User:Commodore Sloat/RfA Statement

Statement by Commodore Sloat

First, Biophys has completely misstated the dispute at hand. This is a content dispute over Biophys' insertion of original research into two articles -- Operation Sarindar and Communist terrorism. In both cases I have objected and have removed the original research -- a synthesis of unrelated quotes that are strung together to make a political point. Every time I deleted material I explained the deletion in the edit summaries and in talk; Biophys has refused to engage those arguments other than to say that I am wrong and that I am deleting "sourced information." He has also gone through some extremely deceptive acts during these content disputes, such as falsely legitimizing his actions by blaming them on other users who have not participated in the page in months. Another example is his undoing of days of edits by another user, blaming his action on unspecified "disruptive editing" by me. He has also deleted a "totally disputed" tag from the Communist terrorism article over and over, against Wikipedia policy, without responding at all to the very clear arguments made in talk justifying the tag. At one point he replaced the tag with the NPOV tag and deceptively claimed that he was "including the tag, not mentioning that he was deleting the tag that more accurately stated the dispute. Another time he added more original research to the article stating in the edit summary only "OK let's leave your tag," not indicating at all that he had made other changes to the article. He also obscured the fact that in the very same edit he went ahead and deleted two other tags on sections of the article. This has been pretty typical of my interactions with Biophys, whom I have caught numerous times in outright lies on these issues. I don't think we would have this dispute at all if he would participate honestly in the discussions and not treat wikipedia as a battleground. But I also don't see how he has tried to resolve this dispute - he has simply edit warred and threatened to take me to arbcom - he has not tried mediation or a content RFC or any other form of WP:DR. I believe he is using my previous disputes with other users - most of which have been resolved - in order to escalate this to arbcom.

Second, User:Armon should not be included as a party to this dispute. He has not been on either of the articles at hand. It is true I have had disputes with Armon in the past, but I have no current conflicts with him and I do not see how he is involved in this dispute at all. Currently Armon and I have avoided interacting with each other and that has worked out fine. There may be interactions between us in the future but I for one have resolved to approach such interactions amicably and with every assumption of good faith. I simply don't see how he is involved in this dispute.

Third, Biophys "confirmation that other dispute steps have been tried" is completely deceptive. He mentions the RfC by Bigglove but does not mention that it was about an entirely different dispute. He also does not mention that the RfC led to an amicable and satisfactory solution. I acknowledged and owned up to poor behavior on my part and apologized completely and unconditionally for that behavior, letting everyone know publicly that even though I thought the person who brought the RfC was wrong about other things, that my behavior was uncalled for. It took some discussion to get him to accept my apology, but eventually the person who brought the RfC called for it to be closed and it was closed by consensus. Contrary to Biophys' claim, I think the RfC is an excellent example of dispute resolution being tried and actually working! But, more to the point, that RfC was an attempt to resolve a completely different dispute.

His second example of dispute resolution -- the failed [CEM] attempt between myself and Armon -- is likewise a completely separate dispute. I don't understand why Biophys is dragging Armon into this, since Biophys has never been part of any of the disputes I had with Armon and vice versa (except in one case where Biophys appeared out of the blue to revert my changes; more on that one later). It is true that that particular CEM did not work out, and I was very upset that it did not. I tried to be very conciliatory during the CEM, but Armon refused to accept any compromise offered by me. One of the admins who got involved in the mediation attempt -- someone who shares Armon's POV on the content dispute, I might add -- pointed out his failure to engage constructively. It is truly unfortunate that that CEM did not work out, but it is entirely deceptive to make that dispute part of the current one I am having with Biophys on those two articles.

His third example is likewise completely bogus - a RfC that was filed against me in June 2006. That particular RfC was judged to be utterly without any merit by virtually every participant, including many who had been on the opposite side of arguments with me. It was quite embarrassing for the person who filed the RfC, as I recall, and the few issues that were brought up in that RfC were resolved there. As with the other examples, for Biophys to cite this as an example of DR failing is ridiculous.

Fourth, Biophys list of 6 examples of incivility is also deceptive. I will not defend my actions in each one - I am the first to admit I lose my temper sometimes, and it is easy for someone to go through my three years of constructive edits to pull out some uncivil comments. But they are not relevant to any dispute I have with Biophys, and they are misrepresented here. Let's take them one by one: His first link is to my expression of frustration at another user who had been stalking my edits and appeared to be taking pleasure in reverting them. That occurred in June 2006, well over a year ago. Since that time I have agreed to a truce with that user and have been nothing but civil to him in the recent past. To bring up behavior from that long ago on a current RfAr seems petty and unfair. To try to enlist this user into this RfA seems particularly out of line.

