Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rachel Marsden/Evidence

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.

When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-conciousness rants are not helpful.

As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey use this form: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anomalous_phenomenon&diff=5587219&oldid=5584644] [1].

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.

Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs, a much shorter, concise presentation is more likely to be effective. Please focus on the issues raised in the complaint and answer and on diffs which illustrate behavior which relates to the issues.

If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.

Be aware that the Arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to refactor the page, let the Arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the arbitrators to move.

The Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as Arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.

Arthur Ellis

Bio of a living person becomes vehicle of smear

Removing biased and salacious material is not "blanking". Allegations are simply that: allegations. If they are not tested in a court or a proper tribunal, they are simply claims that have been made. If they are so old that it it is obvious they will not be empirically tested -- as these are -- they should not be used to prove "notoriety". Stringing a series of allegations together should not be used to attempt to define a person in an encyclopedia. The article was originally drafted in July, 2005 and "owned" by user:Homeontherange, who left Wikipedia in August in the face of an arbitration case that was going badly for him. user: Ceraurus made his first edits at 12:57 Jan. 30, 2006. At that time, the article talked about Marsden's father'suspension by the Vancouver school board. It brought in immaterial facts like the Moonie ownership of the Washington Times, which printed Marsden's work. Over-all. the piece could be characterised as a hatchet job. To make a very long story short, by the spring, Ceraurus was banned for "edit warring". I have tried to soften the article as much as possible, beginning a few weeks after Ceraurus' ban.

Admins hide behind process, lose sight of the ball

In their zeal to enforce the 3RR rule, admins have allowed this article to be dominated by anti-Marsden Canadian editors who are protected by their anonymity, and who have been able to tag-team to keep this article negative.

"Be Kind to Newbies" Forgotten

In their zeal to protect the salacious Marsden article, the handful of Canadian editors and admins who have nurtured the entry immediately attacked Mark Bourre/Ceraurus when he criticised the article, blocked him, and within a few weeks of his arrival on Wikipedia, banned him. If arbitrators believe the article is biased and admins and editors have acted in bad faith, Ceraurus' ban should be lifted and his pages cleared of the negative material placed on it. In return, Ceraurus should be placed on probation and/or should work with a mentor until he learns the ropes of Wikipedia (and to control his edit-warring).

Admins aren't with the program re bios of living people

See Konstable's entry on the Request for Arbitration entry, where he dismisses my argument re: bios of living people, says he did not read the entry, and issued the block because of 3RR, which, he believed, took precedence. Note, too, the fact he said he was too busy to give the issue a complete examination because of personal problems. When Wikipedia admins cannot do their work properly, they should take a break, rather than do a poor job.

Admins should not blank the Request for Arbitration Page

This is the last resort for Wikipedia. Bucketsofg erased several of my attempts to present this case, as did other admins.

Bucketsofg bias

Bucketsofg has an ongoing campaign to discredit former Canadian MP Germant Grewal and anyone associated with him. His Bucketsofgrewal (Bucketsofgrewal.blogspot.com) blog is written anonymously. He also owns and uses bucketsofdata.blogspot.com as a data repository to link to. As Bucketsofg works anonymously, it is impossible to know his relationship to Grewal or any other actor in Canadian politics, but there is speculation in the Canadian media that Bucketsofg is a federal Liberal operative. Bucketsofg also may be connected with Warren Kinsella. Bucketsofg was an active participant in the very recent Warren Kinsella arbitration. Bucketsofg was a very active editor on Rachel Marsden last winter. During that edit war over the Marsden article, Ceraurus was permantly banned for edit warring. Bucketsofg has a pattern of provoking edit wars, documenting the misbehavior that results, then using them, via administrator notice boards, to affect bans.

Selected newspaper clippings are not always good sources

Because of the nature of the original Marsden-Donnelly dispute, allegations that normally would not be newsworthy found their way into newspapers and into Wikipedia.

