Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rex071404 4

Case Opened on 21:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Case Closed on 20:12, 6 December 2005 (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.

Petitioners

 * (involved but not submitting evidence)
 * (involved but not submitting evidence)
 * (involved but not submitting evidence)
 * (involved but not submitting evidence)
 * (involved but not submitting evidence)
 * (involved but not submitting evidence)
 * (involved but not submitting evidence)

Prior cases
There are three prior cases: Requests for arbitration/Rex071404, Requests for arbitration/Rex071404 2 and Requests for arbitration/Rex071404 3.

Statements by petitioners
Please limit your statement to 500 words.

Statement by Dmcdevit
I don't know what the precedent is for someone uninvolved starting an arbitration, but it needs to be done. Rex has only been back for about a month, and in that time he's racked up more than a thousand edits, most of them to John Kerry and its talk page. This is not only a content dispute. Rex is a career edit warrior, and consistently reverts three times in a day and uses other gaming tactics. All four of the protections of John Kerry were due to Rex's edit wars. He is also increasingly hostile and confrontational on the talk page. The crucial issue is that Rex does not understand, or refuses to accept, the consensus formed by very many other editors over a long period of time. His many reverts, his endless filibustering on the talk page, all show a disregard for consensus. He is also highly suspected of using abusive sockpuppets to revert and harass others. See this post, which is in regards to a massive attack on Woohookitty on November 13th, 2005.) It is time that more substantial arbcom restrictions be put in place. Dmcdevit·t 06:10, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Woohookitty
My statement is in regards to something Dmcdevit mentioned. That would be the very bad vandalism attack that I suffered tonight that I am quite certain came from Rex071404. It started earlier today. At around 22:00 on Nov. 13th, I posted This to the talk page on the Talk:John Kerry page. The user did NOT respond on the Kerry talk page, which is extremely odd. He always responds to stuff like that. As would see from the history page, he posts alot. Well at 00:03 on Nov. 14th, I thought that something was amiss because Rex posted to the Price-Anderson Act talk page, which he had never done. Well, at 00:11, we had the first appearance of one of the vandals, Anonrtgtt. And his/her post was very specific, wondering why the "pro Kerry" version had been protected. Strange since she had never posted on here before. 00:32 was Rex's last edit, but the sockpuppet continued on. Here is the page that lists the various usernames the vandals used. There ended up being 5. Mostly, they posted very specific edits. I'm not going to go into specifics here. That can be left for the evidence page.

I will say, though, that many things point this to Rex071404. #1 we have the time issue. Rex071404's last post was 00:32. The vandals continued beyond that. The 5th and last of the series, Anonr left at about 2:25. At that point, I had finally gotten CoolCat to ban creation of names that started with anon. Well then, Rex came back on at 4:02. Since AOL accounts can be created at the drop of a hat and since we discovered through a checkuser that the vandal used AOL, it's very easy to see that Rex could've quickly created an account...used it until he was blocked...and then went back to his regular account. And since AOL IPs cannot be traced, he knew he'd be scot free. One of the first things he did was revert and remove a post of mine to his talk page, which has been a problem for him in the past. IIRC several sanctions were because of that. And then he went back to edit warring on Kerry, but again, he did NOT respond to my earlier post. Another thing that points this to Rex is a post that kizzle made. Apparently, Rex started using an IP address to post from, but for the longest time, he denied it. And it was similar...one address said one thing and the other one would back it up. Kind of like how he removed my valid comment from his talk page but kept the one from a known vandal (Anonrtgtt).

The most convincing evidence is the following. Look at this revert by Rex, and then this revert by the sockpuppet. Why should some "new" user coincidentally make the exact same edit as Rex? It's just a bit strange and evidence that these were puppets of Rex.

This is getting long, so I will end here. Rex needs to be dealt with. Period. And this is the beginning of our case, not the end. It's more than just using sockpuppets. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 07:46, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I just wanted to add that I agree with my fellow Wikipedians here. I do hope that the ArbCom doesn't take Rex recusing himself from the Kerry article as anything but an attempt to ward this proceeding off. He's continuing his recent pattern of "acting" nice, but still breaking the rules left and right. It's just gaming the system. It's all it is. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 13:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Mr. Tibbs
Rex071404 has a long and troubled history here at Wikipedia. He has been the subject of 3 previous Arbitration Cases. He has had multiple RfCs filed against him. . But all of those previous attempts at Dispute Resolution have failed. And that is why we are here today. Rex continues to violate the principles that were brought up in his previous Arbitrations.

