Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pudgenet

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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

Pudgenet is unable to control his emotions on discussions related to Perl. In earlier month this took the form of very hostile personal attacks. Lately it has become more serious and converted into sustained personal attacks as part of a campaign of harassment against Barry and attempted intimidation against other editors who have attempted to intervene to prevent further harassment.

[edit] Requests for comment

Statements by non-parties are on the talk page of this arbitration.

[edit] Statement by -Barry-

Pudgenet has been a problem for an administrator (User:Durin) [1][2] regarding the Perl article, and for me regarding Wikipedians with articles, where he's continually reverted the links that I added to brian d foy's entry, which had been agreed to here. I managed to get Pudgenet to discuss this a bit here, before that discussion was considered off topic and reverted by a mediator for a different issue. Pudgenet has an unusual interpretation of what was agreed to on the talk page of Wikipedians with articles, and I believe he's not being honest. He's certainly not trying to work it out on the appropriate page.

Pudgenet has also been uncivil in this and this edit summary, in this post to my talk page, and has criticized me here, on his user page, without me being able to respond because he deletes everything I post to his talk page without responding [3]. Probably worst was when he vandalized the Perl article with this paragraph (at bottom left) in which he insulted me.

Pudgenet claims that use.perl.org is his site [4] and I believe he's biased in favor of Perl and in favor of notable Perl guru brian d foy, aka Scarpia, whose biased edits he keeps covering up by reverting my links to them. -Barry- 06:20, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Pudge

I disagree with some of what Durin said, much of what Barry said, and almost all of what Jbolden said. However, and most importantly, most of what was said here is entirely off-topic, according to Barry; worse, he has specifically misrepresented the case and the process.

To wit, he notes in the above link that this arbitration request is regarding Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles (though he does not make that clear here, at all, which is troubling), which I agree is the only outstanding dispute between us (despite the implications by Jbolden, my last edit to the Perl article was almost a month ago, and more than a week before mediation even began, and even before then my edits were few and far between; clearly nothing I am doing on the Perl article can require a need for arbitration, since I am not doing anything on the Perl article).

So, we have Barry saying his RfA is only about Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles, and we have the fact that no other article constitutes an active dispute between us. And yet, Barry says in this RfA that, as per Wikipedia:Resolving disputes, that there has been "Failed mediation in which Pudgenet refused to engage." This is false. There has been not a single attempt at mediation regarding Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles (indeed, Barry's attempt at discussing Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles in Jbolden's Perl mediation process was properly deleted by Jbolden deleted as off-topic), and I therefore suggest you direct Barry to go back and attempt this route before wasting your time further.

It may be true that I have deleted requests for mediation regarding Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles; I don't know, as I consider Barry's use of my talk page as vandalism (due to actual vandalism there by him), and I just delete what he posts there without reading it (including his notice of this arbitration request). That could possibly be assumed, though incorrectly, a tacit rejection of informal mediation. However, it could not be considered a rejection of formal mediation, which no one has even attempted, despite Barry's claim. I do preemptively reject any mediation in which Jbolden is the mediator, however, and do not consider it my job, as not being the one instigating mediation, to find a suitable replacement (side note: if you cared, and reviewed the record, I am confident you would find Jbolden's claim that 50 of my 75 edits violated policy to be wholly without merit, and indeed would find much that Jbolden himself has done wrong).

To the end of not wasting your time, I will not attempt at this time to further correct or clarify the offered record against me, where errors are many, except to note that despite Jbolden's claim, I, to my knowledge, have never had any interaction with Barry before this. I know of only two other sites he has ever been on, and I only discovered he was on those sites in the last few weeks. One is my site, use Perl;, where I noticed him for the first time last week. The other is PerlMonks, where I have only 15 posts to my name since 2002 (compared to his nearly 500), and none of those is within three weeks of any of his posts, except in May 2004, where we both commented on the same day in completely different and unrelated discussions. To my recollection, I'd never heard of Barry or Wassercrats until last month (though the name sounds vaguely familiar, and perhaps I'd heard other people mention it on IRC or somesuch in reference to PerlMonks discussions I was not privy to). Jbolden's assertion is simply false, and that he asserts it as a matter of fact further troubles me regarding his judgment.

