Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Seabhcan

Statement by uninvolved User:Lovelight
I've worked with Mongo and in my experience his actions can easily provoke vivid reactions illustrated above… I condemn MONGO and the other users who try and keep 911 articles in forced check against such Wikipedia policies as WP:POV; etc. MONGO (and the others) are POV pushing, they bite newcomers and break most important Wikipedia policies. Work that MONGO, Tom harrison, and the others do on the September 11, 2001 attacks (and related articles) is against (or without) consensus. Committee members and mediators should quick scan history of related talk pages. When I first came to 9/11 page there was "government issued" tag (explicit warning would be proper description) there? When I first met Mongo he locked me out after unprovoked personal attack, he did that while posing on his talk page with twin towers in the background… When I first visited Morton's Wiki corner there was profane greeting which insulted everyone… it is interesting to see such firebrand presentations from people who could easily answer for very same sort of allegations… Lovelight 16:20, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Aude
I first noticed User:Seabhcan in March when he made some edits to American Airlines Flight 77, and really took notice shortly thereafter when he began editing Collapse of the World Trade Center. On that article, I also met User:TruthSeeker1234 who has since been indefinitely blocked for violations of WP:POINT, general incivility, disruption, and "exhausting community patience". When TS1234's sockpuppet, User:EngineerEd was known, Seabhcan rewarded TS1234 with a barnstar and regarding TS1234's block, Seabhcan remarked:

My two cent is that all the editors posting here have achieved new and extraordinary levels of incivility, rudeness and POV pushing. This includes, but is not limited to, Tom Harrison, Morton Devonshire and particularly Mongo, who once proudly stated in ANI that "I intend to insult you and others" in reply to a request to be more civil. That he wasn't then censured, but infact supported by other wikipedians, proved to me that some editors are above the law, and I lost interest in defending the wiki. I haven't edited much since.

It would be a happy day to see all these editors blocked - "a plague on both your houses"! Seabhcán 11:12, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

This behavior and attitude towards those flagrantly violating Wikipedia policies is unacceptable, especially coming from an admin.

Because of Seabhcan (and TS1234), I have largely stayed away from the "Collapse of the WTC" article, because I don't have the same amount of patience as User:MONGO, User:Tom harrison, and others in dealing with such editors. I have also stayed out of Allegations of state terrorism by United States of America and Operation Gladio because of my lack of patience, and wish to be more productive on other articles covering 9/11 and my other interests. I commend MONGO and the other users who try and keep those articles in check with Wikipedia policies of WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:V, etc. MONGO (and the others) are not POV pushing, but rather are enforcing Wikipedia policies. Work that MONGO, Tom harrison, and the others do on the September 11, 2001 attacks (and related articles) is essential. That article is always among the top 50 viewed articles. If that article descends into a propaganda, conspiracy POV pushing article for the "truth" movement, it would on the whole make Wikipedia look quite bad. I doubt they will ever succeed, as there is no consensus for what they are trying to do. In the event they did, I would likely give up on Wikipedia myself, viewing it as a waste of my time. It's my hope that Wikipedia has the mechanisms in place to support enforcement of Wikipedia policies that are essential to keeping 9/11 articles reputable, yet alone create a hospitable environment where we can work to further improve the quality of them. --Aude (talk) 21:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Abe.Froman
A resolution to this festering dispute was clearly in the works in the original RFC. But the same circle that brought the RFC and now Arbitration would not allow everyone a face-saving way out. Self-righteous bloviating over "sincere apologies" put us back to Go. In Arbitration.

