Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests

The last step of dispute resolution is a request for 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.

Arbitration Committee proceedings

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Case requests

Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
Wikipediocracy-related conduct		21 October 2024	4/3/2
Marine 69-71	Motions	26 October 2024	0/0/0
Covert canvassing and proxying in the Israel-Arab conflict topic area		6 November 2024	0/0/0

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Open cases

Case name	Links	Evidence due	Prop. Dec. due
Backlash to diversity and inclusion	(t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t)	10 Oct 2024	24 Oct 2024

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Recently closed cases (Past cases)

No cases have recently been closed (view all closed cases).

Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral)	Motion	(orig. case)	17 August 2024

Arbitrator motions

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

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. New requests to the top, please. You are required to place a notice on the user talk page of each person you lodge a complaint against.

0/0/0/0 corresponds to Arb Com member votes to accept/reject/recuse/other.

This is not a page for discussion, and arbitrators may summarily remove discussion without comment.

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Current requests

Template

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

If not, then explain why that would be fruitless

Statement by party 1

Please limit your statement to 500 words

Statement by party 2

Please limit your statement to 500 words

---

User:rktect

Involved parties

• Egil (talk · contribs)

vz.

• rktect (talk · contribs), 66.200.223.112 (talk · contribs), 66.200.223.113 (talk · contribs), 69.164.70.243 (talk · contribs)

Other Wikipedians have also been involved in this conflict, and Egil is informing them on their respective talk pages.

Summary

Rktect has since July 23 2005 submitted content, esp. connected to historic metrology and related subjects (e.g. related biographies), that Egil finds wholly unacceptable and severly lacking in all aspects of quality required for an encyclopedia. Attempts at resolving this by conventional means has not been successful. Egil claims that the outcome of VfDs shows that consensus has been reached with respect to this lack of quality, and that Rktect has acted in bad faith.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

User:Egil initiated the request, and has informed User:rktect [1]

• I am aware of the request Rktect 12:45, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Discussing with R. (by many Wikipedians) have been fruitless, and only ended in edit wars and attacks. The VfDs on R.s articles has shown consensus aginst articles submitted by R., but the reaction has been to create more articles of essential the same. A mediation between E. and R., with Improv (talk · contribs) as mediator, was initiated on August 11th, but was ended when the mediator informed E. that R. was not interested in continuing.

• Mediation with Egil failed when while restrained by the terms of the mediation from acting himself he contacted others on their talk pages and suggested they act in his behalf which they subsequently did.
• The use of the term "consensus" is misleading in that this is not a case of independant users acting in parallel but a coordianted attack by a faction whose comments on their talk pages give plenty of evidence of concerted action.
• When things are connected in series that is a very different situation than when they are connected in parallel.
• 457 separate attacks by Egil since August 5, contacting users Crissov,Jimp, Gene Nygaard ,Indefatigable, Kenwarren,Icairns,Allen3,Drini,KevinSaff,Nandesuka,PBurka,Paul August,Zoe,Fred Bauder asking for assistance in making personal attacks which has been provided Rktect 00:36, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by User:Egil

After having spent considerable time reviewing the submitted content from Rktect since July 23 2005, esp. connected to historic metrology and geodesy, I have found it, generally speaking, wholly unacceptable. Contrary to accepted knowledge [2], Rrktect claims that the exact size of the Earth was known at the time the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians defined their standards of length (3000 BC or earlier). He also subscribes to the unpublished theories of Livio Stecchini [3], that all ancient measuring systems are one, defined by each other.

With this basis, essentially all facts get distorted, especially when this is married to a totally uncritical use of sources (sometimes to the extent of being copyright violations [4]). The majority of the contributions are irrelevant to the topic at hand, or at best covered elsewhere. Showing disrespect for the mechanisms of Wikipedia, using bizarre markup and a lack of understanding of the level of quality required for an encyclopedia, the contributions of Rktect are unfit for Wikipedia.

Even though it may be the case that there are fractions of rktects contributions that with massive rework could be usable, filtering and reviewing is far too expensive, the amount of work grossly exceeding that of adding new bona fide fresh content. I thus believe it is the best self interest of Wikipedia that rktect be not allowed to contribute, at least for an extended period. I see no other way of creating an environment where the current chaos can be cleaned up.

I am referring to rktects contribution as a whole, since the sheer amount of material produced by rktect over the last month makes a more detailed analysis a major task. If required, I can provide a list of affected articles, and I can of course also go through this on a detailed article-by-article basis, but will warn that this may take a long time and significant effort. I can also supply further evidence of my claims above, as requested. For your information I have collected some notes here.

I also believe bad faith can be established. Rktect has created new articles with essentially the same content that has been deleted by VfDs (see [5] for a list of VfDs), and is adding similar content to new articles. He submitted this article to VfD (presumably as a revenge attack), he distorted my request for assistance (see [6], section "Pseudoscientific attack"), he has used vandalism as a form of revenge [7] [8] [9], distorted discussions and used anon sockpuppets (see above for list), and removed VfD tags several times [10] [11]. Also, over a long period, rktect marked all his edits, however large, as minor.

Statement by User:rktect

Improperly positions response by rktect moved --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 17:52, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

• This began about August 5th with
• 1. Egil claiming many statements of fact about mensuration were "original research".
• 2. These charges included cites from references that were actually in their fifth printing.
• 3. Egil claimed things were "pseudoscience" based on his own speculation and opinion but cited no facts in support of his opinions.
• 4. He then began submitting pages for vfd by the score
• 6. This resulted in a mediation attempt which failed
• 7. The reason for failure was that Egil while restrained by the terms of the mediation from acting himself began contacting others and asking them to take actions on his behalf which they subsequently did.
• 9. These contacts are documented on my and other users talk pages.
• 10. This Group (Egil, Gene, Ken, Drini) began voting in concert on every page up for VFD
• 11. The list of deleted pages shows up on our respective contributions pages.
• 12 Egil has systematically attacked every contribution I have made for the last month either marking them for deletion, tagging them with disputed tages which he neglects to give reasons for, reverting them, deleting content, references, and Wikification.
• 13. The same group still acting in concert has joined Egil in reverting, deleting content, Wikification, and references from the pages.
• 14. These actions are not the actions of individuals acting independently in parallel with no contact between them as some might claim because the contacts and expressions of mutual support are there to be seen on their talk pages going back a month or more.
• 15. I have asked for protection against this organized attack but have not received it.
• 16. On one occasion while trying to protect my contributions from multiple reversions I was improperly blocked for two days for making an edit after discussion within this group.
• 17. "I have never acted in bad faith".
• 18. I dispute that the consensus of this group with regard to quality is well informed.
• 19. The policy of Wikipedia is generally inclusive and the articles are not, as is often claimed by Egil all saying the same thing.
• 20. Some were discussing fields and crop rotation.
• 21. Some were discussing the Greek orders of architecture.
• 22. Some were discussing the attempts of various geometers to establish standards of measure in different times and places around the world.
• 23. Some talked about different standards of measure used by Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome. * 24. Egil and the rest of the group maintain that there is no connection between these standards of measure
• 25. Egil and the group at the same time make the conflicting claim that they are all the same thing. Rktect 12:45, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

• Egil speculates and opines but has yet to cite any good reasons for those opinions.
• [standards]
• Egil allows his own personal POV, speculations, and opinions to prejudice his approach to the study of measures.
• If this arbitration were to hinge on a debate of facts I would be happy to oblige with a thorough list of cites and references.
• Egil repeats another false charge. It is not a copyright violation to properly quote a source.
• This is just Egils basic lack of knowledgebase. If he thinks that these topics are adequately covered elsewhere let him say where and let me respond with what is lacking.
• Egil lacks the knowledgebase to properly make this judgement and so do his cronies.
• Egil should be restrained from removing properly cited and referenced content from Wikipedia or at a very minimum restrained from putting pages up for vfd with no discussion of why, on the talk page of the article, no cites, no references to support his speculations and opinions and basically just a huge lack of doing his homework. I would also ask that any group voting as a group on multiple vfd's be counted as a single vote
• This is an admission that he is attacking on a personal level not a content based level.
• Egil provides a list of the articles he is attacking which is essentially any article I may have made a contribution to.
• Egil makes unsubstantiated false charges of original research, pseudoscientific content and "essentially the same content" which are not based on the article but rather the author.
• Egil has for a month encouraged his cronies to vote as a group .
• This is easily verified by looking at the articles deleted and the names of the people voting.
• There would be considerably less votes for deletion if the cluster (Egil, Gene, Ken, Drini) were counted as a single vote and it were taken into account that by voting as a block they give a false impression of consensus which may be misleading to others.
• The facts and the math were eroneous and required substantial work to clean up. Mouton is an important person to discuss on Wikipedia, but it is not useful to have a POV article about him with many unreferenced and eristic comments.
• After suffering a constant stream of reverts by drini on every contribution I made without regard to content, often deleting wikification and references as well as content, and with no attempt by him to communicate on the discussion page I looked at his contributions page and saw there was nothing on it but reverts and concluded he was a vandal and pest.
• As a new user I did not realize that was set in my preferences or important until someone remarked on it. Generally I attempt to respond to all constructive criticism with a modification of my behavior.

[Re: Zoe's comment]

• The assertion that there is conspiricy is supported by communications between the group documented on their talk pages and elsewhere and subsequent concerted action.
• Zoe's charge that I am convinced that the Indo European language is derived from Ancient Egyptian simply reveals a lack of knowledgebase. It isn't what was said but rather what was heard. The dispute arose over the claim that an article should be deleted because it had a non-English name. I pointed out that English is a language which has borrowed words from many languages and provided a list of twenty some odd words borrowed into English from Egyptian from the moderator of the EEF discussion list plus a few more that have been discussed on sci.lang in past years by various linguists. My premise is that like words, systems of mesurement can be borrowed and there is substantial classical support from authors like Herodotus who specifically refers to the Greeks having borrowed Egyptian measures like the schoenus and aroura. I subsequently provided some of the etymologucal discussion on my talk page. Zoe has acted with considerable personal animosity including blocking me under the 3RR rule for making an edit rather than a revert which action was discussed with drini. This after the group including Zoe and Drini had collectively made some 5 reverts of the page in question in a few hours removing references from an article up for vfd.Rktect 10:22, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Improperly placed response to Zoe by rktect moved -- Egil 10:32, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

• A conspiricy is proved when it is shown that there is a combination or confederacy among two or more persons formed for the purpose of committing by their joint efforts a damage or harm to another and a person is quilty of conspiricy if there is a solicitation or discussion of action and then agreement to act and subsequent action.Rktect 10:12, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Improperly placed response to Drini by rktect moved -- Egil 15:40, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

• Many people lack the vocabulary to discuss or even read with comprehension discussions of ancient measures. The English language has more than 500,000 words in it, many of which are borrowed from other languages. For people who are reading an article which contains many new words with which they may be unfamiliar, definition of terms pages are needed to make them encyclopedic.

• It makes no sense to redirect definitions of terms being used in a discussion to disambiguation pages that have nothing to do with them.

• Ideally each definitions page contains enough information that you fully understand the term.

• To follow a discussion of different foot based units you need to know that they can be divided and nultiplied to arrive at other units in different ways.

• You won't find any of that on the present page entitled foot.

• On the other hand some users don't need or want to know the full history of a unit so using an archaic or special spelling can often help make that separation of discussion clearer.

• By creating new links that give basic information about size and system each main page becomes more effective, Deleting content, links, Wikification and references is counterproductive.

• On a page dealing with a "sos" or Mesopotamian field of 10 acres someone suggested redirecting it to "SOS" as a spelling error. On a page dealing with a "milion" which is the Latin word used in the Bible for a Greek Mylios or Mile, a user who was unfamiliar with the term suggested it was a flower and another user suggested it be redirected to "MIllion".

• When drini deletes this sort of content he acts against the encyclopedias best interests. A better way to deal with this would be to comment on the discussion page and get a change or modificiation rather than delete or redirect the page. Rktect 15:12, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Additional improperly placed response to Drini by rktect moved -- Egil 20:18, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

• Those examples are taken from a table which defines the units several different ways. As a multiple of fingers, in mm and as a fraction of a foot of a given definition. Since the Greek pous or feet have different lengths an attempt is made to identify both which pous and which length. Rktect 15:27, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

• Those kinds of misconceptions are why I'm adding the information. A measure of an ancient unit in modern units should not be carried out to several decimals of mm because that exceeds the accuracy or precision of the original standard. The unit fractions are given to clarify the relationship. Rktect 15:27, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Zoe

Rktect's assertion above that there is some kind of conspiracy against him is unprovable. He continues to assert that I am involved in some plot against him when, so far as I know, there has never been a single communication between me and Egil save for his notification on my Talk page that this RfAr had been filed.

Rktect continues to make original research edtis. He seems convinced, somehow, that the Indo-European language is derived from Ancient Egyptian. When asked to prove this assertion, he creates long, abstract edits which either fail to address the question, or present so-called arguments which require stretches of logic to accept. See [12]/ Zoe 05:28, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

When questioned on these subjects, he attacks the questioners and refuses to moderate his actions. Zoe 05:28, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by User:Kenwarren

I have been involved in this dispute nearly since the beginning, as I'm the individual that initially requested the mediation between Egil and Rktect. I intend to present additional comments and evidence when and where I'm notified it's appropriate.

• Regarding Rktect's contention that there is a conspiracy, I am not aware of one, and I don't think there is any evidence of one. Wikipedia editors communicate amongst each other regularly, in the course of their editorial involvement. Speaking for myself, I have voted my concience, in an attempt to make Wikipedia a better encyclopedia. I have not received any direction from Egil at any time on any of this material.
• Regarding the factual content of Rktect's edits, it's extremely variable, and sometimes does not agree with accepted information in the field. This is common enough in his edits that it's prudent to check all of his facts, an arduous task. Additionally, he appears to espouse as fact the theory (rejected by the field of classical studies) that Ancient Egypt was sufficiently versed in geodesy to know the dimensions of the Earth, and to have divided the circumference into specific units of measure. This theory colors all of Rktect's edits, which seem designed to support it.
• Regarding his article style, even after repeated corrections he persists in using Wikimarkup in a way which makes his edits impossible to decipher (e.g. indenting every line in a long article, where each line contains only half a dozen words). (This problem may be self-correcting as he gains experience with wikimarkup and the Manual of Style, and as other editors continue to correct and mentor him.)
• His editorial style is combative to the point that one typically does not work with him, one works against him. He seems to simply paste removed or edited material back into articles, rather than trying to achieve a consensus.
• It is possible to get him to take a neutral viewpoint: [13] which shows an excellent grasp of how to write an accurate bio of an individual whose conclusions are controversial. However, it is nearly impossible to engage him in this way; I had to resort to a form of argumentum ad misericordiam to achieve this result, and I've succeeded only the once.
• I feel that he has made a small number of bad faith edits, mostly to prove a point or as revenge. I also question his involvement in mediation, as he repeatedly redefined a requested truce to allow him freedom to act, but to constrain Egil. This does not seem to be his normal mode of operation, however.
• There has been significant incivility on both sides, which has not helped matters.

Ken ^{talk|contribs} 14:12, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by User:Drini

The content that Rktect keeps pushing is POV and misleading, since he implies that in ancient times there was a standarized measurement system across civilizations. For instance, taken from the current (23:47, 22 August 2005 (UTC)) version of Pous:

1 šusi (little finger) 1 15 1/20 pous of 300 mm

1 Roman uncia (thumb or inch) 1 24.7 mm 1/12 Iomic pous

for just two examples. Although it is possible for that some standars to exist on later periods of history, it's unlikely that they were accurate up to milimter percission as we have today, mainly because an international coordinate effort is needed for that. Just consider that current imperial units system was first formally defined in 1824 and redefined in 1959. (See Imperial unit) More over, he claims that ancient measures are integer multiples of round numbers expressed in metric system (pous of 300mm, etc), which cannot be possible since metric system is a recent invention. (See Metric system). Therefore, an statement that the measurements were exactly equal up to milimeter precission standarized over large preriods of time (bronze age, preconquest americas, etc) is misleading as at most, those measurements would be approximated.

Rktect also claims of users acting in coordination as a conspiracy against him are unsubstantiated. He lightly accuses of vandalism and sockpuppetism users with contributions disagreeing with him. He disregards consensus in the form of many users removing his additions acting in an independent way. He has also acted in bad faith actually vandalizing entries to prove his point: [14], [15], [16] and [17] He resorted to aggresive private emailing message. Some documentation of these statements can be found at [18]. He finally falls into personal attacks name calling, as a sample, take his statement on this very page:

After suffering a constant stream of reverts by drini on every contribution I made without regard to content, often deleting wikification and references as well as content, and with no attempt by him to communicate on the discussion page I looked at his contributions page and saw there was nothing on it but reverts and concluded he was a vandal and pest.

I'm a very active RC patroller, and anyone can look through my user contribution lists, and my reverts are always documented (stating entry and url diff on user's talk pages). -- (☺drini♫|☎) 03:30, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

He keeps readding content that has already been deleted in dozens of VfDs, and his additions are just copy and paste of the deleted material. For instance, consider the diff [19] that is clearly a duplication of content from Mile, as it even copied the interwiki links at the bottom from the Mile entry. So his contributiosn are done without regard of the actual relationship to the entry. -- (drini|☕) 19:07, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by User:Jimp

The charge that Egil orchestrated a personal attack on Rktect is not fair. I'm not part of any group out to get Rktect. I disagree with his theory that all measurement systems used throughout history are one and the same. I have attacked this theory. I have at no time attacked Rktect. I have not acted at the request of Egil nor of anyone else. I have acted only in the interests of improving this encyclopædia. I find Rktect's theory to be implausible based on the known evidence.

I'm not convinced that there is any such organised group whose aim is to attack either Rktect or his theory. As far as I'm aware the individuals involved have acted, as I have, according to their own concious. It is true that I have been in contact with Egil on my talk page in regard to this issue however communication is not the same as conspiracy.

Many editors have become concerned about the contributions of Rktect. These editors are the ones that Egil has contacted. Were there no such concern, there'd have been no contact. This accusation of Rktect's that there is a co-ordinated attack is baffling.

Statement by User:Nandesuka

I first encountered Rktect's contributions on WP:AFD. My interaction with him has been mostly minimal, as his areas of interest and mine do not intersect. As an editor and reader, however, I will say that even a cursory reading of his work is simply devastating. Putting aside the formatting issues, which are simply irritating, his writing has a deeper problem. His prose is elliptical, obscure, and virtually incomprehensible. His reaction to criticism seems to be to immediately personalize the issue. Attempts at resolution become adversarial almost instantly. His response to the consensus process is to view it as hostile and catastrophic. He publically mischaracterizes the statements of other editors in a way that is shameful. To take one simple example, in his response, above, he states:

457 separate attacks by Egil since August 5, contacting users Crissov,Jimp, Gene Nygaard ,Indefatigable, Kenwarren,Icairns,Allen3,Drini,KevinSaff,Nandesuka,PBurka,Paul August,Zoe,Fred Bauder asking for assistance in making personal attacks which has been provided

The only communication that Egil has had with me is here (coupled with a followup question and response here, [20] [21] [22]). In that communication, Egil informed me of the existence of this RfArb — nothing more. In other words, Rktect is willing to describe informing an editor that an RfA has been filed as "asking for assistance in making personal attacks." Whether or not Rktect is deliberately misrepresenting the words of other editors, or simply cannot tell the difference between discussion and vilification is not clear to me, but is not relevant. What is relevant is that this pattern of behavior is consistent, ongoing, and Rktect shows no signs of recognizing it as a problem or indicating any willingness to moderate his behavior.

Nandesuka 05:28, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (3/0/0/0)

• Accept, but you are both going to have to show better evidence. Fred Bauder 20:50, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. James F. (talk) 23:55, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
• Accept Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 15:05, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Rangerdude

Involved parties

• Rangerdude (talk · contribs)
• Willmcw (talk · contribs)
• Katefan0 (talk · contribs)
• Johntex (talk · contribs)

Summary

Rangerdude is harassing editors who disagree with his POV.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

User talk:Rangerdude#Requests for Arbitration 19:59, August 23, 2005

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

On June 10, I received a request from mediator user:MacGyverMagic to enter mediation on "Houston Chronicle".[23] I acknowledged my interest in mediation, and on June 14 I saw a mediation page had been set up so I tried to participate. Rangerdude refused. [24]

Rangerdude and I filed cross-complaints on June 15, including [25] and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rangerdude. We subsequently agreed to mediation and the RfC was withdrawn.[26]

We both agreed to a mediator, Andrevan.[27][28] Mediation never proceeded because we couldn't agree on how to proceed, despite the mediator's repeated inquiries (Rangerdude said that I might stalk him via email,[29] and I said that I did not want a public mediation). Rangerdude referred in some places to "mediation against" me, possibly indicating bad faith in the dispute resolution process.[30][31]

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Cberlet & Willmcw was posted by Rangerdude on July 25, 2005 and closed by him on July 30, 2005.

