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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Sam Korn (talk | contribs) at 22:50, 23 March 2006 (→‎Jason Gastrich). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution. Before requesting arbitration, please review other avenues you should take. If you do not follow any of these routes, it is highly likely that your request will be rejected. If all other steps have failed, and you see no reasonable chance that the matter can be resolved in another manner, you may request that it be decided by the Arbitration Committee.

Dispute resolution
(Requests)
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Content disputes
Conduct disputes
Arbitration Committee proceedings
Request name Motions Initiated Votes
Anachronist   16 June 2024 0/0/0
[edit]
Open cases

Currently, no arbitration cases are open.

[edit]
Recently closed cases (Past cases)
Case name Closed
Venezuelan politics 25 May 2024
Request name Motions  Case Posted
Amendment request: Article titles and capitalisation none (orig. case) 7 June 2024
Clarification request: mentioning the name of off-wiki threads none none 4 June 2024
Amendment request: India-Pakistan none (orig. case) 7 June 2024
Clarification request: Contentious topics restrictions none none 10 June 2024

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and (exceptionally) to summarily review new evidence and update the findings and decisions of a previous case. Review is likely to be appropriate if later events indicate the original ruling on scope or enforcement was too limited and does not adequately address the situation, or if new evidence suggests the findings of fact were significantly in error.

The procedure for accepting requests is described in the Arbitration policy. If you are going to make a request here, you must be brief and cite supporting diffs. New requests to the top, please. You are required to place a notice on the user talk page of each person against whom you lodge a complaint.

0/0/0/0 corresponds to Arbitrators' votes to accept/reject/recuse/other.

This is not a page for discussion, and Arbitrators or clerks may summarily remove or refactor discussion without comment. Please do not open cases; only an arbitrator or clerk may do so.



How to list cases

Under the below Current requests section:

  • Click "[edit]";
  • Copy the full formatting template (text will be visible in edit mode), omitting the lines which say "BEGIN" and "END TEMPLATE";
  • Paste template text where it says "ADD CASE BELOW";
  • Follow instructions on comments (indented), and fill out the form;
  • Remove the template comments (indented).

Note: Please do not remove or alter the hidden template

Current requests

Brent Corrigan

Involved parties

 Everyone, anonymous and signed users, who have edited the page.
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

I have placed the arbitration notification in the discussion portion of the article, at the very top.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Brent_Corrigan

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

If you look at the discussion portion of the Brent Corrigan Article as well as the history, there is a clear split between those who edit the page and place his real name in there, and those who have removed it. Both sides are clearly divided and unwilling to compromise on this very personal and sensitive matter.

Statement by party 1

In the discussion portion, I wrote:

I have opened an arbitration case to have the Brent Corrigan article locked until the legal dispute is finalized. Due to the sensitive nature of the release of his real name, as well as the allegations of underage sexual performance, I do not believe that Wiki should be involved in the dispute.

Once the facts are laid bare, then this account should, in my opinion, either show or hide his information. Until such time, I believe this serves no one except those who intend harm to Mr. Corrigan.

Natoma 14:55, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by party 2

The opposite point of view, that Mr. Corrigan's real name, opposed to his performance name, is fitting for inclusion in this article has prescendent in virtually all other biographies of performers. Sympathy for Mr. Corrigan's legal problem is human but an undenable bias, inappropriate for this encyclopedia. Were Wikipedia the first and only to report his real name, there may be room for a discussion about morality, but many others have reported it. In fact, a Google search will reveal it. The argument for not including his name, I argue, has not met its burden and, moreover, the very fact that his real name is relevant in currently disputed legal procedures is the very reason why it should be included here.

BernieD 18:22, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Outside statement by clerk Johnleemk

This appears primarily to be a content dispute to me; the arbitration committee has no jurisdiction over such disputes. There is no evidence of misconduct or violation of policy. Furthermore, the involved parties is rather vague, suggesting further that there has been no violation of policy. Johnleemk | Talk 15:58, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If the arbitration committee has no jurisdiction over content, who does then? Keep in mind, I have no qualms with the display of his real name as it is a matter of fact. It is my concern that Wiki has become the "battleground" for a dispute that is currently in the courts. Given that the release of a porn actor's name without prior consent, particularly when dealing with a potentially underage performer, is illegal, why bring further headache until this court case is resolved? This is why I requested the lock until the dispute is finalized. Natoma 16:22, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Natoma, why do you think that revealing a porn actor's name without prior consent is illegal? It isn't. Porn actors aren't a protected class and enjoy no special privledge. And when there is a dispute, it always best to differ to truth or as you put it, "a matter of fact." BernieD 18:26, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Porn Actors sign legal agreements with the companies they contract with to use pseudonyms. This is primarily for their protection, given their line of work. It is that reasoning which I am following. Cobra Video released the real name of Brent Corrigan in a newsletter to all those who had subscribed, as well as to AVN. That is potentially thousands of individuals, if not more, that became privy to that information. That act was illegal in and of itself and is currently in court from a counter-suit by the Corrigan team. Due to the potential legal problems, I don't think it would be wise to continue to place this information on Wiki, at least until the dispute is resolved. Once it's resolved, then people should do what they will given their own conscience. But at that point, the questions of legality would be answered. Have I explained my stance on this issue appropriately? Natoma 18:37, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is no organised procedure for resolving content disputes except RFCs or (don't hold your breath; this never happens) an edict from Jimbo Wales or the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees. Johnleemk | Talk 16:25, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Understood. I have finished reading through RFC, but there is no clearly defined process to request a content freeze until court arbitration is finished. This is my worry as it seems the RFC will merely be an expansion of the discussion currently ongoing at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Brent_Corrigan. Because of the contentious nature of the information at hand, as well as the very long history of arguments in the history/talk sections, I do not believe the community can police itself any further on this issue with any semblance of civility and compromise. Just my two cents. Natoma 16:40, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/0/0/0)

Jim Smith and John Quiggin

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

I am listing after the solution was suggested by the other party. I'll add the requisite entries to their user pages. [1]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

The matter has been through the mediation cabal with no success. John Quiggin suggested it really needs to dealt with by arbitration, and I agree.

Statement by Jim Smith

Tim Lambert, John Quiggin, William Connolley, and others, are a group of pro-environment academics and bloggers. They regularly quote each other favorably, and act together to maintain each other's edits in wikipedia.

John Brignell maintains a site called Number Watch[ http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/number%20watch.htm] created to promote his book Sorry Wrong Number about the misuse of science and statistics in the media. On it he maintains a number of the month blog wherein he comments on such matters.

Lambert and Quiggin have exchanged views with Brignell on several occasions, on topics such as global warming [2] (under Down Under), Steven Milloy [3] (under Quiggin Again) [4], the hole in the ozone layer [5] (under Holes) [6], and DDT [7] (under Remember this number - 17) [8].

In response to this last exchange on DDT, Aaron Swartz, "a teenage writer, hacker, and activist" [9], and a supporter of Lambert, retaliated by creating an entry on Brignell in Sourcewatch. [10] Sourcewatch is a pro-environmental wiki accused of having a strong left wing bias. The original entry was created to attack the credibility of Brignell and portray him as a crank. Supporters of Brignell tried to modify it to provide a more balanced view, Lambert et.al reacted, and an edit war resulted. The sponsers and maintainer of the wiki came down heavily on the side of the latter group. During the course of this war the entry was copied to wikipedia. Quiggin reedited it here, and he and I have been banging heads over it ever since. The matter has been to mediation, but it failed; both sides feel it should go to arbitration.

I do not believe that people ideologically opposed to John Brignell, who have actively argued with him in public forums, and who have publically expressed the view that ad hominem attack is acceptable [11] are the ones who should be writing the wikipedia article on him. I do not believe that they are acting in good faith, but even if they were their viewpoint is too coloured by their own ideology to present a fair article. There is room in the article for their criticisms, but those criticisms should be balanced; this article is not balanced.

In my opinion the article as it currently stands is too flawed to be repairable. It needs to be completely rewritten by someone who is prepared to approach it with a fair mind, who does not have a left wing bias, who has a solid mathematical background, and who is familiar with John Brignell and his work. I am open to suggestions on how to go about this. Engjs 06:03, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by party 2

The central claim made by Jim Smith in his RfA is that people critical of Brignell should be debarred from editing an article about him. Allowing such a claim would be highly damaging to Wikipedia.

Jim Smith has contributed a large proportion of the article as it stands. While some of his contributions have been edited for length and POV, or moved to other articles (disputes about relative risk for example), there has been no attempt to suppress factual information about Brignell contributed by him and other supporters.

Engjs makes no specific and substantive complaints about the article in his RfA above, but his general view has been that any material, however well-documented, that shows Brignell in a bad light, such as mention of his mutually supportive relationship with Steven Milloy should be censored. Again, I disagree.

Although I doubted the value of mediation in this case, I have made a good faith effort to meet any legitimate concerns raised by Engjs, and I think the process has improved the article, particularly through the removal of the back-and-forth argument that frequently results from edit wars. JQ 06:53, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/0/0/1)

  • Eurgh. I'm wary of accepting this, on two counts - firstly, that there is, indeed, absolutely not going to be a restriction on non-friendly users editing articles about such topics, and there's a strong likelihood that we will spend a great deal of time saying very little more than this; secondly, there is also a great danger of us going off towards a content decision (certainly, being petitioned to do so, at the very least). James F. (talk) 12:51, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Markkbilbo, Harvestdancer, Daycd, Dbiv, WarriorScribe

Involved parties

I mistook Dbiv for someone else.
  • Benapgar is bringing this to the attention of ArbCom.
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Mark should be emailed, see User_talk:Markkbilbo (top). AvB ÷ talk 07:36, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Mark doesn't have his e-mail turned on (probably due to the new authentication dealie). Someone who knows his e-mail address will have to let him know.--Ben 07:52, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Note that Jason Gastrich has been banned for one year and his user page is protected so he won't be able to reply. --kingboyk 08:37, 22 March 2006 (UTC) (just pointing this out; not an involved party)[reply]
His user page is semi-protected and his user talk page is not protected at all, he can reply there if he wishes. Stifle 14:54, 22 March 2006 (UTC) (also not an involved party)[reply]
  • Bible John [19]
  • Grinder2112 [20]
  • Benapgar - Person filing the RfArb.
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

See Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jason_Gastrich

Statement by Benapgar

I believe various users involved in Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jason_Gastrich and Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Jason_Gastrich may have violated the policy Wikipedia is not a battleground. I also think this is an opportunity for arbitrators to determine principle with respect to off-site co-ordination of editing and politicking on Wikipedia, especially with respect to activist groups.

Various users involved in Gastrich's RFC and RFAr participate in the Usenet group "maleboge.org" (formerly known as "jcsm-watch," JCSM being the acronym for Gastrich's "ministry.") This newsgroup, according to one of its 46 members, and attested to by others, "exists to expose religious frauds or those that use religion to defraud others." Jason Gastrich "is a focus of this activity" whose "antics served as the impetus for the start of the group." [21]. The group is named after Malebolge, the Eighth circle of Hell.

The maleboge newsgroup often discusses Wikipedia with respect to Jason Gastrich's participation here, and the main participants in these discussions are Wikipedians who have been in active contact with Gastrich on Wikipedia [22]. Those users are (but not limited to):

  • Markkbilbo (founder of the group maleboge.org) (Note: The jcsm-watch group was founded by David Sienkiewicz, whom Gastrich says is another of WarriorScribe's usernames. Mark K. Bilbo hosts alt.atheism alt-atheism.org, a website affiliated with the alt.atheism Usenet newsgroup).
  • Daycd (aka David D.)
  • Harvestdancer (aka Jason Harvestdancer)
  • WarriorScribe (aka SonofFred, aka Dave) Moderator
  • Dbiv (aka David)

Still more Wikipedians, such as administrator Duncharris are, to a lesser extent, involved or are identifiable members of and/or contributors to the group. Less active Wikipedians such as Bible John and Grinder2112 (aka Grinder) frequent the maleboge group and have discussed Gastrich and Wikipedia but do not often participate here. Some co-ordinated actions and references on talk pages strongly suggest the involvement of still more Wikipedians under different usernames at various levels of involvement with the group.

