Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Hrafn

User:Hrafn

Request that user be asked to stop tagging articles and that an admin try and enforce this. He/she says that this is an ownership issues that I may be blocked for ([1]), but I believe his tags are quite impartial and done not so much as to aid wikipedia as to pester me, because of our ongoing dispute resolution ([2]) and other encounters such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/McDonald's Menu Song. --Firefly322 (talk) 08:42, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

• tags
• reason for tags
• third party editor reinstating tag
• personal attack calling me a "troll"

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 08:55, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Firefly, as your second link shows you've started mediation as a dispute resolution, and despite requests have failed to provide diffs clarifying what your dispute is.[3] The fact that others have problems with your woolly writing is something to resolve by improving your writing, not by flying off into disputes whenever that's pointed out. Disclaimer: I'm named in Firefly's mediation case, but lacking diffs I'm not sure why. . . dave souza, talk 09:08, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree, basically, with Dave s. I don't see the "issue" here. Yeah, Hrafn and Firefly disagree on some stuff. That ain't newsworthy. Nobody is trolling anybody here, based on the links provided. This is a non-issue thread, and should be closed. If Firefly has a specific issue with an editor, F-fly should bring it to that editor's attention prior to bringing it to the drama-board. Keeper ǀ 76 01:36, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree, essentially. The majority of this dispute seems to arise from a misunderstanding of Verifiability policy, particularly WP:BURDEN. I don't think that uncited material should be restored pending verification, and I certainly don't think an editor should be reprimanded for removing uncited material. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 22:51, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Comments by Catherineyronwode

The following is taken from the current version of my own AN/I proposal against hrafn, located on my own user pages.

(removed to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Hrafn by Orderinchaos 07:30, 12 September 2008 (UTC))

catherine yronwode Catherineyronwode (talk) 22:03, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

tl;dr. Take it to dispute resolution. Corvus cornix_talk 22:46, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

o.O I think you've mistaken ANI for requests for comment, at the least, or arbitration. Kudos for the substantial amount of evidence gathering here, but ANI's not the place for such lengthy presentations. I suggest an RFC if there's a specific issue with hrafn that needs discussion. Tony Fox (arf!) 22:56, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Can someone please remove this? Verbal chat 22:59, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree; it's a nightmare of comprehension and deserves dedicated attention. No way is it an "incident". Suggest at best a subpage, otherwise moving to a Request for Comment. This page is for issues that can be dealt with expeditiously. --Rodhullandemu 23:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

<outdent>Okay, must i make a Request for Comments first or can this go directly to Arbitration? Please post a yes or no reply. If i must make a Request for Comments first, please tell me how to do it. If i can take this directly to Arbitration, please tell me the relevant URL. Wikipedia is not my social outlet; i use it as a volunteeer area to write and edit. I am not interested in bureaucracy (e.g. how this MUD is run), and although i have edited here regularly since 2006 (and since 205 as an IP), i do not know how to make headway in this twisty turny maze of similar-sounding-but-entirely-different "We Can't Help You With That Problem" pages. I request the URL of the page where there will be people whose job it is to read this complaint and see that this problem be dealt with. Thanks. cat yronwode

I believe that that is common practice except in extraordinary cases, yes. Of course, nobody has the job of dealing with user complaints, but a number of friendly volunteers may be motivated to treat with you and discuss intereditor issues at a request for comment. Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Request comment on users has the instructions for posting an RfC/U. The request itself should be posted to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct. Please keep in mind that all normal user conduct policies and norms apply to requests for comment, including no personal attacks and no harassment. - Eldereft (cont.) 05:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I've copied it across to RFC - it can't go straight to ArbCom until efforts have been made to resolve the matter through some form of dispute resolution. If the RFC is sufficiently decisive and no change of behaviour is noticeable, then it could go to ArbCom if need be. Catherine's welcome to edit it to get it into the right form before it is listed and goes live (also needs a second observer of the situation to certify it in order for it to be a valid RfC). I have no opinion either way on the matter, but AN/I is definitely the wrong place for it - AN/I is a high traffic area where stuff moves through in the blink of an eye, this would have simply ended up in some forgotten archive within 2 days. Orderinchaos 07:34, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Hrafn (talk · contribs) has now retired, according to his user page, but if someone skilled with POV battles is looking for something to consider, I'd suggest going through this case - it looks like there's a problem here, but it's awfully detailed. Tony Fox (arf!) 15:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Not too sure this is resolved, despite Hrafn's retirement...Isn't there a saying about dancing on graves? --Smashville^BONK! 18:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

This is a sad case where three or four, dare I say "cabal"...no better not, unrelated editors...oh wait a minute, they're not. Let me start again, there are three or four editors who think that original research is sufficient for placing their POV on articles. Typical of Wikipedia's broken system, instead of understanding that their edits are POV, they game the system through MEDCOM, ARBCOM, RfC, whatever else they can use, which frustrates editors. Hrafn is a great editor. He dealt with arcane subjects on this encyclopedia that we have to clean up. There was a personality clash. There was mild uncivil comments from both sides. Then the three or four editors dancing on Hrafn's grave on this ANI started wikistalking and moved into civil pushing. This is ridiculous. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 18:07, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

It's also worth noting this exchange and the CVU barnstar above it...it's a sad state of affairs when users drive off other users and then pat each other on the back for doing it. And I think WP:AGF can be ignored once a user tells another user, "I shall remember your persona-names if and when our paths cross again.". Essentially, "Look out, you've made my list." --Smashville^BONK! 19:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

<undent> Firstly, please note that I came into this dispute because Hrafn asked for assistance, with particular reference to a page he'd been working on when Catherine and Madman had intervened, with an open statement from her indicating that she was wikistalking Hrafn.[4] A "real legal threat" she had not yet withdrawn had to be cleared before discussions could start.[5] By that time she had posted links to her page which forms the basis of her report here, and which appears to be a very badly researched attack page with ludicrously inaccurate assertions that have been drawn to her attention,[6] but which she still has not fully corrected in her posting here. Other claims are equally invalid, though I've not checked every one of them. The underlying dispute is between "anti-deletionists" who think "You are not supposed to go around deleting things just because they are not sourced. You are only supposed to delete unsourced or poorly sourced claims that you suspect of being false."[7] and editors like Hrafn who take WP:V as having priority. In discussions the "anti-deletionists" have pointed to WP:EP (WP:IMPERFECT[8] as a policy which appears to sanction preserving information regardless of whether or not it has a reliable source – in my opinion that policy is outdated and needs early improvement to bring it into line with core content policies and current practice. If priority is given to preserving unreferenced information, articles would never be deleted, and the instructions in WP:V about removing such information would have to be changed. That's not my understanding of the priorities of Wikipedia, but Catherine makes it clear that she feels that we must keep articles about non-notable organisations or individuals with only self-published sources as references, on the basis that she finds them interesting, and keep in information even if a simple check shows that it's inaccurate or unsourced. There's quite a culture clash there. . . dave souza, talk 20:21, 12 September 2008 (UTC) tweaked dave souza, talk 20:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

It amazes me that this is an issue about Hrafn -- the real issue is Cat and her belief that any crap, even if not meeting RS and V, is OK because she wants it to be. &#0149;Jim62sch&#0149;^dissera! 16:47, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Let me add my name as one of the editors who are unhappy with Catherine's approach to Wikipedia. And what did here comment to OrangeMarlin on her talk page mean -- "I shall remember your persona-names if and when our paths cross again." An accusation of sock-puppetry or? Doug Weller (talk) 16:58, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