Statement by Willmcw

Harassment of editors Rangerdude is harassing and bullying editors who disagree with him or his edits. His goal seems to be either to end our involvement as editors or to punish us for disagreeing with him.

Cberlet Rangerdude brought an RfC against Cberlet and myself on account of our edit work on Ludwig von Mises Institute. The RfC charged us with "lack of civility, disruption, POV pushing, personal attacks on other editors, disregard of WP policies, disregard of talk page and consensus-building efforts, bad faith edits and assumptions". Only four editors (two of them LvMI associates) certified or endorsed Rangerdude's statement, while 14 endorsed Cberlet's statement and a total of ten editors posted separate views, most of which were against Rangerdude and some which received wide support. On the basis of that outcome, it appears that the community strongly rejected Rangerdude's view.

Rangerdude then heavily and contentiously edited Chip Berlet's biography and sought to have Berlet's published research deemed too extreme to use as a source for Wikipedia articles. At the same time he actively edited and created articles about one of Berlet's real-life adversaries, David Horowitz, with a positive POV.[32][33][34]

FuelWagon FuelWagon was one of the more vocal editors in the RfC, despite having had no prior involvement with either of us. He wrote a clearly-worded and boldy-formatted comment saying that the problem lay more with Rangerdude than with Cberlet or me.[35] Rangerdude first reformatted his comment then effectively tried to add FuelWagon to the RfC.[36][37] Shortly after the close of that RfC Rangerdude filed a separate RfC against FuelWagon. Wikipedia:Requests for comment/FuelWagon. The charges include having a "belligerent" tone in RfCs and filing a "false 3RR warning against another user". The RfC against FuelWagon received no endorsements or co-certifications. An opposing view received four endorsements within the initial 48-hour period.

SlimVirgin Rangerdude has also harassed SlimVirgin, who had had no editing interactions with him prior to commenting on the Cberlet/Willmcw RfC, and whose crime seems to have been speaking positively about us. In a number of edits he attacked her by name and he has made attacks on "wiki-cliques" that seem directed at SlimVirgin and other editors.[38][39][40][41][42][43] He apparently opposed Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/FeloniousMonk simply because SlimVirgin was the nominator.[44]

Willmcw Rangerdude has been attacking me as a "stalker" since June, 2005. He uses the de-listed RfC as an "attack file" with an ever-growing list of charges. I responded initially, but have not replied to every new addition. Rangerdude has copied and extended that file (minus my responses and other discussion) at User:Rangerdude/sandbox1/Evidence of willmcws wiki-stalking. He brandishes the charge as an attack in talk pages and edit summaries. [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] (Recent instances: [58] [59] [60] [61]) He seeks out other editors to warn them about my supposedly-abusive behavior, encourages them to bring dispute actions, and repeats the charges as a reason for editors to disregard my opinion. [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70]

Katefan0 Rangerdude bullies Katefan0 in their editing disagreements, such as in Talk:Jim Robinson and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Jim Robinson. [71] [72] [73]

Other issues From his earliest edits Rangerdude has been a POV warrior with a strongly pro/neo-confederate bias.[74][75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] He both shows bad faith and fails to assume good faith in others. He has followed my edits with an apparent intent to harass, in ways that mimic his own definition of wikistalking. [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86][87]

Statement by Katefan0

Rangerdude has made unfounded and potentially damaging personal attacks against me and has attacked other editors, has bullied and harassed editors who disagreed with him, disrupted Wikipedia to make a point, and aggressively inserted biased information throughout Wikipedia, while bludgeoning and smearing good faith editors who disagree with him. I have engaged Rangerdude in extensive dialogues on talk pages, largely to no effect. I opened an RfC over our main disputed article, Houston Chronicle, which received no replies. I then requested mediation, which formally opened on June 10. However, the mediator has been absent since that time and the dispute remains stalemated. Rangerdude continues to bully editors on Wikipedia:Stalking, through RfC’s and on other articles.

Personal attacks and harrassment

Rangerdude made a serious (and potentially libelous) attack against my personal and professional integrity [88]. When I protested, Rangerdude’s response was to escalate [89]. He has also targeted other editors who have disagreed with his conduct or biased edits: [90], [91], edit summary, [92], [93], among others.

Rangerdude often bullies and intimidates people who disagree with his positions (particularly during RfCs and other instances in which a vote or poll is taken) by commenting on their votes or comments, sometimes extensively, with the intent of discrediting (and thereby discounting) their opinions. [94], [95], [96], [97], [98], [99], [100].

He has purposefully misrepresented my position in a debate to further his own position my original posting here. Misrepresentations: [101], [102], [103]. Despite my admonitions to the contrary, [104], he continued harass me about my own opinions [105], [106], [107].

He does not truly seek to resolve conflicts, seemingly preferring to argue his opponents into submission or deflect blame (here suggesting I alone am creating an impasse [108]), often reverting up to his limit under 3RR and haranguing dissenters on related talk pages. Reversions: [109], [110], [111], [112]. Talk: [113].

Dismissing or manipulating consensus

Rangerdude rarely accepts consensus unless it furthers his position or he is forced to yield. (Here he harangues Tony Sidaway, the VfD closer on Jim Robinson [114]). Or, he interprets consensus to suit his needs: Here, a consensus of two editors is enough when it furthers his position [115], but when it does not, a consensus of two (myself and Johntex) isn't enough; moreover, he harasses Johntex in an attempt to discredit his opinions: [116] [117] [118], [119].

He has manipulated policies to circumvent or defy consensus: (here he adds a {{disputed}} tag to the VfD vote on Jim Robinson [120]), and later on the redirect created as a result of the VfD vote [121]), [122].

He has violated WP:POINT when consensus has not gone his way. When Jim Robinson was properly VfD’d, and then failed to be undeleted through VfU, Rangerdude began voting keep on several other articles up for VfU at the same time. [123], [124], [125], [126]. He has not voted on VfU since.

Bias

Rangerdude seems primarily interested in editing articles into which he can insert conservative viewpoints both positive (Ludwig von Mises Institute) and negative (Sheila Jackson Lee). This would not be a problem, except that Rangerdude doesn’t seem to care about ensuring that articles he works on are balanced; he regularly inserts so much conservative criticism into articles that it makes them biased, then washes his hands of the article. After these additions [127], [128], [129], the article referenced contained three short paragraphs of bio information on a multi-term member of the U.S. Congress, and more than a page of cheap shots: [130]. Rangerdude left it up to others (primarily, me) to insert bio information that would serve as a balance to his additions. He later created what basically amounts to a hatchet page on her husband [131] and, similarly, on a liberal university professor [132]. When challenged on these edits and the directive on balance in WP:NPOV, Rangerdude’s response is to say, essentially, that he doesn’t have time to make it balanced (while continuing to work on other articles almost daily). [133], [134], [135], [136], [137], [138], [139], [140].

Additionally, he often justifies his biased edits with dubious sources which he deems reliable, including partisan blogs, partisan student-published tabloids, organizations with misleading mandates such as this one (which is criticized here) and unverifiable radio broadcasts [141], which he insists be retained when challenged. He has also been known to delete or oppose criticism of conservative figures (here scrubbing information critical of Tom DeLay (and edit warring in the process)): [142], [143], [144], [145], [146]). Other biased edits: [147], [148], [149].

Statement by Johntex

Rangerdude has harassed Wikipedia editors, including myself. He has violated Wikipedia policies, including WP:NPOV, WP:CIV, WP:DEL, and also Wikipedia guidelines, including WP:POINT.

Much of his harassing behavior is an attempt to inject his POV into article, such as in the example I illustrate below, where he harasses me by maliciously listing for VfD an article I created.

POV-pushing

User:Rangerdude has shown a history of POV-pushing on Houston Chronicle. His edits attempt to include as much negative information about the paper as possible. He even admits he does not feel responsible for making balanced edits, as in this exchange:

It is not enough to add information that unbalances an article and then wash your hands of it by saying "you can add other things if you wish…” User:Katefan0

• Since edits here are made on a voluntary basis, it is more than enough..” User:Rangerdude [150]

In his attempts to create a biased article, he displays a willingness to cite any source that agrees with his POV, regardless of how un-noteworthy or biased the source. He also tries to create Wikipedia articles about these sources in an effort to bolster their apparent credibility in his arguments.

Introducing spurious sources

Rangerdude created an article on Texas_Media_Watch (TMW) because he wanted to quote TMW in POV arguments he wished to make on Houston Chronicle. I looked into TMW and found evidence that it was simply a one-person “organization” pushing the agenda of Sherry Sylvester and that the “organization” had not even been active since her departure. TMW did not qualify as a reputable source to be quoting at Houston Chronicle, and she/they certainly did not meet the notability standard for her/its own article. Thus at I listed TMW for VfD. The result of the VfD discussion was "Delete": [151]

Harassment of editor

After I listed TMW for deletion, Rangerdude took a sudden interest in an article I created on college football player Dusty Mangum and listed that page for VfD. I believe he did this in an attempt to intimidate me and anyone else who might dare consider listing one of his non-notable articles for VfD. Looking at Rangerdude’s last 3 months of edits: He has made no other edits to topics relating to college football, The University of Texas at Austin, or similar topics that would lead one to believe he was interested in Dusty Mangum for any other reason than to harass me. He has nominated no other article for VfD. He rarely even votes on VfD at all.

Among this discussion on the Dusty Mangum VfD was this statement:

• Comment. Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. -Willmcw 07:14, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

To which Rangerdude made this unsigned reply:

• • Comment. Wikipedia:Don't_disrupt_Wikipedia_to_illustrate_a_point#If_you_must...

Thus, Rangerdude ‘’’admitted’’’ that he violated WP:POINT by listing Dusty Mangum on VfD solely because I had created the article. [152] This is also a violation of WP:DEL which states that users should sign their posts of VfD pages. The VfD result on Dusty Mangum was "Keep" [153]

According to Rangerdude's own postings, he has shown himself to be harassing me. He is causing serious detriment to the project.

Statement by Rangerdude

Given the timing of this dispute and the editors involved in it, I can only respond by noting that it appears to be a frivolous retaliatory move by User:Willmcw against me for filing a request for arbitration against him and User:SlimVirgin following an extensive pattern of harassment and belligerency by both of these editors towards myself. It should also be noted that this is not the first time that Willmcw has made retaliatory complaints against other users who have reported him for violation of Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Willmcw filed a similar frivolous retaliatory RfC against me in June 2005 [154] the evening after I posted my initial complaint report against him on the incident noticeboard for wikistalking.[155]

As I detailed and documented at length in my arbitration case against Willmcw [156] and in a list of evidence assembled for that case and its related RfCs [157], Willmcw has engaged in a continuous pattern of harassment and wiki-stalking against myself since shortly after I arrived on wikipedia. In my experience with Willmcw I have found him to be an extremely vocal POV pusher who actively promotes a liberal/leftist viewpoint in his edits and appears to harass other editors who differ with this viewpoint both on political and non-political articles alike. He has done this to me since we first encountered each other and I have seen him treat other editors who come from conservative or libertarian viewpoints similiarly. His stalking of me includes his following me to over 40 different articles on such diverse subject matters as United States trade law, astronomy, libertarian philosophy, the American Civil War, historians, think tanks, newspaper and radio outlets, and academic biographies. As I described in detail here, many of these cases of following were for the explicit purpose of disrupting and harassing my edits including staging challenges against settled and documented factual material and generally trolling for reasons to delete, disrupt, or even make minor unnecessary alterations to my contributions on wikipedia for no other reason than the fact that I am the one who made them. As Willmcw noted, this did indeed lead to me filing an RfC against him and another user over POV pushing and belligerency on the Ludwig von Mises Institute article (located here). What he fails to inform you of are the reasons behind this RfC, which included a blatantly inappropriate attempt by Willmcw to disrupt this article's content with quotations from David Duke, the notorious Ku Klux Klan activist.[158] Other inappropriate behavior by Willmcw on this article included attempts to disguise edits in which he removed content as "adding citations" [159] and censoring out sourced material that differed from his political POV[160]. It should also be noted that several other editors involved in that article concurred that this behavior was inappropriate and others who read the RfC subsequently helped with extensive work on the LVMI article to remove the biased and inappropriate material Willmcw was pushing there at the time.

I find it unusual that User:Katefan0 and User:Johntex would choose to join this arbitration request based almost entirely upon an ongoing editing dispute at the Houston Chronicle article. As the matters involving the Houston Chronicle article are currently the subject of a still-pending mediation case [161] on that article, I consider it inappropriate and premature that they would seek to join Willmcw's arbitration case as other dispute resolution mechanisms on that article have NOT yet been exhausted, and as far as I am aware all parties to that dispute had previously agreed to mediation including Katefan0, who described her position there at length.[162] I also suspect that this move by Katefan0 may be in part retaliatory dating back to an unrelated disagreement we had many months ago on the Jim Robinson article. From that time until the present Katefan0 has been occassionally following my edits to such articles as the Houston Chronicle, Sheila Jackson Lee, various VfD's and RfA's, RfC's I have initiated on other unrelated matters (including the earlier stages of the dispute with Willmcw) and most recently Wikipedia:Stalking - typically for the purpose of opposing whatever position I am advocating or voting against whatever way I vote, seemingly for no other reason than for my involvement. This particular editor also has very strong political opinions on many articles and frequently confuses differences of opinion with "personal attacks" on herself. Thus, opposing her opinion on article content, article subject matter, a wikipedia administrative matter, or even a vote is, in her mind, "personal attacks" or "bullying." This description has been applied by her to dozens of links to our past disputes in her case above, yet virtually every one of them is a content dispute where she has mistaken differences on wording or opinion for a personal affront to herself.

I am at loss for an explanation of what could have induced JohnTex to seek this case beyond the fact that he was on Katefan0's side of the Houston Chronicle dispute (and was personally recruited by her to participate there). Beyond that, I have not even had substantial interaction with JohnTex on wikipedia since early June! As I have no current disputes with JohnTex and rarely if ever even encounter him on wikipedia, and as his case her pertains entirely to subjects involving an article that is currently still in mediation, I see little purpose that his arbitration request could accomplish. I do find it curious that he would choose to make WP:POINT allegations against me for a VfD at the time of the Houston Chronicle dispute given that he himself was simultaneously VfD'ing new pages I created for WP:POINT reasons[163] and consider it outright bizarre that he would try to make a case upon the fact that I forgot to sign a single message post out of dozens in my exchanges with him. Such behavior on his part could rightly be described as a nitpicking personal vendetta and appears to offer very little if anything of relevance wikipedia's quality, content, or even genuine editing disputes. Rangerdude 03:52, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by third party (Willmcw RFA v Rangerdude): FuelWagon

I already posted my comment about Rangerdude's RFC against Cberlet and Willmcw in this diff. It is my statement as a third party in the Rangerdude RFA against Wilmcw and SlimVirgin bookmarked here. That comment applies to this RFA as well. FuelWagon 20:36, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (2/0/0/0)

• Accept. Merge into below case, if both are accepted. James F. (talk) 22:24, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
• Accept and merge Fred Bauder 19:10, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

Maoririder

Involved parties

Party 1 (Initiators)

• Satori
• Soltak | Talk
• Scimitar ^parley
• DES ^(talk)
• Lucky 6.9
• ike9898 14:45, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Party 2

• User:Maoririder, his suspected sockpuppets Riverofdreams, Cursa, Newsreporter, and anonymous editing at 130.111.105.203 and 130.111.96.164

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

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

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• User talk:Maoririder is quickly approaching 10,000 words, all of it attempts to mentor this user.
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Maoririder was opened on 16 August.
• On 19 August, attempts were made to reach out to Maoririder and help him respond to the RfC [164] [165], also at one of his anon's talks [166].

Statement by party 1

Maoririder has been disrupting the Wikipedia community in a unique way. He seems to highly enjoy creating an extremely high volume of new articles, but almost always created incredibly short stubs. Examples: [167] [168]. Sometimes, he will tag his own articles for cleanup or expand [169].

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

He has on several occasions posted to a VfD discussion's talk page, rather than the discussion page itself, even though it has been pointed out to him that this is improper. [170]

As of late, he has taken to disrupting Wikipedia:Reference Desk by asking inane questions, often several in a short period of time. [171] [172] [173] are three examples from a slew of edits made within minutes.

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

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

Statement by party 2

Please limit your statement to 500 words

Statement by 3rd party CVaneg

I think this edit: [174] in which Maoririder seems to acknowledge the annoying behavior of one of his sock puppets is a good reason to not assume good faith --CVaneg 20:05, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

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

Statement by some random outsider

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

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

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (2/0/0/0)

• Accept. James F. (talk) 22:16, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
• Accept, more for violation of community consensus than for breaking of specific rules. Fred Bauder 19:03, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

UninvitedCompany

Involved parties

• -Ril- ("party 1")
• UninvitedCompany ("party 2")

Summary

• Abuse of adminship
• Blocking, permanently, without support from the arbitration comittee, a user who opposes the admin's POV being pushed

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• -Ril- is the initiating party
• UninvitedCompany has been made aware

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Prior RFC - Wikipedia:Requests for comment/UninvitedCompany resulted in name calling against -Ril- by -Ril-'s "enemies"
• Statements at WP:AN/I mostly resulted in name calling, despite having partial support from two arbitrators - [175] [176]

• • AHEM! Haven't you forgotten the Mediation Committee? (Me and Brandon Yusuf had an outstandingly successful mediation.) Uncle Ed 02:40, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by party 1 (-Ril-)

Getting inappropriately involved in Edit Wars

• An important detail is that UninvitedCompany is anti-Islamic in the extreme (UninvitedCompany admits this)
• Religious conflict and Islam was the subject of an edit war over alleged anti-Islamic POV between Germen (who has strong anti-Islamic views - see Germen's RFC that was co-signed by 3 editors, and endorsed by 10 more) and -Ril- (the differences between Germen and -Ril-'s versions)
• UninvitedCompany protected Religious conflict and Islam at Germen's version (on 6th august - it is still protected three weeks later)
  • While there definitely was an edit war going on, someone with an extreme POV on the issue shouldn't really be getting involved in protecting a version that supports their extreme POV
• The Bible and history was the subject of an edit war over a week between Noitall and -Ril- (the differences between Noitall and -Ril-'s versions).
  • Important background notes:Noitall is an editor with a right wing christian agenda e.g.
    • calling Mustafaa "beyond redemption"
    • being one of the founders - the number 2 - of Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians for Decency
    • see also Noitall's user page)
    • particularly with regards to Islam and its position as an Abrahamic religion e.g.
      • Ishmael,
      • Abraham
    • etc., and related "Islamic" issues - e.g. Suicide Bombing
  • I am pointing this out only to demonstrate that Noitall's views on Islam are not exactly pro-Islamic, and thus would find support with UninvitedCompany's "extremely anti-Islamic" POV
• UninvitedCompany protected The Bible and History at Noitall's version (on 10th august - it is still protected two weeks later)
  • The time between -Ril-'s edit and Noitall's was 1 hour and 40 minutes
  • The time between Noitall's edit and UninvitedCompany's protection was 5 minutes
  • Therefore I alledge that UninvitedCompany deliberately waited for Noitall to make the edit before protecting the page.

