Grandmaster ( talk · contribs) vandalizes the aricle Nagorno-Karabakh. He removed my edits which were based on the works of the US-based sholar Robert H. Hewsen. Please note his edit summary, where he refers to the intro of the article, but my edits were also in other parts of the article and some of them were images. I agree we should reach consensus, but Grandmaster don't mentions with what exactly he don't agrees, that we could discuss these points on the talk page. In place of doing so, he removed all my edits. Previously I removed some edits of Grandmaster and gave a detailed explenation on that in the talkpage, why he is not doing the same?. I request intervention of admins. -- Vacio ( talk) 05:21, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
See m:The Wrong Version, the problem is not wheither its wrong or not. The problem is your behaviour: you disagree with A and B, but you remove my edits from A to Z. The edits of FrancisTyers can't be a justification for your acting, he is a mediatior, you and me not. See also his recent post on my talk page.
I am also not in mood for edit wars, nor I am under any restrictions. -- Vacio ( talk) 09:01, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
I think a lot of the problems and arguments could be calmed down if it were decided what the actual article should be about. It seems it should be about Nagorno-Karabakh as a geographical region, and should contain a description of that region along with an account of its history and its peoples. Meowy 20:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
I’d like to report a breech of the AE approved sanctions which clearly state “All articles related to The Troubles, defined as: any article that could be reasonably construed as being related to The Troubles, Irish nationalism, the Baronetcies, and British nationalism in relation to Ireland falls under 1RR. When in doubt, assume it is related.” The reverts here and here. The are four editors who disagree with this edit including myself, Gaillimh, Valenciano, BigDunc and myself. This is the second time they have breeched the AE sanction, however I did not report them on that occasion hoping they would see sense. However, on two occasions on the talk page now I’ve provided them with the opportunity to support their edit, despite the two reverts, they refuse to do so. Rather than apply any blocks under the AE sanctions, I would much prefer they self revert and use the talk page. I know I don’t have much say over that, therefore its just my opinion. Thanks, -- Domer48 'fenian' 18:30, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for that SirFozzie, that was a good call. -- Domer48 'fenian' 19:50, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Thread title has been pulled over by the spelling police. Durova Charge! 21:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
In light of Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Digwuren#Discretionary_sanctions, I have asked User:Paul_Barlow to avoid personal attacks: User_talk:Paul_Barlow#Civility_warning (like " you promoted extremist anti-German Polish nationalist views... don't pretend you are just anti-Nazi, the most cursory review of your edits shows that's not true"). He has replied with what amounts to another personal attack: [5]. Since my warning had no effect, I'd like for a neutral admin to review this case and consider another warning and putting that user on the restriction list. Thank you, -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 23:56, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Abtract-Collectonian closed at 08:20 on October 29th. It was agreed that Abtract was gaming the system by deliberately editing articles that are in my editing interests (but not his own), there by precluding me from editing them. In the closing, it was stated that he would stop these actions. He violated these restrictions on the same day of closing, which was reported, and he was blocked for a week. [6]. He has again violated this restriction, on the very same article, making a minor edit to keep his name in the list of contributers and continue randomly popping up on my watchlist and leaving me feeling unable to ever edit the article to avoid having to deal with him. [7] I've finally just removed the article from my watchlist all together, but I still felt this should be reported. -- Collectonian ( talk · contribs) 18:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Abtract has now started snipping at me unprovoked, and also not factually as my reply indicates. After my reply, he starting to take an undesirable interest in my new articles, promptly breaking the syntax in one of them [8]. Also, Talk:Gender_of_God#Confused_of_wikipedia was not helpful on an article that needs delicate handling. fyi, uninvolved clerks should keep in mind that there is another motion in play at Wikipedia:RFAR#Motion_re_Abtract. -- John Vandenberg ( chat) 02:27, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Arbcom case: The Troubles.
Domer48 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
During a messy thread including a now recinded indefinite block, Domer48 was placed under the following restriction:
That mediation has not been entirely successful, but I think lengthy enough do determine if Domer48 has learned the editing behaviors desired.
With that in mind I'd like User:Sunray and User:Shell Kinney to share their impressions to Avruch, Tiptoety and Nishkid64 - following which the referee panel will discuss and ideally come to a consensus on the question of lifting Domer48's topic ban based on his participation in mediation. The mediators and panelists should use whatever form of on or off wiki communication that would be most effective, but the panel should report their final findings here.
The very purpose of instituting the referee panel was to keep administrators and editors who have been previous engaged in Troubles related issues out of it - so I would ask that we allow the mediators and referee panel work in peace. Thank you.-- Tznkai ( talk) 18:35, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Thank you Tiptoety for your comments above. I was not sure what to expect after this edit here, but it all turned out alright in the end. I would just like to say that there was a lot accomplished, but I felt there was a lot more to do. Unfortunately we were prevented from completing the mediation, I was definitely willing and attempted to keep it going despite the set backs. I would be very interested to see examples were my editing would be considered less then acceptable, either during or following the mediation. These examples would no doubt be very beneficial to both my self and possibly other editors who experience the same difficulties. As per my agreement, I have completed the mediation, weather it was successful being only comparative with my editing prior to mediation, I would have to say yes. I would therefore like to get back to editing the UDR article, as I consider I have a lot to contribute. I would caution though, that any lifting of AE imposed sanctions be conditional on editor’s conduct, and agreement to adhere to our editing policies. Lifting of sanctions on articles, should be coupled with the application of sanctions on individual editors should their editing become disruptive. That is just my opinion, but I’d like it to be considered, thanks -- Domer48 'fenian' 21:45, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
One of the cornerstones by which Wikipedia's Mediation Committee operates is that parties' agreement to mediation is voluntary, based on the knowledge that what happens in the mediation is privileged and therefore cannot be used against them in later proceedings. This is designed to ensure that parties participate fully and frankly without concern as to how their comments might be interpreted later. Another important principle in that the mediator is neutral and does not form a view as to the content on discussion or the parties involved. Were a mediator later to rule as to the conduct of one of the parties, it would undermine that neutrality. Similarly, the mediation process would be hampered if the parties felt that the mediator was in fact sitting in judgment on them and might make a later report about his or her impressions of their conduct. Whilst the Mediation Committee is sympathetic to the need to develop new approaches to resolving issues in problematic topic areas, it is our opinion that the second element of this proposal violates both the privileged nature of mediation and the neutrality of the mediators.
The Mediation Committee regrets that it was not consulted before this proposal was made.
On behalf of the Mediation Committee,
WJBscribe
(talk) 23:57, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
This is apparently the result of serious miscommunication, the responsibility for which lies with me. I regret that I did not more thoroughly examine the issue, and that I did not double and triple check everything was in order. It was foolish for me to believe that in the various threads and communications on this issue that all applicable parties were fully aware - I took the lack of objections to indicate that I had covered all the bases. I think it is clear now that I instituted this proposal in October, it was not proper then, and I apologize for it. I apologize specifically to Domer48. In order to avoid any possible damage to the Mediation system, I do no think this proposal should complete its implementation, which means that Domer is left hanging. In order to avoid that, I am lifting his topic ban on my own discretion, and ask that the community endorse this action.-- Tznkai ( talk) 00:10, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
In addition to what the mediation committee has said, I wish to make one additional comment. The mediation was unsuccessful. To say more about it would, almost inevitably, give rise to inappropriate conclusions. Sunray ( talk) 00:50, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I have been informed that this is the proper area for this, so I am moving it from WP:AN/I to here. Please bear with me, as I have copied the current discussion there verbatim, to provide full context. -- Good Damon 18:48, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Shutterbug ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a long-term single-purpose account that edits solely at articles concerning Scientology, previously under the name User:COFS, which is an acronym for Church of Scientology. Shutterbug openly admits to one conflict-of-interest, to his/her benefit, as a Scientologist.
However, after a long period of inactivity, Shutterbug has begun editing in the Scientology article again, as well as several sub-articles. In the discussions that have followed, an old ArbCom case involving Shutterbug has been brought up. The ArbCom case ended with some minor temporary topic bans and blocks, but little else. Part of the reasoning that lead to this result was that Shutterbug (or COFS, at the time) claimed a particular Church of Scientology-owned IP address he/she had edited from, 205.227.165.244, including this accidental edit, was a proxy used by various hotels and such. Shutterbug recently reiterated the claim here. During the ArbCom, this claim was apparently given the benefit of the doubt, as a checkuser revealed that several similar single-purpose accounts had all edited from the same address and other Church-related address ranges. The users in question were:
I haven't been able to figure out why this proxy claim was given credence, as I can't see any particular evidence one way or the other in the ArbCom, and the single-purpose editing definitely lends itself to an appearance of conflicts-of-interest, if not sockpuppetry and/or meatpuppetry. But until recently, I was happy to let the decision stand; I wasn't even involved in the ArbCom, and was inclined to defer to the administrators in that case.
I now think the decision was a mistake. This user, these accounts, and every IP address previously confirmed by checkuser as being associated with these accounts has been used overwhelmingly in Scientology-related edits and minimally in anything else. Were these IP addresses those of hotel proxies and the like, one would expect a host of non-Scientology related edits, but per these Wikiscanner results, there are few if any to be found.
Lacking any evidence to the contrary aside from Shutterbug's word, the bulk of the user's edits come from official Church of Scientology-owned machines, and the claim of an IP proxy used by "hundreds if not thousands" is implausible. Had these accounts and these IP addresses not edited so single-mindedly in Scientology-related articles, it would perhaps be more plausible, but as is, the evidence is pretty compelling that Shutterbug -- as well as the other accounts -- have conflicts-of interest affecting their abilities to edit neutrally, or at the very least the appearance thereof.
There is also an issue of incivility. In this edit, I decried the sudden battling over the article after months of calm, and accurately described a particular inappropriate edit performed by a different user. In response, Shutterbug said "Let's talk and no personal attacks, please." As I had not made one, and I didn't appreciate the accusation, I asked Shutterbug to retract it, and asked again on the user's talk page. The response speaks for itself.
My thoughts at this point, unless I've missed something that completely negates my COI concerns, is that Church of Scientology IP addresses simply shouldn't be used to edit Scientology-related articles, and accounts associated with those IP addresses should be topic-banned as probable WP:ROLE accounts. -- Good Damon 09:17, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
This section is intended for providing new information to administrators above and beyond the initial introduction and related discussions. Anyone can add new developments here. I welcome comments, but for organizational purposes I ask that anyone commenting on new developments do so in a section dedicated to their own comments. Several, including myself, already have such sections.
As of December 5, 2008, Misou ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has returned to editing in Scientology articles. Misou has not edited since January 5th, and is listed in the original ArbCom as a confirmed sockpuppet, based on the supposed proxy address. This is not intended to comment on the quality of Misou's edits -- I actually agree with several of his/her deletions, as the sources in question were probably not reliable -- but simply to inform administrators that another possible sock who has long been dormant has come back. -- Good Damon 00:38, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Report filed here. -- Good Damon 16:58, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
As a party to the original
arbitration, I think that is is appropriate that I comment here. As much as I respect GoodDamon, he seems to be trying to reopen an arbitration in the improper forum for such an effort. The arbitrators were well aware of Shutterbug's POV and history of editing from a CofS-owned proxy server and made no remedy that restricted her editing. If GoodDamon thinks that they did not make the correct decision then he should present his evidence to the arbitrators and ask that they reopen the case, not make his case here. The other point GoodDamon brings up in incivility. Incivility is a much-disputed issue but if Shutterbug was uncivil then perhaps she deserves a warning though I see little in the way of objectionable incivility in the diffs provided. However, I cannot stress enough that GoodDamon should move his doubts about the arb outcome to the arb page. --
Justallofthem (
talk) 15:53, 26 November 2008 (UTC) This is not relevant here as the main thrust of my comment was that GoodDamon bring his issue to this forum. --
Justallofthem (
talk) 19:48, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
As a party to the original arbitration, I think that is is appropriate that I comment here. I see little activity on the part of Shutterbug that is deserving of the attention of AE. I like and respect GoodDamon but the entire thrust of this thread is his IDONTLIKEIT evaluation of the findings and recommendations of the arbitration. He is not asking for enforcement, he is asking that the arbitration be redone. -- Justallofthem ( talk) 19:52, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
At this point, I would like to take a step back and ask that previously uninvolved administrators look at the ArbCom and determine if continued involvement by these editors constitutes violation of the ArbCom ruling in light of what I perceive as the likelihood of Church of Scientology involvement. I would characterize the editor or editors as:
If these characterizations do not bear out, or if this is not the proper venue for this discussion, I will gladly accept that. -- Good Damon 20:55, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
As per the arbcom decision, the Scientology article is on probation. [9]
Looking at the edit war that led to article being protected I count the following reverts:
I believe GoodDamon and Shutterbug should be trout-slapped and told not to do it again. Since Shutterbug has done this sort of thing before, s/he should perhaps be restricted to just posting to the talk page for a week or so.
IMO, the whole edit war was a very silly and entirely unnecessary episode, largely caused by Shutterbug making sweeping changes without prior discussion on the talk page. All the more regrettable since at least some of the changes – chronological fixes etc. – would seem to have made sense and might well have gotten support on the talk page. Jayen 466 22:09, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Why did I not just get rid of my user name and started editing with another one, if it am such a red flag? That's rather stupid, isn't it? I did not because the truth is that the 205.227.165.244 IP is/was a proxy used by hundreds if not thousands of people. As I said before and there is no evidence saying otherwise: I occasionally used it when being in a Church of Scientology facility, waiting for someone etc. Further, the diversity of the subjects being edited from that IP between 2004 and 2006 underlines that there have been more than one editors on this IP (wikiscanner). I was not prepared for the amount of hostility I am being subjected with now and I wasn't a year ago when I got surprised with an avalanche of accusations that had nothing to do with real life. Ok, the Arbcom determined there have been several other people editing under the same IP. I think that was a true finding with no significance especially as I even volunteered this information as much as I could. As an additional note: Cirt is a known and longterm anti-scientology editor who went by the user names of Smeelgova, Smee and WilhelmvonSavage. Per her edit history she works 8-11 hours per day on Wikiprojects, almost exclusively working on anti-religious subjects and its peripheral subjects (like the names of Scientology members, anti-religious books and the like). Though I welcome the work and information she provides I don't think she should be included in this "neutral" discussion. Lastly it is an old trick on Wikipedia to attack the editor with administrative rules instead of concentrating on making better articles. I have been subject to this abuse of Wikipedia policy before and seems to happen again. Result: dozens of text pages filled with discussions, zero articles improved. Maybe there is some kind of protection against "using Wikipedia policy to shut up opposing editors"? Shutterbug ( talk) 22:39, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
A few words here. Justallofthem's assertions about proxies are unsupported by the Committee's findings. Several parts of the decision reject his claims:
For months I counseled Justanother in good faith that the 'proxy' argument he was attempting to advance did not serve the best interests of his faith. No evidence was forthcoming from the organization's IT staff to bolster the claim. Then while the arbitration case was underway the Wikiscanner came out and the weakness of the 'proxy' argument got demonstrated empirically in the form of real world news coverage about Scientology-based IP edits to Wikipedia. That news reflected more poorly for that religion than whatever PR problem they were trying to correct. And also, people who actively disliked that religion made the most of the negative press.
It was my hope when that case concluded that Justanother, Shutterbug, and other editors would learn from their mistakes and turn over a new leaf. Only one really did: he now edits as Cirt. Cirt has contributed 11 featured articles, 13 featured portals, 31 good articles, and 47 DYK entries. He has become an administrator on three WMF projects including this one, has become an OTRS volunteer, and was elected a member of the Arbitration Committee on Wikinews. It is my earnest wish that editors from both sides of the dispute would make a similar turnaround. (Heck, I'd love to see that turnaround in any dispute). If any Scientologist adjusts to WMF standards that well it would give me pride to nominate them for adminship.