In a workplace, Hrafn's behavior as shown in Catherine's report with diffs would surely be a lawsuit waiting to happen. He could easily get fired for targeting a specific religious group like he did. Hrafn retired because his or her bad behavior came to light. If a couple of editors could simply say something not in WP:AGF or unWP:CIVIL or merely cleverly hidden slander to get rid of someone, then Catherine and I would already have retired ourselves considering this apparent backlash against us. --Firefly322 (talk) 23:25, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

This isn't a workplace, and doesn't fall under laws (which are, after all, specific to localities) applicable to workplaces. Wikipedia is a private organization working off of private rules and regulations. Now looking over Hrafn's actions, it certainly appears that he has a partisan axe to grind - citation tagging every phrase up to and including "He lectured extensively in the 1920s and 1930s is just plain obnoxious - but losing your cool in return is unhelpful.  RGTraynor  05:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

In a workplace, deluded assertions about Hrafn's work and character could result in a libel action. For example "Here is where hrafn made the deletion and also tried to assert that Affirmations are "supplicatory" prayer, demonstrating a basic ignorance of and unfamiliarity with the subject matter:"[9]. The example is illuminating, because Catherine does not seem to have realised that Hrafn made just one edit, removing the square brackets on each side of the word Affirmation with the accurate edit summary (rm self-link). This was undoing part of the previous edit by Vernon89 which linked the title in error.[10] Cat's statement below that revision "[Affirmative prayer article existed at this point, hence the short defining sentence and the link from the dab page]" is simply irrelevant – it was a new self-link and nothing more. Her statements "[an editor simply tried to remove the negative word hrafn had added] ["supplicatory" was a term added added by hrafn]" and "it became a "self-link" because hrafn had redirected the Affirmative prayer page out of existance]" are untrue – the "negative word" supplicatory was added by Vernon39, and there was no link to Affirmative prayer, contrary to Cat's erroneous assertion.[11] Assuming good faith, it appears that Cat is simply incompetent and does not realise that she is libelling Hrafn. It certainly demonstrates basic ignorance of and unfamiliarity with analysing edit histories. The other examples I've looked at are just as incompetent, in different ways. Regarding RGTraynor's very sensible point, dealing with repeated refusals to provide adequate references is trying, and without checking, the circumstances of asking for a specific detail to be referenced may have been reasonable in context. . . dave souza, talk 13:36, 14 September 2008 (UTC) grammar and formatting correction dave souza, talk 15:09, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) It seems clear that either Catherine is incompetent, as Dave charitably suggests, or she has embraced "Wikipedia is a battleground" (currently the theme on her talk page) as her method of interaction here. I suggest either mindset would be improved by a mentor. KillerChihuahua^?!? 10:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

A statement from retirement

Given that I have not been allowed to retire in peace, but rather have:

1. seen no let up to the amount of false information and false charges leveled against me;
2. that without informing me, User:Catherineyronwode tacked her trumped up 'ANI Proposal' onto User:Firefly322's unrelated DOA AN/I complaint shortly before my retirement; and
3. this complaint now seems to have turned into some sort of weird undead RFC/U (which has neither been properly certified with "Evidence of trying to resolve the dispute" and listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct, nor deleted),

I have decided to make this "statement from retirement" answering these false charges and setting the record straight.

I wish to make the following points:

1. On the "War against New Thought and Christian biographies and books" Catherineyronwode
   1. Repeated information knowing it to be false
   2. Simply made up a bad-faith explanation for actions that were demonstrably made in good faith
   3. Fails to demonstrate a breach of wikipedia policy
2. On the matter of "Incivility", both Catherineyronwode, and those who assisted her in compiling this list were themselves guilty of gross incivility against myself, compared to which my own borderline incivility pales by comparison.
3. Her evidence is defective, in that it frequently lacks supporting difs, and/or relies of hearsay evidence.

I will not bore you with the details here -- these details can be found at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Hrafn#Response: a statement from retirement & User:Hrafn#A statement from retirement. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 05:35, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Delighted and surprised to see your statement, Hrafn, hope you're well. The dispute clearly remains unresolved, but at 08:29, 15 September 2008, Future Perfect at Sunrise rightly deleted "Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Hrafn" as‎ (not properly certified, no evidence of dispute resolution.), not long after I'd endorsed your statement. My muddle in that I should first have provided evidence of trying to resolve the dispute, and another user have done the same.

Confusingly, the page was headed "Not yet active - have created this to move an AN/I matter to its correct location. Catherine or any other user may remove this forenote once she is satisfied with its contents." but it's correct that the 48 hour window had long passed. The page was created at 09:23, 12 September 2008 , and Users certifying the basis for this dispute was signed by Catherineyronwode (talk · contribs) at 22:03, 11 September, WAS 4.250 (talk · contribs) at 09:13, 13 September, and by Firefly322 (talk · contribs) at 10:02, 14 September. Hrafn added and endorsed his summary at 05:25, 15 September, and I added my endorsement at 08:14, 15 September, while still eating my breakfast.

Still trying to wake up, but it's time for us to put this bad dream behind us. There are important principles of WP:V underlying this dispute, and it is essential that Catherineyronwode accepts that her statements and understanding of policy are incorrect, and completely withdraws the baseless accusations against Hrafn prepared at her ANI proposal,[12] posted here and then moved to RfC/Hrafn. I've asked her at User talk:Catherineyronwode#Retraction requested to make a statement to that effect on this page.[13] . . dave souza, talk 09:41, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

"Renounce your faith or meet the consequences" - I thought this was an encyclopedic colaboration, I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition. (Cue: Noone expects the Spanish Inquisition!). I put it that both Hrafn and Catherine have nonstandard positions on the issue of verifiability. While Catherine clearly doesn't understand that tagging is a necessary part of the process of improvement of the encyclopedias value, Hrafn acts like an extreme deletionist hounding down unsourced sentences (also clearly and easily verifiable ones), tagging them and subsequently removing them if noone adds citations within a short time. If Hrafn had the time and energy to apply this policy consistently in the entirity of wikipedia in stead of only in his pet peeve topics about non-scientific belief systems only FA's would be left and wikipedia would be a collection of a few disconnected but very well sourced articles. Neither approach is useful if we want to build a wikipedia with both a sensible scope of coverage and a sensible degree of verifiability. And please don't use Jimmy Wales' quote about "some wikipedians have a bias ..." at least not such a time as when Mr. Wales explicitly states that this is supposed to be interpreted as "no sentence no matter how uncontroversial, pedestrian and common knowledge information it provides shall be allowed to remain on the project without a citation", which will incidentally also be the time when I leave this project - that would simply be too much of a waste of the content-adding editors' time.·Maunus·ƛ· 11:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Your assertion that "Hrafn acts like an extreme deletionist hounding down unsourced sentences" is contrary to my experience, and I've not seen him deleting any "pedestrian and common knowledge information" – diffs please. . . dave souza, talk 12:16, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" If a statement is tagged for citation and nobody provides one in a reasonable time (remembering that articles drop off the bottom of your watchlist if unedited for a month, tops), it means one of two things: (i) this statement wasn't so "clearly and easily verifiable", or (ii) that nobody's maintaining the article by actively watchlisting it. In the latter case, the question becomes is the unsourced material obvious truth or obvious-sounding but false truthiness that has somehow found its way onto the article? And how can you tell (as a reader or as an editor attempting maintenance) tell unless somebody provides a source? As for the "only FA's would be left" claim, this is ridiculous -- there are large numbers of articles on wikipedia that are fully verifiable, but do not yet meet FA standards. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 12:32, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

