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

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Evidence presented by Jeffro77

Why I came here

At the Jehovah's Witnesses article, I (along with several others) became involved in a debate with Alastair Haines. (The debate has been incorrectly termed an 'edit war', however I did not revert any of Alastair's edits, though I reverted three different edits by EGMichaels towards the end of the period in question, once each, with support at Talk.) During that period, Kaldari invited me to this ArbCom. It was then that I learned about the first ArbCom (because there's a '2' on the end of this one), and upon briefly reviewing that ArbCom, I noticed that many of the claims made there by others about Alastair's editing and debating style were similar to the traits I had observed in Alastair's involvement at the JW article. Despite what Alastair claimed,[1] I did not know about the first ArbCom prior to my learning about this one.

Despite what has been claimed by User:Deadtotruth, I did not conspire with, or form a clique with Kaldari, nor have I had any direct interaction with Kaldari (though I did respond to EGMichaels in a thread Kaldari started). It has also been claimed that Kaldari was being opportunistic in calling on editors involved in a dispute with Alastair at another article, which may even be the case; however, I am not responsible for whom Kaldari chose to invite, but I considered that the behaviour I had encountered at the JW article is relevant to the case.

Alastair makes false claims about other editors

• "I'm glad you agree that the second sentence serves well as a summary..."[2] (in response to User:B Fizz: "The second sentence is good, but the concept is covered well in the second intro paragraph.")

Note: At User:Alastair_Haines/Jeffro#Jeffro_alleges_I_make_false_claims_about_others, Alastair objects that I did not include the rest of the sentence. I omitted it for brevity because the rest of the sentence does not change the context. The point remains that B_Fizz didn't say Alastair's wording served well as a summary, he said the sentence was good but that the point was already covered. At Alastair's suggestion, B_Fizz added that Alastair's wording could be reworked into where the relevant information was already located, but suggested that there was probably already enough detail there anyway. There was no suggestion that it would serve well as a "summary style topic sentence", but rather, the implication was that it was unnecessary. Alastair points out that this instance was quite benign, and indeed if this were the only instance, it would scarcely be worth noting, but it is part of a pattern of behaviour of giving the appearance that other editors agree with him.

• "It's nice to hear you take my point about the arbitrary nature of the "millenial" designation"[3] (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[4] 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.

Note: Alastair has since changed the claim in his section title from "Jeffro wilfully used my arrival at the JWs article to stir up trouble" to "The JWs and Hijra articles are red-herrings".

Alastair has since removed his claim[5] about my presence at the Gender of God article from the section below.

• Alastair also claims below (same diff as above) that I tried to "out" him. I am not even aware of the context Alastair imagines here, which negates the possibility of any intent to do same.
• After an IP editor (who gave their name as "L.R. of Alberta") claimed (wrongly) that "JW believers do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God as christians do"[6], Alastair claimed that the IP editor actually meant some other thing.[7][8]

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..."[9]
• "policy demands we weasle it"[10]).

Alastair employs logical fallacies

• "JWs themselves distance themselves from broad Christianity"[11] [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.[12][13]

Alastair claims he is never wrong

[14]

Alastair misuses sources

• Alastair claimed that a cardinal's vague comment about sects in the context of how Catholics should view inter-religious dialogue is an official Vatican definition of JWs.[15]
• Alastair claimed that specific wording in the Catholic Encyclopedia did not mean what it specifically stated. The Catholic Encyclopedia states (under 'Unitarians'): "In its general sense the name designates all disbelievers in the Trinity, whether Christian or non-Christian", and I contended that this means the encyclopedia acknowledges the existence of "disbelievers in the Trinity" who are "Christian", but Alastair claimed my 'reading' was incorrect,[16] and attempted to obfuscate the issue with irrelevant information about an alleged specialised use of the term.[17]

Note

After objecting at length that JWs should not be called Christian, Alastair agreed with me that Christian should remain in the opening sentence as a contrast to mainstream Christianity.[18]

Evidence presented by User:Maunus

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

[19] 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.

[20] 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"

[21] 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)

[22] 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.

