Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rajput/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.

involved users
Users involved in


 * "Hindus only side" ('the team')
 * (editing only logged out now)
 * any number of anon IPs and throwaway accounts, ,
 * "Hindu side"
 * (See: Talk page)
 * "Muslims too side"
 * aka
 * aka
 * Moderating:
 * (See: Talk page)
 * "Muslims too side"
 * aka
 * aka
 * Moderating:
 * aka
 * aka
 * Moderating:
 * Moderating:

Related articles

 * -- topically, a sub-article of the History article, and thus a sub-sub article of Rajput. Note that the Singh's edit warring consists in essentially replacing Rajput with the content of this article (which itself needs massive cleanup).
 * -- the pov fork (material the "Hindus only team" wouldn't allow on Rajput)
 * and sub-articles
 * -- the pov fork (material the "Hindus only team" wouldn't allow on Rajput)
 * and sub-articles
 * and sub-articles
 * and sub-articles
 * and sub-articles

History
A brief history of Rajput
 * Talk:Rajput/Archive01 -- my brief involvement with the article (concerned with the etymology of the word rajput), back in August 2004. I was not watching the page after that
 * Talk:Rajput/Archive04 -- September 2005, first involvement of Shivraj, lenghty, unsigned swathes of text; the "Muslim question" begins to hold the article hostage, but the discussions are still reasonable
 * Talk:Rajput/Archive06 -- discussion becomes more heated, still unsigned swathes of text, first mention of "Muslim hoards" :)
 * Talk:Rajput/Archive11 -- October 05 now, still unreadable swathes, the Muslim question compeltely dominates the discussion now, much mud is slung
 * Talk:Rajput/Archive12 -- 12 October, intervention by . the discussion becomes readable. By 27 October, goethean is showing signs of fraying, and joins the debate.
 * Talk:Rajput/Archive13 -- November now, revert war in full swing. At this point, it is a question of which side outnumbers the other. is joined by  and assorted anons.
 * Talk:Rajput/Archive14 -- 9 November, sockpuppetry discussions 19:34, November 9, 2005 UTC 19:54, November 9, 2005 UTC, "Sisodia" appears and niceties escalate 01:10, November 10, 2005 UTC
 * Talk:Rajput/Archive15 -- 17 November
 * Talk:Rajput/Archive16 -- 7 December
 * 9 December, first appearance of DPSingh with a still very reasonable, if clearly partisan, statement 11:49, December 9, 2005 UTC

13/14/15 December: Dbachmann attempted intervention

 * DPSingh begins revert-warring on the article and posts this
 * December 13,14 - asks for admin intervention on WP:AN/I 21:15, December 13, 2005 UTC; *my first involvement, insisting on NPOV & Verifiability 18:36, December 13, 2005 UTC, 07:56, December 14, 2005 UTC, 07:56, December 14, 2005 UTC, 12:38, December 14, 2005 UTC
 * December 14
 * 04:44 UTC - sisodia admitting he is permabanned already
 * 11:20 UTC - ss india continuing unimpressed by calls for citations
 * 12:54 UTC - a "get lost" and another call to his "fellow rajputs" from DPS
 * 15:10 UTC, 15:17 UTC, 18:57 UTC - Dbachmann protects the article, still patiently reiterating basic policy
 * 18:40 UTC - AMbroodEY suspects "mods sucking upto to Muslims"
 * 18:40 UTC, 19:26 UTC - conciliatory tones and attempts to cite sources from Wisesabre
 * 20:35 UTC - conciliatory tones from Taaoo
 * 21:42 UTC - Shivraj Singh claims he has quoted "61 books". these are the "Refrences" section on "his" version, an unwikified list of Hindi titles, the majority without recognizable years, publishers or ISBNs, and with no indication which source was used for which statement.
 * December 15
 * 03:23 UTC - signs of good faith from the "Hindu" camp
 * 09:28 UTC, 09:33 UTC - nobody seems to be really into getting down to quoting sources
 * 10:40 UTC - another call to stick to policy assuming good faith, and since neither side has shown any interest in quoting sources since I protected the article, I attempt to show by example what we mean by "citation" and "attribution"   , googling for ISBNs and compiling a sample bibliography  , copying the relevant text I found in one of these
 * 10:50 UTC - "shonan" trolling (misatrributing statements from archive01)
 * 14:11 UTC - Dbachmann is getting disgruntled at the complete lack of collaboration wrt WP:CITE
 * 17:12 UTC - Taaoo acknowledges WP:CITE
 * 17:58 UTC - Shivraj Singh doesn't; "Bachman" is advised to "stay out of it" rather than "doing a smart grep on the internet" (aka looking up and citing literature)
 * December 15, 16
 * 21:37, December 15 UTC, 10:24, December 16 UTC - DBachmann looks for any other Hindu voices acknowledging policy (in vain)

