Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-10-09 Hinduism

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Wikipedia Mediation Cabal

Article: Hinduism State: Closed Requested By: Swadhyayee Other Parties: Apandey, HeBhagawan, Chris Mediated By: Addhoc (talk · contribs) Comments: Probably going to close soon...

Contents 1 Mediation Case: 2006-10-09 Hinduism 1.1 Request Information 1.2 Mediator response 1.3 Compromise offers 1.4 Discussion

[edit] Mediation Case: 2006-10-09 Hinduism

[edit] Request Information

Request made by: Swadhyayee 12:47, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Where is the issue taking place? Hinduism and discussion page.

...

Who's involved? Apandey, HeBhagawan, Chris

...

What's going on?Intimidation, Sock Puppetry, falsification to block me, placing distorted facts in the article.

On 2006-10-04, I came across a distorted fact of the article and removed the distorted content leaving message on talk page. There was lot of discussion. I have doubt that the case is of Sock Puppetry. The reasons are User:RamRamji registers himself, places an opinion against me and vanishes. Later, voting was mooted. An annonymus IP request one editor to vote on the issue. When the difference of opinion is amongst three parties including me, who would make a request to an editor who promptly drops in and vote against me. My feeling is voting has been done without considering or probably even reading my reasons. A 3RR warning was placed on my talk page and I have thenafter not done any reverts. Mr.Chris has referred me as a Vandal in sharp words and requested Adm. to look into. I requested Mr.Chris to read the comments placed by me this morning. There is no response, meanwhile A.Pandey has suggested on discussion pg. to fellow editors to block me, falsely projecting that I continue reverting (in spite of 3RR notice). To me it's a clear case of sock puppetry and dispute of content. A.Pandey beginned with intimidating comments. I wrote to him to mind his language, yet in-civil continues.

Dear Admins What is going on? Thank you for taking the time to check into this. Unfortunately, the user Swadhyayee is making it difficult to maintain the quality of the Hinduism page, whether intentionally or unintentionally. The main problem is his refusal to consent to use democratic methods of decision-making, and his insistence in making edits that do not even come close to Wikipedia quality standards. Specific problems include:

1. insistence on incorporating edits that are against the unanimous advice of other editors (see the vote on the Hinduism discussion page)
2. his refusal to use citations at all-- or to even recognize that citations have some value
3. He has repeatedly reverted the article to impose his POV regarding the Raja Yoga controversy despite a vote of other editors which went against him (see Hinduism discussion page), and despite his failure to provide even one citation as evidence for his position. Example: this one
4. His edits are consistently of poor quality on account of ungrammatical and muddled language (which he denies is muddled or ungrammatical).
5. Even more troublesome, he persistently continues to reword statements of other editors to render them ungrammatical, muddled, and unclear. For example, [[1]]. When his mistakes are fixed by others, he usually reverts to re-introduce them.
6. He has engaged in personal attacks
7. He has insisted that his views should dominate on account of his nationality (Swadhyayee stated: "you are westerner, you should allow incorporation done by Indian Hindus like me." See Hinduism discussion page), rather than on account of any community concensus or published authorities.
8. He has vandalized the personal pages of others (including mine). For an example, see [[2]]

To get an idea of the kinds of edits he contributes, just browse through the recent history of the Hinduism article. The following are just a few examples of his numerous edits: [[3]] [[4]] [[5]],

and [[6]]. However, to really understand the difficulties this user has presented to the Hinduism project, I would encourage you to look over his other edits as well, and especially to read the entire conversation involving Swadhyayee on the Hinduism discussion page. (On the discussion page, this discussion begins near the middle of the page with his heading "I have removed Raja Yoga.")

It is really a quality problem. Editors including myself have put a lot of work into improving the quality of the page over the past couple of weeks (feel free to browse through my edits and judge the quality for yourself--especially comparing the article after my edits to the mess it was in a month ago), but we now have to spend a great deal of time trying to convince Swadhyayee not to flood the article with edits which reduce rather than enhance its quality. If you read the Hinduism discussion page, you will see that multiple editors have gone to almost ridiculously great lengths to find ways to include Swadhyayee in the Hinduism project in a manner that is collaborative in nature and that protects the quality of the article. Unfortunately, this user has been unable or unwilling to work democratically and to adhere to the Wikipedia standards of Verifiability and Reliable Sources.

It is not that we want to exclude him as a person or that the substance of his contributions is always bad, but we do wish him to help us maintain quality standards. As evidence of my good faith efforts, on several occasions I have reworded his edits to make them grammatical and have provided citations for his statements, since he never does so himself.

I do not know what the solution to this problem is . I have little desire to ban Swadhyayee from editing the Hinduism page, becasue I think he is acting mostly in good faith, but he has difficulties accepting his language limitations and does not know how to work democratically with others. I I would not complain of his low-quality edits if he did not make them so frequently, but they are so frequent that it is very difficult for editors like me to do substantive work on the article becasue they are kept busy cleaning up after him and trying to reason with him. The only way I know of to ensure quality is (1) to make editing decisions democratically and (2) to cite reliable authorities. When an editor refuses to abide by these touchstones, as Swadhyayee has, the quality and reputation of Wikipedia suffers.

I would suggest giving Swadhyayee one more chance to rise to the Wikipedia standards of reliable authority and collaborative efforts. But I sincerely hope he will not continue to take so much time away from actually improving articles in order to bring up controversy after controversy in which he is the only one on his side. It wastes everyone's time. HeBhagawan 05:33, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I have read above comments. I am happy that Kylu has rightly understood and commented that "truth" should not be kept aside to resolve dispute. The facts are twisted and chronological orders changed. There is practically no contribution of A.Pandey or any other editor in making the article. Only HeBhagawan is showing interest in making the article. I did not edit the controversial "Raj Yog" matter after 3RR notice. My earlier edits are falsely claimed to be having done after voting. I have strong feelings that it's not only a case of sock puppetry but is suspected to advertise particular school of thougts or books of particular organisation. Sock puppetry need not mean contribution by one editor in different names, even the voting by friends could be a case of sock puppetry. Who from the voters have contributed in making the article? Hinduism is a vast subject with number of facets. No particular school of thought should be promoted while excluding other views not suitable to an editor. My today's comments on discussion page may also be read.Swadhyayee 17:38, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mediator response

[edit] Compromise offers

The user seems to have good intentions to add quality content to Hinduism article, but does not know, how to do that in the true spirut of wikipedia. He should be allowed to make additions to the article by probably first discussing the issue on the talk page, and then being open for discussion and feedback. Most importantly if the user assumes good faith, all the other problems will vanish automagically.

My compromise offer is for all users to agree to accept and offer criticism in good faith, to cite reliable authorities when making edits (especially if other users challenge the veracity of a particular claim), to seek the advice of native-level English speakers when editing English Wikipedia, and to generally just maintain high quality standards. This may mean consenting to something we don't like if the majority of other editors disagree with us. If the quality standards are not going to be high, then this will no longer be an encyclopedia; it will be somebody's personal website.HeBhagawan 05:59, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

This is unfortunate that the article such as Hinduism is brought to such controversy. I have not been a part of any such mediation before, so I do not know where all I am supposed to add my comments. But if I am making comments at wrong locations, please let me know at my talk page.