[23] 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)

[24] 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

[25] - 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 for own interaction with Alastair Haines

As Alastair Haines has responded in kind by levelling accusations of ownership, intimidation and wikilawyering at myslf, Jeffro and Blackcab but has not presented any evidence in the form of diffs to back up those accusations I shall here provide some of the evidence for him.

[26] Here is my first talkpage comment after Alastair's entry. I am responding to him saying to Jeffro that "... it is clear that I'm right on all these things and that you are wrong ..." I make it a point to note that it is not clear that he is right, since I also hold Jeffros viewpoint, and furthermore that he has not provided any actual reliable sources in favour of his viewpoint. Note Alastair's response [27] in which states that he considers secular scholars to be irrelevant to purposes of classifiying religions, but that only theologians can make that classification as they "know what Christ taught" (assuming that a special group of people have exclusive knowledge of what Christ taught is bad enough - but to deny that secular scholars of religion can be the basis for claims about religious classification is horrible). This expression of a blatant misunderstanding of the nature of NPOV and Reliable Sourcing is what moved me to participate in the debate. ·Maunus·ƛ· 09:17, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Alastair Haines

Since, imo, this RfAr is my request re a previous RfAr and Kaldari's conduct, I will focus on those.

Summary

My main concern re Kaldari, and others involved here and the prior RfAr, comes down to a single word: hypocrisy. I.e., even if there were anything inappropiate about my conduct (and I don't believe there is), the very claims being made against me are genuinely applicable to those who make them.

Bias: Kaldari focuses on attempting to persuade arbs that: unless restricted, AH introduce bias towards conservative and/or Christian POVs. However, all that proves is Kaldari's own demand to exclude such POVs. Where's the policy against conservative POVs? Am I supposed not to document them? Do Vithoba and Anekantavada show Christian bias? Does Bahasa Binan show "anti-gay" bias, Misogyny "anti-feminist" bias? Where is the RfAr on previously registered user Andrea James? What anonymous account is she using now? Does it matter? I think not. Andrea provided top-notch articles on transsexualism. I hope she still does. User:Coren may publish pornography, that wouldn't exclude him from ArbCom in my opinion, it just raises a conflict of interest in judging whether a conservative Christian is biased or not. Fact is—we're all biased: question is—can we source it?

Discussion: Some demanding editors are suggesting I am stronger in talk page discussion than they'd like; however, context shows I am only refusing their illegitimate demands. Frustrating perhaps, wrong no. Should I give up and go away? Should I escalate things immediately (as Kaldari does)? Should I canvass or shop for allies (as Kaldari does)? Instead, all the "evidence" (in context) shows is that I have a higher tolerance for people who think differently to me than they do for me. How can that be anything but exemplary?

The first RfAr I participated in, upheld my objections

Naturally, I commend the first RfAr 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 indeed edit-warring at Gender of God;[28]
• L'Aquatique (one of two mediators I inivited to help at the page) had refused to acknowledge this, took sides, and her mediation failed.[29]

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

That RfAr failed to meet standards of due diligence

• The most glaring omission was failure to address the conduct of User: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 in my favour to fix this,[30] that resolution was misunderstood by an administrator, leading to a set of wrongful blocks of my account, one of which was Coren's indefinite block for an action I had not committed.

I will note, Ilkali was a demanding editor, however it was the arrival of Abtract, his personal attacks and demands that 2:1 = consensus, that caused disharmony at GoG. How could that RfAr make resolutions without investigating the actual culprit? Or judge my comments in context without noticing Abtract's? Because I didn't bother to complain about him? I see my job as defending text and sources, not critising other editors. If only others thought the same.

The RfAr made resolutions regarding me that were unsubstantiated

• The RfAr 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. To apply a different standard to Alastair than any other editor is either negligence or something much more serious.

Kaldari removes sourced and stable text

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

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 RfAr is itself an example.

Kaldari misrepresents the truth

• Kaldari presents what he calls "evidence", which in nearly all cases does not support the claims he makes.
• The actual facts are: AH has never made a legal threat against any editor * Cirt made a small error and Alastair called it * Kaldari edit-warred to bias documentation of an RS * he then abused processes to cover his tracks * now he uses his own misconduct as evidence against AH * AH has never edit-warred (more than 1 revert in a week may have breached an illegitimate restriction, but it is not edit-warring)
• Kaldari provides evidence of nothing but his own biased opinions that: (1) any edit by Alastair in a gender article is WP:POV or WP:UNDUE; and (2) any revert by Alastair is edit-warring.