Taking revenge for preventing POV pushing

• UninvitedCompany then blocked (at 01:14 7th August UTC) -Ril- alledging a violation of 3RR
  • Ril's 4 previous edits were at 22:51 5 August 2005 UTC, 23:00 5 August 2005 UTC, 08:58 6 August 2005 UTC, 23:12 6 August 2005 UTC
  • Between 22:51 5 August UTC and 22:51 6 August UTC, there were 3 reverts
  • Between 23:00 5 August UTC and 23:00 6 August UTC, there were 2 reverts
  • Between 23:11 5 August UTC and 23:11 6 August UTC, there was 1 revert
  • The edit at 23:12 6 August 2005 therefore constitutes the 2nd revert in 24 hours
  • There is no 1RR rule.
  • -Ril- was not personally subjected to a specially created 1RR nor a 2RR rule
  • There is also no reason to block for 72 hours rather than only 24
• When challanged about the block, Uninvited company admits he broke the blocking policy, but won't do anything about it
  • -Ril- was later unblocked by a responsible admin

Taking further revenge

• -Ril- later made an edit to Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians for Decency in order to provide illustrations and examples as per normal "ideal article" principles including
  • A renaissance image that is usually considered decent, together with a modern photograph of a similar, and indeed more clothed, pose, to demonstrate how ideas of decency vary depending on the context of use, not the raw image
  • an image of two women that wouldn't be that indecent if it was added to illustrate Lesbian
  • An image of a nude in shadow suitable to illustrate shadow, demonstrating that nudity can be quite artistic, particularly in fine art
  • An image from the Stanley Kubrick film "eyes wide shut" to illustrate the section discussing "full frontal nudity"
• Violet/Riga claimed this was vandalism, and blocked -Ril- for 24 hours
• During discussion of this block on -Ril-'s talk page, UninvitedCompany blocked -Ril- indefinitely (03:34 18 August 2004)
• UninvitedCompany then vandalised -Ril-'s User page
• UninvitedCompany also organised a lynch mob
• and UninvitedCompany additionally protected -Ril-'s talk page so that -Ril- was completely unable to respond at all
  • UninvitedCompany claimed this was due to the images placed there (the same images placed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians for Decency, for the purposes of discussing their merits, and permissable usage)
    • If UninvitedCompany has a problem with the images then they should be taken to WP:IFD
    • If the images have survived IFD or haven't been taken there, then the community clearly doesn't have a problem with them
    • Additionally, User space can be used how that user wishes, consistent with not breaking laws, etc., e.g. User:Evil Monkey/Nudity (now deleted by Evil Monkey to avoid being brought into issues with Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians for Decency)

Summary

UninvitedCompany is clearly an involved user, who clearly has an opinion of -Ril-, and is clearly, and self-admittedly, extremely anti-Islamic, in contrast to -Ril-. Therefore, UninvitedCompany should not be blocking -Ril- unilaterally, or indefinitely.

Requested Temporary injuctions

I, -Ril-, would like, solely for the duration of this RFAR, the following temporary injunctions

• UninvitedCompany to be de-sysopped ("adminship is no big deal, so why should de-adminship be" - paraphrase of Ed Poor)
• -Ril- to be unblocked
• -Ril-'s talk page to be unprotected
• UninvitedCompany to be prohibited from editing -Ril-'s user page

--~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 15:19, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by party 2 (UninvitedCompany)

My position, and that of the Wikipedia community, with regard to -Ril- is already summarized at these locations:

• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/UninvitedCompany
• User talk:-Ril-/ban

I would be happy to provide a further statement if any of the arbiters request it.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 13:17, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Statements by other parties

Michael Snow

Please note that -Ril- is still subject to the indefinite block imposed by UninvitedCompany. -Ril- has resorted to a number of sockpuppets and IP addresses to evade the block. There has been a notable lack of enthusiasm for lifting this block (this is what -Ril- characterizes as a "lynch mob"). Given the concerns expressed by two arbitrators and alluded to by -Ril-, I offered to lift it if the Arbitration Committee devised an appropriate temporary injunction against -Ril-, but no such injunction has been forthcoming.

Additionally, a number of users suspect -Ril- to be a reincarnation of banned user Lir. Actually, I personally do not believe this, but have instead come to the conclusion that -Ril- is a different banned user. Based on language and IP evidence, -Ril- is clearly British, whereas Lir as I recall was in the US. Additionally, -Ril- has a couple notable characteristics, a tendency to latch onto particular biblical topics, and a habit of naming sockpuppet accounts along a particular theme. This combination leads me to believe that -Ril- is another notoriously disruptive user of sockpuppets, specifically CheeseDreams. --Michael Snow 16:13, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Phroziac

This has gone a little too far, in my opinion. It is gaming the system to make a fourth revert 24:20 after the first, and say it is not 3rr. There is never an excuse to violate 3rr. I have never violated 1rr personally. The block was an obvious example of a perfect IAR use. WikiProject Wikipedians for Decency did not need pictures of "indecency". This is no different then putting a picture of a penis on the main page. UninvitedCompany should probably not use admin features on a page he has a very strong POV in, except for obvious vandalism, 3rr, etc. An indefinite block is not the same as permanent, and UninvitedCompany was well within IAR to do that. The "vandalism" on -Ril-'s userpage was useful information, but perhaps it should not have been blanked. There is nothing wrong with those images, but they are there to illustrate articles in the encyclopedia. They are not there to put on wikiprojects, the main page, or anywhere else that they obviously do not belong. That was not a lynch mob. -Ril- should not excessively use loaded words to push his argument. This RFAr is very silly. --Phroziac ^(talk) 23:40, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by User:Ed Poor

It's not true that UninvitedCompany is pushing any POV, least of all an anit-Islamic one. Ril has misconstrued UC's reply to a comment Ril made (see diff).

Furthermore, it is a complete waste of everyone's time to allow an RFArb for this sort of thing. Ril is not helping this project, and is abusing this page to thwart UC's enforcement of policy.

This entire RFArb amounts to a personal attack on UC and is in itelf ample grounds for a ban. I would have done it myself, if UC hadn't beat me to it.

Wikipedia accounts are only for those who are trying to help organize and present the world's knowledge. Those who interfere with, or thwart, this goal should be shown to the door. Uncle Ed 16:43, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by smoddy

I urge the Arbitration Committee to take on the views of the community. -Ril- made the point himself that no-one had unblocked him. If anyone seriously thought he should be unblocked, he would have been. No admin has seen fit to unblock him. Many have supported the block on the relevant page. The Wikipedia community does not want -Ril- around. It would be foolish to unban -Ril- simply because there was no reason in policy for the block. Sometimes what is needed goes beyond policy, hence we have Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. If any editor is really unhappy that -Ril- has gone, I urge them to come and say their piece. But, in my opinion, UC has done a great service. [[smoddy]] 18:05, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Bmicomp

The mere fact that nobody has unblocked -Ril-, but instead congratulated TUC on the block speaks volumes. From Wikipedia:Banning policy:

"The decision to ban a user can arise from four places. Bans from all places are equally legitimate.

1. The Wikipedia community, taking decisions according to appropriate community-designed policies with consensus support, or (more rarely) following consensus on the case itself. The quickpolls policy was one example of this. Some editors are so odious that not one of the 500+ admins will unblock them."

Statement by Klonimus

Ril is a disruptive user, if there is any controversy about TUC's actions they should she be merged into the Ril Case, and delt with in that context. Given the general issue with slowness of ArbCom, TUC was being predictive of what that outcome would be. Klonimus 23:35, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

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

• Accept Fred Bauder 13:58, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
• Reject. →Raul654 16:46, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
• Accept; possible merge into current case? James F. (talk) 22:14, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous Editor 24.147.97.230 and other addresses

Involved parties

• Party 1 (requesting arbitration): Robert McClenon
• Party 2 (against whom arbitration is requested): 24.147.97.230 and other addresses.

Statement by party 1

Either a single anonymous editor, using multiple IP addresses but primarily 24.147.97.230 , or multiple anonymous editors, have been engaged in an extended edit war on the Ted Kennedy page, and now also the Rosemary Kennedy page.

A complete list of addresses in use is found at Wikipedia: Requests for comment/24.147.97.230.

There are two issues, content issues and conduct issues. I am not asking the ArbCom to resolve the content issues. However, the conduct issues make it impossible to resolve the content issues. The page has been under page protection twice in the past two months to stop the edit wars and revert wars.

The content issues are whether particular sections that are negative to Ted Kennedy and to Joseph Kennedy Sr. should be included. The majority of signed-in editors think that these sections are non-encyclopedic and should not be included. The anonymous editors have insisted on continuing to add (revert) the same sections. They have accused the other editors of failing to negotiate in good faith.

The first content issue was the inclusion of an external link to an attack web site from the Ted Kennedy page. Multiple anonymous IP addresses added the link, no more than three addresses in a 24-hour period, which appears to be gaming the system. The page was then protected by an admin. After some search for a mediator, Kelly Martin agreed to try to mediate. This resulted in her conclusion that there was a consensus against inclusion of the link.

The anonymous editors have now tried to add the link to the web site for Rosemary Kennedy, who was only a victim and should not be the subject of having her family ridiculed. Claims that there was a consensus against the inclusion of the link are being rejected.

There were two more revert wars over the inclusion of material of little encyclopedic value. Editors who think that these paragraphs should not be included have been willing to have quickpolls on their relevance. However, the anonymous editors have altered the polls, and have accused their opponents (incorrectly) of POV pushing and disregard for consensus.

Since discussion is not working, and requests for other methods of discussion are not working, I request arbitration as a last resort.

ArbCom actions requested by party 1

I am requesting, as an interim measure, that the ArbCom issue a temporary injunction against anonymous edits to the Ted Kennedy and Rosemary Kennedy articles until this matter is arbitrated.

When the ArbCom accepts this case, I request that the principles cited include a statement that disputes should be resolved by consensus, but that consensus does not mean unanimous consent. (These anonymous editors are arguing, based on competing dictionary definitions, that consensus does mean unanimity, and so are demanding a liberum veto.) I also request that a statement be made that, in an encyclopedia, which is a compendium of knowledge, editorial judgment is required as to what is appropriate for inclusion in an encyclopedia.

Statement by party 2

Please limit your statement to 500 words

Hello, I'm not sure exactly what User:Robert McClenon is really looking for here. This user has filed FOUR RFCs to have users blocked in 30 days, the same 30 days of his new membership. I am the target of one of these RFCs. This is an average of one per week. As to my conduct, my conduct is proper. The issues I have involve a group of editors who delete and revert material on pages related to Kennedys. They are extreme POV pushers and refuse to negociate. As to User:Robert McClenon, If he can give a specific and exact description of what his is looking to come to an agreement on I would be willing to participate. It is a bit of a surprise as this user wrote this today, "I have no interest in mediation with any anonymous editor. Robert McClenon 22:32, 21 August 2005 (UTC)" 24.147.97.230 02:47, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Interested third parties

I urge ArbCom to deal with this matter. This editor's conduct has not been proper in any way, shape, or form. This IP address initially started editing here by inserting a promotional link for the fatboy.cc anti-Kennedy website and now is intent on inserting large chunks of material derived from that website. S/he has unleashed an army of sockpuppets to start a revert war to insert two large, POV sections of dubious encyclopedic value. A large consensus of editors of numerous political persuasions opposes the insertion of the material in its current form. Instead of seeking a compromise or an alternative way to insert some of the same facts in the article (as many of those editors have repeatedly stated they were open to) this editor insists that everyone who disagrees with the insertion of those two sections is a pro-Kennedy partisan, a vandal, a POV warrior, etc., etc. This editor is essentially a one issue POV war and this sort of anti-wiki behavior should be stopped now. Gamaliel 04:49, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

If taken to ArbCom, Gamaliel needs to be a party to this. He/She is one of the most POV editors at the Kennedy Site and has co-written an RFC against me. 24.147.97.230 15:50, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

For the record, I did not write the RFC, though I did sign it, as did four other editors to date, and I agree with what Robert McClenon wrote. Also, if I am drafted into this proceeding, so should the rest of the ten or so editors who have participated in forming the consensus against 24.147's POV edits in that article. Gamaliel 16:12, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

comment from third party (Robert McClenon RFA v 24.147.97.230): FuelWagon

My involvment in this article was to post a reply to an article RFC some time ago regarding whether or not the article should include the "fatboy.cc" link. My comment at the time was something to the effect that the website seemed one step above juvenile bathroom humor, its only claim to fame is several pictures of Kennedy's naked stomach and a picture with a roadmap superimposed over his nose. This site is equivalent to finding a comment about someone scribbled on a bathroom wall with anatomically correct sketches included. I consider the site to be an embarrassment to be listed on wikipedia. And to use policy-language: it is unencyclopedic and non-notable. a number of editors agreed [177] and the consensus seemed to be drop it. several anon IP editors voted to keep the link, but user jpgordon pointed out that most of these anon votes are from IP addresses that made only 1 edit[178], which would indicate ballot stuffing by one of the editors engaged in the dispute or the strangest voting dynamic I've seen on wikipedia. Despite consensus to drop it, 24.147.97.230 continues to push to have the fatboy.cc website listed. The ballot stuffing incident and the insistence to include a grout-writing URL despite consensus to drop it (at least among the registered users) is enough of a red-flag that good faith can no longer be assumed and that processes for dispute resolution that require good-faith (RFC's and mediation) will not work. FuelWagon 00:15, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

RE: ballot stuffing. In any wikipedia poll, I could find a website or mailing list or blog that supports my position and spam them saying "hey people, wikipedia is trying to suppress your point of view. Your vote is needed now!" or some equally partisan bit of propaganda, give them a URL to a wikipedia talk page with the poll in question, and then sit back and watch the votes tally up. I could do that, but I wouldn't. To me, polls are among editors who are actually doing the work, making the contributions, and investing the time to make the article better. i.e. polls are a way for editors to resolve disputes amongst themselves. The idea of getting outside, non-contributers to vote in a poll simply to force the result a certain way is not what I would call a good-faith attempt to resolve a dispute between editors who are actually working and contributing to an article. FuelWagon 14:53, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Previous Dispute Resolution

There have been three previous article Requests for Comments to try to resolve these content and conduct issues.

There was one previous attempt at mediation (via a non-MedCom procedure), by Kelly Martin. She concluded that there was a consensus against adding the "fatboy.cc" link to the Ted Kennedy site. However, the advocates of adding the link dispute the claim of consensus.

Please understand that I, the "anon" initiated this previous attempt at mediation and contacted Kelly Martin24.147.97.230 02:51, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Since a previous RFM has not resulted in a truce, I have no reason to believe that mediation will have any effect again.

A Request for Comments was posted about the conduct of the anonymous editors. Their response was to post a Request for Comments about my conduct. This does not seem to provide any evidence that they are willing to try to change their conduct.

Again, please understand the user Robert McClenon has posted the above mentioned RFC...as he has done to 3 other users in 30 days, his first 30 days at Wikipedia24.147.97.230 02:51, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

This arbitration request is premature. The last step of dispute resolution should be a request for arbitration. User:Robert_McClenon has, to date, refused to engage in mediation with User:24.147.97.230,[179]. An attempt at mediation should always be made before it reaches this stage.--Agiantman 21:33, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Response to claim of premature arbitration request:

1. Mediation, as noted above and below, has been attempted. I see no reason to delay arbitration simply to permit another round of mediation, which I expect will not result in a compromise, to delay arbitration.
2. The above statement that the RfAr is premature is being filed by someone who is not a first, second, or third party to this proceeding at this time. I have stated that I am willing to go to mediation with Agiantman, but not with 24.147.97.230. Robert McClenon 22:44, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Confirmation of Parties' Awareness

1. Party 1 Robert McClenon 01:43, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
2. Party 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:24.147.97.230&diff=21539886&oldid=21536212

Statement by involved third party

I was invited to mediate a dispute on this article related to the inclusion of a specific external link. However, I concluded that the dispute was not mediatable as there was no middle ground that the parties would consider acceptable. The parties were (understandably) unwilling to submit to third-party arbitration of the acceptability of the link. At that point, I listed the issue on RFC and a reasonably civil discussion ensued, in which a number of editors (all save one posting from anonymous addresses) argued in support of the link, and a number of established Wikipedians argued against inclusion of the link. At the point where it appeared to me that the discussion had terminated, I offered my opinion as to the apparent consensus of the Wikipedia community regarding the issue. At the time the lead anon advocating for this link (the only one with any significant edit history) appeared to accept that conclusion. I have not, however, continued to monitor the article after the point at which the dispute seemed to be resolved, nor have I monitored the editing of any of the parties on other related or unrelated articles.

It is my impression that the flock of anons are not sockpuppets of the lead anon, but instead distinct likeminded individuals acting at his direction or urging: this appears to be a "grassroots" effort to influence Wikipedia consensus rather than a single individual trying to appear to be more than one person. Kelly Martin 18:58, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

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

• Abstain, for the time being. →Raul654 02:54, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. James F. (talk) 11:42, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
• Recuse Fred Bauder 14:25, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

User:DreamGuy

Involved parties

• User:DreamGuy
• User:Gavin the chosen/User:Gabrielsimon
• User:Elvenscout742
• User:Eequor

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

dreamguy notified here [180]

its notable to stae that this was removed, as was all mention of this proceeding as claims of harassment abound more, in edit summaries.Gavin the Chosen 21:36, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

I have tried beiong rasonable, he refuses to negociate, and calls me harsasing, or vandal, or worse. i have gone as far as switching accounts, a few tiems not to well, to try to distance myself from him, so that we could both continue to edit in peace, that didnt work, i have tried an RFC, one of the resolution points was that he would try to bve civil, this hasnt happened, i can see no further recourse for an incurably incivil person such as he.Gavin the Chosen 02:27, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Though I do not support this nomination whatsoever, as it looks like pure revenge, I would like to save people the time and link to the earlier RFCs - Wikipedia:Requests for comment/DreamGuy-2 Wikipedia:Requests for comment/DreamGuy. You would think that a remotely reasonable requester would have done kind of basic editing before sending up the request. Hipocrite 13:05, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I had been involved in a content dispute regarding whether metamorphosis merited a reference in the lead section of Therianthropy (see Talk:Therianthropy#Reverts by Eequor). At the time I believed the issue had been resolved adequately, but DreamGuy apparently does not feel it had been (see below), and this leads me to believe his actions have not been motivated by good faith. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 11:38, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Gavin the Chosen

See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/DreamGuy/Statement

Statement by Eequor

In my view, DreamGuy has an ongoing interest to push a defamatory point of view into the articles on therianthropy and otherkin. This seems to consist mainly of emphasizing similarities between these subjects and clinical lycanthropy, a mental illness; see [181] and [182]. He has additionally made statements which demonstrate a clear bias against these cultures ([183], [184]); in light of these, it is difficult to believe he edits in good faith. I feel he should be forbidden from editing Therianthropy, Otherkin, and Clinical lycanthropy.

statement DreamGuy

This is a spurious charge bringing up mostly ancient history by someone who is all but blocked in his own RfAr for countless proven cases of uncivility, admitted sockpuppeting, extreme serial 3RR violations, removing other people's edits to try to hide things, etc. I bend over backwards to try to work with him, being far, far more civil to him than he is to me or anyone else for that matter (see his recent edits where he calls everyone who disagrees with him about Otherkin as "delusional" and "paranoid" "out to get him" etc.), and when he doesn't get his own way (running me off articles completely so he can make highly biased edits) he complains that I have a problem. He also tried to file a RfAr against me under one of his sockpuppets accounts earlier (I think Ketrovin, perhaps Khulhy, a quick check through history should find it) and was rightly spurned, and the second RfC in question that he refers to was closed amicably by all parties involved except for him. This is a bad faith revenge RfAr because I keep reporting him for violations and he keeps getting blocked.

Further, Vashti's claim below that I am uncivil is also odd, considering that he was called me a prima donna who he doesn't have to listen to and edit warred against consensus on several articles (the ones Gavin is involved in). Perhaps his complete is sincere, but he should use the standard conflict resolution process instead of jumping in and trying to egg on a bad faith complaint by an editor who has already agreed to serial blocking starting with a month ban as a way to avoid even more serious actions against him for his chronic and purposeful policy violations. It's only too bad that his punishment hasn;t started yet, as whenever he gets back from a temporary block he's back immediately to blind reverts, edit warring, outrageous personal attacks and nonsense complaints that just waste everyone's time. DreamGuy 11:46, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

I also need to further point out here that Elvenscout (who assisted Gabriel/Gavin's filing here) is not some random editor assisting but the person who started many of the edit wars that Gabriel and others with a known history of joinging up to blind revert my chances jumped in on, which formed the basis of the RfC Gabriel was involved in. He called for a RfC and then oddly did not sign it himself, though his conflict with me formed the largest number of alleged evidence of my bad behavior. Because he did not sign it, when the other editors' past histories were checked (and were shown to have been acting in bad faith and purposefully trying to harass me so that they could report when I slipped and made uncivil comments while trying to hide their far worse examples of doing so) his previous bad faith went unexamined. Considering that he followed me to articles he knew I had lon histories on for the sole purpose of erasing the major improvements I had made (see Mythology, for example) and explaining that he finds all of my edits worthless, I do think his bad faith must be examined as well.

