User:Doug Weller/misc

The problems that resulted in this RfC/U are described in more detail above, but I am probably the first editor he has interacted with and I have been struggling with him since to persuade him to follow our guidelines and policies. He has always been an editor with a fringe pov and resistant to change. Below are just some of the events that have lead to this, mainly ones in which I participated or gave him advice or warnings. I think I've been too patient with him - partially because his edits are so prolific that it is virtually impossible for one person to keep track of them (see another editor's comment "Your output is so incredibly high that people like me or Doug simply can't keep up checking it." Sourcing problems: My first contact with Paul was in March 2010 when I took an article of his to AfD and tried to give him guidance on fringe and sourcing.. I specifically told him that self-published sources were not acceptable, but he continues to add them, eg last month when he created an article duplicating an already existing one he used " Jesse Russell; Ronald Cohn (June 2012). Wuffingas. Book on Demand. ISBN 978-5-512-66577-0. Retrieved 29 November 2012.". He actually included "Books on Demand" and its link which clearly states that it is made up of Wikipedia articles. As is pointed out on the talk page of this RfC/U, he could not have read the book in any case. This is very concerning as according to his user page he has created 362 articles. How many of them have similar sources?

In July 2011 I wrote on his talk page " I'll also add that I think at times you are relying on Google snippets, which is rarely a good thing as you haven't seen the context, and that you need to keep closer to what the sources actually say. And Wikipedia is not a venue for presenting new information to the world - something I think you know you are trying to do." (This was in part a response to another editor who had mentioned his 'crusade').

I also suggested to him that tourist sites and books did not meet our criteria at WP:RS. He still seems to be using such sites as references..

Reinserting material deleted from articles (by edits or by AfD) in other articles

This attempt to give advice has continued since, with varying results. In March 2011 I brought another article of his to AfD, Articles for deletion/Wandlebury-Hatfield Loxodrome. Note that in the discussion he admitted to having cited a book that he hadn't actually read, and that although the outcome was delete, Paul during the AdD discussion Paul turned a redirect he had created into a very similar article called Wandlebury Enigma with the edit summary "The Empire will never find us here on Hoth". This seems to be a pattern of his when faced with an AfD (as is the style of edit summary).

Accusing other editors of a cover up, and cease making accusations of bad faith editing

In April 2011, possibly as a result of comments of this such as the ones here], an Arbitration Enforcement request was brought against him.. The first sentence of his response was to say "This seems to be a direct attempt to damage mankind by hindering research into the central Levantine archaeological site of the neolithic revoluiton in Aaiha." He made similar comments alleging that editors wanted a site destroyed on his talk page..

Refusal to accept consensus and warnings

The result of the AE request was a formal notification on his talk page. His response was "I'll keep on ignoring this until you guys find the citation that's needed to label Archaeoastronomy as Pseudoscience..

Using Wikipedia as a platform for his views His penchant (referred to above) for using Wikipedia to inform the world about things he deems important is shown again when he wrote "This is me figuring out a way to teach everyone about where the Garden of Eden is via the Aaiha Hypothesis".

He has used DYK a number of times to push fringe ideas, see. This only mentions a few, but I can't figure out how to search DYK nominations for the rest. Articles for deletion/Edward F. Malkowski mentions a more recent one and gives further examples of the problems of this editor.

I could give more diffs but these should be enough to show that the problems being discussed are long-standing and there doesn't seem to be progress. Given past performance my guess is that he will agree to behave and then carry on the same behavior.

I need to add that I don't find some of his edit summaries amusing. They seem to be more mocking or obfuscatory then helpful, and I've asked him to stop - to no avail - just as I've asked him to stop making personal attacks. On these and other issues we aren't supposed to give experienced editors formal warnings, but perhaps that needs to be done in the future.