Biophys' second link deserves some discussion, since it involves a more recent dispute that was actually with Biophys. It may explain why he is so mad at me and treats me like an enemy. Biophys came on an AN/I report that I had filed about Armon and blatantly lied about his own actions on another page. Biophys had appeared out of the blue on a page that I was involved in an edit conflict on with Armon only to revert my changes, not just once, not just twice, but three times. It felt like WP:STALK to me, so I wrote him a polite note to his talk page asking him to avoid what looks like harassment and inviting him to contribute to the discussion page if he felt like participating. In response he blatantly lied, stating that he had only made one revert on the page. I called him on this deception and he continued to lie, claiming that he only had one revert on the page and that it was a revert of an anonymous user. He continued to insist on this untruth in spite of the fact that I had provided the three links to show that he was wrong. The comment that he links to was my final expression of frustration at his lying -- did he really expect that he could simply make false statements in the face of the evidence? In any case, as I said in the comment, I was electing not to pursue the matter. It is very odd that he would cite evidence of his own lies in an RfA against me here.

Biophys' third link is an even more perplexing one. Here he pulls a comment that I made over two years ago -- back in April 2005 -- on a page totally unrelated to the present disputes. It is true I used the "F" word in the post and should not have done so. I was responding to a user who was making a completely illogical argument. I will add that I was later part of an RfC about that user's conduct and that user was reprimanded for his conduct during those discussions. I just don't see how this thirty month old dispute is relevant at all to the current discussion.

Biophys' fourth link is also two years old -- from October 2005. It involves a dispute with another user who had gone to numerous pages all over Wikipedia inserting known disinformation that I and other users would not allow on the page Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. I described that user's actions only slightly hyperbolically as a "little jihad" because I felt he was turning Wikipedia into a battleground by spreading disinformation all over Wikipedia. It was not meant as a personal attack.

His fifth link is to a more recent comment I made to Armon. I may have worded the comment itself forthrightly but I don't think it was uncivil and I think it accurately described the situation at hand. I also don't see how it is relevant here.

Next, he links to my recent dispute with Bigglove, the user who filed the RfC against me. The comment he links to was inappropriate and unfortunate, and I apologized unconditionally for it in the RfC and the RfC was resolved in a satisfactory manner. I don't see any evidence that it is connected to my dispute with Biophys.

Finally, he links to a comment I made in response to a user who told me to "fuck myself" and compared me to Joseph Goebbels. He said it sounded like I was making a personal attack when in fact I was quoting the personal attack that someone else had made against me and calmly noting that such behavior was unhelpful. Saying that it is an example of me personally attacking anyone is entirely deceptive.

After that list of links Biophys has a list of other claims against me; let's take them each in turn:

(1) He describes a content dispute and notes that I thought he was wikistalking when, during the content dispute, he went to another article and his only action there was to revert my most recent changes. That is the very definition of Wikistalking. I reported him when he did it again on another article. He falsely claims that "Administrators decided that his ANI report was unfounded" but in fact the only administrator to comment stated that while it wasn't stalking, "I would recommend participants not to follow the other party's list of contributions" and urged dispute resolution. To date Biophys has taken neither piece of advice.

(2) He describes the RfC that was resolved and then claims I entered a "permanent edit war" with Armon (which is not going on so it cannot be permanent) and that I decided to "take care" of Biophys. I don't know what any of this means but it sounds a little paranoid.

(3.1) he says I tried to delete his comment from the RfC. I did not. I believe another user moved it to where it should have been more appropriately, but the claim that I was removing his comments appears to be false. He provides no link to establish that so I'm not sure what he's referring to. (struck out because Biophys deleted this point from his RfA after I responded to it; he kept editing the RfA after I responded, making it a moving target).

(3.2) He links to my comments on his talk page regarding his comments about planning future RfCs against me. I said that we should be trying to collaborate, and that we should try to work together in good faith. He calls the comments inflammatory but I do not believe that they are. I did restate the problems I had with Biophys frequent use of original research in Wikipedia, but I don't see how that is objectionable. Biophys then simply removed my comments from his page rather than engage the discussion; when I restored them another user asked me not to do that, so I didn't restore them again.

(3.3) He accuses me of "massive deletions of perfectly sourced text" on Communist terrorism. What I deleted was WP:SYN violations, and I explained every deletion in the edit summaries very carefully, and tried to open a discussion on talk. He refused to discuss anything other than to accuse me of deleting sourced text. He ignored all of the arguments about WP:SYN and chose instead to escalate this dispute to RfA. This is really a content dispute as far as I can tell. My argument here is that the sources he cites are not about an entity called "Communist terrorism"; they are about communists and about terrorists but they are not specifically about "communist terrorism." I suggested changing the name of the article to "Communism and terrorism" which would better address some of the issues he wants a soapbox for, but he refused that. I think he is wrong but I don't see how this rises to the level of arbitration.

