Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Sarah777

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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: 08.53, 14 June 2007), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 13:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC).

Sarah777 (talk • contribs • logs)

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

1 Statement of the dispute
2 Response
3 Response Part One
4 What is going on here?
5 Response Part Two
6 Outside view by Swatjester
7 Outside View by hughsheehy
8 Outside View by One Night In Hackney
9 Outside View by Sherzo
10 Discussion

[edit] Statement of the dispute

The issue of Sarah777 is a long-standing one of WP:CIVIL. On the whole her contibutions are positive, but when it comes to the area of British-Irish politics, she appears to be pathologically unable to engage respectfully with editors who hold a different point of view. She flatly says that she will ignore policies and consensus in the persuit of eliminitating opposing views, and engages in campaigns against consensus and other editors in order to achieve this. The result is disruptive to work on these articles and discoruaging to those contributing to them. This effect was succintly summed up in February (showing how long the issue is running) by one long-term editor, who said about her behaviour, "Note to serious editors: get out while you can."

[edit] Desired outcome

Its hard to know what we would like to happen to Sarah777. We would like her to start behaving civilly towards other editors - but, in honesty, over the last six months, we have lost faith that that is likely to happen. We need assurances of some kind that she will, whether that means that her posts will be moderated or chaperoned in some way. For now, without wanting to sound melodramatic, we dread seeing her name in our watchlists for fear of what kind of provocation it will contain this time. We have had enough.

[edit] Description

The following is a telling of events following a clash with Sarah. Those who have had dealings with her will, we're sure, have their own stories. Here we will relate sony-youth's most recent engagement with Sarah. While the story lasts less than a week it should be known that there was already history between them and it cannot to subtracted from the long-term interaction. Instead, it is a snap-shot in time of her behaviour. It is meant as evidience, as part of a continual attitude towards others, for how difficult it is to work with her:

"This phase followed an AfD of an article she created as a POV fork of British Isles. Following that, she blamed me and promised to another user to hold a grudge against me. (This diff is a particularly humorous example of her choice of attitude towards me, as is this one.) In a subsequent banning (for attacking the admin that blocked her for 3RRing the AfD'd article), she was released from the block on agreeing to "even forgive Sony" and removed what she called "anti-sony-ism" (and what she called "sony's anti-sarah-ism") from her talk page.

"From then until after the weekend (5 days), I did not edit wikipedia. Upon returning, I made some posts to Talk:British Isles (in exchange with another user). Sarah replied to these saying that my objection to her fork ruined my credibility. I removed this as a personal attack, and she reposted it in a more civil tone. I responded saying that the AfD has been decided by WP:SNOW and that it had been a "universal" decision. She took objection to this and warned me that "We Irish didn't gain our FREEDOM by forgetting injustice." While I was away, a proposal to move the Irish Potato Famine article had been made. This had been by Sarah - however, as I do object to the move, I voted as such. A moment later, Sarah moved the article citing WP:SNOW and "universal" consensus, a clear reference to our exchange just previous. When other editors told her that this was inappropriate, she said that the rules "ALWAYS appear to favour the holocaust deniers like Sony." Subsequent posts in agreement with me were responded by her naming me as part of a cabal against her. She responded to my posts by attempting to blacken them as sarcasm and incivility and stalking. Aside from being untrue, in these posts she took the approach of quoting policy - a cause of annoyance to her during the build up to her creating the fork that was AfD'd - a factitious means of undermining my posts while also referring to conflicts that led to the fork of the British Isles (a provocation).

"I warned her twice (here and here). The last of these she removed as "vindictive nonsense" and placed a similar notice on my talk page then went to User:Gaillimh claiming that I was threatening her. (I saw this only while going through her contribs. while collecting diffs for here.)"

[edit] Evidence of disputed behavior

Below is a sample of some of the posts Sarah made to the British Isles page. It should be noted that in each case Sarah's politics are not at issue - of the first two editors certifying the basis for this dispute, one is English and the other an Irish nationalist. These posts mix trolling, with abuse, with genuine discussion to improve the article. In their tone, and their approach to others, these comments are overtly provocative and aggressive, as such any improvement they may have brought to the article is negated by the effect they have on other contributors.

As part of an RfC that I prepared in March (but decided against inacting on the basis that Sarah's behaviour appeared to be improving), I collected the following diffs. While these are old and scattred, they remain examples of the style of behavior that is still the cause of concern:

As most of Sarah777's disruptive behavior must be seen in context to be understood, especially in her manipulation of arguments and obfuscation. Diffs provide only a taste of the way she behaves on talk pages. That said, Sarah777 has made 127 edits to Ireland-related talk pages. Out of these, 44 (35%) are cited below as evidence of her uncivil behaviour. By far the majority of these since January 2007.

Aggressive/uncivil post[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]
Accusation of a cabal[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]
Bringing up old issue/refusal to accept consensus[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]
Saying that "foreign" editors should not contribute to a straw poll[31]
Refusing to discuss her edits[32][33][34][35]
Trolling[36][37][38][39]
Personal attack/Accusation of POV[40][41][42][43][44]

[edit] Applicable policies and guidelines

WP:CIVIL

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

Three recent attempts (alongside on-going pleads for calm):

Lo2u - 18 May 2007
sony-youth: 25 April 2007
sony-youth: 12 June 2007
sony-youth: 13 June 2007

As part of the prepared (but never enacted) RfC in March, the following diffs were collected as evidience of attempting to contact Sarah:

Djegan - 13 February 2007
Ww2censor - 18 February 2007
Djegan - 19 February 2007
Djegan - 20 February 2007
Djegan - 20 February 2007
Djegan - 26 February 2007 (Discussion)
Sony-youth - 26 February 2007
Sony-youth - 10 March 2007
Setanta747 - 11 March 2007

[edit] Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

sony-youth^pléigh 08:53, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 00:54, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Djegan 10:53, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other users who endorse this summary

Bastun^{BaStun not BaTsun} 10:58, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Guliolopez 11:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Evertype·✆ 19:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
MarkThomas 15:42, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
SqueakBox 18:40, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
DPeterson^talk 20:26, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
dave souza, talk 21:37, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
Ben W Bell talk 11:56, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
ras52 16:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
--Mal 00:07, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
beano 21:48, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Andrwsc 17:00, 28 June 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.

[edit] Response Part One

Such is the voluminous nature of the "evidence" here that I will tackle it bit by bit, in order of appearance.

These were direct explanations to other editors who asked WHY the term "British" is so offensive (applied to Ireland); or why the ingrained assumption that there is something to apologise for or to be slightly ashamed about re Irish Neutrality was wrong; or why attempts to "appease" this pov by pretending Ireland wasn't really neutral was objectionable. They are truthful; they were posted in the talkpage, not the article as they are clearly pov; they explained my position in response to questions.

"This happened in a kangaroo court, without my knowledge, in the space of two hours! We Irish didn't gain our FREEDOM by forgetting injustice."

This was on a totally different subject; the article I created "British Isles and Ireland" was first proposed for a merger; I was responding to that when it was deleted, the merger proposal having been changed. [45] I was not notified of any of this even thought I had created the article; and the thing was taken under WP:SNOW after about 4 or 5 mainly like-minded editors agreed amongst themselves. This led me to think the delete was a breach of the MERGER rules and led to me revert 3 times what I assumed was vandalism by SqueakBox. (And, sorry, but I cannot help noticing that many of the editors involved in that are listed above). It was extremely poor collective over-reaction to an established editor; as several people since, involved and not, have conceded. And the reaction was caused in part, I believe by a hysterical outburst by Sony-Youth: [46]

STRONGLY OBJECT Blantat POV pushing, using wikipedia make a point, demonstrating contempt for consensus, fellow editors and the ambitions of this project. DELETE IMMEDIATELY - there is no need to even mark is for speedly deletion. Get it off this encyclopedia now. The editor responsible should be ashamed, admonished, chasten, punished. --sony-youth^pléigh 14:48, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The following block of "evidence" was in direct response to that piece of moderate discussion by Sony:

And then we have yet another different issue:

"I note that certain British contributors are still in denial of the fact the "British" Isles is a political term; the constant whine "what has this got to do with improving the article" is, frankly, getting rather irritating"

This in response to British editors peppering the BI talkpage with "warnings" despite being repeatedly informed that changing the name was the most immediate and important improvement available. (In every case, after the first instance in February, I did not start a debate about the name and only become involved as yet another Irish editor discovered the BI article and raised the issue of the name. (It's happened again, btw, just yesterday. Ironically, some of the British editors who have posted these warnings are first in to defend the "British Isles" name).

I will rest this for now as I want to do something more productive for the next hour. However I intend to refute every scintilla of "evidence" and then to focus on the actions, civility and behaviour of my main accuser and several "endorsers" - to provide a bit of context. Also, as the committee organising this case appear to be trawling around Talkpages and canvassing Users they know to be hostile I would like some ruling/clarity as to whether I can organise my defence in the same manner. Some guidance on this - please. (Sarah777 22:33, 16 June 2007 (UTC))

[edit] What is going on here?

As this was going on for four days without being certified I added the date (which I noticed had gone missing) of the lodging of this RFC by Sony, with the comment that it appeared the time had expired. Then some user called "Cryptic" "certified" it; two days late by my calculation. User 'Cryptic' does not seem to exist. Could someone please tell me what is going on?

Uncertified user RfCs

Requests for comment which do not meet the minimum requirements 48 hours after creation are considered "uncertified" and will be de-listed. See Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Request comment on users for the minimum requirements. The subject RFC page will also be deleted, unless the subject has explicitly requested it to be retained.

This "subject" certainly made no such request. (Sarah777 08:57, 18 June 2007 (UTC))

Cryptic has been around since June '05. To be certified, two editors must: "... provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page..." "If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 08.53, 14 June 2007), the page will be deleted." Three users had done so within 26 hours. Bastun^{BaStun not BaTsun} 09:45, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The fact that Cryptic has been around since 2005 doesn't give me any clue as to what he/she/it is. What "power" does it have to certify; is it a person? What? And there was no legitimate certification; as has been pointed out the "evidence" is trite. (Sarah777 21:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Response Part Two

Aggressive/uncivil post[47][48][49][50][51][52][53]

I have read this "evidence" and trite is overly kind to it. "Civility" is at the core; these quotes are in many cases mirror images of uncivil remarks made to me; or part of an ongoing exchange in which there was a generality level of incivility. The notion that I just introduced incivility into an other wise civil debate is manifest nonsense. And some of these quotes are not uncivil at all!.

Points #48, 49, 51 (an obvious joke) and 52 could not reasonably be construed as being in breach of WP:CIVIL by any reasonable standards. Points #47, 50 and 53 are not one bit more uncivil than the comments they are addressing.

As my alleged offence is breaching WP:CIVIL surely the accusers should be able to demonstrate that the accused was more uncivil than they themselves commonly are? What we have here is what a recent contributor accurately identified as "felon setting". (And it's still going on, I might add). X calls Y a "biased thicko". Y responds with "so are you". The thought police arrest Y.

(Sarah777 10:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC))

OK folks. the show is over. From now this RfC is over as far as I'm concerned; it's off my watchlist - no further responses, it has gone on long enough. Popcorn Moment ends. Can't say it was enjoyable - but as Hamlet said "I'll have grounds More relative than this: the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

– Sarah777

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