Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Rangerdude/Evidence

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[edit] Evidence

A large part of user:Rangerdude's complaint against me concerns his allegation of wikistalking. On the evidence page it is covered in "February 6 to Present" in 125 words with no evidence. Instead, there is a link to a 6500-word page user page with more than 50 diffs. I previously responded to that complaint in RfC/Rangerdude back in June, but it has been updated many times since then. If the charge is being made as a part of this arbitration then I would appreciate it if the evidence could appear on the arbitration evidence page, rather than on a user page where I cannot respond. Thanks, -Willmcw 00:40, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I will be happy to detail the 50-something articles you have stalked me to on the evidence page. I have not added them yet though as it takes time to transfer every diff over and format it. I am also waiting for the format of this arbitration to be corrected to reflect the vote of the ArbCom, which indicated that this RfAr was to be merged into the first RfAr at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Willmcw and SlimVirgin - not the other way around as has been done. Once this is corrected, any evidence listing will be made at the appropriate place on the listing there. Rangerdude 01:49, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Whatever the ArbCom chooses to do is their own affair. I think that it would be best if we do not move things around on our own. In previous discussions and dispute resolution procedures involving Rangerdude there have been instances of moving and merging comments written by others. It'd be better if that didn't happen in this case too. Thanks, -Willmcw 08:37, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Per the votes, the ArbCom chose to merge this case into the other one. That the opposite happens thus appears to be an honest mistake. I've already alerted the Arbcom members to it and hope that it can be addressed in short order. Also, please refrain from bad faith insinuations about merging comments outside of the arbitration itself. Rangerdude 19:06, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Size

Should we try to conform to the ArbCom's request to limit evidence to 1000 words and 100 diffs each? -Willmcw 01:08, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Given the complexity of this case, I believe that a 1000 word limit may severely inhibit the ability to address all its issues adequately any may create an undue bias in one direction or another. For example - my arbitration case names two defendants and Willmcw has two more persons taking his side in his case. If we were to impose a limit, I would have only 1000 words to address the behavior of Willmcw, SlimVirgin, Katefan0, and JohnTex whereas they would have 4000 words between them to go after me. This would create a biased hearing in which I would be essentially outgunned 4 to 1. Rangerdude
I don't mind if you spend a 1000 words addressing your complaint against SlimVirgin, but please don't devote more than 1000 words/100 diffs in your evidence regarding me. That is, if you want to do things "by the books". (I don't see the reason you'd expend 1000 words each on Katefan0 and JohnTex as they weren't part of your complaint.). Thanks, -Willmcw 06:03, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
As I indicated in my response to your retaliatory RfAr that Katefan0 and JohnTex joined, I intend to seek arbitrator evaluation of POV pushing and WP:POINT violations by both of these parties. Rangerdude 14:54, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
You only filed for arbitration regarding myself and SlimVirgin. If you are going to make complaints against additional editors then there should be a separate arbitration for each of them, rather than adding them to an already complicated three-way case. -Willmcw 23:11, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Sorry Will, but it's simply not your decision as to what evidence I can introduce. The evidence page clearly states that it is for the "issues raised in the complaint and answer" and as I indicated in my answer, I intend to pursue POV pushing and WPO:POINT disruption complaints against those two users. Rangerdude 02:59, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Regardless of how many other editors you have complaints with, is there any limit to how long your complaint against me is going to be? Do you intend to go "by the book", as you request elsewhere, and adhere to the 1000 word/100 diff limit? It appears to already be around 1700 words. -Willmcw 19:48, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Errors

  • Willmcw has in some cases even incorrectly identified other IP edits as having been mine (RD)

If I have mis-indentified any IPs as having been used by the editor known as "Rangerdude" please let me know and I will remove them. Thanks, -Willmcw 19:48, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Query about length of evidence

This is a query for an arbitrator. When I last checked Rangerdude's evidence, it was around 5,000 words even though the limit is 1,000. Regarding his case against me, he's using the evidence page as an ongoing attack page, following me around Wikipedia, making a note here of every tiny thing he doesn't like, whether related to his initial complaint or not, and even inviting others to join in. Considering that part of the complaint against Rangerdude is that he engages in wikistalking and harassment, he seems to be acting it out on the evidence page as a sort of visual aid.

I don't want to begin a response until he has finished compiling his evidence, but as there seems to be no end to it, could an arbitrator please advise on the issue of word length and evidence parameters? I accept that no false parameters should be laid down that hamper the arbcom in reaching an informed decision; nevertheless, the evidence page should not itself become yet another instrument of torture, especially given that this behavior was one of the reasons the case was brought in the first place. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:26, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Two things: (1) Willmcw's current evidence file is over 6,200 words long and devoted entirely to making allegations against me. My complaint addresses the two principle defendants in this case (SlimVirgin and Willmcw), two other participants (Katefan0 and JohnTex), and a response to statements by TenofAllTrades in roughly the same space. Curiously, SlimVirgin complains about my section's length yet manages to completely overlook Willmcw's. (2) Far from "wikistalking" her for "tiny things" to add, the recent additions I've made to the evidence file on SlimVirgin amount to major policy violations on her part such as improperly page protecting her own edits, changing Wikipedia policies without consensus to support her violations of previous versions, and attacking other users for things that she did. I discovered her page protection violations not by following her but rather by publicly posted links to them on wikipedia namespace pages where I was participating in votes etc. Others were sent to me on my talk page by other editors who had seen this Arbcom case against SlimVirgin and wanted to report that they've encountered some of the very same policy abuses by her that I have. I discovered another of her violations - the changing of Wikipedia's Page Protection policy to cover her tracks - when I was consulting it and noticed it had been changed overnight. When I went to see where the change came from it was none other that SlimVirgin trying to add escape clauses that would protect the violations of WP:PPol I had reported her for a few days prior. Rangerdude 08:46, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Here's a case in point. Having seen my query and responded to it above (though it's a query for an arbitrator, not for Rangerdude), his very next edit is to request that I be temporarily de-sysopped while the case is heard. [1] That's my punishment for having posted this query. This is precisely what Rangerdude did to Willmcw and Cberlet for months: harassment, stalking, they'd defend themselves, and then they'd be punished for it with further harassment. I got dragged into it because I defended them, which means I must be punished too, and when I try to defend myself, stiffer punishment is demanded. This isn't healthy. SlimVirgin (talk) 09:04, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Your claims are conspiratorial nonsense, Slim. I requested that your admin powers be temporarily suspended because you have repeatedly abused them during the course of this Arbcom case by page protecting your own work and by revert warring on unilateral policy changes designed to give you cover. I added that request yesterday as I was reviewing and updating materials pertaining to this arbitration case. It was one of several additions to the case I decided to make, and I did so in light of your behavior at WP:PPol and other places - not anything you posted here to the talk page. It is an unfortunate request to make, but I felt it was necessary because you have responded to every polite and reasonable effort to get you to stop these abuses with extreme belligerency and an unwillingness to behave in a cooperative manner. Anyone who wishes to can see WP:PPol's talk page for evidence of this belligerency. All of the following hostile statements by SlimVirgin were made in response to requests I posted there asking her not to change the Protection Policy's definition of admin powers until the Arbcom case involving her abuse of them was settled. Readers are also invited to contrast SlimVirgin's hostility the tone of my original request, which was polite and reasonable:

Given this circumstance, I will ask SlimVirgin and any other supportive editor to refrain from making this change until (1) clear consensus has been established AND (2) the current Arbcom case is decided. Thanks. Rangerdude 04:15, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

SlimVirgin's hostile responses:

  • "Stop the wikilawyering, RD." 04:23, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • "And stop mentioning your arbcom case. You have submitted a very long list of frankly silly claims to the arbcom against, I believe, four or five editors. That's your business and yours alone. I doubt anyone has even read it yet, particularly as you keep adding to it with no end in sight." 04:46, 27 October 2005
  • "You seem to be engaged in stalking and WP:POINT. I'm not changing policy. I added the sentence I'm editing in the first place; I know what I meant to say when I wrote it. If other people here think I'm changing policy someone else would have reverted me, but no one did. And any admin is allowed to take admin action in order to uphold an arbitration ruling. Again, this is not a change in policy." 01:47, 1 November 2005 (UTC) (Note: at this point both myself and User:Sam Spade had objected to SlimVirgin's changes)
  • "RD, policy is supposed to reflect what happens. And the reason I say you're stalking and engaged in WP:POINT is that you're following my edits and objecting to things I agree with for the sake of it." 02:17, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Note: Far from following her to this article, I found the changes she had made on my own when consulting the protection policy and discovered that she had changed the very same clauses I was citing in ways that provided cover for her abuses of them. I subsequently reverted to the original version, posted a polite request for her to wait until the Arbcom was done on the talk page, and placed the policy on my watchlist. When she started revert warring to bring back her changes a few days later, I again restored the original and posted my objections to the talk page. Both times I was met with nothing but hostility from her, and that hostility apparently continues here in the conspiratorial allegations she's making above. Rangerdude 18:23, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm serious, RD, this isn't healthy. It isn't good for you, for me, or for any of the arbcom members expected to wade through it. While you were "reviewing and updating materials pertaining to ...," other people were helping to write an encyclopedia. You make wikilife intolerable for people just because they disagree with you. You see conspiracies and cliques everywhere: because people jointly disagree with you, they must be in cahoots, and if they're in cahoots, it must be in some way illegitimate, dodgy, underhand. You should try using Occam's Razor: sometimes people just agree with one other. Sometimes people who agree with each another in one area will agree in other areas too. There's nothing untoward about it.
I first tried to reason with you about your perception of Will on June 18. [2] Nearly five months ago! Since then, I've watched you continue after Will, extend the campaign to Chip, and then to me because I defended them. Looking at your contribs, conflict is most of what you've done: two RfCs against three editors; two RfMs involving three editors, not the same three; and now an RfAr involving four editors. Incessant nitpicking instead of trying to form relationships with people (and yes, we're all flawed; we could all be nitpicked to death!).
Is there any part of you that can step back and say: maybe, just maybe, there's a better way to relate to people than this? Are you prepared to try it? This is a very forgiving community toward people who want to try a different approach. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:36, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
The only thing here that isn't healthy for wikipedia, Slim, is the willingness to disregard written Wikipedia policies and the harassment of other editors exhibited by yourself and Willmcw. Your suggestion that I should spend my time helping to write the encyclopedia instead of pursuing this arbitration is odd, considering that I was doing just that when Willmcw began wikistalking me back in February. His incessant need to follow me to every single article I created and almost every article I edited in any substantive way is what initiated this dispute to begin with. I tried informing him politely that he was harassing me and I also tried to get outside help on the matter by reporting it. Sadly, he responded by only intensifying his efforts to the point that I could not make a single contribution to content here without having it stalked and deconstructed a day later by Willmcw. I have created dozens upon dozens of new articles here and significantly expanded many more existing articles, and strangly Willmcw has popped up to harass my edits and push his political POV's at almost every single one. When this problem reached a point that began severely impairing my attempts to make good faith additions to the encyclopedia, I tried the appropriate courses of dispute resolution and reported him for wikistalking. Instead of receiving help from an unbiased administrator, you showed up and did nothing but tell me how wonderful and perfect and incapable of breaking the rules Willmcw was, even in the face of incontrovertable evidence against him. Ever since then you've only intensified your defense of him in any and all circumstances - even when he did blatantly POV and disruptive things, such as adding David Duke quotes to articles for political reasons. Next you began assisting him in a coordinated attempt to disrupt and discredit my guideline proposal on stalking. Now you've expanded into outright policy violations of your own with page protection and changing Wikipedia policies to suit your needs. I agree that it's very unfortunate we're at this stage, Slim, and consider it similarly unfortunate that I cannot devote more time to expanding the encyclopedia at the present (something I was doing extensively and in good faith when I arrived here before I started being stalked). But that is a circumstance of your own creation and the product of your own belligerent attitude towards anybody who disagrees with your positions or the positions of one of your friends. Rangerdude 20:17, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
At least we can agree it's unfortunate that it's come to this, and that we'd all rather be editing the encyclopedia. I feel your identifying this as starting with Will in February leaves out that you requested formal mediation with another editor on your first day editing with this account in January, accusing him of having "severely breached editing protocol." [3] You tend to jump to the worst conclusions about people immediately. They then defend themselves. You dig your heels in, start nitpicking, and become rhetorical, eventually being convinced by your own rhetoric so that you see no wrong in what you're doing. The people you're accusing defend themselves even more, and maybe their friends join in, which you see as a conspiracy. And the stage is set for a prolonged dispute that will make everyone miserable, yourself included (I assume).
You've done that with me over the protection thing. I haven't breached any policies. You've chosen to take the most negative view possible, but there is actually an innocent explanation, and you'd see it if you looked for it. But now I'm going to have to waste time going through all the diffs and writing up a defense, the thought of which makes me weep, to be frank, because I really dislike these dispute-resolution structures, and I want to be doing other things. As I'm sure you do too.
The solution to all of this is to assume good faith. I know there are some people with whom there's no point in assuming it, but I don't get that sense from you. I do think you've become a vexatious litigant, but that's perhaps just a role you found yourself in, rather than something you planned. It isn't too late for us all to look for another way to sort this out. Would you like to try? SlimVirgin (talk) 21:11, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Would something like this work, for example — User:SlimVirgin/AGF? SlimVirgin (talk) 21:31, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
You are correct that I requested mediation against another editor right after I picked a username, Slim. But do you know why? Do you even bother yourself with checking the reasons behind my decisions to seek dispute resolution with other editors before you label them "frivolous" or "vexatious" or whatever your attack term of the day happens to be? The reasons for that dispute are documented in the history of edits to that article and show that the other editor I sought dispute resolution with (incidentally an admin) was clearly misbehaving. I arrived on that article on January 8th, voiced disagreement with POV's being asserted in the article, and added an appropriate POV tag to reflect this. Only 45 minutes passed by and that other editor reverted me and removed the tag without even considering my input [4]. I restored it with a note on the talk page, only to be reverted a second time and a third, which was incidentally the fourth revert made by that same editor in less than 24 hours (Revert 1 [5], Revert 2 [6], Revert 3 [7], Revert 4 [8]). That same editor also engaged in personal attacks and namecalling in both his edit descriptions and on the talk page and refused both polite requests to discuss and a subsequent warning that I would seek an outside mediator. Given those events, I believe it is an accurate statement to say that the other editor was entirely in the wrong on that article - a circumstance reflected in the fact that another neutral admin responded to my request by imposing page protection to prevent his reverts and the fact that he later settled down and agreed to discuss and accept many of the changes I was seeking. I detailed this incident to illustrate a point, Slim. That point is that both you and Willmcw are misrepresenting my participation in previous editing disputes - many of which did not even involve either of you - in ways that completely neglect the fact that the other editors in each case normally did something in direct violation of Wikipedia's written policies. That's not nitpicking, Slim. That's pointing out a major policy violation:
- violations such as breaking 3RR as happened with User:172 in the January 8th case you reference
- violations such as ignoring consensus and personally attacking other users, as user:Jonathan_Christensen did in his very first post to me on the Jim Robinson article that you and Will love to beat me over the head with
- violations such as inserting and abusive flagrant POV into articles, as Willmcw did with his David Duke quotes on the LVMI article page
- violations such as personally attacking the employment and financial motives of another editor, as Willmcw also did to user:nskinsella on LVMI
- and yes, violations of WP:PPol as you did in protecting your own version of Islamophobia less than 24 hours after you rewrote much of the article.
If you continue to flaunt policies like that, Slim, I will not hesitate to point it out. If, on the other hand, you behave yourself in an appropriate manner I'm more than happy to live and let live. As to working this out another way than arbitration, I'm certainly open. In fact that's what I was hoping to do when I offered you mediation before filing this case - something that you refused along with a statement to the effect of "see you in court." Nevertheless, I'm still open to the possibility and will state right here and right now what my conditions are:
(1) Willmcw must cease and desist in wikistalking my edits. Evidence of any pattern in which he intentionally lurks me to new articles I've created or new edits and additions to existing articles I've made will be construed as wikistalking under the definition of that term at WP:HA. Should he desire to edit articles of common interest between the two of us in a manner that reflects good faith and generally contributes to the article's content, it will not be construed as wikistalking. Edits made solely for the purpose of harassing and deconstructing my contributions, however, and demands made under threat of deletion that my contributions meet special and arbitrary criteria for inclusion above and beyond any requirement of wikipedia guidelines or policies will be construed as wikistalking and harassment.
(2) Willmcw must abstain from POV provocation, such as the David Duke incident, and excessive edit/revert warring, which seems to be his approach to virtually everything I edit nowadays.
(3) You must abide by WP:PPol's restrictions against admins from protecting articles they've worked on. You must also abstain from personal attacks.
(4) The two of you must abstain from coordinated disruption activities such as the joint Village Pump/Userpage posts you made regarding my stalking guideline proposal.
In exchange I will gladly do all that is possible to maintain decorum and civility with the two of you on my own part. Furthermore, so long as the conditions I have stated are adhered to, I will not bother either of you with further dispute resolution complaints (if OTOH, say, Willmcw's wikistalking of me resumes I would seek dispute resolution). Rangerdude 23:05, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Rangerdude, and what specific behavioral and/or editing changes will you make or stipulate to adhere to in exchange? You lay out specific yardsticks you expect other editors to meet, while only vaguely referring to your being civil and not filing dispute resolutions against other people in return. How about stipulations about your own editing? Or do you believe that others' complaints about your editing practices on Wikipedia are completely unfounded? · Katefan0(scribble) 23:16, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
What specifically do you wish me to commit to, Katefan0? I'll readily concede that my tone in later stages of heated conversations has become uncivil at times, albeit never to an extreme degree such as profanity, threats, and personal abuse. But beyond that, I do consider many of the complaints on Willmcw's list to be unfounded and frivolous. Taking issue with me for voting differently from him on RfA's and RfC's and for using Wikipedia's dispute resolution procedures borders on being absurd. The stipulations I suggested for the other editors refer to several specific violations of Wikipedia policy and guidelines such as abusing Page Protection powers, coordinating hits on the Village Pump, and wikistalking. Personal attacks and POV pushing are harder to identify, though I would argue that in their most extreme form (the examples here being Willmcw's attack on NSKinsella and his David Duke quotes) they are incontrovertable and thus subject to a stipulation. By comparison, the allegations against me by Willmcw seem to apply a significantly looser measure of what constitutes an "attack." For example, both you and Will have cited the fact that I even participated in RfA's, RfC's etc. as if they were some sort of wrongdoing by me. Willmcw's list of what he calls "attacks" is of a similar nature, and contains many talk page notes where I did nothing more than complain about another user's violation of POV pushing or another guideline. Even the very worst cases he gives are little more than mild breaches of civility, and none contains anything profane, obscene, personally threatening, or exhibitive of severe personal abuse. With that in mind I would not commit myself to abstaining from RfC's, RfA's etc that I have a right to participate in as much as any other editor. Neither will I bind myself from using dispute resolution when it is necessary, nor commit myself to not pointing out policy violations on the talk page if they arise. I will, on the other hand, commit to maintaining a civil tone in my comments. I'll also commit to using dispute resolution only in cases where all other options have been exhausted on the talk page, and to seeking it only in the immediate case rather than bringing in past disputes as well (in fact, Slim's provision about all parties of putting our past disputes w/ each behind us would be a reasonable stipulation for everyone). Rangerdude 00:40, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Rangerdude, you keep referring to my so-called "attack" on user:NSKinsella. Haven't you noticed all his personal attacks against me, including the one which led me to question his agenda in that instance? -Willmcw 00:51, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Willow, are you saying that your personal attacks are excusable if they are in response to others made against you? Moreover, I never knew anything about you until I saw you making up stuff about me--that I had erected my own entry (untrue); that I worked for the Mises Institute (untrue)--in your first attempt to delete my entry. When I objected, you smarmily danced around and I then noticed your pattern of snide, leftist-inspired wikistalking, such as your second attempt to delete me, your utterly outrageous and repeated attempts to add a snide comment about the copyright status in one of my articles detailing my opposition to IP law; when you did not like my edit to the Mises Institute page showing the the SPLC, who had smeared the Mises Institute as being a hate group, had been criticized by others for going overboard--you "buttressed" this with a criticism by David Duke, which was a very slimy, dishonest, bad faith, and disingenuous move; and your ridiculous repressing of my entry due to a CopyVio simply because of your busybody dislike for my own website's quite standard copyright notice, in your attempt to use your power as an editor to try to push your pet GNU agenda. Outrageous. NSKinsella (Stephan Kinsella) 02:03, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Stephan, this isn't helpful. We're trying to resolve the dispute here, not engage in it. Words like outrageous, snide, dishonest etc etc are the problem, not the solution and I'm asking everyone here to be part of the solution. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
The wording used aside, I do believe NsKinsella is raising an important point here. Two wrongs do not make a right. Though I observed plenty of hostility from both sides in NSKinsella's dispute with Willmcw, the attack Willmcw made about NSKinsella's supposed financial affiliations with LVMI stuck out as particularly eggregious and uncalled for. That doesn't excuse anything else others said inappropriately in that dispute, but it is something Willmcw did that was very problematic under wikipedia's no attacks policy. The David Duke incident was similarly uncalled for, and IMO was the most offensive POV-pushing violation from either side during the LVMI dispute simply because Duke is such a notorious and reprehensible character. Willmcw might as well have been sticking quotes from Hitler in there, as Duke is truly the bottom of the gutter. This also raises another important point: can we all agree that attacking NSKinsella's LVMI affiliations and quoting David Duke were inappropriate? I ask this because these two incidents were both the main subject of the RfC I posted and 2 other editors from that dispute certified. This is a matter of concern because, regardless of where anyone fell in that RfC or the LVMI dispute, they should be able to recognize that quoting David Duke and attacking another editor's financial motives are disruptive. Rangerdude 04:25, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Response to Rangerdude

