Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Ultramarine

Following is the full content of the Request for Arbitration including all comments by others:

User:Ultramarine

Involved parties

There was an RfC against User:Ultramarine, for incivility and POV-pushing, initiated by User:Mihnea Tudoreanu, on which User:Robert A West and I, Septentrionalis commented. He was better mannered after that.

More recently, however, Ultramarine:

• Has been incivil
• Has asserted very original interpretations of policy
• Has persistently edit warred, despite extensive discussion and invitations to join a collaborative version.
• Has attempted to abuse page protection.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Ultramarine [1]
• Robert A West [2]
• Mihnea Tudoreanu [3]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

This request concerns lengthy discussions in the talk pages above.

I requested help from Mediation, long ago,[4] and from Mel Etitis as a third party. On mediation, I was contacted by User:Stevertigo at the end of July, who asked if I were still interested in Mediation, which I was [5]. I gather Steve wrote to a mediator, but I have heard nothing more.

Mihnea filed Wikipedia:requests for comment/Ultramarine, which is still open. I think it shows a pattern of behavior.

Statement by party 1

Much of this can be found at the request for comment, Talk:Criticisms of communism,Talk:Democratic peace theory, Talk:Democratic peace theory/Archive 1:

• His talk page comments have been peremptory orders. For example: "Add back this critque now unless you can cite sources supporting your claim, not sometime in the future." [6] in Talk:Democratic_peace_theory#Cold_war_peace_or_the_Bloc_peace_theory This is addressed to Robert West, who has been studiously polite to Ultramarine. I asked whether this was civility and Ultramarine denied any incivility.[7] The point at issue was whether to include eight sources or whether five sources would suffice: a demand to cite sources was hardly relevant.
  • He has also claimed (here and elsewhere) that we have refused to discuss "his" version of Criticisms of communism. Its talk page is 153K and most of it (especially this very long section) has been spent on his version and proposals. Much of the text he has proposed has been included verbatim, some with modifications and some has been rejected by consensus after discussion. The remaining discussions are ongoing.
• Novel assertions on policy:
  • He applies an unspecified theory of consensus that amounts to asserting a liberum veto in contradiction to Wikipedia:Consensus. In particular, he objects that 3-1 is not consensus on an article ([8] and Talk:Criticisms of communism#comments)
    • He has likewise refused to recognize a consensus against him on a shortened version of Democratic peace theory. [9]. See its talk page and archive for evidence of the consensus.
  • An NPoV article on a theory will refute all criticisms of that theory, even those criticisms not explicitly raised in the article. [10]
  • The NPoV version of Criticisms of communism [11] must be critical of communism [12], rather than a discussion of such criticisms. (The edit summaries are of virtually identical edits)
  • Archiving a talk page of 106K (archive) is violation of policy. [13]. He made the same claims again when the length of the new page reached 37K Talk:Democratic peace theory#Page length.
  • Bullet-points are unencyclopedic. [14] (Minor, but bizarre. Septentrionalis 17:26, 18 September 2005 (UTC))
  • He has used the talk pages in question to claim other violations of policy, many of them equally frivolous. This is uncollegial. (See the several sections he has titled Violations of Wikipedia policy)
• He has continually reverted Criticisms of communism to a private version, ignoring several invitations to join the version every other editor was working on. Diffs in this section of the RfC. This is his version alone; he has reverted, and been rereverted by, every other editor. page history.
  • Similarly Democratic peace theory, and apparently Democracy.
• He threatened on Talk:Criticisms of communism: "If you try to do any "merger", I will ask for protection of this page, using my version. Italics mine. A few days after, he added some of the text under dispute to Vladimir Lenin. He did three exact reverts in quick succession [15][16][17], although a large portion of his text was accepted; and then called for the page to be protected [18], as it still is. (page history)
  • And he has now done the same thing with Criticisms of communism in response to the consensus (3-1) decision to remove the two-versions tag and invite Ultramarine to actively edit the collaborative version. (WP:RfPP#Criticisms of communism) He has been expressly invited to insert the dozen or twenty sentences which he has added to his private version during August.[19] [20]

For my part, this is not a content dispute. This is a dispute about rudeness, and about Ultramarine ignoring and abusing policy. He asserts new versions of policy which let him do what he wants, and let him denounce and harass others for doing what he doesn't want. For example; "cite sources" as harassment. [21] (There is no question of which website; the article cites it, and we've all quoted it).

Statement by party 2

Hmm... So, the most recent accusations are that I

• am uncivil for asking of others to follow Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Cite sources when making statements and that they place sources contradicting their position in the appropriate section, in order to not misleadingly give the impression that there are no such sources.
• have advocated that Criticisms of communism should not contain a discussion of such criticisms, when my version clearly does so and indeed has continually incorporated text and arguments from their article [22].
• questioned why a talk page was completely achieved when there was ongoing discussions [23]. And requested that the content on the same talk page should not be archieved again only a few hours later, because all the contents had been introduced in that time and were still relevant [24].
• make "frivolous" and "uncollegial" accusations on the talk page. I note for example several attempts to delete and misrepresent my discussion page edits by editing them: [25], [26], [27], [28]
• make continual reversions with little content while I in fact have made numerous improvements to the more critical version of criticisms of communism, (the diff is using their cited edit summary as the starting point) [29]. There is no rule that says that every single edit must be a major revision, I see nothing wrong with sometimes making minor corrections of spelling mistakes.
• abuse page protection in order to win arguments when I only ask that the Two-version template should stay so that everyone can read the facts and form their own opinion while continuing the discussion to find a good npov version. I let the record speak for itself [30] [31]
• have requested that the critics should not delete well-referenced facts and arguments on Criticisms of communism and Vladimir Lenin and those in support of democracy at the Democratic peace theory. There are much greater differences between the two versions of Criticisms of communism than a "dozen or twenty sentences" [32], no reason why only the differences introduced in August should be allowed, and I have certainly tried to discuss the differences numerous times in August [33].
• have violated policy regarding Wikipedia:Consensus which in fact states "In article disputes, consensus is used as if it means anything from genuine consensus to my position; it is possible to see both sides of a back-and-forth revert war claiming a consensus for their version of the article." and "Consensus should not trump NPOV (or any other official policy). A group of editors advocating a viewpoint do not, in theory, overcome the policy expressed in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not concerning advocacy and propaganda. However, a group of editors may be able to shut out certain facts and points of view through persistence, numbers, and organization. This group of editors should not agree to an article version that violates NPOV, but on occasion will do so anyway. This is generally agreed to be a bad thing.".

Regarding who is correct regarding the facts and who violates NPOV, I refer to the factual discussions on Criticism of communism [34] (Most recent discussions here [35] Ultramarine 09:01, 21 August 2005 (UTC)), on Vladimir Lenin [36], on Democratic peace theory [37] (Most recent discussions here [38] Ultramarine 19:25, 16 September 2005 (UTC)), and on Democracy [39]

However, I am thankful for the effort to bring this to arbitration, which I support. The other editors mentioned in "Involved parties" above have violated Wikipedia: NPOV, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Cite sources, Wikipedia: No original research, Wikipedia:Consensus, and Wikipedia:Wikiquette. More specifically, they have systematically and on a very large scale, in important Wikipdia articles, violated the above when deleting referenced facts and arguments negative for communism and when deleting referenced facts and arguments showing the beneficial effects of liberal democracy. Ultramarine 19:10, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement from someone with experience with defendant

I haven't had much dealings with Ultramarine within the last few months, but I can vouch that he's the most unethical, hypocritical, irrational, dishonest, and unreasonable individual I've ever encountered on Wikipedia. He will resort to any measure, no matter how unethical, to get his discombobulated and confused vision into an article. I had a lot of trouble with him a few months ago on the capitalism article where he engaged in every kind of dishonesty and hypocrisy one can image. He even engaged in an arbitration case against me that was entirely bogus and fraught with his lies to try to keep me from editing that article. Of course, the case against me was dismissed, and I was able to be instrumental in improving that article beyond all former recognition. For the sake of the Wikipedia mission, Ultramarine's behavior needs to be stopped. The guy is out of control. RJII 20:24, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Statement from as-yet uninvolved party

On the request of the administrator who protected Criticisms of communism, I am assisting the parties of this dispute in exploring mediation options. According to the RfC and the article discussion page, mediation of this issue was agreed to by all parties and a mediator requested, but the MedCom failed to provide a mediator. I suspect that this failure to respond has prolonged and exacerbated this dispute considerably. Normally I conduct mediations in private, but in this situation I believe it is necessary for the ArbCom to be aware at this point that the failure to mediate this dispute appears not to be the fault of the parties, and to allow sufficient time to permit the parties to investigate whether mediation of their dispute is possible. Kelly Martin 18:21, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I do not consider the dispute mediatable anymore. I have already for two and half months tried to present referenced facts and asked for the same when discussing. However, the other side does not respond to such arguments. Thus, I prefer the arbitration process to continue. Ultramarine 08:30, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

The other three involved parties have accepted mediation (see User talk:Kelly Martin#Criticisms of communism). If Ultramarine changes his mind again – he supported mediation last week[40] – it should resolve these issues; but unless this happens, I request arbitration continue. Septentrionalis

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (5/0/0/0)

• Accept (though I'm worried that it might turn into a content dispute). James F. (talk) 22:16, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
• Accept Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 12:38, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
• Accept Fred Bauder 14:47, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
• Accept. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:56, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
• Accept ➥the Epopt 03:35, 14 September 2005 (UTC)