In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 18:16, December 28, 2005), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 13:01, 11 July 2024 (UTC).
Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.
This is a summary written by users who dispute this user's conduct. Users signing other sections ("Response" or "Outside views") should not edit the "Statement of the dispute" section. Rbj ( talk · contribs) has conducted a campaign of harrassment,incivility and defammation towards myself, Phroziac, and others.
{Add summary here, but you must use the section below to certify or endorse it. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries, other than to endorse them.} Like a long list of rude and combative USENET regulars on Wikipedia such as Pigsonthewing ( talk · contribs), Jack Sarfatti ( talk · contribs), Barbara Schwarz(now editing under various anon IPs), Sollog, among many others, rbj has basically done nothing else over the past few weeks other than going out of his way to try and hurt other users. This is beyond unacceptable on Wikipedia, and if he cannot change, he cannot remain within the Wikipedia community.
(Provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.)
{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}
(provide diffs and links)
{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}
(sign with ~~~~)
(sign with ~~~~)
This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.
The issue, Karma, is whether or not you, yourself, (as are other admins) is subject to the very rules of civility that you cite. You seem to be convinced that these rules of civility just don't apply to you. Either that or you seem to believe that the threshold of incivility is higher for you (and perhaps other admins) than it is for me and the other lowly civilian lay-editors. Perhaps you're right "that this is a one way vendetta", if that means you get to rape us lay-editors and we just have to smile and take it.
Some of this is cut out from the (now rejected) RFAr:
This began a couple of days ago when I began to notice some bad edits made in very high quantity by Rchamberlain (notably regarding references to the Roman Catholic Church) On December 19 I left a friendly worded note ( "please be more careful with your editing") in which Rchamberlain's response was to blank it and ignore it (I think the meaning of that is clear). So I reverted the blanking (to make sure he understood that there is a complaint he should at least pay some attention to), and he again blanked it. This was repeated a couple more times until I finally got his attention and he left at my talk page the note [23] in which he said:
I was not vandalizing his page. One could argue he was vandalizing his own talk page and was certainly insulting anyone leaving a comment by his blanking. On Talk_page#Etiquette, it says that "Actively erasing personal messages without replying (if a reply would be appropriate or polite) will probably be interpreted as hostile. In the past, this kind of behavior has been viewed as uncivil, and this can become an issue in arbitration or other formal proceedings." Nonetheless, I reverted the critique and added another asking him to choose between being a jerk or dealing with this "i was trying to be polite" because it was pretty obvious asking nice was not getting through to him.
On December 22, I reverted his page blanking a total of 4 times and, evidently Rchamberlain went crying to some admin (I could not find a record of this on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard or any other page, so I do not know precisely how this was done) and just before I was going to get an admin to talk to this obviously closed-minded and POV editor, Phroziac blocked me, for no defined time, for no reason communicated to me (as the history of my talk page will tell). She did not come to me (via any form of communication) in advance to inquire what was going on. She did not come to me with a complaint about what I had done. No warning. No nothing. Suddenly I was blocked from Wikipedia with no explanation. When I figured out who did it (it's not real clear) I asked why and when I was getting unblocked and there was no response.
Eventually after several attempts to communicate with someone, Phroziac emailed me a note ending with "I just didn't think about leaving a notice. Sorry." yet I was still blocked with no prospect of being unblocked. So, for the first time since September 2004, when I created account User:Rbj, I reset my DSL modem (to get a different IP) and I went to NicholasTurnbull (whom I've known and respected from the infamous Bogdanov Affair) page as an anonymous IP (I know I'm not supposed to do that when I'm blocked, but I still maintain that this block was a bad rap), and asked for help. Reasonably soon, I was unblocked and I confronted Phroziac regarding her reasons and justification for:
Her response was to flippantly say " Let's agree to disagree and turn our attention to improving Wikipedia in other ways. Cheers!"
