Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Locke Cole/Evidence

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.

When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-conciousness rants are not helpful.

As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey use this form:.

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.

Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs, a much shorter, concise presentation is more likely to be effective. Please focus on the issues raised in the complaint and answer and on diffs which illustrate behavior which relates to the issues.

If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.

Be aware that the Arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to refactor the page, let the Arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the arbitrators to move.

The Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies voting by Arbitrators takes place at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.

Evidence presented by Netoholic
Locke Cole and I disagree on several technical points, particularly regarding templates. It is not my intention, in raising this Arbitration request, that the technical points be decided upon. I feel that both he and I have very good reasons for our technical differences and that we are working in good faith - to make Wikipedia better.

What I strongly protest is the frequent harassment that Locke_Cole has subjected me to outside of the template area. He's taken to directly reverting items he's never been involved in before. He's involving himself on the opposite side of several topics I've commented on. He looks for ways to discredit me, he pours gasoline on the fires of the most minor conflicts, and generally is doing everything he can to ensure I have the most miserable experience possible on this wiki. I do not make these statements lightly. Locke Cole's actions have become malicious.

I previously made a report about wiki-stalking by Locke Cole on 06:25, 4 February 2006, for which he was blocked. Recently, he's been spending almost his whole time here attacking me in several ways, both obvious and subtle. He is reviewing my contribs extremely frequently (which is not bad on its own), but then using that information to find ways to confound me... even when I act in good faith or on topics he's never been involved.

Locke_Cole engages in harassment and disruption on Leet
I've been involved in a debate about the status of this article since January 14th, where, upon reading it, I found several unsubstantiated assertions that it was a "language" (as opposed to a slang or other category). One that date, I removed an instance of Template:Language accordingly. This change was objected to and for several days (and even to the present), discussion about the "status" of Leet has been held on Talk:Leet. User:Avriette was the page's most vocal supporter of calling leet a "language".


 * January 26
 * 05:44 - After twelve days of active discussion on Talk:Leet and after comments on Featured article removal candidates/Leet discounting the "language" argument, I removed the Infobox and made several other changes.
 * 07:59 - Locke Cole reverts completely, marking his edit minor, and misstating a situation he had never participated in. At no time since the article began, until this edit, has User:Locke Cole ever edited Leet or Talk:Leet. I contend he was watching my edits, and used that info to revert me in retaliation for the template conflict.
 * 17:42 - Locke_Cole reverts again
 * January 27
 * 20:46 - Locke_Cole reverts again. He still has not participated on the Talk page.


 * March 8
 * 04:42 - Avriette makes a massive rewrite of leet (note edit summary), which made strong assertions on the POV that leet is a language based on unreliable sources.
 * 18:10 - Because I felt that Avriette's change was strongly POV and original research, I reverted on that basis, and I commented on Talk to that effect.
 * 20:51 - Locke_Cole reverted me, without explanation or justification.
 * 23:13 - Avriette moves "Leet" to "Leet (language)", then edits the redirect into a disambig page. The move was not proposed first, and the name chosen, I felt, was also overtly POV.
 * 23:39 - I nominated the page to be moved back.
 * 23:53 - I place the TotallyDisputed and OriginalResearch tags onto the page, per my talk page justification.
 * March 9
 * 00:09 - Locke_Cole reverts
 * 01:23 - In his first edit ever to Talk:Leet, Locke_Cole votes opposing the move back to "leet".
 * 04:40 - I restored the tags, citing Vandalism which says: Improper use of dispute tags: ... Dispute tags are important way for people to show that there are problems with the article. Do not remove them unless you are sure that the dispute is settled. As a general rule, do not remove other people's dispute tags twice during a 24 hour period.
 * 04:41 - Locke_Cole reverts. His edit summary is an attack on me, and does not explain why he thinks the POV dispute is settled.
 * March 10
 * 18:17, 21:02, 21:07 - Locke_Cole subsequently removes the tags on these further occasions.
 * March 11
 * 00:51 - Locke_Cole retracts his oppose vote on the move poll. This may be evidence that in his initial oppose vote, he did not fully consider his position and may have acted just in opposition to me.
 * 04:34 - Locke_Cole comments on Talk. I note this only because, after all revert warring (nine reverts total) and his opposition on the move vote, this is the first and only time Locke_Cole has participated in any substantive discussion regarding Leet.  I immediately accommodated his request for a more complete explanation of my criticism of the source's that Avriette used.

It's my belief that, due to the behavior exhibited by Locke_Cole, that his primary goal with regards to the Leet page was to oppose me for it's own sake, to confound or discredit me, and to generally make a difficult situation worse. His actions were completely unproductive.

Locke_Cole revert wars on Netoholic's user page
For quite some time, my user page had two images that were uploaded as fair use. Later, after the Wikipedia fair use guidelines had changed to disallow them, I had objected, citing that I was using them as parody, and "fair use" as such on my user page. At the time, I'd misunderstood and thought that the guideline meant that ... whereas I understand now it is is a flat "no fair use images of any kind on user pages".


 * February 2, 2006
 * 23:47 - Locke_Cole removes these images from my page, without contacting me on my talk page first. His edit summary uses the interestingly names shortcut "WP:FU" ("eff- you").
 * February 4
 * 05:15 - Locke_Cole removes them again.
 * 05:41 - Locke_Cole removes them again.
 * 05:48 - I restore the images as wikilinks, rather than displaying them.
 * 05:51 - Locke_Cole reverts, even though my version complied with the guidelines. I saw this as vandalism.
 * 06:23 - Locke_Cole is blocked over this incident as "blatant user page harassment".

I'll freely admit to misinterpretting the new guidelines, and after someone took the time to discuss with me calmly, I've removed them completely. That being said, Locke_Cole's actions show specific harrassment, on my own user page.

Locke_Cole further harasses Netoholic, poisoning the well

 * December 27, 2005
 * 11:54:35 - Locke_Cole writes "Frankly this WP:AUM crusade Netoholic is on is really bad for the Wiki"
 * 14:12:19 Locke_Cole replies within about 4.5 hours opposing Netoholic on Template talk:Infobox Single (LC never edited that page before).
 * 15:19:02 - Locke_Cole writes "Things that annoy me ... That certain policies get to bypass typical policy creation methods simply because some developers say so (see WP:AUM)"


 * December 29, 2005
 * 9:05:51 Locke_Cole reverts Netoholic within about 30 minutes on Template:LinkFarm (LC never edited that page before).
 * Locke_Cole made several other follow-up edits immediately after Netoholic on this day - 09:02:44, 09:03:35, 09:04:15, 09:24:39. I feel like this shows one clear series of edits where, Locke_Cole is not satisfied with simply reverting me on templates related to meta-templates - he shows that he can and will check out every edit I make and counter my actions for dubious reasons. I have never before seen Template:LinkFarm in active use, and even today after Locke "saved" it, it's still not in use (Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:LinkFarm) nor present on any page which documents its usage (like WP:TM).


 * December 30, 2005
 * 10:03:10 Locke_Cole follows Netoholic within about 20 minutes to Template:Off-topic (LC never edited that page before).


 * January 2, 2006
 * 19:42:24 Locke_Cole replies within about 10 minutes opposing Netoholic on MediaWiki talk:Common.css (LC never edited that page before).


 * January 15, 2006
 * 6:23:46 Locke_Cole reverts Netoholic within about 15 minutes on Template:Infobox Language (LC never edited that page before).


 * January 23, 2006
 * 18:11:39 Locke_Cole replies within about 40 minutes opposing Netoholic on Template talk:Main (LC never edited that page before).


 * January 24, 2006
 * About an hour after Netoholic made this edit on Template:Ship_table, he posted this note. He's never edited Template:Ship table, Template talk:Ship table, or User talk:David Newton before.


 * January 31, 2006
 * 21:51:47 Locke_Cole replies within about 45 minutes opposing Netoholic on Template talk:Infobox CVG (LC never edited that page before).


 * February 5, 2006
 * 00:08:32 - After I'd reported previous harassment and the edit warring on my user page, Locke_Cole makes this statement, threatening further wiki-stalking -- "for what it's worth, I intend to continue going through your contribs to undo the damage you've done. Again, that's not disruptive, that's corrective. Somebody has to do it, just as when a vandal is identified, someone has to go trawling through that persons contribs and undo the damage that was done (yes, I am comparing you to a vandal; I believe the comparison fits)".


