Wikipedia:Requests for comment/GerardM

THIS RfC HAS BEEN WITHDRAWN DUE TO IT BEING A DISPUTE ON META

In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute, not different disputes. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 15:33, 24 Feb 2005), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 22:12, 15 December 2024 (UTC).

(GerardM | talk | contributions)

Statement of the dispute

Vandalism and disruption of meta:End-user content suppression.

Description

After repeated requests that GerardM not post discussion about the desirability of end-user content suppression to meta:End-user content suppression (being a page dedicated to outlining the technical implications) he continued to do so, causing an edit war.

Advice was sort from those on the Foundation mailing list. Rowan Collins advised that any off-topic discussion have a place and be clearly referenced. This advice was acted upon with the creation of meta:Desirability of end-user image suppression and the changing of the opening paragraph on meta:End-user content suppression to include, "For discussion of whether it would be desirable, see meta:desirability of end-user image suppression."

Still GerardM insisted on posting discussion regarding the diserability to meta:End-user content suppression, and now he has resorted to vandalism.

As well as the general disruption and vandalism of meta:End-user content suppression, rather than come to the table with specific issues, he has employed a slash and burn policy replete with emotional language, straw man arguments, and inappropriate posting of Wikipedia NPOV tags.

Evidence of disputed behavior

Applicable policies

Policy relating directly to meta seems to be thin on the ground. I come here following advice of meta:User:Angela. There are policies that could be said to apply to meta, such as:

Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point
Wikipedia:Wikiquette
Don't vandalise

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

meta:User_talk:GerardM
See thread on Foundation list

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

(sign with ~~~~)

meta:User:Christiaan
nknight 15:58, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) (meta:User:Nknight). Due largely to the events described by Christiaan in this RFC, I am leaving the project. This vote stands as my final act. I will not be furthur involved in the referenced dispute, this RFC, or any Wikimedia project.

Other users who endorse this summary

(sign with ~~~~)

Carnildo 22:28, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Response

This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete.

Note: The RfC was registered three days ago but despite repeated reminders neither disputant has made any attempt at all to contact the subject of their complaint. It is hardly surprising, in the circumstances, that there is no response here. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:23, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

Outside view

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute.

It appears, from the foundation-l thread that Christiaan posted, that Walter van Kalken, Aphaia, Andre Engels and David Gerard all expressed negative or puzzled reactions to Christiaan's efforts to exclude GerardM's criticism. As David Gerard explained on foundation-l:

Many people (myself included) consider separation of technical methods of implementing a highly debatable policy decision from debate of the desirability of that policy decision to be artificial and disingenuous at best. Doing so appears to make the debatable social decision a fait accompli. Trying to send *all* criticism off to a separate article is also a favourite tool of POV warriors on en: and presumably elsewhere; possibly this is seen as reminiscent of that.

Walter van Kalken, also on foundation-l, concurred.

Gerard M's last edit was vandalism, disruption to make a point, whatever, but it seems to have been a result of severe provocation after repeated attempts to make some reasonable edits that one of the disputants didn't seem to want on the page.

This dispute doesn't seem to have met quorum for RfC because two people have not demonstrated a serious attempt to resolve a dispute with the third party. It is also a matter of some concern that no visible effort has yet been made to contact GerardM via his talk page on Meta or his talk page on en. He cannot make a response unless he is aware of the RfC.

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

Tony Sidaway|Talk 07:33, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Andre Engels 10:30, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Waerth 10:32, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Discussion

All signed comments and talk not related to a vote or endorsement, should be directed to this page's discussion page.

I'm sort of baffled that a dispute on meta has been brought here for comments. Should the en.wikipedia community really be attempting to decide things for other Wikimedia projects? --iMb~Mw 06:43, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes it was a mistake I think. There is a RfC process on meta, but I didn't find out until after the fact. —Christiaan 10:11, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Would either of the disputants please explain why no visible effort has yet been made to inform GerardM on his meta or his en user talk page that a RfC was underway against him? I can see by looking at the links to this page that no time has been lost in informing selected others[1] [2] of the RfC, so why did no party to it inform GerardM?

Discussion of "Outside view"

Firstly I would like to question Tony Sidaway's absence of a disclaimer and his implication that he is an outsider in this debate. He may not have contributed to the debate on meta however he has been one of the most vocal critics of this scheme on WikiEN-l where we have both argued about it and where he has advocated a difference solution. One would be mistaken in thinking he has no interest in the surrounding debate.

Tony states that "Walter van Kalken, Aphaia, Andre Engels and David Gerard all expressed negative or puzzled reactions to my efforts to exclude GerardM's criticism." However this is not a useful summary of events.

Aphaia: the only comment Aphaia has made was with regard to GerardM's vandalism for which she/he had the incorrect link.
Andre Engels & Walter van Kalken: Andre's main complaint was that he thinks it "is idiocy to discuss HOW to do something when there is no discussion yet on WHETHER to do it." Walter feels the same way. However, as I replied, to which I got no response, it could be argued that it is equally as idiotic to make a decision on something for which the implications have not been explored.
And as for David Gerard, one of his comments regarding GerardM's vandalism was, "You're right - looking at the history, that would be disrupting to make a point. This is probably not a helpful thing to do in a hot debate."
Gerard's, Walter's and Andre's opinion that technical debate shouldn't be separate from desirability debate was equally disputed by myself, Rowan Collins, and Nicholas Knight.

