Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Freedom skies/Evidence

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Notice Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs; a shorter, concise presentation is more likely to be effective. Please focus on the issues raised in the complaint and on diffs which illustrate behavior which relates to the issues. If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.

When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-conciousness rants are not helpful.

As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey use this form: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anomalous_phenomenon&diff=5587219&oldid=5584644] [1].

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.

Be aware that the Arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to refactor the page, let the Arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the arbitrators to move.

The Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as Arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.

Contents


[edit] Evidence presented by JFD

[edit] Freedom skies' POV and WP:SOAP

Freedom skies: Actually, I can assert that India's achievements are inherently great. It's a fact, try living with it.

This pretty much sums up the whole of Freedom skies' edit history.

[edit] Freedom skies cites sources which do not support his claims

Addendum

[edit] BBC

MichaelMaggs
The article states that "In addition, reputed organizations such as the British Broadcasting Corporation,[2] the New York Times,[3][4] and the Discovery Channel[5] to name a few, have also rejected the revisionist claims."
But the BBC cite links to a 2004 news report of the film Kill Bill part 2, the only relevent part of which says:
"According to legend, kung fu was brought to China by an Indian Buddhist who settled in the north of the country in the Tang dynasty, over 1,000 years ago. He is said to have set up a Shaolin temple, and taught martial arts to his disciples."
Which doesn't support the allegation at all as it explicitly calls the story a legend. I am removing the BBC reference until a better source can be found.
MichaelMaggs
The article says that the BBC .. has "rejected the revisionist claims". As I understand it, whoever wrote 'revisionist claims' intended it to mean 'claims that deny there was any Indian influence on Chinese martial arts'. The BBC Kill Bill page does not reject that stance; indeed if anything it appears to support it by explicitly calling the ku-fu-came-from-India story a legend rather than a fact. There may be other source which support your belief, but this one does not. You may like to consider revising the sentence to avoid the incorrect implication that "reputed organizations such as the British Broadcasting Corporation" back up the out-of-India view. The cited page neither backs it up nor denies it; it simply calls it a "legend".
Freedom skies
Not quite. The BBC mention endorses the effect of Ta Mo not disputes it. The legend has been cited when the question of the origin of Shaolin arts appeared.
To quote the section in it's entire context:
Legend
The presence of such strong influences from just one city in so many films is remarkable - however it has surprising origins.
Keanu Reeves in The Matrix
The Matrix series borrows heavily from China
According to legend, kung fu was brought to China by an Indian Buddhist who settled in the north of the country in the Tang dynasty, over 1,000 years ago. He is said to have set up a Shaolin temple, and taught martial arts to his disciples.
But the origins of the kung fu that is part of popular culture are from around 100 years ago when a soldier, who had learned from the Shaolin monks, was forced to hide in a Cantonese opera troupe.
It is said that eventually he taught the moves to the members.
"They can't use actual fighting on stage, so they transform it into some kind of dance-like action," explained Hong Kong film archive programmer Law Kar.
"Then the Cantonese actors brought the tradition into Chinese cinema.
"So in early Cantonese cinema, in the 1960s and even in the 1970s, the scenes of fighting in films are in fact opera-stage fighting. They're not real kung fu."
Instead, the kung fu seen on screen is more balletic, and based on movement.
Cheng-Sim Lim said that this was what made it exciting on film - and why it had proved so influential.
"There is a clarity to the way they construct these scenes," she said.
"You don't just move the camera in a blur to suggest action - you actually show the action.
"That's what's so incredible, because you see people - even though they may be wearing wires and all that kind of stuff - you see the body in motion, and it's beautiful."
The "Legend" heading covers very well established facts about Kung Fu movies as well. In addition of providing Bodhidharma as a source of Shaolin martial arts. My own opinion on this might differ but the endorsement is clear. The legend section covers what the BBC has put forward as origins of sholin martial arts and then goes forward to the development of cinema further in the same section.
MichaelMaggs
I've read the Kill Bill page through very carefully, and I'm afraid I have no idea what you mean. You may be reading into it something I just don't see. Is my summary, above, of what you mean by 'revisionist' correct? Sorry if I'm just being thick, but can you please point out to me the exact words used in the Kill Bill article which demonstrate that the BBC "rejected the revisionist claims".

[edit] The New York Times

MichaelMaggs
I have removed two web pages. The first linked to a non-public page that is accessible by registered users only. The second [6] does not support the statement that the New York Times has "rejected the revisionist claims". What it actually says is:
The introduction of fighting skills at Shaolin Monastery has been attributed in legend to the Indian monk Bodhidharma, who went to the monastery in 527, three decades after it was founded by Batuo, another Indian monk. Bodhidharma allegedly spent nine years in contemplation, facing the wall of a cave on Song Mountain above the monastery. For exercise and protection from wild animals, he taught himself self-defense and later passed the skills along to his disciples.
Actually, the ancient martial arts probably originated even earlier as Buddhist monks learned to fend off brigands and other predators. Variations of their refined techniques subsequently reached Japan, Okinawa, Korea and other Asian countries that developed their own distinct fighting styles.
which makes it very clear that Bodhidharma's involvement "has been attributed in legend". Which is hardly a rejection of what the article calls the 'revisionist' view - that his involvement is legendary and can't actually be proved.
Freedom skies
The article endorses the legend instead of endorsing conflicting revisionist theories. Hence the idea of it being used as citable evidence of how when the history of Kung Fu is mentioned the historians point towards taditional claims instead of citing modern revisionist works.

[edit] Talk:Civilization

Endroit
Freedom skies, you need appropriate citation to claim the 2333 BC date. The sources you provided are failing miserably:
  • This citation you gave[7] says Korea is "considered one of the oldest civilizations in the world," but the oldest date is gives is 37 BC.
  • This citation you gave[8] (in Korean) says that the 2333BC date is doubtful, and that Samguk Yusa deliberately manipulated this date to make their own kingdom look greater. I translated this passage in your cited source: "《삼국유사》에 전하는 단군신화에서는 기원전 2333년에 단군이 고조선을 건국하였다고 기술하였으나, 그대로 믿기 어렵다. 건국연대를 위로 끌어올린 이유는, 역사가 오래될수록 그 왕조는 권위가 있으며 민족도 위대하다는 인식의 반영에 불과하다. "
If anything, the second source you gave proves that the 2333 BC date is dubious. The first source you gave claims Korea is one of the oldest based on a 37 BC date
Also note that Freedom skies accuses Endroit of Chinese nationalism: "I understand your Chinese nationalism..."[9]
Endroit.

[edit] Freedom skies cites unreliable sources

Addendum

[edit] Alex Doss

Steelhead: i checked up on alex doss. He is a president of one branch of this college organization. In america, the only way you can be a president of a college organization is if you actually go to college. thus, doss is probably only 18-21 years old and most likely he has yet to graduate from college. Why in the world are you using a website from the ramblings of a teenager in college?
Jagged 85: Alex Doss is a scholar at San Diego State University.
Freedom skies: Doss's works will be cited, if you want to strip him of his posts and accomplishments, do so in court.
Alex Doss: I am a student at San Diego State University.

"Doss's works" consist of a single article hosted on a Tamil nationalist website.

In another attempt to fake research, Freedom skies cuts & pastes the bibliography from Alex Doss' article into Indian martial arts.
What gives Freedom skies away is that his bibliography makes the exact same spelling errors as Doss' ("Pratap," "Encyclopecia").

[edit] Lotus Sutra

The ''Lotus Sutra'' also categorized combat techniques as [[Grappling hold|joint locks]], [[Punch (strike)|fist strikes]], [[Grappling|grapples]], and [[Throw (grappling)|throws]],<ref>[ http://www.uta.edu/student_orgs/umaa/htmlDocs/history.html History of Taekwondo.] University Martial Arts Association.</ref> and also referred to a martial art with dance-like movements called ''Nara''.<ref>Tim Steinwachs. [ http://home.maine.rr.com/poiuyt/history.html History of Karate.]</ref>[10]

Why is Freedom skies citing a couple of personal webpages on the contents of the Lotus Sutra rather than the Lotus Sutra itself?

[edit] Freedom skies edit wars

I have supplied most of Freedom skies' edit war diffs from October 2006 onwards and am willing to supply diffs for Freedom skies' edit wars from before October 2006 upon the Arbitration Committee's request.

[edit] National Development Front (diffs) March 2007

[edit] Indian mathematics (diffs) February 2007

See Talk:Indian mathematics#Request for comment:Indian Mathematics
Freedom skies blocked for 3RR by Aksi great
Freedom skies is not an admin and therefore has no right to add the "semi-protection" tag to an article as he does in this diff.
02:28, 23 February 2007 Fowler&fowler, removing sourced content is Vandalism! I'll see that you get to learn to live with WP:Policies this time Freedom skies is reverting Fowler&fowler's removal of poorly sourced content. Note that what Freedom skies considers vandalism Wikipedia does not.

[edit] Trigonometric function (diffs) February 2007

Freedom skies is not an admin and therefore has no right to add the "semi-protection" tag to an article as he does in this diff.

[edit] History of trigonometric functions (diffs) February 2007

Freedom skies is not an admin and therefore has no right to add the "semi-protection" tag to an article as he does in this diff.

[edit] Michael E. J. Witzel (diffs) February 2007

Biography of a living person

[edit] Maha Bodhi Society (diffs) January/February 2007

Buddhism-related

[edit] Zen (diffs) January 2007

Buddhism-related
Freedom skies: where do the sources say that?
JFD: On the very pages that the references you deleted say they do. They're both on Google Books. Check it out for yourself.
Freedom skies: misrepresentation then, the view is both microscopic and misrepresented
JFD: "Buddhism processed through Taoism became Zen" -Huston Smith. You're calling Huston Smith "microscopic"?
Freedom skies: Is your POV widespread? Did'nt think so
A Ramachandran: I'm sorry, but when there are multiple cited views, they all need to be included; maybe they could be intgrated better, but please stop removing other views
Freedom skies: the other POV is microscopic in extent of being non existent
...
Freedom skies: Paul chose to participate in the discussion after admitting that "I don't claim any specialist knowledge on this." (press CTRL+F on the talk:zen page) I, emphatically claim knowledge on this Buddhism related topic
Saposcat: virtually every scholar on Zen (not to mention practitioners) admits that Daoism exercised some sort of influence, probably quite large, on the development of Chán in China Saposcat (contribs)

[edit] Decline of Buddhism in India (diffs) December 2006/January 2007

Buddhism-related
See also: Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-12-26 Decline of Buddhism in India

[edit] Sunga Empire (diffs) December 2006/January 2007

Buddhism-related

[edit] Pusyamitra Sunga (diffs) December 2006/January 2007

Buddhism-related

[edit] Zen (diffs) November 2006

Buddhism-related
Freedom skies blocked for 3RR by William M. Connolley
Freedom skies: 1)Undoing JFD's attempts to place sentences of his POV in the article2)Undoing JFD's attempts of placing conflicting theories catering to the Han Chinese red agenda

[edit] Vedic Sanskrit (diffs) November 2006

Freedom skies blocked for 3RR by Rama's Arrow
Freedom skies: citing F. Max Müller. THE authority on Rigveda.
Crculver: Rv. While his research was important, Max Muller did write 150 years ago. WP prefers references that mirror *current* scholarly opinion, as Mallory does
Freedom skies: unfortunately Malory does not measure up to Muller. Additional refernces will be provided on request though.
Crculver: Rv. Who are you to judge who does and doesn't "stack up" to Muller? WP prefers current scholarly consensus, and Mallory, highly esteemed in the field, represents that
Freedom skies: kindly provide a citation for that. Until you do that or request further citations from me, which I'll readily provide. I guess you'll have to live with it.
Crculver: Stop. If you continue to remove citations accepted by consensus (look at page history) and insert contested material, it may be considered vandalism.
Freedom skies: stop. if you do not cease the substitution of authoritative work by commonplace professors then it will be considered vandalism. You're free to request additional sources from me if you want.

[edit] William Dalrymple (historian) (diffs) November 2006

Biography of a living person
Banned user Hkelkar to Freedom skies: Would you please take some time to elaborate a criticism of Dalrymple based on his attacks on Nobel Laureate VS Naipaul? I have found an article here by Farrukh Dhondy that can be used as a ref for it.
Banned user Hkelkar to Freedom skies: I have made some spelling etc corrections. I have also added comments (you'll see them in the edit box) about sentences that I am not so sure about. Do look over them, put it in the Dalrymple article and thank you for your efforts.
Banned user Hkelkar to Freedom skies: I made some slight re-arrangements and added some bits from the last pages of the article, detailing criticism of Dalrymple. If you think it's ok now, then could you plug it into Dalrymple's article?Thanks.

[edit] Bodhidharma (diffs) November 2006

Buddhism-related
Freedom skies violates 3RR[11][12][13][14] but is not reported
Note that Freedom skies has had no prior contact with MichaelMaggs or 202.20.5.206 and is therefore being uncivil to editors he has just met.
Freedom skies: rv vandalism from unsigned IP. anyone who thinks that Ta Mo did not exist at all belongs in a seperate negationism column
202.20.5.206: we are talking about conflicting legends/sources! Will you not cool down first and DISCUSS?
Freedom skies: rv vandalism by unsigned IP. stating that a man is fictional in th opening para of his very bio in NOT done. put it in later theories about Bodhidharma.
Nat Krause: rvt to last by 202.20.5.206 -- please discuss changes like this on talk
Freedom skies: rv. the theories belong in a subsequent para not in opening paragraph. especially when they claim that this article need not exist as the man himself did not.
MichaelMaggs: rv to Nat Krause version. Freedom Skies: you have been asked several times to discuss your point of view on the Talk pages before making these radical changes. Please do so
MichaelMaggs: I am reverting your edits again as your comments above aren't what I'd call a discussion - merely a bald statement of what you have done. Which I and others disagree with. May I suggest you post here your thinking behind the edits you want to introduce, and see what the consesnsus of the community is?
Freedom skies: Removal of sourced text and entire sections in the pretext of attempting a "community support" routine is not assuming good faith, neither am I bound by any WP to go ask form a posse` on Wikipedia. Anyone who removes a section which is properly placed and goes on to remove references of additional authors from the article in the name of holding talks and fraternizing with a "community" is assuming very bad faith. I'll see that this removal of sourced text is not done. Best Regards once again to eveeryone. I hope that our little "community" lets go of this feeling of continued bad faith.

[edit] Batuo (diffs) October/November 2006

Buddhism-related
16:54, 22 October 2006 deletion of sourced content from neutral narrative
Freedom skies: fradulent. Nowhere does it say that Sengchou and Huiguang were accomplished martial artists. You made it up to fake credibility JFD. You continue despite of the disgrace.

[edit] Buddhism and Hinduism (diffs) October/November 2006

Buddhism-related
Freedom skies is not an admin and therefore has no right to add the "protection" tag to an article as he does in this diff.
15:54, 2 November 2006 removing NPOV tag. Before vandalisng the article again please point where specifically are the POV violations, do this on the talk page. Note that what Freedom skies considers vandalism Wikipedia does not.

[edit] Muhammad Mahmood Alam (diffs) October 2006

[edit] Shaolin Kung Fu (diffs) October 2006

martial arts-related
08:56, 19 October 2006 deletion of sourced content from neutral narrative
05:55, 21 October 2006 deletion of sourced content from neutral narrative
14:13, 21 October 2006 deletion of sourced content from neutral narrative

[edit] Freedom skies' incivility and personal attacks

[edit] Talk:Foreign influence on Chinese martial arts

December 2006

Note that Freedom skies has had no prior contact with Djma12, who at the time had a 3 month edit history compared to Freedom skies' then 14 months, so not only is Freedom skies being uncivil to an editor he has just met, he is also "biting a newbie".

Freedom skies: This article exists to disprove the other one as the majority held POV was overshadowed by an overwhelming minority.
Djma12: With all due respect, any opinion that has enough support to generate another well-cited article should not be considered "an overhwhelming minority."
Freedom skies: Well cited? Kindly compare the individuals involved numerically and the authority they weild in the other article with his one.
Djma12: With respect, that is not your sole decision to make.
Djma12: Incidentally, half these the citations on THIS page are to sources of poor authenticity

[edit] Talk:Decline of Buddhism in India

December 2006

Freedom skies: Acting like a child and counting the numnber of historians cited and substracting them by one for reasons beyond comprehension is not something people relate to with acts of the sane, I'm sure you know that. You're begining to act very bizzare and very disruptive, are you ok ?

[edit] Talk:Indian nationalism

August 2006

Note that Freedom skies has had no prior contact with JFD and is therefore being uncivil to an editor he has just met.

JFD: If you want to say it, cite it.
Freedom skies: Before you go all "Cite it", try reading the articles on catch wrestling and shoot wrestling on wikipedia itself. You should find all your "Cite it" answers there. In other words, before you try removing things from people's articles "READ IT"
JFD: From Wikipedia:Reliable sources: "Wikipedia cannot cite itself as a source—that would be a self-reference."
Freedom skies: Try reading the articles before you go all lawyer-ish, you should find a few links that should have enough citation, that and a membership to scientificwrestling.com should help.

[edit] Freedom skies drives away productive contributors

MichaelMaggs: I first encountered Freedom Skies in November last year, in connection with edits to the Bodhidharma and Zen articles. He was using citations profusely but, I thought, in a wholly improper way. I wasn't sure at that time whether he simply lacked an understanding of scholarly citation methods, and I assumed good faith and tried to explain quite carefully what I thought was wrong, unfortunately without complete success. While he and I eventually parted on good terms, I ultimately felt that trying to improve those two articles was simply going to take too much time and effort, and I backed off. As a result, I have edited here much less than I would otherwise have done.

[edit] Freedom skies has used sockpuppets to engage in POV-pushing and edit-warring

Checkuser has identified Phillip Rosenthal and Moerou toukon as likely sockpuppets of Freedom skies.

While this Arbitration was taking place, Freedom skies used these sockpuppets to engage in POV-pushing and edit-warring.[15][16]

[edit] Closing arguments

Freedom skies would like you to believe that his numerous disputes are solely about content, and thus a waste of this Committee's time.

And they would be, if Freedom skies didn't routinely resort to edit wars as a means of dispute resolution.

They would be, were Freedom skies' conduct in disputes not characterized by his typical incivility and personal attacks.

They would be, had many of those disputes not been the result of Freedom skies' insistence on citing unencyclopedic sources and misrepresenting reliable ones.

But don't take my word for it.

Edit warring
SebastianHelm: Freedom skies was engaged in several edit wars (most of them started by him) in the mediated article Decline of Buddhism in India.
Disruptive editing
DavidCBryant: Freedom_skies consistently pushes his own POV, does not respect guidelines, loses his temper frequently, and vandalizes Wikipedia with some regularity.
Unreliable sources
David Eppstein: Freedom skies appears to be one of the principal perpetrators of the unencyclopedic exaggeration, adding speculative interpretations of what the ancients might have known, and badly sourcing things by leaving such claims undocumented, providing useless unverifiable documentation, or not taking care to distinguish sources that are accepted scholarly work from speculative popular-press writings.
Misrepresentation
MichaelMaggs: Freedom Skies was presenting a 2004 review of the film Kill Bill by a BBC reviewer as evidence that "reputed organizations such as the British Broadcasting Corporation" backed up his preferred out-of-India view. Even if the film reviewer had agreed with him, it would still have been misuse of the source to attribute the reviewer's opinion to that of the BBC as an organization. But in fact, the reviewer simply repeats the conventional view that the story was legend, not literal truth (the opposite of what Freedom Skies was arguing for).

To coin a phrase, "The only consistent feature of all of Freedom skies' dissatisfying relationships is Freedom skies."

Not Bodhidharma.

Not myself, nor my supposed cabal of two.

These pertain to only a fraction of the many articles Freedom skies has disrupted.

Even the unsavory company he keeps does not absolve Freedom skies of sole responsibility for his disruptive acts.

[edit] /Appendix

[edit] Objections

Addendum

[edit] Freedom skies

Freedom skies: JFD must have figured that in case an arbitration is imposed on me during my wikibreak I would to either too busy or perhaps even unwilling to come online and defend myself properly.

00:00, 26 February 2007–00:00, 5 March 2007 Freedom skies edits Wikipedia 44 times.[17]
00:29, 5 March 2007 Freedom skies places Wikibreak template on talk page.[18]
00:00, 5 March 2007–00:00, 12 March 2007 Freedom skies edits Wikipedia 48 times.[19]

[edit] Edit wars

Who disrupts articles by edit-warring?

I have never been blocked.

Freedom skies has been blocked for disruptive conduct at Pakistan, Vedic Sanskrit, Zen, and Indian mathematics.

Neither I nor Kennethtennyson were involved in the disputes at Pakistan, Vedic Sanskrit, and Indian mathematics.

The edit war at Zen for which Freedom skies was blocked went like this

Not one of the reverts that got Freedom skies blocked was undone by Kennethtennyson.

In other words, Freedom skies has only himself to blame for his extensive block log.

Also note how the same names keep reappearing in Freedom skies' edit wars.

Bakasuprman
Hkelkar (banned by ArbCom)
Rumpelstiltskin223 (sock puppet of Hkelkar)
India Rising (sock puppet of Hkelkar)
Lionheart5 (sock puppet of Hkelkar)

Freedom skies says he was fighting sock puppets.

What Freedom skies omits is that he was fighting alongside sock puppets.

Again.

It's amusing just how hypocritical an accusation of puppetry is coming from a frequent accomplice of Hkelkar.

Freedom skies shares with Hkelkar the same POV, the same disruptive conduct, and ought to share the same penalty.

[edit] Protection tags
20:20, 20 March 2007 Freedom skies: The fact that the tag was to be used by an admin honestly did not cross my mind as the description seemed to simply state this
17:26, 4 November 2006 Finlay McWalter (to Freedom skies): Please don't put "protected" tags on unprotected articles, as you did on Buddhism and Hinduism in this edit. If you want a page protected please list it on Wikipedia:Requests for page protection.

So Freedom skies didn't know that he isn't supposed to put protection tags on articles.

Even though he was told exactly that only a couple of months before.

After the first time he did it.

