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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by GoneAwayNowAndRetired (talk | contribs) at 13:13, 8 June 2009 (→‎Claims of "my" involvement now by AMIB to further distract: defence). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Create your own section and do not edit in anybody else's section. Please limit your main evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs and keep responses to other evidence as short as possible. A short, concise presentation will be more effective; posting evidence longer than 1000 words will not help you make your point. Over-long evidence that is not exceptionally easy to understand (like tables) will be trimmed to size or, in extreme cases, simply removed by the Clerks without warning - this could result in your important points being lost, so don't let it happen. Stay focused on the issues raised in the initial statements and on diffs which illustrate relevant behavior.

It is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are insufficient. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those will have changed by the time people click on your links), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log can be useful. Please make sure any page section links are permanent. See simple diff and link guide.

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see the talk page. If you think another editor's evidence is a misrepresentation of the facts, cite the evidence and explain how it is incorrect within your own section. Please do not try to re-factor the page or remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, leave it for the Arbitrators or Clerks to move.

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 (and clerks, when clarification on votes is needed) may edit the proposed decision page.

Evidence presented by Rootology

Note: my various numbers on edit counts are from the baseline at User:Rootology/evidence/AMiB notes, where I detail how I got them.

A Man In Black has been blocked 12 times since he was an administrator

He has an extensive and long-term history of edit warring and blocks edit warring since his 2005 successful RFA, which is unbecoming of an administrator. Reviewing his block log, I count 12 valid blocks imposed by other administrators due to his ongoing misbehavior:

1. July 17, 2006: 3RR; 2. December 30, 2006: 3RR; 3. February 9, 2007: 3RR; 4. February 28, 2007: 3RR; 5. March 5, 2007: 3RR; 6. March 9, 2007: 3RR; 7. March 12, 2007: 3RR; 8. March 30, 2007: 3RR; 9. November 19, 2007: edit warring; 10. September 13, 2008: 3RR; 11. February 5, 2009: 3RR; 12. May 20, 2009: 3RR.

He routinely does this (view his block log), and it is an ongoing pattern.

A Man In Black is deeply involved with Ikip

As of May 23, 2009, Ikip is one of the major contributors to various ARS pages, as is AMiB. There is no reasonable way it is even possible to ever assume that A Man In Black and Ikip are ever uninvolved towards each other, as far as any Administrative actions are concerned. Not even the most liberal rationale could reach that conclusion. The below is pulled directly from a dump of both contributor's total edit contributions with a flag of "25000" edits, so it's everything. This doesn't get into the hundreds (?) of various AFDs out there, which I'm not going to dig that far and deeply into. They cross and intersect constantly on those.

ARS statistics
Ikip's edit counts to various ARS pages:
  • 382 Wikipedia_talk:Article_Rescue_Squadron
  • 67 Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron_(4th_nomination)
  • 40 Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron/Hall_of_Fame
  • 18 Wikipedia_talk:Article_Rescue_Squadron/How_to
  • 12 Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron/How_to
  • 10 Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron/FAQ
  • 9 Wikipedia_talk:Article_Rescue_Squadron/Hall_of_Fame
  • 8 Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron/Members
  • 8 Template:Article_Rescue_Squadron_invite
  • 3 Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron/Hall_of_Fame/New
  • 3 Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron/Current_articles
  • 3 Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron
  • 1 Wikipedia_talk:Article_Rescue_Squadron/Archive_34
  • 1 Wikipedia_talk:Article_Rescue_Squadron/Archive_32
  • 1 Wikipedia_talk:Article_Rescue_Squadron/Archive_30
  • 1 Wikipedia_talk:Article_Rescue_Squadron/Archive_29
Total edits: 567
AMiB's edit counts to various ARS pages:
  • 263 Wikipedia_talk:Article_Rescue_Squadron
  • 40 Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron_(4th_nomination)
  • 20 Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron/FAQ
  • 9 Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron
  • 1 Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron_(3rd_nomination)
  • 1 Wikipedia:Article_Rescue_Squadron/Members
Total edits: 334
AMiB and Ikip's intersections
  • AMiB and Ikip per this study have intersected on a total of 199 edited pages as of May 23. As AMiB has edited 992 distinct pages as of that same date, that represents AMiB overlapping with Ikip on a total of 20% of all the distinct pages he has edited.
Other direct interactions
Additionally, AMiB has edits to these pages for discussion:
  • 26 User_talk:Ikip
  • 4 User:Ikip/AfD
Ikip also has as of May 23 a matching 26 edits to User talk:A Man In Black.

Review of AMiB's involvement with Ikip

Taken from the discussion of the block/unblock of Ikip by AMiB:[1]

People in the discussion who describe AMiB as involved
  1. Casliber: "AMiB - as a deletion-minded editor you are not unimpartial and not uninvolved."
  2. Black Kite: "...this isn't really a good block. Not so much because you're involved, but he hasn't really caused mass disruption."
  3. SoWhy: "Even if you are not biased against this editor, your past history and your actions may be seen as such - something you should have avoided by allowing the community to make that decision," and "You have to admit that you were involved with this editor in the past and that you occupy a philosophy on the other end of the spectrum."
  4. MattNad: "Like Casliber, I'm troubled that the admin my not be completely uninvolved in these articles. With that kind of power, AMIB should have deferred to another neutral admin for review or at least solicited comment before taking unilateral action."
  5. Colonel Warden: "Improper due to the previous involvement of User:A Man In Black who has been stirring up trouble about this for days now."
  6. Michael Q. Schmidt: "Although Ikip might have pushed the guidelines a bit in the past, in this case he did no such thing... only upset an editor who does not agree with his editing style."
  7. A Nobody: "This is not the first time A Man In Black has blocked someone with whom he was involved and which garnered the community's scrutiny."
People in the discussion who describe AMiB as uninvolved

None. None of the Support editors disavow that AMiB was involved with Ikip.

A Man In Black made an attack page about Ikip

See: User:A Man In Black/Let's tape Ikip up in a box and mail him to the moon.

A Man In Black is deeply involved with the ARS & Notability debates

Overall involvement
Per Soxred's tools,[2] AMiB's top 3 project talk areas as of May 23, 2009:
  • 417 - WikiProject_Video_games
  • 263 - Article_Rescue_Squadron
  • 176 - Notability_(fiction)
AMiB's involvement in other Notability related discussions
  • 116 Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(fiction)
  • 19 Wikipedia_talk:Notability/RFC:compromise
  • 14 Wikipedia:Notability_(fiction)
  • 3 Wikipedia_talk:Notability
Overall ARS involvement by AMiB
Full detailed in this section, directly above.
ARS FAQ
As of May 23, AMiB has 20 of 56 edits to Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron/FAQ, 35.7% of the total.
ARS MFD
AMiB put the ARS up for MFD at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron (4th nomination).
AMiB's focus on Wikipedia is deletion, and related areas
As of May 23, AMiB has edited 992 non-deleted pages. 234 of them are various Articles for Deletion pages and ARS-related pages, or 23.6% of the total.

A Man In Black has used his admin tools inappropriately on Ikip

As detailed here, AMiB blocked Ikip for alleged canvassing about the Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron. Template:AfD/Tagged, made again by Ikip, was deleted not once but twice in two days by AMiB, claiming WP:POINT. Based on all of this evidence, A Man In Black by no stretch of any policy interpretation nor imagination can be ever considered "uninvolved" in regards to Ikip, anything to do with the ARS, nor anything to do with Notability the policy.

A Man In Black grossly misrepresented his involved status

In spite of all this deep, ongoing involvement in the ARS, Ikip, and the metawars of Inclusionism vs. Deletionism, AMiB claimed and vigorously argued that he was uninvolved when he blocked Ikip from editing.

A Man In Black has engaged in abusive sockpuppetry

Per private evidence to the Arbitration Committee[3], A Man In Black has:

  1. Abusively edited Wikipedia with more than one identity.[4]
  2. Has misused the IP-block exemption function that all Administrators share.[5]

More specific information is not mine to give. Please check with the Arbs.

Scratched second part, which has been clarified by the AC. rootology/equality 21:25, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Historical Arbitration Committee views & findings on Involvement

Classic and typical Arbcom views on involvement:

  1. "...an administrator will be considered "uninvolved" if he or she has not previously participated in any content disputes on articles in the area of conflict." (search revealing many more findings along these lines from AC's history)
  2. Recent cases have echoed this view: [6][7][8][9][10]

Replies

Outright rejection of AMIB's take on the sockpuppetry

In regards to AMIB's false claim that my logic in presenting his sockpuppet evidence is "circular", absolutely, utterly, 100% not true. You chose to edit and sock as your personal IP address then bypass the block on that as your Admin handle--you don't get to hide behind that for your "privacy" now. "Privacy" is never a veil to allow obfuscation of misbehavior, disruption, or policy violations. I (and anyone with any ounce of common sense) will reject out of hand your to be impolite "CYA" deflection there now. Yes, it's sourced back upon itself.

Would you care to disclose the IP address(es) so I can source this properly? Otherwise, you will have to live with the consequences of your actions as the Arbcom privately determines them. rootology/equality 14:58, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rejection of AMiB's claim that he was never talked to about edit warring

This defense makes little to no sense. An Administrator shouldn't require a "talking to" about their edit warring that leads to 12 blocks after their successful RFA. Administrators are not children. The first 11 blocks for edit warring weren't enough of a clue that it's unacceptable? Has AMiB ever blocked an editor for edit warring, himself? rootology/equality 15:22, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rejection of AMiB's claims in regards to Ikip/ARS uninvolved status

It is impossible to deny that AMiB meets every last single reasonable definition of "involved" status in regards to User:Ikip. When AMiB blocked Ikip, the overwhelming consensus was that AMiB met every criterion of "involved" status. Whether he was involved on March 1, April 1, or April 20 is meaningless; involved is involved, as I detailed here, here, and finally here. AMiB's involvement in the ARS is involvement as an editor and partisan, precluding him from use of admin tools in that arena. That alone would meet the qualifications for involvement with Ikip, as the ARS is one of the major areas of work by Ikip (see that evidence I posted above). Adding in all the other discussions and tussles between the users, and a blind man can see the involvement as clear as the noon sun. rootology/equality 15:29, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Claims of "my" involvement now by AMIB to further distract

Total farce and (I hate to say this) pretty obvious last-minute defence. rootology (C)(T) 13:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by MBisanz

Private evidence

I emailed some private evidence to arbcom. They can post the email I sent here if they see fit or give me permission to post the private information. Their call. MBisanz talk 20:11, 23 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Uncle G

On mailing to the moon

There's a timeline, and a discussion context, here that isn't being presented. So here it is:

2009-01-31T21:25
A Man In Black makes a user-space sub-page. It's sole content is "Note to self: buy stamps.". Only this one edit is ever made to the page.
2009-01-31T21:26
A Man In Black makes these two edits pointing to xyr user-space sub-page, explaining the point that xe was making by saying "I can make [the page] but it doesn't much affect anything, no matter how many stamps I buy.".
2009-01-31T22:09
A Man In Black deletes the user-space sub-page, with the summary "Nah, not as funny as I'd like". From this point on, this page only exists as a redlink.
2009-02-02T16:07
Ikip responds in these two edits. Observe in passing that A Man In Black did not call Ikip "delusional and dense".
2009-02-02T16:54
Ikip modifes xyr previous response.
2009-02-02T17:13
A Man In Black responds, explaining xyr point in another way by saying "Things people say in userspace pages don't necessarily have anything to do with reality".
2009-04-27T02:04
A Nobody brings up the redlink, without piping, in a discussion on the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents in this edit.
2009-04-27T02:07
A Man In Black responds, explaining again that it was "a joke about the silliness of citing clearly ridiculous proposals and essays" and observing, tounge-in-cheek, that "Clearly, 'Note to self: Buy more stamps' was part of my plan to silence opposition.".
2009-04-29T01:11
A Man In Black adds to the previous reply, pointing out with emphasis that xe is of the understanding that xe and Ikip were actually in agreement, in the discussion containing the earlier edits.
2009-05-19T20:22
Pablomismo creates User:Pablomismo/Let's give A Man In Black a wedgie and put him in a sack and tow it through a cow pasture!
2009-05-19T21:02
Pablomismo adds the same redlink to User:Pablomismo/Let's give A Man In Black a wedgie and put him in a sack and tow it through a cow pasture!
2009-05-20T10:46
Jack Merridew links to Pablomismo's sub-page in a talk page edit to User talk:Jayvdb, using piping so that the linked text is ";)".
2009-05-20T18:25
Ikip creates User:Ikip/block, containing the same redlink.

Note that User:Pablomismo/Let's give A Man In Black a wedgie and put him in a sack and tow it through a cow pasture! is still bluelinked, and contains 19 edits by Pablomismo and 3 by Jack Merridew.

A Man In Black makes a statement about perceived involvement and not re-blocking Ikip

Here it is:

2009-04-28T02:41
A Man In Black writes

I don't feel that I was involved in some larger meta-dispute with Ikip (I cannot see any personal gain I make by blocking him, and nobody was able to show one to me), but I brought it here in the interest of having greater input on my actions (which turned out to have been in error, due to changes in guidelines). As for recusal, where do I sign up for the "I know better than to wheel war guys, seriously" certification? I wouldn't reblock Ikip (or anyone, for that matter) without clear evidence of a compromised admin account or something.

Evidence presented by MythSearchertalk

AMIB single man WP:POINT campaign on the Gundam (mobile suit) article

AMIB is usually useful when he is not acting as an admin. Admins are supposed to be role models of others, not counter examples. In this unreported edit war, AMIB shows no role model action, but only purely disruptive point campaign just because he was reverted by others. Notice he asked for a source to support the source in the lower part of this edit, and the single man campaign against page consensus with 3 different users. He claims he tries to move on to more important things after 3RRs most of the time, in this situation, he moves to disrupt the article after 3 reverts(4th edit), not something an admin should do.

AMIB WP:POINT campaign and no consensus notability and unreasonable request of sources on the Real Robot article

In the article Real Robot. His first edit might be reasonable, since the page totally lacks of sources, he then starts on his strange sense of notability, instead of discussion, he determined that the article must not be notable. While he did show some respect on this edit, it is only a plan to introduce his strange sense of magazines not being third party sources. On This edit, he redirects a page with magazine sources and many other sources just to keep his WP:POINT on redirecting the page, nothing in the page resembles his edit comment, there are multiple sources that are outside of the Sunrise and SRW series. His disruptiveness continues in the next edit, while the article has been critically revamped, he maintains his position without even trying to read the sources. This is a well 4RR with only tagging the article in the middle instead of reverting it to avoid being reported.

MythSearchertalk 15:57, 24 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on AMIB reply

The problem is not if MalikCarr and/or J-trainor, the opposing party of AMIB's edit wars are corect or not, it is not to the judgement of AMIB, but other admins. AMIB never even try to stand on the side of thinking he might be wrong, and maintains the I am always correct self ego in all of these edit warrings.

Specifically on the Real Robot issue

For the last time, the citations contains well published and more, written sources, which are mostly copied and quoted into the ref when you revert them. You false claim of them being vague is simply incorrect. Live with it, you can be wrong, you might want to lessen it a bit in this case to show that There are only content disputes instead of It is all your point campaign. However, you actions at this particular page showed your ignorance in the quoted sources.

Evidence presented by AMIB

This is a laundry list of complaints over separate disputes of varying degree and acrimony, none of which have been taken through any other dispute resolution venue. I waited my block out patiently to see if it would cohere, and it did not. There is no emergency, there is no wheel war, there is no referral from Jimbo. This has jumped from talk pages all the way down the ladder to RFAr, skipping all the rungs in between.

I'm not much of a fan of lawyering for lawyering's sake, but there's little need to ignore the rules. I'd previously expressed interest in the results of such dispute resolution even if it was censuring me here, the edit war I had been blocked for was a dispute I had already conceded here and here, and Ikip has gone and blocked himself for two and a half months. There's no exceptional emergency Arbcom must deal with now, and no evidence that I am uninterested in RFC or other dispute resolution where it pertains to analyzing and censuring my conduct. I'd be criticized, I'd respond, people would talk about it, and either I'd have the material to make my own changes in conduct or some new course of action would be suggested.

The premature nature of this case has meant that it isn't very tightly focused, because there's been no preliminary discussion to filter and refine it. As a result, my responses will necessarily be equally scattered, as I can't defend my pattern of conduct when no pattern has been established.

Also, for the record, I'm male. It's fine to refer to me with male pronouns, heh.

Edit warring

Given a lack of input on edit warring that didn't come at the point of a block, I've taken steps to moderate my own conduct. In particular, I've been doing my best to spot when I've gotten involved in these internecine fights over trivialities, and self-revert and reconsider a better plan of action, based on the assumption that my version will not and should not prevail by this means. In both of the blocks in the last six months, I had already done this, reverting to the "wrong" version and taking a different tack, or simply conceding the point entirely until I could form a better argument. Rootology even offers the evidence of this, above, buried in his diffs; well before I was blocked, I self-reverted here and reconsidered the cause of the problem rather than fighting over a symptom, and suggested that the project that had the attitude I was attempting to prevent from being enshrined in the FAQ needed to be dismantled and replaced with something else, which I proposed here.

Perhaps this is an appropriate solution to prevent further edit warring. Maybe it's not proactive enough or obvious enough. I don't know. What I do know is that I was never offered any chance to explain or defend or amend this before the RFAr, because nobody asked.

Ikip

Where's the evidence that I was significantly involved in a dispute with Ikip any time proximate to April 26? My involvement with him to that point (save for some months-old and since-resolved policy and deletion discussions, where we occasionally agreed and occasionally disagreed) was on WT:ARS, criticizing the canvassing conduct of Ikip and others, WT:CANVASS, criticizing the same, and WP:ANI, again criticizing the same conduct. The block was out of line of the rules of the time, which is again my fault for not keeping up with them. Without some dispute, blocking him doesn't give me the upper hand in any sort of situation other than preventing the conduct I've repeatedly described as disruptive. Obviously I'm involved in larger disputes with Ikip now (to my regret), but there is an intervening month in which I have become involved in those disputes (and the counterclaim that there was overwhelming consensus that I was involved in some sort of dispute is noticeably lacking any sort of evidence).

As for {{AfD/Tagged}}, I had reasonable reason to believe it was made to make a disruptive point in an argument, based on this comment (and this later comment confirmed it). Ikip left it lay deleted, but then recreated it for a stated alternate, good faith reason which I cannot now recall. I thought he was recreating it for the same reason above, he corrected me on my talk (or I saw it on his talk), and I quickly undeleted it. I'd like to highlight that this was created for the express purpose of canvassing (as one of an implied set of "automated tools to bring other partisans to AFDs"), and that, to date, it hasn't actually been used for anything.

The entirety of my "dispute" with Ikip up to April was my criticism of his canvassing conduct. If administrators are involved in a dispute with a user for criticizing and attempting to contain disruption with tools other than their administrative tools, to a degree that this jeopardizes their ability to use those administrative tools to resolve the situation if other means fail, then this seems to imply a "Block first, questions later" mandate for admins, lest they become involved in "disputes" that prevent enforced action due to their involvement in voluntary discussion of conduct. In fact, Ikip has made a personal practice of abusing this confusion of criticism of conduct with content/policy disputes; he has a page threatening any administrator who attempts to circumscribe his conduct or censure him, and up until February had a page with detailed instructions for gaming a number of different disputes, including particularly the 3RR (note that he described himself as a three-year veteran of edit wars in his disclaimer).

As for the ARS FAQ page evidence MalikCarr has copy-pasted from another one of Ikip's evidence listnings here, why not just look at the page's entire edit history? It's a big mess, with multiple users on each side, and many reverts coming from many people. All of this was caused by a FAQ page, created by Ikip, which had a "get lost" in the form of a frequently asked question: "Article Rescue Squadron is no different from any of the hundreds of wikiprojects, except for its scope. Some wikiprojects have a active delete agenda, you are welcome to search out these projects for support in your views." The rest is me removing Ikip actively advertising contentious debates to WP:ARS as a favorable audience (as this is inappropriate canvassing), and Ikip reverting them back.

There's a potpourri of other complaints in here, most of which assert the conclusion with no evidence. Uncle G addresses my "attack page" above. Ikip's examples are largely more products of the Gundam dispute and the copyvio mess there (with some factual errors like saying comments in 2007 were explaining a 2008 block), save for a WP:SCHOOL case that was a back-and-forth trying to find a middle (and two years old), and a template dispute where I was fully in the wrong so I backed off completely (again, two years ago). The arc of the actions in his evidence is June 2007 to August 2007, or later comments on the events of mid-2007.

Rootology and involvement

On the subject of involvement, I fiddled with the tool that Rootology linked above, out of boredom. Ikip, under his different username at the time, was a vocal supporter and ardent defender of Rootology at Rootology's own RFAr ordeal.

This vague standard of possibly having agreed or disagreed about something in the past is dangerous.

