Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Netoholic

While the RFC is persuasive, why have you not attempted mediation? →Raul654 07:40, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)


 * Because I'm unable to figure out how to assume good faith at this point. He calls me a fuck privately and then moans publicly about how he's tried to discuss this reasonably but I just wouldn't listen and blew him off. I'm not sure how to mediate with a liar like that. Snowspinner 14:20, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)


 * Given that Snowspinner has publicly admitted that "the personal attack was the part of my claim [against Netoholic, above] I knew was kinda dodgy" and that he admits that Netoholic indeed only engaged in (emphasis mine) "low-grade 'needling' on Wikipedia, while fanning the flames in IRC", (both at ) it seems clear that Snowspinner's claim for Arbitration is fatally flawed.


 * Snowspinner is essentially admitting that 1) Netoholic's "personal attacks" against Snowspinner on Wikipedia did not rise to a level justifying Arbitration (and the Arbitration Committee, as Snowspinner knows, has no jurisdiction over IRC, and Jimbo himself has opined that the "No personal attacks" policy probably should not apply to IRC) and 2) that Snowspinner knew his claim was "dodgy" when he made it -- that he knowingly and willingly exaggerated the case, if not entirely lying.


 * Snowspinner, then, has as much as said he knowingly made a false claim before the Arbitration Committee and moreover that the claim was for relief he knew was outside the Arbitration Committee's traditional jurisdiction. This alone should be enough to dismiss Snowspinner's claim as frivolous. Whether Snowspinner should be sanctioned for knowingly making such false claims is of course up to the Arbitration Committee.


 * I also note that the Request for Comment against user Xed had as its principle allegations the making of frivolous claims for Arbitration outside the Arbitration Committee's jurisdiction, a view certified or endorsed by sixteen Wikipedians, including Snowspinner himself.


 * -- orthogonal 23:51, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * This intrerpretation is wrong in several respects. First, Snowspinner's claim WRT Netholic's transgressions in Wikipedia proper center are not based solely on personal attacks - in fact, the RFC lists several actions for which I find this case acceptable for arbitration (none of which is the personal attacks). Snowspinner himself said that the most severe problem is Netholic's tendancy to edit other people's comments. The (alleged) personal attacks are an aggrivating factor, not the primary cause of action for the case. Second, I suggest you do not accuse another Wikipedian of lying, when in fact the record (the RFC, in this case) seems to support this case. →Raul654 02:10, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

Precedent
(copied from related talk pages) Is it common practice, or is there precedent, for accepting an Arbitration case on the basis of 3 Accepts and 2 Recusals? Arb Policy says that it requires four votes to accept or reject. Even if you extend that as a percentage to accommodate the recusals, 4/9 is 44% and 3/7 is only 42%. In this case, one vote changed from reject to accept only recently, one vote admits some bias, and one vote accepted only to "clear the queue". If all three votes were strongly adamant about accepting the case, perhaps you'd have room to test the "flexibility" of the Arb Policy. In this case, I don't think you do. -- Netoholic @ 18:37, 2004 Nov 4 (UTC)


 * 4 of 9 is one less than a majority which would be 5 of 9. Likewise 3 of 7 is one less than a majority which would be 4 of 7. That is the basis upon which the case was deemed accepted. Fred Bauder 23:45, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)


 * Can you please point me to other cases where the "one less than majority" standard was used? Can you also show me where that standard has been discussed before?  Without this, I don't think you should be interpretting the Arb Policy in such a way. -- Netoholic @ 00:19, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)


 * Why didn't you just ask User:Jwrosenzweig to recuse? Sam [Spade] 00:48, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

(end copied text)

Request for temporary injunction
Netoholic was warned by me not to modify other users' comments, however he did not see fit to stop, and he modified Antaeus Feldspar's comment. Due to the amount of edits and mayhem he is causing (please see /Evidence) I request a temporary injunction be placed on Netoholic. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:12, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I am asking for this to be withdrawn. I beleive that Netoholic is not doing anything wrong at the moment, and I am discussing this issue with him at the moment. So I'm striking and withdrawing unreservedly. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:45, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In response: -- Netoholic @ 08:41, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)
 * - I think it's fair to expect that my name is not necessary as a poll option, since that sort of option makes the poll "us vs. him".
 * As for the "mayhem" I am causing, Ta bu shi da yu has recently begun a campaign of harassment and personal degradation against me, excaserbated by copious additions to this Arbitration, which was requested by Snowspinner for a different purpose, and accepted on the votes of only three arbitrators (see above).


 * Though I am not involved in this case, I would like to note that I agree with Ta bu in that an injunction may well be necessary. Netoholic seems to have lost all sensibility as of late.  Additionally, I reject entirely the notion that Ta bu is involved in any sort of "campaign of harassment and personal degradation" against Netoholic. BLANKFAZE | (&#1095;&#1090;&#1086;??) 11:23, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I have been an active contributor to the 2004_U.S._Election_controversies_and_irregularities article since it's inception. I have experienced the same events as Ta bu, and have engaged in discussion with Netoholic on Talk:2004_U.S._Election_controversies_and_irregularities.  I found him acrimonious and my discussions with him progressed rather slowly and seemed unproductive.  There seems to be a general consensus on the talk page that, in addition to being an irritant, he is impeding progress on the article.  I, for these reasons, and in agreement with the evidence provided by Ta bu, third the request for a temporary injunction. Kevin Baas | talk 18:31, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)


