Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Elonka

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In order to remain listed at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 21:15, 1 August 2008 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 14:34, 28 December 2024 (UTC).

Elonka (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse. Consequently the circularity of "disendorsements" is strongly discouraged. They mess up the proceedings, bring us closer to the dreaded chaos of threaded discussion, dissolve logic, and, well, are undesirable. See guidelines. . I have moved the "disendorsements" of Shell Kinney's and Mathsci's comments to the talkpage. Feel free to indicate disagreement with any posted view on the main page, but please do it by writing a view of your own, however brief. Use positive endorsements only. Bishonen | talk 08:39, 3 August 2008 (UTC).

Statement of the dispute

Cause of concern

I have a high regard for Elonka as a prolific and committed editor; she has contributed a great deal to the project. However, I believe that Elonka has displayed erratic judgment as an administrator, engaging in selective management of editing conditions, a highly aggressive, authoritarian approach, a lack of responsiveness to feedback, a failure to deal with poor quality editing, and a complete refusal to acknowledge the importance of quality control in articles. I have encounted this personally on an article that I have been editing. Comments left on my talk page and those of other editors suggest that similar problems exist with other articles with which she has been involved.

I have started this RfC with considerable regret; in four years as an admin, I've never had to start an RfC involving a fellow admin, but Elonka's mismanagement of basic policy issues is deeply worrying. Her inadequate responsiveness to feedback - failing to respond satisfactorily or at all to e-mail correspondence and talk page messages - leaves no choice but to seek wider community feedback. I would like to emphasize that I do not support suggestions that I have heard that Elonka should be desysopped. My concerns are over her judgment in the specific area of managing editing conditions, not her general conduct as an administrator. I believe the solution lies in her recognising that there are problems with her approach and dealing with that, whether by modifying her approach or standing aside and letting (an)other administrator(s) take over the management of her editing conditions.

Although she will no doubt argue that I am merely trying to get back at her for her recent actions, that isn't certainly isn't the case. I might otherwise have put this down to a simple personality clash. However, I have received a considerable amount of feedback over the past few weeks which convinces me that there is a serious, systemic issue here. I have heard the same comments repeatedly and even the exact same words from different people - "erratic", "authoritarian", "poor judgment" and so on - which chimes with my own experiences.

I hadn't encountered Elonka before last month so I didn't have any preconceptions of her, but there seem to be widespread concerns about her approach. I believe that needs to be aired and dealt with for the good of the project. Because of this concern, I decided that an RfC was the most appropriate place to deal with the issue. I had originally intended to raise this on the arbitration enforcement noticeboard but that would not be an appropriate place to deal with an apparently systemic issue across multiple articles, some of which I believe are not currently subject to past arbitrations. (Needless to say, that is not forum shopping; it's finding the appropriate place to raise a complex issue in a formal setting.)

I have no doubt that she's acting in good faith. The problem is not her willingness to do good but the poor judgment she has shown. This dispute centres specifically on her management of the editing conditions which she has imposed on a number of articles. I have provided a number of concrete examples below relating to my own interactions with her and welcome any feedback on whether, as I have reason to believe, this is a wider problem. I want to emphasize that I am not seeking to overturn her actions, though if the community decides that is necessary I would of course welcome that. I have raised this RfC not to dispute specific decisions made by Elonka, but to highlight what I see as possibly systemic flaws in her approach.

I accept that as a relatively new admin (since December 2007) Elonka may not have as much experience in administrative tasks as those of us who have been around for considerably longer. However, her conduct suggests a systemic problem with her approach to contentious articles, and it is actively impeding the development of the encyclopedia. I understand that Elonka has some prior experience of managing online forums. I wonder if this might actually be part of the problem - there may be an element of culture conflict. WP is not an online forum; it's a project to create a high-quality encyclopedia. Our work as contributors has to be directed towards that goal. That means being serious about fact-checking, reviewing sources and good writing. Unfortunately Elonka seems to have lost sight of that approach and is actively penalising such work and is driving away contributors as a result. I note that Elonka's path to adminship was somewhat controversial (RFA 1, RFA 2, RFA 3); frankly, some of the RFA "oppose" comments chime with what I'm perceiving now.

Desired outcome

I hope Elonka takes the opportunity to respond to the concerns that are raised here and modify her approach to these issues; or if not, agree to desist from managing articles and concentrate on other areas of administration where she can make a more useful contribution.

Description

I have recently been systematically rewriting Muhammad al-Durrah, an article that was in generally poor condition and was the subject of repeated edit-warring. Over the past five years, I've specialised somewhat in rewriting contentious articles from scratch, focusing on expanding content with improved sourcing, creating coherent frameworks for articles and providing accurate, neutral wording. I have a string of featured articles, good articles and DYKs plus tens of thousands of edits to my name, so by any standards my contributions are recognised as being of a very high quality. My most recent work on the article was prompted by Elonka herself calling for editors to "get the article into a proper state" .

In June this year, Elonka stepped in to impose a set of editing conditions under WP:ARBPIA. The conditions, which are her own work and not specifically endorsed by the ArbCom or the community, are for the most part reasonably well intentioned. The issue has been with her management of these conditions. The basic problem is that the editing conditions are being thoughtlessly and aggressively managed, with a rigid application of 0RR being prioritised above maintaining NPOV and basic factual accuracy, and are being enforced erratically and selectively. In short, it is a poorly thought-out and poorly handled approach.

The crux of the problem has been a number of edits made by Tundrabuggy (talk · contribs), an editor who signed up on 28 May 2008, shortly after a major news event related to this article, and has since focused heavily on the article - not quite an SPA, but close to it. In early June he was topic-banned from the article for three months by MZMcBride and unbanned after a week by Elonka.

Some of his edits have been highly problematic, including POV deletions of content, making basic factual errors by misrepresenting or misreading sources, and simple bad writing. Elonka has not only failed to deal with these problems, she has refused even to acknowledge them. She has reacted harshly to work on basic quality control issues, even penalising it. These repeated errors of judgment have made it increasingly difficult to work on the article without triggering a hostile reaction from Elonka. They also send a disastrously wrong message to other editors - that poor-quality editing will be tolerated without any response or counseling, but work to resolve problematic content will be penalised.

I should note that Elonka has certainly responded to some issues with some editors (e.g. ). However, one of the key issues that I raise below is that her enforcement of her editing conditions has been erratic, selective and inconsistent with some of her own rules. I have quite literally added more content and made more edits to the article than any other editor (see editing history from July 15th to present). Unfortunately that has meant that I have been disproportionately at risk from her management of the article.

My working method is generally to do much of my editing offline in a text editor, then paste it into the browser. When working systematically through an article, I edit it a section at a time. If I see something that simply doesn't belong in an article, I remove it with an explanation. If I see something that is out of place, dubiously sourced or factually inaccurate, I cut it out, review the source, if necessary reword it offline to make sure it reflects the source, then add it back to an appropriate section. I flag this up with an explanation in the edit summary (and talk page if necessary). An edit in which I did precisely this , with clear follow-up explanations and Elonka's response to it , before I was able to complete the cycle of adding the material back to the article, is one of the key points of contention here.

Evidence of disputed behavior

1. Selective enforcement of editing restrictions. On July 24th, Tundrabuggy removed a statement concerning an individual's qualifications that was sourced to a major Australian newspaper, with no edit summary and no attempt to change or reword it or to move it within the article as required by Elonka's editing conditions . He made it clear on the talk page that he had done so because he thinks the reporter "is considered by some to be highly biased " and therefore is an unreliable source. I restored the deleted material and notified Elonka of the violation . She not only refused to acknowledge the violation but warned me after I restored the deleted content.. As another editor described it sarcastically, "removing sourced and relevant content previously added by another editor simply because you don't like the journalist involved is not a revert, but by implication returning that legitimate material to the page is a a revert and is not allowed. Starting a debate on a talk page trying to get that same journalist effectively blacklisted as a source does not elicit any comment, whereas pointing out basic WP policies brings threats of blocks." No action was taken - not even a warning - concerning Tundrabuggy's clear violation of her restrictions. The contrast with the incident described under point 3 is obvious.

2. Erratic application of editing conditions and inappropriate aggressive behaviour. On July 25th, Tundrabuggy added a sourced statement to the article concerning what he described as a report presented in November 2000. I checked the source and found that it was actually a presentation of February 2005 and made no claim to be the report published 5 years previously. This was a basic factual error. As Elonka's conditions specifically state that if something is added "is obviously troublesome (such as very biased or potentially untrue), it can be deleted on the spot. Please use a clear edit summary such as "removing unsourced information, see talkpage")." I followed these instructions to the letter in removing the erroneous material and posted a message to the talk page about the issue , stating that I would work a revised version of the material into a later part of the article. In response, Elonka posted an ultimatum to my talk page demanding that I act right now, requiring an instant response or be banned . I complied under duress and hurriedly made the edit that I had already said I would make anyway. She refused to acknowledge any issue with the basic factual error that I spotted. She also did not respond to my pointing out that her own editing conditions permitted the removal of erroneous material.

3. Further inappropriate aggressive behaviour and poor judgment. Between July 26-28th, Tundrabuggy and four other editors made a total of 23 edits to the article, making a significant number of changes. I regarded a couple of those changes as problematic and reworked some poor wording. The edit was not a revert, but a modification of a complex series of edits (compare before and after: ). One edit concerned the removal of a sourced (but POV-worded) line in an anachronistic context. Again, I said that I would work it into a later section of the article as soon as I'd checked it out and explained the reasons on the article talk page and Elonka's talk page. As explained above, this is my standard working method and given Tundrabuggy's earlier misreading of sources, I wanted to be sure that it was factually accurate. I noted in response to a separate comment by Elonka that I was systematically checking sources and replacing low-quality ones with high-quality ones where possible, without altering the points that the sources were making. In response, Elonka banned me from the article for a month without responding to any of the issues I raised and added a new retrospective editing condition, apparently to protect her own back. She has made it clear that this is a response to "today's actions" in editing the article, misrepresenting my statement that I would be replacing sources (see point 5, below) and also citing in justification her previous error of judgment concerning my correction of Tundrabuggy's factual error. She further characterised my edit as a quasi-revert, apparently inventing some sort of new Schrödinger's cat-style intermediate between a revert and not-a-revert. This kind of arbitrariness makes it impossible to judge what she will consider a violation of her conditions.

