Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Richardchilton

(transferred from Conflicts between users) User:Richardchilton has admitted these are all the same person


 * From Richardchilton's user page: "VeryVerily's detective work and accusations are going to matter a lot less now, what are you going to do about someone changing his IP every few minutes? Frankly, I have been a lot less restrained in the past few days. Before I would qualify and modify things I thought were POV. Now I just delete them wholesale and - most of the time no one stops me. I felt the need to go by the NPOV before, but now I don't, and I am a lot more successful in modifying Wikipedia now." This looks bad to me:
 * Declaration of unwillingness to accept NPOV policy
 * Declaration of use of subterfuge, including technical means, to get round blocks
 * On the face of it, this looks like a "declaration of war" from this user. -- The Anome 14:45, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * I've got your man! His name is VeryVerily. Shorne 04:55, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

For reference, I'm adding a list of all accounts which are believed by me to be his:


 * Lancemurdoch
 * JohnWoolsey
 * HectorRodriguez
 * Richardchilton
 * VeryVeripee (to mock me)
 * Halifax
 * Venceremos
 * Hanpuk
 * Capital punishment (added by anon user, believable but not imho proven)
 * Eco (added by anon user)
 * Oyecomova (V V 23:32, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC))
 * Shhlomo (V V 23:37, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC))
 * User:Shorne (added by anon user)
 * Ruy Lopez (Very Verily 03:33, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC) - admittedly not 100% sure )

-- VV 20:59, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * What the hell is my name doing on this list? Can't even face my accuser: an "anon user" made the accusation! Rig up the dunking chair, or is it the guillotine? Another good old-timey witch hunt by our beloved right-wing imperialist censors and part-time deities.


 * For that matter, why does this list exist at all? Is this anything but an attempt to round up the entire opposition and turn it into one mean red guy with horns, a barbed tail, and a pitchfork?


 * I demand a retraction and an apology. Shorne 04:53, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * FWIW, I do not think you belong on the above list of sockpuppets. But there is nothing wrong with (an anon) posting one's suspicions.  At any rate, you do a good imitation nonetheless, and bring the same problems. Very Verily  07:43, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't think anybody belongs on that list. In fact, I don't think that the list should have been produced at all, let alone publicly posted. It is nothing but gossip. I call for its deletion. Shorne 08:01, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I agree. This page appears to be turning into a list of every left-leaning user with who appears on this site, with scant association with "Richardchilton," complied by a single person. (This smacks of a witch hunt.) And even if all these accounts are used by the same user who edited with the "Richardchilton" account, what's the point? Not a single user on the list is banned. This page ought to be deleted. 172 01:06, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Sure, every left-leaning user, of whom there are only fourteen. Because you leftists are so persecuted on Wikipedia.  "Witch hunt" - whatever; I know what I'm talking about, even if you don't.  And their collective actions need to be treated as a unit, especially now that I may be in arbitration with this sockpuppet army.  Identifying them comes before banning, not after, duh. Very Verily  01:11, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I don't see sufficient evidence suggesting that we're dealing with the same editor, other than their socialist leanings. 172 01:18, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * That is fine, as long as you are clear that it is only that you fail to see evidence. Very Verily 01:29, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't see the evidence either. Maybe you should submit your story to the tabloid press. You probably meet their, er, standards. Shorne 01:33, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I wasn't on here for more than a couple of days before people started "suspecting" or even asserting that I was this, that, or the other user masquerading as Shorne. Typical of rightists. They don't want to discuss facts; they only want to discuss personalities and innuendo. Shorne 01:30, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Blah blah blah. Very Verily 05:25, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * It's fact. And I call for your immediate banning, but I guess in life one doesn't always get one's wishes. Very Verily  08:10, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I consider it slanderous that VeryVerily continually accuses me, on pages there is a dispute over, of being a "sock puppet" or having a "sock puppet" or whatever. I see this as simply a method of diverting attention away from the article onto ad hominem attacks.  What proof does VeryVerily have to back up this accusation?  Absolutely none.  He is just using it to try to poison the well against me.  VeryVerily has been temp-banned for having an edit war with another user - I have never been disciplined as such, nor has, as far as I can tell, this user who he claims I am a "sock puppet" of.  VeryVerily is the one the Wikipedia community chose to temp ban after a Quickpoll, yet he throws mud at me, goes through my (and many other peoples) edit histories and reverts everything they write, tries to poison other users with his mindset of non-cooperation and so forth.  If everyone on Wikipedia acted like he did, it would be a complete mess.  What proof does he have for his accusations?  Absolutely none.  He can accuse me of things he conjures in his mind all he wants, I can state the FACT that the Wikipedia chose to temp ban him for his abusive revert war with another user and that his behavior is usually abusive and non-cooperative, not just with me but with other users as well. Hanpuk 18:40, 6 May 2004 (UTC)


