Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Michael Hardy/Evidence

Any editor may add evidence to this page, irrespective of whether they are involved in the dispute. You must submit evidence in your own section. Editors who change other users' evidence may be sanctioned; if you have a concern with or objection to another user's evidence, contact the committee by e-mail or on the talk page. The standard limits for all evidence submissions are: 1000 words and 100 diffs for users who are parties to this case; or about 500 words and 50 diffs for other users. Detailed but succinct submissions are more useful to the committee. This page is not designed for the submission of general reflections on the arbitration process, Wikipedia in general, or other irrelevant and broad issues; and if you submit such content to this page, please expect it to be ignored or removed. General discussion of the case may be opened on the |talk page. You must focus on the issues that are important to the dispute and submit diffs which illustrate the nature of the dispute or will be useful to the committee in its deliberations.

You must use the prescribed format in your evidence. Evidence should include a link to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are inadequate. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those change over time), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log is acceptable. Please make sure any page section links are permanent, and read the simple diff and link guide if you are not sure how to create a page diff.

The Arbitration Committee expects you to make rebuttals of other evidence submissions in your own section, and for such rebuttals to explain how or why the evidence in question is incorrect; do not engage in tit-for-tat on this page. Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop, which is open for comment by parties, Arbitrators, and others. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact, or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only arbitrators and clerks may edit the proposed decision page.

Preliminary statement by Boing! said Zebedee
This all started as a dispute over the article Ancestral health created by User:Michael Hardy, in which User:MjolnirPants was, I think, a little snippy at worst - see User talk:MjolnirPants. Michael Hardy then, in my view, went overboard in response. Rather than simply dealing with PROD or CSD nominations in the normal way, he posted a complaint about MjolnirPants at ANI (linked above), which was closed as inappropriate. He then posted a gem at User talk:MjolnirPants

At User talk:Michael Hardy, User:NeilN tried to calm things, only for Michael Hardy to make clearly false claims about what MjolnirPants had said, calling him "a hard-core bully". I blocked for 31 hours for the personal attacks, but unblocked with a suitable block log reason when a consensus was developing that a block was excessive.

You can see from the above links that Michael Hardy is not listening to the large number of people advising him to drop the stick, and yesterday he repeated his accusations of bullying [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=733368476#I_stand_by_my_accusation_of_bullying. here]. He then went on to make another complaint about MjolnirPants at ANI here, which was quickly closed. NeilN has warned him that a block will come if he doesn't stop, at User talk:Michael Hardy.

User:M. A. Bruhn has uncovered a list of previous problems going back over the years, which apparently include wheel warring and outing (I'd forgotten, but I redacted the outing) - diff.

Michael is an old-school admin who was appointed after this RFA. He has not kept up with required standards of admin behaviour, as he admitted at User talk:Michael Hardy - "However, I've never attempted to keep up with policies not related to my regular activities".

I don't know if ArbCom will consider a desysop of an admin without recent abuse of the tools, but I think the links above show a serious failure to follow WP:ADMINCOND and indicate someone who really should not be an admin. Over to you for your thoughts, and perhaps any other path of action that you might feel is appropriate.


 * Just a comment on User:Bbb23's suggestion that "I don't think is a case about an administrator, but rather a case about an editor who happens to be an administrator". I can appreciate that. But I'd also suggest that this kind of aggressive overreaction can be significantly more intimidating when it comes from someone who is seen to be an admin. Fortunately, MjolnirPants doesn't seem to be easily intimidated, but there are many who would be. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:28, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * 
 * What makes you think I'm bedridden after surgery? I can assure you I am in rude health. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:45, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No problem. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:54, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
 * It's only an attack when there's no link provided to support it. So thanks for reminder - I've provided a source now ;-) Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 21:38, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I want to make one point, pinging The key issue here is the repeated accusations made with no diffs to back them up despite being asked multiple times, and the multiple repetitions of those same unsupported accusations (including here on this page, before they were removed by a clerk). Even at this stage, if Michael will accept the Wikipedia requirement to provide evidence to back up accusations and to accept any resulting consensus, then I'd think we can still back away from this. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:48, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh, and agree to stop imputing extreme emotions to other people, eg "immense anger". Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:52, 10 August 2016 (UTC)


 * There is nothing in that link that *forbids* anything. There are statements of the form "If you do A then I will do B", but that is not the equivalent of "I forbid you to do A". Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:57, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
 * So, we have to go on your interpretation of what you think he meant rather than what he actually said, despite the fact the he has subsequently clearly said that he did not intend to *forbid* you from anything and despite a number of other people disputing your interpretation (and nobody as far as I can see so far agreeing with it)? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:28, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Nothing more to add
I don't anticipate offering any further evidence, as it all seems to have been presented already. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 22:16, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Preliminary statement by Michael Hardy
I have never before encountered any user ordering me not to express disagreement with something he said or to post reasons for that disagreement, nor ordering me not to ask him questions to clarify something he said. He had stated that some pages I linked to existed only for the purpose of selling something. I responded that I could find nothing on those pages that appeared to attempt to sell something. He said at length that it was abusive for me to dispute anything he said and he would absolutely not tolerate disagreement with him. He also said an article I created was a duplicate of another article, but made no attempt to say which other article. So I asked which one. He was immensely angered by that question and told me it was abusive for me to ask about that.

Ordering another user not to disagree with one's statement and also not to ask for a clarification should be considered inconsistent with the way Wikipedia should function. One seeks consensus by discussing things. Respectful disagreement (saying that the linked page shows no sign of trying to sell anything) and a respectful request for clarification (asking which page he thought was duplicated) are an essential part of the process of discussion whose goal is consensus.

Among comments on this episode I find at least two people suggested I resign as an administrator. The first notice I had of that was a question on my talk page: whether I would consider resigning as an administrator. I responded by asking what purpose this suggestion was to serve. That is a natural thing to wonder about that, and that user then expressed immense anger that I didn't answer his question. I'm really surprised at that behavior. I don't owe answers to such questions to every random stranger who comes along; the nature of the question itself suggests some justification should be offered; it was reasonable for me to request a complete statement of the proposal before deciding whether to answer the question or not.


