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Sources - objection to wording

I have an objection to the current wording under the subsection Sources . This overemphasizes academic sources, and this could cause problems in the future. Please see the problematic issues with this overemphasis, as laid out in my evidence in this case: Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Scientology/Evidence#Financial_conflict_of_interest_in_source_material.

Durova (talk · contribs) commented about this at the Workshop page for Prem Rawat 2 case: Actually, there are occasions where the role of scholarly sources might be overemphasized. Would you trust scientific research about the health effects of tobacco that was funded by tobacco companies? I'd be more interested in an investigative report on the tobacco industry's campaign financing practices, which no academic journal would be likely to cover but a good mainstream newspaper would publish. Not everything worth our attention occurs within the ivory tower.

John Nevard (talk · contribs) also made a pertinent comment: an article on the effects of smoking on heart disease in a journal from several decades ago by a research scientist dependent on funding from the tobacco industry may have questionable value. In the same way, a journal article by a specialized social scientist dependent on good relations with new religious movements might be more clouded by subconscious bias than a well researched feature by a journalist for a heavyweight paper who will be on another story next month. Cirt (talk) 23:51, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the concerns raised here by Cirt. WP:NPOV requires that all significant viewpoints are covered, and as long as a source is considered reliable by our standards, there should be no problem with usage of a source--especially in cases where the information is readily verifiable by multiple reliable sources. It is dangerous to make generalizations here because situations vary from case to case, and the wording as it stands could be used to subvert the use of legitimate sources. Furthermore, there is a difference between using scholarly sources for a field such as physics or linear algebra, than doing so for social sciences or religious study, which tend to be less rigid. The trouble with such wording was discussed in another ongoing arbitration case: Jayen466 proposed (see "1") a principle for the Prem Rawat 2 arbitration case, citing a Cold Fusion principle as a precedent; Durova pointed out that the principle cited "may not be broadly applicable outside science disputes." ←Spidern→ 07:29, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

This is not a comment on this specific case, nor a response to the objections raised. However, it is relevant to note that a similar principle recent passed unanimously on the Ayn Rand case: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Ayn Rand#Neutral point of view. Vassyana (talk) 09:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I've tweaked this a bit over a heading of "Quality of sources" and added the "Ayn Rand" principle to cover use of sources, as "Neutrality and sources". — Roger Davies 09:36, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

The Ayn Rand principle you cite may not be appropriate in this case. We are talking about a field where (unlike cold fusion or Ayn Rand) the number of engaged academics is relatively small, and the subject of the debate (again unlike cold fusion or Ayn Rand) has made strenuous legal and financial efforts to influence what others say about it.

A case in point: Oxford University Press has just this month published a book called Scientology, a collection of essays by a number of scholars. The first essay is a condensed history of L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology by J. Gordon Melton, a controversial sociologist who has been criticised for conflicts of interest such as acting as a consultant and expert witness for the groups about which he writes (including Scientology). His history of Scientology - which he falsely describes as the "generally agreed facts" - is riddled with the most basic factual errors. For instance, he says that Hubbard sank a Japanese submarine during World War II, a claim which Hubbard made but which is supported by no historians of the US or Japanese navies, and was specifically rejected by the US Navy itself, as well as Hubbard's unofficial biographers. Melton mentions none of the contradicting evidence and cites no sources for his claims. It's an atrocious piece of work and I'm frankly amazed that it got through OUP's editorial processes. The problem is that, under the principle you cite, Melton's work could be given a higher standing than most of the (better sourced) works which contradict him, even though Melton is the exact equivalent of the tobacco scientists mentioned by Cirt.

