User talk:Ddstretch/responses to RFAR

In response to Yorkshirian's statement, mostly where it is about me: Yorkshirian writes: "I feel Jza also used underhand tactics which violated both policy (WP:CANVAS) and the spirit of Wikipedia, by attempting to get a friend of his to ban me. The admin inquestion, DDStretch has only become an admin recently and was apparently unaware of WP:Blocking_policy; and so I was unblocked."
 * 1) As you will see by following the links Yorkshirian himself provides, at no point did Jza84 make an attempt to get me to "ban" Yorkshirian (nor could we have, since a ban is a community imposed sanction), nor, indeed, did Jza84 suggest to me or attempt to get me to block Yorkshirian.
 * 2) Instead Jza84 asked me to take a look at various articles in a completely neutral way, as far as I was concerned, just as someone may do so to ask for a second opinion.
 * 3) I looked at the contributions of Yorkshirian, and noted him alleging "bad faith" on the part of the nominator of a template for deletion here and other attacks based on assumed motives (for example here, though there were a number of others, outlined in the previous statement by Jza84 and MRSC.)
 * 4) I posted verious messages, including a message to him, both on his talk page here and on this talk page (this last one as a means of telling people that any more inflammatory messages would put them at risk) warning him of his behaviour and pointing out that a block could result.
 * 5) There was a need to also post a later message about assuming motives placed here. (Note that in the message posted immediately before the last provided diff, a person who is in broad agreement with the notion of traditional or historic counties states that the term Yorkshirian was complaining about was not, in his view, derogatory, and it was, indeed, helpful.)
 * 6) In response to this, Yorkshirian posted a message here which first of all suggested that he thought I was being facetious, and then went on to make no apology and give no undertaking, making statements like: "It would seem however, looking at the messages on your talkpage above, especially the lovely intertude under "UK mediation" section, that Jza messaged you (somebody he seems very familiar with) in violation of WP:CANVAS. Specifically the section on Wikipedia:CANVAS#Campaigning may interest you. If you're going to be an admin, may I suggest you please make yourself familiar with the policies and guidelines I have referenced in this message. Rather than accusing me, a user who is being cyberstalked, of "personal attacks". Systematic bias is not acceptable, you're here to make sure that our policies are upheld not to chip in for the sake of a friend.".
 * 7) In the quoted statement, Yorkshirian makes assumptions and allegations about my own motives and that of Jza84. He misunderstands WP:CANVASS and attempts to suggest that it applied in the issues under discussion here, which it does not. Furthermore, he accuses me, on no evidence, of showing a systematic bias, of being unfamiliar with wikipedia policies (see my responses specifically about blocking and banning on my recent RfA that demonstrate that, at the very least, I do know about the ones most relevant in answers to questions 5a, 5b, and so on here and various editor's opinions here, here, and here.). Finally, he accuses me of acting merely "for the sake of a friend" which is an attack based on inferring dishonorable motives on my part.
 * 8) All this is in response to my message which I judge to have been correctly issued concerning his personal attacks in the light of the ongoing matters in the RfC, mentioned by Jza84 and Kieferskunk in various diffs, above, and it is consistent with User:KieferSkunk's observation in his statement, that "Yorkshirian seems to continually assume bad faith in other people's edits and seems to believe there is a conspiracy of sorts to further a regional agenda in the various articles in which he edits."
 * 9) No apology and no undertaking to stop making personal attacks was given to me in the message he posted to me. Consequently, it was appropriate to initiate a block. Indeed, in one of his requests for an unblock he wrote "This user is a completey inexperienced admin (only gaining powers last week) and is apparently not familiar with any of our policies, in light of that his mistake can be forgiven once the block is lifted.", which suggests that my nomination for administrator was more recent than it actually was (it was 21 days, not "last week" from the date of Yorkshirian's message), and that I would be forgiven when the block was lifted, which as can be seen, isn't the case, since further allegations about my motives are being repeated here.
 * 10) Specifically, Persistent gross incivility was the exact reason for the block, and it was made indefinite until Yorkshirian made undertakings to stop making personal attacks, including those against anyone, like me, who were acting to warn him about his other personal attacks.
 * 11) Yorkshirian assumes at the end of the quoted section about me that I was in some way ignorant of the blocking policy, and that this was why he was unblocked. This is untrue. I have given my reasons, pointing out the policy concerned, above. Furthermore, there are at least three bundles of evidence against what he alleges, and all of them are publically viewable by anyone, including Yorkshirian. First, he asked to be unblocked on two occasions, and User:Viridae declined it: See notice on my talk page, here, where he suggested he was on the point of blocking Yorkshirian until I did it first, and here. Note that Yorkshirian confuses again a ban and a block, and accuses me of saying he was harrassing people, when I made no such accusation. He also repeats various personal attacks upon myself. Second, the administrator User:KieferSkunk, stated he would not object to a block here. Third, the reason he was unblocked was concerned with allowing him to make his response to this Arbcom request, as User:Sam Blacketer can confirm, not because it was wrongly imposed in the first place. In my previous messages in my statement, you will see that I specifically mentioned this need, though Viridae gave a solution that would not need him to be unblocked in one of his decline unblock notices (diffs given above.)

My apologies for the length of this comment, especially if it is in the wrong section, but I felt the statement by Yorkshirian in the places where he mentioned me required it. For that reason, I have previously limited myself to pointing out problems solely to do with me. There are, however, obvious problems in other parts of it. For instance, using inflammatory language in his statement (talk about "fatwa", talk about '"his fantasy "Republic of Manchester"") and making unsupported allegations, such as stating "Jza holds fringe views in regards to the former administrative entity Greater Manchester" when my experience is that Jza84 has always paid particular attention to what reliable sources say about current administrative divisions in the UK, and limits his edits to what they say. Furthermore, he states, about Jza84: "MightyWarrior describes him as a "hot headed reactor"." in the last paragraph of the first section of his response. This is highly misleading and is effectively highly uncivil towards MightyWarrior. What MightyWarrior did say was "This also 'hot-headed reaction' is not exactly what might I expect from a prospective administrator", which does not use the phrasing that Yorkshirian claims was used–phrasing that suggests that MightyWarrior was alleging this was a kind of consistent behavioural trait of Jza84, instead of being just a comment about one specific instance of behaviour. Given the problems in accuracy of Yorkshirian's response (which are probably just blunders on his part) on the examples I have noticed on a quick and non-exhaustive check, it is reasonable to suggest that a careful look at all of them is of particular interest in this case, for the good of all parties in this arbitration dispute. DDStretch   (talk)  00:02, 28 June 2008 (UTC)