Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests

Request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution. Before requesting arbitration, please review other avenues you should take. If you do not follow any of these routes, it is highly likely that your request will be rejected. If all other steps have failed, and you see no reasonable chance that the matter can be resolved in another manner, you may request that it be decided by the Arbitration Committee.

Arbitration Committee proceedings

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Case requests

Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
Covert canvassing and proxying in the Israel-Arab conflict topic area		6 November 2024	0/3/0

[edit]

Open cases

Case name	Links	Evidence due	Prop. Dec. due
Backlash to diversity and inclusion	(t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t)	10 Oct 2024	24 Oct 2024

[edit]

Recently closed cases (Past cases)

No cases have recently been closed (view all closed cases).

Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral)	Motion	(orig. case)	17 August 2024
Arbitration enforcement referral: Nableezy, et al	none	(orig. case)	7 November 2024
Clarification request: Referrals from Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard to the full Committee	none	none	7 November 2024

Arbitrator motions

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and (exceptionally) to summarily review new evidence and update the findings and decisions of a previous case. Review is likely to be appropriate if later events indicate the original ruling on scope or enforcement was too limited and does not adequately address the situation, or if new evidence suggests the findings of fact were significantly in error.

The procedure for accepting requests is described in the Arbitration policy. If you are going to make a request here, you must be brief and cite supporting diffs. New requests to the top, please. You are required to place a notice on the user talk page of each person you lodge a complaint against.

0/0/0/0 corresponds to Arbitrators' votes to accept/reject/recuse/other.

This is not a page for discussion, and Arbitrators may summarily remove or refactor discussion without comment.

• Arbitration policy
• Administrator enforcement requested (shortcut WP:RFAr/AER)
• Developer help needed
• Arbitration template
• Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Precedents

How to list cases

Under the below Current requests section:

• Click "[edit]";
• Copy the full formatting template (text will be visible in edit mode), omitting the lines which say "BEGIN" and "END TEMPLATE";
• Paste template text where it says "ADD CASE BELOW";
• Follow instructions on comments (indented), and fill out the form;
• Remove the template comments (indented).

Note: Please do not remove or alter the hidden template

Current requests

Jeffrey O. Gustafson

Involved parties

• Talrias (talk · contribs)
• Jeffrey O. Gustafson (talk · contribs)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Jeffrey O. Gustafson: [1]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jeffrey O. Gustafson

Statement by Talrias

I am bringing this request for arbitration because I am very unhappy with Gustafson's response to the RFC linked above in the "other steps" section. He has not replied in any way other than to insist that he is called "Mr. Gustafson" - . There is no evidence to suggest that he has taken the comments made and issues raised in the RFC and I fear he will repeat his actions again. Everyone on the RFC, apart from Gustafson, agreed that what he did was a pretty straightforward case of "biting a newbie" and this is behaviour which should definitely not be condoned in an administrator. At the very least, I would like to see him acknowledge the points raised in the RFC and apologise for his behaviour. However I believe that due to the way he behaved towards the new contributor, whether he is an admin should be re-evaluated. Talrias (t | e | c) 17:13, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by party 2

(Please limit your statement to 500 words)

Dyslexic Agnostic and T-Man

Involved parties

• User:Dyslexic agnostic
• User:T-man, the Wise Scarecrow

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Dyslexic agnostic:[2]
• T-Man: [3]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

mediation tried and proved extremly fruitless Benon 05:53, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

mediation was never tried in any formal fashion, no RFM ever raised. To say it was fruitless is quite subjective and without basis. Dyslexic agnostic 06:55, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Dyslexic agnostic

I will try to keep this on point.

Firstly, I will state that I challenge anyone to show me an edit I have done of T-Man that was not an improvement of his prior edit. Full reversions were only done when T-Man's changes were done without consensus or were effectively unintelligible, and those steps were supported by others.

I do regret some strong wording on my part in wiki talk pages and in edit descriptions; the frustration in dealing with this individual is sometimes difficult to contain. I would have appreciated a direct warning that my comments would lead to a 24-hour block; I did not receive such warnings, and I do not think that this counts.

The statement which led to my block, here, was strong but related directly to the extreme edits on Enemies of Batman. T-Man's tone of disrespect and rudeness with his "trivia lesson" here (his "fun massacre" of an "amature", as he puts it) towards the good-natured edits by Gillespee is quite unfortunate, and properly dealt with by Pc13 here.

I do wish to note that I too have put up with frequent insults and rudeness from T-Man, including this friendly comment and this Shakespearean prose... oh, and who can forget this gem, or this. I don't appreciate profanity on my talk page, which is why I frequently delete T-Man's comments to me.

Here's his very first message to me, highlighting his two obsessions: proving that Batman is straight and the so-called "Bat-embargo" (voted for deletion once, brought back without consensus by T-Man, and then voted out again.

Benon claims I am stalking T-Man... I urge you all to see that I do far more than follow this man. Who followed me to Batman? Who came unasked on my tails do get involved in the whole Limited series matter, moving pages so often that no one knew what happened?

I will tone it down. But I will not allow T-man to leave his damaged goods on pages which are important to me. If that is stalking, then impose the appropriate punishment. But I draw your attention to Wikipedia:Harassment: [[Wikistalking]] does not include checking up on an editor to fix errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, nor does it mean reading a user's contribution log; those logs are public for good reason. The important part is the disruption - disruption is considered harmful.

Final word: I just want to edit. Dyslexic agnostic 06:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by T-Man, the Wise Scarecrow

 (Please limit your statement to 500 words)

Statement by 3rd party Benon

I have been attempting to mediate a dispute over Enemies of Batman on the talk page of the article, however the dispute between the two parties seems to go a lot further thn that, inclusing stalking and harrasment

here is a nice selction of the evidnce pasted from the admin noticebaord:-

Block of Dyslexic agnostic

I have blocked him for 24 hours over a dispute over at Talk:Enemies of Batman between him and T-man, the Wise Scarecrow. Benon tried to mediate, and it appeared to be working, but then Dyslexic agnostic personally attacked T-man, calling his T-man edits "a waste of everyone's time." T-man may have been guilty of personal attacks earlier, but to me it seemed that he was trying to be civil and cooperative, so I didn't block him. A review of my actions would be great.--Shanel 04:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

hi ive been trying to mediate this with some help from shanel, howver im uncovering disturbing evidence of a "stalking" of t-man by dyslexic anyone care to comment??Benon 04:14, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPA explicitly says that one should comment on the content, and not the individual. I really think that the statement is about the content, not the user. That being said, T-Man and DA have been going at it for a few months now. I would point out [4], [5], [6], [7], etc (I would suggest taking a look at that archive and seeing just how many threads are between DA and T-Man). This is from earlier today...[8]...which caused this [9]. This prompted Steve block (talk · contribs) to suggest an RfC [10]. (I can't say I'd certify it, but I'd certainly endorse one)

I don't think DA is an angel, I've seen him violate WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA before (Just not in this case), on a few pages. I think he was lashing out in frustration, as in addition to the Enemies of Batman article, T-Man was partially responsible for creating a few forks on List of limited series. Unfortunately, it seems like you've hit one of those little feuds that keeps going between everyone.--Toffile 04:30, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

yes but da seems to be appering on every unique article t-man is editing with a couple of hours, often blind reverting, now that is most defintly not acceptable, ive tried to mediate this dispute out but it seems to have proved rather fruitless :-( Benon 04:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that would be because of this. [11]. Not acceptable behavior by any means.--Toffile 04:44, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

While I do not disagree with the DA block, I think that T-Man should just as equally be blocked for provoking him in a multiplicity of instances. I don't think "stalking" really is made out - it's simply that T-Man and DA both tend to watch the same pages and this almost inevitably puts them in conflict. I've "clashed" with T-Man before over his Bat-Embargo edits, and have tried to give him advice which he ultimately rejetced as unhelpful (which is his right), so he's probably going to say I'm biased, but my assessment of the situation places the cause directly on T-Man. His sub-standard command of English, his verbosity as opposed to encyclopedic style, his insistence (as a self-proclaimed expert) on POV-pushing and speculative info is all producing high levels of tension on the various comic-related pages. It's nearly impossible to sift out and copyedit the good stuff from the dross when sometimes it it hard to tell precisely what he means in the first place. T-Man has also derided, insulted and outright abused people other than DA. By only blocking DA, you're sending the message to T-Man that he has done nothing wrong; and that is a wrong message, not to mention an unfair one. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 04:56, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

t-man has been warned, we havent just let it slide, and i gave a stern warning to both parties during mediation Benon 05:09, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I left him a stern warning on his talk page warning him against such behaviour. I did not know the extent of his disruption before, but he's on very thin ice as it is with me.--Shanel 05:13, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

ive requested an rfc, if anone wnats to give there input on how to proceed it would be very welcome Benon 05:20, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

T-man, the Wise Scarecrow is now blocked for 24 hours as well.--Shanel 05:53, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Interested Party Steve block

I may be too personally involved in this, but I would question the block on a couple of grounds. Was dyslexic warned that he would be blocked on grounds of personal attacks? I've been wary to block either user on grounds of personal attacks because my reading of policy was that it wasn't implicit that such blocks are allowed in said policy. I'm also unclear on which user is stalking which, both having claimed the other as stalker. I also have to question why one user is blocked for a personal attack which the blocker in question decides is in response to personal attacks. I certainly agree with Khaosworks that you're sending the message to T-Man that he has done nothing wrong; and that is a wrong message, not to mention an unfair one. That's my initial thoughts on the block. Steve block talk 12:21, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Note: The header "Statement by Interested Party Steve block" was not added by myself but by another user.

Expansion. Having read through the page again, I still fail to see evidence of a clear warning that either party would be blocked for personal attacks. The best I can find is from Benon who states it is not nessasry to stoop to the level of a personal attack so please don't do, i dont want to but anymore personal attacks and i will be asking admins to impose sancations on either of you. This prompted the reply from Dyslexic that saw him blocked, namely: Benon, it's not a personal attack to say that T-Man's edits are bad, a waste of everyone's time, and that he only knows the animated series, not the comics. These are obvious facts. They affect our ability to edit and spend time on other important matters.

Now, taking all things as even I think this initial block was therefore ill judged. There should have been at least one more warning stressing that the language Dyslexic had used did indeed constitute a personal attack. I also have to say that this attempted mediation was rather badly handled. It seemed to me far better to try and let the two resolve their differences through their own means and at their own pace. There are certainly communication issues between the two users, and there appears to be a clash of personalities too. I think there is certainly a problem here, but I'm not sure bringing the two users together when tensions were high and the underlying problems were not being addressed was the best way of handling it. The problem that was trying to be addressed was one on content at Enemies of Batman, and there are other editors involved in building a consensus on this issue, not just the two which were summoned to the article's talk page to discuss the issue.

If the arbitration commitee agree to accept this issue it is my personal opinion they have to examine not just the actions of the two participants listed here, but also that of the mediator, who to my eye was not requested by either party. I think perhaps it would be better if this request was turned down and we instead evaluated the article and seek to determine where the good faith in building a consensus approach to it lies. Steve block talk 15:31, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

• I actually warned DA a while ago, but he immediatly removed the warning from his talk page. --InShaneee 23:30, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

also blocking policy states:-

Users who exhaust the community's patience

There have been situations where a user has exhausted the community's patience to the point where he or she finds themselves blocked. Administrators who block in these cases should be sure that there is community support for the block, and should note the block on WP:ANI as part of the review process. With such support, the user is considered banned and should be listed on Wikipedia:List of banned users (under "Community"). Benon 05:36, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Interested Party Toffile

A note to arbitrators, there has been almost no dispute resolution between T-Man and Dyslexic Agnostic. I do not know why someone has filed for an RfAr, but I rather emphasize that this should be rejected and taken to RfC instead.--Toffile 13:31, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I second this as being premature, although my cynicism tells me it'll turn up here eventually. A content RfC was filed regarding Enemies of Batman just prior to this RfArb. Although I feel that a user conduct RfC on T-Man should be filed instead, since his conflict goes beyond the Enemies article and beyond his clashes with Dyslexic Agnotic. Either of these RfCs should be allowed to run its course before this is brought up before ArbCom. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 01:55, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

another statment from benon

may i draw emphasis to this link http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Steve_block&diff=prev&oldid=36230507

may i also draw the arbitrators attention to a section of the blocking policy,and wiki-stalk policys

Users who exhaust the community's patience

There have been situations where a user has exhausted the community's patience to the point where he or she finds themselves blocked. Administrators who block in these cases should be sure that there is community support for the block, and should note the block on WP:ANI as part of the review process. With such support, the user is considered banned and should be listed on Wikipedia:List of banned users (under "Community"). Benon 05:32, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

also from the Wiki-stalking policy:-

In the matter of Cool Cat (talk • contribs) (aka User:Coolcat) — a case decided on October 5, 2005 — the ArbCom voted that wikistalking was unacceptable in the following circumstances:

It is not acceptable to stalk another editor who is editing in good faith. (Note that everyone is expected to assume good faith in the absence of definite evidence to the contrary.) Once an editor has given reason to suspect bad faith, monitoring is appropriate, but constantly nit-picking is always a violation of required courtesy.

There are hundreds of administrators available to monitor problem users. [1]

and

Following an editor to another article to continue disruption (also known as wikistalking)

The term "wiki-stalking" has been coined to describe following a contributor around the wiki, editing the same articles as the target, with the intent of causing annoyance or distress to another contributor.

Benon 05:59, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

The reason why a user conduct RfC is appropriate prior to an RfArb is precisely this: we need to gauge if any particular user has exhausted the community's patience, and that is best done by bringing the issue to the wider Wikipedia community via the RfC. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 09:13, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (2/0/0/0)

• Accept. The depth of some of the personal attacks cited above is quite worrying. James F. (talk) 14:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 16:38, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Boothy443

Involved parties

• User:Jtkiefer
• User:Boothy443
• User:Aranda56

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Boothy443 - [12]
• Jtkiefer - Yes, I am aware that I am filing a request for arbitration. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 04:58, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Boothy443, as well as various attempts on Boothy's talk page

Statement by party 1

Boothy443 has been a long term disruptive influence on Wikipedia. He is repeatedly incivil, he repeatedly does everything in his power to prove a point even if it is only for the purpose of proving a point (i.e. his votes on RFA) and blocks against him thus far have been useless as have been attempts to work with him to change his behavior. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 04:58, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Aranda56

• This is my first time making a statment in a RFAr so I hope I'm doing it right. Boothy443 concerns me dearly. He sometimes does good edits but it looks like he loves getting into controversy and he doesn't mind or care about it. Other users tried to solve that conflict via his talk page and his RFC, but with no success. He had been blocked plenty of times before [13] including indefinitely for mass consent violations including WP:CIVIL,WP:NPA and WP:DICK and I noticed that after he took a one month wikibreak, he came back and quickly mass opposed every candidate who was running [14] for arb-com for no apparent reason. I asked him why on his talk page and he replied [15] rather silly, then quickly entered a edit war and was blocked for a 3RR on Category:Municipalities in Philadelphia County prior to the Act of Consolidation, 1854. I could give you plenty of other examples of policies that Boothy broke, but it would be too long to list. I've come to the conclusion that Boothy443 has violated WP:CIVIL, WP:DICK and countless other policies on purpose, has ignored requests to stop, and it doesn't look like he will stop violating those rules anytime soon. Thank you --Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 05:47, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Voice of All

• This user has violated WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL, WP:POINT and other various policies. He often went through RfA and opposed almost every nominee while ignoring any request to explain why, save 1-2 times a while back. He claims to just have high admin standards. He complains that people frustrated over his votes are just trying to oppress his right to vote. His RfA votes were effective at diving users who respect his right to vote, even if it is just to make an anti-admin point, and others who don't tolerate such balatant WP:POINT violations. Inciting frustration and division is the art of trolling. He also seems to show some sort of vandetta against all admins, finding any excuse to accuse them of incompetence. He violated WP:NPA and then complains "admin abuse" at times when his block is clearly warranted. On the other hand, he is not simply a vandal, but some sort of overzealous "anarchist" that wants to gid rid of admins at this site. Admins, however, are part of policy, and they are required in order to deal with AfD, CsD, vandals...ect; clearly, voting agaist them just because you disagree with having admins is against policy and WP:POINT. If he wants to change policy at Village Pump to get rid of admins, then by all means, he is welcome to try (although it wouldn't happen, and then he would rant on about the admin cabal again. Diffs for his numerous personal attacks and rudeness can be found on his RfC, which he completely ignored, in spite of its seriousness. He has made plenty of contributions, so perhaps probation can be considered as opposed to outright banning (indef. block).Voice of All^T|@|ESP 20:01, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Related discussion between Everyking and Jtkiefer

Discussion moved from statement section

• I've never seen him doing anything but making good contributions, including some very active vandal reverting—especially commendable when one does not have the advantage of rollback and has to do it the hard way. As an ArbCom candidate who he voted against, I am perfectly content with both his vote and refusal to disclose his reasons. While I don't doubt we've got some serious personality conflict here, and Boothy appears to be the main culprit, I encourage the ArbCom to seek a remedy that allows him to continue his encyclopedia work, if it chooses to accept the case. Also, in the first place, it would be nice if it would conduct a dialogue with Boothy and try to get to the root of these issues, and work through them constructively, instead of getting straight into deliberation with a punitive remedy guaranteed. Everyking 06:59, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
  • As you've said from what You've seen, if the arbcom accepts the case I urge you to look at all the evidence then you'll be able to make an entirely informed judgement with all the facts. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 08:40, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
    • I think what I've seen provides a pretty good assessment. But if my general assessment is staggeringly contradicted by some obscure diffs you'd like to present, feel free. I don't know, how are you saying I'm uninformed, anyway? I mean, I said the guy's done good encyclopedia work, and I also said there are personality issues involved, and that he seems to be the main culprit. I also included a nice appeal for dialogue and attempt at a non-punitive resolution as the first phase of the arbitration. Where exactly is the gaping hole in my understanding? Everyking 08:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement of Support for Jtkiefer

I hope I am following the correct format. I have an on-going squabble going on with Boothy. Aside from our differences, I think he is uncivil and vengeful.

I have tried to negotiate with Boothy on several pages involving Philadelphia. When I went to as for mediation he deleted his name from the page and left some choice comments. Boothy is the one reason why I sometimes fear coming to wikipedia. At one point he was following me around and reverting things I had done just to provoke me. Pages where he had never posted in the past. evrik 05:20, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I have been involved with reverting Boothy443 over the Philadelphia County/City contreversy. After initially supporting his opinion that there should be separate article for the City and county, but opposed his creation of a new category, following the lead of evrik. I can confirm the previous statements about breaking WP:CIVIL, WP:POINT. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 14:44, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement/comment by Sjakkalle

The RFC mentioned in the request was about the dispute regarding his blanket opposition voting. I myself finally endorsed outside view no. 8, calling the dispute moot when Boothy disclosed his admin criteria to Acetic Acid and when he did support some very well qualified candidates such as Drini. I think that dispute was resolved fairly successfully and Boothy's RFA voting at least, has not been a problem since.

