Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Cold fusion 2/Evidence

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Abd (talk | contribs) at 23:38, 5 September 2009 (→‎Responses to evidence from others: respond to recent evidence and claims). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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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 Abd

WMC is User:William M. Connolley. Extensively revised, see previous revision.

The immediate sequence

  • WMC was involved in long-term behavioral dispute with me.[1]
  • He edited Cold fusion while protected, reverting to May 14, in expectation of controversy over it (edit summary: Lets wind everyone up), and ignoring an expressed consensus. (Five editors had accepted May 21 and May 31 versions, one editor had expressed a preference on a version from last year, and had then withdrawn the !vote. One editor had suggested, intending discussion, May 14, and one other editor had approved that.)
  • I disputed this.
  • Then he declared me (and Hipocrite) banned from Cold fusion and its Talk. He did not give a reason.
  • I asserted he was involved (due to prior interactions and the present dispute over his edit), which he denied, so I declared my intention to ignore the ban.
  • Enric Naval took the issue to AN/I, a discussion began snowing with cabal editors to endorse the ban, so I requested closure to avoid disruption, having recognized the dispute as unlikely to be resolved short of ArbComm.
  • The discussion was closed by Heimstern as a one-month page ban. The closing admin specifically acknowledged fulfilling my request for neutral close, to remove the ban from WMC's authority.
  • WMC blocked me for making a self-reverted ("per ban") harmless edit, contrary to his expressed prior opinion about harmless edits under ban, and in spite of asserted involvement.
  • In spite of charges of involvement, he continues to insist that he remains the enforcer of his ban, ignoring the expired community ban, asserting my ban as indef.
  • For diffs and links see [2].

In order to make clear what occurred in this case, I must first declare that -- please avert your eyes -- the emperor has no clothes.

There is a cabal

"Cabal," as used here, does not imply a secret or conscious conspiracy. Allegations of membership in a cabal are not allegations of wrong-doing or bad faith; however, when there is long-term, consistent, group activity that frustrate policies, it becomes necessary to name it. No sanctions or personal reprimands will be suggested based merely on asserted cabal membership, even if proven. Here, it is only necessary to establish a reasonable suspicion in order to better understand certain community discussions and repeated complaints.

The complete evidence page.

It is justified to consider as cabal-involved, for the purpose of this RfAr, the following editors:

In addition, the following should be noticed in reviewing surrounding activity:

When a group of editors act coherently, they may avoid sanction for actions that, for a single editor, would result in warning or block, such as revert warring, accumulated incivility or tendentious argument, and they may present an appearance of consensus, even attracting support from neutral editors who assume, because of the presence of multiple agreeing editors, that the cabal evidence and arguments are unbiased. In considering claims that I have ignored consensus, please consider this constellation, which has frequently ignored or argued against the principles declared in RfAr/Fringe science, specifically:

While there is some level of subjectivity in identifying editors with a cabal, please do not ignore the forest if it seems there are a few fallen trees.

Incident demonstrating cabal existence and activity

An incident in October, 2008, at Global warming shows self-awareness by WMC of the existence of the cabal and how it operates, long-term, and, as well, shows two examples of use of tools while involved by cabal adminstrators: WMC unprotected the article which had been properly protected by Jennavecia in response to an RfPP, Raul654 blocked Logicus in the middle of the edit war, and, as well, though not using tools, admin Stephan Schulz participated in edit warring. The details, diffs and links, and analysis are at Implications_of_global_warming_incident.

Responses to evidence from others

All but one are currently drafts; they may be read for the sense of my response, but they are long and have not been boiled down and checked. If there are significant errors, I'd appreciate notice on my talk page.

Response to new claims

Recently WMC added evidence, at the end of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William_M._Connolley/Evidence#Abd's_RFA's:

And in further support of the idea that Abd's primary aim here is to chatter, [3] William M. Connolley (talk) 20:41, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps WMC and others would like to believe this, but my purpose here has been effective improvement of articles and of the way in which we make article decisions. How that post can be translated into what WMC derives from it is beyond me. The post, like the rest of what I've been writing the past few days, reflects my decision to abandon Wikipedia unless and until significant numbers of editors invite me back, and I'm not holding my breath.

Others have pointed out from recent discussions at Wikipedia Review and on the Vortex list that I have a conflict of interest. I did not have one until now. A consequence of this is that, even if I were not banned by ArbComm, I would not edit the Cold fusion article, unless it were possibly self-reverted edits as efficient proposals. I would, however, as is normally the case with COI editors, advise the community on the Talk page. Occasionally. My work is now elsewhere.

Today, September 5, Woonpton wrote, about my posts to Vortex-L:

Throughout this case, and on the cold fusion talk page for months, Abd has been presenting himself as the one editor on cold fusion who understands the science (which of course is nonsense, but that's what he says) and who is completely neutral and objective. The announcement that he intends to start a company to market cold fusion kits, and the further information (not on that link, but on a subsequent post in the same thread) that he proposes that the first kit should be a kit whereby the purchaser can generate cold fusion from "biological transmuation," tells a volume about (1) his neutrality and (2) his understanding of science, and should be considered by the committee. Thank you. Woonpton (talk) 17:43, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[4][reply]

Woonpton apparently doesn't know better, and her extreme responses previously were the reason why she was included as a Cab editor. As I developed a positive POV on cold fusion, reversing my previous general skepticism, I disclosed it. It appears that disclosing a POV is disapproved, but I'd call it essential to good process. I did not claim to be "neutral" or "objective," and this case has been full of assumptions like that, where editors remember their own reactions and thoughts rather than what actually was said and happened. For well over twenty years, I've been seeing this on-line, where the actual record is completely visible, but people prefer to believe something different, and the belief is unshakable.

The committee is welcome to consider my posts to Vortex-L, I do not object but actually encourage it, but my decision to form the company arose when I saw I was likely to be banned. I was not previously COI, merely involved and interested. As well, the claim that "the first kit should be" one to test "biological transmutation," is false. I did speculate about such a kit. This is, as I was explaining to a quantum physicist visiting me last night, a hot-button issue; most of the cold fusion researchers probably try to avoid being photographed with Vyosotskii, because of knee-jerk reactions like Woonpton's. However, Vyosotski's 2008 review of his own work has been published under peer review, and covered in reliable secondary source. It's notable. If you don't believe me, you are welcome to ask for sources. I'm no longer bothering to look stuff up for Wikipedia unless someone asks.

on Vyosotski and the kit company

Vyosotskii has not been confirmed. The experiment seems to be a simple one. As it happened, I did Mossbauer spectroscopy while I was at Caltech, which is why I recognized implications that many would miss. By coincidence, my friend also had done that at U.C. Berkeley, and he understood immediately. For the rest of you, Vyosotskii reports the detection, using Mossbauer spectroscopy, of Fe-57, a minor isotope of iron, not previously present, in certain bacterial cultures, say deinococcus radiodurans, having added Mn-55 to it. Mossbauer spectroscopy is extremely precise. If the spectrograms were not fraud, and not the result of very clumsy and unlikely contamination, repeated over many experiments (Vyosotskii has a long publication record and is apparently respected in Russia), the evidence is conclusive for the presence of Fe-57, and concentration can be estimated. Because the experiment is so simple, why hasn't it been confirmed or disconfirmed? I think I know why, it's obvious, actually.

The company is will engineer (and thoroughly document) kits to make it possible for amateurs, including those doing science fair projects, to reproduce well-established cold fusion experiments, and it will provide equipment rental and analytical services. We are, however, at the brainstorming phase, where ideas are not rejected out of hand. I did not write that this would be the first kit, and the decision won't be mine, or at least not mine alone. However, the Vyosotskii replication is possibly simpler than any other low-energy nuclear reaction known.

Before being marketed, any kits would be extensively tested, and, if they don't work, we might still sell them, but with that disclosure. I'm quite confident that some of the kits will demonstrate an anomalous effect, and, if not, I will have proven to myself -- and to others -- that cold fusion is a bust, a big mistake. That is a valuable contribution to science in either case, accomplished by completely bypassing the still-widespread opinions about cold fusion and going directly to what really matters, the next generation. The situation has shifted among informed experts, that can be shown easily as of 2004, but this shift hasn't penetrated general opinion yet. Cold fusion researchers have, to some extend, thought of themselves as victims, and I'm pointing to a different path. Just do it.

I put this evidence here because this last-minute affair is a nice demonstration of what happened behind this case, for future reference. There were massive projections of what Woonpton previously called "shenanigans," assumptions of bad faith, the exaggeration of what is only shallowly perused into something it isn't, and on and on.

Another example: the claim, now enshrined in a Finding, that I made allegations of misconduct without providing evidence. This would have to refer to the "cabal" issue, I assume. However, the problem is that I did not allege misconduct for editors like Woonpton, Crohnie, Stephan Schulz, or others. I claimed involvement, and involvement is not misconduct. Again and again I repeated this, but impressions are bigger than evidence. ArbComm has been unable to distinguish between the two.

In the same line, the Finding about my alleged tendentious editing points to Enric Naval's evidence, specifically including alleged evidence that not only does not show tendentious editing, but also exposes the core problem: Enric's passion for excluding peer-reviewed papers as reliable sources. He linked, as proof of my misconduct, to the evidence he presented in RfAr/Fringe science, before I ever touched the cold fusion article, before I'd had any contact with him, and that evidence was an argument suggesting that -- if we look carefully -- the majority of peer-reviewed papers that favor cold fusion should be disregarded. (In his RfAR/Cold fusion presentation, he made it look like most papers relating to cold fusion were not favorable, which was a gross distortion. In fact, most papers were classified as "undecided." The positive papers in the Britz bibliography outnumber the negative ones. In recent years, however, there are increasing positive publications, and no negative, and, as well, all recent publications under peer review treat the field as established, with remaining dispute being over details.) Enric Naval presented grossly misleading evidence, and, ArbComm, you don't care.

ArbComm linked to this argument against its own prior decision as proof of my tendentious editing. Q.E.D.

This is why I was able to decide about future participation in Wikipedia. I have a short life left, no longer to be wasted here, struggling with a badly broken system that viciously resists being fixed. I've accomplished much, but at some point, we all have to let go. --Abd (talk) 23:38, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by GoRight

The full details are available here.

As stated in the request for arbitration, I do not intend to take a stand either way as to whether User:William M. Connolley's actions were appropriate, or not. I prefer to simply provide a raw chronology of relevant events with diffs and to defer to the arbiter's judgment on whether this evidence suggests an abuse of administrative privileges, or not.

To see my full evidence on one page follow the "details available here" link provided above. Any of the following sections which have expanded content will also have a "details available here" link at the top of that section which will take you directly to the corresponding section of my full evidence page.

A Basic Chronology of Relevant Events

The full details are available here.

I have constructed a table which presents a basic chronology of the relevant (in my opinion) events for this case. I have tried to be reasonably comprehensive and will continue to update it as things continue to unfold. The table also includes pointers to the latest versions of all key discussions related to this case.

Raul vs. Scibaby

The full details are available here.

Since Raul has made Scibaby such a central part of his case with all of his accusations of meat puppetry, I thought it would be appropriate to include some evidence of the impact Raul is unwittingly allowing Scibaby to inflict on this project so that a clear assessment of Raul's actions can be made.

A community discussion of this issue can be found at [5].

Full Protection of Global Warming Pages

As a "protective" measure Raul fully protected at least 10 global warming related pages. See [6] and [7]. Fully protecting highly edited pages prevents anyone other than Administrators from making improvements and is clearly detrimental to the project. As Oren0 noted in the first link, "In response to the following two user accounts which are allegedly two more sockpuppets (here and here, whose edits aren't even disruptive), User:Raul654 took the step of fully protecting all pages global warming. He intends for this full protection to last 'until we know he's lost interest,' which seems to indicate an indefinite duration." Taking such a huge step without any community discussion what so ever demonstrates a clear lack of sound judgment on Raul's part, at least where Scibaby is involved.

Scibaby IP Range Blocks

The full details are available here.

As an example of the damage to the project that Raul is causing in his single-minded pursuit of Scibaby, consider his excessive use of IP range blocks. In his attempts to thwart a single puppet master Raul has issued many, many long-term IP Range Blocks which cover literally millions of IP addresses. See the table I provide in the link above.

Edit war leading up to Scibaby's indefinite block.

The following table provides the detailed diffs of the edit warring that preceded User:William M. Connolley's indefinite block of Scibaby.

