Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rangerdude/Workshop

This is a page for working on Arbitration decisions. It provides for suggestions by Arbitrators and other users and for comment by arbitrators, the parties and others. After the analysis of /Evidence here and development of proposed principles, findings of fact, and remedies, Arbitrators will place proposed items they have confidence in on /Proposed decision.

Motions and requests by the parties

Template

1)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Request by Rangerdude

1) I believe this is the correct place to note this, but please forgive me if it is not. I am requesting that the merge between this case and the other at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Willmcw_and_SlimVirgin be corrected to reflect that the Arbcom decision was to merge this case Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rangerdude into Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Willmcw_and_SlimVirgin, not the other way around as has been done. All four arbitrator votes to accept both cases specified that this case was to be merged into Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Willmcw_and_SlimVirgin, and as such we should abide by that decision and its template adjusted accordingly to reflect it. Thank you. Rangerdude 05:40, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. Makes no difference either way Fred Bauder 16:01, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. If it is possible, I would prefer that it be noted to reflect this vote on the Arbitration and evidence etc. pages. I realize that several of those pages are in use already, so moving them would be difficult. A notice on the pages indicating that the Rangerdude RfAr was merged into the Willmcw_and_SlimVirgin RfAr by Arbcom vote would work instead. Thanks! Rangerdude 08:49, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Request for temporary suspension of admin powers

2) I would like to request that the adminship powers of User:SlimVirgin be temporarily suspended pending the outcome of this arbitration for violations of WP:PPol as detailed on the evidence page [1]. Rangerdude 08:46, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. Comment - I'm withdrawing this request for the time being since SlimVirgin has made what appear to be good faith efforts at resolving this dispute on the talk page. Rangerdude 18:28, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Recusal Notice request

As this RfAr involves two fairly well known administrators on Wikipedia, I am also requesting in compliance with Wikipedia:Arbitration policy on conflict of interest for any arbitration participant who has a strong historical editing relationship with or other personal allegiance to SlimVirgin, Willmcw, or both to disclose this information and, if applicable, recuse him or herself in accordance with this policy. Thank you. Rangerdude 05:18, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. I posted this in the original RfAr. As the case appears to be underway now, I'm posting it again to ensure that all are aware of it and to ask for any disclosures that may pertain to it. Any such disclosure should include past dealings both on and off site, past instances of support, and even personal trust or favor toward these editors. Thanks. Rangerdude 05:18, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I hereby request that User:Fred Bauder recuse himself from this proceeding on the following grounds:

• He contradicted the full vote of the Arbcom in merging my original case into the later case of Willmcw, though that vote clearly states the opposite was to occur.[2] He also failed to correct this mistake when repeatedly asked to do so.[3] [4]
• He has repeatedly employed prejudicial language about me throughout the evidence and workshop phases of this hearing, often treating me as guilty before the evidence was even properly reviewed and often speaking of me in a disparaging tone. Examples include:
  • "Even a blind pig may find an acorn from time to time and Rangerdude has shown you have made a few missteps"[5][
  • "My impression is that you are disruptive and have also violated Wikipedia:harassment" [6]
  • "Rangerdude continues to harp on it."[7]
• He has failed to abide by Wikipedia:Arbitration_policy#Transparency's requirement that "Arbitrators will make detailed rationale for all their decisions public" in proposing charges against me that neither (1) state specific diffs or evidence in which I am accused of a violation, nor (2) identify the policy I am accused of violating.[8] Despite this, he has proposed severe penalties against me based on alleged violations that are not sufficiently documented [9] [10] He has also neglected multiple polite requests by me to specify the charges.
• He has exhibited a bias toward Willmcw and other administrators involved in this case by (1) downplaying the severity of their documented policy violations by refering to them as "single instance" incidents and "mistakes" rather than the policy violations that they were, (2) responding to evidence of their violations with vague and unsubstantiated prejudicial language about me, and (3) making public assurances to them of leniency in this proceeding ("Point is, don't panic. A long record of responsible work is not going to be ignored just because you are in a mud fight with a POV pusher." [11])
• He has proposed decisions and findings that uncritically accept the allegations of Willmcw against me and seek to impose large penalties, while making no similar proposed findings on the overwhelming majority of the evidence I and others have submitted regarding Willmcw and imposing only minor "slap on the wrist" penalties for his violations.

While I do not question that Fred Bauder has been working on this case in generally good faith and thank him for his participation, I do believe that the examples outlined above show personal biases on his part that are present throughout his handling of this case, perhaps even subconsciously so. It is my understanding that Fred Bauder has been involved fairly extensively in previous editing discussions and giving editing advice to both Willmcw and SlimVirgin on unrelated matters, whereas this Arbcom proceeding is pretty much the first and only time I've ever encountered him. That in itself may have unintentionally prejudiced his view of this case and its participants from the start, and unfortunately this has created a strong impression from the very start that this case is not being conducted fairly - a concern I have raised many times previously with Fred before requesting this recusal, although to little avail. I will reiterate again that I believe whatever prejudices exist in this case, they do not appear to be with any malice though they do appear to have substantially biased its progress and the fairness of the hearing. It is on that basis that I ask Fred to voluntarily recuse himself from further participation in this case, and ask that it be reviewed and fully examined by Arbcom members who have no personal prejudices, intentional or not, towards myself, Willmcw, SlimVirgin, or any of the other editors involved here. Thank you. Rangerdude 20:20, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Request for finding of fact on monitoring

Willmcw has stated here that "Since then I've more or less kept an eye on Rangerdude's edits."[12], but he also continues to assert that he's appeared on articles I've edited shortly afterwards for reasons other than following me as he indicated he was doing in his first statement. Given the relevance of this issue to determining the allegation of wikistalking that is at the center of this case, I would like to request a finding of fact on this issue: Willmcw has stated that he monitors Rangerdude's edits. Thank you for your consideration. Rangerdude 04:39, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. I have also presented evidence that Rangerdude has followed by edits with the intent to harass. Therefore, I'd like there to be a finding of fact that Rangerdude followed my edits. In addition to the evidence that I have already given, I believe that the only way he could have obtained some of the information in this part [13] of his complaint is by following my edits. Thanks, -Willmcw 10:04, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Regarding Willmcw's claims above from the links I posted to his stalker lists on his user pages, I discovered these from two incidents, neither of which involved "following" Willmcw. In the first one, Willmcw posted an open link to his sandbox himself in the withdrawn RfC he attempted to initiate against me [14] in retaliation for an admin incident report I filed against him earlier that day. The second occured when User:Herschel Krustofsky posted a link to a similar stalker list Willmcw compiled on his sandbox in his complaint for this arbitration case located here. After HK posted this link, I remembered Willmcw compiling a similar list against me on the RfC and relocated it. I then checked the histories and edit activity on his sandbox page where those lists had been posted and found that he had made many more of them against me. I added them to my evidence because they demonstrate clear hypocrisy since Willmcw complained in his original charges against me for keeping a list of the articles he's stalked me to on my sandbox. If the Arbcom is interested in finding genuine evidence of obtaining information by following though, I will suggest one place where they may find it. This recent edit by Willmcw on the evidence page shows that he has intentionally searched out and compiled a list of every edit I made on wikipedia where I complained of his use of David Duke quotes in violation of NPOV on the Ludwig von Mises Institute article. Rangerdude 21:31, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Request by for WP:POINT finding

I would also like to request an investigation into WP:POINT disruptions by Willmcw entailed in his counterallegations of wikistalking against me, which I consider to have been made in both bad faith and for retaliatory purposes. The disruptive nature of these counterallegations is evidenced in his post here during my attempts to develop a wikipedia guideline on stalking. In this post he threatens to file a wikistalking charge against me, evidently for the purpose of disrupting and discrediting my work on this guideline proposal. He followed through with this threat on my talk page two days later here. This allegation also coincided with a post 18 minutes later by SlimVirgin here. SlimVirgin's edit posted a link to Willmcw's allegation on my original Village Pump announcement of the stalking proposal and contained language indicating this action was intended to discredit the proposal, "Rangerdude accused of the very thing he was posting about. How irritating." I believe that this evidence is supportive of my contention that Willmcw's wikistalking countercharges against me have been made in bad faith and for the purpose of proving a point in violation of WP:POINT. Rangerdude 21:31, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. Regarding me, this seems to duplicate the #Request for fact finding on retaliation below. -Willmcw 05:43, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
2. Actually, I would like for the Arbcom to examine evidence of both the wikistalking counterallegation threat as an example of disrupting wikipedia to make a point and the repeated use of the dispute resolution process in general to file retaliatory motions. Though the examples overlap, they are two separate issues. Rangerdude 06:12, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Request for fact finding on retaliation

I would also like the Arbcom to make a finding of fact on this issue: Willmcw uses the dispute resolution process to retaliate against editors who have made complaints about him. My evidence is as follows:

1. Rangerdude files admin Incident Board complaint against Willmcw on June 15 for wikistalking.[15] Willmcw retaliates four hours later with a User RfC against Rangerdude, alleging that describing his edits as wikistalking is a "personal attack" [16]
2. Willmcw threatens to post a retaliatory allegation of wikistalking against Rangerdude on the talk page of Rangerdude's anti-stalking guideline proposal.[17] Willmcw follows through with this threat 2 days later.[18]
3. Rangerdude files a Request for Arbitration with Willmcw and SlimVirgin on August 18 [19]. Willmcw files a retaliatory Request for Arbitration against Rangerdude 5 days later on August 23 [20]. (Note: the Arbcom subsequently voted to merge Willmcw's case into mine, and this current case is the result.)

I submit that each of these incidents was a retaliatory use of the dispute resolution process by Willmcw made after I initiated complaints against his behavior shortly prior. As such, they were done in bad faith and in a manner intended to inflame the dispute entailed in my original complaint rather than to resolve it. Rangerdude 21:49, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. They did not need to make an independent request in order for their complaints against you to be heard. It was claimed by Guy Montag that such an independent request was necessary in the Yuber case but that contention was rejected. If there is a dispute and it goes to arbitration the complaints of all participants in the dispute will be considered, if it makes sense to do so. Fred Bauder 02:34, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I have not acted in retaliation for anything.

1. On June 15, the mediation effort at Houston Chronicle collapsed. Rangerdude went and placed a complaint at WP:ANI, while I went and prepared an RfC. Rangerdude did not inform me of his complaint, and I didn't discover it until I'd written an RfC. The responses from admins to Rangerdude's complaint suggested that this was more a matter for an RfC. last edit to that section.

2. I didn't threaten "to post a retaliatory allegation of wikistalking". I responded to his assertion that as a supposed "wikistalker" I should not be able to edit the Wikipedia:Stalking page, and that he was not guilty of it ("I have not engaged in the practice of wikistalking..."[21]). I found that there was in fact evidence that Rangerdude had followed me to pages in order to harass me, and I told him so.

3. By mid-August Rangerdude was becoming more disruptive. This case can only be called "retaliatory" if it found to be baseless.

I note that Rangerdude has made actions that seem strongly retaliatory in nature, including the inclusion of user:Johntex in this arbitration and the previous VfD of an article that user had created.

Regarding the filing of RfArs, there is no textbook on how to proceed. While I was pondering it, RD posted one against me. I did not file this case because RD filed his, and it was not retaliatory. Filing an independent case, in addition to a response to his charges, seemed like a logical route and that is what, in good faith, I did. RD seems to regard any subsequent actions to his own to be "retaliatory". -Willmcw 09:57, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

1. Willmcw's allegations above are simply more falsehoods. First, I did NOT include user:Johntex in this arbitration - JohnTex voluntarily joined Willmcw's case against me on August 26th [22]. Second, the mediation at Houston Chronicle did NOT "collapse" prior to Willmcw's RfC. Both Katefan0 and myself had posted lengthy statements of our positions earlier that day and the mediator had asked us both for time to review them. Willmcw created the RfC at 04:53 on June 15th, yet multiple posts and discussions continued on the mediation page for the rest of that day long after his RfC was filed. The mediator even posted a message to Willmcw there at 07:37 asking him to "be patient" and instructing him not to add himself into the closed section of the mediation, as he had been doing [23]. If anything, the mediation's history shows that Willmcw's retaliatory RfC against me helped cause that mediation to collapse AFTER it was posted, not the other way around as he asserts. Third, Willmcw has yet to explain why he started a completely separate RfAr against me after I filed the original one when (1) he knew he'd have a full opportunity to make his complaints against me in his response, and (2) the liklihood that his complaint would be merged into mine was high. To claim he was "pondering" it at the time I filed is not an excuse either, since he must've been "pondering" it for over 5 days. If you want to know what really happened, look here to the mediation request I posted on August 18th with SlimVirgin and Willmcw. SlimVirgin refused mediation, and Willmcw posted his response here reading "I call on Rangerdude to "put up or shut up": either file an RfC or RfA on the matter or delete the attack page and stop making allegations." I filed the RfAr that day. Willmcw ignored it for five days then retaliated with his own case. Rangerdude 19:02, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

1. One more thing - Willmcw's purported lack of awareness of my WP:ANI complaint against him at the time of his RfC is demonstrably false. This may be demonstrated in the fact that Willmcw linked to my ANI complaint against him in his evidence list for the RfC when he created it [24] (see the first link under the header "Talk pages where Rangerdude calls me a "stalker"" under the evidence section - it goes directly to my ANI complaint made earlier that day). This fact alone indicates that the RfC was retaliatory and that Willmcw is now lying to cover up his actions. Rangerdude 19:09, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Request of finding for ex post facto policy changes

I would like to request a finding of fact that SlimVirgin makes ex post facto changes to Wikipedia policies and guidelines that have been cited to her in dispute resolution.

Example 1: SlimVirgin changed WP:RS to support her interpretation of what count as partisan political websites [25] following a dispute at the Chip Berlet article when I cited this guideline in support of my contention that Berlet's political and editorial beliefs be so designated since they came from a partisan political source.

Example 2: SlimVirgin changed WP:PPol to provide greater discretion to admins in applying page protection to articles they have edited after I included evidence in this arbitration that she violated "Admins must not protect pages they are actively engaged in editing, except in cases of simple vandalism." Change 1 to WP:PPol - [26], change 2 after I reverted [27], change 3 [28], change 4 [29], change 5 (to WP:PP guideline) [30].

