Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Germen

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: 13:31, 18 July 2005 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is:, 29 July 2024 (UTC).


 * (Germen | 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.''

Description
Germen was first encountered when he made a series of controversial edits to Islamophobia, all non-minor but marked as minor and without edit comments. These were reverted by multiple users warning that edits should not be marked as minor. Despite warnings, however, Germen started reverting, continuing marking his edits as minor frequently without proper comments and without discussion on the talk page.

At this point I became involved and attempted to resolve the dispute by discussing Germen's changes and advising Germen on Wikipedia policy. Discussion, however, shortly broke down and a further revert war was started resulting, joined by various anonymous IPs. Once again, Germen broke the 3RR for which he was blocked.

Further attempst are made to integrate Germen's edits through discussion on the talk page but, once again, results in a revert war during which Germen was blocked for 3RR. After Germen's blocks anonymous IPs (possibly sockpuppets of Germen) begin reverting and the whole page is protected by admins.

At this point, I once again attempted to resolve the dispute, creating a draft version, and making an open call for comments and references. I also put the page up for RfC. However, Germen insists on debating even basic Wikipedia policy, refusing to listen to different interpretations, making bad faith remarks about other editors because of their possible religious beliefs. He sets out to "disprove" the common definition of Islamophobia using original research, ignoring RfC comments, consensus and my own explanation of Wikipedia policy. Discussion does no revolve around citation of sources, but on discussion of Wikipedia policy and redundant original research. This has resulted in Islamphobia being blocked for a month without any progress made on the talk page.

Germen continues to disrupt Wikipedia to make points (e.g. creating alternative pages for content that is reverted that are all subsequently put up for VfD), prematurely removing dispute tags and even deleting legitimate comments from talk pages. Despite warnings, he also still frequently marks edits, even controversial reverts, as minor, often without comment and remains unrepentant about his behaviour with the 3RR and vandalism, preferring to force lengthy debate on narrow or incorrect interpretations of policy rather than work toward the spirit of Wikipedia policy (see talk page here) and even deleting comments he doesn't like. His latest tactic, given his inability to resolve the dispute on Islamophobia and un-protect the page, is to create (or re-create) various pages for his POV content, all of which are rapidly put up for VfD and subsequently deleted. He then harrasses voters who vote against him, forcing further debate of policy minutae.

Evidence of disputed behavior
(provide diffs and links)

3RR
Mutilple breaches of the 3RR despite various warnings, blocked three times in the last month:


 * 12:04, 15 June 2005.
 * 17:43, 19 June 2005 despite warnings [
 * 18:06, 22 June 2005 despite being previously blocked with warning.
 * 11:47, 12 July 2005
 * Attempts to warn Germen about further breaches of the 3RR are meet with unapologetic indignation with the possibility that further 3RR's maybe forthcoming if Germen is "forced" to do so.

Blocking policy
Possible use of anonymous sock puppetting to circumvent admin blocks and make bad faith personal attacks on talk pages:
 * Anonymous IP 130.89.6.66 makes reverts to page that closely mirror Germen's own reverts   after Germen's 3RR block of 22 June 2005 (see above) leading to page protection . Admin SlimVirgin confirms suspicion anonymous IP is Germen.
 * Same anonymous IP makes bad faith remarks on talk page occur shortly after Germen is blocked for breaching the 3RR. IP seems to originate from Germen's university.

Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point

 * Created Prejudices (islam) and Prejudice (islam) hist (see Votes for deletion/Prejudice (islam)) in reaction to Islamophobia being protected.
 * Attempts to re-create deleted article Islamophilia (non-notable neologism) all of which have to be speedily deleted in response.
 * Created Persecution of non-Muslims in response to failed VfD for Persecution of Muslims, now itself up for VfD.
 * Frivilous VfU for Islamophilia despite successful and legitimate VfD . Admins on this page note anonymous vote signed as registered user may be anonymous sock puppet of Germen. He also harrasses voters, questioning basic Wikipedia practices without properly reading policy,.
 * Another POV fork Religious persecution by Muslims now up for VfD. He seems wholly intolerant of opposing views, shouting down opposing voters and top-posting his hostile, bad faith remarks at the head of the VfD page

