Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/C68-FM-SV

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Case Opened on 11:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Watchlist all case pages: 1, 2, 3, 4
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Contents

[edit] Involved parties

[edit] Requests for comment

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

[edit] Statement by FeloniousMonk

Cla68 regularly engages in the harassment of long-term editors he dislikes, essentially waging war on them. He wikistalks them, inserts himself into content and other disputes they are involved in, assumes the worst of them, tries to stir up trouble against them, and encourages others to join in. His focus on editors he dislikes is sustained, continuing over many months, and appears to be malicious and obsessive, apparently designed to drive them away from Wikipedia, or at least to make them feel very uncomfortable.

He has focused particularly on SlimVirgin, dredging up ancient diffs to keep the issues going, even though she avoids interacting with him. This RfAr is being filed because he shows no signs of stopping the behavior, and if anything is escalating it.

The origins of Cla68's grudge against SlimVirgin go back to his March 2007 RFA, which failed over his support for User:WordBomb. Months afterwards he was still insisting that SlimVirgin had lied about him, and that she should be de-sysopped e.g. [1]. His behavior became increasingly disruptive, particularly around articles related to Gary Weiss, until on October 20, 2007, he was finally blocked for disruption. After being unblocked, he apologized to Jimbo for his "ill-considered comment that served to cause more drama, which wasn't appropriate," and promisedhe would "get back to editing military history articles and trying to help improve the project." [2] However, he fell back into old patterns, in particular his vendetta against SlimVirgin, refusing to let it drop, continuing to make negative comments about others, and using various subtle and not-so-subtle methods of harassment. He also expanded his activities to assuming bad faith about, or attempting to bully, any admin he saw as supportive of SlimVirgin (particularly those who opposed his RFA), or as hostile to WordBomb.

Most recently Cla68 implicitly threatened to out various editors with the press. Despite requests from several editors to repudiate his implicit threat, his initial responses are similarly menacing, e.g. "If the editors in question correct their behavior, then I'll gladly move on to other issues." "Like I said, if there aren't any more conduct problems (edit warring, canvassing, etc) related to ID articles, then I leave it alone." Only after five days of posts on his Talk: page from a half dozen editors indicating the inappropriateness of his comments, he finally apologizes "for not choosing my words more carefully."

Requests that Cla68 stop his harassment, disruption, or WP:POINT
Nov 6, 2006 - SlimVirgin; Oct 21, 2007 - Jimbo; Oct 21, 2007 - Slrubenstein; Nov 17, 2007 - JzG; Nov 24, 2007 - JzG; Nov 27, 2007 - MONGO; Nov 29, 2007 - Rockpocket; Dec 13, 2007 - FeloniousMonk; Feb 13, 2008 - Crum375; Feb 13, 2008 - MONGO; Apr 2, 2008 - MONGO; Apr 2, 2008 - MONGO; Apr 2, 2008 - MONGO; May 8, 2008 - Georgewilliamherbert; May 8, 2008 - Guettarda; May 10, 2008 - FeloniousMonk; May 10, 2008 - Raul654
Evidence
User talk:FeloniousMonk/Cla68 Arbcom evidence

I am requesting a remedy which stops Cla68 from harassing and making gratuitous and bad-faith comments about editors he dislikes, from using RFCs as weapons in his vendettas, and from attempting to coerce editors through threats, explicit and implicit.

[edit] Statement by SlimVirgin

I ask that this be accepted. Cla68 does good work in the main namespace, but it is constantly punctuated by prolonged attempts to make the project a toxic place for others. I have been one of his targets for over a year. It has involved wikistalking me to articles and talk pages I edit a lot and that Cla has never edited, claims that I edit in bad faith, that I am a liar, that I abuse the admin tools, that I am a "formerly respected" editor, and that I am up to something and need to be investigated. He often refers to my alleged sockpuppetry, and encourages others to post links to attack sites or posts them himself.

