Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/C68-FM-SV/Evidence

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Evidence presented by Krimpet

Use of off-wiki communication and "secret lists"

One point that really seems to have made Cla68 sore is the existence and clandestine goings-on of private, invitation-only mailing lists last fall. One, WpCyberstalking is/was operated by SlimVirgin; the other, WpInvestigations-l, was apparently run by User:JzG at one point, though he claims there was a previous, unspecified owner.

Not having access to any of these lists, I can provide little evidence other than hearsay. What I do know is that the initial list was started by SlimVirgin for discussing legitimate, serious concerns of online harassment, but it apparently devolved into flamewars and witch-hunting for "troll enablers" (in fact she later privately apologized to me personally for what was said about me on her list.) Apparently at some point it was decided to break those discussions off into a "investigations" list instead, though I for one know little about this and who was involved in the fork. I would hope that someone more involved could come forward with some better evidence and explanation - it's known that several current and former arbitrators, as well as Foundation staff, were participants in one or both mailing lists, too.

Not long after that, Jayjg, one of the participants in the aforementioned lists, accidentally sent a canvassing request intended for friends to wikien-l, drawing widespread ire.

That off-wiki friendships form and editors will often back people up is completely natural, a consequence of human nature. What's disturbing, though, is that many of the editors involved are vocal crusaders against "meatpuppets," while often engaging in off-wiki coordination that is, essentially, equivalent to the "meatpuppetry" they are protesting.

Cla68 does seem to frequently come off as obsessive and holding a grudge when he locks horns with these folks he's come into conflict with in the past. But the more one looks into it, it seems clear he's been baited into this; many of the users he has come into conflict with have indeed been shown to be collaborating offsite, and personal attacks and allegations have been flung at him. Cla's incivility in response is the symptom; the bullying and underhanded collaboration against him and other contributors that caused it is what needs to be addressed.

A first-hand experience of bullying by FeloniousMonk

I recently had the misfortune of being targetted by FeloniousMonk's personal attacks firsthand - not a pleasant experience. The week before, I had tried to fix a coatracky BLP on a woman in the field of computer science, which focused too much on one event in her life without putting it in context, only to find I'd walked into a landmine of controversy between the WikiProject on Intelligent Design, of which FeloniousMonk was a member, with an indefinitely blocked user, User:Moulton. An ensuing edit war erupted - of which I took no part in other than my initial edit and one revert - which eventually ended in the BLP being brought to an acceptable state, though with plenty of unneeded conflict, as well as a slew off harrowing insults from WikiProject ID members.

But after this dispute had been over for a week, hoping it was now in the past I came across an MfD for the User:Moulton page - and found that FeloniousMonk had added a sentence describing me as a "Wikipedia Review editor" and a "meatpuppet" that had been "recruited" by him - an untrue allegation constituting a direct and insulting personal attack against myself. (He also proceeded to protect his version of the page at this time - strongly forbidden by our protection policy and community rules of thumb.) I removed the attack with a simple plea not to drag me back into the dispute, but FeloniousMonk only re-added it to a new page, even refining it to word it more sharply against me and single me out more pointedly. My attempts to remove it and ask him on his talk page to stop were rebuffed with him re-adding the attack and replying that he had "diffs" supposedly confirming I was meatpuppeting, which he didn't actually provide.

This behavior is not only against our policies forbidding personal attacks; it's baiting, drama-mongering, and hostile to collaboration. Trying to force an established user to be branded with the label of "meatpuppet" with no evidence after the dispute is over serves no purpose but to inflame things more. krimpet✽ 13:21, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by SlimVirgin

This is a summary of my evidence as presented in the RfAr. I'll be adding specific examples and diffs over the next week or so.

Cla68 does good work in the main namespace, but it is punctuated by prolonged attempts to make the project a toxic place for others. This involves on and offwiki harassment of his targets, wikistalking, constant niggling, exaggeration, sarcasm, efforts to humiliate them, and misleading descriptions of their actions.

I have been one of his targets for over a year. It has involved following me to articles and talk pages I edit a lot and that he has never edited, claims that I edit in bad faith, that I am a liar, that I abuse the admin tools, that I am a "formerly respected" editor, and that I am up to something and need to be investigated. He often refers to my alleged sockpuppetry, and encourages others to post links to attack sites or posts them himself.

I have stayed away from him and haven't responded for months to the taunting, but despite that, he started a user subpage about me in March, which he continues to work on. It is purportedly a draft RfC, but in my view it is just an attack page. The subheads have included at various points, "Lying or other unethical behavior," "Personal attacks, retaliation, bullying, and attempts to intimidate," "Abuse of administrator privileges," "bad faith editing," and "abusive sockpuppetry." [1] [2] The diffs do not bear out the claims. His edit summaries seem intended to provoke e.g. "un-freaking-believable," [3] "you've got to be kidding me," [4] "incredible," [5] and "wow." [6] He has gone through my talk page and asked 45 editors who have disagreed with me about something (going back many months or even years) to take part in constructing the subpage, although I'm glad to say that very few have joined in, and some have taken issue with him. I believe the aim of the page is to cause distress in the hope that I'll respond badly, which would allow him to kick up more fuss. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 18:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by JzG

I am in two minds about whether to participate here. On the one hand, common sense urges me to steer well clear, since Cla68's past actions have led me to hold him in contempt, particularly because of his dishonest use of the Register to try to have his version of the Durova fiasco accepted as the official truth despite the fact that every single person who had detailed knowledge of the actual events, told Cla68 that he was wrong. On the other hand, I think I can with care present some issues without allowing my personal feelings to prevail.

Cla68's behaviour is hard to describe,l but if a single word must be found then I think "spiteful" would do.

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Cla68 is already referenced, I think. The excessively aggressive support of Bagley was extremely distressing to SlimVirgin, who had been deliberately targeted by Bagley, repeating the meme that Daniel Brandt seems to raise from time to time. ArbCom has, on its "zOMG secrtet" mailing list, a mail from Bagley titled "impressions on Oversight abuse of Jayjg and SlimVirgin" - I think that Cla68's furtherance of this agenda went well beyond what is acceptable, and this is noted by FloNight in the RfC.

In no particular order, and with more to come if I can stomach it, then. Some is old, apologies for that.

• [7], to user:Jossi, a snide and distinctly unpleasant comment.
• [8] apparent Wikistalking
• [9] Snide and unhelpful attack, combined with dismissal of the issue of harassment of editors
• [10] on the matter of antisocialmedia
• [11] links to a piece by Cade Metz (who Cla68 knows, Metz having been his outlet in the "secret"! mailing list story) to further his campaign against Jossi (incidentally, the article is characteristically inaccurate, failing to spot that Jossi !voted keep on the criticism fork afd). The irony! Cla689 creating a section on "conflict of interest" while pursuing an apparent conflict of interest...
• [12] champions Piperdown
• [13], [14] More Wikistalking
• [15] part of a brief edit war to try to drag Jayjg into a contentious arbitration case, reverted by people including clerks and arbitrators numerous times.
• [16] a dig at Jimbo and an indicationt hat he is on first-name terms with Metz, a long-standing sniper at Wikipedia
• [17] a sockpuppet promotes Cla68's false allegations published in the Register
• [18] trolling re Swalwell, Alberta, a part of the SV = LM meme
• [19], once again citing Metz.