Edit war just before Scibaby is indefinitely blocked by User:William M. Connolley.
September, 2007
Timestamp + Diff User * Comment on Relevance
19:37, 22 September 2007 217.155.196.115 Introduces material related to James E. Hansen's previous work related to predictions of global cooling.
19:47, 22 September 2007 William M. Connolley Reverts edit by 217.155.196.115.
22:09, 22 September 2007 Mkunert Reinstates the topic using a different source.
22:39, 22 September 2007 Raymond arritt Reverts edit by Mkunert.
20:09, 23 September 2007 Scibaby Reverts condensed version of material entered by 217.155.196.115.
20:53, 23 September 2007 Raymond arritt Reverts edit by Scibaby.
21:08, 23 September 2007 Mkunert Re-asserts his previous material.
21:10, 23 September 2007 KimDabelsteinPetersen Reverts edit by Mkunert.
21:45, 23 September 2007 75.0.191.91 Introduces a condensed version of Mkunert's source.
21:52, 23 September 2007 KimDabelsteinPetersen Reverts edit by 75.0.191.91.
23:14, 23 September 2007 Scibaby Re-asserts his previous edit.
23:34, 23 September 2007 Hal peridol Reverts edit by Scibaby.
05:46, 24 September 2007 Mkunert Re-asserts his version.
05:55, 24 September 2007 Stephan Schulz Reverts edit by Mkunert.
06:59, 24 September 2007 Scibaby Reverts edit by Stephan Schulz.
06:59, 24 September 2007 Will Beback Reintroduces the topic of Global Cooling with yet another source.
08:37, 24 September 2007 William M. Connolley Reverts edit by Will Beback.
18:18, 24 September 2007 Scibaby Reverts edit by William M. Connolley
18:42, 24 September 2007 Stephan Schulz Reverts edit by Scibaby.
19:32, 24 September 2007 Obedium Scibaby switched to Obedium. Re-introduces Scibaby's exact phrasing from earlier.
Edit war continues using Obedium ...
20:02, 25 September 2007 William M. Connolley Indefintely blocks Scibaby claiming a relationship with Obedium.

Note that this is a very common scenario to play out on global warming pages. Note also the familiar set of names which commonly appear in such discussions (bold indicates the names that also appear in Abd's list of Cabal members and their associates. Finally note that User:Raymond arritt = User:Short Brigade Harvester Boris.

Raul's personal grudges and the disruption they create

For easy reference, here is the opening statement from WP:NOTBATTLEGROUND:

"Wikipedia is not a place to hold grudges, import personal conflicts, or nurture hatred or fear. Making personal battles out of Wikipedia discussions goes directly against our policies and goals."

Canvassing to disrupt these proceedings

See edits by Raul here and here. The ensuing discussion occurs here. To WMC's credit, he declines to participate in Raul's plan.

Note that Raul may be planning further disruption at ArbCom if his efforts to pursue of me in this case (see here, here, here, and to a lesser extent here) are unsuccessful. See this which states "I think [GoRight]'s headed for arbitration regardless of the outcome of the Abd case."

I assert that Raul is disrupting these proceedings, at the very least, by keeping me tied up playing whack-a-mole with him rather than spending my time gathering the raw evidence that I want to which actually is pertinent to the case at hand.

Evidence of needless on-going community disruption

A brief history of his disruption in the pursuit of myself can be found here. Raul's latest attempts to have me banned or sanctioned can be found here and here.

I do not claim to have a spotless record, nor do I claim to be a model editor, but it would be impossible to confront the "Cabal", as Abd calls them, without having some mud thrown at you and having some of that mud stick. However, time and again Raul's attempts have been rebuffed by the community at large leading, no doubt, to an increasing bruised ego and desire to pursue me. His efforts have become increasingly desperate and without substance owing primarily to the simple fact that I actually AM improving my editing behavior over time, based on community feedback, to try and avoid the same pitfalls I had in the past.

Raul's behavior constitutes clear WP:HARASSMENT which is unbecoming of such a highly placed user. This harassment is bad enough but to disrupt the community in an attempt to silence me simply because he disagrees with my personal POV seems highly inappropriate and he should be sanctioned accordingly. His harassment of myself (and others?) should not be allowed to continue. I trust that the Arbiters will take note of this and render an appropriate judgment, or not, as they see fit.

Evidence presented by Coppertwig

WMC used tools while involved during this arbitration case

During this case, a major issue of which is use of tools while involved by WMC, WMC blocked an IP for "editwarring, incivility": apparently editwarring against WMC (and me) [8], and incivility against himself by failing to sign posts. [9] [10] WMC used the block to assert his version of his own user talk page (with posts removed) and then used page protection (see bottom of this diff and [11]) to assert his version of the IP talk page (with posts restored), afterwards modifying a guideline to support this (possibly justified) double standard.

Administrators normally do not have the authority to create bans by themselves

WP:Banning policy#Decision to ban lists 5 procedures: none is a ban simply declared by an individual administrator without specific delegation from the arbitration committee. (By "ban" I mean all kinds of bans, whether site bans, page bans etc.)

WMC simply declared that there was a ban

As far as I'm aware, WMC didn't refer to any specific part of the banning policy or name any other specific procedure for banning. When asked about the justification for the ban, WMC said "I'm using common sense",[12] which seems to me to be at odds with WMC's blocking of Abd for a harmless and self-reverted edit.

Declaring bans without proper process creates disruption

We can't expect all Wikipedians to agree on whether a given person should be banned or not, but I agree with MastCell [13] that there's a problem if we can't even agree on whether someone has been banned or not.

WMC muddied the waters by declaring a ban without standard process. It was then unclear whether there was a ban or not. This created disruption: multiple discussions using up editors' time.

Allowing admins to declare bans at will would harm the project

The banning policy, rightly, does not say that an admin can just declare a ban. NPOV is best achieved by discussion and consensus among large numbers of editors with various POVs. If admins could declare bans at will, they would have too much control, for example being able to ban all editors on one side of a content dispute.

An admin can warn that they will block if disruptive behaviour continues, but I don't think it makes sense to block for a harmless or productive edit, except with a ban established by a standard procedure.

WMC was involved in page content and in dispute with Abd

Details can be found here: (expand the "Timeline" collapse box) [14]

In 2006, WMC edited Cold fusion from an anti-fringe POV: [15] [16] [17]. The edits may be reasonable but show involvement and POV.

WMC edited the cold fusion page with edit summary "Lets wind everyone up", when there were two polls active on the talk page showing some support for other versions of the page. Abd then criticized that edit. WMC subsequently declared that Abd (along with Hipocrite) was banned from the page. (Rebuttal)

WMC wikilawyered by blocking Abd for a harmless edit

WMC blocked Abd after Abd did a one-character edit with edit summary " fix ref. will self-revert per ban." and self-reverted a minute later. WMC had previously expressed an opinion that blocking SA (a banned editor) for fixing spelling corrections etc. would be "stupid". [18] (In the interim WMC had advised SA not to do such edits, [19] and explains the chronology here.)

Abd has been subjected to wikilawyering

I believe that some people dislike Abd because they disagree with his POV, primarily about two things (which I and I believe many other editors agree with him on, but Abd has the boldness to speak out about): enforcement of the principle of admin recusal, and inclusion in articles of material about (significant) minority POVs.

Three situations have been blown out of proportion in which Abd was temporarily confused about sequences of edits due to server problems and edit conflicts: Restoring a comment by Scibaby, which at first Abd didn't know was alleged to be an edit by a banned user (See the part in small font in the middle of the 2nd paragraph here [20]); moving Woonpton's vote in a poll, which Abd explained as intended to be productive but which was confused by edit conflict [21]; and an accidental interaction with another editor while editing the list of parties to this case [22]. The page-ban of Abd from cold fusion was triggered by the overblown vote-moving incident.

Enric Naval has attempted to silence opposition during this case

[23] (Rebuttal)

Cold fusion is not pseudoscience

Investigation of the Fleischmann-Pons effect is science: controversial science, fringe science, but not pseudoscience. Science by its nature investigates the unknown, and scientific method is being applied in making observations, publishing peer-reviewed articles, discussing proposed explanations, etc., whether or not anything much eventually comes of it. Steven Krivit has been called a "leading authority" on cold fusion in a press release from the American Chemical Society.

Talk page comments by Abd

Abd has ADHD, of a type which makes it extremely difficult for Abd to shorten his comments. [24]. People can ask me to provide summaries of Abd's comments. [25] (Rebuttal)

Reply to Enric Naval

Enric Naval says on this page "Abd says that he can't make shorter comments because he has ADHD..." but tries to support this with a diff which leads to where Abd said "I can be quite concise, but it takes me much more time,"[26] which does not conflict with the other statements Enric Naval attempts to contrast it with. Enric Naval also gives a diff of Abd saying "To require me to be succinct when discussing would be, effectively, to require me not to discuss", but in the same diff Abd also says "there are two types of communication: polemic and discussion" and makes it clear that he can write short comments in polemic; thus Enric Naval's claim appears to be false.

Declaration
I've associated with Abd in a number of contexts, for example I quote him on my userpage. I've previously commented on an edit by WMC in an arbitration request. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:24, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Stephan Schulz

Pseudocience is under ArbCom discretionary sanctions

ArbCom has put "all articles relating to pseudoscience, broadly interpreted" under discretionary sanctions. Such sanctions can be invoked by any uninvolved admin and include "bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics".

Dro(w)ning out any discussion

Communication with Abd is extremely frustrating. His "wall of text" is rambling and without focus. Here he essentially explains that he can't be bothered to write concise texts. I like reading - I own thousands of books and have read many more. But Abd's output is unmanagable. One example of the effect of this non-stop no-control text machine is impressively illustrated in Enric Naval's image: File:Discussion in cold fusion with comments of one editor highlighted.jpg.

Also see [27].

Abd's "Cabal" contains many editors of high scientific literacy

Without violating the privacy of editors, it's obvious from visiting the user pages and linked home pages that a sizable fraction of Abd's alleged "Cabal" members have higher degrees and often doctorates in the sciences. I know that many of them have published in the peer-reviewed academic press. Many or all areas of conflict originate from topics like global warming and, in particular, cold fusion, which require a good understanding of science and the scientific process. This suggest independent functional reasons, not a a conspiracy, as the base to the claimed (by Abd) common opposition to Abd's positions.

Evidence presented by Bilby

Progress to find consensus on a prefered version

Abd was involved in the second edit war which resulted in Causa sui protecting the article prior to WMC's actions. While Abd did not revert, the trigger was Abd re-adding (modified) content which had been central to the earlier edit war. Abd claimed consensus from talk for this, and there was discussion, but it isn't clear that consensus had been reached as many editors (most notably Hipocrite) hadn't engaged by that time, and the core issue (the reliablity of the primary source) was still unsettled.

After Causa sui protected the page, Abd started a vote for which version to revert the article to. Unfortunately he used an unusual methodology for wikipedia (weighted votes), changed one of the proposed versions after someone had voted for it, (moving their vote as part of this), refactored a vote to "unstrike" it against the wishes of the editor, moved proposals to a collapse box if he felt they weren't getting support, and as User:Noren said, the constant changes to the poll made it appear that Abd felt he owned the process. The result was that many of the main editors boycotted the poll, and Hipocrite started a new one. This also garnered little support, although less outright hostility.

In the end, Abd's claimed consensus for which version to revert to came only because Abd had placed votes for people, based on where they voted in the second poll, without their permission and by assigning weights to their votes which they had not agreed to. When WMC reverted to a version prior to the edit warring, there was no reason to presume that consensus was going to be found in the foreseeable future. - Bilby (talk) 05:59, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Abd's editing at Talk:Cold fusion

Abd started editing the Cold fusion talk page in January, 2009 and was topic banned by WMC in early June. During that time he made 775 edits to the talk page. While there is nothing inherently wrong with extensive discussion, and many of these edits were useful contributions to the discussion, the combination of number and volume (as highlighted by others here) tended to drown out alternatives. Specific problems on Cold fusion include:

  • The "walls of text" noted by others here. While it is true Abd has ADHD, he has stated that he is able to reduce these posts, but chooses not to because of time constraints. However, he seems to have recognised this as a problem in other editors ([28] [29] [30]).
  • Cold fusion advocacy. Even when making useful points about the improvement of the article, Abd often fell into advocating for cold fusion rather than sticking to discussions about improving the article. ([31], [32], [33], [34]).
  • Repetition of points: much of the volume of the posts comes from straight repetition, with Abd restating issues that he has previously raised. For example, the Robert Duncan 60 Minutes story features in a number of his posts, including [35], [36], [37] and [38].
  • Abd and Hipocrite battled on the talk page. In particular, they started multiple polls ([39], [40] - these are different to the ones mentioned above) and edit warred over putting discussions in collapsible boxes.
  • There appears to be a tendency on Abd's part to separate editors into camps. This raised problems with finding consensus - for example, he argued that one poll was questionable, as editors "piled-on" along standard lines. This was clearer after Abd was banned, with his response to the AN/I discussion, arguing that a faction was opposed to his edits and that other editors who voted to support were "swept along".
  • At times, Abd engaged in borderline person attacks - such as his comments about User:Kirk shanahan.