I did not buy it and made it clear to her that I believed that she acted wrongly and she was just blowing me off. Her response was a simple curt taunt:
The meaning of that is clear and smug ("take it up with the ArbCom") and I had made no communication with her at all about it since. I did not respond to the taunt, I just walked away from it. But that was not good enough for Phroziac. Three hours later I get this message from karmafist:
Now who is being uncivil?? Can you guys leave it alone??? Can you admins try not to let your authority go to your heads? Must you demand that I capitulate to Phroziac, even though it's pretty clear she was too lazy to try to pick the correct target before shooting?
Karmafist, did you bother to look into this at all before you left your note telling me that I was harrassing her? Name one sentence, or word, where I was harrassing Phroziac.
Now here is how Karmafest responded to my RFAr, a thinly veiled threat to block me (this, of course, is not "harrassment"):
My point here is that karma still relies on his axiom of me harrassing Phroziac when, in fact, there is no evidence of that. Then, for the crime of "sassing back" to his authority, he leaves:
Evidently, being frank is not being "nice", and admins like Karmafist are simply above reproach. Since Karmafist is an admin, he is allowed to be as nasty as he wants and he doesn't have to justify any assumption of "fact" he makes with any evidence. It also shows him clouding the issue by bringing up USENET (which I made no issue of at all, at this point). My response:
Then, in response, more taunting and abuse from karma under the cover of authority:
Note (besides the hypocrisy, I s'pose Karmafist thinks that raping the rapist is okay, too) the introduction of another lie (a misprepresentation of what I said). I never said anything about "Nobel Prize Winners liking" me. I said that because (once in a while) there are heavyweights (some Nobel) that have posted to the moderated newsgroup, sci.physics.research, that I tread much more lightly there than I do at comp.dsp. Also there's the repeated assumption that I'm a bully ("like Dubya") without any evidence. Is sticking up for oneself being a bully? Again, what words did I say to Phroziac constitute bullying, harrassment, or anything illegal here at Wikipedia? Is it the law here that no one is allowed to question the action of an admin? Is it the law here that we must accept that action as justified? And if we do not, we have broken the rules of civility?
No, that's not a personal attack.
Just FYI: I was one of the editors that was trying to keep that article from desending into a vanity article for the subjects of it. For that "residual radition", I am the "lessor troll"? Gee, thanks.
But I do.
Then comes the patronizing:
At this point, (or actually before), I stopped having any direct contact with either Karmafest or Phroziac since they take any disagreement and turn it around into a personal attack with threats of action under the cover of authority. That, the abuse of editors under the cover of authority, is inexcusable.
One last example of Karma's arragance (he's just too important to have to respond to these trifling charges). From the RFAr:
Again, the assumption of harrassment by me, without a single quote or citing of what words I have said to Phroziac that constitute harrassment. Now he has opened that RFC and has offered no specific citing of words or sentences from me to Phroziac that are harrassment.
Now from the other defunct motion to desysop Karmafist:
Now lessee..., Karmafist views himself as some sort of chivalrous Samurai, and he "will not be shamed in the attempt to" have him desysopped. He says that "do anything to protect Wikipedia," but qualifies that with protection of his ego, his pride which is more important that his protecting Wikipedia. I responded with:
And I stand by those words. The best thing that Karmafist can do to protect Wikipedia is to leave and let us adults get some work done without being harrassed by him. It is too late for any apology from him (of course I no longer expect such) or any recognition of his wrongful actions or his dishonesty or hypocrisy. Karmafist should leave Wikipedia, he costs more than he is worth to the project. And if he doesn't do that voluntarily, he should be desysopped. The fact that he considers himself qualified for ArbCom (and like Ross Perot, he acts like he doesn't really want that power, but his actions refute that notion) is evidence of his sheer self-delusion.
Keep in mind, that I started my RFAr against Karma and Phroziac because after letting go of this (hey, they get to win!), they were evidently dissatisfied with that and 3 hours later wanted to rub my nose in it. That crossed the line. I did not start this RfC, Karma did. Now, they have brought up the newest charge: "stalking" (this is curious since stalking me is precisely the threat that Karmafist made 05:46, 23 December 2005 (UTC)). I have not personally attacked either Karma nor Phroziac, but these are public pages, and if anyone says or writes a falsehood about me in a public space, I have the right to respond and I have. I will not repeat the mistake of Michael Dukakis in 1988 or Kerry in 2004. I will not let the falsehoods slide without a response. To do so allows such a falsehood to evolve in status from damnable lie, to plausible notion, eventually to indisputable gospel truth. Unfortunately, that's what happens when lies are not refuted right away. And Karmafist lies. Among other things, that is what he does.