Anonymous comment

I made a tetchy comment while not signed in, then made the bad decision to disown the IP instead of simply accepting it. Not my wisest idea. It was nothing more than a tetchy comment followed by some on-point criticism on the IP's talk (so not any of the typical abusive uses of a sockpuppet), and then the IP was blocked as anon-only with an admonition to stop making tetchy comments anonymously. There was no abuse of the ability to edit through blocks (admins can edit through blocks? Not entirely sure I knew that) because any auto-confirmed user could have done the same, and indeed the block summary implied that this was the blocking admin's intent. It was a rather cowardly thing to do, all told, but it was less sockpuppetry and more cowardice.

Rootology's workshop comments along these lines are circular; he cites a Workshop post as evidence, then uses his evidence post citing a workshop post to propose remedies on the workshop. It's not so much evidence as his opinion about what he knows about the situation. He doesn't have all the facts, so his conclusions are necessarily colored by supposition.

Gundam, etc.

Mythsearcher and I have been involved in some content disputes. He needs to understand that citation of a source doesn't mean vague attribution to a speaker, but specific attribution to a published claim. I need to make a better argument than the one I had at Real Robot to accomplish anything, which is why I haven't touched the page in seven months. Both of them are long-stale content disputes, in which Mythsearcher has seen his preferred version implemented.

I edit warred a lot with MalikCarr and Jtrainor in 2007. That sort of prolonged and ultimately unproductive and disruptive edit warring is long behind me. It taught me that sometimes it's not worth fighting with entrenched editors over unimportant things. Their conduct also taught me not to get so busy reverting that I miss larger points, as MalikCarr did when he was reverting an image that violated WP:NFCC into an article or reverting copyvio text into an article, with no effort made to address these copyvio issues. I don't think any reasonable person would say I wasn't involved there; I didn't and wouldn't. I took what I felt were the appropriate steps: I removed the copyvio, took administrative actions to prevent the copyvio from being replaced (protecting the page or blocking the replacer, then undoing my own interested edits. The final result was a page that was on the wrong version except without the copyvio. In the first instance of this, in July 2007, I walked away from the page for two weeks, in the hope that my talk page comments would see some response. (They did not.) In 2008 and beyond, the entirety of my involvement on the page was removing copyvio. Copyright violations and fair-use policy violations are considered by pretty much everyone to be radioactive, and need to be dealt with quickly and decisively. My main regret here was getting into any sort of revert war at all in 2007, but I feel I handled 2008 exactly as I should: removed copyvio, warned replacers, removed copyvio again and blocked replacers, and went to ANI with the details (admittedly after a night's sleep).

As for File:Msn-02 Perfect Zeong.jpg, MalikCarr refuses to this day to deal with fair use issues and WP:NFCC. File:Msn-02 Perfect Zeong.jpg is a perfect example; it's one of three non-free images in MSN-02 Zeong all illustrating the same thing (including a game cover for an article that isn't about the game, something called out specifically in WP:NFCC!) and two of which have exactly identical fair-use rationales. MalikCarr repeatedly reuploaded after the image was deleted by multiple admins. As for how I dealt with it, at the time there weren't many good tools to deal with fair-use issues; bear in mind that mid-late 2007 was the first real enforcement of WP:NFCC, so all of the tools and procedures were still sketchy. I escalated along what I felt was a reasonable course at the time; tag and speedy (our then-policy), then tag and leave for another admin (protecting when MalikCarr obstructed that review), then simply deleting the page whenever MalikCarr willfully reuploaded a page that two admins had deleted as not meeting copyright policy. I wouldn't do the same today, but today I'd be using procedures like WP:NFCR which weren't as well-developed at the time. I was doing my best to deal with someone who was willfully disregarding copyright policy in the name of defending articles which are effectively his from the "Orwellian regimes" of the "anti-content movement".

There are some factual errors in MalikCarr's list (which is copied from here, which SoWhy deleted during this case at Ikip's e-mailed request). I didn't protect the page in November 2007; East718 did. As for protecting the page in 2008, I did do so here, then immediately removed the {{primarysources}} template (which I had replaced in a previous edit) here, so as to protect the version closest to MalikCarr's/Jtrainor's desires save for the copyvio. "The wrong version" has long been understood to mean "the version the speaker doesn't like"; generally, editing a protected page to change it to "the wrong version" (specifically to prevent administrative action from being even a de facto enforcement of the administrator's preferences) has been considered acceptable.

tl;dr version

I gained no advantage by blocking MalikCarr and Jtrainor, because I swiftly reverted to their preferred version, sans NFCC/copyright violations. (The articles sit on their preferred version to this day, and have been such for more than a year.) I took the best course of action I could think of given my knowledge at the time, and the blocks accomplished their specific goal of prevent them from further attempting to force copyright-inappropriate material. My edit warring was inexcusable, and that's why I stopped such edit warring a year and a half ago. This is a stale dispute exhumed because of the broad, vague nature of this RFAr.

Evidence presented by Steel

Ikip's attitude towards people with whom he disagrees leaves a lot to be desired

  • Snarky attacks towards AMIB:

    If this eventually winds its way to arbitration, I don't know what will happen to me, but there will be one less admin on wikipedia, I guarantee it. 08:33, 7 May 2009 (UTC) [11]

    It is typical for an editor to comment directly below a deletion nomination.
    Are you going for another edit war?
    You already broke 3RR earlier today/yesterday.
    Since your last block was for a week, how long will it be this time? Ikip (talk) 19:33, 19 May 2009 (UTC) [12]

  • Aside from being a really bad analogy, this shows the utter contempt Ikip has for the "other side" of the debate:

    Comment I think it is important to note that the editors thus far who have voted to delete this page or take it to RfC are editors who historically delete pages, and whose efforts to delete other editors contributions has been slowed by ARS. This is like spammers deciding what the Wikipedia:Wikiproject:Spam should or should not do. Ikip (talk) 11:07, 19 May 2009 (UTC) [13]

  • "Battleground" attitude and accusations of bad faith. Further, the last line looks a lot like an attempt to turn people against AMIB with cheap rhetoric:

    The vast, vast majority of disruption has come from you AMIB. With 4 edit wars on the page in the past 12 days. Members of the ARS have to take up arms because of your repeated bad faith attacks. If we didn't complain, a template would have been deleted forever and ARS would be an extension of your nuke and pave essay. An admin with a history of edit warring and deleting other editors contributions creates the problem, then complains when editors take up arms to the disruption and annomosity which AMIB is central to causing.
    Interest in an RFC was waning on the ARS talk page, and so since you didn't get your way their, you created yet another crisis, putting this wikiproject up for deletion.
    Is this the behavior of an admin? Ikip (talk) 10:59, 19 May 2009 (UTC) [14]

  • More accusations of bad faith:

    I also removed your bad faith comment. Ikip (talk) 23:47, 16 May 2009 (UTC) [15]

    My response was directed to Stifle, who uses the tired example of "what if there was a deletion group and we did the same thing". I refered him to Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion, which is just that group.
    I didn't make the same suggestion to you Fram. Your views are quite set. I don't think anyone neutral will be fooled that you have the best interest of ARS in mind. Ikip (talk) 15:14, 19 May 2009 (UTC) [16]

Ikip is an edit warrior

It should be obvious that, like the above, this is not an exhaustive list. But three examples from this month:

The reverts by Ikip on the 19th were at ARS MfD to keep some of his comments inside the nominator's section and above everyone else's comments.

