Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.
When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-conciousness rants are not helpful.
As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey use this form: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Anomalous_phenomenon&diff=0&oldid=5584644] [1].
This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.
Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section.
If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.
Be aware that the Arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to refactor the page, let the Arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the arbitrators to move.
The proof that this has been retained is in Cool Hand Luke's citation at 2.2 of the main RfAr page [5]. I suggest the RfC evidence is disregarded by the Arbcom.
Here are the complaints of other users to User:CheeseDreams' "editing" (actually just placing tags in them without comment) of articles all within the disputed Category:Bible stories as CheeseDreams disregards the basic rules of Wikiquette. IZAK 05:12, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC):
Evidence pertains to three complaints: first, that CheeseDreams is generally obstructionist; second, that she refuses to verify her work; third, that practically speaking she wishes to block me from the article Cultural and historical background of Jesus. She accomplishes this in two ways: first, by refusing to accept anything I write on the talk page, and second, by reverting my work.
Here is a good example of Cheese Dreams trolling: [73]. Talk pages are for discussion aimed at improving the article. Here, however, Cheese Dreams is simply making up things that indicate her interest not in improving the article, but in wasting the time of editors.
Here is a good example of CD trying to ban me unilaterally from the article. Context: FT2 made some changes to the article. Some were good, some were not. I explained which one's I thought were not good, and made changes to the article. I consider this to be model behavior for an editor: I accepted some of what another editor did, and I explained carefully my objections to other things he did.
Cheesedreams here threatens to revert any change I make to the article.
If Cheesedreams reverts any change to the article, that is tantamount to blocking me from the article. See [74]
These provide evidence of general obstructionism.
I want to be clear that my objection is not merely to the many times that CheeseDreams has inserted the summary into the talk page -- a series of acts that wastes space on the page and the time of oother editors. The summary is symptomatic of more general and profound problems with CheeseDreams -- it reveals her intent on hijacking a page; her complete disregard for the views of other editors and their reasoning; her bias in reporting what others have said; her malice, as she seeks every opportunity to slander other editors through editorializing (e.g. when she explains, in the text itself, or in the edit summary, that the reason she is summarizing is that other contributors are verbose and obscure) or misrepresenting others (e.g. claiming that I have questioned whether FT2 is masturbating me). It is this general pattern of destructive behavior that is the real issue, not the fact that she reverted the archiving of the summary x number of times.
My second main complaint against CheeseDreams is that she refuses to verify her work. I have done considerable research on the topic and believe her claims to be false. When I offer her an opportunity to verify her claims, she mires me in a miasma of meaningless dialogue. This exchange provides a good example: [98].
Another example where CheeseDreams refuses to verify claims, this time from the Koan discussion on the Jesus page: [99]. I admit the header reflects my irritation; be that as it may, there was an endless discussion about whether Jesus used Koans (CheeseDreams being the only advocate of this view) and I pointed out simply that if some scholar has made this claim we should include it -- if not, we needn't argue it. CheeseDreams has continued to revert any deletion of this material from the article, and her only contribution to the talk page continues to be defensive or offensive -- but she still hasn't provided any verification at all to support this highly contested claim.
My third main complaint is that she rejects all of my work. By late November there were two versions of the article -- one that I had crafted, and one that FT2 had crafted. See my complaint for the general context and sources. I had explained in the talk pages that there were many mistakes in fact in FT2's version, and that it was poorly organized, and explained that my version was better organized and fully verifiable.
Here is a more recent example (I put it here because it makes the same point as the Nov. 22 example):
It is true that I have rejected most of CheeseDreams' work. But every time, I have provided substantive reasons. In most cases I believe that CheeseDreams' additions are either not based on any research at all, or based on a distorted understanding of the scholarship. I have always made my objections clear and have asked CheeseDreams to provide verification.