Beware of Hidden Agendas

The article relies on two main sources: a report to the Fraser Institute by a Simon Fraser University professor writing about a controversy at his own university (which would hardly pass a journalistic test for objectivity and would never survive peer review) and an article written by one of Marsden's competitors.

Bearcat bias

Bearcat began his edits of the article at 06:12, 16 August 2005 and immediately showed bias, writing this as his edit description: "(as tempting as :Category:Canadian bullshit artists would be, I suppose that would constitute POV. damnit.)"

Suspicious number of anti-Rachel Marsden editors from Vancouver

This is Marsden's home town and the site of the Simon Fraser University controversy. These include, but are not limited to, Geedubber and Ian King. More will be added.

Sockpuppetry

user: Mackensen is wrong when he says I am User: Ceraurus. I do not know how I can go about proving this negative. However, I hope this time arbitrators stick to the issue of the article. I believe they lost sight of the ball on Warren Kinsella, lost themselves in rules and process, and did not consider the edits to the article itself. This time, the article is so obviously agregious that arbitrators cannot miss the implications regarding the Canadian cadre of editors and admins. The Craigleithian identity was an attempt to dump the oft-attacked user: Arthur Ellis and try to begin anew on Wikipedia, without harassment and attempted outings on Wikipedia.

Evidence presented by Konstable

"Admins aren't with the program"

Arthur's statement regarding my comment on the RfAr page is a mis-interpretation. Firstly, I never said I haven't read the page, I have not read the page in full (but please, if you can, point me towards at least one administrator that reads a full wikipedia article before blocking for 3RR). I have read the parts Arthur was deleting - and they were indeed sourced statements, and to add to this there had been opposition from several well-established Wikipedia editors. Whether the sources are reliable is obviously a debatable issue (hence the Arbitration). Secondly, Arthur had also violated WP:SOCK using Craigleithian (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log) to avoid 3RR - which seems to me like it's saying that he knew that he would get blocked for reverting the page more than 3 times. Instead of emailing and asking for an unblock, or putting an unblock template on his page, Arthur had used more sockpuppets to evade his block and post the mentioned RfAr's which were reverted by other users - whether this was the best action or not, I believe it is justified per WP:BLOCK#Evasion of blocks.

Evidence presented by Geedubber

Persistent Blanking

Arthur Ellis and his confirmed sockpuppets have repeatedly vandalized the Rachel Marsden entry by blanking large portions of sourced text.

• Arthur Ellis

[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

• Craigleithian

[11] [12] [13]

• Cerarus

[14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32]

• Isotelus

[33] [34] [35] [36] [37]

Evidence presented by {Bucketsofg}

First Assertion: much of Arthur Ellis' (aka etc. etc.) presentation is irrelevant or erroneous; all is unsubstantiated

In making his complaint, Arthur Ellis provides no diffs, which leaves his claims unsubstantiated. Much of what he says about various editors off-wiki interests, political views, or city of origin is irrelevant and can be ignored. He also makes several errors of fact that need correction.

He claims, for example, that "the handful of Canadian editors and admins who have nurtured the entry immediately attacked Mark Bourre/Ceraurus when he criticised the article, blocked him, and within a few weeks of his arrival on Wikipedia, banned him." I have never attacked Bourrie/Ceraurus/Ellis; I have never blocked him or banned him [38]

In his evidence, he also asserts that I erased his attempts to start this Arbitration case through a new account and then IP. Not true. It was Dmcdevit and 128.2.247.135. (He has probably confused the fact that I elsewhere reverted several posts that he had made through anon-IPs at about the same time: [39] [40] [41]; if he was the puppet-master of those IPs, he'd have seen my name as the blocking IP.) Since his memory has obviously failed him on something that happened a week ago, there is obviously no reason to credit anything that he remembers of his encounters last spring without supporting diffs.

Second Assertion: Arthur Ellis (aka etc. etc.) has been breaching ArbComm rulings

On Sept. 18, the Arbitration Committee ruled that Arthur Ellis (aka Ceraurus, Mark Bourrie, etc., etc.) has engaged in abuse, disruption, and tendentious editing in articles about himself, Warren Kinsella (his bête noire), Pierre Bourque (a friend of Kinsella's), and Rachel Marsden (a friend of Bourrie/Ellis). The ruling limited Ellis to one account and banned him from entries on Canadian politics and its blogosphere (here), including any pages mentioning Warren Kinsella.

This ruling was not a day old before Bourrie/Ceraurus/Ellis, through socks, began to break it. Anon-IPs consistent with his demonstrated usage vandalized my talk page, the talk page of an ArbComm member, and blanked an ArbComm page with assertions that "Kinsella and Pierre Bourque are psychopaths". Similar phrases ([42][43] [44], and worse) were inserted in a number of articles. Another IP, 64.230.108.137 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), again consistent with Ellis' usage, went through Canadian articles removing Kinsella's name [45], adding speedy-delete templates [46][47][48] (etc.), or making tendentious edits [49].

He has also been caught yet again breaking 3RR by using a sock-puppet using another puppet, Craigleithian. This account had been created last summer, on 04:14, 20 July 2006, an hour after Ellis had been blocked for 3RR. Later that same day, when Marie Tessier, another Arthur Ellis sock, was blocked 15:36, 20 July 2006, another sock of Ellis (209.217.96.46) boasted of creating 'sleepers' for later disruption: "she took a bullet for the team... but where one has fallen, a dozen more ripen on the vine." Presumably Craigleithian was one such 'sleeper' created for later sock-puppet abuse.

Indeed, just a few hours ago Ellis breached the ArbComm remedies again. These required Ellis to limit himself to one account and not edit the Mark Bourrie entry. 209.217.84.167 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) edited the Bourrie entry here, removing reference to the Kinsella lawsuit. That IP is in fact Arthur Ellis: as is clear here, where Ellis signs the IP's edits as his own.

Third Assertion: Sockpuppets used to revert and disrupt at RM

For those who have been around the Marsden page, this is all sadly familiar. In March, after failing over the previous month to impose his views on the article, Bourrie nominated the RM entry for deletion [50]. The result, unsurprisingly, was speedy keep at 21:13, 4 March. Within a few hours, Bourrie created a sock, Isotelus, who immediately started a reversion war at RM (1RR 2RR 3RR 4RR 5RR 6RR). Meanwhile Isotelus started a second AFD, voting delete as Isotelus, followed 5 minutes later by Bourrie, then shortly thereafter from another Ottawa IP.

Checkuser proved Isotelus was Bourrie, who was given an indefinite block, which was soon lifted after he committed himself to limit himself to a single account.[51]

For the next month or so, Ceraurus made regular blankings, either as as an anon-IP (Checkuser here) or as Ceraurus. On April 10-11, following a day of IP-blankings and a semi-protect, Ceraurus was caught using a checkuser-identified sock to break 3RR and was reblocked, this time indefinitely[52], a ban that several admins have reviewed but declined to lift.[53][54] [55][56]

Despite this ban, Ceraurus continued to blank large sections the Marsden page. On May 4, 142.78.64.58 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (National Library, consistent with Bourrie/Ceraurus' modus operandi) deleted the whole article except for two lines[57], which was then reverted more than a dozen times by Ottawa-based IPs consistent with his past (e.g. 1RR, 8RR, 13RR, 14RR). This was finally brought to an end when an admin applied a semi-protect. When this was lifted a few days later, the IP-swarm began again (1RR, 5RR, 11RR, 15RR, etc.) Again, it ended with a semi-protect.

There was also strange behaviour. From May 21-23, a number of IPs erased Ceraurus' user page with news of his death in a car accident.[58], which was reverted by recent-change patrollers as vandalism (e.g., here). Apparently frustrated at his inability to argue for an unblock as an IP at 22:55, 23 May 2006, Arthur Ellis was created at 23:00, and made his first post at 23:03, arguing that it was time to unblock Bourrie.

