Requests for Comment/Global ban for ApexAgunomu

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    The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
    The inputs I've received (including two Stewards + statements from Apex) are comfortable with an early closure in favor. Due to this and the strong support ratio, this ban is closed earlier than the 5 day traditional minimum and now Yes check.svg in place. It shall not be reversed except by successful community vote (started by an inquiry to stewards(at)miraheze.org).
    I advise Apex to appeal no sooner than six months from now, and to indefinitely avoid any breach of user accounts policy (be it creating another account or IP editing). Expiry of IP blocks is not an endorsement to edit by IP. Otherwise I ask the community keep an open mind when a reasonable period of time passes and if there is no evidence of further issue at the time of appeal.
    While I'd like to have seen more participation and decisiveness for a sanction this heavy, the overall statements are strongly in favor of a global ban even if one or two users come out in strong opposition. More discussion will certainly come up around the events leading to and including this RfC, but as Apex herself agrees by IP edit below (credible, based on previous IP checks) there is consensus and it may as well happen. The problem is weaker than previous community bans, but in this case the user has received an unprecedented amount of tailored abuse filters, chances/warnings, and opportunity to follow promises of change all of which have not been met repeatedly. This has caused a bit of Steward team controversy and I apologize for that. I hope we can do better and offer more consistency going forward.
    I leave the Discord and IRC teams to decide if this extends off-platform, given the lack of precedence in this matter (we usually don't extend locks cross-platform automatically). I second Agent's advice for a clarification RfC about global community bans. --Raidarr (talk) 19:53, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

    Proposal[edit | edit source]

    User:ApexAgunomu, previously known as User:Bugambilia, is a user registered since 2020 and who has been extremely abusive on the projects, including, but not limited to:

    This is only scraping the surface of what this user has done, there's certainly much more abuse I could find if I looked for it, but the point has been made.

    Much more concerningly, Bugambilia/ApexAgunomu has been linked to user w:User:Skiyomi on Wikimedia since 2020, through the use of their sockpuppet names and through behavioral evidence. Skiyomi is heavily abusive on Wikimedia as well, with many known sockpuppets and through abuse on IRC, including a death threat copypasta which is routinely posted in channels, such as this one:

    [2022-04-16 09:42:02] → f32 joined (~f@165.22.232.20)
    [2022-04-16 09:42:13] <f32> for yamlafuck pooyo and deepfuckfuck to jump off a bridge and die as soon as possible and to free skiyomi and other ltas for yamlafuck pooyo and deepfuckfuck to jump off a bridge and die as soon as possible and to free skiyomi and other ltas for yamlafuck pooyo and deepfuckfuck to jump off a bridge and die as soon as possible and to free skiyomi
    [2022-04-16 09:42:13] ⇐ f32 quit (~f@165.22.232.20): Killed (ozone (No Spam))

    (this has been happening about twice a week for the last year)

    It's gotten so bad that ozone, known as Sigyn up until May 19th 2021, automatically k-lines anyone who says this due to the extremely frequent abuse there.

    I personally was not aware of this rename from Bugambilia to ApexAgunomu, if I had, I would have acted a lot sooner as Bugambilia has acted in bad faith numerous times, with them being known as an LTA on Wikimedia and on Miraheze, for example user User:Sario528 describing them as a troll multiple times offwiki and onwiki, which I initially thought was too harsh as it seemed as though this was simply a misguided CIR user-- but given the now-clear history between ApexAgunomu and Bugambilia, with my knowledge of Bugambilia's abusive behavior, I would say that "troll" is not a strong enough description. Trolls are people who engage in minor annoyance for fun, not massive sockpuppetry and death threats.

