Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 08:56, 22 August 2005

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

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

As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey use this form: .

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

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

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Evidence of Nate Ladd

Summary

Donald R. Alford (AKA "DotSix"), of Bellingham, WA, USA, a long-time disruptive Internet troll, has been active on Misplaced Pages since June 15th. During that time he has attempted to replace Misplaced Pages articles, or large chunks of articles, with simple dictionary-style definitions of philosophical terms "true," "truth," and "knowledge." Besides being a violation of Misplaced Pages is not a dictionary policy, not a single other Wiki user accepts his definitions as either accurate, appropriate for Misplaced Pages, or even NPOV.

Although the problems with his edits, and his behavior, have been explained to Alford many times, his only responses have been sarcasm, namecalling, reverting (often blindly), accusing others of attacking him, accusing others of committing fallacies, repeating the edits, and repeating the behavior for which he was admonished. He never, ever, tries to actually refute any points made by others. He has never accepted any compromise whatsoever. Although he claims to desire principled negotiation, he has refused all attempts by others to negotiate with him.

Alford only recently began creating accounts for himself. Until then he used anonymous IPs. Either his home IP of 67.182.157.6 or various AOL and AOL/Netscape IPs. (See Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/DotSix for evidence of his sockpuppetry.) He referred to himself as "DotSix" and has been called that by others. I shall refer to him here as "Alford." Since more and more of these IPs have been blocked, he has begun creating usernames. DotSix Donald R. Alford The Donald He seems to create a new one every time the preceding one is blocked.

DotSix is Donald R. Alford

In case the Arb Committee needs it, the evidence that 67.182.157.6 (called "DotSix") is Donald R. Alford comes primarily from these web pages found by User:Ancheta Wis: and and . Note in particular that the descriptions of the troll's behavior are an exact match for the behavior 67.182.157.6 (not just the type of behavior but the details as well), that the troll's earliest username on Usenet was Donald R. Alford, that the troll's recent IP is 67.182.157.6, that this IP is owned by Comcast of Bellingham, WA, and that all the major Internet white pages identify a Donald Alford in Bellingham. Also, note that 67.182.157.6 has not denied that he is Donald R. Alford.

UPDATE: 67.182.157.6 now explicitly admits that he is Donald Alford. See this diff: "The allegation in WP:Arb 67.182.157.6, "DotSix is Donald R. Alford" is correct, both of those login accounts, user:DotSix and user:Donald R. Alford, as well as User:The Donald, were created by an impostor of user:67.182.157.6, who by all rights should now be blocked indefinitely, and these user pages speedily deleted because their creation was an offense against Misplaced Pages by an impostor, right?--67.182.157.6 15:30, 20 August 2005 (UTC)." --Nate Ladd, Liar First Class, 19:12, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

<STOP MISQUOTING THE ACCUSED, LEAVE THE FULL QUOTE IN THERE, MORON, SO THAT THE COMITTEE CAN SEE THAT YOU ARE A BIG FAT LIAR>

<You insist this is libel, but as you know, the truth is not libel, moron, and the truth is that you are a big fat liar because you insist, "67.182.157.6 now explicitly admits that he is Donald Alford." I do not admit any such thing, liar. The fact is that user Donald R. Alford was created by an impostor trying to pose as 67.182.157.6 and you know it. See where the impostor trys to pose as 67.182.157.6 at the very creation of the account by publishing in boldface, 'Donald R. Alford -- DotSix'? You know that I have said several times that I have not created a log-in account ON PRINCIPLE, because Misplaced Pages is supposed to be about discussion of content, not contributor, right?>

The above paragraph was reduced to incoherence by a typically inane edit by DotSix . in doing so he conclusively shows that he is aware of these proceedings, and is choosing not to participate.

Original paragraph restored. See the diff in preceeding paragraph to see the garbled version. Also, note that even in the version Alford changed, he did not deny that he is Donald Alford, he only denied that he created the account named "Donald R. Alford." --Nate Ladd 16:47, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

He has, however, tried to distract attention by denying that he is the user who created the Misplaced Pages username User:Donald R. Alford. I think that he did create this username mainly because no one else would have a motive for doing so. But whether or not he did is immaterial. For that matter, whether he is Donald R. Alford of Bellingham, WA, is also immaterial. But the fact that he is a notorious Internet troll who has engaged in his patented bad behavior since at least 1998 probably is material to the committee in deciding how to deal with him and in evaluating whether there is any hope that he will ever reform.

I (Nate Ladd) happen to think that Alford did create the username User:Donald R. Alford mainly because no one else would have a motive for doing so. But whether or not he did is immaterial. For that matter, whether he is Donald R. Alford of Bellingham, WA, is also immaterial. But the fact that he is a notorious Internet troll who has engaged in his patented bad behavior since at least 1998 probably is material to the committee in deciding how to deal with him and in evaluating whether there is any hope that he will ever reform.

