Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk | contribs) at 16:50, 18 August 2009 (→PD is posted: bets (+ fmt)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Sorry for harsh remarks

I'm sorry that I wrote snide remarks and uncivil words. I'm afraid that the helpful comments were written long ago and I felt that they went ignored (this will be evident when I submit my evidence this weekend), and now my frustration with Abd is making me write very harsh messages. Unfortunately, arbs don't know the context and they won't understand what I am talking about, so I'll make a serious effort to be way more neutral and clear, and not use any sarcasm. I will be grateful that people leaves a note on my talk page when they see that I am making unhelpful comments. I won't comment more until I finish the evidence, so I can support my statements properly. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:59, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your understanding and efforts, Enric. This is undoubtedly going to be a very heated case in any event, and the arbitrators and myself as case clerk would all very much appreciate everyone's commitment to keep careful watch on themselves and their comments. Should anyone notice that a comment has been made which does cross the line, please feel free to email me - I'm not as active during the week as I'd like due to work, but I will be sure to take a look and handle things as necessary as soon as I can. My talk page is similarly open, but if you feel you're being attacked, email may be a better option to reduce drama levels. Thanks again. Hersfold 21:39, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Recently arrived user

• Arkady Renkov (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

With only 70 edits to his name before today and no apparent experience with noticeboards/ArbCom, this recently arrived user shows complete familiarity with wikipedia jargon and processes. WP:DUCK suggests that this might be a sockpuppet account. Mathsci (talk) 10:50, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Or possibly a user who had previously used another name (*), or a user who mainly doesn't bother to log in or a user who lurks a lot or ... Just a reminder that sockpuppet is defined as "an alternative account used for fraudulent, disruptive, or otherwise deceptive purposes that violate or circumvent enforcement of Misplaced Pages policies". Would you like to say which of those you are accusing me of, or would you like to take your accusation to WP:SPI and back it up with evidence, or would you like to withdraw now before ArbComm sanctions you for trying to intimidate other participants in this case? Arkady Renkov (talk) 11:03, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

(*)The correct answer BTW Arkady Renkov (talk) 11:03, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

It is not permitted to edit policy pages with alternative accounts. Spartaz 11:19, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Arkady is obviously a matured sock of some kind. Spartaz 11:15, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Bilby has independently suggested A.K.Nole (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) on my talk page. It's hard to say. I previously contacted MastCell about this, because a similar thing happened during the Fringe Science Cold Fusion ArbCom case. Mathsci (talk) 11:26, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

If it's hard to say then don't say it. I note that it is permitted to leave off one account name and take up another. I note neither of you make these accusations in the proper place. I also note that you have strong positions in this case and hence are highly motivated to discredit and discourage anyone who expresses a contrary view. This is not proper behaviour in an arbitration case. Arkady Renkov (talk) 11:31, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Not in ArbCom cases as Spartaz has just written. Please disclose your alternative WP account(s). Mathsci (talk) 11:33, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Thats why I havent blocked you already but why don't you say what your previous account was so we can see whether your contribution is permitted? Quack Quack! Spartaz 11:34, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Because this isn't WP:SPI. I'll let Arbcomm look after the intimidation. Arkady Renkov (talk) 11:43, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Boris asked me to look into this. I ran checkuser on Arkady and turned up several other possible sockpuppets, although insofar as I can tell none of them has been used to violate policy other than the Arkady account's edits to the arbcom pages. I've started a discussion on the checkuser mailing list. Raul654 (talk) 16:27, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I suppose the real question – aside from the plain 'who was this guy before he changed account names' – is what previous interaction has he had with the parties to this Arbitration. It rather strains the limits of my ability to assume good faith when a 'new' account shows up after fifty edits and three-month vacation to immediately dive into an Arbitration with a full set of draft remedies (including a desysopping). The ArbCom has in the past made quite clear that it won't (and shouldn't) tolerate sniping from anonymous shadows. Absent clear, convincing identification of Arkady's previous account(s), he should be barred from this process. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:05, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Clerk note: I've talked with some checkusers and arbitrators and can confirm that Arkady Renkov is abusively using sockpuppets to comment on this case. I have blocked that account, and assume the CU's will be taking similar action elsewhere. I will also be removing Arkady's evidence from the evidence page, and any remaining comments on the Workshop page. I'll be removing Enric's analysis section as well simply to keep things tidy; there's no reason to analyze evidence that has been dismissed.

For future reference, should you feel a post should be removed from the case pages for any reason, please let a clerk know and do not complete the removal yourself. We are here for a reason, and by allowing the clerks to take care of matters like this, we reduce confusion about whether removals are legitimate. Additionally, we may have additional instructions from ArbCom to handle certain matters in certain ways. Thank you for your understanding. Hersfold 19:27, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

One of the surest ways to create disruption in this community is to block an editor based on secret evidence. And that's what just happened. We have a claim that Arkady Renkov is a sockpuppet, but no identification of the puppet master, nor any clear confirmation of policy violation, just an ArbComm procedural violation, in a case where those are rampant. The editor did not, as others have done here without any consequence except more warnings, ignore warnings. For a clerk to remove inappropriate content is one thing, but to block an editor for posting evidence to ArbComm, and for all this sock puppet attention to be focused, so rapidly, makes me quite worried. Here is what puzzles me: Hersfold writes, "Arkady Renkov is abusively using sockpuppets to comment on this case." Okay, who are they? Or does Hersfold mean that someone else is using a sockpuppet to comment?

I'm not questioning the exclusion of the evidence and the proposals. It's my view that we should be responsible for what we present and propose; hence, if anyone has evidence or proposals to present, I'd be happy to receive it by email, and, if I'm willing to take full responsibility for it, I could put it up, and I'm sure there are other editors willing to do similarly. The key is that someone is willing to take responsibility, to stand up and be counted. Yes, if we are going to remove the cloud of suspicion over factionalism at Misplaced Pages, we are going to have to take the risk that, yes, there is not only a cabal, but it is powerful. My continued participation here, given what I know about the cabal that does exist (which is probably not a conspiracy, though it might appear so), is based on my understanding that whatever power is improperly exercised by the cabal is not supported at the highest levels, nor is it supported by the consensus of the community. If I'm wrong about that, you wouldn't have to ban me, I'd be history as soon as this was clear.

I'd appreciate some assurances from arbitrators about block of Arkady Renkov. --Abd (talk) 03:39, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Could Abd please refactor this post? It is inappropriately long and shows a lack of good faith in the clerk, who is in contact with ArbCom. Nobody has accepted Abd's conspiracy theories about a cabal, so could he please stop using this unhelpful crackpot phrase? Mathsci (talk) 04:14, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Mathsci added some garbled text about cabal to my edit, above, he should, perhaps, be more careful. I use the term "cabal" with a meaning that I defined in my Evidence. The term "cabal," as I recall, has been used in media source with reference to Misplaced Pages, perhaps it's time we faced it, and tried to understand why. I am not proposing a "conspiracy," but rather the effect of a cabal that can exist without such conspiratorial coordination. --Abd (talk) 05:34, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

This was mouse noise. Sorry. As for crackpot conspiracy theories, Abd should stop wasting users' and arbitrators' time. Mathsci (talk) 05:44, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Abd's above comments are as accurate and reflective of Misplaced Pages policy as we have come to expect from his postings. To wit:

One of the surest ways to create disruption in this community is to block an editor based on secret evidence. And that's what just happened. - this is where Abd shines. Sure, other users might apply reading comprehension skills to what has already been written on this page, so they can learn for themselves why Arkady was banned. But why do that, when you can just make it up as you go along?

We have a claim that Arkady Renkov is a sockpuppet, - no, we have an admission from Arkady him/herself that he/she is a sockpuppet.

nor any clear confirmation of policy violation - swing and a miss. "sockpuppet accounts may not be used in internal project-related discussions, such as policy debates or Arbitration Committee proceedings." --Misplaced Pages:Sock puppetry

if anyone has evidence or proposals to present, I'd be happy to receive it by email, and, if I'm willing to take full responsibility for it, - I hope the arbitrators note that this is *exactly* the same treatment that you gave to banned users Jed Rothwell and Scibaby. That you continue to make the same offer during an arbcom case relating to these activities speaks volumes about your ability for self assessment.

I hope this has been enlightening for the arbitrators, because the above thread is actually quite representative of Abd's overall usefulness to this project. Raul654 (talk) 04:00, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Raul. I certainly hope so. Otherwise, who else will deal with your persistent bullying? You created the Scibaby problem, which is causing ongoing damage, and then you are considered indispensable because you are the only one who can manage this really difficult problem. --Abd (talk) 05:34, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

"I hope the arbitrators note that this is *exactly* the same treatment that you gave to banned users Jed Rothwell and Scibaby." - I would ask that Raul be requested to provide evidence in support of his claim that Abd was in contact on or off wiki with Rothwell and Scibaby regarding his edits or that he strike that comment as being false and inappropriate.

This is standard operating procedure for Raul, he just makes stuff up and throws it at people. He blatantly lies and misrepresents things in his efforts to ban those with whom he disagrees (see the discussion at for details and on his WP:ATTACK WP:ATTACKPAGE page (a policy violation) that he keeps on me at and which he has indefinitely protected to prevent me from offering my side of the story there (a use of administrative tools while in a dispute, unless I am mistaken) like he WP:OWNs the page.