I would like to request the Arbcom to make a finding of fact on this matter. In doing so I ask that they consider the propriety of making policy changes unilaterally and without community consensus, as in both cases SlimVirgin changed the policies to conform with her personal interpretations and views of them after they had been quoted to her as evidence of impropriety by her or other editors she supported. Rangerdude 22:49, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. I will look at the changes she made and consider your contentions Fred Bauder 02:36, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
2. As to changing the page protection policy to active editing rather than editing, that is just common sense as active editing is implied. Edits months or years ago should not be considered unless they were in a contested context which is still relevant. As to fulfilling arbitration committee decrees, that would depend on the context and the decree. The closest we have come to ordering protection was the Bogdanov Affair. I am not sure how protecting Islamophobia could have been considered carrying out an arbitration decree unless it was considered to be under attack by a banned editor. I'm not sure what the status of Yuber was on October 15 or if that relates in any way to this matter. Fred Bauder 14:32, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
3. I don't see a problem with this edit to Wikipedia:Reliable sources [31]. It really doesn't address the question of whether Chip's organization should be considered a reliable source, at least not directly. Each organization must be considered individually, as must websites. SlimVirgin's edit does not change that reality. Opinions may differ and it may be very difficult to decide in borderline cases. However, I may point out that we routinely link to a number of sources with strong political viewpoints. Fred Bauder 15:27, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
4. Please review SlimVirgin's arguments from this period at Talk:Roots of anti-Semitism. I quoted WP:RS on this page here while questioning the appropriateness of using Berlet as a "factual" source for something other than his opinions. SlimVirgin responded by arguing that WP:RS applied to extremist groups like Stormfront but not Berlet.[32] As shown above, her edit to WP:RS a few weeks later changed it to comply with that interpretation. Rangerdude 05:28, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Fred, I can't keep on doing diffs to answer all these claims. It took me hours yesterday to compile the diffs to defend myself over the claim that I'd violated NPOV at Chip Berlet. This is all part of what Rangerdude's been doing for months: endless nitpicking, accusations, ancient-history resurrection. In brief: months ago, I wrote the sentence in WP:RS about being careful not to use partisan websites. When Rangerdude tried to use it to exclude Chip Berlet as a source, I saw that he'd misunderstood it, and I went back and tightened it to make it clear that extremist websites were excluded, not just websites with a bias. I did a similar thing at WP:PP. I was the original author of the sentence in the intro saying "Admins must not protect pages they are engaged in editing." When Rangerdude accused me of violating it at Islamophobia, even though I wasn't editing it, I went back to tighten the sentence by adding "actively," so it would have read "admins must not protect pages they are actively engaged in editing" (but he reverted me). And I wanted to add something about the important point being that they must not use page protection to gain the upper hand in a content dispute. That's the essence of the protection policy, but Rangerdude kept reverting so I didn't get to add it. Now he makes all this sound so sinister, as though I'm creeping around Wikipedia trying to adjust things in my favor. All I'm doing is tightening policy according to the misunderstandings or problems I see occurring because of a certain wording. That is how the wording of policy documents gets improved over time. Rangerdude seems unable to understand the difference between the spirit of a policy and the letter of it. The spirit wins every time, in my view. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:56, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Even a blind pig may find an acorn from time to time and Rangerdude has shown you have made a few missteps, for example I believe you interpret NPOV wrong when you express the view that favorable and unfavorable material ought to be "balanced" and use that as an excuse to remove well sourced material. This wrong-headed notion is not limited to you and might even be agreed to by some or even most arbitrators. It is understandable that you might commit this error. Point is, don't panic. A long record of responsible work is not going to be ignored just because you are in a mud fight with a POV pusher. You also protected a page that you were actively editing. It is not clear why, no one had removed what you had contributed, nor was protection called for by any arbitration decision, but you did it. Rangerdude would have it that a grave violation has occurred. This would be true if you were edit warring at the article and protected the article in your version, but that is not what happened. Fred Bauder 15:41, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

1. Fred - once again while your attentiveness to this dispute is appreciated, statements such as "Even a blind pig may find an acorn from time to time" and "mud fight with a POV pusher," made in apparent reference to me, seem to indicate a highly prejudicial viewpoint on your part in even hearing this case. While I don't doubt you are working on this in good faith, it does raise the question of whether the resulting arbitration will be conducted fairly. Rangerdude 05:21, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

1. Is the assertion here that editing a guideline once a matter is in dispute is bad? I don't see how this is different than Rangerdude's work on the various Wikistalking pages. -Willmcw 06:13, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Rangerdude apparently forgets that most of his contributions to Wikipedia:Assume good faith, Wikipedia:Stalking, and Wikipedia:Harassment were unilateral. Very little (if any) of his proposed language was adopted by the community. -Willmcw 10:21, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

1. The issue here is that SlimVirgin unilaterally alters guidelines and proposals that she's been challenged on in disputes to conform to her own interpretation of them and provide greater cover to her own actions. I am contending that this is problematic because in both cases, SlimVirgin made no effort to obtain consensus behind her changes. She simply rewrote the policies in ways that best suited her behavior and personal interpretations of them. This lack of consensus building became evident when I objected to here PPol changes and asked for other editor input. Several independent editors quickly stated opposition to what she was trying to do and favored keeping it the same. By contrast, in my wikistalking guideline work that Willmcw alludes to in his comment, I openly sought out consensus and made changes to reflect wikipedia community objections and Arbcom rulings. When wikistalking was finally incorporated into the harassment guidelines, it was done with widespread community participation over several months time. Rangerdude 06:29, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
2. I would like to note that Willmcw's allegations that I made "unilateral" changes to policy similar to SlimVirgin are false. In all three of the cases he notes above, I contributed on the talk page and in the development of provisions that were not yet guidelines or policies. All of my major proposals were made in talk page posts that asked for feedback and consensus, and I did not unilaterally change any of the existing policies or guidelines without obtaining consensus first it as SlimVirgin did on PPol and RS. Rangerdude 18:32, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

1. Request for finding of ex post facto attitude changes

The Mower by Philip Larkin

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found

A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,

Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.

Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world

Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.

The first day after a death, the new absence

Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind

While there is still time. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 07:17, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Finding of fact regarding harassment and personal attacks

User:nskinsella has introduced evidence stating that Willmcw has harassed him, including (1) waging a personal campaign to delete the wikipedia article on nskinsella's real life person, Stephan Kinsella, due to his encounters with nskinsella as an editor, (2) making bad faith insinuations that nskinsella put other users up to creating this page about himself, and (3) making personal attacks on nskinsella's employment including the insinuation that he is on the payroll of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. I would like to request that the Arbcom investigate this evidence as well, and make a finding on whether Willmcw violated WP:NPA, WP:STALK/WP:HA or any other wikipedia policies in his treatment of nskinsella. Rangerdude 07:40, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. I will certainly carefully consider whatever evidence he has presented. I have not at this point done so as he is not one of the main protagonists. Fred Bauder 13:47, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Despite Rangerdude's assertion, User:Nskinsella has not introduced any evidence in this case, only assertions.

In regard to the first point: There has been no evidence of a "campaign" on my part to have the Stephan Kinsella article deleted. I did nominate the first article for deletion, and it was deleted. When the subject recreated it, I didn't nominate it for either Speedy or AFD, though I did vote for its deletion. I don't see how these efforts can be called a campaign. I note that the person Stephan Kinsella did engage in campaigns to keep his own article and to delete that of a rival, Tom G. Palmer, in both cases posting blog messages encouraging his readers to vote in the AfD/VfDs.

In regard to the second point: I don't see any evidence of bad faith insinuations of the type described. Someone needs to provide some diffs.

In response to the third point: Stephan Kinsella/User:Nskinsella is an "Adjunct faculty" member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, apparenly unpaid. Another active editor user:DickClarkMises, is their paid staff librarian. While discussing their edits on the talk page, User:Nskinsella and I had this exchange:

• I disagree, strongly. I believe your motives here are transparent, just as they were on the IP page where you wanted to insist on the copyright comment. This is no place for hidden agendi. Stephan Kinsella 02:47, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

• It's no place for any agendas. I'd be hard to argue that faculty and staff of the LVMI don't have a agenda regarding their institution. -Willmcw 02:54, July 23, 2005 (UTC)[33]

I fail to see how this is a personal attack or even an insinuation that User:Nskinsella is an employee of the LVMI. He is a faculty member and user:DickClarkMises is a staff member. No one is contesting that. I normally would not even mention other editors' supposed agendas, but I was being repeatedly accused of having a transparent (yet hidden) agenda of my own.[34]

I find it hypocritical that Rangerdude calls this exchange "particularly eggregious and uncalled for" compared to User:Nskinsella's repeated personal attacks against me. [35]. -Willmcw 23:41, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

The text that particularly stands out about Willmcw's edit here is in his edit summary: "I don't get paid by the LVMI," directly insinuating that nskinsella did get paid and thus had some financial "agenda" or motive behind his LVMI edits. Whereas nskinsella may have been guilty in the past of breaching civility with Willmcw under direct provocation by Willmcw, I do not know of any case where he made a direct personal attack on Willmcw's supposed financial motives in editing an article as this post does regarding nskinsella's LVMI affiliations. It should also be noted that nskinsella's remarks in the exchange located above where he questions Willmcw for pushing an agenda came in direct response to Willmcw's David Duke edit. Given the plainly bad faith nature of that edit, questioning its purpose becomes appropriate. Attacking another user's motives based on a falsely alleged or insinuated financial stake, however, is never appropriate. Rangerdude 06:41, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Request by Willmcw: negative personal comments

1) Rangerdude has made dozens of negative personal comments about me, on article talk ages, edit summaries, etc., despite my reqeusts that he stop. I request that he be asked to stop making negative personal comments about me. -Willmcw 21:57, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Request by Rangerdude regarding the Cberlet dispute

On the proposed decisions page Fred Bauder recently proposed and voted in favor a finding that I "inappropriately quarreled with" User:Cberlet and also supported an "admonition" against me for allegedly doing so. This finding of fact, however, did not state or document any specific instance where I acted "inappropriately" toward Cberlet. It does not state any policy or guideline I violated. It only links to a user RfC I filed against Cberlet for making personal attacks against me. I would like to accordingly request for Fred Bauder or any Arbcom member to document and identify what, if anything, I ever did that was wrong to Cberlet in making this finding. I also request that the Arbcom separate their finding on whether or not I wronged Cberlet from their finding of whether or not Willmcw wronged NSKinsella and vote on the matters separately. Should any specific evidence of wrongdoing be offered regarding my conflicts with Cberlet, I would also like the Arbcom to consider Cberlet's wrongdoing towards me including personal attacks such as this and his general attitude of rudeness and hostility towards me from our very first encounter beginning here: Talk:Ludwig_von_Mises_Institute#Original_research.2C_unnamed_critics.2C_and_partisan_sources

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Finding on Dispute's Origins

I'd also like to request that any proposed decision by the Arbcom include a finding on the origins of this dispute. This has been discussed some on the evidence page and under an initial conversation below, but no formal statement or identification of where the dispute came from has emerged from the discussion yet.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. I believe this is an important issue to consider, because this Arbcom proceeding has revealed that Willmcw began following my edits even before I was a registered user when I was still making IP additions. It has also revealed that when doing so, Willmcw mistakenly identified me as the author of a highly POV anon IP edit to the William Quantrill article on December 25, 2004 [36] that I did not in fact author. Willmcw also states that he began following me because of an edit I made on the Morris Dees article here that he contends was POV, yet I contend (and argue here) that there was nothing even remotely POV about that edit.

This issue is important because Fred recently proposed a finding that I engaged in "aggressive and tendentious" editing that "has drawn the attention of the Wikipedia administrators Slimvirgin and Willmcw." Yet I believe the above diffs and Willmcw's own statements of when he began following me indicate that something else drew Willmcw's attention to me. That something else was a combination of (1) mistaken identity on his part, (2) a false characterization of a perfectly reasonable and non-POV edit as "POV" because it did not reflect favorably on a political figure that Willmcw supports, and (3) a general assumption of bad faith against me made by Willmcw since the very first day he saw me editing.

I would also like to point out that Willmcw was NOT YET AN ADMINISTRATOR when this event happened, and rather was a regular editor pushing his own POV who took it upon himself to follow my edits based on the aforementioned bad faith assumption. I'd also like to point out that SlimVirgin was NOT drawn into this dispute by anything involving POV's or edits. She got involved by responding to first an Admin Incident Board and later a user RfC I filed against Willmcw for different instances of bad behavior on his part. Rangerdude 01:48, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

The original charge that prompted this Arbcom case was wikistalking by Willmcw. To properly investigate that charge of wikistalking necessarily entails determining (1) when Willmcw's following of my edits began, (2) why he began following my edits, and (3) what his purposes in following my edits were. By making a finding on the origin of this dispute, questions 1 and 2 are answered: (1) He began following my edits in December before I even registered, and (2) he did so because he contends this edit was POV and because he mistook this edit by somebody else for one of mine. What, then, of number 3 regarding his purposes in following me? I contend that in large part his purpose was harassment and disruption, and point to incidents such as the Claremont Institute article where he followed me as evidence of this. Willmcw also curiously states that he never makes personal remarks and has only targetted the "correctness" of my edits. In reality, Willmcw frequently makes condescending personal remarks in his edits and edit summaries about me and other editors. A few examples:

• [37] - Edit Summary responding to my changes on the Morris Dees article: "consider the source"
• [38] - Edit summary falsely insinuates that I am Derek Copold, the author of a source article he was trying to remove/denigrate by calling it a "blog"
• [39] - "I'm sure you're a responsible editor" and "Would a "responsible editor" make that change blindly?" - condescending tone in response to my change of POV terminoloy "right wing" to less POV "conservative"
• [40] - "Apparently I'm not "free" to edit the main draft eith, unless my edits are deemed "friendly" by Rangerdude." - condescending personal remarks
• [41] - "I don't get paid by the LVMI" and "I'd be hard to argue that faculty and staff of the LVMI don't have a agenda regarding their institution." - personal attack on Nskinsella's employment
• [42] "Rangerdude is zealous on issues concerning the confederacy, neo-confederate, and related issues, and his contributions should be viewed with care." - personal attack comment trying to associate me with the "neo-confederate" pejorative.

Rangerdude 08:58, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

• 2. The activities of 11 months ago, while informative, are not determinative. It is the behavior since then that matters most. As for the exact "origin", I've already pointed out that it was the range of his pre-registration edits, and 68.92.217.49 (talk · contribs) in particular, that drew my attention and which appeared to me to strongly advocate for a POV. I believe that I responded appropriately with my initial edits in response, and that I have always acted responsibly in trying to balance this editor's POV promotion. I don't see what purpose is served by pinpointing a single event that happened a year ago. The behavior since then appears to be most relevant to the matter today.
• Rangerdude often contends that I have shown bad faith but he has not presented any evidence of it other than my attention to his edits. I have never called him an epithet, political or editorial. Nor have I ever said - "you only made that edit because you believe X". I've never made any personal attack against him, and very few personal comments of any kind. I have never questioned his good faith, only the correctness of his edits. This is in sharp contrast to his own behavior. -Willmcw 08:13, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Finding regarding White Supremacist sources

I recently discovered and added new evidence here of cases where Willmcw added White Supremacist and other overtly racist sources to discredit legitimate opinions held by more mainstream individuals in addition to the well-documented David Duke incident. The first time he did this was in one of our very first encountered back in December, when he added a white supremacist publication called the Jubilee Newspaper to the criticisms section of the Morris Dees article. I missed him doing this previously because I wasn't familiar with this source until researching it earlier today and finding that it is affiliated with the Christian Identity movement. Willmcw apparently added the Jubilee Newspaper reference to discredit an award-winning investigative report on Dees by the Montgomery Advertisor in 1994. I also found another incident on the Ludwig von Mises Institute where Willmcw attempted to make guilt-by-association links to the Institute for Historical Review - a holocaust denial group. It is thus evident that using white supremacist insinuations is not an isolated infraction but rather a pattern of infractions by Willmcw. I'd like the Arbcom to investigate this matter since white supremacist insinuations are highly offensive and abusive given their connotations of violence, bigotry, and extremism. Rangerdude 08:10, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. The Jubilee article has been widely reposted or excerpted on a number of websites, including pro-confederate sites such as "Our Southern Nation" and the "Texas League of the South", in addition to the website of David Icke. Dees is a frequent critic of White Nationalists, Neo-Confederates, and similar groups, and a selection of their rebuttals are appropriate. Considering that the citation has been in the article for eleven months without comment from anyone, himself included, it appears that Rangerdude is grasping at straws. I'm confused that he calls one revert (apiece) "revert warring". -Willmcw 13:49, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

1. I further note that Rangerdude himself added Joseph Sobran, who is known as a speaker at Institute for Historical Review events, as a critic of the Claremont Institute.[43] Yet he is shocked that I added Sobran's name to the LVMI article 20 days later, although Sobran has spoken at LVMI too. I don't know why Sobran is considered proper in one context, but a gross violation in another. -Willmcw 08:40, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

1. The only reason the "Jubilee Newspaper" source has been on that article for 11 months is that it's relatively obscure, whereas somebody like Duke is well known. I did not know what it was until researching it more closely yesterday, but all it took was a simple search to reveal that it is a Christian Identity publication. That makes it an inappropriate white supremacist source, and it doesn't become any less so because somebody else has referenced it. Far from a case of "grasping at straws," the fact that Willmcw added this source and that he is now revert warring to retain it [44] show that Willmcw frequently employs guilt-by-association tactics to discredit mainstream sources like the Montgomery Advertiser with insinuations and links to white supremacists. Rangerdude 07:30, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Addendum - Willmcw's statement about the use of Joseph Sobran as a source is a straw man argument. I did not object to (or take any other position on) using Sobran himself as a source. What I do consider objectionable though is the addition of guilt-by-association attacks linking him to the Institute for Historical Review in articles where it has nothing to do with the topic. This is an inappropriate nested criticism and clear violation of WP:V, which prohibits guilt by association attacks in descriptions. Rangerdude 09:27, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Request by Willmcw regarding Rangerdude's WP:BITE allegations

1) Rnagerdude has frequently and loudly accused me of violating a number of policies and guidelines, most of which are list here. In particular he has alleged that:

• He has a bad habit of disregarding Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers, especially where a newcomer has made edits to an article or subject he deems to be his territory.[45]
• The latter is in fact often a goal of his - beating up on the new guy to frustrate him, even though wikipedia has an explicit rule against doing this (Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers).[46]
• Unfortunately we have a lot of editors around here who completely disregard the Wikipedia:Please_do_not_bite_the_newcomers guideline and you appear to have encountered one frequent abuser of this guideline at length.[47]

(He's made the allegation several other times as well.) However he has not presented any evidence in this case about it, and when I asked him about it on Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Rangerdude/Evidence he indicated that the only evidence he has is my treatment of him despite his earlier claims that I am a "frequent abuser" of the guideline. I request that if the ArbCom sees evidence that I am a frequent abuser that they say so and that if there is no evidence then I request Rangerdude stop making the allegation. -Willmcw 08:42, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Recusal of Jayjg requested

I am requesting that User:Jayjg recuse himself due to personal biases regarding several of its participants and an extensive editing history with User:SlimVirgin, one of the named defendants in this case. Should Jayjg decline to voluntarily do so, I am requesting that the Arbcom enforce mandatory recusal. Rangerdude 22:30, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. No basis I am aware of. Fred Bauder 23:06, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
2. Aside from the fact that the request is irrelevant (as the Remedies page was prepared by Fred Bauder, and does not include any remedies naming SlimVirgin), it is also unfounded - we edit fewer than 2% of articles in common. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. See User:SlimVirgin's talk page and User:Jayjg's talk page. They team edit on an almost daily basis and frequently request each other to block and page protect on disputes they are involved in. This personal relationship is both extensive and long-standing. Rangerdude 23:13, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

1. SlimVirgin has almost 4000 edits on her User:Talk pages, and I've made almost 3000 edits to various User:Talk pages; perhaps 60 of them are on SlimVirgin's. This is not "team edit[ing] on an almost daily basis" and I don't recall ever requesting that SlimVirgin "block and page protect on disputes [I am] are involved in". Oh, and by the way, co-operatively working with other Wikipedia editors is actually the Wikipedia ideal. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed temporary injunctions

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1)

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Comment by others:

Proposed final decision

Proposed principles

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1) {text of proposed principle}

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Comment by others:

Editing by many is inherent to Wikipedia

1) Wikipedia is a wiki. As such the editing of any user's contributions by others is contemplated, indeed integral to the editing process. The editing page of any article contains the language If you don't want your writing to be edited and redistributed by others, do not submit it. (Bold in the original)

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Comment by others:

Wikistalking

2) Wikipedia:Harassment, a guideline, discusses application of the concept of Wikistalking as a type of harassment. This concept has been used to describe the behavior of several users who have been sanctioned because they followed other users around, correcting or adding to their edits.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Good faith

3) It is difficult to differentiate between normal editing, harassment expressed as wikistalking, and monitoring of another editor for a legitimate purpose.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. I submit that it's not nearly as difficult to differentiate wikistalking from good monitoring as it may first appear. A simple test to ask is whether or not the following is abiding by WP:FAITH and Wikipedia:Civility, both of which are referenced in the applicable WP:HA guideline. I would argue that excessively following another editor who is engaged in good faith efforts to improve the encyclopedia is a breach of WP:FAITH, as it assumes that editor is deserving of monitoring by self-appointed scrutinizers, which is inherently a bad faith assumption. Whereas monitoring somebody who engages in vandalism or has a clear record of bad grammar and poor language use would be legitimate, monitoring somebody who is engaged in good faith edits would not be. I would also argue, per the WP:HA guideline, that constantly nitpicking another user's edits where no policy or guideline violation exists is a breach of Wikipedia:Civility. An example of this would be constantly rewording another editor's contributions in cases where the original displayed correct grammar and reasonably accurate content. Rangerdude 18:44, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I submit that it is an inherent self-contradiction to profess adherence to good faith while simultaneously stalking another editor based upon a bad faith assumption about his motives. I also submit that Willmcw made an assumption about my motives as indicated by his admission that he has "more or less kept an eye on Rangerdude's edits" since encountering my earliest IP contributions [48]. And finally, I submit that Willmcw's assumption about my motives was made in clear bad faith, as demonstrated by the fact that he falsely and without evidence concluded I was the author of another IP editor's POV contributions located http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Quantrill&diff=next&oldid=8800631 here] and allowed that false conclusion to influence his behavior toward me including, among other things, his decision to stalk me. Rangerdude 03:28, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

2 Quoting from the policy, WP:AGF:

• As we allow anyone to edit, it follows that we assume that most people who work on the project are trying to help it, not hurt it.
• Assuming good faith is about intentions, not actions. Well-meaning people make mistakes, and you should correct them when they do. What you should not do is act like their mistake was deliberate. Correct, but don't scold. There will be people on Wikipedia you disagree with. Even if they're wrong, that doesn't mean they're trying to wreck the project. There will be some people you find hard to work with. That doesn't mean they're trying to wreck the project either; it means they annoy you. It is never necessary that we attribute an editor's actions to bad faith, even if bad faith seems obvious, as all our countermeasures (i.e. reverting, blocking) can be performed on the basis of behavior rather than intent.
• Correcting someone's error (even if you think it was deliberate) is better than accusing him or her of lying because the person is likely to take it in a good natured fashion. Correcting a newly added sentence that you know to be wrong is also much better than simply deleting it.

Comparing the comments of Rangerdude compare to my own comments, I see that RD frequently scolds editors and challenges their intent, even stating that they are trying to harm the project or insert a POV. By comparison, I rarely comment on any editor's intent.

AGF calls for simply fixing a problem rather than making an issue about it. That is what I have tried to do. OTOH, Rangerdude seems to make a big deal about every correction he decides to make, often using them as springboards for comments about editors. While I have found problem edits by Rangerdude, have tried to correct them as best I can, and have even drawn attention to them on occastion, I have always tried to avoid making any reference to Rangerdude's intentions. Only in a few cases, such as this arbitration, have I done so. AGF also says that just because someone is annoying you it does mean you should assume bad faith about them. Finally, I do assume that Rangerdude believes he is acting in Wikipedia's best interest. -Willmcw 02:26, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Wikipedia is not a battleground

4) Organizing and engaging in factional struggle violates Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_battleground.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Wikipedia is not a legal system

4.1 Nor is it a legal system bound by bureaucratic rules or subject to Wikipedia:Wikilawyering, see Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_bureaucracy.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. The term wikilawyering appears to be another neologism created explicitly for this arbitration and has no standing in any wikipedia policies or guidelines. Rangerdude 20:05, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
2. "Wikistalking" is also a neologism, though slightly older. Until it was first used in an RfAr it also had no precedent. -Willmcw 02:36, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

1. Though the formal definition page for the term 'wikilawyering' may be a recent creation, the word existed well before this arbitration case: [49]. The derivation from the more general–and much older–term 'rules lawyer(ing)' is obvious and straightforward. Whether the term is a neologism or not is moot—the arbitration case should address the behaviour in question rather than the terminology used to describe that behaviour. The page Wikipedia:Wikilawyering is being used for clarity's sake to house a definition for the term used in the proposed principle; it is not being used as a policy statement. (The policy in question is WP:NOT, which has long stated "Follow the spirit, not the letter, of any rules, policies and guidelines.") TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:24, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
2. Note: I believe Fred created the page in response to Zephram Stark's complaint that Wikilawyering wasn't defined. Carbonite | Talk 16:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

The term wikilawyering has come into common use among the arbitrators due to our observations of the behavior. Defining it on a page is an attempt to give some scope to this concept which, having been used among ourselves, is now being used in decisions, as we use it, it is good that we define it. Fred Bauder 16:56, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Deportment

5) Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:No personal attacks provide that a user is required to deal courteously and respectfully with other users.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Neutral point of view

6) Wikipedia:Neutral point of view contemplates inclusion of all significant points of view regarding the subject of an article.

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Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Assume good faith

7) Wikipedia:Assume good faith provides that users are required to assume that other editors are engaged in a good faith effort to advance the purposes of Wikipedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. WP:AGF does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Things which can cause the loss of good faith include vandalism, personal attacks, and edit warring. AGF is becoming one of our most-commonly miscited policies. Kelly Martin (talk) 15:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Kelly Martin raises an important point above. For my own part in the dispute with Willmcw, I believe that I generally assumed good faith of him until shortly before the time of the Houston Chronicle dispute when I began to experience near constant frustration with him following me. Despite our differences, we were for example able to put together a fairly decent article at neoconfederate and Ed Sebesta. I began doubting that he was acting in good faith largely because of his edits in the Houston Chronicle dispute in late May. It seemed to me like his actions after he joined this dispute did nothing toward building consensus between Katefan0 and me - the original disputants - and almost always made the existing situation worse. That's why I made a request to the arbitrator to make the arbitration's main section closed to only myself and Katefan0 - I feared that if Willmcw got involved in the main arbitration, it would only make a contentious situation worse. And sure enough, it did on June 14th when Willmcw tried to add himself into the closed mediation [50] and started bringing in our personal dispute on wikistalking the next day when he filed his RfC against me. After that point, I strongly suspected that Willmcw was not editing in good faith whenever he encountered me, which was increasingly frequent because he was following me to new articles on a regular basis. His bad faith behavior was conclusively demonstrated around July 3rd and 4th when he followed me to Claremont Institute and engaged in several blatantly disruptive reverts to add POV attacks into the article text. This incident in July was the final nail in the coffin that caused me to lose good faith in Willmcw. I believe I was justified in doing so at this point, especially given that I had assumed good faith of him for the first few months of our early disputes. I would like to contrast this with Willmcw's treatment of me, which assumed bad faith of me since the moment we first encountered. By his own admission he assumed me to be one in the same with an anon IP editor who posted severe POV material on the William Quantrill article on December 25, 2004 when in fact I was not this person. He nevertheless treated me as if I was from the very first moment we met in January and, because of that, he never even afforded me the opportunity of good faith to begin with. Rangerdude 07:18, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Don't dwell on the past

8) Editing Wikipedia involves being able to get along with thousands of other users who have very different personalities and POVs. Disputes are inevitable, but these should not be allowed to degenerate into mudslinging across different articles and talk pages. Users have to be willing and able to put disputes behind them and move on.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. Forgive and forget, move on. If you have been here for a few years and have at least some backbone you will have been in disputes with other editors including some who are administrators or have other responsibilities. Holding grudges and settling scores is wholly inappropriate. Fred Bauder 02:49, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

1. I added this as a suggested principle because I feel this case has come to the arbitration committee because RD was unable to let go of whatever the original grievance was, and has posted literally thousands of words about it on various talk pages. This is common to many disputes on Wikipedia, some of which end up before the arbcom and some of which just go grumbling on causing trouble for all concerned and creating toxic talk pages for months on end. Because everything that happens between editors is written down and recorded, it can be tempting to go off in search of diffs to show how terrible your opponent has been in the past. Being willing not to do that, even when you feel you've been wronged, is essential to avoiding bad wikikarma, so that editors aren't constantly weighed down by the effects of their past mistakes. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 11:34, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
2. I agree. Bringing up past editorial transgressions without resolution does not bring us towards building consensus on articles. We all need to focus on the edits, not the editors. Once matters have been resolved, they should not be continually revisited. That is just divisive. -Willmcw 11:49, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

   My own evidence of past behavior by Rangerdude is not intended as a complaint about that behavior, as previously explained. It is simply presented in order to show my view of his editing at the time, and to show a long-standing pattern.-Willmcw 06:17, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

3. While I agree with the principle that putting the past behind us is probably the only real way to resolve this dispute in the future, I will note that I find it odd that the very same editors who are accusing me of dwelling on the past have assembled lengthy lists in their complaints dating back to December 2004 when I was still editing as an anon IP. I find it similarly odd that one of the editors stating his concurrence with this principle has made my participation in a dispute on the Jim Robinson article last April - a dispute that he was not even a participant in - a central part of his complaint against me. Seems to me like a classic case of "do as I say, not as I do" Rangerdude 21:08, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll also add that despite all the rationalizations offered by the very same editors who accuse me of "dwelling in the past" etc. for their own tendencies to focus upon disputes from last December or January or February or March or April, the hypocrisy is inherent. Katefan0, for example, did not hesitate to bring our January 2005 dispute on Sheila Jackson Lee into the Houston Chronicle dispute that May [51], nor did Willmcw hesitate to assemble a stalking list of every article I had ever edited [52]. If dwelling in the past is a problem, it's a problem without special exemptions or qualifications and the accusers here are just as guilty of it as anyone else, if not more so. Rangerdude 21:33, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

1. Outlining past actions that show a pattern of behavior over time as part of an arbitration proceeding is very different than airing past grievances regularly when those editors encounter one another on unrelated articles. · Katefan0^(scribble) 20:51, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikistalking

9) The Arbitration Committee and Jimmy Wales have used the term "Wikistalking" to refer to certain egregious instances of Wikipedia:Harassment; however, it is inherent to the WikiMedia software, which includes a link for each user, "User contributions," that review of the contributions of other users is contemplated. In order for such review, including corrections or revisions of the contributions of others, to be considered Wikistalking the activity must including substantial additional elements of harassment.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. The dispute at Claremont Institute is a clear example of Willmcw following me to an article to engage in behavior that violates Wikipedia:Harassment. Willmcw followed me to this article after I began expanding it. As documented on the evidence page here and here, Willmcw's primary purpose in editing here was harassment and disruption. For over 3 months Willmcw pushed for the addition of the pejorative POV term "neoconfederate" as a description of a conservative think tank he dislikes after I quoted them as a source. He did this in at least 15 different edits or reverts. He also deleted sourced material I had added and pushed similar POV terms like "right wing" as a description of conservative figures, including multiple reverts to that term after I changed it to the NPOV "conservative." In total Willmcw made at least 21 separate edits that were additions or reverts to add POV attacks in the article text against Ludwig von Mises Institute sources I had used, and multiple other edits where he deleted or significantly reduced my additions of non-LVMI figures such as Robert Bork for the purpose of bolstering his POV attacks on the LVMI. Rangerdude 21:18, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Invidious labels

10) Describing an organization with an unfavorable adjective that they don't apply to themselves is inappropriate. Such characterizations are properly ascribed to critics, see Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Fairness_and_sympathetic_tone.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. This applies in the present case to the use of "neoconfederate" by Willmcw as a derogatory label of Ludwig von Mises Institute and probably to behavior by Rangerdude also. Fred Bauder 18:17, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. I agree in general with this principle and favor it over the alternative. Regarding my own edits, the only thing I can think of that approaches it is using the description "leftist" for certain liberal groups, and I would be more than happy to remove any of these if that meant ridding all the unfavorable adjectives that are thrown around by Willmcw. It should also be noted that in many of the cases where I advocated adding "leftist" it was explicitly done to counterbalance the use of pejoratives like "neoconfederate" against conservative groups by Willmcw, after I had tried unsuccessfully to get him to remove that. Since he wouldn't remove his attack terms agains conservative groups I added "leftist" to the liberal groups mentioned so the article would at least be consistent and "neutral" in the sense that it applied the terms to both sides. It should also be noted that Willmcw found this unacceptable just like he found removing his own attack terms unacceptable, and revert warred extensively to keep the attack term on conservatives but simultaneously remove it from liberals at Claremont Institute. I have also generally been a proponent of having no attack terms rather than having attack terms against all, the Claremont Institute dispute included where I indicated as much on the talk page. When this principle has been shunned and outright disregarded, it has almost always been Willmcw who advocated a position of "having his cake and eating it too," i.e. keeping his attack terms on conservatives while removing any other attack term about liberals. Rangerdude 19:10, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

It is clearly wrong in both cases. Fred Bauder 19:41, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

As noted, my first preference, which I repeatedly informed Willmcw of, has been to remove both pejorative terms where they exist. From the Claremont Institute dispute: "That said, I am and always have been supportive of a solution such as BenKovitz's where both (pejorative terms) are taken out and left to their respective articles.[53] Willmcw responded to this in favor of keeping "neoconfederate" but removing "leftist" [54]. Later that day he finally conceded to including them both by quoting Horowitz, but also added a third attack term "right wing pundit" in front of Horowitz's name [55]. I changed this to "conservative pundit" the next day [56] yet Willmcw reverted to "right wing pundit" again about 20 minutes later [57]. Whereas I expressed open willingness and and a preference to removing all the POV adjectives from group and person descriptions, Willmcw's behavior on this article shows him consistently pushing to reinsert those that reflect negatively on the conservative positions. It should also be noted that Claremont Institute was one of the articles that Willmcw stalked me to, and his edits there show a clear pattern of disruption and harassment thus constituting a violation of the wikistalking provisions. Rangerdude 20:43, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Willmcw's claim above that I used "invidious labels" against the Claremont Institute is just plain absurd, and appears to intentionally leave out both the context and content of this edit. The section he quotes about "Super-Hawks, Jaffanese Americans, Claremonsters, Lincoln Conservatives..." was added in a discussion of various nicknames used for the organization, the majority of them self-applied! That list was followed immediately by a source link to the article here on the Claremont Institute's own website where a discussion of the institute's nicknames by Ken Masugi appears. Masugi writes of his own organization: "Norman Podhoretz calls us “Super-Hawks.” Other labels, both serious and jocular, include Lincoln conservative, Declaration of Independence conservative, Claremonster, or (my favorite) Jaffanese American." The Harry Jaffa article (yet another Willmcw stalked me to) is more of the same. The descriptions of Jaffa as "polarizing" and "controversial" come directly out of a section in that article where I described several famous disputes between Jaffa and other conservative intellectuals. In the mid 1990's, for example, Jaffa got into an extremely heated argument in National Review and other conservative publications with Robert Bork over their respective constitutional theories. Both being prominent figures on the right, the dispute turned out to be very polarizing and contributed to an "east coast"/"west coast" rift between conservative think tanks that exist to this day. Naturally, Willmcw finds it in his interest to neglect this context from his presentation of events as well, and this context is what differentiates the edits he's attacking, which I made in good faith to expand article content, and his revert warring to retain ad hominems like "neoconfederate" at the Claremont Institute article and LVMI, which were plainly disruptive.

