Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Mike18xx

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

3RR is not one of the listed disputes leading to this RfC. If you would like to create another RfC regards my doing exactly what you are doing every livelong day, by all means do so. "The first rule of propaganda is to accuse your enemy of doing exactly that which you yourself are doing." -- John Barron--Mike18xx 15:51, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Your stated in your response at the main RfC page that I hereby categorically state that I will not attempt to do again offsite [meatpuppeting]. If this is your stance on the case than i consider the matter settled for me. If you believe that others are doing the same (i.e. meatpuppeting or any thing against Wikipedia policies) then i suggest you open an RfC dealing w/ that. Cheers. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 16:12, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Mike18xx, although FayssalF's name does indeed appear on the Muslim Guild, I can find no evidence there that he has ever engaged in the behavior which is disputed here. As this Wikiproject subpage was deleted, it is totally inaccurate to suggest that there is currently a double standard at play...and for whatever it's worth, a glance through the contributions of User:Saduj al-Dahij strongly suggests this to have been not a Muslim contributor, but a username created to parody Muslims and troll.
FayssalF's actions here have been measured, fair, and most importantly well-motivated. Projecting onto him the very worst of what you see in "the other side" is as unfair and inaccurate as it is horribly ill-advised: it forecloses the possibility of resolving this dispute, or any other dispute involving editors with "not-so-curiously Middle Eastern surnames." Please take greater care to distinguish between the various individuals you are dealing with here; it will make your experience here more satisfying.Proabivouac 19:56, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Mike18xxx, that Itaqallah's comment is a pot calling the kettle black. Knowing Itaqallah's efforts on Wikipedia, the comment "Mike must strive to prevent his strong views from seeping into and saturating his edits." is almost a bit amusing. What is more accurate, however, is Proabivouac's observation that Saduj al-Dahij (or "Jihad-la Judas") was not a Muslim user with some rather extreme opinions. He was a non-Muslim jokester. -- Karl Meier 21:12, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I again suggest that if you have any subsequent comment or opinion re to the behaviour of one or some Muslim Guild contributors, anyone is free to discuss. If mutual discussions wouldn't lead to sorting out the issue than Mike or anyone else would have the right to file a RfC, ArbCom case, ANI, me... Please bear in mind that RfC, just as many other venues, measures or actions in Wikipedia are set to fix problems and not to ban users. The only one i've banned was David. I've just blocked indef a sock of their account today or yesterday. We just don't llok for banning users and contributors, we seek to make this place convivial no matter how, why, who, where and when we/people disagree. I'd not have had any problem if the message was like Please, i need some help at WikiIslam AfD. Do you have any better/new sources or arguments to present?. Something just a bit smarter, convivial than Hey, let's go edit warring.

