Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Benapgar

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In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 21:51, 5 November 2005 ), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 17:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC).

Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Contents

[edit] Statement of the dispute

Benapgar has been repeatedly trying to insert content that is POV and original research, and has been disruptive, broken 3RR, unwilling to accept consensus, unwilling to assume good faith, and launched personal attacks at Intelligent design and Talk:Intelligent design.

[edit] Description

Benapgar first arrived at the Intelligent design article October 21 and has since sought to insert an introductory paragraph into the article that violates WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. In its first form it was a disambiguation template which was rejected in discussion by the majority regular contributors. Reasons voiced for rejecting it centered around it being POV, original research and inaccurate. Having failed to gain consensus Benapgar proceeded to repeatedly reinsert his disambiguation template, in the process breaking 3RR, for which he was given a warning. Again it was made clear to him why it was removed, but he rejected the explanation and became increasingly argumentative in continuing his effort to insert the contested content in one form or another.

Benapgar then sought to create a POV fork by splitting the article into sub-articles. There was no consensus or even mild support from regular contributors for Benapgar's proposed split, as such a split has been a common proposal from a long line of pro-ID POV contributors visiting the article in an attempt to remove the content that describes the response of the scientific community to Intelligent Design.

Seeing that his proposed split of the article would also not gain consensus, Benapgar then launched personal attacks against the admins who participate at the article. Particularly those who had removed his disambiguation template and opposed the article split. He posted a list of all admins who participate at the article, titled "Wikipedia Admins on this page", with commentary on their fitness to contribute to the article and highlighting what he alleged were their biases. These actions were very disruptive of the article's talk page. Despite being warned, Benapgar continued with the addition of a subsection, "Discussion about admins", where he continued the harassment and personal attacks for another 12+ hours.

The following day, 1 November, in response to criticism of his actions the day before, Benapgar let slip that his motive for proposing his disambiguation template and article split was not to improve the article's accuracy or completeness, but rather to remove any criticism of Intelligent Design from the article by dissembling it to other other articles, head-off and deflect any further criticism of ID being added later, and to prevent certain editors from contributing there, specifically User:FeloniousMonk [1]. In other words, Benapgar was seeking to create a "POV fork" to shuffle content that did not cast a positive light upon ID to sidebar articles.

After being counseled and cautioned further against further disruptive behavior and attacks by another admin, SlimVirgin, Benapgar moved his activities from Talk:Intelligent design to User_Talk:FeloniousMonk, where he has continued his harassing and threatening tone.

On November 4 and 5 Benapgar, again at Talk:Intelligent design, raised similar objections to the article's content. These objections provoked little interest and response. In his response he accused User:FeloniousMonk of bad faith for opposing or not responding to his points. After after being advised by User:SlimVirgin against personal attacks, Benapgar retracted one of his personal attacks. Ten minutes later, despite being told on the Talk page from two regular contributors that there was no consensus for it, he inserted his contested content in the form of an intro into the article that redefined the topic in the same manner as his failed disambiguation template. Twelve hours later he tried again redefine Intelligent Design by inserting another intro that was original research. After Benapgar made another personal attack section at Talk:Intelligent design[2], FeloniousMonk blocked Benapgar 24hr block for being chronically disruptive. Mirv subsequently unblocked Benapgar after ~20 minutes. Benapgar then filed an RFAr against FeloniousMonk, RoyBoy and Dunc|☺ and struck SlimVirgin's cautions from his Talk page.

[edit] Evidence of disputed behavior

(Provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.)

[edit] Ignoring consensus & 3RR

  1. [3] 18:02, 21 October Adding unwarranted accuracy template as Benapgar
  2. [4] 19:04, 22 October 1st attempt at redefining ID by adding dab template as Benapgar
  3. [5] 21:28, 22 October Reverting removal of dab template as 24.57.157.81
  4. [6] 14:14, 23 October Reverting removal of dab template as 24.57.157.81
  5. [7] 14:51, 23 October Reverting removal of dab template as Benapgar
  6. [8] 22:39, 23 October Reverting removal of dab template as Benapgar
  7. [9] 22:54, 23 October Reverting removal of dab template as Benapgar
  8. [10] 22:57, 23 October Reverting removal of dab template as Benapgar
  9. [11] 17:28, 30 October Readding removed dab Adding cleanup template as Benapgar against consensus
  10. [12] 17:34, 30 October Reverting removal of dab Adding expert template as Benapgar against consensus
  11. [13] 23:57, 4 November 2005 2nd attempt at redefining ID by adding new intro that mirrored POV/NOR disambiguation template.
  12. [14] 12:44, 5 November 2005 3rd attempt at redefining ID by adding new intro that was original research and POV.

[edit] Disruptiveness & Personal attacks

  1. [15] 03:29, 31 October Harassment, failure to assume good faith, intentional disruption
  2. [16] 15:52, 31 October Harassment, failure to assume good faith, intentional disruption
  3. [17] 16:11, 31 October Harassment, failure to assume good faith, intentional disruption
  4. [18] 16:17, 31 October Organizing the disruption
  5. [19] 16:45, 31 October Reorganizing the disruption
  6. [20] 16:45, 31 October Harassment, failure to assume good faith, intentional disruption
  7. [21] 17:20, 31 October Personal attack, harassment, failure to assume good faith
  8. [22] 19:12, 31 October Personal attacks, harassment, failure to assume good faith, intentional disruption
  9. [23] 21:54, 31 October Incivility/hostility
  10. [24] 23:50, 31 October Incivility/hostility, disruption, harassment
  11. [25] 00:07, 1 November Incivility/hostility, failure to assume good faith, harassment
  12. [26] 02:52, 1 November Disruption, harassment, admitting that his goal has been to dissemble; to remove criticism of the topic to other articles,and to prevent certain editors from contributing to the article
  13. [27] 19:18, 4 November 2005 Personal attack, disruptiveness
  14. [28] 19:19, 4 November 2005 Personal attack, disruptiveness
  15. [29] 19:28, 4 November 2005 Personal attack, disruptiveness
  16. [30] 13:03, 5 November 2005 Personal attack, disruptiveness

[edit] Good faith

  1. [31]
  2. [32]
  3. [33]
  4. [34]

[edit] Additional recent evidence

Recent incidents and evidence is documented here: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Benapgar#Additional.2C_recent_personal_attacks

[edit] Applicable policies

{list the policies that apply to the disputed conduct}

  1. Wikipedia:No personal attacks
  2. Wikipedia:Assume good faith
  3. Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to make a point
  4. Wikipedia:Wikiquette
  5. Wikipedia:Harassment
  6. Wikipedia:Three Revert Rule
  7. Wikipedia:No original research

