Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/20 December 2005/Ward Churchill

Initial request

 * Request made by: Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:58, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * Ward Churchill


 * Who's involved?
 * User:Fluterst and other brand new single-page editors from time to time.


 * What's going on?
 * I would tend to characterize the activity as vandalism. However, I reported it as such at Administrator intervention against vandalism, and User:Taxman commented on my user talk page that s/he did not consider it such.  The edits by Fluterst range from merely bad (POV, violating WP:V, etc) to really awful.  In the latter category, Fluterst has repeatedly inserted this lead:


 * Ward LeRoy Churchill (born 1947 October 2) is a disgraced American academic, arguably the most hated in the country.


 * The topic of this page is an academic whose writing has been the subject of media controversy lately, largely following the pattern of a Joseph McCarthy-style witchhunt. Fox News, in particular, has made something of a crusade to demonize Churchill.  So the topic draws many editors whose entire contribution history consists of such edits to this one page.  User:Karmafist appropriately put a 60 day block on User:Keetoowah for such activity (following a prior RfAr).  But new users like Fluterst keep popping up with similarly destructive edits.


 * However, some users who join solely to edit this one page make non-destructive edits. For example, User:Pokey5945 and User:Whosear have both behaved OK, even though they each edit only this one page.  I also have a hunch that there is some meatpuppet/sockpuppet stuff going on; but at my request, Karmafist investigated whether Fluterst might be a block evasion by Keetoowah, and the answer is negative at first blush.


 * Update: It appears that Fluterst is now also making legal threats, contrary to No legal threats: . There's some ambiguity about what he is threatening, but given that the editor has only ever touched two pages Ward Churchill and Bill O'Reilly, one can guess an intention.


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * This is the hard part to answer. I'm hoping the Cabal will have advice.  When the  tag is implemented, that seems like it would help, since it is often new users that come along to vandalize/edit badly.  However, that is not everything, since Fluterst is no longer among the very newest users (s/he keeps re-vandalizing the page over a number of days).


 * If it were an option, I can imagine a variety of software changes that would help deal with this sort of problem. Something along the line of semi-protection, but stronger seems like a good idea to me.  But clearly this cabal isn't going to do this.


 * I'm very hesitant to try to wrestle through a months-long RfC or similar for a user who will probably just create a new account to insert the same rants.


 * If you'd prefer we work discreetly, how can we reach you?
 * I don't mind discussing publicly. But emailing me at wikipedia at gnosis dot cx might be good for advice on what tools to pursue.

Mediator response

 * I have been looking at Fluterst's edits, and they definitely classify as POV. I am leaving a message in his/her talk page. Olorin28 04:10, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * However, some edits are also not very radical. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters, you might want to make a list of what changes you want to keep. Olorin28 04:14, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It's definitely a mixture. I don't think there has been one single change by Fluterst that I would call an improvement; but a lot of them are merely "ordinary bad edits".  A lot of times when I see new editors to a page I work on (not necessarily new to WP as a whole; and not necessarily this Ward Churchill page) who make poor/POV edits, I try to keep a few of them to show a spirit of compromise, while removing the most extreme excesses.  But it's hard to find anything by Fluterst that actually merits keeping.  That said, if the only slightly bad edits had occurred by themselves, I'd probably either leave them, or only tweak them slightly.  The problem is that they always get mixed in with the truly horrendous diatribe stuff. Also, some of the stuff that seems only slightly bad is worse than it seems, because it actually represents a rollback to an old version where the change was hashed out on the talk page (which is part of what makes me think about sock/meatpuppetry). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 04:27, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I've had some experience at this article with Requests for comment/Ward Churchill, and I must say that no matter what Fluterest's issues are, I'd give a shot at working with him, because that article has suffered alot due to the obstinance of Keetoowah. I haven't seen any of the new edits from Fluterest in a bit, but I did get a checkuser and Fluterest and Keetoowah are on different continents, so there's some hope for compromise at least, which I think is more important than the article itself at times since it makes us remember that we need to strive for NPOV, often we can't do it without help from someone who disagrees with us. However, he has to do the same. Let me know if he doesn't. karmafist 16:42, 22 December 2005 (UTC)