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Requests for arbitration

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Case requests

Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
Battleground on e-cig articles		15 March 2015	{{{votes}}}

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Open cases

Case name	Links	Evidence due	Prop. Dec. due
Historical elections	(t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t)	20 Aug 2024	03 Sep 2024

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Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b)	Motion	none	26 July 2024
Clarification request: Appeal methods for Lima Bean Farmer topic ban	none	none	12 August 2024
Amendment request: German war effort	none	(orig. case)	13 August 2024
Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral)	none	none	17 August 2024

Arbitrator motions

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Battleground on e-cig articles

Initiated by QuackGuru (talk) 19:27, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Involved parties

• QuackGuru (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) filing party
• KimDabelsteinPetersen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• S Marshall (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• AlbinoFerret (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Doc James (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• diff of notification User:KimDabelsteinPetersen
• diff of notification User:AlbinoFerret
• diff of notification User:Doc James

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• AN/I (closed)
• article talk page

Statement by User:QuackGuru

KimDabelsteinPetersen

Some of the e-cig enthusiasts are WP:NOTHERE to improve the e-cig pages. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive864#User:AlbinoFerret and see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive867#E-cig editors for previous ANI discussions.

KimDabelsteinPetersen opposes a topic ban for AlbinoFerret. That's because User:KimDabelsteinPetersen has also made many controversial edits to the safety of electronic cigarettes page. Let's review some of KimDabelsteinPetersen's recent edits.

Revision as of 13:05, 30 January 2015 This edit deleted text and sources from two reputable organisations. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Positions. The sources are reliable per WP:MEDORG. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Discussion on positions. The sources are reliable per WP:SNOW according to the current discussion.

Revision as of 13:11, 30 January 2015 This edit deleted text and sources from two reputable organisations again.

Revision as of 11:20, 26 January 2015 This edit mainly deleted text from a formal policy statement written in Clinical Cancer Research, a peer-reviewed medical journal. The impact factor for the journal is 8.19.

Revision as of 19:20, 7 February 2015 This edit mainly deleted text from a review and text from reputable organizations.

Revision as of 06:27, 25 February 2015 This edit deleted numerous sources, including deleting text and sources from a number reputable organisations and sources from reviews against WP:MEDORG and WP:MEDRS.

Revision as of 10:00, 25 February 2015 This edit deleted numerous sources, including deleting text and sources from a number reputable organisations and sources from reviews against WP:MEDORG and WP:MEDRS again.

Revision as of 22:47, 27 February 2015 This edit deleted numerous sources, including deleting text and sources from a number reputable organisations and sources from reviews against WP:MEDORG and WP:MEDRS again.

Revision as of 23:46, 27 February 2015 This edit deleted numerous sources, including deleting text and sources from a number reputable organisations and sources from reviews against WP:MEDORG and WP:MEDRS again. KimDabelsteinPetersen does not see policy violations to back up a ban.

KimDabelsteinPetersen, aren't you also deleting a lot of sources against WP:MEDRS? This diff shows AlbinoFerret is making many counterproductive edits and deleting of a lot of reliable sources. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Proposed topic ban for AlbinoFerret. KimDabelsteinPetersen is also deleting a lot of reliable sources which suggests he/she is promoting a certain favorable POV for e-cigs. Should KimDabelsteinPetersen be topic banned? KimDabelsteinPetersen has earned a topic ban from the e-cig pages IMO. Does the community prefer a topic ban for KimDabelsteinPetersen for 6 months or one year, an indef topic ban, or just a warning or no action?