Abd wasn't the only editor causing problems at Cold fusion, but the behaviour seems to me to have been tendentious and potentially disruptive, and arguably enough to warrant a topic ban. Similar views were expressed at the AN/I discussion. - Bilby (talk) 18:22, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Abd supported administrator declared topic bans

Well, once, at least, and both just prior to being banned by WMC and in relation to the page protection of Cold fusion. Here, in a formal request at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection to lift the page protection on cold fusion, he states:

"Because the other editor has not accepted the clarified agreement, it might be prudent for an unprotecting administrator to make the agreement binding by imposing it (as written, it still could be lifted on 24 hour notice by either editor), or otherwise to block or ban to allow the article to be safely unprotected."[41]

The agreement being referred to was a self-imposed mutual ban that Hipocrite suggested here. Abd had offered an alternative, more complex, arrangement, which Hipocrite had not yet agreed to. In short, Abd requested an admin via a noticeboard to enforce or create a topic ban on Hipocrite, either on Abd's terms or otherwise, to allow the page to be unprotected. Clearly, at the time (literally just hours before he was banned) Abd believed that an admin could declare an involuntary topic ban on an editor without further discussion, and to do so in order to lift page protection.

Additionally, just prior to that request, Abd had asked the admin who protected the page to topic/page ban Hipocrite in order to unprotect the article:

"There was no controversy, however, requiring protection if Hipocrite were banned from editing the article, at least pending review."
"I believe that if Hipocrite were not a factor, there would be no article protection needed, neither this time nor the last. ... Nevertheless, an ad hoc ban by an admin need not prohibit him from editing Talk. Just the article."[42]

(Emphasis is by Abd in the original post).

In short, Abd supported an admin declaring Hipocrite to be topic banned. - Bilby (talk) 17:02, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Abd requested that the page be reverted while protected

Abd specifically requested that an admin revert the Cold fusion article to a prior version, asking that:

"An alternative, if you wish to leave protection in place, would be to revert the article to the time of Hipocrite's request, thus removing the changes to the introduction which no non-COI editor other than Hipocrite has accepted, and countering his gaming of protection process, or to the version before his edits that immediately preceded protection, or to a version before the edit warring began..." [43]

WMC did so, and the suggestion of GoRight, reverting to the first stable version (it had been stable for five days) prior to the start of the edit warring. Thus while the edit summary may be a problem, the action was within policy, was proposed by a neutral party, had the support of Hipocrite, and had been previously requested by Abd. - Bilby (talk) 23:36, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by William M. Connolley

But you can call me WMC.

Yet another unreliable chronology of events

Short version, for those not interested in the fine detail: CF and t:CF was a mess. I sorted that out. One person whinged but reasonable people ignored him.

In more detail:

  • A moon or more ago my attention was drawn to CF. It was a mess. It usually is - see the protection log, for example [44]. I protected for a week the then-current version, as it happened that of H [45].
  • The prot expired, edit warring resumed, CS stepped in and protected the page again [46].
  • Much tedious discussion ensued, and I think this is where the battlin' polls came in.
  • GoRight proposed a different version to be reverted to. He produced cogent arguments in its favour and for that and the amusement of agreeing with someone I've frequently disagreed with before and who often argues strongly against me, I reverted to his proposed version [47].
  • But I don't like page protection, so I looked for something better, and decided that the chief offenders were H and A (though in my heart I though A mostly to blame). So I banned them both, for an indeterminate period of approximately a month, from CF and t:CF [48].
  • The people rejoiced [49] [50].
  • Abd broke the ban, and disputed the ban from t:CF [51]. I deleted his commented [52] and warned him that any further violation would result in a block.
  • H was good.
  • A asserted that the ban didn't exist. I told him that it did [53].
  • Later, I blocked A after he broke the ban by editing CF [54]
  • A often seemed confused about the terms of the ban (links to endless discussion suppressed in the interests of sanity). At one point I had to remind him [55].
  • H asked to be unbanned, and I agreed [56]. Contrary to assertions elsewhere, the unblock was unconditional, though it came with strong advice to be good and to observe WP:1RR. Not editing CF was definitely not a condition of unblock.
  • I reviewed A's ban [57]. Since the ratio of useful edits to wikilawyering in the interim was well below 1%, I kept the ban in place.
  • Abd broke the ban again [58]. I blocked him [59] William M. Connolley (talk) 08:31, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Other stuff

  • Someone somewhere asserted that I invoked IAR for the ban. That is incorrect, and I've finally found the diff where I say so: [60].
  • Both CT and GR have noticed that I made a comment in the SA matter [61]. GR misrepresents what I said, so allow me to quote it here in full: If SA corrects a spelling error (or reverts clear and blatant vandalism) on a "fringe science" article, and someone blocks him for it, that will be stupid.. That was my opinion then. Subsequently arbcomm clarified its view of these "harmless" edits (see in particular Corens comments on 23:35, 6 March 2009 and others agreement). And so I advised SA that editing in this manner would not work [62]. Hence GR and CT's attempt to assert that my action in blocking Abd was inconsistent with my earlier statements is wrong. In any even, they were all unaware of my earlier comment until I reminded them William M. Connolley (talk) 23:05, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Terms of the ban

Unfortunately, people are diverging wildly away from reality. So this needs to be clairifued, it seems. I banned Abd from CF and t:CF for an indefinite period of approximately one month. There was discussion on ANI, which basically backed the ban, and was closed by Heimstern in terms which some found ambiguous. As far as I was concerned, the original ban still stood; no-one of any standing told me otherwise. Abd attempted to get Heimstern to say the ban was ended, asking for confirmation of that from you before proceeding.; H did not do so [63], instead saying I never intended to take on any responsibility for it at all. He continued: I believed myself to be making a purely procedural close of a discussion; in that belief it appears I was mistaken - I do not know what that last should be taken to mean. In any events I reviewed and extended the ban after a month, so all knew where they stood at that point. It is far too late now to assert that this was a community ban. The pretence that Abd agreed to a voluntary ban is an unfunny joke, I am surprised to see otherwise sensible people appearing to believe it William M. Connolley (talk) 22:28, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Some replies to Ikip

Ikip nicely illustrates the levels of malice I appear to engender, and the desperation to find something to smear me with. I'll reply to a couple of the more recent, on the off chance that people are still reading this stuff.

  • Connolley doesn't only break the rules, he flaunts breaking the rules in many of the comments he makes. [64]. You can put it that way if you want. My own view is that I make no attempt to hide controversial actions [65] and am giving other editors full warning of what I've done.
  • User:William M. Connolley/For me/The curse of gnome: the quote is (modified from) Gene Wolfes The book of the new sun. It has been on my user page for quite a while now. [66], if you care. I don't think Rootology is cursed [67], he just walked into the firefight - but it was his choice to walk in. If you don't understand the page title, you want Recurring_in-jokes in Private_Eye. Its not an attack page (does it violate Users should not maintain in public view negative information on others without very good reason? Not obviously. What is the negative info there?)
  • Ikip is ungracious when helped [68].
  • Of all of Connolley's page protections, he has protected Global Warming the most, Fifteen times [69]. Well, these are all a bit old; the most recent is 2008-10 and the previous 2008-01. But no matter. Going backwards: the first is an unprotect, not a protect. The next merely extends the utterly uncontroversial permanent semi-protect on that article. The next restores the permanent anti-vandal move-prot. The next is another unprotect, again uncontroversial, following the block of the vandal that caused the prot. So is the next. So is the next. The next extends the semi added by one Stephen Bain. And so it goes; Ikip has clearly not even bothered read the log, merely weighted it; this is common to all his evidence, which is worthless William M. Connolley (talk) 21:52, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

William M. Connolley (talk) 18:41, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Abd's RFA's

Thanks to Phil153 for pointing out Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Abd and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Abd 2. The second, in particular, is rather instructive. DGG's Third, because I have the uncomfortable feeling the ed. intends to use WP as an study case for decision-making systems is eerily prophetic; User:Caslibers Support - not afraid to get stuck into some messy topics integral to good 'pedia building, and seems to exhibit some diplomacy may have been rather less so. Or indeed, Scanning this page, four words apply: DIARRHEA OF THE KEYBOARD by User:Unbeatablevalue, to which Abd replied Of course William M. Connolley (talk) 11:00, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And in further support of the idea that Abd's primary aim here is to chatter, [70] William M. Connolley (talk) 20:41, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Enric Naval

I don't have time to add more here. There is enough material to show a very clear tendency. I have reviewed only 2/3 of the archives of Abd's talk page. I haven't reviewed the archives of Talk:Cold fusion. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:29, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I refuse to go to mediation with Abd unless he agrees beforehand to abide by the result even if it's adverse

because he will only abide by "neutral" mediation[71][72]

Abd has received many good faith advice, warnings and complaints about his behaviour over two years

(since October 2007)

Moved here.

Abd had ample warning that he was going to get himself a topic ban

Moved here.

Abd has been warned after his topic ban that he is headed for an indef block

Abd believes that he knows better than other users

Sorry, but this reinforces his belief that he is not wrong, and it has to be stated.

  • more expert in group discussions both online and offline, first in December 2007[75], latest in April 2009[76].
  • has no science title, but feels more expert than Physics PhDs because he had Richard Feynman and Linus Pauling as teachers[77]

Abd accuses and harasses admins that warn him

  • To Raul654, [78][79], veiled threaths [80], direct threats "Be careful though, admins who read this. I'm not a newcomer, and biting me could be hazardous, like biting a poison frog. (...) you'll be safe as long as the block appears reasonable enough, even if it is incorrect. If not, though, expect to see proper process ensue"[81]
  • To MastCell, saying the he blocked Jed just to support JzG[82]
  • To JzG
  • To Jehochman, in March 2008, threatening with process [83][84], reply [85]

Abd reacts very badly to corrections

  • Raul654 doubts understanding of policy[86], met with disparagement (first sentence) and wikilawyering about policy (rest of the post)[87].
  • I proved how his comments filled and overhelmed the talk page[88] (image is linked in Stephan Schultz's evidence), met with derision, said this meant that he made a lot of work, banned me from his talk page[89].
  • When told to make shorter comments[90]

Abd's insistance in already rejected points has brought many editors to irritated frustration with him

The community had support not just for Abd's ban, but also for an indefinite ban

ANI thread on poll, ban review

Abd states ideas that are out of touch with reality

Moved here. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Abd performs experiments with democracy

Supported Wikipedia_talk:Delegable_proxy, then experimental sock User_talk:The_Community. See the poll that got him topic banned experimenting with Range voting.

"I've spent the last nine months studying WP power structure"[105] (that means October-November 2007)

Abd sees no problem at all with any of his editing, and does not admit having a problem

See my last-last-last good faith attempt to solve the issue, specific examples[106], Abd sees no problem[107]

Abd thinks that long comments are not a problem because people can simply not read them

[108][109]

Abd sees no problem at all with his very long posts and assumes bad faith in two editors asking him to be more concise

[110]. resisted collapsings[111], assumes bad faith from people asking him to be more concise: that I'm trying to prevent people from reading his posts[112] (ante-last paragraph) and that Olorinish is "[trying] try to stop others from discussing what they consider worthy of discussion (...)" [113]

Abd says that he can't make shorter comments because he has ADHD...

ADHD userbox in his userpage, said publicly by himself since before February 2008 [114]. In April 2009 "To require me to be succinct when discussing would be, effectively, to require me not to discuss"[115]

...but also says that he can be concise when he wants...

[116] (also thinks it necessary to make very long posts)

...and that he refuses to make them shorter...

[117] (search for "As to the length")

...and that his short comments are met with more criticism than his long ones...

he chooses not to make shorter comments because they are met worse than his long ones [118]. He doesn't entertain the explanation that more people read his short comments than his long ones, that he was proposing an incorrect idea in the first place, that the shorter comment is clearer in expressing the incorrect idea, and that this is what is causing the increase in negative comments, which are actually just comments correcting him.

...and he keeps wall-of-texting

here in the CF mediation, 30th June. Cryptic62 (the mediator) removed it and left a note on Abd's talk page. Abd resented the removal, even saying that he could withdraw from the mediation archived discussion. He finally restored almost the same text, placing it inside collapse boxs[119]. See also 7.5 KB of rambling text added in two edits to the workshop page in 30th July[120]. That's not coherent with him learning that walls of text are bad.

Abd and other CF advocates have driven away editors from the article

[121] (first paragraph, when asked to make an edit to the article) (there are more diffs, but they are difficult to find).

Abd has also made good work and collaborated effectively

Several editors are grateful with Abd's work, got 24 supports in his second RfA, occasionally I collaborated well with him. Problem is not taking heed to multiple requests for his behaviour to change, and still not seeing any problem. Pushing issues past a reasonable point ran him into problems when accusing Fritzpoll of sockpuppeting here, then in Talk:Cold fusion and in the future since he's failing to interiorize advice to change his behaviour.

The community didn't find any problem with the blocks performed by WMC

Moved here.

Abd had already had WMC's possible desysoping and its cabal in mind in July 2008

July 2008, five months before editing Cold Fusion. "I'm trying to advise WMC how to prevent his being desysopped. If he relies on that circle of "friends and supporters," very good chance his days as an admin will be over. Or not. It's always possible that the oligarchy will win, temporarily"[122], got the idea of a cabal centered in WMC from media articles[123]

Multiple sources say that Cold fusion is pathological science or is considered as such, and Abd has willfully ignored them in several occasions

List of sources here.

