Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Henri Coanda/Evidence

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Lsorin has not accepted consensus
Lsorin holds the belief that the Coandă-1910 was the first jet airplane in the world, and that this belief is "the mainstream opinion". Evidence presented by the majority of other editors shows the mainstream view of the world to be that the first jet airplane was the Heinkel He 178, and the first practical jet engine patented somewhat earlier by Frank Whittle. Lsorin has not been able to move beyond this basic problem, and wishes to have English-language Wikipedia tell the world the Romanian version of The Truth.

Lsorin has not been too concerned about how the desired result is accomplished. One way to make the aircraft be acknowledged as the first jet is to get rid of English Wikipedia's negative version of it. On 26 September 2010 he proposed to either delete the whole article or to delete the negative assessment from aviation historian Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith. 1 November saw a second deletion proposal. Another way to get there is to get rid of me, a solution proposed on 28 September: "...I really think we need to update the article without your input Bisksternet..." On 2 November he said to me "You started to poison this article since you started to touch this article." He called me the article's WP:OWNER.

A third way to have the aircraft be the first jet is to mute the opposing voice of Gibbs-Smith: Lsorin has repeatedly attacked the character and expertise of Gibbs-Smith. On 30 September, he proposed that Coanda's own words were equal in notability to Gibbs-Smith. On 2 October, he argued that Gibbs-Smith was not neutral and not a careful or complete historian. On 8 October, Lsorin said Gibbs-Smith "was never a reliable source for this article" and "was never a reliable source in the history of early aviation". On 10 October, he said the aviation expert was "irrelevant", "mistaken" and an unreliable source regarding the Coanda-1910. He said Gibbs-Smith believed in "time travel and phantoms". On 27 November he wrote that Gibbs-Smith was "the foremost liar of the aviation history."

Attacking NASM Curator Emeritus Frank H. Winter as a reference was another strategy of Lsorin's. On 10 October he tried to paint Winter as unreliable because his article was next to another article about another topic. Lsorin said that Winter was a freelance writer, not a historian. On 8 November he said Winter was "wrong", "misleading", "biased". Lsorin said Winter's article was "lies", was "ignored by the mainstream", that Winter "did lie in a very biased fashion" and that he and Gibbs-Smith were "two liar historians".

I don't believe that Lsorin is willing to accept consensus about the article. I propose that he be indefinitely topic banned from editing anything related to the Coandă-1910, broadly interpreted. Binksternet (talk) 17:33, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Locus of the dispute
The locus of the dispute is the Coandă-1910, an early experimental aircraft constructed by a Romanian engineer in 1910, and in particular the question of whether it qualifies as the first jet aircraft. There seem to be at least two aspects of the underlying content issue discernible: (a), conceptually, whether the type of machine invented by Coandă would qualify under the modern definition of a jet engine, and (b), historically, whether the aircraft actually flew. All participants agree that there are some reliable sources that mention it as the first jet aircraft, while there are others that argue against this view. The editorial dispute has been mainly over Lsorin's insistence that the article should assert the pro-jet view as a fact, particularly in the lead section.

Lsorin has become a single-purpose account
While he had a larger range of editing topics earlier, Lsorin's editing since September 2010 has been exclusively focussed on the Coanda-1910 case.

Lsorin has refused to accept consensus about neutrality
While according to a consensus of all other editors, the weight accorded to those sources that call into question the status of the Coanda-1910 as the "first jet aircraft" is sufficient to prevent a simple assertion of that status as a fact in the lead, Lsorin has persistently pushed for versions that make such an assertion, unhedged, based on his perception of what is the "mainstream" and the "majority" among the reliable sources.

Other forms of disruptive editing
Spurious deletion tagging ; misuding "clarify" tags for adding POV dispute into article. WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT and process lawyering over edit-warring blocks: ANI thread

Lsorin shows failures of communication
It is illustrative of Lsorin's problematic manner of communication and his tendency of misunderstanding or misrepresenting others how he repeatedly cites a sarcastic remark by, which mentioned Arbcom as an option through which Lsorin could get himself banned if he wished to, as if it was a serious recommendation for Lsorin to take the case to Arbcom

Admin intervention
Lsorin was blocked four times between September 2010 and January 2011, for 24 hrs, 31 hrs, 1 week and 2 weeks respectively, all because of edit-warring on the Coanda article and related articles. Related AN3 threads: here. Following the latest block he was given a stern warning by myself. He later stated that "I know that my account will be blocked immediately, when I will start editing again the article Coandă-1910"

Other disruptive editors
Lsorin had one opponent, aka, who seems to have been a disruptive influence, editing the article under an ideological–nationalist perspective. This editor has been inactive since October. His activities may have contributed to Lsorin's perception of his opponents being motivated by an anti-Romanian national agenda.