You may observe him engaging in a similar strategy of straw man projections in response to evidence I presented of him inconsistently removing the term "controversial" from the opening sentence of an article on a liberal groups he supports while pushing to add it to the opening sentence of a conservative one he opposes. After I showed this behavior, Willmcw dug up every single instance I had ever used the word "controversy" or "controversial" anywhere and in any context on Wikipedia, then maliciously suggested that it was the same thing. Far from it, the issue was never the simple use of the word "controversial" but the inconsistent and POV application of it in contexts designed to denigrate conservatives in the opening sentence of articles about them while insulating liberals from a similar treatment.

His allegation that I "made the Neo-confederate article on attack on those who have used the term" is yet another falsehood. If anything, I have added neutrality to what was he sought to make into a very biased article against conservatives. Willmcw was essentially trying to use this article as a place to post lengthy lists of conservative individuals and groups who he could then label "neoconfederate" for political reasons based on the attacks of far left wing editorial comments from Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Throughout our edits there, he repeatedly attempted to diminish or remove any material that indicated the term also has pejorative connotations, that many of the groups who are accused of being "neoconfederate" dispute the use of the term, and that many of the supposed "watchdog" organizations that use the term apply it are highly partisan political groups on the left who use McCarthy-style scatter shot techniques to create guilt-by-association and falsely portray conservative political figures as white supremacists - e.g. saying George W. Bush has ties to "neoconfederate" movements. What's really going on here gets back to the issue that spurred this section - Willmcw's repeated insertion of "neoconfederate" as a pejorative attack description for conservative organizations and persons. Confronted with evidence of a record 15 successive additions and reverts to retain the term "neoconfederate" as a pejorative in one single article, which he also incidentally stalked me to, he has now taken to projecting his own behavior onto me. Thus he accuses me of adding "leftist" to liberal groups, which I did indeed do - but only in isolated instances, the most notable being an attempt to counterbalance Willmcw's constant reinsertions of "neoconfederate" at the Claremont Institute. Insofar as these comparatively minor indiscretions conflict with NPOV, I have been forthright in saying both here and elsewhere that I'm more than happy to see them removed. As I documented previously, I even advocated the removal of all attack terms, both left and right, on Talk:Claremont Institute as my preferred position and as a compromise we could all accept. Willmcw refused this. Furthermore - and this is the crux of the matter here - I have not done anything even remotely close to Willmcw's egregious, intentional, and disruptive sustained patterns of invidious term insertions as witnessed on Claremont Institute and other articles with his attack term "neoconfederate." Rangerdude 03:11, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

2. The use "invidious labels" is an important violation of NPOV. "If we're going to characterize disputes fairly, we should present competing views with a consistently positive, sympathetic tone."Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Fairness_and_sympathetic_tone. I have already noted how Rangerdude (and others) added hundreds of words of unsympathetic material about the SPLC in order to cast their criticism of the LVMI in an unfavorable light. I can show, though haven't yet, how he has made the Neo-confederate article on attack on those who have used the term rather than a discussion of the movement the term describes. I have shown how he has made a regular and frequent practice of describing subjects as "controversial", doing so on dozens of occasions in order to make the described groups appear less sympathetic. I given evidence that he added more than 700 words of criticism to a 96 article about Sheila Jackson Lee, including every bit of nasty gossip available.[58] I have noted that he has repeatedly called some subjects "left wing" (which he describes as a "pejorative term"), while changing the characterization of others from "right wing" to "conservative" on account of "NPOV" (and has declined to explain the difference). I have noted in the evidence that he has made a habit of using technical arguments about Wikipedia policies to either retain or remove epithets (or "invious labels") about subjects. Separately, I have also demonstrated how Rangerdude has applied invidious labels, such as "POV pusher" and "stalker" to myself other and editors numerous times, on dozens of occasions.

2. Taking the example of the article which Rangerdude mentions, the Claremont Institute. RD used a number of invidious labels about the subject in his first draft: "controversy", "cult", "Super-Hawks, Jaffanese Americans, Claremonsters, Lincoln Conservatives, and Claremontistas."[59] About its best known scholar, Henry V. Jafffa, RD has written that its best known scholar, Henry V. Jaffa is "no stranger to controversy...extremely polarizing figure...Some of his works have been criticized for being overly flattering toward Lincoln...became embroiled in a heated controversy with several prominent legal thinkers in the conservative movement...Though he has no scholarly legal training of his own... could be described as bitter and petty...Jaffa's theory was harshly critiqued" and so on.[60]

2. So after all these invidious labels applied to subjects and editors alike, Rangerdude now criticizes me for adding a single word to one article fifteen times. He further claims that he supports the removal of all negative characterizations, and always has, which appears to me to be hypocritical and inconsistent with his actions throughout his editing career. -Willmcw 02:17, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

1. What about a term like conspiracist, see for example here, today [61]. nobs 06:04, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Both sides fairly represented

11) Nested criticisms where criticisms of critics are added negates the Neutral point of view requirement that both sides of a controversy be fairly presented.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. Criticisms of criticisms of criticism of critics is plainly absurd, I doubt even criticisms of critics are acceptable except in unusual circumstances. Fred Bauder
2. I didn't use this as a proposed decision. I think those interested should carry it forward as a policy discussion. I can imagine a number of different situations. To consider one, suppose the critic has been sued for libel for the statement and lost, surely that would be relevant. I think a brief characterization of a critic is appropriate in most instances. But then the question arises of whether that characterization was NPOV... Fred Bauder 15:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. I consider this a valid principle. In the course of this dispute, when the opportunity of choosing between "criticisms of critics" existed I have opposed it on most occassions. I opposed the use of "criticisms of critics" that were immaterial to the subject on Houston Chronicle when Willmcw, Katefan0 and others were seeking to add them (e.g. the Austin Chronicle). I've also stated my preference for removing them entirely on Claremont Institute, where Willmcw sought to insert SPLC criticisms of the LVMI, one of the Claremont Institute's critics. I think this is a fair principle we should seek to adhere to though. Rangerdude 07:25, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

2. Contrary to his comment here, I assert that Rangerdude has made a habit of criticising the critic in order to push the pro-confederate/ POV. Especially when the critic is Ed Sebesta, or Eric Foner. There are numerous other instances of this habit. I've already noted the extensive criticism of the SPLC in the LVMI article. His complaint here about the Houston Chronicle should be viewed in context of his loading the page with criticisms. -Willmcw 10:33, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

2. This principle needs further consideration by the community, or at least discussion in a different venue. It has a major bearing on the structuring of articles. For example, if I understand correctly, it means that articles which include material from critics could not include any criticism of the critic. The next questions would be: does a description count as a criticism? Can critics be described in any way? There are questions that will need to be answered. We shouldn't make policy on this topic too quickly. -Willmcw 11:49, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

2. FYI, Rangerdude has initiated a discussion of formalizing this principle at Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view. -Willmcw 02:17, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

3. A nested criticism in which a critic is characterized negatively by another critic for unrelated issues would violate NPOV, as it is intentionally added to reflect negatively on the original critic. There are several examples of this tactic being used in this Arbcom case's evidence. One was when Katefan0 added an attack characterization about Texas Media Watch by the Austin Chronicle, which had nothing to do with the Texas Media Watch criticism of light rail coverage that was being referenced. Another is Willmcw's use of "neoconfederate" ad nauseum all over wikipedia to describe the Ludwig von Mises Institute. It is clearly POV to add characterizations claiming that the SPLC calls LVMI neoconfederate every time the LVMI is mentioned in contexts that have nothing to do with its disputes with the SPLC. Rangerdude

4. This also goes right to the heart of Wikipedia:Reliable sources. What are the remedies for its violation? Should that source be removed? Should context on why it's considered in doubt be added? Rangerdude edit warred up to his 3RR to retain his inaccurate description of Texas Media Watch, which is itself a rather dubious source. What is then the proper response? Is then a nested criticism appropriate? Is it better to edit war with him in seeking the removal of that source and/or its mischaracterization -- or is it better to add context that describes that source in a more neutral way? (Which, of course, resulted in an edit war anyway in this instance.) · Katefan0^(scribble)/my ridiculous poll 23:06, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Katefan0's presentation of events regarding Texas Media Watch (TMW) is not truthful. I did not post an "inaccurate description" of TMW. I posted a neutrally worded description of them as "a San Antonio-based media monitoring group" and quoted their statement on the Houston Chronicle's light rail memo scandal [62].Katefan0's response to this addition is actually a perfect example of why nested criticisms can be such a problem to NPOV. When I added TMW as a source I did so with a simple two-line sentence that described them neutrally and in accordance with the sympathetic tone mandate of WP:NPOV and stated their viewpoint in wording that attributed it directly to them in compliance with WP:RS. Katefan0's response [63] was to add two new sentences making ad hominem attacks on TMW itself as a source, neither of which were anything even remotely connected to TMW's opinion on the Houston Chronicle scandal. So what we ended up with was a single one-sentence quotation of TMW's opinion on the Houston Chronicle incident, followed by two sentences attacking TMW over unrelated matters. Furthermore, Katefan0's source in this case was extremely dubious in its own right. She quoted a political editorial in the far left wing Austin Chronicle and also attempted to represent the Austin Chronicle's editorializing as if it were fact. For example, Katefan0 added a claim that TMW "is operated by one person" and treated it as a matter of fact based entirely on a snide personal smear in the Austin Chronicle piece's personal attacks on the group's spokesperson Sherry Sylvester: "Sylvester appears to be the only employee, and very little thinking visibly goes on there, but OK."[64] When I questioned the propriety of using such a partisan editorial as a source for this, Katefan0 also became belligerent in her defense of the Austin Chronicle and repeatedly demanded on the talk page that I "prove" their outright vicious editorial smear on Sylvester was false. Rangerdude 22:28, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

1. I agree with Willmcw on two points above. Rangerdude makes a habit of criticizing critics; and the issue needs more discussion. The term neo-confederate (and terms like left wing, right wing, libertarian) are used in published sources. At the same time, certain editors push these POVs in their editing. All editors have a POV. It is not a persoanl attack to suggest on a discussion page that a particular POV is being pushed through editing the entry. It is easy to step over the line into a personal attack (and God knows I am guilty of that and have apologized before), but the fact remains that this is an unfinished discussion.--Cberlet 16:29, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
2. Perhaps Mr. Berlet will join in the request [65] to unfreeze the lock at Chip Berlet so this dubious criticism of critics can be removed,

Berlet responded that Wilcox had mischaracterized PRA's activities. "Laird Wilcox is not an accurate or ethical reporter",

or should we consider this another example cited by George & Wilcox, American Extremists: Militias, Supremacists, Klansmen, Communists and Others, (Prometheus Books 1996), Id. at 54 (5). (ISBN 1573920584); "advocacy of double standards". nobs 18:46, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Racist and White Supremacist Material

12) The use of racist and white supremacist sources is inappropriate on wikipedia, except in documenting their opinions and even then extreme caution should be used (Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Partisan_websites). The use of white supremacist or racist material to promote a negative point of view about an article subject violates WP:NPOV.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. I propose this principle to address the use of racist and white supremacist material - a recurring issue in this case in the "neoconfederate" label, personal attacks, and the use of David Duke and the Jubilee Newspaper as sources. Rangerdude 18:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

2.Wikipedia has articles about racists, racialists, white supremacists, white nationalists, white separatists, black nationalists, black separatists, zionists, anti-zionists, anti-hate groups, hate groups, love groups, anti-love goups, you name it. Every topic has at least two and a half viewpoints. Welcome to Wikipedia. NPOV requires that we give all relevant, notable points of view their due. To ban sources because they've been labelled "racist" is absurd. Even (especially?) Albert Schweitzer has been called "racist." Where would such a line be drawn? -Willmcw 11:37, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

2. Jubilee was quoted with their own views of Morris Dees, thus qualifying under the very guideline that Rangerdude cites below. So was David Duke. -Willmcw 23:00, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Simply saying that wikipedia has articles on hate groups does not justify using their materials openly. We have to follow WP:RS: "Partisan political and religious sources should be treated with caution, although political bias is not in itself a reason not to use a source. Widely acknowledged extremist political or religious websites — for example, those belonging to Stormfront, Hamas, or the Socialist Workers Party — should never be used as sources for Wikipedia, except as primary sources i.e. in articles discussing the opinions of that organization or the opinions of a larger like-minded group, but even then should be used with great caution, and should not be relied upon as a sole source." This clearly imposes limitations on when and how extremist sources may be used, and using them for guilt by association smears as Willmcw has repeatedly done is not among the recognized valid uses. Rangerdude 22:27, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

1. Reliable sources are good, unreliable sources are bad. Most sources are more reliable about some things and less about others. A site with a POV (bias) is often a good site to find references and to document its own position. A site all about some race being superior and site all about how all races are equal BOTH HAVE AN AXE TO GRIND and are equally POV sites. Which site is good or worthy or "right" is not for wikipedia to decide. WAS 4.250 18:42, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

Template

1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Rangerdude's editing

1) Rangerdude (talk · contribs) generally edits articles which relate to Southern conservative themes often related to Texas.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Rangerdude's accusations of wikistalking

2) It is Rangerdude's contention that Willmcw (talk · contribs) has engaged in Wikistalking of him and provides an extensive list of examples Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Rangerdude/Evidence#Wikistalking.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. This list is so extensive that I have not attempted to respond to individual items. However I am prepared to discuss any edits that ArbCom members would like an explanation of. -Willmcw 02:33, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Examination of evidence of Wikistalking offered by Rangerdude

3) Examination of the evidence of instances of Wikistaking offered by Rangerdude, for example, the edit history of Justice at the Gate, the edit history of The Real Lincoln, Edits to Rick Perry by Rangerdude: [66] [67] immediately followed by an edit by Willmcw [68] show only normal editing despite their proximity.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. No conclusion as I am still examining these contentions. Fred Bauder 17:27, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. I disagree strongly that the followup edits displayed in cases such as these are coincidental in nature and have reason to believe that the following was intentional. This is particularly clear in cases such as Olbers' paradox - an article on an obscure astronomy topic that is unrelated to anything Willmcw has ever shown an interest in. I edited here on February 10th and Willmcw stalked me here for followups on February 11th [69]. Given the obscurity of the topic there is no possible way Willmcw would've happened upon it in the direct proximity of my edits other than to follow me there. Another case is John Baylor - a stub I created on July 5th. That Willmcw showed up there only a few hours later [70] is anything but coincidental. Another one is Benjamin Tucker, an obscure article I edited on August 10th. Willmcw appeared for followups 5 days later [71]. Arizona Territory (CSA) - I edited on July 5th, Willmcw shows up hours later. [72] In virtually all of these cases the edits involved articles that Willmcw had never shown an interest in before until I made an edit to them. Then, anywhere from a few moments to a few days later, that he's suddenly there taking an interest in them is anything but coincidental or "normal" editing within the bounds of Wikipedia's harassment standards. Rangerdude 18:36, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

While he is obviously using your contributions as a guide to where to go next, he is often researching the subject and adding significant material to the articles [73] and [74]. Wikistalking generally refers to unproductive harassment. His efforts seem to substantially improve the articles in most cases. Fred Bauder 17:13, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

If he were trying to improve the articles he would've remained there and continued to make additions to them. In most cases he did not do that. Articles like Olbers' Paradox were one-time hits that he's never since revisited. In fact, the only ones he ever lingers at are places where he succeeded in stirring up disputes, revert wars, or other disruptive behavior like the Claremont Institute article. Rangerdude 18:30, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I find it curious that Willmcw is claiming here that he had a good reason to be on all of those articles other than following me to them, yet in his own evidence statement he openly admits that he follows me around wikipedia: "Since then I've more or less kept an eye on Rangerdude's edits."[75] He also indicates that he's been doing this since around last December and January. Since he's now admitted it this question is largely moot. The next step then is to ask the next obvious question: why did he start following me? Rangerdude 04:33, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

2. Regarding my edits that Rangerdude discusses above:

• Olbers' paradox. Indeed, I saw this on RD's contributions list and was curious. I made small correction.
• John Baylor. I turned an unreferenced, one-fact stub into a short article, with references and categories. I recall I followed a newly-blue link from Arizona Territory (CSA) to the article. If this is wikstalking then Wikipedia needs more of it.
• Benjamin Tucker. In previous Wikistalking cases, the perpetrators were stalking editors to every edit on a daily basis. In this instance, five days passed between our edits, and my edit was to format a blockquote just added by a third-party. That hardly seems like an attempt to harass Rangerdude. In fact, he referred to Lysander Spooner on 07:57, 10 August 2005 (UTC) on a page I watch. The Spooner article mentions Tucker, an anarchist now regarded as a hero by anarcho-libertarians. I also follow articles in that topic, so Tucker is not that obscure to me.
• Arizona Territory (CSA). Rangerdude basically invited me to look at the article at 5 July 2005 00:10. I guess he decided to look too, and made a large edit. I later asked about the map, with which Rangerdude was unassociated, both on the article talk page and on the image talk page. The question had nothing to do with RD, and he didn't repond to it either.

