Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Appeal of VeryVerily

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Case Opened on 01:51, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Case merged with Ruy Lopez on 17:38, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Case Closed on 15:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

Contents

[edit] Involved parties

[edit] Petitioner

[edit] Other parties

These are not "other parties". I did not bother to additionally bring a case against these users; the AC should walk before I expect it to run, and anyway Turrican and Shorne are gone now, and Ruy Lopez will just create new accounts if banned. If there is an "other party", it is the AC (in its past incarnation) itself. If it wishes to take time out and sanction these users, it is encouraged to, but that was not my request and they do not belong here. VeryVerily 13:09, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Prior arbitration

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gzornenplatz, Kevin Baas, Shorne, VeryVerily

[edit] Statement by VeryVerily

I am appealing the judgement against me rendered a year ago. The possibility of appealing was raised to me by former AC member Ambi (who, having worked with the new committee before resigning, said that it's changed) and even anti-hero of the affair Raul654. I hope this time to get the fair hearing I did not get before. In any case, I spent some time preparing this, and hope the AC will do me the courtesy of considering it.

For those that don't know, I was a major, long-term contributor to Wikipedia, signing up over two years ago and making close to 12,000 edits. I participated in nearly every aspect of the project and regarded myself as a major member of the community. I believe the decisions and edits I made were fair and judicious and in the Wikipedia spirit from the very beginning.

However, late last year (2004) I got simultaneously entangled with a couple very bad users who were alternately stalking me, defacing articles I watched, and vandalizing my user page and my edits. One had been such a problem that even Jimmy Wales called him a vandal. Long story short, Michael Snow's case lumping us together (and the AC did not seem to tell us apart) ended in a lump ban and probation of us, though I'd rebutted the evidence against me (see below).

I wish firstly to clear my name. In doing so, it will also in a way clear Wikipedia's name, as all may see it corrects its mistakes. I wish secondly to contribute here again on Wikipedia's terms, which I quickly found I could not do with the injunctions against me which were misused by ill-natured admins. It should be obvious to anyone who reviews my contributions what an asset I was to the project and how pointless it is to subject me to these intolerable humiliations, instead of apologizing and welcoming me back on equal terms.

[edit] Evidence

I have broken this into a few parts to cover key points.

[edit] Turrican

Turrican is a vandal who began attacking me in October 2004. I was punished me being his victim.

2004 Oct 4 - [1] Turrican threatens to start reverting everything I write, a threat he proceeds to implement over a period of weeks. I will spare you the wait for the punchline: he is never sanctioned at all for this, but I am banned for reverting back "without discussion".

2004 Oct 6 - [2] Turrican defaces my user page with a swastika image, profanities, personal attacks, and a wish that I would die (arguably a death threat). Again, he is never sanctioned at all for this, and instead I am banned.

(Because I will no doubt be accused of somehow inviting this abuse, I will tell what he calls "destroying" his articles. Basically, he added two out-of-place rants, one to History of Modern Greece calling Papadopoulos a "Colonel,CIA agent and Nazi collaborator", language obviously unfitting a neutral encyclopedia, which I at first removed and then settled for dispute-tagging, and another to History of Italy, where I simply added a dispute notice immediately and he began a long edit war to remove it [3] (yes, adding a dispute notice is destroying his articles). But even if he were right it would not justify this vandal spree.)

2004 Oct 6 - [4] [5] Turrican abandons use of the account and begins using a series of open proxies to carry out his vandalism and auto-reverting. Naturally, I revert back (when others don't do it for me). If he did to this to any "inner circle" admin, he'd already have been banned.

2004 Oct 6-16 - Just look at this [6] as an example of the lunacy. And before you go off on me for excessively reverting, remember I'm repelling a vandal stalker. What was I supposed to have done, stopped editing Wikipedia? All my edits were being reverted.

2004 Oct 6 - I bring Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Turrican_and_VeryVerily to appeal to the AC for help. I am specific about the charges: Turrican is using open proxies to revert all my edits and vandalize my user page.

2004 Oct 7 - Things are looking up, as the AC now considers an injunction. Needless to say, it's a false hope, and this injunction never materializes.

Over the next couple of weeks, I repeatedly post updates of the IPs Turrican is using and issue more pleas for action to be taken. I am ignored, while meanwhile the other case against me brews....

2004 Nov 18 - [7] Back in the Michael Snow case, Raul654 posts his "finding of fact" that I've been "reverting without discussion", and backs it up with six examples. Four of the six were among these Turrican-targetted articles. I explain this in detail on the talk page, and Raul654 airily dismisses me as "missing the point", referring only to a minor element of my defense (people who have engaged in E-mail arguments will recognize this "tactic"). And there it is, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Gzornenplatz,_Kevin_Baas,_Shorne,_VeryVerily#Findings_of_Fact, unanimously passed defiantly unaltered.

