Wikipedia:AMA Requests for Assistance/Requests/October 2006/Chondrite

Wikipedian filing request:

• Chondrite (talk · contribs)

Other Wikipedians this pertains to:

• Simonapro (talk · contribs)

Wikipedia pages this pertains to:

• Cannabis (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Questions:

Have you read the AMA FAQ?

• Answer: Yes

How would you describe the nature of this dispute? (policy violation, content dispute, personal attack, other)

• Answer: Content dispute, article ownership, policy violations

What methods of Dispute Resolution have you tried so far? If you can, please provide wikilinks so that the Advocate looking over this case can see what you have done.

• Answer:
  • communication at the article talk page and both user talk pages.
  • disengagement - no longer editing article until dispute is resolved
  • 3PO requested[1] and received[2]

What do you expect to get from Advocacy?

• Answer: Advice, assistance explaining Wikipedia policy, and breaking the deadlock at the article.

Summary:

User Simonapro, who has made many productive edits at the article, is now vigorously defending ownership. This has turned into a two-editor content dispute, with a short-lived edit war, in which Simonapro reverted productive edits to a preferred version of the article. I have stopped editing the article (except for placement and restoration of dispute tags) until the dispute can be resolved.

Simonapro has repeatedly implied and stated that I am violating WP:CIV, and characterized productive, good-faith edits as incivility in talk page comments and edit summaries. "rv. Violation of WP:CIV. hundreds of users having their work edited by one user. See talk.)" [3] This is not my understanding of WP:EP and WP:CIV.

Simonapro user has repeatedly removed fact and verify source tags. The user has repeatedly misconstrued and misrepresented sources and ignored requests for direct quotes from sources. This is discussed in detail at Talk:Cannabis#Failed Verification, Talk:Cannabis#Additional Verification Needed, and most recently at Talk:Cannabis#removed unsourced POV. This has been justified as follows:

"It doesn’t matter if wikipedia contradicts terms used from citations and sources as long as WP:CITE style is used.[4]"

"In order to refute a WP:CITE you must use the same style in the discussion by supplying a WP:CITE to refute the cite. Your POV about what is a verifiable cite or not is just a POV until you use the same style. Which is why your POV edits will be reverted back to the original. [5]"

Similar justification on the basis WP:CITE is made in edit summaries for reverts of fact and verify source tags. It is pretty clear to me that this is a major distortion of WP:CITE, WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:POV.

I have attempted to epxlain, in a civil (but not exactly fawning) manner, what is disputed and why, several times over in the article talk page. Simonapro has apparently disregarded this explanation in favor of pursuing the straw man argument that I am attempting to push POV by excluding relevant content from the article.

After seeing that the situation was going nowhere, I attempted to disengage and wait for consensus. I did place dispute tags in the article, which were promptly removed (as a supposed violation of WP:V and/or WP:CON [6], which is technically vandalism. I unreverted the dispute tags and added a vandalism warning to Simonapro's user page. When the dispute tags were again reverted, I sought 3PO. 3PO agreed that the dispute tags were warranted and offered some support for my points regarding content. After two days with no major revision to the article and without addressing any of the disputed points, Simonapro proposed removal of the dispute tags.

Simonapro has become combative. Although he hasn't engaged in anything that I would consider a personal attack, he or she is clearly focused on the contributor and not the content.

Simonapro has made it pretty clear that my attempts to improve the article will be reverted or contested, no matter how minor those attempts may be. A third of the article talk page, wtih additional discussion at both user pages, is concerned with removing or rephrasing 3 or four sentences that are borderline patent nonsense. Another big chunk of talk is dedicated to an unsourced statement that is blatant POV.

Ultimately I do think that Simonapro is acting in good faith, but is simply misguided. It would be very nice to resolve the dispute and break the logjam without having to go through more formal processes. Advice about how to proceed, and particularly about where to find a neutral third party who will be willing to take the time to explain policy to Simonapro would be very much appreciated.

Followup:

When the case is finished, please take a minute to fill out the following survey:

Did you find the Advocacy process useful?

• Answer: Yes

Did your Advocate handle your case in an appropriate manner?

• Answer: Yes

On a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best), how polite was your Advocate?

• Answer: 4

On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective do you feel your Advocate was in solving the problem?

• Answer: 4

On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective do you feel the Advocacy process is altogether?

• Answer: 4

If there were one thing that you would like to see different in the Advocacy process, what would it be?

• Answer: no changes

If you were to deal with this dispute again, what would you do differently, if anything?

• Answer: solicit third party opinions early and often; use a "Bold, Revert, Discuss" approach; make greater effort to avoid looking like a mastodon.

AMA Information

Case Status: closed

Advocate Status:

• Accepted. Addhoc 22:28, 8 October 2006 (UTC)