Wikipedia:Requests for comment/GoRight

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The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

A summary of the debate may be found at the bottom of the page.

Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Statement of the dispute

GoRight, a user with a history of disruptive editing on global warming articles, returned 11 days ago. Since then, he has fomented numerous edit wars and harassed other users (the latter resulting in a 24 hour block)

Desired outcome

GoRight should be community banned from global warming related articles. If he continues his harassment of WMC, he should be indefinitely blocked as well.

Description

GoRight is a single purpose civil POV pusher with a history of problematic editing on Wikipedia. (Note that I mean single purpose is the strictest sense - his contribs contain exactly 4 edits to non-global warming related articles). He recently returned from a 6 month hiatus.

He has a history of tendentious editing on global warming related articles. In December, he went on a 6 month editing hiatus. Since his return 11 days ago, he has fomented no less than 9 simultaneous edit wars on global warming-related articles: William M. Gray‎, Global warming‎, William Connolley‎, Fred Singer‎, Lawrence Solomon‎, RealClimate‎, An Inconvenient Truth‎, and Global warming controversy‎. At the same time, he has repeatedly harassed user:William M. Connolley (for which he was blocked by R. Baley yesterday) GoRight does not understand or abide by Wikipedia policies regarding reliable sourcing.

I have neither the time or energy enumerate all of GoRight's misbehavior in each of the above edit wars, but I'll give a general overview. He attempted to insert claims into the global warming article that global warming is likely to cause earthquakes. (See this thread) His citation for this was an MSNBC article which he later admittedly he already knew had been withdrawn - that he was well aware that its own publisher didn't consider it reliable. This article said point blank that the earthquake hypothesis was espoused by one person and was at odds with all other known data. Count Iblis told him that his edit violated Wikipedia policy regarding reliable sources, to which he responded by claiming it was a legitimate edit. I pointed him to the arbitration committee's decision regarding sourcing for science related articles (Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources require that information included in an article have been published in a reliable source which is identified and potentially available to the reader. What constitutes a reliable source varies with the topic of the article, but in the case of a scientific theory, there is a clear expectation that the sources for the theory itself are reputable textbooks or peer-reviewed journals. Scientific theories promulgated outside these media are not properly verifiable as scientific theories and should not be represented as such.) but he later admitted he did not bother to read the link to the arbitration committee decision.

During the same time-frame, he made this edit to William Connelly's article, claiming that William's article, claiming that WMC "strongly pushes his POV with systematic removal of any POV which does not match his own". The source for this quote was an article by Stacy Schiff, which itself got the quote from an arbitration case on Wikipedia -- hardly a reliable source. After this was removed as a blatant BLP violation, he added this one sourced to an article by Lawrence Solomon (an ex-wikipedian with an axe to grind) published in a tabloid. This too was removed as a BLP violation.

While that was going on, he became embroiled in an edit war on the William M. Gray article. (Gray is a global warming denier) GoRight made a series of edits which can only be characterized as vandalism - removing Gray's offer to bet on future climates, and changing "does not subscribe to anthropogenic causes for global warming" to "does not subscribe to the currently hypothesized anthropogenic causes for global warming".

At the same time as the above, GoRight jumped into an edit war on the Global warming controversy article. BernhardMeyer inserted a link to the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change in the Science-related external links section. (diff) (For those of you unaware, the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) is a "research group" created by global warming denier Fred Singer and SEPP - his think tank - to confuse people. It's name is intentionally similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Nobel-prize winning group of climate scientists. The NIPCC, SEPP, and Fred Singer all get money directly or indirectly from ExxonMobile.) When BernhardMeyer's link was correctly reverted, GoRight immediately jumped in, attempting to restore it (diff). When it was explained to him on the talk page that a global warming denial group is not a reliable source, he bizzarely claimed that the onus was on others to prove that the NIPCC is not reliable (rather than the onus being on him to prove they are).

On the Fred Singer article, several weeks ago there was a question about a letter Singer wrote which was published in the Journal Astronautics in 1960. In it, Singer supported the idea that the Martian moon Phobos was artificial, made by Martians. Several people wanted verification of this, so I put in a request in the inter-library loan, got a pdf scan of the letter, and posted such on the talk page. Everyone agreed it was a reliable source, and the letter was quoted and cited in the article, along with a link to a google cache copy. Three weeks later, GoRight came along, claimed that a "google cache" is not a reliable source, and removed all mention of the letter. (diff) This, obviously, started an edit war. GoRight later claimed that because it was not available online, and that he was unable to find it himself (despite the fact that I had posted it on the talk page 2 weeks earlier) we should not cite it (diff). More edit warring followed.

I hope that gives you some idea of the problem user we are dealing with -- of the 36 article edits GoRight has made since returning, 34 of them either started or were part of edit wars. While causing all of the above edit wars, he has taken to singling out and harassing William M. Connelly in particular. So much so that R. Baley blocked him yesterday. R. Baley unblocked GoRight after GoRight admitted he was out of line and promised to be more diplomatic. (See this thread)

This thread is enlightening. When confronted with his misbehavior, GoRight at denies being disruptive and also denies participating in edit warring, despite all evidence to the contrary. He later claims that his edits were properly sourced and their reversion is evidence of a conspiracy against him. When notified of this RFC, he bizarrely described it as "forum shopping"

Evidence of disputed behavior

(See above description for diffs)

Applicable policies and guidelines

{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}

  1. Wikipedia:Edit war
  2. Wikipedia:Tendentious editing
  3. Wikipedia:Reliable sources
  4. Wikipedia:Vandalism
  5. Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Appropriate_sources
  6. Wikipedia:Harassment

Evidence of trying to resolve the dispute

  1. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive438#Disruption_by_GoRight - the consensus was that GoRight is a disruptive user, but that I was arguably involved and should not make the block myself.
    Note that GoRight responded to the above ANI thread by opening an administrator's noticeboard thread on myself and R. Baley - Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive151#Abuse_of_adminship_by_User:R._Baley_and_User:Raul654 He was told that there was no basis for a complaint and to pursue dispute resolution.
  2. [1] re William M. Gray. GR apparently finds it unremarkable that his edits should be considered vandalism [2]. KDP does not use the term lightly.

Evidence of failing to resolve the dispute

The ANI thread above was discussed from the 24th to the 26th. Since then, he has not moderated his behavior in the slightest.

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

  1. William M. Connolley (talk) 18:44, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Raul654 (talk) 01:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Other users who endorse this summary

  1. Count Iblis (talk) 00:42, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Yilloslime (t) 00:57, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Vsmith (talk) 02:38, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:13, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  5. R. Baley (talk) 07:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response

This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.

NOTICE: I have been revising this section as things have evolved. The version of the response that was in effect at the time this RFC was certified and moved to approved is here [3].

(1) General points:

  1. Raul asserts "GoRight is a single purpose civil POV pusher ..."
    • I do tend to be a single topic contributor as my time is limited and my edits are focused in my areas of interest, namely the GW articles. I am aware of no Wikipedia policy that requires across the board participation in a range of unrelated topics. To suggest that this means I push a particular POV, however, is obviously a logical fallacy. The one simply does not logically imply the other. I can certainly be a neutral editor with a narrow scope of interest.
    • "Civil POV Pusher" is an oxymoron. It denotes an editor that attempts to follow Wikipedia rules and policies but is somehow a "POV Pusher", begging the obvious question of from who's counter POV? We all have points of view. It is the diversity of views here that is supposed to keep Wikipedia grounded in reality. Coining a non-official term such as this, developing an extensive page to support it, and then attempting to use it as a club against one's opponents (as we see here) is obviously an attempt to simply stifle dissenting debate. When you remove the dissenting debate the core principle behind having the diversity of opinions here collapses and the pages then become non-WP:NPOV with a tendency on the part of the regular editors to WP:OWN the status quo.
  2. Raul asserts in his complaint above "His citation for this was an MSNBC article which he later admittedly he already knew had been withdrawn - that he was well aware that its own publisher didn't consider it reliable. This article said point blank that the earthquake hypothesis was espoused by one person and was at odds with all other known data." This entire statement is objectively false:
    • The MSNBC article has never been withdrawn. It is still available here [4].
    • Since MSNBC is still running the story, one can only conclude that the article's publisher, MSNBC, considers the material to be reliable.
    • The article cited does not say that the hypothesis was espoused by one person and was at odds with all other known data, as Raul claims.
    • The standard, as noted in WP:V, is not truth but verifiability. The MSNBC article is WP:V.
    • To make the logical leap that the MSNBC article is somehow incorrect requires WP:OR on his part and is not permitted here on Wikipedia.
  3. Raul asserts "... he has repeatedly harassed user:William M. Connolley (for which he was blocked by R. Baley yesterday) ..."
    • I have NOT repeatedly harassed the wikipedian User:William M. Connolley. I did make an off-hand PA on a talk page for which I was appropriately blocked. My reaction was to throw my fate into the hands of the person I was purportedly attacking [5], who agreed my comment was out of line [6]. After going back and reviewing the comment again, I admitted that it was out of line [7], apologized for having made it [8], the apology was then accepted [9], I then sought to confirm on the broader topic whether User:William M. Connolley felt that I was harassing him [10], but WMC declined to comment [11]. So far as I know all participants in this incident are satisfied that the matter is now closed.
    • I, along with others, HAVE independently tried to add appropriately sourced criticism into the encyclopedic BLP for climate scientist William M. Connolley. Making such a distinction is not without precedent in this context even among WMCs close associates [12]. The text I provided was a verbatim quote from a 3rd party source published in a reliable and verifiable media source, The New Yorker [13]. Note that I never reverted this text even once. An alternative and obviously much more WP:NPOV text provided by another editor, but related to the same article, was introduced by User:Kendrick7 here [14]. I later supported the alternative text here [15], and here [16], and finally here [17] where I declared that I did not intend to revert the material again ... nor have I.
    • It should be clear that a verbatim quote indicates the sentiments being expressed by the 3rd party author and their sources, not the wikipedian. The third party author is responsible for assessing the reliability of the source that they use, not us here at Wikipedia. Making any sort of judgment call regarding a third party author's meaning and/or the reliability of their underlying sources requires WP:OR which is against Wikipedia policy and therefore should be avoided.
  4. I am satisfied that my comments on WP:AN and WP:ANI can speak for themselves, although I do feel that a fair reading of both will reveal his mischaracterization of the outcomes, and most especially the one brought by him wherein I gained support from a number of uninvolved users.
  5. On the charge of my being an edit warrior, I am in the process of creating a topic by topic account of these supposed edit wars ([18]) to put my participation there in the context of that with whom I am supposedly edit warring. Judge for yourself if I deserve to be singled out in these instances or not. Calling these edit wars, however, is rather reminiscent of Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars. The reality is that brief rounds of reverts among multiple participants on contentious topics seems to be completely normal operating procedure all over Wikipedia as we all know. Similarly there can be found many other such instances on every single GW page ... the vast majority of which don't involve me in any way. So the question is, why is Raul singling me out? Does it have something to do with his POV on the topics rather than the rationale he cites above? Is he simply mischaracterizing things to build a case for the purpose of stifling dissenting views? You judge for yourself.
  6. On the charge of being a vandal, I believe that my edit history is clean of this charge except for this one incident, although I have not gone back to check. Further I do not believe that the edit in question actually constitutes vandalism, per WP:VAND. I provide my rationale here [19]. You can judge for yourself if this is actually vandalism, or not.

