User talk:Lisasmall/Archive 2

This is the second user talk archive page for Lisasmall. It contains only material relevant to editing Herbert W. Armstrong and working with User:Jebbrady.

Herbert W. Armstrong

First of all, I don't see any 3RR violations in the page history. However, it seems you're having a dispute which needs to be discussed more in depth on the talk page. If you wish, I will protect the page until the dispute is resolved. Andre (talk) 05:18, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Andre. I think the third revision was slipped in while you were looking at the page; or perhaps I'm not counting reversions accurately. I don't want the page protected in its current form, because the material I put in has been removed for a second time. (I added material, ? reverted it. I reverted that, and now it's been reverted back to the original again; three reversions, right?) Looking at the talk page, there appears to be a user who has a long history of removing simple factual material from the article. The anonymous account may (or may not) be that user's sock puppet. Where can I go to get help with preventing this user from removing simple biographical facts (number of children, number of marriages, age of brides and groom, ends of those marriages, ordination data) from the article? I am not a partisan of any point of view about Herbert Armstrong; I visited the article on my way to something else, saw it was scanty, and filled in a few of the gaps, using mainstream press (TIME magazine) and online sources, with citations. It's bewildering and depressing to have that material repeatedly removed. A review of the talk page shows that the editor in question has a long history of being not amenable to discussion or compromise, and it looks as though people wear out and move on, and the much-bowdlerized hagiography of Armstrong is all that he permits to remain. I will try discussion again but have zero hope of progress; what happens after that? -- Lisasmall 05:44, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Arbitration is the last step of the dispute resolution process. Before that, you need to try more discussion with this user, familiarize yourself with policies like Wikipedia:Reliable sources, and follow other steps in the dispute resolution process like mediation. Andre (talk) 20:41, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Andre, thank you very much for your help and direction. The attempts to discuss haven't worked, not just for me, but for prior editors who attempted civil discussion and were met with accusations of being polite as part of a nefarious strategy to make the article "owner" look bad. He seriously states that he suspects courtesy of being a form of attack. He's already had the "third opinion" intervention used (not by me), and dismissed it. So I've filed a sockpuppet report, and a WP:WQA. The reliable sources link you gave me will be very useful. -- Lisasmall 17:24, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello Lisasmall. I tried fixing the WP:SSP entry by moving the page, so that the report refers to 'Jebbrady' not 'jebbrady.' I fixed up the SSP category for Jebbrady so it is no longer a red link, and I changed the transclude to 'Jebbrady' on the main SSP page. Added a second SSP account to the report. If you see any remaining problems, please let me know. EdJohnston 17:23, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

EdJohnston, thank you! I could not get the link to work properly. I appreciate your fix. -- Lisasmall 17:24, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

User Jebbrady Discussion

Dear Edjohnson, Andre and Lisa,

Before I issue a challenge to you Lisa, I want to put forth a quick reminder of the history of this article to provide some context: since October I've been trying to clean up what can only be described as the strong appearance of religious discrimination--to put it mildly--in the articles treatment of Herbert W. Armstrong beliefs and life's work. On the discussion page, I have gone into exhaustive detail on this--especially in postings from December and Novemeber. There is much written because not all Wikipedia administrators are familiar with the subject. Taken as a whole it makes a devestating case to support my claim of that the article heavily featured POV expanded into bigotry toward a religion. The third party was not "dismissed" by me at any point, but eventually swung much support to the stand I was taking. I had to familiarize him with the subject in order for that to happen.

With that as the context, you make very strong indictments of my conduct on the discussion page-to put it politely.

I would like to issue you a challenge right here before all: Please back up these accusations by posting on this page the cut and pasted comments of mine that would back up your accusations in any way. (I'll see to the context if you don't of course). I will press the notion that failure to respond to this challenge should be regarded as proof that my conduct was not characterized in anything resembling an accurate, fair way. I don't expect to see anything that resembles your characterization remotely, but if you somehow do psot something, in good faith I expect you to cite the posting title so I can easily go back and examine the context, lest you be tempted to be a little unfair. For convenient review, here are the words of Lisasmall, describing my conduct--emphasis mine:

"The attempts to discuss haven't worked, not just for me, but for prior editors who attempted civil discussion and were met with accusations of being polite as part of a nefarious strategy to make the article "owner" look bad. He seriously states that he suspects courtesy of being a form of attack. He's already had the "third opinion" intervention used (not by me), and dismissed it.

