Misplaced Pages

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

• Recuse Fred Bauder 20:53, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Ed Poor

Involved Parties

Party 1 (Initiators)

• Rob Church
• Nicholas Turnbull
• Phroziac
• The Uninvited Co., Inc.

Party 2

• Ed Poor

Third Parties

• Kim Bruning (Involved admin)
• Benjamin Gatti (Affected Third Party having a vested interest in the outcome)
• Tony Sidaway (talk · contribs)
• Xiong (affected -- as are we all)

Confirmation of Parties' Awareness

• Rob Church 01:54, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
• NicholasTurnbull 01:55, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
• Phroziac (talk) 02:05, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
• Benjamin Gatti 18:52, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

• Ed Poor has been made aware:
• Tony Sidaway became aware sometime in the 1950s; he is sitting up in bed listening to Radio 4.

Previous Dispute Resolution

Although several attempts have been made to resolve this issue (, , , ), none of them have been particularly successful. Ed Poor's deletion of the RfC page against him goes towards proving that he does not wish for any discussion in the matter.

• I agree that I cut off discussion, and that I was wrong to do so. I have undeleted / unarchived Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Deletion of VFD. Uncle Ed 15:47, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Nicholas Turnbull, Rob Church, Phroziac, and UninvitedCompany

Ed Poor is a very experienced Wikipedian, who has made an exceptional contribution to the project over the long period of time that he has been a Misplaced Pages contributor, and was consequently made an administrator (and indeed a "bureaucrat") by the community. He has been active in Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation, as well as in article editing.

Recently, he took the controversial action of speedy deleting Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion without consultation to the community or prior warning - that is, using the "delete" administrative function, not tagging it with {{delete}} for another administrator to delete the page. It is our opinion that, in his attempt to delete VfD, he nonetheless had a genuine belief that his actions were for the benefit of the community - however, it is not this particular action that we take issue with, as Misplaced Pages:Ignore all rules is an important part of our community, and such actions may be overlooked if they occur in isolation.

This page was restored by another administrator; however, the original action understandably caused consternation amongst some members of the community, and an RfC was drawn up by a number of Wikipedians to resolve the dispute. Sadly, pursuant to this event, Ed Poor has ignored the standard consensus on Misplaced Pages operations, and has not paid attention to feedback from the Misplaced Pages community as a whole about his conduct. He deleted the RfC, Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Deletion of VFD (archived version here) , on the purported grounds that it violated RfC policy; the double standard that he created by ignoring rules on one hand and enforcing the letter of them on the other is not acceptable. Another administrator restored this page; Ed deleted it for a second time. He unblocked himself () after he was blocked by a fellow administrator to provide breathing space for the dispute to settle. Ed Poor appears to have counted on his seniority and popularity to avoid discipline (, ), and thus seems to consider himself above the Misplaced Pages community in matters of action and procedure.

It is our opinion that Ed Poor has ignored the standard consensus on Misplaced Pages operations, and has not paid attention to feedback from the Misplaced Pages community as a whole about his conduct; he has consequently abused his administrator rights. This sets a poor precedent for the rest of the community, and threatens the entire spirit of collaboration and co-operation that Misplaced Pages is built on, and re-enforces the divide between administrators and users - creating an unpleasant double standard that must be avoided.

This statement is endorsed by the following:

• Rob Church 01:59, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
• NicholasTurnbull 01:57, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
• Phroziac (talk) 02:05, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
• The Uninvited Co., Inc. 18:53, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
• Uncle Ed 15:49, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Arbitrators please note: We have made a request to Ed Poor on his talk page for an online chat meeting to discuss our collective differences with a view to withdrawing this RfArb, depending upon agreement between the parties. --NicholasTurnbull 00:03, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

This request has been accepted and an IRC-based mediation conference has been arranged for 5:30PM EST (11:30PM BST (GMT+1)) on 5th August 2005. Parties in attendance will be:

• Rob Church
• Nicholas Turnbull
• Phroziac
• The Uninvited Co.
• Ed Poor

Rob Church 07:19, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

It was decided at the conference that negotiations would continue. We will advise the ArbCom when an attempt at mediation has been completed, and whether or not further action is needed. We also agree to post the logs of these meetings. Rob Church 13:59, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Further statement by UninvitedCompany

Ed Poor is a long-time colleague of mine here at Misplaced Pages and I am saddened both by the overall course of events and by the fact that I feel compelled to participate in this unfortunate case. I believe that this case has importance to the community far beyond Ed's own actions. It is a core principle of Misplaced Pages that the community is the ultimate authority. I find that Kim and Ed's actions in trying to suppress discussion by deleting the RFC are an effort to whitewash this whole event and the community's reaction to it. It is an attempt to undermine the community, and a clear effort to pull rank and give the community a PowerAnswer rather than to seek reconciliation through discussion, compromise, and consensus. It is, in a very real way, the antithesis of wiki.

