Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/FuelWagon v. Ed Poor

Case Opened on 23:45, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Case Closed on 18:01, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

Involved parties

Complaining witness

• FuelWagon (talk · contribs)

Nominal defendant

• Ed Poor (talk · contribs)

Advocate for nominal defendant

• Kim Bruning (talk · contribs) acting as part-time advocate for Ed Poor.

Second defendant

• User:SlimVirgin (Originally, Ed Poor was only defendant, but arbcom expanded it to include evidence by SlimVirgin regarding my actions towards her. SlimVirgin's submission of evidence opens her to review by arbcom, and she has shown her her prior intent to take this to arbcom here, including a list of what she considers meeting the prior attempts to resolve the dispute.)

Statement by FuelWagon

Please limit your statement to 500 words

On 20 June, 2005, Ed Poor began mediation of the Terri Schiavo article. For a number of weeks, no major disruptions occur on the talk page. On 11 July, 2005, "controversial topic" and "in mediation". SlimVirgin came into the article, with no prior history with the article and no discussion on the talk page and performed 9 edits [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] over the course of 3 hours. During that time SlimVirgin inserted the "in use" tag [10], which displays "This article is actively undergoing a major edit."

As the talk page heats up, I violate NPA against SlimVirgin. I had actually been in the process of deleting my comments, but Ed Poor blocked me for "unrepentant personal remarks" anyway. I accept the block without protest. I gave a full apology to SlimVirgin here, and have not violated NPA since.

User:Neuroscientist (who is a neuroscientist who had been helping on the article for some time) wrote a 5,000 word post about the factual errors in her edits. [11]

Ed Poor warns Neuroscientist to avoid personal remarks. [12] There were no comments in Neuroscientists post warranting such a warning.

While I'm blocked, I start a list of issues on my talk page, listing each factual and NPOV problem with SlimVirgin's edit, listing issues with her behaviour. SlimVirgin complains to Ed Poor [13]. Ed Poor tells her he can deal with this by "giving them a clear Wikipedia:No personal attacks block" [14]. Ed asks "any specific page?" [15] Two hours later, Ed Poor moves all content on my talk page, even some posts by other editors, that have anythign to do with SlimVirgin, and move them to a subpage called "/block" [16]. Ed Poor then uses admin priveledges to lock me out of editing my talk page. He originally says he's doing this because I haven't "said how I intend to help this project" [17], but then changes it to say I made "personal remarks".[18].

When the block against me expires, I file an RfC against SlimVirgin saying that her edit of the Terri Schiavo was [reckless], that she stonewalled criticism, that she wrongfully made numerous accusations of NPOV, No Original Research, page "ownership". A large chunk of the RfC deals with numerous factual and NPOV errors on her part, including those pointed out by Neuroscientist. A copy of the RfC is available here.

Ed Poor intially gave it "partial and hesitant" endorsement [19], but then attacked the RFC on the talk page as a "sneaky way of building a case against an administrator", "gaming the system in a hypocrical way", and Ed suggested FuelWagon drop the RFc. [20]

I ask Ed Poor what specific words in my /block directory got me blocked the second time for NPA violations. [21] Ed Poor replies "I am frankly not sure I have any "right" to block other users at all, in situations such as you described above. Basically, I'm getting away with it because I've been around a long time" [22]

I withdraw my certification of the RfC against SlimVirgin to allow it to be deleted and wipe the slate clean. Ed Poor posts to me that if it was anything other than "harassment", he failed to see it. I point out his initial endorsement of the RfC, saying he saw it at one point. [23].

Ed Poor posts: "I happen to think you're an asshole and a shit head, and that you're fucking everything up, you stupd, time-wasting bully!!! (This is inserted as an example of a forbidden comment, go ahead and complain about me if you want, but I was [Wikipedia:illustrating a point|illustrating a point]]." [24]

I submit evidence to arbcom in August/September time frame. It is dismissed. I enter mediation with Ed Poor in October/November time frame. Both fail. On November 6, I post the results on the mediation page stating what happened [25].

The day after I post the results of mediation, Ed Poor suddenly takes interest in my alleged stalking of SlimVirgin, posting a comment to Jayjg [26]. Moments later, Ed Poor endorses an outside view of SlimVirgin/Jayjg's RfC against me. The RfC was opened on October 16, without a single Comment from Ed Poor, but the day I post negative information about Ed's behaviour in mediation, he suddenly takes interest in an RfC that has been around for a month. I comment on Ed's sudden interest [27].

Ed Poor tells me: "I've got enough pull around here to get you banned," which he apparently considers an "olive branch" [28]

SlimVirgin and I are involved in a content dispute on the Animal rights article.

Sept 29, SlimVirgin posts a comment to Ed Poor's page that I'm launching personal attacks. [29] That same day, Ed Poor blocks me for "unfriendly remarks". [30] for my post here. I ask him to indicate what exactly got me blocked [31]. Like the content he moved to /block from my talk page, Ed Poor never indicates what it was that got me blocked.

If you read my post, I accuse SlimVirgin of being biased, pro-Irael, pro-Jewish, pro-animal-rights, of deleting valid criticism POV's from the Animal rights article, of making false claims of "consensus", when our edits on the animal rights page only involved a couple of editors total, no where near a consensus. All my comments are about her specific behaviour as an editor. This post should not qualify for a full block. This RfA isn't about the content of the animal rights article, but here are a number of diffs showing SlimVirgin deleting all criticism from the animal rights introduction, despite multiple attempts to rewrite it into something that met her demands: [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] Calling her a POV-pusher for deleting significant POV's from the introduction should not qualify as a violation of NPA and a full block. In any event, seven edits by SlimVirgin that refuse to allow any critcism of the "Animal Rights" movement in the introduction is interesting behaviour for SlimVirgin, given that on the Terri Schiavo article, she stated "But I feel that FuelWagon (is) POV pushing too by insisting, ... that no dissenting voice be heard in the intro."'

Ed Poor takes another sudden interest in the RfC against me. Reply to a post I had made two weeks prior. [39]. Ed's edit summary says "This misquotation alone is really grounds for banning you indefinitely from this project." So, apparently, misquoting someone is a bannable offense. Which is really quite intersting, because that's what SlimVirgin did months ago here, when she said "But I feel that FuelWagon (is) POV pushing too by insisting, ... that no dissenting voice be heard in the intro."' The only problem is that I never said "no dissenting voice be heard in the intro" or any other such nonsense. SlimVirgin not only misquoted me, but completely fabricated a quotation. I never said anythign of the sort, and I have always supported putting in both points of view in the introduction of all articles. If misquoting Ed is grounds for an "indefinite ban", then the same should have been applied to SlimVirgin months ago for fabricating a quote and attributing it to me.

In summary, while Ed Poor acted as mediator, he failed to maintain any neutrality as soon as SlimVirgin entered the article. He engaged in the debate, took sides, ignored series of reckless edits by SlimVirgin on a controversial article in mediation (with no history on the article by SlimVirgin), gave warnings to editors who posted valid criticisms of the factual and NPOV errors of SlimVirgin's edits, at SlimVirgin's request, he misused administrative priveledges to lock me out of my talk page for non-existent NPA violations in my /block directory, initially gave hesitant endorsement of my RfC against SlimVirgin then turned around and attacked the RfC and those who filed it, then attacked me directly under the pretense of "making a point". All this while being the mediator assigned to the Terri Schiavo article.

Since then, Ed completely ignored efforts to mediate the dispute between us. When I posted results of mediation, he started axe-grinding, telling Jayjg that I was attacking SlimVirgin, and Ed took sudden interest in the RfC against me, and tells me he's "got enough pull" around here to get me banned.

Then, when SlimVirgin and I get involved in a content dispute on the Animal rights page, SlimVirgin informs Ed Poor that I'm "attacking" her. That same day, Ed misuses admin priveledges and blocks me for NPA violations when no such violations exist. Ed then takes another sudden interest in the RfC against me, and declares that I should be a permanent ban for misquoting him, yet when SlimVirgin completely fabricated a quotation from me several months prior, he made no such demand then.

Ed Poor has shown a complete lack of neutrality while acting as mediator on the Terri Schiavo article. He has misused his admin priveledges twice now, blocking me for non-existent NPA violations, both times at SlimVirgin's direct request. He is now stating I should be banned for something that SlimVirgin did to me months ago, and thretening that he has the "pull" to get me banned.

I'm asking arbcom, at a minimum, to impose a indefinite restraining order against Ed Poor, prohibiting him from using administrative priviledges against me, given his two undeserved and heavy-handed blocks. FuelWagon 17:29, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and Fred Bauder and Jayjg will need to recuse themselves from this case, since we've had some run-ins.

