Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/-Ril-

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Case Opened on 23:27, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Case Closed on 02:53, 22 October 2005 (UTC)


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

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

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
-Ril- has been informed
BMIComp (talk, HOWS MY DRIVING) 21:08, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Numerous people have requested that -Ril- change his signature [1] [2] [3] [4] Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Usernames, but he has stated that he will not changed it unless told to do so by the Arbitration committee. (From -Ril-'s user page) "I'm keeping it unless the arbitration committee ban it. Learn to cope. ~~~~ 11:52, 23 July 2005 (UTC)"[reply]

Statement by Bmicomp

-Ril-'s signature is ~~~~, which is identical to a feature of the software, the method for a user to sign a comment. Wikipedia:Username states, "No deliberately confusing usernames: usernames designed to cause confusion with other contributors, or features of the software. This can be confusing for users." The username policy also states that "In general, the same rules apply for signatures as for usernames." Multiple users have asked him to change his signature due to its confusing nature, but he has refused. It seems that -Ril- is disrupting wikipedia to make a point.

The following was added at 04:58, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Furthermore, -Ril- seems to be very aware of policy, but "games the system", interpretting the policy in its most literal sense in order to skirt the policy. For example, he has brought an RfC against UninvitedCompany for misuse of his sysop powers, because Uninvited blocked him for 72 hours for violating the 3RR rule. These reverts were actually over a 24 hour 21 min period, instead of 24 hours as per 3RR policy. -Ril- claim that Uninvited abused his admin powers in doing so. However, despite his literal interpretation of policy, -Ril- has on many ocassions reminded other users that wikipedia is about the spirit of the policy, not the word [5] [6].

-Ril- also has a history of tagging tags articles for speedy deletion, despite being warned that his actions were contrary to policy [7].

It seems that -Ril- believes he is entitled to 3 reverts per article per day, which can be seen from statements which he made in this RfAr and from his tireless reverting of articles. Many of the articles that he edits are religous articles and are inherently contraversial, however, -Ril- seems to revert with little discussion and little dispute resolution. He has also been blocked four times for violation of WP:3RR (~~~~_.2F_User:-Ril- George Bush, ~~~~_.2F_User:-Ril- The Bible and history Matthew 1 Wikipedia:Bible verses). Despite -Ril-'s claims otherwise, only one of these was unblocked because it was inappropriate [8]. With one of them, he e-mailed admins until he found one that would unblock him. [9] [10]

It seems that he has followed ("stalked") other user's edits, such as Noitall [11] and User:SimonP, people who had been involved in disputes/conflict with -Ril-, and he has reverted their edits on other articles after these disputes.

Note: for those who may contend that his signature is not disruptive, I had to nowiki part of two links because they contained -Ril-'s signature....

Statement by Dmcdevit

I'd like to involve myself as well (hope I'm doing this right). Ril's constant disruption has become a big problem. I'm sure others more knowlegeable can comment on Ril's multiple 3RR violations, his disruptive VfD nominations, and his failure to assume good faith, but I'll comment on his flagrantly disruptive speedy tagging. On August 4th, while going through the speedy deletes, I noticed an abnormally large amount of bad speedy tags coming from Ril (so many that I spent more time chasing after him and removing the tags than actually deleting real speedies) for imaginary criteria. For example, he tagged The Fuzz as vanity (Note that the recent CSD proposal included band vanity but it failed. There is general consensus to view this as evidence the community stongly want sall these at VfD, not speedied), Miss Rumphius as "vanity/advertising" (note it is not a person, and VfD is specifically not a CSD, it is often only a language cleanup issue), Halifax Commons as "advertising", Engers as "non notable + minimal content" (it was a perfectly valid geo stub), Bonnie Patterson as "not notable" despite the obvious assertion of notability, university president, Enclosed mall as "advert", Henry C.K. Liu as "vanity" despite the obvious assertion of notability. This was all in one short period of time. At some point in the midst of untagging all these I warned Ril to be more careful about CSD. I was dismayed when later in the day, after the warning, Ril continued, tagging again for "advertising" and warned him again in no uncertain terms. After an exasperating discussion (all of it here) in which Ril made various non-responses, Ril proceeded to ignore me. On August 6th, Kappa again warned Ril about his speedy tags, this time he tagged another valid geo stub, Crackington Haven as "advertising." Four hours later, Ril made no response to Kappa, but instead proceeded to tag Mega Man X Collection for speedy, saying again advert (Note that as of this writing, the subsequent VfD on that article has a unanimous keep). Kappa warned again. Ril refuses to respond. That same day, I saw CHERUB Forums, King Danny Wallace I, Dying To Live, and Ultimate Gaming Machine (UGM) all have Ril's speedy tags removed, and by three separate editors (Pburka, Kappa, and Vague Rant). I warned him again, convinced of bad faith at this point. Ril's response continued to skirt the issue (CSD vs. VFD), saying I wanted Wikipedia full of advertising. After my final comment, he stopped rsponding. Ril has shown bad faith and disruption in these actions and interations, forcing others to spend their time cleaning up after him and making the VfD noms he couldn't be bothered to do. His response to this has been full of arrogance, disregard for the community and policy, and unrepentance. I am convinved he has no intention of changing his ways. (Sorry, I don't know how this got so long.) Dmcdevit·t 05:01, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Noitall

