Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Great Irish Famine/Evidence

Name dropper
Who the heck is User:Name dropper? (This is the fourth SPA-like account to appear during the course of this dispute.) Their contribution here is their only one to Wikipedia. Also, has this case turned into an RfC on MarkThomas. Would an RfC/U not be a more appropriate venue? --sony-youth pléigh 12:51, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Name dropper has identified himself to the Arbitration Committee. It's our understanding that the account is no longer editing. Mackensen (talk) 15:41, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Aaah, mysterious. Can anyone give evidence from behind a gauze screen? The "right to face one's accuser" has been a fundamental requisite of justice from Ancient times. This is a arbitration, is it not? So agreement is supposed to take place between editors, no? How do you propose that an editor should reach an agreement with others when they are hidden from them? If it is not an arbitration - if it is a trial - then how do you propose that an editor should defend themselves against the evidence of sources kept from them? I'll remind you that this right is a fundamental and ancient principal of justice for no small reason. Shall we be losing any other elements of Roman law today? How about "innocent until proven guilty"? The right to offer a defense? Or would you like to set aside the importance of evidence? --sony-youth pléigh 19:49, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The evidence presented is all public, so your ability to engage it is surely not diminished--this is not secret evidence. This isn't a trial, we're not in a courtroom, and I'm not a judge. For the finer points of how this system differs from Roman law I suggest consulting, head clerk, who knows a good deal about the law. Mackensen (talk) 20:10, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I could not engage with a thorough understanding of the grievances presented by an anonymous accusers. I would not be able to properly defend myself against their accusations. It is (logically) impossible to reach an agreement for future mutual conduct with one. I do not believe that I should expect more of MarkThomas (or Domer48, or anyone) than I would of myself. Therefore, I'm sorry, but I going to have to withdraw from this arbitration. My reasons are as follows:
 * What exactly is being arbitrated? The Great Irish Famine (as is the title) or User:MarkThomas?
 * Allowing evidence from anonymous accusers undermines the process of arbitration and makes it less likely (impossible even) to reach agreement between aggrieved editors.
 * I possibly has a wrong idea about what this process would be about. If MarkThomas is genuinely thought to be an problem, then I believe an RfC/U would be more appropriate. We do not have the right to judge him in isolation from the community. Thanks for your time. --sony-youth pléigh 20:44, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * We arbitrate what's presented. Given that MarkThomas has not, as yet, presented any evidence or engaged on these pages, that evidence which is present is necessarily one-sided in appearance. Mackensen (talk) 21:51, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Allow me to explain several things. I no longer edit Wikipedia, and I do not wish to make public the name I used to edit with. Within five minutes of my evidence being presented I emailed User:Mackensen from my previous account to confirm to him exactly who I was, and stated I would be happy for my identity to be revealed to other members of the Arbitration Committee as well to avoid any accusations of impropriety, but would prefer my identity not to be made public. User:Mackensen will be able to confirm this is an accurate version of events. My identity is not relevant to the evidence I presented, please see the top of the evidence page which reads Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Name dropper 23:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * This is really extraordinary and the sort of thing that calls Wikipedia into dispute. I have not contributed to these pages yet as I wanted to see if it was worth doing so, but the insulting and downright wrong and incorrect nature of the allegations from a bogus new-user account, something normally frowned on in Wikipedia, merely confirms my suspicions that this whole thing is nothing but a drumhead trial co-ordinated by a small group. I hereby exempt myself from the process and will ignore any rulings against me in such an unjust and invalid procedure as beneath contempt. Thank you. MarkThomas 16:12, 30 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Mark, once the ArbCom case was accepted, the only way out of the case is if ArbCom exempts you. I have a feeling if you ignore any remedies ArbCom places on you, the blocks will be much longer. As in "indefinitely" longer. SirFozzie 16:22, 30 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Also.. as I said, ArbCom knows who "Name Dropper" is, and places the appropriate weight on the evidence, but what they mostly consider is "Does the evidence, the diffs supplied, support the conclusion that the editor suggests". If it does, then it will be considered in the case. If it does not, then it wouldn't be. SirFozzie 16:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