KimDabelsteinPetersen thought it was okay to delete so many sources over and over again. But it is not reasonable to continue to delete pertinent information about of the safety of e-cigarettes. Both KimDabelsteinPetersen and AlbinoFerret are the main problem editors IMO. No reasonable argument has been made to delete so many reliable sources including deleting reviews such as (PMID 24732159) and (PMID 24732160) and (PMID 25572196) after over two weeks. Please review the current discussion on the talk page. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Removal of mammoth edit. I think I bring a sharp editors pencil to many controversial places where most editors prefer to stay away from. That said I hope editors will try to follow WP:PAG a bit more rather than making blanket reverts to an older version. Often, reliable sources and pertinent text sourced to reliable sources are being reremoved over and over again with non-argument discussions on the talk page. What could possibly be a logical reason to delete so many sources? There is currently no open thread at AN/I for a proposed topic ban for KimDabelsteinPetersen. The community is not handling this specific editor at this time at AN/I. KimDabelsteinPetersen, do you agree in the future you won't be so quick to remove so many sources such as MEDRS compliant reviews? QuackGuru (talk) 19:27, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

User:Courcelles, User:Seraphimblade, User:Thryduulf, User:Euryalus, and User:Dougweller. No matter what happens at AN/I there is no specific proposal for dealing with KimDabelsteinPetersen's apparent advocacy at the e-cig pages. He has not even been warned for continuing to delete so many sources and reverting back to an older version. I request Arbcom deal with User:KimDabelsteinPetersen continued disruptive editing and WP:ADVOCACY. QuackGuru (talk) 15:42, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

User:Euryalus, the discussion at AN/I was closed because it wasn't going to go anywhere. I can start a new discsuion at AN/I with your permission for User:KimDabelsteinPetersen to see what the community wants to do about this matter. At AN/I it was a subsection that lost focus. QuackGuru (talk) 20:05, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

User:Euryalus, I have been involved in disputes where there has been community-imposed sanctions and no administrative action was taken. For example, take a quick look at the acupuncture disputes. The result was a huge waste of time. See Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Acupuncture. See Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Acupuncture#Statement by QuackGuru. Alter-med pages are under community-imposed sanctions but that did not stop editors from causing mass disruption. I'm afraid the disputes at the e-cig pages will continue for a long time and the end result will be lower quality pages and the community will lose good editors from wanting to improve the pages. QuackGuru (talk) 01:59, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

AlbinoFerret

User:AlbinoFerret is making a lot of comments and edits to e-cig related pages. See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/AlbinoFerret&offset=&limit=500&target=AlbinoFerret See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive864#User:AlbinoFerret for previous behaviour issues. AlbinoFerret tried to hide the Environmental impact section from the page that uses a reliable MEDRS compliant source to verify the claims. He eventually tried to delete some of the text.[1][2][3][4][5] AlbinoFerret deleted sources from reputable organisations.[6][7][8][9]

User:AlbinoFerret also deleted a source from a formal policy statement. After User:AlbinoFerret could not delete the reliable source he then added context that was inappropriate.[10][11][12] See Talk:Safety_of_electronic_cigarettes/Archive_1#Original_research_2.

Both User:AlbinoFerret and User:KimDabelsteinPetersen appeared to be against using the formal policy statement written in a peer-reviewed journal for medical claims.

See Talk:Electronic_cigarette/Archive_21#Policy_Statement_from_the_American_Association_for_Cancer_Research_and_the_American_Society_of_Clinical_Oncology.

Revision as of 23:02, 24 February 2015 This change deleted numerous sources.

Revision as of 22:04, 28 February 2015 This change deleted numerous sources again.

AlbinoFerret's last major edit was Revision as of 22:13, 28 February 2015, which deleted numerous sources, including deleting reviews against MEDRS again.