And, as much as it pains me to say it, at this point there is nothing left for me to believe than that User:SlimVirgin, has, in demonstrateably proven acts, decided to personally harass me as well, hiding behind her actions as an admin. On a conflict where Gabriel/Gavin was trying to push his POV on the Otherkin article, she made a statement about policy that Gabriel used to rationalize his bad faith edits. When I pointed out that she had interpreted the policy incorrectly, she was quite rude, and then inserted herself into the article directly, both arguing for a position and then later acting like she was a neutral admin just stepping in to help prevent conflict. As soon as Gabriel saw an Admin disagree with me he jumped on this opportunity and recreuited her as his favored contact point whenever he had a complaint. Unfortunately, rather than research his history, she took his side, and has been doing so ever since, even in the face of undeniable evidence of extreme POV pushing, constant 3RR violations and bad faith. She stepped in and called me a problem editor and threatened to block me but had no justification for doing so. I told her she was out of order and that's not how admins should act. She told me I needed to apologize to her or she would block me. I again told her that that was inappropriate and that I felt she was biased due to our earlier disagreement on Otherkin and that I would not justiy myself to her when it was clear that she was not acting in good faith. This was before she had anything at all to even justify saying anything, mind you. Because of her public stance against me, others who had personal conflicts with me went to her to complain. She did not even btoher to look to see if their claims were bogus or not. For example, User:Evmore (a user who had stated straight out he would blind revert any changes I made on Vampire and who had uploaded a string of copyright violation photos which I had pointed out to him) falsely claimed I had violated 3RR "six or seven times" at which point SlimVirgin showed up "warning" me that there were complaints and that I could be blocked unless I explained myself. I told her on her talk page that she had completely overstepped her bounds and that I would not deal with her on this issue and that she needed to send another admin, any admin, because it was clear that she was not taking the steps to investigate the claims made against me and was only out to threaten me. I had removed her accusation from my talk page because it was false and prejudicial, she removed my comment on hers (claiming she contolled her page) yet restored her comment on mine (warning me that I was not allowed to remove comments). I responded back angrily because she herself was not following the rules she was just then claiming I wasn't following, so I again removed her comments from my talk page and pointed out that if she could remove from hers I sure as heck could remove from mine. At this point she again threatened to block me, and then emailed me and asked me to explain myself or that she would block me. I responded back forcefully again that she was not acting in a neutral manner and that I would not respond to her and that she needed to send someone else if she wanted a response. She of course called me rude (ignoring her own rudeness) and said straight out that she was not going to remove herself and that she was going to make a special case out of me. At this point she blocked me, ostensibly for the 3RR violation reported to her that she did not investigate. I emailed a number of admins about this, and meanwhile one posted to the 3RR area that I had, in fact, not violated 3RR and that she had not investigated the situation properly. She then unblocked me and sent me another email telling me I was rude and a horrible editor but than I was unblocked.

Unfortunately things have not gotten all that much better since then. She has stepped in to act as Gabriel's defender, asking that people report his violations to her directly instead of through normal channels, and she has made highly questionable decisions there. When he started making sockpuppets, she actually encouraged him to do so, justifying it in her head as a way to try to get away from my supposed "overzealousness" -- when in fact he had already broken 3RR 8 times and constantly violated other policies nonstop. She said she'd block him for any violations he did but has only done so when his actions have gone so far beynd the pale that she had no other choice, treating him far more leniently than a newbie would be treated for the same offenses, let alone someone with his long history. For example, just today Gabriel/Gavin violated 3RR on both Therianthropy and Clinical lycanthropy and instead of blocking him like she probably would for anyone else, let alone someone with something like 15 blocks for 3RR on the various names he has used, she let him off with a warning! This despite her promises on his RfC sthat she'd be watching him like a hawk and blocking him if he even insulted anyone, which she defintiely has not done. Her bright idea of suggesting a solution to the problem was she asked if I would permanently ban myself from the articles Otherkin and Therianthropy so Gabriel could continue to edit these without my influence... I of course refused, because I am not the one under punishment here, I did nothing wrong, and she's treating me like I am worse than Gabriel -- mind you someone who had an RfC with 30 people signing to say that he violated policies (and even a person who was in n his original RfC on his side came over and presented evidence against Gabriel on his RfC), who is undergoing RfAr with the current recommendation of serial blocks starting at a month for any violation, and so forth and so on. SlimVirgin has also inserted herself into a number of other situations solely to oppose whatever I was arguing. I would note that in many situations where she jumped in, she ended up on the proven incorrect side later, such as Gabriel here, Evmore (whose images that she defended were removed by others as copyright violation), people who ended up being proven sockpuppets of banned User:Enviroknot and so forth.

Frankly, if anything, I think I have managed to be extremely civil considering the amazing level of harassment leveled against me by Gabrielsimon/Khulhy/Ketrovin/Gavin the Chosen, SlimVirgin, and a couple of others who want to try to use the preexisting conflicts with others to try to jump past any cofnlcit resolution and simply pile on accusations.

I would encourage any admin considering whether to bring this to RfAr to look at Gabriel's RfAr and consider that once he is blocked (which seems inevitable at this point for at least a month, as described there) that the primary cause of any alleged uncivil behavior I have done will be gone. Once the proverbial monkey is off my back -- and other editors don;t have his conflict to piggyback on -- this place will be much less stress-free. I mean, for crying out loud, even with all the clear instructions to him that he must leave me alone he emailed me earlier today with a message "You are such an idiot to think people are harassing you!" and blahbalh blah. Yeah, clearly I must be an idiot to think that people who go out of their way to call me names and cause problems are harassing me. DreamGuy 09:33, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Im sorry, but i do not beleive that trying to gently tell you the truth of matters, to TRY to make you see that your doing this crazed "everyones out to get me" ruoutine to everyone, admins, and squeakbox, and me, and so many others, constitutes what you said.Gavin the Chosen 10:10, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

and for the record, what you placed in quotes ins not acutally a quoteGavin the Chosen 02:27, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Interested third parties

Statement by third party Friday

I have found Dreamguy to be needlessly rude and combative. He also frequently removes comments from his talk page, often with uncivil edit summaries, as here and here. He seems to have problems with many, many editors. Friday (talk) 22:04, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I think you've got a blindspot here. The Wikipedia:Civility policy includes not restoring personal attacks [185] on my talk page that I removed as inappropriate, would it not? And you realize that I am perfectly within my rights to use my talk page for what I like, and that removing comments is not uncivil, while putting them there when you know you are not being at all civil about how you do so is highly uncivil in itself, right? So, my acting fully within my rights and rather polite comparatively against uncivil actions of other somehow makes *me* uncivil? PErhaps you need to go reread that policy. DreamGuy 22:12, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by third party Vashti

Having tried to work with DreamGuy for several months now, I agree that there is a serious problem here that needs to be sorted out, and goes far beyond the feud with User:Gabrielsimon/User:Gavin the Chosen which has recently come to the attention of ArbCom. DreamGuy is extremely aggressive in discussion and quick to take offence. He constantly violates WP:NPA and makes little attempt to assume good faith, while at the same time using these policies as a club to beat people who have been provoked by his extreme behaviour. It is likely that he has done at least some productive work here, but he appears to spend large amounts of his time on a variety of edit wars that end up disrupting many pages. Vashti 10:49, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

We really need some evidence here rather than just your opinion. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 18:07, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Gavin_the_Chosen&diff=prev&oldid=21156031 this link preceeding my words was DreamGuys response that Vashti speaks of.Gavin the Chosen 18:15, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Hm. While some of the links Gavin provided aren't in my opinion valid complaints, a lot of them are. Is that not sufficient? Vashti 18:27, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

See my comment below. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 18:57, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Here's the record of my calling DreamGuy a prima donna, by the way.

As part of User:Gavin the Chosen's RFAr, I leave a comment trying to tactfully defuse some of his antagonism towards DreamGuy. I use phrases like "you are just as bad as he is" to first acknowledge Gavin's feelings that he is entirely in the right, while trying to get him to see that he is in fact causing a large number of his own problems. [186]

DreamGuy takes offence at this and leaves a comment telling me to knock it off. [187]

I can see evidence of him taking offense. I don't see evidence of him instructing you to knock it off. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 18:07, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

"Yaknow, Vashti, it would go better if you dropped the "just as bad as he is" in referring to me.". Vashti 18:27, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

I get annoyed and leave an intemperate and uncivil comment on DreamGuy's talk page. Yes, this was totally unjustifiable and against policy and I shouldn't have done it. [188]

Vashti 12:47, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

August 2: Here is a summary of a discussion at Talk:Otherkin which DreamGuy interjected a comment into which was uncivil and assumed bad faith, a mere three hours after his RfC had closed. I've provided a detailed summary to show that this was a productive and co-operative discussion between several editors, until DreamGuy derailed it.

• 04:19, August 2: User:Friday suggests merging the subculture section of Therianthropy to Otherkin. [189]
• 04:20, August 2: ... and asks what the difference is between the two subcultures. [190]
• 04:54, August 2: ... and then suggests that perhaps Otherkin should merge to Therianthropy. [191]
• 06:15, August 2: ... and then suggests definitions for each subculture. [192]
• 07:02, August 2: I agree with Friday's definitions, and propose merging all the pages under a neutral heading. [193]
• 09:39, August 2: User:Todfox supports merging all the pages under a neutral heading. [194]
• 14:38, August 2: Friday supports merging all the pages under a neutral heading. [195]
• 15:40, August 2: ...and states that it's a chance to rewrite all the articles from scratch for increased Wiki-soundness. [196]
• 16:27, August 2: Todfox creates a new section to discuss this, and asks whether we'd be coining a neologism with this plan. [197]
• 16:32, August 2: Friday suggests that "otherkin" and subcultural use of "therianthropy" are already neologisms. [198]
• 16:44, August 2: User:ContiE says that he likes the idea of creating a merged page as an overview, but thinks that the individual subcultures should retain their own detailed pages. [199]
• 16:54, August 2: Friday states his problems with the existing pages (WP:NOR, WP:CITE). [200]
• 17:07, August 2: I provide Google counts and print references to support the terms under question, and suggest that "non-human identity subcultures" is a page heading, not a neologism. [201]
• 17:29, August 2: ContiE suggests that this is an obscure topic which is hard to find good references for, but that that shouldn't necessarily lead to the excision of information. [202]
• 21:25, August 2: DreamGuy makes his first comment in this discussion. He says that he has "seen no consensus at all for the idea of merging all these articles into one" ([203], [204], [205] demonstrate at least an emerging consensus), and describes the idea of merging under a neologism as "absolutely ridiculous", describes the removal of the medical section as "nonsense" and the claims of original research regarding that section as "rather bizarre". He then accuses Friday and myself of "an obvious calculated runaround of WP:NOR and WP:V". [206]
• 21:55, August 2: Friday says that anything would be better than the pages the article currently cites as sources. [207]
• 02:08, August 3: Todfox suggests that I should publish my own research on a website because it's not appropriate for Wikipedia. [208]
• 04:02, August 3: User:Gabrielsimon says that he doesn't like the idea of merging all the pages. [209]
• 04:41, August 3: User:SlimVirgin comments on appropriate use of sources. [210]

---

Here are some diffs from a current discussion on Talk:Otherkin where DreamGuy repeatedly assumes bad faith and accuses me of dishonesty, even after I tell him that he is mistaken. [211] [212] [213]

Here is another diff from the same discussion, where DreamGuy tells me I'm "not even trying to make sense". [214]

Here is an earlier diff from the same discussion, where DreamGuy tells me that my position is "unproven, unsupported, highly POV and I would go so far as to say highly illogical." [215]

Here is a diff from a recent discussion on Talk:Otherkin, where DreamGuy accuses me of pretending to follow policy and "excising information out of spite". [216]

Here is a later diff from another discussion, where Hipocrite has been working with Gavin to make excellent headway on a controversial point of the article. DreamGuy leaves his first comment for a while, inflaming the situation with Gavin, where leaving the situation to other editors would have achieved his aim. [217]

DreamGuy's frequent assertions of POV on the part of other editors are remarkable, considering the prejudice against the subject matter at Otherkin that he has himself expressed. [218] [219]

Here are some of DreamGuy's recent edit comments, where he accuses editors of bias. [220] [221]

Here are further examples of uncivil edit comments from DreamGuy's user space: [222] [223] [224] [225] [226] [227]

I have no doubt that, given more time, I could come up with more evidence. Vashti 07:09, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

August 26 2005: DreamGuy leaves an initial comment in a discussion on Talk:Otherkin, which he had as yet not been participating in (Talk:Otherkin#poll results), calling a comparison I had made "ridiculous", that it shows "extreme levels of bias", and that it is "one of the most unfair debating tricks in the book". I believe it is also worth noting that User:Gavin the Chosen had not been involved in this particular discussion for some days, which would appear to contradict DreamGuy's suggestion that his uncivil behaviour is entirely down to provocation by Gavin. [228] He then leaves a later comment accusing me of "making outrageous inflammatory false analogies to try and support [my] side". I believe it's worth noting that none of the editors who were participating in the discussion prior to DreamGuy (User:Friday and User:Nickptar) appear to have considered my analogy outrageous, inflammatory, etc, and I believe that if they had thought so they would have brought it up in a matter that was not likely to derail the constructive discussion that was going on. [229]. He then leaves a comment that is purely personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith. [230]

The claim that I had not as yet been participating in this discussion is completely and entirely false, as I have been involved in the discussion of that article for weeks, and specifically that conversation. I don't know if he's trying to fool people or if he's fooled himself here. The point being is that this editor tried to support his POV by making an unfair comparison to what was being to discussed to pedophiles. No matter how you cut it, that is quite beyond the pale in debating tactics, and if he feels offended by my pointing it out that should be a clue that what he did was wrong and not that I shouldn't have pointed it out. Vashti's complaints here are simply piling on to someone else's conflict to try to strike back at someone who disagrees with his POV edits. His comments to me have been the same if not worse than what he accuses me of. DreamGuy 18:48, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

The link I provided will demonstrate that you had left no comments in that section of the talk page at all, and that User:Friday, User:Nickptar and I had been holding a discussion for two days before you left the comment I linked to. Vashti 19:24, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Oh, so, you hold a conversation in one section out of many sections on a talk for two days and think that nobody else is allowed to comment, even when they have been discussing the exact same topic in other sections for months now? I don't think that's how Wikipedia works. DreamGuy 19:39, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

I have at no time said that you weren't allowed to comment. I've quoted two three instances of your launching into a discussion with an uncivil comment when you hadn't previously been involved in that discussion (or part of the discussion, if you prefer), and so there could have been no reason for you to be uncivil. Vashti 19:56, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by third party SlimVirgin

I agree with Vashti that the problems with DreamGuy go beyond DG's feud with Gavin the Chosen. I had an encounter with DreamGuy after posting (what I saw as) a friendly warning about 3RR on his talk page on August 2, which led to him making several personal attacks against me, revert warring over them on my talk page with El C, and sending similar comments by e-mail. I'll try to find the time soon to provide diffs. Arbitration would definitely be helpful, as he seems to fall out with just about everyone he encounters, and takes a proprietorial attitude toward articles he's editing, leading to revert wars, page protection, and 3RR violation reports against others (while carefully avoiding violating 3RR himself). SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:34, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

He's now accusing me of following him around, starting conflicts, breaking policy, being a rogue admin, [231] and being biased, [232] apparently because I've submitted this statement. [233]SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:16, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by third party Solipsist

If this RFAr were being brought by anyone else other than GabrielSimon/Gavin-the-Chosen I would give it some consideration. As it is, it looks like a bad faith RFAr. A couple of months ago, Gabriel persuaded User:Dbraceyrules to call for User:DreamGuy to be blocked. I advised User:Dbraceyrules that if he had a problem with DreamGuy he should initiate an RFC, which he, Gabriel and User:AI did. At the time, many outside editors considered the RFC to be bad faith, since Gabriel, Dbracey and several other editors had been warring with DreamGuy for several months. In truth it probably was a bad faith RFC, but I felt it would be wise for it to proceed as DreamGuy had demonstrably been engaging in personal attacks, even if as a response to extreme provocation. As expect the RFC was largely found to be unwarranted, although some surprising counter evidence came outl

Following the RFC, I had noticed that DreamGuy was being a lot more careful in his language, although the personal attacks haven't abated completely. Meanwhile Gabriel has engaged in quite an extreme campaign of disruption, some of which is documented in Gabriel's RFAr.

DreamGuy was mistaken to make the aggressive comments towards User:SlimVirgin documented with significant bias below. However, bear in mind that that episode occured a couple of days after the close of his RfC and before the RFAr on Gabriel had opened. At that time, Gabriel had already created several sockpuppet accounts to attack DreamGuy, had been blocked for several more 3RR violations, and was gaming the system every way he could imagine (not all of this was apparent at the time). DreamGuy also had reason to believe SlimVirgin was acting out of turn and wasn't a disintrested admin as a result of the discussion earlier that day on the Otherkin talk page (07:05, 2 August 2005).

Now truth be told, DreamGuy is prone to making uncivil comments, but then he has been fighting a one man battle against half a dozen editors and a dozen more sockpuppets for most of this year. I've recently felt obliged to interceed in a completely unrelated episode in which DreamGuy and another editor got into tit-for-tat personal attacks over a trivial disagreement about a picture. However, I would suggest waiting for the the RFAr on GabrielSimon to be concluded, then see whether DreamGuy is able to turn over a new leaf on the WikiCivility front. -- Solipsist 21:11, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

any new accounts i made were to try to get aWAY from him. this is not a " bad faith accusation" because a lot ofthis has nothing to do with me. as i have stated in my comments about this, this is not about me at all, and that should be something to keep in mind. Following DreamGuys RFC, DreamGuy didnt change his language, or tact or tactics at allGavin the Chosen 21:31, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

No, that really isn't true. I'm inclined to believe that was your intention when creating your last change of account, User:Gavin the Chosen, even if you actually used it to attempt various deceptions, before relapsing into a previous pattern of disruption and attacks. But your other two accounts from around that time, User:Ketrovin and User:Khulhy, were sockpuppets and actively engaged in the same disputes:

• voting on a VFD immediately after your GabrielSimon account 03:05, 7 August 2005
• pretending not to be a sockpuppet on GabrielSimon's RFC 19:56, 5 August 2005
• and trying to drum up an RFAr on DreamGuy 06:32, 7 August 2005.

