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

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Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

Open cases
Case name Links Evidence due Prop. Dec. due
Palestine-Israel articles 5 (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 21 Dec 2024 11 Jan 2025
Recently closed cases (Past cases)

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

Clarification and Amendment requests

Currently, no requests for clarification or amendment are open.

Arbitrator motions
Motion name Date posted
Arbitrator workflow motions 1 December 2024

The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and (exceptionally) to summarily review new evidence and update the findings and decisions of a previous case. Review is likely to be appropriate if later events indicate the original ruling on scope or enforcement was too limited and does not adequately address the situation, or if new evidence suggests the findings of fact were significantly in error.

The procedure for accepting requests is described in the Arbitration policy. If you are going to make a request here, you must be brief and cite supporting diffs. If your case is accepted for arbitration, the arbitrator or clerk will create an evidence page that you can use to provide more detail. New requests to the top, please. You are required to place a notice on the user talk page of each person against whom you lodge a complaint.

0/0/0/0 corresponds to Arbitrators' votes to accept/reject/recuse/other. Cases are usually opened at least 24 hours after four accept votes are cast. When a case is opened, a notice that includes a link to a newly created evidence page will be posted to each participant's talk page. See the Requests section of the arbitration policy page for details.

This is not a page for discussion, and Arbitrators or clerks may summarily remove or refactor discussion without comment. Please do not open cases; only an Arbitrator or clerk may do so.

See also


Purge the server cache


How to list cases

Under the Current requests section below:

  • Click the "" tab on the right of the screen appearing above the section break line;
  • Copy the full formatting template (text will be visible in edit mode), omitting the lines which say "BEGIN" and "END TEMPLATE";
  • Paste template text where it says "ADD CASE BELOW";
  • Follow instructions on comments (indented), and fill out the form;
  • Remove the template comments (indented).

Note: Please do not remove or alter the hidden template

Current requests

NPR

Parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
MSTCrow - MSTCrow 02:00, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by party 1

User ideogram has repeatedly blanked a section of the NPR article without giving any reason, and has recieved vandalism warnings. He has also worked to destroy the mediation process in NPR's talk, to the point that the agreed upon stage suggested by the mediator had been reached, but ideogram dismissed it and continued an ongoing flame-war, despite he was not part of the mediation party. Calton has repeatedly blanked sections of the NPR article only calling it "propaganda." User calton was warned twice with the "be civil" tag, and once with the "vandalism" tag. He has found a sympathetic admin to ignore his acts of vandalism and incivility, where the admin then threatened me, despite the fact the admin was not at all familar with WP:Vandalism.

Statement by sympathetic admin not at all familiar with WP:VANDAL

That would be me. Bishonen | talk 02:30, 24 July 2006 (UTC).

Statement by User:Calton

Oh joy, my very first RfArb. Fortunately, it'll be a very short one, given that it's entirely frivolous, being a content dispute on National Public Radio -- and essentially a unilateral one, at that -- being escalated by the filer in an attempt to bully his way through. It's textbook wikilawyering.
The "civility warning", by the way, was for an edit summary, made in response to MSTCrow's transparently false Reverted, Ideogram is blanking information, refer to talk page. Do not revert edit again, as this constitutes vandalism., that read: "rv - noooo, he's removing propaganda thinly disguised as sources". There's a certain element of Pot Calling the Kettle Black involved, if nothing else, to complain about civility in the face of the original edit summary that prompted my comment.
Further note: the filer will not be responding anytime soon, as he's been blocked for 24 hours for violating WP:3RR on the article in question. I guess that makes ANOTHER admin "not at all familiar with WP:VANDAL". --Calton | Talk 02:45, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by User:Ideogram

I note that User:MSTCrow has stated his intention to leave Misplaced Pages, so I will not comment unless he changes his mind. --Ideogram 03:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by party 5

(Please limit your statement to 500 words. Overlong statements may be removed without warning by clerks or arbitrators and replaced by much shorter summaries. Remember to sign and date your statement.)

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused clerks.)

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

Deir Yassin

Involved parties

User:KimvdLinde
User:Guy Montag
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Guy Montag
Confirmations of the case are also posted at the pages of SlimVirgin, FrancisTyers, Ral315 and Briangotts.
Notification of the case is also posted at the Dier yassin massacre article talk page
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Violation of probation, Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Arbitration_enforcement#User:Guy_Montag. Ban's in this case have been applied twice and lifted twice.

Statement by KimvdLinde

Guy Montag has seriously violated his probation with the rewrite of the Deir Yassin massacre article, which was serious biased editing using a denialist piece of work (Deir Yassin: History of a Lie, March 9, 1998 © 2000 The Zionist Organization of America, copies here and here), copyright violations from various websites and subsequent votestaking to prevent correction of this problem.
  • Unilateral page move from common name to hardly used name , evidence based on google in this section, and after that for google books etc.
  • Total rewrite , disputed Talk:Deir_Yassin_massacre#Total_Rewrite
  • Votestacking to prevent move back: opposed, opposed, opposed, opposed, opposed.
  • Extensive copyvio: http://www.kimvdlinde.com/wikipedia/Deir_Yassin_Copyright_violation.doc, primarily from Deir Yassin: History of a Lie, March 9, 1998 © 2000 The Zionist Organization of America (copies here and here).
  • Possibly whitewash, but at least biased editing. Page tries to difuse the massacre (opposite of the view of the main historians (Milstein, Morris and related), by selective quoting of Milstien (Guy claimed to have used the official english translation, however, all page numbers are in the 200's, which is the Hebrew version, the English version goes in the 300's). Furthermore, teh rewrite is suggesting that credible historians like Benny Morris make exagerated claims of number of deaths and atrocities: Nonetheless, some historians, such as Benny Morris, and eye witness accounts have claimed that certain of these allegations were carried out after the battle, while other eyewitness accounts claim the contrary., after which no reputable historian is quoted saying this, but a collage of selectively used quotes is used to illustrate the point. I fact, Morris and Milstein are remarkebly detailed and nuanced, but do conclude that there was a massacre. The battle at DY is completly unmportant from a military point; it is the massacre and the far reaching effect that it had on the independence war, as well as on the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem that is the core of this historical event. Reducing this to a battle only and trying to deny the massacre is a whitewash. (See older version ).
I plead guilty of moving a page on which I was myself marginally involved by starting a poll to get the page moved back to the more common name and voted in support for that. The rational for the move was posted at WP:AN/I, Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Battle_of_Deir_Yassin.2FDeir_Yassin_massacre:_move_poll_closure_review_requested here and the analysis and conclusion was considered valid and was moved back accordingly by an uninvolved admin . Uninvoled admins told me that I should have not moved it myself as I was involved. -- Kim van der Linde 13:42, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
If I am correct, than Fred Bauder has added this already to the other case I am involved in, see his comment at Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Israeli_apartheid/Workshop#Administrators_admonished and the proposed decision Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Israeli_apartheid/Proposed_decision#Administrators_admonished. -- Kim van der Linde 21:36, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


As for the claim that Guy is banned from the article, that is currently not the case, and the on/ off with the banning is the main reason to ask a decision from the ArbCom in this case so that clarity can be gained. -- Kim van der Linde 00:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
To add, he just added some of the copyrighted info back in the article. -- Kim van der Linde 01:04, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
The statements of various others suggest a recuring problem, if you revert a move it is ok, but when you use DR tools, you are suddenly bound because 'you are involved', or similar arguments, especially when there has been votestaking or related (while you can be just as invokved etc when you just revert, the basis of revert warring). So, this basically suggests that just reverting is a better thing to do than using dispute resolution tools. A quite contradictory situation, and it might be a good thing to get clarity in this. In a sense, this is quite similar to the Israeli apartheid case. -- Kim van der Linde 05:32, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
I am currently documenting the changes from the pre-Guy version, to his version, and how they are represented in the actuall relevant literature.
As for the sequence of events, with the banning and unbanning, let me show this:

In a short time, Guy gets banned twice under his probation, and unbanned twice as well, of which one is not by a neutral admin.

This back and forth between banning promted me to come here, as I think that the questions whether Guy needs to be banned from the article let alone in a wider context, can not be carried out by the normal processes as that seem to result in sequences of banning and unbanning. -- Kim van der Linde 15:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Guy Montag

I refuse to participate in any of these procedings, nor am I playing any more of her games. She is an administrator who has sided in an debate and then abused her powers to get her way. She is involved in an Arbcomm case dealing with her abuse of powers and has been asked to not participate in the debate at Deir Yassin by more than one editor. She initiated the vote that turned a discussion about the name that was only beginning into an all out pov fest by initiated a vote. After being notified that some of the information might be copywritten, even though much of it was already available in the previous version of the article (of course, no one cared about that because the article agreed with their pov) ar as raw sources in books, I petitioned the authors to receive authorization to use the information in the article, which is completely disfigured without it. I will recieve approval early next week. She causes disputes wherever she edits.

Even though the information can simply be cited within the notes by attributing to the author, Kim has used this technicality by reverting the article and totally rewriting the article according to her pov, even though I requested numerous times to open a workshop where we can work on the content together to insert both povs . Now she is attempting to ban me to stop me from balancing the article. This is a content dispute and Kim is using every heavy handed tactic she has at her disposal to stop me from editing. She should be sanctioned and her admin powers suspended. I have not been approached for mediation, nor did I feel there to be any need for mediation during my detailed discussion and debate with other editors.

Guy Montag 19:30, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by FrancisTyers ·

I banned Guy from the page for inserting a number of paragraphs of copyvio text in his rewrite. People able to read proprietary document formats can see Kim's summary here. I was asked to remove the ban by SlimVirgin as I had been discussing the issue of the title on the talk page with him, taking an opposing stance, although I hadn't made any content edits to the article itself. I subsequently removed the ban.

Guy first denied any copyright violation, but then implicitly accepted it by requesting permission to use the text. At the moment the article has been reverted to a version without any copyvio text that Guy inserted, although there may be others. So far there has been no permission given to use the text.

The fact that much of the copyvio material was from the Zionist Organisation of America, an organisation that would be expected to have a strong point of view in the matter is also concerning. I think if the article is reflecting the view of the Zionist Organisation of America, we haven't been doing our job to represent a neutral point of view. - FrancisTyers · 22:21, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Leifern ·

It seems to me that adequate disciplinary action already has taken place against Guy Montag, in that he was been banned for some time from editing the article in question. It isn't clear to me why KimvdLinde thinks such vigorous action is necessary. And several of her complaints are in fact legitimate content disputes that remain unresolved. Guy Montag should refrain from misbehavior, but he should not be prevented from engaging in an honest debate. --Leifern 23:21, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Ral315

I'm marginally involved, having placed a short-lived article ban on Guy Montag for his editing on Deir Yassin massacre (per my instructions, an administrator who dissented removed the ban). While I think a few of his actions were a bit out of line, I'm not necessarily sure it's enough to warrant a re-opening of his case. Ral315 (talk) 23:37, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Bibigon

I'm involved in this largely because KimvdLinde was the one who started this arb case, after previously initiating a move war on the article. KimvdLinde at this point appears to me to be an administrator who regularly abuses her powers in the pursuit of pushing her own POV, all the while cloaking her actions under the claim that she is uninterested party. She has previously done this in the Allegations of Israeli apartheid article and arb case, where she tried to excuse her improper behaviour in the move war that occured there on the basis that she was a mediator in that case. With regards to the Deir Yassin article:

1. Guy Montag rewrote much of the article and moved it, apparently believing that the move was not likely to be contested.
2. There was disagreement, and as far as I can tell, the article should have been moved back then and there until a consensus could be reached.
3. Instead however, KimvdLinde then began a poll on the matter, to propose moving the article back the 'Massacre' title.
4. There was no consensus after the prescribed period of time, but a majority did exist to move the article back. Given the lack of a consensus, several parties then agreed to extend the poll to get a better idea of where other editors stood on the matter.
5. The voting then shifted, with eventually a slight majority opposing moving the article back. Again, no consensus was forthcoming.
6. KimvdLinde then all of a sudden, without warning, without discussing closed the poll, claiming that Guy Montag had invalidated it by informing other editors that a poll was ongoing. There was no evidence presented to suggest that Guy Montag's actions were inappropriate, merely that KimvdLinde did not approve of them. She said this notification began after the extension of the poll deadline. It is worth noting that at that point, no consensus existed for moving the article.
7. Stunningly, KimvdLinde also took Guy Montag's actions as reason to unilaterally move the article back, initiating an edit war in the process. She did so in spite of the fact that even before Guy Montag notified other users, no consensus existed for her move. She also did so in spite of the fact that she had begun the poll in the first place, thus presumably believing it had some validity and legitimacy to begin with. So to recap, she began a poll, lost, claimed irregularities, and then without discussion, used those claimed irregularities as reason to declare victory. Note please that she did not try another poll, nor did she respect the results of the poll before the alleged irregularities. Instead, she took the her claims as cause to completely reverse the results, and take the same action that she would have had a consensus existed for the move. So if a consensus had existed for her proposed move, she would have moved the article, and if a consensus did not exist, she still would have moved the article. This does not appear to me to be appropriate behaviour from an administrator.
8. While KimvdLinde may have had legitimate cause to move the article back in the first place, due to the nondiscussed nature of the original move, the moment she began the poll, she lost any such claim to legitimacy. Why? Because by starting the poll, she implicitly gave it legitimacy and weight. If she had consensus, she was going to move back on that basis. If she lacked consensus, beyond her inappropriate actions in closing the poll, she clearly planned on moving the article back anyways claiming that Guy Montag's initial move was out of process. If that is the case however, then why did she begin the poll in the first place if she was going to take the same action regardless. What she has done here is a clever, yet appalling abuse of process. Assuming that Misplaced Pages still works through consensus, and that process is important, KimvdLinde's actions fail to meet those standards in this case.
9. In KimvdLinde's statement here to the Arbitration Committee has misrepresented the facts of what happened on the Administrator's Noticeboard. To quote her "The rational for the move was posted at and the motivation was considered valid." Reading through the noticeboard, this does not appear to be the case. Her actions were heavily disputed, and her rationale, behaviour, and tone was also severely criticized by other admins there. Some agreed with her, other did not. Her misleading attempts to claim approval here for actions should be noted as well.
If the Arbitration Committee is going to be considering Guy Montag's actions here, then KimvdLinde's must also be considered. I would like to remind the committee that KimvdLinde is currently involved in another arbitration case about Allegations of Israeli apartheid about almost this exact same issue. There, poll about a proposed article move which ended without consensus, and was followed by a move war. The entire arb case is focused around claims by several editors, including KimvdLinde, that the move was out of the process, and thus not valid, and that the involved editors should be reprimanded. Invoking a curious double standard, KimvdLinde regardless saw fit to again engage in the same same behaviour herself, without even waiting for a ruling in the ongoing case. As an administrator, her actions and her behaviour, should not be allowed to go unnoticed. Bibigon 02:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Briangotts

I requested that the ban on Guy be lifted per the instructions because it seemed inappropriate to me and inconsistent with the previous arbcom ruling. I generally endorse Bibigon's summary of the facts. I find KimvdLinde's pattern of behavior disturbing in the extreme, all the more so because s/he is an admin. This is a case of an admin heavily involved in edit conflicts in an article now using admin powers to persecute a user whose views differ. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 03:46, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Gatoclass

I fully support KimvdLinde's move to have Guy Montag's status as a Wiki editor reviewed.

About three weeks ago, I became aware of Guy Montag's unilateral rewrite and renaming of the Deir Yassin article (from "Deir Yassin massacre" to "Battle of Deir Yassin"). Guy's actions precipitated a long wrangle about the appropriateness both of his edits and the page move. When a straw poll was held on the page rename, Guy then engaged in votestacking to try and get the result he desired, as Kim has outlined in her submission.

Guy's original probation was for inappropriate, POV editing of Israel-Palestine pages. I therefore assume that it's relevant to this case to review the nature of his edits on the Deir Yassin page, as well as his apparent deceptions.

To illustrate the POV nature of Guy's edits, I note that the article he mostly borrowed from, the ZOA's article denying the existence of the massacre, itself confirms the marginal nature of its own case when it concedes that A total of 170 English-language history books which refer to the battle of Deir Yassin were analyzed for this study. Only 8 of the 170 raised serious doubts as to whether or not there had been a massacre.. Of those 8 sources, the ZOA could apparently not find a single quote challenging the massacre that they deemed worthy of inclusion in their article. Instead, they rely almost totally on Milstein, who himself, as far as I am aware, has never made an outright denial either. Yet Guy's rewrite is based largely on the ZOA's denialist piece and on the quotes from Milstein the ZOA provided.

In Guy's rewrite, testimony describing the massacre itself was either marginalized or, more frequently, simply eliminated from the article, while the event was recast as a battle in which a large number of civilians were inadvertently killed. Of fifteen eyewitness accounts of the massacre which were included in the previous version of the article, only five on my count survived Guy's rewrite - and one of them is included in such a way as to make it sound like a massacre denial. In addition, Guy included eyewitness accounts too numerous to mention, mostly from the alleged perpetrators, which cast doubt on the massacre. The few eyewitness accounts of the massacre that did survive Guy's rewrite are hedged with opposing views which weaken their impact.

Another way of evaluating Guy's alterations is to look at the number of section headings dealing with the massacre in the prior version compared to Guy's. In the prior version, of 21 section and subsection headings, 11 of them deal with the massacre. In Guy's version, of 20 section and subsection headings, a mere one deals with the massacre, and that is followed by a section entitled "Counter claims" in which the previous section is debunked.

A third method is to look at the percentage of the article devoted to the massacre in each version. The earlier version devotes 8 out of 27 screen pages to the massacre (excluding footnotes etc), or about 30% in total. Guy's rewrite by contrast, devotes just one screen page out of 20 to the massacre, or about 5%. Essentially, Guy's version restricts accounts of the massacre to a single paragraph. Bear in mind that according to the ZOA's own testimony, a mere 8 out of 170 books they reviewed, or about 5%, cast doubt on the massacre. Guy's rewrite then, effectively reversed those proportions. The POV nature of his rewrite could hardly be more starkly revealed.

Having done some prior reading about the historical event in question, the heavily POV nature of Guy's rewrite was immediately apparent to me when I first read it. However, although I had a strong impulse to simply revert, I did not do so out of respect for what I believed to be a thorough amount of research and effort on Guy's part. At the same time I could see it was going to be a long and difficult struggle to try and integrate his material into a more NPOV format.

A few days ago, FrancisTyers posted that he'd found some copyvio's in Guy's edit, which apparently originated from a partisan political website. Kim then did some further research and found multiple copyvio's. It turns out that what I had supposed to be thorough and dedicated research on Guy's part was little more than an extended cut-and-paste job from a handful of pro-Israeli internet sites, with a bit of massaging and rearrangement of the text to lend it a patina of originality.

In my opinion, Guy's transgression is further exacerbated by the way he attempted to pass off his rewrite as having been made directly from the source material, rather than the shabby cut-and-paste copyvio it was. When we began to ask him for some more quotes from his primary source Milstein, he claimed that he had returned the book to the local library and couldn't provide them. When Kim finally went and borrowed a copy of the book herself, and found discrepancies in the page numbering, Guy was completely unable to explain them. Note his failure to respond to her comment here.

What Guy did was waste three weeks of everybody's time as his contentious edits initiated a long wrangle on the talk page over their appropriateness and veracity. To find out after all that expended time and effort that his edits were merely an episode of plagiarism, was quite exasperating. I think his behaviour was disrespectful of his fellow Wiki users. I feel particularly deceived because in good faith I had declined to revert Guy's edits on the basis of his meticulous research, only to discover that his research was a sham.

In his defence, I'm not going to accuse him of either bad faith or unpleasantness. Quite possibly, he genuinely believes his edit was NPOV, though I'm sure that few objective observers would agree. Also, he has always maintained civility on the talk page. However, I think that his deceptions, his copyvio's, and his violation of the terms of his probation certainly deserve some sort of disciplinary action over and above merely banning him from the page in question. It's for that reason I have added my opinion to this page. Gatoclass 12:05, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg

I find many of Kimv's recent actions to be very concerning. She seems to either not understand or not care about the fact that adminstrators do not have any extra "powers" per se, they just have extra responsibilities. She regularly uses her privledges to gain an upper-hand in disputes that she is not only involved in, but is actually a primary party to, all the while she pretends to have no personal convictions one way or another about the dispute. I think it is particularly odd that she would even attempt to open this RFA on the heels of another conflict where she engaged in the same kind of inappropriate behavior.

As for Guy's behavior, I do not think that it can be called exemplary by any stretch of the imagination, however I find it equally difficult inapplicable to state that Guy's edits were a violation of his probation. Sure he edits from a pov, but so do all of us, at least Guy is able to admit it right on his userpage. If Guy did anything wrong it does not even compare to the actions of KimvdLinde. If there is a reason to accept this RFA it is only to take a closer look at the actions of Kimv.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 12:28, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused clerks.)

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

Sarner

Involved parties

user:DPeterson filed by this user.

user:Sarner Harasses me, makes false accusations, recently posted "vandalism" on my user talk page without any basis.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
user:Sarner has been warned by others and previous mediation failed and resulted in his "soft-ban" from Bowlby page and ban from editing Barrett page.
Yes, but did you tell him of this RfAr? Morgan Wick 18:10, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Sarner has shown no desire to develop consensus or to collaborate. Several mediators and an advocate have been involved in the prior dispute on the Bowlby page. Several other editors have also been the victim of his attacks.

Statement by DPeterson

Sarner placed a "vandalism" notice on my talk page. There is no basis for this. He has harassed me with false accusations and attacks. He has resisted building consensus or collaborating, resulting in his ban from editing the Barrett page and Bowlby page. He is now taking this fight to my talk page. DPeterson 15:33, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by party 2

(Please limit your statement to 500 words. Overlong statements may be removed without warning by clerks or arbitrators and replaced by much shorter summaries. Remember to sign and date your statement.)

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused clerks.)

