Wikipedia:Requests for comment/SPUI

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WP:RFC/SPUI

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: 02:05, March 31, 2006), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 21:26, 14 June 2008 (UTC).

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

Contents

Statement of the dispute

User:SPUI has repeatedly disrupted and made provocative edits to hundreds of pages, in violation of the terms of his probation.

Description

{Add summary here, but you must use the section below to certify or endorse it. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries, other than to endorse them.}

On February 11, SPUI was placed on probation for his role in the pedophilia userbox matter. The terms of his probation specify that "[A]dministrators may ban him from any page he disrupts, and/or ban him from Wikipedia for up to a week for each provocative edit he makes. If, after two months, SPUI can demonstrate good behavior, he may appeal the probation." This remedy passed the ArbCom unanimously.

Since then, SPUI has engaged in engaged in massive disruption of pages related to WikiProject California State Highways, WikiProject U.S. Roads, WikiProject Washington State Highways, and related projects. A very abbreviated list of these disruptions follows:

  1. He has unilaterally attempted to impose a new naming convention for state highways without even attempting to seek consensus for the change, and has repeatedly moved hundreds of pages to new names consistent with his personal naming scheme.
  2. After a template he took to WP:TfD was retained following debate, he repeatedly blanked the template in violation of recorded consensus, then removed the template tags from all or nearly all of the article pages it was on.
  3. He has been asked repeatedly to delay his actions in order that they may be discussed for purposes of creating consensus, and has intentionally ignored these requests, complying only when forced to do so.
  4. When others have attempted to engage him on the subject, he has become hostile and abusive.
  5. He has repeatedly communicated his intention to disrupt other state projects in the same way as he has disrupted California, in a manner that can only be construed as threatening.
  6. He has received advice and warnings from several disinterested people about his behavior and has chosen to ignore them.

SPUI has been treated with extraordinary leniency during this matter. He has been repeatedly blocked by both User:Curps' page-move bot and by human administrators, and has then been routinely unblocked within, usually, a matter of minutes. No attempt has been made that I can see to hold him to the terms of his probation in any meaningful way, and the harshest response to his mass disruption of WP:CASH has been mediation. Despite this leniency, he has shown no sign of moderating his behavior, and I see no reason to expect him to stop being disruptive without intervention.

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.)

  1. Page moves: [1] (too many to list individually); evidence of lack of consensus for moves: [2], [3]; intentional disruption of WP:CASH: [4], [5], [6]
  2. Template:Portal U.S. Roads kept: [7]; SPUI blanks template page: [8], [9]; de-links dozens of pages without consensus: [10] (too many to list individually)
  3. Requests to seek consensus: [11], [12], [13]; ignored: [14], [15], [16], [17]
  4. Hostile response to reasonable requests: [18]/[19]; [20]/[21]
  5. Evidence of intent to continue disruptive behavior regardless of consensus or mediation outcome, and to expand it to other projects: [22]/[23], [24], [25], [26]/[27], [28], [29], [30], [31],

Sockpuppets

Applicable policies

{list the policies that apply to the disputed conduct}

  1. Wikipedia:Probation

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

(provide diffs and links)

  1. Mediation case
  2. try, fail

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

(sign with ~~~~)

  1. phh 02:05, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
  2. Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:00, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
  3. Gateman1997 05:35, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
  4. JohnnyBGood 18:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC) I've tried working with this guy and gotten nothing but smartass replies and grief for it. He doesn't know the meaning of the word "compromise" or the meaning of the word "consensus".
  5. LBMixPro<Speak|on|it!> 04:41, 2 April 2006 (UTC) on the grounds that his pagemoves (which at state level are disputed) are disruptive. since they cause double redirects, from people trying to find the right title to file their wikilinks and make the way the articles ordered sloppy.
  6. -- Dragoonmac - If there was a problem yo I'll solve it 22:12, 3 April 2006 (UTC) (but on a less bright note, Rschen doesn't want to give up any groud either... <sigh>)

Other users who endorse this summary

(sign with ~~~~)

  1. — Rickyrab | Talk 22:31, 31 March 2006 (UTC) I'm putting myself here because I did not try very hard to resolve the dispute, although I issued some advice on occasion (and was ignored). Nonetheless, SPUI is evidently being very stubborn, as the dispute records show, and is ignoring consensus resolutions. Nonetheless, he is a very active and systematic Wikipedian, even though he is being a Wikinudnik.
(Note: I do not endorse the part about the joking on the project page of WP:CASH, as I feel that the project folks ought to lighten up on the matter. — Rickyrab | Talk 22:50, 31 March 2006 (UTC))


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.

