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A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution for conduct disputes on Misplaced Pages. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The entire process is governed by the arbitration policy. For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and dealt with, please see guide to arbitration.

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Current requests

User:Alastair Haines

Initiated by L'Aquatique at 02:03, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

• L'Aquatique (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), filing party
• Alastair Haines (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request`

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Alastair Haines
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/Gender of God (archive)

Statement by L'Aquatique

Alastair Haines seems like a smart guy with a lot to contribute, but his people skills leave a whole bunch to be desired. He makes personal attacks , , , calls good faith editors trolls , , and continually claims that others are slandering his good name when they try to offer constructive criticism. ]
He's gone through an RFC/U, which he refused to even look at. The admin that closed the RFC warned him that his behavior was poor,.
Around the same time, I opened a request for mediation to handle the content dispute issue between Alastair and a few other editors. Prior that, it had been a medcab case which I had mediated- which was how I became acquainted with him. He rejected the rfm and demanded that it focus on all the perceived wrongs against him by virtually everyone else. He was blocked temporarily because his message contained a legal threat, and then unblocked after he redacted that part. Here's his message: , and the legal threat: .
More recently, on a thread on AN/I, he wrote a good two paragraphs whining about how everyone has slandered, defamed him, how he's perfectly innocent and the rest of us are out to get him . He challenged anyone to give even one example when his edits have been less than perfect , so I provided him with a long list of inappropriate and uncivil edits on his part . His response was: .

I’m at my wits end, here. I’ve already had one editor burn out after dealing with Alastair. To be frank, I’m not sure arbcom even needs to take binding action… In the past, he’s constantly threatened various people with arbcom cases, so I’m guessing he puts a lot in stock by your opinions. I think it might stave off further bad behavior if you guys could just inform him that his editing is disruptive and he needs to stop making personal attacks. It would be a shame to see him get banned, because he does have a lot to contribute.

Note: Alastair has been encouraged to change his user name so that there would no longer be worries about slander against his real name. He declined. L'Aquatique 05:10, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Note 2: Just so I can't be seen as hypocritical here, I do have to admit that my handling of this case could have been slightly better. However, as a mediator, it was my job to find a solution that everyone could have lived with- whereas Alastair constantly demanded that Rushyo and I focus only on punishing Ilkali, and he seemed to believe that since he initiated the Medcab case that was somehow his right. So yes, I did tell him he was passive aggressive, I refused to apologize for so-called slander upon his good name, and I more recently told him exactly what was wrong with his behavior with no pulled punches. I'm not denying that. However, it's not my job to sugarcoat things, at least for experienced users that should know better. L'Aquatique 14:58, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Alastair Haines

L'Aquatique is "jumping the queue" here, and not disclosing her unsought and intemperate language. The antecedent of her request is that a then new user called Ilkali used a range of forceful editing approaches several months ago. These constituted inappropriate behaviour and words which became more and more focussed as personal attacks on me, because I was opposing both a minor content issue and his behaviour. His behaviour has improved a little, but still constitutes deliberate personal attacks, despite me seeking for it to be addressed: personally, at WikiEquette, by mediation, and by giving time for another user to help him see his error. He is currently on notice that ArbCom is the next step, though I'm still hopeful that it will not be necessary to take the Committee's time on what really ought to be able to be addressed in other forums.

Nonetheless, I am very happy for Ilkali's behaviour to be the subject of an ArbCom investigation, which will naturally also need to consider how I and others have sought to address it. However, until someone actually questions some feature of my so far uncriticised behaviour, dispute resolution hasn't even begun in my case. It seems to be inappropriate process to request an ArbCom decision regarding a user who has two years of unquestioned constructive editing, simply because a few people have asserted bad behaviour, without genuine discussion and ultimately without evidence, except citations of one another's interpretations of my motives in particular edits. Sadly, no one's even thought to ask for my rationale. Whatever I've volunteered anyway has been rudely dismissed.

I actually would appreciate ArbCom involvement in the case, despite the fact that the process will definitely be time consuming, since establishing Ilkali's inappropriate edits, comments and personal pursuit will clarify precisely where others should have been moving to support an experienced, knowledgable and good faith editor, against one who started by experimenting and quickly escalated to slandering.

