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Close (as an uninvolved party in this dispute); Since Brian has withdrawn from this arena, and Mattisse is ok with an interaction ban, I'm closing this on the proviso that these 2 contributors stay out of each others way for the time being - and on the understanding that should further dispute arise between these 2 contributors, this DR may be reopened, to keep all material in one place. BarkingFish (talk) 16:01, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    • Per an ongoing situation, and my comments above, this dispute resolution request is reopened, previous comments will be compacted, and new statements on this dispute taken from both parties. BarkingFish (talk) 12:42, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User:Brian McNeil and User:Mattisse

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This discussion is collapsed. Please comment below. 

Statement by involved party: Brian McNeil

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Mattisse took it upon xyrself to try and intervene in Comments namespace sparring with an apparent homophobe. Proposing we all self-censor to avoid offending someone (xyr?) was sharply rebutted, provoking Mattisse to bring up xyr perceived persecution by myself. That despite having reviewed some of xyr article contributions since the prior dispute, and agreeing with a remark that a recent obit could have been far more in-depth.

This is not going to go away. This is behaviour imported from The Other Place. Laid out below is my analysis of some of that, with supporting diffs, and I am quite confident that the Wikinews community will be able to tick off local parallels of almost every item highlighted below.

Mattisse's history on Wikipedia, and similar behaviour here

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Preamble.

By-and-large, here on Wikinews we try to ignore people's past on other projects; particularly where they've had issues on Wikipedia. In the long-run, and more global view, this has proved beneficial to the project. We've Diego, who is now an administrator fairly regularly contributing Original Research; we'd David Shankbone, who contributed an excellent series of interviews - including one with Shimon Perez.

But, some people bring their baggage with them; they expect that some "amateur dramatics", and wailing about persecution will get them special treatment. It should not, and does not. Mattisse is a case-in-point.

On Wikipedia.

Mattisse's user talk on Wikipedia was created on July 24, 2006. The next day she was challenged for tagging an article on a work of fiction as a hoax. On the 28th, she received her first block for socking. The corresponding checkuser investigation found five socks from Mattisse (I'll skip the name change that puts Mattisse's account origin in early May). I'll also avoid going through the two or three other RfCUs on Wikipedia regarding Mattisse and skip to the 33 confirmed socks; a cursory check shows that Always blue was created in March 2010, as were some of the other socks. Lastly, Loopy48 was created in December 2010.

That's over four years of socking. Some of those socks were used for multiple voting in VfDs on Wikipedia.

Now, there's also behaviour that people who've watched the dispute here on Wikinews will find strangely familiar: [14] [15] [16]

A "false", or "constructed" persecution.

This edit is particularly interesting, when one looks at the paranoid, persecution-complex, behaviour that Mattisse exhibits towards anyone on either wiki who is in a position of authority. That being because NLOleson is a CheckUser-confirmed sock of Mattisse, outed here, with a second socking block over the more serious charge of AfD vote-stacking.

Userpage/talk blanking.

Yet another trait Mattisse has brought with her from Wikipedia [17] [18] (IP blanking). It'll come as no surprise that, even when you fast-forward to February 2010, Mattisse developed a selective memory about removing comments from her user talk.

Taken to enWP ArbCom, spurned mentorship.

Mattisse has presented a somewhat distorted presentation of enWP's ArbCom findings against her. Conduct probation was indeed imposed, but resisted to the extent that further blocks were threatened.

The closing comment here from Geometry guy pretty much sums up the problems I see, and is fundamental in my assertion that, as a contributor on Wikinews, Mattisse is "unsalvagable"; quote: "Wikipedia does not revolve around you".

Then, March 2010, back to sockpuppetteering.

On Wikinews.

Sockpuppetting on Wikinews would have far, far more potential to fatally damage the project's credibility. Multiple voting is the least of our worries; consider the damage an individual could cause subverting the peer-review process.

Do I have evidence that Mattisse has engaged in such behaviour? No, at least not yet.

However, the above four-year wiki-soap-opera, shows every sign of trying to switch channels to Wikinews.

If I must cite parallel examples from here that match the above, I am confident I trivially could. Persecution complex? Check! Threats to leave? Check! Announcement of departure? Check! User and talk page blanking? Check!

To paraphrase Geometry guy, Mattisse, Wikinews does not revolve around you.

I would invite the community-at-large to provide input on this. It can't be tolerated here for four months, let alone four years. No interaction ban could prevent this happening with any other administrator or 'crat whatsoever who posts a remark that Mattisse misconstrues. --Brian McNeil / talk 15:14, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by involved party: Mattisse

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Request that the first DR be reopened
  • I believe the first DR should be reopened. Brian McNeil did not address any of the points. He also did not address my offers of resolution. He never commented at all. Indirectly I was given to believe that he agreed to the mutual terms to apologize to each other (although it was explained to me that he could not be expected to apologize) and to uphold the no contact provision.
  • Although my understanding was that all issues would be dropped and there would be a "no contact" provision between Brian McNeill and my self, it seems that I misunderstood. Since Brian McNeill did not actually speak up, I cannot be sure what his understanding of the resolution was.
  • I took on good faith that he would respect the no contact provision and cease his personal attacks and demeaning remarks, although reading it now, I see that he was not really agreeing to anything. I don't understand the above remark, such as "he also agreed to step out at his own talk page". What does that mean?
Brian McNeill continues the personal and degrading and unnecessary attacks directed at me.
  • Apparently Brian McNeill misunderstood my remarks in the article "Comments" or perhaps I worded them badly, or perhaps I am not welcome to enter comments. In any case, Brian McNeil felt the need to attack me, attack my competency as an editor and my ability to understand the material I was writing about, implied that my shoe size was larger than my IQ, and insinuated that I was presenting myself falsely, that I was a fraud, comparing me to EssyJay, the editor who presented himself fraudulently. He also denigrated my worth to the project and indicated I lacked the required skills to contribute to wikinews.
Examples from one Comments thread of Gay couple elected prom king and queen in Maine's Sanford High School
  • "You don't seem to understand the deeper aspects of any news item you're covering, you lack any real political awareness, and you're yet another fan of flock wallpaper adorned with fluffy bunnies."
  • "Oh, act your age - not your shoe size.
  • Your reading comprehension skills are pisspoor, you've a persecution complex, and you wilfully ignore good advice."
  • "The flip-flopping is worse than a Tory politician. What's an "adult" to do? I'm wondering "how can a forensic psychiatrist have poor reading comprehension skills?" – Relatives of EssJay, I'd certainly understand that failing."
Summary - the first DR was not resolved. My comments were not responded to by Brian McNeill and my complaints are the same.

Therefore, nothing has changed since the first DR. None of the issued raised were addressed by him. As far as I know, I have done nothing wrong except make a remark on a "Comments" page, which I thought was safe. Now I know it is not safe to make comments on a Comments page. Hopefully, I will not make that mistake again.

Other than mistakenly posting on the Comments page of the article, which I deeply regret, is there anything else I have done wrong since the last DR was closed? If so, I would appreciate someone pointing out my mistakes in a helpful way.

Thank you, Mattisse (talk) 21:58, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by dispute moderator: BarkingFish

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At this point, I feel I must recuse myself of further involvement in this issue. You emailed me a couple of hours ago, Mattisse - and made it quite clear you did not want to involve yourself in this again. If you are going to tell me one thing, and do another, I cannot remain impartial at this forum - I will instruct or request another administrator to deal with, and conclude proceedings here as they see fit. However, your request to open the first DR again, is denied at this time. The first one was dealt with, it's flared again, this is the place to put it. BarkingFish (talk) 22:02, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Sorry. I just don't know how to get help. I don't know how to handle this. I am so sorry. I think it is futile anyway. I am not wanted here. I think the only horrible and unforgivable mistake I have made since the last DR was to post on the Comments page. Mattisse (talk) 22:18, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment You were emailed? That would be a repeat of another tactic/behaviour from enWP. Such can be deduced from the more recent entries in Mattisse's block log there. The final block had to be tweaked to also prevent sending emails. I suggest contacting that blocking administrator - who is still quite active - and asking them for a,... "character reference". --Brian McNeil / talk 06:16, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Yes, I have emailed BarkingFish once. (I did not know it was a sin, as at other wikies it is openly allowed). However I have rarely emailed here. It is not something I like doing and I emailed much less than editors commonly do. He did not reply and he recused himself because of my email. I do not have the means to gather all the "off wiki" behavior that you have. I have no means so I emailed BarkingFish, asking for advice. I do not have a copy of it but BarkingFish does. Now I know never to do that again.
Do those who provide you with "off wiki" information recuse themselves also, or is this "off wiki" information you get is only appropriate for you and "doesn't count"? You are trying to make out that this is a sinister plan on my part, when I am only seeking help. I think that you are paranoid (as you have accused be of being) because I have not cooked up any elaborate plan. I merely wanted to write and edit articles and that is 99% of what I have done here. It is foolish to think that I would sockpuppet here, even if I wanted to, which I don't. With so few editors here, and with the numbers dwindling daily, a new account would be blatantly obvious. Why are you so fixated on that? I have been on the Commons since 2006 with no sockpuppets. And on Wikisource almost a year with no sockpuppets. You obviously have not examined my sockpuppeets. Most of them barely edited, some not at all, because they were demonstration account for friends and neighbors that I wanted to introduce wikipedia to, but did not want to reveal my account to them. But with only a handful of active editors at wikinews, no one could sockpupped with out being crystal clear that they were one. Since I have started here in February I have only seen vandal accounts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mattisse (talk • contribs)
  • I read what BarkingFish wrote above; you contacted him, stated you were not going to respond to the reopened dispute, and that you were leaving. You did not; it is just repetition of the same Drama Queen behaviour you engaged in, for four years, on Wikipedia. The self-same claimed lack of understanding; self-same lashing out with torrents of percieved wrongs or injustices against yourself. In four years you learned zero about interacting in an online community; you are The September that Never Ended personified.
What you did in emailing BarkingFish could, to put it in terms you might understand, be construed as trying to influence the judge outwith the courtroom.
You brought the put-down on yourself by ignoring two warnings that you didn't understand what you were getting into through interfering in a Comments (Trollspace) discussion; you demanded censorship on a news website. The "I don't know what to doooooo!" is tired and old, you were told - dozens of times - on Wikipedia. You never learned, just kept on wearing your martyred victim complex.
I think Gry is wasting xyr time completely. You're not going to change; you still think the world revolves around you.
The sooner we take the same measures as Wikipedia, the better. --Brian McNeil / talk 08:38, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I emailed BarkingFish as I stated above. I was scared and had many confused feelings. I and was looking for direction and I expressed the conflicting my feelings running through my head. I was full of fear. I wanted some help and I trusted him to be objective. I do not have a copy of the email and I understand the WMF rules are that emails are private correspondence and cannot be disclosed without consent of both parties. I trust BarkingFish that he would not violate confidentiality. I did not realize that BarkingFish would in any way be acting as a judge. I thought it would work as before, that the community would give inpute (although I doubt they will as I have a target on my back now) and that someone would close it, as before, as resolved but with out any really attempt to resolve the matter.I am confident that you will interpret my attempts to reach out in the worse possible way and see it as part of a conspiracy, or meatpuppeting or some other devious action. You assume that I think like you. I don't. You think that way, not me. I just wanted some human contact. But I see it is hopeless and there is no one I can reach out to here, no help, no compassion.

I apologize to BarkingFish and promise that I will never email you again, nor contact you in any way. I am so sorry. Mattisse (talk) 08:58, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please allow me to clarify one thing - communication between myself and Wikimedia staff leads me to believe that there are NO rules from the WMF which forbid the publication of a private email between users, especially if it is relevant in any way to an on-wiki matter. The decision as to whether email can be published is with the local community where the matter is outstanding. You can reasonably expect privacy in your communication, but it cannot be guaranteed if the content is pertinent to whatever it relates to. BarkingFish (talk) 14:02, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by involved party: Mattisse since opening of previous DR is denied

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I will repeat my statement that Brain McNeill continues to attack me, demean me, and humiliate me. Brian McNeil did not address any of the points of my points in the first DR. He also did not address my offers of resolution. He never commented at all. Indirectly I was given to believe that he agreed to the mutual terms to apologize to each other (although it was explained to me that he could not be expected to apologize) and to uphold the no contact provision.

  • Although my understanding was that all issues would be dropped and there would be a "no contact" provision between Brian McNeill and my self, it seems that I misunderstood. Since Brian McNeill did not actually speak up, I cannot be sure what his understanding of the resolution was.
  • I took on good faith that he would respect the no contact provision and cease his personal attacks and demeaning remarks, although reading it now, I see that he was not really agreeing to anything. I don't understand the above remark, such as "he also agreed to step out at his own talk page". What does that mean?
Brian McNeill continues the personal and degrading and unnecessary attacks directed at me.
  • Apparently Brian McNeill misunderstood my remarks in the article "Comments" or perhaps I worded them badly, or perhaps I am not welcome to enter comments. In any case, Brian McNeil felt the need to attack me, attack my competency as an editor and my ability to understand the material I was writing about, implied that my shoe size was larger than my IQ, and insinuated that I was presenting myself falsely, that I was a fraud, comparing me to EssyJay, the editor who presented himself fraudulently. He also denigrated my worth to the project and indicated I lacked the required skills to contribute to wikinews.
Examples from one Comments thread of Gay couple elected prom king and queen in Maine's Sanford High School
  • "You don't seem to understand the deeper aspects of any news item you're covering, you lack any real political awareness, and you're yet another fan of flock wallpaper adorned with fluffy bunnies."
  • "Oh, act your age - not your shoe size.
  • Your reading comprehension skills are pisspoor, you've a persecution complex, and you wilfully ignore good advice."
  • "The flip-flopping is worse than a Tory politician. What's an "adult" to do? I'm wondering "how can a forensic psychiatrist have poor reading comprehension skills?" – Relatives of EssJay, I'd certainly understand that failing."
Summary - the first DR was not resolved. My comments were not responded to by Brian McNeill and my complaints are the same.

Therefore, nothing has changed since the first DR. None of the issued raised were addressed by him. As far as I know, I have done nothing wrong except make a remark on a "Comments" page, which I thought was safe. Now I know it is not safe to make comments on a Comments page. Hopefully, I will not make that mistake again.

Other than mistakenly posting on the Comments page of the article, which I deeply regret, is there anything else I have done wrong since the last DR was closed? If so, I would appreciate someone pointing out my mistakes in a helpful way.

Brief response

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  1. This is the same dispute resolution reopened. I have stated that several times, it states it at the very top of the page.
  2. I did not engage when this was previously open as it was impossible to do so; Mattisse took ownership of the page to write a thesis on "The Big Bad Bossman". Virtually nobody could edit here without having a conflict.
  3. Mattisse is doing the self-same here as-on Wikipedia; that went on for four years, no lessons learned.
  4. Wilfully misrepresents "conspiracy theory" item I raised:
    • The post on Mattisse's enWP talk laying out users allegedly conspiring against Mattisse was posted by a CU-identified sock of Mattisse.
  5. I have requested input from Wikipedians who dealt with Mattisse; I have absolutely no doubt they will confirm this is the self-same drama-making as resulted in a permanent ban.

Now, I'll wait and see how many thousand words it takes Mattisse to fail to rebut these points. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:53, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Further statement addressing Brian McNeill's further accusations

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I don't think what happened on wikipedia is relevant here. Nevertheless I will respond.
Response to On Wikipedia.
  • First I would like to stress that I was a valued member of the community: See my user page and helped many people get their articles through FAC, helped write and edit those articles, as well as GAN. I am really not the dumbbell Brian McNeill presents me as. I was considered a top tier writer and editor on wikipedia.

I joined Wikipedia on May 6, 2006. Neither my family nor I had ever edited or posted on the internet before and we had a steep learning curve. Starting in July 2006, I was pursued relentlessly by three sockpuppets until January of 2019:

They reverted, vandalized, redirected my articles and edits as many as 39 times a day. They continued until Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Starwood in January 2007 in which it was discovered they were sockpuppets. All were permanently banned from Wikipedia. But during that time they filed AN/I reports almost daily on me (I did not know this for a while and did not understand). I tried to get a mentor, to get help in any way I could find, but it was a brutal experience

  • I will reiterate that Loopy48 is not a sockpuppet of mine. I requested a check user but it was refused. Loop48 is not me. I have admitted to all the sockpuppets that were either me or came from my computer.
  • You mention Always Blue. Always Blue made six noncontroversial edits on March 7, 2010, one to a sandbox. That is it. I think that if you look at most of the other edits of the sockpuppets, you will find equally trivial edits. Remember, on wikipedia it is not illegal to have alternate accounts if they are not abusive. Recently admin Bishonen was asked to disclose her many sockpuppet accounts. She refused. So I ask you to understand that sockpuppets are frequent on wikipedia and that is the culture there. I did not understand that if my daughter or my neighbor wanted to try out Wikipedia and I helped them log on with what I considered a temporary account as I did not want them to use mine, that all those would be considered sockpuppet accounts. Geogre was found by Arbcom to be using a good hand/bad hand account against me, among others. He was allowed by arbcom to keep the two accounts but to label his bad hand account as an alternate account of his. He refused and has not edited wikipedia since. I give you these examples in order to explain the culture of sockpuppets is different there.
  • I think that providing three links from the summer of 2006 [19] [20] [21], which was five years ago is not representative of anything. The first is an apology and I don't see anything wrong with it. The next two are to a close friend at the time who did not follow through and help me with the Starwood business when I had helped him. Feeling get expressed on wikipedia and there is nothing wrong with that. Remember, I was being harassed by sockpuppets relentlessly at the time and I was stressed out. I was discouraged. I have seen many, many people express discouragement, many retire and come back (or not come back). Malleus is famous for his threats to leave, probably at least 20 times that I have witnessed. It is a way of dealing with stress that human beings use. I don't think there are any rules against expressing some honest emotion. I did not harm anyone. I still have friends at wikipedia who like and respect me. It does seem to be that at wikinews many, many editors have left and not come back. Perhaps if there was a more permissive atmosphere at wikinews where genuine emotion was allowed but nasty bards, self-serving "witicisms" at the expensive of others were not allowed instead of visa versa the way it is now, that more than 243 editors a month would edit.
A "false", or "constructed" persecution.

[22] Much of the info in that edit was truth, some I don't quite understand, as some of the editors mentioned were helpful and on my side. The information in the edit had no impact as I recall. Confused speculation. But as explained above, these three editors stalked and harassed me, vandalized etc. for over six months without respite. I really did not understand what was going on.

The issue of the Starwood articles was not settled until the Starwood arbitration. As for this outing, you are still back in 2006, and even then my behavior was not considered serious enough to warrant anything more than a short block.

Userpage/talk blanking.

I must admit I don't understand this accusation of page blanking People blank their pages all the time. I have not done it very often, but there is no rule against it and I have never seen anyone punished or reprimanded for it. Rather the opposite. Usually it brings sympathy. Truthseeker88 recently blanked her page, and that prompted other editors to consoled her. I have seen it done at wikinews and no one seems to mind. And more confusing I am being accused of an IP blanking![23] An IP blanks my page and a vandal fighter restores it. How is that a fault of mine? I notice the page contains a post by now banned user Hanuman Das and he mentions his sockpuppet 999 (we are still in September 2006) and I didn't know he was a sockpuppet but I did know he was vandalizing my edits. Please understand how confusing it was for me. I actually tried to make friends with Hanuman Das!

Taken to enWP ArbCom, spurned mentorship.
  • Brian McNeill is way way oversimplifying the situation which he clearly does not understand. Has he read arbcom's directions. Or is he merely trolling through my edits and grabbing some of by 100,000 edits to make me look bad at wikinews? I'm seeking to do well here. I should not be judged on behavior of the past on another site.
  • Re: [24] etc., I don't think you understand what the diff shows, or realize how hard it is to try to follow arbcoms directions when a mentorship such as I was trying to construct had never been accomplished before, I had vested admins locking down pages, blocking me etc. and my mentors most of the time were not available. Geometry guy rarely edits, for example. Also, if you look at that diff, you will see that I am expressing confusion, Geometry guy is expressing confusion. He does not say I am "unsavagable". Please read [25], the link Brian McNeill provides. In actuality the link shows Geometry guy "collapsing" some comments with the title This was not a seriously problematic discussion, but all editors involved, including myself, may obtain a more objective perspective by stepping back for a while. That is not saying that I am "unsavagable" as Brian McNeill claims. We were all confused as arbcom gave no clear direction. But the plan was a mess. The one thing that arbcom said was that I should have control over the plan, and I was not allowed to have control. We were all frustrated. Yes, in March 2010 I was blocked indefinitely for running sockpuppets while my main account was blocked by an admin. That is well known. I was not banned and I was given an offer by Risker a few months ago to reapply to Wikipedia in six months.
Re sockpuppeting

I am not and will not use sockpuppets again.