The point is that you confuse "verifiable" with "verified" - verifiable is when anybody can verify a statement by using a minimal effort to hunt down a reliable source. Several times I have been able to reinclude material deleted by you with a new source after few minutes of googling - this about topics that I have no level of expertise in. In this edit[14] you remove the information stating that "wallace wattles is best known for his book he science of getting rich" which hadn't even been tagged (the tag was about whether he was wealthy in his later years). You also remove an assertion that "Much that is known about Wattles' life comes from the text of a letter his daughter Florence wrote after his death to the New Thought author Elizabeth Towne." which I was able to verify within minutes on google, and which you also yourself later admitted. You also removed two sourced statements about his involvement in politics and his influence as a inspiration for rhonda byrne. And you also remove several paragraphs that are explicitly sourced to Florence Wattles' letter (grantedly without having this sourcing in the form of a footnote). In this edit you delete and redirect a stub article about the book "the science of getting rich" - later when Catherine put up a new and much better sourced version that makes several claims to notability [USer:Jamesontai] reverts to the redirect with no explanation [15] - you later proceeded to tag for merge and notability in spite of there clearly being reliable third party sources about the book[16]. Namely the sources already presented by Catherine and the sources that I could track down within a few minutes on google. While Catherine misunderstands the usefulness of tagging this aggressive deletionist behaviour by Hrafn was clearly against the wikipedia spirit as I knew it and it caused me to step in and defend these articles that I had previously had no interest in. Secondly it should be noted that the sourcing of these articles could have been carried out in good spirit if Hrafn had posted his queries for sources using words on the talkpage instead of tagging and agressively deleting the content other editors had added OR if he had taken the few minutes and checked on google whether there were in fact reliable sources for the statements. In retrospect taking that little time would have avoided this entire dispute and saved Hrafn himself and numerous other editors hours of grief, and would have been well worth the trouble. ·Maunus·ƛ· 13:01, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Here we part company: I do not think that an implicit claim that 'somewhere out there some source exists that contains this information' makes it "verifiable". This would likewise seem to to go against WP:V, which explicitly clarifies verifiability as: "...that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true." This would appear to indicate that 'no citation of a reliable source' = 'no ability to check' = 'no verifiability'. Your definition of 'verifiability' implicitly places the burden of evidence on the removing/challenging editor (the opposite of what WP:V explicitly states) to prove that the information is false, as it is impossible to prove that such a source doesn't exist. As to your example, the article Wallace Wattles originally explicitly attributed to his daughter's letter information that was not contained in that letter. Further, the claim "Much that is known about Wattles' life comes from the text of a letter his daughter Florence wrote..." remains pure original research, on the basis of not being able to find much information outside the letter. Whether it is true or not, it is not verifiable to a RS, so is not fit for inclusion on wikipedia. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 13:24, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

When you removed this information you hadn't even read the letter (which can be found in twenty copies in a single google search) so that is a very bad excuse. And the fact stands that you removed both sourced, easily verifiable and completely uncontroversial information in one fell swoop without having ever posted on the talk page mentioning that there was a pressing lack of sources or that some particular claims were dubious. This is agressive behaviour and I completely understand that the editors who had this article on their watchlist felt it to be unwarranted.·Maunus·ƛ· 14:54, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

When I removed the information, I was not even aware that the letter had been published, nor had any real expectation that it had. Now who was the person that added an explicit citation to the letter to the article (rendering it verifiable), and actually checked the article against its contents -- proving that some of this "completely uncontroversial information" was false? Was it yourself or the "editors who had this article on their watchlist" (but failed to notice the tags there for 2-3 months, until after the information was removed)? No. It was me. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 15:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

[Moved from User:Hrafn#A statement from retirement Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 11:44, 15 September 2008 (UTC) ]

After looking carefully through all of the evidence and responses, I endorse Hrafn's statement above. Orderinchaos 09:44, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I dispute the claim made against me just above. WP:V uses the word "unverifiable" "verifiability" for the very good reason that we do not want vandals to systematically delete any and all non-sourced but able to be sourced claims. It is a shame when people can not distinguish evidence of a difference of opinion from evidence of someone else being wrong. That you disagree with me only proves that I disagree with you and is not evidence for your claim against me. Thus the above is an unsourced attack against me. It appears to be part of the human condition for people to do what they protest others doing. WAS 4.250 (talk) 11:07, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

WAS, my search doesn't find the word "unverifiable" in WP:V, but do note that the burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Since Hrafn indicated he did not wish discussion here, I suggest that this discussion be moved to WP:ANI#A statement from retirement. Your assent to this would be welcome. . dave souza, talk 11:28, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Just a notice, I have deleted Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Hrafn, as it was not properly certified. I haven't looked too closely at the underlying dispute, but it also appeared to me that the RfC was quite poorly presented, extremely wordy and probably to a large extent vacuous. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:48, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Fut.Perf., as I indicated above you're absolutely correct in your actions. Much appreciated. . dave souza, talk 11:54, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

As the person who moved it from AN/I to RfC, I endorse this action - it appears to have been a laundry list of grievances and the evidence falls apart when examined. Orderinchaos 12:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Even though I have previously taken a stance against Hrafn I agree that there is probably not enough basis for an rfc or ani in the material collected by catherine - in my view this dispute has been caused by two editors who have been equally stubborn in their viewpoints and equally reluctant to use basic social skills in their communication with the other, but who have in turn continued to escalate what was not even a content dispute into what at least one of them envisions as a "wiki-war" of epic dimensions. I propose that the only sensible outcome of this spectacle would be that everyone involved take this as a chance to remember that a proper and colegial tone of communication, the assumption of good faith and staying calm under pressure may help resolve editing disputes even before they occur. ·Maunus·ƛ· 13:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Even if it is the case that Hrafn is a bit quick to the gun, so to speak, w.r.t. enforcing WP:V, which appears arguable, I see little or no cause for a generalized RFC on Hrafn. I've worked in the same territory as Hrafn on intelligent design and several related articles, and encountered him on a few unrelated articles, e.g. in category:philosophy, and in that context I've found him to be a fairly "strict interpretationist", so to speak, of WP:V-- a fairly vigorous advocate of that policy. Clearly to me, he tends to be fairly intolerant of article content that he considers questionable and which is unsourced or questionably sourced. Several of his statements presented by Catherineyronwode, picked out of many thousands of Hrafn's edits, could I think quite reasonably be characterized as being somewhat impatient, and in several cases angry, with the person to whom they're directed. But overall I've most definitely found his edits to be very productive and helpful on topics where we've met. Catherineyronwode appears to me, judging by the tone of comments on her talk page and elsewhere, unnecessarily turned it into a battleground. I should hope there's a more rational and less personalized way to analyze, and if possible to work through, such disagreements about Hrafn's editing approach. ... Kenosis (talk) 17:10, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

