Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 07:14, 17 October 2007

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Evidence presented by User:LuckyLouie

User:Martinphi Is a Single-Purpose Account. The Bad Kind.

Martinphi uses Misplaced Pages as a platform for advocacy. In his ongoing battle against "pseudoskeptics", he has conducted a long term, single minded campaign to enhance the status of Parapsychology and related fringe and paranormal concepts on Misplaced Pages. IMO, he's been clearly pushing this agenda from the beginning. Just a few examples:

• "I just want to get parapsychology defined as a science on Misplaced Pages, because I keep getting "stuff" from people who say, it is not a science, there is absolutely nothing to this. I want to be able to cite it as a science, rather than just something some crazies study. "

• "I want a ruleing on parapsychology as a science for the purposes of Misplaced Pages."

• "Perfectblue, I have no question myself that it (Parapsychology) is a science. But you should look at the Psychic talk page. We need to get this decided as a matter of policy on Misplaced Pages....I want to have thought of all angles, because the pseudoskeptics will run roughshod over us if we don't win."

• On an article Talk Page, gives a 10th grader advice on how to recognize the subtle manifestations of psi and precognition.

• "I think it is very important for people to understand that for the purposes of Misplaced Pages, parapsychology is a science."

• Wants the Parapsychology article to feature one section larger and more prominent than others to create a specific impression on the reader.

Such remarks as above coincide with a long period of tendentious editing of paranormal articles which is well-documented by a previous RfC and Arbcom focusing on his behavior. Despite being advised by the community that his approach was inappropriate and disruptive, his advocacy and tendentious editing continues, which he now portrays as a passionate personal effort to uphold NPOV:

• During a prolonged FA Talk Page disruption (a situation where he demanded Parapsychology be categorized as a science), he threatens, "Unless this situation is resolved, I have no choice but to do my utmost to keep articles on the paranormal or fringe science from achieving FA status, because I cannot be sure that they will be placed under the proper heading (as with Parapsychology), or that the headings will be NPOV. "

• Makes multiple accusations against administrator User:Raul654, saying he "treated this subject (Parapsychology) purely out of your own POV. That was abuse of power", and warns him, " I think you need to reconsider your use of your admin powers".

• He cites "people don't like Parapsychology" as the only reason for the dispute, claims that Parapsychology is "singled out" for lesser status" and likens the situation to "apartheid".

• Maintains in his userspace a collection of arguments promoting Parapsychology as a science, which he has employed as ammunition in Talk page conflicts.

• Maintains an off-Wiki essay (formerly posted in his Userspace) espousing his views of how Parapsychology and paranormal subjects must be treated on Misplaced Pages and alleging these views were "censored" by Misplaced Pages. (In the last 24 hours, he has edited the essay to remove the large display header which read, "THIS CONTENT WAS CENSORED ON WIKIPEDIA". A snapshot of the unsanitized version may be viewed here: ) The essay features links at the top of the page to anti-Misplaced Pages material by Dean Radin and Tom Butler, two paranormal proponents who also claim their fringe views are censored by Misplaced Pages.

• Maintains in his userspace a collection of edit summaries (Pre-marked "rv per Arbcom") for use in reverting unwanted changes to paranormal articles, which he has employed often.

• Exhorted Wikiproject Paranormal members not to modify their behavior or make any concessions.

I don't feel this Request for Arbitration is driven by bad faith, but by an observable pattern of persistent behavior. During periods when Martinphi is under scrutiny by RfC or Arbcom, he will proclaim innocence, moderate his tendentiousness, and make "showpiece" edits and concessions which portray him as civil and objective. But as soon as the threat of sanction has passed, he returns to pushing his POV agenda at an accelerated pace.

At present, Martin appears totally unable/unwilling to recognize that his POV-Warrior behavior is problematic and that Misplaced Pages is not a suitable place to battle perceived systemic bias against Parapsychology and the paranormal. Judging by the links being recently collected in his Userspace such asWikiProject Countering Systemic Bias and Removal Of Adminship, I foresee future disruptions from Martinphi ahead.

Attempting to delete evidence used in Arbitration

• Recently written comments in Martinphi's Userspace in which he describes his solitary mission on Misplaced Pages: "What shall I do? " (Read entire entry for context. )

Martinphi requests Speedy Deletion of that page, one minute after creating it.

User:Fyslee asks the page not be deleted during current Arbitration.

Martinphi refuses. Explanation: "Irrelevant".

Martinphi blanks comments of User:Fyslee.

I remove "db-user" tag, ask Martinphi not to delete the page, as it is relevant to the current Arbcom.

Martinphi blanks my comments, replaces tag.

Evidence presented by Wikidudeman

Martinphi frequently assumes bad faith

calls good faith edit from ScienceApologist vandalism

keeps links from out of context edits from me to use against me in case of some future request for adminship

user throws AGF out the window and accuses Raul of "abusing admin powers"

More examples of not AGF

More examples of not AGF

user ADMITS he does not assume good faith

user states he denies good faith for another editor

Martinphi frequently insults other editors

calls Science Apologist 'vandal'

user calls established editors administrators "trolls"

user states that it's "even worse" that Raul is an arbitrator

user references perceived censorship and encourages other similar users not to change their editing habits due to the "trollishness" of others

Martinphi threatens to hijack wikipedia

user threatens to hijack wikipedia process to make a point

Other troublesome edits from Martinphi

claims that parapsychology is "singled out" for special scrutiny

user keeps lists of types of articles or edits to revert on paranormal articles

Martinphi has used sockpuppets in a disruptive manner, and also lied about it initially

Misplaced Pages:Suspected sock puppets/Martinphi

Other attempts have been made and have failed to resolve problems with Martinphi

Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Martinphi

Evidence presented by User:Tom Butler

The evidence shows that Martinphi has been an active editor, and has contributed to many articles that are controversial, and clearly marked by the Rational Skepticism Project ] as targets for inclusion of the Skeptical Dictionary viewpoint. I think it would be impossible for anyone who does not accept that radical viewpoint to be an active editor without irritating Rational Skepticism Project members. Keep in mind that Martinphi has made some very good contributions and only some are contested by the Rational Skepticism people--especially the signee of this grievance.

Things User:Martinphi has done to help

Things Martinphi has done as a cooperative editor

Wikidudeman asked ScienceApologist to help out on the Electronic Voice Phenomena] article], which he did by making unilateral edits to bias it toward the skeptical view ]. Martinphi restored the intro and asked ScienceApologist to discuss the changes first ].

LuckyLouie egged ScienceApologist on concerning what is and is not allowed for references, demonstrating that he and Wikidudeman are using ScienceApologist as a champion ].

Wikidudeman hosted a sandbox for the Parapsychology article rewrite]. Several people, myself included, felt that their input was ignored during the process. Later Wikidudeman made the same proposal for the article ]. His proposal was rejected several times. Subsequently Martinphi eventually was instrumental guiding the article to the point he and others felt it was ready for "outside" opinion and submitted it for Good Article status. That was rejected, but Martinphi is now one of the editors working with one of the "judges" to implement his suggestions for the article see Failed GA Tom Butler 18:06, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Martinphi

(Note: this is the final draft of my evidence. LuckyLouie and others found a draft in my userspace and presented it as evidence- seems they also thought they wouldn't get to see it if the draft was deleted from my userspace (-: . Please don't read that draft and then think this is exactly the same: it has a bit more evidence.)

I think this edit pretty much sums up what I have tried to do since the ArbCom on the paranormal.

If the Arbitrators would like to get to know my wikiself a bit better, I've put a FAQ in my

I ask that the Arbitrators look at my actual edits and editing patterns........ but not merely the edits presented as evidence against me. Some of those are very much out of context, and even though most of them aren't wrong on their face, many were much more moderate in context. This has happened before, many times, and apparently I make lots of edits which sound much worse when taken out of context (: For example, Wikidudeman doesn't tell you that I promised to vote for him in his next RfA if he stays NPOV for a year- foolishly getting myself into collecting evidence. Another example: I said I wasn't assuming good faith in ScienceApologist. Wikidudeman doesn't tell you that ScienceApologist had just removed -I won't say vandalized- my parody template, saying that it was a personal attack, and that I'm not a member of Wikiproject RationalSkepticism, which I am. Instead of discussing it with me, he removed it, then edit warred with me over it- I thought it was vandalism. He's since continued to attack me, even after I apologized for calling him a vandal, and he's continued to say I have an offsite attack page. He also refused to apologize when Wikidudeman asked him to .

In LuckyLouie's evidence, the diff showing that I have a list of edit summaries referring to the ArbCom fails to note that I put those in just a few days ago, after recent disruptions.

You are told that I "Exhorted Wikiproject Paranormal members not to modify their behavior or make any concessions." Well, yes, I didn't think that potential complaints that it was "graphical POV pushing" to have nice colors in our project templates was sufficient reason to stick with ugly colors. Why not read the paragraph above that response?

You are even told that "Maintains in his userspace a collection of arguments promoting Parapsychology as a science"- but you are not told that this was (I think), a draft which was at one time part of the Parapsychology article. I didn't know the page existed.

In spite of what Wikidudeman has to say now, just a while back he had this to say:

Martin has been editing here for a long time and it's possible to work things out with him if you try. Wikidudeman (talk) 13:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

He also gave me a barnstar for our work on Parapsychology .

ScienceApologist has said that my Paranormal primer essay is an "attack site." Here is the updated version, and here is the version SA was talking about. BTW, if you read it carefully, Tom Butler's page isn't an attack either, nor a recommendation of bad behavior, but a complaint against behavior you will agree was bad. I don't agree with some of the things he says.

I have been accused of having an agenda on Misplaced Pages. That is true. I wanted parapsychology and related articles represented fairly. I also knew from my studies that parapsychology was a scientific field, even if psychic/psi phenomena are not real. Personally, I do think that there are probably some paranormal phenomena which are real. I'm not sure which ones, and I believe they have not been proven scientifically. I never wanted to suppress skepticism (see all my efforts to have it extensively discussed in Misplaced Pages, now deleted). But I do feel that certain editors have a bias against paranormal topics. I believe they want to tell the reader what to believe, not just neutrally present the facts and sources.

User:Raul654

I made a big fuss on the FA talk page. I believe Raul did things there which are a classic abuse of editorial and administrative powers:

1. That he edited the page from his own opinion about the subject, rather than from what the sources say.

2. That he ignored the .

3. Most especially that he protected a page where he himself was in a dispute.

I also believe that such behavior is worse in an Admin, and even worse in an Arbitrator, in whom the community places so much trust. That's my opinion. It's a moral stand I have to take. If you want to censure me for it, I'll take the punishment.

I probably took the issue too far. I didn't understand the special status of the FA page. I didn't know that Raul had been asked to oversee the page (and no one explained for a long time, even after I asked what was going on). I thought he was just another editor who disliked the paranormal.

If paranormal articles are going to be given unfair treatment on the FA page (against consensus), isn't it only right to make sure they don't get put there? When I said I'd do my utmost to keep paranormal articles away from the FA page, I meant I'd vote/argue against it, if they are going to be treated unfairly. I also have other reasons to be trepidacious.

What shall I do?

I'm really the only person out there a lot of times who wants to uphold the previous ArbCom which the skeptical community has said you guys got so wrong. I keep getting edits like the following:

Mccready

"transparently childish self-deception"

Svetovid

quack "scientists" don't count

Fyslee

I have edit warred to keep these edits out. I am asking you to tell me what I'm supposed to be doing. I am the only editor out there, a lot of the time, who will keep track of these pages and attempt to prevent POV pushing (I monitor 386 pages). There are tons of editors like those who accuse me. I can't take all those editors to mediation. I don't have time. Also, there is limited space for compromise when they are going against NPOV, "encyclopedicness," and the ArbCom on the paranormal. How can I keep the articles from becoming POV without edit warring?

Civility/disruption:

I believe I have been civil (much, much more so than those who accuse me). However, I have been disruptive. The thing I'd like the ArbCom to decide is whether "disruption" is in-and-of-itself bad. I don't see it that way, because it is a matter of what I've been disrupting. I see myself as disrupting POV-pushing (general distain for the paranormal and OR), and I feel that editors are upset that I carry out this disruption. But is such disruption, if done in a civil way, against the spirit or rules of Misplaced Pages? There's no question I've been disruptive- but I hope it's been in a very well-sourced and NPOV way.

There are editors such as Nealparr who are considered by many -some- to be neutral editors. But they don't do what I do- rather, they tend merely to support my general position after I've done the dirty work. They don't monitor the articles as I do, and they don't eliminate POV-pushing like the above. They usually leave it in place.

I feel I'm basically alone in performing a necessary function on the paranormal articles. I feel that I need help- I'm tired of playing the bad cop. The ArbCom should look at what I do, and either say that my general influence on the articles is bad, or give me some (more) support. Actually, I'm tired of it and I can't do it forever- it's taking too much of my time. But there just is no one out there to whom I can pass on the function.

Please consider my overall effect on the paranormal articles. See what they were like when I arrived.

Other material you may want to review:

More diffs

I may have made a mistake........

FAQ on my userpage

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