Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Raphael1/Evidence

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Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.

When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-conciousness rants are not helpful.

As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey use this form: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anomalous_phenomenon&diff=5587219&oldid=5584644] [1].

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.

Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs, a much shorter, concise presentation is more likely to be effective. Please focus on the issues raised in the complaint and answer and on diffs which illustrate behavior which relates to the issues.

If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.

Be aware that the Arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to refactor the page, let the Arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the arbitrators to move.

The Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies voting by Arbitrators takes place at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.

Evidence presented by User:Raphael1[edit]

Cyde engages in tendentious editing[edit]

  • Cyde shows his disrespect towards religious beliefs by replacing the crucifix image in the Christian userbox with a spinning crucifix: [2]
  • User:200.51.32.150 removed the cartoons and got a vandalism warning. After User:200.51.32.150 stated "It's not vandalism to remove the cartoons.", Cyde replied "Yeah, and it's not murder if you kill someone over the cartoons because the cartoons made you do it." [3] and blocked the editor 48 hours for vandalism.
  • Cyde states, that he is "proud that Wikipedia has more collective cojones than BBC, Fox News, and CNN combined, none of which would show the controversial cartoons.": [4]
  • Cyde adds another 700 years old unveiled image of Muhammad to the JP article in order to prove, that depictions of Mohammed aren't so "sacrilegious". [5][6] He warns editors, who want to remove that image because they consider it irrelevant, to get blocked for vandalism.[7]

Netscott engages in tendentious editing[edit]

  • Netscott states his WP:POINT against a navbar hide compromise by mocking Muslims in stating a woman in a burka is a properly dressed believer whereas Princess Diana is naked: [8]
  • In an effort to remove an article about a widely used term in the human rights community, Netscott files an AfD for Islamophobia: [9]
  • Netscott wants to prevent the article Islamophobia from using the term "Islamophobia" outside of quotes. [10]
  • Netscott engages in tendentious editing on Islamophobia itself: [11][12][13]

Anjoe changed the GA rules to prevent me from delisting the JP article[edit]

Anjoe changed the Good article nomination rules [14] before I started the discussion on its talk page [15]. He is not following the GA rules by renominating the article again instead of starting a Good article dispute [16] until I explained it to him on his talk page [17].

Cyde is engaged in the cartoon display content dispute[edit]

Apart from voting [18][19] Cyde has repeatedly stated his position on the talk pages. Here is a small selection of his statements: [20][21][22]

I consented to rename the "Persecution of Muslims" article[edit]

I agreed to change the title on WP:ANI [23] and on WP:DRV [24] days before I got blocked by Zoe [25]. After my block expired, I tried to clarify the missunderstanding [26].

No attack in Persecution of Muslims or Consequences of enforcing results of polls in February[edit]

Neither did I attack administrators nor did I accuse them of abusing Muslims. Unfortunately I cannot provide any evidence because the evidence has been burked.

I have made only a single edit on Wikiethics[edit]

The history of Wikipedia:Wikiethics clearly shows, that I've not made a single edit on that proposal. Again I cannot prove my minor edit on User:Rgulerdem/Wikiethics and no edit on my copy User:Raphael1/Wikiethics, because the evidence has been burked.

WP:OURS is no cut&paste version of Rgulerdems email[edit]

Again I cannot provide any evidence by showing the differences, because the evidence has been burked.

I am willing to compromise on the JP article[edit]

I have showed my willingness to compromise, when I withdrew my proposal for image deletion [27] and acknowledged WP:NOT censored [28] soon after I've created my account.

Raphael1 16:31, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Zoe is making false statements on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Raphael1[edit]

Zoes initial statement on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Raphael1 is simply wrong, which can easily be confirmed with my block log. I wouldn't have reported this, if her "reworded" statement wouldn't be equally wrong, because Zoe has not reverted a single one of my eight cartoon movals (I've never outright deleted the cartoons) since I've created my account. Raphael1 01:10, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removing the cartoons is not vandalism[edit]

The removal of the cartoons is not a deliberate attempt to reduce the quality of the encyclopedia. Instead, altering the display characteristics of the cartoons would indeed increase the quality of the article, because it would invite and encourage editors, who feel insulted by the cartoons, to add valuable information regarding their side on this controversy. Why would we discuss the cartoon display characteristics for weeks and poll over that issue, if all forms of cartoon display different from the status quo simply constitute vandalism? According to WP:VANDAL changes, even if they'd be opposed by everyone else, do not constitute vandalism. I didn't add that to this policy, but I approve that statement, because WP:NOT an experiment in democracy. Raphael1 15:03, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Cyde Weys[edit]

Raphael1 engages in tendentious editing[edit]

Raphael has engaged in tendentious editing on Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. Here is a list, in chronological order, of all of his questionable edits. Edits to the article's talk pages aren't presented in this section of evidence, but they were more of the same.

