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Case Opened on 21:28, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Case Closed on 01:24, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

Involved parties

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Party 1
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Also editing anonymously from 47 IPs as of Aug. 20th. There are more everyday. Examples: This is NOT a complete list:

207.200.116.* block of IP addresses:
In all he has used 14 IPs in the above range as of Aug. 20th. --Nate Ladd 05:31, August 21, 2005 (UTC)
172.19*.* block of IP addresses:
In all he has used 33 IPs in the above range as of Aug. 20th. --Nate Ladd 05:31, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

This list is a copy-and-paste from an RfC on DotSix, at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/DotSix - please see that page for evidence that these are DotSix's sock puppets.

66.42.43.* block of IP addresses:
NOTE: This block is owned by Fidalgo Networking, an ISP in four rural counties of Washington in the USA. Donald Alford's town of Bellingham is in one of those counties.
Party two
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Brief Summary

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User:Donald R. Alford AKA [User:67.182.157.6]] AKA "DotSix" is a chronically disruptive troll who have violated many Wiki policies, stopped progress on several philosophical articles, and behaved obnoxiously.

Statement by party 1

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Please limit your statement to 500 words

The following moved here from above where Party 1 used it to blank the Party 1 identification section:

Dispute resolution
(Requests)
Tips
Content disputes
Conduct disputes

I don't know who took the liberty of writing me in as "Party 1" in this matter, but it certainly was not me. The fact is that I refuse to be a party to wasting any committee time on Banno, Ladd, and Rhobite's world-class elaborate argument _ad hominem_/personal attack/poisoning the well display here. If anything, two parties to a content dispute should, after all other avenues in the dispute-resolution process had been exhausted (and they were not so much as exhausted as skipped entirely in this case - the designated mediators were never even called in), should have agreed to JOINTLY bring a request for arbitration of the content dispute between Banno's side and my side in truth and related articles.

If this is a tribunal to test allegations that someone has committed infractions violating a code, then it should go to a TRIBUNAL, not to an ARBITRATION committee.

Arbitration and criminal trial are two entirely different things.

Arbitration is the process by which two parties to an unresolved dispute JOINTLY submit their differences to the judgment of an impartial person. [6]

A tribunal is a court of justice before which an accused is brought for justice after being provided with a summons citing precisely what sections of the code he is charged with violating, and specifically what particular actions of his are alleged to be violations of the code. [7]

There is a big difference, and I am sure that if you think it through, you will want to establish a separate tribunal where such “criminal” charges are brought, because you don’t want to continue having the arbitration committee contaminated by having to serve as judge, jury, and executioner in quasi-criminal matters, do you, don’t you want it kept free to serve as an impartial body to which two parties to an unresolved CONTENT DISPUTE submit their differences for arbitration? --67.182.157.6 22:03, 22 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]


(removal restored by Calton | Talk 00:13, August 27, 2005 (UTC))

OK it doesn't really matter where you put the statement. Moving it there is fine. But whether you like it or not you are a party to this arbitration. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 00:08, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Banno

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In Mid-June, DotSix commenced a campaign on a range of pages relating to epistemology. This commenced with a series of reverts [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], to a POV version of the page True, followed by his repeatedly attempting to re-direct that page to Wiktionary:truth, despite it being repeatedly explained to him that this was both not possible and not in accord with Wiki policy. DotSix also commenced to label those who disagree with him "obscurantist"[13], and "vandals"[14] and engaging in an "obscurantist Jihad"; he also removed all other comments from the talk page [15]. This set the pattern for the way in which he has conducted himself for the entire period that he has been active on the Wiki. The page True has been protected since [16] 8 April to prevent his vandalism.

The debate then moved to Truth, Knowledge and Epistemology. His ongoing misbehaviour is listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/DotSix. These have included modifying or deleting other users comments from talk pages, including responses to RfCs; archiving material to extinguish discussion and name-calling.

