[WikiEN-l] Problem user

Fri Jun 3 16:03:12 UTC 2005

User:Scandum has become increasingly a thorn in my side. He is
obviously some sort of neo-eugenicist and he spends all of his time on
here causing problems on eugenics related articles. Put basically, he
questions basic historical facts (such as that the Nazis used eugenic
rhetoric to justify their racial policies) and tries to edit them out
of articles. When he is advised to look at the many dozens of
references given in the article -- all to scholarly works, all
available on Amazon.com, all available at a standard library -- he
claims he has never read  them and cannot get access to them. He does
not cite anything to justify his own opinions, and apparently has
never read anything on the topic. If you do give him a web source, he
disregards it as a "random source" or simply disagrees with it.

He hasn't broken any rules, but he's wasting a lot of time. The POV he
is pushing is completely uninformed about the articles he is trying to
push it into, he seems to purposely not understand direct responses to
his queries, he repeats the same old schtick no matter how carefully
the other editors attempt to reason with him and show him their
sources. Those who disagree with him he labels "bullies".

It is clear to me, anyway, that he knows nothing reliable about the
topic and is just a crank. The changes he wants to institute are ones
which anybody with even a mild education in the subject matter knows
are at worst untrue and at best historically and logically incoherent.
As an example, he filed a POV warning because he wanted a line change
from saying that part of what put eugenics into disrepute was a
reaction to the Nazi eugenic programs, to saying that what put
eugenics into disrepute was the UN Human Rights Declaration. The
latter doesn't specifically mention eugenics but even then it was
*caused* by a reaction to the Nazis. He doesn't seem to understand the
difference, it is clear he just wants to remove any reference to the
Nazis.

I'm getting pretty fed up, after three weeks it is clear that
reasoning with him isn't going to get anywhere, and he is really
wasting a lot of my time and the time of others on here. Anybody have
any advice? If anybody wanted to read the small novel of talk at
[[Eugenics]], I'd appreciate any specific insight as well. I'm trying
to be civil -- failing at times -- but I get pretty annoyed when some
crank pushing what I consider to be a pretty ugly and revisionist POV
(into an article which has been carefully written so as to minimize
its own judgments and POV -- it doesn't say "eugenics is a Nazi
philosophy" as it easily could, it is about perceptions and rhetoric)
cuts back on time which I could be spending writing or editing better
articles because I have to explain things to him that he would have
known if he had done any actual reading in the subject. (And mind you,
I don't mind explaining things -- I do mind when I am sure that my
efforts are wasted because my explanations will not be read)

Hopefully this doesn't come off as too elitist, anti-user, whatever. I
think if you look at his contribs list though you can see his agenda
pretty well, and I try to assume good faith with people for at least
the first week of their work. You can see, if you look, that I've
tried to rewrite various things in the article to be more clear and
precise, and have for the most part tried to take everything he said
at least seriously enough to give it a real response (up to the point
of repetition). Again, he hasn't broken any rules, I don't see any
real grounds for mediation, I'm just getting very frustrated, and
justifiably so, I think.

FF