Again, I see no actual case for arbitration here. Direct Barry to formally request mediation as the dispute resolution procedure requires before further wasting your time.

Regards,

Pudge 16:49, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Jbolden is being wholly dishonest. What he calls "wikistalking" clearly is not. Look at the definition of wikistalking. Nothing I did matches the definition. Further, that I've not posted on the subject on Wikipedia before is beside the point; my interests are far broader than my Wikipedia activity. I saw in my watchlist -- as it was added there automatically when I sent Jbolden a message previously -- that Jbolden added something to his page about "special rights," something I obviously do have a keen interest in, so I went over and looked. I saw some serious problems, so I posted my concerns about it on the talk page. What I posted had nothing to do with mediation, or with jbolden, as he implies, but was only about the article itself, and from anyone else would have been considered a perfectly valid edit. I have absolutely no plans to participate in his mediation process, I was merely adding my two cents to the talk page, separate from the mediation process.
I see nothing in any Wikipedia policy that remotely even implies that my edit was inappropriate, and as I have a very strong ability to be dispassionate, I refuse to segregate myself from articles that Jbolden is involved in. I will restrict myself from participating in his mediation processes, or even doing anything to remotely interfere with them (except for the one I was a party to, and only then in a manner expressly allowed by Durin), and I did so restrict myself.
He is also being dishonest about me derailing a mediation process. The process in Perl is derailed (it is?) because most of the participants have no faith in Jbolden, as has been made clear by those other participants. I may have a hand in convincing them of this, but I can only take that as a compliment, since I think he is an objectively bad mediator. If I convinced people to not particpate because of his misdeeds, that is a good thing.
But I have no interest in stalking him, and have not done so; if I had wished to stalk him, I'd have done so before now. I only posted on the Special rights discussion because it was something I was interested in. If there is any policy against anything I did there, let me know, because I am not seeing it, Durin didn't mention it, and Jbolden only linked to a wikistalking page that does not describe anything I did.
As to Durin's addendum, I am really confused. There is only one area of mutual interest Barry and I are involved with, and only one place where there is a current dispute: Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles. And there's no reason to think formal mediation could not resolve that dispute (maybe Durin is confused by the fact that I firmly expressed a lack of faith in the mediation process, but that expression was quite specific to the Perl process and my belief that consensus was sufficient to deal with the problem there, which obviously is not the case in Wikipedians with Articles). There is no significant problem between me and Barry, just this little thing. I don't understand what he is referring to.
There is, however, a growing problem between me and Jbolden, as he keeps removing edits of mine that he has no business removing (and has been doing so for weeks), and apparently to me, and others, does have a significant vendetta against me. I will initiate some sort of process, perhaps arbitration, against him if he doesn't stop it. I asked Durin to give him a nudge to try to head this off, and he has refused, instead choosing to claim I was being incivil by saying Jbolden's claim of stalking was "insane," ignoring the inherent incivility of the claim itself. I am giving up on trying to get any help from Durin, that's for sure, and it unfortunately damages my faith in Wikipedia admins in general.
Pudge 20:02, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by jbolden1517

I became involved in Perl mediation as part of a request made to the Mediation Cabal. I generally specialize in mediating religion cases (which needless to say are often very heated); but I took this programming related case because it is in a language that I am knowledgeable about and the subject matter was highly technical (issues like various compiler flags used to modify the runtime engine have come up). The culture on the discussion board related to Perl was entirely unacceptable and in my opinion crossed the line into abusive. My attempts at stopping this abuse and creating an environment designed to write a high quality encyclopedia article have met with limited success mainly as a result of Pudgenet attempting to intimidate me (and possibly other editors) into allowing his personal vendetta against Barry to continue. It should be mentioned that Barry and Pudgenet know each other from other discussion boards going back at least to early 2004, as do many of the other editors. Pudgenet has successfully driven Barry off other Perl related discussion sites and this campaign of harassment did not start on Wikipedia.

