User:Tznkai/desk/Appeal of VeryVerily
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Working on VV's statement and making notes as I go
Contents |
[edit] Statement by VeryVerily
- commented,Not important to the facts at hand
However, late last year (2004) I got simultaneously entangled with a couple very bad users who were alternately stalking me, defacing articles I watched, and vandalizing my user page and my edits. One had been such a problem that even Jimmy Wales called him a vandal. Long story short, Michael Snow's case lumping us together (and the AC did not seem to tell us apart) ended in a lump ban and probation of us, though I'd rebutted the evidence against me (see below).
- asserts that VV succssfully rebutted evidence against him
- commented, not important to the facts at hand
[edit] Evidence
I have broken this into a few parts to cover key points.
[edit] Turrican
Turrican is a vandal who began attacking me in October 2004. I was punished me being his victim.
2004 Oct 4 - [1] Turrican threatens to start reverting everything I write, a threat he proceeds to implement over a period of weeks. I will spare you the wait for the punchline: he is never sanctioned at all for this, but I am banned for reverting back "without discussion".
- Argument for mitigating circumstances?
2004 Oct 6 - [2] Turrican defaces my user page with a swastika image, profanities, personal attacks, and a wish that I would die (arguably a death threat). Again, he is never sanctioned at all for this, and instead I am banned.
- same as above.
(Because I will no doubt be accused of somehow inviting this abuse, I will tell what he calls "destroying" his articles. Basically, he added two out-of-place rants, one to History of Modern Greece calling Papadopoulos a "Colonel,CIA agent and Nazi collaborator", language obviously unfitting a neutral encyclopedia, which I at first removed and then settled for dispute-tagging, and another to History of Italy, where I simply added a dispute notice immediately and he began a long edit war to remove it [3] (yes, adding a dispute notice is destroying his articles). But even if he were right it would not justify this vandal spree.)
2004 Oct 6 - [4] [5] Turrican abandons use of the account and begins using a series of open proxies to carry out his vandalism and auto-reverting. Naturally, I revert back (when others don't do it for me).
- argument for mitigating circumstances
- Pull wording for 3RR policy
- irrelivant inner circle argument commented out
2004 Oct 6-16 - Just look at this [9] as an example of the lunacy. And before you go off on me for excessively reverting, remember I'm repelling a vandal stalker. What was I supposed to have done, stopped editing Wikipedia? All my edits were being reverted.
- VV reverts the same edit several times [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]with the edit summary "RV vandal" the difference is that of capitalization. From Wikipedia:Vandalism:
-
- Bullying or Stubbornness
- Some users cannot come to agreement with others who are willing to talk to them on an article's talk page, and repeatedly make changes opposed by everyone else. This is a matter of regret—you may wish to see our dispute resolution pages to get help. However, it is not vandalism.
- Harassing or Making Personal Attacks
- We have a clear policy on Wikipedia of no personal attacks, and harassing other contributors is not allowed. Some forms of harassment are also clear cases of vandalism, such as home page vandalism. However, harassment is not in general vandalism.
- Bullying or Stubbornness
- During the ten day duration of this edit conflict (Oct 6 --> Oct 16) there are five other editors that edited the page.
- User:Hadal (RVs anon edit) [19],
- User:Michael Snow (protection and unprotection)[20][21]
- User:Piotrus (adding a "see here")[22]
- User:Texture (Restoring above edit) [23]
- User:Mackensen (RVs anon edit) [24]
2004 Oct 6 - I bring Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Turrican_and_VeryVerily to appeal to the AC for help. I am specific about the charges: Turrican is using open proxies to revert all my edits and vandalize my user page.
- doesn'tseem to lead anywhere although it is true
2004 Oct 7 - Things are looking up, as the AC now considers an injunction. Needless to say, it's a false hope, and this injunction never materializes.
- argument towards mitigating circumstances?
Over the next couple of weeks, I repeatedly post updates of the IPs Turrican is using and issue more pleas for action to be taken. I am ignored, while meanwhile the other case against me brews....
2004 Nov 18 - [25] Back in the Michael Snow case, Raul654 posts his "finding of fact" that I've been "reverting without discussion", and backs it up with six examples. Four of the six were among these Turrican-targetted articles. I explain this in detail on the talk page, and Raul654 airily dismisses me as "missing the point", referring only to a minor element of my defense (people who have engaged in E-mail arguments will recognize this "tactic"). And there it is, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Gzornenplatz,_Kevin_Baas,_Shorne,_VeryVerily#Findings_of_Fact, unanimously passed defiantly unaltered.
- Great Purge Turrican unrelated. It is the opinion of this clerk that there is sufficient evidence fit the qualifications for edit war. VV edited several times with edit summaries including RV:white washing and other possibly inflamitory comments.
2004 Dec 25 - [28] Mav proposes closing the Turrican case, saying (a) that the account Turrican's last edit was Oct 5 and (b) the other two involved parties have asked it be closed. But.... (a) The complaint very clearly states that Turrican is using open proxies and not his account at all; (b) there is only one other party, me (hence "Turrican and VeryVerily"), and I did not ask for it to be closed. Then three more arbitrators sign on in agreement! And it's closed!
- Closed on the basis that turrican is not around.
2004 Dec 27 - The final insult. [29] Raul654 writes that my case against Turrican is closed "in light of" the decision in Michael Snow's case.
- Hyperbole commented out.
[edit] "Ruy Lopez" etc.
A full listing of all this person's misdeeds would exhaust us all, so I'm only throwing in a few sample points. But also I want the lie put to the claim that I made no attempt to peaceably resolve the issues here. Opting for simply rapidly reverting this user's destruction was the end of a long process. I'm not the only one who feels this way; consider Adam Carr's comments [30], "let those of us familiar with the problem deal with it". This was drawn out when latecomer Fred Bauder presumptively stated I was not discussing my edits adequately [31], blissfully unaware of the long history.
2004 Jan 10 - [32] This was his first edit to hit my radar under his early account "LanceMurdoch".
2004 Jan 16 - [33] I bring him to the attention of the community using the page ancestral to RfC (it's been moved here since). Note my tone: The very first words I use are "This user is making useful contributions to some articles, but...". Does this sound like I want to pick a fight, as various ignoramuses later accuse me of? Anyway, a few people chime in, but nothing is done.
2004 Feb 10 - [34] A sample of one of his edits as "HectorRodriguez". Although it's not as bad as his blatant POV edits, it is more indisputably vandalism.
2004 Feb 10 - [35] RickK starts an RfC, with lots of details. I add in stuff about some of his other destruction. 172 absurdly defends him as a "new user" who should be coddled, though it is obvious he is a sockpuppet and up to no good. As for the terrorism discussion, it is worth noting "Ruy Lopez" voted three times in a poll using his sockpuppets. [36] No action is taken.
2004 Feb 16 - [37] "Hector" mangles and attempts to move an article. Although there is no trace of it, I could not move it back without an admin (Jiang)'s assistance because as I recall the redirect was fake-edited. Note his edit is nonsensical as (a) the article is about PBA not the distinct concept of late-term abortion and (b) it's written to be about "PBA", as witnessed by the sentence "The use of the term partial-birth abortion is a central part of the debate" which was changed to "The use of the term late term abortion is a central part of the debate"! (I bring this up because the AC punished a user for this moving practice recently.)
2004 Mar 7 - [38] A new account, Richardchilton, is used to create mischief. I refer you here to simply his own account of his behavior. He credits me with figuring out his sockpuppetry but says he will use IP-switching and so on to avoid detection. He disdains the "rules of Wikipedia" and says he has been getting away with simply deleting large chunks of text "wholesale" he doesn't like. Both I and (e.g.) User:The Anome see this as a declaration of war on Wikipedia.
