Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/172 2/Evidence

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.

When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-conciousness rants are not helpful.

As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey use this form: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Anomalous_phenomenon&diff=0&oldid=5584644] [1].

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.

Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs, a much shorter, concise presentation is more likely to be effective. Please focus on the issues raised in the complaint and answer and on diffs which illustrate behavior which relates to the issues.

If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.

Be aware that the Arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to refactor the page, let the Arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the arbitrators to move.

Evidence presented by Netoholic

(This section is a work in progress. I'll be putting this in a better format shortly, I just wanted to let other parties know which items I plan on presenting.)

Aggressive reverts

172 was the subject of a previous arbitration, which was closed on January 25, 2005.

In the previous case, 172 was placed on a "one month parole to (a) revert only once per 24 hour period (b) give edit summaries when reverting any established user". I have found evidence that during the one month period, he has broken this parole requirement multiple times, and so is still be subject to that parole requirement by extension.

He has shown in the one month since this case closed, that he is still unable to avoid revert wars. He has also failed to consistently leave meaningful edit summaries (typically only section header or rollback "default" summaries).

• History of Russia
• 1992 L.A. Riots
• Communism

Misuse of admin functions

172 has, on many occasions, used his admin-only abilities inappropriately.

History

• In July 2003, 172 was temporarily desysopped for protecting a page in which he was involved in an edit war (on Catholicism). He further participated in a "protection war" over the page after it was unprotected by others.
• In August 2003, a vote for desysopping 172 discussion was held.

Rollback

Repeated use of the admin-only "rollback" (anti-vandalism) function to help further edit disputes. Below is a record of how many times 172 has used rollback to revert a non-vandalous edit (as defined on Wikipedia:Vandalism). This practice is directly against the policy set forth in Wikipedia:Revert - "Always explain your reverts". ".

• 2 on 1992 L.A. Riots
• 4 on Cold War
• 2 on Communism
• 2 on Dictator
• 6 on History of Russia
• 8 on Saddam Hussein

Blocking / Unblocking

Unblocking himself

In alternating sequence, 172 unblocked himself a total of five times during a block for the above documented 3RR violation on History of Russia.

As written in the Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Excessive reverts, "Sysops blocked under this provision must not unblock themselves." This policy is widely accepted, as there are many outlets by which the sysop can request unblocking. These include emailing the blocking admin and raising the concern on the mailing lists.

The block log, filtering on actions involving User:172 shows the sequence of blocks/unblocks. Other relevant events are noted to show that 172 was well-informed of the policy.

• 20:44, 2005 Feb 28 Geni blocked "User:172" with an expiry time of 24 hours (3RR)
  • 20:57, 2005 Feb 28 - 172 was informed of the reason for the block, and also reminded of the available options.
• 22:42, 2005 Feb 28 172 unblocked User:172 (I did not violate the 3RR. The fourth edit was merely an alteration of the text.)
• 22:43, 2005 Feb 28 Snowspinner blocked "User:172" with an expiry time of 24 hours (Unblocking yourself is verboten.)
  • 22:47, 2005 Feb 28 Snowspinner blocked "User:172" with an expiry time of 24 hours (Feel free to get somebody to look at the page history. I'm just saying, don't unblock yourself.)
• 22:49, 2005 Feb 28 172 unblocked User:172 (Well, blocking a user for no reason who did not violate the 3RR is forbidden as well. Take a look at the page history.)
  • 172's block summary is in "reply" to Snowspinner's warning.
• 22:54, 2005 Feb 28 Snowspinner blocked "User:172" with an expiry time of 24 hours (I don't care about the article. Get someone else to unblock you. Don't do it yourself. This is not a hard concept.)
• 23:20, 2005 Feb 28 172 unblocked User:172 (Listen, I am busy, and I have to post something on talk. Quit playing games with me. I did not break the 3RR and should not have been blocked.)
  • 23:24, 2005 Feb 28 - 172 posts a long reply on Talk:History of Russia.
  • 23:30, 2005 Feb 28 - 172 replies on his own talk page to the 20:57, 2005 Feb 28 note from User:Geni.
  • 23:37, 2005 Feb 28 - 172 replies on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR.
• 01:39, 2005 Mar 1 Geni blocked "User:172" with an expiry time of 24 hours (3RR)
• 12:03, 2005 Mar 1 172 unblocked User:172 (no violation of the 3RR)
  • 12:10, 2005 Mar 1 - 172 replies on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR. By this point, a number of people have noted that sysops are not allowed by policy to unblock themselves.
• 12:27, 2005 Mar 1 Chris 73 blocked "User:172" with an expiry time of 24 hours (multiple admins see this as a 3RR. Please do not unblock yourself!)
• 12:41, 2005 Mar 1 172 unblocked User:172 (They did not look at the content of the last edit, just the edit summary. Now quit wasting my time. I have one reply to make on talk, then I will go away.)
  • Contrary to this statement, 172 did not "go away". If this phrase was meant to imply that he would voluntarily sit out the rest of his block, he did not. He made several replies from 12:49 to 22:18 on the various pages referenced above.