The facts speak for themselves. -- Solipsist 22:05, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

the VFD thing was a mistake, the thing with trying to distance myself from the old name is likly quite understnadable. I have no pattern of disruption and attacks. i am simply attempting, as always , to improove articles on this site.Attempting to deny this is simply impossible, because i know my motivations better then anyone Gavin the Chosen 22:15, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by third party SqueakBox

I was doing janitorial work on 4 Rfc's, removing 2 not validated, promoting one validated, and leaving one be, and in spite of the fact that my decisions were correct I got a barrage of abuse from DreamGuy over the Rfc on Girlvinyl, which had not been endorsed by 2 people withjin 48 hours. [234] where he erroneously accuses me of making false claims and not following the rules. here he admits to giving me a hard time for for blatantly violated the rules which I had not in any way done, accusing me again of erases signature, and accusing SlimVirgin of acting solely out of bad faith because she actually agreed with me. By claiming You can't just kill off an RfC that had four signatures Dreamguy demonstrates that actually he had not checked the rfc thoroughly as the Rfc was clearly invalid. Here he accuses SlimVirgin of harassment of me by breaking policy, accusing her of pulling nonsense, encouraging sockpuppets and instigating someone else's revenge, and again falsely accuses me of erasing valid signatures. Even though the conversation was not finished he here blanks it. If honest, good faith editors are to be driven away by people like DreamGuy there will be noone left to do the janitorial work, and I find DreamGuy's uncalled for and unpleasant behavuiour and accusatiopns to be bad faith, inexcusably rude, and only made to harrass me, for reasons which I cannot even imagine as we had never met before, though to me it is clear that he had not examined the Rfc carefully and thoroughly. 2 different people have asked me to contribute to this Rfa, SqueakBox 17:41, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Squeakbox I have a question for you. Did you remove signitures from the rfc in question? Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 21:51, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

When I examined the Rfc there were 2 illegitimate signatures endorsing it. Why illegitimate? Because they were signed the 15th and the Rfc was filed on the 19th. I ignored them and put the delete template on the rfc. Later when I was being attacked for allegedly trying to delete a valid rfc, partly on the basis of these 2 illegitimate signatures, I removed them because they were illegitimate; had to be as they were from before the Rfc. It later turned out they were pasted from a talk page without the knowledge or permission of the signers, and therefore were, as was obvious from the dates, illegitimate on the Rfc. It was the person who pasted them in who was at fault, not me. I at no time removed any legitimate signatures from the Rfc, SqueakBox 22:05, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

It should be noted that I endorsed the RFC well within the 48 hours limit and would have certified it if need be but (in my and DG and those who had signed it view) it was already certified, it should also be noted that DG was actualy opposed to the RFC in question and so his opposition of the overzealouse attempt by Squeakbox to delete it was IMHO a demonstartion of his showing good faith. The RFC was even re-signed by one of the "invalid" certifiers when he realised that he had been disenfranchised, but Squeakbox and SlimVirgin refused to accept this showing a massive assumption of Bad faith on their parts! Me and DG have certainly butted heads recently (indeed over the actual RFC) but I fully support his actions over Squeakbox's in my view trolling and bullying.--ElvisThePrince 11:40, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I am strongly in a agrement that there was trolling and bullying going on that day. A question Elvis. Why were signatures dated from 4 days before the Rfc began and pasted in without the permission of the signers a valid certification? You and DG either did not bother to check whether the Rfc was valid (in which case I am suffering from your incompetence), or you deliberately trolled and hassled me for making a request that an invalid Rfc be deleted in accordance with wikipedia guidelines. Any other interpretation of events is clearly based on either your faulty memories or deliberate lies. This was a bad faith move on the part of DreamGuy accusing me of falsification, and a bad faith move on the part of Elvis supporting him and now falsely accusing me of trolling and bullying, without the slightest evidence to back him up (indeed ther only reason he is making such claims is because he knows I cannot disprove them with diffs, the worst kind of harrassment). Both users should be censored for their bad faith activities harassing a good faith user. The facts simply don't stand up to any other interpretation. Please withdraw your lies. If the history were restored this continuing harrassment would probably be the subject of an rfc (unless there were a grovelling apology from both Elvis and DreamGuy and an assurance that such activities never occur again). BTW the fact that you certified the Rfc on the 22nd, and someone else legitimately endorsed it on the 19th makes no differene. If you count you will realise these 2 dates are more than 48 hours apart. Indeed hatever anyone did on the 22nd is irrelevant to the certification as it had already failed to be endorsed within 48 hours. Please stop trolling, Elvis, SqueakBox 14:58, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

BTW the fact that you certified the Rfc on the 22nd , and someone else legitimately endorsed it on the 19th makes no differene. I endorsed in on the 20th (Special:Undelete/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/User:girlvinyl) 13 hours after it's filling. If YOU count you will realise it's well within 48 hours, I won't ask for a grovelling apology because I'm not 12.--ElvisThePrince 22:15, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Indeed you did sign. But you are one user. One user cannot endorse an Rfc. There were no other signers, as the deletion log makes clear. The second endorsement from a real person did not come until the 22nd, by which time it was too late, SqueakBox 22:24, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry are you seriously saying that the User:Carlb (the original filler) plus me = 1, seriously 1     +    1    =    1--ElvisThePrince 22:29, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Carlb never endorsed the Rfc, merely stuck the signatures of 2 people who didn't. I agree it is strange that he did not endorse the rfc that he created, but it is Carlb's strange behaviour that is at the root of this problem. Him creating the rfc was not an endorsement ass I am sure you realise, SqueakBox 22:34, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

So Creating an RFC isn't an endorsement (to endorse- to support, to back, to give one's approval' to, especially officially or by signaturewiktonary:endorse)???--ElvisThePrince 22:40, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I endorsed the RfC on the 19th, after an attempt to address the question of the 'girlvinyl' / 'encydra' / 'encydra2' IDs as sockpuppets for use in removing info on the ownership of ED was raised on the 15th on the talk pages of the affected articles and remained unresolved. Elvis endorsed this same RfC on the 20th, and then re-endorsed it also on the 20th after his comments had been removed (for whatever reason, possibly in error) by others. That two users made the error of signing the related text on the talk page on the 15th doesn't change the fact that this does have two valid signatures in the first 24 hours and is therefore a valid RfC. In retrospect, I should've taken the original description of the disputed edits (as posted to the talk page on the 15th) and posted it from the history in order to remove any edits by others which were made in error (ie: voting on the wrong page). Nonetheless, the antics which took place (revert wars and/or deletion of an RfC with two valid sigs) were uncalled for. --carlb 00:02, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

If what you say is true then the Rfc was clearly tampered with before I even saw it. There were clearly not 2 valid endorsements on it by the time I saw it, or when Slim later deleted it. The reason that 2004-12-29T22:45Z signed on the 22nd isd that there were not 2 valid endorsements, but by then it was too late. Perhaps an admin would care to look and see if Carlb's claim is true? Why has Carlb chosen to only reveal this information here and not at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/User:Girlvinyl where he is involved in the discussion? This user wrongly filed the Rfc using signatures pasted from a talk page but I have still been assuming good faith on his part. His statement leaves me wondering about his role in the whole affair, SqueakBox 00:25, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Honestly we've seen enough. If you want to continue your debate on the validity of the rfc please do it elsewhere. All we need to know is if DreamGuy was acting bad faith. The debate demonstrates that some people think he was not. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 00:35, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

You are right, Theresa. This Rfa is about DreamGuy and not about me. I think the members of the arbcom will draw their own conclusions about this affair and whether it represents DreamGuy in a good light or not. I only wrote my statement after 2 requests (one by email), and the article was deleted by the first admin who came to have a look at it, withe this comment followed by this comment. Also was this really good faith on DreamGuy's part? SqueakBox 01:32, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Read an rfc. It must be endorsed by 2 people within 48 hours. I merely checked the creation time and date. It would have been completely invalid to assume that Carlb endorsed the Rfc, and totally unfair on Girlvinyl. each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours.... If you want to change policy go to [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). I only enforced the actual rules, SqueakBox 22:45, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

So you say because user:Carlb THE PERSON HOW FILLED THE RFC didn't resign it you are seriosuly saying that It would have been completely invalid to assume that Carlb endorsed the Rfc All I can say is WP:POINT, WP:AGF, WP:IAR--ElvisThePrince 22:59, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

WP:POINT? You have got to be kidding. I was merely ensuring that Girlvinyl got a fair hearing. That is not WP:POINT. Whatever s/he may have done they deserve a fair hearing. If we followed your idea that would not have happened. The Rfc policies are designed to give everyone a fair hearing so what you say is purely in your imagination, and couldn't be further from the truth. How can ensuring she gets a fair process be WP:POINT? SqueakBox 23:15, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

STOP now please. We've seen all we need Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 23:50, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

This is one of the signatures that allegedly certified the Rfc: [235] SqueakBox 16:36, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

For clarity I hear paste the Rfc as it was initially created. decide for yourselves if this is a legitimate Rfc. It is from Talk:Encyclopædia Dramatica#Use of multiple userID's?. IMO because this was not constructed on an rfc page it was not valid, SqueakBox 16:50, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Statement of the dispute I believe the following to be aliases of (girlvinyl | talk | contributions), created solely for the purpose of removing valid factual info from Encyclopædia Dramatica and the Image:Sherrod_degrippo.jpg description page:

• (67.134.44.88 | talk | contributions)
• (Encydra | talk | contributions)
• (Encydra2 | talk | contributions)

Description The use of multiple userID's by the same person is discouraged, according to Wikipedia:Sock puppet, in a number of contexts not limited solely to their use on voting pages. For instance, use of multiple ID's to circumvent policies may qualify. I raise the question of 67.134.44.88, Encydra, Encydra2 as a set of possible duplicate userID's of girlvinyl on the discussion page of the affected article, Encyclopædia Dramatica.

The multiple ID's show the same or similar pattern in edit history; one of claiming in some form to hold intellectual property rights over publically-available (whois) information as to the ownership of the Encyclopædia Dramatica domain by one Sherrod DeGrippo, listed in whitepages as resident in Las Vegas, Nevada, and of removing that information from the text. The link to image Image:Sherrod_degrippo.jpg, legitimately available to us for attributed reuse under the terms stated on her own site girlvinyl.com and archived elsewhere online, is also the routine target of removal from the article by the various userID's listed below.

Evidence of disputed behavior

[236] Deletion of name "Sherrod DeGrippo" from Encyclopædia Dramatica, done as user Encydra

[237] Deletion of "Image:Sherrod Degrippo.jpg" from Encyclopædia Dramatica, done as anon user 67.134.44.88

[238] Deletion of "Image:Sherrod Degrippo.jpg" from Encyclopædia Dramatica, done as user Encydra2

[239] Deletion of source information on Image:Sherrod_degrippo.jpg, done as user Encydra2, reverted by Angela

Applicable policies

Wikipedia:Sock puppet

Wikipedia:Vandalism

Users certifying the basis for this dispute --Depakote 16:54, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

--2004-12-29T22:45Z 17:00, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute The matter has been raised on the relevant article talk page; to date there has not been any successful resolution of the issue:

Talk:Encyclopædia_Dramatica

Image talk:Sherrod_degrippo.jpg

Statement by third party El_C

Please review today's exchange at WP:RFPP. El_C 21:43, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Evidence needed

The rfc Wikipedia:Requests for comment/DreamGuy-2 was closed with the following resolution on 2 August 2005

"The concensus of the outside views above, appears to be in general agreement that this RFC has some merit, but neither side is blameless and all those involved could work to improve their WikiCivility and avoid edit warring. At the moment no further censures are appropriate, but if the involved parties continue to engage in Personal Attacks additional measures may be required."

What I would like to see, in order to be convinced that this is a good faith RFAr is evidence of bad behaviour after that date. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 18:57, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I interpreted some of his comments on Talk:Otherkin as potentially uncivil, but I'll leave that up to the superior wisdom of the arbitrators. ~~ N (t/c) 21:13, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Also his comments to SlimVirgin at WP:AN/3RR#Gavin the Chosen 5. Even if not severe enough to be an issue, they seem unnecessarily sharp. ~~ N (t/c) 13:22, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Nickptar regarding Talk:Otherkin. DreamGuy's comments there lead me to believe he does not have good-faith motivations for editing Otherkin, and is uninterested in constructive debate. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 20:57, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

In other words, you violated the Wikipedia:Assume good faith policy to declare that *I* am acting in bad faith? I am simply trying to follow NPOV policy there against the stated positions of a couple of editors to removing anything that they find even potential negative towards the group. Since when is NPOV bad faith? I have tried over and over to have real communication there, but Vashti ignores all comments he doesn;t want to hear and other seem more interested in rushing into voting for poorly worded and completely deceptive polls (like where they claimed that me view was actually the view of another editor entirely). DreamGuy 21:58, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

It would be naïve to assume good faith, given your comments about otherkin. [240] [241] ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 10:30, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

It is also probably instructive to note that User:Eequor has in the past labeled any attempt to put factual information about folklore and real world uses of the term Therianthropy as allegedly pushing a POV. See Talk:Therianthropy#Reverts by Eequor for her claims there. If she objects to scholarly information in such articles and only wants the viewpoints of members of subcultures who self-identify as shapechangers of various sorts (an agenda that clearly violates NPOV policy) it's no wonder she now tries to label attempts at neutrality in Otherkin as if they were bad faith. DreamGuy 22:26, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

If you seriously believe my comments on that page indicate some sort of agenda other than an interest in verifiability and NPOV, you have failed to assume good faith. Besides, this RfAr is about you, not me. What you perceive to be an ad hominem will not improve your position. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 10:39, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

More evidence from Gavin the Chosen

The entire affair that SlimVirgin describes above is long after the RFC closed.Gavin the Chosen 01:16, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

AS requested, here are diffs and such , descrivbing the events which occured as Slimvirgin sdescribed.

these two oseem rather rude to Slimvirgin on her user page

this one [242]

this one [243]

unrel;ated but...

the edit summary here is incivil, methinks [244]

hres the offer that Slim made to me, that i accepted, and well, he refused ( basically the lasty straw before i decided to make this RFAr request [245]

she started out politely, but [246]

him being rude to her on his user page [247]

she ttries being nice still... [248]

but he wont even TRY, and this is him dealing with an ADMIN [249]

some how shes still patient enough... [250]

after two others try to offer advise [251]

and instead of replying to the discussion, all he does is delete everything [252]

SlimVirgin politely attempting to finsih the discusssion [253]

and DreamGuy being even ruder, oblivious whats going on around him... seesm to think the admin is hararsssing him, butthats clearly not hte case [254] Gavin the Chosen 01:45, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

also, examine recent editing histroy on his talk page invoilving squeakbox. it doesnt look like harassment to me, in fact it looks a lot like someone trying to hidfe from fallabillity, and useingclaims of harrassment etc as a somescreeen.Gavin the Chosen 10:15, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I'll add the evidence for you here:

• [255] DreamGuy "clears out" his talk page by blanking it.
• [256] Squekebox reverts with the edit comment rv archive but don't remove
• [257] Dream guy clears out the page again with the edit summary - this is my talk page, I can do with it what I want, per policy... and admins do it all the time, so if you want to complain take it up with the
• [258] Squekebox reverts again with the edit summary archive but do not remove this conversation
• [259] Dreamguy blanks his userpage again with the summary revert -- funny, when I restored a passage SlimVirgin deleted off her talk page she threatened to block me... perhaps the vandal doing so here should be blocked
• [260] and squeakbox does it again You simply don't have the right to blank this conversation. so it could be argued that in doing sdo you are being the vandal. Me, i don't think so
• [261] and is reverted by User:Norvy with the edit summary these are archived, leave him alone

• For the record, this wasn't just a revert. I added a sentence with a link mentioning that archives are available through the page's history. This sentence has remained there, intact. -- Norvy (talk) 15:18, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

"*Actually that isn't an archive it is a page history (which, thank goodness, DreamGuy is unable to remove). Your comment made me look for an archive through his contribs but there wasn't one. Go to User talk:SqueakBox to see what an archive is as you are misunderstanding the wiki meaning of the word. Archives make for easy access to a user's talk history whereas what DreamGuy did makes it extremely difficult, and I urge the Arbcom to insist he archives his commenyts from now on so that other users don't face a nightmare task merely to discover when and where something form his talk page is to be found. It is what everyone else does, SqueakBox 15:37, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

• [262] this time Squekebox creates an archive page in DreanGuy's userspace and links it to his talk page with the edit summary you have an archive mow
• [263] dreamGuy reverts him revert again -- I don't need an archive, that's what the history is for.... editor who took it upon himself to do so defintiely has a problem
• [264] Squekebox readds Gavins RFAr notice even though DreamGuy has clearly already read it because he has responded here.
• [265] SqueakBox adds a comment asking why DreamGuy removed an active conversation
• [266] Another comment.
• [267] DreamGuy removes the AC notice and both of Squeakbox's comments with the edit summary revert - again -- the admin ntoiceboard even said I have the right to blank this and that lots of admins do it, harassment will not be allowed here ( the comment he was refering to on the admin noticeboard was mine. I informed Squeakbox that he couldn't force DreamGuy to talk to him and that reverting in this situation could acheive nothing but harrasment here is the link to what I said
• [268] Gavin reverts
• DreamGuy blanks
• [269] Squeakbox reverts
• [270] User:Dbraceyrules leaves an unrelated comment
• [271] DreamGuy blanks again. This time he isn't reverted

Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 22:31, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Theresa did not inform me. Adfter I read her comment on the admins incident page I made no further reverts. It would be wring to claim I reverted after being told not to, or even to say I was asked to stop, SqueakBox 22:47, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

I've struck my comment further up. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 22:56, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I have asked |Theresa to withdraw her allegation. See here and here, SqueakBox 22:56, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

I already struck them out. But I'm happy to delete the comment altogether if you'd rather. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 23:01, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I hadn't seen your above comment when I added the last statement. Sorry about that, not taking as much care as I did when checking the validity of the Rfc. I was relying on my watchlist that told me I had made the last edit and just not seeing your comment. They are both 22.56, SqueakBox 23:11, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (3/1/0/0)

• Accept. James F. (talk) 11:41, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
• Reject. I'm sorry but this looks like a bad faith RFAr to me. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 18:00, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. Looks like a real issue, regardless of who initiated the complaint. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:34, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
• Accept and merge with existing case Fred Bauder 14:42, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

User:Willmcw and User:SlimVirgin

Involved parties

An administrator incident complaint was filed by User:Rangerdude against Willmcw for wiki-stalking and general harassment on June 15th. [272] Willmcw filed a retaliatory RfC against Rangerdude later the same evening, alleging that Rangerdude's wiki-stalking allegation against him was a personal attack.[273] Mediation was suggested in response to Rangerdude's complaint, both parties agreed to mediation with User:Andrevan, notice was posted to the incident board and the RfC, which was then withdrawn. Attempts to proceed with mediation from then until the present have been unproductive due to mediation backlogs and disagreement over the format for conducting mediation. In the meantime the conflict has intensified. Allegations of Willmcw's harassing behavior and wiki-stalking of Rangerdude continue to the present. User:SlimVirgin has also become involved in the controversy, supporting Willmcw. Additional incident complaints were filed yesterday by Rangerdude against Willmcw[274] for disruption of Rangerdude's edits and against SlimVirgin for harassment, promotion of Willmcw's disruptive activities, and abuse of her administrator powers in page protecting Rangerdude's user page at a time she was a party to the disputes.[275] Page protection was removed by SlimVirgin after Rangerdude complained, but additional disputes remain. Rangerdude subsequently posted an additional request for mediation disputing Willmcw's recent activities as harassment and requesting mediation with SlimVirgin for the same.[276] SlimVirgin refused this mediation [277] and Willmcw denied that Rangerdude's original complaint, located here had ever been filed against him.[278]

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• [279] Post by Rangerdude informing SlimVirgin of RfAr after SlimVirgin refused mediation.
• [280] SlimVirgin acknowledges Rangerdude's intent to file RfAr
• [281] Notice posted to Willmcw of Rangerdude's intent to file RfAr
• [282] Willmcw acknowledges RfAr has been filed

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

If not, then explain why that would be fruitless

• [283] - Incident complaint by Rangerdude against Willmcw for wikistalking and harassment, June 15th.
• [284] - Incident complaint against Willmcw for continued harassment, August 18th
• [285] - Incident complaint against SlimVirgin for harassment and abuse of page protection policy, August 18th
• [286] - Request for Mediation by Rangerdude with SlimVirgin & Willmcw.
• [287] - SlimVirgin refuses mediation request.
• [288] - Willmcw denies original complaint was ever made against him.