·Maunus·ƛ·, thank you for drawing back from the stance you have previously taken against Hrafn. As I've said before, assuming good faith is essential and it is regrettable that Catherineyronwode not only failed to assume good faith, but escalated the argument into the above ANI complaint on the basis of a wildly inaccurate proposal which looks very much like an attack page and was posted here before being transferred to a now deleted RfC. She has been requested to please accept that her statements and understanding of policy are incorrect, and completely withdraw her baseless accusations against Hrafn. Your attempts to pass the onus for finding citations onto the editor deleting unsourced content run completely against WP:V, and you, Cat and Madman should be working in a collegiate way to propose and discuss suitable sources instead of going into attack mode. I remain hopeful that all concerned can study WP:NAM and work to find unsourced material and either show a source or delete such unsuitable material. . dave souza, talk 16:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I am in no way drawing back from the stance that I have had throughout this episode. I maintain that Hrafn has had a key part in creating an intolerable edit environment in the new Thought articles he has been campaigning on. I also maintain as I have throughout that the other large part of the blame falls on Catherines failure to prevent the argument from escalating. Whether Madman has an important part of the blame I will refrain from judging since I consider myself his friend and am quite possible biased in his favour - however I certainly don't believe that Hrafns counteraccusations of "gross incivility" are justified. As for my own involvement I have, contrary to what you seem to suggest, worked only on finding sources for Hrafns removed material and I have chastised both sides for their lack of civlity. I do not believe myself to have been at any point onesided in this matter although it was the excessive agressiveness in Hrafns removement of information and his responses to fellow editors that made me step into the conflict. If contrary to my belief I have been a part of the escalation of the conflict rather than its resolvement I do apologise for that, but my own involvement has not previously been the object of such accusations. As for my "attempt to pass the onus to the removing editor" this is a question of twisting words. My understanding of WP:V is that material that is likely to be challenged should be supported by reliable sources - not statements that are uncontroversial or reasonably could be expected to be uncontroversial. Nowhere does the polcit say that every statement in an article must be sourced. Nor does the policy state anything about how removal of content added in good faith should be aggresively purged from the encyclopedia instead of being amiably sourced and improved. I have my self added several megabytes of unsourced (yet completely factual and verifiable) content to wikipedia over the years - and if Hrafns understanding of WP:V is in fact the gold standard on the issue then I invite him to go through my edits and tag them for citations and delete it when I fail to provide sources within his time frame. HOwever I don't think wikipedia will be none the richer for it.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:56, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I happen to have some extra time at the moment, and took the liberty of picking a representative article in which Hrafn has been involved. Hrafn appears to me to have made between about 50 edits to the article on New thought starting 24 February 2008 up until 30 August 2008. The total number of edits to the article in that period of time was approximately 275. Here is the state of the article on 24 February 2008, immediately prior to Hrafn's first edit. Here is the state of the article as of Hrafn's last edit on 30 August 2008. And here is the state of the article on 15 September 2008. Understanding that numerous editors have been involved in this article in the interim, here is the diff between prior to when Hrafn got involved and 15 September 2008. Here are forty-some examples of Hrafn's edits to the article between 24 February 2008 and 30 August 2008. I missed a few of them when collecting them, but these are representative of the sort of edits Hrafn has made. Many of them involve standard MOS and other such issues relating to article presentation, and many of them are WP:V issues.

123456789101112131415161718192021

222324252627282930313233343536373839404142

It appears Hrafn takes a bit of a tough approach w.r.t. WP:V and WP:RS, but I don't see any edits here that deviate from explicit WP policy. WP:V clearly states "Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or the material may be removed." [emphasis mine] The section on WP:Verifiability#Burden_of_evidence elaborates: "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation.[1] The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question. Editors should cite sources fully, providing as much publication information as possible, including page numbers when citing books.[2]" When someone challenges or demands a citation for content I've added, I generally take it to mean that within a reasonable time after the citation is demanded, I or another user should provide some kind of sourcing for the statement or set of statements, unless it's common everyday knowledge. I could not find anything deleted by Hrafn that I thought could reasonably be considered to be common everyday knowledge. Please correct me if I'm in error about this.

... Kenosis (talk) 18:24, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me of that article, Kenosis. I would be curious as to how unsourced material that was being edit-warred over (as was happening not-uncommonly in that article) can be "common everyday knowledge". Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 18:57, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

It's obviously not common everyday knowledge, but appears instead to be knowledge held by a community of adherents and by others who know this fairly broad tradition and its history, which needs sourcing if there's any question about the accuracy of statements made in the article. In any event, this particular article has now drawn the attention of a few more users including myself. I trust that with some patient work it will come together fairly well in due course. I would also trust you and Catherineyronwode and others involved in this, shall we say, intense debate?, or scuffle?, can somehow see your way clear to letting bygones be bygones and try to move forward to build better cited and more informative content in the topics on which you hold differing POVs from one another. Take care, OK?. ... Kenosis (talk) 19:57, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I acknowledge that Hrafn has never acted in contradiction of WP:V. I maintain however that his actions have been detrimental to building a functional encyclopedia with other editors. If my articles were being held to the same standard Hrafn proposes in his "somewhat tough approach" I would have left the project long ago. The way in which he enforces policy is unreasonable in its tenacity and agresiveness in tagging and deleting and paired with his apparently poor social skills and confrontational communication strategies would have made editing intolerable. As an aside an example of what could be considered common everyday knowledge is that "Wallace Wattles is best known for his book the Science of Getting rich", at leasy it is so uncontroversial that anyone with the will to do so could have verified it in a matter of seconds, none the less it was deleted by Hrafn along with several passages of text some of which were untagged in the first diff I provided above - which was also the edit that prompted me to step in. I have said about all that I need to say - and I understand that many of you disagree with my assession that the spirit in which WP:V is enforced is just as important as its letter. I once again urge you to look through my edit history and tag all my unsourced statements and see if it makes you feel that it makes wikipedia a better place. ·Maunus·ƛ· 19:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree he could be more patient in awaiting sourcing. Please make no mistake about it though, I've worked on a fair number of relatively obscure topics, and quite often we see folks' personal knowledge, or what they think is knowledge, being put up on the pages. Quite frequently such contributions turn out to have been inconsistent with what the reliable sources say about the relevant facts and issues. I've done it myself more than once, added some statement that's important to the topic, where, upon checking the sources, it turned out to be a poor or even false representation of what the RSs say about the particular issue(s). And that doesn't even address the additional issues relating to arriving at some kind of consensus about which sources are reliable and how to present a NPOV for the reader in cases where the sources differ in their assertions about a given topic. So I understand what you're saying, and I believe I've already told Hrafn I think he's a bit quick to the gun at times in yanking unsourced content ... IMHO. ... Kenosis (talk) 20:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Let me say this: when I read every single piece of documentation listed in the Wikiquette entry, I was not at all convinced that Hrafn was a) "uncivil" enough to deserve any specific "punishment", b) nothing but a rather hard-nosed, yet committed editor, and c) a victim of a rather unceremonious drumming out of Wikipedia. Nothing I see above has changed that. I mean, let's be serious: there's still an editor's Talk page calling me a racist, and you guys are focussing on a widespread editor that maybe needs a tiny reminder about patience? Let's put our efforts where they belong. BMW(drive) 23:00, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I only have time for topical issues, and no time at all for personal insults.

I see too little discussion here of the most important portions of my objections to hrafn's editing:

• Hrafn has been grossly uncivil to many editors; this is not an issue of a dispute between the two of us alone. Of the dozen or so episodes cited, only a couple involved me.