Vandalism

 * Germen vandalises the Prejudice (islam) by deleting the VfD notice and, when this doesn't work, insists of moving VfD to down the page. The page is reverted by administrator David. German then reports the revert of this vandalism as a violation of the 3RR  . Germen is eventually blocked for vandalism . His response when the block ends is to quote the latin tag 'Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi' , which translates as "What Jupiter can do, cattle can not do" and means that he believes that no action was taken over David's alleged 3RR violation because he is an admin.
 * Germen has unilaterally stripped pages of the NPOV/factual accuracy tag., ,
 * Germen prematurely removes dispute tag after only a day or two, not marking his edit with comments..
 * Germen vandalises this RfC, modifying other editor's endorsesments and remarks and refusing to place his own comments in the appropriate section despite warnings

Marking non-minor edits as minor without comment
Various examples of marking major edits as minor or without proper comments or both, despite warnings:


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 * Germen deletes my comments, marking edit as minor without comment!
 * 13:05, 20 July 2005 - Germen deletes content from a controversial article, marking his edit as minor without comment.
 * Germen adds a disputed tag to a page without properly commenting his edit with so much as a "see talk".

Assume good faith
Germen insists on compiling lists of "muslims" and "suspected muslim" editors and then attributing "common" traits, such as unreliability, to them, among other bad faith remarks:


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No original research
Germen insists on "disputing" agreed definitions of Islamophobia, using unrelated sources and spoon-feeding evidence to "dispute" the defintions through "logical deduction" (producing new primary and secondary sources through original research on the Islamophobia talk page and other places), without providing primary or secondary sources that actually directly dispute or contradict the defintion. Much time is spent pointlessly debating basic Wikipedia policy on original research making dispute resolution almost impossible:


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Applicable policies
{list the policies that apply to the disputed conduct}
 * Three-revert rule
 * Blocking policy
 * Vandalism
 * Resolving disputes
 * Assume good faith
 * No original research
 * Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute
(provide diffs and links)
 * A detailed attempt to discuss changes and familiarise Germen with Wikipedia policy, which are disregarded during a subsequent flurry of reverts resulting in a furthre breach of the 3RR by Germen.
 * Attempt to restart discussion to come to an agreement using draft version of article during protection.
 * Listed page for RfC. Several users made comments on the talk page in response to RfC, all of which were ignored by Germen.
 * June 9, 2005 attempt to defuse controversy, focus on specific changes

Users certifying the basis for this dispute
(sign with ~ )
 * Axon 16:15, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * BrandonYusufToropov 15:46, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Blackcats 22:34, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this summary
(sign with ~ )
 * Heraclius 14:03, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Dcarrano 14:39, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
 * David | Talk 15:49, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Francs2000 | Talk [[Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg|25px| ]] 20:15, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Mustafaa 21:34, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 19:25, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Habap 13:23, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * gren 16:14, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Eclipsed 12:00, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Slac speak up!  23:21, 7 August 2005 (UTC). I'm not a Muslim, nor remotely "Islamist".

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.

I think the above summary is a bad-faith misrepresentation of facts and contains multiple inaccuracies or outright lies, of which some have been corrected on my request. For instance, anonymous edits from other users are attributed to me, Wikipedia guidelines and rules are sometimes misinterpreted. A message from an anonymous user to SlimVirgin was attributed to me while I already had an e-mail conversation with her, so block evasion was not necessary.

If you look at the Talk page and the History pages of the islamophobia article you can read that not only I, but also other users have a long-term difference in point of view with Axon and the other users which support this RfC. This whole request for comment seems to be a deliberate attempt to press a minority viewpoint by eliminating a critic and thus creating a precedent for eliminating other critics. I think this RfC is not justified and should be replaced by a request for mediation by a neutral third party in order to solve the editing conflict regarding the Islamophobia article.

The next-to last instance (#14) mentioned by user:Axon dealt about a sentence from me about the death penalty for apostates. I removed this Islam-negative sentence because it has no logiocal conection with the rest of the subsection and this removal was not likely to meet with disapproval of those with a pro-Islam POV like Mustafaa. I would like to citer this as another evidence of the bad faith of user:Axon, who seems to be motivated by personal grievances against me rather than by a wish to serve the interest of Wikipedia. --Germen 12:44, 20 July 2005 (UTC) Instance #15: I added the POV tag and motivated this tag in the discussion page of the article. Note that at least one user who endorsed this petition, Irishpunktom, placed tags without ev en a discussion himself. --Germen (Talk | Contribs ) 13:13, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Marking non-minor edits as minor

The reason I removed the tag was that there was no reason anymore to maintain this tag: all explicit points were addressed. So this was not vandalism, rather cleaning up. --Germen 09:39, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Removal of dispute tags

