Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/John Buscema

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Case Opened on 22:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Case Closed on 18:07, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

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

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this case. Only add a statement here after the case has begun if you are named as a party; otherwise, your statement may be placed 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, the parties, and other editors may suggest proposed principles, findings, and remedies at /Workshop. That page may also be used for general comments on the evidence. Arbitrators will then vote on a final decision in the case at /Proposed decision.

Once the case is closed, editors may add to the #Log of blocks and bans as needed, but it should not be edited otherwise. Please raise any questions at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Requests for clarification, and report violations of remedies at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement.

Initiated by User:Skyelarke at 05:40, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Involved parties

[edit] Requests for comment

  • A request for mediation begun July 20th -[1]

was closed on November 12th due to mediator's unavailibility and User Tenebrae request to go to arbitration. [2]

[edit] Statement by Skyelarke

In December 2006, I began to participate in an article revision process with user Tenebrae on the [3] article. Having contributed the large majority of the article text up to that point but having neglected to include footnote references of my sources, I proposed to do so in mid-December - a process that user Tenebrae agreed to.

From practically the beginning I was faced with disruptive editing and uncivil behavior on the other party's part until I came to the conclusion the other party's behavior amounted to establishing ownership of said article. This was achieved basically through regular and systematic partial reversions and intimidating, disparaging, and uncivil remarks to other editors. I tried to proceed by encouraging proper editing protocol and etiquette, but by the time I had finished adding the footnotes at the beginning of June 2007, a dispute erupted and efforts to resolve that dispute have proven unsuccessful.

Sample proofs and examples

As an overall example of user Tenebrae's widespread peremptory, unsubstantiated removal of good-faith, credibly-referenced contributions compare the final updated version I presented on June 3-

[4]

with the current version reverted to by Tenebrae prior to requesting edit protection [5]

the June 3rd version has 44 numbered footnotes whereas the current version has only 22. Hence, at least half of the footnoted passages, 22 in all, have been removed. This is not counting various other non-referenced passages.

Moreover, of the 15 images contained in the June 3rd, version, 6 have been removed in the current version.

The only explanation given for 19 of the referenced passages removed was the following -

[6]

and

18:12, 7 June 2007 Tenebrae (rv to Terpsichoreus 00:59, 17 May 2007 for Skylarke's blatant, days-long series of fancruft edits, footnote misformatting, and over-illustration in DIRECT CONTRADICTION to settled RfC matters.)

Various examples of disruptive editing behavior regularly practiced by user Tenebrae since December 2006.

Basically, there are four different types:

1- Misuse and improper implementation and application of a RfC -

a- Premature implemenatation of RfC

[7]

It was implemented 5 hours after I had made mention of an initial disagreement, without any prior discussion.

b- Non-neutral canvassing of favored collaborators

[8]

c- Vote-Stacking and disregard of consensus process

[9]

The above statement to give an indication that the Rfc consisted mainly in the aforementioned 9 editors contributing perfunctory statements that had an uncommon level of agreement with user Tenebrae's statements and little in ways of explanations or compromise and consensus-minded discussion.

d- Using disputed RfC results as a pretext to reject edits that were clearly outside the boundaries and contents of said RfC

The version established after RfC process ended on March7, only had 4 referenced passages - [10]

This kind of repeated statement -

[11]

practically implies that the edits contributed after the RfC are somehow under restrictions of said RfC even though the were not present or discussed at the time of the RfC.

2- Improper editing protocol and disruptive editing behavior

a- Misleading, fallacious, and deceptive editing descriptions.

[12]

b- Making false policy claims to justify reversions.

[13]

3- Peremptory and antagonistic misuse of administrative procedures.

a- An inflammatory complaint made to the administrator's notice board -

April 27 -' Several editors, and heaven knows you can see them at Talk:John Buscema, have tried to work with a fanatic fan, User:Skyelarke, who is a single-purpose account... He has continually added POV and irrelevant, fan-page trivia,...' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive84

b- Misleading page protection request -

June 12 - Page Protection Request filed by user Tenebrae is characterized as 'Severe, longstanding edit war...protection is requested to stop edit war...' when actual reciprocal reversions only began on June 11, remaining under the 3rr barrier.

4- Incivility and personal attacks (designed to intimidate and discredit other editors.)

[14]

[15]

[16]

Final note

To indicate that user Tenebrae's behavior goes beyond a personal dispute with myself and extends to several editors' contributions from that article, I'd like to point out that when user Tenebrae reverted the article to the May 17th version on June 12th, the following editors' contributions were effectively removed-

18:12, 11 June 2007 Mmaillot (Exteranl links)

17:41, 10 June 2007 Tman930 (→References)

06:55, 7 June 2007 66.137.180.95 (→1970s)

01:15, 5 June 2007 71.215.128.73 (→1980s - Page shown is from Fantastic Four #306, not the Avengers)

20:36, 26 May 2007 Steven J. Anderson (Repairing link to disambiguation page - You can help!)

00:55, 22 May 2007 GentlemanGhost (→1970s - Missing space)

--Skyelarke (talk) 05:40, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Tenebrae

Before I can address all this, I do simply need to make the Arbitration Committee aware that for several days I've asked on the Evidence page and elsewhere that Skyelarke reduce his initially 2,750-word statement, nearly three times that of the proscribed 1,000-word limit. The Evidence page says in an opening box at the top of the page that anything over that "will be refactored or removed entirely." Skyelarke after some days reduced it to 1,900, still nearly twice the limit.