AlbinoFerret claims "Reliability does not guarantee inclusion."[13] But AlbinoFerret has not given a specific reason to exclude relevant information about safety. WP:COMPETENCE is not the issue IMO. AlbinoFerret has turned the e-cig pages into a WP:BATTLEGROUND. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Positions. The sources are reliable per WP:MEDORG. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Discussion on positions. Please also review the current discussion on the talk page. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Removal of mammoth edit. I think an indef topic ban is better solution rather than a short-term topic ban. It is clear that AlbinoFerret is not here to improve the e-cig pages. It appears AlbinoFerret wants to have lengthy discussions on the talk page in an effort to prevent the article from moving forward. The community discussions to resolve these matters have not gone anywhere. This should not go to AN/I again and again. The repeated trips to AN/I is a waste of the communities time. Like AN/I, I'm sure things will get ugly soon. The reason there is currently a mess at AN/I is because no uninvolved admin at AN/I closed the thread when the evidence of long term disruption was previously reported to AN/I back in November 2014. The main e-cig page has been fully protected multiple times. The dispute is likely to continue for a long time unless administrative action is taken. QuackGuru (talk) 21:45, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Since no action was taken for a very long time at AN/I I closed the thread I started and hopefully the discussion can continue here. Note. If I am not allowed to close the thread I started at AN/I feel free to revert or if an uninvolved admin wants to take action feel free to revert and take action at AN/I. The thread at AN/I can still be reclosed by an uninvolved admin. See diff. Thanks. QuackGuru (talk) 00:00, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

AlbinoFerret has agreed to take a break for 6 months from the e-cig pages without receiving an official topic ban and without any admission of doing anything wrong. QuackGuru (talk) 05:54, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

AlbinoFerret claims "The constant negative POV pushing has created a NPOV problem." AlbinoFerret has had numerous chances to explain what is the current problem. I don't know what is the current issue. Articles are never prefect, especially for new articles. I do try to improve the wording. I think it is time to move on from previous resolved disputes. I just hope in the future editors won't delete a bunch of relevant text sourced to reliable sources. AlbinoFerret thinks that "The subject of the article is not "Nicotine"."[14] Maybe that explains this edit. AlbinoFerret is giving old diffs. For example, the wording for the nicotine sentences has changed. See Safety_of_electronic_cigarettes#Nicotine for the current wording I helped improve. The first two sentences for the nicotine paragraph are "Nicotine is regarded as a potentially lethal poison.[21] Concerns exist that e-cigarette user exposure to toxic levels of nicotine may be harmful.[21]" The lede says "E-cigarette users are exposed to potentially harmful nicotine.[12]". What is the problem with the current wording? QuackGuru (talk) 06:47, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

My comment here is a reply to AlbinoFerret's comment.[15] The source says "Other studies have shown that some ENDS users experience side-effects such as mouth and throat irritation which may be caused by exposure to nicotine itself, nicotine solvents, or toxicants found in the aerosol (30, 31). However, given the relatively low doses of nicotine that ENDS deliver, and users' ability to titrate the desired dose by adjusting the frequency and topography of their puffs, serious overdose from ENDS aerosol inhalation is unlikely. In contrast, the concentrated nicotine..."[16] The part "serious overdose from ENDS aerosol inhalation is unlikely" and the part about "in contrast" is much later in the source. The text in the safety page is in the same chronological order as the source. QuackGuru (talk) 15:27, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Statement by involved User:S Marshall

• It's certainly a battleground. I'm finding it utterly impossible to improve the article at present.
• I endorse the request for ArbCom to look at the whole e-cigarette family of articles and the quagmire of problematic behaviour that surrounds it.
• In response to Seraphimblade's request: the community processes are inadequate. They deal with one user at a time, and give a result in clear-cut cases. AlbinoFerret's case, by itself, is something the community can deal with. QuackGuru and KimDabelsteinPetersen is another problem (or two other problems ---- I think QuackGuru's been admirably unselfconscious in starting this, by the way). In the AN/I thread, User:CFCF alleges that there are SPAs or near-SPAs involved, and I suspect he's right. User:Doc James says that interested parties have contacted his university to attack him personally. Taken together this is too much for community processes to cope with.—S Marshall T/C 00:23, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Statement by involved User:Doc James

@User:S Marshall The user in question was indefinitely banned. So the community did deal with it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:32, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Thryduulf, I agree. There is consensus for a topic ban of Albino at ANI at the moment. My hope is that QG will take a voluntary step back and work on something else. The main article has been long protected. Hopefully the scientific and medical world will spend some time seriously studying the matter and the risk versus benefits of e-cig will be more clear in a few years. Right now the majority of the scientific community states the risk and benefits are unknown as they have not been properly studied. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:10, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Statement by User:AlbinoFerret