For those who think I am being overly dramatic in my concern about Raul's meat puppetry proposals, note that Enric is not the only one engaging in the making of false and misleading accusations of sock puppetry. On the above mentioned WP:ATTACK WP:ATTACKPAGE page Raul basically asserts, or more accurately tries to strongly imply, that I am a puppet master. Of course he is forced to admit that he has not evidence whatsoever to link me to that sock, but that doesn't stop him from making the accusation none the less. Thanks to Enric I have now been check usered by someone independent of Raul and it turned up nothing. Nothing. I encourage people to read through some of the descriptions he catalogs there and then follow the links to read my edits in full context. Decide for yourself about how honest Raul actually is in these situations. --GoRight (talk) 07:23, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I would like to say that no personal attacks needs to be followed before this gets out of control. I would also suggest to User:GoRight to read the above comments made and consider a bit of refractoring per policies. Again as has been stated before about WP:Meat this is not acceptable either, "I'm not questioning the exclusion of the evidence and the proposals. It's my view that we should be responsible for what we present and propose; hence, if anyone has evidence or proposals to present, I'd be happy to receive it by email, and, if I'm willing to take full responsibility for it, I could put it up, and I'm sure there are other editors willing to do similarly. The key is that someone is willing to take responsibility, to stand up and be counted." Abd, this is considered against policy and you really should not be offering to take information from a sockpuppet to use as evidence. The sock admitted and was confirmed, the information was redacted by a clerk and thus it does not belong here or anywhere to be honest. I think you know this but you still insist it should be shown just like you have said about using info from banned users like Jed Rothwell. I'm sorry but this kind of behavior mixed with your claims of a cabal is really startling and seriously a breach of policies and guidelines. This of course is my opinion, --CrohnieGal 14:23, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Statements of clear fact are not personal attacks. --GoRight (talk) 21:41, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Clark Action required concerning Proposals from Arkady Renkov

Can a clerk please remove them as they have clearly been added by an established user in violation of the policy that alternate accounts are not to be used to edit policy pages to hide the identity of the main account. . Thank you. Spartaz 16:54, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Done, as stated above. Hersfold 19:38, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Uninvolved TotientDragooned (talk)

As a disclaimer, I have never had any involvement with Cold Fusion, Abd, WMC, or most of the other parties to the case, so take this comment with however much salt is appropriate --- but from reading over this page I'm embarrassed by a lot of the behavior here. Namely

• Dogpiling on Abd about the length of his posts: I've never had dealings with Abd, and it is possible that his conduct on Cold Fusion and elsewhere has greatly infuriated some editors. However, reading over the case pages in isolation, I don't think Abd has been particularly long-winded, and personal attacks about the lengths of his posts or demands to refactor are not adding any light to the discussion.
• Rampant bad faith about Arkady: Although the above behavior is somewhat vindicated now that he is (allegedly) confirmed as a sockpuppet, I am nevertheless appalled by the lack of good faith shown by Mathsci, Spartaz, and others.
• Raul running checkuser on Arkady: From the workshop page, it is clear that Raul takes a very dim view of Abd, his supporters, and their evidence. I am disappointed that, given this involvement, he ran a checkuser on Arkady himself instead of asking a neutral third party.
• Secret trial of Arkady: There are certainly good reasons for not making public the evidence of sockpuppetry, but I would have expected at the very least a short note from a clerk or arbitrary explaining those reasons. TotientDragooned (talk) 06:43, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Oh look another sleeper sock in this RFAR. Check out the first edit . Pleasé can a Clerk do whatever is necessary. Spartaz 06:59, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
    • Ahem, a clerk asked checkusers about Arkady Renkov, found he was a sockpuppet, made a statement above and then removed his evidence, with a polite reminder for Raul654. Mathsci (talk) 07:35, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
      • Sorry, I didn't realize he had done it at the request of a clerk. I retract my comment, with apologies to Raul. TotientDragooned (talk) 08:05, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
        • See, this sockpuppet is much nicer then the last one. Spartaz 08:45, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Note this edit to Talk:Butcher group. Remind you of anything? William M. Connolley (talk) 09:24, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Good job I removed Butcher group from my watchlist some while back :) Mathsci (talk) 09:35, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Given the identity of this alternate account, I'd suggest, at the very least, removing the word "uninvolved" from the section heading. MastCell  18:01, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't have any alternate accounts. (I do have an abandoned account, which I understand is entirely within policy; my old username contained private information about me so I discontinued using it. I've never logged in to the old account after registering TotientDragooned. I'm happy to email arbcom the old name upon request, though it should be obvious from a checkuser.) I don't begrudge you thinking me a sockpuppet, if you have good-faith reasons to come to that conclusion, but I do think it's only reasonable that you either formally file an SPI, or cease hounding me here. TotientDragooned (talk) 18:12, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

"Hounding" you? You came here claiming to be an "uninvolved" user "appalled" by the lack of good faith on the part of some participants. Given your (unacknowledged) history with those participants, your self-presentation appears dishonest and renders your demand for good faith somewhat ironic. There is actually hounding taking place here, but it consists of you abusing your right to vanish and using your new account to pursue old grudges, while pretending to be "uninvolved". MastCell  18:39, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

sigh. I can reiterate that I have never had any dealings with you, nor any of the parties here, under either the current or my old account, and I certainly don't bear them any grudges. If you refuse to believe me there is nothing further I can do to defend myself, other than to point out that I haven't been blocked by those with the ability to verify the preceding claims. TotientDragooned (talk) 19:07, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to email arbcom the old name upon request, - please mail the clerk, Hersfold, and let us know when you have done so William M. Connolley (talk) 21:21, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I have done so. Cheers TotientDragooned (talk) 22:25, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I have received the email and forwarded it to ArbCom for review and advice. In the meantime, Totient/Arkady, please make no further edits to the case pages until you are otherwise notified. Other users, please leave Totient/Arkady's posts alone, and focus on the rest of the case for the time being. I'll post a notification here once we figure out what's going on. Hersfold 00:02, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

comment on Arkady situation

1. The editors who nosed out Arkady's socking showed experienced judgement as was borne out by the investigation results. AGF doesn't mean "ignore evidence".
2. In this particular situation there was improper socking that was handled the right way; in normal circumstances, though, as far as I know, commenting on arb cases is open to everyone. I've commented on a few of them in the past under other IP addresses, and nobody complained. It's true that the main arb request page has been semi-protected for a while, but IIRC that happened because someone was spamming it a while back.
3. TotientDragooned does appear to be an alias of another disruptive editor who is easily recognizable. 67.117.147.249 (talk) 07:19, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree in that we shouldn't ignore evidence just because it has been presented by a sock. I'm not going to restore it, but I will look at it and salvage what the parts that are actually good, and get my comment in the workshop (wich was also removed since the evidence they refered to was gone) and convert it into evidence.

You see, Abd, the other party in the case, raises in his evidence allegations that WMC is part of a cabal of editors, to which JzG is also claimed to belong. I notice that Abd is claiming in a single message that JzG scapped desysosping by a short margin in the last case, that JzG was put "on a short leash" due to the case, and that WMC could be at risk of losing his admin bit due to the possibility of being a net negative to the project (ante-last paragraph), and that just yesterday Abd was stating that he hasn't asked for the desysoping of WMC "at least not yet, but I suspect that others will." and that Abd has made many more veiled or indirect references towards the possible and even probable desysoping of WMC if he didn't leave his ban, or if the dispute was ever brought to Arbcom. I think that this really needs to be addressed, and that Arbcom needs to make a finding of fact about WMC, in order to prevent this case from casting an unwarranted bad light on him. --Enric Naval (talk) 08:21, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The way I see it, the sockmaster can restore the evidence using their main account. And then everyone can parse the evidence in the context of their actual relationship with WMC. I like the new sock though, he seems much nicer. Spartaz 08:48, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

You can be sure that I will present the evidence using my own interpretations, and not the interpretations that the sock made. The main account can present his own evidence alongside mine, since he is most surely going to reach very different conclusions from the same evidence. --Enric Naval (talk) 08:54, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

By "AGF doesn't mean ignore evidence", I only meant if there is information (including experienced judgement) to suggest that someone is socking (or has a COI or whatever), then it is ok to weigh what they say in that light, and to investigate further if appropriate. AGF simply means to begin the evaluation with a positive predisposition towards the person's intentions in the absence of other information, not that the other information (if present) should be ignored if it suggests something else is going on.

I actually hadn't noticed that Arkady had posted to the evidence section. I only saw his rather weak workshop post. I do see the activity of a cabal in this case, but it's not a WMC cabal, it's more of a cabal consisting of Arkady's buddies, who I hope all get banned pretty soon, since they are predominantly useless pains in the neck through the whole encyclopedia and not just here. I agree with the principle that it's ok for Arkady to re-post his evidence under his main account, but it's not obvious to me that he has a main account rather than just a bunch of other socks. On the other hand I try not to pay close attention to this stuff. 67.117.147.249 (talk) 16:09, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Off-topic comments on expertise

Abd seems to have gone off-topic in his remarks on the project page and misquotes me. His remarks about WP:COI seem completely batty and show a complete misunderstanding of wikipedia policy. The article Differential geometry of surfaces explicitly states that it is intended to be at an undergraduate level, that is why it has so many pictures, some (not very well) drawn using xfig by me. I made over 600 edits to this article. It has a graduate-level sequel Riemannian connection on a surface: the teaching of connections is generally considered tough. However, sometimes it's unavoidable, e.g. in the course Atiyah-Singer index theorem that will be lectured in Cambridge next year. I would recommend Chateau of Vauvenargues and Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes if Abd liked the Nicolas Poussin article. Handel organ concertos Op.4 is still in preparation - although not signed up, it could be considered part of WP:DRAMAOUT.although to say that drama has been avoided on this set of pages might be stretching the imagination a little :-) Abd might also be interested to know that I am gradually working my way through both the Bach and the Handel on a newly acquired Heyligers organ (I'm working on BWV 659 at the moment, Nun komm der heiden Heiland.) He might also like Hadamard's method of descent, a stub which led to my rewriting of most of the weird bio of Jacques Hadamard. One day Abd should try creating a proper encyclopedia article himself from scratch (not a stub), The Plancherel theorem for spherical functions on the work of Harish-Chandra is clearly at a graduate level: if that means it is above Abd's head, he should not comment; it is a prototype of one of the most celebrated results in group representation theory (Harish-Chandra's Plancherel theorem for semisimple Lie groups) but is much, much easier. All these topics appear in the Encyclopedia Britannica and are deeply related to theoretical physics, for reasons spelt out in the WP article on Harish-Chandra.Mathsci (talk) 08:13, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

What Abd has completely failed to understand is that I was explaining to him how to edit uncontroversial mainstream articles. He chose to ignore this and misrepresent me as trying to give my own credentials. His remarks about mathematics are uniformed and show that he has had very little university-level training in mathematics. For those that have read what Abd writes on WP, this is fairly typical of his reponses: ignore what is being is discussed, pretend to have expertise in an area beyond his competence and then make an unjustified snide personal attack in the response. I repeat my question in the evidence: will it ever be possible for Abd to reverse his regression to single purpose fringe POV-pusher and start editing uncontroversial mainstream namespace articles? Mathsci (talk) 06:57, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

General notice and warning to all users involved with this case

All users read in full. This applies to all users involved in this case.