You could duplicate everything Dmcdevit said and then add to it. Somehow, still for unexplained reasons, -Ril- decided to target me over a period of some 2 weeks. It was a very unpleasant experience. On just one of the pages, you can see the result at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR (14 reverts). Since this issue does not directly address all of -Ril-'s other issues, I won't go into more. But note that I had a lot of difficulty figuring out which of his names to use, and one of them is incorrect. --Noitall 05:19, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

3 new points from -Ril-'s latest:
  1. on his User page, he has the statement, "Please note, I am not User:Ril, User:--Ril--, nor User:()" (I don't even know if that will print). This is an acknowledgement of the confusion his signature causes.
  2. typical of -Ril-: On three separate instances, he reverts 4 times, but just barely plans it so he does not strictly violate the 3RR policy -- he has never justified a single revert despite being asked more than 10 times -- and was blocked for 72 hours for it. Now he claims that his 2.5 reverts per day vandalism (just on one of the 40+ pages) is somehow justified.
  3. typical of -Ril-: he chases me around for 2 weeks on the pages I was editing while I tried my best to ignore him (until he would disrupt each and every page) and he accuses me of trolling!! --Noitall 13:02, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by SimonP

It would be useful if someone could look into -Ril-'s persistent edit warring. In the last month alone he has been blocked three times for breaking the 3RR, and has gone over the limit on a number of other occasions. As noted above he has also begun skirting the policy by reverting at a rate just slow enough to not get him banned. Moreover these reverts are hardly ever accompanied by discussion, for instance despite reverting [12] four times in a few hours he has yet to reply on the talk page or when the issue was raised on his user talk page. - SimonP 14:00, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Mel Etitis

I wasn't informed that I was included in this, and have just stumbled across it. I'll just say that I agree that -Ril-'s behaviour is very poor, that he seems to have a contenpt for Wikipedia policy and guidelines, and that he either sets out to disrupt and to irritate other editors or does a very good impression of so doing. It's also worth pointing out that, though this doesn't excuse him, his critics include some of the worst of the current batch of Islamophobe PoV-pushers (such as Klonimus (talk · contribs) and Germen (talk · contribs), whose behaviour has been no better than -Ril-'s. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:28, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by party 2

Please limit your statement to 500 words

Bmicomp's comments
  • The username policy applies to usernames, thus the name "username policy". My username is "-Ril-", this is not deliberately confusing, designed to cause confusion, or features of the software (I'm assuming this means "exploit features of the software" rather than "is not a design feature of the software", as that would cover all usernames).
  • Several editors have non-english-alphabet signatures, for example, Sam Spade (¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸), and Vaikunda Raja (வைகுண்ட ராஜா).
  • No-one really copies signatures, otherwise there would be a lot more instances of sam spade's and Eequor's (η♀υωρ). People copy usernames. My username is -Ril-.
  • There is no policy forbidding unusual signatures.
  • The arbitration committee only has the power to interpret policy, and establish precedent, not form new policy (such as a signature policy).
Bmicomp's comments added at 04-58, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I brought the RfC against UninvitedCompany because UninvitedCompnay has an explicitely stated self-admitted bias ("extremely anti-Islamic") and blocked a user who opposes said bias being pushed, for a block of over 24 hours (indeed 72 hours), for a violation of 3RR that did not exist (indeed, there wasn't even violation of a hypothetical 2RR). I would have brought the RfC against the admin for doing so even if it wasn't me it was done to, had I been made aware of the behaviour.
  • Actually, most of the articles I edit are egyptological
  • I have however recently been reverting extremely anti-Islamic and other excessive pro-fundamentalist-Christian pov-pushing
  • Noitall is a case in point - an extreme pov pusher whose entire edit history consists of revert wars with several other users, reverting any changes or de-povving they make to Noitall's edits.
  • George W. Bush - stating that the UK re-elected Blair because the UK supported Bush's behaviour is basically a lie. There was a 7% swing against blair, and anti-war candidates did extremely well, indeed one notable one overturned a massive majority in a previously safe seat to be elected. The claim that the UK was proven to be pro-Bush by re-electing Blair clearly needs to be de-povved to reflect the truth.
  • The Bible and History - concerns one edit that Noitall originally made claiming it had "consensus from other editors". Originally I asked for proof, Noitall backtracked and said it had been cut together from bits of other articles. I pointed out that you can cut+paste together any pov you like, and there would need to be more evidence that the change had consensus and wasn't controversial. Noitall subsequently refused to continue the discussion, and kept reverting his change into the article.
  • Source text edits on bible article - as was later demonstrated by a clear survey result, I had consensus to remove the duplication of the source text for the chapter from the articles as it was already in WikiSource, and using certain translations over others is POV.
  • The block log clearly indicates that
    • Mel Etitis' block of me was unblocked by Theresa Knott as being "No need for a block at this moment in time"
    • El C's block was not unblocked, a large part of which was down to El C putting the wrong page on his watch list (which El C later admitted doing). El C was also "high on codeine" at the time, which El C later stated on my talk page as being his "defense".
    • Ta bu shi da yu's block of me was unblocked by UninvitedCompany stating "block is inappropriate"
    • UninvitedCompany's block of me was unblocked by Earl Andrew who stated they did so because of the reasons I e-mailed to them - namely those listed above as the reason's for the RfC against UninvitedCompany
  • I have followed several POV warriers, as many other editors and especially admins do, in order to check ("check" as in "checkmate") their pov-pushing. e.g.
  • I have no-idea why a link would contain my signature rather than my username? This is surely incorrect?
DmcDevit's comments-

(Just a few for brevity),

  • King Danny Wallace I is an advert for a current, short, and not terribly notable, documentary running on BBC2/Channel 4 (I don't remember which) called "how to start your own country" - Danny Wallace is the (not terribly famous whatsoever) presenter.
  • Enclosed mall, despite its title, has the content "Los Cerritos Mall - Los Cerritos Center, also known as the Cerritos Mall, is located in Cerritos, California. It is one of the southland's premier shopping centers". This is an advert.
Noitall's comments
  • There is no 5 day 13RR (thats under 2.5 per day by the way)
  • Removal of controversial edits which have no evidence supporting them, despite repeated questions on the talk page to ask for evidence, is entirely justified in accordance with wikipedia policy.
  • User:--Ril-- and [[User:~~~~]] are sockpuppets designed to commit vandalism and blame it on me. User:Ril is banned permanently, and is a sockpuppet of banned user User:Lir. All 3 of these users are permanently banned.
  • Dmcdevit has already told Noitall to stop trolling.
SimonP's comments
  • All but one block against me has been lifted before expiry as being inappropriate.
  • Part of the reason for the one that wasn't lifted not being lifted could easily be put down to the fact that the blocking admin (El C) put the wrong page on their watchlist rather than putting my talk page up, and was "high on Codeine at the time".
  • The reverts involving SimonP concern his behaviour which does not reflect community consensus. After Theresa Knott stepped in at his request, stating to a degree that they did not reflect community consensus, I created surveys to determine what the community consensus was to see whether the community opinion implies the same as my opinion that his actions did not have consensus, or whether it implies that he was wholly justified. The current status of the surveys is that there is demonstrably no consensus for his mass moving (100s of articles at once) of request for expansion tags from article to talkpage (or vice versa), and that his views on the notability of bible verses are not supported by the community (i.e. the community agrees with me that it is not the case that most bible verses are sufficiently notable to have seperate articles)
Germen's comments
Mel Etitis' comments
Ta bu shi da yu's comments
Raul654's comments
  • I did not state that Willy on Wheels should be promoted to sysop. I stated that Willy on Wheels had already, technically, been promoted to sysop (albeit without any bureaucrat making the necessary alteration), and would need to have a vote for de-sysopping against him, in the interests of due process.
  • Jimbo said that he feels fairly strongly that the ArbCom election process was deeply flawed, and in the same edit "understsanding [sic] of the law and a judicial temperament are more important than popularity" [i.e. democratic elections], as well as appointing persons such as Jayjg over Mirv because with regards to Mirv, Jimbo "don't know him so well". This is what I stated at the edit Raul654 gives ([13]), and is therefore not false.
  • Raul654's accusations would seem to make him an involved party (by virtue of making accusations, rather than considering the possible merits of accusations others have made), so I am requesting Raul654 to recuse as a result, and sign as an involved party (or withdraw the accusations, and remain arbitrator on this issue).
Recusal