So in the holiday spirit (since it's reasonable to guess most of the editors associated with this thread are American?) let's give thanks for the progress that's happened so far and put this discussion on hold through the holiday weekend. Requesting as a courtesy: please suspend discussion. I'll be around off and on (working on a ragtime composer biography--something much more to my taste than this subject). Best wishes all and happy Thanksgiving. Durova Charge! 00:07, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
Very glad I took the holiday off before returning. It's quite simple, really. A year and a half ago I was trying to protect both you and Wikipedia from negative press. You didn't take the advice and a lot of bad press really happened. Now you're repeating most of the same mistakes that created that problem in the first place. It certainly won't be my doing if this makes news again. I hope you take the advice on board and reform. If you don't, I hope this board saves you from yourselves.
It's more than a little bit comical: there are better solutions to the meritorious part of your concerns, but you reject feedback and fail to adjust. It's as if you treat all dispute resolution with extreme myopia, regard anyone whose response amounts to 'no' as an opponent, and try to win as many short-term interactions as possible regardless of the ultimate consequences. ArbCom didn't accept your 'proxy' rationale but in the larger picture that's irrelevant: neither the press nor the public accepted it. You say you're worried about hostile critics as you set yourselves up again for the very same fall.
Best wishes; by cautioning you again my conscience is clear. Durova Charge! 22:52, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
Support - I personaly have no problem with Scientologists I however am upset with Shutterbug's Deletion of my material under Celebrity Centre, The suggestion that my material was "not Notable" as in Shutterbug's words is absurd (on the google search of Scientology it came up on top). I also dislike him of her deleting things regaurding Scientology's Xenu story which is backed up by many sources including the freezone. I doubt this ban will keep the Proxyer of Shutterbug from editing however I suggest Shutterbug edit his or her other interests, I harbour no ill will to Scientologists but I will not stand Idle as the "truth" is rewritten. -- Zaharous ( talk) 22:54, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Due to the Arbitration Committee decision in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/COFS, "All Scientology-related articles are placed on article probation." According to Wikipedia:General_sanctions#Types_of_sanctions: Article probation : Editors making disruptive edits may be banned by an administrator from articles on probation and related articles or project pages. Editors of such articles should be especially mindful of content policies, such as WP:NPOV, and interaction policies, such as WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, WP:3RR, and WP:POINT.
After thinking this over and looking at these above pages I think it is best if this Topic Ban poll relating to Shutterbug and related accounts takes place among NPOV, previously uninvolved administrators. Specifically: From WP:BAN -- The Arbitration Committee may delegate the authority to ban a user, such as by authorizing discretionary sanctions in certain topic areas, which can be imposed by any uninvolved administrator. I could be seen myself as being previously involved on Scientology articles, and so I am striking my vote in the Topic Ban proposal. I suggest other editors previously involved on Scientology-related articles do the same, including GoodDamon [37], Justallofthem [38], Jayen466 [39], Zaharous [40], Bravehartbear [41], Spidern [42], and Shrampes [43] [44] [45] [46]. Cirt ( talk) 21:03, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi. As the person who originally proposed the topic ban, I stand behind my proposal. The basic concern is that someone is an SPA who is pushing a POV. They're probably trying their best to contribute, but may be falling afoul. So I suggest a slight modification:
Thoughts? // roux editor review 22:01, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Comment: Per WP:BAN, let's please keep further comments in this subsection relating to the Topic Ban Proposal to previously uninvolved administrators. Others may comment in the above subsections. Thanks. Cirt ( talk) 22:47, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
This was the section explaining I had originally brought this up in the wrong place. Leaving it for posterity, but closing it to avoid distraction. |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
You're in the wrong forum, guys. The topic of Scientology is on article probation. From Wikipedia:General sanctions:
So I'm marking this thread resolved and referring it to WP:AE. Durova Charge! 18:01, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
|
I have requested a new arbitration case. Durova Charge! 18:42, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
In just the last few days editing in the Scientology-series alongside User:Cirt I have seen a disturbing amount of POV-motivated editing on his part. As you may know, Cirt has quite a history here with seven (7) prior blocks for edit-warring and other POV issues. That history was whitewashed with a name change and Cirt managed to become an admin in his somewhat disputed Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Cirt. Although I had hopes that adminship would help Cirt reform, I fear now that that is not the case. Here is just a few issues that I have noticed recently that indicate that Cirt is not able to control his POV:
Let's count the POV-driven errors:In 2007, New Idea reported that Scientology has "sex lessons" which can be given to couples looking to educate themselves to have "better sex". [47] This guide studies their sex life and suggests ways for the couple to improve upon their activities. The article, titled: "Scientology Sex Scandal", which discussed the relationship of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, was one of the more notable headlines in Australian celebrity gossip weeklies in 2007. [48]
So this is clearly about Tom and Kate, not about Scientology in general. Yet the editor here engaged in WP:OR generalization to invent that "Scientology has "sex lessons" which can be given to couples".New Idea announces Tom and Katie's "scientology sex scandal". For some bizarre reason, the couple are reportedly taking "sex lessons" so they can learn to have "better sex". "Tom and Katie will have to share every detail of their sex life with an adviser, 'an intimate relationship guide', who will analyse their lovemaking and suggest improvements."
See discussion from Talk:Scientology and sex. Jayen466 ( talk · contribs) supported Justallofthem ( talk · contribs)'s position. The next proper step in dispute resolution would be to either: 1) Question the sources at WP:RSN, or 2) Start a content-based WP:RFC on that particular content disputed. I chose to disengage from this particular material and take a break from editing this article entirely. Cirt ( talk) 22:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
My experience with Cirt is that he, like most critics of Scientology, operates by the rule "Scientologists lie, Scientology critics tell the truth". He is welcome to believe that but realize please that is a totally POV stance. Someone from the Scientology side with an equally inflexible POV would say the exact opposite. I refer specifically to Cirt unbalanced treatment of two roughly analogous sources, a Scientologist's site and a critic's site. I brought up that issue at Talk:Scientology and sex:
The DeWolf affidavit was previously linked to (www.freewebtown.com/luana/rondewolf-july87.pdf) here to a site that has been reported as an "attack site" as in malware of some sort. I do not believe the malware report was on the specific file(s) in question but rather on the site overall, freewebtown.com (incidentally, I just checked and it seems fine now). Cirt removed the link, here, citing "rm sources which link to attack site, dubious site anyways". I agree with that on both counts. For the sake of our discussion here I performed a Google search and found the document on the scientologymyths.info site. Cirt said of that site "But these particular sites being linked to are dubious, and written by certain individuals from within the Church of Scientology tasked for certain specific purposes. Not reliable sites, not even safe sites." When Jayen brought up the analogous Lerma site, Cirt's comment was "Ref 8 is not an "attack site", though it is self-published. Could be a matter for discussion at WP:RSN, however." I want to compare these site and Cirt's analysis of each. To me they are exactly analogous and I find Cirt's reluctance to deal with them equivalently disturbing and again indicative of an overpowering POV issue.
I admit I framed this discussion incorrectly and for this I apologize. What I should have done is discuss the nature of the website itself as a source. www.scientologymyths.info purports to be someone's personal blog, and as such should not be considered a WP:RS. If discussion could not reach a resolution on the article's talk page, I should have posted to WP:RSN to get further input on that particular source. That way, we could get more fresh eyes on the discussion. Cirt ( talk) 22:29, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Cirt is making unsubstantiated claims about the Scientologymyths.info site. Cirt has made a number of unsubstantiated claims about this site so as to undermine its credibility and has spammed his "warning" across multiple talk pages. As far as I am aware, Cirt has never done anything like this with a site critical of Scientology; this is clearly POV-motivated. I ask Cirt to back his claims up or remove the "warning". He has stated the following about the Scientologymyths site:
Cirt has ignored my previous requests to source those sort of statements and instead has spammed this unsubstantiated "warning" on (at least) the below talk pages:
Scientologymyths does not present itself as an official voice of the Church, please see here:Cirt appears to be trying to tar the site. I asked that he provide a source or remove the warnings but he did not do so, instead repeating his unsubstantiated claim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Justallofthem ( talk • contribs)"I am a Scientologist, working, and I use my spare time to run this blog and the website scientologymyths.info. I live in Los Angeles, California/USA."
I was a bit too aggressive with this one with the talk page warnings. Same with the comment in the above subsection, I should have engaged in further discussion on the talk page of the reliability (or not) of the www.scientologymyths.info blog/website, and if we could not reach an amicable discussion post to WP:RSN for fresh eyes. Also, it probably would have been better for both me and Justallofthem ( talk · contribs) to discuss one source/website at a time, and not conflate different websites/sources in the discussion at the same time. Cirt ( talk) 22:31, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
I find Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Highfructosecornsyrup of concern and will comment later as I just saw it and need to read through it more. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Justallofthem ( talk • contribs)
I will defer to the proper process for the outcome of Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Highfructosecornsyrup. There has been some good discussion at the case page so far, but as is appropriate I will defer to an uninvolved administrator to reach a conclusion in that case. Cirt ( talk) 22:32, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/COFS. No evidence is presented other than vaque supposition. Also Cirt consistently misrepresents the findings of the COFS arbitration with his conjoined "Shutterbug/Misou" and his prior (rude) reference to Shutterbug as Church of Scientology (which I objected to here and which was my entrance point on realizing that Cirt had perhaps not reformed after all). There were no findings that which gave any official status to Shutterbug or established any connection between COFS and Misou other than that they accessed the same proxy server. -- Justallofthem ( talk) 14:15, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
While all of these indicate a POV, none of them alone is worthy of much in the way of sanction. Taken together however and indicative of a pattern of editing, especially as they cover just a few days editing, I believe they are cause for concern. Cirt should minimally be strongly cautioned about maintaining WP:NPOV in the Scientology articles. Personally, I am sorry to say that I do not believe he can, especially given his previous editing history under prior accounts. -- Justallofthem ( talk) 22:20, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
I have responded to the individual issues above in separate responses. I admit and apologize for making a mistake about the nature in which I discussed the site www.scientologymyths.info, and in the future will continue to utilize the WP:RFC and WP:RSN processes where appropriate in order to bring in some input from previously uninvolved editors. Cirt ( talk) 00:59, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I don't follow the Scientology articles very much (bored to tears by the subject), but Cirt does ask me about WP policy and process from time to time. He happened to be asking me about the post he had made on some talk pages while Justa started this thread. I really wish he'd touched bases before the fact, but sometimes that's how it goes.
Now what happened is this: Cirt noticed several articles on that topic had links to a site that carried malware. Cirt posted to an admin noticeboard about that, citing several reports that the site had a malware problem. Meta then blacklisted the domain. So far, so good.
Then Cirt made a good faith mistake, noting that domain properly plus another one at a few talk pages. He saw objections to both, and from the little I've been able to glean so far those objections are unrelated. The second domain is a blog and I'm unaware whether that blog is an official one or an amateur one. If the blog is official then per WP:RS it would be acceptable in limited ways as a self-published source. If not, then it probably wouldn't satisfy the reliable sources guideline.
I was advising Cirt to extend apologies for the confusion and offer to discuss the blog with Justa when this thread opened. It looks like possibly a matter for the reliable sources noticeboard, not for arbitration enforcement. A tense subject, and probably one in which all disputing parties could use a nice cup of tea. I only regret I didn't learn about what was developing a little sooner; was reviewing GA nominees while this was brewing. Best wishes all, Durova Charge! 22:36, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm genuinely sorry to see this. I can summarize the majority of sourcing problems with the Scientology series with a single Wikilink: WP:PRIMARY. This series of articles is rife with primary sources, and Cirt has been making some good headway in getting rid of them, along with other editors. Of course he's not a perfect editor, but contrary to Justanother's cherry-picked -- and frankly inaccurately described -- edits, Cirt has been pushing for better sources. This ArbCom report sadly strikes me as an attempt to distract from the other one and say something along the lines of "See? Both sides are bad," which is why I'm sad to see it.
I propose that this report should be placed on hold until the other one concerning Scientology is dealt with. The two are not equal. One is a report of massive conflict of interest, sockpuppetry, and likely WP:ROLE accounts from the primary organization supporting Scientology itself, and the other is an issue of WP:WEIGHT and sourcing. The latter could be resolved by explaining to Cirt why Tom Cruise's sex life is not of sufficient weight for inclusion in an article. The former... well obviously, that's a substantially bigger deal. -- Good Damon 22:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Google's probably-overbroad labeling of the site - a free webhosting service - as malware, and even the reliability of the scan - are red herrings. The only issue there is whether the affidavit itself is a valid source; the scan was a convenience link. I have no idea whether or not it is, so I will refrain from commenting on that, but the supposed malware is not relevant. -- NE2 00:38, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
The other day, I began to prepare an AE report on Cirt myself. At the time, I decided not to post it. Since the matter has come here now anyway, I shall add what I compiled. In part, it may duplicate what Justallofthem posted above. This is what I had drafted:
As the unrelated discussion further below shows, Scientology articles often appear like a POV-driven battlefield. Strong feelings about Scientology are commonplace, especially on the Internet, and I believe this is reflected to some extent in all work on Scientology articles within Wikipedia.
A situation has arisen in one of the minor Scientology articles, Scientology and sex ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), which seems somehow symptomatic. Until recently, when it was nominated for deletion, the article was based mostly on primary sources: [50] Over the course of the AfD, a number of secondary sources were added, resulting in this version: [51], which was kept.
All Scientology articles are under probation, meaning that editors are required to pay particular heed to content policies such as WP:NPOV, WP:RS etc. Several of the added sources appeared problematic, but there are two edits I would like uninvolved admins to look at specifically from the viewpoint of whether these edits reflect the especial mindfulness of NPOV and other policies invoked by article probation.
This concerns a paragraph that was added around the time of the AfD. As it turned out, our wording misrepresented the source. Our article claimed that it was "reported that Scientology has 'sex lessons' which can be given to couples", while the actual source did not make a statement about the Scientology religion, but merely quoted a report that two prominent Scientologists had used the services of an "intimate relationship guide".
Given this discrepancy, the content of the para was removed from the article (twice, with one intervening revert) and transferred to the talk page by Justallofthem ( talk · contribs), where it is currently the subject of further discussion.
Diffs: [52] / [53] / [54] / [55] (rmv by Justallofthem) / [56] (rvt by Cirt) / [57] (rmv again by Jayen466) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jayen466 ( talk • contribs)
To reiterate what I had said above, there was a disagreement between myself and Justallofthem ( talk · contribs) about this material used in the article Scientology and sex. Jayen466 ( talk · contribs) shares the opinion of Justallofthem on this issue. It was discussed a bit on the talk page. The next step would either have been to have a content-based WP:RFC on the issue on the article's talk page in order to solicit input from uninvolved editors on the matter, or to have a discussion at WP:RSN about the article content, in order to solicit input from uninvolved editors about the particular sources used and their reliability in general. The matter has not proceeded to either of those stages yet, and I have chosen to disengage myself from this particular discussion and take a break from it for a while. Cirt ( talk) 01:19, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
"In Scientology the focus is on sex. Sex, sex, sex."
L. Ron Hubbard's son Ron DeWolfe [1]
I would like to ask uninvolved admins to examine the appropriateness of the insertion of the quote box shown to the right here. This insertion occurred immediately after the removal of the abovementioned para from the Australian gossip weekly. For background, the statement cited was
There has been subsequent discussion of this material.
The question is, are these edits evidence of especial mindfulness to uphold best practice in relation to content policies such as NPOV, RS, etc. I may add further evidence tomorrow or Monday; there are one or two other recent incidents I recall. If any of the diff links above don't point where they should, please point it out; I haven't had time to double-check all of them. Jayen 466 01:08, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
I added a quote box to a subsection of an article. It was removed and a discussion ensued on the article's talk page. Again, I have chosen to disengage from this and take a break from it for a while. There is no ongoing dispute here, and so far the matter has not proceeded to RFC either. The quote box was removed by Jayen466 after being in the article a total of 13 minutes, and was not added back in since, by myself or anyone else. Cirt ( talk) 01:31, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
This dispute about a quote box was entirely unknown to me. It's more than a bit disappointing to discover new points of contention in dribs and drabs this way. Normally I'd suggest a content RFC for a quote box dispute. With so many other unresolved issues already on noticeboards, though, a general suggestion to both sides: in dispute resolution generally (on wiki or off), an effective way to escalate tension and halt progress is to introduce new low priority quarrels while multiple higher priority ones remain unresolved. This is approaching a level where it threatens to overwhelm our site dispute resolution mechanisms (if it hasn't reached that point already unbeknownst to me). So to editors on both sides of the fence, whatever your disagreements may be, I hope we can all stand together in not wanting a second arbitration case. The last one on this subject lasted three months.