 * I have the page in question on my watchlist; judging from Netoholic's conduct, I too support this request for a temporary injunction. That self-created strawpoll attempting to usurp arbcom power was just way over the top. Johnleemk | Talk 18:42, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I also think that a temporary injuction would be a good idea. Netoholic is a rather disruptive user indeed, to say the least, unlike Ta bu, who he is accusing of a smear campaign now. -- Schnee 21:25, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I add my support for this motion, it's clear that untoward edits have taken place and that despite many requests, persist. FT2 20:27, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

I'm considering withdrawing my request for an injunction against Netoholic. He appears to have calmed down a bit, and upon review of his action to change the heading in the talk page, it may not be as bad as I first thought. I may have been a bit trigger happy on this one. Unless anyone objects, or can give me a good reason not to, I would like to withdraw this injunction. - Ta bu shi da yu 09:26, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I would like to sustain the request. Kevin Baas | talk 21:16, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)


 * If you would like to sustain the request please request the temporary injunction yourself. I am going to withdraw this one as Netoholic seems to have calmed down and modified his behaviour somewhat over the past few days. That's good enough for me. I still support the ArbCom request. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:18, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I would say, then, you'd have to provide some sort of evidence of any particular activity of mine which is harmful to Wikipedia or against any particular policy. So far, everything I've seen indicates disagreement with my position as to the factual basis for the election controversy article. How can that disagreement of opinion turn into any sort of injunction on my activity here?  At this point, this request for an injunction is just looking like a request for supression. -- Netoholic @ 22:26, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)


 * Evidence has already been presented by Ta bu. If it is insufficent, more can be presented. Kevin Baas | talk 22:51, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)


 * My advise is that if you have further evidence of disruption, then you should present it anyway. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:18, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

An newbie, outsider's perspective
Hello,

I'm a new user, and not directly involved with the dispute here (Netoholic has never deleted any of my comments, edits, as far as I know, and I don't know any of the users involved in this dispute personally, nor have I talked to any of them regarding this dispute).

However, I have voted against Netoholic's VfD of the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy article, so I'm not completely unbiassed here, I'll admit. But I do think I'm relatively unbiassed, for the reasons stated above.

I have not personally read through the history of comment and edit deletions that Ta bu shi da yu, FT2 and Zen Master have alleged Netoholic carried out. However, I have followed the entire ugly debacle that was the VfD for the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy article, where some of these allegations were made, and what spilled over in to these users' talk pages, where more allegations were made, and finally this RfC and RfA.

So, for what it's worth I would like to offer my appraisal of this situation.

Because I have not personally gone over the alleged history of edits, I would like to offer the final disclaimer that my opinion here rests on them being true. But, if true, I personally would not only not have hesitated to put a temporary injunction on Netoholic but would have banned him long ago. I view such actions, again if true, to be highly disruptive, antisocial, and offensive; with, from what I can see, no defenses of his actions or even attempts at civility coming from Netoholic.

Now, since I'm a newbie to Wikipedia, I grant I am ignorant of the ways you do things here. Perhaps bans are not viewed as the appropriate response to unapologetic, inexcusable attempts at disruption of your community. You do seem highly tolerant and willing to go to admirable lengths to foster constructive dialogue. So, I defer to more senior users as to what you may see to be the remedy here. And, I should say, Netoholic's behavior might be mitigated in my eyes, were he an otherwise productive contributor to Wikipedia. If he is not then I personally would not waste much time in banning a user who's sole purpose seems to be disrupting and offending other users (ie. a troll).

Now, I hate to start off my stay at Wikipedia with so negative a weighing in on a users' actions which only peripherally affect me (only in so far as I am interested in seeing the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy article flourish (from a NPOV and in the Wikipedia way, of course)), but I simply find Netoholic's alleged actions to be completely outrageous, and feel compelled to express my resentment at the hostile disruption of what to me is a very noble enterprise: my new friend, Wikipedia.

Finally, I should like to reiterate that all my comments above rest on the assumption that the allegations of the behavior that Netoholic has engaged in are true. If they are not then please consider my commends above to be null and void (except in respect to my general ideal that a community such as this should not be hostilely disrupted), and I would in that case readily offer Netoholic my sincere apologies.

I hope this was the right place and time for my comments. Noosphere 01:31, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Statement of complaint
Can I add to it? Or does it have to stay the same? - Ta bu shi da yu 11:58, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Ignore this. Its not constructive for me to add to the complaint. I'll try talking to Netoholic, as he's not entirely unreasonable (I've come to to that conclusion after a few things have happened). - Ta bu shi da yu 11:52, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This whole case
Personally, I think I handled this entire situation badly. Firstly, I should have tried mediation. Secondly, I inflamed matters by copying his talk pages. I've since deleted them. Thirdly, I discussed the evidence I presented with Netoholic, and we came to some amicable conclusions and resolutions. He listened to my criticism and has taken it on board (esp. wrt to his talk page) and I have listened to his criticism of myself and I've also taken this on board. This whole situation has gotten out of hand, and rapidly. IMO I think we should just close this arbitration with a warning to all parties that should this get to this point it won't be tolerated.

Just one last thing: Netoholic is not unreasonable. In fact, after dealing with certain other editors on this site, I find him to be a positive saint. I would NOT recommend a block or ban for ANY of the percieved things he has done. I know he's annoyed a few ppl, but then so have I. Blocking and banning would not be appropriate for Netoholic. He's a good editor: let him stay. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:48, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)