Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Raphael1

Comment by JzG
I too have reviewed and confirm Cyde's assessment of the situation. Raphael's claim that he was ignorant of consensus because it had been archived before he joined does not hold up: he was made aware very early on that his actions were against consensus. As so often with those who have strong convictions, where Raphael's convictions conflict with policy, he allows his convictions to win. I stand by my outside view in the RfC Raphael raised; while I fundamentally agree that the images should be linked not displayed inline (I think this is a perfectly acceptable way of handling any images which can be shown to cause genuine offence - there is no need to ram them down people's throats), Raphael's actions are completely unacceptable and his interactions with others show a refusal to abide by policy and precedent. It is impossible to run a project of this size if people won't sit down and talk. So much for the cartoons.

As for meatpuppetry, Raphael is very clearly working to help Resid, an indefinitely blocked user on both Englisha dn Turkish Wikipedias, to promote an agenda. He should stop this. Now. Resid is pushing his barrow on WikiEN-l, many editors and admins have seen what he has to say (as has Jimbo) and his agenda has been comprehensively rejected here (Wikiethics) and on the list. Wikiethics goes against WP:NOT censored; as such it will never gain consensus. Resid's other proposal, OURS (now I think deleted) is similarly unlikely to succeed, since it starts by stating that we must follow "well-established guidelines such as Wikiethics", which as I say has already been comprehensively rejected. That is not meatpuppetry, but it is disruption, and quite likely violates WP:POINT. Raphael's attempts to thwart the GA nom for the cartoons article undoubtedly violates WP:POINT.


 * If by "attempts to thwart" you mean Raphael1's edits to the GA criteria, it needs to be noted that these were actually reversions to the original (and current) form. In fact, they were reversions of changes made without consensus by editors who supported the GA candidacy of the cartoons article, apparently in an attempt to thwart Raphael1's correct use of the GA system. &#0151; JEREMY 18:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I commend to Raphael the "notes for the passionate" penned by William Pietri and held at WP:TIGERS. Just zis Guy you know? 17:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Sam Blanning
Rapahael1's claim that his involvement with Rgulerdem's Wikiethics proposal extends to "a few minor edits" is somewhat at odds with the fact that he recreated the page in his userpage at User:Raphael1/Wikiethics and, after it was deleted there, argued vigorously at WP:DRV for its undeletion, going so far as to solicit 'votes'. --Sam Blanning(talk) 15:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Further - on my speedy deletion of one of User:Raphael1's subpages
I have deleted User:Raphael1/Consequences of enforcing results of polls in February as a recreation of User:Raphael1/Persecution of Muslims. The only difference was that the usernames of the blocking admins were blacked out, and as the blacked-out usernames can be found in three clicks (one with popups) by looking at the block logs of the blocked IPs and accounts, this does not constitute a substantial difference - particularly as the names were not removed, but blacked out so you can see how long they are. If that makes me a party to this arbitration, so be it. --Sam Blanning(talk) 17:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I consider this a burking of evidence. Raphael1 17:48, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * All administrators, which includes all of the arbitrators, can view the text of the deleted page. --Sam Blanning(talk) 18:28, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Even if this is true, normal users who wish to comment will not be able to write about "the list". Raphael1 18:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment by David Oberst
While I have not been directly involved with Raphael1, I have followed many of the events with interest, and would like to encourage the Arbitration Committee to accept this case. If I could suggest some points that would be useful to address if the case is accepted, most of which relate to Raphael1's RFC against User:Cyde in regards to admin activity on the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy article. Phrased as assertions, they would include:


 * That a consensus clearly was formed to keep the cartoon images in the article. The polls conducted in the article's Talk area are not the only basis for determining a consensus was achieved, and do not invalidate the consensus.  This is the key point for all that has followed, as Raphael1 appears to reject the notion that a consensus was formed, or reject it as illegitimate due to the methods used in forming it.  Frankly, given the amount of support for keeping the image, it would be hard to imagine how to determine that a significant consensus had formed in any controversial situation if it can't be stated that one formed here.  It was this aspect of the RFC that originally caught my attention.
 * That repeated removal of the cartoons, as opposed to further discussion on the Talk page, was not a valid means of "testing" or disproving a recently achieved consensus.
 * That repeated removals of such a discrete and central item (the cartoons) that has achieved such a consensus can be considered disruptive and (in some contexts) vandalism.
 * That reverting of cartoon removal (after a consensus had formed), referring to some of the removals as "vandalism", and blocking accounts (especially anonymous IPs) that repeatedly removed the images was within the scope of admin discretion.
 * Such action by admins is categorically not "persecution of Muslims", the blocked users are not "victims", Raphael1's original Raphael1/Persecution of Muslims page was in violation of WP:NPA and/or disruptive to Wikipedia's functioning, and its deletion was appropriate.
 * That Raphael1's RFC produced a clear consensus (see especially the "Outside view by JzG") that the admin blocks in question were not the "misuse of power" claimed.
 * The "milder" re-creation at User:Raphael1/Consequences of enforcing results of polls in February with the "blacked out" list of admins is thus misleading, and at the least an inappropriate use of user space.