15 June

• 11:51, June 15, 2005:
  • Alford replaces the article True with a dictionary-style definition in violation of Misplaced Pages is not a dictionary policy. It is reverted by User:Meelar and Alford begins a long series of completely unexplained blind reverts. He does not contribute to any talk page until July 10th and he does not provide any edit annotation until July 11th. (See his contribution history.) As of August 20th, about 13% of all his edits (75 of 593) were attempts to either replace an article (or large part of one) with a dictionary-style definition or redirect an article to a Wiktionary page. In not a single one of these 75 cases did he attempt to discuss his edit, let alone obtain concensus, before he made it.

22 June

• 13:56, June 22, 2005:
  • User:Banno invites Alford to see the talk page for True in 3 consecutive contributions begining with: . Alford's only response is a blind revert . From then until the article was protected on Aug. 7th, other editors made 27 attempts to communicate with Alford in the talk page or in edit annotations. These included explanations why Alford's edits were not accepted and what Wiki policies he was violating, questions posed to him, and in one case a warning about his behavior. His responses to these 27 efforts breakdown as follows:
    • To the 10 communications that came in edit annotations, Alford responded to 6 with a blind revert, to 2 more with a revert and the annotation "revert to eliminate vandalism," to 1 with a revert and a threat to report the editor for "blanking." (the editor had not blanked), and to the last one, he responded with a revert and an annotation to "see talk." The comment he put in talk accused all of the other editors of an "obscurantist jihad" and it finished with a sarcastic remark about the Wiki policy of not allowing redirects to the Wiktionary.
    • To the 17 communications on Talk:True, Alford ignored 7. To 7 more, he accused those who disagreed with him of obscurantism. To the remaining 3, he responded with sarcasm. In many of his 10 written responses he also deleted some of his opponents' comments.

Surveys like this for Truth, Knowledge, Epistemology, his own talk page, and the many Wiki policy pages he has tried to change, would all show the same pattern. There have been literally hundreds of attempts to reason with Alford. I cannot find a single case where he responded positively.

10 July

• 07:02, 10 July 2005:
  • On his very first contribution to a talk page he begins name-calling: "theist obscurantism" . As of August 20th, Alford has included name-calling in 175 of the 593 edits he has made, about 30%. "Moron" is most common, but there are many others. Almost everyone who has disagreed with him and every admin who has blocked him or admonished has been among his targets. He has even targeted members of the Arb Committee:
• 01:48, July 10, 2005:
  • Alford nearly blanks the talk page for "true": . This is the first of nearly 2 dozen times that he nearly blanks the "True" or "Truth" pages. It is also the first of 81 times (as of August 20th) that he has deleted other people's comments from a talk page. About 25-30% of all his edits (to talk pages) have included deleting comments of other editors. On at least one occasion he replaced the entire contents of another user's talk page. .

• 18:03, July 10, 2005:
  • Alford adds an NPOV tag to the top of Truth article with no explanation .

11 July

• 09:25, July 11, 2005:
  • Alford's first edit annotation: he calls the person who removed his unexplained NPOV tag a vandal: . This is the first of over a dozen times (in edit annotations alone) that he calls those who disagree with him "vandals".

15 July

• 09:21, 15 July 2005 :
  • Alford claims or implies for the first time that the editors he disagrees with are in an organized conspiracy against him, with User:Banno as the leader. He calls them Banno's "crew" or Banno's "partners," but most often he calls them a "cabal." Alford has made this allegation at least 17 times. He has identified over 25 people as being members of the cabal: .

16 July

• 02:12, 16 July 2005 :
  • Alford is reported for a 3RR violation for the first time. . Since then he has been reported a half-a-dozen more times. But these reports only include cases where he "slips up" and does all 4 (or more) reverts with his main IP. If cases where he uses sock puppets to do some of the reverts were counted, he has violated 3RR on about half of all days from July 10th to Aug. 20th. On many of these days he has violated 3RR multiple times on multiple articles. One Admin, when blocking Alford, described his 3RR behavior as "atrocious." . In fact, 264 if Alford's 593 edits (as of August 20th), or 44%, are reverts. Keep in mind also that many of his other edits are near reverts. Moreover, a typical Alford comment on a talk page is mainly a block copy of something he (or someone else) has written before.

20 July

• 23:02, July 20, 2005:
  • Alford uses sarcasm: "I will accept your apology for your misunderstanding now." . This was the first of 74 times (as of August 20th) in which he was sarcastic with other editors or admins. That's 13% of all his edits.