2004 Dec 25 - [8] Mav proposes closing the Turrican case, saying (a) that the account Turrican's last edit was Oct 5 and (b) the other two involved parties have asked it be closed. But.... (a) The complaint very clearly states that Turrican is using open proxies and not his account at all; (b) there is only one other party, me (hence "Turrican and VeryVerily"), and I did not ask for it to be closed. Then three more arbitrators sign on in agreement! And it's closed!

2004 Dec 27 - The final insult. [9] Raul654 writes that my case against Turrican is closed "in light of" the decision in Michael Snow's case. In other words, the matter of me getting stalked, attacked, vandalized, and threatened was resolved by me getting banned and sanctioned. And you people wonder why I'm angry about this?

[edit] "Ruy Lopez" etc.

A full listing of all this person's misdeeds would exhaust us all, so I'm only throwing in a few sample points. But also I want the lie put to the claim that I made no attempt to peaceably resolve the issues here. Opting for simply rapidly reverting this user's destruction was the end of a long process. I'm not the only one who feels this way; consider Adam Carr's comments [10], "let those of us familiar with the problem deal with it". This was drawn out when latecomer Fred Bauder presumptively stated I was not discussing my edits adequately [11], blissfully unaware of the long history.

2004 Jan 10 - [12] This was his first edit to hit my radar under his early account "LanceMurdoch".

2004 Jan 16 - [13] I bring him to the attention of the community using the page ancestral to RfC (it's been moved here since). Note my tone: The very first words I use are "This user is making useful contributions to some articles, but...". Does this sound like I want to pick a fight, as various ignoramuses later accuse me of? Anyway, a few people chime in, but nothing is done.

2004 Feb 10 - [14] A sample of one of his edits as "HectorRodriguez". Although it's not as bad as his blatant POV edits, it is more indisputably vandalism.

2004 Feb 10 - [15] RickK starts an RfC, with lots of details. I add in stuff about some of his other destruction. 172 absurdly defends him as a "new user" who should be coddled, though it is obvious he is a sockpuppet and up to no good. As for the terrorism discussion, it is worth noting "Ruy Lopez" voted three times in a poll using his sockpuppets. [16] No action is taken.

2004 Feb 16 - [17] "Hector" mangles and attempts to move an article. Although there is no trace of it, I could not move it back without an admin (Jiang)'s assistance because as I recall the redirect was fake-edited. Note his edit is nonsensical as (a) the article is about PBA not the distinct concept of late-term abortion and (b) it's written to be about "PBA", as witnessed by the sentence "The use of the term partial-birth abortion is a central part of the debate" which was changed to "The use of the term late term abortion is a central part of the debate"! (I bring this up because the AC punished a user for this moving practice recently.)

2004 Mar 7 - [18] A new account, Richardchilton, is used to create mischief. I refer you here to simply his own account of his behavior. He credits me with figuring out his sockpuppetry but says he will use IP-switching and so on to avoid detection. He disdains the "rules of Wikipedia" and says he has been getting away with simply deleting large chunks of text "wholesale" he doesn't like. Both I and (e.g.) User:The Anome see this as a declaration of war on Wikipedia.

2004 Mar 3 - [19] A rewind in time to when I first posted the RfC. Note again I am trying to use community channels to resolve this. [[User:Tim Starling]] calls him a troll and posts IRC logs. Others (Jamesday, PMA) oppose his behavior. This gives me hope that action will be taken, but people lose interest, and the destruction continues.

2004 Mar 3 - [20] A little example: "Richardchilton" adds a rant to the "common names" policy about "corporate media" and so on. He then goes to the Khmer Rouge page and cites this supposed "policy"! [21] (Jamesday catches on two edits later.)

2004 Mar 8 - User:Halifax is created for purposes of attacking Ed Poor. See contributions.

2004 Mar 13 - Writes the rant "Wikipedia Watch" [22].

2004 Mar 18 - He creates User:Hanpuk, and resumes a major attack on the Khmer Rouge page. I refer you to the page history, I'm not going to write it all up. Practically that article's whole history is his attacks on it, and we've filled several talk page archives trying to deal with him.

2004 Mar 26 - As an example, I still continue to try to work productively with this user in talk pages [23], but I soon realize all he does is disappear for a while then come back and try again hoping no one is looking (I can show more examples of this).