2004 Mar 3 - [39] A rewind in time to when I first posted the RfC. Note again I am trying to use community channels to resolve this. [[User:Tim Starling]] calls him a troll and posts IRC logs. Others (Jamesday, PMA) oppose his behavior. This gives me hope that action will be taken, but people lose interest, and the destruction continues.
2004 Mar 3 - [40] A little example: "Richardchilton" adds a rant to the "common names" policy about "corporate media" and so on. He then goes to the Khmer Rouge page and cites this supposed "policy"! [41] (Jamesday catches on two edits later.)
2004 Mar 8 - User:Halifax is created for purposes of attacking Ed Poor. See contributions.
2004 Mar 13 - Writes the rant "Wikipedia Watch" [42].
2004 Mar 18 - He creates User:Hanpuk, and resumes a major attack on the Khmer Rouge page. I refer you to the page history, I'm not going to write it all up. Practically that article's whole history is his attacks on it, and we've filled several talk page archives trying to deal with him.
2004 Mar 26 - As an example, I still continue to try to work productively with this user in talk pages [43], but I soon realize all he does is disappear for a while then come back and try again hoping no one is looking (I can show more examples of this).
Note that during all this I continue to be a tremendously productive user, making all sorts of unrelated edits while dealing with this mess, as well as several other problem users.
2004 Apr 19 - He attempts to endorse an RfC attack on me by using his sockpuppets to meet the "2 person threshold" rule, a clear policy violation. It's deleted, so I refer you to this discussion: [44].
I'll stop now. I believe I've established he's a menace, and that I did all the "right" things to address this. And this is just the first couple of months! This goes on for nine more months while I'm still editing and maintaining a watch on key pages. By the time the AC blithely dances in, many of us have realized that only vigilantly reverting his endless identical edits makes him go away. Look at Talk:Khmer Rouge and archives to see others saying the same thing.
Although I do not follow him as closely now, I see he continues to insert bogus information into and remove good information from numerous articles, using the same tactics as ever, such as creating sockpuppets to circumvent revert restrictions, and continues to be a headache to numerous users.
Even Mr. Wales referred to him as a vandal on the mailing list, and I assume you all witnessed the ensuing exchange.
Many users have personally complimented me on my handling/investigation of this. [45] [46] (others I remember but can't find right now, see my talk page)
For nearly two years this user has rampaged about the project wrecking articles, with virtually no administrative sanction. The one opportunity the AC had to review the matter, it opted to punish the one user who had (as of then) done the most to combat his destruction. What were you thinking?
Finally, some try to characterize this as a "left vs right" issue. I hope I am not alone in not regarding denying Khmer Rouge atrocities as a "left" position in the English-speaking world.
[edit] Third-party evaluations
I have been repeatedly complimented on my civility: 2004 May 23 - Stan Shebs says I should be nominated for "WikiSainthood" due to my extraordinary restraint in the face of abuse [47]. Also from that month [48].
2004 Oct 14 (Mediation) - A groundless RfC filed against me by Neutrality and Wik/Gzornenplatz (possibly ancestral to the RfAr) went to mediation with [[User:Dante Alighieri]] as mediator. Unlike the arbitrators, DA clearly spent a lot of time thumbing through the edits to see what was what, and issued a long summary on the mediation page. I regard it as clearing me on basically every point [49]: "Frankly, I don't see VV's guilt here"; "I see VV willing to compromise"; "I don't see any clear cut edits that show that VV operates with a lack of good faith". This is as I would expect from any impartial and informed analysis. DA later made several comments on the arbitration talk page opposing the sanctions against me.
AC talk pages - Several users (Everyking, DA, Boraczek, Trey Stone) including even Michael Snow who brought the case and Stargoat who I'd often wrangled with show up to oppose the AC's actions and/or put it in a good word for me. It's not clear the AC bothered to read these.
