Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Winter Soldier

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Case Opened on 20:30, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Case Closed on 21:44, 3 February 2006 (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] Complaining witness

[edit] Nominal defendants

[edit] Third parties

[edit] Other involved parties

[edit] Statement by Travb

Please limit your statement to 500 words

Since October 21, 2005 I have been involved with the page Winter Soldier Investigation. This page has been protected 9 times in ten months[1], once since I have been invovled with the page. Currently, User:TDC and anon have been the major players in revert wars. But other minor players have been recently involved with the editing of the page. The page has 421 deleted edits [2], I believe many from User:Duk.

I attempted to set up a criticism section (which anon deletes full paragraphs from) and TDC is hooked on weaselwords, refusing to allow the word "testimony" to appear in the article. Neither wants to backdown or comprimise. Both are involved in retracted edit wars. Travb 04:32, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

  • TDC: TDC has been booted 13 times for similar revert wars [3]. See also Requests for comment/TDC-2 [4], Requests for comment/TDC [5], Requests for mediation TDC and Tony Sidaway [6]

User:TDC starts revert wars like the recent revert war on Winter Soldier Investigation on several wikipages, and was recently warned again by Tony Sidaway on 5 November 2005 Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents[7]

FIRST revert war: Because of a FIRST revert war[8] on Winter Soldier Investigation, which TDC started over long quotes, I erased many of the "superfluous use of direct quotations" (the reason why User:TDC erased many of the quotes) and moved them to wikiquote. This did not satisfy TDC.

SECOND war: TDC found a new, SECOND war. User:TDC and Duk then attempted to get the complete article Winter Soldier Investigation (along with Vietnam Veterans Against the War at the same time[9] erased for a "copyright violation" for no more than a maximum of 6 isolated sentences[10] that could be considered "copyright violations" in a 9 page article. I footnoted many of the copyright violations. AGAIN this did not satisfy TDC. User:Ed_Poor began to write the article from scratch, he even complained to User:Duk that "The first 4 paragraphs, having been written largely by me, can not posibly be considered a copyright violation."[11].(Earlier Copyvio banner) I stopped this attempt to rewrite the entire article by User:Ed_Poor with the participation of User:Sasquatch by filing a Mediation request[12]. User:Sasquatch and User:Ed_Poor changed the few sentences. User:Sasquatch protected the article on request[13] of User:TDC and User:Tony_Sidaway unlocked it a few days later.

THIRD revert war: User:TDC began a new THIRD revert war[14], this time over the word "testimony", which he did not want anywhere in the article, and other weaselwords such as "claimed", "alleged". TDC refuses to allow the word "testimony" to be in the article, and continues to revert back. I reported TDC to 3RR but there wasn't enough times to get him booted[15].

  • Anon: Anon is the other revert war participant. The opposite of User:TDC, he allows very little information critical of Winter Soldier Investigation to stay on the wikipage. Deleted link critical to WSI and two paragraphs critical of WSI[16]

I suggested spliting the article into a pro and con section, with a commitment from both parties that the other person only edit that section, but Anon refused[17].

User:TDC reported Anon to 3RR. I initially supported Anon, then realized Anon was as guilty of revert wars and deleting information that does not support his ideology, just as TDC does. I then retracted my support for Anon too on the 3RR page[18].


Conclusion: Incredibly all three of these revert wars perpetuated by TDC have only been since October 21, a space of 20 days. While you are at it, maybe you can arbitrate Vietnam Veterans Against the War[19] with the same perps and the same issues. Please help. (I hope I did this right, this is my first Requests for arbitration.)

Request for injunction

I suggest that:

UPDATE: User:TDC reported anon for a 3RR on Winter Soldier Investigation, [20] the second time in a month, both accuse each other of lying. Anon is erasing the dispute tag [21] The bitter revert war continues...

[edit] Statement by TDC

Please limit your statement to 500 words

Contrary to the allegations made by Stevertigo and Travb, this is not an attempt to have the article erased or to have a certain POV dominate it, only to clear up glaring NPOV issues, remove copyvios and plagiarism and improve the quality of the article. Let me repeat that for some of the editors who are questioning my motives : THIS IS NOT AN ATTEMPT TO HAVE THE ARTICLE ERASED OR TO HAVE A CERTAIN POV DOMINATE IT.