Karma and Phroziac have made no attempt to justify their rubbing my nose in this 3 hours after I let it go and when I let Phroziac have the last word on it, and Karma has made no specific citing of what particular words or sentences I have said to Phroziac that are abusive or harrassment. They must not be allowed to make such charges without proof. And Karma must not be allowed to think he can harrass whomever he pleases, then resort to the childish accusation of his victim of the very crime he is guilty of. For either to do that is decidedly dishonest and hypocritical.
Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):
This RfC is another of Karmafist's campaigns to destroy 'bad users' who are really just regular users who happened to cross him. Virtually no effort has been made to settle the matter peacefully. The three links above purporting to show efforts to resolve the dispute actually do nothing of the kind... unless I missed the dispute resolution section on threats and insults.
Rbj was blocked by Phroziac for reverting another user's talk page after that user kept blanking it to remove various criticisms (from Rbj and others). This isn't the right way to go about things, but a common mistake when confronted with someone who won't discuss things. Rbj complained to Phroziac about lack of warning/notification, not blocking the other user too, and other aspects of the block in half a dozen or so messages over the course of a day. Karmafist then stepped in to stop the "harassment" of Phroziac with less than helpful threats and condescending messages about Rbj's "troll affliction". This is just a regular user who makes plenty of good contributions mocked and classified as a "troll" by Karmafist over a few minor mistakes/disagreements. He was understandably upset by Karmafist's disregard for civility and has unfortunately responded in kind.
Also, this ongoing incivility and campaign against all members of Usenet by Karmafist has to stop. If a new user made an edit like this with that kind of edit summary nobody would hesitate to call it vandalism. Nor to condemn his 'all Usenet users are trolls' rants which have been going on for some time ( [24] [25] [26] [27] [28]) and continue on this very page. We should not hold admins to a lower standard than we would complete novices... and nobody should be harassed just because they happened to have posted to a particular type of message board.
Yes, Rbj has violated civility standards and before that made a few minor mistakes of procedure and decorum. However, that is no cause for this RfC... especially given that the incivility was clearly provoked by similar misbehaviour from the admin bringing the complaint. Both should apologize to the community (and each other if they are capable of it) for their incivility and let that be the end of it.
Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):
I was content to just endorse Karmafist's summary and be done with this, but Rbj has decided to seek out a vendetta against anyone who disagrees with his point of view (as evidenced by his trolling on my RFA). Anyways, when I initially read Karmafist's summary I was curious what lead up to Rbj's conduct. I thought maybe Rbj was being victimized here over something that was trumped up. But, my investigation turned up quite a bit of evidence of wrongdoing by Rbj, including revert warring on another user's talk page, and generally being a dick.
Rather than paste all evidence here, I'll link to my userspace page where I've got it compiled. Please note that I stopped investigating once the timeline began to coincide with Karmafist's summary above.
Evidence here: User:Locke Cole/RFC/Rbj/Evidence
Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):
It appears Rbj has been conducting a campaign to attempt to stack the discussion at his own RFC. I believe it calls into question this users motivation here, and whether or not he really wants to settle things (resolve the dispute) or whether he just wants to try and one-up Karmafist/Phroziac. Diffs follow. All times are UTC. — Locke Cole • t • c 10:11, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Locke Cole's "evidence": User:Locke Cole/RFC/Rbj/Evidence has multiple errors in time and order of events that presents a misleading and erroneous version of these events. In User_talk:Locke_Cole/RFC/Rbj/Evidence, he blames these errors (i pointed out one, but there are more) on his "timezone offset", but has not corrected them. Particularly since this "evidence" is a purported "timeline", he should withdraw his "evidence" at least until he corrects the mistakes contained therein (including the convenient omissions). This sort of investigative sloppiness is hardly worthy of an aspiring admin (but, hey, he can't be worse than Karmafist). r b-j 04:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Karmafist (and Phroziac, because she signed on the dotted line, too) hope to persuade people that I am violating the precise Wikipedia guidelines and policies that Karma himself regularly violates by piling on a long list charges, hoping that no one examines any closely.