Discussion regarding Gastrich and Wikipedia also occurs outside the maleboge newsgroup: [23]. (In this case, user SonOfFred is WarriorScribe.)

Votes to delete articles deemed acceptable by the Wikipedia community, and derisive comments on AfDs, demonstrate that Wikipedia is being used as a battleground by members of this group.

Additionally, information concerning Gastrich which I believe would generally be regarded as a trivially poor example was added to the Typosquatting article [26] by WarriorScribe. Members then engaged in an edit war with Gastrich on the Typosquatting article regarding this example [27]. Gastrich often buys domain names and "typosquats" on them. However, I do not believe he, or the websites he typosquats, are notable enough to include as an example when examples such as www.microsfot.com and www.googl.com are so much more well known. Fully aware of "Gastrich's antics," surely they would expect him to start an edit war over this vain and trivial example. (Not being above Gastrich's typosquatting, it seems, www.jasongastrich.biz is a cybersquat which redirects to the San Diego Better Business Bureau.) WarriorScribe's first edit to Wikipedia was to User_talk:Jason_Gastrich, and his contributions since then have focused almost entirely on Gastrich.[28]

This is not meant to excuse Gastrich's conduct, which has been abhorrent, and I do not disagree with the rulings of the Arbitration committee. However, in my opinion, arbitrators have a duty to also investigate these quite unusual circumstances surrounding his conduct.

--Ben 06:57, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Markkbilbo

No, I am not the founder of "maleboge.org."

Far as Template:User_Native_American goes, that Gastrich created it is irrelevant. The objectification of natives as trinkets to be put on the mantle is relevant. That the dominant culture (as displayed by comments at the AfD) cannot see the point is an example of systemic colonial thinking. I lived on a reservation for years and have full blooded relatives. This just isn't some abstract, academic debate from where I sit. In all, I said what I had to say on the matter. That the community here couldn't care less is indictment of them, not myself.

I have never tried to hide that I have a history with Gastrich. On the other hand, I'll immodestly point out I was right about him wasn't I? I hate to steal your thunder but that Gastrich was dragging outside fights and grudges into the Wiki was something I told people more than once. For example:

Talk:Wife_Swap

"You are not stating facts Gastrich, you think you have an opening to attack Reggie Finely and you're trying to use the Wikipedia to launch an ad hominem campaign against him because of the conflicts you had with him. And you know that's the truth of the matter. Mark K. Bilbo 02:42, 1 December 2005 (UTC)"

I will also not apologize for being infuriated at an ad hom campaign of Gastrich against a well known member of a community of which I am a part (the online atheist community, loose as it may be). And this is an example of how it was Gastrich dragging outside conflicts into the Wiki (then trying to play the victim). This is typical behavior for him. He appears to need to play the martyr.

In any case, I've tried to be above board about my history with the man and tried to stay within the Wiki's rules. This is the first indication to me that anyone thinks I failed to adhere to those rules. And I thought an RfC was supposed to happen first?

Curiously, this rather feels as if I'm being dragged into a conflict of which I was not previously a part. Which would be quite ironic.

Mark K. Bilbo 13:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Harvestdancer

I have no clue what this is about. Yes, I was involved in the RfC against Jason Gastrich. Yes, I commented in the talk pages (but never in the main pages) of the RfAr. No, no attempt was made to resolve this dispute in any other way. The individual who brought this RfAr against me User:Benapgar has never contacted me on my talk page and has never asked for an RfC regarding my actions. That alone should dismiss this.

As can be seen, Benapgar has an RfAr being filed against him. I believe this is him striking back at those who filed. Even then, such a baseless case should not include me.

I want the filer to tell me exactly what I am supposed to have done. Is it now a crime to enforce NPOV? Is it now a crime to comment on a Request for Comments?

Yes, it is no secret that Gastrich and I have a history that pre-dates his involvement in Wikipedia. Unless you can show that my comments were wrong, you don't have a case. I ask the administrators to refuse this retaliatory RfAr.

The ironic thing is I have tried to help Editor Gastrich. I tried to steer him away from his violations. I didn't want to see an RfAr against him, I hoped that the RfC might be sufficient to get him to behave. If anything, my lack of comment in his RfAr is what I did wrong, as I should have tried to agrue against a general suspension. I thought the remaining parts of the decision would have been sufficient.

Harvestdancer 16:24, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Daycd

I have already replied to these charges from Ben. He obviously did not read my comments since he still dragged Dbiv (talk · contribs), aka David, into this RfA. I have pasted my previous response below.

"I had been involved in wikipedia for a long time before Gastrich showed up on the scene. I was also one of the first to be involved in the maleboge group on usenet although I did not found the group. From my perspective the group is designed to expose religious frauds with a focus on Gastrich. Just to clarify, the comments above made by Dbiv (talk · contribs), aka David, is not myself. Also the comments in maleboge made by David are a distinct user to my posts as David D. I invite anyone to dig through the archives, I have nothing to hide.
When Gastrich appeared as an editor at wikipedia i was well placed to advise Gastrich on the policies here. I have never tried to discourage him from editing although I have tried to explain to him why POV editing and sockpuppets are not advisable on wikipedia. In some cases i have even defended Gastrich's edits. In general, I think the majority of opposition to Gastrich has come from Wikipedians who did not know of the usenet Gastrich. Certainly the RfC and RfA that highlight Gastrich's behaviour on Wikipedia are independent on the maleboge group. His actions speak for themselves." Quote from David D. 17:31, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

This seems to be a case of WP:POINT, or are there specific instances where Ben can show I have been editing in bad faith? David D. (Talk) 17:56, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Dbiv

I haven't a clue what this is about, have never heard of the group mentioned, and my only contact with Jason Gastrich has been as admin enforcement when he broke Wikipedia policies - about which no complaint has been made. I have also reported this enforcement on the evidence page of Jason Gastrich's arbitration case. David | Talk 10:44, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I mistook you for someone else. Sorry about that. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.--Ben 11:11, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK, no harm done. David | Talk 11:28, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by WarriorScribe

Statement by Duncharris

I'm rather confused by all this. I will admit to checking up on Jason Gastrich because I knew his reputation as a troublemaker from Usenet, and sure enough even though he got several chances to behave himself over a long period, he didn't, there was community action against him, and the arbcom acted. I took little or no part in the arbitration case.

What this has to do with Benapgar is beyond me, although I think he does believe that there is an Evil Atheist Conspiracy™ out to prevent him writing about The Truth ™. See Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Benapgar, but this is all really boring, pointless and vexacious. — Dunc|☺ 14:42, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jason Gastrich

N/A

Statement by Bible John

I do not regularly post here, but I was asked via Usenet to do so. I have read that Jason has been banned, and I would believe that this would be a correct course of action. While I believe Jason is saved, and a brother in the Lord, I think that his attitude needs some adjustment.

Statement by Grinder2112

It appears that this request for a response from me has been driven by my postings in the Google group, Maleboge, as I have barely participated at Wikipedia. Heretofore I had only made one contribution, which was a comment on the sincerity of Jason's attempt at reconciliation. I stand by what I said there, and have reason to believe my speculations have been born out by Jason's continued actions.

Regardless, I do not believe that any of my actions have violated any of the conventions outlined to prevent Wikipedia from becoming a battleground. Moreover, as to the implications that Maleboge is an organizing force for some sort of cabal against Jason: I have seen no evidence to support that accusation.

Statement by JzG

This is premature. If there is a case to answer it should go first to RFC. To cite Gastrich's RFAr as evidence of prior steps in dispute resolution is absurd: I can't recall many cases where a user's actions were condemned as unequivocally by the community as Gastrich's have been - if there was a battle it was likely because Gastrich was determined to have one.

In any case I don't recall Banapgar taking any part in either the RfC or the subsequent RFAr. I started both.

This looks like a vexatious case brought in response to some pretty trenchant criticism of Ben's own actions, as set out elsewhere. Just zis Guy you know? 10:33, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by FeloniousMonk

Not only is this premature with no previous attempts to resolve having been made as JzG points out, but it's baseless as well. Gastrich's behavior went through all the proper channels for WP:DR - warnings and cautions, then a user conduct RFC, and ultimately RFAr - and it was JzG who filed both the Gastrich RFC and the RFAr [29] [30]. There is absolutely no evidence that JzG has used Wikipedia as a battleground. Ever.

The line of reasoning behind this filing is not particularly compelling: Individuals using various internet resources and fora to gather and coordinate evidence in the course of participating in WP:DR is hardly a case of WP:NOT. And their actions are always in response to Gastrich's, not the other way around. But this filing by Benapgar does serves as a compelling example of WP:POINT considering it's context. He has an extensive history of disruption and personal attacks which is now subject of it's own RFAr below. This filing may rightly be viewed as evidence of the spreading disruption I warned about [31] in that RFAr. FeloniousMonk 18:58, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jim62sch

I was part of both the RfC and the RfAr on Jason Gastrich, and I can assure all that the intent of either action was nver the creation of a battleground. The RfC was undertaken in the hopes that a small bit of, for lack of a better word, "discipline", would turn Jason into a valuable editor who could keep his agenda at bay. This did not happen.

After repetition of, and in fact intensification of, the behaviour that had resulted in the RfC, the RfAr was the last resort left. The case was put forth, and duly acted upon by arbcomm.

The RfAr now brought by Benapgar (who had nothing to do with the Gastrich affair) seems to me to be a possible attempt at establishing a pre-defense, and is most certainly a violation of [WP:POINT].

Additionally, given that arbcomm voted 8-0 on all counts against Jason Gastrich, Ben's raising the spectre of wrongdoing, implying that said wrongdoing had been utterly missed by the arbcomm members, certainly could be seen as an insult directed at the arbcomm members themselves.

It is a shame that once again conscientious editors need to expend valuable time dealing with Ben's rather unusual take on reality. Jim62sch 20:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/2/0/0)

User:Marcosantezana

Involved parties

Marcosantezana effectively acts as if he owns the Natural selection article.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Also informed about filing this case are:

Put also notice at Natural selection page [38]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

at the Talk:Natural selection page

Statement by User:KimvdLinde

I fill this Request for Arbitration because it is impossible to constructively work on the Natural selection article, due to the behaviour of Marcosantezana. He deals with the page as if he owns it, and single handedly edits everything such that it fits his ideas about natural selection (which is not always very clear for outsiders edit sumary of someone extended response of a visitor, which response of Marcosantezana), and his discussion is primarily through the edit summaries [41]. Other editors do not have a say in that. Anybody who disagrees can get a strong, and not always civil response. I and other editors have stopped the revert war because that was not leading towards a solution in this case and has already led to blocking of Marcosantezana, which he tried to evade using two different IP-addresses: Marcosantezana block log IP-one, blocked IP-two, semiprotect NatSel page.

Some quotes to show his attitude:

  • In response to 3RR warning User_talk:Marcosantezana#3RR_on_Natural_selection by Kzollman: do you know how to read? then do it below. i've made my point very clear many times beyond what you can read below; and the last time i did not "revert" (how horrible!) but rather eliminated the problem with a new, neutral formulation. it's the others who are truly being obnoxious on top of being wrong and insisting in peddling misleading "scholastic" garbage. [42]
  • After being reminded to stay civil [43] by Kzollman, he responded: so in that case you either don't know how to read or don't want to read. in either case you are disqualified from sermoning anybody about being civil. since when it is civil to pontificate to others when you do not know what's been going on? take drugs if you need to feel better at *any* cost. sermoning others gratuituously lets you appear like a fool. warmest regards -- ;)[44]

I and others have repeatedly asked him to join the discussion (example [45] [46] ). He pretty much does not join in (or dumps some remarks at my user page with my response at his page. He has also been asked to respect consensus, but he has until now refused and kept editing the new lead introduction that was reached after some discussion. (I have not reinserted that version again as to avoid edit warring).