The problem with using so much cut and paste, as has been more than well documented, is that the information is plagiarized from sources overly sympathetic to the VVAW (including the VVAW’s own website) and the WSI. The inclusion of this information in its current form fundamentally alters the NOPV of the article. Why some editors cannot see this is beyond me. Would we allow an article on GW Bush to be comprised almost entirely of press briefings from the White House? Would we allow an article about PETA to consist primarily of quotes from PETA friendly sources? That’s all I am asking for here.

I think that a history lesson on the article might be in order. The anon began contributing to this article sometime in July of 2004. He has had a pretty consistent tactic. He takes out any information he disagrees with, places it in talk and begins an never ending argument of either the validity of the information, or the relevance to the article. Almost as soon as he began contributing to the article, editors began to draw attention to his use of plagiarized material [22]. Just in case any of you missed that, I was not the first editor to argue that the Anon’s use of plagiarized material was skewing the POV of the article. The anon then protects his edits using never ending and deceptively labeled Rv’s. Since he is using an EarthLink IP, he cannot be blocked, no matter how flagrant his violation is (he had 15rv’s in one day on another article), giving him impunity from any form of sanctions on his behavior.

I know Travb has accused me of instigating an edit war over this article, and he is partially right. There currently exists an edit war over this article, but I fail to see how I am chiefly responsible for it. Where other editors have given up in frustration, I refuse to drop the issue and walk away from the article. Some might say I am being a POV warrior here, I call it diligence. The talk page has 1 current page and three archived pages full of lengthy discussions that have not solved a damn thing. The plagiarized material still finds its way into the article and any information the anon is uncomfortable with finds its way out. One section, 540 words, is nothing more than a lengthy quote from a VVAW friendly author.

I have said before that I would abide by whatever decision is made. Not only do you have my promise, but you can sanction me if I don’t. Good luck getting the anon to do likewise. TDC 17:09, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I just wanted to add, what I think is one of the best examples of the Anon's deceptive editing and plagarism:

New York Times explained that he found nothing newsworthy to report because "this stuff happens in all wars." There were a smattering of articles sympathetic to the veterans in the underground press; and Pacifica Radio, with major channels on both coasts, devoted to a pacifist, left-wing perspective on current events, gave them excellent coverage. The CBS television crew that showed up were themselves deeply impressed, but none of their footage made it to the nightly news. source

from the WSI Wikipedia article

The local field reporter for the "New York Times," Jerry M. Flint, commented with disinterest, "this stuff happens in all wars." In a February 7, 1971 article he wrote that "much of what they said had been reported or televised before, even from Vietnam. What was different here was the number of veterans present." Several of the VVAW representatives speculated that there was an "official censorship blackout," and they would express this theory later in their newsletter. A few articles that were sympathetic to the veterans appeared in lesser-known publications, and Pacifica Radio, known for its left-wing perspective, gave the event considerable coverage. The CBS television crew that showed up were impressed, but only three minutes made it to the nightly news on the first night -- three minutes that were "mostly irrelevant to the subject," according to VVAW.

Instead of rewriting and crediting the information, the anon has simply rearranged a few sentences and changed significant factual portions of the plagiarized work, i.e: but none of their footage made it to the nightly news as has been changed to only three minutes made it to the nightly news on the first night. I mean which one is it? The source that the material was clearly ripped off from states something completely different. And I am bieng singled out for bad faith edits? TDC 17:15, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

One more quick point (last one): If there weren’t users like me to balance out blatant POV's in far too many articles to count, it wouldn’t get done. TDC 23:41, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by anonymous IP

This case is over two months old, and the Arbs are already motioning for a close, and I'm making my first statement here. In the 500+ words submitted above by the Complaining Witness, Travb, I am mentioned very briefly, almost peripherally. Travbs only complaints with me listed above: I kept deleting two paragraphs of critical information he and TDC were inserting, and I refused to compromise on it, and this caused edit warring. Travb suggested putting the paragraphs in a "Criticism" section that I would agree not to edit, and I refused. Travb created his own Criticism article, and stuck the paragraphs in there, but again I edited or deleted them.