 * It is obvious to virtually everyone who works with you who you are. Even 172 probably wouldn't deny your identity; he just likes your politics. -- VV 20:42, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

However, he has announced on RfA and also on IRC his waning interest in this "crappy old" Wiki, so maybe the communist POV, vandalism, revert wars, and personal attacks may finally wind down a bit. See User:Richardchilton for his latest statement of intent (to continue attacking Wikipedia, but not as much). -- VV 05:24, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * RickK and User:VeryVerily (added by me in protest of this page) I'm sick of this page's existence - it belongs on the VFD. This user isn't unreasonable, a troll, or vandal. Instead, he's been put on the defensive by a small clique of right wing users committed to driving him off Wikipedia. Sure, he's provocative at times. But it's tough communicating on WP when you have several users following you around at all times, bickering over who had the right to revert what article and when, and then going ahead and reverting your work. Unlike the people habitually vilifying him, I'm one of the few users who's bothered to talk with him by e-mail or on the talk pages without arguing over bullshit, such as the typical who reverted whom first trivialities. We weren't discussing specific articles, but rather his impressions of Wikipedia as a project. He seems engaging and easygoing. I bet he'd rather write about chess than participate in edit wars. Unlike his virulent critics, he knows that he's biased, admits that he's biased, and holds nothing personally against users who think differently. IMO, he has a much more reasonable attitude about his critics than his critics have of him. He knows that they're playing the very same game that he's playing. However, his critics have never/can hever do any wrong in their own eyes. The overblown personal feud isn't the fault of Lance/Hector/Richard/etc., but of the users responsible for this asinine "Requests for comment/Richardchilton" witch hunt. 172 07:43, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Note: Hanpuk explicitly denied being one of the above; he appears to have conceded his identity since (User:Maximus_Rex/asdf).
 * This is a non-issue. Not a single user mentioned was a banned vandal. It doesn't make one difference whether or not Hanpuk was Richard, Hector, Lance, whatever. 172 18:47, 6 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Of course it's an issue. The fact that banning has not been enforced does not mean he is not a vandal.  He has even admitted to his "guerrilla" activities on his own user pages. -- VV 20:42, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Removing "list of all his known accounts"
-- VV 05:24, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

(Removing the list. 172 14:37, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC))

This is NOT how you deal with users who create sock puppets. You need far more evidence than your hunch and intuition. I have some firsthand knowledge of this matter. I supported the enforcement of a hard ban on a user with numerous accounts in August 2003. Note that I say "enforcement." There is nothing on record suggesting that any the accounts listed above has been banned.

User:Evercat knows the policies and procedures for sufficiently demonstrating that multiple sock puppets are the same user. He knows better than I do, so why not ask him about all this if my statements aren't enough.

From my knowledge, you have to bring forward extensive internal evidence, such as similar interests, habits, and prose. A habit of posting a quick series of multiple small edits, without using the preview button, e.g., is noted by comparing the UserContributions of the users in question. Another habit could be, e.g., evidence of similar tendency towards excessive use of headers and sub-headers.

Tacit admissions by the user of the practice are brought forward, requiring evidence in the form of http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User:&#8230; links suggesting a pattern. Evidence of physical location seems to carry the most weight. For this you need evidence of the IP address.

Statistical evidence has been brought forward in these kinds of cases as well. Users with backgrounds in computer programming have created lists of pages edited by the user in question and the series of alleged sock puppet accounts. Control figures are also necessary. A user known NOT to be any of the users in questions is used as a "control" who is known not to be the creator of the sock puppets. This was done in the 8/03 case that I mentioned, posing doubts as to whether this was even statistically useful. It only seemed to confirmed a shared interest in a single topic. Statistics from Wikipedia:Wikipedians by number of edits are used as well. Evidence of usage level correlations can be seen if this inquiry is done right. Users have also searched for patterns among edits to pages by the user in question.