(2) My behavior over time:

  1. In retrospect, my first addition since my return, namely the piece concerning the relationship between GW an Earthquakes, was not my finest work. Was the evidence for it thin? Sure. My source for that, an article from MSNBC [20], is still active and has not been retracted as Raul falsely claims above. And obscure ArbCom rulings that no average Wikipedian should be expected to know about before being WP:BOLD aside, the fact of the matter is that neither of the official policy pages WP:RS nor WP:V supports his claim that only peer reviewed material is acceptable on science pages. Exactly the opposite is true, as lamented to here [21], and as I demonstrated clearly on the Talk page (actually User:Count Iblis did when he quoted the relevant text and I merely read it back to him). Raul is just upset that I won't admit I was wrong when, in fact, the relevant policies bear me out. This is because it makes it harder for him to enforce his personal POV through the intimidation of other wikipedians. Even so, I quickly agreed to drop the matter ... which the edit history demonstrates I have done ... yet two days later Raul comes along and picks a fight over my not understanding and/or ignoring the official Wikipedia policies (as opposed to obscure ArbCom rulings). Again, this is merely part of his smear campaign in support of his agenda here.
  2. Subsequent to the notice board incidents referenced above, I would argue that the following are evidence of my having moved in a positive direction, contrary to Raul's assertion that I have not moderated my behavior:
    • Per the instructions given me by the responses at [22] I correctly pursued the dispute resolution process by taking the open issues to the WP:BLPN board. I have subsequently done similarly for other topics as well.
    • After being blocked, and correctly so, for a specific WP:NPA violation, I worked with both User:William M. Connolley and User:R. Baley to resolve the situation. I voluntarily apologized directly for having done so and have avoided repeating the mistake. The threads at [23] and [24] speak for themselves on this point. I believe that all parties involved consider this matter closed at this point.
    • After having a number of interactions with User:KimDabelsteinPetersen which resulted in his accusing me of vandalism for this edit [25], I pro-actively sought to diffuse the tensions between KDP and myself [26]. You can decide for yourself whether the edit in question was vandalism or merely an attempt to balance the difference between KDP and another user.
    • A review of this thread, [27], should yield to an objective observer a clear understanding of just who is being aggressive and creating a toxic environment here, and who is not.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. --GoRight (talk) 07:46, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I agree with the bulk of this. It seems that GoRight can do no right: edit articles directly, and he's an edit warrior; discuss on talk pages and he's tendentious; edit rudely and he's uncivil; edit nicely and he's a "civil POV pusher". The only conclusion to be drawn is that editors of a certain POV are simply not welcome here, and that is clearly unacceptable. People need to stop labelling editorial disagreement as disruption. ATren (talk) 14:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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.

Outside view by Count Iblis

I agree 100% with Raul's assessment of GoRight's behavior. I do think, however, that banning GoRight from the global warming related pages is not the best way to deal with this problem. I suggest we put GoRight on a 0RR restriction. That will force him to think very carefully about adding something to an article as he can't revert to his version anymore if it is removed.

Also, the 0RR restriction will mean that GoRight is not allowed to revert the article to any previous version at all, even if that is the fist editing action by him in a 24 hour period, except if he is reverting obvious vandalism. So, if GoRight makes an edit on one day, which is then reverted, he can't on the next day edit in that same edit of the previous day.

For talk page comments we'll restrict GoRight as follows. If GoRight raises a topic that has already been discussed or if he raises an irrelevant point that is not ging to lead to changes in the article, then we delete his comments. When his talk page comments are deleted, GoRight will not be allowed to revert that change because of the 0RR restriction. He will not be allowed to raise the same topic ever again as that is technically a revert.

All this sounds more complicated than simply banning GoRight from editing the Global Warning related pages. However, such restrictions do force GoRight to think very carefully about the topic and it may lead him to see how wrong he is about the topic. Also, he nor anyone else can't claim that he is sensored. He is allowed to edit the article. If he is reverted then it is theoretically possible for someone other than GoRight to revert the article back to GoRight's version.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. Count Iblis (talk) 01:23, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Outside View by ATren

Note: I do not agree with GoRight's views on global warming.