[edit] Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

(provide diffs and links)

  1. FeloniousMonk: [35]
  2. FeloniousMonk: [36]
  3. SlimVirgin: [37]
  4. SlimVirgin: [38]
  5. SlimVirgin: [39]
  6. FeloniousMonk: [40]
  7. FeloniousMonk: [41]
  8. FeloniousMonk: [42]
  9. FeloniousMonk: [43]
  10. SlimVirgin: [44]
  11. EC5618: [45]

[edit] Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

(sign with ~~~~)

  1. FeloniousMonk 21:51, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  2. Ec5618 22:04, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Other users who endorse this summary

(sign with ~~~~)

  1. Bill Jefferys 22:17, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  2. Dunc|☺ 22:30, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  3. Ryan Delaney talk 00:00, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
  4. RoyBoy 800 00:40, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
  5. Joshuaschroeder 01:10, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
  6. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:11, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
  7. CSTAR 02:34, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
  8. Sadly; I was hoping it wouldn't come to this. Guettarda 07:34, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
  9. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:36, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
  10. KillerChihuahua 10:38, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
  11. I just had my first run in with this user. This user should work on his or her social skills. 172 00:21, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
  12. I didn't know an RfC was up for this guy.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 02:37, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Response

Important note: Prior to this RFC, I filed a Request for Arbitration against FeloniousMonk, Duncharris, RoyBoy regarding their conduct on the same page. I informed these users of the request approximately half an hour prior to FeloniousMonk's creation of this RFC. I did not file an RFC as FeloniousMonk refused to participate in one.

Note there are still some minor editorial mistakes in my response, I will get to them soon.

[edit] Summary

FeloniousMonk and I are engaged in a dispute regaring my actions. My dispute regarding FM's actions is in Request for Arbitration so I will not comment on the nature of his actions which I have laid out in the RFA. I believe I did in fact disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point. However, I do not believe that it is as bad as FM makes it out to be. FM constantly stonewalled any contribution I wanted to make, no matter how many times, or how well I explained it. As a result I lost my cool. I have included here an account of all events that took place (seeing as I will need it in my RFA anyway). In it I believe I show that my actions were not so unreasonable considering the circumstances I was in. I also address within the account what I believe are discrepancies and exaggeration that FM has made in his statement above. At the end, I include a final response, an additional explanation of my motivations which I believe FM is mischaracterizing in his statement, and a rebuttal to each of the pieces of evidence FM has exhibited.

[edit] Statement of Account

Users referenced in this account:

FeloniousMonk, Ec5618, Ryan Delaney, Guettarda, Stuckerj a.k.a. Gandalf2000, Joshuaschroeder, RoyBoy, Duncharris a.k.a. Dunc, Jason_Potter a.k.a. JPotter, CSTAR, SlimVirgin, Ian Pitchford, Ed Poort a.k.a. Uncle Ed

My first edit on Intelligent Design on October 22 was to add a Factually Inaccurate template. I did so because I found the opening sentence, the definition, nonsensical. I could not (and still cannot) understand how "Intelligent Design," a topic, can be an assertion. To me this was an error of language (a fallacy of definition) and misrepresentative. Additionally, it provided a very strict definition to a very complex, ambiguous, and amorphous topic. I provided, in my edit, a summary saying "accuracy, see talk." On the talk page I voiced my reasons for the template, saying, in bold lettering, "Intelligent Design is a philosophical hypothesis, not an assertion," as well as some harsh criticism about the content of the article. User:FeloniousMonk reverted, with the reason that the article was well-cited and referenced. FeloniousMonk seemed to take it in stride, but responded with what I thought was nonsense, giving what I assume were supposed to be counter arguments but what looked to me like they entirely missed my point.

I could not understand what he was getting at, so, on October 23, I simply added what I feel was a clarification to the disambiguation template (as per Wikipedia:Be bold). I hoped that FM had simply not understood what I was getting at, and upon seeing the change would understand my point. FM reverted with the summary "highly pov and factually inaccurate tirade." I thought this was insufficient, not to mention a little insulting, and I reverted (under my IP address as my login had timed out and I didn't notice) and said "please discuss on talk." FM reverted 1 minute later. On the talk page I wrote: "Could you please explain what is wrong with my disambiguation intro?" FM did explain, but it seemed to me he was talking past my point. So I tried to make it clearer, using Deists as an example of what I would call someone who believes in "intelligent design" whom believe the theory of evolution is sound. I even gave an example from the Deism.org page, which explicitly states in regards to evolution that "Intelligent Design Theory" is so-called "Creation Science" masquerading as Deism." Which I thought would show that disambiguation was important. FM's response was that my addition was editorializing. I tried to explain myself again but received no response from FM or anyone on the page.

In this RFC, FM says that my disambiguation template violated WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. I don't think it does. He also says that "Reasons voiced for rejecting it centered around it being POV, original research and inaccurate." Those were voiced, but that's all that was voiced. I do not believe FM presented any substantial reason. FM also says I failed to gain consensus, however I was new to the page and at that point the only person who had talked to me was FM, whom I found was not addressing what I was talking about. FM implies that I come from "a long line of pro-ID POV contributors visiting the article in an attempt to remove the content that describes the response of the scientific community to Intelligent Design." This is assuming bad faith. I do not want to remove any responses of the scientific community. If anything, I would move them to where they are more appropriate. Those criticizing creation science would go on the creation science page, those criticizing specified complexity theory would go on the specified complexity theory page. It would all be accessible from the intelligent design page. This I think would help visitors understand the nature of the "topic," instead of reading through what I think is like an essay called "Criticisms of Intelligent design."

The next day (15 hours later) , I re-added the intro I had created with the summary "See Talk" hoping this would at least get someone to respond to my concerns. Another user, User:Ec5618 reverted my changes approximately 16 minutes later with no summary. I reverted again, saying that Ec5618 should see the talk. A short while later, Ec5618 reverted again simply saying both he and FM disagreed and that "the last post was hardly clinching." Note that Ec5618 made no input on the discussion. There were no further comments on the talk page regarding this, so later the day I added the intro again, arguably violating WP:POINT, but I did not know how else to get a discussion going. FM reverted 8 minutes later, citing consensus (of which I could hardly be aware of) and again stating that my version was factually inaccurate and POV. This made me angry, since I could not see how it was inaccurate and POV. I felt I had explained myself already and received no response. I reverted, asking FM to prove this point on the talk page. FM reverted again, I reverted and called him a vandal, and User:Ryan Delaney came in and broke up the revert war. FM posted a notice on my talk page saying I violated the 3RR rule (technically I did not, as it was October 24 by then) as well as suggesting that I was using my IP address to get around this. He also said I should "learn to abide by consensus," that there was no support for my version and that it had convincingly shown to be factually inaccurate and POV. I thought this was ridiculous. Ryan Delaney also told me not to do this, or I may be blocked, and told me not to "[undo] other people's edits without discussing them first." Even though I had discussed them. I told Ryan Delaney this on his talk page and said I was very frustrated and asked for help. He suggested mediation.

