Wikipedia:Requests for comment/172

(172 | talk | contributions)

Statement of the dispute

This is a summary written by users who dispute this user's conduct.

Description:

172 reverted Augusto Pinochet and History of the Soviet Union (1927-1953) nearly 50 times. This was done in an edit war with User:VeryVerily, whose actions have been listed on a separate RfC page

Evidence of disputed behavior (provide diffs and links):

[1] Revert war on Soviet Union article
[2] Revert war on Augusto Pinochet

Applicable policies:

Wikipedia:How to revert a page to an earlier version, specifically the policy against more than 3 reverts in a day.

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute (provide diffs and links):

Users certifying the basis for this dispute (sign with ~~~~):

Other users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

Sam [Spade] 03:02, 22 May 2004 (UTC) (172 has been a problem rather than a solution ever since I first encountered him. I have found him to behave in an unacceptably hostile and arrogant manner, defying policy and showing a complete lack of respect of a number of users. I frankly don't know what to do about him, but this seems a good step.)[reply]
V V 05:50, 22 May 2004 (UTC) 172 is a singular menace who does not belong on a community-oriented, consensus-based, neutrality-driven Wiki project. See my summary at my RFC page.[reply]
RickK 02:12, 24 May 2004 (UTC). I especially find the use of the abusive language below to show yet again more reason for 172 to be appropriately dealt with. RickK 02:12, 24 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Nat Kraus e 07:16, 25 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Stan 05:56, 31 May 2004 (UTC) - 172 is painfully difficult to work with at best, abusive and bullying at worst. If no one speaks up about this, he has no incentive to improve.[reply]
Ilyanep 22:24, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC) I have had a problem with 172, and his conduct was very uncivil at best -- in that one problem...I do not claim to know all of 172's conduct though.
Lirath Q. Pynnor 172 is a problem user.
fvw 02:50, 2004 Oct 19 (UTC)

Response

It is no coincidence that most of the "other users who endorse [the above] summary" (Sam Spade, VeryVerily, Nat Krause) do nothing on Wikipedia except spew rightwing POV into articles, and never show any attempt toward serious scholarship. RickK, at least, is an overall productive user, but he seems to think that anyone to the left of Atilla the Hun is a Stalinist, explaining why he is always ready to attack me every chance he gets, even for things he blatantly does himself all the time. This isn't a statement of my contributions or personality attributes, but rather a listing of rightwing POV users. If others jump into this witch hunt, it'll say more about them than it does about me.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

Support

Partial Support

The premise of this inquiry seems to be a bit slanted, against 172, and 172 seems to be taking it a bit too seriously. I dont entirely agree with the characterisation of the above people before, but it is indeed curious that as a collective they seem to function with some consensus on matters which boil down to a localized US-based POV. It is of course something that eloquence often fails to counter - and so I cannot fault 172 entirely for the conflicts. It takes two to tango, or more in this case. ...I have noticed a substantial improvement on the part of most of the parties involved, with respect to their behaviour and quality. Rather than focusing on people, we should instead focus on hard examples of deleition (omission, exclusion, obfuscation, censorship) as the prime symptom for diagnosing unwiki behaviour. That said, there exists a problem with the tendencies to edit quickly and shoot from the hip. "'Liberals' essentially means 'educated people'," and therefore it is little wonder that uneducated people have an easier time writing and editing material in a way that agrees with their views. -Stevertigo 18:10, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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.

While other users were wasting their time whipping up charges against me and mudsling, I was working on the History of Brazil series, upgrading the series box, getting started with a footer, and filling gaps in coverage in a couple of the articles. I suggest that other people find similarly constructive uses of their time.

It's one thing to come to the defense of someone who has been treated unfairly (and the support from Hephaestos and Dannny on this page means a lot to me goes a long way to cement my intentions to staying on Wiki), but what good comes out of launching biting attacks against someone you don't even know, when you don't even know what's going on? Since starting out as a user in 12/02 and a later sysop in 5/03, I've learned that the best way to handle these much-to-do-about nothing ad hominem attack fests is treating them as such. I'm not going to pay much attention to this, and I am not going to allow anyone to make me forget that we're here to write an encyclopedia. And to Michael Snow and Jamesday, you are charged with the power to protect pages. If edit wars bother you so much, spend a minute or two protecting pages as opposed to launching a lynch mob that'll squander a hell of a lot more time.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

172 07:48, 22 May 2004 (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.

I completely disagree. 172 has shown considerable restraint, given his professional expertise in this field. Meanwhile, I see little evidence that the other parties to the dispute really understand the content as well as him. I can only wonder if they are really interested in the quality of the encyclopedia or just having their own voices heard.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

Danny 00:05, 22 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Hephaestos|§ 00:09, 22 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
—No-One Jones 02:19, 25 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Viajero 17:12, 26 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Tannin 01:57, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Markalexander100 03:06, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
+sj + 07:06, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Eclecticology 07:08, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
G-Man 11:59, 30 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Get-back-world-respect 01:44, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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.

Looking at the articles I see:

that the History of the Soviet Union fight proximately started after this edit by VV. I find no fault with this edit - it was described as "rework p for bias" and did so, though there's useful material which the edit removed - a combination of material in both paragraphs seems to be better than either of the versions the revert war is being faught over. 172 then used a minor edit to revert it - not a good initial step when you should know that the change is likely to be controversial. The more remote origin appears to be this edit. I'm not much impressed by that edit - it seems to be more to try to advance a particular viewpoint held by 172 than to be neutral.
that the history of the Augusto Pinochet dispute goes back to this set of revisions, where the history shows some reluctance by some parties to recognise the now well documented US support for Pinochet in his rise to power and ample reason to accept that the US supported the coup, with those opposing the mention not apparently willing or able to effectively counter the cited reasons for that view. US support for Pinochet seems significant enough to merit an early mention. The proximate cause for the edit war appears to be this edit in which 172 undid an apparently discussed compromise. After a, comparatively, brief edit war the page was protected. On unprotection the edit ware promptly resumed. While I see merit in the desire to include the US aspect early , I don't see much merit in the removal of the longer introductory material and see even less in using an edit war to overturn a reasonably discussed possible resolution instead of further discussing the matter and presenting evidence to support different views. As with the history article I see minor edits being used by 172 for edits 172 clearly should have known were controversial.
overall, I'm unimpresed by 172s reluctance to discuss things instead of using edit wars in what appears to be effectively virtual bullying to get 172's way. While it's clear that the conduct of both is highly reprehensible, the comparative lack of respect for the use of discussion and use of minor edits for significant edits causes me to more greatly disfavor 172 in this pair of disputes.

-- user:Jamesday

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

Sam [Spade] 02:10, 24 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Cimon 03:39, May 24, 2004 (UTC)
- To clarify; let me state that I have absolutely nothing against the political viewpoint of 172. My own heroes of political and cultural historigraphy are Jürgen Habermas, Eric Hobsbawm and above all Sir Isaiah Berlin. These gentlemen are hardly right-wing icons. It should be very hard for 172 to demonstrate that my opposition to his behavioural poisoning of the wikipedia atmosphere is based on some fundamental political opposition. I am well meaning enough to suggest that wikipedia should welcome contributors much to the left of his viewpoints who act more civilly. We can hopefully stay receptive to contributors of widely varying views as long as they behave constructively. -- [User:Cimon avaro|Cimon]] 05:15, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Stan 05:59, 31 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Ilyanep 22:26, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Discussion

All signed comments and talk not related to a vote or endorsement, should be directed to this page's discussion page.