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

Intangible

Involved parties

User:Cberlet
User:Intangible
Summary of case

Intangible engages in:

  1. Reverting with little or no serious discussion
  2. Making sweeping edits and deletions with misleading subject lines
  3. Contentious and confrontational discussion page interactions
  4. Walking editors in circles on discussion pages
  5. Idiosyncratic use of language and translations
  6. Attempts to revise Misplaced Pages categories citing obscure minority-view scholarship to reflect narrow POV
  7. Revising articles citing obscure minority-view scholarship to reflect narrow POV
  8. Sanitizing articles about right-wing groups and their ties to the far right and neofascism
  9. POV pushing through wholesale deletion of the term "far right" from numerous pages

Seeking sanctions to block further editing by Intangible of articles involving the Political Left and Political Right, or other less severe sanctions deemed appropriate.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

User:Cberlet (filed by this editor)
User:Intangible

Other Editors Notified

LucVerhelst
WGee
AaronS
Dahn
Tazmaniacs
Vision Thing

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Requests for Comment for Talk:Fascism and Talk:Nazism here; Talk:Cultural Marxism here; Talk:Nouvelle_Droite here

Mediation declined at Neo-fascism here; Fascism here; Nouvelle_Droite here; Cultural Marxism here.

Statement by Cberlet (talk · contribs)

Intangible is an aggressive and confrontational editor with an idiosyncratic POV and a combative style that is contentious and very disruptive. Intangible deletes whole sections of articles with little or no serious discussion: Neo-fascism here. Intangible performs unreasonable deletions to POV push: here, here, here, here.

Intangible has launched a campaign or Renaming/Deleting Categories in POV way here, here, here, here, here, here.

In a short time Intangible has lined up a number of editors who are frustrated with the situation (see below). I note that Intangible has been blocked for 3RR here. Also, Intangible edits in a tag team fashion with User:Vision_Thing, see here and here.

The discussion on the page Nouvelle_Droite is an example of dubious translation and language issues, using an obscure cite to challenge majority scholarship, POV pushing, and arguing in circles. See: here.

Intangible engages in rapid-fire discussions on multiple pages, frequently declaring there is a consensus when none exists or that there is no discussion, has the same debate on multiple pages with multiple editors, then procedes to edit in an idiosyncratic POV way. The following series of edits was accomplished between the time I last asked for agreement for mediation and Intangibleresponding that he could not discuss the suggestion because an artitration was filed. I filed the arbitration because it was clear that Intangible was going to continue his pattern of disruptive and combative edits and circular discussion page entries: ,, , , , , , , , , , .

There are several editors who have added their comments and diffs below.

--Cberlet 15:40, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by User:Intangible

  • This RFAr filing has no merit. I have only declined mediation once, namely here, because there was still an on-going discussion on Neo-Fascism#Section on the United States, which continued here. About my editing, I think it suffices to say that all my edits are sourced (to name a few) and I am always happy to provide direct quotes from the sources I use . On multiple occasions I have asked User:Cberlet to use direct quotes or make explicit what his references are saying , alas to no avail. That this was needed was also put forth by other wikipedia editors . And in the rare cases User:Cberlet is explicit, he uses a piece from the Institute for Historical Review#Journal of Historical Review, while other sources should be available.
  • About my deletion of the section in the Neo-Fascism article , that that section was unbalanced and POV, which was later acknowledged here
  • About putting up articles or categories up for deletion, maybe User:Cberlet should have included these as well: . See also Misplaced Pages:Words to avoid#Words implying a value judgement.
  • I have only been blocked once for "3RR," this was because other editors kept removing a POV tag, after I went to the talk page to discuss my inclusion of this tag. One of these editors, User:AaronS, was later found to be in contempt with the 3RR rule in removing this POV tag.. See also User_talk:Intangible#User_notice:_temporary_3RR_block.
  • The goal which User:Cberlet seeks in this RFAr, "Seeking sanctions to block further editing by Intangible of articles involving the Political Left and Political Right, or other less severe sanctions deemed appropriate," is utterly vague. I can only see this process as a character assassination; something that has become a custom of User:Cberlet ever since calling me an "apologist for neofascism." I do not think ArbCom should also become part of this. Nonetheless, if need be, I am happy to defend this case more fully, to stop this pestering.
  • Intangible 23:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by AaronS

User:Intangible engaged in edit warring with regard to the article on anarchism, and was eventually blocked for violating WP:3RR. In violation of WP:V, he insisted on inserting a dubious claim into the article's lead. When asked to back up the claim, he provided a nearly 120 year-old, unreliable source. When that was removed, he claimed that the article violated NPOV and inserted a POV tag. He repeatedly re-inserted this tag, regardless of whoever removed it. He continues to edit the article with POV/false information. Discussion proved fruitless, as Intangible feels strongly about his original research. His POV bias became clear when he claimed that being a socialist was incompatible with supporting liberty. Much the same thing occurred at Template_talk:Anarchism, and he disruptively edited the template to prove a point. I only ask that Intangible be reminded, at least, of WP:V, WP:OR, WP:Reliable sources, and WP:NPOV. --AaronS 20:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Update. Intangible has now been attempting to insert the originally researched claim that Thomas Jefferson was one of the main sources of anarchist thought (see Talk:Anarchism#Thomas_Jefferson). He appears to be using a sock puppet account (User:Intangible), which he often piggybacks his edits with, to do this. --AaronS 20:54, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by LucVerhelst

Intangible has a very confrontational style. He seems to be unable to accept changes that are outside what he believes is the truth. The only way to bring NPOV into such articles, seems to be to go along with his tendency to start an edit war, an hoping that during the conflict a third party can convince him to partially concede.

I seem to find it harder and harder to go along with this confrontational style, and have a tendency to give up, letting him have his POV-truth.

Some examples :

  • 12 July 2006 Vlaams Belang While reverting vandalism, Intangible reverted good faith edits by TedMundy. After a revert back by TedMundy, new revert by Intangible ("use the talk page first when you want to remove references here"). Revert back by TedMundy, commenting "What references ? I edited the text, made it better. No need to ask permission first, I should think.", upon which Intangible reverts back again : "I don't have time for silly games, so use the talk page first". I step in, and revert back : "I don't see why user TedMundy should first confer on the talk page". New revert from Intangible : "surely it can be included though". Revert back from myself :"I agree with TedMundy. This belongs in the Vlaams Blok article", upon which Intangible goes to my talk page : . My answer on his talk page : , upon which Intangible reverts back Vlaams Belang : "instead of proving a POINT, I will add the reference back again". Another revert from me, following some edits by me and another user, and a final revert back by that other user, accompanied by a personal attack by that user on me and TedMundy on the talk page.
  • Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism, 15 July 2006. Between edits and  : discussion between myself and Intangible about the content of the criticism section. Intangible inserts the vision of a minority far right group, using weasel words, trying to depict them as mainstream. I tried to find some middle ground, but I gave up.
  • July 18, Guido Demoor Guido Demoor recently died in Antwerp, Belgium. Initially, press coverage led to believe that he was the victim of a beating by 6 youths of North African descent. Later was revealed that he himself had far right connections, that he initiated the fight in question, and that his death was primarily caused by his bad condition, and only circumstantially by the fight (that he started himself). The article as it is now depicts only the first, racially coloured story. I've tried to bring NPOV into it, giving two independent sources, but my edits were plainly reverted by Intangible, while commenting : "rv to sane version - see talk page". The page meanwhile has been blocked. The discussion on changes continues on the talk page, where he refuses to cooperate to find a middle ground, but instead suffises with trying to minimise the value of the sources provided. --LucVerhelst 21:52, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by WGee

Intangible is a very tendentious editor who has consistently demonstrated an incapacity or unwillingness to refrain from promoting his point of view in political articles. I have observed his intransigent, partisan editing style in the National Front article, in particular. He single-handedly commandeered the article (being blocked as a result ) to remove the term far-right as a description of the party, claiming that the definition of the term is ambiguous and that the word therefore cannot be used in a neutral sense. This is despite a consensus in the political science establishment (and among the involved editors, with Intangible being the sole excpetion, of course) that the National Front is far-right. In other words, he resorted to a specious, tangential argument about semantics to minimise a consensus among some of the most reputable, scholarly sources and to promote his point of view that the FN is not far-right. Information on Misplaced Pages is supposed to be derived from reputable sources—that is one of the core tenets of this encyclopedia. But Intangible's suppresion of reputable sources in the National Front article indicates that he/she is willing to violate the essence of Misplaced Pages when the sources contradict his/her beliefs. That is something I find roundly unacceptable. -- WGee 23:47, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Tazmaniacs

Intangible has the right to his own opinions, but not to delete the term "far right" from a serie of articles and categories. Does he thinks, as does Marine Le Pen, Jean-Marie Le Pen's daughter, that Le Pen has gone too far? Does he think, as do most European far right parties (including Jorg Haider) that the French Front National is not a respectable party, and should become so by deleting the reference to its being a (proud) member of the far right? Despite his apparent knowledge (Intangible often likes bringing quotes from various books, showing a scholarly profile), he has nothing else more important to do than endlessly removing these NPOV terms used by all political scientists ("left" & "right wing" being particularly relevant to France, as explained a thousand times to him during the deletion debate of left & right wing categories; see third nomination for deletion for the last one of them]. Having discovered the recently created article on Far right leagues, based on the French fr:ligues d'extrême-droite, a obvious and necessary article (and category) to regroup such similar groups such as de la Rocque's Croix-de-Feu, Marcel Bucard's Francisme, the Jeunesses Patriotes, etc., Intangible has only one desire: asking for its deletion, or at least separating it into "fascist" and "nationalist leagues". He thus proposes a new CfD (proposing ten CfD at the same time, all about the same subject), here. This new CfD is an obvious trolling attempt. Two solutions possible: either Intangible is not an idiot, and knows what he's doing. In this case, he would wisely limits himself to articles he knows something about, and let others of which he is ignorant alone. Anybody familiar with French far right leagues know that breaking this category up into "nationalist" leagues on one hand, "fascist leagues" on the other hand, would be very difficult, as it engages all of the debate on the existence on a "French Fascism" (while the term "far right leagues" doesn't imply if these leagues were fascist or not; that they were "nationalist" is an evidence, of which Intangible is of course aware). Thus Intangible is only asking this CfD to make us loose time on Misplaced Pages. Of course, Misplaced Pages will survive without us, and we could let Intangible at his little work. If he wisely uses his summmer, he could end up deleting tens of categories and the use of the term "right" and "far right" from hundreds of articles where the consensus between editors agreed on its use. The other solution, of course, is that Intangible is an idiot, whom interfers in articles he knows nothing about with only his ideological stance as navigational tool. This would explain why he doesn't find time to make more interesting edits (should I add: and combative? There are lots of smarter ways to support far right parties than by erasing the term "far right" from its pages, Intangible has got a defensive posture that puts him in an agressive, biting, position; if he had real, relevant info to defend his views, why doesn't he adds them instead of losing time in edit-warring over the silly inclusion or not of "far right" in the Front National page, although 99% of Frenchmen and all political polls class it as a far right party?) Let me tell you that I don't believe Intangible is an idiot, but he has dedicated himself to provoking others users in stupid, time-consuming, edit-warring, because Intangible seems to be part of this ultra-minority of people (a group which has nothing new, in the same way that Fukuyama's predictions on the end of history and the victory of the liberal democracies were about 50 years late on the same statements made (with a little bit more irony) by Kojève) that doesn't believe anymore in the distinction left-right inherited from the French Revolution. Should we recall that fascism was the first movement to declare itself above these political lines which divided the nation, instead of the nation gathering itself around its fuhrer and against all strangers, Jews, Black people (anti-Black racism in Nazi Germany is often overlooked), Gays, disabled people, communists and all other obviously "degenerated artists"? Someone who has nothing else on Misplaced Pages to do then enter conflicts with other users because he wants to remove all references to "left" and "right wing" obviously has nothing interesting to bring to us, but plenty of occasions to troll around. Here are a few more trollish edits by Intangible, deletion of "far right", July 20, Ibid, Nouvelle Droite, July 20, Same, one hour later - I let him here, will reverse just now, let's see in how much times he rv this - ) ] ), Ibid, Front National, July 20, after having just been reversed by User:Rama. Deletion of "far right" at GRECE: June 4, a few hours later, trying to keep "far right" out of the text, including it only in the last lines, deletion of critics, and on July 20, , , ... A non-exhaustive list may be found on Cberlet's workspace, here. Tazmaniacs 14:02, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

PS: Intangible's pretext that "left", "right" and "far right" are terms that should be censored on behalf of Misplaced Pages:Words to avoid#Words implying a value judgement is ridiculous. First of all, politics is about value judgments, so he can let aside his pure innocence and naivety. More importantly, The Front National article clearly provides its sources for its qualification as "far right" which is almost universally recognized. Politics is about taking sides, although it's also about lying about one's own position and the others' positions; this doesn't take out the reality of the "left-wing" criteria, and in any cases, if Intangible really has problems with this distinction, this debate should take place at Left-right politics and nowhere else. Furthermore, his comment about Cberlet's use of a Journal of Historical Review article in the Nouvelle Droite article is close to an ad hominen attack where he tries to reverse the charge and let Cberlet pass as a revisionist. This is quite indecent especially in the views that Cberlet's citation was there to source a quote from Alain de Benoist, that the article is about a far right movement not totally unrelated with the revisionist galaxy, and all the more if you see a bit the debate on the "Nouvelle droite" talk page: Intangible is trying since a month to transform the Nouvelle Droite in the New Right, forcing Cberlet to endlessly repeat the same evidences. If this isn't trolling, than what is? Tazmaniacs 14:20, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by other editor 2

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (4/0/0/0)

Warren Kinsella

Involved parties

Arthur Ellis
Pete Peters
CJCurrie
209.217.93.60
209.217.66.179
207.35.190.72
72.136.201.103
69.157.70.145
Ceraurus
et al

Users who have attempted to defuse the situation

RadioKirk
Crzrussian
Geedubber
Fuhghettaboutit
Yanksox
et al
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Arthur Ellis
Pete Peters talk
CJCurrie
209.217.93.60
209.217.66.179
207.35.190.72
72.136.201.103
69.157.70.145
Crzrussian
Geedubber
Fuhghettaboutit
Yanksox
Ceraurus
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Several users, including at least two administrators, have attempted to mediate to no avail.

List of affected articles

other editors feel free to add more, this is probably an incomplete list

Statement by RadioKirk (talk · contribs)

A long-running war has occurred over this page with one side (and his/her/their socks) attempting to paint this person in the best light possible and the other side (and his/her/their socks) attempting to paint him in the worst possible light. Attempts at mediation have been manifold and have met with only limited success. It is time for several accounts to be banned from this article and anything peripheral (including but not limited to Mark Bourrie, who may be editing this article under different names).

Statement by Thatcher131

My involvement I have not edited any of the articles in question. I became aware of the situation when a number of Canadian IP addresses vandalized Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Ceraurus, adding slurs against Warren Kinsella.

The problem Warren Kinsella and Mark Bourrie are two Canadian bloggers/political figures who are in conflict in real life, including reciprocal threats of legal action. The dispute is spilling over into wikipedia, with tendentious editing, POV pushing and multiple 3RR violations on all sides. Unfortunately, most of the participants are anonymous IP addresses, so the only practical remedy (other than permanently semi-protecting the articles involved) may be to empower admins to block IP addresses that fit the pattern without having to warn 4 times and assume good faith.

  • Warren Kinsella The article Mark Bourrie has been edited from a highly negative POV by an IP user (different ISP than Arthur Ellis) who is probably Kinsella or a strong supporter.
  • Pierre Bourque is a supporter of Kinsella and thus an opponent of Bourrie/Arthur Ellis. Ellis has alleged that Pete Peters (talk · contribs) (whose first edit was June 27) is really Bourque, but the checkuser request was declined. However, a different IP has made a number of hagiographic and personal edits to the article, suggesting that this IP may in fact be Bourque; this has led to more than one edit war between anonymous IPs representing the Bourrie side and the Bourque/Kinsella side.

Reply to Pete Peters I have not studied the situation any more thoroughly than the brief summary above and have no opinion on your identity or behavior, except that in general there has been a lot of edit warring on these articles from both sides. My comment on Mackensen's talk page was in reference to the anonymous IP addresses that began vandalizing Misplaced Pages:Requests for checkuser/Case/Ceraurus after Kinsella linked to it on his blog (said vandalism coming, of course, from the anti-Kinsella side of the conflict).

Reply to JGGardiner I saw the notice on ANI regarding Peters and I agree it looked like Peters was trying to branch out to other areas and was being hounded by the same range of IPs that often make pro-Bourrie/Ellis and anti-Kinsella edits.

Statement by Fuhghettaboutit (talk · contribs)

My role in this matter was quite limited. Having noted the contention displayed by numerous, warring contributors to the page, and that some of that contention was specific to whether certain sources and information provided by those sources was proper or not, I hoped that converting the sources, then all embedded hyperlinks, to more transparent inline citations would have some ameliorative effect. I did so (along with a few minor stylistic changes) first here and after the next reference addition failed to follow suit, again here.

I have not followed the dispute in great detail but a review of the talk page today, including the two archives (A1, A2), shows great effort and patience by a number of users and admins to defuse the situation over more than six months. Despite these efforts, and after over 500 talk page posts, the page is at square one. This early edit shows how charged the page is and is likely to remain.

I leave it for the those more familiar with the active players to explore exactly who should and who should not be blocked from editing this and related articles, but given the active recent warring, blocks appear warranted and necessary.--Fuhghettaboutit 00:22, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Crzrussian (talk · contribs)

I originally came to be involved in the edit war over Warren Kinsella after reviewing and denying this bad-faith AIAV report by User:Arthur Ellis against User:Pete Peters. Since then the edit war simmered on and off on the article talk page. The article was protected and unprotected a total of eight times. Arthur Ellis received two blocks from me, both for 24 hours, for 3RR violations. He's still serving the second block as I write these words. His sock, User:Marie Tessier was indefblocked by me earlier today after RFCU results came back positive. Pete is serving a one-week block imposed today for sustained edit warring, a bad-faith AfD nomination (Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Mark Bourrie) and repeated taunting of Arthur on the article talk page. Please note that I was only involved with these users insofar as Warren Kinsella, and did not participate in settling their other edit wars over different articles. Arthur also nominated for CSD and AfD in bad faith previously. (e.g. Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Hot Nasties etc.)

Both editors have a long history of personal attacks, many coming against myself recently. "Marie" also made unspecified legal-sounding threats against me, which are plainly scary.

I would like the ArbCom to ban these users and various Ottawa- and Toronto-based socks from editing any article relating to Kinsella/Bourrie/Bourque/Guite - I would be glad to help compile a list if this case is accepted.

I am sorry I did not bring this RfAr a lot earlier. It was a result of my unfamiliarity with and fear of this process, bourne out of my extreme aversion to wiki-politics. - CrazyRussian talk/email 02:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: the accusations of partiality towards Peters and against Ellis, yes, I did initially treat Ellis more strictly, because he was the one intent on actively slandering Kinsella and Peters looked like he was defending the integrity of the article (this may or may not have been the case, but this was my goodfaith impression. As to the disparity in block lengths, Ellis' 24hr block was handed out earlier, before the RFCU came back, and only on the basis of 3RR. An another situation, I would have certainly extended it after the RFCU, but now that the RfAr has begun, I see no point. As to Peters' block: I continue to stand by it; the length was preëmptively explained; and I vigorously deny making it longer than normal in order to shield myself from allegations of partiality. - CrazyRussian talk/email 16:44, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Reply to Arthur Ellis #2: No, I did not "admit bias". I was, at all points, not biased, and have no dog in this fight. Also, I did not "stuff" any talk page comments into archives - I merely archived the talk page, preserving all the comments. You have a penchant for negative presumptions. - CrazyRussian talk/email 19:53, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Geedubber (talk · contribs)

I first got involved with this when I noticed Pete Peters had accused Arthur Ellis of being Ceraurus/Mark Bourrie on the Mark Bourrie page. I told him that these were unacceptable edits and that RFCU was the correct place for those accusations. I myself had the same suspicions though, since Ellis' very first edit was to complain about the Ceraurus block. After two RFCU requests, the result came back inconclusive. Arthur Ellis then filed a revenge RFCU against Pete Peters(which was promptly denied). I noticed that Arthur Ellis had been block for 24hrs for edit-warring with Pete Peters on the Warren Kinsella page. The Kinsella page got protected so I went and found citations for everything so that nothing could be disputed and the page could be unprotected. The page got unprotected and was generally improved, but Arthur Ellis kept trying to add material with dubious sources, ie. kinsellasux.com (a website operated by Mark Bourrie). I would remove anything that wasn't sourced properly, and he almost got in an edit war with me. When I warned him that he was about to break 3RR again (and get blocked for a second time that week), he accused me of acting "dishonestly and maliciously". I reworked much of the Kinsella page trying to get a version that pleased both users. Arthur Ellis and Pete Peter got in an edit war again, the page got protected again, and I tried to work things out on the talk page. The page got unprotected and I made a version that they were both chill with.... and then the Ottawa IPs started attacking the page. It got protected again. Other pages that are involved in this whole thing are the Hot Nasties and The Invasion of the Tribbles (both Kinsella related topics). Ellis repeatedly tried to list them for CSD even though numerous admins told him that AFD was the proper venue. During the AFD for those two pages numerous Magma IPs voted to delete. Geedubber 05:10, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Response to Statement by Arthur Ellis: In Ellis's statment, he claims that he uses a Sympatico (Bell Canada) account to connect, but he even made that claim from a Magma IPGeedubber 19:25, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Response by Arthur Ellis: First, I listed the Hot Nasties page in good faith in June for quick delete, and, after five days, it was, in fact, deleted. No one had read it or had objected. The page was re-posted a few days later by the original author. I had no reason, after the first delete, to change my mind that the page is a vanity listing with no readership.
Geedubber did act dishonestly. I know that's a strong word, but, after looking at the talk page again, I stick to it.
"Kinsellasux" is actually www.kinsellasux.blogspot.com. Mark Bourrie does operate in and posts archival newspaper stories on it. You can be sure that the material is accurately presented, since Kinsella would sue him if it was not.
I have a Sympatico account. It's possible that in Ottawa, Sympatico owns Magma or some other corporate action goes on. No matter how much Geedubber would like to think this proves something, it doesn't.Arthur Ellis 19:49, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Yanksox (talk · contribs)

My limited experience in this dispute has only been really on the Kinsella talk page attempting to resolve this aggressive disagreement. I have seen the actions of specifically Ellis and Peters take their action on other pages and belligerently attack each other, the subjects of articles and other users. Their behavior is persistent and it appears that they are editing with an agenda, no approachable middle ground has made itself clearly visible and within reach. The situation has extended so far out with minor meticulous edits with different sources and alterations of POV. The current dispute is also extremely concerning due to the fact that users are stating that the main editors involved in the dispute are influenced by outside circumstances, causing a severe conflict of interest. This massive revert war has spread out too far and outside intervention is needed to put it to a halt. Yanksox 11:47, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


Statement by Arthur Ellis (talk · contribs)

No effort was made at mediation or any other dispute resolution. Two admins, one of whom admits his bias against me (for "slandering" Kinsella with sourced material -- I challenge him to find anything I posted that was not sourced) and another who does not admit bias, but should, have been involved in this dispute. When consensus was achieved on the article -- July 1 and July 8 -- admin crazyrussian actually allowed Peters to dismantle the consensus version. He was also allowed to keep raising issues and straw men, then refusing to provide any proof of his allegations that the article was incomplete or improperly sourced. Here's a sample of that kind of activity: . He would create work, ignore the result, and attack the article again. This is very clear in the talk page and the edits for those dates. Crazyrussian very quickly stuffed them into archives, but they survive.