In his RFC, FM says it was made clear to me why it was removed. It certainly was not clear to me, otherwise we wouldn't have this problem. It is up to the readers of this RFC to decide whether FM was clear or not.

Instead, I posted on the talk page a section entitled "What is wrong with my disambiguation intro?" with a detailed explanation of my point. FM said that he was still opposed "for the same reasons" and left it at that. User:Guettarda seemed to understand my point, as he was able to take the phrase literally, saying that "if I didn't know what it was about I would probably be inclined to assume it had something to do with interior design and architecture". This seemed promising, and I hoped I would be able to show why disambiguation was important. I explained a little bit more and wrote a short story which I hoped would show the problems with the name of the topic compared with how it was described in the article. Noone responded. User:Stuckerj (a.k.a Gandalf2000) responded as well, but then we both got side-tracked into discussing the merits of Intelligent Design itself. I even hoped that by explaining my own personal views on the subject, that I believed Intelligent Design theory might be fundamentally flawed and why, that FM (whom I determined though ID was flawed) would not treat me so harshly. Later, I came up with what I thought was a great example detailing the ambiguity of "Intelligent design" by using the Flying Spaghetti Monster as an example. StuckerJ believed I was again criticizing ID but I made sure he understood I was only talking about how the Flying Spaghetti Monster joke (and indeed the creator's lobby to have it taught in schools) played on the ambiguity of "Intelligent design" that I was referring to. Ec5618 also made a post which I didn't understand and seemed very off-topic and strange, bringing up "Wedge strategy," saying it "may be a creationist ploy" and saying "ID is a specific example of the concept of an intelligent designer, not a general notion," which confused me even more. StuckerJ responded to him and I responded as well, in fact agreeing that in my opinion too it was somewhat of a "creationist ploy," but resolutely trying to make my point. I was appealing to Ec5618's beliefs, showing him, I thought, how if it was a ploy, the ploy would be "revealed" so to speak through disambiguation, as I believe part of it is, or seems, a sort of "ploy" as a result of how it is discussed by creationists.

I received no more responses. In the interim, I started a section about comparing ID and Deism, and FM commented that "proponents aren't Deist," and I told him I was talking about comparative religion and he didn't respond. User:Joshuaschroeder also said "the formulation I was proposing" was original research which didn't make sense to me. I told him I simply wanted to discuss how ID compares to other religions and religious ideas. That was the end of that section.

I commented with a rough proposal on how to break up the article, Stuckerj responded but, since he already had his own idea which was structurally different, it wasn't like we were going to work together.

This seems as good as any place to talk about FM's suggestion that I am trying to create a "POV fork." It is only by luck that I have found out what this means, finding another user's edits referencing "POV fork"[46]. It is somewhat self-explanatory. My position is not to create a "fork." I want to re-structure the article and move things around to different articles, but of course they would still be referenced from the main article. If anything I would call it a "NPOV fork." FM should explain exactly what he means by POV fork.

I commented on User:RoyBoy's suggestion of creating an Unintelligent Design article, which I thought was a very bad idea, I explained why I thought so. He wanted it to be an article about "evidence why biology is not intelligently designed" and I told him to put it on the Evidence of evolution page, but for some strange reason he said that page wasn't detailed enough. Then an anonymous user posted "there are to(sic) many ignorant people holding the keys to what people hear and understand about Intelligent Design" to which both FM and RoyBoy responded with taunts and condescension. I reminded them, getting annoyed at this point that they were engaging someone who was basically trolling, that "Wikipedia is not a chatroom" and RoyBoy said "And tacos aren't burritos."

StuckerJ also made another example structure, and Joshuaschroeder simply said "I find this outline to be deplorable. The current one is much better." and FM said: "Agreed. I see no pressing need to refactor the current article. I do see though a number of pro-ID editors who want to mitigate content they feel casts ID in an unfavorable light." I made a comment that something like the proposed section "Intelligent Design and biology," in my opinion, should simply be in Evidence of evolution and for some reason Joshuaschroeder thought I was "claiming that ID helps in providing evidence for evolution" which is absurd.

On October 31st I added by a clean-up tag and expert attention tag to the article. An hour later, FeloniousMonk reverted and removed them 20 minutes later, calling them "spurious". This really annoyed me as I thought, considering the sheer number of complaints about the article that these, of all tags, would be the least controversial. I felt that at least putting these tags up, visitors to the article would know that it was a work in progress.

I also posted a note saying that the discussion about trolls from the blog uncommondissent should be removed. That was mainly because the talk page was really long at that point, and all those sections seemed to be was FM and RoyBoy making fun of them and saying things like "The POV campaign continues!!" which I didn't feel added anything to the discussion.

At this point I was fed up and I also found out that FM was an administrator. I believed he was and had been acting entirely inappropriately. I had made up my mind that he was violating Wikipedia:Ownership of articles amongst other things. It seemed to me there was a concerted effort to obstruct my contributions by FeloniousMonk, and the fact that he was an administrator was very disconerting. As a result, I thought it would be good for all the people participating on the board to know that FeloniousMonk was an administrator, so I posted a notice on the discussion board saying:

"In the interests of full disclosure, I'd like to point out that User:FeloniousMonk is a Wikipedia administrator (though he fails to mention so on his user page). See Wikipedia:List_of_administrators. --Ben 10:29, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

RoyBoy responded with "In the interest of curiosity, why is that important?" This I thought was strange, as I figured "full disclosure" was obviously the reason. I then found out that RoyBoy was also an administrator, so I posted as such.

User:Duncharris (a.k.a Dunc) then responded with "Yeah, a good one. You're just a lowly troll." This I thought was extremely annoying, and since I had never seen Duncharris on the talk page, I thought it just came out of nowhere. I then found out that Duncharris too was also an administrator, so I posted as such. I then went through all who I talked to and found out that Guettarda was also an administrator, and posted that as well.

FM says these posts were personal attacks. I think it is arguable that I was the one who was attacked in this situation. I did not "continue with the addition of a subsection." JPotter (discussed below) asked a specific question relating to all the administrators. I did not feel it was appropriate to have it under the heading "Guettarda is an admin." I even explained why I created the section in my edit summary.

On November 1st, User:Jason_Potter (a.k.a. JPotter) posted a response asking if I felt they were abusing their adminship and I responded. User:CSTAR (another administrator) asked why the information was relevant. I also thought this was strange, since I figured "full disclosure" essentially said why I wanted to say so. I understood he might think I had ulterior motives (I did, as I explained). I responded to him and also told him to see my response to JPotter. At this point FM posted a note on my talk page asking me to stop being disruptive on the talk pages. CSTAR then said my "raising this issue is a red herring" which I did not understand, since, while I know what a red herring is, I did not understand what I was distracting from. There was then a rather long discussion while I explained, again, why I was posting the list of admins. I explained for each of the three why I believed they were doing something wrong. That conversation is here [47] and should probably be read.

I then filed for an Article Request for Comment. I placed an admittedly POV request for comment in both the religion and philosophy sections. I did not think it that inappropriate to add my opinion, as I believe it is arguably fact, however, I understand why some would say it was not neutral. A user commented on the page that they found my RFC was not neutral and I edited it to be more neutral. FM said it was still not neutral. I thought it was totally neutral and explained to him why I thought it was neutral, and said that if he thought it wasn't neutral he should explain why. FM then edited both of the RFCs without any discussion, and it ended up almost exactly the same. It is possible that the grammar I used resulted in a miscommunication. FM said that it did not make sense why I would put it in both the philosophy and religion sections, I told him he shouldn't be editing the article if he did not understand that, as I believe that whether it is philosophy or religion is a major point of contention. I put it in both so as to get both perspectives. FM said I was ignoring convention by filing multiple RFCs. I told him that was ridiculous, and Ec5618 repeated that it was bad form and asked if I would consider it "troll feeding" by responding to my post saying that it was ridiculous. I then gave them a link to the page which clearly states "If you're not sure which place an issue belongs, you can put it in two places if you want, but please don't crosspost further than that."

User:SlimVirgin, another administrator, posted a note on my talk page asking me to focus on content and told me not to make an article RFC that was non-neutral like I did, but that she was happy I made it more neutral. I replied to SlimVirgin explaining the situation and that I was very frustrated and did not know what to do. She told me that my introduction was inappropriate and argued FM's point for him (frankly almost better than he ever did). I tried to explain to her and sent her links to my argument but, while she was civil, she was essentially still arguing FM's point. I also explained my concerns about how I felt FM was acting as owner of the article. I asked her to talk to him, but I do not think she did. I told her I did not know what to do other than filing an RFC against him.

Ec5816 created a section called "Ben's Point" to address the question of whether new editors can contribute to the article, or if, as I claim, a select group were taking ownership. (This he referred to as "the fabled wikipedia liberal slant") He said he did not believe this was the case, but wanted to form an answer for people, like me, who believe some of the editors are taking ownership of the article. I replied that my point had nothing to do with politics and explained as best as I could why I thought I was right, and why I thought there was people taking ownership. Ec5618 told me not to turn the question into a personal rant about the issue, which was reasonable. I did not post anymore in that section.

In this RFC, FeloniousMonk claims that I:

let slip that his motive for proposing his disambiguation template and article split was not to improve the article's accuracy or completeness, but rather to remove any criticism of Intelligent Design from the article by dissembling it to other other articles, head-off and deflect any further criticism of ID being added later, and to prevent certain editors from contributing there, specifically User:FeloniousMonk [48]... ...In other words, Benapgar was seeking to create a "POV fork" to shuffle content that did not cast a positive light upon ID to sidebar articles.

This is libel based on FM's own imagination and I find it extremely insulting. His idea is likely based on two things I said:

I believe the reason my single sentence is so contentious is because the article, like "Intelligent Design" is, when it comes to an encyclopedic topic, a house of cards...

...Breaking the article up into its component parts instead of leaving it as what I see as a mish-mash of religion, science, and philosophy, will pull out the rug from underneath the cards.

At the end of this account is a full response to this.

If I remember, this is the point where I realized Duncharris had gone to a page I had edited, Coingate (I originally created the article actually), and reverted one of my edits for no reason. In fact, in the history it clearly stated why I had made the change in the first place. This made me feel very much like I was being intimidated, by an administrator no less. This also made me very suspicious and further reinforced my belief that some sort of collusion between the admins on the page was going on to try to make me leave. I talk about this in my RFA, Duncharris' response is that "I believe he can't be trusted" and "I have no interest or knowledge on that subject... ...but he's just nitpicking."

I then posted on FM's talk page and asked if he would participate in an request for comment if I filed one against him, and told him that if he did not I would instead file a request for arbitration. At first he equivocated, but eventually I got his answer the he would not participate in any RFC against him.

SlimVirgin then posted on my page telling me that an RFA would likely fail as a first step and that I should file an article RFC instead (I told her I already had, as that's how she knew to contact me), and I also told her it made me suspicious that she had found out. She informed me she has FM's talk page on her watchlist which, again, made me suspicious since I originally assumed FM had just found an administrator to talk to me, not one that just so happend to have his talk page on her watchlist. I also assume she has the article RFC pages on her watchlist too, since FM doesn't mention them on his own talk page, nor does he mention them anywhere on hers (I may need to check through their archives again to be sure).

On November 4th I noticed that the disambiguation template had changed. As it was re-written, I hoped I could characterize the article (not the topic, the article) in what I believe is the proper way and which would be helpful for visitors. This was different than my first one. This one said "This article is about William A. Dembski's concept of Intelligent Design, for other uses..." 10 minutes, later User:Ian Pitchford reverted without explanation. I reverted again, writing in my summary: "Ian Wikipolicy is to explain reverts. Re-added." A little later, Duncharris reverted also without explanation. Later that day I noticed that he had done so, and again reverted with the same explanation as for Ian (under my IP because my login had timed out). Duncharris reverted 6 minutes later but this time he actually explained his reason, which was a valid one.

I posted a new section on the talk page, titled "What's this article about?" with a discussion concerning the opening sentence. I still thought (and still do think) that the opening sentence on the page is pretty nonsensical. I asked for comment on what people thought of my suggestion, that the introduction should read "Intelligent design is term used to describe a particular system of beliefs and theory based on teleological argument and information theory." No one responded. About 4 hours later, I said that if there were no objections I was going to add it. Ec5618 responded with "You know there are" and FM said "Indeed he does. He's been trying to justify a POV fork for a while now." I said that this was refusing to discuss, a misinterpretation of what I was trying to do (whatever they thought it was) and bad faith. FM said "It's not a lack of discussion that is the problem here... ...Please do not start with the personal attacks and disruptions again."

