A Scientific Dissent from Wikipedianism, A Crockwork Orange Options

[Derktar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Adm...er:Orangemarlin
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=210232016
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=210231458

I don't know - we have an active contributor to Wikipedia Review apparently editing on behalf of another Wikipedia Review editor (who happens to be a permabanned editor). Not too big a leap at all... Guettarda (talk) 03:59, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

That's right folks, I forgot to mention we re-programmed Krimpet a week or so ago and we are finally putting her to use.

So sorry you had to wander into that mess Krimpet.

[Moulton]

Dave Souza has filed a lengthy and comprehensive presentation of his POV in the current RfAR. A great deal of it impinges on the conflict between the WikiClique on Intelligent Design and several dissenting editors (including myself), especially in the wake of renewed interest in the Picard and Tour BLPs following my appearance on two or three episodes of Not the Wikipedia Weekly (WP:NTWW) and many discussions here on Wikipedia Review.

Dave Souza's presentation is rich with blue links, so I urge interested readers to attend to the on-Wiki original to descend them to the underlying references.

Evidence presented by dave souza

Cla68 added himself to a dispute about the Rosalind Picard article

Having decided to take a self-appointed interest in the "behavior" of some editors, Cla68 inserted himself into a dispute without taking part in any on-wiki discussion or having previously edited the article in question, and added an unnecessary and inflammatory "warning" to the talk page of an editor. He discussed the issues off-Wiki with other editors, making personal attacks and presenting a distorted image of his target editors who he stereotyped as a "group of POV-pushers" using alleged "thuggery", but failed to take any alleged problems through Wikipedia dispute resolution procedures which he knows are available.

Moulton caused considerable difficulty at the Rosalind Picard article by a tendentious refusal to work within Wikipedia policies,[21] and was indefinitely blocked. A stable version of the article agreed by all "sides" was reached on 8 December 2007,[22] but Moulton continued his campaign for changes at Wikipedia Review.

On 4 May 2008 Krimpet deleted a previously agreed sentence as "overly tangential and coatracky".[23] Moulton had objected to the sentence in earlier discussions. Krimpet contributes to Wikipedia Review but had not come to the article by a request from Moulton (according to Raul654 at AN/I and Moulton at WR.WR3).

When Orangemarlin reverted the edit as a "whitewash",[24] Krimpet reverted him and asked him for an explanation on his talk page, a post which Orangemarlin deleted using Twinkle.[25] There were successive article reversions by Krimpet, Orangemarlin, Nakon and Raul654, who then started discussions on the article talk page.[26] At 01:57 MZMcBride opened a new section on Orangemarlin's talk page announcing the removal of Twinkle from Orangemarlin's monobook.js page.[27] Discussion on this issue culminated in MZMcBride restoring Twinkle at 02:44, and demanding that "the personal attacks stop now".

At 02.22 Krimpet took the issue to AN/I without discussing it on the article talk page (AN/I archive) then at 04:10 advised Orangemarlin that she now saw the merits of leaving in the sentence she had deleted.[28]

Cla68, who had made no edits to the Picard article or talk page, joined the discussions at 04:15 by issuing what he called a Twinkle mis-use: formal warning on the preexisting "Twinkle mis-use" section on Orangemarlin's talk page, "OrangeMarlin, I haven't been involved in any way with this article in question, so I think I can ojectively tell you that you're behavior in this incident, including the incivility, misuse of Twinkle, and refusal to respond to dispute resolution, is out of line and unnaceptable. Some of it has been discussed here. Please consider this a formal warning." This appeared close under MZMcBride's statement closing the issue.[29] At 04:22 Cla68 reported this in his first edit to the AN/I discussion, saying "Hopefully, that and this thread will influence OM to correct his behavior."

A Wikipedia Review thread commented on these developments, and on the evening of 5 May a contributor asked if Picard had reported it to the press, suggesting it could be "another Seigenthaler scandal". At 6:28am, 6th May 2008, Cla68 posted that the Picard article was now "fairly NPOV... thanks to Krimpet and the others who intervened", saying "The anti-ID group is making a mistake with their thuggery.." At 7:40am Moulton stated that he had described it to Brian Bergstein of the Associated Press.WR3 At 11:38pm, 6th May 2008, Cla68 posted "I wonder if OrangeMarlin, Jim62sch, and their friends are aware how close they are to having their real names in the press in a story about a group of POV-pushers on Wikipedia? They probably aren't aware, as they appear to be amazingly myopic.", introducing the idea of outing editors' real names.WR4

Rapid discussion at the Picard article, with useful new sources and various trial drafts, culminated with Guettarda consolidating a draft at 1:10, 8 May 2008, which achieved consensus by 15.59.[30]

