Global ban for Abd?, Gotta stop that POV-pushing Options

[Abd]

JzG at AN, the usual

Some of the usual usual, but I'd noticed before that T. Canens knew the difference between a block and a ban, and he points it out. JzG will try to get a ban declared, that's his history. Not that it matters.

JzG, however, has been the long-term POV-pusher here, that's clear. EnergyNeutral was, indeed, my sock. Demonstrating how I'd edit if not for the ban. Middle-of-the-road, actually. JzG archived and collapsed a discussion that was started by others, in which I'd merely commented, as if it were mine. EnergyNeutral was cooperating with Brian Josephson, a Nobel laureate in physics. By comparison, JzG has a friend who is a scientist. And he's 100% convinced that he's right. (I.e., that what his friend told him years ago is The Truth, which it might even have been, but you have to have some background to understand the issues.) He thinks he's talking about me.

(EnergyNeutral was created for just what I wrote on the EN user page, because of what I saw happening at EnergyCatalyzer, which is either the biggest fraud ever to hit the field of cold fusion, or it's the real thing, and .... the real experts are saying, "Damn! We can't tell, this is either a huge fraud, or Rossi Has Done It." Lying was not involved.) EN "pushed" for reporting what is in reliable sources, only, and added highly skeptical material. Brian Josephson had been active there, that's how he became involved. Off-wiki, he's known as a supporter of cold fusion research, and so have at least two other Nobel laureates in physics....

Hut 8.5 points to the Wikiversity documentation. Why, thanks, Hut! I tried to point to that on-wiki and it was Revision Deleted. Leading to some, ah, consideration of the boundaries of revision deletion.... The last edit documented there was May 13, and very little has anything to do with ban evasion, but it's all block evasion. EnergyNeutral was ban evasion, almost totally editing in cold fusion.

How was EnergyNeutral identified? Topic interest. Any new editor who isn't pseudoskeptical in the cold fusion area arouses claims of ban evasion, since the road is littered with knowledgeable banned editors. Has Wikipedia ever considered that it's banning scientists and experts? (Most experts simply stay away, to be sure.)

If Wikipedia were sane, the "ban evasion" and "block evasion" would be considered as to the effect. But WP isn't sane. The early block evasion consisted entirely of self-reverted edits, so there was no necessity for further enforcement. But we all know that they don't think that way. It was when they turned to revision deletion and larger range blocks, making it less convenient to IP sock, that I turned to socking. I wonder. With some socks, I've not been so careful, with some, I very much doubt they could find them. EnergyNeutral was very obvious as a suspect, and I didn't take any care about OS and browser details, so Coren did not have to work hard.

Rdfox 76 suggests a global ban, based on alleged "POV-pushing." That's interesting. WTF is Rdfox 76 (T-C-L-K-R-D) ? From the user page, I get the distinct feeling that this guy isn't, er, collaborative. Guns.

Not only can someone be banned on Wikipedia for coming to positive conclusions about cold fusion (which is now a substantial minority position among scientists, possibly a majority opinion among subject matter experts, like the peer reviewers in journals), but we will attempt to make sure that it isn't even studied, as at Wikiversity.

My, my. JzG edits BLP on Brian Josephson. That had been discussed on Talk, and the removal had been suggested by Stanistani, I decided that it was poorly sourced, took it out, and 2over0, normally an editor who'd as soon see me vanished, agreed and praised the removal.

From my supposed POV-pushing, I'd have wanted it mentioned that Brian Josephson is friendly with cold fusion researchers, and, of course, I know it to be a fact, because I know the field and am in close contact with the scientists, including face-to-face contact with some, and, I expect, more coming. I'm having fun, except when I get tempted to look back at Wikipedia.... Someone may notice JzG's restoration of improperly sourced BLP material....

This post has been edited by Abd:

[Abd]

related: Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Abd_user_pages, arbitrator comment:

Comment The arbitration committee has been privately notified of this discussion and we're not aware of any reason why these pages need to be kept for arbitration purposes.
Speaking only for myself regarding these arbitration evidence pages in userspace, the 2010 committee wrote a principle on similar user subpages in cases Race and intelligence and Climate change, and the 2011 committee incorporated a similar remedy into Longevity. --John Vandenberg (chat) 14:41, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Guidance for future editors: if you submit evidence to ArbComm with user space pages, they can, and very possibly will, be later deleted, meaning that the basis and context for the case decision can disappear. I generally used user pages, but sometimes used, instead, reference to history, which can't so easily be deleted. Essentially, the position John takes is based on a technicality: the use of user space for extended evidence instead of ArbComm space or history.