[edit] Mediation
Freedom skies: I've done it before (work under neutral, third parties)

Working under neutral third parties has failed to curb Freedom skies' disruptive behavior.

SebastianHelm: I met Freedom skies through Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-12-26 Decline of Buddhism in India, which I mediated from December :30 to February 2, when I passed the baton to Utcursch.
During that time, Freedom skies was engaged in several edit wars (most of them started by him) in the mediated article Decline of Buddhism in India.
SebastianHelm: Maybe I should add that he made no effort to find common ground with the other party. I do not remember seing evidence for him to follow WP:AGF beyond agreeing with the mediation and giving me his e-mail address. Of course, he showed no inclination to heed WP:NPOV's advice to "write for the other party".

[edit] Bodhidharma

See also: Addendum

Freedom skies: I'm the only editor who has shown the inclination to actually make a case for academic, mainstream point of view when it comes to Bodhidharma.
MichaelMaggs to JFD: Just wanted to say what a great job you're doing on the Bodhidarma article. A couple of months ago it was in a pretty bad state, but you've massively improved it with some really good, sourced, edits.[105]

Time—and JSTOR access—permitting, I encourage the Arbitration Committee to ask

  • Which of Freedom skies' claims does Zvelebil's article support?
  • Which of Freedom skies' claims does Zvelebil's article not support?
  • Does the subject matter of the article fall within the scope of Zvelebil's academic expertise? (cf. WP:ATTFAQ: "A world-renowned mathematician may not be a reliable source on topics of biology.")
  • To what extent does Zvelebil's article represent the "mainstream point of view" in the relevant academic discipline?

Don't take Freedom skies' word as to the contents of the Zvelebil article. Read it for yourself.

[edit] Bakaman

I didn't accuse Freedom skies of biting a newbie, I accused him of being uncivil to editors he has just met, that is, of being the initiator of incivility.

As it happens, Djma12 has only been on wiki since September 2006 so in that case Freedom skies actually was "biting a newbie".

Reputable mainstream media, eh?
Bakaman, who calls attention to the "colorful" block logs of others below, has himself been blocked six times compared with Crculver's five, Kennethtennyson's one lonely block or, for that matter, the zero blocks on the records of 202.20.5.206, Endroit, Nat Krause and MichaelMaggs.
Bakaman is trying to distract the Arbitration Committee from his friend's disruptive conduct by throwing around casual accusations of racism. I will admit that I formerly opposed arbcom sanction on Bakaman, but that was before he accused me of prejudice against Hindus and wild-eyed ethnonationalism, which has forced me to re-evaluate my opinion of him. I wonder where the sanity he used to display has ventured.

[edit] Evidence presented by CiteCop

The way Wikipedia is supposed to work is that, when an editor cites an unreliable source or a source that doesn't support his claims, another editor is supposed to be able to correct it.

Freedom skies' obstinacy short-circuits this process, as demonstrated by the exchanges between Freedom skies and MichaelMaggs at "Talk:Foreign influence on Chinese martial arts".[106][107] MichaelMaggs deletes Freedom skies' BBC and NY Times citations but assumes good faith and that their misinterpretation is unintentional and explains—very gently, I might add—to Freedom skies why his interpretation is incorrect. Freedom skies responds by reverting MichaelMaggs and insisting that he is right, all evidence to the contrary. And to this day those erroneous citations remain in Foreign influence on Chinese martial arts.

The other exchanges recorded by JFD show what happens when editors act more firmly. It starts with accusations of vandalism and escalates to edit-warring and, as Freedom skies and Bakasuprman have so amply demonstrated here, accusations of bigotry.

This fundamental pattern in Freedom skies' behavior repeats itself in almost all the exchanges JFD records above.

Freedom skies arrogates to himself the right to determine which sources are reliable and which are not and what their correct interpretation is and gets away with it because the alternative is edit wars and personal attacks.

Productive editors cannot pursue the goal of writing an encyclopedia under threat of edit war and other disruptive conduct.

[edit] Comment on Evidence presented by SebastianHelm

No one asked SebastianHelm to give evidence in this Arbitration. That a formal mediator, someone chosen for his fairness and impartiality, found Freedom skies' behavior so reprehensible that he sought out this Arbitration and the opportunity it gave him to say exactly what he thinks of Freedom skies is particularly damning. (Perhaps not coincidentally, SebastianHelm's evidence was "accidentally" deleted by Bakasuprman and had to be restored by an Arbitrator.)

SebastianHelm's evidence shows that mediation and oversight have done little to correct Freedom skies' behavior and are unlikely to be any more effective now.