While I am hardly one of the first Wikipedians, I have been told that I have somehow become part of the fabric of the place; I am sometimes called an old-timer. I am participating in this case to make a clear statement that even though I may be an old-timer, and part of the same "cabal" as Ed and the other senior admins and bureaucrats, that in actual fact There Is No Cabal -- nor should there be. I'm not going to stand by and let this case be characterized as an old hands vs. new hands matter. It's not. This case is about the fact that everyone around here still must answer to the community, no matter how much they've contributed, no matter how long they've been here, no matter what level of access they have earned, and no matter who their friends are.

Finally, I point out that troublesome behavior from Ed is not new. The matter of William Connolley's near-promotion to adminship and Ed's temporary de-sysopping of several admins earlier this year are similar examples. There are others. The Misplaced Pages community has forgiven (and indeed forgotten) a great deal already, and I believe that a response of "aw, shucks, I'm sorry and I promise not to do it again" falls well short of the mark.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 18:53, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Kim Bruning

The RfC in question was indeed not brought compliant to policy, Ed Poor's premature deletion of the page was actually due to an incorrect time conversion between EST and UTC. (That, and he should have let a neutral party do it, of course :-) ) This was corrected. After being quite thoroughly notified, the bringers of the RfC continued to fail to certify it, and the RfC was deleted at the due time.

I'd love to see IAR tested sometime, but I don't think this will be the case to do it :-) Kim Bruning 02:52, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Notes:

1. Though the RFC has been terminated, several users have moved it out of RFC space to circumvent RFC policy: . Up to arbcom to decide if that is a valid application of WP:IAR
2. Ed Poor created Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_deletion very early on to allow people to comment on his actions.
3. I was the blocking administrator, and actually talked with Ed on the phone! I won't be pleased if anyone holds it against him that he unblocked himself after that!

Statement by Ed Poor

Please limit your statement to 500 words.

Okay, I don't care whether this request is "proper" or not. People want a reckoning, and that they shall have.

I was wrong to delete vfd. As a professional database programmer, I should have realized that it would place a great strain on the database, due to its lengthy history being moved into the "deleted page" table. In other words, I should have anticipated the 5-minute read-only block I effectively put on this wiki. So I plead guilty to negligence.

Secondly, I was wrong to assume that my intuitive sense of consensus - (which was actually lacking rather than present) combined with a light-hearted attitude of Ignore All Rules and Be Bold - would be sufficient justification for blasting away at a problematic page (and system). I should have brought up the matter for discussion by creating a poll (as Angela correctly pointed out) or gone through similar channels. Misplaced Pages has become too big for anyone, however "beloved" (as I immodestly regard myself) or dedicated, to make such a major change as I tried to do.

I promise not to do this again - or anything like it. Specifically, I will not delete an important page or one with a lengthy edit history again unless there is clear community consensus for this. If I cannot determine consensus on my own, I will ask another admin for help. Someone like Uninvited Company would be my first choice.

If my promise is not enough, well you can always put me on "no delete" parole or even de-sysop me. I don't care: if becoming an Admin is not supposed to be a big deal, than un-becoming a one should be no big deal either. Uncle Ed 12:42, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

About the RFC

I mistook the "end date" of the RFC by 4 hours. I thought it was 1:08 P.M. my time, but it was actually 5:08 P.M. my time. I am 4 hours behind Greenwich UTC. I figured that, with only one person certifying, that the RFC could be deleted exactly at the 48-hour mark but I made two errors: (1) I miscomputed the expiration time - which, by the way, I had calculated myself, since the RFC opener had neglected to put it in. (2) I missed the unwritten rule that one does not delete an RFC concerning oneself.