 * February 9, 2006
 * 20:46:32 Locke_Cole replies within about 10 minutes opposing Netoholic on User talk:Crotalus horridus (LC never edited that page before).


 * March 3, 2006
 * 5:44:06 Netoholic makes a 3RR report about User:Madchester.
 * 8:50:09 Locke Cole comments on it, but only to poison the well (commenting negatively about me, rather than talking about the specific situation).
 * 8:52:19 Locke_Cole takes it one step further, contacting Madchester on his talk page.


 * March 9, 2006
 * 23:45:01 Locke_Cole reverts Netoholic within about 1.5 hours on Template:English dialects by continent (LC never edited that page before).

Locke_Cole misrepresents Netoholic's editing status

 * Even though he knows that Arbitrators have clarified my restrictions (that admins should only block me for disruption, rather than strict interpretation), he reported some recent edits of mine to WP:ANI at 05:05, 9 March 2006. At that exact minute, User:David Levy blocked me.  This was a coordinated action, as it is implausible in the extreme that this was a coincidence.

On several occasions, Locke_Cole has reverted a template/page with the edit summary "(rvt - user is banned from template and wikipedia namespace)". Firstly, "when reverting, users are expected to give their reasons in the edit summaries" - knowing the clarifications, Locke's revert reason was not legitimate. Second, in placing only a link to the decision and with the wording of the edit summary, Locke_Cole is failing to mention the Arbitrator clarifications so that an admin that views his summaries can make a decision with adequate information.
 * Edit summaries

,, , , , , , , , (note wording), , , , , , , , , , , , , 

As perhaps expected, Locke_Cole's ommissions have caused admins to mistakenly block Netoholic. Thes blocks were undone quickly.
 * Impact on Netoholic

Locke_Cole shows further bad faith

 * I created a template design guideline proposal at Avoid conditional templates on 20:34, 7 March 2006, unfinished, and still very much in draft form. Eight minutes later, Locke Cole moved the page to my userspace without asking me, and using a snide summary.

David_Levy
David Levy has acted in coordination with Locke on several occasions and harassed Netoholic (see above sections) and probably deserves at least a reprimand.

He's blocked me three times (all lifted quickly) on March 2nd, 9th, and 11th, despite the fact that he and I've had long-time disagreements. He's clearly not neutral, and is using his blocking power as a form of harrassment. Any of the hundreds of other admins could have handled this instead.
 * Blocks / conflicts of interest

The blocks on March 9th and 11th show conflict of interest due to the fact that David had blocked me previously and those blocks were reversed. His block log summary from those days included - "despite warnings, disruptively edited within the template namespace to insert code explicitly condemned by lead developer Brion Vibber" - a reference to a content dispute about Avoid using meta-templates and HiddenStructure.

To show that his original March 2nd block was inappropriate, I'll show that David Levy (previously named Lifeisunfair) was involved on the opposite side from me in several content disputes related to templates.


 * March 1, 2006 - On Wikipedia talk:Avoid using meta-templates, David voices his opinion several times.   )
 * February 28, 2006 - On this date, one can see David_Levy interspersing edits to WP:AUM, comments on WT:AUM and my user page. He was most definitely in conflict with me over the validity of WP:AUM.
 * 19:22:33 One comment in particular shows this where David_Levy says "Netoholic has resisted all attempts to gauge consensus (or lack thereof), and he is citing this page in his edit summaries when restoring the CSS hack".
 * December 2005 - On Template talk:Spoiler, one can see David/Lifeisunfair commenting on the template content dispute even before he was made an admin.
 * June 2005 - On Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning. This is almost to the origins of my interaction with Lifeisunfair. We've had disagreements on template content for a long time.


 * Reverting templates to Locke_Cole's preferred version
 * 3/7/2006	19:38:31	Template:Infobox Band
 * 3/7/2006	19:38:56	Template:Infobox Music genre
 * 3/7/2006	19:39:13	Template:Airport infobox
 * 3/7/2006	19:39:21	Template:Infobox Military Conflict
 * 3/7/2006	19:39:46	Template:Infobox Network
 * 3/14/2006	15:25:09	Template:Infobox Book
 * 3/14/2006	15:38:45	Template:Infobox Book
 * 3/16/2006	17:27:14	Template:Infobox Conditionals

These comments or edits were made only a short time after Netoholic made his edit. These are pages that David had never edited or been involved with before (and unlikely Watchlisted).
 * Comments opposing Netoholic


 * 1/26/2006	21:54:18	Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of redundant expressions
 * 2/4/2006	7:45:03	Wikipedia:Assume bad faith
 * 3/8/2006	00:11:10	User talk:Ashibaka

Locke Cole's evidence

 * Countering
 * As Locke generously documented, I have previously edited the templates he's accused me of "stalking" him onto. I am an extremely prolific template editor, particularly on Infobox templates.   I do maintain a very long Watchlist of those I've worked on.  My reverts to those templates he documented were a result of me seeing his edits on my Watchlist and editing as I felt necessary.  I did not make any specific effort to follow Locke around.

Evidence presented by Locke Cole
First I want to apologize for this being disjointed and rather long, but I feel it's better to have too much information than too little. I'll try and clean it up and trim it as we go.

Second, I'd like the arbitrators to read over Netoholic's previous RFAr at Requests for arbitration/Netoholic 2. Much of the behavior described there is merely continued here today.

Locke Cole and David Levy have not acted in coordination
Netoholic would like you to believe David Levy and I are out to get him, but if you take a look at the exact times of the two incidents, you'll see that I made my posting to WP:AN/I after David Levy blocked Netoholic: Why would I report him on AN/I after David Levy blocked if our actions were coordinated? I wouldn't. It is purely coincidental (and as David pointed out in his statement, understandable, as I've been reporting Netoholic's ArbCom ban violations fairly regularly by now).
 * 2006-03-09 05:05:52 — My posting on AN/I at 52 seconds after.
 * 2006-03-09 05:05:19 — David Levy's block at 19 seconds after.

Netoholic has wikistalked Locke Cole
Netoholic has been following me around, either flat out reverting my edits, or largely undoing the work done within (and reverting portions I had fixed). Where applicable I've included when Netoholic had last edited any of these. Please note these are not all reversions of my edits (though for pages where only one diff is given, they are), but reversions of my work on these pages. In some cases, ohers have reverted Netoholic.