Lsorin has made no efforts to solve the dispute since January
No diffs, because he did nothing. Lsorin was told by arbitrators during his previous attempt of filing a case that he might re-file it if "the dispute" wasn't resolved after a reasonable while. But in the weeks following, he did absolutely nothing to solve it.

Lsorin has not brought forward any tangible evidence of misconduct of other editors
No diffs, because he said nothing. (The only thing he has so far accused his opponents of on this page is that two of them agree with each other, hence they should be treated as meatpuppets).

The Coanda article has been developing well in Lsorin's absence
No further disputes since January; passed Good Article review in February

Uninvolved admin status
Since Lsorin has questioned whether I should be acting as an "uninvolved admin" in this matter, I'll explain: my only contact with the dispute was in a routine image deletion case. I nominated an image for deletion in January (FFD discussion). While the image itself was related to the area of dispute, the reasons for and against deletion were not; they were a routine NFC/replaceability issue and as such quite orthogonal to the content dispute. In fact, while the uploader was Lsorin, it was his content opponent Andrew Dingley who argued most actively for the keeping of the image at the FFD.

Evidence presented by Lsorin
I’m not a native English speaker, so I think I won’t not be able to articulate all the issues efficient enough, but I will try my best as I know this cannot stand as an excuse. Until August 2010 the article was more or less stable. After the xenophobic attack of the User:Romaniantruths with the clear scope of defamation of Henri Coanda, User:Binksternet and his wikipedia "friend" User:Andy Dingley, became the sole owners of Coanda-1910, controlling fully any attempt to remove their biased point of view, and using the Coanda-1910 as a message, of don't "play with us" in other articles. All what I wanted, was a normal discussion with Binksternet and Andy on following the Wikipedia rules and get the introduction of the article written with the correct weight and notability according to the mainstream especially on a historical subject. Binksternet and Andy transformed basically the in article in a personal parade of Frank Winter’s “jokes” regarding Coanda-1910 and his former NASM colleague Gibbs-Smith “forever” misinterpretations related to the events around the plane, disregarding fully and even ridiculing sometimes academic, museums (Binskternet statement: I think that museums are not doing their jobs), scholars of Coanda and foremost historians. My stance is driven as well by the WP:NPOV statement of Jimmy Wales with regard, especially to the scientific and historical related subjects.

Refusal to build consensus
Consensus was never reached for the leading section of the article. I did try several times to build up consensus,, and restart it as new relevant sources have been published during the dispute (e.g. Antoniu's monograph was published on 1 of October 2010 and I managed to get a hand on it in November), but in all the cases Binksternet and Andy refused to discuss or to reach any agreement. Andy admitted that the current situation is just a stalemate as my edits are controlled by him with EW, and he did not even try to reach consensus, even the I asked him openly to discuss.

This is a response as well to Binsksternet statement that I did not agree with consensus. Binksternet never participated in consensus build up. With Andy we started a discussion but is was closed forcibly and never restarted.

Ownership of article
Binskternet extensively shows nearly all classic signs of article ownership, supported by a "fanatic" behaviour, even that is he was pointed out not to use such absolutist positions like: "I resist any attempt to redefine the term" and "Gibbs forever". Even today when this case is open here in ArbCom, Binsksternet still shows signs of WP:OWNER and WP:GAME not pointing out that Gibbs-Smith, was demonstrated as unreliable source in regard to Coanda-1910, by missing sources or lying, in regard to Coanda-1911.

Engaging in WP:CTDAPE
Andy and Binskternet are permanently engaged in driving away editors. In my particular case Andy has accused me of sockpuppeting in the middle of my first EW block, even that few hours before the administrator Amatulic wrote on my talk page that I was not involved in sockpuppeting.

Disregard of NPOV and ELPOV
Many editors including myself we pointed out to Binksternet the missing NPOV in his edits, but he still continued to ignore those comments: "I suspect that an older editor, Binksternet, influence this, and others here, acording with his own wishes and disregarding even the NPOV." With the introduction of the Frank Winter latest speculation it was pointed out that WP:ELPOV is not satisfied, as the existing link represent only the minority point of view, but still Binksternet did not show any willingness to change the situation.

Edit Warring
Binskternet edits
 * "Minor changes" which removes relevant references.

Andy's edits
 * Removed new added references: "Ajoutons qu'un modèle réduit de cette turbine fonctionne au stand occupé par M. Coanda dans la salle d'honneur du Grand Palais", taking my edit to ANI without even giving a chance to discussion before and after the block. In the same revert he disregarded other editor additions.
 * As Andy's initial Edit Warring request was declined, I have reverted the Jet Engine article to the state before it was taken to ANI. Andy complained about my revert ( done in GF), without any discussion and got my account blocked. Immediately after my account was blocked, he reverted the changes of another editor without any discussions and removing the added references.

Disregard of WP:UNDUE
Currently the introduction to the article is pure example of pseudoscience, supported by Binksternet and Andy only ( no other editor has reverted my changes to the introduction ). While according to WP:UNDUE the rebuttals shall be presented in the introduction of the article with the correct prominence, now the whole introduction is ignoring completely the mainstream.

Disregard of WP:POLL
The results of a poll was used by Binksternet to close an RFC not the consensus. In that RFC, no consensus was ever reached and Binksternet's discussions were not even related to the topic of the RFC. Disregard of the WP:POLL policy directly by Binksternet: "It is not Wikipedia policy that polls are evil".

Disregard of WP:VERIFY
"Exceptional claims require high-quality sources." It was proved in several rounds that Gibbs-Smith and his former colleague Frank H. Winter are not high-quality sources in regard to Coanda-1910. In particular Gibbs-Smith stated that Coanda-1911 as the previous Coanda-1910 "it had no retractable undercarriage, no wing-slots, no wing tank" disregarding or missing clear evidence from the additional patent FR15849 to the main patent FR441144, patent FR446246, L'Aero magazine from 7 October 1911 describing clearly the retractable gear "Un verrou, que l'aviateur manoeuvre de son siège, en permet l'escamotage en vol, et une plaque de télé glisse automatiquement devant l'ouverture qu'elle obstrue", pictures and later studies. With his background expertise in engines, Andy not initially knowing were the "the first full-scale reactive-propelled machine" statement was copied from, declared that the statement is plainly wrong, basically rendering the Frank H. Winter article as not a high quality source. Still Binksternet and Andy refused to admit that Gibbs-Smith and Frank Winters are not high quality sources or not even reliable, in regard to Coanda-1910.

Original research
Term Jet Engine - and "I resist any attempt to redefine the term "jet engine" to include Coanda against our traditional references which state that the first jet engine needed to have combustion in the air stream to be so defined." Binksternet Evidence starts with an WP:NOR. Indeed Heinkel He 178 was undeniable the first turbojet, using the first practical jet engine and according to the mainstream, Coanda-1910 was the first jet-propelled aircraft (Coanda never said that he designed a turbojet ) Several other jet-propelled aircraft existed before Heinkel He 178 ( one example Lippisch Ente ). Regarding Frank Whittle another break of WP:NOR as Hans von Ohain is considered the co-inventor and the first turbojet patent was written by Maxime Guillaume in 1921.

Meatpuppetry
According to WP:MEAT Arbitration Committee decision "whether a party is one user with sockpuppets or several users with similar editing habits they may be treated as one user with sockpuppets" Andy's and Binsksternet's accounts shall be treated as one sockpuppet regarding the Coanda-1910 edits.

Disregard on WP:AGF
In several rounds Binksternet and Andy did not assume the good faith on my edits. From very early edits Andy did not follow the AGF: "Be civil and follow dispute resolution processes, rather than attacking editors or edit warring with them.": his first try to EW. Andy reverted my additions with the statement rv the (anticipated) instant POV push by user:Lsorin, as soon as user:Binksternet was blocked for an unrelated reason.

Response to Evidence presented by Fut. Perf.

 * Lsorin has become a single-purpose account: As a user I can choose what article, I can focus on. Is there a WP policy that users shall edit different articles?
 * Lsorin has edit-warred: The edits were done is accordance to the WP:BOLD most of the times and following discussions in the talk page as new sources were added. Some of them were reverts of Binksternet edit-warred edits.
 * Lsorin has refused to accept consensus about neutrality: Consensus was never reached regarding the lead of the article as Binksternet and Andy refused to participate to discussions. Even now when the article is GA and in ArbCom the neutrality of the lead is disputed.
 * Other forms of disruptive editing: I asked the admins to attention regarding the issues at Coanda-1910 especially regarding Gibbs-Smith. At the time I did not know about the deletion policy.
 * Admin intervention and Lsorin has made no efforts to solve the dispute since January: Explained already in the Workshop

Evidence presented by 75.57.242.120
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Lsorin is clueless about policy

 * Lsorin claims on this very evidence page that Binksternet and Andy Dingley are meatpuppets of each other.

(To Lsorin: the arb principle you cited is about how to deal with the sudden emergence of unknown or previously uninvolved editors whose arrival evokes the impression of off-wiki coordination or improper canvassing. It has no applicability at all to established, long-involved editors like the ones you named.  You cited WP:MEAT but apparently didn't check the actual arb principle that WP:MEAT cited.  It clearly is only for situations where it's unclear whether we're dealing with independent or coordinated editors).

Lsorin's wikilawyering

 * This will do since PD is already being voted on.

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