In any case, it is foolish to think I would have a sockpuppet or vote stack here. With so few editors, if a sockpupped turned up at a vote, that account would be blindingly obvious. To have any kind of sockpuppet here would be impossible. There are hardly any editors here. Any new editor sticks out like a sore thumb. And as far as vote stacking, I have not been accused of that, nor have I done it since the incident in the summer of 2006. Remember, this is 2011, five years later. I urge you again to look at my user page before I was blocked.

On Wikinews.
  • Brian McNeill says: "Sockpuppetting on Wikinews would have far, far more potential to fatally damage the project's credibility. Multiple voting is the least of our worries; consider the damage an individual could cause subverting the peer-review process."
Response
  • There is absolutely no evidence that I have sockpuppeted on wikinew, nor that I ever will. You have no evidence as such. Your request for a checkuser was turned down because you have not a scrape of evidence. I think a sockpuppet could be identified by eyeball. Usually there are only a handful ef editors vote on anything. I am not sure what you mean by "subvering the peer-review process". How would I do that? Please provide evidence that I have even remotely come close to doing that. I don't see that it is even possible.
  • Brian McNeill says: "Do I have evidence that Mattisse has engaged in such behaviour? No, at least not yet."
Response
  • Then get some. I have been here only a few months. Ir would take less than an hour to go through my diffs. Besides, give the very few active editors here, who of those very few do you suspect is my sockpuppet? Or do you suspect everyone?
  • Brian McNeill says: "However, the above four-year wiki-soap-opera, shows every sign of trying to switch channels to Wikinews."
Respnse
  • Why would I want to do that? I am trying to rehabilitate myself. What would my purpose? I used sockpuppets on wikipedia for a variety of reasons; I let other editors use my computer, I did not know that allowing others to set up their own accounts was wrong. Most of the sockpuppet made few if any edits. In 2006 there was som shenanigans involving my family, but now since. I encouraged a neighbor to edit wikipedia on my computer, and his edits were charged against me, even though he edited completely different topics and made no offensive edits. I used sockpuppets to evade the sockpuppets stalking me. These sockpuppets made responsible edits, never damaged but only improved articles and were praised by other editors. My goal was never to undermine wikipedia. That is the way your mind works, not mind.
  • Again, I remind you that I have edited on other sites with no problems. I suppose when a wiki is generally an unhappy place, and editors are fleeing, Brian McNeiall may seek to attribute this problem to other editors' behavior. I was so happy when I joined wikineews, I loved writing and editing and fixing up articles.
  • Brian McNeill says: "If I must cite parallel examples from here that match the above, I am confident I trivially could."
Brian McNeill says: "Persecution complex? Check!"
Response

A "persecution complex" (don't know where you get your definition) is different from being overly sensitive, which I admit and I am trying to work on. But you have deliberately provoked me with outrages personal attacks, silly, hurtful barbs, accusing me of being an EssJay etc. And tried to get a check user when it was stupendeously obvious that I had no sockpuppets. Perhaps 'you Brien McNeill have a persecution complex as you ares pathologically suspicious of a good faith editor who was contributing an average of one published article a day. Why would you not be happy with that? Was I sabotaging those articles? What about all the university student articles that I rewrote and made publishable? Is that an evil sign too. Do you, Brian McNeill have persecution complex that you see evil doing under every rock and refuse to consider that an editor, though making mistaks, is acting in good faith and is not out to get you or wikinews.

Frankly I consider you analysis of my motives bizarre. If I wanted to do a site in, would I choose a site with hardly any editors and not taken seriously by anyone except the few who edit here? Really?

  • Brian says: "Threats to leave?" Check!
Response

Really? That is a sign of a sockpuppet or other evil intentions? Or is it a sign of an editor who has been repeatedly personally attacked and accorded no good faith. You have made it clear you want me to leave. That is reason enough to want to leave. Is that a diagnostic sign of anything except an unhappy editor? Did none of the hundreds of editors that have left wikinew announce they were leaving? Is there a rule that leaving should not be announce? Because I stuck around being hoing hopeful that I would be allowed to write and edit articles in peace, that is a failing of mine and a sign of evil intent?

  • Brian says: "Announcement of departure? Check! User and talk page blanking? Check!"
Response

Really that is the sign of a sockpuppet or a person of evil intent? In the few months I have been here I have seen several such announcements. Is there a rule against that? Would you prefer that editors just leave without commenting? If so, why not make that a rule? Newbies like me are not aware of all you hidden rules, and you help bages are woefully inadequate.

  • Brian says, "To paraphrase Geometry guy, Mattisse, Wikinews does not revolve around you."
Response

Yes, Geometry guy and I had many interactions regarding my "sensitiveness". However, he never disagreed with my judgment over an article and admired my writing and editing skills. He always agreed that I improved articles and did not harm them. We had honest interactions, something that is forbidden here it appears. I think he would still help me out if I asked. We have had hours of chat conversations and I still consider him a friend. The mentoring issue taxed everyone.

  • Brian says: :I would invite the community-at-large to provide input on this. It can't be tolerated here for four months, let alone four years. No interaction ban could prevent this happening with any other administrator or 'crat whatsoever who posts a remark that Mattisse misconstrues. --Brian McNeil / talk 15:14, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Response

I agree. I would like the community to give me feedback on my failings, hopefully in a compassionate way that acknowledges that I bring some value to the project.

It would have helped if you had responded to the first DR, if you had clarified your remarks there, which were also a series of personal and hurful attacks that did not convey useful information to me what I was doing wrong. Specific, concrete explanations are way more helpful that silly, personal jokes with barbs attached. For example, several editors have asked me what does "Dorothy, you're not in Oz anymore means." Do you want to communicate or do you want to make silly, injoke remarks? If you communicated clearly, then I would understand want you mean here. Are you really saying the following remarks on an Article comment page are informative in a useful way, or are you trying to humiliate me to drive me away?:

  • "You don't seem to understand the deeper aspects of any news item you're covering, you lack any real political awareness, and you're yet another fan of flock wallpaper adorned with fluffy bunnies."
  • "Oh, act your age - not your shoe size."
  • "Your reading comprehension skills are pisspoor, you've a persecution complex, and you wilfully ignore good advice."
  • "The flip-flopping is worse than a Tory politician. What's an "adult" to do? I'm wondering "how can a forensic psychiatrist have poor reading comprehension skills?" – Relatives of EssJay, I'd certainly understand that failing."

Are these not childish, vengeful remarks meant to hurt rather than toe educate? And mad on a public page that readers were posting on too. Is it really OK to show the foolish, unprofessional side of wikinews to the public in such a blattant way

So because of sins and frustrations at Wikipedia I am to be punished here? Punished because Brian McNeill insults and degrades me. I will say again that I wrote and average of one published article a day and have published over 60 articles with no problems. I have fixed up and salvaged numerous others. No one has complained that my work is sub par except Brian McNeill.

I don't see the relevance of what happened on wikipedia here. Please provide some diffs of bad behavior on my part that have occurred since the last DR was closed as resolved. I don't think one incident in an article's Comments page is reason enough to drudge up the past and embroil me in nastiness, to discredit me, to make a fool of me. I have edited on the Commons since 2006 with no problems and I have edited profusely at Wikisource since July 2010 with no problems. It is ironic that wikinews, which claims it is not like wp is very much like wp. I have not had problems editing any other sites except wikinews and wikipedia.

Again, I would like Brian McNeill to address the issues in the first DR. If he had communicated clearly, concisely and competently in that DR, this incident might never have happened. The issues are exactly the same. I keep my part of the bargain, as I understood it. He did not keep his. He did not need to trast me in public on an article Comments page in full public view.

Thank you for hearing me out.

Regards, Mattisse (talk) 00:29, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Response from Gryllida

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Mattisse, I see you have troubles understanding how some things work. Please try to

  1. Avoid personal attacks. Some people can misunderstand you, but you shouldn't respond to them unless your response makes further work on the wiki better - even if their comments are not collaborative. (Imagine everyone did otherwise, it would go nowhere far!)
  2. Raise any further concerns like how comments namespace works and what certain contributors' lines mean at Water Cooler.

Your behavior here is similar to what happened at Wikipedia and as such some of us loose patience explaining things. A number of people have Water Cooler on watchlist and should be happier to assist you. --Gryllida 00:51, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please point out what I am doing wrong. I have quoted Brian McNeill's remarks and I have described how those remarks have affected me. Is that wrong. Look what he is doing! He is dragging up 2006 edits on wikipedia. Why? How could anyone be a sockpuppet here with hardly any editors? And does one comment deserve the DR he filed? Especially since he never responded to the one I filed. At least I give him the respect of responding. Post Brian McNeill's DR at the Water Cooler? I don't understand what you mean. I did not file the DR, he did. What do you recommend I ask at the Water Cooler? Mattisse (talk) 01:12, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just state these comments - any sort of questions you have trouble understanding - at Water Cooler instead of the place his comments are at. It's easier for him to avoid just that one Water Cooler page, which is a friendlier place. --Gryllida 01:14, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's not something you did wrong, but rather an advice I'm giving to have it easier for you to reach understanding with this wiki. Gryllida 01:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry but I don't understand what you mean. Are you saying that I should remove my response to the DR and post it at the Water cooler? I did not response in his comments in his comments section. I responded under a different heading. Is that wrong? Should I remove my response to the DR. After all, he never responded to mine. Perhaps it is wrong here to respond to a DR. Is that it. Should I remove my response? What have I done wrong except be foolish enough to think that I could post a comment in the Comments section of an article? I really don't understand. Please explain further. What have I done wrong? I posted at the Water cooler as you suggested. Regards, Mattisse (talk) 01:25, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That should be fine, just clarify what you actually want to know or find confusing there, and someone would respond. --Gryllida 01:31, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK. I want to know why Brian McNeill is bringing up my behavior on wikipedia, concentrating on the sockpuppeting and edits made in 2006 after personally attacking me and demeaning me on the "Comments" section of an article, attacking me with humiliating barbs and demeaning language. I did not do that in the Comments. So I guess I will ask that upon your recommendation. Thanks, Mattisse (talk) 01:38, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Gryllida 02:07, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • I now see clearly that this DR is useless. That the process is rigged. I have been told by many "off wiki" communications that the only solution is to give up. Thus I will do so. If there is anything that comes of this, please post to the link on my user page. Thanks, Mattisse (talk) 03:56, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, this dispute resolution request is not very needed now as we're having a conversation at the Water Cooler. If it fails to clarify things, we may have to resort to escalating it here again. --Gryllida 03:59, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Do you still think the Water cooler is a good idea? I notice all my questions and concerns have been removed. It is as if I never posted there. What do you suggest now? Mattisse (talk) 08:39, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I moved them to User:Gryllida/questions/Mattisse - just respond there to the questions, one by one. Thanks. --Gryllida 08:50, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From BRS

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So far as I can see - though there is far too much length for even me to attempt to read through - nothing has changed since the last DR to warrant this except for a Comments: namespace argument. As such, this would seem to be a Comments: discussion dragged out into more tightly regulated namespaces, and I question what good can come of that. I accept that one can say things there that cannot be said elsewhere; Comments: is a theatre of war, unlike the rest of WN.

I'm going to aim this directly at Mattisse: My impression of you is that you're an intelligent lady, but a hyper-sensitive one. You seem to perceive threats and slights that aren't there; in over-reacting to them, you only end up justifying actual accusations. It is disruptive. However, I do not believe you are out specifically to cause trouble; you merely end up doing so.

There's very much a Jekyll and Hyde here: Once upset, you say/do pretty stupid things. When not upset, you're altogether another person; thoughtful, with a decent grasp of language. It's hard to figure how to deal with that in a way that doesn't involve you depearting the site, which I stubbornly continue to oppose. You're perfectly useful.

My proposal: Both sides drop the DR, which is hopeless. I'm willing to step in as a mentor to Mattisse; whilst I cannot force these terms, I'd recommend them:
Mattisse'd stick to mainspace, Talk: pages, her own userspace/user talk and my user talk. She can venture into other spaces, but she should clear with me first. I'm around at some point pretty much every day, so in practice this hopefully wouldn't be nearly as restrictive as it sounds. If she's upset about something, instead of raising it directly with the user she can come to me; if need be, by email in the first instance. This means I can either explain what she's misinterpreted, or step in on her behalf if need be. I suspect I'll be doing mainly - maybe entirely - the former, but fairness dictates that I step in if she is right.

I'd suggest very strongly if she has a problem she quietly wait for me, as she's shown editing while she's upset generally doesn't end well.

The aim of this is to try to catch Mattisse before she goes off on a semi-coherent rant, and to give an alternative outlet that doesn't involve grinding up the wiki. I actually rather suspect just having such recourse readily available will have some calming effect. My hope is to prevent future disputes becoming so lengthy and heated; or even to prevent them coming altogether where they've begun from a misundestanding. I'm someone Brian trusts also; I'd be expecting him to lay off and see if this works. If it does, he need never raise the issue again.

Such would be subject to community approval, of course. This has had an effect upon such a wide part of the userbase that I'd want consensus for any remedy. However, I can think of no real alternative. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 12:53, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Request from Cirt

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  1. Can both parties please comment in a very short brief statement, no more than four sentences, of what they feel the substance of the continuing ongoing problem is?
  2. Can both parties please also make a statement, saying how they feel this problem can be solved or addressed, what remedies can be taken - in no more than four sentences?

Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 15:42, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From Brian McNeil

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  1. Mattisse has decided I hold a personal grudge and am engaged in some form of vendetta against xyrself. Xe, for reasons unknown, misinterprets remarks, and takes any and all criticism extremely personally. This is a continuation of a four-year long pattern from Wikipedia, with no evidence of learning from such. This, taken as a whole, is extremely disruptive to the entire community.
  2. I do not feel this problem can be solved; it failed to be resolved over a four-year period on Wikipedia where there is a much larger contributor base to absorb disruptive tantrums and personality clashes.

Hopefully 1. above doesn't exceed your requirements. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:15, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From Mattisse

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Thank you very much Cirt. Since we had some contact on wp, perhaps you are aware of some of my competencies as well as my failures. All I want is a fresh start here where I feel I have positively contributed. Articles I have published since March 2011 number over 60:[26] I feel the problem can be solved and I can continue to be productive if Brian McNeil will agree to the following:

  • 1. follow Wikinews:E, specifically: Don't label or personally attack me or my edits. Instead, explain to me civilly my mistakes in an informative manner. Recent examples:
  • "you're yet another fan of flock wallpaper adorned with fluffy bunnies";
  • "Your reading comprehension skills are pisspoor";
  • "how can a forensic psychiatrist have poor reading comprehension skills? -Relatives of EssJay, I'd certainly understand that failing.";
  • I was asked to lay off you by another Wikinews contributor who you, apparently, told you were a forensic psychiatrist. I trust them to not have been lying; you, less-so by the second.
  • "act your age - not your shoe size";
  • labeling me as homophobic.
  • 2. respect the "no contact" proposal in the last DR which included no talk page references to each other;
  • 3. stop repeated unsupported accusations based on "off wiki" communications from unnamed accusers; instead, produce transparent evidence on wiki;
eg. that I am a tool of a meatpuppet involved in a conspiracy and a "whispering campaign" against him and wikinews;
  • 4. produce evidence from this site not my past on another site; if he thinks I am sockpuppeting here, he file a proper Checkuser request with diffs.

Mattisse (talk) 23:28, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reply by Cirt

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  • After having read the responses, it seems that though there is some merit to the comments by Brian McNeil, in addition from Mattisse points (2) and the latter half of point (4) from his response also seem rational.
  • Query: Would both parties agree to a mutual interaction ban, to not interact with each other or comment in reply or response to each other on any pages on this project, broadly construed?

Thank you, -- Cirt (talk) 23:43, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Yes, I would! Thank you, Cirt. That was the proposal in the first DR and I agreed to it there and I agree to it here. I believe this would solve the situation for me! I would also appreciate any other insights you could give me about my behavior. I know I am over sensitive, and I will work on that. But also I don't know the rules of the site. Like I didn't know there was a trolling namespace! Mattisse (talk) 00:15, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mattisse, I would suggest that even if in the future you feel the other party to this dispute is not respecting the action of refraining from mutual interaction — that it would be in your best interests to not engage, and rather, ignore, such issues directly. Rather, you could approach a third-party editor to discuss it with them. -- Cirt (talk) 00:24, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment As demonstrated above, Mattisse cannot follow simple instructions; instead of four short sentence responses, a set of demands and grievances is laid out. I apologised for the length of one response, and I made no demands for retribution. The above, although 'decorated' with the odd compliment to yourself, is not what was requested.
I can attempt to avoid interacting with Mattisse, but would not expect such to include avoiding reviewing xyr work.
Of more concern to me is Risker's analysis from enWP. Grudges were held over a four-year period, and very, very personal attacks made via email. I'm highlighting this now because, as stated earlier, Wikinews could not stand four months of the same disruption enWP took for four years – regardless of the volume of synthesis output.
I would have preferred not to post such a lengthy response here, and will try to avoid/ignore Mattisse; but, some "claims to clueless newbiehood" needed debunked. The biggest problem is that this is a small, but fast-paced, wiki; how long Mattisse can avoid myself, and vice-versa, remains to be seen; xe keeping out of the comments namespace completely is just a small part of it. --Brian McNeil / talk 06:43, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Cirt in response to responses from the two parties

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  1. Mattisse has agreed to a mutual interaction restriction.
  2. Brian McNeil has agreed to avoid where possible interactions with Mattisse, save for the possibility of reviewing articles.
  3. Mattisse has agreed to refrain from commenting in reply to Brian McNeil.
  4. Therefore as applied to reviews, Mattisse can respond in this one exception instance — but only to the substance of the review itself, and not directly to Brian McNeil — very narrowly interpreted, only to address the review itself, and then wait for a 2nd review from a different editor.
  5. Under these mutually agreed restrictions, this appears to be resolved for the time being.
  6. It is assumed from above statements that both parties agreed to a good faith effort to adhere to the mutual interaction restriction, and that formal imposition of same from the community, or other dispute resolution processes, is not necessary at this time.
  7. However, if the parties cannot adhere as such, and disruption occurs, again, then it will natually become more likely that some form of interjection from the community or other dispute resolution process will be needed — in order to formally impose the restriction on the users involved.
  8. This is not a ruling or judgment by myself, merely a summary statement of the impact of the good faith comments by the parties above in their agreements to a mutual editing restriction.

Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 00:09, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are welcome. Thank you for stating you will abide by it. Much appreciated. ;) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 02:57, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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Statement of dispute by Amgine

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04:16, 28 May 2006 Brian New Zealand blocked "Amgine (contribs)" with an expiry time of 15 minutes (WP:POINT)

This is the fourth occasion Brian has blocked me in the past two months; and I have no problem with the previous three blocks. However, the fourth block regards the deletion (and undeletion) of Wikinews:Administrators/Mass Request for Deadminship, 2006, a page created after the removal of the same collection of Requests for de-Adminship on the Administrators page.

There are three policy problems with this block:

  • It is frivolous. This is a misuse of administrative privileges.
  • It has no policy basis. It cites WP:POINT, which is not a policy on Wikinews, but were it policy on Wikinews the block would itself be a violation of that policy.
  • The admin undeleted out of process, and engaged in a conflict with me regarding this deletion, and therefore should not then have personally blocked but instead should have asked another admin to examine the situation and do so.

There are additional issues regarding this particular event which are not related to the above abuses of privilege. These range from a lack of communication (no attempt to communicate before either undeleting or blocking) to a failure to assume good faith. The rush to start wheel warring without looking for other methods of defusing a situation is particularly troubling, and I have begun to lose my trust in this admin regarding this facet of adminship.

I trust and respect Brian's editing and committment to the community; I also happen to like him an awful lot. But I am questioning his actions as an administrator. Were I not the target of this particular action I would apply a block of 30 days for abuse of admin privilege; I feel admins should be held to the highest standard when using their privileges, and this has been my position and response previously.

Response by Brian New Zealand

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You abused your admin priv by the keep deleting of the article, how hard would it have been for another admin to speedy. One could even say that you are deleting anything you disagree with. It is nothing personal, I respect you as an editor.