This makes the comments [20] here sound very hollow, and appear to be coercive in nature. But the really bad thing here is not so much the harassment and grudge-bearing, it's using the encyclopaedia to further your own agenda. Citing his friend Metz to support his own on-wiki agenda was a breathtakingly bad idea even if (and I for one have my doubts) Cla68 was not Metz's original source for the story. The fact that the subject was COI registers an easy ten on the irony meter.

Bottom line: as we see here, Cla68 appears to be completely sincere in his belief in some huge conspiracy or cabal on Wikipedia, and I think he has set himself the task of hounding out or "exposing" those who he perceives as being part of that group. Guy (Help!) 19:36, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by User:Dtobias

Cla68 has often been on the winning side of his disputes

Perhaps what has most rankled JzG about User:Cla68 is how often Cla68 has ended up on the prevailing side of the various disputes where he and JzG take opposing sides. To take a few of the items mentioned in the above evidence:

• The "Attack Sites" ArbCom case ended without any binding sanctions imposed regarding any links to so-called "attack sites", and JzG's attempt for a "clarification" imposing such sanctions later was dismissed.
• The Register article remains mentioned in the Criticisms of Wikipedia article, despite attempts by JzG to remove this mention.
• User:Piperdown has been unblocked, after his questionable block/ban was reexamined. (The AN discussion in which JzG's above diff was contained ended inconclusively, but a later discussion led to an unblock with surprisingly little dissent.)
• Swalwell, Alberta was kept, and ultimately unprotected, and has had a peaceful, noncontentious, non-trolling existence ever since. (Admins deleting the article in the "old days" kept saying "troll", "troll", "troll"; not being an admin I have no way of knowing the content of any of those revisions, but, as came up in AN discussion, at least one of the versions that was at first deleted in a knee-jerk reaction turned out to be a perfectly reasonable article created by a legitimate user, and was ultimately restored, kept after an AFD, and ended up being as quiet as one can expect of a small hamlet in its subsequent revision history.)
• The conflict of interest involving User:Mantanmoreland has been the subject of serious examination, and an ArbCom case, in which "trolls" are hardly the only ones who have seen problems.

FeloniousMonk has promoted a toxic, divisive mindset

User:FeloniousMonk has long been championing a very divisive, "us vs. them" mentality on Wikipedia, complete with "enemies lists" and guilt by association, in which he classifies people as part of "good" or "bad" crowds and tries to hound the "bad" ones off the project. A few examples:

• "This RFC has been useful only insofar as it provides us list of all the ED-aligned nogoodniks who need to be watched and dealt with. Thanks!" (in response to a user-conduct RFC) diff
• "What I've seen here is very one-sided bullying and intimidation of SV over a petty, contrived issue, and it's going to stop, Kelly included." (in response to some users expressing legitimate concerns about a copyvio image that was ultimately deleted, and then-admin Kelly Martin attempting to deal evenhandedly with the dispute) diff
• "Your little group has recently tightened the FA criteria to the point of absurdity... I'm taking a personal interest in seeing your group's vendetta against Raul654 and SlimVirgin aired out and ended for good." (in response to a disagreement over Featured Article criteria) diff
• "Given our policy on coercion, were I in your shoes I would make every effort to ensure that the article outing Wikipedia editors you are referring to does not come to pass." (to Cla68, regarding a hypothetical article that he has absolutely nothing to do with; in this diff, FM also linked to Wikipedia Review, which is hypocritical given that he's an outspoken member of a faction that insists that it is never justified to link to such "attack sites" under any circumstances) diff

Evidence presented by dave souza

Cla68 and the Rosalind Picard article

Moulton caused considerable difficulty at the Rosalind Picard article by a tendentious refusal to work within Wikipedia policies,[21][22][23][24] and was indefinitely blocked. A stable version of the article agreed by all "sides" was reached on 8 December 2007,[25] but Moulton continued his campaign for changes at Wikipedia Review. On 4 May 2008 Krimpet deleted a sentence as "overly tangential and coatracky".[26] Moulton had objected to the sentence in earlier discussions. Krimpet contributes to Wikipedia Review but had not come to the article by a request from Moulton (according to Raul654 at AN/I and Moulton at WR.WR3). When Orangemarlin reverted the edit as a "whitewash",[27] Krimpet reverted him and questioned it on his talk page,[28] and when Orangemarlin deleted the post, took the issue to AN/I without discussing it on the article talk page.[29] Krimpet subsequently saw the merits of leaving in the sentence she had deleted.[30] Cla68 joined in by putting a "Twinkle mis-use: formal warning" on Orangemarlin's talk page,[31] and reported this to the AN/I thread at 04:15, 5 May 2008.

A Wikipedia Review thread commented on these developments, and on the evening of 5 May a contributor asked if Picard had reported it to the press, suggesting it could be "another Seigenthaler scandal". At 6:28am, 6th May 2008, Cla68 posted that the Picard article was now "fairly NPOV... thanks to Krimpet and the others who intervened", saying "The anti-ID group is making a mistake with their thuggery.." At 7:40am Moulton stated that he had described it to Brian Bergstein of the Associated Press.WR3 At 11:38pm, 6th May 2008, Cla68 posted "I wonder if OrangeMarlin, Jim62sch, and their friends are aware how close they are to having their real names in the press in a story about a group of POV-pushers on Wikipedia? They probably aren't aware, as they appear to be amazingly myopic.", introducing the idea of outing editors' real names.WR4

Rapid discussion at the Picard article, with useful new sources and various trial drafts, culminated with Guettarda consolidating a draft at 1:10 8 May 2008 which achieved consensus by 15.59.[32]

At 17:33 that day Guettarda commented on Cla68's talk page that the Wikipedia Review post read like a threat to out people, and appeared "rather beyond the pale." At 00:40, 9 May 2008 Cla68 cross-posted the discussion on Guettarda's talk page, with his reply pointing at a "group of editors' behavior" as bringing "uninvolved editors and admins like me" in to varying degrees.[33] Cla68 then "clarified his remarks" in a post on Wikipedia Review, denying threatening to out anyone but commenting that a journalist has been told of the "antics" of "this group of POV-pushers" and would not "find it too difficult to learn of their real names", saying "the Wikipedia editors who created this issue with their problematic behavior have only themselves to blame."WR6 My advice to Cla68 at 08:31 was that before throwing around accusations about "POV pushing" he should be familiar with the background and circumstances of the case, and should follow dispute resolution procedures rather than getting involved in off-wiki sniping[34] At "6:19am" on the Wikipedia Review thread Cla68 made it clear that he was not fully familiar with what had happened, and had not looked at the ANI thread or the ArbCom.[WR6]