Karma, besides the mendacity of all of these "charges" you really insult the intelligence of people looking into it. You are the WP:DICK. You are the one disrupting Wikipedia to make a point that no editor shall stand up for their rights against you and get away with it. You are the violator. Again, this started when, out of the blue, you started harrassing me, stating falsely that I was harrassing Phroziac when I said nothing to her in 3 hours and let her have the last word. Because I did not accept such abusive behavior from you, you have tried to escalate this. Eventually people will figure this out. They will figure out that you are a mendacious, abusive, bad admin who has misused his admin authority on too many "regular" editors, and this regular editor is not gonna walk away from it anymore. I'm standing up to the bully whether or not he has a badge and gun. r b-j 08:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.
Both editors, but particularly administrator Karmafist, must disengage immediately and cease using Wikipedia to pursue their personal differences. This is an encyclopedia. If you want to have a personal fight, try some forum site.
Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):
Both editors must disengage immediately and cease using Wikipedia to pursue their personal differences. This is an encyclopedia. It is not meant to be used to settle personal disputes. There are many avenues (IM, IRC, email, even a phone call) that should be used to resolve this, not the Wikipedia site.
Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):
This appears to be a feud. I have signed the two previous statements asking both parties to disengage. I will add a few comments. The list of incidents cited by Karmafist was unpersuasive. Much of the evidence consisted of links rather than diffs, and many of the incidents appeared to be reasonable. Posting requests to Jimbo and to admins to look at a controversy is reasonable, and the fact that Karmafist views those as personal attacks is troubling. On reading only the statement of the conduct, I was almost inclined to be willing to sign Rbj's response - - until I read Rbj's response, which is lengthy, tedious, and angry, and does contain personal attacks. Both editors need to chill.
Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):
All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.
In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 18:16, December 28, 2005), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 13:01, 11 July 2024 (UTC).
Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.
This is a summary written by users who dispute this user's conduct. Users signing other sections ("Response" or "Outside views") should not edit the "Statement of the dispute" section. Rbj ( talk · contribs) has conducted a campaign of harrassment,incivility and defammation towards myself, Phroziac, and others.
{Add summary here, but you must use the section below to certify or endorse it. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries, other than to endorse them.} Like a long list of rude and combative USENET regulars on Wikipedia such as Pigsonthewing ( talk · contribs), Jack Sarfatti ( talk · contribs), Barbara Schwarz(now editing under various anon IPs), Sollog, among many others, rbj has basically done nothing else over the past few weeks other than going out of his way to try and hurt other users. This is beyond unacceptable on Wikipedia, and if he cannot change, he cannot remain within the Wikipedia community.
(Provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.)
{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}
(provide diffs and links)
{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}
(sign with ~~~~)
(sign with ~~~~)
This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.
The issue, Karma, is whether or not you, yourself, (as are other admins) is subject to the very rules of civility that you cite. You seem to be convinced that these rules of civility just don't apply to you. Either that or you seem to believe that the threshold of incivility is higher for you (and perhaps other admins) than it is for me and the other lowly civilian lay-editors. Perhaps you're right "that this is a one way vendetta", if that means you get to rape us lay-editors and we just have to smile and take it.
Some of this is cut out from the (now rejected) RFAr:
This began a couple of days ago when I began to notice some bad edits made in very high quantity by Rchamberlain (notably regarding references to the Roman Catholic Church) On December 19 I left a friendly worded note ( "please be more careful with your editing") in which Rchamberlain's response was to blank it and ignore it (I think the meaning of that is clear). So I reverted the blanking (to make sure he understood that there is a complaint he should at least pay some attention to), and he again blanked it. This was repeated a couple more times until I finally got his attention and he left at my talk page the note [23] in which he said:
I was not vandalizing his page. One could argue he was vandalizing his own talk page and was certainly insulting anyone leaving a comment by his blanking. On Talk_page#Etiquette, it says that "Actively erasing personal messages without replying (if a reply would be appropriate or polite) will probably be interpreted as hostile. In the past, this kind of behavior has been viewed as uncivil, and this can become an issue in arbitration or other formal proceedings." Nonetheless, I reverted the critique and added another asking him to choose between being a jerk or dealing with this "i was trying to be polite" because it was pretty obvious asking nice was not getting through to him.