Despite her involvement in the above criticism of my signature, I do not feel that Theresa Knott needs to recuse herself.

Non-existance of earlier steps in dispute resolution
  • I can see why arbitrators with strong anti-Islamic POVs would want to accept immediately but;
  • No RFC was filed against me whatsoever, at any point, nor has mediation been raised or suggested - earlier steps have NOT been tried.

~~~~ ( ! | ? | * ) 11:42, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Germen (interested 3rd party)

  • While some aspects of -Ril-'s behaviour are problematic indeed, I am not in favour of banning users. Nevertheless a clear warning to -Ril- by the administrators to obey Wikipedia guidelines and be more cooperative towards other users could be of use in this case. --Germen (Talk | Contribs ) 12:54, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Klonimus (interested 3rd party)

Ril put my User:Klonimus/AINB up for VfD. It has been well established that putting userpages up for VfD never results in deletion and thus is a waste of VfD resources. Ril has also put several other "won't be VfD'd" pages up on VfD thus creating more disruption and load on VfD. Klonimus 15:37, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Point of information to Klonimus's statement

Such "wont be deleted" pages that I have put up for deletion include Wikipedia:WikiProject Addressing Anti-Jewish Bias, which was deleted (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WikiProject Addressing Anti-Jewish Bias).

16:32, 3 October 2005 (UTC)


Preliminary decisions

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

Temporary injunction (none)

Final decision

Principles

Disruption

1) Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point

Passed 5-0


Speedy deletion criteria

2) Users should only tag articles for speedy deletion that meet the Criteria for speedy deletion

Passed 5-0


Users expected to heed warnings

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

Passed 5-0


Improper usernames and signatures

4) Users with improper usernames or signatures may be required to change them.

Passed 5-0


Modifying other users' comments

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

Passed 5-0

Findings of fact

Repeated erroneous speedy deletion tagging

1) Ril repeatedly added speedy deletion tags to articles for reasons not listed in the criteria for speedy deletion. [14][15][16][17] He did so even after repeated warnings [18][19][20]

Passed 5-0


Removing others' comments

2) Ril has repeatedly removed other users' comments from various discussions [21][22][23]

Passed 5-0

Remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Sig change

1) Ril is required to adopt an un-confusing signature.

Passed 5-0

1 month ban for removing others' comments

2) Ril is banned for one month for removing others' comments (all bans to run consecutively)

Passed 5-0


1 week ban for incorrect CSD tagging

3) Ril is banned for one week for incorrect speedy-deletion tagging (all bans to run consecutively)

Passed 5-0


Enforcement

Continuing misbehavior

1) If Ril should speedy-delete tag an article for reasons not listed in the Criteria for Speedy Deletion, or should remove comments made by another user (for reasons other than archiving), an admin may block him for a short period, up to 3 days.

Passed 4-0

Clerk's addendum

Any block, restriction, ban, or sanction performed under the authorisation of a remedy for this case must be logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log, not here.


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