Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Editing of Biographies of Living Persons/Evidence

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User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) is making a huge number of edits contrary to correct style and contrary to consensus
Statement - This Arb Request has to do with a seemingly minor issue of style, but one that is being repeated so often, on so many articles, that the cumulative effect is a notable detriment to Wikipedia.

User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) ('RAN') is an extremely prolific editor with over 47,000 contributiions. A great many of his contributions are in the form of adding references to articles. When he adds reference footnotes, he usually makes use of the "quote =" parameter available in citation templates. Unfortunately, in most of these edits, the quote parameter is used for no good purpose; he simply takes a quotation from the source without considering whether that quotation adds information to the article or simply repeats information already in the article. At times his quoted text is completely irrelevant to the footnoted portion of the article.

This use of quotations--where the quotation adds no significant and relevant information to the article--is not in keeping with standard citation practice, and to my knowledge it has never been used in an article that has achieved Featured Article status.

Here are some illustrative dif.s:

Quote is irrelevant to footnoted text: Quote repeats information in the article: Quote is irrelevant to footnoted text and repeats information elsewhere in the article:
 * , ,
 * ,, , ,
 * ,, , ,

Given the number of RAN's edits, it would be possible to list literally thousands of examples like this. Each one is only a minor dis-improvement to its article, but taken as a whole, they represent real damage to Wikipedia. Furthermore, this damage is happening because of a single, relatively isolated lack of understanding on RAN's part.

As noted in the Arbitration request page by others, this has issue has come up between RAN and other editors before, and a clear consensus was expressed in this dicussion. RAN has ignored this consensus.

If the ArbCom could make a ruling that directs RAN to use quotations in footnotes correctly, then Wikipedia will greatly benefit. Alternatively, if the ArbCom can show me in what way my reasoning about this issue is incorrect, then I'll stop making this objection and a longstanding dispute will be settled.

User:Alansohn and User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) supporting each other in content disputes
Alansohn and Richard Arthur Norton often work as meat puppets for each other, one appearing at an article to do tag-team reverts when the other is in an edit conflict.

In each of the cases below, one of the pair suddenly appeared as a new editor to an article, although he had never edited it before, after the other got into an edit dispute. The newcomer's first act as editor was to support his partner in the dispute. I have not included articles where both members of this pair had edits before a dispute arose. Neither have I included cases where the issue was vandalism rather than a content dispute. Since the average WP article doesn't have many committed editors, the automatic agreement of these two editors is often enough to overrule anyone who disagrees with one of them.


 * Dane Rauschenberg, Alansohn in dispute, RAN joins in; history, sample dif
 * Annie Lee Moss, RAN in dispute, Alansohn joins in; history, sample dif
 * G. David Schine, RAN in dispute, Alansohn joins in; history sample dif
 * Hearts and Minds (film), Alansohn in dispute, RAN joins in; history, sample dif
 * Joyce Kilmer, RAN in dispute, Alansohn joins in; history, sample dif
 * Percy Lavon Julian RAN in dispute, Alansohn joins in history, sample dif
 * Wenatchee sex ring, RAN in dispute, Alansohn joins in; history, sample dif
 * Ghost Town, Oakland, California, RAN in dispute, Alansohn joins in; history, sample dif
 * Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir RAN in dispute, Alansohn joins in; history, sample dif
 * Homeless dumping, RAN in dispute, Alansohn joins in; history, sample dif (partial restore of one of RAN's more excessive quotes)

User:Alansohn and User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) "stonewalling" on G. David Schine
RAN and I have some content disagreements at G. David Schine, not related to footnote quotes. After I entered the request for this Arbitration hearing, Alansohn joined in this debate, and the pair set about stonewalling me in any changes or corrections I wanted to make to the article, however minor. This was done not only through reverting me, but also by engaging in a pretense of discussion. This can be seen in the last half of Talk:G. David Schine. Alansohn and RAN use insults, threats, non-sequitur, circular arguments, willful illogic and willful ignoring of points put to them, all to avoid responding to the simple and direct point I raised. Alansohn did all of this in defense of the position that 3 footnotes were required in the article to document the never-disputed, non-controversial fact that Schine had worked as a consultant for Joseph McCarthy. These footnotes had been added by RAN, due to his misunderstanding me when I questioned another point in the article.

Response to Richard Arthur Norton & Alansohn
Many of the points RAN has posted in this arbitration are directed against me. I don't claim that my behavior has always been perfect in my dealings with RAN, but in his comments here he is often profoundly dishonesty, mischaracterizing my actions and/or motivations in a variety of ways. He is also quite repetitive, re-inserting the same charges over and over wherever he can squeeze them in. I'm hoping that his dishonesty and distortions are sufficiently obvious that no one looking at the evidence will be fooled. Issuing point-by-point responses to all of his scattershot charges would add a lot of text to this case. If anyone finds any of RAN's accusations disturbing, please post a specific enquiry and I'll respond. RedSpruce (talk) 10:26, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Alansohn has also made a few allegations against me, but as of this writing he hasn't attempted to present anything to support his charges (aside from adopting a Darth Vador tone of voice--something that doesn't work very well in print), so I doubt any specific responses will be required. RedSpruce (talk) 00:25, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Richard Arthur Norton has ignored the consensus against him
This issue was discussed in October 2007 at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Archive 19. My last comment in that section, at what was then the bottom of the section, at 00:26, 31 October 2007, included the following: ''at this point Wildhartlivie, IvoShandor, Arnoutf, qp10qp, SallyScot, AndToToToo, CBM, Shirahadasha, and I have expressed opposition to the practice of putting chunks of text into footnotes, a practice that is not supported by any Wikipedia policy or guideline, and that is in no way the norm at Wikipedia. I think that's about as close to consensus as most discussions get, and I suggest that the practice stop.'' (At that point, the nine editors listed had opposed RAN's approach to including quotations; only RAN and Alansohn had supported it.)  There were subsequently three more edits to the section:


 * 21:03, 31 October 2007 - RAN fixes a wikilink
 * 21:07, 31 October 2007 - RAN continues to argue a point about copyright violations by inserting a comment in the middle of the section.
 * 06:16, 1 November 2007 - Wildhartlivie posts two paragraphs at the bottom of the section with arguments regarding copyright issues.

Then nothing happens until the section is achived in January 2008.

This seems to me a clear case of defiance of consensus. And it is consistent with RAN's response to this RfA - his statement (this is the relevant version of the RfA page after his final edit) does not in any way discuss his behavior; rather, it lays out the arguments in favor of his approach to quotations, as if the Arbitration Committee's job was to judge the merits of those arguments.

I have seen these arguments before, and continue to find them unconvincing; he both overstates the advantages and fails to consider the disadvantages, which I consider more significant. But again, of course, this arbitration case is about behavior - Mr. Norton is unwilling to abide by the rules, which say that if one is unable to convince (the majority) of other editors of the merits of one's position, then it is unacceptable to continue on as if a negative consensus did not exist. Mr. Norton's editing is disruptive; he needs to understand that consensus matters when editors disagreement; and he needs to understand that Wikipedia is a group project that critically depends on cooperation of editors, lest it be scattered into a thousand warring camps.-- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Richard Arthur Norton has made no attempt to find middle ground
No one is arguing that occasionally a quotation in a footnote is useful. (One situation is when the original words, in a different language, have been translated. Otherwise, I tend to think such occasions should be rare; the text in an article, and a source citation, should suffice, since Wikipedia articles are overviews.  But I digress.) What RAN should have done, when faced with an overwhelming consensus against his approach, was to try to reach agreement on a set of criteria for when quotations would be appropriate. He did not.

[Given the number of places that discussions have occurred, and given the difficulty of proving a negative, I will simply assert, here, that RAN has never taken that approach - has never started a discussion to try to establish limited circumstances for using quotations, and has never contributed positively to such a discussion if someone else started it. If in fact RAN or any other editor has evidence to the contrary, I invite that to be cited; otherwise, I ask that this assertion be taken as demonstrated to be true.]-- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The limits of RAN's willingness to compromise is shown by this statement, below: I am flexible. When a quote was challenged I improved the placement, or trimmed the quote. His fundamental position is that he should be allowed to insert quotations into citations whenever he wants to. Apparently there are no criteria other than his personal judgment as to whether a quotation is useful or not. -- John Broughton  (♫♫) 13:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )
The quote function has been a part of all the citation templates. Quoting the actual text in the article aids the researcher and the fact checker, you can see the text in situ in the sentence that was used by the original author. No rule obliges an editor to use it, nor does any rule forbid its use. Facts in books need to be checked once before publishing. Facts in Wikipedia need to be checked continuously since editing is continuous, editors range from experts to amateurs, and subtle vandalism is hard to detect. Cited quotes provide many useful things for both the casual reader and the serious researcher:
 * 1) Allows for reconnection of broken links to a newspaper and other online articles. For example: if the title is: "Scientist Dead", and the quote is "Today, John Bacon, a New Jersey scientist was killed when his car overturned". A Google search for the title may not find the article, its too general, but a search for the quote string will refind the article. One year ago the New York Times archive was housed at Proquest with different links, and Associated Press reports were not archived by Google. Links are fugitive, Wikipedia is meant to last forever. Even if an external link for the citation is broken, a fully-quoted reference can stand on its own.
 * 2) It provides the actual information for fact checking the citation. You shouldn't have to get a book from the library or purchase an article to find out the exact wording used by an author to see if it actually supports the text in the Wikipedia article. See here
 * 3) It is not a copyright violation, the source is attributed, and the quote is usually a single sentence or two, well within the confines of "fair use". In some cases the title of the news article is longer than the quoted material. The same amount of text, or more is allowed in the body of the article using the blockquote feature. Google uses the same, or more, amount of text when it returns search results, and stores much more in the "cached" version.
 * 4) Redspruce himself uses quotes in references. He writes: "... Tom Wicker refers to Schine as 'Cohn's boyfriend'". It takes up a little less space, because he only encloses two words from the text in the quote, but the reader, including me, is still left to wonder what preceded 'Cohn's boyfriend'. "[He had wild animal sex all day and night as] Cohn's boyfriend" is very different from "[He was derided by his enemies as] Cohn's boyfriend". Others shouldn't have to repeat the effort to find out the exact, non-truncated, single-sentence quote.
 * 5) It doesn't add to clutter, any more than inline citations do already. No one forces a reader to scroll down to the reference section in an article, any more than one is forced to read the endnotes in a book. Just a few years ago no citations were required in Wikipedia articles. Scanning the end of the article, can you pick out my citations among the references and bibliography in the article Joseph_McCarthy that were so contentious that they were deleted multiple times? I don't find bibliographies useful, but I don't delete them.
 * 6) Some Featured Article's do not use them, but they are 365 articles per year of about 500K added per year, and a quick search shows New York City containing them. They can always be suppressed in FAs with an html tag:  and still be available to the serious researcher in the edit mode.
 * 7) Editors are skeptical of new information added to articles, so the best effort should be made to persuade them that the information is legitimate, and make that vetting process as easy as possible. See examples here where a skeptical editor deletes new information added to articles. The burden is on me, the person adding the information, to persuade the skeptic that the information is factual and verifiable and supports the article.
 * 8) I am flexible. When a quote was challenged I improved the placement, or trimmed the quote. See Talk:Annie Lee Moss where RedSpruce writes: "Okay, I see you've moved the reference to an appropriate place; that's an improvement. "See the edit history in G._David_Schine, hit 500 edits, and search for word "trim". There was no overwhelming consensus to delete the quote parameter from citations at Talk:G._David_Schine or the Talk:Annie Lee Moss page. For Dan Antonioli larger quotes were used initially to show notability, and they were later trimmed down to single sentences for the final version of the article. Here I post an RFC to bring in a third opinion when my source for information was deleted from an article. Here I invite RedSpruce to join with me in creating a new biography, and thank him for pointing out that I left a blank space in an edit.
 * 9) Redspruce is less flexible. Here RedSpruce explains "the only way [for me] to force a discussion was through edit warring". Here he deletes my information and leaves as the edit summary: "you are being an idiot". Here he calls me a "moron" on my user talk page. Here he removes the information, yet again, post RFC, and post two ANIs. And here he removes the same information, once again, while Arbcom is deciding the issue. See here other examples (same link as in item 7), where he repeatedly deletes information he didn't add to the article. He deletes my reference here, that points out a discrepancy in the article. When the deletion is pointed out during Arbcom, he inserts his own reference here but leaves my reference deleted. From my viewpoint he just won't accept what I add to an article that he has contributed to, no matter how well sourced. My personal opinion is that he is displaying ownership tendencies.

Example
Schine and Cohn were rumored to have a sexual relationship, although there has never been any proof of this. More recently, some historians have concluded it was a friendship and that Schine was heterosexual.
 * Here is a good example of using quotes in citations and how they clear up what is in the article, and how it aids the serious researcher:

What exactly was said of G. David Schine and his sexuality, how strongly did they word it, and what exact words did they use. For instance the Tom Wolfe article, up to a month ago, required a paid subscription to the New York Times. Even with access to the article, you still can't just do a control-f and search for "gay" or "homosexual" because Wolfe doesn't use any of those words. You have to read the whole article to find the single sentence which Wolfe uses. See below how very different the two references are, that are supporting the same fact.

