Wikipedia:Requests for comment/DreamGuy

If you are looking for the current RfC, it is located at Requests for comment/DreamGuy 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, not different disputes. 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: IVoteTurkey 15:12, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC) the page will be deleted. The current date and time is:, 29 July 2024 (UTC).


 * (DreamGuy | talk | contributions)

Statement of the dispute
''This is a summary written by users who dispute this user's conduct. Users signing other sections should not edit here.''

DreamGuy seems unable to enter into debate without using an aggressive, abusive, condescending and arrogant tone and engaging in ad hominem attacks. In particular his continued disparaging attitude towards a newcomer with whom he disagreed (i.e. me) broke wikipedia rules. IVoteTurkey

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

I have browsed through Wikipedia and made the occasional edit without bothering to register for some time now. A couple of weeks ago I was reading the Patricia Cornwell article and noticed that DreamGuy removed a whole section about her book on Jack the Ripper and Walter Sickert. I was rather suprised seeing as this information had been there for a while. On looking at the Walter Sickert page there seemed to be an awful lot of information on that page about Cornwell's book. A suprising amount given that most people believe that her theories are unworthy of being taken seriously. None of this information was biographical and indeed it was all about Cornwell and what she had done rather than about Sickert. I decided to "be bold" and reverted the Patricia Cornwell page back to include this information and I then went to the talk:Walter Sickert to discuss the matter. I had decided that rather than simply remove this information Sickert's page I would begin a debate on the subject. I questioned the validity of including several paragraphs about Cornwell's book and I suggested that there should only be a brief mention of this unlikely theory on Sickert's page as he was as likely to be the Ripper as similar unlikely or "fantastic" suspects like Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Lewis Carroll. I had assumed that the pages on these two gentlemen would in all likelyhood contain only the briefest mention of them being suspects. I was suprised to find that there were several paragraphs on both mens' pages about this subject. So I questioned the inclusion of this information on talk:Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and talk:Lewis Carroll. I will not bore you with the minutiae of this discussion but suffice to say that DreamGuy was in favour of including this information on those pages.

Over the course of the next few days DreamGuy and I debated the issue on various talk pages and DreamGuy reverted the Patrica Cornwell page and I reverted back. I ended this little revert war by asking for the page to be protected. Right from the very first when I was treated by DreamGuy with contempt - DreamGuy has consistently responded to my comments with "ad hominem" attacks and disparaging and condescending remarks which included calling me "some newbie with no history [who] was rudely reverting with no explanation whatsoever other than biased attitudes", "snide", "a vandal", "obiously biased", "rude", "liar", "ranting", "snotty", "whiner", "ego-driven", "highly biased and inexperienced" etc.. etc.. I asked him not to make these personal attacks on numerous occasions but he persisted. He also threatened to have be banned for violating the three revert rule and for violating NPOV. I have clearly demonstrated that I did no such thing, yet DreamGuy refuses to acknowledge this or make an apology. I eventually decided to take Ortolan88's advice and attempt to "patch things up" by making an apology, but DreamGuy ignored this and later reverted to using insults.

DreamGuy has also been very rude to other users User:EliZZZa with whom there is some history and recently User:Icundell. IVoteTurkey

