Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Iasson

Case Opened on March 20, 2005
Case Closed on April 4, 2005

Involved parties

Statement by Scott Burley / Humblefool

Please limit your statement to 500 words

From December to late January, User:Iasson repeatedly attempted to change Wikipedia policy, and deletion policy in particular, to his own liking, without subjecting it to consensus. Furthermore, he acted on these policies unilaterally, casting "peculiar votes" in VfD (a good example is [1]). He was asked to stop many times, but refused. He made one post in particular threatening to continue until banned, for which he was blocked for 24 hours. An RFC was filed on January 15th. Iasson "left" in late January, but has made occasional edits since then, mostly to his RFC and user page. He was active on meta for a while, until he received a 15-day ban for similar activities.

User:Faethon appeared around the same time Iasson left. Faethon has a similar editing style to Iasson, though Iasson has denied being Faethon. Faethon attempted to create a "public account" by posting his password on his user page. Predictably, the password was soon changed. Undaunted Faethon created User:Faethon2. This too was "robbed". Faethon continued down the number line (Faethon3, Faethon4, etc.), until about 45 accounts had been registered. Most of these were not registered by Faethon, but by other users attempting to "stop" him.

On February 25th, a public account was created at User:Acestorides, using nearly the same wording as User:Faethon. Rather than using numbers, this account series progresses by using the List of ancient Greeks. It appears to have advanced through at least Adrianus, or about 10 accounts.

All of these accounts have made virtually no significant edits to the main namespace.

This request for arbitration against User:Iasson was originally written by User:Scott Burley. Submitted by User:Humblefool with evidence page. humblefool ® 01:13, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Statements by Iasson and Aeropus I of Macedon

Please limit your statement to 500 words

I just wanted to tell you that I am innocent. Thats all I have to say. Hope you ll believe me.

Hi Iasson! you were supposed to have left wikipedia, what are you doing here? Stop fooling around and get back to work. Anyway, IMHPO I think that you are not innocent at all, and you are trying to fool us with your peculiar voting methods. Time always belongs to rough consensus majority, and we are not willing to give any time slice to minorities like you. Aeropus I of Macedon 08:36, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

When I said I left, I meant stop editing pages and contributing to wikipedia, not reading. But I am in a trial now, and I am because of your Faethon nonsenses, so I have to defend myself a little bit. Could you please stop abusing the proxy address we are both using?. Someone of you received a 24 hours ban because of violation of the 3RR and I couldnt edit too! (although I think you should be punished for violation of the 6RR as long you are at least two persons behind those Faethon nonsenses..anyway). Please stop abusing the proxy. Thank you. Iasson 14:04, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On what it concerns my case, I was wondering how an ArbCom case can start against public accounts, as long as there is not any policy that determines what to do with public accounts case. Are arbitrators allowed to create policies without asking rough consensus majority, then do their judgement relying on the policies they have just created? Aeropus I of Macedon 08:36, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I am a public account not related with Faethon or Acestorides series, which means that I am used to create public accounts without following a specific serie. Like thousands of others wikipedians, I would like to complain against the cancer of wikipedia, the infamous clan of those few admins that took the law in their hands, and without waiting the decision of the arbitration commity they illegaly changed without any dicsussion the blocking policy and now they are illegaly blocking public accounts. I hope ArbCom will punished them. Lakis2 07:24, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

User:Lakis2's first edit. --Calton | Talk 08:05, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ban only for a single year, dear arbitrators? I have already gave myself a lifetime ban from your deletionist POV encyclopedia which pretends to be NPOV, so dont expect to see me around anymore. I wish you a very good luck in your beloved job of fooling people that you are NPOV or that you have true policies or principles here. The truth is that everything here is fake. There are many stupid persons that want be fooled by "smart" guys like you. I am convinced that, by using your deletionist censoship methods, you are going to make those stupid persons to believe and think what exactly you want them to believe and think. But, no, hell no, I am not among them. bye bye! Iasson 20:38, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Preliminary decisions