The number of edits makes it impossible to present all the evidence briefly and concisely (to my astonishment, Nathan has produced and summarised an extraordinary quantity of evidence - The Wiki is indebted to his dedication) Here, for example, are some examples from a brief period. As at 22:26, August 6, 2005 (UTC), DotSix continued to vandalise truth by re-directing it to True, and repeatedly placed a brief POV definition there. User:Mysidia , User:Veratien, User:Asbestos, User:Ancheta Wis and user:-Ril- have attempted to discuss the issue with him on his talk page, receiving only an absurd response [17]. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR#User talk:67.182.157.6. User talk:67.182.157.6 has made 6 reverts on Truth with that IP, one with the IP 172.197.72.66 and two with the IP 172.199.120.111, within a nine hour period. Banno 07:45, August 7, 2005 (UTC). He continued to revert truth: [18], [19], [20].

The article truth was protected on 15 August and remains so, in order to prevent the compulsive reverting in which DotSix indulges.

In addition he has attempted to modify Wiki policy document without discussion [21], [22], [23], including placing an NPOV banner on Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. He removed a VfD banner from Wikipedia:Tyranny of the majority, changing the appropriate policy to suit his claim that it should be on the discussion page [24].

He has also been using his sock puppets to circumvent the 3RR policy: for instance, he has reverted epistemology dozens of times, using multiple different IP addresses. 172.196.117.124 (talk · contribs) is a sockpuppet for 67.182.157.6 (talk · contribs) (see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/DotSix) and was used to circumvent the block imposed by Sasquatch [25].

He has attempted to confuse his identity by commencing multiple user accounts, Donald R. Alford (talk · contribs), dotsix (talk · contribs) and the Donald (talk · contribs). Each has been used to edit the others, and each has presented material in the style and tone of DotSix. I hope that ArbCom will be able to examine the IP addresses used to edit these accounts, and am confident this evidence will show that this is but another ruse on the part of the perpetrator.

He has refused to discuss the issue in the arbitration pages despite having edited on the main page page on another issue [26], [27][28]. The deliberate placing of material inthe wrong section [29] is typical of his behaviour, something he has done on talk pages and the RfCs. I believe it to be a deliberate attempt to undermine the process, as I believe is his attempt to tell the committee what arbitration is [30].

As Donald R. Alford (talk · contribs) DotSix placed a request for arbitration against a "Cabal" of which I am the supposed leader. As is his want, he resorted to childish name calling, and his attempt was reverted by arbitrator Raul654 (talk · contribs)three times [31], [32], [33] and by Dmcdevit (talk · contribs) once; that Raul resorted to a warning on his talk page [34]

In summary, his posts are deliberately inflammatory. DotSix refuses to consider or provide evidence or citations to support his position, or to accept consensus. He is deliberately misusing Wiki policies to support his rather singular position, and when that doesn't work, he has attempted to modify policies to suit himself. He has accused those who edit his work of being a "Cabal", and repeatedly pestered those who have attempted to correct his misconceptions with unjustifiable accusations of bias or malice. He has demonstrated no willingness to enter into mediation, or even reasonable discussion, despite making demands on others to do so. He has refused to participate in these arbitration proceedings.

In fairness to DotSix, who it seems will not defend himself here, I would like to point out that I have written a rather scathing attack on his behaviour at talk:epistemology.

Although I have several times attempted to support DotSix by pointing out resources he might use, [35], [36], and had supported the idea that he might be induced to behave in a civilised fashion [37], all such attempts have been ignored or rebuffed. I am now of the opinion that the only way to proceed is to block this user. The behaviour he exhibits is sociopathic, and has certainly been detrimental to the editing of the articles involved. I believe that permitting him to participate on the Wiki in any form will inevitably result in further difficulties for genuine editors.

At 20:54, August 28, 2005 (UTC), he has been blocked under his IP 67.182.157.6,[38] but has made six edits since then using 172.198.185.228 [39]. He is taking ArbCom for a ride. Banno 20:54, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

The ride continues: he has made two dozen edits outside of the injunction in the few hours since it came in to force. Banno 10:24, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Rhobite

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I've tried to suggest to DotSix that we mediate this dispute, but these requests have gone unanswered [40] [41]. I recently proposed a truce to DotSix: I would strike through my endorsement of his RFC and pledge to stop commenting on his behavior, if he stopped removing VfD tags and editing policy pages, among other requests [42]. His response to my proposal was ambiguous [43], but just today he continued to remove the VfD tag from Wikipedia:Tyranny of the majority [44], and he rewrote a section of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view [45]. This indicates that he has rejected my proposed truce.