On December 22, I reverted his page blanking a total of 4 times and, evidently Rchamberlain went crying to some admin (I could not find a record of this on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard or any other page, so I do not know precisely how this was done) and just before I was going to get an admin to talk to this obviously closed-minded and POV editor, Phroziac blocked me, for no defined time, for no reason communicated to me (as the history of my talk page will tell). She did not come to me (via any form of communication) in advance to inquire what was going on. She did not come to me with a complaint about what I had done. No warning. No nothing. Suddenly I was blocked from Wikipedia with no explanation. When I figured out who did it (it's not real clear) I asked why and when I was getting unblocked and there was no response.
Eventually after several attempts to communicate with someone, Phroziac emailed me a note ending with "I just didn't think about leaving a notice. Sorry." yet I was still blocked with no prospect of being unblocked. So, for the first time since September 2004, when I created account User:Rbj, I reset my DSL modem (to get a different IP) and I went to NicholasTurnbull (whom I've known and respected from the infamous Bogdanov Affair) page as an anonymous IP (I know I'm not supposed to do that when I'm blocked, but I still maintain that this block was a bad rap), and asked for help. Reasonably soon, I was unblocked and I confronted Phroziac regarding her reasons and justification for:
Her response was to flippantly say " Let's agree to disagree and turn our attention to improving Wikipedia in other ways. Cheers!"
I did not buy it and made it clear to her that I believed that she acted wrongly and she was just blowing me off. Her response was a simple curt taunt:
The meaning of that is clear and smug ("take it up with the ArbCom") and I had made no communication with her at all about it since. I did not respond to the taunt, I just walked away from it. But that was not good enough for Phroziac. Three hours later I get this message from karmafist:
Now who is being uncivil?? Can you guys leave it alone??? Can you admins try not to let your authority go to your heads? Must you demand that I capitulate to Phroziac, even though it's pretty clear she was too lazy to try to pick the correct target before shooting?
Karmafist, did you bother to look into this at all before you left your note telling me that I was harrassing her? Name one sentence, or word, where I was harrassing Phroziac.
Now here is how Karmafest responded to my RFAr, a thinly veiled threat to block me (this, of course, is not "harrassment"):
My point here is that karma still relies on his axiom of me harrassing Phroziac when, in fact, there is no evidence of that. Then, for the crime of "sassing back" to his authority, he leaves:
Evidently, being frank is not being "nice", and admins like Karmafist are simply above reproach. Since Karmafist is an admin, he is allowed to be as nasty as he wants and he doesn't have to justify any assumption of "fact" he makes with any evidence. It also shows him clouding the issue by bringing up USENET (which I made no issue of at all, at this point). My response:
Then, in response, more taunting and abuse from karma under the cover of authority:
Note (besides the hypocrisy, I s'pose Karmafist thinks that raping the rapist is okay, too) the introduction of another lie (a misprepresentation of what I said). I never said anything about "Nobel Prize Winners liking" me. I said that because (once in a while) there are heavyweights (some Nobel) that have posted to the moderated newsgroup, sci.physics.research, that I tread much more lightly there than I do at comp.dsp. Also there's the repeated assumption that I'm a bully ("like Dubya") without any evidence. Is sticking up for oneself being a bully? Again, what words did I say to Phroziac constitute bullying, harrassment, or anything illegal here at Wikipedia? Is it the law here that no one is allowed to question the action of an admin? Is it the law here that we must accept that action as justified? And if we do not, we have broken the rules of civility?
No, that's not a personal attack.
Just FYI: I was one of the editors that was trying to keep that article from desending into a vanity article for the subjects of it. For that "residual radition", I am the "lessor troll"? Gee, thanks.