    I had planned to propose a global ban on around June 10th, but one day later on the 11th they self-requested a global lock, which I assumed would be the start of a very long break. Three days later they requested unblock, which appears to be yet another attempt at either evading scrutiny, or a competence issue

    Given ApexAgunomu/Bugamilia's long-term pattern of abusive behavior for years on end without any changes, history of vandalism, sending death threats on other projeccts, with no stopping this abuse but persistently disrupting multiple projects despite local blocks, but multiple attempts at gaming the community and avoiding scrutiny, I propose a global ban. This user meets our criteria of global bans as outlined on the global bans page: Global bans by the community are generally done in extreme cases where the user has engaged in severe cross-wiki abuse, has persistently disrupted various Miraheze projects, and where remediation attempts to address any behavior deemed an issue have failed.

    Thank you. Naleksuh (talk) 05:15, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

    Support[edit | edit source]

    1. Per nom. Naleksuh (talk) 05:22, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
    2. Symbol partial support vote.svg Weak support While I am not aware of the full extent of ApexAgunomu's actions and history a superficial look clearly demonstrates behavior that is unsuitable for Miraheze. There appear to have been numerous attempts to get ApexAgunomu to change his/her behavior which all appear to have largely failed. The events that unfolded also suggest that Stewards have not taken a clear and decisive approach to this issue. Two reasons cause me to be somewhat reluctant about this proposal. The first is that the self-requested lock by ApexAgunomu is suggestive of a willingness to change his/her behavior and is indicative of wanting to take a break from Miraheze and return changed. The second is that by enacting this community ban I find it highly unlikely that the community will ever vote to accept an appeal by ApexAgunomu. To conclude while there are some reasons which make me reluctant I have decided to weakly support this proposal due to the somewhat questionable handling of this case by Stewards in my view which leads me to believe that this would in all likeliness be pursued after the self-request lock is lifted. To me ApexAgunomu has demonstrated that while they require a lot of attention from Stewards, Global Sysops and even local administrators they do not seem to benefit the project or contribute meaningfully in any way. --DeeM28 (talk) 06:56, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
      Thanks for voting. To clarify, their request for a global lock was made shortly after I was considering filing this proposal, and decided not to. Also, in case you weren't aware, they have requested to be unlocked over IRC, announcing that they are back from their break, making this a three day "break". To me, this does not show a willingness to change, as three days is no time to change anything, and is the same repeated behavior of multiple failed claims at changing. In addition, the link to the abusive Skiyomi behavior make it clear that there are bad faith actions and there is no real hope at changing while they are still posting death threats on IRC. Naleksuh (talk) 07:39, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
      There is a fairly long history of misbehaving, followed by immediate regret and attempts to terminate the alias responsible. Meta block circumvention with ApexTest eventually resulting in self requested lock, cooperation after most instances of misbehaving followed by promises of 'I won't do it again', and creation of sockpuppets which are almost immediately self-reported, although I was not impressed with the public duplicity in the case of PokeFan which is still recent on the Steward's noticeboard. This case has been the result of some confusion in CVT ranks including the significant degree of faith and mercy presented by Dmehus which I for the most part have avoided combating, though from my perspective the user is on their last straw besides whatever comes of this RfC. The individual actions are not all that terrible (on Miraheze - if the wikimedia evidence could be pulled here then I would say differently), the issue taken (and source of confusion) is the pattern seen above. --Raidarr (talk) 12:04, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