Recently Rex has attempted to dominate the John Kerry article yet again. He has not only persistently edit-warred against the consensus forcing the article into protection multiple times, but he has attempted to manipulate the system with a reversion system of his own. Rex maintains a list of versions he likes to revert to. When the community revert's his changes, Rex simply picks a different version from his list and reverts to that, claiming it's not a revert. This system enables Rex to simply ignore the 3RR rule and continuously revert the community's consensus. Numerous people have attempted to dialog with Rex, so much so, that the discussion now occupies 6 archive spaces and approximately 700 kb worth of talk not including the current talkpage. A vote was recently attempted to try and close the discussion. Even after that, Rex continued to push his POV, which resulted in the page being protected again. As if these violations aren't enough to permanently condemn Rex, Rex choose to spawn several sockpuppets to harass Woohookitty after he correctly identified Rex's game. 

The most recent Arbitration against Rex foolishly concluded that a "self-imposed" ban would be sufficient to deal with Rex. We have seen that that simply isn't the case. It should be clear to anyone observing these developments that Rex071404 is a Repeat Offender deserving Permanent ramifications. We ask for just that, to finally settle this dispute once and for all. -- Mr. Tibbs 09:15, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by JamesMLane
Rex has been the subject of three previous arbitration proceedings, plus some number of RfC's, short-term blocks by individual admins, and messages on his talk page and on article talk pages from uninvolved editors seeking to offer him friendly guidance. None of this has changed his relentless POV-pushing in the slightest. All he has learned from it is how to be slightly more canny, by not being quite so obviously in violation of Wikipedia rules. He hasn't blanked anyone's user page and substituted "bite me" as the text. Nevertheless, the fundamentals are unchanged. He has consumed huge amounts of editor time on John Kerry. Much of his time has been spent arguing over matters that he brought up back in August -- August of 2004, that is. (See Talk:John Kerry/August 2004 archive 1.) The Kerry article, his pet obsession, has already been protected three times in the month since Rex's return. Absent ArbCom action, the article will remain in a state of semi-permanent edit war, with intermittent protections. Please don't suggest dialog as the solution. In the one month since Rex's return, Talk:John Kerry has been archived five times, racking up just short of 800kb, to no discernible benefit.

If any arbitrator votes against taking this case, I would greatly appreciate it if you would add some idea of what alternative course of action you think should be pursued. JamesMLane 14:02, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Derex
Over a year ago, Rex was infuriated that he could not call a wound involving shrapnel lodged in in John Kerry's arm "minor". Kerry received the Purple Heart for this wound. The article factually stated that Kerry returned to duty the next day. A consensus emerged that the facts spoke for themselves, without any extra and disputable characterization (is shrapnel embedded in your arm "minor", how is that defined?). Why was Rex so insistent on adding spin? Because it was from the Republican & Swift Vet talking points: the wound was "minor", so Kerry didn't deserve that Purple Heart. We didn't bury the dispute, we created three very large daughter articles devoted to various allegations against Kerry, but that lengthy exploration did not and has not satisfied Rex. There were at least a dozen similar disputes, where the clear perception was that Rex was attempting to push a POV ... which the arbitration committee later explicitly determined to be the case. However, the "minor" dispute was the proximate cause of the first arbitration case. It is not a coincidence that Rex has chosen to make exactly the same dispute the subject of a multi-week debate requiring 3 archives of the John Kerry talk page upon his return. Of all the articles on Wikipedia, of all the potential problems with John Kerry, Rex returned directly to this issue, making the exact same arguments as before. (I edited under the name Wolfman at that time.)

Now, Rex thinks his behavior upon return is fine, because the lesson he learned from the previous arbitrations was "be civil". Granted he has been more or less civil. In contrast, I have been somewhat rude to Rex at times, because I am beyond exasperated. However, Rex learned the wrong lesson, or at least the less important one. Civility is great, but civility isn't part of the article. The absolutely fundamental and, as Jimbo says, "non-negotiable" principle of Wikipedia is NPOV. Rex simply does not understand the concept at any more than a rudimentary level. Or, if he does, he willfully ignores it. My problem with Rex now, and my problem with Rex over a year ago, is that every single edit he makes is an attempt to push his POV. While this is often blatant, he is also remarkably clever at finding subtle ways to insert spin. Note, he doesn't remove pro-Kerry spin, that would be admirable; he inserts spin. I have never cared that Rex used to be rude. I have never cared that he caused page protections. The lesson he drew from the last case was: don't do those things. Here's what I care about:
 * The absolutely astounding amount of time Rex causes to be wasted debating trivialites such as the distinction between gauze dressing and bandage.
 * The shameless POV-pushing with every edit.