In editing conflicts, the party which opposed my view is in the majority, so they could easily overwhelm my edits. Note however that Wikipedia 3RR policy has a provision for this: when multiple parties are involved, all parties shoudl be treated equally. This regulation was ignored by the admins who blocked me. --Germen 10:17, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 3RR

I have told SlimVirgin by email that I was not the user who sent her that message. As we weere in an email discussion and she already stated why she blocked me, there was no reason why I should ask this question. I did not use a Pennsylvania University proxy. --Germen 10:25, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia : Blocking policy

Creating articles does not disturb Wikipedia. There is no Wikipedia rule which forbids articles to be created. --Germen 10:29, 19 July 2005 (UTC) In response to point 5: the sentence by user:-Ril- contained a personal attack on me. So I added my own comments and relevant information for people wishing to opinionate on the VfD. --Germen 12:38, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia : Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point

Removing a tag does not constitute vandalism as by Wikipedia definition. Moving a tag is not vandalistic. Removing several hours of work by collective reverts can be qualified as vandalism. --Germen 10:29, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia : Vandalism

About 90% of the people who complained were Muslim. I think it is an interesting development which I should elaborate further in order to check a hypothesis. Axon seems to think that calling somebody a Muslim is an offence. Obviously he doesn't like Muslims. Most Muslims are very proud that they are Muslims, so the only person who has a problem with my list is he. --Germen 10:17, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia : Assume good faith

Our dispute at the Islamophobia revolves around the exact definition of islamophobia. Axon and his majority Muslim supporters want this definition to be equalled to the Runnymede Trust Definition. I and, among others, user:ZenoOfElea object because the Runnymede Trust Definition is produced by the leftist, disputed Runnymede Trust and it calls believing in the truth of several established Islamic dogma's islamophobic, hence this RT definition contradicts islamic sources.
 * Wikipedia : No original research

I am not discussing the Runnymede Definition in the Islamophobia article itself but in its talk page. The discussion is about whether the Runnymede Definition should be used as a authoritative definition of islamophobia or not. Of course validating an information source and judging whether its scope can be considered universal is a legitimate encyclopaedic endeavour and not original research.

--Germen 10:56, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

In order to "solve the dispute", Axon pushed his POV version of islamophobia. I, alongside with other users, have participated in several discussions regarding the introductory paragraph about the definition of islamophilia. I have proposed to remove the disputed content to a separate section, this proposal has not been accepted. There have been attempts by my side, to discuss the exact meaning of islamophobia by means of evaluating the universality of the Runnymede Definition. I have accepted the proposal of user:BrandonYusufToropov to resolve the dispute and rewrite the article together. Note also that this page is under dispute for a long time and has been nominated for a deletion. --Germen 11:49, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

Update: I see that Axon is pursueing his hobby further. In addition: I think it is legitimate to comment on motivations to delete an article. This cannot be qualified as harrassment. Proponents of deletion do the same, so I cannot understand why we are not allowed to do so, but they are. I would like to cite this as another example of underdeveloped ability of self-reflection. --Germen 11:59, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) Germen 11:42, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Muwaffaq 14:39, 27 July 2005 (UTC) Dear User:Axon et al. Wikipedia is no place for Islamic Fundamentalism and issuing fatwas like this. Keep this stuff to madrassas. Muwaffaq 14:39, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) deeptrivia 02:50, July 31, 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.

I wasn't at all involved in the above dispute, so I can't vote on it either way. However, Germen and I have both worked on another Islam-related article, and he's seemed just fine to me. He made efforts to solicit the feedback of other users before making changes to content they'd added, even when the same courtesy was not being extended to him. He and I do seem to have a different assessment of what constitutes a "minor" edit, but this is not offensive or disruptive, it's a typical thing you encounter and work out like grownups when you use a wiki. Certainly doesn't warrant an RfC. Babajobu 14:11, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) Babajobu 14:11, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Klonimus 06:41, 21 July 2005 (UTC) Lots of Islamist editors don't like the contributions of those skeptical of Islamism. I think Germen's been acting just fine, and BYT/Islamists are being purposfully difficult in an attempt to discourage anyone not sharing their POV from working on the article.
 * 3) Karl Meier 22:06, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Existentializer 19:37, 26 July 2005 (UTC) Having had to deal with the likes of BYT and IrishPunkTom I'm more than happy to concur with Klonimus in this matter. Existentializer is banned from editing by order of the arb-com as a sockpuppet of Enviroknot (see Existentializer's user page for info).     ( ! | ? | * ) 19:08, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Another view
Unrelated to the dispute above - but Germen should read policies and guidelines thoroughly before citing them at anyone, and realize that we follow the spirit rather than the letter of all of them (since Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Both in his response above and on WP:VFU, Germen has a tendency to misquote procedures, or cite them out of context. This is probably based on misunderstanding, hence my suggestion to read them once more. We're really not all that formal here though, so preferably a dispute could be settled without anyone citing policy. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; 21:09, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~ ):
 * 1) BMIComp (talk) 07:34, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Calton | Talk 00:50, July 27, 2005 (UTC). This is probably based on misunderstanding...' Given how frequently he was corrected on these issues and his occasional outright misrepresentations of some facts, I believe you're being too generous here..
 * 3) Cberlet 13:33, 26 August 2005 (UTC) I also agree with Calton and his added comment.

