User:Martin Hogbin/BNA

This is a proposed case for Arbcom.

This case concernd the infobox nationalities given for a number of biographies for people from the British Isles. Affected articles include James Clerk Maxwell (The only biography in which I have been involved]], Humphry Davy

Please note that this is not about descriptive terms used about a subject. There has been no argument about the first line of the James Clerk Maxwell article for example, 'James Clerk Maxwell FRS FRSE (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish[2][3] mathematical physicist'.

One group if editors would like to put the name of the constituent country of the UK to which the subject is most closely related (for example 'Scottish'), the other would like to put the de jure nationality of 'British'.

The problem is that the editors who wish to put the constituent country have acted in a most improper manner by:

Note GA Reviewer: Adam Cuerden

Claiming a long-standing consensus where none exists for using the consitituent country and the nationality
Editors User:FF-UK, John repeatedly claim that there is a long standing consensus to use consitituent country of the UK (for example 'Scottish') as a nationality rather then 'British' or 'UK'. Editors who propose any change to this, or suggest any form of compromise, are told that they are arguing agains consensus. The essay is also being promoted by John

'Perhaps of more general importance is that the convention of using the home nation nationalities in articles on UK citizens is well established.,



'We already have a longstanding consensus to use citizenship=British and nationality=Scottish'

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AJames_Clerk_Maxwell&diff=639495127&oldid=639452798 'Nationality as it relates to the UK is complicated, so much so that we have an essay about it. What we really don't need is a nationalist POV-pusher at this article, and the next worst thing would be to concede any ground to them.']

The re is also reference to the fact that the aricle has been peer-reviewed and is a GA. The peer reviewer was Adam Cuerden, one of the supporters for 'Scottish' nationality.

The consensus is claimed to be in one of the following places.

Wikipedia talk:Nationality of people from the United Kingdom

This essay, which is being cited as though it were policy, was writtent by a small number of editors without general consensus. Concensus is claimed as a reason for rapidly reverting any pages but my analysis of the talk page shows

For the essay as it is 4 editors:

JackLee, Ausseagull, Snowded, FF-UK

Against, 7 Editors

Bluewave, GoodDay, BritishWatcher, Erzan, Mabuska, 109.152.249.9, N-HH

Not clear to me

Matt Lewis, TFD

It is claimed that, The essay is a distillation of the outcome of previous discussions which can found at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies/2007-2008 archive: British nationality but when we look there we find:

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies/2007-2008 archive: British nationality

For ('Scottish' etc) 4 editors

UpDown, Boson, Matt Lewis , 121.220.58.198

Against 6 Editors

Bluewave, GoodDay, Jza84 (for infobox), Breadandcheese, Michael Johnson, Setanta

Not Clear to me

Jacklee Necrothesp Mais oui! Timrollpickering Melty girl Angus McLellan sony-youth MurphiaMan Breadandcheese

Incivility
As usual, if Martin Hogbin disagrees with the sources, then he ignores them. FF-UK

Another attempt to reframe what I said and set up a straw man, a favourite Hogbin tactic. FF-UK

More wriggling and deviousness from Martin Hogbin, please respect the truth! FF-UK

Pressing for topic bans for anyone who persistently disagrees
GoodDay_-_topic_ban_request This editor got a 2-year! topic ban just for disagreeing with them.

Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents



Accusing editors who disagree of anything that they can think of
Trolling See also edit comment.

Sock puppetry and other things. ,

Imperialism

Racism

Attempts at 'eliminating any assertion of Scottish identity', and

'Cultural blindness',

Being a, 'nationalist POV-pusher',

Refusal to even consider any form of neutral compromise
As the argument over British/Scottish could not be resolved, I proposed the simple NPOV compromise solution that we do not show any nationality at all in the infobox.