These exchanges provide good examples of my difficulty discussing changes constructively with CheeseDreams. Whenever I raise a verifiable problem of fact or interpretation, CheeseDreams effectively dismissed any contribution I could make: [105] [106]
There is only one discussion I recall in which CheeseDreams claimed to verify her position. It was on the Jesus talk page: [107]. Here we perhaps get to the root of my conflict with CheeseDreams. In this example she does provide sources -- but in a way that makes me even more skeptical of her research. I say this because none of the people she cited were important contemporary scholars; because several of the people she cited were not scholars on Jesus, critical Bible studies, or history of 1st century Judea; and because in at least one case she was entirely wrong (she provides Albert Schweitzer as an example of a scholar who claims that Jesus never existed, when in fact Schweitzer most definitely believed Jesus existed). Moreover, I provided sources to verify my claim, that scholars (meaning, critical scholars -- PhD.s who have academic appointments and publish in academic journals) believe that Jesus did exist (Crossan, Vermes, Bartman, Fredriksen, Sanders, Meier). CheeseDreams not only utterly disregarded my claim and evidence -- she seemed utterly unaware of these scholars. It is very hard to believe that anyone could do anything close to serious research on 1st Century Jewish history, early Christian history, or critical Bible studies, and not be familiar with at least a few of these names. The problem is, you have to know something about these issues to be sure that I am right and she is wrong. All one has to do is go to a few websites to see that A. Schweitzer really did believe in Jesus. A little work on the web would provide you with the c.v.s of most of the people I cited, or reviews of their books. One problem with earlier attempts to resolve my conflict with CheeseDreams is that others, like FT2 and Amgine, didn't know and didn't do much research on this period. What concerns me even more is that when CheeseDreams and I came into conflict on the Cultural and historical background of Jesus article, they did not insist that CheeseDreams provide sources for her claims. Indeed, Amgine felt that my demanding verification was a sign of bad faith on my part [108].
To be blunt, I think many people have been fooled by CheeseDreams. She makes her points so firmly, and sticks to them, and in some cases provides the names of authorities, and others assume she is correct. These people are acting "in good faith" and were I ignorant of critical Bible research and 1st century history, I too would have assumed CheeseDreams was acting "in good faith." But I have done considerable research on these matters and all of my research gives me reason only to question CheeseDreams' research.
I have requested arbitration not because CheeseDreams has violated specific wikipedia policies -- she may have, but my complaint is more complex. She has accused me of pretty much everything I have accused her of. Moreover, much of the evidence can be interpreted either way. For example, below Amgine provides evidence of my abusing CheeseDreams. In fact, I am proud of almost every example Amgine provides -- I believe that they show a pattern in which I contribute well-researched, verifiable material to an article; in which I provide explanations for my changes; and in which I demand that CheeseDreams do the same. This is not merely a situation where the process has broken down. If it were, then perhaps RfC and mediation would have worked. This is a case where two different people have different notions of what "NPOV" and "verifiable" mean. CheeseDreams (and Amgine) and I fundamentally differ on matters of content, and in many cases I believe the conflict between us can be understood only by looking at the content and the reasons we give, respectively, for the changes we make. Slrubenstein
CheeseDreams was targeted for abuse and harrassment, at times appearing to be consciously goading the user to lash back.
Uncivil and rude comments:
Evidence of revert/delete of CheeseDreams' edits as harrassment in Talk:Cultural and historical background of Jesus
The following occurred
I consider tag-team reversion wars to be wholly unfair and inappropriate I do not consider application of 3RR against me valid, The tag-team had made 5 reverts before I had even made 4.
Also, please see WP:AN on the validity of the non-reverted version
CheeseDreams 18:09, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
CheeseDreams behavior can be fairly quickly understood by looking through the user's contributions list, which I offer as evidence. A substantial portion of the user's edits were spent in obstructive, or uncivil comments on talk pages and that the user provides very little in terms of adding lasting content to articles but rather behaves in an aggresive, petulant, mocking and bullying manner towards the user's colleagues. This has not only been a chronic problem from the beginning, it got much worse, and the community was forced to respond. Pedant 00:32, 2004 Dec 16 (UTC)
I don't understand. You think the community was "forced" to bite a newbie, call him/her a troll and a vandal, revert his/her edits without discussion, tell him/her his/her scholarship is "inferior", round up a gang of previously uninvolved parties and harass him/her? Could you expand on how CheeseDreams forced them? Dr Zen 02:05, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I also brought to CD's attention that adding all those tags sans explanation could easily be considered a provocative or vandalizing act. I was able to come to a very amicable conclusion as far as I'm concerned. Cheese Dreams acted rationally and respectfully to me. I think the key here may be that I did not assume that CD was being intentionally provocative as some of the other parties did. This is offered as evidence of someone who tried to resolve the dispute and SUCCEEDED. -- Dante Alighieri | Talk 01:39, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
Having presented what I believe to be a fair overview RFAr/CheeseDreams#Comment by FT2, I had no evidence to present, nor a wish to present any. This just changed. I should like to present evidence in resepct of either unpleasantness or provocation (depending how you classify it), and the observation this is not entirely an isolated incident, in mitigation of the things CheeseDreams may have done. Also the observation that whatever else may be the case, this post at least tends to support the view of those who say CheeseDreams was, in part at least and at times, responding to provocation.