The dispute now appears to be about breaches of NPA, which I think is a different one from the dispute which caused the RFC to be filed. I recommend that if the Arbcom accept this case, that they limit it to Boothy443's conduct after the "Oppose All Admin Candidacies" incident. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:18, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (5/0/1/0)

• Recuse. Dmcdevit·t 05:04, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Reject, for the time being. Please provide evidence of an on-going dispute. Mackensen (talk) 12:04, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• Changing to accept, based on Epopt's reasoning. Mackensen (talk) 19:11, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• Accept. If Boothy's behaviour is not productive, this is something that we are tasked with looking at. James F. (talk) 13:57, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept, though I'd like to see evidence than is presented here. I don't believe Boothy's voting against all arbitrators is grounds for recusal. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 16:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. I realize the RfC was on his admin voting (which I don't find problematic, at least not to the point of making a case out of it) rather than the general pattern of incivility which is the issue at hand, but his response to that and other attempts at dispute resolution suggest another RfC wouldn't be particularly helpful. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 18:43, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept — while the evidence here before us is scanty, the log of blocks of Boothy indicates that we should take a good look ➥the Epopt 18:51, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Instantnood 3

Involved parties

• User:SchmuckyTheCat
• User:Instantnood
• User:Phroziac
• User:Huaiwei

Instantnood has gotten worse since the last Arbcom case closed. The majority of his edits are now reverts and the number of people he revert wars with just goes up. Something has to be done.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

[16]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Failed dispute resolution with Instantnood is well established. Other Wikipedia dispute resolution methods fail with the sheer volume of his edits.

Statement by SchmuckyTheCat

Instantnood has not changed his behavior since the last arbitration case was closed. So far he has racked up 9 page bans in 9 days.

In fact, his behavior has gotten worse. He's chosen not just to continue edit warring behavior, but to purposefully instigate edit wars. Each day he is choosing to go back (in some cases as old as several months) and make the same edits that were reversed the first time.

An important finding of the last case was that Instantnood "is reminded to make useful edit summaries". He isn't. He has continued to make very contentious edits (such as renaming political entities) without anything at all as an edit summary.

I've chosen, mostly, not to engage him. Huaiwei has not and has been equally page banned and admonished by administrators. However, a glance at Instantnood's edit history reveals it would be impossible to use established dispute resolution techniques because of the sheer number of problem edits. (See evidence below, are we supposed to file 17 article RFCs per day?) Huaiwei wouldn't be involved if Instantnood wasn't making the problem edits in the first place.

Evidence: Look at Instantnood's edit history for 20 January 2006. (And go back as many days as you want, it's all the same pattern every single day).

Discarding any talk page discussion are 24 edits to articles, categories, or templates. An astonishing seventeen of them are reverts. 71% reverts? Only one revert has any talk page discussion.

9 edits have no edit summary whatsoever, including reverts. Only a handful of the remainder are useful to anyone not involved in his dispes.

Evidence of re-igniting old disputes: [17] [18] [19]

Statement by Instantnood

 (Please limit your statement to 500 words)

Statement by Phroziac

I recently blocked Huaiwei and Instantnood for 24 hours for their ForestFire activity, and asked them to stop. Instantnood said he doesn't think it'll help to reach an eventual resolution[20]. The edit wars he's causing are *incredibly* silly. A quick look at the edit histories of several pages he has edited recently all shows obvious edit warring. This really needs to stop. Perhaps a temporary injunction preventing him from reverting would be helpful. --Phroziac _. o º ^{O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!)} 18:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC) (edited 18:16, 21 January 2006 (UTC))

Statement by Wgfinley

Schmucky's points are well taken. However, I feel that Huaiwei should be enjoined in this action as well neither of them have gotten the message that the edit warring has to stop. Instead, it has only spread. I do not agree that Instant is always looking to start a war but the three cases pointed out by Schmucky are telling and I promptly banned Instant from editing those cats when I read this filing.

However, Schmucky correctly dealt with this situation by filing Arb (although I think he could have also notified an admin). Huaiwei never acts in such a thoughtful manner, he too has initiated re-ignition of old debates [21] [22] [23] [24], prefers to follow Instant about reverting him [25] (an interesting case where Schmucky started it actually), refusing to stop the edit warring [26] [27] [28] and in general ignores any pleas ([29] [30] [31]) for him to stop. Before this recent round of bans he has been banned from 10 articles by three different admins [32] with no signs of stopping. Instead of heeding the pleas for him to stop he chooses to engage in lengthy debates about it with whichever admin will make the mistake of trying to talk to him about it [33] [34] [35].

Unfortunately I am afraid all efforts to get both Instantnood and Huaiwei to reform their behaviors have failed and more drastic measures are required. --Wgfinley 19:42, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (3/0/1/0)

• Recuse, as past mediator. Dmcdevit·t 05:05, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• I'm happy for us to accept, but I would like to take the opportunity to point out that sysops are (and have always been) empowered to block people for being useless. James F. (talk) 13:51, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Like James, I'll accept if necessary. Nevertheless, can't we just extend Instantnood 2 to allow escalating blocks for such behaviour? Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 16:50, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Ditto: accept, and let's point out in our decision that this sort of trouble should be handled locally ➥the Epopt 18:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Danteferno

(Harrasment, Vandalism, Personal Attacks and MPOV by User: Danteferno towards users who have worked on the Gothic Metal article)

Involved parties

• Danteferno
• Leyasu
• Parasti
• Idont Havaname

Summary of case;

• Dispute between two users that has disintergrated into a flame war due to no adminstrative interference, leading one party to make personal attacks at any users editing an article the user has claimed as belonging to themselfs, vandalising a revision that was performed to the article reached by a consensus after a long discussion. User now vandalising page and exhbiting MPOV syptoms, and harrasing and attacking anyone who enters discussion on the talk page.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request;

• Notice to Danteferno
• Notice to Parasti

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Request for Mediation

• Notice was given to several admins that no part involved had seeminly come into contact with, asking for meditation and advice. Which admins however, are not so well remembered.

Some of the admins in question included User:MarkGallagher, User:FireFox and User:Sn0wflake. (Note that I was not an administrator at the time that I was mediating the debate.) --Idont Havaname (Talk) 06:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Other steps have been taken, and can only really be observed from the Talk Page on the Gothic metal article.
• Gothic Metal Talk Page
• Listing of Talk:Gothic metal on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Media, art and literature

Statement by Leyasu

Sometime ago the Gothic Metal article was revised from a version posted by Danteferno. A long discussion took place involving several users, including myself, as to the revision, and how best to implement it (See Talk Page Archives).

During this time user Danteferno made personal attacks against all users who worked on the revision of the article, as well as claiming the article was 'his' and it was the 'his NPOV version'.

After a consensus was reached for the revision to take place user Danteferno left Wikipedia, and the revision was posted. Subsequent edits have been made to the revision since, mainly by myself, to improve the articles content.

Danteferno has since returned, vandalising the article. Discussion has since been raised on the talk page about this, in which user Danteferno has made more personal attacks at users, mainly myself, and user Parasti including direct insults, and accusations of consipiring to vandalise Wikipedia. The user for a brief time also followed my edits reverting them, including minor spell edits. The user has also ignored consensus twice, claiming that it is not applicable without his agreement, which he doesnt give unless it is in his favour.

A consensus has been reached by users that the article does not need revising, at which Danteferno has now claimed he is changing what he claims is 'his' article, to 'his NPOV version' under the pretense other users dont have the right to edit the article without his permission. Requests to admins for advice and the mediation comitte have gone unasnwered, as well as most all attempts at peacefull dispute, to which user Danteferno has begun claiming that nobody likes myself or Parasti due to the lack of comments.

In regards to Idont's statements. I would like to point out that most arguments that ive been involved in, have normally not come into flame wars, or have been arguments of differing POV which both I and the User have settled ourselfs, with no hard feelings. The mediation case was a misunderstanding in my eyes, and i duely apologised for the way i spoke to the user concerned as i hadnt realised they disliked certain terms i used. Other incidents have mainly been minor issues in ideologies of methods of editing, and the most severe concern the Nightwish article, which, i made my view clear on, and the issue was resolved. In that case i removed inline citations on the pretense of RFA, without realising that inline citations are expected of RFA which other users involved in the discussion explained to me. I am in heavy dispute with user Aj Ramierz/WesleyDodds as such over several articles, but this user knows i respect him, and most of our disagreements are again over methods of editing, and differences in the way we would each individually tackle a problem. Leyasu 06:44, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Danteferno

User:Leyasu joined Wikipedia in November and since then has been reverting a number of articles adding unsourced claims, and each time other editors ask for him to cite sources, he either refuses, or accuses the editors of harassing him while he simultaneously attacks/harasses them.

He has called a number of Wikipedia users (including myself) "meglomaniacal" and in one case he was blocked for it. (See User_talk:Leyasu). He also wrote this [36] in my talk page. In the case of the Gothic Metal article, he wrote a "revised" article, claiming the original (which had sources from reliable websites) was "POV" (He still has not provided evidence of this). He submitted his "revised" version without consensus (the only consensus provided is that "no one objected"; I had been offline at that time so couldn't add input, but there was still much objection to it, as evident in Talk:Gothic metal).

Rather than start another revert war, I added tags on the top of the page explaining that the article needed work/improvement, and he removed them, calling them "Vandalism." In fact, User:Leyasu has reverted a number legitimate edits in other articles, calling them "Vandalism", "POV" or "Bad faith edit", when the case was none of the above (See User_talk:Leyasu).

User:Leyasu's allegations that I personally attacked him are completely false; perhaps I have been short and abrupt with him, but so have others, as he has been uncooperative in citing sources for the edits he makes, and disrespects other editors greatly. The best way for this dispute to be resolved is that User:Leyasu either provides references in any of the articles that he edits (specifically Gothic metal), or a brand new article be written with a unilateral agreement that what has been written originated from proper sources. Thank you.

Statement by Parasti

I am not involved in the "original" gothic metal discussion that took part during November 2005. I have, however, partly read the archives concerning the mentioned revision.

On 2006-01-15 Danteferno added two templates to the gothic metal article -- {{cleanup-rewrite}} and {{citation style}} -- without stating reasons on the talk page. As the (by consensus) subpaged revision had been moved to the original article without any objections approximately three weeks ago, and seeing no recent discussions on the talk page, I reverted the article. [37] Unfortunately though; leaving a message on the user's page would be far more appropriate. I did not expect Danteferno would take my edit as offensive and vandalism. I left a message on his talk page explaining why I had reverted the article, and I asked for reasons of why have the templates in the article (respectively, what's wrong with it). However, instead of answering, he seemed to have problems with the summary I added for my edit, where I mentioned consensus (see User talk:Parasti#"No Discussion" does not equal Concensus). I left another message (under the same section in the talk page, see link above), that clearly states what is expected from him. To which the reply was, that I have not spent enough time on Wikipedia to understand how it works, obviously unrelated to the question.

Danteferno also responded to a comment made by Leyasu on gothic metal talk page, calling me a "friend" of Leyasu, which I find offensive, as I do not know user Leyasu personally; and accusing me of "joining Leyasu in his 3RR violations on other articles", which I find rather amusing, as it is easy to check my contribution history to find his statement libellous. After explaining that his comment is a personal attack, and asking again what is it he considers wrong in the article, I finally got the response. That's basically it. -- parasti ^(talk) 02:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Idont Havaname

I've added myself as an involved party because I mediated the Gothic metal debate in November-December 2005 and have checked a few times since to see how debates on Talk:Gothic metal and other metal-related talk pages were going. In this summary, I will mainly discuss my interactions with them during November and December. I could provide dozens of diffs (at least) of Leyasu and Danteferno fighting with each other. See the expanded history of Gothic metal for more evidence.

At first, Leyasu did a WP:BOLD rewrite of the page, which Ray Dassen reverted; Ray hasn't made any further edits to the article. Leyasu restored his version, which I reverted again. After Leyasu restored his version yet again, Dante reverted it back to mine; so by then, 3 editors had reverted Leyasu's version. I tried to tone down Leyasu's version to make it more acceptable, but less than two hours later Danteferno and Leyasu were reverting each other - roughly two dozen reverts each in less than a day, and neither user was blocked despite my listing the violation on WP:AN/3RR (I was not yet an admin at the time). After the page was protected for several weeks, I was pleased to be engaged in productive discussion with Danteferno and Leyasu, and we started an extensive revision to the article in a temp subpage. However, after bringing out numerous policies (WP:OWN, WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, WP:CITE, etc.) we weren't getting as far as I thought. Danteferno left briefly, and Leyasu moved his revision into the main article after I had copyedited it (not knowing a great deal about the subject, or when/if Danteferno would return, I couldn't raise any further objections). Since then, Leyasu has received 2 12-hour blocks, rather than the standard 24 hours, for separate 3RR violations; administrators have gone easy on him. Danteferno has never been blocked for such violations.

I think that filing this RfAr was the latest of many incidents of Leyasu throwing mud at Danteferno, but I think the case should still be heard, with both users in mind. Reading Leyasu's talk page recently, I found that several other users, both admins and non-admins, have tried to reason with him and failed, and I think that stricter measures need to be taken to make sure that he abides by policies. Slaps on the wrist haven't taught him as much as they should have.

This is another mediation case from this month where Leyasu is involved.

--Idont Havaname (Talk) 06:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (2/0/0/0)

• Accept. James F. (talk) 13:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. Dmcdevit·t 16:57, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 17:04, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Tommstein

Involved parties

• Tommstein
• Central
• Cobaltbluetony
• uberpenguin
• NicholasTurnbull
• Kelly Martin
• Duffer

Brief Summary
Egregious, and persistent violations of CIV, AGF, and NPOV, towards editors of the Jehovah's Witness (and related) pages, and towards the pages themselves, despite warnings (and a block) by at least two Wiki administrators, whom he harasses (and harassed) as well.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

I have notified everyone on the above list. [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

There are currently two requests for mediation taking place (here,and here (Talk for req 2 being carried out on NWT talk page)). I considered bringing this to an RFC however, wiki Admin NicholasTurnbull suggested I bring it to the attention of the Arbitration Committee. Also in light of Tomm's track record of abusing and mocking Wikipedia's policies, an RFC would ultimately be impotent in facilitating the level of official intervention needed in this situation.

Statement by Duffer

Tommstein makes extraordinarily rude remarks and edits with little, or no, provocation. This has been brought to the Arbitration Committee for several reasons, some of which I mentioned above, but will now expound upon them and provide several more.

Administrator Kelly Martin investigated a Sock Puppet that had used multiple usernames to edit the Witness pages to "bolster support" for his position against Tommstein, during the course of the investigation Kelly noted Tomm's behavior; after asking both him and user:Central to "lay off the personal attacks" she stated: "CheckUser is not intended to assist with a witchhunt or with wikistalking, and I am concerned that you may be engaged in one or both of these activities." She did not respond to Tommstein's mocking of Wikipedia policies: "lest I be accused of being a witchhunting stalker again by the pro-jackass Wikipedia system ". Fast forward one week. The user who had been investigated for Sock Puppetry posted several of Tomm's NPA and CIV violations on several administrators' talk pages. One admin was kind enough to approach Tomm about his behavior cordially. Tommstein was subsequently blocked for 1 day (on January 1, '06) due to his persistent violations, and general disruption of Jehovah's Witness pages; he was then also asked by Administrator Turnbull to refrain from editing the Jehovah's Witness and related articles because "..it appears clear that you are incapable of maintaining common standards of neutrality and courtesy in dealing with such topics". In response, Tomm took out a revenge RFC against Administrator Turnbull. Also in response to that block Tommstein has collected some of my shameful civ violations and posted them on his talk page. Although they were only made in direct response to severe verbal abuse, I recognize I was in the wrong for returning fire (and it has been several weeks since i've made a comment that could be remotely construed to be hostile or provocative in any way).

When reviewing the list please note that a few of those "quotes" are in fact myself quoting someone else yet Tomm deceitfully attributes the words to me, and several of the quotes are several different responses all combined into one. I had pointed this out directly underneath the list but Tomm deleted my defence (twice). Also one of those: "what's the matter with you?" I had deleted not 5 minutes after I had written it, recognising it was inflammatory and inappropriate. One of the more heinous lies on that list of "quotes" is the one:"I accuse you of deceit, bias, prejudice, and rhetoric... direct provocation by you or User:Central... 'biased, prejudiced, ignorant', or 'stupid'". What I actually said can be found here (page 2, page was moved, direct link doesn't work).

Tommstein, and user:Central come to the table with the assumption that every Jehovah's Witness is lying to Them. They frequently (1, 2, 3, 4, or just go to talk:Jehovah's Witnesses and press ctrl + f and search the word: "theocratic") cite their misconception of the Jehovah's Witness "Theocratic Warfare" doctrine as self justification for such behavior and to generally malign the credibility of the Witness editors, regardless of the fact that their misunderstanding has been addressed by several Witnesses, including myself in a private discussion with Central. Their abuse is tiresome and the Witness Wiki Project has suffered greatly as a result. Instead of working together, I have been forced to take two seperate edit wars to mediation in order to stop the abuse (that has not stopped), and to stop the harassment (that likewise, has not stopped).

My final warning to Tommstein was met with mockery, but it was his statement: "I do not believe that I was uncivil" that has forced me to bring this here, and help him see his actions by peer review. Some of the most recent, and particularly distasteful violations (note that all of these are post-block):

• "I'm currently dealing with the shenanigans of a bunch of Jehovah's Witness zealots on their religion's pages and the administrators that reinforce their stupidity, so I speak from experience. Run for the hills. Just make stuff up if you have to, you'll have basically the same thing as if you used Wikipedia." (Jan 2, '06)
• "Why would we start paying attention to what people say instead of how they say it now, given that Witnesses that can't assault my arguments invariably do the exact opposite with anything I say all over Wikipedia? Some people have a bad case of 'my shit don't stink' syndrome." (Jan 4, '06)
• "start preaching its glory when all six of the chosen English Wikipedia administrators ignore you because they have more important things to do than making sure that sockpuppeteers don't single-handedly compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia or they just don't care." (Jan 5, '06)
• Edit summary: "reinserted deletion justified by the most asinine argument ever seen on wikipedia or, indeed, the world" (Jan 7 '06)
• Minor edit dispute when Administrator Turnbull edited Tomm's inflammatory comments: "Contrary to apparently popular belief, the purpose of this RFC is not to confirm that people want to have NicholasTurnbull's baby or that they hate other editors." (Tom 1, Nic 1, Tom 2, Nic 2, Tom 3, Nic 3, Tom 4)(Jan 10-11)
• "Beating Duffer1 logically isn't hard, getting him to stop causing trouble throughout Wikipedia is, and, unfortunately, there is no good system in place to treat trolls like trolls and get rid of such troublemakers." (Jan 14, '06)
• "..what other logical option is there to explain when things have reached Duffer1 levels? It would be politically incorrect to outright call him an idiot, or to say that he demonstrates signs of having an IQ comparable to most people's shoe size" (Jan 15, '06)
• Continued [44] brow-beating of Administrator Turnbull. (Jan 17, '06)

Please note that the above list is only post-block violations by Tommstein to underscore his total lack of respect for Adminstrator warnings, this does not include his previous POV and hostile edits (or user:Central's). Also, I know it was wrong of me to indulge their provocations, and I do sincerely apologize for the disruption this has caused, however, I have stopped (weeks ago). I believe this situation needs immediate, official, intercession.

Addendum to my statement

Since posting this RFA Tommstein has taken to revenge/hostile edits, and page vandalism (revenge/vandalism in response to my deletion of an unsourced and questionable edit; hostile, off-topic, and inaccurate edit). I will refrain from reverting these remarks, for now, so as to not further exacerbate the situation. Please accept my request for arbitration. Duffer 06:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Tommstein has done nothing except follow Duffer1's own policy of removing unsourced assertions. The edit summary itself talks about reinserting after documentation with verifiable sources. Tommstein is further unaware of editor Duffer1's permission being required in order to remove unsourced material from the encyclopedia, superceding the official Wikipedia:Verifiability policy that states that "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who has made the edit. Editors should therefore provide references. Any edit lacking a source may be removed" and the Wikipedia:Citing sources style guide that states "that any material that is challenged and has no source may be removed by any editor" and that "Disputed edits can be removed immediately". I further note Duffer1's inability to state his concern without engaging in WP:NPA, WP:CIV, and WP:AGF violations and attacking his fellow editors.Tommstein 07:32, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Cobaltbluetony

I will rely on the linking provided by Duffer to support my own statements. My deepest concern regarding the user Tommstein and his ad hom methodology stems from his own experiences. From my experience as one of Jehovah's Witnesses (and having been removed from the congregation at one time in my past) I feel I can make accurate assessments as to the nature of disfellowshipped individuals with whom I have had passing contact, and identify two main types of disfellowshipped individuals within the JW realm. The first is one who still strongly believes in his religious convictions and accepts this discipline as part of his worship; the second becomes embittered, perhaps feeling unjustly disciplined, either because the action(s) in question were not serious enough in his own mind, or that he did not commit the action(s) in question, or that the action(s) was (were) justified by circumstances.