Statement by Rangerdude

Rangerdude complaint against Willmcw

• Willmcw has engaged in a pattern of harassment, disruption, and wiki-stalking towards Rangerdude from February 2005 to the present and involving over 40 different articles (evidence). This stalking has been disruptive including dismantling of Rangerdude's additions without justification, removal of source material for political and POV reasons, and general harassment aimed at pestering Rangerdude's day-to-day edits on unrelated articles. This violates Wikipedia's policies on civility, disruption, assuming good faith, and existing Arbcom precedent and Jimbo Wales' Recycling Troll case ruling about pestering other users with stalking [289][290].
• Willmcw's stalking of me has included disruption of the Houston Chronicle mediation including the unilateral addition of himself to a closed mediation between Rangerdude and another editor[291] and revert warring to retain his self-addition after it was removed.[292]
• Willmcw has repeatedly attempted to disrupt Rangerdude's efforts in the current guideline proposal of Wikipedia:Stalking. This includes multiple bad faith edits aimed at dismantling, weakening, and deleting the proposal's text [293], revert warring to add an unfriendly and undesired change to the proposal [294], [295], [296] [297] and removing material authored by Rangerdude from the proposal while it was being drafted on account of its authorship. [298]
• Willmcw has made WP:POINT disruptions aimed at harming the Wikipedia:Stalking proposal. Willmcw announced his intent to file a counter-complaint of wiki-stalking against Rangerdude for the purpose of disruption after objections were made to his dismantling edits to the proposal that are described above.[299] He was warned of WP:POINT in response [300], but subsequently followed through with the complaint posted to Rangerdude's talk page.[301]
• Willmcw has repeatedly attempted to alter and remove a question posed to him by Rangerdude regarding his purposes and disruptive edits on the Stalking article from that article's talk page. Edits were for the purposes of removing the fact that the question was addressed at his edits specifically. [302] [303][304]

Rangerdude complaint against SlimVirgin

• SlimVirgin assisted Willmcw in the WP:POINT disruption described above by posting a coordinated note publicizing it to the Village Pump announcement where community input was solicited for the Wikipedia:Stalking guideline proposal.[305] This was done for the apparent purpose of disrupting or discrediting the Village Pump request for community input on forming the guideline, as indicated by her edit summary description and accompanying comments.
• Moments later SlimVirgin abused her administrative powers to page protect my user page[306], apparently aimed at preserving and promoting Willmcw's WP:POINT complaint that she had just linked to. Wikipedia:Page protection prohibits administrators from protecting pages in disputes where they are involved. The protection was removed after Rangerdude complained on both the Admin noticeboard and the Page Protection board.
• SlimVirgin has made repeated personal attacks and bad faith allegations against Rangerdude. SlimVirgin rudely accused Rangerdude of deleting another unrelated user's comments from a noticeboard when the culprit was an apparent scripting bug that has been causing problems to that particular board.[307] SlimVirgin made a similar bad-faith accusation of deletion agaisnt Rangerdude for merging a simultaneous and duplicate request for input on the Wikipedia:Stalking proposal into one notice post.[308] SlimVirgin responded with extreme belligerency and personal attacks when Rangerdude responded to this allegation by stating it was a simple attempt to merge two redundant posts. SlimVirgin also removed Rangerdude's comments explaining this merge.[309]
• SlimVirgin has engaged in multiple personal attacks including demeaning personal comments in response to the incidents mentioned above. Examples: "What is wrong with you" [310] and "You're a disruptive editor" [311].
• SlimVirgin has made similar personal attacks towards Rangerdude previously, has exhibited extreme personal belligerency toward Rangerdude as an editor ("What's wrong with it Rangerdude, is in part that it's you who's suggesting it. My position is that you should not be editing this page") and has made attacks against Rangerdude that could be construed as a legal threat. [312]Note: SlimVirgin has been cautioned by the Arbcom previously for making personal attacks.[313]

Statement by 216.112.42.61; complaint against Willmcw

May I say something here? I just noticed this complaint by chance when looking at this page. Rangerdude is not the only one that has been stalked by Willmcw. I too have been stalked by said user, though it was a while ago so I don't remember it well. I just gave up rather than reporting it, but since others are now reporting on Willmcw, I am also. If I remember correctly, Willmcw was trying to push his own biased POV in the article 'terrorism', and I reverted his edits for a while, then gave up. Willmcw then stalked my IP to the article 'ballotechnics', which I had done substantial work on, in which Willmcw falsely portrayed it by classifying it as a pseudoscience, to discredit my contributions in anger over my attempt to prevent his pushing his biased POV. Being as others have also been stalked by Willmcw, it is clear that he has got to go.

Statement by Herschelkrustofsky; complaint against Willmcw

I wish to second the remarks of 216.112.42.61; I too have been stalked by said user. Willmcw has anticipated my contribution to this discussion in his response below, but I would like to make it official. --HK 14:33, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Recusals

As this RfAr involves two fairly well known administrators on Wikipedia, I am also requesting in compliance with Wikipedia:Arbitration policy on conflict of interest for any arbitration participant who has a strong historical editing relationship with or other personal allegiance to SlimVirgin, Willmcw, or both to disclose this information and, if applicable, recuse him or herself in accordance with this policy. Thank you. Rangerdude 00:34, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Willmcw

Rangerdude raises five points in his complaint against me. I consider two of them (#1 & #4) serious enough for the ArBCom to arbitrate. I believe that the other three complaints are minor and/or are based on mistaken interpretations of events. Here are my specific responses:

1. I previously responded to Rangerdude's "wiki-stalking" allegation here: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Rangerdude#Description. Rangerdude also made this accusation during my Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Willmcw. At that time three editors, each barely or not known to me, wrote to say that they'd checked the "wiki-stalking" evidence and found no wrongdoing.[314][315][316]. However Rangerdude has continued to attack me with this charge for months. I request that the ArbCom decide whether my own behavior towards Rangerdude has been wikistalking harassment, or whether his repetition of the charges has been harassment. I am eager to reply in detail to any of Rangerdude's specific charges that the ArbCom wishes.

FYI, since Rangerdude began calling me a wikistalker I also have been accused of it by these editors:

• Thodin (talk · contribs) 00:01, June 18, 2005, 08:39, July 14, 2005, 23:06, July 14, 2005, 00:31, July 15, 2005 21:19, July 16, 2005, 21:44, July 16, 2005
• Poetatoe (talk · contribs) 00:06, June 18, 2005
• 24.94.181.211 (talk · contribs)/Chuck0 (talk · contribs) 19:32, August 5, 2005
• Herschelkrustofsky (talk · contribs) 22:35, August 8, 2005 06:53, August 23, 2005
• Steve espinola (talk · contribs) 00:43, August 10, 2005
• Bigelow (talk · contribs) 08:44, August 18, 2005
• Agiantman (talk · contribs) 21:08, August 21, 2005
• 216.112.42.61 (talk · contribs) 02:56, August 23, 2005

2. The mediator invited me to join the Houston Chronicle mediation on June 10th and I promptly accepted.[317]. After hearing no reply I posted a note asking if anything was happening then, having seen a notice of mediation, I just dove in on June 14th. Rangerdude made repeated efforts to remove me from the mediation.[318][319] Rangerdude had previously demanded that I not be included and the mediator had agreed, but no one had informed me of this agreement. When the mediator asked me to leave the mediation I did so promptly.[320] Prior to my participation, Rangerdude promised to limit his edits "to existing texts to a minimum during mediation excepting extraordinary unforseen circumstances".[321] That restriction did not cover the large new, POV section [322] and other POV material that he added to the article over the next two days. [323][324] After June 15, Rangerdude never made another contribution to the mediation or to the article.

3. Rangerdude has reverted as much or more than I have. In fact, he recently amended this charge against me after having just violated the 3RR himself.[325][326][327]

4. My charge of "wikistalking" against Rangerdude is based on his following me with the apparent intent of harassment. [328] I will address his harassment of myself and other editors in a separate request for arbitration.

5. Rangerdude's question on Wikipedia talk:Stalking asked about the personal motivation of my edits and had my username in the heading, both of which I consider to be violations of talk page wikiquette. I first responded by simply removing my name from the header, but Rangerdude wouldn't settle for that. Then I tried to move it to my talk page, but that not would do either. Rangerdude reverted three times, demanding that it be on the proposal's talk page with my name in the header. I finally gave in. [329][330][331][332]

Submitted by -Willmcw 08:24, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by SlimVirgin

It's hard to know how to respond to this, because I don't feel I have a dispute with Rangerdude. My interest in him is only as an admin. I see him as a disruptive editor and a vexatious litigant, who seems to spend most of his time on Wikipedia complaining about people.

Rangerdude takes a tiny factoid about an editor, twists it out of all recognition, then inserts it into multiple complaints in long-winded, quasi-legalistic posts to anyone he thinks might listen. Within the last month, he's filed two RfCs — Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Cberlet & Willmcw and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/FuelWagon, the latter deleted as uncertified and apparently filed because FuelWagon supported Will and Chip during the first RfC, making it WP:POINT — at least one RfM, and now this RfAr. It's practically impossible to defend yourself against his complaints, because he twists any response you make and uses it against you.

I first became aware of him, and began to think he was a disruptive editor, on June 15 when someone set up SlimVirgin's Left Boob (talk · contribs) and used it to post encouragement to Rangerdude on WP:AN/I [333] regarding one of his complaints about Willmcw allegedly "stalking" him. This was the first I'd heard of the allegation against Will. My next encounter with him also saw him on the same side as sockpuppets. On June 18, he defended a malicious vandalism listing [334] made against Will by Poetatoe (talk · contribs), a new account believed to be a sockpuppet of Thodin (talk · contribs), another disruptive editor who thinks everyone's stalking him.

Because of his support of abusive sockpuppets and their support of him, and because he was making (as I saw it, absurd) complaints against a good editor, I formed a view of Rangerdude as disruptive. I therefore left a note on his talk page asking him to reconsider his complaints against Will, and to consider taking a break from interacting with him. [335] He replied complaining about Will's editing of Eric Foner but when I checked the page, it was clear that Rangerdude was reverting to unsourced material, and all Will was doing was politely asking for a source. I therefore told Rangerdude that Will was following policy, as he always does in my experience. [336]

It seems this was enough to turn me into one of Rangerdude's targets. Since then, he was posted a lot of criticism of me (which I see as personal attacks), for example this [337]. I won't give detailed responses to his specific charges unless the case is accepted, except to say that they're nonsense, and in particular I haven't abused any admin powers in relation to him. I once protected his talk page for 10 minutes when a new account Bigelow (talk · contribs) (another abusive sockpuppet who strongly supported Rangerdude) kept deleting a message that Will had posted, [338] so I briefly protected the page from being reverted until I could work out what to do about Bigelow (who responded to the page protection with a personal attack [339] and was therefore blocked). Rangerdude writes above that I unprotected the page only after he complained about the protection, but that isn't correct. The protection log shows:

• 08:48, August 18, 2005 SlimVirgin protected User talk:Rangerdude (vandalism);
• 08:57, August 18, 2005 SlimVirgin protected User talk:Bigelow (abusive account; blocked indefinitely)
• 08:58, August 18, 2005 SlimVirgin unprotected User talk:Rangerdude (vandal has been blocked). [340]
• It was at 09:05 August 18 that Rangerdude made his first complaint. [341] SlimVirgin ^(talk) 12:20, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by third party (Rangerdude RFA v Willmcw and SlimVirgin): FuelWagon

My involvment in this situation stems from an RFC that Rangerdude filed against Willmcw. I was not involved in the original dispute and saw the RFC and made a comment as an outside, uninvolved, and neutral party. Rangerdude was complaining about Cberlet and Willmcw's edits on the Ludwig Von Mises Institute (LVMI) article. I looked at the evidence given and the responses made, then looked at the article and talk page histories, and made my comment that the three people who certified the RFC (DickClarkMises, an LVMI employee, Nskinsell, an "adjunct scholar" for LVMI, and Rangerdude) were far more the root of any POV problem around the LVMI article than Cberlet and Willmcw. [342]

Rangerdude related to this RFC as if he "owned" it. He reacted to my comment by going in and reformatting my comment [343] [344] and then he replied to my comment, calling it "extremely one-sided", "troubling", and "revolting". He claimed my "insinuation ... plainly violates Wikipedia:assume good faith" He claimed I "misrepresented" his edits. And he concluded "Given these clear cases of misrepresentation, bad faith personal insinuations, and inconsistenly-applied 'conflict of interest' allegations, I am disinclined to give further credence to the neutrality or accurracty of FuelWagon's take on this matter." [345]

I got the feeling that Rangerdude was using the RFC as an attempt to punish editors who disagreed with him. I told Rangerdude that "an RFC is a mechanism intended to resolve a dispute. It is not a place to "build a case" against an editor to bring punitive measures againt them"[346]

Rangerdude's reply indicated that he believes an RFC is needed prior to arbitration. "Were I to seek arbitration at this point before conducting an RfC into user conduct as this one is plainly categorized and designated, the request would likely be denied"[347]

This only reinforced my opinion that Rangerdude was not using the RFC as a way to resolve his dispute with Cberlet/Willmcw, but as a way to build a case so he could eventually take it to arbitration and punish them. "You're attempting to convict someone of being rude when you broke nearly every traffic law in the book before coming before the judge. ... Take a break. give yourself a day to breathe." [348]

Rangerdude's reply indicated his refusal to change course. "this RfC can and will proceed in a proper and responsible fashion be it with or without your assistance"[349]

Rangerdude continued relating to the RFC as if he "owns" it, and opened an RFC-in-a-RFC, commenting on my comments and asked other editors to endorse his comments. [350]

Throughout that RFC, Rangerdude related to the entire RFC page as if he owned it. He responded to many editors who commented against his position, he resisted attempts to move his replies to that talk page, and he even took it upon himself to put his own comments in the "response" section normally reserved for the individuals being accused of violating policy.[351] He even declared the "requirement" to close the RFC was that "the new revisions (to the LVMI page) are allowed to remain" [352]

Soon thereafter, and in a further demonstration of using RFC's for punitive means, Rangerdude filed an RFC against me for some comment I made on another RFC, accusing me of personal attacks. No one else certified it, so it was removed.

I went back to editing articles and didn't bump into Rangerdude again until I happened upon the proposed policy against "stalking". Rangerdude seemed intent on making it against policy to "stalk" another editor. The overall consensus was largely against the proposed policy, and it was eventually merged in with "harassment". I believe Rangerdude became heavily involved in the policy proposal for wikipedia:stalking with the specific intention of accusing Willmcw of "stalking" him. "stalking" is an accusation that is easy to make and is extremely difficult even for an innocent editor to disprove.

While I haven't been involved in the current dispute that Rangerdude is requestion arbitration for around Willmcw and SlimVirgin, it is my opinion that Rangerdude's edits qualify as POV-pushing and he wikilawyers against anyone who opposes his POV edits. In my opinion, this request for arbitration was his intention from the start when he filed the RFC against Willmcw and Cberlet. Rangerdude's edits were consistently POV. And he consistently reacted to anyone who opposed his POV edits by RFC'ing them, building a case against them, and accusing them of countless policy violations. His reaction to my comment read more like a prosecuting attorney than someone attempting to resolve anything: "Given these clear cases of misrepresentation, bad faith personal insinuations, and inconsistenly-applied 'conflict of interest' allegations, I am disinclined to give further credence to the neutrality or accurracty of FuelWagon's take on this matter." [353])

It's my opinion that Rangerdude's approach to dealing with editors who have a different point of view than him is to wikilawyer them, find a way to punish them, file RFC's and negotiate a change to the article in exchange for closing the RFC, attempt to change policy to make it easier to accuse them of policy violations, and accumulate enough empty charges to bring it to arbitration. FuelWagon 16:10, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't have direct experience of SlimVirgin's behaviour around this specific incident. However, my experience of SlimVirgin saw three good editors leave wikipedia in disgust after a run-in with her. While not directly related, it may reflect a pattern of behaviour on SlimVirgin's part that may have contributed to the above situation.

On 11 July, 2005, the Terri Schiavo article looked like this. The talk page marked the article as "controversial topic" and "in mediation". Ed Poor was mediator. SlimVirgin came into the article, performed 9 edits [354][355][356][357][358][359][360][361][362] over the course of 3 hours. During that time SlimVirgin inserted the "in use" tag [363], which displays "This article is actively undergoing a major edit."

Several long term editors on the article protested that SlimVirgin's edit qualified as reckless for an article listed as "controversial" and in "mediation" and that her edit contained numerous factual errors.

SlimVirgin never once acknowledge a single factual error in her edit, although she continued to ask us to point out any error. "If I made a factual error, point to it" [364], "You also mention errors of fact, but again, don't cite any. Please do." [365], "Show me one factual or grammatical error that I edited into the article" [366], "Show me one error I made in the article" [367], "neither of you has said what your objection is" [368], "If you feel I've introduced errors, please list them on talk" [369], "please discuss your objections on talk" [370], "Please say what your specific objections are" [371].

Several editors pointed out factual errors in her edit, including user:Neuroscientist who posted a 5,000 word explanation here [372]. Rather than acknowledge a single error, SlimVirgin replies " I don't appreciate the personal comments you've lobbed at me." [373] SlimVirgin accused several editors of various policy violations including "POV pushing" [374], "taking ownership of the page" [375], "violating NPOV and No original research" [376], and "arguing for the sake of arguing" [377]. When asked to support her accusations, she neither provided evidence nor withdrew her accusations. Demands for evidence to support these accusations were met with silence. I filed an RFC against SlimVirgin and it was supported by 5 editors. I eventually withdraw my certification to allow the RFC to be deleted.

When the RFC fails to resolve anything, a long time contributer to the Terri Schiavo article, User:Duckecho quit wikipedia, citing SlimVirgin's "arrogance" as one reason for leaving [378]. User:Neuroscientist quits wikipedia soon after [379].

SlimVirgin withdraws from Terri Schiavo mediation, saying it was "silly". [380]. One editor who had been working on the article "A ghost" called it "self-centered, naked arrogance" [381]. Ten days later, "A ghost" stops contributing to wikipedia [382].

These three editors (Duckecho, Neuroscientist, A ghost) had been working on the Terri Schiavo and other articles on wikipedia for several months and had 2,000 edits combined. And all of them leave wikipedia immediately after this incident with SlimVirgin. Despite SlimVirgin's accusations of rampant policy violations by these editors on the Terri Shiavo article, none of these three editors had any RFC's or admin blocks against them.

The end result of SlimVirgin's behaviour was that three valuable editors left wikipedia in disgust, two specifically blaming her of arrogance. FuelWagon 19:02, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (2/0/0/0)

• Just noting that I'm waiting for a response before coming to a decision. James F. (talk) 11:14, 22 August 2005 (UTC) Accept. James F. (talk) 22:23, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
• Accept Fred Bauder 14:45, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

User:Ultramarine

Involved parties

There was an RfC against User:Ultramarine, for incivility and POV-pushing, initiated by User:Mihnea Tudoreanu, on which User:Robert A West and I, Septentrionalis commented. He was better mannered after that.

More recently, however, Ultramarine:

• Has been incivil
• Has asserted very original interpretations of policy
• Has persistently edit warred, despite extensive discussion and invitations to join a collaborative version.
• Has attempted to abuse page protection.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Ultramarine [383]
• Robert A West [384]
• Mihnea Tudoreanu [385]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

This request concerns lengthy discussions in the talk pages above.

I requested help from Mediation, long ago,[386] and from Mel Etitis as a third party. On mediation, I was contacted by User:Stevertigo at the end of July, who asked if I were still interested in Mediation, which I was [387]. I gather Steve wrote to a mediator, but I have heard nothing more.

Mihnea filed Wikipedia:requests for comment/Ultramarine, which is still open. I think it shows a pattern of behavior.

Statement by party 1

Much of this can be found at the request for comment, Talk:Criticisms of communism,Talk:Democratic peace theory, Talk:Democratic peace theory/Archive 1:

• His talk page comments have been peremptory orders. For example: "Add back this critque now unless you can cite sources supporting your claim, not sometime in the future." [388] in Talk:Democratic_peace_theory#Cold_war_peace_or_the_Bloc_peace_theory This is addressed to Robert West, who has been studiously polite to Ultramarine. I asked whether this was civility and Ultramarine denied any incivility.[389] The point at issue was whether to include eight sources or whether five sources would suffice: a demand to cite sources was hardly relevant.
  • He has also claimed (here and elsewhere) that we have refused to discuss "his" version of Criticisms of communism. Its talk page is 153K and most of it (especially this very long section) has been spent on his version and proposals. Much of the text he has proposed has been included verbatim, some with modifications and some has been rejected by consensus after discussion. The remaining discussions are ongoing.
• Novel assertions on policy:
  • He applies an unspecified theory of consensus that amounts to asserting a liberum veto in contradiction to Wikipedia:Consensus. In particular, he objects that 3-1 is not consensus on an article ([390] and Talk:Criticisms of communism#comments)
    • He has likewise refused to recognize a consensus against him on a shortened version of Democratic peace theory. [391]. See its talk page and archive for evidence of the consensus.
  • An NPoV article on a theory will refute all criticisms of that theory, even those criticisms not explicitly raised in the article. [392]
  • The NPoV version of Criticisms of communism [393] must be critical of communism [394], rather than a discussion of such criticisms. (The edit summaries are of virtually identical edits)
  • Archiving a talk page of 106K (archive) is violation of policy. [395]. He made the same claims again when the length of the new page reached 37K Talk:Democratic peace theory#Page length.
  • He has used the talk pages in question to claim other violations of policy, many of them equally frivolous. This is uncollegial. (See the several sections he has titled Violations of Wikipedia policy)
• He has continually reverted Criticisms of communism to a private version, ignoring several invitations to join the version every other editor was working on. Diffs in this section of the RfC. This is his version alone; he has reverted, and been rereverted by, every other editor. page history.
  • Similarly Democratic peace theory, and apparently Democracy.
• He threatened on Talk:Criticisms of communism: "If you try to do any "merger", I will ask for protection of this page, using my version. Italics mine. A few days after, he added some of the text under dispute to Vladimir Lenin. He did three exact reverts in quick succession [396][397][398], although a large portion of his text was accepted; and then called for the page to be protected [399], as it still is. (page history)
  • And he has now done the same thing with Criticisms of communism in response to the consensus (3-1) decision to remove the two-versions tag and invite Ultramarine to actively edit the collaborative version. (WP:RfPP#Criticisms of communism) He has been expressly invited to insert the dozen or twenty sentences which he has added to his private version during August.[400] [401]

For my part, this is not a content dispute. This is a dispute about rudeness, and about Ultramarine ignoring and abusing policy. He asserts new versions of policy which let him do what he wants, and let him denounce and harass others for doing what he doesn't want. For example; "cite sources" as harassment. [402] (There is no question of which website; the article cites it, and we've all quoted it).