Ikip has an extensive block log, including blocks for edit warring: block log Note: some of these blocks are quite old, but so are many of AMIB's used in evidence further up this page, so I bring up Ikip's to be fair.

Update

In response to Rootology on /Workshop, 15 minutes of searching found these:

I'm not going back through any more history, but it's clear that the edit warring isn't restricted to the AMIB conflict.

Canvassing

Clearing up one last thing. Despite what some people are saying implicitly, it is not the case that AMIB is the only person to call out Ikip about his canvassing: Flatscan Fritzpoll

Evidence presented by MalikCarr

From 2007-2008 A Man In Black has systematically engaged in content disputes with a few articles I've worked on; all of them were fiction-related stuffs that Mythsearcher (see above) either directed me to or was otherwise involved in, and all barely survived an AfD due to being garbage. A few months after cleaning them up, A Man In Black makes the executive decision that my edits are "awful" and proceeds to revert me for a year. On the article Jagd Doga, which I haven't really tried to add to for fear I'll have to deal with another year-long edit war, A Man In Black reverts myself, Jtrainor, and other members of WP:Gundam no less than 52 times, protects the page (on his "version", explicitly), blocks Jtrainor once and myself three times.

A Man In Black on the Jagd Doga for 1 year
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.


  • "This is probably the best of the bunch, but we can live without the awful infobox and it still needs work"[17]

Reversions:

  • 13:54, 29 June 2007 [18]
  • 16:19, 29 June 2007[19]
  • "hate to revert thrice, but Jtrainor removed a ton of style edits, replaced an unfree image, and replaced a WP:WAF-violating infobox, all without reasons on this talk, his talk, or edit summary" 20:25, 29 June 2007[20]reverts. 00:10, 1 July 2007.[21]
  • 01:42, 1 July 2007[22]
  • 07:58, 1 July 2007[23]
  • 23:42, 2 July 2007[24]
  • 23:07, 6 July 2007[25]
  • 06:21, 7 July 2007 [26]
  • 08:28, 7 July 2007[27]
  • 02:40, 9 July 2007[28]
  • 10:14, 9 July 2007 [29]
  • 17:52, 9 July 2007[30]
  • 06:54, 11 July 2007 "rm deleted image"[31]
  • 18:06, 12 July 2007[32]
  • 07:05, 23 July 2007[33]
  • 22:32, 24 July 2007[34]
  • 01:29, 25 July 2007[35]
  • 10:10, 25 July 2007[36]
  • 22:46, 26 July 2007[37]
  • 06:48, 27 July 2007[38]
  • 08:58, 28 July 2007 [39]
  • 13:29, 24 August 2007[40]
  • 21:56, 29 August 2007[41]
  • 20:55, 30 August 2007[42]
  • 02:48, 31 August 2007[43]
  • 23:14, 31 August 2007[44]
  • 03:31, 2 September 2007[45]
  • 07:43, 10 October 2007[46]
  • 05:10, 20 October 2007[47]
  • 10:20, 20 October 2007[48]
  • 19:42, 20 October 2007[49]
  • 03:53, 28 October 2007[50]
  • 14:10, 30 October 2007[51]
  • 07:07, 1 November 2007[52]
  • 13:55, 2 November 2007[53]
  • 08:13, 3 November 2007[54]
  • 00:12, 4 November 2007[55]
  • 00:23, 4 November 2007[56]
  • 00:43, 4 November 2007[57]

Page protected by A Man In Black

  • 02:33, 17 November 2007[58]
  • 02:42, 17 November 2007[59]
  • 03:07, 17 November 2007[60]
  • 05:19, 17 November 2007 [61]
  • 05:22, 29 October 2008[62]
  • 23:51, 30 October 2008[63]

Blocks

  1. 22:55, November 2, 2008 A Man In Black (talk | contribs) blocked MalikCarr (talk | contribs) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 24 hours ‎ (Trying to force copyvio into MSN-03 Jagd Doga)
  2. 18:07, July 12, 2007 A Man In Black (talk | contribs) blocked MalikCarr (talk | contribs) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 24 hours ‎ (Copyright infringement)
  3. 06:52, July 11, 2007 A Man In Black (talk | contribs) blocked MalikCarr (talk | contribs) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 24 hours ‎ (Copyright infringement) [64]

Five blocks in 3 years - not the best record of an editor by far, but three of them were by A Man In Black and on the same page no less. The fourth was from an editor who blocked A Man In Black, Jtrainor, myself and another editor for edit warring with one another, so I guess that's like "half-related" or something.

More reversions:

  • 08:47, 1 November 2008[65]
  • 11:14, 2 November 2008[66]
  • 22:53, 2 November 2008[67]
  • 03:06, 4 November 2008[68]
  • 07:56, 4 November 2008[69]

Page protected by A Man In Black

  • 08:08, 4 November 2008 A Man In Black protects the page he has been having a content dispute on yet again.[70]
  • 08:09, 4 November 2008 reverts to another version while page protected, quote: ""wrong version, etc"[71]

A similar pattern of edits exists on Sazabi, Zeong, Gundam Mk. II and Psyco Gundam, the latter of which I believe he AfD'd (it might have been Moreschi, it's been a long time) and I voted in favor of due to it being complete crap with the promise of recreating it later. I did so, with sources and inline citations and so forth, and was then rewarded with A Man In Black having another content dispute. Fortunately this one was much shorter, but nevertheless, I haven't really aggressively edited fiction articles on Wikipedia since - it's not worth the effort.

EDIT: An addendum: I dislike "contribution trawling", since I've frequently accused A Man In Black of doing it to me, but if it'll provide more impetus to the arbitrators, I've compiled a few other choice odds-and-ends.

Some more content disputes/etc that led to a block
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.


  • 23:26, 18 May 2009 A Man In Black puts the ARS up for deletion again. [72]

After this dispute A Man In Black got blocked.

  • 21:52, 18 May 2009, reverts Dream Focus [73]
  • 20:34, 18 May 2009, reverts Colonel Warden [74]
  • 10:03, 18 May 2009, reverts Colonel Warden [75]
  • 09:40, 18 May 2009, reverts MichaelQSchmidt [76]

23:47, 16 May 2009 A 3RR warning: [77]

For:
07:36, 15 May 2009, reverts Ikip [78]
21:16, 15 May 2009, reverts MichaelQSchmidt [79]
21:28, 15 May 2009, reverts Benjiboi [80]
21:56, 16 May 2009, reverts Benjiboi [81]
23:09, 16 May 2009, reverts Ikip [82]
23:40, 16 May 2009, reverts Benjiboi [83]
00:03, 17 May 2009 A Man In Black then deletes the tag from the page itself: [84]

07:12, 7 May 2009 3RR warning: [85]

For:
05:20, 7 May 2009, reverts Skomorokh [86]
06:28, 7 May 2009, reverts Ikip [87]
07:01, 7 May 2009, reverts Ikip [88]

14:56, 5 May 2009 Another 3RR warning: [89]

For:
14:52, 5 May 2009, reverts Ikip [90]
12:44, 5 May 2009, reverts Ikip [91]
09:36, 5 May 2009, reverts Ikip [92]
Decides to delete an unrelated section: 14:51, 5 May 2009 [93]
Deleted other editors' comments on the Article Rescue Squad talk:
09:07, 5 May 2009 [94]
19:37, 6 May 2009 [95]

EDIT AGAIN: Used some fancy hat syntax to keep the information on this page while not turning it into a giant laundry list.