But I do.
Then comes the patronizing:
At this point, (or actually before), I stopped having any direct contact with either Karmafest or Phroziac since they take any disagreement and turn it around into a personal attack with threats of action under the cover of authority. That, the abuse of editors under the cover of authority, is inexcusable.
One last example of Karma's arragance (he's just too important to have to respond to these trifling charges). From the RFAr:
Again, the assumption of harrassment by me, without a single quote or citing of what words I have said to Phroziac that constitute harrassment. Now he has opened that RFC and has offered no specific citing of words or sentences from me to Phroziac that are harrassment.
Now from the other defunct motion to desysop Karmafist:
Now lessee..., Karmafist views himself as some sort of chivalrous Samurai, and he "will not be shamed in the attempt to" have him desysopped. He says that "do anything to protect Wikipedia," but qualifies that with protection of his ego, his pride which is more important that his protecting Wikipedia. I responded with:
And I stand by those words. The best thing that Karmafist can do to protect Wikipedia is to leave and let us adults get some work done without being harrassed by him. It is too late for any apology from him (of course I no longer expect such) or any recognition of his wrongful actions or his dishonesty or hypocrisy. Karmafist should leave Wikipedia, he costs more than he is worth to the project. And if he doesn't do that voluntarily, he should be desysopped. The fact that he considers himself qualified for ArbCom (and like Ross Perot, he acts like he doesn't really want that power, but his actions refute that notion) is evidence of his sheer self-delusion.
Keep in mind, that I started my RFAr against Karma and Phroziac because after letting go of this (hey, they get to win!), they were evidently dissatisfied with that and 3 hours later wanted to rub my nose in it. That crossed the line. I did not start this RfC, Karma did. Now, they have brought up the newest charge: "stalking" (this is curious since stalking me is precisely the threat that Karmafist made 05:46, 23 December 2005 (UTC)). I have not personally attacked either Karma nor Phroziac, but these are public pages, and if anyone says or writes a falsehood about me in a public space, I have the right to respond and I have. I will not repeat the mistake of Michael Dukakis in 1988 or Kerry in 2004. I will not let the falsehoods slide without a response. To do so allows such a falsehood to evolve in status from damnable lie, to plausible notion, eventually to indisputable gospel truth. Unfortunately, that's what happens when lies are not refuted right away. And Karmafist lies. Among other things, that is what he does.
Karma and Phroziac have made no attempt to justify their rubbing my nose in this 3 hours after I let it go and when I let Phroziac have the last word on it, and Karma has made no specific citing of what particular words or sentences I have said to Phroziac that are abusive or harrassment. They must not be allowed to make such charges without proof. And Karma must not be allowed to think he can harrass whomever he pleases, then resort to the childish accusation of his victim of the very crime he is guilty of. For either to do that is decidedly dishonest and hypocritical.
Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):
This RfC is another of Karmafist's campaigns to destroy 'bad users' who are really just regular users who happened to cross him. Virtually no effort has been made to settle the matter peacefully. The three links above purporting to show efforts to resolve the dispute actually do nothing of the kind... unless I missed the dispute resolution section on threats and insults.
Rbj was blocked by Phroziac for reverting another user's talk page after that user kept blanking it to remove various criticisms (from Rbj and others). This isn't the right way to go about things, but a common mistake when confronted with someone who won't discuss things. Rbj complained to Phroziac about lack of warning/notification, not blocking the other user too, and other aspects of the block in half a dozen or so messages over the course of a day. Karmafist then stepped in to stop the "harassment" of Phroziac with less than helpful threats and condescending messages about Rbj's "troll affliction". This is just a regular user who makes plenty of good contributions mocked and classified as a "troll" by Karmafist over a few minor mistakes/disagreements. He was understandably upset by Karmafist's disregard for civility and has unfortunately responded in kind.
Also, this ongoing incivility and campaign against all members of Usenet by Karmafist has to stop. If a new user made an edit like this with that kind of edit summary nobody would hesitate to call it vandalism. Nor to condemn his 'all Usenet users are trolls' rants which have been going on for some time ( [24] [25] [26] [27] [28]) and continue on this very page. We should not hold admins to a lower standard than we would complete novices... and nobody should be harassed just because they happened to have posted to a particular type of message board.