 * 2006-03-17 05:40:26
 * 2006-03-17 04:05:03
 * 2006-03-12 07:30:50 — Netoholic's last edit was on 2005-12-30 22:25:34.
 * 2006-03-17 05:39:47
 * 2006-03-17 04:04:43
 * 2006-03-14 18:46:06
 * 2006-03-14 15:51:48
 * 2006-03-13 22:03:42
 * 2006-03-13 05:52:34 — Netoholic's last edit was on 2005-12-20 23:22:35.
 * 2006-03-17 03:54:51
 * 2006-03-17 03:42:54 — Netoholic's last edit was on 2006-01-08 20:20:21.
 * 2006-03-16 15:03:48 — Netoholic's last edit was on 2006-02-06 22:32:00, and my previous edit here was on 2006-02-05 03:26:33 (when I created the page).
 * 2006-03-14 15:36:15
 * 2006-03-14 15:20:22
 * 2006-03-13 08:00:20
 * 2006-03-13 06:57:38
 * 2006-03-07 04:08:38 — rvty undiscussed changes. impact on accessibility is minimal, with his last edit on 2006-01-27 03:05:30 being a simple revert of and his last actual edit being on 2006-01-13 07:44:28.
 * 2006-03-13 08:02:18
 * 2006-03-13 05:56:54
 * 2006-03-13 05:18:07 — Netoholic's last edit was on 2006-01-16 04:50:25.
 * 2006-03-10 21:14:57
 * 2006-03-10 21:02:16
 * 2006-03-10 20:56:46 — rvt, accessibility not a concern, his previous edit was on 2006-01-19 04:50:10.
 * 2006-03-11 05:19:26 — rvt user needs to take a vacation, this would be an example of incivility.
 * 2006-03-11 04:34:28 — rvt. hiddenStructure is not so bad, his previous edit was on 2006-01-19 18:10:26.
 * 2006-03-09 08:26:02
 * 2006-03-09 04:28:30 — Netoholic has never edited this template before.
 * 2006-03-09 04:18:54 — his previous edit on 2006-01-27 03:08:32 was a simple revert of CBDunkerson, his last actual edit was on 2005-12-24 06:17:49.
 * 2006-03-09 04:18:11 — his previous edit was on 2006-02-14 06:16:09.
 * 2006-03-07 19:23:52 — his previous edit was on 2005-12-09 21:18:51, with my last edit being 2005-11-03 22:18:27.
 * 2006-03-07 19:22:16 — rvt crusade / ugly html, with previous edit being on 2005-05-21 03:13:35 (it was also his only edit prior to this reversion).
 * 2006-03-07 19:20:38 — rvt crusade/ ugly html, and Netoholic had never edited this template before.
 * 2006-03-07 19:19:36 — rvt crusade, and Netoholic had never directly edited this template before (his only edits were to the talk page, the last of which was on 2005-12-09 15:28:49).
 * 2006-03-07 19:16:36 — Netoholic has never edited this template before.
 * 2006-03-07 06:54:41 — rvt undiscussed changes to this template, his previous edit on 2006-01-27 03:08:19 being a simple revert of CBDunkerson, and his last actual edit being on 2005-12-29 05:32:48.
 * 2006-03-07 04:09:59 — Netoholic has never edited this template before.
 * 2006-03-07 04:08:01 — rvt undiscussed changes., his previous edit was on 2006-01-18 01:21:37.
 * 2006-03-03 07:16:41
 * 2006-03-03 06:01:49 — tdeprecated, with his previous edit being on 2006-01-24 15:28:48. Unlike most other diffs here, this was not a revert, but instead an attempt to deprecate the template altogether.
 * 2006-02-28 07:37:25 — revert
 * 2006-02-28 07:03:10 — Meta-templates considered harmful
 * 2006-02-28 06:54:26 — WP:AUM, his previous edit was on 2006-01-15 13:29:24.
 * 2006-02-01 00:55:18 — ugh, font tags. move to messagebox class, note that this should be subst:d; he drastically changed the appearance of the template (it was supposed to look like the "you have new messages" bar), and there was already a note about subst'ing it.
 * 2006-01-31 21:15:09 — rvt to working version, for the record it did work. Netoholic has never edited this template before.
 * 2006-03-07 19:20:38 — rvt crusade/ ugly html, and Netoholic had never edited this template before.
 * 2006-03-07 19:19:36 — rvt crusade, and Netoholic had never directly edited this template before (his only edits were to the talk page, the last of which was on 2005-12-09 15:28:49).
 * 2006-03-07 19:16:36 — Netoholic has never edited this template before.
 * 2006-03-07 06:54:41 — rvt undiscussed changes to this template, his previous edit on 2006-01-27 03:08:19 being a simple revert of CBDunkerson, and his last actual edit being on 2005-12-29 05:32:48.
 * 2006-03-07 04:09:59 — Netoholic has never edited this template before.
 * 2006-03-07 04:08:01 — rvt undiscussed changes., his previous edit was on 2006-01-18 01:21:37.
 * 2006-03-03 07:16:41
 * 2006-03-03 06:01:49 — tdeprecated, with his previous edit being on 2006-01-24 15:28:48. Unlike most other diffs here, this was not a revert, but instead an attempt to deprecate the template altogether.
 * 2006-02-28 07:37:25 — revert
 * 2006-02-28 07:03:10 — Meta-templates considered harmful
 * 2006-02-28 06:54:26 — WP:AUM, his previous edit was on 2006-01-15 13:29:24.
 * 2006-02-01 00:55:18 — ugh, font tags. move to messagebox class, note that this should be subst:d; he drastically changed the appearance of the template (it was supposed to look like the "you have new messages" bar), and there was already a note about subst'ing it.
 * 2006-01-31 21:15:09 — rvt to working version, for the record it did work. Netoholic has never edited this template before.
 * 2006-03-03 07:16:41
 * 2006-03-03 06:01:49 — tdeprecated, with his previous edit being on 2006-01-24 15:28:48. Unlike most other diffs here, this was not a revert, but instead an attempt to deprecate the template altogether.
 * 2006-02-28 07:37:25 — revert
 * 2006-02-28 07:03:10 — Meta-templates considered harmful
 * 2006-02-28 06:54:26 — WP:AUM, his previous edit was on 2006-01-15 13:29:24.
 * 2006-02-01 00:55:18 — ugh, font tags. move to messagebox class, note that this should be subst:d; he drastically changed the appearance of the template (it was supposed to look like the "you have new messages" bar), and there was already a note about subst'ing it.
 * 2006-01-31 21:15:09 — rvt to working version, for the record it did work. Netoholic has never edited this template before.
 * 2006-02-01 00:55:18 — ugh, font tags. move to messagebox class, note that this should be subst:d; he drastically changed the appearance of the template (it was supposed to look like the "you have new messages" bar), and there was already a note about subst'ing it.
 * 2006-01-31 21:15:09 — rvt to working version, for the record it did work. Netoholic has never edited this template before.

...and assumed bad faith
This one is unique; here he's stalking me to WP:AN/3RR, and then further assuming bad faith regarding my actions on articles he's never edited before ( and ). Note that this is in fact an early example of Netoholic poisoning the well; something he would go on to accuse me of.


 * 2006-02-16 08:35:11 — Netoholic states that a checkuser may need to be performed to determine if I've abused sockpuppets in an edit war on phpBB.
 * 2006-02-16 08:55:12 — Netoholic expands the scope of his claim, and responds to my comment alleging that he's trolling and not assuming good faith.
 * 2006-02-16 09:06:19 — I respond to Netoholic, pointing out that I've never been accused of sockpuppetry at all, and note that his appearance at this WP:AN/3RR report is a textbook case of wikistalking.
 * 2006-02-16 09:13:06 — Netoholic makes a request at Requests for CheckUser regarding the allegation made at WP:AN/3RR.
 * 2006-02-16 22:02:10 — The anonymous editor denies being related at all with me.
 * 2006-02-16 22:08:17 — The anonymous editor expands his response.
 * 2006-02-17 00:48:31 — Netoholic injects himself into another 3RR complaint not involving him (but involving me).
 * 2006-02-22 05:37:01 — After growing impatient and wanting to be exhonerated, I asked if he'd process Netoholic's WP:RCU request. Unfortunately I never received a response from Morven, and the request was never carried out.

It's important to note the timing of this: he alleges in his evidence that I've "poisoned the well" with him–
 * 2006-03-03 08:50:09 — Where he alleges I "poisoned the well".

But note that this incident occurred nearly half a month after he'd done basically the same thing to me first. Of course I dispute the idea that my actions "poisoned the well"; the reality of the situation was that he was accusing someone of a 3RR violation when in fact, given his ArbCom imposed 1RR, it should be impossible for someone to run afoul of 3RR in a dispute with him. Not only did he ignore his ArbCom restriction, he attempted to have someone else blocked for being in a dispute with him.

Netoholic has revert warred

 * Please include my Wikistalking evidence here as well.

Note that the diffs below are generally single reverts for each page, however, they're spread across the template namespace and all within minutes or a day of eachother. Given his more recent behavior with me (that is, someone who won't take his bullying and edit warrior attitude lying down), I believe if anyone had reverted him on these he likely would have revert warred over each and every one of them. Note that every diff below is a reversion of an edit by and that if this isn't accepted as revert warring, it should be accepted as stalking and/or disruption.

Netoholic has violated his ArbCom bans
Per Requests for arbitration/Netoholic 2, Netoholic was banned from the Template: and Wikipedia: namespace for a period of one year in the event his mentorship failed.


 * 2005-07-19 13:17:47 — Netoholic's mentorship failed, and remedy 2.1 went into effect.

I submit that the wikistalking and revert warring diffs above are all, for the most part, violations of the ArbCom ban. Even if we accept the clarifications given by Arbitrators in early and late January, most arbitrators agreed that if Netoholic was being disruptive he should be held to his bans. I submit that the diffs provided demonstrate such disruption. I would also note that the arbitrator clarifications (at least some of them) were given while meta-templates were still considered to be a server load problem.

Netoholic has ignored fair-use image policy

 * Please note that this is also my rebuttal to Wgfinley's evidence, note the timeline and the fact that others were involved besides myself and David Levy.

Up until a month ago Netoholic had two copyrighted images on his userpage (a picture of The Hulk, as portrayed by Lou Ferrigno; and a picture of Will Ferrel on Saturday Night Live). These images have been removed multiple times by various editors because their use on userpages is a violation of Wikipedia's fair-use policy. Netoholic, however, usually reverts or places the images back after a short time, ignoring Wikipedia's fair-use policy.


 * 2005-10-11 17:12:44 — informs Netoholic that his use of Image:Cowbell2.gif is "probably not fair use".
 * 2005-12-01 04:43:03 — informs Netoholic that "Both the Hulk and the Cowbell pictures are fair use only, and shouldn't be used on user pages."
 * 2005-12-01 17:20:45 — Ral315 leaves another comment, insisting he's not trying to be annoying "just noting that Wikipedia isn't authorized to use these images on user pages."
 * 2005-12-03 19:04:34 — brings up the matter of fair-use of his Hulk image and Will Ferrel SNL image.
 * 2005-12-04 08:20:01 — SoothingR responds to a comment from Netoholic.
 * 2006-01-18 03:25:28 — informs Netoholic of Wikipedia's fair-use policy, saying "I noticed your fair use rationale on the Cowbell image; that is an acceptable fair use rationale, but only for using the image in the article that it's relevant to. User pages are never an acceptable place for fair use images." Cleared as filed also removed the images from his userpage.
 * 2006-01-19 02:49:46 — Cleared as filed comments out the images.
 * 2006-01-19 03:16:01 — Netoholic uncomments the image links, with a blank edit summary (and, obviously, no explanation).
 * 2006-01-19 04:16:27 — Cleared as filed rolls back Netoholic's edit.
 * 2006-01-19 04:16:34 — After seeing the images had been reinstated and having not received a response to his first message, Cleared as filed asks if Netoholic understands the fair-use policy, or if he is simply ignoring it. The images are removed again and his note ends with: "Please don't put them back up, or you will have to be blocked."
 * 2006-01-19 04:53:08 — Netoholic again uncomments the images and inserts fair use rationale.
 * 2006-01-19 08:32:18 — attempts to explain why the images may meet fair-use under the law, but still fail Wikipedia's fair-use policy.
 * 2006-01-19 11:34:17 — And CBDunkerson also responds.
 * 2006-01-23 22:37:30 — removes the copyrighted images with the edit summary remove fair use images from this non-article page. See WP:FU#Fair use policy, point 9.
 * 2006-02-02 23:16:20 — Netoholic adds the images again, again with a blank edit summary.
 * 2006-02-02 23:47:26 — I remove the images from his userpage, noting WP:FU.
 * 2006-02-03 22:47:16 — Netoholic adds the images again (note that this is nearly a day after I removed them).
 * 2006-02-03 23:23:13 — Cleared as filed removes the images, also noting WP:FU.
 * 2006-02-04 04:31:55 — reverts.
 * 2006-02-04 05:15:29 — I revert back to Cleared as filed's edit.
 * 2006-02-04 05:18:39 — Netoholic reverts with the edit summary don't touch my user page.
 * 2006-02-04 05:20:25 — David Levy reverts, again noting WP:FU.
 * 2006-02-04 05:28:07 — Netoholic reverts; each images has fair use justification, as required. Please discuss on WT:FU
 * 2006-02-04 05:30:38 — David Levy reverts; Per official policy, fair use images are not permitted on user pages.
 * 2006-02-04 05:40:15 — Netoholic reverts; both have fair use rationale, as required. Please discuss on WT:FU.
 * 2006-02-04 05:41:00 — I revert again, again citing WP:FU.
 * 2006-02-04 05:47:27 — Here I take the time to explain it as well after removing the images from his userpage.
 * 2006-02-04 05:48:32 — Netoholic reverts, but this time links to the images, instead of placing them inline (a subtle change), with the edit summary fix vandal/wikistalker.
 * 2006-02-04 05:50:23 — Three minutes later Netoholic "archives" with the edit summary archive, FU, which I took to mean "fuck you".
 * 2006-02-04 05:51:06 — Not noticing the subtle change, I revert again (citing WP:FUC directly).
 * 2006-02-04 05:52:27 — Netoholic reverts; rvt wikistalker - stop vandalising my user page
 * 2006-02-04 12:14:20 — Cleared as filed removes the image links, obviously the difference was subtle for him as well (or he took a more literal reading of WP:FUC, which indicates fair-use image links should be used on "talk pages" (note the specificity), and then only to discuss the image).

It's also worth noting the incivility Netoholic displays, calling me a "wikistalker" for simply doing what others have tried to do (and failed). Also, since this last incident he hasn't placed the images back on the page.

Netoholic has misrepresented efforts to resolve dispute
Netoholic has categorically misrepresented his "efforts" to resolve our dispute. In the case he brought he claims he "tried discussing privately on IRC". Our initial encounter, on January 20th 2006 at 20:28 (Pacific), went like this (in order to comply with the "no posting of IRC logs" I've trimmed out comments except for mine and Netoholics)–

[20:26] * Netoholic has joined #wikipedia [20:27]  hey [20:28]  Wikipedia is full of fucking idiots. goddam WP:NPA [20:28]  hey Netoholic [20:28]  Fuck you locke [20:28]  Netoholic: I love you too [20:28]  that is all [20:29]  i said i was done [20:30]  Netoholic: I just want to say I'm sure glad we got the whole AUM thing worked out. [20:31]  I like how one person can suddenly downgrade something from policy to -nothing-... against an ArbCom that supports WP:AUM. I like that. [20:31]  Netoholic: ArbCom supported it under false pretenses And so it goes. Eventually he toned back his attitude when he privately messaged me, but he seemed less interested in resolving our dispute than he did in getting things done his way.

Further, Netoholic, mere days before bringing this RFAr case, requested mediation. He then failed to respond to the mediators questions (despite editing elsewhere), and the mediator eventually withdrew–


 * 2006-03-07 04:30:10
 * 2006-03-07 04:45:33 — Netoholic requests mediation (the above diff is when he placed the case on the /Cases page).
 * 2006-03-11 07:53:31 — Netoholic requests this RFAr
 * 2006-03-12 17:01:07 — A mediator,, opens our case asking for synopsis of the conflict from each of our points of view.
 * 2006-03-13 04:13:07 — I respond noting that Netoholic has already request arbitration as well and suggest that the mediation would be redundant.
 * 2006-03-13 04:50:58 — Netoholic responds, insisting the mediation is not redundant.
 * 2006-03-13 06:31:36 — I respond to the mediators request, giving a brief explanation for my actions.
 * 2006-03-13 16:50:35 — And the mediator responds, interestingly seeming to understand the situation quickly. For example, the mediator directed the following at Netoholic–
 * I do admit that, after researching the history of this conflict, I find your request that all you want Locke to do is leave you alone a little suspect. There's nothing wrong with that, but so I can get a better understanding of where to go in this, please explain to me below this what, if you could have anything in this, you expect or desire from Locke Cole. I haven't seen anything to suggest that he's "watching" you any more than I've seen you watching him - I think you're both following the edits of each other, and for this to go forward you and he have to be willing to let this go for the time being so neither of you feel it's a personal issue. So tell me, what do you want him to do?
 * 2006-03-14 07:52:33 — My response to the mediator, where I explain why I report him for his ArbCom ban violations, and also what I'd like him to do (a question he posed to both Netoholic and myself).
 * 2006-03-16 19:11:54 — Three days and two hours after the mediator asked his questions, and with no response from Netoholic, the mediator withdraws indicating he plans to spend time away from Wikipedia.

hiddenStructure is bad
For various reasons, hiddenStructure is decidedly bad and should not be used. Two comments that, I think, are most damning of it are below.


