Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct disputes archive/Llywrch

The origin of the conflict may be traced to my defense of David Rohl on the Talk:Sea Peoples page my good faith attempts to use more neutral language and diverse POVs for a completely NPOV articles in the tricky areas of world history. I try Wiki policy and Wikiquette but he depicts me as a problem user to other users. Any period offline to cool-down is taken advantage of as a chance to undo my efforts. He bad-mouths me on user talk pages, censors my contributions and re-writes rather than attempting to edit and ignores my responses. I am accused of being a monomaniac in my attempts to shove my "home-brewed theories down the throats of wikipaedians" and all evidence I provide in response is ignored. Apparently to hide evidence of an attempt to disparage me into leaving he encouraged the deletion of page the contents of which are now at Hebrews thanks to my friend User:Budo. I would appreciate objective feedback from neutral readers as to whether the info there and at Heber needs re-writing.Zestauferov 10:02, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I was wondering when this dispute would end up here.


 * My dispute with Zestauferov arises from the following:
 * He adds material that appears to be of his own invention,
 * appears *to you* to be of my own invention.Zestauferov 00:20, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * & when I -- & others -- ask him to supply his sources, he does not respond,
 * when have I ever not responded?Zestauferov 00:20, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * or offers only the most vague description (e.g., "obviously you cannot read French, Russian or Georgian"). :(See Talk:Eberite/Delete for an example.)
 * as User Levzur has illustrated what is common knowledge in one language may be unheard of in another. I was trying gently to point out this fact and was I lying?Zestauferov 00:20, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * He expounds a questionable interpretation of NPOV, which evidentally means to him that any opinion from anywhere ought to be included on Wikipedia -- even if it is expressed as fact, & not theory.
 * since realising that something taken as fact in one country is only a theory in another I have corrected this. I have never ignored just-criticism as the Habiru article is testimony to. yet if a theory is accepted as common fact in english then heaven forbid someone suggest it is just a theory. Zestauferov 00:20, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * When Wetman explained that NPOV more properly meant that "Encyclopedia entries are merely reports, not flights of personal fantasy or ground-breaking revolutionary essays that turn stuffy ol' conventions on their heads etc", Zestauferov responded "In other words Wikipaedia should be nothing new just regurgitative" -- which apparently is the source of his comment "Regurgitation of Mainstream Oversimplifications" that begins the rant on his User: page.
 * Both cases are meant be questions what is the opinion I really want to know which direction wiki is supposed to be going in because I was under the impression when I joined that the second option in my opinion poll on what wiki is supposed to be was the correct one. The irate responce to Wetman on my page (appologies for not including the question mark it was meant to be rhetorical) comes in February after trying to be cordial with you both since November. Please look at my postings on User talk:Wetman. If you like I will change the questions to be more obvious and less rhetorical.Zestauferov 00:20, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * After the article Heberite/Eberite went thru the VfD process, he began to restore his dubious material in contributions to other articles without explanation.
 * can you give examples please?Zestauferov 00:20, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * When the same thing happened to the Habiru article, & I saw that the content was being improved, I fought to save that article.
 * and anyone can see how much L was on my side at this point by reading through the debate at Talk: Habiru/Delete


 * The only articles I have rewritten & removed his contributions to have been:
 * Sea Peoples -- after it appeared he left Wikipedia
 * In other words take advantage of the cool off. Incidentally I won the debate on that page without any edit war so what made you think you were right enough to blot-out the reason for my debate?Zestauferov 00:20, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * David Rohl -- after Zestauferov's objections, I asked Andrewa -- who has contributed much material concerning Rohl & Egyptian Chronology -- for his opinion about the degree of bias Zestauferov claimed, & when it appeared we might head for an edit war over this, I added a NPOV warning to the article.


 * I don't know what to say here. This comment is just plain dishonest & misleading. please look as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Andrewa#David_Rohl and note Mr L's own asmission of bias. The NPOV dispute was added not immediately following Andrewa's comments but following my edits in response to his request to highlight his biases. Since my support of Rohl is the origin of L's protests against me. Lets deal with this one and then I will mobe onto the other misleading points L raises. I recomend watching L's contributions in case he now tries to clean-up evidence of Bad-mouthing me on (especiallly but not only) User talk pages (e.g. User talk:Wetman, User talk:Read794).Zestauferov 00:20, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * And to remove content from two disambiguation pages, Hebrew & Hebrews.


