Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests

Arbitration Committee proceedings recent changes purge this page view or discuss this template Case requests Currently, there are no requests for arbitration. [edit] Open cases Case name Links Evidence due Prop. Dec. due Palestine-Israel articles 5 (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 21 Dec 2024 11 Jan 2025 [edit] Recently closed cases (Past cases) No cases have recently been closed (view all closed cases). Clarification and Amendment requests Currently, no requests for clarification or amendment are open. Arbitrator motions Motion name Date posted Arbitrator workflow motions 1 December 2024

The last step of dispute resolution is a request for arbitration. Please review other avenues you should take. If you do not follow any of these routes, it is highly likely that your request will be rejected. If all other steps have failed, and you see no reasonable chance that the matter can be resolved in another manner, you may request that it be decided by the Arbitration Committee.

• Arbitration policy
• Past case precedents
• Administrator enforcement requested (shortcut WP:RFAr/AER)
• Developer help needed
• Standing orders
• Arbitration template
• Contact the Arbitration Committee

Please place comments on the talk page, not here.

Structure of this page

The procedure for accepting requests is described in the Arbitration policy. Important points:

• Be brief. Put a quick list of the nature of the complaints. Place the request itself on this page, rather than a subpage, but if you need to, link to detailed evidence in the standard template format elsewhere.
• You are required to place a notice on the user talk page of each person you lodge a complaint against. You should confirm this by providing diffs of the notification at the bottom of your complaint.
• Please sign and date at least your original submission with "~~~~."
• New requests to the top, please.

New requests

When adding new requests, please give them an appropriate title as well as a subsection for arbitrator's votes.

User:Barthelemy

Barthelmy has redirected [[1]] several users' talk pages to a pornographic image. Request that he be banned, along with his IP address in case he tries doing it again.

Also, if it would be possible, delete his changes from the history archives of the users' pages. --DrBat 18:04, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

He is banned. He will almost certainly try to do it again because he's a returning vandal we've been dealing with for a week or two. He is almost certainly using a dynamic IP or else the ban would have stuck. No arbitration is needed on this, at least. As for removing his changes, you'd want to contact a developer about that. Again, though, no arbitration is needed - this is pretty much open and shut. Snowspinner 18:07, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Comments and Votes by Arbitrators (0/2/0/0)

• Reject. We no longer have anything to do here in light of Snowspinner's comment. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 18:46, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)
• Reject. He can be permanently banned right now. Neutrality^talk 19:13, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)
• Reject - it's been dealt with - David Gerard 00:46, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

User:Snowspinner

In the Everyking 2 case listed below, a request was made by anthony and agreed with by Everyking that my rate of bringing cases to arbitration be looked at. Everyking made allegations of overzealousness and tyranny. Although I dispute these allegations, I do not think it's an unreasonable request to look at them. However, for the sake of sanity and discrete cases, I request that the arbitration matters against me be considered separately from the Everyking case. So, in an act of inspired lunacy, I request arbitration against myself. Snowspinner 16:27, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

The arbitrators have a finite amount of time to work on arbitration cases. If Everyking and Anthony really want to have them look at this they should submit it themselves. silsor 16:40, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

To be clear, they did so, but I think the case would be clearer as a separate case. (The situation seems analagous to Netoholic. Perhaps my conduct is relevent to my case against Everyking, but it's probably clearer if it's dealt with on its own.) That said, the arbcom should feel free to reject this one. I won't mind. ;) Snowspinner 16:45, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

I made no such request. Everyking 16:56, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

My apologies, then. It seemed as though you were agreeing with anthony and expanding on his complaint. Snowspinner 17:09, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not have an office of "prosecutor" who can look around and see if there are any situations out there that merit a charge, prepare such a charge, and put it forward. We rely either on direclty impacted parties or on ordinariy wikipedians to bring complaints. If Snowspinner wants to put it upon himself to ferret out cases, put evidence together and put charges before the ArbComm that's his right. AndyL 17:24, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In response to Grunt, this case should probably be considered to be being brought on behalf of other users - Anthony, certainly, and potentially Everyking and Netoholic. And I expect John Gohde would be interested in this... actually, there's a lot of people who have accused me of sysop abuse. (That said, I still notified myself, and apologize for failing to do so earlier.) Snowspinner 18:51, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