 * 2006-01-21 20:28:08 — Here Brion VIBBER, lead developer of MediaWiki, describes some of the problems with hiddenStructure.
 * ...it's using a CSS hack to hide structure elements, which can fail for text browsers, plaintext renderings of articles, and any HTML display of the article that doesn't use the stylesheet on this site. This harms both the primary site's accessibility and offsite reuse of material. –
 * 2006-01-23 05:08:05 — Here Graham87, a blind Wikipedian, discusses screen reading software and the limitations therein, and also states that he doesn't believe we should use CSS hacks.
 * ...I would strongly recommend that the css hacks not be used because there will be a sizable number of people using older screen readers, and they may not be able to upgrade. –

For examples of how this appears in the web browser Lynx, please see User:Locke Cole/Don't use hiddenStructure. Netoholic alleges that none of these concerns matter (or has alleged in edit summaries that the concerns don't matter, see some of the edit summaries from above).

Meta-templates are not proven server load issues
Again, here is something Netoholic alleged to be true on the word of, but Brion VIBBER has indicated that he doesn't believe server load is an issue, hasn't been shown evidence proving it's an issue, and believes server load should not impact editorial/site decisions.


 * 2006-01-21 01:01:11 — "Generally, you should not worry much about little things like templates and "server load" at a policy level. If they're expensive, we'll either fix it or restrict it at a technical level; that's our responsibility." –Brion VIBBER
 * 2006-01-21 01:52:13 — "You should avoid metatemplates if they're ugly, hard to use, or fragile. That's just common sense; don't worry about "server load" for them." –Brion VIBBER
 * Note that these are editorial concerns, not technical ones. The community is capable of deciding if a template is ugly, hard to use, or fragile.
 * 2006-01-21 02:12:54 — "I have to date refused requests to advocate the AUM "policy" based on server load because nobody's yet produced any evidence for this server load claim." –Brion VIBBER
 * 2006-01-21 03:25:30 — "Please don't go around claiming "the developers" laid down the law and said nobody can use meta-templates because they hurt the servers; that just isn't true." –Brion VIBBER
 * 2006-03-14 18:32:24 — A straw poll was conducted on Wikipedia talk:Avoid using meta-templates to decide if the proposed policy there should be accepted or rejected. By a vote of 18 reject to 2 accept the proposal was rejected.

Clarification by Rob Church

 * Clarification: James Day initially stated he believed meta-templates, that is, templates built using other templates, were a problem in terms of load. Upon later review, Brion Vibber stated that he believed this was not the case. The developers have noticed no unusual load or other problems as a result of increased use of meta templates, and there is no consensus among us that meta templates pose a severe problem at a technical level. Brion's point (which I also share) is that there could be a problem at an editorial level, but of course, that's not for the development team to bother about. Rob Church 00:36, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Netoholic has not been stalked
Below is just a sampling of edits where he and I have not crossed paths (because posting them all would be both a) large and b) probably a WP:POINT violation). But the idea here is that he's only submitted three pages where I've allegedly stalked him. Meanwhile he's made edits to probably over one hundred other pages without me showing up at all. If I was really stalking him, why would I limit myself to just a handful of articles? Let alone articles that fall within my area of interest (Leet because of my interest in BBS-related topics, Template:Infobox CVG because of edits I've made to articles like U.N. Squadron; my first edit to U.N. Squadron was changing the template from Infobox CVG to Infobox Arcade Game)? Regarding Ship table, I came to that via WT:AUM (2005-12-29 16:21:56).

Locke Cole has tried to have his userpage deleted

 * 2006-03-20 20:03:01 —
 * 2006-03-20 20:50:20 — After the page was deleted, Netoholic contacted the deleting admin and requested the page be undeleted because "there are edits in the page history that may be necessary".

Rebuttal to Locke_Cole further harasses Netoholic, poisoning the well
By the way, I'll ask the arbitrators to consider this all as more examples of bad faith (since I'll be refuting their characterization as stalking and/or harassment (unless "harassment" has now degenerated down to simply disagreeing with someone or editing a page shortly after them in a way that enhances their work)). Netoholic's evidence is italicized (and generally appears as a first-level comment), my rebuttal is on the second level below each item, and is not italicized (except for emphasis where necessary).


 * December 27, 2005
 * 14:12:19 Locke_Cole replies within about 4.5 hours opposing Netoholic on Template talk:Infobox Single (LC never edited that page before).
 * Yeah, but I did create the Amarantine article, and added Album infobox 2 to the article (2005-10-27 12:53:12). From there, one could (and in my case, did) find their way to Album infobox which had pointers to WP:ALBUM, which in turn had a pointer to WP:SONG which finally informed the reader about Infobox Single.


 * December 29, 2005
 * 9:05:51 Locke_Cole reverts Netoholic within about 30 minutes on Template:LinkFarm (LC never edited that page before).
 * It was actually his edits to some of the dispute templates that alerted me to the fact that he was making changes to similar templates. Agreeing that the format was better, but that some of his changes made the templates difficult to tell apart visually, I modified them slightly . Noting that this seemed to be a massive change he was undertaking (since a few of these templates were already on my watchlist), I wanted to ensure that the other templates were likewise updated as I'd updated the templates I saw on my watchlist. It was then that I noticed the speedy delete nomination of LinkFarm . Since I felt the template could be useful, I removed the tag and updated the template per his changes to all the other templates he'd made . He is right though that I'd never edited the template before this point.


 * December 30, 2005
 * 10:03:10 Locke_Cole follows Netoholic within about 20 minutes to Template:Off-topic (LC never edited that page before).
 * He's right again, but he leaves out a crucial bit of evidence: he placed the template on WP:TFD 14 minutes before my edit (2005-12-30 09:49:06). He further fails to note that, after I modified the template to correct some issues I had with it (namely the colors and wording), that I also voted weak keep (2005-12-30 10:04:20). Consequently, changed his vote from weak delete to weak keep (2005-12-30 10:09:04) and the template was ultimately kept.


 * January 2, 2006
 * 19:42:24 Locke_Cole replies within about 10 minutes opposing Netoholic on MediaWiki talk:Common.css (LC never edited that page before).
 * Anyone even remotely interested in the style of Wikipedia has this page watchlisted (or would find conversations there interesting). I apologize that it was his comment that ultimately got me to post there, but that's not harassment...


 * January 15, 2006
 * 6:23:46 Locke_Cole reverts Netoholic within about 15 minutes on Template:Infobox Language (LC never edited that page before).
 * I think I came to this via either CBDunkerson's talk page, WP:AUM, or WP:TFD. Sadly I couldn't find or remember how I came here, but I can't honestly be expected to remember everything. That's if this is considered as stalking. As harassment, again, disagreeing with someone is not harassment. And it's ridiculous to suggest otherwise.


 * January 23, 2006
 * 18:11:39 Locke_Cole replies within about 40 minutes opposing Netoholic on Template talk:Main (LC never edited that page before).
 * Same as the one directly above.


 * January 24, 2006
 * About an hour after Netoholic made this edit on Template:Ship_table, he posted this note. He's never edited Template:Ship table, Template talk:Ship table, or User talk:David Newton before.
 * But I have edited WT:AUM and been involved with WP:AUM. As you can see, someone asked about Ship table on 2005-12-29 16:21:56. I'm not a big fan of template forks, and wanted to get the situation between Ship table and Infobox Ship resolved.


 * January 31, 2006
 * 21:51:47 Locke_Cole replies within about 45 minutes opposing Netoholic on Template talk:Infobox CVG (LC never edited that page before).
 * Again I note my evidence regarding U.N. Squadron. Specifically, my edit that changed the article from using Infobox CVG to using Infobox Arcade Game (2005-10-17 06:45:50). As stalking it's a non-starter, as harassment, again; if harassment includes disagreeing with someone, then fine, I'm guilty as charged.


 * February 5, 2006
 * 00:08:32 - After I'd reported previous harassment and the edit warring on my user page, Locke_Cole makes this statement, threatening further wiki-stalking -- "for what it's worth, I intend to continue going through your contribs to undo the damage you've done. Again, that's not disruptive, that's corrective. Somebody has to do it, just as when a vandal is identified, someone has to go trawling through that persons contribs and undo the damage that was done (yes, I am comparing you to a vandal; I believe the comparison fits)".
 * I do not deny making these comments, but in the sense that he had damaged Wikipedia by making it less accessible (amongst other reasons: see Brion's comments in my evidence regarding hiddenStructure), I felt it was within my rights to correct these things. As the easiest way to do so would be to use his contributions to determine which templates were affected, it seemed reasonable. My comments were expressly intended to refute claims of "wikistalking", which is hardly what I intended to do.


 * February 9, 2006
 * 20:46:32 Locke_Cole replies within about 10 minutes opposing Netoholic on User talk:Crotalus horridus (LC never edited that page before).
 * Right again, but had left me notes on my talk page prior to this (2006-02-06 06:16:06, 2006-02-06 06:18:54, 2006-02-06 06:39:29, 2006-02-07 04:29:07), and I'd watchlisted his talk page/userpage because I liked him and agreed with a number of his views. I also felt Netoholic's allegations distasteful and an extreme example of bad faith (accusing Crotalus of being a sockpuppet of a banned editor, etc).
 * At around the same time, he also seemed to be fishing for evidence that I'd used a previous account (see 2006-02-09 20:58:32).


 * March 9, 2006
 * 23:45:01 Locke_Cole reverts Netoholic within about 1.5 hours on Template:English dialects by continent (LC never edited that page before).
 * This would be part of the Leet debate; the template was included on Leet, and I noticed it had been edited to exclude "Leet" as a dialect. Upon investigation, I noticed it was Netoholic revert warring elsewhere.

Follow-up comments
As a final point, the arbitrators should be aware of some evidence Netoholic removed (2006-03-22 07:31:10). With regards to LinkFarm, that evidence (if investigated by the arbitrators) may have explained why I appeared on LinkFarm when I'd never edited it before (or why I appeared when I did at all). I leave it to the arbitrators to decide why he'd remove something that might explain my presence at LinkFarm.
 * Update: This is getting petty. Alright, so he's re-added the evidence he removed (2006-03-23 15:15:00), but now it's being included because it shows how I'm against him on not just meta-templates but regular templates as well. The problem is, I didn't get involved with the meta-template discussion at all until 2006-01-01 12:23:06. However, I was more involved in WP:TFD back then. Finally, regarding the comment on LinkFarm not currently being used; I'll state the obvious: it's a cleanup/temporary template. It's not supposed to be on pages permanently. That it's not in use on one now is a good thing.

Evidence presented by Wgfinley
I will try to keep this brief and to the point. So that those new to the ArbCom are aware, I previously advocated for Neto in his prior ArbCom case. I believe that Neto is a work in progress and has come a long way. I feel that some people who disagree with him fail to see that and some choose to pour gasoline on his fire at times for no good reason really other than they disagree and Neto can be extremely stubborn. I will demonstrate this attitude as well as a bit of a pack mentality to stick it to him when they get the opportunity to.

Neto User Page Dispute
The complete summary of this can be found in the AN/I archive, in general:


 * We see two key protagonists in this matter: Locke and David Levy, won't be the first time you see this.
 * I blocked Locke for edit warring with Neto on his own user page over a couple of days
 * David Levy was happy to chime in a few times, I elected not to block him
 * After I block Locke the usual suspects come to get me: crotalus horridus on the aforementioned AN/I section, David Levy chooses to instead leave multiple messages on my talk page     even though I tried to direct him to AN/I so we could all talk about this in one place.  I give him credit though, he didn't unblock Locke, Radiant took care of that, without talking to me, but he did heave me a nice note  and was happy to second guess me without talking to me.  He since has stated he has left Wikipedia.

This matter was resolved by (gasp) me actually talking to Neto, explaining the policy , and clarify how it has changed since he originally posted the images  instead of pouring gas on the fire by just pulling the images off his page and edit warring with him. The result? Neto pulled the images and they haven't returned since. Proof that Neto can edit harmoniously if given half a chance and not beat over the head with a club and then told why.

The Real Cause for the User Page Dispute
I blocked Locke because it was clear to me his actions on Neto's user page were quite blatantly POINT. Rather than point out a load more of diffs I would direct the members to the edit history for Template:Infobox and the edit history for WP:AUM, specifically, the dates of 3 Feb and 4 Feb. You will see the common names from above: Locke and crotalus warring with Neto on Infobox and Locke, David Levy and Radiant edit warring with him on AUM.

Suddenly images that Neto has had on his user page for months are terrible violations and must be removed at all cost by the above mentioned parties immediately. Coincidence or POINT?? You must decide.

Those involved will point out that previously Neto had been asked to remove them, that isn't the point, the point is that Locke, David, crotalus and Radiant all got involved in this matter 2 Feb - 4 Feb when they just so happened to be elevating totally unrelated disputed at AUM and Infobox.

The next fantastic piece of wikilawyering is that Neto didn't take the images down after I asked him, he replaced them. The images involved were removed, period. This utterly ridiculous statement below that he didn't take them down is emblematic of how blinded by the dispute they are and the type of ridiculous assaults back and forth between these parties that happens almost every day. So intent are they in finding fault with Neto they are reduced to contend that replacing images with acceptable ones somehow doesn't achieve the goal of complying with not having "Fair Use" images in the user space.

The point is I was the first one to point the issues out to Neto before taking it upon myself to edit his user page (always in bad taste and due to cause issues), I pointed out the issues with the images and answered his questions and he removed them and replaced them with acceptable images of his own volition.

Summary
I could elaborate more but I'm certain this evidence page will turn into an affront to all that is holy. I merely wish to point out one incident among the many that repeats itself over and over again. If these folks would sit down and talk and iron out their differences instead of edit warring away things would go a lot smoother.

Finally, regarding AUM, I think this case is an excellent opportunity to seek some guidance from the developers, one who reads the disputes on AUM and Infobox and others gets the feeling that the combatants see the developers as sages almost and interpret their statements to extreme minutia. Perhaps this would be a chance to request they be a bit more unambiguous and clarify their positions on these technical matters and find out just who in particular can be sought out for guidance on working them out. I believe that would go a long way in ending this fracas. --Wgfinley 01:57, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Evidence presented by David Levy
In response to Wgfinley's statements:

No, the images didn't suddenly become violations. Once again, he's taking credit for explaining to Netoholic the fair use policy (and how it applied to the images on his user page), despite the fact that no fewer than five other admins already had done this between October and January:


 * 1) 11 October 2005 (Rd232)
 * 2) 1 December 2005 (Ral315)
 * 3) 3 December 2005 (SoothingR)
 * 4) 18 January 2006 (Cleared as filed)
 * 5) 19 January 2006 (Ilmari Karonen)

Cleared as filed removed the images on 19 January 2006, and Netoholic restored them 37 minutes later. Cleared as filed once again removed the images one hour later, and Netoholic once again restored them 27 minutes later.

On 23 January, Dbenbenn (yet another admin) removed the images. This time, Netoholic decided to wait until 2 February until he quietly restored them. Locke Cole removed them 31 minutes later. Netoholic waited 23 hours before he restored them yet again. Cleared as filed (who had warned Netoholic and repeatedly removed the images) removed the images 36 minutes later. This change was reverted by Trödel, who didn't realize that he was undoing an edit by Cleared as filed. Locke Cole removed the images 44 minutes later, and Netoholic restored them after three minutes. I saw what was occurring, so I removed the images two minutes later. Eight minutes elapsed before Netoholic restored them. I removed the images two minutes later, and they remained gone for ten minutes before Netoholic restored them. Locke Cole removed the images a minute later, and he followed this with a detailed citation of the pertinent text from the fair use policy. Seven minutes after the images were removed (and one minute after the talk page message was posted), Netoholic inserted inline links to the images (which were acceptable), this time referring to Locke Cole as a "vandal/wikistalker." Locke Cole reverted three minutes later (due to his mistaken belief that Netoholic had restored the actual images), and Netoholic restored the inline links within one minute, once again claiming that a "wikistalker" was "vandalising [his] user page."

It was at this point that Wgfinley blocked Locke Cole (and "elected not to block" me), simply because Locke and I had attempted to enforce the fair use policy (as others had done on numerous occasions). Locke Cole did not violate the three-revert rule (or any other policy). Netoholic, conversely, deliberately violated the fair use policy (as he'd repeatedly done since October), and Wgfinley did not block him.

All of the above was noted in the archived discussion that Wgfinley cited above. During its course, Wgfinley claimed that Locke Cole should have notified an admin. Despite my requests, he never provided the rationale behind his apparent belief that an admin possesses special authority in such situations, nor did he explain why the seven admins (including myself) who had intervened were insufficient.

Incidentally, Wgfinley's claim that Netoholic "pulled the images" because of his involvement is false. In the diff link that he cited, Netoholic substituted suitable images for the aforementioned inline links (not the copyrighted images themselves). In actuality, the last person to remove the images was Locke Cole, and this was before Wgfinley became involved. &mdash;David Levy 05:19, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Updates
Wgfinley added additional text to his evidence, and I've addressed it on the talk page. &mdash;David Levy 21:37, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Netoholic added additional text to his evidence, and I've addressed it on the talk page. &mdash;David Levy 00:05, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

In response to Netoholic's latest additions, yes, I have repeatedly commented upon his vandalism of the encyclopedia (the insertion of a hack that our lead developer has confirmed to be harmful). His attempt to twist this into a "content dispute" is patently absurd. Also, he conveniently neglects to mention that I actively supported WP:AUM (and his efforts to enforce it) when it was considered policy. I took steps to ensure that WP:AUM was enforced (citing it by name), and I even awarded Netoholic a barnstar for his work.

As for Netoholic's claim that I should have gotten a different admin to block him, the problem is that he usually manages to convince unfamiliar parties not only that his ArbCom restrictions have been lifted, but that he's been granted special immunity from blocks. (He acknowledges that he may be blocked if he's disruptive, but he seems to believe that nothing short of moving Wikipedia to Wikipedia on Wheels! or punching Jimbo in the face qualifies.) By insisting that anyone who has ever objected to any of his misconduct is "biased" and "involved," he effectively shields himself from accountability. One thing that I must say about Neto is that he's extremely intelligent. The manner in which he manipulates the system is utterly astonishing. &mdash;David Levy 18:48, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Evidence presented by CBDunkerson
Most of the issues I would raise have been covered above so I will just add some details which I do not see included.

Additions to Locke Cole's Evidence
In addition to the evidence presented by Locke Cole under the "hiddenStructure is bad" title this method of making Wikipedia content conditional also causes portability problems;


 * 2006-01-22 04:52:48 - High use template failing on Turkish Wikipedia due to hiddenStructure

Normally users on non-English Wikipedias and Wikipedia mirrors can just copy all templates over and they work, but hiddenStructure requires a special class to be set up to perform the CSS kludge... which then still doesn't work for some text browsers and screen-readers as noted above.

Please note that this esoteric technical matter of 'conditional content' is the root issue here. All but a handful of the evidence items and disputes above are directly related to this question. Until this issue is settled there will continue to be disputes and disruptions between Netoholic and the 'et alia' he named in filing this RFAr. He will (apparently) continue to remove 'meta' templates or replace them with hiddenStructure, and this will (inevitably) continue to bring objections from people who get bad pages as a result and those of us, myself included, who see no drawbacks to 'meta' templates which justify such disruptions.

Following false statements on the Workshop page I feel it is now neccessary to include;
 * 2006-01-19 03:34:51 - Netoholic acknowledges that the two images on his user page violate Wikipedia copyright policy, but argues that the policy is incorrect. Per Locke Cole's evidence above he will go on to restore these images five times after acknowledging they violated policy.

Note that I previously did not include this evidence and argued against Netoholic being censured for having these images on his page since he did eventually remove them prior to this ArbCom case. However, I include it now because I have a serious problem with a falsified record of the events being presented in an effort to make other participants look bad.

Additions to David Levy's Evidence

 * 2006-02-03 00:36:12 - Locke Cole reverts Template:Infobox to restore the use of 'qif' conditionals. This is his most recent contribution to an ongoing revert war featuring himself and Crotalus Horridus against Netoholic and Trödel.
 * 2006-02-03 15:09:41 - Wgfinley reverts to remove 'qif', citing WP:AUM.
 * 2006-02-03 15:16:50 - Wgfinley posts to the template talk page to say that he is "Injecting sanity" and may take "more drastic action" if people do not address the WP:AUM issues.

After this I and several other people pointed out that WP:AUM had been rejected by the community and stated to be based on false premises by the lead developer... and that as such it should not serve as a basis for reverts or threats of admin action. However, Wgfinley still reverted twice more in the subsequent 24 hours.

As noted above Wgfinley then blocked Locke Cole for removing copyvio images from Netoholic's user page... despite the clear conflict presented by his edit warring and threat to take admin action on WP:AUM earlier the same day.


 * 2006-02-04 01:35:48 - Wgfinley doubles the length of Locke Cole's block because 'it is his second in 24 hours'.
 * 2006-02-04 02:15:07 - After it was pointed out that this was false (Locke hadn't been blocked earlier that day/week/month) Wgfinley conceded that it wasn't true, but still insisted on keeping the extended block duration.

Throughout this incident Wgfinley was repeatedly hostile ( & ) and cited ( & ) the 'qif' dispute between Locke Cole and Netoholic as 'evidence' that Locke Cole's crime of removing copyright violations was actually harassment, but failed to mention that he was himself involved in that dispute against Locke Cole.

Finally, above Wgfinley states, "Suddenly images that Neto has had on his user page for months are terrible violations and must be removed at all cost by the above mentioned parties immediately."

This is false. Netoholic had, in fact, re-added those images just the previous day (02/02/2006)... after having been informed that they were not allowed by Dbenbenn on 01/23/2006. Thus, Locke Cole, David Levy, and Cleared as filed were not removing the images prior to 2/3 - 2/4 because the images were not there to be removed... making Wgfinley's block of Locke Cole (but notably not the two admins) further suspect.

This also reiterates the point made above that Netoholic's statement that he was "misinterpretting the new guidelines" regarding fair use images is rather strained given that he continued to 'misinterpret' the 'new' guidelines for four months after first being informed of them. Even if we perform 'assume good faith' gymnastics, it was certainly not unreasonable to have thought that Netoholic was simply ignoring the policy given that no less than six admins, and others, had explained it to him in those four months. Indeed, I still think that... sorry, I'm just not a very good gymnast.


 * After I presented this evidence Wgfinley added a new claim that he "was the first one to point the issues out to Neto before taking it upon myself to edit his user page". This is also false. Looking at the evidence presented by Locke Cole above we can see that the first person to do so was actually RD232... in October of last year. Wgfinley was, in truth, the seventh person (after RD232, Ral315, SoothingR, Cleared as filed, Ilmari Karonen, and myself) to discuss the matter with Netoholic without first making any edits to the user page. --CBDunkerson 21:22, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Additions/Challenges to Netoholic's Evidence
In reference to Requests_for_arbitration/Locke_Cole/Evidence it is worth noting that;


 * WP:MFD - After Locke Cole attempted to userfy the page in question a MFD discussion determined that it should be deleted as an obvious fork of the rejected WP:AUM proposal.
 * 2006-03-14 11:16:27 - After the deletion vote Netoholic requested that the page be undeleted so that he could userfy it.

The result of that MFD debate was inevitable. Whole paragraphs of the 'new' proposal were copied word for word from the rejected one. Had Netoholic accepted Locke Cole's move in the first place the only difference in the outcome would have been less aggravation all around... and that was completely predictable. Attempting to skip general aggravation and go directly to the inevitable result is potentially unwise (given that people have a tendency to argue, even with the inevitable), but not 'bad faith'.

Evidence presented by Omniplex
Netoholic on one side and a bunch of users on the other side including Locke Cole disagree about the proper way to implement a conditional display feature.

Netoholic prefers CSS  in the form explained in WP:HIDE claiming that this is a policy as documented in WP:AUM (now obsolete).

Other users including Locke Cole prefer the new (?) Help:Parameter_default feature with the derived templates in Category:If templates like Qif.

Both are kludges, but WP:HIDE has the additional disadvantage that CSS has no effect on old browsers. Two examples related to this assertion:


 * See with AUM rv by Netoholic in the history, and a caveat added by me on the talk page. The template is now deprecated.
 * Mfd for WP:HIDE by Locke Cole, see also.

Summary
Nothing's wrong with Locke Cole from my POV, there was a nice spontaneous collaboration on the general Village pump pages layout including AzaToth, the master mind of the If-templates, evidence:


 * villagepumppages

Omniplex 12:39, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Incivility
Netoholic was cited for incivility in the original ArbCom, and the mentorship and ban have not improved his behavior. His attitude is a continuing source of discord among the community, leading to disputes like those with Locke and others. Some examples of his continuing incivility and aggressiveness since he decided to start editing templates again :


 * December 8, 2005
 * Neto cites WP:AUM, telling User:AzaToth that his conditional templates are harmful to the performance of Wikipedia.
 * I point out that AUM is disputed.
 * Neto responds on my talk: Stop trolling. There is no room to debate that WP:AUM is not correct.
 * AUM has since been rejected by both the community and the developers.
 * December 9, 2005
 * Accuses Adrian of "spamming" for inviting people to a discussion on WP:AUM, claims that AUM is firmly-established by the developers and ArbCom and not subject to debate.
 * December 15, 2005
 * After he's been editing templates for a week in violation of his ban, Lifeisunfair (David Levy) asks if the editing restrictions have been lifted.
 * Netoholic blanks the comment with edit summary sorry, try again later
 * January 1, 2006
 * Netoholic uses his bot to make changes to instances of the Infobox President template.
 * Adrian explains that the changes to the template have broken an article.
 * Netoholic responds  I cannot very well change the articles first! They'll look like shit until the bot finishes and then the template is updated. Anyone on RC patrol will think it's a fucking vandalbot when they check the edits. ...  "Intentionally breaking the article George W. Bush" -- You have to be fucking kidding me. Fuck you if you even remotely think that my bot's failure to edit that one article (due to the semi-protection it is under) was REMOTELY intentional.
 * January 4, 2006
 * To David Levy: BS, like doing something that will disrupt Wikipedia just to have the satisfaction of rubbing shit in my face. ... stop being a prick to me
 * January 14, 2006
 * Netoholic removes the language infobox from Leet (it's plainly silly to think of this as a language unto itself)
 * Avriette asks Could you maybe try to gain consensus before acting like that? It's a significant change to the article.
 * Netoholic responds Discrediting Wikipedia is a bad thing to do for teh funny. ...  Stop trolling 
 * January 18, 2006
 * To Adrian: Just when I was starting to think you'd seen through everything, and were starting to become a collaborator of mine (above), you post shit like this . Stop being an asshole to me.
 * January 31, 2006
 * Neto follows Adrian around, reverting his template-related changes
 * Adrian puts a note about it on his own talk page
 * Neto blanks the comment as "trolling"
 * Adrian has since left the project.
 * February 2, 2006
 * Neto has revert warred incessantly over the policy status of WP:AUM.
 * During one war, he replaces the historical tag with a fake policy box: This page, despite recent attempts by it's opponents to delete it, neutralize it, and otherwise screw around - is still an active proposal. ... please instruct the opponents of this proposal that have been recently editing it to remove the &#123;{proposed}} tag to "get a grip" and perhaps "grow up".
 * Crotalus horridus criticizes this as borderline vandalism on Neto's talk page
 * Netoholic blanks his comment with no edit summary
 * February 4, 2006
 * Locke points out Fair Use policy on Neto's talk.
 * Neto responds by blanking his comment 3 minutes later, with the edit summary archive, FU 
 * March 3, 2006
 * Stop trolling

Many of his other comments are needlessly personal and sarcastic. And then he has the gall to cite assume good faith against everyone who criticizes him. Regardless of whether his campaign of template edits is found to be beneficial or harmful, his attitude is poisonous to the community. — Omegatron 23:18, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Bringing of RFAr regarding Locke Cole is disingenuous
The bringing of this RfAr is disingenuous. What is really going on here is much wider spread than two or three users. As was previously mentioned, while David Levy is partially involved in this, clearly this particular dispute involves Locke Cole substantially. However, Mr. Levy and myself are both involved. One could say that Adrian is also involved, and many others. This is because Netoholic is substantially disruptive throughout the entire project. Within the template namespace, within the wikipedia namespace, and also within the article namespace. The latter is primarily where templates are involved (the Leet disagreement stemming from the language infobox template, afterall).

Netoholic is bringing this case perhaps because he feels that he can most establish that in fact he is being harassed. Anyone involved in editing both WP:AUM and WP:ACT would say that editing any article in which Netoholic is a participant is an exercise in being harassed.

Let me also say that I originally did not feel this RfAr involved me at all. In fact, I discussed this to Netoholic to the extent I was able, and at his suggestion attempted to remove myself from the discussion. Note that I did not add evidence or commentary here until I felt Netoholic had no interest in limiting the scope here to himself and Locke Cole, or to neutralize the rhetoric about me. For some reason, Netoholic is on a crusade.

As he has hinted at, he is "afraid to come before the arbcomm." This is for good reason. His conduct does not bear much examination under the microscope. My own attempts at arbitration have failed (I would provide diffs, but all communication with the mediation cabal have been via email).

This discussion is also scoped wider than Leet. Please do not think that my interest here is as narrow as that. I do not watch the article anymore, and I have made my last edit immediately prior to my addition here. I am apprehensive about editing at all as Netoholic proves he is antagonistic in such a way as to make editing more difficult. As Locke has stated, he follows users around, editing and creating intractable arguments which cause users to leave (as has been mentioned earlier, and as I myself almost did). In fact, I have stopped editing any articles I am aware of his involvement in, and any articles which I feel he may have involvement in. This amounts to a "line in the sand" where I know he has no interest in crossing. Rather than some agreement, as the rest of the users of the encyclopedia seem to be able to make. Leet is hardly as contentious as the articles surrounding Gibraltar, and yet we have a similar jihad, with users leaving the project, intimidation, and formal requests for punishment.

The scope of this arbitration should thus be much wider than whether Locke is "harassing Netoholic." The discussion should be scoped to include Netoholic's behavior in light of his two arbitration cases, and his failed mentorship. He is toxic to the project. He prevents people from contributing, and he discourages people from remaining on the project. His arguments on WP:AUM have lasted over a year. This is not tolerable for the project. The Arb Comm has failed to restrain this user in the past. I would think that faith in the commission would be seriously reduced by a demonstrated third inability to produce some form of demeanor or cooperation from this user.

I do not have an additional point to provide evidence in support of. I will simply reproduce my original comments, including diffs here. I feel they are material to the discussion and should be considered in the context of this mediation.

Original comments
I have been asked to comment on this matter. I think the discussion at Leet (et al.) is a different matter, although Netoholic's behavior there is consistent with the behavior mentioned here. The term "wikipedian hours" is apt. I have spent dozens of hours replying to intractable arguments on his behalf, and un-reverting systematically reverted changes (mind you, rarely more than once a day). I am very interested in hearing a "revisiting" of his previous requests for arbitration as his behavior continues to be disruptive. It has been posited that he is less disruptive than he used to be. This is not to say that he is not presently disruptive. Being more disruptive in the past is not an excuse for being disruptive in the present.

Netoholic was originally reprimanded and assigned mentorship. This was in lieu of a ban on editing the Wikipedia and Template namespace. However, this mentorship broke down

While there may have been an "exception" granted, no such exception was granted for disruptive editing or 1RR. Netoholic continues to mix the two publicly -- saying he is not to be blocked for "technical violations" of the probation. This probation applied only to the Template and Wikipedia namespace. Not, for example, the main articlespace. 

A facet of the 2nd ArbCom resolution, the prohibition to engage in personal attacks (specifically proscribed for this user, but of course proscribed in general) was granted no such exception, and indeed has continued. What is surprising about the continued attacks is that they take on the same quality as the previous attacks :
 * 1)
 * 2)
 * 3)

Lastly, with possibly one exception, I believe all parties involved in this request for arbitration are capable of accepting the comments from a request for comment. I think bringing an RFAr is perhaps a little too early.

First assertion
Place argument and diffs which support your assertion, for example, your first assertion might be "Jimmy Wales engages in edit warring". Here you would list specific edits to specific articles which show Jimmy Wales engaging in edit warring

Second assertion
Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion, for example, your second assertion might be "Jimmy Wales makes personal attacks". Here you would list specific edits where Jimmy Wales made personal attacks.