16/17 December

 * December 16
 * 11:18 UTC - rudeness resurfacing
 * 11:30 UTC, 14:11 UTC - Dbachmann beginning to lose patience
 * 18:19 UTC - yes! after 3 days, I got an anon to refer to a published source


 * December 17
 * 11:53 UTC - my efforts are not well received by sisodia, basically telling the "white man" to leave the article to the pure blooded Rajputs
 * 12:07 UTC - untouched by argument or plea, DPS reiterates his conviction, [12:12 UTC and throws in some namecalling for good measure
 * 14:32 UTC - my "involvement": inserting the meagre results of the debate so far in readable form into the article, putting fact to the statements I think it transpired is what people are disputing. Talk:Rajput/Archive17
 * 23:42 UTC - more trolling
 * Dbachmann, labelled "white racist" for his pains is getting annoyed with the tag team
 * In the meantime, the article is being reverted to and fro regardless of added references . That's right: all this debate leads to no effect on the article. They debate in circles on talk and stubbornly revert the article.

20-25 December: FireFox intervenes, RfC

 * protection
 * more abuse from DPS  "racist bigot", "muslim POV mongers and whiteboys"


 * Requests for comment/Dbachmann (2): originally posted by sisodia (a user who admits he is a banned "outlaw"), and formatted by DPSingh into something roughly resembling an RfC, endorsed by the Singhs, SS india and two or three anons
 * My take on the outcome of my "RfC"
 * DPS and SS  really getting vitriolic

26 Dec to 6 Jan
I think you are getting the idea now. Just the rough outlines of happenings since Christmas
 * FireFox reprotects and introduces
 * interestingly, nobody bothers about the temp page. After I initialized the page with the "baseline" version of the precious few references collected so far, a total of five edits are made over the following week, and none after January 3. The temp talkpage remains equally deserted, while namecalling continues on Talk:Rajput.
 * FireFox blocks DPS for PA
 * 29 Dec: this RfAr accepted

7 Jan to present

 * unprotects, unfortunately without a rationale or conditions on talk, or reference to poor neglected Raput/temp.
 * immediately, SS reinstates his tired old edit warrior's version
 * as of Jan 9, the Singhs own the field, apparently, at this point, stubbornness wins out over policy or wikiquette.

Assertions

 * debate out of balance. What I am documenting above is not a good faith discussion. The "Hindus only" tag team may be editing in good faith in the sense that they honestly believe that no Muslim should be allowed to touch "their" article, but they are not even near recognizing basic WP policy. There is no constructive attempt at collaborating. "Hindus only" editors do not seem to mind having the article protected, as long as they can keep using the talkpage as a forum for asserting their convictions.
 * situation is not symmetrical. Both sides have made personal attacks, but the "Hindus only team" has been clearly more abusive, disruptive and provocative
 * sock question. I recognize that the "Hindus only team" consists of several people, probably coordinated via an online forum (someone with knowledge of Hindi would have to attempt identifying this forum, or, more simple, the arbcom may check the "referrer" strings in the weblog which will probably reveal how the anons "found" the article). It is not clear, however, how many people the "team" consists of. This alone is disruptive under the circumstances. I think it likely that Shivraj and DP Singh are two different people, but regarding "sisodia", "ss india", "shonan" etc., I can only guess. For this reason, I will continue to use the handle "Hindus only team" to refer to this diffuse group. (the suspicion is straightforward that the "SS" users (Shivraj Singh, SiSodia, SS India) are sockpuppets of each other, but seeing the equally abusive nature of other anon users, this is uncertain, the "online forum / meatpuppet" hypothesis is sufficient to account for the observed behaviour of editors)
 * my own role. naturally, I expect the arbcom to critically review my own behaviour in this. I maintain that what I did was a good faith and dedicated admin interevention. On 17 Dec, deciding to "lead by example" (illustrating what we mean by WP:5P), I became arguably "involved", and I admit to losing some of my cool under intense provocation Dec 17-25. After the filing of the Singh's "RfC", I have not taken administrative action, and by filing this RfAr recognize myself as involved party (although, in my view, on the "pro WP policy" side; I have no preference on the "Muslim Rajput" question)
 * arbcom measures are a necessity. The "Hindus only team" needs to be contained by arbcom measures if the article is to make progress . DPSingh has clearly moved beyond the realm of good faith or constructive editing (even descending into wikistalking me, e.g., but this is beyond the scope of this rfar), as have various anons and throwaway accounts. Shivraj Singh has at least shown utter stubbornness and consistent disregard for basic policy. This should result in conditional bans and/or probation to buy the bona fide editors an opportunity to make progress.  Also, mediating admins should be given privileges to block disruptive editors on sight, and refactor or roll back unconstructive edits to the talkpage (and block for opposition). Without such relatively harsh measures, this persistent "war" for a "pure Hindu Rajput version", as several months' experience has shown, cannot be contained without permanent protection of the article.

dab (&#5839;) 18:20, 9 January 2006 (UTC)