The user Tommstein claims to be a former Jehovah's Witness, and extremely bitter about his experiences while there, and/or the means by which he became and ex-member of the organization. Since his judgments about Witnesses do seem to come from these feelings, I am adamant in my assertation that he cannot be expected to provide NPOV edits, nor be fair with those whom he seems to feel did him some wrong. I make no attestations to any ill treatment that he might have received, but maintain that this most likely explains his belligerant, insulting, and divisive method documented by Duffer above. Wikipedians are continually reminded to assume good faith, but there is obviously a time when this approach simply no longer applies. His malice and bias is plainly evident, and his edits frequently use subtle language intended to paint Witnesses in a bad light; he is smart enough to realize that blatant lies would not work here.

Further, Tommstein accuses any editor who tries to counteract his POV edits and discussion with NPOV editing, discussion, and arbitration, with the very infractions he is accused of, does not work to end disputes but foments further division, and justifies his errant behavior on this forum by unyieldingly referencing real or perceived infractions on the part of others.

Tommstein has attacked Duffer uberpenguin, George m, myself, others I cannot recall, and DannyMuse, who wants nothing more to do with Wikipedia and the Jehovah's Witness project series of articles.

I submit that Tommstein should be prohibited from editing project articles until such time as he can demonstrate to this arbitration committee that he can make NPOV edits and hold productive and civil discussions despite his own personal bias. - CobaltBlueTony 12:20, 18 January 2006 (UTC) (edited 17:06, 18 January 2006 (UTC))

Addendum to reinforce the need for arbitration

Since the addition of this case on 06:19, January 18, 2006 and Tommstein's subsequent receival of notification at 11:22 on the same date, he has managed to demonstrate so eloquently Duffer's reasons for bringing this case to this committee, with the following items visible on this page as of this edit (foulest language edited out):

• Response to impartial view, which could have helped him:
  • "Thank you for the impartial view, but expecting any of these god d**ned a**holes that somehow rise to the level of administrator or arbitrator on Wikipedia
  • to actually do any f**king research is apparently asking too much from whatever limited capacities they may have.
  • It is in vain, because we already have some dickfaced f**ktards here who have not only started cussing at me, but have decided both that I am guilty and that they personally want to ban me
  • without having bothered to look at the other god d**ned side, having done a personal trial and verdict...
  • which means that I'm going to get banned soon no matter what I say or do, so f**k them
  • I'm not kissing their stupid, sorry antisocial a**es.
  • After all my dealings with the stupid lazya** f**kers that rise to positions of power on Wikipedia..."
• his response to admonitions that he compose himself for the time being: on his own talk page.

I would like to reiterate that I offered my own opinion that only a limited ban be imposed, but with Tommstein's inability grasp the authority structure here, or at the very least attempt to appease it, I would suggest at this time that the committee honor his attempts to get himself banned more severely, though hopefully with more civility than he has used in condemning them. - CobaltBlueTony 17:37, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for quoting my edits found three inches down this very page. I don't think anyone would have found them without your guiding hand.Tommstein 15:14, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

"Repetition for emphasis." - CobaltBlueTony 15:53, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by uberpenguin

I have been asked by Duffer to say a few words here. I won't cover much ground that hasn't already been mentioned since I have purposely been totally uninvolved in JW-related articles for a little while now. I would like to affirm the validity of what Duffer and Tony have stated and add that the actions of Tommestein and Central have largely contributed to driving off several sincere editors from JW-related articles (here I'm not referring to Missionary/Retcon, who was quite misguided in his tactics). I have personally been accused of both outright lying (see Duffer's above comments on the "Theocratic Warfare" label) and being brainwashed, and have endured open mockery to myself, my intelligence, my beliefs, and those persons in my religious organization that hold some of my highest respects. The general tactic I have encountered involves Tomm or Central (and ocassionally others) flooding a conversation with a mass of quotes and demanding that his interpretation of said texts proves his point; accusing those with dissenting interpretation of lies, brainwashing, illiteracy, lack of intelligence, or at least bad motive. Tommestein has acted in approximately this manner ever since he began to discuss WP articles. See JW talk page archive 16 for my earliest (and really, only major) encounter with him as IP address 66.158.232.37.

Actions like Tomm's have caused myself personally and others to abandon hope of participating in the creation of a fair article on a subject that I am otherwise very concerned with. After realizing the futility of debates with so many pages of rhetoric that even I can't remember what the original points were, I decided to simply focus my attention on other articles that don't require a lengthy battle to make good-will modifications to.

Of course I, like Duffer and Tony, am an active JW and have my own biases. I have made statements and claims in past discussions that ranged from tactless to ill-drawn conclusions that I wish I could take back. However, I assure the concerned arbiters that the claims Tomm has made against the good faith of the parties involved pale in comparison to the utterly disrespectful way he treats others. I don't intend this to read as my sob story of why I stopped contributing to JW-related articles. I merely hope to have provided a taste of my own experiences in dealing with Tomm and the kind of difficulty to productive editing that he presents. -- uberpenguin 02:24, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Tommstein

In reply to the festival of WP:NPA, WP:CIV, and WP:AGF attacks above, I will simply point arbitrators to the following list I have been forced to create and update over time documenting the provocation and other attacks that anyone who is not a Jehovah's Witness faces when daring to disagree with a member of said religion, starring two of the three responders above (Duffer1 and Cobaltbluetony), in lieu of arbitrators requesting more input: User:Tommstein/List of Personal Attacks, Civility Breaches, Good Faith Violations, etc. by Jehovah's Witnesses. I believe that this list is material for a couple arbitration requests on its own, if this request is somehow deemed valid. I also note that Duffer1 only listed Central and myself from 'our' side of the disputes while listing every name he could think of, even people that left these articles long ago, from 'his' side.Tommstein 05:28, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Kelly Martin

I was asked to investigate sockpuppetry by Retcon. Upon finding clear evidence that he was, in fact, engaging in sockpuppetry to make his opinion appear to be held by more than just himself, I revealed this fact on Talk:Jehovah's Witnesses [45]. Tommstein, in what appears to be a paroxsym of jubilation, took every opportunity to rub in that Retcon had been caught, despite a clearly contrite apology from Retcon. (Unlike Tommstein, Central backed off when I asked him to.) At this point, I asked on the IRC channel if someone else could look at the situation and take appropriate action; I believe this is when Nicholas Turnbull got involved, and it's also when I walked away. (I'll add more content to this statement later, and the Committee knows where to find me if they need to ask me questions anyway.) I recommend that the Committee take up this matter to address Tommstein's unremitting penchant for personal attack. From what I've seen, the other parties in this affair have conducted themselves reasonably well, with only occasional lapses for which apologies and remediation have generally been forthcoming, and to that end I feel that there is no need for the Committee to become involved in managing their interpersonal affairs. Kelly Martin (talk) 21:44, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved party, Krich

I have been reading and observing several of the articles regarding Jehovah\'s Witnesses for a while, and have spent a long time reading through the long histories. I have to agree that Tommstein can often be very aggressive when arguing his points, and has often crossed over to incivility. He is tenatious when defending each and every edit he disputes, but that itself is of course not a bad thing. I agree that he needs to be made to understand that he must dial things back a lot if he wishes to keep editing.

I also note that articles regarding this religious subject are often very contentious, and Tommstein is not the only editor (on either \"side\" of the issues) to have often been uncivil, or to have refused to assume good faith at times. That\'s not an excuse for Tommstein, but there is context, and he\'s not alone in misbehavior there.

I believe, from my observations, that Tommstein has been more resistant to the good-faith efforts Kelly and Nicholas have made to get him to tone it down because of a perception he has that he is being singled out among all editors in these article disputes. No matter if he is right or wrong, it appears to me that his perception has been a factor in his not being very responsive to date. Perhaps an RfC where the concerns of all parties could be aired, and more outside input from other editors might help convince all involved to pull back the hostility and unacceptable uncivil language.

I would suggest to Aribitors considering whether to accept this to consider that it might be better to exhaust other avenues first. At least one of the mediations that have recently been entered into by these parties has bourne fruit, with progress (often slow, but real) made.

I haven\'t seen an RfC filed yet, unless I\'ve missed it. Tommstein contributes a lot of good information along with the heat. I honestly think that given a wider group of people viewing some of these behaviors and commenting on them, Tommstein might be able to see where he must dial back the attitude to be able to continue to make his positive contributions. I\'d like to see an RfC filed first, and the outcome of mediation that\'s still going on and making progress, before going all the way to an ArbCom. I recommend Arbitors decline to hear this at this time, pending those other remedies working their course a bit further. Thanks, --Krich (talk) 04:42, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

You didn't miss the RFC, I just apparently wasn't worthy of one. Thank you for the impartial view, but expecting any of these god damned assholes that somehow rise to the level of administrator or arbitrator on Wikipedia to actually do any fucking research is apparently asking too much from whatever limited capacities they may have. It is in vain, because we already have some dickfaced fucktards here who have not only started cussing at me, but have decided both that I am guilty and that they personally want to ban me, without having bothered to look at the other god damned side, having done a personal trial and verdict, and stated their intents for the execution, after only bothering to listen to the prosecution. They've already decided that I'm guilty before the matter has even been accepted or evidence from more than one side has been reviewed, which means that I'm going to get banned soon no matter what I say or do, so fuck them, I'm not kissing their stupid, sorry antisocial asses. After all my dealings with the stupid lazyass fuckers that rise to positions of power on Wikipedia, I don't expect any brain stems to miraculously spark to life now.Tommstein 10:47, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Erm, ok. I feel like rather an idiot now for having written my statement above, given this diatribe filled with personal attacks. --Krich (talk) 19:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Someone regretting an attempt to inject a little unbiased sense into the ongoing bullshit. Only on Wikipedia. Add another member to Wikipedia's roll of heroes.Tommstein 06:15, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Since the prosecution, as was so stated above, saw fit to present a thorough case...and the defense responded with a terse rebuttal with a link towards which the subject in question deems is an adequate defense...both sides had in fact presented their case prior to the two arbitrators comments below (check the history for confirmation of this fact). So, the assertion that they have done no research seems to indicate that the subject in question may not be in full possession of his mental and/or emotional facilities.

I have attempted unsuccessfully to ascertain the etymology for some of the above obscene terminology, which seems to confirm the above supposition of instability. It also seems to solidify the prosecutions case with an admission of tacit guilt for the subject in question. Additionally, when in a court of law the defense they made me do it generally solicits an apathetic response. Rockumsockum 08:11, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I was about to respond to this bullshit troll, when I realized it's a(nother) sockpuppet. The fact that even Duffer1 realized this should speak volumes, but nevertheless, note how, immediately after joining Wikipedia, he came directly to the arbitration page, straight to my comments, and proceeded to leave the bullshit found above, and then tried to make their user and talk pages not look 'new'. Also note that we have had enormous sockpuppet problems here before, with Retcon having created a fleet of sockpuppets and then lying his ass off about it and forging evidence to 'prove' otherwise. I also note that our sockpuppeteer/liar has recently become active again, using multiple login names again and posting straight from his IP address (not that I would expect anyone to have noticed any of this, given the high quality research that goes on here before deciding that people should be banned). Just like our known sockpuppeteer, this user has a penchant for deleting anything that might cast him in the slightest negative light from his Talk pages (yes, plural). Lastly, note that our new friendly neighborhood sockpuppet seems to have problems posting without backslashes appearing before single quotes ([46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51]). Maybe this is a problem due to trying to access Wikipedia through some kind of remote system so that he's not detected again, who knows. What I do know is that reexamine.org, a website the Witnesses dislike, just had a new user last night impersonating Wikipedia user Central (our friendly sockpuppeteer also engaged in multiple counts of user impersonation here, including an account impersonating yours truly), and engaging in vandalism, much of which has been permanently deleted already, and this user already having been permanently banned there. Note, however, this user's also having a problem with single quotes being preceded by backslashes ([52]; there was another edit summary displaying the same problem, but it has since been deleted with the vandalized page; having just been made an administrator there, I can confirm that the text of the edit summary was "Placing one\'s own information on one\'s own user page does not constitute vandalism"). What is included in this idiot's list of turnoffs? I... despise apostates in every shape and form, which would be considered to be all ex-Witnesses posting here. Impartial third-party observer indeed. I wonder how it would go if I made such an edit here, explicitly saying I despise Jehovah's Witnesses in so many words. When someone can't get through their first edit without giving away that they're a sockpuppet, they should probably be kept in a padded room. Naturally, this will all probably fly over the heads of our local Mensa club here, and Cobaltbluetony will undoubtedly come to this latest sockpuppet's fervent defense, as he did to great lengths when this sockpuppeteer was originally lying, forging evidence, etc. This is just a small, fresh-off-the-presses sample of the bullshit shenanigans non-Witnesses face from Witnesses here.Tommstein 15:55, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I've just read your post Tom and I'm in shock! All I can say is what the hell is this religion doing to its members? I never seem to stop being amazed at the outrageous activity of some Jehovah's Witnesses who totally lose the plot. This JW person is one hardcore stalker. This impostor must be the same hate filled poster who was the Jehovah's Witness Retcon|Missionary and all the others fake IDs he used. He is seriously in need of some professional psychiatric help, if not sectioning immediately, and is this not a perfect example of what that religion can do to someone's mind? It all becomes clear when you see the nasty, vindictive, fundamentalist, neurotically obsessing JW's behaviour, it must be the same, Retcon|Missionary, who was here causing as much disruption as possible. I have also seen a mass of new posters here in Wikipedia in the past two weeks; I'm sure most of them are him also, and the same Jehovah's Witness who was faking me on http://www.reexamine.org

Mind you, what do the moderators do here when they see all these sock puppets? Very little, and that just compounds the problems, animosity and edits wars on these boards. If the moderators cut out these JW fundamentalist cancerous growths when they were reported, things would not get anywhere as heated in people's posts. Well at least he is a good advertisement for not joining the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses; if this is the kind of reaction we get from fundamentalist members when they are caught lying, manipulating and stalking. It would not surprise me one bit if he's making letter/parcel bombs as we speak, trying to find some "apostate" to send them to and kill them "for Jehovah". This nut is a perfect example of how terrorists are made. I can imagine someone like him at the Jonestown mass suicide, grabbing little kids by the neck saying: "Drink your damn cool aid you little shit, I don't give a damn if it tastes funny, drink it for God NOW!!!!" Central 01:04, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

No, no, you've got it all wrong, I'm the stalker and witchhunter here for reporting, and being massively right about, our sockpuppeteer being a sockpuppeteer. Kelly Martin said so, and has even decided that expressing happiness that the sockpuppetting bullshit was finally over (or so we thought, although it seems that we grossly underestimated how little shame some people have) is worthy of arbitration and banning, and even stuck NicholasTurnbull on me to get me in trouble for making said correct report, so it must be true (not to give her too much blame for NicholasTurnbull's stupidity, just for sicking him on me). Let's just be glad that her insightful arbitration skills were deemed by the community to no longer be required, for completely different onerous behavior. Not that I give a shit any more; maybe she should have been retained. I've made proposals regarding how sockpuppet checks could be facilitated, and got an endorsement from the only dude that cared enough to respond, but that would make the super-duper-ultra-extra-special CheckUser users less super-duper-ultra-extra-special, so one can see why precisely those with the power to get something more useful rolling refuse to. The cream truly rises to the top on Wikipedia.

About the behavior of Witnesses, you're exactly right. The only difference between them and the terrorists and other distasteful groups you mentioned is what they are currently asked and not asked to do, nothing more, certainly not mindset; they have superabundantly demonstrated their willingness to die for whatever their religion demands, and then defend it when it changes its mind and says 'oops, sorry you're dead for listening to us,' in their happiness at dying for all the stupid things their religion has demanded that they die for over time, stuff like refusing vaccines, refusing organ transplants, refusing parts of blood that have now suddenly been declared to be OK, their continued happiness to die instead of having blood-based medical treatment that hasn't yet been OK'ed by their senile geezers in Brooklyn, refusal to buy a 25 cent card in Malawi to avoid torture and death (at the same time Mexican Witnesses were given permission to bribe officials into falsely declaring that they had performed military service), etc. Maybe their connection with God had too much static. We both know full well that their publications (and thus they) giggle with glee like little girls anticipating the deaths of all of us and birds and other wildlife eating our dead bodies. They have previously expressed some shame that they can't outright kill apostates like, say, all ex-Witnesses that edit here, as was just highlighted here. These are some sick bastards. Maybe they'll turn even more radical and hardcore to keep members as passing decade after decade reveals that the end of the world was not, in fact, right around the corner (how many corners does the end of the world have?). It's probably not coincidental that studies have shown that Witnesses have higher rates of mental illness, as amply demonstrated by these fucknuts that edit on Wikipedia. You know as well as I do that these people, far from being considered the fucknuts that they in fact are, are probably held to be superplusgood Witnesses by other Witnesses.Tommstein 15:33, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Mediation Cabalist, Steven McCrary

Greetings, I am the mediator of the information mediation occuring at Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2005-12-27_Jehovah's_Witnesses. The mediation is ongoing, and has not failed, although it is very slow. There is a great deal of emotion from both sides of this dispute; I am unsure where or when it started. I have set some ground rules on that page about how to interact during this dispute, it took a while, but both sides, including Tommstein, are generally acting relatively civil and under control (with occasional lapses). --SteveMc 04:15, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I must point out that Tommstein has completely ignored the guideline to only address you. Also Tommsteins' relative civility on this mediation's page is in no way indicitive of amiableness as evidenced by the list of unprovoked attacks that I have already provided above, he has also ignored your request to remove inflammatory language, and indeed has persisted in fomenting with his inexcusably hostile reply to user:Cobaltbluetony (seen here) just yesterday. Duffer 04:42, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Greetings once again. Duffer raises a valid point, though I disagree with Duffer's assessment of Tom's incivility and lack of amiableness. As I stated above, all parties on the Cabal Mediation page have not constrained themselves to the original "ground rules." If anyone should take offense it is me (the mediator) only. This is not a reigning endorsement of Tommstein's behavior; just an honest assessment of that behavior on that page. Yes, Tom's most recent edit is a lapse, but I am dealing with it there; however, most of Tom's posts are pleasant and helpful. Sincerely, SteveMc 06:12, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Steve, I thank you for trying to insert some facts into this mess, but the decision has apparently already been made that I should be banned and that there is not in fact more than one side to every story, screw actual facts. My recent actions on the mediation page (and elsewhere) are a direct result of this. Note that our whole contingent of friendly neighborhood Witnesses has spent far more time recently trying to get me banned than trying to actually do anything useful, including on the Mediation page. It's pitiful that Wikipedia allows argumentum ad bullshit bans, but there's nothing we can personally do to fix it, just leave it to wallow in its filth. If I'm gonna do the time, I might as well do the crime.Tommstein 16:10, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I cannot speak for my brothers but personally I have significantly curbed my Wiki editing during this RFA in order to not further provoke the situation as you have seen fit to take to vandalism and general page disruption whenever any Witness makes an edit (shown above in my Addendum). I'm simply not going to endure further harassment by you. One of the mainstays of Wiki's conflict resolution is: "avoidance", I have been holding faithful to this guideline since the RFa. I have only come forward to directly speak to you now in order to address your false portrayal of Witness intent. Indeed I have specifically stated that I want to help you see your actions by: "peer review". If they see fit to ban you then so be it, I just want you to see that it is your behavior that is causing all of this. Even user:Cobaltbluetony specifically stated that he recommends you be disciplined UNTIL you can demonstrate amiableness. Your behavior is egregious by any moral standard, as a result, consequences may ensue, executed by a committee of uninvolved persons who have an obligation to review ALL sides of an issue. Duffer 20:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, so what you are so intelligently saying is that you've been acting differently during this process, to give arbitrators a different impression of you than they would otherwise get, with the obvious corollary that you'll revert to your standard behavior and cease putting on a show once you're no longer trying to get people you can't factually argue with banned? Gotcha. By the way, my file tracking your bad behavior increased in length by about 60% from the beginning of the year to January 17, and your personal share has increased by about 148%, meaning (for the slow) that you engaged in 148% as much bullshit in these two and a half weeks as you had in your entire previous Wikipedia history. Yeah, I don't see why anyone would think that you're not only still the same asshole, but that your rate of assholiness has increased dramatically once you decided that provoking people for an extensive period of time and getting them banned was easier than not being wrong.Tommstein 14:38, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (6/0/0/0)

• Accept. I'd personally be tempted to block Tommstein for being a disruptive dick - the standard of behaviour is similar to that which has gotten others blocked indefinitely by admin disgust - but an arbitration is more final - David Gerard 21:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept, per the sentiments above. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 00:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept ➥the Epopt 04:19, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 05:18, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. Charles Matthews 11:21, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 17:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Beckjord

Involved parties

Party 1

• Android79 (talk · contribs)
• Bishonen (talk · contribs)
• Bunchofgrapes (talk · contribs)
• DreamGuy (talk · contribs)
• Friday (talk · contribs)
• MONGO (talk · contribs)

Party 2

• Beckjord (talk · contribs)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Notification on Beckjord's talk page [53] and on that of his frequently-used anonymous IP [54].

