Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Editing of Biographies of Living Persons/Evidence

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Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Create your own section and do not edit in anybody else's section. Please limit your main evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs and keep responses to other evidence as short as possible. A short, concise presentation will be more effective; posting evidence longer than 1000 words will not help you make your point. Over-long evidence that is not exceptionally easy to understand (like tables) will be trimmed to size or, in extreme cases, simply removed by the Clerks without warning - this could result in your important points being lost, so don't let it happen. Stay focused on the issues raised in the initial statements and on diffs which illustrate relevant behavior.

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Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as Arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.

Evidence presented by RedSpruce

User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) is making a huge number of edits contrary to correct style and contrary to consensus

Statement - This Arb Request has to do with a seemingly minor issue of style, but one that is being repeated so often, on so many articles, that the cumulative effect is a notable detriment to Wikipedia.

User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) ('RAN') is an extremely prolific editor with over 47,000 contributiions.[1] A great many of his contributions are in the form of adding references to articles. When he adds reference footnotes, he usually makes use of the "quote =" parameter available in citation templates. Unfortunately, in most of these edits, the quote parameter is used for no good purpose; he simply takes a quotation from the source without considering whether that quotation adds information to the article or simply repeats information already in the article. At times his quoted text is completely irrelevant to the footnoted portion of the article.

This use of quotations--where the quotation adds no significant and relevant information to the article--is not in keeping with standard citation practice, and to my knowledge it has never been used in an article that has achieved Featured Article status.

Here are some illustrative dif.s:

Quote is irrelevant to footnoted text:

Quote repeats information in the article:

Quote is irrelevant to footnoted text and repeats information elsewhere in the article:

Given the number of RAN's edits, it would be possible to list literally thousands of examples like this. Each one is only a minor dis-improvement to its article, but taken as a whole, they represent real damage to Wikipedia. Furthermore, this damage is happening because of a single, relatively isolated lack of understanding on RAN's part.

As noted in the Arbitration request page by others, this has issue has come up between RAN and other editors before, and a clear consensus was expressed in this dicussion. RAN has ignored this consensus.

If the ArbCom could make a ruling that directs RAN to use quotations in footnotes correctly, then Wikipedia will greatly benefit. Alternatively, if the ArbCom can show me in what way my reasoning about this issue is incorrect, then I'll stop making this objection and a longstanding dispute will be settled.

User:Alansohn and User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) supporting each other in content disputes

Alansohn and Richard Arthur Norton often work as meat puppets for each other, one appearing at an article to do tag-team reverts when the other is in an edit conflict.

In each of the cases below, one of the pair suddenly appeared as a new editor to an article, although he had never edited it before, after the other got into an edit dispute. The newcomer's first act as editor was to support his partner in the dispute. I have not included articles where both members of this pair had edits before a dispute arose. Neither have I included cases where the issue was vandalism rather than a content dispute. Since the average WP article doesn't have many committed editors, the automatic agreement of these two editors is often enough to overrule anyone who disagrees with one of them.

User:Alansohn and User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) "stonewalling" on G. David Schine

RAN and I have some content disagreements at G. David Schine, not related to footnote quotes. After I entered the request for this Arbitration hearing, Alansohn joined in this debate, and the pair set about stonewalling me in any changes or corrections I wanted to make to the article, however minor. This was done not only through reverting me, but also by engaging in a pretense of discussion. This can be seen in the last half of Talk:G. David Schine#footnotes 1, 2 & 3. Alansohn and RAN use insults[15][16][17], threats[18], non-sequitur, circular arguments, willful illogic[19] and willful ignoring of points put to them[20], all to avoid responding to the simple and direct point I raised. Alansohn did all of this in defense of the position that 3 footnotes were required in the article to document the never-disputed, non-controversial fact that Schine had worked as a consultant for Joseph McCarthy. These footnotes had been added by RAN, due to his misunderstanding me when I questioned another point in the article[21].