The bottom line is that this exact same dispute has been through both RFC and arbcom before. In both cases, there was a finding that Rex was POV-pushing (see eg Rex3, Finding 2). And, I do mean the exact same dispute, with the same arguments; see the archive link James provided. One difference is that most of the complainants are different (Only James & myself were among the 8 complainants in Rexcom 1). There are thousands of other editors, and millions of potential ones, besides Rex who can take up the holy cause of argueing that Kerry's shrapnel injury was not a "wound", that he did not "sustain" or "suffer" the non-wound rather "receiving" it, that the non-wound was at any rate "minor", that it was merely "dressed" with "ointment" or, at the most, covered in "gauze" and certainly not "bandaged". And, of course, the ever popular Kerry might have shoved the shrapnel into his own arm, on purpose, in order to get a Purple Heart. There are thousands who could surely make this wholly neutral and obvious point while generating less than one gigabyte of talk page archives. So, I ask that Rex be banned permanently from editing articles which heavily involve United States politics. Otherwise, John Kerry will be defeated in 2004.

To the best of my recollection, I have not edited John Kerry from the time Rex left until the time he showed up again. I'll leave it alone again should he be prohibited from editing it. But, I'll not voluntarily let Rex, through sheer persistence & intransigence, spin a smear on that page. Derex @ 15:35, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Jtdirl/FearÉireann
There is not much more to add. Everything has been accurately covered. I was not an original participant to the 'debate'. I noticed what seemed like an endless stream of reverts on the page and asked what the problem was. On reading the page it became clear that it seemed to be a case of one user (Rex) versus the rest. Rex was practically jamming the page with the same point repeated ad nausaum. He would make demands that NPOV words have POV qualifiers added to by implication accuse Kerry of dishonesty and repeatedly go back to the issue. Even when an overwhelming consensus disagreed with him, and having he implied he would finish the point and move on, he would then reopen it from stratch a day or two later, demanding people provide evidence for their opinions, insisting that someone who was wounded shouldn't be said to have a wound, then that the wound must be called minor, then that a bandage may not necessarily be made of cloth!!! He took nitpicking to the ultimate extreme.

I was surprised that so many users had actually kept up the debate with him for so long. One could see genuine new users arriving, gently probing his views, and then progressively over the days becoming more and more frustrated at his determination, through in tiny minority (frequently of one), to keep the argument going over the same points over and over again. Time and again someone would come on with a tone of 'you haven't discussed it with Rex fully' and after 2 or 3 days themselves show complete frustration at his behaviour. I was only involved for a week or two. In that time I must have heard him repeat the same points tens of times, including producing a list of 50 (!) things he wanted to discuss, most of which were simply the same five each said in different ways. In all the time the debate did not seem to move off one paragraph, which seems to have 100k+ written about it, most of it Rex repeating himself, with everyone replying in effect 'we know. We know. You've told us. You haven't convinced us. Lets move on to work on another paragraph'.

I ended up concluding that while Rex genuinely believed in what he was writing, he simply would not agree to abide by any decisions, listen to anyone or accept anything that he had not agreed to. When votes were proposed (which it was obvious he was going to lose) he responded with statements that implied 'you can't do that'. I was not surprised when told about the history of RfCs and arb rulings on Rex. When finally people lost patience and began insisting that the issue was closed and it wasn't being discussed anymore suspicious abusive sockpuppets began appearing and attacking some contributors to the talk page. The timing of their appearance and their comments raised strong suspicions in me and in others that they were in fact Rex.

I have rarely seen one page so comprehensively highjacked by one user with demands that his POV demands he accepted. Nor a user given so many chances from other users to expand on his views, yet so cynically use it in an effort of forcing his views on the page through wearing people down.

Statement by Szyslak
Before Rex's return, my contributions to John Kerry and my participation in talk page dialogue didn't extend much beyond reverting simple vandalism. When he restarted the pattern of POV pushing and edit warring that led us up to this point, I became involved in this dispute, taking part in some of the talk page dialogue that's taken up almost a gigabyte of valuable server space. I've stepped away from the dispute in the past couple of weeks, but I became aware of this request when it was announced on Talk:John Kerry.