So here's a proposal: please table the discussions on the quote box and the blog for 30 days. Wherever things are now, just walk away until the new year. Let the other issues with the prior AE thread etc. get wrapped up first, please. Then address this lower priority material. Durova Charge! 03:42, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
IP makes a good-faith edit, with a lucid edit summary drawing attention to a valid concern. The edit is reverted by another user, and the IP receives this warning from Cirt. Jayen 466 21:37, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
This edit added a paragraph sourced to a book by James R. Lewis, a highly acclaimed academic author published by leading university presses, to the article on the Cult Awareness Network (CAN). Going against the grain of the rest of the article as it was then (mainly authored by Cirt), it states that the New CAN, which is run with Scientology backing, operates as a “genuine information and networking center on non-traditional religions”.
Cirt removed this information with the edit summary: “(removed added text from Lewis book - it is basically a copyright violation - minor words are changed but whole sections are quoted without quotations!!!)”
For editors wanting to assess the validity of Cirt's copyvio claim – which I would take issue with, since the author and work were named, and my summary reformulated the source text – the relevant page of Lewis is available in google books: [58] If Cirt had had a genuine copyright concern, I suggest that the appropriate response showing especial mindfulness of NPOV would have been to reword the text, ensuring that this significant scholarly voice offering an alternative viewpoint be included. Instead, Cirt deleted it. It is also noteworthy that the version of the article at the time, which Cirt submitted for GA (it failed), cited no criticism whatsoever of the Old CAN, prior to its Scientology take-over, even though there have been a great many voices critical of the Old CAN in both the academic literature and mainstream media.
Cirt has several times tried to exclude Anson Shupe as a reliable source from WP articles related to Scientology, describing him as a “collaborator”. [59] [60] [61] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jayen466 ( talk • contribs)
I did indeed alert in an edit summary about copyvio concerns from text inserted by Jayen466 ( talk · contribs), and this was a valid concern. The Diff cited by Jayen466 is from almost 6 months ago. I believe Jayen466 ended up rewording the text later himself, and a version of it remains in the article. The fact that I nominated something to WP:GAN which failed is simply a testament to my dedication to relying on the GA Review process itself. Actually I later utilized many points from the GA Review to copyedit and improve on the article based on the GA Reviewer's suggestions. And yes, I do question Anson Shupe's collaboration with Scientology attorney Kendrick Moxon, and you will note that the Diffs cited by Jayen466 are each: on talk pages, not article-space, where I brought the concern up for discussion, and: over two months old, and have not been brought up again by myself for some time. Cirt ( talk) 18:08, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
As GoodDamon has pointed out, Cirt has argued that Scientology’s primary sources (websites, Hubbard’s books) should not be used in Scientology-related articles. I agree with Cirt on this point, and have said so before: [62]. Our descriptions of Scientology beliefs should be based on scholarly descriptions, or other sources that can be considered reliable sources on religious matters.
However, Cirt’s actual approach is selective, depending on whether Scientology sources are likely to paint the religion in a good or a bad light. There are also contradictions between Cirt's statements in public and her or his actual editing actions. For example, in the AfD for Scientology and Sex, Cirt said that content sourced to primary sources should be “pruned”. [63] When some time later I brought the matter up on the article’s talk page, Cirt was extremely reluctant to remove any of the primary-source material at all: [64]
Cirt not only defended the use of primary sources likely to cast a negative light on the religion, he also defended the use of a self-published piece on an anti-Scientology website, saying the site was “not an attack site”: [65] The site’s title is “Exposing the con”: [66] Scholarly opinion of such sites is that they are a propaganda effort presenting a caricature of Scientology, rather than reliable information. [67] [68]
To summarize:
I do not see especial mindfulness of NPOV here. I do not even see a good-faith effort towards NPOV. I see an extremely dedicated effort to subvert NPOV that is unparalleled by anything else I have observed in Wikipedia. Jayen 466 13:04, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
In conjunction with secondary sources supplementing primary source material, I have no objection to using primary sources in a limited capacity. Note that the above Diffs cited by Jayen466 ( talk · contribs) are all to talk-page discussions about article content, where constructive discussions were had. We had been (unfortunately) conflating multiple discussions about different websites together. If we had discussed each website one-at-a-time (or even later brought the matter to WP:RSN) the discussion would have had a more clear and beneficial resolution for all. So it is partly my fault for not keeping the discussion on track to one website/source at a time, and also for not opening the matter up to a noticeboard like WP:RSN to get some fresh eyes and input from uninvolved editors on the matter. Cirt ( talk) 18:11, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
I participated in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/COFS and have interacted with both Cirt and Justanother for a great length of time. I am dubious of any reports files by historical content adversaries against each other. I recommend that this lengthy report be archived and that independent editors review the content disputes and provide feedback to all parties. If that fails to resolve the problem, an editor not involved in the content dispute should come here with a succinct report requesting whatever actions may be necessary to prevent further disruption to the editing process or damage to the articles. I think recourse to our normal dispute resolution channels and noticeboards, including WP:NPOVN, WP:RSN and WP:RFC might be helpful. I have not yet seen evidence that there was a community consensus at one of those places which was then tendentiously subverted by one of the parties. Jehochman2 ( talk) 16:21, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Justallofthem, allow me to begin by assuring you that Jehochman and I are by no means teaming up here. I had no idea Jehochman intended to post to this thread until I read that he had, and given my scathing oppose to his recent ArbCom candidacy--well--it's gracious of him to acknowledge some merit to the position I've articulated at this discussion. Regarding Cirt's 'overpowering POV issues', I admit to being unfamiliar with many sides of the subject. So what's useful in that regard is to look at what other editors have thought of his work. Cirt has contributed a large number of good articles and featured articles on this subject. Please accept this feedback at face value: I have no intention of sweeping anything under a rug. This dispute is progressing in a manner where uninvolved administrator intervention is unlikely to occur: Jehochman saw the COFS case through arbitration and Jossi has a declared conflict of interest regarding new religious movements generally. It would be a sad thing to see a second arbitration case on the subject because if both sides simply slowed down then normal site processes ought to be able to handle this matter. But if matters continue on their present course I can and will initiate a second RFAR. Durova Charge! 20:45, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
This seems to be an ongoing modus operandi of Cirt. He/she gets involved in behavior as documented above, only to regret it later and "disengage" or " take a break". While removing oneself from a dispute is commendable, a more a appropriate behavior would be not to engage in that silly behavior in the firt place, in particular given Cirt past multiple blocks for edit warring, and the much spoken about "turnaround". I would argue, that it is because this "new Cirt" that we are supposed to accept as an example of how bad-behaving editors can come around and become useful contributors to this project, that the burden is on Cirt to simply avoid a priori to get involved in such behavior. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:26, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
I believe I have done so. I admit that it is always best to seek out fresh eyes from uninvolved contributors to a discussion or article-improvement drive as much as possible, in such forums (as noted above) including WP:RSN and article-content WP:RFC when appropriate. It is also quite important to (try one's best) to focus article talk page discussion on the matter at hand, and on one issue at a time, to avoid muddying the waters and confusing multiple talk page discussion/threads. In some instances where I was involved in these discussions I was not quick enough to focus discussion on one issue at a time, and also to seek out advice from both experienced editors and administrators, and also to seek out input from uninvolved contributors by posting a neutral request for input on appropriate noticeboards. These are all good ideas which I always try to implement and will continue to work on in the future. Cirt ( talk) 18:16, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
I apologize for any inadvertent confusion that has been caused by my recent actions, and I accept the wise advice given above to table these new issues until the old ones are resolved. Thank you, Cirt ( talk) 02:26, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
I have requested a new arbitration case. Durova Charge! 18:41, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Capasitor ( talk · contribs) has been edit warring and making POV edits in Armenia - Azerbaijan related articles for quite some time now. He often undid edits of other people without any explanation or called their edits "vandalism": [74] [75] Eventually he was blocked for 1 week for this racist comment about other editors: [76] However I have a reason to believe that it is unlikely that this user will change his approach to AA related topics, when he is back from his block. Amended Remedies and and enforcement provisions of the arbitration case Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 hold that "Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process". [77] I would like to ask the admins to consider placing this editor on supervised editing, which involves revert and civility paroles. Grandmaster ( talk) 18:03, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
And another disruptive editor on Armenia - Azerbaijan related articles, which are covered by Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 arbitration case. AcademicSharp ( talk · contribs) contributes both as a registered and anonymous user 75.28.100.179 ( talk · contribs · WHOIS). He makes massive rewrites of the highly controversial article Khojaly Massacre, citing no sources whatsoever, and yesterday came close to violating 3RR. [78] [79] [80] Since he was a newbie, I warned him [81] [82], but today he resumed edit warring: [83] Note that this user provides no edit summaries and ignores the talk page, where he was repeatedly invited to discuss his edits: [84] Urgent admin intervention is required. Grandmaster ( talk) 07:18, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Another 2 reverts by this user: [85] [86] No sources cited, and talk page ignored. Grandmaster ( talk) 06:51, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
And now we have Dramafree ( talk · contribs), an obvious SPA, reverting the same article: [87] Grandmaster ( talk) 07:02, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Please use the article's talk page to pursue dispute resolution. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:41, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Arbcom case: The Troubles.
Setanta747 is on probation from the above case, and is limited to one revert per article per week, which was imposed here. He has reverted twice on Sinn Féin to restore information I had removed as unsourced - first revert and second revert. Note that Setanta747 has previously refused to source this information, seemingly under the impression that Wikipedia:Verifiability does not apply to him. The tone used on the Talk Page is therefore uncalled for and there is no need for it, a bit of civility goes a long way. Sorry for having to come here, but the way editors carry on with me is beyond a joke. Thanks Domer48 'fenian' 09:13, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
They accept that the information is incorrect, regardless of how common it is. They did remove the tag and then asked why the information was removed. They did revert twice, regardless of AE sanctions. The talk page comments is behaviour we want to avoide. Thats what the problem is. -- Domer48 'fenian' 09:39, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
As I illustrated, it was you who removed the tag that I placed. The reason it was placed there was because the information was incorrect. I allowed editors to reference it, and no one did, so it was removed. It was you who said “I don't think there's a need to include a source for this, as it's pretty well-known in NI” when you removed it. You then said “somebody removed this, somewhere along the line” when you replaced it and still did not provide a reference. On your second revert you said “Have you ever been to Northern Ireland?”
Now is that your rational for replacing the unreferenced information? On the talk page, you accept that the translation is wrong, and you still add it back, and still don’t reference it. So instead of the sky being blue, you deliberately added factually incorrect information which you knew and claimed that it was common knowledge.
Now I do apply common sense all the time, that is I do not add factually incorrect no matter how common it is. I reference everything I add, and remove unreferenced information. So my simple advice is don’t remove citation tags unless you plan to reference it. Don’t add factually incorrect information and claim it is common knowledge. -- Domer48 'fenian' 18:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
"I can assure you that this is the single most common translation for the name - whether it is considered technically "correct", linguistically speaking, or not." So they are aware. Now this is AE, and I reported a breech of ArbCom Sanctions. I was not aware that sanctions were only arbitrarily applied depending on who ever address the breech. If you have a problem with references on the article take it there. It is agreed by all that the AE sanctions were breeched, and it has been addressed. Now on my talk page you suggest I have breeched 1RR please provide the diff’s ? I can see two completely different edits, but I may be wrong? I don’t think so? I introduced new and correctly referenced text here, you removed it, without comment on the talk page, with an edit summary which says see talk, I used the talk page and reverted based on the rational I gave. That is one revert as seen here. I have provided the necessary quote from the reference, could you do the same, thanks, -- Domer48 'fenian' 20:52, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Is it acceptable for editors to tag-team to get round 1RR, viz. Domer48 and Big Dunc? [ here], [ here], [ here] Mooretwin ( talk) 02:17, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm coming in mostly cold on this one. As far as I can see from RFAR: The Troubles,
If so, they have both broken their existing editing restrictions and should be issued editing holidays.
On the 14th, Domer reverted Mooretwin on
Northern Ireland and
Sinn Féin; and on the 11th, Domer reverted Mooretwin a whole raft of articles.
User:SheffieldSteel blocked
user:Mooretwin for a week at 14:11, 16 December 2008; this hasnt been logged on the RFAR log.
John Vandenberg (
chat) 03:20, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I like to point out to John Vandenberg I am not on any 1RR and that it the articles that are on 1RR. I have not breeched the 1RR. I've checked out the Northern Ireland article and no there is no breech of 1RR. I have now checked my edits for the 11th, and again no breech of 1RR. Could John Vandenberg possibly be mixing 1RR with 0RR? Thanks, -- Domer48 'fenian' 19:59, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Thank you Tznkai for that, I hope that will clarify things for editors. -- Domer48 'fenian' 20:25, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Please see [104], this John Vandenberg ( chat) 02:21, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Also tackled at Wikipedia:ANI#User:Sockofadix_is_User:Fadix_evading_one_year_block. and User_talk:Jpgordon#Sockofadix. John Vandenberg ( chat) 03:33, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
The editor apparently wants to get an indefinite block on the Fadix account. At this point I think we might as well do that and maybe run a checkuser to make sure no more socks are lurking around. JoshuaZ ( talk) 04:24, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Note: Cold fusion is under WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE because it's a pathological science or fringe science that has been given as an example of pseudoscience, (although it was rejected to label it as pseudoscience on this RFC.)
This should be quite uncontroversial. An editor with a big WP:COI comes to the talk page of an article, claims that there is a skeptic conspiracy to make up nonsense and put it in the article to replace real sources, engages into lenghthy OR discussions, claims that all papers showing negative results are faked by their authors, that sources can be falsified by examining leaked raw data, shows his self-published papers that he co-authored as proof against prestigious journals, forces other editors to engage into more OR to disproof his misrepresentations, calls wikipedia editors "a bunch of ignorant crackpots" [105], insists that wikipedia sucks (but keeps commenting on the talk page with no intention of improving the articles, a violation of WP:TALK), promotes his own website as the alpha an omega of cold fusion sourcing, uses the page as a WP:SOAPBOX, claims that "[not treating his sources seriously] is mainly a display of ignorance, not bias." [106], clutters the talk page history with useless OR (42 of last 100 edits as of 01:52, 10 December 2008 [107], counting also Sinebot because he doesn't see the point of signing [108] even after being asked nicely by several editors [109]), when menaced with arbitration discrectionary sanctions [110] he replies "Go ahead! Do your worst!" and claims that he is "not planning to edit this or any other article. I wouldn't touch a Wikipedia article with the fag end of a barge poll, nor would any scientist I know" [111] and has continued his behaviour since then (6 days ago).
Pvkeller explains the problem perfectly:
:Putting Wiki policy to one side, it is not so much citing sources of dubious probity that seems a problem to me. It is more a combination of tactics:
- 1) Insisting that anyone who has not read all your source must accept that your sources demonstrate whatever you say they do;
- 2) Claiming your sources say or prove more than they do. On several occassion I have spent hours investigating your citations only to find they proved far less than you claimed;
- 3) Dismissing all sources that do not support your POV, and attacking those who cite those sources;
- 4) Arguing that every instance of treating your sources seriously is an avowal of those source or an agreement with their conclusions, even if the instance does not result in publication or funding; and
- 5) Arguing that every instance of not treating your sources seriously is a display of unfair bias.
