Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Rangerdude/Evidence

Evidence

A large part of user:Rangerdude's complaint against me concerns his allegation of wikistalking. On the evidence page it is covered in "February 6 to Present" in 125 words with no evidence. Instead, there is a link to a 6500-word page user page with more than 50 diffs. I previously responded to that complaint in RfC/Rangerdude back in June, but it has been updated many times since then. If the charge is being made as a part of this arbitration then I would appreciate it if the evidence could appear on the arbitration evidence page, rather than on a user page where I cannot respond. Thanks, -Willmcw 00:40, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I will be happy to detail the 50-something articles you have stalked me to on the evidence page. I have not added them yet though as it takes time to transfer every diff over and format it. I am also waiting for the format of this arbitration to be corrected to reflect the vote of the ArbCom, which indicated that this RfAr was to be merged into the first RfAr at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Willmcw and SlimVirgin - not the other way around as has been done. Once this is corrected, any evidence listing will be made at the appropriate place on the listing there. Rangerdude 01:49, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Whatever the ArbCom chooses to do is their own affair. I think that it would be best if we do not move things around on our own. In previous discussions and dispute resolution procedures involving Rangerdude there have been instances of moving and merging comments written by others. It'd be better if that didn't happen in this case too. Thanks, -Willmcw 08:37, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Per the votes, the ArbCom chose to merge this case into the other one. That the opposite happens thus appears to be an honest mistake. I've already alerted the Arbcom members to it and hope that it can be addressed in short order. Also, please refrain from bad faith insinuations about merging comments outside of the arbitration itself. Rangerdude 19:06, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Size

Should we try to conform to the ArbCom's request to limit evidence to 1000 words and 100 diffs each? -Willmcw 01:08, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Given the complexity of this case, I believe that a 1000 word limit may severely inhibit the ability to address all its issues adequately any may create an undue bias in one direction or another. For example - my arbitration case names two defendants and Willmcw has two more persons taking his side in his case. If we were to impose a limit, I would have only 1000 words to address the behavior of Willmcw, SlimVirgin, Katefan0, and JohnTex whereas they would have 4000 words between them to go after me. This would create a biased hearing in which I would be essentially outgunned 4 to 1. Rangerdude

I don't mind if you spend a 1000 words addressing your complaint against SlimVirgin, but please don't devote more than 1000 words/100 diffs in your evidence regarding me. That is, if you want to do things "by the books". (I don't see the reason you'd expend 1000 words each on Katefan0 and JohnTex as they weren't part of your complaint.). Thanks, -Willmcw 06:03, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

As I indicated in my response to your retaliatory RfAr that Katefan0 and JohnTex joined, I intend to seek arbitrator evaluation of POV pushing and WP:POINT violations by both of these parties. Rangerdude 14:54, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

You only filed for arbitration regarding myself and SlimVirgin. If you are going to make complaints against additional editors then there should be a separate arbitration for each of them, rather than adding them to an already complicated three-way case. -Willmcw 23:11, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry Will, but it's simply not your decision as to what evidence I can introduce. The evidence page clearly states that it is for the "issues raised in the complaint and answer" and as I indicated in my answer, I intend to pursue POV pushing and WPO:POINT disruption complaints against those two users. Rangerdude 02:59, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Regardless of how many other editors you have complaints with, is there any limit to how long your complaint against me is going to be? Do you intend to go "by the book", as you request elsewhere, and adhere to the 1000 word/100 diff limit? It appears to already be around 1700 words. -Willmcw 19:48, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Errors

• Willmcw has in some cases even incorrectly identified other IP edits as having been mine (RD)

If I have mis-indentified any IPs as having been used by the editor known as "Rangerdude" please let me know and I will remove them. Thanks, -Willmcw 19:48, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Query about length of evidence

This is a query for an arbitrator. When I last checked Rangerdude's evidence, it was around 5,000 words even though the limit is 1,000. Regarding his case against me, he's using the evidence page as an ongoing attack page, following me around Wikipedia, making a note here of every tiny thing he doesn't like, whether related to his initial complaint or not, and even inviting others to join in. Considering that part of the complaint against Rangerdude is that he engages in wikistalking and harassment, he seems to be acting it out on the evidence page as a sort of visual aid.

I don't want to begin a response until he has finished compiling his evidence, but as there seems to be no end to it, could an arbitrator please advise on the issue of word length and evidence parameters? I accept that no false parameters should be laid down that hamper the arbcom in reaching an informed decision; nevertheless, the evidence page should not itself become yet another instrument of torture, especially given that this behavior was one of the reasons the case was brought in the first place. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 07:26, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Two things: (1) Willmcw's current evidence file is over 6,200 words long and devoted entirely to making allegations against me. My complaint addresses the two principle defendants in this case (SlimVirgin and Willmcw), two other participants (Katefan0 and JohnTex), and a response to statements by TenofAllTrades in roughly the same space. Curiously, SlimVirgin complains about my section's length yet manages to completely overlook Willmcw's. (2) Far from "wikistalking" her for "tiny things" to add, the recent additions I've made to the evidence file on SlimVirgin amount to major policy violations on her part such as improperly page protecting her own edits, changing Wikipedia policies without consensus to support her violations of previous versions, and attacking other users for things that she did. I discovered her page protection violations not by following her but rather by publicly posted links to them on wikipedia namespace pages where I was participating in votes etc. Others were sent to me on my talk page by other editors who had seen this Arbcom case against SlimVirgin and wanted to report that they've encountered some of the very same policy abuses by her that I have. I discovered another of her violations - the changing of Wikipedia's Page Protection policy to cover her tracks - when I was consulting it and noticed it had been changed overnight. When I went to see where the change came from it was none other that SlimVirgin trying to add escape clauses that would protect the violations of WP:PPol I had reported her for a few days prior. Rangerdude 08:46, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Here's a case in point. Having seen my query and responded to it above (though it's a query for an arbitrator, not for Rangerdude), his very next edit is to request that I be temporarily de-sysopped while the case is heard. [1] That's my punishment for having posted this query. This is precisely what Rangerdude did to Willmcw and Cberlet for months: harassment, stalking, they'd defend themselves, and then they'd be punished for it with further harassment. I got dragged into it because I defended them, which means I must be punished too, and when I try to defend myself, stiffer punishment is demanded. This isn't healthy. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 09:04, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Your claims are conspiratorial nonsense, Slim. I requested that your admin powers be temporarily suspended because you have repeatedly abused them during the course of this Arbcom case by page protecting your own work and by revert warring on unilateral policy changes designed to give you cover. I added that request yesterday as I was reviewing and updating materials pertaining to this arbitration case. It was one of several additions to the case I decided to make, and I did so in light of your behavior at WP:PPol and other places - not anything you posted here to the talk page. It is an unfortunate request to make, but I felt it was necessary because you have responded to every polite and reasonable effort to get you to stop these abuses with extreme belligerency and an unwillingness to behave in a cooperative manner. Anyone who wishes to can see WP:PPol's talk page for evidence of this belligerency. All of the following hostile statements by SlimVirgin were made in response to requests I posted there asking her not to change the Protection Policy's definition of admin powers until the Arbcom case involving her abuse of them was settled. Readers are also invited to contrast SlimVirgin's hostility the tone of my original request, which was polite and reasonable:

Given this circumstance, I will ask SlimVirgin and any other supportive editor to refrain from making this change until (1) clear consensus has been established AND (2) the current Arbcom case is decided. Thanks. Rangerdude 04:15, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

SlimVirgin's hostile responses:

• "Stop the wikilawyering, RD." 04:23, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
• "And stop mentioning your arbcom case. You have submitted a very long list of frankly silly claims to the arbcom against, I believe, four or five editors. That's your business and yours alone. I doubt anyone has even read it yet, particularly as you keep adding to it with no end in sight." 04:46, 27 October 2005
• "You seem to be engaged in stalking and WP:POINT. I'm not changing policy. I added the sentence I'm editing in the first place; I know what I meant to say when I wrote it. If other people here think I'm changing policy someone else would have reverted me, but no one did. And any admin is allowed to take admin action in order to uphold an arbitration ruling. Again, this is not a change in policy." 01:47, 1 November 2005 (UTC) (Note: at this point both myself and User:Sam Spade had objected to SlimVirgin's changes)
• "RD, policy is supposed to reflect what happens. And the reason I say you're stalking and engaged in WP:POINT is that you're following my edits and objecting to things I agree with for the sake of it." 02:17, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Note: Far from following her to this article, I found the changes she had made on my own when consulting the protection policy and discovered that she had changed the very same clauses I was citing in ways that provided cover for her abuses of them. I subsequently reverted to the original version, posted a polite request for her to wait until the Arbcom was done on the talk page, and placed the policy on my watchlist. When she started revert warring to bring back her changes a few days later, I again restored the original and posted my objections to the talk page. Both times I was met with nothing but hostility from her, and that hostility apparently continues here in the conspiratorial allegations she's making above. Rangerdude 18:23, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm serious, RD, this isn't healthy. It isn't good for you, for me, or for any of the arbcom members expected to wade through it. While you were "reviewing and updating materials pertaining to ...," other people were helping to write an encyclopedia. You make wikilife intolerable for people just because they disagree with you. You see conspiracies and cliques everywhere: because people jointly disagree with you, they must be in cahoots, and if they're in cahoots, it must be in some way illegitimate, dodgy, underhand. You should try using Occam's Razor: sometimes people just agree with one other. Sometimes people who agree with each another in one area will agree in other areas too. There's nothing untoward about it.

