Jump to content

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
< Wikipedia:Arbitration

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by ExHomey (talk | contribs) at 01:56, 5 August 2006 (→Statement by [[User:Ex-Homey]]). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Shortcut

A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution. Before requesting arbitration, please review other avenues you should take. If you do not follow any of these routes, it is highly likely that your request will be rejected. If all other steps have failed, and you see no reasonable chance that the matter can be resolved in another manner, you may request that it be decided by the Arbitration Committee (ArbCom).

Dispute resolution
(Requests)
Tips
Content disputes
Conduct disputes
Arbitration Committee proceedings
Request name Motions Initiated Votes
Covert canvassing and proxying in the Israel-Arab conflict topic area   6 November 2024 0/5/0
[edit]
Open cases

Currently, no arbitration cases are open.

[edit]
Recently closed cases (Past cases)
Case name Closed
Yasuke 13 Nov 2024

Currently, no requests for clarification or amendment are open.

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and (exceptionally) to summarily review new evidence and update the findings and decisions of a previous case. Review is likely to be appropriate if later events indicate the original ruling on scope or enforcement was too limited and does not adequately address the situation, or if new evidence suggests the findings of fact were significantly in error.

The procedure for accepting requests is described in the Arbitration policy. If you are going to make a request here, you must be brief and cite supporting diffs. If your case is accepted for arbitration, the arbitrator or clerk will create an evidence page that you can use to provide more detail. New requests to the top, please. You are required to place a notice on the user talk page of each person against whom you lodge a complaint.

0/0/0/0 corresponds to Arbitrators' votes to accept/reject/recuse/other. Cases are usually opened at least 24 hours after four accept votes are cast. When a case is opened, a notice that includes a link to a newly created evidence page will be posted to each participant's talk page. See the Requests section of the arbitration policy page for details.

This is not a page for discussion, and Arbitrators or clerks may summarily remove or refactor discussion without comment. Please do not open cases; only an Arbitrator or clerk may do so.

See also



How to list cases

Under the Current requests section below:

  • Click the "[edit]" tab on the right of the screen appearing above the section break line;
  • Copy the full formatting template (text will be visible in edit mode), omitting the lines which say "BEGIN" and "END TEMPLATE";
  • Paste template text where it says "ADD CASE BELOW";
  • Follow instructions on comments (indented), and fill out the form;
  • Remove the template comments (indented).

Note: Please do not remove or alter the hidden template

Current requests

Jayjg & PinchasC

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Jayjg.

I cannot leave a message at User talk:PinchasC as that page is semi-protected.

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

[1] [2] As first party, you may feel tempted to add a summary here. If you do, make it a single sentence of not more than twenty words. Please make your case in your statement.

Statement by User:Ex-Homey

I was formerly User:Homeontherange. My former account was never banned, rather, I abandoned the account for various reasons, partly frustration at wikipedia and partly the suspicion that it had been compromised. I no longer have the account's password and thus cannot edit from that account, additionally it has been blocked and desysopped on my request. While there was an RFA against that account at the time that I left it was for a review of admin permissions and did not extend beyond that.

I have been in the process of withdrawing from wikipedia however I have continued to edit under single purpose accounts which with one exception I have tended to use only for a day or so.

Today, Jayjg declared these various accounts to be sockpuppets of Homeontherange and blocked them despite the fact that a) Homeontherange was never banned and b) none of the edits by those accounts were tendentious. Nevertheless he has labelled them all "abusive sockpuppets". This is wikilawyering and an attempt to use WP:SOCK as a pretext for his arbitrary actions despite the fact that WP:SOCK was not actually violated by the existence of these accounts.

As well, as I use a semi-public computer cluster along with a few hundred other people in my building, Jay's action has also declared several accounts I am uninvolved with as sockpuppets, including one belonging to my roomate.

I attempted to rectify this situation using User:Ex-Homey by pasting a "former Wikipedian" tag on User:Homeontherange. User:PinchasC reverted and then blocked me giving "homeontherange" as his justification for the block despite the fact that Homeontherange is not a banned user. I tried to explain this to Pinchas but he responded in an uncivil way by reverting me and then semiprotecting his talk page.

Both these users have thus misused their administrative permissions and acted arbitrarily. They have used wikilawyerly justifications for their actions based on a misapplication of WP:SOCK.ExHomey 01:51, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by party 2

(Please limit your statement to 500 words. Overlong statements may be removed without warning by clerks or arbitrators and replaced by much shorter summaries. Remember to sign and date your statement.)

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/0/0/0)


Sam Sloan

User:Sam Sloan vs. 137.216.208.82 and User:JzG

Involved parties

The parties have been notified.

One of the parties has found out by accident, User:Sam Sloan might like to post evidence that the other party has been made aware. Just zis Guy you know? 16:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Summary False statements and vandalism by 137.216.208.82 and User:JzG

Statement by party 1

Both Louis Blair and User:JzG have falsely quoted me and should be blocked and have their edits reversed.

On July 19, 2006, Louis Blair who posts here as 137.216.208.82 posted 39 times a "Sam Sloan Announcement".

This was bogus, as I had made no such announcement.

If you go to the newsgroup rec.games.chess.politics and search for Louis Blair and Sam Sloan you will find hundreds of personal attacks by Blair against me.

Here, he posted this bogus Sam Sloan announcement to the talk pages of administrators who have a history of deleting my postings in the past. Here are some examples:

Only one of the above has actually acted in this request. That is User:JzG who has deleted or modified about 50 of my contributions to Wikipedia, especially on Middle Eastern Languages and on chess personalities.

User:JzG has lied about me. He wrote: "User:Sam Sloan recently poosted on Usenet that he has re-created every chess player article of his which has been deleted." There is not much here to establish the importance of the subject. Just zis Guy you know? 12:52, 19 July 2006 (UTC) Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Geoffrey_Borg[reply]

This is an outrageous lie. I have never made and such statement on usenet or anywhere else.

Administrators who lie should be blocked and removed from Wikipedia. I demand that this be done.

Because of these lies by Louis Blair and User:JzG about five good articles have been deleted from Wikipedia and even "salted the earth". Another 30 or more articles have been vandalized by User:JzG. For Example, Geoffrey_Borg is Vice-President of the World Chess Federation, an organization of 159 member nations and thus is clearly a notable person within the standards of Wikipedia. Ali_Nihat_Yazici is President of the Turkish Chess Federation, an organization of 125,000 members and is the subject of an article in the current issue of ChessBase Magazine and thus is clearly a notable person. Both artocles were deleted by User:JzG

The vandalism by User:JzG of these obviously notable persons plus his lie about me is more than suffieient ground to get User:JzG kicked out of Wikipedia.

