Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Sugaar

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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: ~~~~), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 00:41, 13 June 2008 (UTC).

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

Contents

[edit] Statement of the dispute

This is a summary written by users who dispute this user's conduct. Users signing other sections ("Response" or "Outside views") should not edit the "Statement of the dispute" section.

[edit] Description

Sugaar makes excellent contributions and generally works well with other editors, unfortunately in certain cases, Sugaar falls back on personal attacks to advance his opinion of article content, even when warned by multiple editors. While he has ceased contact with the original targets of his attacks, he's now showing the same behavior by attacking me in various places while disputing my warning and block.

Sugaar has disputed my initial warning about his behavior; he spent a great deal of time wikilawyering over whether or not calling someone a nazi is covered by WP:NPA, culminating in a rescinded Arb case, rejected mediation and long discussion at AN/I. Later when he continued the attacks and harassment of the same editor, I blocked Sugaar for 6 hours. He has since campaigned to have this expunged as well and has found no agreement despite posts in many arenas. Sugaar continues to maintain that not a single person has fairly reviewed his block and that it is a clear abuse of administrator powers.

Since Sugaar seems unable to drop the dispute and flatly refused to use RfC, I've opened this in the hope of bringing some closure.

There are two questions here for the community:

  1. Was Sugaar violating the personal attack and civility guidelines?
  2. Was either my warning or subsequent block improper?


Just to clarify for those who didn't follow the discussions on AN/I: This RfC is in no way to suggest that Sugaar will continue personal attacks or has a severe history of them; the incidents in question are limited only to this dispute. The threads on AN/I have upheld the warning and the block, however, Sugaar feels that I'm being stuck up for by a wolfpack of administrators and thus I've used this venue to try to help him reach closure on the situation.

Also, since this has been mentioned multiple times, its important to note that I did warn and block other participants on both sides of the dispute without outcry; I would be happy to detail that information for anyone who requests it.

[edit] Evidence of disputed behavior

Personal attacks by Sugaar
Behavior bordering on harassment and WP:POINT violations

[edit] Applicable policies and guidelines

  1. WP:NPA
  2. WP:CIVIL
  3. WP:BLOCK
  4. WP:POINT

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

[edit] Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

  1. Shell babelfish 02:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
  2. Thulean 14:26, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other users who endorse this summary

  1. RatSkrew 19:48, 24 November 2006 (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] Disclaimer

I just can't believe it. Shell Kinney is using aboslutely EVERYTHING she could find against me, much of which has little or just no grounds. And much of which is either previous to the dispute in with both were unequally involved or posterior. She is even using my good willed attempts to challenge her judgement as evidence of my supposed wrongdoing. She is even using my denounce of an apparent sockpuppet as evidence of "harassing".

While she turns a total blind eye on what Thulean has done and achieved by means of wikilawyering, all with the only participation of one administrator: Shell Kinney.

I am not that "wikiwise" and used to be much less knowledgeable of the Policy before this dispute began. Hence I may have used the term "vandal" when I should have used "disruptive editor" and I have used the term "nazi" when I should have used a periphrasis like "this gentleman's views leave a sour aftertaste, you know".

Still I do find hypocrisy quite faulty. Instead I believe in honesty. This doesn't mean that I must not abide by Wikipedia's policies such as Civility or NPA, it just means that, when I was unaware of them, I naturally tended to be plain and direct, what in itself can't be considered a fault, much less a serious one.

I was warned for the latter and I accepted that I had comitted an error there. But that wasn't enough either for Thulean nor for his favorite adminstrator/protector: Shell Kinney.

[edit] The complex and nasty White people article dispute

This article has a long history of dispute, with systematics POV attacks and pure vandalism by people with extreme right/white supremacist ideas, most of them anon users. A group of veteran wikipedians, including myself, had converged in it's talk page and were trying to keep it minimally NPOV and avoid a too Anglo-Saxon/Eurocentric and too (unscientific) racialist POV in it.

There were others, but the four that were most consistently doing it, were LSLM, aka "Veritas et Severitas", Wobble, aka "Alun", Psychohistorian and myslef. That we did not agree in all is clear but at least we are all seriously interested in anthropology, genetics and stuff like that, and we are all wikipedians with a pedigree of several years.