User:Gzornenplatz (known to be banned User:Wik)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive4#Gzornenplatz

• Unblocking of User:Gzornenplatz, against consensus gained prior to the final ArbCom confirmation of this person as being User:Wik.

User:195.70.48.242

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive4#User:172's block of 195.70.48.242

Wikipedia:Controversial blocks - "If no consensus has emerged after several respected Wikipedians have reviewed the matter, the user should be left unblocked."

• Blocking/unblocking war over User:195.70.48.242

Deletion

• Deletion log, filtering on 172's actions, shows some pages were deleted out of process – Guerilla, Beaurocrat, Wikipedia:Historical disputes between users, and Image:Frau.jpg. None were put to a vote, and do not fit the criteria for speedy deletion.

Evidence presented by Tony Sidaway

All evidence I would have presented concering 172 related to the repeated self-unblocking, which is explicitly contrary to WP:3RR and, in my opinion as an editor, brings all of Wikipedia administration into question. Netoholic has already presented this evidence.

I also think the Arbitration committee should examine and comment upon the actions of Ed Poor in this affair. I say this because I think this is what Ed himself would wish. The facts are well known (block log, March 1st). 172 and a number of other administrators engaged in futile block warring, knowing full well that 172 had the power to unblock himself. Ed Poor took executive action by de-opping Chris 73, Snowspinner, 172 and Geni (bureaucrat log, March 1st). he announced this in the relevant WP:AN/I discussion [2] and said: I know this is a two-edged sword that applies to myself as well. So I'm placing myself on report, and requesting the arbcom to review my actions. While I await the board's decision, I shall abstain from editing any articles. I'm confining myself to talk pages, as a sort of limited "house arrest" to show good faith.

Ed Poor should not have had the powers that he used. There is no suggestion that he obtained them improperly, but because some people have questioned whether the urgency that would have justified such action was present I would like arbcom to consider his actions on their merits. It seems to me that there is an argument that the administrators by block warring were, like 172 himself, bringing the administration of Wikipedia into disrepute. Deopping is reversible and, unlike blocking, in no way stops an editor contributing to Wikipedia.

Conversely the block warring did not affect anyone's editing powers except, for short bursts, 172's, and clearly multiple admins believed that he had breached the WP:3RR and the blocking was merited, so setting aside the putative damage to the Wikipedia administration's reputation, no other harm was done to Wikipedia by the block warring either.

Primarily, I would like arbcom to consider this aspect of the affair, because if it does not there may be a suggestion that the affair of the block war and Ed Poor's way of ending it were swept under the carpet. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:55, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Snowspinner and Neutrality

The evidence here is out of chronological order somewhat. The reason for this is because my point is twofold. First, this is a spurious arbitration on relatively flimsly evidence. Second, Netoholic is a vicious edit warrior of the worst sort, with a penchant for crusades against any user that he can find an excuse to go after, and a remarkable disregard for consensus and for the opinion of other editors. The result is, repeatedly, to drive editors away. His sudden attack on 172 for what is, frankly, a very minor set of complaints should be taken, I think, as just one instance of this kind of behavior, and I think that some reprimand is needed.

29 January

• [3] and [4]
  • I lead with this because it's the key piece of evidence here. Netoholic is not, as he claims, an uninvolved party. If you read the section of the talk page (Se fought with 172 over whether to block Gzornenplatz. I'm sure this is something that just slipped his mind, however it does mean that Netoholic's conduct here is relevent, in that there is an origin point for his dispute with 172.

