Wikipedia talk:Resolving disputes/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Origins of Mediation and Arbitration

See /Mediation and Arbitration proposal and /Mediation and Arbitration discussion

Email posts on this subject:

conflicts do not appear only do through edit wars. But also protection war, undeletion war, etc... often, these are more signs of conflict of power. PomPom

Requests for comment

I think that Wikipedia:Current disputes over articles and especially Wikipedia:Conflicts between users are a complete mess. They tend to get huge, are hard to use and maintain, resulting in that often only people who are closely emotionally involved in the disputes actually participate. I propose for a the creation of Wikipedia:Requests for comment page that would simply list links to talk pages where issues can be discussed. It would look and function much like Wikipedia:Current polls except that in cases of user disputes RfC subpages would be linked to instead of talk pages. We could then get rid of Wikipedia:Current disputes over articles and Wikipedia:Conflicts between users and have RfC become the new step 2. What does everybody else think? --mav

Sounds good. At least try it. Current system is close to broken. - Hephaestos 19:01, 24 Jan 2004 (PST)
Agree. Andrewa 05:24, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

You might want to have an X word limit (possibly X=0) to prevent it degenerating as the others have. Martin 15:03, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I think this is definitely worth trying. The current pages are next to useless, so this certainly can't be worse. :) It has a much less accusatory approach to it rather than having to label someone or something a problem. Perhaps Wikipedia:Peer review could be included here as well, rather than on it's current page? Angela. 03:30, Jan 26, 2004 (UTC)

Cool. I'll go ahead and create RfC this weekend. --mav

Done. Please somebody look over my wording at Wikipedia:Requests for comment. --mav


I think this article needs to define "edit war". Do we really mean "revert war"? What do we mean?168... 04:06, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Revert wars are simply the most base form of edit wars. All edit wars are bad, even though revert wars are worse. --mav 04:13, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Then I don't know what qualifies as an edit war. I really think it needs defining.168... 04:24, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

That is what the link to Wikipedia:Edit war is for. --mav


That defines "edit war" as a revert war. You suggested that a revert war was just the basest kind. If there are other kinds, what are they? This is pretty important concept to leave undefined.168... 04:38, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hm. Good point. We will have to fix that then. --mav
How's this: Wikipedia:Edit war. --zandperl 02:44, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)


I strongly regret that this page only refers to edit war as being reason for conflict. This goes much further than that. Just yesterday evening, we had an example of a conflict over a copyright. fr0069

I think that the intro needs to be made more clear since that is not the intent. All disputes should follow these guidelines. The bit about edit wars is to point out that this process cannot even start when an edit war is ongoing. --mav
Mav...I have a little doubt about the steps "request for comment" and poll. On one hand, it is good to go around and ask other people what they think, on the other, that is the best to involve more people in a conflict (thus potentially spreading the fire even further). Especially since the request for help do not focus on people knowlegeable on the topic . There is high chance that it might attract some people willing to stir troubles. What do you think ?
the other point is about polls. Even if other people lean on one side, how is it gonna help the process, except if the one in minority is very willing to follow everybody else opinion. More likely, he will not change his mind so easily, and the poll will not solve anything. Is that kind of technique often used ? Does that help in edit wars ? fr0069 00:14, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Yes it does help by showing what everybody thinks. Often this can be done with discussion, sometimes polls are needed. Increasing the number of people involved increases the likelihood that reasonable people will go along with the consensus (believe it or not most people around here are reasonable). Also since advanced RfC posts should have summaries and polls show things clearly by their very nature, it also provides clear documentation for the mediation and arbitration committees about who was ignoring consensus and what the issues are. --mav

Dispute resolution

Wouldn't Wikipedia:Dispute resolution be a better name? 'Conflict' brings images of war to mind when I say or think of that word ('Conflict in Vietnam', 'Korean Conflict', 'Middle-East Conflict', 'Iraq Conflict', etc.). 'Dispute' seems to be a more general and less war-like term. Anybody mind if I move this page in a few days and fix the links to it? --mav 09:39, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Done. --mav 11:00, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)


  • Cosmotheism details removed. This page is not for discussing disputes. Please use the talk page. Thanks. Angela. 20:20, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

Is this not the place for discussing disputes? The talk page?

"Editing Wikipedia talk:Dispute resolution From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."

Curious.