Statement of dispute by Brian New Zealand

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Response by Amgine

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Mediator

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Comments

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I definitely agree that this 15 minute block was pointless and without basis in policy. Besides, when you want to make a block that small, you may as well simply talk to the user and tell them that you disagree with their actions. Did it serve an actual purpose that Amgine couldn't edit the site for 15 minutes? If so, I don't see it. The matter of the de-admin requests was generally dealt with, and was closed. There was no ongoing disruption of the site (except for the continuing disruption by Jason on various pages and on IRC). Blocking is not a substitute for communication.--Eloquence 10:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Amgine deleted the Rfda page without concensus. He also deleted it while voting was taking place, therefore null and voiding all votes. BrianNewZealand undeleted the so called "article" within policy as it was deleted against policy. I agree with BrianNZ. Amgine has a habit of deleting pages to which he does not agree with and doing so without any concensus whatsoever. Jason Safoutin 12:10, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support both Brian NZ and Dragen as Amgine has been vury disruptive http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Former_chaplain_at_Guatanamo_tells_about_abuse_and_underage_prisoners&diff=259225&oldid=259224 in past month, frum my veiw. He was at arbcom and seemed to get wurse after arbcom from edits I looked back at. Yrtsihpos 01:54, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just some general comments:

  • Amgine you are a bit too quick to delete contravertial stuff. No one would mind if you followed 1RR with page deletion more. But you get into more admin revert wars than anybody else. After your deletion was contested by Brian, you could have easily listed the page for deletion at WN:DR.
  • Brian, I'm fairly confident that deletion resolved the issue more quickly. Its just as easy to list a page for undeletion at WN:DR as to list it for deletion, and you can always temporarily undelete for viewing after a few normal users get interested. I'm really serious about this Brian, we'd have babel boxes today if I'd have immediately listed them for undeletion after Amgine deleted, but I was stupid, waited until an arbcom case started, and undeleted them myself.
  • Everyone, If you know an action or reversion will be contested by other admins, the most efficent strategy is to just gather wider support for your position. Such things are tricky with blocks & such, but they are compeltely trivial for page deletion, just use WN:DR.

Nyarlathotep 13:39, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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Statement of dispute by Brianmc

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I am raising this because I believe, and have acted accordingly, in a belief that Adambro has questioned my actions and interfered with what I see as the good running of a news site. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:38, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Questioning use of Checkuser.
Checkuser is required to keep the bad guys out, and when you see an account called User:Churchofscientologyint, you pretty much know they're a potential source of trouble. I am reliably informed were this any other wiki the user would not have been CU'd but blocked on sight as an inappropriate username. I chose to CU, which revealed an effectively shared account. This, plus my blanking of the user's "advertisment" on their user/talk pages led to the following berating comments from Adambro:
  1. http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Brianmc&diff=prev&oldid=612523
  2. http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Brianmc&diff=prev&oldid=612739
  3. http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Brianmc&diff=prev&oldid=612052
  • Second up is this bloody ridiculous WN:DR for an article about Wikinews' first legal threats.
  1. http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews:Deletion_requests&diff=634659&oldid=634638
  2. http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews:Deletion_requests&diff=634687&oldid=634686
  3. http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews:Deletion_requests&diff=prev&oldid=634838
I speedy closed this and it has been reopened,
This is a self-imposed "chilling effect", and I believe that anyone who supports such action is not acting in the best interests of the project. It has nothing to do with being listed on Slashdot, it has to do with reporting factually accurate news in a professional manner and - as a result - being seen as a credible source elsewhere. I've had lengthy conversations with several people on this issue (Including Cary) and the opinion is they would prefer it not have been done, but it is news, it is accurate.
The BBC News covers their parent organisation all the time, and I'd put pounds for pennies that the senior non-news staff wish to hell they didn't in an awful lot of cases. We have a duty; we are amongst the few collections of people who can cover issues surrounding the WMF and get it right. We know how to read the history, and do quality research. Some of us have built up relationships with WMF board and employees that should help get quotes, we are the best placed to cover the WMF - both good and bad.

Response by Adambro

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Statement of dispute by Adambro

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Response by Brianmc

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Mediator

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If necessary. I will be willing to act as the Mediator. I am netural as I have not been involved and feel that this needs resolving. Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 19:31, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

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I do not see a legitimate reason to delete it myself, and have voted as such while the original DR was open, there were plety others after me who also voted keep before it was closed. I support the speedy keep decision myself.--Ryan524 (talk) 18:59, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My reason for escalating this is precisely that, there is no legitimate reason to delete. Adambro is acting as an unwanted proxy for WMF staff and trying to second-guess what they wish to have done. Yes, sure, let's just go back to writing Labrador gives birth to six puppies, one is black. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:03, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We don't speedy keep because someone thinks it is newsworthy. Adambro clearly thought it wasn't newsworthy so we should let the DR run. In addition I think that the diffs showing Adambros actions show no actions which appear to be against policy in any way. I think Adambro actually stayed calm. I also think that Brianmc should have discussed the issues with Adambro before bringing it to dispute resolution.

Both Adambro and Brianmc are excellent contributors to this site.

Anonymous101 :) 19:13, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by SVTCobra

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As this melodrama has reached epic heights, I cannot seem to avoid comment, despite my earlier reservations against doing so. So I will just say that:

  1. the checkuser questions seemed valid given that the account made no malicious edits; on the other hand it might be a biased account/unacceptable user name. To this I say that was six weeks ago ... this is not really the dispute between the two of you, is it?
  2. the OTRS issue seems to be the real issue here. It seems Adambro was grounded in some policy when removing text from the article in question. The confidentiality of OTRS, the undermining of which could undo the entire trust of the OTRS system, seemed to be at stake. While researching this question, I found in the OTRS introduction this code of conduct, which I will quote:

Protect the privacy of the customer and the confidentiality of the ticket. The requests that come through OTRS can contain very sensitive information. NEVER (EVER) give out (in the IRC-channel, on the wiki or anywhere else) any personal information (names, email address, specific places etc.). If for obvious reasons (i.e. the person who complains is the subject of the article) you need to give personal information, please do so in a private IRC-window to the person you think can take care of the problem.

Given that I only know of the OTRS system from the pages at Meta, and the discussions here, I think there is a legitimate concern that information was inappropriately disseminated from an OTRS ticket. However, once made public, the proverbial cat is out of the bag. Therefore, while Adambro attempted to put the "lid" back on, it cannot be done since it is out. I'd guess, whomever, unveiled this confidential information might face consequences where they obtained it (OTRS). To put this in journalistic perspective, it is like a government employee revealing a state secret to a newspaper. The employee will likely get fired, but once printed, the government can't really do anything to retract it.
In summary, there is nothing to be done to resolve this dispute. What is done is done. The leak may face repercussions at the source (OTRS), but as far as Brianmc and Adambro as wikinewsies are concerned, they'll just have to live with eachother. [I am aware that Adambro requested his admin-rights be removed, but I just had to give this evaluation regardless.] --SVTCobra 00:39, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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Statement of dispute by Neutralizer

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  • My current dispute with Craig is simple. He does not assume good faith when it comes to me and he wants me to be permanently banned from Wikinews. I think my block log history shows I have been non-problematic for most of the past few months (with only Amgine feeling I needed a few short blocks) and I do not think Craig has noticed/recognized that improvement in my behaviour (even though,admittedly, much more future improvement is required and promised by me).
  • Since Craig is an Administrator, Bureaucrat and on our Arbcom he has a status that I find intimidating given his repeated attempts to influence other contributors to permanently ban me. He has actually had little direct interaction with me so it is difficult for me to know exactly what he would like me to do in order to regain his assumption of good faith. I hope that this mediation will provide a venue for him to express exactly what he wants to see from me in that regard. Neutralizer 02:35, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response by CSpurrier

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I still believe Neutralizer should be permanently banned from Wikinews. Assume good faith does not mean we should ignore the facts. The facts are Neutralizer has used sock puppets, made numerous personal attacks, pov-pushed and occasional trolled. I could probably ignore the pov-pushing and the trolling, but the sock puppets and personal attacks are inexcusable. The use of sock puppets shows a blatant disregard for the will of the community and its rules. The personal attacks are a form of abuse that is harmful to the community and no user should be required to put up with. If Neutralizer could “shape up”, I would not have a problem with him continuing to edit. I do not however see any reason to believe that this time should be any different. He has made numerous promises to behave, and they have all been eventual partly or entirely ignored. He either lacks the will or the capability to do so. Though I would very much like for him to prove me wrong and become a polite, productive member of the community, however I very much doubt it will happen. Until the time Neutralizer is permanently banned from Wikinews, I will continue to be polite in my interactions with him and I hope he will do the same.--Cspurrier 23:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by PVJ59

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As an outside party in this dispute, I have the following observations to make:-

  • Certain users have been actively trying to have Neutralizer banned and have shown a lack of good faith in their dealings with him, whilst conveniently ignoring problems such as systemic bias that he (Neutralizer) is trying to overcome in his effort to revive Wikinews.
  • Amgine, intentionally or otherwise, abused his status as a sysop to block Neutralizer while involved in a dispute with the latter, thereby goading Neutralizer into claiming (in overly harsh language) that Amgine was misusing his privileges to push his own POV.
  • Craig Spurrier holds almost all the positions of responsibility granted to users (Administrator, Bureaucrat, Checkuser, Arbitrator) and hence his comments against Neutralizer would, understandably, seem intimidating. There is, though, no evidence to show that CSpurrier has misused any of the privileges granted to him. As for CSpurrier "influencing" other editors, that cannot, at this time, be satisfactorily established. It is clear, however, that for one user alone to have so much power is not in the best interests of the project. The solution to that problem would be to make more Bureaucrats, Checkusers, preferably from Asia/Africa/any other region that, due to systemic bias, is not well represented in these positions. PVJ(Talk) 12:55, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Brian McNeil

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I've had my run-ins with Neutralizer, and he - in my opinion - represents a fairly reactionary fringe, his idea of NPOV seems significantly different from mine. There is a tendency to include material that is, when charitably described, influenced by a variety of conspiracy theories. I have had to remove late edits from a number of articles for archiving where the contribution was a poorly worded emphasis of "innocent until proven guilty" that destroyed the flow of the article by assuming the reader was a redneck ready to string up "tham thar terrorists". --Brian McNeil / talk 22:14, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If the concept of Innocent until proven guilty applies to gun-toting drug-dealers, I think it should also apply to "terrorists". Also, your concept of NPOV (as you call it) seems to be rather unorthodox. PVJ(Talk) 14:52, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Since when do I need to rely on innocent until proven guilty, the user has over 50 blocks for violation of policies and guidelines. Innocent is a strange word to emphasize here. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:01, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also as a FYI, I'm talking about removing crap like "The charges are merely allegations and not proven against those detained" which has been tacked onto the end of several articles 2-3 days after they're published. That is a point I take for granted when I read news of someone's arrest, explicitly stating it is expressing a point of view that you either consider the arrests unfair or the charges unfounded. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:04, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, you are the one who embraces USAGOV promoted conspiracy theories about "terrorists" and "islamofascists" who were factually created by USAGOV and the Saudis and continue to be financed by Afghan opium production. Go get a history book and stop misrepresenting historical fact as being conspiracy theories and weaselly calling me a conspiracy theorist in the process. Just stop the name calling and personal attacks. My edits are not "crap" nor is material I include "influenced by conspiracy theories". Your accusations are false and I demand you apologize for them. Neutralizer 15:56, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Take your unmedicated delusions and your personality defects, and consult a mental health professional. My "accusations" are considered opinions based on substantial evidence and the conclusion I come to is that you are naught but a troll who should have permanently been blocked a long time ago. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:29, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by: DragonFire1024

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My statement is on the discussion page of this "dispute" but I feel the need to place it here...
Neutralizer, you were blocked for POV pushing. You were banned for a personal attack to every editor and user on this Wiki. Your parole is based on cerain requirements that you have agreed to follow. Whether he or anyone else wants you banned is not a violation of policy, or good faith. He wants you blocked because his patience has been exhausted with you. Do you intend to bring IlyaHaykinson or Messedrocker here too? I see no "dispute" here other than you seem to be upset that he does not want you around anymore.
He has not influenced me at all. Nor has anyone else. I support your parole because I do not want to be accused of "not giving you a chance." Where is this evidence that you say he is influencing users? All I see is a statement with nothing to back it up. In order for him to "assume good faith" regarding you, show him good faith and show the community good faith.
This resolution, until such evidence of "manipulation" comes forward is a diversion from the project and IMO this is not "useful edits" as you, neutralizer agreed to do as a condition of parole. Jason Safoutin 20:06, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikinews' audience always goes into the toilet when I'm not around

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My last edits were Sep.4th.

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=wikinews.org

I wish the pro-anglo-american pov gang would get off their ass and write something worth reading.

Neutralizer 10:20, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

File:Pchart.jpg
Correlation between global temperature and the numbers of pirates
The graph to my right clearly and indisputably shows that global warming is caused by the falling numbers of pirates worldwide. Neutralizer, you do care about the environment, right? Help the world and become a pirate. --+Deprifry+ 22:06, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
you miss the point...EVERY time he is blocked or goes away for awhile the numbers go down; anyone who really cares about the project should be begging him to stay involved. 67.71.122.65 02:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Every time Pirates go down, global temperature increases (For as long as we have records of temp and pirates). Maybe people are just drawn to the amount of drama he creates. (People like fighting and flamewars). user:Bawolff. 02:31, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Last I checked (assuming no new developments I'm unaware of) Neutralizer waas invited to stay under MessedRokers probation plan. Thats more then fair in his favour in my humble opinion. user:Bawolff
I assume you all know the chart is bogus as no one knows how many pirates there are so Deprify must be saying all charts are bogus. I know people who believe all education is bogus and also a few who believed that Saddam had wmds so I suppose the fact some people believe all charts are bogus just falls into the category of "to each his own". Neutralizer 16:01, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, the chart is not bogus because "no one knows how many pirates there are". The interpretation is bogus because it is a typical example of the correlation implies causation fallacy. Pretty much like your egotistical interpretation of Alexa statistics actually. That you didn't understand it pretty much proves my point. --+Deprifry+ 18:14, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, your "point" is vacated at origin through use of a bogus chart. I don't wish to "understand" nonsense. It is nonsense to use a bogus chart to disprove a causation effect. A non-bogus chart could serve to show causation which is why you resort to a bogus chart. I think the Alexa chart is non-bogus. Your use of a bogus chart to support non-causation theory only serves to prove by opposition that a non-bogus chart can show causation. The knowing use of a bogus chart to prove or disprove anything is quite a good example of BushSpeak,double speak and pseudointellectual faulty logic which seems to have washed over our younger generation and culture. Do you really imagine one could disprove gravity by burying an apple and claiming that since it dropped no further than where buried that means gravity is a myth? Did you know that today in Florida less than 50% of the black boys finish high school? Did you know that the illiteracy rate in the USA was 4% in 1952 and is 18% today? Did you know that all IBM employees were required to have a small sign on their desks which said "THINK" for decades but now only the top executive tier have the signs?Is there a connection between that stuff and the use of a bogus chart to make a bogus point? I think so but you may not. Here is a now deleted section of pedia's Skull and Bones section on education. I think it's interesting, you may not; BUT I will never understand how it could be less relevant than a bogus chart being used to attempt to disprove anything at all.

'Bones and U.S. Education

Bones Importing the Prussian Social Control Model

The connections that Bonesman George Miller had with high finance and high politics through Bonesman William Walter Phelps (S&B, 1860) helped 'steer' U.S. Education to take root in a German-Prussian vein as well. For the purposes of this article, "in a Prussian vein" means according to the principles founded in the requirements of the Prussian royalist state. In 1816, after the total defeat in the Napoleonic Wars, Prussian legislation went very right wing, basing its premises on 'Right-Hegelian' Fichte. The desire to make education compulsory for all was hardly for the interests of educating people or enriching their lives. It was for the interests of creating a perfectly hierarchical and centrally manipulatable society of the future with a small coterie of elites actually doing the thinking for the whole society, and the others blindly following orders, having been crippled by the eduational frameworks to be unable to know anything different.

In the Prussian strategy, the whole population is categorized into three "educational castes" to formulate future easier elite control of the population.


1. those who will be policy makers, who are taught to think (0.5%),

2. those who will be engineers, lawyers, doctors--who are taught to partially think, only for accreditation in specialized topics (5.5%), and

3. the children of the masses, who are to be taught how to follow orders (94%).'


[27]"In other words "compulsory education" may have had from the start a social design purpose for a hidden curriculum: aiming to maintain an ever more difficult to achieve form of elite managerial dominance--as calls for democracy, widened political participation, and the removal of the political perks of aristocratically inherited wealth were expanding throughout European society and the United States. The Prussian educational system in Germany as well as the United States was idealized as a strategic tool to demote political and intellectual equality and to reformulate an aristocratic society in novel formal institutions. It could even be called a "de-educational" model, because it promotes a society that is endemically uneducated and trained mostly to follow someone else's centralized instructions thoughtlessly." Neutralizer 19:01, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can see Neutralizer that your attitude, editing and way of thinking on Wikinews has not changed since your break. I can see you have no interest in changing nor do you have any interest in following the conditions of your "parole." This is supposed to be a dispute resolution page, not a page for you to express your views on the project or opinions of other users. If you have a problem state it. Otherwise take the conspiracy stuff to your user page or off Wikinews. Jason Safoutin 22:23, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In addition, not that since you have been back, you have not made any positive contributions as to articles or writing any. Not such a good note to start off on. Jason Safoutin 22:27, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Jason, I'm just trying to follow the flow of things like the bogus chart and Brian's personal appraisal of the value of other people's edits; and there are no worthwhile news stories around right now that I can find. I did notice over the past month that you have been contributing a lot and that's great. Neutralizer 01:05, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I thank you for the compliment. But you have been gone for a month and come back with this attitude and unuseful contributions by stirring up a quiet and calm community. Peaceful to say the least. I do not pay attention to charts. Bogus or not. I pay attention to the site, the users, and everything that goes on here as best as I can. Brian has in no way judged the value of my edits. If he did I don't care. That what a Wiki is. Collaborating editing with users everywhere about anything. On the point of "no worthwhile articles..." write one for a change. Jason Safoutin 21:00, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.



Statement of dispute by DragonFire1024

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My current diapue with Amgine is simple.

  1. Amgine has, for whatever reason, and still has not stated why, but has no trust in me, and never has since day one of my arrival.
  2. He seems to think that my Rfda's are disruption, I disagree.
  3. He picks and chooses who violates policy then blocks them. For example: Eloquence made, IMO, a personal attack on the WN:A talk page and therefore was never blocked for it. Calling users "trolls" is not constructve.
  4. Although IRC logs are not allowed to be used, Amgine has made more than several personal attacks on me in the #wikinews channel. He has also banned/kicked me numerous times in what I believe to be a way to get me to shut up.
  5. Amgine seems to delete pages (such as my mass Rfda) without concensus and while voting was in progress. Note: At the time of deletion, both times by Amgine, there was no concensus.

I beleive this resolution is absolutely necessary if collaboration is to continue between us. Jason Safoutin 12:35, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response by Amgine

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Thank you for this opportunity to discuss this dispute publicly on-wiki.

  1. Your early contributions established a confrontational, non-collaborative approach to news writing within this project. You have exhibited poor social interaction skills on the wiki, and with some regularity a marked lack of judgement. Your actions have on occasion suggested you react to stressful circumstances by losing your temper. These and other reasons have formed the basis of my lack of trust in you for the responsibilities of adminship. I also personally question your ability to represent the project as an accredited reporter, for the same reasons, but the community has given you that responsibility and I support the community in doing so.
  2. Any Request for de-Adminship is disruptive to the workings of the site; that is in fact their purpose. Doing so without a basis other than being personally disgruntled is particularly offensive. Failing to attempt to discuss this with the wider community (for example as a proposal on the Water Cooler) is simply arrogant grand-standing to make a point. Repeated recreation of the poll is vandalism (also grounds for speedy deletion.)
  3. Wiktionary defines troll in the following relevant definitions:

    Etymology 2, Verb 3: by extension, to search (for), to draw out, to entice
    Etymology 2, Noun 2: (Internet) Someone who posts to a newsgroup, bulletin board, etc., in a way deliberately intended to anger other posters and draw arguments.
    Etymology 2, Noun 3: (Internet) Such a deliberately inflammatory post itself.

    Eloquence's reference to your repeated dismissal of and attacks on the ArbCom policy and the community decision-making process on the reconfirmation poll for MrMiscellaneous ([28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33]) accurately describes your behaviour there. It is akin to accusing Mr Bush of "politicking" or an academic journal's blind review process as "elitism": yes, that's what they are doing and so it is not a personal attack to say so.
  4. I have in IRC said you were acting like an idiot, that you were throwing a temper tantrum, and that you were attempting to be intimidating. I reiterate those statements here. See the above response, and I refer you to articles idiot (especially etymology), and tantrum on Wiktionary.
  5. Referring to the speedy deletions policy I find the following:

    Content reposted without changes that was deleted according to established deletion policy.