For instance, I had proposed to demote to article to a mere disambiguation page, in order to avoid further trouble, but this was discarded by the rest. I do take consensus very seriously, so I accepted that well and tried to move forward.

But a very different thing was when a brand new user, Thulean, appeared and started editing in a single POV line against the consensus that was already achieved. I erroneouly described his behaviour as vandalism maybe but it was defnitively disruptive editing. That I may misunderstand the exact terms is not a personal attack but a lack of knowledge. What he was doing wasn't right, anyhow.

I recommend everyone endorsing either version or giving a personal opinion to take a good look at the Talk:White people page, at the failed mediation and at the discussion at Shell Kinney's talk.


[edit] The alleged PAs

I have already say that when I said "vandal/vandalism" in most cases I meant disruptive editing and POV-pushing. The use of the wrong term can be only attributed to my lack of knowledge of the subtleties of the Policy, that nevertheless I respect by principle, as I do believe in community rule.

Many of those comments are part of the process regarding the warn, for instance all that appear in Shell Kinney's user page. As far as I know, it is correct to discuss the problem regarding a warning and an ongoing dispute in the involved administrator talk page. Shell always seem to favor that mean and I find outrageous that she is now using that discussion to attack me. Would I have know, I would have never approached her talk at all.

She also uses my RFI against what I understood as "complex vandalism" (WP:DE actually) as means to discredit me. [20]

She even uses some meditations in my own user page (sparked by another editor's comments), that I deleted in few hours because I realized I was becoming paranoid and that other user's comments were not based in anything [21], to discredit me. It seems I can't even use my own talk page with some freedom, as it's been there where most of the "evidence" against me has been gathered. Nobody ever protested for that thought, so it's quite obvious she's been digging in all she could find.

And this is where I find her behaviour doubly faulty: she does not just use her administrator privileges one-sidedly but she also has taken my appeals to restore my name (perfectly clean until this dispute, perfectly clean until Shell Kenney intervened) as a personal attack against her.

I have admitted my part of fault when it became obvious to me that I was at fault see here. Shell has never ever admitted any fault at all, no matter that her actuation actually got all editors discrepant with Thulean out of that article that now (I imagine, I don't want even to take a look) is probably very POV.

The last thing I know is that Psychohistorian asked me to get back to the article [22]. Something I can't do while I have Shell Kinney on my shoulders, supporting wikilawyerist, disruptive and POV-pushing editors.

Anyhow I said I would not get back in that rat-trap, that I have done more than my fair share in defending Wikipedia NPOV policy, that I have been harassed by means of wikilawyering, posting continuous block warnings in my talk page, that I even got blocked despite my attempts to redirect the dispute to contents and good-will assumption, and that nothing of all that would have happened would some wiser or less one-sided admin would have been in charge. (again read the Talk:White people page to get an idea.

[edit] My only warn

References:

There were many "warns" by Thulean, yes, but I still consider them harassment. He's posted the same stuff against other users almost indiscriminately in an obvious attempt to scare off discrepant (but serious) editors from that article:

I find quite odd that this user Thulean has done nothing wrong and yet everybody who was involved in that article has been pushed into entering in personal dispute with him. Yet Shell Kinney only sees one side of the issue: Thulean is a saint and the rest of wikipedians are malevolent editors who must be punished and flogged with official warns, blocks and the pain of having to go through appeals, that she considers as personal attacks against herself.

I think with good reason that all these PA warnings and related PAIN cases initiated by Thulean are nothing but a political tactic to displace good-willed editors that do not agree with his white nationalist (Eurocentric) version of the issue.

In any case, I had only one official warn by Shell Kinney in regard to the PAIN case opened against me by Thulean. That warn was not mentioned in the case itself, which had two other parallel resolutions that were discrepant:

  • Durova said:
Administrator blows referee whistle - This is not the place to debate ideology. Per the instructions at the top of this noticeboard, page diffs are required for reports here - not unsupported allegations or links to Wikipedia discussions. I did a search on Yahoo and did find Nazi websites that use "Thulean" and "Thule" in their titles, so - strong as the statement from Sugaar was - it appears to be fact-based and valid. There are two sides to WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA that apply to this particular discussion: first, standards of civility at Wikipedia do not depend on what ideology an editor holds; second, discourse on certain sensitive topics may require the judicious use of terms that would otherwise be eschewed as hot button and inflammatory (such as when the topic at hand actually is Nazism and racism). This noticeboard cannot mediate a content dispute. It can evaluate and take appropriate actions in response to personal attacks. DurovaCharge! 23:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Considering it to be a content dispute.