Note that during all this I continue to be a tremendously productive user, making all sorts of unrelated edits while dealing with this mess, as well as several other problem users.

2004 Apr 19 - He attempts to endorse an RfC attack on me by using his sockpuppets to meet the "2 person threshold" rule, a clear policy violation. It's deleted, so I refer you to this discussion: [24].

I'll stop now. I believe I've established he's a menace, and that I did all the "right" things to address this. And this is just the first couple of months! This goes on for nine more months while I'm still editing and maintaining a watch on key pages. By the time the AC blithely dances in, many of us have realized that only vigilantly reverting his endless identical edits makes him go away. Look at Talk:Khmer Rouge and archives to see others saying the same thing.

Although I do not follow him as closely now, I see he continues to insert bogus information into and remove good information from numerous articles, using the same tactics as ever, such as creating sockpuppets to circumvent revert restrictions, and continues to be a headache to numerous users.

Even Mr. Wales referred to him as a vandal on the mailing list, and I assume you all witnessed the ensuing exchange.

Many users have personally complimented me on my handling/investigation of this. [25] [26] (others I remember but can't find right now, see my talk page)

For nearly two years this user has rampaged about the project wrecking articles, with virtually no administrative sanction. The one opportunity the AC had to review the matter, it opted to punish the one user who had (as of then) done the most to combat his destruction. What were you thinking?

Finally, some try to characterize this as a "left vs right" issue. I hope I am not alone in not regarding denying Khmer Rouge atrocities as a "left" position in the English-speaking world.

[edit] Third-party evaluations

I have been repeatedly complimented on my civility: 2004 May 23 - Stan Shebs says I should be nominated for "WikiSainthood" due to my extraordinary restraint in the face of abuse [27]. Also from that month [28].

2004 Oct 14 (Mediation) - A groundless RfC filed against me by Neutrality and Wik/Gzornenplatz (possibly ancestral to the RfAr) went to mediation with User:Dante Alighieri as mediator. Unlike the arbitrators, DA clearly spent a lot of time thumbing through the edits to see what was what, and issued a long summary on the mediation page. I regard it as clearing me on basically every point [29]: "Frankly, I don't see VV's guilt here"; "I see VV willing to compromise"; "I don't see any clear cut edits that show that VV operates with a lack of good faith". This is as I would expect from any impartial and informed analysis. DA later made several comments on the arbitration talk page opposing the sanctions against me.

AC talk pages - Several users (Everyking, DA, Boraczek, Trey Stone) including even Michael Snow who brought the case and Stargoat who I'd often wrangled with show up to oppose the AC's actions and/or put it in a good word for me. It's not clear the AC bothered to read these.

[edit] The three-revert rule

I was originally going to put something long about the history of the 3RR, but I will summarize. It wasn't policy when I started editing (it took ages for Wik to be put on revert parole), and to my knowledge it never became policy until about a year ago. There was the quickpolls phase before that, and I can tell you what happened to me there, which is pretty appalling, but at the time of my arbitration' it was dead-letter law and furthermore the meta page said that the penalty for breaking it (a "guideline") was maybe the imposition of a three-revert parole [30], nothing anywhere close to what I was subjected to (see ex post facto). Dante Alighieri made well this point [31].

I do not know how to close the gap with the AC here. Their position was that if I was a "good" user I would have obeyed this guideline, dead or not. Mine was that in the absence of such a rule occasional heavy reverting was a useful tool to repel persistent attacks. But perhaps the AC can step away from its absolutism and at least agree that this was a good-faith difference in impression. That the 3RR is now enforced at any rate renders this debate academic, so there is no need to "make an example of me".

It goes without saying that I was generally reverting vandals, stalkers, and wreckers. Their edits (such as many cited here) were often manifestly indefensible and required no "discussion".

[edit] Block by Neutrality

The article Collectivisation in the USSR had been ruined by Ruy Lopez while I was enjoined from editing it. Adam Carr took one look at it and declared, "This article is an utter disgrace." [32] After my ban lapsed I attempted to restore some factual content. Neutrality then blocked me for "reverting". The block was illegitimate for the following reasons:

(a) Neutrality was the author of an RfC against me; admin actions should be undertaken by neutral editors. (b) Neutrality was/is an arbitrator, and arbitrators should not enforce AC rulings. (c) I did not revert. I did copy in some old paragraphs, but left most of the article untouched. By this standard, anyone offering any kind of compromise involving past versions could be considered to be "reverting". (d) Perhaps above all, this was not a simple content dispute; I was fixing garbage.

Although it's a minor issue, the wrongness of this needs to be underscored.