I edited on Misplaced Pages for about a month before I ever saw the Kinsella page. I added quite a bit of material to entries on history, transportation and geography without any edit warring or reversions.

I found myself drawn into the controversy after reading the Kinsella entry and seeing that it was, originally, a vanity project to promote Kinsella and in related pages, his band and his book, Party Favours. I, along with a couple of other posters, sourced and wrote a more accurate section on Kinsella's role in the lead-up to the Sponsorship Scandal. It was constantly reverted and rewritten, often by an IP that once actually said it was Kinsella (giving permission to use a photo) to downplay Kinsella's role in this, admittedly, complicated ad contract scheme. The "sponsorship scandal" cost Canadian taxpayers $100 million in graft and kickbacks, and resulted in the national Liberal Party being disgraced and defeated this year. After my first edits of the Kinsella piece, Pete Peters registered and immediately began vandalizing the Mark Bourrie entry (his first post), trolling my edits, posting sock puppet tags on my talk page, and, everywhere he could, tried to discredit my edits by saying I was a sock puppet for a Misplaced Pages editor whose account is indefintely blockled because of a revert war with Bucketsofg and, (ironically), Homeontherange.

We got into edit warring on several pages, and my behaviour was sometimes reprehensible. I did work with a couple of people in Ottawa through IPs to try to keep the sourced and complete Kinsella entry. I did use some IPs as socks in this dispute, but I was not the only one. I wish I had not acted that way, but I believe it is important for Misplaced Pages to be factual. I also believe that Pete Peters both registered and acted in bad faith, goaded me, and got quite good at pushing my buttons. I believe he was also very good, at least for a while, at currying favor with Misplaced Pages admins, especially Crzrussian and Radiokirk, who both adopted his cause.

I believe I never initiated personal attacks. I did, however, respond aggressively to repeated (and repeated and repeated) provocations by Pete Peters and, to a lesser extent, JCCurrie and Geedubber. In the discussion, which I hope you will read, I ask them time and again to deal with facts of the entry -- each of which was sourced -- and discuss the points they believe are wrong, but, from Peters, I got personal abuse. CrazyRussian, believing, as he says, that I was "slandering" (in print it's called libel, but, hey, who's a lawyer around here?) Kinsella, simply ignored my arguments, reverted my changes, and help set me up for 3RR. As well, he, along with RadioKirk, ignored all the complaints I made to them on their user pages about Peters and anonymous IPs trolling talk pages and edit summaries saying I was Mark Bourrie. Here, Radiokirk takes up Ellis' cause re: the Kinsella page and trolls/outs me on Crazyrussian's talk page: Nothing was ever done to control this trolling/outing. As well, they refused to block Peters when I pointed out he had broken the 3RR.

No, Arthur, only the last line was RadioKirk's. The comment you're complaining about was left by 61.35.176.151 (talk · contribs) - CrazyRussian talk/email 03:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Please look at the talk pages for these two admins to see how they dealt with Peters and me. In both cases, the admins and Peters worked very amiably indeed. Crazyrussian touches on this very lightly, when, in fact, a review of the Warren Kinsella talk pages, especially after July 1, shows how blatant this was. Radiokirk was repeatedly informed of Peters' harassment Radiokirk actually coached Peters on ways to make Bourrie (believing it was me) look bad in the Kinsella article (see their talk page discussions of July 3) while at the same time refusing to stop Peters from, essentially, gutting the entry.

I want to stress that the Wiki article on Kinsella, as it stands now, is properly sourced and is accurate. Geedubber is disengeneous when he says some material came from "kinsellasux.blogspot.com". This material was, in fact, Lexis Nexis printouts of articles from major Canadian newspapers assembled as an archive by the poster. He knew very well that was the case, reverted a version of the entry that used one of these articles, then goaded me by saying my reverts were used up. I then called him dishonest, and I still do believe he was.

On July 1, and on July 8, various posters worked out compromises on the Kinsella page. It took about a day, with the help, mainly, of crazyrussian. Both times, Peters flounced at the first sign of compromise, then came back and changed the compromise version of the article. What was more aggravating, though, was that crazyrussian, who had obviously (until July 18) adopted Peters' cause, not only allowed this to happen but also ran interference for him.

As for the Bourrie AfD, not a single IP voted on it before crzrussian had the good sense to (finally) shut it down. One IP did post that Bourrie had some 86,000 Google hits, after Peters posted that Bourrie had no profile at all on Google .

As for "Marie Tessier", the checkuser came back "likely", not, as crzrussian says, positive. I don't know how they came to this decision. It is certainly not through IP checks. I take it she (it) and I edited several pages in common. I think everyone involved in the Kinsella fight did. Maybe she was an onlooker. I don't know.

I have a Sympatico (Bell Canada) account. Bell and a Canadian cable company, Rogers, split the high-speed business in my city of 1 million people. They use extremely fluid IPs. Mine changes every hour or two. I don't believe there's any way, other than a bizarre coincidence, that Tessier and I have the same IP. We certainly did not have the same IP number at the same time. There may be "blocks" of Sympatico IPs in Ottawa. They would be very large blocks indeed, tens of thousands of IP numbers. Blocking all Ottawa Sympatico IPs, as has been suggested, would put half of Canada's capital off Misplaced Pages.

I don't really care whether I'm on Misplaced Pages anymore. I must say it has been an unpleasant, unfulfilling experience. I volunteered my time, talent and expertise, and I took a lot of abuse. I also became angry enough to give abuse back, and the experience makes me ill. I do hope you will look at the various versions of the listing and look at the sourcing and decide for yourselves which one is best.

I did a WHO IS on the IP that has posted several threats on the Mark Bourrie entry, including one today (re: his membership in the Canadian press gallery; sending derogatory material to his thesis supervisors, etc):

IP Address  : 207.35.190.72

ISP  : Bell Canada

Organization : Pollara

Location  : CA, Canada

City  : Toronto, ON m5r1c1

CustName: Pollara

Address: 101 Yorkville, Suite 301

City: Toronto

StateProv: Ontario

PostalCode: M5R 1C1

Country: CA


This is the address of Warren Kinsella's office.


Also interesting that Crazyrussian would block Pete Peters partly for bad faith AfD of Mark Bourrie after Crazyrussian and Peters had this discussion on the Warren Kinsella discussion page:


Merge Debate I was wondering should we just Merge the Mark Bourrie entry as a paragraph in the WK entry? Pete Peters 01:46, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


Put up the template and we'll see. Arthur Ellis 01:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not too sure how to do it. But thank you Arthur for deleting my question on the Mark Bourrie discussion page. Pete Peters 02:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


Well, if outing Misplaced Pages editors is your bag, perhaps you should tell us all about yourself. If you think people really want to see the Bourrie and Kinsella pages merged, go ask one of your admin pals to do it for you. Or quit making mischief.Arthur Ellis 02:04, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Huh? Pete Peters 02:06, 20 July 2006 (UTC) Perhaps I should re-phrase. Without Kinsella, Bourrie would have never gotten a wiki entry. My point is not to merge the two, but to make Bourrie a paragraph in the Kinsella entry. Pete Peters 02:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Put Bourrie up for deletion, then. Arthur Ellis 02:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Use {{mergeto|Warren Kinsella}} - CrazyRussian talk/email 03:04, 20 July 2006 (UTC) Arthur Ellis 20:32, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


Any suggestion that I knowingly "coached" anyone into anything other than mutual cooperation and NPOV is quickly demonstrated ridiculous. RadioKirk (u|t|c) 07:46, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
All I ask the arbitrators to do is read the talk pages and look at the evolution of these pages. You will find nothing but abuse heaped on Bourrie and on me. You will see a very clear pattern of bias by the three admins, obvious conflict of interest, encouragement, or, at the very least, toleration of Peters' trollings, accusations and attempted outings. Most frustrating to me, you will see their complete and utter focus on personality and complete and utter lack of concern regarding actually sourcing and writing complete and accurate entries. If Peters and I are blocked from editing these articles, so should all of the people involved in this dispute -- admin and non-admin alike. I think the best thing for Misplaced Pages is a new group of non-Canadian editors work on these pages to make them accurate. Arthur Ellis 14:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Pete Peters

(Currently blocked, copied from User talk:Pete Peters by Thatcher131)

MY STATEMENT, it is long, but being a primary sunject in this dispute, I believe that it is just to be this long

Hello all Wikipedians!!! Who here would like to nominate me as an Administrator? Okalay Doke.

Let me start off by saying that as a new user, I wasn't too sure how the whole Wiki culture worked. When harsh words were used against me, I fought back with similar words. Which was wrong. Since I had never experienced an exchange between two users before, I thought this was the norm. As I got more involved with Misplaced Pages, I changed my tone to match the community spirit.

The issue I have is that one person and his anon IPs should not be allowed to dominate the Warren Kinsella or Pierre Bourque (journalist) with a clear POV, and IMO to simply settle a personal dispute. That is the issue, and I have long argued that I would become scarce if Arthur Ellis and his anon IPs would simply stop contributing to the page altogether.

IMO this article was coveted by one individual, who would bully people with opposing view by editors. . Further more, who I had thanked for saving my page from vandalism, became victim of similar attacks by an annon user from Ottawa, and if you read his talk page, you can see the result. (Please note that the comments made against him have been deleted from the record.)

As for accusing Arthur of being a sock of Cereaus, I later stopped that, as it became obvious that Misplaced Pages Admin would not sanction such behaviour. Thus I did improve my behaviour, and began to move onto other things. (But I now see that everyone else is saying that Arthur is a sock puppet, from a RFCU that had very little evidence.)

If one accuses me of Bad faith regarding the AFD of the Mark Bourrie entry, they may be right in that regards. I did this as a sting operation, my goal was to illustrate the Sock Puppet antics by Ottawa based IPs who would flood the page in an attempt to Keep it. It was gaining steam, until CrazyRussian closed the debate.

You will notice that when the Warren Kinsella or Pierre Bourque entries were not protected, I made little to no edits on those pages. I believed that if Anon IPs wanted modify the page, then let them do the work. But once the page was protected, I stepped in, I reverted the Gomery Inquiry to an anon IPs version, which I thought was better suited. Please read the Gomery Commission entry, which I never mentioned before, because of a suspicion that this page would be possessed by Arthur Ellis. Please read the entry, and note that Warren Kinsella is regarded as an outsider looking in. There is no justification to finger him, when he was never under investigation by the RCMP.

I have always said that I would leave this page altogether, if Arthur Ellis and anon Ottawa based IPs could do the same, to no avail. I was also the victim of attacks, on my user and talk page. This is a must read, . Okay this goes on, but please read this IPs history, the comments placed next to each edit were harsh to say the least. Most of this, I tried to take in stride, but making a comment about my father is something I take offence too. Especially when I am so proud of my father, who is working on a new mini-hubble liked telescope. Who has been invited by NASA to grade the performance of their new space telescopes. You should also note that after this user was blocked at 20:33, 12 July 2006 (UTC), Arthur Ellis made a Wikibreak statement soon after at 20:41, 12 July 2006, 9 minutes later. Then disappeared for 6 days, and only reemerged after disputed pages were semi-protected.

Now as for this statement made above by CrazyRussian, "Both editors have a long history of personal attacks, many coming against myself recently." For the record, I have never made a personal attack against CrazyRussian, and I he will confirm that.

And for this satement made by Thatcher131 . I would like a clarification, and his ensurance that he was not referring to me, Pete Peters as being Warren Kinsella himself. I would have no qualms to tesify on Warren Kinsella's behalf that he is not Pete Peters. The same goes for any statement regarding Pierre Bourque being Pete Peters.

And let me be perfectly clear, I have not used anon IPs as socks ever. About a half dozen times or so, I have forgotten to sign in. This by no means merits proof that I use sock puppets. I beg you to do a thorough checkuser investigation, which will ultimately exonerate me of any sock puppet actions. I can understand if there are any suspicions, because I reverted to some anon IP versions. It is just I believed those edits better suited the article.

In regards to CrazyRussian taking sides, I would not dispute this claim made by Arthur Ellis. I believe that I was given a week block by CrazyRussian to save his intregity, which I obliged and do not disagree with. His commendable career with Misplaced Pages should not be jeopardized over a simple tiff. So I would move him from the category Users who have attempted to defuse the situation to Involved Parties.

However, RadioKirk never took sides, and he should be exonerated from such accusations.

Please feel free to block me, and Arthur Ellis, along with a range block from Magna IP from Ottawa, along with IPs from the National Library of Canada like 142.78.64.223. And please note that I did not tag this page.

  • Response to CrazyRussian The reason why I do not dispute Arthur's claim is simple. His behaviour was clearly far worse than mine, and thus you were more strict with him. Pete Peters 15:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Response to Bucketsofg| I don't understand how you can make such statements against me, when you were away for such a long time. Making libelous innuendos that I might be one of the entries in dispute here, leads me to believe that you have ulterior motives behind your statement. Perhaps you should do your homework and read this ANI before making such innuendos. My issue has always been, that one user should not be allowed to dominate one page. (Please see "Hiding the spray paint") My sole purpose wasn't to provoke Arthur Ellis, buddy. I do admit to making one edit on Rachel Marsden entry, as an anon IP, BUT it was before I ever created an account. I have zero interest in the Marsden entry, and I am wondering if you are just trying to kick Arthur Ellis when he is down all the while taking shots at me. I have never used any socks, I have never colluded with any anon IP to be my meatpuppet, I think collusion requires premeditiation. So please do your homework before making any accusations.Pete Peters 15:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by JGGardiner (talk · contribs)

I’d watchlisted the Kinsella article some time ago. In late June, I noticed an edit summary from Peters "PISS OFF MARK BOURIE". I had some familiarity with Kinsella so I thought that I could help calm things in the discussion. By the time I began on the talk page, Peters was quiet and it seemed like Ellis was simply being hard to rather than disruptive, disputing every insertion from the other editors. I ended up working more on the Bourrie article, where the same (Ellis-Peters) dispute had carried over. I’d note that while the Kinsella article is now protected and quiet, the same problem continues on the Bourrie article. This morning I removed anti-Bourrie vandalism and note that Magma IPs continue to change the lawsuit section and add vanity material.

While the article was protected, after July 3, I noticed that Peters moved on to other articles but was hounded by anonymous editors and had all of his edits reverted without explanation. I asked for help for Peters at ANI. Ellis appears to use the same Magma IP range, which is apparent from this post, where Ellis re-signs a post made by an IP the previous minute.At the same time, there were AfDs with other articles related to Kinsella begun by Ellis. It seemed like everything had been patched up at the Kinsella article when it was unprotected but the edit wars just continued and were accompanied by the outrageous talk comments. Crzrussian in particular took a lot of abuse. So did HistoryBA, a good editor who seems to have stopped editing for the moment because of this whole mess. The same range of IP’s also caused a lot of trouble at other articles, for example an edit war at Elizabeth May (re-inserting vandalism calling May fat), causing that article to be protected as well.

The responsible editors and admins at work here tried to focus on the content which was objected to. It seemed like things were smoothed over with each issue but I feel now that the objections were not about particular content per se (other than the lawsuit) but were rather about particular editors. My contributions with Kinsella were mostly to ask people to remain civil, articulate their concerns, and to resolve the disputes through discussion. Unfortunately they only wanted to discuss each other. --JGGardiner 19:07, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement of Bucketsofg (talk · contribs)

There have been four pages involved in these on-going and endemic revert and flame wars: Rachel Marsden (which I have been involved in), Warren Kinsella, Mark Bourrie, Pierre Bourque. The participants, it seems, are one or more of these people and their sock-puppets and/or meat-puppets. The strife, as far as I can see it, involves two sides, which is possibly only one individual each.

Some solutions to be considered:

  1. Mark Bourrie = Ceraurus = Isotelus = Marie Tessier is currently under an indefinite block; Arb Comm should perhaps set a defined period.
  2. user Pete Peters and Arthur Ellis should be banned from the four pages under contention and warned not to engage one another
  3. these four pages should be semi-protected since Bourrie, based in Ottawa, regularly forces an IP address reset from Magma Communications, his IP provider.
  4. in order to prevent Bourrie and/or Pete Peters from creating new accounts to rejoin the fight after five days, the Arb Committee should probably pre-authorize user-checks on new, disruptive accounts that edit these four pages, with the understanding that any trollishness, vandalism, or disruption coming from the IP addresses identified above will be blocked as presumed sock-puppets
  5. National Library IP (142.78.64.58 (talk · contribs · block log)) address should be indefinitely blocked (Bourrie admits to using it ], and looking at its contributions, no one uses it to edit wikipedia except him).

Response by Arthur Ellis

First, Bucketsofg has his own agenda on the Rachel Marsden page. Bucketsofg, as blogger "Buckets of Grewal", has been conducting his own off-Misplaced Pages campaign against former Canadian MP Germant Grewal, and has helped edit Marsden's page into an attack article, despite misgivings by Jimbo Wales put on the talk pages in 2005. Marsden was a former employee of Grewal's. Bucketsofg, Bearcat (who, on his talk page, says he is a member of the left-of-center NDP) and Homeontherange (see below) have worked very hard to keep the Marsden entry as negative as possible and have reverted and blocked any signs of change to this incredibly negative bio.
I wrote the present Marsden version, which is far lee nasty than all previous ones. To see it in its former glory, go back to a January version, where she's described as being fired from her job, and her father is mentioned as a child mollester. Bucketsofg has consistently protected and co-authored versions in which she is portrayed as a liar. .
Something to remember: Bourrie (in his incarnations), a new member, always attempted to take attack-negative-cruel material off the Marsden page, not, like the three admins mentioned above, add it. He was accused and punished for vandalism and blanking for doing so by admins who ignored the Misplaced Pages policy regarding biographies of living people. He knew Marsden had moved to a new city and started a new job. The Marsden page is proof that sourced material, especially from newspapers, can be strung together to create an entry that is an embarrasment to Misplaced Pages.
Second, blocking me and Peters from the pages does nothing to prevent Warren Kinsella (through IPs) from continuiing to post on both the Mark Bourrie (as I showed above, he posts on that page from his office IP) and the Kinsella page.
Third, blocking the National Library of Canada would be rather radical. If you read Bucketsofg's footnote 111, you'll see Bourrie does not admit to using the National Library computer. He says someone did reverts from there, and says it's not his personal computer.

And, well, the National Library of Canada is the National Library of Canada (and also the Public Archives of Canada. Someone there might want to post something useful to Misplaced Pages.Arthur Ellis 22:13, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Mackensen

Good evening. I stand by the Checkuser results and am prepared to answer private queries from the Arbitration Committee. I strongly dispute Arthur Ellis's characterization of the findings, which I regard as fairly conclusive. Cheers, Mackensen (talk) 02:29, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (3/0/1/0)

Homeontherange

Involved parties

PinchasC (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
Homeontherange (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
FeloniousMonk (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
Briangotts (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
IronDuke (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) 00:03, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

PinchasC initiating party
Homeontherange diff
FeloniousMonk added myself to this one.
Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 19:44, 20 July 2006 (UTC) added myself.
IronDuke adding self. 00:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Not applicable. This is a request for review of admin status.

Statement by PinchasC

Homeontherange (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (Homey) abuses his admin tools by blocking users with whom he is in a content dispute. He frequently violates 3RR, pretending not to know what the 3RR policy says, and has been blocked for 3RR violations five times, four of them in the last three months. He also evaded a block using a sockpuppet.

This is a request that his administrative status be reviewed. The policies he has violated are Misplaced Pages:Blocking policy, Misplaced Pages:Protection policy; Misplaced Pages:Sock puppetry, and Misplaced Pages:Three-revert rule.

