Revision as of 18:22, 26 November 2006

Case Opened on 21:06, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Involved parties

• Asmodeus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• ScienceApologist (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Art LaPella (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• JBKramer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Prosfilaes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• DrL (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) added per Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/DrL Thatcher131 18:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

ScienceApologist has been made aware of this request through a notice on his talk page.

Statement by Asmodeus

Attempts to resolve the dispute were made on ScienceApologist's talk page. When, against the advice of an administrator he refused my request 6, I posted a notice to WP:PAIN and WP:ANI. Administrators Shell Kinney, Daniel Bryant, and Thatcher131 all recommended arbitration. It should also be noted that when ArbCom member Fred Bauder was queried on whether these issues would be addressed in the nearly-complete "Pseudoscience" RfAr, he responded negatively; hence, they would seem to require a new RfAr.

ScienceApologist's problematic behavior in this case, which goes back several months, largely mirrors that of two other now-departed users, Byrgenwulf and Hillman/CH, both of whom openly engaged in harassment against me and another user. Although dispute resolution was initiated in those cases, the users in question left before anything could be resolved. ScienceApologist is well aware of those efforts and has had ample opportunity to ameliorate his own behavior. That he has not done so, and shows no desire to do so, implies that nothing short of arbitration will permit a resolution. Furthermore, it is not fair to prolong his current violation of WP:HARASS at my expense.

Summary

ScienceApologist is speculating on my personal identity in violation of WP:HARASS, particularly regarding the posting of personal information. In addition, ScienceApologist has a history of disruptive behavior with respect to the work and biography of Christopher Michael Langan , whom he has publicly accused me of being in real life. In the context of this accusation, ScienceApologist has serially violated WP:NPA, WP:LIVING, WP:HARASS, and WP:NPOV while falsely accusing me of violating WP:AUTO (as loyally seconded by some of his allies). In fact, I have edited the Langan bio just twice, once to correct a misspelling and once to remove irrelevant information posted by ScienceApologist.

Divulging personal information on Asmodeus

ScienceApologist has publicly speculated on and attempted to reveal my personal identity, and when asked to desist, claimed that since my identity is relevant to possible violations of WP:AUTO, he was within his rights. However, the personal identity of any particular Wikipedian is off the table, the sole exception being somebody with a verified history of non-NPOV edits to Misplaced Pages articles. I have no such history, and have thus violated neither AUTO nor COI. Hence, my personal identity is not a legitimate issue, and speculations and accusations regarding it violate WP:HARASS and WP:NPA.

Such behavior is all the more reprehensible when it threatens to expose a user to attack and/or harassment on philosophical grounds. I have been subject to attack by ID critics at Misplaced Pages. ScienceApologist has been at pains to falsely portray a certain bio subject as an ID theorist, and his theory as a strain of ID theory, repeatedly inserting extraneous information on a certain affiliation into this person's biography for that purpose and ultimately accusing me of being that person IRL. Obviously, ScienceApologist has no business exposing me, or the bio subject in question, to harassment or other abuse, or using Misplaced Pages to focus undesired attention upon us.

Improperly editing Christopher Michael Langan

ScienceApologist has an ongoing history of disruptive editing behavior with respect to the biography of Christopher Michael Langan. WP:NPA specifies that personal attacks include "using someone's affiliations as a means of dismissing or discrediting their views — regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream or extreme" (see the fourth bullet here). That this is ScienceApologist's purpose is clearly implied not only by his well-established negative attitude toward Langan and his work, but by his insistence on inserting and reinserting this particular piece of information into Langan's biography, to which it is extraneous and where it does not in fact belong.

That is, while it is acceptable to report on a biography subject's affiliations, specific information on any affiliated group or organization is either irrelevant, or relevant only insofar as it might influence the perception of the subject and/or his or her ideas. If irrelevant, then it does not belong in the article; if relevant, then it is a violation of WP:NPA and WP:NPOV, and again does not belong in the article. Because ScienceApologist is clearly attempting to expose Mr. Langan to opprobrium through one of his affiliations, this is also in violation of WP:LIVING.

Improperly editing the CTMU article

ScienceApologist disruptively edited the CTMU article when it existed. See this evidence in the "Pseudoscience" RfAr, which contains a helpful narrative and numerous supporting diffs. After encountering editorial resistance to his sweeping changes, he participated in its deletion, which was sought on the alleged grounds that it and its topic were "pseudoscience". In fact, the article and its topic were explicitly classified as philosophy.

