Shoemaker's Holiday flames out Options

[carbuncle]

There seems to have been some kind of feud going on between Shoemaker's Holiday and Durova over image restorations and something called "the WikiCup". If I understand the gist of the discussions on Talk:Featured picture candidates,

• Shoemaker's Holiday felt that Durova was cheating,
• Durova told him to fuck off during a conversation which had been recorded by Shoemaker's Holiday,
• Shoemaker's Holiday uploaded the recording,
• it was oversighted as copyvio,
• Shoemaker's Holiday started throwing around accusations that "Durova has a corrupt oversighter in her pocket",
• Durova referenced SH's Adam Cuerden account on commons which SH took as outing,
• SH's head explodes all over WP:AN

Here's the short-lived AN discussion in full

What the fuck is going on here?

I was outed by Durova on WT:FPC. I've asked for it to be oversighted SIX FUCKING DAYS ago.

WHY hasn't anything been done? Has Wikipedia decided to throw out all its policies?

FURTHER VIOLATIONS OF POLICY IN THE LAST WEEK

* Wikipedia:Deletion_review#List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming is ful of votes that go directly against the Deletion guidelines.

* [5] as oversighted oin defiance of WP:OVBRSIGHT. Thje oversighters say that it is accepted, but couldn't damn well be bothered to change their stated rules, then complained about how horrible I was to ppoint out that it was against the stated rules after waiting three days for an explanation from the oversighter in question.

* As discussed on WT:FPC, Duroa attacked me off-site in an attempt to suppress dissent on her Featured picture nominations. When I brought it up, they said they didn't even want to see the evidence.


WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE? CAN'T WIKIPEDIA FOLLOW IT'S OWN DAMN POLICIES ANYMORE?! Shoemaker's Holiday talk 17:28, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

* Please calm down, thanks. Majorly talk 17:30, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

* And to answer your question: It never did. And not everyone's interpretation of THE RULES is the same as yours. WP:TRUTH might be useful. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:32, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

STOP FUCKING AROUND AND OVERSIGHT THE FUCKING OUTING Shoemaker's Holiday talk 17:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

[indent]This sounds like something more suited for email to arbcom-l-at-lists.wikimedia.org, arbcom-audit-en-at-lists.wikimedia.org, or cu-ombuds-l-at-lists.wikimedia.org, since discussion at this noticeboard is likely to lead to further details being disclosed in the course of discussion that may prejudice future claims of anonymity. MBisanz talk 17:35, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Jehochman wisely removed the thread soon after. SH hasn't been active since early November.

[thekohser]

Durova was really bitchy here, no doubt. But, you also have to keep in mind that Adam "Shoemaker's Holiday" Cuerden has a repeated habit of taking on work, then simultaneously refusing to do it and materially obstructing anyone else from doing the work instead.

He'll also use his "sickness" as a convenient excuse not to do the thing he volunteered to do but doesn't feel like doing, but that same sickness appears to be no barrier whatsoever against him doing other things that he does feel like doing.

It's a mind-bogglingly irritating technique.

[SB_Johnny]

Durova was really bitchy here, no doubt. But, you also have to keep in mind that Adam "Shoemaker's Holiday" Cuerden has a repeated habit of taking on work, then simultaneously refusing to do it and materially obstructing anyone else from doing the work instead.

He'll also use his "sickness" as a convenient excuse not to do the thing he volunteered to do but doesn't feel like doing, but that same sickness appears to be no barrier whatsoever against him doing other things that he does feel like doing.

It's a mind-bogglingly irritating technique.

Or maybe just a different flavor of sickness...

[Wiki Witch of the West]

Reposted from ANI:

This has long since ceased to be a matter for ANI, but since respectable Wikipedians are asking direct questions here's a reply. Only two Wikipedia arbitration cases have ever been vacated; Shoemaker's Holiday was the subject of one of them. For more than I year I campaigned on Shoemaker's Holiday's behalf to get its findings vacated. Throughout that time I was his strongest advocate, friend, and supporter--frequently putting his needs ahead of my own. This was not easy because his conduct was erratic: for a number of months he initiated more arbitration motions than any other editor. Often he would agree in private that his actions were poor choices and attribute them to his health. I made many difficult choices to support him--or at least excuse him--because he often seemed to be doing the right thing in all the wrong ways. There were people who believed his outbursts were staged; I trusted him. I prioritized his arbitration appeal ahead of my own and made no appeal of my own case until after his had been vacated. After his case was vacated, though, he acted in ways that undermined my appeal. Other incidents occurred with other editors where he failed to share credit where credit was due or undermined other editors where their priorities differed from his own.

