User talk:MickMacNee/Arbitration request response

Response to filer
I don't have a clue what Chester Markel's interest in me is. To start an arbitration case on someone you've never once spoken to seems odd to me. The fact he mentioned Afd badgering might mean he is one of the people who were extremely upset when I reminded them that 'keep, notable' on Aircrash Afd's is anything but a non-opinion at Afd, and seemed to think that being criticised for making that sort of poor vote, not least refusing to defend it when it is challenged, is the same as being a genuine victim of incivility. Given the fact he has lied about me 'threatening to vandalise an article' in the opening statement, that should put the factual accuracy behind the rest of it in doubt.

Anyway, if arbitrators think this exercise in hijacking another editor into an arb case off of what was an ANI thread going nowhere because I had done nothing wrong, and would have been archived by now except for the continuing attacks on me by an admin who has well and truly lost it due to his clear animosity towards me, then so be it. I will welcome the opportunity to present evidence about my detractors, who as usual, seem to want to blame me for their own shortcomings, and get continually frustrated at the fact nobody ever acts on their complaints about me as they try all sorts of things to win whatever dispute it is they have with me. In the order of their responses, I will show that:

Responses to statements

 * Beyond My Ken. He is way out on a limb here. If he wants to use me as a way of expressing his frustration with the current site acceptance of bad language, and it's actual distinction from actual breaches of CIVIL, then so be it. I will show how his opinions on what is and is not incivil were rejected at ANI, and are rejected by the community at large. The arbitration committee should bear in mind that they are not here to start redefining what the community thinks on that.


 * DeCausa & Snowded. I will show how these two editors fundementally do not understand that CONSENSUS is not just a general agreement between editors, much less the small group of regular editors to a particular article, but that it must refer directly and in detail to POLICY and consist of acknowledgement and proper rebuttal of valid points, with the goal of having the article be able to meet site wide accepted standards of quality, and thus policy compliance. I will show how DeCausa introduced a serious NPOV violation to the UK article based on his flawed understanding of how we do and don't write from the NPOV in contentious topics, and I will show how Snowded edit warred to retain it. I will show how both of them have been incivil in the extreme with their continual refusal to accept their failures or even have the basic courtesy of responding to others points, or to justify the content in terms of the actual policy and guideline that actually covered it, or finally to get any kind of peer acceptance of it from outside of the small group who were repsonsible for the flawed consensus to introduce it in the first place. Odd behavour from people with such courage in their convictions. I expect the committee to condemn that behaviour in the strongest possible terms as being clueless in the extreme, and indefensible from editors who have had the amount of time they have had here to by now understand these basics of Wikipedia. And I will also show that the 'solution' arrived at means the article no longer has the violation I pointed out in the first place, thanks to my intervention. So if they want to explain how that means I was wrong, they can try.


 * David Levy. I will show how many times in that ITN/C debate that he chose to simply repeat the same point ad nausuem, and even beyond the disputed archiving, and completely ignored everybody else's opinions, even though they responded to his points in detail to the point of showing how he was completely wrong on some of them. To no effect whatsoever frankly, until the inevitable happened and what was a time sensitive discussion was effectively rail roaded into a train wreck where nobody would bother to call it. And he claims that's how we do consensus here. I will lay out in the detail precisely how indefensible most of the opposition in that debate really was, both in fact and in behaviour, which will undermine his claim that my problem is simply in not accepting good faith disagreement, and that I'm the one dissuading people from taking part in a venue which has historically been broken in the extreme, with massively low participation levels for what it is, and with Daniel having been one of the longest serving regulars presiding over that situation in which he still cannot even get the name changed, even though his most common repetitive mantra is that 'In The News' is not about 'the news'. It's become such a pet phrase of his, he even tries to denigrate people like me as 'newsers', even though I have been vocal in the extreme in opposition to that idea too, something he has personaly seen many times. I find that insulting in the extreme, when his stated goal is good faith disagreement. I do not expect the committee to endorse this sort of behaviour as simply valid disagrement, in any way shape or form. If they do, then whatever happens, I will never ever contribute to ITN again. How's that for chilling effect?