It's apparent that MarkThomas misapprehends the procedure here. On-wiki evidence is on-wiki evidence, regardless of who pastes it. As for the allegations, arbitrators decide for themselves. For my part, I found evidence presented sadly lacking and reviewed the disputed pages myself. SirFozzie is partly correct; you're free to ignore the proceedings, but rulings are binding. You can best help yourself by presenting counter-evidence in your own section, or by documenting what you believe to be improper behavior by others. You can also engage in the workshop page. Or, you can make allegations and innuendos prior to storming off in a huff. This generally doesn't work very well. Mackensen (talk) 16:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm sure you're right, but given the abuse of process shown here and supported by other editors, one can't help but wonder if that matters! It certainly doesn't to me - it's been clear from the outset that so long as the POV is close to admins' hearts, they will manipulate the process to meet the bill and that's exactly what's happening here, despite your many protestations to the contrary. I look forward to reading the Irish and British articles in the future, but I'm sure you will face determined opposition again from people who have more time than myself to counter-game the system against your POV. All very pathetic though - shows how weak Wikipedia really is in many ways. Given that the much-vaunted Arbcom process allows in sockpuppets as key accusers, I think that says it all really. MarkThomas 16:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)


 * You place great weight on the fact that the "sockpuppet" posted evidence; it's unclear to me why. He's not an "accuser"--this isn't an adversarial system. By all means if you can prove those diffs are fabricated then go ahead. If you'd bother to read the Workshop page, you'll note the only proposed finding concerning you is incivility--and I don't need a "sockpuppet" to figure that one out--I can read a talk page like anyone else. Mackensen (talk) 16:34, 30 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It's difficult to see how he/she isn't an accuser - aren't they accusations? Obviously they are not fabricated, but out of context - do you have time Mackenson to go back and look at that? MarkThomas 07:23, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

"Nutshell"
I'll reply here to SirFozzie's, "Quite frankly, there it is in a nutshell." My comment was not endorsing that WP be used as a battle ground, but to point to what I think is a naivety on your part with regard to the deep-seededness of the conflict. If you think it can be solved by comments such as "they need to be made to understand" then it is unlikely that you're making any progress in getting past that naivety. People do understand, but they don't see that they are breaching any rules - its the other person. --sony-youth pléigh 22:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Also, with regard to the sentence, "If Sony-Youth, Domer, MarkThomas, or any other user cannot get past the point ..." Excuse me? When did I edit in that manner that I need to be "made to understand"? How do you propose to draw the line? Is it when an editor like Domer cries POV over a simple and obvious misinterptation of a quote? Or is it that any dispute on an article to do with British-Irish politics, and the editors who are involved in it, are tainted by the need to be "made to understand"? That too is the naivety that I am referring to and that too stretched this dispute out for longer than it needed to have gone on for. --sony-youth pléigh 23:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

SirFozzie and favouritism
Fozzie, the favouritism I was referring to was not when you blocked Mark, he should have had more sense than to do that, it was all of those times when you didn't block Domer. You left a post on the Famine talk page on July 13 saying, "I strongly recommend that none of the parties in the GIF ArbCom case edit this article any further while the ArbCom case is active. We do not need to have the article locked down." A day later Gaimhreadhan asked the pertinent question, "You're an admin, so is there a way of enforcing your recommendation ... ?" Well? Aren't you an admin? Was there no way of enforcing your recommendations? Here we had an edit war with an obvious the main belligerent - edit warring with Mark, refusing to properly discuss the article with me, making an extensive rewrite after the 1st unlock, edit-warring again, rv'ing after you warned him to stop, edit warring all over again ... it just went on and on and you did nothing to stop him. Meanwhile, it looked like you were warning Mark left-right-and-centre for what was nothing more than being foolish enough to react to a belligerent editor.

I got the feeling from the start that you got suckered in way too quickly by Domer's list of complaints. Did you even read them? They were ludicrous! It looks like Domer just went through Marks contribs, linked to each diff in succession and pasted some random accusation beside it. It should have set-off an alarm bell in your head not to take them as face value, which I believe you did, or at best far too sympathetically. --sony-youth pléigh 23:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for this Sony-youth. To set the record straight, I do accept that I have behaved badly, got steamed up, said things I shouldn't have and generally been a pain. Sorry! In my own defence, I was considerably provoked, not that you should respond to provocation. On this process; Domer48's tactics and "Nameless User"'s tactics overleaf and in the Arbcom and original talk pages leave me nowhere to go; I simply don't have the time he or she apparently has to go through all of my edits labelling them "bad faith" or "vandalism" or whatever to counter this nonsense. Yet the arbcom people obviously expect me to have to do just that, rather than reading back to look at the context of the original supposed offences. Note that Domer48 is apparently lined up for, er, no punishment whatever. Thanks Mackenson for saying my intended punishment was too harsh, but could you possibly take a look at Talk:Great Irish Famine and the Domer48 criticisms there and consider if I was in fact provoked by a lot of complete nonsense? Thanks. Again, apologies for my own misbehaviours. MarkThomas 07:20, 31 July 2007 (UTC)