I wish to offer my services as an ad-hoc Mediator between Snowspinner and himself! I'm positive I can get both of them to see eye-to-eye. El_C 01:30, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Comments and votes by Arbitrators (0/3/0/0)

• Reject. We don't deal with an individual's potential individual problems. Also, disputant has not been notified of request. :) -- Grunt 🇪🇺 18:47, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)
• Reject. Has not gone through earlier steps in the dispute resolution process" ;) Neutrality^talk 18:58, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)
• Reject - we're not that keen on excess work! Besides, we fully expect the trouble load and hence case load to increase with the remarkable popularity of the site ... - David Gerard 00:46, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

User:William M. Connolley

User William M. Connolley (WMC) strongly pushes his POV with systematic removal of any POV which does not match his own. His primary tactic for doing this is to use aggressive revert warring with no regard for discussion to establish consensus. This behavior has degraded a large number of articles into a battle of attentiveness, where the state of the article is determined entirely by who is around their computer to revert the articles most frequently, with no apparent aim of convergence around NPOV. William M. Connolley refuses to form consensus, accept compromise, or allow multiple perspectives to exist on controversial topics. His views on climate science are singular and narrow, which would not be at all a problem if he did not make it his ideal goal for Wikipedia to singularly represent his own view at whatever cost. Compromise is nearly impossible, because at best he treats compromise [2] as a delay until he can revert everything back to how he wants it again [3] [4]. The behaviors he has engaged in have resulted in the loss [5] to Wikipedia of a large number of good editors in the climate area, who left after finding his domination of those areas extremely difficult (or worse) to deal with.

If you want to set a standard of behavior for Wikipedia as a place where editorial consensus can be reached through mutual cooperation, then I ask you to take some sort of action now, because the climate related articles on Wikipedia are not in that state. I and many other editors interested in the topics, have better things to do with our time than sit around trying to revert pages to make sure our contributions aren't all systematically removed. The only cure for this is cooperative consensus, and we don't have it because WMC refuses to participate. Edit warring on every edit is not a solution, and I ask you to put a stop to it. — Cortonin | Talk 01:36, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Cortonin

There has already been an RfC on WMC here: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/William M. Connolley, with a long list of evidence, in which most of the behaviors described remain unresolved. Mediation has been skipped since WMC has indicated here that he is unwilling to undergo mediation.

He engages in defamatory edits regarding prominent individuals and groups he does not like, such as Michael Crichton, Bjorn Lomborg, Nils-Axel Morner [6], the SEPP [7], S. Fred Singer [8], and Frederick Seitz [9]. He engages in similar disrespect toward Wikipedia contributers whose edits have contradicted one of his POVs, often accusing them of ignorance, alternate motivations, or inability to read, with a confrontational war-zone approach of describing editors as "winning" and "losing" [10]. He tells editors he disagrees with that their contributions are simply politics and POV, and that he is the only one who knows anything about the topics, but while doing this he systematically and repeatedly removes published science and the views of prominent individuals which contradict his POV [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22].

WMC has been previously temporarily banned for poor Wikiquette [23].

You can expect him to reply that he is the noble champion of science against the hoards of politically motivated opinionated non-scientists. Please do not be taken in by this argument. I and others he rejects are scientists, and he by no means exclusively represents our views. We are not the uneducated masses, and he is not our intellectual savior [24] [25].

My dispute is with the inability to achieve inclusive NPOV on climate related articles and with the aggressive, confrontational behaviors which prevent the formation of editorial consensus. I bring this up only in the hope of smoothing out the process of contributing to climate related articles. Thank you very much for your time. — Cortonin | Talk 01:36, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(Notification diff: [26])

Counter evidence from William M. Connolley

Cortonin notes the previous RFC he instigated. What he fails to mention is that I "won" that RFC. I strongly urge the arbitrators to read the numerous compliments I received there for the quality of my contributions to the global warming and related pages. I also think the recent Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/JonGwynne is worth mentioning.

My "ban" for violating wikiquette was essentially an arbitrary decision by Ed Poor: as a one hour ban it was over before I noticed it had occurred; I feel it is deeply regrettable for Cortonin to try to use it in evidence.

Cortonin makes vague and unspecific allusions to his scientifc credentials; sadly his edits do not display these. In terms of climate science, he is deeply and unapologetically ignorant: he has attempted, for example, to insert references to mesopheric water vapour as though they had some great relevance to climate change. Almost none of his edits survive in the pages, because they aren't any good. Naturally, he finds this frustrating.

Cortonin has, by aggressive pushing of his own skeptic POV, caused damage to the various global warming related articles and prevented progress. For example, he has added a NPOV tag to the global warming page with the edit comment: This page is in NPOV dispute until it contains description of solar variation theories and climate model criticisms - which is to say, he is abusing it: he is insisting on his own content, no matter what other editors may wish. And no other editors have supported him. He always edits from an overly skeptical POV, attempting to minimise the affects of CO2: for example, on Greenhouse gas, he attempted to insert [27]: apparently unaware that asserting a 95% role for water vapour is absurd, and unable to realise that the page he was linking to was nonsense.

Note that I have not formally rejected mediation. I don't think it likely to succeed, however, and I've said that.

Cortonin brings up Michael Crichton, Bjorn Lomborg, Nils-Axel Morner, SEPP and others. He is unable to realise that MC is a writer of potboilers, and not an acceptable scientifc reference; that Morner is essentially a one-man-band whose web pages deceptively imply that he is prez of the INQUA commission when he isn't; and that SEPP is something other than a propaganda site.

Cortonin states that I have been reverting against a great many other editors. A check of the histories will show that this is not true: the "problem child" is him.

Having said all this, I don't specifically ask you to reject arbitration, because I feel there *is* a case to answer, but against Cortonin.

Addendum: oops, I missed Cortonin's The behaviors he has engaged in have resulted in the loss to Wikipedia of a large number of good editors in the climate area.... I know you're unlikely to take this at face value, but let me point out that: AFAIK 2 editors have left: one the unlamented JonGwynne (how Cortonin can describe him as a good editor, given the result of the RFA against him, I don't know); the other User:Benapgar. The latter is an unfortunate case: I don't quite understand what happened, but he did end up disliking me, for what I regarded as invalid reasons: see Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/William_M._Connolley#Additional_responses_by_WMC for my take on him.

Comments and votes by Arbitrators (1/4/0/0)

• Reject. I don't see much of a case to answer here. Ambi 05:28, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Reject ➥the Epopt 11:11, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Reject. That evidence is high in volume (good formatting of lots of information, thank you!), but I'm really not convinced by it that there's a case here - David Gerard 12:24, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I'll note that if William M. Connolley feels a need to assemble a case against Cortonin, we can deal with that if it reaches that stage - David Gerard 00:46, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Accept - there are few things that irritate me more than full-scale revert wars, which is the impression I get of what's going on while reading what's here. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 14:52, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)
• Reject. Neutrality^talk 19:11, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

User:Everyking 2

Since the previous arbcom case, Everyking has continued his quest to add what is widely viewed as excessive amounts of trivia to articles related to Ashlee Simpson. He has also repeatedly violated his revert parole through "partial reverts" whereby he only puts part of the disputed text back, resulting in the edit wars on the Ashlee articles continuing to this day.

He has, in the past week and a half, been blocked three times for reverts. The first block was undone after I, in a moment of overreaction to IRC provocation, extended it to 100 days. (I apologize for this, though continue to feel that everyking's provocation was unwarranted) The second was undone after he promised to Tony Sidaway that he would not revert again. Four days later, he reverted an Ashlee article, and a third block was employed, whcih was this time lifted by Merovignian, after a similar promise to the one he broke to Tony.

This latter problem points to a more general issue that I think needs to be looked at in one of its many forms, which is the failure of administrators at large to pay adequate respect to each other's blocks, and thus to lead to situations where it becomes the case that one can become unblocked if one can only complain to the right admin. I feel that, while Tony's unblock was arguably reasonable, the recent rise in block/unblock wars among the admins and the repeated unblocking of Everyking is becoming a problem that needs a ruling. Quite frankly, I think it's incredibly poor form to unblock someone without consulting with the blocking admin to get a full explanation of the reasons.

But I would also like to look at Everyking's behavior on Ashlee articles, and ask that he be banned from them entirely. I will note that his counduct on other articles is without exception of high quality, but his Ashlee contributions are leading to undue stress on the admins who have to continually watch them, and the conflicts appear to be leading to undue stress on Everyking himself, who has become more hostile in dealings with other users in general since these conflicts began. For the good of Wikipedia at large, I ask that these disputes be terminated, and suggest that Everyking's cessation of editing on articles related to Ashlee Simpson is the easiest way to do it.