I first tried to reason with you about your perception of Will on June 18. [2] Nearly five months ago! Since then, I've watched you continue after Will, extend the campaign to Chip, and then to me because I defended them. Looking at your contribs, conflict is most of what you've done: two RfCs against three editors; two RfMs involving three editors, not the same three; and now an RfAr involving four editors. Incessant nitpicking instead of trying to form relationships with people (and yes, we're all flawed; we could all be nitpicked to death!).

Is there any part of you that can step back and say: maybe, just maybe, there's a better way to relate to people than this? Are you prepared to try it? This is a very forgiving community toward people who want to try a different approach. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:36, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

The only thing here that isn't healthy for wikipedia, Slim, is the willingness to disregard written Wikipedia policies and the harassment of other editors exhibited by yourself and Willmcw. Your suggestion that I should spend my time helping to write the encyclopedia instead of pursuing this arbitration is odd, considering that I was doing just that when Willmcw began wikistalking me back in February. His incessant need to follow me to every single article I created and almost every article I edited in any substantive way is what initiated this dispute to begin with. I tried informing him politely that he was harassing me and I also tried to get outside help on the matter by reporting it. Sadly, he responded by only intensifying his efforts to the point that I could not make a single contribution to content here without having it stalked and deconstructed a day later by Willmcw. I have created dozens upon dozens of new articles here and significantly expanded many more existing articles, and strangly Willmcw has popped up to harass my edits and push his political POV's at almost every single one. When this problem reached a point that began severely impairing my attempts to make good faith additions to the encyclopedia, I tried the appropriate courses of dispute resolution and reported him for wikistalking. Instead of receiving help from an unbiased administrator, you showed up and did nothing but tell me how wonderful and perfect and incapable of breaking the rules Willmcw was, even in the face of incontrovertable evidence against him. Ever since then you've only intensified your defense of him in any and all circumstances - even when he did blatantly POV and disruptive things, such as adding David Duke quotes to articles for political reasons. Next you began assisting him in a coordinated attempt to disrupt and discredit my guideline proposal on stalking. Now you've expanded into outright policy violations of your own with page protection and changing Wikipedia policies to suit your needs. I agree that it's very unfortunate we're at this stage, Slim, and consider it similarly unfortunate that I cannot devote more time to expanding the encyclopedia at the present (something I was doing extensively and in good faith when I arrived here before I started being stalked). But that is a circumstance of your own creation and the product of your own belligerent attitude towards anybody who disagrees with your positions or the positions of one of your friends. Rangerdude 20:17, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

At least we can agree it's unfortunate that it's come to this, and that we'd all rather be editing the encyclopedia. I feel your identifying this as starting with Will in February leaves out that you requested formal mediation with another editor on your first day editing with this account in January, accusing him of having "severely breached editing protocol." [3] You tend to jump to the worst conclusions about people immediately. They then defend themselves. You dig your heels in, start nitpicking, and become rhetorical, eventually being convinced by your own rhetoric so that you see no wrong in what you're doing. The people you're accusing defend themselves even more, and maybe their friends join in, which you see as a conspiracy. And the stage is set for a prolonged dispute that will make everyone miserable, yourself included (I assume).

You've done that with me over the protection thing. I haven't breached any policies. You've chosen to take the most negative view possible, but there is actually an innocent explanation, and you'd see it if you looked for it. But now I'm going to have to waste time going through all the diffs and writing up a defense, the thought of which makes me weep, to be frank, because I really dislike these dispute-resolution structures, and I want to be doing other things. As I'm sure you do too.