  • Removes Image:Mahomet.jpg, saying, "the image is irrelevant to the article and the addition is nothing but a childish intended offense" [29]
  • Removes all references to some Muslims not believing in aniconistic traditions, saying, "emoved bias and unfounded claims. esp. the word "still" implies, that something will or should change, which is POV" [30]
  • Reverts, saying, "reverted POV. Please explain your claims on the talk page." [31]
  • Reverts again with no edit summary. [32]
  • Hides Image:Jyllands-Posten Muhammad drawings.jpg, saying, "reverted hide option back in" [33]
  • Reverts. [34]
  • Adds a "Blasphemous content" disclaimer above the external links section. Note that Wikipedia doesn't use disclaimers (other than the General disclaimer linked from every page), and that "blasphemous" is inherently subjective and POV. [35]
  • Reverts, saying, "added the warning again. Before reverting again, please discuss on the talk page." Note that he's not actually trying to make compromises on the talk page, he's just saying this to try to move the goal posts and make other editors think they have to defend their stance not to include this POV disclaimer rather than the other way around. It doesn't work. [36]
  • Removes Image:Muhammad_2.jpg, saying, "Reverting change from Cyde. Please explain your POV claims on the talk page.", as if suddenly its my responsibility to discuss keeping the image in rather than his responsbility to discuss removing the image. [37]
  • Reverts, saying, "If you want to include that image, please explain on the talk page." [38]
  • Reverts again, saying, "Please don't make changes without discussing first on talk page." [39]
  • Inserts a phrase with very, very questionable motives. He's trying to give the impression that anything Muslims say in Iraq on the issue of aniconism is invalid, because they are being occupied by the United States. [40]
  • Covers up that Danish law against "blasphemy" has been defunct since 1938, saying, "the historic execution of Danish legislation is irrelevant". Of course, the history here is entirely relevant, but this is his excuse. [41]
  • Hides the main image behind a link again, blank edit summary. [42]
  • Re-adds claim that pictures "can lead to irritation in the belief in god" (whatever that means). [43]
  • Reverts, saying, "Dear NSLE, please don't revert my edits, without telling us your reasons on the talk page." [44]
  • Reverts again, saying, "excuse me NSLE, but it was Zora, who changed the text today without consens. Besides you are welcome to tell us your opinion on the talk page." [45]
  • Hides the main image behind a link again with a blank edit summary [46]
  • Totally changes the entire meaning of the warning against image removal left as a comment, saying, "changed comment to be compliant with WP:VANDAL" [47]
  • Reverts, saying, "incorporating some of Netscotts previous edit and additionally returning wording to a more truthful state." [48]
  • Reverts again, saying, "please read WP:VANDAL to find out what is vandalism" [49]
  • Reverts again, threatening another editor with 3RR with an edit summary of, "don't forget the 3RR". [50]
  • Reverts again (at this point he himself is in violation of 3RR), saying, "fixed comment to be compliant with WP:VANDAL" [51]
  • (Much later ....) Reverts the warning in the comment on the cartoon page again, saying, "fixed comment to be compliant with WP:VANDAL and WP:NBD" [52]
  • Reverts again, this time also hiding the image. Note that, in the same edit, he is doing something the comments explicitly warn against doing while simultaneously modifying the comments so he's no longer in violation. Slick. [53]
  • Reverts again[54] and again[55] and again[56].
  • Removes the admonition against removing the image[57].
  • Reverts[58].
  • Reverts to the linkimage version again while simultaneously modifying the comments[59].
  • Then he has the absolute balls to go complain on WP:AN3 about the editors who've been reverting his vandalism, nevermind that he himself has been committing much more egregious violations. Then he gets into a huge argument on that noticeboard which I am going to skip over ... if you really want to see it, just look at Raphael1's edits between 2006-04-25 17:59:48 and 2006-04-25 21:35:00.
  • Then he jumps on image removal vandalism by adding the link, try to play it off like he's doing the right thing[60].
  • He removes the image again hiding it under a linkimage with the absurd edit summary of "I hided the cartoons for LionKing, who got mocked for his belief on the Image-Display talk page." [61] At this point I've had enough of his nonsense and I block him for a week for over a month of edit warring, 3RR violations, editing against a strong consensus, and general disruptiveness. I get a unanimous endorsement from other users on ANI and I even get congratulated by a few people for finally stepping up and doing something to end it. Note that the block stuck.