Regarding prior dispute resolution, Everyking's hostility and aggressiveness has made it clear to me, at least, that there is no reasoning with him. He believes, still, that he has done no wrong on Ashlee Simpson articles and that everyone who disagrees with him is so obviously wrong as to not need to be considered.

As for initial evidence, here are some of his reverts. Note the hostile edit summary on the last as well: [28] [29] [30] [31] Snowspinner 00:50, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

None of the prior steps in the dispute resolution process have been followed. I believe I have followed the ruling and as I have seen others, such as Snowspinner, dispute this, I have become even more cautious to accommodate them. I will be happy to mediate the matter with Snowspinner. If he does get his way in this, it will be the end of my time at Wikipedia. Everyking 23:47, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

And I should point out that none of Snowspinner's "evidence" are actual reverts as he is presenting them. In each case the circumstances are ambiguous; one could interpret them as reverts, as he does (if one has a liberal interpretation of what constitutes a revert), or one could not (if one has a conservative interpretation).

Moreover, the claim that I dismiss those who disagree with me is preposterous. I have conceded points repeatedly and have always emphasized the importance of compromise, of concessions from both sides and, most importantly, reasonable discussion to sort out of the facts of the matter as logically as possible. Everyking 00:53, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Everyking gave me his word, and also promised me that he would not make any remotely controversial edits related to Ashlee Simpson for some time to come. I'm disappointed. He has let us all down. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:10, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ridiculous. It did not even occur to me at the time that someone would see it as a revert. You ought to look at the situation. Everyking 01:17, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Previously the case was accepted without going through mediation. Will the same thing happen again? It seems highly irrational to pursue arbitration when I am open to compromise and concessions about anything. Everyking 13:01, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Snowspinner is already involved in 3 other arb com cases at the time. Instead of assuming good faith, and trying to work out a case amicably, for instance through mediation, he instead seems to intentionally get involved in conflict and arbitration. This harassment has gotten out of control. I'd like the committee to bar snowspinner from requesting an arbitration case without first trying mediation. anthony 警告 15:17, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Quite true; Snowspinner is very concerned with imposing punitive measures on people, for reasons that I do not fully understand. This is a plain case where a form of resolution agreeable to all would be fairly easy to accomplish, since I am willing to concede just about anything and accept consensus even if I disagree with it. Nevertheless, Snowspinner wants me banned from editing these articles even though I am at present the only person who writes substantially on the subject and updates the information. It is hard for me to see the logic.

As for Grunt, I should point out that characterizing any of this as a block/unblock war is a bit extreme. Blocks have been disagreed with by other admins, yes, and I have been unblocked. But surely a user should not be subject to the tyranny of one admin, such as Snowspinner, who has openly (on IRC) stated his ill-will towards me. Surely another admin who is more tolerant or reasonable should be able to undo the block. This is a system that maintains balance and fairness—an overzealous admin like Snowspinner can be kept in check by cooler heads.

Finally, I want to say that if this is accepted, my previous case should be reconsidered and the ArbCom should consider the possibility of removing the old restrictions it imposed. Everyking 16:20, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think these are reasonable requests, however I would prefer that my conduct be considered as a separate case, and thus have listed a request for arbitration against myself above. Snowspinner 16:29, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

It may also say something about the nature of the case, although perhaps not directly relevant, that Snowspinner has banned me from the IRC channel for life because I criticized him for the authoritarian behavior I consider this case to represent. Everyking 01:13, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, he was gloating about this on IRC. I find it strange that there is no due process whatsoever for bans made on IRC. anthony 警告 01:21, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Comments and votes by Arbitrators (3/0/1/1)

• Recuse. Ambi 05:30, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Accept ➥the Epopt 11:11, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Accept, I fear - David Gerard 12:24, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Accept mainly to hear evidence of block/unblock warring and do something about it. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 14:46, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)
• Abstain. Neutrality^talk 19:12, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

User:patnaik and user:stude62

I am seeking arbitration between myself and user:Patnaik. On February 6, 2004, user:Patnaik issued a Request for Comment on my user name Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Stude62. I am asking for arbitration in an attempt to stop user:Patnaik from further personal attacks and false claims against me, and for the RfC to be archived or removed.