Furthermore, Rangerdude says that, In fact, the only ones he ever lingers at are places where he succeeded in stirring up disputes, revert wars, or other disruptive behavior like the Claremont Institute article. This is not true. There are a number of articles which Rangerdude edited first, which I edited later, and which I have continued to improve or protect from vandalism. From his own list, Thomas DiLorenzo (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), Clyde N. Wilson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (a sub-stub by Rangerdude), Rick Perry (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), Donald Livingston (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (another sub-stub, speedy deleted once due to no assertion of notability), Robert Jensen (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), Southern Partisan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), and Origins of the American Civil War (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). -Willmcw 05:30, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

1. I think Wikistalking needs to be looked at in some context - simply put, when one is concerned about the editing of another user, one checks their contribution list. In doing so, they look at articles, and often find problems worth fixing. My point being that I don't think the mere existence of editing on the same topics constitutes offensive wikistalking - one can follow another user's edits for perfectly good reasons, and if in doing so one sees things that need fixed in articles, it's silly to leave them unfixed. So to my mind, the question becomes what concievable motive Willmcw has for his actions - that he has stuck around on several of these articles suggests to me goodwill. Phil Sandifer 16:59, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Factional struggle by Rangerdude

4) Rangerdude sees himself, and other users, as being engaged in a struggle with Willmcw. This has involved offering gratuitous advice to users Willmcw is engaged with [76], [77] and [78]. These posts sometimes contain personal attacks such as this one, "Willmcw is just about the worst that wikipedia has to offer in terms of an abusive left wing point of view pushing stalker who thrives on personal harassment, agitation, and badgering other editors" [79]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. I would submit that this is a direct product of the wikistalking that Willmcw has engaged in against myself and several other users. When I began editing Wikipedia as a registered user, I created and significantly expanded the content of several dozen articles. For example, I essentially wrote the entire Walker Tariff and Morrill Tariff, which were tiny stubs when I arrived. In late January I first encountered Willmcw on neo-confederate, where we had a long but relatively productive editing dispute that resulted in an expanded article. The dispute was very tedious at points and involved near-constant nitpicking. From that point forward, he started following my edits and I began encountering Willmcw at almost every article I tried to contribute to. Within a few months I found myself unable to contribute much of anything to wikipedia without having it followed by Willmcw, who essentially appointed himself to monitor my edits and stir up disputes with me despite no breach of WP:FAITH on my part. Every time I tried to contribute to an article a time consuming and contentious editing dispute soon happened and the other dispute participant was always Willmcw, who had followed me to that article. This happened on Morrill Tariff, where he followed me. It also happened on Claremont Institute, on Black Codes, on James M. McPherson, on Border States (Civil War), on Ludwig von Mises Institute, and several others. I soon found myself unable to make constructive additions to wikipedia without becoming instantly mired in an editing dispute with Willmcw, who followed me to wherever I was editing and began dispute warring in any way he could. This created a "struggle" in the sense that I had to "struggle" with Willmcw to simply engage in everyday editing activities because he would seek me out and dispute my edits whenever and wherever he could. A good example of this can be seen at Border States (Civil War). On July 4th another editor added historically erronious material to the article from an unverified website [80]. Noting the error, I reverted this edit[81] and posted documentation on the Talk page [82]. Moments later Willmcw stalked me to this article and reverted back to the historically erronious version without explanation [83] and started a dispute war over the article - all for no other reason than the fact that I'm the one who made the change. Rangerdude 19:21, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

The situation with respect to Arizona Territory is not that clear. It would seem to me that all 3 links were quite useful (although not in the Border States article. Fred Bauder 21:31, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Fred - It's not a matter of useful links but a matter of historical accuracy, and that accuracy was documented on the talk page and elsewhere. The link added by JimWae was historically inaccurate about Mesilla, New Mexico's allegiance during the civil war. It claimed that Mesilla was "captured" by the Confederacy in July 1861, but historically Mesilla adopted a secession ordinance voluntarily aligning itself with the Confederacy the previous March. I documented this on the talk page with an explicit note to check it following the corrections I made. Willmcw ignored that note and tried to start a revert war on the grounds that I was the one who added it, largely because he didn't know what he was talking about. Anyone who has studied the Battle of Mesilla in the civil war also knows that the town was Confederate. This is documented at the highly reputable Handbook of Texas put out by the University of Texas [84]: "His (Baylor's) Texans forded the Rio Grande and early that afternoon entered nearby Mesilla, a strongly pro-Confederate community. With 380 infantry and mounted riflemen, plus howitzers, Union major Isaac Lynde approached Mesilla from the south on July 25. Baylor rejected his demand for surrender, and Lynde ordered his artillery to open fire." As this article shows it was the Union troops that were attacking and trying to capture Mesilla, not the Confederates who actually defended it. Rangerdude 21:57, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

1. I would also like to comment that the statement above that claims I "offered gratuitous advice" about Willmcw to other users is demonstrably false. In reality, my advice has been repeatedly solicited by other editors who have experienced Wikistalking and other harassment problems by Willmcw and were seeking help in how to deal with him. Example: This note to Steve_Espinola was a response to solicited advise he sought on my talk page [85] approximately an hour and a half earlier. This note to Agiantman [86] was a response to solicited advise he sought on my talk page a couple hours earlier [87]. In fact, several other editors have who have experienced stalking problems or other harassment by Willmcw have seen this Arbcom case and other materials related to it then solicited my advise and help in dealing with him (e.g. [88]) - a fact that is indicative his abuse is widespread and has been directed at many other users. I will also note that far from being a personal attack, my description of Willmcw as a "left wing point of view pusher" is accurate, as is my description of him as a stalker and person who engages in harassment. As these comments were made in the direct context of a response to other wikipedia users who had complained to me of stalking, harassment, and/or POV pushing by Willmcw, they were material to the issue of his behavior rather than being attacks on his person. Rangerdude 21:39, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

If you call someone a moron we don't ask them to take an IQ test; likewise, if you call someone a "left wing point of view pusher" whether they are or not, you are still making a personal attack Fred Bauder 00:22, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

So you are saying that "left wing" is an insult then? I still differ, as it has been my contention from the start of this arbitration that Willmcw pushes a strong left wing point of view and I do not see how stating that complaint with his editing practices is anything more than a complaint. If you still believe otherwise though, I will ask you to apply the standard you are using against me consistently with the other editors in this dispute. That would mean making a similar determination from the statement of Willmcw when he said I am "a POV warrior with a strongly pro/neo-confederate bias" [89] and to Katefan0 when she made "factional" instigations against me by repeatedly commenting about me on Willmcw's talk page, to wit: "obvious POV warriors like Rangerdude" [90] and [91]. If you're going to define and make determinations about the rules, they should be applied to all parties consistently. Rangerdude 05:14, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

1. Fred Bauder: A question. Why is a personal attack qualified by adding "left wing"? Why does calling someone a "left wing point of view pusher" constitute a personal attack, whereas the generic, everyday, unqualified "point of view pusher" not constitute a personal attack. Help me out, please. Thank you. nobs 01:46, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Either one would be in the context Rangerdude is using it. Fred Bauder 02:15, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

On the above: I justifiably referred to Rangerdude as a biased editor when seeking help with what I saw as biased edits. But that is very different from saying he's just about the worst that wikipedia has to offer · Katefan0^(scribble) 05:19, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

If it is "justifiable" for Katefan0 to call me an "obvious POV warrior" in a comment to another poster, then it should be justifiable for me to call Willmcw a "left wing point of view pusher" in a comment to another poster as well. If one is a personal attack though, then consistency says so is the other. My statement identifying Willmcw as the "worst" of this type of POV pusher is a statement of the magnitude of his behavior in this area, indicating it is particularly eggregious. Rangerdude 05:29, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Personal attacks by Rangerdude

5) Rangerdude has made personal attacks [92] [93], "Willmcw is just about the worst that wikipedia has to offer in terms of an abusive left wing point of view pushing stalker who thrives on personal harassment, agitation, and badgering other editors" [94]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. If this is to be an issue within the finding, I will ask the Arbcom to also consider its application to the other parties in the dispute, User:Willmcw and User:SlimVirgin. Specifically, Willmcw has made personal attacks [95] "I don't get paid by the LVMI" (edit description) and "I'd be hard to argue that faculty and staff of the LVMI don't have a agenda regarding their institution." to User:nskinsella and SlimVirgin has made personal attacks [96] "You're a disruptive editor" (to Rangerdude) and [97] "Rangerdude accused of the very thing he was posting about. How irritating." and "Oh dear, Rangerdude himself is now accused of wikistalking." Rangerdude 21:19, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

My impression is that you are disruptive and have also violated Wikipedia:harassment, but taunting you is wrong. Fred Bauder 02:33, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad you're recognizing that the other side isn't infallable either Fred, though it troubles me that you cannot so much as make a clear recognition of but a single of the many documented wrongs they've engaged in without qualifying it in a way that also accuses me of wrongdoing. This chain of events is leading to an impression of my own about the way you are handling this case, which leads me to feel as if it is not being fairly evaluated. Thus far, you seem to have largely overlooked the majority of the evidence I've presented while giving full treatment to Willmcw's case (a case which, BTW, was voted to be merged into my original case against him, not the other way around). While you are certainly free to come to your own conclusions, I do ask for a fair and neutral hearing here. The fact that you've apparently already decided to characterize me as "disruptive," as a POV pusher, and as having made "personal attacks" while (1) reaching such conclusions largely upon the word of the other side in this dispute and upon the made-up neologism that I somehow have bad "wikikarma" (2) generally neglecting what are IMHO far more eggregious violations of those policies from that side, leads me to wonder whether a fair hearing is truly being given. Thus far, I see multiple proposed votes on allegations of whether I've violated policy yet absolutely nothing seeking a determination or vote on whether the other editors from my original complaint, Willmcw and SlimVirgin, have violated policy. In fact the carefully qualified informal comment above is the only thing you've even posted to date that suggests even paying attention to any wrongdoing either of them have committed. I do not mean to be unduly critical of you or anyone else, but I certainly do not feel at this moment as if the arbitration is being conducted in a manner that is giving a fair hearing to both sides. As I have also posted a recusal request for any arbitrator with personal biases from this case, I hope that you would disclose any of these and take the appropriate action per the arbitration policy should they indeed exist. Thanks for your consideration. Rangerdude 05:05, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

The /Workshop process is quite messy. Hardly anyone who makes decision muses in public, but basically that is what is happening here. In contrast to what you believe, I started working from your evidence and looked at a few instances of what you claim to be Wikistalking. While thinking about it, I did coin the neologism Wikipedia:Wikikarma and wrote a project page about it, but that's my job. Prior to this arbitration I have not followed your activities and had no opinion on them coming in. If I had had rows with you in the past I would have recused. Fred Bauder 16:10, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Fred - That's a reasonable enough explanation, and I suppose an unfortunate feature of having a public workshop - musings get put out into the open from the start. I do still have a concern about fairness in this hearing and would accordingly ask that you review the newly introduced evidence regarding the mistaken IP identification at the William Quantrill article, which appears to have been a major event in Willmcw's decision to follow me. Rangerdude 18:34, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Discourtesy by Rangerdude

6) Rangerdude has been discourteous to other editors [98] [99]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. This question is more absurdity. The alleged "discourtesy" here was in reality a reasonable comment posted in response to User:Jonathan Christensen directly following a post in which he made a completely unprovoked, condescending, and downright belligerent personal attack upon me.[100] Here are just a few samples from that post by Jonathan Christensen, all of which were directed at me:

• "Please, get a clue about what is actually going on here."
• ":Oooh, that's pretty unilateral, isn't it? I dunno, I guess Wakeforest had better keep on being nice and accepting, since I was being soooo unilateral."
• "Damn him and his unilateral ways, asking people to explain themselves not once, but twice!"
• "So, I need to go over where now to make my case? Perhaps I need to join the Society of Unilateralists, or the Society of Sock Puppeteers, so that I can make my case more effectively, as Wakeforest obviously seems to have convinced you that way?"

Please note that all of the above was Jonathan Christensen's response to multiple posts in which I politely asked him to be mindful of the talk page on the article he had blanked and merged twice in about an hour's time. At the time of this incident, three separate editors (myself and two others) had posted comments asking him not to blank the article without discussion. He responded in similar unprovoked hostility throughout the incident. If there was any discourtesy at all exhibited here, it was Jonathan Christensen's. Rangerdude 19:54, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Reliance on technicalities by Rangerdude

7) Rangerdude sometimes attempts to rely on technicalities in his disputes with others [101]. This tendency extends, in the case of Wikistalking, into intense involvement in crafting of the policy [102], which then he is attempting to use.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. I think Rangerdude has his own nit-picking problem. People make mistakes and violate the letter of policies or misunderstand them and violate them. That is simply the natural order of things. A compilation of every mistake someone makes, in the absence of any serious offense, does not constitute a substantial offense. Fred Bauder 17:09, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. This allegation is just plain absurd. There is nothing that's a "technicality" in the post given as an example. What you will find there however is reasonable comment to User:Jonathan Christensen asking him to abide by the VfD guidelines after he repeatedly and belligerently shunned efforts to discuss the dispute on the talk page. [103]

Comment by others:

Violations by SlimVirgin

8) SlimVirgin has violated Wikipedia:Assume good faith and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view by strongly criticizing Rangerdude's editing of a controversial article [104].