    Your RfdAs were removed in accordance with existing policy, more than once. Their recreation as a separate article was without merit, and vandalous.


There has been little collaboration between us previously, for the simple reason that you do not tend to collaborate. You have shown zero effort prior to this point to attempt to resolve any differences that I am aware of. I am very hopeful that discussing this will bring about a change in behaviour, and that we may move toward a community-supported article creation process which is not confrontational. - Amgine | talk en.WN 17:41, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement of dispute by Amgine

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I am happy to accept this request for dispute resolution.

DragonFire1024's first edit was in January 2006, and on the same day uploaded copyvio images. When it was pointed out these images might be copyright violations by other admins, he responded defensively and aggressively, or not at all, setting the pattern for this user's community interactions on Wikinews since. User appeared from his earliest communications to be self-involved rather than collaborative (e.g. first talk page entry [34], second talk page edit [35])

Despite this behaviour, my first interaction with this user was complimentary and, I hope, welcoming [36].

This is not an unknown behaviour pattern on Wikinews, and is not by itself a major flaw in a contributor. It is, however, unacceptable for an admin. Especially when coupled with a tendency to engage in edit/revert wars over ideological content (Talk:U.S. airstrike targeting Ayman al-Zawahiri leaves 18 dead in Pakistani village history [6th day active on WN], Talk:Pakistani Official claims 'foreign terrorists' among civilians killed in U.S. airstrike history, etc. More recently Talk:Amnesty Report 2006: disadvantaged pay price of war on terror history)

The user has a history of inappropriate community interactions. A recurrent theme in these interactions is an assumption of article/site ownership or entitlement ("I will not allow..." "My article..."), use of the imperative voice ("Do not..." "Do this...") Another recurrent theme is denial of responsibility for his actions. Finally, the user attempts to intimidate contributors in a manner reminiscent of a school yard bully; shouting and berating without considering or accepting response or feedback, taunts and accusations.

The above communications and collaborative issues make DragonFire1024 a challenging user to work with, but again the user is not unique in this regard.

The current issue with which DragonFire1024 is upset is his desire to de-admin all existing admins for failing to be responsive to the community - apparently in this case meaning failing to be responsive to him personally. This action is clearly disruptive to the community, and harmful, and is being made to make a point: that in his opinion the community's previous decisions (prior to his arrival on Wikinews) must be approved by himself or they are not community decisions.

This Dispute Resolution request is also a continuation of many hours worth of berating and harrassment he has engaged in off-wiki, and is itself an example of the user's efforts to attempt intimidation.

I will be happy to work with a mediator and DragonFire1024 regarding personal differences between us, but I am unsure what the intent of such mediation would be. Perhaps we should determine what the goal of such mediation would be, so as to be able to work collaboratively toward that goal. - Amgine | talk en.WN 16:52, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response by DragonFire1024

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In response to the Airstrike article. I was working with it to make it factual, as reports were, at the time. Not what they might have been or what they could have been. The article was changed to speculate what might be reason behind the strike.

Please note the article went from, which were the very first reports: Al-Qaeda member Ayman al-Zawahiri possibly dead to 18 killed in U.S. air strike on village in Pakistan which was NOT the news at the time. The news, at the time of reporting, was Zawahiri. The title was being changed, and still is, to show a dislike/hatred towards the U.S. As Amgine says, see the talk page.

As for the foreign terrorists, again. Same situation.

For the amnesty article, well for one the entire article is POV without ANY defense to the so called "arrogant" governments which violates WN:NPOV. Reporting is supposed to be balanced and neutral, this article is neither. I was IMO ignored and was also told that me concerns were "without merit" and were "not actionable" and "philosofical" (that word was copied and pasted from the articles talk page). Ignoring users is NOT collaborating.

I may say My (maybe in IRC when discussing)...but its not mine. I am refering to the fact that I did write...however; I do not own any articles on this Wiki. I also never state any of them as being "mine". Is my name on a byline anywhere?

I am far from a shouter. Open minded and very blunt? Yes. I can however name a few users who are much worse in that respect. Back to the amnesty article: Who was the one being ignored again? How would i be able to accept "feedback" if i am told my concerns are useless?

Apparently I was not clear. So let me be very clear: I see on a daily basis that admins (most) are around to block users protect pages...I only mostly see Amgine block users, regularly, and comment on talk pages, but rarely even write an article or edit one for that matter. It is clear that most of the admins (including Eloquence and IlyaHaykinson) usually, in my experience only come about when a dispute or blocking occurs. With that said, Admins (most) do NOT pay the least bit attention to the community and do not pay enough attention to their concerns. They get the Admin postition and then do nothing. The mass Rfda was for that reason. If you are not willing to accept that the community has concerns, then i don't want you as an admin (you being any admin). You represent the community. Remember that. You have no right to block someone because they do not like the job you are doing.

Other than Brianmc, Amgine is the only Admin to ever block me. Also note that Amgine has blocked me while in dispute with me nearly every time. MrM removed a block to block again once. Jason Safoutin 17:33, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Amgine, I consider you deleteing the Rfda page, before ANY concensus and without any tag of deletion, a violation of policy. It is my belief that you deleted the page because you did not like the page. You also did this with the userboxes. You cannot simply delete pages because you dislike them. That is abuse of administrator privilages. In addition, BrianNewZealand was well within his powers to undelete a page to which was illegaly deleted.
Any Request for de-Adminship is disruptive to the workings of the site; that is in fact their purpose. Doing so without a basis other than being personally disgruntled is particularly offensive. Failing to attempt to discuss this with the wider community (for example as a proposal on the Water Cooler) is simply arrogant grand-standing to make a point. Repeated recreation of the poll is vandalism (also grounds for speedy deletion.)
Yup...I say the same for MrM. Hes Rfda is NOTHING but a disturbance and ILLEGAL. I believe you and the rest of "ArbCom" is also disgruntled and has a "personal" issue with MrM, issues which IMO have NOTHING to do with the project. By taking that to ArbCom you failed to allow the community to decide proper action. I beleive that this case against MrM is a "grandstand" and nothing more than revenge. As far as I see it the case against MrM, and EdBrown NOT recusing himself, makes the case NULL and VOID. What I did was not vandalism or disruption especially after I added ONLY you and Eloquence to the Rfda, which was also removed IMO because they did not like it. This is a community and Admins are elected through the community and and Rfda should only be listed as such. If you want Arbcom to Rfda then make them also add a Rfa. Jason Safoutin 19:05, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mediator

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Comments

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"Your RfdAs were removed in accordance with existing policy, more than once. Their recreation as a separate article was without merit, and vandalous." --Amgine

I would personally like to point out that they were not recreated as another page by DragonFire1024. They were recreated on the WN:A (by DF) as RfdA's (they were originally re-confirmation requests), and I relocated them to another page since they were taking up too much space. —THIS IS MESSEDOCKER (TALK) 18:44, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(Feel free to ignore this if you don't care) — The arbcom is not Amgine. If you have a problem with it, you should proably open a dispute resolution with them - Wikinews:Dispute resolution/DragonFire1024 and the arbcommies (Bawolff Chiacomo Craig Spurrier Deprifry Edbrown05 Ilya Haykinson). Bawolff ☺☻ 23:33, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.



Jade Knight

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(I can see no protocol for listing things here, so I'm winging it.)

I am concerned that there may be a tendency for some users at Wikinews to put down the contributions of others or a degree of unwillingness to engage in discussion: In particular, users voting for deletion here did not engage in discussion, and the page was deleted before a single person voting for the deletion responded to my concerns about the nature of the nomination. I had raised several suggestions for improving the article at the article's talk page, which were likewise mostly ignored. I put several hours worth of work trying to improve the article, and took care to try to address all concerns posted in the first two reviews (which I specifically requested to improve the article, and neither of which listed anything suggesting that the entire topic should be abandoned). The entire time, I have acted in good faith, but I have come to feel that my contributions are unwelcome here, and that Wikinews users believe in deletion, and not in discussion. Perhaps I should just continue to contribute to Wikipedia and Wikiversity, and leave Wikinews to others? Jade Knight (talk) 08:04, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I realize that this is an old topic, and that you might not still be around, but I wanted to respond anyway. I seem to remember voting for deletion on that article. The reason why it had to be deleted was because it was no longer news. This is Wikinews and news has to be new. It can't be weeks or months old. This is simply an unfortunate fact of the news cycle. After something ceases to be news, it becomes historical content and should be added to Wikipedia instead of here. So it's not that we didn't understand your concerns, or the work that you'd put in, it's just that there was no way to save the article due to Wikinews' policies. I myself have had several hours of work get deleted due to this policy on several occasions, so I know how you feel.
One last thing: I want you to know that this case (and others like us) have led us to create a new {{welcome}} template that does a better job of listing these rules upfront, so that prospective editors like yourself won't write doomed articles. I (and, I'm sure, everyone else here), certainly understand the tendency to feel unappreciated when something that you worked hard on disappears, and we want to avoid that whenever possible. Gopher65talk 01:22, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I can't speak for this specific incident, as I didn't see the DR in question. But as a general trend, I'm concerned theres an increase in assuming people have read all the help pages. If someone doesn't understand why something is going to be deleted, or proposes ways to improve an article, on a dr, it should be politely explained to them why it is a good or bad idea. I've especially noticed a resurgence lately (although admittedly i do it to), of tag-and-dashing. People tagging an article with some flag, and then running away. Or even worse new users who create articles put it for review, the review fails. Well there is a note on the talk page of the article about what happened, the new user probably is unaware of the talk page, and only sees his article now has a develop template on it. (I think we should switch to {{tasks}} for a failed review btw). Often they don't even have a welcome note on their talk page. So all they see is please develop this article, with no indication of what went wrong. Anyways, The point of this mini-rant, is that we should not make assumptions that people know what we're doing, as they usually don't. Cheers. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:51, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
First-off the original WN:DR can be seen here. But Bawolff makes some excellent points, though I think they are better shared at the Wikinews:Water cooler. But this phenomenon is not new, I went through what felt like hell to get my early articles published, and that was before sighted revisions. --SVTCobra 02:11, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've been so busy that I've hardly been anywhere on Wikimedia lately; I only just now noticed your comment. I don't have much time to argue now, but I feel like I should say that it seems like part of the problem is that those who are pointing out problems with articles here (this case included) seem to delay the publishing of articles they happen to dislike until they are no longer news. It hardly seems reasonable to say "this can't be published because it doesn't satisfy this and this criteria", and then, after (through several days' work) it's made to satisfy those criteria, say "this can't be published because it's too old". To be honest, the environment here seems pretty durn acerbic. Wikipedia's world's friendlier, and that's saying something! Jade Knight (talk) 10:29, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wikinews is not Wikipedia. And there is not time in a news cycle to mollycoddle people. I don't even really see why this is listed here, Jade Knight versus the Wikinews community? That's tilting at windmills. Lots and lots of articles get deleted, and probably every regular contributor has lost some. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:02, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On another note. I just read the DR. I find it rather disturbing that people make comments such as ExTerMiNATE! This has no redeeming features. and Super Remove Wipe it from the face of the Earth. I would not be encouraged to continue to contribute if someone said similar things about something I wrote. We should always be mindful of people's intentions (AGF and all). Even if the article was inappropriate for wikinews (which after reading it, perhaps it was), the authors intention was to help. We should be mindful of that. Well constructive criticism is always useful, saying "Wipe from the face of the earth" doesn't help anyone, and only serves to make people feel unappreciated and defensive. Honestly, most poop vandalism is usually treated with more respect. Bawolff ☺☻ 05:13, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.



I am closing this dispute resolution request as unresolved for two reasons: 1. User:Tempodivalse has retired from Wikinews; and 2. there have been no edits in over two weeks. --Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 10:20, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Tempodivalse (talk · contribs) and Brian McNeil (talk · contribs)

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I'd like to bring an ongoing dispute between myself and user:Brian McNeil to the community's attention. We've been on rather strained terms recently due to frequent disagreements, but Brian's latest comments in reaction to an inadvertent edit conflict I find highly inappropriate, such as: [37] [38]. This isn't the first time he's reacted too strongly to a problem or disagreement; for instance, I was kickbanned and de-opped from the #wikinews channel a few weeks ago because we disagreed on something.

Please understand I'm not at all trying to pursue a personal vendetta against Brian - to the contrary, I appreciate his many contributions to Wikinews and I know he's under a lot of stress in real life. However, I find this attitude deeply concerning - it's totally against the principles of basic etiquette and the spirit of a productive, encouraging editing environment. I've tried to get Brian to realise, on multiple occasions, that this is actively hurting us, but he appears unwilling to consider changing his attitude or even apologise for previous indiscretions. I normally don't like stirring up drama like this, and wouldn't have made such a fuss, but it's crossed a line where I don't want to just let it go. I'd like to turn to the community now to ask what, if anything, we should do to try and remedy the situation. Tempodivalse [talk] 22:33, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am willing to mediate in this dispute resolution, however there are a couple things I need to say/ask before you consider taking this step:
  • Have you exhausted other attempts to communicate with BrianMc regarding this issue? Especially, have you attempted to disengage from working in areas you do not need to and where you are sure you will be either in conflict with or an irritation to BrianMc? have you tried either step three or step four above in the dispute resolution?
  • Have you informed BrianMc you will be taking this step to resolve the dispute between the two of you?
  • I have known BrianMc longer than I have known you, Tempodivalse. You may consider this to bias me in BrianMc's favour, which it likely does simply due to familiarity. Be aware that both parties must agree to any mediator choice, and both should feel very comfortable with whomever is chosen. - Amgine | t 02:03, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've talked about this with him on my talk page and other on-wiki pages previously, and had multiple discussions with him in IRC - none of which resulted in much anything. Given that the community is small and I participate in many aspects of Wikinews, it's a bit difficult to avoid coming into contact with Brian sooner or later. The pages linked to in steps three and four are obsolete, so I didn't think there would be much point in going through them.
  • Yes. [39]
  • I actually didn't have in mind to have a specific mediator, mainly just wanting community suggestions on where to go from here. If we do need a mediator, I'd prefer someone that isn't as familiar with either of us and thus less likely to have inherent biases. Tempodivalse [talk] 02:41, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WN:TEA, anyone? Benny the mascot (talk) 03:47, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That page is more or less obsolete. I wasn't sure whether it would be useful to try and post there. Tempodivalse [talk] 14:06, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • And, this is the first notice I've seen of this. I certainly overreacted, but I had two edit conflicts while editing from a mobile device; a "lost" edit (conflict) was, perhaps inappropriately titled, but 20+ minutes of explaining myself over the actual earlier conflict was lost in that, and I likely overreacted. I would suggest people actually try editing particularly lengthy pages from a mobile device. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:07, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I do it all the time, so I know very well how much of a pain it can be. But that's not an excuse for such a strong reaction to what really is a trivial issue. Benny the mascot (talk) 13:32, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Difficulties editing from mobile devices are not the issue here. I can very well understand how much time can be lost over a large addition to a talk page in an edit conflict - it happens not infrequently to me. What I'm trying to highlight here is that, in my opinion, you overreact to almost every problem, no matter how trivial, far too drastically. You're unable to control yourself, and it hurts our atmosphere. Tempodivalse [talk] 14:05, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I know that this is slightly off-topic, but I really don't like how Mediawiki deals with edit conflicts. I've been driven to rage on more than one occasion because of Mediawiki's stupidity. But I don't know what other methods could be used other than the current one. Does anyone have any thoughts? Gopher65talk 14:46, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    When I have a complex response/edit to make to a large section I often pop in and create a subsection, save, then edit that section. When a page is being heavily edited I will sometimes use a user subpage to draft my changes; the reason for this is if someone else is edit conflicted, they are forced to do a page edit instead of a section edit, so even if I'm off editing my own little section I have a greater likelihood of being conflicted as well. - Amgine | t 16:40, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Amgine's off-the-hook comments

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Over the past few months I have observed the background conflicts between Tempodivalse and Brian McNeil. Brian McNeil is a passionate, curmudgeonish contributor with more en.WN experience than I have, and a temper to suit a 30-year veteran news editor. Tempodivalse is lacking depth of experience and character in news, and so relies on rules guidelines to protect xyr often-puppyish blunders. A very similar disagreement developed between myself and DragonFire1024, and while I may have been more polite when ripping xyr a new asshole I am very sympathetic with Brian's position. But keep in mind, DragonFire did mature over time. (I also had conflicts with Brian when we were both rather less experienced with Wikinews, and <tone style="condescending for irony">he matured too</tone>.)

My suggestion for both parties is avoidance. You are not going to get along at this point, so try hard to work in separate areas. Both of you are policy wonks: I suggest you both stop touching policy for a few weeks. Discussions on WC are fine, but getting into policy changes are going to cause your mutual distrust to flare. - Amgine | t 16:56, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I will be posting a fuller comment on this dispute later, but I just can't let your absurd characterisation of Tempo go unchallenged. He has contributed over 500 articles to Wikinews, reviewed countless more, came first by a huge margin in the Writing contest 2010 (which accounted for depth of contributions, not just quantity, and specifically excluded content from VoA), is a member of the Arbitration Committee, and is justifiably receiving significant support in the ongoing elections to that body. the wub "?!" 18:07, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
None of the articles I have examined have placed the context of the world news events, nor indicated an ability by Tempodivalse to connect events. A firehose of output without the ability to understand the material xe is synthesizing means very little to me. The ArbCom as it is currently constituted is a beauty contest - it has little to do with actual critical analysis. In my opinion a journalist must be able to critically examine original source materials within their context to be able to write good news. Without the critical view it's amateurish, puppyish, with good intention but without depth. You, however, may have a different opinion. - Amgine | t 18:15, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with your characterisation of me, but nonetheless, thanks for your comments. Normally, two editors that have inherently conflicting personalities would do well to avoid each other when possible, but it's not just me that Brian's not getting along with. I've had many editors, both newbies and long-term contributors, complain to me about his attitude, saying it was discouraging them from participating. It's fine to be straightforward and blunt - sometimes it's needed - but one has to know where to stop. I want at least some sort of acknowledgment from Brian that this is a problem and that he needs to tone down his attitude. If we don't do anything, we're basically condoning stuff like this and saying "that's fine, you can break all our etiquette guidelines, hurt the community atmosphere, and there won't be any repercussions". Had it been anyone other than Brian making that particular comment, I'm sure a few admins would be considering a block. Tempodivalse [talk] 18:31, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
<grin> If I had bits, it wouldn't be merely considered. I tend to shoot from the hip about admins, and, I admit, Brian McNeil in particular. And if I had done so we'd have had a shouting match in IRC, then he'd have admitted as briefly as he could (as he did on this page) that he'd screwed up. And we'd try to forget about it, he being more circumspect and me pretending nothing had happened but remembering that something had.
That's how communities get along. There will always be provocations, but communicate, forgive, and sort of forget. - Amgine | t 18:40, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────┘
 I agree wholeheartedly with all of Amgine's comments herein. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:48, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

[edit conflict] Yes, this works for one-off occurrences; someone got overheated, then we forgive and forget and the whole thing goes away. Totally agree. But in this case it won't work because nobody learns. I've seen it happen, time and again: Brian does something bad, usually issues a short apology, and several days later the same thing happens all over again. I consider myself to have "thick skin", but not everyone does, and a *lot* of people would be put off just to see that such behaviour is tolerated. Imagine if you worked at a real news agency where a coworker jeers at you, calling you a useless imbecile - even when your actual work would prove that patently false - and nobody else would care or even try to do anything. I don't think the average person would like to stick around for long there before quitting. Tempodivalse [talk] 18:53, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, now that you mention it, I have worked in such a place. Actually, a couple of them. And no, I don't work there anymore. But I understand your point; you feel Brian's approach is consistently abusive, and is immutable. I could make several arguments regarding that, but I'll only make one suggestion: why don't you wait and see if this step you've taken - a dispute resolution request between you and he - has an effect on how both you and he behave? Mind you, this is just a personal comment/suggestion, but I'm wondering if you've considered that his (and your) personal interactions actually do change over time, and sometimes it takes what he calls a wake-up call to force communication. - Amgine | t 19:00, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would have to kick things back into touch here; my behaviour, and approach to other contributors, is being questioned/challenged. The points raised in this sub-section relate to the other party's usefulness to the project, and how they - albeit politely - ask immature, uninformed questions, repeatedly badger for input on their latest plans to tinker with project policies, &c.
Example: A new guide to Wikinews? That is what I put time into creating the welcome template for; succinct, visually pleasing on most browsers, includes a "start an article" editbox, and links to all key policies. What, exactly, was wrong with, avoiding flowery, wasteful, verbiage, and suggesting improvements? There's a long, long, history of Tempo fiddling with policies from a position which Amgine lays out above, and I will sum up bluntly; Xe knows how news should look, but sweet F.A. about how to get it or manage its production. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:23, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"...badger for input on their latest plans to tinker with project policies" = um, isn't this the pot calling the kettle black? You've proposed changes to policies and actually altered them at least as much, if not more than, me. I'm sorry, but I have to object to my "usefulness" being questioned like this. Tempodivalse [talk] 19:52, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I assert more time hanging over the real fire. And, again, you either did not edit a section, or erased the relevant edit summary component to allow someone to immediately jump to the section you edited. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:04, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Real"? As in ...? Okay, so you say I'm a useless fool; I disagree and think that is very easily disproven, but that's not what I'm trying to stress here. Specifically, you still haven't addressed why you don't think your attitude is hurting the project, despite many users voicing repeated concern over it. Tempodivalse [talk] 22:09, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Real", as in I have actually carried out original research, and real journalism. And, I did not say you were a 'useless fool'; I bemoaned your failure to learn from others (such as myself) where we've gone wrong, and how we've actually formulated the policies you see before you.
Or, do you consider yourself useless because I agree with Amgine's "A firehose of output without the ability to understand the material xe is synthesizing means very little to me."? --Brian McNeil / talk 22:49, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh for fucks sake. Yes, you enjoy doing long original research pieces, and yes, you're very good at it. Other people (myself included) prefer doing synthesis articles, and stick to that. Mock it as not "real" journalism all you want, but both are important and valuable to Wikinews. You can't force people to do something they don't want to do: A. We aren't paid for this, and B. this site doesn't fucking belong to you, no matter what you might think. This is supposed to be a site for free NEWS, and that doesn't just include what you do. the wub "?!" 23:15, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

┌──────────────────────────┘
 Thank fuck, someone else swore in the discussion. :-P Let me give an example, because I appreciate the value of synthesis. This article is from a contributor I trust to go "by-the-book" style-wise, look at the versions either end, and the effect on how that lede scans. Then look at it again as if you know nothing about US culture, and the framework the story fits into. Now, if you want to really dig into this discussion, why are people repeatedly coming in from Wikipedia and thinking that project's rules, conventions, &c apply? They're inappropriate. There is not the time to run a wikicrèche, I'm writing here out of respect for the community. I have, several times in the past, told Tempodivalse (talk · contribs) to read past discussion on policy formulation, or review the work that led to policy being formulated in a certain way. Invariably, there is no response to indicate such action has been taken; far less likelihood of any indication a lesson has been learned, or knowledge absorbed. Yes, this is somewhat rhetoric-based hyperbole, but I'm usually pushed far past being sarcastically civil before there's any climbdown or acknowledgement that I "have more than just a clue". --Brian McNeil / talk 00:32, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Section break, comment

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Per my userpage notice, I've decided it's best to step back from the project for now. The constant frustration and disappointment has surpassed the "fun" of aspect Wikinews, and without that, there's no incentive for me to stay here. As such, I'm probably not going to reply to any further posts; that's just as well, because we're starting to go round in circles. However, I'd much appreciate for this to remain open for a bit to let other users comment - and ideally for us to actually get somewhere and learn, instead of it being the fruitless arguments that past similar discussions have all been. Tempodivalse [talk] 14:45, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • As you wish. But, I strongly feel that announcing this, then continuing to snipe in a vote to drive me off-project, is not anywhere remotely related to disengaging. We run round in circles because when I raise a challenge such as the above you have no answer. I'm very thankful you've done so much archiving; that job was hellish to get close to up-to-date. I would have loved to see that feeding back into the news generation cycle, instead of being a piece of accounting. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.



Statement by User:Borofkin

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There seems to be a great deal of tension surrounding this user and his participation in this project. He is frequently accused of various violations of policy and of not editing in good faith. Likewise, he often accuses other users of vandalism, not editing in good faith, and manipulating discussions to attack him personally.

There has been a great deal of discussion on article talk pages, user talk pages, and WN:ALERT. There has been article revert wars, and user-block wars. I'm not pretending to be impartial, as I too have been in conflict with this user. I'm posting to this page because I would like the community to consider the problem in a more formalised way, and attempt to build consensus to try and prevent further conflict.

I am not trying to attack this user, I'm trying to prevent further conflict. This may mean the user has to modify his behaviour, and it may mean those in conflict with him need to modify their behaviour. My prediction is both.

I would like to clarify that I don't consider myself to be directly in dispute with Mrmiscellanious. I don't know if it is acceptable on the dispute resolution pages, but I would like to see all users who have an issue to post a statement here.

I have removed the diffs that I posted previously, and will only comment on events in which I was personally involved.

Dispute over block for 3RR

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The incident of note when I felt myself to be in conflict with Mrmiscellanious was his defence of "reverting vandalism" when he was blocked for 3RR of Full extent of Abu Ghraib detainee abuse revealed. This incident disturbed me greatly, because I found it extremely difficult to believe that MrM, with all his experience and knowledge of policy, really thought that he was reverting "simple vandalism" as defined in WN:3RR. I always try to assume good faith, even when edits are bizarre or possibly malicious, but to see a long-term and respected contributor put so much effort into getting himself unblocked when the policy violation was obvious was too much to handle.

As I have said above, I don't consider myself to be currently involved in any dispute with MrM, however this incident has caused me to sympathise greatly with those who are or have been in a dispute with him, and is my main motivation for bringing this whole matter to the dispute resolution pages.

Editing style

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Much of Mrmiscellanious' work on this wiki involves dealing with vandals, cleaning up articles, and working with other contributors to remove bias from articles. This is vital work, it isn't easy, and by its nature will regularly bring him into low-level conflict with many users. However, my general impression is that Mrmiscellanious has an unnecessarily abrasive and agressive editing style. I frequently find myself becoming angry upon reading talk page comments from him, because they are abrupt and confrontational. Other administrators seem to be able to take a cleanup or NPOV'ing role without creating so much ill-feeling.

To put it simply, I wish he would try harder to be nice. I wish that rather than going into abrasive-confrontation-mode, he would withdraw, and try to involve more people in these low-level disputes.

Response by Mrmiscellanious

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Statement by User:Neutralizer (and reinsertion of evidence previously presented)

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I have now included below all the information that was placed initially by Borofkin and SIP (and later deleted).


Statement

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  • These 18 minutes of edits tell it all. A new contributor was yelled at by MrM on the article talk page; then MrM accused him of being my sockpuppet; then MrM blocked him for a non-existant 3RR on the same article MrM was aggressively editing; and even after Brian proved the anon lived 1,000 miles away from me, MrM did not offer any apology at all to the anon. Is it any wonder the anon came to this point? "I am finished here fully and absolutely". And this happened just 2 days ago.This is typical of MrM's rude behaviour and its damage to this project.[40][41]
  • These edit comments by Mrmiscellanious in the incident above are also typical of how he drives new users away; "THIS IS THE LAST TIME I AM REVERTING THIS. KEEP THIS TAG UP, THERE IS NOTHING IN THIS ARTICLE THAT STATES WHAT THE TITLE STATES."and this classic, which is almost humourous in its revelation;(cur) (last) 22:32, 1 March 2006 Mrmiscellanious (Not my job to look at sources.)
  • Overall, MrM makes the experience of wikinews much more combative and annoying than it should be,imo. He uses personal attacks,threats of blocking,page protections and actual blockings to force articles to the tone and/or content that he wants.
  • I will also say I do not expect this process to succeed as all previous attempts to address the MrM issue have been sabotaged/bogged down/individualized or deflected by MrM's supporter(s) which is why his behaviour has continued unabated and unremorsed for so,so long. Neutralizer 13:10, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Accusing contributors of vandalism when they are making good faith edits

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[42]

One incident was defence of "reverting vandalism" when the user was blocked for 3RR of Full extent of Abu Ghraib detainee abuse revealed.

Bullying

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The user is frequently accused of editing in a rude, obnoxious, agressive, and bullying way. Below are some examples of edits that could be considered bullying.

[43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50]

Misuse of Admin authority; uses wrongful Blocks in his edit wars

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Most recent example was MrM. falsely accusing me of being an anon # 65.1.149.41 (who apparently turns out to be about 1,000 miles away from me). Then he blocked me on the basis of his off base assumption. In fact he blocked each of us separately for 3RR; when both of us combined were not 3RR. Only after I was able to contact other admins on Irc who showed him I was not the anon did he remove the blocks; In the meantime the anon was so annoyed he said he'd never come back (how many Opaluses have we lost) . MrM's behavior to the anon on the article history page is particularly offensive with these particular comments;

Mrmiscellanious (Not my job to look at sources.) and

Mrmiscellanious (THIS IS THE LAST TIME I AM REVERTING THIS. KEEP THIS TAG UP, THERE IS NOTHING IN THIS ARTICLE THAT STATES WHAT THE TITLE STATES.)

To top it off, he even refused to apologize for the false accusations and unwarrented block.

22:58, 1 March 2006 Mrmiscellanious blocked "Neutralizer (contribs)" with an expiry time of 1 day (3RR violation on Saddam_Hussein_admits_to_requesting_trials)

22:58, 1 March 2006 Mrmiscellanious blocked "65.1.149.41 (contribs)" with an expiry time of 1 day (Violation of 3RR; IP address used by Neutralizer)

[51] [52]

I am also including SIP's edit below which Amgine and Chiacomo deleted. If SIP puts in his own statement then he can move this edit to go with his statement, if his wishes.

False claim of unsourced, blocking authority

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I would also like to clarify that, as with Borofkin, I don't consider myself to be directly in dispute with Mrmiscellanious.

Response by Mrmiscellanious

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Statement by User:Vonbergm

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Like the other two users above, I do not consider myself as being in "direct conflict" with MrM, but I have had several run-ins with MrM and take issue with some of MrM's behaviour in these situations that I consider damaging to Wikinews. I also have increasing difficulty assuming good faith on some edits of MrM and found myself getting increasingly agressive in responding to preceived ("allegedly") disruptive behaviour of MrM. I have challenged MrM on many of the points outlined below before (e.g. [54], [55], [56]) without ever coming to any agreement. This is why I would like to take this opportunity to utilize this formal process to get input on the problems I see in MrM's behaviour, and possible responses to it. Hopefully this will help avoid similar situations in the future.


Agressive edits based on misinformation

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Being bold and making agressive edits can help avoid lengthy discussions or cuts them short by moving the article forward. When made in good faith, bold edits are sometimes the only way to come to a reasonable compromise in a timely fashion. For this to work it is necessary that the edits are informed. If they are not, then the edit in question is simply disruptive.

Misinformed edits happen. It is safe to assume that every regular contributer has made an edit that was not supported by facts. We are only amateur journalists with limited time and resources and, given how a wiki works, the ramifications of such edits are relatively minor. Usually the error is caught and corrected, and people get seldomely hung up on this.

Taken by themselves, these two editing scenarios are harmless or even useful. Taken together, they are extremely harmful to the project. Agressively insisting on false information makes it next to impossible (for me at least) to assume good faith. Some examples

  • [57] (Note edit summary: "Remove image, does not enhance article, messes with layout, is not even a "new" photo, AFAICT." and subsequent comment on talk page: [58])
Exceptionally agressive edit. The question of whether or not the picture should be included was ongoing on the talk page. Despite this MrM seems comfortable to make a "bold" edit, altough he only has weak reasons ("not enhance", "layout", picture takes up "bandwidth") and throws in the uninformed statement (easily contradicted by the sources) that the picture is not "new". The "AFAICT" in the edit summary and the "I believe" in the comments on the talk page indicate that he himself is not very sure on this, putting further questions why he would make such an agressive edit based on so little information.
  • This block of edits [59] ignored concerns raised on the talk page and changed the character of the story in a way not founded in the sources. In particular, moving a key paragraph sceptical of some information to the bottom and inserting the word "earlier" is a deliberate attempt to go against the information in the sources (which imply the opposite temporal relationship) to push a POV. At the time I did not feel like imitating MrM's agressive editing behaviour and simply complained about this on the talk pages [60]. The article remains with information that is contradicting the sources.
  • Changed the title 4 times ([61], [62], [63], [64]) in less than a day (to exactly the same title!) while refusing to take part in discussions about the title [65] for a good portion of the time. The fact that the title he proposed "Report: Bush authorized NSA surveillance of international conversations" misses the main point (that US citisens are targeted while they are in the US) makes this quite concerning. His insistence on the "Report:" exemplifies his obsession to relativise statements challenging his POV. (Other examples to this point below. In this case the information was verified independently by two sources cited in the article early on.)
  • Changed title 3 times ([66], [67], [68]) to same title "Spain issues arrest warrant for three U.S. soldiers accused of killing two journalists in 2003", adding the "accused of"-phrase. This is are his only edits of the article. He makes one edit [69] to the talk page explaining his reasons for insisiting on the "accused of" formulation despite the fact no parties question that the soldiers killed the journalists and ignores the further discussion. He prevails with his unilateral approach of repeatadly changing the title and ignoring discussions on the talk page. A good example of the type of behaviour that practically forces escalation if other people are not willing to simply give up their oncerns.

Disruptive behaviour / POV pushing

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If MrM's behaviour would be consistent in his actions independent of the political flavour of an article, one could argue that MrM's is merely trying to enforce cite policy. In many cases MrM does point out problems with articles and helps improve the wiki. This explanation breaks down when one is confronted with MrM's double standarts. These large discrepancies in his behaviour force the interpretation that much of his agressive editing practices are driven by his POV. I want to add to the examples given above.

Some of these discrepancies are so big that MrM's statements reach into the grotesque. For example he has been an animate advocate on the question on "reliable sources". He has insisted that sources like LA Times, Washington Post or NY Times are not "credible" ([70], [71]) and made clear he will only accept on "government documents" as sources (when the reporting is critical of the government). While this insistance in itself is already absurd (especially applied in this particular instance, see this [72] for the discussion on the talk page), it appears malicious when compared his defense [73] of a (right-wing) blog [74] as a "credible" source.

More (although less clear-cut) evidence for POV-pushing can be found when it comes to disparate use of language. For certain kind of news he insists on inserting words like "alledged" or the like to relativise the validity of statement that is "unverified". While it is important to correctly attribute information, he pushes this point ad absurdum in certain instances [75], while he completely ignores this point in other instances [76] (note the missing "alleged" before "target", despite lengthy discussions pointing out that there was not even reliable information what entity fired the missile, let alone what the target was).

I have not been directly effected by some of the problems of MrM's dealings with policy, but have witnessed some of them as they developed on the talk pages of articles I was involved in. Thus I do not want to discuss these in detail but just point out three mayor issues that disturb me regarding this. The first is the disparate application of policy, employing aberrant interpretations of policy when convenient [77], and neglecting policy in other cases [78], which makes it difficult not to suspect that a siginificant portion of his motivation to enforce policy is derived from POV and personal grudges. The second point is MrM's inability to recognize his own mistakes as exemplified here [79] . I firmly believe that the open recognition of ones mistakes and taking responsibility for them is a prerequisite for improvement (at least when this statement is interpreted in a culture-sensitive way). The third is the "John Wayne Syndrome" exhibited here [80] where it becomes evident that MrM sees himself as the lone guardian of the wiki, the last fortress, and if he faulters the whole wiki will slide into chaos. This is an extremely harmful attitude (and very un-wiki) and needs to be straightened out.

Goal

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The above is not trying to be a "fair" evaluation of MrM's behaviour. I have focused entirely on my interaction with MrM. The articles that I participated in are focused quite narrowly on issues that can be labeled as "controvercial" and thus have a greater potential for conflict than average articles. Moreover, this is not a fair representation of MrM's behaviour on these particular selection of articles either. I have witnessed numerous cases where MrM has pointed out problems in articles that I had previously overlooked and where he helped improve the quality of an article in a constructive fashion. I have seen examples where he has made changes to his own edits when problems were pointed out to him. There is no doubt that he has made valuable contributions to this wiki.

I hope that in this process MrM can understand what parts of his behaviour are harmeful to this wiki as they are a siginificant contributor to the edit wars and conflicts he has been involved in, and that he can improve his behaviour to avoid the problems outlined above. I am sure that MrM also takes issue with some of my behaviour and I am looking forward to hearing some of these issues and doing my part to help improve this wiki.

Response by Mrmiscellanious

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Statement by User:Cartman02au

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I currently am not personally involved in a dispute with MrMiscellanious, but as with others can sympathise with those who do.

In my experience, MrM does not edit collaboratively with other users. On a recent article StrangeInParadise and I were working on New South Wales set to adopt harsher anti-cannabis laws, MrM made changes which affected the quality of the article without discussing it on article's talk page. In fact, MrM made only one entry on the talk page during the period the article was worked on and that entry was unrelated to the changes he made.

Also of concern are attempts by MrMiscellanious to interject his POV into otherwise neutral articles. Again, in the article above, MrMiscellanious removed sourced material [81] in an attempt to slant the article to his own POV [82].

Again referring to the NSW cannabis article and MrMiscellanious' involvement is a 3RR block which I strongly objected. MrM applied a 4 day block for what he at the time claimed to be a 3RR violation [83]. According to WN:3RR the maximum block for a 3RR policy violation is 24 hours. When questioned about this MrM claimed that he had the right to block for longer as it was a repeat violation [84]. Unfortunately, the 3RR policy affords administrators no such allowances. When challenged about the block later, MrM claimed that he made the block in accordance with disruption conditions of WN:BP. Frankly, he can not have it both ways.

The recent incident where MrMiscellanious was blocked for breaching 3RR also gained my attention. MrMiscellanious repeatedly reverted Full extent of Abu Ghraib detainee abuse revealed in obvious violation of 3RR. The amount of effort MrMiscellanious put into having his block listed was ridiculous given such a simple policy violation.

MrMiscellanious' recent objection to my administratorship [85] also demonstrated to me that he will bully users where possible to get what he wants. In his objection he claimed that "Quite disturbing comments have been made on his account about administrators in general". When asked if his comments were in regards to my opposition to the 3RR block against StrangerInParadise and a question I posed on the misc water cooler page [86][87] he told me that those were the main reason for his opposition.[88].

The final issue I see with MrMiscellanious are comments like this - If that's the case, than I have no problem with telling you to join Indymedia, and get the hell out of here - you are no longer welcome. --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 23:42, 26 February 2006 (UTC) [89] these are inappropriate (especially for an Administrator) and counter-productive. It seems to be as soon as MrM doesn't get his own way he becomes aggresive towards other users which is most certainly not in the spirit of wiki.

Addition to statement - March 7, 2006

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Despite another administrator removing userboxes from the site. MrM has created a solution of his own (see [90], [91] and [92]. He was also requested to remove these "userbox alike" images from his userpage, but instead replaces them with different ones. - Cartman02au (Talk)(AU Portal) 09:05, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pursuit of WN:RfAr

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I am going to withdraw from "dispute resolution" as it is pointless when MrM has been given a week to at least acknowledge it and has failed to do so. I have requested arbitration on WN:RfAr - Cartman02au (Talk)(AU Portal) 09:29, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ditto; Neutralizer 02:17, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response by MrMiscellanious

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Statement by User:International

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I welcome this initiative to make a dispute resolution of various acting of Mrmiscellanious here on Wikinews. My opinion is that Mrmiscellanious have by far crossed a line on what is appropriate behaviour both as editor and as administrator and made my and others effort here less constructive and sometimes unplesant. The other users statment already contain most of my issues with Mrmiscellanious so I will wait until these are correct adressed. I just add one example of Mrmiscellanious behaviour that i find very wrong.

Manipulative behavour to make other disrupt site

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Mrmiscellanious used Dragonfire as a tool for sitedisruption by persuade Dragonfire to violating 3RR. Dragonfires statment of the events on his userpage. Amgine blocked Mrm and 3other users. Consequences of that dispute was also that a user [93] left wikinewsproject. It is still unsolved.

Resolution

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I am have good fait in Mrmiscellanious change in behaviour. But it should be documented in this dispute resolution and stated by Mrmiscellanious what he actually agree to and clearly define what he agree not to continue to do. International 18:42, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response by MrMiscellanious

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Statement by User:Mrmiscellanious

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A very wise wiki editor once said, "I think you have to take the crap dished here without comment." [94]. Although the user was talking about the comments on the RfdA, I think it is plausible for it to apply here, as well. Therefore, I will not make a statement - not as long as I am a party in any disputes - as it is disrespectful for the fellow editors who are here to make a statement. I am not interested in doing such. You do whatever you want, but if you're expecting a statement from me, I'm not going to provide one. --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 00:47, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response by Borofkin

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Response by Neutralizer

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Response by Vonbergm

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Thanks for at least acknowledging our attempt to solve this issue. I ask you to reconsider as I feel that this process here is much more likely to result in some solution acceptable to everyone involved as opposed to anything coming from arbcom which is doomed to leave either you or us unsatisfied. If there is anything I can do to change your mind, let me know. --vonbergm 03:25, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And I really do not understand your statement (except for the last sentence), so maybe I am missing some essential part of what you are trying to say...