24 December

• [5] (Admin only)
  • 172 deletes Wikipedia:Historical disputes between users. Although this may not have been a speedy candidate, the page was very obviously created as an attack on Everyking, and was a clear case of something that should go. I think this is a valid and necessary example of coloring outside the lines, as it were.

20 February

• [6]
  • This is the one violation of 172's parole that I can find, in which he reverted a user without comment.

• [7]
  • This is when he took it back four minutes later. Barring any evidence I missed when I scanned over 172's contributions, the central claim of Netoholic's complaint - that he violated his parole and thus that it is still active - is bogus, making this a spurious arbitration at best.

28 February

• [8]
  • This is the block log. Note that I was one of the admins involved in the block war. Note also that the blocking policy says "Sysops are able to unblock themselves by following this procedure but should absolutely not do so if they were blocked for a valid reason, e.g. a 3RR violation." Thus whether or not it was a valid 3RR violation is concievably relevent. As it turns out, it was valid, but barely so, and 172 could be forgiven for thinking it was not. All of which does not excuse 172, but I think it's worth little more than saying "Bad 172. No cookie," to be honest.

2 March

• [9]
  • In part because of this spurious arbitration, 172 leaves Wikipedia.

13 October

• [10]
  • Netoholic vehemently objects to Raul's promotion of Neutrality, saying that he has a conflict of interest because he voted for Neutrality, again overinflating a situation dramatically.

• [11]
  • Also attacks Neutrality for such heinous crimes as deleting an article to make page moves possible, and deleting two redundant images. Note here the theme of rigidly holding to policy well beyond the point of common sense. It will contrast later with the theme of creating increasingly interesting interpretations of policy well beyond the point of common sense.

6 November

• [12]
  • In an arbitration case with Netoholic containing numerous examples of sever and offensive breaches of etiquette and of gruesome personal attacks on IRC, Netoholic, instead of apologizing or making any kind of amends or explanation, simply tries to rules lawyer his way out of the arbitration case.

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Netoholic
  • On second thought, I'll list the whole case. I think my complaint there is still very telling. Netoholic has a seeming compulsion to enter edit wars, and his pugnacity is astonishing. His IRC behavior has not mellowed (He was recently blocked for particularly subtle and insidious personal attacks). But most importantly, this fits with the overall picture I'm trying to paint here. Netoholic got into continual fights with me. The results were as follows.

27 September

• [13]
  • The harassment detailed in the arbcom case above led to this departure on my part. I just couldn't deal with the continual hounding of Netoholic.

• User talk:Amorpheous
  • I know this looks like the least offensive edit ever. Here's the background on it, though. Following a lengthy campaign of harassment from Netoholic and another user (Who has since departed), I retreated and created a sockpuppet in the form of User;Amorpheous. Because there were a few people I still wanted to talk to in IRC, I logged into IRC as Amorpheous. Netoholic saw the host name and found the Amorpheous account on Wikipedia, posting the welcome message while mocking me about it in IRC. Is this actionable? Perhaps not. But, again, it shows the viciousness with which Netoholic goes after people once he decides he doesn't like them. He seeks to destroy other users - to force them off of Wikipedia entirely. Just like in this case.

March 9

• [14]
  • Netoholic escelates his crusade against me with accusations that, in fact, I am stalking User:John Gohde. Although I will freely admit to a concern about John Gohde's edits, I will also note that I have not, at the time of writing, taken objection with his edits in several days, and that prior to his suggesting that I am mentally unstable today, I was pleasantly surprised to see that he was acting much more reasonably than he had been the two times he got banned before.

• [15]
  • It's also suggested that I should leave Wikipedia, and that the fact that I have friends is a bad thing.

• [16]
  • And accusations that I was involved in a block war over User:John-1107, which is, well, untrue. (The only person to reverse a block of mine was Dante, and it was because he misunderstood the reason.)

• [17]
  • Oh, and I'm a drama queen.

10 January

• [18]
  • Netoholic lists another frivolous case, trying to dress up a content dispute as an arbitration worthy matter. He is roundly rejected. The parallelism with this case is striking.

28 January

• [19][20][21]
  • Netoholic removes Template:Sisterproject from Template:Wiktionary. Note that variations of this edit war have gone on on Template:Wikiquote, Template:Wikiquotepar, Template:Wiktionarypar. Template:Wikibooks, Template:Wikisource, Template:Wikisourcepar. Template:Wikisourcecat, Template:Wikisource author, Template:Wikinews, and Template:Wikispecies.

