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Revision as of 20:56, 23 December 2008 view sourceJtrainor (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users3,011 edits →Request to amend prior case: TTN← Previous edit Revision as of 22:29, 23 December 2008 view source Kww (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Rollbackers82,486 edits make bringing this crap to arbcom a blockable offenseNext edit →
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While individually some of these merges may have merit, the fact that a) many are being done very quickly, b) many of them are redirects instead of actual merges and c) TTN ignores discussion about them means that collectively, they are quite disruptive. ] (]) 20:56, 23 December 2008 (UTC) While individually some of these merges may have merit, the fact that a) many are being done very quickly, b) many of them are redirects instead of actual merges and c) TTN ignores discussion about them means that collectively, they are quite disruptive. ] (]) 20:56, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

==== Statement by Kww ====
Another week, another unsupportable complaint to Arbcom about TTN. I repeat my normal request: reject this RFAR, and then make it clear that bringing this back to Arbcom again will result in blocks. This has gotten beyond ridiculous.&mdash;](]) 22:29, 23 December 2008 (UTC)


==== Clerk notes ==== ==== Clerk notes ====

Revision as of 22:29, 23 December 2008

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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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user:ScienceApologist

Initiated by seicer | talk | contribs at 20:42, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties


Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request`
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Statement by user:Seicer

I believe that at this point, the community's patience has been exhausted of ScienceApologist (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), similar in nature to Guido den Broeder (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), would be appropriate. As such, I proposed a community ban of ScienceApologist, threaded under WP:ANI#SA - once again.

Per Misplaced Pages:Banning policy#Community ban, ScienceApologist has been proven repeatedly that he is disruptive in a specific area of Misplaced Pages, notably science/pseudoscience-related articles. A topic ban may be effective, but only if it is enforced, but that has thus far shown to be ineffective. He has also exhausted the community's patience to the point that multiple blocks and editing restrictions have not given the results desired.

SA is also under Misplaced Pages:Arbitration enforcement, although this has been proven ineffective. SA also has 14 blocks that I can count, that are not adjustments or refactors.

In reply to the "wikistalking" commentary, I was a mediator for Cold Fusion, and as such, I implemented editing restrictions for the duration of the mediation, and although SA initially agreed to be a participant of the mediation process, he refused to participate in a constructive manner, and was thus removed as a result of the mediation, and the disruptions that ensued post-mediation due to edit warring and general hostility, I have passively monitored SA's contributions, as has other administrators. He has been the subject at ANI/AN, RFC and etc. far too many times, and his general negativity, as expressed here and elsewhere, is not warranted.

In the past, SA has lobbed death threats, which are explicitly forbidden under policy.

At today's WP:ANI#SA - once again, SA has filed a retilatory and frivolous community ban request against myself, and by extension, Jehochman. He has also engaged in refactoring other editors comments or rendering them impossible to be threaded, such as this and this.

Relevant links may include:

List of blocks or notifications relating to Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Martinphi-ScienceApologist can be found here. Another list relating to Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience can be found here.

Reply to other possible solutions
Now that I am actually back from Christmas shopping, I can add some bits here :O)
The purpose of this RFAR is not necessarily, to seek for a community ban, but if that is the end result, then that is the end result. We know that SA is a valued contributor and a great editor -- when the user is civil and doesn't resort to personal attacks and characterizations. In this line of work, where the stakes can be high and the content fairly important to defend, I can understand that being heated every once in a while may be understandable -- but we have been presented with an editor who has done this for quite a long time with little recourse despite all of the attempts made through past mediations, arbitrations, incident reports and so forth.
To be short, civility and personal attacks are the concerns, not the content.
That said, I would be satisfied if this matter was resolved in a similar fashion to the MartinPhi-SA Arbitration case; as pointed out elsewhere, this has become one of the more used results as of late. seicer | talk | contribs 02:04, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Reply regarding the death threat
Remarking about the death threat that, while comical, was in violation of a core policy. In the policy, it explictly states, "There is no bright-line rule about what constitutes a personal attack as opposed to constructive discussion, but some types of comments are never acceptable: Threats of violence or other off-wiki action (particularly death threats)."
I don't take SA's death threat to be credible; in fact, it's downright laughable. I have, however, dealt with death threats on numerous occasions from various IP addresses on WP. And as has been demonstrated time and time again, it's always best to escalate these realistic threats with calls to various law enforcement, school and so forth as is customary and standard to gain results and to resolve the matter in a beneficial manner.
Not that this laughable death threat required that. But I am quite aware of what constitutes a death threat, and although this was made with the most of humorous intentions, it's not funny when it's stacked up with the death threats that we receive on a weekly basis at WP that require administrator intervention. Some of the threats that I and others have worked over have been much more vague than SA's. seicer | talk | contribs 03:29, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Reply to DreamGuy
My intentions in my original outline above was not to state that I was owning a particular article post-mediation. Mediation is a two-way street and requires cooperation from all parties. Given the very messy and confabulated background for Cold Fusion, cooperation amongst party members was not only appreciated, but necessary if mediation was to proceed. If one party, after a period of time that mediation actually started, began to show an uncooperative attitude and then began throwing around incivil remarks regarding the mediator and others that are involved in the mediation process, then the mediator has the discretion to remove the participant from the mediation process or close the mediation. I chose the former, and after several months of discussions, a finalized solution to Cold Fusion was achieved amongst numerous individuals -- on both sides of the Cold Fusion debate.
Mediation, again, requires the cooperation and civility of all parties involved. Failure of one or both either results in an individual being removed, or mediation being closed. While the removal of one participant led to some discontent and some input that was not received, the article keeps moving on. seicer | talk | contribs 13:04, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Quote

"I think we really need to much more strongly insist on a pleasant work environment and ask people quite firmly not to engage in that kind of sniping and confrontational behavior. We also need to be very careful about the general mindset of "Yeah, he's a jerk but he does good work". The problem is when people act like that, they cause a lot of extra headache for a lot of people and drive away good people who don't feel like dealing with it. Those are the unseen consequences that we need to keep in mind." Authored by Jimbo Wales at 22:51 on 5 February 2008

Comment by Sceptre

As some of the involved parties are outgoing arbitrators (e.g. FT2) and incoming arbitrators (Vass, Coren, Jay, and Rlevse), I reqeust that opening doesn't take place until the New Year; we are unlikely to settle an arbitration case in nine days. Sceptre 20:50, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, can't read (and was mistaken about FT2, but the peasants are revolting...). Ho hum. Sceptre 20:57, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by AGK

Two points:

  1. FT2 is not an outgoing Arbitrator, insofar as I'm aware.
  2. No cases will be opened until 1 January 2009, per my notice at the top of the page and my announcement at Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration#Moratorium on Request acceptance—even in the event the required majority of net support votes is reached.

AGK 20:56, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Now moot per Sceptre's response above. AGK 20:59, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Jehochman

The community is deeply divided over this matter. SA aims to improve the encyclopedia and their editing improves many articles. However, their behavior drives away productive contributors, leaving articles exposed to increased activity by advocates of fringe ideas. On balance, the time and disruption caused by SA are intolerable. Additionally, there has been a history of gaming the rules, including recent sock puppetry Any attempts to control SA's behavior result in cataclysimic severe disruption, including:

  • confirmed block evasion
  • mock death threats, resulting in a call to the police
  • a pointy request for community sanctions against Seicer
  • crusading for opponents to be blocked or banned
  • retaliatory editing of Elonka Dunin (No comment on the validity of the edits, but they immediately follow Elonka's sanctioning of SA.)

Please help us resolve these matters. The community has repeatedly failed on its own. As you can see on this page, there are administrators who would oppose strong sanctions on SA. It is better to arbitrate before somebody applies controversial sanctions, rather than afterwards. WP:AE has no magical ability to create consensus where none is possible. A delay of one week is fine; queue it for processing. Jehochman 20:57, 22 December 2008 (UTC) and 10:48, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

The list of parties needs to be trimmed to just the essential ones, please. Jehochman 21:13, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
SA, at Cold fusion the Committee chose not to rule on your behavior, and you chose not to answer the allegations. Your history has not been wiped clean. We have no rule against double jeopardy. No decision means that nothing was decided.
The latest WP:ANI thread could have ended pleasantly, SA, if you would have backed down and retracted your incivil remarks, rather than disrupting the discussion with a retaliatory proposal against Seicer. It is fully within your power to end this conflict. All you need to do is stop using incivility as a weapon against other editors, stop socking, and stop disrupting. As strongly as I try to prevent you from disrupting, I will support you if you renounce disruptive tactics. Jehochman 21:22, 22 December 2008 (UTC) and 10:52, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Footnotes
  1. I personally find it impossible to edit any article where SA is hurling bile at other editors.
  2. User:FT2 and User:Lar are familiar with the full details of the two most recent incidents.
  3. SA frequently undermines the formation consensus with tactics like argumentum ad nauseum, incivility, sock puppetry and battleground tactics. When an editor's involvement is guaranteed to derail a discussion that is "cataclysmic" severe disruption.
Naming

This case is about civility and vested contributors. What do we do when a vested contributor has a lengthy block log and refuses to adjust to feedback? Perhaps Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Vested contributors would be the appropriate title. If adequate principles and findings can be set up, using present matters as an example fact pattern, that will help the community deal with this entire class of issues. Jehochman 17:48, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

A peek at my thinking on the matter: Editors causing problems in article space are more of a concern than people who drama monger in project space. I remember the years before I became an administrator and how I blissfully ignored the Giano, Carnildo, Tony Sidaway and Kelly Martin dramas. Content editors can ignore fights at WP:ANI and WP:RFAR. When fights are carried to article talk pages and article edit summaries, that is a much more serious situation. Jehochman 17:52, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:ScienceApologist

This request was precipitated by a few comments on Misplaced Pages talk:Scientific standards which resulted in a Wikiquette alert which was immediately passed on to Misplaced Pages:ANI#SA_-_once_again which post-haste turned into a shitshow. User:seicer has been advocating for banning/blocking me for some time and decided to do this again at the urging of the newest hater-of-SA, Jehochman. That is the SUM TOTAL of what has transpired since the last arbcom case in which I was involved. All other "evidence" secier/jehochman point to was presented before arbcom in the cold fusion case as well as there being a request in the workshop for banning me. I take it on faith that the arbitrators considered this request. Of course, maybe the "new" arbcomm should take it. You know what they say, if you don't get the result you want, take it back to court until you do.

I recognize and take responsibility for the issues related to the findings of fact and principles that arbcom made in the cold fusion case. However, I think that in the interest of cleaning slates, and considering that arbcom has already looked at most of the evidence presented again (and again and again) by seicer, I believe it prudent that the decision as to whether to accept this case be judged on my activities solely today.

I think that there are three activities which people are upset about: me accusing another user of disrupting a Misplaced Pages page, me quoting a physicist who called cold fusion "shitty researchers doing shitty research", and me asking for a community ban of the user who brings this arbitration case before us today. Is this activity really enough to warrant an arbitration case? Or is this a case of users who want to see me gone looking for any and all dramatic excuses? I note that there is some disagreement over this matter in the community. Some people think the entire thing is overblown. Others think that I'm such a disruption to the encyclopedia that I shouldn't be allowed to stay.

I remind the committee that I am under certain arbitration restrictions in both the Pseudoscience and the Martinphi-ScienceApologist cases. I believe that this could be taken to WP:AE and sorted out there (possibly). Alternatively, the accusers could actually try to have a conversation with me, for once. There is no reason to take this back to arbcom and rehash the story again. I do not think that User:Seicer or User:Jehochman should be trying to police my actions as they have proven problematic at best in their interactions with me.

ScienceApologist (talk) 21:04, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved GlassCobra

I've never been involved with any pseudoscience articles, nor have I interacted extensively with ScienceApologist. I do note the high quality of material and work done by this user, as well as SA's note that most of the evidence presented was previously given at a rejected ArbCom case several months ago (actually, I'd be very interested in seeing a response from Seicer to that statement). Having reviewed the comments here to this point, I'm not sure that accepting this case is the right course to take; it seems that Seicer simply repeats his accusations and desire to have SA banned ad infinitum, and will not stop even if this ArbCom case were to go against him. GlassCobra 21:25, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by User:Rocksanddirt

I am unsure that this is a helpful way to resolve the ongoing dispute between SA and other users. SA has had numerous conflicts that follow some set patterns. The trouble begins when SA loses patience and becomes rude, and then editwars. There are several types of users that SA conflicts with 1) editors who are POV-pushing-fringe-science-nutters, 2) admins/editors who abhoor editwarring in all its forms, 3) admins/editors who like editors who are POV-pushing-fringe-science-nutters. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 21:32, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Another thought....I hope that this doesn't end up with a Giano solution, as that has worked not at all. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 22:58, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by William M. Connolley (talk)

S: I believe that at this point, the community's patience has been exhausted of ScienceApologist: clearly no: the only reason this has come here is because the community ban proposal failed. The comparison to GbD is unhelpful.

J: However, their behavior drives away productive contributors. Disturbing if true. Who has been so driven? cataclysimic disruption - no; not even close; hyperbole won't help here.

However, SA's conduct is far from perfect. But one example: the "revenge" ban request on Seicer was wrong, and SA should realise this.

SA does valuable work holding back the tide of psuedoscience drivel that constantly assaults wiki, and deserves recognition for this, but desperately needs to learn to be civil.

William M. Connolley (talk) 22:00, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Short Brigade Harvester Boris

Perhaps there are some problems to be addressed, but a hyperbole-laden RFAR is not helpful. Along with WMC's calling out of "cataclysmic disruption" note the accusation In the past, SA has lobbed death threats, which are explicitly forbidden under policy. If you really think "I'll put fluoride in ImperfectlyInformed and MaxPont's water to poison them" is a serious threat, please watch Dr. Strangelove repeatedly until enlightenment is achieved. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:24, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Shell Kinney

I'm a bit concerned by this request for a number of reasons. First, it consists mostly of material already reviewed by the Committee with a bit of hyperbole for flavoring. Second, since the proposed ban failed on ANI, it seems a bit like forum shopping to request the same here. And finally, using ScienceApologist's tongue in cheek (albeit pointy) counter community ban proposal as evidence is putting far more weight on the incident than deserves. I've advocated a bit more sense and civility from ScienceApologist for quite some time, but absent clear evidence that already existing sanctions aren't working, there's little the Committee can do here. However, if the idea is to look at the area as a whole and explore ways to remedy the limited avenues for dealing with persistent yet civil POV pushers, please, I beg you, have at it ;) Shell 22:33, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by (uninvolved) user Lambiam

Can we cut out the drama already, instead of magnifying it? ScienceApologist is to be commended for his continuing defence of the encyclopedic character of articles involving fringe science or pseudoscience, battling tenacious POV pushers, who may try to fight back by resorting to "process" if they can't get their way on content.  --Lambiam 22:50, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by user:Shot_info

Yep - here we go again. You would think that certain admins would have better things to do with their time (hint: go edit an article). But here we are - again... Shot info (talk) 22:44, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by (sticking his nose in) user:ThuranX

Round and Round until some folks get their way. This happens over and over, and the same result comes from the community. SA is brusque and coarse at times, but factually, he is, in an extraordinarily high percentage approaching, but not at, 100%, right about the facts in various articles. It's hard to write about the good he does without lionizing him, and seeming to ignore or trivialize his faults. However, he is quite often the bulwark against the raging stupidity that many fans of a pseudo-science try to add to articles. I'm not talking about people who want to add the history of an idea, or the faulty science behind such concepts, but the 'it really works and you're supressing it because you're the men in black/the man/the PTB/ blah blah blah' types. And to be clear, not all of that type wear tin-foil hats. Some write well, present their arguments with deceptive reasonableness and good salesmanship, heck, some are even professors and published authors. He fights all that down, and then we're surprised when he lashes out sometimes when he feels he's being unduly criticized or attacked on all sides. It's not hard to run a game on here against one or two editors, if you can communicate off-wiki; we've seen that before. The ArbCom should turn this down, stop wasting their time on this, and let the guy do what's needed here, which is prevent WP from becoming a bigger joke than it already is. ThuranX (talk) 23:01, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Mathsci

Jehochman's evidence is slender (what is the relevance of the Dunin biography?). It seems to be a reiteration of his presentation in the cold fusion case. SA is often, without provocation, extremely uncivil; however he seems to have his heart in the right place and is a valuable asset to WP. Mathsci (talk) 22:48, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

The "Giano solution" would also probably be a recipe for disaster if used here. Equally this kind of confrontational method has gone well past its sell-by date. Mathsci (talk) 05:26, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by GRBerry

The community is indeed deeply divided here, and hence this is an appropriate situation for arbitration. I urge the committee to take the case.

Past arbitration gave SA a one year civility parole (since expired) that failed to achieve the desired result of SA becoming an editor who remains civil.

Discretionary sanctions exist in the topic area he is interested in editing, but the small set of admins regularly active at WP:AE is frankly out of ideas that they believe would be useful short of topic bans. SA has also developed a recurring pattern of retaliating against and/or attacking admins that have sanctioned him. And most or all of the WP:AE regulars have sanctioned SA previously, thus the community would have a major drama flare were any of them to actually do something significant. That is the reason why multiple incoming Arbs should probably recuse - because of their prior arbitration enforcement. Mentoring has been tried repeatedly - Jehochman was one of the mentors and now believes that SA should be banned.

The only discretionary sanction I would give a chance of working short of a broad topic banning would be prohibiting SA from interacting with users to whom he is regularly uncivil. The MartinPhi-SA community separation appears to be working, and the ArbComm has used similar sanctions recently (Abtract-Alistair Haines and others). But if this is done on a routine basis it will become a topic ban for SA. I urge the community to think creatively about ways to reform SA's unfortunate editing habits without a total ban. GRBerry 23:18, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Rschen7754

Honestly, I know nothing about the situation here. All I have to say is that proposing the community banning of an administrator is a bad idea, out of process (you should come to ArbCom first to request desysop), and disrupts Misplaced Pages. In addition this was after the administrator had requested a community ban on SA. This community ban request seemed to me to be disruptive. This is my reasoning behind my speedy closure of the community ban discussion on Seicer. --Rschen7754 (T C) 23:35, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by DreamGuy

I don't have much experience with the articles SA is normally active on, but I can say with some experience that the administrators most often after SA's head have, from my experience with them, been admins of the "let's crack some heads and get things done" type, which causes more problems in the long run than it solves. As SA points out, it appears to just be some admins who didn't like that they didn't get their way the last time they complained and are complaining again without much having changed in the meantime. What I'd like to see is some genuine good faith efforts to solve the problems instead of just swinging the bat to try to get their own way. I've looked through the recent (i.e. new since the last time SA was brought here) threads linked to above, and while SA has been at times less than civil in speaking to others, the complainants in question have been less than civil in actions to him (assuming he's using sockpuppets despite lacking any proof of such, assuming bad faith, constantly bringing up old conflicts as reasons to threaten him/ignore what he has to say). Uncivil actions are worse than uncivil comments, but enforcement here seems to be just the opposite. And certainly people who are ostensibly here to help solve problems should be taking steps to do just that instead of escalating them all the time.

The thread where SA reported someone to AN (or ANI) was exactly what an editor should do, and he was right in that editor was abusing Misplaced Pages. Strangely things quickly devolved into calling SA into question instead of addressing the problem. SA's efforts to get the pseudoscience articles more in line with Misplaced Pages goals are exactly on track, and such effort tends to bring conflict with editors with a long history of POV-pushing and attempts to game the system. The mediator at cold fusion (complainant above) admits to making editing restrictions and forcing SA out... this is not how mediation standards work, or at least not in any fair real world mediations. Mediators do not set themselves up as WP:OWNers of an article and start making unilateral decisions, or they shouldn't be anyway. Every time I've seen someone try that here the results have been predictably disastrous.

Some people voting below have said they want to look at this to see how to deal with pseudoscience articles, as the way we've done it for years hs obviously failed. Someone else commented on whether we should look at if civility rules here do what they were intended to do or cause more problems as people try to game them (my apologies if I read too much into that statement), which I definitely agree with. I would suggest, however, that if arbitrators want to look at those issues they recommend opening up a new case specifically about those issues instead of voting to look at SA specifically, as the people who routinely practice bad faith here instead of good faith use the existence of ArbCom even looking into something (or sometimes the fact that anyone ever asked them to even if it was declined) as evidence that the editor is irredeemably bad and should be banned/ignored. In fact, it appears that that's already been going on in this case. DreamGuy (talk) 00:20, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Tarc

Having seen the name "ScienceApologist" frequently pop up at AN/I, today was (as far as I recall) the first time I have commented on any of it. Having browsed through the history provided, I voiced the opinion that a community ban was appropriate, and was of course (as is his right to defend himself, not contesting his right to respond) questioned by SA on this. The gist of his defense truly does boil down to, quote, "Jerks who do good work should be welcomed and channeled appropriately.", which then flowed into a bit of a soapbox on why I am "a very problematic Misplaced Pages user" for placing more of a value on civility than editorial experience. I have to ask, is there some reason why we cannot expect a user to possess both civility and expertise? Why must it be an either/or game?
What this appears to have come down to is that ScienceApologist expects to receive a wrist-slap ever time he acts uncivil, because that is all that has ever been done. His knowledge and perceived value to the Misplaced Pages as en editor has become a hardened, encrusted shield. This is a horrid precedent to set for others.

Statement by Elonka

I can't see as a new case is needed, since uninvolved admins are already authorized to block, ban, or otherwise restrict ScienceApologist (or any other editors disrupting the topic area), per Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience#Discretionary sanctions. Implementing sanctions in the topic area does take a bit of backbone and fortitude, but that goes with the territory in ArbCom enforcement areas -- if the disputes there were easy to solve, they probably wouldn't have risen to the level of ArbCom cases to begin with. It should also be noted that administrators do have a bit more clout in dealing with ArbCom enforcement issues now, since the ArbCom recently passed a motion which prevents the overturning of enforcement actions: "Administrators are prohibited from reversing or overturning (explicitly or in substance) any action taken by another administrator pursuant to the terms of an active arbitration remedy, and explicitly noted as being taken to enforce said remedy, except (a) with the written authorization of the Committee, or (b) following a clear, substantial, and active community consensus to do so." With this new motion, I am optimistic that it will be much more straightforward to implement discretionary sanctions in the future, and make them stick. --Elonka 03:59, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Note from Lar

Just as a note (and nothing more, difficulty in an area is not a reason to shy away, but it is a reason to be aware there is difficulty in an area) there have been a fair number of CU cases already. They tend to be fairly dramatic in their own right, and the outcomes sometimes are inconclusive. An outright ban may be problematic without some very creative enforcement strategies, or fairly high levels of collateral damage. So.... all that said, I sure wish there was a way to resolve this without needing a ban. ++Lar: t/c 05:00, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

PS... what Cla68 said! I always recommend meatball:VestedContributor as good reading. Go reread your answer to my question about Vested Contributors if you need to. If this case is accepted it's as good a place as any to wrestle with this continuing problem (and better than some, it's not a Giano case, so that's something anyway.)... ++Lar: t/c 06:22, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Cla68

One of the concerns that at least several of you new arbcom members are aware of and have discussed is what to do about "established" editors who build a lot of good content but at the same time and consistently break a lot of the rules/policies. This case fits that scenario. Please take the next week to consider how you're going to handle this in a way that is effective, benefits the project foremost, and sets a precedent for how these types of cases should be handled in the future. Cla68 (talk) 06:09, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Hipocrite

Arbitors should note that SA attempted multiple times to archive his ill thought-out attempt to ban Seicer here with an archiving template, again here via archiving template.

This was undone by Jehochman here - without any note made to SA that he had undone the archiving/collpasing, and without any notation made on the page that SA had, at any point, done the archiving/collpasing (only a small comment that Jehochman had undone the collpasing - without comment on the archiving), and without the insertion of any archival templates that would have redone the archiving but removed the collapse. Post the archiving/collpasing and removal of same, Smashville asked SA to archive the section. Jehochman responded, saying ""No, no. Don't delete anything. Leave it here for everyone to see. If SA wants to refactor their own comments, that is their choice, but they may not delete anybody else's remarks.". Jehochman was the one who, prior to his comment, removed SA's archiving/collpasing (not deletion). Jehochman did not comment on the page that he removed the archiving, merely the collapsing. Jehochman, in response to someone who requested deletion, neglected to state that SA had previously inserted hat/hab, the farthest it is appropriate to go on a notice board page towards content deletion, and that Jehochman was soley responsible for the removal of the hat/hab. This lack of transparency throws Jehochman into disrepute, and leads me to question if he is reliable enough to delete revisions or view deleted content.

I note that the distinction between archiving and collapsing may be confusing to some. I consider the addition of hat/hab to be both hiding from view and archiving. Removing hat/hab without the insertion of polltop/pollbottom or similar is the removal of both the archive and the collapse. Removing hat/hab and adding polltop/bollbottom is merely the removal of a collapse.


Response to the above by User:Jehochman

I said added the visible comment, I am unhiding this so all can see. The edit summary said, unhiding. Also, the thread was not archived, it was enclosed in a collapse box to hide from view. SA is free to strike out their own comments, but they should not hide or blank other's comments under those circumstances. Note that Smashville did not suggest archiving, he said SA, would you mind removing this section? to which I responded, No, no. Don't delete anything. I wish that Hipocrite would stop using this page to publish character attacks (e.g. dishonesty) against me. Jehochman 14:20, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

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

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

  • Not-quite-Arb accept to examine the entire dispute area; I observe a pattern of escalating disputes relating to science, fringe science, and related areas over the past two or three years, and while some editor names seem to pop up more often than others I feel there is a deeper, fundamental problem that needs attention. — Coren  20:51, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Not-quite-Arb accept (tentatively) good starting point to thrash out some issues and novel solutions when application of civility diverges from the ultimate goal which is encyclopedia building. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:56, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Not-quite-Arb recuse as this will no doubt run into 2009. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:12, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Not-quite-Arb accept to consider whether the tolerance sometimes extended to productive but abrasive editors has the effect of undermining civility/good faith policies within the community as a whole. --ROGER DAVIES  15:32, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
  • NqA accept per above. No opinion on a name change, though i imagine this will look at more than just SA's general conduct. Wizardman 17:27, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

User:Guido den Broeder

Initiated by Cosmic Latte (talk) at 19:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request`
  • Guido den Broeder: Talk page is inactive due to ban, although I am filing this at his request.
  • William M. Connolley
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
  • (Not really a recent dispute but does show behaviour)

Statement by Cosmic Latte

User:Guido den Broeder was both indefinitely banned and blocked as a result of . User has indicated a desire to appeal the ban, but has had trouble doing so (see ), so I am doing it on his behalf. His appeal may be viewed at . My own take is that, while there was consensus at ANI to ban, the rationale was extremely nebulous, ignored the possibility that his serious contributions to medical articles make him a net positive to the project, and seemed to involve an exaggerated rekindling of prior grievances. Moreover, I find it in bad taste that someone would suddenly turn a good-faith ANI thread initiated by this user into a discussion about banning him; I also find it bizarre that such a specific thread with such obscure and esoteric roots suddenly exploded into a debate about banning him from the entire project. (Note: As "involved parties" I am considering all participants in the ANI thread, as well as all admins involved with the block.)

Reply to Newyorkbrad

Indeed, I would say "that the sanction of banning was seriously disproportionate to the editor's misconduct so that that the ban is grossly unfair to the user." While there was consensus, it appears to be of the lynch-mob variety: opportunistic, cumulative, and emotionally charged. Guido was certainly not doing anything at the time to warrant a ban, especially an indefinite one; he simply felt that an MfD was closed before consensus was reached--a defensible position, I believe--and brought the matter to ANI, at which point a whole crowd of angry editors clobbered him for a whole slew of (mostly unrelated, or distantly related) reasons. In defense of the view that the thread was emotionally charged, I should point out that people reacted to a distorted view of what he was doing in the MFD-contested essay; they apparently felt like guinea pigs in a "social experiment" of his, when in actuality, as I pointed out at ANI, Guido was using the term "social experiment" in reference to Misplaced Pages itself, not to his examination of it. As for the past, I've had a look at WLU's "evidence" page, and although I saw some interesting ideosyncrasies, I didn't find anything profoundly alarming. I did see his view of Misplaced Pages as a flawed social experiment, and even a claim that it can be at times a "Maoist" enterprise, wherein "uneducated" voices have undue sway. While I don't necessarily share Guido's sentiments, and while the "Maoist" label may have been a bit unorthadox, I should point out that WP:ELITE, a long-standing essay, communicates much the same message. Guido seems to be a rarity among editors, able to criticize the project as seriously as he contributes to it. This doesn't seem like "disruption"; it seems like well-rounded effort and intellectual honesty. Finally, I hope that Guido doesn't mind my disclosing this, but he privately indicated dismay at the fact that people raised so much drama about the "social experiment" essay, rather than politely asking him if he'd remove it. If he had been so asked, he might have responded very differently. Whether a social "experiment" or not, Misplaced Pages is a social something, and social endeavours are not one-way streets. For what it's worth, WP:DRV contains the statement, "Deletion Review is to be used where someone is unable to resolve the issue in discussion with the administrator (or other editor) in question. This should be attempted first – courteously invite the admin to take a second look" (emphasis in original). Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea for WP:MFD to encourage a pre-MFD discussion with the user whose material is in question. In any event, while Guido's conduct has not always been stellar (I've seen the block log and 3RR concerns), it does not appear to have warranted, and it most certainly does not newly warrant, the sort of ganging-up that has led to his recent ban.

Statement by roux

I believe the permanent block was a good move, I support the ban, and I don't really see why this is at the level of requesting arbitration. There was no misuse of sysop tools, the community has indicated it is tired of Guido's disruption, unblocks have been denied by thoroughly uninvolved admins. The correct venue for this is the arbcom-l mail list. Yes, I know responses can be slow. I urge ArbCom to decline this request and deal with the unblock appeal as per normal practices on arbcom-l. // roux   19:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Orderinchaos

How on earth am I an involved party? I think I commented on an MfD or something. Ah well. I have absolutely no opinion on the user either positive or negative, although I think the essay was a bit odd and it was entirely appropriate to have it deleted. Orderinchaos 19:30, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Two peripheral points - I have verified to my satisfaction WMC's point that the UN agency in question does not exist. While probably speaking to Guido's credibility, it's not really a key issue. Secondly, it appears Guido was indefinitely blocked from nl.wikipedia by its ArbCom on 5 July this year for making legal threats against his ArbCom appointed mentor there . (Note that Google Translate handles Dutch -> English.) Orderinchaos 22:15, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Dendodge

I support the block, as does most of the community. Extensive discussion was held, and consensus was reached. The correct venue is arbcom-l, as this page is not for appealing against strong community consensus. Dendodge Talk 19:34, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Cheers Dude

I don't support the block of this user per reasons stated above my Cosmic. Again, much of the reasoning was based on past dealings with him from ages ago, forcing the user to try to justify everything he's done over things from months ago, making the discussion hard to follow and extremely unfair for the banned user. It wasn't originally even about banning him. Cheers dude (talk) 19:40, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Hermione1980

My involvement in this case is extremely limited. From what I've seen, Guido appears to be a fair content editor (though his contribs are outside my area of expertise), but he is unable to respond appropriately to talk page comments. I have no opinion on whether or not his ban should be lifted; I do not have enough information to comment. Hermione1980 19:42, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Non-statement by Tan

I wasn't nearly involved in this enough to comment. I made a peripheral comment to Guido on the ANI thread that he should take some dispute to DR. I didn't participate in the ban discussion. Tan | 39 20:01, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Seicer

My original involvement in this case was at WP:ANI#Improper use of MfD page?, when Guido mentioned that this MFD regarding a user subpage was inappropriate, posted at 14:15, 17 December 2008. I closed the MFD and deleted the page at 16:56 per the rationales given. Guido, prior to the closure of the MFD, had restored the content to his userpage at 15:23. He then filed a DRV regarding the case.

The DRV had near unanimous support of my closure of the MFD. It is worth noting that at one point, Guido had commented about starting a MFD for the MFD as a sign of an unwillingness to abide by the operation of the MFD. It is also worth noting that, per my rationale given at the MFD, that I would provide a copy of the deleted page to Guido; this was done immediately after the MFD closure.

Guido then began a thread at User talk:Jimbo Wales#Attack page regarding User talk:WLU/RFC, which has been identified as not an attack page, but future content for a potential RFC or AN thread. The page is clearly covered and supported under WP:UP#NOT, item 10. He later started User talk:Jimbo Wales#User page to complain about the MFD and the subsequent DRV.

I later removed the Social Experiment material from his userpage, citing the MFD case. This was promptly reverted, then tagged as CSD G4. The material was once again removed, citing CSD G4. It was again reverted, removed (with a notice), reverted, and removed with the page being protected from future abuse. It is entirely inappropriate to, while a DRV is in progress, to restore the material to a userpage, especially when consensus bears that it stay deleted. It is also entirely inappropriate to circumvent a MFD that was supported at DRV, and to mislabel edits as vandalism -- especially to multiple administrators and users.

An initiative to community ban was started at ANI, as a subset of the existing complaint Guido had started earlier. Per BAN, he had proven to be repeatedly disruptive to Misplaced Pages, and had exhausted the community's patience. His block log is quite lengthy, and he has had two legal threats prior to this ban. Guido was community banned under consensus, and his userpage content was removed and replaced with a template; his talk page was protected and redirected to his userpage. Both pages have not been deleted, as is typical under BAN, as I expected that this case would be taken to RFAR; it provides a layer of transparency so that others can see the content that were not involved in the cases at ANI/MFD/DRV.

As a last note, I am worried that a proxy was used in this case to file the appeal. Per WP:BAN#Appeals process, Guido should contact member of the committee or an Arbitration clerk by email and ask that a request be filed on their behalf. When he was community banned, his e-mail access was not restricted, and he is free to do so. He made a mention to Cosmic Latte (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) to file the RFAR as his e-mails to RFAR were "lost." It is noted here. seicer | talk | contribs 20:19, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Franamax

I don't see why I'd be a party to this (as Sam has noted). My involvement was a single edit to initiate a ban discussion. I made it where I did because it was immediately under a post of GdB's, so he would be sure to see it, and the thread itself showed a continuation of what I consider to be GdB's long history of disruption. I made it when I did because my impression was that GdB was leaving after having completed his "investigation", which basically amounted to a breaching experiment, but he seemed to be continuing his disruptive activities. I made it why I did because I have a visceral objection to people who conduct experiments (and/or investigations) on unwitting subjects, and the day I first read GdB's "report", AGF went out the window for me. Who and how: Franamax, MediaWiki.

Many editors commented, there was a strong consensus to ban, and the arguments against were not particularly compelling. The discussion may have been closed a little early, but I don't think the outcome was in much doubt. I don't think there's anything to arbitrate here, appeal can be made through the mailing list. Franamax (talk) 20:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Followup
I would endorse Guy's comment, almost word-for-word. Six months, mentor arranged, admin willing to unblock - new start, no problem. Franamax (talk) 13:35, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Fram

I don't see the need for this case, this is a normal community ban. However, I can also see that if this case would be accepted, I would be an involved party. Anyway, now that we are here, I'll take the opportunity to highlight an example of the behaviour that lead to this ban. In his unblock discussion today, he claims that William M. Connolley has a personal vendetta against him, as evidenced by a talk page removal and the subsequent ban. Quite a one-sided presentation of the facts. In fact, at 21:12, William supported the ban. Three hours later, Guido goes to a talk page of an article he never edited before, to give Willam a warning for edit warring. This is stalking, following someone you have a conflict with to an unrelated article just to attack him. Guido's behaviour is unacceptable in a collaborative environment, and it is clear that he will not change in any way. Like je said today: "I am however not aware of having caused any kind of disruption and have seen no evidence to substantiate such a claim." This is his right, of course, just as it is the right of us as a community to decide that in that case, he is no longer welcome here. Fram (talk) 21:03, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Reply to Mccready

You didn't ask for content damage, you asked for bad content edits. As I stated, this is irrelevant, as people can (and often are) blocked for other things like conduct as well, and providing good content does not give you a free pass. But anyway, many of his content edits were very debatable, and contrary to what you claim, I did provide a few diffs of the last days in the ANI thread, in the discussion of your provisional oppose..It is not an exhaustive list, just some random examples, and they are not the reason why I support the ban, just additional evidence that even as a content provider, he was often a problem. Fram (talk) 15:14, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Skinwalker

I don't particularly see why I'm named as a party, but it seems that I'm not alone. I'd like to direct the arbitrators' attention to the extensive evidence compiled here concerning GdB's long history of edit warring, lack of good faith, legal threats, personal attacks, soapboxing, gaming of the system, importation of disputes from other wiki projects, and general obtuseness. Cheers, Skinwalker (talk) 21:55, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

In response to Brad's comment, I believe this dispute meets none of the criteria he sets out, and the request should therefore be declined. Skinwalker (talk) 23:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein

My involvement in this is, I think, limited to declining one of Guido den Broeder's unblock requests and noting that ArbCom review is the one remaining venue for relief, because it appeared to me that the ban did have community consensus at that time. I have no desire to participate in any arbitration proceedings concerning it.  Sandstein  22:11, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Caulde

I would encourage the arbitrator's to decline this case at this particular moment in time; absent any further developments – in which case – I see not much need for proceedings to be conducted here anyway. With respect to the specific user involved, I would register my concern with the legal threats, the long and chequered block history (usually regarding violations of the three-revert-rule) and the general lack of compromise he has been aligned to over the past few months or so. All relevant diffs are given in other's statements or their respective edits to the said pages. Caulde 22:17, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: I would like to echo JzG (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) below, who, although contrary to mine above, makes good points regarding this particular case. In response to the ban, which was a little quick if to be truthful, I would lobby the users involved to return this discussion back to the Administrators' Noticeboard and deliberate from there – possibly implementing a mentoring programme or the such that would allow better re-integration into the community. Upon the pick-up of research into this case, I found that although Guido may have acted inappropriately on many occasions (as demonstrated by the block log, to an extent) I don't feel he was a lone participant and that others, who may have worse individual records or possibly be the root of these issues, haven't been exposed at this discussion which is bad for the article(s) in the end. Caulde 15:14, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Lar

I would just like to note that Guido den Broeder was active at other wikis as well. He was at one point banned from nl:wp and after failing to get satisfaction in exactly the matter he felt appropriate, brought the matter to Meta: Requests_for_comments/Dutch_Wikipedia_-_unblock_request. Apparently he wanted the stewards, or the Meta community, to override the decisions made at nl:wp. During the course of that he got into some considerable disagreement with User:Troefkaart, including bringing the matter to Meta's ANI equivalent: Behaviour on other wikis is not necessarily determinant but I do think it warrants mentioning so that there's some context ++Lar: t/c 23:16, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by MacGyverMagic

I commented on the MFD that started this. In my opinion there are several separate things at work here:

  1. User:Guido den Broeder conducted an experiment to see the effect different behaviors had on cooperative editing. He described the results of this failed experiment on the page Wikipeda, the Social Experiment using harsh language some editors would consider disruptive. This lead to an that was prematurely closed as a delete "to avoid drama" while several editors in good standing supporting keeping the page. Of course, the deletion did not avoid drama (since we're here now) but most importantly, it was closed without consensus. It was probably worded too strong and it would have been better for him to ask approval from the Wikimedia Commitee before performing said experiment.
  2. The ANI thread discussing the ban seems to be a reaction to Guido's attempts to get a bad deletion undone.
  3. In the course of his stay here, he's positively contributed to numerous articles.

I'll quote Cosmic Latte from the ANI thread as he worded things better than I could: "...I disagree with Franamax's belief that Guido's "statements carry a strong connotation that he regards us as a bunch of fools, to be experimented on at will." Guido is not conducting the Milgram experiment or the Stanford prison experiment--both of which were conducted by Ivy-League researchers, and both of which seriously messed up some of their participants. What I sense here, in the opposition to Guido's efforts, is a post-Milgram, post-Stanford aversion to being "guinea pigs" in someone else's activities--an aversion that allows people to overlook the prosocial intentions of any sensible "social experiment." What I sense in Guido's efforts is a benign attempt to understand and improve the encyclopedia; indeed, he has explicitly offered suggestions for improvement..." - Mgm| 23:06, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

  • To aid Newyorkbrad in his decision, I'll post this as he requested in his comment: I believe the ban to be disproportionate to the wrong that was committed. - Mgm| 23:08, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by William M. Connolley (talk)

speaks for itself. On the irrelevant subsiduary matter of the "report to the UN": it doesn't exist. My opinion is that the arbcomm should reject this request William M. Connolley (talk) 23:17, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by ImperfectlyInformed

I'm not involved and I'll admit I don't have much experience with Guido, but the way this fly by night ban worked leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. I'm bothered that yesterday I was commenting on a legitimate content dispute between WLU and Guido, and a couple hours ago I found that Guido is gone and WLU may just impose his preferred view on the issue without taking into account the other side. Long-term editors should not be banned without a clear presentation of evidence and a minimum amount of time to gather opinions. This looked more like a lynch mob. Someone suggests banning and then a bunch of people with chips on their shoulders pile on. It appears that many of the "supports" were presented before any diffs had even been presented, and then the diffs presented by WLU mainly showed Guido removing things from his talk page. The votes fell something like 14-4. Community bans are obviously much weaker in their weight than ArbCom bans; it seems as if they get done by the people who happen to be trolling AN at the time, or people who got instant-messaged, or what have you. In any case, if ArbCom generally bans for only a year, then community bans, with their loose standards, should stand for only a year. Perhaps setting up an RSS feed would help to ensure a broad base of opinions, along with a minimum of a couple days discussion time (or more), plus a required posting of evidence at the top of the thread. Incidentally, an RSS feed would be nice for admin nominations too. II | (t - c) 23:44, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by mostly uninvolved Sticky Parkin

This doesn't need an arbcom case and I think has been pretty much dealt with at AN/I twice. Ban or indef this person- that doesn't need an arbcom and has consensus. Don't let him forum shop further- he's said himself his "illness" has been exacerbated by being on wikipedia. This person has even been on Jimbo's page forum shopping. I think he's banned or blocked on some other language wikis. Misplaced Pages is not therapy. Sticky Parkin 00:06, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by CIreland

I've been keeping half on eye on Guido den Broeder since the initial controversy involving him and the Dutch WP users spilled over to us. I have no firm opinion on the ban itself but can only offer the advice to the committee that it is the nature of Guido den Broeder and his approach to the manipulation of disputes that the committee are going to end up having to deal with this whether they wish to not. Whether that will involve a full case or not remains to be seen. CIreland (talk) 00:01, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by CharonX

I cannot speak for the community, but Guido den Broeder has at least exhausted my patience. The wide majority of the users that voiced their opinion in the ANI thread supported the ban. I see no compelling arguments that makes it necessary for ArbCom to either investigate the validity of the Ban, nor the way it has been enacted. CharonX/talk 00:12, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Mccready

I don't support the ban. Despite being asked for evidence of content damage to wikipedia, none, including an administrator, have provided evidence of damage. The "experiment" is irrelevant. Here is a case for the new arbcom to demonstrate it can quickly focus on content and get us back to editing an encyclopedia. Good luck.Mccready (talk) 03:26, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Protonk (talk)

I'm listed as a party above but like most of the people here I'm not actually involved. I want to strongly echo what II said about about the tenor of this ban discussion. GdB pisses a lot of people off and has been involved in disputes both on content and conduct. But we cannot convince ourselves that "the community" is a collection of editors who happen to be on An at any given time. I understand that this is the nature of consensus on wikipedia--for every editor who had something relevant to say about GdB, there are a dozen who could care less about the whole affair. But we have processes, controls and expectations for discussions where we cannot enforce a quorum. A user conduct RfC goes 30 days before becoming 'stale'. An AfD goes 5 days. This discussion lasted a little over a day. Both have pre-determined expectations regarding evidence, presentation, availability, and fairness. ANI has none of these things. As such, it is a powerful vehicle for group-think and emotion. Even the structural nature of AN/I (high edit volume results in multiple edit conflicts, threading presents no clear place for the 'accused' to rebut claims and churn gives a false sense of urgency) works against an editor facing a community ban in this fashion.

There is also an incentive problem. AN/I becomes the forum for these debates because it (if you'll pardon the expression) gets shit done. If I have a user issue that might involve a person being blocked I don't take it to WQA (too toothless) or RfC (too long). I take it to AN/I. I can make a short case, get some positive feedback and get rid of the person in the dispute. This results in alternate forums being less well attended which tends to fulfill the prophesy that they are less effective. Even AN gets approximately 1/2 the traffic of AN/I. If we continue to bring community ban discussions to AN/I expecting immediate action and continue to get it, the other forums and the proper methods of dispute resolutions will wither from inattention. There are important fundamental reasons why AN/I (or AN) is the wrong forum for these sorts of long term user conduct discussions. Reasons we all know. IF the community refuses to be adult about things and demand that long term user conduct issues be handled through the dispute resolution pipeline then ArbComm should step in and dictate changes.

Statement by Verbal (talk)

None of New York Brad's criteria are met. GdB has caused repeated problems across wikipedia. He has been discussed on ANI several times, several resulting in blocks. The previous ANI thread, where there was consensus to ban, closed early due to GdB indicating he would no longer edit. Unfortunately this was not the case and he has continued the disruptive behaviour. I would have preferred all WLUs evidence to have been presented, but the community has shown that it will no longer tolerate GdBs behaviour. The Arbs can look at this evidence and see what they think, but I would urge them not to take this case at present.

I endorse the statements of Roux, Dendodge, Seicer, Franamax, Skinwalker, Lar, and the WP community as expressed at ANI. Verbal chat 10:20, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Jfdwolff (talk)

This is a community ban that needs no further discussion. It is a culmination of the numerous times of Guido running into difficulty with policy and community. A brief review of his block log reveals a number of 3RR violations, edit warring and of course the unusual matter of legal threats on another wiki that were (or were not) grounds for banning on the English Misplaced Pages.

I have observed this editor mainly in the context of chronic fatigue syndrome. A brief perusal of that article's talkpage will demonstrate swiftly that Guido is insensitive to consensus. For instance, most contributors agree that CFS and myalgic encephalomyelitis are synonyms for the same condition. Guido persists, continuously, in disturbing this consensus and to insist on citing fringe sources that maintain a difference between the two. All this is typical of his pattern of editing, as mirrored by several other comments above.

This is not a ban of someone with an unpopular opinion, or even a ban of an unpopular person. It is a ban of someone who has ongoing problems with policy and consensus. I believe this concludes the matter without need for arbcomm involvement. JFW | T@lk 23:56, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Pat

I ran into him a few months ago on the WP:COIN board (he was adding references into chess articles from his own books) and I attempted to mediate a compromise between him and a few other editors (the link is up there somewhere!). I basically found his behaviour to be rude and uncooperative; he refused to see that he could be perceived to be wrong. That was a fair few months ago, but recently I haven't seen any change, he is still the same contributor, I am afraid to say. I support the ban and I must disagree with the need to bring this forward as a case. Scarian 01:04, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by User:WLU

Pat's statement is pithy and exactly represents my sentiments. WLU (t) (c) Misplaced Pages's rules:/complex 03:04, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by JzG

I feel some sadness at Guido's ban; there is a long history of activist editing from the ME/CFS community, especially on Simon Wessely (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), but I have always felt that Guido was the "acceptable face" of this activist community - he made very great efforts to be polite and to respect the policies which govern Misplaced Pages content. However, in recent times he has exhibited all the classic signs of burnout, culminating in a number of actions which would lead to a lengthy block or ban for any editor. I feel that the community handled this in the right way, and that there is nothing really for ArbCom to do here.

I agree up to a point with Jfdwolff, that Guido has always been an activist and as such he will probably never at a personal level accept Misplaced Pages's reflecting a real-world conclusion that does not match his personal view on the subject. However, I would encourage Guido to seek a return under perhaps some kind of mentorship arrangement after a decent amount of time has passed to allow him to regain his equilibrium; I'd suggest six months but that is entirely arbitrary. The input of well-informed activists can be of use in these articles.

None of this requires the attention of ArbCom, though. The block, for an escalating pattern of tendentious editing, legal threats and disruption, is perfectly standard. I would be inclined not to call it a ban, but a block, and to allow appeal after a decent cooling off period, as above. Guy (Help!) 14:11, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.
  • There is no such rule, nope; it's rare, as ArbCom members tend to operate in the privileged office of ex-Arbitrator rather than as Clerk. Kelly Martin did, however, become a Clerk (and the 'Head Clerk,' for the brief period in which that office existed) shortly after she resigned from the Committee. AGK 18:24, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/4/0/1)

  • Comment - the list of parties is considerably longer than it should be. While it is possibly helpful to notify all those who commented on the Administrators' noticeboard thread, they are not all parties. Without prejudice as to whether to accept the case, if it is accepted, I would suggest that the parties be limited to the filing party, Guido den Broeder and William M. Connolley only. Sam Blacketer (talk) 20:07, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I have read carefully the various submissions above and the thread on the Administrators' noticeboard, and have failed to discover any sufficient ground to justify interfering in the community's decision. Sam Blacketer (talk) 00:44, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
  • When asked to review a community ban decision (whether here or on the mailing list), I ask myself whether there is reason to believe that an arbitration case would add value to the discussion that has already taken place. That might be the case in one of the following circumstances:
    • If there were a good argument that the sanction of banning was seriously disproportionate to the editor's misconduct so that that the ban is grossly unfair to the user. Note: this means more than that an arbitrator might personally disagree with the decision.
    • If the community discussion could not be fully informed, for example, if there are private facts that could not be shared on-wiki but could be provided off-wiki to the arbitrators and might bear on what a fair result would be. This circumstances will be rare.
    • It there is a genuine dispute as to whether the consensus of the community discussion was in favor of the ban. Note that a "genuine dispute" does not mean wikilawyerish, hypertechnical procedural objections.
    • (Not relevant here) If a significant amount of time has elapsed since the ban and there is reason to believe that the user might now be in a better position to resume productive, collaborative editing.
    • Editors supporting acceptance of the case should try to explain why one of these circumstances, or a comparable one, is applicable. I do not see any of them at present but remain open to persuasion. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:28, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Reject. This is an appropriate "exhaust the patience of the Community" Community ban. After a long break, returning to Misplaced Pages might be possible with editing restrictions. FloNight♥♥♥ 14:44, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Reject. I agree with Flo, and - using Brad's criteria - find myself unconvinced. James F. (talk) 10:31, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Reject. --Deskana (talk) 13:43, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Not-quite-Arb Reject Brad's criteria are helpful as a means of identifying "ask the other parent" cases and cases with little realistic prospect of success. In this instance, the community ban seems entirely appropriate and without significant irregularities. --ROGER DAVIES  15:53, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Note-quite-Arb Reject; the community appears to have handled the matter, and I am loathe to involve Arbitration absent exigent circumstances (which do not appear to be present in this request). — Coren  19:17, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
  • NqA reject per NYB's points above. Wizardman 19:24, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Maria Thayer

Initiated by Rwiggum (/Contrib) at 17:21, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request`
  • G.-M. Cupertino
  • Dismas
  • Verdatum
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Rwiggum

This issue began when G.-M. Cupertino reverted one of my edits to the article. The article is one of an actress, and my edit consisted of putting her filmography into a table format, removing what I felt to be ancillary information (including the number of episodes she appeared on for each television series and several DVD extras) and un-linking several non-existent articles. I later reinstated my edits. When they were again reverted, I took it to his talk page to try and discuss why he felt my edits were harmful to the article. He believed that my revisions removed important information, while I believed that such information was not necessary and hurt the visual layout of the page. This is not an isolated incident, either. On several occasions, the user has replaced tabled filmographies with direct copy-pastes from IMDB. 1 2 3 4

Since my very first interaction with him, G.-M. Cupertino has been largely hostile and unwilling to reach a common consensus. I have tried to work with him to get this issue resolved, but he has been extremely resistant to my attempts. He has also deleted all of my postings on his talk page, so here are the revision histories that make up the most complete versions:


Likewise, in addition to being openly hostile toward me, he has continually removed his postings from my talk page as well. Here is the most recent revision of that, in case he removes it again:

After my continual insistence that he stop deleting content from my talk page, he chose instead to vandalize it twice under an IP:

Throughout this entire process I have been civil, cordial and willing to work to a conclusion. However, G.-M. Cupertino has been hostile and unwilling to make an effort, and has continued making unconstructive edits with no regard for other editors and a general indignation to those who tried to help him. (I am not the first one to bring this issue to his attention). I simply ask the arbitration committe to help me bring this incident to a peaceful conclusion. Rwiggum (/Contrib) 17:21, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Additional Note Another user has brought to my attention some more instances of G.-M. Cupertino's difficulties with others. (I tried to keep it to more substantial edits to the user's talk page, as G.-M. Cupertino has made several edits and additions to his posts. The full messages can be found here.)

Rwiggum (/Contrib) 17:35, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Additional Note #2 Yet another user has come forward to express their frustration with G.-M. Cuperiono.

And the user also brings up a very valid point: It isn't that I feel that Cuperino's contributions are entirely worthless, on the contrary. A lot of these pages need filmographies. The major problem is his complete unwillingness to work with other editors to improve the articles. Rwiggum (/Contrib) 17:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Additional Note #3 and Question It appears that I misunderstood the initial comment by Dismas on my userpage. He wasn't just directing me to his talk page and Cuperino's previous postings, but he was posting me here, to a user page he created to chronicle his dealings with Cuperino.

This leads me to my question: Now that the request for arbitration has been started, would it be too late to include him in this discussion? It seems as though he has quite a bit of insight into this situation as well. Rwiggum (/Contrib) 22:15, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Additional Note #4 Dismas and Verdatum have been added as Involved Parties. Rwiggum (/Contrib) 22:26, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Additional Note #5 It seems as though he's getting worse. He's taken to making personal attacks, as well as removing some of the disputed content from pages wholesale. Rwiggum (/Contrib) 14:59, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Additional Note #6 Here are a few more: At this point, he has moved past unconstructive edits and into the territory of pure vandalism. Rwiggum (/Contrib) 15:11, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Additional Note #7 I apologize for making so many additions in such a short time, but he has now moved onto nominating all of the articles for speedy deletion, in addition to continue removing filmographies. At this point it is clear that his edits are intended to be viscious and in bad faith, and if arbitration isn't the correct way to go about this, then I need to know what to do with him. Rwiggum (/Contrib) 15:16, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE The user has been temporarily blocked for his edits: Rwiggum (/Contrib) 15:25, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by G.-M. Cupertino

Statement by Dismas

I am not involved in the article for which this arbitration was started. I have however dealt with Cupertino on several occaisions. In almost every case he has been difficult to deal with.

When I put links to WP guidelines and policies into my edit summaries, he does not take the time to read those guidelines and policies. He has claimed that he doesn't have time to be reading pages of rules even when specific parts of policies are pointed out to him. I could understand if he didn't read every word of a particular guideline but he won't even take the time to skim them for relevant info. Although, somehow he has been able to hold onto the line at the top of every guideline that says that guidelines are not to be enforced on every page and are left to editor's discretion. He uses this excuse liberally to explain his edits. Due to having to re-explain guidelines to him, he now smugly inserts the word "mandatory" before every instance of using the term "guideline".

He has been uncivil on many occasions, whether on my talk page or in edit summaries.

Only by having an admin intervene or get a third opinion, through WP:3O, have I been able to speed up the process of reaching an agreement with him. For a long time now, he's had an "admin for emergencies" listed on his talk page. As far as I have gathered, this admin at one time helped Cupertino out and has since been listed there. They seem to be one of the few people that Cupertino listens to.

Only by posting things to his talk page does he ever engage in any sort of communication and even then it's spotty. He doesn't seem to have learned that this is a collaborative project. Instead of reading an edit summary and asking what something stands for, why someone has reverted his edit, or why someone has tweaked an edit that he's made, he simply reads it, dismisses it, and puts the article back to his version. When going through the effort of getting him to realize that dates were not to be linked 100% of the time, one of his rants was about how some 'powers that be' made some changes to the rules and didn't make him aware. When the recent notice was put at the top of everyone's watchlist about the discussion over dates, I made sure to point out to Cupertino that he could have his say on the matter. When I checked the discussions just now, he had still not weighed in with his thoughts even though this was such a hot button item with him previously.

Due to the fact that I've had to deal with him in so many cases and have had to go to such great lengths, I felt that at some point things may come to arbitration with him. Therefore, I have been building a record, of sorts, of his actions. You can find this at a sub-page of my user page, here.

With all that being said, I do have to say that he is able to do a large number of tedious edits seemingly without any scripts. When they are good edits, it is a very good thing to see. I just wish that he was more communicative and more receptive to changes because then he wouldn't waste so much time undoing various things. Dismas| 19:34, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Verdatum

I am not involved with concerns on this article itself, but instead regarding the actions of User:G.-M. Cupertino. I first had a disagreement with him in regards to the Kyra Sedgwick article. It resulted in in the following discussion , where he made Legal Threats, Personal Attacks failed to Assume Good Faith, failed to remain Civil, and acted as though he owned the article. The first argument, regarding WP:BLP, was resolved eventually, and the second argument, regarding Filmography, was eventually resolved through a compromise after making a request for a third opinion.

I found interacting with this user most off-putting. His correspondence were consistently in an aggressive tone (as seen in the above link). He overlooked requests for discussion, instead choosing to voice brief agressive arguments in the Edit Summary . I added messenges to his talkpage , both of which were immediately removed by him, which as I interpret WP:TALK is alright, but it makes threaded discussion difficult. I scanned the user's contributions and found a general history of the same agressive argument style. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, assuming it was just a matter of a language barrier, and unfamiliarity with some guidelines and policies, still I continued to watch his talkpage, in case I could try to aid with any future altercations he might have with other editors.

Shortly there after, I was contacted by User:Dismas regarding concerns about this editor . I believe that resulted in Dsmas opening a RFA/UC which was quickly closed for not yet being a last resort.

After noticing a long string of back a forth edits on User talk:G.-M. Cupertino‎, between Cupertino and User:Rwiggum on my watchlist, I glanced through them, and decided to drop Rwiggum a note about Cupertino's editing style .

Any other issues on the matter are merely practices I've witnessed in sporadically monitoring his contributions, but I'm not yet comfortable enough with this process to know what level of detail I should cover, and would mostly be redundant to the statements of the other editors involved. -Verdatum (talk) 23:50, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion by uninvolved Sandstein

In view of G.-M. Cupertino (talk · contribs)'s comments at , noted by Kirill below, I suggest that this issue is most expediently resolved by indefinitely blocking G.-M. Cupertino for gross incivility and personal attacks, as well as threats of physical harm. An arbitration case is not required for this.  Sandstein  18:04, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved NVO

I "met" with G.-M. Cupertino (talk · contribs) only once on a subject not worth any quarrel. We did not agree then on notability issue, but, again, it is unimportant. However, I was bemused by G.-M. C.'s deletion of that discussion from my talkpage . When this arbcom case popped up, I realized that this is G.-M. C.'s routine modus operandi that has been complained about by other editors to no avail. This arbcom case is an example of current "administration" failures. G.-M. C.'s incivility and 3RR violations had to be handled by admins way before. Where were the admins when they were needed? the first block of G.-M. C, ever, was effected by User:Orangemike after the arbcom filing. Contrary to what User:Sandstein said above, arbitration is required, because of the admins' failure. NVO (talk) 13:37, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Ncmvocalist

There are some real issues with this user's conduct; a clear lack of receptiveness to any sort of feedback, let alone community feedback. This reminds me of certain conduct I unfortunately experienced with certain other users (example) - though the conduct issues are somewhat different, it comes down to the same problem. The example nearly managed to let his disruption go unnoticed for a long period of time (nearly greater than 2 years) - I note that it was only after several community discussions, and an unfortunately horrible wait that the example recently received a 3 month block for a lack of receptiveness to community feedback, among a couple of other issues. However, the sense of disruptive off-wiki coordinated editing with certain other editors (example) was something that could not be addressed. Perhaps, one day I will have no choice but to make a request for arbitration on these examples...but that'll be another case for another day. Back to this case....

Fortunately, there is no sense of such disruptive off-wiki coordinated editing yet, and G M Cupertino's lack of receptiveness to feedback is more clear cut; as with his conduct issues. An RFC is likely to prolong the dispute more than necessary in this case. It would take more than a couple of community discussions to demonstrate that the conduct has not ceased before sanctions may be imposed - even though we are reasonably confident that regardless of how much we AGF, the conduct will recommence in the future. There is no doubt that it is one form of problem editing that has adversely affected other users contributions.

Based on my own experience with the above examples, this user's conduct will continue to be a problem, sometime in the future - unless there are measures in place to prevent it from happening. If the Committee is willing to provide long term solutions/sanctions (such as bans) for this sort of problematic conduct, then this case should be accepted - if ArbCom will only go to the extent of providing minor sanctions or admonishment, then this case should be rejected. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.
  • Recuse from clerking duties on this case.
    In the course of my work for the Mediation Committee, I recently rejected a Request for Mediation pertaining to this dispute.
    AGK 23:35, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
  • While this has passed 10 days without being accepted and hence could be removed as rejected, due to the impending start of the new arbitrators on January 1 and the recusals to that effect below, this request will be left for the first week of January for the new arbitrators to vote on it. Please do not remove this case from the page; anyone seeing a non-Arbitrator or non-Clerk removing this request under the 10-day clause should revert and provide a link to this comment. Daniel (talk) 05:14, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (2/2/2/1)

  • Comment. At first glance this does not look as if the situation is ripe for an Arbitration Committee case. There may be user conduct issues, but it is not clear to me that others attempts to resolve the problems have been tried. Since Arbitration is the last step in dispute resolution, some preliminary steps need to be tried if they have not been done yet. See Dispute resolution for methods of to give users feedback. For example. Request for commentFloNight♥♥♥ 21:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC) FloNight♥♥♥ 21:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Awaiting more statements. There are very real conduct and civility concerns here, but per FloNight, it might be possible to address them short of arbitration. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:39, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree with what has been said above, and would reject the request at this time. G.-M. Cupertino's refusal to participate in mediation is worrying. Nevertheless, there are other methods of dispute resolution available. I would recommend making a request for comments; see the instructions here. If that fails to reach a suitable outcome then arbitration may be appropriate. --bainer (talk) 02:12, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

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Request to amend prior case: TTN

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


Statement by Collectonian

I am requesting that the original restrictions against TTN be extended. Since they have lifted, he has returned to many of the behaviors that caused his initial restrictions, including wholescale merging of character lists to their main articles, characters to character lists, etc. He is doing all of these without any previous discussion and without performing any actual merging just redirects. He is doing no tagging before so issues may be addressed. And he is completely ignoring/disregarding any on-doing merge discussions that may be happening on that page and falsely claiming he has "merged" the content rather than just redirected. While he is generally not edit warring after they are reverted, he has done some. He is doing this silently, and ignoring all requests that he instead start discussions before doing such inappropriate merging as they almost always go against multiple-project consensus and a general overall consensus that fictional series can have a single character list. If his edits are reverted, rather than start proper merge discussions, he takes the articles to AfD. This seems to very much be the same sort of disruptive behavior that caused so much trouble before, and is causing hassles for multiple projects attempting to clean up articles. As such, I think the original restrictions need to be extended until TTN can learn to actually "work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question" rather than just clearing out dozens upon dozens of articles because he personally thinks "there is nothing to merge" despite consensus saying otherwise and thinks there is some deadline for cleaning up articles.

Addition: One of the most recent issues relates to List of D.N.Angel characters. This list already was tagged and had an active discussion to merge all of the character articles to the list. TTN came in, delinked the articles and redirected the individual articles to list, without performing a single actual edit nor really merging a single bit of content (despite his claim that he did by saying so in his edit summary). When this was undone in favor of allowing them to be properly merged, he immediately took all of the articles to AfD. This is NOT following the normal nor proper process for dealing with fictional articles. There was already consensus to merge the articles, an AfD was neither nor appropriate. However, TTN wanted them gone NOW rather than allowing editors to do the merges properly, so he attempted to have them delete. And considering his earlier actions with randomly redirecting character lists to their main articles (wiping out almost all the information, then doing a mediocre "merge" of a few sentences to try to get around it), it seems highly likely he would have revisited this list in another month and wiped it out completely.

I was one of TTNs supporters in earlier actions, but it seems he is getting worse and worse, acting purely on his own views rather than actual established consensus, guidelines, and project efforts. Regardless of the reason why, in the last ArbCom, TTN WAS restricted from this behavior. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 05:11, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by A Nobody

The most recent Administrators' noticeboard thread concerning the user in question is at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive500#User:_TTN_blanking_pages_after_discussion_says_KEEP. These mass nominations are attracting negative attention as seen at Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 48#Deletion_spree. TTN has also removed a caution/warning from an admin who brought this up earlier and saying he is merely trying to get articles merged and redirected given his recent Articles for deletion (AfD) record is just not true. Notice that only about 25% of his AfDs were outright deleted (it is not called Articles for Redirecting or Articles for Merging), which suggests a remarkably poor "success" rate. AfD is not for merging and redirecting, but he apparently does not mind misusing it for that purpose as he admits here. These AfDs are becoming increasingly frivolous with sources that the nominator can and should have easily found himself (see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Sissy and Ada, Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Egon Olsen, and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Eddie Quist). Consider, for example, Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Prinny. The article contains out of universe information easily found from Google searches (see Prinny#Cultural_impact) and yet at AfD it gets the same copy and paste bot-like nomination that once again does not accurately apply to all the articles being nominated. It is as if categories of fiction are just having their contents discriminately nominated even though some of the articles vary considerably in terms of potential and actual notability and verifiability. Even those who frequently argue to delete are starting to get annoyed with this (see ). Also, not sure where this was archived to, but there is a revealing diff there (this one), which shows TTN’s disregard for the community. It is telling when even admins who do close his nominations as delete are getting tired of the nominations as seen at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Mainframe (C.O.P.S.) (yes, I know that nomination was actually by a different editor, but the wording is identical to part of the wording used in the copy and paste TTN nominations). From just today, see also and for additional quarrelling with other editors. In fact, he is driving people away from the project. So, the user is unwilling to discuss with admins who caution him (see ), is bringing articles to AfD that he admittedly wants merged or redirected but does not want to discuss with the actual article creators and writers on the articles' talk pages as they might argue against what he wants per , and has nominated well over 200 articles for deletion (see ), a minority of which were actually outright deleted (I gave a more detailed breakdown of his edits at Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_adminship/Sgeureka#Oppose to contrast him with another editor). How many times does he have to be sanctioned before he alters his way of going about things? You know, to be fair, maybe there is something problematic about those of us with obvious biases participating in these discussions. Maybe they need new blood as it were. This is a big project and I think he can and should try his hand at something else like article creation or sourcing for a change. Show the community that you are not only about deleting things, but that you too can build content as well. Randomran and others with whom I have disagreed in AfDs have all made efforts to improve articles as well, as I tried to show at Sgeureka's RfA, and in some cases even offered the occasional “keep” argument in discussions. I cannot say to them, “You never argue to keep” or “You never add sources”, because they can prove that they have done these things. I urge TTN for his and the community’s sake to make a voluntary good faith effort to work on something other than deletions and you will at least make it that much harder for those to criticize you, because otherwise this copy and paste approach to nominations is very bot-like and thus does not truly consider the individual merits of the articles under discussion. Sincerely, --A Nobody 20:43, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Colonel Warden

I was picking up a few of the pieces of TTN's trail of destruction today. Aside from the aftermath of the unnecessary AFDs, I noticed that he took a big bite out of the Ringworld article in passing. This was done without any discussion and seems quite unhelpful since Ringworld is multi-award winning novel which certainly merits a good article here and the information included highly structured stats. I have reverted but might easily have missed this. As for Collectonian's complaints above, I have little direct knowledge of those articles but, if she considers TTN's treatment unacceptably destructive and dismissive then this is telling as I usually find Collectionian to be quite a hard-line deletionist. So, please restrain User:TTN again, as requested. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:55, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by not impartial and not-currently-but-formerly-partly-involved Casliber

I echo the above, and view Collectonian's position as highly significant and worth noting. I feel that TTN is unable to edit in a collaborative manner which is incompatible with the writing of an encyclopedia. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:59, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by New Age Retro Hippie

I find it worrisome with regard to his use of the AfD process - he's got roughly 43 active requests for deletion, and he's participated in roughly only two or three of the discussions in any of those. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 21:07, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

And note, I'm not calling for probation or the b&, merely that TTN either needs to cut down on AfDs or increase his participation in them. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 04:43, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by TTN

I try work as collaboratively as possible with people, but there is a point where it is not possible to directly deal with fans or projects that feel the need to take two years to take care of small problems. I use a mix of merge discussions/strait merging, redirects, and AfDs to get things done, and of course some people will have a problem with it. Collectonian acts like I absolutely never deal with people, though I recently asked the video game project for input twice (here and here), and I do start merge discussions, though they are overshadowed by the number of articles that do not need to be merged at all. Other complaints are just issues of personal preference in dealing with bad articles (whether to tag first, only use talk page discussions for these kinds of articles, ect), so this is the kind of thing that belongs in a RFC/U or some other similar forum of discussion.

Statement by Ryan Postlethwaite

I believe this is being handled effectively by administrators and there's no need to sanction TTN at this point in time. The major problem we've had with TTN in the past is the edit warring to keep his merges/redirects in place. I still see the odd reversion, but nothing like what we were seeing 12 months ago. We encourage our editors to be bold and this is just what TTN is doing, if he steps back and starts edit warring again going against the bold, revert, discuss cycle then perhaps we can look again, but that's not happening at the minute. I do have some concerns about the way TTN merges his edits, and this led to a warning for not attributing edits properly (something which I will block for if he does it again, although a quick scan of his contribs shows he's attributing correctly at the moment), but that is a simple administrative issue which can be dealt with as such. To sum up - there's no need for the Arbitration Committee to step in here. Ryan Postlethwaite 22:34, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Goodraise

(Edit conflict) As far as I understand it, TTN has previously been restricted for edit warring, which nobody here seems to accuse him of. - He has been accused of going "against multiple-project consensus and a general overall consensus that fictional series can have a single character list". Note, that this quote is not covered by the link provided. He has been accused of misusing AfD for merging. The diff provided, where he supposedly admitted this behavior, only shows him talking about redirects, not about merging. Are people actually expecting of him, to start a merge discussion, after a redirect of his has been reverted? What would he be supposed to start the discussion with? Perhaps, "I suggest article A be merged into article B, but since I can't find anything in those articles worth merging, someone else will have to perform the merger." Then, he has been accused of having "disregard for the community", as is supposedly evident by yet another misread diff. - TTN has picked himself a dirty job. And he is doing that job in an admirably civil way. A hothead like myself probably couldn't do it. -- Goodraise (talk) 22:37, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Black Kite

I have sympathy for both viewpoints here, but I think TTN is stuck between a rock and a hard place. There are a lot of articles, mostly fiction, that are candidates for either deletion, a merge or redirection, but how to deal with them? The obvious answer is to be bold and redirect/merge them, but often (and probably because it's TTN to an extent) this will get reverted, leading to the edit-warring problems we had before, which at least TTN has generally avoided this time. Adding merge tags is generally fruitless because many of these articles are so obscure and ignored that no reasonable discussion will ensue. And so we go to AfD, where - yes - many end up with results of Merge, but at least they've then got the weight of an AfD behind that merge. I know this is another layer of bureaucracy, but possibly some sort of parallel discussion page such as Articles for Merging (AfM?) is an idea which would cope with this. Black Kite 22:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Randomran

I think we need to be very specific about the problem here.

First what this is not.

  1. TTN's previous ArbCom case was not for merging or redirecting articles. It was for edit warring.
  2. There are a lot of people who do not like that User:TTN is being too WP:BOLD. There is absolutely nothing wrong with merging, cleaning up, even redirecting entire articles WP:BOLDly.
  3. If anyone, including User:TTN, makes a WP:BOLD edit that you disagree with, the correct action is to revert it.
  4. If anyone, including User:TTN, is unhappy with being reverted... the correct action is to discuss it. (This failure to do so is what led to his last punishment, which I agree with.)
  5. If the discussion results in no consensus, then solicit feedback from more editors.
  6. I haven't seen evidence that User:TTN is misusing the WP:BRD process.

But that said, I can see why this case keeps on coming back to ArbCom in good faith. (Although I suspect that a few people really just want to be rid of someone they disagree with, regardless of whether or not he follows our behavioral rules.) I don't think TTN is breaking any policies in any clear way (being incivil, failing to assume good faith, edit warring...) But I think that we need ArbCom to answer a few specific questions about more gray-area behavior:

  1. If your effort to redirect an article results in a revert, is it appropriate to solicit further discussion at an AFD?
  2. Is it disruptive to boldly redirect an article for issues that haven't been described through either a discussion or a tag?
  3. Is it misleading to summarize your edit as a "merge", when you've been highly selective in the content you've merged? (See: Misplaced Pages:Smerge#S)
  4. Is there such a thing as WP:GAMEing the WP:BRD process through sheer volume? If so, what is an appropriate level of activity, keeping in mind that some Wikipedians are highly active, and others only check in once a week, or less.
  5. Does the collective amount of these behaviors amount to WP:GAMEing the system? ("See #9: Borderlining".)

I would be uncomfortable penalizing TTN for any of these behaviors, because I think these are questions that nobody honestly knows the answer to. (At least, I sure as hell don't know the answer. Take #1 as an example: the vast majority of the AFDs that TTN puts together results in deletion or a redirect -- so it's not like he's particularly out of step with the community. But then again, it's not called "articles for redirection". It's not called "articles for discussion". It's articles for "deletion". Is an AFD an appropriate way to settle a disputed redirect? I think you'd get a different answer from everyone here.)

However... I do think we should find out if any of these behaviors are considered disruptive, so we can know once and for all where to draw the line. Once we have a clear line, there will be no excuse for crossing it. Vice versa, if these behaviors are acceptable, we also need to know. I'm a little tired of how ArbCom is being used here, when I don't think that other forms of dispute resolution have been tried. ArbCom should be used based on the quality of the behavior, not a judgment on the person. I don't see TTN doing anything remotely as bad as what he did around a year ago, and the fact that he was here a year ago should not turn every disagreement with him into a request for ArbCom to step in.

Statement by Peregrine Fisher

Misplaced Pages is not cleaned up in a day, because it's a lot of work, and people's feelings will get hurt. TTN seems to have taken the job on by himself, and he's forced to cut corners and ignore other peoples feelings. TTN needs to learn to play nice and work with other people. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 23:14, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment to a few of the TTN supporters here. I don't disagree that TTN enforces our policies and guidelines. This case reminds of a few other arbcom/ANI situations. It's the question of whether someone who is a "net gain" is allowed to, basically, be mean to other editors. It seems the answer to this is sometimes "yes". I personally believe the answer should be "no". I don't know if arbcom can answer this question in some general way, but it would be cool if they could/did. Let's say TTN correctly cleaned up 10,000 articles, and alienated 100 editors (I think those numbers are within a factor of the real numbers). Is that OK? If TTN alienated just DGG, that would be too much for me. 10,000 articles to 10 IPs? Maybe that's OK, I don't know. I think a positive result of this situation would be that TTN, under penalty of small blocks, must work collaboratively with others. A big block just makes him take time off, then go into maximum attack mode (within whatever restrictions are on him), as far as I can tell. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 09:02, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by DGG

Let me word this as a reply to Randomran, A occasional or closely targeted bold redirect without discussion is not disruptive--I've done this myself from time to time, even on characters when I see an obviously unsupportable article and a good target. Dozens of them in close succession for multiple article groups are disruptive. It is not wrong to try for a redirect as a compromise, and if not obtained, to try what you really wanted, which is deletion. It is wrong to do so routinely for multiple article groups. Nominating 5 articles in one day for deletion is reasonable. Systematically nominating 5 items or more a day, every day, is not. TTN has a valid point--the articles on these subjects are horrific--anyone coming here will soon see this. But the way to improve them is through discussion and cooperative work, not rushing "madly off in all directions" Stephen Leacock, disregarding all opposition. To nominate articles for lacking references to show notability is useful. To refuse to check first is not so good. (as in every AfD he's placed) To reject references when offered is not good. (multiple afds) To reject even awards as showing it is probably even worse . It shows a determination to be rid of the articles regardless of how. To nominate for deletion or redirection or destructive merging in very large quantities without cooperative work results in random articles being handled in incompatible ways, which is not helpful--especially when done regardless of the importance of the underlying subject . It results in decision by trying to wear out everyone else, and hope to be the last person standing. In desperation, to reduce our areas of interaction, I came on line today intending to propose to TTN that I would simply abandon defense of some classes of articles (games, and children's video), if he would cease trying for the deletion or quasi-deletion of som other classes (classic fiction & works based on classic fiction). Some people, even looking from outside at WP, have called me "patient," , (7 paragraphs from the bottom); for my discussions see my talk page archive on fiction. But he is driving me away from the topic to the extent that I am some days reluctant to start looking at the latest AfDs, or even at WP at all.

I have repeatedly online and offline offered to work with TTN on these articles, as I work with others--and when i do , I give very orthodox advice. . I've worked cooperatively in a friendly & constructive way with people I consider rather extreme deletionists, such as Orange Mike. The only people who have ever not been willing to are a few trolls and SPAs--and TTN. I have specifically offered many times to help with proper merges, (for example) since it is true that sometimes appropriate redirects or merges that he proposes are unreasonably rejected, and I've been ignored--possibly because I offer to help only for the appropriate merges. WP:BRD only works if all three parts are followed--otherwise its bullying or obstruction. There are three things to which a wiki is extremely susceptible: zealots, refusal to discuss, and gaming. See the unanimous WP:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2#Principles arb com view on this DGG (talk) 00:12, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to barge in, but I figured I could since you mentioned me by name. It sounds to me like your biggest issue is the quantity (or maybe the speed?) of the AFDs put forth by TTN. If so, then I don't really disagree with your overall message. Just that we need a clear statement about what a disruptive level of activity is. I would even be comfortable adding something to WP:GAME and WP:POINT for future reference, and would fight hard to make sure that rule stays there. Randomran (talk) 19:58, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Caissa's DeathAngel

It is tough to say whether TTN is actually breaking the rules here. Certainly, individually his actions are in agreement with WP:BRD. However, these are not isolated incidents, these are a huge number of incidents and I believe that collectively they may well be gaming the WP:BRD. Articles for Deletion is not to my mind a place for redirects and mergers. While merge and redirect may be an outcome of the process, no article should ever be submitted there with that intention in mind. I also believe that discussion should occur before an article is sent to AFD. It is very easy for us as editors to occasionally let something lie a little too long, and we may need a bit of prodding (no pun intended) to remind ourselves to sort an article which may be a candidate for deletion. But that discussion should to me come before the AFD. Attempting a redirect straight away I do not object to. I do however object to the article being sent to AFD immediately upon the redirect being reverted, especially when the revert edit summary requests a discussion. That discussion may lead to the merge/redirect being vindicated, but at least the discussion will have happened. To me, the best place for this discussion is on the article's talk page, or that in to which it is suggested it be merged. Not AFD, which is not in any way a discussion page.

Does the fact that so many cases of this amount to justification for extending sanctions on TTN? I would feel more comfortable if that were the case, but that is no what this is about and it would be a gross violation of policies to let my personal feelings affect how this judgement should be made. Perhaps the best solution is requesting that TTN cool off with his use of WP:BOLD and perhaps engage in discussion a bit more readily before sending articles to AFD rather than letting the AFD be the discussion. Whether there is any basis for this to be enforced or an official judgement however I leave to those better versed in such interpretations than I to decide however. Caissa's DeathAngel (talk) 00:26, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by nifboy

In my mind the discussion of many similar articles has, for articles TTN is not involved in, gone something like this:

Editor1: {{plot}} Editor2: {{sofixit}} 2 years go by without any substantial change. Maybe a small-scale edit war but nothing substantial unless Editor1 is dedicated enough to basically rewrite the article from scratch, which can only really be done for high profile articles (hence the success of the Final Fantasy Project, for which step 1 was basically "Merge together a whole bunch of middling characters").

I don't think this is tenable in the long term. So when TTN comes along as asks, "Guys, can we talk about these articles now?" I generally approve. Even if the article hasn't been tagged before, getting the issue on the table and making sure people know about it right away is preferable to letting it stagnate before doing anything about it. Nifboy (talk) 02:06, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by SirFozzie

Agreed with Ryan, I'd hope ArbCom quickly rejects this "Clarification" as yet another attempt to sanction TTN for behaviour that complies with Misplaced Pages policies. SirFozzie (talk) 02:09, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by KojiDude

FWIW, I beleive the statements posted by A Nobody and Collectonian bring up very real problems, (with evidence to boot, something many arguments here lack ) which need to be considered. It seems to me that TTN has realized very little about the issues his rapid nominations and editting patterns raise, and it would be a net positive to have the sanction restored. Dude needs to chillax.--Koji† 03:24, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Protonk (talk)

As I am a poor writer, I will begin this with a caveat. While this issue itself appears perennially before Arbcomm without apparent differentiation from request to request, I agree that each request can be made in good faith. Like all content/conduct disputes, no one here has the benefit of speaking from stoic impartiality. The folks calling for TTN to be restricted are probably genuinely interested in stopping conflicts and encouraging dialogue. They are probably also interested in being rid of TTN. The folks (like me) calling for this to be dismissed are also genuinely interested in working in the 'pedia harmoniously. We are also interested in protecting folks like TTN from being censured, restricted or blocked. Both of our camps' concerns (where they are direct or proxies) are legitimate. TTN isn't the white knight simply because 90% of fiction articles are 'bunk'. Nor is he the bad guy simply because he proceeds aggressively and methodically.

Having equivocated, I'll try to move to the point. This motion should be rejected as it stems from a vague admonition in E&C2 ("The parties are instructed to cease engaging in editorial conflict and to work collaboratively to develop a generally accepted and applicable approach to the articles in question"), is largely unchanged from previous rejected motions, is (as Randomran points out) unrelated to the disputed issue in E&C2, and hinges upon what is a thorny community issue.

  • Previously rejected motions were argued before the committee with the same collection of information and basically the same motivation. Upon the expiry of TTN's restriction, he moved immediately into the prior area of dispute and began editing specifically within the guidelines set by the case. As he (and others) has said multiple times, the use of AfD and placement of redirects is the only venue allotted him to clean up or remove articles on fictional works. Unless we present some clear reasoning why this request is different from all the others we find ourselves in a position where the committee is being used as a standing threat against an editor proceeding along their normal editing path. The result is a chilling effect against editors who wish to clean up articles on fictional subjects. Either something novel should be addressed here or the motion should be rejected.
  • The impetus for E&C2 and the reason for restriction were the same. TTN was edit warring to maintain articles in his preferred state. If we want to ask for community action on his actions which are manifestly different from edit warring, we should be filing a new RFAR. If we think that the community cannot answer the questions his behavior poses, it might be time to do so. But we can't just keep using the result of E&C2 as an albatross around TTN's neck. Unless the suspect behavior is the same, the remedy should be different.
  • Finally, and most importantly, this problem isn't a user conduct issue. Or it isn't solely a user conduct issue. TTN is still doing this because he has the patience and the motivation to do so--not because of some unique malevolence or mania. The community is close to answering the fictional notability question (see WP:FICT), in the middle of answering the 'spinout' question (see the WP:N RfC) and nowhere near answering the merger/deletion/redirect question (in other words, answering the question of what the appropriate fora for these discussions are). Until those questions are answered and some process exists to discuss mergers centrally and enforceably within or without AfD, we cannot use the ARB as a blunt instrument to prevent those merger discussions from occurring.

TTN has a pretty impressive record at AfD of nominated articles eventually being deleted, redirected or merged. He's not doing it to prove a point. He's not tilting at windmills. If we don't like the outcome of his discussions or don't like the volume of them, that's tough. So long as we don't see deletion nominations rejected by the community or some recurrence of past behavior, we should not continue to bring these requests here.

Statement by MuZemike

I do not see what I would call any significant signs of edit warring as a result of TTN's extreme usage of the BRD process that would constitute any restrictions in terms of this RFAR case. If users wish to nail TTN for mass-AFDing articles or for abusing the BRD process to the point of gaming the system, then use the dispute resolution process as intended, just as the WP:BEFORE process should be used as intended prior to nominating articles for deletion. Hence, I believe this to be another attempt at forum-shopping with ArbCom until the desired effect is achieved.

However, (huge caveat not present in my previous statement in the last request for clarification) even I find it a trifle annoying when I traverse through the day's AFDs and see the same types of articles nominated with the same reasons for and against deletion and with the same users going after each other like in some sort of a dog fighting ring. If users wish to nail TTN for that (along with the merge/redirect issues), it seems that starting at RFC/U (as boldly recommended by a very conscientious editor here) would make more sense and then work from there. I am afraid, however, that the community's patience especially those returning to this RFAR case is wearing thin; I don't know if the community is willing to wade through the lengthy process anymore. Hence, I think, in the near future and especially with the new arbitrators coming in, there will be a lot of friction between the Misplaced Pages community in general and the ArbCom to get troubling issues resolved. MuZemike (talk) 04:37, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Sceptre

Yawn. Of course, it just wouldn't be RFAR without people screaming for E&C modifications to get rid of TTN... every other week. Sceptre 04:40, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Masem

I have to agree with others that TTN is following the same process than anyone can for approaching merges of content, and he is pretty spot-on in identify articles that are inappropriate per guidelines, including the in-progress FICT that has been developed across a wide range of editors. If this was anyone else but TTN, people would simply blink and move on, since these fall into the bounds of suggested methods of editing. As long as it's understood that a "merge" result from AFD is completely acceptable from discussion, and (as been pointed out before to TTN, which it looks like he's following) the merge is noted in the merge target per GFDL, it's hard to see what TTN is trying to do as requiring any action above and beyond what admins can do. --MASEM 04:50, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

nobody but TTN does this quantity, and does it without discussion. The quantity is the problem. "Any sin if persisted in will become heinous" Samuel Johnson. I'm referring to refusal to discuss as the "sin," not deletionism) DGG (talk) 06:01, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
If TTN was focusing on a large majority of articles from a single work of fiction at one time, as to invoke the fait acomopli approach that he was warned about before, then yes. But from the checking I've seen, he does maybe a few articles from different works, or when there is a block, he will put a multiarticle AFD togther. (I don't think this is 100% perfect, but this is from spot-checking). Both of these help to make sure that the articles that should be kept will be caught by those that want them to be without overloading them. The other thing seems to be that TTN does monitor those article he deletes, which is much better overall than "drive-by" editing Given that the general barrier to deletion/merging of an article seems to be much higher than the creation, "rapid tagging of articles for AFD" does not seem to disrupt WP save for those whose areas of fiction of interest are being merged. --MASEM 06:44, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Actually, he does focus on a large majority of articles from a single work of fiction at one time. Generally, he seems to pick one category or two a day and nominates a block of articles rapidly with the same word for word nomination regardless of the variance of the various characters or weapons notability (I have even seen some where characters are labeled weapons, weapons characters, etc.). Sincerely, --A Nobody 06:47, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Nsk92

Basically I agree with everything Collectonian said. Agressive mass redirects without discussion on articles where there is an active and still largely unresolved controversy about notability are clearly disruptive and it looks like TTN's behaviour is getting worse. It appears that TTN has not learned the lessons from the previous arbcom sanctions. Extending and expanding those sanctions would seem appropriate. Nsk92 (talk) 06:55, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

A few general extra comments. Some editors here suggested that an RfC or a WP:AN discussion or individual administrator intervention may be more appropriate courses of action here than an arbcom action. I don't think that is correct. In view of the massive number of articles affected by TTN's actions, this is not a problem that can be easily dealt with by individual administrators (and, in fact, a coordinated approach is preferable). Given how divisive the fiction notability wars are, it is rather unlikely that a WP:AN discussion would produce any conclusive result and to some extent the same is true about an RfC (which may still be useful, but would take quite a long time whereas the disruption caused by TTN's continued actions is considerable and ongoing). It does seem to me exactly like a case where expanding arbcom's previous sanctions is the right and most efficient remedy, at least in the interim. It is true that the previous arbcom sanctions on TTN were concerned with edit warring, but their intent was clearly to prevent disruption and since as prectice shows they were not sufficient, it is appropriate to expand those sanctions. User:A Nobody raises some valid points and examples above. It does look like many of TTN's AfD nominations are done fairly indicriminantly, with something close to a templated nomination text and with no real attempt to find sources first and to see if an article is salvageable. This type of behaviour is contrary to WP:DEL's intent and, when done on a massive scale, is disruptive. I should say that personally I am fairly indifferent to the issue of notability of fiction articles and the related notability wars; but I do want them to be resolved in some way since these notability wars destabilize WP:N and other notability guidelines. To the extent that I do have a position on the issue of fiction articles, it is probably fairly close to that of TTN. But I think the kind of WP:BATTLE unilateral tactics TTN deploys are inappropriate and disruptive and some more constructive approach aimed towards establishing consensus on underlying issues is necessary. Waging a one-user all-out war against fiction articles on Misplaced Pages is not the answer. Nsk92 (talk) 14:10, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Nihonjoe

I think TTN means well. I don't think there is any malicious intent in what he is doing. However, his methods tend to be very disruptive and don't lend themselves to achieving a useful end result. As many others have stated here (and elsewhere), it's not what TTN is doing, it's how he's doing it. I think that if he made a more concerted effort to work with the community he is so intent on "reforming" he would find there is already an effort underway to make all the improvements he seems to want. Granted, they aren't moving as fast as he seems to want them to, but he needs to understand that there are only so many people who can do the work, and flooding them with additional work in the form of all the AfDs and other issues he piles on only makes them have less time to do the actual cleanup work already on their plates. While there may be members of WP:ANIME who may think they want TTN gone, I think what they really want is for TTN to work with them rather than rumbling over the top of them. If TTN shows that he can and will actually do this, rather continuing on his merry way—damn the torpedoes—when whatever restrictions are placed on him expire, then I think there can be a solution to this issue which will be good for everyone involved. ···日本穣 07:54, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Y|yukichigai

As Kirill pointed out, the fait accompli principle from E&C2 covers this situation. This is a perfectly rational request for clarification and/or amendment, because it looks like TTN is attempting to accomplish his goals (once again) by way of fait accompli.

I'm not going to say TTN is wrong in wanting to merge some of this content. I'm not even going to say he's wrong in declaring some of it completely unfit for Misplaced Pages. I will say he's not right about all of it. More importantly though, he's going about it completely wrong, proceeding on a delete/merge/redirect binge with no regard to the community or even existing merge efforts.

Yes, he isn't edit warring currently, but I'd argue it's only minimally reduced the, shall we say, "pissed off" effect his edits generate. Much of the community does not welcome his contributions or even presence, and strongly enough to complain to administrators and the arbcom semi-regularly. That sounds like reason enough to examine a re-extension of his editing restrictions. -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue ) 08:47, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by sgeureka

I have high respect for the work of Collectonian and TTN, and while TTN is doing a lot of good work by being bold, it will occasionally backfire when other good and sincere editors like Collectonion stand up to deal with the cleanup issue in a different manner (usually with the same end result - the unimprovable bad standalone articles will be gone). Nothing that a reminder of Misplaced Pages:Assume good faith and Misplaced Pages:There is no deadline can't solve (this applies to both parties), so no arbcom involvement is necessary. – sgeureka 11:54, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Sephiroth BCR

As people have previously noted, TTN was originally brought before ArbCom due to his edit warring, none of which is apparent here. What this report is ultimately about is TTN being impatient in attempting to subvert the existing venues for merging the articles of articles that fail our notability guideline when the Anime and manga WikiProject has a very effective cleanup task force that has a proven track record of successfully merging articles without loss of content or the mess of repeated AfDs. In several recent AfDs (see , , , ), he attempted to move around a merge discussion that was already in motion here. Whether he believes that there is "no content to merge" or not, he has no reason to take matters into his own hands when editors of the anime and manga project were fully capable of handling the situation and ensuring that the information was merged properly (and the merge discussion is in support of a merge too!). I realize that TTN may be cynical of any such efforts due to long experience of fictional walled gardens in which such merge discussions never produced any substantial change, but it has been repeatably pointed out to TTN (see , , ) that the cleanup task force for the anime and manga project is capable of performing such merges and that his intended goal will be fulfilled in any case. Now, I respect TTN's work. I believe that he does a lot of good for the project, but he needs to show the necessary discretion in realizing where his efforts can best be focused. If anything, I would ask him to respect the existing processes, and leave the job for them rather than going through everything with a chainsaw. — sephiroth bcr 12:49, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by MacGyverMagic

Finding the diffs to back all this up will take a while. Please be patient.
  1. As User:MuZemike has said above, I have considered opening an RFC on this editor's behavior. While I can see merit in the idea that a lot of these articles need merging (I even defended a recent merge of his), I find that the way he goes about achieving his intended goal is disruptive.
  2. TTN has nominated articles for deletion where a redirect or merge was undone even though the merge discussion was still ongoing with no concensus (and even though the redirect/merge could have been reinstated). The particular case I remember was split 2-2 between support and oppose on the merge. This seems to indicate that he wants immediate solutions.
  3. Another indication of his immediatism is the sheer amount of deletion nominations he makes in a day. It makes it impossible for interested parties to improve all the affected articles in time because they're given too much work at once.
  4. In a previous arbcom ruling which had as one of the supported principles: "Editors who are collectively or individually making large numbers of similar edits, and are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed, are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion. It is inappropriate to use repetition or volume in order to present opponents with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the change. This applies to many editors making a few edits each, as well as a few editors making many edits." TTN was restricted in that debate but has again started in the behavior that that RfArb found to be disruptive.
  5. There is also no indication that he checks if the article is verifiable, rather than verified per WP:BEFORE before nominating an article for deletion. In his nominations he says that the subject is not independently notable from the main topic, which supports the idea that the articles does not warrant its own entry, but he never suggests or considers merging the articles he's nominating (in whole or in part). Just because something isn't independently notable, doesn't mean it's unverifiable or unencyclopedic and shouldn't be covered at all.
  6. Furthermore, there are basic disagreements on what constitutes reliable sources when people make attempts to improve articles TTN nominates (contrary to what he says, you only need multiple sources to indicate notability, for verifiability only one suffices) Whether a source is reliable is something to discuss too if it is contentious and shouldn't be decided by a single editor.