Moved here

Abd has stonewalled progress in the article by walls of text and derailing discussions into off-topic and OR

Moved here

Abd has has consistenly removed or reworded sourced negative statements, and edit warred with other editors

Moved here

Abd announced his intention to defy WMC's ban

Abd stated that he would ignore WMC's ban [124] and that he wouldn't defy the ban "just to make a WP:POINT", but (emphasis mine) that he had a suggestion that would enjoy consensus, so he would edit "a little later today". He also stated that "It is far more efficient to deny that the ban exists and let him prove otherwise [by blocking me when I edit the page I'm banned from] than to debate it" and justified it with WP:IAR [125]. This is the specific diff that prompted me to start the ban review.

...and defied it again to test WMC's limits

in order to make a WP:POINT about "administrative bans" placed by one admin, during this case that was supposed to clarify the situation of the ban [126].

We can't take every peer-reviewed source seriously

here from my evidence in the Fringe Science case. Actually, you should also look at the sections below "POV pushers won't listen to reasoned arguments", "People fighting POV pushers are being punished" and "People fighting POV pushers are being punished".


Evidence presented by Mathsci

William M. Connolley has acted properly as an administrator prior to the case

WMC does not seem to have been involved in editing cold fusion or its talk page. After the page had been locked due to edit warring between Hipocrite and Abd, WMC unlocked the page at a "wrong version" and then issued page-bans to both editors. Hipocrite responded cooperatively and the page ban was eventually lifted. Abd contested the page-bans as soon they were issued, with threats of an ArbCom case. The page-bans stopped the impasse created by Abd, whose edits were effectively filibustering on the talk page, almost amounting to WP:OWN. He had created non-standard methods of polling and discussion, which had already driven away editors such as User:Woonpton here.

Block for violation of page-ban during case

Abd edited the Talk:Cold fusion during the case [127] [128] (edit-summary: I withdraw my voluntary acceptance of the ban from cold fusion) to prove a point in the ArbCom case by testing WMC. His edit was reverted by WMC, who blocked him for 24 hours. Heimstern (talk · contribs) did not impose the community page bans: he wound up and summarised the ANI discussion.[129][130] [131][132]. In the last interchange between Abd and WMC about the ban, WMC wrote that the page-bans were indefinite. [133]

Abd's account has regressed to that of single purpose fringe POV-pusher

For the last few months, Abd's edits have been almost exclusively related to cold fusion. In his edits he has revealed that has had off-wiki contacts with Steven B. Krivit an Jed Rothwell [134][135], both of them non-scientists who advocate cold fusion. Many times Abd has written that cold fusion is not a fringe topic but an "emerging science".[136][137] He has, perhaps jokingly, suggested inviting the skeptical science writer Gary Taubes [138] and retired physicist Eric Sheldon [139] to join discussions there. The single most important question to be solved by this ArbCom case seems to be: is there some way Abd can reverse this apparent regression and get back to contributing to wikipedia in a more constructive and less confrontational way? [140]

Abd has made unfounded statements about William M. Connolley and a cabal

Abd has repeatedly questioned WMC's authority as an administrator. Abd's edits contain innuendos that suggest that WMC is part of some covert off-wiki conspiracy. Since this case began he has written that WMC has been "coddling" me; these have been accompanied by inflammatory edit summaries. [141] Writing unsupported remarks of this kind seems to be exploiting a loophole in the civility code on wikipedia to make indirect yet non-sanctionable personal attacks on wikipedia. Allegations of a cabal provide an excuse for Abd to disengage from discussion and discredit any criticism during this case.

Abd appears to bear long-term grudges against various administrators

The administrators include JzG, William M. Connolley and Raul654. He has criticized many other administrators since the case began, including the clerk Hersfold.[142]

Abd's escalation of disputes is needless and opportunistic

This was the case already in the Abd & JzG ArbCom case. As with the blacklisting issue, Abd threatened taking the case before ArbCom before going through the normal channels where the community can comment. In this case the community did comment on WP:ANI and multiple administrators and editors, not directly invloved in editing cold fusion or its talk page, endorsed the page-bans. Abd has written that he attempted dispute resolution in this case by trying to involve TenOfAllTrades as a mediator, a misjudged request that was immediately refused [143]. Abd did not then seek another mediator. See also [144]. In his timing of this request, Abd's edits show awareness that WMC has made recent blocks unpopular with a small but vocal group of editors, some under ArbCom sanction.

Abd claims to have scientific expertise but is dismissive and evasive to real-life experts

Abd's edits often unhelpfully dismiss editors with formal scientific training, while claiming familiarity with what's going on in research on low energy nuclear reactions and cold fusion from his reading over the last few months. Real-life experts, eg EdChem and Kirk shanahan in chemistry, are cautious and better placed to evaluate research in fringe areas. Abd has extended discussions of sources with these editors and others, sometimes with impenetrable walls of text which frequently sidetracked onto unrelated issues; he will abruptly abandon the discussion when his point of view is not accepted. [145] [146] On the basis of his userspace essay User:Abd/Majority POV-pushing and other edits, Abd apparently groups together all of those who disagree with his fringe POV-pushing. By dismissing critics as a cabal, the essay seems to be justifying a WP:battleground approach to editing controversial articles on fringe topics. Abd's attempt to make edits in namespace using pseudoscience like hydrino theory[147][148] is pushing wikipedia to its limits.

Abd has tested the limits with banned editors JedRothwell and Scibaby

Abd's edits indicate that he has off-wiki contact with the banned editor JedRothwell and discusses the editing of cold fusion; on-wiki Abd has written that this cold fusion advocate is one of the world experts in the area although apparently he and Abd do not always agree (see diffs above). The Scibaby proxy edits have been mentioned by Raul654 on the workshop page.[149] Like Abd's edit-revert tactic on cold fusion after his page-ban, Abd's edits test the limits of WP policy on banned editors; they seem unrelated to building a reliable and authoritative encyclopedia.

Abd appears to be supported by a small tag team

Abd's edits indicate that he has off-wiki contact with the banned editor JedRothwell and discusses the editing of cold fusion; on-wiki Abd has written that this cold fusion advocate is one of the world experts in the area although apparently he and Abd do not always agree (see diffs above). The Scibaby proxy edits have been mentioned by Raul654 on the workshop page.[150] Like Abd's edit-revert tactic on cold fusion after his page-ban, Abd's edits test the limits of WP policy on banned editors; they seem unrelated to building a reliable and authoritative encyclopedia.

Abd has failed to recognize messages from the community or ArbCom

Abd's edits show that he does not recognize that the community upheld his page-ban when Enric Naval opened a discussion on WP:ANI. [151] His edits, including this case itself, also indicate that he has not apparently understood the findings of the Abd & JzG ArbCom case concerning his own actions. After the ArbCom case concluded, much time was wasted discussing lenr-canr.org at MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist [152]; it was handled well by Fritzpoll and Dirk Beetstra.

My brief involvement on Talk:Cold fusion has been minimal and constructive

I made a total of 16 edits to this talk page for about 10 posts all related to the use of secondary sources, in particular an essay-review made available as sheldon.pdf on http://mathsci.free.fr.

Extended content

I made this reference available to Abd and later Enric Naval, who used Sheldon's statements on the pseudoscientific nature of hydrino theory as a reliable secondary source on Blacklight Power. I wrote on Talk:Cold fusion, "The review is actually an essay by a retired physicist, trying to be impartial and keep an open mind, but neverthless concluding that the explanations for lenr involving physics are unconvincing. Instead of "nuclear physics", Sheldon suggests "unclear physics". The article dismisses hydrino theory completely, as stated before. It's interesting that Abd is planning to contact Eric Sheldon to see whether he has changed his mind. I had no idea that was how wikipedia articles on science are written." Here is Abd's highly uncivil reply: [153] Abd is continuing to push this kind of pseudoscience during this case [154] on Talk:Blacklight Power, where he writes, "if hydrino theory is correct". Such edits misuse WP namespace discussion pages as forums (like sci.physics), are directly related to cold fusion (the raison d'être of hydrino theory) and are firmly in the realm of pseudophysics. This kind of disruptive edit cannot be explained or excused by any kind of medical condition.

Diffs omitted by Ikip

Ikip's evidence about the A.K.Nole ANI thread is quite misleading. Since Ikip insists on this particular case, on the advice of the clerk I have reluctantly provided detailed evidence here, which contradicts almost everything Ikip has written. Below are diffs (or more accurately quotes) from the thread by administrators, two ex-arbitrators and several senior mathematical administrators which make it clear that A.K.Nole was wikihounding me and was engaged in mathematical trolling on project pages, name space articles and their talk pages.

Extended content

Having responded to the notice concerning Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jeremy Dunning-Davies that I placed on WP:FTN, A.K.Nole edited Mathsci, placed a message on my userpage indicating that he thought my username was invalid. He then followed me to the talk page of Butcher group, a long and complex interdisciplinary article that I was slowly creating from scratch. For almost a week he proceeded to add mathematical comments at a pre-university level, with numerous errors and misconceptions. User:Charles Matthews and others described his edits as "faux naif". He proceeded to copy paste my own material into minimal subtraction scheme out of context. As User:YellowMonkey noted these edits and the comments on the talk page were quite out of place. He also posted to the talkpages of WikiProject Mathematics and Physics, but without any response. He attempted to edit Clebsch surface and its talk page, making spurious remarks which, as Charles Matthews and I remarked, showed a complete inability to understand a rather trivial elimination in elementary algebra. Off-wiki I requested the advice of another editor of wikipedia, a Fields medalist and close RL friend of mine, who was helping with edits to Butcher group. He told me I should direct A.K.Nole to his talk page if he continued asking questions unrelated to the article. He advised A.K.Nole to disengage, but this advice was ignored. When all this evidence eventually came to light, administrators on the ANI thread concluded that A.K.Nole had been wikihounding me. His mathematical edits were unhelpful and completely uninformed: in that sense he was engaged in mathematical trolling on wikipedia.

Omitted diffs

Ok, here's my take on the situation. Despite working in mathematics I don't really understand the contents of the article. I think that's relevant: I do at least know enough to tell that it's on advanced research mathematics, seems to be important to some areas of mathematics that are different than the ones I work on, and with more effort than I care to spend right now I think I could understand it. One of the people who has helped edit the article is a Fields medalist, so I am confident that it's of some importance and that someone who does understand it has taken it in hand. Anyway, A.K.Nole has been active on the talk page, asking very naive questions at a rate that could easily be annoying to the other people there who are trying to get some editing done. I can see two possible explanations: (1) they (I'm using the singular they because it's just too tedious to keep writing "he or she") are earnest and trying to understand the new article, have not yet been scared away by all the complicated math, do not realize how much they're in over their head, and are asking naive questions in the hope that getting the more expert editors there to answer them will cause the article to be rewritten in a less inaccessible way; or (2) they understand that there is little hope of getting the article to be truly accessible to a general audience and are just asking questions to be annoying. Per WP:AGF I'd lean towards the first explanation; Connolley seems to have taken the second instead. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:08, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Hmm..so that sounds as if this was a culmination of AKN hounding Mathsci in various places - wasn't clear by the block notice or log, but if that's the case then the block is reasonable. Shell babelfish 03:06, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

As an uninvolved editor with some mathematical knowledge, I agree with the comments by David Eppstein [17] and MangoJuice [18]. The issue seems to be how much good faith to show before blocking someone. I can offer some advice on how to communicate more effectively in these situations, if A.K.Nole is interested. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:56, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I want to comment on Mathsci's posting at the beginning of this section, which I regret to state is seriously inaccurate.

  • "attempting to edit the article Butcher group" - not correct. I made three concrete suggestions on the talk page. The only edit I made to the article itself was a trivial spelling correction. Mathsci actually accepted all three suggestions and added them to the article, although he doesn't care to admit that. Why would he do that if they were all "clueless"?
  • "mathematically off-key remarks of which LadyofShalott was perfectly aware" - comments made at another article entirely of which Mathsci had complained to Lady's talk page in a series of posting complaining about me and again inaccurately.

Comment: Mathsci was actually incorrect, in that the two models of a diagonal cubic surface are not equivalent over a field of characteristic three. [sic]

  • "two absurd edits where Mathsci [sic] attempted to copy-paste material". The first was a selection of a couple of sentences, with the technical formulae copied for accuracy, and where I added interpretation such as the reference to principal part of a Laurent series. The second was a summary and not in any way a copy-paste job.