I have stayed away from him and haven't responded for months to the taunting, but despite that, he started a user subpage about me in March, which he continues to work on. It is purportedly a draft RfC, but in my view it is just an attack page. The subheads have included at various points, "Lying or other unethical behavior," "Personal attacks, retaliation, bullying, and attempts to intimidate," "Abuse of administrator privileges," "bad faith editing," and "abusive sockpuppetry." [3] [4] The diffs do not bear out the claims. His edit summaries seem intended to provoke e.g. "un-freaking-believable," [5] "you've got to be kidding me," [6] "incredible," [7] and "wow." [8] He has gone through my talk page and asked 45 editors who have disagreed with me about something (going back many months or even years) to take part in constructing the subpage, although I'm glad to say that very few have joined in, and some have taken issue with him. I believe the aim of the page is to cause me distress in the hope that I'll respond badly, which would allow him to kick up more fuss.

I'm by no means the only person he has done this to. He has targeted Jossi and several others, and he tried to make hay out of the coverage about Jimbo. His approach to people he dislikes is basically one of constant niggling, exaggeration, and attempts to humiliate. Any help from the ArbCom in putting an end to it would be very much appreciated. SlimVirgin talk|edits 21:31, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Cla68

I believe the contents of that draft RfC in my userspace may be at issue here if ArbCom accepts this case, so I added SlimVirgin to the list of parties here. That draft RfC also contains diffs to edits made by FeloniousMonk (FM) [9]. I notice that within a few hours of me adding those diffs to the draft, FM initiated this ArbCom case.

First of all, SlimVirgin is correct to complain about those edit summaries of mine in that draft RfC. Those edit summaries are unprofessional and I shouldn't have done them. I apologize to SlimVirgin and promise not to repeat that behavior. If the arbitrators believe I should be sanctioned for those edit summaries, I'll accept the sanction because I was wrong and accept accountability.

I don't believe there should be an issue with having a draft RfC in userspace. This was done with the JzG RfC in order to facilitate collaborative involvement. Just a few hours ago someone helped edit the SlimVirgin draft RfC in my userspace [10]. I believe the content added so far to that draft RfC speaks for itself and is deserving of community comment once it gets posted. I hope that this effort by FM to bring this up here isn't an attempt to preempt the RfC from taking place.

The diffs helpfully provided by FM show either attempts at dispute resolution on my part, or responses to other editors. Full use of dispute resolution hasn't been accomplished here yet. FM didn't include a diff from a month ago in which I politely, but directly, asked him on his userpage for an explanation about a personal attack he had launched some time before, but for which he had apparently never apologized or retracted [11]. FM deleted my attempt at dispute resolution without answering [12]. Cla68 (talk) 23:06, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Addition: I just noticed SV's comment that some editors that I contacted have reacted adversely to the RfC draft. Well, some of the editors I contacted responded by email, saying that they couldn't communicate with me publicly about the RfC, for fear of retaliation. Would SV or FM have any comment on why other editors in the project would feel that way? Cla68 (talk) 00:50, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, to make things clear in case I wasn't above, there is a dispute between me, FeloniousMonk (FM), and SlimVirgin (SV). I was preparing an RfC to invite community input into the dispute. Although the RfC focused on SV, it included diffs of troublesome behavior by FM. FM appears to be leapfrogging over the dispute resolution chain in order to bring this here. Community input would probably be desirable first. Once the RfC was posted, FM would be able to list the same diffs for the community to comment on. I'm fine with airing the dispute here, but this isn't usually how we do things, judging from what I've seen in previous ArbCom requests here. Cla68 (talk) 07:49, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Preliminary decisions

[edit] Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (4/0/1/0)

[edit] Temporary injunction (none)

[edit] Final decision (none yet)

All numbering based on /Proposed decision, where vote counts and comments are also available.

[edit] Principles

[edit] Findings of fact

[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] Enforcement

[edit] Log of blocks, bans, and restrictions

Log any block, restriction, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision here. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.