  • Luna Santin said:
PAIN is not a dispute resolution forum. Not to be too harsh, but we need to keep things here neat, orderly, and to a pretty narrow subject material. I'm interested in personal attacks; I'll keep an eye on this for the time being, but I'd encourage all of you to just try to settle down a bit and resolve your differences through the usual dispute resolution process instead of trying to get each other blocked. If attacks continue or escalate, please provide diffs to support any reports made here. Thanks in advance. Luna Santin 09:21, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Considering it also a mere content dispute.

I had good reasons for appealing. Yet the case was archived by Shell Kinney herself without a clear consensual resolution.

My appeal at ANI failed on the grounds that I had in fact violated NPA, what is true and I accepted at that stage (as previously nobody had bothered explaining me what I did wrong). After that I tried to circunscribe myself to the policy and be constructive even with such a disruptive editor as Thulean.

[edit] Attempts of being constructive with Thulean

You can read all the late part of the talk page to see how constructive I was. I provided a lot of documentation (that now is being left unused, sadly) and tried to be pedagogical with him. I even tried to calm down LSLM when he kept denouncing the ideological motivation of Thulean and his sidekick Dark Tichondrias [34].

To no use.

He kept provoking me and others with disdainful comments [35], [36], [37] and making threats (and acts) of ignoring consensus and discussion unilaterally and with a very prepotent attitude, in an obvious attempt to generate an edit war[38].

That and only that cause my reaction of "will revert any Thulean's edits", seconded by other editors. What got the article protected for a while (quite reasonably).

[edit] The block

Again to no use: one single slip into irony was enough for Thulean to accuse me again of PA extra-officially, in Shell's talk page. My protest only made Shell Kinney to take that personally and get me blocked for 6 hours, alleging repeated warns. The details are all in WP:ANI#Unjust block.

[edit] The result

Wikilawyering on grounds of PA has been rewarded and NPOV and Consensus have suffered a major setback. Several veteran, serious and good-willed editors, including myself, are now licking our wounds (maybe one has already left Wikipedia completely, as he's showing up nowhere) and the article has become (I think) a totally biased POV one, what in the long term will only cause further trouble and, in any case, gives no credibility to Wikipedia, but rather the opposite.

WP:NPA says clearly:

Be aware of WikiLawyering
This policy can be a prime candidate for WikiLawyering, which can be defined as asserting a technical interpretation of the policy to override the principle it expresses. This page is frequently edited and examples and remedies that do or do not appear here may have been edited to suit one editor's perspective, but not be generally agreed to by the community. In the end, common sense is more important than the exact wording in this and other policy articles, including the examples included above.

Common sense has not prevailed, sadly. And why? Because a single administrator, Shell Kinney, took this conflict as her personal crusade. And is still doing it now.

I must also say that I feel a little sad that other admins have been so reluctant to intervene, even if it is their obligation. They are doing little for Wikipedia's integrity with that "shy away" or "hush off" attitude.

[edit] My comments regarding Shell Kinney

Most of those comments were done inside the process. They are legitimate opinions and she's being abusive digging in all that just to make a POINT. Basically what she seems to pretend is that I can't defend myself because virtually anything I say is subject to her inquisitive scrutiny and can be used against me. That doesn't help at all reasonably dispute resolution, obviously.

Some of them (comments to questions on her campaign to ArbCom) were deleted by myself, as I thought that I was going too far and possibly not making justice to her actuation. This is no obstacle for Shell to use them against me.

  • She claims that I opened a case at ArbCom with "false" statements. Yet I did retrieve it as soon as I realized that I had misunderstood her [39]. And that she ignores.
  • I created that sockpuppet page in good will. It's not up to me to determine if it's true or just a wrong assumption. But it was my duty to report that apparent sockpuppet anyhow.
  • I denounced Thulean wrongly for "vandalism", when I should have reported directly at ANI for diruptive editing. My wrong. I admit my faults, she doesn't and is actually taking an increasingly persecuting attitude.
  • I "opened" (requested) mediation because Shell wanted it or at least I understood her that way. What's wrong about that?
  • I posted at ANI because the mediator comitee said that was where the case belonged. Again what's wrong about that?
  • I still mantain that two other administrators gave different resolutions on that warning. It's a fact [40].