This was dismissed out of hand by the editors who insisted that me must have a 'Nationality' field in the infobox and that it must be 'Scottish'. See the section Wikipedia_talk:Nationality_of_people_from_the_United_Kingdom

I even suggested that we remove the 'Citizenship' field (which everyone agrees should be 'British') just because it displays the word 'British'. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:59, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Misrepresentation of editors positions in summaries at the top of sections.
On Proposed topic ban of Martin Hogbin

One editor (FF-UK) was willing to accept the terms of this collapsed proposal if the other editor (Martin Hogbin) did. Unfortunately, since Martin Hogbin has indicated below that this is "not accepted" by him, this proposal is withdrawn. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:42, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

What was actually said by FF-UK was

Ncmvocalist, thank you for your constructive intervention. I am happy to agree to accept a voluntary binding restriction on the article itself, as Martin Hogbin has done, however I note that he has not extended that to talk pages and has continued to edit there. I will not be initiating any new talk activity, but there are two issues which should be recognized.

1: it is not just MH but also an IP editor who reflects and supports MH's opinions. This editor started editing on the nationality issue on 30th October (as far as I can tell) and from then till this edit all edits were exclusively on nationality. So far he/she has sequentially used nine different BT WiFi hot spots, each for a few days at a time with no overlap. These IPs are 109.152.250.125; 86.145.98.85; 109.152.249.9; 86.180.32.141; 109.152.248.204; 86.129.126.155; 86.180.33.175; 86.163.109.109 and 86.180.33.60. In total they account for 158 edits. Adding that to Martin Hogbins's 263 edits on nationality since his first edit at James Clerk Maxwell gives a total of 421 (compared to my 115 on nationality).

2: Both Martin Hogbin and the IP have a habit of mis-stating the points made by others, misquoting sources, mis-using sources, quoting invalid sources (eg a bootleg mirror of Wikipedia for Schools and an outdated (by 100 years) version of Encyclopedia Britannica which not only describes JCM as British, but gets his birth date wrong by 5 months!), denying sources, even deleting valid references in the article! (eg this deletion from the IP, a deletion which was subsequently repeated by Dave_souza!). Both Martin Hogbin and the IP have generally displayed a disregard for the truth. I will not allow any further dishonesty to pass without remark. Otherwise I will refrain. FF-UK (talk) 22:49, 24 December 2014 (UTC) Updated IP edit history. FF-UK (talk) 22:05, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Alternate resolution tried
Long and fruitless dicusssion on talk pages. in particular and most of Wikipedia talk:Nationality of people from the United Kingdom

Summary
This case concerns the infobox nationalities given in a number of biographies of people from the British Isles. Affected articles include James Clerk Maxwell (The only biography in which I have been involved), Humphry Davy and others.

Please note that this is not about descriptive terms used about a subject. There has been no argument about the first line of the James Clerk Maxwell article for example, 'James Clerk Maxwell...was a Scottish mathematical physicist'.

One group if editors would like to put the name of the constituent country of the UK to which the subject is most closely related (for example 'Scottish'), the other would like to put the de jure nationality of 'British'.

The problem is that the editors who wish to put the constituent country have driven awy dissenting editors by:

Claiming a long-standing consensus where none exists for using the consitituent country and the nationality
Editors User:FF-UK, John repeatedly claim that there is a long standing consensus to use consitituent country of the UK (for example 'Scottish') as a nationality rather then 'British' or 'UK'.

, , , 

The consensus is claimed to be in one of the following places.

Wikipedia talk:Nationality of people from the United Kingdom

This essay, which is being cited as though it were policy, was writtent by a small number of editors without general consensus. Concensus is claimed as a reason for rapidly reverting any pages but my analysis of the talk page shows

For the essay as it is 4 editors, against, 7 editors, unclear 2

It is claimed that, The essay is a distillation of the outcome of previous discussions which can found at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies/2007-2008 archive: British nationality but when we look there we find:

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies/2007-2008 archive: British nationality

For ('Scottish' etc) 4 editors, against 6 editors, unclear 9

Incivility
 ,

,

Pressing for topic bans for anyone who persistently disagrees
GoodDay_-_topic_ban_request This editor got a 2-year! topic ban just for disagreeing with them.

Proposed_topic_ban_of_Martin_Hogbin

Accusing editors who disagree of anything that they can think of
Trolling See also edit comment.

Sock puppetry and other things. ,

Imperialism

Racism

Attempts at 'eliminating any assertion of Scottish identity', and

'Cultural blindness',

Being a, 'nationalist POV-pusher',

Refusal to even consider any form of neutral compromise
As the argument over British/Scottish could not be resolved, I proposed the simple NPOV compromise solution that we do not show any nationality at all in the infobox.

This was dismissed out of hand by the editors who insisted that me must have a 'Nationality' field in the infobox and that it must be 'Scottish'. See the section here

I even suggested that we remove the 'Citizenship' field (which everyone agrees should be 'British') just because it displays the word 'British'.

Infobox nationality of people from the UK

Infobox nationality of people from the UK
Initiated by  Martin Hogbin (talk) at 11:24, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Involved parties

 * , filing party


 * Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request


 * [diff of notification FDCWint]
 * [diff of notification FF-UK]
 * [diff of notification Adam Cuerden]
 * [diff of notification GoodDay]
 * [diff of notification John]
 * [diff of notification dave souza]

Long and fruitless dicusssion on talk pages.[16] in particular [17] and most of Wikipedia talk:Nationality of people from the United Kingdom
 * Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Martin Hogbin
This case concerns the infobox nationalities given in a number of biographies of people from the British Isles. Affected articles include James Clerk Maxwell (The only biography in which I have been involved), Humphry Davy and others.

Please note that this is not about descriptive terms used about a subject. There has been no argument about the first line of the James Clerk Maxwell article for example, 'James Clerk Maxwell...was a Scottish mathematical physicist'.

One group if editors would like to put the name of the constituent country of the UK to which the subject is most closely related (for example 'Scottish'), the other would like to put the de jure nationality of 'British'.

The problem is that the editors, who are using Wikipedia to promote the concept of nationalities of constituent countries of independent nations such as 'Scottish', and 'Cornish' have, over a period of several years, driven away dissenting editors using improper tactics. This is an insidious corruption of the purpose of Wikipedia.

Recent tactics have included:

Claiming a long-standing consensus where none exists for using the consitituent country and the nationality, , ,  

The consensus is claimed to be in one of the following places.

Wikipedia talk:Nationality of people from the United Kingdom The essay is a distillation of the outcome of previous discussions which can found at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies/2007-2008 archive: British nationality, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies/2007-2008 archive: British nationality

On examination ofthe relevan talk pages no consensus is found.

Incivility  ,

,

Pressing for topic bans for anyone who persistently disagrees GoodDay_-_topic_ban_request This editor got a 2-year! topic ban just for disagreeing with them.

Proposed_topic_ban_of_Martin_Hogbin

Accusing editors who disagree of anything that they can think of Trolling See also edit comment.

Sock puppetry and other things. ,

Imperialism

Racism

Attempts at 'eliminating any assertion of Scottish identity', and

'Cultural blindness',

Being a, 'nationalist POV-pusher',

Refusal to even consider any form of neutral compromise

As the argument over British/Scottish could not be resolved, I proposed the simple NPOV compromise solution that we do not show any nationality at all in the infobox.

This was dismissed out of hand by the editors who insisted that me must have a 'Nationality' field in the infobox and that it must be 'Scottish'. See the section here

I even suggested that we remove the 'Citizenship' field (which everyone agrees should be 'British') just because it displays the word 'British'.

Attempting to prevent the matter being brought to the attention of Arbcom




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Statement by {Non-party}
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Infobox nationality of people from the UK: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/0/0/0>
Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)