Ed posted a statement that is, well, interesting. It's interesting that when SlimVirgin accused me of POV pushingpage ownershipNPOV and No Original ResearchNPOV, NOR, Cite SourcesBully or system-gaming, taking control of edits, blind reverting patronizing on the Terri Schiavo article while Ed was mediating, Ed certainly never blocked SlimVirgin, nor told her that her remarks"seem especially designed to be hurtful, and are certainly inconsistent with any attempt to collaborate on neutral or accurate encyclopedia articles" But when a lowly editor accuses an admin of biased editing behaviour (certainly nothing worse than the accusations leveled by SlimVirgin), then it's "hurtful" and a blockable offense. FuelWagon 02:31, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Kim Bruning appears flabbergasted that I would state that Jayjg will have to recuse. Jayjg supported SlimVirgin in my RfC against SlimVirgin and SlimVirgin's RfC against me. Jayjg has also reverted me on the Request for Comment page, Words to avoid page, Refusal to serve in the Israeli military article, and Historical Persecution by Jews article. Some of these pages involved multiple reverts by Jayjg against me. That's just a starter for Jayjg. If you are still flabbergasted that I would state Jayjg needs to recuse, then I'll get more diffs if you need. I'll assume most average editors without a grudge to bear or an alliance to maintain will see that Jayjg and I have too long a history to expect him to maintain neutrality towards me. FuelWagon 02:39, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Kim Bruning also stated: "Fuelwagon has managed to get into a fight with Slimvirgin (an independant mediator)" SlimVirgin was not an "independent mediator". SlimVirgin stated that she came to the Terri Schiavo page because of complaints made to her by Gordon Watts and Duckecho. "but I got the impression of bullying or system-gaming on Duckecho's part". At the time, Gordon Watts was pushing POV pretty badly. She made a reckless edit and not once admitted a single factual error, even after Neuroscientist posted a 5,000 word techinical critique of factual and NPOV issues with her edit. She continued to insist that it was a perfectly fine edit and that it should be reinserted. When I started listing all the problems with her edit on my talk page, she asked Ed Poor to block me, which he did. There were no NPA violaitons on my talk (/block) page.

"Has managed to have trouble (with?) Ed Poor while Ed Poor was busy mediating, as he himself admits." Yeah, that is sort of the point. Ed mediated for about three weeks without any major issues between us. When SlimVirgin arrived, and the dispute flared up, Ed engage in the debate, take SlimVirgin's side, warning editors for criticizing SlimVIrgin's edit, locking me out of my talk page for non-existent NPA violations, attack an RfC filed by 5 editors in the article against SlimVirgin, and attack me personally. Yeah, I have trouble with an administrator/mediator who does that sort of thing. FuelWagon 02:53, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Ed Poor

Please limit your statement to 500 words

FuelWagon made the following remark to SlimVirgin, which is a violation of Wikipedia:No personal attacks:

SlimVirgin, you are being a biased editor once again. You were a blatantly pro-israel and pro-jewish editor on several articles about Israel and now you're being a blatant pro-animal-rights editor on this article and the veganism article. I find your accusations of "disruption" to be rather stale, given how blatantly biased your articles tend to be. I haven't made the intro "badly written", you've made the intro a complete animal-rights propaganda piece, deleting any significant view that is critical of the animal rights movement. That isn't NPOV. And there was no "consensus" other than you and a couple editors. Find me a consensus of animal-welfare editors who support your intro, with all the criticism deleted, and then you might have something. But right now, a "consensus" of a couple of rabid pro-animal-rights editors is not a consensus of anything. And besides, once again, you have forgotten one very important wikipedia rule: Consensus does not override NPOV policy. I know this is upsetting to someone like you with your roving gang of revert buddies who show up at every article you edit to revert to your version, but that's the way it works. No matter how many meat puppets you scrounge up, you cannot suppress significant critical views of animal rights from the intro without violating NPOV policy. You'll have to do your animal-rights propaganda piece somewhere else. Wikipedia is about reporting all points of view. FuelWagon 14:43, 26 November 2005 (UTC) [emphasis added for RFAr]

The parts Ive marked in bold seem especially designed to be hurtful, and are certainly inconsistent with any attempt to collaborate on neutral or accurate encyclopedia articles.

The rest of FW's statement above amounts to one long personal attack on *me*. It's worded as a litany of abuses endured by an innocent party, but this POV is predicated on the assumption that Administrators have no authority to block other users for civility violations.

If this RFArb is de facto a referendum on whether admins have the right to enforce web site rules, then so be it. I'm perfectly willing to be a test case for that.

