Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jimmuldrow

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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: 19:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 02:10, 14 June 2008 (UTC).

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

Contents

[edit] Statement of the dispute

Pages involved are Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett, Alexander v. Sandoval, Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents, and United States v. Morrison. Refusal to engage in productive discussion, hostile reaction to civil, good faith criticism, reversion without discussion, and now using a sockpuppet, 68.83.248.130, to revert these pages without discussion. Hydriotaphia 19:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Desired outcome

I'd like Jimmuldrow to engage in discussion so that we can gain consensus on these articles. Good-faith, understandable discussion – as opposed to snarky, hard to understand comments – would also be helpful. Hydriotaphia 19:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Description

I and other users have attempted to engage Jimmuldrow in productive discussion regarding his edits to certain articles on recent Supreme Court cases. He has generally reacted with hostility to well-meant, good faith criticism, and his responses tend to be, well, nonresponsive (and extremely difficult to understand).

Jimmuldrow's edits tend to be unencyclopedic in tone, express original research or opinions synthesized from several different sources, and are often POV. When this is pointed out in a civil way, Jimmuldrow tends to become irate and to lose the ability to communicate effectively and straightforwardly. I am a practicing attorney with experience in the areas which these articles discuss. I point this out not because I think I should be deferred to, but rather to emphasize that my concerns about the content of these articles are not baseless. From my experience, Jimmuldrow either does not understand these concerns or does not take the time to understand these concerns. In any case, the editors working on these articles need outside help, because I don't know what to do. Hydriotaphia 19:57, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding the Outside View of Septentrionalis

I appreciate the outside view and sincerely thank Pmanderson for his/her helpful contribution, but I do think that Pamdnerson may wish to take a second look at the Garrett talk page. I made no effort to engage in original research. Rather, I was trying my best (but failing) to understand why a reference to Sandoval was being made in article. Indeed, I would submit that Pmanderson's point actually supports the very point I was trying to make at the Garrett talk page: that no connection could be drawn between Sandoval and Garrett – without the aid of original research. Respectfully, Hydriotaphia 02:14, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Septentrionalis, the Supreme Court's Garrett decision did not mention Sandoval, nor did Sandoval mention Garrett. The connection is bogus. Hydriotaphia has tried to eliminate this original research from the Wikipedia articles, but JimMuldrow has insisted on putting it back in.Ferrylodge 23:13, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence of disputed behavior

The following are diffs from talk pages. The best way to get a sense of how Jimmuldrow engages in discussion, however, is to look at Talk:Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett and Talk:United States v. Morrison.
[1] (note accusation of "Relentless, hysterical, repetitive denial"), [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9] (comment left on Hydriotaphia's talk page), [10] (a good example of "ownership" of an article), and [11].

Also instructive is this series of rude comments left on Hydriotaphia's user page and on the Morrison talk page in August of last year: [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], and [17]. Hydriotaphia's responses included [18], [19], and [20].

The following are recent diffs showing wholesale reversion without discussion:
[21], [22], [23] (note the edit summary, which accuses others of "stalk[ing]"), [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], and [29]. Jimmuldrow continues to insinuate that Hydriotaphia is "stalking" him, as this edit shows. A response by Hydriotaphia to this insinuation can be found here.

The history page for United States v. Morrison shows violation of the three revert rule, keeping in mind the plurality of user names/IDs employed by a single user.

In addition, from looking at the contributions of 68.83.248.130, it would appear that this user has aliases. These aliases include FoggyNotion, ArmyAnt, and BirdShark. While neither ArmyAnt nor BirdShark appear to have edited any of the articles which are the subject of this dispute, FoggyNotion has. See this and this.

There have also been unsubstantiated accusations that others have made threats.

[edit] Applicable policies and guidelines

No original research, Assume good faith, Consensus, Sock puppetry, No personal attacks, Civility, Ownership of articles, Three revert rule, and Neutral point of view.

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

Attempts both by myself and another editor, Ferrylodge:
[30], [31], [32] (long and respectfully expressed list of problems with the article), [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44].

[edit] Users certifying the basis for this dispute

I have tried and failed to resolve this dispute. Signed, Hydriotaphia 19:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I too have tried and failed to resolve this dispute, as can be seen at the "discussion" and "history" pages for three of the four articles at issue. I was not involved in the dispute regarding Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents, but I was involved regarding the other three articles, and I fully subscribe to the description provided by Hydriotaphia regarding the dispute about those three articles (Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett, Alexander v. Sandoval, and United States v. Morrison).Ferrylodge 20:05, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other users who endorse this summary

[edit] Resolution of dispute

I (and Ferrylodge) feel this dispute has essentially been resolved, in that I believe all parties involved are willing to move forward productively. I am therefore going to strike this RfC from the listings. Hydriotaphia 23:40, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Response

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. I did create extra accounts, not to get away with anything but because I was very closely monitored by Hydriotaphia and FerryLodge. They were like my shadow, following me everywhere I went. Also, Hydriotaphia made comments that indicated he was more interested in me than I would like.

