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Request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution. Before requesting arbitration, please review other avenues you should take. If you do not follow any of these routes, it is highly likely that your request will be rejected. If all other steps have failed, and you see no reasonable chance that the matter can be resolved in another manner, you may request that it be decided by the Arbitration Committee.

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Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

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

Currently, no requests for clarification or amendment are open.

The procedure for accepting requests is described in the Arbitration policy. If you are going to make a request here, you must be brief and cite supporting diffs. New requests to the top, please. You are required to place a notice on the user talk page of each person you lodge a complaint against.

0/0/0/0 corresponds to Arb Com member votes to accept/ reject/ recuse/ other.

This is not a page for discussion, and Arbitrators may summarily remove or refactor discussion without comment.

• Arbitration policy
• Administrator enforcement requested (shortcut WP:RFAr/AER)
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• Arbitration template
• Misplaced Pages:Arbitration policy/Precedents

How to list cases

Under the below Current requests section:

• Click "";
• Copy the full formatting template (text will be visible in edit mode), ommitting the lines which say "BEGIN" and "END TEMPLATE";
• Paste template text where it says "ADD CASE BELOW";
• Follow instructions on comments (indented), and fill out the form;
• Remove the template comments (indented).

Note: Please do not remove or alter the hidden template

Current requests

Nobs01 and others acting in concert

Involved parties

Nobs01 Rangerdude Cognition Herschelkrustofsky Sam_Spade

These editors, in various combinations and in various ways, have recently particpated in an editing war involving Misplaced Pages entries under my real name Chip Berlet, and the name of my employer Political Research Associates, both on the text pages and the discussion pages. I have been involved in editing disputes with all of these editors. The current editing war at Chip Berlet and Political Research Associates gives the appearance of using text entries in Misplaced Pages and discussion pages to bully another editor (me - Cberlet) in retaliation for editing disputes. A policy regarding such situations needs to be articulated, and if appropriate, the participants named above held accountable.--Cberlet 21:01, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Nobs01 - User_talk:Nobs01#Arbitration_filed_naming_you

• Rangerdude - User_talk:Rangerdude#Arbitration_filed_naming_you

• Cognition - User_talk:Cognition#Arbitration_filed_naming_you

• Herschelkrustofsky - User_talk:Herschelkrustofsky#Arbitration_filed_naming_you

• Sam_Spade - User_talk:Sam_Spade#Arbitration_filed_naming_you

• Cberlet - User_talk:Cberlet#Arbitration

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

At various times I have been in mediation or participated in requests for comments with most of these editors. I am currently in a stalled mediation with Nobs01 and a dormant mediation with Sam_Spade. Herschelkrustofsky is the subject of an arbitration sanction that involved LaRouche entires in which I participated. --Cberlet 21:01, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Cberlet

This case involves establishing the boundaries of proper editing and discussion behavior on Misplaced Pages when a Wiki editor is also the subject of a Wiki entry under their real name and identity. The editors named in this arbitration vary greatly in terms of their behavior, with Nobs01 having the most problematic edit history. Some other editors named have simply participated on the discussion page. All have been involved in editing conflicts with me as a Wiki editor, and then been involved in editing or discussing the entries on me and my employer.

At the heart of the case is a complicated set of questions. If individual Wiki editors are discouraged from editing entries on themselves, what policies might be appropriate to advise Wiki editors who have been in editing disputes with an editor for whom there is an entry? What are the proper boundaries when digging up negative and derogatory information about a fellow Wiki editor with whom one has had a dispute? Is there not a built in bias? Shouldn’t there be some ground rules?

Since Wiki relies on published materials, does a person attacked on Wiki need to “publish” a response to every criticism posted on some marginal website or published in some highly POV print publication? How can persons with entries on Wiki defend themselves against the posting of false, malicious, and potentially defamatory text?--Cberlet 22:12, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Rangerdude

Insofar as it involves me, this request for arbitration is completely frivolous. This is a case of an editor, User:Cberlet, who believes he personally owns and/or controls the content of Chip Berlet, an article about himself in real life. In doing so he commits a violation of WP:OWN. Berlet also frequently self-cites his own material, such as in this edit to the Ludwig von Mises Institute where he adds a link to a highly partisan Southern Poverty Law Center opinion piece he authored as if it were a factual source.

As this case relates to the other editors he named, most if not all appear to have drawn Mr. Berlet's wrath by editing either his article in a way that is critical or differing with his strongly exhibited POV's on other articles. While each of these editor disputes should be analyzed individually, there is certainly no "acting in concert" between any of them and myself against Mr. Berlet. All communications I have made with any of the other editors is public on wikipedia article and user talk pages, and in the few instances I have done so with these editors, the topic was something other than Mr. Berlet. Thus, as far as I can tell, Mr. Berlet's real grievance with me is entirely drawn from the fact that he doesn't like the content I added to an article he claims as "his" own, no matter how sourced and valid that content may be.

I have participated in edits on the Chip Berlet article in the past where I made counterbalancing NPOV additions. At the time I made these additions, the article was generally positive about Mr. Berlet and largely lifted from his own self-bio on his website at Political Research Associates. Mr. Berlet is a vocal political figure who writes with a strong leftist editorial POV. To counterbalance this bias, I added sourced and documented criticism of Berlet by conservative columnist David Horowitz to the article as WP:NPOV dictates. In seeking to comply with NPOV I also added several quotes and links to Berlet's responses to Horowitz so as to ensure his side of their dispute was aired as well. Mr. Berlet immediately reacted in hostility to this addition in a talk page post he titled "Help! Giant Blob of Horowitz hit my page" (emphasis added), which called for expunging the Horowitz criticism from the text and substituting a link to Horowitz's articles on the bottom of the page. This case is one of many where Mr. Berlet has referred to the Chip Berlet article as "my page" and has tried to control its content, violating WP:OWN

Berlet made similar attempts to exercise ownership over his organization's article, Political Research Associates. In a post that alleged bias against PRA, Berlet stated "We have discussed this problem at PRA, and we feel this situation needs to be addressed". In my response to this I suggested it was generally inappropriate for PRA to attempt to exercise control over an article about itself and suggested Mr. Berlet should "add to the article—not to subtract from it" if he felt that it was imbalanced against him. Mr. Berlet then responded in a post that contained hostile venom-laced attacks on persons who had criticized him and their supporters:

• "So far we have had this page taken over by...fans of a small uber-libertarian think tank the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
• "The critics of PRA quoted include...David Horowitz, who acts as the carnival geek of the ultraconservative political right."

This same post by Berlet alsol alleged that Lyndon LaRouche activists had taken over the article, yet when I looked into this allegation I was unable to find any LaRouche edits in the article's history at least since last year if at all.

Back on Chip Berlet a dispute over the size of Horowitz material followed and the page was temporarily protected until a version of the text was agreed upon. This agreement was reached between August 9th and 14th and a neutral admin removed protection.

From that time until the present I have kept the Chip Berlet article on my watchlist. When another content dispute involving other editors emerged earlier this week around November 12th or 13th, I read through the dispute and made a grand total of four talk page contributions. Two of these proposed compromises aimed at resolving the dispute and the other two urged editors whose tempers were flaring up to assume good faith . This arbitration request by Mr. Berlet stems from the November 12th-present dispute and now alleges some sort of vast conspiracy between myself and other editors to subvert articles that he appears to think he owns since they are about him. As can be plainly seen in the edit diffs indicating my involvement in this latest dispute, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, one of the editors who is generally supportive of Mr. Berlet - SlimVirgin - even agreed with one of the suggestions I made as a possible compromise.

In light of the above, I urge the Arbcom to reject and dismiss Cberlet's request, at least as it pertains to me, as frivolous. Should the Arbcom decide to investigate it further, I would urge them to examine the WP:OWN issue as it pertains to Mr. Berlet's behavior on articles pertaining to him in real life. Rangerdude 21:57, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Snowspinner

I would hope that the arbcom would take this case, as it touches on a major issue we face on Misplaced Pages, which is the treatment of expert contributors. Cberlet summarizes the situation accurately - because of his opposition to several groups - most notably our friends in the LaRouche movement - he is a target for harassment and defamation. On the one hand, as we've learned in countless cases (John Byrne, the Bogdanovs), we have to be careful about letting editors dictate the content of articles about themselves. On the other, it would be a far graver mistake to allow expert contributors to be driven off through campaigns of harassment by their political enemies.

Statement by Gamaliel

While it's important to resist the wishes of public and semi-public figures who wish to eliminate criticism of themselves, this goes beyond that and into the realm of grudges and personal attacks. Insertions of tangental and irrelevant references to Berlet in a number of articles and screens of references to "body counts" add up to a POV pusher with a grudge against this user. Gamaliel 22:34, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Sam Spade

Here is a brief summary of Cberlet's history of aggression towards myself.

The charges Cberlet brings are of course absurd, and in my regards likely consist of nothing more than a recent thank you note from nobs on my talk page, and questions I asked here. I have no idea who User:Cognition is, for example, and have had only fleeting contact w the other named parties.

I had, however, been considering bringing a case against Cberlet for his neverending POV pushing (have a glance at his contributions sometime), but I am uncertain he is so bad as to require banning.

I will examine my evidence, and his recent contributions, with what little time I have to spare during midterms, and will comment regarding a counter-suit at another juncture.

Sam Spade 23:26, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Case against Cberlet

Cberlet is the clearest example of POV pushing I know of on the wikipedia. I intend to make this as clear as possible.

Premises:

• User:Cberlet is Chip Berlet
• Chip Berlet is notable enough for a wikipedia article
  • Chip Berlet is an a opinionated journalist
  • We know what Chip Berlet's POV is (roughly)
• Cberlet makes edits of the same POV as he expresses in his profession, sometimes even citing his POV.
• Cberlet's POV is not often notable

Examples:

• Cberlet cites himself

• Cberlet expresses his POV on his articles talk page

• Opinionated edits regarding his employer, Political Research Associates
  • , ,

While the wikipedia has many professors (or other sorts of experts on various matters) who are also editors, they are not allowed to cite themselves, by name, in the article namespace; nor express their POV therein. If someone else cites them due to their notability, that is of course allowed. They should not however become interfered in such matters.

Sam Spade 00:30, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

(Please limit your statement to 500 words)

Statement by SlimVirgin

I hope the committee will accept Cberlet's case. Chip Berlet (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) was created in May 2004 by an IP address within a range known to have been used by the LaRouche accounts (Herschelkrustofsky et al), who used the page as a platform for LaRouche criticism of Chip until the second LaRouche arbcom case in January 2005. In July, Rangerdude fell out with Cberlet on other pages, opened an RfC against him on July 25, and then started editing Chip Berlet on July 28 (the first time he'd edited it), inserting criticism, which raised a potential legal problem of negative material being inserted with malice. (I'm currently having to defend myself, in the arbcom case against Rangerdude, against charges that I violated NPOV and AGF when I tried to stop him. ) Now Nobs01, who often edits with Rangerdude, is inserting that Chip was closely associated with "defender of terrorism," and has made comments that look like threats, implying that if we don't retain the material, he'll insert even worse, which again raises the issue of malice. "If you want to spend weeks discussing the Weather Underground, Philip Agee ... fine. In the end, you may wish the namespace only included 'an apologist and defender for terrorists and terrorism'," "The two deaths from terrorists incidents can be included to give context, if necessary," and "Mr. Berlet knows efforts to suppress documentation often lead to more documentation being presented." SlimVirgin 01:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

In fairness to Rangerdude, he has made a helpful suggestion for compromise between Nobs01 and the other editors, and hasn't backed Nobs up this time. SlimVirgin 02:10, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

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

• Accept ➥the Epopt 23:43, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Rex071404

Involved parties

• Rex071404

and

• Mr. Tibbs
• JamesMLane
• Woohookitty
• Derex
• Jtdirl
• Szyslak
• Kizzle (involved but not submitting evidence)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Kizzle
• Mr. Tibbs
• JamesMLane
• Rex071404
• Derex
• Jtdirl
• Woohookitty
• I became aware of the request when it was linked from Talk:John Kerry. Szyslak ( ) 12:12, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

There was another arbitration for precisely this issue a year ago (Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Rex071404). 100's of kB's of discussion and attempted third party interventions and several page protections have produced no result. That ban from that ArbCom was for 4 months. The ban from another arbcom he was involved in (for similar issues) was a self-imposted 6 month ban, which expired in mid October 2005. The complaintants feel that we do not need to do the Request for Comment step since part of our argument is that Rex071404 is in direct violation of previous arbcom sanctions against him.

Statement by third party starting arbitration

I don't know what the precedent is for someone uninvolved starting an arbitration, but it needs to be done. Rex has only been back for about a month, and in that time he's racked up more than a thousand edits, most of them to John Kerry and its talk page. This is not only a content dispute. Rex is a career edit warrior, and consistently reverts three times in a day and uses other gaming tactics. All four of the protections of John Kerry were due to Rex's edit wars. He is also we increasingly hostile and confrontational on the talk page. The crucial issue is that Rex does not understand, or refuses to accept, the consensus formed by very many other editors over a long period of time. His many reverts, his endless filibustering on the talk page, all show a disregard for consensus. He is also highly suspected of using abusive sockpuppets to revert and harass others . See this post, which is in regards to a massive attack on Woohookitty on November 13th, 2005.) It is time that more substantial arbcom restrictions be put in place. Dmcdevit·t 06:10, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by party Rex071404

I did not vandalize or in any way molest Woohookitty. I edit only from 216.153.214.94. I am not using sockpuppets. I am citing my disputed edits. At this very moment, I am on IRC with Kizzle seeking common ground. I believe I am not in violation. As a show of good faith, I will voluntarily edit no more at John Kerry until this RfA is concluded. Rex071404 07:30, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Woohookitty

My statement is in regards to something Dmcdevit mentioned. That would be the very bad vandalism attack that I suffered tonight that I am quite certain came from Rex071404. It started earlier today. At around 22:00 on Nov. 13th, I posted This to the talk page on the Talk:John Kerry page. The user did NOT respond on the Kerry talk page, which is extremely odd. He always responds to stuff like that. As would see from the history page, he posts alot. Well at 00:03 on Nov. 14th, I thought that something was amiss because Rex posted to the Price-Anderson Act talk page, which he had never done. Well, at 00:11, we had the first appearance of one of the vandals, Anonrtgtt. And his/her post was very specific, wondering why the "pro Kerry" version had been protected. Strange since she had never posted on here before. 00:32 was Rex's last edit, but the sockpuppet continued on. Here is the page that lists the various usernames the vandals used. There ended up being 5. Mostly, they posted very specific edits. I'm not going to go into specifics here. That can be left for the evidence page.

I will say, though, that many things point this to Rex071404. #1 we have the time issue. Rex071404's last post was 00:32. The vandals continued beyond that. The 5th and last of the series, Anonr left at about 2:25. At that point, I had finally gotten CoolCat to ban creation of names that started with anon. Well then, Rex came back on at 4:02. Since AOL accounts can be created at the drop of a hat and since we discovered through a checkuser that the vandal used AOL, it's very easy to see that Rex could've quickly created an account...used it until he was blocked...and then went back to his regular account. And since AOL IPs cannot be traced, he knew he'd be scot free. One of the first things he did was revert and remove a post of mine to his talk page, which has been a problem for him in the past. IIRC several sanctions were because of that. And then he went back to edit warring on Kerry, but again, he did NOT respond to my earlier post. Another thing that points this to Rex is a post that kizzle made. Apparently, Rex started using an IP address to post from, but for the longest time, he denied it. And it was similar...one address said one thing and the other one would back it up. Kind of like how he removed my valid comment from his talk page but kept the one from a known vandal (Anonrtgtt).

The most convincing evidence is the following. Look at this revert by Rex , and then this revert by the sockpuppet . Why should some "new" user coincidentally make the exact same edit as Rex? It's just a bit strange and evidence that these were puppets of Rex.

This is getting long, so I will end here. Rex needs to be dealt with. Period. And this is the beginning of our case, not the end. It's more than just using sockpuppets. --Woohookitty 07:46, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Mr. Tibbs

Rex071404 has a long and troubled history here at Misplaced Pages. He has been the subject of 3 previous Arbitration Cases . He has had multiple RfCs filed against him. . But all of those previous attempts at Dispute Resolution have failed. And that is why we are here today. Rex continues to violate the principles that were brought up in his previous Arbitrations.

Recently Rex has attempted to dominate the John Kerry article yet again. He has not only persistently edit-warred against the consensus forcing the article into protection multiple times, but he has attempted to manipulate the system with a reversion system of his own. Rex maintains a list of versions he likes to revert to. When the community revert's his changes, Rex simply picks a different version from his list and reverts to that, claiming it's not a revert. This system enables Rex to simply ignore the 3RR rule and continuously revert the community's consensus. Numerous people have attempted to dialog with Rex, so much so, that the discussion now occupies 6 archive spaces and approximately 700 kb worth of talk not including the current talkpage. A vote was recently attempted to try and close the discussion. Even after that, Rex continued to push his POV, which resulted in the page being protected again. As if these violations aren't enough to permanently condemn Rex, Rex choose to spawn several sockpuppets to harass Woohookitty after he correctly identified Rex's game.