ANOTHER EDIT: Decided to go ahead and pre-empt the 3RR thing since that appears to be somewhat controversial. Firstly, I must redact my claim of 4 reports against A Man In Black - I've only reported 3 3RRVs against him. That's my bad.

3RRVs MalikCarr has made against A Man In Black
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.


  • 02:35, 4 November 2007 (UTC) User:A_Man_In_Black reported by User:MalikCarr (Result: pages protected) [96]
  • 02:52, 17 November 2007 (UTC) User:A Man In Black reported by User:MalikCarr (Result: Page Protected) [97]

One was for two pages, hence my claim of 3 3RRVs. There are other 3RRVs lodged against A Man In Black, but I don't feel like itemizing them here - doing syntax is hard, and some of them were filed incorrectly when A Man In Black hadn't actually done anything at all. One can review these here, along with 3RRVs that A Man In Black has himself filed: [98]

My Assertion

I don't claim to be a model editor, and can be provoked into edit warring sometimes. However, I'd like to think that the majority of my contributions benefit the project in some manner or other, so I'd like to think I'm not a bad editor either, and I'd certainly like to think I don't go around wantonly inserting copyright violation content into articles for some inscrutable purpose. I'd always assumed - though I never knew it was commonly accepted until now - that admins are supposed to be model editors for the rest of us plebians to follow. Ergo, when A Man In Black engages in the same kind of editing - and then some - as a "vandal" and "copyvio editor" like myself, as well as breaking his own share of policies (I've reported him at least four times for 3RR violations - I'd have to call him up on the archives for diffs, which I will do on request), I'm really not seeing the model editing pattern here.

At least I've been willing to compromise on the matters of what he disliked about the articles - the only conclusion we ever reached in that content dispute was him going off to redirect and otherwise marginalize other fiction articles, with another week-or-two-long spat from time to time. MalikCarr (talk) 21:51, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Hiding

A Man In Black understands Wikipedia and what it demands

I don't have the time to dredge up a host of edits, and I don't think I need to. A Man In Black's revision of his comment here suggests this is a user who is willing to learn and who is willing to build and reflect consensus. [99] I may disagree with the user on many, many levels, but I have the utmost respect for the user, and I guess I'm here more to stand as a character reference as much as anything. If I really need to dredge up the many edits where AMIB demonstrates an understanding of the way Wikipedia works, let me know, I'll point you to a lengthy grouping of archives. Hiding T 13:46, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Hbdragon88

A Man In Black misused protection and deleting tools

Over on File:Msn-02 Perfect Zeong.jpg, back in 2007, AMIB protected the page to prevent "the other side" from removing the fair use disputed template. ^demon then deleted it and there was a brief "uploading/deleting war" that went on for a few rounds before ending. This is related to the evidence that MalikCarr presented.

  • 07:14, 7 July 2007 A Man In Black (talk | contribs | block) deleted "File:Msn-02 Perfect Zeong.jpg" ‎(No rationale for a week) (view/restore)
  • 20:39, 17 July 2007 A Man In Black (talk | contribs | block) protected File:Msn-02 Perfect Zeong.jpg ‎(MalikCarr won't leave this for a third party to review [edit=sysop:move=sysop] (expires 20:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC))) (hist | change)
  • 07:14, 27 July 2007 A Man In Black (talk | contribs | block) protected File:Msn-02 Perfect Zeong.jpg ‎(Apparently nobody has gotten to the queue yet, so this needs longer [edit=sysop:move=sysop] (expires 07:14, 3 August 2007 (UTC))) (hist | change)
  • 04:32, 25 October 2007 A Man In Black (talk | contribs | block) deleted "File:Msn-02 Perfect Zeong.jpg" ‎(redundant, no possible fair-use rationale) (view/restore)
  • 10:30, 27 October 2007 A Man In Black (talk | contribs | block) deleted "File:Msn-02 Perfect Zeong.jpg" ‎(redundant, no possible fair-use rationale) (view/restore)
  • 03:33, 28 October 2007 A Man In Black (talk | contribs | block) deleted "File:Msn-02 Perfect Zeong.jpg" ‎(same reason as usual) (view/restore)

Timeline of the Gundam edit war

This started in June 2007, when AMIB did some work [100] that Jtrainor called vandalism [101]. It then moved onto Talk:MSN-02_Zeong, where Jtrainor told AMIB to go away. The debate was over the sourcing of information in the article; AMIB said it was badly sourced and in-universe, while MalikCarr and Jtrainor said it was sourced with the best information possible.

In late July, the three of them engaged in discussion on WikiProject Gundam but this ended by 30 July and they were still edit warring as late as October. [102]

The edit war was going on for so long that a WP:RFPP I filed only lasted for a week and didn't do much to stop them from reverting each other. [103]

On 21 October 2007, I filed Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Gundam, listing the articles in question and the steps of dispute resolution that had been taken. Although all parties agreed to it, by this time the edit war had mostly died down and so I requested that it be closed.

On 27 October, Jtrainor and AMIB started discussions on the talk page of MSN-04 Sazabi.

Response to Jtrainor

Re-marking the images for fair use review is not retaliation against MalikCarr. It follows AMIB's usual modus operandi: argue the points for awhile and eventually leave the article on the other parties' preferred version, in this case, letting the images stand. Now that I've brought it to his attention again, he's re-examining the images. He does this for all articles and issues that he's concerned about.

I don't have the time to search, but he's returned to various issues over and over again, such as dicussion on the Pokemon articles and possibly the TV call identification images debate. He's focused on the issue, not the specific user.

Evidence presented by Jtrainor

As requested on the talk page, I figure I should talk about how the mess with the Gundam articles got started.

Okay, flashback to June '07. Around that time, there had been a recent massive concerted effort to remove most material related to the Gundam fictional series from Wikipedia. This concerned me, as I am a fan, but I'm not much for writing articles, so I poked my friend MalikCarr, who is a most excellent writer, to come and see what he could do to bring some of the articles up to spec. He did a bunch of work on MSN-02 Zeong originally, improving it from [[104]] to [[105]] (this particular version is messed up since some templates have been changed since then). AMIB came along and chopped out the entire infobox; a small revert war ensued. I assumed bad faith at the time, since there was an ongoing issue with people doing driveby tagging and doing nothing to improve articles. Anyways, AMIB's first edits to the article were http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MSN-02_Zeong&oldid=140952164, where, as stated, he removed the infobox. Cue a small revert war between me and him on the 28th; MalikCarr came along presently and removed the unwarranted templates and restored the infobox.

