Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Dionyseus

Case Opened on 10:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Case Closed on 20:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

Involved parties


In 2005, FIDE Chess Champion Veselin Topalov was accused of cheating during the San Luis World Championship. This has been widely reported in the chess media, and Dionyseus would like to remove all mention of this cheating.

Statement by Daniel Pi

 * (Please limit your statement to 500 words. Overlong statements may be removed without warning by clerks or arbitrators and replaced by much shorter summaries. Remember to sign and date your statement.)

REVISED STATEMENT (6/16/06):

Dionyseus has demonstrated an unwillingness to compromise, a propensity to disagree for the sake of disagreeing, bias, ignorance of Wiki policy, disrespect for Wiki principles, and general incivility. I'd appreciate the opportunity to present these claims to Arbcom with evidence.

He has repeatedly made edits without discussion or consensus on phrases that he knew to be controversial. He has (in my opinion) deliberately misrepresented my views to argue the straw man. He has declared undemonstrated support from the chess and wiki community. He has misrepresented the purpose of mediation, results of mediation, and he has now broken the compromise agreement.

He has unilaterally dismissed as illegitimate my many citations and deleted my edits without consulting either myself or other editors. He has also falsely accused me of sending him death threats, repeatedly RV-ing my personal talk page (on this note, he claims to have my IP and email address- I am more than happy to provide mountains of evidence that I have only one email account that I have been using for years, which is not the one he claims is mine. It should be easy enough for admins to verify the IP he claims is mine is not actually mine).

His arguments mutate over time, when they become untenable. He initially accused me of being NPOV (which he believed to mean "Negative Point of View," which he considered forbidden by Wiki- how articles about Holocaust, Rwanda, Watergate Scandal can be non-negative, I can only guess). When informed that NPOV was "Neutral Point of View" (and a good thing) he then tried to argue that the (currently unprovable/un-disprovable) cheating allegations were false. He then tried to argue that the news of allegations were not widespread. He then tried to argue that unless proven, they should not be reported on wiki (contrary to precedent on wiki entries for Lance Armstrong, OJ Simpson, and other "accused"). Subsequently he has resurrected arguments, switching variously from one to the other, claiming victory and then switching arguments when he is reminded why previous arguments have been untenable.

Also, Dionyseus has a history of violating 3RR:
 * Wii [][][]
 * Elo Rating System [][][]
 * Garry Kasparov [][][][]
 * Vladimir Kramnik [][][]

I would be happy to provide more evidence if Arbcom feels it necessary, but I feel I've made my point.Danny Pi 19:58, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Dionyseus has also evidently made counterclaims against my behavior in his statement. I am of course happy to refute these, should Arbcom agree to hear the case.Danny Pi 05:36, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

And I would also like to add this one last piece of support: the following editors have indicated support for including the cheating allegations in the article: Subseven, LinuxDude, 70.23.236.205,  SWAT Jester     Ready    Aim, Supinejsupine. The only support that Dionyseus has received has been from Ryan Delaney, who I believe is demonstrably biased and non-objective.Danny Pi 00:27, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Dionyseus
DanielPi's claim that I am unwilling to compromise is false. I went through mediation and we compromised, I only broke that compromise now because of the new evidence I found. I'm willing to include the cheating allegation if Topalov gets accused again and the accusation is widely reported. Daniel's claim that the allegation was widely reported are false and this was demonstrated in the mediation case.

As for DanielPi's evidence that I have a history of violating 3RR, a quick look at my ban log will show that I've never been banned. Also, DanielPi reported me for 3RR once and the officials declared we were both wrong but they decided not to punish either of us because the issue was minor.

Looking at his evidence that I violated 3RR for the Wii page, I see only 3 links, to violate 3RR you need four reverts under 24 hours. The first link is not a revert, it is me protecting the page, the user posted a Fair Use image, but a Free Image exists and according to policy if a Free Image exists it must be used. The second and third link is me protecting the page again for the same reason.

As for his evidence that I violated 3RR for the ELO Rating System article, as you can see he only provided 3 reverts.

As for his evidence that I violated 3RR for the Kasparov article, his fourth link is dated April 26 and it is not a revert I simply was attempting to fix the box in the article, whereas the first three links are dated April 27, thus no violation of the 3RR. As for his evidence that I violated 3RR for the Kramnik article, first of all I see only three links. The first link is not even a revert, I was fixing an anonymous editor's false claim that the Braingames World Champion didn't exist, it certainly did exist and I provided citations for this at the Kasparov talk page.

DanielPi deleted an administrator's warning for personally attacking, from his user page. 

Joebeone, who was the moderator in the mediation case, supports my stance that the cheating allegation should not be included in the article without reliable, credible sources. Ryan_Delaney, who was one of the involved parties from the mediation case, also agrees with me that the allegation was not widely reported.

The cheating allegation was not widely reported at all, Daniel's claim has already been disproven in the mediation case months ago. Please look at the discussion page and the mediation case, Daniel's claims that I am an irresponsible editor are false, in fact it is Daniel who has repeatedly resorted to name calling. Before that mediation case, the Topalov page was at peace for many months until Daniel showed up and repeatedly inserted the cheating allegation into the article. In the mediation case we agreed to restrict mention of the cheating allegation only to the external links section, and the Topalov page was at peace again. A few weeks later I thought that after Topalov's impressive win at Mtel 2006 in which he won the last four games in a row against world class grandmasters, Daniel would no longer care about the wacky cheating allegation so I removed the mention, but I saw that Daniel still cared about it so I placed it back as per mediation agreement. Daniel however was not satisfied with that and attacked me which prompted me to search for information about Soltis, the author of the article that contains the cheating allegation, and I found evidence that Soltis cannot be considered a reliable source. According to respected chess writer International Master John Watson, Soltis has a tendency to exagerrate to put drama and excitement into his articles, he is also known for using unreliable sources and passing them off as being reliable.

Furthermore the person who made the allegation has remained anonymous. He has remained anonymous for eight months! No one other than Daniel has mentioned the allegation for over half a year. If Topalov is accused of cheating again and the accuser identifies himself, and the accusation is widely report, then and only then would I support the inclusion of the cheating allegation.

Now as for the death threats, I did indeed receive those two death threats from Daniel, I can provide the IP and the emails if requested. Dionyseus 00:27, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (5/0/0/0)

 * Reject without prejudice until a request is presented providing specific evidence (with diffs) of a user conduct issue like edit warring or incivility (and not content). Dmcdevit·t 00:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * This has now been done, I think. James F. (talk) 23:28, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * And accept now. Dmcdevit·t 03:58, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Accept. James F. (talk) 23:28, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Accept. Agree with James.  Conduct not content.  Sam Korn (smoddy) 18:14, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Accept. But (to clarify) we should be looking most closely at whether this was an attempt to defame, or OTOH neutral reporting. Charles Matthews 20:26, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Accept. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 03:40, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Temporary injunction (none)
=Final decision = All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)

Biographies of living persons
1) Biographies_of_living_persons provides "Unsourced or poorly sourced negative material about living persons should not be posted to articles or talk pages. If you find any, please remove it immediately. " (This specific language is in Template:Blp). Removal of poorly sourced negative information about a living person is an exception to the 3RR rule, Three-revert_rule.


 * Passed 8 to 0 at 20:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Courtesy
2) Users are expected to be reasonably courteous to each other, see Civility and No personal attacks.


 * Passed 8 to 0 at 20:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Verifiabiliy
3.1) Verifiability is a fundamental policy. When including negative information about living people one must be particularly careful that the information comes from reliable sources.


 * Passed 7 to 0 at 20:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Allegations
4) Determining the point at which widespread allegations of an unproven offense become so significant in themselves that information about them are properly included in an article is a matter of editorial judgement. On the one hand, the fact of widespread rumors or allegations may be verifiable, on the other hand, mere allegations ought not stand in for confirmation of an offense.


 * Passed 8 to 0 at 20:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't bite the newbies
6) Please do not bite the newcomers requests forbearance toward users who make mistakes related to inexperience.


 * Passed 8 to 0 at 20:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Locus of dispute
1) The locus of this dispute is Veselin Topalov, a biography of a living person. There are a number of specific issues but the prime one is inclusion of negative information regarding Veselin Topalov, see Talk:Veselin_Topalov.


 * Passed 8 to 0 at 20:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Danielpi has been discourteous
2) has been discourteous to Dionyseus . This resulted in a warning by   which he deleted from his talk page Requests_for_arbitration/Dionyseus/Evidence. After Dionyseus made several newbie mistakes couldn't recognize a comma splice and thought NPOV stood for negative point of view Danielpi expressed open contempt  and.


 * Passed 8 to 0 at 20:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Other forums
4) The disputed information has been considered and published by professional journalists.


 * Passed 8 to 0 at 20:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Death threats
5) There is no evidence by checkuser or otherwise which offers credible evidence that the threatening email received by Dionyseus came from Danielpi.


 * Passed 8 to 0 at 20:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Remedies
Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Danielpi banned for personal attacks
1) Danielpi is banned for one week for discourtesy and personal attacks.


 * Passed 7 to 0 at 20:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Editing recommendation
2) It is recommended that Veselin Topalov be edited in accord with the guidelines at Biographies_of_living_persons. Special attention is drawn to Biographies_of_living_persons and Three-revert_rule making removal of poorly sourced negative information from the biography of a living person an exception to the three revert rule (3RR).


 * Passed 7 to 0 at 20:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Recommendations to Dionyseus
3) It is recommended to Dionyseus that he consider carefully the suggestions of others regarding punctuation and other matters he is not familiar with. It is no use arguing about well established punctuation conventions.


 * Passed 7 to 0 at 20:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Log of blocks and bans
Log any block, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision here. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.