Having said that, there is only one recent edit made by GoRight that gave me any concern, and that was the attempt to add to William Connelley's bio - but even that was a well-sourced claim and not an open-and-shut example of abuse. And, by the way, GoRight accepted consensus on that and moved on, so I don't know why it's still being brought up.

Further, I am of the opinion that "civil POV pushing" is a nonsensical accusation to make about any editor, because it paradoxically implies that civility is somehow a violation of policy. Worse yet, it seems to create an environment where any disagreement is unacceptable: if GoRight disagrees uncivilly, he'll be quickly blocked; if he disagrees civilly, he'll be charged with "civil POV pushing" - so his only apparent recourse is not to disagree. In this sense, "civil POV pushing" is basically being used to squelch debate.

Basically, this is nothing more than a content dispute between editors on opposite sides of a contentious topic. There is no need to squelch one side of that debate.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. ATren (talk) 01:59, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I believe this summary is generally accurate. I don't see anything he's done that is worthy of a ban from GW. Oren0 (talk) 02:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Concur in full. I also disagree with GoRight's POV (that is: I think that man-made global warming is a nigh-undeniable fact), but apart from his misguided push to edit an OpEd source on a BLP (William Connolley), his actions have been well-taken, and conscientious. As ATren states, even that incident can't be called disruptive. I fear that this will turn into an unhelpful "vote off the island" RFC. Cool Hand Luke 04:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Concur. Tempshill (talk) 16:48, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  5. GoRight (talk) 23:37, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  6. I've been passively watching this unfold since the ANI post, and I agree that no action is warranted. I'll avoid going into detail as others have already done so, but frankly, I find the excessive exaggeration of the opening description repugnant. "Repeatedly harassed" is blatantly misleading; "does not understand or abide by Wikipedia policies regarding reliable sourcing" is essentially untrue. Dispute resolution would be much more productive if complainants would be more reasonable in these descriptions. GoRight made a handful of edits that he shouldn't have made, like creating a criticism section for a subject who hadn't received a significant amount of prominent criticism, but there is really nothing extraordinary to see here. — xDanielx T/C\R 09:29, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  7. This is a content dispute. I agree about the charge of "civil POV pushing"; accusing someone of such amounts to accusing them of disagreeing with you, but with the idea that your POV is the true center. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 02:31, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Elhector (talk) 00:13, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Outside View by Abd

The full view has been moved to User:Abd/GoRightRFC due to length-issues. The charges repeatedly mention edit warring, and that would seem to be the core of the complaint, and civility or POV pushing red herrings. The other major charge is that of harassment. Further, the most serious charges (edit warring and harassment) are not demonstrated clearly with diffs and accurate summary, which is a problem, making it far more difficult to review the evidence. I should not have had to assume poor presentation of legitimate charges.

GoRight, in return, complained about the verbosity of the charges, then originally used half again as much text in response. On the other hand, I'd cut a lot of slack for a user accused of misbehavior. GoRight counterattacks, accusing those who filed this RfC of misbehavior themselves. Bad Idea, as my four-year old daughter would say. It makes him look guilty. But, again, this is what users often do when charged with misbehavior. He should leave that kind of effort to those who are uninvolved.

Focusing on the specific charges beyond the vague "SPA POV pusher" claims, not actionable yet at this level of impact, this what I have so far:

Edit warring

Comment, William M. Gray, BLP

Comment, Global warming

  • Conclusion: (2 articles) multiple users edit warring. GoRight improperly singled out.

Comment, William Connolley BLP

  • Conclusion: multiple users edit warring. GoRight hit 3RR one day, but improperly singled out. Spreading out reverts is still edit warring. Multiple editors making repetitive reverts absent attempts to find consensus is still edit warring.

Alleged harassment of William M. Connolley

  • GoRight edit warred, faced with resolute edit warring from other editors, of equal severity, in what is described above. What he faced appears to have confirmed his suspicion of a cabal, and most incivility charges are his complaints and sarcastic comments pertaining to that. His belief in a cabal was reasonable given what he faced, which also included repeated incivility from other users and administrators, and his responding incivility did not escalate and mostly ceased.

Defective certification of attempt to resolve

  • Warnings and complaints to AN/I made by parties to a dispute are not adequate as attempts to resolve a dispute, even more so when they are uncivil.

Abusive block and abusive RfC

I also examined five other articles asserted in the RfC complaint as showing problematic editing by GoRight, and found, in most of them, no problem at all, please see my extended comment page for details.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. I would like to stress one line of Abd's excellent analysis: There is problematic behavior on the part of GoRight, to be sure, but nothing so out of the ordinary and so sustained as to have warranted an RfC so rapidly, as far as I've seen, and when problematic behavior has been civilly pointed out to GoRight, he seems to have been responsive. If GoRight went on a vandalism spree on these 8 articles and replaced the entire text with hate speech, he'd get a 1-week block for vandalism and nothing beyond. Here we have a productive contributor (no doubting that - look at Singer and Gray) who made a few mistakes, and people want an indefinite topic ban. That's completely out of line. Not to mention that he wasn't even the worst transgressor in this conflict: the person who brought this RFC actually threatened to block GoRight during a dispute with him, which is a clearcut violation of WP:BLOCK and much more serious than anything GoRight did. The double standard is alive and well here. ATren (talk) 13:44, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Endorse, but less strongly than ATren's summary above. I wouldn't go so far as to say abuse, though I do feel that this whole process is unnecessary as GoRight hasn't done anything blockable or content bannable. I'd also like to note in response to one thing above that nobody that follows GW pages (and certainly not GoRight) would consider me in any sort of "side" or "cabal" with Connolley and company (User:Oren0/GWSkeptic), even if I did revert some BS about global warming and earthquakes. Oren0 (talk) 00:23, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. I accept Abd's extensive work here as being even handed, and to the extent that he has provided criticism of my behavior I gladly accept it in the way it was obviously intended, as constructive criticism, and will endeavor to take it to heart so that his work here will have the positive effect on Wikipedia that he has been striving for. --GoRight (talk) 00:20, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Endorse with the reservation that I do think that GoRight inappropriately baited WMC. That said, I agree with Abd's tentative conclusions that there have been possible abuses on the "other side." I echo Oren0's sentiment that this RfC is not warranted, and I wholeheartedly agree with Abd's statement that "Warning [users] uncivilly is the reverse of dispute resolution, it is disruptive." Third-party users should read this section. Even though it's long, it constructively addresses more of the disputed articles, which gives a fuller picture than the other summaries. Cool Hand Luke 01:51, 9 July 2008 (UTC) Re-endorse. Abd's analysis in user space is thorough, and I strike my reservation; user seems to understand all facets of the issue. Cool Hand Luke 00:09, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  5. This user is one of many engaging in this behavior. It's unfair to label them problematic when not applying the same label to the other parties in the dispute. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 02:34, 10 July 2008 (UTC) Note: I again endorse Abd's finished version. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 03:21, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  6. While GoRight does not appear to be completely blameless, his conduct does not seem to be any worse, either in terms of WP:CIVIL or WP:NPOV than those on the other side of the issue. J. Langton (talk) 22:28, 20 July 2008 (UTC) I reaffirm my endorsement of the finished version. J. Langton (talk) 04:10, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Abd (talk) 03:13, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  8. I accept the above, but I believe the user in question suffers from a tendency to edit war, and should be put into a position that they are forced to discuss the articles with others and attempt to build a consensus with them instead of against them. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  9. I agree with this summary Elhector (talk) 00:22, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

View by Stephan Schulz

I'm currently on a lousy hotel internet connection, so this will of necessity be somewhat brief and possibly full of typos. I essentially agree with much of what Raul writes. To clarify one issue: the bad part about "civil POV pushing" is not the civil, it's the POV pushing. Civil POV pushing is a problem on Wikipedia because we have no substantial defenses against it. ArbCom does not decide content questions. Uninvolved admins often do not have the knowledge to properly evaluate different POVs with respect to WP:WEIGHT. Thus, a relentless POV pusher that remains reasonably polite can cause a lot of work and trouble without significantly improving the encyclopedia.

On the issue at hand, I would like to point out the following:

  • Looking at User: GoRight's contributions: Can anybody find an edit that substantially improves the encyclopedia? "Not egregiously bad" is a very low bar.
  • The earthquake episode looked and looks to me like a mixture of provocation and WP:POINT. To recap:
    • Here he introduces a statement about global warming causing more severe earthquakes, referenced to a Yahoo article referencing an obvious crank article in a crackpot "journal".
    • It is removed with a request for a peer-reviewed source here. Give the principle that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, the request for a peer-reviewed source seems to be entirely reasonable.
    • Nevertheless, GoRight adds it back, but Count Iblis removes it again.
    • Interestingly, on the corresponding talk page discussion Talk:Global_warming#Global_Warming_Causes_Earthquakes, GR admits before he re-adds the information, that "CBS News and the AP have backtracked", ergo that the report is not reliable. I suggest that all interested read the full section and decide for themselves if GR acted with an honest interest in improving the article. I'd just like to highlight the attempt to represent the "legitimate edit" as a victim of "the Connolley gang" and the use of other friendly insinuations against "the alarmists".
  • Immediately following the earthquake episode, he starts an edit war on the caption of the Keeling curve[28], repeatedly claiming that it shows an increase in CO2 "from both natural and man-made sources". This claim is not only unsourced, it is laughably wrong. While some fringe scientists disagree with the consensus explanation of global warming, no serious scientist - not even the usual sceptics - doubts that the increase in CO2 is anthropgenic and only anthropogenic. There are many lines of evidence for this, but the most simple argument is that the increase is actually quite a bit less than human CO2 emissions. That this had been repeatedly explained to GR [29][30][31] does not stop him from reverting...

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:21, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. -- I agree 100% with this account of GoRights behavior. Count Iblis (talk) 00:54, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Yilloslime (t) 00:58, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Vsmith (talk) 02:35, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  5. N p holmes (talk) 15:38, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Kim D. Petersen (talk) 17:13, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Jason Patton (talk) 19:17, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Raul654 (talk) 05:13, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  9. William M. Connolley (talk) 18:56, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Global Warming causing earthquakes? Game playing at it's finest. For someone pushing a biased POV agenda, it doesn't matter how you deprecate the article, just so long as you try. R. Baley (talk) 07:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  11. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 18:37, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Orderinchaos 14:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  13. WVhybrid (talk) 04:56, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

View by Kim D. Petersen

I haven't had much time for this - as i'm on vacation.