I guess this is why Kim Bruning kept blocking my account and telling me not to shoot myself in the foot (or the leg) - apparently she was planning to delete the RFC herself at the appointed (and correctly calculated) hour. I had no idea of this.

As for unblocking myself, what can I say? Kim blocked me to further some plan of hers which she declined to share with me. I'm not going to arbitration with her on this, as she has already apologized to me. I figured that if an Admin (a) blocked me with no justification and (b) apologized for this, there was no need to embarass her by demanding she unblock me when (as an admin in good standing) I could simply remove the block myself. (She asked me on the phone, "Do you want me to unblock you?" I said that it didn't matter and kind of thought it comical, getting an expensive international phone call from an admin wanting to know if she should unblock me! :-) Uncle Ed 02:08, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

The point that you continue to miss, Ed, is that the RFC shouldn't have been deleted in the first place. Not at the end of howevermany hours, not by you, and not by anyone else. There was ongoing discussion, and whether or not the RFC rules against unsupported listings were complied with or not (and I believe they were, for reasons I am happy to elaborate upon if requested), there was no reason to delete an RFC that was serving as the focus of community discussion. The Vfu Discussion shows that the community was overwhelmingly opposed to deletion, with no actual votes supporting the deletion of the RFC (though Kim voted neutral and there was one vote that, though an "undelete," appeared to be made in sarcastic jest). It is your ongoing, unrepentant insistence that deleting a community discussion about a mistake you made is OK (or, equivalently, would have been OK after four more hours), that led me to support this case in the first place. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 02:28, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

It took me a while to see your point, but I now agree. The request for comment was intended to generate comments and was successfully doing so.

"...the double standard that he created by ignoring rules on one hand and enforcing the letter of them on the other is not acceptable." Wow, I had no idea. I'm glad I re-read this RFA carefully, because I completely missed that point the first few times. Maybe I should step down (or be removed) from adminship until I learn to stop doing this AntiPattern. Uncle Ed 15:19, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Kim Bruning's a guy. It's amusing that you did not notice that, after talking to him on the phone though. :D --Phroziac (talk) 17:40, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree that I should not have deleted the RFC. I am sorry that I deleted it, and sorry that I let Kim "close" it. I see now that the RFC page was serving a higher purpose that I should not have interfered with; or ignored; or allowed to be curtailed. Therefore I have put it back, even if this is 'too little, too late' (see Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Deletion of VFD). Uncle Ed 15:53, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Third Party Benjamin Gatti

Sanctioning Ed Poor in this case could have a chilling effect on contributers being bold in addressing problems. The Arbitration commitee should investigate the alledged harm present in the current deletion process and upon a finding of real harm, ought to propose a remedy therefore and thank Uncle Ed for raising the alarm. The technical issues related to deleting a page are matters beyond the jurisdiction of the arbcomm and ought to be rectified rather than blamed on the user. Misplaced Pages:Wikiblower protection has been proposed and should be adopted as the accepted conclusions of the committee. The Policy is fair to all users and turns on the facts rather than on the personalities involved. Ed Poor should not be sanctioned whether he agrees to it or not because of the effect on the community at large - Killing the messenger is never the solution. Benjamin Gatti 19:10, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Curious 3rd Party (~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ))

I think Ed Poor was deliberately demonstrating that the current system allows total abuse a.k.a. a cabal, in deleting VFD and then deleting any attempts to question this. Warnings from history are very important. ~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 21:23, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by 3rd party: Nickptar

I don't see the need to prosecute Ed for this single act. While it was very poorly thought out, Ed has admitted it, has promised not to do it again, and has shown no pattern of disruption. I do think he should voluntarily give up adminship until this cools down, then renominate himself. If he did choose to do so, I would fully support his readminning. ~~ N (t/c) 21:58, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Tony Sidaway

Oh for heaven's sake, who brought this poxy, pointless, idiotic case? Grow up! --Tony Sidaway 08:21, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Some comments on this statement have been moved to the appropriate place

Statement by Xiong

I don't doubt that there is an involved legal term, in bad Latin, that covers this case exactly. The facts of the matter are unimportant; the ostensible subject of this RfArb is petty, a constellation of secondary actions. The real subject is Ed's primary action: deleting VfD. That was a noble and bold act and has garnered much praise -- perhaps the largest number of barnstars awarded for any single click of the mouse. Ed has annoyed many, but these strong expressions of support -- as well as the following explosion of public debate on this contentious issue -- make it impossible to attack him directly.