This concludes my review of Raphael1's history of tendentious editing. I believe I've showed beyond a shadow of a doubt that his stlye of editing was causing extreme disruptiveness.

Administrators are allowed to block for vandalism[edit]

I didn't feel like this is something that explicitly needs to be said, but Raphael1 is making an issue of it, so here goes.

Wikipedia:Blocking policy says specifically that editors can be blocked for vandalism. Many prohibitions are relaxed when dealing with vandalism; for instance, WP:3RR doesn't apply to reverting vandalism, and likewise, whether or not an administrator is involved in editing an article is irrelevant to whether or not he can block users committing vandalism on that article (in fact, vandals are most likely to be blocked by administrators closely watching or editing the vandalized article). It is my simple contention that the repeated removal and hiding of images over the period of months against a strong consensus is simple vandalism and needs to be dealt with accordingly by reverting it, warning the user, and blocking the user if he persists. Raphael1 had more than enough warnings before he was blocked.

Raphael1 is trying to turn this into an issue of persecution of Muslims when it is in fact simply an issue of vandalism. I view all encyclopedic images equally, with no mind towards denigrating or offending any group of people, and if images dramatically improve an article, they should be displayed. We wouldn't put up with someone who repeatedly, over the course of months, tried to hide the images on Coca-Cola; why should an article on a cartoon be any different?

Raphael1 continues tendentious editing even during arbitration[edit]

I think this quite conclusively shows that Raphael1 has no intentions of reforming and wants to insert as much of his POV as possible before the (seemingly inevitable) sanctions resulting from this arbitration.

Raphael1 unilaterally delisted the article Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy from Wikipedia:Good articles citing "POV concerns" - basically he seems to think it's unfair to Muslims. Although there are provisions in the Good articles system to allow a unilateral veto, Raphael1 taking this action is an incredibly poor choice because he himself has way too much history of contention on this article, including a week-long block for vandalism for repeated removal of the images. If Raphael1 were taking the concerns addressed in this arbitration seriously he would be heavily throttling back on the actions he knows are going to be highly controversial, but instead, he is simply pushing full steam ahead with his agenda. This arbitration came at exactly the right time to give some relief to all of the good editors on that article who are constantly being harrassed by Raphael1 and his shenanigans.

Evidence presented by Sam Blanning[edit]

Regarding User:Raphael1/Persecution of Muslims[edit]

This userspace page was created on 2006-05-21 by User:Raphael1. On 2006-05-22 it was deleted by User:Zoe with the reason "personal attack page". Both the decision and the reasoning were endorsed by Deletion review - see here, the final state of the discussion before it was closed as 'keep deleted' by User:Tony Sidaway on 2006-05-26 by snowball clause.

On 2006-06-07 the list was recreated at User:Raphael1/Consequences of enforcing results of polls in February. There were two differences between the page deleted by consensus and the new page - the header was different, and the names of the blocking administrators were blacked out. I saw neither difference as substantial, and deleted the page under CSD G4. The names of the blocking administrators could easily be discovered by reading the block logs, particularly as the date of the blocking and the length of the admin's name were still visible. I would go so far as to suggest that as Raphael took the time to insert the arcane markup <div style="background-color: #000; width: 8ex">X</div> instead of simply removing the name, he had no intention of actually preventing anyone from reading the admins' names.

At time of writing I am not aware of anyone objecting to my deletion apart from Raphael1, and he has not chosen to contest my deletion at WP:DRV.