In short, DotSix believes that he is allowed to edit the NPOV policy because it exhibits some logical fallacy. I've focused on this behavior because it's the worst thing he's done, but he's also removed other users' comments, mislabeling them as personal attacks. He's broken the 3RR many times, and he declines to get a user account. Many editors on Talk:Epistemology and Talk:Truth have tried to discuss his removal of content, but his responses are superficial: He usually just names some logical fallacies, calls everyone an "obscurantist", and says things like "Comment on content, not on the contributor" over and over again. There's no way to negotiate with a user like this it's futile. Rhobite 17:32, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Nate Ladd

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Donald Alford has proved himself chronically unreasonable. He began namecalling with only his 8th edit. He has not once responded constructively to any disagreement in his entire history on Wikipedia. His repetoire of responses is limited to (1) hurling false accusations, (2) namecalling, (3) sarcasm, (4) repeating the edits that were rejected, and (5) repeating the behavior for which he was admonished.

Dozens of times he has accused other editors of committing fallacies. It has been explained to him repeatedly how he has misunderstood the nature of these fallacies and why these accusations are not legitimate. He does not try to refute these explanations, he just ignores them.

His ego has lead him to believe he has detected a fallacy in a definition of "knowledge" that no philospher in 2500 years of Western civilization has seen. When the errors in his thinking are explained to him (over and over again), he just ignores the explanation and repeats the edit. He has been invited to cite even a single philospher who agrees with him. He has failed to do this and repeats the edit. He has repeatedly deleted long passages from philosophical articles and replaced them with simple-minded definitions of controversial philosophical terms, declaring as he does so, that there is really no philosphical problem: he has found a simple answer that has eluded all philosophers in history.

His childishness prevents him from conceding any imperfection, no matter how trivial, in any of his behavior or edits. When it was pointed out to him that his description of Wiki NPOV policy was in error, he unilaterally changed the policy page so that it would conform to his description.

Even after the RfC on his behavior was started, his primary response has been to repeat the objectionable behavior the RfC describes. I mean literally repeating: deleting the same text from the same articles and talk pages. Obviously, he has no interest in actually resolving any issues.

His hypocrisy is so great, it borders on the comical: (1) He replaced someone else’s comment from a talk page with a sentence of his own. When a admin reverted this, he complained … wait for it … that the admin had deleted his comment from a talk page. (2) He put his first response to the RfC on his conduct outside of the Response section. In other words, he edited a section that he, as the subject of the RfC, was not supposed to edit. When his response was moved to the Response section by another user, he complained … that the other user had edited a section he was not supposed to edit.

His ego, his childishness, his obnoxiousness, his ignorance, his hypocrisy, and his utter disrespect for any views in conflict with his own make him impossible to negotiate with and impossible to reason with. Virtually all progress on the philosophical topics he edits has stopped dead since he became active in early July. --Nate Ladd 21:48, August 5, 2005 (UTC)


Statement by Jules.lt

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I have been confronted only to User:Adrigo, but I see no reason not to trust the more experienced users here when they say he is DotSix, and I'm not interested enough to go and look for the evidence. Mostly, I must confess, my role in this case was that of a troll-feeder, as I have been pointed out in my talk page. This had happened to me on several occasions, albeit on considerably smaller scales, especially in the preceding paragraph of Talk:Agnosticism ("129.24.95.224's view on agnosticism"), which I consider I should mention because Adrigo made a minor edit in there. I think I learned my lesson and this shouldn't happen again (much).