Regardless of the technical merits of this case, any decision made here will be taken as condemnation or endorsement of Ed's primary action. I suggest that it is both wrong and unwise for ArbCom to commit to either. — Xiong熊talk* 20:10, 2005 August 7 (UTC)

Statement by a 4th party (Lubaf)

I'm not at all interested in this case (thus my 4th party status), but I'd suggest holding this case until Stevertigo's behavior on Vietnam war (see above) is resolved, as it's a much clearer case, and therefore, should give better contrast as to whether Ed's actions were innappropriate or not. Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 12:53, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Arbitrators' Opinions on Hearing this Matter (2/0/0/1)

• Accept Fred Bauder 19:02, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
• Reject Not sure yet - Ed not only says above "I was wrong," but explains how he was wrong. I'm not sure what penalty would make the encyclopedia better David Gerard 21:50, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Changed to 'not sure yet' after discussion with some of those bringing the RFAr. I think Kim's explanation helps explain the issues at hand (the RFC and the self-unblock), but I'd like to hear Ed's own words on the subjects. I'll consider further before a firm 'accept' or 'reject' - David Gerard 22:35, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
• Ed doesn't seem to have commented on the real issue here (as set out above). That is, the deletion of an RfC about himself and the unblocking of himself - I'd like to hear more on these before voting -- sannse (talk) 22:15, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Accept. Given Ed's response on my talk page , there seems a lack of agreement over these actions that I think needs looking at -- sannse (talk) 20:48, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Keetoowah

Involved parties

• User:TheoClarke (initiator)
• User:Keetoowah

Keetoowah is aggressively incivil towards other users including, but not limited to, the making of personal attacks.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Notification at User talk:Keetoowah of this entry.

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Keetoowah raised 15 February 2005 asserted that Keetoowah "makes violent personal attacks on other users." It received four direct endorsements in addition to the two editors certifying the dispute. Four other editors endorsed a harsher summary describing Keetoowah as "an obnoxious user". Keetoowah's response opened "Forget it. This is a Star Chamber. I'm not even going to participate. Waste of time." TheoClarke did not participate in this RFC.

Statement by party 1

TheoClarke believed Keetoowah to be pushing a POV at Ward Churchill and challenged this at Talk:Ward Churchill. Keetoowah responded with aggressive incivility. TheoClarke suggested that this was inappropriate. Keetoowah responded with more aggressive incivility including a suggestion that any UK national is unqualified to contribute to the Ward Churchill article. Keetoowah has displayed similar behaviour patterns towards other editors and shows no sign of ameliorating such behaviour. Given that these diffs may not be in full context, I feel that the best evidence would be a reading of Talk:Ward Churchill and its archives.

Statement by party 2

Please limit your statement to 500 words

Statement by User:Project2501a (interested third party)

You might also want to check out Talk: Condoleezza Rice concerning User:Keetoowah's behaviour. Project2501a 02:43, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

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

• Recuse Fred Bauder 11:35, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Germen

Involved parties

• Germen
• Axon

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

1. Listed page for RfC. .
2. Listed user for RfC

I am putting this up for RfA directly after RfC (see above) skipping mediation because, as was suggested to me, there is no real mediation process in place. Various attempts have already been made to compromise and mediate with Germen .

Statement by Axon

Germen has been blocked for edit warring and vandalism three times in the last two months, all in relation to the Islamophobia page and other Islam-related articles. He has also attempted to re-create deleted articles and disrupting Misplaced Pages to make a point by creating alternative pages for his POV all of which must be subsequently put up for VfDs in which Germen aggressively harrassses and contradicts voters that vote against him. He also makes bad faith remarks and edits about other editors because of their alleged religious beliefs (including the compilation of a list of muslims, probable and not, on his user page ).

Attempts at dispute resolution are fruitless as Germen ignores all RfCs and attempts to mediate the dispute, remains unapologetic for his behaviour, insisting on debating even basic Misplaced Pages policy on WP:VAND, WP:3RR, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR, rule-lawyering Misplaced Pages policy rather than working towards it's spirit, claiming his POV is NPOV , backing up his uncited assertions with original research and modifying loosely related pages with uncited information to back up his edits. This has resulted in the Islamophobia article being protected for a month without any progress being made on the talk page.