Angela means this is a page for discussing the details of dispute resolution. Use the Talk:Cosmotheism page. But Angela where would one post a message to inform the Wiki community of a dispute and ask for help?Zestauferov 00:59, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Read this meta page and learn. --mav 01:14, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)
If you've already carried out steps zero and one described at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, then step two is to list the issue at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, with a link to Talk:Cosmotheism, which is the where the issue would actually be discussed. Angela. 12:17, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

Rule violation is not a dispute/conflict

I've discussed this with a few people on IRC, but it's time this concept saw the light of day. Talking with other parties, polling and mediation are not appropriate responses to rule-breaking. The only appropriate response to breaking the rules is to consider punishment. There is no conflict to mediate, rule-breakers are instead violating the trust of the entire community. Our response to rule-breaking should be analogous to the response to law-breaking in the real world.

BTW to maintain consistency with the rest of the article, I've used the term "conflict" rather than "dispute". -- Tim Starling 07:11, Feb 26, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, the article wasn't internally consistent anyway. I agree with mav that dispute is a preferable term, so I've tried to remove all references to conflict. I think the page name Wikipedia:Conflicts between users contributes a great deal to the confusion, and needs to be changed. --Michael Snow 19:56, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think that in most instances where the issue is breaking some Wikipedia rule the preliminary dispute resolution steps may be helpful up to and including mediation, which can be considered analogeous to plea-bargaining. Fred Bauder 16:03, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

Getting help?

Is there any particular procedure for getting help if one is not sure what one should be doing? [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 18:18, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Reducing frustration

I am posting this on both the help desk and the talk page for dispute resolution.

I don’t know whether this is the right place, or whether there is a right place. But from my limited experience, Wikipedia’s dispute resolution process is too frustrating. It allows controversies to build instead of nipping them in the bud, or at least reducing the tension at a relatively early stage. It might test people’s patience too much and drive away those who are least imposing, for lack of a better word.

Please, I would like some help and don’t know where to go. Maurreen 08:17, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I assume you have read Wikipedia:Dispute resolution as you post from its talk page. Consider Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#First resort: talk to the other parties involved. Note a link to Wikipedia:Negotiation. If you go there you will discover a stub that only I have edited. It could be substantially improved, especially with the respect to the concept of negotiation in good faith which you may note is an empty article. This concept is used in Federal Labor law; both employers and unions are required to "negotiate in good faith". The books recommended may be helpful both is resolving disputes and improving this article. Fred Bauder 18:10, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. The other person involved apparently does not wish to negotiate now. But someone else saw my frustration and is intervening. If the general conflict escalates, I'll probably request an advocate, which I've learned a little more about recently. Maurreen 18:11, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

How to Resolve This?

There is an apparent problem that resists normal Wikipedia-based means of resolution. A user who will remain nameless under the pseudonym X (and arbitrarily characterized as male) has been asserting a systematic POV across multiple articles. More importantly, the nature of his edits is apparently destructive. None of X's edits seem to add anything to the aforementioned articles, but rather seem to be solely aimed at introducing his POV. If anything, the nature of the X's edits tends to introduce structural weaknesses into the articles. X's edits are typically reverted and opposed by the majority of the community, and he has been engaged in multiple edit wars. There appears to be significant potential for (more) heated conflict with other Wikipedians. The articles' talk pages, which include at least one incident of content bargaining, and edit summaries further suggest that (1) X is systematically inserting his aforementioned POV and (2) X is resisting compromise and reasonable discussion. All indications suggest that this will continue to occur for a long while if unresolved. How should one go about correcting this, if at all? Informal methods of resolution appear to be unsuccessful. Mediation appears to be for more specific redress. Arbitration appears to be only a last resort. Suggestions would be appreciated.MIT Trekkie 20:16, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Next step?

Could somebody please the Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Iasson and its talk page (ignoring the section about Rhobite, which is irrelevant). There are several of us who feel the RfC has stalled, and wont progress further. We are unsure about what to do next. I understand mediation has a large backlog, and anyway we aren't certain that it would work in the case of the 1 to many dispute we are involved in. Equally I am unsure that the arbitration committee would hear this case, and I feel a rejected request would be taken as a liscence to create havoc. I would appreciate someone who is familiar with dispute resolution to give advice as to the next step(s) on the talk page. Thanks. Thryduulf 11:37, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A new proposal, please join in discussion/suggest other possibile proposals

In the past, there have been a few users who, although banned, have not only violated their ban but have flaunted their ability to circumvent Arbitration COmmitte rulings through multiple sock puppets. In cases where such a user can easily move from one IP address to another, it is impossible to block them effectively.