I've shortened this statement by administrative request. Unfortunately, the links may no longer be numbered correctly, and I don't have time to change them right now. I'll make corrections and additions as time permits. Meanwhile, the previous version of my statement, and its missing links, remain in the page history. Thank you, Asmodeus 18:17, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by ScienceApologist

I don't think this rises to an arbcom case. The consensus of those people, including a number of administrators, who have looked at the conflict seems to be that the content of the question (or at the very least, the issue raised by it) is perfectly legitimate with an eye toward WP:AUTO and WP:COI. The other complaints are regard content disputes over Christopher Michael Langan and the (now deleted) CTMU proposal, so are not actionable issues for arbcom either. --ScienceApologist 21:30, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by somewhat involved Art LaPella

I don't know why an editor as confrontational as Asmodeus (see User:Byrgenwulf) wants to talk about WP:NPA. For instance, search for the word "rabid" here, which he used to describe a successful Articles for Deletion process. Art LaPella 03:07, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by somewhat involved JBKramer

WP:SPADE. More to come. JBKramer 13:41, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Any user who makes this and this edit, and attacks someone who removes them for pushing POV is not necessary to have editing here in the absence of valuable contributions elsewhere. JBKramer 01:14, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by somewhat involved user Prosfilaes

I have been labeled as one of ScienceApologist's allies by Asmodeus (;) (and note the justification in the last that freaks is rude but "hyperorthodox control freaks" is just fine) and have had run-ins with him where he accused me of WP:HARASS () and bizarrely enough WP:COI() , so I'm at least somewhat involved. He tends to view fellow editors as groups; note where he attacks me and my knowledge of pseudoscience, despite the fact that I haven't written on Misplaced Pages about pseudoscience in the last year, and where he complains about "a dedicated, broad-ranging cabal whose members and sympathizers have become so entrenched in the power structure that they need no longer bother to justify their moblike behavior." He's elitist (a theory is notable for being "authored by somebody reputed to be among the world's most intelligent people"; gets terribly upset when I point out that just IQ is worth little, but is more than willing to denigrate the value of work;Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience/Evidence#Academia covers his general contempt for academia). Talk:Academic elitism#Citations for Arguments shows repeated examples of talking down to me (repeated "Do you understand?") as well as trying to make it personal while I was trying my best to keep it non-personal, and use of orders instead of trying to discuss the issue. falls in here somewhere, with his accusation that CTMU was "deleted your clear resentment of the well-verified fact that its author's intelligence quotient threatens to make those of certain others around here look relatively unremarkable." He frequently accuses people of being ignorant ("ignorance...outside the walls of their mental boxes" "Sadly, the proprietor of crank.net is making definite accusations regarding various people and ideas, some of them clearly over his head. Obviously, Misplaced Pages is not in the business of condoning ignorance, prejudice, or unkind behavior." Irony much?

Asmodeus may or may not be Lagan, but the fact that he obsesses over the AfD of Lagan's theory, the CTMU, over Lagan's bio, and over the value of intelligence and the lack of value of a college education seems to make him a meatpuppet. (I can't honestly say that I've looked through his contribs in depth, so it's possible this is only a pattern of recent days.) I honestly don't see the problem with SA's edits to Lagan's bio that Asmodeus cites; Lagan is a fan of ID, as shown by the fact he's a fellow of International Society for Complexity, Information and Design and he's published in Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing. SA merely replaced, or added to, a meaningless statement of goals a mention of what ISCID is about, which is helpful to the reader. Whatever SA's intent on that, merely stating this clearly true fact is not a violation of WP:NPA.

For the hopeful edification of readers, Edit summary (and why do you have such an interest?) seems to be the first time that ScienceApologist questioned whether Lagan and Asmodeus was the same person. I don't know what it means for this context, but hopefully it will be useful...

Full disclosure: I haven't been perfect in these arguments. At the start of Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience/Evidence#Ideas vs. People - Possible Fork?, I was merely trying to calm things down; near the end of Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience/Evidence#Asmodeus and CTMU discussion I was enjoying a good old debate. In Talk:Academic elitism, there's one edit, promptly deleted by me, where I responded uncivilly to his incivilities.--Prosfilaes 16:04, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Preliminary decisions

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

• Accept. But I would support folding this into the Pseudoscience case. Charles Matthews 21:22, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
• Pseudoscience is convoluted and unwieldy already. I think we'll get some useful rulings out of it, but I actually think it would be a good idea to spin this off of it for the sake of coherence. Dmcdevit·t 05:07, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. - SimonP 19:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
• Accept. Jayjg 23:03, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Temporary injunction (none)

Final decision (none yet)

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

Principles

Findings of Fact

Remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Enforcement

Log of blocks and bans

Log any block, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision here. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.