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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Kaldari (talk | contribs) at 23:30, 18 April 2010 (→Continued personal attacks and harassment). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk)

Case clerks: Amorymeltzer (Talk) & AlexandrDmitri (Talk) Drafting arbitrator: SirFozzie (Talk)

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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.

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see the talk page. If you think another editor's evidence is a misrepresentation of the facts, cite the evidence and explain how it is incorrect within your own section. Please do not try to re-factor the page or remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, leave it for the Arbitrators or Clerks to move.

Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as Arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators (and clerks, when clarification on votes is needed) may edit the proposed decision page.

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 claims below[3] that I 'wilfully used his arrival at the JWs article to stir up trouble'. The Gender of God article is on my 'B' list of articles, and I did not recall (until now re-checking the edit history) specifically interacting with Alastair at that article, nor any particular dispute with him then. Checking my edit history, I last edited at Gender of God in December 2008. Alastair's suggestion that I have silently bided my time about an imagined grudge from 16 months ago is ludicrous.

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..."[4]
  • "policy demands we weasle it"[5]).

Alastair employs logical fallacies

  • "JWs themselves distance themselves from broad Christianity"[6] [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.[7][8]

Alastair claims he is never wrong

[9]

Evidence presented by User:Maunus

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

[10] 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.
[11] 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"
[12] 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)[reply]
[13] 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.
[14] 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)[reply]
[15] 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)[reply]

Alastair removes other editors comments

[16] - 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)[reply]

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

Naturally, I commend the first RfA for seeing through noisy attacks on my editing, and reaching consensus that I was correct and User:Cailil and User:L'Aquatique mistaken:

  • User:Skywriter and I had not "colluded" to get an editor blocked for edit warring;
  • Ilkali was edit-warring at Gender of God;
  • L'Aquatique (one of two mediators I inivited to help at the page) had refused to acknowledge this, and her mediation failed.

So, the RfA dismissed the grounds on which L'Aquatique brought it, and upheld my grounds for a request for assistance.

That RfA failed to meet standards of due diligence

  • The most glaring omission was failure to address the conduct of Abtract, who was already known to stalk and sow disharmony.
  • Consequence: Abtract went on to do both these things at a number of articles afterwards, and despite ArbCom passing a resolution to fix this, that resolution only led yet another set of wrongful blocks of my account, one of which was Coren's indefinite block for an action I had not committed.

The RfA made resolutions regarding me that were unsubstantiated

  • The RfA claimed I had edit warred, without providing diffs that proved it, and certainly demonstrated no "pattern" of edit warring. Inexplicably, a harsh sanction was imposed.
  • Even more inexplicably, the RfA claimed I had been uncivil, again without providing diffs that proved it.
This was all the more strange since diffs deemed to supposedly demonstrate incivility, if applied as a standard to all editors, not only would mean L'Aquatique's blasphemies, and the gross "criticisms" offered by Abtract should have been likewise noted, but probably any editor at Wikipedia who'd ever disagreed with anyone, should be given a civility warning.

Kaldari removes sourced and stable text

  • Either directly, or via processes, Kaldari removes text he believes to be uncomfortably conservative.

Kaldari appeals to prejudice

  • Kaldari wants people to believe that I have a difficult editing history, using evidence (and people) selectively
  • Kaldari wants people to believe that I have some kind of conservative Christian agenda, or passionate bias

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.

Jeffro wilfully used my arrival at the JWs article to stir up trouble

Jeffro has a history at Gender of God. It took me some time before I remembered him. Well aware of resolutions from the first RfA, Jeffro felt confident to sling abuse from the get-go. By contrast, I note Mish restrained himself from taking advantage of an opportunity for unfair advantage in discussion.

Strange

I've never had any quarrel (from my side) with Guettarda, nor Mish. I believe almost two years ago, Guettarda edited forcefully on one single page, but most of what she wanted was spot-on and I conceded those things. On one matter I objected, and I seem to recall she vacated that discussion. Mish and I have disagreed about a number of content related issues, which is only natural given their complexity. I've been impressed by his knowledge of the topic. I do object to his having posted to article talk a few opinions regarding my editing (those just fuel people like Kaldari), I'd be happy to address such things at my talk page. However, I think BlueRasberry, Mish and I are moving Hijra (South Asia) along, little by little, and getting to know one another better all the time.