The most recent Arbitration against Rex foolishly concluded that a "self-imposed" ban would be sufficient to deal with Rex. We have seen that that simply isn't the case. It should be clear to anyone observing these developments that Rex071404 is a Repeat Offender deserving Permanent ramifications. We ask for just that, to finally settle this dispute once and for all. -- Mr. Tibbs 09:15, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by JamesMLane

Rex has been the subject of three previous arbitration proceedings, plus some number of RfC's, short-term blocks by individual admins, and messages on his talk page and on article talk pages from uninvolved editors seeking to offer him friendly guidance. None of this has changed his relentless POV-pushing in the slightest. All he has learned from it is how to be slightly more canny, by not being quite so obviously in violation of Misplaced Pages rules. He hasn't blanked anyone's user page and substituted "bite me" as the text. Nevertheless, the fundamentals are unchanged. He has consumed huge amounts of editor time on John Kerry. Much of his time has been spent arguing over matters that he brought up back in August -- August of 2004, that is. (See Talk:John Kerry/August 2004 archive 1#Account of Vietnam service.) The Kerry article, his pet obsession, has already been protected three times in the month since Rex's return. Absent ArbCom action, the article will remain in a state of semi-permanent edit war, with intermittent protections. Please don't suggest dialog as the solution. In the one month since Rex's return, Talk:John Kerry has been archived five times, racking up just short of 800kb, to no discernible benefit.

If any arbitrator votes against taking this case, I would greatly appreciate it if you would add some idea of what alternative course of action you think should be pursued. JamesMLane 14:02, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Derex

Over a year ago, Rex was infuriated that he could not call a wound involving shrapnel lodged in in John Kerry's arm "minor". Kerry received the Purple Heart for this wound. The article factually stated that Kerry returned to duty the next day. A consensus emerged that the facts spoke for themselves, without any extra and disputable characterization (is shrapnel embedded in your arm "minor", how is that defined?). Why was Rex so insistent on adding spin? Because it was from the Republican & Swift Vet talking points: the wound was "minor", so Kerry didn't deserve that Purple Heart. We didn't bury the dispute, we created three very large daughter articles devoted to various allegations against Kerry, but that lengthy exploration did not and has not satisfied Rex. There were at least a dozen similar disputes, where the clear perception was that Rex was attempting to push a POV ... which the arbitration committee later explicitly determined to be the case. However, the "minor" dispute was the proximate cause of the first arbitration case. It is not a coincidence that Rex has chosen to make exactly the same dispute the subject of a multi-week debate requiring 3 archives of the John Kerry talk page upon his return. Of all the articles on Misplaced Pages, of all the potential problems with John Kerry, Rex returned directly to this issue, making the exact same arguments as before. (I edited under the name Wolfman at that time.)

Now, Rex thinks his behavior upon return is fine, because the lesson he learned from the previous arbitrations was "be civil". Granted he has been more or less civil. In contrast, I have been somewhat rude to Rex at times, because I am beyond exasperated. However, Rex learned the wrong lesson, or at least the less important one. Civility is great, but civility isn't part of the article. The absolutely fundamental and, as Jimbo says, "non-negotiable" principle of Misplaced Pages is NPOV. Rex simply does not understand the concept at any more than a rudimentary level. Or, if he does, he willfully ignores it. My problem with Rex now, and my problem with Rex over a year ago, is that every single edit he makes is an attempt to push his POV. While this is often blatant, he is also remarkably clever at finding subtle ways to insert spin. Note, he doesn't remove pro-Kerry spin, that would be admirable; he inserts spin. I have never cared that Rex used to be rude. I have never cared that he caused page protections. The lesson he drew from the last case was: don't do those things. Here's what I care about:

• The absolutely astounding amount of time Rex causes to be wasted debating trivialites such as the distinction between gauze dressing and bandage.
• The shameless POV-pushing with every edit.

The bottom line is that this exact same dispute has been through both RFC and arbcom before. In both cases, there was a finding that Rex was POV-pushing (see eg Rex3, Finding 2). And, I do mean the exact same dispute, with the same arguments; see the archive link James provided. One difference is that most of the complainants are different (Only James & myself were among the 8 complainants in Rexcom 1). There are thousands of other editors, and millions of potential ones, besides Rex who can take up the holy cause of argueing that Kerry's shrapnel injury was not a "wound", that he did not "sustain" or "suffer" the non-wound rather "receiving" it, that the non-wound was at any rate "minor", that it was merely "dressed" with "ointment" or, at the most, covered in "gauze" and certainly not "bandaged". And, of course, the ever popular Kerry might have shoved the shrapnel into his own arm, on purpose, in order to get a Purple Heart. There are thousands who could surely make this wholly neutral and obvious point while generating less than one gigabyte of talk page archives. So, I ask that Rex be banned permanently from editing articles which heavily involve United States politics. Otherwise, John Kerry will be defeated in 2004.

To the best of my recollection, I have not edited John Kerry from the time Rex left until the time he showed up again. I'll leave it alone again should he be prohibited from editing it. But, I'll not voluntarily let Rex, through sheer persistence & intransigence, spin a smear on that page. Derex @ 15:35, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Jtdirl/FearÉireann

There is not much more to add. Everything has been accurately covered. I was not an original participant to the 'debate'. I noticed what seemed like an endless stream of reverts on the page and asked what the problem was. On reading the page it became clear that it seemed to be a case of one user (Rex) versus the rest. Rex was practically jamming the page with the same point repeated ad nausaum. He would make demands that NPOV words have POV qualifiers added to by implication accuse Kerry of dishonesty and repeatedly go back to the issue. Even when an overwhelming consensus disagreed with him, and having he implied he would finish the point and move on, he would then reopen it from stratch a day or two later, demanding people provide evidence for their opinions, insisting that someone who was wounded shouldn't be said to have a wound, then that the wound must be called minor, then that a bandage may not necessarily be made of cloth!!! He took nitpicking to the ultimate extreme.