I did notify the committee by email, very briefly. It's clear that John, at least, does not consider transparency of ArbComm decision-making to be "any reason." Solely for making decisions, perhaps, on a matter that they assume they will never revisit -- or they can all see deleted pages -- sure. They don't need to be kept for "arbitration purposes." They need to be kept for transparency, and they don't want transparency, so the position isn't surprising.

At least one of these pages was explicitly mentioned in the rationale for sanctions, I pointed to that. They don't care, confirming my view of ArbComm. There used to be arbitrators who did care, but .... Wikipedia is sliding inexorably into the shit, like a bad toilet dream.

I don't need these files, I have copies of all of them, and the proposed deletion (likely to succeed except for a few files that have been rescued) simply is one more demonstration of what Wikipedia is about.

Here is one of the findings that Vandenberg cites, case Race and intelligence :

Lengthy evidence and sub-pages

9) Longstanding consensus at Miscellany for Deletion is that editors may work up drafts in their userspace for the sole purpose of submitting the material as evidence in arbitration cases. However, after the case closes, the sub-pages should be courtesy-blanked or deleted as they are often perceived as attack pages and serve only to memorialise and perpetuate the dispute. Evidence should properly be submitted only on arbitration pages as it is impossible to ensure that all the parties are aware of all the sub-pages that might have a bearing on them. If the evidence runs over the permitted length, it should not be continued on sub-pages but instead permission should be sought from the drafting arbitrator for an over-length submission.

Passed 9 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

These pages were explicitly linked from my case evidence page: I was facing evidence from a pile of editors, with laundry lists of claims, and responding directly on that page would have made my evidence page totally cumbersome. These pages were all announced there, so the argument about other editors not knowing about them would not apply. In addition, only one editor had complained about the page responding to him, and that page had, indeed, been courtesy-blanked, by me. This finding does not indicate deletion, merely mentions it as a possibility, presumably for pages not actually used, and it wasn't mentioned in the finding that whether or not the page was actually used was even relevant. Vandenberg ignored the page where I stated my post-arbitration intentions, which was then used as an excuse to throw the book at me. (Those stated intentions assumed a mentor, by the way, who would have had to permit anything possibly contentious. What was beyond the pale was that I might even ask.)

They really don't like editors who are thorough and who actually respond to charges, in detail, with evidence. It creates too much work for them, and they never paid any attention to suggestions about how they could easily handle the load, real arbitration clerks, appointed by and responsible to each arbitrator. Structure, the kind of structure that any real-world organization develops naturally to handle the work load. Instead, arbitrators are overwhelmed, but they like it that way, or somebody does.

I'd expect some of the arbitrators, sitting at the time of the case, to actually want this evidence deleted, because it could be used to demonstrate their functional incompetence, should someone care to do that. In that case, RfAr/Abd-William M. Connolley, the drafting arbitrator came up with what seemed to me to be an excellent decision (I was happy with it, even if I disagreed with this or that.) He'd actually read the evidence, I think. Then this was abruptly shoved aside by an arbitrator who obviously Didn't Like It, and the whole tenor of the case shifted to Abd Bad.

This would represent, I believe, arbitrators who were frustrated by the volume of evidence I'd presented, even though there was at least as much evidence presented against me. They wanted to take a short-cut, a common one, and you can see this in the behavior of editors at the AN ban discussion: judge by the number of editors presenting evidence or argument or just opinion, in a certain direction. It's a short-cut that actually works, a lot of the time. But when it fails, it can be a doozy. In particular, this is highly vulnerable to factions, which is what I claimed in the RfAr, to the derision of the cabal I was identifying. That same cabal was later identified, in rough outlines, in the Climate Change arbitration.

This was one of the frustrating aspects of that RfAr for me. I'd explicitly stated that I was not claiming improper collusion, that "cabal," as I used the term, meant informal collaboration, common interest and mutual involvement. So that if A and B are in a conflict, if B and C are "cabal members," frequently backing each other up, C's action blocking A is not cleanly uninvolved. I didn't ask for any sanctions based on this, it would have been unfair, like an ex-post-facto law. But I was still dinged by ArbComm for making the cabal claim without proving improper collusion! All I was doing was pointing to the fact that the editors piling in, in this case, were involved in a host of prior decisions, documented, all on one side. Which happened to be a side contrary to ArbComm's prior decisions....

They simply ignored my disclaimer, and decided based on prior impressions, apparently.

This post has been edited by Abd: