Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Lapsed Pacifist

Case Opened on 17:34, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Case Closed on 19:17, 4 April 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


Lapsed Pacifist has for one year engaged in edit warring, POV editing and provocative behaviour despite appeals to stop, bans and an RfC.

confirmation that LP has been notified.

Given that the user has ignored all appeals and all requests to follow NPOV and even begun editwarring as soon as blocks expired over and over again, there are no grounds whatsoever that any other mechanism but an enforceable ruling of the Arbcom will stop the saga.

Requests for comment

 * Requests for comment/Lapsed Pacifist

Statement by jtdirl
LP regularly adds in POV additions, subtle word changes and POV language pushing political agendas to Irish articles. This has been going on for months. He has ignored appeals to stop, demands from multiple users to stop, bans for breaching 3RR. In Northern Ireland, elements of both communities use POV terminology both to push their own political agenda and to send a "fuck you" message to the other. LP is one of the worst offenders on WP. For example, because elements of both communities use their own POV language to describe the place (Unionists use 'Ulster', Republicans 'The Six Counties' etc) WP follows a strict policy of only using the legal name, Northern Ireland and no POV alternative. LP has spent months deleting references to Northern Ireland and slotting in his own political agenda-pushing replacements, for example, , , , He deliberately changes Loyalist (fringe working class Unionists associated with violence) to Unionist (the mainstream community rarely linked to violence) to provoke and offend Unionist Wikipedians, adds in unsourced wild claims , adds in propaganda for one party into articles or heavy POV editorialising ,  miscategorises other people's edits as 'blanking' in edit summaries. Other examples of his edits include, , ,. (Even while I was writing this, he produced this POV edit.) Various articles have become bogged down in edit wars caused by his POVing., ,

An example of some of his edit warring:
 * 1) (cur) (last) 22:39, 27 July 2005 Djegan m (revert vandalism)
 * 2) (cur) (last) 22:32, 27 July 2005 Lapsed Pacifist (rv)
 * 3) (cur) (last) 10:00, 27 July 2005 Djegan m (revert)
 * 4) (cur) (last) 06:59, 27 July 2005 Lapsed Pacifist (rv; please write accurate edit summaries)
 * 5) (cur) (last) 22:30, 26 July 2005 Djegan m (revert sectanism and vandalism of LP)
 * 6) (cur) (last) 22:28, 26 July 2005 Lapsed Pacifist (rv NPOV)
 * 7) (cur) (last) 10:15, 26 July 2005 Demiurge m (rv POV term "six counties")
 * 8) (cur) (last) 08:22, 26 July 2005 Lapsed Pacifist (rv NPOV)
 * 9) (cur) (last) 09:53, 25 July 2005 Demiurge m (rv POV term "six counties")
 * 10) (cur) (last) 06:59, 25 July 2005 Lapsed Pacifist (rv needlessly simplistic edit)
 * 11) (cur) (last) 21:48, 24 July 2005 JW1805 m (rvt (corrected needlessly complex sentence structure))
 * 12) (cur) (last) 21:39, 24 July 2005 Lapsed Pacifist (rv needlessly simplistic edit)
 * 13) (cur) (last) 15:37, 24 July 2005 JW1805 m (corrected needlessly complex sentence structure)
 * 14) (cur) (last) 15:34, 24 July 2005 Lapsed Pacifist (rv; Restore context)
 * 15) (cur) (last) 04:57, 24 July 2005 JW1805 m (simplify sentence)
 * 16) (cur) (last) 04:08, 24 July 2005 Lapsed Pacifist (rv NPOV)
 * 17) (cur) (last) 00:00, 23 July 2005 Demiurge m (rv POV)
 * 18) (cur) (last) 23:48, 22 July 2005 Lapsed Pacifist (Revert edits by Djegan to last version by JavaJive)
 * 19) (cur) (last) 20:27, 22 July 2005 Djegan (revert sectanism and vandalism)
 * 20) (cur) (last) 20:20, 22 July 2005 JavaJive m (wikify date)
 * 21) (cur) (last) 19:06, 22 July 2005 Demiurge m (rv POV)
 * 22) (cur) (last) 17:37, 22 July 2005 Lapsed Pacifist (rv)
 * 23) (cur) (last) 10:14, 22 July 2005 Demiurge m (rv POV)
 * 24) (cur) (last) 05:18, 22 July 2005 Lapsed Pacifist (rv)

While many of LP's edits are fine, in among the good ones he buries blatant POVing, provocative terminology and political agenda-pushing. Given that he has engaged in POV edit warring for one year, has refused to pay heed to complaints, refused to tone down his political agenda-pushing, has come back after blocks and picked up where he left off, there are no grounds for believing that any other form of mediation will stop him. He needs an enforceable ruling of the arbcom. Otherwise a host of Irish users will continue to have to spend much of their time constantly NPOVing his contributions and fighting edit wars with him. That is unfair on them and damaging to WP.

(Apologies for the length of above. It is a complex issue running a full year.)

Statement by party 2
(Please limit your statement to 500 words)

Evidence & View by Djegan
Lapsed Pacifist has continously disrupted wikipedia. In fairness he does give a very few good edits but this is seriously eclippsed by his pov warring on wikipedia. Additionally several good editors have being subjected to his warring across mainly British and Irish related articles, so it is not isolated by any means. What he does is damaging to a professional wikipedia and serious editors.