4. Non-responsiveness. As already noted, Elonka has a repeated pattern of non-responsiveness to issues raised concerning her actions. This has been manifested on the article talk page, on my talk page and on her talk page. (It's perhaps relevant that at the time of writing the very first topic on her talk page is a complaint about her non-responsiveness and others have said very similar things ). In my experience she has also refused to review her own actions or respond adequately (or sometimes at all) to clearly stated concerns. There has been no attempt at compromise, no attempt to understand the other person's point of view (and little apparent interest in soliciting it), and no willingness to engage in productive dialogue. In short, she doesn't seem to listen or respond substantively if her judgment is questioned. This is not a good trait in an administrator.

5. Disregard for good-faith editing and quality assurance. I am frankly alarmed that Elonka has displayed a disregard for my good-faith actions in improving the article and systematically addressing quality issues. She characterises my work in checking sources and replacing low-quality ones as a bad thing: "you are planning to further ignore the conditions and continue to remove other sources." Note the mischaracterisation - I spoke of replacing sources, substituting low-quality ones for high-quality ones, not removing them - and the total failure to recognise that finding high-quality sources is required by Misplaced Pages:Verifiability, one of Misplaced Pages's core content policies. She asserts: "You do not have the right to remove sources until you personally review them and decide how to incorporate them into the article" . This is utterly wrong; every editor has that right, indeed that responsibility, since reliable sourcing and neutral wording are basic policy requirements. In short, she is placing her own editing conditions above our most basic core policies. I have been an editor for five years and an admin for four, and in all that time I've never come across an admin so aggressively clueless about article improvement. To put it bluntly, I know what I'm doing in rewriting articles; it's something I specialise in, and indeed my ability in doing so was a large part of the reason that I was nominated for adminship in the first place. Apparently that counts for nothing with Elonka.

6. Elonka's actions are actively harming the development of the encyclopedia. As a direct result of her actions, other well-established editors are being driven away and deterred from contributing to the article. ,. A mediation has also effectively failed because most of the editors involved have given up on the article following Elonka's intervention. Although I have stuck it out longer than most, I have to admit that I'm uncertain whether there is any point in continuing while Elonka is involved.

7. Similar problems on other articles. Elonka has also been involved in a number of other articles where she has either imposed editing conditions identical to those on the Al-Durrah article, or has been seeking to manage user conduct. These include Quackwatch and Race and intelligence. Similar concerns have been expressed there by editors concerning non-responsiveness and a lack of consistency in applying the edit conditions (e.g. ).

Applicable policies and guidelines

{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

(provide diffs and links)

I have contacted Elonka by e-mail to discuss my concerns privately but have received no satisfactory response, and no response at all to my most recent e-mail.
I have also responded in detail to issues that she and others have raised, but this has produced little or no dialogue other than followup ultimatums, arbitrary penalties and comments that amount to "do what I say". (no response); (Elonka's response)
User:Ned Scott seems to have made an attempt to discuss this matter with User:Elonka: Provided by Jehochman

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

ChrisO (talk) 22:24, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
~~ScienceApologist (talk) 23:27, 1 August 2008~~

Note that there has been consensus that any dispute SA has with Elonka is not the same as the dispute Elonka and ChrisO have. Hence, I'm striking this certification. Wizardman 02:25, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

In the interests of transparency, can we see a diff for the discussion establishing this consensus? --Badger Drink (talk) 03:09, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
See this rfc's talk page and the links therein. — Rlevse • Talk • 03:10, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
It seems clear that the strategy that Elonka is taking here is hoping to not be able to get two certifications and get the whole RFC erased. Be that as it may, instead of merely striking the certification, at the very least SA's signing here should be seen as an endorsement and included below. DreamGuy (talk) 19:53, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
These are the same concerns that I brought up on ChrisO's talk page when he got ~~blocked~~ banned by Elonka. I've been following the resulting discussions for a bit, and while I haven't really commented on the situation much, I find myself agreeing with Chris's assessment of the situation. I attempted to raise the concerns on her restrictions both on ChrisO's talk page, and on the request for Arb clarification. Like Chris said above, this is not an attack on Elonka, or even her general admin activity. I am reluctant to certify this since I was once in an arbcom dispute with Elonka, and would rather avoid leaving bad impressions. However, an RfC about this does seem like a reasonable next step. -- Ned Scott 05:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this summary

PhilKnight (talk) 23:27, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Badger Drink (talk) 23:47, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Shot info (talk) 05:50, 2 August 2008 (UTC) Elonka is forcing her own interpretation of policy onto the Community, then artibarily enforcing it, mainly by hyping up supposed breaches of her own rules, while ignoring similar breaches by those who agree with her POV. Her hounding of SA is amazing, and her failure to engage in any dispute resolution brings us here. It should be noted that many opposes in her 3rd RFA pointed out the various failures that we are seeing here today. I guess it will be off to RfArb if this attempt to engage in dispute resolution is just sweep under the carpet (ie/ by being seen as "forum shopping" - people we have DR for a reason). It's time for Elonka to realise that she cannot remake Misplaced Pages into her own image.
Relata refero (disp.) 07:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC) Elonka completely and utterly misses the point here. You don't impose 0RR on articles being attacked by WP:FRINGE advocates. You simply dont. It is the most pointlessly counter-productive action I can think of in terms of quality. Someone please tell her to stay the hell away from articles with special needs.
Skinwalker (talk) 11:55, 2 August 2008 (UTC) This deserves its own section with diffs, but I have been horrified by Elonka's behavior at Quackwatch, which closely resembles what ChrisO describes on a different area. She imposed 0RR, threatened and blocked pro-science editors, and coached pro-fringe editors on how to get their desired result. She, Seicer, and GRBerry (by their own admission) have been colluding off-site to coordinate administrative action on FRINGE articles. I find this to be highly questionable and against the open spirit of Misplaced Pages. Skinwalker (talk) 11:55, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Nickhh (talk) 14:39, 2 August 2008 (UTC). As an editor involved in the article recently I repeat my concerns about the restrictions that have been unilaterally imposed on there (and, it would seem, elsewhere). Elonka's rules are intended to stop edit-warring, and in principle of course that can only be a good thing. I also appreciate what a thankless task it is to try to calm down some of the disputes which flare up on I-P pages. However as I have pointed out elsewhere, good editing generally can be pretty ruthless at times, and will involve re-writes, deletions and reversion of poor material where appropriate. The situation on the al-Durrah article is not some content dispute, or one where we have two opposing POVs of relatively equal merit fighting it out - it is about fundamental WP policies relating to reliable sourcing and neutrality. We had a slew of editors at one point more or less trying to re-write the article (and it was bad enough already), seemingly for nationalistic or political reasons, to back up a fringe viewpoint that the boy's death was a hoax or staged in some way as part of some conspiracy to demonise Israel. Other editors, myself and Chris included, have made attempts to simply ensure instead that the article reflects with some degree of balance what mainstream reliable sources currently say about the case. As far as I know none of those editors has any vested interest in what happened, or even much of a view either way. You can't treat both of the "sides" here as if they are equivalent in where they are coming from, they are not. Equally imposing a comprehensive ban on reverts and asking people instead to add contrasting material where they see any problems will merely lead to a bloated and incoherent mess of an article. Do we really want pages here to read "Some people say the moon is made of cream cheese, while others say it is not. Those who say the former have been accused of not understanding the evidence, while those who say that about them have been accused of believing everything they are told by their government". I have pointed out the problems directly to Elonka on several occasions, eg on my talk page, her talk page and Chris' talk page. I'm sure I've raised the problem on the article talk page as well. And not only do I disagree with the conditions imposed, but they are not always even being applied consistently, as documented by Chris above. I know that some pages need fairly harsh admin action sometimes, but at the same time the key presumption on Misplaced Pages is that articles are open for editing, including reverts. If someone makes a poor edit one way or the other, that (hopefully) will get sorted out. It can't be up to one individual editor to put that fundamental principle on hold indefinitely, even on difficult articles, and then to bar another editor - who is simply trying to uphold other basic WP policies - from the page for perceived breaches of the unilaterally imposed rule that has suspended that principle. It seems to me that this sort of action represents the antithesis of what this project is meant to stand for.
DreamGuy (talk) 21:11, 2 August 2008 (UTC) The specific article controversy ChrisO is talking about would need to be looked at in great detail to determine if his overall summary is accurate, but certainly individual claims he has made appear to be accurate and reflect what I've seen of Elonka's editing behavior in general. Furthermore, the Quackwatch example, while a mere footnote in ChrisO's description, shows very obvious problems in Elonka's editing behavior and priorities. I fully endorse the section about the Quackwatch problem and would argue that Elonka does not at all count as a non-nuetral editor, as required by the ArbCom decision she claims justifies her drastic actions. Good faith editing would require her to withdraw herself from such radical enforcement methods considering that her actions have been rightly questioned. She should remove herself from the situation instead of digging a trench. Her actions have clearly escalated the problem, not helped.
<eleland/talkedits> 22:44, 2 August 2008 (UTC) Two points: First, I have absolutely no reason to believe that Elonka is acting in bad faith. She is clearly trying to further the goals of the WP, by her own lights. In a way, I admire her resolve to take controversial enforcement actions. Second, the key phrase here is "aggressively clueless." Elonka has operated in this matter with a kind of fundamentalist agnosticism - if there is such a thing - insisting that POV-pushing, nonsensical, source-misrepresenting edits be treated with near-reverence, as if all claims in this article are equally valid. It's disturbing. <eleland/talkedits> 22:44, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Relata refero is correct. 0RR for editors is dubious at best: 0RR for pages simply doesn't work. I also agree with Eleland. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 12:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Responses

Response by Elonka

This is just more forum-shopping by ChrisO. Though he's an excellent editor in many other parts of Misplaced Pages, when it comes to Israel-Palestine issues, he sometimes gets overly-focused on a topic, to the point where he starts pushing a POV and treating other editors with disrespect. I have been helping out as an uninvolved admin at Muhammad al-Durrah since early June, and have issued a series of cautions and page bans to several editors there, not just ChrisO, in a (successful) attempt to stabilize the article and get it out of its chronic state of edit-warring. In ChrisO's case, though he was being clearly disruptive, he is also a longterm Wikipedian, so I proceeded with great caution in how I handled things. After a long series of warnings (see details below), I temporarily banned him from the article, 6/15 - 7/15. He started wiki-lawyering up a storm, and filed a formal appeal at ArbCom, but they backed my restrictions. When his ban was up, he came back to the article, was a good editor for about a week, and then started disrupting again, calling other editors "trolls", phrasing a BLP subject as "blowing goats", removing reliable sources from the article, and reverting sourced edits. So, I sent a bunch more warnings his way, and when he continued to ignore/defy them, I again asked him to avoid editing the article for another month. The wiki-lawyering started up again, as he has been sending multiple messages to me both on- and off-wiki. However, they aren't getting me to change my mind. So since I'm not budging, and his appeal was rejected by ArbCom last time, he is now choosing a different forum, with a User Conduct RfC on me. Based on the threats I'm seeing in his emails, if this doesn't work, his next tactic is to try and get me de-sysopped. In my opinion, this is ChrisO throwing up a huge fuss, for a very minor thing. I didn't block him, I just asked him to avoid editing one article for one month. He can still participate at talk, he can still participate at mediation, he can even work on a draft version of the article in his userspace. But that's not enough for him, he wants his pound of flesh, so, here we are, wasting more community time.