- I would like to see you try harder to be pursuasive without browbeating. [112]
Since wikipedia is not he place for massive COI'd OR, I would thank an uninvolved admin to give him a formal warning ({{ Pseudoscience_enforcement}} will do) so he can be sanctioned if he keeps on with his behaviour. (since it's a dynamic IP, it should be given on Talk:Cold fusion?
Lists of diffs (collapsed to avoid cluttering this page):
warning about arbitration, his replies
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On 4 December 2008 I warned Jed about using unreliable sources to falsify reliable sources, and engagin on OR the talk page, finishing with this: "Jed, either you stop filling the page with WP:OR or I'll start asking admins to bring the arbitration stick of WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE down on you." [113]
Jed's answer was yet more OR and promotion of his own site " I have 3,500 papers. These papers and books constitute 99% of everything published on the subject, in English", insisting that NPOV is imposible because science is based on facts ""POV" means point of view, or opinion. Science is based on facts and laws, not points of view.", and insisting that he has the WP:TRUTH "There are no other sources. (...) [not treating his sources seriously] is mainly a display of ignorance, not bias." [116] |
Examples of OR
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using a list of 200 papers (primary sources) as proof that fusion happened, and saying that a laboratory is not prestigious or journal is not high-profile are "judgement calls" [117]. This simply denies the capability of editors to reject fringe sources. Lots of OR about how a certain experiment demonstrated something or not, and suggesting that a paper on a low-impact journal and a video of a working motor are a reliable source [118] In reply to "[you are using] unreliable sources [to say that] reliable sources should not be taken into account or had fake data" [119] he cites a paper on a fringe journal to say "You can see at glance that the data is fake! Part of the graph is replaced with crudely fabricated, hand-drawn data." and continues "You can tell even more clearly because one of the researchers accidentally leaked the original data, which shows excess heat in the part that was replaced with hand-drawn dots" and suggests to read the "official MIT hearing" (again, reliance on primary sources) [120] "I find it very persuasive when a cell with ~20 ml of water and a few grams of palladium produces megajoules of energy with no input power and no chemical changes, and it produces helium. I think that is proof that a nuclear reaction is occurring. However, you may not find that persuasive, so perhaps you should look at some other aspect of cold fusion, such as tritium production or host-metal transmutations." [121] "Such claims cannot be put to the test by examining colorimetric data, whereas anyone who knows a little chemistry will find glaring errors in papers by Morrison or Hoffman.)" [122] |
failures to replicate don't count as negatives, all failures to replicate were due to errors that are now understood, all negative results were either faked or had failures for "obvious reasons not worth discussing in detail unless you are an expert", there is only a dozen negative papers on reliable sources, (since failures to replicate don't count as negatives), all positive results are correct and can't be disproved in any way (and finding errors on them would "overthrow the laws of thermodynamics and a large part of chemistry and physics going back to 1860"), all arguments against cold fusion are "not valid", only "six actual, professional scientists" have ever published papers showing errors but "their work has no merit" and they are "first-class crackpots"
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"We know why the null experiments produced no heat; we can see that the false negatives are actually positive (just do the arithmetic right and you will see this) and anyone who looks at the fake data in the peer-reviewed paper will see that it is fake. You do not need to take my word for any of this -- the data speaks for itself." [123] "There are no peer-reviewed papers from top journals that call cold fusion into question. Not one study and not one paper has ever demonstrated an error in a positive cold fusion paper If anyone ever did find an error, it would not only disprove cold fusion, it would overthrow the laws of thermodynamics and a large part of chemistry and physics going back to 1860. That isn't going to happen." [124] "There are no negative papers in APS journals, or anywhere else. Only about a dozen negative papers have been published in history of cold fusion (...) There were several early papers describing experiments that did not work. That's a null, not a negative. The authors did not discover any fault in the positive experiments, or any other reason to doubt them. The reasons these early experiments failed is new well understood and has been described in detail. (...) Actually, the three most famous negative papers, at Cal Tech, Harwell and MIT were false negatives. (Actually positive.) They all got excess heat at the same rate as others did in 1989, but they did not realize it, or they erased it and published fake results. (...) There are no experimental counter-claims. No one has ever done an experiment that calls into question cold fusion, or an experiment with a prosaic explanation that exhibits the same behavior (i.e., one that produces tritium or megajoules of heat per mole of reactant.) (...) The failures were all for obvious reasons not worth discussing in detail unless you are an expert." [125] "There are, in fact, six actual, professional scientists who have published papers and books that purport to find errors in cold fusion experiments. I have uploaded as much of their work as they have given me permission to upload. I encourage everyone to read them, especially Huizenga, Hoffman and Morrison, because I think their work has no merit. It will convince readers that there are no valid arguments against cold fusion, which is correct. If you want to add their arguments to this article, I encourage you to do so. They are first-class crackpots, but unlike the anonymous crackpot opinions now littering the article these are from real professors with names from legitimate institutions who have actually published papers with falsifiable technical claims -- papers you can read at a library, or at RM'D. (A few others have written books attacking cold fusion that have no technical content; that is, no falsifiable technical arguments that can be resolved with reference to data. For example, Park claims that all cold fusion scientists are liars, lunatics or criminals. Such claims cannot be put to the test by examining colorimetric data, whereas anyone who knows a little chemistry will find glaring errors in papers by Morrison or Hoffman.)" [126] "Shanahan's hypotheses, if true, would disprove most electrochemistry and calorimetry going back to Lavoisier's 1781 ice calorimeter (which is used in some cold fusion experiments), and J. P. Joules's calorimeter circa 1845 (which is used in many others). There is no chance Shanahan is correct." (follows rant about why skeptics believe him) [127] |
citing a paper that in which he participated and which has been published only on his website, in order to disproof 174 early failures to replicate the original experiment of Pons and Fleischmann
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"As it happens, we just today uploaded a review paper discussing some of early failures, and the reasons for them: RM'D] The authors examined 174 papers, in detail. They did a lot of analysis not shown in the paper. (I assisted so I know about it.)" [128] |
skeptic conspiracy to put nonsense on the cold fusion article, which prevents cold fusion from getting funds
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"On the other hand, the article is full of irrelevant and unimportant stuff, not to mention imaginary nonsense cooked up by 'skeptics.' Replacing some of that garbage with Arata might not be a bad idea. But anyway, Wikipedia belongs to the 'skeptics' and know-nothings. They should do whatever they please with the article. No legitimate scientist will contribute." [129] "[skeptics] point to an archived version of [my] site for some reason. I suppose this is some crazy scheme by the skeptics to stop people from reading LENR-CANR [my website], but it will not work for anyone who has half a brain (...) [skeptics] make things up and stuff them into the article. At least I have sources other than my own imagination! (...) You skeptics have done that to me before". [130] "You and the other so-called skeptics have repeatedly erased peer-reviewed information about cold fusion and substituted your own unfounded opinions. You pay lip service to the peer-review, but you have no respect for the system or its results" [131] "There is no chance Shanahan is correct. The fact that skeptics such Paul V. Keller are so quick to believe him, and add his theories to this article, shows that they are grasping at straws, and they will believe anything that comes along without a critical examination, even if it means they must throw away the whole basis of chemistry and physics" [132] "That's the difference between me and anti-cold fusion people (...) My opponents, on the other hand, want you to ignore me -- just as they want you to ignore the scientific literature, and the laws of physics and chemistry (...) They want to squelch the debate and keep everyone ignorant, and Beware! Beware! of actual data and peer-reviewed papers!" [133] "The field is not funded because there is enormous academic opposition to it, which comes mainly from people like Keller who do not read the literature and thus know nothing about the research, and yet who feel free to fabricate claims about it such as the notion that gamma rays have not been detected by other means! And also to free associate and invent new definitions for 'pathological science' such as: 'returning to the original theory.' Despite the opposition, a great deal of progress has been made (...)" [134] |
wikipedia editors on cold fusion are "a bunch of ignorant crackpots who do not understand the laws of thermodynamics"
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"[Many distinguished experimentalists and theorists, including Nobel laureates , etc] They do not make stupid mistakes. They have repeated the experiment thousands of times. They seldom read the kind of comments you skeptics make here, but when they do they instantly dismiss you people as a bunch of ignorant crackpots who do not understand the laws of thermodynamics, who have no clue how a calorimeter works, and who criticize papers they have never read. Naturally, I agree with them. You people imagine you are qualified to write an article about cold fusion. I doubt that you would casually edit some similar article about some other scientific research that you know nothing about, but for some inexplicable reason you imagine that you are experts on this subject, and that you can casually contradict the likes of Iyengar, Miles or Fleischmann. You imagine that their work is "discredited." This is unbelievable chutzpah. It is egomania. This is why Wikipedia will never become a viable source of information about this research." [135] "Wikipedia articles about biology are not overrun by Creationist crackpots, so why are the 'skeptics' who know nothing about cold fusion allowed to overwrite this one?" [136] |
COI, promotion of himself and his website
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sings every single post with his name and website "Jed Rothwell, Librarian, RM'D". "I have put years of effort into making both pro- and anti-cold papers available to the public at RM'D (...) I want everyone to know as much as possible. I have made hundreds of papers available, and people have downloaded 1.1 million copies of them. And by the way, if you want to know who I am, I suggest you read some of my papers at RM'D." "Of course you read about them at RM'D to your heart's delight. I have compiled a list of null and false negative experiments; contact me via the front page." [137] |
As a quiet witness, I'd just like to point out that this request is littered with false accusations. If I were to give a diagnosis, I would say this is largely the result of
black-and-white thinking - a lot of the false accusations seem to stem from that.
Kevin Baas talk 15:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
(unindent) Kevin, see, wikipedia is based on sources, not on wikipedian's personal opinion of what is a valid demostration of a scientific theory. The available secondary reliable sources have been already beaten to death several times on Talk:Cold fusion, there's no sense on rehashing them here again and making this page a sequel of the talk page. What I brought here is not a content dispute about an article, but a clear violation of WP:OR and WP:SOAPBOX (with WP:COI sprinkled on top).
And, Kevin, seriously, I have to say that, if Jed's comments had resulted on improvements on the article, even if it wasn't his intention, I wouldn't have been so quick to complain. And if he was more responsive to warnings about disruption, and if he was actually open to concede when clearly reliable sources are presented to him, then I would have been way way waaaay more tolerant of his OR and I wouldn't even have complained about him, I would have instead engaged on conversation with him (and, if you ask me by email, I can actually point you to a user on cawiki where this is happening actually, and a user on eswiki that I didn't complain about until it was made clear by one of his edits that he had no intention to respect a consensus we had just built, which meant that I had just wasted many many hours of my time addressing his arguments in good faith). -- Enric Naval ( talk) 19:04, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
[147] Scientology articles are under article probation as per last year's arbcom, requiring editors to be especially mindful of content policies. The videos re-added by AndroidCat are only marginally related to the article subject and moreover profoundly offensive. For example, the 2nd part of the video begins with "Robert Minton, recently profiled on [inaudible] will talk about shooting Scientologists, getting arrested, right ... no [laughs, laughter from others in the room] sorry, sorry [laughter from all]." Jayen 466 13:42, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Just to be clear, this video contains a string of derogatory comments about a religious minority, and one of the speakers shown in it makes a well-received joke about shooting them. The video was added as an EL to the BLP of a member of said minority. It is inexcusable. Jayen 466 17:47, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Further use of this board for drama mongering, soap boxing or attacking opponents may be met with warnings or sanctions. Please use the board only for appropriate purposes. Thank you. Jehochman Talk 19:44, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This user has re-created an attack page User:Russavia/eSStonia which was speedy deleted under G10. Now edit warring speedy template while making uncivil comments. This is a breach of the Digwuren remedy against using Wikipedia as a battleground. Martintg ( talk) 23:59, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
Editors, this is not a chatroom. Please take discussions to the relevant article page. I do not see what sort of arbitration enforcement is possible here. Jehochman Talk 14:41, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Goodcallclear ( talk · contribs) is repeatedly adding untrue statements to the Letterkenny article. He has broken the three-revert rule. See here, here, here, here, here and here. -- Balloholic ( talk) 19:58, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
Keverich1 ( talk · contribs) is repeatedly edit-warring on Israel–United States military relations ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), an article currently under arbitration sanctions, to remove a sourced statement that he doesn't like. [148] The statement is a line which I contributed over a year ago, sourced to Jane's Sentinel, an impeccable source of military information. The editor has asserted that the line is original research, even though it directly reflects the wording of the original source, as I've explained on the article's talk page. He is clearly unwilling to assume good faith or to accept sourced statements that conflict with his personal views. [149] [150] This is a pretty-clear cut violation of the arbitration sanctions, given the violation of the expected standards of behavior ( WP:AGF) and the normal editorial process ( WP:DR). Given the edit-warring in particular, I recommend a block. -- ChrisO ( talk) 21:49, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
Check this link see that the statement about the lobby was not referenced whatsoever [151]. Take a look at this version from mid 2007. [152]. Clearly the claim in question has remained unreferenced for over a year. The user ChrisO ( talk · contribs) now asserts the claim "directly reflects the wording of the original source", altough he failed to provide the source when he introduced the statement more than a year ago. [153] The user ChrisO ( talk · contribs) also refused to provide the exact quote from Jane's Sentinel, which would support the statement in question. Lastly, I do not think my edits in Israel–United States military relations ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) are disruptive. I belive my edits in this article help to ensure all the statements are properly sourced Keverich1 ( talk) 22:19, 24 December 2008 (UTC)Israel-United States military relations have been extremely close,[1] reflecting both shared security interests in the unstable Middle East and the influence of a strong pro-Israel lobby in the United States.
Israel-United States military relations have been extremely close,[1] reflecting both shared security interests in the unstable Middle East and the influence of a strong pro-Israel lobby in the United States.
Israel has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance from the United States since 1976, and the largest total recipient since World War II. [2] A major purchaser and user of US military equipment, Israel is also involved in the joint development of military technology and regularly engages in joint military exercises involving United States and other friendly forces.[3][4]
Sanctions should be imposed; it is your job, do it. Personally, I did not appreciate getting unjustly shouted at concerning his first revert-type edit, discussed here starting Dec9. I maintained wiki-etiquette and feel no collaboration was intended from the start. My comments in that section state my case. It is already Christmas here, peace. Regards, CasualObserver'48 ( talk) 02:13, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
I wish to make a complaint about User:Domer48 as a disruptive editor , based on varied evidence. Each piece of evidence in its own right may perhaps be within the letter of Wikipedia guidelines but – taken together – I believe they can be construed as a pattern of disruptive editing. The various elements include – edit-warring, breach of NPOV, tag-teaming, bullying.
I admit that I have personally been in edit wars and personal conflict with this editor on many occasions on many articles over many months, and have been sanctioned for this (as has Domer48, although he has removed the notices from his talk page). I have also been the subject of complaints by Domer48, who has also left messages on my talk page, e.g. here, here, here and here, which generally I choose to ignore. I consider these to be a form of harassment. I have not posted such "warnings" on his user page, despite having equally valid reasons so to do. On 24th December he followed me to various pages to make complaints about me here, here and here.
The cumulation of these edit-wars, personal conflict and reporting has, on some occasions, caused me great frustration and I have considered leaving Wikipedia as a result. Up until now, I have not had the patience to attempt to put together a case against this user, which is a dfficult task, given his adeptness at staying within (just about) the letter, if not the spirit, of the law.