208.253.158.36 17:52, 27 July 2007 (UTC)Jebbrady

Jebbrady, a couple of days ago, on the article's own talk page, I noted that I was giving you the courtesy of stepping back from edits of my own while you revise the article. I hope that the revision goes well.

At this point, as to problems with editor conduct, the formal dispute resolution process has begun based on the changes to the article and the discussions on the article's talk page. Presently, all the prior relevant exchanges between us, and your disputes with prior editors, are readily available on the article's talk page and can be located by either reading the whole page, skimming the page, or using the Control-F functions to search the page. I think it's easier on everyone to keep the discussions there, instead of opening up another forum. -- Lisasmall 22:31, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

A response by jebbrady left here contrary to the request above has been moved to the talk page for Herbert W. Armstrong. -- Lisasmall 23:53, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Armstrong criticism section

Lisa, EdJohnston has suggested that someone come up with a criticism section for the Armstrong article in userpage space for discussion purposes. I don't feel qualified to do the initial pass at it: would you like to give it a shot? I'm going to check with RelHistBuff as well. Thanks.--SarekOfVulcan 16:57, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Sarek, I've made efforts to catch up with you elsewhere. -- Lisasmall 00:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Lisa. Starting with mid-April, I've been going through the article history of Herbert W. Armstrong and restoring some factual details that I noticed disappearing. Now I'm up to your edit here in which you provide details about the breakup of Armstrong's marriage to Ramona. Though I think it's valid to write about this, the sourcing to the Ambassador Report might be questioned by some, since it appears to be an anti-Armstrong publication, and I see you appear to have an Amazon reader review in there as well. Can you comment as to (a) is this really important?, (b) how much work might it be to crank the quality of the sources up a notch? I am OK with using http://www.isitso.org/guide/hwabio.html as a source because someone (Sarek?) told me it was also a printed book. I also have J. Michael Feazell's book but it mostly addresses doctrinal issues. Thanks, EdJohnston 15:26, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's also a book, but I haven't seen a copy to see what information it has about Armstrong: you can see its Amazon link on this page.--SarekOfVulcan 16:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Lisa, Ed, and Sarek! I see that there is a general search for better sources. One that ought to be used (but may cause problems as jebbrady will surely object to its use) is a book by the third pastor general of the WCG — Tkach Jr., Joseph, Transformed by Truth, Multnomah, 1997, ISBN 1-57673-181-2. The book is out-of-print, but it is made freely available on the web by the WCG (see here). In chapter 5 you will find a statement about Armstrong taking advantage of modern medicine. In chapter 8 you will find more details on how the doctrine on healing changed and it seems to have started with Armstrong himself (he took heart medications). Chapter 12 contains a statement on his marriage and divorce of Ramona Martin (and the age gap between the two). I know I can intervene and put some material in myself (yes I should be bold), but please excuse me if I stay out of this for the moment. --RelHistBuff 11:59, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

When a sock is still a sock

(copied from Fut.Perf.'s talk page) [1] Hi, Perfect. I was reading this conversation and I want to add something to it. You said, The identity of the accounts and the IP was obvious and never concealed. Without an element of attempted deception (faking support for one's opinions by others, passing off reverts as reverts by others etc.), how can there be abusive sockpuppetry? Here's a situation that might alter your view in general (though not at the specific case you were discussing with MastCell).

Several editors and I have been having an awful time with a user who had straight-up unsigned sockpuppets. After much work, he was finally convinced to "sign" his posts -- but he doesn't sign in. He uses multiple IP's and then types his name in manually. This superficially gets him past your standard about intent to deceive, but it does not resolve what is actually a very serious problem in conflict resolution, where it's important to use article history pages and user contribs pages to know who changed what when, and to see what a particular user has done.

Anyone trying to review this user's conduct has to check several "contribs" pages, and of course can't use the article history page at all, because his typed signature doesn't appear there -- only a series of different IP's, all of which are him. It gives the impression of, say, four editors making eight edits apiece, instead of one editor making 32 edits all alone. Furthermore, he's been warned so many times by so many people in such detail that at this point, even the most generous reviewer allowing for the maximum of innocent ignorance has got to consider that he's doing it on purpose to dilute and disperse his record.