The viciousness of the language of those who have criticised me is not an environment I've wanted to invite friends into. It has also not been conducive, I imagine, to passers by who would otherwise have endorsed my actions and comments. I am very grateful to TEKlontz, who stumbled across the debate by accident, and has done a sterling job of attempting to dissuade those masking their intemperate and unfounded comments by raising ever more accusations and citing one-another as evidence for the reasonableness of their conclusions.

It will be apparant to those reviewing this that I've never been officially accused of any bad behaviour, which is not surprising because there is none. Despite what I've said above, I am unwilling to support an arbitration request if the topic of that request is my behaviour, it is obviously against the DR policies I've read and been pursuing. Not only that, if this is indeed to be the topic of the arbitration, then I am unwilling to participate unless there is a respected editor who is willing to assert his (or her) confidence that my edits are entirely consistent with protecting Misplaced Pages's: content from error, community from divisive editors, policy from misunderstanding and processes from abuse. Without such an advocate, I will remain in the situation of having to defend myself, a feature of many previous discussions, imo ruthlessly exploited by the small group of people criticising me and represented by L'Aquatique.

As I see it, Ilkali's bad behaviour was originally minor, but the defamation he has achieved is a serious matter indeed. If one reflects on the current situation the only serious damage is to my reputation and to that of Misplaced Pages for failing to protect it so far. The longer it is left, the more time consuming it is to clear up. I support some kind of action now, just precisely what, I leave for those who are more experienced in such things to suggest. Alastair Haines (talk) 04:36, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

PS Since people keep making much of legal threats, which I have never made, that particular accusation alone is hearsay regarding an unfriendly interpretation of a point I'm happy to repeat here. It is also defamatory, since even at this page alone, it forms part of presumed evidence of bad character or conduct. People who do not otherwise know me, my character or conduct are concerned about possible (and some have even asserted actual) failings in me on the basis of misinformation published in regard to this matter. The problem is that I am an editor using my real name. Were I anonymous, I would not be professionally at risk due to personal attacks on my character published on Misplaced Pages talk pages. In my opinion, this should indeed have a chilling effect on responsible Wikipedians—Ouch! I'm using my real name. People can slander me here. Would the processes here protect me. This point has not been lost on Cailil. I have several times made, and here repeat, that defamation is occurring. That is simply a fact. What have I done about it? I've appealed to the Wiki DR process to sort it out, I'm trusting the volunteers who administer that process. So far they've not done very well, which is a little disappointing, but I am still confident of a positive result. We all know this kind of thing takes time here. But the point is, how would you like false accusations about your character or behaviour published without accountability? Stand in my shoes for just a moment, and it's not just me, this can be anyone who entrusts their real name to the community. Alastair Haines (talk) 05:01, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Daniel

I rejected the RfM, due to the fact that Alastair was at the time indefinitely blocked due to legal threats (and hence it would be impossible to conduct mediation), as well as his disagreement. I explicitly noted that this was without prejudice if both the legal threats situation and Alastair's disagreement were reversed, however I also suggested an article requests for comment before trying an RfM again.

The rejected RfM in its final state is preserved here for case management purposes. Regards, Daniel (talk) 02:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Ilkali

My comments on Alastair are available in the AN/I and the RfC/U, and contain dozens of supporting diffs. Ilkali (talk) 10:10, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

In response to Teclontz's statement: Arbitration requests are not made or granted just on the basis of somebody being involved in two disputes. It is insulting to everybody involved - and especially to L'Aquatique - to suggest that the reasons behind this case are so trivial. Ilkali (talk) 16:43, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved but not impartial user Miguel.mateo

Not that it matters, but I am bringing it up since it may. Alistair has been accused of misbehavior by some of the editors that have similarly accused of missbehavior other very junior editors in Misplaced Pages. The samples that I have can be seen here, some of these editors placed really bad accusations in the original editor's talk page, without any hard evidence. My point? Some of these editors accusing Alistair maybe are just jumping into conclusions too fast. Just my two yen worth opinion ... Miguel.mateo (talk) 10:27, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Statement by LisaLiel