Statement by User:JzG

Can anybody find any evidence at all of prior attempts to resolve the dispute? I wasn't even aware there was a dispute until Sloan posted to my Talk threatening to have me kicked off the project and call in the chess federation's lawyers.
I think Sloan also needs to pick better examples.
  1. Here's the announcement on Usenet whose existence he denies above: [3]. Interestingly, this states that he is systematically reposting deleted content and doing so in a way calculated to avoid detection - since Sloan has apparently used sockpuppets in the past this raises an interesting question about the methods he might have used this time round.
  2. Here's the deletion log for Geoffrey Borg, as Thatcher131 points out this was deleted by Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Geoffrey Borg which I did indeed start but did not close (or even participate in after starting it).
  3. The links to Talk pages (not diffs, I note, so may well vanish over time) were nothing to do with me, here's the anon which posted them: Special:Contributions/137.216.208.82. I don't think it will be necessary to trouble the CheckUser people to establish that I have never posted from this IP address since it's in South Dakota while I am in England.
  4. Here's the deletion log for Ali Nihat Yazici, which was a redirect
    And the article at the other end of the redirect I did indeed delete:
    • 12:56, July 19, 2006 JzG (talk · contribs) deleted "Ali Nihat Yazıcı" (Serially reposted copyvio)
    having compared the text to the previous version, deleted as a copyvio, it was indeed a copyvio from [4], reposted by Sam Sloan after two previous deletions for precisely the same issue. I am somewhat surprised that Sloan wishes to draw attention to this.
I guess the "vandalizm" of which he speaks is the removal of links to his website, which he added to numerous articles (WP:EL says do not add links to websites you own).
Sloan's posting of the above manifestly inaccurate complaint to my Talk page is his first and only attempt at dispute resolution, and was concurrent with his raising this ArbCom request (of which, incidentally, I have not been formally notified). Incidentaly, this [5] looks rather like a (hollow) legal threat. Just zis Guy you know? 13:07, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Louis Blair

I am not sure that I understand the objection of Sam Sloan. I pointed out [6] to various Wikipedia users (not 39) on their talk pages. Does Sam Sloan deny the existence of [7] ? - Louis Blair (1 August 2006)

Statement by Thatcher131

I saw this get posted and took a look for fun: Just to clarify, JzG did also delete Ali Nihat Yazıcı as Serially reposted copyvio. Note the article title uses non-Roman characters, and that this article has apparently been posted several times under different names. Also, JzG did not delete Geoffrey Borg but he was the AfD nominator.

This seems way too premature. Assuming the best of intentions on Sam Sloan's part, it seems he has some misunderstandings about how wikipedia works, and needs a mentor, not arbitration. Thatcher131 (talk) 13:54, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Billbrock

User:Sam Sloan is a convicted felon (speaks to credibility) and, IMO, habitual liar who has no conception of NPOV--see his ghosted autobiography Sam_Sloan. A decent chess player, however. Billbrock 06:39, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/1/0/0)

Derek Smart

Involved parties

Statement by party 1

The Derek Smart page has been the target of edit waring and several other Wiki violations for many months and it not getting any better. Today a request for protection pending arbitration was granted and the page now has full protection.

For many years there has been a feud between supporters and detractors of Derek Smart. That feud has since spilled into his Wiki page. Both sides have been engaged in a slo-mo revert war over content for that page.

Particularly the detractors seem to want to turn his page into one of negative entries and which border on nothing more than character assassination. The same thing they were doing on Usenet prior to Derek Smart excusing himself from Usenet discussions bseveral years back. Supreme_Cmdr(talk) 20:37, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by party 2

(Please limit your statement to 500 words. Overlong statements may be removed without warning by clerks or arbitrators and replaced by much shorter summaries. Remember to sign and date your statement.)

Comment by User:Ideogram

User:Supreme_Cmdr has not made any serious effort in the mediation. The mediation request was posted six days ago and no mediator has yet commented on the article talk page. --Ideogram 01:21, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by slightly involved User:Stifle

Firstly, this appears to be a content dispute, so I suspect the ArbCom will not consider it anyway. But besides that, it does not appear to have visited WP:RFC or WP:RFM yet. These should be considered. (Full disclosure: I protected the page to prevent edit wars.) Stifle (talk) 21:25, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved User:Phil Sandifer

Oh, man... Derek Smart. Jeez. I was in the Derek Smart flame war back in... 2001.

In any case, this is very likely a Bogdanov Affair style thing, and arbitration involvement to tag the page accordingly would be a wise idea. This is a decade-long flame war that I'm surprised took this long to catch fire over here. Phil Sandifer 04:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/1/0/0)

Kehrli

Involved parties

  • Have notified User:Kehrli on his talk page, most of the anon editing I suspect to be Kherli

--Nick Y. 17:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Has gone through mediation


There is an ongoing content dispute and inappropriate behavior at Mass-to-charge ratio, Thomson (unit) and recently Mass spectrum.

Statement by party 1

User:Kehrli has continued over several months and after mediation to push original research and POV that is best reflected on his user page. I will mostly let the record on talk pages, previously deleted pages created by Kherli to push his POV etc. speak for itself. I do not have much to say other than removing dipute tags without reason seems very wrong and that wikipedia is about verification not about using multiple sources to reach a novel, however reasonable of a conclusion. I would also say that I agree with Kherli in almost every regard except that thsi is exactly the wrong place to make his point. He has directly pushed his POV to IUPAC and it was rejected. His novel suggestion is a combination of several guidelines, suggestions etc. however he can not provide a single source that uses his notation that he insists is the only correct notation (Again I think his ideas are great and do not strongly disagree with them in principle). Wikipedia is about verifiability not truth.--Nick Y. 17:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Summary Kherli has been deleting dispute tags without giving the citations requested, adding dispute tags without specific dispute in retaliation, not removing tags once citations have been given, following me to other pages to argue with me, edit waring, generally acting incivily, and pushing POV through OR by synthesis.--Nick Y. 17:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by party 2

Abstract: Whereas I am editing the articles under dispute according to the verifiable international conventions by ISO 31 and the IUPAC green book, Nick is trying to push a minority opinion of a small group of scientists.

User:Nick has continued over several months and after mediation to push original research and POV. I will mostly let the record on talk pages speak for itself. I do not have much to say other than placing dipute tags without reason seems very wrong and that wikipedia is about verification not about using minority sources to reach a novel, unreasonable conclusion. His editing is contradictory to the internationally accepted rules of ISO 31 and IUPAC green book. It is the POV of a small group of scientists not representative for the wider scientific community. He is pushing the tern m/z even though it is used in many different and inconsistent ways within the community he thinks to defend. The following things are all verifiable and have been proven by me several times:

  • m/z is not consistently used in the mass spec community
  • m/z as defined by the IUPAC Analytical Branch work group cannot be a mass-to-charge ratio since it has wrong dimensions
  • m/z as defined by the IUPAC Analytical Branch work group cannot be of unit thomson since m/z is dimensionless and therefore has no unit
  • m/z is so ill defined that it is even not clear wether it is a unit or a physical quantity

All these verifiable facts are contendet by Nick without giving any verifiable sources. He is just citing examples that in some cases even undermine his own position. Nick seems to completely lack the expertice in metrology to understand the issue. However, and this is the nice part, he even admits that my edits are correct in the sence that they better represent what he calls the truth. The reason he wants to revert my edits is that they are not in line with what he thinks is an "official" document but which is drafted by a minority group of scientists. Instead I am editing according to the wider scientific consensus givien in the IUPAC green book. (BTW: I only edit according to the internationally accepted ISO 31 standards as well as the verifiable IUPAC green book standards. I do not edit according to the "truth", because this issue is a matter of conventions, not truth.) Wikipedia is about verifiability and truth, not about POV of a minority group that lacks arguments. Nick, show me a single edit of mine that is not verifiable and I will immediately reverse it. --Kehrli. 30 July 2006

Additional information: in our last mediation we came to the conclusion that I would implement the wider scientific notations according to the ISO 31 in the mass-to-charge ratio article, and Nick would implement his minority view in the mass spectrum article. This splitting first worked fine. However, after about 3 months he started again vandalizing "my" article, arguing for deletion of the article, placing tags, and so on. Only for this reason I started to do some minor revisions on "his" article on issues that are obviously and verifiably wrong and against ISO 31 as well as the IUPAC green book. --Kehrli. 30 July 2006

The deeper reason of the dispute, by the way, is that a work group of the IUPAC Analytical Divison [8] published a document that is not compatible with the broader and international conventions given in ISO 31 as well as in the the IUPAC green book. Nick seems to believe that Wikipedia should "enforce" the minority POV of this group whereas I think Wikipedia should present both views, but it should use the broader document for verification. --Kehrli. 30 July 2006

Statement by uninvolved user Stifle

This appears to be a content dispute. Framing a content dispute as a behaviour dispute does not change the essential fact that it is a content dispute. You really don't want this before the ArbCom, as they're just liable to ban everyone from the article or similar blanket suppression. Stifle (talk) 10:29, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response by Nick Y.

