Case Opened on 19:31, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Case Closed on 19:47, 26 November 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

Party 1 (Initiators)

Party 2

Maoririder (talk · contribs), his suspected sockpuppets Riverofdreams (talk · contribs), Cursa (talk · contribs), Newsreporter (talk · contribs), Sandove89 (talk · contribs), Bluejays2006 (talk · contribs) and anonymous editing at 130.111.105.203 (talk · contribs) and 130.111.96.164 (talk · contribs)

Party 3

Cvaneg (talk · contribs)

Party 4

Tony Sidaway (talk · contribs)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Party 2 was notified by Lucky 6.9: User_talk:Maoririder#Request for arbitration

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

User talk:Maoririder is quickly approaching 10,000 words, all of it attempts to mentor this user.
Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Maoririder was opened on 16 August.
On 19 August, attempts were made to reach out to Maoririder and help him respond to the RfC [1] [2], also at one of his anon's talks [3].

Party 4 confirms that he is aware. --Tony Sidaway ^Talk 22:36, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by party 1

Maoririder has been disrupting the Wikipedia community in a unique way. He seems to highly enjoy creating an extremely high volume of new articles, but almost always created incredibly short stubs. Examples: [4] [5]. Sometimes, he will tag his own articles for cleanup or expand [6].

He has created his own stub templates, usually with incorrect style and grammar, without checking to see if a more appropriate template already exists, or building consensus within the appropriate wikiproject. For example, Template:Route-stub. Detailed discussion of his stub templates can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Discoveries#Newly discovered, August 2005.

He has on several occasions posted to a VfD discussion's talk page, rather than the discussion page itself, even though it has been pointed out to him that this is improper. [7]

As of late, he has taken to disrupting Wikipedia:Reference Desk by asking inane questions, often several in a short period of time. [8] [9] [10] are three examples from a slew of edits made within minutes.

Further examples of his disruptive editing are listed at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Maoririder#Evidence of disputed behavior.

It seems plausible that Maori is a child, autistic, or otherwise developmentally challenged. With that in mind, many users have been extremely patient and attempted to mentor him into a more productive user. Once it was obvious that this effort was futile, and the RfC was drawn up, he began to evade any attempts of communication, often by logging in as new sockpuppets. Several users have now put many hours each into cleaning up after Maori, as well as attempts to mentor him. The ongoing problem has been a serious drain on good editors and Special:Newpages patrollers.

Statement by 3rd party CVaneg

I think this edit: [11] in which Maoririder seems to acknowledge the annoying behavior of one of his sock puppets is a good reason to not assume good faith --CVaneg 20:05, 23 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it is at all clear that he is acknowledging anything of the sort -- I think he is asking that the question be "seeriously" answerd. It may provide evidence that he was asking the question under a different identity. DES ^(talk) 15:55, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by some random outsider

As others have said, it is a strong possibility that Maoririder is very young, or perhaps suffers from some sort of developmental disability. With that in mind, it's truly unfortunate that this issue has gotten to the arbitration stage. However unfortunate that might be, I strongly recommend acceptance of this case. Obviously he has a very strong interest in contributing to this encyclopedia, but if he wants to continue being a part of this community he will have to make some radical changes to his behavior. Since other attempts at helping Maoririder become a better editor are obviously not working, the only apparent conclusion is that, at this point, he will not respond to anything less serious than arbitration. sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m ] 18:43, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to add to that, but feel free to remove this if it is out of course. Reviewing Maoririder's talk page and from seeing the large number of peopl trying to be helpful, I see a disturbing pattern of Maoririder saying he'll take comments into account, and doing nothing of the sort. I don't know much about the relevant disorders, but I have a really hard time believing this is anything other than a case of knowing behavior on Maoririder's part. Even if it is not, the behavior has got to stop. - Taxman ^Talk 22:38, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Tony Sidaway

Maoririder's contributions to the encyclopedia seem to me to be good faith contributions and are for the most part accurate. Looking at his talk page I see the following:

Complaint that he created a small stub about the Bloody-nosed Beetle and the Big-eyed bug. Those article would not exist today had he not created them. Both articles at the time of creation were accurate, if somewhat lacking in detail.
Complaint that he created a small stub about the Briquet Griffon Vendéen.
Extremely contentious claims, passed off as fact or general opinion, that " stubs are not a good thing, and it is not really appropriate to create stubs"
Requests that he stop creating new articles? Why? Since his article are nearly all accurate, this is an utterly baffling suggestion!
Unhelpful comments such as "For me to have simply written something like "Goffs, California is a town in California" doesn't really help the end user who already might know that Goffs is a town in California." The commentator seems to be unaware that most human beings do not even know of the existence of Goffs, yet alone its status as a town.

There does seem to be a serious problem here.

I look further and see this:

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Maoririder: It's unclear if Maoririder is a kid or perhaps mentally retarded, but it seems fairly apparent by now that no matter what we do, he will not be able to work within Wikipedia community standards, if only because he has so far shown no interest in conforming to those standards.

~~Let the person who wrote that, and anyone who endorsed it, hang his head in shame, for surely he has utterly failed to understand the meaning of "Wikipedia community standards".~~ (stricken Tony Sidaway ^Talk 09:13, 13 October 2005 (UTC))[reply]

I suggest that the arbitration committee investigate this as a possible case of harassment. As far as I can see, Maoririder is just being himself, he's adding good content to Wikipedia, albeit in bite-sized chunks, and he needs to be left alone to do what he does, which can surely only be good for the encyclopedia: adding small bits of information where previously there was nothing. --Tony Sidaway ^Talk 23:03, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Tony Sidaway's comments

I have no shame for stating the opinion that Maoririder's juvenile behavior may be consistent with mental retardation, which millions of people across the world suffer from. Regardless of anything else, one look at Maoririder's Talk Page can say it all, Maoririder has been told time and time again by other editors(myself included)what to do in order to live up to the encyclopedic standards that Wikipedia is based upon. An illness of any sort is no excuse to break those standards. I am personally offended by Tony's comments and would like an apology for what he has said above and what he said here. I personally believe his comments are in violation of WP:NPA, and I will follow up if the negative remarks directed toward me continue. Karmafist 21:40, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Are you joking Karmafist? If so I missed the humor, but this doesn't appear to make sense ... Like Tony, I also don't believe that your comment was appropriate considering the situation, since his editing capacity is visible in his contribs for all of us so we do not need the additional editorial. At the same time, I don't think you committed any crime by saying it, it wasn't an attack... it was just callous and nonproductive. I can't at all see how you could call Tony's criticism an attack, to me that seems outrageous. What standard of 'attack' do you use which makes Tony's comment an attack while your comment about Maoriridder is not an attack? --Gmaxwell 05:22, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I only saw his comment on the evidence page, not here. That was a little harsh on Tony's part. I hope you can forgive him and excuse my carelessness in commenting without realizing exactly what I was commenting on. --Gmaxwell 02:50, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Apology

Even so, I think I could have phrased my criticism in a more civil manner. That I am very upset at what I see as a very serious failure of Wikipedia to deal appropriately with an editor whose behavior is unusual, does not excuse the very strong and personally condemnatory words that I used. I apologise to Karmafist for the hurt I caused him. --Tony Sidaway ^Talk 09:10, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Apology Accepted

I have no desire to get in shouting matches here, and I appreciate Tony's apology to appreciate getting back towards that. I myself have Asperger's Syndrome, so I share some slight feeling of brotherhood with Maoririder, and that was ultimately the big thing I was offended at. Accomodation for those with disabilities is always welcomed and in many circumstances is required, but the ultimate goal is integration into "regular" society beyond the disability to the best of the disabled person's abilities, both in positive and negative ways. It seemed like Maori was being held to a different standard here because of the way he responded to comments and his edits. Don't patronize him by believing he should set a lower bar for himself, help him get to a higher level -- he has the will to want to become proficient editor, but appears to need extensive mentoring and externally added focus to get there. Hopefully despite our differences of opinion on wikiphilosophies, we'll be able to help create a niche for Maori here in Wikipedia where he doesn't lower general encyclopedic standards. Karmafist 03:40, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