First communication with AMIB was here: [[106]]. I was rather irate at the time: someone made an effort to clean up a Gundam article, improving it to the point where it was far better than the vast majority out there, and now someone comes by, chops out large chunks and tags it?

Anyways, as you can see from the talk page and from the article itself, shitstorm ensues, if you will pardon my french. The page ended up being protected a number of times, and AMIB eventually resorted to going after images used in the article (as noted above, I won't bother to detail that as it's been adequately covered). AMIB eventually gave up, and MalikCarr did some final work and the article remained largely in it's current state as you see it today.

There was another, much larger kerfluffle over the article MSN-03 Jagd Doga; the particulars are mostly the same as with the Zeong article, except AMIB was far more persistent and the edit war was much longer. Alongside this dispute, AMIB became more aggressive in trying to get an infobox to be "his way"; he wanted the infobox in these articles to be one way, all of WP:GUNDAM wanted it to be a different way, as per established consensus. There were no policy reasons to change the infobox, and a number of alternate proposals were put forth, but AMIB pretty much just ignored all of them in favor of his own.

To give some further background on the infobox thing, for a long time in many articles, people had a habit of listing specifications for these fictional items in a section of their own; this tended to be ugly, and thus, articles were slowly being converted to the infobox standard (they still are, but WP:GUNDAM is rather small...) An example of this can be seen in the Zeong article as noted above. The edition before MalikCarr started working on it featured such a section, and the improved version had an infobox instead.

This page [[107]] also has a couple of threads on WP:GUNDAM concerning the AMIB issue. The strident tone at the time reflects the animosity felt by the various people involved in the dispute.

Anyways, yeah. The general thing that happened was AMIB showing up and taking a hacksaw to articles, reversions, arguments, more reversions, and so on and so forth. This also happened on MSN-04 Sazabi. I note that matters were inflamed significantly by an Earthlink user (whom eventually registered as GundamsRus) who caused significant disruption to these articles (and, for a time afterwards, followed Malik around to futz with articles he was editing).

Further disputes occured at Gundam Mk-II, but after that, eventually AMIB gave up and there wasn't further trouble with him.

Sorry if this is kind of rambling. I consider most of it old history, though I have noted with distaste AMIB's conduct concerning Ikip and ARS. AMIB has complained a couple of times that we seem to show up in any thread about him on WP:ANI, but I would like to stress that there's no canvassing involved; I for one read WP:ANI since it's a good way on keeping up with ongoing issues, and I believe MalikCarr does the same.

Also, I realize I've built a case for edit warring against myself, but, in my defense, I have not engaged in such behaviour in some time and do not intend to again; I'm more knowledgeable of Wikipedia procedures now and know there's better ways to handle things.

Brief addition: I note that AMIB has started messing with the images used in the Zeong article again as of the 1st. This is fairly obvious retaliation on his part against User:MalikCarr.

Jtrainor (talk) 17:07, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Flatscan

My evidence was mainly collected for a twice-postponed user conduct RfC on Ikip. If any editor (arbitrators especially) finds my evidence to be out-of-scope, please contact me directly, and I will consider reducing or removing it. Flatscan (talk) 04:24, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ikip has a history of gray area canvassing

By "gray area", I mean notices that are not clearly inappropriate according to the WP:Canvassing guideline, but which have attracted complaints from other users.

WT:FICT mass posting, Jan/Feb 2009

After asking two admins (User:Ezhiki, User talk:Ezhiki/2009#Neutral notice of RfC; User:Piotrus, User talk:Piotrus/Archive 27#Neutral notice of RfC) for input, Ikip posted up to 326 notices (I have not checked them all, but they pass spot-checks) on article Talk pages. Although Ikip specified Category:Lists of television series episodes, Category:American comedy television series, and Category:American drama television series, articles covering webcomics such as xkcddiff and films such as The Terminatordiff were included. Ikip had been approached by User:LeaveSleaves and me, but he continued, stopping just before User:Kww threatened AN/I.

ARS recruiting mass posting, Feb 2009

AN/I: WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive517#Massive Canvassing of the ARS by User:Ikip

Ikip posted up to 406 ARS invitations (again, I have not checked them all, but they pass spot-checks) to users with inclusionist userboxes. He was reported to AN/I by User:Themfromspace and to AN (soon merged) by AMIB. There was no consensus for administrator action, and Rootology referred the dispute to RfC with his closing comment.

Ikip/AMIB canvassing block, Apr 2009

AN/I: WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive533#Blocked Ikip for canvassing; dispute extended, WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive534#User:Ikip and forum shopping

In an attempt to salvage a productive discussion, I started WT:Canvassing#AfD notifications at related articles. As a result of the discussion, the text "directly-related to the topic under discussion" was added to WP:Canvassing#Friendly notices.

Ikip has posted AfD notifications to pages that seem relevant, perhaps indicating a lack of due care:

I have no strong opinion on self-requested blocks in general, but I believe that the timing of those requested by Ikip (block log) and mentioned below is relevant.

Attempted merge, Jul 2008

Ikip (then named User:Inclusionist) attempted to merge WP:Article Rescue Squadron, WP:Intensive Care Unit, and WP:WikiProject Inclusion, resulting in two AN/I discussions:

AMIB had no involvement in either of the AN/I discussions. Ikip requested an indefinite block: 15:23, 28 July 2008 Duk (talk | contribs) blocked Ikip (talk | contribs) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Long time made this special request)

Recruiting drive, Feb 2009

Linked and introduced above

After Rootology's referral to RfC, I contacted Themfromspace and AMIB (User talk:A Man In Black#RfC). Around a week later, Ikip requested a 14 day block: 23:34, 3 March 2009 Xaosflux (talk | contribs) blocked Ikip (talk | contribs) (autoblock disabled) with an expiry time of 1 fortnight ‎ (user requested block) While the proximate dispute appears to be a content dispute on Business Plot with User:Collect and User:THF, Themfromspace and I put our RfC research on hold as a result of the enforced wikibreak.

The recruitment of self-described inclusionists would become a core issue in the May ARS dispute.

Recent dispute, May 2009

I assume that the arbitrators will review the recent dispute thoroughly, so I will provide only convenience links here:

After participating in this RFAR pre-acceptance, but before the MfD closed, Ikip requested a 72-day block: 12:32, 21 May 2009 WilyD (talk | contribs) blocked Ikip (talk | contribs) (autoblock disabled) with an expiry time of 72 days ‎ (user request (by email))

Ikip accuses editors of bad faith

Flatscan

Soon after the FICT mass-posting, I approached Ikip with GFDL concerns. After waiting nearly 5 days without a response, I started an AN discussion. User:Fritzpoll marked it as resolved and answered Ikip's questions. I overreacted to Ikip's accusations, requesting that Fritzpoll investigate me despite the complaint's retraction.

I have addressed Ikip directly only a few times since (e.g. ARS recruiting AN/I, civil discussion at WT:Canvassing#AfD notifications at related articles and User talk:Flatscan#Added diff). On 21 May 2009, I approached Ikip with two concerns and received this answer. Note that AMIB does not have email enabled and I have not edited User talk:A Man In Black since immediately after the RfC proposal.

