Case Opened on 08:17, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Case Closed on 18:15, 30 March 2006 (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[edit]

IronDuke (talk · contribs)

Gnetwerker (talk · contribs)

Requests for comment[edit]

Statement by party 1[edit]

I’ve been having a dispute for the past few weeks with Gnetwerker regarding the Reed College article. Gnetwerker has often referenced a special relationship to the college, and hinted broadly that he is an officer of the college to buttress his edits, going so far as to include references to internal Reed documents to support his (in my view POV) edits, but when challenged will not divulge his relationship.[1] I believe he is a trustee of Reed College, and can provide evidence for this upon request. I have suggested to Gnetwerker that he recuse himself from direct edits on the Reed College page. Gnetwerker believes my suggestion is improper and insists that my doing so constitutes a personal attack, and has deleted reference to it from the talk page.

In fact, he has deleted all of my comments on all of the edits I made, even ones which concern subjects that are not in dispute – this is directly contrary to our medcabal mediator’s stated opinion on this matter [2]. Also, just after we reached medcabal-assisted resolution on a contentious issue, Gnetwerker began reverting my edits without discussion.

Gnetwerker has made personal attacks against me and been generally uncivil, despite my best efforts to make peace with him. To wit: Gnetwerker has referred to my edits as “nonsense” more than once, as “vandalism” more than once[3], as “BS,” as “drivel,” [4] and has threatened to have me banned as a vandal[5]].

I would like to see a temporary ban on Gnetwerker editing the Reed College page, with the proviso that he refrain from POV editing if he returns. An apology from him for incivility would be nice, but not absolutely necessary, merely a promise to cease the behavior would suffice. Thanks for your attention. IronDuke 16:16, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by party 2[edit]

On Jan 12 (17:43 UTC) User:IronDuke made the following comment on the Reed College page: "deaths from heroin overdoses by members of the Reed community were not uncommon in the early to mid 90's"[6]. This statement was false, not sourced, deeply unverifiable, and possibly defamatory. Since the "Drug Use" section of the Reed College page is the frequent target of vandals, IronDuke's edit was simply reverted. When he re-inserted the statement without discussion, citation, or change, a quick perusal of IronDuke's edit history showed him to be primarily involved in Talk and edits on controversial subjects, reenforcing the impression of him as a vandal or near-vandal. When presented with evidence (the subject of substantial research) of the error of his statement, his response was: "you are in any case quite wrong about the number of heroin deaths among members of the Reed Community"[7]. Over the next three days the argument played out, with two users (JeseW and Matt Gies) who disagreed with IronDuke essentially chased out of the argument.

On Jan 16, after being presented with evidence of his eror/POV regarding the above statement, IronDuke first attempted to intimidate me into leaving him to edit the page: "I would ask you to recuse yourself from further edits to the article". He repeated he charge: "My suggestion is ... that you may have ... a fiduciary responsibility to Reed College and, as such, a duty to recuse yourself from this page". (17 Jan 02:28 UTC). While denying I have, in any sense, a fiduciary interest in Reed, I posted the question on Wikipedia talk:Autobiography. The community seemed (with little comment) to support members of a College community editing a page about the college. I have always stipulated that I am a member of the Reed community, and have never hinted that I am an "officer" or have a special relationship, other than that I live near Reed and can walk onto campus and ask the administration questions about these matters. IronDuke's assertion above is another unsourced, unverifiable accusation.

During this period, IronDuke made 10 additional edits to the Reed page in quick succession and repeated his threat ("I would ask that you not edit the article directly, but simply post suggestions on the talk page." (18 Jan 02:41 UTC)). I posted a POV Dispute Tag on the page and asked for the page to be temporarily blocked for a cooling-off period. IronDuke repeated his charge on the Talk page of the Admin who protected the page[8]. When IronDuke objected to an attempt at refactoring the edit war onto a dedicated page, he publicly accused me of "removing" his comments, when in fact a large, red box at the top of the page pointed to all refactored comments (including my own).

After a lengthy mediation process, I stipulated my agreement to the mediation was contingent on IronDuke refraining from personal attacks on me. When the mediation was completed the mediator User:Sdedeo posted "I'll do is take care of the talk page archiving myself" (26 Jan 20:35 UTC). Shortly thereafter, IronDuke reverted the refactored Talk page and resumed his harassment of me there. He continues to call the refactoring "deletion" or "removal", attributing it to me, and is now objecting to the insertion of new edits supported by supplied citations, because they overlap some (by no means most or all) of his previous edits.

In summation, my position is that User:IronDuke has systematically violated WP:AGF, WP:NPA, WP:HA, WP:NPOV, Editing_policy, and possibly Wikipedia:Libel. His repeated requests for my removal from Reed's page constitute "Using someone's affiliations as a means of dismissing or discrediting their views" from WP:NPA. His charge of comment removal is demonstrably false. This arbitration request is a component of his threats and harassment. While I did not originate this action, I would request, at a minimum, that he be banned from editing the Reed College page or placed on probation as a disruption. -- Gnetwerker 22:40, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Preliminary decisions[edit]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (7/0/1/0)[edit]

Recuse, I am a student at Reed College(!) Dmcdevit·t 22:51, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept Charles Matthews 22:54, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept ➥the Epopt 23:07, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 00:04, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 12:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept Mackensen (talk) 17:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept —Matthew Brown (T:C) 18:16, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. - SimonP 18:23, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Temporary injunction (none)[edit]

Final decision[edit]

All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)

Principles[edit]

Editing regarding a subject you are involved with[edit]

1) It is not forbidden to edit regarding a subject you are involved with. If discretion is used and sources appropriate to the subject are consulted, a user may do so. Tendentious editing in such a circumstance may result in banning from editing.