User:Evercat backs up his conclusions with no bullshit hard evidence. I'm not saying that I believe or disbelieve the claims made by VeryVerily regarding this "one Communist user." It's obvious, however, that he has failed to meet the usual scientific standards necessary for making these kinds of claims on WP in the past. 172 14:37, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * This is a comments page, and I don't see why I am not entitled to state my take on what this user is doing. You are welcome to state your skepticism here, but to require scientific proof before people can even talk about their suspicions obviously will assure that no such proof is ever sought.  As for your last paragraph, I have been vindicated by time in these cases, so far as I can tell every single time. -- VV 21:04, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Careful, people don't like being misrepresented. I didn't say that I was skeptical of these claims. I said that there were no grounds presenting the list as a matter-of-fact. This time, you attribute the list to your beliefs. This is fine:


 * For reference, I'm adding a list of all accounts which are believed by me to be his: 172 11:55, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

User:Lancemurdoch
This user is making useful contributions to some articles, but also is making clearly wrong and destructive edits. For a clearcut case, consider this one. Also obvious is POV is added, such as in this case, which came initially with the mere edit summary "reworded", and which I have had to revert twice. Many of his edits, including his erasure of accounts of communist atrocities and really weird ones, have been reverted by others as well as myself; some have not as of now (e.g., Pol Pot). As another example, his changes to Wilhelm Reich promote the crackpot theory of "Orgone Energy" from "mystic pseudoscience" to a "scientific study" (with a parenthetical about some dissenters). So I feel this user's good contributions are somewhat negated by the need for policing, and that, troublingly, the potentially good contributions will need to be fact-checked (and corrected, as was done in Socialism by others). -- VV 00:50, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * "mystic pseudoscience"... I inform you that there is nothing in common between "pseudoscience" and mysticism. Optim 00:52, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * Lance should be put on display somewhere as the last living example of the unapologetic oldtime Communist - he is almost admirable in his adherence to the Party line, when there isn't even a Party any longer to write it for him. He obviously misses not being able to write for the Great Soviet Encyclopedia so he has come here. He needs to learn that bourgeois encyclopaedias have slightly different standards - like not writing total rubbish and not abusing everyone else as agents of imperialism. Adam 01:36, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * Someone on the IRC channel said Lance was "the last of the Old Bolsheviks" and it seems as though they were right! Insists on putting hopelessly POV stuff into articles - a vandal of the worst kind so i vote for hardban. PMA 02:25, Jan 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * I strongly object to people being banned for political reasons. Secretlondon 20:54, Jan 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * I Agree with Secretlondon. Strongly opposed to political bans. Optim 00:52, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * Excuse me? No one has proposed a political ban; the issue is "writing total rubbish" and "putting hopelessly POV stuff into articles" and being "a vandal of the worst kind". -- VV 00:57, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Regarding HectorRodriguez
User:HectorRodriguez is deleting every single occurrence of the term "terrorist" and "terrorism" from every single article surrounding the 9/11 attacks. His anti-US rants on Talk pages make all of his edits suspect. RickK 06:26, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

He is clearly a vandal. See this. -- VV 07:25, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * Is having an anti-US POV necessarily a bad thing? I guess it is if you have a pro-US POV. Personally I like the balance. Secretlondon 10:50, Feb 10, 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, perhaps, but the articles need to be NPOV. This notwithstanding, our not being allowed to use the word 'terrorist' is really politically correct nonsense. Arno 11:21, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Secretlondon, are you serious? Are you defending with a straight face temporary -> tacky?  Anyway, there's plenty of anti-US POV here already, more than "balance", but not all of it takes the form of vandalism. -- VV 17:56, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * VeryVerily modified my changes on the 9/11 page. What that means is now, all those links point to nowhere.  Then RickK came on my talk page and said that all the pages I editted are now pointing nowhere, which perhaps was my intention, even though VeryVerily made the edit which pointed them to nowhere.  Another thing is I am mainly erasing the word terror from titles as I don't think POV and edit wars should be done within the titles as that leads to chaos.  And people seem to agree with me - the majority of people voted to keep the word terror out of the 9/11 title, although of course, VeryVerily didn't.  Thus, insofar as the main page, VeryVerily is in the minority of opinion on this matter.  As far as the pages, I have never erased sentences like "The US has designated so-and-so as a terrorist group".  I have removed the word terrorist from a page when given from an omniscient standpoint, as if it were a "fact" someone was terrorist in the same manner that the sky is blue.  Anyhow, the page itself is less important to me than the titles, which are what I am primarily concerned with removing POV from.  And any misdirections are due to halfway done reversions, not due to my fault - all the links off the 9/11 page worked before VeryVerily did his half-assed attempt at reverting my title edits.  The word terror should be taken out of the title and put on the page (and in my opinion it should be stated who accuses them of being terrorist - the US, the EU, or whoever).  Otherwise it just leads to edit wars, and with the titles, not the pages, which just makes chaos.  The vote on the September 11, 2001 attacks discussion page shows that, at least for that main page, my opinion is in the majority, and VeryVerily's vote in there, is in the minority opinion. -- HectorRodriguez 15:33, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

