Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2009-03-18/Foam takeout container

Wikipedia Mediation Cabal
Article	[[{{{article}}}]] ([[Talk:{{{article}}}|Talk page]])
Status	{{{status}}}
Request date	03:14, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Requesting party	Unknown
Parties involved	Eugene2x v. Badagnani
Mediator(s)	NewSinew (talk)
Comment	In active debate.

Where's the dispute?

Foam takeout container; basically the entire article

What's the dispute?

User:Badagnani is reverting my edits without a valid reason (apparently only trying to protect his own content) and simply using the same cookie cutter response "rv blanking of crucial information; when improving or adding to an article, please try not to blank information in so doing.". I've tried communicating with him several times only to get a pointless message at the bottom of my talk page. Further requests for trying to seek a resolution has only resulted in no response.

Debate

I am requesting first to Badagnani. Please state your side of this dispute in clear speech on this page below. I have read the talk page of the disputed page, and your argument is unclear and circular. --NewSinew (talk) 15:18, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I have done a bit more reading into this case. I have seen violations of several policies, including the following: WP:CIV, WP:EW, WP:V, and WP:3RR, as well as a potential violation of WP:OWN, all by Badagnani. Quite simply, WP:V is quite clear in that all sources must be verifiable, and Flickr pictures are certainly not. Without evidence of misconduct by Eugene2x and quite a bit of it by Badagnani, I must state that it is quite obvious who is at fault in this case. I have not seen an argument from Badagnani that adequately defends his edits. --NewSinew (talk) 16:28, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I reject the opinion of this "mediator," who did not wait for the other party's input before making his/her decision. The failure to accurately gauge the behavior of the blanking editor, particularly his/her incendiary edit summaries and insistent blanking behavior (including much text and links that were clearly not related to Flickr nor photos) prior to careful, thoughtful, collegial discussion, combined with the "mediator"'s failure to wait for the other party's input, renders the above commentary moot. Badagnani (talk) 21:13, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I have not yet made my decision. I am simply stating what I see. If you can give me a reasonable argument I will consider it and revise my statement, but I saw none. Regardless, I will analyze the exacts of the edits involved. Back later. --NewSinew (talk) 22:08, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Again, there is no mention of behavior of the blanking editor, particularly his/her incendiary edit summaries and insistent blanking behavior (including much text and links that were clearly not related to Flickr nor photos) prior to careful, thoughtful, collegial discussion. This is very wrong and goes even further to undermine any pretense to neutrality or thoughtfulness on the part of this "mediator." A careful examination of "the exacts of the edits involved" would have been prudent to engage in before making such comments as I see just above. Badagnani (talk) 22:10, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Alright, so you win on a couple things. I was a bit hasty; it's a problem of mine. But this isn't about what I think anyway. This is about getting you two to get along in your editing. And there's been misconduct on part of both of you; don't try to deny that. I have noticed what slipped the first time, which is this: The health issues section could have stayed. There wasn't anything wrong with that. However, the sentence "Although they are waterproof, they are typically not used to hold soup" among some others, does fall into the category of obvious and unneeded information. And most of his reversion was due to the fact that the information edited was reliant on the Flickr citations (which are not good sources) and therefore is unreferenced material, and can be removed. Keep the counter argument free of unneeded insults. --NewSinew (talk) 22:35, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I wasn't online very often today, but here's my point of view: I was only trying to revise foam take-out container a bit since it seemed that it was in need of some major cleanup. A while after I see Badagnani reverting my edits with the edit summary "rv blanking". I assumed maybe he missed the point of my edit and reverted it back, but then for one reason or another we started to (regretfully) edit war. Now Badagnani mentioned that I could have participated in some discussion before; the problem is that he ignored almost every single request of mine to discuss the reverts and try to work things out. At best, his response was something about being careful not to "delete (blank) earlier content, which in this case was all very carefully selected to produce the most encyclopedic article possible". I removed the health issues section because I found it very questionable along with very few sources that supported the argument. The sources themselves were also very questionable, especially since it came from some sort of humor site. Now that I look back it might have been better to leave it in, but I was in somewhat of a rush these past few days and not thinking too clearly. Eugene2x-^talk 03:46, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Your behavior was unacceptable; the passages to which you objected should have been presented and discussed in thoughtful, collegial, deliberate manner at "Discussion." The manner in which you deleted the material again and again (complete with over-the-top edit summaries filled with hostility), out of anger or whatever other emotion, rather than respecting another long-time, productive, and sincere editor's request to discuss first, was simply wrong. It is never too late, however, to begin editing in a collegial manner, restoring the blanked content, and begin discussing in collegial manner, following our project's ethos. Badagnani (talk) 03:52, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

So, here we are in a mediation case and you choose to further insult me and accuse me of this "over-the-top hostility" and "anger", while it is clear that you are at fault for many, many things. You also ignored all my requests for discussion like I said above so there is no reason for you to be explaining that to me. Mind WP:CIVIL please. Eugene2x-^talk 04:23, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

In light of your behavior, your comments at my Talk page appeared quite like you were picking a fight or dare rather than wishing to engage in thoughtful, collegial discussion; if you had, you would not have blanked first (and used the many over-the-top edit summaries you had). Some of the messages you left were highly threatening; in fact, some of the most threatening messages I have ever received during my tenure here. However, it is never too late to improve one's behavior. In order to do so, you would simply restore the blanked content and initiate a discussion of the elements of the article you would propose removing. Badagnani (talk) 04:44, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Despite my serious disagreement with Badagnani's tone, he does have a couple legitimate points. Edit wars usually occur because of one or more editors refusing to communicate in a "thoughtful, collegial manner," which neither of you did fully. Some of the messages that threatened to report to the admins were out of line, and insulting and demeaning the other party doesn't help anything. I would go further, but regardless of this, Eugene2x has restored the health issues section to the article. If this does not satisfy you, Badagnani, then state what else you want changed. Otherwise, we appear to be done here. --NewSinew (talk) 14:14, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I did not ask for the editor to "restore a single section of the text he removed"; I think it's very clear I made a simple request, as I had from the beginning, to discuss the proposed removals (plural) prior to implementing them, out of respect for our article, content, the and other editors, and our community as a whole. Not to do so engenders bad feeling all around and makes WP's editors appear socially maladjusted, incapable (and quite unwilling) of discussing prior to engaging in a rash campaign of deletion, other editors who have put blood, sweat, and tears into finding and adding the best available content to produce the best and most encyclopedic article previously be darned. Badagnani (talk) 15:59, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

You speak as though you have not been part of the problem as well. To put this bluntly, you were also knowingly edit-warring. Could you not have been a bit more descriptive on why you wanted the content restored? And do not forget that not everything you put into the project will stay. I am not saying Eugene2x wasn't edit-warring (as were you) but perhaps if the two of you communicated more instead of going into this blind edit-war so quickly, then this could have been avoided. If your sources are as good as you say, I am sure placing them for all to see as a suggestion on the talk page would not be unreasonable. Then we will see if consensus agrees with you, as clearly Eugene2x must somewhat, or he would not have restored the health issues section. --NewSinew (talk) 16:14, 22 March 2009 (UTC)