    3. I don't really think that what ApexAgunomu have done is as severe as the previous globally banned users (e.g. User:Lawrence-Prairies), but they met the requirements of a global ban that persistant disruptive behaviour is shown after numerous warnings. Therefore, I am voting Symbol partial support vote.svg Weak support. Cheers, Matttest (talk | contribs) 08:37, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
    4. Symbol strong support vote.svg Strong support the lack of action thus far has been utterly frustrating to me. They have been given far to many chances and have shown little to no change. I see no way I could oppose this at all, and it seems to be the only course of action, seeing as how they are given chance after chance for what they have already done. I would like to note, that however I am giving a strong support, I do so reluctantly. I do believe its necessary, but I never take it lightly when voting for things like this. I wish it hadn't have come this far, but there has been no lasting action taken thus far, anf I feel it is necessary. Universal Omega (talk) 08:44, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
    5. Symbol support vote.svg Support This clearly meets the standard of disruption needed to justify a global ban. ApexAgunomu has been disruptive and apologised and then gone back to causing a mess on more occasions than I dare count. This has been clear across multiple platforms and wikis. While I understand the reluctance in some of the votes, I don't believe they ever will change. The chances given by the Steward team have been far too generous and there has been far too many blockers put in place to prevent action here rather than support to deal with it. The vote on TestWiki left a clear sign of the communities opinion and I expect that to be reflected here. ~ RhinosF1 - (chat)· acc· c - (on) 10:24, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
    6. Symbol support vote.svg Support I've been keeping a close watch on this user for a while now, and all she has ever done was write a bunch of gibberish on multiple wikis, including Qualitipedia Central. Honestly, I've warned her not to do so when she did it in April, but proceeded to ignore that. So, for that, I am supporting this, one way or another. --DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 11:28, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
    7. Symbol full support vote.svg Strongest support You'll hear no arguments from me. ZeusDeeGoose (talk) 12:54, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
    8. Symbol full support vote.svg Strongest support This user has demonstrated a clear lack of learning capacity throughout her presence on the platform. She's been constantly writing comments with either gibberish or a variation of "hi fuckers" (even using the n-word on one occasion), adding patent nonsense to pages, and even sending death threats through other accounts. It's clear that her days on this platform are numbered at this point. Marxo Grouch (talk) 15:01, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
      @Marxo Grouch: just for procedural clarity do you have references to the death threats occurring on Miraheze after the initial unlock, or is this just drawn from the original text on Wikimedia? --Raidarr (talk) 15:14, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
      @Raidarr: I might have drawn it from the Wikimedia text. Guess I should have read more into that part of the proposal before I mentioned it. Marxo Grouch (talk) 17:30, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
    9. Symbol support vote.svg Support I don't know if all the "I'll do better next time" is part of Apex's game, or if they simply lack any form of self-control. Either way, it is abundantly clear to me that Apex will not stop trolling, no matter how many chances we give her. Sario528 (talk) 19:13, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
    10. Symbol partial support vote.svg Weak support Due to the abusive actions, but she can send an email or write on IRC. AlPaD (talk) 06:28, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
      If this proposal passes (which it almost certainly will), ApexAgunomu will not be allowed to use Special:EmailUser nor connect to any Miraheze IRC channel; they may, however, appeal the ban after a period determined by the closing Steward, likely from 6 months to 1 year. Naleksuh (talk) 07:19, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
      The objection in 6-12 months seems to me to be a good idea. AlPaD (talk) 19:27, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