• Hrafn has selectively targeted his pet peeve topics, Christianity and New Thought, for deletion; he does not apply the same standards of verifiability to any other portion of Wikpipedia. As a side-note, i agree with Maunus: if hrafn's hyper-verifiability standards are to be applied to all of Wikipedia, let us see this made official Wikipedia policy now. We writers need a proper understanding of current and future verifiability standards, a timeline for the retrofitting of ALL of Wikipedia to these new standards, and we need to see the standrads and timeline given uniform application throughout Wikipedia -- not just in a small religious corner of the encyclopedia where hrafn has worked. I am calling for a clarification of verification standards and a statement regarding a strict, uniform timeline of implementation.

• Hrafn has devised a singular method of deletion-by-stubbing-and-redirect -- which, as noted above, he has only applies to pages that fall into his pet peeve categories, Christianity and New Thought. If this method of "editing" (deletion) is going to be endorsed by admins (several have already endorsed it) and is going to spread throughout Wikipedia, we writers need a clear adminstrative and bureaucratic statement that deletion-by-stubbing-and-redirect is an acceptable policy and that it will be applied uniformly across ALL Wikipedia categories on a specific timeline.

I believe that deleting text in targeted religion categories under false pretences is the mark of a fanatic more bent on deletion than on improving Wikipedia. In the case of hrafn's cuts to the Charles Haanel article, he claimed that a citation is anonymous although the author's name appears on the cited web page and he claimed that a citation is itself unsourced although a long list of printed-book sources is given by the author on the cited web page. These are indisputable examples of unreliable editoral deletions that were made in the name of "verifiability" but which were themselves in error. By granting a biased editor leave to use unsupported and false claims as a justification for topic-driven mass, rush, and undiscussed deletions, and to support his destruction of data by claims that he is merely "enforcing verifiability" is disingenuous. He was wrong. His justifications for the cuts were in error. He should have talked to the other editors.

Several opinions of me stated above were rude and offensive, obviously intentionally so. I will not reply to the rudest ones, as they are little more than generic insults. I will respond to one charge among them, since it is the only one that deals with the issues and is not an ad hominem attack:

I am indeed supportive of full inline verifiability. I believe that lack of verifiability has been Wikipedia's greatest weakness since day one, and continues to be its greatest weakness at the present time. I do not, however, believe that the oft-cited statement about ripping out unsourced material is meant to be used to target topics by category. Bringing ALL of Wikipedia up to well-sourced standards is a barn-raising goal. It should be done incrementally, and across all topics. I support it.

Are those who support hrafn's targeted deletions in his chosen religious categories open to discussing the future course of official Wikipedia policy with respect to discriminatory and topic-driven application of the new inline verifiability standards? Come on, you bold and hard-nosed administrators: Let's see a timeline. When will the popular unsourced celebrity pages start to crumble under verification-deletion hyper-tagging assaults? When will all of the unsourced animal species and plant species pages be hyper-tagged for deletion? If this is the new road we are following, why is it not being applied everywhere all at once -- why only in these small religion and self-help categories?

The creation and implementation of a clearly stated timeline for verifiability compliance across ALL of Wikipedia is a far more important topic for discussion than "was hrafn biased or topic-driven?" or "was hrafn uncivil?" If hrafn's retirement is more than a sham, let us move on by creating an apropriate place within Wikipedia to discuss the issues that his campaign of mass, speedy, unconsensed, and topic-driven deletions have brought up. Name a page within Wikipedia, and i will be there to discuss it with anyone, even the rudest among you. But until then, i have work to do, and this is not my work.

catherine yronwode Catherineyronwode (talk) 05:06, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

What makes you think it is only being done in certain subjects (and why shouldn't an editor concentrate on subjects they are interested in?) I certainly do it in other subjects. Othercrapexists is a terrible argument. Why do you ask why it's not being applied everywhere all at once when you think it should be done incrementally? And if it needs to be done incrementally, shouldn't you start with areas you are interested in? So long as you are writing edits like "64.142.90.33 (Talk) (1,822 bytes) (it's easy to add sources. Why not do it, hrafn, instead of playing the lousy, stinking game of hostile cite-tagging? Huh? Cmon, it's fun to imrove Wikipedia.)", which I believe is you not logged in, right? please don't talk about other rude editors if you want to have any credibility. Doug Weller (talk) 07:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS appears apposite. . dave souza, talk 08:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

"When will the popular unsourced celebrity pages start to crumble under verification-deletion hyper-tagging assaults?" With an infrequent eye to the AfD queue, I'd say celebrity/pop culture actually fits the bill of almost half of the stuff which goes there and gets deleted. Orderinchaos 08:43, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Catherineyronwode, you are being grossly uncivil to Hrafn, repeatedly failing to assume good faith and instead laying out your fantasy about his motivation and alleged methods, once again failing to provide any diffs to support your argument. Any editor can choose which articles they want to work on, and people inevitably work on related articles. That's normal. Regarding the Charles Haanel article, you're still trying to give credibility to the cited web page even though it's been pointed out to you that it's a commercial advertising page,[17] and hence not a reliable source. "Stubbing and redirect" is not deletion – it leaves the article history available for the original author to find good sources and reinstate the article, as the original editor understood in one of the cases you raised.[18] As you will note, another editor has done just that. That's part of the normal Wikipedia process which you don't seem to understand. I am glad that you support verification, but your proposals to introduce new timelines for compliance go directly against WP:V policy and attacking Hrafn is not the way to make such proposals. You concluded "until then, i have work to do, and this is not my work", so why not withdraw your accusations unreservedly and put this argument to rest? . dave souza, talk 08:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking this probably needs to be moved to an RfC as Cat and Firefly seem to have no desire to drop the matter. --Smashville^BONK! 14:53, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

A properly presented RfC would have to be prepared, and if it's about user conduct, "Any RfC not accompanied by evidence showing that two users tried and failed to resolve the same dispute may be deleted after 48 hours." I've made considerable efforts to resolve the dispute and wish to see it ended with no slur on Hrafn's character and acceptance that his actions were correct, but so far have failed to achieve such resolution. Hrafn has retired and does not have email enabled, though he has made some statements from retirement. . dave souza, talk 15:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I attempted to discuss with Firefly, but he merely called me immature and refused to discuss the matter, responding to my request to provide diffs by telling me to provide diffs. Apparently because I was the only one engaging him on his talk page, he found it immature...If anyone else wants to try to give it a go and maybe this won't have to reach an RfC point...--Smashville^BONK! 16:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

<undent> Hrafn has enabled his email, so I've sent a request for him to discuss this situation with me. Both Firefly322 and Catherineyronwode have clearly been disruptive in their refusal to accept and work within policy regarding removal of inadequately sourced material, and in Catherine's case by failing to assume good faith, instead Wikistalking Hrafn to press her tendentious ideas about preserving material contrary to WP:V, and making personal attacks on his motives and integrity. Her response above at least shows acceptance of the need for verification, but her ideas of new requirements for a timeline for verifiability look a complete non-starter to me. She is of course welcome to raise her ideas on the policy talk page or at the village pump. Firefly seems to me to be a minor nuisance, and less of an issue. It could help to resolve this dispute if other admins could contact Catherine to advise her that her allegations have no credence, and that she must comply with policies when editing here. Of course if anyone wants to discuss interpretation of policies with me I'll be glad to assist, and none of the above reduces the need for everyone to behave in a civil and collegiate way. If these principles are made clear I'm sure that this dispute would be resolved. . dave souza, talk 21:14, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Can we just drop this matter?