Some of this editor's behaviour appears to fit in with the descriptions on the Wikipedia guidelines about disruptive editing:
Signs that may point to tag-teaming include:
Mooretwin ( talk) 18:18, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
This is arbitration enforcement, not a general complaints noticeboard. Please specify which arbitration sanctions were violated by which edits, or this thread may be closed without action. Sandstein 12:09, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hi. Regarding remedy #7 of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Deeceevoice, could I get one or two completely uninvolved administrators to read and sign off on Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Proposed_topic_ban_-_needs_outside_attention? Thanks. -- B ( talk) 23:38, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Grandmaster ( talk · contribs) vandalizes the aricle Nagorno-Karabakh. He removed my edits which were based on the works of the US-based sholar Robert H. Hewsen. Please note his edit summary, where he refers to the intro of the article, but my edits were also in other parts of the article and some of them were images. I agree we should reach consensus, but Grandmaster don't mentions with what exactly he don't agrees, that we could discuss these points on the talk page. In place of doing so, he removed all my edits. Previously I removed some edits of Grandmaster and gave a detailed explenation on that in the talkpage, why he is not doing the same?. I request intervention of admins. -- Vacio ( talk) 05:21, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
See m:The Wrong Version, the problem is not wheither its wrong or not. The problem is your behaviour: you disagree with A and B, but you remove my edits from A to Z. The edits of FrancisTyers can't be a justification for your acting, he is a mediatior, you and me not. See also his recent post on my talk page.
I am also not in mood for edit wars, nor I am under any restrictions. -- Vacio ( talk) 09:01, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
I think a lot of the problems and arguments could be calmed down if it were decided what the actual article should be about. It seems it should be about Nagorno-Karabakh as a geographical region, and should contain a description of that region along with an account of its history and its peoples. Meowy 20:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
I’d like to report a breech of the AE approved sanctions which clearly state “All articles related to The Troubles, defined as: any article that could be reasonably construed as being related to The Troubles, Irish nationalism, the Baronetcies, and British nationalism in relation to Ireland falls under 1RR. When in doubt, assume it is related.” The reverts here and here. The are four editors who disagree with this edit including myself, Gaillimh, Valenciano, BigDunc and myself. This is the second time they have breeched the AE sanction, however I did not report them on that occasion hoping they would see sense. However, on two occasions on the talk page now I’ve provided them with the opportunity to support their edit, despite the two reverts, they refuse to do so. Rather than apply any blocks under the AE sanctions, I would much prefer they self revert and use the talk page. I know I don’t have much say over that, therefore its just my opinion. Thanks, -- Domer48 'fenian' 18:30, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for that SirFozzie, that was a good call. -- Domer48 'fenian' 19:50, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Thread title has been pulled over by the spelling police. Durova Charge! 21:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
In light of Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Digwuren#Discretionary_sanctions, I have asked User:Paul_Barlow to avoid personal attacks: User_talk:Paul_Barlow#Civility_warning (like " you promoted extremist anti-German Polish nationalist views... don't pretend you are just anti-Nazi, the most cursory review of your edits shows that's not true"). He has replied with what amounts to another personal attack: [5]. Since my warning had no effect, I'd like for a neutral admin to review this case and consider another warning and putting that user on the restriction list. Thank you, -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 23:56, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Abtract-Collectonian closed at 08:20 on October 29th. It was agreed that Abtract was gaming the system by deliberately editing articles that are in my editing interests (but not his own), there by precluding me from editing them. In the closing, it was stated that he would stop these actions. He violated these restrictions on the same day of closing, which was reported, and he was blocked for a week. [6]. He has again violated this restriction, on the very same article, making a minor edit to keep his name in the list of contributers and continue randomly popping up on my watchlist and leaving me feeling unable to ever edit the article to avoid having to deal with him. [7] I've finally just removed the article from my watchlist all together, but I still felt this should be reported. -- Collectonian ( talk · contribs) 18:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Abtract has now started snipping at me unprovoked, and also not factually as my reply indicates. After my reply, he starting to take an undesirable interest in my new articles, promptly breaking the syntax in one of them [8]. Also, Talk:Gender_of_God#Confused_of_wikipedia was not helpful on an article that needs delicate handling. fyi, uninvolved clerks should keep in mind that there is another motion in play at Wikipedia:RFAR#Motion_re_Abtract. -- John Vandenberg ( chat) 02:27, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Arbcom case: The Troubles.
Domer48 ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
During a messy thread including a now recinded indefinite block, Domer48 was placed under the following restriction:
That mediation has not been entirely successful, but I think lengthy enough do determine if Domer48 has learned the editing behaviors desired.
With that in mind I'd like User:Sunray and User:Shell Kinney to share their impressions to Avruch, Tiptoety and Nishkid64 - following which the referee panel will discuss and ideally come to a consensus on the question of lifting Domer48's topic ban based on his participation in mediation. The mediators and panelists should use whatever form of on or off wiki communication that would be most effective, but the panel should report their final findings here.
The very purpose of instituting the referee panel was to keep administrators and editors who have been previous engaged in Troubles related issues out of it - so I would ask that we allow the mediators and referee panel work in peace. Thank you.-- Tznkai ( talk) 18:35, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Thank you Tiptoety for your comments above. I was not sure what to expect after this edit here, but it all turned out alright in the end. I would just like to say that there was a lot accomplished, but I felt there was a lot more to do. Unfortunately we were prevented from completing the mediation, I was definitely willing and attempted to keep it going despite the set backs. I would be very interested to see examples were my editing would be considered less then acceptable, either during or following the mediation. These examples would no doubt be very beneficial to both my self and possibly other editors who experience the same difficulties. As per my agreement, I have completed the mediation, weather it was successful being only comparative with my editing prior to mediation, I would have to say yes. I would therefore like to get back to editing the UDR article, as I consider I have a lot to contribute. I would caution though, that any lifting of AE imposed sanctions be conditional on editor’s conduct, and agreement to adhere to our editing policies. Lifting of sanctions on articles, should be coupled with the application of sanctions on individual editors should their editing become disruptive. That is just my opinion, but I’d like it to be considered, thanks -- Domer48 'fenian' 21:45, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
One of the cornerstones by which Wikipedia's Mediation Committee operates is that parties' agreement to mediation is voluntary, based on the knowledge that what happens in the mediation is privileged and therefore cannot be used against them in later proceedings. This is designed to ensure that parties participate fully and frankly without concern as to how their comments might be interpreted later. Another important principle in that the mediator is neutral and does not form a view as to the content on discussion or the parties involved. Were a mediator later to rule as to the conduct of one of the parties, it would undermine that neutrality. Similarly, the mediation process would be hampered if the parties felt that the mediator was in fact sitting in judgment on them and might make a later report about his or her impressions of their conduct. Whilst the Mediation Committee is sympathetic to the need to develop new approaches to resolving issues in problematic topic areas, it is our opinion that the second element of this proposal violates both the privileged nature of mediation and the neutrality of the mediators.
The Mediation Committee regrets that it was not consulted before this proposal was made.
On behalf of the Mediation Committee,
WJBscribe
(talk) 23:57, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
This is apparently the result of serious miscommunication, the responsibility for which lies with me. I regret that I did not more thoroughly examine the issue, and that I did not double and triple check everything was in order. It was foolish for me to believe that in the various threads and communications on this issue that all applicable parties were fully aware - I took the lack of objections to indicate that I had covered all the bases. I think it is clear now that I instituted this proposal in October, it was not proper then, and I apologize for it. I apologize specifically to Domer48. In order to avoid any possible damage to the Mediation system, I do no think this proposal should complete its implementation, which means that Domer is left hanging. In order to avoid that, I am lifting his topic ban on my own discretion, and ask that the community endorse this action.-- Tznkai ( talk) 00:10, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
In addition to what the mediation committee has said, I wish to make one additional comment. The mediation was unsuccessful. To say more about it would, almost inevitably, give rise to inappropriate conclusions. Sunray ( talk) 00:50, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I have been informed that this is the proper area for this, so I am moving it from WP:AN/I to here. Please bear with me, as I have copied the current discussion there verbatim, to provide full context. -- Good Damon 18:48, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Shutterbug ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a long-term single-purpose account that edits solely at articles concerning Scientology, previously under the name User:COFS, which is an acronym for Church of Scientology. Shutterbug openly admits to one conflict-of-interest, to his/her benefit, as a Scientologist.
However, after a long period of inactivity, Shutterbug has begun editing in the Scientology article again, as well as several sub-articles. In the discussions that have followed, an old ArbCom case involving Shutterbug has been brought up. The ArbCom case ended with some minor temporary topic bans and blocks, but little else. Part of the reasoning that lead to this result was that Shutterbug (or COFS, at the time) claimed a particular Church of Scientology-owned IP address he/she had edited from, 205.227.165.244, including this accidental edit, was a proxy used by various hotels and such. Shutterbug recently reiterated the claim here. During the ArbCom, this claim was apparently given the benefit of the doubt, as a checkuser revealed that several similar single-purpose accounts had all edited from the same address and other Church-related address ranges. The users in question were:
I haven't been able to figure out why this proxy claim was given credence, as I can't see any particular evidence one way or the other in the ArbCom, and the single-purpose editing definitely lends itself to an appearance of conflicts-of-interest, if not sockpuppetry and/or meatpuppetry. But until recently, I was happy to let the decision stand; I wasn't even involved in the ArbCom, and was inclined to defer to the administrators in that case.
I now think the decision was a mistake. This user, these accounts, and every IP address previously confirmed by checkuser as being associated with these accounts has been used overwhelmingly in Scientology-related edits and minimally in anything else. Were these IP addresses those of hotel proxies and the like, one would expect a host of non-Scientology related edits, but per these Wikiscanner results, there are few if any to be found.
Lacking any evidence to the contrary aside from Shutterbug's word, the bulk of the user's edits come from official Church of Scientology-owned machines, and the claim of an IP proxy used by "hundreds if not thousands" is implausible. Had these accounts and these IP addresses not edited so single-mindedly in Scientology-related articles, it would perhaps be more plausible, but as is, the evidence is pretty compelling that Shutterbug -- as well as the other accounts -- have conflicts-of interest affecting their abilities to edit neutrally, or at the very least the appearance thereof.
There is also an issue of incivility. In this edit, I decried the sudden battling over the article after months of calm, and accurately described a particular inappropriate edit performed by a different user. In response, Shutterbug said "Let's talk and no personal attacks, please." As I had not made one, and I didn't appreciate the accusation, I asked Shutterbug to retract it, and asked again on the user's talk page. The response speaks for itself.
My thoughts at this point, unless I've missed something that completely negates my COI concerns, is that Church of Scientology IP addresses simply shouldn't be used to edit Scientology-related articles, and accounts associated with those IP addresses should be topic-banned as probable WP:ROLE accounts. -- Good Damon 09:17, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
This section is intended for providing new information to administrators above and beyond the initial introduction and related discussions. Anyone can add new developments here. I welcome comments, but for organizational purposes I ask that anyone commenting on new developments do so in a section dedicated to their own comments. Several, including myself, already have such sections.
As of December 5, 2008, Misou ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has returned to editing in Scientology articles. Misou has not edited since January 5th, and is listed in the original ArbCom as a confirmed sockpuppet, based on the supposed proxy address. This is not intended to comment on the quality of Misou's edits -- I actually agree with several of his/her deletions, as the sources in question were probably not reliable -- but simply to inform administrators that another possible sock who has long been dormant has come back. -- Good Damon 00:38, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Report filed here. -- Good Damon 16:58, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
As a party to the original
arbitration, I think that is is appropriate that I comment here. As much as I respect GoodDamon, he seems to be trying to reopen an arbitration in the improper forum for such an effort. The arbitrators were well aware of Shutterbug's POV and history of editing from a CofS-owned proxy server and made no remedy that restricted her editing. If GoodDamon thinks that they did not make the correct decision then he should present his evidence to the arbitrators and ask that they reopen the case, not make his case here. The other point GoodDamon brings up in incivility. Incivility is a much-disputed issue but if Shutterbug was uncivil then perhaps she deserves a warning though I see little in the way of objectionable incivility in the diffs provided. However, I cannot stress enough that GoodDamon should move his doubts about the arb outcome to the arb page. --
Justallofthem (
talk) 15:53, 26 November 2008 (UTC) This is not relevant here as the main thrust of my comment was that GoodDamon bring his issue to this forum. --
Justallofthem (
talk) 19:48, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
As a party to the original arbitration, I think that is is appropriate that I comment here. I see little activity on the part of Shutterbug that is deserving of the attention of AE. I like and respect GoodDamon but the entire thrust of this thread is his IDONTLIKEIT evaluation of the findings and recommendations of the arbitration. He is not asking for enforcement, he is asking that the arbitration be redone. -- Justallofthem ( talk) 19:52, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
At this point, I would like to take a step back and ask that previously uninvolved administrators look at the ArbCom and determine if continued involvement by these editors constitutes violation of the ArbCom ruling in light of what I perceive as the likelihood of Church of Scientology involvement. I would characterize the editor or editors as:
If these characterizations do not bear out, or if this is not the proper venue for this discussion, I will gladly accept that. -- Good Damon 20:55, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
As per the arbcom decision, the Scientology article is on probation. [9]
Looking at the edit war that led to article being protected I count the following reverts:
I believe GoodDamon and Shutterbug should be trout-slapped and told not to do it again. Since Shutterbug has done this sort of thing before, s/he should perhaps be restricted to just posting to the talk page for a week or so.
IMO, the whole edit war was a very silly and entirely unnecessary episode, largely caused by Shutterbug making sweeping changes without prior discussion on the talk page. All the more regrettable since at least some of the changes – chronological fixes etc. – would seem to have made sense and might well have gotten support on the talk page. Jayen 466 22:09, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Why did I not just get rid of my user name and started editing with another one, if it am such a red flag? That's rather stupid, isn't it? I did not because the truth is that the 205.227.165.244 IP is/was a proxy used by hundreds if not thousands of people. As I said before and there is no evidence saying otherwise: I occasionally used it when being in a Church of Scientology facility, waiting for someone etc. Further, the diversity of the subjects being edited from that IP between 2004 and 2006 underlines that there have been more than one editors on this IP (wikiscanner). I was not prepared for the amount of hostility I am being subjected with now and I wasn't a year ago when I got surprised with an avalanche of accusations that had nothing to do with real life. Ok, the Arbcom determined there have been several other people editing under the same IP. I think that was a true finding with no significance especially as I even volunteered this information as much as I could. As an additional note: Cirt is a known and longterm anti-scientology editor who went by the user names of Smeelgova, Smee and WilhelmvonSavage. Per her edit history she works 8-11 hours per day on Wikiprojects, almost exclusively working on anti-religious subjects and its peripheral subjects (like the names of Scientology members, anti-religious books and the like). Though I welcome the work and information she provides I don't think she should be included in this "neutral" discussion. Lastly it is an old trick on Wikipedia to attack the editor with administrative rules instead of concentrating on making better articles. I have been subject to this abuse of Wikipedia policy before and seems to happen again. Result: dozens of text pages filled with discussions, zero articles improved. Maybe there is some kind of protection against "using Wikipedia policy to shut up opposing editors"? Shutterbug ( talk) 22:39, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
A few words here. Justallofthem's assertions about proxies are unsupported by the Committee's findings. Several parts of the decision reject his claims:
For months I counseled Justanother in good faith that the 'proxy' argument he was attempting to advance did not serve the best interests of his faith. No evidence was forthcoming from the organization's IT staff to bolster the claim. Then while the arbitration case was underway the Wikiscanner came out and the weakness of the 'proxy' argument got demonstrated empirically in the form of real world news coverage about Scientology-based IP edits to Wikipedia. That news reflected more poorly for that religion than whatever PR problem they were trying to correct. And also, people who actively disliked that religion made the most of the negative press.
It was my hope when that case concluded that Justanother, Shutterbug, and other editors would learn from their mistakes and turn over a new leaf. Only one really did: he now edits as Cirt. Cirt has contributed 11 featured articles, 13 featured portals, 31 good articles, and 47 DYK entries. He has become an administrator on three WMF projects including this one, has become an OTRS volunteer, and was elected a member of the Arbitration Committee on Wikinews. It is my earnest wish that editors from both sides of the dispute would make a similar turnaround. (Heck, I'd love to see that turnaround in any dispute). If any Scientologist adjusts to WMF standards that well it would give me pride to nominate them for adminship.