I have only one thing to say here. Whosoever is going to mediate, must have to go through the edit history of Hinduism and its associated talk page from around 8th October. Specially starting this section on the talk page. If one really goes through it, they will find how this user got engaged in incivility and pushing of his POVs which are full of ignorance of even about the basic facts of Hindusim. He also kept on threatening people, making allegations about sock pupetry and bringing general disgrace to other editors and IMO to the article itself. He failed to take any input given to him positively and kept on making personal attacks. His edits were at many times of poor quality or of unneeded contents, never had citations and references, and many times had grammatical mistakes. When brought to attention, he took those comments in a negative way. The user never assumed good faith. IMHO, the user is new to wikipedia, and never tried to go through the basics of how wikipedia works, before making controversial edits and does not know how to deal with them. --Apandey 05:39, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Please also note that during the course of personal attacks, the user has alleged me for not having knowledge just because I am a software engineer and younger to him. Please see this [7]. Going through the edit history on the related pages, there are at least three occasions were he talked about himself being older and thus more experienced etc. If his thoughts are to be believed, many of the wikipedia admins who are in their teens, will be useless, just because they are young. It was ridiculous. --Apandey 05:51, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Dear All, I would take a very strong exception to the fact that Swadhyayee has alleged a big number of editors of sock puppetry as per his edits on this page above [8]. The voting happened here. Swadhyayee lost 8:1, the sole vote to his views being his own. Here, I would also like to state that, of the eight editors who voted, there are a few admins (atleast one) also. Swadhyayee has alleged that these are group of friends with similar intentions and what not. This is untolerable for me. This is bringing disgrace to the whole community. I would strongly suggest that this user must be banned from editing wikipedia. If not permanently then at least for a few months. So that during that time, he can understand the basic building blocks of wikipedia. My previous offer of compromise stands withheld now. I am recommending a block for Swadhyayee because of the followings (and many more):

• Adding non-cited, un-referenced and POV driven content to an important page such as Hinduism.
• Not assuming good faith for fellow editors.
• Citing his age as a proof of knowledge and trying to intimidate other editors in view of their younger age, and their occupation etc.
• Citing his nationality as a proof of knowledge and being judgemental of other editors because of their western nationality.
• Almost continually adding poor quality content (including but not limited to incorrect english) and reverting again and again.
• Giving no value to the feedback provided, consensus of other editors or references given by others.
• Making personal attacks.
• Alleging everyone who does not agree to him of sock puppetry.

The list does not end here. All of the above claims are verifiable in the main article and talk pages of Hinduism and the talk pages of the concerned users.

As far as my contribution is involved, it is correct that I have contributed very little to the article, but that is my preference. I generally prefer to watch an article for possible vandalism and pushing of POVs. The Hinduism article was already pretty big. I did not feel a need for more addition, rather I felt a strong need of reorganization and corrections.

PLEASE BAN SWADHYAYEE from editing wikipedia till he gets his basics right.

Thanks. --Apandey 19:25, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Swadhyayee 12:47, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Reply to Apandey - Swadhyayee may be incorect in the content dispute but his edits were in good faith. I find a block unsavory.Bakaman _Bakatalk 23:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

HeBhagawan's reply: I think the Swadhyayee's earlier edits were in good faith, but he has begun to get really out of control. His behavior has been almost malicious during the past few days, for the reasons noted by APandey above. Reluctantly, at this point I must advocate banning Swadhyayee for one week to give his temper a chance to cool down. When he returns after one week, we can try to have a fresh start, hopefully with no hard feelings. HeBhagawan 02:26, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Please note: Mediation does not involve blocking or banning or any other type of punitive actions. You may wish to bring any specific actions requiring intervention to WP:AN/I (admin noticeboard regarding intervention), though it usually hinders mediation efforts to do so, as mediation hinges upon the good faith willingness to negotiate in mediation. ~Kylu (u|t) 17:39, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I think, I can logically convince that HeBhagawan and A.Pandey appears to be one person. The sock puppetry is making nuisance by creating hue & cry to establish monopoly over this article for the reasons best known to him/her.Swadhyayee 18:59, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I've kept the Hinduism article on my watchlist since opening the case and you are clearly making progress without mediation. I'll keep the case open, I won't intervene unless requested. Addhoc 11:40, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Following discussion problems appear to have been resolved - closing case. Addhoc 20:19, 6 November 2006 (UTC)