As part of my investigation I conducted a survey of Pudgenet's postings on Perl related discussions (Perl related includes biographies of leaders in the Perl community, and cross programming language discussions) . There were 50 which violated policy (out of approximately 75 posts) so his major contribution to Perl appears to be insults and harassment. None involved any substantial content, which is curious given Pudgenet's substantial expertise in this area. Conversely on other discussions about the Iraq war and political figures (Iraq war, Doug Roulstone, Stacey Tappan, Mike McGavick) there was not a single violation and he has conducted himself admirably. So Pudgenet knows how to be an effective wikipedian he is either unable or refuses to do so on Perl related topics.

It is likely that Pudgenet is going to respond to this filing by arguing that Barry in some ways deserved this campaign of harassment, and that I am incompetent. I can provide references from other cases if my judgement becomes a primary point of dispute. However addressing the issue of Barry, his actions have been examined by 3 senior wikipedians. All have agreed that while there are minor problems with his edits the much more serious problems were in Pudgenet's edits. Given the history that I was not aware of until recently I would say that Barry has conducted himself admirably. More importantly, Barry has graciously accepted guidance from more experienced wikipedians, has responded to critique in a positive manner and has acted to facilitate the dispute resolution process.

jbolden1517Talk 11:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Since posting the above the situation has gotten more urgent. I initiated mediation on a completely unrelated case Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-06-09 Special rights. This topic far removed from any one on which Pudgenet has ever been involved in his six months on wikipedia. He did this within 11 minutes of me wrapping up my initial posting [5] that the page was going to be under a mediation process. I warned Pudgenet about my feelings regarding his sudden interest constituted wikistaling [6]. He however has refused to comply [7] and continues to involve himself [8].
I'd like him to be prevented from derailing another mediation as part of a personal vendetta. Pudgenet has proven he is able to successfully derail mediation so without such a ban I'll have to drop this and all the other cases he goes after. I would like a summary ban issued due to wikistalking. jbolden1517Talk 19:21, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Durin

My role in this dispute has been relatively minor. I first came to it last month, where I had observed a revert war underway at Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles regarding some content (added, reverted, added, reverted, etc). Being that there was a dispute over content, reverting the content was not simple anti-vandalism work thus WP:3RR#Vandalism did not apply. I issued what I would call "soft" warnings to User:-Barry- and User:Pudgenet to end the revert war ([9],[10]).
Shortly thereafter, Pudgenet deleted my warning from his talk page [11], and then continued the revert war ([12],[13]). My energies at that point became focused on Pudgenet, and I conducted no further evaluation of -Barry- or any others party to the dispute. I was concerned about this behavior, and some rather hostile edit summaries left by Pudgenet ([14],[15],[16]). I engaged Pudgenet in a fairly lengthy discussion regarding his behavior which can be seen at User_talk:Pudgenet/PerlJunk#Ignoring_revert_warring_request. At the end of this discussion, I bowed out of overseeing the dispute and trying to end it. Frankly, I didn't have the time or energy to manage it at the time.
Two weeks later, User:Jbolden1517 contacted me [17] to provide administrator assistance to help resolve the issue. Thus, I became re-involved in the dispute. Shortly thereafter, I observed a rather hostile edit (see edit summary especially) by Pudgenet. Based on that, I issued a civility warning to Pudgenet [18]. Further discussion followed between he and I regarding civility (see User_talk:Pudgenet/PerlJunk#Civility warning).
Following this, I monitored the ongoing mediation attempt and made attempts to get Pudgenet involved in the mediation process. I was not able to do so (see User_talk:Pudgenet/PerlJunk#Regarding Perl mediation). Pudgenet refused mediation, and continued to castigate the mediator Jbolden1517.
At this point, the revert war continues, with no indication of stopping (Pudgenet: [19], [20], [21]) (Barry: [22], [23], [24]). I feel that both parties carry guilt in this process, and the failure of the mediation process (regardless of the source; Pudgenet claims incompetence of the mediator) has left us in this state.
I do not consider Pudgenet's behavior to be irredeemably bad. On civility, I have observed since my warnings to him that he has toned it down some, though as noted the revert war continues apace. Given that an RfC has failed to bring resolution to this dispute, and the attempted mediation has been rejected by Pudgenet, I feel that arbitration in some aspect of this dispute is warranted. Both parties have been deserving of blocks regarding the revert war, but even with blocks I doubt the dispute would end; it would simply continue once the blocks ended. In Pudgenet's case, my warnings have had little or no effect, he has refused mediation, and (it appears) he is ignoring this request for arbitration. I'm at a loss as to how to correct his behavior. -Barry-'s behavior may be just as problematic; as I noted I have not evaluated his or any other party's behavior in this dispute. --Durin 19:52, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Addendum: I would like to note that the dispute on Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles between -Barry- and Pudgenet is related to the dispute on Perl. Further, the issue at hand here is not a particular article, but the interactions of two users who are apparently incapable of working together and seeming unwilling to stop working on areas of mutual interest. Thus, without arbitration this dispute is likely to continue indefinitely into the future. --Durin 19:28, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Harmil

