Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Free Republic

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Case Opened on 19:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Case Closed on 00:34, 29 March 2007 (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] Statement by Prodego

These parties have been constantly arguing over the content of the article Free Republic, each inserting their own version of WP:NPOV. On the one side, FAAFA and Ben are allegedly anti-Free Republic, while DeanHinnen, who claims to work for Free Republic, is pro-FR. After an initial revert war, there has been a constant bickering on the article's talk page over sources, including a call that was made to a Wikimedia employee, Carolyn Doran, by someone who was allegedly the author of the source, TJ Walker, saying that the story was fake. However, later evidence, the article appearing on an official list of articles written by Walker. The dispute originally started between BryanFromPalatine and Ben/FAAFA, and Bryan was blocked for disruption (by me). He has since been indefinitely blocked for using sockpuppets to evade his block. Now a new user, Dean Hinnen, who uses the same IP as Bryan [1], and claims to be his brother, has taken that point of view. He alleges that Ben and FAFFA are Democratic Underground members, and that they are adding an anti-FR point of view to the article. Hinnen's first edit was to Free Republic, and was immediately blocked (again by me) as a sockpuppet of Bryan's. However, he was unblocked after discussion on unblock-en-l. He is not currently editing the article, and thus avoiding WP:COI. While Dean could be blocked for meatpuppetry, a binding decision needs to be made on the article and on the conduct of these users. This is not a one sided problem, both sides of this debate have valid complaints. In addition to Dean's problems, FAAFA has contacted APJ, which has involved their legal department in Dean's allegation that their article is fake (or plagiarism). BenBurch has been attacking Dean on the article's talk page. This situation needs to be resolved, before it continues to escalate. Prodego talk 01:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by BenBurch

A number of people including several admins have prevailed upon me to stay here, and I will. But if I am less active than usual, please understand. OK? --BenBurch 04:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

  1. I rejected mediation as I promised to have nothing whatsoever to do with the Free Republic article, and in fact have recused myself from that article, so could not agree to anything in mediation as I will not be touching that article again.
  2. I have no objection (and have said so repeatedly) with working with ONE copy of BryanFromPalatine, but I object very strongly to block evading and consensus busting sock puppets. He *might* simply be Brian's brother, but if so he only showed up to take up his brother's agenda basically word-for-word. I do wish he would moderate his tone and stop wikilawyering every point that seems to go against his wishes, but I stand ready to work with him in a constructive fashion. (Though I will not be doing so on Free Republic due to my recusal.)
  3. I apologize for being un-civil in my dealings with DeanHinnen, this stems from my conviction that he was there only in evasion of a block and my reaction to his uncivil and threatening tone. I should simply have ignored him, and it is to my own weakness that I did not.
  4. DeanHinnen appears to have manipulated an employee of Wikimedia Foundation into taking action on his behalf with complete falsehoods. He asserted that TJ Walker did not write a piece he did in fact write, he asserted that the piece was libelous when it was not as no true story is libelous no matter how damaging it might be to one's reputation, he claimed to have spoken with TJ Walker, which appears to not have been possible given that he would have Walker denying authorship of a piece we can prove he wrote and published, he claimed to have intimidated American Politics Journal into removing the piece from their web site when the fact is that they were migrating to a content management system and it is taking time to get the older articles back online, all of which he used to argue for removal of sourced and true material that the majority of editors of the Free Republic article had agreed should remain.
  5. Both DeanHinnen and BryanFromPalatine have an identical reaction to not getting their way; They become abusive, threatening, begin wikilawyering, make the edits against consensus, and if none of that works, bring in sock puppets to create the illusion of a change in consensus. This must stop.
  6. I ask for censure for DeanHinnen for his false accusation of felony harassment against me in the recent ANI proceeding; [1]
“ MY GOD, people. I haven't even pointed out half of the %$%#&@$% my family has been through over this. My brother's full name with a link to his home address and phone number were posted on his User page after he had been blocked, and was therefore unable to remove it. The post was made from a single-post open proxy account.