Although there is some content dispute this is mostly about behavior and the purpose of wikipedia. It will not be solved in any other way. There is something much more fundamental going on here if you look carefully. The "content dispute" is a guise for unabashed POV pushing and playing the system to further ones personal opinion. Note that on general principle I actually agree with most of how Kehrli believes things should be especially regarding the terrible inconsistencies in notation and units; however it is not for us to change the world, just report it. There is a fundamental disconnect as to how wikipedia works and what is appropriate behavior. --Nick Y. 00:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nick, I am not changing the world, I am just defending the consistent notation established by the scientific community in the IUPAC green book against your vandalizm that presents a mionrity POV of a small group of scientists and is incompatible with the IUPAC green book. Therefore, this dispute is entirely about content.
--Kehrli 14:15, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please read Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position--Nick Y. 00:47, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Nick, I just read it and once again, you still seem not to understand that I treat these things independent. In Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position you find:
"A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published this argument in relation to the topic of the article.
The point is: I am not saying C !!! I am just saying A and B and I try to explain you that they are independent. Th is a unit of mass-to-charge ratio independent what symbol (m/z, m/q, m/Q, M) you use. Likewise m/Q are the symbols for mass-to-charge ratio]] recommended by the IUPAC green book independent what unit you use (kg/C or amu/e, Da/e, Th). When will you finally understand this independency? --Kehrli 15:23, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What you are saying is A: "Th is a unit that was suggested for mass-to-charge" B: "m/q or m/Q is a widespread standard notation for mass-to-charge and is independent of units." Therefore C:"m/q (Th) is in widespread use and is the most common and notable way to label mass spectra and should be the standard used in wikipedia" Synthesis Plain and simple. Again please verify "C" with a citation. For that matter verify the use of m/q regardless of units as the x-axis of a mass spectrum.--Nick Y. 17:21, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am not saying C !!! I am just saying A and B. Why should I say C? You seem to have serious problems in making logic conclusions. I don't need C because the two facts are independent. Period. --Kehrli 19:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Then why do you insist on representing m/q (Th) as such. You insist on changing everything to be in line with C. You can not provide a single citation of its use but you insist on using it on wikipedia. You will not allow the more common notation m/z which appears in thousands of articles. You will allow only limited use of m/z (Th), which is extraordinarily rare but existant. Again this Arb is about your behavior as well. I have disputed your representations as being non-representative of modern scientific use to the point of being novel and you have refused to provide citations and arbitrarily removed disputed tags and edit waring along with other violations of WP.--Nick Y. 21:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am not insisting on m/q (Th). I am just saying m/z is a bad choice for a mass-to-charge ratio. Here is why:
  1. The IUPAC green book veryfiably recommends m/Q as the symbols for a mass-to-charge ratio
  2. The IUPAC orange book veryfiably uses the symbol m/z for a different, dimensionless quantity called mass number per charge number. DANGER OF CONFUSION!!
This means:
  • Using m/z for the symbol of mass-to-charge ratio is not only against the international conventions established by the wider scientific community in the IUPAC green book, it also bears the risk to be mixed up with the mass number per charge number quantity frequantly used by a some authors within a small scientific community.
  • m/z is therefore a unfortunate symbol for mass-to-charge ratio and should not be used on Wikipedia.
  • Researchers, however, are free to use it because they are free to publish in sloppy style. This happens all the time. For example, the IUPAC green book no longer recommends the use of the unit ppm. Instead, it recommends the use of units like mg/kg, or uTh/Th. In the scientific literature, however, you still very often find ppm. This is because the authors are specialists in their field of science and not in metrology.
  • An encyclopedia, however, should NOT promote the outdated style. It should use the current style and may mention that the old style is still in use.
Your take-home message: Many people use sloppy style. Wikipedia should not. --Kehrli 08:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The only notation for the "mass to charge ratio" recommended by IUPAC is m/z and it is the current style, no change has taken place. End of story. (yes, yes I fully agree with m/q in physics use (not Th units though) since m and q are separate (m and Q are recommended separately not as m/Q) but in mass spectrometry it is all m/z for the past 30+ years and today.) Again this Arb is not about content but about your behavior. Stop removing the dispute tags and give resonable explanations for the tags you place. Give the citations requested or stop edit waring on points that you can not verify. Agree to remove tags once the citations you request are given. And overall stop your campaign to get those stupid mass spectrometrists to conform to the larger scientific unit system that is so well illustrated by your user page. I assumed good faith for a long time with you and I still hope that you are simply confused as to what wikipedia is about and don't understand the framework and civil discourse in which we work.--Nick Y. 17:07, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

m/z is NOT recomended as a quantity for mass-to-charge ratio, as you can see here [9]. It is recomended for the strange quantity mass number per charge number. Therefore, your statement is completely wrong. Talking about verifiability: show the refenrence! --Kehrli 17:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I really think there is a communication issue here (It is used vs. it used to be See Talk:Mass spectrum); however that does not excuse your behavior. At least keep the tags until resolved. I'm keeping mine assuming good faith on your part even though the head of the IUPAC commitee stopped by to tell you you are completely wrong in your interpretation.--Nick Y. 00:10, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/0/0/0)

Ste4k

Involved parties

User:Ste4k vs User:Nscheffey
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
User:Ste4k (filed by this editor)
User:Nscheffey Template:Wp-diff

Other Editors Notified

A Man In Black
Coredesat
Fabartus
JChap2007
JzG
KickahaOta
Kim Bruning.
Why was I notified? Kim Bruning 14:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Martinp23
MichaelZimmer
Nae'blis
Pascal.Tesson
The Thadman
Will Beback
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
Discussion
User talk:Nscheffey
User talk:Ste4k
Informal Mediation
User talk:A Man In Black
User talk:Ste4k
User talk:Martinp23
Formal Mediation
User:Will Beback/Sandbox
Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ste4k
Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Ste4k
Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Ste4k

Statement by party 1

This editor stated his intent to stalk me and cause problems, then did so including gaming the system to have me appear as a trouble maker. During July, two thirds of his contributions were directly related to achieving his goal. His most common tactic is to twist what I say, or divert attention [10] by describing what I say as something else. He has gone out of his way to inform other people of his opinion of me, or create a negative perception. He claims that he is unaware of this issue, denies it, or tries to use mention of it against me. I have tried to avoid him, forgive and forget, but am concerned that he will continue, perhaps with others in the future.
Statements of intent: [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] Evidence of wiki-stalking: [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] Evidence of bad faith, and incivility: [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70] Evidence of obsession: [71] [72] Disruption: [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] [87] [88] [89] [90] [91] [92] [93] [94] Gaming the system/false portrayal: [95] [96] [97] [98] [99] [100] [101] [102] [103] [104] [105] [106] [107] [108] [109] [110] [111] [112] [113] [114] [115] [116] [117] [118] [119] [120] [121] [122] Evidence of incivility to others: [123] [124] [125] [126] [127] [128] [129] [130] [131] [132] [133] My good faith he deleted from his talk page: [134] Another attempt to be helpful: [135]
Ste4k 08:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by party 2

This RfArb illustrates many of the behaviors that worry me about Ste4k's impact on Wikipedia. She has clearly spent a lot of time and effort on an RfArb that I am confident will not produce her intended result. I will let the diffs speak for themselves, but I note they range from the risible (my edits to the Steak page as "Evidence of obsession"?) to the truly bizarre (links to diffs on Big Gay Al that I had nothing to do with as "Evidence of incivility to others"?). I believe this case should be accepted as the current RfC on her behavior has gotten nowhere and her conduct has not improved. If it is not, I hope Ste4k filing this RfArb will at least bring her to the wider attention of the Wikipedia community. --Nscheffey(T/C) 20:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by KickahaOta