  • April 22, 2006. Protected a page while edit warring on it. Homey reverted Ericbwalton (talk · contribs) at Green Party of Canada three times 01:12, 03:02, 03:15, semi-protected the page at 03:15, then started editing it again at 04:03. When he was satisfied Ericbwalton had gone, he unprotected it at 04:29.
  • April 26, 2006. Was blocked for 3RR. Was blocked for 3RR at New anti-Semitism by Katefan0.
  • May 7, 2006. Another admin had to explain 3RR to him. Musical Linguist had to then explain 3RR policy to him because he appeared not to understand it.
  • May 29, 2006. Violated 3RR. Violated 3RR but was warned by William M. Connolley instead of being blocked.
  • May 29, 2006. Blocked a user he was in dispute with. Homey blocked User:Zeq for 24 hours for "vandalism" for edits to Israeli apartheid, even though he was in a content dispute with Zeq on that page. He thought better of it and unblocked him minutes later.
  • May 30, 2006. Blocked a user he was in dispute with. Homey blocked User:Zeq again, this time indefinitely for "tendentious editing" at Israeli apartheid (phrase), even though he was in a content dispute with Zeq on that page. He unblocked him 10 minutes later, adding to the block summary "will reapply block tomorrow afternoon."
  • June 20, 2006. Blocked a user he was in dispute with. Homey blocked User: 82.3.163.184 for one week for posts to Talk:Gregory Lauder-Frost even though he was involved in the content dispute at that article. (This is another article about British Conservative figures that Homeontherange has edited aggressively.)
  • June 22, 2006. Was blocked for 3RR. Was blocked for 3RR at Boycott of Israel. The block is for 48 hours for "chronically trying to game the 3RR system and being a repeat 3RR offender."
  • June 23, 2006. Evaded a block using a sockpuppet. Homey was blocked for 3RR at 23:09 on June 22. Two hours later, at 01:22 on June 23, a new account, Sonofzion (talk · contribs) made its first edit, and began to edit articles that Homey had recently edited. Its first edit was to Boycott of Israel, an article Homey had created six hours earlier. Sonofzion restored material to the intro that Homey had added but others had removed. The new account then edited Biltmore Conference and World Zionist Organization, little known articles that had been extensively edited by Homeontherange's previous userid. The new account went on to participate in an obscure CfD, then to comment on the page, one where Homey had been commenting extensively. Sonofzion then went on to edit Apartheid outside of South Africa, a page Homey had been edit warring on, and redirected the section on Israel to Israeli apartheid, something Homey had been pushing for. User:Jayjg did a CheckUser, and stated "the sockpuppetry and editing pattern was so obvious. Unsurprisingly, the CheckUser evidence was consistent and strongly suggestive (though not 100% conclusive) with them being sockpuppets of Homeontherange." Sonofzion also edited as 216.249.5.184 (talk · contribs), and though a "new editor", almost immediately went to the talk page where Jayjg made the statement and claimed that Jayjg had a "conflict of interest".
  • June 26, 2006. Was blocked for disruption. Was blocked by Sceptre for chronic bickering with Zeq.
  • July 5, 2006. Protected a page he was editing. At Eric Margolis, Homey reverted an edit by 207.245.7.58 (talk · contribs) (a legitimate edit, not vandalism), then protected the page. He unprotected it four hours later, saying he "didn't mean to protect," which was effective at stopping the anon from editing, while designed to look like an error.
  • July 17, 2006. Unblocked his own sockpuppet. Homey undid another admin's block of User:Sonofzion, the sockpuppet account he used to evade a block, despite the clear conflict of interest.

--PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 16:05, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Homeontherange (respondant)

Pinchas is putting this forward in the middle of another case regarding Israeli apartheid. His timing is, I suspect, designed to influence that case and perhaps distract me from it.

What this actually is is an extention of the Israeli apartheid dispute. Pinchas has often edited on the same side as several of the editors at that dispute(Jayjg, SlimVirgin, Humus sapiens etc) on various issues related to Israel so his timing and his selection of me as a target is not accidental. However, it is instructive that he is not examining the actions of his own allies, for instance an examination of User:SlimVirgin's protection log shows that there are numerous occasions in which she has protected "her" articles, ie articles which she edits regularly and has had content disputes over - An examination of Jayjg's freelancing of Checkuser, a function he continually runs for his political allies, would also be instructive. If we scrutinize my use of admin permissions we should also scrutinize a number of other people, including Pinchas allies. That he is singling me out and doing so at this time and in this way is little more than a tactical manouvre and an exercise in selectivity and, as we see by a cursory examination of several of his complaints, an exercise in misrepresentation.

Eric B Walton is a former Green Party of Canada candidate who was editing the article in a promotional manner. I don't remember, off the top of my head, the details regarding the other incidents Pinchas is conveniently cobbling together.

Zeq

Re: the blocks on Zeq, they were due to a misreading of Zeq's arbcom case which stated Zeq could be banned for good cause. He had edited tendentiously at Israeli apartheid and so I blocked him after consulting with User:Fred Bauder. However, there is a difference between banning and blocking and so I subsequently lifted the block (within a few minutes) and placed a complaint on Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement and as a result User:Tony Sidaway banned Zeq from several articles]. That he did this shows that my reasoning for disciplining him was valid even if I erred in not realising that a ban was different than a block, I had previously been unaware of page bans.

Sockpuppetry

The alleged sockpuppet was blocked by FeloniousMonk with a request that the sockpuppet prove he's not a sockpuppet. Had he, or Jayjg, or SlimVirgin, the other editors engaging that account at the time, had any actual evidence that the account was my sockpuppet the should have a) told me b) taken action against me at the time. They failed to do so. Not only that, I was not even informed of this allegation until several days time later by Zeq, not by Jayjg or Felonious. That Pinchas are now bringing this up is highly opportunistic. I deny the allegation of sockpuppetry but in any case creating a sockpuppet does not involve use of admin tools. As for unblocking the sockpuppet 1) this was done several weeks after the block (and well after the 3RR block againt me had expired) 2) it was done because the alleged sockpuppet was not a sockpuppet 3) I informed the blocking admin of my action, he reinstated the block and I did not remove the block a second time.

The alleged sock puppet edited last night. The IP address is not only not my IP trace but it is from another city entirely from the one I'm in. Not only that but I was editing myself at the same time so unless Pinchas is also alleging that I can fly (and do so faster than the speed of sound) it's clear the sockpuppet allegation is bogus. Homey 17:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Jayjg was in a content dispute with me at the time - that he ran a checkuser on me and then "analysed" it himself is suspect. According to the alleged sockpuppet we were, at the time, in the same city - Toronto - Canada's largest city with a large population as well of Arabs and Jews, possibly the largest outside of the Mideast and in a country, Canada, which has one of the highest proportion of net users in the world. This Sonofzion had also edited as an anon IP following his ban, an analysis of the IP address produces a ISP that I have never used and I am confident that checkuser, in fact, would show no system relation, only, perhaps, a geographic one which might mean something if I were in Billings, Montana but doesn't mean much in a city with a population of 4-5 million ie the Greater Toronto Area and one with both the largest Jewish and largest Arab (and largest Israeli, for that matter) population in Canada. Someone looking at the checkuser results who was not in a conflict of interest may have taken account of this. Given that Jayjg was "freelancing" with his checkuser ability, something he is wont to do, and given that he had done so in the past for Zeq who has accused me dozens of times of sockpuppetry without anything ever coming of it is telling. With Zeq stalking me for signs of sockpuppetry the last thing I would do is actually give him ammunition.

FeloniousMonk also misstated the facts to me recently about the alleged sockpuppet when I asked him about this, he claimed " I never discussed my blocking of the Sonofzion account with Jayjg;". The evidence you provided shows that, in fact, he did just that and FeloniousMonk did not implement his block until after Jayjg reported back to him. Homey 17:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC) Several of the items Pinchas mentions with are already being dealt with in the Israeli Apartheid RFD - to complain about them here risks double jeopardy. Homey 21:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Rachel Marsden related block

Pinchas writes: June 3, 2006. Blocked a user he was in dispute with. Homey blocked User:209.217.123.151 with whom he was in a content dispute at Talk:Rachel Marsden, then locked the page.

In fact, according to the page of the user I blocked "It is suspected that this user might be a sock puppet or impersonator of Ceraurus. Please refer to This user refers to himself as Ceraurus here for evidence". The page was being attacked by sockpuppets of User:Ceraurus, who is a blocked user according to his log. Ceraurus had vandalized Rachel Marsden several timed by blanking it and engaging in other disruptive behaviour. He was blocked indefinitely as a result (not by me). It is permissable to block the sockpuppets of indefinitely blocked vandals on sight.

82.3.163.184 and Mike Keith Smith's AFD

I did ban User:82.3.163.184 for 48 hours for her posts to the Michael Keith Smith AFD even though I was the mover of the AFD. What Pinchas fails to explain is how this was a conflict of interest given that she was a supporter of the AFD. The user had been sued by Michael Keith Smith and was rather bitter and, as a result, was attacking him online, including on wikipedia and including on the AFD page. She was blocked twice by me for her various personal attacks on Smith (who was also editing Misplaced Pages). The block was justified and I urge readers to look at User:82.3.163.184's edits. I was in no content dispute with her anywhere, however she was actively harassing User:Mike Keith Smith on wikipedia so I blocked her despite the fact that I myself was in a dispute with Smith over his autobiographical article. Homey 00:17, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Eric Margolis

In regards to Eric Margolis the protection was accidental and when someone (I believe it was SV) brought it to my attention I unprotected it. SV actually reverted the change I made a few minutes later and I left the article alone since I couldn't find the reference I had seen before on Margolis' parentage. Some time earlier an individual had been removing references to Margolis' mother and as I recall I initially thought that had happened in the instance you are referring to.

Block for disruption

Let's see what else, my block for "disruption" lasted all of 42 minutes and was actually aimed at Zeq who remained blocked for 24 hours. The Admin had blocked both of us but had been apologetic to me in doing so.

3RR

In regards to 3RR the interpretation of the rules had actually changed around April so that the definition of revert became broader than in the past ie unrelated reverts now counted towards 3RR. I was somewhat obtuse in understanding this change and felt the banning admins were simply misunderstanding the rules. I was blocked for those and have not violated 3RR for several weeks. Several of the blocks were contentious and challenged by other editors resulting in my being unblocked, reblocked etc. But again, some of the blocks were questionable and contested by others and I believe on one occasion I was unblocked and in the second where I was about to be unblocked I told the sympathetic admin not to bother, I'd just sit it out. In that case however, the 3RR complaint had actually initially been rejected and removed from the 3RR page, Zeq reinstated the exact same complaint, it was then removed again by User:NSLE and then reinstated again by by Zeq. Another admin added the follwing comment Admin note: The edits cited above do not appear to be the same, and therefore do not constitue a breach of WP:3RR. Kcordina 14:19, 9 June 2006 (UTC) . The same user subsequently added:

I am still of the opinion their behaviour does not deserve any action. To summarise the diffs you've cited:- Revert 1 - Deleted a lot of text, added a link Revert 2 - Ditto Revert 3 - Ditto (but no link inserted) Revert 4 - Add a tag Revert 5 - Add a fact tag Final diff cited - Add two tags.

So they've done 3 reversions of one type - deleting a section of text. 2 edits relating to one tag, and 2 edits relating to another tag. This has no relation to "in whole or in part" the two groups are totally unrelated - they've reverted 3 times and then stopped. If I'm reading it wrong please let me know Kcordina 14:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

also, later to Zeq: I can see where your coming from, but I, personally, interpret the rule differently. I see there as being a breach of the rule in all, or the same subsections, of an article are reverted more than three times - not simply more than three reverts on an article in total. So in this case, there have only been up to 3 reverts of one type, hence I have chosen not to block the user, and I still think that is correct. I have, however, made a note to the user concerned to this effect. Perhaps a different admin will have a different view. Kcordina 15:44, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Despite all this debate (which I was unaware of as no one told me I was being accused of 3RR) FeloniousMonk comes in and implements a block. Considering that it had been rejected Felonious should have engaged in some discussion about it. Also, as several admins thought there was no reason to block Pinchas is hardly being fair in his characterization of the incident.

In several cases the admins who blocked me were hardly uninvolved neutrals and seemed to be acting overly aggressively. See for example:

Just noticed this in the vandalism channel, I'm a bit unsure of the basis for your block, from the blocking policy "In all cases, blocks are preventative rather than punitive, and serve only to avoid damage to Misplaced Pages.", since that particular edit war seems to have been over more than 12 hours ago it appears that the block cannot be prevantative but punative. Maybe you know something I don't about that particular war, but I thought I'd flag it up to you. --pgk 21:38, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

and

I am not going to get drawn into a discussion of whether unrelated edits on the same page constitute a 3RR violation or not; that's never been my understanding of the way things work on Misplaced Pages. And neither am I going to get drawn into a discussion of whether I was right or wrong to unblock Homey; for one thing, he seems to still be blocked even though I've already unblocked him. I have taken other steps to attempt to resolve the matter through talk page discussion, and you can't even begin to imagine how little interest I have in getting drawn into a user dispute where both sides have equally legitimate claims that the other side has behaved inappropriately. Bearcat 23:54, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

In one of those cases the blocking admin was you Pinchas. You seem to have a dislike of me because of my attitude towards Israeli issues. It would have been more appopriate had you left the question of whether or not to ban me to a disinterested admin who did not have an agenda. In any case, I have studiously avoided getting in trouble for 3RR this month so I think I've learned my lesson in regards to this. To punish me again for 3RR violations would be double jeopardy.

The 3RRs were, as I said, contentious and I suspect would not have been applied against most people. One, for instance, was for a "fourth" revert in which I replaced an OR tag that had been removed (once). This was contested. Another 3RR violation was, in fact, my correcting Zeq's grammar - corrections he did not challenge only to turn around and file a 3RR complaint which Felonious, I believe, immediately implemented.

In any case a 3RR violation does not involve a violation of an admin permission.Homey 11:36, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Moshe's block

As for the block on Moshe, Pinchas misrepresents the situation by saying that Moshe reverted his "own words". What Moshe actually did was delete a quotation from my post on a talk page. That I was quoting a factually incorrect statement of his which he had removed from the talk page (while I was making my post) did not give him the right to alter my post to remove the quote. The block was lifted by Moshe's friend, Slim Virgin. In any case, I subsequently agreed that what I should have done is filed a complaint against Moshe at ANI rather than acted myself but this does not mitigate the fact that Moshe edited my comments on a talk page, contrary to policy.Homey 21:44, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Curiously, PinchasC's review of the block on Moshe doesn't actually include any diffs. Here is the diff] in Moshe's case. He removed the following text from a post I made on the the talk page:

Moshe, you have removed the following from your comment above:

"Anyways if you would had looked over the terrorist category you would have noticed that it specifically states it is for individals only."

I had made a post that replied to Moshe's statement. Moshe removed the part of his statement to which I was replying rendering my response nonsensical - I then added the quote in order to put my response in context. Moshe then altered my post in order to remove the quote.

This was discussed on here with the following commetns being made:

I think that's perfectly reasonable. Once you post on a talk page, people are going to want to respond. If you remove the comment, suddenly the discussion doesn't make any sense. Hence why it's not something that should be done. --InShaneee 18:03, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

As for "gaining advantange in a content dispute" this did not occur as I did not edit Jewish Defense League until Moshe's block was lifted ie I allowed Moshe's version to stand so, in fact, the advantage in the content dispute was his.

In discussions, User:Timothy Usher, while arguing that I should not have blocked Moshe myself, did concede that Moshe's edit violated policy:

:I've just posted on his talk page. He must agree to follow policy, and not alter other editor's comments on talk pages, or risk sanction, as he's been duly warned.Timothy Usher 19:34, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

  • See for the full discussion on Timothy's page.

Timothy's post on Moshe's page was as follows:

Moshe should agree not to alter other editors' comments. It's unacceptable. The fact that Homey removes posts from his talk page is obnoxious, but is allowed by current understanding of policy, just as are Moshe's posts thereto. Altering other editors' comments on talk pages is not.
I'd like to hear from Moshe that he understands this, and will abide by it.Timothy Usher 19:24, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Moshe refused to accept this. Timothy then insisted:

You may think it aggravating for him to go through the history and repost something you'd withdrawn, but that's a completely legitimate use of talk space. Had he altered your posts, as you did his - your comment was at this point part of his post, not yours - it'd be a different story.
Altering other editors' posts is unacceptable. It's that simple. Don't do it.Timothy Usher 19:39, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Moshe's response:

I'm sorry but I cannot accept that.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 19:43, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Timothy:

Moshe, it's policy, and you must follow it. It doesn't matter if you accept it.
If you're faced with such a situation in the future, I recommend that you post your own comment to the effect that you'd retracted your statement, and that there is thus no point for other editors to drag it up. This accomplishes the same thing without altering other editors' posts, and without getting you blocked.Timothy Usher 19:57, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

At this point it would have been reasonable for an admin to reimpose the block on Moshe that had been lifted. This was not done despite Moshe's refusal to accept his error. Nor did I personally reimpose the block.

I agree that I should not instituted the block myself but I disagree with PinchasC's interpretation of events that suggests, wrongly, that Moshe did not break policy and commit a transgression that would normally result in a tempblock. Homey 12:10, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Tazmaniacs

I think the arbitrator should recuse this case.

Although I am not directly involved in this dispute,I've co-edited articles with most of the editors here. The case seems to me more about strong conflictual opinions rather than real disruptive behavior. Tazmaniacs 21:26, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this user has colloborated with Homeonetherange on many articles, including some of the most contentious ones listed above. In every instance they backed one another up and generally shared the same pov.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 04:10, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Moshe's comment here exactly repeats what I've said, and prove it by its bitterness. I'd like Moshe to refrain from false statements such as "In every instance they backed one another up", since I hardly ever edited with Homeontherange, but quickly noticed his POV because he was opposed to all of these users, Moshe, Zek, JayZ and others, who all share respectable (I respect opposing POV, which doesn't seems to be Moshe's policy) and concording views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (to speak clearly). What I point out here is that it is very difficult in this case for an administrator to take a neutral decision, since Homeontherange is being atttacked mainly because of his positions on this conflict. Thus, if he lets him go, all these other users (Zek & co, Zek having been blocked for disruptive behavior) will find this totally partial, while blocking Homeontherange would automatically places the admin on the side of, I'm not saying the "Israelis", but Ariel Sharon's policy and its continuation (current bombings over Lebanon after having bombed the electric plant at Gaza). So, Moshe, you would be so nice to let me speak for myself: yes, I am opposed to bombing over the electric plant at Gaza, which provided 40% of the electricity of the Gaza strip, more than half of the cleaning water, and that now US tax-payers must pay it back (as it was payed for by international cooperation), which will cost 40 million $. Yes, I do think that doing this kind of bombing is targeting civilians and doesn't respects the rules of war. If you call being opposed to such a bombing "sharing the same POV" with Homeontherange (I'm sorry, I haven't had the opportunity to discuss his views on the matter), well, yes we do (but I don't think we share all the positions on the subject, unless he favors, at least a theory, a binational solution - but speaking politics, when you are speaking war to me, isn't really relevant, is it?). You are lying when you say I have "collaborated with Homerange on many articles", and the least you could do is back-up this lie with some diffs. But I thank you for your comment, because it clearly shows that Homerange is being attacked by all of you because you don't like his pro-Palestinian opinions. RFA should'nt be used for political conflicts, but to stop trolls. Has Homeontherange acted as a troll? No, I do not think so. Are you attacking him because of this alleged reason? It doesn't seems so, and your comment here shows what the real reasons is: you'd be very happy in excluding someone who doesn't shares the same POV than you do. The administrator who takes a decision on this should be aware that due to the specific nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its echoes here on Misplaced Pages, either way he will be accused of being pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian. I would advise to do what courts do in this kind of case: declare oneself incompetent to judge the submitted matter. Tazmaniacs 15:11, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I never used the word "colloboration", and I never gave any indication in my above statement that I disrespected your pov, so I'm really not sure where that came from. I only pointed out that your statement that you were not "not directly involved in this dispute" could be seen as misleading since you have been involved in the editing of many of the above articles, and in every instance you found yourself in opposition to the same editors, so I think it is rather odd that you would imply that you were on completely uninvolved party. As for me I have already indicated that I do in fact have an interest in seeing Homeontherange punished since I have at times been deeply involved in this dispute and always in opposition to homey.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 21:33, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Come on, chill, "I'm not directly involved in this dispute" just means what it means: I haven't filed anything, I don't know what you're all talking about, and I hardly ever encountered Homeontherange, I did encounter you & others however, and I saw no specific tolerance to other POVs, rather the contrary. Anyway, have fun ! Tazmaniacs 01:12, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Response to Homeontherange

I would hate to break it to you, but Timothy Usher is not an administrator, nor does he have particularly high standing among other editors so I'm really not sure why you would base your entire argument on his statements. Anyways he completly opposed your actions until you seemed to confuse him with a sysop, wanting to continue the charade, he decided that he should try to partially agree with you so that you would respect his opinions in the future, I notified him through E-mail that I didn't know why he was doing this, but he apparently saw some advantage in his actions. Besides timothy, almost every other editor and administrator agreed that not only was it completely inappropriate for you to block me, but it was also very uncivil for you to even post what I removed in the first place. I should point out this discussion- , where Homey basically spent the whole day trying to get me to agree that I did something wrong, despite other editors suggesting that he accept his mistake and move on. At times he came up with rather creative ways to in his mind "win" the argument, as can be seen with this post-
"Ok Moshe, I'll give you a way to get off the hook while saving face. I"ve noticed you've not reverted Talk:Jewish Defense League since having the tempban lifted and have not altered the comments on there. Are you going to leave it that way? If you really think you're right then you would have gone and reverted the talk page. As you haven't done that I think we can assume you know that you were wrong even if you're not mature enough to admit it. So are you going to leave Talk:Jewish Defense League alone or are you going to insist you're right and go and revert it?Homey 20:31, 4 June 2006 (UTC)"
The above illustrates just one instance where homey continued arguing long after it was necessary only to try to get his opponent to admit he was wrong, as would be expected, this attribute makes him a very difficult editor to get along with.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 01:26, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by User:Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg

I'm not going to pretend that I am an uninvolved party. I have an obvious interest in trying to get Homeontherange sanctioned, as I have been party to countless conflicts with him over the past few months.

I first came into contact with Homey on the New Anti-semitism article, although I was only peripherally involved with the dispute I found his arguments poorly made and concentrated too much on the opposing editors instead of what they were saying, however I did not think too much of it since this is obviously a common occurence on our little encyclopedia. However our next encounter left much more of an impression. In this instance, a conflict over the existence of the Apartheid (Disambiguation) article quickly degenerated into accusations that I was somehow breaking the Misplaced Pages:What Misplaced Pages is not policy, after I brushed aside his statements he threatened to have me "banned for vandalism and/or brought before the Arbcomm.", . After I basically laughed this threat off as ridiculous, Homeontherange actually went ahead and wrote up a request for comment which included all sorts of grandiose accusations. Since it is necessary to have at least two users certify the RFC, he made overtures towards another editor involved in the dispute to try to ensure his support- , after User:Strothra failed to express any interest in getting involved, Homeontherange probably realized that there could be negative consequences for an administrator who engages in such inappropriate behavior and finally decided to delete the RFC. I am not sure how to show the contents of his original report, but the original link was- .

The reason I feel it is necessary to go into such detail with the above encounter is because I feel it represents the essence of my entire prolonged dispute with Homey.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 04:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Arthur Ellis

I followed the Marsden case closely and read all of the pages after I was accused of being Ceraurus' sock. Homeontherange goaded user Ceraurus into numerous 3RRs. Ceraurus was given an indefinite block when he pointed out Homeontherange had vandalized the protected version of Rachel Marsden May 2. Homeontherange, Bucketsofg and several other left-wing Canadians have sat on the Mardsen page, which was even criticised by Jimbo Wales in 2005 as an attack page, and have prevented any edits that don't make Marsden look like a psycho. When Ceraurus challenged Homeontherange, he was accused of sock puppetry and banned without a checkuser. His opponents on the Marsden page have made sure the "indefinite" ban was made permanent, even though Ceraurus (who had earlier changed from Mark Bourrie to Ceraurus in a futile attempt to protect his privacy) was very new to Misplaced Pages, is near-completion of a PhD in history, and is the author of eight books. Arthur Ellis 01:14, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Response to Arthur Ellis

I didn't block Ceraurus or ask anyone to do so. I believe he was in conflict with several other users during his 3RR problems so accusing me of "goading him" into 3RR violation is incorrect, particularly as I don't recall ever filing a 3RR report against Ceraurus or asking anyone else to or blocking him for 3RR. Ellis' comments have everything to do with the Warren Kinsella case above (in which I am not involved) and nothing to do with me. Homey 13:18, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Quick check shows that all of 5 of the last 350 edits to Rachel Marsden (ie since around March 4) are mine and three of those were in a span of 5 minutes. Cesaurus' block log shows that he was blocked on March 8th and again on April 12 - how I could have goaded Cesaurus into an edit war in this period is beyond me as I did not edit Rachel Marsden at all between March 10th and and Cesaurus' most recent block on April 12th. I edited three times in the week before Ceasaurus' first block. Homey 16:27, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


Response by Arthur Ellis

Homey is being, at best, evasive, as he blocked Mark Bourrie , who, after being viciously hassled by Homeontherange, Bearcat, Geedubber and Bucketsofg, opted to change his name -- very openly -- to Ceraurus to prevent the abuse from being Google-able.
The Marsden discussion pages, by the way, make very interesting reading for anyone who thinks these admins are NPOV. Even now, POV and psycvho-sexual attacks on the page continue. I think it should be stressed that Bourrie-Ceraurus-Isotelus worked to take attack material off the Marsden page.Arthur Ellis 19:16, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Rejoiner to Arthur Ellis As per above I have hardly edited Rachel Marsden at all in the past few months and you only mention blocks against Ceasarus in your statements, not blocks against Bourrie so I had no reason to check Bourrie's block log nor do I have any reason to remember five months after the fact that I blocked him. Yes, now that I look at Mark Bourrie's block log I see that I did block Mark Bourrie twice, once for 24 hours for 3RR after he'd been warned and once for 72 hours for vandalism after he blanked much of the page - both these blocks were justified. If you had mentioned these blocks in your statement I would have checked so it's not a matter of my being "evasive" but of you not being precise - I'm afraid that blocking Bourrie is hardly a seminal event in my life and I'm not going to remember it off the top of my head five months later. However, contrary to your earlier assertion I had nothing to do with the two indefinite blocks handed out to Mark Bourrie/Ceraurus in March and April. Homey20:28, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Homeontherange has "left wikipedia"

I don't know what to make of this but Homeontherange has deleted his user page and blanked his talk page, with the edit summary "leaving wikipedia." Thatcher131 01:18, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that should affect this arbitration case at all. People often will come back to wikipedia after a short absense, and they often leave because they figure they will get an advantage out of it.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 04:57, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment on "involved parties"

I was surprised to find this personal attack against Homey and another wikipedian (16:01, 19 July 2006):

I think anyone who even glances at these arbitration pages can see what you and (N.N.) are like.

This comment didn't address the discussed topic (which was whether or not the fact that a Wikipedian initiates a poll can be used as "evidence" against that Wikipedian), but only presented a snide remark against two fellow Wikipedians (one of which was Homeontherange).

I won't take any steps in this sense myself, I only suggest to those managing this proposed ArbCom case to consider whether or not SlimVirgin should be added as an "involved party". --Francis Schonken 12:14, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

What you fail to mention is that Slimvirgin's "snide remark" came after serious provocation on Homey's part. Homeontherange seems to have a bad habit of trying to spitefully provoke people in response to percieved slights made towards him (like reverting anything that he has written or making an edit that he doesn't agree with on one of "his" articles).- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 05:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment on DR not being applicable to this case, by User:Avillia

It is. Without even looking at the evidence provided above, going through mediation, requests for comment, and other such matters very much so lowers the chances a dispute arrives here, and it shows a consensus that something needs to be done, be it banning on a limited basis, blocking, stripping of powers, banning from the community as a whole... The only case where this process should be skipped is where this is a urgent threat or a very long string of recent abuse; Since your evidence is 19 incidents over the period of over three months, only two happening this month, these circumstances clearly don't exist. Here is where this request should be. --Avillia 06:25, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Homeontherange's wikibreak is apparently to run until September 5 . --Tony Sidaway 13:08, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (3/1/1/0)

Zer0faults

Involved parties

Not involved in the current situation but aware of it

Comfirmation parties are aware of request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried


Statement by party 1

This user made a special request therefore I bring this case to ArbCom.

From opposing views to vendetta: Over the past months I have had numerous unpleasant encounters with this user after becoming aware of him was when he supported Merecat (talk · contribs) in his RFC (a banned user that coincidentally had similar editing and debating techniques). Evidently our perception of reality is different. That is allowed. However, in time, what was a difference of opinion has turned into a vendetta aimed at my person. Resulting in edit wars not over content but over simply reverting the other user, and another example of this.

Describing behaviour: This user has a very aggressive, hostile, uncooperative and in general a disruptive style of editing. He arrives at an article, starts deleting everything he sees as wrong, even sourced material. When asked to justify he responds with statements (i.e. violation of WP:POINT, WP:RS, WP:OR, et cetera) but never with a full explanation substantiating his claims. When his argument is said to be flawed he simply restates the same argument while reverting.(rv, will fix wapo link in next edit, again please provide the information requested on the talk page. Thank you oddly enough he reverts but has yet to make a serious comment on my arguments and here restating his assertions while not responding to my rebuttal). When asked to answer a direct question he reverts and simply restates his assertion. Finally, still not having answered any question, he says he will no longer discuss since the other party is being disruptive (or something to that extend). He demands evidence to restore what he redacts out, but then refuses to read the sources provided. To quote another editor:

And this is part of the problem Nescio is having with you, Zer0, you do not read cites that are provided for you..

This obstructive way of editing can only be interpreted as Zero having appointed himself as "the decider." He has ruled on the matter (see his mantra in the edit summaries) and as such nobody has the right to edit contrary to his ruling. Therefore his refusal to discuss, despite my repeated rebuttal of his verdict. Personally I thought no editor was more equal than another, apparently not. The fact this user aggressively claims sole authority on what does and does nort belong in Misplaced Pages suggest he has not understood WP:OWN and WP:POINT, although he refers to it often enough.

Suddenly our encounters became very inflamed as he and another user removed my coments from a page. Although I might have chosen a better place to comment, they aggressively denied me the right to reinstate those comments. Resulting in the first mediation case.

Examples of his behaviour and comments:

  1. War on Terror stated that this was a campaign by the US, NATO and allies. I changed it into the US, supported by NATO and allies, since Zero had advocated it is a US campaign in which NATO provides assistance. He objected to this edit and reverted. Evidently he felt that it was a joined campaign so I removed the US from the sentence as stating US and NATO is a tautology. Again he objected and reverted. Evidently he did mean to say US supported by NATO. He refers to this as me contradicting myself, while in fact the change in stance was his. I pointed out he was making a grammatical error in his reasoning. Also he removes text he disagrees with, I restore it with tags, yet he deletes it again.
  2. Template:War on Terrorism he keeps removing extraordinary rendition, unitary executive theory, and other terrorist attacks. He removes them because I fail to provide sources. In the case of UET I referred him to:
    • unitary executive theory (1 the position taken by adherents of the "unitary executive" theory, and advocated by John Yoo in particular, holds that a U.S. President in the exercise of his Constitutional war powers cannot be restrained by any law, national or international. 2 The NSA warrantless domestic surveillance program is another example of the Bush administration's application of its interpretation of executive power, ) Even though this theory is about inherent war powers, and the only war the US is fighting is WOT (unless we include the war on drugs, war on poverty, et cetera), I fail to understand how UET is not about WOT. In the words of Zero that violates WP:OR, meaning that when an article states 1 a dog has four legs, 2 animals with four legs are called quadrupeds, 3 dogs are animals, we are not allowed to conclude dogs are quadrupeds. Just like we are not allowed to take the ddefinition of a war of aggression (which is a war crime) as any war 1 not out of self-defense, 2 not authorised by the UN, and then see if the invasion of Iraq violates that definition. Of course, when there are multiple interpretations we call it OR to pick one of those. These examples do not have multiple interpretations. Contrary to popuylar believe any response that is not related to an acute and imminent threat simply is NOT self-defense.
    • signing statement (1 Some critics note that this statement specifically refers to a unitary executive theory, under which the Commander-in-Chief has broad authority to use his discretion in interpreting and applying the law. As a result, it is argued, the President has with the signing statement to the McCain Detainee Amendment reserved the right to waive the "torture ban", effectively re-writing the law passed by Congress)
    • NSA warrantless surveillance controversy (1 The Bush administration argues that the program is in fact legal on the grounds that FISA is an unconstitutional violation of the President's "inherent powers" and/or that FISA was implicitly overridden by other acts of Congress, 2 However, the authorization granted by President Bush to the NSA apparently uses neither FISC approval nor the one-year foreign surveillance authority granted by FISA. Instead, the administration argues that the power was granted by the Constitution and by a statutory exemption, as is advocated by the Unitary Executive theory using the interpretation of John Yoo et al.)
    • and the multitude of references, following claims of inherent war powers, in those articles to support including UET in the template, which Zero is unable to find.
    To illustrate the silly argument to refuse on account of OR, I inserted in this request what the articles said although Zero could not find it, which resulted in his reply that I must provide a source if I want to include it. In other words, he orders me to quote the relevant text from the articles, but is unwilling to read it himself. As to extraordinary rendition, since this is a new concept initiated as part of WOT to render suspected terrorist (or was it Enron, or Abramoff?), and clearly separate from rendition, his objection is rather odious and not substantiated with any argument other then "provide evidence," while failing to show evidence this form of rendition existed prior to 9-11.
  3. Zarqawi PSYOP program I am trying to describe this program, but again this user follows me around and massively deletes part of the article.history Again I reinsert the relevant parts and ask him to explain. Nevertheless he prefers to edit war over my edits. He is so focussed on reverting me, he is even reverting my correction to the WaPo link. The article is about an alleged PSYOP program that, among other things, is aimed at the US public. I inserted some background information regarding PSYOP programs aimed at the US public (which this program apparently does) and the relevant legalities. Again, he advocates violation of OR and blindly deletes without addressing my arguments for inclusion. He has now started asserting the program is not aimed at the US public, although the article mentions it several times(?). A quick glance at the edit history shows that while I am trying to improve the article (i.e. incorporating the sources, rewording, making better summaries) the primary contributions by this user consist of reverting me.

These are some very good examples of how this editor 1 follows me around (dare I say it resembles stalking?) and blindly reverts my edits on sight, 2 removes all information he thinks is uncomfartable to the Bush administration and therefore POV. Fortunately, there are other editors who are capable of discussing and can refrain from aggressive editing.

Uncivil remarks While continuing his hostile behaviour he started making unusual comments on my person -although, unfortunatelly, following the months of him attacking me I also made some harsh remarks- and edit summaries that are uncivil and misrepresenting the edits.

  • Turns out I was accused of being an editor that was previously banned name User:Merecat. I was accused by User talk:RyanFreisling and by User:Nescio and neither will return to apologize I am sure. Incorrect statement, nevertheless, still found on his page.
  • removed pests comments. Yes you are now a pest for constantly posting on this page the results of a RFC that showed I was not a sockpuppet. Please stop posting here
  • rm non contructive comments. Again do not post here while mediation is proceeding, your comments are agitating the situation
  • rv. vandalism
  • rm comments by AGF violator and NPA violator, cease posting here please, your comments are mean and unwarranted
  • Following the numerous edit wars, in which he apparently is not to blame, he has chosen to file a RFC against me, asserting I, (that is, not he!?) am violating WP:POINT. In light of his own behaviour in the edit war he describes, it would be interesting to see how he would call his edits.

Conclusion There are more examples, but I think this will suffice to show that Zero has an obstructive way of contributing. Instead of AGF, and trying to find consensus through debate, he simply deletes/reverts all he disagrees with, especially my edits, aggtressively demanding others to disprove his point. This means he repeatedly refuses to read the evidence provided unless people quote the relevant text, apparently because he is prohibited from reading articles himself. What we have at the moment is the two of us edit warring while we should be discussing. I admit I can't resist reverting his edits when I find he has reverted mine. Since no debate is possible I do the easiest thing (stupid, I know) and continue the edit war. At this moment on every article I edit Zero steps in and deletes my contribution. While I acknowledge people have diffent views, his style of reverting my edits on sight is exceedingly annoying, violates WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL, WP:POINT, and certainly does not result in improving Misplaced Pages. In the hope somebody can end this silly game I reluctantly file this request.

My specific requests from ArbCom are:

  1. To determine the nature of the conflict, and if it is agreed Zero has directed his efforts towards undoing mine, to offer a solution stopping the personal harrasment.
  2. To determine whether this editor is reverting/rewriting/deleting my edits in an attempt to improve Misplaced Pages by fighting POV (apparently mine), or, whether his blind "corrections" of my edits (edit warring) are based upon 1 antagonising me and 2 removing views from Misplaced Pages he thinks should not be made public (i.e. censoring), 3 stalking-like behaviour.
  3. To determine whether or not editors making massive changes to an article, and subsequently only contribute that article by reverting my efforts, should discuss prior to those edits or whether it is acceptable that those wishing to retain the original version are the sole party that should justify their edit.
    As minor and least important points
  4. To determine whether this user is correct in objecting to biased sources, even though policy allows it. And whether sources need to be fact-checked, and if so to rule that every article not based in fact is deleted, with the result that i.e. religion related articles are removed as they inherently are not fact-checked as religion is about a believe in something in the absense of facts supporting that view. In other words, are biased and opiniated sources allowed if we identify them as such?
  5. To state whether comparing a definition (i.e. war of aggression, war crime) with the known facts (was Iraq invaded out of self-defense? did the UN support the invasion?) and concluding the two are (not) compatible is a violation of WP:OR.

If needed I will provide more evidence/diffs of his behaviour, but there is so much (miles and miles and miles of articles, diffs and comments) it would hinder those trying to understand the conflict. Nomen Nescio 10:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by User:Zer0faults

Mediation Attempts

User left out dispute resolution located at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Nescio. They have protested their involvement here and presented no evidence to dispute any of the claims.

Misuse of RFAr postings?

I was under the impression that RFAr notifications were to get out to users involved, not every article the user mentions, furthermore if they are posted, they are to be done in a neutral manner. Nescio's posts on pages accuses me of harrassment and is clearly made to bias the reader, stating "Apparently mediation does not result in improvement of the harrasment I endure"

Furthermore 4 of those users are not listed above, 3 of them people who took part in the previous RfC on me but are unrelated to these incidents.

Requesting RFAr?

As for me requesting it, if you look at the dif they provide their threat is located right above it, attempting to use the RFAr threat to get me to stop editing the Zarqawi program.

Refusal to provide Sources

Unitary Executive Theory - I have asked this user to provide sources stating Unitary Executive Theory is part of the WOT directly: What they reply with is their reasoning, ie. original research

I tried to explain that Unitary Executive theory and Extraordinary Rendition have existed before the WOT, and to provide a link stating they are part of it: There reply is that "kidnapping is part of the WOT" but never give a source.

The article on Unitary Executive Theory relates itself to inherent war powers, Nescio then draws the line stating the only war the US is involved in is the War on Terrorism, so this must be in place, currently and related to the WOT. No source draws this line, if one does he could have simply supplied one. Oddly enough none of his sources that he did produce state the UET is related to the WOT. They link NSA surveillance program, but only 3 actually mention the WOT, and none in connection with UET.

Information Operations Roadmap - User states "reverts but has yet to make a serious comment on my arguments" and offers as proof. However none of this actually addresses the following posted: They still have yet to show a source stating there is a link between the Information Operations Roadmap and the Zarqawi PSYOPS program. There latest attempts to include the roadmap even state the program is not part of it: They are basically linknig a random document to the article they created to fatten its contents, a document they admit is not connected.


Smith-Mundt Act - This carried onto the Smith-Mundt Act, a law stating the US government cannot conduct psyops on its citizens. They are adding this mention, without a reason. By adding only one law they are creating a bias where it seems that is being violated. I back this up with the following:

  • They remove a quote when they revert stating the "US Home Audience" is not actually meaning to target civilians.
  • They add the Smith-Mundt Act to the see also section, though there is no evidence the program targets civilians.
  • They add select quotes, leaving out "It is ingrained in U.S.: You don't psyop Americans. We just don't do it," a quote by the commander of the PSYOPS programs in Iraq
  • They left out the explanation of it hitting the US "When we provided stuff, it was all in Arabic," and aimed at the Iraqi and Arab media"
  • The article specifically states "does not specifically state that U.S. citizens were being targeted by the effort,"

Signing Statements - Again the users proof above does not link signing statements to the WOT, it links them to torture, which then may link to extraordinary rendition, however no court has found torture took place as a result of extraordinary rendition. Furthermore that would link signing statements to Extraordinary Rendition, not directly to the WOT. Unless this user is stating that torturing people is a main concept of the War on Terror.

NSA Surveillance Program - I stopped arguing over this long ago, its even in my proposed template overhaul of WOT template: User:Zer0faults/WOT_Template2


Lack of sources continued

When asked on the WOT template page to provide a source for linking unitary executive theory and Bybee memo to the template

  • - "please provide ruling. Also remove Bybee again since you did not even attempt to give a reason for it.)"

They replied with:

  • - "(Hamdan v Rumsfeld)"

I looked up the document to find out its 158 pages long. I asked them to provide a page number that is most relevant and was told I asked again for a page number since the link they posted had nothing to do with Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld I was told I was being uncivil I explained to them that 158 page document is not a source if you cannot even cite a page in it I told them I would leave it to the end of the day however for them to provide a source. He then told me I am violating WP:AGF and WP:OWN, yet still refusing to give a page number, now telling me to look in the newyorker, however that doesnt mention Hamdan is tied to UET. I explained this to them and gave a quote of what it does say. They then went on to state its about signing statements and inherent authority, so now at this stage Nescio is no longer claiming Hamdan vs Rumsfeld is linked. They went on to call the US justice system a Kangaroo court and at that point I stopped responding . He has still yet to provide a source that says UET is part of WOT, only his own conclusions which are a violation of WP:OR.


Misrepresentation of who is reverting

If you actually view the history of the Zarqawi program page you can see I have been editing behind Nescio and not reverting. However the first edit nescio makes is always a revert, then continues to make smaller edits to the article, with lacking summaries:

  • Revert on July 17th - - "the massive removal of info and misrepresentation of the original articles is to difficult to undo so I rv"
  • Revert on July 18th - - "rv revert that was done in several edits, please every thing you censor is relevant and sourced, you may have another POV, but Misplaced Pages is not about redacting out information that is uncomfortable"
  • Revert on July 18th - - "v massive deletion, arguments are flawed so please address the rebuttal before reverting again, warring is silly when you can also try and justify your objections."
  • Revert on July 19th - - "restored original version while awaiting debate, please Zero discussion is so much nicer than edit warring"
  • Revert on July 19th - - "estored work in progress per talk, als rm POV tag, AFAIK there should no longer be a problem, Zero has promised to first start justifying his edit and to stop making statements"
  • Revert on July 20th - - "do not blindly reevert, you have to explain massive edits, second you even reverted my correction of the WqaPo link, WP:AGF"
  • Revert on July 20th - - "restored attempt at creating a serious page, Zero please first jusrify massively rewriting, as huge changes without first trying to discuss is highly "frowned upon""
  • Revert on July 21st - - "restored work in progress, corrected Salon misrepresentation, removed biography"
  • Revert on July 21st - - "restored non-POV version"
  • Revert on July 21st - - "restored info deleted by "the decider" which he had not noticed was taken from Newsweek, and again restarting attempt to improve while Zero only contributes by reverting"

So as can be seen the reverting is not one sided. Furthermore this users edit summaries normally consist of one word when they are not reverting, such as "clarfiying" "expanded" "example" "tweak" etc. Not very informative to other editors, where all of my edits are fully summarized to explain what and why edits are happening. You can see them on the history page .

Failure to understand WP:RS

User keeps attempting to add quotes from a self published, non notable article from a non expert in the field of terrorism or even law enforcement. Nescio has been told that this source fails WP:RS by 3 different users and continues to insert quotes by that writer, stating bias sources are allowed ... failing to address the issue of it being self published, not peer reviewd, not from a journalist, not even from a expert in the field.

  • TheronJ telling Nescio is fails WP:RS
  • Morton Devonshire telling Nescio it fails WP:RS
  • Myself telling Nescio it fails WP:RS

Nescio does not even attempt to address the arguement, instead he attempts to change the reason to bias or other reason: *Telling Morton bias sources are allowed -

  • Telling Morton that the New York Times does not fact check, evidence is Judith Miller -
  • Nescio again not addressing WP:RS, attempting to limit arguement to bias -
I revert without explanation

The claim that I revert "but never with a full explanation substantiating his claims", I show the following original edits, all fully summarized:

  • removed information clearinghouse source. Bias source, as per VP:RS bias sources should not be used as sole sources for information
  • Please do not remove factual information, your editorial is more suspect then the Washington Post
  • readded quote that explains the "Home Audience" its directly in the source, please be careful of selective quoting
Note this edit is actually jsut adding a space, I noticed I forgot an edit summary on the prior edit, so I created a line break and added the summary for the last one.
  • Program - removed portion already in header, its redundant
NoteIts stated almost word for word in the header.
  • removed Agencee France quote as its about an unrelated program as well as Rumsfeld document, against I ask you to supply a source stating this PSYOP is part of that roadmap, thank you.'
  • removed quote as its already mentioned in header in same detail, actually more clearer since it explains home audience, be careful of selective quoting
Note Contained a selective quote from Washington Post without the trailing information of specifying the program did not target civilians etc.
  • removed program section, its covered in header. sources were not about this program and quote is covered in header
  • Removed WOT as again its more directly linked to Iraq War, removed Smith Mundt Act, again please prove this program violates this act, no OR please
  • rm Roadmap, please provide a source stating these two events are linked

As pointed out above this user still has not provided a source linking Operations Information Roadmap and Zarqawi PSYOP program, not an article that even mentions Smith-Mundt Act.

Nescio's violations of WP:POINT

Adds items to War on Terrorism template, stating Iraq War is part of War on Terrorism:

  • Zarqawi PSYOP Program:
  • Downing Street Memo:

User removes Iraq War from template: User removed "Part of War on Terrorism" from the Iraq War page: How can the Iraq War not be part of the War on Terrorism, but all its sub events be part of it? This user goes on to remove the War on Terrorism template from the NATO page: Then states NATO is the sole participant in the WOT: They claim this was a grammar issue, however it was pointed out numerous times on the War on Terrorism talk page to this user that some campaigns are US only, some are NATO without US, some are NATO with US and some dont involve NATO at all: This concludes with them stating they will edit other articles to reflect somethnig I did not state: in violation of WP:POINT, do not disrupt other articles to prove a point. After much of this happened the user felt it was necessary to flood the War on Terrorism template with numerous unrelated terrorist acts after I added the Chechen rebel leader, since someone added the Chechen War. The edit summaries are included to show the WP:POINT violation, instead of voicing concern no the talk page about hsi addition, he simply flooded the template being highly disruptive:

  • - appartently everything should be listed
  • - apparently all terrorism is included
Misplaced Pages:WOT WP:POINT Violations

The user appeared on the poll that was attempting to determine if users felt the Iraq War was part of the War on Terrorism. After arguing on the page for some time over the justification of the war being wrong, they were pointed to the header that explained the poll was not attempting to place blame or justify anything, simply state if the war was launched as part of the War on Terrorism. From there they proceeded with the following actions:

Adding and removing of information from the header, changing what the poll was addressing, 18+ ppl voted at this point.

Removal of their comments in protest even though people have replied to them. Makes the page unreadable, obvious disruption. 20+ comments being removed.


Constantly Changing Arguements

The following takes place during a Mediation Cabal. They stated their removal of the 2005 Bali bombing article from the War on Terrorism template was by accident however they stated no the template talk page that it was done on purpose. They have now resorted to stating they just felt it was a minor event and not a major one even though they deleted the item instead of moving it to "related events" section on the template, both times that they removed it. This switch in arguement is repeated on the talk page here, first stating it was an error then now stating it was because they felt it wasnt a main event.

AGF

This user states I violate WP:AGF, however they refuse to actually show an example. I will show some of the things they have said to me in volation of WP:AGF:

  • - "The fact you are unable to resist pestering me yet again, proves you are not interested in any mediation. Stop harrassing me and await the procedure or admit you have something against me personally"
    • I keep trying to explain to this user I do not have a personal problem with them, I just want them to source their material and prove links exist, however whenever I ask for source I get told I am attacking and pestering them.
  • - "Since you are reporting me, can you also report yourself as vandal for refusing to read the evidence I provide and then rv my edits on account of there being no evidence"
    • There was a 3RR report this comment is in response to. The outcome was a block.
  • - "you are now trolling since the entire explanation can be found on the article about UET, signing statement, et cetera. The fact you fail to read them but still claim UET is not being used proves you are only being a dick"
    • This is in response to me asking them to provide sources. I would like to point out that "War on Terror" is not located in the article for unitary executive theory at all, except in the "see also" section.
  • - "Then continues ignoring several clear questions showing he is wrong and appears to have developed an addiction to edit warring."
  • - "but you might look into it more and discover there is a campaign against me by two editors and the 3RR report surely is part of that"
    • After being blocked for violating 3RR
  • - "False, you removed my comment on the votestacking in that poll as a personal attack."
    • They advertised their RFC in a MFD vote, I removed it because it seemed like link spamming, it was added back with an explanation by a 3rd party and I left it.
  • - "All in all his behaviour highly similar to that of a disruptive troll that is stalking me."
    • This is actually stated while asking a user to mediate the conflict ... what a way to start mediation.
Closing Statement

This user has a habit of stating I have a personal problem with them and I "stalk them", however these accusations appear when they are asked to provide sources, which they seem to not want to do. I have said before I think nescio is a good editor, however my opinion is starting to change. I have asked this user to cease inserting original research into articles and they have just continued to do so. I have removed alot from the Zarqawi PSYOP program page and I added some. The article in the condition Nescio wants to keep it is 50% quotes and introductions to quotes. Its also highly POV as it states quotes but not their follow up information, as highlighted above.

Furthermore I never said a bias article cannot be used, I said a bias article should not be the only source for information. Finally in relation to the Zarqawi program article I want to state that 25% of the quotes on the page in the version Nescio wants to keep come from a non expert who wrote an editorial for a site that cannot be confirmed to reliable or verifiable. The article in question is an editorial that is self published as Michel Chossudovsky, the person being quoted, runs the website. Its the responcibility of authors to verify their sources.

In closing from Nescio' statements above he fails to grasp the concept of OR. He wants to take a law, interpret it and make a statement of fact from it, without requiring a source that supports it. To state the invasion of Iraq is a war crime he draws the following links with original research (1) that his understanding of the law is correct (2) he is aware of all treaties, rulings, etc that would alter that law (3) that a case has been made to a court that its a war crime by an appropriate prosecutor (4) that its been ruled on by a competant court, or at least that the arguement has been heard by a court with appropriate jurisdiction. Its not for us wikipedians, especially those without degrees in international law, to look at a document as complex as the geneva convention and decide for a fact that a certain war is a war crime, especially when we may not even be aware of alternate rulings, laws, limitations etc. But that is Nescio's style, he uses logic statements to attempt to make information into facts, however that is in violation of the basic principle of WP:OR. To counter his arguement, to state the Iraq War was a "war of agression" is to say that the US did not attack Iraq out of self defense, which there is no 100% proof of, so it cannot be a fact, he keeps arguing the UN did not support it, however the UN does not have to support it if its a war of self defense. As you can see the situation is highly complex and I am not even a lawyer, neither is Nescio which goes to show why we should not be drawing our own conclusions. --zero faults 13:46, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Socafan

I find it disturbing that someone who made the first edit just two and a half months ago has already been blocked 4 times for revert wars and aggressive behaviour and invests such a tremendous amount of his editing on conflicts. Please help to find a way to make this a fruitful editor or to reduce the amount of time others need to deal with the conflicts. Socafan 22:43, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Circeus

My involvement is practically accidental, after I protected the Template:War on Terrorism page from an ogoing revert war. I have also suggested (although only to Zer0fault), that War on Terrorism be rewritten completely, due to the massive amount of {{fact}} tags. However no matter who might be right or wrong, this conflict does appear to be a sterile standoff between the two users and very little constructive editing (but a LOT of arguing) has come out of it. Circeus 02:38, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Rangeley

This has gone on for some time, with Nescio frequently accusing Zer0faults of stalking, or going around just to revert his edits. This comes from a failure to assume good faith, Zer0, like me, has edited and reverted things that he saw as incorrect or wrong. Frequently Nescio has engaged in revert wars over content disputes, though he has indeed settled the one for the Iraq War, which is a credit to him and worth noting (though not before several months of it.) As Zer0 pointed out, a lot of what Nescio has done has been editing to make a point, such as adding every terrorist event to the template. When this is reverted, it is a legitimate revert, not one out of some vendetta. ~Rangeley (talk) 13:21, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by tbeatty

I have no history with Zer0 but Nescio is part of a crowd that is known for their POV against the Bush administration and its policies. They always seem to be suspicious of those that disagree with their POV or try to make articles more NPOV. To wit, when they were trying to get a user banned for life, Nescio became suspicious and paranoid of many users simply because they disagreed with him. This current RfAr is not surprising as the quest to ban/censure/intimidate those that don't want one-sided POV articles (or those that oppose the constant creation of one-sided articles to highlight a specific POV as is the case here). --Tbeatty 23:58, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (4/0/0/0)

user:Coolcaesar

Involved Parties

(some parties may not be contributing to Misplaced Pages at the present time, and many other users who are involved may not be listed) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.227.173.154 (talk • contribs)

user:Coolcaesar
user:Ericsaindon2
user:Mr.Executive
user:OC31113
user:Decimal10
user:Asbestos
user:off!
user:Siroxo
user:SleekWeasel
user:Invitatious
user:ThomasisScholar
user:24.64.223.203
user:Rewinn
user:Preslethe
user:Fahrenheit451
user:Gleng

Comfirm all parties are aware of request

user:Coolcaesar ]
user:Ericsaindon2 ]
user:Mr.Executive-initiator
user:OC31113 ]
user:Decimal10 ]
user:off! ]
user:Asbestos ]
user:Siroxo ]
user:SleekWeasel ]
user:Invitatious ]
user:ThomasisScholar ]
user:24.64.223.203 ]
user:Rewinn ]
user:Preslethe ]
user:Fahrenheit451 ]
user:Gleng ]


Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
  • User has been warned that further consequences will come if his personal attacks don’t cease on numerous occasions

  • This user tends to use inappropriate language, and uses personal attacks for his own benefit in a situation. Despite the notices of his inappropriate actions (in list above) he continues to bring negative energy to the project, and tends to humiliate other users

] ] ] ] ]

  • This user also tends to leave inappropriate and degrading comments as his edit summary. Since he usually does not back his statements up on talk pages, most of this disruptive behavior is seen in the edit summary. He tends to disrespect the hard work of others in these summaries.

] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ]


  • User misuses the term “vandalism" in its context on a continuous basis

] ] ]

  • Mediation was offered to settle a dispute between several editors, and rejected by user:Coolcaesar which was offered by user:PS2pcGAMER on the Talk:Anaheim Hills, Anaheim, California page for he thought another user should just "give in" to what he requests out of the page. Instead of taking this more peaceful approach, he decided to file an Arbitration Case against the user he was against. I dont think it would be any use just one week later to try and introduce mediation again.
  • After this user apologized for his destructive behavior to arbitration, it began again in this edit summary. This shows that even a pending case against him is not enough to change his actions, and that his behavior can only be changed with punishment. ]
Checkuser request

Due to the allegations that user:Coolcaesar has used sock puppets, I request that the CheckUser tool be used to inspect the records in regard to user:Anaheimat.

Suspected puppets

Statement by user:Mr.Executive

User:Coolcaesar has involved himself in many controversial pages in his career at Misplaced Pages. However, in most cases it is reasonable for two editors to disagree from time to time. This particular user tends to make derogatory comments, misuses the term of vandalism, and degrades the emotions of the people he disagrees with. Over the past two years, over 50 Wikipedians have fallen victim to his cruel comments and harsh reactions to disagreements on a page. He has been notified plenty of times for his egotistic attitude, and strong views, but continues to use his comments in a ruthless and inhumane way. This type of an extremely negative attitude disrupts the other editors who engage in normal conversations. These users do not deserve these comments they receive just for having a different viewpoint, yet find themselves humiliated with his comments in front of many other editors who read these personal attacks. As we all know, this type of editing and commenting does not provide any positive change to the Misplaced Pages community, and has gone on long enough. One major Misplaced Pages rule that is probably most shun upon is the devaluing and personal attacks toward new users who are learning their way around Misplaced Pages. Many users who edit a page for their first time do so incorrectly, but user:Coolcaesar tends to use personal attacks and their lack of knowledge against them. He is also suspected of having a sockpuppet, user:Anaheimat, which as an experienced Wikipedian, he knows that these are prohibited. Another tendency of this user is to revert edits continuously, as for he claims articles as “his own”, and leaves personal attacks on these edit summaries.

Statement by User:Coolcaesar

This request for arbitration is clearly a retaliatory and harassing move on the part of Ericsaindon2 in response to my recent filing of a request for arbitration against him. Furthermore, to file it, he used a sockpuppet for the umpteenth time in violation of Misplaced Pages policy (as noted by SCEhardt). I have already noted Ericsaindon's attempt at retaliation on the Evidence page for Ericsaindon2's arbitration.

I will concede that on certain occasions I have forgotten about the civility policy (particularly when I was editing WP to cool off after a bad day and came across inept edits or clear vandalism). But I also wish to remind the Committee that unlike Ericsaindon2, the vast majority of my edits have greatly improved the encyclopedia. In particular, see my work on Lawyer, Roger J. Traynor, Rest area, Pruneyard Shopping Center, the State Bar of California, and the Supreme Court of California. Unlike me, very few editors go to the trouble of providing citations to reliable, verifiable hard copy sources for the assertions in their edits.

Also, because of my passion for Misplaced Pages, I have provided under the GFDL many high-quality photographs of important places and things; see Puerto Vallarta, Motel 6, University of California, Santa Barbara, FedEx, and World Wide Web.

I apologize for my tendency towards excessively harsh commentary. In the future, I will be more careful about complying with the civility policy. I ask all members of the Committee to vote to reject Ericsaindon2's frivolous request. --Coolcaesar 05:53, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

In response to Ericsaindon2's rather self-serving statement, I wish to point out that I have always acted in good faith. I have been careful to comply with core Misplaced Pages policies: Misplaced Pages:Verifiability, Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view, Misplaced Pages:No original research, and Misplaced Pages:What Misplaced Pages is not while Ericsaindon2 has repeatedly inserted unverifiable, partisan original research as if Misplaced Pages were his personal soapbox — as I have pointed out on the Evidence page for his arbitration. Even though I do not always agree with the consensus of the community, I have conceded to it many times, and I have been careful to not violate the 3RR rule or to use sockpuppets. This is why I have never been blocked, while in contrast, Ericsaindon2 has been blocked seven times so far ], and his sockpuppets Mr.Executive and Mr.Executive2 have been blocked indefinitely. Having failed in his quest to distort the Anaheim Hills article (which was properly resisted by User:Mike Dillon and User:Will Beback), Ericsaindon2 is now lashing out in a vindictive bad faith action against me, just because I stepped in and did the legal research that conclusively repudiated his position (see the arguments and counterarguments at Talk:Anaheim Hills, Anaheim, California). I again urge the Committee to vote to reject this frivolous request. --Coolcaesar 16:35, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by User:69.238.56.207

  • Note that right after this user apologized for his destructive comments, he left this edit summary clearly showing that his apology means absolutely nothing, and his behavior is not ceasing ] --69.238.56.207 19:02, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by User:JCO312

Although not involved in this dispute, I have been involved with several articles that User:Coolcaesar has also edited, most notably the article on Capital punishment. I have never seen any comments from him that rise to the level of "inhumane." It's true that he is assertive in his edits and comments; he has also always been correct in every edit I've ever seen. There are unquestionably users out here who abuse others, but I firmly believe that Coolcaesar is not one of them. JCO312 13:20, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by President Lethe

I'm not involved in this dispute.

When I got notice of this matter, I wasn't sure what it was all about. I knew I had seen several edits by Coolcaesar at "United States" and Talk:United States, and I didn't have any specific recollection of hostility there.

Then I remembered that he'd been the one to write "DUDE! ARE YOU BLIND OR DYSLEXIC OR SOMETHING? Read the top of this page! There's a humongous link RIGHT THERE to Talk:United States/Frequently asked questions. That's the sixth or seventh time that question has been asked this year!" at Talk:United States—but, when I originally saw that edit, I took it as somewhat humorous, one-off flabbergastedness.

This morning, however, having looked at every one of the references of Coolcaesar's behavior linked above, I'm ... just very surprised and rather annoyed.

Now I also see that Coolcaesar is the person whose "idiot" and "dumb" edit summaries at "Raised pavement marker" led me to leave a brief comment at his/her Talk page once.

I don't know what to say. My recollection of most of what Coolcaesar has done at "United States" and its Talk for the last weeks is one of decent civility. Why Coolcaesar has such a different style elsewhere: it baffles me. I've seen Coolcaesar be decent and civil and even nice; so why all the hostility and meanness and personal attacks elsewhere? I'm sure other users exhibit the same contradictions; but it's just strange to see such detail of it in one specific user.

The main thing that gets me is the NUMBER of instances of incivility: so many times calling things a mess and calling users idiots and dumb and bozos and ... just on and on and on. Appalling.

I know Coolcaesar is capable of being a good contributor; it's happened plenty of times. But something must be done to effect the end of the poor behavior. Immediately. This behavior must not continue.

One last point. About Coolcaesar's describing non-vandalism as vandalism: at least one of the examples given above is inappropriate; Coolcaesar's edit here most definitely looks to me like reverting vandalism. In a few of the other examples, while I wouldn't necessarily reach a vandalism conclusion, I can see how someone else (e.g., Coolcaesar) might reasonably reach it.

President Lethe 15:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I feel compelled to supplement my comments.
While Coolcaesar may not have gone against other Misplaced Pages rules and guidelines, I don't find that mitigating; also not mitigating in the matter of Coolcaesar's behavior is Ericsaindon2's behavior. When your neighbor sues you for crashing your car through her fence, it doesn't matter that you've always paid your rent and never beaten your kids, while your neighbor has been convicted of possessing pot and has disobeyed housing-association guidelines in building the swingset in her back yard; the point is that you crashed your neighbor's fence. (I'm not drawing any connections between these specific example behaviors and what Coolcaesar and Ericsaindon2 have done. I'm simply pointing out the dissociation.)
I'm baffled by the comments left by users who find themselves unable to believe the Coolcaesar has ever been unreasonably and oft repeatedly rude at Misplaced Pages. The evidence is linked just some paragraphs above their comments.
President Lethe 14:20, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by BlankVerse

I'm not involved in this dispute.

There has been no RFC, nor an RFM. This RFaR should be summarily dismissed.

Furthermore, I think that a checkuser should be done comparing user:Mr.Executive with both user:Ericsaindon2 and user:OC31113.

A check user was filed with user:Morven by user:Mr.Executive earlier yesterday in an effort to remove any speculation that the two parties are afiliated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.227.173.154 (talk • contribs) (who, by their edit to the Ericsaidon2 RFA evidence page, implies that they are user:Ericsaindon2.
Even if a checkuser comes up negative or inconclusive, the editing style and wording, plus the style and wording of the spamming of article pages against Coolceasar says that Mr. Executive is Ericsaidon2. 17:54, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh, yeah right, if it comes up false (which it will) you cannot treat this user like you have treated me. There is no way any of that stuff you have done to him is going to last... --69.227.173.154 00:25, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Because of the way that my ISP handles it's POPs, I could easily look like three different users that would come up completely negative on a checkuser check. If I wanted to risk inconclusive checkuser results, I could also look like users in two different counties, in four different area codes, up to 30 miles apart. If I started borrowing or paying for internet access from friends, neighbors, work, the local libraries, Kinko's, etc., I could have a dozen or more sockpuppets that would get completely negative results from a checkuser check. That's one reason that doing a check is as much art as science and access to the tool is limited to those who can interpret the results. 09:59, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Coolceasar occasionally gets grumpy in his edit summaries, and I have even scolded him once for losing his cool, but if I did as much vandal fighting as he does I'd probably get just as grumpy and start leaving snarky edit summaries as well. On the other hand, we share an interest in Southern California topics, so I've seen him do plenty of good article edits, and leave lots of comments on article talk pages. I've never seen any of grumpy comments on article talk pages, where sometimes he has also had very good reasons to be exasperated as well. 17:02, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by SteveBaker

I am not involved in this dispute.

user:Coolcaesar has left numerous comments on Computer and everything I see there seems very level-headed and reasonable. I have not always agreed with him - but the conversation has always remained civil and polite. SteveBaker 22:28, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Fahrenheit451

user:Coolcaesar did commit a personal attack and was uncivil in this discussion: Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources/archive3#My_view_of_this_debate I had no other incidents with him before or after the cited incident.--Fahrenheit451 00:58, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Rewinn

user:Coolcaesar's edit summary is disparaging to an editor, and his comment at is both snotty and wrongheaded. For my part, I laughed it off and gave him the snub direct and was satisfied, but since we are here, let me make an additional comment.

I hope it is not inappropriate to note that the intersection of his and my interests is our profession: user:Coolcaesar describes himself as a young lawyer, and I am a not-so-young lawyer, with extensive experience in bar associations. Misplaced Pages's dispute resolution procedure is a remarkable development the legal profession should study for applications elsewhere. Tools for dispute-resolution can always improve! In this case, I think we can agree on a few basic rules, in particular:

  1. Edit summaries must never disparage another editor
  2. Edit summaries should rarely if ever name an editor or contain a naughty word
  3. An apology goes a long way.

I am willing to live by the above code and to apologize when someone tells me I've slipped. Is this an appropriate request to make of user:Coolcaesar? It would be a shame to lose a prolific editor on a question of manners, if that's what this is. rewinn 05:08, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I see Coolcaesar apologized very nicely at 05:53, 21 July 2006 (UTC). Thank you. I suggest we drop it and move on. rewinn 21:07, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I see the Clerk has very helpfully deleted remarks that were inappropriately threaded. Let me re-introduce one point: if this matter had any valid purpose, it was served when its target acknowledged the issue and resolved to do better. Therefore this matter has no further valid purpose and should be closed (rejected). The further complaint by User:69.238.56.207 at 19:02, 23 July 2006 (UTC) lacks factual merit. Let us return to making wikipedia as good as possible. rewinn 23:19, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Will Beback

I made a previous comment , but it was moved out of this case by the nominator. Instead of fighting over that, I'll write fresh material.

Since this request has been filed by EricSaindon2's puppet and since Coolcaesar filed a request about ES, it would be typical to merge this case with ES's case. However this RfAr does not fit that mold because this request does not merit arbitration. While CC has used frank language at times, there have never been serious formal complaints - no mediation, no RfC, no AN/I threads. This request has obviously been brought simply as revenge against CC for his RfAr on ES.

CC is a valued, longterm contributor to this project who has my full support. -Will Beback 09:10, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Ericsaindon2

I know I am on block but I am highly involved in this user’s personal attitude, and attacks. I will return to my block once I make this statement, because I feel, since this is the user that blocked me, I need to make a statement when he faces a similar situation. I have, over the past month been harassed by this user. I was involved in a content dispute with him, and he continued to use the slander, and inappropriate language, as exemplified above (but for some reason not all of it is shown above). He degraded me and treated me inhumanely throughout the entire month for just a content dispute. I made no personal attacks against him, but he came at me all the time for reverting uncalled for edits he had made, and treating all my work as vandalism, even though it was not. He seems to, by the statements and proof above, feel that if it doesn’t go his way, he can trash talk the users, and therefore creating disputes which are counter productive. His personal attacks need to stop now, for they are uncalled for, and unmanageable. I feel that mediation would never work because this user has been warned in excess of a dozen times by high Misplaced Pages figures and admins that his behavior is unacceptable, but continues his trend. He needs a break from Misplaced Pages to think about what he is doing, and how he can change it to become productive, and stop being the instigator and attacker that he has become on this website. The debate in which I received my Arbitration case for were far less significant and destructive as his have become. My comments were not ruthless, and all my disputes were limited to the one page, whereas this particular user has created chaos and devalued Misplaced Pages with counter-productivity on over 50 pages, and has involved and attacked 30+ users. I don’t care who was right in the situation over the content dispute, his behavior was downright uncalled for, and needs to be terminated, and treated as such. People are not rag dolls like he has tended to treat them without punishment. Using the profanity used by this user is the worst offense committed on Misplaced Pages, and people have rights to be treated like people, which is far worse than the easily fixable edits I made with good intentions that got me blocked. Plus, in cases like this, where it was me, sorry is just too late, and there is a point when the word sorry has been abused so many times that it carries no meaning for certain people, like in this case. I urge you to take this case, because the attitude of this user is reckless, and uncalled for, and despite any apologies, it has all been heard before by this user, and still no change. This user can use all the excuses to why he committed these malicious attacks, but in the end, like in my case, it doesn’t matter, it is the harm you created and the people you offended that matters. I don’t think that he should be completely abolished from Misplaced Pages, for he does make the occasional good edit as stated by users above, but a temporary block would help this user, and give him time to thoroughly understand Misplaced Pages and its rules and how to treat people. -- Ericsaindon2 09:58, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Clerk notes

I have removed extensive threaded dialog from statements in this application. Please feel restore in more appropriate (non-dialog) form. --Tony Sidaway 21:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/3/0/0)

Humus sapiens abuse of Administrative Power

Involved parties

http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Humus_sapiens
http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Israel
http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Adam777
http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Smitty_Mcgee
http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Itsmejudith
http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Kusnetsov
http://en.wikipedia.org/User:Bhouston
http://en.wikipedia.org/User:MSTCrow
Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Humus_sapiens
http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Israel
http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Adam777
http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Smitty_Mcgee
http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Itsmejudith
http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Kusnetsov
http://en.wikipedia.org/User:Bhouston
http://en.wikipedia.org/User:MSTCrow
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

(Admin has taken ownership of article and is impacted my any edits to thus article personally. Attempts at solving the issues were made on numerous occassions on talk:Isreal to no avail. The user keeps deleting posts that he deems innapropraite or anti-Zionist, peoples edits have been deleted and users banned under the guise of vandalism)

Since the complaint focuses solely on abuse of administrative powers, mediation and the other dispute resolution steps do not offer appropriate oversight/solution for this particular set of allegations. This approach appears standard in these instances. Please see Homeontheorange above et al. 68.6.254.16 15:11, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by party 1

is abusing his administrative rights. He has repeatedly reverted legitimate edits citing vandalism as the reason. His personal POV should not set presidence on page edits on Misplaced Pages. I wish to have his adminship revoked as he has shown a lack of neutrality and impartiality when it comes to edits on Zionist related pages. He is not the protecter of Zionism on wikipedia and is a administrator. He has flagrantly banned members or requested other admins who patrol the same articles to keep a POV base running to ban people who edit them. As a new wikipedia user, I find a neutral perspective lacking from many articles he has dictated. I added POV tags to an article only to have them removed and them banned. Attempts at mediation and consensus have been attempted on the talk:Israel page for a few weeks with no fruition. It ends up with the admin and his "friends" being uncivil and calling everyone who doesn't edit the article to their liking anti-jewish or anti-semetic. If you are an administraor you shall not take sided on issues and look at them impartially. If you look at the edit history and look a little deeper you will see that has not been followed.

--Oiboy77 09:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Humus Sapiens is attempting to portray Israel in a sympathetic, rather than objective, light. However, a recent development on the Talk:Israel page leads me to believe that a section on Israeli human rights abuses may soon be added to the article. If Humus does not attempt to block this procedure, then I believe that removal of his administrative privelages would be unnecessary. I understand that he does not want the article to lean in the opposite direction, and I think that this new section could be accepted by all parties.

--Smitty Mcgee 15:59, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I have observed the same problems. He has used the same tactics on the Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad article as well. There appears to be a small cabal of user accounts that work on these related articles that he coordinates with to ban/revert statements and sources that contradict his apparent point of view. The guise is usually calling it vandalism. If you read his discussion page, it is a novel of response from people for whom he has left nasty comments/threats on their userpages. Should this behavior really be reinforced with Administrator privileges? I don't think so.
Since this claim revolves around actual allegations of abuse of Administrative powers, "mediation" and other steps are obviously not an appropriate or viable solution. As I suggested, simply looking at Humus Sapiens' "user contributions" shows a disproprortionate and shocking number of reversions. This is the evidence to which we refer. Mostly he makes seemingly reasonable but completely false edit notes such as "vandalism" to justify. As we all know the "3" in 3RR is only a guideline. Just because he is careful to avoid technical violation through this account, engaging in this behavior in a disruptive way is grounds for disciplinary action (esp. when facilitated with admin tools). I would also warn about his red herring pattern of quoting myriad policy pages unrelated to the allegations against him. This gives the false appearance that his accusers are discredited because he somehow has a greater knowledge of 'the rules' by virtue of the fact he can link to 20 policy pages. This is meaningless in this context and unrelated to his own revert behavior and userpage namecalling/taunting.
Finally, I would also say OiBoy is representative of only a miniscule fraction of HS' impact. I only coincendentally found this arbitration hearing, and am giving feedback because I share the complaint in an entirely different article from the one in which OiBoy and others here are involved. I suspect that if expanded notification was given there would be a vastly enlarged section of people advocating these observations and their hamrful/disruptive nature. Otherwise you see Humus Sapiens' "friends" listing how he is a great person (opinion), or criticizing OiBoy (red herring). We need a factual examination of the behavior of Humus Sapien, not the accuser.

--Sarastro777 22:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Since apparently it is our burden to cull the evidence, here is a snapshot from his brief involvement with the Ahmadenijad article and a snapshot examination of his last 50 history from User Contributions.

(cur) (last) 11:03, 13 June 2006 Humus sapiens (Talk | contribs) (RV whitewash. See talk) http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad&oldid=58371811

-He deleted material that was written objectively and sourced from Reuters

(cur) (last) 04:22, 13 June 2006 Humus sapiens (Talk | contribs) (RV Sarastro777: see WP:RS and don't scour the net for old/unreputable opinions to confirm your POV) http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad&oldid=58334203

-Deleted the same material sourced from Reuters as "unreputable"

(cur) (last) 22:14, 13 June 2006 Humus sapiens (Talk | contribs) (RV Sarastro777: stop childish behavior and namecalling. See talk)

(cur) (last) 22:09, 13 June 2006 Sarastro777 (Talk | contribs) (Discussion does not validate censorship. Please stop deleting to your POV)

- Namecalling in edit notes, continues outright deleting contributions of other editors.

(cur) (last) 04:33, 28 June 2006 Humus sapiens (Talk | contribs) (RV 68.6.254.16: read on, you are close) http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad&oldid=60964265

- Removed a citation needed tag with a specious apparent reference to ONE source.. which did not qualify usage of word "widely"

Oh his last 50 edits... 11 have the outright edit note of Revert or RV, and many others are the same thing without the proper notation. Here is a brief excerpt of only the last 50 off his history page.

Quoting from..Misplaced Pages:Three-revert_rule

"Persistent reversion remains strongly discouraged and is unlikely to constitute working properly with others."

In light of the above, does this small snapshot of revert behavior constitute "working properly with others"?

Quoting from .. Misplaced Pages:revert

"Reverting should be used primarily for fighting vandalism. ...

Reverting a good-faith edit may send the message that "I think your edit was no better than vandalism and doesn't deserve even the courtesy of an explanatory edit summary." It is a slap in the face to a good-faith editor."

Please consider the above when reading what follows....

11:00, 19 July 2006 (hist) (diff) m Karameh (Reverted edits by 196.205.130.214 (talk) to last version by 208.131.189.171) (top)

- This one replaced "Palestinian" with "Terrorist" - is that a NPOV word?

04:43, 20 July 2006 (hist) (diff) Roman salute (RV Joturner. A clear example of the subject. What makes it irrelevant?) (top)

- Used revert to keep picture of Hezbollah recruits in a seemingly unrelated article about an Ancient Roman practice.

04:35, 20 July 2006 (hist) (diff) Anti-Semitism (RV Yousaf465: this is well documented) (top)

- "well documented" but he reverted and still did not provide a source

10:43, 21 July 2006 (hist) (diff) User talk:66.181.1.98 (top) Your comment is against our policies. Next time you will be blocked without further warning. ?Humus sapiens ??? 10:43, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

- How about explaining rules to new users rather than threatening/intimidating them away from Misplaced Pages??

11:28, 21 July 2006 (hist) (diff) Talk:Israel ({Off topic warning})

- Tagged another user for questioning objectivity of the word "Homicide Bomber"

21:52, 20 July 2006 (hist) (diff) User talk:80.43.11.159 (Blatant vandalism) (top) Welcome to Misplaced Pages. We invite everyone to contribute constructively to our encyclopedia. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing. However, unconstructive edits, such as those you made to Zionism, are considered vandalism. If you continue in this manner you may be blocked from editing without further warning. Please stop, and consider improving rather than damaging the hard work of others. Thanks. ?Humus sapiens ??? 21:52, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

- called edits he disagreed with "blatant vandalism" (see parenthetical) and rather than educating unregistered (apparently) new user, threatened to ban him/her. I think he does not understand what at best may be POV statements as opposed to true vandalism.

Using his powers to ban as an Administrator as a threat tool to corral edits to his POV is obviously unacceptable. ALL the more egregious when this perceived 'admin' power is used to scare away new users. Being a member of an unofficial and unrecognized "vandalism unit" with the stated purpose of developing anti-vandalism software, certainly does not in any way excuse this behavior. I am seeing a deep seated pattern that is disruptive to the functionality of this website, and a hinderance to its fundamental basis which is the open and free exchange of information. Misplaced Pages needs all people with an interest to add ideas with good intention.

Sarastro777 19:38, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Humus sapiens

Since 1) none of my admin action is challenged here, 2) there was no attempt of dispute resolution that I know of and 3) I am "meeting" many users listed against me for the first time here, it is not clear to me where did I commit my "abuse of Administrative Power". A short background:

Oiboy77 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): persistent violations of WP policies (in particular WP:CIV, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, WP:AGF, WP:SOAPBOX, WP:VANDAL, etc.) were reverted and criticized by a number of editors and he was blocked by a number of admins (myself included). His requests to unblock were reviewed and rejected.

Oiboy77's first contribution was to change "State of Israel" into "State of Palestine", a "rogue state". Since then, there was no improvement in either quality or radicalism: in his today's post to Vjam he mentions "the Utopian state of Isreal" . The following are a few out of many attempts to explain WP:RULES/warn/reason with him on his own talk page:

Instead of civilly discussing content issues, Oiboy77 opted for "inappropriate canvassing for harassment", as Jpgordon qualified it.

I noticed that Oiboy77 has updated his statement but still failed to substantiate his charges against me. It seems that Oiboy77 misunderstands the basics of WP policies and processes, in particular dispute resolution and mediation. I see this "case" as an attempt to intimidate me. Such efforts against those who disagree with his extemist POV seem to be his principal activity at WP: Moshe_Constantine_Hassan_Al-Silverburg, Schrodingers_Mongoose, Drini, Karimarie, Guy_Montag, Humus_sapiens, his other principal activity being radical soapboxing.

Smitty Mcgee (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) almost solely focuses on Talk:Israel where he engages in soapboxing, attempting to turn that article into a clone of another article, Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Sarastro777 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) concentrates on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, where he had content disputes with several editors, including myself. None of my edits he listed as evidence involved admin powers. Instead, Sarastro777 chose to defend POV vandal, plainly antisemitic comment, whitewash attempt and condemn my citing WP policies & guidelines: WP:TALK, WP:CIV, etc. He did indeed "cull the evidence" adding misleading comments and omitting my attempt to compromise, another one or removal of anti-Arab allegations (explained when challenged).

I am a proud member of Misplaced Pages:Counter-Vandalism Unit and my watchlist includes thousands of pages. I prefer honest and detailed edit summaries; if asked, I can explain every edit I made. I take full responsibility for my actions and reject conspiracy allegations as childish and bad faith. ←Humus sapiens 23:01, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by FrancisTyers ·

I'm going to make this very brief. I don't have any personal involvement in this, but received a message from User:Oiboy77 inviting me to comment. I recently posted some on the Deir Yassin massacre article. I note that he has also notified other people who expressed reservations about the content of the article, six at the last count. If this is normal procedure for RfAr, disregard this post, but it came across to me to be odd, RfAr is for when dispute resolution has failed, not for starting a pile on. - FrancisTyers · 17:08, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by SlimVirgin

Oiboy77 has made all of 37 edits to articles, the rest to talk pages, since his first edit on June 29. Today, he posted to 16 user talk pages saying the user's "presence is requested at the Arbitration Re: Removal of humus sapiens admin privilages due to administrative abuse." SlimVirgin 01:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Karimarie

Being involved in the events leading up to this RFAR, I feel the need to comment. Humus sapiens has, from my perspective, not "abused" his position as an administrator in any fashion. This RFAR, as near as I can tell, does not assume good faith as it assumes Humus sapiens is deliberately working against the aims of the Misplaced Pages. Indeed, per Sarastro777 above, it assumes that there is a cabal of users who are actively working to disrupt the Misplaced Pages. In my eyes, this RFAR is in violation of WP:POINT and is thus a needless exercise. Kari Hazzard (T | C) 03:05, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Please see User_talk:Karimarie She has added blatant vandalism tags to my talk page because of a content dispute. She was told by an admin not to use the tags on my page. I removed them only to be banned by User:Avraham then having salacious remarks added to my talk page by User_talk:Humus sapiens Can you see a pattern here?--Oiboy77 20:23, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
The rationale for the placing a {{Template:blatantvandal}} tag on User:Oiboy77's talk page is described to the admin in question, User:Bishonen on his talk page. The vandalism for which he was warned can be viewed here and he conceded here that the edit in question was indeed vandalism. Kari Hazzard (T | C) 20:32, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
User:Karimarie there is a difference between vandalism and NPOV. I conceded that the comment I reverted to might not maintain a neutral POV. It is not appropiate to use {{Template:blatantvandal}} tags to my revert as its on basis with POV, NOT valdalism. I didn't remove or obscure an article, I simple reverted it to a previous edit. Then you asked your admin friend User_talk:Blnguyen for help and vandalized my talk page with a warning/threat ; which was even disputed by another admin. Then you User_talk:Humus sapiens and User_talk:Avraham continued to spam my user page with warning and threats and eventually a ban for archiving a post. See User_talk:Oiboy77 and User_talk:Oiboy77/Archive_1

--Oiboy77 22:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by MSTCrow

In my opinion, this is a transparent attempt by users who have violated WP policy to remove a useful administrator for doing his job. Users are not given a carte blanch privilege to continuously abuse the article. I'd like to mention the originator of the RFAR, Oiboy77, has gone wild with personal attacks on my talk page, and has now begun to use sexually suggestive language. - MSTCrow 06:45, 20 July 2006 (UTC), edited MSTCrow 00:53, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by adam777

I have made no edits on the Israel article though I personally find it POV but not as baddly as some other articles on Misplaced Pages which is why I added my vote that the article was biased (which is why I assume my presence was requested here). I have had no interaction with the admin in question so I cant offer any objective opinion on his actions. However I will say that the article is not NPOV and definately needs the inclusion of information on administrative detentions and Israeli human rights abuses as it does gloss over such actions. Both sides on Misplaced Pages are being highly partisan about this and frankly its quite stupid. Adam777 11:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Blnguyen

Originally I didn't think that I needed to comment, as I was mainly a passerby, but seeing Oiboy has made a comment above, I felt that I had to respond. KariMarie's only request to me was to block either a sock or an impersonator of a previously blocked User:CS Diplomat () and that I believe was a fair move and my only contact with Karimarie, contrary to Oiboy's claims of "friend", which may be insinuating impropriety on my part. A scroll through my edits to Israel will show that I am not an active editor, but only remove naked opinions from the page when they pop up, such as ( anti-Arab, and bogus "...part of Palestine"), and also I was accused by the opposite POV group of being an "Arab, or in the employ of Arabs". (). As far as I can see, Humus has not abused his powers by using it in a conflict of interest, but rather it seems as though Oiboy seeks to remove administrators whom he feels do not conform with his POV and pseudo-soapboxing edits to Israel. I cannot see any evidence of wrongdoing or an attempt to resolve disputes at all, so I am asking the Arbitration Committee to decline this request, which I feel is inappropriate. Thankyou, Blnguyen | rant-line 02:36, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Did you not remove the warnings from User:Karimarie's page that I posted. It seemed they were removed almost instantly.--Oiboy77 05:32, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
The WP:CVU has a policy of watching changes made to articles to resolve vandalism as it happens. We receive reports of suspicious-looking edits in our IRC channel through a bot operated by User:pgk. We do also police ourselves and monitor the edits made by our own members to ensure that CVU members are not themselves commiting vandalism. Your edit appeared in our channel as I recall, and I would presume Blnguyen observed this and after evaluating the situation chose to revert it. I had no communication with Blnguyen prior to the issue regarding the CS Diplomat sock and that was the only communication I had with him (her?) prior to your claim that we are "friends". I don't even know who he/she is, I know little or nothing about him/her personally. Please remember WP:TINC and that we're not all out to get you. There is no Zionist cabal as you claim, only different editors with their own varying individual biases, myself and yourself included. Kari Hazzard (T | C) 18:45, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Briangotts

In the absence of any attempt at dispute resolution I find this request for removal of admin privileges highly distasteful. It is a violation of any number of Misplaced Pages policies, not the least of which is WP:POINT. A cabal of dedicated POV warriors, having been thwarted in their attempts to turn an article into a soapbox, now seek to punish a dedicated and highly productive admin with this pile-on. This request should be denied at the earliest possible opportunity. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 12:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by User:Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg

This just seems like "getting back" behavior from three users that have only been trouble.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 21:36, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by User:ChrisO

I believe this is premature - surely an RfC would be a more appropriate first step? I believe that there are some problems with Humus sapiens' editing that would be worth airing (namely, based on my very limited interactions with him, highly POV editing; disregard or inability to apply NPOV; and apparent feuding with other editors and administrators). But as far as I know, the dispute resolution process hasn't even got to the RfC stage yet. -- ChrisO 21:04, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/4/0/0)

CoolKatt number 99999 (talk · contribs)

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
  • Rollosmokes is the initiating party
  • CFIF:
  • Crossmr:
  • Lambertman:
  • Kramden4700:
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
  • Request for Comment was opened on May 15, and has not yet been closed or ruled upon.
  • CoolKatt recieved a 24-hour block (July 11-12) for violating the Three-Revert Rule with WWOR-TV. He then attempted to circumvent his block but was stopped by an administrator. Upon returning from his block, he has resumed reverting WWOR-TV and has engaged in arrogant incivility.
  • CoolKatt has engaged in various instances of incivility, as well as unfounded claims of other violations, towards other users who challenge his point-of-view or makes changes made to articles he has edited. (eg. , , , , )
  • Mediation will be fruitless because, no matter what he says (eg. , , ) he has engaged in the same distruptive behavior over and over again. His attempt to ignore the block (eg. ) proves that he doesn't care about anyone else but himself. He must be reprimanded more severely.

Statement by Rollosmokes (talk · contribs)

I have been engaged in a dispute against CoolKatt for about two months. Those I listed as additional parties in this request, and a few others, are quite aware of what has transpired since then. He has engaged with myself in edit wars on WWOR-TV, WTNH, WCTX, WTXX, WVIT, WPHL-TV, KYW-TV, WCAU, WPSG, WLFL-TV, WTXF-TV, Westinghouse Broadcasting, and TVX Broadcast Group (among others), as he added irrelevant information or made unnecessary changes to these articles which, I though, constitued as being unencyclopedic, or simply of poor quality. I reverted his changes and, in most cases, explained why through either talk pages or the edit summary. But CoolKatt immediately reverted back to his versions and immediately accused me of committing vandalism and of claiming ownership of these articles. CoolKatt has also ignored requests from the Wikiproject Television Stations group to join a consensus on the inclusion of several out-of-market (foreign) television stations on templates {{Springfield MA TV}} and {{Susquehanna Valley TV}}, which he has repeatedly to his liking. I personally reverted both templates back several times, and he reverted each time, accusing me of WP:OWN and trying to make a point. He himself violates WP:OWN and WP:POINT when he adds tags such as "!-- Please do NOT remove the Hartford stations" in the Springfield template, or "!-- Do not remove the merge tag. Doing so is considered vandalism!", as he did during his effort to re-merge WGTW-TV and WKBS-TV (Philadelphia) after another user split the articles. CoolKatt has also accused myself and others of Wikistalking for constantly going over his work. But his beef with me has become more personal: he filed a RfC against me, which was deleted within 48 hours, and on July 1 he filed a Request for Investigation against me without my knowledge. Ironically, his most recent behavior has resulted in him being under investigaton for adding unsubstantiated information to television station articles. CoolKatt is arrogant, pompous, and believes that he is the end-all, be-all when it comes to opinions on articles he contributes to. He must be put in his place. Rollosmokes 18:31, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Kramden4700

I had the misfortune of opposing his needless propsed merger of WPVI-TV and after a bit of investigation noticed he had plans for splitting KYW-TV as well, something which also was not needed. I also opposed his proposed re-merger of WKBS-TV (Philadelphia) amd WGTW-TV. Apparently bringing this to the light day and opposing him had put me on his bad side. I tried to be civil, but he seemed to act as if he was not the problem, but those who oppose him were and that WP:OWN did not apply to him. He needs at minimum a time out or possibly some other further sanction if this is a continuing pattern of behaviour. Kramden4700 20:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Crossmr (talk · contribs)

Most of what I'll say here is a rehash of what I said on the RfC. I first encountered Coolkatt on an AfD. I wasn't even aware I had until after the AfD closed. I left an opinion but it wasn't on my watch list. Sometime after the closure of this AfD, I logged in to find a spurious accusation on my userpage that I was a sockpuppet of someone whom I didn't even know. This dif shows the sock puppet tag. The proper process wasn't followed and it was simply retaliation for "agreeing with nom" in the AfD, who interestingly wasn't even apostrophe. Going back to look at the AfD as I barely even remembered it, I found that Coolkatt had gone and accused everyone who called for delete a sockpuppet. He'd also left the same spurious sock puppet accusation on Opabinia's user page here . Both her and I spoke out about it on the administrators noticeboard, but no administrator bothered to get involved. Seen here in my archives he first claims that making numerous personal attacks on users is "the right thing to do" and then claims Apostrophe (whom I did not know) forced myself and others to recommend delete. He continues to say one thing and do another, claiming he'll behave then doing things like putting AfD tags on his RfC. Here he blame's his behaviour on everyone else and refuses to take responsibility for it. here I tried to reach out to him to give him some guidance but his immature behaviour continues unabated. --Crossmr 20:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Addendum

Here is again making unfounded accusations of sockpuppetry and he refers to him as such in this edit summary .--Crossmr 15:58, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by CFIF (talk · contribs)

CoolKatt, has at times, bordered on being paranoid and physcotic (seen here talking about himself in the third person), making false accusations and legal threats against members, along with making false claims and odd statements. He has a whole slew of subpages filled with unfactual and fantastic which do no good for the encyclopedia. He has also made demands and acting like he is in charge (which is sooo far from the truth). and assumes everyone "knows his contributions are useful". Everything else has been pretty much covered by Rollo and Crossmr. --CFIF (talk to me) 21:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by CFIF part 2

He's now started a frivolous RfC against Amnewsboy, and warned Rollosmokes and I not to edit. He's getting crazy folks. --CFIF (talk to me) 02:49, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

YOU are getting crazy with all this WikiStalking. Stop it now. CoolKatt number 99999 02:51, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not WikiStalking. You are just completely paranoid, it seems. --CFIF (talk to me) 02:54, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
He's now accusing Rekarb Bob of being a sockpuppet of Buckner 1986 with no solid evidence. This guy is crazy.
Well, both accounts reverted my clean-up of WWCP-TV as vandalism. It only makes sense. CoolKatt number 99999 02:59, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I'd like to know why Buckner reverted CoolKatt in the first place. Was it because of CoolKatt's reputation? I've said this before regarding BenH: revert based on the edit, not the editor! Morgan Wick 17:58, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Statement by CFIF part 3

He's now calling non-vandalism edits vandalism, , and treating Rollosmokes like a vandal. , giving him two warnings. This has to stop, I think we should skip the whole Arbitration process and go directly towards a permablock. --CFIF (talk to me) 15:54, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, Pathoschild (talk · contribs) was nice enough to make a log of all three, and maybe eventually all four, of his frivolous RfC history. User:Pathoschild/Sandbox). --CFIF (talk to me) 16:00, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by CoolKatt number 99999 (talk · contribs)

Pure, Wiki-stalking. I demand the slander against me stop. I am making many useful contributions, and this is the thanks I get? I demand this dispute end now. CoolKatt number 99999 22:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Lambertman (talk · contribs)

Most everything I've witnessed has already been discussed. I can only add this statement from Katt in which he says his speculation (as to the meaning of callsigns) should be taken as fact because it makes sense to him. Lambertman 23:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Amnewsboy (talk · contribs)

While not directly involved in this particular dispute, I'd like to add that CoolKatt number 99999 has, on at least one occasion, been cited for adding unverified information to Misplaced Pages. A separate Request for Investigation was filed in regards to his additions to the page for the Arkansas Educational Television Network, and he was subsqeuently warned. In addition to the comment Lambertman pointed out, CoolKatt number 99999 also tried to justify that his call letter meanings were correct because "Maybe because those files were destroyed?", even though there are no sources to support that. I also question the validity of the user's sub-pages with "Alternate" histories for television stations (WDAF-TV , for example) - although said articles are clearly marked as fictional, they also show up in Google searches for the subjects. I have had only minimal personal contact with the user, but I will say that I find his editing methods questionable at best. Amnewsboy 22:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
As a follow-up, CoolKatt number 99999 was blocked for 24 hours on July 19 for further violations of WP:V, then for a further 48 hours for violating it again . Amnewsboy 06:37, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
A further follow-up: CoolKatt number 99999 filed what I believe is a frivilous RfC in regards to this matter. I would reiterate that his own actions prompted his subsequent blocking and that I think he really needs to learn more about WP:V and other related policies before being allowed to edit again. Amnewsboy 03:39, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Morgan Wick (talk · contribs)

When I first encountered CoolKatt, I was a bit surprised at the level to which he was opposed, and I thought the RfC against him had spurious grounds. I even attempted to defuse the level of vitriol against him by pointing out that he has made constructive edits. But recently, he seems to have gone off the deep end. He has forgotten how to be civil, and has repeatedly claimed his contributions are "useful" without explaining how in the face of people trying to tell him they violate numerous Misplaced Pages policies. He has taken to violating WP:OWN in relentlessly trying to defend his versions of articles, getting involved in numerous edit wars. He has filed RfC's left and right, including one against A Man In Black (talk · contribs) for daring to oppose him on an AfD, and seems to be using RfC as a way to intimidate or get back at people who disagree with him , which is an abuse of RfC, and which isn't working, since not one of his RfC's has been certified. As noted earlier, he has accused people of sockpuppetry for disagreeing with him as well. He seems to have some paranoid tendencies, and his dealings with the Misplaced Pages community is starting to test even my patience. Morgan Wick 05:32, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (4/0/0/0)

Requests for clarification

Requests for clarification from the Committee on matters related to the Arbitration process.

Pedophilia userbox wheel war

I would like to know if Tony Sidaway's threats at Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2006 July 8#Template:unblockabuse are valid per Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pedophilia userbox wheel war#SPUI, especially given the comments at . --SPUI (T - C) 17:08, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Highways

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Highways#Enforcement of moves without consensus states that "If any participant to this dispute moves a state highway page to their preferred convention before a formal policy has been reached, he or she may be blocked for a short time of up to a week for repeated offenses." Say Route 69 is renumbered to Route 31. (This type of whole-route renumbering occurs occasionally.) Is this measure intended to make the obvious move blockable? Or should "from another convention" be added after "to their preferred convention"?

I also note that it specifically mentions state highways. Is Canada fair game, as long as I'm not disruptive? --SPUI (T - C) 19:32, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Also I'd like to know what the duration of the probation is as no set limit was established in the Arbcom. Is this probation indefinite? Or can we appeal it after 3 months? --JohnnyBGood 20:54, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

It looks like you are worrying over semantics here. Uncontroversial moves should not be contested, and won't get anybody in trouble. There is a difference from moving something to the correct name and moning something to the preferred convention. That doesn't mean anyone can move to their preferred convention and say it's okay because it's the real name, but Route 69 and Route 31 are not variations of eath other, whereas a move from Route 31 to State Route 31, or Route 31 (State), or whatever, would be a violation. Dmcdevit·t 18:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand the last sentence. If someone makes an article at simply "Route 31", which should obviously be a disambiguation page (and it is in this case), what should I do? --SPUI (T - C) 19:06, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the confusion is here, but I think maybe that it is that the part of the ruling you quote comes from the enforcement. Take a look at the remedy section where the controversial moves are prohibited (Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Highways#Controversial_moves): "Until a formal naming convention policy regarding state highways is reached, no page shall be moved from one controversial name to another". I think that is clear and answers your question. Dmcdevit·t 19:47, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
OK - so I can move Route 31 to Route 31 (State), as everyone agrees that Route 31 should be a disambiguation page, so its current location is not controversial? --SPUI (T - C) 20:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
If this is so, can someone please edit the enforcement to reflect this? --SPUI (T - C) 07:55, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
An appeal is likely to do little. --SPUI (T - C) 12:07, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
Probation is indefinite. Fred Bauder 12:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
Can it be appealled in the future or as SPUI says are we pretty much SOL? --JohnnyBGood 00:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
You can appeal whenever you want, but you will only be successful if you can demonstrate some new development that will make us change our minds. That may be a while from now. Dmcdevit·t 18:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Another question: where do I start on making a "formal policy"? I talked to a policy wonk and he confirmed that naming conventions are typically guidelines. --SPUI (T - C) 13:53, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Speaking purely for myself, I'd say that the Committee can only urge the community to seek a policy solution to the question of highway naming. The community may well have good reasons to reject this. In which case, you'd probably all better be extra careful about moves, and make sure you don't make any controversial name changes. --Tony Sidaway 10:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Everyking

Pursuant to discussion on the arbitration committee mailing list, Everyking has recently been causing more problems. Following our previous decision, he has instead begun harassing administrators on their talk pages. He has resumed editing Ashlee Simpson articles in the same fashion we previously sanctioned. Extraordinary Machine lodged a complaint on the ANI, and I recieved one in private from someone else (that person has refused to lodge one formally because he/she is fed up with EK from previous run-ins).

Per previous discussion, I'd like to propose the following remedies:

  1. Everyking is banned for two weeks for recent offenses
  2. Everyking's current prohibitions (his ban from editing the ANI, and from commenting on other admin's actions except for their talk pages, RFC, and RFA) - set to expire in November - are extended indefinitely for one year, until November 2007.
  3. Everyking is placed on standard probation for all pop music articles - any admin may ban him from any/all of them for any misbehavior on his part
  4. Should EK harass other admins over their non-editorial actions, any admin may block him for up to two weeks per incident, escalating to one year per incident after the fifth one. Raul654 22:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Do I get an opportunity to argue in my defense? Let's consider a few things:
    1. Ashlee articles—exactly what am I doing there that the ArbCom considers so terrible? I mean, actually look at the articles and their histories and tell me. There's a couple of reverts, but I wasn't the only one reverting, and the situation seems to have settled down now into a compromise, at least a de facto one. Also, there was far more discussion going on than there was reverting—in fact, if you just look at the histories, you'll see there was hardly any reverting at all. There was no "revert war" in any meaningful sense—the only thing close to one happened on an article about a Jessica Simpson song, but again in that case, too, the situation seems to have settled down into a de facto compromise. To sanction someone for this is utterly, entirely absurd. Not only was the whole situation a pretty minor one (not even close to the explosion of conflict the articles saw 18 months ago), it seems to have settled down anyway, and I wasn't even the one with the aggressive stance—I was taking the defensive stance.
    2. Talk pages—the ArbCom ruling specifically granted me the right to discuss admin actions on the relevant admin talk pages. Am I now going to be punished for exercising that right? People would block me before and tell me to take it to the admin's talk page. So I do that, and this is what I get? Why was that exemption created to begin with, if I was just going to get attacked for making use of it? Not to mention there isn't much of this going on anyway. The last case was regarding EM threatening a user who was obviously acting in good faith, but was younger than most of us and was a little confused about how to do some technical things.
    3. No credit—where is the credit for actually following the ruling as it was spelled out for me? I have always strictly observed the AN/I prohibition. I haven't been blocked by anyone for any reason in several months. To hear Raul tell it, I've been constantly violating the ruling, which is the exact opposite of what I've actually been doing.
    4. Ruling consistency—Ashlee articles pertained to EK1; this is EK3. How can you fit anything pertaining to EK1 under a revision of EK3?
    5. The opposing party—Who is the opposing party here, anyway? It appears to be none other than the ArbCom itself—in that case, how can I possibly get a fair hearing from them? Or is it whoever sent that private complaint? Did that person actually want this taken to arbitration? Isn't it important, for reasons of transparent process, to have an accuser in public—not secretly in e-mail? Is there any precedent for that at all?
    6. Involved party?—hey, did anyone think to consult EM about this stuff that is apparently being done on his behalf? What does he think? Does he actually want me taken to arbitration? Previously he expressed a lot of reluctance to even take me to RfC, and that was at the peak of the conflict, some time ago.

I think it is fair to say you have exhausted the committee's patience. I'm going to respond, very briefly, to some of the points you raise. Point 1 - Despite your attempt to spin it otherwise, you are doing the exact same thing that led to the first two Everyking arbitration cases, and as I just said, our patience with you has run out. Point 2 - As I said to you on my talk page just a few days ago, that exception was *not* created to allow you to move your harassment from the ANI to individual users' talk pages. Point 3 - I drive to work every day and avoid the temptation to run over those skateboarders who are always on Delaware Avenue. If tomorrow I were to run them over, am I to tell the judge to consider all the times I went to work and didn't run the over? Ha, no. Point 4 - Wikilawyering; our clarification applies to the series of cases, not any one in particular. Point 5 - No opposing party is necessary. Point 6 - yes. Raul654 16:29, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I've exhausted your patience; you've exhausted mine, too, but what am I gonna do about it?
  1. I will post thorough evidence about this if the ArbCom will agree to read and consider it honestly.
  2. It's not harassment, it's criticism of admin actions—the exact thing the exemption was created to allow me to continue doing in a restricted space. Moreover, I have actually done little of this—once every few weeks, maybe? I'll go through and post all the examples I can find, again if the ArbCom will agree to read and consider it honestly.
  3. I haven't run anybody over, to go with your analogy; you haven't pointed to anything I've done that violated the ruling. You've accused me of misbehaving on Ashlee articles, which if true isn't covered by the ruling (and wouldn't even be covered by the old ruling, because even if you guys hadn't freed me from it after two months, it would still have expired long ago) and complaining on admin talk pages, which is protected by the ruling.
  4. Does "wikilawyering" mean "a point of procedure that would benefit the accused and therefore will be disregarded in this case"?
  5. I asked you to provide a precedent for this, and also to explain the inherent unfairness of having the same people as both accuser, prosecutor and judge.
  6. Notably you didn't ask his opinion before starting this thing. In any case, let's now wait and see if he has something to add about this. Everyking 17:17, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not at all familiar with this stage of dispute resolution; that said, I think this discussion is appropriate.
Everyking, you reverted me three times at Ashlee Simpson (including an edit that had absolutely nothing to do with removing content) and once at Pieces of Me . The main reasons I chose not to keep restoring my edits was because a) it's better to discuss a dispute rather than repeatedly revert the other party, b) I knew the history of these articles and wanted to make sure the situation wouldn't escalate like it did before, and c) because of the reverts I just listed, and the dispute 18 months ago, I had a feeling you'd keep reverting me. That's one of the reasons why I didn't file an RFC on your behaviour, the others being that I wanted to keep the discussions focussed on the articles and that there wasn't a second party around who was involved enough to be able to certify an RFC. I didn't once consider the possibility that you would follow me across other pages and revert me wholesale (These Boots Are Made for Walkin' (Jessica Simpson song)), which is simply unacceptable, in my opinion. It also indicates your statement about "taking the defensive stance", if true originally, no longer holds much water. Not that I don't care about your "defensive" behaviour either: telling me "it will be restored, naturally" (Talk:Ashlee Simpson) and comparing me to a film villain (Talk:Pieces of Me) is not appreciated.
Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Everyking 3 states "Everyking is required to familiarize himself with the particulars of a situation before commenting on it"; with regard to Tcatron565 (talk · contribs), I don't believe that you did so. Tcatron registered here almost a year ago; as can be seen at user talk:Tcatron565, he's made many edits that violate the guidelines and policies, and has a history of incivility. I'll leave the nitty gritty out for brevity's sake, but I should note that I wasn't even the first user to introduce the possibility of a block to him. I admit I've considered just giving up explaining the policies and guidelines to him, but that's only because comments like "it seems like everytime I make a wrong move, you're all up in my face! ... when I do something wrong, wait for 4 days, then tell me" , along with his tendency to continue editing as he was, indicate that such efforts would be pointless. If you're still wondering why I told him he may be blocked, I should refer you to the case of the IP editor 200.138.194.254 (talk · contribs), a seemingly good faith user who nevertheless edited in violation of the policies in guidelines without discussion and was consequently blocked for a week not too long ago. I'm certain that I would have told Tcatron the same thing if I wasn't an admin, so the comment about me "throwing my weight around" as an admin is hardly accurate. Lastly, I am well aware that admins involved in disputes with other users (such as the one I had with Tcatron) aren't supposed to block any of the other parties, and if I thought a block was absolutely necessary in this case I would have started a discussion at WP:ANI. I feel that your comments regarding this were written with the main intention of antagonising me rather than anything to do with Tcatron. Extraordinary Machine 20:59, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

You know, I don't have access to the arbitrators' mailing list, so I don't really know exactly what they are thinking. For all I know what they are saying in private and in public are completely different. But all I can do is focus on what gets written on this page. So let me directly discuss each of the things Raul calls remedies:

  1. This proposes banning me for two weeks for alleged "recent offenses". What recent offenses? Raul has so far only pointed to one somewhat uncivil comment I made about an admin warning I thought was too harsh. Yeah, I shouldn't have used the tone I did, but it was in the midst of a more general conflict that had led to a deepening of animosity on both sides; it didn't come out of the blue. To ban someone for even a single day for a marginally uncivil comment that they've since apologized for seems highly draconian—to ban for two weeks is so far overboard it almost seems insane. Aren't blocks supposed to be staggered somehow, anyway? You don't generally just jump right into such severe blocks for minor offenses. I've never even been blocked for a single 24 hour period in two and a half years on Misplaced Pages—every one of my blocks has been reconsidered or undone for some reason. Furthermore, as I've said before, I haven't been blocked at all in the last few months. So even if you think I'm in the wrong, does it make sense to jump from blocks lasting a few hours in the relatively distant past to two weeks now?
  2. Rather than try to overreach in arguing this one, considering the depth of the ArbCom's hostile feeling toward me right now, I propose that the ArbCom change this so as to give me an automatic appeal in November of this year (something I have long pleaded for), but a formal duration until November 2007 in case of failure.
  3. Again—for what? What did I do wrong here? I participated in some minor reverting and bickering that has since settled down, and I made several concessions and compromises (and expressed far more willingness to compromise throughout than my opponent did—in fact I think all the compromises were made on my initiative).
  4. I don't have much of an argument for this one; the ArbCom and I simply don't agree about what constitutes harassment and what constitutes reasonable criticism. I will just hope that this penalty is never abusively applied. Everyking 05:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

General responses, since this section is a bit too muddled for an indented reply to make sense any more: Everyking, I think your question above as to the definition of "wikilawyering" above (snide musings aside) is answered by your point directly above it, "you haven't pointed to anything I've done that violated the ruling". Also, "the ArbCom ruling specifically granted me the right to discuss admin actions on the relevant admin talk pages. Am I now going to be punished for exercising that right?" and "where is the credit for actually following the ruling as it was spelled out for me?" and "Who is the opposing party here, anyway?" and "I asked you to provide a precedent for this, and also to explain the inherent unfairness of having the same people as both accuser, prosecutor and judge." are all good examples of wikilawyering. Why were you given any of these restrictions in the first place, Everyking? If you can't answer that then I'll support every measure proposed. It was to stop your harassment. When I am faced with the fact that you've used administrators' talk pages for harassment, despite our obvious desire that you cease harassment, I am forced to conclude that you are violating the ruling. I'm weary of it: bans from AN/ANI and from criticism other than on admins' talk pages were meant to get it through to you to stop harassment. If your response is to continue to do so through the only avenue still open after the last case, then the general ban for a short time period is looking reasonable. Was really what you consider reasonable criticism where I see harassment? Note: if the answer is really "no, and I've apologized" don't tell me you haven't violated our decision again. That you have never violated even the letter of the ruling is patently false anyway, as we found out months ago, , , , and also on the occasion where I specifically pointed out to you your violation of the ruling (I am sure you recall, or maybe you decided to make a bold statement like that with no factual backing or double checking?). Despite your efforts to the contrary, you don't have the option to say: "I forgot. I'm sorry." and go on you merry way, only to "forget" again. If I can have no confidence that you cannot stop in the future, I can't object to the three proposals related to it. As for the pop culture remedy, I don't find that issue particularly pressing or interesting right now. Dmcdevit·t 06:25, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Although maybe out of place, "pop music" articles should be better defined. A lot of people see pop music as different things, and it's a little ambiguous. Esteffect 21:37, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

We generally expect people to use their common sense. Are you suggesting we credit our users with too much?
FWIW, I'm happy with the proposals that we've worked out.
James F. (talk) 10:39, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Credit me with a little, then. Just a tiny bit! Everyking 04:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Internal spamming/campaigning

There's an ongoing discussion at WP:SPAM about what constitutes acceptable talk page contact between users regarding discussions, votes, polls, etc. Prior rulings that have been pointed to are this prior ruling and this one. Could you offer any more specific information about what is and is not allowed/discouraged, for example: is it the use of mass userbox messaging that is disallowed (if it is), or is internal spamming/campaigning disallowed only if disruptive? Thanks. IronDuke 17:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Motions in prior cases

(Only Arbitrators may make such motions)


Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Zeq

Motion to ban Zeq for a week for creating an attack article regarding User:Homeontherange (article has been deleted) diff will be available to Arbitration Committee members. Fred Bauder 21:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

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