I suspect that the above is a good approximation of the basis on which most people have been dealing with these issues currently, and confirmation by ArbCom would be extremely helpful in further attempts to handling the situation. David Oberst 17:07, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment by User:Azate
Raphael's interest in WP doesn't appear to be primarily in contributing to an encyclopedia, but rather in repeatedly 'adopting' Muslim editors (I remember Haizum, Irishpunktom, LionKing and Rgulerdem, there may have been more) and seconding them unconditionally for a while, because he feels that they are 'persecuted' as a matter of principle, and he feels he has "no choice" but supporting them. He has stated as much repeatedly, been told repeatedly by other editors (including myself) to stop that pattern, because it makes Muslims look stupid, and lobbied around endlessly on their behalf, including several rounds of mass mailings to talk pages.

He thankfully stopped removing the Mohammed cartoons a while ago (after this culminated in him dedicating his image-removals to editors that shouted Qur'an verses on talk pages). After that, I lost sight of him, until he took up his lobbying for the benefit of Rgulerdem, with whom I happend to be in an edit dispute on Fethullah Gülen. Oddly enough, Raphael now has adopted Rgulerdem's favourite source, Gülen's Zaman newspaper, too.

I glanced at Raphael's last 500 contributions and found one, that I would count as 'contributing to an encyclopedia': It's about the programming language Perl. The rest was lobbying on talk pages, and berating people on several RfC boards, policy proposals and the like for being islamophobic, uncivilized and uncompassionate etc.

Now, Irishpunktom certainly knows a a good deal about Islamic history, and Rgulerdem about Fethullah Gülen. That's why they contribute to related articles. They may be pushing an agenda (like everybody, including myself, does to a degree) but they know about their subjects. Raphael doesn't push an agenda, because his qualifications are apparently elsewhere, probably in programming/computer stuff. Instead, he's pushing his peception that WP persecutes minorities (mostly Muslims) and spends his time playing advocate, thought police and lawyer, thereby eating up people's time. If he's so much into WP, why doesn't he contribute in his field? Azate 20:28, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment by User:Improv
I would like to suggest that while his actions on the cartoon controversy pages were unwelcome, disruptive, and worthy of censure, the list that he was creating, in my opinion, should not be considered to be abuse per se. Persecution is a very subjective term, and saying "I feel persecuted by something XXX did" is very different than "XXX is an asshole". As much as this user has acted problematically with regards to this issue, I would hope that the committee not consider the list he maintained on his page to be problematic. I argue that the user who deleted it made a bad judgement call, but the call was understandable and no shame should come of it (although I would hope not to see similar such calls made in the future). All that being said, I do think that the user has gone fairly far out of their way to make problems on the cartoons article itself, and have no recommendation for handling that issue in arbitration. --Improv 22:48, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Sceptre

 * Raphael seems to have suspicious interactions with . Previously, he had copied Rgulerdem's copy of the Wikiethics proposalm, and then he created WP:OURS, the brainchild of Rgulerdem. I had had multiple requests to restore WP:OURS by him because I closed it's MFD in bad faith, which led to an argument and incivility on my talk page.  Will  ( E @  )  T  22:58, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment by irishpunktom
Raphael asked me to come here, and so I have. I believe that he should not have constantly removed the images after being told not to, repeatedly, irrespective of the correctness of the cause, or whatever, behind his reasons for doing so. Considering he hasn't done that for some time, I think its fair to say he now appreciates that. However, since then, he has been Wiki-Stalked around every article he edits, and thats simply uncalled for harrasment. If he has proposals, let them be voted on. If they pass, they pass, and will be for the good of the community, if they fail then they fail. What good is there in removing the proposals before they even begin? Also, I really think there should have been an RFC first. --Irishpunktom\talk 11:36, 9 June 2006 (UTC)