The solution to all of this is to assume good faith. I know there are some people with whom there's no point in assuming it, but I don't get that sense from you. I do think you've become a vexatious litigant, but that's perhaps just a role you found yourself in, rather than something you planned. It isn't too late for us all to look for another way to sort this out. Would you like to try? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:11, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

You are correct that I requested mediation against another editor right after I picked a username, Slim. But do you know why? Do you even bother yourself with checking the reasons behind my decisions to seek dispute resolution with other editors before you label them "frivolous" or "vexatious" or whatever your attack term of the day happens to be? The reasons for that dispute are documented in the history of edits to that article and show that the other editor I sought dispute resolution with (incidentally an admin) was clearly misbehaving. I arrived on that article on January 8th, voiced disagreement with POV's being asserted in the article, and added an appropriate POV tag to reflect this. Only 45 minutes passed by and that other editor reverted me and removed the tag without even considering my input [4]. I restored it with a note on the talk page, only to be reverted a second time and a third, which was incidentally the fourth revert made by that same editor in less than 24 hours (Revert 1 [5], Revert 2 [6], Revert 3 [7], Revert 4 [8]). That same editor also engaged in personal attacks and namecalling in both his edit descriptions and on the talk page and refused both polite requests to discuss and a subsequent warning that I would seek an outside mediator. Given those events, I believe it is an accurate statement to say that the other editor was entirely in the wrong on that article - a circumstance reflected in the fact that another neutral admin responded to my request by imposing page protection to prevent his reverts and the fact that he later settled down and agreed to discuss and accept many of the changes I was seeking. I detailed this incident to illustrate a point, Slim. That point is that both you and Willmcw are misrepresenting my participation in previous editing disputes - many of which did not even involve either of you - in ways that completely neglect the fact that the other editors in each case normally did something in direct violation of Wikipedia's written policies. That's not nitpicking, Slim. That's pointing out a major policy violation:

- violations such as breaking 3RR as happened with User:172 in the January 8th case you reference

- violations such as ignoring consensus and personally attacking other users, as user:Jonathan_Christensen did in his very first post to me on the Jim Robinson article that you and Will love to beat me over the head with

- violations such as inserting and abusive flagrant POV into articles, as Willmcw did with his David Duke quotes on the LVMI article page

- violations such as personally attacking the employment and financial motives of another editor, as Willmcw also did to user:nskinsella on LVMI

- and yes, violations of WP:PPol as you did in protecting your own version of Islamophobia less than 24 hours after you rewrote much of the article.

If you continue to flaunt policies like that, Slim, I will not hesitate to point it out. If, on the other hand, you behave yourself in an appropriate manner I'm more than happy to live and let live. As to working this out another way than arbitration, I'm certainly open. In fact that's what I was hoping to do when I offered you mediation before filing this case - something that you refused along with a statement to the effect of "see you in court." Nevertheless, I'm still open to the possibility and will state right here and right now what my conditions are:

(1) Willmcw must cease and desist in wikistalking my edits. Evidence of any pattern in which he intentionally lurks me to new articles I've created or new edits and additions to existing articles I've made will be construed as wikistalking under the definition of that term at WP:HA. Should he desire to edit articles of common interest between the two of us in a manner that reflects good faith and generally contributes to the article's content, it will not be construed as wikistalking. Edits made solely for the purpose of harassing and deconstructing my contributions, however, and demands made under threat of deletion that my contributions meet special and arbitrary criteria for inclusion above and beyond any requirement of wikipedia guidelines or policies will be construed as wikistalking and harassment.

(2) Willmcw must abstain from POV provocation, such as the David Duke incident, and excessive edit/revert warring, which seems to be his approach to virtually everything I edit nowadays.

(3) You must abide by WP:PPol's restrictions against admins from protecting articles they've worked on. You must also abstain from personal attacks.

(4) The two of you must abstain from coordinated disruption activities such as the joint Village Pump/Userpage posts you made regarding my stalking guideline proposal.

In exchange I will gladly do all that is possible to maintain decorum and civility with the two of you on my own part. Furthermore, so long as the conditions I have stated are adhered to, I will not bother either of you with further dispute resolution complaints (if OTOH, say, Willmcw's wikistalking of me resumes I would seek dispute resolution). Rangerdude 23:05, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Would something like this work, for example — User:SlimVirgin/AGF? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:31, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

The importance of this case

Earlier on this page, SlimVirgin castigates Rangerdude with these words: "You see conspiracies and cliques everywhere: because people jointly disagree with you, they must be in cahoots, and if they're in cahoots, it must be in some way illegitimate, dodgy, underhand."

"Conspiracy theorist" is, of course, a pejorative, and is used to suggest that the charges could not be serious. I submit that in fact, the existence of WikiCliques, the abuse of admin powers, and the selective enforcement of Wikipedia policy guidelines are the most serious problem that Wikipedia faces. These forms of corruption have the effect of negating the NPOV policy, which is supposed to be central to Wikipedia. And they are decidedly illegitimate, dodgy, and underhand.

Politically, I am probably closer to SlimVirgin than I am to Rangerdude. However, I applaud Rangerdude for addressing a festering problem with energy and rigor. --HK 21:52, 7 November 2005 (UTC)