In the past, we have responded with a variety of ad hoc solutions. I believe that as Wikipedia grows, we will encounter more and more such problem users. I think it is time to move beyond ad hoc responses to develop new policies. Slrubenstein 02:47, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Proposal 1

My (SR) purpose is to give the ArbCom one more, formal, ultimate sanction. I think making the sanction official will make it easier to enforce; having the ArbCom in charge guarantees that the accused will benefit from due process.

I have a proposal for dealing with these kinds of situations: give the ArbCom the power to declare a user an "outlaw."

We would need clear guidelines for how to decide who is an outlaw, but for one thing we must be specific that this is someone who has utter disregards for bans or partial bans, and who cannot effectively be blocked.

There should be some deliberation at the ArbCom before declaring someone an outlaw, to ensure due process.

The consequence of being an outlaw would be this: anyone -- any editor, sysop or not -- can revert an outlaw's work at any time, without restriction (so if doing so means that they must revert more than three times in one day, their reverts will still be considered legitimate and they won't be punished). There are some violations of behavior -- eg. when someone laughs and says "you can't stop me now" -- that the best thing to do is to mobilize the entire community to take action. Put another way, I am suggesting a new protocol for enforcing permanent bans; the protocol amounts to asking all editors to be on the lookout for activity by the person banned and known (it has to be official) sock puppets, and to reverse edits without any fear of violating the three revert rule.

Proposal 2

Someone else on the list-serve (who should identify him/herself here if s/he wishes) has suggested another policy: Contact the users ISP. If you can't get them to drop the user, call the upstream provider(s). If that doesn't work, block every IP range associated with the ISP and tell anyone affected to complain to the ISP. Wikipedia is getting big, it's time to start throwing some weight around when users are engaging in wildly abusive activities.

Sample message: "You are using <someISP> which harbours a user who has repeatedly engaged in egregious abuses against Wikipedia. Because it is impractical to block individual users of <someISP>, we have been forced to block everyone using <someISP>. It is up to <someISP> to remove the abusive user from their network. Users of <someISP> will remain blocked until confirmation has been recieved from <someISP> that the abusive user's service has been terminated. We urge you to contact <someISP> and request that they take action. <someISP contact information>"

The abuser will be gone, and the ISP will have a (potentially large) PR problem until they decide to do the right thing.

Discussion

I know that both proposals amount to a permanent ban. I understand that many people might disagree with me, but this is the effect of what I proposed. If Jimbo rejects it, so be it. But to reiterate, what I am suggesting should only be used in the most extreme cases, and after some sort of due process.

I do not know how effective Proposal 2 would be -- it may be more effective than Proposal 1, or less effective. Perhaps the two proposed policies could work in concert.

Either way I think it is time to come up with a now policy. To repeat: my main interest is in creating an ultimate sanction the ArbCom can apply in the most extreme cases, where banning and blocking are ineffective and scoffed at by the person blocked.

I hope others will join in this discussion of the two proposed policies -- and perhaps propose other possible policies that will help us deal with this kind of problem on something more serious than an ad hoc basis. Slrubenstein 21:06, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'll start with proposal 2. This has the potential to backfire and damage Wikipedia. If for example the offending user's ISP is large, then we will be blocking a HUGE number of editors and potential editors. Most of them wont bother doing anything about it and move on, it is a fact of life that people are lazy when it comes to complaining about things (doubly so if they're British), so said ISP will only get a handfull of complaints. They probably won't consider it worth doing anything about. Now if we escalate the issue to the upstream provider, then the motivation gets less and we still don't win. If the ISP is a British university, then the organisation one or two steps up the line (depending on the univerisity in question) is JANET, and you will be blocking all UK universities, research organisations and potentially government departments as well. Tbeir response will be to tell you to sort it out with the downstream provider.
Proposal 1 is the better of the two imho. I would suggest that the minimum criterion for being declared an outlaw is to be in breach of at least one, maybe two, Arbitration Committee rulings resulting in prolonged (>1 month) bans. It would also need to be made explcitly clear who the outlaws are, and that using them as an excuse to violate other rules is a Bad Thing. There is a danger though that some miscreants will see achieving outlaw status as something to aim for. Thryduulf 22:53, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
It is an absolute certainty that "some miscreants will see achieving outlaw status as something to aim for." Perhaps a less colorful name like "hard ban" Fred Bauder 23:07, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Good point -- I certainly wouldn't quibble over the name, I was just invoking an old idea, no longer used in real life, but perhaps a useful model for us. Slrubenstein 02:47, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia's approach to dispute resolution

