Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Kdbuffalo

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 13:07, 18 September 2005 (UTC) the page will be deleted. The current date and time is:, 29 July 2024 (UTC).

, originally known as, aka Ken, and going by various anon IPs in the 128.205.191.XX range:

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
''{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.}''

Ken is a Biblical literalist who has some very unorthodox views on religion and science - even for a Christian fundamentalist. There are Biblical literalists who do contribute to Wikipedia, and this dispute is not about the validity of that sincerly held position. Rather, whilst respecting Ken's freedom of religion, it is imperitive that the policies of neutral point of view and No original research are upheld, and that the Wikipedia functions through community Consensus, achieved through communication.

It appears that Ken is unfortunately incapable of understanding and implementing the NPOV policy. His standard of academic study is low, and he will cite almost anything to support his position, regardless of its source, whilst criticising more mainstream theological and scientific positions, which almost universally reject his beliefs. This also appears to be original research, thus violating the no original research policy. His aim appears to be convince people about the legitimacy of his beliefs (some of which border on the patent nonsense), not simply to coldy document them. This is backed up by his postings to message boards elsewhere on the Internet. He has got into revert wars over the content of biblical scientific foreknowledge.

Ken is also ineffective at communicating with other users and therefore contributing to the community, which is an essential part of Wikipedia. His contributions to articles fail to match the manual of style and so are difficult to understand and require extensive cleanup work by other users. On talk pages, he does not try to reach consensus but instead posts monologues in support of his position. Several users, including fundamentalist Christians have tried to communicate with Ken and establish dialogue, but failed.

Ken repeatedly deletes material that he does not agree with, and requests that all such material be "attributed" on a sentence by sentence basis. He refuses to enter into discussion regarding this, and refuses to discuss posible compromise versions of the material. Instead he repeatedly deletes it. Attempts to re-word or re-format his material to meet Wikipedia standards are summararily reverted.

Ken cuts and pastes large chunks of his material to other Wikipedia pages solely to support his position. He rebuffs all attempts to edit or remove this material without engaging in dialog.

It seems likely that this will go to the ArbCom who should enforce a ban on him editing Biblical scientific foreknowledge and closely related articles.

Evidence of disputed behaviour
(Provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.)


 * Biblical scientific foreknowledge and history
 * talk:Biblical scientific foreknowledge and history
 * user talk:kdbuffalo
 * Deleted/reverted a new section (Origins of Biblical scientific foreknowledge) five times in three hours, , , , . (related "talk" section - )
 * Cut and paste material to other articles, ,
 * Replaced material in Lion with material supporting his religious position.
 * Used Wikipedia article space for personal attacks: Admin duncharris's abusive messages. Wiki's atheist bullyboy (was speedied, look at history or deleted versions)
 * Continued to edit using, after being blocked for posting personal attacks.
 * Multiple attempts to change this section of the RfC:, , ,

Applicable policies
{list the policies that apply to the disputed conduct}
 * Neutral point of view
 * No original research
 * Consensus
 * Talk page
 * Edit war & WP:3RR
 * Ownership of articles

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute
(provide diffs and links)
 * user talk:kdbuffalo
 * kdbuffalo was asked to point to some wikipedia articles that followed the "rules" he was demanding people follow, and was given a list of featured articles, then reduced to a list of featured religious articles . When pressed to answer, he responded "I think Wikipedia rules should be the standard and attempting to lower the quality via comparisons with other articles is counterproductive and misdirected" and then "I am not interested in viewing your "best Wikipedia articles" where unscholarly irrational exhuberance runs amok with non-attribution gay abandon. I can go to the super market and read the National Enquirer."


 * has been trying to talk to him (perhaps he could add more here).
 * has also been involved (ditto).
 * ditto too.

Users certifying the basis for this dispute
(sign with ~ )
 * Dunc|&#9786; 12:55, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
 * MickWest 17:17, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Pjacobi 22:37, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
 * R e  dwolf24  (talk) 22:48, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Other users who endorse this summary
(sign with ~ )
 * I have been asked to comment. I'm not too sure why, but it does appear to be the case that the above description fits the bill. Frankly, I'm surprised that lion could be considered a topic of religious conflict. --francis 19:38, 4 October 2005 (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.'' ''

cooperation is asked for but is true cooperation asked for?
from: kdbuffalo: I sent reconciliation letters to both the principle parties in the conflict. Hopefully things improve.

Second, I don't have any problem with the NPOV rule.

I just see censorship over and over.

Wikipedia states the following regarding minority view articles:

"None of this, however, is to say that minority views cannot receive as much attention as we can possibly give them on pages specifically devoted to those views. There is no size limit to Wikipedia. But even on such pages, though a view is spelled out possibly in great detail, we still make sure that the view is not represented as the truth." 

Now I have wanted to have cooperation and have good faith efforts on both sides. I have listened to the other side and taken feedback. I made some changes although admittedly not a lot.

However, Cooperation may never happen. Why?

Here is why:

1. Does some person keep changing the theological conservative Christianity  internal link in the Biblical scientific foreknowledge article so it goes to the Christian right (Falwell, etc). Would a person who wants to act in good faith do that?