I was surprised that so many users had actually kept up the debate with him for so long. One could see genuine new users arriving, gently probing his views, and then progressively over the days becoming more and more frustrated at his determination, through in tiny minority (frequently of one), to keep the argument going over the same points over and over again. Time and again someone would come on with a tone of 'you haven't discussed it with Rex fully' and after 2 or 3 days themselves show complete frustration at his behaviour. I was only involved for a week or two. In that time I must have heard him repeat the same points tens of times, including producing a list of 50 (!) things he wanted to discuss, most of which were simply the same five each said in different ways. In all the time the debate did not seem to move off one paragraph, which seems to have 100k+ written about it, most of it Rex repeating himself, with everyone replying in effect 'we know. We know. You've told us. You haven't convinced us. Lets move on to work on another paragraph'.

I ended up concluding that while Rex genuinely believed in what he was writing, he simply would not agree to abide by any decisions, listen to anyone or accept anything that he had not agreed to. When votes were proposed (which it was obvious he was going to lose) he responded with statements that implied 'you can't do that'. I was not surprised when told about the history of RfCs and arb rulings on Rex. When finally people lost patience and began insisting that the issue was closed and it wasn't being discussed anymore suspicious abusive sockpuppets began appearing and attacking some contributors to the talk page. The timing of their appearance and their comments raised strong suspicions in me and in others that they were in fact Rex.

I have rarely seen one page so comprehensively highjacked by one user with demands that his POV demands he accepted. Nor a user given so many chances from other users to expand on his views, yet so cynically use it in an effort of forcing his views on the page through wearing people down.

Statement by Szyslak

Before Rex's return, my contributions to John Kerry and my participation in talk page dialogue didn't extend much beyond reverting simple vandalism. When he restarted the pattern of POV pushing and edit warring that led us up to this point, I became involved in this dispute, taking part in some of the talk page dialogue that's taken up almost a gigabyte of valuable server space. I've stepped away from the dispute in the past couple of weeks, but I became aware of this request when it was announced on Talk:John Kerry.

As this case progresses, Rex will claim, as he has a hundred times, that he's the innocent here, that his reasonable, neutral edits have been stonewalled by a cabal of uncooperative liberals intent on whitewashing Kerry. Indeed, he claims to have moderated his editing style since his return, "staying within acceptable parameters": , . In fact, as the other participants in this case have noted, he has continued the same behavior that led to his three other arbitration cases, only in a less blatant manner. For example, he's been making edits to the section he disputes that aren't exactly alike, so he can claim that his edits are not reverts. In fact, he has a list of versions of the paragraph, which he will sometimes copy into the article. His list is at User_talk:Rex071404/vf.

One thing the other complainants haven't mentioned: A few days after his return, Rex created a subpage of his user talk page, which was deleted at Rex's request: User talk:Rex071404/Liberal bias (undelete), originally titled "Liberal Editors Cabal". This page was unknown to most editors until Kizzle pointed out its existence on the Kerry talk page: , . Rex claimed that other editors had no right to read the page , which Kizzle called a "liberal hit list" . I would recommend restoring the page so it can be used as evidence, because in my opinion it does indeed read as a "liberal hit list". It's full of accusations of "improper reverting", "refusing to dialogue on talk" and other hysterical, incivil accusations typically made by Rex.

As Jimbo said in his original formulation of the neutral point of view, "...there are ideologues in the world who will not concede to any presentation other than a forceful statement of their own point of view". After 16 months, three and possibly four arbitration cases and a gigabyte of contentious talk page dialogue, Rex071404 has proven time and time again that he cannot or will not follow our norms of neutrality, civility and community consensus. Szyslak ( ) 12:12, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Gamaliel

Many people have said that Rex is more civil than he was prior to his first couple visits to ArbCom. But as Szyslak noted, he's merely "less blatant" than before. Rex still throws around accusations of bias, rudely snaps at other editors on the talk page (even once when I complimented an edit of his), uses edit summaries to accuse and attack, and wrenches quotes from others out of context to wave them around triumphantly, try to make them say the opposite of what people actually intended, or make it look like people agree with him. He has no conception about what consensus actually is. To him, if everyone agrees with something except him, the consensus is invalid, but if he and one other person agree on some minor point, he declares consensus and labels further edits as going against that imaginary consensus.

Rex has made some minor positive contributions, but they are far outweighed by his edit warring and his constant POV pushing. He has wasted countless hours worth of time and energy from other editors who could be contributing positively to this project and there's no indication that he's ever going to stop. Gamaliel 22:28, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (3/0/0/0)

• Accept. Kelly Martin (talk) 16:27, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
• Accept ➥the Epopt 23:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 01:32, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

HeadleyDown, JPLogan, others

Article

Neuro-linguistic programming (Talk)

Involved parties

Users concerned (Note: new suspected sock-puppets get added regularly)

• HeadleyDown (talk | contribs)
• JPLogan (talk | contribs)
• DaveRight (talk | contribs), also apparently edited as D.Right (talk | contribs)
• Bookmain (talk | contribs)

Additional suspected sock-puppets:

• AMaulden (talk | contribs)
• AliceDeGrey (talk | contribs)
• HansAntel (talk | contribs)
• JaseC (talk | contribs)

(Not all of these accounts are causing problems to an equal degree as others, partially since some have been here longer than others. Roughly the above list is in order from most actual damage to date, to least. It is not known which of the above are bona-fide editors and which are just less active sock-puppets or cronies, since although not all have been disruptive, each of the above has engaged in at least some of the common styles of behavior described)

Brief summary of case

The neuro-linguistic programming ("NLP") article has been damaged by aggressive POV warrioring, vandalism, and flagrant ongoing breach of Misplaced Pages policies from multiple accounts over the last 3 months, including multiple breach of 3RR, POV aggression on other pages related to NLP, reams of rants on the talk page, attribution of false credentials to sources, deletion of the ArbCom vote motion, deletion of other users comments, and regular avoidance of courteous talk page requests in favor of deletion and further POV-addition.