I think this is enough to establish that Mathsci is giving an inaccurate account of this whole affair. I frankly think that he believes that my wording must be nonsense because it was I who added it and for no other reason. He is then backing up his belief with bluster, personal remarks, repetitiveness and accusations against any editors who do not entirely support his personal line. I have asked him to go to dispute resolution twice and he has rejected [19] my suggestions. A.K.Nole (talk) 21:42, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

So I think I understand the situation well enough to comment on the block. AKN was making comments on the talk page in good faith, but with such a low level of understanding of the subject that it was irritating. From my reading of things, this goes beyond the point where AKN could reasonably believe he was close to an understanding and qualified to get involved in technical issues: he clearly falls far short, yet he persisted in making edits along those lines. (Even my own humble level of mathematics background makes me realize that someone who implies they don't know what a group is is way over their head in this article.) Where does this leave us? I do think that if this pattern continues it can be viewed as trolling: AKN has to realize that with topics this advanced his comments and edits are pretty unlikely to be of any use. He has been told so. And then he continues to edit in the same way, basically ignoring the warning. I'm not sure I would consider this trolling yet, since he may in good faith have thought the warning was limited in scope to Butcher group (as he says) but it's certainly heading in that direction. If you aren't being helpful and you're getting a negative response, and people tell you why you're getting a negative response, and you ignore that and keep doing the same thing, the only conclusion is that you are looking for the negative response. Or, possibly, AKN is trying to learn about these topics from the more expert editors. Either way it's inappropriate: Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia, the project is to build articles, it's not a classroom. I think the block at this time is harsh, but it's a 24 hour block and it's within the bounds of reason. Mangojuicetalk 13:31, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The addition of those bits from Butcher group to the other article are out of place in the renormalisation calculation articles. It is an understatement to say that the edit lowered the quality of the article. I hesitate to ramble too much here (but have done so on my talk page in response to Exxolon's request), as I have only been briefly acquainted with most of the general sphere relating to Hopf algebras. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:29, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

I was asked to comment. The article is highly technical, current research mathematics. There has been some quibbling on the Talk page. I was reminded of a comment from Frank Adams about how "anyone who knows enough to ask that question knows enough to answer it". User:A.K.Nole does seem to be being unnecessarily provocative about matters of exposition. Not as provocative as the first remark on the page. Charles Matthews (talk) 19:42, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, I don't think Mathsci has been handling this in the best way in human terms, but neither do I think you have been handling this in the best way in technical terms. I picked up on your comment at Talk:Clebsch surface, as either ill-considered or faux naif - I guess it is the former, since a mathematics graduate ought to be able to see those equations as equivalent at a glance. The insertion of an example into a quantum field theory page by copy-and-paste without proper referencing and contextualisation is just annoying to everyone concerned. Homomorphisms being unital is a typical convention assumed in ring theory, usually just to avoid tedious explanations. The username thing concerns me. But let's all just move on now. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:11, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Funny diffs

Mathsci and William M. Connolley and Wiki-Meetups

Mathsci (talk • message • contribs • page moves • deleted contribs • summary • count • total • logs • block log • block • email)

William M. Connolley (talk • message • contribs • page moves • deleted contribs • summary • count • total • logs • block log • block • email)

When some arbitration on a heated subject was submitted, an arbitrator who met one of involved parties via Wiki Meetup recused himself from the case for neutrality. That kind of integrity is also required to admins and practiced too. I was wondering why WMC who said dislikes ANI and barely comes here suddenly blocked CoM and A.K.Nole in too much favor for Mathsci. People pointed out Mathsci's incivility, but his blocks are "one-sided". The answer to the puzzle turns out to be too simple. They've met "twice" this year via Wikipedia Meetup. An image of them together can be found too on the pages. They seems to be also involved in some ArbCom case (cold fusion or fringe theory etc) according to Mathsci's user page.

Wikipedia:Meetup/Cambridge 2 February 28, 2009 Wikipedia:Meetup/Cambridge 3 April 28, 2009

WMC should've not get involved in blocking Mathsci's opponents given the offline interaction. I think this that could be construed as COI and warrant ArbCom on William M. Connolley's questionable administrative actions in a row.--Caspian blue 15:15, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Mathsci is giving arguments that, while a bit extreme, are common with editors who are expert in a topic. However, Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia, and articles that are so specialized that they intrinsically can't be explained to a general audience quite possibly don't belong here, except as a stub or redirect, which would be true of any subject, not only in the sciences. My opinion is that if the topic isn't explained with sufficient clarity such that editors with reasonably common background can't understand it, the article writing is poor and needs work, or the subject is so abstruse that, truly, only experts can understand it, which then might mean that it's too narrow for article-level status on Wikipedia. I wouldn't give up on explaining the topic properly, however. I'll point out that for an article to be comprehensible to the ordinary reader, it should even more be comprehensible to an ordinary editor who spends some serious time with it trying to understand it and who then makes edits to make it more accessible; the likelihood of this editor making mistakes with the science or math is high, but mistakes can be corrected, and out of the interchange, the result can be a much better article. For an example, see recent edits to Oppenheimer-Phillips process, where a quite ignorant editor rather badly mangled the article, I tried to fix it, but I'm not a physicist -- though I have background which makes the field reasonably accessible to me -- and ScienceApologist, working with me, corrected my mistakes -- which mostly were not mistakes, but simply explanations he thought inadequate, he wanted to cross the t's and dot the i's. The result was that, apparently, the original editor now understood the topic better. The project won. Ownership of articles by experts is very dangerous to the quality of our content. Respect for experts is very important. Often, experts are blocked or banned for behavior like that of Mathsci, see the recent ban of User:NewYorkScholar. And where an article or editor is highly defended by an administrator, we can see ordinary editors blocked for attempting to make articles clearer or more comprehensive. --Abd (talk) 16:36, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Spartaz

I have never been part of a cabal before....

[155]Its not as exciting as I thought it would be except of course there is no cabal and this is a classic example of Abd preferring to blame conspiracy and cabalism rather then actually listen to the comments of those that oppose him and take their comments on board. Wikipedia is a collaborative project and Abd clearly shows that they cannot collaborate with users who disagree with them. He is clearly well meaning and dedicated but I implore the arbitration committee to actually look at the impact his behaviour has on those he comes into contact with and do something to stop him harming the work of other editors. Please. Its long overdue.

Evidence presented by Raul654

Abd/GoRight mutual trolling society

GoRight and Abd have on multiple occasions attempted to derail dispute resolution proceedings against the other. That is to say, whenever one of them behaves so badly that the community begins proceedings to reign in disruption from one of them, the other shows up to make supportive comments.

Examples:


Evidence presented by User:Shot_info

There is no conspiracy

When you start accusing everyone of being in on a conspiracy, you shouldn't be surprised if they decide to confirm your paranoia by banding together against you - as Abd has discovered. Shot info (talk) 00:48, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What Abd calls a Cabal

Wikipedia calls a Consensus. Abd excludes those whose opinion he doesn't like by labelling them as a cabal. This is a very similar effect to Elonka's tag team essay. When you are in a minority and you don't like what the Community is telling you, you pull out the "You're a Cabal/Tagteam/Conspiracy/etc" and you can then discount the majority. Abd's own response shows this attitude and he continues to wonder why he has problems with developing consensus. As he says here It's about time that tag-teaming is addressed. Who tag teams? Cabals are the only teams that can usually get away with it.

Evidence presented by Alex Bakharev

Cold fusion is pseudoscience

Cold fusion is a pseudoscience. A very good review of this teaching is done in Park, Robert L. (2000). Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud. Oxford University Press. p. 230. ISBN ISBN 0-19-513515-6, ISBN 0-19-514710-3, ISBN 0-19-860443-2. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help). That our article does not make it clear shows that there is something wrong with the process. Abd not only pushes pseudoscience in the main space but also as I understand has some commercial interests in doing so. I am not follow the development of the article nor the attempts of WMC to restore some normality here but the later were obviously not strong enough to stop the madness.

Cabalism

Regarding the cabal accusations. I do have some off-wiki communications with many editors, some time it might be interpreted as cabalism (although I always stay for my action). I am sure that most of active wikipedians also have some off-wiki communications with others and somehow open to accusations in cabalism. However I can certify that I have no offwiki communications regarding the Cold Fusion article or abd, still I was inserted by abd into his cabal list. That might shed light how credible the list is. If one pushes pseudoscience then not all people who try to stop it are cabal members even if they are numerous. Alex Bakharev (talk) 02:14, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Viridae

WMC refuses to disengage from Abd

  • Despite being one of two opposing parties to this case, WMC removed a (quite long) comment of Abd's from Abd's section on the workshop page, and then edit warred to keep it removed:
    • Removal: [159]
    • Edit warring: 1 and 2
    • WMC had previously been warned for that kind of behaviour: [160]
    • He then edited the collapsible box Abd placed around the comment in question: [161].

Evidence presented by Woonpton

Misrepresentation of an incident

The vote-moving incident, which represented only a very small bit of the disruption at the cold fusion talk page but has been mentioned in this case by others, has been somewhat misrepresented, especially as to how the incident was blown out of proportion, and by whom. The incident was documented in an AN/I report. I refer to that report for the diffs and for a full account; my purpose here is simply to review how that incident has been mischaracterized.

The action at issue was Abd's move of my vote in his poll from the version I had voted for to a version which he claimed was the version I'd really intended to vote for. In an edit at 3:48, June 5 I objected to the move, struck my vote and its comment, and provided the diff of my vote which showed clearly that I had voted for the version I said I'd voted for and had intended to vote for. Then I took a break.

Abd's account of what happened next, repeated in several places, is at odds with the historical record. In a very long response at AN/I (which he later removed entirely from the page, leaving the record incomplete as archived) he repeated this claim: "I was definitely, for a while, quite confused, with one edit conflict with Woonpton after another." ... "Woonpton and I were in edit conflict after edit conflict as I tried to figure out what the editor wanted and to restore and undo any damage that I might have done." ... "This was all a transient misunderstanding, but, probably due to some prior and very strange conflict, it blew up quickly."''

The facts are these: I edited at 3:48 when I objected to the vote move, and didn't edit again until 4:51. The incident was indeed "blown up quickly," but the page history shows that between my edits of 3:48 and 4:51, the only person editing the page was Abd, who made seven edits to the page during that time, removing the struck comment that was appended to my vote, leaving the vote in place at the wrong version, then making an edit with the edit summary "Woonpton appears to have accepted the move" and then in another post explainingthat I was confused and had voted for the wrong version and that he'd placed my vote where it belonged, and even arguing that the version he had moved my vote to was an obviously better version than the one I had actually voted for. Nothing in this flurry of unilateral activity suggests that Abd was trying to "figure out what the editor wanted" and to undo the damage. Eventually he realized that the mistake was his, not mine, and that I had indeed voted for the version I said I'd voted for, but the misunderstanding could have been sorted out immediately rather than more than an hour later, if he'd just clicked on that diff instead of editing furiously to maintain the misunderstanding.

I withdrew my votes at that point and withdrew from the talk page citing a loss of faith in the integrity of the process.

As for Abd's comment (quoted above) that "due to some prior and very strange conflict, it blew up quickly" this "very strange conflict" he alludes to was no conflict at all, but a simple difference of opinion about the delegable proxy business from last year, which I hadn't even heard of until a month or two ago. He and I see that episode very differently, but I hardly see that as a "very strange conflict;" it's just a difference of opinion.

Response to Coppertwig: I'm not sure the statement that Abd's ban was triggered by this incident is supported by evidence; the announcement on AN/I of the ban stated that the ban was unrelated to the AN/I incident report; WMC to my knowledge has not mentioned this incident in his statements about the ban, and the chaos he found at the talk page that precipitated the bans was not related to this incident as far as I can tell.

State of the cold fusion talk page before the ban of Abd and Hippocrite

Following the above incident, and after I left the talk page, Abd moved the poll and the comments around [162][163]. Mathsci and Verbal objected to his actions re the poll [164] and Abd responded accusing Mathsci and Verbal of pushing an "anti-fringe agenda" and getting in the way of Abd's consensus-gathering process. "Don't like the poll above? You are not obligated to participate, nobody is. But please stop trying to disrupt efforts to determine consensus here."

Abd explained here what he was trying to do with the poll: My goal in this poll was to quickly estimate consensus. Range polling can be faster for this purpose than Yes/No polling, though it often reduces to the same if people just vote max (10) or min (0). The whole point of such a device is to avoid debate. This is standard in deliberative process for motions where debating the motion would defeat the purpose of the motion.

There were more objections to Abd's poll process and methodology [165][166][167] [168], to his repeated moving of comments and sections [169][170] which made it difficult to follow the discussion, and to his misinterpretation of a vote [171]. There was a call to close the poll which Abd responded to by saying that a poll could not be closed except by an administrator.

Hippocrite then started a new poll. Abd put the two polls together, which made no sense from a measurement standpoint because they were scored differently. There were complaints about this action and about the accuracy and complexity of the matrix Abd put together to compare the versions. Abd also removed two options from the poll, both of which he had added to the poll after voting had started: the one I voted for, and the one Abd claimed I really voted for.

The disruption over the polls continued in the same vein for another 24 hours before WMC put a stop to it. (In the 48 hours before the bans, there were 134 edits to the page, almost all of them about the polls --65 by Abd and 16 by Hippocrite; in the 48 hours following the bans, there were 25 edits to the page, mostly about the article). At the time of WMC's decision, the polls [172] [173] were a mess; there would have been no reasonable way to draw conclusions about consensus from them. Abd has claimed as evidence in this case [174] that there was a version that had consensus that WMC should have reverted to; it's unclear to me how WMC could have intuited any consensus from these polls.