• [22]
  • Netoholic also lists Template:Sisterproject for deletion. You can see the results on the page.

• [23]
  • For good measure, Netoholic asks for Itai to be blocked over this.

31 January

• [24]
  • Edit war continues.

4 February

• [25]
  • Netoholic creates a new rule to support his viewpoint on the edit war. Notably, he does not tag it as a proposed policy.

11 February

• [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Meta-templates_considered_harmful&diff=10149663&oldid=10149220
  • Neutrality notes that this is a proposed policy.

• [26]
  • Netoholic removes the tag noting that this is not policy. This is striking considering his opposition to the invocation of unofficial policy at every other turn. This is characteristic of Netoholic's behavior - everybody else is querrelous, violating policy, edit warring, etc. He is blameless.

20 February

• [27]
  • Armed with his new policy, the edit war strikes back.

21 February

• [28]
  • To accompany the return of the edit war, Netoholic lists Template:Sisterproject on TfD. This is the second TfD that Netoholic started against this template. The first, obviously, also resulted in a strong vote to keep. Given two strong consensuses to keep, one would think Netoholic would accept that the template is in wide use and should stay that way. Note also his claim that Jamesday has said that the template causes database problems - a claim that Jamesday has just recently responded to on the page linked to above. I'm trying to assume good faith in this one, but considering the edit warring and JamesF's claim, I find it difficult. Perhaps he was just misinterpreting a general statement about templates?

March 7

• [29]
  • As of the time of writing (04:29, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)), 14% of Netoholic's last 500 edits were reverts. This counts neither self reverts nor reverts he did not explicitly mark as such. Note also [30] and the 30 country articles that were mass reverted there. Although never in violation of the 3RR, to say that Netoholic is prone to reverts is an exercise in understatement (And one that makes his criticisms of 172 ironic at best).

March 6

• [31]
  • 05:28: Netoholic is reverted. (See Mar 1).
• [32]
  • 10:23: Netoholic removes the section again. (See Mar 1).
• [33]
  • 13:17: Netoholic is reverted. (See Mar 1).
• [34]
  • 16:08: Netoholic removes the section again, calling it a "vague threat." (See Mar 1).
• [35]
  • 17:14: Netoholic is reverted. (See Mar 1).

March 5

• [36]
  • 04:18: Itai, the person Netoholic has edit warred with, notes that he is considering leaving Wikipedia over the edit war, writing that: "Presently, I am of the opinion that it's all quite pointless, that the community does not care, that Netoholic will win through unscrupulous persistence, and that maybe I should simply quit Wikipedia."
• [37]
  • 14:26: Netoholic's removal of the "beyond policy" section on Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, is reverted. (See Mar 1).
• [38]
  • 14:43: Netoholic removes the section again and leaves the edit summary " rvt. we don't need more wishy-washy reference to unwritten policies." (See Mar 1).
• [39]
  • 16:48: Netoholic is reverted. (See Mar 1).
• [40]
  • 17:09: Netoholic removes the section again. (See Mar 1).
• [41]
  • 19:58: Netoholic is reverted. (See Mar 1).
• [42]
  • 21:33: Netoholic removes the section again. (See Mar 1).

March 4

• [43]
  • Undaunted by two failed TfD votes, Netoholic removes the template again.
• [44]
  • And again, this time justifying himself with WP:POINT
• [45]
  • And a third time.

March 1

• [46]
  • 16:08: Netoholic removes the "beyond policy" section on Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, using a misreading edit summary that says "revert commentary." This passage reads in full: "Policy is not an exhaustive list. There are bad things you can do that nobody has thought of yet, and if you do them, it is entirely likely that you will find yourself in trouble. Edit in good faith, with civility, seeking consensus, and trying to build a NPOV encyclopedia, and you should be fine." This passage is a long standard pillar of appropriate conduct on Wikipedia.