There is strong suspicion that most of the users involved in this are sock-puppets or cronies. All eight of them seem (from their contributions list) to have arrived on Misplaced Pages in the same limited period, immediately homed in on the same NLP article, write with similar style wording and agenda, edit at a similar time of day, and none (with a minor exception) has worked on any article except NLP and its related articles to any significant degree since. This was underlined today by the near-simultaneous arrival yesterday following discussion of research and usage, of not one but two previously unknown Misplaced Pages users AMaulden and JaseC, in an identical manner, who immediately began the likewise identical behavior in likewise almost identical style.

Despite being warned several times that referral to ArbCom would be needed, requests to desist by multiple users, and mediation, this has continued and got worse. A vote by other editors including example DIFFs was held, and received a 7-0 vote in support of a view that mediation was fruitless and to seek arbitration.

The matter is slightly complicated because we are not completely sure which of the named users, or indeed other editors on the article and talk page, are sock puppets or cronies. We think most if not all of the named ones are. We don't wish to lose information held by genuine editors (if any) or exclude genuine views (however extreme), however HeadleyDown at least is a confirmed vandal, almost certain sock-puppeteer, and POV warrior, and appears incapable of handling even sourced cited research that contradicts his views, and several/most of the named users are almost equally problematic and likely sock puppets for him or others.

So what we would like to ask is that:

1. HeadleyDown, possibly JPLogan, plus the other named users (including newly arriving sock puppets or similar) who appear not to be making a bona-fide positive contribution to the article and fail to act in accordance with wiki policies and standards, to be permanently prevented from editing on the subject of NLP or its articles, and
2. If any of the other named users are bona fide editors who have acted disruptively, that they are limited to an appropriately sized and WP policy-compliant criticism section on NLP-related articles, with a one-revert limit (and permission for a short term ban and ArbCom re-referral as deterrents if repeated).

Our aim in asking this is to strike a balance: we don't wish to lose valuable input from other genuine views, or the positive contribution of genuine editors in the above list (if any), but also neither do we want the articles degraded by disruptive ones.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

All parties have been notified, both by general notice on the article's talk page DIFF and individually: HeadleyDown DIFF, JPLogan DIFF, DaveRight DIFF, D.Right DIFF, Bookmain DIFF, AliceDeGrey DIFF, AMaulden DIFF, JaseC DIFF, HansAntel DIFF

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

The article and its editors have run the gamut of reasonable discussion.

The Neuro-linguistic programming article has been through discussion, dispute, and 5 weeks of mediation. The degree of POV warring has been extreme. I asked for mediation a second time specifically with HedleyDown (Oct 30) and specifically to discuss and gain mutual agreement about NPOV and how it applies to this article. However his actions in the few days following made it highly unlikely this would be fruitful. A formal talk page vote was finally held (Nov. 3) and editors agreed 7-0 that mediation should be deemed unlikely to be fruitful and the matter passed to ArbCom for a ruling. This is because the core issues are not about individual section edits, but about virulent POV aggression and policy breach which is not being addressed, has not been addressed in the several weeks since a mediator was appointed, continues unchanged and unabated, shows no sign of change, and is causing significant friction and deterrence to otherwise neutral editors who are becoming unwilling to edit the article against such hostility and name-calling.

The users concerned have been told in polite terms, direct terms, directed to wikipedia policy, and had wikipedia policy summarized for them by multiple users, despite lack of civility, who have usually been dismissed or had personal remarks for doing so. In the meantime they continue between them to engage in aggressive POV warring on the talk page, the article and elsewhere, inappropriate editing, deletion of cited sourced material, and personal attacks/remarks.

Multiple warnings that an ArbCom referral vote would be held were given, with repeated requests by multiple users to cease policy breaches and other actions so as not to have to take that step.

Subsequent to the article's ArbCom vote, HeadleyDown increased his breaches of wiki policy, including deletion of the Arbcom vote and users posts, in the last 24 hours two new users (AMaulden and JaseC) - most likely sock puppets - have been added to the article, and users posts have been deleted.

Although mediation technically has not ended, it has been 3 months since this all started, 10 days since the above vote on the talk page, and 5 weeks since mediation began, and nothing's changed of any significance. It's still (to cite FuelWagon) "some of the most biased editing I've read... If you're a POV warrior using Misplaced Pages to advocate against something, you need to find a different encyclopedia to edit." , and the suspected sock-puppets etc keep coming.

Statement by FT2 (on behalf of complainants)

The Neuro-linguistic programming article, which has for the most part been well run in a civil manner in the past, has been disrupted principally by users HeadleyDown, JPLogan, but also with POV degradation, personal attacks and/or remarks by others such as User:DaveRight, Bookmain and AliceDeGrey. There is now strong suspicion that most if not all of the named users may be sock puppets, due to similarities in their editing and histories. Having run the gamut of reasonable discussion, other contributors to the page in question voted to request arbitration.