Wikipedia Review and Cla68

Wikipedia Review provides a forum for discussing Wikipedia articles, policies and editors. It is open to indefinitely blocked former editors such as Moulton who promotes his views that core Wikipedia policies are dysfunctional.[35] Discussions about one editor preceded exposure of his identity, in the case Moulton referred to on 6th May 2008, 8:00am, when stating "For the record, I had no direct contact with Krimpet, who evidently gleaned the story from postings here. When she made the edits to Picard's bio at noon on Sunday, I frankly didn't know who she was, having failed to remember that she and I had posted similar views in the NewYorkBrad thread."WR3 Wikipedia relies on civil co-operation between editors with differing views to reach a mutually acceptable outcome, but discussions on Wikipedia Review divisively characterise groups, such as the post by Sxeptomaniac on 6th May 2008 at 10:53pm, which says "the anti-ID crew" "couldn't have an absolute victory at Picard's article". It refers to Moulton having had a valid reason for being upset with the articles' condition,WR4 but the Rosalind Picard article was stable from Sxeptomaniac's edit of 00:57, 8 December 2007, until Krimpet's edit of 15:42, 4 May 2008.[36]

Cla68 has never edited the Picard article or talk page. He joined Wikipedia Review on 18 April 2008.[WR4] To justify his raising the idea of "OrangeMarlin, Jim62sch, and their friends" having their real names in the press, he referred to his having left some comments in the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jim62sch case [in January 2008] and indicated that his motive was getting these editors to change their behavior.[37] The final decision in that case included the following principles –

• 3) The making of express or implied threats against another editor is a form of harassment and is prohibited. In particular, any suggestion of seeking to disrupt or harm an editor's off-Wikipedia life (including his or her employment) in retaliation for his or her editing on Wikipedia is unacceptable.
• 4) A user's conduct outside of Wikipedia is generally not subject to Wikipedia policies or sanctions. This includes actions such as sending private e-mails or commenting on Wikipedia and its users in other forums. However, in truly extraordinary circumstances, a user who engages in egregiously disruptive off-wiki conduct endangering the project and its participants may be subject to sanction. An example is a user whose off-wiki activities directly threaten to damage another user's real-world life or employment in retaliation for his or her editing.[38]

[further points under consideration]

Evidence presented by User:G-Dett

"Making threats," "implied threats," "implicit threats," "menacing" statements, and so on

In the context of a dispute related to the recent Gary Weiss debacle, Felonious posted a report on me at AN/I, falsely alleging that I was “making threats.” Here was the exchanged he referred to:

OK, that constitutes a clear personal attack on Sami. This campaign has become disruptive. Knock it off. I've removed the personal attack. FeloniousMonk (talk) 03:58, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Describing my contributions as a "campaign" is unwarranted and insulting, Felonious. Sami has attacked me incessantly on this page, and I've kept my cool in the face of it. What you just deleted, moreover, was not a personal attack by any stretch of the imagination. Admin privileges or no, I suggest you back off.--G-Dett (talk) 04:04, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

In the face of general bafflement at his description of my post as a “threat” (as one uninvolved editor put it, “it appears to be nothing more than a request to disengage"), Felonious explained that "since the unwritten or unspoken clause is usually 'or else...' it's an implied threat in my experience."[39] I reminded him that whatever the value of such speculations into the unsaid, the unwritten, the unknown, and the invisible, they didn't belong on the "incidents" noticeboard.

That episode (archived here in its entirety) is worth recalling as Felonious files yet another formal complaint alleging “implicit threats” on the part of a Wikipedian he’s in dispute with. Cla68 has pointed out several times that his remark on WikipediaReview – wherein he wondered if a specific group of editors “are aware how close they are to having their real names in the press in a story about a group of POV-pushers on Wikipedia" – was a reply to a lengthy post by another WR editor and blogger who described pursuing the story in print elsewhere. In other words, one guy says hey, people are looking into this and this is going to be a story, and Cla68 says, Wow, I wonder if these POV-pushers know about that; that's it, and there's no suggestion at all that the flow of speculated consequences is up to Cla68. None of Felonious' allegations about Cla68's "threats" have included this context, or even acknowledged Cla's repeated clarifications of same.

It's worth pointing out that this represents Cla68's consistent attitude toward the POV-pushing and team shenanigans that are the source of all this nonsense: his position is that this is an embarrassment to Wikipedia, a project he manifestly cares deeply about (thousands of extremely high-quality edits and FA articles), and that these embarrassments are bound to become even more chronic damaging when the media gets a hold of them. To say that he welcomes damage to a project he has done more than anyone to build and improve is perverse.

Three days ago another admin admonished Felonious for threatening a fellow editor and treating him “like a dog you need to shame.” [40] In that case there was nothing at all “implicit” in Felonious’s threat: “This was a violation of WP:CIVIL. Keep it up and I'll take a personal interest in seeing that you are prevented from making one again." [41] Felonious nevertheless explained that by definition this was not a threat because he, Felonious, is an admin and was in the right: "Stopping an incivil editor from being uncivil is one of the jobs of an admin. Saying that you will do so is never a threat." [42]

The picture that begins to emerge here is that Felonious doesn't use the word "threat" in its ordinary dictionary sense – to describe, that is, a statement of the form If you don't do stop doing X I will do Y to you, and you won't like it. Statements of this kind aren't threats, according to his definition, if the person making them has authority and righteousness on his side. Statements by someone who doesn't have authority in his eyes, conversely, can properly be described as "threats" even if they include nothing whatsoever about retaliation.

"Making threats," in short, is for Felonious a kind of idiosyncratic synonym for "insubordination," basically for uppitiness. This semantic peculiarity should be borne in mind as the committee weighs his allegations against Cla68.--G-Dett (talk) 21:22, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Evidence by User:FeloniousMonk

Cla68 has engaged in a long-running pattern of harassment of editors he dislikes designed to drive them away from Wikipedia, or at least to make them feel very uncomfortable and weaken whatever esteem the community holds for them and thus render them unable to oppose him. This pattern of harassment includes wikistalking by inserting himself into content and other disputes his marks were involved in but he was not, and targeted personal attacks meant to fan the flames at these minor disputes to turn them into larger imbroglios, and recruiting others to join in. Over time his aggression has evolved to into making divisive and biased statements about fellow editors in the press and threats to out editors he opposes to the press.

His focus on editors he dislikes is sustained, obsessive and aggressive and has had the effect of threatening or intimidating not only his intended targets, but also has had a chilling effect community as a whole. Cla68's use of RFC, when viewed outside of context may appear to be reasonable and expected attempts at dispute resolution. But when viewed in the context of his long-running harassment, his use of RFC is clearly meant to be an extension of his pattern of harassment. Going beyond the simple use of non-neutral tone, his descriptions of conflicts in RFC are wholly biased against their subject. Instead of resolving disputes his RFCs have perpetuated them through polarizing and divisive rhetoric, resulting in a bunker mentality in those who are targeted while fanning whatever flames in others that suit his ends and are handy in the community.