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. Can I see diffs, please, showing where I violated Wikipedia:Neutral point of view? My concern with RD editing Chip Berlet is that for weeks he'd expressed strong animosity toward User:Cberlet, which included opening an RfC against him; then had argued that Chip and the company he works for, Political Research Associates, should not be used as a source for Wikipedia under the Wikipedia:Reliable sources provision prohibiting "extremist" websites like Hamas and Stormfront from being used as anything but primary sources on themselves. He then went to Chip Berlet and started adding negative material, and also indicated that he intended to do a re-write. At that point, I told him I felt he shouldn't be editing the article, because of his strong bias against Chip. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:41, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

   As to neutral point of view, he was trying to add a summary (not well written to be sure) of a negative viewpoint regarding Chip Berlet as is contemplated by our NPOV policy. Fred Bauder 03:27, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

   I guess it your contention that Rangerdude was not editing in good faith. Thanks for the background information. If you feel it is relevant and not already in evidence, add it. Fred Bauder 03:35, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

   If she has evidence I added anything that was in bad faith to the Chip Berlet article, I'd like to see it too. Berlet is a very liberal political figure who frequently makes public attacks on conservative political figures such as Horowitz. His attacks on conservatives were being used elsewhere on Wikipedia to criticize conservative groups such as the Ludwig von Mises Institute (LvMI), including a case where Berlet himself added a link to his own attack article on the LvMI [105]. When I first read the Chip Berlet article I noticed that it was heavily biased toward presenting a favorable view of him including many parts that were taken almost directly from his own website's autobiography. I added the Horowitz criticisms for the purpose of balancing this out. They were fully cited criticisms and made in good faith. In fact, I even quoted from Berlet's own responses to Horowitz [106] to make sure his side of their dispute was also represented! Rangerdude 03:55, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

   You say "His attacks on conservatives were being used elsewhere on Wikipedia to criticize conservative groups" That too is quite acceptable under NPOV Fred Bauder 04:07, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

   As long as it is explicitly attributed to Berlet as his opinion that is fine. Trying to get sourced criticisms of Berlet expunged from the article about him was a problem though and was not a display of good faith. Rangerdude 04:25, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

2. Fred, I've added more evidence in response to the suggestion that I violated NPOV and AGF. It's at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Rangerdude/Evidence#Response_to_suggestion_that_I_violated_NPOV_and_AGF

   Summary: On July 25, Rangerdude opened an RfC against User:Cberlet. At the same time on several talk pages, he was criticizing Chip Berlet as an "extremist" and not someone who should be used as a source for Wikipedia. The criticism was extensive and vitriolic. Three days later, on July 28, Rangerdude added three paragraphs of criticism to Chip Berlet, thereby attacking Chip on three fronts: as a Wikipedia editor via the RfC; as a source for Wikipedia; and by adding criticism to his biography. The context made the edits look malicious. I therefore reduced the length of Rangerdude's criticism from 482 words (three paragraphs) to 118 words (one paragraph), and advised him that, given his animosity toward Cberlet, I felt he should not be editing Chip's biography. NPOV requires balance: an article with too much criticism isn't NPOV no matter how well-cited the edits are. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:29, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

3. The allegation of "malice" toward Chip Berlet posted above is completely unfounded. I did nothing more than attempt to apply NPOV balance to a favorable article about a highly partisan political figure and apply NPOV and WP:RS in places where that same figure's political and editorial opinions were being presented as factual and scholarly. A simple review of the paragraphs I added on the Horowitz dispute reveals this much, as I attempted to present the controversy with as much neutrality as possible - even going so far as to quote Chip Berlet's responses to Horowitz's charges! I did not use "vitriolic" language as SlimVirgin alleges, nor have I called for his exclusion as a source from Wikipedia. What I did say, however, is that Chip Berlet is a very controversial and partisan political source that writes material on the far left wing of the spectrum. As such, Wikipedia:Reliable sources applies to the use of his material as a source. version of Reliable Sources that existed at the time of this incident before none other than SlimVirgin changed it ex post facto to support her current interpretation of the applicable clause here, stated "Partisan political and religious sources should be treated with caution. An extreme political or religious website should never be used as a source for Wikipedia except in articles discussing the opinions of that organization or the opinions of a larger like-minded group." Based upon this provision, I requested that citations of editorial material by Chip Berlet should be explicitly identified as his opinion or interpretations. I made this request following the dispute on the Ludwig von Mises Institute (LVMI) article where two editors who are politically opposed to the LVMI - Willmcw and Cberlet - were inserting links to Berlet's highly biased political attacks on the LVMI as if they were factual citations (Cberlet in fact even added a self cite of his own material [107]). It should also be noted, as Nobs pointed out below, that a WP:OWN issue appears to exist in this dispute. User:Cberlet has made statements that strongly suggest he is "claiming ownership" over the Chip Berlet article, and SlimVirgin has edited it in a way that is sympathetic to these claims. Shortly after I added the Horowitz material to Chip Berlet, User:Cberlet posted a comment on its talk page conveying a claim of personal ownership and requesting that the Horowitz material be expunged since it was critical of him. Cberlet's edit description and title of this post was "Help! Giant Blob of Horowitz hit my page" and its message called the material I added "a giant wad of Horowitz screed on my Wiki entry" and asks that they be reduced to a link. [108] I responded to this request with a defense of my edits on NPOV grounds that was straightforward and certainly not abusive as SlimVirgin has alleged [109]. SlimVirgin responded the next day by carrying out Cberlet's request and chopped off the majority of the Horowitz material I had added. Cberlet's repeated references to Chip Berlet as "my" article and his requests aimed at controlling and removing critical content seem to violate WP:OWN's prohibition of this, as do SlimVirgin's edits aimed at carrying out his requests. Rangerdude 22:34, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

   I didn't say the edits were malicious. I said the context made them look malicious. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:38, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

1. The WP:OWN as applied to the Chip Berlet article and "sympathetic editors" [110] requires fair and neutral scrutiny from Committee. nobs 18:16, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

"#Perhaps this issue is best joined to the Chip Berlet case that's been requested instead of being dealt with here? Phil Sandifer 17:00, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I would be OK with that - it would make sense.--Cberlet 19:10, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure this move happened, so let me state that Rangerdude's version of events regarding these matters is not shared by me. SlimVirgin tried repeatedly to get Rangedude to act in an appropriate manner and failed. That should not be grounds for sanctions against SlimVirgin. I did not add the mention of my article to the LvMI page, I only added the proper cites after there were complaints that certain material in the article I wrote could not be verified. I verified them. SlimVirgin tied to play a mediating role. I would also like to add that Rangerdude regularly dresses up his litigious nitpicking and POV pushing in courteous language, which is why I have said that it is a passive/aggressive form of editing.

Wikipedia:Stalking

9) The participants in this case and others worked in July and August, 2005 on a proposed guideline Wikipedia:Stalking, see Wikipedia_talk:Assume_good_faith#Proposal_on_Stalking and Wikipedia_talk:Stalking. This proposal was eventually abandoned and merged into Wikipedia:Harassment, partially on the grounds that what is termed stalking is indistinguishable in practice from reviewing the contributions of an editor, a practice integral to the design of the wiki software used, see Wikipedia_talk:Stalking#Gaming_the_system.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. Status of Wikistalking as a policy Fred Bauder 18:29, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. The discussion about a policy change began as early as 19:31, July 5, 2005 at Wikipedia talk:Assume good faith at the instigation of Rangerdude. That discussion didn't go anywhere. On 21:39, July 28, 2005 Jtkiefer started Wikipedia:Stalking, and a number of editors made contributions. On 23:30, August 6, 2005 Rangerdude wrote an essay on his user page. That essay was copied into the Wikipedia:Stalking article by another editor on 15:01, August 12, 2005. So the discussion had started in early July. -Willmcw 08:10, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Inappropriate use of White Supremacist material by Willmcw

10) Willmcw has inappropriately used labels with white supremacist connotations to attack or discredit other political viewpoints.Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Rangerdude/Evidence#Use_of_attack_term_.22neoconfederate.22 Willmcw has also inappropriately used racist and white supremacist sources to discredit political viewpoints presented in articles. [111] [112] [113] [114]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. I proposed this finding because I believe the evidence shows a pattern of similar violations using the same techniques rather than isolated incidents of indiscretion, such as the Duke quotes taken alone. Rangerdude 18:32, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Note: Willmcw's attempts to insert white supremacist material continue up until the present. See [115], where Willmcw plays ignorant and requests that I prove the Jubilee Newspaper, a Christian Identity publication he is trying to use, is a hate group publication. Requests such as these are clearly not in the interest of improving wikipedia's content. Rather, Willmcw is trying to obfuscate his use of a source that is inappropriate for wikipedia by any reasonable standard. Rangerdude 08:21, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Harassment by Willmcw

11)A significant portion of Willmcw's edits on the Claremont Institute article were made to cause annoyance and distress to Rangerdude and to disrupt this article's content. [116]

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. The majority of Willmcw's activities at Claremont Institute involve nitpicking and extensive revert warring to add POV terminology and invidious labels against groups with conservative viewpoints. Included are approximately 15 edits and reverts to retain or promote the "neoconfederate" attack label, 3 edits and reverts to promote the attack label "right wing," extensive use of nested criticism (quoting critics of the critics cited in this article), and nitpicking aimed at removing or diminishing valid sourced material from the text that I added. It is my belief that these actions taken in sum constitute harassment under WP:HA. Rangerdude 19:01, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

2. I've previously mentioned that Rangerdude is strongly partisan in the strangely partisan conflicts between conservative/right wing libertarian think tanks, which have formed into warring camps that battle over 19th century history and 18th century documents. Though I care very little for the viewpoints of the Claremont Institute or the Cato Institute, I have nonetheless participated in editing the articles to try to balance the anti-them POV from Rangerdude (and other LvMI partisans). (Not incidentally, I've worked the same function in handling contentious editors in in articles about neo-nazis (Bill White, [[Alex Linder], et al.), webforums CARM/AARM, weird musicians (Biff Rose), rare philosophies (Aesthetic Realism), anarchists (Chuck Munson), and other warring parties.)

2. As with many articles, Rangerdude was loading the Claremont Institute with criticisms and coming up with a dozen reasons why none of it could be removed or trimmed. I only added "neo-confederate" as many times as he removed it. -Willmcw 10:50, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

In no reasonable way can the addition and reversion to a pejorative attack term with white supremacist connotations 15 successive times be considered "trying to balance the anti-them POV" of LVMI. It was an attempt to insert a cheap shot against the LVMI and nothing more. As to participation in articles of this sort, Willmcw has repeatedly demonstrated his own personal biases against the LVMI as evidenced by this and multiple other infractions, such as the David Duke quotes and other edit warring at the LVMI's article itself. Rangerdude 04:23, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Also, please see WP:V#Dubious_sources: "Claims that are attested only by a source or sources which rely on guilt by association are not considered verifiable...This is especially true of claims which infer information from membership in an organization and from activities of others associated with that organization." Willmcw's use of the "neoconfederate" pejorative appears to violate this principle. Rangerdude 05:09, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

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1) {text of proposed remedy}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Willmcw banned for one day

1) Willmcw is banned for one day as the result of the egregious violation committed while editing Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. I believe this proposed remedy is insufficient given the nature of the violations, and that it incorrectly treats the Duke incident as an isolated indiscretion by Willmcw. The evidence indicates a more complex picture in which Willmcw frequently uses white supremacist and racist material and attack terms to POV-push in articles. In addition to the Duke quotes, other similar inappropriate edits by Willmcw include use of the white supremacist Jubilee Newspaper, a Holocaust Denial group called the Institute for Historical Review, and extensive addition of the attack term "neoconfederate," which has white supremacist connotations, to descriptions of conservative political groups and figures. See Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Willmcw_and_SlimVirgin/Evidence#POV_Pushing_-_Ku_Klux_Klan_and_white_supremacist_insinuations Rangerdude 18:38, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

2. I again plead guilty to making a small point. However I do not believe it was egregious. It was a single edit that only stayed in the article for a couple of hours. It did not concern the subject of the article, but rather the criticisms of a critic of the subject. I did it in response to an extensive problem with "nested criticism", as it is called below. The David Duke mention was only intended to prove a point against nested criticisms, which I now admit was not the ideal solution. I'd tried other solutions already. The quote was in the article only for a couple of hours and I never reverted its removal. Though it was temporarily successful, the criticism problem grew worse before getting better.

2. Any disruption that has resulted from my action has long since been overshadowed by Rangerdude's harping on the matter. Checking "What links here" for David Duke, I see there are 117 pages listed. Rangerdude apparently has added the link to 11 or 12 of them, or 10%, or wikilinked pages that include his recitation of my action. "David Duke" has become one of Rangerdude's cudgels, along with all the other epithets. I hope that whatever comes of it we can leave it behind and move on. -Willmcw 09:52, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Moving on would be nice however (1) Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist insinuations are inherently egregious given the notoriety and violent history associated with these groups, and (2) Willmcw is still promoting the use of white supremacist sources for attacks as recently as last week, when he reverted to retain the Christian Identity movement's "Jubilee Newspaper" in the Morris Dees article's section on the Montgomery Advertiser investigation. Clearly the Duke incident was not a single indiscretion, and clearly he has not learned from it. Rangerdude 04:18, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

1. This seems unwarranted.--Cberlet 04:34, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Willmcw placed on probation

2) Willmcw is placed on Wikipedia:Probation for one year. Any administrator may ban Willmcw from editing any article in which he inappropriately uses white supremacist/racist sources, or in which he uses "neoconfederate" as an inappropriate descriptive term.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. I propose this as an alternative to the "slap on the wrist" proposal of a one-day banning in light of evidence that this pattern of behavior exceeds a one-time indiscretion with the David Duke quote. Rangerdude 18:45, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

2. This is absurd. I have never applied the epithet "neo-confederate" to any group that has not been called that notably. Nor have I ever been careless about applying terms like "racist" or "white supremacist". Rangerdude has not established any "pattern." Anyone reviewing my edits will see that I spend considerable time editing articles on people who have been called white supremacists, racists, etc, (as has Rangerdude). So to say that I only add mentions of them to discredit others is baseless. Just because someone has been labelled "racist" doesn't mean that their opinions become invalid in an NPOV context. Since "racist" is a political epithet thrown around freely, forbidding any POV from "racists" could severely limit the projects coverage of politics.

2. Just as there is a white nationalist movement, there is also a "neo-confederate" movement, with self-admitted (and proud) neo-confederates. Our reporting on the movement has been strictly limited by Rangerdude, who insists that the term is only an "attack word" and that the movement has no real existence.

2. This proposed remedy would severely limit my ability to edit articles on far-right groups and persons, and addresses a wrong that has not been identified. I reluctantly suggest Rangerdude has always that wished I'd stop editing the same article he does, and that this is a mechanism to achieve it. -Willmcw 10:08, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Given that Willmcw has abusively applied the term "neoconfederate" to organizations as pejorative descriptions of them in articles where they were simply used as a source, and given that even after this dispute proceeding, he remains incorrigible regarding his past abuse of this term, a remedy restricting his use of the term is all the more appropriate. Rangerdude 04:14, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

1. This seems unwarranted.--Cberlet 04:34, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Willmcw's Administrator privileges suspended for one month

3) Willmcw's Administrator privileges are suspended for one month for excessive revert warring to promote and retain the use of invidious labels in articles. See Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Rangerdude/Evidence#Use_of_attack_term_.22neoconfederate.22

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. I propose this as an appropriate remedy for the issue of excessive revert warring to engage in and promote the aforementioned use of attack terms with white supremacist connotations. Rangerdude 18:49, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

2. Since none of the accusations concerns my abuse of administrative tools I don't see the point of this. And since the so-called "revert warring" involved at least an equal number of reverts by Rangerdude I don't understand why he would focus on my reverts without mentioning his own. -Willmcw 08:48, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

The reverts in question pertain to Willmcw's efforts to insert an attack term - "neoconfederate"- into the description of the LVMI. I reverted these because they were clearly not in compliance with NPOV, were generally disruptive in nature, and bordered on being vandalous at times - all cases in which a revert is appropriate. Reverting to reinsert the clearly objectionable material, however, is not appropriate. I've requested that this penalty include Willmcw's administrative powers because (1) his harassment of has intensified since he became an administrator in late June and (2) administrators are expected to uphold an editing environment that fosters consensus and resolves disputes - something Willmcw clearly did not do as the primary instigator of inappropriate activity at the Claremont Institute article. Rangerdude 04:11, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

1. This is absurd.--Cberlet 04:34, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposed remedies for Rangerdude

1) I request that Rangerdude please stop making negative personal remarks about other editors, and myself in particular. I request that he stop calling me a "wikistalker" or any other epithet, and that he address edits rather than editors. For that purpose, I propose a personal attack parole that includes negative personal remarks about other editors.

2) A POV parole to address his consistent POV pushing.

3) A wikibreak. Rangerdude hasn't contributed much to the project since this case was filed in August. Some time away may help "recharge the batteries".