"He has received advice and warnings from several disinterested people about his behavior and has chosen to ignore them." I have in fact received advice from others, most of which agrees with what I am doing, if not the details of my implementation. I am constantly opposed by what seems to me to be groupthink, in that I cannot understand any reason for the opposite position.

The bringing of the Arbcom probation into this is an attempt to game the system. The Arbcom's decision was not only misguided but applied to something totally different. If you have problems with my actions, discuss them, not the Arbcom probation.

According to policy, Curps's bot should not have blocking power. The only reason other admins allow it to is that it reports on WP:ANI and any false positives are unblocked.

Let me know if you want me to explain any specific actions I took (on the talk page? I never get exactly how these things work), and I will. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 02:28, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

  1. Very limited endorsement of the portion about how Curps's bot should not have blocking power. No comment on the rest. --Nlu (talk) 08:08, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
  2. As above; endorse that Curps' bot should not be blocking. 86.133.241.100 00:39, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
  3. I endorse the greater part of this summary, however Curps' activities serve an crucial function, and a few (easily correctable) false positives are insufficient reason to stop him. If you disagree, check out the block log from 01:11, January 7, 2006 UTC. It will change your perspective on life. — Apr. 2, '06 [15:40] <freakofnurxture|talk>
  4. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:13, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Fair and balanced view

Kick this straight back to Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-03-12 U.S. Roads and slap everyone who edits this page with a trout. Including me. - brenneman{L} 04:24, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

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

Inside view

The main reason this RFC has been filed is not because of SPUI's edits. If it was, then this would be mediation instead. SPUI is an excellent contributor and I regret that it has come to this. However, SPUI's methods of edit warring and reverting until people give up just so he can get his way, regardless of consensus, has upset many contributors at state highway WikiProjects across the United States in California, Washington, and New York. This originally began with California State Route 15, which SPUI moved to State Route 15 (California) and removed {{routeboxca2}}. He was reverted. However, he chose to revert back. He then tried to majorly edit {{routeboxca2}} to suit himself, but he was soon reverted. And a revert war started there too. He then gave up and send to TFD the {{routeboxca2}}. This failed as well. Then he created his own {{Infobox CA Route}} and switched articles to that one, although he was reverted and asked not to several times. This accompanied the massive 300+ article page moves, many of which were reverted. This edit war spread to about 90% of the 200+ California State Route pages, and to New York as well. We filed reports at WP:ANI and a Mediation cabal, but SPUI still kept moving pages until he was threatened with a block if he continued. When finally he was told that if he continued to revert war in California, that he would be blocked, he moved to Washington and began the preparatory steps to start a massive edit war there of moving pages and changing infobox templates.

SPUI has shown intent to further his campaign and bring it to all fifty states and their state highways. There are roughly 1,000-2,000 state highway pages, and this edit war has the capability to reach all of them. Also, his methods have worried many of us road editors, even those who do agree with SPUI's opinions regarding the names and infoboxes. Today SPUI has decided of his own accord that {{Portal US Roads}} should not be used on state highway lists, and he blanked the template and orphaned it. This is ignoring the fact that he TFDed it before and it was given a consensus to keep. Also today he has spread his edit wars to Delaware (witness [32] and [33] and [34]. Massachusetts, Florida, and New Jersey have also been page moved as well. What will happen next if we don't do something now? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 05:38, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Response to above: Why not a Med Cabal? This has gone beyond your ordinary article dispute here. SPUI has not responded to mediation well before and has ignored it (Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/29_12_2005_Interstate_76_(east). Also, it does not seem to be working as SPUI has showed us his intent to disregard whatever happens at Med Cabal unless it is in his favor. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 05:44, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Portal link being removed. There was a decision was to keep (Tfd). The Portal is being kept up, it is updated every month since its inception in February. I noticed today that the Portal link was missing from the Missouri list (and subsequently the others). Other portals (at least none that I have seen) are updated approximately once a month. The edit SPUI made was "removing portal link, as it hasn't been updated in over a month". It was updated promptly on the evening of March 31 (my time).Rt66lt 04:17, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Users endorsing this view

  1. I do endorse my own view. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 05:38, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
    • I'll assist in mediation if no one screams. - brenneman{L} 06:36, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
  2. --JohnnyBGood 18:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC) I support this view.
  3. — Rickyrab | Talk 22:38, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
  4. phh 06:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

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.

I don't know if this is strictly an "outside view," since I ended up being involved in a wheel war over whether SPUI should be blocked over a number of edits that he considered joke edits, which I considered to be vandalism (e.g., declaring the goal of WP:CASH to be "for profit") and personal attacks (e.g., "your mother"), but this is my view: SPUI is over the line. I have insufficient knowledge of the events referred in the above statement of the dispute to endorse it, but what I do believe is that this is a serious encyclopedia where editors have to have minimal standard of civility and professionalism. SPUI has neither, and was directly inviting a wheel war when he got blocked. No apologies ever came from SPUI for his behavior. I am dismayed that there are admins who are apparently willing to unblock him whenever he gets blocked. Anonymous IPs would never be able to escape blocks if they behaved like SPUI.

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

  1. --Nlu (talk) 08:05, 31 March 2006 (UTC) (author of the above statement)
  2. --Gateman1997 17:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
  3. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 01:09, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
  4. —phh 06:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Response

If "anonymous IPs would never be able to escape blocks if they behaved like SPUI", that's a problem with the blocking admins, NOT with me. Your blocks were over-the-top, and you were called on it. Still you reblocked, after claiming you wanted to avoid wheel wars. If anyone was at fault there, it was you. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 08:19, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Another view

SPUI inappropriately blocked several times

User:Nlu attempted three times in as many days to block SPUI for an entire week [35]. These blocks were quickly recognized as inappropriate and were undone by Brian0918, MarkGallagher, and FCYTravis. User:Rschen7754, who frequently engaged edit wars with SPUI, also blocked SPUI in an editing dispute. Additionally, he blocked Locke Cole in an editing dispute, as I am reminded below.

JDoorjam attempted to unblock SPUI, but failed

JDoorjam, a relatively new administrator, made an error in attempting to unblock SPUI as seen here. SPUI noticed this before attempting to edit, and logged into his self-identified testing account in good faith to inform JDoorjam of the error [36]. This was the only means by which SPUI could do so without divulging his IP address, and this account has never been used for vote-stacking, edit-warring, personal attacks, or any other violation of policy.

Bona fide sockpuppetry might be involved, however

Additionally Rschen7754 unblocked Gateman1997 (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) and JohnnyBGood (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) who were blocked on well-founded suspicions of sockpuppetry. Since February 9, 2006, when the JohnnyBGood account was created, "Gateman" and "Johnny" have "collaborated" on a day to day basis:

In addition to roadcruft, baseball, and Harry Potter, both share an apparent interest in topics relating to Macintosh computers:

Despite the fact that Gateman1997 and JohnnyBGood appear to collaborate so frequently and share so many interests, each has edited the other's talk page exactly one time [55], [56]. Additionally, Gateman and Johnny obviously occupy the same time zone, as shown by their edit graphs [57], [58], yet there is curiously no overlap in their posting times. One user will make several dozen edits, then stop, then an hour later, the other will start editing. Furthermore, they share unusual formatting quirks which I will explain in greater detail upon request.

Gateman1997 has made frivolous edits to redirects to inhibit pagemoves

  • 20:40, March 8, 2006 Gateman1997 (moved State Route 15 (California) to California State Route 15: rv until consensus to move is reached.)
    • Immediately following this, Gateman1997 edited State Route 15 (California) twice: He blanked it so it contained only the text "CA 15", then he reverted back to the redirect.
  • 03:52, March 22, 2006 Gateman1997 (moved State Route 35 (California) to California State Route 35)
    • After this, Gateman did the same thing, blanked the State Route 35 (California) redirect so it contained only "Route 35", then reverted back to the redirect, but added a colon ":" between the word "REDIRECT" and the link being pointed to. Following this, SPUI tagged the redirect for speedy deletion, and Gateman reverted SPUI.
  • 20:35, March 8, 2006 Gateman1997 (moved State Route 99 (California) to California State Route 99: to bring inline with other state routes until a consensus to move is reached.)
    • Folowing this, Gateman blanked the redirect State Route 99 (California) so it contained only "California State Route 99" and then reverted back to a redirect.
  • 04:04, March 13, 2006 . . Gateman1997 created State Route 130 (California) as a redirect to California State Route 130.
    • Immediately after this, he changed the text to "State Route 130 is a highway in CA.", then reverted back to the redirect. At SPUI's request, I deleted all but the top edit, and two pagemoves later, on 23:18, March 26, 2006, Gateman repeated the same sequence of edits.
      • More recently, I deleted these revisions and restored only the top edit.
  • 04:05, March 13, 2006 Gateman created a stub called State Route 236 (California) which contained the text "State Route 236 is very senic.", then changed it into a redirect to California State Route 236.
    • I deleted the "very senic" edit, and restored only the top revision, then Gateman removed "#REDIRECT" from the beginning, leaving only a link, then he reverted back to the redirect.
      • More recently, I deleted these revisions and restored only the top edit.