 * without any explaination. Would you mind telling why now?Zestauferov 00:20, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * As I am a Mediator & a Sysop, I have tried hard not to avoid personal attacks;


 * the latter is certaily true but I am not sure how that is supposed to relate to the former. If this is a privilage of sys-ops then I appologise because I did not know. Maybe wiki policy is at fault.Zestauferov 00:20, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * all of my expressed judgements have been directed to the quality of his material. The only reason I have not brought this before the Mediation Committee is because I feel mediation requires both parties to give, & I frankly don't see what I can concede in the way of behavior or actions in this conflict.


 * In other words (objectively now) you were afraid of being exposed as unjustifiably biased against me? which stemmed from my defense of Rohl in which I basically said exactly the same as Andrewa. Why is it that only anything I type bothers you but not if it comes out of another IP. Time and again I have responded to criticisms and been backed up by other users only for you to move-on without comment (accusing me of not responding!?!) only to raise your head on yet another of my posts with the same-old "home-brewed" etc. accusations. Why have you decided not to trust my contributions having given you evidence been backed up by others and responded to criticisms which is all easily verifiable despite your conviction that I have not?Zestauferov 00:20, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * If anyone thinks they can help here, I'm willing to listen, but I'm not optimistic. -- llywrch 20:05, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * It is precicely your disparaging view of me which is hindering you. Please look through my contributions in the page histories again. They are all there. I really am not that bad if you will only give me a chance.Zestauferov 00:20, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Zestauferov has responded to my arguments point by point (& sometimes sub-point by sub-point) in a running fashion; to reply in the same will only make things confused. (My lack of a response does not mean consent to his argument; it only means I couldn't find it in order to respond.) I will respond to them in general, separated from his arguments for readability.

I see this way of responding as a kind of cop-out since it requires the readers to believe the summary you give them rather than seeing what was literally said and how you might be mis-interpreting but anyway to avoid further conflict I will do it your way.Zestauferov 15:33, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * He denies ever failing to respond to my requests for sources. -- I made several queries concerning the material in the Heberites article, none of which you responded to. I asked in Talk:David Rohl for you to explain where the article is biassed, & all I have received is a number of changes made to remove "weaslings" & an opaque allusion to our earlier disagreement at Talk:Sea Peoples. Apparently he is trying to say that because I was opinioned about another issue, I am hopelessly opinioned now & will always be. He needs to provide specific examples from the David Rohl article if he wants me to respond constructively.


 * All vague and general Heberite queries were responed to as best as I could understand what the bone of contention was. The best specific explanations relevant to that deleted article are now available for perusal at Talk:Eber. The most disagreeable specifics have been corrected in the David Rohl article. please compare the version I edited with the previous version to see those details. I think my points were very clearly illustrated.Zestauferov 15:33, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * He claims that he has never disputed the commonly accepted meaning of NPOV. -- From my reading of the following passage -- taken from your User: page -- you are trying to rewrite your own argument. There you complain of people "who are afraid of obscure fact and suppress anything unless it is plagiarised info form an already published encyclopaedic work that wikipaedia might become a worthless encyclopaedia regurgitating in less authentic style whatever one might better find in a Britannica." That does not read to me as if he wants to debate the philosophy behind Wikipedia; it reads as if he wants somewhere to present his own views -- for which he should create a web site.


 * I am not debating the wiki philosophy but I am questioning those people who do this and claim to be upholding wiki philosophy. As far as I can see they are not acting in true wiki spirit.Zestauferov 15:33, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * He asks for examples of where he has reintroduced his questioned material. -- The Hebrew & Hebrews disambiguation links are one place. Articles on Eber & Heber are another -- as are a number of articles about personages mentioned in Genesis which include Shem, Aram, and Arpachshad. All have clearly irrelevant paragraphs about Hetto-Iberian peoples.


 * You are mistaken I have not changed the Hebrew page from a disambiguation. But I am proud of what I have done to the Hebrews page. If you have specific criticisms about that page please detail them as you finally did this week on the Eber page following my repeated requests fore such. Asd you can see I will answer the criticisms as best as I can, but please do not vitimise me. Why is Hetto-Iberian laguage theory irrelevant to the peoples who are connected to that theory?Zestauferov 15:33, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * He accuses me of being "afraid of being exposed as unjustifiably biased against me?" -- Believe it or not, I am always concerned about being unfair towards another contributor; I try hard to be fair. This is why I am defending Levzur for his edits concerning theoretical links between Caucasian languages & a number of other isolated langauges like Hurrian; if only he would respond to my questions, he & I might come to a consensus. However, as I explained above Zestauferov has refused for a long time to document his sources; & when Levzur began to contribute similar material he could provide sources for, this material showed that Zestauferov took a number of liberties with his material, in order to present his unique racial arguments that linked together the natives of the Caucacus, the Jews (which he calls for reasons clear only to him Heberites''), & a number of other people (including the Hattians & the enigmatic Habiru).