None of the users named have made any any significant contribution to any topic other than this one topic and other NLP-related articles (with the exception of DaveRight on Neurofeedback and Speed reading). In some instances they have continued their POV approach on NLP to the detriment of other pages too. In essense, they have acted as POV warriors with a single viewpoint who have proven unable or uninterested in the wiki approach or policies, and have little interest in anything beyond their own view. (eg, see: Psychopablum created by JPLogan). Fundamentally they do not seem to show the slightest ability or care for collaborating in a wiki manner. Indeed their idea of collaboration is insults and ignoring or dismissal of issues, often with personal attacks and remarks. Since apparently joining Misplaced Pages at similar times (HeadleyDown Aug 2005, JPLogan and AliceDeGrey Sept 2005, DaveRight Oct 2005, etc), all have done virtually no other editing except POV degradation on the NLP article and/or negative talk page comments to its existing editors.

Accordingly it is the majority sense of those presenting this request that an appropriate ban from Misplaced Pages NLP editing is appropriate, and this is what is requested.

Examples of POV warring (DIFF examples of each given in the ArbCom vote on the article talk page)

• POV suppression
• Repeated deletion of sourced material or cited fact about the subject by reputable authors, often followed by addition of more POV material.
• Personal attacks
• Ignoring of requests to discuss edits
• Citation of fraudulent credentials of renown ascribed to an author to back up a slanted source (a web opinion presented as scientific "research")
• Falsely representing the opinion of professional bodies or ignoring their actual opinions as stated on their own website (which had been pointed out multiple times).
• Defamatory personal attack (eg, JPLogan's NLP talk page comment "I'm sure someone will find a citation for it... Wanna make some money out of NLP?" in response to deletion of personal view added to article by editor)

These and other examples can be found as DIFFs in the Arbitration vote.

Arbitration vote and DIFF citations at

Talk:Neuro-linguistic_programming#Arbitration.

Other action before Arbitration vote

• Prior to the vote, a formal request was posted to the mediator's talk page for an opinion whether he felt the mediation process was able to resolve the issue.
• I and others also warned HeadleyDown and others on multiple occasions that co-editors' patience was running out, and that he needed to respect NPOV policy, as numerous other editors had also stated. I told him explicitly on three occasions that his present type of conduct would be unacceptable on Misplaced Pages, and would ultimately lead to an Arbitration Committee referral to prevent him editing the article. His reply was initially to agree to renewed mediation, but almost immediately to revert to personal remarks and increased POV attack.

Votes for referral (with support for statement that mediation is unlikely to be fruitful)

1. FT2
2. Comaze
3. Lee1
4. FuelWagon
5. GregA (originally posted as User:203.217.56.137)
6. User:PatrickMerlevede
7. User:Justin Anderson (also posting as 211.27.105.9)

In addition one other user has indicated strong support but not voted due to short time of editing:

• Faxx: "If the history of this discussion has demonstrated anything, it's the pointlessness of trying to engage Headleydown and his ridiculous sock-puppets in a constructive dialogue. lets just get to arbitration a.s.a.p .... FT2 has already moved for arbitration not long ago. There were votes although I did not participate due to not really participating in the editing. I've just been reading the endlesly recycling discussion. Nothing will get done this way. HeadleyDown obviously has nothing better to do with his time than pursue his crusade." and

Users voting against arbitration

• None, other than comments by the users concerned.

Mediator's comments

1. Following the Arbcom vote, the mediator commented that he felt it was neither efficient nor necessary.
2. Two days later the mediator added: "Note: to Headley et al, just because I am mediating here does not mean that I have the final say...."

Example events since arbitration vote

Despite the semblence of continuing mediation,

• HeadleyDown deleted the Arbcom vote post, in "revenge" for his reply being moved (unchanged) to the marked comments section below.
• HeadleyDown deleted two of Justin Anderson's comments from the Talk page.
• The 3RR has also been broken on at least two separate occasions preventing balancing material being added, or slanted writing being corrected. (example: 15:02 Nov 7 16:38 Nov 7 17:51 Nov 7 01:10 Nov 8)
• Multiple personal remarks and attacks
• The article has had further core factual material removed
• Related articles to NLP have also begun being degraded; when it was noted that some specialised material was being moved to side-articles, HeadleyDown's response was: "Hi FT2. Presently the NLP modelling page is full of hype and exagerated claims. I wonder why you didn't notice:) That will change soon enough. Regards HeadleyDown"
• Talk page posts explaining and discussing edits, with the intent of promoting mutual collaboration, continue to be bluntly ignored. (eg: )
• The definitions of the subject, cited from its founders' websites and standard texts, was deleted complete with citations, by JPLogan.
• An attempt to balance an apparent misrepresentation of an author was followed by ignoring the request to discuss on talk page, and deletion of the balancing quote and addition of more POV citations. This left the introduction with 3 selectively represented views showing a view that NLP was pseudoscience and a cult, and not one of the many research and other citations showing that the opposite view is strongly supported.
• POV warfare edits continue to the present time (eg in this edit series dated Nov 15 (12 days after the article vote and 2 days after the formal RFArb posting), DaveRight adds the word "pseudoscience" or "pseudoscientific" 3 times in different places and removes the {{dubious}} tag from a fourth. Following this edit, the article contains 25 mentions of the word "pseudoscience" or "pseudoscientific" alone, excuding section titles.

Other information

• One editor, User:TBP, was explicitly self-identified as a sock puppet on his talk page before becoming involved in this article Oct 17 DIFF. He played no part in the vote or its discussion, and only a minor role in the talk page debate, mostly between Oct 27-29.

We have acted with appropriate patience and reserve, but despite much patience, many flames, and much time, there is just no sign whatsoever of any intent to change, nor any significant indication they want to change enough to participate appropriately in Misplaced Pages NLP for the foreseeable future. We therefore ask that ArbCom accept this matter for Arbitration.