This arbitration request clearly seems to be a result of a broader dispute involving Ste4k and a number of other editors. Please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ste4k, in which those other editors laid out the case against Ste4k (in a way that may have been too aggressive for an RfC, but which will be helpful to the arbitrators now). It's a good thing that Ste4k has now laid out her own side of the story on this, and other editors have definitely been provocative towards Ste4k; but Ste4k has been very provocative and disruptive at times as well, as the RfC shows. I think that arbitration of all sides' behavior in the dispute (potentially including my own) is probably necessary to settle this. Kickaha Ota 09:45, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Will Beback

I recommend that the ArbCom take this case to review Ste4k's behavior. I wrote a thousand eloquent words, but I see that user:KickahaOta has already expressed it better in a hundred. I'll spare us the dissertation and agree with KO. Cheers, -Will Beback 11:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by A Man In Black

I urge acceptance of this case to review Ste4k's conduct, such as that described in her RFC. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 14:47, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Who123

Please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ste4k. I learned of this through that RfC. I believe that these are related. I further believe that the problem is not between 2 parties but between party 1 (Ste4k) and many other parties.

I have looked through the evidence and do not believe it supports the "Statement by party 1" (Ste4k). I suspect that this is simply a revenge personal attack.

I have not had any problems in my interactions with party 2.

I find Ste4k to be very aggressive and appears to lack the skills to interact with other people in a cooperative fashion. What I find most notable is that despite the many comments in Ste4k's RfC, Ste4k still seems to be completely unaware that there is a problem. Instead, Ste4k blames everyone else. I find Ste4k obstructive and destructive in editing. IMO, she should not be allowed to act as an editor.

I suggest that this be used primarily to evaluate Ste4k's behavior and whether Ste4k should be allowed to continue to edit.

--Who123 14:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by JChap

I am disappointed that Ste4k has brought this matter to RfArb. Nathan's behavior is clearly not stalking. The best outcome for the RfC is for it to end with Ste4k acknowledging she's made some errors, the other editors acknowledging her value to the project, and everybody getting on with their lives. Call me an optimist, but I still believe this can happen, if the RfArb is dropped. JChap (talk • contribs) 15:34, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by User:Bhouston

I ran into Ste4k on Dissident Voice. After that encounter I wrote this comment to Will Bebeck:

"Hey Will, I noticed you ran into User:Ste4k on Charles_Buell_Anderson. I ran into him on Dissident_Voice. The guy is passive aggressive and questioning basic facts even after I meet his demands to source to original sources. I find his demands to be out of the bounds of reasonableness. He has also added a ton of macros to the Dissident Voice page even though it is incredibly sparse -- and he didn't add the most appropriate ones such as "stub" or "expand". I think [Ste4k] is going to be a long term issue on Wikipedia, but I don't know how to handle her/him. He also blanks his user talk page -- probably to avoid people figuring out he is being this way on a lot of articles at once. --Ben Houston 15:27, 12 July 2006 (UTC)" (emphasis added)[reply]

Comment by Coredesat

I have not been much of an active player in this dispute, and I have not had any problems with either side of the issue, but I still recommend that the ArbCom review this case. The RfC doesn't seem to have accomplished anything, based on what I've seen. The accusation of wiki-stalking seems to be unfounded based on the evidence provided, but there have been cases of incivil and disruptive behavior on both sides (though quite a bit of the time, it doesn't appear to be Nscheffey's fault), which need to be looked at. --Coredesat talk. o.o;; 00:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JzG

I have tried to help Ste4k on a few occasions, with mixed success. It seems to be impossible for her to work together with the several editors named above. For what it's worth I've seen plenty of evidence of good faith on Ste4k's part, and agree with JChap's assessemnt above, but she does have a tendency to personalise everything, for reasons I am at a loss to understand. I have no idea how to fix this; maybe mediation would help but every time Nathan and Ste4k end up on the same article it becomes a fight, and looking back on it I often find it hard to discern who started it. Nathan is very obviously an editor in good standing with no particular reason to pick a fight, I must reluctantly conclude that Ste4k's reactions to perceived criticism are excessive. The real problem here is what mechanism, if any, is most likely to help Ste4k work productively with the other editors. Just zis Guy you know? 13:45, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

Ste4k has been indefinitely blocked as a result of a discussion on WP:ANI.
10:15, 29 July 2006 Rebecca (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) blocked Ste4k (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) with an expiry time of indefinite (per ANI)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/1/0/0)

Tabriz Rugs

Involved parties

Rembranth (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) vs Khosrow_II (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Talk:Tabriz rug

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search To the administrator.

Please note that Tabriz is Azerbaijani city and its main inhabitants have been Azerbaijanis. Its culutre and carpets have been and are part of the Azerbaijani civilization, culture and history. Azerbaijanis have nothing to do with Persians and Persia, other than the fact that it has been divided into two parts: Iranian Azerbaijan and Rusian Azerbaijan. The Iranian Azerbaijan with its capital Tarbiz is still under the persian occupation. The Russian Azerbaijan has become independent in 1991. The iranian Azerbaijan will soon gain its independence as well. I just want to say that as Azerbaijani I have nothing to do with persian, no relation netiher by ethnicity, nor by religion. We are different civilizations, different people and different history. Please, don't call Tabriz rug as Persian rug. It hurts. --68.49.90.60 03:03, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Khosrov, be warned. YOu are vandalizing this web site. THere is not such a thing as iran. There is a Islamic Republic of Iran. Tabriz carpet is Azerbaijani carpet as most of the people in Tabriz are Azerbaijanis and they are the ones who make these carpets. Azerbaijanis are not Persians. See Wikipedia Azerbaijani section for more information. If you repeat your vandalism, I will call for arbitration and they will define who is right. --Rembranth 17:55, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tabriz_rug"

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by party 1

I tried to develop and make the information more accurate on the Tabriz Rug section. It is written that Tabriz rug is a persian carpet. Whereas all people who live in Tabriz are Azerbaijanis, how then carpets they make can be persian. In addition Khosrow II always deletes my changes about where the Tabriz is in. Tabriz is in the Islamic Republic of Iran, where as Khosrow II change this to Iran, which is the name of the overall location where persions have lives and persians haven't lived in Southern Azerbaijan, with the capital of Tabriz. I warned Khosrow II about his vandalism, but it appears that he never reads the discussion part of the article. I am powerless and request your help.

Statement by party 2

He usually claims that I am vandalizing the page, while he hasn't said a single word in the discussion section of the article. And Khosrov never reponded to my messages in the discussion part.

(Please limit your statement to 500 words. Overlong statements may be removed without warning by clerks or arbitrators and replaced by much shorter summaries. Remember to sign and date your statement.)

Statement by Party 2

First of, I was never informed of this, which is against the rules. You cannot put a confirmation line when you have not even contacted me!
Secondly, this user, who is anon by the way, has several different accounts which he uses to vandalize several different articles. Also, he is putting POV in the article. If you check the article, you will find out that I am not the only one reverting his vandalism. He is falsifying facts and changing a relatively sound and accurate article. He is also committing the same vandalism in several other Iranian related articles, which have also been reverted by other users including me. Khosrow II 16:03, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


See talk page on my responses to his history revisionism and falsification. I have also contacted another north Azeri in an attempt to calm him down, since he is not listening reason. I hope that this issue will be resolved once a fellow country mate of his talks to him.Khosrow II 16:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


This user also goes by many different names, all of which he uses to put his POV in several Iranian related articles: User:Diraf69, User:Rembranth, User:Roman123, and others, which I will post as soon as I recognize them. I know this because the way these users edit are all the same, all deal with the same type of articles, and all have the same POV. I am not the first user to accuse this user of having multiple accounts either.Khosrow II 16:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Gol

I hope this is the right palace to make comments, I apologize if it isn’t. I have been observing this discussion and I have to say that this user Rembranth has made some politically motivated and extremely POV comments such as Persians occupied Azerbaijan or that It will be separated soon! His comments about Iran are also completely wrong, Iran is not the area where Persians historically lived, that is Pars, Iran is the area where Iranian people/Iranic people historically lived and Iranian Azerbaijan was ALWAYS a part of it. His argument about Iran is also ridiculous it is like saying that China can not be called China because it is Peoples Republic of China!! He has also been rude and called us chauvinist!(see Tabriz rug talk page).