Since he's typing in his name manually, he facially meets your "never concealed" standard, but by refusing to use the tildes, he is effectively (and possibly intentionally) concealing his own contributions on article history pages, article talk pages, and all the contribs pages for his multiple identities. It's my feeling that WP:SOCK is still a legit way to deal with this. -- Lisasmall 03:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your comments. You're making an interesting point there. In fact, I've been involved with a similar case and I know how frustrating it is. Perhaps we ought to have a separate rule for that kind of thing: if you need to engage in a dispute over a significant amount of time, you're required to either make sure your IP is reliably stable, or get an account (when people ask you to). But as our rules stand now, WP:SOCK simply doesn't cover this type of thing. WP:SOCK is all about "abusing several accounts"; you can't really be abusing several accounts if you aren't using any, can you? (Hah, you're an attorney, I must demonstrate I can wikilawyer with the best of them...;-) It sure is uncooperative editing if somebody does it despite being asked not to, but it's not really sockpuppetry technically. According to our rules, anybody is free to edit anonymously whenever they wish. It's probably because of Jimbo's insistence that "anyone can edit" means "anyone can edit without registering"; I think he's always held that very high as a principle. Regards, Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:46, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, no, it turns out on further research that it is included specifically in the definition of sockpuppetry. Take a look at the very explicit, specific language in WP:SOCK:

Multiple accounts should not be used as a way of avoiding the scrutiny of your fellow editors by ensuring you leave no audit trail. Using sock puppet accounts to split your contributions history means that other editors cannot detect patterns in your contributions. While this may occasionally be legitimate (see below under legitimate uses), it is a violation of this policy to create multiple accounts, or to edit as IP, rather than logging in to your account, in order to confuse or deceive editors who may have a legitimate interest (a legitimate interest excludes wikistalking) in reviewing your contributions.

— Avoiding scrutiny from other editors, WP:SOCK, Sec. 2.2

Also, I'd like to consolidate this discussion on either your talk page or mine. Is that okay with you? Do you have a preference as to which one? -- Lisasmall 16:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

(copying over the first parts from my talk as you requested) -- Nice find, but to continue our lawyerish discussion further, isn't the scope of that language in SOCK still limited by the context it stands in, which clearly deals with the use of "accounts"? Specifically, the clause you quote, to edit as an IP (and I'm now getting lawyerisher and lawyerisher) must be read together with its following modifier, which is syntactically an integral part of it (despite, as some lawyers might be quick to point out here, the misplaced comma): ... rather than logging in to your account. Which presupposes that you have an account in the first place. So, it's talking about a situation like where I, established non-anon user, log out to vandalise your userpage through my IP. If I'm an anon-only user from the start, I really have no way of falling under the scope of that page.

Well, anyway, seriously now, I totally agree that what you describe can be a big nuisance, it's uncooperative editing if nothing else and as such an instance of being a m:DICK, and in extreme cases one might call it disruption and thus blockable. But I'd still say it's not really the same thing as sockpuppetry, it's something else. -- We mustn't forget that any newbie IP user who works from a non-stative IP range is basically in the same situation at first, and they are supposed to be welcome and there is, by default, no special obligation for them to use any extra measures to make their contributions more easily trackable. Common sense seems to say that the line towards being a DICK is where an anon engages in a long-standing debate or dispute and refuses to register when nicely asked to. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Perfect, for moving the material over and for weighing in again. I don't WP:LAWYER so I can't really get into this with you except to say our interpretations of 2.2 differ, particularly as they apply to someone who is not a newbie, who does have an account, and has been warned numerous times by numerous people. -- Lisasmall 19:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, wait, I'd understood that person hadn't an account to begin with? I guess that changes a few things, okay. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:45, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, just to make sure this doesn't remain completely "academic", if you need any admin assistance with this case, let me know, okay? I suppose it's the case you are talking about further below, now going to Arbcom? Take care, Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Perfect, vielen dank, I really appreciate it. I hope we have it covered for now. There are at least five editors/admins who have worked on the situation for weeks, or in some cases, months. I hope that's enough. -- Lisasmall | Talk 01:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Arbitration case involving User:Jebbrady