Template:Hat1

Being an administrator is a thankless job. Especially when dealing with disputes, no matter what action that an admin takes, someone is probably going to be unhappy. When an admin imposes a block, it is very rare for the blockee to say, "Thanks admin, I really needed to be blocked!" Instead, blockees usually respond with anger, and accusations that the admin is biased, corrupt, or incompetent. Things get more complex when imposing restrictions on established editors. It's one thing for an admin to deal with a vandal. It's another for an admin to impose restrictions on a longstanding member of the community. In those cases, the blockee usually has extensive knowledge of wiki-procedures, so knows exactly how to appeal any actions that are taken. But ultimately the complaints usually boil down to the same accusations as made by a newer blockee: Unhappiness at restrictions, and accusations (though more eloquent) of bias, corruption, or incompetence.

That seems to be the case with ChrisO, when I placed restrictions on him for disruptive behavior at the Muhammad al-Durrah article. ChrisO is a longterm member of the community, and has been an administrator himself since 2004, nominated by Wik (talk · contribs). Obtaining adminship was a much simpler process back then! But along with his years of experience, ChrisO has used his knowledge not just for the betterment of the wiki, but also to become an expert wiki-lawyer when pushing his own POV. When ChrisO is heavily involved in a topic, he uses every wiki-mechanism that he can think of, to support his cause. Since I've been dealing with him in early June, he has sent me numerous threatening messages, filed an RfAr appeal, and now has chosen to file a User Conduct RfC on me. And for what? Because I dared to ask him to avoid editing one (1) article for a month. He's still allowed to participate at the talkpage and to work on a version of the article in his userspace. But rather than just find something else to do among the 2+ million other articles on Misplaced Pages, ChrisO is again filing a major appeal.

So, though I have great respect for the community processes on Misplaced Pages, I find it difficult to take this RfC seriously. In my view, it is just one more way that ChrisO is forum-shopping, and disrupting the community in order to get his own way.

As background on this, the Muhammad al-Durrah article has been in a state of dispute for a long time. Part of the problem was that ChrisO, an administrator who is heavily involved in the dispute, was himself being disruptive, being uncivil, edit-warring, and misusing his admin access to warn his opponents and threaten ArbCom sanctions on them. Per WP:UNINVOLVED, administrators are only supposed to use their tools and access in situations where they are not involved in the dispute. However, ChrisO has violated this multiple times. Even recently, he threatened that he was going to continue to edit war at the Muhammad al-Durrah article, "as an admin".

I first heard about the dispute via ANI in early June, because ChrisO was begging for help from other uninvolved admins. But as I came in with "fresh eyes", it became clear that one of the key individuals causing disruption, was ChrisO himself. Other editors were disruptive as well, and I did my best to warn all of them equally (see below). Per the discretionary sanctions authorized by WP:ARBPIA, I placed some conditions for editing on the article, such as 0RR (no reverts). However, ChrisO continued with disruption. So, I gave him a steadily increasing set of cautions, and eventually his first ban in mid-June. He immediately appealed at ArbCom, but they stood behind my restrictions. So ChrisO served out his time, and when his ban expired on July 15, he went on a major article-expansion drive. This was fine, and I supported his efforts, as long as they stayed in accordance with the editing conditions. But last week, things started escalating again, as ChrisO started violating WP:OWN, accusing other editors of "trolling" if they disagreed with him, and he was again edit-warring and violating other policies such as WP:BLP, by referring to a BLP subject as "blowing goats". I didn't want to have to go through the steps of a formal ban again, so I did my best to gently get him back on track. I even tried an "informal" ban, where I simply asked him to avoid the article for a day. But he kept violating the restrictions, and threatening to do more of the same in the future.. So I had little choice but to place another article-editing ban.

It's also worth pointing out that, as an uninvolved admin, I am not taking action just on ChrisO at that article. Neither am I the only uninvolved administrator who is helping to manage the article. Plenty of warnings and restrictions have been issued to editors on "both sides"::

Julia1987 (talk · contribs) counseled on civility, and banned by me from editing the lead
Tundrabuggy (talk · contribs) topic-banned by admin MZMcBride (talk · contribs) and cautioned/counseled by both me and admin Jayvdb
Wikifan12345 (talk · contribs) banned from article and talkpage for one week.

I have also given nudges, reminders, and warnings, to multiple other editors, such as:

In the majority of cases, one or two gentle reminders on someone's talkpage, were all the course correction that was needed. With this kind of admin supervision, newer editors are better understanding the need to be civil, to provide reliable sources for their additions, and to provide alternative views in a neutral manner, and in the proper proportion to everything else on the page. And since the Muhammad al-Durrah article has gone under closer admin supervision, the article has required no page protection, and no one has been blocked. This is exactly what ArbCom intended, with the discretionary sanctions that they authorized in January 2008.

Most of the editors at Muhammad al-Durrah acknowledge their cautions, and adapt their on-wiki behavior accordingly. Except for ChrisO, who continues to ignore warnings, and file lengthy appeals when his restrictions are upgraded to a ban. He has accused me of "mismanagement", being "aggressive", flying "off the handle", and he has asked that I "stand aside". However, my actions are not being done out of any personal stake in this. I have no preference on what content goes into the article. I am simply an uninvolved admin, doing my best to try and stabilize an article that was in a chronic state of edit-warring. I would also point out that I'm not exactly obstructing actions by any other uninvolved admin, nor have I ever received any serious (uninvolved) challenge to my ban of ChrisO or any other editor on the page. If anyone did question an action that I took, I would be happy to review things. I make careful notes whenever I impose a discretionary sanction, to keep things as transparent as possible.

That ChrisO himself doesn't like his ban, well, that's par for the course: People don't like being banned. Though I do have to admit that it amuses me that in his statement, ChrisO is trying to refer to me as some sort of junior administrator. It's true that I've only been an admin on Misplaced Pages since December 2007, but I would point out that I have been a professional online community manager for 20 years. And on Misplaced Pages, I have helped to successfully resolve disputes in multiple topic areas, from Hungarian-Slovakian disputes to Homeopathy to Palestine-Israel articles. I help out at arbitration enforcement, and I was chosen by ArbCom for the Misplaced Pages working group on ethnic and cultural edit wars. I enjoy helping out with dispute resolution, and my judgment has been affirmed in multiple community venues.

In short, I see this RfC as yet more wikilawyering, and yet another waste of the community's time. I ask the community to firmly communicate this to ChrisO, to try and prevent these kinds of actions in the future. The community may also wish to review other actions of ChrisO, to potentially impose a more comprehensive ban, and/or question the wisdom of whether or not ChrisO should be allowed to maintain admin access at all, considering these repeated lapses in judgment. But I'll leave that to the community to decide. |}

Users who endorse this summary:

--El on ka 00:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Although I've had run-ins with Elonka in the past, I seriously can't see any particular problem with her actions in this particular case. This is one of those areas where no-one's going to please everyone, and she seems to be doing an adequate job in keeping both sides equally dissatisfied – which on a topic like this is the best one can realistically hope for. Complaining that someone doesn't reply to a talkpage post seems pointless – this is a volunteer project, and people regularly aren't in a position to reply to things instantly. – iride scent 00:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I have worked with Elonka before and her e-mail responses have been satisfactory and speedy; she is even available on Google Chat regularly, so the issue of communication seems to be moot. I don't reply to my talk page inquiries in a timely fashion at times -- there are simply other matters that I can tend to in a given time, and I am sure that Elonka does too. As for the issues with the article, ChrisO may have had the upper hand on the article at first, but Elonka imposed restrictions on the edits as part of the mediation process -- well within her bounds. The ban was lifted with the support of all of the editors sans ChrisO, and the basis for this RFC seems to have stemmed as part of that. seicer | talk | contribs 02:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
--I just want to put my support for Elonka here and will add a longer comment below. There are a considerable number of errors in ChrisO's statement. I totally endorse Elonka's statement and there is nothing in it that cannot be thoroughly documented. Elonka has had the patience of Job with ChrisO who has actively threatened, insulted, and bullied virtually everyone on this article that did not share his perspective. Tundrabuggy (talk) 03:28, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
It has all been said. Chillum 04:52, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. I was recently asked to review this case (not by Chris) and I couldn't see anything she was doing that I thought was inappropriate. I think she ought to be commended and thanked for being willing to take on and stay with such difficult disputes. I've been critical of Elonka in the past and I opposed all her RfAs that I participated in, but I really see no wrong doing here on her behalf. Sarah 05:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I fail to see the problem here. Mackensen (talk) 13:44, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I have been following the Muhammad al-Durrah article/talk in and out ever since the dispute started, and to me Elonka seems like a level-headed administrator who took exactly the right steps in relation to the many problems and edit warring in the article. I believe that more administrators should act the way Elonka did, and ChrisO can take a lesson from her, instead of opening an RfC. -- Ynhockey 14:20, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
When Elonka and I first met on Misplaced Pages, I questioned her methods as well(as another uninvolved party); they were different than what I'd seen tried elsewhere on Misplaced Pages but very interesting. We talked about it length, she was responsive to my concerns, we worked out a few kinks and the article in question has been stable since. She has since successfully built on those methods to assist in resolving contentious disputes that most of us wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole. Contrary to the statements of Chris and other editors who have fallen under sanction, I find her to be responsive, considerate and thoughtful; she explains her decisions and gives more than adequate warning and guidance before enforcing a sanction. Each time an editor has questioned the method's Elonka uses, the community has validated them, both at ANI and when a clarification was requested from ArbCom. Editors who run afoul of these sanctions are understandably unhappy with the situation, but the behavior that needs changing is their own, not Elonka's. Shell 15:09, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Agree. Elonka's actions in this case, and her work in mediating this article in general, is commendable. The behavioral problems that need to be looked at are ChrisO's. I've detailed many of them in my comment section, below. Canadian Monkey (talk) 15:12, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
No good deed goes unpunished. Trying to mediate in a contentious article is a thankless task. Alansohn (talk) 06:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Daniel (talk) 09:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. The real problem here is ChrisO's effort to "own" the article in question, to push his POV under the guise of simply enforcing Misplaced Pages policies, and to accompany these things with very uncivil comments on the talk page and in edit summaries. He refused to back down from these efforts despite Elonka's attempts to get a very contentious editing dispute under some sort of control. Even after ChrisO was banned from the article for 30 days, as soon as he came back he renewed his campaign, and was justifiably banned again (and I think he is lucky it was only for 30 days the second time.) Elonka has applied sanctions, warnings, nudges (including a few warnings/nudges to me), etc. in a very evenhanded manner, and I think she has acted within the spirit of what the ArbCom authorized uninvolved administrators to do. 6SJ7 (talk) 15:38, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I think the case is best summed up, together with the previous appeal to Arbcom as an overreaction to minor sanctions being imposed. I think uninvolved admins should be supported in mediating contentious articles even if such mediation will make some users unhappy almost by definition. Hobartimus (talk) 21:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Agree. Elonka is carrying out a thankless job, in accord with the ArbCom ruling, and doing it quite even-handedly, which is obviously a bitter pill for some to swallow. Jayjg 00:13, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Elonka has been doing the thankless job of mediating Muhammad al-Dura quite well and I endorse her summary. Eternalsleeper (talk) 01:19, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I spent some time reviewing both ChrisO's filing here and Elonka's response, and it has become apparent to me that she was faced with misconduct by an experienced editor, an administrator, who had become too heavily involved with the article. Because of the effort to shut down this RfC, I came in a bit prejudiced against her; however, what turned the tide was example after example where Chris0 indicated a determination to "enforce" NPOV, including a threat to use his tools for it. NPOV is not the property or judgment of any individual, it is, rather, a quality of balance, and our only measure of it is consensus. Individual opinion about NPOV is unreliable, ultimately. Again and again I see this error, that editors appoint themselves as the "defenders of NPOV" and, as a result, define differing opinions than their own as POV, fringe, etc. In order to find NPOV in articles, we must establish and maintain civil and orderly discussion where all points of view are welcome, and it seems that Elonka has attempted to do just this, and ran into some persistent opposition. I'm not thrilled by 0RR, either, but it could be necessary in an environment where tag-teaming becomes common. ChrisO was correct to raise the conflict between this special rule and BLP policy; however, what ArbComm indicated was that this should be negotiated at a lower level, and I think the BLP issue is a red herring. I have come to the conclusion that it is essential to support Elonka in her work with maintaining order in the area in question. In taking on this task, in with the subject articles or elsewhere, she can be expected to arouse outraged opposition, where every excuse will be found to impeach her. I have seen, however, no examples of serious errors, nothing beyond certain decisions which might have been made differently, and nobody is going to encounter a situation like this and act with perfect optimality in every case. By the way, I have, in the past, seriously opposed Elonka's manner of enforcing an arbitration, where, it seemed, she became very personally attached to the issue (the PHG affair), and pursued an editor beyond all reason. However, I haven't seen that problem operative here. There may be, indeed, lessons she can learn and suggestions she can take away from this RfC, and I'd encourage her to make as much effort as she can muster to treat this as an opportunity. But she has my support and encouragement, firmly. --Abd (talk) 01:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. --Fat Cigar 05:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC) This template must be substituted. "What a clever for the user to find this page within their first 35 contributions." This is a rather obvious sockpuppet account. Jehochman 19:47, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. Elonka is one of the unbiased editors and a fair admin. Sindhian (talk) 08:55, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse.- As per all above.-Bharatveer (talk) 13:50, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse - As per FT2's analysis when the dispute was brought to ArbCom.--Yannismarou (talk) 19:32, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse - this is really more about ChrisO than about Elonka. --Leifern (talk) 19:42, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Comments by John Vandenberg

At the center of this dispute is Muhammad al-Durrah. ChrisO was heavily involved in the editing, and seems to have been doing a good job, however Elonka came in as a mediator and imposed new editing conditions. I was involved in the article ban of Tundrabuggy (talk · contribs), where I helped that user de-focus, and start to build the encyclopedia around the topic. Tundrabuggy did as suggested, (a quick inspection of the users contribs indicate that the person should no longer be called an SPA,) and Elonka lifted the article ban with the support of everyone involved, except for ChrisO. While I havent kept a very close eye on the article, my understanding is that Elonka has not been selectively imposing editing conditions, nor has she been robotic about it. Elonka has been using her judgement to try to ensure that nobody dominates the article, so that new users are welcomed to the project. ChrisO has not appreciated having someone else, someone uninvolved, mediate the article, and has often ignored the editing restrictions. In my opinion it is appropriate to tell ChrisO to stop editing this article for a month, as this RFC is evidence that ChrisO is too heavily focused on being involved in the article. The article might be slightly different, but it will still be there in a month.

Users who endorse this summary:

John Vandenberg 01:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Request clarification: Would appreciate the diff that shows ChrisO objected the unbanning of Tundrabuggy and the given justification. With respect, Jaakobou 20:42, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I endorse John Vandenberg's view, with one caveat: I did not ask ChrisO to take a break because he was "dominating" the article. I did so because he was engaging in name-calling, edit-warring, and because he was deleting citations to reliable sources. If ChrisO would have maintained civility, left citations intact, and concentrated on changing other editors' work instead of deleting it wholesale, I would not have issued a ban. --El on ka 02:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Yup. Endorse statement with Elonka's clarification. Sarah 05:24, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorsing this accurate statement. seicer | talk | contribs 12:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I endorse John Vandenberg's view. Canadian Monkey (talk) 15:13, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Daniel (talk) 09:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorsed with Elonka's clarification. 6SJ7 (talk) 15:44, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse, with Elonka's clarification. Jayjg 00:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse with Elonka's clarification. Tundrabuggy (talk) 13:23, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Comments by Tundrabuggy

Chris is wrong in stating that "poor-quality editing will be tolerated without any response or counseling" -- Elonka has in fact been providing counseling and has been actively mentoring me. I myself have sought counsel from other editors and administrators on this board. In fact it was ChrisO, whose first (and only) contribution to my personal talk page was - a full 4 days into my editing career here - a warning on my talk page . In fact, that was my first "welcome message" to Misplaced Pages -- a cold message indeed, and accompanied with a log referring to me and two other users as "single-purpose account editing and promotion of personal views and original research." By then I had posted a grand total of 6 edits on the actual article. Virtually all of my edits were on the TALK page, expressing my concerns there.

It is true that I did sign up at Wiki shortly after the "major event related to this article," and that this article was the first article I edited. This, however, was entirely coincidental. To continue to suggest otherwise is not AGF. Looking over the article in light of this 'major' event, it was clear that it had not been updated in some time, since this issue had been evolving over the last eight years. Thus I began to write the article to reflect more accurately the facts as they are generally now understood. This RfC will do nothing at all to help the article itself. Instead, it further polarizes the community.

ChrisO charges that my edits were "highly problematic' and included "POV deletions of content, making basic factual errors by misrepresenting or misreading sources, and simple bad writing." He hasn't made his case in his statement. It is true that in June I was topic-banned from the article for three months, pointing to this diff as "unproductive." Oddly enough, this edit for which I was topic-banned was the exact same edit that Chris himself had made on 27th May when he changed "was reportedly killed " to "was reported to have been killed." That was of course until ChrisO decided that to say anything other than "killed" was an example of pathological thinking. Be that as it may, ChrisO is also wrong in suggesting that there was something somehow improper or unfair that my 3 month ban was revoked "in a week." In point of fact, there was some question that my topic ban could have been considered inappropriate , as well as excessive. Only the ban on the TALK page was lifted in a week; the ban on the article was a full 19 days long. In the meantime, I worked on my skills as an editor, creating some new stubs and contributing to other articles.

In the section that ChrisO calls "selective enforcement," he totally misrepresents my position. I removed that material on the grounds that it was factually wrong, and it just happened to be sourced to this particular reporter. I wrote specifically to the issue of "no qualifications" at the TALK page and find it disingenuous that he did not provide the appropriate link to it. I wrote to it also here at the mediation page with respect to "exceptional claims" and Wizardman (mediating content) appeared to agree with my point. .

It was clear that this article had problems long before I even got signed into Wiki, certainly well before Elonka came in to mediate. ChrisO seems to be attempting to use his wiki experience and 'connections' to intimidate other users in order to impose his POV on the material. He doesn't look for consensus, but applies a slash-and-burn technique to the article, and when met with resistance strongarms other users , shops for support, and prejudices his listeners with unflattering descriptions of other editors, just as he has done with Elonka in this RfC. I have the diffs to support my characterisation. --Tundrabuggy (talk) 03:55, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

im going to have to agree with tundra on this issue. chriso has superseded his authority as an admin to impose his own bias and beliefs in the al-durrah discussion an article. i understand admins are allowed to have an opinion in articles where they are not exercising administrator privileges (at least i think), but chriso has been borderline abusive in that respect. i havent been around as much as id like to in the mediation case, but i cannot deny what chriso is doing. as far as i can tell, his complaints are purely out of concern for his own reputation. he's painting over his own mistakes with ridiculous and justified claims against tundra and others to prevent backlash against himself. Wikifan12345 (talk) 16:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Further Comment By Tundrabuggy This RfC is actually a symptom of the problem, and in reality has nothing to do with Elonka's competence or lack thereof, or ChrisO's editing skills or lack thereof. Instead it points out the very real problems with any form of standard mediation in these especially contentious areas. ChrisO's forum shopping was due to the fact that he knows his way around wiki, unlike the less experienced editors like myself, who would never have dreamed of rushing around from site-to-site to find consensus for my view. My understanding was that things got talked out on the talk page. I guess not.

The whole disagreement centered on the weight to be given to the theory that the shooting was staged. One side insisted it was an important part of the story, and deserved weight and one side felt that to even consider that was an example of pathological thinking. How far apart can two sides get? As for our side, we tried to create a bibliography to support our thesis, and maintained by SlimVirgin here: Talk:Muhammad al-Durrah/sources. A formidable bibliography merely shrugged off as more evidence of " same panoply of pathological thinking, faulty logic, hopeless credulity and belief-based speculation."

Consensus will clearly not work under these circumstances. At best what one will achieve is a tyranny of the majority, not a factual, neutral article. What has happened here is that the status quo for this article has a defender, in this case an experienced administrator, who knows his way around wiki and can commandeer "help" when the numbers and or arguments begin to look difficult. Through other techniques, for example, new users are intimidated and encouraged to go edit somewhere else, and old-timers just get frustrated and go to work on other things.