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

An RfC and mediation were briefly considered, but after it became apparent that Beckjord will use any means necessary to disrupt Bigfoot and other articles, including block evasion and editing from AOL IPs, it is suspected that any other dispute resolution techniques would merely delay the inevitable, as [55] should make clear.

Statement by Android79

User:Beckjord has repeatedly tried to insert unverifiable original research into Bigfoot and other paranormal-related articles that matches his point of view. Beckjord, the editor, is none other than Erik Beckjord, described in that article as a "paranormal investigator". Beckjord contends that Bigfoot and other creatures such as the Loch Ness Monster may be aliens visiting Earth from another dimension by way of wormholes. Setting aside any questions about the veracity of these claims, it is sufficient to say that this is considered a fringe theory even among fringe theorists.

Beckjord has gone to great lengths to attempt to keep unsourced, non-neutral material in the article. He frequently engages in edit wars and has been blocked once for 3RR ([56]). For a short time, he posted a "call to arms" to visitors of his website to come to Wikipedia and aid him in repeatedly inserting the same material into Bigfoot [57]. Partly due to uproar on the Bigfoot talk page, and partly due to the fact that this tactic was ineffective (few people answered the call to arms, and those that did were quickly reverted) the notice on his website was taken down.

Beckjord is suspected of using multiple sockpuppets and anonymous accounts to push his agenda. Circumstantial evidence (highly distinctive editing style, article interest, variously having signed their different names to edits by the same IP address, and other behavior) have all but confirmed that 205.208.227.49 (talk · contribs) [58] [59] [60], DrJoe (talk · contribs) [61], Dr Joe (talk · contribs), Orphanannie (talk · contribs), and Luminary666 (talk · contribs) [62] are all Beckjord. It is also suspected that Beckjord has started using an AOL account to edit Wikipedia anonymously [63].

It is unknown if Beckjord understands (or has even read) Wikipedia's core policies on verifiability, original research, and point of view. Regardless, he denounces [64] them, calling for more "cutting edge" research to be added to Wikipedia [65]. He frequently adds unsourced or poorly-sourced material, often using his own website as a reference [66].

Beckjord also routinely engages in personal attacks, in the form of straight insults [67] [68] or attacks on the credibility of his opposition [69]. Editors who have chosen to remain anonymous are attacked as "cowards" for not revealing their real names or for offering their credentials [70]. Beckjord contends that, since he is the only editor who has chosen to reveal that he has real-world credentials on Bigfoot, he is the only editor with enough expertise to actually decide what belongs in the article.

Beckjord may have some worthwhile content to contribute to Bigfoot and other cryptozoology-related articles, and if he at some point decides to remain civil, stop using sockpuppets, and abide by WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOR, I will have no problem with his edits. However, so far he has shown neither the ability nor the inclination to do any of those things. android79 23:06, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Addendum, 01:11, 24 January 2006 (UTC): Beckjord has recently posted [71] instructions on his website on how to revert to a preferred version of the Bigfoot article. android79

Statement by Bishonen

It's been sad to watch User:Beckjord go from optimistic newbie to malcontent and sockpuppeteer, and recently mere vandal [72]. I wish this negative progression could have been avoided, but I can't see how, or that anybody here has been mean to him. He seemed at first full of hope of persuading Wikipedia to waive WP:NPOV and WP:NOR, policies that he despises, and is now bitter and incredulous that people just keep going on and on about them. His article edits are wildly and proudly POV, and he edit wars with great persistence over Bigfoot, and somewhat also Cryptozoology and his own bio. He has often declared that Wiki policy pages are too numerous and complicated [73] [74], and that it's pointless to read them anyway, as they're misguided and perverse [75]. You can see the frustration of those who have tried to direct him to policies, [76] [77] [78], [79], [80]or even simply show him how to format a talkpage heading, [81] [82]. all over the talkpages involved, especially User talk:Beckjord. These pages are made nightmarishly messy, originally merely by his lack of skill, but lately, I think, maliciously. (Now that B has turned puppeteer, some of his unique formatting habits confirm the identification of his sockpuppets — see his trademark top-level headings here.) He revels in repetitious personal attacks, sometimes jovial in tone [83], more often not [84] [85]. He targets especially User:DreamGuy, [86], [87], [88], who has put up with Beckjord's barrage a lot more patiently than I could, and has recently turned on Android79 ("This jerk moron is as bad as DreamGuy") [89]. Even though Beckjord's cryptozoological opinions are, er, non-mainstream, he might well have some worthwhile material to contribute, but it value is negated by his disruptive insistence on "owning" the articles and having them express his own views. Thereby he keeps lots of good contributors dishearteningly busy arguing with and reverting him and his socks, and he keeps the articles themselves in a miserable, battle-locked, low-quality state. I'm sorry to say this, but instead of a "contributor" to the encyclopedia, he's a mere drain on it. Bishonen | talk 23:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC).

Statement by Bunchofgrapes

Beckjord offers little but disdain for Wikipedia, and especially for polices critical in pseudoscience areas such as WP:V and WP:NOR. He rarely edits under his own account now, but his distinctively clumsy editing style make his ever-more abusive rants from anon and sock accounts very easy to identify. I would be very surprised to find that this edit [90] (with edit summary "jIMBO PORNO SEE GOOGLE UNDER WIKIPEDIA AND JIMBO - back each hr") was not him. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by MONGO

Beckjord appeared on my radar after seeing my watchlisted page on Bigfoot became much more active. I thought at first, he was just a new editor, with a strong stand that the evidence to prove the existence of Bigfoot was being suppressed. I even directed him to an unpublished source that may have been of interest to him. Later, I saw that the answers for him as to whether Bigfoot exists has almost nothing to do with science and everything to do with pseudoscience and completely hypothetical theories of interdimensionalism, shape shifting and an association with UFO's. [91] I am not familiar with his edits for the most part outside of the Bigfoot article, but his contributions, especially to the associated talk pages[92] and in others userspace [93], have become more farfetched and his personal attacks have gone well beyond what any editor needs to endure. The fact that numerous editors have tried patiently to direct to areas such as WP:NOR, WP:CITE, WP:V and of course WP:NPA seems to have had little effect on helping him improve his contributions. His usage of numerous accounts both logged in and anonymously is disheartening and has apparently been done to avoid WP:3RR and or to give the illusion that there are numerous editors that are in agreement with him. HIs use of profanity in his personal attacks are completely unacceptable. [94] However, I will admit that late in this game, I added unnecessary sarcasm to my edit summaries that may not have help calm him down. [95]--MONGO 02:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Beckjord has been notified and reminded at least twice by those involved here and his latest comment below seems to sum up his attitude which is repeated here.

Statement by DreamGuy

This really hasn't been a slow progression. Since Beckjord learned of Wikipedia he immediately came here to try to change Bigfoot and Erik Beckjord to fit his own views and to ignore our policies. See this link for a comment on Talk:Bigfoot on only his second day after registering, in which it is already clear that he knows about the policies on WP:NPOV and WP:NOR (as I had already explained them both to him as an anon IP before he registered) but simply refuses to follow them. Note already the clear attempt to drop self-promotional links to his own site. Furthermore, his first two edits on his stable IP address [96] and [97] clearly show his goals from the very beginning: self-promotion of himself as the only true expert on the topic and disdain for anyone who gets in his way. Note also that the article on him noted his previous use of sockpuppets, threatening emails and so forth on other sites prior to him showing up here. This is exactly the sort of situation where some policy or method to stop chronic POV pushing and self-promotion in its tracks would be extremely helpful. Of course the more recent transgressions of this user have been detailed above, but it's noteworthy, I think, that he's been a major problem from the start and that multiple experienced editors had to devote a large amount of time just to keep the articles in question mostly the same if not slightly improved while one dedicated new editor with a clear agenda time after time tried to convert it into his own personal soapbox and commercial. All too much of my time here, and I'm sure all the editors above would agree, is used up simply stopping the encyclopedia from getting much worse instead of doing anything to actually improve it. Without clear action here, and hopefully efforts to create policies to prevent these situations in the future, a great number of editors are reduced to mere janitors and members of a neighborhood watch instead of being editors. DreamGuy 09:42, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

As of Jan. 22, Beckjord's petty vandalism against editors he perceives as enemies is still ongoing. See the contributions of 172.137.247.247 where he edits the beckjord talk page with another false name (this time "jason"), saying comments beckjord normally makes, then goes to make a petty vandalism to User:Rhobite's page, reverts Jack the Ripper (a page he knows I am an active participant on) to a fairly old version but labels it "minor edit" and then goes and apparently does the same thing to Butter, which I remember Beckjord previously caused problems at because one of the other editors above was a contributor to. It's apparent that, despite claims of some that he is not solely here to cause problems, he is all too willing to vandalize pages in petty and bizarre ways to try to lash out against others. DreamGuy 08:08, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

And is currently editing under the sockpuppet User:Orphanannie. DreamGuy 08:21, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

His latest move: a page on his own website calling people to go to the Bigfoot page and edit it, See http://www.beckjord.com/bigfoot/wikipediabigfoot.html]

Note the part especially: "Anything by Bunchofgrapes, DreamGuy, Android79, Mongo and various others with login names is retarded, out of date trash, and if you like the Jan 23 4:57 version, you can click on it, view it, then click on tab "Edit this page", view it in html form, make any change you want, or none, and at bottom, write Minor edit in box, then click save." where he specifically suggests falsely marking major reverts as "minor edit".... which is exactly what he was doing on other articles like Butter and Jack the Ripper to try to get at the editors he doesn't like, as mentioned above. DreamGuy 01:35, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved party DanielCD

Martial Law and I have spent a good deal of time and effort trying to coach Beckjord as best we can, but I am afraid I agree that some kind of arbitration is called for, as there is only so much that can be done. At first, there was quite an improvement, but it soon leveled out to its current state.

I want to state however, that there are mental health issues involved with Beckjord, and I don't honestly believe he is here with any malicious intent (I completely agree, however, that arbitration is still needed). I would just like the record to show that, at least in my opinion, the man believes he is doing the right thing. Though he has been called a troll, and his hostile comments are not excusable, I don't think he should be considered as someone deliberately here to cause trouble. His frustration level is very low, and he often does impulsive things, such as calling for vandalism of Wikipedia at his site. But this statement was only up for a brief time, and he removed it when his frustration (or anger) subsided. We were able to convince him that it was very unconstructive.

I'm not sure what good my comments can do; I sincerely wish I could say more on his behalf, because I would hate to see him banned. But what's necessary is necessary. Perhaps the severity of any decision against him can be reduced a bit, but even there, I'm not sure how, as Martial Law and my own mentoring can attest. As for the time spent on helping him ... yes Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and we are all here essentially to edit and do work in that regard, but it means nothing without people; in a sense, people and their interactions are Wikipedia, or at least a major part of what makes it so valuable a tool, not just of static information, but of information exchange.

I'll leave off with reiterating my firm belief that he, at heart, is not here with malicious intent, though I also emphasize that I don't mean this opinion to excuse his actions. It might be possible to go the personal communication route and see if he can be reached better that way. I think all things should be considered, and will respect the arbitration counsel's decision completely. Thank you. --DanielCD 14:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to refer this comment by Beckjord: Questions for Daniel. He did ask for help, and I tried to give it to him. However, I didn't refer him to other resources when my time got tight over the last month, and perhaps that is a failure on my part. But he does do somewhat better with a good mentor (though he can be quite a challenge). It's when I stopped giving him large amounts of my time that he drifted back into his old mode. --DanielCD 14:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I think he is guilty of sockpuppeting, no question there; I myself have warned him about it. But I think at least one of the anon accounts he is using is just him failing to sign into his regular account, which he may just not remember to do. --DanielCD 14:48, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement By Uninvolved Party Martial Law

I recomend that User:Beckjord be placed under a mentorship protocol with mentors that are familiar with paranormal matters, yet follow Wikipedian protocol. These must not be skeptical, yet still follow Wikipedian protocol, since it is skeptics that set him off. People have seen strange things, they don't like being told that other people will percive that they're liars and idiots. I have investigated a incident in which someone had desired to shoot me if I say that I'm a skeptic, since he and other witnesses were made out to be liars and fools by "skeptics". User:Beckjord may have been raised to believe that "seeing is believing", and does'nt like people accusing him of lying and/or being a idiot or some kind of nut because he has seen something strange. Martial Law 11:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, my short time here makes me unqualified to be a mentor at this time. Martial Law 00:30, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Beckjord

I've contacted him outside Wikipedia and he is of the opinion that this entire arbitration procedure is a huge farce and he really doesn't care what the committee does one way or the other. When people like Android79 are given any credeence whatever, the entire procedure loses all validity.

He does want to simply get some enlightened admin who is respected to make some simple and basic edits to the Bigfoot article, since it is not what he *says* that is judged, but it is the name he carries that is judged and instant reverts follow with no consideration of the __content__ of the edits he tried to make. However, an admin who has some philosophical background, such as DanielCD, might be able to insert a short paragraph in the Bigfoot article that can make a profound change in how READERS view this topic.

He says it is the old fashioned and almost comic book approach used in Wiki,has been "Is there a Bigfoot or is it a hoax?" and this ignores the possibility that a new life-form may be involved, by excluding it from the basic question.

The better question for an ARTICLE should be:

On the question of alleged hairy humanoids, does the evidence show they are 1) a hoax or error; 2) a zoological species of possible primate; 3) a life form outside of zoology that has special abilities that enable it to escape capture?

In the light of research by advanced theoretical physicists such as Dr.Micho Kaku, (CCNY,CUNY)("Parallel Wolrds") and Dr. Fred Allen Wolf ("Parallel Universes")as well as recent research evidence found by active researchers other than himself, this __restructuring__ of the basic article format question is justified.

Can an enlightened and intelligent ADMIN insert this change into the article?

Gerald Hawkin

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (6/0/0/0)

• Accept. I expect he'll sockpuppet if found against though - David Gerard 21:58, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 00:05, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept Fred Bauder 01:56, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept ➥the Epopt 04:19, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 05:19, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. Charles Matthews 11:22, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 17:27, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Khmer Rouge - Ruy Lopez (and his sockpuppets), CJK, TDC, A2kafir, TJive, Rangek, Adam Carr, and Btipling

Involved parties

• Ruy Lopez (talk · contribs)
• CJK (talk · contribs)
• TDC (talk · contribs)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

[98] [99]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

There has been an abortive RFC (both on the user and on the Khmer Rouge page, Talk:Khmer Rouge and archives) and abortive mediation [100] [101]. Repeated attempts to compromise at User talk:Ruy Lopez and Talk:Khmer Rouge have failed, conflict has been going on for 6 months (for me) but two years for Ruy Lopez.

Statement by CJK

Since July 2005 I have been involved in the dispute on the Khmer Rouge article, a dispute which really runs back to 2004. Throughout this time Ruy Lopez has been extremely uncooperative with using the discussion page, which he was required to do in a previous arbitration decision. [102]

His tactics are usually to make a controversial edit, then ignore talk page objections. He does respond eventually, but his long-winded rebutals contain little substance to the actual charges and consist mostly of hot air or false accusations. The disputes vary drastically from the entire article [103] to one sentence [104] For instance, currently we are disputing the credibility of a source inserted regarding an alleged CIA operation. NOTE THAT I DO NOT QUESTION WHETHER OR NOT THE SOURCE EXISTS, I AM SIMPLY QUESTIONING ITS RELEVANCE AND CREDIBILITY. Ruy Lopez has made some responses, but does not answer the (perfectly reasonable) questions (stated over and over again), [105] [106] [107] [108] [109] [110] [111] instead asserting himself over and over again with the same jargon and constantly engaging in revert war (which he got blocked for eventually for gaming the system). Sadly, this is not an isolated incident, it appears to be the general editing pattern of Ruy Lopez, though he is more persistant on this page than others.

In addition, he has stalked me in other disputes I had such as Cold War (1953-1962), History of the United States (1945-1964) and Communist State while participating in almost no discussion himself (certainly nothing meaningful).

It's also been rumored that he has edited under a wide-variety of other accounts, which I think should be investigated. CJK 17:18, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Ruy Lopez

I've seen what Jimbo and his lieutenants have done to progressive users like 172, Secretlondon, Wik etc. Even someone mild like Viajero is barely editing any more, and with how Wikipedia has shifted, Mikkalai is now considered far out left. I gave up on Wikipedia months ago, but decided to take a stand on one article and watch the denouement. I already know what the outcome will be, and as often happens to me at the end for me, I see no point in wasting hours of time on this ArbCom case, David Gerard's comments is enough of what I knew I'd see. So I am quitting Wikipedia, permanently.