As to the dispute itself; in my view, a coterie of tendentious editors and admins, who are known to regularly brutalize wikipedians who may disagree with them, have chosen to unite against this Wikipedian for political, not community, reasons. I saw the RfC, and now this arbitration, as a waste of time and resources for the community. Abe Froman 15:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by User:NuclearUmpf
I think anyone who takes a look at the RfC talk page can see it ended up being a complete waste as many people did not participate on it, some only participated to make situations worse, and some even attempted to stop resolutions that were in progress because it wasnt a resolution that involved them. I continue to think Seabhcan is a good contributing editor as noted in my RfC statement and further believe that he contends people with facts and sources as it should be done. As for name calling there is never an excuse and I have asked him to stop using comments like "cabal" and political divisive political names, but it should be noted that those political divisive names are used by almost all involved in this situation. I do not think an Arb decision is necessary as I dispute that real attempts to solve this situation have been taken and instead just surface deep attempts. --Nuclear Zer0 15:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by User:Guinnog
I see poor behaviour from both sides here. Seabhcan seems to have felt frustrated and aggrieved, and has been uncivil and disputatious on occasion. He has erred in an application of his admin tools from what I can see. The 'other side' seems to have succumbed to a 'sense of humour failure' though; many of Seabhcan's sallies are witty, and well within the "tough-but-fair" standard for my taste, although I might argue the energy is misdirected sometimes. Tom, MONGO and Seabhcan are all respected contributors of integrity and commitment to the project, who feel passionate about what they see as the truth. We should be celebrating that and finding a way to turn this energy towards improving articles. From what I know of these editors' individual characters and abilities, if they could turn to working productively together, they could do great things with some of these controversial articles.

On the issue of Seabhcan's conduct, I say a caution about proper use of admin tools in content disputes is in order.

On the content issue, is there some way of addressing how our coverage of these controversial issues can be NPOV, and perhaps what NPOV means in certain subjects? --Guinnog 00:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by User:Toiyabe
I've been on a semi-wikibreak for the last several months, but prior to that I was rather involved in the discussions on the Collapse of the World Trade Center article. Seabhcan was in Party 'A', and I was generally in Party 'B' along with MONGO, Tom Harrison, Morton Devonshire and several others. Before he was "al Seabhcán bin Baloney " he was "Self-described Seabhcán", in reference to a comment I made.

While I haven't kept close track of recent events, for the several months that I was involved I respected Seabhcan. I mostly disagreed with him, but he forced me to reason and read sources which I probably wouldn't have bothered to do otherwise. He was sometimes rude, but that could be brushed off and there was plenty of rudeness to go around.

Other than Seabhcan, Party 'A' didn't have any good debators (at least IMHO), and there were several rather forceful personalities in Party 'B'. That's a tough position to be in. I would have long since given up and moved on to other things had I been in his position. Maybe that's what his recent behavior has been about - a ban-wish, sorta like suicide by cop. His "Comment on Start of Arbitration" seems to fit this theory. Maybe a moral victory for Seabhcan in this forum would give him the strength needed to take a higher road. His detractors can take joy in his being condemned to continue his struggle.

Anyway, I think it would be a bad thing if Seabhcan left. The adversarial method of improving these controversial articles sucks, but it's better than any other method I can think of. Hurt feelings are an regrettable side-effect of that method. Toiyabe 01:05, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

RFC
People are still commenting on the Request for Comment and don't seem to realise this ArbCom thing has started. Someone should probably move those comments here, tell the people commenting about this, or whatever the correct procedure is to transfer an open RfC into a ArbCom. ... al Seabhcán bin Baloney  (Hows my driving?)  00:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll do something. Thatcher131 00:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


 * My comment and endorsements were intended as advice for Seabhcan, which is what I understand an RFC to be about. I thought that additional comments might be helpful notwithstanding the arbitration.  Is the RFC closed as a result of the Arb proceeding?  TheronJ 15:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Talk to User:Cowman109, he moved the comments originally, I think he is an Arbcom clerk. Travb (talk) 17:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Generally an RFC stops when an arbitration proceeding starts. There is no reason you can't still offer advice there, but it may recieve much less attention and followup from the parties.  None of the RFC comments have been moved to the arbitration except for Guinnog's, which he moved himself. Thatcher131 18:49, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by only tangentally involved User:Georgewilliamherbert
My name has come up several times, and I was asked to comment and/or participate.

At this time, my only comments on this issue are:
 * 1) That looking at the specific diffs where my name has come up, they all appear to be referring to now-ancient incidents.
 * 2) I have had no interaction with any of these recent incidents over which the RFAr as filed, other than seeing the ANI stuff fly back a bit ago.
 * 3) I have no open issues or complaints regarding MONGO's activities.  We had a highly constructive discussion in my failed Request for Adminship over his oppose which cleared the air on a number of subjects.

I don't see any need for me to get more involved in this RFAr at this time. Georgewilliamherbert 04:30, 3 December 2006 (UTC)