 * Strange Passerby. I will show how this editor in that ITN/C debate chose not to defend his point in the correct manner, how he chose to pretty much lie over what his objections were and how they could be assuaged, and I will show how he then tried to 'win' by closing the discussion himself first as 'no consensus', as an involved party no less, and then when that failed, went to get someone else to do it, even thought the point would have been moot in under 12 hours, and unlike him, other people were still actively debating. I will also show what damage has been done to the encyclopoedia as a credible historical resource on truly notable aircrashes which the policies claim we are, based on what we now host as 'articles' of such based on the 'notability' shown in nothing but a 24 hour news cycle and coverage by surpsrise surprise, aircrash focussed sites acting as pretty much primary sources, due to his attempts to attack me as a person, rather than on my points of policy. I will show exactly what was wrong with the keep votes I challenged, as per all policy, guideline and practice for Afd, and if the committee wants to endrose their validity and endorse the actions of editors like Strange Passerby in their attempts to turn Afd into an exercise in clueless voting and attacking the nominator/deleters, then so be it. This very much is something that the committee has a responsibility to send out a clear message to editors as regards what is and is not acceptable behaviour, because the policies that condemn the behaviour of Strange Passerby and his ilk at Afd already exist. For the record, while my Rfc on Mjroots was prompted by his actions during the aircrash dispute, the reasons for its filing were stated in black and white as is required. I ask that he strikes his bad faith claim that it was an exercise in 'revenge' - even in the request process I do not expect the committe to encourage such disgracefull smears on other editors.


 * RD232. Where to start with this guy. I recently criticised him for his unilateral actions on Delta recently at ANI in which he showed a shocking lack of respect for community placed sanctions and the blocks of other admins, and has been justifying this in the worst possible ways ever since. He had also recently done the same in the case of Treasury Tag, and I think Brad can attest to the effect he had with that interjection. The committee doesn't need reminding of the Delta case, suffice to say RD232 didn't even realise Delta used to run a bot until he was neck deep in his arrogant pronouncements of what was and was not good for the community. Anyway, RD232 certainly seems to have been pissed off about my highlighting his failure in those cases ever since. Shortly after this, he interjected himself into an ANI thread on me without even declaring his status as an involved administrator, to leave a helpful hint about my recent Rfc. Had I known it would be abused in this way by people like RD232, I never would have voluntarily accepted its closing resolution. At that time, plenty of other admins had already seen fit to comment on it, and the thread was going nowhere as far as any santion or action was concerned. I had done nothing wrong, and that was the outcome. Since nobody acted on his subtle hint, he descided to escalate it further, and propose a sanction on me. The only response to that was from another admin criticising it. So he refactored it without that opinion, as 'not relevant'. When still nobody commented, he flipped, and blocked himself, in one of the most juvenile and un-admin like acts of petulance that I've ever seen (and then Chester Markel started this case, with still nobody having commented). RD232 is frankly not fit to be an admin, and I will present evidence to that effect going over these things in detail. I hope the committe will do what he has declared he will never ever do either voluntarily or compulsarily, and have his fitness to be an admin examined.


 * Hammersoft. Well, this guy is Delta's chief supporter, so people should be in no doubt why he turned up. I will present evidence to show that Hammersoft is one of the most incivil editors around. I will show he patronises, condescends, wikilawyers, and generally plays games with all editors who don't sign up to his extreme views on NFCC. I will show that his activities as an extremist in this topic area goes so far as to flat out lie over what the Foundation does and does not mandate on it, and what role conensus et en.wiki has to play in it. I will show what admins really think of his 'Hammersoft's Law' approach to civil and respectful discourse, which he frequently hides behind in the most childish of ways. I will show how his claims of being attacked in violation of NPA by me, which prompts the invocation of said 'law', have not once, not one single time, ever been upheld. I will show how he views this as a conspiracy against himself and Delta, as if he knows better than 2,000 admins what is and is not a personal attack. I do not expect the committee to endorse this sort of behavior as civil conduct, and I hope they recognise the effect it has on the whole area of NFCC when campaigning editors like him with a lot of time and energy to devote to it, employ it to good effect to achieve fundemental changes in Wikipedia, against the large majority of editors who simply don't have the patience for it, and why it needs to be stopped as the insidious and unwiki-like tactic that it is. They can peruse the current Rfc on banknote images to see just how far he has pushed the policy beyond what the actual community view is, and how little trust there should be in the other 'precedents' on NFCC that have been heavily influenced by his patented brand of civil discourse. This is definitely a dispute which has been ripe for arbitration for years.


 * Sandstein. Do I really need to point out that Sandstein cannot stand there and say 'I told you so' when by his own admission he knows nothing at all about the circumstances that led to this case being filed, and it has more than a suspicion of having nothing to do with me, but is all about being a revenge attack on Scott for not respecting Sandstein's original block. He can rejoice in that triumph all he wants, it doesn't cover him in glory one bit, and shows him to be the exact kind of admin everyone was describing him as at the time and many other times, as one who believes their admin judgement is somehow superior to everybody else's, and that's how it should be recieved as he hands out unilateral community bans to editors. I have been more than a little bit surprised since then to not have felt his hand applying the same remedy to me yet again, off the back of whenever someone has called me out at ANI for a 'personal attack', even though as usual, it turns out to have been nothing of the sort. His ignorance of my specific circumnstances as usual screams off the page for everyone to see, as he laughingly claims I am "socially well-connected". Yeah, I'm so well connected that as a result of an ANI report and a campaign by an involved admin that, if it had been applied to real connected editors like Giano, there would blood on the ceiling by now, I have somehow been landed with shotgun acceptance of a case, while I still don't even know who the bloody filer is. The only substantial comment that has been made on how this has happened has been, well, there hasn't been any so far accept to agree that yes, RD232 should be made to come down from his tree house if he wants to play in the sand pit he's just pissed in.

Responses to arbitrators
And now to turn to the responses of those arbs that have commented so far.


 * @ SirFozzie. If there is a long running user conduct issue here that requires arbitration, then please expand on Scott's comments as to what admins actually chose to do in the ANI report that apparently triggered this case. The Rfc was raised (RD232's motives for doing so covered above), and still nobody even commented. The Rfc's mere existence is not a free pass to file an arbitration case if you don't get what you want in an ANI report. That is not evidence of any problem that I can see. I did what was required of me in that Rfc process. Your are doing nothing here except sending out the signal that I needn't have bothered, and just told everyone to fuck off, because an arbitration case can be accepted whether people come to the conclusion that I haven't abided by my voluntary agreements in that Rfc or not. You are filing a case here on an editor who still at this point has not once been put under any kind of involuntary, binding, sanction for any behavioural issue, or content for that matter. If you guy's just want to use me as a test bed for a crack down of some sort based on some failing of the current DR process or community views on civility, then just say so. I've never been one to feel the need to retire due to not being popular or liked as long as uninolved people recognised when I was right on any reasonable measure against actual policy, but if I begin to feel like I am being hung out to dry by this committe as part of a wider political effort to make some policies more important than others, and to value people's hurt feelings over actions that actually damage the encyclopoedia, then I probably will.


 * @ Casliber. Please expand on the 'other issues'.


 * @ Coren. As people have noted, my 'threat' was to update an article to the correct standards, to get it onto the Main Page. As people said at ANI, that's not a crime or a breach of any policy, and had it happend, it would have been a valid edit improving the pedia. If anyone is to take that threat seriously as some kind of problematic actual attack on an actual editor, they have to first accept that having the article on the Main Page can be considered a genuine problem to a particular editor. This was not an FA, and he himself admitted he was not its primary writer, and infact had written none of it. I made that 'threat' because he was saying at ITN he didn't want it on the Main Page, effectively because people would edit it. I rejected that motive as being wholly unwiki, and my 'threat' was my way of expressing that. If he's truly not trying to be the article owner, it was a threat of no consequence. And it never even happened anyway. I seriously don't see why I'm going to be put throught the drama of an entire case for that 'problem'.

Other incidental responses
@ Eraserhead1, "who is Chester Markel?" is categoricaly not a personal attack. I have never heard of this editor, and he has never engaged with me before to my knowledge. Therefore, when he files an arbitration case against me, that is a perfectly acceptable response. I do not expect people to be allowed to make this sort of comment on arbitration pages. It ironically stretches CIVIL to the extreme infact if comments like this are allowed to stand, given the danger that they might mislead less experienced editors into thinking they are remotely true. Especially given the fact the format of the request page means nobody can immediately set the record straight underneath the offending comment. MickMacNee (talk) 18:40, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

RD232's self blocking

 * Cross posted for recording purposes, this was important enough to be mentioned on the page directly

I will say one thing here. Given that it was the complete lack of response to his 'proposal' at ANI that has apparently triggered this request, I object in the strongest possible terms to people going along with RD232's subsequent pantomime tantrum and clerking his comments from his talk page to here, because he is 'blocked'. He is not blocked at all. If he truly wants a wikibreak which stops him editting, he should use the wikibreak-enforcer. If he wants to be blocked for his failures as an admin, I'm sure someone else can oblige to make it less of a farce. If he wants the right to comment on me here as a currently active admin who I will be presenting evidence on if the case is accepted, then he can unblock himself and do it himself, like a grown up who has respect for the people he has been making all sorts of attacks on. Nobody even noted here that they had been clerked over FFS. His willfull decision not to participate except in this bizarre manner needs to be recorded here, given the immediate part he played in it. And now that I think of it, I thought there was an actual policy against blocking yourself anyway, because there's no rational reason to ever do it. If not, then this is a pretty good example why there should be.