Let's all agree to disagree and go about building a better encyclopedia. There's really nothing to be gained by re-hashing the matter. When Hrafn returns and if he resumes his former editing style and targets, then we all can re-open this, but to my mind the matter is moot. Move along folks, there's nothing to see here.  : ) Thanks in advance, Madman (talk) 21:45, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

See, that's why it can't be dropped. You try to say "let's move along", but then you throw in a little uncivil comment about his editing style. So far, about 3 people agree with you. Nearly everyone else, thinks this is just an attack. So, it continues. But thanks for the diff for future purposes. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:59, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with OrangeMarlin (I rarely do). After reading the diffs and threads presented, I feel that Hrafn has been blasted with attacks from many fronts in order to "get rid of him". Shameful really. After a close look at the the contributions of Hrafn, I would be very hard pressed to offer or endorse any "sanctions" against him/her, and moreso, I would be supportive of sanctions against those that feel that chasing another collaborative editor away is a "good thing to do". Hrafn has done nothing, in my evaluation, other than promote an NPOV, encyclopedic, wikipedia. He is being attacked by POV pushers, and it would be an utter shame if they "win" and he retires. Keeper ǀ 76 23:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

No one engaged in this dispute has stated that chasing another editor away is a good thing to do. Hrafn decided himself to "retire" in the middle of a dispute, regarding his behaviour. I find it highly improper to try to use his supposed retirement as an argument since everyone can pull such a stunt to gain immediate sympathy.·Maunus·ƛ· 05:41, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Catherine proposed reprimands and draconian restrictions on Hrafn's editing, with a conclusion that if he persisted in editing in accordance with policy, she "would like to see him blocked" from the areas that interest her.[19] Looks like chasing another editor away, as far as I'm concerned. Too many valued editors have given up due to the stress created by civil POV pushing, and it's all too likely that Hrafn is suffering from that stress. Your cynical failure to assume good faith is very disappointing. Whether Hrafn has been driven away or not, both Catherine and myself consider that there is an important underlying principle that must be resolved. . . dave souza, talk 17:28, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I did not say that I believed Hrafn to have retired in order to gain sympathy - but that retirement shouldn't be used as an argument because it can be used by anyone to gain sympathy. Using the fact that he has retired or threatened with retiring as an argument to show how evil his accusers are only promotes melodrama, but says nothing about the important underlying principles. I can't say your failure to assume good faith before you accuse me of not assuming good faith shocks me, but really you should try to read the words I write instead of those you believe I write, that eases communication.·Maunus·ƛ· 05:10, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, how about a cooling off period of, say, 1 week? Certainly we could all agree on that. Madman (talk) 02:09, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Or, how about "... cooling off -- period."

AFAICT, no rules have been unambiguously broken by anyone here. If anything is plain to me personally here, it's that WP imitates life in some visible ways (maybe life in a high-school cafeteria at times, but life nonetheless-- if y'all will pardon my brief little outburst here). For those of us who care more about the broader objective of continuing to write and edit interactively and encyclopedically about topics of their respective interest than we do about interpersonal disagreement, I humbly suggest that we'all continue to try to follow the rules and try to continue to write and edit, both encyclopedically and interactively, applying to the best possible extent WP's content policies. ... Kenosis (talk) 04:22, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I also agree with OrangeMarlin on this occasion, something I almost never do. My own investigation of the situation seems to bear out very much what Keeper is saying above. Orderinchaos 05:25, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

<proposal> Firstly, my belief is that Catherineyronwode's been acting in good faith, and her reluctance to completely back down is understandable, but she brought this dispute to ANI and several experienced editors including admins, having looked at her case in detail, have dismissed it. Keeper76 sums up the situation very well in the post at 23:03, 16 September, and note particularly that while Catherine has no good case to take to RfC, sanctions could be pursued against her and her allies. Her "Desired outcome", which appears to be designed to drive Hrafn away, proposed severe restrictions on Hrafn's editing, and a conclusion that if Hrafn persisted in his entirely proper work of removing inadequately sourced information, she "would like to see him blocked from editing any pages that fall in the New Thought or Religion categories, and possibly other religion-versus-science categories as well."[20] These draconian proposals are completely unacceptable, as is her failure to assume good faith, leading to Wikistalking, personal attacks on his motives and integrity, and poisoning the well demonstrated on article talk pages such asthis example. Such harassment has to stop. However, I've no wish to inhibit her constructive editing, and will welcome her continued involvement in these areas on the basis that in practice she has to accept policies as they are, and if Hrafn or any other editor properly deletes unsupported information or tags inadequately referenced articles for deletion, she is welcome to discuss it courteously, and do her best to find reliable third-party sources which can be agreed as supporting the section or article. I've suggested to Hrafn that on this basis I'd be content to see the case closed, subject to sanctions being pursued if this was treated as a "truce" and hostilities revived as Madman's comments seem to threaten. Hrafn has not yet responded to my email showing him a draft of this proposal, but in my opinion it should be satisfactory if this is taken as resolving the dispute unless Catherine objects. . . dave souza, talk 17:38, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I really must object to the characterisation of my posting as a "threat" (you) or as "uncivil" (OrangeMarlin). I simply suggested that this matter -- the matter regarding Hrafn's editing style -- should be dropped because it's a moot point. And then I said that we can all discuss it again if it ever becomes unmoot -- "When Hrafn returns and if he resumes his former editing style and targets, then we all can re-open this".

Jeez, guys, ease up here. Madman (talk) 18:47, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Can we please all AGF and consider this resolved? Unless, as dave says, CY objects. But other than that hopefully unlikely possibility, I'm sure we all have better things to do and I suspect the heat that has been generated has been accompanied by some misunderstandings. Thanks. Doug Weller (talk) 19:00, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

We've well established that if Hrafn returns and resumes his former editing style in the same subject areas, he will be working in proper accordance with policy. Discussing that again seems completely unnecessary to me, though I'm willing to accept that it wasn't intended as a threat. Of course incivility on the part of any of those involved in this case can be taken up on talk pages and, if unresolved, dealt with through normal dispute resolution processes. Hope that clarifies things. . dave souza, talk 19:16, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Are y'all still accepting endorsements? Hrafn scares me. He's smart, knows wikipedia and it's policies, his grasp of the creation-evolution controversy sources is impressive. And he's abrupt, abrasive, borderline rude in many cases, but in the many occasions I have had to work with and disagree with him, I've never seen anything that mentally flagged him as one of those editors to end up blocked. For wikipedia to lose him as an editor because of another editor who apparently can't be bothered to familiarize themselves with the basic policies and instructions is pretty shitty in my mind. I'm going to go beg Hrafn to come back now. Good editors who source, make MOS changes, and are willing to work long and hard in difficult areas should be supported. Bad editors should learn the policies, or leave. Why is it the reverse? WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 13:38, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Sad outcome

This statement indicates clearly that Hrafn has retired, and gives very good reasons for doing so. Sadly, civil POV pushing is very effective at driving away good editors working in difficult areas. Hrafn gives some suggestions for ways to improve dealing with the huge amount of articles and material lacking reliable sources or confirmation of notability. This place is addictive enough that he may return a bit eventually, but recent trends towards valuing perceived civility over good quality article content and power struggles coordinated on other sites make it more likely that there will be more instances of good editors leaving, in my opinion. A sad day. . . dave souza, talk 15:43, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I haven't been following this, but I think that the civility policies on this site should be more or less viewed as fouls are in basketball. I mean yeah, people here obviously employ the civility policies tactically, like a coach will ask a less capable but still effective defensive guard to try to draw personal fouls from better players on the opposing team in order to gradually shut down their offensive weapons, but the response when fouls are called should not be to complain to the refs about it, which in basketball would immediately lead to more penalties being called on the offending player, but to step your game up... and also employ civility rules tactically. The civility rules are part of the editing environment here, and can be applied by any side in a conflict. If someone leaves on account of civility violations, yeah you can say whoever took their fouls advanced their POV position, but that's a part of the game. Don't hate the player. Amerique^dialectics 16:33, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion the problem isn't the pov pushers, who will always be with us, but arbcom decisions that appear to put civility to pov pushers at a higher premium than improving article content. It's a complex problem, and undoubtedly there is a wide spectrum of views on this difficult issue. . dave souza, talk 17:44, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