Alastair seems to feel that he can change any article if he deems it appropriate, but that other editors require his permission to edit articles. I assembled a list of diffs that illustrate this (). I got out of control during this attack of reversions and was (correctly) blocked for violating 3RR. Alastair, however, continues to maintain that he is flawless and perfect and has never done anything wrong. In my opinion, it is this attitude that makes him unfit for participation in a collaborative project such as Misplaced Pages. Someone who is constitutionally incapable of admitting fault, no matter how egregious the offense and no matter how obvious the evidence, is someone who will always be the center of problems. I'd only add that I'm using my real name as well, and that doing so is a personal choice. Alastair made the same choice, and he can hardly use his own choice as a bludgeon to try and prevent others from criticizing him. -LisaLiel (talk) 11:53, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

PS, I would like to note that even here, Alastair has attempted to turn this into an investigation of Ilkali, rather than address even a single criticism of himself. -LisaLiel (talk) 11:56, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved User:Anonymous Dissident

The sheer heat of the matter at hand becomes clear as soon as one reviews the alleged legal threats. This is a sure sign that the dispute has escalated to a level at which intervention by such a body as ArbCom will be necessary before the issue festers and becomes further blown out of proportion, and grows into a real problem beyond the plain text. An obvious accept, with much hope of finding a solution to the dispute as well as the accusations that seem to be liberally thrown about by both parties. -- Anonymous Dissident 12:39, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved but not impartial User:Casliber

I must disclose I have known Alastair for over 25 years and hence my opinion is coloured by this. I have always found him thoughtful, openminded, erudite and very helpful. As I am an atheist and he is religious, our wikipaths haven't crossed often and I have little interest in the Gender of God article. He has been helpful and thoughtful in some discussions on vampire, and Sirius, and was happy to accept others points of view then. The Gender of God is always going to be an extremely difficult article manage both due to the interpretation of the subject matter (which 'God' and how broad/narrow to take it), and because of those who may edit it. I felt the 1RR proposal for the page was a good one, as I feel this dispute is as much about the page as about users. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:41, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Statement by the person who caused this mess User:Teclontz

First, I want to apologize to Alastair for causing this mess by daring to venture onto a page he was dealing with. I've had a perpetual series of edit wars with a single user (I think the only edit wars I've been in were with the same user). Alastair is a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The hot tempers that brought the initiation of this Arbitration case were the direct result of an edit war that started only a few hours after I dared make an edit in a Jewish section of the Gender of God article. It was foolish for me to think it was safe to do so.

In fact, the only reason I felt that it was safe to edit there was the presence of Alastair. Being a religious Jew with a working knowledge and education in Christianity, I've found Alastair to be a moderating force in my dealings in Misplaced Pages. He's consistently upheld Misplaced Pages standards, consistently encouraged me toward patience, consistently tried to find the middle ground, and has even disagreed with me and corrected me on occasions that I was getting too close to a particular issue. I am a better editor today because of Alastair's cautions toward patience. He's advocated complete faith that the Misplaced Pages system eventually works things out right, and I've very vocally argued against his optimism. I would very much like to see Alastair proven right in this case. I really do want to have the faith in Misplaced Pages process that he's tried to help me with.

If I remember correctly, in this latest edit war I had with Lisaliel on the Gender of God page, Alastair stopped after a few edits , and Lisa and I were the last people involved . That is, Alastair STOPPED participating in the edit war as soon as he realized one was starting, while Lisa and I CONTINUED to edit war until I followed his lead and stopped as well. Lisa did not follow his lead, and was subsequently blocked.

As for Ilkali, Alastair and Ilkali had an earlier issue. Lisa and I had an earlier issue. The only reason Alastair got caught in MY edit war was because he had no idea that Lisa and I have this bizarre history. He acted like I do on a normal page. A revert or two if long standing and well cited content is eliminated without discussion first. I think after it kept going he realized that something else was afoot and backed out of it. Then Lisa and I followed our usual pattern.

When the administrators came in here they saw three editors in the latest edits: Alastair, Me, and Lisa.

Being normal intelligent human beings, the Administrators put two and two together and thought Alastair was the common denominator. Accordingly, they kept encouraging him to stop things that he wasn't even doing at the time. I was the one fighting on the Gender of God page. The latest disagreements on the Gender of God talk page were between Ilkali amd MYSELF, not Alastair.

Being normal intelligent human beings, the Administrators saw three guilty parties. Lisa and I both promised to back down. Alastair just insisted he wasn't a part of it.

Being normal intelligent human beings, the Administrators saw Alastair as unrepentant and therefore uncorrectable. And therefore we are here now -- basically because Alastair has shown the bad behavior of protesting his innocence.

Well, here I am. I'm the guilty party. Actually, Lisa and I are the guilty parties. Alastair was an unfortunate bystander in this case. His only crime was in telliing normal intelligent Administrators that he really was the bystander here. I do not fault the Administrators in any way. I think they are doing an excellent job. And the history that Lisa and I have is so extended and so bizarre that someone coming from the outside would never expect to look at the two of us instead of Alastair.

If I were L'Aquatique, I would have done EXACTLY what she did: start this arbcom.

And I want to apologize to L'Aquatique for causing this confusion. You had no way of knowing. To you, Alastair and Ilkali was one strike. Alastair, Lisa, and Tim was one strike. The person with two strikes is Alastair.

But that is just by accident. Again, I'm sorry to Alastair and L'Aquatique for not having the skills to get away from this. I had felt safe on the Gender of God page because such an experienced editor as Alastair was there.

And he got shot with a bullet aimed at me.Tim (talk) 15:25, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

In response to Ilkali, I don't think this is trivial at all. I think this is a very long term and serious problem stemming from November of last year through today, and I really do think that the Administrators are on target by including ALL editors in their consideration: you, me, and Lisa included. At the bottom line, Ilkali, is the need for Misplaced Pages to have a process to ensure that the overhead of disruptions doesn't eliminate real work that goes into the creation of an encyclopedia. They also want to see that personality issues don't eliminate real work as well. At the heart of it are ultimately three things, all extremely serious:

1. Long term disruptive edit wars
2. Personal targeting in the opening of your last "case" against Alastair
3. One editor's personal agenda to make sure I'm not allowed to edit in Jewish articles or Jewish sections of articles.

That's two personal targeting agendas and one edit war habit. All three of those are very serious. SO serious that Alastair has been swept up into the bad habits of yourself, myself, and Lisa.

The Administrators have shown amazing wisdom both in opening this issue, and in adding the three most guilty parties to the review.Tim (talk) 16:52, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (5/0/0/0)

• Comment: I'm waiting until Alastair responds here. I would like to know just what Alastair means by the accusations of defamation, slander, hearsay, and such, on AN/I; his comments there do seem to amount to the same chilling effect that we attempt to prevent via WP:NLT. --jpgordon 04:03, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

  Accept. Statement is adequate to demonstrate a problem exists. --jpgordon 15:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

• Accept to consider behaviour of all editors. Sam Blacketer (talk) 09:43, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Accept per Sam. --bainer (talk) 11:13, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Accept. Kirill 11:28, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
• Accept, per Sam. FloNight♥♥♥ 13:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

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• WP:RFAC
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Place requests related to amendments of prior cases, appeals, and clarifications on this page. If the case is ongoing, please use the relevant talk page. Requests for enforcement of past cases should be made at Arbitration enforcement. Requests to clarify general Arbitration matters should be made on the Talk page. To create a new request for arbitration, please go to Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration. Place new requests at the top. Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/How-to other requests

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Current requests

Request for clarification : Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/John_Buscema

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• User:Scott Free
• User:Tenebrae

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk%3ATenebrae&diff=228478711&oldid=228228599

Statement by Scott Free

http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/John_Buscema

I have a question concerning a statement by Tenebrae -

...the version largely written by Scott Free's former identity, Skyelarke, which was disallowed by both RfC consensus and a lengthy Arbitration.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AJohn_Buscema&diff=226555068&oldid=215860249

Extra info - A similar statement was made here - http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AJohn_Buscema&diff=228308285&oldid=228307747

My question would be is the statement correct? Does the Arbitration ruling state that content contained in previous versions are not allowed to be integrated into the current article? I'm not clear about the consensus aspect, but my understanding is that of the closing arbitrator -

'(Referring to 'Consensus can change') ...This is certainly a legitimate and well-recognized principle. I don't know that it's applicable to this case because before the article was protected, it's not clear there was a consensus between the two versions, one way or the other. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:47, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages%3ARequests_for_arbitration%2FJohn_Buscema%2FWorkshop&diff=181873872&oldid=181781354

I ask this because my understanding of the situation is that discussion on content had been interrupted (with about 30 or so referenced passages, having arrived after the RfC in question, left more or less incompletly discussed) due to conduct and civility issues that required arbitration. Following the Arbitration, which issued a decision aimed at resolving the dispute, in theory discussion could continue, addressing the unresolved content questions. So I guess my second question would be: Can I make edits to the article (within reason) that aim at reintegrating some or all of the 30 or so unresolved referenced passages?