Yes, Rbj has violated civility standards and before that made a few minor mistakes of procedure and decorum. However, that is no cause for this RfC... especially given that the incivility was clearly provoked by similar misbehaviour from the admin bringing the complaint. Both should apologize to the community (and each other if they are capable of it) for their incivility and let that be the end of it.
Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):
I was content to just endorse Karmafist's summary and be done with this, but Rbj has decided to seek out a vendetta against anyone who disagrees with his point of view (as evidenced by his trolling on my RFA). Anyways, when I initially read Karmafist's summary I was curious what lead up to Rbj's conduct. I thought maybe Rbj was being victimized here over something that was trumped up. But, my investigation turned up quite a bit of evidence of wrongdoing by Rbj, including revert warring on another user's talk page, and generally being a dick.
Rather than paste all evidence here, I'll link to my userspace page where I've got it compiled. Please note that I stopped investigating once the timeline began to coincide with Karmafist's summary above.
Evidence here: User:Locke Cole/RFC/Rbj/Evidence
Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):
It appears Rbj has been conducting a campaign to attempt to stack the discussion at his own RFC. I believe it calls into question this users motivation here, and whether or not he really wants to settle things (resolve the dispute) or whether he just wants to try and one-up Karmafist/Phroziac. Diffs follow. All times are UTC. — Locke Cole • t • c 10:11, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Locke Cole's "evidence": User:Locke Cole/RFC/Rbj/Evidence has multiple errors in time and order of events that presents a misleading and erroneous version of these events. In User_talk:Locke_Cole/RFC/Rbj/Evidence, he blames these errors (i pointed out one, but there are more) on his "timezone offset", but has not corrected them. Particularly since this "evidence" is a purported "timeline", he should withdraw his "evidence" at least until he corrects the mistakes contained therein (including the convenient omissions). This sort of investigative sloppiness is hardly worthy of an aspiring admin (but, hey, he can't be worse than Karmafist). r b-j 04:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Karmafist (and Phroziac, because she signed on the dotted line, too) hope to persuade people that I am violating the precise Wikipedia guidelines and policies that Karma himself regularly violates by piling on a long list charges, hoping that no one examines any closely.
Karma, besides the mendacity of all of these "charges" you really insult the intelligence of people looking into it. You are the WP:DICK. You are the one disrupting Wikipedia to make a point that no editor shall stand up for their rights against you and get away with it. You are the violator. Again, this started when, out of the blue, you started harrassing me, stating falsely that I was harrassing Phroziac when I said nothing to her in 3 hours and let her have the last word. Because I did not accept such abusive behavior from you, you have tried to escalate this. Eventually people will figure this out. They will figure out that you are a mendacious, abusive, bad admin who has misused his admin authority on too many "regular" editors, and this regular editor is not gonna walk away from it anymore. I'm standing up to the bully whether or not he has a badge and gun. r b-j 08:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.
Both editors, but particularly administrator Karmafist, must disengage immediately and cease using Wikipedia to pursue their personal differences. This is an encyclopedia. If you want to have a personal fight, try some forum site.
Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):
Both editors must disengage immediately and cease using Wikipedia to pursue their personal differences. This is an encyclopedia. It is not meant to be used to settle personal disputes. There are many avenues (IM, IRC, email, even a phone call) that should be used to resolve this, not the Wikipedia site.
Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):
This appears to be a feud. I have signed the two previous statements asking both parties to disengage. I will add a few comments. The list of incidents cited by Karmafist was unpersuasive. Much of the evidence consisted of links rather than diffs, and many of the incidents appeared to be reasonable. Posting requests to Jimbo and to admins to look at a controversy is reasonable, and the fact that Karmafist views those as personal attacks is troubling. On reading only the statement of the conduct, I was almost inclined to be willing to sign Rbj's response - - until I read Rbj's response, which is lengthy, tedious, and angry, and does contain personal attacks. Both editors need to chill.
Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):
All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.