Case Opened on 18:33, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Case Closed on July 2, 2005 01:39 (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 a proposed decision at /Proposed decision.

Involved parties

Statement by Firebug

This user's editing habits are extremely problematic. He has little regard for the 3RR, and has been blocked on several occasions for this. He routinely engages in personal attacks on other users in edit summaries and on Talk pages. He has been advised multiple times on his User Talk pages that this is a violation of Wikipedia policy, but continues to do so. He is fond of calling other users "liars" and "vandals" and has accused multiple editors and administrators of bad faith and POV-pushing with no justification. He has made false reports of vandalism on WP:VIP when users made edits he disagreed with. A look at his contributions show that nearly half of them contain insults or obscenities in the edit summaries. Equally problematic, this user utilizes abusive sockpuppets. A check run by User:David Gerard indicates that User:KaintheScion and User:ElKabong are one and the same individual. I strongly suspect, based on editing habits, that User:Enviroknot is a sockpuppet as well.

Statement by SlimVirgin

ElKabong (talk · contribs) (aka Enviroknot (talk · contribs), KaintheScion (talk · contribs)) and 66.69.141.11 (talk · contribs) has caused considerable disruption with his personal attacks on article and user talk pages, and his editing-by-revert. Since May 7, the three user names and the IP address have jointly been blocked three times for 3RR, once for vandalism, once for block evasion, and once for violation of the sockpuppet policy. During the blocks, the personal attacks, often highly abusive, continue by e-mail, directed at the admin who blocked the account.

ElKabong often edits the same pages as Yuber, and has subjected him to personal attacks, including calling him a "lying, Islamist f***" at Talk:Islamofascism. [1] Two examples of personal attacks on my talk page from ElKabong are "Screw you, LIAR" [2] and "ElKabong NOT KaintheScion get it f***ing right you idiot." [3]

Regarding Environknot, I recently blocked User:66.69.141.11 for evading a block by posting while ElKabong was blocked, as the pattern of edits strongly suggested they were the same person. I received an e-mail in response to this block from a Cranston Snord, with the e-mail address "environknot at ..." and the same 66.69.141.11 IP address. This address resolves to the University of Houston, Texas; the IP address of the first (known) sockpuppet of this user, KaintheScion, also resolves to Houston, Texas.

If the committee decides to take this case, a tempban from editing articles related to the Middle East or Islam would alleviate the disruption. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:20, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Zscout370

My issue with Kain/El is that he likes to attack me by using my scouting past. He does so with his edit summaries and also by vandalizing my user page. This edit, [4], he added this to my talk page: "A Scout is supposed to be TRUSTWORTHY. It's a pity you are not." He has done that, mainly since, along with Firebug and SlimVirgin, keep on adding in evidence that KaintheScion was a sockpuppet of ElKabong. When he saw that I reverted his edit ([5]), he reverted back and used this edit summary: "Scouts are supposed to be TRUSTWORTHY, Zscout. They should rip that badge off your chest." I believe his personal attacks are getting way to much for any Wikipedian to bear, so that is why I am supporting Firebug and SlimVirgin in building this case to you all. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 17:57, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jayjg

User ElKabong/KaintheScion has engaged in a series of needless personal attacks, often laced with profanity, against both people with whom he disagrees on article content, and any admins who point out that he is using sockpuppets. I have made a number of attempts to convince him to stop this behaviour ( [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]), trying to use self-interest to motivate him. However, my attempts were met with more invective and justifications for his behaviour ([11] [12] [13] [14]). I think this editor's actions indicate severe and continuing policy violations that warrant a rapid appraisal by ArbCom. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:19, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Enviroknot

I will take the accusations made against me one at a time, since it is obvious that these users are not interested in the betterment of Wikipedia but in pursuing some personal/political agendas.

They completely ignore Wikipedia policy on the matter, particularly this portion, and instead have added me to their list of supposed sockpuppets for the "crime" of not agreeing with them:

Keep in mind there can be multiple users who are driven to start participating in Wikipedia for the same reason, particularly in controversial areas such as articles about the conflict in the Middle East, cult figures, or Wikipedia:Votes for deletion."

Firebug's statement that I am a sockpuppet is ridiculous on its face, but that has not stopped this user from making these attacks. Further, without even bothering to message me, without bothering to ask me a single question, and without any evidence, he defaced my user page with a sockpuppet template.