While this was going on socks were used for incivility [59] [60], trollishness [61], [62], personal attacks [63], [64], and vandalism [65] [66]

Fourth Assertion: Tendentious editing

Last week, ArbComm also found Arthur Ellis guilty of "sustained tendentious editing". This also is familiar to those who were involved in editing the Rachel Marsden page last spring. Two examples:

• Bourrie/Ceraurus/Ellis often complained that articles in the Western Standard and a Fraser Institute publication were sources for the entry ([67], [68], [69]). He repeats this complaint in his statement and evidence above. Beginning on Feb. 25, I began to re-source the entry from news reports contemporary to the events described ([70], [71], [72], [73], etc.). Once it became clear to Bourrie that improving the referencing made his argument about content less tenable, he began to delete the entire reference section as unnecessary and complain that the entry now had "ludicrous, overkill sourcing", starting a new reversion war.
• In late February 2006, it was reported in the news that the SFU swim team had been suspended for a sexualized hazing ritual. This team coached by Donnelly, whom Marsden had accused, and Bourrie inserted it in the article[74]. But Bourrie's chosen wording ("Donnelly was involved in a hazing controversy…", implied something that was not in the original reports, which made clear that he wasn't there. This clearly didn't belong in a bio of Marsden, as I explained in talk[75]. I also pointed out his specific wording was potentially defamatory ([76]). Bourrie insisted [77]; I resisted [78]; then he revealed his motivation: "[the hazing story] leaves some doubt that the whole SFU story came out." This is the very definition of tendentious: irrelevant detail included in a misleading way in order to insert a doubt into the readers' minds.

Fifth Assertion: The Rachel Marsden article is consistent with BLP

The key relevant policies in the WP:BLP are verifiability, no original research, and neutral point of view.

The current article is sourced to mainstream contemporary newsmedia for all important details and is therefore verifiable. Nor is this original research: the parts of this article that Ellis wants changed do not expand or subtract from the record as it exists in well established secondary sources. (Those of the ArbComm with access to lexis-nexis can confirm this by searching Rachel Marsden for 1997 and pick an article at random.)

NPOV is about presenting all relevant interpretations of the data, which the current entry does: Marsden's explanations of various aspects in the Donnelly case should be included, for example, where they too can be sourced: and they have been. Ellis argues that we should ignore these sources. But to do would itself be a breach of WP:NOR. Wikipedia can report only what is verifiable from reliable secondary sources. The presentation of that material can surely be improved, and anyone who reads the articles and sees a way to improve it should.

Evidence presented by 209.217.119.10 13:32, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Bucketsofg obsession with Bourrie

I find it distressing that Bucketsofg throws Dr. Bourrie's name around Wikipedia with such abandon, while taking such great pains on the web and Wikipedia to protect his own identity. There is considerable speculation in Canadian political circles that Bucketsofg is a close associate of, or is actually, Warren Kinsella, since the causes Bucketsofg espouses (attacking Tories and Paul Martin; protecting Kinsella, silencing Kinsella critics) fit perfectly with Kinsella's agenda.209.217.119.10 13:32, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Bucketsofg chooses only negative material

Bucketsofg, operating a web site called Bucketsofdata, selectively chooses material from Lexis-Nexis, copies it ilegally, stores it in the web site, then uses it to back up his smear on Marsden. Pro-Marsden material is, of course, never chosen.142.78.190.137 14:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Article focuses obsessively on Marsden's personal life

There is virtually nothing in this article about Marsden's work as a pundit.142.78.190.137 14:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Article ignores Marsden's defence in Donnelly case

There's nothing in the article dealing with the fact Marsden knew her way around Donnelly's apartment and why the university allowed her to keep a substantial cash settlement.142.78.190.137 14:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

"Controversy" re: Boyd

As written, it doesn't make any sense.142.78.190.137 14:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Sticks and Stones

If the article is to contain quotes from this documentary, it should have representative material from Marsden's many other TV appearances. 142.78.190.137 14:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)