HRA1924

ANI

Please see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive830#Tendentious_IDHT_even_after_mediation. - Sitush (talk) 11:23, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

February 2014

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing for making legal threats, disruptive editing, and generally being tendentious. If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding the following text below this notice: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. However, you should read the guide to appealing blocks first.  The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:24, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

HRA1924 (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Request reason:

Please refer the email from Michelle Paulson (WMF) to HRA1924 "India Against Corruption" received a few minutes back. "Another way to have your concerns addressed is to bring them up on relevant noticeboards". Our concern is that User:Sitush has repeatedly violated core Wikimedia (ie. WMF) policies contained in WMF "Terms of Use" [1] by a) Intentionally posting content that constitutes libel or defamation, (b) Posting content that is false or inaccurate with the intent to deceive or cause harm (c) Engaging in fraud (d) Engaging in harassment and stalking (aka wikihounding). All these are penal offences as defined in India's laws like the Indian Penal Code, 1860 which WMF has undertaken to abide by at the time of registering domain "wikipedia.in". As WMF "Terms of Use" prevail over Wikipedia community self-written policies, we wish to report the aforesaid user to the relevant noticeboard(s) - hence we need to be unblocked. Also, in terms of WMF's Terms of Use (which supercede Wikipedia's policies) we are not counted as "users" of this site since we neither contribute to the projects nor use the services - hence WP:ROLE does not apply to complainants, like us, who are only here to report offences committed by WMF's users. In terms of the General Disclaimer, WMF and HRA have no contract / agreements with each other or with the users (aka community). Accordingly HRA1924 is not bound by WP Policies if we report user misconduct to the relevant notice board for the user community to self-regulate themselves to avert escalation. HRA1924 (talk) 21:45, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Decline reason:

Every person typing on Wikipedia is a user of Wikipedia, and is thus bound by its policies. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 22:03, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

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If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

Questions for Administrator

1. Does the Wikipedia Community adhere to its core policy WP:BLPKIND "Editors should make every effort to act with kindness toward the subjects of biographical material when the subjects arrive to express concern.", or is it one of those boiler-plate clauses to be ignored ?
2. Is it the intention of Wikipedia Community to deny "India Against Corruption" (the subject of Wikipedia's libelous "article") the facility to report breaches of WMF's Terms and Conditions for this site by a rogue user to the relevant notice boards ? Please note that the WP Mediation Committee had no objection to IAC interacting as an anon IP with the community for its concerns.
3. Is it the intention of Wikipedia Community to disregard the statement of the WMF's legal counsel "The Wikimedia Foundation encourages those who have concerns about the inclusion or accuracy of certain content to engage and work with the community directly." ? [2]
4. Is the English Wikipedia Community ignorant of the WMF legal counsel's blog post that there are time limits to remove disputed content. "The Stuttgart court did rule that two other statements about the plaintiff should be removed from the article because, under German privacy law, certain types of allegations must be successfully proven or resolved within a reasonable period of time. Otherwise, reports of such allegations should be removed.". Was the rogue User unaware of the time period prescribed in India's analogous Internet Intermediary Liability Rules (law) for disabling offensive content by hosts ?
5. With reference to the statement "Decline reason: Every person typing on Wikipedia is a user of Wikipedia, and is thus bound by its policies. --jpgordon::==", Can it be explained to us how children / minors not legally competent to contract and all busy "typing" away on Wikipedia using and hiding behind "accounts" can be "bound" by (non-statutory) Wikipedia policies ?

• Background:

• This concerns an exchange of emails for a potential dispute between "India Against Corruption" and the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. ("WMF") concerning misuse of the domain "www.wikipedia.in" (only created very recently on 07-Apr-2013), wherein the Official Registrant (Michelle Paulson/WMF) of the aforesaid .IN domain had agreed to abide by India's laws as part of the registration terms issued under the .IN Policy Framework dated 28.Oct.2004. The .IN domain's nameservers are registered (in India) to "NS1.WIKIMEDIA.ORG" and suchlike. In pursuance of the email correspondence we wish to formally report the offences committed in breach of India's penal laws (by a specific User) to the self-regulated community of volunteer Wikipedia contributors at the relevant notice boards. We say that WMF has informed us that our concerns about "Wikipedia" (as distinguished from WMF) may be communicated to the English Wikipedia "community" on the relevant noticeboard(s). A bare reading of the Wikipedia General Disclaimer makes it clear that there is no contract or agreement between "HRA1924" a WMF verified account (verified by email with meta.wikimedia.org - the copy of which is retained by us) to the official email-ID of India Against Corruption ("IAC") (see www.indiaagainstcorruption.org.in) and Wikipedia (ie. the community of editors which is libeling us). The Wikipedia community's self-written Disclaimers such as "None of the contributors, sponsors, administrators or anyone else connected with Wikipedia in any way whatsoever can be responsible for the appearance of any inaccurate or libelous information or for your use of the information contained in or linked from these web pages." have no legal force over IAC. The offences we intend to report are also all violations of WMF's Terms of Use and the aforesaid User is in repeated breach of WMF's Terms of Use.

• WMF has already clarified its position on the German Court's recent findings [3], [4] that it does not proactively check, monitor or "police" content created and uploaded to its servers by the Wikipedia community. As per WMF, the WMF is a service provider and "host".

" ... If, however, the Wikimedia Foundation is informed of certain content allegedly in violation of local law, according to the court, that content should be removed to maintain immunity from liability – this is a position consistent with traditional online hosting liability under which Wikipedia has historically operated. ..."

• Please note that "India Against Corruption" is among India's foremost advocacy bodies vigorously defending "Free Speech and Expression", including upholding and defending the right to "anonymous" free speech and expression, against those who wish to gag and throttle democracy in India. IAC upholds the general principles contained in both the First and Second Amendment of the US Constitution. Accordingly IAC's core membership are outraged at being publicly libeled as "chillers" of free speech by a rogue editor/user of the English language Wikipedia. So please review your decision and unblock us for the limited purpose we have described and stop obstructing us from reporting the rogue editor. HRA1924 (talk) 07:31, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

With respect, there is no action that can be taken here via the adminhelp template. If you are looking for a block review you should reuse the unblock template. If you wish to engage in legal discussion or take legal action against the WMF, you should contact the WMF directly, as you say you have already done. Your request for adminhelp largely rehashes the material from the previous ANI thread, and is unlikely to generate a response that is of assistance to you. Euryalus (talk) 10:53, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Equally respectfully, your reply does not answer our queries but evades having to deal with them. HRA1924 (talk) 11:56, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Follow up questions for Administrator(s)

We shall request a block review upon getting a specific Wikipedia policy reply to the undermentioned questions. It is not our intention to take legal action against WMF. In fact the mutual / common problem at present for IAC and WMF is that Wikipedia content is not generated by WMF and until the Wikipedia Community absolutely refuses to delete / modify / correct the libelous content, the IAC and WMF have no lis with each other. The issues we are raising here were not discussed at ANI - such as the implications of the Stuttgart judgement - and Sitush's violation of WMF Terms of Use.

• Question 1: Please specify all the English Wikipedia notice boards, if any, where aggrieved article subjects can raise their concerns (about libel, BLP, Copyvio, Trademarks and so on) without being compelled to agree to any unilaterally framed "terms of use".
• Question 2: Please specify the English Wikipedia website's rules, regulations, terms of use, user agreements etc. which prohibit users from hosting, publishing, uploading etc. any information that impersonates another person. HRA1924 (talk) 11:48, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

1. If you do not want to agree to the terms of use, you cannot use Wikipedia - including any on-wiki noticeboards. You will have to contact the Wikimedia Foundation directly; see WP:Contact us for details. The email address for copyright concerns is info-en-c@wikimedia.org; for more general concerns about article content, subjects can also use info-en-q@wikimedia.org.
2. The Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use, under "10. Management of websites", specify:

The Wikimedia community and its members may also take action when so allowed by the community or Foundation policies applicable to the specific Project edition, including but not limited to warning, investigating, blocking, or banning users who violate those policies. You agree to comply with the final decisions of dispute resolution bodies that are established by the community for the specific Project editions (such as arbitration committees); these decisions may include sanctions as set out by the policy of the specific Project edition.