Some specific examples I would like to cite include whereby he merged the information of two articles into one whilst keeping the source of both (List of universities in the Republic of Ireland and List of universities in Northern Ireland). Yet another example is whereby he copied the source (Abbeys and priories in the Republic of Ireland and Abbeys and priories in Northern Ireland). In these two cases he did not consult anyone for their opinion, simply created unified copies of two exisiting articles. I contend that this is part of his general style to be biased and pov biased; a false United Ireland.

Two recent controversies he is associated in (with me) is that he moved two pages and  even though the consensus was against this on the respective talk pages. These two articles are currently subject to a WP:RM vote.

This is only a small example of the warring that he does. Djegan 19:04, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Statement and evidence by Demiurge
This user holds Irish republican views, and is of the opinion that Northern Ireland is not a legitimate political entity. Which is a perfectly legitimate opinion to hold, of course; the problem arises when he tries to push this POV on Wikipedia by inserting unofficial POV names ("north-eastern Ireland", "the six counties", "the north-east") instead of "Northern Ireland" and even by using "Ireland" or "Ulster" where "Northern Ireland" would be more specific and appropriate.

Problematic behaviour includes:
 * provocative edit summaries: "rv, for the hell of it" "Inserting outrageous POV". Very difficult to WP:AGF after seeing these.
 * User_talk:Demiurge &mdash; discussion on my talk page where he admits that he is changing "loyalist paramilitaries" to "unionist paramilitaries" to push his POV that loyalist paramilitary groups and the police/army in Northern Ireland are equivalent.
 * &mdash; revert warring over an unsourced "fact" concerning the Democratic Unionist Party's membership, and refusing to provide evidence when challenged on the talk page.
 * . Another revert war, this time over LP saying as fact that the Stormontgate spy ring was the work of MI5. As anyone with Lapsed Pacifist's knowledge of Northern Ireland affairs would surely know, responsibility for this affair is still hotly debated, with the British government flatly denying that MI5 were behind it.
 * &mdash; edit-warring over a period of six months in an attempt to substitute his preferred POV term "six counties" for "Northern Ireland".
 * &mdash; another six-month edit war, this time trying to remove any reference to Northern Ireland entirely.

After extensive and fruitless attempts to resolve these issues with this user (relevant talk pages: Talk:Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Ireland, User talk:Demiurge, Talk:Demographics and politics of Northern Ireland), I've come to the conclusion that this user has made no serious attempt to follow WP:NPOV, instead viewing talk-page discussion as a delaying tactic.

Demiurge 19:35, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (4/0/1/0)

 * Accept. ➥the Epopt 21:07, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Accept. Dmcdevit·t 07:52, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Accept. Neutralitytalk 06:24, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Accept. Charles Matthews 09:23, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Recuse. - SimonP 04:20, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Temporary injunction (none)
=Final decision=

Disruptive editing
1) A user who disrupts Wikipedia articles by edit warring regarding use of point of view language may be banned from the affected articles, in extreme cases from the site.


 * Passed 7 to 0 at 19:17, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Locus of dispute
1) The locus of this dispute is the edits to articles which concern the conflict in Northern Ireland and associated subjects.


 * Passed 7 to 0 at 19:17, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Habitual point of view editing
2) has habitually engaged in point of view editing, inserting the point of view labeling language preferred by Irish Nationalists, sometimes edit warring for months, see Requests for arbitration/Lapsed Pacifist/Evidence.


 * Passed 7 to 0 at 19:17, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Departure of Lapsed Pacifist
3) Upon acceptance of this Arbitration case, Lapsed Pacifist ceased editing Wikipedia under that user name. No clear evidence exists that he has continued to edit anonymously or under any other account.


 * Passed 7 to 0 at 19:17, 4 April 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.

Lapsed Pacifist banned from affected articles
1) Lapsed Pacifist is banned indefinitely from articles which relate to the conflict in Northern Ireland. The ban is intended to include any page in Wikipedia which Lapsed Pacifist engages in a dispute related in any way to the conflict in Northern Ireland.


 * Passed 7 to 0 at 19:17, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Log of blocks and bans
Here log any block, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.
 * I blocked for 24hrs for a violation of remedy 1. He edited Black and Tans to add a controversial category . I have also advised the user to be more liberal in his interpretation of the remedy.   Rockpock  e  t  17:16, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I block for 48 hours for a second violation of the remedy, for this edit and the subsequent reversion when the content was removed. I also advised the editor that in the spirit of the ruling, it would be best to avoid any controversial edits about this topic, even in unrelated articles.  Shell    babelfish 18:15, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Blocked for a week. PhilKnight (talk) 16:29, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Blocked for Two Weeks, for a fourth violation of his ArbCom topic ban. SirFozzie (talk) 22:42, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Blocked for 48 hours, in part due to violating this topic ban. John Vandenberg (chat) 15:55, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Blocked by at 19:50, 12 March 2011, for 48 hours because of a topic ban violation.
 * Blocked for a month because of multiple topic ban violations, per this AE request.  Sandstein   20:34, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Blocked indefinitely per Sockpuppet investigations/Lapsed Pacifist. At least on alternate account, User:Gestur, violated the topic ban, thus noting it here. Amalthea  07:57, 8 April 2011 (UTC)