4) I endorse the other remedies already proposed regarding Rangerdude. - Willmcw 11:18, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. I referred to Willmcw as a wikistalker because he has wikistalked me. As I have informed him many times, I would happily stop doing so the moment he stops wikistalking me. As to contributing to the project, I have found my ability to substantively edit here is constantly impeded by nitpicking, harassment, and other wikistalking activities by Willmcw. Should he cease doing so, I will happily move away from dispute resolution and resume editing. Rangerdude 04:04, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

If the Arbcom wants to see why my article contributions have lagged during this case, simply look at the following diffs showing Willmcw's immediate harassment of my edits when I attempted to change two articles earlier today in ways that make them more compliant with the principles expressed in this case. I edited the Claremont Institute article to remove off-topic "nested criticisms" (described by Fred Bauder above as inappropriate use of "critics of critics" etc.). Within hours Willmcw followed me there and retaliated by removing a factually relevant contrast of the Ludwig von Mises Institute's beliefs with the Claremont Institute in a dispute they had [117], and when I restored it he revert warred [118]. I also removed a white supremacist source called the Jubilee Newspaper that Willmcw added to the Morris Dees article along side more mainstream critics of Dees to discredit them. Moments later Willmcw followed me there and began playing ignorant about the Jubilee Newspapers racism [119]. I responded by documenting that they have very offensive anti-semitic and white supremacist material on their website[120], to which Willmcw responded by accusing me of "original research" and denying the site's racism on account of it not being on the SPLC hate group list.[121] On both of these articles Willmcw's actions were attempts to disrupt my edits. He even went so far as to engage in nitpicking and obfuscation to preserve an inappropriate white supremacist source in an article! Willmcw does stuff just like this almost every time I try to make a good faith edit to improve an article, which makes it nearly impossible for me to edit wikipedia at all since he disrupts everything I do. Rangerdude 08:43, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

2. This is yet another example of Rangerdude's double standards. He claims he "restores" while I "revert war". In fact, he reverted, starting whatever "revert war" there was. Regarding the "nested criticism", he removed negative comments about a critic while leaving the positive comments about them. If he wants to characterize the critic, it should be an NPOV characterization, with good and bad included. Or leave it all out and let readers find it in the article about the critic. Lastly, he insists that we cannot mention the Jubilee's criticism because they are anti-semitic and, in his view, a hate group. Yet some of the groups or individuals whose partisans he promotes, like Thomas DiLorenzo and Joseph Sobran, are associated with known hate groups. -Willmcw 09:10, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Willmcw is being less than truthful about his behavior. Reverting to undo disruptive behavior, as Willmcw's clearly was, is a valid edit. Reverting to restore disruptive edits is not. The nested criticism that I removed was a completely unrelated criticism of a critic of the Claremont Institute by the SPLC that had absolutely nothing to do with that article. Willmcw now claims that I left "positive comments" about a critic (the LVMI), yet this is untrue. I left a neutral factual description of the LVMI's political ideology and beliefs that contrasted it with the Claremont Institute's, thus showing some of the reasons for an ideological dispute between the two. Willmcw simply couldn't stand the fact that I removed his SPLC attack on LVMI, so he retaliated by removing this factual material. His claim that Joseph Sobran and Thomas DiLorenzo "are associated with known hate groups" is nothing more than a guilt-by-association smear in violation of WP:V that alleges "hate group" affiliations while showing no reliable demonstration of hatred or bigotry in their own work. The Jubilee Newspaper that Willmcw is currently so fond of quoting, by contrast, has several overtly white supremacist and anti-semitic statements published all over its website. Rangerdude 09:19, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed remedies for Nkinsella

1) I request a personal attack parole for Nskinsella. His only contributions recently seem to be designed to bait me, including a new array of nicknames. -Willmcw 11:15, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed enforcement

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1) {text of proposed enforcement}

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Analysis of evidence

Place here items of evidence (with diffs) and detailed analysis

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Possible origin of dispute

1) According to Rangerdude his dispute with Willmcw had its origin on the article Neo-confederate; edit by Willmcw expanding scope of designation; edit by Rangerdude reducing scope of designation. See Talk:Neo-confederate/archive1, Talk:Neo-confederate/archive2 and Talk:Neo-confederate

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. The designation of a person or group as "neo-confederate" has a pejorative connotation signifying to some affiliation with white supremacy Fred Bauder 16:01, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
2. In some sources there is shotgun smearing reminiscent of McCarthyism [122] Fred Bauder 18:04, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
3. What begins as collaboration gradually deteriorates to comments like this: "The bottom line: quit shilling for Sebesta through this article and let what needs to be said be said.Rangerdude 02:31, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)" Fred Bauder 18:53, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
4. See Talk:Neo-confederate#Don.27t_Disrupt_Wikipedia_to_Prove_a_Point where stalking accusations begin. Fred Bauder 19:29, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. The dispute at Neo-confederate began earlier. Rangerdude, then-unregistered 68.92.217.49 (talk · contribs), made this edit on [123], and I made this edit hours later [124]. The next day RD added the term to List of political epithets, [125], which I edited the day after [126]. -Willmcw 21:10, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Another early conflict (though I mostly sat back in dismay) concerned Sheila Jackson Lee (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Rangerdude, editing as under various IPs and his username, added 700 words of derogatory information over one-month period to the previously NPOV 96-word stub. [127]

I apologize if I have made any mistakes in assigning IP edits, and if Rangerdude believes that he did not make the second William Quantrill edit then I retract the evidence. Here are the IP addresses which I have assumed were used by Rangerdude.

• 68.88.14.14 (talk · contribs) (disputed by Rangerdude)
• 68.90.42.48 (talk · contribs)
• 68.92.217.49 (talk · contribs)
• 68.92.61.2 (talk · contribs)
• 68.100.161.97 (talk · contribs)
• 68.105.184.235 (talk · contribs)
• 216.84.6.22 (talk · contribs) (disputed by Rangerdude)

I am not complaining about RD's behavior 11 months ago. I mention his early edits for two reasons - to explain what I was seeing as another editor, and to illustrate that some behaviors have been consistent. -Willmcw 06:51, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

1. Will - You've done it again. Twice. 216.84.6.22 isn't mine either. Nor is 68.88.14.14. You see, this is the danger of speculating about IP address ownership and making bad faith assumptions about the assumed author in violation of WP:FAITH. You've apparently put a great deal of time into looking for anon IP addresses that you believe were mine and assigning their edits to me, and with very inaccurate results at that. What this shows is that since the moment I registered on wikipedia you've assumed that many anon IP's and edits I had nothing to do with were mine and you've treated me as if I were responsible for them. Considering that the anon IP's you assigned to me contained a particularly eggregious POV edit on the Quantrill article (an edit you also assigned primary importance to in justifying your decision to stalk me), it is a fair assertion for me to make that you have NEVER exercised the good faith assumption required by WP:FAITH since the very first moment we met. You could not have assumed good faith because you incorrectly assumed I was the author of many edits I did not make and treated me as if I were responsible for them. Just about everything else in our dispute since then seems to trace back to those mistaken cases of identity, hence your treatment of me when I first registered and encountered you, my reaction to you when you followed me, and my conclusion that you were persecuting my edits by stalking them. Rangerdude 07:27, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Willmcw's comment above about the origin of this dispute is incorrect, and only goes to demonstrate that he has stalked me all the way back to my first IP edits when I discovered wikipedia. I had no idead who or what Willmcw even was at either the first edit on neo-confederate or the Sheila Jackson Lee article. I did not communicate with him then and did not even know he was making followup changes, as he describes. The first significant communications between us were on neo-confederate, as identified by Fred Bauder above and the present dispute traces back continuously to that moment. Rangerdude 03:58, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

My thought at this point is that as you consistently edit from a point of view, it is to be expected that others will take an interest in your editing and may "stalk" you. I fail to see anything wrong with that. Fred Bauder 05:05, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

According to WP:HA's precedents on wikistalking "It is not acceptable to stalk another editor who is editing in good faith" and even after bad faith occurs "monitoring is appropriate, but constantly nit-picking is always a violation of required courtesy." I believe that standard is a very fair and reasonable one. Otherwise, a stalker could claim something as small as a single POV edit on one article as "justification" to follow and harass somebody else's edits all over wikipedia and on any subject. It also draws a needed line between legitimate POV balancing and stalking to nitpick or harass. Even if one were to characterize my edits as POV (and I contend that in many cases my POV was significantly less of a problem than the ones being pushed by the person stalking me - e.g. see [128]), they were made in good faith. While I would not mind a person of an opposite POV working with me on political article edits of a common interest to us both where we could each serve as "checks and balances" against each others' POV's, I believe it is fair to say that Willmcw's stalking of me far exceeded that when he started showing up at completely unrelated articles, stubs, and just about everything else I did on wikipedia. What started as a relatively productive disagreement on neo-confederate moved quickly into him following me to just about every article I edited, political or not, to nitpick and stir up disputes. That is where I contend he crossed the line and engaged in wikistalking. Rangerdude 05:24, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Origin of dispute comment. Willmcw recently stated on the evidence page [129] that he began following my edits after he became "very concerned" over a December 25th anon IP edit made to the William Quantrill article located at [130]. He describes this as "a very POV edit" that "took a Southern Civil War guerilla who had been previously described as a terrorist and turned him into a hero" and states that "Since then I've more or less kept an eye on Rangerdude's edits." This claim is very telling because I did not even author the William Quantrill edit he attributes to me! It was made by an anon IP 64.216.155.74, which I have never used and which has only made that one edit to wikipedia and no other [131]. If we go by Willmcw is now revealing about the origin of his habit of following me, it is clear that he began doing so for an offense that I did not even commit! I submit that this is evidence of a severe WP:FAITH breach on his part, and one that has had the extremely unfortunate consequence of fostering hostility between us since before I even knew who Willmcw was or that he was following my edits. Rangerdude 06:17, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

1. We see the same shotgun smearing here [132] where a staff member of a U.S. Congressional subcommittee is called a "holocaust denier", and "affiliated" with neo-nazis. nobs 21:41, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Certainly guilt by association. I wonder if anyone could not know who they were dealing with. Fred Bauder 03:14, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Dispute at Chip Berlet

2) Rangerdude was involved with a dispute with SlimVirgin (talk · contribs) at the article Chip Berlet with respect to his characterization of the content of an article strongly critical of Chip Berlet [133]. Rangerdude's characterization "Berlet's work [material omitted] "has squashed vigorous debate and discourse,' including among the political left." is present in the link but somewhat out of context: the original being: "His radical leftist ideology has caused him to lessen true fascism by smearing every non-Stalinist with totalitarian motivations. His attacks of fellow left-wingers has squashed vigorous debate and discourse." SlimVirgin's objection includes an invitation for Rangerdude to cease editing the article on the basis of alleged malice and both raises a poorly founded liability threat to Wikipedia and threatens unspecified "further action" [134]

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. I guess the focus needs to be on SlimVirgin's animosity toward an other editor in good standing rather than on the rather lame language Rangerdude is promoting. Fred Bauder 19:41, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
2. I guess SlimVirgin made a good faith mistake with respect to thinking RangerDude was creating a liability problem by including the Horowitz material in the article. (The material is properly ascribed, not assertions by Rangerdude). I know many editors admire cberlet and understand the urge to support him, but he is a controversial figure and criticism by both the radical right and mainstream critics may legitimately be included in the article. As to the proportion of favorable and unfavorable coverage and word counts, the cure is to round out the favorable and neutral information, not to exclude or limit what is arguably a significant viewpoint regarding the subject. (We went through this at the United States Air Force Academy where material regarding the Air Force Academy sexual assault scandal made up a disproportionate amount of the article. There was no basis for removing it on that account, but eventually a few folks showed up and added material to the Academy article while the assault article became extensive enough to be its own article.) Fred Bauder 14:34, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. The full context of what Fred Bauder alleges to be "rather lame language" in my addition seems to reveal otherwise. Here is the quote in full, indicating that the quote is attributed directly to its author:

   Since then, Horowitz's Front Page Magazine has carried a response from Berlet accusing Horowitz and the CSPC of using "inflammatory, mean-spirited, and divisive language that dismisses the idea that there are serious unresolved issues concerning racism and white supremacy in the United States," [135], a further rejoinder from Horowitz addressed to Dees, [136] and an article by Chris Arabia harshly critical of Berlet in which he claims that Berlet's work creates the "false illusion that conservatism and racism walk hand-in-hand" and "has squashed vigorous debate and discourse," including among the political left.[137]

   As you can plainly see, my addidition did not claim that "Berlet's work has squashed vigorous debate and discourse" as Fred's characterization of it implied. Rather, I explicitly attributed this opinion to Chris Arabia of David Horowitz's organization, which is what WP:CITE says to do for political viewpoints. Rangerdude 23:02, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

2. I harbored no animosity toward Rangerdude. I hadn't edited an article with him before. But I'd noticed that he appeared to harbor animosity against Chip. He had tried to have Chip deemed an unreliable source for Wikipedia. He had opened an RfC against User:Cberlet. He had tried to remove a diagram created by Chip from (as I recall) Anti-Semitism just because Chip had drawn it. I therefore felt he was in danger of allowing his feelings toward User:Cberlet to influence his editing of Chip Berlet, and might edit the article with what looked like malice. I therefore said I felt he should stop editing it. When I said I was considering taking the matter further, I meant that I was thinking of alerting Jimbo, or taking steps in the dispute-resolution process. I felt that Rangerdude's actions toward Willmcw and Cberlet amounted to harassment, and that that shouldn't be allowed to affect the editing of a biography in the main namespace. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:35, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

1. See Laird Wilcox, The Watchdogs: A Close Look at Anti-Racist "Watchdog" Groups, Editorial Research Service, 1999, p. 114-131. (PDF) ISBN 0-993592-96-5 for documentation up to 1998 from a verifiable reputable source (recommended by the Nizkor Project:

"The two principle officers of PRA have always been Jean Hardisty, Director, and John Foster "Chip" Berlet, Analyst...There is nothing even vaguely impartial, objective or scholarly about PRA except the image it attempts to foist upon an unsuspecting public, including reporters and researchers who contact it for information." (p. 114-115)

Applicable Wikipedia Policy: WP:NOR#Primary and secondary sources,

such experts do not occupy a privileged position within Wikipedia nobs 22:30, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

The Watchdog article is on a site which redirects to http://www.volksfrontinternational.com/ Fred Bauder 03:25, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

The Watchdogs book by Laird Wilcox that you cite above is self-published, according to Amazon, and this is the quality of sources you've been trying to use at Chip Berlet, which is part of the problem, Nobs. We can't use self-published opinion in order to insult people. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:42, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't PRA also "self publish" its own highly opinionated attack pieces on conservative groups? Rangerdude 03:10, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I object to the insinuation "to insult people"; I am a qualified historian and only concerned about valid, historical research matters. nobs 03:15, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

PRA is a professional research group, not one individual. If Wilcox has to self-publish, it might be because he couldn't find a publisher. But whatever the reason, it's another mark against using that book as a source, especially when the claim it's currently being used for at Chip Berlet is to say he used to be associated with an organization that harbored terrorists. Strong claims like this need extremely good references to back them up, not self-published tiny-minority views. Nobs, I didn't mean to imply you're doing it in order to insult Chip. I'm saying the material does, as a matter of fact, insult him, and therefore the source has to be a good one. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:27, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

"John George and Laird Wilcox, two of the foremost analysts of right-and left-wing extremism, state that this definition reflects a common proposition about extremist behavior: it is more an 'issue of style than of content.' ³⁰ What the extremist believes is less important than what behavior he exhibits. Rather, extremism can cut across the political spectrum."³¹

quoted in Racial Extremism in the Army, MAJ Walter M. Hudson, The Military Law Review, Vol 159 (Mar 99), Department of the Army, Washington, DC. Army Pamphlet No 27-100-159 [138]; I'm assuming The Military Law Review is a peer reviewed journal, but go ahead and check that out for me if you will. Thank you. nobs 18:32, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

And what does the above have to do with Chip Berlet? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:52, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

It is the qualification of who Mr. Laird Wilcox is. nobs 23:06, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

<----Rangerdude and nobs have attacked me and my work numerous times across many pages, even going to the entry on me Chip Berlet to add negative material after editing disputes. SlimVirgin and Willmcw have repeatedly attempted to cajole them into abiding by Wiki policies. It is no surprise to see that these claims appear here. It is part of a pattern of abuse that caused me to file an arbitration naming Rangerdude and nobs; see: [139] Therefore I do not think that SlimVirgin and Willmcw have acted improperly in this matter.--Cberlet 04:59, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

The folks at Volksfront purchased and used Laird Wilcox's, "Political Research Associates, A Study in 'Links and ties'"; the folks a Volksfront also purchase and use Crest toothpaste and Charmin toiletpaper. Crest toothpaste and Charmin toilet paper must be neo-nazis then, as per PRA's standard methodolgy. nobs 19:48, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I have no idea what the above text is meant to convey. The issue here is that SlimVirgin and Willmcw attempted to play a mediating role and make people abide by Wiki standards as they vented their spleens all over the page representing the entry on me in real life. SlimVirgin and Willmcw deserve awards for the effort at finding an NPOV outcome, not a sanction.--Cberlet 04:34, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

See WP:V#Dubious sources and Laird Wilcox, Political Research Associates, A Study in "Links & ties", Editorial Research Services, 1999. Congratulations, A Wikipedia Policy has now been clarified to question the methodolgy that made PRA famous. Say, I just read your introduction to Old Nazi's, The New Right, and the Republican Party; looks interesting. Maybe you can explain why the title was changed from Old Nazi's, The New Right, and the Reagan Administration. nobs 05:01, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Excerpted:

the trail from the bloody atrocities of the Waffen SS to the ethnic outreach arm of the Republican Party and even to the paneled walls of White House briefing rooms.