Evidence presented by BlackCab

Alastair tries to win arguments through a process of exhaustion

Alastair's discussions on the Jehovah's Witnesses talk page have been unnecessarily long and full of sidetracks, oily flattery and sarcasm.[17] I have requested him to keep his comments brief and to the point,[18][19] with no effect. [20] [21] [22][23][24][25]

Alastair is intolerant of others' views and demands all others accept his

When other editors have stated a contrary position, he quickly dismisses those and deduces there is now no opposition to his. He then demands that his edits be left untouched.[26] He has declared his own knowledge of the subject superior to that of other editors and suggests they not dare to challenge his view.[27] I find him very frustrating to deal with and I think he is taking up far too much space on the talk page to display what he believes is his superiority and is unwilling to concede points or reach compromises.

Evidence presented by User:Abtract

I have no time or inclination to waste on Haines yet again but I feel, for the good of wp, that I must give my opinion. I have found him to be a clever, bullying editor. He is intelligent and knows a lot about his subjects but, sadly, he uses his intelligence and knowledge to his own ends. He has a very annoying habit of stating that something is so, even when it patently isn't and then simply ignoring other opinions. "Oily flattery" was used above and that well describes an aspect of his arguing style. He impies that others agree with him when they don't. All in all he has a very unpleasant way of seeming to be, and stating that he is being, cooperative but actually being single-mindedly egotistical in his edits. Please be careful of him; he is clever and will appear to be very reasonable ... in particular, please watch for the fact that he will accuse (generally falsely) other editors of just those faults he exhibits himself. Abtract (talk) 22:49, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by User:Kaldari

Below are examples of Alastair's legal threats and posturing since his last Request for Arbitration (It should be noted that Alastair was warned about making actual or perceived legal threats in his previous RfAr.):

  • January 18, 2009: "...it is worth mentioning that the Foundation is continuing to publish slander posted by Abtract and Ilkali..."
  • March 24, 2009: "if the defamatory material regarding me... is not removed by Wikipedia review processes, after repeated urgings by me to that effect, within the period allowed by the revised statute of limitations in Australian defamation law, I shall regretably need to have a lawyer send a letter to the Foundation."
  • Discussion on AN/I of Alastair's refusal to retract the threat
  • April 8, 2009: Legal threat claiming to be from Alastair's publisher
  • November 23, 2009: Creates section in userspace listing legal definitions of defamation and discussing legal issues with enforcing Australian judgments in the United States
  • December 5, 2009: "...there are also options I'd like to avoid like formal processes regarding whether Wiki can be classed as a service provider, if it has and exercises powers to restrict protected speech, like widely recognised religious points of view... I trust ArbCom to finally defend me. However, if they don't, and these repeated unsupportable challenges against my professionalism as a writer are permitted to be published, I have no choice but to defend myself."
  • December 5, 2009: "I have plenty of time, I've recently been published in the US, and I have legal advice for here and there. I don't want this to blow up in the face of our wonderful project."
  • April 7, 2010: Alastair characterizes a talk page discussion as "defamation".

Continued personal attacks and harassment

Below are examples of personal attacks and harassment since his last Request for arbitration (It should be noted that Alastair was warned about making personal attacks in his previous RfAr.):

  • December 7, 2009: Immediately after I post a request for enforcement, Alastair creates an attack page against me full of half-truths and begins advertising it as evidence of my problematic behavior.
  • March 19, 2010: Even after Alastair's attack page was deleted at MfD, he still insists on parading it as evidence of my "deceptive editing".

Continued edit warring, disruptive editing, and violation of editing restrictions

Below are some examples of edit warring, disruptive editing, and violations of editing restrictions since his last Request for arbitration (It should be noted that Alastair was warned about edit warring and disruptive editing in his previous RfAr.):

Patriarchy - edit warring, blanking sections without discussion, violating 1RR restriction: [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33][34]

Why Men Rule - violation of 1RR per week restriction: [35][36]

Gender of God - continued edit warring, 1RR and 3RR violations after ArbCom ruling specifically concerning this article: [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44]

Gender and religion - 5 reverts in 2 days while under 1RR per week restriction: [45] [46] [47] [48] [49]

Singular they (a gender neutral term) - 3 reverts in one week while under 1RR per week restriction: [50] [51] [52]

Virginity - slow continuation of an edit war that began prior to first ArbCom ruling[53]: [54][55]

Continued edit warring (post ArbCom sanctions)

Alastair took a break from Wikipedia in December 2009. He recently started editing again and has resumed his usual pattern of contentious edit warring:

Patriarchy - edit warring: [56] [57]

Hijra (South Asia) - edit warring (trying to characterize the Hijra as "men who wear women's clothing" rather than "third gender" as they identify): [58] [59] [60] [61] [62]

Jehovah's Witness - edit warring: [63][64]

Refusal to recognize Article for Deletion decisions

Refusal to recognize editing restrictions

Upon being notified of his violation of 1RR imposed by ArbCom: "Regarding reverts, if anyone thinks I'm going to keep track of reverts I make from this account over the course of a week, they are much mistaken. I'll make reverts like anyone else when they are called for, and whenever I happen to review the watchlist here."[65] - Alastair Haines 03:21, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Upon being blocked for violating editing restrictions: "The block doesn't concern me. Later, I will edit when and where I wish, as I wish, as I always have, in a manner that maintains and improves Wikipedia, and has never been demonstrated to be contrary to that."[66] - Alastair Haines 07:55, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Upon being notified of the patriarchy topic-ban: "There are no such restrictions. That is ridiculous and without foundation."[67] - Alastair Haines 07:21, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Upon being told that the restrictions are in fact valid and a result of his behavior: "You are incorrect. There is nothing untoward in any of my actions, certainly in this case (and even at the time of the invalidly conducted ArbCom). There is nothing untoward, even under the disputed restrictions."[68] - Alastair Haines 09:10, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Upon being blocked for breach of 1RR restriction: "First, I breached no restriction. Second, the restrictions were imposed invalidly... For the record, no one has ever demonstrated me to have done anything other than maintain and improve Wikipedia. Not only are all my edits constructive, I've not even breached the restrictions."[69] - Alastair Haines 10:15, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Declares his intent to continue edit warring at patriarchy-related articles despite topic-ban, refers to other editor's work as "vandalism": "I will shortly be cleaning up vandalism done by various editors at articles related to Steven Goldberg and patriarchy. You are most welcome to become cognisant with the content issues and participate; or alternatively, I'd appreciate an extra editor keeping one or two difficult editors in line."[70] - Alastair Haines 14:31, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Upon my most request that the topic-ban be enforced against him: "The admin who proposed the topic ban was notified by me that I would be overlooking it, and was alerted by me to the fact that I deliberately breached it by editing at Misogyny some time ago."[71] - Alastair Haines 01:57, 6 December 2009

After returning from a hiatus, declares his intentions to resume edit warring and POV-pushing: "I intend to restore nearly all material in certain articles, removed prior to and since a certain ArbCom, and that is almost certain to be obstructed."[72] - Alastair Haines 06:41, April 6, 2010

Failure to adhere to WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE

Properly documenting Alastair's POV-pushing would be nearly impossible, as his editing is defined by it. He seems to have very strong beliefs regarding religion and gender in particular. Of course these ideas are perfectly welcome on Wikipedia, so long as they are presented in balance with other points of view.

Instead, Alastair seeks to make his POV the dominant POV of any articles he edits. For example, before I became involved in the patriarchy article, more than half the article was devoted to promoting the idea that patriarchy was a biological inevitability. In particular, Alastair has devoted significant efforts to promoting the work of controversial socio-biologist Steven Goldberg. His single-minded devotion to promoting a single, controversial point of view while dismissing all others is very unproductive and conflict inducing. This same pattern of behavior can be seen across numerous articles and talk page debates.

Alastair's attitude towards collaboration can best be summed up by the post he made to the Jehovah's Witnesses talk page a few days ago: "it is clear that I'm right on all these things and that you are wrong".[73]

Evidence presented by {your user name}

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

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}

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.

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