The trouble is not editwarring - but rather what the causes for that edit-warring is, and that cause is rather (to me) clear: Its tendentious editing by GoRight. And i rather differ with abd, in that the content issue is very important, as it always will be in a tendentious editing case. The why of the edit-wars, rather than the who.

  • It starts with the Global warming article. Here GoRight inserts[32][33] what can be adequately described as non-sense (or very extreme fringe), and as he later admits, it wasn't serious[34] - but instead as a provocation to the "alarmists" as he apparently sees his fellow editors. Thats a clearcut case of WP:POINT. Read the complete discussion on Talk, its rather revealing.
  • Next comes a direct violation of WP:BLP[35], quite clearly to slight the Wikipedia user Connolley, as his comment says directly[36] (as does his response to the admin who warns him [37]). Btw. take a minute and check the reference for the context of the quote that GoRight had inserted to the article, to see a rather blatant cherry-pick.
  • Continuing in the same vein, GoRight now starts another campaign against WMC[38], now on Fred Singers biography.
  • Eventually getting two warnings from two admins [39][40], and taking a complaint to AN/I, where he gets a clear message that his edits where violations.[41], and that his complaint was invalid.
  • In the end getting blocked for this[42] on his 9th day of editing.
  • Strange reversion[43] - does it really add any information to a movie that was released in 2006? Or is he just making a point?
  • Inviting L. Solomon to use blogs to circumvent Wikipedia rules.[44], apparently so he can get more meat for his POV.
  • Then of course there is this revert [46], where GoRight quite apparently is trying to annoy. He knows that theory is a word to avoid - not because its the wrong word in context, but because it means a different thing in a scientific context and a "normal" context. He doesn't revert back to the anonymous editors version - but instead waters the text even further down by exchanging theory with hypothesis. His explanation quite clearly shows his thoughts behind[47]. (of course noone considers the man controversial, and the text didn't say so).

In summary - i think it comes through pretty clearly, that GoRight is on a mission. I presume that this mission is to expose a cabal which he thinks has taken over the global warming related pages. He does this by trying to "expose" WMC (as seen), and by making pointy reversions, that disrupt the articles. His entire method of operation, seems to be driving at pissing off people, so much that they will be seen as the "wrong-doers", instead of engaging in a reasonable consensus building. And as such the the label Civil POV pusher is rather apt.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:28, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Except for, at times, the "civil" part. GoRight can be exceptionally polite when at a noticeboard. R. Baley (talk) 07:18, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wurble by William M. Connolley

Some miscellaneous comments. Firstly, thanks to Abd for taking the time to read through this. *But* I think he has demonstrated how hard it is for an outsider to make sense of this. I'm going to look at the ~22/6/2008 edit warring on GW as my example. And [48] in particular: which is to say, my removing of from both natural and man-made sources. The addition is contentious: the rise in GHG is well known to be anthropogenic; asserting otherwise is (a) POV pushing and (b) doomed, hence tendentious. But GR, as the talk in Misleading graph demonstrates, clearly didn't have any good sources for the idea that it might be natural. Its clear from the talk there that he simply didn't have a clue, had never looked at the evidence or even followed the obvious wiki links. Yet he previously used the edit comment Let's at least be clear about where the increases are coming from. Sm8900 repeated the same invalid edit, with no reason why, in edit comment or on the talk page (where you'll find us patiently explaining, yet again, why this is wrong). This wasn't a one-sided edit war, of course, but the side that prevailed was *correct*, and justified their position; whereas the side that lost was incorrect and made no attempt to justify their postiion (which is unsurprising, because its indefensible).

And I simply lack the incentive to actually waste time fighting the Connolley gang over it was hardly helpful.

Oh, and as for 0RR, its not necessary. Experience shows that 1RR is enough.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. William M. Connolley (talk) 14:34, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I would be support a 1RR, and suggest that user voluntarily abode to 1RR no matter the resolution of this RfC. I believe user's contributions have been productive (except for the attacks on User:William M. Connolley), so topic bans or even 0RR are excessive. Cool Hand Luke 04:31, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. R. Baley (talk) 07:20, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:19, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

View by R. Baley

I find that Abd's characterization of my actions (above) to be wholly inaccurate. So I guess I'll correct the record as best I can.

I noticed GoRight when he blatantly misrepresented a source (The New Yorker) to add an attack section based on one quote from an anonymous source (presumably a disgruntled former editor) -while said quote was entirely refuted (and and rightly so, I might add) by the article itself. At ANI GORight wrote that he, "respected his (R. Baley's) demand" -hardly. Around June 22 and the following 2 days at least, GoRight made plenty of edits, the nature of which was to attack WMC in some way (while "technically" adhering to what I asked him not to do in WMC's bio). This is the same way he approaches our policies and guidelines -just things to be gamed while deprecating our content (Global Warming article -see earthquakes mentioned previously) and attacking other editors.

To be clear, I blocked GoRight after he made this edit (be sure to scroll down) on 29 June 2008. He had been warned multiple times, and my actions had been scrutinized by other admins at ANI. If there was any fault to them, I was never informed.

