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Requests for arbitration

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Case requests

Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
Joefromrandb		22 January 2018	0/0/0

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Open cases

Case name	Links	Evidence due	Prop. Dec. due
Indian military history	(t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t)	08 Jun 2025	22 Jun 2025

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Recently closed cases (Past cases)

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Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: WikiProject Tropical Cyclones	Motion	(orig. case)	28 June 2025
Amendment request: Self-identification and citizenship of BLPs.	none	none	18 June 2025

Arbitrator motions

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Joefromrandb

Initiated by - MrX 🖋 at 13:29, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Involved parties

• MrX (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Joefromrandb (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

[1]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• January 18, 2018
• October 7, 2017
• July 1, 2017
• June 7, 2017
• January 30, 2014
• December 30, 2013
• November 26, 2013
• August 7, 2013

Statement by MrX

I respectfully request that the Arbitration Committee examine evidence that Joefromrandb has exhibited an ongoing pattern of overtly-hostile editing characterized by repeated personal attacks, assumptions of bad faith, inflammatory edit summaries, and edit warring. There is compelling evidence that Joefromrandb views editors who disagree with his edits as enemies, and that he treats Wikipedia as a WP:BATTLEGROUND. His interaction with other editors are largely in opposition to the principle of the fourth pillar.

Joefromrandb's conduct was first brought to the committee's attention when a request for arbitration filed on October 20, 2017 by TomStar81. On November 8, 2017, the committee decline to intercede by seven to three, with two members recusing.

The day after the RFAR was declined, Joefromrandb resumed edit warring at talk:Kim Davis[2][3][4][5]. This was followed by bellicose talk page comments [6][7][8] in the form of personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith. Two months later, he reverted an edit restoring the removal of a large amount of content. His response to my request to discuss the matter on the talk page was to delete my request with the edit summary "No-troll zone" it was only after admins El C and Floquenbeam intervened that Joefromrandb nominally joined the talk page discussion. There, he continued making personal attacks [9][10], including one directed at an admin.[11]

After the matter was brought to ANI, he continued to maintain that Prhartcom and I put lies in the article.[12][13][14] When asked to provide evidence to substantiate his accusation, by two admins and another editor, he said that he should be able to the next morning.[15] That was more than three days ago.

There has been at least one other recent incident involving edit warring in which he exhibited hostility toward another editor.

Evidence will show that this editor is unable or unwilling to follow our WP:NPA, WP:EW, and WP:EDITING policies, even after numerous warnings and blocks. It will also show that, in many case, if his edits are reverted, he becomes belligerent and uncooperative.

With the hope of preempting objections about swear words or subjective civility standards, this comment from the last request for arbitration sums it up nicely:

"No one cares if someone swears; what they should care about is if someone becomes so hard to work with that it gets in the way of developing good content. That was the open question before the Committee, not whether the phrase "fuck off" is inherently upsetting."
— Euryalus

Thank you for your consideration.- MrX 🖋 13:29, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Floq

I was pinged in MrX's statement, but don't have much to say except:

• I like and respect both MrX and Joe
• It really depresses me that it's come to this
• I agree things shouldn't keep going the way they are, but I'm at a loss for any further productive non-drastic suggestions
• Sigh.

--Floquenbeam (talk) 15:37, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Drmies

What Floq says. Drmies (talk) 17:16, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Toddst1

I said this in the last RFAR for this editor and it still applies: At this point, I feel Joefromrandb's chronic and epic incivility and battleground behavior is a strong net-negative on the project. It's not about profanity. The problem doesn't seem to be solvable other than through this channel. Toddst1 (talk) 19:39, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Beyond My Ken

Because AN/I does not seem to be able to resolve this issue, I think there's no choice except for the Committee to take up this case. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Statement by User:Robert McClenon

Three months ago User:TomStar81 first closed a thread at WP:ANI involving User:Joefromrandb and then posted a Request for Arbitration. I think that Tomstar81’s action was misunderstood. It was thought that he had first closed the thread and so resolved the matter, and then that he changed his mind. What I saw was that he had closed the thread as not resolvable by the community, and so a matter for ArbCom. It was also my understanding that Tom was not so much asking the ArbCom to sanction Joe as to give long serious quasi-judicial consideration to what to do not only about Joe but about editors who taunt and provoke Joe.

I noted that Joe had come to the attention of a community procedure four years ago, a Request for Comment on a User, a procedure that is no longer used, but was closed inconclusively with a reminder to all (not just to Joe) that Wikipedia is not a battleground. In response to the recent filing, User: Opabinia regalis, with the best of intentions, asked Joe whether he was willing to make one last effort to change his behavior and try editing collaboratively. The ArbCom then declined the case. Joe has not materially changed his behavior (and it may have been naively optimistic of the ArbCom to think that he would). It was clear that the ArbCom really really really didn’t want to take on a case that would have no winners and would leave no one really satisfied. However, there is a problem, that isn’t just Joe. Joe is one of a set of highly productive but combative users who have enemies and who are easily provoked (like poking a bear). I proposed that the ArbCom try to craft some sort of remedy for editors like Joe, but perhaps the ArbCom didn’t understand that I was asking them for a solution to a larger problem than Joe, or perhaps the ArbCom didn’t want to solve problems.

Once again, I ask the ArbCom to accept this case, not just to sanction this editor, but to see if it is possible to craft a remedy for controversial editors, just as ArbCom has crafted a very effective remedy, discretionary sanctions, for controversial topics.

The community, which is seldom able to deal with divisive cases, just crafted an experimental remedy for contentious editors in the case of Darkness Shines and C.W. Gilmore, in which each editor leaves a Kelvin wake behind them that the other editor cannot trespass in. This illustrates that occasionally interesting remedies are available to reduce conflict in Wikipedia.

I ask the ArbCom to accept this case. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:37, 23 January 2018 (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).

Joefromrandb: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/0/0>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse)

• Awaiting statements, especially from Joefromrandb. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:05, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
• This case request feels premature, but I will wait for more statements also. I would like to request Joefromrandb's statement to include an update on this edit. Alex Shih (talk) 17:03, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
• Last time this was here, several arbitrators declined on the expectation that Joe would follow through with his plans to collaborate in a more collegial manner. If that has not happened and the issues continue to be unresolvable at community venues, then it is time to examine this in more detail in a case. Awaiting Joe’s statement, which I hope addresses how his behavior has changed since the previous case request. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:14, 22 January 2018 (UTC)