The clerks and arbs have noticed that the behavior of the parties thus far in the case has been unacceptable. Several policies have been violated and the conduct occurring so far will not be permitted to continue. All parties are instructed to not edit anything other than their own comments. All parties are reminded of WP:CIV, WP:NPA, and WP:EDITWAR. Any party that edit wars, edits another user's section in any manner, or is incivil to any degree, will be blocked without further warning for a minimum period of 24 hours. The block will be placed by a clerk or an arb and can be appealed in the normal manner. If you feel there is a problem with a statement made somewhere, or a situation in some other way needs to be handled, please do not attempt to deal with it yourself, but contact myself via email or talk page, or the clerks in general at WP:AC/CN. Thank you. Hersfold 23:45, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

<Applause>. Thanks. --Abd (talk) 00:08, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Note - Abd has decided to take his personal attacks off wiki: Hipocrite is hiding. Mathsi is an arrogant asshole. Raul654 is an arrogant highly privileged asshole. Abd is verbose and believes he understands stuff. Enric Naval can't stand opposition. WMC gives no shit about consensus, just enforces NPOV. His NPOV, not yours.

According to the timestamp, that comment was made today at 12:57 PM, well after he was notified of the above. Raul654 (talk) 21:55, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, as it's off wiki, I can't do anything about it here. However, Abd, it is quite shameful that you would be in such support of this warning only to go ignoring it the moment it doesn't apply. That goes for anyone on WR; I don't read the site, so Abd's posts are the only ones I'm aware of. Not that I want to be informed of any more. Hersfold 00:40, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

In order to understand those posts, you'd need to know what preceded it. The meanings of words are not absolute, they vary with the context. The word "asshole" would be highly inappropriate on Misplaced Pages. I could restate that quoted comment in a Misplaced Pages context, and, indeed, that's exactly what I'll be doing with the evidence. I don't recommend reading WR if you want to remain neutral; however, Hersfold, you've made a series of comments that raise issues about your neutrality. Raul654's comment should have been removed if it wasn't "actionable." I've stated that I understand you are in a difficult situation, but ... you have also made comments in the Workshop page showing agreement with one party or position or another, utterly inappropriate for a clerk. I've seen you harshly criticize minor incivility on one side, while routinely allowing much worse on the other. A clerk should not criticize at all. Act or don't. Request or enjoin but do not blame. I respectfully request that you recuse.

Meanwhile, I'll repeat. The above comment -- and this response -- should be removed, even though it gives me some pleasure to imagine the cheers. Take a look at User:Mathsci, his "topical picture." Who is led to the guillotine, and who preceded him, and why are the people dancing? --Abd (talk) 03:41, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Come on now. Did you see the timestamp on that diff? July 14th. Bastille Day. Hence, a "topical picture". MastCell  05:14, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

(ec) The topical picture was put there on the 14th of July, Bastille day here in France. The subtitle on the thumbnail gives the answer to the question: Robespierre amd Saint-Just, the people are French. Abd would be well advised to remember the words he added to Jehochman's essay WP:Don't moon the jury. Mathsci (talk) 05:19, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but to be fair, the final question - why the people are dancing - has been pondered in tens of thousands of pages over the past 200 years. :P MastCell  05:24, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Perhaps they are Royalists and, having taken Marie-Antoinette too literally, have overdosed on brioches. These things happen and the results can be disastrous. If she had said vol-au-vents, the course of history might have been quite different. Mathsci (talk) 05:41, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Going after Hersfold now. . .classy and typical (Oh no! it's another cabal). Btw, nice topical pic Mathsci. R. Baley (talk) 05:26, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I think an FOF about Abd's personal attacks (on-wiki and off) is in order, particularly in light of the hypocrisy of his applauding the no personal attacks warning while simultaneously making them where the warning doesn't apply. I'll suggest one myself if nobody else does. Raul654 (talk) 05:42, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Done. Speaking to R Baley's comment above -- I'm wondering if there should be a suggested FOF about Abd's tactic if claiming to be in disputes with everyone he deals with in order to avoid admin action. Raul654 (talk) 18:36, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, enough everyone. This section was for commenting on the warning above, not for compounding on problems on another site. Back to editing. Hersfold 18:35, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Away

I will be out for the next week, returning late on August 11th. Should you need clerk assistance, please contact another clerk or email them all at clerks-llists.wikimedia.org. I will try to check in as I can, but unfortunately I can't make any guarantees. I believe the Proposed Decision page will be opening soon, so keep an eye out for that (remembering that only Arbs and Clerks should be editing that page). See you all in a week or so. Hersfold 04:27, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry if this has been asked and answered somewhere else but has another clerk been assigned to this case to cover for Hersfold while away? I'm not sure if anything can be done about my next question but I'm going to ask anyways with hopes of a response. I'm having real difficulties downloading the workshop project page. I am assuming it's due to how large it is and it's not going to get any smaller. If the length of the page is what is making my computer take so long to download or, which is now happening today more frequently, freezing up my page due to the lenth, would moving some of the soapboxing and chatter be appropriate to move to the talk page? I don't frequent arbcom cases so I don't know what the norm is for this. Is it normal to hide conversations because of length plus have a shorter version like what is going on? My computer is telling me it's having problems downloading pictures but the globe can be seen so I am thinking that the hide sections are causing this. Anyone understanding what I am trying to say have any ideas? If more appropriate I've also asked this at my talk. I would love to continue with iVoting but can't. I've cleared my browser out and also have defragged my own computer, is there something else I should be doing on my end. I want to continue being able to voice my opinions since Abd dragged my name into his imaginary cabal claims. Thanks in advance for any help or ideas. --CrohnieGal 14:26, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Temporary solution:

I've copied the workshop page to here in sections. You can read it here (I hope). Of course, it will get out of date. You can put your responses in these pages or elsewhere, and ask me on my talk page to transfer them into the workshop page, which I will do if I have time; otherwise maybe someone else will.

• User talk:Coppertwig/Workshop part 1
• User talk:Coppertwig/Workshop part 2
• User talk:Coppertwig/Workshop part 3
• User talk:Coppertwig/Workshop part 4
• User talk:Coppertwig/Workshop part 5

I'll see what else I can do to help solve this. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:58, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I've asked a clerk for help. . ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:06, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Crohnie, I see you've been posting to the workshop page. Do the browser loading problems seem to have been solved? I've replaced some collapse boxes with diff links; I hope that helps. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:21, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for taking so long to get back to this. Thanks Coppertwig, your help does seem to have helped me. I also rebooted which has helped. So I think I can still particpate, though it's still slow, it's not freezing up as much as it was. It was freezing up every time I downloaded. I waited to respond here to make sure my problem had really improved, which he has. Am I the only one that was having problems like this? Oh well, it seems sorted enough for me to use it. So thank you. I would also like to thank MBisanz again for the quick assistance also. Very nice of both of you to help me out, --CrohnieGal 13:49, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Glad to hear you're managing to edit. I'll request deletion of the above temporary pages, since you seem to be able to edit, and the pages will be out of date. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:56, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

A question regarding related ban violations

Something has occurred to me, regarding Hipocrite. Are the following edits not a violation of his community endorsed ban: , , , , , , , , and ?

It is claimed that the discussion here demonstrates community support for a ban, which according to the section title is a "ban of two editors from Cold Fusion". To the extent that this is true it then establishes a community ban, as distinct from WMC's administrative ban, which was clearly scoped at 1 month by the closing administrator (in subsequent discussions). Does WMC have the authority to unilaterally lift such a community ban without further discussion? I agree he can lift his administrative ban, but I question whether he can actually lift the community ban unilaterally. How is it that Hipocrite is not in violation of this community ban if it truly was an actionable discussion? Thoughts?

I think that Hipocrite should be made a party to this proceeding so that these issues may be considered more fully. --GoRight (talk) 16:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The community does not seem to have had any problems with those edits at the time, so the assertion that Hipocrite was community banned would be difficult to support. --TS 18:34, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Non-sense. How the community feels about those edits now has no bearing on whether, or not, a community ban was established by that AN/I conversation. As noted below WMC seems to come down on the side of it didn't. So his actions with respect to the above edits seem consistent with that position, on his part. Others in this proceeding have claimed that the community clearly DID establish a community ban there and so it leaves open the question of whether H was in violation of the community ban even if WMC had lifted his administrative one. We should open the scope of this proceeding to investigate a deliberate on that point. To that end, Hipocrite should be added as a party. --GoRight (talk) 17:53, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

This just looks like pointless troublemaking. From my point of view, the community ban never really existed. I can see no functional evidence of its existence. I can demonstrate functional evidence of my bans existence William M. Connolley (talk) 17:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

You're perspective on the community ban discussion is duly noted. Thanks for your reply. --GoRight (talk) 17:53, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Mmmmm, tempting. When Enric took WMC's bans to AN/I, it was both of them, but the cabal didn't care about Hipocrite, of course, they focused on me. Because the closing admin only considered me, I'd judge that the community ban was only of me, not of Hipocrite, which left only WMC's administrative ban, and he had the right to lift it at any time. Hence the edits of Hipocrite, as permitted by WMC, did not violate a ban, and, even if they technically did, it would now be moot. Hipocrite did far worse things, he edit warred, he gamed RfPP, he was grossly disruptive, those could be examined. He's already been notified of this case, evidence regarding him could be presented, but, I'd suggest, those edits aren't part of it, at least not as far as I can see.

Now, WMC's bluster is apparent. Okay, I'll call it, very simply. I again withdraw my voluntary acceptance of a ban from cold fusion; it was based on no misbehavior, but only on WMC's long term agenda and that of his friends. Now, should I formally notify WMC? Here is what I think about it: an administrative ban creates no right to block for non-disruptive edits. The only reason to block for non-disruptive edits with community and ArbComm bans is because of enforcement complications. So if WMC blocks me for a nondisruptive edit, it demonstrates, in itself, involvement (attachment to his own prejudice about an editor). If another administrator blocks me for a nondisruptive edit based on WMC's ban, and not on the edit itself, it would demonstrate affiliation, that is, another admin doing for WMC what WMC might not be able to do himself. Elsewhere that's called "meat puppetry." Outside of community/ArbComm bans, blocks must be based on at least one disruptive edit, after warning, and violating the "do not edit" warning, non-disruptively, of an admin, creates no right to block --unlike community and ArbComm bans.

It is asserted in this case that my long posts to Talk are misbehavior. I disagree; however, I will avoid them, voluntarily. I had already mostly ceased that when I was banned, and the immediate ban was based on? We still haven't been given the reason. WMC has recently warned me about two things: edit warring (after the incident May 21) and violating his ban. Edit warring isn't my shtick, at all. That leaves violating the ban, which is circular, that can't be the reason for the ban!

However, he did previously warn me about "meddling in policy." And I certainly did that. He also, in describing the behavior he wanted to see in order to lift the cold fusion ban, was mainspace edits (other than cold fusion) and, especially, leaving policy alone. I think it's pretty clear. He banned me from editing a mainspace article because (1) There were some difficulties with cabal editors there, and he has his general prejudices, and (2) he had an agenda to keep me from "meddling in policy," and especially from warning him about action while involved, which I'd done before (when it involved other editors.). Let's see what happens. I will be meditating on WP:DGAF. Meanwhile, my ban expired. Yippee!!! --Abd (talk) 19:32, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

(comment here since Carcharoth suggested that we should discuss here and not in user talk pages) Testing the limits of your ban is not good, but doing it by bringing again the chinese paper and the sourcebook is bad. I explained why it's bad (the diff also shows my previous comment), and I warned Abd for advocacy using bad sources, and I warned also GoRight for the same thing. The article is under probation, and this behaviour is disruptive, and it wastes the time of other editors who have to rehash the same old arguments again, and given the insistance in the bad sources it's pure POV advocacy and not an attempt to use the better sources.

Abd, I would remove any similar comment invoking WP:TALK from any article talk page if it had been done under the same circumstances, and I have already done such (as detailed in the first section of my evidence on the Fringe Science case, the second section is also relevant to this issue and I'm going to link it from my evidence).

And about not making a wall of text this time, see here for why making a brief comment is not helpful if you simply repeating the same old flawed argument. Have you thought that one brief argument making a good point will take massively less time than a dozen walls of text that repeat the same bad point again? Even taking into account your circumstances? And that the brief comment with a good point will have a chance of being adopted by other editors will make at least part of the work for you? Repeating the same bad points is wrong regardless of length of comments. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:28, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

We aren't supposed to classify opinions of editors as "good" or "bad", but to discuss and try to reach consensus. I'm not convinced by the arguments against mentioning the sources Abd mentioned. (This comment is not intended to start a discussion of article content or relative quality of sources here; the article talk page is for that.) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:40, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

The sources are bad, not the opinions, bad as in "bad quality", as in measured by WP:RS. As in, if they were medical sources, being considered low quality by WP:MEDRS. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:52, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

P.D.: I will also note that the proceedings of several CF conferences have been published by university presses, including the Cambridge one, yet we don't take them as proof of the conference papers being true or showing acceptance by mainstream, which is what Abd was trying to use it for. Talk:Cold_fusion/Archive_32 is full of Abd's arguments trying to use the book to push papers among other things.

P.D.D.: And, I'll point to this comment about giving proper weight to Storms' book, since the same argument also applies to these sources. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:10, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Enric Naval, I believe your understanding of what Abd was trying to use the sources to show is incorrect. I'm not sure where is the most appropriate place to discuss this. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:16, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe that it's correct because I wrote it while reading Abd's comments in Talk:Cold_fusion/Archive_32. In particular, this one is very clear. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:59, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Tony's viewpoint

I'm inclined to take a parsimonious view of this case: a problem arose on an article talk page, mainly because of an editor's mode of interaction. He disputes the means of resolution and will not accept community consensus. The Committee can best end this dispute by endorsing that consensus and restating its warning to the editor in another case, that he should take notice of feedback from other users.

I would also suggest to other editors that if a single person makes longwinded, low-quality contributions on a talk page over a long period this does not necessarily merit a response on the page. If he makes valid points they will be echoed by others, if his points are of no merit they can be ignored. Either way his contributions do not all have to be read and taken notice of on the talk page. It takes two to make a dispute, and it takes more than one dissent to break consensus. --TS 18:58, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I think you may have misunderstood the situation: it's not that there was consensus among other editors and his was the lone voice in opposition; were that the case he could indeed be easily ignored and his posts not read. No, it's more complicated than that; there was no consensus and he was impeding the process of developing consensus by insisting that his view was the consensus view, and insisting that anyone with a different view had either been in a prior dispute with him or that they were biased (meaning disagreeing with him); in either case their view could be discounted in determining consensus. And since rather than just voicing an opinion, he was insisting on managing the process himself, which evoked protests from other editors (as shown by many diffs in my evidence section) it would have been kind of hard to ignore him. I think somewhere on the workshop page is a proposed principle to the effect that consensus isn't determined by default, in other words by driving off or ignoring everyone who disagrees with you until your opinion is the only one left. Part of Abd's central charge in bringing this case (I know, hard to lose track in the blizzard of extraneous material) was that Connelly showed his bias, or his involvement, or something, by reverting to a version that was "contrary to consensus." If you look at the evidence, or better yet, look at the talk page yourself from June 4-6 or so, you'll see that there was no consensus, and that the disruption was caused by Abd trying to get everyone to quit voicing their differing opinions so he could declare consensus. This is a very different situation than what you're describing here. Woonpton (talk) 19:22, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. It occurs to me that my use of the term "consensus" in the above was ambiguous. I referred principally to his refusal to accept the consensus that he was banned from the talk page.

My second paragraph was a poorly thought out attempt to generalize, and I accept that Abd became difficult to ignore. Abd's attempt to manage the process while himself lacking insight into his own biases reminds me of the first Cool Cat case, in which an inexperienced editor lacking interpersonal skills attempted to set himself up as an informal mediator ona subject on which he had considerable bias.

A finding that Abd's interactions on the talk page were disruptive may be sustainable, in which case traditionally a topic ban would be the remedy. --TS 19:43, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, it looks as if we are indeed on the same page, thanks for clarifying. And I agree about the finding; If such a finding hasn't been proposed it should be; there certainly is plenty of evidence to support it. Woonpton (talk) 19:52, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

done. Both the interactions in the talk page and the edits in the article. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:22, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

TS, I think you have an erroneous impression of what happened. There wasn't disruption over my "style" at Cold fusion, though there had been long-term complaints about length. WMC's attention was called by edit warring May 21 and June 1. I was involved in the May 21 incident, and not really with the June 1 incident. Hipocrite hit 3RR on both occasions (he then reverted one edit, June 1, taking it down to 2RR, but then edited the lede with a highly POV edit, he knew would not be acceptable, right after requesting protection. The problem there was introduced by Hipocrite at the beginning of May, and almost certainly resulted from RfAr/Abd and JzG and what had preceded it. We were gradually negotiating consensus, it became very difficult with Hipocrite participating.

No, there was no "refusal to accept the consensus that he was banned from the Talk page." I accepted the community ban. During it, I made a single nondisruptive edit, relying on very substantial previous evidence as to community opinion about such, it was self-reverted to avoid complicating ban enforcement. I truly believed that this single, one-character edit would not be considered a ban violation. Other than that, I did not violate, even arguably (i.e., if that single edit was a "violation"), the alleged "consensus." You should also recognize, it's easy to see, that the consensus to ban me was of involved editors. I could have challenged it on that basis, but I elected speedy close because I saw that this was going to have to come to ArbComm anyway, so why debate it to death there. Remember, in RfC/JzG 3, when I also claimed admin action while involved, 2/3 of editors were calling for me to be banned. The overlap between these editors and the ban discussion on AN/I is strong.

Woopton arrived at Cold fusion with an axe to grind, it's obvious: what would ordinarily have been a transient misunderstanding was whipped up into an AN/I incident. Mediation? I wasn't mediating at cold fusion, I was very, very involved. I did start a poll, and I believe that I conducted that poll with rigorous neutrality as to content. If I'm wrong about that, I haven't seen a single cogent allegation here as to any violation of neutrality on content. The charges have been weird, with Woonpton; I definitely made a mistake and attempted to correct it as quickly as possible. As to the rest, I reported in the poll what had been expressed in the other poll in equivalent form. I could just as well have reported "Approved" or "Accepted" or whatever original word was used. That was a neutral report of an action by another editor and did not express any independent opinion. The point of the process was to make consensus visible, and it actually did that. It was merely more complicated because of the creation of a second poll to do exactly what the first poll intended to do, and the first poll invited other versions to be added, and if someone had wanted to vote in the first poll with "Approved" instead of the suggested rating with 10 meaning "approved" and 0 meaning "disapproved," it would have been fine. --Abd (talk) 19:48, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

It is perhaps not as widely appreciated as it should be, but polls can be very disruptive where consensus does not exist. At best, a poll can be used to verify that consensus has been achieved. --TS 09:49, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that they can. This was an unusual circumstance, though. The article had been protected, due to Hipocrite's gaming of RfPP, into a version with a grossly POV lead, and the protection was for two weeks. So the goal of my poll was to see if we could quickly agree on a version without debate. And, in fact, we did, precisely because I considered both polls, mine and Hipocrite's; at the time of WMC's revert to May 14, consensus was apparent on the two versions proposed by Hipocrite. I accepted both of them, albeit with a slightly lowered preference. So we had everyone involved in the dispute, everyone who might have edit warred, for example, agreeing on either of two versions. Later poll voting confirmed this. The polling worked. The administrator intervening didn't.

To restate it, the polls accomplished what Tony has asserted as the legitimate use of a poll. In spite of the attempt at disruption by Hipocrite (supported by Verbal). In any case, the polls would not have made the decision. That's not how we do things. If the poll results showed obvious consensus (they did), an RfPP admin might have decided to make the edit directly. To go through a debate over which version was best would, quite simply, in the contentious environment, simply have consumed more time, it might have taken the whole two weeks. Because Range polls are the most effective tool known to develop a snapshot of consensus levels, I chose that method, and I'd recommend it for the future in similar multiple choice situations. --Abd (talk) 16:27, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Woopton arrived at Cold fusion with an axe to grind, it's obvious: what would ordinarily have been a transient misunderstanding was whipped up into an AN/I incident. This is just beyond amazing. I have only looked at a few small bits of this case since I took it off my watchlist, and every bit I've looked at seems to contain unfounded insinuations about me, even after those assertions and insinuations have been quite clearly refuted by diffs in my evidence section. I said when I noted that I wouldn't be responding further to Abd's mushrooming nested responses containing misstatements of fact and unfounded accusations about me, that if the arbitrators couldn't tell by what was already in the case what the problem is, my adding more refutations to the slagheaps of verbiage was not going to help. I just asked them to read my evidence and look at the diffs. I stand on those diffs. All the subsequent verbiage, claims and insinuations and accusations and naming me as part of a cabal is just a smokescreen laid up to try to divert attention from the evidence, which is very simple and clear.