(To clarify, my objection is not to the statements as to CheeseDream's knowledge. It is to the final words, that she is ignorant "and has nothing to offer here". The latter seems inappropriately dismissive and symptomatic of the whole debate. CheeseDreams has ofered at times quite valid input. She is clearly not an academic scholar and sometimes makes statements which SIrubenstein finds flawed or mistaken. But SIrubenstein has felt at times that is true of others whose input is dismissed for this reason.
Wikipedia needs and benefits from other kinds of people than academic scholars, both to review material, highlight issues, and form consensus, and because it shows how readers may view it. Sometimes an editor who lacks full information but points out concerns and other matters, or opens up questions for consideration, is just as important as those who have informational answers. It would be good if they would listen and be listened to. Both of these are necessary to avoid conflict, not just one)
See: Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:BPOV and Template:BPOVbecause
Unfortunately, CheeseDreams/Cheese dreams has exhibited a strong antipathy and hostile POV attitude when dealing with topics relating to Christianity and Judaism, see the INJUNCTION against him at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/CheeseDreams/Proposed decision#Editing ban of CheeseDreams : "Pending a final decision in this matter CheeseDreams is banned from editing all articles which relate to Christianity. This ban is based on aggressive POV editwarring as illustrated by the edit history [181] of Historicity_of_Jesus." He may face a total ban, but in the meantime he is causing trouble with this new nonsense template. IZAK 15:09, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
On the interest of aiding a fellow Wikipedian on IRC, a complaint came to my attention about this users' lack of research and enforcing a specific view on Jesus (disambiguation) article where this user was attempting to claim that Jesus ben Nun was the same as Joshua ben Nun. No evidence was presented supporting this claim, and several users were making edits and reverting due the fact that the claims had no factual background.
I took the liberty of trying an intervention, showing evidence of my research on this user's talk page here: [182] And invited CheeseDreams to present me the evidence that support the supposed claim.
This user's reply on my talk page makes no attempt on such: [183] I was not convinced of any evidence at all (backing the claims that this person was making), and User:CheeseDreams held that his/her facts were correct even though no evidence was presented.
The Committee might be interested to view the talk page where this user was attempting to dispute the matter: Talk:Jesus (disambiguation). Clear evidence regarding aggressive behavior and not following Wikiquette can also be found on that talk page. -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:08, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.
When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-conciousness rants are not helpful.
As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey use this form: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Anomalous_phenomenon&diff=0&oldid=5584644] [1].
This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.
Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section.
If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.
Be aware that the Arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to refactor the page, let the Arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the arbitrators to move.
The proof that this has been retained is in Cool Hand Luke's citation at 2.2 of the main RfAr page [5]. I suggest the RfC evidence is disregarded by the Arbcom.
Here are the complaints of other users to User:CheeseDreams' "editing" (actually just placing tags in them without comment) of articles all within the disputed Category:Bible stories as CheeseDreams disregards the basic rules of Wikiquette. IZAK 05:12, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC):
Evidence pertains to three complaints: first, that CheeseDreams is generally obstructionist; second, that she refuses to verify her work; third, that practically speaking she wishes to block me from the article Cultural and historical background of Jesus. She accomplishes this in two ways: first, by refusing to accept anything I write on the talk page, and second, by reverting my work.
Here is a good example of Cheese Dreams trolling: [73]. Talk pages are for discussion aimed at improving the article. Here, however, Cheese Dreams is simply making up things that indicate her interest not in improving the article, but in wasting the time of editors.
Here is a good example of CD trying to ban me unilaterally from the article. Context: FT2 made some changes to the article. Some were good, some were not. I explained which one's I thought were not good, and made changes to the article. I consider this to be model behavior for an editor: I accepted some of what another editor did, and I explained carefully my objections to other things he did.
Cheesedreams here threatens to revert any change I make to the article.
If Cheesedreams reverts any change to the article, that is tantamount to blocking me from the article. See [74]
These provide evidence of general obstructionism.
I want to be clear that my objection is not merely to the many times that CheeseDreams has inserted the summary into the talk page -- a series of acts that wastes space on the page and the time of oother editors. The summary is symptomatic of more general and profound problems with CheeseDreams -- it reveals her intent on hijacking a page; her complete disregard for the views of other editors and their reasoning; her bias in reporting what others have said; her malice, as she seeks every opportunity to slander other editors through editorializing (e.g. when she explains, in the text itself, or in the edit summary, that the reason she is summarizing is that other contributors are verbose and obscure) or misrepresenting others (e.g. claiming that I have questioned whether FT2 is masturbating me). It is this general pattern of destructive behavior that is the real issue, not the fact that she reverted the archiving of the summary x number of times.