FT2 10:26, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Update & responses:

1. I agree with one aspect of Voice of All's statement, an initial IP check on all editors concerned would be helpful. The principle editors of the article and talk page recently are as follows: the eight editors named, the 7 voters named, Voice of All, Flavius vanillus, 203.100.233.178, 203.186.238.*, 211.30.47-48.*, 80.44.*, 81.151.*. However this does not change my feeling that mediation is likely proven fruitless, because the nature of the problem is not textual compromise within the article, but users engaging in vandalism, fraudulent credentials cited to bolster extreme view, fraudulent representation of professional bodies despite multiple correction, deterrance of editors, constant personal attacks, remarks and defamation, heavy duty slanting, and utter lack of civility or respect for editors or information.
    
2. I do not agree with Voice of All that "he blanket reverts were of edits to multiple sections". For most, this seems irrelevant. Quick examples (a few out of many): HeadleyDown replaces one paragraph in intro that presents 2 sides of a view, with 2 extreme views on same side (interesting observation: HeadleyDown uses nonsense word "psychopablum" but JPLogan creates an article defining that word and referencing NLP); JPLogan deletes the entire section of core definitions within the field by its founders complete with full citations on the mind-boggling basis that they are "uncited" and that citing them is "POV"; HeadleyDown removes a key qualifier in parentheses regarding the British Psychological Society leaving impression that Parkers view represents them accurately; HeadleyDown rewords an already unbalanced paragraph which had been compromised, with even more generalized wording that removes the "X said Y" qualifier; and again more selective POV insertion by DaveRight; Bookmain removes citation from British Dyslexia Association paragraph which uses NLP, replacing it by a subtlely misrepresented citation from Children In Therapy to state "NLP is quackery" (in fact it is attachment therapy and not NLP which is the target of that page, NLP is a technique claimed by attachment therapy protagonists to support it); Bookmain deletes a paragraph that states NLP rests on an observational rather than theoretical basis; ... which is re-deleted by AliceDeGrey when corrected; Bookmain edits the one paragraph on NLP in policing, 1/ replacing a factual "wide range" with "some", 2/ deletes the FBI's actual comment in support of NLP's efficacy, 3/ deletes a police statement that it is field proven, 4/ adds a spurious "claims to be", and 5/ adds a selective quotation after all this that NLP "has been tested by criminologists and has been found not to work in crime situations".

Statement by HeadleyDown

(Please limit your statement to 500 words)

Hello mediators/arbitrators. This is interesting. I simply want to say that arbitration is an extremely long way off, and our helpful mediator VoiceOfAll seems to concur with that. Mediation seems to be working well. Each time the NLP promoters (I call them that because a lot of them have a vested interest) remove lots of cited fact, the mediator steps in and they calm down. When the more neutral (sorry, less proNLPers) compromise (usually a lot in favour of NLP) the proNLPers calm down some more. I have to admit it does get very tedious to have to restore censored facts all the time, and have to keep answering the same questions all the time (badgering), so things do get a little heated at times. It doesn't help that nearly all non-proNLPers have been labeled sockpuppets at some time. But things are moving forward now the mediator has helped out. Actually there are often major moves in the direction away from arbitration. I personally am fairly ok with the idea of arbitration, but it seems a bit silly to do so when mediation is starting to work so well with a level head and an good and increasing understanding of the subject. Anyway, its all up to you. Regards HeadleyDown 12:33, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by party user:FuelWagon re: NLP

I became involved in the NLP article in October. I hadn't heard of "Neuro Linguistic Programming" until I found the article, and I have no personal bias for or against the topic. But it is clear to me that the article is in clear violation of NPOV. There appear to be a number of editors with proclaimed biases against NLP who are editing the article in violation of NPOV. Someone with a longer history of the article can present more evidence, but here are a few diffs that show some blatant biases that directly affect the article.

03:39, 3 November 2005 DaveRight does a blanket revert of a number of edits, reinserting a bunch of text including "Many such courses appear to depend more upon charismatic appeal, wish-fulfillment, quick fixes, and lack of critical faculty, than actual quantifiable results, and so are often considered pure pseudoscience." as well as "Similar to other amoral pseudoscientific psychocults such as Dianetics and EST" Both sentences present as fact what is actualy disputed opinions of NLP, namely calling NLP "wish fullfillment", "pseudoscience", "amoral", and "psychocult" (Violation of WP:NPOV)

03:24, 1 November 2005 DaveRight reverts with the edit summary "I think that deserves some punishment." (violation of WP:Point)

17:13, 12 November 2005 HeadleyDown removes a critic of NLP's opinion from the criticism section ("Jan Damen describes NLP as occult"), rewords it to passive tense so the source (Jan Damen) is not mentioned and the opinion is presented more as fact, and then reinserts it into the pro-NLP section, making it look as if a pro-NLP source describes NLP as "occult". (Violation of WP:NPOV)

06:58, 23 September 2005 HeadleyDown modifies the first sentence of the introduction to say "(NLP) is a quasi-spiritual behavior-modification technique", where the term "quasi-spiritual" is clearly POV, disputed, and biased. (Violation of WP:NPOV)

02:52, 25 October 2005 JPLogan modifies the first sentence of the entire NLP article to say "NLP is a pseudoscientific self help development", where the term "pseudoscientific" is clearly POV, disputed, and biased. (Violation of WP:NPOV)

Statement by party Voice of All

While I don't believe that arbitration is the best option for now, I would say that the placement of ((test3)) and ((test4)) signs, accuations of extreme POV, and use of alternate names is likely occuring on both sides here. An IP check on all of the users would be well appretiated, as duplicates can be banned, leaving only the true users. This will removed inflated edit wars and vote tallies/consensus.

I would note however, that I had already recommended that people edit one section at a time. The blanket reverts were mainly of edits to multiple sections. One the other hand, too much anti-NLP criticism has been going into the article recently, under the idea that it is a fact or he did actually say this; article's can not have every single fact about the topic, they must be streamlined, and some sort of balance between truth and representation of all POVs must be reached.Voice of All 00:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

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