Revision as of 22:02, 5 May 2013

Requests for arbitration

• recent changes
• purge this page
• view or discuss this template

No cases have recently been closed (view all closed cases).

Currently, no requests for clarification or amendment are open.

Race and politics, Apostle12

Initiated by # _ at 17:39, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Involved parties

• UseTheCommandLine (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• Apostle12 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Rgambord (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Rgambord (talk) 07:12, 4 May 2013 (UTC) This is a signature by Rgambord. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:28, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• many others are listed in the linked ANI discussions and RfC/U
• (this list is not intended to be exhaustive; in the past I have been urged to embrace brevity. if the case is taken by arbcom then I will be more than happy to provide abundant additional sourcing and diffs)

Statement by UseTheCommandLine

My initial interactions with Apostle12 were regarding an edit war at White privilege concerning the use of mitigation language in the lead paragraph.

Since then I have interacted with him on a number of articles pertaining to race politics -- mostly Huey P. Newton and sometimes Black Panther Party. My main concerns were initially content-based but it became clear to me that they were largely behavioral.

From my perspective, the carelessness of Apostle12's sourcing decisions and POVPUSH behavior (which I made a nuisance of myself over at a repeated ANI filing), combined with his repeated, incredibly offensive comments about people of color on multiple talk pages (with extensive ANI discussion) suggest to me that Apostle12 is not an editor that can be reasoned with or negotiated with.

Through multiple conversations on talk pages and multiple RSN discussions it has been established that sources he frequently uses (Kate Coleman, and in some respects Hugh Pearson) for information in Huey P. Newton and Black Panther Party are at best sketchy, yet Apostle12 repeatedly claims without reservation that, e.g. Kate Coleman is a "respected journalist." Apostle12's apparent unwillingness to respect other editors' concerns on these points, and indeed his use of these sources at Black Panther Party after they were established at Huey P. Newton and RSN to be non-RS would be troubling enough, but if that were the only issue this would be more clearly a content dispute. When combined with his pattern of WP:NOTFORUM, spewing offensive and racist assertions on talk pages under the guise of "personal experiences" it seems abundantly clear to me that this is all of a piece.

Previous attempts, the aforementioned RSN discussions as well as DRN and an RfC/U, have been unsuccessful in dealing with these or other problems, either from a content or behavior perspective. The RfC/U, despite making what I think are reasonable suggestions for addressing the behavior issues with Apostle12, was immediately characterized as political, and no action was taken. Apostle12's unwillingness to respond to the suggestions made there is characteristic of his editing style. Initially he stated that he would respond to the RfC in "a few days"; after a number of other editors had painted the RfC as illegitimate, he felt it was not worth his time. Stonewalling and WP:IDHT, whether by ignoring something, or by simply repeatedly asserting something, is a pattern I have seen time and time again in his edits and discussions.

I have certainly made mistakes, though I have repeatedly asked for help and guidance, and been willing to adhere to it when it was provided. I would welcome the guidance of arbcom in addressing these deficiencies. But as a new editor, I have only tried to do my best with the information and mechanisms available to me.

I actually did not include Rgambord on this filing. It hadn't ever even occurred to me to do so, actually, because the filing was, in my view, about Apostle12's edits to race-and-politics-related articles. Rgambord added him or herself to the list of involved parties, and I'm not entirely sure why. -- # _ 07:34, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

In response to Mathsci's point below, I did file a notice regarding the incidents I consider POVPUSH, at WP:AE, and it was considered non-actionable. My reading of the statement there was that these incidents fell outside the scope of "race and intelligence (broadly construed)"

If indeed they are actionable under existing WP:ARBR&I principles already, then perhaps some clarification of that is in order, and this does not need to go to full arbitration. I certainly do not want to waste anyone's time if there are other ways to get this sorted out. After raising these points repeatedly at ANI someone suggested i go to RFARB, so here I am. -- # _ 08:12, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Further, I think I would disagree that Apostle12 is a Single-purpose account. -- # _ 08:18, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I can provide a more detailed response to MONGO's concerns below, complete with diffs if that would be useful, on or shortly after May 8.

Briefly, though, the way I have chosen to view this broader issue is as the unfortunate confluence of:

• racial attitudes on the part of Apostle12 whose expression is offensive to myself and others
• poor sourcing practices and IDHT, which can to edit warring and POVPUSH even on less controversial topics.

In regards to the sourcing, this can be seen in Apostle12's edits not just at the aforementioned articles on racial or political topics, but also in his edit history at the Franklin prostitution allegation article, pont-saint-esprit (which was spun off into 1951 pont-saint-esprit mass poisoning or some such), and to a lesser extent the various MKULTRA related articles. The IDHT is on display, as far as I can tell, at most of those articles to various degrees; when there is a friendly editing atmosphere as was apparent at pont-saint-esprit for some time, this behavior is not in evidence. but even in the last few days at Black Panther Party there has been the repeated insistence that Kate Coleman's work is respected, cited, etc without any discussion of what that actually means, nor even the acknowledgement that the sources I removed were opinion pieces. The LA Times article, for instance, has "opinion" right there in the URL.

As in NYB's reference, the standards for referencing on contentious or sensitive topics should be more strictly adhered to rather than less.

The juxtaposition of this poor sourcing and IDHT with the commentary and NOTFORUM on racial matters gives the reasonable impression that Apostle12 is a POVPUSHer on racial topics, irrespective of if that is his conscious intent or what his personal beliefs are. And this is further highlighted by the sensitive and contentious nature of the subject matter.

The final straw for me really was the placement of some of these poor sources on Black Panther Party. The best AGFish explanation of placing the same assertions (that were at minimum highly contentious, and which there seemed to be at least a tentative consensus that they were not usable for statements of fact) that were removed from Huey P. Newton into Black Panther Party some weeks or months later is that he simply forgot about the extensive conversations that were had about these sources. That seems possible but unlikely to me, and I took it as evidence that, rather than merely having complex problems with sourcing, there was an intent to disrupt or POVPUSH. -- # _ 20:45, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Rgambord

I've never used ARBCOM before, so I hope I'm doing this correctly.

I think it is relevant to mention that User:UseTheCommandLine is currently involved in a dispute with myself on , as well as , both of which she started without any discussion on the relevant pages. This is not the first time she has brought the same trivial matter to AN/I and so far has been unsuccessful in garnering support. When consensus in arbitration was against her, she resorted to immature behavior, insults, etc, and threatened to permanently leave wikipedia. In my opinion, she has shown a clear pattern of taking minor disputes directly to arbitration/Dispute resolution/noticeboard, and is never hesitant to escalate a situation. She only just returned to wikipedia after an extended break, and has taken at least 3 different matters that I am now involved in to some sort of resolution center. She is very stubborn and has a very strong POV stance. I can't necessarily comment on Apostle12's behavior, as I don't have much history editing along side him, but he seems to be a good faith, if somewhat misguided and unpopular editor. Certainly, wikipedia is not a popularity contest. A mentor for both UTCL and Apostle12 would do the community well, considering both have somewhat contentious histories. Hell, even I could go for a mentor.

UTCL has a long history of edit warring: and pestering admins etc... I really don't have time to look up all the diffs, but they are there, though somewhat old and buried in contribs pages. She's basically been told in quite a number of instances to stop edit warring, stop creating a hostile editing environment, to stop insulting other editors, stop abusing dispute resolution and yet continues to do so.

• Note: Due to extremely recent events I would like to strike my previous paragraphs because I believe in second chances. I will leave the statements up, but I am no longer convinced they are relevant to the issue at hand. I know of at least one admin who will probably be interested in weighing in on Apostle12, (User:TParis), since he's been moderating that talk page for some time, and has been involved in many of Apostle12's noticeboards. I've left a note on his talk page. Thanks.