My brother's wife then started receiving crank calls. The police became involved and put a trap on the line. There was one more crank call traced to a pay phone in Elgin, Illinois. BenBurch's User page says that he is from Elgin, Illinois. This is stalking, people. It isn't just Wikistalking. It's real stalking and people who have never been involved with Wikipedia are being victimized. The only reason that I have not been similarly targeted YET is that my number has always been unlisted. And you think more useless warnings are the answer? Dino 17:04, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

 ”

(And I should note that, thanks to the en-unblock-l list I've known his work address and phone for weeks now, and I have not bothered him or his employer - and never would.)

7. I urge the arbitrators to take this case. If I'm found at fault I'll take my lumps. But this matter needs a resolution for the good of this project. --BenBurch 16:55, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Fairness And Accuracy For All

(refactored) I will readily admit that I have displayed a distinct lack of good faith, good will and civility towards Dean Hinnen. The question is why - and was it justified. I contend that I can categorically prove yes - my conduct was not only justified but entirely appropriate. Underlying issues are if the conclusive evidence showing that Hinnen had been blatantly dishonest from day one, and had acted far outside the bounds of acceptable user conduct by coercing a WMF employee to edit on his behalf through misrepresentation, deceit, and duplicity, along with implied and/or overt threats of legal action, justified my suspension of AGF towards Hinnen, as permissible under AGF. I assert that it did. I urge Arbcom to accept this case and I am so positive that Hinnen's claim that TJ Walker 'admitted' to him that 'he didn't write' his 1999 article - the claim that is responsible for this whole sordid mess (see below) is a fabrication - that If I am wrong, I ask and implore (I would write 'demand' but understand that demands aren't too popular with you guys and gals ;-) that Arbcom permaban me.

Hinnen's very first edit (Jan. 15 edit #1) was to the Free Republic article discussion page announcing that he had coerced WMF employee Carolyn Doran (not an active editor - not a lawyer - and I presume not an expert on WP) to edit on his behalf, to his POV, after claiming that he (Hinnen) had contacted noted and notable author, pundit, and media coach TJ Walker (CBS and National Review and TJ's Insights) who supposedly 'admitted' to Hinnen that he 'did not write' his 1999 article entitled Is the FreeRepublic.Com Really DeathThreat.Com? ( webarchive of article - well worth reading) Hinnen claimed (in his very first edit): "I contacted TJ Walker and asked him whether he authored the article. He said, "Of course not." (quotation marks Hinnen's) and raised the spectre of a possible libel suit against Wikipedia if she didn't.

See my evidence page for more evidence

[edit] Statement by DeanHinnen

There will be an effort by admins and a temptation on the part of Arbitrators to say, "A pox on both your houses" and ban all three of us. I encourage you to resist this temptation and look past the spin-doctoring by others. Look at the facts.

Please forgive the length of this post. There has been so much distortion (and in some cases, honest confusion) by others that a lot of words are needed to clarify the facts. Also, there's the inexcusable escalation to WP:STALK that others have carefully tiptoed around, hoping you won't notice.

Please be patient. There's a lot of ground to cover.

Regarding the contacts to TJ Walker's office and WMF, there has been no effort at dispute resolution by anyone. For that reason alone, this issue should not be considered by ArbCom until the proper dispute resolution proceedings have been followed. Also, it's a complex issue; WP:OFFICE can be expected to take adequate care of itself; and there are a lot of other issues to cover that have been exhaustively discussed at several levels of dispute resolution. BenBurch and FAAFA should not be rewarded for refusing to participate in dispute resolution on this issue. Nevertheless, I'm prepared to bring in Carolyn Doran, Chief Operating Officer of WMF, if ArbCom feels like exploring this issue. Carolyn and I had developed a good professional relationship even before my first edit here.