As for the rug, it is produced in an area that 100% BELONGS to Iran. He put the flag of the republic of Azerbaijan and removed the flag of Iran! Completely unacceptable; this rug has nothing to do with that flag.

As for Persian labeling, yes people of this city are mostly Azeri and so are those who make this rug but “Persians rug” was the term used for labeling rugs produced inside Iran (obviously because Iran was called Persian in the western world until 1935) .It had nothing to do with the ethnicity of the people who actually made those rugs. As I mentioned earlier, we can change it to Iranian now that the name of the country has changed but it might confuse many people since like it or not this rug was referred to as Persian throughout the history and it is still known chiefly by that name. We can go to any shop anywhere in the world and you will see Tabriz rug listed as a Persian rug (sometimes Oriental rug or Iranian rug but not Azerbaijani rug)Gol 09:34, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


I completly agree with Gol and Khosrow II's standing on this matter. Rembranth's edits are very biased and his comments are particularly anit-persian. A good example of this is that he insists on spelling Khosrow II's name with a "v" instead of "w", probably because "Khosrov" is the turkish pronounciation of this name. Arash the Bowman 15:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/1/0/0)

NPR

Parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
MSTCrow - MSTCrow 02:00, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wkerney - Wkerney 21:19, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
Mediation, Talk:National Public Radio, User talk:MSTCrow, User talk:Wkerney.

Statement by party 1

User ideogram has repeatedly blanked a section of the NPR article without giving any reason, and has recieved vandalism warnings. He has also worked to destroy the mediation process in NPR's talk, to the point that the agreed upon stage suggested by the mediator had been reached, but ideogram dismissed it and continued an ongoing flame-war, despite he was not part of the mediation party. Ideogram has also been "stalking" me on Wikipedia, and making baseless reverts with no comment whatsoever on articles simply because I added something to them, as can be seen here [136]. Calton has repeatedly blanked sections of the NPR article only calling it "propaganda." User calton was warned twice with the "be civil" tag, and once with the "vandalism" tag. He has found a sympathetic admin to ignore his acts of vandalism and incivility, where the admin then threatened me, despite the fact the admin was not at all familar with WP:Vandalism. Calton has also taunted users, telling them to have him banned, and he has vandalized their edits on his user page, as can be seen here [137], which also appears to be some sort of bizarre statement against Will Beback for telling Calton to follow WP. Calton has also been running a one-person flamewar on my talk page. Other avenues of recourse have been tried, and failed. This is not a content dispute, so much as a dispute regarding proper behavior and cooperation on Wikipedia.

Statement by sympathetic admin not at all familiar with WP:VANDAL

That would be me.[138] Bishonen | talk 02:30, 24 July 2006 (UTC).[reply]
Supplementary statement by Bishonen

I agree with Calton that it would be a good idea to accept this case in order to look into the behavior of MSTCrow. Bishonen | talk 21:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Statement by User:Calton

Oh joy, my very first RfArb. Fortunately, it'll be a very short one, given that it's entirely frivolous, being a content dispute on National Public Radio -- and essentially a unilateral one, at that -- being escalated by the filer in an attempt to bully his way through. It's textbook wikilawyering.
The "civility warning", by the way, was for an edit summary, made in response to MSTCrow's transparently false Reverted, Ideogram is blanking information, refer to talk page. Do not revert edit again, as this constitutes vandalism., that read: "rv - noooo, he's removing propaganda thinly disguised as sources". There's a certain element of Pot Calling the Kettle Black involved, if nothing else, to complain about civility in the face of the original edit summary that prompted my comment.
Further note: the filer will not be responding anytime soon, as he's been blocked for 24 hours for violating WP:3RR on the article in question. I guess that makes ANOTHER admin "not at all familiar with WP:VANDAL". --Calton | Talk 02:45, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Supplementary statement

Although the nominal basis for this RfArb is a bog-standard content dispute and inevitably rejectable on those grounds, given the copiuosly documented misdeeds of the filer (MSTCrow) by User:Ideogram and MSTCrow's continued bad faith, false statements*, tendentious wikilawyering, abuse of process, admin shopping [139], edit-warring, and incivility -- and his every indication that he's going to continue his bad behavior -- I suggest ArbCom take on this case to examine and pass judgement on the behavior of MSTCrow himself.

--Calton | Talk 08:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

* Note especially his claim that he only reverted twice, when three out of the five are LABELLED as reverts in his edit summaries.

Statement by User:Ideogram

I note that User:MSTCrow has stated his intention to leave Wikipedia, so I will not comment unless he changes his mind. --Ideogram 03:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
MSTCrow has decided to stay.
MSTCrow is ignorant of basic Wikipedia policy and assumes authority he does not possess.
Accuses multiple users of vandalism (see edit summary) where no vandalism occurred. Insists he only reverted twice when he clearly reverted five times; when an admin lists the reverts, he attacks her and accuses her of lying. Accuses two users of personal attacks while making personal attacks of his own. Denies my right to participate in the discussion. Calls joining a mediation "disruptive". Claims that deleting a section is vandalism. Removes another user's comments on an article talk page. Changes the active status of the mediator without permission. Threatens to get a user blocked. Tells people they don't belong at Wikipedia. Removes warnings calling them vandalism. When asked to assume good faith removes the request.
MSTCrow seems to think he is some kind of hero here to save Wikipedia.

--Ideogram 16:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Wkerney misquotes his own citation, refuses to follow the mediator's suggestion to avoid political arguments, ridicules me, ridicules me again, fails to assume good faith, when asked to assume good faith, accuses me of attempting to derail the mediation and vandalizing the article (while snorting at me).

--Ideogram 16:34, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Fundamentally both MSTCrow and Wkerney fail to understand that anyone can join any mediation at any time. This is surprising, since Wkerney himself joined this mediation after it started. --Ideogram 21:25, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Misrepresenting me yet again. MSTCrow certainly feels that way, though. Wkerney 00:36, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Threaded conversation in the area reserved for other people's comments is frowned on. --Ideogram 01:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just basing this on what I see elsewhere on the page. If it's wrong, I'll delete them. Wkerney 06:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Even after you are told you are wrong, you continue your wrong behaviour. This is the problem with you and MSTCrow "in a nutshell". --Ideogram 17:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wkerney is claiming that "the mediation has gone on long enough" and that "the recommended time period is 2-10 days" showing a severe lack of understanding of how mediation operates. He continues to refuse to present evidence for his position, despite the fact that the evidence he has already presented was based on misrepresentation. He claims "the point of Wikipedia is to get at the truth" ignoring the well-known motto "Verifiability, not truth". He "recommends" "waiting 48 hours" then bringing "this to a close" once again failing to understand how mediation works. --Ideogram 01:30, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm attempting to help resolve the mediation in a way that's amicable to all parties. You are the only person opposed to this outcome. Truth is part of verifiability. If we have a source that contradicts itself, as everyone but you acknowledges, then it's not a suitable source under wikipedia guidelines on sources. Wkerney 06:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is a total lie. However, since this kind of conversation is not allowed, I will not further respond to your infractions. --Ideogram 17:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
MSTCrow again attacks me and suggests users should "ignore" me since I am an "interloper", conveniently forgetting that Wkerney is also an "interloper". --Ideogram 01:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
MSTCrow tries to tell the mediator how to do his job.
Comment: Wkerney fails to mention that he recommended a 48 hour "cooling off period" so I assumed the conversation was over. Again he shows a failure to assume good faith in immediately labeling this as "vandalism". --Ideogram 17:02, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
MSTCrow of course does not understand what "stalking" is. --Ideogram 18:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by wkerney