Response by Cartman02au

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It is unfortunate that you feel that way, but there are issues that need to be sorted out. My choice to go to the ArbCom was after you failed to respond for seven days, only after eleven days do we get a response which shows you are unwilling to co-operate in the process developed by the community - Cartman02au (Talk)(AU Portal) 02:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response by International

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I was going to respond but Mrm editconflicted me with his answer to mediation so I dont say anything (?) International 20:12, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Request for Mediation

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It appears that comments by parties to this dispute are complete, or sufficently complete.

Will there be mediation on these matters?

I would like it to be known, that as an ArbCom member who would recuse himself from this issue, that I would volunteer to mediate. That is, firstly if Mrmiscellanious wants to go to mediation with myself acting in that role, and secondly, if there is no objection from other parties to the dispute.

So the question is, MrMiscellanious do you want to go to mediation with myself acting as the mediator, or perhaps some other person, or no mediation at all? -Edbrown05 03:29, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ed, you ask "if there is no objection from other parties to the dispute". Yes,Ed, I do object. Five users requested RfAr 3 days ago and are just waiting for Arbcom to finish your current work with Amgine as requested by Bawolff. We waited 12 days here at DR for a reponse from MrM. and this is what we got today from MrM.; "You do whatever you want, but if you're expecting a statement from me, I'm not going to provide one." In addition, I really worked hard on my arbitration statement for about 5 hours today(you should see all the edits it took me to get it right) so yes, I do object. Neutralizer 09:09, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If MrM will accept mediation I would think the ArbCom would likely deny or postpone the request. --Chiacomo (talk) 06:24, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am happy with any mediator that is acceptable to MrM. - Borofkin 06:30, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Same here. I fear that in this case arbitration has the strong potential to leave people unhappy and drive them away from the project. --vonbergm 06:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, count me in on the mediation, even at this late date. vonbergm convinced me its the right thing to do. Neutralizer 18:41, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I refuse any requests for "mediation". --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 19:51, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the offer Ed, but it appears that it is pointless - Cartman02au (Talk)(AU Portal) 20:38, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Next step in dispute resolution

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General discussion

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Whats next, any idea?International 20:23, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If there are "innocent bystanders" with the strong belief that mediation would be preferable to arbitration, maybe they can convince MrM to change his mind. Otherwise it's back to writing articles until arbcom looks at this. --vonbergm 20:37, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, articles. Here I come! International 20:44, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.



A number of contributors have now made statements on the dispute resolution page. I would like to try and bring it all together on this page to try and identify the root cause of all these disputes. Is there anything that connects them? What is it about Mrmiscellanious' participation in this project that causes so many disputes? What would you like to change about the way he edits?

Please be constructive. The disputes currently listed will probably never be resolved to your satisfaction. The best that we can hope for is to reach consensus, including Mrmiscellanious, about our future approach to this issue. I would like to encourage Mrmiscellanious to participate on this page.

If we are unable achieve consensus on a joint statement then I don't think this dispute resolution process will achieve anything, it will just be five separate disputes in a nice easy to read format.

Note that this is a joint statement. Everyone is free to edit any part of it.

Mrmiscellanious

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The fundamental problem

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Aggressive authoritarian edits coupled with a "my way or the highway" attitude. Also, MrM is the personification of the anglo/american centric point of view which we are supposed to be keeping out of our articles. In MrM's defense, I don't think he means to insert his pov into Wikinews. Neutralizer 01:50, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

MrM does not edit collaboratively with other users. He will make changes to an article and when said changes are disputed he fails to discuss them with other editors on this site. MrM also routinely interjects his own POV into articles which makes them no longer neutral. MrM fails to follow policy on the site yet accuses others of doing same. His attitude of telling other users to leave the site is harmful and certainly does not represent the broader community - Cartman02au (Talk)(AU Portal) 21:10, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

MrM is either unwilling or unable to recognize even the most obvious violations of policy when perpetrated by himself. This renders his frequent accusation of policy violations by others hollow, makes it difficult to assume good faith and has hindered previous efforts of dispute resolution. --vonbergm 19:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What he should do differently in the future

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Other dispute participants

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What we should do differently in the future

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.



Statement of Dispute: Cartman02au

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Users involved: Amgine and Cartman02au.

Unreasonable article deletion

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I posted an article [95] which was deleted by Amgine as being "PR and incitement for riot". This deletion was made without proper consultation. I later reposted the article, where another administrator suggested I merge it with another topic.

As a new user to this site, and hopefully a valuable contributor I believe that proper explanation should have occured.

Ignores messages

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Following the above I attempted to contact Amgine and was ignored. Amgine had posted to another page following my posting. Administrators should try to assist new users where possible, not ignore and alienate them.

Hypocrisy

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I believe Amgine's signature advertising his competing site is complete hypocrisy. After complaining that my posting was "PR" he posts a signature linking to his talk page on another site. As an administrator suce conflicts of interest should not exist.

Faults on my behalf

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  1. Not knowing correct procedures on Wikinews
  2. Not knowing about this process
  3. Prematurely lodging an RfDA

Cartman02au 01:09, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Addition to statement of dispute: Cartman02au

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Amgine is alleging that I am a meat puppet [96]. It is not the first time Amgine has made similar allegations against another user who disagrees with him.

Rebuttal by Amgine

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The user is invited to insert a rebuttal here

  1. Unreasonable article deletion
    On en.Wikinews, press releases of any form are speedy deletion candidates as advertising. The article in its original state strongly resembeled a press release which might have been made by organizers of riots. Coupled with the complete quote of the message on the talk page, the entire article appeared to be an incitement to riot, not reporting of news.
     
    Speedy deletion candidates may be deleted on sight, without a requirement for discussion or notification. See Wikinews:Speedy deletion guidelines.
  2. Ignores messages
    The user posted to my talk page at 23:52, 12 December 2005 (UTC). The user asked my adminship be revoked 24 hours and 40 minutes later for not responding to his message and for deleting "his" article, at 00:32, 14 December 2005.
     
    I should certainly have responded to the user. However, during the timeframe covered I RC patroled 27 sites and was involved in making edits on the following sites:
    • Wikinews sites:
      en
    • Wiktionary sites:
      sc rv pa en
    • Meta.Wikimedia: meta (also an admin there)
     
    I also was involved in getting Arabic and Thai wikinews started, getting administrators created on these two new editions and various other elements involved in starting new wikis for Wikimedia.
     
    This of course is only detailing my involvement on Wikimedia projects. Perhaps it is a bit much, but I also do things outside of Wikimedia; December 13th was my birthday, and I celebrated with my family.
  3. Hypocrisy
    I should have written out that I meant Press Release, not public relations.
     
    My signature links to my user page on my personal wiki, which I have in the past and hope in the future to be my primary online project. It is a non-profit education project for students of journalism, as may be discerned by anyone who visits it. Users such as Cartman02au complain when I do not respond quickly to them because I am not focused solely on the site they happen to have left a message for me on, so I feel it is better to have a single, central user page which I am most likely to catch messages on.
     
  4. Faults on my behalf
    I do not consider any of these to be faults of Cartman02au. Although the move to request a de-adminship was a bit extreme, it is was a request made in good faith and ostensibly for the improvement of the community.
     
  5. Addition to statement of dispute: Cartman02au
    By my broader definition (as explained on Cartman02au's talk page), the user was likely manipulated to react more negatively, and more extremely, than he otherwise might have. I stand by what I said there, and here. - Amgine | talk 05:29, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Statement of dispute: Amgine

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I gladly accept this request for dispute resolution.

Although I regret not being able to communicate more easily with User:Cartman02au, and his choice to file a request for de-adminship against me without giving much time for me to respond to his single attempt to communicate with me, I do not have any dispute with the user.

Rebuttal by Cartman02au

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1. Unreasonable article deletion Perhaps I should have included in the talk page the reasoning behind me posting the article as I did when it was reposted. It was not a press release, there was no intention of inciting what I believe to be disgusting behaviour (which I hoped to keep out of the article according to NPOV ideals.

I do feel that the deletion was unreasonable and in poor judgement (in the lightest possible terms). I feel that the administrator which suggested that I merge the second article (almost a copy of the first) with the Sydney violence continues article made a much better judgement call.

Perhaps it would have been suitable to mark it as a developing story or to mark it in some other way.

2. Ignores messages I genuninely felt I was being ignored due to the fact that Amgine had been active on this site around 7 hours after I posted my request. I can understand that people have lives away from WN and that other things take priority.

3. Hypocrisy I am still undecided on this. I feel as though the link is advertising for another site, which I personally feel is inappropriate for an administrator to do. At the same time I do believe that you are genuine in your reasoning for doing this.

4. Faults on my behalf The RfDA was premature. I had looked at what others had said about Amgine on his talk page (and his lack of response) and believed he was arrogant by my perceived ignoring of messages and that he failed to follow site policy by deleting the article.

The fact of the matter is someone as active as Amgine on WN is always going to receive critism. In my experience people rather complain than compliment.

5. Addition of statement of dispute I am still annoyed by the meat puppet allegation. I have not been influenced by others (apart from reading past comments). I can see how you come to this conclusion but I deny it.

Request for moderator

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I request a moderator from the community. I would suggest user:Carman02au make proposals for someone to serve as moderator as I do not wish to delay this dispute resolution further. - Amgine | talk 23:17, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have sent a message to User:Chiacomo to act as moderator as he was kind enough to refer me to the dispute resolution preocess Cartman02au 03:15, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I will gladly moderate and feel that I can impartially render a decision, however, parties should be aware that I consider Amgine a friend. --Chiacomo (talk) 03:20, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I have no problem with you considering Amgine a friend. You were kind enough to provide me with information on a sensible course of action and for that I consider you to be impartial to this matter. Cartman02au 03:27, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
If Amgine is agreeable, I'll consent to moderating this dispute. --Chiacomo (talk) 03:28, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I am agreeable for Chiacomo to moderate. Apologies for my late response. - Amgine | talk 03:35, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Moderator's Requests

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Discussion

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  • Comment i think the signature editing is open to abuse and and as a policy everyones signature should link to their own wikinews profile. (for all we know we could leave comments and with her admin status he could make them disappear from history even or alter them.) Personally i cant beleive a admin would pull this sort of thing and that other admins let this happen. I believe it also reflects poorly on wikinews. I see no problems with leaving a note or links to your other project talk pages in your wikinews talk page but not in your signature everyone who clicks on a signature expects that wiki projects talkpage not something else,its disreputable.--Whywhywhy 13:07, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: After thinking about it a little further (and I'd like to see what Amgine thinks of this) it is damn annoying if you want to communicate with a user to click on his signature and go to a different site. Instead of using the navigation features of this wiki you go elsewhere and find it an annoyance to come back to WN. Cartman02au 22:11, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Chiacomo, Cartman02au - I've less than 24 hours before departing on a road trip. I'd like to move on to discussing possible resolutions if we can? I would like to hear what Cartman02au would like to see me improve on to address his concerns, above. - Amgine | talk 20:53, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

With regards to the unreasonable deletion, I would like to see that in the future that a little more communication occur. I (and some others) do not believe that it was PR and that it should have been considered for deletion under normal guidelines not speedy deletion. As for your signature, I must admit I like WhyWhyWhy's suggestion - it seems reasonable to me. I also think that the meat puppet statement should be retracted.
Now on my side - I apologise for the RfDA, it was unfair and ill thought out. I honestly believed (at the time) for it to be the best course of action.
Finally, have a safe trip. Cartman02au 22:09, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you!
I'm not sure how I can retract a personal opinion. I will gladly state that you are not an account created at the behest of a third person to attack me, nor are you a sock puppet.
I'll start a resolution here and see what you think of it, Cartman02au:
I resolve, for the next 30 days, to not speedy delete anything saving clear and unambiguous vandalism. Where I find an article which I believe is in need of a speedy deletion I will mark it with {{speedy}} to flag it for another admin's attention. At that time I will consult with Cartman02au whether to extend or modify this resolution.
Regarding the signature, this has previously been discussed on this wiki and elsewhere. If you would like I can add link-backs to all the sites where I edit to the talk page, and keep it very short. Since I only edit about 50 wikimedia projects it should be a relatively easy menu.
<is dreading the driving - 6000+ km> - Amgine | talk 22:27, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe the resolution to be a bit over the top. As for speedy deletion, I can understand the need for you to do it in alot of cases (as an active Administrator) but would appreciate if it if more discretion was used in the future. Frankly, if the article appears to be genuine, perhaps mark it as a developing story and ask the author to explain themselves, or refer it to standard deletion. Perhaps if it is ambiguous a second administrator's opinion could be sought.
With regard to the signature, I cant see the problem with linking to your WN talk page with something along the lines of "I do not check this that often, I prefer to use blah blah. It seems to be to be a slap in the face of WN to link to another talk page. There again (this is personal taste and opinion) I edit a heck of alot of wikis and use a talk page for each - it makes it easier to distinguish between issues here, at WP, MME, etc. I am sure if I kept linking to my wiki people would be upset within a short maount of time.
The statement that I am not an account created at the request of someone else satisfies me. That is what I think being a meat puppet is. -- posted by User:Cartman02au
<grin> I will do as you suggest. I've incorporated Why^3's suggestion, and will also incorporate your suggestion for my talk page here. - Amgine | talk en.WN 02:48, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think the new signature is reasonable Cartman02au 20:57, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well amgine if you dont have time to check your talk page in wikinews then maybe you shouldnt be admin here because you are stretched to thin threw the projects. My opinion is that if you have enough time to admin wiki news you should have time to check your talk here. Maybe you can warn people that they may not recieve a speedy response and suggest they respnd on your wiki. At the very least you could added a link in your signature to your wiki news talk.
so it looked like this:- Amgine | talk WikiNewsTalkAHHH I didnt sign my comment--Whywhywhy 02:14, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
and ima only guessing thats your user page cos on this users page it says :
Amgine has left the project... It's been a great ride, and I've had a lot of good times, but I don't feel I can be supportive of the direction the project appears to be headed. So, to avoid further controversy, I'm withdrawing from en.wikinews.org projects.--Whywhywhy 02:18, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I know I kind of missed the boat for disscussion here, but, I think the problem with Admins speedy deleting and forgeting is a major problem that most of us our guilty of. People who work hard to do something and then magicly have it deleted , are probally not going to come back. Maybe we should move more towards a test1 test2 test3 test4, system like wikipedia. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:09, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mediator's Response

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Amgine

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Amgine,

It is fortunate that I am an administrator as it allows me to view the deleted pages at the heart of this dispute. The article created by Cartman02au was NPOV, at best. The user did provide original reporting notes -- a copy of a messages posted to various news groups. A NPOV tag and a note on the talk page requesting more sources might have been more appropriate. I do, however, understand the deletion in that Wikinews is the daily target of individuals wishing to subvert the project to promote their own political and commercial agendas. I can't throw many stones as I might have deleted the page on sight myself as well. Hindsight is 20/20.

I am fully aware -- perhaps a bit more than most -- of your contributions to the various WMF projects. I know that you spend hours each day patrolling the low-edit projects and your work is greatly appreciated. It is understandable that a message left on your talk page might not receive a timely response -- however, as administrators, we should strive to respond to all messages left by users... Especially those that relate to the duties of an administrator. I am, as always (and sometimes to my own detriment), willing to assume good faith and accept that your schedule and activities might have prevented you from responding immediately to the user's request.

As concerns your signature... Well, on other Wiki project, I too point to an off-project talk page. Most, if not all, of my signatures point to Wikinews. However, as you are an active editor on this project -- probably as active here as anywhere else, and as you are an administrator, it is not unreasonable to present other users with the option to leave a message on this project. As you very active here, you will be notified on your next page view of new messages on your talk page. You have already adjusted your signature to include a link to en.Wikinews -- your willingness to compromise is appreciated.

I agree that the Cartman02au's actions might indicate that xe is behaving as a meat-puppet, but, again, I am willing to assume good faith.

Your contributions are invaluable and I hope you will take my observations and recommendations seriously. I consider you a friend and know that, though we may not always agree, we are united in our mission to further the goals of Wikinews. --Chiacomo (talk) 05:27, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Cartman02au

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Cartman02au,

One of the principals of wiki, at least as concerns WMF projects, is the ability for anyone to edit. Because our community is so open, we do suffer under a constant barrage of press-releases, propaganda, and basic utter nonsense. Administrators, though not as busy as on Wikipedia, are constantly reviewing page creations and edits in an attempt to preserve the integrity of the project. A vandalised or bogus page adds nothing to the project and can be harmful to the project if, for example, new users are repulsed by vulgar or rediculous content... or, perhaps more harmful, a representative of main stream media might stumble upon such a page and draw incorrect conclusions about the quality of the content produced by the project. Administrators roll-back and speedy-delete pages throughout the day -- usually with no notice to the contributor as most contributors never return after posting speedy content.

Your article is a bit different, however, as you did post original reporting notes. I cannot say what I would have done, had I come across your article. I'd like to think that I would have posted a NPOV notice on the page and requested more sources on the talk page. Perhaps not -- I might have been busy in real life and simply hit the delete key.

Your response to the deletion was a bit extreme. An RfDA is a serious procedure and calls into question the integrity and commmitment of an individual to the project. A more appropriate response would have been to first, attempt to discuss the deletion with Amgine (which I see you did), and failing that, discuss the deletion with other administrators. Finally, this process, would have been preferable. Of course, the article was recreated in another form with more sources and a more balanced tone. That article was excellent, in my opinion, and demonstrates some of the better qualities of Wikinews.

Many users on many projects maintain their talk pages on other projects. I think Amgine has made a good faith attempt to resolve any confusion about his signature and I will not address this further unless you wish. Policy does not define where a user keeps his talk page -- and I would oppose any move to include restrictions in policy.

Recent actions on this project and others indicate that there is an ongoing witch hunt against Amgine. He has apparently created enemies on other projects and their disputes are bleeding over onto Wikinews. Your RfDA was probably coincidentally timed with these other disputes, but, as you yourself said, I can see how [Amgine] come to this conclusion -- namely, that you are/were a meat-puppet. I really don't care -- users are perfectly within their rights to rally their friends to support them. What does bother me (and I'm not addressing you, necessarily) is the influx of editors from other projects to Wikinews who come with, apparently, the single purpose to involve themselves in site politics.

Wikis are all about discussion and collaboration. I would encourage you, in the future, to attempt to resolve your disputes and to solve problems without resorting to official procedures. If all editors assumed good faith and all editors acted with the best interest of the project at heart, we wouldn't need Administrators or speedy-delete or many of the other policies and procedures that seem to bog us down.

I am pleased you have chosen to join this project and already you have made valuable contributions to Wikinews. Please review my statement to Amgine and my statement to you. Please let me know if I can clarify any point, and of course, please let me know if I can assist you in any way on Wikinews. --Chiacomo (talk) 05:27, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thankyou for your assistance Chiacomo, you have been a great help. I appreciate the fact that you took the time to inform me about this process after I lodged the RfDA. I guess at the time I was annoyed that I felt like I was being ignored by Amgine. In hindsight, the RfDA was a knee-jerk reaction.
I am happy with what Amgine has proposed to do and if I resolve that in the future if I have any issue with him that I will give him at least 2-3 days to respond before I get huffy about it :).
With respect to the meat puppet allegation, I can understand it and yes it is coincidental. The only influence I had was my own dispute and reading Amgine's talk page, where complaints seem to be made a fair bit, but ignored. Again, in hindsight someone as active as Amgine is always going to draw critism and people are more likely to complain than compliment. Cartman02au 21:04, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Resolutions

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I resolve to be more circumspect in my use of the speedy deletion, requesting second opinions where the situation is not clear to me. I have added a link to my en.Wikinews talk page to my signature here, and have added a note to my talk page giving several means of contacting me as well as a list of most of my wikimedia foundation account talk pages. - Amgine | talk en.WN 04:37, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.



Statement of dispute: Neutralizer

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I wanted to let MrM know (in light of his ongoing edits [97]) that I'd like to mediate with him as soon as possible. I would like to delay my statement of dispute until the current mediation between Amgine and me is completed. Neutralizer 18:46, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Statement of dispute: MrMiscellanious

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I refuse to take place in this event. --MrMiscellanious (talk) (contribs) 21:22, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.