In short: I believe this editor should be restricted from making mass nominations on AFD and only make merges/redirects after the extend of the merges in question have been thouroughly discussed. - Mgm| 13:21, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by TheFarix

The issue with TNN's recent actions is that he is refraining form the consensus building process because, as he already stated above, it is too slow and sometimes result in outcomes he disagrees with because of "fandom". While he and his supporters are citing WP:BRD to justify his actions, one must remember that WP:BRD is meant to initiate the consensus building process. Building a consensus is one of the fundamental cornerstones in editorial decision-making. Instead, TNN has is using WP:BRD to bypass this consensus building process altogether. --Farix (Talk) 14:15, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Kung Fu Man

I'm going to say up front this is pointless. TTN does do a lot of mass deletion and blah blah blah, but at the same time, so do many other editors, myself included. Yes, he can be a stubborn jackass and push things to an extreme when he feels something should be a certain way. Then again, we all can. I've butted heads with him on more than one occasion, but I've also seen him actively question himself if his standards were too high and back down when it was shown editors were working on an article.

In the cases of these merges and redirects he's getting the hammer for, I'll be blunt: almost every one (there are exceptions of course) I've seen has been an article with an extreme narrow scope where a merge or redirect would be a better idea than a full article, because notable or not enough information doesn't readily exists to make a full fledged encyclopedic article despite all the jumping up and down over how notability must exist because one brief mention is found. If that was enough for an encyclopedic subject we'd see an Ash McGowen article singing my praises; thankfully it isn't and common sense needs to apply, in that there is a lot of cleaning needing to be done on Misplaced Pages.

TTN should definitely cool his jets more, but other editors should too, and realize what discussions are worth having. Encyclopedic content is not being lost by a merge, nor by a removal of content than on the surface appears to be unsourced original research. I think if you want to enforce anything, push for editors to not go to him when they feel an article should be removed and instead take care of it themselves and get the blame good or bad.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 14:41, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Gazimoff

I have nemtioned this at at a Request for Clarification, both in one I initiated shortly after TTN's editing restriction came to an end here, and in one I commented in about a month later here. In both cases, the request for clarification was dismissed despite several concerns raised.

To clarify the point, for those who seem to miss it through my verbose discussion of the argument previously:

  • My concern is not regarding the edits as individual actions, but the large quantity of edits in a short space of time that presents a fait accompli.

By bombarding editors with a large quantity of redirects or AfDs, you reduce their ability to react meaningfully to each individual one. If there was a single AfD on a specialist topic at a given time, you would expect a deep and meaningful discussion along with some work to improve sourcing and other requirements. Once this is scaled up to 50 AfDs, the editing resource is stretched so thinly that it can't possibly meet the demands of every discussion happening.

My final concern is Arbcom's reluctance to grasp the nettle and deal with the issue one way or another. Either grant TTN carte blanche to perform contentious edits as heavily as he can manage, or call time on his actions and rein him. Without a clear message either way, I can assure the members of Arbcom that another Request for Clarification will be raised by another well-meaning yet concerned editor within another three month period. Gazimoff 15:34, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by PeaceNT

Misplaced Pages is a collaborative project; collaborative being the operative word. Though it would be unreasonable to require everything be discussed in advance, editors should not constantly force their way in the face of loud crticism from the community. It is true criticism doesn't automatically mean what TTN does is wrong, but it suggests TTN needs to use feedback and improve their manners. Only when TTN knows how to work with others should we deem a restriction on him unnecessary.

These days TTN is starting a myriad AfDs - too many that he himself would not be able to comment on. This is hardly a good method of discussion, not to mention the enormous pressure put on editors working on a rescue, and the likely damage on legitimate content because AFD commentors may mistake those "merge" nominations for normal "delete" nominations. We have a very heavy workload at AfD already. That Misplaced Pages doesn't have an "Articles for merge" page is not an excuse. Misplaced Pages has a process for merge: starting proposals on talk pages. Everyday editors all over the project are patiently following this merge process without much trouble. People do not flood AFD with merge nominations like TTN does.

It should be noted that TTN's comment on this very page suggests that he won't discuss with "fans" or projects who he knows will disagree with him. This is wrong. The more potentially disagreeable an action is, the more important it is to discuss. TTN was restricted by arbcom not because of what he wanted to do, but how he did it, and now after the restriction period it seems he is repeating the old patterns. --PeaceNT (talk) 18:02, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Stifle

TTN should be congratulated, not sanctioned. Sure, he's ruffling feathers, but that's bound to happen with the area he's involved in. Stifle (talk) 11:03, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by ThuranX

I have seen a number of threads on TTN on AN/I in the past years. Now he's conforming to the restrictions placedon him by ArbCom and the community, and still those who won't really improve things can't stop gunning for him. I am constantly frustrated by the number of editors who see Misplaced Pages as a cruft farm, and expand things here based on their love for a character or notion, bloating articles with nonsense about episode 17, season 9, scene 4, line 36 or whatever. When editors who work hard to make more and more articles look comprehensive without looking childish fold things together ,or insist on some rigorous standards of writing, not unlike a term or research paper, too much of this community rebels, screaming bloody murder instead of looking at is as real editing. I support TTN in this, as I do in almost all his efforts, and think this is a colossal waste of ArbCom time. ThuranX (talk) 12:40, 23 December 2008 (UTC)


Statement by Jtrainor

While individually some of these merges may have merit, the fact that a) many are being done very quickly, b) many of them are redirects instead of actual merges and c) TTN ignores discussion about them means that collectively, they are quite disruptive. Jtrainor (talk) 20:56, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Kww

Another week, another unsupportable complaint to Arbcom about TTN. I repeat my normal request: reject this RFAR, and then make it clear that bringing this back to Arbcom again will result in blocks. This has gotten beyond ridiculous.—Kww(talk) 22:29, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

Request for clarification: Tobias Conradi

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

Statement by Ncmvocalist

I seek clarification on the recent principle that was passed (via a motion) in this case here - specifically, its application. It appears there is reluctance amongst administrators when it comes to enforcement - specifically with a comment/passage that appears on User:Bedford's user page:

I was a Wikipedian Administrator, but it was stolen from me without due process by a few fellow administrators who thought they should arbitrarily decide what should be and should not be on Misplaced Pages, despite WP:NOTCENSORED, and got me desysoped. I was once p.o.ed about it, but since then I've realized it is a greater honor to have been screwed of the status than to actually have it, as it just meant I am better than those behind the gangrape. Besides, it means I don't have to do as much as I did before.

No doubt, there are several problems with the ill-considered wording of the comment, as well as the cause for which it is written (if any). The page ended up protected amongst an edit war between User:Bedford and a few other editors. Bedford refused to change the comment when asked to, per the discussion at ANI at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Bedford_blatantly_breaking_policies....

I submit that even if it isn't necessarily BLP-related, the rule of thumb is to avoid harm. Unfortunately, there is a reluctance among admin-enforcement through full protection - the admins either seem to downplay the issue, or think greater consensus is needed - even in such a case of requiring more consensus-building, it's not unreasonable to remove a term such as "gangrape" (as an interim measure, even through full protection). I request the Committee to affirm this view and to effect such an enforcement action. Additionally, I request ArbCom to provide clarification on how the relevant principle would apply to the above passage as a whole. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:31, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

In case I miss noting it later, I wish to thank the Committee for taking the time to review this request. I respect and appreciate its views and reasoning so far, as well as anything further that may be forthcoming. Regards, Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:46, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Re to Horologium

I suppose I should've disclosed the fact that I'm practically uninvolved in this matter - what goes on between Bedford, Sceptre and anyone else involved is not something I paid attention to. I only looked at the merits of this complaint; particularly, making my own conclusions after seeing the above passage/comment for myself.

I've handled enough WQA complaints to understand when something is justifiable (and/or misrepresented in the hopes of achieving a certain outcome) - that's not the issue here. Also, this isn't a mere matter of disliking the use of the term; nor is it a matter of wikilawyering via dictionary definitions - the ordinary understanding of the word 'gangrape' or 'gang-rape' isn't something that 'readers' are going to be hopping off to a dictionary for, even in the context in which it is used here. The casual use of the term suggests a low degree of sensitivity, and a high degree of avoidability. I also think it's universally known that disrupting Misplaced Pages to prove a point is unacceptable. My primary concern at the moment is what appears on the user page - but I won't oppose ArbCom looking at the conduct of all those involved if this is required. Surely, the principles exist for a wider reason. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:59, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't disagree with what you've said in regards to Sceptre, or the userbox wars. However, I note that I didn't bring forward this clarification request with any particular attention being given to Sceptre/Mixwell/Bedford conflict - rather, I did bring it here in the hopes of clarifying if it was acceptable on a user page. As another admin noted at the ANI discussion: "While the complainant may have a prejudice towards the user, that does not make the report completely bogus. I see a few other users here who feel this issue has some stance and as such should not just be passed off." The official clarification from here will be useful for future enforcement. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:46, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by Horologium

I am the admin who protected Bedford's user page. While I don't agree with a lot of what Bedford has to say, and I dislike his choice of words in the paragraph that was at issue, the argument presented was ludicrous on its face. A user who has baited Bedford before comes sniveling to AN/I over a single word, clearly used in a metaphorical sense, on Bedfords's user page. (It is in the penultimate sentence of the last paragraph of a big chunk of text, not highlighted/capitalized/italicized/bolded.) Then another user, who was at the forefront of the effort to desysop Bedford, starts removing the entire paragraph from Bedford's page. After I warn him about edit-warring and 3RR, he stops, and the first user starts doing the exact same thing, at which point I fully protected the page. Note the edit summaries left by the editors seeking to remove the entire paragraph. one of Sceptre's is incivil; the first of Mixwell's is incorrect, and the second is snarky. I would encourage Bedford to change the word, but the arguments that have been presented so far in the AN/I discussion have ranged from the fatuous and sanctimonious to the inane. Sceptre's WP:IDONTHEARYOU attitude, in particular, is annoying. There is no assertion of rape, and therefore there is no personal attack. Bedford has not called anyone a rapist. I suggest Sceptre should consult a dictionary; My copy of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth edition) offers this definition for rape: 3. Abusive or improper treatment; violation. In that context, the word is justifiable. Horologium (talk) 14:20, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Re to Ncmvocalist

The reason I provided the dicdef was not to wikilawyer; in fact, it was quite the opposite. Sceptre has been spinning this as "Bedford called me a rapist", when in fact he didn't say any such thing. I think it's perfectly obvious in context that he's not using the word in the literal (sexual) sense. (Sceptre is being quite disingenuous here, as Bedford's page specifically cites a few fellow administrators; Sceptre isn't one, and wasn't when the Bedford desysop occurred.) I'm not fond of the use of the word, but it's not a personal attack, and it's definitely not a WP:BLP vio, which was the justification Sceptre was using when editing Bedford's page to remove the entire paragraph, not just the offending word. The disruption is caused not by Bedford, but by Mixwell (who brought the complaint in the first place) and Sceptre (who started edit warring over it without a clear consensus). And no, there is not a clear consensus to remove, although there appears to be a consensus that it's tactless. However, "tactless" is not a criterion for removing anything from a user's page without his or her consent. We already had that argument; you may or may not remember the "Userbox wars", which nearly pulled Misplaced Pages's community apart. We don't need a rehash of it, over a single word on a userpage which may or may not be divisive. Horologium (talk) 18:24, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I understand that you are looking at a general clarification, but the problem is that you are asking about a case which really doesn't have anything to do with the dispute which precipitated the request. (I realize that you don't have access to the deleted pages relevant to the case, so bear with me here.) In the Conradi case, the dispute arose over Conradi restoring pages that had been deleted through MFD, pages which were headlined about examples of "Administrator Abuse" and contained a laundry list of specific diffs that Conradi saw as abusive. The Bedford case deals with a single paragraph, with no links or names, that states that he feels like he got the pointy end of the shaft. One of the words he uses is an unfortunate choice (IMO), but there's nothing there that justifies its removal, under any of the policies that are in place, and certainly not under the remedy you have cited. If this had been congruent, I would have had no compunctions about removing it, but it's not; my reluctance is based on that difference, not an unwillingness to act. Horologium (talk) 16:26, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Statement by other user

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • I am not certain whether ArbCom intervention is necessary here, but Bedford's insistence on using crass language that he knows offends some of his fellow Wikipedians is churlish and reinforces why he is no longer an administrator. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:41, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
  • My analysis is that the statement in context would definitely be read as Bedford's own opinion put into a crassly extreme form, but that no-one would seriously read it as a literal statement. It is borderline but I would incline to the view that we cannot insist on its removal. This is partly because, in applying the complained-of remarks generally without naming the users, it is difficult to read it as personally insulting. Users unfamiliar with the dispute, intrigued by the use of such a forceful description, are far more likely to hold it against Bedford especially if they investigate the circumstances. I think in his best interests he should rephrase his remarks, but I strongly suspect that it is his own reputation that will suffer if he choses not to do so. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:08, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Note: Our newbie arb hats aren't fully on but we're being asked to comment...I agree with Brad and Sam. While Bedford's comment is highly distasteful to many in the community, it is not directed at anyone specific and is in his own user space. If it were a directed comment, I support removing it. As it is, it's primary negative affect is to the person that wrote it. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:05, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
  • I think Sam hit the nail on the head here. It's not a good statement to put in his userspace, and it hurts him to keep it in, but it's not to be a statement that needs a sanctioned removal. Wizardman 17:05, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Bedford is reminded that such extreme hyperbole reflects mostly on his own character, and that he would be well-advised to redact it himself. However, I see no reason to forcibly remove the comment or to sanction Bedford for choosing to leave it. — Coren  19:38, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
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