This unworkable situation has to stop. I and others want to work on this page, which for now is impossible due to the actions of a single editor. I want a decision that is wider reaching than this page, but covers all pages he edits, as I can see similar issues with these pages arising as well: Unit of selection and Kin selection. --KimvdLinde 06:02, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to mention here also that I only got invloved with this page after I saw the RfC.
Furthermore, the discussion on the content between the editors that do contribute is intense, but I think those differences can be bridged by carefull thinking about this page as well as its content.--KimvdLinde 00:49, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Kzollman

Marcosantezana appears to refuse to engage in discussion with other editors on Natural selection. A quick comparision of the number of edits (many of which are reversions) at the history of natural selection with the number of comments at Talk:Natural selection demonstrate his unwillingness to engage in discussion. I am not a party to the content dispute which is occuring there, but I have interacted with Marco when his behavior has violated Wikipedia policies. He was brought to my attention for nearly violating the 3rr on Feb. 19 [47], [48], [49], [50]. He avoided directly violating it by performing the last reversion outside of the 24hr period. I have no evidence that this was an intentional skirting of the rule and not just a happy accident. I warned him about the violation (noting that just barely missing the 24hr period is still a violation), to which he responded with the remarks quoted above. Slightly less than a month later, I noticed a second near violation of the 3rr. [51], [52], [53], [54]. As I took this to be an attempt to game the rule, I blocked Marco for 24 hours. He evaded the block twice, and it was extended by User:TexasAndroid. Again, I'm not sure if he was aware that he shouldn't evade the block, although I can't imagine that he thought his behavior was acceptable. Certainly the second evasion was malicious, since he was warned about the first.

Attempts by many editors and by myself, as an administrator, to alter his behavior have been entirely unsuccessful. It was hope that he would emerge from the block realizing that his behavior would not be tolerated. However, it appears this is not the case. I am aware of at least one bonafide evolutionary biologist who has basically given up on the page as a result of this users actions. I hope that action by ArbCom might, if not change his behavior, make the page on Natural selection editible by others. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 06:46, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it would be best if the "bona fide biologist" be named. If you are referring to me (although you could be referring to Pete.Hurd, who has been less active recently due to real life commitments), let me explain that I did not leave because of Marcos' edits particularly, but due to the two parties' inability to communicate effectively. Being an outsider in a debate does not automatically mean that your view is wrong. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 09:06, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm far too busy with professional responsabilities do keep up with the large volume of changes and debates on the Natural selection page. I have enough time to do minor edits, but not enough to deal with Marcosantezana, Axel147, et al. it's not just frustrating, it's really far too time consuming. More constructive discussion from Marcosantezana would only help this page get fixed, and make it more time-worthwhile for others like me to participate. More comments to follow below. Pete.Hurd 15:13, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I was refering to Pete, but since I didn't know if he wanted to be dragged into this mess, I did not mention him by name. Since he drug himself in here, I'll mention it now :) --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 22:09, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Samsara

Valid points were being brought to the table by both sides. Overall, I would note that there was a lot of protectionism of various versions favoured by various editors going on. I would encourage the arbitrators to look into the edit history, edit summaries and talk page in some detail to understand more precisely what was happening. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 09:06, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Slrubenstein

There is an extensive record of Marcosantezana's edit warring at this article. It has died down, recently, but I do not see this as evidence that the problem has been resolved, and urge the ArbCom to acknowledge and deal with the problem. The problem is basically this: in early February 2006 Marcosantezana rewrote much of the introduction to the article. I and a couple of other people raised objections to his massive rewrite, and reverted his edits. for the next month, a pattern emerged: People would raise objections to Marcosantezana's rewrite on the talk page, and revert. Marcosantezana sometimes responded aggresively on the talk page, dismissing all objections to his rewrite. Marcosantezana would then make a series of six or seven edits to the article, with detailed but obscure edit summaries; the effect would be to restore his version of the introduction verbatim (in other words, he seldom just reverted. By making several different edits he created an edit history that suggests he was working on the article de novo. However, after several edits all he had done was to restore his version of the intro, that had been reverted). Someone would revert, and the cycle began again.

I would rather not frame this problem in terms of a violation of the 3RR. I am not sure whether Marcosantezana violated this rule or not. But the 3RR is just one mechanism for dealing with edit conflicts - it is the underlying edit conflict that is the problem, not any violation of 3RR. Whether anyone violated 3RR or not, the fact remains that for a month or so, spanning February and March 2006, the introduction to the article simply bounced back and forth between Marcosantezana's version, and the consensus version (meaning, a version all other editors at the page favored). This is obviously an unproductive situation.

Why have several editors begun to revert Marcosantezana's edits automatically? My principal reason, which at least a few other editors share, is simply style: Marcosantezana's English is just horrible. Secondly, editors have also questioned the substance of his edits. I believe that Marcosantezana's poor grasp of English makes it difficult to distinguish between problems in style versus problems in substance - that is, it is hard to say whether Marcosantezana has a valid point to make, because he expresses it so unclearly. Finally, I suspect that Marcosantezana may be violating NOR or NPOV. Specifically, I suspect that he is trying to import his own view of natural selection, or the view of Elliot Sober, a philosopher of science. Again, Marcosantezana's problems with English make it difficult to know which. If the former, he is clearly violating NOR. If the latter, the violation of NPOV lies in his insisting that the article define and explain natural selection according to Sober's view of it, without stating that this is the view of one philosopher of science and is not the only view.

In fact, with regards to another article I once suggested, in good faith, that marcosantezana be careful to make sure his edits comply with NOR and NPOV; his response was typically defensive and aggressive, culminating in his saying, "if you want to worry about something please consider trying to clean up the utter non-sense that is a bit everywhere. you should realize that to do what i am trying to do is is hard work." [55]

Moreover, I believe that everyone who reverted Marcosantezana's edits did so in good faith, explaining their problems with his edits on the talk page. Marcosantezana, on the other hand, only dismisses other people's questions or explanations. This is the fundamental problem: Marcosantezana insists that he is right and refuses any dialogue or compromise. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:07, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Pete.Hurd

I'll be surprised if User:Marcosantezana participates in this. If he were to comment, I'd expect him to say something like "Every edit I've made to Natural Selection changed something factually wrong onto something factually right, and all other issues are so trivial in importance compared to the issue of making things right that it's a silly waste of time for me and everyone else to discuss".

Marcosantezana is a problem, he's knowledgeable, but either cannot, or will not, explain his edits to those that do not understand them. I think his violations of WP policies are done in ignorance, he doesn't really care enough for WP policies to inform himself (five months and 500 edits into his presence on wikipedia, and he's still leaving comments for users on their user pages, not their talk pages). I think he views his factual correctness as releasing him from having to abide by rules (I recall a statement to this effect, I may chase down the diff later). He's certainly claimed that he need not explain his edits even in edit summaries, let alone on talk pages, since the correctness of his edits ought to speak for themselves. "that's why even the short comments that accompany edits of the main article should be unnecessary. if they are well done the edits should speak for themselves." in here, some of his edit summaries are helpful, and others not (some examples below)

  • (do i need to comment ? read and rejoice ;))
  • (removed grammatically and semantically garbled "common" effort; content ueber alles)
  • (who cares who "wins"? are we kidding? but it's better hard to read than clear and wrong;)
  • (nat.sel is not evol by nat.sel.; read before "improving" darn! the "phenotype" is a term from genetics; where were the editors when this nonsense was added?)
  • (causation/fitness vs vapid self-contradicting supposedly didactic though erroneous common places plus history obscured by irrelevant jargon)
  • (fitness and its causation. it's what selection is, boys and girls :))

Note Mathbot reports: Edit summary usage for Marcosantezana: 51% for major edits and 2% for minor edits. Based on the last 150 major and 58 minor edits in the article namespace.

His edits have an excellent track record for factual correctness, just as they have a strong tendency to need polishing copyedits (when they are comprehensible at all). To the best of my knowledge, he has never complained in any way about such improvements being made to his text. But merely being correct isn't helpful if he refuses to explain why he's correct. This is not something he makes clear to those he's correcting, who usually just get the insulting tone, and not the pedagogical content. Making such explanations is something he's not interested in providing, and it seems an unrewarding thing to ask anyone else to do.

When Antezana does make editorial comments (less often of late) they often seem motivated more by an intent to insult than inform. Take for example, this remarkable edit, directed not at WP editors, but a string of famous evolutionary theorists Marcosantezana feels aren't as well schooled in philosophy as he, or his hero Sober. To be fair, this sort of behaviour is not uncommon in academics, but most of our peers would normally say such things only behind the veil of anonymity in a referee report.

Marcos' behaviour shouldn't overshadow too much the fact that there is a real debate taking place over whether the article should identify the one true definition (as defined by scientific researchers measuring it vs. philosophers of science more expert in definitions) or address and all commonly held incorrect definitions, etc, whether the article ought to be pitched primarily at correctly informing readers at the level of a high-school or graduate student level. Marcosantezana has strong views, and has explained his position clearly, he just doesn't engage in protracted debate. WP is very frustrating in that such debates are without end, including a rotating cast of debators. This debate is chewing up a lot of effort, from knowledgeable editors, User:KimvdLinde's laudable efforts at implementing WP's policies and guidelines, User:Samsara's effort at implementing some sort of WP:SPR seems motivated by this debate. Editors such as User:Barefootmatt seem to have been effectively chased off, if not by Marcos' insulting behaviour, then by the futility of the debate. Personally, I find User:Axel147 almost as frustrating as Antezana (I've sometimes wondered whether Axel is a clever troll), but in contrast to Antezana he's well behaved (Axel has a valid point in defending his major complaints, I just think he's wrong in spirit even when he's right on detail).

I doubt Marcosantezana will/can change his behaviour, and I think the most helpful thing any editor can do (excluding things like User:KimvdLinde's consensus seeking version writing) is to bring in more clear, cited, material in from outside WP to guide and inform all editors. There are a number of editors on this page with Ph.D.s in the subject matter, a more with an equivalent grasp of the issues. Marcosantezana seems to view his opinions as trumping all others, and really isn't willing to say much more than "go read a book", or "go take a logic class" to those he disagrees with.

In conclusion, WP:CIVIL etc matter a lot, while I agree with Marcosantezana on just about all substantive points, he just ticks me off to the point that Natural selection is a page I'm more than happy to take off my watchlist.

Pete.Hurd 20:03, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Guettarda

I was around when Marcosantezana started editing Natural selection. He made extensive edits which were poorly written. Because these edits were so substantive, it was a major task to go through and them and clean them up/evaluate their accuracy, so I hesitated. After he was rude to several other editors, I thought it best to leave it alone and give him some time to socialise to Wikipedia, since I didn't have major issues with content, but with style. But as the months passed, it didn't get a whole lot better. With a lot of competent new editors active on the page, and enough stresses elsewhere in Wikipedia, I thought it wasn't worth the trouble. However, the filing of this RFAr suggests to me that I am not the only one daunted by the way Marcosantezana's "plays poorly with others". I recommend that the arbcomm look into this issue.

Statement by Axel147

Marcosantezana often behaves as if he owns the article and is generally reluctant to discuss any difference in opinion from his own. As Marcosantezana genuinely seems to care about the definition I tried to put forward his position (position 2) against my own (position 1) in the discussion page in a bid to encourage discussion. He (and others) subsequently endorsed this view but Marcosantezana resorted to edit war. His mass edits to the article typically involve poor English. Personal insults to me include 'take a logic class' and 'read before "improving" darn! the "phenotype" is a term from genetics; where were the editors when this nonsense was added?)'. — Axel147 20:40, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Statement by User:Marcosantezana

(place comment here)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/0/0/0)

User:Deathrocker

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Sceptre

I was first brought to this dispute 5 weeks ago while patrolling The 3RR noticeboard. Both users had violated WP:3RR, so it was a clear-cut case of a block. I extended the block to about 32 hours, listing my reason as 3RR, and to cool down. Stressed with the Userbox debate, I left Wikipedia for two weeks.

On Tuesday (14 March, 2006), I had recieved a message from Leyasu while just going to make a change to an article. This was then followed by Deathrocker with accusations of Leyasu "bullshitting" me. I later received diffs of this dispute. Deathrocker was not the only one attacking. Leyasu also made comments about him vandalising my talk page.