Please let me say one important thing. I am gonna talk about the guy called Proabivouac. We've been into this before. I filed a RfC (it was my first. Mike's is the second) against him. I lost? No i won because i apologized. I won because i understood that the important thing here is make your experience more satisfying (i am just quoting the guy who said that). I totally agree because the guy who said that is the one who feels it. He is the winner. So the "believers/infidels/angels/devils/my mamma/his mamma" share the same place! Bear in mind that Proabivouac's actions are totally crystal pure. So he is miles away from "infidels/my mamma chatting". Whatever is the case, people who think that this place is a battleground would be the losers. In this, i have no doubt about. Please let's behave better (in case i do not). -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 00:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Faysal, in case you didnt see my other comment: Could you point me to the policy that prohibits meat-puppeting off-wiki? I'm not saying that doing that is ok, but I want to see the exact policy if possible. Thanks, --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 03:10, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Yesiree: It's Wikipedia--the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit....just don't tell 'em about it! Good grief.--Mike18xx 03:47, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, it's totally fine to invite someone to join Wikipedia; it happens all the time. But we shouldn't invite people to show up and revert for us. When you point to various Muslim editors who engage in objectionable conduct (past or present) to justify the conduct in dispute here, what would stop them from saying, look Mike18xx is doing it, so why can't we?
The record shows that solicitations to FFI have proved pretty useless. But let's suppose you found an editor soliciting meatpuppets on some Islamic site, and then found yourself face-to-face with an army of anons reverting your edits and reporting you for 3RR. Wouldn't you feel that some foul had been committed? Of course you would. I would, too. On the other hand, if several users showed up and began discussing things on talk...well, that happens all the time, they're called new users. No foul there.Proabivouac 05:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I dont care about all these subjective arguements. I want to see the policy. I think there's a line somewhere. If I tell all my friends in a party to come help out with a dispute I'm having in Wikipedia, and they read the dispute and give their opinion on the dispute page, thats sounds ok to me. So whats not ok then? The policy should state this somehow. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 12:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
see WP:MEAT. ITAQALLAH 12:39, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Nah. I cant see anything that says we cant ask for friend's help on an external website and that makes sense. It would be absurd to ban asking for help on articles outside. Infact that page says "meat puppets often turn into good editors". But if someone says "here is Wikipedia and help me vandalize it", it seems there isnt a policy to deal with that. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 13:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
i think it addresses your concerns quite nicely. ITAQALLAH 13:57, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Here it is. This is the relating guideline: "It is also considered inappropriate to ask friends or family members to create accounts for the purpose of giving additional support.". --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 14:21, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
As i commented on your talk page Matt. You give less importance to details. It is considered highly inappropriate to advertise Wikipedia articles in order to attract users with known views in an attempt to strengthen one side of a debate.. Advertising or soliciting meatpuppet activity is not an acceptable practice on Wikipedia. ...The arrival of multiple newcomers with limited Wikipedia background and predetermined viewpoints rarely helps achieve neutrality and usually damages it.
Now, this is what it was said at the FFI forum by Mike18xxx All I need are one or two people to revert. Please also keep track of whether or not Intaqalla violates Wikipedia's 3RR policy. You would not be able to win an argument w/ an admin if they block for that. You still can ask them to provide you a policy justifying their block especially of someone w/ a special blocklog but you'll get little chances to win your case. In case you are confused or my answer is confusing than please bear in mind that there exist a policy called WP:IAR and too many admins are executing it. And don't forget that many people can be be blocked because of violating guidelines (harrassments, tendentious editing, ect...) So people can be blocked for many reasons which don't involve policies but for repeated offenses involving policies or guidelines. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 16:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Socks or meats?

Some discussion above seems to be turning on this question... Most admins don't really care about the distinction, actually. If the behaviour of a relatively new user is to engage in disruptive edit warring with little or no other contributions, that user may very well be blocked, possibly indefinitely, regardless of whether it is a sock or just a friend or forum poster brought in at the request of someone or whatever. See WP:DUCK. Mike is not the only person who should take note, but based on his statements above, he really ought to take particular note of it indeed.++Lar: t/c 18:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Signing in appropriate sections

According to the rules of the RFC, editors can be either involved in the dispute or not. The disputants sign either the statement of the dispute or the response thereto, but they cannot both file an RFC and write an outside view on it, as Itaqallah did. That's an either-or situation. Beit Or 19:28, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Beit Or comments

Beit Or, re:"This is a pointless and inflammatory RFC. Mike has acknowledged his solicitations to meatpuppetry and admitted his error; there is nothing else to discuss here. Nor were his comments "racist personal attacks"; unnecessarily heated, yes, but racist, no. Even if Mike's editing is generally disruptive, other editors should work to correct rather than harass him."