Why so persistent? Because the content of the paragraphs were false, and in addition, plagiarized. Travb finally realized this and agreed with my edits. The issue was resolved. Twelve paragraphs of Travb lambasting TDC, with barely passing mention of me on an issue already resolved; this obviously wasn't my battle, so I steered clear until now. Recently, TDC has been making comments like, "we are both going to be banned anyhow" on other pages, so I came here to check it out. By the look of the votes being cast, it appears he is right and that has me very concerned.

[edit] Statements by third parties

[edit] Statement by User:Calton

I am only peripherally involved, but I would like to add one item to User:Travb's account above, which convinced me of bad faith being involved in the "Second Edit War" above: namely that when User:Ed Poor began writing a new article , his initial from scratch version was blanked 31 minutes later by User:Duk on grounds of being a "copyvio". --Calton | Talk 05:58, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by User:Duk

Calton is flat out wrong here. This diff shows that Ed did not re-write the article from scratch. The version I tagged after Ed's edits had copyvios that were initially identified at Talk:Winter_Soldier_Investigation/Archive3#Copyvio_and_derivatives.2C_again, with more and more being noted on the talk page as they were uncovered. Many of these copyvios originated more than a year earlier and kept sneaking back into the article after an earlier copyvio revert. They included copied text and derivative work.

This article had large amounts of copied work in it for over a year that was eventually morphed (in August I think), so that the copied paragraphs weren't exact copies. There were still copied sentences, clauses and paragraph structure, however, and the article was never reverted to the pre-copivio version before the morphing. It was therefor a derivative work copyvio. I resolved the copyvio after a long listing on WP:CP by reverting to the pre-copyvio version. Later, the copied and derivative work kept sneaking back into the article, resulting in my tagging the page and at one time protecting it to keep the copyvio tag on.

For example; take the phrase that an entire regiment of the Third Marines had penetrated several miles into that neutral nation. It was from a paragraph that was added to the page as a copyvio from bigmagic.com, sometime before this version, more than a year ago. It was removed when I resolved the copyvio by reverting to this version, and reappeared again, resulting the the copyvio tagging that Carlton mentions above. This phrase by itself isn't much, rather, its the numerous other examples of copied text that were identified in the article's talk page (a bunch more were identified over the following weeks). Also, look at the derivative writing around the directly copied parts.

I've been called a lot of nasty names over this copyvio by people who think I have a political agenda, to which I reply that I have resolved thousands of copyvios but have almost no politically oriented edits (if anyone cares to look). Also, the harshest comments seem to come people who haven't taken the time to look closely at the article's history.

As for Travb's complaint over the deleted history, I did that per advice from the administrators noticeboard. --Duk 02:50, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

On reflection, a half hour later after adding Duk, I have removed Duk as a central person in the arbitration. Duk, see your talk page.Travb 03:48, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • The copyvios just keep showing up, one after the other, over and over again. And every time they get removed, or the article tagged, charges of POV, intellectual dishonesty and hidden agendas are made against the people cleaning up the mess. --Duk 00:30, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree with Tony (below), TDC's behavior has been pretty bad. And I'd like to add that this behavior is responsible, in part, for the many editors and admins discounting TDC's identification of copied and derived text, assuming instead that it was another one of his stunts. However, as bad as TDC's behavior has been, the EarthLink IP's behavior has been much, much worse. Intentionally introducing plagiarism and copyright violations from slanted, POV sources in order to advance their own POV. Then, when the copyvios are uncovered, morphing them into slightly different derivative works which are also copyright violations, just harder to catch. And doing all this while editing under different IPs to remain untouchable for behavior that they know is wrong. So far, the EarthLink IPs have completely gotten away with it. --Duk 16:41, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by User:Stevertigo

User:TDC has been a consistent and active foe and violator of Wikipedias NPOV policy in controversial areas and topics such as this one. He should be banned from editing any and all controversial topics related to U.S. military conflict. As stated above he has been consistent in using revert wars, policy and process rules (copyviolation, protection, 3RR, etc.) to POV war against the very existence of an article. How the Arbcom has managed to avoid banning him until now should be taken as evidence of the need for WP:DRR. -St|eve 01:14, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by User:Tony Sidaway