Relevant Policy

• Wikipedia:Harassment#Wikistalking
• Wikipedia:Harassment#Targeted_personal_attacks
• Wikipedia:Harassment#Threats
• Wikipedia:Harassment#Posting_of_personal_information
• Wikipedia:Harassment#User_space_harassment
• Wikipedia:Harassment#Off-wiki_harassment

Cla68's Harassment of JzG, Jayjg, Jossi, others

• Nov 22, 2007. Attempts to bully User:Mercury, spuriously claiming that he has an "obvious relationship" with Durova and that therefore his use of admin tools in relation to a Talk: page thread is "unethical", and that he will request his "immediate desysopping" if he uses them again.[43] (Note: Durova was the admin who blocked Cla68 on October 20, 2007).
• Jan 10, 2008. Adds User:Jayjg to the Palestine-Israel case,[44] ostensibly because of a comment Jayjg made that had nothing to do with Palestine-Israel articles, on the Talk: page of an article that had nothing to do with Palestine-Israel articles, to an editor who doesn't edit Palestine-Israel articles. Though Cla68 realizes this "evidence" has nothing whatsoever to do with the case, he insists that "more evidence of problematic behavior by Jayjg can probably be presented on the evidence page once the case formally opens." Also tries to get Jayjg removed from the ArbCom mailing list.[45] When various admins remove Cla68's spurious addition of Jayjg to the case, Cla68 subsequently edit-wars with them to keep Jayjg as a named member of the case.[46] [47] When challenged to produce actual evidence or problematic behavior by Jayjg in relation to these articles, he provides nothing more specific than a link to an RFC discussion on a Talk: page.[48]
• Feb 6, 2008. Attempts to bully User:Jossi, based on another anti-Wikipedia hatchet piece in The Register, and threatens to "ask[] ArbCom to remove [his] administrator privileges" if he doesn't do what Cla68 wants.[49] Cla68 then adds Jossi to the COI Noticeboard,[50] and further accuses Jossi (without any evidence) of being part of a "tag team" that has "push[ed] a particular POV" and "quashed criticism" on the Prem Rawat article, again threatening "formal action" if Jossi "refuse[s] to correct [his] behavior", without specifying which "behavior" of Jossi's needs to be "corrected".[51] When specifically asked for diffs of the supposed violations of COI,[52] Cla68 fails to provide any, merely asserting that "the article and article talk page and history shows some of the well-known tactics used to push POV: frequent archiving of the discussion threads, tag-team reverts, delaying tactics in discussions on the merits of sources, attacking the supposed motivations of the authors of the sources, etc."[53] When other editors ask for actual diffs of improper behavior,[54] [55] [56] [57] [58] Cla68 again fails to provide any, instead insisting that "If Jossi truly was a neutral edito in the Rawat and associated articles, the articles wouldn't have as much of a skewed POV as they have now because Jossi would have helped fix that. He's been editing Wikipedia for almost three years now (or is it longer) and should know by now how to edit a neutral article. Since it appears that he's either unable or unwilling to edit the Rawat articles neutrally, I again state a formal request that he stay away from all Rawat-related articles."[59] In other words, regardless of the fact that Jossi does not appear to have violated any policies with his edits, he is nevertheless somehow responsible for the edits that all other parties have made to the page, which, in Cla68's opinion, have a "skewed POV".
• Feb 12, 2008. Claims Jayjg is "heavily involved" in the Gary Weiss "issue", and that he would have insight into oversighting on the article.[60] Later says that he made the claim because he "heard somewhere" that Jayjg had oversighted material from the Gary Weiss page and talk page.[61]
• Feb 13, 2008. Regarding the Mantanmoreland RFC, tells Georgewilliamherbert to "get a clue".[62]
• Feb 14, 2008. After JzG comments on the Mantanmoreland RFC, accuses JzG of being part of a "cabalistic mailing list" and threatens to have "ArbCom to scrutinize [JzG's] actions in this affair."[63]
• Feb 14-17, 2008. Tries to turn the Mantanmoreland RFA into a case about Cla68's own failed RFA.[64] Singles out particular admins for no apparent reason except to pursue his personal vendettas (e.g. SlimVirgin, Crum375 and Jayjg,[65], JzG,[66], Georgewilliamherbert,[67]).
• Feb 28, 2008. Again tries to stop Jossi from even commenting on Rawat-related talk pages, and assumes Jossi's proposal to limit edit-warring is purely self-serving.[68]
• Feb 29, 2008. Claims Mantanmoreland was given "inappropriate support from admins", and questions whether the Mantanmoreland case should be restricted in scope and thus not discuss this.[69]
• Mar 1, 2008. Supports a lowering of the bar for bureaucratship because "We need to keep cliques of bad faith editors from being able to torpedo the RfBs of people they don't approve of."[70]
• Mar 1-2, 2008. Says that Jimbo e-mailed "a select mailing list" regarding COI issues with the bio of a "certain Canadian journalist", says that "The BLP of said journalist was subsequently edited by some Wikepedia.en administrators, including JoshuaZ and JzG", and asks Jimbo to comment.[71] Then states that had there not been "a trail of edits by assumably mailing list editors like JohuaZ and JzG then there would't be an issue here."[72] Subsequently states that "For the record, I don't believe that JoshuaZ was asked by Jimbo to fiddle with the article"[73] but makes no mention of JzG.
• Mar 2, 2008. Creates an RFC on JzG.[74]
• Mar 13, 2008. Claims he has "had to endure" "retaliation from several of [Mantanmoreland's] administrator friends over the past two years."[75]
• Mar 13, 2008. States that "Until David Gerard apologizes for blocking an entire town in Utah, for improperly blocking Piperdown, and for other personal attacks he threw during this entire sordid episode that he helped propagate, his opinion on the [Mantanmoreland blocking] matter has zero credibility."[76]
• Mar 15, 2008. Again tries to bully Jossi into staying away from even Rawat talk pages, and discussions, stating "Umm, why is Jossi still allowed to have anything to do with the Prem Rawat articles? This is past ridiculous, please tell him to stay away from them."[77]
• Mar 24, 2008. Presents "evidence" regarding Jossi in the Prem Rawat case. The vast majority of it has nothing to do with Jossi's behavior on Wikipedia, instead focusing on his actions on Citizendium. The rest states Jossi shouldn't be allowed to even comment on Rawat related Talk: pages because he made two edits to the Rawat article (one in December, one in January) and because Cla68 feels Jossi had once "selectively archived" one paragraph of the Talk: page.[78]
• Mar 25, 2008. Proposes a number of sanctions against Jossi on the Prem Rawat workshop page, [79] including that he be desysopped, although no one (including Cla68) has presented evidence that Jossi has abused his admin tools.[80]
• Mar 25, 2008. States that an "an editor might hypothetically try to learn the informal rules for ingratiating themselves into the "ruling clique" of Wikipedia in order to hopefully allow said editor a freer hand to push POV in the subject area that interests him. Said editor might even use the connections that he develops with other influential editors to modify policies and guidelines to fit his bad-faith agenda."[81] (then modifies "the ruling clique" to "any powerful clique"[82] When it becomes clear his references were too oblique for some to understand, he confesses to being "too coy" in his previous comment, and states "Do they abuse functions like redirects to try to hide sourced information they don't approve of?" [83] - referring to this evidence of Matthew Stannard, claiming that Jossi did exactly that.Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Prem_Rawat/Evidence#Criticism_of_Prem_Rawat
• Mar 28, 2008. User:ChrisO, based on a statement from Richard Landes in the Jerusalem Post that "There's a fight going on right now at Wikipedia about the nature of information accuracy, truth, history, etc", posts on WP:AN/I expressing concern that there might be an organized off-wiki campaign regarding Israel-Palestine issues, and particular noting new editors that have showed up at the Pallywood article. In response Cla68 posts "ChrisO, you might consider posting your comment to Jayjg's talk page to see if he has any comment."[84] Note: Jayjg had not edited the Pallywood article or its Talk: page in the previous 6 months.
• Apr 2, 2008: Yet another unnecessary comment on a user talk page about Jossi and COI. [85]
• Apr 3, 2008: Arrives at Talk:Views of Lyndon LaRouche and posts criticism of Cberlet. [86] Cla68 has never edited any LaRouche article or talk page before this.
• May 8, 2008: Implicitly threatens on Wikipedia Review to out various editors with the press.[87] [88] Despite requests from several editors to repudiate his implicit threat, his initial responses are similarly menacing, e.g. "If the editors in question correct their behavior, then I'll gladly move on to other issues."[89] "Like I said, if there aren't any more conduct problems (edit warring, canvassing, etc) related to ID articles, then I leave it alone."[90] After five days of posts on his Talk: page from a half dozen editors indicating the inappropriateness of his comments, he finally apologizes "for not choosing my words more carefully."[91]