Mike18xx has now pledged to refrain from the meatpuppet post, but he didn't do so on the WP:ANI thread - and I really wish that he had, for it would have saved us all this trouble. Even so, his response here is less productive than it might have been. I appreciate that he feels unfairly targeted, but the angry tone just doesn't help matters.
It may be that some have joined the pile-on because they don't like his POV - for example, I find it extremely difficult to believe that ALM Scientist (to take just one example) would have condemned parallel behavior from a like-minded editor.
I also agree that the term "racist" is probably unwarranted. For my own part, I don't at all mean to harass him, but hope that he avoids the things that led to this. If so, we can look back on this as no big deal.Proabivouac 20:43, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
"if Mike's editing is generally disruptive, other editors should work to correct rather than harass him." Generally good advice. ... and, Harassing is just Not On. However correct/harass is a false dichotomy. ... there are other choices, such as warning, or just giving feedback, or offering to help. I've seen his pattern for a long time, and it hasn't changed enough for him to be a productive and successful long term contributor here, yet. He's been warned a lot of times, and people have offered to help him a number of times as well. His responses have not been generally collegial. So I may sound like a broken record when I say this, but if things don't change, he's likely to end up being permanently blocked. ++Lar: t/c 21:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Who am I "harassing", Lar? Where am I "disrupting" article accuracy, if my edits are in need of correction? I say you're just making crap up again. And I'll believe that most of my critics in these various exchanges are "productive and successful long term contributors" when they learn how to use search-engines to dig up references the way competent researchers minimally do (a process that can sometimes take upwards of four or five whole minutes), instead of axing chunks willy-nilly out of articles while disingenuously maintaining they're "unsourced" -- thereby lending evidence of their own desire to neuter articles rather than improve them. E.g., the recent ridiculous nonsense in Mutaween, which I finally shut down by adding TEN references to a single paragraph. Will every paragraph on Wikipedia soon need ten references?--Mike18xx 06:56, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Mike18xx, Lar didn't say that you'd harassed anyone, but agreed with Beit Or that you should not be harassed.
On the face of it, many of your references you'd added to Mutaween look topical and acceptable; tracking them down is a service to Wikipedia, and a good reason for us all to want you to stick around. Your prose is perhaps unduly argumentative, but that hardly sets you apart from many (or even most) other editors in this space; in itself, it would hardly have justified a post on ANI, or a user-conduct RfC.Proabivouac 07:08, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Mike, your approach is not collegial. The very paragraph you posted in response to me has several examples of your abrasive and argumentative manner, and includes gratutious insults and aspersions against other editors. It's "unduly argumentative", as Proabivouac said... Now, true, it's all relatively mild stuff in that paragraph, but it's symptomatic of your approach. Please try to moderate your writings on talk pages, and your edit summaries, to be in tune with how productive well regarded and successful collaborators do things here. Or you just will not be a successful collaborator here. That's not really debatable. ++Lar:t/c 16:21, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
What is debatable is why I should value collaboration more highly than accuracy, particularly if I have determined that some of the people I'm supposed to be collaborating with have anything but accuracy in mind as their purpose for editing Wikipedia. Academic journals are considered some of the most reliable sources for references at Wikipedia--but have you ever read some of the things professors write about each other? You should be appreciative of that fact that I'm such a warm, cuddly ball of fluffy cute fun by comparison.--Mike18xx 20:00, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Proabivouac said "the angry tone just doesn't help matters". No, it doesn't, but it's not an insuperable barrier. On the other hand, in the long run, people who don't make an ongoing attempt to work well with other Wikipedians will have little impact here, just as Lar says. Some of the people we encounter here are 'enemies' that we need to strive against, but that's nothing to do with ideology — it's because they are spammers, vandals, etc. So you have to make judgments, but it's important to not use beliefs as criteria for those judgments. If you can't work with people you disagree with, you probably need to leave Wikipedia or (dare I say it) work on your psychological maturity.
I'm sure I'm not the only person here who needs to heed the advice I dished out so freely in the preceding paragraph ;-) ... CWC 11:56, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I couldn't care less about "beliefs", because I never ask people about that sort of thing. I only know what they're doing when I see them do it, and proceed accordingly with evaluations.--Mike18xx 20:00, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Response to Chris Cunningham

A recent comment on the project page by Thumperward (talk · contribs), who signs as "Chris Cunningham", bought a response from Mike18xx which Itaqallah (talk · contribs) has moved here. Since the text Itaqallah put here made no sense without the context, I'll detail the sequence of events.

1. Thumperward (talk · contribs) endorses the "Outside view by Itaqallah"
Yup. It's the completely unabashed assholeism which is the problem here, such as boasts like this. Agreeing not to repeat specific actions while continuing to war with people in exactly the same way otherwise is gaming the system. Chris Cunningham 13:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
2. Mike18xx responds
Well! It's a good thing I haven't described anyone as an asshole right to their face, or I suppose I'd be so oughta here. I swear that some of you must have throats as big around as sewer-pipes in order not to choke on your own hypocrisy.--Mike18xx 21:34, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
3. Itaqallah (talk · contribs) cuts and pastes Mike18xx's response here
with no additional text except the heading "Chris Cunningham".

Hmmm. CWC 02:11, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

my apologies, i thought it was clear that the comment pertained to what Thumperward wrote in the outside view section. i should have elaborated. ITAQALLAH 02:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'm sure I'm not the only one who suspected that you were carefully protecting Thumperward, so I'm glad to learn otherwise. Cheers, CWC 09:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)