• user:Patnaik started his Wikipedia account on January 20, 2005. His first four entries deal with the Ohio Wesleyan University article. In his fourth post on the Ohio Wesleyan Talk page he threatened me with filing a Request for Comment on my user name because of my interactions with user user:pnikolov (now user:Rananim).

In one of his early recorded drafts [32], user:Patnaik begins the process of building the case against me and my efforts to get the correct church (Methodist Episcopal Church) assigned to the establishment of Ohio Wesleyan University. user:Patnaik states that the information about the M.E. Church “despite the fact that it directly contradicts the truth published by OWU,” however user:Patnaik doesn’t cite a source, so it is impossible to know where this assertion is in order to validate it. Still, in some form, this remains as a central point of the RfC. This, surprisingly, is an extension of the exact same logic, and almost the same wording, used by user:Rananim’s who himself asserts that my attempts to add this information, conflicts with what the Ohio Wesleyan web pages “says about itself” which is a “high” level informational web page.

• Within the RfC, I invited a disinterested third party to contact the Archives of Ohio Methodism and speak directly to the archivist, using the phone number of the archives published on its web page. user:Patnaik, not a disinterested third party, stated that he contacted the Archives of Ohio Methodism on February 13, 2005 and that “Some of Stude62's contributions were not verified by the Ohio Methodism Archives: I talked to a lady there.” [33]. However on March 3, 2004, I contacted the Archives, using the phone number on the web page, spoke with the Archivist, who not only stated that she “has not receive any phone call regarding this matter,” but that my facts, which she provided and the I cited are accurate and true. If user:Patnaik did call someone, he did not, according to the Archivist, speak with her, nor was there record of the call. The matter is easily settled if a neutral party, with no vested interest were to call the Archive – which also houses the OWU archives, and verify the information that the Methodist Episcopal Church (M.E. Church) was involved in the founding of the university. The caller can also speak directly to the Archivist and ask if anyone other than myself had contacted her prior to the date (2/13/2005)that user:Patnaik claims to have called the archives. This is an easiler verfied fact, if someone will simply place a call during normal business hours.

• user:Patnaik contradicts himself frequently, making his viewpoints unclear, and does so, I believe, with an attempt to place me in a no-win situation, and has done so with regard to two separate topics.

Example 1: user:Patnaik claims that I inserted incorrect facts about the relationship between the church and the university in “Evidence of Disputed Behavior by stating “Added information about Methodist Episcopal Church: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ohio_Wesleyan_University&diff=9286536&oldid=9286412 despite the fact that it directly contradicts the truth published by OWU” however on March 1, 2005 he writes “For instance on the Methodist point. The Methodist affiliation was never disputed in the OWU article.” [34]

Example 2: On January 26, 2005 when this process was started, again I point to user:Patnaik’s ascertain that my inclusion of the M.E. Church in the article, however on February 13, 2005 user:Patnaik stated "I am myself not too familiar Ohio Methodism. I am not Methodist." [[35]] If this is the case, how then can he make the issue surrounding the church affiliation the number one complaint in the RfC?

• I have yet to solve the riddle why user:Patnaik feels it is so important for me to apologize to user:Rananim. My question is simply why does someone with whom I have only had two interactions with, prior to the posting of the RfC, have so much at stake in seeing me correct behaviors towards other people? Why is it so important to user:Patnaik, and nary a peep from the person that I had the encounter with. I would think that this type of behavior might be evident in someone who hides behind a sock puppet.[[36]]

• user:Patnaik also seems to be obsessed with who I communicate with on Wikipedia and what I say. He has also felt necessary to make comment on the fact that I have tried to contribute to a proposed draft for future RfC’s. My reasoning is, as someone being in the process, I should have just as much right as someone else to comment and help to make the process more productive. Again, seeing my conversations with others plastered on the RfC page gives it a tabloid feeling. See my RfC, number 7. [[37]]

• user:Patnaik, along with the other users who have commented aginst me in the RfC, have helped to contribute to the chaos that the page is currently in by failing to maintain it in an orderly fashion. A proper sequence of sections was never instituted - for example, the section for my comments about myself wasn't included until I added it. Frankly, the page is a mess. As the one who instituted the RfC against me, I beleive that thit was User:Patnaik's role to ensure that the page was set up properly, and maintained in an orderly fashion. From my standpoint, it is difficult to answer complaints when there is limited record for who made the complaints, and it is difficult to maintain a logical progression of form. when there is no one over seeing the page. In my opinion, my RfC has become a model on how not to conduct one of these. [38]]

I have contributed to well over 100 articles on Wikipedia and have made every effort to contribute factual information, not PR. While I may be brusque at times, I am open to discussion, and I frequently give pats on the backs to those whose edits improve articles with which I have contribute. I cite my sources. I am, however, not willing to compromise facts and the truth for the sake of passing PR as ultimate "fact".