RickK's behavior has been appalling. Hector is a new user who needs to be briefed on policy and receive friendly advice for avoiding flame wars on controversial subjects. Instead, RickK has been browbeating him for his supposed political beliefs. In some instances, RickK did revert inappropriate edits by Hector, such as the paragraph on the 9/11/73 coup in Chile, which was filled with loaded language and perhaps off-topic. But in the process, he was browbeating, calling him "anti-American, pro-Soviet, and pro-al Qaeda vanal," among other choice insults, and harassing him for supposedly holding these views. Instead, RickK, as an admin, should have explained why loaded language and going off topic are violations of policy. More disturbingly, RickK was harassing Hector and automatically reverting his changes even when Hector opted for formal, encyclopedic definition in the intro paragraph of the East Germany country page. See my comments on the talk page for more details.

IMHO, the only RickK reason is able to get away with such gross abuse (singling out a new user for harassment and auto-revert because he disagrees with him) is the unpopularity of Hector's views. This spectacle makes it patently clear that all Wiki lacks adequate safeguards to protect dissenting users, even when they're acting within the realm of policy constraints.

Hector does need to work on NPOV, but we can give him the benefit of the doubt as a new user prone to make innocuous mistakes. Perhaps Angela, who's probably the polite and professional admin I can think of, could be the one to council him? It certainly can't be RickK. 172 18:46, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I don't believe Hector is a new user; he knows the ropes far too well. His behavior is clearly that of a vandal, as my example above showed. He is also blanking 9/11 redirect pages now. RickK made the right call, and also Hector's views are far from unpopular round these parts. -- VV 22:22, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hector is getting to be a real problem. The vote that he refers above to was in regard to the existance of the word "terrorist" in the title, rather than in the article. Furthermore, he seems intent on blanking out articles like September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack/Misinformation and rumors, presumably because they carry that verbotten word "Terrorist". He did this to the misinformation page the other day, and I thought it an accident. Now I am not so certain. Arno 07:31, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Right, that's what I mean by blanking redirects. That's the third one I've had to restore.  This is no accident.  -- VV 07:47, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Apparently I'd underestimated the extent of the problem. I'm up to seventeen redirects I've had to unblank.  Is there any doubt now? -- VV 08:09, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Seventeen! Furthermore, he has made his anti-terrorist views clear on his user page. This needs action, sysops. It really does. Arno 07:43, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well, now that you all have allowed HectorRodgriquez to claim that the attacks on September 11 were not terrorism, he's now going on to whitewash the entire history of every Communist movement. Apparently the deaths of millions of Cambodians were caused by the West, and not by the Khmer Rouge (excuse me, to him, they're the Communist Party of Cambodia, and only the capitalist press ever called them the Khmer Rouge.) He has attempted to make every reference to the Viet Cong change to National Liberation Front of Vietnam. He has engaged in several revert wars today, which have required the protection of several pages. RickK 00:46, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Is the naming issue being discussed anywhere? -- ChrisO 01:00, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * This is the sort of nonsense that I was dreading. Politically correct modifications of articles. When's it going to stop? And when are the sysops goinf to take action? They certainly did not hesitate when Alexandros made his controversial contributions? (as mentioned above). Arno 06:54, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * It isn't up to sysops. They are only there to carry technical things like page protections, not to solve editing disputes. And this is in no way comparable to what Alexandros did to me. Angela. 07:17, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

