Wikipedia:Requests for comment/12.144.5.2

In order to remain listed at Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 01:49, 9 August 2005 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is:, 29 July 2024 (UTC).


 * (12.144.5.2 | talk | contributions)

Description
This anonymous user (who has given the name Louis Epstein and continues to use the same IP enough to garner quite an impressive talk page) has a tendency to make edits to articles that are in conflict with Wikipedia policy, making more work for the rest of us when we clean up after him. He has made many useful contributions and updates to articles, but at the same time, he has necessitated that other editors continually fix his mistakes.

The particular issue I have noticed with him is his tendency to replace standard em dashes (&mdash;) with a double hyphen (--). He does not merely use double hyphens in his own, instead, he converts em dashes to double hyphens because he believes that Wikipedia policy's current preference for em dashes is "stupid", and instead of starting a policy discussion he simply engages in low-intensity edit wars on articles that he edits. (Addendum: It has been suggested that it is perhaps his browser that is automatically making the changes without his involvement. To that, I must respond that it is convenient that Louis Epstein chooses to use a browser that "erroneously" corrects punctuation to his preferred version, given his stated opinions on this issue.)

As other editors have had similar disputes with him without success I'm choosing to proceed to RfC.

Evidence of disputed behavior
(provide diffs and links)
 * Revision as of 16:49, 8 August 2005
 * Revision as of 14:23, 5 August 2005
 * Revision as of 15:28, 4 August 2005
 * Revision as of 3 August
 * Revision as of 2 August
 * Revision as of 29 July
 * Revision as of 29 July
 * Revision as of 27 July

Applicable policies
{list the policies that apply to the disputed conduct}
 * WP:POINT
 * Manual of Style (dashes)

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute
(provide diffs and links)
 * User talk:12.144.5.2
 * Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#What to do with an editor refusing to follow Wikipedia style norms?

Users certifying the basis for this dispute
(sign with ~ )
 * &mdash; Phil Welch 01:49, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 * &mdash;GarrettTalk 03:48, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this summary
(sign with ~ )

Response
I'd like to make clear that I don't cruise Wikipedia trying to institute my personal stylesheet everywhere...even beyond the spaces-after-punctuation issue,just eliminating pinyin (the use of which I consider an appalling kowtow to a bloodthirsty dictatorship bent on abolishing the conventions of the Roman alphabet) in favor of Wade-Giles or other alternatives would keep me awake all day.Where I am editing an article for a substantive reason,I will likely take the time to remove the HTML conceits in favor of honest keyboard dashes,which is a step toward universal text compatibility.I don't think the same can be said for people of contrary preference,who think introducing the HTML conceits is sufficient reason to disturb an article.(User:Susvolans appears to be the biggest fan of the HTML dashes).--Louis [not "Luis"] Epstein/le@put.com/12.144.5.2 02:07, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

{Add summary here, but you must use the endorsement section below to sign. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.}

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):

Outside view by Carnildo
''This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section.''

My understanding is that LE prefers to use the text-only Lynx web browser. This browser displays Wikipedia pages in a number of ways that are significantly different from how graphical browsers do. Besides the obvious lack of images, it displays tables and lists as looking the same, and it decomposes many non-ASCII characters into ASCII approximations. Unfortunately, it does not re-compose characters when pages are uploaded after editing, and it drops many non-Latin characters entirely. This leads to inadvertent vandalization of Wikipedia.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) Carnildo 06:43, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Lifeisunfair 13:28, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) Louis must change his browser settings. Oleg Alexandrov 15:45, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 4) This is a clarification rather than an endorsement: according to this discussion on Village pump (technical), the "accidental vandalism" issue should be resolved, and this should no longer occur.  If not, Louis and User:Plugwash should get in touch. -- Curps 09:46, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Outside view by McClenon
This appears to be a punctuation war. I agree with the originators of this RfC that punctuation standards should be followed. I would be annoyed, as they are, at an editor who habitually introduces incorrect punctuation. I would not characterize that practice as being close to vandalism. Carnildo has suggested that Louis Epstein's use of the Lynx text-only browser may be a cause of these problems.