Tony writes that I have made "efforts to exclude GerardM's criticism". What he doesn make clear is that GerardM's "criticism" has consistently employed a slash and burn policy replete with emotional language, straw man arguments, ad hominem attacks and inappropriate posting of Wikipedia NPOV tags. All on a page that specifically stated it was there only to look at the technical implications. I have no problem admitting that I have moved off-topic discussion.

GerardM appears to think he is on some kind of crusade, even telling me I am "just moving towards the dark side." GerardM has consistently illustrated to me that his aim is to shut down any discussion about the technical implications of this scheme. I challenge Tony to post GerardM's "repeated attempts to post reasonable edits" in this regard.

Tony also makes the claim that "This dispute doesn't seem to have met quorum for RfC because two people have not demonstrated a serious attempt to resolve a dispute with the third party." However as the talk pages and Foundation email list evidence both Nicholas Knight and I have consistently engaged with GerardM in trying to resolve this dispute. It's worth noting that Nicholas Knight is not commenting further on this debate because he has left the Wikimedia project, largely due to GerardM's behaiviour. —Christiaan 01:27, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Outside view is specifically for outsiders to the dispute. The dispute in this case is whether or not GerardM's contributions to the Meta page were appropriate. As I was unaware of the dispute prior to the raising of this RfC, I am an outsider. The fact that I disagree with your proposal (for reasons unrelated to GerardM's objections) is immaterial. I have had no discussion with GerardM, I do not agree with his point of view, and despite repeated attempts to get me involved in discussion on the meta page I have declined to do so.

I stand by my statement with respect to the negative reception to Christiaan's attempt to raise the dispute on foundation-l. In particular, there is absolutely no consensus that GerardM's initial contributions were wrong.

The attempt to characterize the emails on foundation-l as a serious attempt to resolve this dispute fails because of the repeated failure to assume good faith.

"I challenge Tony to post GerardM's "repeated attempts to post reasonable edits" in this regard." Easy. [3], [4], which were reverted. [5], which was again reverted. [6], which was reverted yet again. There are more in this vein. While I may not agree with GerardM's opinions, the edits were reasonable. To characterize these edits as ~~vandalism~~ inappropriate to the discussion, or in any way unreasonable, is unequivocally false.

"*Gerard's, Walter's and Andre's opinion that technical debate shouldn't be separate from desirability debate was equally disputed by myself, Rowan Collins, and Nicholas Knight." This demonstrates that there was no consensus to exclude opinions on the desirability of the move from the technical aspects. David Gerard's expresssion of concern still stands. This was a content dispute, not a user-conduct problem (though if Christiaan keeps on like this I suspect that he could eventually provoke some editors to regard his conduct as a serious enough problem).

The complaint that GerardM used Wikipedia NPOV tags inappropriately seems to me especially self-defeating. Christiaan, you complain elsewhere that GerardM's language was too emotional. Well make your mind up: either Meta pages are supposed to be NPOV or they are not. Either way all you would need to do was edit GerardM's contributions to remove the emotional weight and retain the sense.

I notice that GerardM still has not been notified of this RfC concerning his conduct via either talk page. Don't you think it would be polite to do so? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:17, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As I wrote, one would be mistaken in thinking you have no interest in the surrounding debate. It was a mistake not to make this clear and I don't appreciate it.

As I have noted in my summary this is very obviously not a content dispute. I consider emotional language, straw man arguments, ad hominem attacks all tolerable problems with a user. What I consider intolerable is continued off-topic edits and childish vandalism. That you do not consider such disruption a user-conduct problem leads me to believe you are not being credible.

You seem also to be reverting to straw man arguments Tony. The only edit of GerardM's that I have characterised as vandalism was his blanking of the page. Please do not imply otherwise. As for your examples of "reasonable" edits:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=End-user_image_suppression&diff=102684&oldid=102669

An off-topic Wikipedia NPOV dispute tag (of his own design). Not reasonable.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=End-user_image_suppression&diff=102844&oldid=102684

Again, off-topic. And personal opinion straw man arguments. Not reasonable.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=End-user_image_suppression&diff=102860&oldid=102859

Same edit as above.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=End-user_image_suppression&diff=102883&oldid=102879

Again, same edit as above.

You say, "In particular, there is absolutely no consensus that GerardM's initial contributions were wrong." Since when was non-consensus a measure of the reasonableness of an edit? The page clearly stated that it was there to look into the technical implications of the scheme. It is not reasonable by any stretch of the imagination to post edits that do contribute to this stated aim. —Christiaan 13:38, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have no further comment on this RfC. I caution you on Wikipedia:No personal attacks. I am shocked at your conduct. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:49, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Not a frivilous allegation, one I'm sure you'll be happy to back up by pointing out exactly what you consider a personal attack. —Christiaan 14:02, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

In continuation of this dispute, Christiaan has moved the discussion about desirability to another page. Gerard has agreed with this move, and told his objections there. Christiaan changed those objections to give his view of them, and after that reverted attempts by various people to have Gerard's own wording of his objections on the page. Apparently, he is not just attempting to get Gerard's arguments from the given page, but also to stop them from being discussed from Gerard's POV rather than his own. - Andre Engels 10:30, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ah, no, discussion of desirability has always been where it is since this RfC was created. I will be continuing to remove any edits that assume bad faith by the way. -Christiaan 23:24, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)