After two days, I blocked both users. Leyasu, for Arbcom breach, Deathrocker, for gross 3RR violation.

I admit I may have been biased to Leyasu by asking if there was any chance of baiting by Deathrocker.

Deathrocker, however, was not happy with my block. He continually requested an unblock, stating I was abusing my admin powers for blocking him for more than a day. I've been backed by several prominent users, User:Essjay, who said the block was fair, and User:Tawker after an outburst on IRC.

Still, Deathrocker disrupted on his talk page, and was blocked until after Easter.

Statement by Leyasu

Leyasu would prefer for the subpage on his/her user page for a statement.

Leyasu would also like it to be known, that Deathrocker's personal attacks about the subpage of his/her user page, has been cloned by Deathrocker, who has made replies to each accusation in the forms of personal attacks and failure to supply diffs.

Deathrocker has openly used a Sockpuppet on several occasions to personally attack myself and Sceptre on the ANI board, also attempting to earn an unblock by disruptting the board, [58], [59], [60], [61], [62], [63], [64].

Deathrocker has openly stated he can and will use sockpuppets to disrupt Wikipedia if the block isnt removed and the arbirition case does not go in his favour, as is noted on this part of my user page.

Statement by Deathrocker

My reply to Leyasu's little shrine, which attacks me personally numerous times, is here on a subpage/user page.

Note: I just checked my email and saw Sceptre offered to post this for me, but I'd already done this, so thanks anyway...

Also Sceptre, I noticed in your comment it said something about IRC.... I don't and have never used IRC, just for the record. - DeathrockerComment 08:19, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum

When I was referring to abuse of adim powers, it was a reference to WP:3RR, which officially states that admins can "block up to 24 hours"... I was blocked for 4 days and a "3RR" violation tag was placed on my page, this by far excedes the official policy of 24 hours. EssJay showed up when I requested my ban be lifted, and also went against official wikipedia policy stated in WP:3RR claiming that admins can block for however long they feel, without showing where this is stated anywhere in Wikipedia policy.

EssJay then went on to instigate me been blocked for an entire MONTH, for something I have already served a blocking time for, which is ridiculous and I demand the block should be lifted. Sceptre (Talk) 12:20, 22 March 2006 (UTC) (acting through proxy for Deathrocker).[reply]

Original email can be seen here.

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/2/0/0)

  • It used to be that that an ArbCom decision was a rare and unusual thing. Now, (perhaps only because I have the inside view,) it seems less so, but I think we should encourage the kind of consensus resolution-making that ocurred in this case. The month-long block looks justified, and there's no need for a case at least until he comes back and is disruptive again. Dmcdevit·t 02:16, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject. James F. (talk) 23:04, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Phr vs. User:Sam_Sloan

Involved parties

All Parties are aware of this request

I have made a request for mediation in this dispute. User:Phr refused two days ago.

This dispute has gone on for more than three months since early December, 2005 and it is obvious that User:Phr and User:Rook_wave have no interest in settling this dispute.

Statement by User:Sam_Sloan

For the past 10 or 15 years, Paul Rubin who posts here as User:Phr has made thousands of postings to various chess forums, all of which have said basically the same thing, which is that membership dues of the United States Chess Federation should be reduced to zero or in any case to no more than $5, and that Paul Rubin should be allowed to play USCF rated chess without being required to join the USCF or required to subscribe to Chess Life magazine.

In general, Paul Rubin has been dismissed as a harmless crank, not to be taken seriously, and is often the brunt of jokes.

That is until two days ago when it was discovered that Paul Rubin is the same person as User:Phr who has been going about deleting the biographies of chess politicians he does not like.

Paul Rubin knows Tom Dorsch personally and now that we know who User:Phr is, we understand why User:Phr attacked the biography of Tom Dorsch with such vehemence, because Tom Dorsch was one of the chess politicians who raised the dues to $40.

When the biography of Tom Dorsch was first posted, User:Rook_wave vandalized it by deleting all but the first two lines. When this was reverted, User:Rook_wave then posted a AfD and then voted six times to delete. He was joined by User:Phr who voted five times to delete. More than that, every time a user voted to keep, he was attacked by User:Phr who accused that person of being my sock puppet or my meat puppet, even though he actually knew these people, having posted ten thousand times to Usenet, and knew that they were completely independent of me and not my friends.

As a result of the six votes to delete by User:Rook_wave and the five votes to delete by User:Phr the biography of Tom Dorsch was deleted, even though Tom Dorsch is one of the best known chess politicians in the world. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tom Dorsch

User:Phr is completely different from User:Rook_wave. User:Rook_wave is a German who lives in Germany. He does not seem to know anything about chess. Paul Rubin, a/k/a User:Phr, on the other hand is a very well known Bay Area chess personality, who has obvious animosity towards other Bay Area chess personalities. So, even though User:Phr and User:Rook_wave do not know each other, they team up and attack the same targets, which is in this case me.

User:Phr has substantially deleted or modified in a negative way the biographies of the following Bay Area chess personalities: Tom Dorsch, Batchimeg Tuvshintugs, Eric Schiller, John W. Donaldson and Elena Donaldson. He also substantially deleted the biography of Edward G. Winter who is known for his attacks on Eric Schiller whom User:Phr does not like.

Two days ago, User:Phr posted an AfD for speedy deletion for the biographies of Bessel Kok, Ali Nihat Yazici, Julio Cesar Ingolotti, Panupand Vijjuprabha, and Geoffrey Borg only five minutes after these biographies were first posted. These are all important personalities in their respective countries: Belgium, Turkey, Paraguay, Thailand and Malta. He got these biographies deleted by administrators who obviously did not know who they were, except for the first biography. When he was unable to get an administrator to delete the biography of Bessel Kok, he deleted almost all the content himself except for just a few lines.

In addition, Paul Rubin posted modifications to his own biography, which is a violation of Wikipedia rules.

This is a major dispute which has already lasted for more than three months and is not going to end, especially with the World Chess Olympiad starting in Torino, Italy on May 20. Therefore, the arbitration committee should consider this dispute. Sam Sloan 10:15, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Phr

Sloan goes on at length about Usenet posts and makes mostly-wrong personal allegations about me that are irrelevant to Wikipedia. I'll skip most of the non-Wikipedia stuff for brevity but will state that I don't know Tom Dorsch in person beyond having met him at chess tournaments once or twice in the early 1990's and spoken to him for a total of maybe one minute. I'm familiar with Dorsch's USCF activities mostly through Usenet. I'll also say that since Sloan posts his Wikipedia articles to Usenet, it shouldn't surprise anyone that Usenet readers spot the errors and come to Wikipedia to fix them. Also: Rook_wave is an internationally rated chessplayer of equivalent strength to a US national master [65], so the statement that he knows nothing about chess is absurd.

I declined mediation because Sloan's RFM [66] asked for a "cease and desist" order against Rook_wave and myself, and that's outside the scope of what mediators can do. I'd actually be willing to enter a mediation process that could do that (i.e. one that could result in an agreement binding on Sloan and me and enforceable by admins), but Wikipedia does not have such a thing right now. As for the specific charges:

  1. Louis Blair (below) linked to the Tom Dorsch DRV [67] which was one of several places where the multiple vote and sockpuppet issue was explained to Sloan. Sloan's earlier RFAR [68] may also be of interest.
  2. Sloan recently took it on himself to campaign for Bessel Kok's slate of candidates in the upcoming FIDE election [69]. He put a biography of Panupand Vijjuprabha (one of Kok's team) on Wikipedia, that was an obvious campaign piece that included stuff like Vijjuprabha's phone number. I felt this was non-notable so I made an AfD nomination to get community opinion (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Panupand Vijjuprabha). I then noticed the article was pasted verbatim from Kok's group's web site [70] without attribution, so I noted that (and gave the link) in the AfD. The bio was speedied as a copyvio a few minutes later.
  3. Sloan copied several more bios from the same source over the next hour. I entered SD requests for these, giving the source links [71]. These too were speedied (Ali Nihat Yazici, Julio César Ingolotti, and Geoffrey Borg). I also briefly put up a SD request for Bessel Kok (mentioning his higher notability), but I then saw that Kok's bio contained a mixture of copied and non-copied material, so I took down my SD request and edited out the copied material. Except for Kok and Yazici, these people are non-notable (a few hundred Google hits at most).
  4. Sloan apparently in retaliation for the above deletions then put up a stupid attack bio about me (Paul Rubin) full of incorrect factoids. I entered an SD request (noting that I was the subject of the article) and put db-bio and db-attack tags at the top of the article, but I didn't modify the article text. I felt at the time that this procedure was ok. Sloan removed the tags and I didn't restore them. Another editor (at my request) then looked at the article and put in a db tag, and the article was speedied a few minutes later.
  5. My edit to the Eric Schiller article was to briefly explain a term related to Schiller's academic work [72]. That Sloan sees this as a substantial negative modification indicates ownership issues on Sloan's part, WP:OWN. I'll add that I like Schiller just fine.
  6. Batchimeg Tuvshintugs is a chess player who placed 27th out of 32 in her section of the recent US championship, but scored several surprising upset victories over grandmasters in the early rounds, possibly because she was unknown and they underestimated her when they sat down to play. She then lost the rest of her games in the later rounds. Sloan wrote a puff-piece promotional bio ("I see no harm in trying to bring some publicity to a new player by saying that her result is 'perhaps' the best result for five games of any woman player in chess history" [73], i.e. Sloan decided he saw no harm in using Wikipedia as an outlet for public relations propaganda). I and another editor worked on the article to bring it closer to neutrality.
  7. John W. Donaldson and Elena Akhmilovskaya were (respectively) a US and a then-Soviet player, who met at a series of international chess tournaments in the 1980's and became romantically involved at those events. In 1988 at the chess Olympiad in Greece, they eloped and got married, and incident got wide press coverage (the elopement was necessary because it was hard for Soviets to get exit visas from the USSR in those days). The newlywed couple was interviewed many times and consistently denied any political motivation behind the marriage. But the two Wikipedia articles described EA's entry to the US as a defection, which has political overtones. I changed "defected" to "emigrated" in EA's article, a 3-second edit turning a POV term to a neutral one, the kind of easy incremental improvement that keeps Wikipedia moving towards reliability, and made a similar type of edit in the JD article. Sloan rv'd the edits saying (with no documentation) that it really was a political defection [74], a contentious claim that insinuates that the Donaldsons had entered a marriage of convenience. I felt I had to fix the article because as a chess buff, I remembered the incident, but not many other Wikipedia editors were likely to recall such a thing. I then spent 1/2 an hour digging up an old newspaper article and adding a cite about how the couple met. This is a good example of Wikipedia's "Sloan problem". Since Sloan was the one wanting to use a contentious term, he, not me, should have been the one spending his time that way. Editors like Sloan discourage the small easy incremental improvements that Wikipedia depends on, by turning them into instances of "no good deed goes unpunished".

I actually do find Sloan's writing entertaining and sometimes informative, and I read it with interest (and many grains of salt) on Usenet and on his web site. Wikipedia is just not the right place for it, given its lack of sourcing (WP:V), its reliance on Sloan's personal knowledge (WP:NOR), and its opinionated approaches (WP:NPOV). I haven't had serious problems directly with Sloan til now. This is not an off-wiki dispute that spilled here; it's more like the other way around.

Although Sloan's filing of this RFAR didn't follow normal procedures, I hope that wouldn't be displeased if it's accepted and some measure is taken against Sloan (whether blocking, mentorship, or whatever), for the reasons I gave in his RFAR against Rook_wave, below. Louis Blair suggested the "users who exhaust the community's patience" clause in WP:BLOCK. Sloan has announced his intention to post more of his "biographies" for the upcoming Olympiad and they're likely to be full of his usual confabulation, each one a potential Seigenthaler incident in its own right, and I dread this. The situation is quite bad. Phr 05:41, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Rook wave

Comment by Sjakkalle

I would recommend to Sam Sloan that he refrain from filing requests for arbitration for a while. He has made a number of reasonable and valuable contributions to chess articles, but the fact is that many of them, especially biographies of living people lack adequate cited sources and don't comply with a neutral point of view. This is the reason many of his articles are trimmed down, or deleted outright as was the case with Tom Dorsch. For instance, if we look at the initial revisions of the Bessel Kok article, one which almost looks like a campaigning piece for his election, we see an attack on the current FIDE president Ilyumzhinov, accusing him of bribery. Again, the article lacks sources.