Curiously, Neutrality recently indefinitely blocked a slightly disruptive Holocaust denier and wished to commend his opponent. But apparently he would coddle a hugely disruptive denier of communist atrocities and block his opponent.

[edit] Misc

I've already covered much of the case, but some details remain.

Even Michael Snow, who brought the case but later opposed the penalties, noted the arbitrators were being "sloppy with the evidence" [33] (in a section entitled "Connections between evidence and rulings"; in other words, there weren't any).

Seven arbitrators voted for an injunction banning me from editing on German or Polish subjects. Why? Because they mixed me up with Gzornenplatz! Not one of them even bothered to check up. This total carelessness did not ever change. I protested the injunction on the talk page, and Raul wrote me a very rude note about my editing "on those topics" [34] (this before the case had been decided!). I suggested on his talk page that he apologize to me for these remarks after the error was pointed out, and he ignored me.

I have omitted mention of Shorne, as I think he is already well discredited. (He is even more manic than Ruy Lopez.) But here is an article edit [35] and a typical "edit plus summary to deceive passers-by" [36] and an edit to a talk page (he was revert-warring to remove my comments) [37] (scan the next couple of edits). These are the sorts I was dealing with. Why in the world the AC chose not to see this I don't know.

I followed the news of the tsunami very closely last year, but despite my extensive knowledge and editing skills I was "banned" from contributing. This is almost a reductio ad absurdum against the AC's decision.

I'll add that I often fought off troublemakers, too many to list (for example I was watching many India-related articles which few English-speaking Wikipedians would recognize were being POV'd by a Hindu nationalist extremist; I do not know if those articles have been ruined since my departure). I know I've made mistakes in my tenure here and perhaps was at times too aggressive when dealing with these frustrating nogoodniks, though no evidence of this was presented, but I have always sought to make this an informative, neutral, high-quality encyclopedia, and no mistake I made was as large as the ArbComm's. Driving me away was not just wrong but not in Wikipedia's interests.

Well I have said enough for now. I hope it is enough to make my point.

Sincerely, VeryVerily 21:50, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by party 2

Please limit your statement to 500 words


[edit] Involved parties from the Ruy Lopez case

Note: The arbitration

[edit] Statement by CJK

Since July 2005 I have been involved in the dispute on the Khmer Rouge article, a dispute which really runs back to 2004. Throughout this time Ruy Lopez has been extremely uncooperative with using the discussion page, which he was required to do in a previous arbitration decision. [38]

His tactics are usually to make a controversial edit, then ignore talk page objections. He does respond eventually, but his long-winded rebutals contain little substance to the actual charges and consist mostly of hot air or false accusations. The disputes vary drastically from the entire article [39] to one sentence [40] For instance, currently we are disputing the credibility of a source inserted regarding an alleged CIA operation. NOTE THAT I DO NOT QUESTION WHETHER OR NOT THE SOURCE EXISTS, I AM SIMPLY QUESTIONING ITS RELEVANCE AND CREDIBILITY. Ruy Lopez has made some responses, but does not answer the (perfectly reasonable) questions (stated over and over again), [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] instead asserting himself over and over again with the same jargon and constantly engaging in revert war (which he got blocked for eventually for gaming the system). Sadly, this is not an isolated incident, it appears to be the general editing pattern of Ruy Lopez, though he is more persistant on this page than others.

In addition, he has stalked me in other disputes I had such as Cold War (1953-1962), History of the United States (1945-1964) and Communist State while participating in almost no discussion himself (certainly nothing meaningful).

It's also been rumored that he has edited under a wide-variety of other accounts, which I think should be investigated. CJK 17:18, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Ruy Lopez

I've seen what Jimbo and his lieutenants have done to progressive users like 172, Secretlondon, Wik etc. Even someone mild like Viajero is barely editing any more, and with how Wikipedia has shifted, Mikkalai is now considered far out left. I gave up on Wikipedia months ago, but decided to take a stand on one article and watch the denouement. I already know what the outcome will be, and as often happens to me at the end for me, I see no point in wasting hours of time on this ArbCom case, David Gerard's comments is enough of what I knew I'd see. So I am quitting Wikipedia, permanently.