Response to Richard Arthur Norton & Alansohn

Many of the points RAN has posted in this arbitration are directed against me. I don't claim that my behavior has always been perfect in my dealings with RAN, but in his comments here he is often profoundly dishonesty, mischaracterizing my actions and/or motivations in a variety of ways. He is also quite repetitive, re-inserting the same charges over and over wherever he can squeeze them in. I'm hoping that his dishonesty and distortions are sufficiently obvious that no one looking at the evidence will be fooled. Issuing point-by-point responses to all of his scattershot charges would add a lot of text to this case. If anyone finds any of RAN's accusations disturbing, please post a specific enquiry and I'll respond.

talk) 10:26, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply
]
Alansohn has also made a few allegations against me, but as of this writing he hasn't attempted to present anything to support his charges (aside from adopting a Darth Vador tone of voice--something that doesn't work very well in print), so I doubt any specific responses will be required.
talk) 00:25, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply
]

Evidence presented by John Broughton

Richard Arthur Norton has ignored the consensus against him

This issue was discussed in October 2007 at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Archive 19#Quotes in references. My last comment in that section, at what was then the bottom of the section, at 00:26, 31 October 2007, included the following: at this point Wildhartlivie, IvoShandor, Arnoutf, qp10qp, SallyScot, AndToToToo, CBM, Shirahadasha, and I have expressed opposition to the practice of putting chunks of text into footnotes, a practice that is not supported by any Wikipedia policy or guideline, and that is in no way the norm at Wikipedia. I think that's about as close to consensus as most discussions get, and I suggest that the practice stop. (At that point, the nine editors listed had opposed RAN's approach to including quotations; only RAN and Alansohn had supported it.) There were subsequently three more edits to the section:

Then nothing happens until the section is achived in January 2008.

This seems to me a clear case of defiance of consensus. And it is consistent with RAN's response to this RfA - his statement (this is the relevant version of the RfA page after his final edit) does not in any way discuss his behavior; rather, it lays out the arguments in favor of his approach to quotations, as if the Arbitration Committee's job was to judge the merits of those arguments.

I have seen these arguments before, and continue to find them unconvincing; he both overstates the advantages and fails to consider the disadvantages, which I consider more significant. But again, of course, this arbitration case is about behavior - Mr. Norton is unwilling to abide by the rules, which say that if one is unable to convince (the majority) of other editors of the merits of one's position, then it is unacceptable to continue on as if a negative consensus did not exist. Mr. Norton's editing is disruptive; he needs to understand that consensus matters when editors disagreement; and he needs to understand that Wikipedia is a group project that critically depends on cooperation of editors, lest it be scattered into a thousand warring camps.-- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Richard Arthur Norton has made no attempt to find middle ground

No one is arguing that occasionally a quotation in a footnote is useful. (One situation is when the original words, in a different language, have been translated. Otherwise, I tend to think such occasions should be rare; the text in an article, and a source citation, should suffice, since Wikipedia articles are overviews. But I digress.) What RAN should have done, when faced with an overwhelming consensus against his approach, was to try to reach agreement on a set of criteria for when quotations would be appropriate. He did not.

[Given the number of places that discussions have occurred, and given the difficulty of proving a negative, I will simply assert, here, that RAN has never taken that approach - has never started a discussion to try to establish limited circumstances for using quotations, and has never contributed positively to such a discussion if someone else started it. If in fact RAN or any other editor has evidence to the contrary, I invite that to be cited; otherwise, I ask that this assertion be taken as demonstrated to be true.]-- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The limits of RAN's willingness to compromise is shown by this statement, below: I am flexible. When a quote was challenged I improved the placement, or trimmed the quote. His fundamental position is that he should be allowed to insert quotations into citations whenever he wants to. Apparently there are no criteria other than his personal judgment as to whether a quotation is useful or not. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )

The quote function has been a part of all the citation templates. Quoting the actual text in the article aids the researcher and the fact checker, you can see the text in situ in the sentence that was used by the original author. No rule obliges an editor to use it, nor does any rule forbid its use. Facts in books need to be checked once before publishing. Facts in Wikipedia need to be checked continuously since editing is continuous, editors range from experts to amateurs, and subtle vandalism is hard to detect. Cited quotes provide many useful things for both the casual reader and the serious researcher:

  • 1) Allows for reconnection of broken links to a newspaper and other online articles. For example: if the title is: "Scientist Dead", and the quote is "Today, John Bacon, a New Jersey scientist was killed when his car overturned". A Google search for the title may not find the article, its too general, but a search for the quote string will refind the article. One year ago the New York Times archive was housed at Proquest with different links, and Associated Press reports were not archived by Google. Links are fugitive, Wikipedia is meant to last forever. Even if an external link for the citation is broken, a fully-quoted reference can stand on its own.
  • 2) It provides the actual information for fact checking the citation. You shouldn't have to get a book from the library or purchase an article to find out the exact wording used by an author to see if it actually supports the text in the Wikipedia article. See here
  • 3) It is not a copyright violation, the source is attributed, and the quote is usually a single sentence or two, well within the confines of "fair use". In some cases the title of the news article is longer than the quoted material. The same amount of text, or more is allowed in the body of the article using the blockquote feature. Google uses the same, or more, amount of text when it returns search results, and stores much more in the "cached" version.
  • 4) Redspruce himself uses quotes in references. He writes: "... Tom Wicker refers to Schine as 'Cohn's boyfriend'". It takes up a little less space, because he only encloses two words from the text in the quote, but the reader, including me, is still left to wonder what preceded 'Cohn's boyfriend'. "[He had wild animal sex all day and night as] Cohn's boyfriend" is very different from "[He was derided by his enemies as] Cohn's boyfriend". Others shouldn't have to repeat the effort to find out the exact, non-truncated, single-sentence quote.
  • 5) It doesn't add to clutter, any more than inline citations do already. No one forces a reader to scroll down to the reference section in an article, any more than one is forced to read the endnotes in a book. Just a few years ago no citations were required in Wikipedia articles. Scanning the end of the article, can you pick out my citations among the references and bibliography in the article Joseph_McCarthy that were so contentious that they were deleted multiple times? I don't find bibliographies useful, but I don't delete them.
  • 6) Some Featured Article's do not use them, but they are 365 articles per year of about 500K added per year, and a quick search shows New York City containing them. They can always be suppressed in FAs with an html tag: <!-- quote=Here is the text I have suppressed --> and still be available to the serious researcher in the edit mode.
  • 7) Editors are skeptical of new information added to articles, so the best effort should be made to persuade them that the information is legitimate, and make that vetting process as easy as possible. See examples here where a skeptical editor deletes new information added to articles. The burden is on me, the person adding the information, to persuade the skeptic that the information is factual and verifiable and supports the article.
  • 8) I am flexible. When a quote was challenged I improved the placement, or trimmed the quote. See Talk:Annie Lee Moss where RedSpruce writes: "Okay, I see you've moved the reference to an appropriate place; that's an improvement. "See the edit history in G._David_Schine, hit 500 edits, and search for word "trim". There was no overwhelming consensus to delete the quote parameter from citations at Talk:G._David_Schine or the Talk:Annie Lee Moss page. For Dan Antonioli larger quotes were used initially to show notability, and they were later trimmed down to single sentences for the final version of the article. Here I post an RFC to bring in a third opinion when my source for information was deleted from an article. Here I invite RedSpruce to join with me in creating a new biography, and thank him for pointing out that I left a blank space in an edit.
  • 9) Redspruce is less flexible. Here RedSpruce explains "the only way [for me] to force a discussion was through edit warring". Here he deletes my information and leaves as the edit summary: "you are being an idiot". Here he calls me a "moron" on my user talk page. Here he removes the information, yet again, post RFC, and post two ANIs. And here he removes the same information, once again, while Arbcom is deciding the issue. See here other examples (same link as in item 7), where he repeatedly deletes information he didn't add to the article. He deletes my reference here, that points out a discrepancy in the article. When the deletion is pointed out during Arbcom, he inserts his own reference here but leaves my reference deleted. From my viewpoint he just won't accept what I add to an article that he has contributed to, no matter how well sourced. My personal opinion is that he is displaying ownership tendencies.