I withdraw any charges against CJK, TDC or whoever. I removed everything I put into the Khmer Rouge page over the past year. I will not make any edits after this one, outside of my talk page, and only for the next few days. I don't plan to follow this case any more either. Ruy Lopez 00:15, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment I don't think anyone bullied you into quitting. You're just giving up. 'Either my way or the highway.' That's just the kind of attitude that doesn't work on Wikipedia. Anyways, sad to see you go. (Bjorn Tipling 01:33, 22 January 2006 (UTC))

Statement by btipling

I'm a new editor, I've been using Wikipedia for a few years though, and I was involved for a bit on the Khmer Rouge page. There was an edit war in progress, and at first I thought Ruy Lopez was the blame of it (which may still be true), and I thought he should be blocked from the page because it looked as if he were reverting in the face of opposition of all the other editors. But then I started looking through the article's history and noticed that Ruy Lopez actually had improved the article a bit. Yet, I don't disagree with CJK that Ruy Lopez refuses to discuss the issues. While the storm was raging on Khmer Rouge I tried to begin a compromise and Ruy ignored it while continuing to edit the article. He's got some extremist views, and as for this Samuel Thorten guy, I'm not convinced he's credible or notable enough to include on a general article on Cambodia's ruling party during the most of the 70's (although in fact I was the first to put him in the article as a concession, I hoped Ruy would it develop further). Overall I think Ruy has some unpopular views on Khmer Rouge that aren't traditionally accepted. I don't know if Wikipedia may be the best place for these alternative views. I do want to say though that Ruy has always been civil on talk pages. (Bjorn Tipling 01:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC))

Statement by disinterested Third-Party ConradRock

I have dealt with Ruy Lopez on one occasion, with the revert war involved with the Joe Scarborough article. I do not agree with Ruy's POV, but the issue at hand is his heavy-handed, ignoring all discussion, constant reverting to his POV. Ruy will always involve himself within a revert war, make a few choice edits without consulting others or even involving himself within discussion, even insofar as ignoring directed questions on his talk page. Each of his edits are pretty much aimed at causing further disruption to the means of reaching a consensus; on top of all of that, if you disagree with Mr. Lopez, he labels you as biased, non-conforming to NPOV, and part of the "conservative, Pro-American" Wikipedia cabal. This is not only based on his actions with Joe Scarborough, but his actions with numerous other articles here in Wikipedia. His actions need further review before he causes more collateral damage to our modus operandi. Conradrock 23:30, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by DTC 20:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Ruy Lopez’s conduct on Khmer Rouge have been completely unacceptable. For the past 15 months on the article, Lopez has been engaged in a long standing edit war on the article. His proposed contributions have been rejected by the vast majority of the editors, and nearly every one of his edits on that page have been reverted after his general lack of contribution on the discussion page. He shows a complete and utter lack of willingness to work towards a consensus in any article, and even goes so far as to claim that the cabal that runs Wikipedia is hopelessly corrupt and biased: "who runs Wikipedia? The answer is the millionaire Ayn Rand devotee Jimbo Wales, and to a lesser extent his various lieutenants". This RfArb is long overdue.

There is also little dount that Lopez has used numerous Sockpuppets to attack users, and wage his edit wars in other articles. One his many suspected sockpuppetsis User:Lancemurdoch, who has had very similar things to say about the Cabal that runs Wikipedia: "Or perhaps Wikipedia is owned and controlled by a wealthy capitalist, Jimbo, and he and his little cabal see Mr. Poor as their brethren and invited him into ranks" DTC 20:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Rangek

The KR article is pretty messed up. Nearly endless edit wars make meaningful changes almost impossible. I don't see how arbitration is going to help, but something needs to be done. Is it all Ruy Lopez's fault? No. But he is particularly difficult to deal with. He never seems to be able to answer simple questions about his facts or sources. Rangek 03:52, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Adam Carr

I am currently travelling in Laos - once again seeing firsthand a part of the world which for western parlor-communists like Lopez exists only as an ideological fetish - so I cannot play much part in this process. When I get back I will be rewriting History of Laos and related articles from scratch, so I suggest Lopez starts re-reading his Noam Chomsky now if he wants to take me on. In the meantime I support any effort to get Lopez and his whole family of sockpuppets banned from Wikipedia, and I don't believe for one second that his statement of withdrawal is genuine. He will just come back as someone else as he has done many times. The issue is not his "standard of behaviour". As regulars will know, I don't much care about either revert wars or political-personal abuse. The issue is his determination to use Wikipedia as an arena for promoting communist propaganda. Until this, of itself, is made a bannable offence, Lopez and his type will continue to waste Wikipedia's time and damage its reputation. Adam 04:39, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment by VeryVerily

The claim by "Ruy Lopez" (since erased), that I used to go through his edit history and revert all of his edits, has been made by him about a dozen times on various pages. It is a lie, it has always been a lie, and he knows it is a lie. If many of his edits were reverted by me and others, it is because they are exquisitely revert-worthy. Simple inspection of these edits will bear this out.

"Ruy Lopez"'s campaign of destruction via his endless array of sockpuppets has gone on for two years. Why any self-respecting encyclopedia would tolerate this is beyond me. If the ArbComm, which has come down like a ton of bricks on so many good users, does not stamp this menace down once and for all, it is worse than worthless. VeryVerily 11:47, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I note his statement of withdrawal, but don't think this means action is not called for. And the delusions that Secretlondon was persecuted (she is a bureaucrat who has always denied being a victim) or that Jimbo Wales drove off 172 (who he adminned despite others' obvious concerns) or that Wik/Gzornenplatz/NoPuzzleStranger was banned for his leftism (rather than running a vandalbot) hint at his research talents or, more bluntly, his level of honesty. VeryVerily 12:05, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I also wish to echo Adam Carr's general sentiment above. The stupid fixation on revert arithmetic blinded the ArbComm to the obvious differences in the nature of our edits in past conflicts (well, not that the AC got the facts right then anyway). VeryVerily 12:07, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (5/0/2/1)

• Recuse Fred Bauder 19:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. The standard of behaviour needs marked improvement - David Gerard 22:00, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept ➥the Epopt 00:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. Dmcdevit·t 05:18, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 05:20, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. Charles Matthews 11:23, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Recuse. Mackensen (talk) 11:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• I am leaning towards accepting, but Ruy Lopez has not edited for three days, and claims to have left Wikipedia. Perhaps we should follow the 172 precedent and put this case on ice. If Ruy Lopez returns, I would accept. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 17:37, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

KDRGibby

Involved parties

• KDRGibby (talk · contribs)
• Natalinasmpf (talk · contribs)
• 172 (talk · contribs)
• Rhobite (talk · contribs)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

KDRGibby has been informed. [112]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Preliminary ad hoc mediation has been tried by BostonMA, who tried to get us all to work together. Didn't work. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/KDRGibby has been filed, but although it is still going on, it has been open for about a month and it is inconclusive. KDRGibby has rejected mediation. [113] Twice. [114]

Statement by Natalinasmpf

My first encounter with the user was in the article communism. As one knows, these articles tend to be heated, and I inadvertently became the second person (as it takes two to tango), and commenced a bitter dispute. I regret that, for being too quick on the revert function, however, even after requesting he discuss the matter, he still edited abrasively, violating WP:CIV and WP:NPA. He was blocked for 3RR, his first time. I then discovered that beforehand, he had been edit warring at Liberalism and classical liberalism, and several other political topics. I then initiated an RFC. BostonMA tried commendably to get us both to work together, and stop the dispute, but to no avail. It was no longer just about the content: KDRGibby is a very abrasive user who uses brute force to try to get things done on Wikipedia. He does not see value in discussion. When he does get into discussion, he accuses other editors of having vested interests, ie. "you don't want the world to know about the a free market system that works!", and makes allegations of cabal, a clear example of not assuming good faith about other users. He cites his university degrees and qualifications as a way to assert his authority in disputes, and insulted other users' teaching career. This same behaviour has been applied at Wal-Mart. He calls any editors he is in dispute with "logically inconsistent", over and over again, which is not a personal attack per se, but is used frequently as an insult. He has made reference to my age. Even in the very RFC itself he continued to attack other users rather than try to agree to a compromise. I personally want one, but I'm not sure about Gibby. He has violated WP:POINT a few times, by spitefully disrupting a page when attempting to prove what he perceives as lack of logic in our arguments. He treats edit warring and disruption as a game, frequently adding emoticons such as ":P" at the end of very serious matters. We all have faults, and this dispute is ugly, but I feel that Gibby doesn't want to compromise in any way, so I have no choice but to make this request. The RFC doesn't seem to have worked out. Gibby has antagonised several other users, such as User:Electionworld (who is the same as User:Wilfried Derksen) and User:Tznkai, who may join the case later. There are also many third parties who have tried to work with him, with little success. More recently, he has been blocked for a second 3RR violation on Communism, and a third one at Wal-Mart. He also repeatedly removes comments he doesn't like from his user talk page. This shows apparent dissonance and is a sign of KDRGibby's severe problems with the community. Note, he's just done it again with removing the notice concerning arbitration [115] (and again - [116]): I feel that this is a problem because a user talk page is needed to inform other users about his behaviour, not merely communicate to KDRGibby. The final thing is that he has clearly ignored this arbitration request, choosing to make several strings of edits without response to this.

Statement by Rhobite

My conflict with KDRGibby is limited to Wal-Mart, where he has been removing a POV-section tag from a section he wrote, despite outstanding POV issues on the talk page. E.g. [117] [118] After I replaced the POV tag a number of times and reiterated my complaint on the talk page, he said "I'm repeating again for your thick skull" [119]. He was recently blocked for a 3RR violation because he insisted on placing bullet points before every paragraph he wrote. After the block, he wrote this on his talk page: "I hate the goddamn admins on wikipidia they are so fucking stupid!" [120]. Called everyone who disagrees with him "leftist bully vandals" [121]. "Calling them stupid leftist fuckers however is a personal attack...as much as I'd like to use that apt term, I have not." [122] Rhobite 15:19, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I should add that KDRGibby vandalized economics of fascism on January 14: [123] Rhobite 20:08, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

January 16, personal attack by KDRGibby "GIVE SPECIFIC REASONS ASSHOLE!" [124] Rhobite 00:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement/Comment by NSLE

My interactions with KDRGibby have been limited to his RFC and his talk page after I saw the revert/edit war over communism in the IRC bot channel. However, he has apparently taken offence to me "(having) taken sides with friends to bully oposition in pages", and opposed my ArbCom nomination, without suffrage (mine was the only nomination he voted on, too), in what to me is a WP:POINT. NSLE _(T+C) 01:42, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by The Land

I encountered KDRGibby on Economics of fascism where I blocked him for 24hrs for violating the 3RRR, with five reverts [125], [126], [127], [128], [129] in the space of 24hrs 12 mins. He then repeatedly reverted notification that he had been blocked on his talk page, starting with [130], and accused me and others of bullying behaviour and vandalism, while implying everyone who disagrees with him is part of some left-wing conspiracy. [131]. The Land 22:58, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (6/0/0/0)

• Accept. James F. (talk) 22:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept Fred Bauder 17:15, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept - David Gerard 22:01, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept ➥the Epopt 04:20, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 05:21, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 17:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Tearlach and IrreversibleKnowledge

Involved parties

• Tearlach
• IrreversibleKnowledge

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request:

• Tearlach: notified at user talk:Tearlach
• IrreversibleKnowledge: -created the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried. If not, then explain why that would be fruitless:

Tearlach uses blatant and extreme libellous personal attacks. There is clearly no reasoning with Tearlach.

Statement by IrreversibleKnowledge

Tearlach has committed extreme and repetitive violations of the policies Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Tearlach has made those violations on the RfAr statement below under the Zen-master RfAr, which is highly disruptive to a civil RfAr process. He has uncivilly discreditted an article as having 'ludicrous content', he has attacked me personally as being 'frivolous', 'troublemaking', and 'trolling', and has discreditted a legitimate RfC as being a 'waste of time' and 'wasting edittor's time'. He has described Zen-master's gross personal attacks against me as 'restrained', meaning that he is making a much more severe personal attack against me. It's all there below in black and white, in the Zen-master RfAr. I welcome any and all civil statements in an RfAr, even if they disagree with me, but Tearlach's entry was extremely uncivil and personal. I also noticed that Tearlach called me 'frivolous'. That, in combination with the extremity of his policy violations in his RfAr entry, are clearly a setup, such that he can falsely portray me as frivolous for creating another RfAr, to distract from the fact that the extremity of his policy violations really do warrant an RfAr, as can plainly be seen. Such setups are also highly uncivil. My guess is that some arbitrators saw that entry and immediately saw it as a gross violation of wikipedia policy, yet there is no RfAr against Tearlach through which to act. Well, here it is.

Statement by Tearlach

I don't think I've ever seen an RfA brought simply for supplying evidence to an RfA. I've nothing to say except that the above statement makes me even more sure that this is some kind of trolling. See WP:POINT: I think this situation comes under Abuse of processes. Tearlach 17:38, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (0/7/0/0)

• Reject, Tearlach's comments, while forceful, are legitimate expressions of opinion. Fred Bauder 22:43, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
• Reject as per Fred. James F. (talk) 22:24, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
• Reject. Ridiculous - David Gerard 22:02, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
• Reject. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 23:58, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
• Reject. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 05:22, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Reject. Charles Matthews 11:36, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Reject - no case to answer. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 17:43, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Cartesian materialism

cartesian materialism

Involved parties

Loxley and Alienus

Informed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Alienus&oldid=34101733

Mediation has been tried:

However, even though this is fundamentally a content dispute, Wikipedia:Requests for comment has not been tried. Alienus is willing to retract his block request to try an RfC first.

The comment above was by Alienus. This is not a content dispute. It is just plain bad practice to introduce an idea that is two centuries old according to the definitions of its principle opponent in the 1990s. I am happy to see Dennett's views aired fully later in the text and have included them in detail with full links. Wikipedia is not here to promulgate a particular agenda. loxley 17:14, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Apparently, there is even a dispute about the nature of the dispute. Oddly enough, his response focuses on content, so I don't know what he thinks the problem is. I do see this as a content dispute, fundamentally. I am unhappy with Loxley's habit of erasing all of my contributions and not willing to accept the low quality of content that he replaces it with.

Contrary to what he just now added, there is a very long record of his hatred of Dennett and his demonstrated unwillingness to allow Dennett's ideas into articles except in the most misleadingly denigrated manner; see my response for citations. Yes, Wikipedia is not here to promulgate a particular agenda, but Loxley sure is. Which makes this, yes, a content dispute. Anyhow, I'm done here for now. If Loxley doesn't make any more changes, neither will I. Alienus 20:08, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Loxley

The dispute is that Alienus appears to be rigging this article towards the ideas of one philosopher, Daniel Dennett, and insists upon using Dennett's views to define the concept. Daniel Dennett produced a definition of Cartesian materialism that was hostile to the concept of Cartesian materialism from the outset. It was framed as part of an attack on Cartesian materialism known as the Multiple Drafts Model. I am happy to see this negative definition of Cartesian materialism included in the article once Cartesian materialism has been explained.

The broad issue here is whether a peculiar definition of a concept that has been put forward solely with the purpose of undermining that concept should be used as an introductory definition of the concept. (For instance: The world is a flat disk that some commentators have erroneously considered to be spherical).

Specifically, I would like to see this text which includes Dennett's ideas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cartesian_materialism&oldid=36198545

Rather than this text:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cartesian_materialism&oldid=34099211

which summarises Cartesian materialism in terms of Dennett's quote: "By this definition, Cartesian materialism is "the view that there is a crucial finish line or boundary somewhere in the brain, marking a place where the order of arrival equals the order of "presentation" in experience because what happens there is what you are conscious of".

This is not a content dispute. The content of the two articles is very similar. The dispute is about avoiding the bad practice of introducing an idea from the viewpoint of its chief opponent.

As an aside, I have been insulted and patronised by the other party. Alienus is an expert at "edit wars", he started this edit war with an accusation that "Loxley" was about to begin an edit war, he reverts having made small, erroneous changes or major changes that amount to reverts then accuses me of making reverts rather than revisions. You have got to admire his skill at operating the Wikipedia environment. loxley 12:07, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Alienus

Loxley has shown a hostility towards the work of Daniel Dennett and has consistently misunderstood and downplayed Dennett's ideas in articles. The historical record shows that I have made an honest effort to integrate Loxley's contributions into articles (mostly recently here), while Loxley has reverted my changes outright [132].

At this point, he has created a private version [133] of the Cartesian materialism article that he periodically overwrites the real article with as part of the edit war he launched. The real article [134] is accurate and fair. It's also well-written, properly cited and even integrates Loxley's work. In contrast, Loxley's private version includes outright errors (such as claiming Dennett endorses Direct Realism), and is poorly organized and referenced. It is essentially what the article would look like if all of my input, however well cited, were disregarded.

I started off quite patiently with Loxley, but I admit that I have lost my patience. As soon as he launched an all-out edit war, I backed off and sought mediation. Unfortunately, this has not succeeded in keeping him from vandalizing these articles in an attempt to censor Dennett and instill his POV spin. Oh, and rather than some hardened edit warrior, it turns out that I'm a fairly new participant who's trying to make a difference instead of butt heads.

The fact of the matter is that Dennett is a key part of the curriculum in philosophy of the mind classes at many major institutions [135] and his views are entirely relevant to these articles, but Loxley insists that he's just a "flash in the pan" [136] and has made a career here attacking [137] and censoring [138] Dennett. This extreme bias overwhelms any positive aspects of Loxley's contributions. Fundamentally, Loxley has little grasp of the material, is incapable of objectivity and is unwilling to cooperate. He has become a menace.

At this point, I am asking that Loxley be blocked from editing any articles that involve Dennett, and encouraged to avoid those on the overall fields of philosophy of the mind and cognitive science. I'd like to focus on improving these articles further, rather than wasting my time fixing the messes he makes. Alienus 13:07, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Please note that Loxley has carefully removed a personal attack he made on me in this very page. He does this a lot, to make himself look better after the fact. I've taken the liberty of restoring the censored text, albeit with strikethroughs, so that you can see how paranoid and hostile he was. In response, he removed the strikethroughs. You might also want to look through the history to see how he added the claim that this isn't a content dispute only after I suggested that it might be. Alienus 20:08, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

The need for guidance

In many philosophical articles the criticisms amount to redefinitions. For instance, Dualism could be described as the postulate that there is a non-physical aspect to mind: should we introduce dualism with "all things are physical, so some philosophers redefine dualism to be the duality between the physical and the apparent failure of a physical explanation ..". Eliminativism could be introduced with "philosophers such as .. consider that mental experience is incorrigible, according to this eliminativism should be defined as the inability of philosophers to understand incorrigibility etc.". It seems to me that introductions of this type are absurd. We should introduce a subject with the definitions used by those who founded and adhere to the idea and then discuss the opinions and definitions of those who oppose it. When people turn to an encyclopedia they are looking for a clear definition of the subject matter and then opinions on the subject matter. When there are many opponents of an idea, such as is the case with Cartesian materialism, the promotion of the ideas of one particular opponent to the level of an opinion that defines the subject looks like promoting a Point Of View.

In philosophical articles it is not encyclopedic to define the subject of the article according to the views of opponents because the naive reader cannot then appreciate the philosophical debate and the article becomes a POV article.

I have discussed this matter at great length with Alienus but have been unable to get any specific answer except generalised claims that I am "anti-Dennett" and a steely determination to maintain his edits in the face of all arguments. loxley 14:33, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The need for objective consensus

What this content dispute comes down to is that I think Loxley is unreasonably biased against Dennett and he appears to think that I am unreasonably biased towards Dennett. The addition of a substantial number of third parties — such as the usual gang of editors from articles such as consciousness — might turn this into a consensus-building exercise among knowledgeable participants rather than a battle of wills between two diametrically opposed partisans.

Without some level of detachment, it's hard to tell what the content of the articles really should be. For example, I actually agree with Fred Bauder about Cartesian materialism not becoming an article on Dennett's views, but I disagree with Loxley's suggestion that I'm trying to turn it into such a thing. Am I wrong? Perhaps. But, if so, Loxley is in no position to demonstrate it. Likewise, I don't see much chance of ever convincing Loxley. Communication has broken down and is not likely to resume, so we shouldn't count on it. Instead, we should as many other heads into the mix as we can so as to dilute this edit war into oblivion.

In short, I'd like to see if an informal call for consciousness editors to weigh in on Cartesian materialism's contents makes a difference. If not, then an RfC would be the next logical step. And if all else fails, then I guess that, as Jdforrester said, arbitration would be the last recourse. Alienus 05:11, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Deadlock with two contributors - response to preliminary arbitration

I have put in an RfC but so far there has been no response. There are two versions of the article that are the subject of an edit war. If you go to Talk:Cartesian materialism it is clear that the deadlock is total. Is it possible for the arbitrators to choose between: Version 1 and Version 2? As you can see, the content of the articles is almost identical but the emphasis is very different. A definite choice would allow Alienus and myself to move on. loxley 09:24, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

====Withdrawal of request for arbitration====

I have recently found more material that might persuade the other party to relent (see Cartesian materialism). In view of this I would like to withdraw this request for arbitration.