The JWs and Hijra articles are red-herrings

• Why I ended up at JW's in the first place: User:Alastair Haines/Jehovah's Witnesses.
• I was at Hijra (South Asia) as part of fact-checking for the Iravan Featured Article nomination process.

(For more on Hijra, see below: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Alastair Haines 2/Evidence#Statement presente by uninvolved Redtigerxyz.)

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.[31] I have requested him to keep his comments brief and to the point,[32][33] with no effect. [34] [35] [36][37][38][39]

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.[40] He has declared his own knowledge of the subject superior to that of other editors and suggests they not dare to challenge his view.[41] 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 implies 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 with 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)

This exchange speaks volumes.User talk:John Vandenberg#Two things Abtract (talk) 08:29, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by User:Kaldari

Continued legal threats and posturing

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: "It is sometimes wise, for their own sake, to give people enough rope to hang themselves... 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 linking to past Arbitration discussions 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.):

• June 7, 2009: Personal attack against Guettarda

• December 4, 2009: Personal attack against Cirt: "A fragile ego is not a crime deserving desysopping, though. Cirt needs pressure taken off him so that he feels confident to be able to apologize."

• December 7, 2009: Immediately after I post a request for enforcement, Alastair creates an attack page against me (since deleted) 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: [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47][48]

Why Men Rule - violation of 1RR per week restriction: [49][50][51]

Gender of God - continued edit warring, 1RR and 3RR violations after ArbCom ruling specifically concerning this article: [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59]

Gender and religion - 5 reverts in 2 days while under 1RR per week restriction: [60] [61] [62] [63] [64]

Singular they (a gender neutral term) - 3 reverts in one week while under 1RR per week restriction: [65] [66] [67]

Virginity - slow continuation of an edit war that began prior to first ArbCom ruling[68]: [69][70]

Continued edit warring (post expiration of 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: [71] [72]

Hijra (South Asia) - edit warring (trying to characterize the Hijra as "men who wear women's clothing" rather than "third gender" as they identify): [73] [74] [75] [76] [77]

Jehovah's Witnesses - edit warring (trying to characterize Jehovah's Witnesses as an organization rather than a Christian denomination): [78][79]

Refusal to recognize Article for Deletion decisions

• December 1, 2009: AfDAlastair's reversal

• December 4, 2009: AfDAlastair's reversal (This was also a violation of his topic-ban.)

Refusal to recognize editing restrictions

Trimmed to diffs due to word limit.

[80][81][82][83][84][85][86]

Declaration of his intentions to resume edit warring (April 2010): [87]

Failure to adhere to WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE

Jehovah's Witnesses

During a recent edit war at Jehovah's Witnesses, Alastair asserts that secular scholars cannot be considered reliable sources on Christianity "because they don't know what Christ taught."[88] He also seems to be of the opinion that Catholics are the ultimate authorities on all things Christian[89] and has consistently promoted that point of view above any others, namely that Jehovahs Witnesses are not "true Christians" because they are not trinitarian.[90][91]

Gender-related articles

His POV-pushing is most aggressive and problematic, however, on issues of gender. He seems to strongly believe that: (1) Any suggestions that gender identities can be defined by society (rather than biology) or exist outside of the male/female dichotomy are "ideological" and thus should be removed or "corrected";[92][93][94][95] (2) men are biologically predisposed to rule over women.[96][97][98][99] He also seems interested in reinforcing traditional ideas of male authority and superiority in religious and social contexts,[100][101] and promoting and defending the work of controversial sociobiologist Steven Goldberg.[102][103][104][105]

Editing and discussion style

The ideas presented by Alastair 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. He frequently deletes other editor's contributions without any discussion,[106][107][108] and yet consistently characterizes removal of anything he has written as "censorship".[109][110][111] His single-minded devotion to promoting his point of view while dismissing all others is very unproductive and conflict inducing. This pattern of behavior can be seen across numerous articles and talk pages.[112][113][114] 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".[115]

Evidence presented by User:Anupam

Hello, I would like to start out this comment by saying that I recently interacted with User:Alastair Haines and have found that he is an extremely helpful individual who wishes to uphold core Wikipedia policies such as WP:NPOV and Wikipedia:Consensus. This was demonstrated in a recent discussion where the Alastair Haines encouraged me to listen to advice from another editor, yet emphasized the strengths of my perspective as well. When the other user and I were able to reach an agreement on how to tackle the issue in question, User:Alastair Haines was very supportive and agreed to offer help where needed. Apart from this User:Alastair Haines' value to Wikipedia is clearly delineated by his many tokens of appreciation. I feel that if this user has in some way violated any Wikipedia policy, that it was not intentional or malicious and that this user should be kindly reminded of these policies again without any serious reprimand. Thank you for your time and effort in reading this statement. Best wishes, Anupam^Talk 08:32, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Hammy64000

Alistair obstructs discussion, makes false claims about sources and inaccuracies

From the revision history, it looks like Alistair has been participating in the Patriarchy discussion since February of 2007. I noticed the article around May 2009 and it was unfinished with flags for neutrality and sources. I had Googled patriarchia and found a fraudulent website for a word that was in the article although he was holding other people off on the basis of their sources. I don't know if it is a real word. (These were, [www.websiteoutlook.com/www.patriarchia.ur] and [www.alexa.com/data/main/patriarchia.ru]) One takes you to ancestry.com. I also found Filmer's 'Patriarcha' written in 1680 (although this was not cited in the article and this word should have been used instead of patriarchia) [www.constitution.org/eng/patriarcha.htm] It is a defense of the divine right of kings, derived from Adam. He says the idea of contractual origins of government of original freedom and equality, are fictions. Alistair didn't seem to think any of this was meaningful. This discussion can be seen on May 8, 2009.

Doctored source

This is one of the sources on his infamous table of ethnographies. There was no source for the table, you had to look up each anthropologist in the table to see if Alistair's claims were true. Basically, there was a column running the length of the table claiming each society studied was a patriarchy. This was one of the anthropologists: .[116]

I just saw where he wrote the most outrageous thing in the third opinion section of the patriarchy discussion, and all this time I was worried I had been too hard on him. He doesn't seem to have changed at all. Kildari is familiar with the article over quite a long period of time. He would know whether Alistair is being truthful here. I would like to take this opportunity to say that Kildari is one of the most reasonable and helpful individuals I have met at Wikipedia. He and another editor I don't know, Carol, tried unsuccessfully to talk reason to Alistair. It is all plain to see in the discussion and in the archived pages, which I printed and read when I first noticed the article. Starting on 16:49, 3 December, 2008, CarolMooreDC and Kaldari attempt to address Alistair’s tactics in a fair and unbiased way. They talked about the editing process and the recognition of other views. In a “polite” way Alistair brushed them off. (16:50, 4 December, 2008) Whenever Alistair is seriously challenged other editors suddenly spring up and defend him in a tone equal to Alistair’s jaded jargon. Kildari and Carol continued their efforts until 1 March, 2009. Kildari has helped several times since then.

He makes threats

He has already been banned once for this so I won't offer all of my evidence. But his threats are always in the back of my mind, leading me to worry about the events taking place since his first troubling statement to me. I took this as a warning--it was not even relevant to our discussion: "It is a strand worth some attention in this article, especially in so far as it addresses antecedents to second wave feminist theories about, and challenges to, patriarchy. I'm not sure I'm so keen on your thesis that anyone ever proposes social structures on the basis of robbing people of freedom. That's precisely what they often achieve, but not what they advertise, for obvious reasons. Even in Nazi Germany, they had to downgrade people to being Untermensch before justifying the theft of their dignity, property and life." Alastair Haines (talk) 03:05, 8 May 2009 (UTC) (my itallics)

Recently, on 15:11, 13 April, 2010, he said in the revision history, “Careful how you deal with this. The rule you choose will be applied retrospectively.” Since this time another of my articles, Virgin birth (mythology), was merged into Miraculous birth without consensus and the offending editor, Ari, has been intransigent. Also, please see “My trail of breadcrumbs” on my user page. He is discussing things for the 1st time now, and I feel silly reporting these things on my user page, but this is the effect Alistair’s warnings have had and it could be the reason he is cooperating. I don’t mean to be ungenerous—I am completing this request for arbitration evidence because I think there is still a problem, although I’m willing to continue my discussion with him if circumstances allow.

He seems to be away right now, but I will know whether we can work together if he accepts my reply to his last message. It is mostly about sources, of course.

He doesn't change his fundamental approach over time

He is still insisting on "proving" the merits of patriarchy and on using Steven Goldberg. Here are some reviews of Goldberg's book, calling into question his use as a source. One is by Frank B. Livingstone, American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 76, No. 2(Jun., 1974), pp. 365-367, Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association. This is on Jstor.org. The other is by Eleanor Leacock, in the same issue, pp. 363-365. See the recent discussion on the Patriarchy talk page.

Please check the dates on Alistair's messages

I also just realized that the arbitration committee won't be aware that Alistair never addressed me in any way until I posted my "Trail of breadcrumbs." All of his contributions to the discussion took place after that time, although he has sprinkled them all over the earlier discussion.

Is there an organized effort to guide Wikipedia content?

Alistair's determination in the face of opposition, combined with his obvious intelligence, is difficult to explain simply as a misunderstanding. I have also noticed that sometimes when he has taken a high-handed postion, other users appear in the discussion to defend him and warn his opponent. If this is an organized attempt to guide Wikipedia content, then there is a real need for action here. I don't know if there is any way to determine this, or if arbitration is the place for this question.

Statement by User:MishMich

I have nothing more to say than in my statement on the request page. I am more interested in editing than fighting with other editors; my interaction & knowledge of Haines is recent, and his approach towards me has changed since this request was made, so I find it hard to find the motivation to add more than I have already said. What I said in the request was:

I have been invited to comment here, although I was unaware that I was engaged in an edit war with Alastair. My only interaction with Alastair is recent, and confined to a single article. I appreciate that Alastair has a difficult history, but have sought to engage and interact with him, and given him the benefit of the doubt. I have had to revert some of his insertions into the article on the hijra, and have encouraged him to discuss changes prior to revising existing established text, although I think we would both agree that article is in need of improvement. He has engaged in discussion, yet still seems to find it hard to resist making sequential changes, often starting with a conroversial alteration (which in the latest case altered the meaning of one source altogether) [117]; in such situations, the only way to rectify such changes is to revert the sequence back to the original text. I want to be fair to Alistair, because I do have a very different perspective to his, but I do find his approach to editing somewhat belligerent, and while he appears to have a strong POV about gender congruence, he seems to think his view is neutral, and other views are POVs. He seems to find it easier to ignore points that challenge his perspective, while trying to refute those he thinks he can, and seems totally unconcerned with WP:MOS#Identity and (LGBT) project guidelines based on these in the context of gender identity. Discussion seems to be for the purpose of legitimising changes he wants to make, rather than forming consensus; and sources are for suppport of his perspective, rather than grounding the subject in what they say. However, I am aware that he would no doubt feel justified in saying the same about me. I cannot add more really, because I do not feel our exchanges have been sufficent to motivate me in seeking to bring any complaint against him - and I do not personally feel they would warrant the time or energy to do so. I do think that when somebody explains things that run contrary to his understanding in certain areas, and they have some expertise in that area, he ought to respect that, rather than ignoring it and insisting his own poorly-informed perspective is the correct one. As a board member of a major international intersex organisation, and social scientist engaged in research into intersex since 2003, I do not appreciate a theologian with no background in this subject telling me he knows better about my subject than I do. I do think he has tried hard to work co-operatively in the article we are working on, and would encourage him to continue in this vein, as it can only make editing a more enjoyable experience, rather than a battle - which is not particularly edifying. I would also urge him to slow down and allow time to work on one thing at a time, as there is no rush. (last sentence appended later than the rest). Mish (talk) 13:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by uninvolved Indian Chronicles

I am not involved in this particular case, but still I feel compelled to make a statement as the decision of the arbcom will have consequences that will go beyond this particular issue. Because, what is at stake is how wikipedia (as represented by arbcom) is going to treat one of its most valued editor.

I have gone through the evidences and various statements by various involved parties and would like to comment on various allegations against Alastair and they way how this process is being carried out.

• Alastair has been accused of incivility and personal attacks. None of the evidence diffs submitted can be constituted as personal attacks as per the WP:NPA policy. At best they are polite rebuttals or disagreements. I will request the editors who are accusing Alastair of PA to go thru this policy again. For example, one of the diffs put up as evidence. [118] Accusing someone of personal attacks itself cannot be a personal attack. (If so, then this evidence itself is a personal attack on Alastair) On the contrary, Alastair has been quite polite. In fact I would use this diff to show Alastairs maturity and capacity to disagree politely. A strong disagreement cannot be construed as a PA.
• Alastair has been accused of edit warring and disruptive editing. Disruptive for whom? For his detractors because he is presenting something alternative which his detractors are not able to digest. If you continuously needle and provoke someone he is bound to loose his cool. Yet Alastair has managed well in light of extreme provocation where his conduct was questioned.
• I would love to analyse each and every evidence showed against Alastair and prove that these are shallow, lack substance and some of them are irrelevant. However, I believe the arbitrators will examine all evidence objectively. Since his detractors are under pressure to provide some evidence to back up their accusation, all they could come up with is some immaterial evidence. The arbitrators need to think: the only reason such shallow evidence was presented was that Alastairs conduct has been more or less exemplary and within Wikipedias policies.
• If one were to analyse, Alastairs contributions, out of his 30,000+ edits, more than 5,000 have been on the articles talk page and more than 1,800 have been on various user pages. This shows that Alastair has been more than willing to discuss with others, arrive at consensus and take everyone along.
• A lot of editors have come in contact with Alastair and their experiences have been quite pleasant and productive. A few examples: [119] and [120] and [121]

I despair that Alastair will be hounded out of Wikipedia. Where he should be making some constructive and valuable contrubitions, he is busy defending himself from vindictive attacks. Many others including myself will be watching this issue with interest. I hope some sense prevails and Alastair is back to doing what he does best—making wikipedia better.--Indian Chronicles (talk) 11:40, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Statement presented by uninvolved Redtigerxyz

I am surprised that I am not invited here for a comment (I observe some others have been invited). I have been actively involved with Alastair Haines, who was actively copyediting the Iravan article (I am the chief contributor to the article). At same time, Alastair Haines was giving constructive criticism on the article, see Talk:Iravan.

• It is here that the hijra dispute first crops up (Talk:Iravan#Fact_checking). You may observe in the discussion that I and Alastair Haines have dramatically opposite views at the start. Alastair Haines argues on the basis of WP:RS (NOT WP:OR). He will not listen to me if I am say "I am an expert in Hinduism and India and you should listen to me because I am my expert". This argument does not work with him. You prove your argument using RS and he will listen to you. He also confesses to be wrong if he really is ("Looks like I'm wrong about hijra (refugee). "Impotence" seems to be the core meaning of hizra or hijra.")
• Not only have I worked with him at Iravan but also at Vithoba (now FA) and also have closely viewed his edits at Anekantavada (now FA, I was GA reviewer). I have observed that Alastair Haines firmly believes in the principle of discussion. He spends lots of time and effort in researching and then writing lengthy summaries of the RS he found to argue on an issue.
• I see his edits at Hijra (South Asia) (an article I followed from the shadows, as it related to Iravan) in a different light than reported here. Alastair Haines has neutralized the Hijra's POV of being "third gender", not physically males, as they really are.
• At times, I have observed that references - thought be RS - misguide Alastair Haines (as I said before he listens to RS only), but he is convinced if you prove by RS that the RS quoted by him are wrong. I will not call his interpretations of RS as a deliberate attempt to misuse/misinterpret references.
• I am not evaluating all the evidence against him, as I am not the right person to do so. Admins are qualified to do so and will surely evaluate them with neutrality. Though I would urge admins to take into consideration his constructive edits in Iravan, Vithoba, Anekantavada (all of which are related to religion) and other articles while proposing actions against him. I am strongly against a topic ban (religion) on Alastair Haines, as it is here that Alastair Haines's comments have proved the most useful. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 16:16, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Character Witness presented by Buster7