I also contributed to another section regarding the introduction, and said that the line "Critics have accused Intelligent Design proponents of trying to find gaps within current evolutionary theory only to fill with speculative beliefs, and that Intelligent Design in this context may ultimately amount to the "God of the gaps" should be on the Creation Science page. I discussed it briefly with Ec5618. FM then says if I want to remove the statement I would have to disprove it. To me, this is just another misinterpretation. I said I wanted to move it because I believed that the critics were likely talking about Creation science, as arguably the "trying to find gaps within evolutionary theory" is exactly the critique leveled at Creation science, and is no different when applied to the topic of Intelligent Design. I said his misinterpretation and bad faith were "par for the course" and that he should "get a grip." This comment was removed. SlimVirgin then posted on my talk page that I should "stop my personal attacks." At this point I realized that SlimVirgin was not helping me, saying I should try to concentrate on the content not the editor. This was very frustrating because I, the editor, was being concentrated on by everyone else. The content I was proposing was being ignored. And I don't think my comments saying that this was "par for the course" (I believe I've shown that it is) were that out of line. As a result I asked SlimVirgin to stop posting on my talk page.

On November 5th I added the above introduction I was working on since by this time I was fed up with FM and his stonewalling. Ian Pitchford reverted the change a few hours later.

I noticed in a discussion FM had actually defined Intelligent Design in a post to User:Ed Poor, saying his definition was wrong. FM said:

Your (Ed) intro wrongly abandons the canonical definition of intelligent design, which is the one offered by the Discovery Institute ("that certain features of the universe and of living things exhibit the characteristics of a product resulting from an intelligent cause or agent, as opposed to an unguided process such as natural selection")[4]. Since ID is wholly a product of the Discovery Institute, with every leading ID proponent is one of its Fellows and every campaign and strategy arising from its offices, defining ID as they do is necessary in the intro for any of the claims made in the article by Dembski, Behe or Johnson to make any sense. Any intro that ignores the canonical definition is deficient.

Later that day, I created an introduction based on this [49], thinking nothing would go wrong. I finally thought I had introduction that was at least somewhat better than the current one, though I admit I did it in part because I believed FM would revert his own opinion. FeloniousMonk reverted the edit and blocked my account for 24 hours. SlimVirgin then posted on my talk page me saying I should not be inserting unsourced material onto the page, especially material that contradicts information elsewhere on the page, saying it was unhelpful. I told her again not to post on my talk page. Unknown to me, (I don't know how blocks work, so I figured I was just blocked from that page) another administrator unblocked me approximately 20 minutes later, telling FM that his block was inappropriate. Another administrator also told FM that using the special administrator rollback revert was improper as well. I then filed for a Request for Arbitration against FeloniousMonk, Duncharris, and RoyBoy. Less than half an hour later FM filed for an RFC against me.

[edit] Response about POV forks, accusations I'm trying to deflect criticism, etc.

I really regret using the house of cards analogy as it has fed FM's conspiracy theory and his bad faith. Perhaps I should have said strawman. What I am saying is that the article is built up of different things that do not stand up all together as an encyclopedic topic. They are topics unto themselves and as such, putting them all on the same page is akin to writing a personal essay entitled "Intelligent Design." In my opinion there is nothing to tell me that the the combined concepts of Intelligent Design can stand on their own. If it is offered by someone, for example, the Discovery Institute, then the article must be about The Discovery Insitute's concept of Intelligent Design, not Intelligent Design in general. There is no intelligent design in general. The ID movement, specifically the advocacy for teaching Christian Creationism in school is based on people believing there is an Intelligent Design "in general." It is a strawman. What FM and other editors on the article have done is write an essay where they themselves connect the dots. As a result, the page is full of criticisms and information which more appropriately belong on another page. For example, on the ID page there is a section entiteld "Who designed the designer?" with a critique. However, this is not a critique of Intelligent Design, this is a philosophical question which has been around for ages. Stephen Hawking, before the ID movement was even close to being in the mainstream, references the question in Turtles all the way down. There are also sections critiquing evolutionary theory. Why are these not on the evolutionary theory page? The Intelligent Design article is an essay critiquing a strawman. It is easy when the mainstream and bloggers talk about "Intelligent design" to believe that there is a fully-formed concept, and a specific topic for it to be discussed in. The article needs to discuss actual things not an argument or faux concept that has been created. Who has it been created by? If it is person, they must be identified as the creator of the argument. It is a strawman topic, at the moment, that people like FM rail against. It is not a topic unto itself, it is a book by William A. Dembski. I've argued this many times. I still don't know if I've got it right, or if the reader will get it. However, let me make this clear: I am not attempting to remove criticism of Intelligent design because I believe there is no "Intelligent Design" as defined by the article. All that criticism is valid and has a place on Wikipedia. Ironically, while FM says that I am trying to deflect criticism, I believe that he has bought into the idea that there is some sort of general "Intelligent Design" (Is it like Christianity? Quantum Theory? Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy?) and as a result he is pouring his heart out criticizing things which have already been criticized and thus arguing the case FOR Intelligent Design himself! He's just mixing criticism in with it. Who is connecting the dots between teleology and specified complexity theory? The editors? Or ... what exactly? When I talked about a "creationist ploy" before, this is what I mean. A group creates a strawman argument (I only say strawman because the theory is not developed in general, it's just Dembski's book and other fully-formed ideas--all the way through--which can be considered "theory") and one group assumes the argument is sound and constantly references it as if it is. Another group attacks the strawman and is then constantly thwarted when the definition changes. People come onto the page saying they don't like how ID is called Creationism. Well? They're right! Parts of ID are not Creationism and have nothing to do with it. Then, in order to obtain a NPOV, the arguments must become so convoluted as one is both advocating for and criticizing a concept, that a) People believe in the strawman more strongly, believing it can't be knocked down, and b) People argue against the strawman because they see all sorts of problems with it. The answer is to take it apart. That's what happens when you write essays on pseudotopics in Wikipedia. A whole other problem is that the strawman gives an opportunity for people who dislike all the topics in the ether to attack everything all in one place and to advocate their criticisms all in one place. Some of you may not agree with everything I've said above, I told you I'm not sure if I can argue it convincingly, but I think it is right--though I may be proven wrong. I'm sure some of this stuff will rub people the wrong way and if it does, just ignore it because it is probably wrong. But if there is stuff you think might be worth considering, please consider! Does it not make sense to at least consider this as a possiblity? Look at the amount of spite and hostility which goes on in the article. Why does it happen? Where does it come from? I believe that 99% of POV pushing will simply disappear because everything will be directed where it is supposed to be. POV pushing is because people don't understand it, right? It can't all be propagandists! Consider the idea of what makes an essay and what makes an encyclopedic topic? And consider why all these ideas are in one single article and all criticized in that article when there are perfectly good places for them already? The topics are all in an ether and editors of both sides are trying to wrangle them all around while being NPOV and without doing original research. Not going to happen. The only way you can do that is to write an essay.