About cabal membership: I was surprised to find myself identified as a member of a Wikipedia cabal, although my family and friends have found it enormously amusing. I think one would actually have to be an editor of Wikipedia in order to be a member of a tag team, is it not so? I haven't edited Wikipedia since I realized, early on (spring of 2008) that editing Wikipedia, for someone whose main interest is the areas where science and superstition meet, means being in constant conflict with advocates of fringe theories, and I didn't see that as a good use of my time. Since then, I have observed, making a comment once in a great while. The reasons for the inordinate amount of attention paid to me here seem to be that I voted in Abd's poll and objected to his moving my vote, that I disagreed with him about delegable proxy on MastCell's talk page, and that I submitted evidence for this case. A pretty thin thread to hang a cabal member on, I must say.

About responding to Abd in general: I have not read Abd's response to my evidence and do not intend to, since if recent experience is any guide, there would be numerous things that would require counterargument, and there's not space here or time enough in my life to continue this debate. I believe my evidence speaks for itself; it is solidly rooted in diffs which actually say what I say they say. I hope it's helpful to ArbCom, but I won't go through endlessly arguing it back and forth with Abd in order to defend the points I've made here. I don't like conflict; that's why I don't edit Wikipedia. I don't like useless discussions that focus on irrelevant details rather than keeping to the point, and never get anywhere but just go around in circles; that's why I try to avoid discussions with Abd. If ArbCom hasn't grasped what the problem is just from reading the case, adding more text to the miles of text already present here isn't going to help, and would be inconsiderate of the committee as well as a great waste of my time. Thank you for the opportunity to present evidence here.

Evidence presented by Noren

Abd edits with an agenda, rather than to improve articles

Back in January, one of my first contacts with Abd was this comment on my talk page. The final sentence is quite interesting, "Some of us, with some administrative support, have been moving slowly and cautiously to undo the damage from some recent actions that seem to be promoting an anti-fringe agenda, but to do this without disruption takes time." Abd has been thinking in terms of cabals for quite some time, and rather than focusing on improving articles he is pursuing an anti-"anti-fringe agenda" agenda. This quote also illustrates another common Abd behavior: in a vague, non-quantifiable way he claims that he has substantial support for his actions.

Abd persists in mischaraterizing the evidence, even after errors are pointed out

One of the key references used in the Cold Fusion article is the summary of the 2004 DOE report, which contains a quote that the "reviewers were split approximately evenly" on the question of excess heat. Abd thought that a majority thought something was anomolous; I responded that in actuality the split was even. Some time later, in another thread, Abd says of the 2004 report, "But I think a majority also considered that the F effect was real, i.e., that there was more heat than expected..." Another correction of fact was needed. He proceeded to repeat the error here (last paragraph).

Abd is not accurately describing his own actions within this case - see Jed Rothwell edits

Abd's description of his own actions, taken from the Workshop page: [175] "Spartaz, rarely, (once or twice?) I restored Talk page comments from IP edits signed as "Jed Rothwell." All of the comments I restored were helpful to the project, in my opinion, that's why I restored them. I was reverted and didn't insist, even though the reversion of me was actually improper." What actually happened:

Jed Rothwell made a signed edit, Verbal reverted him with the summary, "Reverted to revision 284489199 by Abd; rm banned user."

1 Abd reverts Verbal to restore Rothwell text A discussion of this reversion begins on Abd's Talk page, including objections to this behavior.

Coppertwig restores Rothwell text- Abd alleges that Mastcell's block was done 'as indicated by JzG' and is therefore invalid

2 Abd reverts Enric to restore Rothwell text. Enric objects, Abd is not receptive, and posts the Rothwell comment to his talk page

3 Abd adds a link to Rothwell text to Talk:Cold Fusion

4 Abd adds a link to Rothwell text to Talk:Cold Fusion

5 Abd adds a link to Rothwell text to Talk:Cold Fusion


I count five revisions by Abd made with the intent to add the Rothwell text, and I would not consider his description that he 'didn't insist' to be an accurate summation of his actions, especially in light of these three edits to Verbal's talk page.

WMC was an involved editor on Cold Fusion in January 2006.

He reverted to a version that was about 15 months old at the time - possibly the most significant single edit ever made to the page. (See the talk announcing his edit.)

He made more edits around that time. [176][177][178][179][180][181][182] and some Talk page edits [183][184][185][186][187][188]

Does involvement with an article expire? I don't know, but I thought it should be mentioned and perhaps clarified.

Disclosure: I voted against making WMC an admin.

Evidence presented by Verbal

I don't want to repeat the evidence given by Enric, Mathsci, and WMC above so I will limit myself to something I don't think has been covered so far. Verbal chat 14:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Abd follows editors with whom he is in dispute

Here are some examples of articles where I was already an established editor, which Abd came to in order to disagree with my edits, and that were outside of his previous editing areas: Talk:Psychic, Talk:Cold reading, Talk:Waldorf education. He also followed Enric to Talk:Oppenheimer–Phillips process to disagree with him there.

More worryingly, he inserted himself in a rather obvious sockpuppet report against User:Macromonkey's sock User:Micromonkey. This editor had not edited any pages apart from my talk page that Abd was active on, and I don't see how he became aware of the SPI report. The message Abd left for micromonkey was also rather uncivil towards me, and full of assertions and policy interpretations: diff. Note how all of Abd's assertions about what would happen and wikipedia policy turned out to be false. This seems to be a pattern in his behaviour. In his defence, he did self revert sometime later after realising he'd backed the wrong horse. Verbal chat 14:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Scuro

Abd is attracted to conflict and "stirs the pot"

Due to my dealings with Abd, and for many of the reasons stated above, I had asked Abd not to have contact with me. "Abd, I appreciate it if you avoided all contact with me. Thanks".[189] My wishes were clear, after all there was a whole thread on the issue which he participated in.[190] I had heard nothing from Abd in months, yet after my first 3R block, Abd comments on my talk page. My response to Abd was used as justification to file a Wikiquette_alert. [191] Further, a serious false accusation he made during a topic ban request, was picked up by other contributors , and was used as eventual justification for Arbitration.[192]

makes serious false accusations and then doesn't admit his transgression

As noted above Abd had made a serious false accusation but never truly commented on the evidence he presented.[193] Hold his feet to the fire this time around. If he has made a false accusation that has disrupted wikipedia in a major way, make sure he responds to requests for clarification. I respectfully request the arbitrators to insist upon a response if he avoids the direct questioning of his accusations from other parties in this case.

Accommodation for ADHD

ADHD may lead someone to make impulsive and emotional responses. In my dealings with Abd, he is no more impulsive or emotional with his responses then the average contributor. Those with ADHD may also be verbose. Abd is verbose, yet he can be succinct when he chooses to be. The impulse to "go on and on" may be appealing to him in that moment, yet once he has done so, through the use of computer editing functions he can make his responses shorter and more readable. This shortcoming was the major reason I asked him not communicate with me. I didn't have the time to read his responses, and he had a way of personalizing these screeds with unnecessary judgments and words of advice. It's a frustrating experience communicating with him, and he refused to change, even after multiple requests. It would be my opinion that he willfully chooses to continue this behaviour.

A response to Abd's August 7th draft comments

The point Abd, was that I had asked you point blank to avoid contact with me. That lasted for months, and then you post on my talk page immediately after my first 3R. Granted that could be sheer coincidence, you forgot or what not, but could this be more like a moth drawn to light? Drama hit my talk page and Abd was there in an instant, no matter what state our relationship was in. How many arbitrations has he been involved with recently? I've seen three since the early summer, perhaps there have been more. How many dispute resolution and sanction events? Who knows...

False accusations should be taken seriously by this arbitration. His accusation that I alone drove away a highly abusive psychiatrist was obviously false.[194] Abd has never even acknowledged that what he did was wrong, at either the: Topic ban proposal, ADHD arbitration, or now.

I haven't examined this arbitration closely. Still, if past behaviour predicts future behaivour, odds are that he has "stirred the pot" once more. He has likely done so in a number of ways,...including false accusations. Odds are, as in his response to me, there will be a flurry of counter accusations and personal judgments on those who point out his failings. Few will notice that he never acknowledges when he is being disingenuous, even when others go to great lengths to point this out directly. I'd bet no one will get an answer as to why he bore false witness unless the arbitrators hold his feet to the fire.

Evidence presented by BozMo

WP is lost here between assuming good faith and feeding the Trolls

When I became an admin someone commented to me that if you don't get called Hitler several times a year you are not doing your sysop role properly. On that basis I am not a good admin. Many admins have serious day jobs and do not have a huge amount of time to dedicate to this project. Most of us would prefer to use what time we have in improving the quality of information for others or dealing with queries and do not have the appetite to get into endless fights with a small number of editors of dubious value, who play the system. We all owe WMC a massive debt for being prepared to take on tedious arguers who undermine the project credibility and until more of us are prepared to waste massive time going through edit histories to restate what we actually did say in the face of accusation after accusation (or in this case reading lengthy spurious arguments) the least we can do is accept whatever minor wrinkles and signs of irritation WMC may display sometimes, say a serious "thank you" to him and move on. Most people above seem to agree, the few who detail any minor fault on WMCs side miss the point. WMC is as close as one can get to an admin shop steward for those of us without the energy, and 95% of the reaction provoked is for saying what we all should be saying. In my view this request for arbitration is already well into Troll food and should stop now. And apparently I am not even a member of the Cabal... --BozMo talk 19:37, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Ikip

"Wikipedia is full of rules that editors are supposed to follow, as well as a code of civility. Those rules and codes don't apply to Connolley, or to those he favours." -- Solomon, Lawrence (May 03, 2008). "The Opinionator: Solomon". Financial Post. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

William M. Connolley has a rich history of administrative abuse

Per: Wikipedia:BLOCK#Conflicts of interest: Administrators must not block users with whom they are engaged in a content dispute; instead, they should report the problem to other administrators. Administrators should also be aware of potential conflicts of interest involving pages or subject areas with which they are involved.

As I document exhastively below, William M. Connolley has a rich history of flagrant administrative abuse.

Time to start a major flamewar

I originally got involved with Connolley when he announced it was "Time to start a major flamewar," admitting he was an involved administrator, and that the current block policy prohibiting involved admins from blocking editors was a "problem".[195] I then became one of the dozens of victims who Connolley abusively blocked. Summary

Many independent administrators found that Connolley has abused his administrative powers

Many independent administrators found that Connolley has abused his administrative powers over several months by blocking editors he was in an edit war with, violating Wikipedia:BLOCK#Conflicts of interest.

  1. 9 August 2009 User:Rlevse "This block of Abd...is completely out of line. Not only are you highly involved with this user and have history with him, you are currently the two primary parties in an ongoing arbcase. This is a clear abuse of admin rights and I will be proposing a temp desyssop pending the final decision in the case"[196]
  2. 9 August 2009 User: Viridae "No such restriction in place. Block performed by very involved admin"[197] 1 of 2
  3. 15 October 2008 User:Jennavecia: William has an issue with reverting others without discussion, and he obviously has no problems wheel-warring. The fact that he uses his tools on articles for which he has heavy involvement is another issue altogether. Fortunately for him, I have lost faith in the system for dealing with petty admin abuse, so I'm done with it.[198]
  4. 9 February 2009 User:SatyrTN "Oh - that's bad form, William M Connolley. Really bad form."[199]
  5. 15 May 2008, User:Dmcdevit, "In my opinion, an administrator should never block someone with whom they are edit warring, and this block was just that, and the edit war was on the very page of the arbitration you two are engaged in together for issues just like this."[200]
  6. 15 May 2008 User:BernardL, "While this is not the first time William M.Connolley has controversially blocked an editor he has been involved in an edit war with, it is probably the most questionable instance"[201]
  7. 15 May 2008 User:Bigtimepeace "I also agree that the block was completely inappropriate. Connolley made a similar inappropriate block of a user with whom he was edit warring not too long ago (dealing with this same article) and saw nothing wrong with that so I'm skeptical as to whether he will see anything wrong here."[202]
  8. 17 April 2008, User: Viridae, "Unblock because WMC was heavily involved in that dispute"[203]
  9. 14 April 2008 User:Aqwis, "Due to the blocking admin's violation of our Wikipedia:BLOCK#Disputes policy, I have unblocked you"[204]
  10. 7 September 2007 User:FeloniousMonk "Ah, I also see that you've be participating on the talk page prior to the block, you're an involved party, meaning this block being made by you was completely improper per WP:BLOCK. You should have brought this to WP:AN/I where if other, uninvolved admins agreed with your assessment, they would have made the block. But as it is, you should unblock him and apologize before your improper block ends up at AN/I itself."[205]
  11. 21 June 2007 User:Chaser, "you can't block users you're in disputes with"[206]

Connolley has made at least 40 abusive blocks

William M. Connolley has at dozens of examples of violations of Wikipedia:BLOCK#Conflicts of interest.

Here are William's violation of Wikipedia:BLOCK#Conflicts of interest. All blocks can be found on William's block page.