RD, in response to your points above, my protection of Islamophobia is a good example of where a failure to assume good faith blinds you to a possible innocent explanation. I apologize for the length of this, but I want to show you, just for this one example, how my mind was working, and how you misinterpreted by actions.

A new user had arrived, someone who maintains an anti-Islam website using a pseudonym, so no one knows his identity or the identities of those who post on his forum. For these reasons, it's not a good source for Wikipedia, plus some of it is very extreme, bordering on offensive (e.g. Muslims have evolved to have no conscience, and similar statements). He started making POV and unsourced edits to an article about himself, Ali Sina, in violation of several policies, and a revert war broke out between him and the other editors, so I protected the page. I took a look at his contribs and found he was making edits to Islamophobia, and another revert war had broken out, so I protected it too. I then took the time to make suggestions on the talk page of both articles about which sources were okay and which best avoided, and if anything, I probably came down slightly more in favor of Ali Sina.

However, you're right: I had recently edited Islamophobia, but I'd completely forgotten I had. I'd edited it once in June, and a second time to add an image, add something to the intro, and a copy edit on October 15. I'd then vprotected it on October 16 (any admin is allowed to protect against vandalism, whether involved in editing or not); and then a week later, on October 23, I protected it during Ali Sina's edits. You're absolutely right: I probably should have waited more than a week. But the reason I'd forgotten I'd edited it is precisely because it's not an article I often bother with. I wasn't involved in the dispute with Ali Sina; in fact, it was the first I'd heard of him. I had no dog in the fight, and that's the important issue when it comes to admins protecting pages: we shouldn't protect pages to gain an advantage in an edit dispute.

Ali Sina objected to my protection of the page because, he said, I'm an Iranian Islamist jihadist, so I unprotected it and left a note explaining why on WP:AN/I. To call this sequence of events an "abuse of the protection policy" is to suggest that I deliberately did something wrong in order to benefit myself, whereas a more charitable description would be that I'd protected a page where I wasn't involved in the dispute, and unprotected it as soon as someone accused me of bias. My argument with you here is simply this: in cases where assuming good faith throws up a possibly innocent explanation for something, isn't that the one we should choose?

Then the scene switches to WP:PP. You'd accused me of policy violation at Islamophobia. So I got to thinking: I wonder how long admins should wait between having edited a page and protecting it? Then I realized it's not really a question of the length of time at all, but more whether they were involved in the dispute that led to the need for protection. I might not have edited a page for six months, but the same dispute I was previously involved in might have continued with others.

So I went to WP:PP intending to add something to that effect. Several weeks ago, I'd already added a sentence to the intro saying "Admins must not protect pages they are engaged in editing," so to firm that up, and to make clear what I'd meant, I added "actively" i.e. that they are actively engaged in editing. Remember: I was the one who had added that sentence in the first place. I was changing my own edit, not someone else's.

You then came along and accused me of adding "actively" to get myself "off the hook" in the arbcom case. Again, a failure to assume good faith leads you to the darkest possible conclusion. (And anyway, if you feel I abused the policy on a certain day, it's what the policy said on that day that the arbcom will look at.) Because you've accused me of that, I can't add the rest of what I wanted to say, all or most of which I'm pretty sure you'd have agreed with, because I do agree with you on the substantive issue.

Now I'm expected to write all of this up in a succinct way for the arbcom, find all the diffs, find diffs to the other admins' posts who supported me, and the same for all the other claims you've made against me, and it's going to take hours. And for what? There's no benefit to anyone.

Regarding your RfM with 172 on your first day, what you say is correct: I didn't look at the dispute, and maybe you were 100 per cent right about it. Even so, I feel it's telling that you turned to dispute resolution on your first day. And I also want to say: just because you're 100 per cent right about something doesn't mean you have to pursue it. We can't see every situation we encounter in terms of winning or losing. I've had to take articles off my watchlist where I wasn't getting my own way — articles I felt I was absolutely right about and that I cared about — just because at the end of the day, it's not worth it. Part of what it is to work on Wikipedia is to learn to live with fairly high levels of frustration.

The "coordinated disruption" at the village pump you've talked about: there was no coordination there at all. I give you my word. I saw Will add something, and I saw you delete it. So I restored it. I then saw someone delete Will's post to your talk page several times. I protected it for 10 minutes until I could work out whether the guy was a vandal or not, and while I was trying to determine that, he posted something obscene to my talk page, and that decided the matter for me. I blocked him and unprotected your page. End of story. Nothing to see.

I'm not saying it always make sense to assume good faith, because there are people it's just impossible with, and it would be silly to try it. But it's a great policy in cases like this, where there's a black explanation of events, and an innocent one, and where they're both real possibilities.

I don't think any of us can come to this with conditions. I think we have to agree to move ahead or not, and if we do, leave all the baggage behind. However, I should stress that I'm only speaking for myself here. I can't make suggestions on behalf of the others. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:05, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Slim - I understand you feel that your actions were justified in protecting Islamophobia. In fact, I do not doubt that you thought you were doing something right. The problem is not with your intent, but rather with the way you conducted yourself in the page protection. Regardless of whether you were justified in your position or not, you were a party to the dispute with the other user you were protecting the page against. Wikipedia's policy is explicit that you should've sought out a neutral admin who was not a party to that dispute and gotten him to protect it instead. Even if you feel you were 100% justified, you still have to follow the rules. Otherwise the rules become meaningless and you end up damaging your own credibility by ignoring them at will. In the case you describe it would've been easy - just post a note requesting a neutral admin to protect it until the dispute was worked out. Same goes for changing the rules the day after you get reported for the original violation of them. Perhaps you have a good reason for the changes you seek on PPol. But changing it in the manner you did, and reacting as you did to what was quite frankly a polite request on the talk page that you simply abstain from pushing the change until the Arbcom case was over, doesn't pass the smell test. When you get accused of breaking the rules and the very next day you're seen trying to not only change the rules but change the exact clause of the rules that you were accused of breaking, people are going to be suspicious and with justification. Things like that hurt your credibility, and when they accumulate in a pattern of behavior - as was the case here, at least from my perspective and apparently other editors who have since agreed with it - it's very trying on the patience to turn around and demand that everyone assume it was all in good faith. Good faith should be an assumed given from the beginning - a clean slate for every editor. But when the editor's respect for good faith has been questioned and the edits are part of a pattern, it becomes increasingly hard to honestly assume it. Responding in hostility as you did on the talk page only worsened the matter and gave more reason to question that you were acting in good faith there.
The dispute with 172 is an unfortunate incident and believe me - I did not come here hoping that I'd walk into a dispute on my first day. I simply signed up and started making perfectly reasonable and productive edits to an article that 172 was apparently very attached to. For whatever reason, he reacted in a way that was completely inappropriate. I didn't ask him to pick a revert war with me - it simply happened by coincidence. And when things happen, you have to figure out ways to deal with them. So I searched around in the wikipedia guidelines, saw there were places to report admin abuse, and posted a note requesting help with 172. In reviewing the incident I cannot find a single thing that I did that would've merited the response he directed at me or anything wrong with the way I responded to him. In fact, that's what the guidelines say to do - if a dispute emerges on the talk page and the other guy is completely uncooperative, as 172 was being, you go to dispute resolution. You can't hold it against me that by accident I happened to walk into an article where a hostility-prone editor was very closely guarding his own version of the text. If I had a choice between other editors to deal with and full knowledge of how 172 was going to conduct himself I would've started work somewhere else on wikipedia, but those aren't conveniences that most people have.
On the Village Pump incident, the coordination I am talking about is the fact that Willmcw posted a wikistalking allegation on my user page and that moments later you posted a link and notice about it to my village pump announcement with extremely snide and insulting content and edit descriptions - "Oh dear, Rangerdude himself is now accused of wikistalking" and "Rangerdude accused of the very thing he was posting about. How irritating." Whether formal or spur of the moment, it was a coordinated hit on me. Your post was clearly designed to complement and promote Willmcw's allegation, all to the end of discrediting the hours of work I'd spent trying to develop a guideline on wikistalking. This incident, of course, was not helped by our previous fight on the village pump post itself. While I concede my part of the responsibility in the revert warring there, I am of the firm belief that the original problem was caused by your failure to assume good faith. When Willmcw and I posted virtually simultaneous announcements of the stalking proposal I sincerely believed it would create confusion there. Since my post was more detailed about the nature and purpose of the proposal and since I was the author making the proposal (not Will who took it upon himself unilaterally), I attempted to merge the two links into one. You assumed bad faith from the start and accused me of wrongly deleting his material, and when I tried at length to explain that I was simply trying to merge two redundant announcements of the same thing, you only responded in further hostility and bad faith assumptions. That bad faith even extended over onto the incident board a few days later when a programming glitch there was causing text to get accidentally deleted. When a completely unrelated post by somebody else got caught up in that glitch, you blamed me and berated me for it in very hostile language. And that incident, of course, didn't help your credibility with me when we encountered each other again a few weeks and then a few months later, such as at PPol. Rangerdude 04:16, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply, RD. Just a quick response for the time being to one part of it. You wrote: "Regardless of whether you were justified in your position or not, you were a party to the dispute with the other user you were protecting the page against." But I wasn't a party to the dispute. Not at all. I barely knew who Ali Sina was, I'd never edited a page with OceanSplash (Ali Sina's user name), wasn't involved in the dispute, was approaching it only as an admin. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:22, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Slim - I think there's a difference between what you consider being a party to a dispute and what PPol defined it as. PPol is explicit in saying that it is ANY substantive edit to the article's content in proximity to the page protection. You may not have felt that you were involved in the fight with OceanSplash or Anon. editor, but you made substantial content changes to the material they were fighting over and thus by the definition of PPol made yourself a participant - even if you felt you were doing it for the purpose of moderating the dispute. The solution in the future is to either get another editor with no connections to the article to protect the page or to abstain from editing the article itself before imposing protection. The one thing that PPol does not let you do though is to BOTH edit the article and protect it, and IMO that's for a good reason of avoiding conflicts of interest. Rangerdude 04:30, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I've developed what I feel are quite good instincts regarding when I should refrain from protecting a page. There are pages I haven't edited in months, and yet I wouldn't protect them because I wrote them, edited them heavily, or still care a lot about the issues. There are other pages I've edited relatively recently that I'd have no qualms about protecting because I have nothing invested in them and don't know the issues well. This is why I wanted to edit WP:PP to make clear that it's not always a matter of time, but emotional investment too (for the want of a better term). Anyway, in the case of Islamphobia, I simply forgot I'd recently edited it, which shows you how little investment I had in it. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:58, 8 November 2005 (UTC)


Rangerdude, regarding your saying that SV showed bad faith towards you for an accidental text deletion. Isn't that what you did here, assume bad faith on my part when I did the same thing? [9] In fact, I was trying to fix an accidental deletion of yours. [10] -Willmcw 04:32, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
The problem there, Will, is that what you were trying to restore was not a deletion by anybody, accident or otherwise - it was one of the comments that disappeared due to the program glitch. At the time you restored it and in doing so blanked my comment I had already been accused in bad faith of intentionally deleting things. I apologize if my characterization of your intent was mistaken, however at the time it occured (1) a condition bad faith had already been created between us by the earlier allegations made against me, and (2) you had given no indication in your edit description or other comments to suggest it was anything other than an intentional deletion. Rangerdude 04:40, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
As for your accidental deletion, I saw it was an accident and tried to fix it. I don't understand what you are saying about the incident. Are you saying you were justified in assuming bad faith on my part? But that other people making a similar assumption about you were unjustified? -Willmcw 04:58, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Also, I appreciate and accept your apology. Thanks, -Willmcw 06:32, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm essentially saying that a bad faith environment had already been established by the earlier allegations at that point in the argument. As a result, the good faith assumption that would've been present in other circumstances had already been spoiled between all participants in the discussion. Rangerdude 07:32, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
RD, I wonder whether it was becauses your first encounter at WP was hostile, and it set the tone. That's what I'm picking up from this correspondence: that we've all gotten off on the wrong foot with one another and there was a snowball effect.
Regarding the village pump, there really was no coordination. I posted the link and the comments "Oh dear etc" only because I found it funny, and I apologize for that. It wasn't very mature, and I was having a joke at your expense. But I promise you that's all it was. There was no coordination at all. I didn't even know the details of the various proposals and I hadn't edited the wikistalking page or, as I recall, even read it carefully. But you're right: when I saw you delete Will's post, I failed to assume good faith, and I did the same over the later editing glitch where I accused you of having deleted a post. I am sorry for that. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the apology re. the village pump incident. Having a hostile encounter in my first edits as a registered user certainly didn't help things and made me somewhat suspicious from the get-go. I put it aside for the first few weeks of editing and actually made several dozen extensive contributions throughout mid to late January. When I encountered Willmcw in late January and early February things again degraded into hostility due to him following my edits and being extremely nit-picky in his demands. For example, he would frequently decide for himself that a source I was using wasn't "good enough" by his own criteria and then threaten to delete whatever I had added if I didn't find another. In many cases this caused a problem as Willmcw began stalking me into areas that are outside of his realm of interest and expertise (e.g. United States trade law). Trade law is a very arcane and narrow focused subject matter that most people don't understand and could care less about. It's an area of interest to me though, hence my efforts to expand several articles on it here. Unfortunately as a consequence of its arcane nature, there are very few websites out there covering trade law - especially historical statutes that are no longer in effect - in any degree of detail. Many of my additions added detail of this sort from offline sources including some that are difficult to obtain today without doing a lot of research (e.g. 18th and 19th century government publications from the treasury department, historical newspapers etc). Many of the additions I made based on these are factual matters and universally agreed upon principles among experts on trade law, but because Will lacks familiarity in this area he began challenging and threatening to remove almost every substantive addition I made to some of these articles on account of there not being a website out there that could be linked to. When I visited wikipedia every morning only to find that Will had left all sorts of bizarre little "tasks" and homework assignments for me on talk pages of virtually every article I had edited in the days or weeks before it became very frustrating to even edit here. Regardless of what anyone thinks of my edits, it cannot be denied that I've made extensive positive contributions to several trade policy articles. I essentially wrote the entire Morrill Tariff article, which was a one-line stub on January 7th before I began editing it. The Walker Tariff article was also a two paragraph stub before I turned it into a full article in early February. The Tariff of 1842 didn't even exist until I wrote virtually the whole thing. Yet each and every one of these involved a fight of some form or another with Willmcw, who didn't know much of anything about the subject area but nevertheless made it a point to follow my edits to all of these articles and challenge them. This sort of behavior is what I have found so frustrating, and I also find it detrimental to wikipedia because all three of those articles I just mentioned would still be tiny stubs today if I had thrown in the towel when Willmcw began popping up at them to make challenges against what I added. Rangerdude 07:32, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
RD: Don't short sell your contributions as obscure; prior to the income tax, the tariff was the federal governments primary source of revenue. Federal spending was dependent on tariff and trade regulations for nearly 130 years, compared to only the past 80 years on income tax. Trade Law built the United States. nobs 19:05, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The importance of this case

Earlier on this page, SlimVirgin castigates Rangerdude with these words: "You see conspiracies and cliques everywhere: because people jointly disagree with you, they must be in cahoots, and if they're in cahoots, it must be in some way illegitimate, dodgy, underhand."

"Conspiracy theorist" is, of course, a pejorative, and is used to suggest that the charges could not be serious. I submit that in fact, the existence of WikiCliques, the abuse of admin powers, and the selective enforcement of Wikipedia policy guidelines are the most serious problem that Wikipedia faces. These forms of corruption have the effect of negating the NPOV policy, which is supposed to be central to Wikipedia. And they are decidedly illegitimate, dodgy, and underhand.

Politically, I am probably closer to SlimVirgin than I am to Rangerdude. However, I applaud Rangerdude for addressing a festering problem with energy and rigor. --HK 21:52, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] bona fidas

My 2 cents (not directed at anyone in particular). For us controversy junkies this case is interesting indeed. What keeps coming up is "good faith"; perhaps some of the Wikipedia Guidelines need to emphasize the importance of demonstrating good faith, not just assuming good faith (WP:Civility & Wikiquette are nearly devoid of this idea). And once the ideological herd instinct of a Wikiclique takes over demonstating good faith is somebody elses problem. nobs 06:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay, Nobs, but the Wikiclique thing is itself devoid of good faith. But otherwise I appreciate what you're saying. Can you give an example from this case of what demonstrating, as opposed to assuming, good faith would have amounted to? SlimVirgin (talk) 06:44, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I think the wikiclique issue is a difficult problem to capture but one that should be addressed nonetheless. First off, I agree that it's not the case in most instances that some sort of conspiratorial group or cabal is organizing itself behind the scenes to subvert wikipedia. That would indeed be a bad faith conclusion, and one we should avoid trying to make. There is another more subtle issue of cliques though that doesn't necessarily involve some orchestrated conspiracy but rather a matter of group loyalty and "sticking together" in controversy. A case of this would be when one or more editors who show up to vote in favor of a friend on an RfC, RfA, or other similar procedure not because of what that vote itself is about but rather because of loyalty to that friend. For example - if a conduct RfC was made about Editor X and clearly showed Editor X misbehaving, but a group of Editor X's friends showed up to vote against that RfC regardless because they are friends with Editor X, that would be cliqueish behavior - even though all those other editors were doing so out of a "good" motive such as friendship. I consider that type of thing dangerous to wikipedia because it has the unintended effect of letting Editor X get away with breaking rules that other ordinary users would be called out for. Friendship with other editors is a good thing but it shouldn't blind people against recognizing somebody is misbehaving simply because he or she is a friend. When RfCs showing clear misbehavior get voted down by a group of friends with the accused it ends up harming wikipedia in the long run because (1) it doesn't accomplish anything in resolving the initial dispute, which is the real issue, (2) it sets bad precedent by sending a message that certain people can break the rules with impunity if they have enough friends to back them, and (3) it normally fosters anger, frustration, and feelings of ill will and bad faith among the other editors in the dispute who feel that the other guy is getting off the hook because of who he knows rather than what he did. IOW, editors with strong personal friendships with other editors must still be able to recognize when another editor has done wrong and must be willing to point that out to him/her. Just think of how much more productive it would be to wikipedia if, after Editor X broke a rule such as no personal attacks, a friend of Editor X stepped in and said "Editor X, I know you're a good editor and have made valuable contributions, but in this case you did break the rule. Perhaps you should apologize for it to the other editors so we can put this dispute to rest." That sort of constructive criticism would be much more valuable coming from a friend, and in cases where misbehavior is clear cut it would be much more constructive than rallying around the accused simply because he's "our guy" or "our friend." Rangerdude 19:33, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Rangerdude, did you notice this Duk character put a block on me for posting my opinion about Willmcw? I am helpless here and don't know the standards, but this is ridiculous IMO. Was my comment "baiting" or whatever, that Duk objected to? I'm of a mind to quit this group if they don't straighten up. NSKinsella (Stephan Kinsella) 04:57, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
NSKinsella, you were not blocked for posting an opinion about Willmcw. You were blocked for namecalling, personal insults and baiting (disruption). This was clearly explained to you. Quit mis-characterizing the situation.--Duk 16:36, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Duk, I would appreciate if you would quite wikistalking me. NSKinsella (Stephan Kinsella) 18:04, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
NSKinsella, I'd appreciate if you would quit maligning me behind my back with what you know are mis-characterizations. --Duk 18:10, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Given the contentious nature of the dispute, it would be best for all parties to keep the discussion of it from here on out inside of this arbitration. That said, outside admins should also avoid applying blocks for heated exchanges within this arbitration when such exchanges have come from both sides simply because it gives the appearance of favoritism. Based on what I see of the case, User:Duk cited this post by NSKinsella as his reason for the block. Though contentious at times and very critical of Willmcw's behavior, that post was directly concerned with events in this case and thus should be viewed as a material complaint rather than a gratuitous insult. I therefore don't see anything particularly eggregious in it that would merit a block. It appears that when NSKinsella expressed a similar objection to Duk, Duk backtracked and cited another unrelated post by NSKinsella made almost two weeks prior here where he used the slang "shipdit," plus the fact that around the same time NSKinsella referred to Willmcw as "Willow." It's quite a stretch to suggest saying "Willow," however childish, is a personal attack rising to the level of a block. I do not know the circumstances of the "shipdit" post, but it appears to me that Duk posted a message to "knock it off" regarding this on November 2nd, after which time NSKinsella complied. To come back on November 8th and then block him for a post made here, then return to the "shipdit" matter when NSKinsella challenges the merits of blocking over the post made here seems inappropriate. Rangerdude 18:32, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks Rangerdude. Serious question: what is permissible here in terms of humor and light-heartedness? Shipdit was just a joke--teasing Willmcw in turn for disingenuous comments, snide remarks, and wikistalking. He asked what it meant and I teasingly told him it was a term of affection and indeed, it is, in my circle of friends. Moreover, the first time I saw the username "Willmcw" I actually read it as "Willow" and thus used that for a while, till I realized I had mis-read it. Then I realized I don't know what his name is and asked him, but he has never answered me so I don't know what to call him. The nickname "Willow" stuck. Is that yet another uptight Wiki rule I'm violating? You have to admit it's a bit awkward having to refer to someone as "Willmcw"; it's like Mr. Mxyzptlk in Superman. NSKinsella (Stephan Kinsella) 18:44, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Unless he's explicitly stating that he's offended by "Willow" or something to that effect, I personally don't see anything eggregious about it and certainly nothing rising to the level of a block in any circumstance. As far as humor goes, the problem is it's often difficult to express whether you are being jestful or insulting in typed words even if in conversation it may be clear one way or the other. I can therefore see how Duk construed "shipdit" as an insult, though I do not think he was justified in holding it against you after he posted a note asking you to stop and you complied. It seems to me that he jumped the gun in blocking you for your complaint here on November 8th and when you objected, he realized it was on weak grounds and pulled out the "shipdit" comment on October 27th to justify his action in hindsight. I'll assume that Duk meant well in attempting to enforce the attacks policy, but the evidence seems to indicate that he pursued it inappropriately and has been confrontational about it ever since. It would probably be best for both of you to admit misunderstandings occurred between you on this, for him to apologize for blocking over the November 8th comment, and then to move on. Rangerdude 18:54, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Rangerdude, I completely agree with you that your RFA isn't the place for this, and I won't be the one to open this door again, here.
Otherwise, thanks for taking the time to look it over and give feedback. But I have to respectfully disagree that this was innocent fun and just a joke as Stephan Kinsella mentions above. It's been going on for seven months and recently degenerated in tone. --Duk 20:34, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Duk - I realize your concern over past incidents on other parts of wikipedia, but again I must point out that the post you cited as the reason for your blocking was the complaint NSKinsella posted here on November 8th. If those other incidents were the problem it was incumbent upon you to approach NSKinsella about them and address them separately. You appear to have done so in the warning on his talk page regarding the "shipdit" remark, and as far as I can tell he has abided by it. Therefore blocking him over a complaint that he posted to an arbcom case he is participating in seems to have been a mistake. In reading both versions of the blocking incident, I believe it was fair for NSKinsella to express concern that your block was made over the November 8th post here - I concluded as much myself when reading the message you posted. Based on that, your allegations that he's engaged in willful "mischaracterizations" of your block are also inappropriate. Rangerdude 04:05, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Good faith

Rangerdude, I'm a bit concerned that after I tried to open a dialogue with a view to resolving this, you carried on posting criticism of me elsewhere. You posted a complaint about me here on November 7, just before we started talking, but then while we were talking you posted two more, here and here on November 8. So now I don't know what to do. How do you see this continuing? SlimVirgin (talk) 07:32, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually Slim, if you'll look more closely at the two responses, they were replies directed at Guettarda to comments he made to me regarding his interpretation of PPol and defense of the page protection you applied on Islamophobia. I intentionally avoided making any direct reference to you where possible as this conversation continued, and replied to Guettarda because he responded directly to me there and because I consider his actions in that case to have been evidence of the RfC's subject. As the original post there began prior to this discussion, holding it against me in hindsight is a breach of faith itself. I was responding to Guettarda in good faith about the RfC's subject following his comments addressed to me. Unfortunately it created two simultaneous discussions. I just posted a response on the RfC that included a note linking to this page and asking that future continuations of that discussion occur here. Hopefully this will resolve any further confusion. Rangerdude 18:58, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
One of the problems is that you keep saying I protected the article 24 hours after editing it. But I vprotected it that time, which any admin is allowed to do, whether editing or not. It was an anon IP address who kept adding the VfD tag, but without any corresponding VfD page, which is a case of simple vandalism, and it was only vprotected for eight hours until he got bored and moved on. You keep calling this a policy violation on my part, without mentioning that it was vandalism. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:45, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Slim - As far as I can tell the anon IP made only two edits to the article before you protected it. In the first one he added a dispute tag [11]. User:Yuber then removed that tag without explanation about 9 minutes later. I only see one VfD by that same anon in response to Yuber a few minutes after that. Then Yuber reverted again and you imposed page protection. Of those two edits, the only one that is even borderline vandalism is the second VfD tag and seeing as no attempt was apparently made to figure out why he added it, simply labelling it vandalism would seem to violate the good faith assumption. Adding a dispute tag to an article where you dispute the content certainly isn't vandalism though, so I don't see any wrong he committed in that act. In sum, responding to a single VfD tag on the article by page protecting it is excessive - esp. when you've been extensively involved in that article's edits according to PPol's definition of involvement. Rangerdude 04:21, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
The anon had put the dispute tag up [12], which another editor reverted (drive-by tagging isn't allowed), had added a VfD tag, which another editor reverted, [13], then deleted the archived discussion of the previous VfD [14], so I vprotected the article for eight hours, so people wouldn't have to keep reverting him. That's a perfectly correct use of protection. The policy doesn't say we can never protect articles we've editing, and it specifically excludes vandalism.
I find it incredibly depressing that you're going on about this, and that I have to spend time hunting for diffs to satisfy you over such a minor incident. We can't spend our lives going over and over past incidents, and that seems to be what you want to tie us up doing. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:42, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Slim - I will note for the record that I consider the page protections regarding User:Cognition's articles to be the less eggregious of the two. Since you have made reasonably good faith efforts at explaining these, I'm willing to remove them from my complaint and address only the Islamophobia one, which I still consider to be a major violation. That would reduce the number of incidents for you to respond to somewhat. Rangerdude 06:08, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Thank you. I appreciate that. However, I've already responded to the Cognition pages. I've just got Islamophobia to respond to now. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:05, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Origin of the conflict in December 2004

I'm posting this here as well because it may be a major incident that was the source of this whole mess. In his recent response on the evidence page, Willmcw stated that he has "more or less kept an eye on Rangerdude's edits" ever since two incidents back in December before I was even a registered editor here. The first and by far most eggregious of those incidents is a highly POV and somewhat inflamatory anon IP edit that was made to the William Quantrill article on December 25th here [15]. Will states that he became "very concerned" over this edit "which took a Southern Civil War guerilla who had been previously described as a terrorist and turned him into a hero." He continues "Even without knowing much about the exact topic it was obvious that the editor was making a very POV edit" and claims that the anon IP editor who made that change was me. This is false as I most certainly did NOT make that edit to the Quantrill page, and the IP address listed there is not one I've ever used. It was somebody else's edit, and Willmcw wrongly attached it to me and has apparently been stalking me because of it ever since. Based on this latest post, I am now of the belief that this case of mistaken identity was the beginning of this entire dispute. It apparently prompted Willmcw to behave the way he did toward me when I registered in early January, and to follow me ever since. If so, then Willmcw has assumed bad faith of me from the very beginning (violating WP:FAITH) but also conducted his edits toward me in the erronious belief that I'm the anonymous nut who made all those POV changes to the Quantrill article. Add into that the unfortunate experience I had at my very first registered edit with User:172 and the subsequent events are easily understood.

First, I signed up and had a bad experience with 172 that directed undue hostility at me and involved me in a verey unfortunate dispute very early on. Since 172 was an admin, this made me very suspicious of admins and the whole manner of how wikipedia handles disputes from the get go. As a result I responded defensively when my next dispute arose with Willmcw and felt persecuted and harassed when Willmcw started following my edits.

Second, due to the mistaken identity Willmcw thought I was some inflamatory pro-Quantrill nut since the very moment I walked through the door on wikipedia. When I signed up he assumed I was the guy who authored that POV piece on Quantrill and as a result he's always viewed me as if I were a neo-confederate in the pejorative sense. Since I had no idea until very recently that the mistakenly ID'd Quantrill edit was one of the main reasons he responded to me and followed me as he did, I have always felt that Willmcw was engaging in unmerited persecution of my edits.

This also brings up the dangers inherent in speculating about IP addresses and in breaching WP:FAITH. Had Willmcw not automatically and erroniously assumed that I was the same person as the Quantrill edit author, there's a reasonable chance he would not have singled my edits out for monitoring and wikistalked them. As he saw it, I was some sort of a POV vandal pushing an extreme pro-Quantrill/pro-south agenda. While I do lean toward the south and the libertarian party, I have never been some pro-Quantrill/pro-terrorist militant like the anon author of that edit. Since Willmcw thought I was though, he became very aggressive in following me and when I noticed he was doing this I responded as if it was an act of intentional and unwarranted persecution much like the 172 incident had been. Any thoughts? Rangerdude 06:38, 12 November 2005 (UTC) Any thoughts? Rangerdude 06:38, 12 November 2005 (UTC)


I apologize for incorrectly assigning that one edit to you, and withdraw it. However, your editng behavior across many edits and articles is what caught my attention. -Willmcw 07:00, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
If that is so, Will, it conflicts with what you just stated on the Evidence page. You claimed the Quantrill edit was what particularly caught your attention and caused you to follow me. You assigned significant importance to it in your decision to follow me and indicated it was a primary reason you viewed me as you did since the very first moment a month later when I registered for wikipedia. Now you appear to be changing your story, and claiming it was something else that caused you to follow me. If it was something else "across many edits" that caused you to follow me, then why did you claim it was two edits and indicate the more eggregious of the two by far to have been the Quantrill one? And if you were being truthful when you said it was the Quantrill edit, then why do you now claim it was "many edits" instead after I pointed out to you that you erred substantially in attributing the Quantrill edit to me? Rangerdude 07:15, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
It appears Willmcw had even more mistaken ID assumptions, which only exacerbates the WP:FAITH problems caused by them. In his post here [16] Willmcw lists the IP addresses he associated with me included two more incorrect ones. Rangerdude 07:41, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
No, I said that it was this edit ([17]) to Morris Dees edit that caught my eye. My statement is plain and clear. The Quantrill edits were worrisome and more so since they appeared to me to have been made by the same person. However I still believe the first edit is yours, the one that removes the word "terrorist" from the introduction. As with your other contemporaneous edits, such as those of Nathaniel Lyon,[18] it demonstrated to me an editor forwarding a pro-Confederate POV across a variety of articles. -Willmcw 08:17, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

You are clearly backtracking, Will. You only stated that the Dees article caught your attention. The edit that you claimed made you "very concerned" about me and caused to to state "Since then," as in since that edit and the Jackson-Lee one, "I've more or less kept an eye on Rangerdude's edits" was the Quantrill one. But since you bring up Dees and purport it was a POV edit, let's take a closer look at what I did here:

  • Line 1 - Expanded "Dees' legal actions" to "Dees' tactics and legal actions" - an accurate reflection that Dees' critics take issue with both his lawsuits and the tactics of his organization. No POV there.
  • Line 1 - changed "against racist groups have made him 'public enemy number one' in the eyes of..." to "against hate groups have made him a target of criticism from..." - this replaced an unsourced quote with generic neutral phrasing. "Racist groups" was changed to "hate groups" for accuracy, as Dees' organization maintains a list of "hate groups" in general including religious and cultural hate groups, not just racial groups. No POV there.
  • Line 2 - changed "many white supremacists" to "many of these organizations." - Again, Dees' hate groups list is not exclusively white supremacist. It contains many racial and non-racial hate groups including religious ones and non-white hate groups such as the Nation of Islam in addition to white supremacist groups such as the KKK. No POV there.
  • Line 2 - added "allegedly" before the allegation that Dees had received threats. This claim was unsourced and unspecified, so allegedly was NPOV. No POV there.
  • Line 2 - changed unsourced claims about neo-nazi sites to "hate web sites" - a legitimate edit given that the claim was again unsourced. No POV there.
  • Line 3 - corrected a spelling error in "ceter" to "center" - no POV there.
  • Line 4 - Removed "(some of may which border on slander or libel)." - unsourced and unencyclopedic speculation. No POV there.
  • Line 4-5 - rephrased "There was even a Web site dedicated to gathering "dirt" on Dees, entitled "Deeswatch," which is now defunct." to "At one time there existed a web site dedicated to gathering "dirt" on Dees, entitled "Deeswatch," though it is apparently now defunct." - simple rewording of a poorly written sentence - no POV there.
  • Line 11 - Added specification "and for allegedly discriminatory employment policies at the Center," reflecting the well known Montgomery Advertiser investigation that alleged discriminatory employment at the Center. This is a statement of fact, not POV.

In other words, Will, I cannot find so much as one word in that entire edit of the Dees article that could even remotely be construed as POV pushing as you have repeatedly claimed. What I do see are corrections of typos, copyedits of poorly written sentences, removal of unencyclopedic and unsourced claims, and changes that improve the paragraph's accuracy. Next you take issue with the fact that I changed one word on the Quantrill article prior to the edit you falsely attributed to me. That change may be seen here and entails replacing the word "terrorist" with "guerrilla fighter during the American Civil War." I stand by this edit as appropriate because the concept we know as "terrorism" today was not known in Quantrill's time and thus is not the most accurate description for him. "Terrorism" is generally associated with 20th and 21st century violence conducted for political reasons. Using it to describe historical figures who committed barbaric acts is unencyclopedic though, as the term did not apply to their times and it is easy to identify their barbarism through other terms that did apply back then.

Next you take issue with the Nathaniel Lyon edits I made here. But were they POV as you suggest? They were nothing of the sort. In fact, I removed an ahistorical and unsourced POV claim that Lyon is "generally regarded as having prevented" Missouri's secession. This is utter historical nonsense as the pro-south factions in Missouri attempted to secede because of Lyon, not in spite of him. The cause of this, which I noted in the paragraph I authored, was Lyon's role in the St. Louis Massacre. Other edits to the article are strictly factual. The original erroniously claimed Lyon was made commander of the Second Infantry - in reality he was named an officer and placed under the command of Major Hagner at the arsenal, and General Harney of the Department of the West. The next sentence notes the fact that Lyon was a part of the "Radical Republicans" faction and a close friend of Frank Blair - both uncontested historical facts. The next few edits simply copyedited unencyclopedic and awkward wordings. In the next paragraph I added factual material about Lyons' involvement in the Wide Awakes club and his maneuvering to arm them from the arsenal. I also added a sentence about the St. Louis Massacre and details about Lyon's installation of the pro-union state government - all factual information. Based on these examples it is increasingly obvious that you misused the allegation of POV pushing in identifying these articles. My edits to all three of these articles were in good faith, contained factual content, and generally improved the wording of each article. In falsely identifying me with the POV-pushing Quantrill edit, labelling me a POV pusher when I had done no such thing, and assuming me to be a "neo-confederate" in what is certainly the pejorative sense, you not only breached WP:FAITH, Will - you denied any semblance of good faith to me from the very first moment we met. That breach of good faith and its accompanying abusive insinuations of POV pushing, pejorative associations drawn to neo-confederates, and false attributions of multiple anon IP addresses places the origin of this entire dispute squarely on your shoulders. It is highly unfortunate it turned out this way, but that brings me back to what I've been saying to you all along - none of this would've happened if you simply assumed good faith of me from the very beginning. For whatever reason you did not, and even now you persist in trying to excuse away the inexcusable action of falsely identifying me with another anon IP's edits. Rangerdude 09:01, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Added specification "and for allegedly discriminatory employment policies at the Center," reflecting the well known Montgomery Advertiser investigation that alleged discriminatory employment at the Center. This is a statement of fact, not POV.
It may be a statement of fact, but it's also an unsourced claim. On the other hand the edit summary said unsourced claim corrections. The fact that an assertion is "well known" (which you didn't indicate then) does not make it sourced. That summary seemed to me to be borderline fraudulent. That, and your other edits under that IP address (68.92.217.49 (talk • contribs)), was enough to for me to continue to check the edits. -Willmcw 06:57, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Actually Will, the source behind my addition of "and for allegedly discriminatory employment policies at the Center" was already named in the article when I added it - the 1994 Montgomery Advertiser series on the SPLC. See the opening sentence of the paragraph I added that phrase to. It reads "Dees and the SPLC was the subject of an award-winning 1994 investigative report by The Montgomery Advertiser which revealed deceptive fundraising practices and poor management at the Center." (source stated in bold). You should note that the article also contained a link at the bottom to the Harper's Magazine investigation of Dees, which also contained information about allegedly discriminatory employment practices at the SPLC. Thus my addition was doubly sourced by existing references in the article, and my edit did nothing more than elaborate on those references' factual details. Rangerdude 08:22, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Finding of fact

  • Willmcw has stated that he monitors Rangerdude's edits.

There's been a request that a "finding of fact" be made about the above statement. Since there has been no accusation of "monitoring edits", and since doing so violate no Wikipedia policy or guideline, may I ask why this finding is needed? Thanks, -Willmcw 06:49, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Gladly. While there is no wikipedia policy against monitoring edits in and of itself, there is a wikipedia guideline against wikistalking, which pertains to monitoring edits for the purpose of harassment and disruption. The wikistalking guideline actually spells this out quite nicely. According to its provisions, "reading a user's contribution log" is not wikistalking in itself - it only becomes wikistalking when done "with the intent of causing annoyance or distress to another contributor." Also according to this provision, the distinction between simply monitoring and wikistalking is the presence of a disruptive intent: "The important part is the disruption - disruption is considered harmful." Since wikistalking has indeed been alleged of you in this case, Will, it is necessary to first state whether you have indeed taken it upon yourself to monitor my edits before taking up the question whether or not you did so for disruptive reasons "with the intent of causing annoyance or distress to another contributor." Once the determination is made whether or not you follow my edits, a determination can then be made on whether or not that action also disrupted thus violating the wikistalking guideline. Rangerdude 08:31, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, if you want break things out that way, I suppose it makes a certain sense. Since I've made a wikistalking charge against you, I'll add an additional request. -Willmcw 10:02, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence phase

I've added to this evidence page the remainder of the major material that I have collected. Other editors may have further additions. Otherwise this case seems to be well-described and ready to move to the next phase of arbitration. -Willmcw 11:11, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I prefer to wait a little longer, as new evidence has emerged from several of the recent discussions. I also think we should wait until the other arbitrators have had a chance to review the case and work on the workshop page before moving to the next stage without their participation. Right now, only one Arbcom member has participated so it seems to me that it is still too early to close evidence. Rangerdude 06:51, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
It's up to the ArbCom, of course, but this case was accepted over a month ago and it is now the oldest in "evidence". I note that ArbCom members participate sporadically in the /Workshop pages, and cases don't typically wait on everybody to respond to every point. If any editor has additional evidence then this is probably the time to add it. Due to the contributions of many, including myself, these pages are already very long. The /Evidence page alone now amounts to over 25,000 words and 494 diffs. (Maybe these multi-multi-party arbitrations are too complex?). Do we think it needs to be longer? What's left to cover? -Willmcw 10:08, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
Complex multi-user arbitrations involving multiple issues will naturally take longer to hear than simple arbitrations. This case is complex and encompasses a lot of issues and users. Most of the other current Arbcom cases do not, so it's expected they will move faster. Right now I don't see a reason why we should speed this one up simply because you decided you were done adding evidence. Since it takes time to read evidence and since ongoing workshop discussions have produced new issues for consideration, taking it slowly is important to ensuring a fair hearing. Rangerdude 23:36, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question Regarding Institutionalized POV

I'm relatively new on WP, as I've been a member for only about a year. Somehow I stumbled from the current events "unrest in France" article through the user pages of a few folks, onto this RfA. My question arises from the nature of the discussion here, but I promise I ask in good faith and since I've got no experience with any of the folks involved, I'm Here is my question: What method of checks and balances exists in Wikipedia for making sure that a cabal of admins doesn't form a group to push away (or ban) common (i.e. powerless) editors such as myself, if the admins are displaying a certain POV that the common users attempt to restore NPOV status to - in the ultimate example, what if every admin on WP had the same POV about a specific topic? No user or even group of users could truly stand against that, since they would simply be banned, so long as all the other admins took the side against those common users, correct? I ask this because I've seen several cases where a user's name shows in red (I'm assuming this denotes that they're no longer a user) in comments they've signed, where they have spoken out against edits by another, but it appears that in many of those cases the user happened to take issue to something that a group of admins had a specific POV about - a POV which, thankfully, usually showed up in talk pages rather than articles. I'm truly sorry to clutter up this discussion with my question, but it came to mind while reading this RfA and remembering the red names on the discussion page for the "unrest in France" article, among other places. Thanks for taking the time on little ol' me! GHoosdum 21:58, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I just wanted to mention that TenOfAllTrades dropped me a line on my talk page to let me know that I was making an incorrect assumption regarding users with red links. I appreciate the clarification! Since it appears my question was partially based on an assumption I made incorrectly, I feel quite dumb for even thinking it now! GHoosdum 02:19, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Although your assumption was made incorrectly, your question was anything but dumb. I invite you to take a look at Wikipedia:Ombudsmen. --HK 15:56, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Now that Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rangerdude and the closely related Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Nobs01 and others are drawing to a close, it appears that GHoosdum's concerns about an "Institutional POV" were highly justified. The way that the Institutional POV is enforced is through a series of double standards, where bad conduct by users with the right POV goes unpunished, while bad conduct by users with incorrect POV is severely sanctioned. In tandem with these methods, editing controversial articles will be the province of those with the approved POV, while those with incorrect POV are prohibited from doing so. --HK 21:22, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid its even worse than that. Not only do they penalize bad behavior by people with the "wrong" POV - they also falsify charges and use trumped up allegations against them when they cannot find enough hard evidence of bad behavior to justify their desired penalties. The diffs I am being penalized for include, for example, these: [19] [20] [21]. The first is a lengthy and detailed list of NPOV problems in a very slanted pro-leftist passage Cberlet was trying to add to an article about a group on the right. The second was a message politely asking Cberlet to tone down the rudeness and hostility he was exhibiting towards me and other editors. The third was a message reminding him of Wikipedia's no personal attacks rule in response to a post where he attacked disagreeing editors. In addition to this, the Arbcom penalized me for doing nothing more than filing an RfC against Cberlet for personal attacks when he failed to tone them down in response to the above messages![22] All of these diffs are used as "evidence" of supposed "harassment" of Cberlet, yet as far as I can tell (1) not one violates any Wikipedia policy or guideline, (2) all are actually grounded in wikipedia policies and guidelines, which emphasize using the talk page to address concerns with other editors who are out of line and, when that fails, using an RfC, and (3) none comes even remotely close to the hostility, incivility, personal attacks, and all around unprovoked rudeness that Cberlet has exhibited towards me since the very first moment we crossed paths. What's really going on here is simple to state: Conflicts of interest abound. Willmcw, SlimVirgin, and Cberlet are all close editing allies of one Arbcom member who also frequently shares their POV (Jayjg). Cberlet is also a real life political acquantance of another Arbcom member (Fred Bauder), who also happened to be the one proposing virtually every vote, finding, and penalty here thereby giving him agenda-setting power throughout this case. Furthermore, that same arbcom member has indicated his acquantance with Cberlet was through their mutual membership in a far left wing political organization during his former career as an attorney, thereby indicating shared politics with the "correct" POV - a POV that just happens to be vocally espoused all over wikipedia by Cberlet and Willmcw with impunity, even to the degree that the latter can insert offensively racist and white supremacist material into articles for blatant guilt-by-association smears at will. The project's broken and given the current set of partisan enforcers, it probably won't be fixed until a complete housecleaning of the Arbcom. Rangerdude 23:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I have a slight problem with the characterization, by yourself, Nobs01 and Fred Bauder, of Cberlet/Chip Berlet as "leftist" or "pro-leftist." It seems a bit naive, given that his organization/website is funded by the Ford Foundation. That doesn't mean he's "rightist," either -- sometimes things are a bit more complicated. --HK 01:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
By joining one or several mutual admiration societies, a user who shares the burden of notoriety explains here [23], they review your stuff, you review their stuff, each rubber stamps the other with a clean bill of health, and voilà, you are a priveleged expert. nobs 17:40, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] biting the newcomers

Rangerdude has repeatedly accused me of violating the guideline WP:BITE. However he has not presented any evidence of a violation. I suppose that means that he no longer believes I have been "biting the newcomers". However, if he does have any evidence then now is the time to present it. Otherwise I expect that he won't make the charge again based on past events. Thanks, -Willmcw 03:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

If Willmcw desires evidence of him biting newcomers, he need look no further than his own behavior toward me after I began editing on wikipedia when he falsely identified me as the author of a POV post I did not make and began stalking my edits. Rangerdude 07:21, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Based on your earlier comments I'd presumed that you had been referring to my treatment of others. I'd like to see this allegation resolved. I'll ask the ArbCom to consider whether my behavior towards you has violated the guideline. -Willmcw 08:22, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Will, why don't you simply agree to stop wikistalking RangerDude (and others, ahem)? Wouldn't that be the simplest result here? You are such an active Wikipedia editor that I am sure your time is better spent on your various substantive edits than all this argument and unproductive attempts to insert snide and/or politically biased comments/changes to edits made by others. Don't you agree? NSKinsella (Stephan Kinsella) 16:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I haven't wikistalked Rangerdude, so there's no need for me to change my behavior. Nor have I engaged in the other activities you describe. -Willmcw 22:00, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
You deny the David Duke incident? You deny the "his article is copyrighted despite his opposition to copyright law" dig you made? Do you really? NSKinsella (Stephan Kinsella) 07:18, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
"Willinator"? I thought you were going to stop making up names for me. Until you do, there's nothing to say. -Willmcw 08:32, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Dear Willmcw: 1. "Willinator" is just a term of light affection. It is not a personal insult. 2. Do you deny the David Duke incident? 3. Do you deny the "his article is copyrighted despite his opposition to copyright law" dig you made? NSKinsella (Stephan Kinsella) 15:55, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
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