Evidence of disputed behavior
(provide diffs and links)
 * DreamGuy accuses me of behaving "little better than that of a vandal" in an edit and a "revert vandal" in an edit summary -
 * DreamGuy again accuses me of vandalism and breaking the three revert rule in an edit and of being "highly biased and inexperienced" in the edit summary -
 * DreamGuy accuss me of "whining" and of "obstinance" and threatens to have me banned -
 * Despite the fact that I had just proven that I had not broken the three revert rule DreamGuy continues to assert that I have and once more says I should be banned
 * DreamGuy says, in responding to a comment by User:Jwrosenzweig, "IVoteTurkey's bias is over the top obvious" -
 * DreamGuy makes the following false claim against me- "This anonymous unregistered user is running around trying to take all mention of anyone being a suspect (contemporary or modern day) in the Ripper case out of a number of articles and, in my opinion, vandalizing the encyclopedia to his bias as a result" -  - The only article that I had edited was the Patrica Cornwell article to revert it so the claim is completely false.
 * DreamGuy re-iterates his claim that I am "vandalizing" -
 * More disparaging language from DreamGuy - he says "[you] flaut your violations of the rules, harass me on my talk page, claim that I am lying, and then pretend to be the victim when I point out that what you are doing is wrong. " - - I had not "flaut" any rules - the so-called "harrassment" is me conversing his talk page- I was doing nothing wrong.
 * DreamGuy calls my comments "snotty" and uses disparaging language when referring to me i.e. - "rude person who doesn't even know how to properly add a comment to a user page or doesn't bother to register"
 * DreamGuy accuses me of "clear and painful bias" -
 * DreamGuy continues to use disparaging language and says "You should be grateful that you weren't banned for violating the three revert rule, stop pushing your luck"
 * Dreamguy continues to make false allegations against me i.e.
 * "you have demonstrated an obvious bias by claiming on many talk pages that anything that blackens a person's name should not be in an encyclopedia," - I never said any such thing - again I'm being misrepresented
 * "you have clearly been rude (which you yourself apparently agreed because you apologized for it" - I apologised for (non-deliberate) antagonising of DreamGuy - not for being rude (because I don't think I have been)
 * "and you were busy reverting posts with no discussion." - completely untrue
 * "That was stalled after you had to make more snide remarks and yet again suggest moving everything about every Ripper suspect to one page" - wrong on both counts - I have already agreed to the proposed changes, DreamGuy misintepreted a joke that I wish I hadn't made
 * -

Note from Icundell I became involved with this post: having investigated IVoteTurkey's user page, following a debate with him (amicably resolved). I read the exchange with some interested and simply shared my two penn'orth. I followed the discussion with mild interest and added this note: when DreamGuy stated the opinion that the Lewis Carroll page provided a model. There was a brief exhange of views: (includes intervening remark by IVoteTurkey). Dreamguy then made an entirely unwarranted accussation of bais:, (again with an intervening remark by IVoteTurky) to which I responded thus:. This is somewhat strongly worded since it was intended as (and in that debate will remain) my final word. It is my practice to walk away from disputes when I consider the other party is being either unreasonable or unwilling to show basic courtesy, in this case questioning my good faith.

However, I am prepared to vouch that in this dispute I consider IVoteTurkey's behavior to have been wholly reasonable, with the exception of an ill-judged (and to me incomprehensible) joke, noted in his evidence. DreamGuy characterisation of IVoteTurkey as "some newbie with no history" (cited above) utterly denies the possibiliy that a 'newbie' may bring fresh and perfectly valid insight. So I am quite happy to certify this RFC.

Would any admin please fel free to move any part of this post to a more appropriate section if they consider it appropriate (this process is a little daunting first (and hopefully only) time out. Icundell 23:03, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Applicable policies
{list the policies that apply to the disputed conduct}
 * Civility
 * No personal attacks
 * Please do not bite the newcomers
 * Wikiquette
 * Assume good faith

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute
(provide diffs and links)
 * Proof that I did not break the three revert rule
 * After waiting and not receiving an apology from DreamGuy for falsely accusing me of breaking the three revert rule - I make my own apology to DreamGuy for antagonising him in the hope that he might reciprocate. - no such apology was forthcoming.
 * I make another apology and ask for DreamGuy to shake hands -
 * DreamGuy rejects my offer to shake hands and re-iterates his false claims.