Regarding the sockpuppet claim that others just keep trying to resurrect, despite the fact that it was cremated by the truth weeks ago, read this: “Not a sockpuppet.” I was called a "paragon of civility" at Unblock-en-l. I revealed a substantial amount of personal information to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that I am not a sockpuppet. In addition to private information made public on Unblock-en-l, I also e-mailed other personal information to some of the admins because I didn't want to make it public.

This started as a content dispute with episodes of edit warring and incivility on one article. Normally it would merit warnings and 24-hour blocks. In response to WP:COI concerns, everyone's attention is cordially directed to the fact I've voluntarily refrained from editing the Free Republic article. This was self-imposed. I did impose it on myself in response to expectations at Unblock-en-l that I'd have to avoid the appearance of being a sockpuppet. But I suggested this specific limitation. It was not suggested by anyone else. I was to be allowed to continue to participate on the Talk page, attempting to convince others to remove a link to an article I find libelous, and no other restrictions were placed on my participation: such as dispute resolution against people who have relentlessly baited Bryan, or editing other articles. Unblock-en-l immediately and unanimously accepted this one limitation as the way to avoid even the appearance of being a sockpuppet or meatpuppet.

If only the others involved in this dispute were as proactive in dealing with their own obvious COI problems. And if we are going to have such processes then other editors and especially administrators, for God's sake, should be expected to accept the results unless strong new evidence comes to light. Otherwise the result is constant warfare as you can see. I should have been able to rely on this decision by Unblock-en-l to protect me, and rely on administrators to accept it and enforce it, because I have adhered to that self-imposed limitation to the letter.

When it comes to libel, I'm not going to compromise or back down. Nor should I be expected to do so. The Siegenthaler case should be remembered here. It didn't just cost Wikipedia attorney fees; even more important, it damaged Wikipedia's reputation. My interests here are to protect Wikipedia from civil liability and further loss of reputation, first and foremost; second, to ensure that WP:BLP and WP:NPOV#Undue_weight are obeyed; and third, to turn bad articles into Good Articles and, hopefully, Featured Articles.

As I said at Unblock-en-l, I recognize that Free Republic, and other conservative organizations and politicians, have their share of warts and blemishes. I do not want to whitewash them despite accusations to the contrary by others. I want fair and balanced articles about them. However, others want to put the warts and blemishes under a microscope. They want to make Wikipedia articles all about the warts and blemishes of conservative organizations and politicians. Compare January 14 versions of Free Republic and Democratic Underground, for example; or February 5 versions of Peter Roskam and Melissa Bean.

I tried RfM. BenBurch almost immediately refused, stating at the time that since he was taking a two-week break from the Free Republic article, he didn't want mediation; ignoring the inevitability of his later resumption of this conflict, either at that article or elsewhere. (Eventually he went out of his way to be sure that the conflict was resumed.)

Later, on the advice of JzG, for a few days I stayed away from the Free Republic article. The libelous material I was concerned about had recently been removed. The Talk page had been the scene of many arguments, and a lot of baiting and badgering by BenBurch and FAAFA. JzG also warned the two of them, in the strongest possible terms, to leave me alone. I thought that moving to a different article would make a difference.

They abandoned that article and followed me to the Peter Roskam article, where their baiting and badgering continued unabated, directed at myself and at others. This escalated the situation from a case of content dispute and incivility to a case of Wikistalking. The Wikipedia policy page contains precedents decided by ArbCom and administrators should have followed them, imposing either one-year blocks or permanent bans against these two at WP:ANI.

That would have been the end of it. I don't have much of a problem with any other editor, certainly nothing that couldn't have been worked out. JzG deliberately refused to enforce the official policy and ArbCom precedents contained in WP:STALK, going so far as to post an animated GIF that represented me beating a dead horse.

