Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/JRR Trollkien/Evidence

This matter was accepted for arbitration on April 20, 2004. It concerns User:JRR Trollkien.

Discussion by arbitrators is at Requests for arbitration/JRR Trollkien.

Initial submission (moved from ReqforArb)
I would like the arbitration committee to look at the case of User:JRR Trollkien. He, and other users who may or may not be him were blocked by Hephaestos, silsor, Bcorr and Tannin today, and on three of these occasions unblocked by Martin. The user's behaviour was disruptive to the purpose of building an encyclopedia. The quickpoll policy does not cover this so I see no solution other than arbitration. The arbitration committee should be aware of other users that have been blocked for similar behaviour, often referred to as "trolling" in the block log. JRR Trollkien, The Trolls of Navarone, Fine Handcrafted Troll, Burrowing Troll, User1, User2, Filibuster, Troller, Michael33, Michael3, WIKIPEDIA, Angela is a troll, Love2troll, Troll, Troll2, Troll3, Troll5, Durruti, MotherOfTrolls, Return of the troll, Return of the Trolls, The Return of the Trolls, Return of the Troll, The Return of the Troll, The Two Trolls, The Cave Troll, The Fellowship of the Troll, Human being. In an ideal world, I would like the committee to determine whether or not sysops can unilaterally block such users, but as long as they will not take on policy cases, I would request they deal simply with the issue of User:JRR Trollkien instead. Angela 19:36, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC) (reworded request at 01:30, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)) The Trolls of Navarone and JRR Trollkien argue that they do not deserve banning, and that the term "trolling" is too vague. (summarised)
 * Angela may also want to review the Dispute resolution process - she does not seem to have contacted any of the users on her list or exhausted (or even tried) any other method of resolution before listing the grievance here. Thanks, The Trolls of Navarone 15:58, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Arbitrator's opinions on hearing this matter

 * Accept. I can't see mediation being any help here, and there's clearly some fuss over the matter, so the desire for us to look at it is there. --Camembert
 * Formally recuse myself from the policy question. Fine to accept the case of JRR Trollkien & related users. If necessary, we may need to review prior bans of related users - EofT, "142", "24". Martin 02:12, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Accept for the purpose of determining whether under existing Wikipedia policy, Blocking policy, it is acceptable for sysops to ban obvious trolls. See also Jimbo's comment at User:The Fellowship of the Troll Fred Bauder 03:00, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)
 * Accept -- this policy needs to be clarified. --the Epopt 22:05, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Accept -- James F. (talk) 21:24, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Accept -- mav 00:03, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't see a 4th vote to accept. Fred Bauder 18:29, Apr 21, 2004 (UTC)


 * Err... Good point, Martin's acceptance was the inverse of how I read it at first. However, I have now voted to accept, making it four. Sorry.
 * James F. (talk) 21:24, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Still lacks quorum. Camembert's original vote was clear: "Accept solely to look into the perceived problem of User:JRR Trollkien. We're not here to set policy--that is for the community at large". JRR Trollkien (see warning) 12:47, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Now fixed. --mav

Blocking of JRR T
JRR T was blocked by User:UninvitedCompany for 120 days at 19:05 on 28 April. JRR T was unblocked at 19:19, and a secondary account, #4696 was unblocked at 00:32 29 April when it was realized that it was an autoblock for having the same IP as JRR T. The stated reason by UC was: "Reincarnation of banned user "Entmoots of Trolls". The stated reason for the unblock was: "awaiting definitive evidence linking Trollkein to banned user".

I'm not adding this as support for or against any user, but only to place a record of it where it may be potentially useful. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 00:38, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)

RfA listings
I realize that this case has been accepted chiefly or solely to discuss JRR T's user name, but I want to make sure the arbitration committee is aware that he has engaged in unmistakeable trolling, and that this should be no surprise given his user name.

Specifically, he's been involved in nominating vandals for adminship on two occasions. First, he undeleted and supported  the nomination of User:Bird (originally made by User:Sayyed al afghani, who is a vandal and probably a Bird reincarnation.)  Anyone who was around during Bird's spree knows why this nomination cannot possibly have been made in good faith.

A few days later, Trollkein nominated Sayyed al afghani for adminship. This was a blatant troll. Sayyed had made less than 25 edits at that point, including the nomination of Bird and a bunch of ranting on his user page. Even a perfect contributor would be obviously unqualified with that few edits, and in fact a good number of Sayyed's edits were vandalism, the very first two having lies in their edit summaries.