That articles don't remain the way we created them, and that some of the changes are ones we dislike is something all Wikipedia editors need to live with, indeed the editing screen says in big bold writing: "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it."

Sloan has previously filed an RFAr against the very dilligent and fair administrator Howcheng, and has filed another RFAr further down on this page very similar to this one. What we have here is a content dispute, or perhaps a off-wiki dispute which has spilled over to Wikipedia. If it's a content dispute it should be noted that in very many cases consensus has not been favorable to Sloan's revisions. Also, bringing this to arbitration when there is hardly any edits to the other parties' user-talkpages is, at the very least, premature. If it's an off-wiki dispute, it should remain off-wiki. I do not think that such disputes are the purview of Wikipedia's arbitration comitee. Therefore, I recommend rejection of this case as well, if not I think the case would be more about Sloan than the other parties Sloan has listed. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:08, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by an outsider

In his request for review of the Tom Dorsch deletion decision, Sam Sloan made similar claims about multiple votes. In response to such claims, Howcheng wrote, "recounting the votes on the discussion page shows only one legitimate keep vote, which is Mgm and seven valid delete votes: Jareth, Phr, Olorin28, Titoxd, TheRingess, Parallel or Together, pgk. I did not count any votes by anonymous users, as well as Andrew Zito (who just had some weird anti-Wikipedia rant) and Billbrock, who has a history with [Sam Sloan]." (17:00, 6 March 2006 (UTC)) Rook wave wrote, "That I voted six times is of course ... just plain wrong. I made comments ..., but only voted once, as can be easily verified." (19:50, 7 March 2006 (UTC)) For details, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ADeletion_review&diff=43217170&oldid=43215421

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tom_Dorsch - Louis Blair (March 20, 2006)

Comment by Olorin28

I first contacted the article Tom Dorsch after a request for comment was filed, I believed by Rook Wave. Ater a glance at the article, and other articles written by Sam Sloan, it became very clear to me that he was using Wikipedia to express his point of view. The biographies he wrote about various chess personas consisted 90 percent of personal attacks, gossips and rants gleaned from what he called "reliable sources" from usenet. While I do not believe that the similar cases to that of Siegenthaler will surface here, I believe that the articles Sam Sloan writes are completely one-sided and expressed significant biase. Rook Wave, I believe, is correct in removing most of the attacks and rants from these articles. The request by Sam Sloan for Rook Wave to stop editing his articles is simply detrimental to the well-being of Wikipedia. Olorin28 03:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by JzG

To state the obvious, non-admin users cannot "delete" articles, they can only edit them or propose their deletion. The fact that Sam Sloan's contributions are often tendentious is a key contributory factor in their reversion or deletion, as noted above. It is telling that Sloan's response to this ios to raise complaints about the editors, administrators and processes which oppose his actions, rather than to adopt a more neutral editing style.

Sloan's description of the content and history of the Tom Dorsch article bears only the most superficial resemblance to the truth. The article was a blatant attack on a person for whom Sloan clearly bears considerable animosity. For any non-admins, and to save the trouble of dredging in the deleted history, here is an example paragraph:

His problem was that, although he usually won, whenever he won big he would go out and buy a steak dinner at a fancy restaurant and spend his winnings. If he won even more, he would go to Tijuana, Mexico, where he would check out the whorehouses and the strip clubs, with an eye for the donkey shows. He even got to know some of the girls who performed in these animal acts on a first name basis. He would spend all his gambling winnings and, as a result, when he lost, he would not have any backup money to get back into the game.

And:

Therefore, Dorsch tried to hustle the weak games in the game room at the ASUC Student Union building on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. His problem there was that the impoverished students he beat at poker often did not pay their gambling debts.

Sloan edit-warred over this article, including edit summaries like reverted Edits by User:Jareth. She obviously knows nothing about the subject and has no business repeatedly vandalizing this article.

The deletion of the Dorsch article was partly the result of a lack of any credible evidence of notability, and partly because experienced editors apparently felt that the effort of fighting Sam Sloan's "ownership" was not worth the effort for this minor character. Even editors who felt that Dorsch does nose over the line into notability voted to delete the article and start again later.

I commend to Sam Sloan the following: WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a soapbox. I do not believe I am alone in seeing strong evidence of Sam Sloan extending to his Wikipedia contributions the strong agenda he has outside of Wikipedia. The solution is not for those who disagree with Sloan to stop editing, it's for Sloan to stop adding tendentious content. And Sam, sometimes when everybody tells you that you are wrong, it's because you are wrong. Just zis Guy you know? 10:18, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Thorri

Sam Sloan has publicly stated that "I hate Dorsch so I write garbage about him" and "my job is to smear everyone who doesn't support Goichberg and Schultz". [75] (scroll down) --TonyM ｷﾀ━( °∀° )━ｯ!! 18:18, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In fairness to Sam Sloan, it should be mentioned that there DOES appear to be a person who posts fake Sam Sloan notes from addresses like "[email protected]" (probably chosen to make fun of those who claim that Sam Sloan deserves to be considered a journalist). In general, the source addresses for the notes seem to hint at their non-authentic nature. On 30 Dec 2005 07:50:03 -0800, "[email protected]" posted a rec.games.chess.politics note that openly declared, "[No Sloan postings, and no fake Sloan postings.] That's what you'll get if Sloan stops posting in 2006." On 30 Dec 2005 08:22:17 -0800, Taylor Kingston addressed the author of the apparently fake Sam Sloan notes: "While in general your negative view of Sam Sloan is quite justified, your practice of filling the newsgroups with childish, asinine comments is pointless and annoying. The crude, hopelessly inept attempts at parody tarnish your own image more than they do his. You may succeed in doing something Sam by himself could not possibly do -- arouse sympathy for him." The I-write-garbage quote (mentioned by Thorri) came from [email protected]. - Louis Blair (March 21, 2006)
I confirm that what Louis Blair said above is true. Phr 01:49, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/3/0/0)

  • Reject; nothing for the ArbCom here. AfD nominations, speedy deletions for copyvios, content editing disputes, all proceeding as usual. Even if Sam Sloan were the authority he takes himself to be, that would cut no special ice on Wikipedia. Unsourced gossip being cut is a good thing, as Sam should note well. Charles Matthews 18:03, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject. Dmcdevit·t 02:08, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject. James F. (talk) 23:04, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Aucaman

Involved parties


All Parties are aware of this request

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Aucaman#Request_for_Arbitration

Statement by Robert McClenon as advocate

There is a difficult content dispute over the articles on the Persian people and Iranian people. An attempt has been made to resolve it by cabal mediation by mediator Fasten. This has not mitigated the dispute, because of the conduct of User:Aucaman, who has been consistently uncivil, and has engaged in personal attacks and revert wars, and has repeatedly been blocked for 3RR violations. Part of the problem seems to be that he considers any use of the word "Aryan" to be racist and so prohibited. There is a consensus that this word, in the context of the Iranian and Persian peoples, has a historically valid meaning. The fact that it was abused by Germans should not prevent its use in its original context. The behavior of Aucaman makes it difficult to resolve the content dispute. Robert McClenon 02:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Aucaman

First let me use this chance to make sure I was brought here for the right reasons.

If this is going to be an investigation of my conduct and my conduct alone, it's not going to get us anywhere:

  1. Some of the statements just made by User:Robert McClenon are blatantly false and show his unfamiliarity with this case. I've only been blocked once for violating 3RR and that was because I wasn't aware that I was reverting to an older version by just inserting a single word. I've also only made personal attacks once and only once and that was due to extreme provocation and under unusual circumstances. (I've provided a full explanation of it here and the case is now closed.)
  2. A quick look at my block log would reveal that my general conduct has been far less desruptive that the conduct of those who have so joyfully brought me here.

Based on the above two points, I would not accept any investigation of my conduct and my conduct alone.

But if this is going to be an honest forum for the discussion of some of the problems surrounding Iran-related articles, I will cautiously welcome it.

I'm also not sure why my name (and my name alone) is associated with this RfAR. As I explained, my conduct has not been as disruptive as some people want you to believe. Also, unlike what is sometimes claimed, I'm not the only person involved in this dispute. Many users have supported my position at one time or another (too many to list here, but I can provide a list if asked). So, to reiterate, I don't think labelling this case with my name (and my name alone) is in any way fair and only reflects the bias of those who have set this up.

I would also like to mention that the dispute at Persian people has mainly failed because the other side refuses to even acknowledge that there's a dispute in place. They have repeatedly (on average, probably around once a day) removed any dispute tag placed in the article without ANY comment after the mediator asked for an explanation (I'm talking about the section titled "Please explain the demand to remove [...]"). My specific concerns in talk page have also been either repeatedly ignored or brushed aside with statements that directly violate WP:V and WP:NOR.

I would also like to point out that since I've been threatened to be brought here early into this dispute (even when I had a perfectly clean record), if the case is accepted, I expect some serious rulings. I come to Wikipedia to contribute to the articles, but for the last few weeks I've been doing nothing but reporting various personal attacks to admins, responding to various misunderstandings about me (some of which have been the result of User:Zmmz going around telling new users I have a Zionist agenda), and repeating my arguments in talk pages (because they were constantly ignored or trolled with nonsense). I view all of this (even this RfAR set-up against me) as yet another excercise in censorship by those who play childish games and constantly refuse to accept any changes I make to any articles (even the trivial edits that I'm sure they wouldn't have opposed if someone other than me was making them). If this is not stopped I'd have no choice but to stop contributing. AucamanTalk 14:43, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Zmmz

First and foremost, I would like to state that it was not my intention (at least not from the beginning) under [any] circumstances to try and ban someone who I or others may not agree with, and just try to censure that person (although at some point I may have been frustrated, for which I apologise) . After all, it’s a big world out there in Wikiland, and there is room for everyone here; even those who you may strongly disagree with. However, because of its recent popularity, Wikipedia can be used as a tool for some. Unfortunately, due to malicious comments made recently by the Iranian media about the Holocaust, and because that country is currently often in the media, the articles relating to it have attracted more than the [usual] share of *vandalism, ranging from your typical nonsense vandalism to attracting some **highly inappropriate political/cultural edits/comments. *[76] **Zora (talk · contribs):[77] **[78]

At the beginning I was invited to try to join the discussion in an article called Persian people, and I was warned that a particular user, namely Aucaman, has an issue with the use of the word Aryan [79] and/or Indo-European in many articles[80][81][82]. Apparently this has been going on long before I joined Wiki. Although at the start I took Aucaman`s concerns seriously, and tried to be understanding of his grievances, soon it became apparent that the tone of the user’s behaviour spoke of that of an unconditionally inflexible one. Nevertheless, the turning point was when as a history buff I personally tried to intervene and submitted some archeological evidence, and in return Aucaman gave a shocking excuse as a reason for his refusal[83].

I then tried to seek a third opinion[84][85], set-up a Mediation Cabal [86] (both were requested from neutral users, Khoikhoi, then Fasten), and lastly an Rfc[87], but all have failed, which may be a testament to Aucaman`s unwillingness to compromise.

User Aucaman is an intelligent, and savvy Wikepedian, who is well-connected here, but who regrettably tries to indirectly involve other users into what seems like a never-ending-cycle: he refuses to reason in the discussion pages, reverts the articles, then if anyone tries to revert it back, he accuses them of not participating in the discussions, provokes them, and frivolously reports multiple users (often unmerited), sometimes simultaneously to admins for following him around[88], or files false 3rr reports [89][90][91] etc., etc.