Your principle assumes that academic researchers work to a higher standard of objectiveness and factual accuracy than non-academic sources. The problem is that for this specific topic area, that is not always the case because of the degree to which the Church of Scientology has sought to guide academic opinion (see the quote that begins with "12" at ). There is no parallel to this effort in the Ayn Rand or cold fusion topic areas. Failing to recognise that will seriously undermine the integrity of articles in this entire topic area. Your principle also makes no effort to define what "the best and most reputable sources" are, and all I can see it achieving will be merely shifting the argument to what sources editors consider to meet those criteria - I can tell you straight off that there will be very polarised views on this point. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:57, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Note that ChrisO is one of several editors in this field who have disclosed that they are involved in what scholars term online propaganda efforts against Scientology outside Misplaced Pages, and/or who have linked to their own sites as sources. Jayen466 10:24, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

How about responding to questions such as the one I've posed below, rather than attempting to slime people? I might add that the editor whose you're citing was banned for harrassment - I don't think it's an example you want to follow. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:38, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

How about you both stop the ad hominem stuff? — Roger Davies 10:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately this isn't the first time that Jayen has made ad hominem arguments when his positions have been challenged. He did exactly the same thing a few weeks ago, without provocation, on Talk:Scientology - see . I had hoped this arbitration would convince him to stop doing this but evidently it hasn't. I regard it as a bad-faith tactic - note Jayen's last line in the diff I've quoted, which reeks of bad faith. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:49, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• As I pointed out to Durova, similar principles were used in two Sai Baba cases. The idea that academic sources are relevant for natural sciences, but don't matter in the social sciences has been voiced before, and soundly rejected. As for the allegation of financially tainted scholarship, this is a matter for the academic establishment to decide, not for us to decide. Fringe groups in all kinds of areas have alleged that the entire scientific establishment is involved in a conspiracy to suppress the truth. That is all fine, but as long as the scholars concerned publish the field's standard reference works via such publishers as Oxford University Press, the Gale Group, Greenwood Publishing and Encyclopaedia Britannica, and their works are required reading in university courses throughout the English-speaking world, I consider any attempt to exclude such sources moot. Anyways, the whole conversation between Durova and myself is here. Jayen466 10:15, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• That's a strawman argument. The issue is not that all academic sources are "tainted", as you put it: it's that some academic sources may in some cases be of inferior quality to some non-academic sources. Go back to that specific example that I cited. Melton, the academic source, says Hubbard sank a Japanese submarine. (He gives no citations for that claim). No naval historian supports the claim. The US Navy has specifically rejected the claim. Two non-academic sources, Miller and Atack, also specifically reject it and give numerous citations for their argument. Which source would you cite as authoritative and why? -- ChrisO (talk) 10:20, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• I have not the slightest doubt that some peer-reviewed sources are way better than others and that some authors of some peer-reviewed publications are considerably more partisan than others. However, that is not unique to Scientology and they can only be evaluated on a publication by publication basis. I note what you say about polarisation but this topic is already abundantly polarised and it's the polarisation that makes agreement so difficult not deficiencies in policy. The key thought here is that Misplaced Pages is about verifiability not truth (whatever "truth" is) and that it is not the job of ArbCom to trash academic reputations: that trashing can be done perfectly well by other academics writing in other peer-reviewed sources. Sorry, but I don't see a magic bullet here for this other than getting the editors to step back a bit. — Roger Davies 10:37, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• Again, though, that's begging the question. You're assuming that peer-reviewed sources (and I don't actually know if the work I'm citing has been peer-reviewed) are better than non-peer-reviewed sources. That may be true generally across the full range of all peer-reviewed sources on all subjects, but it isn't automatically true in this particular field, not least because the number of sources is actually quite limited. In the case of the example I quote, you have a possibly peer-reviewed source which lacks citations and asserts facts in opposition to several non-peer-reviewed mainstream sources which do provide citations for their arguments. So what do we do? Do we just roll over and say "even if we know this is a fringe view with no support from any other sources, it's an academic source so must be included"? There has to be some commitment to basic factual accuracy, surely? -- ChrisO (talk) 10:51, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

You suggest that it is "not the job of ArbCom to trash academic reputations"; please note that nobody is suggesting that you do any such thing. I believe that both academic and other sources can be sufficiently represented in accordance with WP:NPOV. However, giving preference to one over the other has the unintended potential side effect of discouraging the use of otherwise reliable sources, which are abundantly verifiable. For example, on the talk page of Osho, Cirt pointed out that 28 sources described the deportation of Osho. Jayen466 still objected to the word usage of "deportation", and insisted that "more reliable" sources be used in their stead. Ideally, both viewpoints could be represented in a neutral way if in-text attribution of a claim is present. If a source is already deemed reliable by policy, what is the point of precluding or limiting the use of them in favor of views which are held by a handful of scholars? ←Spidern→ 12:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Church of Scientology

This finding of fact is extremely appropriate and warranted. I note that a version of this was already adopted by the Arbitration Committee in the COFS case, namely Conflict of interest, Responsibility of organizations, Multiple editors with a single voice, and most specifically, Use of Church of Scientology-owned IPs.

