Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Carl Hewitt

Case Opened on 23:08, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Case Closed on 06:54, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Case amended by motion on 19:04, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

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

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

Involved parties

Complaining witnesses

• R.Koot (talk · contribs)
• Ems57fcva (talk · contribs)
• Charles Matthews (talk · contribs)

Nominal defendant

• CarlHewitt (talk · contribs)

Statement by complaining witnesses

Please limit your statement to 500 words

Statement by R. Koot

User:R.Koot: I have made my statement on User:R.Koot/Request for Comments on User:CarlHewitt. Given the extreme amount of effort spent, trying to resolve the conflicts with Carl Hewitt, I do not believe Wikipedia would be improved by allowing Carl to edit articles on computer science, physics and mathematics. —R. Koot 14:23, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

To summarize: Two persistent complaints are that his contributions are Original research or Self-promotion (see, for example, [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7], User talk:CSTAR/Relativistic information science discussion and Talk:Actor model).

Statement by Ems57fcva

User:Ems57fcva: I have seen and contributed to User:R.Koot/Request for Comments on User:CarlHewitt, which in my opinion does an excellent job of summing up the case against Carl Hewitt. This has not been a situation amenable to RfC since Carl will back off when faced with enough opposition and/or administrator attention. The trouble is that he then goes elsewhere and starts up the same pattern of self-promotion of the actor model and related pet concepts of his again. It is distracting, disruptive, and is hurting Wikipedia. --EMS | Talk 04:51, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Charles Matthews

User:Charles Matthews: User:Carl Hewitt, whom we all assume to be the distinguished academic of that name, is just the kind of contributor who potentially could upgrade the coverage here of some major areas. For reasons that are certainly not clear to me, and to others who have discussed his contributions with me, it has instead gone badly, instead of well, and over a wide range of topics. Since my own interactions with this user have lacked nothing in civility, and apparent mutual comprehension when it came to discussions of policy, there has been considerable puzzlement — we are talking here about those who edit in areas adjacent to the theoretical end of quantum mechanics, theoretical computer science, and some spin-offs such as sociology of scientific knowledge. What actually goes on is promotion (take to be effectively self-promotion), of the so-called actor model, and POV-pushing. With some of our notably patient and experienced editors despairing of working with this user, my reluctant conclusion is that this editor has a skewed view of what Wikipedia is here for; and that no amount of citations of policy will close down what is effectively a land-grab for undue prominence. Charles Matthews 10:00, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Carl Hewitt

Please limit your statement to 500 words

Please see discussion of Rudy Koot's statement at article section User_talk:CarlHewitt#Arbitration_with_Rudy_Koot_and_Edward_Schaefer (the discussion is gradually beginning to build inline throughout the entire section). Thanks,--Carl Hewitt 02:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Note that the discussion above is based on the original statement submitted by Rudy [8] which may be different from the subsequent versions that he has created at User:R.Koot/Request for Comments on User:CarlHewitt.

Two observations can be made:

1. From the discussion, it is evident that Rudy's statement often got it's facts wrong.
2. Many of the recommendations in Rudy's statement are against Wikipedia policy. For example, his recommendation that just about all the articles be lumped into the article Actor model goes against the Wikipedia recommendation on the size of articles since Actor model is already over the recommended limit.

Regards,--Carl Hewitt 09:19, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Also please see the following: User_talk:CarlHewitt#A_quote. Thanks, --Carl Hewitt 15:51, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

To summarize: Rudy Koot (endorsed by Edward Schaefer) is asking the Arbitration Committee to allow Rudy to become the expert Wikipedia editor over certain articles on which Rudy has provided information that is for the most part factually incorrect (see User_talk:CarlHewitt#Arbitration_with_Rudy_Koot_and_Edward_Schaefer and User_talk:CarlHewitt#A_quote).--Carl Hewitt 20:38, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Preliminary decisions

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

• Accept. James F. (talk) 20:54, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
• Accept ➥the Epopt 00:43, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
• Accept Fred Bauder 16:41, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
• Accept (although I find this case confusing and hope that the Evidence pages will be less so). Kelly Martin (talk) 17:02, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. Dmcdevit·t 08:39, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Final decision

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

Principles

Writing about yourself

1.1) Editors should avoid contributing to articles about themselves or subjects in which they are personally involved, as it is difficult to maintain NPOV while doing so.