That statement says that he thinks Wikipedia would be improved by creating a bot that automatically tags and deletes articles just because the bot does not see sources and no one has it on a list that they monitor. People like that need to create another site and import the best 10% of Wikipedia. This is an encyclopedia in the process of being built. How can you build this encyclopedia if you do such things? Stuff is added by unpaid volunteers. It is so much easier to destroy than to build. Adding sources was not even done at all in the early years. How about a bot that searches for a lack of cites and searches the web and automatically adds sites that are highly probable to be good sources for claims in the article? It would be better to mindlessly add than to mindlessly delete. But how about if we act thoughtful, caring, and careful instead? WAS 4.250 (talk) 16:21, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Unless I'm imagining it, there used to be a tool that listed non-stub articles with no references and less than two external links. It was really useful, because practically every article it picked up you could do something with - either improve it, or delete it :) Though it'll probably need tweaking now, because a lot of the automatically generated articles on localities and various scientific areas have only one reference. Black Kite 16:27, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Such a bot would have to be subject to significant human intervention to avoid problems, but the quality of the encyclopedia could be improved by a way of flagging up articles for attention then, after a suitable interval, deleting articles if no-one could be bothered with finding references. Similarly, if there's one source it could be listed for improvement, but would be a lesser priority for deletion. . . dave souza, talk 17:44, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

On second thoughts, one option might be a bot that tagged articles as being in line for deletion, then after a few weeks automatically prodded the article for deletion if no references had been added. That way the decision on deletion would remain under control of an admin with a responsibility to be reasonable. . dave souza, talk 17:49, 18 September 2008 (UTC) – checks source, indeed that's what Hrafn has proposed. Not so daft. . dave souza, talk 19:00, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I could buy into a project that called for all articles to have at least one source within say three years. Anything that sets too ambitious a goal will be responded to with people adding poor sources that are easy to find rather than well thought out sources. For example, all the unsourced math articles could be sourced with university text book cites that do not include a page number. The key is that deleting claims needs to be a thoughtful process and not a mechanical one. WAS 4.250 (talk) 17:53, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

The deletionists would think they had died and gone to wikipedia heaven. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 18:04, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

As rather a keepist, I still fully respect WP:V and regard a request for citations or a deletion discussion as a wake-up call to hunt for sources, even if it's an article I've only just come across. The greater problem is articles for which reliable sources can't be found, which exist purely as a way of giving publicity to the self-publications of people or organisations that no-one else finds notable. If those few editors dedicated enough to tackle this problem keep being driven off, as happened to Hrafn, this project will increasingly boast an unrivalled collection of cruft in complete defiance of policies. Our choice, I guess. . dave souza, talk 19:00, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

• I read as much of Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Cultural Struggle, the Weapon of Effacement, and a Theory of Hierarchic Wikis as I could (in about three bites, since it violates WP:TLDR). It seems to me that there are two supposed problems in evidence. Problem A is proponents of fringe subjects complaining that their subjects are always measured against mainstream rationalist objectivist criteria. Problem B is that they keep arguing this endlessly however often they are told that what they want violates core policy (WP:NPOV); in some cases they try to change core policy to allow what they want, but usually they simply keep on and on and on and on and on and on and on about it until somebody snaps. So, when are we going to do something about the real problem here which is civil POV-pushing and the practical impossibility of getting obsessives to STFU? Guy (Help!) 19:44, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, Guy, we've gone in the opposite direction. The exemplary lesson has been set that admins can be desysopped for blocking voluble pov-pushers if the admin has edited in the same area, as the pov pusher might conceivably turn into a good editor. Increasingly, we just have to be patient with these pov pushers and it's a question of who's more persistent. . . dave souza, talk 20:10, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm guardedly hopeful that the Wikipedia:General sanctions remedies will help. Tom Harrison ^Talk 21:10, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

When dealing with POV pushers, I would counter with short but aggressive editing moves, coupled with voluminous but civil talk page arguments of my own, and basically, if I wanted to, try to draw them into committing civility violations in counteracting me, but i haven't had time for this recently. Amerique^dialectics 21:32, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

That could be a fair description of what happened here over quite a long period. Cat then made a legal threat and quickly followed that by announcing a subpage with an ANI proposal she'd been preparing. An experienced mediator disagreed with my proposal that it should be deleted as an attack page and agreed with Cat that it was a suitable issue for ANI. In my opinion the statement she posted here is indeed a civility violation, but for whatever reason Hrafn announced his retirement about the time that it was posted. Could be the build up of stress, but I'm not in a position to know. Not everyone can cope with the method you suggest. . dave souza, talk 21:50, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

On review, it's worth clarifying that the process occurred, but in my opinion Hrafn wasn't trying to draw them into civility violations, and indeed was having difficulty in remaining polite himself. There was also incivility from Cat, and instances of pots calling kettles black. And indeed doing that deliberately would amount to baiting, and in my opinion would be rather incivil. If anything, it would seem that Hrafn was rising to the bait of continued pestering. . dave souza, talk 23:22, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

From someone who was indef blocked (then unblocked) for using language that would make your hair curl, I don't agree that drawing someone into committing civility violations is the right way to go about it. Are there not rules against that? Anyway, after reading this thread, I don't envy any of you in trying to sort this out. Who would want to be an admin! not me, I'll just dawdle along as I am. Jack forbes (talk) 22:10, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I can sympathize. I can't edit Wikipedia and have time to engage civil POV pushers myself, so for me it's a trade off. Do I want to get into a low intensity but protracted, long-term conflict with some nut in project-space areas or do i just want to edit the encyclopedia in relative peace? It is a question of who is more persistent, and more able to use rhetoric for their own purposes or against another person, a la Mark Antony in Julius Caesar, but still, if you have to, voluntarily or involuntarily, step aside from a conflict as a result of having shown anger or incivility, the tactics have worked. this is a consequence of how any rules-bound group activity is. Amerique^dialectics 23:07, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

• "... were themselves guilty of gross incivility against myself, compared to which my own borderline incivility pales by comparison." the comparison of incivility is a fruitless task--every one thinks what they did was justified by what came before, and the cycle of retaliation continues. Among the wisest Wikipedia rules is the one in NPA that previous incivility is no excuse. If anything, the longer one is here and the better editor one is, the less one should need to resort to abuse in order to make a proper point. As for requiring sources, this can be done disruptively or non-disruptively. Targeting bad articles is one thing, targeting articles on a subject is another, and can look very much like trying to destroy the articles about things and groups one does not like. Extensive negative work, though justifiable in each individual instance, can still be disruptive. DGG (talk) 23:13, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Appearances can be deceptive. Everyone works in subject areas, and links mean that one article leads to another. An interlinked tangle of articles with no reliable sources and no evidence of notability of the fringe subjects is a proper subject for clean-up by a conscientious editor. As for targeting, it should be noted that Cat openly Wikistalked Hrafn to an article which he had previously worked on, made allegations about him, added unsourced material and edit warred about it.[21] Pretty disruptive. . . dave souza, talk 23:36, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I tried to word it so I would not specifically be defending her. I am aware of the stuff above. But even someone who acts like that at times can get something right. DGG (talk) 01:07, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Isn't it time, Dave, to just quiet down about Cat? It's not becoming to an admin to be beating the drum against her on a daily basis. Madman (talk) 04:33, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• A further selection of Dave souza's negative comments on Catherineyronwode can be found further down this page [22]. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 12:42, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there's anything further to be said, Malcolm, so let's just let this and the other thread go. Madman (talk)