For the record, I came to Abd's poll on cold fusion with no axe to grind but the good of the encyclopedia; I just came to vote for what in my considered opinion was the most neutral of the three versions on offer. If that's an "axe to grind" then I'm proud to be grinding it. As for the "misunderstanding" about the vote-moving, ask yourselves what business did Abd have moving my vote in the first place, even if he honestly though mistakenly thought my vote was in the wrong place? He had no business moving my vote. If he thought I'd voted for something I hadn't actually voted for (although the only logical train that could have led him to that conclusion would have had to start with an assumption that I hadn't read the version before voting for it, which is ridiculous) the appropriate thing for him to do would be to contact me and say "I think you actually voted for this other version" and then I could tell him he was wrong, and that would be the end of it. But he moved the vote. I'm a data person; the integrity of data is one of the ruling principles of my life, and I see red when anyone messes with data. I don't anyone messing with my vote, ever, be it for President of the US or for some version of a Misplaced Pages article.

As for Abd's continuing insistence that there was a consensus on the page, look at the evidence: the diffs are there in my evidence section and in the analysis of Abd's diffs claiming consensus, those diffs show that there was no consensus and that the disruption on the page was a result of Abd's actions there. The diffs speak for themselves. Woonpton (talk) 17:26, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

It's very difficult to discern consensus from reading diffs unless you have a coherent presentation of them. It's much easier to read the polls and discussion on two dates: the date of WMC's revert to May 14, because that is what he would have seen, and the ultimate condition of the polls, for !voting continued after that revert; and I had added the May 14 version to my poll so opinion could be collected on it.

What is very clear is that two versions (May 21 and May 31) proposed by Hipocrite originally as likely to be widely acceptable, were actually such. Nobody opposed them, and nobody has opposed them since, nobody has claimed another candidate as better, except for you, Woonpton, though in one case, an editor supported June 1, which strongly implied preference for May 31 over all other versions proposed, because it was closer; June 1 was mid-edit war and did include some material to which Hipocrite was strongly in opposition. (The editor preferring June 1 later !voted on these versions, which had been absent when I set up the first poll and the editor voted, confirming precisely what I inferred.) I call that complete agreement -- excepting your !vote which you, yourself, withdrew -- and the word for that is consensus, with your position being an abstain. Sure, it was only five editors. It later expanded, and later !votes simply confirmed that. There was no controversy over those versions, except from you. So if we take your opinion as standing, perhaps from your discussion, it was 5 accepting May 21 and 31, vs 1 rejecting, you. That's still considered consensus around here. Was it adequate to go to RfPP? I'd say not yet. But it did become that way within a few days. By then, however, I was banned, and, while the remaining editors (such as Verbal) might have accepted those versions, they were not at all eager to restore, say, the hydrino theory, that had been more or less forced because the sourcing was so strong. --Abd (talk) 04:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd's spurious arguments about discredited hydrino theory were already mentioned in my evidence. There is no sign of any change. Mathsci (talk) 05:13, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

This is a good example of the kind of violation of Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science that the cabal has encouraged, the exclusion of fringe theory. The section was reliably sourced and represented a rough consensus. From history. Hydrino theory is highly controversial. Discredited? I haven't seen decent secondary source on that; it's certainly been criticized, but discredited theories belong in the encyclopedia, if there is reliable source on them. I have no attachment at all to hydrino theory; the framing is probably a bit POV-imbalanced toward the skeptical side, but it was progress that we got the mention into the article at all, we could deal with details later. Hydrino theory is a bit like Cold fusion only with far, far less experimental evidence and one very active -- and apparently funded -- theorist, see the article. (Hydrinos, if they exist, could possibly catalyze fusion as muons can, but energy could be generated without fusion from the formation of hydrinos, and that is what Blacklight Power is about.) The source, Storms (2007), tying hydrino theory to cold fusion was removed, and would, I presume, ultimately have been put back, see the version before Hipocrite removed it. Thanks, Mathsci, for pointing this out. --Abd (talk) 13:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

You have your copy of the article of Sheldon's article from here http://mathsci.free.fr/sheldon.pdf where Sheldon says hydrino theory is discredited. That is why it has no separate wikipedia article. Anyway back to Handel organ concertos Op.7. Mathsci (talk) 14:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposed decision

Isn't the proposed decision suppose to be posted today? {{ArbComOpenTasks}} says the target date is today. --Mythdon 18:10, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Target dates shouldn't be taken literally, whether at Arbcom or in real life. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:12, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

But a lot of users are waiting for Drafting Arbitratior Stephen Bain to post the decision. Should I contact the user on their talk page? --Mythdon 18:14, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Be patient. It will come when it's ready. This arbitration case is not time-critical. Note that the evidence page has grown by over 25% in the past three days, and the arbitrators will take time to digest that sheer volume of text. --TS 10:10, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed with Tony (TS). I and several other arbitrators should be commenting on the workshop page over the next few days, so that will help to focus things more, I hope. Carcharoth (talk) 14:25, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Then the parties and the uninvolved users will be waiting for the next few days for the proposed decision? --Mythdon 15:39, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes. And while the views of uninvolved users are appreciated, if you are intending to comment, please ensure you have read up on the background to all this and the evidence. Commentary out of context is not that helpful. What is most helpful is chains of reasoning going from policy principles to findings of facts to suggested remedies. Carcharoth (talk) 16:03, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't intend to comment, and shouldn't comment because I haven't read the evidence. --Mythdon 16:15, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Carcharoth's advice should be given to some arbs, it seems; please ensure you have read up on the background to all this and the evidence. Verbal chat 17:57, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) What is most helpful is chains of reasoning going from policy principles to findings of facts to suggested remedies. (Interesting that evidence doesn't seem to figure into this chain of reasoning.) ArbCom has voted a principle in other cases: Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia and its content on scientific and quasi-scientific topics will primarily reflect current mainstream scientific consensus. and yet the attack against me and others of the so-called "cabal" in this case seems, when all the smoke is cleared away, to be occasioned by our belief in this principle. I certainly hope this principle will be reiterated in this case, and that the decision made here will reinforce and uphold this principle. This case in many of its aspects appears to be an attempt to bring down that principle, which in my opinion would be disastrous for the encyclopedia. Thank you. Woonpton (talk) 18:13, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Primarily mainstream does not mean excluding descriptions of fringe theories from the pages about those fringe theories, even when brief and based on reliable secondary sources. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:19, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

??My entire involvement with this case has been about Abd's behavior at the talk page for the two days prior to his being banned from the page; I've had no involvement whatever with the disputes at the article itself, other than voting on the talk page for a version that didn't give undue weight to fringe theories. The article at that time was heavily weighted toward cold fusion advocacy. I don't think anyone is arguing that fringe theories shouldn't be described, but neither should they be presented as the best science has to offer; that's a violation of NPOV#WEIGHT as well as a violation of the principle quoted above.Woonpton (talk) 18:44, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out that I missed 'evidence' from that chain of reasoning. The evidence leads to the findings of fact. I had mentioned in the previous comment "please ensure you have read up on the background to all this and the evidence", so that should give you some idea of the importance I place on well-presented evidence (i.e. a high importance). Carcharoth (talk) 00:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Edits to Talk:Cold fusion

A party to this case, Enric Naval, has repeatedly reverted to remove a comment by another party, Abd, (allegedly page-banned), from Talk:Cold fusion. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:12, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

He's been banned by an arb now (twice, for different unspecific lengths, by the same arb). The removals are proper. Verbal chat 17:59, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

He was not banned by an arb when he made the edit. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:20, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

He was banned, and the arb confirmed that ban - even when I asked for clarification. Verbal chat 18:28, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Apparently Abd thought he was banned, as he first declared that the ban was over, before he made the edit. --Dirk Beetstra 18:49, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Sure, he explains what he meant quite clearly and concisely. He considered himself to have been under a voluntary extension of the expired community ban that he accepted at the AN/I discussion. He had dismissed WMC's administrative ban as being improper quite some time previously. That was no longer something he considered relevant, I assume, since he considered it improper and stated why. --GoRight (talk) 02:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

As GoRight has correctly stated. I am currently banned from those two pages by Rlevse, who was, I assume, acting as an arbitrator to reduce disruption, and quite properly so. That ban was after the post in question; and I'm quite sure that Rlevse would not approve of the repeated removals of the edit that was there before he declared the ban. It is obvious that my edit, harmless in itself, was disruptive, just look at the edit warring over it! It is arguable that the initial removal by WMC was proper, within an assumed context of his ban being proper, however, given that Viridae apparently considered the removal improper, and replaced it, on pure, uninvolved procedural grounds, the repeated removals by Enric Naval and Verbal, and threats to continue to remove it if replaced, by Verbal, both of whom are involved in this case, are beyond the pale, and should be addressed.

The position that posts from "banned editors" must be removed, to the extent that editors have edit warred over it, is one that this case might examine, it's been a cause of some of the underlying disruption. --Abd (talk) 04:08, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Beetstra, your comments have become increasingly unintelligible to me. If I have to guess, I'd say that you are wikilawyering over the exact meanings of "ban" and what I must have meant when I said I was going to disregard the "ban." I was not banned when I edited, period. However, WMC had declared that there was a ban, his ban. And he's affirmed that it is his ban that he was enforcing, not the community ban, he seems to think the AN/I ban was irrelevant. I've taken the position that administrative page bans are really just warnings that an editor's behavior is considered disruptive at a page, they are not actual bans like community bans or AC bans, and they create no right to block for non-disruptive edits. Rlevse's ban, however, is a little different, partly because he is an arbitrator, partly because of what I infer as his motive. He's concluded, I assume, that my edits, per se, no matter what the content, are disruptive. He's not blaming me for that, and his ban is not a punitive sanction in any way, and it makes no judgment on the content or on whether I'm the cause of disruption or the other editors are. He's trying to avoid unnecessary disruption while this case is pending, so he is, effectively, enjoining me from editing the pages. I very much approve. --Abd (talk) 04:08, 10 August 2009 (UTC) I voluntarily accept this ban because I agree with the purpose, it is quite the same as the reason why I voluntarily accepted the AN/I discussion ban, and for the students of Abd Wikilawyering out there, yes, I could withdraw my voluntary acceptance, and that would not in the least protect me from being blocked for violating Rlevse's ban, which, in case it was needed, could be replaced with an ArbComm injunction in a flash, and do you think I would be so stupid as to require such? Let's say, I'd have to have a damn good reason, and I certainly can't think of one.