I have followed the advice of others and have taken myself out of Wikipedia to allow the matter to cool down, however the RfC continues, six weeks after the process started, and with no end in sight.

What I am asking the Arbitration Committee to do ask user:Patnaik to stay away from me and stop the harassment. I have no vested interest in what he does on Wikipedia, I want no future interaction with him, I simply want the harassment to end. As for the other members who certified the RfC against, I am more than willing to enter into mediation to see if that will solve the other issues, if they will take me up on the offer, but to date they have not. user: stude62 user talk:stude62 01:55, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Per the comments made by User:Grunt and User:Ambi I have amended this request and I have let user:Patnaik of my request. user: stude62 user talk:stude62 23:30, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Comments and votes by Arbitrators (0/2/0/1)

• Reject; a lot of claims are made here in the requests that aren't solidly backed up with hard evidence. Please also remember to contact the person with whom you are requesting arbitration. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 02:09, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)
• I'm leaning towards accepting with the referencing issues, but I'd like to see some direct evidence concerning some of the other allegations before I support. Ambi 03:34, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC) I can't see anything else accept-worthy here, so I'm still undecided - I'd like to see Fred Bauder's opinions on accepting this before making up my mind. Ambi 05:32, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Reject ➥the Epopt 11:11, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

User:Iasson and all sockpuppets (including User:Faethon and sockpuppets, and User:Acestorides and sockpuppets)

From December to late January, User:Iasson repeatedly attempted to change Wikipedia policy, and deletion policy in particular, to his own liking, without subjecting it to consensus. Furthermore, he acted on these policies unilaterally, casting "peculiar votes" in VfD (a good example is [39]). He was asked to stop many times, but refused. He made one post in particular threatening to continue until banned, for which he was blocked for 24 hours. An RFC was filed on January 15th. Iasson "left" in late January, but has made occasional edits since then, mostly to his RFC and user page. He was active on meta for a while, until he received a 15-day ban for similar activities.

User:Faethon appeared around the same time Iasson left. Faethon has a similar editing style to Iasson, though Iasson has denied being Faethon. Faethon attempted to create a "public account" by posting his password on his user page. Predictably, the password was soon changed. Undaunted Faethon created User:Faethon2. This too was "robbed". Faethon continued down the number line (Faethon3, Faethon4, etc.), until about 45 accounts had been registered. Most of these were not registered by Faethon, but by other users attempting to "stop" him.

On February 25th, a public account was created at User:Acestorides, using nearly the same wording as User:Faethon. Rather than using numbers, this account series progresses by using the List of ancient Greeks. It appears to have advanced through at least Adrianus, or about 10 accounts.

All of these accounts have made virtually no significant edits to the main namespace.

Additional evidence at /Iasson/Evidence

---

This request for arbitration against User:Iasson was originally written by User:Scott Burley. Submitted by User:Humblefool with evidence page. humblefool® 01:13, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Comments and votes by Arbitrators (4/0/0/0)

• Accept to determine current policy on accounts of this nature. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 02:04, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)

  Public accounts? Present convention appears to be to lock them, c.f. any account listed on BugMeNot (these are locked on sight; I've yet to hear a word against doing so) and what happened when CheeseDreams gave her password away (the account was promptly locked). The rest appears to be plain sockpuppet abuse. I'm not sure there's a need for us to endorse policy to be written on that score. I've just added something like this to Wikipedia:Blocking policy, describing current practice and the reasons for it as best I could - David Gerard 21:38, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  It would still be a good idea to confirm that this is present practice, then, and get it written in Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Precedents. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 22:52, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)

  You got a point there - David Gerard 12:24, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Accept. Ambi 03:38, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Accept ➥the Epopt 11:11, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Accept to ratify current consensus behaviour toward public accounts. I'm not sure we can actually stop someone from setting them up, of course ... - David Gerard 12:24, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