I question this comment by Cool Hand Luke (talk · contribs) - and ask upon what evidence Cool Hand Luke is basing this on. For one, I am not a contributor to the Operation Clambake website. Cirt (talk) 15:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Editors using Church of Scientology equipment are focused on Scientology-related articles, and frequently engage in sockpuppetry to avoid sanctions , . The Church of Scientology's influence on articles relating to it on Misplaced Pages has been widely reported internationally by the media since 2005, damaging Misplaced Pages's reputation for neutrality (examples: The Guardian, MSNBC, CBS, CNN, Der Spiegel, The Independent, Forbes and Reuters).

It should also be noted that this is simply a Finding of fact - and that everything stated in this above text is factual, accurate, and backed up by evidence. Cirt (talk) 15:39, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I think you're a top-notch editor in this area, and I think that many other editors in this case should be given significant sanctions.

I will not impute an irrevocable COI to everyone who has ever edited from a COFS IP address, just as I will not do so for everyone who has ever contributed to Project Clambake. The COI guideline doesn't work that way. I would support a different finding but not one that's setting the stage for an unprecedented IP range topic ban that will permanently subject every pro-Scientology editor to checkuser. Cool Hand Luke 15:43, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

@Cool Hand Luke - do you dispute the factual accuracy of any part of this Finding of fact ? Cirt (talk) 15:44, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Findings of fact also must be relevant. Do you dispute the factual accuracy of my statement—that many Misplaced Pages users and admins are prolific anti-COFS contributors off-site? Neither of these sweeping statements would be included in a proposed decision unless they were operative, and at this time I oppose both and note the apparent bias of the finding.

This finding would not be relevant to the case unless sanctions against the church's IP ranges are proposed. As it turns out, Roger has proposed such sanctions, and I strongly oppose them as well. I would support a finding of fact that users X, Y, and Z have edited from these ranges (and that doing so, in conjunction with using an SPA and POV editing shows the hazards of apparent COI editing). But this finding of fact has no place in the case, and neither does the upcoming remedy.

Tip to editors who have ever used a COFS range: think of something clever to say about this case, because they might be your last words on Misplaced Pages. Cool Hand Luke 16:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• The FoF is only one-sided to the extent that I have been unable to find correspondingly clearcut evidence for any other identifiable faction. I am unable to say whether this is because they don't exist or because they are better at covering their tracks. I would love to do and would embrace enthusiastically a corresponding FoF for Operation Clamback or whatever. I invite editors to submit evidence (ie diffs and CU data) for consideration.
• It has long been policy that two wrongs don't make a right. Tit-for-tat/retaliatory action has never been sanctioned on Misplaced Pages.
• I am not the least partisan in this and I would like very much to do a clean sweep of all aligned editors as I believe this is the only way to restore order to this topic, after years of problems.
• I am not sure what other options are realistically open to us to deal with a succession of throwaway sockpuppets and single purpose accounts. Banning them just appears to lead to another utterly disposable account, discarded on discovery. I don't think that CUing everyone who has an apparently pro-Scientology perspective is the answer but there's a strong argument for doing so if they meet several criteria. In this context though, if editors are behaving neutrality, it should be impossible to determine whether they are pro- or anti- the subject matter. — Roger Davies 17:28, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately a lot of what you are saying is assertion not backed up by evidence, as opposed to this Finding of fact, which is. It is also inappropriate to address a Finding of fact in this manner as if one were talking about a sanction. Cirt (talk) 16:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Frankly, I'm in a better position than you to know what remedies have and have not been proposed. Simply, this finding of fact exists to support a sanction that should not be passed. It is irrelevant to the case because the sanction should not be passed. Cool Hand Luke 18:16, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Logging in this morning is quite a surprise. It really is imperative to protest against this assertion by Cool Hand Luke. The assertion about Operation Clambake is entirely unsupported by onsite case evidence. Has there been offsite evidence to that effect?