So in the holiday spirit (since it's reasonable to guess most of the editors associated with this thread are American?) let's give thanks for the progress that's happened so far and put this discussion on hold through the holiday weekend. Requesting as a courtesy: please suspend discussion. I'll be around off and on (working on a ragtime composer biography--something much more to my taste than this subject). Best wishes all and happy Thanksgiving. Durova Charge! 00:07, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
Very glad I took the holiday off before returning. It's quite simple, really. A year and a half ago I was trying to protect both you and Wikipedia from negative press. You didn't take the advice and a lot of bad press really happened. Now you're repeating most of the same mistakes that created that problem in the first place. It certainly won't be my doing if this makes news again. I hope you take the advice on board and reform. If you don't, I hope this board saves you from yourselves.
It's more than a little bit comical: there are better solutions to the meritorious part of your concerns, but you reject feedback and fail to adjust. It's as if you treat all dispute resolution with extreme myopia, regard anyone whose response amounts to 'no' as an opponent, and try to win as many short-term interactions as possible regardless of the ultimate consequences. ArbCom didn't accept your 'proxy' rationale but in the larger picture that's irrelevant: neither the press nor the public accepted it. You say you're worried about hostile critics as you set yourselves up again for the very same fall.
Best wishes; by cautioning you again my conscience is clear. Durova Charge! 22:52, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
Support - I personaly have no problem with Scientologists I however am upset with Shutterbug's Deletion of my material under Celebrity Centre, The suggestion that my material was "not Notable" as in Shutterbug's words is absurd (on the google search of Scientology it came up on top). I also dislike him of her deleting things regaurding Scientology's Xenu story which is backed up by many sources including the freezone. I doubt this ban will keep the Proxyer of Shutterbug from editing however I suggest Shutterbug edit his or her other interests, I harbour no ill will to Scientologists but I will not stand Idle as the "truth" is rewritten. -- Zaharous ( talk) 22:54, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Due to the Arbitration Committee decision in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/COFS, "All Scientology-related articles are placed on article probation." According to Wikipedia:General_sanctions#Types_of_sanctions: Article probation : Editors making disruptive edits may be banned by an administrator from articles on probation and related articles or project pages. Editors of such articles should be especially mindful of content policies, such as WP:NPOV, and interaction policies, such as WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, WP:3RR, and WP:POINT.
After thinking this over and looking at these above pages I think it is best if this Topic Ban poll relating to Shutterbug and related accounts takes place among NPOV, previously uninvolved administrators. Specifically: From WP:BAN -- The Arbitration Committee may delegate the authority to ban a user, such as by authorizing discretionary sanctions in certain topic areas, which can be imposed by any uninvolved administrator. I could be seen myself as being previously involved on Scientology articles, and so I am striking my vote in the Topic Ban proposal. I suggest other editors previously involved on Scientology-related articles do the same, including GoodDamon [37], Justallofthem [38], Jayen466 [39], Zaharous [40], Bravehartbear [41], Spidern [42], and Shrampes [43] [44] [45] [46]. Cirt ( talk) 21:03, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi. As the person who originally proposed the topic ban, I stand behind my proposal. The basic concern is that someone is an SPA who is pushing a POV. They're probably trying their best to contribute, but may be falling afoul. So I suggest a slight modification:
Thoughts? // roux editor review 22:01, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Comment: Per WP:BAN, let's please keep further comments in this subsection relating to the Topic Ban Proposal to previously uninvolved administrators. Others may comment in the above subsections. Thanks. Cirt ( talk) 22:47, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
This was the section explaining I had originally brought this up in the wrong place. Leaving it for posterity, but closing it to avoid distraction. |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
You're in the wrong forum, guys. The topic of Scientology is on article probation. From Wikipedia:General sanctions:
So I'm marking this thread resolved and referring it to WP:AE. Durova Charge! 18:01, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
|
I have requested a new arbitration case. Durova Charge! 18:42, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
In just the last few days editing in the Scientology-series alongside User:Cirt I have seen a disturbing amount of POV-motivated editing on his part. As you may know, Cirt has quite a history here with seven (7) prior blocks for edit-warring and other POV issues. That history was whitewashed with a name change and Cirt managed to become an admin in his somewhat disputed Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Cirt. Although I had hopes that adminship would help Cirt reform, I fear now that that is not the case. Here is just a few issues that I have noticed recently that indicate that Cirt is not able to control his POV:
Let's count the POV-driven errors:In 2007, New Idea reported that Scientology has "sex lessons" which can be given to couples looking to educate themselves to have "better sex". [47] This guide studies their sex life and suggests ways for the couple to improve upon their activities. The article, titled: "Scientology Sex Scandal", which discussed the relationship of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, was one of the more notable headlines in Australian celebrity gossip weeklies in 2007. [48]
So this is clearly about Tom and Kate, not about Scientology in general. Yet the editor here engaged in WP:OR generalization to invent that "Scientology has "sex lessons" which can be given to couples".New Idea announces Tom and Katie's "scientology sex scandal". For some bizarre reason, the couple are reportedly taking "sex lessons" so they can learn to have "better sex". "Tom and Katie will have to share every detail of their sex life with an adviser, 'an intimate relationship guide', who will analyse their lovemaking and suggest improvements."
See discussion from Talk:Scientology and sex. Jayen466 ( talk · contribs) supported Justallofthem ( talk · contribs)'s position. The next proper step in dispute resolution would be to either: 1) Question the sources at WP:RSN, or 2) Start a content-based WP:RFC on that particular content disputed. I chose to disengage from this particular material and take a break from editing this article entirely. Cirt ( talk) 22:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
My experience with Cirt is that he, like most critics of Scientology, operates by the rule "Scientologists lie, Scientology critics tell the truth". He is welcome to believe that but realize please that is a totally POV stance. Someone from the Scientology side with an equally inflexible POV would say the exact opposite. I refer specifically to Cirt unbalanced treatment of two roughly analogous sources, a Scientologist's site and a critic's site. I brought up that issue at Talk:Scientology and sex:
The DeWolf affidavit was previously linked to (www.freewebtown.com/luana/rondewolf-july87.pdf) here to a site that has been reported as an "attack site" as in malware of some sort. I do not believe the malware report was on the specific file(s) in question but rather on the site overall, freewebtown.com (incidentally, I just checked and it seems fine now). Cirt removed the link, here, citing "rm sources which link to attack site, dubious site anyways". I agree with that on both counts. For the sake of our discussion here I performed a Google search and found the document on the scientologymyths.info site. Cirt said of that site "But these particular sites being linked to are dubious, and written by certain individuals from within the Church of Scientology tasked for certain specific purposes. Not reliable sites, not even safe sites." When Jayen brought up the analogous Lerma site, Cirt's comment was "Ref 8 is not an "attack site", though it is self-published. Could be a matter for discussion at WP:RSN, however." I want to compare these site and Cirt's analysis of each. To me they are exactly analogous and I find Cirt's reluctance to deal with them equivalently disturbing and again indicative of an overpowering POV issue.
I admit I framed this discussion incorrectly and for this I apologize. What I should have done is discuss the nature of the website itself as a source. www.scientologymyths.info purports to be someone's personal blog, and as such should not be considered a WP:RS. If discussion could not reach a resolution on the article's talk page, I should have posted to WP:RSN to get further input on that particular source. That way, we could get more fresh eyes on the discussion. Cirt ( talk) 22:29, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Cirt is making unsubstantiated claims about the Scientologymyths.info site. Cirt has made a number of unsubstantiated claims about this site so as to undermine its credibility and has spammed his "warning" across multiple talk pages. As far as I am aware, Cirt has never done anything like this with a site critical of Scientology; this is clearly POV-motivated. I ask Cirt to back his claims up or remove the "warning". He has stated the following about the Scientologymyths site:
Cirt has ignored my previous requests to source those sort of statements and instead has spammed this unsubstantiated "warning" on (at least) the below talk pages:
Scientologymyths does not present itself as an official voice of the Church, please see here:Cirt appears to be trying to tar the site. I asked that he provide a source or remove the warnings but he did not do so, instead repeating his unsubstantiated claim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Justallofthem ( talk • contribs)"I am a Scientologist, working, and I use my spare time to run this blog and the website scientologymyths.info. I live in Los Angeles, California/USA."
I was a bit too aggressive with this one with the talk page warnings. Same with the comment in the above subsection, I should have engaged in further discussion on the talk page of the reliability (or not) of the www.scientologymyths.info blog/website, and if we could not reach an amicable discussion post to WP:RSN for fresh eyes. Also, it probably would have been better for both me and Justallofthem ( talk · contribs) to discuss one source/website at a time, and not conflate different websites/sources in the discussion at the same time. Cirt ( talk) 22:31, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
I find Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Highfructosecornsyrup of concern and will comment later as I just saw it and need to read through it more. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Justallofthem ( talk • contribs)
I will defer to the proper process for the outcome of Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Highfructosecornsyrup. There has been some good discussion at the case page so far, but as is appropriate I will defer to an uninvolved administrator to reach a conclusion in that case. Cirt ( talk) 22:32, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/COFS. No evidence is presented other than vaque supposition. Also Cirt consistently misrepresents the findings of the COFS arbitration with his conjoined "Shutterbug/Misou" and his prior (rude) reference to Shutterbug as Church of Scientology (which I objected to here and which was my entrance point on realizing that Cirt had perhaps not reformed after all). There were no findings that which gave any official status to Shutterbug or established any connection between COFS and Misou other than that they accessed the same proxy server. -- Justallofthem ( talk) 14:15, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
While all of these indicate a POV, none of them alone is worthy of much in the way of sanction. Taken together however and indicative of a pattern of editing, especially as they cover just a few days editing, I believe they are cause for concern. Cirt should minimally be strongly cautioned about maintaining WP:NPOV in the Scientology articles. Personally, I am sorry to say that I do not believe he can, especially given his previous editing history under prior accounts. -- Justallofthem ( talk) 22:20, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
I have responded to the individual issues above in separate responses. I admit and apologize for making a mistake about the nature in which I discussed the site www.scientologymyths.info, and in the future will continue to utilize the WP:RFC and WP:RSN processes where appropriate in order to bring in some input from previously uninvolved editors. Cirt ( talk) 00:59, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I don't follow the Scientology articles very much (bored to tears by the subject), but Cirt does ask me about WP policy and process from time to time. He happened to be asking me about the post he had made on some talk pages while Justa started this thread. I really wish he'd touched bases before the fact, but sometimes that's how it goes.
Now what happened is this: Cirt noticed several articles on that topic had links to a site that carried malware. Cirt posted to an admin noticeboard about that, citing several reports that the site had a malware problem. Meta then blacklisted the domain. So far, so good.
Then Cirt made a good faith mistake, noting that domain properly plus another one at a few talk pages. He saw objections to both, and from the little I've been able to glean so far those objections are unrelated. The second domain is a blog and I'm unaware whether that blog is an official one or an amateur one. If the blog is official then per WP:RS it would be acceptable in limited ways as a self-published source. If not, then it probably wouldn't satisfy the reliable sources guideline.
I was advising Cirt to extend apologies for the confusion and offer to discuss the blog with Justa when this thread opened. It looks like possibly a matter for the reliable sources noticeboard, not for arbitration enforcement. A tense subject, and probably one in which all disputing parties could use a nice cup of tea. I only regret I didn't learn about what was developing a little sooner; was reviewing GA nominees while this was brewing. Best wishes all, Durova Charge! 22:36, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm genuinely sorry to see this. I can summarize the majority of sourcing problems with the Scientology series with a single Wikilink: WP:PRIMARY. This series of articles is rife with primary sources, and Cirt has been making some good headway in getting rid of them, along with other editors. Of course he's not a perfect editor, but contrary to Justanother's cherry-picked -- and frankly inaccurately described -- edits, Cirt has been pushing for better sources. This ArbCom report sadly strikes me as an attempt to distract from the other one and say something along the lines of "See? Both sides are bad," which is why I'm sad to see it.
I propose that this report should be placed on hold until the other one concerning Scientology is dealt with. The two are not equal. One is a report of massive conflict of interest, sockpuppetry, and likely WP:ROLE accounts from the primary organization supporting Scientology itself, and the other is an issue of WP:WEIGHT and sourcing. The latter could be resolved by explaining to Cirt why Tom Cruise's sex life is not of sufficient weight for inclusion in an article. The former... well obviously, that's a substantially bigger deal. -- Good Damon 22:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Google's probably-overbroad labeling of the site - a free webhosting service - as malware, and even the reliability of the scan - are red herrings. The only issue there is whether the affidavit itself is a valid source; the scan was a convenience link. I have no idea whether or not it is, so I will refrain from commenting on that, but the supposed malware is not relevant. -- NE2 00:38, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
The other day, I began to prepare an AE report on Cirt myself. At the time, I decided not to post it. Since the matter has come here now anyway, I shall add what I compiled. In part, it may duplicate what Justallofthem posted above. This is what I had drafted:
As the unrelated discussion further below shows, Scientology articles often appear like a POV-driven battlefield. Strong feelings about Scientology are commonplace, especially on the Internet, and I believe this is reflected to some extent in all work on Scientology articles within Wikipedia.
A situation has arisen in one of the minor Scientology articles, Scientology and sex ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), which seems somehow symptomatic. Until recently, when it was nominated for deletion, the article was based mostly on primary sources: [50] Over the course of the AfD, a number of secondary sources were added, resulting in this version: [51], which was kept.
All Scientology articles are under probation, meaning that editors are required to pay particular heed to content policies such as WP:NPOV, WP:RS etc. Several of the added sources appeared problematic, but there are two edits I would like uninvolved admins to look at specifically from the viewpoint of whether these edits reflect the especial mindfulness of NPOV and other policies invoked by article probation.
This concerns a paragraph that was added around the time of the AfD. As it turned out, our wording misrepresented the source. Our article claimed that it was "reported that Scientology has 'sex lessons' which can be given to couples", while the actual source did not make a statement about the Scientology religion, but merely quoted a report that two prominent Scientologists had used the services of an "intimate relationship guide".
Given this discrepancy, the content of the para was removed from the article (twice, with one intervening revert) and transferred to the talk page by Justallofthem ( talk · contribs), where it is currently the subject of further discussion.
Diffs: [52] / [53] / [54] / [55] (rmv by Justallofthem) / [56] (rvt by Cirt) / [57] (rmv again by Jayen466) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jayen466 ( talk • contribs)
To reiterate what I had said above, there was a disagreement between myself and Justallofthem ( talk · contribs) about this material used in the article Scientology and sex. Jayen466 ( talk · contribs) shares the opinion of Justallofthem on this issue. It was discussed a bit on the talk page. The next step would either have been to have a content-based WP:RFC on the issue on the article's talk page in order to solicit input from uninvolved editors on the matter, or to have a discussion at WP:RSN about the article content, in order to solicit input from uninvolved editors about the particular sources used and their reliability in general. The matter has not proceeded to either of those stages yet, and I have chosen to disengage myself from this particular discussion and take a break from it for a while. Cirt ( talk) 01:19, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
"In Scientology the focus is on sex. Sex, sex, sex."
L. Ron Hubbard's son Ron DeWolfe [1]
I would like to ask uninvolved admins to examine the appropriateness of the insertion of the quote box shown to the right here. This insertion occurred immediately after the removal of the abovementioned para from the Australian gossip weekly. For background, the statement cited was
There has been subsequent discussion of this material.
The question is, are these edits evidence of especial mindfulness to uphold best practice in relation to content policies such as NPOV, RS, etc. I may add further evidence tomorrow or Monday; there are one or two other recent incidents I recall. If any of the diff links above don't point where they should, please point it out; I haven't had time to double-check all of them. Jayen 466 01:08, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
I added a quote box to a subsection of an article. It was removed and a discussion ensued on the article's talk page. Again, I have chosen to disengage from this and take a break from it for a while. There is no ongoing dispute here, and so far the matter has not proceeded to RFC either. The quote box was removed by Jayen466 after being in the article a total of 13 minutes, and was not added back in since, by myself or anyone else. Cirt ( talk) 01:31, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
This dispute about a quote box was entirely unknown to me. It's more than a bit disappointing to discover new points of contention in dribs and drabs this way. Normally I'd suggest a content RFC for a quote box dispute. With so many other unresolved issues already on noticeboards, though, a general suggestion to both sides: in dispute resolution generally (on wiki or off), an effective way to escalate tension and halt progress is to introduce new low priority quarrels while multiple higher priority ones remain unresolved. This is approaching a level where it threatens to overwhelm our site dispute resolution mechanisms (if it hasn't reached that point already unbeknownst to me). So to editors on both sides of the fence, whatever your disagreements may be, I hope we can all stand together in not wanting a second arbitration case. The last one on this subject lasted three months.