First, in response to the above, he claimed I misquoted the source, when he was misreading the page numbering in PDFs. I have pointed it out to him before [140], and yet he again tries to use it as a claim! This is the problem with Ideogram in a nutshell. A second easy example can be seen above. He claims I call him an interloper in the mediation. When I point out his statement is false, he makes an unrelated attack on me. He does this indefinitely, switching between demanding sources, demanding quotes, claiming that the answers showing that he is wrong are personal attacks on him or are just personal beliefs, and then hiding behind AGF (which is an example of wikilawyering) when people point out he's not attempting to reach a consensus, but simply drag out or derail (which means to take the conversation in an entirely new direction, and probably not a very profitable one) the controversy.

He attempts to derail conversations by moving the discussion away from achieving consensus into arguing over petty points and/or demanding quotes even if they've been presented before, and then hiding behind wikipedia policy when he's called on it. I have repeatedly proposed solutions to the NPR mediation. Ideogram OTOH simply is operating to derail the process. He has repeatedly violated civility. He tries to shield himself by hiding behind ASF. (But as the ASF page says, "Yelling 'Assume Good Faith' at people does not excuse you from explaining your actions.") He has threatened to use 3RR as a weapon instead of exhibiting restraint and developing consensus. I feel the moderation process would complete smoothly if ideogram were removed from wikipedia. Some of his quotes:

  • "This is just plain pathetic."
  • "Do not accuse me of trying to ruin the mediation, that is a violation of Assume Good Faith."
  • "You don't get to decide whether I get to participate. Only the ArbCom can do that. If you have a problem with me, take it up with ArbCom."
  • "MSTCrow you aren't going to get anywhere by adding controversial links, simply because there are more than enough editors willing to remove them that you will fail 3RR."
  • "AGF and NPA."

Wikipedia policy recommends against snarky comments in changes (Civility). Ideogram's change notes include:

  • "don't waste our time"
  • "missing the point"
  • "learn how to be civil"
  • "ridiculous debate"
  • "truth doesn't belong here"

Tendaciousness (Ideogram is not making valid arguments or attempting to reach consensus. He has repeatedly simply made statements stating, in a nutshell, that he disagrees with someone without actually answering the original claims. For example, I hold that the source in question contradicts itself, and have provided the contradictory quotes. Instead of answering, he simply asks for a quote. Again. Or claims that it's "just my belief".)

  • "Prove it. We have the full text of the survey on the web. Quote two contradictory statements, quote where it is deceptive, quote where it is wrong. You have failed to do any of that."
  • "Fortunately saying something doesn't make it so."
  • "Please quote the relevant policy from WP:EL that justifies including this link."
  • "All of this is beside the point. Read the policy in WP:EL and quote why this link should be included, or it will be removed."
  • "If you can't convince the rest of us, it doesn't go in."

Finally, if you check User_talk:Ideogram you see he's been involved in revert wars, blanking sections, vandalizing pages and inserting himself into mediations across a wide swath of pages. IMO he should be warned or removed from wikipedia entirely, and certainly removed from the NPR mediation as he's the only problematic element. Wkerney 21:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused clerks.)

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

Deir Yassin massacre

Involved parties

User:KimvdLinde
User:Guy Montag
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Template:Wp-diff
Confirmations of the case are also posted at the pages of Template:Wp-diff, Template:Wp-diff, Template:Wp-diff and Template:Wp-diff.
Notification of the case is also posted at the Template:Wp-diff
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
Violation of probation, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Arbitration_enforcement#User:Guy_Montag. Bans in this case have been applied twice and lifted twice.

Statement by KimvdLinde

I bring this case because I think Guy Montag has violated his probation with the rewrite of the Deir Yassin massacre article, based on Deir Yassin: History of a Lie, The Zionist Organization of America (copies here and here), copyright violations from various websites and votestacking
I plead guilty of moving a page on which I was myself marginally involved by starting a poll to get the page moved back to the more common name and voted in support for that. The rational for the move was posted at WP:AN/I, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Battle_of_Deir_Yassin.2FDeir_Yassin_massacre:_move_poll_closure_review_requested here and the analysis and conclusion was considered valid [143] [144] and was moved back accordingly by an uninvolved admin [145]. Uninvoled admins told me that I should have not moved it myself as I was involved.. Is dealt with here Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Israeli_apartheid/Workshop#Administrators_admonished and here Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Israeli_apartheid/Proposed_decision#Administrators_admonished.
As for the sequence of events, with the banning and unbanning, let me show this:

Statement by Guy Montag

I refuse to participate in any of these procedings, nor am I playing any more of her games. She is an administrator who has sided in an debate and then abused her powers to get her way. She is involved in an Arbcomm case dealing with her abuse of powers and has been asked to not participate in the debate at Deir Yassin by more than one editor[152]. She initiated the vote that turned a discussion about the name that was only beginning into an all out pov fest by initiated a vote. After being notified that some of the information might be copywritten, even though much of it was already available in the previous version of the article (of course, no one cared about that because the article agreed with their pov) ar as raw sources in books, I petitioned the authors to receive authorization to use the information in the article, which is completely disfigured without it. I will recieve approval early next week. She causes disputes wherever she edits.

Even though the information can simply be cited within the notes by attributing to the author, Kim has used this technicality by reverting the article and totally rewriting the article according to her pov, even though I requested numerous times to open a workshop where we can work on the content together to insert both povs [153]. Now she is attempting to ban me to stop me from balancing the article. This is a content dispute and Kim is using every heavy handed tactic she has at her disposal to stop me from editing. She should be sanctioned and her admin powers suspended. I have not been approached for mediation, nor did I feel there to be any need for mediation during my detailed discussion and debate with other editors.

Guy Montag 19:30, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by FrancisTyers ·

I banned Guy from the page for inserting a number of paragraphs of copyvio text in his rewrite. People able to read proprietary document formats can see Kim's summary here. I was asked to remove the ban by SlimVirgin as I had been discussing the issue of the title on the talk page with him, taking an opposing stance, although I hadn't made any content edits to the article itself. I subsequently removed the ban.

Guy first denied any copyright violation, but then implicitly accepted it by requesting permission to use the text. At the moment the article has been reverted to a version without any copyvio text that Guy inserted, although there may be others. So far there has been no permission given to use the text.