Statement by party 2

Hmm... So, the most recent accusations are that I

• am uncivil for asking of others to follow Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Cite sources when making statements and that they place sources contradicting their position in the appropriate section, in order to not misleadingly give the impression that there are no such sources.
• have advocated that Criticisms of communism should not contain a discussion of such criticisms, when my version clearly does so and indeed has continually incorporated text and arguments from their article [403].
• questioned why a talk page was completely achieved when there was ongoing discussions [404]. And requested that the content on the same talk page should not be archieved again only a few hours later, because all the contents had been introduced in that time and were still relevant [405].
• make "frivolous" and "uncollegial" accusations on the talk page. I note for example several attempts to delete and misrepresent my discussion page edits by editing them: [406], [407], [408], [409]
• make continual reversions with little content while I in fact have made numerous improvements to the more critical version of criticisms of communism, (the diff is using their cited edit summary as the starting point) [410]. There is no rule that says that every single edit must be a major revision, I see nothing wrong with sometimes making minor corrections of spelling mistakes.
• abuse page protection in order to win arguments when I only ask that the Two-version template should stay so that everyone can read the facts and form their own opinion while continuing the discussion to find a good npov version. I let the record speak for itself [411] [412]
• have requested that the critics should not delete well-referenced facts and arguments on Criticisms of communism and Vladimir Lenin and those in support of democracy at the Democratic peace theory. There are much greater differences between the two versions of Criticisms of communism than a "dozen or twenty sentences" [413], no reason why only the differences introduced in August should be allowed, and I have certainly tried to discuss the differences numerous times in August [414].
• have violated policy regarding Wikipedia:Consensus which in fact states "In article disputes, consensus is used as if it means anything from genuine consensus to my position; it is possible to see both sides of a back-and-forth revert war claiming a consensus for their version of the article." and "Consensus should not trump NPOV (or any other official policy). A group of editors advocating a viewpoint do not, in theory, overcome the policy expressed in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not concerning advocacy and propaganda. However, a group of editors may be able to shut out certain facts and points of view through persistence, numbers, and organization. This group of editors should not agree to an article version that violates NPOV, but on occasion will do so anyway. This is generally agreed to be a bad thing.".

Regarding who is correct regarding the facts and who violates NPOV, I refer to the factual discussions on Criticism of communism [415] (Most recent discussions here [416] Ultramarine 09:01, 21 August 2005 (UTC)), on Vladimir Lenin [417], on Democratic peace theory [418], and on Democracy [419]

However, I am thankful for the effort to bring this to arbitration, which I support. The other editors mentioned in "Involved parties" above have violated Wikipedia: NPOV, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Cite sources, Wikipedia: No original research, Wikipedia:Consensus, and Wikipedia:Wikiquette. More specifically, they have systematically and on a very large scale, in important Wikipdia articles, violated the above when deleting referenced facts and arguments negative for communism and when deleting referenced facts and arguments showing the beneficial effects of liberal democracy. Ultramarine 19:10, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement from someone with experience with defendant

I haven't had much dealings with Ultramarine within the last few months, but I can vouch that he's the most unethical, hypocritical, irrational, dishonest, and unreasonable individual I've ever encountered on Wikipedia. He will resort to any measure, no matter how unethical, to get his discombobulated and confused vision into an article. I had a lot of trouble with him a few months ago on the capitalism article where he engaged in every kind of dishonesty and hypocrisy one can image. He even engaged in an arbitration case against me that was entirely bogus and fraught with his lies to try to keep me from editing that article. Of course, the case against me was dismissed, and I was able to be instrumental in improving that article beyond all former recognition. For the sake of the Wikipedia mission, Ultramarine's behavior needs to be stopped. The guy is out of control. RJII 20:24, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement from as-yet uninvolved party

On the request of the administrator who protected Criticisms of communism, I am assisting the parties of this dispute in exploring mediation options. According to the RfC and the article discussion page, mediation of this issue was agreed to by all parties and a mediator requested, but the MedCom failed to provide a mediator. I suspect that this failure to respond has prolonged and exacerbated this dispute considerably. Normally I conduct mediations in private, but in this situation I believe it is necessary for the ArbCom to be aware at this point that the failure to mediate this dispute appears not to be the fault of the parties, and to allow sufficient time to permit the parties to investigate whether mediation of their dispute is possible. Kelly Martin 18:21, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I do not consider the dispute mediatable anymore. I have already for two and half months tried to present referenced facts and asked for the same when discussing. However, the other side does not respond to such arguments. Thus, I prefer the arbitration process to continue. Ultramarine 08:30, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

The other three involved parties have accepted mediation (see User talk:Kelly Martin#Criticisms of communism). If Ultramarine changes his mind again – he supported mediation last week[420] – it should resolve these issues; but unless this happens, I request arbitration continue. Septentrionalis

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

• Accept (though I'm worried that it might turn into a content dispute). James F. (talk) 22:16, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
• Accept Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 12:38, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
• Accept Fred Bauder 14:47, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:56, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Ed Poor

Involved Parties

Party 1 (Initiators)

• Rob Church
• Nicholas Turnbull
• Phroziac
• The Uninvited Co., Inc.

Party 2

• Ed Poor

Third Parties

• Kim Bruning (Involved admin)
• Benjamin Gatti (Affected Third Party having a vested interest in the outcome)
• Tony Sidaway (talk · contribs)
• Xiong (affected -- as are we all)

Confirmation of Parties' Awareness

• Rob Church 01:54, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
• NicholasTurnbull 01:55, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
• Phroziac (talk) 02:05, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
• Benjamin Gatti 18:52, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

• Ed Poor has been made aware: [421]
• Tony Sidaway became aware sometime in the 1950s; he is sitting up in bed listening to Radio 4.

Previous Dispute Resolution

Although several attempts have been made to resolve this issue ([422], [423], [424], [425]), none of them have been particularly successful. Ed Poor's deletion of the RfC page against him goes towards proving that he does not wish for any discussion in the matter.

• I agree that I cut off discussion, and that I was wrong to do so. I have undeleted / unarchived Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Deletion of VFD. Uncle Ed 15:47, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Nicholas Turnbull, Rob Church, Phroziac, and UninvitedCompany

Ed Poor is a very experienced Wikipedian, who has made an exceptional contribution to the project over the long period of time that he has been a Wikipedia contributor, and was consequently made an administrator (and indeed a "bureaucrat") by the community. He has been active in Wikipedia:Requests for mediation, as well as in article editing.

Recently, he took the controversial action of speedy deleting Wikipedia:Votes for deletion without consultation to the community or prior warning - that is, using the "delete" administrative function, not tagging it with {{delete}} for another administrator to delete the page. It is our opinion that, in his attempt to delete VfD, he nonetheless had a genuine belief that his actions were for the benefit of the community - however, it is not this particular action that we take issue with, as Wikipedia:Ignore all rules is an important part of our community, and such actions may be overlooked if they occur in isolation.

This page was restored by another administrator; however, the original action understandably caused consternation amongst some members of the community, and an RfC was drawn up by a number of Wikipedians to resolve the dispute. Sadly, pursuant to this event, Ed Poor has ignored the standard consensus on Wikipedia operations, and has not paid attention to feedback from the Wikipedia community as a whole about his conduct. He deleted the RfC, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Deletion of VFD (archived version here) [426], on the purported grounds that it violated RfC policy; the double standard that he created by ignoring rules on one hand and enforcing the letter of them on the other is not acceptable. Another administrator restored this page; Ed deleted it for a second time. He unblocked himself ([427]) after he was blocked by a fellow administrator to provide breathing space for the dispute to settle. Ed Poor appears to have counted on his seniority and popularity to avoid discipline ([428], [429]), and thus seems to consider himself above the Wikipedia community in matters of action and procedure.

It is our opinion that Ed Poor has ignored the standard consensus on Wikipedia operations, and has not paid attention to feedback from the Wikipedia community as a whole about his conduct; he has consequently abused his administrator rights. This sets a poor precedent for the rest of the community, and threatens the entire spirit of collaboration and co-operation that Wikipedia is built on, and re-enforces the divide between administrators and users - creating an unpleasant double standard that must be avoided.

This statement is endorsed by the following:

• Rob Church 01:59, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
• NicholasTurnbull 01:57, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
• Phroziac (talk) 02:05, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
• The Uninvited Co., Inc. 18:53, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
• Uncle Ed 15:49, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Arbitrators please note: We have made a request to Ed Poor on his talk page [430] for an online chat meeting to discuss our collective differences with a view to withdrawing this RfArb, depending upon agreement between the parties. --NicholasTurnbull 00:03, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

This request has been accepted and an IRC-based mediation conference has been arranged for 5:30PM EST (11:30PM BST (GMT+1)) on 5th August 2005. Parties in attendance will be:

• Rob Church
• Nicholas Turnbull
• Phroziac
• The Uninvited Co.

Rob Church 07:19, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

It was decided at the conference that negotiations would continue. We will advise the ArbCom when an attempt at mediation has been completed, and whether or not further action is needed. We also agree to post the logs of these meetings. Rob Church 13:59, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

While the RFC page whose deletion was a primary reason for this request has now been restored and discussions there are continuing, no agreement has been made during the two IRC conferences that have been held. No further conferences are scheduled at this time. In the absence of any interest in scheduling further meetings, I believe that this mediation effort has run its course. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 17:47, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I would like to point out that this is the opinion of User:UninvitedCompany, and not representative of the opinion held by the meeting as a whole or by other party members. --NicholasTurnbull 19:15, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

My views with regard to this are here. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 17:17, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Arbitrators please note: Following the successes of the IRC mediation conferences, and a number of discusions with Ed Poor, Rob Church, Phroziac and Nicholas Turnbull have agreed to withdraw their statements from this request for arbitration. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:NicholasTurnbull/Mediation_IRC#Motion_to_withdraw_Request_for_Arbitration_against_Ed_Poor for full details. Rob Church ^{Talk | Desk} 16:17, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Further statement by UninvitedCompany

Ed Poor is a long-time colleague of mine here at Wikipedia and I am saddened both by the overall course of events and by the fact that I feel compelled to participate in this unfortunate case. I believe that this case has importance to the community far beyond Ed's own actions. It is a core principle of Wikipedia that the community is the ultimate authority. I find that Kim and Ed's actions in trying to suppress discussion by deleting the RFC are an effort to whitewash this whole event and the community's reaction to it. It is an attempt to undermine the community, and a clear effort to pull rank and give the community a PowerAnswer rather than to seek reconciliation through discussion, compromise, and consensus. It is, in a very real way, the antithesis of wiki.

While I am hardly one of the first Wikipedians, I have been told that I have somehow become part of the fabric of the place; I am sometimes called an old-timer. I am participating in this case to make a clear statement that even though I may be an old-timer, and part of the same "cabal" as Ed and the other senior admins and bureaucrats, that in actual fact There Is No Cabal -- nor should there be. I'm not going to stand by and let this case be characterized as an old hands vs. new hands matter. It's not. This case is about the fact that everyone around here still must answer to the community, no matter how much they've contributed, no matter how long they've been here, no matter what level of access they have earned, and no matter who their friends are.

Finally, I point out that troublesome behavior from Ed is not new. The matter of William Connolley's near-promotion to adminship and Ed's temporary de-sysopping of several admins earlier this year are similar examples. There are others. The Wikipedia community has forgiven (and indeed forgotten) a great deal already, and I believe that a response of "aw, shucks, I'm sorry and I promise not to do it again" falls well short of the mark.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 18:53, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Kim Bruning

The RfC in question was indeed not brought compliant to policy, Ed Poor's premature deletion of the page was actually due to an incorrect time conversion between EST and UTC. (That, and he should have let a neutral party do it, of course :-) ) This was corrected. After being quite thoroughly notified, the bringers of the RfC continued to fail to certify it, and the RfC was deleted at the due time.

I'd love to see IAR tested sometime, but I don't think this will be the case to do it :-) Kim Bruning 02:52, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Notes:

1. Though the RFC has been terminated, several users have moved it out of RFC space to circumvent RFC policy: [431]. Up to arbcom to decide if that is a valid application of WP:IAR
2. Ed Poor created Wikipedia:Requests_for_deletion very early on to allow people to comment on his actions.
3. I was the blocking administrator, and actually talked with Ed on the phone! I won't be pleased if anyone holds it against him that he unblocked himself after that!

Statement by Ed Poor

Please limit your statement to 500 words.

Okay, I don't care whether this request is "proper" or not. People want a reckoning, and that they shall have.

I was wrong to delete vfd. As a professional database programmer, I should have realized that it would place a great strain on the database, due to its lengthy history being moved into the "deleted page" table. In other words, I should have anticipated the 5-minute read-only block I effectively put on this wiki. So I plead guilty to negligence.

Secondly, I was wrong to assume that my intuitive sense of consensus - (which was actually lacking rather than present) combined with a light-hearted attitude of Ignore All Rules and Be Bold - would be sufficient justification for blasting away at a problematic page (and system). I should have brought up the matter for discussion by creating a poll (as Angela correctly pointed out) or gone through similar channels. Wikipedia has become too big for anyone, however "beloved" (as I immodestly regard myself) or dedicated, to make such a major change as I tried to do.

I promise not to do this again - or anything like it. Specifically, I will not delete an important page or one with a lengthy edit history again unless there is clear community consensus for this. If I cannot determine consensus on my own, I will ask another admin for help. Someone like Uninvited Company would be my first choice.

If my promise is not enough, well you can always put me on "no delete" parole or even de-sysop me. I don't care: if becoming an Admin is not supposed to be a big deal, than un-becoming a one should be no big deal either. Uncle Ed 12:42, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

About the RFC

I mistook the "end date" of the RFC by 4 hours. I thought it was 1:08 P.M. my time, but it was actually 5:08 P.M. my time. I am 4 hours behind Greenwich UTC. I figured that, with only one person certifying, that the RFC could be deleted exactly at the 48-hour mark but I made two errors: (1) I miscomputed the expiration time - which, by the way, I had calculated myself, since the RFC opener had neglected to put it in. (2) I missed the unwritten rule that one does not delete an RFC concerning oneself.

I guess this is why Kim Bruning kept blocking my account and telling me not to shoot myself in the foot (or the leg) - apparently she was planning to delete the RFC herself at the appointed (and correctly calculated) hour. I had no idea of this.

As for unblocking myself, what can I say? Kim blocked me to further some plan of hers which she declined to share with me. I'm not going to arbitration with her on this, as she has already apologized to me. I figured that if an Admin (a) blocked me with no justification and (b) apologized for this, there was no need to embarass her by demanding she unblock me when (as an admin in good standing) I could simply remove the block myself. (She asked me on the phone, "Do you want me to unblock you?" I said that it didn't matter and kind of thought it comical, getting an expensive international phone call from an admin wanting to know if she should unblock me! :-) Uncle Ed 02:08, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

The point that you continue to miss, Ed, is that the RFC shouldn't have been deleted in the first place. Not at the end of howevermany hours, not by you, and not by anyone else. There was ongoing discussion, and whether or not the RFC rules against unsupported listings were complied with or not (and I believe they were, for reasons I am happy to elaborate upon if requested), there was no reason to delete an RFC that was serving as the focus of community discussion. The Vfu Discussion shows that the community was overwhelmingly opposed to deletion, with no actual votes supporting the deletion of the RFC (though Kim voted neutral and there was one vote that, though an "undelete," appeared to be made in sarcastic jest). It is your ongoing, unrepentant insistence that deleting a community discussion about a mistake you made is OK (or, equivalently, would have been OK after four more hours), that led me to support this case in the first place. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 02:28, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

It took me a while to see your point, but I now agree. The request for comment was intended to generate comments and was successfully doing so.

"...the double standard that he created by ignoring rules on one hand and enforcing the letter of them on the other is not acceptable." Wow, I had no idea. I'm glad I re-read this RFA carefully, because I completely missed that point the first few times. Maybe I should step down (or be removed) from adminship until I learn to stop doing this AntiPattern. Uncle Ed 15:19, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Kim Bruning's a guy. It's amusing that you did not notice that, after talking to him on the phone though. :D --Phroziac (talk) 17:40, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree that I should not have deleted the RFC. I am sorry that I deleted it, and sorry that I let Kim "close" it. I see now that the RFC page was serving a higher purpose that I should not have interfered with; or ignored; or allowed to be curtailed. Therefore I have put it back, even if this is 'too little, too late' (see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Deletion of VFD). Uncle Ed 15:53, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Third Party Benjamin Gatti

Sanctioning Ed Poor in this case could have a chilling effect on contributers being bold in addressing problems. The Arbitration commitee should investigate the alledged harm present in the current deletion process and upon a finding of real harm, ought to propose a remedy therefore and thank Uncle Ed for raising the alarm. The technical issues related to deleting a page are matters beyond the jurisdiction of the arbcomm and ought to be rectified rather than blamed on the user. Wikipedia:Wikiblower protection has been proposed and should be adopted as the accepted conclusions of the committee. The Policy is fair to all users and turns on the facts rather than on the personalities involved. Ed Poor should not be sanctioned whether he agrees to it or not because of the effect on the community at large - Killing the messenger is never the solution. Benjamin Gatti 19:10, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Here here. --67.182.157.6 23:47, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Curious 3rd Party (~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ))

I think Ed Poor was deliberately demonstrating that the current system allows total abuse a.k.a. a cabal, in deleting VFD and then deleting any attempts to question this. Warnings from history are very important. ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 21:23, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by 3rd party: Nickptar

I don't see the need to prosecute Ed for this single act. While it was very poorly thought out, Ed has admitted it, has promised not to do it again, and has shown no pattern of disruption. I do think he should voluntarily give up adminship until this cools down, then renominate himself. If he did choose to do so, I would fully support his readminning. ~~ N (t/c) 21:58, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Tony Sidaway

Oh for heaven's sake, who brought this poxy, pointless, idiotic case? Grow up! --Tony Sidaway^Talk 08:21, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Some comments on this statement have been moved to the appropriate place

Statement by Xiong

I don't doubt that there is an involved legal term, in bad Latin, that covers this case exactly. The facts of the matter are unimportant; the ostensible subject of this RfArb is petty, a constellation of secondary actions. The real subject is Ed's primary action: deleting VfD. That was a noble and bold act and has garnered much praise -- perhaps the largest number of barnstars awarded for any single click of the mouse. Ed has annoyed many, but these strong expressions of support -- as well as the following explosion of public debate on this contentious issue -- make it impossible to attack him directly.

Regardless of the technical merits of this case, any decision made here will be taken as condemnation or endorsement of Ed's primary action. I suggest that it is both wrong and unwise for ArbCom to commit to either. — Xiong熊talk* 20:10, 2005 August 7 (UTC)

Statement by a 4th party (Lubaf)

I'm not at all interested in this case (thus my 4th party status), but I'd suggest holding this case until Stevertigo's behavior on Vietnam war (see above) is resolved, as it's a much clearer case, and therefore, should give better contrast as to whether Ed's actions were innappropriate or not. Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 12:53, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Response by Stevertigo

I dont think its in the interest of fairness to pick and choose the order of cases to suit one particular view. Ed's action of deletion was done in the spirit of inclusionism (ironically) - to counter what was a greater percieved danger to wikipedia through deletionism. Certainly the act itself was somewhat unilateral, but then, much of Wikipedia's early success to date had been on rather unilteralist action, by editors well known for their dedication to Wikipedias core principle of NPOV.