It does appear that Louis Epstein is being unreasonable in stating that the Wikipedia standards are wrong. Wikipedia standards are made by consensus. Is there a reason why Louis Epstein cannot use an HTML-capable browser? If he thinks that Wikipedia standards are too rigid, then he should try to make a case as to why the standards are too rigid and how they can accommodate other browsers without introducing inconsistency.

Maybe the originators of this RfC and Louis Epstein should step back and think about how trivial this punctuation war is and laugh about it and discharge some of the tension that they have. I actually thank them for giving me something to laugh about briefly. Robert McClenon 12:18, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) Robert McClenon 12:18, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Habap 19:05, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Outside view by TenOfAllTrades
''This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section.''

It appears that in the linked diffs–I glanced through most of them, at least–the change appears to be from an inserted em dash character (&mdash;) to a double dash (--). Having run into occasional problems with this sort of thing in the past (my personal nemeses were the curly quotes, actually) I can see where Louis Epstein might have gotten into trouble.

This might be fixed through the use of the HTML entities for en and em dashes: &amp;ndash; and &amp;mdash; respectively. Since they're straight ASCII, there's no reason why they can't be edited normally, even using a text-only browser.

Quite frankly, this strikes me as one of Mr. Epstein's less harmful practices on Wikipedia. I would be much more concerned about his insistence on maintaining his own personal forks of Supercentenarian and National longevity recordholders, and repeated reversions of other editors changes to those articles.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:00, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Lifeisunfair 13:28, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) Mackensen (talk) 21:51, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 4) Oleg Alexandrov 22:25, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 5) khaosworks (talk• contribs) 02:13, August 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * 6) Jonathunder 22:22, 2005 August 19 (UTC)
 * 7) FlooK 14:45, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Outside view by Lifeisunfair
''This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section.''

As strongly as I oppose Mr. Epstein's stubborn refusal to follow basic English language rules and Wikipedia conventions (particularly his instance upon retaining strict control over the content of articles that he originates, against overwhelming consensus for change), the examples cited above appear to have resulted from automatic substitutions by his browser. As noted by TenOfAllTrades, the use of HTML-based em and en dashes is the preferred method.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) Lifeisunfair 13:28, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Wikipedia now allows Unicode anywhere (article titles, article bodies). Lots of Unicode shows up in interlanguage links. This is obvious, because other languages use more than just the latin alphabet. And it is also obvious that any edit by Louis to such a page ruins it. And to any person except Louis it would be no big deal to change browsers. But, as you know, Louis is a principled person, and would never change his convinctions (which call for text based browsing, stubborn insistence on his own verison of articles, lack of respect for punctuation, etc). Oleg Alexandrov 22:22, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Outside view by Susvolans
This specific issue barely merits an RFC (a workround for non-Unicode-compliant browsers has been implemented, see 2676, but it has yet to be enabled for Lynx), but there are wider issues about Louis Epstein’s behaviour. He is clearly knowledgeable at the level of raw facts, but he is also a poor team player who has, for instance, pursued highly idiosyncratic punctuation practises despite repeated pleas to the contrary. I have declined to sign the list of names at the top of his talk page because I have never wished to feed the troll, but I have tackled him on various other issues. I have been met with surliness, and have watched other people recieve the same. This indicates to me a frequent basic disrespect for the formatting and presentation contributions of others, together with the underlying desire of most serious contributors to polish the encyclopedia. It is significant that, while everyone else I contacted about browser problems after the switch to Unicode and before the workround I mentioned above was implemented got back to me concerned about the problems, Louis completely ignored my message.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) Susvolans (pigs can fly) 17:11, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Lifeisunfair 17:48, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:50, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
 * 4) Jonathunder 22:21, 2005 August 19 (UTC)

Outside view by Babajobu
I think Louis Epstein is a magnificent contributor to Wikipedia and that he is being persecuted by angry drones who don't like to see the hivemind disturbed by individuals. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a Borg mothership in which individuals who resist assimilation into the collective are neutralized and harvested for their parts. Babajobu 21:00, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary
 * 1) Babajobu 21:00, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Outside view
''This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section.''

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Discussion
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