21 July

• 13:03, July 21, 2005:
  • Alford accuses editors who do not agree with him of committing the fallacy of ad hominem attack and the fallacy of appeal to popularity. . This was the first of 239 edits (as of Aug. 20th) in which Alford accused others of committing fallacies. (40% of all the edits he's ever made.) It was explained to him shortly after he began how he was misusing these terms and several times since then, but he has ignored this.

• 19:03 July 21, 2005:
  • Alford begins to push an idea of his own about the relation of knowledge and belief that he has been advocating on various web and Usenet groups for years. Specifically, he deletes a long passage in Knowledge that is incompatible with his doctrine.. His usual way of expressing his doctrine is to accuse anyone who doesn't agree with it of committing something he calls the "fallacy of conflation of knowledge and belief." It was pointed out to him that his doctrine is "original research" and, thus, not eligible for inclusion in the Misplaced Pages and that the passages he is trying to delete express a consensus of every philosopher in Western Civilization since approximately 500 BCE. He has ignored this and deleted passages in conflict with his doctrine from Knowledge, Epistemology, and Belief a total of 41 times (as of August 20th).

• 19:18, July 21, 2005:
  • Alford begins adding an NPOV tag to ... Misplaced Pages:Neutral_point_of_view!!!

22 July

• 23:33, July 22, 2005:
  • Alford begins using sock puppets. Not surpisingly he usually uses them to evade the blocks on his main IP. As of August 20th he has used 47 sock puppets, but there are 2 or 3 more pretty much every day.

2 August

• 18:18, 2 August 2005:
  • Alford is blocked for the first time. As of August 20th he has been blocked 7 times. Three of those blocks were extended because he was caught evading them with sock puppets. The reasons for the blocks are 3RR, WP.POINT, WP.NPA, repeatedly removing a VfD tag, "disruption," "gaming the system," "disrespectful," and "continuing bad behavior." The block log of his main IP is here: . In addition, most of the pages in the main namespace, and many of the talk pages, that he edits frequently have had to be protected from him and are still in a protected state as of August 21st.

4 August

• 15:45, 5 August 2005:
  • Alford explicitly calls another user a liar. He has said this, usually explicitly but sometimes by implication, several other times and with increasing frequency and increasing hysteria. Among this targets are Banno, Rhobite, Nate Ladd, and Robert McClenon.

6 August

• 17:45, Aug. 6th, 2005:
  • Alford declares that WP:3RR applies not to individuals, but to each "side" in a dispute. . Although it was pointed out to him that the policy explicitly applies to individuals, not groups, he has repeated his imaginary version of 3RR 51 times (as of August 20th), about 9% of all the edits he has made. In all 51 cases, he makes the claim in an edit annotation for an otherwise unexplained revert.

21 August

• 00:29, August 21, 2005:
  • Since this Evidence page was begun, Alford has twice (so far) edited the evidence section of another user, in violation of the rules stated at the top of the page. Example: This guy thinks he's above ALL the rules.

--Nate Ladd 01:38, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Robert McClenon (talk · contribs)

The header of the request for comments that preceded this RfAr contains a list of the 25 anonymous IP addresses created by this user before he created an account.

16 August 2005

Repeatedly posting a frivolous RfAr (in which he uses insulting nicknames for the signers of this RfAr) against the signers of this RfAr:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=21110669&oldid=21097043
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=21110979&oldid=21110793
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=21111119&oldid=21111051
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=21111440&oldid=21111203
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=21111480&oldid=21111470
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration&diff=21151154&oldid=21147394

Evidence presented by Banno (talk · contribs)

18 August

• 67.182.157.6 (talk · contribs), blocked by {User|Baron Larf} from editing epistemology for vandalism, has returned using multiple IP addresses , from his 172.19*.* block of IP addresses.

16 August

• 5:31
  • 67.182.157.6 (talk · contribs) reverted Epistemology to his own version from 5 August. He subsequently reverted to this version on multiple occasions , , , , , , in a period of about 30 hours, before being blocked by BaronLarf (talk · contribs)

• 11:51
  • Donald R. Alford (talk · contribs) created

• 12:30
  • As Donald R. Alford (talk · contribs) DotSix placed a request for arbitration against a "Cabal" of which I was the supposed leader. Note that he has not engaged in discussion in the present arbitration proceedings;that he resorted to childish name calling; that his attempt was reverted by arbitrator Rauls456 (talk · contribs)three times , , and by Dmcdevit (talk · contribs) once; that Raul resorted to a warning on his talk page

15 August

• 15:31
  • Created a user account dotsix (talk · contribs) ; details added match thse later added for Donald R. Alford (talk · contribs). Began a strange series of claims about his identity.

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