My second main complaint against CheeseDreams is that she refuses to verify her work. I have done considerable research on the topic and believe her claims to be false. When I offer her an opportunity to verify her claims, she mires me in a miasma of meaningless dialogue. This exchange provides a good example: [98].
Another example where CheeseDreams refuses to verify claims, this time from the Koan discussion on the Jesus page: [99]. I admit the header reflects my irritation; be that as it may, there was an endless discussion about whether Jesus used Koans (CheeseDreams being the only advocate of this view) and I pointed out simply that if some scholar has made this claim we should include it -- if not, we needn't argue it. CheeseDreams has continued to revert any deletion of this material from the article, and her only contribution to the talk page continues to be defensive or offensive -- but she still hasn't provided any verification at all to support this highly contested claim.
My third main complaint is that she rejects all of my work. By late November there were two versions of the article -- one that I had crafted, and one that FT2 had crafted. See my complaint for the general context and sources. I had explained in the talk pages that there were many mistakes in fact in FT2's version, and that it was poorly organized, and explained that my version was better organized and fully verifiable.
Here is a more recent example (I put it here because it makes the same point as the Nov. 22 example):
It is true that I have rejected most of CheeseDreams' work. But every time, I have provided substantive reasons. In most cases I believe that CheeseDreams' additions are either not based on any research at all, or based on a distorted understanding of the scholarship. I have always made my objections clear and have asked CheeseDreams to provide verification.
These exchanges provide good examples of my difficulty discussing changes constructively with CheeseDreams. Whenever I raise a verifiable problem of fact or interpretation, CheeseDreams effectively dismissed any contribution I could make: [105] [106]
There is only one discussion I recall in which CheeseDreams claimed to verify her position. It was on the Jesus talk page: [107]. Here we perhaps get to the root of my conflict with CheeseDreams. In this example she does provide sources -- but in a way that makes me even more skeptical of her research. I say this because none of the people she cited were important contemporary scholars; because several of the people she cited were not scholars on Jesus, critical Bible studies, or history of 1st century Judea; and because in at least one case she was entirely wrong (she provides Albert Schweitzer as an example of a scholar who claims that Jesus never existed, when in fact Schweitzer most definitely believed Jesus existed). Moreover, I provided sources to verify my claim, that scholars (meaning, critical scholars -- PhD.s who have academic appointments and publish in academic journals) believe that Jesus did exist (Crossan, Vermes, Bartman, Fredriksen, Sanders, Meier). CheeseDreams not only utterly disregarded my claim and evidence -- she seemed utterly unaware of these scholars. It is very hard to believe that anyone could do anything close to serious research on 1st Century Jewish history, early Christian history, or critical Bible studies, and not be familiar with at least a few of these names. The problem is, you have to know something about these issues to be sure that I am right and she is wrong. All one has to do is go to a few websites to see that A. Schweitzer really did believe in Jesus. A little work on the web would provide you with the c.v.s of most of the people I cited, or reviews of their books. One problem with earlier attempts to resolve my conflict with CheeseDreams is that others, like FT2 and Amgine, didn't know and didn't do much research on this period. What concerns me even more is that when CheeseDreams and I came into conflict on the Cultural and historical background of Jesus article, they did not insist that CheeseDreams provide sources for her claims. Indeed, Amgine felt that my demanding verification was a sign of bad faith on my part [108].
To be blunt, I think many people have been fooled by CheeseDreams. She makes her points so firmly, and sticks to them, and in some cases provides the names of authorities, and others assume she is correct. These people are acting "in good faith" and were I ignorant of critical Bible research and 1st century history, I too would have assumed CheeseDreams was acting "in good faith." But I have done considerable research on these matters and all of my research gives me reason only to question CheeseDreams' research.
I have requested arbitration not because CheeseDreams has violated specific wikipedia policies -- she may have, but my complaint is more complex. She has accused me of pretty much everything I have accused her of. Moreover, much of the evidence can be interpreted either way. For example, below Amgine provides evidence of my abusing CheeseDreams. In fact, I am proud of almost every example Amgine provides -- I believe that they show a pattern in which I contribute well-researched, verifiable material to an article; in which I provide explanations for my changes; and in which I demand that CheeseDreams do the same. This is not merely a situation where the process has broken down. If it were, then perhaps RfC and mediation would have worked. This is a case where two different people have different notions of what "NPOV" and "verifiable" mean. CheeseDreams (and Amgine) and I fundamentally differ on matters of content, and in many cases I believe the conflict between us can be understood only by looking at the content and the reasons we give, respectively, for the changes we make. Slrubenstein
CheeseDreams was targeted for abuse and harrassment, at times appearing to be consciously goading the user to lash back.