Users certifying the basis for this dispute
(sign with ~ )
 * IVoteTurkey
 * Icundell 23:03, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this summary
(sign with ~ )
 * I hereby witness an accurate retelling of this dispute. Vacuum c 02:17, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)
 * I hereby witness an accurate retelling of this dispute, having made exactly the same experience with DreamGuy in a different dispute. eliZZZa 00:58, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)eliZZZa
 * [[User:Eequor|&#8227; &#5339;&#5505; [[Image:Venus symbol (blue).gif|&#9792;]] [ &#5200; ]]] 14:27, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * The above presentation of events almost exactly mirrors my experiences in dealing with DreamGuy at Beelzebub and Spring Heeled Jack. --Centauri 11:23, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Response
This is just another example of harassment that User:IVoteTurkey has engaged in against me since he was an unregistered user and decided reverting without comment (other than ALL CAPS insistence that it should be the other way, no reason given) a page I had worked on. The above accustions are full of half-truths and outright lies, and I contend that this is just yet another attempt to make a mountain out of a molehill because he won't let go after his opinions were reputed by myself and several other long-time editors of the pages the disputes happened on. The second user who signed the statement is someone IVoteTurkey brought in from other pages to try to have some measure of support after nobody else supported him, and this new person insisted upon arguing for an extreme position (two sentences of discussion and a link were "far" too much coverage in his mind of something others had recently covered with several long paragraphs but I had split to another page) for which consensus had already been reached on that page. The third person above I have never seen on any of the pages involved, and can only suspect that it was yet another person dragged in from elsewhere by IVoteTurkey to try to lend support for his ego-driven campaign.

Simply put, I don't have the time nor the inclination to go back and forth with this individual, because as far as I am concerned it was already settled with IVoteTurkey's original apology for harassing me. I am going to ignore this pointless attack and continue working with those people who want to actually work together to improve Wikipedia articles instead of turning everything into some long, drawn out schoolyard dispute.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) DreamGuy

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.

this looks like a generic time-waster to me. Prima facie, it seems arguable that DreamGuy has violated Civility, but I have been treated much worse without making a case of it. So, while I am open to the possibility that there is some merit in this RfC, I agree with DreamGuy's 'schoolyard' characterization, and I would recommend that the two parties simply avoid each other as best they can, and in cases of direct edit conflicts try to appeal to other users rather than engaging in reversions themselves. This is obviously not a solution, and much less a verdict, but I really think it is not worth wasting any more time on.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) dab (&#5839;) 12:02, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Discussion
All signed comments and talk not related to a vote or endorsement, should be directed to this page's discussion page.

As a point of fact IVoteTurkey did not bring me "in from other pages to try to have some measure of support after nobody else supported him" in any way shape or form to the discussion on Talk:Patricia Cornwell. DreamGuy's claim to this effect, above, is completely untrue. I came to the discussion exactly as described above. Also, quite what relevance the fact that DreamGuy has never heard of Vacuum has to this issue is a bit puzzling, given that this is a request for comment I've never seen him/her about either. Icundell 16:50, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * May I ask you to clarify something? It's not clear how you personally have tried to resolve this dispute? Could you elaborate, or did you really mean to endorse rather than certify IVoteTurkey's version? jguk 19:00, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * I tried to solve it with reason, the only effective way I know. What DreamGuy characterises (above) as an extreme position, was in fact a reasoned argument (you can follow the links above to see it). Whether it is a good reasoned argument is up to you and others to judge, but it was reasoned, based on evidence-based neutral thinking (concluding that the Carroll allegation is worth of only brief note in his bio). DreamGuy then hit me with an ad hominem accusation of bias. Had he not been hurling abuse at another user, I probably would have let it drop, but since a) he was and that user already felt the need to 'go official', and b) since I have zero-tolerance of playground bullies, I'm certifying. Icundell 19:51, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your clarification. I'll move it to the "approved pages - have met the two person threshold". jguk 20:05, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Icundell participated in Talk:Patricia Cornwell and tried to address DreamGuy's tendency to throw insults around. I feel it's sufficient to certify this RFC. Rhobite 20:20, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)