There is an existing dispute between these users, which may include others, which has been resistant to other attempts at relief, and so has been brough to Dispute resolution.

Statement of dispute: Amgine

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It is my opinion that User:Neutralizer is not capable of working within a wiki environment which subscribes to a Neutral point of view in articles and edits. It is my opinion the user has given clear evidence of an inability to subscribe to community norms, standards, and policies, and so constitutes an ongoing disruption to the community. As such, the user may be banned indefinitely under current blocking policy.

The community has stated it feels not all attempts at mediation have been exhausted. Finding no other method of arbitration available, I'm bringing this here in hopes of either resolving Neutralizer's disruptive behaviour or to evidence the futility in further attempting to do so. - Amgine / talk 01:11, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Examples of dispute behavior:

Armed conflicts in the world down by 40% since early 1990s.

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User:Neutralizer tagged this article for {{NPOV}}[98] and then {{Deletion request}}[99]. This despite publishing the same article earlier[100]. These are the only three edits Neutralizer made to this article, however to be fair he may have determined to flag this article because I had just published it[101] (I unpublished as soon as it was flagged[102]) while cleaning up the developing articles template.

User:Neutralizer did not explain the reasoning for the {{NPOV}} until after User:Chiacomo asked for clarification on his talk page[103]. His NPOV statements[104] were restatements of the talk page comments, some of which had already been addressed in the article, and all but one of which had been on the talk page before he published it previously.

When Chiacomo asked for other objections, since the others had already been dealt with ([105]), the response[106] seemed to indicate the primary objection to the story is was old and had been "resurrected", and that previous editors (who had never tagged the article with a dispute tag) had not been consulted[107](not logged in, see [108]). After Chiacomo addressed the previously raised concerns which had not been addressed in earlier edits and republished the article, Neutralizer announced[109] he would put the article up for deletion. On the deletion requests, Neutralizer misleadingly said the article could be tagged with 3 or 4 dispute tags[110].

During the ensuing discussions (see final form at [111]) Neutralizer accused Chiacomo of not assuming good faith, demanded he contact the four previous talk page contributors, and then said he would not continue "this distracting 2 party debate."

Conclusions
Neutralizer either began the entire event while stalking my edits and wishing to oppose them due to their author (failing to assume good faith, acting to disrupt the community), or honestly felt the concerns of editors on the talk page needed to be addressed. In the latter case, he had previously ignored their concerns in publishing the article (does not listen to the concerns other editors). It is my opinion, based on personal experiences with this contributor, the user probably was unaware of the earlier publishing of the article. The user selectively applies community guidelines to others while completely missing the fact xi is simultaneously violating the same guidelines (Assume good faith).

POV pushing in article titles

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Neutralizer has a penchant for sensational titles for articles. While not necessarily an especially problematic issue, the user page-move wars over article titles, and selects both particularly provocative titles and ones which are misleading even when other editors dispute the title.

Title example link Summary
President Bush afraid of a confrontation with Chavez?

Bush runs away from Chavez
President Bush avoids of a confrontation with Chavez

[112] [113] clearer
EU to investigate secret CIA jails in Romania/Poland

EU to investigate CIA prisons in Romania/Poland
EU to investigate secret CIA establisments in Romania, Poland

[114] [115] [116]
Spain issues arrest warrant for U.S. soldiers who killed 2 journalists

Spain issues arrest warrant for three U.S. soldiers who killed Spanish journalist
Spain issues arrest warrant for U.S. soldiers who killed a journalist
Spain issues arrest warrant for U.S. soldiers who killed a journalist
Spain issues arrest warrant for three U.S. soldiers accused of killing two journalists in 2003

[117] [118] [119] [120] [121]
Spanish issued arrest warrant for soldiers accused by the court of causing the death of a single Spanish journalist. (note: title changed back after article was published.)
Bush has a rehearsed tele-conference with US troops in Iraq

Bush has a rehearsed tele-conference with US troops in Iraq
Bush teleconference with US troops criticized as rehearsed
Bush has a rehearsed tele-conference with US troops in Iraq

[122] [123] [124] [125]
The teleconference was not rehearsed, but the soldiers (exclusively officers) were taped being coached for topics, scripting. (note: article title changed back after article was published)
U.S. force-feeding Guantanamo hunger strikers [126]
White House denies that God told Bush to invade Iraq

Whitehouse denies that God told Bush to invade Iraq:

[127] [128] Title must relate to the story
In fact, the White House denied an accusation from an Egyptian official that Bush said God told him to invade, making the title more than misleading. (note: article title changed back after publication)
U.S. Government ordered to release images of child rape at Abu Ghraib

U.S. Government ordered to release images of child rape at Abu Ghraib
U.S. Government ordered to release more images related to Abu Ghraib case
U.S. Government ordered to release images of child rape at Abu Ghraib

[129] [130] [131] [132] Title now better reflects the meat of the story
Article covered judge's order to release documents in a FOIA decision; the ACLU believes they may depict torture or mistreatment but no source indicated they depicted child rape (though they may very well do so.)
Babies on U.S. no-fly lists holding up passengers [133] Previous reference to "under 12" should have been "under 2"
The original source had "children under 12", not "under 2". There were 14 of the 82 children who were under 12 reported as under 2.
Conclusions
User is willing to sacrifice accuracy and honesty to push a particular point of view. User is not able to meet standards of the community. User circumvents other editors by waiting until changes have been made to allow publication, then reverting to biased or inaccurate versions. User does not accept requirement that all factual statements, including those in titles, must be supported by sources, or that Wikinews does not make judgements.

Late edits

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A single example of this will suffice.

In Libby, former Cheney aide, pleads not guilty, after the article was published, Neutralizer inserted, with an edit summary "NPOV", the following[134]:

A presidential pardon is a possibility if Libby is convicted. President Bush has not ruled that possibility out, even though Democratic leaders have asked the president to do so.

On the talk page the contributor added "I expanded the article by bringing out more info from the second source." However, on examination of the sources it was clear they said nothing about presidential pardons, and I removed it with a summary of "Not supported by sources."

The user reinserted the text[135], with an edit summary "supported by sfgate source" and a talk page comment of "Reinserted reference supported by SF Gate source." I had previously examined this source[136], and it was not supported, but I re-examined it very carefully in case I had missed it somehow before removing it a second time, and leaving a lengthy justification on the talk page.

Conclusion
The user ignores edit summaries of other editors, or performs late article edits to insert POV and unsupported opinions, conjecture, or speculation. Based on other edits by the contributor in my opinion it is actually both. User does not examine sources for fact checking. User does not verify factual statements when editing.

POVioring

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POVioring, a verbing of a contraction of "a POV warrior" - on Wikipedia known as POV-pushing - is not acceptable behavior under the neutral point of view policy. User:Neutralizer has repeatedly been informed of this from many contributors - on user's talk page(s) [137] (as User:NPOV, indicated user had read the NPOV [138]), [139], [140], [141], [142] ([143] and [144]), [145] ([146] and [147]); on article talk pages [148] (as NPOV, anon IP), [149] (as NPOV, Neutralizer), [150] (NPOV, Neutralizer), [151], [152], [153], [154], [155], [156], [157].

Despite coaching, discussion and explanation from and with a wide range of Wikinews contributors, Neutralizer seems unable or unwilling to grasp that it is the responsibility of every contributor to not add POV content. By self-policing, rather than becoming defensive, contributors avoid conflict. User Neutralizer's response has often been, instead, something akin to if you feel it's POV, edit it out[158]

Evidence of this behaviour is extensive, and some previously posted either here or on the Water cooler, so only a very few separate examples here: [159] [160],

User promotes a poisonous atmosphere

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Ranging from accusations of spying/government propaganda officer to implying to new contributors the community is somehow lacking, User:Neutralizer creates an uncomfortable and unpleasant environment for other contributors to work in. The aggressive and adversarial interactions with others naturally invoke aggressive and adversarial responses from them. The user uses talk pages, project pages, and user pages to attack, dispute, and proselytize when these pages are designed to facilitate article creation, editing and publication as well as community communication and development.

The abuse of community processes is particularly marked. While the contributor may not realize it, accusations of abuse of administrative privilege or accusations that administrators abuse site policy immediately and severely disrupt the community. Most administrators will investigate thoroughly any such accusation against a fellow administrator - taking up the time of each such investigation by each administrator. With repeated false claims of abuse, the user damages the collaboration between administrators, and promotes a false sense of separation between admins and the community. Excessive and spurious accusations result in admins choosing not to investigate, which allows abuse to occur without response.

A very wide range of examples which cause community strife could be listed, but I'll present a sampling of pages and descriptions of outcomes:

  • Montreal lab questions ethics of recent EPO doping claims against Lance Armstrong/talk page: User took a carefully researched but biased article and "neutralized it" in an aggressive and detrimental manner, making rude comments on the talk page, biting the new contributor, and ridiculing the new contributor on the water cooler[161]. The target has never, to my knowledge, returned.
  • 60th anniversary of the end of the war in Asia and Pacific commemorated/talk page: User aggressively pushed POV that article should include information regarding the war crimes and attrocities committed during WWII by the USA. Personal attacks, spurious arguments on the talk page, listed the article for deletion as "Pure western opinion piece.POV drips from every sentence and link. Pride in the victory and no mention of the victims. Not a current event; a 60th. anniversary of what? Firebombing and atomic bombing women and children?"
  • U.S. Government ordered to release more images related to Abu Ghraib case/talk page in addition to repeatedly republishing an article while it was being discussed, move-warring over the title and revert-warring over its placement as a lead article while still disputed, user repeatedly reinserted the following text, including late edits after article was published with consensus[162] [163] [164] [165]:
    Translated testimony from a detainee, given the designation #151108, includes the following statement:
    "I saw [name deleted] fucking a kid, his age would be about 15 - 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard the screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn't covered and I saw [name deleted] who was wearing the military uniform putting his dick in the little kid's ass. I couldn't see the face of the kid because his face wasn't in front of the door. And the female soldier was taking pictures. [name deleted], I think he is [deleted] because of his accent, and he was not skinny or short, and he acted like a homosexual (gay). And that was in cell #23 as best as I remember."
  • Contacting anonymous IPs who engage in personal attacks and other anti-social behaviour to encourage their continued contributions on the site (see WN:E: "to show the door to trolls, vandals, and wiki-anarchists, who if permitted would waste your time and create a poisonous atmosphere here." ): [166], [167], [168], [169], [170]
  • Personal attacks, accusations: [171], [172] (not logged in, see [173] as NPOV), [174] (not logged in, see [175], the start of the infamous accusations of government infiltrators), more but out of time.
Conclusions
User does not understand or accept the concepts in the ettiquette guidelines, and is unaware of or does not understand the concepts of an online community. User may be a wiki-anarchist or troll.

Rebuttal by Neutralizer

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Re;Armed conflicts in the world down by 40% since early 1990s. I should say that the number of tags and drs that I have made must be among the lowest in the community. Regarding this article, there was no "stalking" Amgine on my part; and if he is wondering about that then I submit that is not in keeping with "assume good faith".

I just saw this article when I was perusing "recent edits" and wondered about such a late publishing. When I looked at the talk page I saw where 4 different editors had concerns that had not been addressed well(imo); and since the article was dated, I figured those editors might not see where it had been republished. I rarely use tags, but I thought this was an article that had 4 outstanding concerns by 4 different editors(none were me) on the talk page. I did publish it early on in its development, before Submarine and Mrmiscellanious placed their objections. I was particularly influenced by Submarine's objection. Anyway, I tried hard to explain on the talk page to Chiacomo why I did what I did and I also said all along that I would remove the tag if there was a consensus among the 4 editors to do so. Since Chiacomo and I were the only ones discussing the matter and since an abandoned flag had been put on it earlier, I felt that putting it up for deletion was warranted. While up for deletion, MrM'S comments were; "Now, I would vote for a Keep and hope people will work to address the issues brought by other users. When it is complete, publish it" and "There are concerns from me already on the talk page of the article." Both comments, to me indicate that the article had indeed needed more work and that the tag and dr were warranted.

Re; POV pushing in article titles- I may be seen as being a bit sensational in my word choices, I admit. I suppose the problem could be that I worked in advertising for years and the acronym for good ads is AIDA....meaning Attention,Interest,Desire and Action. The first thing you have to do if you want someone to read something is to get their attention....hence the need for dramatic headlines in ads . I hope I never made a misleading headline or pushed a POV in the headline; but I can understand where headlines by me might be seen by some as too dramatic. Obviously, I realize we are not writing ads and so I have been trying to tone down my titles and edits but, equally obviously, I have more work to do in that regard.

Re; Libby article edit One thing I must say is that I have not been involved in wiki projects before wikinews. I really did not know that "late edits" is a problem. I thought the article was too pro-Libby as the quotes were/are from his lawyer and himself and that the reference to the possible pardon maybe showed why he may not admit to guilt if he is guilty. Now, when I read the SF source the pardon reference was there. We all know how some sources switch around their articles with the same link. After spending about an hour last night I finally found the SFgate article on the 4th. that mentioned the pardon [176]. "The possibility of a presidential pardon has already been raised by Democratic leaders, who urged President Bush to promise not to pardon Libby if he is convicted. Bush has not responded." Once again if good faith had been assumed, I would not have been accused (above) of fabricating that edit.

_________________________________________________________

All of my rebuttal below is related to Amgine's late additions to his statement.

Re;late additions to Amgine's statement; These late additions to Amgine's statement, I think, largely show some of the points I raise; e.g.

1. Amgine's name calling; "User may be a wiki-anarchist or troll". He does this often; with the inclusion of weasel words like "may". On the water cooler[177] vonbergm just advised us that Amgine wrongly accused him of being a sockpuppet; "quote: 'I have no reason to believe that you are not a sockpuppet'". I also did something similar when I said "in my opinion" about the old government agent thing; however, I have retracted that suggestion twice; I don't believe Amgine has retracted what he said to vonbergm and I doubt I will see a retraction to what he just called me above.

This shows the overriding hypocritical attitude by Amgine (he accuses me and others of personal attacks and of not assuming good faith) which I think is the core problem with his current effect on the project.

2. Etiquette ;We were asked to have our statements completed by about 04:03 yesterday(about 32 hours ago) and have our rebuttals done by about 8 hours ago. Amgine added substantially to his statement some 27 hours after the requested cut off (even after Ilya began his review) and put me in a position where my rebuttals to his late additions will be late..all without any agreement to a time extension. This shows the lack of etiquette or just plain inconsideration for the other people he is dealing with at any point in time.

3. Misleading accusations; This story U.S. Government ordered to release more images related to Abu Ghraib case included work by 2 new contributors,Johnodee,Nyarlathotep, who both,along with myself felt the profane quote was necessary to capture the fact this story had NEW and shocking information about Abu Ghraib rather than a rehash. Senator Graham used the word "shocking" in descrivbing this news so "shocking" was part of the story. By the time the story was published, the story was exactly as Amgine and MrM wanted it. They not only removed that quote (which was admittedly questionable) but also the reference to Senator Graham and most of the sources. Those 2 new contributors were completely blown out of the story's editing. The last time I put the quote back in, there was a majority who wanted it in as you can see below, later, there was a 3 to 3 tie about that. I should also mention that I have rarely thought profanity belonged in a story but in this case, when I reinserted it, a majority of the editors thought it did.

(cur) (last) 15:41, 7 October 2005 Cspurrier (rv, as can be seen from the history atleast that many disagree with including it) (cur) (last) 12:55, 7 October 2005 Neutralizer (Johnodee,Nyarlathotep and myself feel this quote belongs in this published story)

Johnodee entered this edit (cur) (last) 12:22, 6 October 2005 Johnodee (The quote is clearly related; the "speculation" is from respected sources) and Johnodee has not contributed to Wikinews since October 6th. This story is another example,in my opinion, of how pushy Amgine can be and how he,imo, drives away new contributors. There are other times, like right now , where he explicitly targets someone to drive away or exile; and he doesn't seem to care about any collateral damage when he gets it wrong, as even he may admit(if pressed) he did with vonbergm .

This story U.S. Government ordered to release more images related to Abu Ghraib case ended up being completely castrated of all news value(imo) by the time it was finalized.

4. Amgine says I have been implying to new contributors the community is somehow lacking; I can only suppose he is referring to my typical message to new contributors; "Wikinews needs you". This would mean that the US army thinks it is somehow lacking; "Uncle Sam needs you". I try to encourage all new contributors to come on board wikinews; as do many others. If they turn out to be vandals they will be blocked; but I have never invited in a vandal and I have no crystal ball for knowing what their potential might be.

5. POV; what I try to do with my edits is to not include a subliminal western bias. In that effort I am sure I sometimes may go overboard; and that is something I need to work on somewhat. But I hope I'm allowed to retain some of my attitude; not everybody sees my work the way Amgine does;I was just asked on my talk page [178] by an anon to

"do the right thing and report on the facts...This should be done in a free country no matter who is in the White House. Let's see if we are still in a free country... with a free press... with a free wikinews that TRULY can handle a NPOV".

I immediately challenged this anon to join us here at wikinews; but this is one of the anons on Amgine's list of "trolls, vandals, and wiki-anarchists" above; so maybe there's just a difference of opinion between Amgine and myself as to who should be welcome here.

Statement of dispute: User:Neutralizer

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From my limited exposure to mediation, I am under the impression it is important to get everything off of one's chest right at the beginning to "clear the air" so to speak and to get to the underlying feelings which usually must be addressed in order to really have a healing process. So, hold on tight while I try to get my inner feelings out in the open here.

1. Amgine has hit me with 4 spurious blocks in the past 4 months (see my talk page); all of which have been rescinded early because of their inappropriateness. That is administrative abuse, and, more importantly, he has never once apologized for any of those blocks. To me it's a megalomaniacal vendetta on his part; pure and simple.

2.I do feel that it is insulting to the site, and hence to myself as a contributor, that his user page and talk page are offsite http://Journowiki.org/wiki/User:Amgine Amgine / http://journowiki.org/wiki/User_talk:Amgine talk which means among other things that if a contributor needs to talk to him about a wikinews issue I/they are forced to visit another website or IRC where, in both cases, the duscussion is not part of the all important(imo) wikinews historical record. In addition; because his talk page is offsite it is not subject to edit blocking as the rest of our talk pages are. This may seem minor but I think it is an example of his general attitude which, in my opinion, has been consistently hypocritical,arrogant and insulting to anyone who dares to not give in to his pov about NPOV or any other aspect of editing.

2;A; I feel so strongly about the user page and talk page issue that I respectfully ask Amgine for the purpose of this mediation to use his wikinews userpage signature, even though the user page still has his "I quit" message on it. I really feel as though I'm in discussions with a troll whenever I see that damn "Journowiki.org" thing pop up on the edit pages.

3. It is not me but Amgine who consistently disrupts the site with aggressive confrontative tactics with many,many editors; a lot of whom just give up and quit. The difference between Amgine and me is I can prove my statements. Just look at the history of this very dispute resolution page. Amgine is the number 1 mediation participant because he creates such hard feelings with so many different editors and is unable to resolve them by stage 1 or stage 2, mainly because,imo, he really doesn't try or want to resolve disputes; he just wants to win them.

Now, that's about it. All I really want is for Amgine to follow the wikinews rules(e.g.etiquette & assume good faith) as he expects others to.

________________________________________________________________


Here are the links to support my statement; since A and B are both within the blocking log link, I counted those as 1 link.

___________________


Link #1 Vendetta blocks

Shown below are the relevant blocks

A;shows 3 of the blocks against me which were rescinded http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User_talk:Neutralizer#Spurious_Blocks

B;shows the last block against me done after Amgine and I clearly were in conflict

02:13, 6 November 2005 Amgine blocked "User:Neutralizer" with an expiry time of 6 months

___________________

Link#2; Off site dossier http://journowiki.org/w/index.php?title=User:Chiacomo/Sandbox&action=history

___________________

Link#3;Dan100's list of Amgine's "bullying and poor behaviour" http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy&oldid=93656#Amgine

which includes Amgine's blocking war with Simeon

____________________

Link#4; Eloquence's reference to Amgine/Simeon conflict http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Simeon&oldid=61054#Mediation

____________________

Link#5 Record of Amgine's other stage 3 conflicts http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews:Dispute_resolution&oldid=58975

_____________________

Rebuttal by Amgine

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I hope you do not mind, but I will be less formal as I have limited time to respond.