Just to give an idea of what sort of person Trollkein was supporting, here are a few choice edits made by Sayyed al afghani (a few of them while not logged in, but due to his log-in mistake on vfd his IP is clear.) ,,,

Basically, what I'm saying is that Trollkein is exactly what his name would imply. Anyone (especially arbitrators) involved in discussion with him should be aware that the record shows that he is not acting in good faith. Isomorphic 20:06, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Not sure I follow your logic. The concensus, I thought, was that requests for adminship should be left there for a week while people had a chance to vote. You seem to think they should not have that chance, and are intent on removing them, against the established policy. Why are you so convinced that you know everyone elses thoughts before they even put them down - let people vote, let the process run. Trust the community, don't shortcut the system with your opinion of what everyone else will do. I don't understand why you are so opposed to letting the established system run its course.  If you leave them, for people to vote as they choose, I imagine there will be no more acrimony about them than any other adminship listing. That, however, seems not to suit your purpose. JRR Trollkien (see warning) 14:01, 1 May 2004 (UTC)


 * copied from TFotT's user talk page:


 * Why are you so convinced that you know everyone elses thoughts before they even put them down - let people vote, let the process run. Trust the community, don't shortcut the system with your opinion of what everyone else will do. I don't understand why you are so opposed to letting the established system run its course. BTW 'Not nice' = 'POV'?.The Fellowship of the Troll 23:21, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Further evidence

 * user:JRR Trollkien created Requests for comment/Eloquence which was deleted as it was not certified by two real users. One of the users certifying it was User:Ban Eloquence, an obvious sockpuppet. Trollkien then listed the page on Votes for undeletion.


 * Text written by User:142 on other wikis, and previously on Meta were added to the forums on the Webby Awards site, signed "jrr t" . These same pages were posted onto Meta, and the English Wikipedia by User:JRR Trollkien using that user name, and by usernames such as User:Eloquence is a censorous vandal and User:Eloquence is anti wiki on meta.


 * User:JRR Trollkien awarded barnstars to users such as User:The Fellowship of the Troll, User:Stardotstar.


 * When Legion of Trolls was redirected, User:Eloquence is a censorous vandal reverted the redirect. When Eloquence redirected it a second time, the page was copied to User:JRR Trollkien/Legion of Trolls by JRR Trollkien.


 * User:JRR Trollkien has repeatedly tried to insert text written by User:142 about the so-called "GFDL text corpus" to pages such as the GFDL. A link to the same material was previously added to the same article by User:Burrowing Troll (a user who submitted a number of Anti-Wikipedia rants, all of which were speedily deleted).


 * User:JRR Trollkien posted links to IRC logs despite opposition to this on the #wikipedia channel . A user did the same on meta using the name User:Adding links to public IRC logs.


 * There have been a large number of usernames on meta doing the same things that User:JRR Trollkien has done on Wikipedia. It is possible that this is because he can not post under his own name there, having been banned permanently after posting statements that User:142 made on the mailing list on the Stewards page.


 * On VfD, User:JRR Trollkien voted to keep Pointless article, the text of which was "A Pointless article is an article which fails to express any useful meaning or information." Other votes that do not appear to have been made in good faith include Template:VfD-Wikipedia Revisionism and Template:VfD-Information species.


 * User:JRR Trollkien has acted to prevent policies such as Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy and Three strikes being adopted and tried to affect the mediation policy with the addition of inappropriate material which he did not bother to defend on the talk page..


 * User:JRR Trollkien listed users such as Fuzheado on requests for comment. and created the now deleted Offensive User Names Havers Club.


 * See also the Block log at Meta and Quickpolls/Archive.

Angela. 15:50, May 1, 2004 (UTC)

I'm beginning to wonder if the committee is even reading the evidence page, given how the vote is going. The issue of username is and always was peripheral. To quote, This case is accepted solely "for the purpose of determining whether under existing Wikipedia policy, Wikipedia:Blocking policy, it is acceptable for sysops to ban obvious trolls." Behavior is the issue, much more than user name. - Hephaestos|&#167; 15:49, 7 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Well I am, but I'm recused. :) Martin 23:54, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
 * "Obvious trolls" indeed. The user name serves only as a warning flag, and in this case a completely accurate one. Isomorphic 19:56, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

User:Angela is a troll
Special:Contributions/Angela is a troll indicates that the user only edited 7 times: 5 vandalisms to Angela's user page, and two to her talk page. - Fennec 04:31, May 8, 2004 (UTC)

Evidence of reincarnation
I believe that Mr. Trollkien may have edited here before, and would like to encourage the Committee to ask him to state, for the record, any previous user names he has had and whether he has been the subject of a ban. UninvitedCompany 19:38, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * UninvitedCompany is conducting an unsubstantiated witch-hunt: see role account for more evidence of this. JRR Trollkien (see warning) 20:32, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Evidence in support of UninvitedCompany's evidence is provided at user talk:JRR Trollkien. Martin 15:09, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Evidence of current policy
Obviously the vote at dealing with vandalism should be considered at this point, as well as blocking policy and banning policy. Martin 21:39, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)