Likewise with Yuber, who made the initial accusation that I was a sockpuppet; I believe that this has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the fact that Yuber was attempting to gain an advantage in content dispute with his false allegation. Anything more I would say on Yuber would be material for an RFC of its own; the basics regarding Yuber's behavior are well spelled out in the KaintheScion RFC, including comments which Jayjg has made about Yuber's substandard behavior.

Additional: regarding this edit, it appears that Yuber is reaching. I ran a search on "Yhulkop" the user, intending to warn them of this RFAr, and the search came up blank. Who are they, and what do they have to do with this matter?

Additional 2: it appears that garnering this sort of attention from Yuber is very easy.

As for Slimvirgin, her first email to me was an abusive accusation that I am one of these other two users, which I find disheartening. A quick look back in her edit summaries showed me that she has been hounding these two users for some time. The same seems to be true for a number of users, particularly after looking at ElKabong's page. I cannot believe that there is not something that these users are doing that is goading ElKabong to continue.

As for ZScout, I left a message on his user page when he started jumping in on Yuber's bandwagon, accusing me of being a sockpuppet. His response was to post a message telling me to weigh in on the KaintheScion RFC; after reading the RFC, it was clear to me that it had not been initiated in good faith, so I saw no point in doing so.

Regarding Jayjg, while I believe he meant well, his choice of wording in his messages to these two users is very poor; he essentially states that even if they have valid complaints, their expressing of the complaints is against Wikipedia policy. It appears that the mere expression of belief that Admins or Editors are behaving in bad faith is being considered a "personal attack" while similar comments by the others are not, and this is definitely a double standard.

In fact, the only editor who I would say has behaved with decorum in these incidents (after reading KaintheScion and ElKabong's comment pages) is Knowledge Seeker.

The quickness with which these users accused me of being a sockpuppet of these individuals indicates to me that they are pursuing some hidden agenda; whether it is simply the pushing of a POV on certain articles, or whether it is something larger, I cannot say as I do not have enough information.

Incidentally, my IP address comes from Roadrunner, that is, Time Warner. I'm sure I need not inform you that they hand out their IP addresses by DHCP, nor do I need to point out precisely how large a user base they have. Enviroknot

At this point I would also like to register my disgust with the conspirators who feel they have some right to deface my user page with no evidence, and especially my disgust with Yuber who, far from having "tried to cooperate and compromise", has a long history of creating revert wars as well as getting himself banned for 3RR violations thereby.

See Also: Statement by Jayjg regarding Yuber in Talk:Kharaj What, yet another article in which he can continually delete well-sourced information that doesn't agree with his POV, while simultaneously making claims of his own which simply don't match the sources provided? That's an appealing thought. Jayjg (talk) 03:23, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

See Also: Statement by Yuber in Talk:Saudi Arabia, clearly false Grace Note sees it my way. I was the one who originally added the mutaween section!!!! Then Kain came here and changed it to found in MOST muslim nations. I told him that's totally false and he got into an edit war with me. I told him only Nigeria, Iran, and Saudi have religious police and he still wouldn't believe me.Yuber(talk) 21:18, 13 May 2005 (UTC) Factually, the Mutaween section in Saudi Arabia was created by ElKabong 1, and then Yuber immediately attempted to start a Revert War against its existence 1 2, following by reverting every edit made to the entry. After his edit wars had caused the page to be protected, Yuber vanished; after admin Nixie had unprotected the page, Yuber returned the following day and immediately began making the controversial edits again, leading to more edit wars.

I have no agreement with the language ElKabong was using, but Yuber's behavior is CLEARLY not in good faith and the behavior of the admins in the matter did nothing to help the situation, as they behaved in a manner as to indicate they were taking Yuber's side. Enviroknot 03:49, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

(response to David Gerard)

I have already sent my response to the en-l list on these laughable assertions regarding me twice. Enviroknot 16:56, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ElKabong

I think this message I received today says it all.

You ought to cut a deal with this guys, and do it very quickly, or this will be the end of your time on Wikipedia. Arbitration is a rigged game: you play, you lose. I don't know whether you care or not, but I just wanted to give you that bit of advice. Everyking 05:03, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

If it's a rigged game, and it obviously is, there's no point in playing. And as long as a bunch of POV-pushing Islamists and power-mad Admins are persecuting me, there's no point in being here. You can all GFYS.