QuackGuru is a tendentious editor. I incorporate all the proof and diffs found in this closed AN/I case that was no consensus. He has harassed me and made harassing statements about my disability which were not settled in this AN/I case. link1 link2. QuackGuru while not a SPI is an advocate against that is drawn to controversial medical articles WP:ADVOCACY. He has a long history of blocks and bans for harassment, edit warring, and other related things. Nothing will be solved at AN/I because fellow medical editors block any action because they think he is useful.
He added a Editorial to the page for a medical claim diff then argued round in circles link Arguing its a review diff diff saying it was WP:MEDRS diff. He then started a new section arguing round in circles again with a deceptive section heading. link. Just today, he added the same source to the talk page as a "New Source" #6 diff McKee2014.
He has removed claims that lessesn the negitive impact of his edits. Here he removed one from the Environmental section diff and here lessened the wording to make it less neutral diff.
He inserted blatant negative POV that users of e-cig users were exposed to "lethal" nicotine diff diff when the source said harmful as shown in this section of the talk page link when it was pointed out to him, he changed it to "toxic" diff.
In the body of the article, he added nicotine is lethal, I added a part from the source that put it into perspective diff He moved information that lessens impact, added OR by making it sound like the mitigating factors were part of the liquid and not use when the source clearly is talking about use diff. He also added more claims between to further distance the negating claim that users were taking "lethal poison diff.
Added adverse effects "Major adverse effects reported to the FDA included hospitalizations for pneumonia, congestive heart failure, seizure, rapid heart rate, and burns" diff. But omitted positive part of the claim (mitigating factors), added by another editor that was in the same paragraph in the source diff.
The constant negative POV pushing has created a NPOV problem. The main article has a NPOV tag link The Saftey of Electronic cigarettes also had one, but he keeps removing it.diff.
Dont think this is just a few isolated events. He is an advocate against, plain and simple. I could write pages on his inserting POV and ignoring NPOV, this is what I could find in a few hours. AlbinoFerret 05:58, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Removing sourced material? What QuackGuru doesnt mention is that the material he says was removed was the product of long discussions on using policy statements and a still ongoing RFC that had only a few replies at the time. The other removal was over 20,000 characters of edits, 16,400 at one time [diff to a contentious article that he spent a month in his sandbox building without and notification or discussion on the articles talk pages.WP:CAUTIOUS Then edit wared it back in without discussion diff. All the while there is an ongoing RFC on the sources he inserted. AlbinoFerret 07:00, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

With this addition to the case diff QuackGuru shows a reoccurring problem WP:IDHT where he ignores what is said in comments and comes up with his own meaning to what has been said, not what actually is said. The talk page clearly sets forth a OR by synthesis problem, where he starts off adding nicotine is lethal, then in the very next sentence where we find "The user inhales an aerosol containing chemicals and very addictive nicotine." creating a synthesis that the user is inhaling "lethal" nicotine. Which he later adds to the lede as one sentence.diff AlbinoFerret 07:52, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

With this edit diff brings in WP:COMPETENCE. He doesnt see the synthesis? Even the new version has WP:ORIGINALSYN issues. Its a very big POV issue as well, adding negative claims is all QuackGuru has done to my knowledge. Remember, this is the same section that my above paragraph that starts out "In the body of the article, he added nicotine is lethal," above where he has separated the fact that a lethal dose is unlikely from the claim its lethal. AlbinoFerret 08:22, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Beyond My Ken

I am not named as a party here. I am not in any way involved in editing the various e-cig articles, but I have been strongly involved in the AN/I discussion about whether AlbinoFerret should be topic banned for e-cigs, which I favor. My feeling about this request is that, while ArbCom certainly has the right to open a case, it should give the community process a chance to play out. As of this moment, the topic ban for AlbinoFerret and a proposal for community-imposed discretionary sanctions are both outstanding, and these should be allowed to finish before ArbCom takes on a case, should any of the parties feel the need to file a request at that time. For these reasons I would ask the committee to reject the request at this time. BMK (talk) 23:21, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I re-opened the AN/I thread about the proposed topic ban for AlbinoFerret, which was closed by QuackGuru. Although he started the thread, it does not in any way belong to him, and as a highly involved party he never should have closed it. The views of the community, in the form of the comments of editors both pro- and con-, deserve to be evaluated by an uninvolved admin, and the thread closed on the basis of that evaluation, not as a tactical move by one of the parties involved, especially one who stands to benefit (in the potential opening of the case requested here) if the thread is closed.