Right now, I feel that if I should make edits to the article in that spirit, judging by the statement (which has been made in various forms several times), I would get a reply to the effect of 'the content being presented has been disallowed by RfC and an Arbitration ruling'.

In good faith,

--Scott Free (talk) 21:43, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Regarding respecting post-arb consensus - That's also a question I have - What if no clear consensus emerges from the limbo the article was in? I did do a RfC to try and address this, but there was little in terms of comments on the specific issue of the previous disputed (and I say largely unresolved) content - the RfC ended up being pretty inconclusive aside from certain generalities about image use.

--Scott Free (talk) 11:13, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Question to GRBerry - Just to clarify -had you or have you read Tenebrae's first statement in the Arb Enforce request? (Which is the same as the diff provided here above) I ask because your closing statement seemed to indicate that you might not have. (That was partially a mistake on my part, as it wasn't included in the green area of the diff, it was just above it.) (Although this clarification request isn't a direct reaction to your admin action - the statement is fairly typical of the editor and I was planning on making a clarification request on this sooner or later.)

--Scott Free (talk) 21:09, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Response to Sam Blacketer - I can see how reverting a paragraph wholesale would be innapropriate - I was thinking of taking the 30 or so passages individually and reintegrating them into the current version, rewording as required (they are all fairly short sentence fragments, I think, spread out fairly evenly throughout the entire article) - either one at a time or one section at a time. The reference sources are the same as the ones already used in the article. However, content-wise, it would still be the same content that Tenebrae is, I gather, strongly opposed to and will most likely delete most of them. Most likely, I would probably end up making a request for comment, to get additional feedback. Would this be acceptable?

I think in three cases, Tenebrae had removed the reference tag and kept the text, stating that references weren't necessary for them - Post-arb, another editor removed the phrases for reason of lack of reference. In those cases, I would restore the 3 phrases and include the corresponding previously deleted reference tags.

Another question would be : Would it be acceptable for me to submit this article to a Peer Review process?

--Scott Free (talk) 12:25, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Tenebrae

Anyone can go on the John Buscema page and see Scott Free's disruptiveness even when editors besides myself try to dissuade him from continuing to promote his highly POV, often non-MOS, hagiographic fan page with over a dozen often decorative images. He was barred from editing the page for three months, and his obsessiveness over the page got him another month tacked on.

Please: Go read the lengthy Arbitration log, and the months of discussion that went on before and, now, afterward. --Tenebrae (talk) 03:10, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Response to jpgordon

I believe I've tried, having made only non-controversial and minor edits and not having touched the article otherwise.

It might be helpful to read these two new related, closed discussions on the Admin Noticeboard, of which I've only now become aware, in which other editors and admins have addressed Scott Free's continuing disruptions and obsessive behavior: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement#John Buscema and Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement#Addenda to John Buscema. --Tenebrae (talk) 13:37, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Statement by GRBerry

There was a recent WP:AE thread posted by Scott Free, which I closed after 5 days had gone by. It was clear to me that it did not merit administrative action, and no other reviewer had suggested that use of tools was appropriate. During that thread it was discovered that the external link was to a out of date mirror of our article, and it looked due to lack of further dispute over the link like that would lead to consensus about it. This thread is now archived here. A followup thread, attended to by Shell Kinney, is still on WP:AE but will archive to archive 24 shortly. An even earlier related thread is here. No other WP:AE activity I'm aware of is relevant. GRBerry 03:18, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Statement by other user

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

The remedies in the case said nothing whatsoever about the content of the article; rather, they require that after your topic ban expired, both of you "respect consensus developed in the interim concerning the basic structure of the article and the nature of the material that should be included". Does your material respect the consensus that developed? --jpgordon 04:06, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

• The terms of the arbitration case are that you have to respect the basic structure, so simply restoring the same paragraphs that were previously being objected to would not be respecting the structure but reverting to the previous structure. The external link to Nationmaster is clearly inappropriate. If you are adding reliable source references to what it already in the article, or making additions to explain existing material, then that is quite acceptable. Meanwhile I hope other editors will continue to assume good faith on your contributions. Sam Blacketer (talk) 10:02, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages arbitration