Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 16:48, 2 July 2008

In order to remain listed at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/User conduct, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 19:19, 1 July 2008 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 19:44, 30 December 2024 (UTC).

• GoRight (talk · contribs · logs)

Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Statement of the dispute

GoRight, a user with a history of disruptive editing on global warming articles, returned 11 days ago. Since then, he has fomented numerous edit wars and harassed other users (the latter resulting in a 24 hour block)

Desired outcome

GoRight should be community banned from global warming related articles. If he continues his harassment of WMC, he should be indefinitely blocked as well.

Description

GoRight is a single purpose civil POV pusher with a history of problematic editing on Misplaced Pages. (Note that I mean single purpose is the strictest sense - his contribs contain exactly 4 edits to non-global warming related articles). He recently returned from a 6 month hiatus.

He has a history of tendentious editing on global warming related articles. In December, he went on a 6 month editing hiatus. Since his return 11 days ago, he has fomented no less than 9 simultaneous edit wars on global warming-related articles: William M. Gray‎, Global warming‎, William Connolley‎, Fred Singer‎, Lawrence Solomon‎, RealClimate‎, An Inconvenient Truth‎, and Global warming controversy‎. At the same time, he has repeatedly harassed user:William M. Connolley (for which he was blocked by R. Baley yesterday) GoRight does not understand or abide by Misplaced Pages policies regarding reliable sourcing.

I have neither the time or energy enumerate all of GoRight's misbehavior in each of the above edit wars, but I'll give a general overview. He attempted to insert claims into the global warming article that global warming is likely to cause earthquakes. (See this thread) His citation for this was an MSNBC article that he knew had already been withdrawn, which said point blank that the earthquake hypothesis was espoused by one person and was at odds with all other known data. Count Iblis told him that his edit violated Misplaced Pages policy regarding reliable sources, to which he responded by claiming it was a legitimate edit. I pointed him to the arbitration committee's decision regarding sourcing for science related articles (Misplaced Pages:Verifiability and Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources require that information included in an article have been published in a reliable source which is identified and potentially available to the reader. What constitutes a reliable source varies with the topic of the article, but in the case of a scientific theory, there is a clear expectation that the sources for the theory itself are reputable textbooks or peer-reviewed journals. Scientific theories promulgated outside these media are not properly verifiable as scientific theories and should not be represented as such.) but he later admitted he did not bother to read the link to the arbitration committee decision.

During the same time-frame, he made this edit to William Connelly's article, claiming that William's article, claiming that WMC "strongly pushes his POV with systematic removal of any POV which does not match his own". The source for this quote was an article by Stacy Schiff, which itself got the quote from an arbitration case on Misplaced Pages -- hardly a reliable source. After this was removed as a blatant BLP violation, he added this one sourced to an article by Lawrence Solomon (an ex-wikipedian with an axe to grind) published in a tabloid. This too was removed as a BLP violation.

While that was going on, he became embroiled in an edit war on the William M. Gray article. (Gray is a global warming denier) GoRight made a series of edits which can only be characterized as vandalism - removing Gray's offer to bet on future climates, and changing "does not subscribe to anthropogenic causes for global warming" to "does not subscribe to the currently hypothesized anthropogenic causes for global warming".

At the same time as the above, GoRight jumped into an edit war on the Global warming controversy article. BernhardMeyer inserted a link to the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change in the Science-related external links section. (diff) (For those of you unaware, the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) is a "research group" created by global warming denier Fred Singer and SEPP - his think tank - to confuse people. It's name is intentionally similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Nobel-prize winning group of climate scientists. The NIPCC, SEPP, and Fred Singer all get money directly or indirectly from ExxonMobile.) When BernhardMeyer's link was correctly reverted, GoRight immediately jumped in, attempting to restore it (diff). When it was explained to him on the talk page that a global warming denial group is not a reliable source, he bizzarely claimed that the onus was on others to prove that the NIPCC is not reliable (rather than the onus being on him to prove they are).

On the Fred Singer article, several weeks ago there was a question about a letter Singer wrote which was published in the Journal Astronautics in 1960. In it, Singer supported the idea that the Martian moon Phobos was artificial, made by Martians. Several people wanted verification of this, so I put in a request in the inter-library loan, got a pdf scan of the letter, and posted such on the talk page. Everyone agreed it was a reliable source, and the letter was quoted and cited in the article, along with a link to a google cache copy. Three weeks later, GoRight came along, claimed that a "google cache" is not a reliable source, and removed all mention of the letter. (diff) This, obviously, started an edit war. GoRight later claimed that because it was not available online, and that he was unable to find it himself (despite the fact that I had posted it on the talk page 2 weeks earlier) we should not cite it (diff). More edit warring followed.