Summing up

As has been agreed by several admins, Catherine has to stop using harassment in pursuit of her objectives. These objectives are summarised in her Desired outcome under the hat in this section

(1) "need for establishing consensus before making deletions and redircts... to use the "Sources needed" template at the top of a page rather than make undiscussed cuts, deletions, or redirects." – this directly contradicts WP:V, "There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced." Policy does say that "Any material lacking a reliable source may be removed, but editors may object if you remove material without giving them sufficient time to provide references." That's presented as an option, not a precondition, and WP:BOLD applies.

(2) Asks for time so that "qualified editors can work on the pages, to bring them up to general WP:IMPERFECT guidelines at worst, and up to better standards if time permits. That's a link to Wikipedia:Editing policy#Perfection is not required, apparently in the hope that it can be used to override core content policies. Not in my opinion, and I'll review that policy to see if clarification is required.

(3) Essentially calls for a topic ban from "the New Thought or Religion categories, and possibly other religion-versus-science categories as well" for editors who persist in cleaning up articles in those areas in accordance with policies. A non-starter.

As stated previously, she is welcome to continue her constructive editing and involvement in these areas on the basis that in practice she has to accept policies as they are, and if Hrafn or any other editor properly deletes unsupported information or tags inadequately referenced articles for deletion, she is welcome to discuss it courteously, and do her best to find reliable third-party sources which can be agreed as supporting the section or article. Unfortunately, Madman and Cat apparently feel "that some patterns by particular editors, while not outside policy, are nonetheless determinental to Wikipedia as a whole." which can be read as implying "we don't like some Wikipedia policies, and will ignore them wherever we can get away with it".[23] If editors want to see policies changed, they can discuss proposals at policy talk pages. While such drastic changes are unlikely to gain consensus, discussions there are more likely to succeed than Cat's husband's tactic of posting huge screeds at the Village Pump,[24] and similarly large and impenetrable proposals at Category talk:Pseudoscience where he appears to be objecting to WP:NPOVFAQ#Pseudoscience policy. Looks like POV-pushing to me, others are welcome to read these linked posts. Catherine and supporters will no doubt continue with this campaign. . dave souza, talk 17:22, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• Dave souza, I want to protest your even attempting to summarize this dispute. The problem is the long list of unacceptably negative things you have said about Catherineyronwode makes it clear that you are not neutral, but an active participant on one side of the issue. If you can not remember what I am referring to; I can, if you want, put together the diffs. Let me know. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 17:50, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree, Malcolm. And I repeat: Isn't it time, Dave, to just quiet down about Cat? It's not becoming to an admin to be beating the drum against her on a daily basis. Madman (talk) 17:58, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

See my post at Dispute and legal threat on Cat's page at 12:33, 6 September. Hrafn asked me to look into the disagreements, and I've never said otherwise. Admittedly i prefer Wikipedia policies to the changed policies Cat and Self-ref seem to be proposing. Discussions are on this page to be examined by uninvolved admins, and that has been done. Feel free to provide more evidence if you wish, I'm content to leave things as stated above. . . . dave souza, talk 18:06, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Dave souza, I think this excerpt from what you wrote in your "Summing up" makes it clear why you should not be the one summing up this discussion:

While such drastic changes are unlikely to gain consensus, discussions there are more likely to succeed than Cat's husband's tactic of posting huge screeds at the Village Pump,[25] and similarly large and impenetrable proposals at Category talk:Pseudoscience where he appears to be objecting to WP:NPOVFAQ#Pseudoscience policy. Looks like POV-pushing to me, others are welcome to read these linked posts. Catherine and supporters will no doubt continue with this campaign.

To exlpain:

1. My understanding that "POV pushing",such as you ascribe to Catherineyronwode, actually applies to material included in articles, and not to opinions expressed in the Village Pump, on article talk pages or user talk pages. It is beyond my comprehension why you would want to silence discussion in exactly those places meant for discussion.
2. Your characterization of user self-ref's (Catherineyronwode's husband) written views as "screeds" (which is defined as " a ranting piece of writing"), and "impenetrable" is uncivil, and strongly suggests that you are predisposed to judge them negatively.
3. Because of 1. and 2., I would appreciate your withdrawing your summery.

I would also like to make clear that I am not, as you seem to imply above, a "supporter" of Catherineyronwode, nor of any changes to Wikipedia she may favor. I have engaged in this discussion because I think she is being treated unfairly, and for no other reason. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 12:20, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Extra case

I'm sorry but I too feel that more civility should be required from Hrafn. On another article Hrafn has been a fount of profanity [26], of unnecessarily strong and divisive language[27][28], personal insults, ongoing hostility in the face of extreme attempts (by editors other than myself) to cooperate civilly, and even disrupts WP deliberately to make his/her points[29]. After searching these noticeboards, apparently these are not isolated incidents but an ongoing pattern of Hrafn's behaviour. The underlying problem is that Hrafn simply does not wish to contribute constructively to that page (as particularly evidenced by his deletion nomination) and despite this he constantly interferes with everyone else's efforts to improve the page (even claiming he/she uniquely has a special interest in doing so[30], whereas it actually sounds more like a conflict of interest).

To give my own detailed example [31], Hrafn insists on keeping the "relies on primary/affiliated ... add reliable sources" template on a particular section which consists of only 6 sentences but already cites 10 reliable sources (2 are reliable independent secondary sources, the 8 primary sources are peer reviewed and independently and reputably published, and besides, the content of those 6 sentences is completely uncontroversial and uncontestable, just an objective summary of the topic's work.) The documentation for that template indicates it is for sections that are lacking reliable references, so it is obviously inappropriate. (Furthermore, the section is not "relying" on primary/affiliated sources but even if it were then that still wouldn't warrant a big verifiability maintenance template according to policy, since it is policy that primary sources are acceptable when used appropriately.) I think at least that one bit of the article was in better form than many bits of feature articles, and still Hrafn reverts any reasoned attempt to drop that template.

I'm disturbed by the comments above on "civil POV pushing", which seem to amount to victim-blaming and justifying (or tolerating) incivility against certain groups or in punishment of perceived wrongs. Civility is not just an essay or guideline or policy but a pillar, and it is never necessary for anyone to be uncivil here. Now admittedly, the article I have been referring to is about a creationist (although that POV is quite opposite of my own FWIW) whose notability is being contested, this does not make incivility ok. It also doesn't warrant holding the article content to a vastly stricter standard than the norm; to the contrary, that would be POV pushing. (The justifiable remedy for an article on a perhaps low notability fringe topic is civil argument in AfD and insistence on objectivity in the article, not edit warring, verbal abuse, wikilaywering, template-fu and ridiculously tenuous interpretating of rules.) Cesiumfrog (talk) 04:40, 19 August 2011 (UTC)