Evidence presented by Silverback

I had not realized that the 172's apparent abuse of sysadmin powers on behalf of Stirling Newberry, was not already in the evidence. I concur with the quotes and documentation below which I have taken the liberty of copying this original arbitration text, attributed to User:Alai and User:William M. Connolley. I affirm the facts they presented below, and note that repeated attempts were made to get 172 or someone to unprotect the page.--Silverback 10:00, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

User:172 stepped in to page-protect Global warming, citing "edit war" on the page protection log. (More accurately, User:Stirling Newberry seeking to unilaterally re-impose an earlier edit of his own, without any discussion at all; other editors had been having such discussions in the meantime.) However:

No explicit request for page protection was made; User:172 protected the page less than five minutes after a Stirling Newberry revert; No 'protected' tag was added to the page; The page wasn't added to the list of protected pages. And: all of the above has happened twice now, most recently while still himself apparently blocked. Regardless of 172's blocked status, this smacks of collusion with a party to a dispute, disregard for all procedure, and over-ready use of page-protection. There's further discussion of this at this page, as well as on the talk page of the article concerned. Alai 05:50, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I too believe that 172 has probably abused his admin powers (and has ceratinly caused a great deal of unnecessary trouble) by his protects to the global warming page (William M. Connolley 12:17, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)).

13:33, 25 Feb 2005 172 protected Global warming (revert war)

This shows protect 3 minutes after revert by a 1 edit sock puppet which we presume was either Newberry or 172--Silverback 10:13, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

20:09, 28 Feb 2005 172 protected Global warming (It looks like the edit war has resumed without abatement.)

diff showing Newberry edit and then Broken Segue filling in missing tag that had not been added--Silverback 10:13, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This shows the lack of requests to protect and existences of requests to unprotect

Note there are two Global warming sections Please also see talk page of Global warming, for discussion by community of the protection issue, which has not been archived yet.--Silverback 10:20, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Please also see User talk:172 for discussion of sock puppets by mkrohn

If there is going to be an expansion of the scope, it might look into these sock puppets and whom they are, possibly Stirling Newberry or 172. --Silverback 10:35, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On January 26th on the article Intelligent Design there is another strange nexis of 172, Stirling Newberry, and the 1st appearance of the possible sock puppet User:Munnin, who later appeared a global warming. 172 put protection on the page and then reverted 3 minutes later, just before Munnin appeared.--Silverback 19:31, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Alai

To add a slight clarification to my own earlier comment, quoted here: the first time, page-protection was applied to the version of the one and only edit by User:WikiWarming. And on that occasion a 'protected' tag was added (unlike the second occasion). In neither instance was there any request for page protection on the public page; the first time there'd been a talk page request made in general terms http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3A172&diff=10572678&oldid=10565528, nor was a protected pages listing made. In short, I believe there there was a lack of moderation, impartiality and compliance with procedure in applying the Wikipedia:Protection policy. Alai 11:41, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Evidence presented by William M. Connolley

I endorse the evidence presented by Silverback (some of which was mine anyway...), with only one slight qualifier: Alai said No explicit request for page protection was made - I believe that Stirling did made a request, in the first instance, on 172's talk page. I feel that 172's non-listing of the page on the protected pages page was unhelpful - it seemed like he felt he "owned" the protect (William M. Connolley 12:30, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)).

Thoughts of SqueakBox

I read on 172's user page that there is an attempt to restore 172's admin powers. I would strongly oppose such a move. Calling me crazy, cussing, accusing me of not knowing how to use a diff when he was at fault here and telling me to get a grip while engaging in edit warring, removing good material and then apologising for his "mistakes" after he has reverted twice, and a general unpleasantness characterise this user's actions. He has assured me he is about to leave the project again once he has dealt with me, and therefore presumably sees himself as above the rules. I strongly ask that he is not given admin powers again without submitting himself for revoting, [[User:SqueakBox|User:SqueakBox Boddhi is the best]] 21:45, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

Thoughts of KapilTagore

Even though my demeanor with this user was less than exemplary, I can also attest to the fact that this user reverted the Fidel Castro page, which was finally agreed upon after a long period of consensus building (not by any individual user) in the discussion page (in which a Request for Comment was opened on me). He lazy reverts constantly, not changing facts in sections but reverting entire pages and ignoring other user's contributions (such as the Fidel Castro picture), giving bizarre twists on the No original research rule as explanation for his actions. Evidence of this also exists in the Hugo Chávez page. He thinks he is above the opinions of other users and feels no need to discuss things in discussion pages before editing out other users' contributions. He is not fit to be a wikipedia contributor, therefore I can't possibly imagine him being an admin. Kapil 02:31, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)