It strikes me that the current approach to dispute resolution is centred around the "dispute" more than the "resolution". It would be better all round if this could be reversed, so that the emphasis is on "resolution" rather than the "dispute". A friendlier approach would, I am sure, reduce a lot of wikistress, and also encourage difficult users to reform, rather than become more and more difficult. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has seen users go before the ArbCom and become more and more disruptive and wondered whether the whole thing couldn't have been better handled from the start.

Some suggestions to improve this are as follows:

  • 1. Rename this page Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. This would put the stress on "resolving".
  • 2. Rewrite this page to emphasise the importance of resolving rather than escalating disputes.
  • 3. Changing RfC in user conduct, so that instead of X bringing a RfC against Y, X would ask other Wikipedians for advice on how to resolve their dispute with Y. (Such comments then being on the behaviour of both parties - but with the RfC guidance worded to encourage other Wikipedians to offer constructive advice, rather than comments like "Y" should be banned.
  • 4. Getting rid of the increasing legalism of RfAr. Cases should be brought by "X requesting arbitration in their dispute with Y". The emphasis again should be on resolution - but this time with other Wikipedians (namely the ArbCom) deciding in favour or against X or Y.
  • 5. ArbCom decisions should be worded so as to encourage behaviour modification. So it would not just be "Y is banned". But "Y is banned because we consider such-and-such behaviour to be against the Wikipedia norms. However, we would welcome Y back to Wikipedia once the ban is over, trust that Y will modify their behaviour in line with community norms, and look forward to Y making many positive contributions in the future."
  • 6. Renaming the "Association of Members' Advocates". First to get rid of the legalese. Second, most (maybe all?) of the so-called Advocates have no legal training whatsoever, so should not adopt a name that implies they do. I'm not really sure what alternative name to suggest, but it should be something that suggests they are Wikipedians who help other Wikipedians, but not as lawyers.

jguk 19:25, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree at least with the spirit here. I think part of the problem is that problems often grow and become more frustrating, probably often to everyone involved. Sometimes resolution could be helped by bringing in an outside sooner. For example, someone on Village Pump brought up the idea of a page asking for "third opinions," essentially a streamlined RFC. Another idea is "Wikiquette alerts." Maurreen 10:44, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I didn't see that on the Village Pump. See also: Wikipedia:Requests for comment (draft user conduct amendments), where I propose taking the confrontational aspects out of RfC and welcome others to amend the proposal as they see fit, jguk 12:10, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I've made Wikipedia:Third opinion and copied the discussion there. Maurreen 12:40, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Negotiation works best when the alternatives are nasty: acceptance of an unbearable situation or engaging in onerous, expensive, risky litigation. We need to maintain at least the illusion that refusing to consider changing behavior may result in a nasty outcome at the arbitration stage. Fred Bauder 12:34, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)

True, but we need carrot and stick. We should encourage early and amicable resolution of disputes. My impression is that many users list an RfC as a stepping stone to RfAr rather than a genuine attempt to resolve a dispute. Of course, if the dispute remains unresolved, someone (ie the ArbCom) will be forced to decide it, with potentially unpleasant effects for all the disputants, jguk 12:43, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
My experience has been that some editors feel they can tough it out and do not need to seriously engage in negotiation as they will not receive any serious penalties at the arbitration stage. In a few cases they have been proved right. Although on their 2nd or 3rd visit things have not gone so well. Fred Bauder 13:06, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)
What I'm saying, however, is that all parties to an RfC should approach the RfC as a genuine attempt to resolve the dispute. Any party which doesn't, runs the risk of a nasty decision from the ArbCom - and "any party" should include those initiating the RfC as well as those responding to it, jguk 13:31, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Third opinion

A possible new fast dispute-solving tool is being discussed at Wikipedia:Third opinion. Feedback is appreciated. — Itai (f&t) 08:37, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Having heard no objection, I've linked it from the project page. Maurreen 02:50, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nasty messages

I have just received a very nasty message from a David Brooks. He told me that that I did not have any coutesy and that I was dumping my articles. I will not repeat the content of the message, but anyone can read it on my page.