Mediation didn't work for ChrisO because ChrisO didn't want it to work. He agreed to mediation, but at the same time trolled (I use the word in the 'fishing' sense) for other users who shared his POV -- "An informal mediation on the above has now begun on Talk:Muhammad al-Durrah, with the help of Elonka. It would be helpful if editors with experience of dealing with fringe theories (and their proponents) could participate. . Now ChrisO may be right that the hoax theory is indeed a "conspiracy theory" and evidence of faulty logic and hopeless credulity, but he has not demonstrated it in such a way as to convince the other side. But going into mediation with that attitude, it is obvious that there was no way it could be expected to be successful. Everyone wants to win in mediation, but he was trying to stack the deck.

The trouble with ChrisO's approach is that nothing will get resolved by it at all. Instead it creates a lot of negative feelings and does nothing whatsoever to change the problem with the deadlock in the article, and even less in the area of I/P conflict. It merely draws sides more distinctly.

When Wizardman took over as the second stage of mediation Elonka noted at the top of the page "Just as a note, if a MedCab mediator would like to take over management of this article, I would have no trouble with handing over the torch and taking a step back. Or I could stay with it, either is fine. Just let me know how I can best be of assistance to the mediation process." That's the way ChrisO could have handled this but he chose to go another route. That route has landed us here, at an RfC for Elonka and no clear way forward on the issues or the article itself. Too bad. Tundrabuggy (talk) 00:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Tundrabuggy, you may wish to review WP:RfC to get better acquainted with the differences between a content RfC and a user conduct RfC. This is a case of the latter.--Ramdrake (talk) 01:03, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It makes no difference to me at this point, Ramdrake. Fundamental questions are not being addressed. How does one determine what is a fringe theory and what is an alternative position and how much weight to give each when there is a dispute? How does one determine what words mean when two people read them differently? How much weight do you give to information that is 8 years old and information that is contemporary? What do you do when you have two reliable sources providing different information? Does being a party in a suit give one's words standing and validity? Is every reporter a reliable source if he works for a reliable source? There are a lot of questions that have some significance. Where do I go to ask them? I would rather be asking them then trying to lynch someone who took it upon herself to help mediate the situation, and got a slap in the face for her reward.

Users who endorse this summary: Tundrabuggy (talk) 02:33, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Comments by Coppertwig

I would like to thank Elonka for her admin work. I appreciate that at Chiropractic and Circumcision, as an uninvolved admin, she has helped organize talk page archiving, reference formatting, etc., and helped encourage people to be civil. Elonka's work has been bold, imaginative and helpful. Admins are volunteers, whose work I appreciate, and who receive all too much criticism in the course of carrying out their duties.

Apparently Elonka has taken on a very challenging task of managing editing conditions on highly contentious articles. No two situations are ever identical, so it's not always possible to enforce rules in a way that everyone agrees is fair. However, Elonka's editing conditions, like 3RR, are designed such that they can for the most part be enforced with no judgement required by the enforcing admin about content issues. This is good. Elonka has devised a set of conditions which I believe allow productive, consensus-supported editing to continue almost as easily as under normal editing conditions, while preventing edit-warring almost as effectively as page-protection.

I also appreciate ChrisO's work in improving the article and enforcing NPOV as an editor.

In response to "Evidence of disputed behavior": I disagree with each of ChrisO's points, as explained below:

Re: "Selective enforcement of editing restrictions": Removing a source if one believes in good faith that it is not a reliable source may not necessarily be considered to violate the editing conditions. When questions arise as to whether a source is reliable, they can be put to an appropriate noticeboard or RfC (article content). "Restor the deleted content" without first gaining consensus or an answer from such a noticeboard seems to fit the definition of a revert in spirit even if some other words were also changed, and regardless of whether removing it had also violated the conditions.
Re "Erratic application of editing conditions and inappropriate aggressive behaviour": In the editing conditions, the "is obviously troublesome" part refers only to unsourced material and therefore does not apply in this situation. Instead, use "If you see a sentence that you don't think properly reflects what is in a source, change it so that it does. ...".
Re "Further inappropriate aggressive behaviour and poor judgment": If removing some sourced material violates the editing conditions, then an intention of re-adding it later is no excuse. Temporary removal of material puts an undue burden on other editors and uninvolved admins in keeping track and making sure it gets re-added. Instead, I suggest temporarily marking it in some way rather than removing it.
Re "Non-responsiveness": From what I've seen, Elonka generally responds several times to repeated questioning and sometimes eventually drops out of the dialog. While it's my understanding that admins are expected to respond to questions about their actions, it wouldn't make sense to require an indefinite sequence of replies. Sometimes the answers may not be evident to the questioner but may seem to Elonka and outside observers to be already answered or self-evident. If people are not getting answers from Elonka, they may wish to try asking me: in two cases I've continued to explain Elonka's position to questioners who were having difficulty understanding it, and for now at least I'm happy to do this in other cases if the answers are clear to me.
Re "Disregard for good-faith editing and quality assurance": Replacing sources involves removing sources and violates the editing conditions, if they are reliable sources. Perhaps there are exceptions: there may be a way to remove reliable sources, for example with consensus; this could be discussed with the uninvolved admins; however, my reading of the editing conditions is that replacing reliable sources is not allowed. ChrisO stated that Elonka was wrong to say "You do not have the right to remove sources until you personally review them and decide how to incorporate them into the article." Actually, she was right. The editing conditions require this. A personal belief that some material violates NPOV does not confer the right to override the editing conditions. Whether something is a NPOV violation is often a matter of opinion which must be resolved by the usual methods of resolving content disputes.

There are times when it's appropriate to make adjustments in response to feedback, and there are times when it's appropriate to continue on a steady course even though there are complaints from those against whom sanctions are applied.

Users who endorse this summary:

Comments by Canadian Monkey

I am one of the editors at Muhammad al-Durrah, and one who has bore the brunt of many of ChrisO’s abuses on that page. I have been called a “troll” by him, for daring to suggest that he was inappropriately canvassing and vote-stacking on that article . He has been condescending and uncivil to me . And I have received an inappropriate “warning” from him, an action that was later deemed to be an abuse of his admin privileges (see diffs below).

I can only repeat what I previously wrote on this topic, when ChrisO last tried his hand at this sort of wikilawyering and forum shopping (slightly updated to include more recent behavioral problems with ChrisO): Elonka has done a commendable job of stepping into a controversial article and, through the imposition of strict editing conditions, eliminated edit warring while allowing for continuous improvement of the article. ChrisO does not like this, becuase the strict edit conditions have prevented him from owning the article, and getting his way with it. Too bad for him, but nothing wrong on Elonka's part. As Elonka notes, ChrisO was given plenty of warning about his behavior, and much more leeway was given to him (presumably because of his status as an admin) than to other editors, who were subjected to similar sanctions for behavior that was, in my opinion, much less disruptive than ChrisO’s. He has reverted on multiple occasions, despite being notified of both the 0RR restrictions and the general ArbCom decision related to I-P articles.

ChrisO’s behavior on this article has been problematic for a long time. He has abused his admin privileges by posting warning notifications on the Talk pages of all those who opposed him, even though he was an involved admin. This behavior was found problematic by several uninvolved admins (, ,) and he was told it was improper (though not sanctioned for it). He has subsequently threatened to use his administrator tools again on this article , and only a prompt stern warning from Elonka got him to back down and likely prevented further abuse.

Unable to get consensus for his views on the Talk page of the article, he has engaged in egregious forum shopping, seeking to get his opponents banned or otherwise sanctioned and his own actions vindicated, on no fewer than 7 different venues: , , , , , . here – and now this RfC, making it the 8th such venue being shopped.

Given this extremely disruptive behavior, the length of time it has been going on, and the apparent lack of any noticeable change in his behavior after his previous ban, I think that ChrisO got off extremely lightly (a 30 day ban from a single article) yet again, and that a more appropriate sanction would be a topic ban, from all I-P related articles, for a substantially longer time period.

Users who endorse this summary:

Canadian Monkey (talk) 15:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Agree --Tundrabuggy (talk) 13:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. 6SJ7 (talk) 16:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Comments by Shell Kinney

After reading Chris's statement and the statements of those editors supporting his views, I'm really concerned by one particular thread I'm picking up. It appears that some believe that editing sanctions should not be applied evenly, but that administrators should make decisions on who's viewpoint is correct and act accordingly. Except in obvious cases (BLP springs to mind), administrators are not arbitrators of content, nor do I believe that Arb rulings are meant to be used in such a manner. What administrators can, and should do, is enforce civil editing and cooperation and allow regular community consensus processes to determine content. If this community process is not working, then we need to open a dialog on what is failing and why - not attempt to set up Administrators as content judges.

Users who endorse this summary:

Shell 15:22, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Agree. This is the gist of the supporting arguments put forth by Relata refero, Skinwalker & Nickhh Canadian Monkey (talk) 15:36, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. Aministrators are not supposed to enforce NPOV; editors enforce NPOV while administrators facilitate this by preventing disruption. Coppertwig (talk) 22:23, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Agree. A serious discussion does need to take place in regard to this article as "regular community consensus processes" are not working. Instead, one or two editors act as policemen or gatekeepers to insure that an alternative view (as opposed to 'fringe' or 'looney') is not permitted a serious hearing.Tundrabuggy (talk) 23:18, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. Sarah 01:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Agreed; administrators should not pick and choose which sides they endorse. They are here, with respect to this example, to apply a uniform and strict set of editing restrictions to an article that required it. They do not choose a specific version to endorse or protect, and any assumptions to that matter is erroneous. seicer | talk | contribs 01:36, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
--El on ka 01:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Agree, with a caveat that we need to be watchful for trolls who feign cluelessness in order to disrupt. If somebody has been warned multiple times (by other editors) for violations of content policy, yet they continue the same pattern, their behavior may be indistinguishable from purposeful disruption. In that case an administrator can take appropriate action. Jehochman 03:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Daniel (talk) 09:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Agree. One of the main problems on the Muhammad al-Durrah article seemed, when I was trying to calm things down without getting too involved, to be that editors are calling each other's positions and alleged political affiliations "fringe" instead of trying to iron out what the sources say and reach a more editorial atmosphere. Imposing core civility/edit-warring policies by Elonka seemed, and still seems like the proper way to get the discussions in that direction. Jaakobou 20:33, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
This one is obvious, administrators using their tools to advantage a particular point of view is the first and most important example of abuse by an administrator. No editor can expect an admin to use their tools differently because of the point of view held by a given editor, and no admin should ever treat two users differently because of which point of view each user is currently advocating for. The only approved exceptions are cases of clear vandalism, which by definition does not include NPOV issues, and core BLP violations (unsourced or inadequately sourced material, not the broader concern about balance/weight). GRBerry 14:19, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Agree per GRBerry. -- Levine2112 21:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Outside view