So here's a proposal: please table the discussions on the quote box and the blog for 30 days. Wherever things are now, just walk away until the new year. Let the other issues with the prior AE thread etc. get wrapped up first, please. Then address this lower priority material. Durova Charge! 03:42, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
IP makes a good-faith edit, with a lucid edit summary drawing attention to a valid concern. The edit is reverted by another user, and the IP receives this warning from Cirt. Jayen 466 21:37, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
This edit added a paragraph sourced to a book by James R. Lewis, a highly acclaimed academic author published by leading university presses, to the article on the Cult Awareness Network (CAN). Going against the grain of the rest of the article as it was then (mainly authored by Cirt), it states that the New CAN, which is run with Scientology backing, operates as a “genuine information and networking center on non-traditional religions”.
Cirt removed this information with the edit summary: “(removed added text from Lewis book - it is basically a copyright violation - minor words are changed but whole sections are quoted without quotations!!!)”
For editors wanting to assess the validity of Cirt's copyvio claim – which I would take issue with, since the author and work were named, and my summary reformulated the source text – the relevant page of Lewis is available in google books: [58] If Cirt had had a genuine copyright concern, I suggest that the appropriate response showing especial mindfulness of NPOV would have been to reword the text, ensuring that this significant scholarly voice offering an alternative viewpoint be included. Instead, Cirt deleted it. It is also noteworthy that the version of the article at the time, which Cirt submitted for GA (it failed), cited no criticism whatsoever of the Old CAN, prior to its Scientology take-over, even though there have been a great many voices critical of the Old CAN in both the academic literature and mainstream media.
Cirt has several times tried to exclude Anson Shupe as a reliable source from WP articles related to Scientology, describing him as a “collaborator”. [59] [60] [61] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jayen466 ( talk • contribs)
I did indeed alert in an edit summary about copyvio concerns from text inserted by Jayen466 ( talk · contribs), and this was a valid concern. The Diff cited by Jayen466 is from almost 6 months ago. I believe Jayen466 ended up rewording the text later himself, and a version of it remains in the article. The fact that I nominated something to WP:GAN which failed is simply a testament to my dedication to relying on the GA Review process itself. Actually I later utilized many points from the GA Review to copyedit and improve on the article based on the GA Reviewer's suggestions. And yes, I do question Anson Shupe's collaboration with Scientology attorney Kendrick Moxon, and you will note that the Diffs cited by Jayen466 are each: on talk pages, not article-space, where I brought the concern up for discussion, and: over two months old, and have not been brought up again by myself for some time. Cirt ( talk) 18:08, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
As GoodDamon has pointed out, Cirt has argued that Scientology’s primary sources (websites, Hubbard’s books) should not be used in Scientology-related articles. I agree with Cirt on this point, and have said so before: [62]. Our descriptions of Scientology beliefs should be based on scholarly descriptions, or other sources that can be considered reliable sources on religious matters.
However, Cirt’s actual approach is selective, depending on whether Scientology sources are likely to paint the religion in a good or a bad light. There are also contradictions between Cirt's statements in public and her or his actual editing actions. For example, in the AfD for Scientology and Sex, Cirt said that content sourced to primary sources should be “pruned”. [63] When some time later I brought the matter up on the article’s talk page, Cirt was extremely reluctant to remove any of the primary-source material at all: [64]
Cirt not only defended the use of primary sources likely to cast a negative light on the religion, he also defended the use of a self-published piece on an anti-Scientology website, saying the site was “not an attack site”: [65] The site’s title is “Exposing the con”: [66] Scholarly opinion of such sites is that they are a propaganda effort presenting a caricature of Scientology, rather than reliable information. [67] [68]
To summarize:
I do not see especial mindfulness of NPOV here. I do not even see a good-faith effort towards NPOV. I see an extremely dedicated effort to subvert NPOV that is unparalleled by anything else I have observed in Wikipedia. Jayen 466 13:04, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
In conjunction with secondary sources supplementing primary source material, I have no objection to using primary sources in a limited capacity. Note that the above Diffs cited by Jayen466 ( talk · contribs) are all to talk-page discussions about article content, where constructive discussions were had. We had been (unfortunately) conflating multiple discussions about different websites together. If we had discussed each website one-at-a-time (or even later brought the matter to WP:RSN) the discussion would have had a more clear and beneficial resolution for all. So it is partly my fault for not keeping the discussion on track to one website/source at a time, and also for not opening the matter up to a noticeboard like WP:RSN to get some fresh eyes and input from uninvolved editors on the matter. Cirt ( talk) 18:11, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
I participated in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/COFS and have interacted with both Cirt and Justanother for a great length of time. I am dubious of any reports files by historical content adversaries against each other. I recommend that this lengthy report be archived and that independent editors review the content disputes and provide feedback to all parties. If that fails to resolve the problem, an editor not involved in the content dispute should come here with a succinct report requesting whatever actions may be necessary to prevent further disruption to the editing process or damage to the articles. I think recourse to our normal dispute resolution channels and noticeboards, including WP:NPOVN, WP:RSN and WP:RFC might be helpful. I have not yet seen evidence that there was a community consensus at one of those places which was then tendentiously subverted by one of the parties. Jehochman2 ( talk) 16:21, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Justallofthem, allow me to begin by assuring you that Jehochman and I are by no means teaming up here. I had no idea Jehochman intended to post to this thread until I read that he had, and given my scathing oppose to his recent ArbCom candidacy--well--it's gracious of him to acknowledge some merit to the position I've articulated at this discussion. Regarding Cirt's 'overpowering POV issues', I admit to being unfamiliar with many sides of the subject. So what's useful in that regard is to look at what other editors have thought of his work. Cirt has contributed a large number of good articles and featured articles on this subject. Please accept this feedback at face value: I have no intention of sweeping anything under a rug. This dispute is progressing in a manner where uninvolved administrator intervention is unlikely to occur: Jehochman saw the COFS case through arbitration and Jossi has a declared conflict of interest regarding new religious movements generally. It would be a sad thing to see a second arbitration case on the subject because if both sides simply slowed down then normal site processes ought to be able to handle this matter. But if matters continue on their present course I can and will initiate a second RFAR. Durova Charge! 20:45, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
This seems to be an ongoing modus operandi of Cirt. He/she gets involved in behavior as documented above, only to regret it later and "disengage" or " take a break". While removing oneself from a dispute is commendable, a more a appropriate behavior would be not to engage in that silly behavior in the firt place, in particular given Cirt past multiple blocks for edit warring, and the much spoken about "turnaround". I would argue, that it is because this "new Cirt" that we are supposed to accept as an example of how bad-behaving editors can come around and become useful contributors to this project, that the burden is on Cirt to simply avoid a priori to get involved in such behavior. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:26, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
I believe I have done so. I admit that it is always best to seek out fresh eyes from uninvolved contributors to a discussion or article-improvement drive as much as possible, in such forums (as noted above) including WP:RSN and article-content WP:RFC when appropriate. It is also quite important to (try one's best) to focus article talk page discussion on the matter at hand, and on one issue at a time, to avoid muddying the waters and confusing multiple talk page discussion/threads. In some instances where I was involved in these discussions I was not quick enough to focus discussion on one issue at a time, and also to seek out advice from both experienced editors and administrators, and also to seek out input from uninvolved contributors by posting a neutral request for input on appropriate noticeboards. These are all good ideas which I always try to implement and will continue to work on in the future. Cirt ( talk) 18:16, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
I apologize for any inadvertent confusion that has been caused by my recent actions, and I accept the wise advice given above to table these new issues until the old ones are resolved. Thank you, Cirt ( talk) 02:26, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
I have requested a new arbitration case. Durova Charge! 18:41, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Capasitor ( talk · contribs) has been edit warring and making POV edits in Armenia - Azerbaijan related articles for quite some time now. He often undid edits of other people without any explanation or called their edits "vandalism": [74] [75] Eventually he was blocked for 1 week for this racist comment about other editors: [76] However I have a reason to believe that it is unlikely that this user will change his approach to AA related topics, when he is back from his block. Amended Remedies and and enforcement provisions of the arbitration case Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 hold that "Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process". [77] I would like to ask the admins to consider placing this editor on supervised editing, which involves revert and civility paroles. Grandmaster ( talk) 18:03, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
And another disruptive editor on Armenia - Azerbaijan related articles, which are covered by Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 arbitration case. AcademicSharp ( talk · contribs) contributes both as a registered and anonymous user 75.28.100.179 ( talk · contribs · WHOIS). He makes massive rewrites of the highly controversial article Khojaly Massacre, citing no sources whatsoever, and yesterday came close to violating 3RR. [78] [79] [80] Since he was a newbie, I warned him [81] [82], but today he resumed edit warring: [83] Note that this user provides no edit summaries and ignores the talk page, where he was repeatedly invited to discuss his edits: [84] Urgent admin intervention is required. Grandmaster ( talk) 07:18, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Another 2 reverts by this user: [85] [86] No sources cited, and talk page ignored. Grandmaster ( talk) 06:51, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
And now we have Dramafree ( talk · contribs), an obvious SPA, reverting the same article: [87] Grandmaster ( talk) 07:02, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Please use the article's talk page to pursue dispute resolution. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:41, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
Arbcom case: The Troubles.
Setanta747 is on probation from the above case, and is limited to one revert per article per week, which was imposed here. He has reverted twice on Sinn Féin to restore information I had removed as unsourced - first revert and second revert. Note that Setanta747 has previously refused to source this information, seemingly under the impression that Wikipedia:Verifiability does not apply to him. The tone used on the Talk Page is therefore uncalled for and there is no need for it, a bit of civility goes a long way. Sorry for having to come here, but the way editors carry on with me is beyond a joke. Thanks Domer48 'fenian' 09:13, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
They accept that the information is incorrect, regardless of how common it is. They did remove the tag and then asked why the information was removed. They did revert twice, regardless of AE sanctions. The talk page comments is behaviour we want to avoide. Thats what the problem is. -- Domer48 'fenian' 09:39, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
As I illustrated, it was you who removed the tag that I placed. The reason it was placed there was because the information was incorrect. I allowed editors to reference it, and no one did, so it was removed. It was you who said “I don't think there's a need to include a source for this, as it's pretty well-known in NI” when you removed it. You then said “somebody removed this, somewhere along the line” when you replaced it and still did not provide a reference. On your second revert you said “Have you ever been to Northern Ireland?”
Now is that your rational for replacing the unreferenced information? On the talk page, you accept that the translation is wrong, and you still add it back, and still don’t reference it. So instead of the sky being blue, you deliberately added factually incorrect information which you knew and claimed that it was common knowledge.
Now I do apply common sense all the time, that is I do not add factually incorrect no matter how common it is. I reference everything I add, and remove unreferenced information. So my simple advice is don’t remove citation tags unless you plan to reference it. Don’t add factually incorrect information and claim it is common knowledge. -- Domer48 'fenian' 18:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
"I can assure you that this is the single most common translation for the name - whether it is considered technically "correct", linguistically speaking, or not." So they are aware. Now this is AE, and I reported a breech of ArbCom Sanctions. I was not aware that sanctions were only arbitrarily applied depending on who ever address the breech. If you have a problem with references on the article take it there. It is agreed by all that the AE sanctions were breeched, and it has been addressed. Now on my talk page you suggest I have breeched 1RR please provide the diff’s ? I can see two completely different edits, but I may be wrong? I don’t think so? I introduced new and correctly referenced text here, you removed it, without comment on the talk page, with an edit summary which says see talk, I used the talk page and reverted based on the rational I gave. That is one revert as seen here. I have provided the necessary quote from the reference, could you do the same, thanks, -- Domer48 'fenian' 20:52, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Is it acceptable for editors to tag-team to get round 1RR, viz. Domer48 and Big Dunc? [ here], [ here], [ here] Mooretwin ( talk) 02:17, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm coming in mostly cold on this one. As far as I can see from RFAR: The Troubles,
If so, they have both broken their existing editing restrictions and should be issued editing holidays.
On the 14th, Domer reverted Mooretwin on
Northern Ireland and
Sinn Féin; and on the 11th, Domer reverted Mooretwin a whole raft of articles.
User:SheffieldSteel blocked
user:Mooretwin for a week at 14:11, 16 December 2008; this hasnt been logged on the RFAR log.
John Vandenberg (
chat) 03:20, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I like to point out to John Vandenberg I am not on any 1RR and that it the articles that are on 1RR. I have not breeched the 1RR. I've checked out the Northern Ireland article and no there is no breech of 1RR. I have now checked my edits for the 11th, and again no breech of 1RR. Could John Vandenberg possibly be mixing 1RR with 0RR? Thanks, -- Domer48 'fenian' 19:59, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Thank you Tznkai for that, I hope that will clarify things for editors. -- Domer48 'fenian' 20:25, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Please see [104], this John Vandenberg ( chat) 02:21, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Also tackled at Wikipedia:ANI#User:Sockofadix_is_User:Fadix_evading_one_year_block. and User_talk:Jpgordon#Sockofadix. John Vandenberg ( chat) 03:33, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
The editor apparently wants to get an indefinite block on the Fadix account. At this point I think we might as well do that and maybe run a checkuser to make sure no more socks are lurking around. JoshuaZ ( talk) 04:24, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Note: Cold fusion is under WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE because it's a pathological science or fringe science that has been given as an example of pseudoscience, (although it was rejected to label it as pseudoscience on this RFC.)
This should be quite uncontroversial. An editor with a big WP:COI comes to the talk page of an article, claims that there is a skeptic conspiracy to make up nonsense and put it in the article to replace real sources, engages into lenghthy OR discussions, claims that all papers showing negative results are faked by their authors, that sources can be falsified by examining leaked raw data, shows his self-published papers that he co-authored as proof against prestigious journals, forces other editors to engage into more OR to disproof his misrepresentations, calls wikipedia editors "a bunch of ignorant crackpots" [105], insists that wikipedia sucks (but keeps commenting on the talk page with no intention of improving the articles, a violation of WP:TALK), promotes his own website as the alpha an omega of cold fusion sourcing, uses the page as a WP:SOAPBOX, claims that "[not treating his sources seriously] is mainly a display of ignorance, not bias." [106], clutters the talk page history with useless OR (42 of last 100 edits as of 01:52, 10 December 2008 [107], counting also Sinebot because he doesn't see the point of signing [108] even after being asked nicely by several editors [109]), when menaced with arbitration discrectionary sanctions [110] he replies "Go ahead! Do your worst!" and claims that he is "not planning to edit this or any other article. I wouldn't touch a Wikipedia article with the fag end of a barge poll, nor would any scientist I know" [111] and has continued his behaviour since then (6 days ago).
Pvkeller explains the problem perfectly:
:Putting Wiki policy to one side, it is not so much citing sources of dubious probity that seems a problem to me. It is more a combination of tactics:
- 1) Insisting that anyone who has not read all your source must accept that your sources demonstrate whatever you say they do;
- 2) Claiming your sources say or prove more than they do. On several occassion I have spent hours investigating your citations only to find they proved far less than you claimed;
- 3) Dismissing all sources that do not support your POV, and attacking those who cite those sources;
- 4) Arguing that every instance of treating your sources seriously is an avowal of those source or an agreement with their conclusions, even if the instance does not result in publication or funding; and
- 5) Arguing that every instance of not treating your sources seriously is a display of unfair bias.