Other inappropriate behaviour includes possible use of sockpuppets to circumvent admin blocking and double-voting , continually marking reverts and controversial edits as minor and without edit comments despite several warnings, prematurely removing dispute tags , deleting legitimate comments from talk pages and even vandalising evidence and user's comments and signatures on his own RfC page .

Mediation

I'm sincerly prepared to give mediation a try but I'm now uncertain of Germen's sincerity in giving it a fair chance given that, since he did agree to mediation, he has subsequently made several uncivil and bad faith remarks about me here (borderline personal attack), here and here . -Axon (talk|contribs) 13:51, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

• Dab is acceptable: I agree. Axon (talk|contribs) 08:55, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Germen

On the page islamophobia there exists an editing conflict between two groups of people, one group consisting of Muslims and left-wing Muslim apologists of which Axon and BrandonYusufToropov are active proponents, and another group of people, to which I belong, which have a more critical POV about islam. Note also that this page has been on a VfD recently and that revert wars and edit wars are and were rampant, even before I became an active participant of the Misplaced Pages community.

Note that

• all complaints of user:Axon and user:BrandonYusufToropov regarding my edit behaviour retain to certain islam-related pages only, which are mostly POV, factually or totally disputed
• user:BrandonYusufToropov is well-known for the frequency in which he threatens with or actually files RfC/RfA requests against Sunni islam-critical users
• my Misplaced Pages efforts in other fields, like physics and agronomy are appreciated by other users
• many of the supposed breaches of Misplaced Pages policies are arbitrary or committed already long ago when I just started on Misplaced Pages
• the viewpoint of Axon and Brandon on my behaviour is a minority viewpoint
• I have attempted to break the deadlock by making a constructive proposal which has met by indignation and obstruction by user:Axon .
• I deny any double voting. I did vote only once at each page and I ask user:Axon to prove his accusations or to apologize.
• My supposed vandalisation of the signature page was the addition of an illuminating link about the way this user was recruited by Axon. I am a new user so I do not have so many friends here like Axon. If the idea is to make this a contest of popularity, I will probably lose. My only hope lies in neutral mediation.
• My evidence of the religious bias and motivation of many of the people who support the RfC against me is regarded as the ignorance of this RfC, which is an outright misrepresentation.
• user:Axon and user:BrandonYusufToropov refuse to discuss different viewpoints on their merits, but prefer to attempt to ban users in order to win. Legitimate cited primary and secondary sources are rejected as original research, subjective sources, such as defintions by the leftist 'think tank' Runnymede Trust are presented as universally valid.

According to my opinion and that of several other people, this RfA is an attempt of user:Axon and user:BrandonYusufToropov to avoid neutral mediation about the Islamophobia page and silence critics of their politically biased POV about islam. I would like to suggest to dismiss this RfA and request mediation instead on the Islamophobia article. I think Misplaced Pages should be a high-quality information source, not a playground for frustrated political activists or jihadis. --Germen (Talk | Contribs File:Nl small.gif) 10:42, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

on idea of mediation

• I agree. I think it will be difficult to find a user which subscribes to Axons viewpoint, so I suggest he lists a number of candidates which are acceptable to him. --Germen (Talk | Contribs File:Nl small.gif) 11:37, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
  • I have asked Dbachmann to mediate. While he condems some aspects of my behaviour, he agrees to some extent with my POV about islamophobia.--Germen (Talk | Contribs File:Nl small.gif) 13:24, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Dab has agreed to support us in mediation. I would like to ask Axon whether Dab is acceptible to him as a mediator.
• I still wholeheartedly support arbitration. The last-added bad-faith remarks of Axon seem not to indicate that he is in favour of arbitration. He interprets the statement of facts as a personal insult. Nevertheless, I would like to stress my willingness to cooperate to arbitration, as stated, and my eager awaital for impartial and fact-supported arbitration. I not want Axon to be banned from Misplaced Pages, as he wants with me, as manifest from this RfC and RfAr attempts in lieu of a negotiated settlement about the content of the Islamophobia page, of which I have been a proponent since the beginning. I believe in freedom of expression and am opposed to censorship. Whining about other users is kindergarten behaviour and I am not a child.
  • Axon accepted the mediator, we are in the process now. --Germen (Talk | Contribs File:Nl small.gif) 10:56, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