If being an admin is just a matter of carrying a mop and a bucket, and if all power to enforce rules is in the arbcom, however, somebody could simply have told me this before. It didn't seem to me that this was the case, since I've seen many other admins block users for non-3RR, non-vandalism violations - unless I'm imagining things, in which case it's certainly time for me to give up sysop rights altogether. Uncle Ed 23:56, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Kim Bruning, part-time advocate for Ed Poor

By Fuelwagon's own words:

• Fuelwagon has managed to get into a fight with Slimvirgin (an independant mediator)
• Has managed to have trouble Ed Poor while Ed Poor was busy mediating, as he himself admits.
• En passant, he mentions that he's also got it on with 2 arbitrators, who will have to recuse.

Could it be possible that a cabal of mediators and arbitrators is persecuting Fuelwagon unfairly? Well, it is a remote possibility. However, by Fuelwagon's own statements, these people seem to have been drawn into conflict with him one by one.

A rather more likely conclusion therefore is that there is something wrong with Fuelwagon himself.

I would like to request a temporary injunction against Fuelwagon -or at least a personal attack parole- while the case progresses.

Fuelwagon's evidence is quite comprehensive, so I have no further evidence to add at this point in time.

Statement by Snowspinner

I have recently been talking to Ed, and he is interesting in some form of mentorship agreement. I expect to talk more with him about it by the end of the week, and I am more than willing to coordinate said arrangement with the arbcom and/or with the disputants in this case, especially if it can keep this case from having to go forward. Phil Sandifer 20:17, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Musical Linguist

FuelWagon was hostile and aggressive from the time of his arrival. He sometimes violated NPOV, either through use of sensational language, or through asserting as fact unverified information which supported Michael Schiavo. Schindler supporters also violated NPOV, but without the personal attacks FuelWagon frequently indulged in.

FuelWagon blames two administrators for the departure of "three valuable editors". Duckecho/LRod had left before when his edits were reverted and he didn’t feel "appreciated". He frequently carried out extremely nasty personal attacks. Neuroscientist, to a lesser degree, was guilty of rudeness towards Schindler supporters. Ghost’s departure may not be connected to the events of July. FuelWagon may be responsible for the departure of other editors who disappeared after being insulted by him.

On many occasions, I and others felt that FuelWagon and Duckecho were taking ownership of the article. I also found Neuroscientist’s critique patronizing.

The diffs shown for SlimVirgins "massive" edit are misleading. A lot appears in red where small changes were made, because some bits tipped over into the next section. This was acknowledged by Neuroscientist. I have noticed much bigger edits from newcomers to the equally controversial abortion article. Often such edits are edited (without insults) rather than reverted en masse.

I had often noticed SlimVirgin’s name appearing on Wikipedia namespace pages on my watchlist. It was after the "blowup" that I noticed FuelWagon appearing on such pages and reverting SlimVirgin or insulting her on the talkpages. SlimVirgin, as an administrator, contributed frequently to the RfC page, and saw FW’s request for an administrator to close the Bensaccount RfC. She looked at it, and made a comment. That is not stalking. She withdrew completely from Terri Schiavo, and does not appear at other articles that FuelWagon is known to have an interest in.

Ed Poor did not take sides in the Schiavo article. He protected the page once, after an edit war, reverting to a randomly-chosen point before the edit war. He did not try to favour his own version. He was patient with us, but complained a few times about the incivility. At the time of the block, he had seen numerous attacks by FuelWagon, including, possibly, some earlier ones, as I had referred to them on the mediation page. I find no evidence that he and SlimVirgin are friends to the extent of causing a bias, as alleged by FuelWagon. The original "partial and hesitant endorsement" given by Ed suggests the contrary. A proof of bias would be if Ed, while blocking FuelWagon, had overlooked a case of a pro-life editor calling another editor a f**%!ng *$$s0le. That never happened. Ed did not "attack" or "warn" Neuroscientist. He politely asked him not to hurt other editors’ feelings.

While FuelWagon was blocked, he began to edit his talkpage, uploading short sections every few minutes until Ed protected the page. He made about a hundred posts during that time, heavily critical of Ed and SlimVirgin, with hints of having them desysopped, bitter sarcastic remarks about admins never having to admit they’re wrong, and a heading "SlimVirgin lies". Ed asked him to use the time constructively, and blocked him after he continued.

I do not condone Ed’s shithead and asshole comment, but it was a once-off attack, made as an example of what one shouldn’t say, and made to someone who for months had polluted the Wikipedia talk pages with obscenities and insults. I feel it is presented out of context.