In all Aucaman,

  • Games the system, e.g., contacts and seeks the sympathy of the admins etc.[92][93]
  • Refuses to accept authoritative references (the last two diffs are outright refusals by a **User:Zora who sometimes helps Aucaman).[94][95][96]
  • He is eminently unreasonable: too rigid, cannot work and/or compromise with others [97][98][99] (apparently his disruptiveness spills into a spectrum of articles, and may have concerned outsider editors who have no contributions to articles about Persia) [100][101][102][103][104][105]
  • Inserts controversial comments into articles, e.g., to this date trying to relate Persia with Nazi Germany etc.[106][107].
  • Is involved in Civility infractions [108][109][110].

I do not take particular pride in having the possible banning of any user on my conscious; in fact, perhaps a final warning or an ultimatum may do the job. However, as I have stated from the start, to be fair, please look into all sides, but, do get involved and investigate the matter further. No reasonable chance: I am now convinced that the only authority who user Aucaman will actually respond to, is; ArbCom.Zmmz 02:46, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by semi-involved party LukasPietsch

While I agree there may be an issue about "stubbornness" on Aucaman's part, I believe that the claimant(s) is/are to a very large part themselves to blame for the escalation. Their previous actions against Aucaman have been highly unfair. In scrutinizing Zmmz' behaviour, it will be necessary to widen the case to include at least also ManiF (talk · contribs) and Khashayar Karimi (talk · contribs) (sig. "Kash"), who have acted in close concert with Zmmz throughout this dispute; and perhaps (more indirectly) also Zereshk (talk · contribs), who is central to the tradition of POV warring over Iran-related articles that forms its background.

I will show that:

  1. Zmmz' allegations against Aucaman's personal behaviour are largely groundless.
    1. There was one single instance where Aucaman lost his temper under provocation, answered an ethnic slur with another, then retracted ([111]); this was later blown out of proportion by his opponents, who flooded talk pages with complaints until days later, until they were themselves warned of blocking for disruption;
    2. This incident occurred after Zmmz et al. had brought the RfC against Aucaman; the original list of alleged incivility infractions by him contained nothing substantial whatsoever.
    3. It is characteristic of the low quality of Zmmz' evidence that he let Robert reproduce a blatantly false allegation of previous 3RR blocks against Aucaman here at Arbcom, even when the error had been pointed out and Zmmz had been forced to apologize over it previously.
    4. Zmmz himself has a much worse record than Aucaman of 3RR blocks, vexatious complaints or baseless 3RR or "vandalism" allegations.
  2. Zmmz' et al. are largely themselves to blame for the failure of the Cabal Mediation.
    1. Aucaman was not acting against unanimous consensus; there were several editors who expressed at least partial support for his views.
    2. Zmmz et al brought the RfC against Aucman while the mediation was still running.
    3. Unlike Aucaman, who responded positively to suggestions by the mediator, Zmmz hardly engaged in constructive discussions of compromise proposals, but filled the mediation with personal accusations instead.
    4. Zmmz et al effectively stopped communicating with the mediator shortly after he pointed out to them that he could find no value in their accusations ([112], [113]).
  3. This case is part of a long-standing dangerous tendency among a group of Iranian editors to form an organized faction, the "Iranian Watchdog".
    1. Characteristic is the functioning of their "notice board", which until recently included a daily "alerts" list and even a blacklist of anti-Iranian users "to keep a watch on". This was discussed on the RfC and WP:AN as highly problematic, and has since been partly cleaned up.
    2. However, this doesn't solve the problem. There is still a deeply entrenched tendency among this group of referring to opponents as "attackers", "vandals", "haters of Iran" etc., showing that they regard the representation of views opposing theirs on Wikipedia as ipso facto illegitimate.

My own role: I was uninvolved until 13 March, and have kept out of the content dispute except for a single attempt at a compromise suggestion. I filed a critical "Outside View" to the RfC. Since then, criticism between Zmmz and me has escalated to a point where we both have accused each other of harassment and similar things. I leave it to Arbcom to decide whether they want to treat me as a party to the dispute for this reason, or as a mere "outside view". Lukas (T.|@) 10:44, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by semi-involved party Zora

I suppose I'm involved -- though only in the last act of the drama as it relates to Aucaman. So here's my view.

Aucaman has been fighting a long lonely fight against a cadre of Iranian editors; he's stubborn, occasionally angry, and perhaps not quick-witted in thinking of compromises and workarounds. He will, however, accept compromises when a neutral party proposes them. If he were editing with another group of people, he would probably be perceived as a steady, collegial fellow.

Unfortunately, he's gone head-on against people who will not accept any compromises and will not listen to his remonstrances.

Aucaman's bête noire is the insistence of the Iranian editors on describing their supposed ancestors as "Aryans". Aucaman argues that the word is academically deprecated, both because of the Nazi connotations, and because the term, in English, is inexact. It has been used for speakers of Proto-Indo-European (PIE), Indo-Iranian, Indo-Aryan, and Old Persian languages. Whenever the word is used in English, it is unclear which of these groups is meant. [114]

However, the Iranian editors feel that the term Aryan is frequently used in the Persian language, it means Iranian, there is no stigma attached, and therefore there is nothing wrong with using it in English [115]. They rest their case on various dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Here [116], Zmmz argues that encyclopedias and dictionaries are the final authorities, and anyone who disagrees should be banned or warned. Citations from other encyclopedias [117] [118] and Harvard professors [119] (referring to this article [120]) saying that the word "Aryan" is deprecated fail to move the Iranian editors.

Wikipedia's usual method for dealing with intractable disagreements is to present all POVs and let the reader decide which is convincing. Neither side in this dispute is too keen on this, but Aucaman at least is willing to consider some verbal compromises.

Many of the Iranian editors, however, seem to share a belief that truth exists and that it is defined by the proper authorities, that WP's purpose is to explain the truth, and that conflicting views, which are by definition "untrue", should not be allowed in an encyclopedia. Those who resist the truth are willfuly going against consensus and "vandalizing" articles. Note this diff, [121], in which Zmmz invites an Iranian editor to join in guarding Iranian articles against "vandalism". Zmmz says that he is the spokesperson for this movement.

Zmmz believes that dictionaries and encyclopedias say that the term Aryan is legitimate, they are the authorities, and anyone who disagrees should be banned or warned [122].

Here, [123] Zora argues that newer, cutting-edge views should be allowed too; Zmmz says that dictionaries and encyclopedias are the final authority.

Zora reminds Zmmz that all notable views should be given space [124].

Zmmz argues that only the truth should be included in WP articles [125].

I don't agree completely with Aucaman -- I don't think he goes far enough in questioning 19th century ideas about Aryans. He objects to the term; I object to the assumption that speaking an Indo-European language implies Indo-European descent. But as far as he goes, he's right. He's supported by all the latest publications. His opponents, who seem to feel that no non-Iranians can tell them what to call themselves, rely on dictionaries and encyclopedias (not known for being cutting edge) and disregard any encyclopedias that contradict them.

Zmmz argues that Aucaman should be punished because he is uncivil and resists "consensus". I have seen few signs of incivility (other than an angry outburst, which he soon reverted, when an anon editor told him in Persian to "shut up, Jew") and a great deal of dogged persistence in resisting bullying. This is not an arbitration about behavior, it is driven by a content dispute. The dispute could be settled if the Iranian editors would allow dissenting views to exist on "their" articles. I hope that the Arbcom will ask them to stop bullying and to give opposing views houseroom.

Comment by SouthernComfort

This dispute began sometime in February when Aucaman began deleting any reference to the term "Aryan" (which is only used in relation to the ancient Aryan tribes) in articles such as Persian people [126] [127] and Iranian peoples [128] [129] - other editors opposed these deletions. There is a consensus against him and his opinion of the term as regards Iran-related articles, and yet he has continued edit warring over this issue, even when sources had been provided to provide context and justification, as well as involving other articles in addition to "Persian people." [130] I believe that this behavior is unacceptable and against the spirit of WP. SouthernComfort 09:10, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by InShaneee

There's been a lot of venom in this entire debate, and I hope that, if the ArbCom takes this case on, they take a broad view of the situation. While I do believe that Aucaman's behavior does merit a detailed investigation, the fact is that this discussion has brought on a lot of personal attacks that have led to a systematic campaign to have Aucaman and (to a lesser extent) User:Diyako banned. I believe the only way to get a full view of this dispute and, in fact, to bring the bitterness of it to a close, would be to expand this to also look at the conduct of some of the others involved in this, namely the aforementioned User:Diyako, User:Khashayar Karimi, User:69.196.139.250, and User:Manik666, and also look at what has transpired on such articles as Kurdistan, Turkish Kurdistan, and others. Just a cursory look at recent activity should show that this problem is bigger than just one user. --InShaneee 22:16, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Khoikhoi

This whole ordeal started when Aucaman got into a revert war with an anon. Aucaman wanted to add a dispute tag to the Origins section of the Persian people page. This eventually escalated to an extremely large amount of debate on the talk page, mainly over the word Aryan and its use in the article. I entered the dispute by attempting to resolve the conflict between Aucaman and the other Iranian users, but after awhile it was clear that Aucaman was unwilling to compromise. To this day he has attempted to remove the paragraph that he disputes, for example on March 19. An "abundant amount of sources" (all of them academic) have been presented to him many times, but he simply dismisses them as "irrelevant". I don't have a problem with his opinions, what I do have a problem with is he sees the use of the word Aryan in Iran-related articles as Anti-Semitism. [131] [132]. As a Jew, I understand that the word has two meanings, and simply because the Nazis messed up its meaning in the West does not mean that's how it is worldwide. Edits such as these are unnecessary, and people will only continue to get mad at him if he continues. --Khoikhoi 01:19, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I second the above comment.--Zereshk 06:19, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Outside view by user:Cool Cat

Many parties are involved. I had no quarel with any of the parties inivolved including Aucaman. I however observed the exchange of incivilties between Aucaman, Diyako, as well as others on many occasions. My observation indicates that Aucaman tends to dominate or attemt to dominate the topic by dismissing anything he feels irrelevant.

I also am bugged by the article he created, Turkish Kurdistan which at least one other wikipedia editor, Gruntness, agrees with me that its a pov title.

--Cool CatTalk|@ 10:14, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (2/0/0/0)

User:Rook_wave vs. User:Sam_Sloan

Involved parties

All Parties are aware of this request
I have made a request for mediation in this dispute. Although User:Rook_wave did not respond here, he did state this morning over on the Usenet Group rec.games.chess.politics that he is refusing mediation of this dispute. Over there, he posts as "Ralf Callenberg".
This dispute has gone on for more than three months since early December, 2005 and it is obvious that User:Rook_wave and User:Phr have no interest in settling this dispute.

Statement by party 1

I am a recognized author and authority in the world of chess. Articles I have written have been published in virtually every major chess magazine in the world, including New In Chess, ChessBase, Chess Life, The Week in Chess, Chess Asia, Chess World, Schachs Europa, Shakhmary Riga and so on.

In early December, 2005 User:Rook_wave registered as a new user just so that he could blank an article I had posted. Ever since, every time I have posted an article about chess, he has deleted almost all of the content, usually leaving only one or two lines. He never edited on any other subject, other than to delete content from my articles, until about a week ago when in response to my complaints, he added one word to an article. Yesterday, he deleted most of an article I had written only two minutes after I had first posted it, and before I had even finished it. I stopped posting for a few months because of User:Rook_wave hoping he would go away. However, with the Chess Olympiad starting in Torino, Italy on May 20, it is neceessary that I be able to post some chess biographies, so that the public will know who the major players in this competition will be. Sam Sloan 21:21, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by party 2

User:Sam Sloan constantly misuses Wikipedia to distribute his point of view about several people, resulting in unsourced attacks, rants and gossip. My deletions concentrated on those parts, and they are also (with one small exception) limited to chess relevant articles, not his articles about other topics. At those occasions where there was at least a chance for sources, I explicitely asked for them, but not once Sam Sloan was able to provide a concrete one. I didn't agree on his mediation request as it didn't seem to be real, more a complaint about me and the threat to get me blocked. Up to now no real discussion between us developed, neither at Wikipedia nor in Usenet and regarding his concentration on ad hominem style arguing, I doubt this will ever change. Nevertheless I intend to continue with my changes, as I think most of his biographies are very poor examples of Wikipedia-articles and he disserves chess with those contributions. His latest concern is about the coming election of the FIDE-president. His recent biographies are filled with strong personal attacks on the current president (including claims of bribing and even threats of killings) and his staff and very positive articles about the challenger and his team, sometimes just copied from the campaign's web page.