I have asked QuarkGuru on his talk page not to close the thread again, and I request that the arbitrators keep on eye on the thread. If QuackGuru closes it again, I believe it would be a disruptive edit, and a sanction should be considered. BMK (talk) 00:57, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Although I've been known to comment on case requests before, I'm not entirely certain of proper procedures. Should involved parties be added to the case unilaterally, as was done here, or does this require permission of some sort? BMK (talk) 01:25, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Euryalus - Thank you. BMK (talk) 03:08, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Euryalus - I'm a bit surprised at your change of vote, considering how things have progressed on the AN/I threads in the last day or so, which is that AlbinoFerret is talking a voluntary 6-month leave from the subject, and the communty-imposed discretionary sanctions thread keeps gathering support !votes from editors on both sides of the issue, leading me to believe that it will be closed quite soon with the imposition of community DS. If I've read the tea leaves correctly, would it not be better to give the community sanctions some time to see what effect they have? I don't dispute that there's still a reasonable likelihood that the issue may wind up back in the Committee's lap, but I'm not convinced that there's also not a reasonable possibility that normal admin actions under community-imposed sanctions can't go a considerable way to fixing things. BMK (talk) 01:35, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Involved editor SPACKlick

I used to edit the e-cigarette pages regularly. I am still quite involved in collating e-cig research for several bodies in meatspace. I have almost entirely stopped editing these articles because they are impossible to improve in the current atmosphere. Huge changes, adding walls of text repeating that things are unknown undo any improvements slowly made over time. Nobody looks for consensus on any edit, even edits they know will be controversial. I am really hoping to see a boomerang on QG here because he is the main reason I walked away from these articles. These articles need to be cautious and reflect the uncertainty in the medical literature about a (relatively) novel product. They also need to be cautious in reporting every unknown such that they don't inform at all by overloading. I would hope there is something the community can do to make the articles work for wikipedia rather than against. SPACKlick (talk) 11:06, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved JzG

I think the community is on top of the issue with AlbinoFerrett, who has taken a voluntary break from the contentious area, which is fine by me (I supported a brief topic ban but this has the same effect without the stigma so is a better result).

As tot he wider issue, I think discretionary sanctions are warranted. This is an unholy confluence of commercial vested interest, emotional commitment, immature medical knowledge and peripheral craziness.

That said, I think the community could fix that, too. Any arbitration response would be a cookie-cutter job, really.

The elephant in the room is the filing party. QuackGuru has achieved a remarkable feat in being every bit as unpopular with those who share his POV as he is with the quackery apologists he targets. Since I'm an involved party there I think I had better not stray into the area of pretending to give a neutral summary, but arbs might want to peruse this list of reports: my impression from this is unfavourable, to say the least, but as I say, I am not neutral in this. Guy (Help!) 13:28, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Statement by involved EllenCT

I strongly disagree with the Committee members who have voted to decline so far because community discussions are still ongoing. Dozens of complaints have been clogging ANI since last September. Of course, it's a content dispute and all of the behavior issues stem from disagreements surrounding the content dispute, so given the answers of the successful candidates to my election candidate questions, I have no confidence that the Committee is willing to resolve this issue. Are you really going to relegate us to an encyclopedia authored according to the personal preferences of influential administrators instead of reliable sources? EllenCT (talk) 14:18, 16 March 2015 (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).

