Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Gzornenplatz, Kevin Baas, Shorne, VeryVerily/Proposed decision

Temporary injunction

I have to ask: Why are Shorne and VeryVerily being restricted from German and Polish articles? As far as I know, Gzornenplatz is the only editor whose activity in that area has been troublesome. —No-One Jones ^(m) 02:05, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, it won't hurt much being restricted from an area one isn't editing anyway. The real question is, why aren't they restricted from the area they are editing in? It would seem that either the arbitrators haven't done the slightest investigation yet, if they think everyone here is involved in German/Polish articles, or else, they're biased against me. In any case, they haven't bothered to even respond to my earlier note about this. Gzornenplatz 02:16, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

I proposed a temporary order that would restrict Shorne and VeryVerily from editing articles related to the Cold War and communism while arbitration is ongoing. Note that temporary orders are designed to be made fast, and thus only a quick look at the evidence is made. Also note that if mistakes are made in one or more temporary orders, they are fixed quickly. --mav 13:54, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Raul's "findings of fact"

Is Raul going to substantiate his claims?

1. Where have I not attempted dialogue?

   Numerous times on the German/polish articles. I have cited 3 examples in the ruling. →Raul654 09:06, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

   I have very much attempted dialogue on this topic. Maybe you're incapable of recognizing that this was one and the same issue covering 60 articles? And that maybe it would make no sense to use 60 separate talk pages to discuss this? Hmmm? See Talk:Pila for example. By the way, three different people have so far proposed compromises on this issue, and I have accepted all of them. The other side hasn't, yet it is not in arbitration. Gzornenplatz 12:28, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

2. As to the accuracy disputes, they were all the same case, so I can hardly be expected to include the same explanation on 100 talk pages. The standard accuracy template was not very useful for that, so I've now created a specialized one. In any case, I had discussed the issue with the affected user (JohnArmagh) long ago. It's interesting to note that people who knowingly add inaccurate data to Wikipedia will never be censured by this committee, but people who point this out are treated as troublemakers. No arbitrator ever bothered to ask me what's up with those accuracy notices. They just assume bad faith.

   Just because other people break the rules does not make it OK for you to do it. Furthermore, if you are tagging 100 articles as POV disputed, something is seriously wrong and it probably has nothing to do with the articles. →Raul654 09:06, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

   What's seriously wrong is your failure to recognize once again that this is one and the same issue. One user, JohnArmagh, created those 100 pages with inaccurate data. I can't be expected to explain this on 100 talk pages. I have explained it elsewhere. Gzornenplatz 12:28, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

3. As to Jimbo, he never made it clear that he demanded anything from me in his role as god-king; I didn't know one is supposed to blindly follow his mere suggestions. I don't think it's acceptable to "nicely ask" someone to do something, and if it's not done, to block him. In that case he should have said right away "do this or you will be blocked". This is of course his right, even if his demand is completely unreasonable, and I think it is unreasonable to demand from one user to follow the 3RR while it is not equally enforced against anyone else, which is why I respectfully did not follow his "advice". I would have if I had known it was a demand. So, I protest against my not following the 3RR being treated any differently than those of the other parties, just because Jimbo for whatever reason did not ask them to follow the rule.

   See above, re: "Just because other people break the rules does not make it OK for you to do it" →Raul654 09:06, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

   I didn't say it does. I said when other people break the rules and are not held accountable for it it makes it OK for me to do it too. Ask yourself, if the government would no longer pursue any case of tax evasion, and would cover the resulting shortfall in revenue by raising the rates for the remaining honest taxpayers, how many people would go on paying taxes? Would you? Gzornenplatz 12:28, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

4. It should be a relevant finding of fact that I carefully followed the rule for months and only started to disregard it when I (1) noticed that others (such as VeryVerily) disregard it routinely and (2) that despite my protests to this very committee nothing was done against it; on the contrary, my cases were dismissed as frivolous - and yet here and now I'm accused of the same thing I was protesting against months ago! It may be noted in particular, that my complaint against VeryVerily regarding his reverting combined with his total refusal of dialogue (which I'm falsely accused of now!) on Template:Sep11 was dismissed as frivolous by Jwrosenzweig and Raul, with Fred Bauder even suggesting that VeryVerily would have a case against me there, even though that template has now settled, after a wider debate has taken place, exactly on my version! So my edit then (which I had well explained at the time) has been fully vindicated, and thus VeryVerily's behaviour then must be especially condemned (he was reverting ten times within hours, without once editing the talk page). I'm still waiting for the apology from the three arbitrators. Despite that, I have never emulated this behaviour, i.e. not explaining a revert at all. I have discussed and justified everything. VeryVerily routinely flat-out refuses to discuss (see Shorne's constant pleas for him to "raise his dispute on the talk page"). This is an important difference that should be noted. Gzornenplatz 04:49, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Connections between evidence and rulings