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

Accept to determine current policy on accounts of this nature. -- Grun t 🇪🇺 02:04, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)
Public accounts? Present convention appears to be to lock them, c.f. any account listed on BugMeNot (these are locked on sight; I've yet to hear a word against doing so) and what happened when CheeseDreams gave her password away (the account was promptly locked). The rest appears to be plain sockpuppet abuse. I'm not sure there's a need for us to endorse policy to be written on that score. I've just added something like this to Wikipedia:Blocking policy, describing current practice and the reasons for it as best I could - David Gerard 21:38, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It would still be a good idea to confirm that this is present practice, then, and get it written in Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Precedents. -- Grun t 🇪🇺 22:52, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)
You got a point there - David Gerard 12:24, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Accept. Ambi 03:38, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Accept ➥the Epopt 11:11, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Accept to ratify current consensus behaviour toward public accounts. I'm not sure we can actually stop someone from setting them up, of course ... - David Gerard 12:24, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Accept --mav 02:52, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Accept. Neutrality^talk 03:16, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Temporary injunction

1) Due to a demonstrated tendency toward disruptive editing habits on voting-related pages, Iasson is prohibited from editing any deletion-related page for the duration of the case. Should he do so, he may be blocked for up to a week by an administrator. Determining what is "deletion-related" is left to the discretion of the blocking administrator.

Passed 7 to 0

Final decision

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

Principles

Semi-policy

1) The Arbitration Committee may consider current community norms and practice, regardless of whether the community have got as far as writing up an "official" policy on the matter, in making its decisions. This is an Arbitration Committee, not a court of law, and the community has empowered us to make such judgements by ratifying the Arbitration policy. By the same policy, we are to apply such judgements with common sense, discretion, and an eye to the expectations of the community.

Passed 7 to 0

Public accounts

2) The current community practice with respect to public accounts is to indefinitely block such accounts on sight due to the potential for potential security risks.

Passed 7 to 0

Security of accounts

3) Contributors are responsible for the security of their password. While accidental breaches are understandable and sometimes unavoidable, a contributor who deliberately releases their password should expect to be held responsible for any malicious edits made as a result.

Passed 7 to 0

Sockpuppets

4) The use of sockpuppet accounts, while not generally forbidden, is discouraged. Abuse of sockpuppet accounts, such as using them to evade blocks and bans, make personal attacks or reverts, or vandalize, is strictly forbidden.

Passed 7 to 0

One user or several?

5) For the purpose of dispute resolution when there is uncertainty whether a party is one user with sockpuppets or several users with similar editing habits they may be treated as one user with sockpuppets.

Passed 7 to 0

Edit warring and the three-revert rule

6) Users are expected to avoid edit wars and to respect the three-revert rule.

Passed 7 to 0

Arbitration rulings

7) Wikipedia users are expected to abide by rulings made by the Arbitration Committee.

Passed 7 to 0

Disruption

8)Users should not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point; that is, users should not act in bad faith.

Passed 7 to 0

Findings-of-fact

Public sockpuppet accounts

1) There have been numerous "public" sockpuppet accounts created by one user; these accounts comprise Faethon, Faethon2 et al., as well as Acestorides, Achaeus et al. from List of ancient Greeks.

Passed 7 to 0

Iasson's accounts?

2) Due to similarity in editing habits (especially with respect to deletion policy) and the sharing of a proxy server through which the above accounts apparently edit, the above accounts may be considered to be operated by Iasson.

Passed 7 to 0

Abuse of accounts

3) The above accounts have been used in numerous abusive capacities, including outright vandalism [2] and edit warring [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9].

Passed 7 to 0

Disruption

4) Iasson has on numerous occasions caused disruption in the VfD process and the deletion policy. This has been done by trying to forcibly impose his own view of what the polices covering those processes should be when those changes were in contradiction to consensus views. This is disrupting Wikipedia to make a point.[10] vs [11], [12] [13] and [14] (unilateral changes to deletion policy) see also Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Iasson

Passed 7 to 0

Editing record

5) Iasson has only made seven in the article namespace. Almost all edits Iasson has made have been to VfD pages, deletion policy, and an RfC page concerning that user. [15]

Passed 7 to 0

Remedies

Ban of public accounts

1) Any and all so-called "public" accounts to which the password is generally known shall be blocked indefinitely as it becomes known they are public accounts; no arbitration ruling is required for these routine blockings.

Passed 7 to 0

Ban for sockpuppetry

2) Iasson shall be held responsible for the abusive actions of the sockpuppet accounts and is banned for three months for edit warring and outright vandalism.

Passed 7 to 0

Ban for disruption

3) Iasson is banned for one year for deliberate and widespread disruption of the VfD process.

Passed 7 to 0

Enforcement