Statement by Mathsci

It is not clear that arbitration is required here. The issues seem to be related to articles like Race and crime in the United States, covered by WP:ARBR&I. Problematic edits on that article have led to topic bans being imposed at WP:AE. Those restrictions were not imposed because editors made outspoken statements about crime and certain population groups on article talk pages, but because of unbalanced editing to the article. Nevertheless, repeated expression of a non-neutral point of view on a talk page seems to be covered by these two principles from that case—Misplaced Pages:ARBR&I#Advocacy and Misplaced Pages:ARBR&I#Single purpose accounts—and discretionary sanctions are already available there, if required or applicable. Mathsci (talk) 09:07, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Thrydulff that WP:ARBR&I probably does not cover this particular aspect (race and politics). It is also true that quite different sets of editors are involved. Mathsci (talk) 12:01, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf

Without commenting on the merits or otherwise of the complaint, I would disagree with Mathsci above (and agree with Sandstein at the linked AE request) that this topic area is covered by the WP:ARBR&I case or the discretionary sanctions that resulted from it. That case related to "articles relating to the area of conflict (namely, the intersection of race/ethnicity and human abilities and behaviour, broadly construed)", and to include these articles in that category would be stretching the apparently intended meaning of "human behaviour" too far. This dispute and the R&I dispute also seem to involve non-overlapping sets of editors, Thryduulf (talk) 11:05, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Phoenix and Winslow

I have no experience with Apostle12 or UTCL at articles involving race politics, such as Huey P. Newton. My experience with Apostle12 goes back two years to another article called Franklin child prostitution ring allegations. At that article, unreliable sources were being used to smear innocent people with hideous accusations. In light of Apostle12's recent insensitive remarks about race, it may be significant that the main suspect in the Franklin case was a prominent African-American businessman, and several of the other suspects were also African-American. A grand jury investigated these allegations and determined they were a "carefully crafted hoax." The only two accusers who did not recant their accusations were indicted for perjury. One of them went to prison for several years. The other accuser was already in prison on unrelated charges, but was declared mentally unfit to stand trial for perjury.

One would think that would be the end of it, but a conspiracy theory cottage industry has grown around the case, claiming that the grand jury was rigged; and Apostle12 was one of its advocates here at Misplaced Pages. He partnered up with another like-minded editor, I tried to challenge the unreliable sources, and for much of the article's lifespan, it was two of them against me. It was supremely frustrating, as people at WP:ANI and other noticeboards didn't take it seriously and the two of them developed a mean-spirited, passive-aggressive editing style. It's disruptive and tendentious.

It really brings out the worst in people because it's so frustrating to deal with, and I must admit that it brought out the worst in me. They know exactly where the lines are that they cannot cross, such as WP:NPA, and they actually make their opponents (like me) appear tendentious. I have no doubt that the same thing happened to UTCL. The particular editing style exhibited by Apostle12 and his partner is really very poisonous to the Misplaced Pages project. They erect a "wall of words," that any neutral party asked to investigate would find very daunting. They constantly distort and spin-doctor everything. Wikilawyering is brought to an entirely new level of weaseling. It becomes a monumental chore to unravel all of their distortions, and they refuse mediation.

It was clear that Apostle12's partner was learning this poisonous editing style from him. Eventually I got their principal source declared unreliable at WP:RSN. All the previously uninvolved editors unanimously agreed that it was unreliable. After that, their enormous pile of WP:BLP violations finally collapsed because it wasn't sourced. Admins stepped in and stubbed the whole article.

At that point, Apostle12 moved on and hasn't appeared again on my radar until now. His partner at the Franklin BLP mess has been Wikistalking me however, continues to push fringe theory (and minority theories with too much WP:WEIGHT) at that article and others, and may appear at ArbCom in a separate case. I want to stress that Apostle12's editing style is poisonous to the whole project. Like-minded editors, like his partner, are corrupted by him. They learn effective tendentious techniques from him, and it drives away good editors. Editors who are trying to remain true to the letter and spirit of Misplaced Pages policy, such as UTCL and myself, are driven to extreme frustration and may violate policy (which leads to blocks) or walk away from Misplaced Pages.