- I would like to see you try harder to be pursuasive without browbeating. [112]
Since wikipedia is not he place for massive COI'd OR, I would thank an uninvolved admin to give him a formal warning ({{ Pseudoscience_enforcement}} will do) so he can be sanctioned if he keeps on with his behaviour. (since it's a dynamic IP, it should be given on Talk:Cold fusion?
Lists of diffs (collapsed to avoid cluttering this page):
warning about arbitration, his replies
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On 4 December 2008 I warned Jed about using unreliable sources to falsify reliable sources, and engagin on OR the talk page, finishing with this: "Jed, either you stop filling the page with WP:OR or I'll start asking admins to bring the arbitration stick of WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE down on you." [113]
Jed's answer was yet more OR and promotion of his own site " I have 3,500 papers. These papers and books constitute 99% of everything published on the subject, in English", insisting that NPOV is imposible because science is based on facts ""POV" means point of view, or opinion. Science is based on facts and laws, not points of view.", and insisting that he has the WP:TRUTH "There are no other sources. (...) [not treating his sources seriously] is mainly a display of ignorance, not bias." [116] |
Examples of OR
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using a list of 200 papers (primary sources) as proof that fusion happened, and saying that a laboratory is not prestigious or journal is not high-profile are "judgement calls" [117]. This simply denies the capability of editors to reject fringe sources. Lots of OR about how a certain experiment demonstrated something or not, and suggesting that a paper on a low-impact journal and a video of a working motor are a reliable source [118] In reply to "[you are using] unreliable sources [to say that] reliable sources should not be taken into account or had fake data" [119] he cites a paper on a fringe journal to say "You can see at glance that the data is fake! Part of the graph is replaced with crudely fabricated, hand-drawn data." and continues "You can tell even more clearly because one of the researchers accidentally leaked the original data, which shows excess heat in the part that was replaced with hand-drawn dots" and suggests to read the "official MIT hearing" (again, reliance on primary sources) [120] "I find it very persuasive when a cell with ~20 ml of water and a few grams of palladium produces megajoules of energy with no input power and no chemical changes, and it produces helium. I think that is proof that a nuclear reaction is occurring. However, you may not find that persuasive, so perhaps you should look at some other aspect of cold fusion, such as tritium production or host-metal transmutations." [121] "Such claims cannot be put to the test by examining colorimetric data, whereas anyone who knows a little chemistry will find glaring errors in papers by Morrison or Hoffman.)" [122] |
failures to replicate don't count as negatives, all failures to replicate were due to errors that are now understood, all negative results were either faked or had failures for "obvious reasons not worth discussing in detail unless you are an expert", there is only a dozen negative papers on reliable sources, (since failures to replicate don't count as negatives), all positive results are correct and can't be disproved in any way (and finding errors on them would "overthrow the laws of thermodynamics and a large part of chemistry and physics going back to 1860"), all arguments against cold fusion are "not valid", only "six actual, professional scientists" have ever published papers showing errors but "their work has no merit" and they are "first-class crackpots"
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"We know why the null experiments produced no heat; we can see that the false negatives are actually positive (just do the arithmetic right and you will see this) and anyone who looks at the fake data in the peer-reviewed paper will see that it is fake. You do not need to take my word for any of this -- the data speaks for itself." [123] "There are no peer-reviewed papers from top journals that call cold fusion into question. Not one study and not one paper has ever demonstrated an error in a positive cold fusion paper If anyone ever did find an error, it would not only disprove cold fusion, it would overthrow the laws of thermodynamics and a large part of chemistry and physics going back to 1860. That isn't going to happen." [124] "There are no negative papers in APS journals, or anywhere else. Only about a dozen negative papers have been published in history of cold fusion (...) There were several early papers describing experiments that did not work. That's a null, not a negative. The authors did not discover any fault in the positive experiments, or any other reason to doubt them. The reasons these early experiments failed is new well understood and has been described in detail. (...) Actually, the three most famous negative papers, at Cal Tech, Harwell and MIT were false negatives. (Actually positive.) They all got excess heat at the same rate as others did in 1989, but they did not realize it, or they erased it and published fake results. (...) There are no experimental counter-claims. No one has ever done an experiment that calls into question cold fusion, or an experiment with a prosaic explanation that exhibits the same behavior (i.e., one that produces tritium or megajoules of heat per mole of reactant.) (...) The failures were all for obvious reasons not worth discussing in detail unless you are an expert." [125] "There are, in fact, six actual, professional scientists who have published papers and books that purport to find errors in cold fusion experiments. I have uploaded as much of their work as they have given me permission to upload. I encourage everyone to read them, especially Huizenga, Hoffman and Morrison, because I think their work has no merit. It will convince readers that there are no valid arguments against cold fusion, which is correct. If you want to add their arguments to this article, I encourage you to do so. They are first-class crackpots, but unlike the anonymous crackpot opinions now littering the article these are from real professors with names from legitimate institutions who have actually published papers with falsifiable technical claims -- papers you can read at a library, or at RM'D. (A few others have written books attacking cold fusion that have no technical content; that is, no falsifiable technical arguments that can be resolved with reference to data. For example, Park claims that all cold fusion scientists are liars, lunatics or criminals. Such claims cannot be put to the test by examining colorimetric data, whereas anyone who knows a little chemistry will find glaring errors in papers by Morrison or Hoffman.)" [126] "Shanahan's hypotheses, if true, would disprove most electrochemistry and calorimetry going back to Lavoisier's 1781 ice calorimeter (which is used in some cold fusion experiments), and J. P. Joules's calorimeter circa 1845 (which is used in many others). There is no chance Shanahan is correct." (follows rant about why skeptics believe him) [127] |
citing a paper that in which he participated and which has been published only on his website, in order to disproof 174 early failures to replicate the original experiment of Pons and Fleischmann
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"As it happens, we just today uploaded a review paper discussing some of early failures, and the reasons for them: RM'D] The authors examined 174 papers, in detail. They did a lot of analysis not shown in the paper. (I assisted so I know about it.)" [128] |
skeptic conspiracy to put nonsense on the cold fusion article, which prevents cold fusion from getting funds
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"On the other hand, the article is full of irrelevant and unimportant stuff, not to mention imaginary nonsense cooked up by 'skeptics.' Replacing some of that garbage with Arata might not be a bad idea. But anyway, Wikipedia belongs to the 'skeptics' and know-nothings. They should do whatever they please with the article. No legitimate scientist will contribute." [129] "[skeptics] point to an archived version of [my] site for some reason. I suppose this is some crazy scheme by the skeptics to stop people from reading LENR-CANR [my website], but it will not work for anyone who has half a brain (...) [skeptics] make things up and stuff them into the article. At least I have sources other than my own imagination! (...) You skeptics have done that to me before". [130] "You and the other so-called skeptics have repeatedly erased peer-reviewed information about cold fusion and substituted your own unfounded opinions. You pay lip service to the peer-review, but you have no respect for the system or its results" [131] "There is no chance Shanahan is correct. The fact that skeptics such Paul V. Keller are so quick to believe him, and add his theories to this article, shows that they are grasping at straws, and they will believe anything that comes along without a critical examination, even if it means they must throw away the whole basis of chemistry and physics" [132] "That's the difference between me and anti-cold fusion people (...) My opponents, on the other hand, want you to ignore me -- just as they want you to ignore the scientific literature, and the laws of physics and chemistry (...) They want to squelch the debate and keep everyone ignorant, and Beware! Beware! of actual data and peer-reviewed papers!" [133] "The field is not funded because there is enormous academic opposition to it, which comes mainly from people like Keller who do not read the literature and thus know nothing about the research, and yet who feel free to fabricate claims about it such as the notion that gamma rays have not been detected by other means! And also to free associate and invent new definitions for 'pathological science' such as: 'returning to the original theory.' Despite the opposition, a great deal of progress has been made (...)" [134] |
wikipedia editors on cold fusion are "a bunch of ignorant crackpots who do not understand the laws of thermodynamics"
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"[Many distinguished experimentalists and theorists, including Nobel laureates , etc] They do not make stupid mistakes. They have repeated the experiment thousands of times. They seldom read the kind of comments you skeptics make here, but when they do they instantly dismiss you people as a bunch of ignorant crackpots who do not understand the laws of thermodynamics, who have no clue how a calorimeter works, and who criticize papers they have never read. Naturally, I agree with them. You people imagine you are qualified to write an article about cold fusion. I doubt that you would casually edit some similar article about some other scientific research that you know nothing about, but for some inexplicable reason you imagine that you are experts on this subject, and that you can casually contradict the likes of Iyengar, Miles or Fleischmann. You imagine that their work is "discredited." This is unbelievable chutzpah. It is egomania. This is why Wikipedia will never become a viable source of information about this research." [135] "Wikipedia articles about biology are not overrun by Creationist crackpots, so why are the 'skeptics' who know nothing about cold fusion allowed to overwrite this one?" [136] |
COI, promotion of himself and his website
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sings every single post with his name and website "Jed Rothwell, Librarian, RM'D". "I have put years of effort into making both pro- and anti-cold papers available to the public at RM'D (...) I want everyone to know as much as possible. I have made hundreds of papers available, and people have downloaded 1.1 million copies of them. And by the way, if you want to know who I am, I suggest you read some of my papers at RM'D." "Of course you read about them at RM'D to your heart's delight. I have compiled a list of null and false negative experiments; contact me via the front page." [137] |
As a quiet witness, I'd just like to point out that this request is littered with false accusations. If I were to give a diagnosis, I would say this is largely the result of
black-and-white thinking - a lot of the false accusations seem to stem from that.
Kevin Baas talk 15:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
(unindent) Kevin, see, wikipedia is based on sources, not on wikipedian's personal opinion of what is a valid demostration of a scientific theory. The available secondary reliable sources have been already beaten to death several times on Talk:Cold fusion, there's no sense on rehashing them here again and making this page a sequel of the talk page. What I brought here is not a content dispute about an article, but a clear violation of WP:OR and WP:SOAPBOX (with WP:COI sprinkled on top).
And, Kevin, seriously, I have to say that, if Jed's comments had resulted on improvements on the article, even if it wasn't his intention, I wouldn't have been so quick to complain. And if he was more responsive to warnings about disruption, and if he was actually open to concede when clearly reliable sources are presented to him, then I would have been way way waaaay more tolerant of his OR and I wouldn't even have complained about him, I would have instead engaged on conversation with him (and, if you ask me by email, I can actually point you to a user on cawiki where this is happening actually, and a user on eswiki that I didn't complain about until it was made clear by one of his edits that he had no intention to respect a consensus we had just built, which meant that I had just wasted many many hours of my time addressing his arguments in good faith). -- Enric Naval ( talk) 19:04, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
[147] Scientology articles are under article probation as per last year's arbcom, requiring editors to be especially mindful of content policies. The videos re-added by AndroidCat are only marginally related to the article subject and moreover profoundly offensive. For example, the 2nd part of the video begins with "Robert Minton, recently profiled on [inaudible] will talk about shooting Scientologists, getting arrested, right ... no [laughs, laughter from others in the room] sorry, sorry [laughter from all]." Jayen 466 13:42, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Just to be clear, this video contains a string of derogatory comments about a religious minority, and one of the speakers shown in it makes a well-received joke about shooting them. The video was added as an EL to the BLP of a member of said minority. It is inexcusable. Jayen 466 17:47, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Further use of this board for drama mongering, soap boxing or attacking opponents may be met with warnings or sanctions. Please use the board only for appropriate purposes. Thank you. Jehochman Talk 19:44, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This user has re-created an attack page User:Russavia/eSStonia which was speedy deleted under G10. Now edit warring speedy template while making uncivil comments. This is a breach of the Digwuren remedy against using Wikipedia as a battleground. Martintg ( talk) 23:59, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
Editors, this is not a chatroom. Please take discussions to the relevant article page. I do not see what sort of arbitration enforcement is possible here. Jehochman Talk 14:41, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Goodcallclear ( talk · contribs) is repeatedly adding untrue statements to the Letterkenny article. He has broken the three-revert rule. See here, here, here, here, here and here. -- Balloholic ( talk) 19:58, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
Keverich1 ( talk · contribs) is repeatedly edit-warring on Israel–United States military relations ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), an article currently under arbitration sanctions, to remove a sourced statement that he doesn't like. [148] The statement is a line which I contributed over a year ago, sourced to Jane's Sentinel, an impeccable source of military information. The editor has asserted that the line is original research, even though it directly reflects the wording of the original source, as I've explained on the article's talk page. He is clearly unwilling to assume good faith or to accept sourced statements that conflict with his personal views. [149] [150] This is a pretty-clear cut violation of the arbitration sanctions, given the violation of the expected standards of behavior ( WP:AGF) and the normal editorial process ( WP:DR). Given the edit-warring in particular, I recommend a block. -- ChrisO ( talk) 21:49, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
Check this link see that the statement about the lobby was not referenced whatsoever [151]. Take a look at this version from mid 2007. [152]. Clearly the claim in question has remained unreferenced for over a year. The user ChrisO ( talk · contribs) now asserts the claim "directly reflects the wording of the original source", altough he failed to provide the source when he introduced the statement more than a year ago. [153] The user ChrisO ( talk · contribs) also refused to provide the exact quote from Jane's Sentinel, which would support the statement in question. Lastly, I do not think my edits in Israel–United States military relations ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) are disruptive. I belive my edits in this article help to ensure all the statements are properly sourced Keverich1 ( talk) 22:19, 24 December 2008 (UTC)Israel-United States military relations have been extremely close,[1] reflecting both shared security interests in the unstable Middle East and the influence of a strong pro-Israel lobby in the United States.
Israel-United States military relations have been extremely close,[1] reflecting both shared security interests in the unstable Middle East and the influence of a strong pro-Israel lobby in the United States.
Israel has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance from the United States since 1976, and the largest total recipient since World War II. [2] A major purchaser and user of US military equipment, Israel is also involved in the joint development of military technology and regularly engages in joint military exercises involving United States and other friendly forces.[3][4]
Sanctions should be imposed; it is your job, do it. Personally, I did not appreciate getting unjustly shouted at concerning his first revert-type edit, discussed here starting Dec9. I maintained wiki-etiquette and feel no collaboration was intended from the start. My comments in that section state my case. It is already Christmas here, peace. Regards, CasualObserver'48 ( talk) 02:13, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
I wish to make a complaint about User:Domer48 as a disruptive editor , based on varied evidence. Each piece of evidence in its own right may perhaps be within the letter of Wikipedia guidelines but – taken together – I believe they can be construed as a pattern of disruptive editing. The various elements include – edit-warring, breach of NPOV, tag-teaming, bullying.
I admit that I have personally been in edit wars and personal conflict with this editor on many occasions on many articles over many months, and have been sanctioned for this (as has Domer48, although he has removed the notices from his talk page). I have also been the subject of complaints by Domer48, who has also left messages on my talk page, e.g. here, here, here and here, which generally I choose to ignore. I consider these to be a form of harassment. I have not posted such "warnings" on his user page, despite having equally valid reasons so to do. On 24th December he followed me to various pages to make complaints about me here, here and here.
The cumulation of these edit-wars, personal conflict and reporting has, on some occasions, caused me great frustration and I have considered leaving Wikipedia as a result. Up until now, I have not had the patience to attempt to put together a case against this user, which is a dfficult task, given his adeptness at staying within (just about) the letter, if not the spirit, of the law.
Some of this editor's behaviour appears to fit in with the descriptions on the Wikipedia guidelines about disruptive editing:
Signs that may point to tag-teaming include:
Mooretwin ( talk) 18:18, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
This is arbitration enforcement, not a general complaints noticeboard. Please specify which arbitration sanctions were violated by which edits, or this thread may be closed without action. Sandstein 12:09, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hi. Regarding remedy #7 of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Deeceevoice, could I get one or two completely uninvolved administrators to read and sign off on Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Proposed_topic_ban_-_needs_outside_attention? Thanks. -- B ( talk) 23:38, 4 January 2009 (UTC)