I had disengaged. They had followed. I gave them warnings and cited WP:STALK. They ignored my warnings and said, "Bring it on!" Just as they have ignored so many, many previous warnings. Since there are two of them and only one of me, the effect of their constant baiting and harassment has been increased exponentially. I'm not responsible for this escalation, and attempted to remain civil. The deliberate defiance of WP:STALK couldn't be more obvious, and yet JzG and others refused to enforce your policy. And here, they continue to refuse any acknowledgement that WP:STALK has been violated.

The archives of FAAFA's Talk page are wallpapered with warnings, and he's recently returned from a 24-hour block for incivility. The same can be said for BenBurch with the distinction that he returned from his 24-hour block for incivility about ten days ago. BenBurch admits that his purpose for stalking me was to bait me into incivility: "I can think of no other way to force him to get the attention of enough admins to finally get one of them to deal with him." Unbelievably, even after the community solution from WP:ANI, FAAFA has continued his baiting. Both continue to follow me wherever I go on Wikipedia, attempting to start a new edit war.

Despite my efforts I have not always responded to their relentless baiting and intractable POV pushing with complete civility. I've made mistakes in the past and I apologize for those mistakes. I accept responsibility for my actions. Over the past three days I've redoubled my efforts to remain civil despite their baiting. I believe my contrib history confirms this. But as my conduct improved, theirs grew worse. They escalated from a content dispute with moments of incivility to Wikistalking.

Also, they have exhibited a combative disposition and engaged in POV pushing since long before anyone resembling me ever arrived here. Nobody should be allowed to pretend that I am responsible for provoking this conduct. After all, BenBurch got a 24-hour block for "edit warring on Free Republic" in January 2006; and FAAFA (in his previous guise as NBGPWS) was repeatedly blocked. When I arrived, the Free Republic article was a partisan hatchet job.

I ask the arbitrators to recognize the recent improvement in my conduct and my effort to disengage, and the continued escalation of this dispute by FAAFA and BenBurch in refusing to allow me to disengage. The exponential increase in the level of harassment and intimidation in a two-against-one dispute, and in brazen defiance of official WP:STALK policy as expressed by "Bring it on!" should also be considered. Dino 12:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (5/0/1/0)

  • Accept. FloNight 12:59, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Recuse. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 15:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Accept to investigate conflict of interest, skullduggery and anything else that comes to light. One thing we don't need to be here is a perch for migrating Internet quarrels. Charles Matthews
  • Accept. - SimonP 14:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Accept. Paul August ☎ 16:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Accept. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 18:14, 13 February 2007 (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] Neutral point of view

1) Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a policy, requires that articles regarding controversial subjects shall in a conservative sober manner set forth all significant points of view regarding the subject.

Passed 8 to 0, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Verifiable information from reliable sources

2.1) Wikipedia:Attribution, a policy, requires that information included in an article on a subject be limited to verifiable information from reliable sources.

Passed 8 to 0, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No original research

3.1) Wikipedia:Attribution, a policy, precludes use of personal experience as source for information in an article.

Passed 8 to 0, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restriction of disruptive editors

4) The editing of users who disrupt editing by edit warring, use of sockpuppets, personal attacks or incivility, or aggressive sustained point of view editing may be restricted. In extreme cases they may be banned from the site.

Passed 8 to 0, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conflict of interest

5) Users who are involved in an activity which is the subject of an article may be banned from the article if their editing is disruptive.

Passed 6 to 2, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proxy users

6.2) New users whose behavior matches that of a restricted user may be considered subject to the same restrictions regardless of whether they are actually the same person or another individual acting as a proxy for them.

Passed 8 to 0, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Advocacy and propaganda

7) Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a soapbox, a policy, forbids use of Wikipedia as a vehicle for advocacy or propaganda.

Passed 8 to 0, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Findings of fact

[edit] Articles in dispute

1) The articles in dispute include Free Republic (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs), Democratic Underground (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs), related articles, and other articles which relate to political figures and issues in the United States.

Passed 8 to 0, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Participants in the dispute

3) Major participants in the dispute include BenBurch (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log), DeanHinnen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log), BryanFromPalatine (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log), Fairness And Accuracy For All (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) and others, many of whom are also involved in editing the forums Free Republic and Democratic Underground.