The fact that much of the copyvio material was from the Zionist Organisation of America, an organisation that would be expected to have a strong point of view in the matter is also concerning. I think if the article is reflecting the view of the Zionist Organisation of America, we haven't been doing our job to represent a neutral point of view. - FrancisTyers · 22:21, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Leifern ·

It seems to me that adequate disciplinary action already has taken place against Guy Montag, in that he was been banned for some time from editing the article in question. It isn't clear to me why KimvdLinde thinks such vigorous action is necessary. And several of her complaints are in fact legitimate content disputes that remain unresolved. Guy Montag should refrain from misbehavior, but he should not be prevented from engaging in an honest debate. --Leifern 23:21, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ral315

I'm marginally involved, having placed a short-lived article ban on Guy Montag for his editing on Deir Yassin massacre (per my instructions, an administrator who dissented removed the ban). While I think a few of his actions were a bit out of line, I'm not necessarily sure it's enough to warrant a re-opening of his case. Ral315 (talk) 23:37, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Bibigon

I'm involved in this largely because KimvdLinde was the one who started this arb case, after previously initiating a move war on the article. KimvdLinde at this point appears to me to be an administrator who regularly abuses her powers in the pursuit of pushing her own POV, all the while cloaking her actions under the claim that she is uninterested party. She has previously done this in the Allegations of Israeli apartheid article and arb case, where she tried to excuse her improper behaviour in the move war that occured there on the basis that she was a mediator in that case. With regards to the Deir Yassin article:

1. Guy Montag rewrote much of the article and moved it, apparently believing that the move was not likely to be contested.
2. There was disagreement, and as far as I can tell, the article should have been moved back then and there until a consensus could be reached.
3. Instead however, KimvdLinde then began a poll on the matter, to propose moving the article back the 'Massacre' title.
4. There was no consensus after the prescribed period of time, but a majority did exist to move the article back. Given the lack of a consensus, several parties then agreed to extend the poll to get a better idea of where other editors stood on the matter.
5. The voting then shifted, with eventually a slight majority opposing moving the article back. Again, no consensus was forthcoming.
6. KimvdLinde then all of a sudden, without warning, without discussing closed the poll, claiming that Guy Montag had invalidated it by informing other editors that a poll was ongoing. There was no evidence presented to suggest that Guy Montag's actions were inappropriate, merely that KimvdLinde did not approve of them. She said this notification began after the extension of the poll deadline. It is worth noting that at that point, no consensus existed for moving the article.
7. Stunningly, KimvdLinde also took Guy Montag's actions as reason to unilaterally move the article back, initiating an edit war in the process. She did so in spite of the fact that even before Guy Montag notified other users, no consensus existed for her move. She also did so in spite of the fact that she had begun the poll in the first place, thus presumably believing it had some validity and legitimacy to begin with. So to recap, she began a poll, lost, claimed irregularities, and then without discussion, used those claimed irregularities as reason to declare victory. Note please that she did not try another poll, nor did she respect the results of the poll before the alleged irregularities. Instead, she took the her claims as cause to completely reverse the results, and take the same action that she would have had a consensus existed for the move. So if a consensus had existed for her proposed move, she would have moved the article, and if a consensus did not exist, she still would have moved the article. This does not appear to me to be appropriate behaviour from an administrator.
8. While KimvdLinde may have had legitimate cause to move the article back in the first place, due to the nondiscussed nature of the original move, the moment she began the poll, she lost any such claim to legitimacy. Why? Because by starting the poll, she implicitly gave it legitimacy and weight. If she had consensus, she was going to move back on that basis. If she lacked consensus, beyond her inappropriate actions in closing the poll, she clearly planned on moving the article back anyways claiming that Guy Montag's initial move was out of process. If that is the case however, then why did she begin the poll in the first place if she was going to take the same action regardless. What she has done here is a clever, yet appalling abuse of process. Assuming that Wikipedia still works through consensus, and that process is important, KimvdLinde's actions fail to meet those standards in this case.
9. In KimvdLinde's statement here to the Arbitration Committee has misrepresented the facts of what happened on the Administrator's Noticeboard. To quote her "The rational for the move was posted at [the Administrator's Noticeboard] and the motivation was considered valid." Reading through the noticeboard, this does not appear to be the case. Her actions were heavily disputed, and her rationale, behaviour, and tone was also severely criticized by other admins there. Some agreed with her, other did not. Her misleading attempts to claim approval here for actions should be noted as well.
If the Arbitration Committee is going to be considering Guy Montag's actions here, then KimvdLinde's must also be considered. I would like to remind the committee that KimvdLinde is currently involved in another arbitration case about Allegations of Israeli apartheid about almost this exact same issue. There, poll about a proposed article move which ended without consensus, and was followed by a move war. The entire arb case is focused around claims by several editors, including KimvdLinde, that the move was out of the process, and thus not valid, and that the involved editors should be reprimanded. Invoking a curious double standard, KimvdLinde regardless saw fit to again engage in the same same behaviour herself, without even waiting for a ruling in the ongoing case. As an administrator, her actions and her behaviour, should not be allowed to go unnoticed. Bibigon 02:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Briangotts

I requested that the ban on Guy be lifted per the instructions because it seemed inappropriate to me and inconsistent with the previous arbcom ruling. I generally endorse Bibigon's summary of the facts. I find KimvdLinde's pattern of behavior disturbing in the extreme, all the more so because s/he is an admin. This is a case of an admin heavily involved in edit conflicts in an article now using admin powers to persecute a user whose views differ. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 03:46, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Gatoclass

Tony Sideaway has asked me to shorten the length of my submission.

My original statement on this page was intended to be my final statement on the matter, and I really can't be bothered rewriting the whole thing again for brevity.

So all I'm going to say now is - I fully support KimvdLinde's move to have Guy Montag's status as a Wiki editor reviewed. He breached the terms of his probation by making a highly contentious POV rewrite of the Deir Yassin massacre page, including a unilateral page move, he engaged in votestacking when a straw poll threatened to move the page back, and then after long debate over his edit, we discovered that much of it had not been taken from the original sources as he pretended, but had simply been plagiarized unattributed from a handful of partisan websites.

Just to emphasize the extent of POV in his rewrite - the main denialist website he used to construct his piece itself admitted that a mere 5% of 170 books it reviewed seriously disputed the occurrence of a massacre. Guy's rewrite by contrast effectively reverses that proportion by limiting accounts of the massacre to a mere 5% of the text, while most of the other 95% lends support to the denialist position.

He wasted several weeks of other users' time on an edit that was not only heavily POV, but which also turned out to be substantially a cut-and-paste copyvio. I feel that deserves some sort of disciplinary action over and above merely banning him from the page in question - particularly since he was already on probation for similar behaviour. Gatoclass 11:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg

I find many of Kimv's recent actions to be very concerning. She seems to either not understand or not care about the fact that adminstrators do not have any extra "powers" per se, they just have extra responsibilities. She regularly uses her privileges to gain an upper-hand in disputes that she is not only involved in, but is actually a primary party to, all the while she pretends to have no personal convictions one way or another about the dispute. I think it is particularly odd that she would even attempt to open this RFA on the heels of another conflict where she engaged in the same kind of inappropriate behavior.

As for Guy's behavior, I do not think that it can be called exemplary by any stretch of the imagination, however I find it equally difficult inapplicable to state that Guy's edits were a violation of his probation. Sure he edits from a pov, but so do all of us, at least Guy is able to admit it right on his userpage. If Guy did anything wrong it does not even compare to the actions of KimvdLinde. If there is a reason to accept this RFA it is only to take a closer look at the actions of Kimv.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 12:28, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Huldra

I also fully support KimvdLinde's move to have Guy Montag's status as a Wiki editor reviewed. I think that the statement by Gatoclass (as given here) nicely sums up what has been problematic with Guy Montag´s editing.

Many of the statements above by Bibigon have earlier been raised by him/her on the the talk-page, see Talk:Deir_Yassin_massacre#Completely_Unwarranted_Closing_of_the_Vote. Most of his/her arguments have also been answered there; to summarize:

  • that Guy Montag´s unilaterally moved Deir Yassin massacre (about 30.000 Google hits) to Battle of Deir Yassin (about 100 Google hits) "believing that the move was not likely to be contested", is at least stretching my WP:AGF
  • I agree with Bibigon that a better procedure would have been to just move the article back right away, and ask Guy Montag to build a consensus for such a move.
  • The claim that KimvdLinde "clearly planned on moving the article back anyways claiming that Guy Montag's initial move was out of process" is completely unsubstantiated. *IF* the vote had showed a consensus for *not* moving the article back; then I cannot imagine that Kim would have moved the article. So to say (directly/indirectly) that the outcome of the poll would not matter to Kim is simply pure speculations, and certainly not AGF.
  • The argument presented by Bibigon seem to claim that somebody who is in favour of moving Battle of Deir Yassin to Deir Yassin Massacre would not also be against moving Deir Yassin Massacre to Battle of Deir Yassin in the first place. This argument hinges on that those two moves are different, i.e. people will have different preferance w.r.t. the title depending on whether you start with the "Battle.." version, or whether you start with the "Massacre.." version. I am of the opinion that when people have a preferance on one of the titles, A or B, then they will have that preferance, irregardless of whether the poll is about moving A ->B, or if it is about moving B->A. And if that preferance is static for any one editor, then the result of the poll shows that there was no concensus for the move to the "Battle" version in the first place.
  • However, I think a lot of the confusion here could have been avoided if the poll had been about moving Deir Yassin Massacre to Battle of Deir Yassin (and not the opposite). Now, Guy Montag and equal minded could claim that there had to be a clear majority, (consensus), for undoing a move that was done without consensus in the first place.

Huldra 07:05, 25 July 2006

Comment by ChrisO

I've been involved on the margins of this article, providing advice on Talk:Deir Yassin massacre on the requirements of Wikipedia policies and guidelines. (Disclaimer: I've not come across Guy Montag before and I've not had any previous involvement in this particular article, which I've only edited once to remove an erroneously placed tag. Nor am I a partisan on Israeli-Palestinian issues - my comments below have no political motivation.)

I'm not adding myself as a party, but I believe there are two key issues that need to be addressed here:

1) POV editing - as noted by other editors, GM appears to have relied on a minority POV (essentially a denialist one) to rewrite the article and move it to a new title. This presents obvious difficulties as far as WP:NPOV is concerned and the move unquestionably caused significant controversy and disruption.
2) Copyright violation - there is clear evidence that much of the content added by GM was lifted verbatim from third-party websites without permission. Personally I found this revelation very disappointing, as I'd assumed that GM was at least producing some original work. The article instead ended up being a mashup of plagiarised content.

I note that the ArbCom has already found GM to have "engaged in disruptive point of view editing" and this certainly strikes me as being more of the same. However, I don't believe that a permanent ban is appropriate in the circumstances.

I believe that GM is sincere in wanting to improve Wikipedia, but I think the strength of his POV on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict impairs his judgment in editing such articles. A lengthy ban from I-P articles would probably be sufficient and would allow GM to turn his energies to editing less contentious areas of Wikipedia, where his POV wouldn't get in the way so much. -- ChrisO 21:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused clerks.)

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

Warren Kinsella

Involved parties

Arthur Ellis
Pete Peters
CJCurrie
209.217.93.60
209.217.66.179
207.35.190.72
72.136.201.103
69.157.70.145
Ceraurus
et al

Clerk notes

Because of the size, statements by participants have been moved to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Warren Kinsella. --Tony Sidaway 11:13, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (4/0/1/0)

Homeontherange

Involved parties

PinchasC (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
Homeontherange (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
FeloniousMonk (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
Briangotts (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
IronDuke (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) 00:03, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

Because of the size, statements by parties have been moved to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Homeontherange.
Homeontherange's wikibreak is apparently to run until September 5 [154]. --Tony Sidaway 13:08, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Further new material, which had become quite sizable in itself, has been removed once more to the subpage Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Homeontherange. I'd like to ask all contributors to please consider the merits of brevity and precision. --Tony Sidaway 00:33, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (2/2/1/0)

Requests for clarification

Requests for clarification from the Committee on matters related to the Arbitration process.

Pedophilia userbox wheel war

I would like to know if Tony Sidaway's threats at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2006 July 8#Template:unblockabuse are valid per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pedophilia userbox wheel war#SPUI, especially given the comments at [155]. --SPUI (T - C) 17:08, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Link is no longer good. Fred Bauder 17:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
[156] Ashibaka tock 00:40, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Highways

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Highways#Enforcement of moves without consensus states that "If any participant to this dispute moves a state highway page to their preferred convention before a formal policy has been reached, he or she may be blocked for a short time of up to a week for repeated offenses." Say Route 69 is renumbered to Route 31. (This type of whole-route renumbering occurs occasionally.) Is this measure intended to make the obvious move blockable? Or should "from another convention" be added after "to their preferred convention"?

I also note that it specifically mentions state highways. Is Canada fair game, as long as I'm not disruptive? --SPUI (T - C) 19:32, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also I'd like to know what the duration of the probation is as no set limit was established in the Arbcom. Is this probation indefinite? Or can we appeal it after 3 months? --JohnnyBGood 20:54, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like you are worrying over semantics here. Uncontroversial moves should not be contested, and won't get anybody in trouble. There is a difference from moving something to the correct name and moning something to the preferred convention. That doesn't mean anyone can move to their preferred convention and say it's okay because it's the real name, but Route 69 and Route 31 are not variations of eath other, whereas a move from Route 31 to State Route 31, or Route 31 (State), or whatever, would be a violation. Dmcdevit·t 18:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand the last sentence. If someone makes an article at simply "Route 31", which should obviously be a disambiguation page (and it is in this case), what should I do? --SPUI (T - C) 19:06, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what the confusion is here, but I think maybe that it is that the part of the ruling you quote comes from the enforcement. Take a look at the remedy section where the controversial moves are prohibited (Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Highways#Controversial_moves): "Until a formal naming convention policy regarding state highways is reached, no page shall be moved from one controversial name to another". I think that is clear and answers your question. Dmcdevit·t 19:47, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK - so I can move Route 31 to Route 31 (State), as everyone agrees that Route 31 should be a disambiguation page, so its current location is not controversial? --SPUI (T - C) 20:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If this is so, can someone please edit the enforcement to reflect this? --SPUI (T - C) 07:55, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
An appeal is likely to do little. --SPUI (T - C) 12:07, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Probation is indefinite. Fred Bauder 12:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Can it be appealled in the future or as SPUI says are we pretty much SOL? --JohnnyBGood 00:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You can appeal whenever you want, but you will only be successful if you can demonstrate some new development that will make us change our minds. That may be a while from now. Dmcdevit·t 18:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another question: where do I start on making a "formal policy"? I talked to a policy wonk and he confirmed that naming conventions are typically guidelines. --SPUI (T - C) 13:53, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking purely for myself, I'd say that the Committee can only urge the community to seek a policy solution to the question of highway naming. The community may well have good reasons to reject this. In which case, you'd probably all better be extra careful about moves, and make sure you don't make any controversial name changes. --Tony Sidaway 10:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Internal spamming/campaigning

There's an ongoing discussion at WP:SPAM about what constitutes acceptable talk page contact between users regarding discussions, votes, polls, etc. Prior rulings that have been pointed to are this prior ruling and this one. Could you offer any more specific information about what is and is not allowed/discouraged, for example: is it the use of mass userbox messaging that is disallowed (if it is), or is internal spamming/campaigning disallowed only if disruptive? Thanks. IronDuke 17:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Briefly, I think a reasonable amount of communication about issues is fine. Aggressive propaganda campaigns are not. The difference lies in the disruption involved. If what is happening is getting everyone upset then it is a problem. Often the dividing line is crossed when you are contacting a number of people who do not ordinarily edit the disputed article. Fred Bauder 16:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Motions in prior cases

(Only Arbitrators may make such motions)


Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zeq

Motion to ban Zeq for a week for creating an attack article regarding User:Homeontherange (article has been deleted) diff will be available to Arbitration Committee members. Fred Bauder 21:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Archives

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests&oldid=67750121"