My troubles with this user mostly happened on Talk:Agnosticism, where he began questionning my view on a phrase I thought should be included in the article. He quoted Huxley, called my thesis "the height of theist bias" (I'm an atheist agnostic) and called my argument an "ad ignorantiam" fallacy [46]. As I'm writing this, I realize that on this occasion he edited a header I had written, which is fine by me, but puts into perspective the fact that he later accused me[47] of "editing his comments" when I did the same[48] for a header he had created on Talk:Atheism. I can accept that at first he called my argument an "ad ignorantiam" fallacy: he might have believed it and so I answered to defend myself. The allegations about my beliefs I'm a bit more touchy about, but I can tolerate what I feel as an mild insult when it could be considered otherwise by its author.

Still, I overreacted and not only defended myself against his accusations, but also flooded the talk with quotes supporting my view. A series of strong (and long) arguments on my part followed by Adrigo's restating of his thesis, somewhat reworded, sometimes with some weak argument but usually only with a repetition of his initial Huxley quote (which I later showed to be a misinterpretation).

In the end, one problem at the core of our disagreement still emerged: He defined theism as the belief that "God might exist". This goes against every dictionnary, as has been reconfirmed by the general consensus on both Talk:Theism and Talk:Atheism. These confirmations happened because Adrigo inserted that view on Talk:Atheism[49] and I objected[50]; he responded in his usual fashion [51]. Also, as I pointed out Wikipedia's definition of Theism, Adrigo edited it to fit his views[52]. A revert war ensued, where I reverted only once. He re-reverted, with "Jules, your side cannot unilaterally control the content of every article in Wikipedia, you have to negotiate with the other side to make sure all points of view are fairly represented in each article"[53] as the edit comment. I left Theism for other users to protect and asked for evidence supporting his view in Talk:Theism[54].

I tried to keep the flaming to the minimum and quickly found myself away from wikipedia for the week-end, after that. When I came back, as I hoped, the problem had been "resolved" (i.e Adrigo's edits reverted and the case taken here). I thank you all here for that.

I must say that I consider that this user might (although now I'm not so sure) believe what he says in his edits, even if his methods are bad and his arguments (when any) faulty, because I found a clear coherence in the (in my view absurd) view that he expressed on Agnosticism, Atheism, Theism and the associated talk pages.

Jules LT 07:14, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I increasingly believe that User:Ehrlich is a sockpuppet of Adrigo/DotSix.

  • He has the same peculiar theses (See what he says on Talk:Atheism:[55][56]; my explanations:[57][58])
  • He is a very recent user who nevertheless knows wikipedia policies well
  • He edits the same pages as the injoined user did (contributions)

additional evidence in Agnosticism that made me write this in the first place:

Jules LT 19:45, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by party 2

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Please limit your statement to 500 words


Preliminary decisions

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Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (4/0/1/0)

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Final decision

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Principles

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NPOV

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1) All reader content on Wikipedia should be written from a Neutral Point of View

Passed 5-0


Modifying other users' comments

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2) Other than for archiving or formatting purposes, modifying another user's comments is something that should be done only in exceptional circumstances.

Passed 5-0


Users expected to heed warnings

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3) At the very least, users are expected to respond to administrators' warnings about improper behavior. Users are generally expected to heed such warnings.

Passed 5-0


Wikipedia is not a dictionary

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4) Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Dictionary entries belong on the Wiktionary sister-project.

Passed 5-0


Edit warring considered harmful

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5) Edit warring is considered harmful.

Passed 5-0


Findings of fact

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Edit warring on Philosophy articles

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1) Starting before, and continuing on even after the Arbitration Committee's temporary editing prohibition, DotSix and his anonmyous sockpuppets edit-warred repeatedly to redirect various philosophy-related articles to his own dictionary-definition stub articles. [66][67][68]

Passed 5-0

DotSix has contributed little of value

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2) There is strong evidence to indicate that DotSix has made few useful contributions to Wikipedia [69]

Passed 5-0

Vandalism

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3) In the course of his editing on Wikipedia, DotSix has made left malicious comments on several users's talk pages [70][71]

Passed 5-0


Remedies

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One year ban

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1) DotSix, and all his sockpuppets, are banned from Wikipedia for a period of one year.

Passed 4-0 with 1 abstention


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