User:Netoholic

Currently there is a great deal of evidence on Netoholic in the 172 case. It seems that it would be prudent to split the two, for purposes of clarity and convenience. Netoholic's behavior really needs to be looked at separately. Neutrality^talk 01:20, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

• Both Neutrality and Snowspinner have added evidence, inappropriately, to the 172 case solely to get a "rise" out of me. Having failed to do so, because I refused to answer their out-of-place attacks on that evidence page, it seems they are taking this action. As yet, I'm unsure what the grounds are for this, and am not sure what sort of defensive statement I can make here. -- Netoholic @ 03:08, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)

• In response to Grunt's question, I think the point of the evidence to the 172 case was made clear when I added it - I wanted to show Netoholic's history of bringing spurious complaints and crusades against people. His crusade mentality is disruptive, drives users away from Wikipedia, and makes every interaction Netoholic involves himself in needlessly tense and hostile. As I think about it, it would probably be clarifying to split this off of the 172 case, as the issues here are at least as complicated as the 172 case. So I'd encourage a split with the intention of this case being to look at Netoholic's tendency towards hostile crusades against other users. Snowspinner 03:41, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)
  • Comments like this from one who is probably the most litigious user to frequent WP:RFAr is ironic. This is in direct retaliation for my participation with Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Snowspinner. If one cannot use the dispute resolution process without being accused of crusading, then what value is it? This is nothing more than an attempt to silence a voice who raises concerns within the community. This is vindictiveness, without credible evidence of policy violation, so I hope the arbitrators see through it. -- Netoholic @ 04:02, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)
    • This is laughable. I raised the evidence in 172 days before the RFC was put up against me, and made this exact same accusation about you. Now, somehow, your participation in the RfC caused me to do something that I'd already done? This is exactly why I want the arbcom to look into this. Snowspinner 04:17, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

• It would make things easier to follow for those of us in the bleacher seats, if Neutrality and Snowspinner stated their complaints against Netoholic (in terms of policies violated) and also stated what specific action they want from the AC concerning him. Reading through the "evidence" given by Neutrality and Snowspinner in the 172 case, I don't see how most of it relates to that case, and I am not sure what it relates to. In that case, Neutrality and Snowspinner are third parties providing evidence in 172's defense, and some of it is. But most of it seems to relate to their own, unrelated, grievances against Netoholic. It seems more in order for them simply to file a Request for arbitration against Netoholic, assuming they want the AC to adjudicate those grievances. --BM 04:27, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

---

to Grunt and MBM: See User:Neutrality/workshop III. Neutrality^talk 05:23, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

• Is this notice on your talk page really appropriate? If it is, then perhaps you'll get more attention by posting on the Village pump. -- Netoholic @ 21:18, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)
• Granted, User:Neutrality/workshop III is his subpage, and he is using it to gather a quite one-sided view of my actions. Certainly, making the other guy look as bad as possible is probably how most Arbitrations get started. I made two fairly innocent updates - one to correct a gross exaggeration and another to provide context for a comment I made. Neutrality then used my edits against me by claiming this was evidence tampering. I clarified that comment saying "it's misleading to present multiple edits in one link". This was rollback reverted by Neutrality. I tried adding it as a signed comment. This was rollback reverted. In total, Neutrality has rollback reverted four times today, violating the [[WP:3RR]. I bring this up here, not to report that violation, but to show the misdirected animosity from this person. Sure, it is his subpage, but it is not official evidence in any open case. -- Netoholic @ 21:51, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)

To Netaholic. David Gerard was voted in by the community as an arbitrator. Jimbo is looking in to The recyling troll issue, but notice that jimbo blocked him (as did David) Unless you were heavily involved (as far as I can see you were not involved at all unless TRT is a sockpuppet of yours) then you request for recusal doesn't make any sense. Theresa Knott (ask the rotten) 08:09, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I completely resent the sock puppet accusation. I have at no time employed a sock puppet. I think David knows that there are plenty of reasons why I think he should recuse - the TRT incident is only the most recent since I was vocally against his actions. I will ask the same of Raul654. -- Netoholic @ 08:42, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)