  1. See #Connolley inappropriately blocked another editor, according to a unanimous decision of Arbcom 22 August 2008 [207]
  2. See #More abusive blocks by Connolley: the February 2009 Benjiboi case
  3. User:Lauof Pinch See #Very recent abusive blocks by Connolley
  4. User:75.40.129.51 See #Very recent abusive blocks by Connolley
  5. User:A.K.Nole See #Very recent abusive blocks by Connolley
  6. In an edit war with User:Chris_Chittleborough on Hockey stick controversy William blocks Chris. Administrator Chaser later states "you're correct that WMC shouldn't have blocked an editor he was in a dispute with" On William's page Chaser says:
    "Will...you can't block users you're in disputes with. The policy is unambigious and ArbCom has indicated the same thing. This is the kind of thing that people get de-sysopped for."[208]
  7. In an edit war with User:Lapsed Pacifist on the page Shell to Sea‎[209], William blocks Lapsed for the reason "repeated re-insertion of unsourced material"
  8. In an edit war with User:Jaymes2 on Global warming William blocks Jaymes2 for the reason, "repeated insertion of tripe"
  9. In an edit war on Global Warming with User:Sterculius William blocks Sterculius for "Tendentious edtis at GW"
  10. In an edit war with the actual person User:PiersCorbyn in the article Piers Corbyn, which William actively edited before and after, William blocks User:PiersCorbyn for 3 hours, reason: "COI violation"
  11. In an edit war with User:Wedjj on Global Warming William blocks Wedjj for 8 hours, reason: "disruptive editing"
  12. In an edit war with User:Supergreenred William blocks User:Supergreenred (see more details above)
  13. In an edit war with User:Britcom on List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming‎ and Global Warming William blocks Britcom for 8 hours, reason: Restoring incivil comment for this edit:[210] in which Brit says: "Don't be a hypocrite WC"
  14. In the same edit war with User:Britcom on List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming‎ and Global Warming William blocks Britcom for 24 hours ‎reason: Incivility
  15. In an edit war with User:Wikzilla at Global warming‎ William personally blocks Wikzilla twice for Three-revert rule violations.
  16. In an edit war with User:ConfuciusOrnis at Climate change denial William blocks User:ConfuciusOrnis twice. William is chastized by admin User:FeloniousMonk for William abusing his administrative powers once again.[211]
  17. In an edit war with user:207.237.232.228 on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change William blocks anon for three hours for this statment: "Buzz off hippy" [212]
  18. With User:DHeyward on Global Warming William blocks DHeyward, length: 8 hours, ‎ reason: "violation of 1RR on GW; incivil edit summaries" There appears to be no 1RR because of arbcom. User:Viridae reverted this block.
  19. In an edit war with User:Lapsed Pacifist on the page Shell to Sea William blocks Lapsed for 3 hours giving the reason as "incivility" for this edit[213]
  20. For comments on List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming which William actively edits, William blocks 65.12.145.148 for incivility for this comment "A great read for all you cool aid drinkers."
  21. In an AfD which both User:Lordvolton and William are arguing in, William blocks Lordvolton for 8 hours for "incivility". [214]
  22. William blocks User:HalfDome for incivility because of comments on the page Image talk:2000 Year Temperature Comparison.png, which he actively edits.
  23. William again blocks User:HalfDome for incivility because of comments on the page Image talk:2000 Year Temperature Comparison.png, which he actively edits.
  24. William blocks User:Isonomia/User:Haseler for a comment on William's talk page. [215]
  25. William blocks User:Jepp for comments on List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming, an article William actively edits. Reason: "Inserting false information: incivility"
  26. William blocks User:Dean1970 for comments on Carl Wunsch, an article William edits regularly.
  27. William blocks User:71.211.241.40 for comments on Global warming controversy‎, an article William edits regularly.
  28. William blocks User:Juanfermin for 3rr on List of scientists opposing global warming consensus, an article William edits regularly.
  29. William blocks User:UBeR for comments on The Great Global Warming Swindle‎, an article William edits regularly.
  30. William blocks User:Peterlewis for comments on Historical climatology, an article William edits regularly.
  31. William blocks User:69.19.14.31 for incivility on Global warming, an article William edits regularly.
  32. William blocks User:Likwidshoe for incivility on IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, an article William edits regularly.
  33. William blocks User:Kismatraval for "spam" on Global warming, an article William edits regularly.
  34. William blocks User:69.19.14.29 for trolling for this comment "One thing is clear: this Wikipedia article and its fanatical guardians are a perfect example of how and why Wikipedia cannot be considered as a reliable source of knowledge." on Global warming, an article William edits regularly.
  35. William blocks User:Grimerking for 3rr on Global warming, an article William edits regularly.
  36. William blocks User:Dick Wayne for posting youtube link on The Great Global Warming Swindle, an article William edits regularly.
  37. William blocks User:DonaldDuck07 for "incivility" for comments on List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming, an article William actively edits.
  38. William blocks User:Rotten for "incivility" for comments on The Great Global Warming Swindle, an article William actively edits.
  39. William blocks User:219.64.26.28 for "repeated posting of own content to sci opp on cl ch" for comments on Scientific opinion on climate change, an article William actively edits.
  40. Because of an argument on his user page with newbie User:Alexandergungnahov, in which Alexandergungnahov accuses William of vandalizing his page by adding a Welcome sign, William boots Alexandergungnahov for 8 hours for NPA.
  41. On a page that he actively edits, Image talk:2000 Year Temperature Comparison.png William blocks User:24.59.148.187, for the comment "making up B.S. excuses to", reason: incivility

Many administrators have been desysopped partly for fewer Block abuses

Many other administators have been desysopped partly for fewer Wikipedia:BLOCK#Conflicts of interest abuses.

See User:Ikip/Bad

Connolley inappropriately blocked another editor, according to a unanimous decision of Arbcom 22 August 2008

1) On 1 July, William M. Connolley (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) inappropriately extended a block that he had made, because of incivility directed at himself. Connolley later inappropriately reapplied his block after it was reversed by Geogre.[216]
Passed 10 to 0 (with one abstention), 03:36, 22 August 2008 (UTC).

More abusive blocks by Connolley: the February 2009 Benjiboi case

I was later reaquainted with Connolley when he blocked Benjiboi for 24 hours in February[217] after Benjiboi was baited into an edit war by the other editor.[218]

There were protests about this block, because of Connoley's immediate one sided unblock of the other editor in the edit war.[219]

In response to the block

Spotfixer wrote: "User:William M. Connolley is one of the admins who gets frequently mentioned on Wikipedia Review for bad blocks, so this one is no surprise."[220]
Allstarecho wrote: "I'm amazed at how you were "manhandled" here but the main person causing the problem and the edit war gets handled with velvet gloves by William. Sad. Typical."[221]
Administrator SatyrTN wrote: "Oh - that's bad form, William M Connolley. Really bad form."[222]

Administrator SatyrTN then unblocked Benjiboi, stating this was a "improper block".[223]

Very recent abusive blocks by Connolley

Rules violated: WP:OWN, Wikipedia:BLOCK#Conflicts of interest

  • Indefinete block 07:13, 26 June 2009 William M. Connolley (talk | contribs) blocked Lauof Pinch (talk | contribs) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (someone pointless sock; e.g. Global cooling)[224]
According to his own block diff, Connolley has no idea who this is "someone...sock", and yet he blocks them indefinetly for editing an article which which he regularly edits.[225]
  • 15:39, 23 June 2009 William M. Connolley (talk | contribs) blocked 75.40.129.51 (talk) (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 48 hours ‎ (bored with you)[226]
Connolley blocks 75.40.129.51 who has 3 minor, non vandalism, edits, all on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in which Connolley regularly edits.
  • Blocked User:A.K.Nole for "trolling" on 30 June 2009,[227] User:A.K.Nole was in an edit war with User:Mathsci, one of Connelleys staunchest defenders here. Connolley also deleted the whole talk page section of User:A.K.Nole as trolling.[228]
An ANI discussion resulted: [229]
Selected comments from the ANI against Connolley
User:Arcfrk wrote on Connolley's page: "I have reviewed the case and reached the conclusion that it was a bad block on its merits. If your intention had been to prevent disruptions to wikipedia editing routine, I am afraid that it had quite the opposite effect: predictably, it generated a fruitless discussion at ANI that ended in general acrimony and even the departure of a good faith editor from Wikipedia."[230]
User:Carlossuarez46 "...it is somewhat disturbing that someone who seems to be willing to help out on such a technical subject is blocked for making apparently innocuous comments on talk pages, suggesting improvements or questioning the presentation in the article. Talk page comments are given much wider latitude for content and even nit-picking or even ignorance before it would be considered trolling, and for the mathematically-challenged the comments that seemed to earn the block didn't deserve that."
Admin User:Bigtimepeace: "...since I have recently (and in the past) taken a negative view of admin actions by WMC"
user:auburnpilot: "I'm also having trouble understanding the reason for this block. After reading over Talk:Butcher group, I was actually much more disturbed by Mathsci's behavior and comments than A.K. Nole's."
User:Durova: "To speak in broad terms, trolling is not a desirable block rationale. Others who wish to review a block find it much more useful to encounter specific reasons and diffs that led to the decision to block. Also, the term has a tendency to be inflammatory. As a general practice, stating one's reasons and evidence is more persuasive than a summary conclusion."
User:Carlossuarez46 "Why do a few uninformed comments on the talk page merit a block, can someone show the diffs that allow us to overcome any assumption of good faith."
User:Ironholds "Ahh right, I forget - being knowledgeable about the subject area is a get-out-of-jail free card. The question I want to ask - where is the trolling? It seems to be being used as a catch-all block reason to get someone annoying out of peoples hair, which isn't really acceptable."

Connolley warned for his behavior in this arbcom

The clerk Rlevse warned Connolley on 20:32, 21 July 2009 about deleting Adb comments in this arbcom.[231]:

Do not remove other people's posting, [232], [233], [234], let the clerks do it. I warned you before about this sort of thing. This is your last warning.

This is no surprise, Connolley reguarly deletes views he personally disagrees with. Luckily Abd was not indefently banned for these comments, as other editors have been, see above.

Connolley protecting pages in which he is edit warring

Full protection log

Connolley admits that he edits protected pages:

Reporter Lawrence Solomon asked Coppertwig, this question about Connolley protecting the page:
...I checked the history and it appears to me that a change occurred after Rjd0060 protected the page. Is the correct and, if so, why would this have occurred? [235]
Connolley's characteristically flippant, I-am-above-the-rules response was:
"because someone with the ability to edit protected pages decided it would be a good idea to do so".[236]

Of all of Connolley's page protections, he has protected Global Warming the most, Fifteen times.[237] Global Warming is also the main space page that Connolley has edit the most, 1,021 times.

  1. May 03, 2008, Magazine article: "In the Peiser case, a Wikipedian stopped a prolonged war by freezing a continually changing page (Naomi Oreskes), to prevent more alterations until the dispute was settled. As occurs on such occasions, readers are alerted that Wikipedians are warring over the page, and that Wikipedia was not endorsing the version of the page that had been frozen. To Connolley's chagrin, however, the version that was frozen cast doubt on claims of a consensus on climate change. Although this was done within Wikipedia rules, Connolley intervened to revert the page and ensure Wikipedia readers saw only what he wanted them to see." -- Solomon, Lawrence (May 03, 2008). "The Opinionator: Solomon". Financial Post. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. 1 June 2009 Cold fusion is fully protected.[238], 5 June 2009 William Connolley edits Cold fusion reverting to May 14 version.[239] Connolley wrote: "Lets wind everyone up", showing that Connolley knew this edit was controversial and would cause fighting.
  3. 19:14, 11 May 2008 Protected page not allowing anons, [240], continues edit war.
  4. 19:51, 17 April 2008 Removes page protection [241] after blocking an editor in the edit war.


Connolley repatedly violates no personal attacks

Per WP:Troll "it is likely better to remain silent and let others conclude the obvious instead of calling someone a troll and creating even more mayhem", Wikipedia:Don't call editors trolls
Per Wikipedia:No personal attacks

In addition to abusing his administrative powers to win edit wars, Connolley regularly attacks other editors he disagrees with or who have different points of view from him.

  • Trolling:
    • "rv trolling" 10:24, 3 July 2009 [242]
    • "rm trolling" 30 June 2009 [243] After he blocked the editor for "trolling"[244] which caused another ANI to be brought up against Connolley, this time a nine part series.[245] The editor left wikipedia as a result.
    • "rv trolling" [246]

Is this the behavior of an administator?

Connolley's attack page about editors he has argued with in the past

Per: WP:UP#NOT 10. Material that can be viewed as attacking other editors...Users should not maintain in public view negative information on others without very good reason.

User:William M. Connolley/For me/The curse of gnome is a recently created WP:attack page, listing editors who Connolley has gone up against, and who have been sanctioned or left wikipedia. Connolley himself admits, in creating this page, "this isn't a very good idea, but what the hell"[247]

I am not familar with the author, but the "mounds of human heads" header quote by Osip Mandelstam above these users names is troubling.

