User:Brad101/GWALRFC

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Statement of the dispute
User:Gwillhickers is apparently a stamp collector with knowledge of the subject area and he has uploaded many, many pics to commons, which is commendable. However, he has demonstrated an obsession with placing his uploaded stamp pics into related articles with no regard to their noteworthiness or context in the article. His stated position is that the display of stamps, without exception, is much more important and descriptive of the subject than any other images. His arguments are usually based on reasoning such as wp:ilikeit, wp:idontlikeit, wp:noharm, and other stuff exists. When editors note the Manual of Style for images, Gwillhickers initiates a series of repetitive and endless talk page posts attempting to justify his stamp photos. No matter how many other users disagree, and no matter how many links to guidelines and policies are offered, Gwillhickers' insists his philatelist perspectives are correct and he becomes wp:pointy. Gwillhickers regularly interprets the Manual of Style and editor conduct rules to suit his own justifications and continually responds to editors who disagree with him with posts of redundant justifications of his own invention.

Gwillhickers readily employs consensus calls in an effort to garner support for a stamp already opposed by multiple editors. When the consensus call vote opposes his position, he becomes unceasingly argumentative with opposing voters, rather than allowing the consensus to conclude the matter. He continues posting until the talk pages are rendered chaotic. Gwillhickers habitually states that no good reasons have been given to counter his arguments. The end result of his actions halts progress on substantive article improvement. He regularly inserts images into articles without a summary edit description, and readily resorts to edit warring. Gwillhickers also regularly inserts images of stamps without regard to the space limitations of the target section or target article.

Desired outcome
Gwillhickers will accept that his view, no matter how correct he believes it to be, is not the only view that matters. If several editors offer good arguments as to why they believe he is incorrect, he will accept that any continuation of the argument is disruptive. Accepting that, he will remove himself from that discussion. Gwillhickers will cease canvassing for support and adhere to the proper procedure of RfC and accept its outcome. He will also refrain from using identical arguments on the talk pages of articles where he has a conflict of interest and cease bringing up side issues that attempt to distract from the original conversation.

Description
While this RfC was triggered by Gwillhickers' behavior at Talk:Abraham Lincoln, there are several articles over the past year that have been stalled and or turned chaotic by his actions; among them Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Harrison. The Jefferson article dispute is one of fringe theories although it has been pumped full of stamp photos. In total there have been five articles disrupted by Gwillhickers. There is no possible way to list all of the diffs that apply to this situation and unfortunately some reading of talk page threads will be required. It's also somewhat difficult to report exact diffs for Gwillhickers due to his habit of often editing his responses five or six times, each time he makes a response.

Alexander Graham Bell
About 31 March 2010 Gwillickers began to add postage stamp photos to the article. Edit warring began about 15 May when one stamp photo was removed. After several removals and replacements of the stamp pic Gwillickers proceeded to place a npov tag on the article. This tag was removed and replaced several times while Gwillhickers began a series (5 sections total) of "discussion" topics on the talk page where he dismissed the application of MOS:IMAGES to his own favor despite several editors explaining its use. . Disruptive talk page behavior continued until a mediation request was filed by Gwillhickers who then claimed it had been rejected (?) but on 1 June User:Sarah replied essentially backing what the defending editors had been saying all along. She also explicitly pointed out Gwillhickers' disruptive behavior which apparently failed to serve as a reminder to Gwillhickers in the article disputes outlined below. On 7 June, Gwillhickers replied to Sarah still convinced he had done the right thing. Of course this brought on more commentary and a parting shot by Gwillhickers. The result here was that the excess stamp pic was removed along with the npov tag but not without an extremely verbose and combative disagreement. (Information on this dispute was assembled by Brad (talk) 22:17, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Benjamin Harrison
On 20 December 2010, Gwillhickers added a lengthy, poorly sourced section called "Harrison and US Postage" to the article. Believing it to violate WP:TRIVIA, at least in part, I (Coemgenus) trimmed it back and removed the parts not related to the subject of the article.  Then followed an extremely lengthy series of contentious talk page discussions. I suggested the material was too tangential to Harrison and should be moved to US Presidents on US postage stamps, if it belonged anywhere. User:Reywas92 joined the discussion and agreed, noting also that Gwillhickers' non-standard HTML coding should be removed. After several days, he agreed to most of the HTML concerns, but still insisted on including the stamps. Gwillhickers rejected all policy considerations I or Reywas raised. I also suggested that his citation, to the entire thousand-page Scott catalogue, was inadequate. User:Collect, who did not oppose inclusion of the stamps, suggested how Gwillhickers might cite the material more specifically. He still has yet to do so (this same situation prevails at Abraham Lincoln, which makes me suspect he does not actually have access to the catalogue he purports to cite).

I suggested some compromises that would mention commemorative Harrison stamps along with other kinds of memorials to him. To my mind, this was still no better than a trivia section, but I wanted to get some sort of compromise and move on. These he also rejected, instead adding even more stamps and postal history. User:JasonCNJ suggested my original compromise was better. Gwillhickers continued to disagree. I asked an experienced editor, User:DrKiernan, to offer a third opinion. He also agreed the stamps were trivia. Gwillhickers disagreed, again, also suggesting that I prove, somehow, that the scholarly biographers don't ever mention this stuff.. I pointed out the impossibility of proving a negative, but by then we had moved on.

I solicited a request for comment. DrKiernan and User:Wehwalt explained the nature of FA biographies, summary style, and reliable sources. Gwillhickers dismissed these editors, who have more than 50 FAs between them. At this point, User:Charles Edward, the other primary co-author of the article joined in to agree that the stamps thing was trivial and tangential to Harrison's biography. This went on, and on, and on, until finally the current version of the page emerged. It's still in violation of WP:TRIVIA, as I see it, but I was exhausted of arguing with him and wanted to get off that talk page and back into writing articles again. I acquiesced, which I regret, because I fear it encouraged the same tendentious editing to spread to Abraham Lincoln. --Coemgenus 16:51, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

US Presidents on US postage stamps
On 11 January 2011 in two long threads lasting 3 days at Talk:US Presidents on US postage stamps, Gwillickers argued with Hammersoft and others over interpretations of the Non-free content criteria. Hammersoft was patient and went to great lengths to help Gwillhickers understand the policy. Soon after, several non-free images were removed. (Information on this dispute was assembled by Brad (talk) 22:17, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Thomas Jefferson
Gwillhickers has been disruptive and tendentious for more than four months in 2011 (repeating points he had made earlier) in his arguments against 1) editors' decision to add a paragraph to the Lead that addressed Jefferson's likely paternity of Sally Hemings' children, which has been widely accepted in the academic community for the last decade; 2) with noting her by name; and 3) with addressing their children and relationship in the article. He preferred to have such content reduced or preferably all in the article on Hemings herself. For people not familiar with this issue, there is academic consensus that Jeffersonian scholarship has dramatically changed since 1998-2000 to acknowledge TJ's paternity of Hemings' six children and their 38-year relationship; this is a major change in the scholarship on Jefferson's life of the past 180 years.  Books published on Jefferson and race relations in VA since 2000 demonstrate this consensus, and major awards have been made to Annette Gordon-Reed, the historian who led the re-examination of evidence even before a relevant DNA study that showed a match between the Jefferson male line and an Eston Hemings descendant. Because of this, most other editors had a consensus that the issue deserved mention because the nearly 200-year-old controversy had been essentially resolved, that it was "Jefferson's controversy" as he was the powerful, public figure; and that it needed to be discussed sufficiently so that readers could understand the issues.

As the Talk Page Archives 8, 9, 10, and the current talk page show, Gwillhickers' most recent efforts to shape the article according to his views went on at least from January 2011 through much of May 2011, with a circular repetition of points and arguments, moving from asking for a reduction in content, to re-introduction of arguments about Jefferson, the facts, the problems with academic scholarship and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, rather than focusing on the article. He introduced side issues, argued that academics were all biased, directed editors to introduce content and find sources to prove what he thought were valid and "viable" alternatives, rather than providing sources to support his views. Relatively early on, he neutrally called for a vote on reducing the portion of the main article devoted to Hemings and this issue (saying it was UNDUE WEIGHT), but none of the other editors who voted with him on this issue returned to contribute (even by comments on the Talk page) to the article during the long months that followed. (The section was reduced and has had few comments from anyone but Gwillhickers; it may never reach consensus.) He argued almost alone against several other knowledgeable editors on the Talk page who referred extensively to published historians as sources. He refused to concede to the point of "following academic scholarship," or the many institutions that have supported the conclusion about Jefferson's paternity, arguing they were politically motivated. For instance, on April 19, 2011 ,he said the slavery and Hemings portion was "out of proportion". I responded that this was current scholarship. "'Organizations like at Monticello are highly visible and in the public eye are easily goaded or intimidated by the sort of racially charged tactics we saw being used here by an other editor back in March. Elected officials are easily manipulated this way. All you have to do is mention 'racism' and they will jump through one hoop after another for you. I tend to distrust accounts from places like this and from most of academia who often go along with their peers for social/political reasons and to protect/secure their annual grants.'"

On 1 March 2011 Gwillhickers began a consensus thread and proceeded to canvass uninvolved editors. He was warned twice and instructed to use RfC instead. On March 5, 2011, another editor at the TJ article filed a fringe theory comment related to Gwillhickers' pushing his views and sometimes misrepresenting the views of other editors in his response; it continued until 15 March 2011. This provides another example of the circular arguments and additional viewpoints which Gwillhickers thought should be covered. The reviewer said that the other editors on Thomas Jefferson were properly following the academic sources. Parkwells (talk) 6:12 pm, 31 May 2011, Tuesday (8 days ago) (UTC−4)

Abraham Lincoln
After a FAC that closed on 1 May 2011 in which concerns were expressed over the amount of stamp pics in the article, consensus was reached and the pics were reduced per MOS:Images. Gwillhickers claimed on his talk page that the removal of the stamp pics were "illegal removals". On 6 May he began to disrupt a conversation over the removal of stamp pics in this section. On 15 May he began a new thread claiming once again that removal of stamp pics were "needless and petty illegal reverts". On 19 May in this thread he accused an editor of making "slanderous remarks". On 23 May he began this section attempting to gather consensus on the same topic of stamps that already had consensus. This section descended into total chaos and hoping to reinforce his views about stamp pics, he began canvassing on 25 and 24 May leaving messages such as this one on multiple user talk pages. If one of his canvassed subjects did not respond in a manner that Gwillhickers approved of he returned and prompted them to respond correctly. Gwillhickers has apparently and finally accepted consensus on the issue. This was another example of long, disruptive and combative discussion threads on the topic of stamp photos. (Information on this dispute was assembled by Brad (talk) 11:17, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Applicable policies and guidelines

 * Disruptive editing
 * Tendentious editing
 * Canvassing
 * No legal threats
 * Conflict of interest
 * Fringe theories

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