Here you will find some of the changes I made:

Rook wave 22:58, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Party 3

Detailed statement TBD hopefully within a day or so if needed. Basically I support Rook_wave in all particulars. Also, I hope some measure is taken against Sloan (whether blocking, mentorship, or whatever) for burning up so much time of people who would rather be doing other things. Cleaning up after Sloan is a huge burden and any kind of relief would be welcome. Relatively few Wikipedians follow chess politics at all, so those of us who do are more or less forced into this duty and it's unwelcome. Phr 02:04, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sloan opened a separate RFAR against me and I responded to it. I'm not sure if I need to say anything else here. Phr 07:41, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum Someone deleted a remark from a concerned outside party: [138]. This looks like an irregularity to me, but I'm not sure of this. Phr 02:08, 20 March 2006 (UTC)Explained as self-revert. Phr 07:41, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to Statement by Party 2 User:Rook_wave

Here is exactly the problem: User:Rook_wave admits that he has deleted content from every posting I have made about chess in the past three months, more than 50 deletions in all, yet he admits elewhere that he knows nothing, zero, about the subjects I am writing about. He just goes about willy-nilly deleting almost everything I post, and he states that he will continue to do so.

He states above that I am not able to provide any concrete sources, but in fact I can. It is just that I should not be required to prove to him that I have sources, because he is not a policeman.

For example, he claims that I am attacking the current president of FIDE, by saying that Ignatius Leong accused Kirsan of threatening his life. However, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has been accused of more than just merely making threats of murder. He has been accused of the actual murder of Larisa Yudina (not by me, incidentally).

I am a journalist who has attanded and reported on many of the incidents that I am writing about, so I am an eye-witness to many of these events. In addition to my own published reports, numerous other journalists have written about these same events and their reports have been widely published in the chess magazines. For example, here are two official reports which deal with the incidents in Yerevan, Armenia in September-October 1996 where Ignatius Leong hid in Steve Doyle's hotel room, claiming that Kirsan was trying to kill him, and two days later Steven Doyle switched his vote in exchange for a Rolex watch and a FIDE Vice-Presidency:

https://listserv.surfnet.nl/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind9610&L=chess-l&P=562 https://listserv.surfnet.nl/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind9610&L=chess-l&P=2222

In short, User:Rook_wave who admits that he knows nothing about the subject and is merely targeting me, should not be allowed to delete or modify my postings. Sam Sloan 01:35, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from an outsider

I took the time to look at Sam Sloan's two links. They are both 1996 reports by Carol Jarecki. To focus on just one issue, in the second of the two reports, it states:

"On a Lighter Note: Sumo Wrestling
The highpoint of the day was when Andrei Makarov went up to get his ballot to vote. Steve Doyle met him just short of the stage, obstructing his passage, and they got into a 'belly-bumping' battle. It was hilarious and brought the house down. Then Makarov did the same to Steve when the USA was called. This time people were ready with cameras but I don't know where to get a copy of the photos. Then, because there were TV cameras there too and neither of them wanted it to look like there was any animosity involved, Makarov grabbed Steve's hand, faced the cameras both with broad smiles, and raised their hands together. They both were minus jackets since it was very warm so it made quite a picture. The cameras loved it."

This is what Sam Sloan wanted Wikipedia to say about the matter:

"Doyle achieved international notoriety in FIDE, the World Chess Federation, by engaging in a Sumo Wrestling Match against Makarov, the President of the Russian Chess Federation. Doyle, the lighter of the two contestants, lost the match, which is still remembered as one of the most notable sporting events ever in the history of FIDE."

Neither Carol Jarecki article said anything about a Rolex watch. - Louis Blair (March 19, 2006)

I support what was said above completely... I could not find any mention of Rolex watches or bribery. I think Rook wave has just been NPOVing the articles correctly and removing unsourced opinions... If anything, ArbCom should review Sam Sloan's edits. Sasquatch t|c 06:06, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The trouble with the suggestion of reviewing Sloan's edits is they aren't 99% bogus--it would be easy in that case to trash them as vandalism. And they're not 1% bogus, which would be within Wikipedia's normal margin of error and not a big problem. They're more like 20% bogus, which means that every single one of them has to be carefully verified (e.g.: compare Sloan's version of the sumo wrestling story with Jarecki's) before its quality can be judged, and this is difficult since Sloan rarely cites sources and many of the edits look somewhat reasonable at first glance. So even Sloan's "good" contributions create a workload for other editors that's more trouble than the contributions themselves are worth. Phr 13:46, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/3/0/0)

Katelyn Faber

Involved Parties


Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by party 1

User:Tufflaw has been making various attempts to censor information in articles that in any way mention or are otherwise dedicated to Katelyn Faber's rape allegation against Kobe Bryant. In December 2005, for example, Tufflaw attempted to have the entire article deleted, using extremely specious reasoning. Naturally, the result was to keep the article, since deleting the subject of a noteworthy criminal case is unjustified. Now, Tufflaw is trying to censor images of Katelyn Faber being added to the article, and since he/she cannot offer a single cogent, rational argument to justify this, or cite a relevant WP policy or guideline, he/she is removing the image, and refusing to respond directly to my refutations of his/her reasoning. Tufflaw has made exactly one attempt to cite a WP policy that he/she could use to justify this activity, but bizarrely, the policy in question does not say what she claims it does. I request you read the section on the Faber Talk Page titled, "Deleting Images" to see where this is going. Thank you. Nightscream 05:53, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by FloNight

This complaint involves the use of a tabloid style photo on the biography of an possible rape victim. I'm not sure there is an arb comm case. It looks more like a simple content dispute. I removed the image and asked that it not be re-inserted without consensus from a large number of experienced editors. (I have not edited the article before so I am not well-versed on the entire history of the dispute. Therefore, it is possible that there is something I missed.)

  • Additional information
I contacted Nightscream and he/she understands that this is premature. Other methods of of dispute resolution are underway. I'm very hopeful that this will be resolved without formal dispute resolution.

Statement by Tufflaw

This is WAY too premature for referral to arbcomm, and is at the very least extremely disingenuous of Nightscream, who did not bother to even notify me of this RFA, or mention it on the article's talk page. However, he found the time to individually contact arbitrators, [139], [140], [141], as well as spamming dozens of messages on various talk pages slandering me and attempting to rally support for his position - [142], [143], [144], [145], [146], [147], [148], [149], [150], [151], [152], [153], [154], [155], [156], [157], [158], [159], [160], [161], [162], [163], [164], [165], [166]. He mentions that I unsuccessfully listed the article for deletion in December as if that somehow negatively affects my credibility with respect to any edits I make to the article. Most of the opposing votes in that vote suggested to clean up the article, which I attempted to do. I strenuously disagree with Nightscream's claims on the talk page that I am engaging in some form of vandalism - I stand by every single one of my 1200+ edits I've made to this project, and not a single one is vandalism. I should also note that of the users who have since begun to respond to Nightscream's message blast, none only one of them believes that the photograph belongs in the article. This should be rejected as premature. Tufflaw 19:38, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question by TenOfAllTrades

Was there ever a request for comment on this issue, which seems to be a content dispute at its heart? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:43, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No there was never any other method of dispute resolution pursued. Tufflaw 19:47, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments related to Arbitrators' opinions

[Re. James F.'s reference to a content issue.]

The content dispute is settled. The image was deleted for copyright violation. Both sides in the dispute are fine with this outcome.
FloNight talk 12:37, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, it is merely a policy issue.
James F. (talk) 18:08, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/3/1/0)

I have strong negative opinions regarding publishing of the name or images of an alleged rape victim. Fred Bauder 13:31, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject; this is in parts a content issue, and in parts a policy issue. Either way, it is not an Arbitration case. And RfC might well help, certainly. James F. (talk) 11:55, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject; please demonstrate that earlier avenues in dispute resolution have been taken, or if not, take them. Dmcdevit·t 19:16, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject as above. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 21:07, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Benapgar

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by FeloniousMonk

Benapgar (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been chronically disruptive at the Intelligent design article, frequently violating WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, WP:CON, WP:POINT, WP:NPOV, WP:HAR, WP:NOR. He has engaged in many sustained, aggressive and distruptive Talk page campaigns flouting consensus in attempts to rewrite the article to fit his point of view. [173], [174], [175], [176] [177].

NOTE: The early history of the Talk:Intelligent design page was moved to Talk:Intelligent_design/Archive23 by an improper archiving in December. Benapgar's history at Talk:Intelligent design prior to December 2005 can be seen here: [178]

When his tendentious proposals fail to gain consensus, Benapgar frequently resorts to disruptive personal attacks against other editors, and been generally uncivil to anyone who objects to his POV or methods, and promotes strife by inciting others to disruption. Examples: [179], [180], [181], [182], [183], [184], [185], [186] This has resulted in a user conduct RFC, Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Benapgar, where he continued making personal attacks and dismissed the community's views. He has subsequently been blocked a number of times for chronic NPA violations, the last being for 1 month, ending 2 March 2006. Since his unblocking he has resumed his disruption of Talk:Intelligent design with numerous personal attacks and unending tendentious arguments.[187] [188] [189] [190] Despite warnings from admins, an RFC, and multiple blocks for NPA he shows no sign of letting up, but of spreading his disruption to other areas of the project. Arbitration is more than called for. FeloniousMonk 04:34, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ryan Delaney

I am the most recent admin to block Benapgar for personal attacks. For this diff, which was one in a string of serious personal attacks, where he enjoins another editor to "GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME YOU FUCKING PSYCHO."

  • 12:01, 27 January 2006 Ryan Delaney blocked "Benapgar (contribs)" with an expiry time of 1 month (Serial NPA violator; needs a long wikibreak)

Since this RFAr was brought, I've been reminded to check his recent edit history. From his last 20 edits:

  • [191] "Note that it also says the same thing about you: disingenuous or incompetent" -- also asserts that no one can censure him for personal attacks because it would be a double standard.
  • [192] Repeatedly states "If I wanted your advice I'd ask you for it."
  • [193] "Or perhaps you mean little interest from yourself and your Usenet buddy flamewarriors who've hijacked this article."

A little further back:

  • [194] "I accused editors of doing the above purposefully and maliciously--though not necessarily completely conciously--and accused them of having devious and underhanded motivations. I believe this is true and I am not ashamed of making these accusations."
  • [195] Asserts that he has been providing evidence to third parties of '"highly activist editors" being "unethical", and members of groups co-ordinating to edit Wikipedia'.

This user appears to be a chronic disruptive and disrespectful editor who, after many others have attempted to reason with him, given him chances to reform, and finally blocked him for extended periods, shows no signs of improvement whatever. --Ryan Delaney talk 06:08, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Cyde Weys

This user has been very disruptive and outright rude in relation to various articles. The statements above already cover most of this but I thought I had to have my say because this Ben guy attacked me very specifically. He took one of my posts from talk.origins and used it as "evidence" that there is some sort of "evolutionist" conspiracy on Wikipedia. Nevermind that I've never really edited intelligent design in any major way. The way he brought in something from outside of the Wiki and used it to attempt to attack me was very unexpected and multiple people brought it to my attention. --Cyde Weys 09:16, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:JoshuaZ

Despite repeated attempts to reason with Ben, and remind him of WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA he has repeatedly violated them and insulted me. He has also engaged in what is most probably wikistalking, disrupting two other abitrations that I am involved in, the Agapetos arbitration and the Gastrich arbitration. In both cases he has attempted to bring largely irrelevant information in from outside Wikipedia, in the case of Gastrich, very late in the proceedings, and has made multiple attacks based on this, including calling a request for information by me "spiteful." He has engaged in myriad other violations which the other parties have summarized well. This needs to stop. JoshuaZ 17:22, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ben

I welcome an investigation into my conduct and the conduct of those participating in this case. --Ben 12:46, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Guettarda

Ben has engaged in attacks which go beyond the pale as far as things I have seen in Wikipedia including "you're actually a meatpuppet or a troll and just pretend to be Christian so you can help the agenda-driven Atheists here", "because now I really am calling you a liar", and "You're either a piece of shit trying to troll me, or a piece of shit with an agenda. Either way: Piece of shit." I think that sums up his attitude pretty well. Guettarda 06:59, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (3/0/0/0)

Waya sahoni and WP:RS vs. SCOX and Linux Community Editors

Involved parties

Clerk note (3/0/0/0)

This case application has been moved to /Waya sahoni because of the bulk. Please add comments, arbitrator votes, etc, there, and they will be precised by clerks here.

