Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Zephram Stark/Proposed decision

Probation
"2) Zephram Stark is placed on Wikipedia:Probation for one year. He may be banned by any administrator from any article the editing of which he disrupts by lengthy argumentation or edit warring." (emphasis mine).
 * I really do not like the idea that one user, no matter what their standing in the community, can summarily ban another user from an article. Much better in my opinion would be "He may be banned from any article... if there is a consensus of administrators in favour of such a ban".
 * The maximum duration of such a ban should also be stated, as bans of different lengths might be apropriate for different articles. IMHO the maximum duration should be 4 months, I feel that anything longer than that should be the result of an explicit arb-com ruling.
 * Would any bans in force would automatically expire at the end of the 1-year probation preiod, or would they continue for the specified duration (the 1 year mark effectively meaning only that new bans could not be initiated). Thryduulf 16:40, 31 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I disagree with the above. Zephram is a troll and should be blocked indefinitely. The problem as I see it is the proposal allows him to continue insulting editors on user and article talk pages, which is a large percentage of what he enjoys doing. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:34, 1 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Bans would expire at the end of one year. The alternative to Probation is a general ban such as that advocated by SlimVirgin. My impression is that Zephram Stark is not hopeless, just too aggressive with his point of view. Fred Bauder 19:56, 2 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Like I said, I'm open to suggestions. If there was any way to reach the necessary level of scrutiny for this vital issue with less aggression, I would have taken that road.  Because of what I did, you now know the issues.  Whether you choose to fix the problem or sweep it under the rug is in your hands.  Getting rid of me won't stem the growing problem of vandalism and content control at Wikipedia, and I think you know that.  However, demoting corrupt administrators goes right to the root of the problem and sets a precedent, for the first time, that people in power at Wikipedia cannot use that power to control the content of articles.  --Zephram Stark 21:30, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

You have not made your case, indeed, you cannot, as you were quite disruptive. If you chose to be polite, carefully research matters and you still have trouble with administrators (which you generally won't) then you will have a case Fred Bauder 21:34, 2 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm sure you're right. If I never speak up, no administrator will ever cause problems for me, but I'm not concerned about me.  I'm concerned about the articles.  The concept of Wikipedia is that millions of minor improvements from thousands of editors results in better articles than from a small group of super-incredible-editors as you would have at Brittanica or the OED.  The concept will work if you give it a chance, but that's not what's happening here.  You have content control by a small group of administrators and most of those administrators aren't that super-incredible at editing.  In fact, some administrators, like Jayjg and SlimVirgin, obviously want to bias the content so bad that they are willing to effectively shut down anyone who disagrees with them.  I wouldn't even have a problem with that if it still led to a great article, but you saw what happened at terrorism.  As long as people were polite and carefully researched matters, the article sucked!  --Zephram Stark 21:52, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
 * In your opinion Fred Bauder 21:56, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I think I can quantify exactly how the article sucked before the little war. It didn't convey any information.  You couldn't use terrorism in a sentence based on the article.  In other words, the article was useless—worse than useless—it actually confused any information you already had on the subject.  This had been going on for a long time before I arrived.  You can see for yourself in the talk history.  People took the issue as far as they could within the bounds of being polite, but Jayjg would effectively shut them down.  I still don't know if it was a matter of pride or of honestly not wanting the article to mean anything, but I don't think anyone can claim with a straight face that the version Jayjg was protecting is better than the version today.  --Zephram Stark 01:54, 3 November 2005 (UTC)


 * "My impression is that Zephram Stark is not hopeless, just too aggressive with his point of view". Personal attack paroles eforced by short term blocks (repeatedly if necessary) have helped in similar situations in the past. Thryduulf 22:08, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Complex ambiguities
Zephram Stark's inability to deal with complex ambiguities is the essence of the problem., said Fred. That's a good way of describing what I see as a big part of the problem, especially as regards Terrorism. The term itself is close to impossible to define -- plenty of cites can be found backing that assertion. It's almost an archetypal case of a complex ambiguity. Mr Stark, for whatever reason, persists on confusing the role of a dictionary with the role of an encyclopedia (as he says above, "You couldn't use terrorism in a sentence based on the article" -- and indeed, if a word is close to impossible to define, a Wikipedia article should not attempt to define it; a dictionary has no choice.)

One reason that this has been so frustrating is that Mr Stark has consistantly refused to go through proper channels to deal with his various complaints. For example, my introduction to the entire issue happened when I was informed there was an edit war going on, and I took one look, saw it was so, and protected the article. Stark insisted I unprotect it; I demurred, but suggested that with more than five hundred other administrators, he could simply go over to RFPP and ask the page be unprotected and probably get satisfaction; he refused outright. Likewise, though he has bitter complaints about other administrators, he has steadfastly refused to go through any of the channels (RFC, for example) to get his complaints attended to. --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 02:19, 7 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't agree with this, JP. I think Zephram is more than capable of dealing with complex ambiguities. He's trolling, and laughing up his sleeve, in my view. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:33, 7 November 2005 (UTC)


 * There aren't any complex ambiguities in the terrorism case, JP. I wanted it to convey information.  You didn't.  The introduction to Terrorism conveys information today.  I'm happy with that.  I win; you lose, if that's the way you want to look at it.  The only complex ambiguities are those that you create in an attempt to railroad me with an arbitration after the issue is completely finished.  --Zephram Stark 22:28, 8 November 2005 (UTC)