As to who is more right or wrong, anyone interested in finding out can look at the edits and discussion pages for the four articles in question. Some comments made about their complaints can be found on the discussion pages for Hydriotaphia and FerryLodge.

I personally think the following Wikipedia guidelines apply:

  • RfCs brought solely to harass or subdue an adversary are not permitted. Repetitive, burdensome, or unwarranted filing of meritless RfCs is an abuse of the dispute resolution process. RfC is not a venue for personal attack.
  • An RfC may bring close scrutiny on all involved editors, and can lead to binding arbitration. Filing an RfC is therefore not a step to be taken lightly or in haste.

The entire motive for this Rfc seems to be an attempt by Hydriotaphia and FerryLodge to intimidate and harass and relentlessly tell me what I can or can't do, in spite of the fact that they make more than their share of mistakes.

While I did not go beyond three reverts, the discussion page for FerryLodge indicates that he was accused of both a 3rr violation and following someone or "shadowing" by people other than myself.

Also, there was some outright confusion. Hydriotaphia removed a large portion of Garrett and called it "irrelevent" or "incorrect" "original research" even though it was all from Court opinions for the case in question, most of it from Rehnquist's opinion of the Court for Garrett.

Also, Hydriotaphia removes some material even though it's directly from the majority opinion of the Court if he thinks it's "loaded." He was "troubled" when I replaced his description of an issue including the phrases "briefly intimated", "might" and "suggested" with the actual quote from Rehnquist's opinion, where the adjectives Hydriotaphia mentioned were not used or even hinted at. There was no maybe to what was in the Court opinion. This was with regard to Morrison.

More specifically, Rehnquist argued that the equal protection clause doesn't apply to unequal enforcement of state laws because in the Civil Rights Cases precedent, "There were state laws on the books bespeaking equality of treatment, but in the administration of these laws there was discrimination against newly freed slaves." The entire opinion is here: Rehnquist's opinion of the Court for Morrison See if you can find a "briefly intimated", "might" or "suggested" in this.

Hydriotaphia's version was actually an improvement from when FerryLodge kept saying that Rehnquist meant the opposite of what he said.

In the Garrett article, Hydriotaphia rephrased one line to read, "Even in cases of racial discrimination, where the courts scrutinize government action much more searchingly than they do in rational basis review..." I added statistics from "An Empirical Analysis of Strict Scrutiny in the Federal Courts" by Adam Winkler, UCLA School of Law with a reference to add some facts to the comparison made by Hydriotaphia. Hydriotaphia removed what I added, apparently because he didn't like statistics indicating that "much more searchingly" reflected a success rate for strict scrutiny equal protection lawsuits that declined from 40% in the early 1990s to 20% in the early 2000s. All I did was add some facts with a reference to Hydriotaphia's comparison. Maybe Hydriotaphia thought facts were too "loaded" again? The quote from Winkler's article is "Surprisingly, however, strict scrutiny has become more fatal in the years since Adarand declared the standard to be survivable (from 40% in the early 1990s to 20% in the early 2000s)."

The Wikipedia article on strict scrutiny mentions this, and says, "an empirical study of strict scrutiny decisions in the federal courts, by Adam Winkler, found that laws survive strict scrutiny over thirty percent of the time." Contrast this with Hydriotaphia's interpretation on the discussion page for this Rfc.

The above mentioned issues are not a complete list, but are only mentioned as examples. Instead of creating a guided tour list of links, I suggest that anyone who wants to find out more about this dispute take an unguided tour of the articles in question and think for themselves.

I mention problems here only in response to complaints by Hydriotaphia and FerryLodge. I don't think trading accusations back and forth is the best approach.


Users who endorse this summary:

[edit] Outside view

This is a summary 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.

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I have always found JimMuldrow to be a helpful and productive editor; Hydrotaphia I do not know. Looking at the Garrett talk page, I see primarily Hydrotaphia's efforts to engage in original research about a connection to Sandoval. This is deprecated.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:52, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Outside view

This is a summary 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.

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Users who endorse this summary:

[edit] Discussion

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