Along the extension of the dispute she has obviously developed a clear dislike for me (and possibly other respectable editors). I have repeatedly asked her to recuse herself from further cases against me or regarding the White people article on such grounds, yet, she does never seem to see a single item of fault in herself, and she just ignores my demands in this sense.

She also doesn't seem to see that WP:BLOCK says clearly that blocks can't be used as punishment and she insists in claiming that I have many warns (Thulean's harassment) when I have just one single official warn: hers.

[edit] In brief

  • Thulean's irruption in the White people article was very disruptive. His wikilayering tactics counted with an unconditional and speedy support from Shell Kinney and have been very successful, as many editors with good will, good ideas and ability to build a good NPOV and verifiable article have been displaced with these tactics.
  • The other users did not want or did not know how to proceed against this. So we did commit errors. And, at least, I do accept my part of fault, though it's mostly by ignorance and maybe also because I've grown in a culture where sincerity is more valued than hypocrisy.
  • Shell Kinney's exclussive intervention and handling of Thulean's wikilawyering PAIN cases has not been helpful at all. She has favored one side and attacked the other, she has caused confussion and favored wikilawyering. She has never admitted the slightest error. No one can blame me for distrusting her at this stage.
  • Shell Kinney's 6-hour block against me was a clear violation of WP:BLOCK as she used it as punishment and out of personal anger [41].
  • Shell's arguments that I had many warnings are just plainly false, as she seems to consider that Thulean's permanent and merciless harassment with "warnings" against other users at the slightest error. I had a single official warning from Shell Kinney and then a block by her. And now it seems I have a personal enemy in her, just because I am defending my good name and questioning her abuse of policy.

Obviously I don't have the network of contacts inside Wikipedia that Shell will probably be able to muster to support her viewpoint, so I clearly expect that people seconding her allegations are more in number than those supporting mine. I am just a modest editor and I don't make wikipolitics, whatever it may look at first sight.

In any case, I am able to see that, when I was wrong, I was wrong - and have admitted it. But I also have part of reason and that should be considered as well. I am astonished and somewhat outraged at the lack of self-criticism by someone keeping such high responsaibility as Shell Kinney (who even wants to be member of the ArbCom!). This lack of any sort of remorsement or doubt must strike to many as it does to me. }

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. --Sugaar 16:57, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] My two penneth

