Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Great Irish Famine/Evidence

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User:MarkThomas is Editing Disruptively
User:MarkThomas is not trying to build consensus, but instead edit warring and attempting to get use administrators as proxies to gain advantage in an edit war.


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Disagreement with Sony-Youth's comment regarding favoritism
I have been more then fair with MarkThomas. I have been evenhanded with the blocks.

10:48, 26 July 2007 SirFozzie (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "MarkThomas (contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 24 hours (Attempting to harass other users: Trolling user. General incivility.) (Unblock)

15:32, 25 July 2007 SirFozzie (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "Domer48 (contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 24 hours (Multiple violations of Civility after being warned.) (Unblock)

Since I knew MarkThomas would disagree with the blocks, I actually proactively brought up the blocking with two other admins who had been working on similar articles, to make sure I hadn't overstepped my bounds. Since the block, THREE seperate admins have endorsed the block, with one admin even stating that his next such violation would lead to a lot longer of a block. MarkThomas's block was for coming to Domer48's page to gloat about me blocking Domer48 for uncivil comments.

I have let grossly uncivil comments like slide which would have earned him a timeout. I see posts by him gloating on other user pages over Domer's block. . I have let uncivil after uncivil snide comment slide.

MarkThomas stated at one point that he didn't know why I decided to initiate this ArbCom case, when he feels that all that needed to happen was to investigate the other side, and deal with them as needs must. . In short, he sees nothing wrong with the way he's acted. As the old saying goes, it takes two to tango. And while both sides are doing their fair share of leading this dance, at least Domer has recognized that he had stepped beyond the lines several times, and admitted to it. SirFozzie 21:12, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Also as an addendum, I consider Sony-Youth's comments to be indicative of the exact problem in this series of articles. He references the history of the well.. conflict. '''This is an 850-year-old conflict, which has been unrelentingly bitter, violent, dogmatic and continued for the entirity and still unresolved. It has directly cost the lives of ten of millions and directly affected many hundreds of millions. Wikipedia is but a new theatre on which it is being fought.'''

Quite frankly, there it is in a nutshell. To some folks, this is the new battleground, where it's one viewpoint or another. If Sony-Youth, Domer, MarkThomas, or any other user cannot get past the point that Wikipedia is NOT the new place to fight old wars, that Wikipedia articles are to be written with a NEUTRAL Point of View, that because I'm an American who hasn't lived through the senseless waste of lives on both sides, I'm not fit to say that they've violated Wikipedia rules in their quest to have WP endorse their PoV.. then they need to be made to understand. Thus, this ArbCom case. SirFozzie 21:18, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Domer48 (party named in initial request)
User:MarkThomas has questioned the good faith of my edits, and has provided no information at all to illustrate this accusation, such as, , , , , , , (no reference provided), , this despite an ongoing discussion on the talk page, where references were provided.

User:MarkThomas has push their POV into both articles and talk pages resulting in disruption and frustration all of which are based on a suggested anti-British bias. Alternatively, information they disagree with is suggested to be either, pro Republican, pro Nationalist (Irish), folklore or a minority view such as,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

editors and administrators who question this view are treated in a like manner and pervasive in comments such as,, , , , ,

User:MarkThomas has manipulated policies to cause disruption such as the 3RR. Deliberately creating the conditions which give rise to confrontation. Examples of this would be, , , and , , , , , , ,. ,, when I require the same from them regarding references?, , , ,. This was despite ongoing discussions on the talk page and as a result,, , , , , , , ,.

One of the most trying and frustrating aspects of their conduct is the removal of referenced material, adding unreferenced material, and delivering opinions on talk pages which they feel no compunction to validate. Some examples of this type of editing would be,, , , , , , , , , , while there is a great deal of opinion, not one referenced quote?

In conclusion, another aspect of their behaviour I find most objectionable is their baiting of other editors. This has been an ongoing feature and has taken up considerable talk page time and space, some of these examples should suffice,, , , , , , , ,.

Harassment and stalking. Commenting on an editors attitude to a new editor, the following comment  was left by User:MarkThomas, which is akin to stalking.

