User talk:SteveMcCluskey/sandbox2

Possible Editors

RFC/U Logicus 2 (Draft)

I am drafting a Requests for comment/User conduct concerning the conduct of Logicus (talk · contribs · count · api · block log) since the abortive RfC of February 2007. Since you have been involved in the recent content RfC at Talk:Celestial spheres, I would appreciate it if you would look over the draft and see whether it seems appropriate, what revisions you would propose, or what you could add.

At the moment, parts of the RfC are little more than outline points and the desired outcome is totally undefined, but with cooperation perhaps something can be put together that could make it through the process.

I had hoped that this RfC would not need to be posted, given the recent closure of a content RfC on Logicus's edits. However, Logicus's recent comments suggest that I may have been to optimistic.

Feel free to either edit the draft or submit comments on its talk page.

Comments From Finell's talk page

I think that an RFC/U is a waste of time because Logicus does not care what anyone else says. If his conduct becomes truly disruptive, such as edit warring over article content, AN/I is the appropriate forum. Otherwise, there is no reason to argue with his talk page posts point-by-point; to do so is to play his game and provide him with amusement. Our time is better spent editing articles. —Finell 22:22, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You may be right that an RfC/U would be a waste of time, but as I look at the record, Logicus's behavior has long since passed the point of being disruptive, with a two-year record of disruptive arguments on talk pages concerning original research and point of view pushing in the associated articles.

I know the draft is terribly unwieldy, but would you please look at this section and consider

whether this record meets your threshold of disruption and
what is the best way to bring it to the attention of appropriate admins?

To paraphrase WP:DE, Logicus has just about exhausted the patience of this editor.

BTW, I've contacted a number of other editors who have been involved with Logicus, requesting their input.

Thanks, SteveMcCluskey (talk) 00:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you about his behavior, and understand your loss of patience. However, it is easy enough to respond briefly or not at all to his talk page TLDRs, and that is all he appears to be doing now. He seems to have given up on inserting his OR into articles, at least for the time being. Admins won't act at AN/I unless there is ongoing disruption. While the length and nature of Logicus's talk page posts fit the definitions of disruptive and tendentious editing, at AN/I they may not earn him more than another warning. Removing talk page content and RfD tags would have warranted admin intervention when it was happening, but that is a bit stale now. Administrative action is solely for the purpose of preventing continuing disruption, not punishing past misconduct. If he again becomes sufficiently disruptive to warrant AN/I, past misconduct would be relevant as supporting evidence. An RFC/U, however it turns out, would accomplish nothing. So, I suggest doing nothing about Logicus now. —Finell 00:51, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Durova's talk page

I'm writing about how to deal with the talk page edits on Talk:Celestial spheres. Since your closing of the RfC, Logicus has resumed his abrasive editing style on the talk page (which includes arguing OR there, but not in the article).

A slightly involved editor whose opinions I respect told me that an RfC/U would be useless and

"Admins won't act at AN/I unless there is ongoing disruption, and I don't think his talk page posts are sufficiently disruptive to take to AN/I.... Administrative action is solely for the purpose of preventing continuing disruption, not punishing past misconduct."

The system seems to be well designed to deal with acute problems but is there a way to deal with long term (over two years) chronic, small scale, disruptive editing? (For an example of what I have in mind I've gathered a dossier in a draft RfC). If the advice I received was correct I fear that insofar as "exhausting the patience" is by definition a chronic, not an acute problem, WP:DE has become a dead letter.

I know you have past experience with these issues (including on the abandoned Community sanctions noticeboard) and your advice on the best way to proceed would be most welcome. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 02:48, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Conduct RfC is a good idea. There are two reasons for it: one always hopes it has the desired effect, but if that doesn't happen it can show uninvolved editors which editors are reasonable and which aren't. That does make things easier to deal with afterward. Durova³⁷¹ 04:06, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your mooted misconduct RfC contra Logicus

Dear Steve McCluskey, Lady and Gentlemen and all:

I see you are mooting a plan to raise another (mis)conduct RfC against Logicus, on which you have already done a most impressively extensive and detailed amount of research. I much regret you have felt obliged to so. But if you possibly have time, I would be most grateful if you would also produce a compendium of my overwhelmingly many productive and improving edits in order to provide a more balanced and less negatively biassed account of my conduct overall, including my many successful removals of your own many commissions of OR with failed verifications in addition to those of many other editors. You might even consider being good enough to compute what proportion of all Logicus's edits have been productive and accepted edits or caused accepted revisions.

But my main message here is to say please hold your horses for the while on raising it, for it may well be entirely unnecessary for your purposes to do so and save much further time on all our parts if you did not do so, but rather just discussed you complaints with me first, in line with dispute resolution policy on RfCs. For it may well be that I would now technically agree with your misconduct complaints of OR and DE.