I'm not quite sure what else I can do at this point if another party continues to knowingly flout the letter and spirit of arbitration. Something similar happened during mediation as well. I would just ask the Committee to ask Skyelarke to adhere to the same rules as all of us. Thank you for any help. --Tenebrae (talk) 00:47, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by John254

Tenebrae has engaged in disruptive canvassing to support his position in this content dispute -- see [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27], in which he notifies selected editors of the article RFC on their talk pages. It is suspected that Tenebrae chose the editors to contact based on the belief that they would favor his version of the article. This request for arbitration appears to present serious user conduct issues. John254 13:08, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Preliminary decisions

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

  • Accept to examine behavior of all parties. Kirill 02:20, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Accept, attempts at dispute resolution have not worked. FloNight♥♥♥ 17:04, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Accept. James F. (talk) 19:31, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Accept. Mackensen (talk) 23:39, 4 December 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] Editorial process

1) Wikipedia works by building consensus through the use of polite discussion. The dispute resolution process is designed to assist consensus-building when normal talk page communication has not worked. Sustained editorial conflict is not an appropriate method of resolving disputes.

Passed 10 to 0 at 18:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edit-warring considered harmful

2) Edit-warring is harmful. When disagreements arise, users are expected to discuss their differences rationally rather than reverting ad infinitum. Revert rules should not be construed as an entitlement or inalienable right to revert, nor do they endorse reverts as an editing technique.

Passed 10 to 0 at 18:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Assume good faith and remain civil

3) Users are expected to assume good faith in their dealings with other editors, especially those whom they had conflicts with in the past. All users are expected to display civility toward one another, even in the presence of editorial disagreements or when another user has made a mistake.

Passed 10 to 0 at 18:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Page protection

4) Pursuant to the protection policy, full protection may be used to end an edit war. When this occurs, the editors should seek consensus through talkpage discussion, or initiate dispute resolution where necessary, so that protection can be lifted promptly and the page can be edited again.

Passed 10 to 0 at 18:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Role of the Arbitration Committee

5.1) It is not the rôle of the Arbitration Committee to settle good-faith content disputes among editors.

Passed 10 to 0 at 18:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Findings of fact

[edit] Locus of dispute

1) The locus of the dispute is John Buscema, an article about a comic book artist best-known for his work on Marvel superhero comics during the 1960's and 1970's.

Passed 10 to 0 at 18:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Competing editorial visions

2) Tenebrae (talk · contribs), an experienced editor on a variety of comic-book-related subjects, and Skyelarke (talk · contribs), a specialist editor on John Buscema, have each devoted substantial effort to editing John Buscema. They have major differences of opinion regarding what material should be included in this article. Among other things, Tenebrae has opined that Skyelarke's versions contain too much personal opinion and praise for Buscema's artistry as well as too many images. Skyelarke opines that Tenebrae's preferred versions omit a body of sourced and relevant information.

Passed 10 to 0 at 18:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edit-war

3) Disagreements between Skyelarke and Tenebrae in the editing of John Buscema continued over several months, despite an article-content request for comment filed in an attempt to resolve them. The parties' dispute erupted into full-scale edit-warring in June 2007. On June 12, 2007, an administrator full-protected the page to induce the parties to seek consensus.

Passed 10 to 0 at 18:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Continued disputes and protection

4) Since the protection in June, no progress has been made in resolving the content dispute, and a mediation attempt was unsuccessful. As a result, John Buscema was fully-protected and unavailable for editing for more than six months. Such lengthy protection should be unnecessary for any article and is certainly inordinate in this instance.

Passed 10 to 0 at 18:08, 8 January 2008 (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] Editing of John Buscema

[Clerk note: This remedy reordered from 4.1 on the proposed decision at the request of the Arbitration Committee — Coren (talk)]

1) Tenebrae (talk · contribs) and Skyelarke (talk · contribs) are banned from editing John Buscema for three months. They are welcome to edit the talk page.

Passed 8 to 0 at 18:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Subsequent editing

2) After three months, Skyelarke and Tenebrae may freely edit John Buscema but should respect consensus developed in the interim concerning the basic structure of the article and the nature of the material that should be included, including but not limited to the number of images.

Passed 7 to 1 with 1 abstention at 18:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disruptive editing

3) Any uninvolved administrator may ban Skyelarke or Tenebrae from editing John Buscema or any related article or page for a reasonable period of time, either before or after three months have expired, if either engages in any form of disruptive editing, edit-warring, or editing against an established consensus.

Passed 8 to 1 at 18:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Enforcement

[edit] Enforcement by block

1) In the event Skylarke or Tenebrae violates a page-ban imposed under above remedies, he may be briefly blocked for up to one week. After five blocks, the maximum block length is increased to one month. All blocks are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/John Buscema#Log of blocks and bans.

Passed 9 to 0 at 18:08, 8 January 2008 (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.

  1. User:Tenebrae is warned to remain civil and non-disruptive, see arb enforcement page and [28]. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:12, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
  2. User:Skyelarke's restrictions extended by 30 days, to May 8. He is to avoid work on Buscema-related pages, including images. See WP:AE#User:J Greb.[29] --Elonka 05:55, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
  3. Note: Skyelarke changed names in May 2008 to Scott Free (talk · contribs). --Elonka 01:50, 25 May 2008 (UTC)