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

I have just been made aware of Germen's "list of Muslims" and "list of suspected Muslims". This is totally inappropriate. We have for that. Anybody not declaring their religious affiliation should not be listed on 'hostile' user pages. Of course Muslims will not be offended to be labelled Muslims, but the Germen's intentions are extremely unwiki, especially in the "probable Muslims" case (they disagree with me -- they must be Muslims). I suggest Germen should be prepared to remove names from his list upon polite request. dab (&#5839;) 20:04, 27 July 2005 (UTC) --Germen (Talk | Contribs ) 12:18, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I think it is unwiki as well to vote for RfC for a user which you consider to be an enemy of yuour religion. Note that more half of all users who voted here are Muslim. I will place the list here and remove it from my user page, as long as this essential information is maintained. Wikipedia should not become the kindergarten of jihadists which misuse their level of organisation and the generosity of Wikipedia to whine about criticism, stifle and abuse other users.

(removed as per request)

QED. --Germen (Talk | Contribs ) 12:25, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Isn't 5 less than half of 11? --Habap 18:47, 28 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Regardless of what they say, I'm pretty convinced, ALL these 11 are muslims. Muwaffaq 19:52, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Dang, all those priests and nuns who educated me are going to be pretty upset that Islam is so sneaky that I didn't even realize that I had become Muslim. Talk about a great conversion program! --Habap 20:04, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I am definitely not a muslim, neither am I a fundamentalist. There are plenty of things I have done that would really really be considered unacceptable to muslim fundamentalists, and I eat ham.     ( ! | ? | * ) 18:50, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

such "blacklists" do nothing but reflect poorly on the compiler. Relious affiliation should not matter on the wiki as long as people go by the rules. If there are Muslims who go against the rules, accuse them of that rather than of being Muslims. At present, anti-Islamic editors seem to be in the majority around here, which automatically makes me take the "Muslim" position in the interest of npov. At other times, when there were more pro-Muslim editors, it was my role to represent "anti-Muslim" positions. Your list is obsolete already by Habap declaring not to be a Muslim. For the record, I am no Muslim either. The present prevalence of anti-Islamic feeling, no doubt among other things a misguided outlet of very justified anger over the 7/7 and Sharm-el-Sheikh bombings (in both attacks, innocent Muslims died along with innocent non-Muslims), makes it very difficult for neutral editors to work on critical sections in the Islam related articles, since they are all kept busy removing hate speech vandalism and pov-pushing. I do urge "anti-Islamic" editors to take a more unemotional stance, so that academic and informed criticism may be acheived on the Islam related articles. dab (&#5839;) 07:50, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Removed as per request. --Germen (Talk | Contribs Netherlands flag small.svg) 08:57, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Oh, you should know that I was near the bus bomb on the 7/7 when it went off, and on the 21/7 the attempted bus bomb was pretty close to my house, and I was sealed in by police, along with everyone else around, for our own safety. And I still don't have an anti-Islamic POV. London is far too multicultural to allow such prejudice to win. ( ! | ? | * ) 18:53, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
 * And you should know that I spent 5 months in an islamic country and several years in discussions with Muslims. For your reference, just 1 week before the Madrid bombing I was at that very metro line. I know how Muslim fanatics think and how libberal Muslims think. Therefore, I support Qur'an only Muslims while I resent the Sunni and shi'a theology. The various flavours of Islam should not be judged according to its acts, but according to its theology. Neglecting these theological facts is not multicultural heroism, but just plain stupid. --Germen (Talk | Contribs Netherlands flag small.svg) 12:52, 7 August 2005 (UTC)