Example

  • Here is a good example of using quotes in citations and how they clear up what is in the article, and how it aids the serious researcher:

Schine and Cohn were rumored to have a sexual relationship, although there has never been any proof of this. More recently, some historians have concluded it was a friendship and that Schine was heterosexual.[1] [2]

What exactly was said of G. David Schine and his sexuality, how strongly did they word it, and what exact words did they use. For instance the Tom Wolfe article, up to a month ago, required a paid subscription to the New York Times. Even with access to the article, you still can't just do a control-f and search for "gay" or "homosexual" because Wolfe doesn't use any of those words. You have to read the whole article to find the single sentence which Wolfe uses. See below how very different the two references are, that are supporting the same fact.

Here are the references with the actual quotes in the Schine article

  1. ^ Miller, Neil (1995). "Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present". New York: Vintage Books. Ironically, it was the inordinate concern on the part of McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy M. Cohn, regarding the military [service] of McCarthy committee aid G. David Schine — a concern that may or may not have had a homosexual element to it — that was to precipitate the Army-McCarthy hearings that finally brought down the Washington senator.
  2. ^
    New York Times
    . But so far as Mr. Schine is concerned, there has never been the slightest evidence that he was anything but a good-looking kid who was having a helluva good time in a helluva good cause. In any event, the rumors were sizzling away ...

Efforts by RedSpruce and Norton on mediation

..

Evidence presented by Rlevse

User:Alansohn has a long history of problematic editing and ignoring concerns of other users

Concerns over Alansohn’s editing and behavior have been going on for over a year. This led to a RFC for user conduct filed on June 28, 2007 by User:Eusebeus. Despite being duly notified, he has never responded to the RFC’s concerns; though he did respond on its talk — where he calls the RFC an “abusive process” in the edit summary and questions the motives of others, here he says “I was waiting for the fly-in-chief to return to his turd, and assumed that your exclusion would only hasten your arrival”, here he calls it a “shameless hypocrisy” to push the RFC and calls Eusebeus, a chronic abuser of policy, here he refers to the “utter worthlessness of this process”. Note he never acknowledges his own part in this, just questions the motives of others and attacks the processes. His only edit to the RFC page was rv’ing edits by User:Racepacket.

More misleading edit summaries

More BLP diffs

  • [22], [23], [24]. More info and details on this case talk page.

Alansohn has a history of twisting the words of others

where he said I said we should give carte blanche to BLP subjects and their supporters, but I didn't

Accuses admins of bad faith

says "WP:3RR was designed so that even an admin can understand how it works)"

Asserts ownership of Dane Rauschenberg

User:Alansohn, User:ChrisRuvolo, and User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) supporting each other in content disputes

User:Alansohn has been hostile towards and distrustful of admins

In addition to evidence presented in the above sections, On Jan 27 I proposed mediation to settle the issues on the Coker article: “In order to solve this in a faster and more amicable manner, I suggest that both User:Alansohn and myself each choose up to two admins of their own choosing to review the issues herein and let them settle this matter. Neither selected admin should have any prior involvement in this matter whatsoever.” Talk:George_Thomas_Coker#Proposal. His first comment on this was on May 4: “You, an admin, volunteered to have other admins assist you in making a decision, in which your fellow admins were quick to rush in to support your persistent obstruction. An inherently biased process is not a serious proposal. It's time to deal with this matter appropriately.” See Talk:George_Thomas_Coker#.22Controversial.22_controversy. I in no way asked for admins to assist me; I asked for them to assist each of us mutually by each of us choosing neutral mediators (more word twisting by him). One can only conclude he distrusts all admins or feels no admin will support him in this issue.