Wow! I just saw a moderately good reason: apparent vandalism to Cold fusion. Maybe my memory is dotty, but the name of the supposed leader of the U.S. Navy research group given in the IP edit today is completely unfamiliar, and a google search came up empty. Were I not rigidly banned, I'd have reverted that. Was this trolling for me to edit? Maybe. But, in fact, this error, sitting there transiently, is not important enough to tempt anyone to block me over, and, because the edit will certainly be seen by others who are not banned, I'm not making that edit. It might be interesting to checkuser that IP, though, if it turned out to be an active editor here .... now I see why arbitrators are given checkuser. --Abd (talk) 14:11, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I have replied under another section in this same page explaining why the sources were bad, how Abd had been told this many times, how this was just the continuation of the promotion of those sources, and how, under those circumstances, I would have removed such a comment from any page from any editor. In other words, the comment by itself was not good. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:47, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The comment I made that WMC blocked me for did not reassert the supposedly bad sources (they aren't bad, they meet RS, very clearly, see the discussions diffed in the permanent link to that talk section as edited by me); rather, it pointed to the discussions, so any supposed consensus rejecting them (that consensus was a fantasy of Enric's) would have been covered. Enric is here asserting that he would violate Talk page guidelines, again, in the future, as he did in edit warring to remove the comment after it was restored. See , , . He has been warned that his actions Cold fusion could result in sanctions, he has dismissed that as preposterous. Particularly because of his threat, he should be sanctioned, and he has conveniently provided us with evidence during this very case. I again apologize to the community for provoking this with my edit, but it may have been useful. This behavior was not new, merely more obvious. I suppose I should put this in Evidence. --Abd (talk) 13:59, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

"Enric is here asserting that he would violate Talk page guidelines, again, in the future (...)". Ahem, what I actually said was "I would remove any similar comment invoking WP:TALK (...)". I was saying that my removals were in accordance with WP:TALK, not that they violated it. You say that I violate WP:TALK, I say that I am enforcing it. I was not saying "I am going to violate WP:TALK", that's what you infer from my comment, not what I actually said. That is an important difference. You should be more careful when doing these inferences, a few days ago I complained about other similar inference . --Enric Naval (talk) 20:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

More edits in Talk:Cold fusion, review requested

Proposals by arb FloNight

I've added proposals that that reflect my current view of the evidence. These are not set in stone now. I'm continuing to review evidence but will likely add proposals similar to these for Committee voting. Please point out omissions or errors. FloNight♥♥♥ 23:15, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm puzzled as to why you've repeated Fritzpolls proposal. Compare:

• All site, topic and page bans enacted by the community or administrators should be notified to the users concerned on their talkpages and recorded centrally at Misplaced Pages:Editing_restrictions, allowing other editors to enforce or review the bans.
• All site, topic and page bans enacted by the community or administrators should be notified to the users concerned on their talkpages and recorded in a manner that allows other editors to enforce or review the bans.

Apart from introducing the defect of ambiguity as to the location of the central repository, they appear identical William M. Connolley (talk) 08:59, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

My proposal is a working draft of the ruling that I plan to include for voting by the Committee on the Proposed decision page. I transferred the proposals suggested by other editors in their section because I want to show the way the the full case would look if I was drafting it. The alternative being Stephen Bain's proposed draft. On the workshop page I've answered the proposal specific issue about including the location of logging. FloNight♥♥♥ 13:18, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate FloNight's offering her version of the proposed decision. Where an arbitrator has only one or two different or additional proposals to offer, it saves time if he or she posts only them to his or her section. However, where an arbitrator has a fundamentally different view of the case from the original drafter, it can make sense for him or her to offer a complete proposed decision as an alternative. Aficionadoes of these pages may recall that I did something similar on the workshop of the earlier Abd and JzG case, although the committee wound up expressing support for Stephen Bain's original draft and approach in that case rather than mine. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:15, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Apology to the Committee

This case seriously overwhelmed my capacity to handle the traffic. I apologize for the deficiencies in my evidence; it's there, sufficient evidence to determine the basic facts and the problem that brought this case here, but in order to establish what I believed needed to be established to understand the context and respond in a deeper way, I would need far more time. To write a single "wall of text" comment can take me hours. To present the core of that comment, with a developed point, can take many hours more. This case raised many issues of weight, and to address each one would take a deliberative process beyond the capacity of this case to handle. I had asked for the Workshop page to be frozen during the preparation of the Evidence, and I highly recommend something like that for future cases; the community should first prepare evidence and seek to make that complete and organized, and that can take quite a bit of time and quite a bit of work, then proceed step by step through findings of fact, principles, and remedies, probably in that order. Our process as it is encourages the Carrollinian process of "verdict first, trial afterwards," where editors who have a goal in mind make proposals to further the goal, and then present evidence to support it. Normal, natural, and highly disruptive to consensus process, because the evidence is then arranged to prove the point, instead of to expose the actual history first, before developing points.

Because of the overwhelm, I was more or less forced to write at greater length, and thus less effectively, than I would have preferred if there were more time available. The case has been rapidly developing, and is likely to close soon. I'm fully capable of being more cogent, but what is frequently missed is that this takes much more time than simply writing what I see and understand without designing it for punch.

I bit off more than I could chew. It could be said that simply by challenging WMC, I bit off more than I could chew, except that the community and ArbComm now seems to be getting it. Behind that single edit to Talk:Cold fusion during this case was probably an instinctive or intuitive understanding that this would focus the attention of the community, that, while the edit can certainly be seen as disruptive, so is an ArbComm case, and the response to my edit seems to have greatly simplified the case, and broke up the previous unity of the cabal, because the problem became blatantly obvious. I have just added a new piece of evidence, at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William_M._Connolley/Evidence#Incident_demonstrating_cabal_existence_and_activity which demonstrates, I'd say conclusively, the social phenomenon behind this case. "Cabal" is natural, and we must be aware of it to take Misplaced Pages functioning beyond its present level. However, I will not be able to continue arguing this, at this time, and I can hear and appreciate the signs of relief. I too feel that relief, as I am sure I will feel even more deeply when this case closes no matter what ArbComm decides. While ArbComm can certainly make mistakes, so too can any process, and ArbComm cases, with all the obvious problems, are still the best we have. I will answer questions placed on my Talk from arbitrators, and will consider answering questions from other editors; some possible questions asked there might be answered by those who do understand what I've been trying to say. I intend to review this case, at leisure, and develop the points raised independently, for many policy and guideline issues have come up that deserve careful and patient attention. I am overwhelmed in Real Life as well, and, while Misplaced Pages is very important to me, so is the survival of my family and especially the children dependent on me, and I have been neglecting them. I thank the Committee for its kind attention so far and in the future, and again apologize for the difficulties and my shortcomings. --Abd (talk) 14:09, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

This isn't an apology. This is an attempt to draw your atention to yet another invalid "proof" of cabalship; in this case the clincher appears to be - gasp - that several admins have the obscure page global warming" on their watchlist - who would have thought it? William M. Connolley (talk) 14:44, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

The fact that it takes more time to write concisely is not unique to Abd, but one of the most basic truths of writing. The difference is that some writers take this extra time out of respect for the reader and others do not. And the contention that it takes "hours" to write a wall-of-text doesn't stand up to even the most basic scrutiny: he can churn out many of these in a day, and if each took "hours" he'd have no time to sleep, eat, or anything else. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:51, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm taking these pages off my watchlist, but I saw this. Boris is correct. That's the kind of time it takes. I wrote that a wall of text comment can take hours. Some don't. It depends on how much research is involved. The more cogent the comment, usually, the longer it takes, until and unless I've written enough about a topic (my famous "repetitiveness") that I know exactly what to say, immediately. I'm going to go eat now, haven't done that in a long time. If someone wants to look at my edit timings, I think they would indeed say, "How does this guy find time to eat, sleep, take care of his kids, and run his business, and the answer is, he doesn't. He must. Thanks again.) --Abd (talk) 14:59, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd's statement above is a crass parting shot. It's an admission that the arbitration process isn't developing the way he wanted or expected it to (namely, that Abd is shocked - SHOCKED! - that his own misbehavior is finally being examined in detail); that despite his best efforts he has been unable to drown out the opposition (This case seriously overwhelmed my capacity to handle the traffic.); that he wishes the arbitration procedures were more amenable to his style of drowning out his opponents (This case raised many issues...before developing points.); that despite the ridiculous length of his evidence, spread over 14 or more subpages, the evidence failed to convince anyone of anything except that Abd is utterly unable to edit cogently (I apologize for the deficiencies in my evidence...Because of the overwhelm, I was more or less forced to write at greater length, and thus less effectively, than I would have preferred if there were more time available.). As WMC has already said, his last paragraph is a sloppy re-statement his cabal claims, devoid of any evidence other than his own inability to convince a single person of the rightness of his cause. And his very next edit after posting the above was this one to his talk page, where he says, in essence, that because this case is not going his way, he's not going to participate anymore.