[edit] The three-revert rule
I was originally going to put something long about the history of the 3RR, but I will summarize. It wasn't policy when I started editing (it took ages for Wik to be put on revert parole), and to my knowledge it never became policy until about a year ago. There was the quickpolls phase before that, and I can tell you what happened to me there, which is pretty appalling, but at the time of my arbitration' it was dead-letter law and furthermore the meta page said that the penalty for breaking it (a "guideline") was maybe the imposition of a three-revert parole [50], nothing anywhere close to what I was subjected to (see ex post facto). Dante Alighieri made well this point [51].
I do not know how to close the gap with the AC here. Their position was that if I was a "good" user I would have obeyed this guideline, dead or not. Mine was that in the absence of such a rule occasional heavy reverting was a useful tool to repel persistent attacks. But perhaps the AC can step away from its absolutism and at least agree that this was a good-faith difference in impression. That the 3RR is now enforced at any rate renders this debate academic, so there is no need to "make an example of me".
It goes without saying that I was generally reverting vandals, stalkers, and wreckers. Their edits (such as many cited here) were often manifestly indefensible and required no "discussion".
[edit] Block by Neutrality
The article Collectivisation in the USSR had been ruined by Ruy Lopez while I was enjoined from editing it. Adam Carr took one look at it and declared, "This article is an utter disgrace." [52] After my ban lapsed I attempted to restore some factual content. Neutrality then blocked me for "reverting". The block was illegitimate for the following reasons:
(a) Neutrality was the author of an RfC against me; admin actions should be undertaken by neutral editors. (b) Neutrality was/is an arbitrator, and arbitrators should not enforce AC rulings. (c) I did not revert. I did copy in some old paragraphs, but left most of the article untouched. By this standard, anyone offering any kind of compromise involving past versions could be considered to be "reverting". (d) Perhaps above all, this was not a simple content dispute; I was fixing garbage.
Although it's a minor issue, the wrongness of this needs to be underscored.
Curiously, Neutrality recently indefinitely blocked a slightly disruptive Holocaust denier and wished to commend his opponent. But apparently he would coddle a hugely disruptive denier of communist atrocities and block his opponent.
[edit] Misc
I've already covered much of the case, but some details remain.
Even Michael Snow, who brought the case but later opposed the penalties, noted the arbitrators were being "sloppy with the evidence" [53] (in a section entitled "Connections between evidence and rulings"; in other words, there weren't any).
Seven arbitrators voted for an injunction banning me from editing on German or Polish subjects. Why? Because they mixed me up with Gzornenplatz! Not one of them even bothered to check up. This total carelessness did not ever change. I protested the injunction on the talk page, and Raul wrote me a very rude note about my editing "on those topics" [54] (this before the case had been decided!). I suggested on his talk page that he apologize to me for these remarks after the error was pointed out, and he ignored me.
I have omitted mention of Shorne, as I think he is already well discredited. (He is even more manic than Ruy Lopez.) But here is an article edit [55] and a typical "edit plus summary to deceive passers-by" [56] and an edit to a talk page (he was revert-warring to remove my comments) [57] (scan the next couple of edits). These are the sorts I was dealing with. Why in the world the AC chose not to see this I don't know.
I followed the news of the tsunami very closely last year, but despite my extensive knowledge and editing skills I was "banned" from contributing. This is almost a reductio ad absurdum against the AC's decision.
I'll add that I often fought off troublemakers, too many to list (for example I was watching many India-related articles which few English-speaking Wikipedians would recognize were being POV'd by a Hindu nationalist extremist; I do not know if those articles have been ruined since my departure). I know I've made mistakes in my tenure here and perhaps was at times too aggressive when dealing with these frustrating nogoodniks, though no evidence of this was presented, but I have always sought to make this an informative, neutral, high-quality encyclopedia, and no mistake I made was as large as the ArbComm's. Driving me away was not just wrong but not in Wikipedia's interests.
Well I have said enough for now. I hope it is enough to make my point.
Sincerely, VeryVerily 21:50, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