Alastair's manner of editing is misunderstood as aggressive

We all begin as strangers. Then, some of us become acquantances (almost friends). User:Alastair edits with painstaking care and his contributions (to all manner of Wikipedia articles) provide the reader with well-resourced and valuable points of view. We should accept his offerings with gratitude rather than deprivation. His wise evaluations are always attempts to convince and collaborate with his fellow editors. Of course, not all of his work can pass the purity test and, due to previous Arbitration Requests, he is in dis-favor with some. But his edits and talk contributions remain seminal and I for one honor his efforts.--Buster7 (talk) 01:15, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by EGMichaels (formerly SkyWriter)

There are basically two central questions with regard to Alastair:

1. Did he violate the restrictions of the previous ArbCom, and
2. Is he currently engaged in legal threats

Nothing else is actionable.

Does he annoy Maunus and Jeffro? I'm sure he does. I'm sure I do too (and it's probably mutual). That happens on Wikipedia, and the only option is to either gut it out or to move along to articles with less overhead. On Genesis creation narrative Alastair and I gutted it out. On Jehovah's Witnesses we decided to move along. I'm not sure about other articles Alastair edited that I was not a part of, but simply having a mutual annoyance with another editor is not a matter for the ArbCom. Most of the diffs I've seen here are trivial. We wouldn't be in an ArbCom for anyone else for trivia, and we shouldn't stoop to it now.

So, to the first item. Did Alastair violate the restrictions of the previous ArbCom? Given the nature of those restrictions, I'm not sure how he couldn't. One revert per week? And what's a revert? That's basically editing anything that someone else edited in that week. On those grounds, all of the parties involved in the previous ArbCom are in violation:

• Abtract -- blocked for edit warring on another ArbCom! [122]
• Ilkali -- engaged in an edit war the day after being hit with the restrictions [123] and a short while later he violated the civility restrictions [124]
• Lisa -- engaged in an edit war as well [125]

You'll note that I linked you to the discussions for these on their talk pages, rather than to the violations themselves. There's a reason I did that. Note that all of the problems were resolved on a very low level for all of the editors who violated the previous ArbCom.

All of the editors but one: Alastair Haines.

In the litany of diffs Kaldari offered, I didn't see any evidence that Kaldari actually tried to resolve the issue on a low level. The most that can be said is that he threatened Alastair -- not with an ArbCom investigation but rather with an ArbCom condemnation... as if it were a foregone conclusion. This reminds me of a line in Hogan's Heroes where Gen. Burkhalter said, "the prisoner will be given a fair trial and then he will be shot."

Ahem! Ladies and gentlemen... while I have no expectation for you to be impartial, I think you should at least pretend a little better than this. Seriously -- Coren is an arbitrator here? There are so few administrators available that you can't find anyone else to fill that slot? Kaldari doesn't even try to resolve this at a low level? Bam! ArbCom! And then of course there's Riskier basically saying you've made up your minds already and there's no need for evidence.

Folks, nuance this a bit.

As for the legal threats issue... I've told you numerous times that I know who sent the note and I've seen it. The note was sent without Alastair's knowledge and it contained no legal threat. Duvora had another... er... impartial... admin review it and that admin thought it had no legal threat. The note asked for some admin to apply the civility policy.

Seriously, are we so afraid of policy that we'll gag Alastair rather than apply it? And are we so terrified of policy that we'll rush to judgment on this ArbCom because Alastair QUOTED it?

Okay -- let's make a deal... Alastair will stop asking you to follow policy, and you folks reboot, regroup, and PRETEND to be impartial for a while. You can always pounce on him later if he's so terrible.

Oh, and for what it's worth, on the Genesis creation narrative page Alastair and Lisa (who were opponents in the previous ArbCom) worked very well together. She got a lovely barnstar and we all congratulated her. You'll also note on my link to Lisa's talk page that my previous "SkyWriter" screen name was arguing in her favor. Why did we all do this? Well, I'll tell you -- we decided to resolve our differences and work together, rather than to keep pouncing without warning.

Kaldari didn't get that memo and went straight for the ArbCom after a single threat [126] and zero attempts to resolve this like we three lowly editors (Alastair, Lisa, and myself) whom you all seem to regard as problem folks.

If the problem folks behave better than an Admin, perhaps the admin should slow down.

And perhaps you folks should as well.

Lisa, Ilkali, Abtract, and Alastair all four violated the previous ArbCom. The first three were reasoned with at lower levels. The last is here.

So I present my final piece of evidence: this ArbCom itself. It's evidence that lowly editors can resolve problems with much less time and effort than Kaldari offered Alastair.

In light of this -- we now have an additional question: what should we do? This is different from what can we do or what must we do. Certainly we can gag Alastair for quoting Wikipedia legal policy as if Wikipedia policy threatens us somehow. But should we? There are better things to object to than Wikipedia policy! Just look at the debacle last year when Coren gagged me for someone else's non-threatening request that admins apply the civility policy! While Coren could gag me, it is hopefully clear that he should not have done so. Same for his action regarding Alastair.

We are here to uphold the best principles of Wikipedia -- principles of impartiality in articles and hopefully impartiality in arbitration as well. Just recently I cannibalized some of Alastair Haines' own ideas about impartiality [127] on Jimbo's own talk page and Jimbo said such a nice thing to me in response [128]: "My humble applause to EGMichaels who has, in this statement, expressed what for me is the essence of what it means to me to be a Wikipedian".

Gentlemen of the jury, your honors, good soldiers on the execution field, let's proceed in an impartial manner and collectively express what for Alastair, myself, and hopefull all present is the essence of what it means to be a Wikipedian. It is VERY clear that Lisa, Ilkali, Abtract, and Alastair Haines violated a nearly impossible set of restrictions, and it is VERY clear that the first three were dealt with on a far lower level.

Impartiality requires we do the same for Alastair.

Folks, if he's REALLY that bad, you'll have another opportunity -- won't you? The only reason to deal with him unfairly now would be that you didn't have such confidence.EGMichaels (talk) 14:54, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

PS -- to quote Pascal, "my apologies for such a long note; I did not have time to write a short one."EGMichaels (talk) 15:53, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {Deadtotruth}

hammy64000 appears to have violated wp:civility

hammy64000 appears to have violated wp:civility 1(c) [129]

Maunas appears to have violated wp:civility

Maunas appears to have violated wp:civility 1(d) [130]

Maunas appears to have violated wp:civility 2(a) [131]

Kaldari appears to have violated wp:civility

Kaldari appears to have violated wp:civility 2(b). There is an implied threat since it is intimated that the arbcom WILL sanction. A warning would have indicated that the arbcom might sanction. [132]

Refutation of Kaldari’s assertion of continued edit warring, disruptive editing, and violation of editing restrictions

First of all we would expect to see mention on Alistair’s talk page of wp:edit war, wp:tendentious edit, etc. for the citations given by Kaldari. These warnings don’t exist [133] and in fact there is a large gap between 2008 to the present of any notice anywhere concerning Alastair. The question for this arbcom is when is it wp to go from no documented warnings straight to an arbcom? The prior arbcom restrictions concerning AH expired last September. I realize that AH was in an arbcom 18 months ago. However none of the individuals to the present action issued AH a warning on his talk page such as 3RR, Tendentious Editing, Edit Warring, Vandalism. In fact most of the suggestions in dispute resolution [134] haven’t been attempted by many of the people in this action including the admins which is a sad statement – threats and incivility don’t count and in fact are violations of wp. Why bother to write guidelines and policies if no one is going to use them. As far as I can tell most of the parties in this arbcom seem to only know how to use the article talk page and part of the time they are uncivil when they do. The arbcom should be the last place to issue a wp: edit policy warning not the first. I suggest that everyone who has issued a complaint on this page who has not cited wp:edit policy or one of its subsets on AH’s talk page be banned for one day for not trying to follow Wikipedia guidelines. Several of the editors that I cited above not only did not follow the guidelines but appear to have violated wp in their actions to AH. While Kaldari indicates that he feels that AH should be collaborative and respectful toward others [135] it doesn't appear that most of those bringing complaints against AH have felt the necessity of being collaborative and respectful toward AH. Would there be an arbcom now if they had? If they had been collaborative and repectful instead of having personal vendettas on their mind maybe things would be different.

Isn't it a little late to be noting edit restriction violations of an arbcom when the restrictions expired last year?Deadtotruth (talk) 03:15, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

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.