Efforts by RedSpruce and Norton on mediation

 * RedSpruce ANI against Norton with "moron" incivility
 * AlanSohn ANI against RedSpruce with result of 24 hour block for 3RR
 * Last attempt at RedSpruce Norton mediation

..

User:Alansohn has a long history of problematic editing and ignoring concerns of other users
Concerns over Alansohn’s editing and behavior have been going on for over a year. This led to a RFC for user conduct filed on June 28, 2007 by User:Eusebeus. Despite being duly notified, he has never responded to the RFC’s concerns; though he did respond on its talk — where he calls the RFC an “abusive process” in the edit summary and questions the motives of others, here he says “I was waiting for the fly-in-chief to return to his turd, and assumed that your exclusion would only hasten your arrival”, here he calls it a “shameless hypocrisy” to push the RFC and calls Eusebeus, a chronic abuser of policy, here he refers to the “utter worthlessness of this process”. Note he never acknowledges his own part in this, just questions the motives of others and attacks the processes. His only edit to the RFC page was rv’ing edits by User:Racepacket.


 * Similarly, he did not reply to an offer by me of mediation on GA George Thomas Coker, see Talk:George_Thomas_Coker.


 * See also alert on RAN: and related ANI
 * See ANI thread on roots of this arbcase diff


 * calls  a user's argument "complete and total bullshit"

More misleading edit summaries

 * Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive297 this ANI thread from Sep 2007 also deals with misleading edit summaries but many other issues mentioned elsewhere in the arbcase
 * Hearts and Minds (film) refers to a compromise when there wasn’t one This article is currently a classic case of WP:UNDUE—it ignores most of the film.
 * Articles for deletion/Michael Tobias claims wiki policies were ignored and that “One of Wikipedia's policies is to flush editors who fail to observe this fundamental policy.”.
 * says socking is “confirmed” when the result was “likely” Alansohn did this at ANI also, see Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive375.
 * “your half-truths were responded to, while making it clear that you are the person whose incivility and refusal to cooperate are the underlying issue”
 * rv’s good faith edits by a respected long-term editor and calls it as “vandalism”. See also similar thread here
 * calls good faith efforts of several users as a “jihad” and “censorship”
 * Handbra rv’s claiming AfD support, but before the AfD was closed, and which did not reflect consensus
 * Talk:George Thomas Coker where his summary says "the burden to justify exclusion must be made under some Wikipedia policy, and has not been made". This is contrary to Wikipedia policy BLP which states: "The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia, but especially for edits about living persons, rests firmly on the shoulders of the person who adds or restores the material."  To be clear, it is the person who adds or restores who bears the burden, not the person who deletes.
 * calls Coker a major character in H&M when he’s only in about 10% of the film

More BLP diffs

 * ,, . More info and details on this case talk page.

Alansohn has a history of twisting the words of others
where he said I said we should give carte blanche to BLP subjects and their supporters, but I didn't
 * where is in debate with an admin about his behavior and out of context remarks
 * where he is in debate with an admin about wiki policy, his behavior and misstatements, falsely accuses ERcheck of threats and accusations and see where he claims ERcheck is a “co-owner” of George Thomas Coker but he’d only edited it twice and that was over 1 ½ years prior
 * where he misstates my offer at mediation

Accuses admins of bad faith
says "WP:3RR was designed so that even an admin can understand how it works)"
 * diff with threat of action
 * claims she has a “clear confusion on priorities as an administrator”
 * "...a ludicrously hypocritical admin..."
 * "The basic and fundamental concept of consensus has been tossed out by an admin who acknowledges that there were perfectly valid arguments for retention, ones that he arrogantly chose to ignore", the admin closed because "The delete arguments were simply stronger"

Asserts ownership of Dane Rauschenberg

 * refers to malicious edits and that “further abuse of this article will not be tolerated”
 * refers to a user’s obsessive monomania
 * calls other edits “BS”
 * says “suggestions needed to deal with recalcitrant and unrepentant sockpuppet” and most info is “most of it aimed at including false and defamatory information regarding the subject.” ‘’Note’’ here he’s worried about protecting a living person.
 * See related ANI thread.

User:Alansohn, User:ChrisRuvolo, and User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) supporting each other in content disputes

 * Handbra history
 * AfD: List_of_syndromes_and_diseases_with_unknown_etiologies RAN and AS first edit 1h 14min apart
 * Hearts and Minds (film), Alansohn in dispute, RAN joins in; history
 * George Thomas Coker, Alansohn in dispute, RAN and CR join in. After a 3-month calm, CR restarts 30 Apr and AS restarts on the talk page. ‘’Note’’ BLP issues here where AS wants to insert material whereas on Dane Rauschenberg he wanted to keep material out.
 * Several New Jersey articles, too numerous to list
 * ChrisRuvolo creates a userbox disrespecting a wikiproject with the summary “haha”. The box said “This user is not part of the Miltary-Boy Scout-Industrial Complex.” And had a US shield and Scout emblem. AS and Chris both thought this was funny and AS said “the bourgeois lackeys of the Military-Boy Scout-Industrial Complex who should really be spending their time more productively at the factories where they construct their plutonium-powered merit badges.”. To ChrisRuvolo’s credit, he deleted this when an outside admin pointed how poor taste this was, but admins can view it at User:ChrisRuvolo/Userbox/MBSIC-0. Pertinent threads are here in the “Thanks_for_the_laugh” and “Template” sections.

User:Alansohn has been hostile towards and distrustful of admins
In addition to evidence presented in the above sections, On Jan 27 I proposed mediation to settle the issues on the Coker article: “In order to solve this in a faster and more amicable manner, I suggest that both User:Alansohn and myself each choose up to two admins of their own choosing to review the issues herein and let them settle this matter. Neither selected admin should have any prior involvement in this matter whatsoever.” Talk:George_Thomas_Coker. His first comment on this was on May 4: “You, an admin, volunteered to have other admins assist you in making a decision, in which your fellow admins were quick to rush in to support your persistent obstruction. An inherently biased process is not a serious proposal. It's time to deal with this matter appropriately.” See Talk:George_Thomas_Coker. I in no way asked for admins to assist me; I asked for them to assist each of us mutually by each of us choosing neutral mediators (more word twisting by him). One can only conclude he distrusts all admins or feels no admin will support him in this issue.

Evidence presented by User:Alansohn
before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

Footnotes added to improve articles
I have made over 65,000 edits to Wikipedia. While an unfortunate percentage deal with reverting vandalism, the overwhelming majority have been directed at one goal: Expanding and improving Wikipedia articles with reliable and verifiable sources. Unfortunately, User:RedSpruce, one of a small handful of editors with an obsessive pattern of possession of articles, has tried to push his ownership of any and all articles related to McCarthy and McCarthyism by selectively misinterpreting one design feature of Wikipedia: the ability to include relevant quotations in a reference. I don't have a definitive count, but I have probably added somewhere between 15 and 20,000 references over my editing career, a significant percentage of which include brief quotations, usually of a single sentence, supporting the quotation. This is a built-in, designed feature of Wikipedia policy, and is a standard policy in scholarly footnoting. Use of this feature only expands the ability of readers to verify that the sources provided support the statements made in the article. While I do not believe that use of this feature is required, there is no element of Wikipedia policy that forbids its use in any and all circumstances.

Ownership and obsession with McCarthy by User:RedSpruce
In over 65,000 edits, I have only edited two mainspace articles as many as 100 times, both of which to bring them up to GA status. In 11,000 edits through May 7, 2008. User:RedSpruce has made a rather disturbing number of edits to a series of articles related to Joseph McCarthy and the subject of McCarthyism, including: Talk page edits include: While there can be positives in devoting one's time to a subject, User:RedSpruce's monomaniacal obsession with the subject has led him to numerous actions that betray a belief that he owns these articles and is entitled to obstruct edits whose content or format contradict his own personal preferences.
 * 803	Joseph McCarthy
 * 420	McCarthyism
 * 350	Alger Hiss
 * 193	J. Edgar Hoover
 * 179	Whittaker Chambers
 * 119	Red Scare
 * 109	Venona project
 * 108	Elizabeth Bentley
 * 390	Joseph McCarthy
 * 148	Alger Hiss
 * 75	McCarthyism
 * 66	G. David Schine
 * 54	Annie Lee Moss

Witch hunt by User:Rlevse / WP:OWN and WP:COI violations at George Thomas Coker
A persistently abusive editor, User:Rlevse has taken ownership of the article George Thomas Coker. As part of an effort to present a false and misleading characterization of Coker, an acknowledged war hero, Rlevse has abusively interfered with any effort to mention the film Hearts and Minds in the article, a film in which Coker makes a number of unflattering statements about the North Vietnamese people. Rlevse has interfered with nearly a dozen different editors over a more than two year period who have tried to add some measure of balance to Rlevse's false saintly portrait of Coker. Rlvese has refused to acknowledge that he has a clear conflict of interest, stating (as shown below) that he has edited the article in a manner to satisfy the article subject's demands. Though all of Rlevse's rationalizations for excluding the material have been addressed, he has still refused to allow anything more than trivial mentions to be made of the film, while insisting that a film in which Coker's name is uttered once in passing be given equal mention.

Article WP:OWNer Rlvese has removed mentions, references and links to the film on no fewer than six separate occasions over a span of two years inserted by several different editors, including: Multiple efforts at compromise wording -- with ample reliable and verifiable sources -- have been repeatedly obstructed by User:Rlevse. In his zeal for revenge, Rlevse has devoted an unfortunate amount of time to twisting and misinterpreting the facts of my edit history. Unsatisfied that his abuse of administrative authority to obstruct action is enough, now as part of an effort to exact a pound of flesh, he has dragged in his own personal agenda into a question about footnotes. I'd love to hear what on earth adding sources to article has to do with keeping the George Thomas Coker article free of reliably sourced information.
 * 17:20, 17 January 2006 reverting User:24.57.193.217, text removed: "His homecoming and story play a key part in the documentary Hearts and Minds." The excuse proffered for deletion "that film is biased and derogatory of Coker" makes it clear that Rlevse is aware of the film and its content, but seeks to sanitize the article to whitewash the subject's reputation. No issue with source was raised and one could easily have been supplied.
 * 07:21, 11 August 2007, reverting this edit by User:The Invisible Man from March 5, 2006, text removed: "Coker's return to his hometown after leaving Vietnam can be seen in the 1974 documentary Hearts and Minds." The edit summary of "rm upon Coker's request" makes it clear that ownership is being claimed as part of a clear conflict of interest. Text had been in the article without issue for over 15 months. No issue raised regarding source and no question from WP:OWNer that facts were valid.
 * 18:21, 14 December 2007 removing this diff added four days earlier by User:85.91.20.161. Again, the owner states that the a bare link to an existing article was removed "upon subject request", again clear evidence of biased editing as part of a conflict of interest. I have never seen an external link removed with an excuse of requiring a source.
 * 08:28, 16 December 2007, reverting this edit by User:Alansohn, text removed: "A clip of Coker was featured in Hearts and Minds, a 1974 film that won that year's Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary. ". This time, the rationalization is that this was "rm, BLP issue", a reliable and verifiable source is provided, there is no description of the content of the film, nor is any explanation of the supposed WP:BLP issue provided.
 * This diff of Talk:George Thomas Coker lays out his conflict of interest stating that "Yes, I personally know Coker and he's asked that no reference be made to the movie. This was by a phone call to me. In BLP it refers to ArbCom tending to defer to the living person's desires in such cases. While the movie did win an award, very few people have heard of it, so I also think it's simply not that important. I believe he's also not that central to the movie." User:Rlevse acknowledges his ignorance of the content of the film, but is perfectly willing to push the demand that the barest reference to the film be removed solely based on the demands of the subject and in disregard of the reliable and verifiable source provided.
 * 16:50, 21 December 2007 and 22:34, 11 January 2008.

Rlevse has a history of twisting the words of others
As part of pushing his own agenda Rlevse has persistently refused to recognize any alternate interpretations:

where he said I said we should give carte blanche to BLP subjects and their supporters, but I didn't

Sumoeagle179 is a meatpuppet of Rlevse / Tag team editing by Sumoeagle179 and Rlevse
In addition to the rather obvious tag team editing by both User:Sumoeagle179 and User:Rlevse, the two have a personal relationship (see diff) that neither has had the honesty to disclose here. It is disturbing, to say the least, to find that User:Rlevse, an admin described as an alleged "arbcom clerk" at some point in time, would be so utterly ignorant of the need to disclose the clear conflict here in having User:Sumoeagle179 misrepresent himself here as a disinterested party. After another editing spree by User:Rlevse to remove any meaningful references to the film Hearts and Minds in which Coker appears, Sumoeagle197 appears out of the blue (here) and [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Thomas_Coker&diff=179882885&oldid=179882633 here), having never edited the George Thomas Coker article before, to expand a trivial mention of a film in which Coker's name is mentioned. Once. In passing. On the article's talk page, Sumoeagle197 jumps in (here) to defend his meatpuppeteer and make false claims that sourced material added to the article is "libelous". Despite having no legitimate connection whatsoever to the article, User:Sumoeagle179 appears out of nowhere to make a trivial edit and then jumps in to tag team edit on teh talk page to create a false impression of consensus. It's truly no wonder that User:Rlevse would make the claim of tag team editing against others; He's a skilled practitioner of the form. Alansohn (talk) 04:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) makes edits contrary to consensus


In October 2007, I was asked, on my talk page, by User:Wildhartlivie to give an opinion about the use of long quotes in the cited references of Dan Antonioli, a stub article created by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ). This is the last version of the article prior to Wildhartlivie's addition of the copyvio template. Rather than wait for an investigation at WP:CP, Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) simply removed the template himself, against procedure and guidelines.

Please note that the quotes used by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) are significantly longer than the text of the article itself, by a ratio of more than 3:1. I do not want to list them here verbatim because I continue to feel they are infringements of copyright. I'm not paranoid but I cannot see how a "riot of geraniums" and wet laundry on a clothesline are relevant, yet alone important enough to risk copyright infringement in an article that's only five sentences long.

During my investigation I found the aforementioned discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources/Archive_19. Consensus there was clearly against Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) and Alansohn. After reading that discussion and Copyrights, I came to the conclusion that the article is/was a copyright violation of four different websites, including one site with a strongly worded copyright statement. Since there were no clean revisions (and the paragraphs/quotes in the cited references were longer than the article itself), I made a case for deletion under WP:CSD as a blatant copyright violation. My position is not based on notability - it is solely on the use of copied content in the references, and I have no objection to recreation of a new stub or article on Antonioli.

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) and Alansohn disagreed, as did Woohookitty. When Woohookitty voiced her opinion, the long quotes had been reduced somewhat, but I dropped the issue rather than asking her to compare the two versions, so the article remained as it was while the storm on the talk page raged on. The quotes in the references have been shortened somewhat in the current version of the article.

I continue to believe that the article should be deleted to remove the tainted versions - under WP:CP or WP:CSD, doesn't matter - because there are no clean versions to which to revert and because the use of a template feature does not necessarily give us the right to use such large portions of someone else's content. IANAL, but our own article on fair use discusses substantiality and the effect upon a work's value. A couple of those 'quotations' are substantial parts of their respective sources. Do we have a copyright policy or don't we?

User:Alansohn and Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) support each other in content disputes
These two editors use a tag team approach to buttress each other's arguments and bully other editors. The history] of Talk:Dan Antonioli shows Alansohn's frequent edits to the page. However, history of the Dan Antonioli article itself shows that Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) is the editor of the article. In fact, Alansohn never edited the article itself until May 2 of this year, yet he did most of the talking. That seems to be the modus operandi of these two - one makes the edits, the other does the arguing.

User:Alansohn and User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) use diversion and logical fallacy in discussions
Alansohn does most of the diversion on this Talk:Dan Antonioli, but not all:


 * Wildhartlivie makes a passing reference to Alansohn's and Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )'s location in New Jersey, which is clearly disclosed on their user pages
 * Alansohn jumps on that reference in an attempt to change the subject into disclosure of personal information; Alansohn also makes a wild claim that Wildhartlivie is on a "crusade to eliminate use of quotations in references, a practice that is used in hundreds and thousands of articles"
 * When Wildhartlivie won't back down and restates her arguments, Alansohn continues his use of a straw man, saying the references to New Jersey mean Wildhartlivie's copyright questions are invalid
 * Alansohn continues to focus on the user page information instead of the main point, which is the use of large, long quotes in references, not all quotes in references
 * Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) places a comment under a heading 'Received almost universal comment from other editors who answered that this may be a copyright violation', but the wikilink does not support that position, and he did not participate in the discussion - Alansohn did (that Help Desk discussion is now archived here)

When a new editor enters the fray:


 * User:AndToToToo makes a nice summary of the dispute and tries to bring Alansohn's focus back to the issue of the long quotes
 * Alansohn claims the long quotes are a "design feature" and accuses Wildhartlivie of no cooperation and refusal to respond, apparently demanding a hard-and-fast rule on the number of words allowed
 * Alansohn claims there is clear consensus for his position, when in fact consensus is exactly the opposite
 * For some reason, three days later Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) inserts a comment in the midst of earlier comments by different editors

And that's when people get tired and go do something else, which was their objective in the first place.

I did not know about the RFC on Alansohn when I was looking over the Antonioli article. (It's telling that Alansohn did not respond to any of the statements and comments on that page.) There are dozens of diffs there of Alansohn's bad behavior, and since they're listed on that page it's not necessary to list them here. However, one of the statements made a good observation. I've modified it a little:
 * 1) Alansohn states his position
 * 2) if someone disagrees, Alansohn repeats his position, using an adjective like "obvious" or "blatant"
 * 3) if there's still disagreement, Alansohn demands "evidence" in a legalistic manner
 * 4) if he still hasn't run everyone off, Alansohn takes a sentence from another editor's comment and uses it as "evidence of bad faith" or "bias" or "witch hunt"
 * 5) finally, Alansohn resorts to some version of "you just don't get it" or "your abuse will not be tolerated," repeated as many times as necessary until other editors simply give up and go away.

Even in this ArbCom case, Alansohn's allegations in his initial statement and his statements on this page are to accuse incivility and ownership by RedSpruce and Rlevse. Same song, 1583rd verse - he's trying to draw attention away from the core issues of this request, which are the use of long quoted statements (even paragraphs) in cited references and this pair's intractable, unkind, dismissive conduct toward other editors. Their behavior has helped push good editors away from the project and it is incredibly frustrating to handle. Krakatoa Katie  01:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Basic support of others' evidence
I don't think it is possible for me to clearly delineate evidence that would improve on that provided by KrakatoaKatie and John Broughton. This is a longterm and longstanding problem over a multitude of articles. Thus, I am commenting mostly to reinforce that in my view, this is not an issue of attempts at ownership of an article, or articles. The practice under discussion here is pervasive with User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), and has been at issue in the past. The question of the appropriateness of use of the quote function and how this user has been utilizing it has been at issue well beyond the ones under discussion. As noted by KrakatoaKatie above regarding the Dan Antonioli article, large blocks of quotes were used in the absence of them being incorporated into articles. At no time during the Antonioli discussion was any attempt made by the author to incorporate and expand the article with the use of those sources. This particular article had been under question for deletion and my involvement came from supporting the retention of the article, with the caveat that it needed a LOT of work, and in trying to urge its expansion, was met with the lack of response and the uptake of the argument by Alansohn, the same circumstances indicated by RedSpruce above. One argument at the time from User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) was that it was preserving the quote in situ, to which I counter argued that inserting a block of text via copy and paste was not in situ preservation at all, and there were archive options available to be used when sources were in danger of being lost online. What I have seen is often copy and pasting of the opening paragraphs from, for example, New York Times archives. That particular method links us to a page at the Times website that purchase is required to access the rest of the article, which may or may not contain the material actually being cited. I took it to WP:Citing sources, the entire discussion of which can be seen here. The overall consensus at that time was that this practice violated the intent of the use of the quote function, as was summarized on that page by User:John Broughton. That discussion was obviously ignored and rejected, which brings it to issue yet again, with the same issues. I truly believe a ruling by ArbCom is necessary in this case since efforts at resolution over a variety of articles with a variety of editors has been the case. If in fact, mentioning them as "the two fellows from New Jersey" was wrong, I apologize. That was said to reinforce that the pair appear to be connected in location and viewpoint. I do hold that it is not improper to investigate a userpage and a user's contributions, and in fact is supported by Wikipedia policy when one is looking at pervasiveness of an issue. Thanks. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:01, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Rlevse has a permanent conflict of interest with respect to editing George Thomas Coker
On 10:54, 17 December 2007, Rlevse stated that he removed content from because"I personally know Coker and he's asked that no reference be made to the movie. This was by a phone call to me." Rlevse has repeatedly removed well-sourced descriptions of the material in question.

Racepacket has engaged in abusive sockpuppetry on Dane Rauschenberg
Please see Requests for checkuser/Case/Racepacket, Suspected sock puppets/Racepacket (2nd), Suspected sock puppets/Racepacket (3rd), Runreston's block log, and Special:Contributions/207.91.86.2 (It was confirmed that 207.91.86.2 was a sockpuppet of Racepacket in Requests for checkuser/Case/Racepacket).

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