Evidence presented by User:Alansohn

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

Footnotes added to improve articles

I have made over 65,000 edits to Wikipedia. While an unfortunate percentage deal with reverting vandalism, the overwhelming majority have been directed at one goal: Expanding and improving Wikipedia articles with reliable and verifiable sources. Unfortunately, User:RedSpruce, one of a small handful of editors with an obsessive pattern of possession of articles, has tried to push his ownership of any and all articles related to McCarthy and McCarthyism by selectively misinterpreting one design feature of Wikipedia: the ability to include relevant quotations in a reference. I don't have a definitive count, but I have probably added somewhere between 15 and 20,000 references over my editing career, a significant percentage of which include brief quotations, usually of a single sentence, supporting the quotation. This is a built-in, designed feature of Wikipedia policy, and is a standard policy in scholarly footnoting. Use of this feature only expands the ability of readers to verify that the sources provided support the statements made in the article. While I do not believe that use of this feature is required, there is no element of Wikipedia policy that forbids its use in any and all circumstances.

Ownership and obsession with McCarthy by User:RedSpruce

In over 65,000 edits, I have only edited two mainspace articles as many as 100 times, both of which to bring them up to GA status. In 11,000 edits through May 7, 2008. User:RedSpruce has made a rather disturbing number of edits to a series of articles related to Joseph McCarthy and the subject of McCarthyism, including:

Talk page edits include:

While there can be positives in devoting one's time to a subject, User:RedSpruce's monomaniacal obsession with the subject has led him to numerous actions that betray a belief that he owns these articles and is entitled to obstruct edits whose content or format contradict his own personal preferences.

Witch hunt by
WP:COI violations at George Thomas Coker

A persistently abusive editor,

conflict of interest
, stating (as shown below) that he has edited the article in a manner to satisfy the article subject's demands. Though all of Rlevse's rationalizations for excluding the material have been addressed, he has still refused to allow anything more than trivial mentions to be made of the film, while insisting that a film in which Coker's name is uttered once in passing be given equal mention.

Article

WP:OWNer
Rlvese has removed mentions, references and links to the film on no fewer than six separate occasions over a span of two years inserted by several different editors, including:

Multiple efforts at compromise wording -- with ample reliable and verifiable sources -- have been repeatedly obstructed by User:Rlevse. In his zeal for revenge, Rlevse has devoted an unfortunate amount of time to twisting and misinterpreting the facts of my edit history. Unsatisfied that his abuse of administrative authority to obstruct action is enough, now as part of an effort to exact a pound of flesh, he has dragged in his own personal agenda into a question about footnotes. I'd love to hear what on earth adding sources to article has to do with keeping the George Thomas Coker article free of reliably sourced information.

Rlevse has a history of twisting the words of others

As part of pushing his own agenda Rlevse has persistently refused to recognize any alternate interpretations:

where he said I said we should give carte blanche to BLP subjects and their supporters, but I didn't

Sumoeagle179 is a meatpuppet of Rlevse / Tag team editing by Sumoeagle179 and Rlevse

In addition to the rather obvious tag team editing by both User:Sumoeagle179 and User:Rlevse, the two have a personal relationship (see diff) that neither has had the honesty to disclose here. It is disturbing, to say the least, to find that User:Rlevse, an admin described as an alleged "arbcom clerk" at some point in time, would be so utterly ignorant of the need to disclose the clear conflict here in having User:Sumoeagle179 misrepresent himself here as a disinterested party. After another editing spree by User:Rlevse to remove any meaningful references to the film Hearts and Minds in which Coker appears, Sumoeagle197 appears out of the blue (here) and [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Thomas_Coker&diff=179882885&oldid=179882633 here), having never edited the George Thomas Coker article before, to expand a trivial mention of a film in which Coker's name is mentioned. Once. In passing. On the article's talk page, Sumoeagle197 jumps in (here) to defend his meatpuppeteer and make false claims that sourced material added to the article is "libelous". Despite having no legitimate connection whatsoever to the article, User:Sumoeagle179 appears out of nowhere to make a trivial edit and then jumps in to tag team edit on teh talk page to create a false impression of consensus. It's truly no wonder that User:Rlevse would make the claim of tag team editing against others; He's a skilled practitioner of the form. Alansohn (talk) 04:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by KrakatoaKatie

User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) makes edits contrary to consensus

In October 2007, I was asked,

WP:CP, Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) simply removed the template himself
, against procedure and guidelines.