On Habaps comments

Habap has interfered on Axons request and is a co-signer of the RfC against me. As all people who monitor the edit and reversion history of the Islamophobia page can easily see, there are two parties involved which have a opposing view about the correct definition of islamophobia. Stating this is not slander, stating this is stating the fact. Besides I do not understand how being called Muslim or Muslim apologist amounts to slander. May be that Habap considers those two words as bad words themselves? In this case, I think he himself has a problem, not I. --Germen (Talk | Contribs File:Nl small.gif) 14:37, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

On Ril's comment

Ril as well as Habap signed the RfC against me and started a failed VfD attempt against "Religious Persecution by Muslims". Not satisfied with the obvious result, he started a new attempt less than 48 hours after the first attempt failed.. This attempt bombed as well with a 3 versus 20 against-delete vote.

I encountered a series of highly POV articles about islam-related subjects -not only in my opinion, but as well in the opinion of a number of users who have advanced knowledge about islam- , so I decided to join in and help to make them more NPOV. Originally there existed only an article about "Persecution of Muslims". For the record, I did vote in favour of this article. In order to make this article more balanced, there should be a counterweight, which was originally named "Persecution of non-Muslims", but on Mustafaa's suggestion renamed to "Religious Persecution by Muslims". This article survived the usual VfD vote of islam-critical articles by Muslim apologists. I have cooperated constructively with several authors, Muslims as well as non-Muslims in order to make this article well-sourced, as less as POV as possible and make the POV of mainstream and progressive Muslims be heard. See Talk Page.

On Zeno's comment

Zeno did not sign the RfC in favour of or against me. I agree to a large extent with his analysis about Axon's behaviour and the state of affairs at the Islamophobia article.

On Saduj's comment

Obviously a joke, indeed. As the Misplaced Pages community is not a Muslim-controlled territory or entity, even per fundamentalist Muslim standards invoking the Shari'ah in this case is not applicable. A fundamentalist Muslim would never make this mistake. Agreed with Heraclius that it is funny.

General

I deplore the loss of administrator time due to this unnecessary RfC and RfAr filings against me, while a mediation effort about islamophobia would be in place. I would like to stress that I am an defendant and not responsible for this waste of time, I cannot do but defend myself against unfair charges.

Statement by Habap (interested third party)

I take issue with several of Germen's comments here.

• His statement that "editing conflict between two groups of people, one group consisting of Muslims and left-wing Muslim apologists" is an apparent attempt to slander anyone who opposes him.
• He states that "the viewpoint of Axon and Brandon on my behaviour is a minority viewpoint", which is inaccurate. If we insist on looking at the numbers, more than half (I hesitate to state "most") of those signing some part of the RfC seem to share Axon's viewpoint.
• His reference to his "supposed vandalisation of the signature page" is an attempt to miminize his breach of ettiquette. While his intentions may not have been vandalous, the action itself was vandalism. It should also be noted that I didn't know Axon before this and have never collaborated with him before. Axon asked me to look things over since I seemed to agree with him, not because I am his friend.

Thanks for your time. --Habap 14:28, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Saduj (interested third party)

Since this is a Islamic related arguement, Sharia law should apply. How can someone who is not a Muslim write about an Islamic page? It is haram. Statements which reflect poorly on Islam should be forbidden to be written as they are insensitive to Muslims. Arbiration should be decided by a male Muslim. Saduj al-Dahij 19:45, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Note that Saduj is a new editor and is probably not what he pretends to be. Having interacted with many devout (sometimes infuriatingly so) Muslims in the course of working on some of the Islamic articles, I believe that Saduj is an anti-Muslim editor presenting a malicious parody of a devout Muslim. His comments should not be taken as anything other than those of an "agent provocateur". Zora 01:16, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

He is actually quite funny.Heraclius 06:29, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Statement by -Ril- (interested third party)