This seems to be a case of an editor deliberately choosing to treat Wikipedia as a battleground. I have tried to rein back the edit warring. TDC sometimes goes for the better part of a week apparently going down his watchlist and doing reverts. A month or two ago I blocked TDC for a couple of days, and more recently I admonished him, and he seemed to get the point and stop. Although others are involved, when TDC stops the warring stops. Past experience leads me to the expectation that he will simply wait until my attention is elsewhere and resume. 08:53, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by User:Sasquatch

My only involvement was brief as there was a period where I attempted to get some copyright issues sorted out. One side (TDC and Duk) insisted on deleting the entire page over a few sections that appeared to be copy and paste jobs while I insisted what we delete those sections. I ended up just rewriting the sections. I guess if it is possilbe I would like this issue cleared up through the ArbCom as I was referring to Wikipedia:Copyrights which says "If some of the content of a page really is an infringement, then the infringing content should be removed, and a note to that effect should be made on the talk page, along with the original source. If the author's permission is obtained later, the text can be restored." while TDC and Duk were using the just as valid Wikipedia:Copyright problems which says "Revert the page to a non-copyrighted version if you can — and you're done!" which they then reverted way back like so. Anyways, I still think that if the page has a rather long history, we should just remove the copyrighted sections as they seemed to be pushing their agenda a little... Sasquatch 01:12, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Preliminary decisions

[edit] Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (7/0/0/0)

[edit] Temporary injunction (none)

[edit] Final decision

[edit] Principles

[edit] Edit warring harmful

1) Chronic edit warring is harmful to Wikipedia. Excessive reversions may lead to imposition of a ban under the Three revert rule, see also Wikipedia:Edit war.

Passed 7-0


[edit] Protection considered harmful

3) Article protection undermines Wikipedia's collaborative nature and should be used sparingly and temporarily. Repeated protections of a single article is disruptive, and editors who repeatedly cause protections due to edit warring may be blocked for disruption.

Passed 7-0

[edit] Findings of fact

[edit] Locus of dispute

1) The locus of this dispute is the article Winter Soldier Investigation which continues to be the subject of and edit war between TDC (talk · contribs) and an anonymous editor who uses a variable EarthLink address, see page history. anon's version, TDC's version

Passed 8-0

[edit] Edit warring

2) Both TDC and the anonymous editor 165.247.xxx have engaged in multiple egregious edit wars leading to many blocks under 3RR and repeated protection of Winter Soldier Investigation.

Passed 7-0

[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] Banned from Winter Soldier Investigation

3) TDC (talk · contribs) (using whatever account or IP address) is banned for one year from editing Winter Soldier Investigation.

Passed 7-0

3.1) Anonymous Earthlink editor 165.247.xxx (using whatever account or IP address) is banned for one year from editing Winter Soldier Investigation.

Passed 7-0


[edit] Good behavior

5) If, in three months, either parties can demonstrate good behavior, they may request that the Arbitration Committee lift their ban or parole.

Passed 7-0

[edit] Proposed enforcement

[edit] Ban violations

1) If TDC or the anonymous Earthlink editor 165.247.xxx (using whatever account or IP address) edits Winter Soldier Investigation, any changes made may be reverted by any editor and any administrator may, at his or her discretion, block the violator for up to one week.

Passed 7-0

[edit] Parole violations

2) If TDC or the anonymous Earthlink editor 165.247.xxx (using whatever account or IP address) performs more than one content revert in any 24 hour period, or fails to discuss a content revert, any administrator may, at his or her discretion, block the violator for up to one week.

Passed 7-0

Clerk note: Although this enforcement provision was adopted, there was no remedy adopted providing for any editor to be subject to a revert limitation. Therefore, it is my opinion this enforcement provision should not be relied upon, as there is nothing to enforce. If anyone disagrees, clarification may be requested from the Arbitration Committee on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration. Newyorkbrad 19:00, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the remedy and enforcement are obvious and it is not reasonable to expect a decision made 18 months ago to be formatted the same way we do today. Rather than rule that the 1RR on TDC is unenforceable, it would be better to ask that it be lifted as stale. Thatcher131 19:16, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I was relying on this as establishing that the revert parole proposals did not pass. Newyorkbrad 19:30, 4 September 2007 (UTC)