On going disruption, , , Admin abused, , , ,suggesting editors are members of the IRA, which carries a five year prison sentence in this country. Admin abuse, .removing editors work. More disruption. Harassment,, , , ,Lieing , , , , stalking

This is a bit much
, , , ,

{My conduct}
As to my own conduct, I can not add more than I have already here,. All I want to do is edit Articles! Thats it! If you want to know my agenda just read my user page. Have I broken policies, Ye probably, I never claimed to be a saint. But I do not deserve the hassle I’ve been getting. This is only one article, I could have included more but I think this is fairly representative. Thanks for your time, and sorry for the trouble. Regards --Domer48 20:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

P.S. in any review of my conduct could administrators please take into consideration both my contributions and conduct on our sister sites Wikisource and Wikiquote. I would suggest this would give an all round view of my attitude to the whole project. Thanks, Regards --Domer48 20:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I have lost the plot a number of times and I will not use provocation as an excuse. Diffs speak for themselves, , .Accusations

Reply to Sony
Let me start by saying, by and large I treated Sony’s evidence with the due attention it deserved taking into consideration not one diff, to support their contentions, accusations and insinuations made. My motivation for replying at all is Sony’s insistence on reviving an accusation that they had made and precipitated this from me, and I had agreed to drop, having received apology[s]. and. In addition, the latest acrimony in this article has to be seen in the context of this discussion. When editors now look at my edit which follows it, , you’ll understand the spurious nature of Sony’s argument. The fallacy of it becomes much clearer when editors see this discussion, and the reply is most telling , back to making an allegation that they have already apologised for twice. So it was not the editing warring it was this quote. So there is not misunderstanding, I would invite editors to view the entire discussion, so you can see the context. for yourselves. I have been the subject of a check user request,, thought they knew I had no case to answer. I would draw editors attention to this and this. I had to put up with this even though they knew I had nothing to do with it. I attempted to have the Article unlocked based on this edit, bearing in mind that Sony has repeatedly said it was a content dispute. This is what I got,, the same allegation, and hot air. This is the full discussion if editors need context. I then had this,, remembering that it was just this one quote that was the problem. And then this. This is not about edit wars or content disputes, this article is out of bounds to me, and Sony is just as much a part of it as Mark. I went to SirF with it, and had to spell it out what was happening , and being called a liar. Well its up to the aberration to sort it out, I have tried to include all the talk section as apposed to diff’s, because I know their would be twisting and spinning. But that’s it. For editors who would like to review my diff’s in relation to the article, see here, and decide what’s what, and who is playing games.

MarkThomas has taken ownership of the article, refusing to allow anyone to improve the article while this case is ongoing.

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MarkThomas is agressive, incivil and attacks editors in particular Irish ones

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MarkThomas repeatedly demands apologies or threatens editors, which serves to inflame a dispute

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MarkThomas has engaged in anti-Irish trolling

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General incivility, deletion of references, mischaracterisation of references, personal attacks, etc
I'm new at this dispute process thing, but today I've finally got tired of MarkThomas and created a wikiquette entry and (on recommendation from SirFozzie) a RFC on MarkThomas. I'm sure it's not comprehensive, but I've put a bunch of diffs there. I didn't think I had any connection with this ArbCom case, since I've never edited the Irish Famine page, but SirFozzie suggested I should, and then I also got an email from user:Scalpfarmer (whoever he is) that I should contribute to this case too. So, here I am. Hughsheehy 14:40, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Evidence presented by sony-youth
First appologies, I have not included an diffs in this evidience (if really it can be called that). If anyone wants a diff on any particular part, please drop a line on to my talk page and I'll source it out. --sony-youth pléigh 20:32, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Sarah777
First things first, Sarah and I are not, by any stretch of the imagination, "buddies." We have butted heads violently on many occasions and I was the editor who instigated the [|RfC on her]. Her involvement in the Famine page (both talk and the article itself) were classic Sarah-style distuption in all but one way: it was but a fraction of the usual disruption that she causes. In this case, her edits fueled Domer's paranoia and convinced him that a "war" was being fought between Truth and British Imperial POV.

I was very let down by the non-action on the RfC. Sir Fozzie may be of the opinion that it "pretty much degenerated into the two sides (including the wider Ireland/Northern Ireland conflict) sniping at each other," but in my view, if it happened at all, that was limited to the talk page, which in itself serves as an example of Sarah's M.O. in creating disruption. On the RfC itself, 31 out of 31 contributors agreed that Sarah's behaviour is uncivil - 15 of those endorsed the original summary.

That said, I am vey worried about the procedure of this ArbCom. Sarah made it clear that she was going on holidays for a month and asked not to be shot in her absentia.

Domer48
Domer, I think, frightened even Sarah on this occasion. Despite whatever has been made about this case, it is, at its core, a content dispute: whether and how to deal with the opinion that the Irish famine was a genocide. While this is a notable and important part of an article on the Famine, I feared from the start that including it would lead to trouble. This is an extremist perspective of the Famine, and by it's nature would cause trouble - with passion-fueled editors on both sides warring one way or the other. Those for it would see any tampering of the section as an attempt at censorship. Those who would be of the exteme on the otherside would have plenty of evidience for the counter, which would aggrivate those arguing for it, who would delete it as British hegemony. Which would lead to those in opposition to claim that Wikipedia was taken over by Irish extremist.

This is exactly what happened here.

I have no doubt that Domer holds his view to be genuine and can cite many sources in his defence, but fear, from my experience in this dispute, that these are arrived at from selective reading - e.g. 'our' dispute in this case was that in Domer's opinion the phrase "key nationalist perspectives" could only mean "genocide" despite the same author explicity dening such in the same volume, which was also quoted in the article.

Domer needs to learn to collaborate on Wikipedia. His recent edits have led to wars elsewhere on similar matters (see his talk page and SirFozzies). He was abusive to me, in tone, languge and lack of good faith, for the duration of this dispute over what should have been a simple matter. I have seen no evidience that would lead me to believe that he will approach other editors that would alter his contributions in any other way. In my mind he sees Wikipedia as a war and the enemy is anyone who does not hold a view identical to his.

Finally, I'd add that Domer's evidience on MarkThomas is simply rediculous. I especially enjoyed reading the evidience of Mark "lying"! There is, in my opinion, nothing there that Domer has not done himself, or even worse. The whole evidience should be viewed as part of an bitter argument between Domer and Mark. Each is a bad as the other. As for the list of reasons why Domer could not work with either Mark or myself - there is frankly no answer that a right-thinking person can make to such wide, random, meaningless and frivolous accusations. In my view they by sheer volume and levity constitute of breach of good faith and evidience Domer's paranoia about his fellow contributors.

SirFozzie
From what I can gather SirFozzie is attempting to bridge a settlement between British and Irish editors across many articles. While this is a worthy ambition, and seems to be having some effect, it is one that he is approaching very naively. This is an 850-year-old conflict, which has been unrelentingly bitter, violent, dogmatic and continued for the entirity and still unresolved. It has directly cost the lives of ten of millions and directly affected many hundreds of millions. Wikipedia is but a new theatre on which it is being fought.

From the off-set of this dispute, I was worried about his approach vis-a-vis Mark and Domer. He appear surprising lienient towards Domer and unjustly harsh on Mark. He granted Domer numerous 'final warning' and 'final final warnings', but at each occasion backed down and tried to reason and advise Domer. This had the effect, I believe, of appeasing Domer's disruption and, again I believe, Domer took it as a green light in his support. That was a mistake and caused the dispute to drag out for far longer than it should have been let be.

I commented on Fozzie's remarks on Sarah's RfC earlier, I'll add nothing more here except to say that his comment that it was a venue that included "the wider Ireland/Northern Ireland conflict" is simply misplaced.

MarkThomas
Mark, I have know for far longer than Domer or Fozzie, but less long than Sarah. I honestly cannot see any great case against him on this occasion, but it is true that his edits (both to articles and talk pages) have been disruptive in the past. I am of the opinion that Mark could be dealt with swiftly and effectively by simply removing the keys P, O and V from his keyboard. He must stop accusing others of editing from an "Irish-nationalist POV". When he demands references from others, he must stop accusing those references of being written by "Irish-Republician POV'd historians" etc. On one recent occasion his protestation led one editor to have to add a dozen references to support the simple (and frankly obvious to anyone in Ireland) claim that "[Oliver Cromwell's] measures against Irish Catholics have been characterised by some historians as genocidal or near-genocidal." That's rediculous, but is wher his protests lead!

There's little more that I want to add about Mark since so much has been written about him. I do blieve that the sentence (call it what you like) of a 90-day block is draconian. It will serve no purpose except to remove an editor, who I see doing little too wrong, from Wikipedia. It is an especially mad decision when Domer is not being punished. In this case, Mark did nothing more than Domer (in my view less) - their fight should be seen as just that, two people fighting in a content war, Mark said or did nothing more than Domer did.

Final thought
As a final thought, I need to ask why Mark is being punished so much in this case. As I said before, and I see another editor has commented also on SirFozzie's page, if Mark's conduct is what is really under criticism then and RfC would be the better venue. In fact one is already underway. I will leave comment tomorrow, but right now the only signaturies are the original bringer of the RfC and two editors involved in this case. On the other hand, Sarah's RfC drew 15 signaturies and 31 signaturies in total, all of which agreed that her incivility was disruptive. Meanwhile, Domer, who was the insigator of this dispute is left without any punishment of any kind. The weight of opinion in this case is, I believe, lop-sided.

Evidence presented by Domer48
I consider some of the actions of user:sony-youth to be manipulative and disruptive and designed to stifle my efforts.

{Write your assertion here}
I would like to place my reply to Sony above to support my assertion

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