Please note that the quotes used by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) are significantly longer than the text of the article itself, by a ratio of more than 3:1. I do not want to list them here verbatim because I continue to feel they are infringements of copyright. I'm not paranoid but I cannot see how a "riot of geraniums" and wet laundry on a clothesline are relevant, yet alone important enough to risk copyright infringement in an article that's only five sentences long.

During my investigation I found the aforementioned discussion at

WP:CSD#G12
as a blatant copyright violation. My position is not based on notability - it is solely on the use of copied content in the references, and I have no objection to recreation of a new stub or article on Antonioli.

Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) and Alansohn disagreed, as did Woohookitty. When Woohookitty voiced her opinion, the long quotes had been reduced somewhat, but I dropped the issue rather than asking her to compare the two versions, so the article remained as it was while the storm on the talk page raged on. The quotes in the references have been shortened somewhat in the current version of the article.

I continue to believe that the article should be deleted to remove the tainted versions - under

WP:CSD#G12, doesn't matter - because there are no clean versions to which to revert and because the use of a template feature does not necessarily give us the right to use such large portions of someone else's content. IANAL, but our own article on fair use discusses substantiality and the effect upon a work's value. A couple of those 'quotations' are substantial parts of their respective sources. Do we have a copyright policy
or don't we?

User:Alansohn and Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) support each other in content disputes

These two editors use a tag team approach to buttress each other's arguments and bully other editors. The history] of Talk:Dan Antonioli shows Alansohn's frequent edits to the page. However, history of the Dan Antonioli article itself shows that Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) is the editor of the article. In fact, Alansohn never edited the article itself until May 2 of this year, yet he did most of the talking. That seems to be the modus operandi of these two - one makes the edits, the other does the arguing.

User:Alansohn and User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) use diversion and logical fallacy in discussions

Alansohn does most of the diversion on this Talk:Dan Antonioli, but not all:

  • [25] Wildhartlivie makes a passing reference to Alansohn's and Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )'s location in New Jersey, which is clearly disclosed on their user pages
  • [26] Alansohn jumps on that reference in an attempt to change the subject into disclosure of personal information; Alansohn also makes a wild claim that Wildhartlivie is on a "crusade to eliminate use of quotations in references, a practice that is used in hundreds and thousands of articles"
  • [27] When Wildhartlivie won't back down and restates her arguments, Alansohn continues his use of a straw man, saying the references to New Jersey mean Wildhartlivie's copyright questions are invalid
  • [28] Alansohn continues to focus on the user page information instead of the main point, which is the use of large, long quotes in references, not all quotes in references
  • [29] Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) places a comment under a heading 'Received almost universal comment from other editors who answered that this may be a copyright violation', but the wikilink does not support that position, and he did not participate in the discussion - Alansohn did (that Help Desk discussion is now archived here)

When a new editor enters the fray:

  • [30] User:AndToToToo makes a nice summary of the dispute and tries to bring Alansohn's focus back to the issue of the long quotes
  • [31] Alansohn claims the long quotes are a "design feature" and accuses Wildhartlivie of no cooperation and refusal to respond, apparently demanding a hard-and-fast rule on the number of words allowed
  • [32] Alansohn claims there is clear consensus for his position, when in fact consensus is exactly the opposite
  • [33] For some reason, three days later Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) inserts a comment in the midst of earlier comments by different editors

And that's when people get tired and go do something else, which was their objective in the first place.

I did not know about the RFC on Alansohn when I was looking over the Antonioli article. (It's telling that Alansohn did not respond to any of the statements and comments on that page.) There are dozens of diffs there of Alansohn's bad behavior, and since they're listed on that page it's not necessary to list them here. However, one of the statements made a good observation. I've modified it a little:

  1. Alansohn states his position
  2. if someone disagrees, Alansohn repeats his position, using an adjective like "obvious" or "blatant"
  3. if there's still disagreement, Alansohn demands "evidence" in a legalistic manner
  4. if he still hasn't run everyone off, Alansohn takes a sentence from another editor's comment and uses it as "evidence of bad faith" or "bias" or "witch hunt"
  5. finally, Alansohn resorts to some version of "you just don't get it" or "your abuse will not be tolerated," repeated as many times as necessary until other editors simply give up and go away.