This is because there may have been a major development in my understanding of Wikipedia policy in the form of a possible revelation induced by Dunrova’s policy advice comment of 2 December on the Talk:Celestial spheres page. So in the first instance please now see my response to her of yesterday, “Dunrova the Revelator ?” if you have not already done so.. And also please see my clarificatory query to Wilson on the same page.

So in the light of this revelation it may well be that what you see as misconduct on my part has arisen from a profoundly different interpretation of policy from yours on my part, and one that it now seems may well be incorrect if Durova is right. But first of all may I assure you that all my editing has been done in very good faith that it is neither OR nor DE, informed by (i) a systematic and detailed logically joined-up scrutiny of Wikipedia policy and (ii) also the study of many Wikipedia articles to determine the apparent interpretation of its policy in practice. And I have most certainly not, as some few editors such as yourself, Deor, Durova, Finell and Georgewilliamherbert have alleged or implied, ever purposely used or sought to use Wikipedia for publishing OR.

HOWEVER, if as it now transpires OR can be whatever some editor declares to be OR without providing any valid proof that it is, such as identifying the claim made that is alleged to be OR and also identifying what OR policy rule it breaches and demonstrating the breach, THEN it may be that I have committed OR and extensively so. Indeed as in the plea of Bloom in the trial in ‘The Producers’, I may even plead " incredibly guilty". But whilst yet denying I have ever or significantly committed it on the criterion of the provision of a valid demonstration of NOR policy having been breached.

And if DE is such as repeatedly restoring edits that just in some editor's subjective opinion do not improve the article, then I may also be guilty of having committed it. What typically happens with disputed edits is that some editor claims the edit is in breach of NOR policy or some other policy, and sometimes reverting it, and imperiously instructs Logicus to read that policy, but which Logicus has usually already read in considerable detail. Then when Logicus denies their charge and challenges that editor to demonstrate the breach, they typically fail to do so. This is precisely the point at which Durova's policy advice on where the burden of proof of OR lies in Wikipedia policy is so crucially revelatory. They then either drop the issue and accept the edit or its restoration, possibly suggesting they are unable to demonstrate a breach, whether or not policy requires them to do so, or sometimes then just accuse Logicus of DE, but again without demonstrating the edit is not an improvement. But if the editor persists in making 2 or more reversions alleging DE, note that Logicus typically gives up rather than risk accusations of 'edit warring'.

And further to this conflicting interpretation of NOR and Verifiability policy on where the burden of proof of OR lies, this last RfC has also revealed crucially conflicting interpretations of whether translations are primary or secondary sources in Wikipedia OR policy, and also conflict over what is consensus. These three pillars of conflicting policy interpretations between Logicus and some other Wikipedians - burden of proof of OR, what is a primary/secondary source and what is consensus - seem to largely if not wholly explain why you and a few others see conduct that Logicus interprets as perfectly legitimate as misconduct, and what Logicus sees as outrageous and infuriating misconduct by some others as perfectly legitimate. I would ask you to please engage in a period of reflection on this possibility in this season of goodwill. (And please also bear in mind my previous explanation of why Logicus sometimes gets accused of OR in the first place is perhaps due to the less extensive reading of such editors and/or their possibly defective logico-literacy skills, making invalid inferences from what material they do read. I hazard this, together with the conflicting policy interpretations identified here, explains most of what trouble I have experienced in respect of OR and DE allegations.

So what is to be done in this situation ? I'm not sure myself and am still thinking through the ramifications of these conflicting policy interpretations and how to modify my editing practice in the light of Durova's advice if correct. But I do ask you to consider not raising this misconduct RfC in the Xmas season at least until reconsidering the matter in the New Year. And I suggest it might help us make progress if you were to indicate what sort of outcome you are thinking of seeking from this possible RfC. Thank you ! --Logicus (talk) 17:25, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Like you, I hope that this draft RfC never needs to be implemented. I was pleased to read that you are now beginning to come to understand Wikipedia policy on Original Research and that you recognize that, under that new understanding, "it may be that I have committed OR and extensively so." This is a very positive step. The crucial issue is whether you can fully internalize that policy (which can be difficult for one trained in the environment of academic research) and whether that, and other Wikipedia policies and guidelines, will guide your future edits and discussions.

On the matter of Disruptive Editing, you appear to identify that concept with mere Edit Warring. In fact, the concept is so much broader and general that you may find it to be disturbingly illogical. This summary spells out the many different individual activities, many of which in themselves are violations of Wikipedia policies and guidelines, that also contribute to the overarching concept of disruptive editing.

As I look out at the first snow of the season, I hope your Christmas is Happy and your New Year a productive one.

--SteveMcCluskey (talk) 14:42, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]