Battleground on e-cig articles: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <1/8/0/0>

• Okay, if QuackGuru, an editor in good standing, is willing to stand as filing party, then awaiting statements. Courcelles (talk) 19:49, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

• Decline Let's see if the community can handle this first. Courcelles (talk) 19:43, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

• There certainly is a problem here. That being the case, it looks like community discussions to resolve the matter are still ongoing. Statements as to why arbitration is needed over and above that (or why it is not) would be very helpful. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 22:56, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Decline as not yet ripe for arbitration, without prejudice to hearing this in the future if the community discussions fail to curb the issues. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:52, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
• Decline. The e-cigs topic area is a mess at the moment, but it is a mess that the community is working on fixing and I see no reason for us to step in while the AN/I is still ongoing. If after the community resolutions (whatever they turn out to be) have had time to take effect there is still a problem then I'd likely be willing to take a case, but for now this is premature. Thryduulf (talk) 01:45, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
• Decline per DGG and Thryduulf. -- Euryalus (talk) 05:37, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

  I remain of the view that this is the kind of issue that can be resolved elsewhere. The e-cigs articles suffer from editors with strong POV, some COI and some apparent OWN. These can be addressed through a combination of more uninvolved editors taking part in the article and talkpage discussions, and swifter janitorial work at ANI. Procedurally, this is the correct course to recommend.

  So what's the problem? First, few uninvolved editors want to wade into the morass that is the e-cigs discusson and content, especially given the technical subject matter (and noting Doc James expert view above that existing research may not completely cover the field). Second, the ANI threads have been unwieldy and key points have sometimes sat too long, or forever, without outcomes. No one is "to blame" for any of this, but the consequence is an issue which should have been addressed by the community, hasn't been.

  As hope springs eternal, I was happy for it to go around another time. But further reading through the dead ANI threads has convinced me this is unlikely to happen. So, accept with an appropriate sense of trepidation, at least to look at a couple of conduct issues, and whether there is merit in (yet another) application of Discretionary Sanctions to bring some calm to the field. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:53, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: - anyone can propose that another editor is an involved party, though nonsense proposals will be removed. Proposing that someone is an invovled party obligates the proposer to notify them of that fact. Whether they actually are involved is determined by the Committee if the case is accepted. Of course simply being named as "involved" doesn't imply any particular outcome, it just lets people know they should probably pay attention to the proceedings. Equally, being "uninvolved" doesn't stop editor contributing to the case as it goes along. -- Euryalus (talk) 02:00, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@QuackGuru: - Sure, but I'd argue that ANI should be tried first. -- Euryalus (talk) 19:56, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: - perhaps, we are looking at the same set of material and seeing a glass half full/empty. I'm of the view there are wider user conduct issues than AlbinoFerret and the banned sock, and reckon this will continue over time. ANI sometimes struggles as a forum for dealing with patterns of behaviour that suggest COI or OWN, and an Arbcom case might save the time otherwise spent on a long series of individual sanctions debates. But I recognise the recent progress, and note that my quixotic accept vote is unlikely to win the day. The proposed community sanctions (if passed) are also a worthwhile step. -- Euryalus2 (talk) 04:14, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

• Decline for now. With the removal of a persistent sockpuppet, it is very possible that the situation can now be resolved at AN/I. If it proves otherwise, then we can accept it DGG ( talk ) 04:35, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
• Decline AlbinoFerret has agreed to a voluntary 6 month topic ban, the community is discussing possible discretionary sanctions and may be able to handle this, and the filer seems happy about it being sent back to the community. Dougweller (talk) 15:07, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
• Decline. I would like to give the community more opportunity to address this before accepting it as an arbitration case. GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:10, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
• Decline but without prejudice to come back here again if the community fails to resolve it,  Roger Davies ^talk 16:13, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
• I would actually vote to accept this request had a majority of my colleagues not already voted to decline. I do not think the community will be able to resolve this dispute; it has all the hallmarks of a dispute best resolved through arbitration. That said: procedural decline. AGK [•] 21:43, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
• Just a comment, I broadly agree with Anthony. This is one of those matters which we'll probably see down the road despite ANI efforts. NativeForeigner ^Talk 23:28, 16 March 2015 (UTC)