Precis:

Waya sahoni requests an injunction of three months against certain parties editing the article Jeffrey Vernon Merkey, on the grounds that they injected poorly sourced content. Respondents claimed for the most part that this was a frivolous, disingenuous or ridiculous request. Some stated that they believed that Waya sahoni was actually Jeffrey Vernon Merkey himself. Waya sahoni withdrew the request for arbitration.
Fred Bauder voted to accept, primarily to consider whether the information in the article was adequately sourced, but also to consider the editing of Waya sahoni. He added "I think we need an affirmation of intent to avoid autobiographical editing, if a complete ban is to be avoided". Jdforrester and Dmcdevit have also voted to accept.
Waya Sahoni has stipulated that he is prepared to undergo a voluntary ban from editing Jeffrey Vernon Merkey in the form of a joint agreement with arbcom. He requests that the other involved editors be similarly banned from the article but be permitted to make contributions to the article's talk page, and that anyone who has stated that he's "here to stalk Jeff Merkey" be banned from following Waya sahoni or Jeffrey Merkey around Wikipedia to revert or deface their edits.

Currently there are three Arbitrator acceptance votes, no recusals, no rejections.

Last updated by --Tony Sidaway 06:23, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Requests for Clarification

Requests for clarification from the Committee on matters related to the Arbitration process.

Guanaco injunction

Is Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Guanaco, MarkSweep, et al/Proposed decision#Guanaco restricted from admin reversals intended to prohibit routine reversals such as un-semi-protecting pages after the vandals have left or enforcement of decisions on pages like Wikipedia:Deletion review? —Guanaco 23:35, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it comes down to a question of whether or not we think you'll try to use such an exception to game the system. Raul654 02:34, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion, yes. The injunction is intended to prohibit, while the case is being considered, any reversals of any admin actions. Wikipedia will not crumble and fall if you do not personally maintain it for the few days this case will be open. ➥the Epopt 03:45, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How much longer do you intend to drag this on? —Guanaco 04:06, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately for both you and me, there appear to be plenty of other cases, yours being one of the newest. Arbitration tends to be a game of patience. Dmcdevit·t 07:50, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, in my experience they can be quite speedy about things, at times. Everyking 08:10, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have no intention of gaming the system; I have better games to play, some of which are actually fun. —Guanaco 04:06, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RJII probation

Due to frequent, problematic disruption of the admin's noticeboard, such as reporting month old vandalism by a user he was engaged in a dispute with and repeatedly shouting, I considered banning RJII (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) from the page under the terms of his probation. However, the decision spefically uses the word "article"- Would this ban be covered by the probation, or would an amendment of the previous decision be necessary for a ban to take effect?--Sean Black (talk) 08:58, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see no problem with this, as it's in line with the spirit of our ruling. If he's being disruptive, he ought to be banned from it. RJII doesn't seem to be getting our message, however. You may want to bring consider, on AN, enacting the general probation for an appropriate length of time. Dmcdevit·t 09:06, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Given this, I have done so. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#RJII_Banned_from_AN_.26_AN.2FI Essjay Talk • Contact 10:06, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


CarlHewitt

If the anon 24.23.213.158 is CarlHewitt, then I believe he's violating Remedy 1 in editing Arbiter (electronics). — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 08:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain to me how that is autobiographical editing (and not just editing in his field)? Otherwise I don't see the justification for an IP check. Dmcdevit·t 09:28, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
He seems to have created the concepts, according to the references and previous discussions. But whether or not the Admins (or whichever level administers blocks) agree that his current edits are autobiographical, it should be noted that he and now Anonymouser may be Carl. See the history of Talk:Indeterminacy in computation for details. (Also, to whose attention should I bring questions of identity related to Arbitration remedies.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 16:10, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

These don't appear to check out as Carl Hewitt, according to the location of that ip. Fred Bauder 01:26, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I know Hewitt edited from User:67.142.130.28, both IPs are from California. I also find User:71.198.215.78's and User:24.147.9.238's edits suspicious. —Ruud 04:25, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There's little doubt in my mind that this is Hewitt; Bah, who cares. Not a massive land grab.--CSTAR 19:57, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Concur that User:71.198.215.78 sounds suspiciously like Carl, as does User:24.23.213.158. I don't see anything obvious in the contrib history for User:24.147.9.238 — did you mean someone else? --Allan McInnes (talk) 02:31, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
User:24.147.9.238 added an external link to MIT CSAIL to Scheme programming language, but I may be seeing ghosts here. —Ruud 02:38, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh my... User:Anonymouser. This guy removed the NPOV tag from Scientific Community Metaphor. —Ruud 02:12, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Wilkes, Wyss and Onefortyone case

The arbcom recently placed all three on probation, the latter over usage of sources, the former two over edit warring on the issue of allegations of homosexuality and bisexuality in articles. I have deliberately avoided entering the debate on the issue of sources because I do not have access to US biographies and magazines and so cannot prove either accuracy or inaccuracy. I have had to block both Wilkes and Wyss, the former a number of times, for clear breaches of their prohibition on editing biographical articles on allegations of homosexuality and bisexuality. The latter seens to have quit WP in a huff as a result. Wilkes however, while not editing articles, is using talk pages to mispresent onefortyone's probation by alleging that Onefortyone was convicted of lying by the arbcom. See also here. In fact the decision of the arbcom related to the reliability of sources, not lies.

Probation explicitly mentions articles. That could be interpreted narrowly to include just the article and not the talk page, or broadly to include the talk page, given that the talk page discusses and shapes the contents of the article. The arbcom ruling explicitly uses the word "broadly". Does this mean that three admins may also impose restrictions on the edits placed in talk pages dealing with the areas (homosexuality and bisexuality) that Wilkes is prohibited from editing. Wilkes has clearly breached Wikipedia ettiquette but has he breached the implicit conditions of his probation by posting allegations that another user who was the subject of an arbcom ruling is a "convicted liar" when that is a distortion of the arbcom ruling? FearÉIREANN\(caint) 23:48, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The ruling does not make "article" explicit with regard to the newest remedy. That general probation is to apply as a full ban. Any three admins can ban him (as in a block-ban, not ban-from-an-article) for a year or less. This "good cause" can include any kind of disruption, certainly the kind you are describing, if three admins agree. Dmcdevit·t 00:02, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Never letting the thing go, on and on and on, focusing on that one issue is certainly disruptive. I think the gist of the decision is that it is not up to either of them to police Onefortyone. Fred Bauder 02:07, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Everyking 3

The only thing it says under the heading "Enforcement" in Everyking 3 is that Snowspinner does not get to enforce the remedies . So does anybody else, and if so how? Everyking is for instance right now violating Remedy 3, "Everyking is prohibited from making comments on non-editorial actions taken by other administrators other than on the administrator's talk page, a Request for comment, or a Request for arbitration", by attacking my actions at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates.[196], [197] .From my point of view the worst part is that he's making my life more difficult by encouraging a problem user and offering to enable further disruption from him. So, er, is my only recourse here to make sure that Snowspinner doesn't enforce the remedy? It seems a little limited. Bishonen | ノート 22:52, 21 March 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Be careful, EK might seize this "opportunity" to rant about this decision. --TML1988 22:55, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The default, unless specified otherwise, on all arbcom rulings is that any administrator can enforce the rulings with short blocks if they see fit. In this case, it is any administrator who is not me. So you can feel free to use a short block here. Phil Sandifer 22:56, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
He can be blocked for disruption, Bish. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:58, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
He clearly knows he's violating the decision, and is willfully violating it and hoping no one will enforce it. Block him for a week. Next time he does it, block him for longer. Raul654 23:06, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't block him. It does seem rather surprising that a single admin declares that she is banning a particular user from a particular page (the ban in itself may well be warranted, I just don't remember seeing a ban created like that). Questioning this seems reasonable and not worthy of a week's block. Haukur 23:17, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Haukur, it's a bit surprising and it was reasonable to ask. Therefore I restored Everyking's question that Bunchofgrapes had removed as being a violation of Everyking 3 (it was a violation of EK 3, but I went with common sense and IAR in restoring it). And I replied to his question. So far so good, but even though I specifically pointed out that I didn't mean my restoration as a precedent for him, EK went right ahead and posted again, this time not asking any question, but sharing his opinion of my action (bullying) and reiterating that he would help User:Eternal Equinox evade it. I don't know Will's exact blocking rationale, but for my money it's not the questioning, but the comment--the second post--that deserves blocking. It's not the first time EK tries to trip me up while abetting and enabling a user who's harming the encyclopedia, and I'm fed up with his "friendly fire". Bishonen | ノート 00:20, 22 March 2006 (UTC).[reply]
Hmm, yes, he did make serious accusations against you (and you against him). And by the E3 ruling that entitles you to bring up the matter here and have him blocked which you have now done. That's not what I would have expected you to do but you're certainly within your rights. Haukur 00:35, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is, EK "is prohibited from making comments on non-editorial actions taken by other administrators other than on the administrator's talk page, a Request for comment, or a Request for arbitration", and that's exactly what this is all about. Any violation of this Arbitration decision constitutes a block. --TML1988 23:24, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
User:Will Beback has blocked him for a week. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:26, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflicts) It doesn't matter who reports it. The diffs provided indicate violations of the ArbCom's decision. "Questioning" is exactly what got Everyking in trouble before. Please read over the Arbcom case to see the details. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Everyking 3. I blocked Everyking for a week. -Will Beback 23:34, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This all seems quite harsh to me. A whole week? With James' current edit rate that's going to cost us something like 500 good uncontroversial edits. Is that worth it? Haukur 23:40, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ask Everyking if it was worth it, then. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:50, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you'd like to debate the ArbCom's decision, then go ahead. I believe they felt that the cost to the project of Everyking's disruptive questioning of admins outweigh the benefits. Everyking is well aware of the terms of the case and will not be blocked if he follows them. It is reasonable to expect that ArbCom decisions will be followed. -Will Beback 23:55, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We all lose, not just James. Haukur 00:07, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
He violated the ruling last night too, Haukurth. He's boundary-testing. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:30, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I'm more concerned with Mercian kings than ruffled admin feathers ;) But you will do what you feel you must do, I seem to be in a party of one at the moment. Haukur 00:50, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Everyking's contributions are appreciated, I've given him a barnstar myself. But they are not an entitlement disrupt other admins. We all remember affectionately Everyking's assertion that (my paraphrase), "You can't block me, I've got a 5,000-entry watchlist that needs my attention". Nobody here is a prima donna. -Will Beback 02:03, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Raul654 appears to have unblocked him. Let's hope that's that for now. Time to get back to work now. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:18, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jason Gastrich

Could you all take a boo at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Jason_Gastrich#confused_by_remedies ? Should the ban be concurrent with the rest of the remedies? Is that what you guys meant to do? Is it more of a drowned AND hung remedy, or did you mean all the other stuff to start after the ban lapses? Thanks! (moved the substance of this from Mindspillage's talk page) ++Lar: t/c 03:55, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion would be that the ban puts everything else on the back-burner for a year. I would say that they come in force after the year's ban is completed. Sam Korn (smoddy) 22:50, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Motions in prior cases

(Only Arbitrators may make such motions)


Archives

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