[You] completely resent the accusation? I think it would be of benefit for you to separate accusations from rhetorical devices that are used to illustrate a specific point. The misdirected bravado and combativeness dilute your (diff-wise yet-to-be-substantiated calls for recursals) point. El_C 15:51, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

let me just confirm what El C said. My statement above was not in any way meant to be taken as an accusation. I dont for one minute think that TRT is a sockpuppet of you. Theresa Knott (ask the rotten) 17:45, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate your reply, T. I hope you'll accept my apology, I may have been up too late last night, and probably am a little defensive on that point. -- Netoholic @ 21:11, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)

There are going to be enough recusals that I will be very reluctant to recuse just for the sake of it. Also, your reasoning for recusal appears novel - you seem to be saying "I may have pissed him off by disagreeing with him, so he should recuse." For obvious reasons, I'm very reluctant to give this one play - David Gerard 11:55, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think there would only be four recusals, which isn't the most there have been. This is why there are so many Arbitrators, to accomodate the fact that some may have been involved with this dispute and avoid potential biases. -- Netoholic @ 21:18, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)

[Re. David vote]

David, please recuse. The recent problems around User:The Recycling Troll are too fresh in mind. I'd prefer if this was heard by people who've not had recent complaints raised against them, since that seems to be the focus of this Arbitration request. -- Netoholic @ 04:02, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)

Please see my comment above Theresa Knott (ask the rotten) 08:01, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[Re. Fred's request to present evidence]

Neutrality has already linked to User:Neutrality/workshop III, which includes some specific accusations. Much more can be found presently on the 172 evidence page, in the section for evidence by Neutrality and me. The major policy is civility, which Netoholic violates to the point where it becomes impossible to have any dealings with him that are not marked by an intense hostility. Snowspinner 15:25, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

Comments and votes by Arbitrators (4/0/3/2)

Split/Keep merged/Recused/Other

• Recuse. Neutrality^talk 01:19, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)
• Recuse. Ambi 01:20, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Split. Note that the relevant evidence should be copied, not removed, from the 172 case - the ArbCom can consider anything it feels it needs to and I want to check it over for relevance - David Gerard 01:25, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Split. Original 172 request has nothing to do with Netoholic's behaviour and should be looked at separately. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 01:41, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)Actually, better yet, can we make sense of what the point of the evidence being there is? If it doesn't have any relevance to the 172 case, it should be removed, and we should determine whether or not a separate case is warranted on its own. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 03:16, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC) Split; this seems to be so contentious that we should do something before someone goes wikiwacko. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 22:01, 2005 Mar 14 (UTC)
• I disagree with David. Netoholics behaviour has nothing to dowith whether 172 misbehaved or not. Evidence of his behaviour should be removed from the 172 case. Theresa Knott (ask the rotten) 08:01, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I'd note that the evidence includes Netoholic's past conflict with 172, making him other than a disinterested third party as claimed - David Gerard 11:55, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Please present in this request some evidence of violation of some policy by Netoholic Fred Bauder 13:49, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)
  • Presumably that's the stuff linked in from User:Neutrality/workshop III. I think it demonstrates there's a real issue here - David Gerard 14:32, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Recuse. →Raul654 21:32, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)
• Split ➥the Epopt 11:11, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Split - The evidence at User:Neutrality/workshop III is very compelling. --mav 02:48, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Requests for Clarification

If you need to clarify the precise meaning of a previous decision of the Arbitration Committee, your request should go here.

Matters currently in Arbitration

/Template

• /Dr Zen - Accepted with five votes and three recusals on 10 March 2005. Evidence to /Dr Zen/Evidence, please.
• /WHEELER - Accepted with six votes on 9 March 2005. Evidence to /WHEELER/Evidence, please.
• /Noah Peters - Accepted with five votes on 8 March 2005. Evidence to /Noah Peters/Evidence, please.
• /172 2 - Accepted with four votes, one rejection and four recusals on 6 March 2005. Evidence to /172 2/Evidence, please.
• /Baku Ibne et. al. - Accepted with four votes on 4 March 2005. Evidence to /Baku Ibne et. al./Evidence, please.
• /Anthony DiPierro 2 -

  Request by Snowspinner: Accepted with four votes and 5 recusals on 26 February 2005.

  Request by Raul654: Accepted and merged with five votes on 2 March 2005. Evidence to /Anthony DiPierro 2/Evidence, please.

• /RK 2 - Accepted with five votes and one recusal on 16 February 2005. Evidence to /RK 2/Evidence, please.

Please also see Template:ArbComCases.

Archives

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Completed requests
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rejected requests