Hector is adding blatantly POV additions to such articles as Panama and Manuel Noriega, and my attempts at reverting them were sabotaged by Wik, who is now stalking me instead of Anthony DiPierro. RickK 04:34, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * On the French Communist Party page I noted that PCF was once France's largest political party. VeryVerily, who goes through my edit history and then just reverts everything I write, reverted it (along with everything else I'd done the day before).  I went in and re-reverted everything.  So then RickK comes in and re-re-reverts everything as VV had done. Above he notes that his attempts at reverting my "blatantly POV additions" are being sabotaged or whatnot.  So I guess noting such things on the PCF page such as that it was once the largest political party in France is incredibly POV.  Then he notes my edits on the Manuel Noriega page are "blatantly POV".  If he wants to see blatant POV, he should have read the Noriega page before I editted it.  The US pouring in millions of dollars to fund Noriega's opponents, Noriega's foreign policy shifts in the 1980s, the USs troop buildups in the canal zone, The US military's incursions into sovereign Panama, the looming 1/1/90 Panama Canal control handover from the US to Panama - these are all issues whose mention is "blatantly POV".  In the RickK world, Noreiga supported Cuba (of course we shouldn't mention support of democratically elected governments like Nicaragua).  He also declares war out of the blue against the US, which makes perfect sense since he obviously had a good chance of defeating the US, and starts killing American soldiers (who are "stationed in Panama City" - that's odd, Panama has an army but for some reason US marines are stationed in sovereign Panama).  And on and on and on.  Of course VeryVerily, RickK and the like do not want this information known to people, they don't even want to discuss it, they just see someone post some facts they don't like others to see and start screaming "vandal!" and revert everything those people write.  Then people like Wik or 172 or whoever revert it back and it becomes a conspiracy of "vandals".  Ho-hum HectorRodriguez 07:15, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

User:Richardchilton
I'm pretty convinced that the set {Richardchilton, Lancemurdoch, HectorRodriguez} has cardinality less than three, and possibly one. Their obsessions seem identical: e.g., ,   ,  , even  . It seemed pretty clear to me that neither Hector nor Richard were new users upon their putative arrival, and now Richard has started a move war on Khmer Rouge that has resulted in that page being protected, as well as numerous other POV additions. -- VV 20:45, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Or these: . -- VV 22:10, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't think this person denies using more than one account. I also don't think that using more than one account is against any policy in itself.  Perhaps you can correct me?  Morwen 22:11, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)

Have you tried to solve the underlying political dispute? Secretlondon 20:53, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)

Many users have tried talking to him/them. Look at the histories of the articles and talk pages in question if you believe your seeming implication that it is just me. I'm guessing that you haven't, based on this question. -- VV 21:47, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Why do you presume they are all the same person? I *know* you have very strong opinions on a lot of US topics - and so do they. They also seem to feel victimised, and I know that some users from your side of the fence *also* feel victimised. Some see a conservative bias, some see a "liberal" (as in US liberal) bias. I'm annoyed to see new users with strong POV instantly put on this page, by others with equally strong (but opposite POV). My way of dealing with is it not to edit pages relating to US politics. That may be cowardice on my part. We need to find a way of working through this which means that *all sides* need to compromise. Secretlondon 22:15, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * I appreciate your not-totally-negative tone, but you don't seem to give me much credit. I presented my evidence.  Rebut it if you can, but keep my POV out of it.  (You seem to be the perennial skeptic, ignoring similar clear evidence of Hector's intentions.)  -- VV 06:22, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, they have an identical editing style, they have made exactly the same points on the same articles. LM was active until 16 Jan.  Hector appeared Feb 8, then disappeared feb 20.   Richard's first edit was feb 20, some hours after Hector vanished.   Now, you could maybe give them the benefit of the doubt, but I think assuming they are the same person isn't as unreasonable as you are making it out to be.  Note there is no policy against using multiple usernames, anyway, so its sort of hard to see what this complaint is about - even if it is true, so what?  Morwen 22:34, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)