On the subject of arbitrator's duties, surely your role is indeed "parental" in a friendly, cooperative environment like Wikipedia. You split up the squabbling "kids" and sort them out. What other model should arbitrators use in our open environment - military, legal? For most of us Wikipedia is a hobby. loxley 10:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Not a content dispute, just straightforward bullying

I would like to reinstate this request.

This is not a content dispute, just straightforward bullying see : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/06_12_2005_Alienus_and_Loxley_edit_war_over_Dennett_and_Philosophy_of_the_Mind#Final_mediator_recommendations_by_Nicholas_Turnbull

1. I have added all the content for this article. It cannot be a content dispute.

2. Alienus refuses to talk specifically about any point, including the new data that obviates his objections which caused him to shuffle the text into a POV.

3. The mediation concluded that the dispute involved bullying.

4. The article is the victim of an evil troll who is simply teasing me. He has found an article where there is only one other contributor and, having lost an argument, is idly "winding up" the other person for his own enjoyment.

To repeat, this is not a content dispute. I have contributed all of the content. Alienus has simply shuffled it.

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cartesian_materialism . It is clear that Alienus feels he has lost face and will just not relent.

Please do something. loxley 09:21, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

1) We've both contributed content to the article. While Loxley is ok on the research end, he has little comprehension of the material, sub-par writing and organizational skills, and a huge bias. I've done what I can to make use of his contributions, but he's created a private version of the page where all input has been excluded. He frequently overwrites the real article with this private version, which is of substantially lower quality.

2) The mediator dropped the ball. I've found clear evidence that, long before this little dispute, Loxley has run around Wikipedia, attacking all things Dennett. That mediator actually apologized for suggesting Loxley might be biased, which just shows that he didn't do the necessary research. The reality is that Loxley enjoys reverting all of my contributions, while I try hard to make some use of his. If anyone is a bully here, his name is Loxley.

3) See above. In my experience, Loxley likes to make reasonable-seeming demands, then unreasonably ignores when they are met. I don't know if this is intentional or due to cognitive limitations, and at this point, I no longer care. He's tried very, very hard to get you people to block or ban me, and has harassed me from every angle. It's boring and childish.

4) I have no interest in teasing Loxley. In fact, I have no interest in Loxley. If I had my way, he'd go away and perhaps learn how to read. I've contributed to many other articles since this nonsense began, and I'd prefer to be able to focus on future contributions, not defending old ones against a persistant anti-Dennett troll.

If you want to do something, give Loxley what he deserves so I don't have to waste any more time on this. Alienus 11:09, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Please stop this. loxley 09:31, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/5/0/0)

• Despite what loxley says, I feel that this is to a large extent a content dispute. If an RfC doesn't help, we'll have to accept, I think, but until then, reject. James F. (talk) 20:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
• Reject as not a significant dispute, but I take the point that the article ought not to be about Dennett and his views, that stuff belongs in the article on Dennett. Fred Bauder 22:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
• Reject. The AC is not editors' mothers - David Gerard 22:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
• Reject for now. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 23:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
• Reject. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 17:45, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Reject ➥the Epopt 18:26, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Wheel warring

A few users have on multiple occasions engaged in wheel warring (by which I mean repeatedly performing or undoing a block, deletion or protection while some other party does the opposite). Just like edit warring, wheel warring should not be acceptable behavior, regardless of what the user's actual goals or motives are. The end does not justify the means.

The three people I mention below are not the only people engaged in wheel warring, but they appear to be the most frequently involved. I have waded through a couple thousand entries in the block log (Dec 17th and onwards) and deletion log (Jan 1st and onwards), and found about a dozen editors who were to a lesser extent involved in wheel warring. I do not believe this is conducive to a healthy atmosphere on Wikipedia.

Ignoring all rules is defensible in some circumstances, but wheel warring should not be one of those. While I would certainly not want these users deadminned, I do hold that they need to realize that this behavior is disruptive. We have dispute resolution mechanisms precisely to avoid edit wars and wheel wars. Radiant_>|< 23:07, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Snowspinner (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
  • Block wars [139], [140] and [141]
  • Deletion wars [142] and [143]

• Merovingian (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
  • Block war [144]
  • Deletion wars [145], [146] and [147]

• Tony Sidaway (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
  • Deletion wars [148], [149], [150], [151] and [152]
  • Protection war [153]

• Radiant! (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
  • Complainant, not involved in any of the wheel wars mentioned above.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• User:Radiant! brought the request
• User:Snowspinner notified
• User:Merovingian notified
• User:Tony Sidaway notified

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

The whole problem here is that wheel warring is used rather than normal dispute resolution.

Statement by Merovingian

Seeing that all the incidents beside my name have occurred fairly recently, I can recall them rather well. As far as the blocking and unblocking of User:Miskin, I had the erroneous idea that a 3RR block could be reversed if the user in question was removing unsourced material, which Miskin was. It turns out that that is not the case. I have not pursued the matter further.

The deletion "wars" mentioned all happened the other day, when User:Tony Sidaway was deleting userbox templates without discussion. I understood his view about them, but I think he still should have at least brought his concerns to the attention of other editors. That's all I can think of to say right now. --King of All the Franks 23:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Tony Sidaway

No problems. On the cases cited:

• Template:User evol-2 Apologies, my error. I was deleting a lot of templates and assumed that I'd missed one of a series; that template had been undeleted by Merovingian. Reasons for deletion discussed amply by Kelly on the response to her RfC.

• Wikipedia:Catholic Alliance of wikipedia Closed a deletion discussion with an overwhelming consensus for deletion on the grounds of serious breach of the neutrality policy (a project page with the stated intend of "nurture and keep wikipedia's pro-life/pro-catholic articles and categories." This is speedy material anyway, My first stated reason (25 Dec) was: "Not remotely compatible with Wikipedia's policy of neutrality)" If I was wrong, I should be deopped. I'd do this again to deny the guy his campaigning tool.

• Systemwars.com. Contested deletion on the basis that the article was a recreation. I went ahead and created my own new article on the subject. This was repeatedly falsely speedied as a recreation of the original article, despite my attempt to take it to AfD in line with the undeletion policy.

• OGTV2 - From Tha Hood to Hollywood. An independent album listed by HMV Japan and produced by Snoop Dogg and one of his collaborators who had worked on conventionally published albums produced by his label. We don't delete Snoop Dogg albums unless we have a very good reason.

• Warren Benbow. Straightforward undeletion and listing on AfD, under the exception clause of the undeletion policy, of an out-of-process speedy. Had to undelete it a lot of times to keep the AfD going. Unanimous consensus to keep the article.

• Schnorrer. I lifted protection from a temporarily protected article, distanced 5-7 days apart so as to give any source of vandalism a chance to go away: 11 September, 5 October, 10 October, 17 October, (I reprotected it same day in response to renewed vandalism), 24 October, 30 October. When finally protection was lifted on 8 November, vandalism did not resume. To adopt the vernacular: the sound you hear is the bottom of a barrel being scraped.

If actions like this are wrong, I absolutely should not be an administrator. I have made such actions, valuing content over process, the focus of my role as an administrator. I urge arbcom to accept this case. Irrespective of the outcome, I'll flip my admin bit in a trice if I become convinced that I've damaged Wikipedia rather than upholding its purpose against a determined move to place process before content. I've got the evidence, bring it on.

Finally a word on the term "wheel war". I believe this is inappropriate because it implies abuse of power. There are genuine differences of opinion on whether, and when, content or process is more important, with many reputable admins genuinely believing on good evidence that in certain instances process is deleterious to good content. When we find ourselves confronted by other administrators who reverse our actions solely and avowedly to enforce process, then we're faced with a dilemma: either act against the interests of Wikipedia by inappropriately submitting to process, or carry on to ensure that the correct result (which almost invariably follows: Homa Sayar, Albert M. Wolters, Pejman Akbarzadeh, Monique deMoan, Warren Benbow) is obtained. It is always inappropriate to let bad process hold good content to ransom.

Addendum: Lar's statement erroneously assumes that the consensus to delete was established only after I repeatedly deleted the Catholic Alliance article. Firstly, this is an obvious speedy deletion, secondly at the time of my first deletion there was a massive consensus to delete and clear evidence of an organised attempt to pack the vote. All six keep voters at that time had done so after their talk pages were spammed by User: Shanedidona. It goes without saying that this page was in any case a very obvious speedy deletion as a direct attack on the neutrality policy. Those who undeleted all seem to have honestly believed that process was more important than getting rid of this; I honestly believe differently. I'm not aware of any reasons why this should be a problem for arbitration; it would be unlikely to change opinions on either side.

It has been suggested that I "wheel warred"--that is to say, abused my administrator powers, in speedily deleting an attack template that contained an equivocal reference to vandalism on George W. Bush and a link to that article. On the contrary I took action that I considered necessary to minimise the potential for incitement to vandalism by the inclusion of that template on many user pages. It has been suggested that I wheel warred in twice undeleting two articles, SuperOffice and Tally (accounting) that had been deleted through discussion on WP:AFD. I did not. I discussed the matter with the person who redeleted the articles and we both appear to have been in agreement that undeletion was acceptable while the articles were being discussed on WP:DRV. Disagreements and administrator actions in contrary directions are not uncommon (see for instance the block log for Mistress Selina Kyle), but such actions are not abuse of administrator powers. I note with some mirth that Jimbo's statement on wheel warring was on the occasion of another false accusation of abuse of administrator powers--directed against him. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:01, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Snowspinner

Tony summarizes my viewpoint pretty well. The overriding rule in Wikipedia is that you Do The Right Thing. With a Wikipedian culture that increasingly values rules-based proceduralism over thinking about outcomes and behaving consistantly with an eye towards the principles on which Wikipedia is founded, the task of getting it right becomes more and more difficult. The question of what does more harm - a transparently bad admin action or a wheel war - is one that has more subtlety than the rhetoric in question suggests. In this case, I blocked users who made a transparent attack template that was designed to try to win an RfC by overwhelming force, and deleted that template and a godawful shortcut redirect. I also upheld Jimbo's right to make a ban despite a full frontal assault on that.

Admins are given their powers because we trust them to get it right. When they do not, they do not have a free pass to have their bad decisions sit while we engage in pointless discussion. And no matter how many people cry "You didn't touch third base," the end result has always mattered more than the process. Phil Sandifer 03:46, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Demi

I think the point of this case is being missed, a bit. In rejecting it, the Committee would be endorsing wheel wars--on both "sides"--as a way to settle disputes. It takes more than one party to engage in warring. Tony couldn't have deleted the Catholic Alliance page a dozen times without several people restoring it, and similar for the other wars cited. The fact is that these privilege wars (and there are many other examples, edit wars over the interface pages come to mind) seem to be becoming more common, and everyone involved thinks a) they are absolutely in the right and b) some kind of emergency exists that prevents us from tolerating the suboptimal situation for even a moment longer. Is there really no question here for the Committee to consider? No party that could be considered in the wrong after consideration of evidence? Demi ^T/_C 00:52, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Quick response by Radiant

Jtkiefer is one of those people I found that has done some wheel warring but not a lot. However, I'm afraid that James's response misses my point. One may infer that e.g. the action on Warren Benbow was right since it matches what the community decided in the end, and that unblocking *drew was wrong for the same reason. However, my point is not about whether the users were right or wrong. My point is that they shouldn't edit war regardless - just like "being right" does not excuse an editor that breaks the WP:3RR. Also, as Demi says, in rejecting it, the Committee would seem to consider wheel warring an acceptable way of dispute resolution as long as one considers oneself to be "right". Radiant_>|< 18:14, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Response to Tony by Lar

Radiant's got it right, in my view. Tony cites the ACW as an example of strong consensus for deletion... but that consensus would never have been known if Tony hadn't lost the wheel war (and how many admins did it take to beat him in that wheel war?? How much other stuff could have been done instead?) to keep it undeleted so it could work through the process. Tony's argument here seems to be "see, I was right about that one so stepping out of process is OK". As WP grows and there are more and more newbies, the answer isn't to trample process more and more, the answer is to be fairer. You can't rail against newbies if what they see is people trampling things and then saying "well I was right". IMHO. ++Lar: t/c 22:47, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales's opinion

"I strongly agree with the sentiment that wheel warring is a very bad thing, and the culture around it needs to change." [154].

Pasted here by Radiant_>|< 19:28, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/4/0/0)

• Reject. Radiant!, thank you for bringing this to our attention; it is a true pleasure to see that sysop powers are not only used for winning arguments or destroying the project, as most of the people discussing such matters with me seem to believe. Tony's behaviour in particular, and especially his comments, above, on each individual matter, are exemplary. I confess, I was rather worried by [155] (one of the links you gave to demonstrate how Snowspinner is a rouge admin); curious how you didn't list Jtkiefer, despite his unblocking a user twice against policy (don't unblock someone without a word with the blocker first), against Jimbo (you lot do remember who he is, don't you?), and, last but certainly not least, against common sense (if I have to explain this, I worry). And no, I do not think that there should be an Arbitration case against Jtkiefer on the basis of this, even so; I hope he will have learnt from this, though. James F. (talk) 14:15, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Reject, all I see is people doing the best they can Fred Bauder 14:54, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
• Reject ➥the Epopt 00:21, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
• Reject, and reject - David Gerard 22:04, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Citing credible sources: Zeq and Heptor

Involved parties

• Ian Pitchford (talk · contribs) (filer of this request)
• Zeq (talk · contribs)
• Heptor (talk · contribs)
• Sean Black (talk · contribs)
• Zero0000 (talk · contribs)
• Kriegman (talk · contribs)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Notice to Zeq
• Notice to Heptor

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Yes:

• RfC, 4 December, 2005 (1948 Arab-Israeli War) and 5 December, 2005 (Palestinian exodus).
• Direct appeal on Zeq's talk page, 7 December, 2005.
• Direct appeal on Heptor's talk page, 7 December, 2005.
• Extensive discussions regarding the credibility of sources on the article talk pages - here and here
• Mediation by Sean Black
• Appeal to Jimmy Wales
• Email correspondence with Wales, Sean Black and Jayjg.

Statement by Ian Pitchford (talk · contribs)

• Newspaper clipping: Jews Confident In Palestine Military Success', The Times, 6 May, 1948

I would be grateful if Wikipedia's policy that articles must cite credible sources could be enforced in the articles on the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the Palestinian exodus. I have tried to get these two editors to abide by the policy without success. In this case the material being added to the articles is blatantly inappropriate and no credible sources have been cited at all, whilst that being deleted, (as for example, here), is quite clearly relevant, appropriate and well-sourced. I enjoy editing Wikipedia, but like most editors have limited time to spend on the project and don't want to waste the bulk of that time trying to make sure that editors comply with minimum standards. Is arbitration really the only way viable of making sure that policies are implemented? If so, I think it is going to be difficult to justify the time I spend on the project. --Ian Pitchford 20:09, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Addendum: The comments added below by Zeq, Heptor and Kriegman illustrate how the debate has been conducted for many weeks. A request for scholarly references is never answered with such references, but with additional unsourced claims and personal insults, even though it would have taken far less effort to open a few histories of the period and to report on what they say. Furthermore, I believe that mediation is inappropriate as I am asking not for judgment of a dispute between editors, but for Wikipedia policy on sources to be implemented. We don't mediate policy: we either implement it or we don't. Wikipedia has an entire task force dedicated to removing vandalism and challenging vandals, but there is no comparably efficient and expeditious mechanism for removing unsourced claims and for challenging those who add them, even though unsourced material damages the encyclopedia in much more insidious and destructive ways than simple vandalism. We need a "sources taskforce" to spare editors this unpleasantness and to leave them free to donate their time and expertise to the task of constructing an encyclopedia. --Ian Pitchford 18:41, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Zeq

Ian refuse to accept what was decided in the mediation: That the info that can not be sourced will be taken out and that the info that has sources will remain in. My agreement to the mediator is clearly indicated on the talk page. Ian "implemented" the mediator suggestion by removing sourced info. I suggested to him that if he has sources that say differently (from the sourced info in the article) he should add those sources to the text so we have both versions in the article. Instead he rushed to the ArbCom. (after both he and Zero wrote very starnge interpretations of the NPOV policy on the talk page such as Zero on Pal exodus talk claiming: "NPOV does not consist of multiple POVs" )

The problem in the Palestinian exodus article is not so simple. This article (please see talk page) 3 years ago was pro Israeli , now it is completly Pro- Palestinian (see version prior to the current protected one which is a bit more NPOV). For month and month editors have complianed about the lack of neutrality of that page (long before I have registed with wikipedia - just see the complete talk page one of many examples is [156]) but one after another editor are "chased away" from that page by those who seem to think they "own" it and do not allow any other editor there. This article is at the core palestinian narraitive of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinian version is well desrve to be on that page but so does the other POV.

All I have to say about the problem is stated here: User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&oldid=29193600#complete_failure_of_wikipedia_NPOV_policy and part of the solution is here:

Statement by Sean Black

I am distressed that this has escalated to this point. I believe that this case does have merit, but I feel that my attempts to assist the parties in working out a compromise were at least partially successful. This may be a premature request, but I am confident that that the ArbCom will come to a sensible conclusion, whatever it is.--Sean|Black 22:37, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Heptor (talk · contribs)

The core of this dispute seems to be a quotation by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husayni. This mufti has collaborated with the Nazis during the WW2. Among other things he assisted in formation of Bosnian [Waffen_SS |Waffen SS]] troops who fought Yugoslav Partisans, and also made broadcasts aimed for the Arab World, in which he agitated Arabs to support the Nazis. In one of those broadcasts he, according to Pearlman and Schechtman, expressed himself in following way: "Arabs, arise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you". Ian Pitchford is disputing credibility of Pearlman and Schechtman.

Ian Pitchford has also erased/commented out some other material regarding the mufti: [157]. For example, I have not seen any explanation why he commented out that "the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was involved in much of the high level negotiations between the Arab leaders in the 1948 War."

The matter has been under mediation by Sean Black. Interestingly enough, both he, me and Zeq concluded that a compromise has been reached. I implemented it here. However, Ian Pitchford and Zero claimed there was has never been any compromise, and started removing material soon after. The page had to be protected again.

During the dispute, Ian threatened to submit the matter to ArbCom repeatedly (an example from my talk page), violated the 3RR ( more on my talk page) and immediately afterwards asked to protect the article as it was after his fourth revert, threatened to quit editing Wikipedia, complained to Jimbo Wales on his talk page and, evidently, also per e-mail.

I agree with Sean Black that this request is somewhat premature – mediation bore fruits before, and should have been tried further. But it also would be nice if the Arbitration Committee settles the matter once and for all.

'Addendum'

In light of statements by Ian Pitchford, and especially Zero, I will add a little to my statement.

1. As Kriegman stated below, both Zero and Ian Pitchford freely use biased authors, such as Mattar, while labeling those they disagree with as "liars", or useless for other reasons.
2. What Mufti said on Zero's scan is actaully quite similar to what he said according to Kriegman's scan, e.g. go kill jews.
3. It is an aknowledged problem that Wikipedia has systematic leftist bias. Both the Soviet Communists and modern days socialists seem to have something against USA and Israel (indeed, socialists of all kinds somehow seem to dislike Israel), and this shows in many articles. Zero and Ian Pitchford systematically sift available sources for information unfavorable to Israel. I hope Arbitration Committee will make a step to counter this problem.