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

View by Nishidani

Misplaced Pages is the only place in the world of article-writing where an expert hand, extremely knowledgeable about editorial practices, with several years of community witness to the high quality of his work, and his scrupulous attention to sources, contexts, and POV gaming, is treated with a suspicion of mala fides, in an extremely difficult article edited more recently also by several people with no such record. There has been a total misprision of intentions. That articles like this tend to attract a lot of POV gaming to showcase the ostensibly theatrical, fictional character to Palestinian grievances, is well-known. That one of the editors most experienced in these dangers has been walloped with severe sanctions, just after a notorious case which revealed how strong the temptation has been in certain quarters to organize under coordination I/P articles to favourthe image of one of the two national parties represented by these articles, hardly lends confidence. Though, while active in wikipedia, I was tempted to edit the article, I only followed it from a distance, because it evidently requires an extraordinary amount of intricate source-research. ChrisO is not the only one here who has done his leg-work, but over the last two months, several people who clearly haven't, have edited without evincing a comparable editorial distinction. Newcomers are welcome all over wiki, but they do well to prove themselves over several months before taking on articles in highly contested areas that require deep experience and knowledge. Whatever the outcome, it is as advisable for the I/P area as for areas requiring particular competence (quantum physics), that some cautions be raised. Far too many editing here have their nation's interests at heart, but a very poor background knowledge about the articles they are coediting, and the criteria governing neutral draftsmanship. ChrisO is splendidly gifted with both, and if he raises a complaint, it warrants close attention from administrators, and in not taking it seriously Elonka (forum shopping) seriously undermines her own defence. It is suggestive of an imperturbable self-confidence before peers on questions that require delicacy of judgement, textual insight and, I should add, psychological penetration. Violating a permanent and disenchanted retirement for a good cause, Regards Nishidani (talk) 19:18, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

Nishidani (talk) 18:10, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Comments by Scott Free

I've had a disagreement with Elonka, so I can't say that I'm totally impartial here.

Suggestion to ChrisO - Focus on the mediation with Tundrabuggy - In theory, Mediation implies an editing truce on the article - work out a truce with Tundrabuggy to not work on the article during mediation except in certain exceptions - resume mediation, basically.

Suggestion To Elonka - I sort of agree with your detractors and your supporters - The only thing I don't like though are comments that imply that you have trouble taking this ratified RfC serioulsy or that Chris is Wikilawyering or wasting people's time - I'm seeing a lack of good faith assumption there. My suggestions would be:

- Wait another six months before focusing on difficult arb cases with difficult editors - work more on various other admin duties, maybe join the mediation committee.

- In general, avoid tackling several of those cases at the same time.

- Work on taking a step back from situations, consider waiting a day or two before responding to 'heated' situations.

Suggestions to both: - Stay away from each other's talk pages for the duration of this RfC.

- Shorten your statements - be a little more brief, succinct and to the point.

- Step back for a couple of days to let things 'cool down'.

All the best in working this out in a spirit of neutrality, equality, compromise and consensus.

Users who endorse this summary:

Scott Free (talk) 17:07, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Ramdrake (talk) 23:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Tentative. Wholeheartedly disagree with "more brief, succinct, and to the point", as pandering to such attitudes reduces complex disputes into a series of interchangable sound bites, and has a chilling effect on any meaningful resolution. See also: U.S. presidential "debates". I will agree, however, that Elonka's basic statement could do with a few paragraph breaks. --Badger Drink (talk) 04:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Some good advice that will likely help both editors. -- Ned Scott 06:17, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
PhilKnight (talk) 11:33, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. EmersonLowry (talk) 01:34, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Comments by Mathsci

As with Quackwatch and Alternative medicine, above, this should really have had a separate section with diffs in ChrisO's presentation.

There are a few contentious articles on WP which attract editors with a thinly veiled racist POV to push, often SPAs. These editors are invariably polite but disruptive. Although my own mainspace edits are principally on properly encyclopedic topics (mathematics, France and its "culture",history, music), I do watch a small number of these articles which, although some time back contentious and quite unencyclopedic, have now become reasonable or at least more reasonable than before. They are still occasionally plagued by POV pushing. One such is European ethnic groups, now an anodyne and neutral article largely masterminded by User:Dbachmann; it replaced the highly problematic European people. Another is Race and intelligence, improved since December but still highly problematic, with its satellite articles on Richard Lynn, J. Philippe Rushton, eugenics, dysgenics, etc. Lynn and Rushton have proposed genetic causes for differences in IQ scores between different population groups in the world and what should be done about it. Here there is a problem of fringe science, bad science or pseudoscience. My only mainspace contributions in this area have been in adding details of academic reviews of books, positive and negative. In these articles, Elonka has claimed that editors and administrators of long standing have somehow, through off-wiki communication of which I am quite unaware (telepathy? witchcraft?), ganged together to form a "tag team" or worse still a "lynch mob". This is a case where her judgement has been seriously in error. In three cases, most seriously with User:Jagz, but to a lesser extent with User:Koalorka and User:Zero g, she failed to notice the single purpose nature of their edits or a significant part of their edits. She came to act as their protector, advising them backstage how to edit better. Koalorka now has a year-long ban on editing articles related to Turkey, after I pointed out his systematic anti-Turkish disruption. Jagz is indefinitely banned after having revealed his true colours when warned by MastCell not to edit Misplaced Pages policy pages during his probationary topic ban, when he was mentored by Elonka. (His final act, through an anonymous Florida IP, was to place a captioned phallic image on my user page.) Most recently, acting on behalf of Zero g and disregarding procedure, Elonka challenged a non-contentious merge decision on an out-of-print unnotable book, creating needless wikidrama by her baseless accusations of dishonesty and vote-rigging. What is equally worrying is Elonka's way of directly challenging other administrators: her polite but stubborn refusal to listen to User:Mastcell's accurate appraisal of Jagz; her threats against User:Cailil before and during his RfA; her persistent hounding of User:Slrubenstein for his use of the word "troll" instead of "polite troll" or "trollish edit"; her innuendos about Durova's dropping of the mop; her remarks about Alison's Irish roots being problematic in handling Troubles pages. All these erratic acts and errors of judgement, which sometimes verge on baseless conspiracy theories, are not helpful to the project and cause unnecessary offence. Elonka has excellent qualities in her capacities both as editor and administrator. I am personally very impressed by her contributions to articles on the Crusader period and I think that it is highly laudable that she has been one of the few admins to volunteer to help restore calm to some known areas of nationalistic conflict on WP, a generally thankless task. But Elonka should also be aware of her own limitations, particularly when she embarks on some of her more ill-starred "experiments". Mathsci (talk) 17:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

Mathsci (talk) 17:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Elonka's description of an edit was a revert but claimed it was not a revert. More explained here. QuackGuru 18:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I endorse Mathsci's outside view, but I'll add a few comments. Possibly due to her vast experience in managing an online community, Elonka is extremely sensitive to politeness and civility issues, which is an excellent thing. However, beyond just all getting along together, the purpose of Misplaced Pages is to build an encyclopaedia, which strives for high standards of neutrality, and editorial quality. Either way, it is easy to lose sight of the balance which must be achieved between politeness and obedience to the rules on one side, and the writing of quality articles on the other. While Elonka has excellent skills in managing and enforcing civility, she often seems to lose sight of our goals of editorial quality. Sometimes, it is necessary to enforce NPOV, FRINGE, UNDUE, etc., even if it ruffles a few feathers. The trick is to try to ruffle as few of them as possible. Some POV-pushers happen to be the very image of politeness and civility; that doesn't change the fact that they are POV-pushers, and must be dealt with appropriately, the same way we must deal with issues of civility, personal attacks, etc. That means that not all sides may be considered equal in a content dispute, if it is demonstrated for example that one is pushing a fringe view. Elonka seems to have difficulties identifying such situations, and tends to always treat all views in a content dispute as equal (NPOV says they should be treated in accordance to their important in the real world, as opposed to indiscriminately equal).Ramdrake (talk) 18:42, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Elonka also seems to have a problem in realizing that politeness and civility are things she is expected to do and not just something to accuse other people of. I would argue that a true sensibility to civility and politeness would have prevented many of her edits which are under dispute here. Mere choice of words alone does not civility make: editing actions and disregard for others' views are also civility violations. DreamGuy (talk) 21:05, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Slowing down a bit and listening to feedback, especially from people who do not share the same views, would probably be helpful. Jehochman 18:50, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Elonka seems willing to jump to conclusions when sensing a problem and then is unwilling to admit fault later. DreamGuy (talk) 21:05, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
PhilKnight (talk) 22:30, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
There really are no polite words for this callous, impulsive, and mercenary behavior. --Badger Drink (talk) 01:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
The people who reject this summary, below, seem scared of this general concern about controverisal articles. But MathSci is not making a vague general point - he is refering to conflicts between a host of active, well-informed, plicy-compliant editors and two specific SPA, one clearly racist, the other just disruptive. This is not McCarthyism. Any editor could have joined in on the various discussions. Jagz actually initiated I think two RfCs that went against him. He was community banned not because of some McCarthyist campagin, he was community banned because he was a disruptive SPA who continuously violated or ignored our coure policies, NPOV, V, and NOR. These policies are essential to Misplaced Pages yet Elonka would rather demonstrate her powers as sysop than serve these core policies and the community of editors committed to them. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. Alun (talk) 06:52, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Fundamentally correct. Particularly as it relates to Race and intelligence articles, where IMO Elonka has done more harm than good. She has ignored those editors who have correctly represented academic consensus and have maintained encyclopedicity in favour of civil POV-pushers (Jagz, Zero g). In particular, I call attention to this thread on my talk page, whereby Elonka completely ignores all arguments based on competence, and instead goes for those purely based on user conduct. Completely missing the point that user conduct can only be properly evaluated in the light of encyclopedicity of contributions. Context is important, and Elonka hasn't really looked at it. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 12:44, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Comment: I think diffs for Quackwatch and Alternative medicine would be appropriate to show so a pattern can be seen if there is a pattern at all to be looked at. I would appreciate the diffs if you are still willing to show them, thanks, --CrohnieGal 14:06, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse the comments above. --CrohnieGal 16:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. Moreschi also makes a very important point about context. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:33, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. Good advice from Jehochman as well, encourage Elonka to take it onboard. Shot info (talk) 00:06, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. "Flabber-gasted" is the best word to describe my reaction to what I'm seeing here, Elonka apparently encouraging this Single Purpose Account editor to deceive the rest of the community. SPAs are perfectly proper to WP:POLICY (I'm one myself and I'm labelled as such). But it doesn't earn me any favours in the project - quite the reverse, I've repeatedly been hounded for it. (Recent examples are so extreme that I refuse to link you to them). And Elonka behaves this way in order to torpedo the efforts of another admin, an expert on dealing properly with nationalist issues all over the world, not just this one. PR 08:49, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse -- with hesitation, because I'm convinced Elonka has the good of Misplaced Pages in mind. But from this outsider's perspective it often looks like she tutors disruptive editors on how to WP:GAME the system rather than truly bringing them to take Misplaced Pages's behavioral and content standards to heart. A rethink of her approach would benefit all concerned -- not the least, Elonka herself. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 19:44, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Slrubenstein