[edit] Response to Individual Evidence

Note that every date and time FM gives is off by 7 hours from UTC time. I changed them to UTC time.

[edit] Ignoring consensus & 3RR

1.[50] 18:02, 21 October 01:02, 22 October Adding unwarranted accuracy template as Benapgar

This is the first edit I ever did on the page. You can hardly call it ignoring consensus unless any editor whoever adds anything to the article is "ignoring consensus". I did nothing wrong here whatsoever. I discussed this in my account. I said why I thought it was warranted.

2.[51] 19:04, 22 October 02:04, 23 October 1st attempt at redefining ID by adding dab template as Benapgar

This is the first time I ever added anything to the dab template. I did nothing wrong here whatsoever. I discussed this in my account and said why I added it there. I was hoping instead of having cross-talk where FM didn't understand what I was getting at, he'd just see what I was getting at and it would be fine.

3.[52] 21:28, 22 October 04:28, 23 October Reverting removal of dab template as 24.57.157.81

I reverted because FM simply called my dab template a "tirade," and did not bother to discuss anything on the talk page (where I wrote that I was adding a dab template) This I later found out is basically his modus operandi. My summary for this reversion was "please discuss on talk," and we did discuss on the talk page. Note that FM reverted back after this.

4.[53] 14:14, 23 October 21:14, 23 October Reverting removal of dab template as 24.57.157.81

This is 17 hours later. I added the dab template back in with the summary "see talk" because FM had simply stopped talking to me on the discussion page even though I had given him what I thought were very good points. It seemed to me he did not want to bother to understand what I was getting at.

5.[54] 14:51, 23 October 21:51, 23 October Reverting removal of dab template as Benapgar

I reverted back because another user, Ec5618 reverted with no summary. Seeing as he was not involved in the discussion between me and FM, I told him to see my and FM's discussion in my summary.

6.[55] 22:39, 23 October 05:39 24 October Reverting removal of dab template as Benapgar

I reverted back here because Ec5618 said that I disagree with your stance as does FM and said that the "last post was hardly clinching" (condescension is the norm here). Again I told him to see the talk.

7.[56] 22:54, 23 October 05:54, 24 October Reverting removal of dab template as Benapgar

I reverted here because FM just repeated that the change was "factually inaccurate and POV" and said "there's no support for this version," which, to me, meant: Me and this Ec5618 guy don't like it. He said there was "long-term support for this version" as well, meaning to me that he didn't even care what I said on the talk page, and was only interested in maintaining the status quo. I told him to prove his point (that it was factually inaccurate and POV) on the talk page. I could not see how it was factually inaccurate and POV (I still can't). Especially the last part which just said "For information about the concept of an intelligent being(s) who designed the universe, see instead Theism." FM didn't just remove the top part where he would at least have a chance of arguing that was factually inaccurate (even then, the "facts" where about what the article was about, and seeing as the article was right underneath it, I figured FM could easily show me what I missed.

8.[57] 22:57, 23 October 05:57 24 October Reverting removal of dab template as Benapgar

I reverted here because after my last one, which said please prove your point on talk page, FM did not write anything on the talk page. At this point I was angry and just said "rv. vandalism" because FM was not participating. At this point I will admit I was arguably being "disruptive."

9.[58] 17:28, 30 October 00:28, 30 October Readding removed dab template as Benapgar against consensus

This is entirely incorrect. I added a clean-up tag.

ADDENDUM: See below.
10.[59] 17:34, 30 October 00:34, 30 October Reverting removal of dab template as Benapgar

This is also entirely incorrect. I added an expert attention tag.

ADDENDUM:
As of 9 November, FeloniousMonk has corrected these (he called them "typos", and I had to demand that he fix them before he would). Note too the times I added these, I added the clean-up tag and also the expert attention tag. He says I added these "against consensus." As I explained in my account: "On October 31st I added by(sic) a clean-up tag and expert attention tag to the article. An hour later, FeloniousMonk reverted and removed them 20 minutes later(sic), calling them "spurious". This really annoyed me as I thought, considering the sheer number of complaints about the article that these, of all tags, would be the least controversial. I felt that at least putting these tags up, visitors to the article would know that it was a work in progress." I should make it clear that I did not push this issue and did not add them again. I did mention them the next day when asked why I thought FM was violating Ownership of articles to CSTAR who said: "Your interpretation of policing articles is erroneous. It is common in the sciences to have numerous articles on one's watchlist to screen for crackpots. Do you need my list? Please don't invent policy to suit your needs." to which I replied "There is a difference between keeping trolls out and arguing about the article to the point of reverting the article for a clean up tag 20 minutes(sic) after it has been added." --Ben 00:52, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
11.[60] 23:57, 4 November 2005 06:57, 5 November 2nd attempt at redefining ID by adding new intro that mirrored POV/NOR disambiguation template.

I changed the intro from:

Intelligent Design (sometimes abbreviated ID) is the controversial assertion that certain features of the universe and of living things exhibit the characteristics of a product resulting from an intelligent cause or agent, as opposed to an unguided process such as natural selection.

to

"Intelligent Design (sometimes abbreviated ID) is a term used to describe a particular system of beliefs and theory based on teleological argument and information theory."

12.[61] 12:44, 5 November 2005 19:44, 5 November 3rd attempt at redefining ID by adding new intro that was original research and POV.

I changed the intro based on what FM himself defined Intelligent Design as. FM defined Intelligent Design on the talk page in an argument with Ed Poor. All I did was add what he said was true to the introduction. See the last paragraph in my account.

[edit] Disruptiveness & Personal attacks

1.[62] 03:29, 31 October 10:29, 31 October Harassment, failure to assume good faith, intentional disruption

I explained this in my account. I told people FM was an admin. Harassment to point out FM is an admin? That should be cause for question. I had a concern and instead of simply attacking FM and accusing him of things I left it up to people to decide for themselves whether it matters or not if FM is an admin. I could have easily said "FM is a Wikipedia admin involved in a POV fork conspiracy to deflect criticism" or something, but I did not.