At 17:33 that day Guettarda commented on Cla68's talk page that the Wikipedia Review post read like a threat to out people, and appeared "rather beyond the pale." At 00:40, 9 May 2008, Cla68 cross-posted the discussion on Guettarda's talk page, with his reply pointing at a "group of editors' behavior" as bringing "uninvolved editors and admins like me" in to varying degrees. (it should be noted that Cla68 is not an admin)[31] Cla68 then "clarified his remarks" in a post on Wikipedia Review, denying threatening to out anyone but commenting that a journalist has been told of the "antics" of "this group of POV-pushers" and would not "find it too difficult to learn of their real names", saying "the Wikipedia editors who created this issue with their problematic behavior have only themselves to blame."WR6 My advice to Cla68 at 08:31 was that before throwing around accusations about "POV pushing" he should be familiar with the background and circumstances of the case, and should follow dispute resolution procedures rather than getting involved in off-wiki sniping[32] At "6:19am" on the Wikipedia Review thread Cla68 made it clear that he was not fully familiar with what had happened, and had not looked at the ANI thread or the ArbCom.[WR6]

Cla68 suggested outing editors in off-wiki discussions

Despite being well aware of a previous ruling about off-wiki harassment and any suggestion of exposing identities which might disrupt or harm an editor's off-Wikipedia life, Cla68 introduced the idea of exposing the identities of editors, specifically mentioning two against whom he had held a grudge since January 2008, and when questioned, while claiming that he had no control over what the press chooses to report on, insisted that he would continue to intervene if he perceived any "conduct problems", saying "I hope that the editors in question are willing and able to correct their behavior on their own." He claimed that he had been referring to an earlier post by Moulton, but in that post Moulton had merely said that he had tried unsuccessfully to get one journalist to run the story and others might be more interested. There was no suggestion of outing editors until Cla68 posted the idea.

Wikipedia Review provides a forum for discussing Wikipedia articles, policies and editors. It is open to indefinitely blocked former editors such as Moulton who promotes his views that core Wikipedia policies are dysfunctional.[33] Discussions about one editor preceded exposure of his identity, in the case Moulton referred to on 6th May 2008, 8:00am, when stating "For the record, I had no direct contact with Krimpet, who evidently gleaned the story from postings here. When she made the edits to Picard's bio at noon on Sunday, I frankly didn't know who she was, having failed to remember that she and I had posted similar views in the NewYorkBrad thread."WR3 Wikipedia relies on civil co-operation between editors with differing views to reach a mutually acceptable outcome, but discussions on Wikipedia Review divisively characterise groups, such as the post by Sxeptomaniac on 6th May 2008 at 10:53pm, which says "the anti-ID crew" "couldn't have an absolute victory at Picard's article". It refers to Moulton having had a valid reason for being upset with the articles' condition,WR4 but the Rosalind Picard article was stable from Sxeptomaniac's edit of 00:57, 8 December 2007, until Krimpet's edit of 15:42, 4 May 2008.[34] From what I have seen, it seems likely that Krimpet was genuinely persuaded by Moulton's posts and the gossip at Wikipedia Review that the Picard article was unfair, and when she looked at it deleted a sentence she thought was coatracking without first reading the talk page and realising that it was a carefully negotiated consensus version.

Cla68 has never edited the Picard article or talk page. He joined Wikipedia Review on 18 April 2008.[WR4] To justify his raising the idea of "OrangeMarlin, Jim62sch, and their friends" having their real names in the press, he referred to his having left some comments in the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jim62sch case [in January 2008] and indicated that his motive was getting these editors to change their behavior with statements such as "I hope that the editors in question are willing and able to correct their behavior on their own."[35] The final decision in that case included the following principles –

* 3) The making of express or implied threats against another editor is a form of harassment and is prohibited. In particular, any suggestion of seeking to disrupt or harm an editor's off-Wikipedia life (including his or her employment) in retaliation for his or her editing on Wikipedia is unacceptable.
* 4) A user's conduct outside of Wikipedia is generally not subject to Wikipedia policies or sanctions. This includes actions such as sending private e-mails or commenting on Wikipedia and its users in other forums. However, in truly extraordinary circumstances, a user who engages in egregiously disruptive off-wiki conduct endangering the project and its participants may be subject to sanction. An example is a user whose off-wiki activities directly threaten to damage another user's real-world life or employment in retaliation for his or her editing.[36]

