Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 02:59, 15 January 2014

To remain listed at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/User conduct, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 23:46, 11 January 2014 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 21:28, 17 January 2025 (UTC).

• Arzel (talk · contribs · logs)

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Statement of the dispute

Arzel has a lengthy history of problematic editing and user conduct on Misplaced Pages, inconsistent with the project's goal of being "an online community of individuals interested in building and using a high-quality encyclopedia in a spirit of mutual respect." A previous RFC/U, and several noticeboard and talk page discussions have failed to adequately address the issues.

Desired outcome

I am seeking input from the community about the validity and remediation of these user conduct issues.

It is hoped that Arzel can contribute to the project in areas where his political views don't affect his objectivity or his ability to work in a collaborative online social environment. Specific goals include:

• Arzel will reform the conduct outlined in this RfC
• Arzel will demonstrate competence in interpreting policies and guidelines
• Arzel will agree to only comment on content, not contributors
• Arzel will refrain from edit warring
• Arzel will refrain from making accusations of bias, activism and POV-pushing

Description

The vast majority of Arzel's edits could be characterized as whitewashing, removing what he regards as "bias", and removing what he regards as "POV pushing". He removes far more content from the encyclopedia than he contributes and frequently engages in personal attacks, even after being warned repeatedly. He demonstrates a poor grasp of important policies, especially Neutral point of view and seems to have a disregard for user conduct policies like Edit warring, Civility, No personal attacks, and Consensus.

It seems that Arzel's main purpose here is cleanse articles of content unfavorable to people, organizations, issues, and causes that could fairly be described as politically conservative (in US political terms). He does not seem to be here to build an encyclopedia.

Evidence of disputed behavior

I have limited the evidence to the past 18 months, with emphasis on the past 6 months.

Edit Warring

There is a pattern of edit warring by Arzel across multiple articles. He usually stops at three reverts, suggesting that he may be trying to GAME the system.

1. Ludwig von Mises Institute: 123
2. Fox News Channel controversies: 1234
3. Fox News Channel controversies: 123
4. Political activities of the Koch brothers: 123
5. Political activities of the Koch brothers: 123
6. War on Women: 123
7. Ted Cruz: 123
8. Washington Redskins: 123
9. Steve King: 1234
10. True the Vote: 1234

Uncivil behavior, personal attacks, and failure to assume good faith

Arzel has a history of commenting on contributors rather than content. These comments range from snarkiness to personal attacks.

1. "It would be far easier to accept these edits as good faith if the same actors were so zelous about attacking their commrades on the left."
2. "The goal of this article is to continually attack Republicans. Just wait until 2016 when it is used to attack Republicans in favor of Clinton."
3. "IP, the goal of this article is to attack Republicans now for political purposes. Historical accuracy is of limited value."
4. "So there is a new attempt to try and attack the Koch Brothers.... I realize that there are ongoing attempts to try and make the Koch Brothers look like bogymen,..."
5. "Liberalism at its finest. Free speech for all unless it is the wrong kind of free speech. No place better than wp to turn a molehill into a mountain."
6. "It is really tiring to have activist with an axe to grind against a specific group come to WP to push their point of view."
7. "NPOV violations by activist editor"
8. "Go do your activism somewhere else."
9. "revert conspiracy theorist"
10. "This is just plain stupid"

The following examples occurred after I advised Arzel: "I recommend that you "learn to discuss content, not motivations, or I'm almost certain that you find yourself topic banned from a great many articles that you probably enjoy editing. Misplaced Pages is not a BATTLEGROUND."

1. "POV Pushing. You really need to stop your activism on WP."
2. "If you can't use non-biased sources like the incredibly biased Maddow you have problems"
3. "What works for me is for you not to push your clear POV. Also for you not to treat WP like a Newspaper."

Inability or unwillingness to grasp core policies

• The most alarming policy comprehension issue is Arzel's insistence that we are not permitted to use biased sources.

1. "We are not a newspaper Rachel Maddow has an extrememly biased perspective, her opinion is WP:UNDUE not to mention the circular nature of this whole nontroversy."
2. "No we can't. And you should know better than to use 3 very biased sourced synthesised with one actual fact to push your POV. Maddow, Mother Jones...ect.. What you are including is a fact and then tying it to biased opinion to promote a POV. Not only is it a violation of WP:SYNTH but it is a violation of WP:NPOV."
3. "Your insistence on using biased sources only show just how biased you are. By your logic that article should be full of MMfA crap because all they do is criticize Fox News."
4. "Don't bring up the political angle to me, when you see me using highly biased sources to trash others you might have a point. The only political angle here is haters of FNC."

