Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Alastair Haines 2/Evidence

Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk) Case clerks: Amorymeltzer (Talk) & AlexandrDmitri (Talk) Drafting arbitrator: SirFozzie (Talk)

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Create your own section and do not edit in anybody else's section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum of 1000 words and 100 diffs. Giving a short, concise presentation will be more effective; posting evidence longer than 1000 words will not help you make your point. Over-long evidence that is not exceptionally easy to understand (like tables) will be trimmed to size or, in extreme cases, simply removed by the Clerks without warning - this could result in your important points being lost, so don't let it happen. Stay focused on the issues raised in the initial statements and on diffs which illustrate relevant behavior.

It is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are insufficient. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those will have changed by the time people click on your links), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log can be useful. Please make sure any page section links are permanent. See simple diff and link guide.

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Evidence presented by Jeffro77

Alastair makes false claims about other editors

• "I'm glad you agree that the second sentence serves well as a summary..."[1] (in response to User:B Fizz: "The second sentence is good, but the concept is covered well in the second intro paragraph.")
• "It's nice to hear you take my point about the arbitrary nature of the "millenial" designation"[2] (I stated that leaving out "millenial" may simplify the lead, but said nothing of its alleged "arbitrary nature" or similar)
• "It's odd to hear someone being confidently critical of logic they admit they can't follow" (no such admission)
• "You rightly understand that Restorationist is questionable" (I actually stated that "'Restorationist' is also a specific term with a well-defined meaning") same diff for last 2 statements)

Alastair misrepresents Wikipedia policies

• "Sally's already used 2 of your reverts, I'm afraid I'll need to issue 3RR warnings to all three of you if..."[3]
• "policy demands we weasle it"[4]).

Alastair employs logical fallacies

• "JWs themselves distance themselves from broad Christianity"[5] [the JWs' theological opinion that other 'Christian' religions are not 'true' Christians is not relevant to a neutral definition of Christian])

Alastair falsely claims consensus

Alastair claims that consensus exists or is near, then presents his preferred wording that has no consensus.[6][7]

Alastair claims he is never wrong

[8]

Evidence presented by User:Maunus

Alastair misrepresents opinions of opponents and sources and presents is own POV as a compromise

[9] Here Alastair appears to agree with Jeffro's previous point but in his summary he rather turns Jeffro's actual viewpoint into a strawman holding his own viewpoint which is not difficult for him to agree with.

[10] Here Alastair summarises the quotes of several secular scholars as saying the opposite of what they actually say. Then he present the same position that he has held all along as "a compromise"

[11] Here Alastair misrepresents the opinions of secular scholars whom he claims do not include JW under the term Christian. The only secular source of those that we have reviewed on the talk page that does not include explicitly include JW under the term "Christian" was EA Livingstone, who rather includes them implicitly as he is writing an entry about them in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church where also the Anglican Church is not explicitly described as Christians. ·Maunus·ƛ· 06:13, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

[12] Here Alastair interprets five secular sources written by scholars of religion that all explicitly include JW under the term "christian" as saying the opposite of what they say: he interprets statements that JW "adopt a Christian theology that dissents from traditional Christianity" and a statement that "while the story of the fall is central to all christian belief JW, unlike those who follow orthodox Christianity the witnesses regard it as a factual event." ALastair rejects the Bowden quote which is by far the strongest - because it is an encyclopedia of christianity and not a general encyclopedia or an encyclopedia of doctrine. By any other logic that would make it a better source as it is more specialised.

[13] Here Alastair outright states that "Secular scholars get no vote [in the definition of Christian] because they don't know what Christ taught". This construes the question of who can rightfully be claimed to be christian as a doctrinal question, where one denomination IS christian and others are not when it is in fact a question of classification of a religion as belonging in a christian tradition. This circumvents the policies of neutral point of view and verifiability through sources, and shows that Alastair actually considers one particular Christian doctrine to be the only one with a right to being called christian "those who know what Christ taught" and that he believes wikipedia should follow that viewpoint.·Maunus·ƛ· 07:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

[14] Here Alastair misrepresents both the doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses (who do worship Jesus of Nazareth and believe was the son of God, the Messiah and Christ - they merely disagree with their trinitarian cousins about whether he is the same person as God) and the statement of L.R of Alberta who did not say that he believed that JW's do not worship Christ, but who said that he did not believe that JW's thought Jesus to be the son of God (which they do). Alastairs statements about the use of Christian being related to worship of Christ the past 1900 years is a red herring as JW's also believe Jesus to be Christ and because it is not the ordinary language classification that is useful here as it is merely a partisan pov, but the secular academic classification that is relevant (the outside comparison rejected by Alastair).·Maunus·ƛ· 08:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Alastair removes other editors comments

[15] - I don't know which part of the comment that Lastair sees as an attack (mentioning this arbcom case?). Anyway it is not good form to remove comments from editors with whom one has a disagreement.·Maunus·ƛ· 08:09, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Alastair Haines

Since, from my persective, this RfA is my request for arbitration regarding a previous RfA and regarding Kaldari's conduct, I will focus my evidence in this section on those two matters.

Since Kaldari has selectively invited people who are, or have been, involved in content discussions including me, over a period of almost two years (a very small list), I will provide evidence of any objections I might have to the conduct of those editors via links to my own user space, in proportion to whatever evidence they might provide for any objections to my conduct. I will divide each section into two parts: the first part being replies to objections, of approximately the same length as the objections; the second part being my own objections, limited again to being about the same length should that be necessary.

The first RfA I participated in, upheld my objections, but made resolutions regarding me that were unsubstantiated

The evidence for this is that the RfA failed to provide evidence that proved their statements.

Kaldari appeals directly to processes without using conflict resolution steps first

The evidence for this is that Kaldari has never posted to my talk page prior to intiating quite a number of third-party appeals. This current RfA is itself an example.

Evidence presented by {your user name}

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

{Write your assertion here}

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Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.