2.[63] 15:52, 31 October 22:52, 31 October Harassment, failure to assume good faith, intentional disruption

I added that RoyBoy was an admin.

3.[64] 16:11, 31 October Harassment, failure to assume good faith, intentional disruption

I added that Duncharris was an admin. That's all. Duncharris also called me a "lowly troll" and reverted one of my edits on a completely different article. Who is getting harassed here?

4.[65] 16:17, 31 October 23:17, 31 October Organizing the disruption

Look at this edit. Is it a disruption to organize sections?

5.[66] 16:45, 31 October 23:45, 31 October Reorganizing the disruption

FM has probably marked this down wrong. In this edit I added that Guettarda was an admin. I wanted to name all the admins on the page because there sure are a lot of them, and I didn't want to unfairly leave out admins participating on the page simply to make a point about FM.

ADDENDUM:
FM might be referring to this edit [67] on 02:23, 1 November where I added a new heading because the discussion about the admins, which was getting long, awas taking place under the heading "Guettarda is an admin." --Ben 10:09, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
6.[68] 16:45, 31 October 23:45, 31 October Harassment, failure to assume good faith, intentional disruption

Duplicate of above link.

7.[69] 17:20, 31 October 00:20, 31 October Personal attack, harassment, failure to assume good faith

I explained my reasons for pointing out the number of admins on the page. FM apparently would prefer I did not explain my reasons and simply shut the hell up. Personal attack? Find me one personal attack in there. Or am I not allowed to say I believe someone is violating Wikiquette? Or acting as if they own an article?

8.[70] 19:12, 31 October 02:12, 31 October Personal attacks, harassment, failure to assume good faith, intentional disruption

I answered an administrator's (CSTAR) questions honestly. Quite a laundry list FM has there. See if you can find in my post what he is referring to.

9.[71] 21:54, 31 October Incivility/hostility

Yes, I was hostile to Calton who came to say my article RFC was not neutral. He just felt like using sarcasm to do so [72]. I used sarcasm back.


10.[73] 23:50, 31 October Incivility/hostility, disruption, harassment

Well it is quite annoying when you go make something neutral and FM says "it's not neutral," doesn't explain why, then changes it himself. Here's my neutral version:

Talk:Intelligent design Dispute over addition over disambiguation link to Theism and characterizing article as it is now as idiomatic. Numerous other disputes over article organization. Many users complaining. Dispute boiling over.

and here's FM's:

Talk:Intelligent design Dispute over addition over disambiguation link to Theism and characterizing article as it is alleged to be idiomatic. Also numerous other disputes over article organization, content.

Can you see the difference in neutrality? At this point they also tried to pile on me for filing the article RFC in two different sections, religion and philosophy. Note that a) It explicitly says on that page "if you are unsure of what category to put it in, put it in two categories." b) There is now ONE section called "Religion and Philosophy" on that page. If you read the edit you can see that I even address the possiblity that FM got confused over my grammar--because he was assuming bad faith.

11.[74] 00:07, 1 November 07:07, 1 November Incivility/hostility, failure to assume good faith, harassment

I told RoyBoy he was feeding trolls and not to do it. Read this edit.

12.[75] 02:52, 1 November 09:52 1 November Disruption, harassment, admitting that his goal has been to dissemble; to remove criticism of the topic to other articles,and to prevent certain editors from contributing to the article

Here it is again. Readers should also read the "Response to POV fork criticisms etc.." two sections above. This is FM's bad faith. He probably really does think this is "my goal." From my perspective, this is probably because he believes there is a conspiracy against him and does not trust anyone that criticizes the article. He uses "consensus" to maintain the status quo and any critiques are brushed off by him as "POV IDists" because he believes the article is perfect the way it is, so anyone who wants to change anything in it must be a crazy creationist trying to spread propaganda. FM is suggesting ridiculous things about my motivations because he thinks I am part of a cabal. Ironically, he has formed his own mini-cabal of people like Ec5618 and Duncharris and RoyBoy to protect the article from it. Not to say there aren't POV pushers and vandals out there, it's just that FM assumes anyone who disagrees with him is one, and anyone who criticizes the article is one. That's bad faith.

13.[76] 19:18, 4 November 2005 02:18, 5 November Personal attack, disruptiveness

This is tiring. Here I am trying to understand why this sentence is included. FM calls this disruptiveness, and, of all things, a personal attack.

ADDENDUM:
Ah, I didn't see the bottom part, I thought FM was talking about my response to Ec5618. I wondered where that comment I made had gone. Yes, here I am get a little unnerved. This was fairly inappropriate. However, in my defense FM had misinterpreted my point, saying that I was "claiming it was not a God of the gaps argument" (see [77] for what I initially said) which completely missed my point which was that the critique is identical to critiques against "Creation science", and so I thought it should probably not be on the ID page. Ec5618 responded with a good reason why it should be left on the page which I responded to while FM misintrepreted me and made it sound like I was trying to insert my POV. I probably should have explained my intial position better but this to me was bad faith on FM's part. What exactly is the it FM is referring to here anyway? ID in its entirety? Or is FM referring to the specific argument, the creation science kind of argument? Well, that was part of the point of my suggestion! If ID is in part made up of "Creation science", then that particular criticism should be on the "Creation science" page and the ID page should say "ID is partly creation science," and leave it at that, and maybe mention some quotes with respect to that part of ID. The problem is that this will get people angry because the crazy topic definition. The statement "ID is partly creation science" depends on the definition of "ID." And the definition on the Wikipedia page comes from the Discovery Institute. So, if that's the definition being used, it certainly should say so and say "This article is about the Discovery Institute's concept of Intelligent Design." On the other side, if ID is not made up of "Creation science" then how is ID different? Because if it is different, that sentence makes absolutely no distinction. This is what I was talking to Ec5618 about. --Ben 09:54, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
14.[78] 19:19, 4 November 2005 Personal attack, disruptiveness

I am stating what I think is going on. FM is refusing to discuss, he is showing bad faith. I am saying "look what you are doing."

15.[79] 19:28, 4 November 2005 Personal attack, disruptiveness

I added misintrepretation to the previous comment. Apparently FM cannot find enough things to call personal attacks and disruptiveness.