I am very upset because the people in this group for the most part have nothing but criticism for other people. They are not helpful or supportive or anything like that. For the most part all they do is bitch.

I was under a very tight schedule of email usage, so I thought that it would be best to put the articles up and then go back and wikify them later. I thought that you were looking for volunteers to help out, and I have helped to edit articles on many occasions.

I have never posted one nasty message to anyone, but I have receive numerous offensive messages. Some of them I have deleted, but others I have not.

I don't know who this David Brooks is, but I read that he is some journalist, like I am supposed to be really impressed.

My point is that if you don't want help then just say so. I don't think it is appropriate to say that it is a volunteer site and request donations and then send inflammatory emails to people who sincerely want to help. This is a volunteer website where volunteers work. Some volunteers work harder than others, but at the end of the day we are all volunteers, so it does no good to send nasty emails.

I am seriously considering whether I want to be a part of this group becuase of the scale of nastiness I have seen, but if I do decide to bow out, I am not expecting anyone in this group to show the slightest bit of concern or to curtail the inflammatory emails they send one bit.

David made some accusations against me that were not very nice, like putting names in quotes, I did the best I could and thought I was doing the right thing, and I think he was totally out of order to send me that nasty message. He may be a good journalist, but he has a lot to learn about courtesy, which is what he said I had none of.

Regards, --TracyRenee 17:39, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Without getting into any specifics, I agree that Wikipedia has too much hostility, etc. Maurreen 17:47, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ed Poor persistently disruptive on Qur'an abuse page -- surrealistically high number of page moves

Admin -- Uncle Ed (talk) has executed a ridiculously high number of page moves, and has been generally disruptive, at the page currently titled Qur'an desecration by US military.

He has obvious political motivations for the pattern of disruption and title confusion he has sown on this page in recent days. (Check out the titles of his edit summaries on this page if you doubt my assessment of this.) Please. please review the history of this page and consider taking appropriate action. BrandonYusufToropov 02:22, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Here are examples of what I mean:

FROM TALK PAGE HISTORY

  • (cur) (last) 14:53, 14 Jun 2005 Ed Poor (Was it desecration? - That's the anti-US point of view, all right. So let's describe as such.)

FROM ARTICLE HISTORY

  • (cur) (last) 21:21, 14 Jun 2005 Ed Poor (moved Pentagon "admission" down to 4th paragraph, as intro to "critics continued belief" - could be moved up)
  • (cur) (last) 20:06, 27 May 2005 Ed Poor (anti-US POV needs to be labeled. Don't put the argument in the text of the article as if you wanted Wikipedia to endorse that reasoning)

... not to mention the avalanche of page moves, resulting in confusion and perpetual redirect challenges for those trying to actually find the article ...

Request for Arbitration by Scottfisher

Andy Mabbett Where POTW= Alias MR. Mabbett

Attempting in good faith to edit I bring you some facts here and now: On Saturday 9/24 I really was upset at Andy Mabbett because of his stalking and continuous deletions of pictures and text. This went on and on weeks prior, without notifying anyone. The reason I mention this is I really was upset with his constant deletions, some I agreed with, Others snuck in for deletion by him. So mad, I was ready to delete all the work I contributed on Wikipedia, my user page, my talk edits, pictures I uploaded, Etc. before POTW could get to delete ANY OR ALL of them. Yes, indeed I went over the edge because of him. Others have too, I noticed, as I investigated users past discussions with POTW and others. My sincere apologies for any problems I did uncreate, as I was blocked by [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Scottfisher&action=edit&section=21 Admin Doc glasgow. The problems have been corrected and rectified to the best of my knowledge. Again my sincere apologies. As I said, I noticed there were numerous editors in his past that felt the same way at that point because of POTW, upset, discouraged, harrassed and being stalked. One editor in particular a most excellent in my opinion from what I saw lost complete faith in Wikipedia because of POTW. Please see below:

I now leave you with some facts, correspondence Etc. about POTW word for word... This is from my discussion page:

POTW

Kindly refrain from using deprecated HTML in articles - it breaks Wikipedia and causes problems for some people with disabilities. Thank you. Andy Mabbett 11:54, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Everything seems to work in the HTML Mr. Andy, Don't know what you are talking about.
Kindly I ask you to either add some useful information/ text or whatever, to make Wikipedia a more useful tool and/ or add your own pics rather than deleting mine by damage. Try it, you may like it. It's more fun! Thank-You Scott 18:57, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
Don't know what you are talking about. So it would seem :-( Andy Mabbett 14:18, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