FuelWagon stopped using obscenities after his July block, but continued to be hostile and aggressive, sneeringly calling SlimVirgin "honey", calling Jayjg her "meatpuppet", referring to "good ole Ed Poor", etc. Bishonen has pointed out that it’s possible to violate WP:NPA without using obscenities. He makes various claims that are untrue or that are highly misleading, whether deliberately or through honest error I cannot say. I will give examples on the evidence page, but merely point out that his evidence cannot be considered as absolutely reliable. His behaviour continues to disrupt Wikipedia.

AnnH ^(talk) 16:31, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Preliminary decisions

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (5/0/0/0)

• Accept (to consider both allegations of personal attacks/etc against FuelWagon and abuse of sysop powers by Ed Poor) Raul654 12:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
• Accept (Picking a fight with an arbitrator doesn't result in recusal) Fred Bauder 12:49, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
• Accept (to consider allegations of personal attacks by FuelWagon, et al.). James F. (talk) 13:29, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. Kelly Martin (talk) 17:16, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 17:30, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Temporary injunction

1) FuelWagon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is banned, until the conclusion of this Arbitration, from editing any page except those directly related to Arbitration involving him, and his own User and User Talk pages. He may be blocked for a short time, up to three days, for any edit violating this injunction, and all such edits may be reverted by any editor without regard to the limitations of the three revert rule.

Passed 5 to 0 at 17:46, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Final decision

Principles

No personal attacks

1) Wikipedia:No personal attacks

Passed 7-0

Civility

2) Wikipedia:Civility

Passed 7-0

Harassment

3) Wikipedia:Harassment

Passed 7-0

Ownership of articles

4) Although working on an article does not entitle one to "own" the article, it is still important to respect the work of your fellow contributors. - Wikipedia:Ownership of articles

Passed 7-0

Findings of fact

Ed Poor's misuse of access

1) Ed Poor has a history of misusing any permissions given him, which has resulted in Ed losing both his developer and bureaucrat access.

Passed 7-0

FuelWagon's instigation of Edit wars

2) FuelWagon has instigated a number of edit wars across numerous articles, including Terrorism, creation science, etc.

Passed 7-0

Origins of the Terri Schiavo dispute

3) Following edits by SlimVirgin to Terri Schiavo, an edit war ensued, with FuelWagon and Slimvirgin being the primary participants. FuelWagon launched into a tirade of personal attacks [40], for which he was blocked by Ed Poor. FuelWagon later apologized to SlimVirgin [41] user:Neuroscientist then posted a long critique of SlimVirgin's edits [42]. The critique included many accurate criticisms of Slimvirgin's edit, but also included patronizing remarks directed at SlimVirgin [43] Ed Poor asked Neuroscientist to refrain from such comments [44], citing Wikipedia:Avoid personal remarks (the validity of which is debatable)

Passed 6-0-1

Ed Poor's subsequent block of FuelWagon

4) While FuelWagon was blocked, Ed Poor moved a large section of FuelWagon's talk page to a /block subpage and then protected it, claiming (falsely) it contained personal attacks. [45][46][47] When confronted with this, Ed states that "I am frankly not sure I have any "right" to block other users at all, in situations such as you described above. Basically, I'm getting away with it because I've been around a long time" [48]

Passed 7-0

Departures as a result of this dispute

5) As a result of this dispute, multiple users (Ghost, Neuroscientist, Duckecho) have left Wikipedia.

Passed 7-0

FuelWagon stalking SlimVirgin

6) There is substantial evidence that FuelWagon has begun wiki-stalking SlimVirgin [49].

Passed 7-0

Remedies

FuelWagon banned

1) FuelWagon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is banned for six months for extensive campaigns of harassment.

Passed 7-0

Ed Poor desysopped

2) For repeated abuse of his sysop powers, both past and present, Ed Poor is desysopped. At his discretion, he may re-apply for them at Requests for adminship.

Passed 7-0

FuelWagon revert limitation

3) FuelWagon is prohibited from reverting any article more than once per week. If he should violate this, an administrator may block him for up to 24 hours.

Passed 7-0

FuelWagon placed on general probation

4) FuelWagon is placed on indefinite Wikipedia:Probation. If in the opinion of any three administrators, for good cause, he is responsible for disrupting the functioning of Wikipedia, restrictions may be placed on his editing, up to and including a general ban of one year. Each restriction imposed shall be documented and explained in a section at the bottom of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/FuelWagon v. Ed Poor. Should any period of one year pass without any such restriction being imposed FuelWagon's probation shall automatically end.

Passed 6-0