I'm afraid that I must partly agree with the sentiment that the rulings and proposals are being a little sloppy with the evidence. For example:

• VeryVerily has no significant history of involvement in German vs. Polish disputes, unlike Gzornenplatz. The closest thing resembling this was the protection of East Germany and Poland's betrayal by the Western Allies a while back, which happened because Turrican was auto-reverting all of VeryVerily's work at the time. It has nothing to do with the naming dispute pursued by Gzornenplatz, and I quite specifically didn't include it in the evidence because the Turrican case is a separate matter. So anyway, like Mirv I don't see the point of applying this particular injunction to VeryVerily.
• Contrary to the current proposed finding of fact, I'm not aware of any evidence that Ruy Lopez has violated the three revert rule. Indeed, if I had found any such evidence, I would have made a point of including Ruy Lopez in the case I originally brought, as I was quite well aware that he was closely involved with Shorne in many of the disputes where Shorne and VeryVerily were violating the rule. It would be more appropriate to address the practice Shorne and Ruy Lopez have adopted of tag-team reverting against VeryVerily, with little attempt at negotiation or sincere discussion, knowing that VeryVerily was under considerable pressure to stop his excessive reverting.

I hope the arbitrators will take these points into consideration. --Michael Snow 21:23, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

By my count, this makes Michael Snow the sixth person to point this out on the relevant talk pages. VeryVerily 21:35, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Of course, "Ruy Lopez" just creates new accounts if the old one accumulated baggage. VeryVerily 21:35, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Findings of fact

Is the "finding of fact" that I "made no attempt at dialogue" based on the same quality of research that held that I had any role at all in the German/Polish naming edit wars? VeryVerily 21:35, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have now added 6 seperate examples of disputes wherein you did not use the talk page - 4 of them in the last 9 days. . →Raul654 09:13, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Ah, he speaks at last to one of us little people! Perhaps if you stick around you can tell me why I'm still banned from German/Polish subjects. Without being rude. VeryVerily 09:49, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC) I should probably be more calm about this. VeryVerily 10:01, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

(post edit conflict with Raul above)

Finally, some specifics to refute point by point! Of course, this all needs to be looked at against the background that by the time many of those disputes started, Shorne was already well-established as a troublemaker and Ruy Lopez as a sockpuppet of an old enemy of Wikipedia:

• VV/213.56.68.29/Ruy Lopez - October 24-25, Opposition to U.S. foreign policy
  • The IP in question is that of Turrican. He vandalized my user page with swastikas and obscenities and a wish that I would die, several times. In fact, I asked the ArbCom for help; the request is still sitting unattended. He stated on my user page that he would revert all of my edits as part of his grudge against me, which he began doing, including both content changes and grammatical fixes. This article is one victim. The notion that I should enter into a "dialogue" in every case of his persistent vandalism is absurd. Ruy Lopez later joined in the reverting, with no justification.
• VV/Shorne - History of Modern Greece - Nov 16 dispute
  • Also a dispute with Turrican. Shorne was a latecomer. There was a dialogue in the edit summaries and then on the talk page. Both Aris Kataris and I made airtight points. In fact, this was a clearcut case.
• VV - Collectivisation in the USSR - October 24 dispute
• VV - Great Purge - Nov 13 dispute
  • Why am I the only one listed, when Shorne and Ruy Lopez were also involved? Oh, why bother.... Anyway, these were basically cases of me getting involved when I saw that others were already carefully explaining their positions in the edit summaries and the talk pages, and Shorne kept reverting, so I lent a hand so that he wouldn't just "win" by force. I only interfered sporadically. Also, Turrican was involved in the usual way.
• Ruy Lopez/Shorne/VV - Communist state - Nov 9 dispute
  • You forgot Gzornenplatz (though not on Nov 9). The comments above apply here too, except for that last dispute, where Ruy Lopez made an obviously unacceptable edit. He knows NPOV well enough to know better. I see no point in entering dialogue with those who make such edits (another recent example [1]).
• Shorne/VV - Human rights in the United States - Nov 9 dispute
  • This is a trickier one. I already voiced my objections to the text long ago. To help work it out, Gazpacho created a sandbox for working out an acceptable version of a section. That was going fine, until Shorne simply reverted all the edits I made to the sandbox, declared the process finished, and insisted that that version in the article was the end result. Obviously, I didn't stand for this.

Hopefully this will put these accusations to rest. VeryVerily 09:32, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC) (updates VeryVerily 09:38, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC))

You are missing the point - I was not listing dispute participants, I was listing participants who never touched the talk page during those disputes. So, on Great purge, for example, all the disputants except you used the talk page (which is why you are the only one listed). Reverting without using the talk page is not helpful in the least. That is what the whole point of the "Does not discuss reverts on talk page" finding of fact and will be the basis for whatever remedy the arbcom chooses to adopt. →Raul654 16:49, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)