Thus the policies enacted by the English Wikipedia's community are relevant. In particular, there's the username policy which forbids both "[u]sernames that impersonate other people" and "usernames that imply the likelihood of shared use". While that does not explicitly mention attempts of impersonation beyond the choice of username, it should be pretty obvious that other such attempts are also not welcome on Wikipedia - personally I would consider them disruptive. See also WP:BEANS which, while not a policy, explains well why explicitly listing every possible infraction is not a good idea. WP:ROLE may also be relevant - it explicitly restricts accounts to a single user. Groups editing under one account are not acceptable, no matter the username. Huon (talk) 16:38, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Could you give the specific link to the policy you cite for #1 above. In our case we have done all of what was suggested - we used "Contact Us - Article subjects", sent 2 emails to info-en-q@wikimedia.org only to be told that the nature of the content dispute was too complicated for them and we should either use the "article talk page" or use WP:DR. We used the "Talk Page", somebody objected to our opening an account citing WP:ROLE so we edited as anon IPs and the matter reached Wikipedia's ultimate formal content dispute forum - WP:RFM (Mediation), our request for mediation was granted, all the issues were agreed between IAC and the other contributor User:Sitush in advance. When in the course of mediation the Mediator (Sunray) asked us to list down our issues - which we did, User:Sitush promptly dropped out citing WP:CIR, ie. we are unable/unwilling to accept [[WP:VER] (for reasons why see WP:NOW) and WP:VNT whereas we want enforcement of "TRUTH" as established by unimpeachable WP:PRIMARY sources like Court Judgments and Final recommendations of Parliamentary Committees etc. which trash the secondary sources Sitush had used and which WE are well competent to interpret. We say that Sitush has knowingly indulged in all the criminal acts we have listed so as to harm "India Against Corruption" and he has knowingly done so in breach of WMF "Terms of Use" to repeatedly publish FALSE information about the persons like the so-called "Team Anna" who briefly impersonated as "India Against Corruption" in 2011-12 and Sitush continues to "pass them off" as "India Against Corruption" despite knowing very well that we are throughout the official name holders for the name "India Against Corruption". In fact Sitush at 18:54, 23 November 2013 (UTC) wrote "We're not interested in who has the legal rights to the name.". The consequences of Sitush criminal acts (by abusing WMF computer resources) is that "India Against Corruption" which is a secular, socialist movement has been repeatedly defamed in the Wikipedia article by using derogatory terms like "right-wing", "communal", "Hindu nationalist" etc. which apply to "Team Anna" and not to "IAC", and which Sitush ran away from replying to during Mediation. About WP:BEANS, under the Indian law applicable to hosting sites like Wikipedia, there is a rather comprehensive set of rules, regulations, terms of use, user agreements etc. which Wikipedia is required to maintain (or see they exist) so as to inform its users about all aspects of violations of Indian law (it is a very comprehensive set of violations). If the rules, and terms do not exist then Wikipedia will not the benefit of its traditional immunity as a hosting service provider. Hence our question. You have failed to provide any such WP or WMF policy against uploading "any information" of impersonation of other person. The present examples you cite do not apply in our case - so WMF has no immunity it seems if Wikipedia volunteers do not remove the libelous content forthwith. HRA1924 (talk) 18:56, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Huon has already provided the specific link to the username policy. Your concerns regarding the Indian Wikipedia aren't a matter for the English one, and should be raised with the WMF, which you have done. What response you receive is a matter for the WMF. As Huon has pointed out, there aren't any Wikipedia noticeboards or similar that are not subject to Wikipedia's terms of use.

Regrettably, your help request is a restatement of previous ones, and of matters raised in the ANI thread. I appreciate you are not happy with the answers you have received, but re-asking the same questions are very unlikely to produce any different responses. Also, your statement that you're not interested in legal action is also at odds with the wording of your posts, particularly the last sentence of the message above. Euryalus (talk) 20:53, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any specific policy about the applicability of the Terms of Use, but when you edit any Wikipedia page, including this one, there is a text directly above the "Save page" button: By clicking the "Save page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license. We mean that; if you do not want to agree to the terms of use, do not edit any Wikipedia pages at all. Huon (talk) 21:20, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Final unblock request for a specific purpose

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

HRA1924 (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Request reason:

Please see the Admin replies to the queries posed by HRA1924 above. It has been made abundantly clear by at least 3 English Wikipedia Community Admins that affected article subjects complaining of BLP and other WMF contraventions by Wikipedia Community editors can only raise their concerns on Community notice boards if they agree to subject / bind themselves to Wikimedia's (WMF's) unilateral "Terms of Use" including "Clause 10 : Management of Websites" therein which binds the affected article subjects to further "sanctions" by Community dispute resolution bodies comprised of usually anonymous persons hiding behind fanciful names and self-written self-serving Community "policies". HRA1924 (a ROLE account representing "India Against Corruption") is not prepared to submit to such unfair, unconscionable, adhesive and illegal "terms of use" to assist Wikipedia Community in its self-regulation. There is an ongoing OTRS-Admin escalation in progress (raised by us as per the suggestion of WMF), which is an extension of OTRS email complaints sent as far back as December 2013 and which is located at SYSOP:Tiptoety's English Wikipedia Talk page. HRA1924 is requesting to be unblocked to participate in that discussion, (as it seems that the Meta-Wiki email system is not working for us and there is no other way for us to communicate with Sysop:Tiptoety directly), and for no other purpose. The OTRS-Admin escalation is asking for Wikipedia Community enforcement of a WP:RFM "deemed" in our favour and against User:Sitush. HRA1924 (talk) 8:42 am, Yesterday (UTC+0)

Decline reason:

The demands you are making of the WMF are not things that can be granted by the community at en-wiki. There is therefore no reason for you to need to edit Wikipedia, and hence no reason to lift the block. You are welcome to continue making appeals to the WMF, but you will need to do so off-wiki. Yunshui 雲‍水 12:12, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

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If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

I have alerted Tiptoety to this thread and invited them here to comment on the unblock request. Euryalus (talk) 08:58, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

@Euryalus. Thanks for informing Sysop:Tiptoety. Can you grant us the kindness of striking out the prejudicial (to us) text within your post to Tiptoety. OTRS is an administrative process which acts as a bridge between WP, WMF and outsiders. IAC deems it a hugely hostile act when DIVA:Sitush along with his entourage got IAC blocked at ANI to prejudice / chill our OTRS-Admin escalation. FYI we have never issued explicit legal threats, as even User:Writkeeper conceded [5] and our reply [6]. As outsiders our effective remedies are not limited by Wikipedia's Alice-in-Wonderland "off with their heads" edicts. HRA1924 (talk) 11:06, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I note that Tiptoety has indicated that he has received the above request, but has not yet answered it. While waiting for this response, and in the light of your statement regarding legal threats, would you please explain what "effective remedies" you believe are available to you? I remind you that Wikipedia is based in the USA, and is subject to American but not to Indian legal process.--Anthony Bradbury^"talk" 17:48, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi, You are correct when you say that Wikipedia is based in USA, but incorrect when you say it is not subject to Indian (or German) legal process. It is as entirely open to WMF not to respond to foreign court summonses or decrees, as it is for the Indian authorities / courts to simply direct all Indian ISPs to block all wikipedia domains in India because, say, WMF has not appointed a Grievance Officer in terms of section 11 of the ITGR 2011. For eg. this happened in the case of www.ripoffreport.com. It was illegally banned in India because the dissident employee union of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad had complained on ripoffreport [7] that (a) a leading Indian Industrialist on the IIMA's Board was corrupt, (b) 2 Deans of the IIMA were sexual predators, (c) there were massive financial scandals (details uploaded) in IIMA and so on. Since the ISPs could not block specific pages/ URLs efficiently, the Govt. issued secret orders to ISPs that Ripoffreport be blocked at root level and it was so blocked for over a year and ripoffreport couldn't get it lifted. At that time the dissident IIMA union was being represented by "Team Anna" and the employees then approached IAC to get the block lifted - which IAC got done within 10 days [8] and the union along with Anna's key coordinator then switched to us [9], [10]. Since the real IAC is low profile, we agreed that the media credit for our unblocking action could be taken by mouthshut.com (a similar Indian consumer report site) [11] which is being harassed under the ITGR 2011. HRA1924 (talk) 19:19, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