 * What I do as an administrator. In recent years the things I have done that I could not have done without being an administrator have included these:
 * Moving pages over redirects, both involving articles to which I was contributing and those to which others were contributing, in some cases restoring edit histories of the pages that had become redirects (restoring histories can be done only by administrators, if I'm not mistaken).
 * Looking at deleted pages in order to advise their authors about certain things. For example, one might discover by reading the page that it was original research and then notify the author that there is a policy against that. One might think that would become clear in the deletion process.  But sometimes those are conducted in language of those fluent in Wikipedia's rules and customs and even quite intelligent newbies don't understand them.  I don't remember details right now, but I've seen a number of variations on this.
 * More generally, looking at deleted pages in order to understand and occasionally participate in discussions of the merits of the articles and of their deletions.
 * I remember an occasion when an editor was going about indiscriminately deleting the word "conversely" wherever he found it. I blocked him for one hour, reverted a bunch of his edits, posted a notice on his talk page that that word has a precisely defined meaning in mathematical logic (his edits made clear that he didn't know that), and then unblocked him.
 * I think the one time I unblocked someone was when the administrator who had blocked him appeared to have done so out of anger and out of disagreement with the views expressed by the person blocked. That is quite improper.
 * There are some other things, and I haven't made the least attempt to keep track of them.
 * What I don't do as an administrator includes getting involved in disputes among users. And many other things, of course. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:29, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
 * It appears that this section has been edited by someone other than me.  Here again is the principal instance of MjolnirPants forbidding me to dispute his assertions or ask him questions.  I posted this here before. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:34, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
 * One instance of outright dishonesty on this page is the statement from both MjolnirPants and Tarage that I disputed Mjolnir Pants assertion about "selling" instead of working further on the page. I did so chronologically earlier than my further work on the page, not "instead of" working further on it. Michael Hardy (talk) 11:44, 11 August 2016 (UTC)
 * says there is nothing in the link I provided that "forbids" anything. To that I can only say that it must be read within the context in which it was written.  And what if I say this is a nice little shop you got here; it would be a shame if anything were to happen to it.  There is nothing in that that _threatens_ anything, is there? Michael Hardy (talk) 11:52, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

There is no reason for all this.
There is no reason for de-sysop-ing since I have in no way abused administrative tools. The closest I've seen anyone come to a reason is that an administrator should know the various rules applicable to matters raised at ANI. That is an error: There are _other_ uses of administrative tools than those. I have no intention of participating in ANI-type things; I dislike acrimony and I have no stomach for that. (Is there really any administrator who is well versed in ALL things done with administrative tools?) In particular, one thing I have done with administrative tools is looking at deleted articles in order to participate in discussions with people who read them, including their authors (sometimes done via email), and forming an opinion on the merits of the deletion (which potentially could affect the fate of the article). Other things I have done include merging of edit histories and moving pages over redirects that were not always redirects (that requires deletion of the redirect, and sometimes I restore the edit history after that). I have also sometimes edited the main page. None of that involves abuse of administrative tools. The fact that I responded to bullying, gratuitous disrespect, and dishonesty by making accusations of bullying, accusations of gratuitous disrespect, and accusations of dishonesty does not constitute abuse of administrative tools. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:36, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

diffs . ..
Tarage bemoans a dismaying "level of competence being displayed". I daresay with matters to which I devote effort, Tarage would be found wanting in level of professional competence compared to me, but this whole process leaves me with progressively less motivation to treat it with respect and I haven't paid all that much attention to it. There are worthwhile things to do. My use of admin tools has never been involved with dispute resolution, a process for which I have no stomach. I accused Tarage of extraordinarily disrespectful messages to me, and I'll post the diff soon if I'm not too busy, and I guess that makes it worthwhile for Tarage to post things like that. Do I have any "level of competence" beyond that of a rock in using the dispute-resolution aspects of an admin's tools? I hope not.

"clerks"
I find a user bemoaning the fact that I don't even understand what a "clerk" does. All I can say about that is that life is too short to waste on understanding something like that, and I use the word "waste" advisedly.

Guy Macon's anger

 * I responded politely and respectfully to Guy Macon's question here.
 * Guy Macon responded to that with anger here. He says I ignored the fact that he had asked me a question, by asking one of my own, but my own question was for the purpose of deciding whether or how to respond to his question; it was the opposite of ignoring his question. His anger continues to be expressed frequently.  I have no idea what motivates it.
 * If a random Wikipedia administrator is asked by a random stranger whether he wants to be de-sysopped, does anyone expect him not to ask why that is proposed? (Besides Guy Macon, who called that "unmitigated gall" (in the second diff above).)

Comments by MRD2014 and Callmemirela
An editor ordered me not to dispute anything he said and not to ask him questions. That is the worst behavior of a Wikipedia editor that I have ever seen. and accuse me of ordering another user not to disagree with me and not to ask me questions. That is nothing but out-of-context quoting. I was the one who was objecting to such behavior, not the one who was committing it.

MjolnirPants's statements in context
This behavior of MjolnirPants needs to be understood in its proper context, but some people are describing it by saying "he got a bit impatient". Some account of the context is needed to prevent such misunderstanding. MjolnirPant posted two comments about an article I had created when I disputed one and asked a question about the other, MjolnirPants informed me that he was my benefactor and that my engaging in discussion rather than remaining silent was something I was doing INSTEAD OF working further on the article. In fact I was the one who wanted to work further on the article and MjolnirPants was clear that he did not; this was not instead of anything unless I was obligate to limit my activities on Wikipedia to what he told me to do.

Adding another item to the incomplete list
As I said, I really don't keep track of which of my activities depend on administrator's tools, but here's another item I remembered as a result of using it in recent hours: occasional edits to material transcluded into the main page. (I'll add other examples as they arise....)

Double standard
Someone can accuse me of incivility by quoting out of context to make it appear that I forbade another user to disagree with me, when in fact a user forbidding another user to disagree is exactly what I objected to. That is not considered a personal attack, but an accusation, and so it is, although erroneous. But when I said another user addressed me in language suitable only to an overseer addressing a plantation slave, I am told that is a personal attack. So instead I will rephrase my earlier statement and instead say this: (1) Another user ordered me not to express disagreement with him (I've posted the diff here three times), and (2) That is the principal thing I objected to in that user's behavior, and (3) in my opinion, ordering another user not to express disagreement with one's views is behavior suitable only to a master addressing a slave.

Editing while not logged in
Softlavender states at length that administrators are forbidden to edit Wikipedia articles while not logged in. None of the policies he links to backs that up. Could we get an explicit ruling on that point?
 * PS: Softlavender says my statement above misrepresents what he said. That's just splitting hairs. I've never used more than one account on Wikipedia nor attempted to avoid scrutiny nor to deceive anyone.

Softlavender asks me to provide an IP number for my logged-out editing. I cannot, because when I edit from a home computer my ISP changes those numbers every day or two, and when I edit from machines in libraries, university campuses, and other places, I keep no record of the edit. Soflavender says I run afoul of WP:LOGOUT, but that policy says "There is no policy against editing while logged out". He says there is a problem with WP:ALTACCN, but that policy is about alternative accounts, and I have never had any. He says "It definitely violates WP:SCRUTINY". That policy says "it is a violation of this policy to create alternative accounts to confuse or deceive editors who may have a legitimate interest in reviewing your contributions". But I have no alternative accounts and I have never attempted to confuse or deceive anyone by editing while logged out. He says it violates WP:ADMINCOND without explaining how it violates that. He says it violates WP:ADMINACCT, which says "Administrators are accountable for their actions involving administrator tools", but obviously I don't use administrator tools while editing anonymously. He accuses me of "deliberate evasion of scrutiny", but that is false and he makes no attempt to adduce evidence for it. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:26, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Grossly out-of-context quoting from M. A. Bruhn
M. A. Bruhn quotes edit summaries that could be read by those unfamiliar with the context as instances of my calling someone "psychotic". I told people they shouldn't use software packages that generate LaTeX code for use in Wikipedia articles because those packages generate code that has purposeless complications making editing difficult and such code looks as if it was written by a psychotic. Could you revise those so as not to create a misleading appearance?

Preliminary statement by MjolnirPants
For starters, I have posted my own summary of the dispute between me and Michael here. B!sZ, NeilN and Linguist have had their say, and I have little substantial to add to that, beyond conveying what my own experience has been.

After tagging the article for speedy and logging off for the night, I came to WP the next morning to look something up, only to find 14 notifications, including of an email Michael sent me. (The contents of that email are substantially the same as what he posted here). After wrapping my head around all of that, I wrote up my version of events. Initially I thought to post it at the AN/I thread, but since the thread had ceased to be about our disagreement and become about Michael's reaction, I elected to write it on my talk page and post a link to it, there. However, after it became clear that Michael was pushing forward with his accusations against me, I decided not to fan the flames, so to speak, and occupied my time on wiki elsewhere. Since then, I've received ten more notifications over this, the vast majority of which were Michael editing my user talk page.

Clearly, something needs to be done. Throughout this affair (and, apparently in several prior instances) Michael has demonstrated what appears to be a near-complete lack of those social skills necessary to collaborate with others on a project like this, especially in the position of being an admin. I agree 100% that his status as an admin should be revoked at this point. While he has yet to do any damage with his admin tools, the longer this goes on, the more I'm convinced that will become a question of when, not if. MjolnirPants  Tell me all about it.  15:43, 7 August 2016 (UTC)


 * I just want to respond to one thing that Michael has been repeating over and over again, because it seems to strike at the heart of this issue. He claimed I "forbade" him from disagreeing with me. In fact, I explicitly told him I would be happy to continue arguing with him about the article even after I hatted it for speedy deletion. Just to be clear, I told him one thing, and he has been repeatedly claiming that I said the exact opposite, in the face of multiple people correcting him. MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  22:38, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Michael Hardy
Michael has lately been arguing primarily that (,  & ) has done something wrong, which I find greatly troubling, as Guy's 'offense' was to demonstrate some empathy for Michael ( look at the edit summary: Guy's clearly making an effort to be congenial here). He's completely avoided addressing his own behavior, except to blame others, cast accusations against anyone who disagrees with him ( and the diffs about Guy, above), demonstrated a profound disconnect between the way he sees his actions and the way others see them , failed to cooperate with these proceedings, or even to understand how they work and even denigrated them.

One can argue that he's never abused his tool: This is false, as has been adequately documented by others. It also ignores the fact that WP:ADMINCOND states quite clearly that an admin can be desysopped for bad behavior not related to the admin tools. One could argue that his contributions are impressive, except it wouldn't be an argument: No-one's said otherwise. One could even argue that was the one who turned this into a big stink. but none of those arguments addresses the fact that Michael got into a minor argument, blew it out of proportion, refused to drop the stick even after being told by numerous people and has demonstrated a profound lack of understanding or respect for the policies and processes of Wikipedia.

Finally, regarding that last argument I mentioned in the previous paragraph, here are all of Michael's edits concerning this issue, prior to the ArbCom request. If you click through those, you'll find no lack of hyperbole, accusations, aspersion and sarcasm. There are even some bald-faced lies in there. It seems to me like Michael was doing more than his fair share to call attention to this and feed the drama, as it were. I counted the edits made by Boing, as well. He had 5 fewer edits. I suppose one could argue that he contributed as much as Michael by overreacting. But here's the thing: Maybe his reaction was based on the completely understandable shock at seeing an admin act like a brand new editor with a persecution complex. (For the record, that "maybe" was sarcastic.) I'd be shocked, too. Perhaps I would overreact, and perhaps Boing's initial block was an overreaction. (I doubt anyone would suggest that if Michael were, in fact, a new editor.) But Boing demonstrated the ability to listen to others. I want anyone who disagrees to note the timestamp on that diff. This was very early in the drama. Boing didn't even participate in the subsequent thread Michael opened about me at ANI. So I think it's fair to say that blaming Boing is just wrong. That just leaves one person responsible for this drama, and it ain't Jimbo. MjolnirPants  Tell me all about it.  17:56, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Michael Hardy's statement in the section titled after me
I just read it. Every statement of fact within it is either a distortion or flatly untrue. This is, I suspect, why he has thus far chosen not to back his accusations up with diffs. I never told him I was his "benefactor" (nor used any equivalent language), I never told him I was unwilling to help work on the article (I've since implied that I would have been willing, intentionally), I never told him I'd hat the page if he made any Wikipedia edits other than to edit the article (I told him I would hat it if he kept responding on my page without making changes to his article), I never 'ordered' him to do anything, I never told him what his place was in anything... Absolutely nothing in that statement is true. The more he speaks, the more I start to question when his claims pass from accusations into personal attacks. After this last one, I certainly feel personally attacked. (struck portions referred to portions of Michael's post which have since been removed) MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  19:21, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Preliminary statement by NeilN
Please see this exchange. This whole matter has been blown way out of proportion by Michael Hardy. The first ANI thread shows he does not understand how deletion tagging works. Copying from my close, "Absolutely does not belong at ANI. Editors can tag articles at any time if they feel, using good faith, the article should be deleted. The reviewing admin will take into account objections on the article's talk page." An editor saying they will tag an article if improvements aren't made and then tagging the article when they feel the other editor wishes to argue/discuss rather than improve the article is a valid action. It may be hasty or based on an incorrect perception but it is not "ordering far more experienced users not to express disagreements with you." 

The opening of a second ANI thread, after discussion on multiple pages and a brief block, shows a clear lack of judgment, far below what is expected from an adminstrator. --Neil N  talk to me 13:47, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Regarding "MjolnirPants and at least one other user told me that I was forbidden to express disagreement with them", I tried to get a diff from Michael Hardy for that but failed (see first diff in my initial statement). --Neil N  talk to me 23:06, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
 * "...admin action is concerned, that should have been that." That would have been that hadn't Hardy opened a second ANI thread, essentially duplicating the first, and continued his misrepresentations on a variety of pages, including even here. --Neil N  talk to me 12:41, 8 August 2016 (UTC)
 * With regards to, "hasn't had the opportunity to step back" - I think you're wrong here. Michael Hardy has had plenty of opportunities to step back. Instead, he's charged forward. Witness his actions on the talk page of . Guy asks Michael to stop posting there. Instead of stepping back, a couple days later we get the bizarre characterization of "Would you be willing to request a voluntary desysop?" as "a personal question on a stranger's talk page" accompanied by a mini-lecture.  --Neil N  talk to me</i> 09:33, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Michael Hardy falls below the standards outlined in WP:ADMINCOND
Beyond my statement above, please look at the following: Now, arbs, who among you would respond this way? The response indicates a blatant disingenuous or a lack of competence to parse a simple English sentence. Hardy follows up his attempt at deflection with this entirely wrong assertion. Editors often use "we" as a matter of necessity. "We don't accept unsourced contentious statements in BLPs." "We decided to do x." (after an RFC is closed) Yes, this is a trivial bit of evidence. But add that to what Hardy has said above: "Out of the blue he asked whether I would want to be de-sysop-ed when I had no idea such a thing was being considered by anyone". Guy's question came hours after the block and these posts. If Hardy truly thinks the question was "out of the blue" his judgment is once again seriously lacking. --<b style="color:navy">Neil N </b> <i style="color:blue">talk to me</i> 03:32, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Almost two weeks after the situation that triggered this case we have this. One would think Michael Hardy would have the sense and judgment to drop the accusation he has repeatedly provided no diff for. --<b style="color:navy">Neil N </b> <i style="color:blue">talk to me</i> 06:43, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

{Write your assertion here}
Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.

Preliminary statement by M. A. Bruhn
I'd like to start off by saying that I originally had no intention of getting involved in the dispute in ANI as I felt that for the most part comments being added were just unnecessarily escalating a situation that should die down on its own. Looking through ANI logs though I saw unresolved discussions perennially brought up about removing the admin status of MH, commonly rehashing the same points presented here. With this in mind I felt it would be good to lay everything out and have a discussion about this in hopes to end this topic from being brought up again. With that said I'll go ahead and transcribe my summary from ANI below:


 * 2005 - MH is rebuked for protecting page that they are engaged in an editing dispute over
 * 2007 - MH starts an ANI discussion complaining of two admins who deleted an article whose AfD they closed (6 delete vs. 1 keep by MH) who he states "appear very very hostile to Wikipedia's conventional norms and procedures". MH is subsequently pointed out to have been wheelwarring against three other admins on this page's deletion. MH argues that the AfD was not an umambiguous vote for deletion since notices where not posted in places like the math wikiproject, and additionally states "Most people who spend all their time on AfD are bad people."
 * 2008 - MH is subject of ANI discussion about stalking after leaving an unprompted antagonistic and demeaning essay on someone's talkpage regarding a dispute between them which occurred over two years prior. MH makes comments such as "I don't think that user should be forever excused from having to be reminded of that episode before that question is answered.", justifies his calling someone "mentally challenged" by saying "I was defending the victim against the bully when I wrote that second word, and I confidently stand by the word "liar"". Also "I was not insulting him; I was accusing him."
 * 2009 - MH is subject of ANI topic for calling another users comments "bullshit" multiple times, and wheelwarring with two other admins even leaving an edit summary while reverting the first admin reading "his deletion looks like another attempt of speedy deleters to look as if they lack common sense."
 * 2012 - MH has comment redacted (by none other than Boing! said Zebedee) for outing violation


 * I'd like to echo some of the sentiments expressed below about digging through MH's edits looking for dirt. For this reason I almost posted a comment earlier requesting that other users consider not bringing forward additional evidence unless they feel it significantly changes the merits of accepting this case, but felt it inappropriate to make such a request for my not being a clerk or arbitrator. However, for what it's worth I'd like to go ahead and make that request anyways. M. A. Bruhn (talk) 19:43, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

MH posts bitey message to Mim.cis's talkpage, Mim.cis ceases editing
Mim.cis (contributions) is apparently an expert on computational anatomy associated with John Hopkins. They started editing in November and maintained over 241 edits a month until May (link to edit count). In the time they were here they created the following articles: Computational anatomy, Group actions in computational anatomy, Bayesian estimation of templates in computational anatomy, Riemannian metric and Lie-bracket in computational anatomy, Large deformation diffeomorphic metric mapping.

On May 5th MH posts a message on Mim.cis's talkpage titled "TOO MANY CAPITAL LETTERS" which scolds Mim.cis for creating problems for others to fix. Mim.cis posts to MH's talkpage stating they didn't realize there were issues with their capitalization and asks MH to explain more, and MH responds explaining to only capitalize the first word at the start of sections/articles unless there's a reason to do so otherwise. After posting to MH's talkpage, Mim.cis only makes four more additional edits, all within a month. Since then their account has made no further edits.

Statperson123 stops editing after interaction with MH
User Statperson123 (contributions) made their first edit on 17 January by creating the article Vector generalized linear model. Between then and 25 January they make over 200 additional edits to the article. On 26 January MH makes three edits in a row to that page, the first one with the edit summary "a vast amount of formatting cleanup". After this he posts to their talkpage. There's no more activity from Statperson123 since.

Before forming a judgement I would recommend looking at these two articles versions, and trying to find any differences:
 * Version last edited by Statperson123
 * Version after MH's edits

The bulk of MH's admin actions could still be performed by granting Page Mover Status
I defined "In the last year" to mean from the start of August 2015.


 * Blocks: he hasn't performed a block/unblock in 4 years (31 August 2012).
 * Total deletions and Deletions from last year: in the last year he has made 14 deletions and 4 restorations. 12 of those 14 deletions contain the edit summary "G6: Deleted to make way for move".
 * Moves from last year: he has made 166 moves.
 * Page protections: one from over ten years ago

The rest appear empty to me, but I may have missed some...

MH exhibits consistent problematic behavior unbefitting an admin
I don't know how to best illustrate long-term problematic behavior that just barely glides under the radar. I've gone ahead and just posted one example per month this year of such behavior which I feel highlights incivility, lack of familiarity with policy, biteyness towards new users, and condescension when discussing minor MOS/MATHMOS corrections.


 * January: “I think the "essay-like" tag not only has no merit but is probably the work of a crack-pot, and the "technical" tag is unreasonable.”


 * February: “The TeX code in this article was written by a psychotic. This cleans it up somewhat.”


 * March: Deletes speedy deletion template on article he created.


 * April: “Unilateral page moves without engaging in discussion”


 * May: How they tell a new user not to capitalize the first letter of each word in article titles/section headings.


 * June: “Obviously \setminus has the spacing appropriate to binary operation symbols and \backslash does not.”


 * July: How they notify a 4-day old account of their article being proposed for deletion

I can understand letting an admin slide here and there, but is this really appropriate for an administrator?

Per his statements I will mention that his comment about a psychotic is not personally directed at a specific editor, and that Harvey intended his comment to be directed at a computer program which he presumes an editor used to generate the LaTeX that they posted rather than at the editor themselves. M. A. Bruhn (talk) 05:36, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Michael Hardy has been Uncivil
Evidence of incivility by admin Michael Hardy:. Also, when Guy Macon politely told him to not post on his talk page for any longer, he didn't honor that request, he just criticized him. More: failure to AGF, failure to drop the stick,,. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 17:34, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

{Write your assertion here}
Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.

Hardy did not abuse his tools
Self-evident, but apparently this needs to be said because everyone seems to have lost their mind. Please don't try to dig up dirt from 2012.

Nothing egregious happened
The "disruption" is a grand total of two ANI cases over two days, both dismissed very quickly. The second one probably never would have happened without the ill-considered block by Boing! said Zebedee, which they, to their credit, reversed quickly. All other drama is people poking Hardy (mostly on Hardy's talkpage) and Hardy replying to them, mostly but not always civilly. No less than 15(!) distinct people (many multiple times) posted on Hardy's talkpage, mostly unsolicited, about this matter. List of people: MjolnirPants, Dane2007, Cullen328, Tarage, NeilN, BSZ, SPhilbrick, Guy Macon, Orange Mike, Callmemirela, Omni Flames, Trovatore, Linguist111, Miniapolis, Opabinia Regalis. Many of them were well-intentioned, but many were aggressive, offering unsolicited opinions about how Hardy is not fit to be an admin any more. It's easy to fix this: stop posting on Hardy's talkpage (or anywhere else) about this matter.

The dispute had already cooled down by the time this ArbCom case was opened
The article at the center of the dispute is now at AfD where it is being handled appropriately. Since the 2nd ANI case was closed, there has been basically no drama whatsoever.

Also please see the timeline in my original statement and GoldenRing's timeline, which is more detailed but covers a smaller time period. Kingsindian &#9821; &#9818; 19:54, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Guy Macon
Background: When I noticed this case at ANI, as far as I could tell, nobody had ever asked Michael Hardy whether he actually wants to be a Wikipedia administrator. So I asked.

Note that I was very careful to not express any opinion about the behavior of Michael Hardy or the person he accused when he posted to ANI. I was not just following WP:AGF; at the time I really had no opinion about Michael Hardy's repeated claims of being bullied. All I wanted to do was to save everybody time and effort. Before starting a time-consuming arbcom case that may have the result of removing the admin bit, shouldn't we at least ask him whether he wants to be an admin?

My post to his talk page was a good-faith attempt at kindness; I figured that there was at least a 25% chance that he never wanted the tools in the first place and would have no problem asking that they be removed. I figured that If I was right, it would have avoided a lot of unpleasantness, and if I was wrong, he would simply say he wants to keep the tools and that would be the end of it. I certainly would welcome a concerned editor having a word with me on my talk page if it looked like I was headed for arbcom.

Regarding Michael Hardy's repeated (and, as usual, diif-free) claims that I posted my question without explaining why I was asking, My reason for asking was contained in the words "considering the discussion at [ link to ANI thread ],...".`

Here is the ANI thread as it looked when I asked my question: Here is the archived version: Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive930

Here are some quotes that MH would have seen if he had clicked on that link:


 * "Do we really have to put up with admins like this who give us all a bad name?"


 * "I'm saying that he isn't using the tools, hasn't used them for quite a while, and is probably "badly out of touch with current admin expectations"."


 * " [ Michael Hardy is ] one of the early Admins who was simply granted the tools - so far as I can see without requesting them. He got them Dec 2003, and his last use was to unblock someone about 4 years ago, and before then in 2010. I'd like to see him resign the tools."(emphasis added.)


 * "Yes, I completely agree that old-days admins who haven't used admin tools in years and who are badly out of touch with current admin expectations should lose them, ideally by resigning." (emphasis added.)

Linking to the ANI thread instead of copying all of those negative comments to his talk page was a kindness. I was trying to avoid humiliating him any further.

An admin should have the basic competence to understand that when someone starts a paragraph with the words "considering the discussion at [ link to ANI thread ]" the reasons why they wrote the paragraph can be found by clicking on that link.

Michael Hardy lacks the temperament required of a Wikipedia administrator
I have certain expectations when I ask a Wikipedia administrator a reasonable question. I pretty much always get a clear answer, or perhaps a followup question if my question was unclear. You don't realize how easy it is to collaborate with the average admin until you run into one who acts the way this one acts. Instead of simply answering my question, Michael Hardy evaded the question and tried to get me to help him fight MjolnirPants. (The "I need to know the purpose of your question before I answer" song and dance came later.)

Michael Hardy has a battleground mentality
At this point I disengaged and unwatched his talk page, because it became clear that Michael Hardy was far more interested in sucking me into his fight with MjolnirPants than he was in answering a good-faith question about whether we really need to invest the time and effort of an arbcom case. I disengaged, stopped responding, and unwatched his talk page. That should have been the end of it.

Then he tried to restart the fight on my talk page. and when I asked him to not post to my talk page, he did it again, violating the law of holes, This shows a battleground mentality and is, in my opinion, conduct unbecoming of an administrator. I could ask a thousand admins if they were willing to voluntarily resign, and not a single one of them would refuse to answer or accuse me of "posting a personal question on a stranger's talk page." That's simply not how admins behave when someone questions their behavior.

Links:
 * User talk:Michael Hardy
 * User talk:Guy Macon
 * User talk:Guy Macon

Michael Hardy makes dubious statements about misbehavior of other editors, refuses to provide diffs
Michael Hardy keeps posting descriptions of his interactions with other users with no diffs. Multiple people have told him his description of events is not what happened and have asked him to supply diffs, but I have yet to see him do so. That's another thing that is pretty much normal behavior when conversing with admins; if you ask for a diff to a claim about what someone said, they simply provide the diff with no drama or accusations of bad faith. You don't miss that kind of behavior until you run into an administrator who doesn't behave that way.

Michael Hardy excuses his behavior by referring to what other editors did.
Even after this case was filed and he should have been his best behavior, Michael Hardy has shown no understanding of why so many people are reacting in a negative way, and has doubled down with a series of WP:NOTTHEM arguments. Two wrongs do not make a right.

There once was a drunk driver who was driving the wrong way on the freeway. Upon hearing on the radio (over the honking horns) that there was a drunk driver who was driving the wrong way on the freeway, he peered through his windshield, noticed all of the headlights heading toward him, and exclaimed "My God! There are DOZENS of them!!"

Incivility, refusing to drop the stick, but no abuse of tools
Michael Hardy has not been civil, like on Tarage's talk page saying he forbid to disagree with him, which he also did on ANI and gave the section the title of "I forbid anyone to disagree with me!!". He also would not drop the stick. looked through the ANI archives and brought up these. was appalled that Michael Hardy is still an admin. I also want to say that he has not abused the admin tools: only one protection (eleven years ago), deletions were mainly for pages blocking page moves, and the last block came six years ago. Michael Hardy also clarified that another Wikipedian ordered MH to not disagree with him. Retracted first part of statement because I misunderstood what happened. — MRD2014 T C 14:35, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Nothing to see here as far as abuse of admin buttons is concerned
I hope the Committee will try to keep in mind that in the "old days" it really wasn't a big deal to give a person access to buttons as long as it was pretty obvious that the person in question wouldn't abuse them. 100,000 admins using the buttons once in a while would comport to the "old school wiki way" much more than 30 or 40 super-active admins doing all the work and getting upset at any all-caps ADMIN that dared to question them.

A few questions about his use of the tools from 2008 and earlier have been brought to light, but these were not recent, and MH currently uses the tools in a helpful but often unlogged manner, avoiding conflict and conflict resolution.

The origin of the hooplah
This all seems to have started with Micheal Hardy writing a short new article that falls within the wheelhouse of the WP:FRINGE patrol. User:MjolnirPants ran across the article while patrolling for fringiness, and left a perhaps a bit too imperative message on Michael's page about it. Michael then tried to engage MjolnirPants in argumentation about the validity and policies involved. MjolnirPants mistook Michael's argumentation for being argumentative (and perhaps TL;DR), and gave an even more imperative reply. Micheal then mistook MjolnirPants's imperative stance for imperiousness, and brought it to AN/I hoping for outsiders to resolve the dispute. AN/I closed the discussion without resolution to his complaint (instead -- bizarrely -- blocking him and then reversing the block), and he started a new thread (he clearly doesn't understand the culture of AN/I, which is enviable), then was accused of being a "bad admin".

To be clear: MjolnirPants's comment here was dismissive to the point of being insulting. Why he and a number of others are not parties to the case when Micheal Hardy is a party is mysterious.

How the hooplah became this mess
User:Guy Macon was apparently offended by Mr. Hardy's behavior at AN/I, and took it upon himself to speak for the community and demand that Michael resign as an admin. Micheal, apparently unaware of the way the culture has shifted lately, was surprised and offended by this. One or two other people who really have nothing to do with all of this got involved and supported bringing this case. Micheal is clearly really unhappy about being dragged into a process that he has apparently never paid attention to, and has typed some things that are certainly impolitic.

I'm pretty sure that sums this up in its entirety.

Evidence presented by Callmemirela
''Word count: 462 words. Diff count: 22''

Lack of civility
Michael has been uncivil on occasions:,.

