[WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'?

Mon Mar 7 16:36:14 UTC 2005

>From: <slimvirgin at gmail.com>
>
> > >> It wouldn't artificially discourage people from making legitimate
> > >> complaints for fear that they too would be penalised <snip>
>Theresa Knott said:
> > > Is there any evidence that this has actually happened in the past? . . 
>.
> > >I am not aware of a legit complaint not having been made out of fear.
>
>I was reluctant to bring the case against the LaRouche editor
>Herschelkrustofsky because of uncertainty about arbcom attitudes.
>Herschel was operating a couple of sockpuppets and for months the
>three user accounts engaged in absurd POV editing and original
>research, as well as trying to goad editors into making personal
>attacks. I couldn't prove they were sockpuppets, and twice asked a
>developer for help but got no response, so I couldn't bring a case.
>They started attacking me in November, and I managed to last several
>weeks of daily snide remarks and POV editing, when I finally broke
>down and called one of them a "toxic troll" twice within half an hour,
>the only time I had said anything that could be called a personal
>attack. The context was that, after days of negotiation with Herschel
>to have an NPOV tag taken down, we finally reached an agreement, took
>down the tag, and then one of his sockpuppets put it straight back up
>again. Hence my troll comment. Herschel was pleased as punch that I'd
>finally weakened and he went straight to the arbcom page and asked for
>a penalty against me. Fred Bauder responded by saying that if I ever
>showed up at the arbcom, I'd be banned for a day or two at least.
>This, without having seen any evidence or asking for my side of the
>story. That definitely made me reluctant to bring a case, though I did
>in the end.
>
>In January, I asked David Gerard for help regarding my sockpuppet
>suspicion. He was able to get a developer to check the accounts, and
>it was confirmed that they appeared to be sockpuppets, so I took the
>case to the new, recently elected arbcom. In the course of it,
>Herschel complained about my toxic-troll comment on an arbcom talk
>page. He submitted no evidence on the evidence page, and provided no
>diffs, but the arbcom took his comment as evidence and found the diffs
>for him. I didn't know they would do this, and hadn't prepared a
>defense. I wasn't penalized but I was formally warned.
>
>When the proposed decision against Herschel was being written up, Fred
>also made a couple of remarks about the need to deal with "the POV
>warriors on the other side," and named one editor, but he said
>warriors plural, so I assume he also meant me and/or one of the other
>editors. This meant we had to spend more time submitting defenses for
>ourselves. Fred provided no evidence of POV-pushing on our part, no
>examples, diffs, nothing, so we didn't even know what we were
>defending ourselves against.
>
>These were minor things, but they were annoying, because several
>editors had spent a lot of time dealing with Herschel for eight
>months, and we were doing it for Wikipedia, not for our own benefit.
>None of us had personal POVs that we were pushing, except a desire for
>accuracy. Keeping him and the two other accounts at bay was hard work,
>as was putting up with his constant snide remarks, and then putting
>the arbcom case together; yet it felt as though we were on trial too.
>
>If we'd had an editorial review committee, editors could have gone
>there about his original-research and NPOV violations when he first
>turned up in May, without having to wait for sockpuppet checks or for
>him to violate other conduct-related policies.
>
>I should add to this, however, that I'm grateful to the arbcom for the
>decisions they reached in the end, as they managed to stop his
>activities here completely.
>
>Sarah

I'm glad Sarah was brave enough to speak out; this e-mail perfectly 
illustrates the problem.  And Sarah is not a POV warrior with a grudge 
against Larouche, but someone who was reluctantly drawn into an obvious mess 
created by a Larouch acolyte.

Jay.