I walked away from Misplaced Pages for a year. Clearly, Apostle12 moved on to find other articles to poison, and other good editors to drive crazy. Perhaps he found a new partner or two along the way, and corrupted them like my Wikistalker. I respectfully suggest that UTCL should be allowed to present her case here, and that ArbCom should investigate these allegations. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 16:01, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

In response to AGK's "question of whether we should topic-ban Apostle12" I think that would be a bare minimum. We first need to consider whether Apostle12 should continue to be a part of the Misplaced Pages project.

NYB says that Apostle12 edits "in an inflammatory and insensitive fashion that unnecessarily offends many of our fellow editors" and this has led to "extensive criticism of Apostle12's editing" UTCL mentions "Apostle12's unwillingness to respond" and his "Stonewalling and WP:IDHT" behavior. UTCL also mentions "the carelessness of Apostle12's sourcing decisions and POVPUSH behavior" (which I have also mentioned), and "his repeated, incredibly offensive comments about people of color ... spewing offensive and racist assertions on talk pages"

I confirm all these observations without any reservation except the last. The racial overtones of this misconduct are something I never really noticed before — but like I said, the principal suspect and several others in the Franklin case were African-American; and his theme was that they really were guilty of running a nationwide child prostitution ring, complete with Satan worship, making snuff films, and other murders. He was pushing this POV on the Talk page and in the mainspace with an unreliable source, in defiance of WP:BLP, and despite a grand jury finding that it was a "carefully crafted hoax."

Clearly, over the years Apostle12 has not improved his behavior. If anything, it's getting worse. He actually mentored at least one other editor in this disruptive and tendentious skill set, who has moved on to other articles, and is teaching this editing style to even more editors; and both Apostle12 and his protege have brought out the worst in other editors as well, when we oppose their POVPUSHing. I see this misconduct spreading exponentially.

If committee members believe he is somehow redeemable, and he is capable of someday making positive and cooperative contributions without offending anyone, consider how labor intensive it would be to rehabilitate him. Consider that the pool of available admins and senior editors is shrinking because people are cutting back their volunteer hours or leaving the project (in many cases because of editors like this one), and you'd be asking that shrinking pool of volunteers to supervise him.

At the very least, a lengthy block followed by mentoring and the topic ban proposed by NYB. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 17:42, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Statement by Newyorkbrad

I'm recused as an arbitrator in this matter because in an ANI discussion last month, I proposed that Apostle12 be topic-banned from editing in the area of human race and ethnicity. The context for the ANI discussion begins here, the discussion becomes more directly focused on Apostle12 here, and the subthread discussing the proposed topic-ban is found here. Input on my proposal was roughly evenly divided between support and opposition, and ultimately the thread aged off ANI and into the archive without the discussion having been closed by anyone, although Sandstein did issue Apostle12 a discretionary-sanctions warning under the Race and intelligence case. I did not pursue the matter further at that time, in the hopes that the extensive criticism of Apostle12's editing would lead him to improve his behavior.

Apostle12's edits, especially in recent months, have focused directly and indirectly on issues of race. This includes the article White privilege and its talkpage as well as articles relating directly and indirectly to criminal acts committed or allegedly committed by African-American people. No one can deny that the subject-matters of race, of crime, and of their intersection are of transcendent social importance and are worthy of full encyclopedic coverage on Misplaced Pages, during the course of which some very disheartening facts and statistics must be addressed. However, it was my impression last month and it remains my impression today that Apostle12 consistently edits articles on these subjects, and especially their talkpages, in an inflammatory and insensitive fashion that unnecessarily offends many of our fellow editors and distracts from productive discussion and editing.

A prism through which Apostle12's editing might be evaluated is the set of principles that the Arbitration Committee passed unanimously in 2011 in Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Noleander. (By way of disclosure, I drafted that decision.) In those principles, the Committee reaffirmed Misplaced Pages's policies regarding NPOV, accuracy of sourcing, and other basic precepts, and then went on to adopt three newly stated principles that may be of relevance here:

Sensitivities of subject matter: Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines regarding article content apply to all pages of the encyclopedia. No topics are placed off limits, and "political correctness" is not required as a condition of editing. Nevertheless, certain subject-matters—such as articles discussing specific racial, religious, and ethnic groups, and the members of these groups identified as such—are by their nature more sensitive than others. It is especially important that editors working in these areas adhere to site policies and guidelines and to good encyclopedic practices. These include neutral editing as well as scrupulous sourcing, especially of controversial or disputed claims.