 * To answer your question: The complaint is the move wars, despite having policies explained to each account, and repeated POV additions.  Add to that all the complaints against Hector and Lance, and you have a pretty big case. -- VV 06:22, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * This is one hypothesis. Here is another hypothesis: VeryVerily editted me so I went through his edit history and began re-reverting his unfair edits of myself and others - in other words, doing the same thing VeryVerily does all the time.  I'm not sure why he hasn't accused me of being Kevehs or some other users he seems to be having a continual edit war with.  Anyhow, VeryVerily can go on imagining these vast conspiracies directed against him (see the anarcho-capitalism discussion page - "Richardchilton above is almost certainly a sock puppet for HectorRodriguez and Lancemurdoch, who has a well-known agenda against me"), I have better things to do.  It seems most of the people aside from VeryVerily who I have been arguing with have said I am not in accordance with the Naming conventions (common names) rule, so I have started a discussion on that page's discussion page (which I linked to from Village Pump).  VeryVerily can go on a witchhunt and try to throw fuel on the Wikipedia fire, I'm going to try to come to a consensus agreement to this in one place instead of going off on investigations, witchhunts and multiple edit wars against multiple people on multiple pages.  I'm waiting for a consensus to develop on editorial policy from that discussion page before making any subsequent edits on any pages regarding group names, so VeryVerily can rest knowing he's "won" as I won't be editting any pages for group names until consensus develops regarding this policy. -- Richardchilton 23:28, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Are you also or previously known as Richardchilton, Lancemurdoch and/or HectorRodriguez? VV isn't the only person who thought so (several people in IRC were of that opinion as well), so it's not simply a case of one user against another. Jamesday 00:07, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * He'll deny it and that will be grounds for doubt during proceedings because some people don't understand that trolls are born liars. He has the same New York ISP, the same ideology, the same interests and the same vendettas. He has announced his intention to engage in protracted edit wars, and admitted that he has been active on Wikipedia before this identity. See User:Tim Starling/Richardchilton IRC log. -- Tim Starling 00:20, Mar 4, 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks for posting the IRC logs! It does clarify a lot.  I especially like the "I consider VeryVerily my main enemy" part.  It's hard not to be flattered. -- VV 06:28, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * I prefer to ask the leading questions, though. Subsequent events in IRC made things more clear than that log, with the you can't stop me baiting style. Ah well, one more reason to agree with Jimbo that blocking proxies like those he was using is worth doing. Jamesday 02:27, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

User:Richardchilton isn't a vandal/banned user
Even if Richard is Lance and Hector, so what!!!???? Lance and Hector weren't banned users. Behind the façade of all this bickering, Richard is being singled out for holding some beliefs that users who keep hounding him despise. I respect most of his critics (VV, e.g., is fair-minded and committed to NPOV), and I do believe that they're sincerely trying to act fairly. However, they need to be altered to the fact that they have a starkly different worldview that makes cooperating and communicating with this user a special challenge.

Mediators need to promote mutual understanding here, rather than continuing to chase this ideological outcast away. We need to have a greater appreciation of democratic pluralism in both rhetoric and action. Only when the persecution of this user stops, will he have the incentives to play by the rules of Wiki. If someone can foster constructive dialogue for a change, Hector has the potential to become an especially valuable contributor. He'd bring to the forefront of attention subjects that are customarily overlooked on Wiki (e.g., Sans-culottes). He'd introduce a fresh take on things and would broaden the horizons of the community of users as a whole. We should welcome the fact that this user brings a starkly different perspective to the site. We ought to welcome diversity of ideas and a multiplicity of perspectives. After all, this is the only way to write a world as diverse as it is. So please, try talking with him for a change, rather than rushing to the House Un-American Activities Committee (I mean the Conflicts between users users page). 172 02:18, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