16.[80] 13:03, 5 November 2005 Personal attack, disruptiveness

Hey, he finally got one. I guess I shouldn't have been sarcastic. Though FM and RoyBoy and others are allowed to make all the jokes they want to.

[edit] Statement of Response

In the end, the only thing I will plead no contest is to disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point regarding my disruptive reverts, which I did only as a result of being stonewalled by FM, and I will accept that I violated Wikiquette, though it's hard to tell exactly where I did. I do not believe either were serious when it comes to the part I played in any disruptions. I believe I always assumed good faith whenever I could even when encountering the bad faith of other editors like FM. I do not believe I violated the harrassment, no original research, no personal attacks, assume good faith, and technically I did not violate the three revert rule. Considering what I was up against I think I did a good job as anyone would at keeping my cool.

FeloniousMonk is a condescending smartass with a persecution complex fuelled by propagandists, crackpots, and his own hatred of Creationists and his own hatred of "irrational religion." With his admin powers he can stonewall everyone and keep the article just how he likes it. Pretty simple. That's my opinion.

ADDENDUM
I understand if noone supports my statement because of the above opinion. If you would like to support my defense or some of it at least, but do not necessarily agree with my personal opinions about FM and such please consider just posting an Outside View. The above really is my opinion, but I probably should not have voiced it (even though FM gets to voice his theories that I am trying to ruin the article.)Ben 13:23, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
ADDENDUM
Technically, I did violate Wikipedia:3RR. I thought it was no more than three per day, but it is three per 24 hours. If you look at the times I waited nearly 8 hours after my first two reverts. I thought that since it was a new day I could revert again. Please see my account concerning why I reverted. --Ben 01:04, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

This statement is complete.

Ben 01:20, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

  1. Ben 01:20, 7 November 2005 (UTC) (UTC)

[edit] Outside views

These are summaries written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

[edit] Outside view by Ryan Delaney

User:Benapgar's behavior doesn't seem that horrible to me. He left a plea for sanity on my talk page [81], where he seemed genuinely interested in understanding what was happening. My response [82] seemed to have calmed him down, but User:FeloniousMonk was not as polite in how he dealt with him, and managed to re-fan the flames: [83]. He could use from following User:SlimVirgin's example on staying cool [84], I think.

Still, Benapgar's editing habits are very far from perfect, and User:FeloniousMonk has highlighted some genuinely intolerable patterns in his behavior. Hopefully this RFC will encourage him to stop placing the focus on reverting, and move the dispute back to the talk page of this article. But I can understand his reluctance to do this if User:FeloniousMonk does not have an open mind to his views. I'm endorsing this summary, but expect that if User:Benapgar comes up with something reasonable, I may endorse his, as well. --Ryan Delaney talk 00:12, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

  1. Ryan Delaney talk 00:12, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
  2. Robert McClenon 13:19, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
  3. Jokestress 04:30, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Outside view by McClenon

There appear to have been breaches of Wikiquette on both sides. I would suggest mediation.

It appears that Benapgar originally did have a valid point about the difference between a philosophical viewpoint and an assertion. Felonious Monk, Duncharris, and RoyBoy then bit the newcomer. In particular, the remarks by Duncharris and RoyBoy were uncivil. It does not matter whether Benapgar was a "lowly troll"; saying that was a personal attack. Benapgar then sank below their level. He responded to their taunting by an attack on admins in general. I see no evidence or even any claim of abuse of admin privileges. I do see breaches of civility by new and experienced editors. As editors, admins are held to the same standard, not a higher standard, than other editors, except that as experienced editors, they are expected to know what the rules are.

Benapgar then admits that he disrupted Wikipedia to make a point because the admins were stonewalling him, but offers the defense that they were stonewalling him. Incivility does not justify incivility. Stonewalling does not justify disrupting Wikipedia to make a point.

As an aside, there have been several combative editors recently (Zephram Stark, FuelWagon, Silverback) who have been arguing that Wikipedia is governed by a cabal, or that there is a culture of abuse by admins. I disagree. Also, the editors who have repeatedly made that claim have lost their own credibility by their own hostility. However, I agree that there is a tendency by some experienced editors to stonewall less experienced editors, and would urge that more experienced editors (whether or not admins) should try to avoid giving the impression of being a cabal. This is exactly the sort of episode that leads to the perception that there is a cabal. A newcomer came into a controversial article and offered an idea. He was treated rudely, and suggestions were made that he was a troll. He then behaved in a troll-like manner, which is both his fault and the fault of those who accused him of being a troll.

Several editors behaved in an uncivil manner. Can we move on? Are they ready to treat each other with respect again? Is mediation in order?

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

  1. Robert McClenon 13:17, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
  2. Ryan Delaney talk 22:01, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Outside view by Ben Aveling (no relation)

I'm a random bypasser in this. Looking at some random exerts, I see

  1. In the interests of full disclosure, I'd like to point out that User:RoyBoy is also a Wikipedia administrator. See Wikipedia:List_of_administrators. --Ben 22:52, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
  2. Yeah, a good one. You're just a lowly troll. Dunc|☺ 23:00, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
  3. In the interests of full disclosure, I'd like to point out that User:Duncharris is also a Wikipedia administrator (though he fails to mention so on his user page). See Wikipedia:List_of_administrators. --Ben 23:11, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

And this is presented as evidence that Ben is showing bad faith?

OK, he sounds grumpy, but if a couple of people who ought to be the best behaved people on wiki were calling me a lowly troll, I'd be grumpy!

Hmm.

Intelligent Design (sometimes abbreviated ID) is a term used to describe a particular system of beliefs and theory based on teleological argument and information theory.

This is presented as an example of "original research and POV"? I don't see how it could be presented as either.

I guess I should wait for Benapgar's full response, but I'm inclined to support it. The case against him seems week, at least on the evidence presented here.

I will also point out that an admin with a disagreement with Benapgar had blocked him. Which I hope, is a violation of wiki-policy?

Regards, Ben Aveling 02:01, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

  1. Noisy | Talk 02:40, 6 November 2005 (UTC). I endorse Ben Aveling's statement. While I have no sympathies with Benapgar's views regarding the article, there is an expectation that admins stick to the policies. I believe this has been broken by admins who are intimately involved with an article using their powers in a bullying fashion. The correct course, surely, is to take the issue to the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard and to ask fellow admins to act if rules have been broken.
  2. I agree that if one of the admins who was editing the article had a disagreement with Benapgar's behavior, then he should not have blocked him, which is a conflict of interest. Robert McClenon 13:21, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
  3. Ryan Delaney talk 22:02, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

All signed comments and talk not related to a vote or endorsement, should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.