Randomran at WT:ARS

At WT:Article Rescue Squadron/Archive 37#Why?, Ikip implies that Randomran's participation is motivated by a months-old grudge from FICT (example diff).

Ikip modifies his existing comments

While editing comments is allowed by WP:Civility#Removal of uncivil comments and WP:Talk page guidelines#Own comments, care is recommended. Despite complaints,[108] Ikip frequently edits his comments,[109] including replacing large comments with simply "(refactored)".[110] To illustrate an extended history, this 23 February 2009 edit was discussed at WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive516#Editing a closed AfD to refactor one's intemperate comments.

Ikip also urges other users to refactor.[111][112]

Evidence presented by Dream Focus

Why drag Ikip into this? It just distracts from the issue.

There is enough information to focus on already without being distracted by one of the many editors that A Man in Black came into conflict with. And mentioning that some editors didn't like Ikip, and accussed him of canvassing, is rather pointless. He did not canvass, as defined by the wp:canvass page. No rule was broken, or he would've been blocked for it. Having someone accuss you of something with evidence, is rather meaningless, and should not be considered.

Editing comments

Instead of just drawing a line through his comments, he wrote the word "refactored" when he changed his view on something, or found a better wording. He wasn't trying to slip one past you, since he clearly labeled his change. Was any rule broken there? Dream Focus 00:21, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Richard Arthur Norton

I have worked with Ikip for about a year at ARS flagged articles. He has always been polite, has excellent research skills, and possesses a clear and concise editing style, and mind that grasps the underlying logic of what can appear to be arcane and often conflicting rules and guidelines. Trying to get more people involved in research is a good thing for Wikipedia, and reviewing the evidence I see no violation of wp:canvass, every instance shown meets the requirement of not being a violation, it is limited, and worded neutrally. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:37, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by MichaelQSchmidt

Since joining the Article Rescue Squad, what articles has AMIB rescued?

The entire idea behind the ARS is to attempt rescues of worthy articles that might otherwise be sent to the shredder. So why would someone join if they do not actually help? It seems AMIB's greatest contributions to the ARS has been to slow down or distract from the rescue processes. Was his joining simply made to counter the efforts of other editors actually trying to improve articles? Even to the point of nominating the entire project for deletion? I see far too much disruption from an Admin who should have the experience to know better. That's not what being an admin is supposed to be about.

AMIB's recent concern about the ARS started on Feb 3, in an AFD which he voted "strong delete", he was concerned about "WP:ARS's inclusion efforts" and called for a "review whether that project is in danger of becoming Yet Another VFD Canvassing Project." [113]

As an editor said in November when AMIB blocked two editors he was involved with: "This is nothing more than a content dispute hiding behind a claim of copyright violation.”[114] the edit warring on ARS and the blocking of Ikip was simply a "content dispute hiding behind a canvassing violation"

Tools not being used are tools not needed

This discussion has become full of misdirection and fingerpointing at others. Time to refocus on the heart of the matter: An admin has certain responsibilities that come with being handed the mop. Since the mop is not being used properly, if at all, pass it along to someone will make use of it. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 03:19, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Ikip

Ongoing pattern stretching from AMIB's earliest days on Wikipedia... a pattern and demeanor that has not been reduced even after repeated blocks and sanctions.

I can appreciate the diligence with which editors are digging through my own edits in order to somehow explain AMIB's repeated blockings and continued uncivil behavior. While I am willing to put myself under a microscope in an RFC, this particular one is not about me... its about AMIB... and AMIB's continued pattern of problem behavior that far predated his ever crossing my path...

  1. During a year and a half edit war, in which AMIB reverts over 50 times, he blocks Jtrainor[115] and MalikCarr[116] who he is involved in an edit dispute with. In response to the block Baseball Bugs states: “This is nothing more than a content dispute hiding behind a claim of copyright violation.”
    AMIB justifies the block as: "Jtrainor was blocked for stating that he was completely uninterested in discussing further, but continuing to revert."[117]
  2. AMIB closes a deletion review he is heavily involved in.[118]

... a pattern that continues even after his being repeatedly warned and repeatedly blocked for this continued behavior.

How many times has an admin will he be allowed to say "Oops... I got carried away... I have modified my behavior... it won't happen again"...

and then have it indeed happen again...

Edit wars which were reported but are not listed:

  • Page protected, AMIB should have been blocked, but an admin protected the page instead.[119]
  • Page protected again, AMIB should have been blocked, but an admin protected the page instead.[120]
  • AMIB blocked himself for an edit war.[121] Begins edit warring again after the self block.
  • Actual 3RR, but “A block now who be completely punitive”[122]
  • AMIB warned, after admitting he broke 3RR[123]

and again...

  1. Third party comment about AMIB’s edit warring on ANI.[124]
  2. Mediation cabals AMIB has been involved with about his edit warring.[125][126][127]

and again…

  1. User: EVula to AMIB: I highly respect your efforts to eliminate cruft, but after seeing you attempt to be a one-man consensus army (like on {{Mortal Kombat series}}, where you were edit warring with four or so different editors) to be comfortable with allowing you being a 'crat.[128]
  2. User:JJay: Long-term edit warring and admitted abuse of admin tools in support of ideological conflict.[129] Referring to Wikipedia:Schools/Arguments
  3. User:Camaron1: 3RR violation blocks and edit warring with admin rollback (such as that logged at [130]) do not give me confidence with trustworthiness.[131]

and again…

This is the weakest example of the "Don't touch our shit" Wikiproject mentality that I've seen in a long time...there's a project desperately trying to protect low-quality and inappropriate content from any sort of improvement or cleanup, harassing and driving off anyone who tries to clean up the mess...This wouldn't be nearly so pathetic if someone of the articles didn't genuinely have potential for improvement...Now, you can edit war and bloc vote keep and be obstructionist, and keep some really crappy articles, while continuing to be the laughing stock of Wikipedia…This is pathetic trolling. It's trolling for sympathy...Let me know when you're done deluding yourself...I suggest getting past paranoid fantasies and dealing with reality. [132]

etc. , etc., etc...

For AMIB or others divert attention away from him by saying AMIB 'was provoked', and then 'point' a finger at either me or any of the many others with whom AMIB had conflicts might be conscionable were he an inexperienced editor... but AMIB has been editing since (month and year) and is by no means 'inexperienced'. Quite the opposite. AMIB knows the system.

Administrators are held to a higher standard.... of not by themselves, at least by other admins... and definitely by ArbCom.

So sure.. come back to me later if you wish... but his problem behavior did not begin with me. I am simply the latest editor to be in AMIB’s cross hairs... " Ikip (talk) 04:07, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]




Evidence presented by Buster7

An administrator must be fair and balanced, able to put out fires rather than fan the embers of dispute. Aggresion lives at the expense of co-operation. AMIB does battle on too many fronts and, from the above comments, he does not forget those that slight him. The persitant history of problems is a sign that this administrator/editor can not, or will not, change. The administrators mop is to be used as a tool, not a weapon. Administrators are chosen because, at the time of election, they seem just and wise, impartial and considerate, knowledgeable and open-minded. Can we still say that about AMIB?--Buster7 (talk) 03:40, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by {your user name}

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

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