For your information, I have filed an arbitration case about Jebbrady's editing of the Armstrong-related articles.--SarekOfVulcan 16:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi, now that the arbitration case is open, that may help, though they get pretty overloaded at Arbcom. I'm not sure if you still need the advise you requested, but I responded on my talk page. Please let me know if you want me to comment further. Good luck! --Parsifal _Hello 18:53, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Sarek, let me know what I can do to assist. I am willing to sign on as an interested party if you would like (and if you can tell me how). I am going to try to close the WP:WQA today or this weekend, since you have the WP:ARB up. However, I proceeded with a sock/meat puppet report, though I'm having a horrible time with the template there because it needed to be named Jebbrady (2nd) rather than just Jebbrady, per their instructions. I can't seem to get it right and will need to be walked through it or ask someone to fix it after I save the report page. I'm hoping MastCell will, but if you know how please don't be shy. It's here. I can't finish giving the proper sockpuppet notices until I get the title fixed. And the sockpuppet process isn't finished until I give the notices. Agh. -- Lisasmall 19:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC) [LATE EDIT: template problem fixed, see reply to EdJohnston right below] -- Lisasmall 21:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Looking at this screen it appears that both reports have been entered and named correctly. What is still amiss? EdJohnston 20:46, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

EdJohnston, thank you, I was able to get the coding fixed almost immediately after leaving the note above. All better now, and the template worked when I used it to give notice to the puppetmaster/puppet accounts. Thank you for checking it out; I'm sorry I didn't get back here to post an update before you saw the request for help. -- Lisasmall 21:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Lisa, I'm not sure if there's anything you can/should do at this point, but if you want to gather some evidence and add yourself as an "involved party" and give a 500-word-or-less statement covering aspects of the problem I missed, or how the aspects I brought up pertain to you, that could be useful. Otherwise, wait and see if the case is accepted, at which point the Arbcom will be accepting evidence beyond the 500-word limit. Note that involved parties are bound by Arbcom decisions: Evidence-givers are not.--SarekOfVulcan 21:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I added myself as a commenter instead of an involved party, right under RelHistBuff, and kept it very brief. Thank you again for coming in as a WP:ASSIST on this. I am sorry it's taken up so much of your time, and grateful that you've been willing to give it. -- Lisasmall | Talk 23:21, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

It's been suggested by an Arbitrator that it be taken to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct first. You may want to add that page to your watchlist or keep an eye on it so that if Sarek does file an RfC you can comment on it. 24.6.65.83 06:44, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

RFC has already happened at least twice. I guess this means picking through the whole archive to show the arbs each date of an RFC, a THIRD, the ASSIST(s), the WQA. Some of that's already in the WQA, with diffs, and all of that was mentioned in my comment. I don't understand why the arb would want to put everyone through yet another RFC. Thanks for the heads-up, 24. -- Lisasmall | Talk 12:44, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Mine was an article RFC, and I think the earlier one was as well. What the arbitrator is suggesting is a user conduct RFC, which is a bit different. I've pointed out to the arb Jebbrady's disdain for third parties we supposedly waste his time with. --SarekOfVulcan 13:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi Lisa, about WP:RFC/U, I've never been involved in one but I've seen a few. They seem very slow and to have no teeth at all. I suggest you review the WP:RFC/U instructions and also Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct/Archive before investing time in that. I guess if the arbitrators insist, you might have to do it, but after you review the way they work and what kind of results have ever come from them, you might be able to convince the arbitrator to waive that request. I'm not familiar with your case but just wanted to offer the suggestion to review what is or is not possible with an RFC/U. Good luck. --Parsifal _Hello 18:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

(reset)Well, it looks like I'm going to have to refile as an RFC, since there are two decline votes now. If nothing else, it lets us get our story all laid out properly.--SarekOfVulcan 19:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay. If you need help drafting something, including supporting documents, I'm available, but for speed and clarity, it might be easier to do via email. It's strange; there are 13 "active" arbitrators but the whole RFARB page seems to be getting very little attention from them. Not just this case, all of them. August vacations, maybe? Also, no official action has been noted on the second SOCK I filed, which apparently is still waiting for admin attention. -- LisaSmall ^T/C 02:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Jebbrady RFC up

