Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Sam Spade and Bryan Derksen

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I don't want to focus on complaining/arguing here. I want an end to the broken record of circular arguments and constant reverts I am recieving from this user, and I would appreciate some assistance. Sam Spade 23:30, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

And I would love to expand the number of people who are aware of what Sam's been up to. He's made a variety of complants about me in the past already, notably Wikipedia:Conflicts between users/JackLynch (Sam's username used to be JackLynch) and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Bryan Derksen, and as far as I'm concerned he's simply trying to bully me away with these things. Any of the members of the mediation committee look fine to me, where do we go now to present our respective cases? Bryan 20:22, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Assuming there is no objection, I have a preference for User:Dante Alighieri. Sam Spade 02:42, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Sam and I have had a prior conversation over IM about the issue, but I see no reason that I can't be unbiased. I certainly haven't "taken his side" or anything. Still, in the interest of propriety, I'm mentioning it now and offering to disqualify myself if the community thinks it appropriate. Comments? --Dante Alighieri | Talk 05:31, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I want to concur with what Dante has said, and mention that I requested him both because of my brief contact with him, and his approach to the logic at the heart of the matter, rather than the emotionalism of the situation. If he is rejected, I'll have to go with someone I have minimal prior knowledge of, which could be messy, since there is obviously a hotbed of POV involved. The mediator definately needs to be someone like Dante, whose POV on the subject is a desire for accuracy, not a theist or anti-theist agenda. Sam Spade 06:15, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I would really like it if we could tie in the dispute over atheism into this mediation, because otherwise I'm going to have to request mediation on that seperately, and IMO these are very much related matters (to clarify, I think w/o the issues/edit warring betwixt bryan and myself, this article would be alot closer to concensus). The objections I and others have raised (and incidentilly have not been allowed to place a dispute header in regards to) are quite few in number, and require very little compromise on the part of my opposition for me to be satisfied. A proper use of grammer (regarding the letter "G" in the proper noun "God"), respect for sourcing, and a disclaimer as to the objections towards the broader definition of atheism included in "soft" or "weak" atheism would have me perfectly happy with that article. Agnosticism would require a similarly modest amount of agreement on as well. Sam Spade 23:20, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think it would be inappropriate to tie the Bryan-Sam mediation thing into the atheism dispute, since many other people were involved in that as well and it's a separte issue from whether I personally am persecuting you in some way. Create a separate request for mediation and I'll be willing to participate in that just fine. Bryan 00:19, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

well, they only have so much time and energy (and they have asked me not to overwhelm them in the past). Besides, I would like to tie the soloution together w the two of us agreeing to go away from the article. I'm really tired of what I see as a complete waste of time, and a detriment to the quality of the article. Our personality conflict (or whatever the problem is) has nothing to do w making the wiki a better place. If things wern't so clear cut, I would have given up a long time ago. But for whatever reason, I just can't bring myself to leave a mess. Sam Spade 00:30, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

So, is your problem specifically over this one article, and you'd have no complaint if I contested changes you were making to some other article such as agnosticism or Pascal's Wager? I suspect that you'd still complain just as loudly, considering the accusations you've levelled against me elsewhere, so I think if there's to be a mediation it should be about your complaints against me in particular. Either withdraw your request or follow through on it to a conclusion, don't waffle. I'm sick of this and want it done with. Bryan 00:44, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

For potential mediators and interested bystanders, I should note that a short while ago I wrote up an exhaustive description of my experiences with Sam and his previous incarnation Jack at the bottom of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Bryan Derksen. It's my personal perspective, of course, but perhaps handy as an intro. Bryan 00:51, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, nothing quite like a biased intro... I think talk:atheism archives, Talk:Atheism/Godvrs.god poll or User Talk:Bryan Derksen might be more handy than that request for comment (which rapidly became a troll chorus the likes of which I had not before heard outside of Tolkien films ;) Sam Spade 02:42, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I have links to most of those already in the summary I wrote (the one I didn't mention was the poll talk, because I didn't think it was particularly controversial or significant to the matter at hand). What I put on that request for comment page was a detailed analysis of those talks, pointing out specific events I think are significant and describing why I think so. As such I think it's somewhat more helpful than just dumping a link to a few hundred kilobytes of talk and saying "it's all in here somewhere." You are of course free to write up your own detailed analysis of our interactions, too. I assume you'll be making specific complaints against me to the mediator in any event. Bryan 03:01, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Not really. I just want you to go away. And not even from the wiki. Just from me. You make me unhappy. Thats my complaint. I assume the best about how you conduct yourself when I'm not involved. I've never bothered to inspect your other contributions for their utility, or whatever. I could care less about leveling charges against you. If your a bad user, somebody else can fight to have you banned, I don't know you well enough to say much more than that you arn't nice to be around, for me, and you semed to be fundamentally POV in regards to matters of religion. I'm quite optomistic about our mediation. Anybody with any sense is going to have at least a general idea of the particulars, and will behave reasonably so long as they arn't inherently biased. And if they are, and if for some bad reason or another I am sided against, and told you and others have been justified in their trollings, I will go away, because that will mean this place sucks. The goal is to make the a good wikipedia, not to engage in political one-upmanship. But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. Thank God I have better stuff to do then peice thru our long and sordid history of communications to find points of contention to jab at you with. I'm rather optomistic that the mediation isn't going to invlove much cross examining and rhetoric in any case. I would hope its focused on people getting along, following rules, and making quality edits. Sam Spade 03:09, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You seem to have got the idea somehow that I'm "stalking" you, personally. I'm not, unless you count having a couple of articles you took an interest in watchlisted because I also have an interest in them. All I've done here is respond to the various complaints you've initiated against me. Bryan 03:23, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)