Passed 7 to 0 at 06:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Banning due to disruption

2) Users may be banned from editing articles if there is history of editing the articles in a disruptive way.

Passed 7 to 0 at 06:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Findings of fact

Carl Hewitt

1) Carl E. Hewitt is an Associate Professor (Emeritus) in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who has done significant creative work, see Carl Hewitt.

Passed 7 to 0 at 06:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Aggressive autobiographical editing

2) Carl Hewitt has aggressively edited articles which concern himself and his work in a point of view way, see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Carl Hewitt/Evidence.

Passed 7 to 0 at 06:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

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.

Carl Hewitt banned from autobiographical editing

1) Carl Hewitt is banned from autobiographical editing regarding himself and his work or that of his students. This ban includes creation of links and categories which refer to that work.

Passed 7 to 0 at 06:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Carl Hewitt placed on Probation

2) Carl Hewitt is placed on Wikipedia:Probation. He may be banned from any article which he disrupts.

Passed 7 to 0 at 06:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Superseded by motion at 19:04, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Post-case clarification

1. The ban on Carl Hewitt's autobiographical editing was not time-limited and still applies.
2. The scope of the ban should include Hewitt's current research areas, such as concurrency, and all promotion of the value of the work of his past students such as William Clinger, work on the actor model, logic programming, and accounts of the development of major concepts of theoretical computer science. This is in addition to areas already ruled off-limits.
3. Given the scale of apparent evasions of the ruling during 2007, by the use of large numbers of IP numbers from the West Coast of the USA, semi-protection of affected articles may be applied for periods of up to one month, and to their Talk pages in cases of overbearing comments.

Passed 6 to 0 at 01:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Enforcement

Enforcement by block

1) Should Carl Hewitt edit any article from which he is banned, he may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the case of repeat offenses. After 5 blocks the maximum block shall increase to one year.

Passed 7 to 0 at 06:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Amendments

Motion: Carl Hewitt unbanned with restrictions (April 2016)

In a 2005 arbitration case, User:CarlHewitt - who is the noted computer scientist of that name - was banned from editing content about himself or his own work (Remedy 1) and was placed on probation (Remedy 2). Following the case, he was found to have engaged in repeated sockpuppetry in violation of those restrictions and was indefinitely blocked in 2009.

Remedy 2 of the Carl Hewitt case is rescinded and his indefinite block is lifted. Carl Hewitt is permitted to edit under the following conditions:

1. He is restricted to a single account, User:Prof. Carl Hewitt.
2. He may not edit logged out. Accidental logged-out edits should be reported promptly to the oversight team.
3. He is permitted to edit only the following:
   1. article talk pages
   2. user talk pages
   3. his own userspace
   4. project discussions and dispute resolution pages specifically concerning him.
   The purpose of this provision is to allow him to make suggestions on the talk pages of his own BLP (Carl Hewitt) and the talk pages of articles about his work. Suggestions should be polite and brief and should not be repetitively reposted if they do not find consensus.
4. He is reminded that Remedy 1 of the Carl Hewitt case remains in force.
5. He may not engage in personal attacks or make personal comments about other editors.

Violations of any of the above may be managed by blocks as arbitration enforcement actions. Disruptive or tendentious contributions by IP users to the articles or talk pages related to Prof. Hewitt may be managed by blocks and/or protection as needed, and editors are encouraged not to engage in conversation with such users. The standard provisions for enforcement and appeals and modifications applies to sanctions enforcing this decision, all sanctions are to be logged on the case page.

Passed 9 to 5 by motion at 19:04, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Log of blocks and bans

Any block, restriction, ban, or sanction performed under the authorisation of a remedy for this case must be logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log, not here.