BTW, don't accuse me of a leftist agenda. Go to the October 2003 mailing lists, e.g., and note my ardent opposition to banning User:RK and my use of the same reasoning. Recently, I also remarked to User:G-Man that we desperately lack elderly contributors (giving us Gen-X and Baby Boom biases). Furthermore, I also noted the need to promote more non-Western admins a while ago. I'd also like to mediate an accord pledging mutual respect of differences of thought between Richard and his critics (VV, Jamesday, RickK, Robert Merkel, Tim Starling, and Ed Poor). 172 02:18, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * You can unblock him if you like, it won't make any difference. Now that his identity is revealed, he says he's going to change identities and use anonymous proxies. This makes things easy, because anonymous proxies can be blocked without debate, by Jimbo's decree. -- Tim Starling 02:35, Mar 4, 2004 (UTC)
 * I've unblocked him. See my message below. 172 04:22, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't care about his politics. I saw his attention-getting trolling in IRC and took a look, saw how he'd been using that approach in the Joseph Stalin article and merged in the edits which seemed to make sense during the time from before he started trolling to after the fighting he'd started ended with the proxy he was using being blocked. I agree that the article needs more work - but not by someone who's doing it with the expressed intent opf causing problems. That's why I told you I'd do more work on the article tomorrow, since it does need some significant work, IMO. Meanwhile, if you'd like the later IRC logs, please do accept my offer to send them to you privately - I'll use email if you prefer that route. I've no strong views on VV but I'm not particularly keen on edits like this one "people getting the flu, people getting cancer (which was Stalin's fault), old people getting really old and dying of old age" to the Joseph Stalin article by VV. Jamesday 02:37, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm not saying that users are deliberately targeting Lance/Hector/Richard due to his ideology. I'm saying that because Lance/Hector/Richard has a frame of reference and perspective starkly different from the vast majority of users with whom he interacts, conflict is likely due to the sheer difficulties of communication and reaching common ground. Hence, let's stop labeling Richardchilton a "vandal." He's only guilty of being an outcast, which makes following the informal norms and customs of users' community so problematic. Moreover, chasing him away has failed repeatedly. Instead, try attacking the root of the problem. We can do so by treating him as "one of us" - a welcomed user and member of the community. Doing so entails approaching him with an open mind, attempting to civilly discuss things with him on the talk pages. That way, he can work from within the rules, regulations, norms, and customs of Wiki to make his desired changes. This is a far more productive strategy than calling him a "Communist whitewasher," as many users have, and hysterically traversing all the problem user pages to lodge complaints. Despite the good intentions of Robert Merkel, Jamesday, PMA, Very Verily, RickK, Ed Poor, and Tim Starling, their approach to this user is confounding the problem. So let's try "constructive engagement." 172 04:08, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * That wasn't VeryVerily, but an obvious troll using a juvenile mockery of his username (VeryVeripee. --67.71.78.115 03:01, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * I assumed that 172 was referring to a person with initials VV in relation to the JS article, since that's the only combination of 172, me and VV that I'm aware of. That not-VeryVerily VV initialed person did one of the edits I in the sequence I undid over in the JS article. My sympathies to VeryVerily if there's a troll doing annoying things and apologies to 172 if 172 intended someone other than the only VV which seemed to make sense in the context here. Jamesday 03:12, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * I was referring to User:Very Verily, who is a critic of Lance, Hector, and now Richard. Very Verily is a competent user dedicated to NPOV. If the admins make the effort, perhaps we can facilitate a dialogue between him and Lance/Hector/Richard so that they can avoid edit wars. 172 04:08, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * i hope for everyone's sake that your belief in &quot;constructive engagement&quot; proves right and we don't all get taken for a ride and made to look fools. After his behaviour in Wiki and IRC, i can't be blamed for having a &quot;healthy scepticism&quot;. PMA 04:26, Mar 4, 2004 (UTC)

Ban of User:Richardchilton and incarnations
Based on everything, a hard ban of Lance/Richard/Hector seems to me to be in order. We now have plenty of evidence based on behavior and the IRC logs of his trolling and baiting. Furthermore, he left a long manifesto on User:Richardchilton declaring his intentions to switch IP addresses constantly, delete text from Wikipedia he doesn't like, and create new user names to avoid detection; in fact, he states he has been successful at this. He says, "I felt the need to go by the NPOV before, but now I don't, and I am a lot more successful in modifying Wikipedia now", and refers to the managers of Wikipedia as "the enemy", and admins as "commissars". He clearly does not intend to partake in the project as intended, and states that his mass deletions are being reverted, but not consistently. Implementing a hard ban would authorize anyone to block/revert him at any time. In the event that someone such as 172 succeeds in the below-noted hope of rehabilitating him, L/R/H can do what Lir did and state his intentions privately to Jimbo or whoever. For now, I think the course is clear. A suspicious "new user", Venceremos, has appeared with a short edit history but a lot of knowledge of Wikipedia, and there may be others. It's not proven yet he's the same person, of course, but note that nearly all his edits (most initially deletions of large sections of articles) have been reverted by someone. -- VV 08:00, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC), added (most...) 08:43


 * I wonder who's behind this.... http://www.geocities.com/progressivepix/wikiwatch/ (archived here VV 18:41, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)) -- VV 10:11, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)