Odder still, in one edit, Connelley says that Rootology's edit (?) "doesn't really seem worth a curse" [248]

mounds of human heads

Into the distance disappear the mounds of human heads. I dwindle - go unnoticed now. But in affectionate books, in childrens' games, I will arise to say: the sun!

==== Lesser ====
==== Antiques ====

mutual trolling societies and small tag teams

Raul654's accusations of "mutual trolling societies" and Mathsci accusations of "small tag team(s)" are empty. Virtually any person who defends anyone else can be considered a "troll" or "small tag team" according to this criteria. Why is calling editors who work together "trolls" acceptable? But calling editors a "cabal" is still mocked?

Edit diffs removed.

As per #Evidence_presented_by_Cool_Hand_Luke, my apologies to Mr. Connolley and Mr. Raul for any incorrect statments I made about User:Raul654 and indefinite full protection of 10 global warming related pages.

Connolley should be stripped of his admin powers, for the good of wikipedia

Just because Connolley has a group of active, devoted friends and has his own main page, does this make him immune from the rules?

William M. Connolley has repeatedly abused administrative powers. Administrators' like Connolley's flagrant disregard for rules is the reason why editors have no faith in wikipedia's rules. Connolley flaunts and breaks the rules because he knows he can get away with it, he has an elite group of friends who always back him up, and arbcom and other administrators have repeatedly given him a free pass to abuse his authority.

He should lose his adminiship for the good of wikipedia, and to help to start healing the mistrust that editors have towards our rules. Ikip (talk) 01:31, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Timeline

This timeline has been overtaken by events, with members of the arbcom agreeing with many of the points we made

Originally at: User:Coppertwig/Connolley_Abd_involvement Found here: [254]

Evidence presented by Rlevse

William_M._Connolley block of Abd during this case and the Abd Cold fusion page ban

William_M._Connolley (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) blocked Abd (talk · contribs) during this arb case over an issue related thereto "08:21, August 9, 2009 William M. Connolley (talk | contribs | block) blocked Abd (talk | contribs) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 24 hours ‎ (Violation of ban at t:Cold Fusion) (unblock | change block)"

Abd had been banned from Cold fusion article and its talk page by community confirmation of WMC's initial ban for one month. Abd had voluntarily continued the ban. Then Abd ended the voluntary banned (link and dates forthcoming). After that, William_M._Connolley blocked Abd for violating the ban; which furthermore, he was currently very involved with as both were parties to this arbitration case at the the time. — Rlevse • Talk • 14:10, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pertinent links and diffs:

  • 03:50, 1 June: Casa sui fully protects CF
  • 22:25, 5 June: WMC reverts CF to a prior version with the summary "lets wind everyone up"
  • 19:16, 6 June: WMC's original announcement that he was imposing a ban was here. See also A Basic Chronology of Relevant Events in GoRight's evidence.
  • 20:20, 6 June: WMC notifies Abd is banned [255]
  • 10:31, 7 June: Abd asks for a 30-day ban but WMC says it's indefinite, but admits some parts are voluntary (this is where the confusion seems to have crept in) diff
  • 02:49, 11 June: ANI thread started by Eric Naval, where he notes the 10:31, 7 June thread above. "Topic ban" was changed to "page ban" here.
  • 15:36, 12 June: Heimstern's review of the ban (I believe that was while the ANI-thred was active), is before that (I link the discussion permanently; it is still on the talkpage of Heimstern). Abd there says: "If I edit the article or its Talk page, I can be blocked, by any administrator desiring to enforce the ban, with no warning" (perm. link).
  • 00:16, 13 June: Here is where Heimstern, the admin who closed the community discussion reviewing the ban, confirms that it was for one month.
  • 20:28, 15 June: WMC states the end of the ban was not clearly specified and was trying to clear up confusion
  • 20:35, 9 July: WMC claims to have imposed a ban on his own authority; that's much of what the arb case is about. See for example Ban reviewed, an earlier thread on this talk page.diff.
  • 04:17, 19 July: Heimstern releases responsibility diff
  • 22:41, 8 August: User_talk:Abd#Notice_regarding_the_editing_of_Cold_fusion_and_its_talk_page., Abd post of his unban by self and other good links
  • 14:42, 9 August: Mathsci says "I think it would be hard to determine how long the page-ban was for." [256]
  • 19:36, 9 August: Heimstern says he thought it was a 30-day ban imposed by WMC and that he wouldn't have closed the discussion if he realized the controversy it'd cause. He goes on to say he has no opinion on how long the ban should be, though he believed at the time it was a month. diff

Evidence presented by Shell Kinney

Abd is an excellent contributor. Unfortunately he seems to treat parts of Wikipedia as a social experiment which leads him to be disruptive in various ways. Wikipedia is neither therapy nor a good place for crusades; policy changes aren't brought about by pointy disruption. I'm sure there are other and maybe even better examples of what I present below, but Abd's volume of edits and gigantic chunks of text make finding them terribly difficult. Its also a bit disturbing that only about 15% of Abd's edits are to articles, the rest being discussion of one kind or another.[257]

Wikilawyering consensus and involved to suit his goals

Claims not just of no consensus for a community ban but that consensus actually was against the ban [258] Abd's version of "consensus" where editors are disqualified if they ever edited the same article as the banned user, commented on the banned user in any forum or even mentored the now banned user. Note that several of the “oppose" section also fit those same criteria (having commented before) or only opposed due to dislike of community bans but Abd does not disqualify any them in order to make the opposition appear stronger.[259] He later acknowledges that his method of determining involvement was arbitrary[260]

In another case, despite supporting the initial topic ban[261], when Abd later wants the ban removed, he claims the consensus wasn't for an indef ban, claims the ban is not valid because it was closed by a non-admin, or not valid because the closer suggested proper wording for the sanction [262], [263], [264]

Inappropriate interaction with banned editors

Advises banned editor NYScholar to bypass their ban by editing with an unblocked IP address [265], [266]

Posits that topic banned and indef blocked editor Jed Rothwell should be welcome to edit; oh and yes, this ban is invalid via wikilawyering too [267], [268]

Abd was not confused about the conditions of his ban

Abd tried repeatedly to get Heimstern to change the ban from one that depended on his behavior (which he clearly understood at the time) to one that was only a month in link. Heimstern declined to do so.[269] When this tactic didn't work, Abd tried his best to wiggle around the restriction and created confusion with the wikilawyering across a variety of noticeboards and talk pages. Given the amount of wikilawyering and what appears to be premeditated intent to disrupt, I find it hard to believe that these smoke screen tactics aren't deliberate.

Cold Fusion needs a good purge

It wasn't until I went looking for the above diffs that I realized this entire mess is all really about the Cold Fusion dispute. Had I been paying more attention, I would have submitted this evidence earlier. However, this does explain some of the skewed presentations and the blind support for one or the other party. How ArbCom is supposed to find the sanity in this is beyond me, but it would appear that something in the realm of actual discretionary sanctions that apply to Cold Fusion might be in order.

WMC has difficulty determining the point at which involved starts

As evidenced by the block during this case and the prior arbitration case, WMC seems to have difficulty disengaging from administrative action once involved (or maybe his administrative intervention leads him to become too involved?). While working in areas that are the most controversial and disrupted is exceedingly difficult, if you are going to use admin tools to enforce sanctions or any other behavior, it is imperative not to become involved in the dispute yourself. In this particular case, WMC seems to have remained uninvolved during the time prior to the case and seems to now understand that being part of a case grants one the status of "involved" at least for the duration.

Evidence presented by Cool Hand Luke

Minor points

Minor mistake in Ikip's section has been fixed
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  • Minor correction to Ikip. You cite various discussions with Raul654 and William M. Connolley purportedly "backing each other up." One of these cannot be flatly categorized that way, User:Raul654 and indefinite full protection of 10 global warming related pages In this discussion, WMC disagrees with Raul about the propriety of fully protecting 10 global warming pages due to the purported threat of Scibaby, and WMC also disagreed on a relevant talk page. Whereas Raul thinks that these pages must be locked to prevent damage, WMC argues that Scibaby is relatively easy to spot and revert on these pages, and that there was no need to protect them. Subsequent to WMC's and others' comments, I unprotected these pages myself. Cool Hand Luke 17:22, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Phil153

I apologize for this late addition, the lack of acknowledgment or change in Abd's behavior despite the comments in this case have prompted it.

This case is simple: Abd sorely lacks the interpersonal skills to deal with certain disputes. His involvement in contentious areas and process has been a huge drain on many volunteers' time, patience, and goodwill toward the project. Abd has had sufficient time and warning and has shown himself to be incapable of changing this behavior.

Below is a very small snapshot of how Abd creates a toxic editing environment. His insults and antisocial/unsociable attitude is often hidden within seemingly polite language, but nonetheless has a toxic effect on the intended recipient. Especially when combined with his persistence and/or obsessiveness. There are a great number of examples, but it takes ages to sift through his contributions and frankly I don't have time.

Abd's posts convey a lack of respect for other editors, judgmental comments about other editors, as well as nastiness:
To a PhD:you haven't a clue about this field[270]
fascinating. So much energy, must be nothing better to do[271]


Abd dismisses the concerns of others he doesn't consider "friends":
What you've done is give me advice for months that was either (1) obvious, or (2) wrong[272]

Rejecting consensus, assuming bad faith and/or lack of care in those who fail to take his position:
[my ban was] endorsed by a pile-on who didn't consider the messy details[273]- referring to uninvolved editors
Those votes in that RfC demonstrated axes to grind (referring to the votes of 20 people asking him to modify his behavior, many uninvolved)[274]

Abd has a history of posturing and wikilawyering in his interactions
- He prematurely terminated the ANI thread reviewing his behavior, going badly against him, then later claimed it did not represent consensus.
- He twice "seriously considered declining" an admin nomination (in his answers), but ran anyway. In fact, the 2nd RfA is worth reading for the level of posturing [275][276]
- Numerous examples that require a complex understanding of the issue being wikilawyered.


Abd is is rudely didactic in his interactions, to the point of harassing others:
To a clerk: [277] (response)
Abd's reply to a user expressing his choice not to use email, after strenuously requesting no further comment from Abd: However, it is simply another aspect of shooting yourself in the foot, for you have insisted on it without giving any credible reason[278]
- Several editors have have had to ask him to leave them alone (couldn't find diffs).

Abd assumes bad faith, agendas and personality flaws in those who disagree, rather than in his own position or actions:
Enric, I'll speculate, is so exercised about this -- really, reading my entire Talk archive! -- because I've confronted him a number of times about his ignorance[279].
There is a faction which has been calling for me to be banned for months, originally aroused to do so 'because of' my calling of JzG on his failure to recuse.[280]

Abd talks about how smart he is, and puts down other editors:
And I can think in a way that integrates various points of view, a capacity that seems to be blatantly missing from what you report above.[281]
Given my age and experience, as well as my qualifications, you really should suspect that I might understand things you don't.[282]
You synthesize from my statements what you imagine, just as you do with RS[283] - to a person he is disputing sources with.

Abd mentions process and hints at bad outcomes to those who oppose his positions or actions:
If you are going to argue that editors[i.e. Abd] should be banned, and especially before ArbComm, there might be some blowback.[284]
This may be your last opportunity to avoid all this going to ArbComm[285]
- Various hints and threats to JzG and fleshed out in the last case.

Abd's behavior is very out of touch with productive/efficient interpersonal behavior and editing habits.
[286] demonstrates this well.

Mental illness is no excuse for long posts

If one of our editors had schizophrenia or bipolar, and wrote long, rambling and disruptive posts, we would ban them because they make a mess of the project. Why is ADHD different? Besides, ADHD does not compel you to hit "save" on a long post when Abd admits that refactoring merely takes more time. Such behavior would require obsessive compulsive disorder to be excusable.

I urge Arbcom to ban this editor from at least fringe science, policy and administrative pages (WP:), where he causes serious disruption. Last Arbitration's soft approach just emboldened Abd and created more of the same (and this case, involving hundreds of wasted hours).

In addition, I urge the Arbs to look at GoRight's behavior. He curiously and consistently pops up wherever Abd needs support in both articles and admin, even when he has previously been uninvolved with the topic. Phil153 (talk) 07:02, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Cardamon

Sorry this comes so late.

Abd has stated that he has worked as a professional editor

[287] [288] [289]. So, he could write concisely if he wanted to. Cardamon (talk) 05:18, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Abd has edit warred at Cold Fusion

The an3 report can be read here, in Archive 99. Oddly, Abd signed the last of 4 reversions. There was some discussion of whether or not might show that he had intended to put it on the talk page. William M. Connolley declined to block, and instead protected the article. Later, Abd stated that he had meant the 4th revert to be an edit of the article, and had signed it by mistake. William Connolley replied that, had been it clear that the 4th revert had indeed been meant to be an edit of the article, he would have blocked abd. Cardamon (talk) 07:24, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by {your user name}

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

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.

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