I have never participated in Operation Clambake, nor in Anonymous, nor in any organized protest of any sort against any religion. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, has Cirt either. If any participant to this arbitration does such things I am unaware of it. Rather, some of us take pride in opposing prejudice of any stripe, as here. For two years now I have endeavored to stabilize this topic by demonstrating that Misplaced Pages is not a battleground between Scientologists and those who are bigoted against them. When anti-Scientology users come to troll the Scientologists, Cirt takes that to ANI and requests checkuser to expose the anti-Scientology socks. What more can we do to demonstrate that policy, not ideology, guides our actions?

Cool Hand Luke's 'Operation Clambake' post is weighty accusation for an arbitrator to make, particularly in a formal opinion at a proposed case decision, and it has every appearance of being both polarizing and entirely unwarranted. It comes very close to a formal accusation of religious bigotry; it is worded in such broad terms that it could apply to nearly anyone who submitted evidence critical of one set of parties. And if that is not the intention, it would unfortunately be quite easy to quote out of context as if that were its meaning. I entreat you, do consider a refactor. Durova 18:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not accusing any individuals here.

My issue is that WP:COI violations must be shown by the behavior, not alleged identity. There's a lot of sanctionable behavior in this case, and we should sanction it. This focus on IP address rather than actual behavior threatens to treat Scientologists as a uniquely unwelcome class of contributors—worse than terrorists, worse than pedophiles. If we proceed to ban one side of this war for IP-based "COI" while ignoring counter-cultists and prolific anti-Scientologists on the other side, I would consider that religious bigotry.

My proposal is to simply focus on the behavior. I believe any other approach cannot be supported by our policies, and will strongly protest any other approach.

Cirt is a top-notch editor. I've said so above. I'll remove the comment. Cool Hand Luke 18:46, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there has been a lot of misconduct by editors from the COFS. In fact, I agreed with the proposals blaming the church itself. That misconduct may or may not be endemic to the organization itself. Certainly, given its prior history, some individuals might be inclined to think that the Church itself is responsible for that misconduct, and, yes, I'm one of those individuals. But I do think that the recent variations, focusing more on the misconduct itself rather than the IPs from which the misconduct is coming, is probably the preferable option, as it doesn't seem to specifically fault the organization itself. If, of course, reliable convincing evidence of such misconduct ever appears, I would once again support blocking/banning those IPs, but it might be a bit early to set such a precedent only on the evidence we currently have available. John Carter (talk) 18:56, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

For the record, in the light of Jayen's smear attempts, I haven't directly contributed to Operation Clambake either. Operation Clambake has republished things I have written elsewhere (it's principally an aggregation site) but that was certainly not at my request or initiative, any more than for the dozens of other authors, journalists and researchers whose work has been republished by OC. But that's a side issue, since editors have been conscientious in not using personally published sources (Cirt's work on sourcing has been especially praiseworthy). The root issue with Church of Scientology IP addresses is the one that I tackled in the workshop: "The use of shared corporate IP addresses to edit articles obscures the identity of individual editors, making it difficult to determine whether multiple accounts operating from the same corporate IP address are genuinely different people." We know for a fact that there has been improper editing from CoS IP addresses, and we know that some pro-Scientology editors have been editing from similar or the same addresses, but what we don't know - because of the obscuring nature of shared IP addresses - is whether this editing is being carried out by the same people, or by a group of people in coordination, or genuinely separate individuals. Plus there is an obvious conflict of interest in editors using corporate IP addresses to edit articles about their corporate entity. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:59, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I would support a finding treating those addresses as an open proxy. We could block them, and individual editors could ask permission to edit through the blocks. There's lots of ways we could set something like that up. Cool Hand Luke 19:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for a very good practical solution. I've been wondering how we might deal with this in practice. — Roger Davies 19:10, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Luke, please bear the following principle in mind:

Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/COFS#Responsibility_of_organizations

Editors who access Misplaced Pages through an organization's IP address and who edit Misplaced Pages articles which relate to that organization have a presumptive conflict of interest. Regardless of these editors' specific relationship to that organization or function within it, the organization itself bears a responsibility for appropriate use of its servers and equipment. If an organization fails to manage that responsibility, Misplaced Pages may address persistent violations of fundamental site policies through blocks or bans.

That passed 10 to 0 at 03:00, 23 September 2007 (UTC), but I proposed its original incarnation more than two months before.

Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/COFS/Workshop#WP:COI

Editors who access Misplaced Pages through an organization's IP address and who edit Misplaced Pages articles which relate to that organization have a presumptive conflict of interest. Regardless of these editors' specific relationship to that organization or function within it, the organization itself bears a responsibility for appropriate use of its servers and equipment. If an organization fails to manage that responsibility, Misplaced Pages may address persistent violations of fundamental site policies through blocks or bans.

Proposed. This seems flexible enough to cover decentralized corporations, universities, etc. without undue burden on editors who act in good faith. DurovaCharge! 08:42, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

When Misou challenged it I elaborated.

Suppose a United Way volunteer wants wants to edit about the United Way: if that person edited from COI offices the onsite behavior reflects on the organization. So if the person gets sitebanned for persistent WP:NPA violations it creates a public relations risk for the organization. The organization isn't responsible for actions of a volunteer who acts from home. An employee who edits from home still has a conflict of interest because of the person's financial and career interest in United Way's success. The practicalities of determing these situations are a different matter; this proposal is about principle. DurovaCharge! 06:37, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

And followed up.

It has a very real reflection in real life. See Congressional staffer edits to Misplaced Pages. DurovaCharge! 05:03, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

What I did not know in July 2007 was that a graduate student named Virgil Griffith at Caltech was preparing to release the WikiScanner. It came out on August 17, 2007 and promptly caused precisely the public relations disaster that I had been endeavoring to thwart. This situation is indisputably a conflict of interest. If the organization in question were the United Way or the United States Congress then the dilemma would be fundamentally the same. None of the parties here, nor the Committee itself, has the power to argue away a conflict of interest of newsworthy proportions.

Several surprising contradictions arise from that. Scientology is a new religion with an image problem: why would it risk bad pubilicity this way? Why would it allow its own hardware and Internet connections to be used in perpetuating that risk, even afterward? Why would its members boast of this at RFAR? We agree that people do exist in the world who wish ill upon Scientology: does it not serve the aims of those religious bigots to perpetuate the obvious conflict of interest and risk another round of negative press for this church? And if we cared nothing about the Church of Scientology, why risk Misplaced Pages's reputation--it can't look good for the site if these years of arbitration cases failed to implement any effective solution.

I don't know what the proper solution is for this problem, but certain things obviously don't work. We can't pretend that sleight of word will change the minds of either the press or the public about what doesn't look proper. Durova 19:46, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom does not exist to give the Church of Scientology publicity advice. We're here to enforce our policies. The COI guideline does not and cannot support topic bans for everyone editing from particular IP addresses, and it does not compel us to actively check users from institutional use, and it most certainly does not require us to single out editors from a particular institution for uniquely onerous treatment. Cool Hand Luke 19:58, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

No one suggests that ArbCom is here to give publicity advice. It does bear repeating that this is--in real world terms--a bigger case than usual. That reflects on Misplaced Pages too. Given a prior unanimous finding on the subject of COI that applied directly to this dispute, we need not reinvent the wheel at the very next case when the very same problem persists, as confirmed by both checkuser and the admissions of the editors themselves. Durova 20:15, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I've not said anything inconsistent with that. It's a good caution to such organizations, and I would support a similar finding here. The issue is that blocks and bans must be issued based on out fundamental site policy—which COI is not. It's interesting and helpful to note a user's presumptive COI, but that alone is not grounds for block. COI editors can and do sometimes edit consistently with our policies.

In any event, the focus of this case should be on behavior, not purported identity. Cool Hand Luke 20:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

No one supposes that mere conflict of interest itself is blockable, but violation of policies is generally regarded as more serious when it occurs in conjunction with a conflict of interest. Wikipedians are reluctant to block entire schools, companies, etc. for extended lengths of time, but we have been known to do so when the organization's management habitually fails to exercise due control over the misuse of their Internet connections. Your statements confuse me, though: it appears almost as if you posit COI as a mitigating factor rather than an exacerbating factor. Surely we can respond to COI that originates from a religious organization the same as any other COI: it isn't an aspersion against a faith itself to declare that (for whatever reasons), their organizational structure has been ineffective at preventing a substantial COI and substantial associated policy violations, so therefore Misplaced Pages may intervene with actual remedies. Bear in mind: I haven't supported any of the proposed workshop remedies about banning the Church of Scientology. Yet when cautions fail--as they obviously have here--what would you do? Durova 21:02, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I am unaware of any organization that has been blocked for COI. Typically, these blocks occur when the organization is piping many users through a few addresses, making it into a de facto open proxy. Insofar that we're concerned about socks here, that's an appropriate way to treat these IP addresses.

We should simply restrict editors who do not follow our policies. We have the case because large POV disputes necessarily cannot be resolved by community consensus. In that respect, this case is not much different from many of our other intractable ethnic/nationalism edit wars. I think blocking users who have used a COFS IP address is not entirely different from, say, blocking users who have used a Serbian IP address. There's very little reason to suppose that the COFS takes responsibility for all of its users, and there's no evidence that we've made any attempt to resolve it through them (which usually occurs with other institutional range blocks). I cannot understand how they've been ineffective at enforcing our policies—do they even know that we want them to? I think it would be foolish to impose sanctions against a non=party organization on these facts, besides exceeding our actual policy mandates.

So it's the same solution we have for every other broad edit war: block the problem users for their specific behavior, which sends a signal that users should be blocked for such behavior. Cool Hand Luke 21:20, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Concerns on wording of neutrality principle

I am again troubled by the wording of a proposed principle, in this case one describing neutrality. "Merely presenting a plurality of viewpoints, especially from polarized sources, does not fulfill the neutral point of view." The current text has it backwards. Instead of judging viewpoints based on the polarization of sources, the criterion for inclusion should be whether the viewpoint is significant, verifiable, and reliably-sourced. While I agree that there is more to a quality article than simply adding opposing viewpoints, neutrality is sufficiently described by the community-drafted standing policy and no further elaboration is needed. ←Spidern→ 17:29, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

That's certainly a point of view: let's see what the arbitrators make of it, shall we? — Roger Davies 17:32, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

What I expressed here is simply my interpretation of existing policy. ←Spidern→ 20:04, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Clarify BLP issue please?

I may have missed something in the din of the workshop pages, but item 3.2 says "Editing of several articles concerning individuals associated with Scientology and/or with opposition to Scientology has violated aspects of our policy governing biographies of living persons". Which articles and edits? Can someone point me towards the evidence on this point? -- ChrisO (talk) 19:23, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Rick Ross' evidence section shows a lot of troubling editing. There are other one-off examples scattered in the evidence. BLPs are often casualties in POV wars. Cool Hand Luke 19:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the clarification. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:34, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Jossi evidence

For the record, I submitted evidence privately to the ArbCom on February 20 regarding the past abuse of socks by Jossi. I haven't received any substantive response from the committee regarding that evidence, and am not sure if it is being considered as a part of this or another case. I think the proposed remedy that Jossi resigned his adminship during a controversy is correct. My concern is that a user with a declared conflict of interest may return with a new account which would have the same but undeclared conflict of interest. Is this the appropriate case to propose that Jossi be limited to one acount?   Will Beback  talk  20:13, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

History lesson or cabal versus cabal

I see some discussion above of the history of the Scientology articles and who wrote what. As Justanother (talk · contribs), I ignorantly stumbled into that minefield almost three years ago so I have some of the middle history to share.

I started editing to correct a misrepresentation about "silent birth" as that subject was getting some play due to TomKat's pregnancy and I had happened upon the Wiki article and found it a bizarre representation of Scientology practice. At that time the Scientology articles were controlled by a small group of dedicated critics of Scientology, some of whom are/were admins, and many of whom were known in the critic circle for off-site criticism of Scientology, including maintaining critical sites, statements to press, and/or frequent contributors at alt.religion.scientology. These included Modemac (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), Glen (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), ChrisO (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), Tilman (talk · contribs), Vivaldi (talk · contribs), AndroidCat (talk · contribs), and Fahrenheit451 (talk · contribs). The IRL identities of all of those are known to me as I am familiar with both their on-wiki and off-wiki activity. It is not my intention to out anyone here. If an arbitrator thinks their identity is relevant then e-mail me and I will provide privately. These were joined by other critical editors such as Antaeus Feldspar (talk · contribs) and Wikipediatrix (talk · contribs).

By control the articles, I mean maintain them is a condition that was a one-sided criticism of Scientology bordering on caricature. These editors presented themselves as "consensus" and normally carried the day on any content dispute. They had succeeded in running off every pro-Scientology editor prior to me that stuck his nose in their domain. Sorry, if I sound harsh but they put me through hell (not that I am complaining - I could have left, too). Further, the Scientology articles were such a battleground and so unpleasant to edit that neutral editors tended to steer them a large berth leaving the critics free rein. For some proof, here is noted Scientology critic, David S. Touretzky, congratulating the crew on a job well done.

It is a little vanity of mine that perhaps I was of some help in breaking their hold on the articles and making the environment more suitable for neutral players by being the one Scientologist that stood his ground and and would not be railroaded. Not that they did not come close a few times.

As I said, this is the middle history. The early history can be told by others but basically the critics of Scientology were here fastest with the mostest when Misplaced Pages was starting up and many became admins and above. The articles were written by critics.

Back later with more. For now, my old user page may be of interest. --Justallofthem (talk) 00:31, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Rick Ross BLP

Please note that I have submitted additional evidence on the history of the Rick Ross BLP and the various noticeboards at which the article was discussed. Jayen466 15:16, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Justallofthem and AFD

Regarding Cool Hand Luke's objection, please review the following passage from my evidence. Justanother attempted to discount the participation of uninvolved experienced editors from deletion discussion. Following are the complaints of three of them. Durova 15:34, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

• 6 June 2008: John Carmichael (Scientologist)—After new editors created the article Cirt began work on it to expand and add sources. Justallofthem appears less than 10 hours later to nominate the article for deletion. During the AFD, Justallofthem attempts to invalidate the input of editors that clearly have varied contribution histories by tagging their AFD posts as if they were SPAs. Several of them complain:

That is a pure lie, check my contributions. In fact I haven't done a single edit to any scientology-related page, if you don't count the dianetics talk page. – User:Nxty

I agree with Cirt, you have been very hasty in tagging some of the users here as SPAs. It might also be worth the closing admin noting that Justallofthem appears to be quite heavily involved in Scientology related articles with a possible POV towards removing/playing down controversy. ChaoticReality 22:59, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

With a couple of thousand edits total over several years, it feels odd to have my opinion devalued simply because I've had a busy spring; I have in fact been participating steadily, albeit on a very small scale, since having to scale back at the start of 2008...Robertissimo (talk) 11:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

• I noted that a large number of the keeps were from dormant or new editors, found that suspicious, and marked them accordingly. The username of the original creator is indicative of Anonymous and anonymous' hallmark is off-wiki coordination of attacks or "harpoons". Watching for and preventing abuse of BLP by anonymous is something that I am alert to and I acted accordingly in that instance. I notice that Durova presents only one-sided evidence, she is clearly acting in a partisan fashion. In this specific instance she omitted mentioning the tags I made that were not questionable. Durova's evidence must always be taken with a grain of salt as being incomplete and skewed. --Justallofthem (talk) 16:09, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

If any of these three experienced editors were part of Anonymous, why didn't they participate in any of the dispute resolution about Scientology? Members of Anonymous do not lurk behind every corner; the few who appear are pretty obvious. Note Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Richard_Rolles which Cirt first requested, and whhere Justallofthem later followed up with additional requests; also this ANI thread which Justallofthem started and which both Cirt and I supported. The Anonymous side of the problem has been handled through normal channels. It isn't partisanship to also supply evidence against the other side of the Scientology disputes problem. New arbitrators who didn't observe my impartial mentorship of Privatemusings and Jaakobou have the recent example of ScienceApologist. It is unfortunate that Justanother does not reconsider the overly aggressive position he took at the AFD cited above. Durova 16:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

"serially breached policy to advance his/her point of view"

No evidence of inappropriate article space edits has been presented to support this. Just sayin'. Carry on. --Justallofthem (talk) 16:14, 16 March 2009 (UTC)