I have been involved in this since the start, and have observed the interaction between these parties, as well as having contributed heavily to the mediation attempt with -Barry- (failed, as no compromise suggested was acceptable to him) and created the RfC for -Barry-. I won't dredge up ancient history, as it seems that that's water under the bridge. I do still feel that Pudgenet has been correct in all of his statements about the behavior of -Barry-, but it is clear that he has problems keeping those statements civil, and his actions have not always been constructive in the past. That said, he has been responding to the carry-over of a years-long antagonism that -Barry- (note: pudgenet was not directly involved in that dispute, though -Barry- was) has maintained on various Perl-related Web sites, so it is perhaps not entirely reasonable to view Pudgenet's behavior in a vacuum, just as someone might feel that a former Wikipedia admin's reaction to WillyOnWheels was over-reaction on some other site, or the way many admins felt when the GNAA article was first created, and many former Slashdotters groaned and put it up for deletion.
I would personally request that Pudgenet refrain from uncivil comments, even when responding to percieved vandalism, but I believe that his actions otherwise have been in the best interests of Wikipedia. -Harmil 16:07, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Earle Martin

Disclosure of interest: I am a Perl programmer. I make my living programming in Perl. I have dozens of friends in the Perl world, and number among them no less than several of the core developers of Perl itself, having even at one point worked in a company alongside three separate Perl release managers. For that reason, I have a strong interest in the subject. I am also a user of Pudge's site use.perl.org, although I have only encountered Pudge briefly online if at all.
I've been watching this dispute since early in its inception, and have involved myself at a couple of points. This has generally been limited to removing non-encyclopedic material which has was repeatedly added to the article by -Barry- in order to further his anti-Perl agenda despite the repeated protestations of other users.
Now, my professional interest in Perl means that I am obligated to consider both its strengths and weaknesses. My career depends on what I know and understand of the language. If it has deficiencies, I owe it to my employers and the users of the software that I write to recognise and cope with those deficiencies, and I believe that every user of Perl. or person considering using Perl, should too. An encyclopedia article is an excellent place for valid criticisms. On the other hand, I join with the other editors of Perl in having to condemn -Barry-'s actions in the strongest terms, and must express my full support for Pudge.
In a number of his edits, for which this RfA has been generated, Pudge's frustration with the actions of -Barry-, and jbolden1517, the incompetent (this is not an ad hominem, but a summary of my feelings on jbolden1517's failure to perform what he was tasked with) "moderator" of the Perl dispute, shows clearly. This is absolutely understandable. -Barry- has been engaged in POV-pushing of an outrageous degree, and yet the system has failed miserably to prevent him from doing so. Pudge reacted with quite unsurprising shock and outrage at what -Barry- was doing. As Pudge has noted at length above, he has now not engaged in edits to Perl for quite some time.
The issue here is not, to my eyes, Pudge. I would say that to some extent it is actually jbolden1517, and his total unsuitability as a moderator. To compound his failure to properly apply the principles of moderation, he has now made a ludicrous accusation towards Pudge of "wikistalking" [sic]. This has taken the dispute into the realm of farce. How long is jbolden1517 going to be allowed to behave in this fashion?
As an additional comment, I note that above on this page -Barry- is requesting a temporary injunction in order to force a neutrality warning to be placed on Perl, because the illegitimate links he kept adding to the page were removed (even by the author of part of the referenced material himself!). I have already removed this warning once and will do so again in an eyeblink. -- Earle Martin [t/c] 02:54, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Preliminary decisions

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


[edit] Temporary injunction (none)

[edit] Final decision

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

[edit] Principles

[edit] Civility and personal attacks

1) Editors are expected to be reasonably courteous to other users and to avoid personal attacks Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:No personal attacks.