Raphael's claims that "Neither did I attack administrators nor did I accuse them of abusing Muslims" ring extremely hollow in my ears. The original page was called 'Persecution of Muslims', which is a clear attack on the motives of the blocking admins. In his submission to DRV [62], Raphael admitted that the title was "lurid" but suggested renaming to "Victims of the J-P cartoons controversy article" (which is just as bad, as "victims" labels the blocking admins as criminals) and sarcastically referred to the admins as "free speech proponents" (Wikipedia is not a forum for free speech).

While the name at which the page was eventually recreated is far more neutral in tone, the consensus at WP:DRV was that the content of the page and not just the name merited deletion, and therefore it should not have been recreated in that form under any title. Raphael's own reasons for recreating the page are not, in my opinion, in the interests of the encyclopaedia. His justification, as posted here and at the recreated page, appears to be that as WP:NBD and WP:CON say that polls are not binding and consensus does not consist of a simple majority, people can edit war over articles as much as they like even when a poll has shown that there is an overwhelming majority in favour of a certain position. If Wikipedia was a game, maybe that would be acceptable, but we are one of the top 20 websites on the Internet and we owe it to our readers to keep content as stable as possible.

Evidence presented by JzG[edit]

Raphael has been in communication with User:Rgulerdem on WikiEN-l, which is where WP:OURS originated. While the content is not identical it is substantially similar, one obvious change being from Resid's original users need to follow well-established ethics and standards of Wikipedia (e.g. User:Rgulerdem/Wikiethics), which references the comprehensively rejected Wikipedia:Wikiethics proposal, to users need to follow well-established ethics and standards of Wikipedia. (e.g. WP:CIVIL, WP:NPOV, WP:NPA, WP:3RR, WP:VANDAL). That the one is primarily (though not wholly) copied and pasted from the other is evident from a text comparison, and indeed from the formatting, which retains the fixed-length lines from the original email in several places. A side-by-side comparison is at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Raphael1/Evidence/OURS, showing that the substance of the article is all but identical. Raphael also posted a copy of RGulerdem's rejected Wikipedia:Wikiethics proposal at User:Raphael1/Wikiethics. It is unambiguously clear from the discussions on WikiEN-L that the general tone of OURS is unwelcome and disruptive, and that Resid's main aim is to prevail against a supermajority view in favour of retaining the Muhammed images, and further to facilitate those who are determined to go against consensus in evading the unwelcome attention of administrators who seek to prevent them from doing so - see the restrictions on blocking.

I believe I have said before that anybody who holds up the J-P cartoons controversy as an example of anything other than how not to work collaboratively on contentious content, is misunderstanding something very fundamental about Wikipedia. The right solution is: talk first, edit war - well, never. Of course most of us fall flat on that score form time to time, but Raphael is certainly not the model contributor he portrays above. Just zis Guy you know? 15:45, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Netscott[edit]

Repetitive attempts at Cartoon censorship[edit]

Raphael1 has been attempting to censor the cartoons found on the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy since even before he registered a Wikipedia username. The later examples of his removals certainly qualify for disruption due to the fact that he was fully aware of the consensus regarding their display. On at least ten verifiable occassions he either removed the cartoons completely or tried to hide them using a linkimage template. What follows are the diffs of his censorship attempts followed by the editorial commentary he made that corresponds to them. Where it is blank he made no editorial commentary. These edits are a summary of Cyde's evidence of previously listed diffs. This summary relates solely to actually censoring the images.

Related to these censorship attempts he also repeatedly made efforts to alter the warning found in the initial <!-- commentary section --> about altering their display characteristics to encourage others to edit them towards censorship ends:

  • 00:03, 25 March 2006 "changed comment to be compliant with WP:VANDAL"
  • 00:39, 25 March 2006 "incorporating some of Netscotts previous edit and additionally returning wording to a more truthful state."
  • 00:57, 25 March 2006 "rv - please read WP:VANDAL to find out what is vandalism"
  • 01:18, 25 March 2006 "don't forget the 3RR"
  • 03:26, 25 March 2006 "fixed comment to be compliant with WP:VANDAL"
  • 13:41, 22 April 2006 "fixed comment to be compliant with WP:VANDAL and WP:NBD"
  • 17:47, 23 April 2006 "removed false block warning. According to Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Disruption "inserting material that may be defamatory" can lead to a block not removing that kind of material"
  • 18:15, 23 April 2006 "Block warnings like this are disrupting the normal functioning of Wikipedia, since Wikipedia knows Wikipedia:No binding decisions"


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