I hope that gives you some idea of the problem user we are dealing with -- of the 36 article edits GoRight has made since returning, 34 of them either started or were part of edit wars. While causing all of the above edit wars, he has taken to singling out and harassing William M. Connelly in particular. So much so that R. Baley blocked him yesterday. R. Baley unblocked GoRight after GoRight admitted he was out of line and promised to be more diplomatic. (See this thread)

This thread is enlightening. When confronted with his misbehavior, GoRight at denies being disruptive and also denies participating in edit warring, despite all evidence to the contrary. He later claims that his edits were properly sourced and their reversion is evidence of a conspiracy against him. When notified of this RFC, he bizarrely described it as "forum shopping"

Evidence of disputed behavior

(See above description for diffs)

Applicable policies and guidelines

{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}

1. Misplaced Pages:Edit war
2. Misplaced Pages:Tendentious editing
3. Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources
4. Misplaced Pages:Vandalism
5. Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Appropriate_sources
6. Misplaced Pages:Harassment

Evidence of trying to resolve the dispute

1. Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive438#Disruption_by_GoRight - the consensus was that GoRight is a disruptive user, but that I was arguably involved and should not make the block myself.

   Note that GoRight responded to the above ANI thread by opening an administrator's noticeboard thread on myself and R. Baley - Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive151#Abuse_of_adminship_by_User:R._Baley_and_User:Raul654 He was told that there was no basis for a complaint and to pursue dispute resolution.

Evidence of failing to resolve the dispute

The ANI thread above was discussed from the 24th to the 26th. Since then, he has not moderated his behavior in the slightest.

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

Other users who endorse this summary

Response

This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.

The verbosity of the charges is daunting so let me try to be brief and to the point:

General points:

1. I do tend to be a single topic contributor as my time is limited and my edits are focused in my areas of interest, namely the GW articles. I am aware of no Misplaced Pages policy that requires across the board participation in a range of unrelated topics. To suggest that this means I push a particular POV, however, is obviously a logical fallacy. The one simply does not logically imply the other. I can certainly be a neutral editor with a narrow scope of interest.
2. "Civil POV Pusher" is a term that Raul seems to attach to people he disagrees with. The GW debate is particularly polarized with very little middle ground. Within this context, anyone who subscribes to the minority views can easily be painted as "Civil POV Pusher". All the majority view editors need to do is play the WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE cards and refuse to agree to any compromise. Given their numerical superiority they have no particular incentive to engage in legitimate debate, preferring instead to silence their critics using procedural techniques such as we have here. This creates an article which fails to meet WP:NPOV over time.
3. I am satisfied that my comments on WP:AN and WP:ANI can speak for themselves.

MORE TO COME ...

Users who endorse this summary:

1. --GoRight (talk) 07:46, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Outside view

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

I agree 100% with Raul's assessment of GoRight's behavior. I do think, however, that banning GoRight from the global warming related pages is not the best way to deal with this problem. I suggest we put GoRight on a 0RR restriction. That will force him to think very carefully about adding something to an article as he can't revert to his version anymore if it is removed.

Also, the 0RR restriction will mean that GoRight is not allowed to revert the article to any previous version at all, even if that is the fist editing action by him in a 24 hour period, except if he is reverting obvious vandalism. So, if GoRight makes an edit on one day, which is then reverted, he can't on the next day edit in that same edit of the previous day.

For talk page comments we'll restrict GoRight as follows. If GoRight raises a topic that has already been discussed or if he raises an irrelevant point that is not ging to lead to changes in the article, then we delete his comments. When his talk page comments are deleted, GoRight will not be allowed to revert that change because of the 0RR restriction. He will not be allowed to raise the same topic ever again as that is technically a revert.

All this sounds more complicated than simply banning GoRight from editing the Global Warning related pages. However, such restrictions do force GoRight to think very carefully about the topic and it may lead him to see how wrong he is about the topic. Also, he nor anyone else can't claim that he is sensored. He is allowed to edit the article. If he is reverted then it is theoretically possible for someone other than GoRight to revert the article back to GoRight's version.

Users who endorse this summary:

Count Iblis (talk) 01:23, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Outside View by ATren

Note: I do not agree with GoRight's views on global warming.

Having said that, there is only one recent edit made by GoRight that gave me any concern, and that was the attempt to add to William Connelley's bio - but even that was a well-sourced claim and not an open-and-shut example of abuse. And, by the way, GoRight accepted consensus on that and moved on, so I don't know why it's still being brought up.

Further, I am of the opinion that "civil POV pushing" is a nonsensical accusation to make about any editor, because it paradoxically implies that civility is somehow a violation of policy. Worse yet, it seems to create an environment where any disagreement is unacceptable: if GoRight disagrees uncivilly, he'll be quickly blocked; if he disagrees civilly, he'll be charged with "civil POV pushing" - so his only apparent recourse is not to disagree. In this sense, "civil POV pushing" is basically being used to squelch debate.

Basically, this is nothing more than a content dispute between editors on opposite sides of a contentious topic. There is no need to squelch one side of that debate.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. ATren (talk) 01:59, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
2. I believe this summary is generally accurate. I don't see anything he's done that is worthy of a ban from GW. Oren0 (talk) 02:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
3. Concur in full. I also disagree with GoRight's POV (that is: I think that man-made global warming is a nigh-undeniable fact), but apart from his misguided push to edit an OpEd source on a BLP (William Connolley), his actions have been well-taken, and conscientious. As ATren states, even that incident can't be called disruptive. I fear that this will turn into an unhelpful "vote off the island" RFC. Cool Hand Luke 04:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
4. Concur. Tempshill (talk) 16:48, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.