A few days before the chat log you have read, a different chat occurred where he boasted that his onsite outbursts had indeed been staged throughout his arbitration appeals: he would email a request to the Committee and if he didn't get the response he wanted he would raise a fuss at the boards, and his strategy was to resume the outbursts and tie up arbitrator time until they vacated his case to get rid of him. He thought it was clever to do that. So the skeptics were right: he had been lying to me all those months. He had exploited my goodwill. Until he made that boast I was unable to correlate those events because he usually hadn't informed his friends when he was emailing ArbCom. At first I was speechless. Then I asked a former Committee member whether this chain of events had really taken place; in light of the self-disclosure that person was able to affirm in very general terms that it had. My real reaction came out a few days later when Shoemaker's Holiday violated WP:NOR to undermine one of my featured content candidacies. I am a former sailor: on rare occasions when it's really deserved I speak like one. Strictly offsite, of course.

If anyone needs substantiation please email me. These events occurred many months ago and I'd rather put it in the past. I remain willing to work with Shoemaker's Holiday onsite but have no desire to communicate with him in any other context. For the last five months nearly all of his contributions at two WMF sites have been focused upon me. I have had no contact with him, onsite or offsite, since last October other than at this thread. Let's resume our shared mission and build an encyclopedia. Durova412 17:42, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I've only skimmed the version of the conversation that Shoemaker's Holiday published. It's five months in the past and I'd really rather not compare it line by line. I suspect it's incomplete and possibly altered. The context is completely misrepresented.

Last fall when this thread arose at WR I deflected criticism from him. Anyone who reads our respective edits Commons and en:wiki contributions since mid-October can see who is or isn't pursuing a grudge.

Mike Halterman, as you know I never use IRC. The log of your statements there has circulated. In future please seek both sides of a story before opining in such a way in a venue where a person is unable to defend him- or herself.

This post has been edited by Wiki Witch of the West:

[Somey]

A few days before the chat log you have read, a different chat occurred where he boasted that his onsite outbursts had indeed been staged throughout his arbitration appeals...

Yikes! So maybe there really is some reason to believe he's faking the illness, either completely or almost completely... There goes my newly-coined term, then. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unhappy.gif)

That still leaves one question, though (if you don't mind my asking): How did the "Mignon Nevada" article initially come about? Did you ask him to write it, or did he volunteer and/or insist, with or without your suggesting that it should be written? Or maybe it was more complicated than that...?

[Wiki Witch of the West]

A few days before the chat log you have read, a different chat occurred where he boasted that his onsite outbursts had indeed been staged throughout his arbitration appeals...

Yikes! So maybe there really is some reason to believe he's faking the illness, either completely or almost completely... There goes my newly-coined term, then. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unhappy.gif)

That still leaves one question, though (if you don't mind my asking): How did the "Mignon Nevada" article initially come about? Did you ask him to write it, or did he volunteer and/or insist, with or without your suggesting that it should be written? Or maybe it was more complicated than that...?

Shoemaker's Holiday and I often collaborated on content. You'll see quite a few conominations among our featured pictures and featured sounds and DYK articles. He has a real gift for restoring engravings and etchings; I tend to work better with color. We also work in different software and there are certain things which Photoshop can do more readily than GIMP.

So for the better part of two years it was very casual "Hey, could you help out with this?" or "Here's something that seems right up your alley." If the shared portion of the work was substantial enough we would conominate. Occasionally we would tug each other's sleeve to balance out the flow, with stuff each of us could do ourselves but didn't really feel fired up for.

Mignon Nevada was a restoration I did mainly to illustrate the Ophelia article. Note to self: do not restore images before checking thoroughly on how to use it. The Ophelia article had a lot of other images. Mignon Nevada was a notable opera singer who was in enough sources to justify an article, but I kind of burned out on her while doing the restoration. So it was along the lines of Dude, I've helped you with a lot of your projects lately. Shoemaker's Holiday had done a lot of other work with opera and with Shakespeare; this wasn't a detour much outside his interests. And handing someone sources and asking them to start an article isn't normally deemed improper.