-- Heptor _talk 18:44, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Zero

1. Zeq is one of the most obsessive POV-pushers I have ever encountered in Wikipedia. He has hardly any knowledge either of history, nor of the process of cooperative NPOV writing. His style is to delete large slabs of text he doesn't like [158] and scream when he is reverted. His notion of NPOV is to add text like "mass of frenzied Arab rioters" [159] then claim willingness to accept "the other" POV, as if a good article can ever be written by joining together different bits of gutter rhetoric. Almost every article he approaches becomes a battleground, and countless efforts to reason with him have not had the least effect. Please, oh please, do something about him.
2. The 1948 Arab-Israeli War problem: Zeq and Heptor want to present it as a war of Israel versus genocidal fiends. To this end they found some alleged "quotations" of the Palestinian leader Amin al-Husayni during WWII (when he was a Nazi collaborator, which nobody denies). These quotes come from a book by a Haganah spokesman Pearlman and were repeated by a book by Revisionist Zionist and Arab-expulsion advocate Schectman. Both books are regarded as propagandistic by academic historians, and I gave an example of a provable lie in Pearlman's book. No other sources are known even though Ian Pitchford and I have scoured the academic literature. Moreover, when I went to a contemporary report of the radio broadcast in question, I found a version that is quite different. None of this has any effect on Zeq or Heptor who want this "quotation" to appear and that's that. Nor have they established any relevance of this to the topic of the article, other than their own opinions.

Statement by Kriegman

[I have never participated in a RfArb before and am trying to respond and understand the process while my family is packing and waiting for me: I will be away from any internet connections for the next few days, and I believe the following points need to be known by the arbitrators. So this statement may be more thorough and longer than is considered appropriate.]

I've been involved in this dispute from the beginning, to the point of being threatened by Ian that this would be brought to arbitration. I have only focused on the 1948 Arab-Israeli War article, in which I placed the original disputed quotation by the Mufti. I cited as a source a book by Davis & Decter. Zero claimed that this was not a valid source. He did not say why he made this claim, just that it was not valid. Finally, after much debate (that included a good deal of name calling by Zero), and after many revisions and reversions, he suggested that there was a connection between the Israeli government and the organizations that took over the publication of the Myths & Facts series that indicated that they were biased. I accepted this, as Zero seemed to know more about it than I. But then I discovered that Zero's and Ian's sources, e.g., Mattar, were just as associated with the PLO as Davis and Decter were with Israel. Something was fishy.

[The rest of my statement can be found here.]

Statement by Christophe Greffe

Hello, I am new on wikipedia and this article is the first article on which I interact. I think whole problem comes from political issues and uses that this article can have. This is linked to the fact that the events it treats (war of 1948 - first arab-israeli war) still have consequences today (Israel - PA). This is article is therefore used as a battlefield of propaganda. I think that what is reported about Al Husseini broadcasts is true but I think this has nothing to do in this article where it is only used for propaganda matters. And there are other comments of the same type in the article concerning *both sides*.

I think arbitration should more focus on the global problem (ie how to deal at best the fact this topic cannot be neutraly treated) and not only on the problem of sources. I think this has come up to here only for "procedure" reasons and I don't think this is the real problem.

I don't have a solution but a suggestion : maybe some paragraphs on the article should be shared in two parts : "Following palestinian point of view...". "Following israeli point of view..." and some references should be allowed to be commented by "This allegation is considered to be myth developed by ... side to give bad images of ...". Therefore all point of views could be developed without *fights of words*.

Christophe Greffe 17:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

NB: sorry for the poor English - I am Belgian and my mother tongue is French.

Ramblings by El_C

While I consider the Hebrew Wikipedia quite decent on Arab-Israeli topics, and in general (and this despite its strong pro-Israeli bias — see Heptor's addendum five for the fun, if in my opinion highly simplistic, redetails), I do find it noteworthy that whereas En goes on to expend more than 500 words on the Mufti in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, He's מלחמת העצמאות, expends 0 words. El_C 00:32, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Zeq left a rather confusing note on my talk page. In it, he tells me that the Mufti's role in the Hevron Massacare is well known (when did I state otherwise?). He also appears to dismiss the entire Hebrew Wikipedia on the basis that some of their articles are not up to par and juxtaposes that to the featured article cited above (?). I think... It's difficult to tell. Finally, he cautions me not to copy something into Riots in Palestine of 1929 (writing: if you copy thisd into 1929 you will be reverted), but I don't know what it is I'm not allowed to "copy," though it was in any case unlikely that I would edit the aforementioned article based on his note, because again, I do not fully understand what is meant by it. I invite Zeq to write to me in Hebrew if he is having difficulties with English (which I can translate, if he so wishes). El_C 07:46, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Ramallite (talk · contribs)

1. It has been difficult to follow this long dispute, but I think it somewhat bears a close analogy to "Elementary, my dear Watson" or "Play it again, Sam". It is widely considered that Sherlock Holmes said the first phrase to his trusty friend Dr. Watson, and Humphrey Bogart's (or was it Ingrid Bergman's) famous line from Casablanca is equally well known. People have quoted, written about, repeated, and propagated these phrases for a long time - except they never happened. The phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson" was never uttered by Sherlock Holmes, and it's probably known by now that Sam was never asked to "play it again". Here, we have a similar situation where an often repeated phrase attributed to Haj Amin Husseini may also have never actually been uttered. The difference is that, while my examples come from the entertainment industry, this dispute deals with some editors of Wikipedia feeling that the inclusion of such a phrase that is commonly believed to have been said, but may actually not have been, in a Wikipedia article will only contribute to the continued propagation of a 'lie' which others can use to support their (often unfriendly) opinions or ideologies. These editors (myself included) prefer that Wikipedia not be yet another source that propagates unreliable but commonly believed information, and that it hold itself to a higher standard. On the other hand, editors who support the inclusion of this phrase rely on the notion that, despite the possibility of the quotation being false, the fact that it is generally believed is enough reason to include it since it is the reason why Israelis 'believed that they were facing a genocidal enemy'. Thus, to reconcile these two positions, it is absolutely essential that such a phrase, had it been truly uttered, be verified beyond reasonable doubt if possible.

Statement by Brian Tvedt

This is a very important case, and I hope that the arbitration committee will accept it. One of the issues at stake is that Heptor and Zeq have repeatedly inserted material that is "sourced" only to political advocacy websites that support their POV, even after having been warned repeatedly not to. If such behavior is tolerated, it opens the door to abuse of Wikipedia by all sorts of political operatives. For example, opponents of a politician standing for election could insert material into that politician's biography that is "sourced" only to websites created by political action committees set up by the opposing party. Brian Tvedt 02:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (3/0/0/1)

• I'm not sure. I'm minded to say "this is indeed policy; just implement it already, and ask on WP:AN/I or whatever for backup if you need it", but on the other hand, perhaps we should accept it to look as the policy violations apparently taking place. Would appreciate further commentry (esp. by other Arbitrators, or uninvolved parties). James F. (talk) 00:47, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Accept to examine all issues Fred Bauder 16:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. Charles Matthews 11:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
• Accept, though to consider Ian Pitchford as well. Dmcdevit·t 17:13, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Message to Arbitrators

We are all enetitle to at least get your response will you take this case. You seem to understand the garvity of the situation: Wikipedia has become a place for anti-Israel propeganda and you are hesitating to take a stand because either way will get you in trouble. I have argued fo a long time that Wikipedia is currently unable to deal with articles about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with it's current policies and methods. Just take a look at Palestinian exodus and you will see what I mean.

It is time you make your rulling will you hear this case, limiting it to only the sources issue is dogding the real question: Can wikipedia really be NPOV ? If yes: Get the plolicis implemented, if not: Change the policies. Zeq 15:00, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I think I can explain the reason concisely, unlike either of you: that's an incoherent novel-length ramble you've assembled together above. We've seriously been considering a 500-word limit on AC pleadings precisely because of this sort of thing. See if you can state your entire problem in 500 words - David Gerard 22:06, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I can do it in much less than 500 words:

The problem is to apply Wikipedia NPOV policy about nakab and to apply it to all other articles in an equal manner. There is growing concern about wikipedia outthere and itis evident among other things in the lefty bias against Israel and the west. In artcles such as Hebron massacre of 1929 do you honestly think that the event depition should starts with "jews marched... calling..." This is a partial and biased description of the events. These are just examples. Wikipedia should work out a mechanism (such as this [160] to prevent the constant edit wars and to make the articles truely NPOV. Zeq 06:47, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The rest of my comments is in [161]. Zeq 06:49, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Requests for Clarification

Requests for clarification from the Arbcom on matters related to the arbitration process.

Nobs01 and Others

It appears that none of the remedies in this case have actually been implemented so far. Does anyone know what happened? --TML1988 23:37, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

In Nobs01's case, he hasn't posted since 12/23, which is when the decision became final. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 06:41, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

But what about the other remedies? For example, Cognition has made many posts after the decision came down, and Lyndon LaRuche 2 has not been touched since last February. --TML1988 15:49, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Zen-master

I think it is time to ask for a banning of Zen-master. For how long, I do not know. But. Probation (which was prescribed for him at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Zen-master) has failed miserably with him. He was just blocked for violation of the 3RR on Wikipedia:Title Neutrality. It's his 3rd 3RR ban in the last 6 weeks. In addition, he has been banned from several articles for periods of time, including conspiracy theory and Wikipedia:User Bill of Rights. He also joined an edit war at Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act, which if anything else shows continued poor judgement and lack of understanding of his probation, which is supposed to keep him out of any edit wars. I put a notice on WP:AN/I for others to chime in here as I believe I am missing an article or two he was blocked from in the last 2 weeks. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 07:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• Seconded. Zen is belligerent, assumes bad faith, does not listen to other people, revert wars, and calls his opponents vandals. He is unable or unwilling to understand such concepts as consensus, or the fact that policy is not created by voting upon it, and has created or promoted several snarky policy proposals in an attempt to give false credence to his opinions. For instance, Wikipedia:Information suppression, which is a faux addition to WP:NPOV with the underlying intent of not allowing scientific sources to "put down" psuedoscientific articles.
• I would recommend putting him under the zero-revert rule, and banning him entirely from the Wikipedia namespace. But frankly he hasn't done much that is useful the last weeks. Radiant_>|< 10:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
• Many of Zen-master's violations stem from his crusade (over the past 7-8 months) to eliminate the term "conspiracy theory". There's been endless discussions on at least a dozen pages and a straw poll showed strong support for keeping the term. Zen is basically attempting to force through his opinion through Death by a thousand cuts, hoping that other editors will eventually wear down and give up. I'd support a permanent ban from any "conspiracy theory" related article as well as a several month ban from the Wikipedia namespace (perhaps allowing for AfD and RfA). Carbonite | Talk 15:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  • That's the main issue with Zen and to me it's what demonstrates the failure of probation. The idea of probation is supposed to change people's ways. Well, if you look at zen's edits since his probation started, I think he's gotten worse, not better. He still doesn't even quite understand why he was put on probation in the first place. Probation is just wasted on him. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 06:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
• I'd say it's time for a long term block of a month or more. Can we get a vote by the arbcom? --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 16:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Herschelkrustofsky probation

At Wikipedia:Arbitration policy, it says that "Deliberations are often held privately, but Arbitrators will make detailed rationale for all their decisions public." In the recent case, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Nobs01 and others, this was not done with respect to the remedy Herschelkrustofsky placed on Probation; my user name appears only in the remedy (i.e., no finding of fact, or other explanation of, or justification for, the penalty.) I would like to request that the ArbCom correct this oversight. --HK 07:11, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't actually see detailed rationales publicly available for any recent cases. Has this fallen by the way (perhaps as a result of the backlog), or am I simply not looking in the right place? PurplePlatypus 07:16, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever seen detailed rationales. You usually just get a terse sentence or two. Everyking 07:23, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

A terse sentence or two would be a substantial improvement. I believe that a finding of fact is normally de rigueur. --HK 15:45, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I am trying very, very hard to WP:AGF here. If there's something I've missed I genuinely want to know about it. Having said that, there does appear to be a lot of resistance to the idea that there should be some accountability here, and I have a hard time understanding that to say the least. PurplePlatypus 08:44, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that there can be differences of opinion as to how much detail there should be. With as many cases that are as messy as the current backlog is, the statements of principles, findings of fact, and remedies are as much as I would expect. It does appear that in this particular case, the ArbCom accidentally omitted a finding of fact. User:Herschelkrustofsky had been on POV parole from the Lyndon LaRouche 2 case. The ArbCom probably intended to find as fact that he had violated the terms of the POV parole. I have not reviewed the evidence, but it appears that the action taken by the ArbCom is exactly what they would have done if they had found that he had violated the parole. I would suggest that the ArbCom re-open the case only to add that finding as the basis for the remedy. Robert McClenon 16:14, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, the Nobs01 and others case is more-or-less an extension of the previous LaRouche cases- as such, I think you can use the findings there as further evidence for this remedy.--Sean|Black 20:01, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

We tightened up the Herschelkrustofsky remedy a bit, but the other remedies are based on the behavior of the different individuals involved. Nobs01, for example, was banned on the basis of personal attacks, not for the sort of idiosyncratic original research involved in the La Rouche cases. Fred Bauder 21:05, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

The original wording of the remedy, as authored by Fred Bauder, hinted at the actual reason for the probation: "In view of the dissatisfaction expressed by Herschelkrustofsky with the decisions reached in this case, and the apparent lack of insight into any role his own behavior played in the creation and aggravation of the problems which gave rise to this case, he is placed indefinitely on Wikipedia:Probation." I had expressed strong (although not uncivil) opinions on the Workshop page, to the effect that the ArbCom was playing favorites by imposing servere sanctions on User:Rangerdude, and a "get out of jail free card" to User:Cberlet, when as far as I could see, the misconduct of these two users was more or less equivalent. There was no remedy contemplated against me until I expressed this opinion. Subsequently, arbitrator Raul654 removed this explanation, calling it "controversial," and replaced it with... no explanation. Then the remedy was voted up. Under the policies enunciated in Wikipedia:Arbitration policy, I am asking for some sort of formal (and public) explanation of why I am being sanctioned in this matter. --HK 07:41, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Would constantly making trouble serve? Fred Bauder 16:39, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Ted Kennedy Edits and Sockpuppet

24.147.97.230 was banned for three months for edit warring on Ted Kennedy. The same edits are now being made to Ted Kennedy and Rosemary Kennedy by User:24.147.103.146. These are both Comcast static IP addresses in Massachusetts. If a banned anonymous editor uses a neighbor's cable modem to edit, is that considered a sockpuppet or a meatpuppet? Robert McClenon 12:07, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

One often cannot know, but if it acts like a duck, treat it as a duck, which is to say, the remedies in the decision apply to the new puppet. Fred Bauder 15:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppet check User:Zephram Stark

Note: I'm posting this here because it concerns Zephram Stark's ArbCom case. I also wanted the entire ArbCom to be aware of this request so that there are no implications that I singled out certain arbitrators to perform this sockpuppet check.

I'm requesting that the ArbCom confirm whether Peter McConaughey (talk · contribs) is a sockpuppet of banned Zephram Stark (talk · contribs). I believe there's more than enough evidence to warrant use of CheckUser:

• Zephram Stark was banned on 12 November 2005 (for six months). Peter's first edit was on 23 November 2005.

• Both editors focused on terrorism (Zephram on Terrorism, Peter on American terrorism), Declaration of Independence (United States) and Inalienable rights. Taking a look at the history of Inalienable rights shows very similar edits and edit summaries on this low-traffic article.

• Both editors are extremely vocal about alleged administrative abuse and are prone to Wikilawyering and long diatribes.

• Both editors have used original diagrams to illustrate their points. Peter Image:Organization_layout.gif and Zephram created Image:IAR.gif.

• Both editors have entered in conflicts with many of the same users. Besides myself, Peter has also been in conflict with User:Commodore Sloat, even denying that he was Zephram with the same use of sexual innuendo [162] that Zephram commonly used. Carbonite | Talk 13:29, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• Any doubt that Peter is not a sockpuppet of Zephram should be put to rest with this evidence. On 10 November 2005, Zephram created Coving. This obscure article has only been edited twice more, most recently by Peter McConaughey on 20 December 2005 [163].

• Peter has commented [164] about CheckUser:

"The Cabal is hoping that vague innuendo will be enough to create an official case. After they gain the legal right to snoop my personal information, they will be free to reveal what they already know. Don't be surprised to hear something along the lines of, "We had no idea about this before the case opened, but look what we have discovered now that we have a legal right to investigate the personal information about this editor!"

Of course, none of the information they reveal will be direct or a threat to Wikipedia in any way, but it will be enough to hang me in the court of public opinion. We all have skeletons in our closet."

Though this comment seemed like paranoia when I first read it, it makes much more sense due to his status as a sockpuppet of a banned user. There's more circumstantial evidence, but I believe this should be sufficient for a CheckUser. Carbonite | Talk 13:29, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Note: Additional IP info on Zephram can be found in his RfC. Carbonite | Talk 13:48, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I could not get anything from Checkuser today on either of them. Fred Bauder 14:17, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm assuming this a server/database issue and that when CheckUser is back online this information may be available. Is this correct? If so, what would you recommend doing until CheckUser is back online? I'm very concerned that Peter/Zephram is (and has been) causing a good deal of disruption by circumventing his ban. Carbonite | Talk 14:28, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

CheckUser relies upon recent changes, which is the only store of IP addresses within the database. If the information is not in the recent changes cache, then it is not available to those using CheckUser. Rob Church ^Talk 01:00, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I support looking into this user for the reasons Carbonite suggested. My suspicions began after a few repeated instances of nonsense from this user on the World Islamic Front discussion page. The nonsense is accompanied with a supposedly authoritative chart that he only later in the discussion admitted was of his own creation. I haven't looked at his other edits but my sense on this page is that he is, as another editor noted above, needling people to try to pick fights over non-issues. It reminded me of another user, who coincidentally stopped editing a couple weeks before Peter M started editing. It looks like at least two of Peter M's obsessions are the same as Zephram's were -- terrorism and the Declaration of Independence. When I voiced my suspicions, his response was telling -- very much in the style of Zephram's writing. Other recent irrelevant comments about my sex life (see also here) and further comments in his edit summary seeming to call out Jews and Muslims in an inflammatory manner provide more evidence to me confirming my suspicion that he may be User:Zephram Stark. Then there is the sheer nonsense -- at one point he asked about a perceived inconsistency in the article. I responded with a quite simple (and obvious) answer. His response was some bizarre reference to "death-eaters".

After this discussion proceeded and it became clear that he could not defend his position adequately, another user mysteriously appears. I believe this other user to be a sockpuppet too. User:MACMILLAN entered the discussion out of the blue, changing the article and obnoxiously claiming "I AM A TERRORIST EXPERT" in his edit summary, and on the discussion page claiming to have seen additional translations of a document that we were discussing there. When pressed, he did not produce any additional translations, nor defend his alleged expertise at all. His user page claims that his name is "Gabriel MacMillan," certainly not a known name of any terrorism expert. He would not answer when pressed for details about the translation he claims to have seen or about his own expertise (publications, even conferences attended). The community of scholars in counterterrorism is not large, and while I do not consider myself an "expert," my own work touches on these issues, and I have researched the documents in question, and I find no support whatsoever for his claim that there are alternate translations of this document available. What really gave it away for me is a catchphrase commonly used by Zephram, also used both by Peter McC and by MACMILLAN, as a way of disingenuously avoiding actually discussing issues on the page: something to the effect of "my main interest is in improving the quality of the article, not fighting with you". Compare MACMILLAN, Peter, Peter, Peter, and of course Zephram. (There are many more examples of Zephram using similiar phrases in this way if you look through his edit history around August-September 2005).

