banning of obsessive users 5.1.2 Preferred styles 5.2 Findings of fact 5.2.1 Continued agitation by Jguk regarding era notation 5.2.2 Jguk continues to change notation 5.2.3 Focus of Sortan on era notation 5.2.4 Sortan has stalked Jguk 5.2.5 Sortan appears to have left Wikipedia 5.3 Remedies 5.3.1 Jguk banned from editing with respect to era notation 5.3.2 Sortan warned regarding stalking 5.4 Documentation of bans

[edit] Involved parties

[edit] Complaining witness

• jguk (talk · contribs)

[edit] Nominal defendant

• Sortan (talk · contribs)

[edit] Summary by Jguk

This is a request that ArbCom rules (1) that accounts that are not being used to help improve the encyclopaedia can be banned on request to ArbCom; and (2) that User:Sortan is one such user and should be blocked.

[edit] Statement by Jguk

Please limit your statement to 500 words

The biggest cause of major contributors leaving Wikipedia, aside from personal circumstances, is accounts that make very little or no positive contribution to the encyclopaedia, but who are content to argue, harass, harangue and/or make occasional personal attacks. Often they attach themselves to one or two users. This makes it difficult to remove them - they are not clear vandals or widespread trolls (and so do not qualify for automatic bans), however, they are trouble and bring no benefits to the encyclopaedia. They prevent editors with long edit histories that show a long record from making productive edits. They often tend to be litigious, demanding of their “rights” - which itself creates a problem, especially as our writers are here because they wish to write, not because they wish to defend 200+ of their edits in a RfC or ArbCom case. To my mind, it should be clearly stated that where ArbCom finds an account is not here in order to better the encyclopaedia, then it should be blocked.

I invite ArbCom to do this in the case of Sortan (talk · contribs). This account’s contribution history constitutes evidence demonstrating that this user has made no real contributions of note, but has been involved in many disruptive disputes is in the edit history. I think it is so self-evident that if ArbCom members were to open 10 or 12 of this accounts edits at random, and consider the purposes of those edits, they will see what I am referring to. The underlying principle is Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia (which, although semi-humorous refers to our fundamental purposes. I urge ArbCom to take this case to determine (1) that accounts that are not being used to help improve the encyclopaedia can be blocked on request to ArbCom; and (2) that User:Sortan is one such user and should be blocked.

[edit] Statement by Sortan

Please limit your statement to 500 words

I would agree that the cause of contributors leaving Wikipedia is persistent trolling from POV pushers, who do nothing but edit war to enforce their particular POVs. Such is the case with Jguk (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log). He has made no significant contributions to history articles, yet has engaged in hundreds of edit wars, and thousands of reversions with editors who do contribute. One only has to look at the histories of such articles such as Sino-Roman relations (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) where jguk has engaged in revert wars spanning months against the article creator PHG over date styles. A similar situation occurs at History of the alphabet (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) where jguk revert wars with article creator Kwamikagami. This pattern is repeated over hundreds of articles where the contributors commit the cardinal sin of disagreeing with jguk over his preferred styles.

Dates are not the only matter with which jguk revert wars over, but other stylistic differences, including U.S. vs US, styles for royalty, and spelling styles (British vs American spelling).

Jguk is apparently claiming that my reverting him here [[1]] (where he changes start of the Common Era to 1 BC, and which is against his arbitration case and for which he received a block (see WP:ANI#Jon_Garrett_removing_references_to_Common_Era)), constitutes "harassment" and "stalking".

I too would urge acceptance so that Jguk's disruptive history of edit warring over styles can receive greater scrutiny.

Addendum:

Jguk's summary is without diffs or links of evidence. He claims I'm litigious, yet I've never started an RFAr (I added myself to Jguk 2, which was started by someone else). Jguk, on the other hand, has been involved in numerous RfArs and RFCs, even when he doesn't edit the subject matter concerned (eg. Instantnood 2). I would please ask for evidence where I've been litigious, or where I've hindered, in any way, Jguk infrequent constructive edits.

Addendum 2:

Perhaps David Gerard could enlighten me how my "trolling" jguk caused him to make these edits: [2], [3]?

Perhaps David Gerard could also enlighten me how he "missed" jguk's edits as an anon during his first arbcom case?

[edit] Preliminary decisions

[edit] Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (6/0/0/0)

• Accept, Jguk continues to engage in edit warring over notation, accept to consider further action Fred Bauder 22:20, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Fred, Sortan's been riding Jguk and trolling the hell out of him. That's what the RFAr is about and it's a problem - David Gerard 22:29, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  • More specifically, reacting as if to justify past wikien-l concerns on the dangers of bringing a troll to arbitration [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] may not be the best idea - David Gerard 14:21, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Your point is coming through Fred Bauder 14:34, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Accept to consider all questions raised Fred Bauder 14:34, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
• Accept ➥the Epopt 14:16, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
• Accept, though I note that jguk's actions are not of concern to me at first blush. James F. (talk) 19:01, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 04:30, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. Charles Matthews 16:24, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. Dmcdevit·t 00:49, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Temporary injunction (none)

[edit] Final decision

All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)

[edit] Principles

[edit] Banning of obsessive users

1) Users who focus in a disruptive way on an issue or subject may be banned from editing with respect to that issue or subject.

Passed 7 to 0 at 09:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Preferred styles

2) Wikipedia does not mandate styles in many different areas; these include (but are not limited to) American vs. British spelling, date formats, and citation style. Where Wikipedia does not mandate a specific style, editors should not attempt to convert Wikipedia to their own preferred style, nor should they edit articles for the sole purpose of converting them to their preferred style, or removing examples of, or references to, styles which they dislike.

Passed 7 to 0 at 09:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Findings of fact

[edit] Continued agitation by Jguk regarding era notation

1) Jguk has continued his advocacy regarding era notation with POV edits and edit warring at Anno Domini, see Talk:Anno_Domini#Removal_of_weasel_words.

Passed 7 to 0 at 09:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jguk continues to change notation

2) Jguk has continued, especially in instances not covered by the plain language of the prior remedy to change era notation [9] and [10].

Passed 7 to 0 at 09:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Focus of Sortan on era notation

3} From his initial edits Sortan has focused on era notation [11] (Note awkward change from "100,000 years ago" to "100,000 BCE") [12], [13] and Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Sortan/Evidence#Uncanny_habit_of_editing_same_articles_as_me.

Passed 7 to 0 at 09:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sortan has stalked Jguk

4) Sortan has stalked Jguk, editing numerous articles shortly after Jguk, changing era notation, being uncivil, and otherwise unnecessarily harrassing Jguk; see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Sortan/Evidence#Uncanny_habit_of_editing_same_articles_as_me.

Passed 6 to 1 at 09:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sortan appears to have left Wikipedia

5) Sortan has not edited Wikipedia since December 22, 2005. [14]

Passed 7 to 0 at 09:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

[edit] Jguk banned from editing with respect to era notation

1) The remedy at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/jguk 2#Jguk banned from changing BCE to BC or CE to AD is extended to include editing any page or article which relates to era notation including policy pages. He may make no change in any article from one notation to another, nor may he remove "BCE" or "CE" notations, or references to "Common Era", from any article.

Passed 7 to 0 at 09:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sortan warned regarding stalking

2) Sortan is warned regarding stalking Jguk. He is welcome to make independent edits, but not to follow Jguk around.

Passed 6 to 1 at 09:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Documentation of bans

Place here the basis of any action taken under the provision of any remedy under Wikipedia:Probation imposed in this matter. Include a link to a statement of all administrators supporting the action taken.