1. Blocking without policy basis

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Since mid-August, when User:Neutralizer became a regular contributor, I have logged 74 blocks and unblocks. 10 of these involved Neutralizer, broken down as follows:

  • 00:34, 3 October 2005 - 72 hour block after repeated personal attacks on WN:A, including after warning. User was unblocked by User:Eloquence appropriately as it was the incorrect justification for blocking the user. Correct justification would have been disruption, w:no personal attacks.
  • 20:27, 5 October 2005 24 hour block for repeated removal of article tags, publishing, POV title moves. Block served.
  • 00:13, 7 October 2005 72 hour block for repeated changes to lead article. This was a gross error on my part, believing the article still in disputed and unpublished state (as it had been for the previous several days) and having already witnessed a previous round of Neutralizer attempting to publish the article to a lead article. It was pointed out to me within the hour that I had blocked in error (I believe Craig Spurrier pointed it out), and I unblocked at 01:06, 7 October 2005. I did not apologize for my error, which I should have done.
  • 07:26, 23 October 2005 72 hour block for 3RR violation. User was edit warring over whether or not an insurgent may be suspected of insurgency. I counted four edits of the same text, applied the block, but only three were reverts. When I returned online 7 hours later, I had a message from User:The_bellman pointing out my error, and I unblocked at 14:32, 23 October 2005. Apologized for error.
  • 21:11, 5 November 2005 after weeks of consistently disruptive behaviour, dozens of attempts by many contributors to moderate or mitigate the user's unwiki behaviours, and considerable research into the user's editing habits (including discovering that fully half of all edits prior to October 6th constituted personal attacks or POV-pushing), I blocked the user for 6 months under the blocking policy which specifically did not limit the time frame a user may be blocked. The block length is in line with similar decisions by the Wikipedia arbcom for trolls who edit across topic regions. I made the decision to do so after considering the cost and time involved in creating either an arbitration committee system or a quick polls system to develop a banning process, and also because I feel changes to the blocking policy undertaken during the height of the cowicide events went too far and gave admins too much ability to interpret the policy to suit any whim. If the block were allowed by the community, a method of applying bans to consistently disruptive users would be available. If not, the community would be discussing methods of doing so and also choose to restore a reasonable blocking policy limitation on admins.
  • 01:18, 6 November 2005, 02:13, 6 November 2005 and 02:24, 6 November 2005 reblocks of user after admin unblocked in violation of existing blocking policy.

2. Offsite dossier

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The listing offsite is on a publically viewable/editable wiki, one of my personal sites. It was not my initial plan to work offsite, but another editor began the project. My initial expectation, that such a listing (similar to that maintained by the user) would have a salutory effect on the users behaviour which, initially, it did. It has served its purpose, and I am willing to remove my contributions to the user's space article (I suspect the initial creator would likewise be willing to have all contributions deleted.) At no time did I consider creating such a dossier on a private or uneditable space, which was an option.

3. Previous allegations of bad behaviour

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I do not respond to personal attacks in violation of policy on project pages. I would encourage you to exam any, all, of those allegations in their context.

The event with Simeon resulted in my requesting emergency de-adminship for both he and I. Given my experiences since I would handle the situation differently, but with the experience I had at the time I would do exactly the same as I did; the user violated 3RR and then Blocking policy and no contributor deserves special treatement - especially not an admin, who should be more careful of policy than any others as they are responsible to enforce it. One item you may not be aware of - Simeon was in the IRC channel with us when we were discussing what to do about his actions.

4. Eloquence's comment

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Referred to the above dispute with Simeon.

5. Previous dispute resolutions

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I have been one of the most active editors, and administrators, on Wikinews since January of 2005. During some of that time I averaged well over 50 edits per day for weeks on end; it is inevitable that I would likewise have a disproportionate number of conflicts.

The disputes which I recall:

  • User:TalkHard: brought me to mediation because I attempted to resolve an article left as abandoned and disputed for the archival sake (incidentally I had been dealing with hundreds of these.) Resolution: to not archive the article, but preserve it as an example of the early development stages. When preserving it, it was further edited, effectively destroying its value as an example. <shrug>
  • User:Paulrevere2005: I'm still unsure why Paul brought me to mediation; I repeatedly supported him as potentially valuable as a contributor. He was at the time, in my opinion, having extreme difficulty with the concept of online community. Resolution: Paul accepted Dan100's proposal that he moderate his behavior to meet community standards, which he has done (<grin> more or less, Paul, more or less... <wink>)

I believe that means I've stood for 2 of 3 dispute resolutions. Which, for a community of this size over the period of time covered is a very surprisingly low number of conflicts.

Request for a mediator

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I would request User:The bellman as a mediator, as he has limited involvement in the dispute, has proven his abilities as a mediator previously, and helped to create this portion of Wikinews. - Amgine / talk 01:11, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I would request Eloquence as a mediator as he is a bureaucrat and is the most long serving and experienced administrator. If he does not wish to mediate, then the bellman would be my second choice. -- posted by User:Neutralizer

I would be opposed to User:Eloquence as mediator. - Amgine / talk 01:43, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I have had personal disputes with Amgine in the past, so I would not be a good choice. Ilya Haykinson or The bellman would both be good mediators, I think.--Eloquence 03:00, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I have decided this would be a good experience for one of the newer admins. who have not been around long enough to have a dispute with either Amgine nor myself; so I propose either Borofkin or Bawolff. Neutralizer 03:21, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully decline - sorry guys. Too much to do, too little time. - Borofkin 04:02, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If both parties accept me, I will attempt to mediate this. -- IlyaHaykinson 03:50, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I accept Ilya; thank you for offering. Neutralizer 03:55, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I, too, accept Ilya. Amgine  03:56, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
And just as i was about to say i accept, oh well, good luck Ilya. Peace and Love. ~The bellman | Smile 04:01, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Process

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I am able to provide e-mail, private forum, and other resources if the participants feel they would be better served by these. - Amgine / talk 01:11, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion section

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While awaiting a response from requested Mediators, I would suggest we begin discussing the points raised our statements of opposition, in hopes of achieving a start toward resolutions we can both live with. Is this agreeable to you, Neutralizer? Amgine  02:29, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the concept; but I am really exhausted from the banning commotion, so I was planning on taking it easy for a few days and just do simple edits for a few days. I prefer to get rolling on this next week if that's ok with you? Neutralizer 03:25, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Not really. I feel you should currently be restricted to reading the site, rather than editing it. Perhaps we could discuss elements you would like to be involved in on the site? - Amgine  03:28, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Ok, but please excuse me if I am a bit slow or have to cjhange my edits as I am really exhausted right now..also..Is it ok if I go to bed in a few minutes..I'm on the east coast as you know. What do you mean by "elements" above. Neutralizer 03:42, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I really think we should have a mediator before we start discussion; are either of the 2 I just proposed acceptable to you? Neutralizer 03:46, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Resolution statements by all parties

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  • For the duration of the Dispute resolution process, I will use a signature which does not link to any site or location. I will continue to read my user talk page on Wikinews as usual. - Amgine  02:25, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't understand; where is your "user talk page on Wikinews"? I respectfully request that since this is a wikinews mediation that you comply with the established protocol of using a wikinews handle for these discussions...to me its a matter of respect for the establishment that we are working within; sort of like wearing a shirt when you go to church. Neutralizer 03:31, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
My user talk page is here. My 'signature' does not contain a link to any page. Signatures are a part of the user preferences and may be modified to include a range of mediawiki syntax elements, at the user's choice. So long as they are not offensive, there is no established protocol which covers them which I am aware of. - Amgine  03:37, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Ok; why do I always get the journalwiki when I hit your "talk" button? Neutralizer 03:45, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Because I set my preferences to do that. I had been, and expect to be again soon, more active on Journowiki than on en.Wikinews and so I am more able to respond if people leave messages where I am, rather than where they are. (You would be more insulted if I didn't respond in a reasonable time simply because I never got your message.) - Amgine  08:59, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I see; are the talk pages usually part of the wikinews historical record? Neutralizer 05:25, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
For all intents and purposes, Mediawiki (the software we're using) is a content versioning system. As far as I am aware, all edits to any editable page in the site are stored as part of a permanent historical record. Edits can be deleted from an article's history through something called selective restoration, used to remove copyright violations from an article's viewable history, but a record of both the edit and the removal are stored (the removed edit is retained as well until a database purge is performed by the developers, but is only accessible through an undelete.) - Amgine  07:05, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Mediator's Request

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Please make sure that each of your statements say what you want them to say, and that within 24 hours from now you post any rebuttals to the other side's statement, if you wish. Also, since this is about blocking, please include links to no more than 5 cases which you feel are prime examples of your dispute. I will review some more info tonight, and more still tomorrow after the rebuttals are final, and may request additional info then. In the meanwhile, I respectfully request that both sides refrain from making anything beyond grammar or spelling type minor edits, and definitely refrain from blocking. -- IlyaHaykinson 04:03, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

ok; just to clarify; you mean any and all editing or just edits relating to Amgine? Neutralizer 04:07, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

ok, it's after 11 here now so I'm off to bed. I have to work tomorrow til 3 pm and will get back to this tomorrow afternoon. Neutralizer 04:10, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify: Amgine is making certain claims about Neutralizer's behavior and his alleged ongoing disruption — I would like to see a few specific examples, across a wide time range. Neutralizer is claiming that Amgine has made certain blocks and is aggressive and drives people off the site — I would like to see a few specific examples of that. I am not looking for "evidence" as I'm not trying to punish anyone, but I would like each of you to show me examples of that which makes you strongly disagree with each other. -- IlyaHaykinson 04:22, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I wanted to advise that in light of the promise of an imminent block by MrM http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy#Neutralizer.27s_punishment I have opened a medition request for him and I; HOWEVER, I have also asked him to please wait for Amgine and me's mediation to be completed. I opened the other request so that MrM would know I am anxious to make amends with him as soon as possible and also so that, hopefully, he can hold back on his blocking actions until this mediation (Amgine and I) has been completed. Neutralizer 18:32, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I also wish to ask patience from both Amgine and Ilya with my edits as my habit is to write things down ,post them, and then have second or third thoughts a few minutes later and then clarify/alter my edits. So, I believe I have until 04:00 to post my final rebuttals so you may notice a few changes in my edits between now and then. Neutralizer 18:37, 9 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Understood. I am, likewise, still working on my other two examples and will get to rebuttals after. I believe IlyaHaykinson will be reasonably flexible with the deadline if we are both working toward resolution. - Amgine 18:42, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I have started reviewing the links, and will continue again in the morning. I hope that's not too slow for you guys. -- IlyaHaykinson 06:05, 10 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to apologize for the lateness of my 4th and 5th examples, and my rebuttal. A combined personal/professional crisis has come up, which interrupted my ability to spend time on this - and my submissions are less than thoroughly researched. It is not my intention to imply this mediation is not of great importance to me, but I may be somewhat less available than usual. Check irc and of course e-mail if I do not respond here quickly. - Amgine  19:24, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I seem to have developed a medical condition that might be stress related. I am wondering whether we might be able to suspend mediation for 4 days (until next Tuesday evening) until I can see my doctor? (my appointment is next Tuesday). This is only a request as I can/will continue if necessary. Neutralizer 13:47, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Ok; I'm actually much better now; so I'm ready to proceed at whatever pace you 2 are comfortable with...just bear with me if I am a little bit less available than usual. Neutralizer 22:45, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mediation, continued

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Amgine, Neutralizer,

First a word of apology. My internet problems at home and a sudden mountain of work have taken the toll on this process — I apologize for not communicating this to you earlier. I have taken a day off work to clear this (and other things) up.

I was not immediately sure on how to approach this process. On one hand it is the role of the mediator to bring a process to resolution, but on the other hand it is not the mediator's job to dole out punishment. Therefore, what I say below are suggestions for modifying behavior given my take on the course of events. Even if you disagree with my assessment of the situation, I urge you to accept my suggestions and to make it binding on you to follow them.

You've both provided a lot of good links and a lot of back-story on the events that unfolded and continue to unfold. Both of you are opinionated, dedicated, and if I may say hot-headed. And both of you have very serious problems with balance.

Neutralizer

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You tend to identify what you sees as systemic bias in some articles, but fail to accept that your "dramatized" titles and approaches to articles introduce very strong bias. Amgine is right; your work carries your personal point of view, and you often bring in facts that may be related but may not be, and when mixed into a story they carry a lot of weight that is undue. This is true on the WWII commemoration story, this is true on the Libby story, this is true on the Abu Ghraib child rape story.

Basically, your edits — whether intentionally or not — appear to carry out some sort of "justice" to Wikinews as a whole or to particular stories: a left-leaning justice, or an anti-western justice, etc. Wikinews is not about justice, it's about writing researched articles that are comparable to those you might find in a major metropolitan newspaper, or magazine, or news provider.

No system is without some inerent bias, and Wikinews is no exception. Our bias, however, is mainly expressed by the choice of the stories we try to write. Since contributors decide what they're working on, the stories they want to cover get covered. However, that's where the choice of the contributor is supposed to end, and the work of the community begins. If you start a story on Abu Ghraib abuse, be prepared to accept a very different spin on the story in the resulting article from what you started, especially if you describe yourself as being at odds with the government point of view.

You are also easily upset. A few of your comments are about Amgine's behavior on the site: his signature, assumption of good faith, his collaborations with others (MrM), his mediation past. You've mentioned government consipiracies in the past in relation to some edits. Amgine is definitely within his right to collaborate with other editors that agree with him, to change his signature to point to any wiki site he wants to (you can always go to User_talk:Amgine to leave him a note on this site), or to go through as many mediations as he needs to in order to resolve issue with other contributors. I don't know how to communicate this, but you need to make what Amgine does concern you much less.

My suggestion for you is to do one of two things. One is to find another venue. Honestly, I think that if you've been here for months and you're still at odds with lots of editors (and I think from looking at various Talk pages, you often end up at odds), Wikinews might not be a good venue for stories that you wish to write. However, the second option is to remain on Wikinews and accept oversight. If you submit a story, let others rename them or edit them mercilessly. If you make an edit and someone else reverts it, accept that as alright. If you do this for a month or so, you'll see how much better you'll be able to predict how to write stories that touch on issues that you care about, but without causing confrontation with others.

Amgine

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You've been here long enough to know better than to do 6 month blocks without policy changes and consensus. If a person is consistently injecting bias into stories over a course of several months, you need to work to revise the blocking policy or to create other policy to deal with these situations, not block people just to have them unblocked soon afterwards.

Much like Neutralizer, you accept conflict too quickly. You obviously have a problem with him, but you keep trying to justify applying the rules of the site instead of letting others in the community deal with him. If there was one rule I'd add to the blocking policy, it'd be that if you have a personal conflict with a user, don't block.

Despite my opinion that you're a great contributor to Wikinews, I have very strongly disagreed with you on a lot of things you've done here as well. I thought the Open English thing was a horrible idea, I disagreed with you on layout and other issues in the past, I've even thought that your signature and your user page were very misleading, but when the time comes for decision making, I let you walk your own path. Issues you've created were very destabilizing to Wikinews but the community continues to work with you and accept you despite that. You need to do the same with Neutralizer. Accept the fact that he is prone to creating bias. Accept the fact that he's confrontational. And accept him as you would a new user who's just not getting the NPOV: politely revert a couple of times. If he violates the 3RR, block for a day. But if you violate the 3RR on the same article too, don't be surprised if you get blocked either.

You too often try to be the sole enforcer of site policies. Perhaps you should let others do some of that, and concentrate more on the anti-vandal portion of your administrator responsibilities. I suggest that you make the commitment to self-regulate your administrator privileges to vandalism or very clear violations of objective policies only, and to explicitly let some other admin deal with Neutralizer if you run into future problems with his work. If you feel that you would be unable to self-regulate, then please submit a self-de-admin request.

Closing comments

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I welcome your comments, below. I also urge you to accept my course of action outlined above. I again apologize for the lateness in response, and hope that you both will still allow this process to continue. -- IlyaHaykinson 19:39, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Responses from Amgine

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At 21:11, 5 November 2005 the blocking policy regarding site disruption read in part: "For static IPs and user names, such blocks should initially last 24 hours, but repeat violators may be blocked for longer." It had included this language since 28 August 2005. While the policy and decision to block may disputed, it can't be said the block was made without policy basis. (Policy has since been restored to a maximum of 30 days by an admin as per discussion on the Water cooler, as well as adding - at one point, though unsure if it has survived the revert wars - a 3RR extension and a 'do not block if you are in conflict with user' extension.)

It is my opinion user Neutralizer will continue to be disruptive of the site and the community regardless of both community and individual attempts to moderate his behaviour. During this mediation the user has initiated challenges to policy, changed policy repeatedly without community consensus, and reverted community requested changes to policy. User has initiated controversial articles, has announced he will disregard policy on talk pages of disputed articles, and continues to encourage disruptive contributors who use open proxies to hide their identities. The user continues to attack admins to intimidate them. Where the user is in violation of policy and as appropriate, I will block according to policy.

I understand that you and I do not agree on multiple subjects; I do not see how this is relevant to a mediation between user Neutralizer and myself. I have never violated an appropriately applied block on my account, or even an inappropriately applied block.

I do not accept your suggestion that I limit my administrative privilege use either to "vandalism or very clear violations of objective policies only, and to explicitly let some other admin deal with Neutralizer" or "submit a self-de-admin request." I do many things at Wikinews, despite cutting back to far less than half my usual involvement. Some of the administrative privilege uses I am involved in include deletions, article archiving, and various elements of RC patrolling - most of which would not be allowed under your suggestion. I am profoundly disturbed by the implication I should either give up practicing as an admin or I should give up my adminship.

I'm sorry to sound so negative regarding your help in this mediation; I do appreciate the time you've put into the case and the difficulties you have faced during it. I'm not sure we had similar expectations as to what would occur during mediation, but this "resolution" was certainly not mine.

- Amgine 02:35, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Responses from Neutralizer

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Thank you,Ilya, for taking the time to work on this mediation. I must admit that your analysis of my rooms for improvement (enough to fill a house,it seems) ring true though I am not happy about it. Your comments about persuit of "justice", getting too easily upset and not submitting to the collaborative nature of article development/changes are issues that I can not deny.

I absolutely accept all of your suggestions and make them binding on myself to follow them. I will accept oversight and when I submit stories, let others rename them or edit them mercilessly. Neutralizer 04:06, 20 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it.

Violence, bullying and expletives

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  • One administrator, User:Blood Red Sandman, and another user, User:Microchip08 against me, User:Soy Rebelde
  • The conversation took place here: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler/proposals#Integrate_WN_into_WP_Infobox
  • I believe User:Blood Red Sandman initially started out by sabotaging a proposal I added to the water cooler section of WikiNews, however it evolved into a very clear and hostile personal attack.
  • They both verbally attacked me, however the latter user left his message in hidden text within the body of the edit window. The administrator, User:Blood Red Sandman, wrote the following:...("fucking... fucking") or a selection ("Fucking... Cunt....").
  • I am extremely offended by this user and believe he should be stripped of his position and authority as administrator; his years contributing and number of connections should bear no weight. The other user should be blocked for a good number of days. --Soy Rebelde (talk) 02:23, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh sigh. --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 02:48, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. I've read over the convo and what else I've seen. BRS said "fucking" originally in a non-derogatory manner, it wasn't even directed at Soy (as in "fucking idiot"), it was "fucking lead of the article!". Soy asked BRS to tone it down and "Take a pill, lock up the weapons and unless you have something valuable, shut it.". I'm not even sure what the duece that means.
Here's what I'm going to say, and I will post a response on the users talk pages. I know BRS has got personal issues, but that isn't a get out of jail free card. BRS - chill out and stop antagonizing people. Do it again and you'll end up with a civility block. Soy, relax. One outburst does not mean he should be "stripped of his position and authority as administrator". I'm sorry, but years of contributions do weight in. We all have bad days. As for Mico, I don't know what he's up to, but he can get uninvolved right quick. --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 02:55, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just a random comment from someone uninvolved. I'm mainly with Shaka here. I believe we should avoid excessive swearing in discussion when possible. Yes, an expletive is just another word, and yes, some people don't think they are offensive, but I've noticed that, wherever people start swearing, the overall quality and logic of the discussion goes down the toilet, and that's never good. I think we can do better than that.
In this instance, both sides should relax. BRS - I appreciate you're having difficulties IRL, but that comment didn't contribute to the conversation and made things take an ad hominem turn. Soy Rebelde - I'm sorry if you were offended, but I don't think one single incident like that should cost BRS his admin rights. I think he's a good admin overall, please understand that some people have problems IRL that cause them to appear somewhat cranky here. As long as such behaviour is not the norm, i don't think a desysoping is warranted. Just my two pence. Tempodivalse [talk] 03:06, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just to keep things simple and prevent fighting, I'm closing this. I've left notes for all involved parties, and frankly, this shouldn't have hit this page. A few steps were skipped. Oh well, no harm. It came up, it has been dealt with. --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 03:11, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of the Admin's page or the talk page of the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.


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