Uncivil and rude comments:
Evidence of revert/delete of CheeseDreams' edits as harrassment in Talk:Cultural and historical background of Jesus
The following occurred
I consider tag-team reversion wars to be wholly unfair and inappropriate I do not consider application of 3RR against me valid, The tag-team had made 5 reverts before I had even made 4.
Also, please see WP:AN on the validity of the non-reverted version
CheeseDreams 18:09, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
CheeseDreams behavior can be fairly quickly understood by looking through the user's contributions list, which I offer as evidence. A substantial portion of the user's edits were spent in obstructive, or uncivil comments on talk pages and that the user provides very little in terms of adding lasting content to articles but rather behaves in an aggresive, petulant, mocking and bullying manner towards the user's colleagues. This has not only been a chronic problem from the beginning, it got much worse, and the community was forced to respond. Pedant 00:32, 2004 Dec 16 (UTC)
I don't understand. You think the community was "forced" to bite a newbie, call him/her a troll and a vandal, revert his/her edits without discussion, tell him/her his/her scholarship is "inferior", round up a gang of previously uninvolved parties and harass him/her? Could you expand on how CheeseDreams forced them? Dr Zen 02:05, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I also brought to CD's attention that adding all those tags sans explanation could easily be considered a provocative or vandalizing act. I was able to come to a very amicable conclusion as far as I'm concerned. Cheese Dreams acted rationally and respectfully to me. I think the key here may be that I did not assume that CD was being intentionally provocative as some of the other parties did. This is offered as evidence of someone who tried to resolve the dispute and SUCCEEDED. -- Dante Alighieri | Talk 01:39, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
Having presented what I believe to be a fair overview RFAr/CheeseDreams#Comment by FT2, I had no evidence to present, nor a wish to present any. This just changed. I should like to present evidence in resepct of either unpleasantness or provocation (depending how you classify it), and the observation this is not entirely an isolated incident, in mitigation of the things CheeseDreams may have done. Also the observation that whatever else may be the case, this post at least tends to support the view of those who say CheeseDreams was, in part at least and at times, responding to provocation.
(To clarify, my objection is not to the statements as to CheeseDream's knowledge. It is to the final words, that she is ignorant "and has nothing to offer here". The latter seems inappropriately dismissive and symptomatic of the whole debate. CheeseDreams has ofered at times quite valid input. She is clearly not an academic scholar and sometimes makes statements which SIrubenstein finds flawed or mistaken. But SIrubenstein has felt at times that is true of others whose input is dismissed for this reason.
Wikipedia needs and benefits from other kinds of people than academic scholars, both to review material, highlight issues, and form consensus, and because it shows how readers may view it. Sometimes an editor who lacks full information but points out concerns and other matters, or opens up questions for consideration, is just as important as those who have informational answers. It would be good if they would listen and be listened to. Both of these are necessary to avoid conflict, not just one)
See: Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:BPOV and Template:BPOVbecause
Unfortunately, CheeseDreams/Cheese dreams has exhibited a strong antipathy and hostile POV attitude when dealing with topics relating to Christianity and Judaism, see the INJUNCTION against him at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/CheeseDreams/Proposed decision#Editing ban of CheeseDreams : "Pending a final decision in this matter CheeseDreams is banned from editing all articles which relate to Christianity. This ban is based on aggressive POV editwarring as illustrated by the edit history [181] of Historicity_of_Jesus." He may face a total ban, but in the meantime he is causing trouble with this new nonsense template. IZAK 15:09, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
On the interest of aiding a fellow Wikipedian on IRC, a complaint came to my attention about this users' lack of research and enforcing a specific view on Jesus (disambiguation) article where this user was attempting to claim that Jesus ben Nun was the same as Joshua ben Nun. No evidence was presented supporting this claim, and several users were making edits and reverting due the fact that the claims had no factual background.
I took the liberty of trying an intervention, showing evidence of my research on this user's talk page here: [182] And invited CheeseDreams to present me the evidence that support the supposed claim.
This user's reply on my talk page makes no attempt on such: [183] I was not convinced of any evidence at all (backing the claims that this person was making), and User:CheeseDreams held that his/her facts were correct even though no evidence was presented.
The Committee might be interested to view the talk page where this user was attempting to dispute the matter: Talk:Jesus (disambiguation). Clear evidence regarding aggressive behavior and not following Wikiquette can also be found on that talk page. -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:08, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)