Evidence presented by Cla68

SlimVirgin

Background

An explanation of how I became involved with this issue is contained in this RfC I opened on myself. The RfC is especially valuable, as it presents both my side and SlimVirgin's side of the events that led to my involvement. I explained the events again in my evidence section during the Mantanmoreland ArbCom case. When I say, "involved with this issue", the issue I'm referring to is long-term, problematic behavior by SlimVirgin (SV).

The RfC and evidence I refer to from the Mantanmoreland case mainly center around a request for adminship (RfA) on myself, here, that occurred in April 2007. The RfA was about to close as overwhelmingly successful when SV made this request at the Bureaucrats' noticeboard, "Would it be possible for Cla68's RfA nomination to be extended? There was a serious concern a few months ago that Cla68 was either a sockpuppet of banned User:Wordbomb (a very abusive sockpuppet and stalker) or was helping him. My recollection is that there was no technical evidence that Cla was Wordbomb, but he definitely seemed to be helping him, and some of his edits indicate that they're based in the same area." [92]. A bureaucrat, Taxman extended the RfA. SV then immediately posted an oppose vote, stating, among other things that I posted conspiracy theories about the Gary Weiss article on Wikipedia Review (WR) [93] and that, "judging by some of Cla's edits, he appears to be based in the same state as Wordbomb" [94]. A large number of previously uninvolved editors then appeared over the next few hours and opposed the RfA, which was closed a day later as unsuccessful.

I mentioned SV's WR and "same state as WordBomb" statements in the RfC I opened on myself that I linked to above. Significantly, in her response to the RfC, SV does not defend either one of those statements. The reason that she doesn't defend them and never has is because she can't, because they are lies. I now have an account on WR, but I requested it only a couple of months ago. Also, I've lived in Japan since September 2006, not in Utah which I understand is where WordBomb lives. I'm told that WordBomb stated in Episode 6 of WP:NTWW that he lives in Utah.

I would have thought that an administrator lying in order to attempt to discredit an RfA candidate would be clear grounds for immediate desysopping. I brought it to the attention of a sitting arbitrator, FloNight, who did not respond [95]. I've since learned that management of editor behavior in Wikipedia is not as orderly and efficient as I used to think it was. The process for correcting editor and administrator behavior is applied unfairly and unevenly. Some editors are banned on spurious reasoning [96], while others commit violation after violation of our policies and guidelines without any corrective action being taken by Wikipedia's administration. An example of the latter is JzG, judging by the evidence in this RfC and this request for arbitration. What is essentially obvious about Wikipedia's often chaotic and open editing environment is that we editors are expected to try to resolve as many problems as possible ourselves using the mainly end-user driven dispute resolution process.

The issue

SV is an editor and administrator who has contributed much to en.Wikipedia, including several featured articles and some important work with policy, especially WP:BLP. Unfortunately, however, like JzG, SV has also consistently flouted our policies and guidelines concerning editor behavior. Compared with JzG, though, the evidence of problematic behavior by SV is even more substantial. Having become aware of the situation after my RfA, I've tried off-and-on to influence her behavior by following the dispute resolution process. The first step directs editors to raise their concerns with the editor on his/her talk page, which I've done with SV [97], [98], [99], [100], [101]. Unfortunately, in spite of my attempts and the attempts of others, her behavior remained problematic, so I began the next step in the dispute resolution process, which is the use of a Request for Comment (RfC) to invite greater community involvement and comment on the issue. The draft RfC, which is far from complete, is here. More on this later.

Early-on in SV's editing history, she was the subject of an ArbCom finding that she had conducted personal attacks on other editors [102]. She was warned not to repeat the behavior [103]. As evidence which I'll list below illustrates, she has not heeded this warning. Not only has she engaged in making repeated personal attacks on other editors, but she has also abused administrative privileges and engaged in other examples of bad faith editing, which I'll detail to some extent below.

Personal attacks and incivility

SV has engaged in repeated personal attacks and incivil comments over a long period of time. The attacks have occurred on article talk pages and in project space. A common theme by SV is to accuse other editors of "stalking" her or following her around. She also often accuses other editors of bad faith or violating policy without providing any evidence or not having sufficient knowledge to be participating in that particular article or discussion. She sometimes makes vague threats to other editors about "taking this further" or warning of ArbCom intervention. A representative, but incomplete list is below, categorized by year.

2008

1. "I feel almost as though I'm being wikistalked" [104] [105] and accuses same editor of supporting "wikistalking and trolling" [106] [107] and WP:POINT and "childish behavior" [108] [109]
2. "It's rather unfortunate to see SandyGeorgia, TimVickers, and Marskell join forces yet again for another attack" and "just because you didn't get your own way doesn't mean there was a conspiracy to deprive you of it" [110]
3. "But will that apply to you too, Sandy, when you ask your friends to turn up to revert and argument and insult other people on your behalf? Or should it apply only to people who get in the way of what you want?" [111] and "Don't start up here, Sandy. This is not a medical article. This is about animal research, and requires very specific knowledge. It certainly isn't helped by enemies arriving with insults about conspiracy theories." [112]
4. "two people who oppose me over other issues have turned up, one of whom regularly wikistalks me", "neither of whom has any specialist knowledge", and "Tim. In fact, it looks like an attempt simply to get some numbers on your side" [113]
5. Accuses editor of personal attacks, without providing evidence, saying "It has been going on, on and off, for well over a year" and "be aware that I will take this further" [114], "you and I are going to end up at the ArbCom over this", "stop making personal comments about me, and stop looking for excuses to get another dig in" [115]
6. "You're just looking for an excuse to remove links to a source you don't like, Tim, and that's a misuse of this board" [116], "Because I fought him on that, Tim became very annoyed with me, and I think resentful, and posted a large number of complaints about me in various places, accusing me of WP:OWN, and encouraging other people to oppose me" and "Tim subsequently wikistalked me to a few articles" [117], "Except that he's been told many times that it's inappropriate, and yet he continues. AGF doesn't involve being deaf, dumb, and blind. Either he knows what he's doing and is deliberately out to cause a problem; or he has so little idea about policy creation and maintenance that he really believes we can (and should) fundamentally undermine NPOV" [118], "as usual I was too busy arguing petty non-issues with you. I don't know where you find the time or energy to engage like this, Tim, I really don't. We are supposed to be writing articles" [119], "All that's happening at the moment is that, because I know sources are not being represented well, I don't trust your edits, so I feel I have to check everything. This leads to endless back and forth between us, poisons this page, and makes us distrust each other. It would be great if I could know I didn't have to check your edits when I see your name crop up" [120], and "Tim is giving us...That's OR, uninformative, and not what's wanted" [121]
7. "Marskell, you need to stop the poison. This is one of several poisonous threads you've either started about me or gleefully joined in" and "I've had nothing but the drip, drip, drip of toxicity from you" [122] and, "Given your own tendency to follow SandyGeorgia around backing her up in disputes, including disputes of her own making, and attacking people she wants you to attack", "It sometimes feels as though you'd be happy to see certain people driven off the website" and "You are allowed to post insults about me and my friends, but I am not meant to respond, unless I want to risk even more attacks" [123] and, "You follow her around acting as an attack dog" [124]
8. "If you want to drive me away from Wikipedia, you, Tim, Sandy, and your little circle of insulting friends are going the right way about it" [125]
9. To editor in which she is involved in a content dispute, "You are fanatically anti-PETA, and have been at this for around two years. Please give it a rest" [126]
10. "quit stalking me" [127]
11. States that editor "wikistalked" her without providing evidence [128]
12. says that editor's edits "have clearly caused the writing to deteriorate" and that the editor "doesn't have the experience to be going around changing guidelines or policies" and concludes with "It is starting to feel as though I'm being trolled" [129]

2007

1. After an editor questions a block issued by Jayjg, SlimVirgin accuses the editor of "stalking" her and Jayjg on the talk page of an article and the editor's userpage and then threatens the editor with dispute resolution and a ban [130] [131] [132].
2. Personal attack on editor with which she is involved in a content dispute, "I think you're into disruption rather than editing." [133]
3. "Sandy, please quit trying to make trouble. You turned up at an FAR insulting the editors who had written it. My suggestion is that you apologize first to FM and the other editors of that article, and that you start writing some FAs yourself instead of only reviewing other people's, because that would give you some much-needed insight into how much work is involved, and how dispiriting it is when that work is aggressively attacked" [134]
4. "The two users who want to split the category into activists v. everyone else, Viriditas and Lquilter, are not familiar with the animal rights literature" [135], "you make personal attacks, sarcastic comments, and keep repeating the same old claims (claims, not arguments). For once, provide some scholarly sources to back up what you say" and "you must provide a scholarly source that says something different about those terms, or else don't mention it again, please" [136], "You're making a huge supposition there, Safemariner (and so far as I know, false for the most part), and in any event, it's the people editing those pages who understand the issues" [137], "it looks as though you're happy to create a mess and leave it for others to tidy up" [138], "Your posts are so unpleasant that I'm not going to answer any more, and your spamming for support isn't helpful." [139], "I think you ought to try, because it would help you to see the wrongheadedness of the categories you were suggesting" [140]
5. "V, you wikistalked me here" [141], "I have the diffs. You've stalked me to animal rights pages" [142], "You seem to think you can act provocatively and it somehow doesn't count (it's just "improving the encyclopedia"), but when anyone else does it, they're in the wrong. That's not how the world works" [143], "Please keep your opinion of him to yourself from now on" [144], "stop attacking people, please, or I will request admin intervention" [145], "whenever you get involved in a disagreement, the talk page turns toxic" [146], "We need some sources for this one because Viriditas has been making them up" [147], "I just wanted to see that we were only adding real acronyms, and that we didn't include the ones you earlier made up" [148], "you point to a previous non-answer in another section, in order to confuse people. I've watched you do this before. All it achieves is that people get annoyed with you" [149], "You're deliberately creating confusion, and have been doing it for days. There's no point, because no one understands what you're saying" [150], "I don't think I've ever been involved in a discussion on Wikipedia with someone who has posted so much and has been so unhelpful" [151], "It's like watching someone commit wikisuicide, to be frank" [152]
6. To opposing editors during a content dispute in which she is involved at Factory farming, "the arguments of the last few days have been very damaging, very toxic" [153], "Nathan, the long and frequent posts from you are starting up again. They aren't helping" [154], "Life's too short for silliness and wikilawyering, and you can't take this talk page hostage again" [155]
7. Tells editor with which she is in a dispute over an image license, "You are being disruptive. Do not edit my user page again." [156] [157]
8. Reverts a userbox back to a version containing a personal attack on a living person.[158].
9. Asks RfA candidate that she opposes because of his opposition to the rejected BADSITES policy, "I seem to recall your posting something that implied you felt it was okay to link to attack sites" [159], then opposes after he answers stating his opposition to the BADSITES policy [160]. Then states that her opposition is based on his posting to Wikipedia Review, saying, "I fear there's a lack of imagination and empathy in your approach" [161] and says, "People can be poor admins without actually abusing the tools" [162] and to the candidate directly "How utterly bizarre that you'd repeat the opinion of an anon IP and an attack site" [163] and "every reply, every evasion, has deepened my concerns. The last thing we need is another admin who jumps in head first to defend troublemakers without knowing the background" [164] and "During this RfA, you have exhibited exactly the qualities of the part-time, doesn't-inform-himself-before-posting admin" [165]. Then moves responses to oppose votes, even though usually allowed, to the talk page [166] [167] [168]. Later says of candidate, "I fear Gracenotes will be an admin who gives every troll and troublemaker the benefit of the doubt because he's unwilling to inform himself before speaking" [169]
10. "Nathan, you really shouldn't be editing Wikipedia if you have no clue what NPOV means." [170] and "I've rarely seen such irrationality or been subjected to such sustained personal attack. NathanLee's comment that if only animal welfare issues could be left out, the article would be much easier to work on, takes the biscuit and is the final straw." [171], and "Both of the attacks, sarcasm, filibustering, and obfuscation on this page are from you and Nathan, as I recall. Perhaps it's time to start collecting diffs." [172]
11. "Jav, you're making this up as you go along" (during content dispute) [173]
12. "It almost has the sense of a WP:POINT to it — that, because his scholarly/non-scholarly thing was opposed, he's going to make damn sure he gets to make some changes anyway, and will scream WP:OWN if he doesn't." [174] and "Tim Vickers's attempt to strengthen it to the point of requiring all uncited material to be removed would have been absurd, which is why it was quickly reverted, and that why he's pissed off. People arriving to edit policies who know nothing about them isn't helpful, and it's not WP:OWN to undo the damage. I probably won't comment here again because this is part of Tim's forest fire, and part of the POINT that I sense is going on" [175]
13. "Viriditas, please make sure you know what you're talking about before weighing in" [176]
14. "I will take you to the ArbCom if you try to do at the Holocaust what you've done elsewhere. You're not going to be allowed to reduce the article to the usual badly written POV claim versus POV counter-claim, then tagged when you don't get your own way." [177] "you stalked me to the Holocaust in the first place (an article you hadn't edited recently but I had edited a lot), to the point where I had to tell you I would take you to the ArbCom if it continued; then you later stalked me to a policy page I had edited a lot and you had never edited." [178], and "You don't know the first thing about the Holocaust. I doubt you've read a single scholarly work on it in your life. Yet you feel you can turn up, because you want to stalk me," [179]
15. "I won't be responding here anymore. I think you're into disruption rather than editing." [180]
16. "I don't know who you think you are, but I would like you to stop the personal attacks, the stupid accusations, and the sly innuendo against me, and don't ever remove one of my posts, or anyone else's, again. Apart from anything else, you're making a fool of yourself, if that matters to you." [181]

2006

1. "it needs to be done by people who know something about the movement, otherwise we'll have chaos" (diff missing), "It was undone because you made a mess of it" [182], "Please learn something about the movement before trying to involve yourself" [183], "You know nothing about AR" [184], "You're the one who tried to ignore all the regular editors of the pages and leap in regardless" [185], "Please stop the implied threats and the hostility" [186]
2. Attacks an administrator during a image license/deletion debate. First, tries to tell administrator to leave the discussion [187], then accuses him of making an attack [188], then implies that he isn't acting in good faith [189], then attacks him as a "Wikipedia Review contributor and supporter and the very worst of both worlds" [190], and claims that the editor "has a grudge" against her and is conducting a personal attack and trolling [191], repeats that the administrator is "trolling" and adds that he is "out to cause trouble" [192], then asks of the administrator, "is there any need for you to continue to post here?" [193], and then adds, "No, you don't have to post here. Doing so simply deepens the impression that you are, indeed, trying to cause trouble." [194], then refers to the administrator as one of a group of "lunatics and trolls" [195]
3. "you're here only because you stalked me here, not because you're familiar with the subject." [196] and "don't stalk me, and answer the question on your talk page regarding whose sockpuppet you are" in an edit summary [197]. (Note: Editor was later blocked by SlimVirgin as a sock puppet [198]).

Disruptive or bad faith editing

Most of the following examples appear to illustrate WP:OWN issues on policy pages and a pro-animal rights POV by SV:

1. Edits WP:POLICY, stating in edit summary that, "restored this section to a pre-October 29 version" [199]. Her version, however, was missing text from the October 29 version [200]. When an editor attempts to restore some of the material that she deleted [201] SV reverts him with edit summary "please seek clear consensus for the changes" [202]
2. WP:OWN of policy page issues documented at WP:AN [203].
3. Makes significant change to WP:NOR, including removal of entire paragraph, with misleading edit summary [204], discussed here [205] and then reverts other editors' changes, stating that they must have "consensus" first before making the changes [206] [207] discussed here [208] and then reverts changes made from a talk page discussion that she did not participate in [209]
4. Reverts edit [210] at WP:BLP, saying "silence doesn't mean assent." Editor had posted proposed wording change the day before on talk page and had been extensively discussed and accepted by other editors except for SlimVirgin [211]
5. Although SV usually insists on other editors having "consensus" before making policy or guideline changes (see above), SV does not always follow her own rule. At WP:LAYOUT, she tried to force a change to the page without consensus on the talk page, discussed at ANI [212]
6. Deletes Category:Animal rights activists without discussion [213], then reverts editor who restores it [214], then redirects it to Category:Animal rights movement [215], then redirects again saying, falsely "as agreed" [216], and redirects again [217]
7. Move redirects new article List of animal rights activists to Animal rights movement (list) [218]([219] 03:31, 24 December 2006) then redirects to Animal liberation movement without copying over any of the material [220] from the original article [221], effectively making it disappear
8. Redirects "ALF" to Animal Liberation Front [222] in spite of evidence that this is incorrect and against policy (WP:DAB) [223] [224]. Community involvement required to correct the redirect [225]. Then, continues to try to fight community consensus by again redirecting [226] [227] and resurrecting the discussion [228] (almost this entire page is her and Crum375 unsuccessfully trying to argue that their redirect opinion on "ALF" is the correct one). During this time, does nine move-over redirects of page [229]. She still didn't give up, requiring intervention by additional editors [230] [231] [232].
9. Redirects Intensive farming to Factory farming and labels it as minor edit [233] then, after being reverted [234] redirects again, stating that "no, these terms are used interchangeably; see factory farming talk page; it is absurd to have three articles on the same topic" [235] although there is clearly no agreement on the talk page for this redirect [236] (almost this entire archived page is debate over having Factory farming and Intensive farming as two separate articles). More discussions on Factory farming dispute are here [237] and here [238]
10. Removes cited material during content dispute at Animal testing, saying, "either find more sources that say that (preferably specialist sources) or leave it out" [239]. After second and third confirmatory sources are added, Crum375 tries to POV massage the material [240] [241] [242] [243] [244] including another revert [245] and SlimVirgin helps with more POV edits [246] [247]
11. Rejects cited material in a content dispute she is involved in at Animal testing, stating that the "authors have almost certainly just made a mistake" [248] (full discussion [249])
12. Removes cited content from an article during a content dispute with an edit summary of "some tidying" [250]
13. At Zoo, removes cited material because disagrees with the quote and because she doesn't have actual possession of the book used as a source [251]
14. Deletes editor's comment during an RfA [252]
15. Deletes my post from WP:AN announcing the opening of my RfC [253]. When I asked her on her user talk page why she deleted the post, she immediately deleted the question without responding, then archived her talk page (these diffs were subsequently admin deleted by Crum375 but the times and text are here)
16. Edits the blocking policy to provide support for the block threat [254] made by Crum375 around the same time over the posting of the name of an off-wiki website at the center of a debate in which SlimVirgin is involved.
17. After a lengthy tag team revert war on the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals page (involving Crum375), a request for sock puppet investigation of SlimVirgin/Crum375 was deleted by SlimVirgin citing "quit it" [255]
18. Deletes almost an entire "list" article and labels the edit as "minor" [256]
19. Inserts a negative comment in the middle of someone else's response in a policy dispute talk page discussion [257]
20. Reverts established editor's comments from a talk page discussion [258] [259]
21. Removed editor's comment from article talk page [260]
22. Inserts a negative comment in the middle of someone else's response in an AfD discussion [261]
23. Requests mediation in a content dispute [262], which is accepted in spite of SV's false allegation that RfCs had already been attempted [263], and a mediator volunteers [264] but then SV does not participate, without explanation, and the mediation is closed [265]

Lying

In addition to the two statements during my RfA which I have already discussed, SV has made untrue statements on several other occasions:

1. Requests mediation during a content dispute and states, falsely, that "several article RfCs" had occurred previously [266]
2. Redirects Category:Animal rights activists with edit summary "as agreed" [267]. There was no discussion on the category's talk page related to redirecting the category [268] and discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion two months prior was "no consensus" [269]
3. During dispute at WP:V claims that opposing editors are "engaged in all kinds of unpleasant tactics, including personal attacks and starting forest fires in an effort to wear people down" without providing evidence [270]. There appears to be no evidence to support this accusation.
4. During content dispute over "see also" section, accuses editor of, "moving from article to article to remove See alsos that you don't like" [271]. Editor's user history shows no evidence of doing this [272].