On his talk page, Cla68 continued to defend his interventions regarding others' behavior up to his post of 00:14, 10 May 2008, "I'm sorry to see you trying to put lipstick on this situation. Like I said, if there aren't any more conduct problems (edit warring, canvassing, etc) related to ID articles, then I leave it alone."[37]

Discussion continued on Cla68's talk page, but he didn't comment until 06:09, 13 May 2008, "I think I explained it already, but in case anyone reads this thread and can't find my explanation, my remarks on Wikipedia Review were in reference to this post [17], not a threat to out anyone. I apologize for not choosing my words more carefully."[38]" The link is to Moulton's post of 7:40am, 6th May 2008, in which Moulton said that he had failed to interest Bergstein in the story, but his guess was that "Cade Metz or Seth Finkelstein would be more likely to pick this story up." There had been no further discussion of the story getting into the press until Cla68's post of 11:38pm, 6th May 2008, which introduced the idea of outing project ID editors' real names. As shown below, an early post by Moulton included a quotation from a post by Krimpet on an earlier thread which mentioned outing, but this was to express her disquiet at her process rather than to hint at it being used in a dispute over behavior.

Krimpet's evidence alleging bullying by FeloniousMonk

Krimpet describes herself as trying "to fix a coatracky BLP... which focused too much on one event in her life without putting it in context, only to find I'd walked into a landmine of controversy between the WikiProject on Intelligent Design, of which FeloniousMonk was a member, with an indefinitely blocked user, User:Moulton." She describes evidence placed on Moulton's page alleging that he had recruited her as a meatpuppet as "a direct and insulting personal attack".[39] This has also been described in discussion as a "smear".[40]

As shown in my earlier evidence, Moulton was indefinitely blocked due to disruption, particularly on the Rosalind Picard article which Krimpet describes as "a coatracky BLP". His campaign to change that article then moved to Wikipedia Review, and his article there dated April 5, 2008, “So I am disgusted with Wikipedia.”, gives his version of "the problems he encountered improving the Wikipedia biography of colleague Rosalind Picard". The Wikipedia Review thread cited by Cla68 includes a post by Moulton dated 5th May 2008, 5:34am, which quotes a post by Krimpet of 27th April 2008, 7:39pm, in reply to Moulton's remark earlier that day "I would be interested in working constructively with responsible and mature admins — people of the caliber of Doc Glasgow — to devise a mutually agreeable way to solve the festering problems that have produced such a long-running Kafkaesque nightmare for everyone." Krimpet's reply says "This is exactly what I'm hoping to see too - a mutually agreeable solution to the BLP disaster led by trusted, principled folks (and I'm not going to lie and pretend I'm one of them tongue.gif) who can hear concerns from all sides. What's troubling is that this combative eye-for-an-eye outing approach, which just makes much of the WP community less receptive to any reform out of spite, is constantly setting back any hope of fixing things by driving the principled folks away."WR1

When Krimpet first edited the Picard article at 15:42, 4 May 2008,[41] she removed a sentence that had been a stable consensus since 8 December 2007, as edited by Sxeptomaniac.[42] When Orangemarlin reverted her changes at 00:39 as Removed whitewash.using TW,[43] she reverted his edit[44] and opened a section on his talk page summarised as if you have a problem with my revision of the paragraph, please explain your actions in depth,[45] which he later deleted.[46] Had she looked at the article talk page instead of going to Orangemarlin's talk page, she would have seen that it had last been edited by Sxeptomaniac at 00:55, 8 December 2007, with the first section headed Getting a consensus showing amicable discussions between editors holding a wide range of views, clearly not just the alleged "anti-ID group", carefully considering the BLP implications, the need to assess notability and the need to avoid original research. Deletion of the article as insufficiently notable was considered. The most recent section, Undue weight, was started by Sxeptomaniac to question the sentence now under debate, and concluded with Sxeptomaniac saying "I'm not completely convinced that the summary is necessary, as the links to the Discovery Institute and Dissent from Darwinism articles offer quick access to further explanation, but that's a reasonable point to consider." The detailed answer to her question to Orangemarlin was there, but Krimpet did not explain her change on the article talk page.