WP:V#Dubious sources:

Smith and Jones are Knights of the Garter. Smith kills his wife. It is inappropriate when writing an article about Jones to include information like this, "Smith, also a member of the Knights of the Garter, killed his own wife" under the heading "Crimes of Jones." Most uses of guilt by association are more subtle than this

What is odd, is for the internet search results we get for this information, it all can be traced back to Political Research Associates, including a statement [140] read on the floor of the US House of Representatives. nobs 05:55, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

SlimVirgin protecting an article which she was actively editing

On October 15 SlimVirgin, protected the article Islamophobia using the vprotect template (protected due to vandalism) [141]. She was at that time an active editor of the article having made substantial edits on October 14, and October 15 [142]. She again protected the article on October 23 [143]

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. On its face this appears true. I notice that some anonymous editors had been making some aggressive edits and yuber was reverting them, but neither had made many edits. Fred Bauder 14:04, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
2. Although SlimVirgin protected the article I don't see any evidence from the history of the article that anyone was contesting her edits of the article nor that at the time she protected in the article she was involved in a conflict over its content. Fred Bauder 14:54, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Parties:

1. WP:PPol does not require the protected edits to be contested - it prohibits any involved admin from imposing protection and defines involvement as "making substantive edits to the page or expressing opinions about the article on the talk page." The purpose of this is to protect the integrity of Page Protections and prevent even the appearance of a conflict of interest. SlimVirgin's use of page protection suggests she's often too quick to impose it, and does so in a way that suggests a conflict of interest.Rangerdude 06:54, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

   It is not sufficient that someone broke a technical rule if close inquiry and a request for an explanation shows no bad motive. This is not a game of Gotcha! Fred Bauder 00:05, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

2. Fred, I was asked to protect Islamophobia by Yuber, who's one of the regular editors on the page. I told him I couldn't because I'd recently edited it. But when I looked at it, I saw that it was an anon who had added first the disputed tag, [144] then a VfD tag, [145] and then had deleted the previous VfD archived discussion. [146] This was vandalism, so I vprotected it for eight-and-a-half hours. [147] Any admin, whether editing a page or not, is allowed to protect against vandalism, according to WP:PP. I can't produce Yuber's e-mail without his permission, but I've copied mine below. My next protection was a week later, when I was no longer actively editing the page, and this was also in response to a request from one of the regular editors at Ali Sina and Islamophobia about a new editor adding material from his own website. I protected both, then tried to help sort out the dispute on the talk pages. My evidence about it is at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Rangerdude/Evidence#Response_to_Rangerdude.27s_evidence. In neither the first nor the second protection of Islamophobia was I involved in an edit dispute. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:57, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

   First e-mail

   From: slimvirgin

   To: Yuber

   Date: Oct 15, 2005 8:27 PM

   Subject: Re: Changing my username

   I can't protect it now I've edited it. I'll take a look.

   Second e-mail

   From: slimvirgin

   To: Yuber

   Date: Oct 15, 2005 8:32 PM

   Subject: Re: Changing my username

   Actually, we can if it's vandalism, and this is, so I did.

3. Also, I want to add that one of the reasons I was very quick to help Yuber is that he has had serious problems with reverting in the past, and I've always asked him to look for help instead of reverting. Here he was doing that, and so I felt very inclined to help him. And in general, Islam-related pages attract a lot of vandalism and POV pushing and often need protection, which I'm usually sympathetic to. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:06, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Others:

Willmcw uses an epithet

[148] Willmcw adds the word "controversial" in a context that functions as a scareword to a libertarian scholar he dislikes (placement in the opening sentence). Note - he has removed this exact same scareword from the opening sentence a liberal organization he likes on the grounds that it was an "epithet," indicating a selective POV-driven inconsistency in the appropriateness term's use based entirely upon whether the subject is conservative or liberal [149][150].

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. Rangerdude seems to have made his point. Fred Bauder 17:27, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Just a reminder that Rangerdude has done so at least 72 times as well. And that I did not remove the word, I simply moved it to the end of the same paragraph. Also, I did not add it "based entirely on [my] personal politics". The subject in that matter, a professor, is not best known for his ideas, he's best known for a comment he made in a class that generated a controversy. I fail to see the significance of the opening sentence. -Willmcw 09:27, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
2. Apples to oranges. Simply using the word "controversial" is different from selectively inserting it into or deleting it from the opening sentence of articles based entirely upon whether they agree with your personal politics. Rangerdude 07:30, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Willmcw makes a point

[151] Willmcw adds quotations from notorious KKK activist David Duke to an article about a libertarian think tank he personally dislikes, seeking to discredit it with Duke's well known infamy. It should also be noted that Willmcw essentially admits his purpose of the Duke quote was disruption to prove a point - "I put in David Duke's criticism of the Center to prove that point...Point made, problem solved."

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. Willmcw admits this was an error, but Rangerdude continues to harp on it. Fred Bauder 17:33, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Fred - "but Rangerdude continues to harp on it." - this is more prejudicial language that again suggests a lack of fairness in your hearing of this matter. It is also telling that you repeatedly entertain the allegations made by Willmcw etc. against me without stipulation or qualification relating to them, but almost every charge I've brought in this case against one of them is qualified with prejudicial language referring back to me by you when entered into consideration. While again your motives are not in question, I am finding increasing reason to believe that you have prejudices in this case that, consciously or not, are affecting the way you approach it. Rangerdude 06:48, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

1. One more note - Willmcw did not "admit" to any wrongdoing over the Duke quotes until it came up as evidence against him in this arbcom case, and then only after the case was well underway on November 11th. Prior to this Willmcw had defended his use of the Duke quotes on the LVMI talk page and refused to answer the complaint about it on the conduct RfC. In fact, his steadfast refusal up until now to own up to this offense is one of the reason's i've pressed him on it in this case, given that he's made many far less substantive allegations that I POV push. His "apology" for it also says only that he pleads "guilty to a minor and brief violation of WP:POINT," when in fact the larger issue here is a clear and abusive POV disruption. Throwing around crude Ku Klux Klan insinuations for political reasons are a serious and highly offensive matter given the infamy of that group, and the brutalities associated with its legacy. Rangerdude 07:07, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

1. If Willmcw was only "making a point" in the Duke incident, he went about it in a very offensive and POV manner. I'll reiterate what I said earlier - Ku Klux Klan insinuations are highly offensive given the infamy of that group. That he chose not only to disrupt the article to "make a point" but also disrupt it with material of the very worst possible kind, and intentionally so to make his "point" all the more inflamatory. Rangerdude 18:20, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Willmcw is projecting again. The POV-based criticism of groups in this case, as with many others, was entirely his own. This may be seen in the edit history of the article, which shows Willmcw both introduced the use of POV terms to criticize LVMI and edit warred to retain it and remove anything challenging it:

• [152] Willmcw adds the SPLC "neo-confederate" attack to LVMI article
• [153] [154] - Nskinsella adds rebuttal criticisms of the SPLC's allegations to counterbalance the original attack.
• [155] - Willmcw adds David Duke quote.
• [156] - I added link to a Myles Kantor article on Horowitz's site specifically responding to the SPLC attacks on the LVMI
• [157] - Willmcw deletes criticism of SPLC, adds criticism of LVMI
• [158] - Willmcw adds more pro-SPLC stuff

Also please note that Willmcw used the same tactic at Claremont Institute article and repeatedly added selective qualifiers that labelled the LVMI "neo-confederate" after the LVMI was quoted regarding a political dispute it had with the Claremont Institute, another think tank on the political right:

• [159] - POV pejorative - Willmcw changes "Members of the Ludwig von Mises Institute..." to "Members of the neoconfederate Ludwig von Mises Institute..."
• After Willmcw adds the above and other contested POV edits, a revert war breaks out - I reverted him on POV grounds [160], Willmcw reverts back [161], I revert a second time [162], Willmcw reverts back a second time [163].
• Seeing the revert war was going nowhere, I made specific changes to the text itself by taking out the "neoconfederate" pejorative and restoring a sourced quote that Willmcw kept deleting [164]. Willmcw reverts a third time [165].
• I rewrite the intro without the "neoconfederate" pejorative [166], Willmcw reinserts it [167]. I remove it again citing NPOV [168], Willmcw reinserts it later in the article with unsourced attack "which others identify as "neo-confederate"" [169]. I removed this phrasing the next day on the grounds that it lacked a source [170].
• [171] - Willmcw adds "neoconfederate" pejorative back, this time with a link to the SPLC article. I removed it again on the grounds that the Claremont Institute and the discussion of LVMI in this article had absolutely nothing to do with the SPLC's attacks on LVMI [172].
• Another revert war - Willmcw reverts to neoconfederate claim again [173]. I remove it again [174]. Willmcw restores it again [175].
• Since this was going nowhere, I then added David Horowitz's criticism of the SPLC [176]. Another user objected to Horowitz, and I took out the entire thing [177], at which point there appeared to be a compromise not to use it. That was July 5th.
• After two months of stability on the article, Willmcw comes back again on September 3rd and adds the POV "neoconfederate" attack again, this time without any sources [178] and with an edit description that gives no indication he's doing this. I then added a source, indicating it came from the "leftist Southern Poverty Law Center" [179]
• [180] - Willmcw removes "leftist" from my addition, arguing it's a point of view term. I added it back, noting that either both POV terms were okay or they should both be removed [181]. He removed "leftist" about the SPLC again, but retained "neoconfederate" about LVMI [182]. I followed this up by deleting neoconfederate as well [183], which he then restored[184]. So I added back "leftist" again [185], and he removed it [186].
• At this point User:BenKovitz objected to what Willmcw was doing and removed the "neoconfederate" attack [187]. I voiced my agreement with BenKovitz's edit on the talk page, thus establishing consensus. Willmcw then added neoconfederate back with an agreement to also quote Horowitz on the SPLC [188].

In total, Willmcw made approx. 15 different edits aimed at adding the pejorative attack term "neoconfederate" to the description of the LVMI or removing countercriticisms of the SPLC while retaining that attack term on LVMI. Despite several NPOV objections to it and multiple compromise offers than included both removing attack terms, right and left, entirely and including one right and one left attack term for balance, Willmcw clearly demonstrated that the only option he would tolerate was using the attack term he desired for the LVMI alone. This incident demonstrates Willmcw's clear POV inconsistency. He considers it POV to attach the label "leftist" to groups he likes and objected when I did so, but has no objection attaching "neoconfederate" to groups he dislikes and objected when I tried to remove it. I suggested a fair and reasonable compromise - that either both terms be permitted or both terms be removed (I also indicated my preference for the latter as closer to NPOV on the talk page). But he wouldn't have that either and insisted the POV term against LVMI be retained but the POV term against SPLC be removed. Also, as with the David Duke incident, Willmcw employed a POV tactic here at which he attempted to discredit a conservative group he disliked by trying to associate it with white supremacy and racism. Rangerdude 07:26, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Nor is it reasonable to downplay Duke as simply "a third, notable critic of the SPLC." That's like quoting Hitler then saying he's just "a third, notable critic of Jewish bankers" when people get offended. Neither has any place on Wikipedia because they are both inherently offensive and inappropriate uses of sources. Regarding the Horowitz-LvMI connection, there is indeed at least one. The SPLC article that attacked the LvMI (and incidentally was written by Mr. Berlet) also attacked Horowitz with the same allegations. This prompted Horowitz to publish an article by Myles Kantor on his site, FrontPageMagazine.com, that defended both by name and responded with many criticisms of the SPLC [189]. Rangerdude 03:30, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

2. With all due respect, Fred Bauder has not described the incident correctly. I inserted the Duke criticism of the SPLC in order to show how silly it was to include the criticisms by unrelated people, David Horowitz in particular. The citation was in the article for less than two hours, which I never tried to put back, and the Horowitz criticism was removed a few hours later. These were not criticism of the subject of the article, they were criticism of the critics of the subject. In other articles, Rangerdude has removed similar material as "ad hominem" attacks on critics.

• 00:21, May 27, 2005 [190] It's just a tangential ad hominem attack of TMW that you're sticking in this article because you don't like anything that isn't positive and laudatory about the Chronicle to be included.

I was making a point, not POV pushing, by briefly adding the Duke criticism. -Willmcw 07:50, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

This response is somewhat confusing to me. I don't understand, at this point, how this relates to either David Horowitz or the Houston Chronicle. Fred Bauder 23:16, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

The LvMI is the subject of the article. There was a one-word criticism of the LvMI from the SPLC. In order to attack that critic some editors added a 96-word rebuttal, including en extended quote from David Horowitz, who has no connection to the LvMI. Attempts by other editors, such as myself, to reduce this counter-criticism were opposed. So that is why I added a third, notable critic of the SPLC to the two already quoted. I now cite above the example of Rangerdude's statement in a similar case, because in that instance he didn't allow a criticism of a critic at all. Rangerdude often removes criticisms of groups that match his POV, while piling on criticisms of groups that are opposed to that POV. His actions in editing the LvMI and the Houston Chronicle are typical of that behavior. -Willmcw 00:15, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I can't imagine David Horowitz even supporting it; any chance you could find a diff adding that material? I'm starting to understand a bit. I assume Rangerdude did not not make the edit. Fred Bauder 01:46, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

The Horowitz criticism of the SPLC was added 04:58, July 22, 2005 by user:Nskinsella, followed by the addition of another SPLC critic 14:55, July 22, 2005 by the same user. Rangerdude removed the criticism of the SPLC by Duke 21:58, July 22, 2005, with the edit summary NPOV reformatting. In that same edit he changed the generic "Criticism" header for the section to "Dispute with the Southern Poverty Law Center", even though Horowitz has no connection with the LVMI, so he has no involvement in the "dispute". At that point the SPLC's criticism of the LVMI was still only one word, while the counter-criticism had grown to 142 words. Some was removed by other editors, and the criticism of the LVMI was expanded slightly, but on 03:57, July 23, 2005 Rangerdude added a 186-word criticism of the SPLC. For an example of Rangerdude removing criticisms of the LVMI, see (18:30, July 25, 2005).

I'd like to note two contemporaneous responses from other editors on the LVMI talk page:

• I did not realize that Horowitz has no connection to LVMI. I agree, we should remove all irrelevant attacks on the SPLC. If LVMI has officially responded to SPLC it should be covered, but those with no connection to this dispute do not belong in the article...Rhobite 22:12, July 22, 2005[191]
• It's pretty simple: if Duke criticised the SPLC over their attack on this institute, he should be quoted. If he's just bitching about them in general, then he should not. The same goes for anyone else. This article is not about the SPLC and there is absolutely no requirement for NPOV purposes to discredit people that we use as sources... -- Grace Note[192]

Both of these editors agreed with my contention that Horowitz and other critics of the SPLC who had no connection to the LVMI did not belong in the article. -Willmcw 02:38, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the use of "neo-confederate" to describe LVMI in the article on the Claremont Institute. Calling "neo-confederate" a "pejorative attack term" is over-dramatic. The political dispute between the two conservative think tanks centers on the treatment of Abraham Lincoln. The LVMI criticizes Claremont for revering Lincoln, whom they consider to have been a tyrant. Thus, the fact that the LVMI is characterized as having a neo-confederate world view is entirely appropriate to show their perspective in the matter. A substantial part of Rangerdude's editing career at Wikipedia has involved promoting the LVMI and denigrating the Claremont Institute, along with their respective personnel. -Willmcw 16:04, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Nested criticism

In the criticisms section of this version of Ludwig von Mises Institute criticisms of the Institute by the Southern Poverty Law Center have been supplemented by two criticisms of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The small article with nearly half it content being taken up by the criticisms section, thus has substantial content devoted to criticisms of a critic.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. This phenomenon is clearly wrong headed, a hall of mirrors. Fred Bauder 19:39, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. The Kantor criticism of the SPLC is germane to the LVMI article because Kantor was specifically responding to the SPLC's attacks on LVMI by name. Rangerdude 07:32, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

General discussion

Wikistalking

It is rather difficult to distinguish between Wikipedia:Wikistalking, normal editing and Wikipedia:Wikikarma, the consequences of your editing patterns. See Rangerdude's viewpoint and Willmcw's viewpoint

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. "wikistalking is done "with the intent of causing annoyance or distress to another contributor" - again something that can be easily identified in the tone and pattern of behavior of the accused stalker and the response of the person he's following." So it says, but even to the emotionally sensitive it is not Fred Bauder 03:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. I again disagree that this is a difficult distinction at all. Wikipedia:Wikikarma is a neologism of no precedent or policy standing, but Wikistalking is backed by extensive precedent and explicit definitions under the WP:HA guideline. For example, WP:HA says "It is not acceptable to stalk another editor who is editing in good faith" and indicates WP:FAITH is the standard by which this is determined. It also says "Once an editor has given reason to suspect bad faith, monitoring is appropriate, but constantly nit-picking is always a violation of required courtesy." This defines when monitoring would be appropriate (an editor who edits in bad faith), but also imposes reasonable limitations on monitor abuse even in that case. WP:HA also states that wikistalking is done "with the intent of causing annoyance or distress to another contributor" - again something that can be easily identified in the tone and pattern of behavior of the accused stalker and the response of the person he's following. Rangerdude 18:54, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others: