Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/DarrenRay and 2006BC/Evidence

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Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.

When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-conciousness rants are not helpful.

As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey use this form: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anomalous_phenomenon&diff=5587219&oldid=5584644] [1].

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.

Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs, a much shorter, concise presentation is more likely to be effective. Please focus on the issues raised in the complaint and answer and on diffs which illustrate behavior which relates to the issues.

If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.

Be aware that the Arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to refactor the page, let the Arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the arbitrators to move.

The Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies voting by Arbitrators takes place at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.

Contents


[edit] Evidence presented by Garglebutt

[edit] Inherent POV bias

The blog of 2006BC[2] is a slanderous and vitriolic critique of Dean McVeigh, which makes it difficult to believe that he has come to WP to write balanced articles that reference McVeigh or the union liquidation in general. Likewise the blog of DarrenRay[3] shows a strong POV on the liquidation of the student union in which they were involved. Since this issue relates to the majority of edits I'm not going to try and link them, however the talk pages Talk:Dean McVeigh and Talk:Melbourne University student organisations provide plenty of examples as do the edit histories of those articles.

[edit] Reversion of facts

Edits I made that provided direct quotes from media coverage were reverted by both parties as slanderous or POV[4] or with misleading edit summaries[5][6][7], and they suggested that the quoted newspaper was a biased source(Talk:Melbourne_University_student_organisations#Reversion_of_facts) despite them using the same newspaper as a reference in other articles.

[edit] Vested interest

DarrenRay tried to remove tags making his personal involvement clear stating this was irrelevant[8]. I realise that avoiding articles with potential conflict of interest is only a guideline but I think it is in context with the POV warring.

[edit] Collusion

One of my concerns has been the apparent collusion by DarrenRay, 2006BC and to a lesser degree User:AChan to revert attempts to rework what are considered POV edits by other editors to these and other articles to avoid WP:3RR by passing the baton to the next person when each individual hits 3RR. This is bad faith editing and has made it even more difficult to gain consensus in balanced edits. Bit hard to show links in manageable fashion but this shows a procession of reverts[9]. I suspect, and am supported by the sockpuppet concerns, that even if there was no sharing of accounts, there was at the very least related editing done via external coordination to overwhelm other editors.

[edit] Evidence presented by Xtra

[edit] Colaborative revert warring

This is an example of the "cooporative" reverting in Dean McVeigh against attempts to remove personal attacks by the same editor or editors acting on instruction of DarrenRay:

  • revert 1 by DarrenRay [10]
  • revert 2 by DarrenRay [11]
  • revert 3 by 2006BC [12]
  • revert 4 by 2006BC [13]
  • revert 5 by 2006BC [14]
  • revert 6 by DarrenRay [15]
  • revert 7 by AChan (sockpuppet of DarrenRay) [16]
  • revert 8 by AChan [17]
  • revert 9 by AChan [18]
  • revert 10 by AChan [19]

This all happened in the perriod of 14 hours.

[edit] Evidence presented by Blnguyen

[edit] Collaborative edit-warring by suspected sockpuppets

User:DarrenRay and User:2006BC have identified themselves as Darren Ray and Benjamin Cass. They are past presidents of the Melbourne University Student Union, as listed on the page. They were supported by User:AChan who identified himself as a friend of Darren Ray. A CheckUser was run three times as stated here by User:David Gerard, which is listed by User:Essjay at User:DarrenRay/Sockpuppets

This previously occurred with User:Ericdu, who was suspected to be a sock of User:StephenBengHo but not banned. This seems to imply that Ambi suspects Unitypigdog to be StephenBengHo, but the CheckUser thinks otherwise

[edit] Communal Edit Warring

Edit-warring by main participants, DarrenRay, 2006BC, AChan

I am not up to date with what the disputes where, simply that they existed.

[edit] Rugs Galore

An article about a Victorian business was posted by the involved parties, which was 80% about Dean McVeigh liquidating a bankrupt business. It appears to be a naked attack page. I have no business credentials, but a liquidator is supposed to be a person who is appointed by a court to do the "last rites" to a failed business - I'm sure the company's history and operations and demise is more important than the person who cleaned it up after it died.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 03:24, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MUSU and Dean McVeigh POV, conflict of interest

I didn't look at this as it is very detailed and others were more involved and have a grasp of the content/nature of the dispute. Needless to say Darren Ray and Ben Cass obviously have a conflict of interest, as they are involved in court battles regarding to this

  • A police document (1-1 correspondence) was glued on to Dean McVeigh's article - I believe this is inappropriate.

[edit] Notes and Questions to ponder

Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 01:59, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by bainer (talk)

See my comment for why this evidence is relevant.

Some of these diffs are very long, in the interests of readability the most illustrative diffs are bolded. --bainer (talk) 12:50, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DarrenRay

Removal of information pertaining to Ray, Cass or the MUSU liquidation
  • repeatedly removing quote from the university describing the liquidation (quote appears under "Collapse and Liquidation" section): [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33]
  • removing references to the Optima deal: [34], [35] (towards end of diff), [36], [37]
  • removing information about Cass' role in 2003 election: [38] (towards end of diff), [39], [40]
  • removing published criticism from court officials of Cass' blog (which Ray and Cass cited as a source): [41], [42]
  • [43] (with a misleading edit summary)
  • [44] (again with misleading edit summary)
Attacks/accusations
  • On Dean McVeigh: [45]
Cites his own attack website as a source
  • [48], [49]
  • My warning to Ray about doing this: [50], Ray's cooperative response: [51]; then my suggestions to talk: [52], but then this: [53].
Miscellaneous
  • removing dispute tags: [54]
  • removing requests for sources: [55]
  • misrepresenting the titles of newspaper articles used as sources: [56], [57], [58], [59]

[edit] 2006BC

Reverting in tandem with DarrenRay
Removal of information pertaining to Ray, Cass or the MUSU liquidation
  • removing mention of liquidation in intro: [62], [63]
  • removing reference to University's support of liquidation, implies that one individual was responsible for the liquidation: [64]
  • removing published criticism from court officials of Cass' blog (which Ray and Cass cited as a source): [68], [69], [70]
  • removing published reference to Ray threatening McVeigh: [71], [72]
Attacks/accusations
  • On Dean McVeigh: [73]
Miscellaneous
  • removing {fact} tags: [81]

[edit] AChan

Removal of information pertaining to Ray, Cass or the MUSU liquidation
  • removing published criticism from court officials of Cass' blog (which Ray and Cass cited as a source): [83], [84], [85] (note that both DarrenRay and 2006BC made an edit similar, but not identical to these edits: [86], [[87]])
  • removing a sourced paragraph about Ray: [88]

[edit] Evidence presented by Esteffect

It has already been established that Darren Ray and Benjamin Cass are different people who know each other away from Wikipedia. I just thought that I'd add a few of my findings from Google searches for the two here. There are various sources on the internet, it seems, that link the two together to a point which suggests that they seem to have a large influence upon each other.

  • The two, along with Andrew Landeryou, have launched a lawsuit together against the University of Melbourne in the past: [92]
  • As already mentioned, Cass and Ray are both former presidents of the Melbourne University Student Union
  • In May 2005, a comment on a blog post about Cass and Ray questioned whether the Benjamin Cass undergoing certain activities on the internet is the real Benjamin Cass. "I have my severe doubts that Benjamin Cass is indeed Benjamin Cass. Clicking through to his profile, it reveals that he is a blogger at "benjamincass.blogspot.com" - fair enough - and "countingmymillions.blogspot.com". Given the sensitivies of the situation, I doubt that the real BC is likely to be boasting about Counting His Millions. Perhaps BC has taken on the indentity of Duncan Fischer or Marcus Kemp, freeing up Benjamin Cass to have his identity to be taken on by someone else." [93]
  • Cass and Ray have in the past been legally accused of creating fake identities to "get their own way": [94]

Really, what I've drew from the various links above is that Ray and Cass both have a history of deceiving people, and a history of faking their identity. Cass seems to follow everywhere Ray goes, and vice versa (two other names that frequently come up are Andrew Landeryou and Scott Crawford). The two also clearly aren't scared to take legal action when they don't get their own way. Hopefully this bit of background information will help the case a little. Esteffect 21:35, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

In case the above links disappear from the Google cache, the contents have been forwarded to the AC - David Gerard 22:18, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:Stevage's evidence

What can I add, but this diff [95], which still fascinates me. When a major Australian newspaper refers to the event as "the Optima deal" [96], you have to wonder why he would claim the word Optima is "not relevant".

DarrenRay's behaviour: reverted a factual and relevant addition [97] and despite repeated requests never restored it. But really, the talk page explains it better. Stevage 22:04, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Sarah Ewart

With regard to the evidence presented above by Esteffect which quotes a blog entry raising doubts that the real Ben Cass is the author of the Cass blogs, I have recently been in touch with someone who personally knows both Darren Ray and Ben Cass and, in fact, ran against Ray in the MUSU elections. He has told me that he believes Ben Cass is the Cass blogger. He says he has "no reason to believe that it is not actually Ben Cass" and that "even the mobile number on the left hand side matches what I had for Ben." This phone number is the same mobile number that User:2006BC has requested Wikipedia use to call him to verify his identity [98]. This person originally had doubts that Ray was the author of the MUSU Lies site because the site owner's name was hidden behind a proxy, but he told me that after talking to others, "we were confident that Darren was genuinely behind the MUSU Lies site." Emails and details available privately to the Committee, but I wont provide them publicly because it would involve identifying a non-Wikipedian third-party's identity. Sarah Ewart (Talk) 01:11, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

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