Several experienced editors including Dougweller, Binksternet, BullRangifer, and myself (MrX) have tried to explain to Arzel that there is no policy that prohibits using biased sources.

• Arzel often misapplies WP:NOTNEWS as an excuse for removing content:

1. "Undue weight for this nontroversy.No evidence of long term notability. WP is NOT a newspaper. Just because the far left continues to go crazy over this does not make it worthy of her bio."
2. "Not a newspaper, plus has nothing to do with being in the Senate. Nice though."
3. "undue weight wp is not a newspaper. discuss on talk"
4. "WP Is not a newspaper. No historical context as of yet."
5. "Undue weight. WP is not a newspaper. No evidence that this has garnered any national long reaching attention."
6. "WP Is not a newspaper"

The extent to which Arzel uses this policy to remove content seems to conflict with what the policy actually instructs: "As Misplaced Pages is not a paper source, editors are encouraged to include current and up-to-date information within its coverage, and to develop stand-alone articles on significant current events."

• He also tends to misapply WP:OR:

1. "Original Research. Synthesis of Material."
2. "One fact synthesized with 3 very biased sources is not a good way to write."

• ...and WP:BLP:

1. Repeating the same massive content removal for which Darkness Shines was sanctioned
2. Contesting a heading which was inappropriate, but certainly not a BLP violation
3. "This needs some strong concesus. Far to easy to take out of context. BLP violations"

Other examples here.

Using Misplaced Pages as WP:BATTLEGROUND

Arzel frequently describes other user's edits as biased, POV pushing, or activism. This tends to have demoralizing effect on editors, and is not conducive to collaborative editing.

Mass deletion of sourced content with inadequate justifications

Large amounts of content are deleted with vague references to policies such as WP:NPOV and WP:BLP.

1. "NPOV abound."
2. "Highly POV"
3. "BLP issues"
4. "Not reliably sourced"
5. "Now it is just vandlism"

Applicable policies and guidelines

1. WP:AGF
2. WP:BATTLE
3. WP:CIVIL
4. WP:CONSENSUS
5. WP:DISRUPT
6. WP:EDIT
7. WP:EDITWAR
8. WP:NPA
9. WP:NPOV
10. WP:TPG

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

Attempts by Kerfuffler

• September 9, 2012 - AN

Attempts by KillerChihuahua

• February 24, 2013 - ANI

Attempts by Casprings

• May 12, 2013 - Previous RFC/U
• June 25, 2013 - ANI

Attempts by MrX

• December 6, 2013 - User Talk Page
• December 22, 2013 - User Talk Page

Attempts by BullRangifer

• January 7, 2014 - User Talk Page

Attempts by KonveyorBelt

• January10, 2014 - ANI

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

1. MrX 18:39, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Brangifer (talk) 06:47, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this statement

1. MezzoMezzo (talk) 10:50, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
2. — goethean 19:04, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
3. SPECIFICO talk 21:55, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
4. BMK: Grouchy Realist (talk) 02:06, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
5. --Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 12:58, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Binksternet (talk) 05:10, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Response

Outside view

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

{Add summary here, but you must use the endorsement section below to sign. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.}

Views

This section is for statements or opinions written by users not directly involved with this dispute, but who would like to add their views of the dispute. Users should not edit other people's summaries or views, except to endorse them. All signed comments other than your own view or an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" or "Response") should not normally edit this section, except to endorse another person's view.

Outside view by Robert McClenon

I haven't been involved with this editor until now. However, on reading over the diffs compiled by the certifier, it is clear that the editor has a long history of blanking content with which he disagrees, and of often using uncivil edit summaries when doing so. In some cases, what Arzel is doing is removing a characterization, such as "right-wing", and that, as such, is often desirable, since Misplaced Pages should not be making that editorial characterization without attribution. However, uncivil edit summaries are not desirable. More seriously, though, Arzel appears to have a campaign of removing analysis that is properly sourced when he considers the sources to be biased (that is, less conservative than Arzel). This campaign of removal of analysis and context shows at least a misunderstanding if not a disregard of neutral point of view. which does permit the use of reliable sources having a point of view if that point of view is noted. The systematic deletion of content is problematic. It isn't consistent with trying to achieve balanced encyclopedic coverage. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:04, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