 * Why should we all come to a consensus with you when you know nothing about Hetto-Iberian theory? The great thing about Wiki is that a second user can come along and back up the comments of a first with references I have veruy little time to do so, but when I do have time and am not distracted responding to conflicts, I do look up the sources of my knowledge to put in the articles. Granted Levzur has gone overboard with the 'All Hetto-Iberians are originally native Georgians' stance. Please would you be specific about what liberties you are accusing me of taking? On a more grave note are you accusing me of being a self-hating Jew because I am trying to be perfectly objective in allowing for the possibility that the Hebrew/Eberite (I conceed that the French term Heberite seems to be obsolete even in French these days.) nation had origins outside of Canaan and may even have representatives still in the Caucasus despite the language differences? And I don't like you bringing up the term race. Are you inferring that Jews are a distinct race? We are a non-exclusive ethnic group. I think you should be very careful what you write.Zestauferov 15:33, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Now for some specific points:
 * In reponse to my claim that he left Wikipedia for a short while, he apparently states he left Wikipedia to "cool off." -- Typically, when someone takes a break from Wikipedia, one says so on the User: page. The last post I saw from Zestauferov before he vanished for a couple of weeks stated he was going to quit WP, & perhaps limit his support to it by contributing money. My initial reaction was concern that I had offended him, so I pondered over a couple of days what I should say in response to his declaration, only to find he had vanished. What was I to think? I made my changes, assuming he had left for good.


 * Well that page is dfeleted now I think so it is your word against mine but the way I remember it you are not recounting the details accurately. Also as a new user I did not know that the convention was to post such a message on my user page.Zestauferov 15:33, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Me:"And to remove content from two disambiguation pages, Hebrew & Hebrews." -- Him: "without any explaination. Would you mind telling why now?" -- Content does not belong on disambiguation pages. They are disambiguation pages -- or were until your edits.


 * I did not do what you say I did to Hebrews and anyone can confirm that by checking out the history page. For weeks now no one has found my improvements to the lame disambiguation page which repeated info from Hebrew page upsetting except you. If anyone reading this does have objective comments about that page please postthem on that talk page and I will oblige.Zestauferov 15:33, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * "Time and again I have responded to criticisms and been backed up by other users only for you to move-on without comment (accusing me of not responding!?!) only to raise your head on yet another of my posts with the same-old "home-brewed" etc. accusations." -- I must have truly wounded your pride with that phrase, "home-brewed", as I have only used it once! And I haven't ignored you to move on to another post; when I have done this, I am entirely exasperated at your mulishness & have decided it's better to ignore you to focus on other matters I have interested in. But most of the time, it's because you have gone silent.


 * Please give the locations of where you have responded to my answers since our debate at sea peoples. I think the main point is not that I criticize you but that you ignorew the answers which I have given you. Again please show (prior to my listing you here) where you have responded and not moved on as you put it. You have been backed up, Backed up in victimising me mostly only by Wetman and people who have been swayed by your unrelenting attacks on me like RickK and like Josh Cherry other users who I have never even had a brush with are now writing as if they know me well only because of your attacks. Please see VfD Hetto-Iberians for an example. There are users who back up my stances too as well you know. I don't know how many times you used the phrase "Home Brewed" but it was a good nutshell to quote all of your criticisms of me in.

I admit I don't have a great deal of patience; that is what working with Zestauferov requires. A careful study of the Talk pages & history of his User page will show he has changed his story at least once -- if he would provide the sources he uses for his contributions when asked, this would solve much of our conflict. But I notice he not only has been in conflict with 2 other contributors, but he has been in conflicts over articles about Prussia -- a topic I have consciously avoided for other reasons. The issue here is about conflicts; can anyone work in a meaningful way with Zestauferov to create useful content? -- llywrch 04:02, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Well please look at the pages I have contributed to/faught over and judge fore yourselves whether the majority of them are in a very nice state now or not. The Prussia article is one where I am particularly proud that my concerns were not ignored and it is looking rather splendid now.Zestauferov 15:33, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)