Abusive sockpuppetry

1. Used a sockpuppet, Sweet Blue Water to manipulate a featured article nomination by voting twice [273] [274]. Discussed at ANI [275].

This incident happened three years ago. However, it is significant for two reasons. The first is that SV's RfA took place only two months later. SV did not reveal during the RfA that she had violated the community's trust in this way only two months before. If this had been known, the RfA may not have been successful.

Second, SV has blocked other editors for sockpuppetry [276]. The hypocrisy issue here is obvious. Note that one month before the incident SV had criticized another editor for perhaps doing something similar, "at least I don't pretend to be more than one person" [277] and "They're pretending to be different users when they are almost certainly the same one. That must count as cheating" [278], said to another editor, "That's one of the reasons I object to sock puppets" [279], and supported actions taken against another abusive sockpuppet [280]. As far as I know, SV has never explained why she did this to the community or apologized.

Abuse of administrator privileges

1. Moves editing content and history related to dispute she was involved in [281] to the animal rights project forum of which she is the founder [282] [283], edit wars over location of discussion, then admin deletes original discussion [284] (visible to admins)
2. Protects WP:V policy page during dispute in which she is involved [285] then edits the protected page [286]. Reported to ANI [287]

(more to come)

Evidence presented by Jehochman

Cla68 has received multiple barnstars, and helped write or create featured content and new content.[288] They were denied sysop privileges due to cliquish opposition led by SlimVirgin [289] which snowballed to include constructive editors outside the clique, many of whom cited "per SlimVirgin". One of the main issues was Cla68's view on Wordbomb. Little more than two hours prior to the scheduled close of Cla68's RFA, voting stood at 40/1/4.[290] Then SV requested the RFA be extended, and poisoned the well. [291] The RFA closed 24 hours late at 41/30/8. I find this result to be highly irregular and very contrary to the principles of Wikipedia.

Ultimately Cla68's views were partially vindicated at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Mantanmoreland/Evidence. Any hostility by Cla68 towards other editors needs to be considered within the context of the egregious mistreatment suffered by Cla68. Jehochman ^Talk 13:42, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by User:B

Inappropriate use of admin tools by FM

FeloniousMonk (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) was previously admonished by arbcom not to use the administrative tools in content areas where he is involved. See Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/WebEx_and_Min_Zhu#FeloniousMonk_admonished.

Despite this admonition, substantially all of FM's admin actions in the last year relate to the Intelligent Design topic area in some way. Since FM himself is less than neutral here, this is obviously a problem. I have only included actions since May 1, 2007 and ignored prior things like wheel warring over blocks of Giovanni33 or Homeontherange.

• 13 May 2008 - Fully protected User:Moulton immediately after adding a litany of false claims. Nobody had edited the page in five months, so there was no disruption reason to protect it.
• 13 May 2008 - Semi-protected Rosalind Picard even though he is obviously an involved admin and not a single editor who would be affected by semi-protection had edited the article since prior to the recently removed full protection.
• 13 May 2008 - Semi-protected James Tour even though no editor who would be affected by semi-protection had edited in six months.
• 4 May 2008 - Indefinite block of an IP (an IP that was almost nothing but trolling, but indefinite IP blocks are not a good thing)
• 18 April 2008 and 23 April 2008 - Blocks of Schlafly (talk · contribs). At the time of the first block, on April 18, Shlafly had not edited in seven hours. FM was an involved editor both on Eagle Forum and on Phyllis Schlafly‎ and should not have made a decision about a block here. Both of these articles are poorly sourced (when I see a source titled "Phyllis Schlafly's career as a NeoCon" I don't need to look much further). Blocking a user for attempting to remove libel about his mother is a really bad idea. Jimbo said "reverting someone who is trying to remove libel about themselves is a horribly stupid thing to do."
• 1 December 2007 - Full protection of Discovery Institute, where he is obviously an involved user.
• 21 September 2007 - Indefinite block of Ferrylodge (talk · contribs), a block which a previous arbitration held was inappropriate
• 30 August 2007 - Three other indefinite IP blocks - 63.215.27.119, 63.215.27.117, and 4.68.248.69. We don't indef IPs because they can change. Of these, 4.68.248.69 (talk · contribs) has left a message on his talk page and would seem to be in possession of someone other than the user this block was designed to catch. (I have removed that block.)
• 1 May 2007 - Cherry picks a 3RR report by SlimVirgin and blocks G-Dett (talk · contribs). He had previously rushed to SlimVirgin's defense in a dispute with this user [292]. FeloniousMonk almost never makes 3RR blocks and the only WP:AN3 reports he has handled in the last two years were blocking a user reported by Jayjg, the above block of a user reported by SlimVirgin, blocking a user reported by Jayjg, blocking another user reported by Jayjg (same incident), blocking a user reported by Jayjg, blocking Homeontherange aka Homey. Cherry picking reports to handle only those submitted by your friends/allies/whatever is not a good thing.

The actions listed above represent 12 of FM's 40 logged actions since May 1, 2007. --B (talk) 03:10, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by User:FNMF

Policy violations and misuse of tools by FeloniousMonk

When I was still very new to Wikipedia, I was involved in a dispute about some content included in the entry on Christopher Michael Langan, during which user FeloniousMonk ignored core policies (WP:BLP and WP:NOR) and in the course of which he made an inappropriate block. FeloniousMonk and his associates acted in concert to try to prevent the removal of material which clearly violated policy and which they had added as part of a campaign against someone they viewed as an advocate of intelligent design. The block by FeloniousMonk was inappropriate because it was without grounds, because he was very involved with the dispute at the time, and because it was an attempt by him to inappropriately control an article precisely in order to retain material which violated policy. I am not a supporter of intelligent design theory, but I considered the entry to be a calumny against its subject. Although there was concerted action by FeloniousMonk and others which amounted to an inappropriate attack on myself, the offending material was eventually removed, when user Jimbo Wales made clear his opinion and removed the material himself. All this occurred quite some time ago, and I never previously bothered to pursue the matter in any official forum, but I include it here in case it is relevant to this arbitration case. The story is somewhat complex, so I include links to material explaining the context.

• Timeline of events leading to my block by FeloniousMonk.
• Block discussion.
• The issue of whether to include information about a lawsuit with which Mr Langan was involved led, among other things, to contact with Mr Jimmy Wales. See here.
• As a consequence of this contact, Mr Wales made this positive intervention, which he explained clearly here.
• Unfortunately, this in turn led to the following response by user Arthur Rubin.
• Further clear explanations by Mr Wales here and here.

I will add that harassment by FeloniousMonk and his fellow travellers eventually led me to quit Wikipedia, but that is another (related) story. FNMF (talk) 01:48, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {your user name}

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

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