User talk:RicoCorinth/sandbox/Argyriou

Your unsourced addition violates Wikipedia:Verifiability
You added, to the homeowners association article's introduction, that HOAs "exist for enforcing the covenants, conditions, and restrictions and managing the common amenities of the development." You didn't, however, cite any source.

Wikipedia articles should only contain verifiable content that has been published by reliable sources. When you added new material, you should cite a reliable source. The obligation to provide a reliable source for your addition lies with you.

Per Wikipedia:Verifiability, an official Wikipedia policy, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. 'Verifiable' in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source."

Please cite a source for your addition.

Thanks, Rico 18:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Your vandalism violates WP:AGF, is generally disruptive
You deleted a dispute tag that produces this: "[this source's reliability may need verification]." In the edit summary of your edit you wrote, "remove redundant attempts to discredit source."

How can you possibly know that the intention of the editor, that tagged the external link, was to discredit the source? This allegation depends on your ability to know that the editor was not acting in good faith.

Also, you removed the dispute tag without any discussion, much less consensus, on the article's talk page. Had the source's reliability been verified? You admit yourself that the source is "a lobbying group."

Please stop alleging that other editors are acting in bad faith in your edit summaries. Also, please don't summarily remove any more dispute tags without even so much as trying to get consensus on the article's discussion page.

That looks like vandalism — and it is inherently disruptive, because it makes another editor do double work in putting back a tag you've summarily deleted. Editors doing non-value-added, double work aren't working on the Wikipedia and their focus is distracted.

Thanks,

Rico 19:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Injecting POV by deleting published content, and by altering it, radically changing its meaning — with no discussion
Within your massive change, was a little edit that was covered up by the massive change. The original content was sourced, citing a peer-reviewed book published by Yale University Press. Your edit spins the prose, turning part of it around 180 degrees from its original meaning.

This is what it said before your changes: HOA boards of directors operate outside constitutional restrictions because the law views them as business entities rather than governments. Moreover, courts accept the legal fiction that all the owners have voluntarily agreed

This is what it says after your changes: HOA boards of directors are not generally bound by constitutional restrictions on governments because the law views them as business entities, and accepts that all the owners have voluntarily agreed

Suddenly, the acceptance is changed from "legal fiction," to a simple fact. And it is no longer "courts" doing the accepting, but "the law" — an unsourced, new statement.

There is no specific warning of any of this in your edit summary, which vaguely states that the edit is to "reorganize and start to de-POV."

These changes don't "reorganize", and — rather than "de-POV" — they radically convert sourced content into POV. What the professor was writing, that HOA boards are (private) governments, is summarily deleted.

No source is provided for your edit — but what's worse, is that a peer-reviewed textbook still remains as the source of content that's been altered so radically, that it is far from what was published in the source cited!

Here's another example:

This sourced material was in the article before your changes:  This disenfranchisement may violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In essence, homeowner associations establish a new community as a municipal corporation without ensuring that those citizens who will be governed have a voice in the decision-making process.

This is what remained after your changes:  Critics argue that homeowner associations establish a new community as a municipal corporation without ensuring that the residents governed will have a voice in the decision-making process.

Your edit changes material that is stated as a fact, in the source cited, into something "critics argue."

Who are these "critics"? The source cited was the Urban Land Institute, a developer organization. The developers are the ones creating the homeowner associations. The ULI isn't an organization of HOA "critics". That would hurt sales, and developers seek to maximize profit!

The bottom line is that no source is provided to equate the ULI and "critics".

Does anything negative about HOAs have to be prefaced with the words "critics argue"? Lots of people criticize politicians. Indeed, they criticize one another. Many of the things that have been published about politicians are negative, but that doesn't mean that everything negative published about them has been "argued" by "critics". Some of it is just straight fact.

Finally, your edit removed this sourced statement: "This disenfranchisement may violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." There was no discussion of the reverting.

"Reorganize and start to de-POV" doesn't describe this summary deletion.

Go away.
I'm rather annoyed by your incivil tone and accusations of vandalism. You're not welcome to post to my talk page any more, and I'm not going to take your complaints at article talk pages seriously. Argyriou (talk) 20:07, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Alleged incivil tone

 * Your post (above) does not specify what about my "tone", you allege was "incivil". In the absence of any substantiation of something as nebulous and subjective as a "tone", I cannot address your accusation. However, making such an allegation — without substantiating it — could be considered "incivil" in and of itself. Nothing I wrote targeted you personally, just your edits.

Accurate accusation of vandalism

 * As for my "accusations of vandalism" — in the first place, I only characterized one of your edits as vandalism. So referring to it as "accusation s ", is a distortion of the truth.


 * More importantly, here is where I wrote that your edit fit the description of vandalism — accurately! Vandalism states:

 Wikipedia vandalism may fall into one or more of the following categorizations:

[…]
 * Improper use of dispute tags: Dispute tags are an important way for people to show that there are problems with the article. Do not remove them unless you are sure that all stated reasons for the dispute are settled.


 * The tag produces "[this source's reliability may need verification]."


 * This tag is listed as one of the dispute tags.


 * Your edit summarily deleted the tag, with no discussion, even though there was no verification done of the source's reliability. You refer to the source as "a lobbying group."


 * Your edit summary merely stated that it "remove[d] redundant attempts to discredit [the] source."


 * What I wrote on your talk page was, "How can you possibly know that the intention of the editor, that tagged the external link, was to discredit the source? This allegation depends on your ability to know that the editor was not acting in good faith."


 * Since you cannot know that the intention of the editor(s), whose content your edit removed, was "to discredit [the] source," your edit summary assumes bad faith.


 * One of the Five Pillars of Wikipedia is that Wikipedia has a "code of conduct." "Respect your fellow Wikipedians," it states, "and assume good faith on the part of others. Be open and welcoming."


 * Assume good faith states that it is "a guideline on Wikipedia ... that all users should follow."

Userspace vandalism

 * Adding insults to user talk pages is defined by Wikipedia as "userspace vandalism," yet:
 * You entitle your post "Go away"?You post that you're not going to take my "complaints" at article talk pages seriously?You post that I'm "not welcome to post to" your "talk page any more," as if posting that I'm 'unwelcome' bans me from doing so? You write that I'm accusing your edit of being vandalism — as if I was doing something wrong — even though your edit fit Wikipedia's description of vandalism?You accuse me of writing with an "incivil tone" with no substantiation?</ol>
 * Posting for me to "Go away" is insulting (but convenient).
 * You can take whatever you want seriously, but posting an announcement on my talk page that you are not going to take what I write on article talk pages seriously, looks like an insult. The only other purpose I can think of for it would be to try to dissuade me from posting on article talk pages, but that would not be a valid Wikipedia purpose (although, perhaps, convenient).

Intentionally making non-constructive edits

 * Your misguided, ill-considered, detrimental, undiscussed, massive edits have added, removed, and changed content and compromised the integrity of Wikipedia.


 * Some of your edits border on sneaky vandalism:
 * Adding plausible misinformation to the homeowners association article.
 * Edits hidden within a massive edit and therefore not reverted when the massive edit is reverted.
 * Reverting legitimate edits, hindering the improvement of the homeowners association page.


 * This borders on sneaky vandalism:


 * Removing tags in order to avert deletion of an external link that may violate WP:EL may be considered avoidant vandalism.

Reply by Argyriou
The article Homeowners association, as I found it on 8 February, was a mess. The entire tone of the article was that of a left-wing hit-piece on homeowner's associations, citing every minor or misplaced criticism ever made, while couching the few statements regarding the benefits of homeowners' associations in multiple qualifiers, and with attempts to impugn the credibility of the sources. Shortly before my arrival, RicoCorinth had made a series of edits which increased the leftward and anti-association slant of the article. While most of Rico's statements were atrributed, they are primarily attributed to one or two hatchet-jobs attacking homeowners' associations for a variety of imagined sins.

Specific examples of undue weight and POV language in Rico's earlier edits:


 * "===Illiberal and profoundly undemocratic==="
 * "In a variety of ways, CID private governments are illiberal and undemocratic. "
 * "Merriam-Webster Online defines democracy as government by the people; especially: rule of the majority — a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them."
 * "The structure of corporate governance fashioned by corporation laws is essentially a "top down," oligarchical structure."
 * "Only property owners are eligible to vote in elections, so renters are disenfranchised, but still subject to the board's authority."
 * "This ownership qualification for voting raises constitutional questions, especially considering the large number of rented units in many developments."
 * "Serious legal issues arise in terms of equal enfranchisement of all citizens, since HOAs exclude renters from membership. " (uncited)
 * "These private governments may violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." (uncited)

After I stuck a pov tag on the article, and explained my issues in the talk page, Rico made an edit which he claimed was "removing weasel words" where he introduced the the highly POV text: and another POV edit in which he calls my changes vandalism:
 * "a rationale that remains the most common justification for the loss of freedom inherent in a development run under a regime of restrictive covenants."
 * "There are crucial legal questions regarding the extent and substance of legitimate citizen participation."

Many of Rico's additions to the article are sourced, but they still violate WP:NPOV by placing WP:undue weight on criticisms of homeowners' associations from a particular left-wing perspective - the (IMO foolish) notion that all corporate endeavors ought to be run in a democratic fashion and that people are easily fooled into agreeing to restrictions on their actions which are against their best interests. My edits have attempted to correct the leftist POV in the article, removing crap like
 * "The origins of how this came to be here in America, the bastion of democracy"
 * "This quiet acceptance of homeowners associations was accomplished by the mass merchandising of the planned community model by entities with a strong business profit-making motive, who published and distributed TB#50 as the tool to overcome any objections by the public, the real estate agents, the mortgage companies, the state legislatures and the local planning boards."
 * "Over the 42 years since the publication of The Homes Association Handbook, it has become the “bible” for the mass merchandising of planned communities with the accompanying affect on American society, its values and the loss of individual property rights, and the loss of fundamental rights and freedoms upon which this country was founded. "

and fixing criticisms presented as bald assertions of fact such as:
 * "Associations wield the power of a government without having to submit to the checks and balances and other responsibilities of one."

Rico's behavior during this dispute failed to meet minimal standards of courtesy. First he posts to my talk page complaining that I have not told him what specific details I think need to be changed, when I'd clearly stated that the problem was a holistic issue with the article, not a few specific issues. Rico's inability to recognize his left-wing POV as left-wing POV makes it impossible to constructively work with him on this article, or any other. User:Jance, who generally shares Rico's leftist POV, was capable of understanding that she had a POV, and I was able to work constructively with her on some changes to the article. Rico just attacked me and accused me of vandalism. I will not work with him on articles unless he changes his tone significantly. Αργυριου (talk) 23:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)