(I QUOTE)

POTW

Mr Andy- Alias Pigsonthewings; It is evident you've had more problems in the past than I'll ever have and you know it. You really want to be sneaky and staulk on wikipedia rather than contribute. People have tried to talk to you in the past and you seem to want to show a power thing or something. Not sure what your real problem is with good editors. If you wish, I will post the evidence here now as I made a good effort to comprimise with you as others have

1)Your user page
2)Scroll to bottom

3)POTW user page-this one is a real shame

4)POTW

5)==Mig/POTW==

6)You also removed several other items. Frankly, given your recent behaviour, and the above ludicrous and fallacious allegation, I'm not really interested in hearing your personal opinions, nor your threats. Andy Mabbett 11:32, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
7)[See Ok, Andy Mabbett and Brumburger are following my every move on wikipedia and they are tracing my IP addresses. No different Nick Boulevard 16:31, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Nick_Boulevard]
8) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Nick_Boulevard&action=edit&section=4 See Pigsonthewing Hi Nick, I've been having the same problems as you I think. I've decided to move away from the wikipedia page but I still think something needs to be done about Andy Mabbett. I hope you'll agree that the problem is not what Pigsonthewing does for the wikipedia, which is of reasonable quality, but the following:

Stalking. <color=red>He will target work by specific users instead of finding new articles to work on. this happened to me, and I think has also happened to you. Obsessive. Once he has made an edit he will watch the page, and revert any changes made. He gets involved in revision wars all the time. Once he has made his mind up nobody else gets a lookin. Rude. His comments in the revision section are very snide. After you have reseached something to have it described as irrelavant hurts. Destructive. He removes from the wikipedia much more than he puts in. I think it's very easy to beleive the internet is a kind of bubble, however he should realise he is interacting with real people and we all do it as a kind of therapy, as a kind of entertainment- we do it because we enjoy it! His work is not of low quality- rather his behavior is deliberatly anti-social- he obviously enjoys putting people's noses out of joint. If you want someone to join in a test case for this I would be willing to contribute. I don't think he should be banned, but certainly I think his brand of abusive, bullying behaviour should be frowned upon by wikipedia as strongly as 'peacock terms' or 'copy violations'. Leonig Mig 18:33, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC) Just shameful! Letting things go Nick: Please would you disregard any accusations or criticisms that Andy, Brumberger, or Ray may level against you, however unfair. If we could all focus on the articles instead of the editors we can all spend more time building the encyclopedia.—Theo (Talk) 19:12, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
9)http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Nick_Boulevard&action=edit&section=7 A negative response attempting to create a more sense of aggrevation: Ok, no probs. Nick Boulevard 21:51, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC) That lasted about 22 hours - and one edit. [1]. Andy Mabbett 19:20, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC) Get over it Andy, concentrate on other things and your/our time here will be much more rewarding. Nick Boulevard 22:45, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)]

I also think he might have multiple alias's. Scott 21:12, 26 September 2005 (UTC) 10)*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:G-Man/POTW_RFC Previous message on user sight/ Pigsonthewing (Andy Mabbett) makes frequent and aggressive use of repeated reversion and engages in edit wars, sometimes reverting unvandalised user pages. These are often part of continuing personal conflicts with other (albeit not blameless) individual editors. These reversions are often not explained (simply "rv") or explained with apparent hostility: pointed, snide or dismissive remarks. Discussion of these reversions is often frustrating and fruitless as his answers are most frequently no longer than one line. The repeated reversion of articles combined with the hostile summaries leads to ill-feeling, which spreads to talk pages, where the same pattern of aggressive reversion is combined with aggressive commentary, which hinders discussion. This combination of reversion and aggression on user pages is particularly inflammatory; it largely arises when Pigsonthewing dissagrees with a comment about him or his behaviour. Several editors believe that some of these reversions arise from Pigsonthewing's systematic stalking of all their edits and that this stalking is a form of harassment.

POTW problems in the past

Cease and desist making personal atatcks. Andy Mabbett 21:46, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Andy, Go on, people have attempted to talk with you before and you just continued to give them a hard time. (Innocent and good editors). Think about it, please for your own good. Thanks Scott 21:55, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I hope you can help before anything else gets deleted by unnecessary stauking, and any other users feel the same way in the future, Etc. I will watch this page. Scott 00:20, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

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