The stated purpose of this RFC, like any user conduct RFC, is to try to persuade Arzel to change his editing style and be more collaborative. That would be desirable. However, I am not optimistic and do not think that is likely to happen, especially since Arzel is not a new editor and there have been previous efforts to deal with his editing via noticeboard threads and one previous user conduct RFC (that was poorly developed and then withdrawn). The real purpose of a user conduct RFC is to document the existence of problems for the record. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:04, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:05, 12 January 2014 (UTC) (as author of statement)
2. Erpert 06:18, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Brangifer (talk) 06:49, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
4. MezzoMezzo (talk) 10:48, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
5. - MrX 12:55, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
6. TFD (talk) 17:05, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
7. JoeSperrazza (talk) 17:22, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
8. BMK: Grouchy Realist (talk) 02:07, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
9. --Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 12:58, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
10. Gamaliel (talk) 17:51, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
11. Binksternet (talk) 05:11, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Outside view by Collect

The requirement for an RfC/U is that it be a single dispute with a single user and this one seems quite a melting pot indeed. A cursory look at some of the "bad behaviour" alas seems to indicate that it was Arzel who was doing the right ting -- the Fox & Friends bit

On May 30, 2012, Fox & Friends aired a four minute video created by Chris White, an associate producer at Fox News, assessing President Obama's term of office in a purely critical and very biased manner

violates NPOV on its face, and is not in the current article. Sea Shepherd and Paul Watson have filed suit to the Supreme court in response to the injunction issued to the ICR by the 9th Circuit court ... is not in the current article, and Arzel's position appears to be the consensus at this point. Many of the "examples" are normal for article talk pages, and to try making a mélange of poor evidence into a full-blown soufflé here alas fails. with "revert conspiracy theorist" does not appear to label an editor as such but

Because of his Canadian origin, the Constitution’s “natural born citizen” requirement, could make him ineligible to be President.

inserted without sourcing in a BLP is properly removed per WP:BLP. Speculation about a person being ineligible to run for President is, indeed, the stuff od conspiracy theories.

Arzel can be a strong advocate, but he is neither edit warrior nor villain as far as I can tell. I have on occasion crossed swords with him on issues, but never found him to be a "bad editor" on Misplaced Pages.

This RfC/U is, unfortunately, not well-formed per Misplaced Pages policy, nor is the "evidence" of such weight as to attract disinterested observers to separate the wheat from the chaff, of which there appears to be several bushels.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Collect (talk) 02:41, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:02, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 04:26, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Joefromrandb (talk) 15:41, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
5. VictorD7 (talk) 19:04, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
6. --71.178.50.222 (talk) 07:16, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Mostly outside view by User:Iselilja

I see evidence of battleground behaviour as Arzel almost solely involves himself in contentious articles and disputes; I also see evidence of tendentious editing in that it’s mostly conservative related articles where Arzel worries about negative material. Likewise, there are negative comments directed to other contributors and general negative comments about people with other political views that himself (the last thing is unfortunately prevalent on Misplaced Pages).

I don’t however, quite agree that Arzel constantly misinterpretes or misuses Misplaced Pages policies. I evalutated some of the diffs where Arzel is accused of having violated core policies; and in many cases I didn’t find any clear violence of policy and in some cases Arzel appears to be right.

• NotNews. Here there are 6 diffs and I’ll discuss them in order.

• 1) Arzel removes Megyn Kelly’s black santa remark and controversy out of article. Here I believe Arzel was wrong. Paragraph is currently in article.
• 2) Arzel removed a paragraph about Cory Booker having tweeted that he was snow shovelling for residents. This was reinserted and is currently included in article. I think it is debable, particular that this tweet is currently the only information about Cory’s Senate tenure. Looks tabloid/promotional. (Might have looked better in a section about public image or similar).
• 3 and 5). Arzel removes two paragraphs with criticism of Fox and friends. One paragraph is currently in the article; the other is not. Arzel cited undue weight concerns, which I think have some merits, as the article currently is about 50% criticims and without Arzel’s removal criticism would have made up 60-70% of article. Just like Arzel should do some evaluation about his own edit patttern; so should editors who only write about Fox to insert negative material.
• 4) Arzel removes a paragraph in the Paul Watson article about a law matter in the US. Paragraph cites «Environmental lawyer Robert F Kennedy Jr, the son and namesake of the slain political icon», wording here indicates to me that more than one side may have a problem with neutrality. Paragraph currently not in article, I can not evaluate whether it ought to be.
• 6) Arzel removes material about a brief hospital stay that Harry Reid had, the paragraph included «An evaluation and testing concluded that everything was normal; doctors asked that he remain in the hospital for observation that day and he will not work except for telephone discussions regarding legislation». This is exactly the kind of material that should be removed by NotNews. While Arzel may not be a great fan of Harry Reid; I believe he did Reid a benefit here as I very much doubt that Reid or any other politicians have any interest in getting their biographies cluttered up with minor medical issues. The paragraph is not currently in the article.

• Original research. Arzel removes Richard Murdoch from list of people who have criticised Wayne LePierre. Arzel is right. Murdoch called for stricter gun laws, but did not according to provided sources say anything about LePierre. This is a BLP issue, as we must not attribute living people statements they have not said.
• BLP. Arzel removed the names of all scientists in List of scientists who oppose mainstream views on climate change per BLP concerns and argued they should stay out until AfD had finished. When someone inserted the names again, Arbcom member Courcelles intervened to remove the names yet again and locked the article, saying in the edit summary «Back to BK's 'BLP content out' version for AFD»
• Some edits do seem to leave out information that clearly should be in the article; for instance Pamela Geller being banned from the UK.
• In conclusion, I would encourage Arzel to start adding more new and uncontroversial material to Misplaced Pages; instead of mainly being involved in BRD cycles. He should stop treating Misplaced Pages as a political battleground. If he does not show any indication of changing his edit pattern, he might find that the community will at a point find that he is a net negative even if most of his edits are within core policies.
• (I have been lightly involved in some of these articles)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Iselilja (talk) 04:20, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
2. TFD (talk) 06:08, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
3. - MrX 22:01, 12 January 2014 (UTC) (Partial endorsement. I concur with the first paragraph.)
4. , including that some of the removed information should have been removed and some of it should not have been removed. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:21, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Contribution by User:NE Ent

The implication put forth in the Description section seems to be that editors who primarily remove text are somehow unworthy Wikipedians. That's like saying Michelangelo wasn't very much of an artist because all he did was remove some rock from David. The internet has an estimated 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of data ; readers value Misplaced Pages because they have come to expect concise, balanced coverage of a topic. Please see fancruft and be concise. NE Ent 12:57, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Users who agree:

1. Noting my own editing of Joseph Widney down from 194K to 34K and GA status (yep removing over 80% of an article improved it substantially). The goal is encyclopedia articles, not mountains of text which do not benefit the reader. Collect (talk) 13:13, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Joefromrandb (talk) 15:41, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
3. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:43, 12 January 2014 (UTC) (don't delete deletionists)
4. I agree there is nothing wrong with deleting bad content. As TS Eliot said "Where is the knowledge we have lost in information"? Howunusual (talk) 17:56, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
5. --71.178.50.222 (talk) 07:17, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Outside view by User:The Devil's Advocate

What we see above is an RfC against a right-leaning editor supported by numerous left-leaning editors due to their objections to the right-leaning editor disagreeing with edits they make that largely favor their left-leaning views of right-leaning subjects. They accuse this right-leaning editor of "white-washing" and trivialize his concerns about POV-pushing by placing it in scare quotes. From an objective standpoint what we really have is a group of partisan editors objecting to another editor impeding their efforts to make Misplaced Pages articles more partisan. Such a case should be soundly rejected as political game-playing and BATTLEGROUND behavior.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. --The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 02:03, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
2. I would not use "right" and "left" but the dichotomy in editorial opinions is clear - and the "group" which appears to seek addition of information which did not gain consensus overall then complaining here that this one person is the sole cause of such lack of consensus is disingenuous. WP:CONSENSUS is clear, and if one does not gain consensus for an edit, it is wrong to then arrack a person who did gain consensus. Cheers. Collect (talk) 09:36, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
3. --71.178.50.222 (talk) 07:18, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

View by User:Howunusual. Discourage antagonism (including bashfests)

I'm not sure I understand this process...is an RFC/U an invitation to bash someone? If it is a request for comments on someone's editing, it should be a request on the good and the bad (and the ugly and the lovely), not just the bad. Are there examples of constructive editing to go along with the examples of alleged misconduct?

I mostly agree that the samples shown--which cover a year and a half--show too much antagonism. But, 18 months is a long time. Some of those links are from 2012. Arzel seems to mostly edit political articles, and those subjects tend to create rudeness from everyone.

I'm surprised at this: "there is no policy that prohibits using biased sources." Surely, that means it is OK to give the opinions of biased sources. Not that they can be used indiscriminately for factual statements, or even for opinions out of of proportion to other views that exist. As I understand it, Arzel's main objection is using biased sources to promote that bias in the articles.

Arzel needs to be less confrontational. That shouldn't mean he/she should be more "liberal." I'd like to see some examples of constructive edits, so this isn't just a one-sided bashfest. Howunusual (talk) 18:12, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

According to comments left on my Talk page, the answer is Yes, this process is an invitation to bash someone. On that note, my view:

1) Arzel needs to be less antagonistic. Maybe edit some non-political interests for a while. 2) It improves an encyclopedia to remove bias. 3) A process that only looks at an editor's negatives, and not the whole editor, is itself antagonistic.

Users who agree:

Outside view by User:Two kinds of pork

I have no involvement with Arzel or anyone else here for that matter. In fact I'm only aware of this because a few days ago I saw on the admin board this section go "blue" and that the stocks and pillory that are all too common there were put back in their boxes. After reading this page, and particularly the comments from Robert McClenon I read the page on a RFC/U, and I think the relevant portion from the page (which frankly should be at the top of every one of these things) reads: {{Top}} may refer to:

• {{Collapse top}}
• {{Archive top}}
• {{Hidden archive top}}
• {{Afd top}}
• {{Discussion top}}
• {{Tfd top}}
• {{Top icon}}
• {{Top text}}
• {{Cfd top}}
• {{Rfd top}}
• {{Skip to top}}

• Allow a number of users to collaborate in discussing wider issues they see with a particular editor's conduct.
• Allow an editor who is the subject of an RFC/U to understand the problems, and change or explain their conduct.
• Allow users to share information which might be relevant for later steps in the dispute resolution process, should that become necessary.
• An RfC is a tool for developing voluntary agreements and collecting information.
• An RfC may bring close scrutiny on all involved editors. In most cases, editors named in an RfC are expected to respond to it. The Arbitration Committee closely considers evidence and comments in RfC if the editors involved in the RfC are later named in a request for arbitration.

Template:Bottom

If Robert's suspicion Arzel is true, then yes indeed this process is about obtaining an official record. So after reading the assembled statements I started looking at some of the "evidence". At first I started to think this was a no brainer then skipped down further to the section called "Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute", and after reading a few I asked my self "What kind of fuckery is this?" _{RIP Amy Winehouse}

First of all, most of those evidentiary items are linked to entire pages of discussions not even related to Arzel. This is reminiscent of a document dump. I would suggest if you are going to document a problem (and an attempt to solve a problem) you be a bit more specific. But that isn't what really irritated me. It was this entry by BullRangifer who is providing certification of this dispute that got my goat. To wit: {{Top}} may refer to:

• {{Collapse top}}
• {{Archive top}}
• {{Hidden archive top}}
• {{Afd top}}
• {{Discussion top}}
• {{Tfd top}}
• {{Top icon}}
• {{Top text}}
• {{Cfd top}}
• {{Rfd top}}
• {{Skip to top}}

You seem to focus only conservative negatives. It gets harder and harder to assume good faith when you present only the negative against them. Arzel (talk) 01:53, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

How ironic, coming from you. Look in the mirror and you'll see what WE see when you edit. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:46, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Template:Bottom

also from the same link (Brangifer is adressing a new section where Arzel had yet to even respond) {{Top}} may refer to:

• {{Collapse top}}
• {{Archive top}}
• {{Hidden archive top}}
• {{Afd top}}
• {{Discussion top}}
• {{Tfd top}}
• {{Top icon}}
• {{Top text}}
• {{Cfd top}}
• {{Rfd top}}
• {{Skip to top}}

Arzel, your objection has no basis in policy. We use biased sources all the time, and without them we would have little content. BTW, aren't you topic banned from these subjects yet? -- Brangifer (talk) 16:43, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Template:Bottom If anyone cares to tell me that the above example successfully masquerades as dispute resolution, then I'll request that they don't spit on my cupcake and tell me that it's frosting. Arzel may at fault here, but it takes two (or more!) to tango and if this is the best example of Brangifer trying to find a happy medium, then I suggest he may also be part of the problem. And he probably isn't the only one.

Users who endorse this summary:

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Discussion

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