Even in this ArbCom case, Alansohn's allegations in

his initial statement and his statements on this page are to accuse incivility and ownership by RedSpruce and Rlevse. Same song, 1583rd verse - he's trying to draw attention away from the core issues of this request, which are the use of long quoted statements (even paragraphs) in cited references and this pair's intractable, unkind, dismissive conduct toward other editors. Their behavior has helped push good editors away from the project and it is incredibly frustrating to handle. KrakatoaKatie 01:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply
]

Evidence presented by Wildhartlivie

Basic support of others' evidence

I don't think it is possible for me to clearly delineate evidence that would improve on that provided by KrakatoaKatie and John Broughton. This is a longterm and longstanding problem over a multitude of articles. Thus, I am commenting mostly to reinforce that in my view, this is not an issue of attempts at ownership of an article, or articles. The practice under discussion here is pervasive with User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), and has been at issue in the past. The question of the appropriateness of use of the quote function and how this user has been utilizing it has been at issue well beyond the ones under discussion. As noted by KrakatoaKatie above regarding the Dan Antonioli article, large blocks of quotes were used in the absence of them being incorporated into articles. At no time during the Antonioli discussion was any attempt made by the author to incorporate and expand the article with the use of those sources. This particular article had been under question for deletion and my involvement came from supporting the retention of the article, with the caveat that it needed a LOT of work, and in trying to urge its expansion, was met with the lack of response and the uptake of the argument by Alansohn, the same circumstances indicated by RedSpruce above. One argument at the time from User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) was that it was preserving the quote in situ, to which I counter argued that inserting a block of text via copy and paste was not in situ preservation at all, and there were archive options available to be used when sources were in danger of being lost online. What I have seen is often copy and pasting of the opening paragraphs from, for example, New York Times archives. That particular method links us to a page at the Times website that purchase is required to access the rest of the article, which may or may not contain the material actually being cited. I took it to WP:Citing sources, the entire discussion of which can be seen here. The overall consensus at that time was that this practice violated the intent of the use of the quote function, as was summarized on that page by User:John Broughton. That discussion was obviously ignored and rejected, which brings it to issue yet again, with the same issues. I truly believe a ruling by ArbCom is necessary in this case since efforts at resolution over a variety of articles with a variety of editors has been the case. If in fact, mentioning them as "the two fellows from New Jersey" was wrong, I apologize. That was said to reinforce that the pair appear to be connected in location and viewpoint. I do hold that it is not improper to investigate a userpage and a user's contributions, and in fact is supported by Wikipedia policy when one is looking at pervasiveness of an issue. Thanks. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:01, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by John254

Rlevse has a permanent conflict of interest with respect to editing George Thomas Coker

On 10:54, 17 December 2007, Rlevse stated that he removed content from George Thomas Coker (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) because

I personally know Coker and he's asked that no reference be made to the movie. This was by a phone call to me.[34]

Rlevse has repeatedly removed well-sourced descriptions of the material in question [35] [36] [37].

Racepacket has engaged in abusive sockpuppetry on Dane Rauschenberg

Please see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Racepacket, Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Racepacket (2nd), Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Racepacket (3rd), Runreston's block log, and Special:Contributions/207.91.86.2 (It was confirmed that 207.91.86.2 was a sockpuppet of Racepacket in Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Racepacket).

Evidence presented by {your user name}

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  1. ^ [http://www.washingtonpost.com%2Fac2%2Fwp-dyn%2FA51347-2004Oct21%3Flanguage%3Dprinter&ei=Ha5kR9X2Lcfu6AGyrunDBg&usg=AFQjCNEIZ9pnESv57LkUjmMlvTXbQq4g1Q&sig2=YnqmynPRWT8njMz8hi60RA "'Hearts And Minds' Recaptured", The Washington Post, October 22, 2004.
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