Germen seems to be trying to push a "Muslims are evil" POV. For example, he/she created the "Prejudices (Islam)" article, which was VFD'd, and then recreated it as the "Islamophilia" article, so as to suggest that supporting Islam was somehow a dubious behaviour, and so that it could have "counter arguments" to supporting Islam. The article was deleted. Subsequently Germen created the "persecution of non-muslims" article, seemingly to cast islam in a negative light once again. This having been VFD'd, he/she created a series of articles "Religious persecution by X", the articles were all paper-thin, except the Islam" one, which Germen added to extensively, suggesting that the only purpose of creating the series was to suggest that Islam is substantially more persecutory than the others. This POV pushing is quite unacceptable, and his/her behaviour indicates that without a ruling by the arbitration committee, Germen has no intention, or inclination, to stop. ~~~~ 18:02, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

In fairness to Germen, he only started the Religious Persecution by Muslims article. I took this idea and intended to make a series from it. --Irishpunktom\ 21:42, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Zeno (interested third party)

Axon's editing activities on the Islamophobia article are static and unresponsive to change, are not affected by the rational discourse of others and do not influence them. His edits are irrational, and he makes no attempt to confront the intellectual challenges posed against them. Axons rejects out of hand any criticisms of his rigid insistence of using the ridiculous and arbitrary definition of "Islamaphobia" pushed by the Runnymede Trust, a left-wing, Muslim funded, political lobbying group. Axon's editing activities on the article are aggresively geared towards a political agenda. --Zeno of Elea 00:44, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Agree the istance on using the Runnymede Trust definition paralyses the article because per that definition any negative or skeptical opinion about Islam/Muslims is "Islamophobia", and thus racist. The net result is that this overly board definition is used to brand critics of Islam as "Islamophobic" therby stifling debate, and creating a chilling effect.

As the Runnymede Trust is in the buisness of fighting racism, it makes sense to have test criterion that finds lots of racists. Axon/BYT, are the only people maintaining that there is any controvesy about the RT definition being overly broad. Everyone else working on the article prefers to use a working defintion along the lines of Islamophobia a prejudice, irrational fear, or hatered of Muslims or Islam.Klonimus 04:10, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (2/2/0/0)

• Accept - this is borderline, but it's a real dispute and we don't have anything like a reliable mediation team to refer it to. Unless Germen can find a mediator acceptable to Axon real quick - David Gerard 11:15, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
  • I have just been speaking to Axon in IRC, and he would be amenable to mediation if we can find a suitable mediator even at this late stage, so we can all work with each other and get on with writing an encyclopedia - David Gerard 11:23, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Note: I mean Germen finding one or some, as he has said it's amenable to mediation - David Gerard 12:57, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
      • //DELETE Contacted and waiting for his reply. UPDATE: Axon and I both agreed to the mediation attempt and mediator and are in the proces of mediation by Dab.--Germen (Talk | Contribs File:Nl small.gif) 13:26, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
• Accept Fred Bauder 21:34, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
• Reject. I skimmed the article and saw Germen's well referenced additions being reverted on sight . We shouldn't be getting involved in content issues, and I think this needs to spend more time in the rest of the dispute resolution process. →Raul654 21:54, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
• Reject on the basis that mediation is being attempted -- sannse (talk) 22:51, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Requests for Clarification

If you need to clarify the precise meaning of a previous decision of the Arbitration Committee, your request should go here.

Iasson and User:Bank of Misplaced Pages (and reincarnations)

Iasson is currently subject to a ban of 1 year or 1 year and 3 months following an arbitration case, see Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Iasson. At WP:AN/I it has apparently been confirmed that User:Bank of Misplaced Pages and associated reincarnations are Iasson, if this is true then it is clearly in violation of the ban.

There is no mention in the arbitration pages of whether the ban should be reset (as it does in other arbcom judgments) if it is violated. It is also unclear whether the two bans imposed were to run consecutively or concurrently. Please could you therefore answer the following questions:

• What is the length of Iasson's ban? 12 months (bans run concurrently) or 15 months (bans run consecutively).
• If it is proven that he is in violation of the ban, can it be reset or should some other action be taken?

Thanks, Thryduulf 19:26, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

• One year is our usual maximum ban. In this case I would say the bans run concurrently to the maximum year. If Iasson is evading the ban by editing under another account the ban is reset. I don't think we have a specific page for noting this, I would suggest doing so on his user page. -- sannse (talk) 19:14, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
• Actually, in this case, I very much disagree with sannse. In the past (in a Lir case, and the Shorne-et-al case) we established precedent that bans run consecutively. →Raul654 07:32, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Archive

• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Completed requests
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Rejected requests (unofficial)