Disruptive/Battleground mentality
After Michael filed their initial ANI thread and it was closed, he opened another thread regarding the same topic. No admin should act this way.

Michael goes by his rules. When Guy Macon asked him to not post on his talk page, he ignored the message and went on to post another message.

Refusal to drop the stick
Michael is adamant that pursuing the issue at hand and the same argument is going to solve everything. He refused to drop the stick during this whole chaos. He was told by more than one editor and two admins that Mjoir (sp?) was not bullying or personally attacking Michael. He didn't listen. ,, , , , ,.

I then posted on his talk page. That didn't improve the situation. As per the section above (Disruptive/Battleground mentality), he opened another ANI thread copied from his reply to my message on his talk page.

I had refrained from commenting further and just watch the drama unfold when Michael, again refusing to drop the stick, by posting on my talk page on August 19. This user refuses to let it go.

Makes false accusations
Michael has made false and absurd accusations against me. He accuses me of accusing him of a behvior explained in his message on my talk page: (also this edit). I have never said such. If I have, someone please direct me to a diff.

After he posted on my talk page, I requested that he not post on my talk page as he was refusing to let it go, had a battleground mentality and was making false accusations against me:. Now he claims that I am harassing him without providing any evidence and I have not done so:. I have only posted on his talk page three times (not including fixes to indentation; can be confirmed here). I have never interacted with him beyond the ANI report and here. Yet he accuses me of harassment.

Conclusion
All in all, Michael is unfit to be an admin. It's as if a teengager took over the keyboard and when things didn't go their way, hell breaks loose. He is not up-to-date with current policies and guidelines. He pursues the same argument and worsens the situation. You would not expect this from an admin; I certainly don't. I was appalled. An admin would look at the situation at hand, act civilly and try to fix the mess that was caused. No, Michael ran to ANI, claiming it's the other user's fault. And when NeilN close his thread, he got mad and opened another thread. He is in no position to be an admin based on his behavior lately. No admin should act this way. Plain and simple. Had he gone through the current RfA, he would not had made it. I am more and more against Michael keeping his admin rights.

Michael Hardy refuses to accept any error on his part
It's not hard to find diffs for this, but here's a handful from this very case. There are far too many to list because you can see it from every statement he has made. Michael refuses to accept that he has erred at all. From the beginning, he has been running under the mistaken assumption that MjolnirPants was demanding that he not disagree with him. This was never the case, and multiple editors have tried and failed to explain this to him. The issue at hand is that instead of trying to work with MjolnirPants, he went on the attack, giving no indication that he had any desire to make improvements to his article or to work collaboratively. Far more disturbing though is that because he got such backlash from his outburst, he decided it was appropriate to plaster the same sort of "Listen to me or else" argument he thought MjolnirPants was presenting on other's talk pages, mine included. I honestly don't know if this was out of sarcasm or intended to be taken at face value, but either is behavior unbecoming of an administrator. It's petty, uncivil, and uncollaborative.

Michael Hardy has no desire to use his administrator tools to be an administrator
From his own talk page: "One thing I do moderately frequently that a non-administrator cannot do is moving pages over redirects, so your statement about 2012 is not correct. However, I've never attempted to keep up with policies not related to my regular activities." The only thing he uses his tools for is to move pages over redirects. He refuses to keep up to date with current policies, refuses to use his tools for the betterment of Wikipedia, and takes offense when asked if he would be willing to give them up. Michael is a valuable editor, and has contributed much to Wikipedia, but as an administrator he has contributed nothing. The fact remains that even if he never uses his tools, the fact that he has them, and because he does not keep up with policies could use them against said policies, creates a direct chilling effect on anyone who tries to work with him. If he does not use them, does not need them, and refuses to relinquish them, they should be removed from him. --Tarage (talk) 05:08, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Michael Hardy doesn't even understand what a clerk is/does
Again, the diff comes from this very case page: "I now find it explicitly admitted that others have edited this section.", even though the clerk in question left a message on his talk page explicitly explaining why it was edited and even gave him 24 hours notice before doing so. This is an administrator on Wikipedia. This is the level of competence being displayed. --Tarage (talk) 09:03, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Mr Ernie
I could never understand how events like the Salem Witch Trials could have occurred in human history, but now I’m having the opportunity to watch one play out right in front of me. This ridiculous case started because Michael Hardy and MjolnirPants had a content dispute that spilled over to ANI, an escalation that happens all the time and should have ended there. Boing! issued a poor block on Michael Hardy, which then led to drama seekers joining in once they learned MH was an administrator grandfathered in by the previous “RFA.”

Guy Macon then posts a ridiculous question on MH’s talk page, akin to walking around your neighborhood asking your neighbors if they would consider moving out. See KingsIndian’s section for more evidence of sniping posts on MH’s page. If the bad block and talk page harassment didn’t occur, we wouldn’t be here. Arbs, please consider this when reviewing MH’s later behavior, as I believe it was provoked by the needless ANI drama and editor’s needlessly chiming in with their opinions on his talk page.

I link to SB_Johnny’s evidence section of MH’s abuse of administrator tools.

MH was mildly uncivil in his later behavior, but measured against the block, talk page harassment, and needless escalation to arbcom this behavior does not warrant a desysop, or further continuation of this charade. The community is more than capable to handle this issue without Arbcom's help. Mr Ernie (talk) 15:23, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Evidence presented by David Eppstein
This is more in the way of a preliminary statement than actual evidence, but too slow to prevent the juggernaut started by the ANI thread.

As background: Michael Hardy is one of the most active and valuable members of WikiProject Mathematics. His actual edits to content are often gnome-like, but thorough, basically making sure all mathematical content here meets some minimum standard of formatting quality. More than this, he holds together the community by frequently posting on WT:WPM pointers to pages in need of attention or to relevant discussions. An attack on him is an attack on mathematics content in Wikipedia.

Second, it is clear that the locus of the recent dispute did not involve any improper use of admin tools. So to use this dispute as a pretext for removing those tools seems ridiculous.

On to my actual point: if there is a long-term pattern of activity here, it is one that does not involve Michael Hardy specifically. Instead, it is a problematic pattern I have seen with some other admins (not Hardy!) and with the witch-hunt mentality at WP:ANI:
 * A long-term constructive editor happens to fall into a disagreement over something minor with an in-crowd admin. In this case the editor, Hardy, happens to be an admin himself, but that's not important for what happens next.
 * The editor tries to discuss the matter with the admin, rather than just immediately agreeing to the admin's side of the dispute. This is misinterpreted as defiance.
 * The mob at WP:ANI, getting wind of the dispute, takes the position that the editor in question failed to bow down before the almighty power of the admin.
 * The editor, still seeing no evidence of having done anything wrong, refuses to grovel for forgiveness.
 * The WP:ANI mob sees the refusal to grovel as "not dropping the stick" and "not being here" and demands permabanning, desysopping, etc
 * The community trawls through the editor's past history for past disputes to fuel the case. Because the history is long, there is always something to be found, and now there's a "long-term pattern of problematic behavior".
 * ARBCOM tries to find a decision that will give both sides part of what they want and ends up handing out a punishment that is not quite as severe as the mob demands.
 * Wikipedia loses yet another editor who was making valuable contributions (if the punishment is a ban or the editor is chastened enough to quit) or at least dampens the editor's enthusiasm for the project (if the editor has thick skin).

So if ARBCOM is to take up this request, I would much rather they look at how to prevent this bad dynamic than at who deserves what kind of punishment. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:50, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

We've been here before
This ArbCom case is almost identical to this previous ArbCom case. The question asked then is the same as the question asked now, i.e. does behavior that is not so ideal disqualify one from being in a leadership position when that behavior was not relevant to exercising the leadership role? Given that in the previous case the decision came down to not removing the Admin, this case should be decided in the same way. Count Iblis (talk) 06:35, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Michael Hardy has edited mostly anonymously for approximately five years
Michael Hardy stated on 6 August that he has done most of his editing anonymously in recent years. Since he's been here more than 14 years, "in recent years" could mean five years, and in fact his edits from this account dropped off significantly exactly five years ago:. If he kept the same editing pace but mainly anonymously, this means five years of up to 1,000 anonymous edits a month.

Since there's no declaration on his userpage of an alternate account or that he mostly edits logged out, this appears to me to fall afoul of various policies such as WP:LOGOUT and/or WP:ALTACCN. It definitely violates WP:SCRUTINY in my mind, which is especially important for an admin.

I think the fact that the majority of an administrator's editing is done anonymously is highly problematic, and I think it is a violation of WP:ADMINCOND and even WP:ADMINACCT (due to the seemingly deliberate evasion of scrutiny). I think the community, and ArbCom, need to investigate this. If articles or pages are repeatedly being edited both logged out and logged in, that definitely violates the policies. Furthermore, I'd like for there to be some explanation given, either to the community or privately to ArbCom via email, of why most of this very prolific and very longterm user's/administrator's edits are being done anonymously.

I'd like to formally request that either declare his anonymous editing (accounts or IP or whatnot) to ArbCom via email (per the policies, and to ascertain whether articles/pages are being edited both logged out and logged in [or with two different accounts]), or that a CheckUser be run by ArbCom or at its behest, or that some other way of investigating, dealing with, and/or stopping this is enacted. Softlavender (talk) 02:11, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Response to Michael Hardy
just wrote that "Softlavender states at length that administrators are forbidden to edit Wikipedia articles while not logged in", which is clearly not what I stated or requested above. This pattern of misrepresenting what other people say or even intend, while evading the issue and request at hand, is becoming universal, and in my opinion is yet another reason this editor should not be an administrator. Softlavender (talk) 04:31, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Additional comments
I have been uninvolved in the events in this case, and did not make a statement in the case request or investigate to unearth evidence beyond the glaring admission noted above (which was a diff someone provided during the case request). However, having read the statements and evidence of those who have provided evidence, I'd like to state that I hope that ArbCom takes the evidence provided by others very seriously, especially since we've got well-considered and very specific evidence from two of the very best and most respected, circumspect and rational administrators on Wikipedia (and therefore I hope their evidence is given appropriate weight). Softlavender (talk) 02:23, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Michael Hardy has apparently refused scrutiny of his logged-out editing
Above I linked to a statement that reveals Michael Hardy has done most of his editing logged out in the past five years, probably at a rate of up to 1,000 logged-out edits per month. I requested that at the very least this mass logged-out editing be revealed anonymously to ArbCom via email. Since he has seemingly in effect refused, and since this mass logged-out editing appears to me to violate WP:SCRUTINY (1,000 or so logged-out edits a month is essentially equivalent to having an undeclared alternate account), particularly for an admin, I would again like to request that ArbCom make that investigation themselves, since non-Arbs and non-CUs are not able to. Softlavender (talk) 12:02, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Salix alba
I would first like to support David Eppstein's view that Michael Hardy has been a very valuable member of wiki project mathematics.

Admin actions
It is worth examining Michael's admin actions.

He has deleted 13 pages this year mainly to make way for moves. He has not blocked/unblocked anyone since 2012, he not change page protection since 2005. I can't see any other admin actions.

From the point of view of wiki project mathematics. Michael Hardy admin actions are a net positive. --Salix alba (talk): 08:02, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

User:Mim.cis
I'm not quite sure why Hardy's interaction with is being brought up. If you look at their talk page you will see quite a few other editors were concerned with Mim.cis's editing, particularly and an earlier discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2015/Dec. I also tried to help as I know a little on the subject he was working in. Mim.cis contributions were all on his academic specialty: Large deformation diffeomorphic metric mapping, and Computational anatomy and very biased to the work from his lab. Both articles still need a lot of work to clear up, being full of over precise details on the details of Mim.cis's research work. If anything the case illustrates the problem with Expert editors who never quite get to grips with the way wikipedia works. --Salix alba (talk): 06:32, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Editing while logged out
Sock puppetry says there is no policy against editing while logged out. In User talk:Ritchie333, I happily admitted editing logged out as an IP recently and explained the reasons for it. <b style="color:#7F007F">Ritchie333</b> <sup style="color:#7F007F">(talk) <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  11:20, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

{Write your assertion here}
Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}
Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.