Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Darwinek

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Statement of the dispute
''This is a summary written by users who dispute this user's conduct. Users signing other sections ("Response" or "Outside views") should not edit the "Statement of the dispute" section.''

Description
User:Darwinek began systematically changing nearly all articles of the form "Transportation in X" to "Transport in X" (where X is a location) a few months ago. This violated Policy and Guidelines on National varieties of English. He then used the existence of the article names (which he had changed against policy) to argue for a wholesale change of Category names. Some of these (those in Oceania and Europe) have already been voted on, and approved. All of that was, by itself, no horrible crime. But when I very civilly asked him why he was doing this, the situation rapidly detiorated. It was clear he was completely unwilling to discuss this. Moreover, he clearly didn't even follow the links provided to him to the relevant WP policy and guidelines. His violations then continued: WP:CIVIL WP:NPA and Talk page vandalism (removing warnings, without archiving, from his talk page).

Evidence of disputed behavior

 * Systematically changing dialects began around here: [] (See April 07, 12:38, and then go backwards.)
 * My attemp to engage him began here: []. Please note the numerous civil referrals to the relevant WP policies and guidelines.
 * Civility and personal attack violations are obvious in the edit summaries of his talk page. (See ".my own talk page. fxxx off") at: []
 * Threatening to block a user who simply restored a warning to Darwinek's talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AJackLumber&diff=64467794&oldid=64009014

Applicable policies and guidelines
{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}
 * Wikipedia’s policy on national varieties of English
 * WP:CIVIL
 * WP:NPA
 * Talk page vandalism (Removing warnings, without archiving, from his talk page).
 * WP:HA

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute
(provide diffs and links)
 * Beginning of evidence he didn't want to talk: [].
 * Repeated failure to answer my questions about his motivation, such as here: [].
 * Failure to engage in others' attempts to address the renaming issue via other means: []
 * Failure to respond on the question of Manual of Style guidelines about national varieties of English begins here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Darwinek&diff=prev&oldid=64304376

Users certifying the basis for this dispute
{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}


 * Cultural Freedom talk 18:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * WikiFair1 19:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this summary

 * JackLumber. 19:58, 18 July 2006 (UTC) (see below)  JackLumber.
 * -- Boothman   /tɔːk/  21:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Response
''This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.'' ''

Hello. So I will try to respond to some grievances here. First of all by mass renaming a few months ago I didn't knew I am doing something very evil. I have done this with good intentions. Should've I read all Manual of Style including national varieties of English section ? Sure. It was my fault that I didn't read that before. Sorry for that. A few months ago someone nominated subcategories of Transport of Europe and then Ocenia at WP:CFD. Last week, seeing both were renamed, I have nominated another ones. Also in good intentions. Then Cultural freedom called me WP:MoS violator (which I am, but unintentionally) and his pals then joined him. I've also refused to withdraw my WP:CFD nominations because I think I have acted with good intentions and community should decide in this vote.

2.) Regarding my talk page. I have managed it (removed some comments) for almost two years. To this week no one had any problems with it. In August last year I ran for an admin and was approved. No one had problems with my own talk page behavior. Note that many famous and great users such as User:Adam Carr are doing the same.

3.) Regarding my "fuck off" reaction. I honestly apologize for that. I was really pissed off when I wrote this. I am here for almost two years and this is probably the first time I have used this word. It should never happen again. Some user from this "harassing group" called me "20 year old punk" but I don't care.

Lastly I would like to write that I love Wikipedia. I have more than stunning 30,000 edits, I have created hundreds and hundreds of articles and have very good relations with other users. To this date I haven't had any serious or boiled disputes like this one. I think Cultural freedom and his pals should edit Wikipedia articles and leave me alone. My only sin is I haven't read proper policy before my mass renaming a few months ago and that during this "Transportation-Transport" debate I was kind of edgy and uncivil. Sorry for that again. -- Darwinek 19:18, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

(commentary moved to Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Darwinek by SB Johnny)