I withdraw any charges against CJK, TDC or whoever. I removed everything I put into the Khmer Rouge page over the past year. I will not make any edits after this one, outside of my talk page, and only for the next few days. I don't plan to follow this case any more either. Ruy Lopez 00:15, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment I don't think anyone bullied you into quitting. You're just giving up. 'Either my way or the highway.' That's just the kind of attitude that doesn't work on Wikipedia. Anyways, sad to see you go. (Bjorn Tipling 01:33, 22 January 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Statement by DTC 20:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Ruy Lopez’s conduct on Khmer Rouge have been completely unacceptable. For the past 15 months on the article, Lopez has been engaged in a long standing edit war on the article. His proposed contributions have been rejected by the vast majority of the editors, and nearly every one of his edits on that page have been reverted after his general lack of contribution on the discussion page. He shows a complete and utter lack of willingness to work towards a consensus in any article, and even goes so far as to claim that the cabal that runs Wikipedia is hopelessly corrupt and biased: "who runs Wikipedia? The answer is the millionaire Ayn Rand devotee Jimbo Wales, and to a lesser extent his various lieutenants". This RfArb is long overdue.

There is also little dount that Lopez has used numerous Sockpuppets to attack users, and wage his edit wars in other articles. One his many suspected sockpuppetsis User:Lancemurdoch, who has had very similar things to say about the Cabal that runs Wikipedia: "Or perhaps Wikipedia is owned and controlled by a wealthy capitalist, Jimbo, and he and his little cabal see Mr. Poor as their brethren and invited him into ranks" DTC 20:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Preliminary decisions

[edit] Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (4/0/3/0)

  • Accept - sounds like it might be worthwhile to take another look. Raul654 04:15, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Recuse Fred Bauder 14:57, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Accept. Jayjg (talk) 20:19, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Accept. Kelly Martin (talk) 23:47, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Accept ➥the Epopt 00:00, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Recuse. Neutralitytalk 21:09, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Unrecuse self from all pre-voting cases. Sam Korn (smoddy) 21:11, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Recuse (no nudging). Mackensen (talk) 15:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Temporary injunction (none)

[edit] Final decision

All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)

[edit] Principles

[edit] Sockpuppetry

1) "The reason for discouraging sock puppets is to prevent abuses such as ... using multiple accounts to circumvent Wikipedia policies." -- Wikipedia:Sock puppetry

Passed 7 to 0 at 15:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Findings of fact

[edit] Ruy Lopez sockpuppetry

1) There is strong evidence to suggest that Ruy Lopez has repeatedly made use of sockpuppets to evade arbitration related decisions [48] This connection has been confirmed by David Gerard [49] in at least one case.

Passed 7 to 0 at 15:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

[edit] Remedies vacated

1) Remedy 3 from Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gzornenplatz, Kevin Baas, Shorne, VeryVerily ("VeryVerily, Shorne, and Gzornenplatz are hereby limited to one revert per page per day (this includes any page editable on the English Wikipedia).") and enforcement 1 ("If Gzornenplatz, Shorne, or VeryVerily should revert a page more than once per day, an administrator may ban him for up to 24 hours.") are vacated with respect to VeryVerily. Remedy 4 from Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gzornenplatz, Kevin Baas, Shorne, VeryVerily ("Gzornenplatz, Shorne, and VeryVerily, and Ruy Lopez are required to discuss all reverts on the relevant talk page, with the goal of finding mutually acceptable compromises.") and enforcement 2 ("If Gzornenplatz, Shorne, or VeryVerily should revert a page without discussing it on the relevant talk page, an administrator may ban him for up to 24 hours.") remain in full effect.

Passed 7 to 0 at 15:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ruy Lopez sockpuppetry

2) Ruy Lopez is prohibited from editing using any sockpuppet account. Suspected Ruy Lopez sockpuppets may be banned, and administrators may ban Ruy Lopez for up to 2 months for each confirmed sockpuppet he uses.

Passed 7 to 0 at 15:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ruy Lopez placed on Probation

3) Ruy Lopez is placed on Probation. Any administator may ban Ruy Lopez from an article where he is engaged in edit warring, removal of sourced material, POV reorganizations of the article or any other activity which that administrator considers disruptive.

Passed 7 to 0 at 15:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] VeryVerily appeal option

4) If after 4 months of regular and frequent editing, VeryVerily can show he has not been involved in serious edit warring or other interpersonal disputes, he may file a "request for clarification" that the remaining sanctions on his behavior (Remedy 4 and enforcement 2 from Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gzornenplatz, Kevin Baas, Shorne, VeryVerily) be lifted.

Passed 6 to 1 at 15:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Enforcement

[edit] Enforcement by block

1) Should Ruy Lopez violate any ban he may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the event of repeat offenses. After 5 blocks the maximum block shall increase to one year. Blocks to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Appeal of VeryVerily#Documentation of blocks and bans.

Passed 7 to 0 at 15:13, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Documentation of bans

Place here the basis of any action taken under the provisions of any remedy under Wikipedia:Probation imposed in this matter. Include a link to a statement of all administrators supporting the action taken.