    Oppose[edit | edit source]

    Neutral[edit | edit source]

    1. Symbol neutral vote.svg Abstain I will admit, ApexAgunomu's case has not been handled in a manner that pleases me or basically anyone else. The Steward in charge of ApexAgunomu's lock has been extraordinary lenient with her and has given her a leniency like never seen before. So much so that she has a dedicated AbuseFilter to prevent her from spamming random letters and to 'guide' her. ApexAgunomu was also never classified as a long-term abuser but rather as a User accounts policy violator whereas any other creating the amount of accounts and spam as she did would have been classified a long-term abuser. However, I do not believe this should be escalated to a global ban. Taking a look at precedent, ApexAgunomu's on-wiki activity is nothing compared to the long-term abuse of previously globally banned users such as Lawrence-Prairies and PlavorSeol. Lawrence-Prairies engaged in extensive sockpuppetry and gross cross-wiki abuse that you might even still be able to find traces on. On older pages, you might find abusive page moves made by accounts controlled by LP in which her sockpuppets move pages to offensive names which yell expletives at users. On some older Phabricator tasks, you can also find where she hijacked them or created accounts impersonating Miraheze and then proceeded to attack Stewards. PlavorSeol on the other hand had severe conduct issues such as in this Phabricator task where they acted abusively and extremely hostile towards a user seeking help along with other actions of on-wiki hostility. At worst, ApexAgunomu should've never been unlocked and should be relocked for vandalism but a full on community ban for her sounds like bringing a hammer to open a peanut. If anything, I would argue that at most, ApexAgunomu should be relocked and her case handled by someone other than Dmehus but imposing a community ban for a vandal sounds too harsh and sets a bad precedent to follow as this basically states that vandals should be bludgeoned by the hammer of a global ban instead of a global lock. I would also like to point out that Global bans is not policy but rather an information page (the page itself states Officially, no policy exists on global bans but de facto global bans do exist in various forms). The page states that global bans by the community are generally done if the user has engaged in severe cross-wiki abuse, has persistently disrupted various Miraheze projects, and where remediation attempts to address any behavior deemed an issue have failed (this being derived from observations made from previous global ban RfCs). As such, there is no minimum requirement to fulfil in order to be able to file a motion to globally ban someone but there should be. Perhaps with this, we can set the time to formally establish a policy regarding global bans as there are only conventions and practices around it but no formal policy. Agent Isai Talk to me! 17:53, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

    Comments[edit | edit source]

    I am surprised to see this (though I think I may have heard of it a few days ago), considering he has helped a bit on a Pokemon Wiki that I created (ulterior motive?), and I was unaware of some of this other stuff, although I have heard of PokeFan19 being a sockpuppet (I think) who made one article (List of items) and then appeared to have shortly after requested their account be locked. I'm abstaining from the vote (though technically giving a weak support, based on what was said above) as I'm not fully aware of the situation and just wanted to prove input of my experience with him. Bawitdaba (talk) 11:02, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

    PokeFan19 is an apex alias yes. I would say Apex is not incapable of good and in some places/circumstances may have even left a good impression, but it is indeed interspersed with routine violations in global policy and ethic, which has been measured with an unprecedented degree of support via, for example, dedicated abusefilters which nullify (many but not all) attempts at undesirable behavior. From my perspective the account creations and occasional spam, including with an IP on meta shortly before PokeFan19 was made, is the most problematic aspect here. --Raidarr (talk) 11:58, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

    Hello, this is ApexAgunomu. I know I shouldn't normally edit under an IP address while my account is locked, but seeing as it's a self-requested lock and I don't know when it will be unlocked, I wanted to add my thoughts in here. First, while I am indeed Skiyomi on Wikimedia and I have misused multiple accounts there, I am not the one making those comments on IRC. I don't know who it is, but I promise that wasn't me. I also would like to ask that I have one last chance to show that I can indeed obey the rules here on Miraheze, and become a good member of this community. I realize many of my actions here have been disruptive and completely unacceptable, but I will make a serious effort to improve my behavior and not trigger any more filters here maliciously. Thank you. 12.88.141.146 12:08, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

    The lock is already undone. --Raidarr (talk) 12:16, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

    Closure Request[edit | edit source]

    This is ApexAgunomu again. As I asked yesterday on IRC, I would like this RfC to be closed and the global ban enacted, as there is clearly a consensus for it. I just would rather this discussion about me not go on any longer. Thank you. 12.88.141.146 12:20, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

    ApexAgunomu, it would be best to wait for the closing Steward to make the final decision here. --DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 12:37, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
    Per the RfC policy, RfCs "must generally stay open for at least five (5) days" with limited exceptions provided. Given that these 5 days haven't passed yet and none of the exceptions apply here it won't be possible for this RfC to be closed until 20 June. Reception123 (talk) (C) 13:51, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
    @Raidarr: said on IRC yesterday that since there is a clear consensus and he checked with John, it would be possible to go ahead and close this as successful. I just would like any discussions about me here to be over. 12.88.141.146 13:54, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section
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