Incidentally, there IS no sockpuppetry going on, though I'm sure David Gerard will keep lying out his ass regarding that.

I'm removing the sockpuppetry bullshit from Enviroknot's page. It has no business being there. Firebug and Mel Etitis, fuck you for putting it on an innocent user's page.

Statement by Yuber

ElKabong/Enviroknot/KaintheScion has been waging a "war" against Islam-related articles over the past few weeks with many different sockpuppets. I have tried to cooperate and compromise with him on several articles but he has only responded with personal attacks and ramblings about how I am an Islamist. Please see the RFC for his sockpuppet KaintheScion here [15]. I feel there is nothing left for me to say as the people that have made statements in this request have basically covered everything. That RFC provides even more evidence.Yuber^(talk) 03:01, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Preliminary decisions

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (5/0/1/0)

Accept; personal attack injunction and/or injunction on editing outside of case pages likely. -- Grun t 🇪🇺 20:55, 2005 May 26 (UTC)
Accept, per Grunt. Ambi 00:04, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Recuse for now - I have a pile of evidence to add on the sockpuppetry and the nice email I've been receiving - David Gerard 10:19, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- For now, see [16] and [17]. In short: ElKabong = KaintheScion = Enviroknot = "Cranston Snord" = the IPs using these names - David Gerard 10:22, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Accept -- sannse (talk) 20:23, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Accept Fred Bauder 02:21, May 28, 2005 (UTC)
Accept ➥the Epopt 15:49, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Temporary injunction (none)

Final decision

Principles

Sockpuppets

1) While is is permissible for a person to have several user accounts on Wikipedia, such accounts may be misused in a variety of ways. 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, see Wikipedia:Sock puppet

Passed 6-0

Template:Sockpuppet

1.1) While controversial and perhaps exacerbating conflict, it is acceptable to place Template:Sockpuppet on the user page of a suspected account together with links to supporting evidence, see Wikipedia:Sock_puppet#Tagging_identified_sock_puppets.

Passed 6-0

No personal attacks

2) Personal attacks and disparaging remarks directed at other users are unacceptable, see Wikipedia:No personal attacks

Passed 6-0

Advocacy

3) Wikipedia is not a platform for advocacy, see Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not.

Passed 6-0

Editing bans

4) Wikipedia editors may be banned from articles where their point of view advocacy has proven disruptive.

Passed 6-0

Findings of fact

Sockpuppets

1) ElKabong (talk · contribs), Enviroknot (talk · contribs), KaintheScion (talk · contribs), 66.69.141.11 (talk · contribs), 129.7.35.1 (talk · contribs), 38.112.194.37 (talk · contribs), 136.145.54.123 (talk · contribs) and possibly 207.241.238.149 (talk · contribs), and 64.229.186.50 (talk · contribs) are controlled by the same person Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive22#User:KaintheScion_and_User:ElKabong, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/KaintheScion_et_al./Evidence#Evidence_of_Sockpuppetry

Passed 6-0

Template:Sockpuppet

2) Template:Sockpuppet has been placed on User:ElKabong, User:Enviroknot and User:KaintheScion. Placement of the template has been vigorously contested by Enviroknot, see page history, Template talk:Sockpuppet, Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/Not_deleted/April_2005#Template:Sockpuppet, Wikipedia_talk:Administrators'_noticeboard#Vandalizing_my_user_page, Wikipedia_talk:Administrators'_noticeboard#My_user_page.2C_once_again_vandalized and Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Sockpuppet_template

Passed 6-0

Islamofascism and Islamic fascism

3) User:Enviroknot strongly advocated retention and elaboration of the articles Islamofascism and Islamic fascism, since redirected to Neofascism and religion [18] [19], see Talk:Islamofascism.

Passed 6-0

Attacks on "Islamists"

3) User:Enviroknot has made personal attacks on his Wikipedia opponents who he perceives as "Islamist." [20], [21], [22], [23] and [24]

Passed 6-0

Remedies

One account

1) User:Enviroknot is required to use the account Enviroknot and no other.

Passed 6-0

One year ban

2.1) User:Enviroknot is banned from editing Wikipedia for one year.

Passed 6-0

Enforcement

2.1) Verified use of sockpuppets while the one year ban is in place shall result in the ban being reset, as per standard Arbitration Committee practice.

Passed 5-0