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Assume good faith

2) Editors are expected to assume good faith towards other editors.

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Participation in dispute resolution in good faith

3) Users are expected to participate in the give and take of Wikipedia's dispute resolution procedures in good faith, especially in the earlier steps of negotiation and consulting with other users regarding sources.

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Tendentious editing

4) Users who disrupt Wikipedia by tendentious editing and edit warring may be banned from the affected articles. In extreme cases they may be banned from the site.

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Mediation is voluntary

5) Mediation is voluntary at every stage, including whether to participate, whether to accept a given mediator, whether to accept the result, and so on.

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Experts

6) Experts are welcome and are encouraged to edit with respect to subjects they have professional expertise and experience in. However that participation does not trump participation by others or the obligation by the expert to cite reliable and verifiable sources and to courteously engage in negotiation and other aspects of Wikipedia's dispute resolution process.

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Framing a content dispute as a behavior dispute

7) Framing a dispute which, at bottom, is about content as a behavior dispute does not, however many behavior problems might exist, change its essential nature. It will be treated as a content dispute.

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Findings of fact

[edit] Content dispute regarding Perl

1) Barry is involved on the losing side of a content dispute at Perl. He seeks relief regarding content which we are unable to grant, see [25] and the first and third temporary injunctions proposed by Barry.

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Tendentious editing by Barry

2) Barry has engaged in tendentious editing of Perl and with respect to prominent members of the Perl community.

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Role of Pudgenet with respect to Perl

3) According to Pudgnet he is a significant figure with respect to Perl [26], [27] and [28].

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Pudgenet has engaged in incivility

4) Over a period of six months there have repeated violations of WP:CIVIL by Pudgenet [29], see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pudgenet/Evidence#History of incivility.

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Pudgenet has engaged in personal attacks

5) Pudgenet has made accusatory comments, negative personal comments and profanity directed against another editor in violation of WP:NPA [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], and [35].

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Failure to communicate

6) Pudgenet has failed to communicate appropriately with users he has disagreements with [36].

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Barry has made inappropriate accusations of vandalism

7) Faced with incivility and a content disagreement with Pudgenet [37] Barry responded with Template:Blatantvandal [38]. Of the numerous canned messages Barry could have used (Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace) this one was perhaps the one least likely to produce a change in behavior. He then engaged in a quarrel with Scarpia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log), another Perl guru, posting this personal attack at Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles. Following Pudgenet's reaction [39] Barry followed up with a second Blantantvandal embellished with complaints and threats [40].

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Personal attacks by Barry

8) Barry has made personal attacks on Scarpia, another Perl guru, characterizing him as a "Wikipedia vandal" with respect to his editing of Perl [41].

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Pudgenet "bans" Barry

9) Frustrated by Barry's editing and complaints, Pudgenet issued a "ban" on Barry editing Perl [42].

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Remedies

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

[edit] Barry banned from Perl

1) Barry is banned indefinitely from Perl and its talk page and from making any edit with respect to Pudgenet or Scarpia.

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] All parties warned

3.1) All parties are warned that status elsewhere does not grant status on Wikipedia and that all editors must be civil and refrain from disruption.

Passed 7 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pudgenet placed on personal attack parole

4) Pudgenet is placed on personal attack parole. If he makes personal attacks he may be briefly banned, up to a week in the event of repeat offenses. After 5 bans the maximum ban shall increase to one year. All bans to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pudgenet#Log of blocks and bans

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Pudgenet placed on Wikipedia:Probation

5) Pudgenet is placed on Probation for one year. He may be banned by any administrator from any page which he disrupts by tendentious editing, edit warring, or incivility. All bans are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pudgenet#Log of blocks and bans.

Passed 5 to 3 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Enforcement

[edit] Enforcement by block

1) The bans imposed by this decision may be enforced by brief blocks, up to a week in the event of repeat offenses. After 5 blocks, the maximum block shall increase to one year. All blocks are to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pudgenet#Log of blocks and bans.

Passed 9 to 0 at 16:14, 16 August 2006 (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.