I'm not sure if I should comment here, but I'd like to make a comment, while also supporting Sugaar, so I'm going to anyway. Sorry if this is a breach of some sort of rule. Seems to me that to call Sugaar's comments "personal attacks" is a massive exageration. If these constitute personal attacks then no one would ever be able to have any sort of dispute on wikipedia. When a person claims that Stormfront represents an accepted and normal European view of the concept of "white people" then I think it is reasonable to question their motives (The European Liberation Front and Stormfront do not consider non-Europeans to be white. These are partially based in Europe, so I do not think that Europeans consider Middle Easterners or South Asians white.[42]). There was no name calling, but Stormfront is a marginal organisation that is certainly not representative of even minority points of view, therefore their position regarding the concept of "white people" can be disregarded when applying the WP:NPOV policy. I can see no real evidence of personal attacks, just a reasonable and sceptical attitude to the motivation behind the politicisation of the article. There is no doubt that the article was being steered towards a specific racial "Eurocentric" point of view, I think Sugaar's scepticism was warranted. Are we now to consider any questioning of the motives of other users as a "personal attack". Since this all blew up I've been getting messages daily from what appear to be "white supremacists" who appear to believe that they have had some sort of victory by the fact that Sugaar has been hounded from the article, there have also been messages posted on the article talk page.[43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] Sugaar may have a more confrontational style of posting on talk pages than I have, but I have no problem with anything he has posted. I think Thulean does edit in good faith, but I also think he has taken much of Sugaar's criticisms too personally, wikipedia is collaborative, and there are bound to be disagreements, sometimes heated. Sometimes heated disagreements are good, they do not necessarily constitute personal attacks. Thulean has been hyper sensitive to criticism, but he is happy to call other editors names. Thulean called me clueless [49] on the white people talk page, so I asked him to clarify what he meant (I suggested that if I was clueless maybe it was because he was not making himself clear enough), he then went on to accuse me of making a personal attack, actually indicating that calling a person clueless was less of a personal attack than saying that someone was not making themselves clearly understood.[50] I think this is a very good example of how overly sensitive Thulean is to any sort of criticism. I'd also like to point out that Thulean has at no time ever tried to come to any dort of compromise or consensus, he merely tries to dismiss other editor's contributions, when they disagree with him he just claims they are stupid or wrong, there is never any attempt to compromise. His attitude is consistently "I am right and you are wrong" or "I am right and you just don't understand this". This shows a distinct lack of respect for wikipedia policies and other editors, and indeed the WP:NPOV policy, to Thulean only one POV is relevant and that is his POV, see this discussion to support my point. I can also understand Sugaar's frustration, and Thulean did threaten to use wikipedia mechanisms in intimidate Sugaar.[51] Thulean does this a lot, on 21 November he engaged in a edit war at Black people with User:Gottoupload, there were several reverts [52] [53] [54] [55] (there were more reverts but I have made my point and you can go and check if you want), Thulean then went on to warn User:Gottoupload against "vandalism" [56]. So Thulean thinks his point of view is the only one worht including and also accuses editors who disagree with him of being vandals. He insults other editors, but complains of "personal attacks" when someone so much as sniffs at him. This is, and always was, more about Thulean getting some sort of "revenge" against Sugaar than anything else. He's tried every way in "the system" to pursue Sugaar, and this is just another example. If it is a personal attack to question another editor's motives and it is a personal attack to say that another editor is not being clear enough then maybe Sugaar is guilty, but if these are considered personal attacks then I fail to see how anyone can ever post on a wikipedia talk page ever again without fearing being accused of making a "personal attack". I do think there is a great deal of racism on wikipedia pages relating to "race" at the moment, and I also feel that no one seems to care, when someone does speak out they are banned by administrators. Maybe there is some loss of sight of what we are actually trying to do here. I don't think the NPOV policy means that every and all POVs need to be included, but that's how it seems to be being interpreted at the moment. I am thinking of giving up editing altogether and that wikipedia is totally unreliable because it seems to give these wingnuts credibility with their message of hate. Alun 18:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Just for the record. I agree fully with Wobble's comments. And the article has been left alone at the mercy of those extremists because we are all tired of them. Veritas et Severitas 19:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Outside view by Vercalos

From reading just about everything on this page, Sugaar has some justification for being angry. He should have been warned once, and people should have paid more attention to Thulean's edits as well. I'm not sure if Sugaar's persuing Shell was justified, however I do believe Shell acted excessively and in a one-sided manner, from what I've read.--Vercalos 20:12, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. Looking at Thule Society, I'm guessing calling yourself Thulean and editing race articles isn't appropriate. Also a single purpose account did vandalise Sugaar's user page[57] and in the context of this vandal supporting Thulean in their very first edit[58], suggesting this could be Thulean wasn't really a personal attack. Addhoc 22:44, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Outside view by Durova

I find it disheartening to see two Wikipedians I respect - Shell Kinney and Sugaar - at odds with each other. Having recused myself from the content dispute I'll offer only a few peripheral comments. First, the diffs of my earlier comments were well chosen and fairly presented. Second, administering WP:PAIN and WP:RFI is no easy task. The best thing that well-intentioned editors can do there is to walk the straight and narrow path. It's much simpler to use sysop powers when one side of a dispute remains within the letter and the spirit of site policies. DurovaCharge! 03:31, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Outside view by Paul B

I have edited this page in the past, but find the aggressive atmosphere and the impossibility of consensus-building to be very offputting. It is almost impossible not to lose one's temper at times when streams of often-contradictory attacks on ones motives are made. I think Sugaar has been extremely polite to Thulean given the number of abusive comments that he has made. Even when Sugaar suspected Thulean and other editors of neo-Nazi agendas he made it clear that it was merely a suspicion. Most of the other comments are pleas for greater honesty in debate. They don't appear to be personal abuse. It does seem to me that Thulean himself can reasonably be accused of using this procedure as a form of bullying in order to drive Sugaar from the page. Such behaviour should not be rewarded, since it encourages more of the same. Paul B 16:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

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