There is no significant advantage for any of us to engage in a discussion which is peripheral to the main thrust of the argument; but to be accurate, you are stating that the Indian government has power over India-based ISPs, which I am sure is correct, but that is not the same as having legal recourse to affect Wikipedia. And were that to happen in this case it would clearly impact upon Indian users of Wikipedia, but it would in no way impact upon Wikipedia as an entity.--Anthony Bradbury^"talk" 21:09, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Such a block probably wouldn't happen anyway. For example, there have been well-reported protests in India against Wikipedia's depiction of maps that show that country's (disputed) borders in a manner that is contrary to Indian law. Those protests included one at the Mumbai Wikiconference when Jimbo attended & involved the police as well as political groups. The government of India did nothing even though the depictions breach that government's laws. If they did nothing about the borders, they're not likely to do something regarding a minor pressure group that (I think I've been told by HRA) is banned in the country anyway.

In any event, the various messages from HRA above seem to me clearly to fall within the scope of WP:NLT. Talk page access should be denied & any further discussion taken off-wiki via email with WMF, OTRS or whatever. This farrago has gone on for long enough. - Sitush (talk) 21:57, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I do not disagree; but if it is to be done, an uninvolved admin should be the one to make the decision. --Anthony Bradbury^"talk" 22:24, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I've asked for review at WP:ANI. Tiptoety has indicated that they're busy and this has dragged on for well over six months now. - Sitush (talk) 22:35, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

@Anthony: You asked us for an example we provided a scenario. Please read these [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17] (arranged approximately chronologically). IAC is not HRA. HRA is an ideology. What is IAC asking for - only that WMF gives Indians a centralised Grievance Officer for time-bound resolution of complaints made by affected persons against Wikipedia content as notified by Government of India. It is for WMF as the host to get the content redacted by Wikipedia. If WMF does not then WMF's hosting immunity in India is compromised. As we said what Sitush has done are serious criminal offences under India's penal laws. Ultimately WMF is responsible for their anonymous user Sitush's actions. And for the record, we have tried all the options suggested for affected article subjects and they don't work. Wikipedia's self-written policies (like WP:NLT will not hold up in any Indian court versus the applicable laws of India. So please carry on with your ostrich attitude. HRA1924 (talk) 03:40, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

It is highly unlikely anyone from WMF will see your posts here. Please see meta:Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Legal_Policies; contact info from WMF legal is at meta:Legal NE Ent 03:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Per this discussion I have changed the block settings to include talkpage access. This was done with some reluctance, as the linked thread shows. I believe you are genuinely pursuing what you consider a grievance against your organisation, even though I may not immediately agree that that grievance is valid. However, you persist in making personal attacks against another editor, and in implying legal action against Wikipedia unless your concerns are addressed. These are both disruptive to continued editing of the encyclopedia. In passing they are also unlikely to generate any useful outcome regarding your original concerns.

I have left the unblock request open, and should that be granted by another admin it would of course include access to this page. But in the interim the options remain to you - to continue to raise your issues via email to the WMF/Tiptoety, or via the link that NE Ent has helpfully provided above. I would also add that it is a requirement of Wikipedia that you accept its terms of use in any post you make here. You have explicitly rejected Wikipedia's terms of use - which is your right, but makes it hard to argue that you should be permitted to continue posting. Euryalus (talk) 04:05, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

← OTRS administration response: OTRS holds no authority over the content hosted on Wikimedia sites. I have personally reviewed the correspondence between this user and an OTRS respondent and find that it was handled appropriately. While the IAC is welcome to continue to communicate with OTRS regarding their concerns, OTRS is not a process by which they can circumvent community discussion/consensus. If IAC believe that content being hosted on Wikipedia is libelous and or illegal they are welcome to contact the Wikimedia Foundation's Legal Team by mail at the following address:

Wikimedia Foundation

c/o CT Corporation System

818 West Seventh Street

Los Angeles, California 90017

Before doing so, I encourage a thorough read of the Foundations Legal policy, which can be found here. Please remember that content is bound by U.S law. I will once again remind the IAC, that the legal department/WMF are not the appropriate venue to go about resolving editorial or content disputes. Respectfully, Tiptoety ^talk 17:56, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Sockpuppet

This account has been confirmed by checkuser Ponyo to be a sockpuppet of User:Duffycharles. I've updated the block log accordingly. Bishonen | talk 23:17, 29 September 2014 (UTC).