On the talk page ChrisO explains, "The locus of the dispute is Elonka's methods in managing editing conditions and disputes, not simply the al-Durrah article" and that is why I endorse this. I too want to make it clear that I think Elonka is a superb editor; my complaint is how she operates as an administrator. I have little to add to MathSci's account, but I do want to make a point in response to Shell's comment. Simply put, I am concerned that some admins think that some hyper-sensitive notion of civility - which seems to identify civility as the absense of any dissent - is more important here than our content policies and the contents we are supposedly working on. It is true that ArbCom shouldn't mediate conflict discputes - this is done through the anarchic wiki process. And Admins have practically no role in this. My fear is that Elonka is trying to establish a role for admins in content disputes, and the way she dies this is by ijnsisting on presenting them as personal behavior conflicts that require administrative attention rather than content disputes that require wiki community discussion and action. In the cases MathSci metnioned, in one case there was a community ban against Jagz after over a year of disruptive edits furing content discussions and in the case of ZeroG a consensus to merge two articles. In both cases Elonka had not desire to involve herself as an editor, equal among others, debating issues based on knowledge guided by content policy. Instead she sought to carve out a rationale to justify an administtrator acting like a cop. It is the wrong solution to the wrong problem.

An administrator is supposed to use their powers to serve the community. In my experience with her in conflicts with Jagz and Zero G, Elonka took the side of the single disruptive editor against the consensus of active, well-informed editors. It is almost as if Elonka believes that because she is an administrator she is therefore an authority figure. This is of course the opposite of the Misplaced Pages ideal. In the two specific cases I mention, Elonka seemed to believe that the conflicts among editors had to do with civility. In fact the conflicts had to do with substantive issues concerning the contents of articles. ArbCom has no jurisdiction over this, and admins have no special jurisdiction over this, and as a "sysop" Elonka perhaps should not have gotten involved at all in these conflicts. Or, she could have involved herself as any other editor, researching the sources and notable views and seeing to work out a consensus. But Elonka systematically refused to be an editor, working to improve an article. Instead, she judged people's behavior without looking at the history of interactions among editors, without looking at behaviorin context (indeed, when she accused me of certain things and I asked her for evidence she simply ignored my request). This is not the beahvior of a sysop, it is the behavior of a martinet. Is there any way we can work this out so this capricious and authoritarian administrator disappears, but the excellent editor remains?

Users who endorse this summary:

Slrubenstein | Talk 04:23, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
This. This. This. --Badger Drink (talk) 04:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Mathsci (talk) 05:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
-- Ned Scott 06:20, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Yep, she's a good editor, but a bad admin. Just like it was predicted in her RFA by many opposes :-(. Hopefully she will review the Community's feedback here on these issues, but given that she's trying to wikilawyer her way out on the talk page at the moment, I seems the answer is, unfortunately, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Shot info (talk) 06:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. Alun (talk) 06:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. I'm also concerned at the way that Elonka appears to be dismissing out of hand the concerns of experienced editors and admins. I don't doubt that, like any very active admin, she has a number of irreconcilable opponents who dislike her for essentially political reasons. But it's a great mistake to dismiss all criticism as being ill-intentioned or mistaken. Admins need to be responsive, understand where other people are coming from and make an effort to understand contexts, as Slrubenstein points out. "Laying down the law" is not the way to go. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Elonka's assertion that ArbCom supported her implementation of 0RR is disingenuous - they said it was allowed, that is within the rules, however I doubt their comments were intended to place her actions beyond all criticism. A less extreme approach of insisting that editors discuss significant changes before making them, and not allowing edit wars has been used elsewhere. While this approach is certainly not perfect, it does appear to cause fewer problems, not least because it allows some flexibility. The purpose of sanctions is to ensure the smooth running of the project, so if editors are making changes to the article in a manner that isn't disruptive, they shouldn't be punished. PhilKnight (talk) 10:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Particularly as it relates to civility. Civility is important, but it is not the be-all-and-end-all, and civility is meaningless when compared to competence and encyclopedicity of contributions. A civil POV-pusher is no better than an uncivil one. The role for administrators is to facilitate expert retention (and, as a consequence, ensuring Misplaced Pages accords with academic consensus) by sorting out user conduct problems in the light of encyclopedicity of contributions (as you can see, this is my new favourite phrase). It might also be acceptable to lay out a broad framework for debate to take place within, again determined by encyclopedicity ("no Holocaust denial here, we're Wikipedians"). Beyond that? No. Elonka has gone a little too far in merging the roles of editor and administrator: more importantly, as administrator, she has wilfully lost sight of the importance of WP:ENC and associated policies such as WP:NPOV (particularly WP:UNDUE) and especially, so it seems, WP:FRINGE. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 13:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Jehochman 13:18, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse.Ramdrake (talk) 14:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
DreamGuy (talk) 15:14, 3 August 2008 (UTC) Though I wouldn;t go so far to say she's a particularly good editor, as the behavior problems she's had as an admin were fully manifesting themselves when she was just an editor. But certainly as an admin her behavior should be held to a higher standard than other people, not less.
--CrohnieGal 16:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. EmersonLowry (talk) 01:17, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Elonka frequently displays a fundamentally wrong attitude for an admin. Friday (talk) 15:34, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. She displayed identical behaviour at Talk:Rab concentration camp in adopting a policy of neutrality between a lone POV editor who was, completely without any sources, trying to fundamentally change the article to say a variety of things that are historically entirely untrue. All of the other editors (including me, to state my interest) were urged repeatedly to try to find 'middle ground' between the 'two positions'. She displayed total disregard for WP:ENC, seeing herself instead in the role of a marriage guidance counsellor. AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 21:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Alansohn

It is often said of firefighters that they are rushing towards a fire, while virtually everyone else is heading in the opposite direction. Most editors, and most administrators, will refuse to get involved in an article that has any evidence of rancor, despite the fact that this assistance and intervention might well help solve the problems with the application of an outside view. Elonka is one of this very small group of editors willing to jump into minefields that any rational editor would be terrified to step into. I've been involved in a number of articles where Elonka's assistance has been effective in moving problems towards resolution. I have not agreed with all of Elonka's actions, and disgareed with quite a few, but the classic sign of an effective compromise is one where everyone is a bit unhappy. User:ChrisO and the Muhammad_al-Durrah article are no exception. While I understand Chris' frustrations -- I've been in the same boat -- I see no evidence whatsoever of any of the issues that have been raised here. I see Elonka doing her best to deal with an unbelievably contentious article and I fail to see what this RfC is intended to accomplish.

Users who endorse this comment:

Alansohn (talk) 06:01, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. Coppertwig (talk) 15:10, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I am not for sure what this RFC is hoping to accomplish, either. Nothing is truly actionable, although there may be some suggestions for all those involved to take away. seicer | talk | contribs 16:38, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. Some comments on this page seem to illustrate McCarthyism, which was taught in grade school several times. Apparently the educators thought it an important subject for some reason. --Fat Cigar 16:49, 3 August 2008 (UTC) This template must be substituted.
Endorse, except for Alansohn's comment that he understands ChrisO's frustrations. Those "frustrations" are in fact the frustrations of someone who insists on getting his own way on everything and who has come up against someone who isn't letting him do it. I'm sure that's not what Alansohn meant. :) 6SJ7 (talk) 04:20, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. Tundrabuggy (talk) 17:32, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse per seicer. -- Levine2112 21:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Ramdrake

There isn't much that hasn't already been said, but one of the things which I find most troubling with Elonka's behaviour is how much on one hand she insists on AGF and CIVIL from every editor, and will not hesitate to severely criticize an editor who has, in her opinion trangressed these guidelines, while on the other hand, her very behaviour on this RfC is quite puzzling in its own way: calling ChrisO's endeavour a "waste of time for the community", "wanting his pound of flesh", and then arguing over and over that because of a technicality this RfC isn't properly certified seems hardly to be in agreement with AGF and CIVIL. IMHO, it sounds just like arguing for the sake of trying to win an argument. In this respect, this is in keeping with the two incidents during which I brushed with Elonka, namely the blocking/unblocking of Jagz and the "contested" merge of Dysgenics (book). In both cases, Elonka was asking editors to assume good faith towards a disruptive editor, even calling into question the legitimacy of the consensus which had either gotten them blocked or performed the merge. In both cases, whenever Elonka's judgment was called in question (in good faith - everybody's entitled to make mistakes), instead of defending her actions, I saw her attacking her critics. I see the same behaviour here, and I can't dismiss the possibility that this is a behaviour pattern. I'm confident that Elonka can take heed of the comments in this RfC and work to change what needs to be changed in her behaviour (this is, after all the goal of a conduct RfC). If anybody asks, I can supply diffs if requested; however, these two incidents have generated sufficient wikidrama already that I think most people here already know what I'm talking about.--Ramdrake (talk) 18:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Since someone asked, I am supplying links to sections which demonstrate the kind of behaviour I'm talking about: --Ramdrake (talk) 19:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Users who endorse this comment:

Ramdrake (talk) 18:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Another recent example was following the ScienceApologist ban under the Homeopathy editing restrictions, Jehochman indicated his disagreement. To give some background, Jehochman has been very actively involved administering editing restrictions in Homeopathy related articles since early this year, while until recently Elonka had no involvement. In this context, it was poor behavior for Elonka to accuse Jehochman of acting in bad faith. Also, this comment on the talk page implies the majority of editors criticizing Elonka in this RfC are acting in bad faith, which again is poor behavior. PhilKnight (talk) 20:17, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Elonka's words on Moreschi's talk page speak for themselves. She behaved disgracefully. Mathsci (talk) 21:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Slrubenstein | Talk 23:09, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
"Disgracefully" is a nice word. I prefer "petulantly", but there ya go. --Badger Drink (talk) 22:59, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
We all have our flaws. One of Elonka's is that she sometimes closes her mind (really tight) when she believes she's being attacked, either on a personal basis or in a dispute. -- Ned Scott 05:57, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse - and also encourage Elonka to take on board Ned's comments above (don't endorse the use of the stronger adjectives in other endorses however - although I do understand where they are coming from). Shot info (talk) 06:00, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. We're all wrong sometimes, some people seem to find it impossible to accept that they are fallible. Not a good attribute for someone with the ability to arbitrarily impose "martial law" on an article. Misplaced Pages specifically says that when we are wrong we should accept it, apologise and move on, not get all huffy and try to pretend we are perfect. Alun (talk) 15:22, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Given the flaw described by Ned Scott (which, I believe is accurate, from personal observation), Elonka should not try to operate in these controversial areas she's been working in. She's not well suited to the job. What looks to me like incessant ruleslawyering from her is probably one manifestation of this flaw. Friday (talk) 15:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse - Elonka demonstrates a complete unwillingness to hold herself to anything close to the same standards she demands of other people, or even the standards she committed herself to (while campaigning for an admin spot after losing twice because of concerns that she'd use the tools to further disputes she was involved in, she promised to not make controversial edits and to step down if six or more editors file a complaint that she abused her position).
Endorse From reading some of the comments here, I get the feeling that maybe Elonka might be used to a 'board room' type atmosphere. This is just the feeling I am getting, and if that is the case it would not work easily if at all with the core policies established for Misplaced Pages. --CrohnieGal 16:50, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment by JackSchmidt

JackSchmidt posted the following informal comments to my talk page very shortly after I posted this RfC. He has given permission to copy it over to here if the dispute had not been resolved within a few days. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:10, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Howdy, you helped me out a while ago with a dispute (naming conventions or something). I noticed that you currently have some trouble getting Elonka to understand you. I think the problem is that you two are just speaking different languages. When you talk about the article, you mean its content. When she talks about the article, she means the behavior of the editors as seen through the edit history. You both try to explain your concern to each other, but neither can hear the other because of this fundamental difference.

I think all you want is a clearly written article. All she wants is a stable editing environment for the article. Both are absolutely necessary for the good of the encyclopedia and that article. If you put up a completely perfect version, then it will be torn down and replaced by disagreeing editors, because the current atmosphere is quite nearly an edit war. On the other hand, if she manages to create a peaceful atmosphere where editors collaborate, then they still might be collaborating on a poorly sourced, counterfactual piece of garbage, because the current article needs work.

In other words, I don't think you two are actually disagreeing on anything. I think you are just concerned with completely different things. Both your and her actions advance one of these aspects very well, but on the other hand, do damage to the other.

I think you two just need to consider the other's goal and figure out how to match it with your own.

For instance, if a section of the article has not been edited in a while, then replacing it is not edit warring, even if it is technically a revert of some 2004 edit. If you confine complete rewriting to such sections, then you can drastically improve the article without degrading the atmosphere. The exact same thing in another language: If she only imposes editing restrictions on sections of the article that are currently involved in the bad atmosphere, then that leaves editors free to boldly contribute to other sections.

Hope this helps, JackSchmidt (talk) 22:09, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Users who endorse this comment:

Jack's comments make a lot of sense. The ideal outcome here would be for the two sides to find a way of working that meets each others' concerns. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:10, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. EmersonLowry (talk) 01:25, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
One side sees the the restrictions placed on the article as preventing good content edits, while another side sees the restrictions as creating a better environment. While I don't think the blanket 0RR method is a good idea, I can certainly respect the goal of wanting to make a more ideal editing environment. -- Ned Scott 05:53, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Interesting perspective. And insightful. An administrator who even forms a perspective as to what a NPOV article on subject X should look like has already gone a long way towards jettisoning their neutrality and disqualifying themself from dealing with the editing environment. From Misplaced Pages:Administrators: "administrators should ensure they are reasonably neutral parties when they use the tools." Administrators dealing with the conflict are essentially required by policy to attempt to deal only with the editing environment, while assuming that if disruptive editing is prevented that the parties will eventually reach agreement on what a good article looks like. At this point I view the editing restrictions at Quackwatch and Muhammad al-Durrah as experiments. If they work well, we'll keep using them in other places. If not, we'll attempt to figure out why and then use some different restrictions that might work better. To date, my assessment of the Quackwatch situation is that the editors there would rather edit war and snipe at each other than actually discuss the article content and reach agreement. Unfortunately, we can't actually require volunteer editors to dig in and work on an article, much less to work together, which is what is really needed. GRBerry 14:40, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Leifern

In the spirit of full disclosure: I have had several run-ins with ChrisO, and Elonka has also seen fit to comment on what she (in my view, incorrectly) viewed as uncivil behavior.

I have two comments related to this issue:

ChrisO makes a very poor case against Elonka, in that he first complains about Elonka's judgment in one article (in which he is heavily involved), but then invites others to criticize her for any other real or perceived injustice she may have caused on any other matter. As comments on this page clearly show: everyone has some beef against Elonka. The accusations are also broad in nature and require a significant burden to disprove, especially considering Elonka's interest in wading into controversial issues. If Elonka has made 2,000 decisions and been right on 95% (a great batting average), she'll still have 100 misses. Which brings me to my second point.
Elonka's dedication to resolving contentious issues deserves first and foremost our praise, and then also our sincere efforts to help her get better at it. If ChrisO believes that Elonka made errors in judgment, he would negotiate and explain his point of view as an involved party, rather than to present his case as if he were impartial. --Leifern (talk) 21:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Users who endorse this comment:

Endorse. There are far better ways to address these issues than RfC. Alansohn (talk) 22:12, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. I thought RfCs were supposed to be about a single dispute. Coppertwig (talk) 22:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. This RFC has went from one with a centralized focus, to one that is a general rant against Elonka. seicer | talk | contribs 23:06, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. RfCs are supposed to be about a specific issue - not a venue to pile on and vent every real or imagined grievance against Elonka. In this case - the editing restrictions placed and their application - Elonka has done nothing wrong. Canadian Monkey (talk) 23:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse, except for the statement that "everyone has some beef against Elonka". Many of those who have commented have some beef against Elonka, in some cases stretching back years, and having nothing whatsoever to the specific article in question, or, indeed, any of the other "issues" raised on the page. This page has, as is sadly typical for RFCs, turned into a pile-on, where anyone who has had a minor beef or tussle with Elonka in the past two years now sees their opportunity to get their licks in. Jayjg 00:17, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. Nothing will be solved by this RfC except that it creates a lot of negative feelings and it will do nothing to change the problem with the deadlock in the article or even less in the area of I/P conflict. It is a shame. Tundrabuggy (talk) 00:44, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. A lot of the comments on this RfC page appear to be POV-pushing run amok. It seems that there are quite a few editors who are using this forum in an attempt to strengthen their POV on articles by trying to weaken someone they see as a threat to their freewheeling ways and bullying of opposing editors with different POVs. This tactic applied over and over eventually gives them a clear consensus because opposing editors "disappear". --Fat Cigar 03:38, 4 August 2008 (UTC) This template must be substituted.
Endorse. Leifern's Point 2 is an extremely important one. Elonka is a rare administrator in that she has come into at least one article in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict area, as a truly neutral admin, has continued to seek to help stabilize the article, and has remained truly neutral. There is an unfortunate history in this whole topic area of admins coming in either as mediators, "neutral" enforcers of policy, or third-opinion givers, and then either turning tail and fleeing in horror after a few days, or becoming partisan. Elonka has done neither. That sort of thing should be encouraged, not censured. 6SJ7 (talk) 04:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. I also agree with Jayjg's point that a large number of the comments critical of Elonka's work are those who have either had a remedy enforced against them or have years long disputes with Elonka that have nothing to do with this issue. If there are kinks in the remedies Elonka is using (which I have yet to see any substance to those claims), lets talk about how to improve them instead of tossing the baby with the bathwater. Shell 22:55, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Point #2. No opinion on point #1. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:47, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. Support User:Jayjg's view . Editors( esp.User:Mathsci & User:Slrubenstein, being critical of Elonka here in RFC are doing so due to their past grudges .-Bharatveer (talk) 07:42, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. I have faced and seen witch hunting on this forum and this is clearly one more instance Sindhian (talk) 09:09, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse per Coppertwig. -- Levine2112 21:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Arthur Rubin

Disclosure: I consider Elonka's imposition of 0RR on another article a bad approach, and the ArbComm decision allowing such inventive remedies doesn't recognize a method of appeal of the remedy as a whole, only appeals as to specific restrictions on specific users. She warned me for violating a 0RR, and I haven't editing that article since. I don't recall having a dispute with Elonka other than that, or with ChrisO at all.

To begin with, Elonka has such an obscure definition of "revert" that it is not possible to objectively decide whether an edit is a revert, and, a common editing style of moving a statement of one section to another in two separate edits (so that the section tags are properly maintained) might technically be in violation of 0RR, even if the resultant sequence of edits would not be a revert in Elonka's sense, even if it would be in the sense of 3RR.

I'm not familiar enough with this particular article to determine if Elonka is favoring one side or the other, but I'm just commenting that her 0RR cannot be enforced without analyzing the individual edits in the context of the article; and noting that an edit misrepresenting a source to support a statement about a living person can be reverted under BLP, regardless of any editing restrictions that may be placed on the article. If that's what ChrisO has been doing (as he claims), his article ban should be revoked.

I'm afraid the proper venue for the expanded assertion that Elonka is misuseing the 0RR restrictions she placed on other articles would be to go directly to RfAr, and the RfC would be appropriate. ArbComm would almost certainly refuse to hear the case, but there's no other appropriate venue.

Endorse. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 13:22, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. Alun (talk) 15:15, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. Mathsci (talk) 15:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. Ramdrake (talk) 15:29, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. PhilKnight (talk) 16:11, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. The other alternative, of course, is recall. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:28, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. I personally don't think the 0RR should be in play. I think the 3RR policy should be enough if enforced properly. I would also like to add that enforcing these rules, editor histories should be looked at for problem in editing behaviors, which I have seen not understood or done.--CrohnieGal 16:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. 0RR causes chaos when there is WP:FRINGE. Further serious problems over BLP or if the parties have gone to law. PR 19:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Endorse. DreamGuy (talk) 20:53, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

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