Finally there is one more editor whose work is suspicious here, and that is User:The Random Element. His user page reminds me very much of Zephram's old user page, with its meandering parables. He entered the debate on this page and Peter stepped in supposedly to mediate between myself and him (which is where the "Jews" comment came in). Taking a look at his edit history, I see some strange edits as well as obnoxious examples of WP:POINT. This user may not be Zephram - there is not enough information to tell - but I would take a look at his IP as well if possible.

Overall I have found Peter McC's edits to be destructive to Wikipedia, and his comments in Talk are what led me to the conclusion that he is the same sock puppeteer as the person behind Zephram Stark. One final piece of evidence - when challenged on this point he at one point claimed to have "researched him" (Zephram) and pointed misleadingly to Zephram's edits on Wikispecies, a different site. Apparently Zephram is on that site causing trouble as well, making graphical charts that look similar to the one produced by Peter here. He is apparently writing a Wikibook also. I think Peter's link to this page (rather than to Mr. Stark's ubiquitous activities here at Wikipedia) is an obvious attempt to feign ignorance of Stark's disruption of wikipedia in previous months.--csloat 22:36, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Instantnood page moves

In the 'nood ArbCom decisions "1) Instantnood (talk · contribs) is restricted to proposing only one page move, poll of editors, or policy change relating to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese) per week."

What should be done when he doesn't actually propose a move, but just uses subterfuge to get what he wants?

In the ArbCom case there was plenty of evidence in the start of the case that he was abusing the rename process by repeatedly asking for "Foo of Taiwan" to be renamed "Foo of the Republic of China". Now that ArbCom closed the case with that restriction above, he just avoids the rename process altogether. Yesterday there was an existing category Taiwanese newspapers that corresponded with the naming convention in Category:Newspapers by country (ie, "Foobarnese newspapers" as opposed to "Newspapers of Foobar"). To get what he wants without actually proposing a rename he created a parallel category (Newspapers of the Republic of China), put it in Newspapers by country and other parent categories, then deprecated Taiwanese newspapers by removing it from the parent categories.

Meanwhile, while the new category sits on CfD, with an overwhelming early consensus to delete, he's insisting that either his, or BOTH of the categories should exist in the parent categories [165] [166].

So, he hasn't actually proposed to rename the the category, he just wants to create two parallel categories and move them around in the category structure. (Creating parallel forks isn't new behavior from him, but it fell through the cracks in the case.)

Also meanwhile, he's not "proposing a move" merely "seeking clarification" on another ROC/Taiwan move, Media in Taiwan.

And I'd also like the ArbCom to consider removing the words "relating to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)" from this restriction on his behavior. I'm mostly not involved, but he's currently edit warring with other editors on half a dozen articles related to the naming of food of all things and whether they should be named with Cantonese, Mandarin, or English. [167] [168], etc. These aren't related to the Chinese naming conventions, but mere mortal editors shouldn't have to try and keep up with his proposals and unilateral moves.

- SchmuckyTheCat 22:31, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

What should be done when he doesn't actually propose a move, but just uses subterfuge to get what he wants? Then it counts as a move. As to the edit warring over food names, guess there are some general problems we didn't handle. Fred Bauder 03:05, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Is there an enforcement mechanism for this, or just an admonishment? (The same question could be said about the edit summary statement - "is reminded to make useful edit summaries.") SchmuckyTheCat 21:19, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Instantnood_2#Instantnood_placed_on_probation will have to serve. However, this requires an administrator with the energy and interest to look into it and actually do something. Fred Bauder 14:16, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

That was not a rename. Republic of China and Taiwan means something different. I am not proposing to move newspapers published in Taiwan to the parent category for the Republic of China, which Taiwan is, contemporarily, a major part of. The relevant Wikipedia policies, including the NPOV policy, have been listed here [169]. As a matter of fact, user:SchmuckyTheCat tried several times to delink the category he has nominated to CfD from all other categories ([170] [171] [172] [173] [174] [175] [176]), although the CfD is in process.

The disputes around the articles on food is not only around their names, and they're not related to the previous arbitration case. — Instantnood 21:01, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

It's your contention, not the communities, that RoC and Taiwan mean something different. The category existed, you delinked it when you created a new replacement category. A duck by any other name still quacks. SchmuckyTheCat 03:50, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

If you're not agreeing with the NPOV policies, please proceed to propose changes to them. Don't disrupt Wikipedia by reverting edits made based on those policies, and, to the worst, nominating something to deletion by producing false accusations there. — Instantnood 09:50, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

If the disputes over food names is not related to the previous arbitration case, then could you explain the administrative action of page bans in Barbecued pork with rice, Char siu, and so on? And yes it is not a rename. If it was you would have flouted the arbcom rules outright and STC wont have needed to post this here at all to highlight your gaming of the rules.--Huaiwei 15:23, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I think this entire exchange here with the numerous openly hostile comments Schmucky has made toward Instant or anyone who in anyway supports a viewpoint like Instant's or even advocates a modicum of decorum shows the action taken by the ArbCom just didn't go far enough here. The edit warring continues across several articles, Schmucky has flat out said he intends on being hostile and continue what sounds like a crusade when he describes it against Instant [177]. The ink is hardly dry from the decision and the warring continues. --Wgfinley 04:02, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I would like to comment, that my recent dealings with Wgfinley has been far from jovial, given his propensity in openly accusing the "opponents of instantnood" of all wrong doings, while continuing to believe instantnood is a victim of circumstance. I do not find STC's comments openly hostile in any way, and the source quoted above does not show his intention to be hostile or to launch a crusade against Instantnood, since he did insist that he at least still goes by the rules, something instantnood has spectacularly failed to do consistantly before or after the arbcom ruling. I would therefore read Wgfinley's comments with a pinch of salt.--Huaiwei 15:23, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, how is it supposed to stop it? You could endorse one side or the other but in most POV disputes, surely the two sides will not actually go, well, the arbcom says the other POV has merit so I'll just stop fighting for my POV. If anything, it shows the pointlessness of the arbcom, or any other empowered group of editors, getting involved in content disputes. Not that pointlessness will stop them, obviously. -- Grace Note

Netoholic

I would like to discuss my status with respect to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Netoholic 2.

The mentorship agreement specified that users Raul654, Kim Bruning and Grunt would act as my mentors. It said also "If the mentors think it is working, they can lessen or end their supervision of Netoholic's editing. If they consider it has failed — at the six month review or at any earlier time — the namespace and revert restriction in remedy 2 will take effect."

Over time, all three of my mentors ended their supervision for various reasons. On June 28th, Kim Bruning stepped aside as my mentor. Grunt became inactive as of July 5. On July 19th, Raul654 resigned recommending an alternate "probation" approach.

What I'd like confirmation is whether these resignations fulfilled the "end their supervision" clause. In the above linked resignations, neither Kim or Raul654 indicated that the mentorship failed, but mentioned leaving for personal reasons or because of the way the mentorship arrangement was designed. That arrangement was flawed because the community was asked to bring up concerns with the mentors directly. This meant that even minor disagreements were propogated to three different talk pages, which lead to a lot of stress.

In short, I'd like to ask to be relieved of any Arbitration edit restrictions presently in place. -- Netoholic @ 18:03, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

While I agree strongly that Netoholic should not be, at this point, under as draconian a set of restrictions as he currently is - particularly the template restrictions, where I think he's a needed force for pointing out that consensus does not get to override the developers saying "Please don't do this," I would caution on the other hand that edits such as [178] do make me worry that some of the incivility problems have not corrected themselves. On the other hand, that Netoholic's behavior has in general improved while under parole seems clear, and it may be that the remaining issues can only be fixed through experience. So I, at least, offer my tepid support of this. Which, considering my history with this conflict, probably actually still counts for a lot. :) Phil Sandifer 18:12, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Netoholic and Snowspinner are actually working together. Holy goodness me! Net still needs to grasp the finer points of dealing with f*ckw diplomacy, but has come to both of us for help in these matters, with good productive effect. A strong caution about dealing gently with policy should remain - but he seems to be getting this point, which is excellent. We each have our strengths and weaknesses, after all ... - David Gerard 20:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Can we please get some comments here? Netoholic has been tremendously helpful of late in dealing with the requirements of WP:AUM, but has had to do so flouting his parole and editing templates... which is unfortunate, and a situation that ought to be brought to an end. Phil Sandifer 06:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I've been on Wiki-break for a while but one of the first things I checked when I got back was what Neto has been up to and I am pleased to see things have really turned around. I agree with David's proposal on this 100% and if I can assist in any way I would be happy to. --Wgfinley 20:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

While we're appealing this case, btw, can we also overturn the findings that say that AUM is not policy, since they imply a really godawful precedent that the community can meaningfully have a lack of consensus to obey the developers? Phil Sandifer 06:16, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

It's not policy, because there are occasions where it is fruitful to use them. That doesn't mean it's not damn good advice and should still be followed. There must be a good reason to use a meta-template, and anyone who says otherwise is a fool. The MoS still should be obeyed, personal attacks must not be made, nor may original research be put into the main namespace. The ArbCom may not create policy. AUM completely fits in the template category without losing its effect. That said, I fully support any motion to remove Netoholic's restrictions on editing categories. I would, on the other hand, also support a motion to put him on probation with regard to the template namespace only. [[Sam Korn]] 19:40, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

With regard to Template:stars this user appears to have driven though a set of changes via bot that is out of keeping with the removal of the template which has not yet happened as far as I can see, still a confused situation. Anywaty his BOT remoaved references to the template:stars and replace with just e.g. (3/5) rather that the e.g. File:3 out of 5.png that was there before tamplate:stars was in use. Is this the right way to make mass changes. Kevinalewis 11:02, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Bots are the right way to make mass changes, but they should be used only once consensus has been reached. In this case, the TFD for Template:Stars was closed prematurely by Snowspinner. —Locke Cole 11:08, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

It was? If it was, that's wholly my error - I must have read the date wrong. Phil Sandifer 02:23, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

See Template talk:Stars#Bot for my view.—jiy (talk) 09:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• What is the official line on this? Is Netoholic still banned from editing in the template namespace? Because from this and this, it sure looks like he is ignoring the directives put in effect when the mentorship disbanded. Bratsche^{talk | Esperanza} 21:15, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Netoholic is technically prohibited from editing in the Wikipedia and template namespaces. However, several arbitrators (myself and David Gerard in particular) have expressed approval of what Netoholic has been doing vis-a-vis killing metatemplates and possibly creating some sort of exception for that. Raul654 21:26, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

While the meta-template problems outlined at WP:AUM have apparently become more severe over time the way Netoholic is going about addressing them is unneccessarily confrontational. With one template after another he has made un-announced changes, people have said 'ack, you broke feature XYZ' and reverted it, and he has reverted back and said basically that AUM takes precedence over their concerns. No reason for it. These changes can be tested in advance with old and new version of the template side by side before being implemented Wiki-wide... rather than making complete rewrites directly to the template with no regard to potential havoc throughout the article space. Advance notification on related wikiprojects might also be a good idea. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 22:03, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

That is a gross mischaracterization. I have not caused "havoc" nor put in place any change which I could foresee as causing any problem. I am at your service if you ever discover an issue with any of my template renovations. Just contact me and describe the problem. Except for putting any meta-template back in operation, I will work with you. -- Netoholic @ 17:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm just saying that this, this, the stuff about Infobox pope above, and suchlike didn't need to be. The work you are doing is important, but it could be accomplished more smoothly with a bit more discussion and testing before implementation. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 18:18, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Would a motion then be in order? If this position (allowing Netoholic to edit the previously prohibited namespaces) is prevalent amongst the ArbCom members, then it would be nice to put it into writing or some other format. Administrators such as myself are supposed to be strictly enforcing the ArbCom rulings on these matters. If Netoholic is allowed to act by the ArbCom contrary to the motions set down, it would be nice to let us know. Bratsche^{talk | Esperanza} 23:25, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Note: Netoholic is the subject of a separate RfA at the top of this page for more issues with his behaviour. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 23:31, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

The "policy" that Netoholic appointed himself enforcer of (and the only reason anyone has turned a blind eye to his behavior) was written by himself, and only became policy because of his claims of a mandate of the developers regarding server load. No such mandate ever existed, according to lead developer Brion Vibber.

Can we please get a definitive answer on this? If not for this quasi-revocation of the ban, blocks against him would be warranted over and over, but we admins feel powerless to enforce them, especially considering that other admins would immediately unblock him, no matter what the infringement. We don't know what to do.

This issue is also being discussed on the Administrators' noticeboard and the Village pump. — Omegatron 20:47, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Motions in prior cases

(Only Arbitrators may make such motions)

Motion to extend Instantnood and Huaiwei probation (4/0/0/0) (4/0/0/0)

As per dicussion at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Instantnood_and_Huaiwei, both parties have continued revert-warring and disrupting normal editing on articles outside the original probation.

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Instantnood_2#Instantnood_placed_on_probation is modified to: Instantnood (talk · contribs) is placed on Wikipedia:Probation for one year. This means that any administrator, in the exercise of judgement for reasonable cause, documented in a section of this decision, may ban them from any article or talk page which they disrupt by inappropriate editing. Instantnood must be notified on their talk page of any bans and a note must also placed on WP:AN/I.

Support:

1. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 23:07, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
2. Fred Bauder 23:30, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
3. James F. (talk) 07:48, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
4. ➥the Epopt 15:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Oppose:

Comment:

• While I fully respect the decision of the members of the arbitration committee, in my own opinion I don't see the need to do so. Majority, if not all, of the disputes between Huaiwei and I have been around issues that are somehow Chinese-related. What is needed is to clarify what constitute "Chinese-related" in the previous ArbCom decision, instead of an amendment. Thank you. — Instantnood 18:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Instantnood_2#Huaiwei_placed_on_probation is modified to: Huaiwei (talk · contribs) is placed on Wikipedia:Probation for one year. This means that any administrator, in the exercise of judgement for reasonable cause, documented in a section of this decision, may ban them from any article or talk page which they disrupt by inappropriate editing. Huaiwei must be notified on their talk page of any bans and a note must also placed on WP:AN/I.

Support:

1. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 23:07, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
2. Fred Bauder 23:30, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
3. James F. (talk) 07:48, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
4. ➥the Epopt 15:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Oppose:

Motions to extend ban on Ciz editing (6/0/0/0)

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Ciz#Prevention_from_editing_Zoophilia is modified to:

Ciz (using whatever account or IP address) is prevented indefinitely from editing Zoophilia and its closely-related articles, or any editing related to the subjects of zoophilia, bestiality, animal sexuality, or human-animal relationships in any article, including their talk pages. Whether an article or page concerns these subjects shall be determined by the enforcing administrator.

Support:

1. Fred Bauder 16:21, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
2. James F. (talk) 09:03, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
3. ➥the Epopt 23:55, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
4. Kelly Martin (talk) 00:43, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
5. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:01, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
6. Dmcdevit·t 07:59, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Oppose:

Abstain:

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Ciz#Attempts_to_edit_Zoophilia is modified to:

If Ciz (using whatever account or IP address) edits Zoophilia or its closely related articles, or makes any edit which relates to zoophilia, bestiality, animal sexuality, or human-animal relationships in any article, or their talk pages, such changes made may be reverted by any editor and any administrator may, at his/her discretion, briefly block Ciz (up to a week in the case of repeat violations). After 5 blocks the maximum block shall increase to one year.

Support:

1. Fred Bauder 16:21, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
2. James F. (talk) 09:03, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
3. ➥the Epopt 23:55, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
4. Kelly Martin (talk) 00:43, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
5. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:01, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
6. Dmcdevit·t 07:59, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Oppose:

Abstain:

See discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Ciz#User:_DrBat_--_continuing_breaches_of_previous_ArbCom_ruling

Motion to ban User:Pigsonthewing (4/1/0/1)

Upon review of Pigsonthewing's article edits for the month of December, I find nothing that does not appear to be edit warring. (Updated: It has been pointed out to me that he has some useful edits in the early part of December, but only one of any quality since the case against him closed on the 10th, and nothing but edit warring since the 12th. Kelly Martin (talk) 18:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)) His probation does not appear to be going well. In general his contributions elsewhere are divisive, bordering on wikistalking of Karmafist and possibly other editors, and his continued presence on Wikipedia is clearly creating more heat than light. Accordingly, I move that Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing be modified include the following remedy:

Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs) (using whatever account or IP address) is banned from Wikipedia for a period of one year.

Support:

1. Kelly Martin (talk) 18:02, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
2. one well-sourced edit does not save him — a broken clock may be right twice a day but it should still be thrown out ➥the Epopt 00:35, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
3. per the Epopt. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 23:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
4. Agree with Kelly. Also, Pigsonthewing has come back from a week-long block to continue the same old edit wars. Dmcdevit·t 06:22, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
5. Long-term disruptive user. Charles Matthews 11:10, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Oppose:

1. Fred Bauder 18:39, 30 December 2005 (UTC) see [179] Check this out on Google and you'll see this edit is well sourced.

Abstain:

1. James F. (talk) 13:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC) I have yet to be convinced (both that his continued presence is a net benefit to the encyclopædia, or a net hinderance).

Outside comment: I believe you've finally gotten his undivided attention [180]. --Calton | Talk 10:05, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

No, it was posted by POTW (talk · contribs), not Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs). He was blocked, but AFAIK that block doesn't affect his ability to post at his userpage (so there was no reason to use a doppleganger account). Checkuser could verify if it's really him though. —Locke Cole • t • c 10:07, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

As a follow-up, it was determined by Kelly Martin (via CheckUser) that POTW (talk · contribs) was not Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs). The comment has since been removed, and POTW (talk · contribs) has been indefinitely blocked. —Locke Cole • t • c 18:47, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Outside comment: I strongly disagree with this action. It is troubling that Pigsonthewing's many positive contributions in December were first stated to be non-existant, then described as one by the Epopt, and then as only 'some' by Kelly. Information on his contributions is easily available, yet portrayed inaccurately here. If this action is to be justified it should be based on a factual record. The start of this descent into acrimony was a false accusation of Pigsonthewing having violated 3RR, which was used to cover an improper (Sysop powers must not be used to win a dispute about content) block and page protection solely based on a content dispute. Similarly inaccurate accusations should not be the end of it. The ridicule and indifference to justified complaints which Pigsonthewing has received from the admin community in general has been shameful. That does not serve to deny that his response has been equally bad, nor that his contributions prior to this mistreatment sometimes caused disruptions. Yes, his behaviour has been reprehensible... as bad as that of some of his detractors. However, had the admin community not mocked him for daring to complain about the original admin abuse, not repeatedly blocked him for the most specious of 'offenses', taken action to stop blatant harassment against him, or otherwise treated Pigsonthewing with basic fairness this situation might never have come to pass. If any action is to be taken here the previous arbitration should be fully re-opened so that both cause and effect may be considered. Or we could forgive Pigsonthewing his trespasses in hopes that he will then forgive ours (provided we stop making them). --CBD _☎ ^✉ 16:10, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand why the community should listen to him on the Administrator boards for his constant troll requests while he didn't listen or respond to his rfc or rfar. He contributes nothing but exasperation to all those he meets, basically trying to game the system to quash those who disagree with his views. Just look at his recent contribs, over 95% of them are basically just trolling around on other user pages and various areas in gathering ideas and support in trying to attack me. A year isn't enough, but it's a start, and who knows, CBD might be right in the opinion that there's something reedemable in POTW, I hope he is, but I sincerely doubt it for the foreseeable future. Regardless of whether there is or not, it has to be evident that he's turned over a new leaf and I could feel secure that he'd never drive another user to fear of using his own name as in the case of Leonig Mig (talk · contribs), before issues like this stop coming up. karmafist 18:42, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, facts? Are you mad? He's a bad boy who's made some bad enemies. Deprive him of cookies but he's certainly made good edits, as any impartial judge could see, were they bothered a/ with impartiality and b/ the truth. -- Grace Note.

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