I did follow GoRight's edits after I saw him add material, on June 22, that did blatently misrepresent a story in The New Yorker. These are the edits over the next 2 days, which I saw, following that WP:BLP violating edit:

"Connolley gang" 22:25, 22 June 2008
"WMC can just willy nilly attack his adversaries" 23:53, 22 June 2008
2nd edit to the previous comment 23:59, 22 June 2008
"I am not singling anyone out (with the exception of WMC, of course)" 00:12, 23 June 2008
"That would include WMC from the list of names on the article, as well as the blog itself. Let's save that little fact away for future reference." 02:23, 23 June 2008 Reference to betting, still homing in on WMC.
"Stephan, are you actually a sock puppet of Mr Connolley to whom my comment was addressed?" 09:15, 22 June 2008. A two-for-one insult.
"If WP:RFCU had any chance of being effective you would have been exposed long ago I am sure. . ." Follow-up to Stephan Schulz on Global Warming talk page.
Smear in Fred Singer article space 03:32, 24 June 2008.
link to Solomon's opinion piece again (3:34, 24 June 2008) to Lawrence Solomon article.
"Abuse of adminship by User:R._Baley and User:Raul654" ANI report filed. Despite the unfounded claim that I "abused" my adminship, I let the editors at ANI handle it, and didn't defend myself. My recollection is that the charges (against both Raul and myself) were without merit. (Nobody ever notified me, I only followed it a little and saw that others agreed that the charges had no substance).
"I am trying to add some criticism to WMCs BLP since it has none. . ." 05:25, 24 June 2008
"Your personal integrity and objectivity is admirable ... not." 05:53, 24 June 2008. To Raul654.
Coaching for Lawerence Solomon. 15:22, 24 June 2008 I read this as: if LS writes something on his own site, the policies here can be gamed to include the comments on Wikipedia. Also includes this charming quote, "As you are obviously aware, your critics here will attempt to intimidate you."
To article space 20:35, 24 June 2008. Adding another quote by Lawerence Solomon. "Connolley's influence on the global warming debate second only to that of Al Gore as a result of his position at Wikipedia."
". . .I understand that the quote in question was sort of cherry picked out of the article in the sense that it didn't reflect the overall tone of the article or at least the section related to WMC. On the other anyone who frequents the global warming related pages is well aware that this is a common criticism of WMC,. . ." 20:58, 24 June 2008 GoRight finally acknowledges cherry-picking to make a point which "everybody knows about" (paraphrased).

To finish up, I don't know why Abd has chosen to inaccurately characterize my actions with regard to GoRight. Maybe there is just too much material too follow, regardless, I believe it casts doubt on the rest of his analysis. I was enforcing Wikipedia's policies on BLP and NPA. I have not otherwise engaged GoRight. Neither have I made any significant contribution to the William Connolley biography (3 edits in total, it's on my watchlist because I once added a source back in, in March of this year). This editor has been an example of biased POV pushing at it's finest, and at the time. . .it wasn't even civil, not even close.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. R. Baley (talk) 07:06, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 18:41, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:21, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Raul654 (talk) 00:24, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Outside view by JeremyMcCracken

I have no knowledge of the ongoing debate or the users involved. However, if you look at many of the edit summaries, you'll see that editors on both sides have made accusations of bad faith, been uncivil, directed statements at editors in the summaries, etc. This is not one problem user; it's a multi-user dispute where things have gotten out of hand. Penalizing one user will do nothing more than shift the balance in the dispute. The key to solving this is mediation or arbitration involving all parties, and leaving the administrative measures to strictly uninvolved administrators.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 02:51, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Abd (talk) 04:16, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. ATren (talk) 15:36, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4. GoRight (talk) 20:21, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Carcharoth (talk) 22:07, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Oren0 (talk) 23:29, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Other users have unclean hands in this RfC. Cool Hand Luke 23:20, 16 July
  8. J. Langton (talk) 17:09, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Except, I do not agree with the last 2 sentences. I'll make my view later which might help clarify why. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:25, 20 July 2008 (UTC) A few more days at least.... Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:15, 25 July 2008 (UTC) Made my view below now. Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:54, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Jaimaster (talk) 08:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Outside view by Ncmvocalist

NOTE

The complaining party are those users who have certified and endorsed the basis of this dispute. The subject of the RFC is GoRight. I will note that I did see some problematic conduct on the part of other users, as suggested in the view by JeremyMcCracken - but that does not justify the misconduct here. Further, both parties failed to indicate if (and to what extent) any other users were involved, and if their edits were problematic and directly affected the dispute. Therefore, other users conduct will not form part of my findings – instead, my findings will be confined to the conduct of the parties here.

This has been a nightmare to go through in terms of the evidence - the conduct/misconduct was difficult to identify at times (and indeed, I can see why/how users are put off looking into such disputes that cause burn-out). Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that there are serious concerns and conduct problems brought up here and that the RFC does have merit, despite the unrealistic desired outcome for an RFC.

Findings

Certain users of the complaining party engaged in disruptive edit-warring on the Global Warming article. [As an entirely separate note, those users who are administrators are (to a much greater extent) expected to actively find better ways of resolving content disputes and to avoid edit-warring - this, I suppose, was a lapse in judgement for them, because they're clearly not unable or incapable of doing so. Asking for full-protection of the page instead of edit-warring would've been far more ideal.]

The subject of the RFC, GoRight, has engaged in disruptive edit-warring ([49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61]), over multiple articles, including William M. Gray (BLP), Global warming, William Connolley (BLP) and Fred Singer‎ (BLP). He fails to acknowledge the problems with his conduct - I’m disturbed by his assertion that “the reality is brief rounds of reverts among multiple participants on contentious topics seems to be completely normal operating procedure all over Wikipedia” – even if this was true, it does not legitimize the conduct. The cycle is Bold, Revert, Discuss - not Bold, Revert, Revert, Revert, Revert...etc.

The subject has also edited inappropriately on biographies of living people (BLPs). I have expressed this concern at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive438#Disruption_by_GoRight over one of his edits that did so. I'm not impressed with his reply which attempts to justify his edit made in contravention of BLP policy. All editors are expected to adhere to both the letter and spirit of this policy.

I urge both parties (as well as any other users involved, who are aware of this RFC) to refrain from engaging in the conduct I've just noted. To this end, I'm asking that both parties familiarize themselves with the relevant principles below for their editorial conduct. If a party, particularly the subject, continues to act in a way that is disruptive, then I think the only way the dispute will be resolved is through individual sanctions placed by ArbCom. I really do hope it does not continue or escalate to that point as it is entirely avoidable.

Parties reminded

Wikipedia works by building consensus. This is done through the use of polite discussion—involving the wider community, if necessary—and dispute resolution, rather than through disruptive editing. Editors are each responsible for noticing when a debate is escalating into an edit war, and for helping the debate move to better approaches by discussing their differences rationally. Edit-warring, whether by reversion or otherwise, is prohibited; this is so even when the disputed content is clearly problematic, with only a few exceptions. Revert rules should not be construed as an entitlement or inalienable right to revert, nor do they endorse reverts as an editing technique.

Wikipedia articles that present material about living people can affect their subjects' lives. Wikipedia editors who deal with these articles have a responsibility to consider the legal and ethical implications of their actions when doing so. Implicit in the policy on biographies of living people is the understanding that Wikipedia articles should respect the basic human dignity of their subjects. Wikipedia aims to be a reputable encyclopedia, not a tabloid. Our articles must not serve primarily to mock or disparage their subjects, whether directly or indirectly. This is of particularly profound importance when dealing with individuals whose notability stems largely from their being victims of another's actions. Wikipedia editors must not act, intentionally or otherwise, in a way that amounts to participating in or prolonging the victimization. In cases where the appropriateness of material regarding a living person is questioned, the rule of thumb should be "do no harm." In practice, this means that such material should be removed until a decision to include it is reached, rather than being included until a decision to remove it is reached.

Users who endorse this summary:

  1. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:56, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Abd (talk) 04:48, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Partially endorse only. I absolutely agree with the second portion, about consensus and the destructiveness of edit warring. My concern is with the upper portion, which seems to suggest some sort of action be taken against GoRight as the party in this RfC, without the declaration that other parties were equally destructive. Prime example- the first diffs given showed GoRight removing a section from William M. Gray. Looking at his action of reverting WMC's revert: the source for the second paragraph removed is blogspot.com- not even remotely a reliable source. (The first paragraph was inappropriate IMO, as it was taking an offhanded remark badly out of context. That source doesn't suggest "attempted betting", as the section title stated.) From my standpoint, these edits fit perfectly into your last bolded sentence above- leave out possible BLP issues until there's a consensus to include. In fact, Talk:William M. Gray#Betting looks like a good faith attempt by GoRight to initiate some discussion over that article; specifically, the subsection "Section deleted", where they had a thorough discussion on that blogspot source being unreliable. On another diff, notice that the fourth diff shows a revert of an unexplained revert- WP:REVERT#Explain reverts would mandate that the reverting user start a discussion explaining their reason for reverting. (It is important to note that GoRight continued this revert war when other users gave valid reasons- not innocent, but not standing alone in blame.) While GoRight failed to initiate discussion in some instances, no one else did so, either. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 06:11, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Endorse. Jeremy, if I have read Ncmvocalist's summary correctly I believe is not excluding the complainants from his criticism regarding their own edit warring behavior, just users not otherwise named in the RfC. Jaimaster (talk) 07:13, 8 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  5. In delicate areas, I do not endorse the bold, revert, talk scheme, because it leads to the revert, revert, revert scheme. Instead, I believe that the only appropriate scheme is talk, talk, talk, talk, reach consensus, talk, then change scheme. This is not about getting things "right" or "wrong", but about respect to the topic, to individuals, to fellow users, and to the encyclopedia. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:10, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Partially endorse, with the reservation that GoRight's behavior has in my opinion not been worse than that of numerous other editors on the GW-related pages. While this doesn't justify disruptive editing, I think that it's unfair to single out GoRight. If the GW editors are going to start being held to a higher standard of conduct than they have been in the past (which would be totally appropriate) then I think that this needs to be applied across the board, including those who are not a party to this RfC. I also note that only GoRight's problematic edits are included in this Outside View, while those of the other parties to the RfC are not. This also contributes rather significantly to my reservations with this summary. J. Langton (talk) 00:43, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.

Summary

All users involved in the dispute were advised to engage in appropriate conduct. Following further discussion and concerns concerning his conduct in particular on a certain topic, GoRight was subject to a community sanction.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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