At 01:40, the same time that Krimpet added her comment to his talk page, Orangemarlin reverted her article revert,[47] and at 01:51 Nakon reverted to Krimpet version, reverted in turn three minutes later by Raul654.[48] who promptly started discussion on the article talk page.[49] Krimpet did not join the discussion on the article talk page or the continuing discussion at Orangemarlin's page, but at 02.22 opened an AN/I discussion accusing Orangemarlin of "tag-teaming" (AN/I archive) and notified Orangemarlin at 02:30. At 04:10 Krimpet joined discussion at Orangemarlin's talk page, and conceded that having discussed matters with Raul654 she now saw the merits of leaving in the sentence she had deleted.[50] On AN/I it was questioned if Krimpet had been asked there by Moulton to make the edit, and at 04:31 Raul654 reported that she had given him an assurance on IRC, which he believed, that this was not how she came by the article. On a Wikipedia Review thread on 6 May Moulton said "For the record, I had no direct contact with Krimpet", though they both "posted similar views in the NewYorkBrad thread."[51]

Thus, Krimpet had been in discussion with Moulton about BLP concerns, and is likely to have been aware of his allegations about problems on the Picard article, but does not seem to have been asked directly by him to make the edit. However, her actions reflect his preferences and showed no signs of paying heed to the consensus discussions on the article talk page. Wikipedia Review clearly acted as a divisive influence in overturning normal collegiate working on Wikipedia. Whether this means that Moulton was contravening Wikipedia:Sock puppetry#Meatpuppets I leave others to judge, but clearly it caused misunderstandings and disruption.

Krimpet also refers to what she calls "a slew off harrowing insults from WikiProject ID members". The link is to a thread on her tolk opened by Guettarda at 02:38, 5 May, who was the only WikiProject ID member taking part in the discussion, against a slew of Krimpet's friends. His opening query "Why not use the article's talk page before AN/I? Isn't that the way we do it here?" and later suspicions when "one WR editor shows up out of the blue and makes the edits a banned WR editor was making" appear reasonable in light of the evidence, but the part Krimpet has played on Wikipedia Review is not known to me. The effect of her intervention was obviously disruptive, and experienced editors should know to check any assertions made in that forum carefully before basing edits here on them, as well as explaining their edits on article talk pages.

Misrepresentations in evidence presented by User:B

The evidence presented by User:B [52] opens [opened] with a misrepresentation of the Arbcom ruling on which the arguments it presents are based: B says [said] "FeloniousMonk was previously admonished by arbcom not to use the administrative tools in content areas where he is involved", but the ruling says "FeloniousMonk is admonished not to use his administrative tools or give warnings in content disputes in which he is involved."[53] [B has now corrected the cite from the ruling, but still makes the following claim] It follows that B's claim that "FM's admin actions in the last year relate to the Intelligent Design topic area in some way" is irrelevant, the question is as to whether FM was involved in the specific content disputes. From a quick look, some of B's examples show misrepresentations and blatant inaccuracies:

* The article protections on 13 May to Rosalind Picard and James Tour are [were] presented with the claim that not a single editor who would be affected by semi-protection had edited the articles, but both articles had just been edited to match Moulton's agenda,[54][55] by new user:PlatanusOccidentalis who subsequently admitted editing for Moulton,[56] and was later blocked indefinitely for trolling and abusing multiple accounts by Jayjg.[57] [B now asserts that "FM had no way of knowing that at the time", but FM had correctly assessed the situation and warned the new user as well as taking minimal action to avoid disruption from further meatpuppets.]

* "4 May 2008 - Indefinite block of an IP" fails to note that the IP had already been blocked twice for ‎Personal attacks or harassment and disruptive editing, and that FM offered on the user talk page to unblock if a commitment was given to abide by behaviour policies.[58] [I am glad to note that B no longer alleges that this is abuse of the tools. It's a matter of opinion as to whether or not it was a correct call.]

* The Blocks of Schlafly section neglects to mention that Schlafly had a long history of COI violations while refusing to co-operate with other editors, as is obvious from a brief look at Talk:Phyllis Schlafly, and provides no evidence that FM was involved in the specific content disputes. [B has left his assertions unchanged: it should be noted that Schlafly has been repeatedly warned about COI violations,[59][60][61] but has chosen to dismiss warnings and has refused to co-operate with other editors.[62] ]

* "21 September 2007 - Indefinite block of Ferrylodge (talk · contribs), a block which a previous arbitration held was inappropriate." is flatly wrong – the linked arbitration opened on 15 October 2007, and closed on 29 November 2007. [B now shows the correct sequence: the block was make on the basis of "Broad support for ban at WP:CSN", and was subsequently appealed to Arbcom which reached the decision that the ban was invalid due to lack of an appropriate degree of discussion and consensus building, but imposed an indefinite editing restriction on Ferrylodge]

It is clear that there are competing interpretations of the evidence, and competing theories of intent, especially regarding the question of whether Cla68 had been making a plausible scientific prediction of the likelihood of press interest in this case, or an express threat to personally summon the press if the adversarial editors in the WikiClique on Intelligent Design failed to retreat from their aggressive tactics in silencing, intimidating, and marginalizing editors unsympathetic to their POV.