Arbitrators should keep this in mind when crafting remedies. They are dealing with someone here who doesn't listen to warnings, thinks that bans are warnings which he can disregard , and does not believe he's done anything wrong. Raul654 (talk) 15:15, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

This case seriously overwhelmed my capacity to handle the traffic is egregious nonsense, since Abd singlehandedly cranked out the bulk of the "traffic" on the case, as I've shown here. If he hadn't felt the need to keep repeating the same accusations and assertions ad infinitum, long after they had been decisively refuted by evidence, he could have saved himself a great lot of time and probably at least 700,000 of the nearly 800,000 keystrokes he's added to this case, as well as saving the rest of us a lot of exasperation.Woonpton (talk) 23:47, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Diff subsequent to apology that is of concern

This is of concern to me, although I may be misreading it. In it Abd says something concerning: The issues were raised, and even if the remedies aren't adequate -- and they might be adequate --, they will be a start. I can do something else if it comes to that. Since Abd, in his apology above says While ArbComm can certainly make mistakes, so too can any process, and ArbComm cases, with all the obvious problems, are still the best we have., I am a little worried and confused about what this means. In the apology Abd seems to be willing to accept Arbcom sanction (and indeed reiterates this partly in the cited diff) but then appears to go on to anticipate....what? Another Arbcom if the outcome is unsatisfactory? I have a lot of patience for Abd, I genuinely do, but I must now openly ask him - where does it end? You are at the end of DR - where else can you go? Are you going to seek out more admin-related "abuse" and drag it to Arbcom? If you do, I will probably find myself nearer to those calling for some suspension of your editing privileges, because Arbcom is not the way to solve what you perceive to be systemic problems in Wikipedian governance - it is just (with apologies to the committee) a source of drama and a time sink to everyone involved. Fritzpoll (talk) 08:51, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I think Abd means that issues were raised in this RfAr which are outside the scope of this RfAr, and will need to be addressed by the community sooner or later. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 12:21, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

But that's not what he says, Coppertwig. He says that if the remedies in the case are not "adequate", he can do something about that - that is saying that if the case doesn't give a suitable result (for some definition of "suitable") he may pursue these lines of enquiry further. Bluntly, based on FloNight's and to a lesser extent, bainer's proposals, there seems to be no aspect raised here that has not been handled, had remedies considered, or been dismissed. I am intrigued as to what these outstanding issues are. Fritzpoll (talk) 12:27, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I think he's referring to whether remedies are applied involving an individual or individuals who are not parties to this case. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

In other words, he'll make Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-Raul654 turn blue. (It's already on my watchlist.) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:31, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Arbcom can sanction people not party to the case if they deem it necessary - the absence of any such sanction is not necessarily because Arbcom did not consider it, but because it may not have been deemed necessary! Your guesses don't seem to be based on what Abd has actually written, and are not supported by his statements. I sincerely hope he has the time to come here and clarify. Fritzpoll (talk) 13:09, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict with above, written in response to Fritzpolls' original question.)
Wow! Yes, I am willing to accept ArbComm sanctions, it would go against everything I've been standing for if I didn't. "Something else" refers to the fact that there is an entire universe outside Misplaced Pages, and that they also serve who only stand and watch. Thus my comment is contemplating the contingency that I'm site-banned. If I'm not site-banned, there is plenty that I can do here, including stuff that was once controversial but is no longer. What has been missed in all this is that I often encounter controversy, and, given time, it is resolved. --Abd (talk) 13:48, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

To respond to the matter of other issues not addressed, the truly big one is the cabal. What is a cabal? Do cabals exist? Is there a specific cabal involved here? The only proposed decision that addressed this is one which stated that there was no evidence for a cabal, but that's actually preposterous. There is evidence, but is the evidence conclusive? To address this would take a phenomenally complex case, involving much more than I raised. The appearance of a cabal, the specific one that I described, has attracted media attention, I didn't invent this. And an appearance of a cabal can do damage that is not addressed simply by sweeping aside by claiming it doesn't exist, or that there is no evidence. The evidence is that it is apparent! Besides, that, the mechanism of the cabal is ordinary human propensity for tribal affiliation, which creates non-specific involvements, making shortsighted the idea of some that "involvement" must be in a specific content dispute. Cabals are to be expected, without any specific reprehensible intention. Addressing that in this case is may be difficult to impossible, but it was not irrelevant to this case. One more misconception that has been promoted: that the massive participation here by certain editors was due to my calling them "cabal." That is not supported by the record; instead, cabal editors piled in here before "cabal" was mentioned. When I first called attention to the possibility of a cabal, I provided some of the evidence without interpretation, as lists of editors who had supported certain positions in certain discussions. I was explicit that those lists were not accusations of cabal membership for those listed there once, but Short Brigade Harvester took it upon himself to notify these editors that they were mentioned in this RfAr, as if there had been some personal accusation involved, and Beetstra appears to have believed him. However, when the cabal evidence was completed and interpreted, only editors who had already commented here were included, and the basis was not comment here, but comment plus prior involvement in certain issues in a certain direction. The opposition to me did not arise from my claim of "cabal," as some would like to believe. Nor was opposition to me the standard for inclusion, and Beetstra is a clear counterexample, he has heavily commented here in ways highly negative on my behavior (with also some acknowledgement of cooperation), and he is clearly not a cabal editor. In addition, my major concern is cabal administrators, for these can do tremendous damage by taking biased administrative actions. Addressing this in any detail is probably impossible here. However, ArbComm might take a look specifically at the participation and prior actions of Raul654, his comments here and elsewhere, for a long time, have been unbefitting of an administrator, it's blatant. But the one to arrange the evidence and make the arguments will not be me. If ArbComm chooses to ignore his stance and actions -- including action while involved at Global warming, covered in the last evidence I provided, along with an action taken by WMC who unprotected an article with which he has long been involved, wheel-warring with another admin, who clearly considered it such, but expressed hopelessness at being able to do anything about it) -- well, it will come back, and, as I said, probably not through me. Why did Jennavecia consider it hopeless to protest WMC's wheel-warring? I assume it was long experience. Experience with what? The cabal, I assume, which had always protected WMC by piling in and arguing that his actions while involved were "reasonable." Action while involved is not reasonable, period. It causes damage even when it's reasonable, it perpetuates disputes instead of resolving them, and it besmirches our reputation for neutrality and fairness. It is reasonable, for example, to block an edit warrior. But if block for edit warring on one side of an issue is prompt and is missing on the other side, every block is "reasonable," but the effect is drastic bias. If an interloper is attacked as a POV pusher, and responds in kind, and is blocked, the block for incivility is reasonable, but unbalanced, and is easily seen as proof that there is a cabal, when this happens over and over, which it has. Enough said, perhaps too much. Definitely too much for me. See you around, I assume. --Abd (talk) 14:15, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Response to Abd. Yes, you are right, if it looks that there is a Cabal, then that can already be damaging. But I am not sure if the ArbComm can do anything against that, nor that you can really proof that there is a cabal (all proof of cooperation would be proof of cabal, but there is no way to counterproof it, as you can't show that you did not have a cooperation with another editor). Difficult point.

Regarding your 'appears to have believed him'. No. If you read carefully, then you see that my !votes and remarks are specifically targetted, there are some types of proposals that I did not respond to in the beginning. And only later I started to take a couple more (but that mainly due to the proposals by Bain. My main response has been to what was also part of our earlier 'conflicts', there where you use your explanation of something, which is in conflict with policy. I feel it is often the 'loopholes' in the policies and guidelines, things that have not been explicitly spelled out, and which can then be used in two ways in an argument. I came here indeed because Boris mentioned it, and I hope that I did clarify some things here, and that the ArbComm will take that into account. It would not be good, that only parties were here, would it be? Actually, there should be more people here, those who are not part of the 'Cabal' (group, clique, whatever), but who do know about the situation (the ArbComm making the third group, those that are not too knowledgeable about the situation). That prevents bias, I believe. --Dirk Beetstra 14:28, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I do wish that Abd would stop misrepresenting his approach to me as an attempt to find a mediator to resolve his dispute with WMC. His request did not seek mediation; it sought a third party to convey his threats to WMC. Moreover, it persisted in presenting a distorted view of the JzG/Abd arbitration, a habit which Abd has not abandoned. He has since openly acknowledged that his primary purpose in contacting me was not to resolve the dispute, but simply to play to the ArbCom. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:13, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Geeeez, Abd still thinks that his behaviour and approach was completely right, and he intends to continue if he is not site-banned, because his intervention is necessary. It's obvious that just a topic ban will just result in Abd continuing the disruption somewhere, fighting perceived enemies. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:44, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I did not treat TenOfAllTrades as an enemy, but he treated me as one. What is the difference between confirming a warning and conveying a threat? If my warning to WMC had no basis, he could have told me so. But this case shows that it did have a basis; if not then, than in principle and potentially. WMC was ready to block when involved, he had done it before, and he paid no attention to claims of involvement, they were moot for him. It was a lost opportunity. I tried to do the same thing with JzG, in a more diffuse way and I took longer. This time I tried with a specific friend of WMC, and rapidly. I guarantee the approach was sincere and not playing to arbitrators, and it began by email, very privately, but once TOAT had rejected it, it was important for the record that it be visible, that part of it which I could disclose, which explains why TOAT thinks I was "playing to the ArbComm". I would not bring a dispute before ArbComm without attempting to resolve it at a lower level. If any arbitrators have questions about this, I'll be happy to respond in detail. --Abd (talk) 20:05, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

TenOfAllTrades, I know it's difficult to remember where someone said something when there's so much text being generated, but if you could provide a diff that supports "He has since openly acknowledged that his primary purpose in contacting me was not to resolve the dispute but to play to the ArbCom" that would be helpful to me as an observer, and maybe even to ArbCom, in evaluating that assertion. Thanks. Woonpton (talk) 20:24, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The full discussion is available on his talk page: User talk:Abd#Okay, last attempt. Diff. I had already told him – at least twice – that I felt WMC's ban was appropriate, and that his best course of action was to proceed with the mediation already arranged with Hipocrite and apply for parole in the future, after he'd demonstrated that he could work well with others on this topic. His message contained the same misinterpretation and misrepresentations of the Abd/JzG case's outcomes that he had been spreading around for weeks beforehand, and which I had taken pains to correct. After demonstrating so thoroughly that he had no interest or ability to listen to what I had to say to him, I hardly find it credible that he would actually wish to recruit me as a legitimate mediator. Further, his initial email to me (User talk:TenOfAllTrades#Your email response to me regarding William M. Connolley) he makes no mention of mediation. It is only when he goes to post on-wiki that he announces that he really intended to request mediation (hm), and later still (the diff above) acknowledges that "In posting my mail to on his Talk page, sure, I was, not exactly "playing to the crowd," but to ArbComm." TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:47, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, that's very helpful. It could hardly be plainer, could it; that's exactly what he said. What keeps astonishing me about Abd is that even when he must know that the diffs contradict his version of events, even when the diffs that contradict his version have been presented in evidence, he keeps insisting on his misconstruction. After he said in exactly these words, "I was not playing to the crowd, but to ArbCom" then to suggest, as he does above, that TOAT must have assumed or supposed or deduced, from the fact that Abd made the email conversation public, that Abd was playing to ArbCom ("..it was important for the record that it be visible...which explains why TOAT thinks I was "playing to ArbComm") is disingenuous at its very best. Woonpton (talk) 00:28, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Above, I acknowledge above that my putting up the mail was to establish the record for ArbComm. That can be represented as "playing to ArbComm." I did not recall having used those exact words, but the point is what they *mean*, not the words used. Construe it how you will. Sheesh! I really do need to stop looking at this. Off the watchlist, it had gotten on again from responding to Fritzpoll's question. --Abd (talk) 00:33, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