I've put it up here: you need to review it and see if you can certify my statement within 24 hours (because I wasted 24 before taking it live).--SarekOfVulcan 20:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's supposed to go in the middle of mine: can you add it below as a comment instead? That way, I can endorse it if I agree with it. Also, can you try to get more diffs, instead of section links? Text can change in a section link, but not in a diff. (And yes, I know it's pretty damned hard to do. Maybe you'll be able to use some of mine...) --SarekOfVulcan 20:34, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Or not, I don't know... this thing is so confusing!--SarekOfVulcan 20:38, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a summary written by users who are concerned by this user's conduct. Users signing other sections ("Response" or "Outside views") should not edit the "Statement of the dispute" section. -- guess that's the right way to do it....--SarekOfVulcan 20:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I have added my evidence to the RFC/U. I used a lot of diffs and if you click on each of them, I think the story unfolds pretty well. All his long responses speak for themselves. And I never got angry with him. I do hope something good will come out of this and this would restore some of my faith in the Wiki project. --RelHistBuff 16:28, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Can we ask people to endorse the summary? --RelHistBuff 17:24, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I've been wondering about that myself. We had six editors comment on the WQA. Now, it's down to three of us. I don't know if that's exhaustion, vacations (it is August... a lot of people are gone), or a lack of information that the RFC/U exists and that they may still certify or endorse it. I don't want to fall afoul of WP:CANVASS but at the same time, this needs to come to an end. The policy allows for neutral notices "Notifying all editors who substantively edited or discussed the article or project" (my emphasis), so there wouldn't be a need to drop a note on the page of every editor who ever dropped in a single remark. (The talk page has a couple of those; there may be some meatpuppetry).

People who cared enough to comment on the WQA were MastCell, EdJohnston, IP User 24.6.65.83 (who is now Pairadox), SarekOfVulcan, you yourself (RelHistBuff), and SurrogateSpook. Spook came in via the WQA and only provided one comment on the talkpage, which was entirely ignored; balancing those two factors against each other, I don't know if you'd say he was substantively involved or not.

Other editors and admins who didn't comment on the WQA but have tried to work with Jebbrady on the talk page with limited or no success this summer include: Andrevan, Jossi, Cadwallader, Preekout, and "Jere" (IP User jere 71.203.211.107).

Jeb doesn't need a notice, as he's already been formally informed, but the policy does call for a notice to be given on the article talk page. BTW, I thought the way you presented your evidence was very clear. I wish I'd used your format. -- LisaSmall ^T/C 19:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

"And I never got angry with him." *sigh* Wish I could say the same, but I definitely got snappish in some of my responses.--SarekOfVulcan 19:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Pairadox mentioned a concern on his SarekOfVulcan's talkpage about possibly being perceived as a cabal if contributing to the RFC/U. I thought of that too, and I tried to forestall accusations of cabal-hood by noting in my evidence that twelve editors have tried to work with the problem user, and so far as I know, none of us know each other or have worked together before. I don't know what to expect; I thought this situation would have been dealt with by now. We have to show that the community is exhausted, so I assume that more endorsements or even additional certifications are helpful. -- LisaSmall ^T/C 19:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Whoops! a quick apology to Pairadox and Sarek for forgetting which user page I was on at the beginning of my cabal note above. Thanks to whoever fixed it. -- LisaSmall ^T/C 20:13, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there should be any Cabal concerns. So long as the RFCU looks to be a good-faith step in a problem-solving process, no-one should complain. I have been thinking of endorsing, but am not eager to collect diffs. I would certainly sign off on any neutral recitation of the history. Can someone clarify how much I am endorsing if I sign 'Endorse this summary' in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jebbrady#Other users who endorse this summary? Am I thereby backing everything that was said by anyone else in sections 1.1 through 1.6? Thanks to anyone who can explain. EdJohnston 19:42, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I think it's time to start using the RFC/U's talk page. We're starting to get some seriously fragmented discussions going. Ed, I'll copy your question over (as well as Lisa's comment) and reply there. Pairadox 19:54, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

You're right, much thanks. -- LisaSmall ^T/C 20:13, 28 August 2007 (UTC)