Given that, even assuming the best of faith on Freedom skies' part, I can see no option other than banning him from the articles he disrupts.

[edit] Freedom skies engages in POV-pushing and OR

Indian nationalism: [108][109]

Indian influence on Chinese martial arts: [110]

[edit] Freedom skies falsifies citations and cites unreliable sources

[edit] Indian nationalism

[edit] Indian mathematics

[edit] Foreign influence on Chinese martial arts

[edit] Objection to Bakasuprman

[edit] Objection to Freedom skies

Reading the entry for a book in an online catalog is not the same as reading the book itself and it is inexcusably, unacceptably dishonest and unethical to cite it as such.

[edit] Evidence presented by freedom skies

[edit] Response to CiteCop

[edit] Response to Sebastian Helm

[edit] Response to Dbachmann

[edit] Response to Users and Talk Pages

[edit] JFD has misrepresented my legitimate involvement in WP articles as disruptive

[edit] JFD has produced good faith edits as evidence

[edit] JFD engages in edit wars

[edit] JFD is biased

[edit] Sources

[edit] Personal statement

[edit] Additional Replies

[edit] Evidence presented by Bakasuprman

[edit] Response to Citecop

Kak is not an unreliable source. As a tenured professor at LSU he is a reliable source. The fact that Kak is a foe of Michael Witzel, a cult figure among many users, including many involved to various degrees in this arbcom, seems to be the justification for users calling anything from Kak unreliable.Bakaman 23:01, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] JFD

I have little problem with JFD, but do note that his evidence section is unreliable and that he too is guilty of "nationalism" as well.

[edit] NDF

The National Development Front page has been subject to a large scale edit wars perpetrated by a bunch of sockpuppets. Cherrypicking random diffs does not serve to prove anything as at least 6 users have agreed with freedom skies. See Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Pens withdrawn, Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Sundaram7 and related pages.Bakaman 17:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Falsifications about "Bite"

As this edit clearly shows JFD has been on Wiki since July 2005, that's nearly 1 year and 8 months ago. Freedom skies by contrast has been on wiki since November 2005. Who is biting who? JDF is obviously the older account and user, thereby putting all fantasical falsifications about freedom biting a newbie effectively to rest.Bakaman 19:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

In light of his platform being demolished it seems JFD retroactively changed his statement.

[edit] Serious BLP violations

Defamation of tenured LSU professor Subhash Kak is here. It doesnt take a "Hindu nationalist fascist ABCD angry young male" to figure out what Kak is a euphemism for.Bakaman 19:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wild-Eyed Ethnonationalism

JFD displays some anti-Hindu prejudice here accusing Hindus of intimidation of scholars incorrectly. The attack on the Bhandarkar institute was by the Sambhaji Brigade, yet this is a favorite canard of Indophobes. Running commentary on China supposed "peaceful rise" abounds (Cultural Revolution, Tianamen Square anyone?).Bakaman 20:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Objections

Rather than answer to his own friends, JDF has put up a poor attack on me, unaware that my blocks were more than 6 months ago and in conflicts with BhaiSaab (talk · contribs) (now banned) and Ikonoblast (talk · contribs) (regarded universally in WP:INDIA as a troll). None for edit warring, and all for talk page conflicts rather than actual editing. As for the community's views on me, they are quite apparent on Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Hkelkar/Workshop#Bakasuprman, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/India-Pakistan/Workshop#Bakasuprman and User:Bakasuprman/Awards. It may be of note that JFD himself opposed possible arbcom sanction on me, and it makes me wonder where the sanity he used to display has ventured.
JFD claims I have called him a bigot. The word is only cited in his and citecop' "evidence" sections (obviously in mine now). This falsification of evidence most probably indicates a misrepresentation repeated throughout said evidence section.

[edit] Freedom skies

Kennethtennyson's block log indicates that he was blocked for edit warring on Indian nationalism and that allegations that kenneth is somehow clean and not a party to dispute are impotent and illogical.

On Vedic Sanskrit, the person opposing him (Crculver (talk · contribs)) has had a rather colorful block himself, and infact is currectly serving a one-week block for his reverthappy behavior.

The page freedom skies created Foreign influence on Chinese martial arts is well sourced and informative, though created retroactively to JFD's page which looks more like a sleazy PRC propaganda piece.

[111]

[edit] Evidence presented by SebastianHelm

I met Freedom skies through Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-12-26 Decline of Buddhism in India, which I mediated from December 30 to February 2, when I passed the baton to Utcursch.