Upon noticing Gateman's disruptive behavior, I posted a note on his talk page (which I also CC'd to SPUI) regarding a precedent which might concern both of them deeply: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/AndriyK#AndriyK banned [59]. Gateman replied, in part:

"But any page moves I've made are easily reversible by a RM which the original move should have been subject to by it's very nature of being controversial. You also might want to notify SPUI since anything I've done he's also done..." [60]

I saw no evidence that SPUI had done anything of the sort, so I requested that Gateman cite this claim. Gateman reverted my edits to my own talk page a couple of times. Gateman also claimed:

"Well any I did were also a mistake. My bad." [61]

and he also produced what he referred to as evidence of SPUI's equal guilt. [62]. The link that Gateman provided showed SPUI fixing a double redirect [63]. SPUI's reply:

Although I've been tempted, I've never edited a redirect to prevent moving over it. I realized early on that this is simply dickish. [64].

Gateman's reply:

None, he immediately archived his talk page.

What Arbcom says about all this

AndriyK was banned for one month from Wikipedia for creating irreversible page moves.

Passed 7-0, 04:19, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Moved pages which have become irreversible by adding to the page history of the redirect page may be moved back without the necessity of a vote at Wikipedia:Requested moves.

Passed 7-0, 04:19, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

We really need to ask ourselves who is actually misbehaving here. Hint, it's not SPUI.

Users who endorse this summary

  1. — Apr. 1, '06 [08:28] <freakofnurxture|talk>
  2. —Locke Cole • t • c 08:58, 1 April 2006 (UTC) You left out the part where Rschen7754 (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves • rights) blocked me for "mass page moves" in violation of a rule he and a few other sysops made up on their own at WP:AN/I (in direct violation of WP:BLOCK; specifically When blocking may not be used). But I endorse everything else. :P
  3. Ashibaka tock 16:36, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
  4. atanamir 23:01, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
  5.  Grue  20:25, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
  6. Mask 18:29, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
  7. --Celestianpower háblame 18:32, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
  8. FrancisTyers 15:47, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Yet another view in my defense

Once again RFC degenerates into a mindless namecalling session all around. Please see the talk page. There is more then enough evidence of my and several other users innocence in this matter. I would request the section attacking me be removed as nothing but a personal attack at this point. The checkuser proved his and my innocence as did several other pieces of evidence at WP:AN/I and the talk page, not the least of which is User:JohnnyBGood's admission of stalking not only myself but, User:SPUI and User:Rschen7754 and that we have posted many times overlapping. As for the revert blocks, I won't apologize for anything here. That was my only recourse in slowing SPUI's crusade to rename all state route articles since I'm no admin and didn't want to start a move war, something he was more then happy to provide us according to the evidence here. Gateman1997 08:27, 6 April 2006 (UTC) Gateman1997 08:23, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Users that endorse this

  1. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 02:48, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
  2. phh 06:13, 7 April 2006 (UTC), but please WP:AGF on the part of User:JohnnyBGood. "Stalking" is a term with an intensely negative connotation that I don't think is warranted here. JohnnyBGood admits to keeping an eye on several people's recent contributions, which is allowed and even encouraged--otherwise it wouldn't be so easy to do. This in no way amounts to stalking.

4th Outside View

Intro

There are no

  • Sockpuppets
  • Malicious Edits
  • Evil Plots
  • Lumber Cartels

etc...

Involvement

What is happening here is a simple difference of opinion between two Wikipedia Users, both (normally) good contributors, both (normally) civil, and both with a different style. I can relate. User:SPUI has been acting "Unilaterally," a term I hate on WP as it carries such little meaning. I was assigned the case, here after volunteering to mediate. I tried to offer a set of consensus possibilities, but I don't think anyone liked either of them (I don't think I made a very good mediator). I stepped out of the picture to allow them to try to hammer out a consensus, and instead all they did was hammer. I am writing this because I feel compelled to write something. I'm placing it here because I don't have an opinion. User:SPUI likes to upset people, or at least put them on edge, look at his userpage, it is prolly the most compelling argument against userboxen on wikipedia. User:SPUI cannot be trusted to always follow Wikipedia guidelines, then again who can say that they do everything corect? User:Rschen7754 is only a Highschool sophomore, he may be brilliant, but he lacks the life experiences, and therefore much of the judgement that comes with age, but who here can say they were never young?

Finale

Why should we sully the names of good users, and drag everyone involved in the project through the mud. Is there any reason to care about the difference between California State Route 9 and State Route 9 (California). No, there isn't. Two productive editors have gotten too involved to think strait. Everyone outta simmer down, and find a solution, w/o fighting over stupid, dumb, and trivial crap. -- Dragoonmac - If there was a problem yo I'll solve itThanks 13:40, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Closure?

Seeing as there is an active Arbcom on this very issue now, I believe we can close and archive this discussion since it is no longer active or useful. JohnnyBGood t c 17:20, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 22:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

All signed comments and talk not related to an 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.