Users who endorse this summary:
 * 1) Z iggurat 20:55, 19 July 2006 (UTC) (although you have right to do so, I'd prefer if you didn't remove comments still under discussion from your talk page, if only for transparency's sake; also I ditto JackL's comment above: dialogue is good.)
 * 2) SB Johnny 01:06, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Samir   धर्म  01:11, 22 July 2006 (UTC) Darwinek is a highly respected editor and administrator, and can be forgiven for any potential wrongdoing
 * 4) TheronJ 22:36, 1 August 2006 (UTC) Good for you, Darwinek. I can't see how there's much left to talk about in light of Darwinek's response.
 * 5) I suppose after this he can be forgiven. --Nearly Headless Nick 13:02, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Darwinek is a super contributor to Wikipedia. As you can see he is willing to speak candidly about his mistakes, which is good enough for me. He has a good record of working well with other users and these complaints about vandalism, as well as a suggestion of editing impropreity are not warranted.Blnguyen | rant-line 00:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Outside view
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{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.}

violet/riga
I don't wish to get too involved in this, but just want to make a couple of comments. Firstly, I totally disagree with the "talk page vandalism" - a user is allowed to remove whatever they wish from their own talk page except proper warnings of vandalism, and I don't think that what Darwinek removed constitutes warnings. Secondly, CulturalFreedom has been having problems with several users regarding her and their views of dialect usage. violet/riga (t) 18:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Looking further into this, WikiFair1 has made numerous reversions to "Transport in..." done by other users over 6 months ago. Further, there was no attempt to fix the double-redirects. This has left things in a much worse state and if Darwinek is guilty of unilaterally moving articles to his preferred title then WikiFair1 is too. I have reverted these changes to fix the double-redirects - this is not a statement of my preferred naming. violet/riga (t) 19:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

A further point regarding the removal of comments. The policy/guideline quoted is merely a proposal and thus not enforcable, and the behaviour of people involved in this RfC reverting his talk page could be seen as harassment. violet/riga (t) 21:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

(other comments moved to Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Darwinek 00:58, 22 July 2006 (UTC))

Users who endorse this summary:
 * 1) Jooler 10:55, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Jooler
Okay so what is this all about?

With this edit User:Darwinek removed someone else's comments from his own talk page. It was then reverted and reverted back and he is then accused of vandalism. Since when has the removal unwanted comments on your own talk page, from someone you're having a disagreement with constituted vandalism? It does not appear that Darwinek removed any kind of official warning from an admin but just unwanted comments accompanied by a jpg of a warning triangle from someone he was in dispute with and then again when an "ally" chipped in. I think Darwinek is being unjustly persecuted by a group of users on some kind of mission as can be seen from the User:Cultural Freedom/CFWPOJ page. Jooler 10:55, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:
 * 1) violet/riga (t) 14:04, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) SB Johnny 01:08, 22 July 2006 (UTC) (What was removed was not a warning, as implied in some of the edit summaries.)

SB_Johnny
I think the beginning of this came about from Darwinek's desire for consistency (retitling articles to match categories), which is usually (but not always) a good idea. He was rather prolific in making these changes, and clearly caused some frustration by other members of the community, as well as leaving some double-redirects behind for others to clean up.

This could probably have been resolved with civil discussion on the naming conventions project, but user:Cultural Freedom went immediately into attack mode both on Darwinek's talk and on the naming conventions page. Cultural Freedom also started this page, which seems (to me) to be a base from which to organize a concerted effort on this, i.e. a cabal. (He/she has now move a link to it onto his/her main userpage, so at least it's a bit more open now).

Darwinek could be reasonably expected to become frustrated with this, and ended up venting this frustration in an inappropriate manner, and has both acknowledged this and apologized on this page. However, his admission and apology were commented on (originally on this page, which I moved to the talk), and the comments were "fine, but...", etc. Cultural Freedom has since added an "update" section to the naming conventions project which continues this spirit of mean-spiritedness.

As things currently stand, the best way foreward would be for Cultural Freedom (and perhaps others) to apologize in their turn and tone down their comments, because this is developing into a bad case of wikistalking. Darwinek should accept a bit of wrist-slapping and probably take a break from this issue, or perhaps even a nice wikibreak.

The one issue of greater concern (to me) is the threat of blocking a user for "vandalizing" his userpage. It's pretty clear that the user didn't intend to vandalize, but rather was making a good-faith restoration of what he (mistakenly) interpreted as a warning (and thus considered Darwinek to be in breach of rules governing the removal of warnings from one's userpage. Darwinek needs to apologise for this, because this sort of behavior from admins leads to bad feelings among the community. If he had actually blocked the user, I would have supported a move to have him desysoped.

Users who endorse this summary:


 * 1) SB Johnny 12:16, 22 July 2006 (UTC) (of course :).)


 * I haven't blocked him. Actually I've took a cool shower and calmed down. I apologise for that threat. I'm sorry Jack. - Darwinek 12:09, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * No prob. The more I think about this thing, the more I realize it's just a tempest in a teapot.  Cultural Freedom and possibly yours truly and others should have just applied WP:AGF.  I'm the one who should apologize—it was none of my business after all.   JackLumber.  19:13, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion
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