In addition, I do not see what there is about this request that means this blocking farce needs to be taken to yet another level, to now be used by RD232 as a way of asking if he can file private evidence against me as regards this request, that I will obviously have no way of commenting on. This is nothing short of outrageous. I want a categorical assurance from all arbs that they have no intention of obliging him in this manner


 * ''Not being cross posted from here on

I have no idea what this guy is even on about now. As far as I know, there is a wikibreak enforcer tool which people who lack the self control to stay away voluntarily, can use to ensure that if they really really need a break from Wikipedia, they can get one. RD232 seems to want it both ways, he wants to act the traumatised victim, while still swinging at the person who supposedly put him in his hospital bed, and he's now claiming that he doesn't even need to be involved in the case. He either sets up an enforced wikibreak and strikes the statements he's made that he then cannot hope to defend, or he unblocks himself and commits to backing it up with some evidence in the actual case. RD232 can claim all he wants that he's the victim, he can ignore all he wants the uncomfortable facts about that ANI report and his recent admin record and our past interactions, and he can assure everybody and anybody that in the game of comparing who has more important events in real life to contend with, and who has had to put up with deplorable proveably false attacks and never wants to return, that he's somehow the winner, but screw him frankly. This is nothing short of an attempt to have his cake and eat it. Whereas I now have no choice but to participate if I want the privelage of editting again. I will not accept 'mick like' entering ordinary speech here in this manner, clerked across by nurses pandering to this act. I will not accept him handing off his accusations and smears for arbs to investigate for themselves while he supposedly recuperates and ponders whether he wants to return at all. I will not accept him laying low until he is sure that his admin bit is not in danger. I will not accept the ANI thread being entered into 'evidence' by others that it was somehow a live dispute unresolved by multiple admins demonstrating I had violated any number of rules including my Rfc commitments, and thus it had no other resolution but to be taken to arbitration, when nothing could be further from the truth. I will not accept him claiming that he's the only one here whose reputation has been dragged through the shit unjustifiably.

Who is Chester Markel? Part 2
I have since watched this discussion unfolding on Chester Markel's talk page between him and people he is trying to involve in this case, I am now suspecting that the reason he has dragged me to arbitration over an incident he had no prior involvement with, really has nothing at all to do with a dispute with me in the first place, and that he has brought this case as a way of getting at Scott.

I will repeat, as far as I know, I have never heard of this guy. Having a second look at the end of his filing statement, I notice he wrote "Every attempt to resolve this situation short of arbitration has failed". What situation I ask? When has he ever been in a dispute with me? When was the last time the community at large, let alone uninvolved admins, made substantial noises of the form that there was still some problem with me? Who can with a straight face look at that ANI thread and say hand on heart that it was an intractible dispute heading for arbitration? There was the same usual wailing from some people that I'm a Very Bad Man and that as usual the lazy/incompetent admins never do their bidding when they're mouthing off about me, but seriously, what's new? I've already said I won't stand for being treated as some sort of test case in that regard, and would just retire if that's what I feel is happening here. I've got my own beef with what admins don't tend to do in certain situations, but I don't expect arbcom to do something about that on my behalf if I haven't first raised the issue through he normal channels, and shown that doing so has been a fruitless exercise.

The ANI thread had run its course with no action save for RD232's attempts to continue to allege that I was a Very Bad Man, based on nothing but pointing to the Rfc, and then later latching on to one of the general wailings to somehow interpret their comment as a request for him to explain why he couldn't do anything as he was involved, hint hint. Still no action. So bizarrely, after admitting his involvement and outlining a very recent dispute with me in which he came off rather badly, and fearing it might just get archived, he then proceeded to 'take his admin hat off' and try to get something to stick by proposing a sanction anyway (then re-proposing it without the criticism of it by another admin). It bears repeating that nobody signed up to this proposal. Not one person, not even anyone who was complaining about me at the ANI thread that he used as the jumping off point for it! And then somehow, in a bizarre turn of fate if it can get anymore bizarre than RD232 then self-immolating in juvenile frustration, we ended up here.

Considering this new information about why Chester Markel may or may not have filed this case, and given that he has already lied in his filing statement about me threatening to vandalise an article, putting in doubt his general due diligence over anything I may or may not have done in his eyes, certainly as part of "a situation", I am now wondering why any arbitrator is even considering this case, given that the other respondents by and large don't include anyone who hasn't been aware of who I am and what I do for months, if not longer.

None of my detractors are saying anything differently to when we were here 6 months ago, after which I agreed to participate in an Rfc I had no need to, but which I maybe naively thought might protect me from such lynchings in the future. Having done that, I would have thought that in future if having allegedly not stuck to those promises, then I would have expected that if anyone was going to take me to arbitration it would be one of them, or even better one of the admins they've persuaded I hadn't, rather than some random editor I've never heard of, off the back of an ANI report that was certainly going nowhere near that particular road.

As far as I'm aware, this Chester Markel has no reputation for simply starting DR procedures as some kind of concerned citizen (not that there's anything wrong with that, some people do it rather well to the general benefit of the site) so I think the fact he's yet to explain why this case was filed, or inform me of any past history he thinks we might have had, beyond the initial statement, speaks volumes. Is he here to engage with me or not? Certainly in the concerned citizen model of filing, those sorts of people do the things I have said, and further, will actually say something when they have been shown to have lied in their opening statement.