STATEMENT BY MAO

MENTAL WHAT?????????????? WHY dont you help me

Statement by DES

Response to the above statement by Tony Sidaway. I think any examination of User talk:Maoririder and relaed pages will make it clear that many people, including myself, made manny attempts to assit and mentior User:Maoririder, quite the opposite from harrassing this user. I take strong exception to the above statrement, and I can only attribute it to a failure to throughly read the relavant contribution logs and user talk page, or else an attitude that any article at all is always better than none. Stubs can be very valuable indeed. Contextless or essentaily contentless stubs that simply announce the existance of their subject but give no useful information on their subject are not helpful, IMO. I personally spent hours cleaning up this user's stubs and broken stub templates. Others spent far more time. I did everything I could think of to get this user, obviously very interested in wikipedia, to contribute in a helpful, or at least less harmful manner, and to help this user feel liked and accepted here. I was invariably polite, and did my best to be helpful. I am quite offended to be accused of harrasment. (Note I am one of the initatiors here, and I endorsed the RfC on this user as well. I first encountered this user on new page patrol, very early in his presence here.) DES ^(talk) 23:36, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Preliminary decisions

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (4/0/0/0)

Accept. James F. (talk) 22:16, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Accept, more for violation of community consensus than for breaking of specific rules. Fred Bauder 19:03, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
Accept ➥the Epopt 03:31, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:03, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Temporary injunction (none)

Final decision

Principles

Stubs

1) "Stubs are articles which "[are] clearly too short, but not so short as to be useless. In general, it must be long enough to at least define the article's title."[Stubs] don't yet contain enough information to be truthfully considered articles. The community believes that stubs are far from worthless. They are, rather, the first step articles take on their course to becoming complete." Wikipedia:Stub, a guideline, does not prohibit stubs, nor does it incorporate the generally negative community opinion regarding very brief stubs that do little more than define their subjects, but does strongly suggest that they "be long enough to at least define the article's title, which generally means 3 to 10 short sentences".

Passed 7-0

Assume good faith

2) Editors are expected to be cooperative with other users and to assume good faith on the part of others.

Passed 7-0

No personal attacks

3) Personal attacks are expressly prohibited because they make Wikipedia a hostile enviroment for editors, and thereby damage Wikipedia both as an encylopædia (by losing valued contributors) and as a wiki community (by discouraging reasoned discussion and encouraging a "bunker mentality").

Passed 7-0

Findings of fact

Creation of stubs by Maoririder

1) Maoririder (talk · contribs), new Wikipedia editor, has created a large number of stubs, some of which were no more than a sentence in length and offer no more than minimal definition of their subjects. This is shorter than recommended by Wikipedia:Stub, which offers a guideline of "3 to 10 short sentences". ([12], [13], [14], [15])

Passed 7-0

Maoririder's response to complaints

2) Maoririder has been generally polite in his response to criticism of his creation of stubs, and has made very gradual but good-faith efforts to improve his performance, as can be seen by User talk:Maoririder and a comparison of an early edit [16] to an edit of roughly a week later [17].

Passed 6-0

Blocks of Maoririder

3) Maoririder has been blocked several times due to his prolific creation of stubs, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Maoririder/Evidence#Third_tranche:_Blocks_applied_to_Maoririder

Passed 7-0

Sockpuppets

4) Maoririder is known to have created two sockpuppets, Bluejays2006 (talk · contribs) and Sandove89 (talk · contribs) which, due to his distinctive editing style, were fairly easily identifiable. These were evidently attempts to evade continuing negative attention rather than for the purpose of evading a block, as their creation did not coincide with any blocks. One separate editor was misidentified as a sockpuppet.

Passed 7-0

Remedies

Mentorship

1) Maoririder is to be assigned a mentor as outlined in Wikipedia:Mentorship. Mentorship of Maoririder will include guiding him to edit according to accepted article standards and helping him resolve disputes with other editors.

Passed 6-0