2. Would people who act in good faith send harrassing messages ("fundie" etc).

I think the people calling for cooperation yet saying absolutely nothing publically about the bad behavior of certain anti-BSF parties are not seeking true cooperation. What they are asking for is the minority view be trampled or whittled down in content despite the Wikipedia policy.

ken 15:45, 19 September 2005 (UTC)kdbuffalo

TO: Dunc, once more I ask that you to stop your current behavior and you are being inaccurate

Why you are being inaccurate:

You say I am a Bible literalist. Yet I have clearly said I follow a exegesis method that is not literalist at talk: Biblical scientific foreknowledge. Now if you can show I said I am a literalist then do so. Given that I said I follow a grammatico-historical approach to exegesis I think that is going to be extremely difficult (Please see these sources regarding my exegetical views: ). Please spread your gossip somewhere else than Wikipedia. I think your whole smear campaign here is misguided and not at all accurate including your remarks about my sources which heavily cited medical historians, science/medical journals, etc. Right from the start you spread inaccuracies about me as can be seen by your literalist comment.

Here is an excerpt from a mail duncharris wrote to me:

"Look mate, I can respect you for not losing your rag. Now, I'm fairly clueless about this whole matter, but having dealt with a lot of creationist nonsense, I think the nonsense threshold of fundies is low."

duncharris, please stop your current rude behavior towards me and others:

I have told you to stop writing to me. I now ask you stop behavior such as this. I think you are acting rude and not ready to change yet as can be seen by others comments to your userpage. Until you do (and comments to your userpage show that you are not), I am not interested in receiving your mail nor am I interested in reading what you write. Please stop writing to me.

Here are what some people said to duncharris:

If I may, I would like to second Kappa's request. You have been extremely unfriendly towards me and made unwarranted attacks against me. Please stop. Bahn Mi 19:23, 16 September 2005 (UTC) Yeah, I don't suppose I was referring to your particular cruft, but your contributions fall into the pointless steaming pile of crap category. Dunc|☺ 19:57, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

This is my third request now. Please stop making personal attacks against me and make a concerted effort to be civil to all other Wikipedians. If you do not believe a school (or all schools) to be important then you are entitled to your own opinion, does not give you the right to harass others. Bahn Mi 16:28, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Duncharris

Please stop pestering me as I do not think you are sincere as can be seen by your comments to others.

You have chosen to be an atheist apparently. So be it if you have. However, this does not give you the right to engage in your current behavior towards me. Please stop.

I added some comments in the talk page.

Thank you,

ken 17:08, 19 September 2005 (UTC)kdbuffalo

{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
''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 editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.''

{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 ~ ):
 * 1) KHM03 23:43, 18 September 2005 (UTC) -- I think Ken means well, and that he is a passionate user, which is a good thing. I don't think he is as familiar with Wikipedia policies as he probably should be, and I really wish he wasn't quite so "autocratic" at the BSF page, where, I also sincerely believe, MickWest was honestly trying to balance out the article in an NPOV way.  Ken's edits have resulted in, in my view, a severely unbalanced POV article.  My hope is that Ken is matched with an administrator "mentor" who can show him the way, while Ken stays away (at least for a while) from the BSF page and perhaps a few others where he has run into problems.  I honestly hope he can work this out.
 * 2) Flex 13:23, 19 September 2005 (UTC) -- I agree with KHM03. I have seen Ken make a number of valuable contributions on articles other than BSF, and I would (again) encourage him to familiarize himself with Wikipedia formatting conventions for talk pages as well as for articles. His contributions to articles and discussions suffer greatly because of formatting and other minor technical issues (as can be seen even on this very page), but I think he would be a welcome contributor even to those who disagree with his POV if he adhered to standard guidelines and policies ("When in Rome...").
 * 3) The Hokkaido Crow 21:19, 19 September 2005 (UTC) It appears to me that the user calling himself "ken" has essentially no understanding of neutrality as it is most commonly understood here. He accuses his critics of harping on the "minority" status of this argument and thus casting himself as something of a martyr, but in fact his opponents mention "minority" only 3 times, compared to his 18 mentions (many of which are an out-of-context cut and paste from the NPOV policy).  Additionally, it does not appear that he understands the difference between characterizing a dispute, which is a good thing (see creationism for a success story) and re-enacting a dispute, which is a bad thing (see Biblical scientific foreknowledge as a textbook failure).   It appears that he seess anyone who tries to explain these policies as unreasonable.  Thus, I hold little hope of him compromising on religion-related issues. In fairness to him, however, I'd like to say that it appears his opponents are baiting his religious beliefs with poorly concealed scorn.
 * 4) Derex 03:54, 28 September 2005 (UTC) I'd like to see a bit more direct evidence of his editing problems or pov pushing than a general pointer at Talk. The lion thing, I don't get.  Was the cut/paste a copyvio?  Also, just report the 3rr violation.  I sense that this might be a problem user, but the evidence as presented hardly makes me think this is anywhere near arbcom level stuff.
 * 5) Scimitar parley 15:20, 3 October 2005 (UTC). Ken is an editor that I honestly believe is well-intentioned.  Unfortunately, he often displays a rather horrific lack of understanding of process, and seems to view the BSF page as his own personal turf.  He also asked me to block MickWest, which was highly inappropriate, and seems way too thin-skinned.  I'm not sure what should be done, although if a mentor can be found, as KHM03 has suggested, that may be an appropriate course to take.

Discussion
All signed comments and talk not related to a vote or endorsement, should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.