More disingenuity. You didn't deny it outright, you did worse than that; you insinuated, when TOAT claimed that you had openly acknowledged that your primary purpose in divulging the conversation was to play to ArbCom, that this was a conclusion TOAT had drawn from your action, implying that he may have simply drawn unwarranted inferences about your motivation from your action, rather than reporting something you had actually said. It was misleading enough that it fooled me; I was misled into wondering if maybe that's what had happened and that TOAT's version of events may have been overstated; that's why I asked him for the diff. Obviously his version of what happened was an exactly accurate representation of what happened; your insinuation that TOAT simply "thought" you were "playing to ArbCom" by divulging the conversation, was a misconstruction. Why you should be outraged by someone's pointing that out, is quite beyond me. Woonpton (talk) 01:15, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

The most thought-provoking part of Abd's response was "the point is what they *mean*, not the words used." One might assume that communication is aided by using words that correspond to the meaning one wishes to convey, but perhaps not.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

"The question is,'" said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

Excerpted from Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, chapter 6. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:38, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd, why are you still editing on the talk page? Ikip (talk) 03:26, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

TOAT's statement is incorrect. TOAT, you said, "He has since openly acknowledged that his primary purpose in contacting me was not to resolve the dispute, but simply to play to the ArbCom." No, Abd's purpose in emailing you was to ask you to intervene to influence WMC to change his behaviour, to save his admin bit. I'm quite confident that Abd was sincere in that, just as he was also sincere in trying to do the same for JzG. Abd is not treating people as problems or enemies, but asking for changes in behaviour to comply with policy for the good of the project. Abd may not have been convinced that he was wrong and you were right, but I don't see how that would in any way stop him from asking you to intervene; it was precisely because you had different POVs about the situation that he thought you had a chance of influencing WMC in a way he did not. Abd's later posting of his own email on-wiki was a separate act with a different purpose and his comment about not playing to the crowd but to Arbcom described that act, not the purpose of the email itself. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:51, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Neither the tenor of his email nor the plain wording of it suggested that he sought a mediator. Moreover, the content of his messages (on- and off-wiki) clearly indicated that he either had not read or had no interest in responding to the advice I had already given him regarding both his own conduct and how to have his ban lifted. What sort of definition of mediation includes entirely ignoring one's chosen mediator? It was only his post hoc on-wiki reinterpretation of his message – where he was "playing...to ArbCom" – that he announced (and simultaneously withdrew) his purported intent to seek mediation. I trust the ArbCom to be able to read and understand both the language and the context of Abd's email and on-wiki communication.

Incidentally, he claims in his email that "I'm trying to confine discussion to a few people who might be able to resolve this, most of it is off-wiki." Where are those messages in evidence, and what were their content? The attempt has been made to lay the entire failure of Abd's non-mediation request at my feet; he has been curiously silent about these other attempts made to resolve the dispute or seek mediation through any other individual. It seems remarkable that less than three hours after his initial post to my talk page Abd had to conclude that all of these (purported) efforts should fail, and that he should have to unilaterally declare that his page bans are void. What happened to – or in – these other discussions? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:09, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

By "mediat" I believe he meant the type of intervention I mention above that he was seeking. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 16:20, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

You can draw what inferences you will, TenOfAllTrades, but your statement about what Abd has "openly acknowledged" is incorrect and I suggest you strike it out. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:01, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Statement by ArbCom on scope of case required

User: GoRight has started adding material about a more than two year old disruptive sock puppeteer, User: Scibaby (and roughly 450 categorized socks). I find his material to be tendentious and misleading. However, countering it would require several hours that I'd much rather spend on my scientific work and real Misplaced Pages content. I urgently request that ArbCom indicates the scope of this case and in particular if material on Scibaby is appropriate. In general, I think ArbCom would do a service to the community by early clarification about the scope of a case and enforcement of same. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:46, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. It's highly interesting one "side" appears to want to muddy the waters by throwing unrelated issues into the equation. Minkythecat (talk) 13:33, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I can not speak for other arbs, but I do not intend to address issues related to the range blocks of Scibaby in this case. By my read, it is too peripheral to the main dispute. It is an important issue that is better discussed in other venues. I know that it is already happening in the appropriate venues because I've participated in the discussions and I don't see any value to us revisiting in this case now. As well, I support Newyorkbrad's comment on the workshop page that prolonged discussion focused on Scibaby is not wise. FloNight♥♥♥ 14:23, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:38, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I have asked for an injunction which will enjoin all parties to this case from further proposals in this vein. Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley/Workshop#Raul654 is not a party to this case. Until ArbCom considers this motion, I would urge parties and participants not to waste further time discussing these moot proposals. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:49, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Range blocks

(ec) Stephan Schulz said, ""Weigh the actual damage" - no, we need to weight the damage the socks would do if not controlled some way." Actually, we need to weigh both, of course, and choose the course of action that is expected to lead to the least total damage overall: but damage as evaluated by the community as a whole, not by users with strong feelings about global warming or who are editors of the global warming article, who might weigh the sock disruption as being either greater or less than its weight as would be determined by the community, depending on whether they agree or disagree with the edits. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 12:54, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

To clarify: My point is that the argument "Scibaby does not do much damage, therefore we don't need to deal with him/her" is akin to "few people catch polio, therefore we don't need to vaccinate", or "there is only a little crime, so let's get rid of the police". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:25, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Length of page / possible archiving

You've all probably noticed that the workshop is now well over 1 MB in size. It's getting to the point now that it is causing some accessibility problems for users (see User talk:Crohnie#Question to lurkers that are active in the arbcom case Abd/WMC). I've been reluctant to do much about it up until now due to the high activity of the page, however now that the case is beginning to come to a close something could probably be done to clear things up during the final stretch. I've talked with the other clerks and arbitrators, and one suggestion was to remove or archive proposals that are redundant or not useful. With your general consent, I'd like to start going through the workshop and moving those proposals which have little support to Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley/Workshop/Archive. I'll be sure to only archive those proposals that have very low support, and anything that does get archived can be brought back out if need be. Anything recently proposed (with the last week or so) will not be archived. Does this seem acceptable to everyone? (P.S., let's please avoid any accusations about why the page is this long, we've heard quite enough of those already) Hersfold 03:19, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I would further ask that parties or others not take it upon themselves to reduce page size as you might on the /Evidence page - it's important that this page remain easily accessible, and so any archiving or refactoring of this nature needs to be done in a standard manner. Thanks. Hersfold 03:21, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

No objections. An alternative that would be less work for you is simply to split the thing in half. (You could imaginatively call it "part 1" and "part 2".) But however you want to handle it is fine. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:27, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I want to keep the active proposals easily accessible and on the main page, so that people don't need to watchlist any more than they currently are. If this turns out to be an exercise in futility, though, that's Plan B. Hersfold 03:35, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd be a bit more comfortable with this if there was some further definition of the criteria for archiving. When you say 'not useful', what does that mean? Most of the new proposals regarding Raul are way out of scope for this case and should be archived, but they fail the 'in the last week or so' test. Does 'very low support' mean few comments in support, or lots of objections, or a personal rejection by one or more Arbs in private discussion, or what? How specific is the guidance given to you by the ArbCom? (I am concerned that the ArbCom has in general put you in an awkward place, Hersfold.)

Out of sympathy for our beleaguered clerk, I wonder if this restructuring might be coming a bit late, and if his efforts might better be spent elsewhere. I was under the impression based on the comments further up this page (and elsewhere) that this Arbitration is rapidly nearing the Proposed Decision stage, and that there isn't that much left to be added to the workshops. FloNight and Carcharoth's proposals have been up for six days, while Newyorkbrad and Stephen Bain's for more than a week. Are there actually any significant points left in dispute in the ArbCom's mind, and would our efforts be better spent if they could just tell us if there are gaps that they'd like the community to fill in for them?

One more thought — if the primary driver for this archiving is to reduce page length, perhaps the page could be split at a couple of points along its length, and then everything reintegrated by transclusion (as is done for RfA/AfD/etc.)? It would preserve the same look and feel for editors who can handle the full-length page (yes, we'd have to add the two or three subpages to our watchlists) and it would allow editors with lower-bandwidth internet connections and older browsers to review the discussion in more bite-sized chunks. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:30, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

This case does not need more evidence or workshopping; it needs a proposed decision to be posted and voted on. Hopefully that will be coming very soon. My thanks to everyone who has participated here, but at this point I, at least, have a good sense of what the case is about. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:41, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

@TOAT: Whenever I'm uncertain if something should go, I'll be sure to bring it here first for general comment, but for the most part I'll be looking for proposals with widespread objection amongst the parties, preferably where there is opposition from both "sides" of the dispute. I'll be paying particular attention to comments about why people feel the proposals are inappropriate, etc. The guidance I've gotten from ArbCom was simply the idea to handle things this way - the exact implementation I've described above is my own.

As I said before, I would prefer not to split the workshop into multiple active subpages to be transcluded as happens at AfD, as parties would need to watchlist multiple pages and it makes it more difficult to refer to other proposals. If this archiving plan doesn't work out as I expect, then that is the next option. Hersfold non-admin 18:04, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Truthfully, I much prefer Newyorkbrad's solution. We're at the point – well past it, actually – where we need Arbitrators to actually start making decisions about what is and is not in scope, and what will or will not be considered as part of their final decision. Further bickering among parties on the /Workshop, where they are left to guess about what the Arbs want to see, strikes me as very likely to be counterproductive. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:24, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

They are working on it, TOAT, or so I'm told. Please have some patience.

I was hoping to start the archiving today (Monday), but it's not going to happen; Tuesday is out as well as I'll be busy all day, and I'm not sure when I'm going to get to it on Wednesday. Plan B may, in fact, be in order anyway. Hersfold 03:49, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Trolling in and around the case

This is a general reminder to all involved that trolling and other personal attacks will not be tolerated in or around the case pages. Comments of such a nature posted to the case pages will be summarily removed, and those who post them may be subject to blocks. I understand that frustrations are coming to a head as the case draws to a slow and steady conclusion, however that is no excuse to not behave as you would elsewhere on the project. Thank you. Hersfold 03:43, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

PD is posted

Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley/Proposed decision Yay! Now quit whining. ;-D Hersfold non-admin 16:12, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll bet you Tower Bridge against a pack of chewing gum that your request will be wi(l)dly ignored... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:27, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The Proposed Decision is almost exactly what I expected a month ago. I should have taken bets then. ;-) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:50, 18 August 2009 (UTC)