As this case progresses, Rex will claim, as he has a hundred times, that he's the innocent here, that his reasonable, neutral edits have been stonewalled by a cabal of uncooperative liberals intent on whitewashing Kerry. Indeed, he claims to have moderated his editing style since his return, "staying within acceptable parameters": , . In fact, as the other participants in this case have noted, he has continued the same behavior that led to his three other arbitration cases, only in a less blatant manner. For example, he's been making edits to the section he disputes that aren't exactly alike, so he can claim that his edits are not reverts. In fact, he has a list of versions of the paragraph, which he will sometimes copy into the article. His list is at User_talk:Rex071404/vf.

One thing the other complainants haven't mentioned: A few days after his return, Rex created a subpage of his user talk page, which was deleted at Rex's request: User talk:Rex071404/Liberal bias (undelete), originally titled "Liberal Editors Cabal". This page was unknown to most editors until Kizzle pointed out its existence on the Kerry talk page: , . Rex claimed that other editors had no right to read the page , which Kizzle called a "liberal hit list" . I would recommend restoring the page so it can be used as evidence, because in my opinion it does indeed read as a "liberal hit list". It's full of accusations of "improper reverting", "refusing to dialogue on talk" and other hysterical, incivil accusations typically made by Rex.

As Jimbo said in his original formulation of the neutral point of view, "...there are ideologues in the world who will not concede to any presentation other than a forceful statement of their own point of view". After 16 months, three and possibly four arbitration cases and a gigabyte of contentious talk page dialogue, Rex071404 has proven time and time again that he cannot or will not follow our norms of neutrality, civility and community consensus. Szyslak ( [ +t, +c, +m, +e  ] ) 12:12, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by Gamaliel
Many people have said that Rex is more civil than he was prior to his first couple visits to ArbCom. But as Szyslak noted, he's merely "less blatant" than before. Rex still throws around accusations of bias, rudely snaps at other editors on the talk page (even once when I complimented an edit of his), uses edit summaries to accuse and attack, and wrenches quotes from others out of context to wave them around triumphantly, try to make them say the opposite of what people actually intended, or make it look like people agree with him. He has no conception about what consensus actually is. To him, if everyone agrees with something except him, the consensus is invalid, but if he and one other person agree on some minor point, he declares consensus and labels further edits as going against that imaginary consensus.

Rex has made some minor positive contributions, but they are far outweighed by his edit warring and his constant POV pushing. He has wasted countless hours worth of time and energy from other editors who could be contributing positively to this project and there's no indication that he's ever going to stop. Gamaliel 22:28, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by party Rex071404
Please limit your statement to 500 words

I did not vandalize or in any way molest Woohookitty. I edit only from 216.153.214.94. I am not using sockpuppets. I am citing my disputed edits. At this very moment, I am on IRC with Kizzle seeking common ground. I believe I am not in violation. As a show of good faith, I will voluntarily edit no more at John Kerry until this RfA is concluded. Rex071404(all logic is premise based) 07:30, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (5/0/1/0)

 * Accept. Kelly Martin (talk) 16:27, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Accept &amp;#10149;the Epopt 23:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Accept. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 01:32, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Accept. Jayjg (talk) 20:00, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Accept. Fred Bauder 20:16, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Recuse. Neutralitytalk 17:28, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Temporary injunction (none)
=Final decision=

Ownership of articles
''Some contributors feel very possessive about articles they have donated to this project. Some go so far as to defend them against all intruders... Well, it's one thing to take an interest in an article that you maintain on your watchlist. Maybe you really are an expert or you just care about the topic a lot. But when this watchfulness crosses a certain line, then you're overdoing it.'' --Ownership of articles


 * Passed 7-0

Previous arbitration cases
Rex has been the subject of 3 previous arbitration cases - Requests for arbitration/Rex071404, Requests for arbitration/Rex071404 2, Requests for arbitration/Rex071404 3


 * Passed 7-0

Problematic editing on John Kerry article
Since returning to Wikipedia, Rex has resumed the same problematic editing on the John Kerry article described in his earlier cases. 


 * Passed 7-0

Rex banned from John Kerry
1) Rex is permanently banned from editing the John Kerry article.


 * Passed 7-0

Problematic editing at other articles
2) If Rex should begin similiar problematic editing at any other article, any admin may prohibit him from editing on that page.


 * Passed 7-0

Enforcement by block
1) If Rex edits any article from which he is banned, he may be blocked from editing for a period of up to a week. After 5 blocks the length of the maximum block shall increase to one year.


 * Passed 7-0