During that time, Freedom skies was engaged in several edit wars (most of them started by him) in the mediated article Decline of Buddhism in India (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs). I begged him to stop edit warring, and the frequency and intensity of edit wars did decrease. Similarly, he eventually followed my pleas to write edit summaries, although this was not as specific as I had asked him to be. He did not follow my request to write down his points for several weeks. He did, however, participate in the discussions, and we managed to get 5 of the 10 points resolved by Jan 17. On Jan 19 he edited the article without discussion, which resulted in an escalation from which we did not recover until Utcursch took over. (See list.) It is unclear why the other party left; this happened shortly after Utcursch took over. I can't rule out that they simply was exhausted.

Freedom skies cites User:NinaOdell's apology. This is a red herring. The fact is that Freedom skies called her a liar and did not apologize, even after I suggested an apology. Nina was very frustrated and gave up her mediation, without blaming anyone[112]. — Sebastian 07:02, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I should add that he made no effort to find common ground with the other party. I do not remember seing evidence for him to follow WP:AGF beyond agreeing with the mediation and giving me his e-mail address. Of course, he showed no inclination to heed WP:NPOV's advice to "write for the other party". This almost goes without saying since it seems to be standard for parties involved in ethnically motivated content disputes.

If I may make a remark beyond this case: I see this not as a problem with one particular editor, but with Wikipedia. I believe we are making it too easy for people who do not subscribe to WP:NPOV's ideals to disrupt our task of writing an encyclopedia. We have many cases like this; they can't all go through ArbCom. (Please tell me if there's a centralized discussion for that. Didn't Jimbo say something along those lines, too? I can't find the quote.) — Sebastian 19:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Evidence presented by Dbachmann

re Freedom skies' comment above,

"JFD has been polluting the article with ethrocentric Chinese bias which has resulted in staements such as I'm adding a merge tag for now, but this should really be cleaned up and summarized in some neutral fashion asap. from the very nuetral Dbachmann."

this is of course a perfect misrepresentation of my comment. JFD was apparently forced to present his criticism at an awkwardly titled pov-fork because of the wild-eyed behaviour on Freedomskies' part we have also witnessed on Indian mathematics.

btw, re user:Bakasuprman's "Kak is not an unreliable source. As a tenured professor at LSU he is a reliable source.", this is of course blooming nonsense: Subhash Kak is professor of Electrical Engineering with a predilection for ideological dabbling in fields where he is an amateur.

dab (𒁳) 12:43, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Hornplease

I'd like to direct the ArbCom's attention to the Talk:Indian Nationalism page, and in particular this section. My interpretation at the time was that this user - teaming at that point with one user subsequently banned, was willing to push amateur, fringe scholars as mainstream; and also to mischaracterise the mainstream scholars he would quote. Hornplease 16:14, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by MichaelMaggs

I don't need to present any further evidence other than to confirm the factual details of my involvement as set out above by JFD in sections 1.2.1 (BBC) and 1.2.2 (New York Times). I was particularly concerned by the BBC citation, as Freedom Skies was presenting a 2004 review of the film Kill Bill by a BBC reviewer as evidence that "reputed organizations such as the British Broadcasting Corporation" backed up his preferred out-of-India view. Even if the film reviewer had agreed with him, it would still have been misuse of the source to attribute the reviewer's opinion to that of the BBC as an organization. But in fact, the reviewer simply repeats the conventional view that the story was legend, not literal truth (the opposite of what Freedom Skies was arguing for). I was unfortunately unable to persuade him that the citation should go.--MichaelMaggs 22:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence presented by Johnbod

I've only just become aware of this case - my evidence concerns only the two likely sockpuppets of Freedom skies, User:Moerou toukon (MT) and User:Phillip Rosenthal (PR). MT engaged in edit-warring at Papermaking, removing all references to its Chinese invention. He had also distorted a passage from an 1855 book to reference a claim that Chinese woodblock printing was not printing here - but, not easy to find. Seeing the talk page is easier. He defended these changes against a number of editors, and got abusive in edit summaries and the talk page. He then called (very prematurely) an RfC, and invited PR to comment here, which he did in a wholely one-sided manner. PR found this diff where I had accidentally re-added rather than reverted vandalism, and corrected it a moment later (see preceding 2 edits, and following one). He refused to remove from the various places he had posted it, the statement that I had been responsible for this vandalism. MT gave me much abuse here and elsewhere ("vitriolic Chinese nationalism", when I am in no way Chinese and only edit Chinese articles related to printing) and accused me of using a sockpuppet. The dispute spilled over to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Chinese inventions where I was abused again by MT here and again accused of using a sockpuppet. Johnbod 17:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)