As any beaurocracy grows, so to do contradictions develop between concepts of propriety and concepts of principle. War criminals can be found "innocent," while someone who steals pennies from a federally protected bank has "violated the law," and gets a life sentence. In this case, the act of unilaterally deleting a process page can be said to be inexcusable, yet, judging by the overwhelmingly positive responses of people on the mailing list, can also be said to have been in the spirit of consensus. Does foundational principle yield to mere matters of process? IAC, I am not alone in the perception that some beaurocratic shakeup and reform may be necessary, and that beaurocracy itself has made such BOLD changes unwieldy. In a sense this is a good thing, as it established continuity. But VFD in particular, in spite of the fact that its a necessary function, has had a long history of being misused and abused --providing only black and white solutions for greyscale issues and problems. Is the Arbcom interested only in enforcing existing rules, or making recommendations regarding changes of process? -St|eve 20:32, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by 3rd Party Observer

To quote from Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Deletion_of_VFD :

If anyone is due an apology, it is I. Uncle Ed 10:47, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

If no action is taken, it will pave the way for further abuses of admin privileges. I would recommend de-sysopping, in line with User:Tim Starling and a majority of the community. Erwin Walsh 11:45, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by 3rd Party Mr. Jones

As an admin, one has responsibility. If you make a mistake of this nature, you should face the consequences. Ed should emphatically not be an exception; justice must be seen to be done. I suggest a three-month ban on adminship with re-application by the normal route.

The odd way in which Ed treated the RfC is disturbing, and suggests a contempt for process, though it could be explained in other ways. His other actions with respect to pushing through admins are also worrying. I think Ed should be considered on his "last strike", and should be stripped of sysop and bureacrat powers, with other measures to be considered, in case of further inappropriate actions. He would be able to continue to contribute to wikipedia, but would have to request administrative actions by the normal routes, having shown he could not be trusted with the responsibility. Mr. Jones 13:30, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by 3rd party Curps

The trouble with Ed is that sometimes he mistakes himself for Jimbo Wales. -- Curps 19:16, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by 3rd party Paul August

I think this case should be accepted. Not because I think Ed should be punished, but so that the perception will not be that someone like Ed can get away with things that others couldn't. Such a perception will foster the notion that Wikipedia is run by the "Cabal", or an "old boy's network" or an insider's "elite", or whatever you choose to call it. Such an idea is pernicious, and detrimental to Wikipedia. Such a perception has already helped to convince one of the best editors I know Filiocht, to leave the project, quoting from his user talk page:

Ed's vandalism of the project (or "mistake", if you prefer) should be dealt with in the same way that it would be if anyone else had done the things he did. The fact that it won't be confirms what I have long suspected, which is that there is, in fact, a kind of loose-knit, de facto cabal at work here.

Paul August ☎ 21:26, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by FuelWagon (RFA Ed Poor)

"I'm getting away with it because I've been around a long time" --Ed Poor [432]

"I happen to think you're an asshole and a shit head, and that you're fucking everything up, you stupd, time-wasting bully!!! (This is inserted as an example of a forbidden comment, go ahead and complain about me if you want, but I was illustrating a point." --Ed Poor [433]

posted 23:45, 29 August 2005 by FuelWagon

While acting as mediator [434] for the Terri Schiavo article, Ed Poor blocked one of the edtiors of the article (me) for violating NPA against another editor of the article (SlimVirgin). I didn't protest that particular block, even though a mediator is not a security guard [435]. (I accepted the block as a way of restoring integrity for breaking policy, and I posted a full apology on SlimVirgin's talk page. [436].) After my first block, Ed Poor and SlimVirgin were coordinating with each other [437] (21:41, 12 July 2005) [438] (17:05, 13 July 2005) [439] (17:05, 13 July 2005) [440] (18:07, 13 July 2005) This last diff shows Ed asking SlimVirgin if there were "any particular talk pages" he should look at. Two hours later (20:34, 13 July 2005), Ed Poor guts any comments on my talk page about the Terri Shiavo article [441], moves them to a /block subdirectory [442], locks me out of editing my talk page, and explains that it was because I hadn't told him how I "intend to help this project" (which is an odd reason for getting blocked), and then he added that I was making "personal remarks" on my talk page [443]. There are no personal remarks on the content that Ed Poor moved. None. The entire content can be seen here.[444].

Back on the Terri Schiavo article, User:Neuroscientist posted 5,000 word explanation to SlimVirgin regarding numerous technical inaccuracies in her edits [445]. Ed Poor made a rare appearance on the talk page to warn Neuroscientist not to "hurt other editor's feelings".[446] However, Ed Poor was silent on numerous accusations leveled by SlimVirgin against several editors on the article, which included "POV pushing" [447], "taking ownership of the page" [448], "violating NPOV and No original research" [449], and "arguing for the sake of arguing" [450].

After the block expired, I filed an RFC against SlimVirgin. It was supported by 4 editors on the page. At one point, Ed Poor initially supported the RFC [451], however quickly after his endorsement, he withdrew his support and attacked the RFC on the talk page as a "sneaky way of building a case against an administrator", "gaming the system in a hypocrical way", and suggested I drop the RFC. [452]

I eventually withdrew my certification of the RFC to allow it to be deleted. Some time after that, Ed Poor posts this to me [453]:

I happen to think you're an asshole and a shit head, and that you're fucking everything up, you stupd, time-wasting bully!!! (This is inserted as an example of a forbidden comment, go ahead and complain about me if you want, but I was illustrating a point.

Not surprisingly, the Terri Schiavo mediation page ended with most editors voting "unresolved".

I believe Ed Poor failed to maintain any neutrality as mediator on the Terri Shiavo article, to the point of coordinating with SlimVirgin, blocking me at SlimVirgin's request, warning editors who commented on SlimVirgin's editing behaviour while ignoring SlimVirgin's false accusations made against other editors, defending SlimVirgin on the RFC, attacking the RFC as bullying, suggesting the editors drop the RFC, and attacking an editor behind the thin veil of "I was illustrating a point". FuelWagon 15:50, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Clarifying some things for SlimVirgin based on her comments below:

In her comments below, SlimVirgin says "Ed didn't block FW at my request;" SlimVirgin knew I was blocked but still editing 12 minutes after I modified my talk page [454]. Whether SlimVirgin asked for the first block, I'm not sure, but SlimVirgin knew about it and saw me make an edit on my talk page and posted to Ed 12 minutes later. A request or coordination, I'm not sure. However, after the first block, SlimVirgin tells Ed she's not keen on the idea of an editor being able to edit their talk page while blocked because talk pages will turn into "diatribes" against the blocking admin [455], Ed posts a message about diatribes saying "you make a good point." [456], then Ed asks SlimVirgin "Any particular talk pages I should look at?" [457]. He asks that question at 18:07, 13 July 2005. Two hours later (20:34, 13 July 2005), Ed locks my page [458].

Either that one was by request or it was an amazing coincidence.

SlimVirgin also says below that "it worked: the personal attacks stopped". Well, that isn't an exact report of what happened. Actually, before the first block from Ed, I had gone through the talk page and cleaned up all of my comments. Ed even acknowledged that he was aware of my cleanup attempts here [459], (which makes me believe the first block was more likely a request from SlimVirgin than Ed taking it upon himself) So, the personal attacks stopped before the first block. the second block was completely unjustified. There was nothing on my page that qualified as a violation of No Personal Attacks. SlimVirgin told Ed about "diatribes", he asked SlimVirgin if there was a particular page he should look at, and by coincidence or coordination, Ed guts my talk page and blocks me from editing it two hours later. FuelWagon 07:42, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by SlimVirgin

This is a statement in Ed's defense in response to FuelWagon's, above. FW was blocked by Ed for disruption at Talk:Terri Schiavo for inter alia making several serious personal attacks. This was part of the process of Ed sorting out a longstanding dispute in which a small group of editors appeared to have taken ownership of a page. Ed didn't block FW at my request; I didn't know about the block until after the fact. Ed should be commended, not criticized, for involving himself and for trying to change the way certain editors were interacting with others. He meant well, and it worked: the personal attacks stopped. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:50, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by 3rd party Fvw

I know this case already has too many statements so I'll be as brief as possible: I don't doubt Ed's good intentions however I no longer trust his ability to live up to his vow to stop taking unilateral actions, considering how he handled Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/User_names/Trollderella I don't think he is fit to be an admin or a bureaucrat. Should all the initiators of this case have withdrawn (I'm not entirely clear on who's withdrawn and who hasn't) I'd like to take over this case. --fvw* 03:40, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Comment on recent behavior

The arbitrators may wish to read Ed Poor's reactions in Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/User_names/Trollderella. In particular, Ed renamed User:Trollderella to User:EnduranceFan claiming that it was an inappropriate username; some people contest this and feel Ed has acted against consensus. Radiant_>|< 12:36, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Hey, while you're at it, you can watch Ed abuse his admin role on someone who spoke up in disagreement with his heavy handed forced renaming of all users named troll.* here apparently unfunny remarks directed at nameless individuals which no one has complained about are now worthy of an "admin warning." Hipocrite 23:35, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't really think Ed was that far from right on that. I think he should have given Trollderella a week or so to request a new name to be changed to. It's not exactly an appropriate name, but it's likely he/she was thinking about another kind of troll (Probably the plastic ones with the wild hair, or the ones that live under bridges..), and was not aware of what it meant in this sense. I, and others, have talked to Ed about this on IRC, and he agrees it was a mistake. In fact, I had to talk him out of changing the name back. That would probably just make the person more mad or confused. --Phroziac ^(talk) 17:11, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

Trollderella (or someone claiming to be them) has repeatedly requested that their name be changed back [460] [461]. However, it would seem that they refuse to log in as EnduranceFan and have left until/unless someone restores their username; certainly they haven't logged in since Ed changed it. Aquillion 17:37, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

How can you request it be changed back without proving it's who you are by logging in? *sigh*. Also, lets not forget that a lot of admins would simply have perm blocked them. --Phroziac ^(talk) 22:26, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

An admin did block them, way back when: [462]. They were promptly unblocked by another admin, who cited a general consensus that usernames with 'troll' in them are acceptable; to my knowledge, that consensus has not been directly challenged. Judging from that, I suspect that the only reason this hasn't been undone is because renaming is currently done by a more select group. Likewise, we don't need a direct statement from Trollderella to infer that they didn't want their username changed to "EnduranceFan" unilaterally; "Trollderella" is the username they selected when they joined Wikipedia, and if they want a different one there are channels open to request it. Absent such requests, we must assume that Trollderella remains their preference, and that they would therefore prefer that it be changed back. Aquillion 22:52, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Arbitrators' Opinions on Hearing this Matter (4/3/0/2)

• Accept Fred Bauder 19:02, August 4, 2005 (UTC) Vote to accept affirmed Fred Bauder 21:22, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
• Reject Not sure yet - Ed not only says above "I was wrong," but explains how he was wrong. I'm not sure what penalty would make the encyclopedia better David Gerard 21:50, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

  Changed to 'not sure yet' after discussion with some of those bringing the RFAr. I think Kim's explanation helps explain the issues at hand (the RFC and the self-unblock), but I'd like to hear Ed's own words on the subjects. I'll consider further before a firm 'accept' or 'reject' - David Gerard 22:35, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

• Ed doesn't seem to have commented on the real issue here (as set out above). That is, the deletion of an RfC about himself and the unblocking of himself - I'd like to hear more on these before voting -- sannse (talk) 22:15, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

  Accept. Given Ed's response on my talk page [463], there seems a lack of agreement over these actions that I think needs looking at -- sannse (talk) 20:48, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

• Waiting for further input from the parties as to how discussions are progressing, but, I must say, I fail to see how this really helps build the encyclopædia. James F. (talk) 17:04, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

  Reject. I feel that the discussions have been and are being fruitful. James F. (talk) 07:37, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

• Accept, to consider the larger issues surrounding Ed's misuse of his admin/bureacrat/developer privileges. I didn't want to accept this, but it was his veto comment that decided it for me. →Raul654 17:46, August 10, 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm going to stay my above comment (e.g, for the time being it counts as an abstain). Ed tells us that he's nearing a breakthrough in his discussions with the people who brought this case, and in the light of that, I think we should wait before we consider this
    • After private discussion with both Ed and UC, I've decided to reject this without prejudice (the rest of the complainants having dropped the request). There is merit to this complaint and I was prepared to hear it out. However, Ed has promised to cease the offending behavior, and I trust him to abide by his word. If he does continue the misbehavior, I'll be willing to entertain this request again. →Raul654 21:14, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. Ed's recent uses of his admin/bureaucrat privileges are of concern. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:51, 11 August 2005 (UTC) Confirm acceptance. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:35, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
• Hmm. I'm really not sure. I'm going to abstain for now. Abuse of admin powers is a serious thing, but I'm going to take Ed's promise as the end of the matter. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 21:34, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
• Reject: punishing Ed will not make Wikipedia a better place ➥the Epopt 22:11, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. Neutrality^talk 20:39, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Keetoowah

Involved parties

• User:TheoClarke (initiator)
• User:Keetoowah

Keetoowah is aggressively incivil towards other users including, but not limited to, the making of personal attacks.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Notification at User talk:Keetoowah of this entry.

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Keetoowah raised 15 February 2005 asserted that Keetoowah "makes violent personal attacks on other users." It received four direct endorsements in addition to the two editors certifying the dispute. Four other editors endorsed a harsher summary describing Keetoowah as "an obnoxious user". Keetoowah's response opened "Forget it. This is a Star Chamber. I'm not even going to participate. Waste of time." TheoClarke did not participate in this RFC.

Statement by party 1

TheoClarke believed Keetoowah to be pushing a POV at Ward Churchill and challenged this at Talk:Ward Churchill. Keetoowah responded with aggressive incivility. TheoClarke suggested that this was inappropriate. Keetoowah responded with more aggressive incivility including a suggestion that any UK national is unqualified to contribute to the Ward Churchill article. Keetoowah has displayed similar behaviour patterns towards other editors and shows no sign of ameliorating such behaviour. Given that these diffs may not be in full context, I feel that the best evidence would be a reading of Talk:Ward Churchill and its archives.

Addendum at 23:31, August 12, 2005 (UTC): Contrary to Raul654's perception that this is "a one time incident", it is part of a pattern of increasing aggression against more than six editors since Keetoowah's sixth edit in which he makes an argumentative response to a covert attack on Condoleezza Rice. Since this mild incivility, Keetoowah became increasingly aggressive at Talk:Condoleezza Rice and has also attacked Slimvirgin, Cberlet, Viajero, Fred Bauder, and zen master at Talk:Ward Churchill. The details of all these attacks were omitted from the first draft of this statement for brevity. For the avoidance of doubt: The February RFC was about incidents before those that prompted this RFA.

Addendum at 17:26, August 18, 2005 (UTC): The incivility is now spreading to Talk:Guantanamo Bay where Keetoowah has asserted that other editors do not know what they are talking about (this summary may not be fair since it is out of context).

Statement by party 2

Please limit your statement to 500 words

Statement by User:Project2501a (interested third party)

You might also want to check out Talk: Condoleezza Rice concerning User:Keetoowah's behaviour. Project2501a 02:43, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by User:Kelly Martin (vaguely interested third party)

User:Keetoowah is an abrasive editor who is very obviously pushing a point of view and whose conduct frequently steps well over the accepted boundaries of civility. However, I haven't seen him actually edit war; in my experience he respects consensus when actually editing articles, responding instead to edits he disapproves of by unleashing increasingly nasty comments on talk pages. While I don't encourage such an abrasive discussion style, it sure beats the hell out of edit warring. Any remedy for his conduct should respect the fact that his conduct with respect to articles (as opposed to talk pages) does not appear to need correction. I feel that the inclusion of his point of view benefits Wikipedia, and would be disappointed to see him leave.

I believe the histories of Ward Churchill and Talk:Ward Churchill adequately demonstrate this editing pattern. I am less familiar with his history on other articles, but I think this one is especially informative because he has such a strong point of view on Churchill and yet manages to avoid letting it totally get out of hand in the article. Kelly Martin 21:23, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by User:Viajero (interested third party)

As was documented in the RfC in February and can be amply seen on the Talk page archives of Ward Churchill, Keetoowah has a habit of lashing out at other editors with whom he disagrees with exceptional anger and hostility. His lack of collegial spirit and the disrespect he shows towards others is incompatible with the nature of this collaborative undertaking. In particular, he urgently needs to take a timeout from the Ward Churchill article. -- Viajero | Talk 21:20, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by User:PHenry (interested third party)

Keetoowah has now threatened legal action against User:Zoe, in violation of the No legal threats rule. To make matters worse, Keetoowah's accusation against her is demonstrably false--Zoe had merely reformatted a comment that had been left by another user, 66.117.136.44. Along with his legal threat, Keetoowah made a series of vile and intimidating personal slurs [464] [465] against the innocent Zoe, and submitted a highly irregular VfD on the RfC that had been opened about him in February of this year.

Keetoowah's attacks on other users have clearly intensified in even the short amount of time since this RfA was filed. I believe the Arbitration Committee should agree to accept this case. --PHenry 18:40, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Keetoowah has now attempted to eradicate a Keep vote on the VfD page he started. --PHenry 21:53, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

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

• Recuse Fred Bauder 11:35, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. James F. (talk) 16:49, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
• Reject. It looks like a one time incident. →Raul654 17:45, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
• Reject ➥the Epopt 21:59, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:42, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Requests for Clarification

If you need to clarify the precise meaning of a previous decision of the Arbitration Committee, your request should go here.

Everyking

I need to know about when my most recent Arb sentence expires, the one that regulates my expression of views. Everyking 04:34, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• There wasn't a time limit on it. Basically, if you decide it no longer applies, the case would start up again, I think - David Gerard 22:40, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
  • If there's no time limit then I don't want any part of it. Why would I agree to anything that's infinite? My understanding was that it's a year. Everyking 03:44, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
• This was a voluntary agreement was it not? It lasts until you no longer agree to it. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 22:44, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Precisely. It's making a case go away by agreeing to play nice, which is the AC's very favourite remedy ever when it works. If you're finding it untenable, the first thing to do is to see what else you can do to resolve the problem short of an AC case. You don't have to like Snowspinner, but you're both admins, you should be able to work together - David Gerard 22:58, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
    • It wasn't voluntary, unless we have different definitions of voluntary. My definition implies "under no duress". Everyking 03:44, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
      • It's "or the case may well go forward." That's "duress" we can hardly block the existence of - David Gerard 07:22, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
        • Are you kidding? You're arbitrators. You can decide to accept or not accept any case. It seems as though you do have some control. Everyking 09:59, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
• I concur with both David and Theresa. EK agreed to stop pestering Snowspinner, and Snowspinner dropped his harassment complaint. If EK wants to go back on his word, then I see no reason why Snowspinner's complaint should not go forward. →Raul654 21:58, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
  • Isn't that a neutral way to put it: "pestering". Everyking 03:50, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
    • I thought the word "pestering" had fewer negative connotations than calling your actions "harassment", which would have been equally accurate. →Raul654 19:34, August 21, 2005 (UTC)
      • I would define it as raising objections in cases of fairly clear abuses. Everyking 06:14, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Another EK-related request for clarification: Are the remedies from Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Everyking still applicable? One of the remedies in that case prevented EK from reverting Ashlee Simpson related articles. Everyking claims that this remedy no longer applies, because "old cases are supplanted by new cases". To his credit, he hasn't actually reverted the article yet, and is participating in discussion. But he did say that he was going to revert Ashlee Simpson in the future. Rhobite 20:48, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

• Er, yes. They don't supersede old ones unless we say so - David Gerard 22:40, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
  • You did say so. The ArbCom told me that months ago. Do I have to dig it up? it was on the RfAr talk page. I asked this same question and got an entirely different answer. You guys need to at least look a little more fair and consistent. Everyking 03:44, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
    • Yes, please "dig it up". Jayjg ^(talk) 17:59, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
      • Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Archive_4#Question
        • "If two rulings on the same user contradict". There is no second ruling, and in any event the agreement regarding the Snowspinner case has nothing to do with the Ashlee Simpson case, much less "contradicting" it. Jayjg ^(talk) 20:18, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
          • You're confusing two entirely different cases. Everyking 22:43, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
• I concur with David Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 22:44, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

• I would like to note that I agree with David and Theresa on both points; the temporary suspension of EK3 is indefinite unless EK wants it restarted, and it in no way removed the former restrictions. EK is welcome to request that the suspension be lifted, if he so wishes. James F. (talk) 17:49, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
  • While I have no particular desire to go against the actual terms of the deal, I do object to being straightjacketed indefinitely, so in that case I reject the deal in principle. Everyking 18:14, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
• Our decision in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Everyking said In six months, if Everyking can demonstrate good behavior on Ashlee Simpson related articles, he may apply to the arbitration committee to have the revert parole(s) lifted. - Everyking successfully applied to have them removed. Thus, I feel that Everyking is under no restrictions with regard to editing Ashley Simpson related articles, outside of his mentorship. →Raul654 21:58, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Archive

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Completed requests
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rejected requests (unofficial)