Passed 7 to 1, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fairness And Accuracy For All has engaged in discourtesy, personal attacks, and gross misbehavior

4) Fairness And Accuracy For All (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log), who edited before October 29, 2006 as NBGPWS (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log), has engaged in gross misbehavior [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], and [19].

Passed 8 to 0, Newyorkbrad 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sockpuppetry by BryanFromPalatine

5.1) After being blocked, BryanFromPalatine edited Free Republic and Talk:Free Republic using a variety of IP addresses and sockpuppets (see evidence [20] [21] [22] [23] and checkuser results.) Bryan was blocked twice more and then banned for disruption [24].

Passed 8 to 0, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DeanHinnen

6.1) DeanHinnen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) from his first edit has engaged in disruptive behavior which matches BryanFromPalatine's.

Passed 8 to 0, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing by other users

7) Most other editors, including BenBurch (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) have generally edited in a responsible, if point of view, manner.

Passed 7 to 1, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Eschoir

8.1) Eschoir (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) was previously involved in serious external conflict with Free Republic.

Passed 8 to 0, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing of disputed articles

9) The articles in dispute, Free Republic and Democratic Underground, have been subject to edit warring and point of view editing by the contestants. Often disputes have focused around anecdotal incidents garnered from unreliable sources, often personal research by Wikipedia editors or participants on the forums. Little information in either article is based on reliable third party sources.

Passed 8 to 0, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (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] Community ban of BryanFromPalatine endorsed

1.1) The indefinite community ban of BryanFromPalatine for tendentious editing, personal attacks, block evasion and disruption is endorsed. The ban also applies to DeanHinnen and all other proxies or sockpuppets of BryanFromPalatine.

Passed 8 to 0, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fairness And Accuracy For All banned

2) Fairness And Accuracy For All is banned from Wikipedia for one year.

Passed 7 to 1, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Free Republic placed on article probation

4) Free Republic (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) is placed on article probation. It is expected that the article will be improved to conform with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, that information contained in it will be supported by verifiable information from reliable sources. The article may be reviewed on the motion of any arbitrator, or upon acceptance by the Arbitration Committee of a motion made by any user. Users whose editing is disruptive may be banned or their editing restricted as the result of a review.

Passed 7 to 1, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Democratic Underground placed on article probation

5) Democratic Underground (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) is placed on article probation. It is expected that the article will be improved to conform with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, that information contained in it will be supported by verifiable information from reliable sources. The article may be reviewed on the motion of any arbitrator, or upon acceptance by the Arbitration Committee of a motion made by any user. Users whose editing is disruptive may be banned or their editing restricted as the result of a review.

Passed 7 to 1, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Amendment by motion

In light of continued disputes, remedy 4 adopted in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Free Republic is amended by adding:

"Additionally, any uninvolved administrator may impose a reasonable editing restriction (for example, 1RR) or page ban upon any editor who repeatedly engages in disruptive or uncivil editing of Free Republic or any closely related page. Prior to imposing such a ban or restriction, a warning should be given on the affected user's talkpage. All bans and restrictions shall be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Free Republic#Log of blocks and bans."
All editors, particularly including single purpose accounts and editors who have or may reasonably be perceived as having a conflict of interest, are strongly urged to edit Free Republic and related articles only in conformity with all Wikipedia policies and with this committee's prior decision. If the enhanced administrator authority provided in this ruling does not improve the situation on this article after 30 days, a request for a more formal Arbitration Committee review may be submitted.
passed 8-0 with one abstention at 16:24, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Enforcement

[edit] Enforcement by block

1) Bans imposed by this decision may be enforced by blocks of appropriate length. All blocks are to be recorded at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Free Republic#Log of blocks and bans.

Passed 8 to 0, 00:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Log of blocks and bans

Log any block, 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.