Bias and prejudice: An editor must not engage in a pattern of editing that focuses on a specific racial, religious, or ethnic group and can reasonably be perceived as gratuitously endorsing or promoting stereotypes, or as evincing invidious bias and prejudice against the members of the group.

Remedies for biased editing: Where an editor's contributions, over a significant period of time and after repeated expressions of concerns, are reasonably perceived by many users to reflect bias and prejudice against the members of a racial, religious, or ethnic group, appropriate remedies or restrictions should be imposed. This does not necessarily require a finding that the editor is actually biased and prejudiced against any group or that the editor consciously intended to edit inappropriately.

The Committee may find these principles relevant here in addressing Apostle12's editing and what, if anything, should be done about it. I have no comments at this stage on any other issues that may or may not be involved. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:03, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment by MONGO

As a resident of Nebraska, I was asked to assist in the situation at the Franklin child prostitution ring allegations article, which is the only article where I have encountered Apostle 12. My impression was that he was advocating a fringe view on the situation. Apostle 12 has not been active on that article since 2011. Both he and User:WLRoss were advocating fringe material and edit warring over the inclusion of the material, all from self published or speculative sources. I can't see the deleted edits, but a cursory glance at the edit summaries gives some indication as to the gist of the arguments...here. As far as to whether or not Apostle 12 is currently doing a similar POV push on issues of race and intelligence or articles within that scope, I couldn't say, but I suggest the above plantiffs provide better and more diffs to substanitate their opinions.--MONGO 19:52, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment by Akuri

I'm one of the editors who voted against topic banning Apostle12 at ANI. I can't be sure there is no problem with his editing, but the evidence presented at ANI was not very strong. Most of the diffs presented there were over five months old, and the people advocating a topic ban struggled to find any that were newer.

If Arbcom decides Apostle12 should be sanctioned, I ask that they open a case instead of topic banning him by motion, for two reasons. The first reason is that before topic banning him, they should carefully examine the evidence to ensure a topic ban is needed. And the second reason is that it's very likely there are other people editing the same articles as Apostle12 whose conduct also is a problem. The statement by Rgambord suggests UseTheCommandLine might be one example.

If Arbcom decides they need to take some action, one other editor whose conduct I think they need to examine is user:ArtifexMayhem. On the White privilege article, the first edit he ever made to either the article or its talk page was a revert. On the talk page, Apostle12 commented that ArtifexMayhem's preferred version omitted the phrase "are argued to" and described white privilege as something definitely real, which was non neutral. ArtifexMayhem did not respond to Apostle12's concerns. But then yesterday he restored the exact same wording again, although he had not participated in the talk page the past week.

His conduct also has been an issue in articles in the race and intelligence topic area, such as this sequence of edits where he blanked the same section of the article four times, reverting edits by four different editors (me, Eric Kvaalen, The Devil's Advocate, and BlackHades). I considered making an AE report about that under the R&I case, but last month another AE report about somewhat similar conduct from a different editor was closed with no action because admins decided it required Arbcom. Since the beginning of the year, ArtifexMayhem's edits have been near-exclusively on the topic of human race and ethnicity. That's not a problem in itself, it's also somewhat true of me, but more than half of his content edits also are made up of section blanking and reverts, and it's always to advocate the same perspective that whites are to blame for other ethnic groups' troubles. If Arbcom accepts the case and includes him as a party, I can present more evidence about these issues. Akuri (talk) 22:02, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Statement by {Party 3}

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Race and politics, Apostle12: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/0/2/2>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)

• Recuse. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:55, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
• Awaiting statements. Courcelles 21:25, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
• Recuse; I was involved in the Franklin child prostitution allegations article P&W above refers to. NW (Talk) 22:07, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
• Awaiting statements, which should (among other things) address the question of whether we should topic-ban Apostle12. AGK 08:43, 5 May 2013 (UTC)