(3.4) he says he tried to talk me into avoiding each others' edits but "the situation quickly escalated." What actually happened was he came to my talk page and threatened to file this RfA if I did not lay off of the two articles. That to me smacks of ownership feelings towards the pages in question. I sought advice from an admin User:Durova who has knowledge of some of these disputes and whose judgement I trust. She said I should consider arbitration as well, so I posted a note indicating I was willing to do so if we felt other avenues of WP:DR would not work. I do not feel that other avenues have been tried in this case, but if the arb committee feels that arbitration is appropriate, here we are. Biophys' claim that the situation escalated is wrong, however; he is the one who made the threat on my page and then made the report -- if it escalated it is because he escalated it.

csloat 04:47, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Note - after I posted the above, Biophys made a change to his statement claiming that "the situation quickly escalated, so that another administrator had to interfere." This claim is another example of Biophys distortion of reality. Durova came to that page and added her comments after I had solicited advice on her talk page. And she did not come to "interfere" with an "escalating" situation; she came to make a polite suggestion. csloat 07:22, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Addendum -- I'd like to ask Biophys to stop changing his opening statement here. I responded above to the statement he had originally presented. His changing of the statement makes it a moving target; I am hesitant to reply to the new information he has presented lest he change the statement yet again. I am going to be out of town for a few days and won't have much time to respond yet again to whatever else he adds; if this does go to arbitration we can deal with those issues then. However, I must object strenuously to his claim that "I just thought that behavior of Cslot is a community problem, based on my own experience and looking at his constant struggle with other users." I object to his generalization of this dispute beyond any limits. Bringing up comments I made 2 years ago as evidence of some kind of "behavior problem" is unfair and ridiculous. What specific behavior of mine has he observed in my recent interactions with him and other users that justifies an RfA? What precisely does he seek to arbitrate? I am happy to participate in any form of dispute resolution that might result in improvement in the encyclopedia or the community climate among editors. But I am not sure what to do with vague generalizations about my behavior that seem based only on the fact that I used the "F" word two years ago in an unrelated dispute with another user. csloat 21:26, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

On Biophys' "case study" -- here he discusses our content dispute over the page Communist terrorism, whose name I objected to as a vague neologism that could refer to any of the following: (1) terrorists who are ideologically communist, (2) terrorists who are funded by communist powers, (3) state terror practiced by communist regimes. In all of the literature cited on the page there is not a single definition of the neologism "communist terrorism" that suggests it is any one, two, or all three of these items. The page is a huge WP:SYN violation in that it strings together examples of each of the three different subjects to make a political point. This is not an appropriate thing for an encyclopedia to do, which is why we have a policy against original research. The various deletions he is complaining about -- each one of which was explained in a separate edit summary before the edit war began -- all relate to this problem. In some cases they never mentioned the neologism "communist terrorism"; in some cases they were simply quotes about terrorism, or about communism, or about terrorism by someone who is vaguely identified as communist; in one case the quote had no source at all and no attempt to reference a source (Marx); and in another case the quote was not relevant to anything discussed on the page (Dostoevsky). Unfortunately after I painstakingly made several independent edits with summaries on each one, and another user made similar edits, Biophys came and reverted all of both of our changes in one fell swoop. That is typical in edit wars but I mention it because he is complaining here that I was the one making all those changes in a single edit -- whereas the fact is I and Smb made several independent consecutive changes with an edit summary for each one, whereas Biophys is the one who mass reverted, never bothering to respond to any of the edit summaries.

Biophys says I provided no arguments on the talk page but in fact I did, and he never responded to them (see here for example).

He then makes an outrageously false claim about my being blocked for changing the heading of a section on a talk page -- an action I never knew was blockable before I did it. Biophys states: "He came back from the block, and started doing exactly the same immediately" -- this is an outright lie. I learned my lesson from the block and have not changed anyone else's heading on a talk page since then. For him to make such claims is outrageous.

He then complains about my edits to Operation Sarindar and Southern California InFocus -- however, in both cases, my edits and my explanations for those edits have withstood the test of time. The Operation Sarindar edits were well explained on talk, and Biophys has refused to respond to the WP:SYN problem. He simply returns to the page every few weeks and mass reverts, changing the name of the article to make a point, and blames his actions on two editors who haven't participated on the page in months. What is especially outrageous about his claim here is his claim that I was reverting another user, W. Frank, when anyone can plainly see that his diff link is deceptive. It was not W. Frank's edit that I objected to and tried to revert; it was this series of edits by Biophys, which introduced several WP:SYN violations into the text and deleted dispute template tags when there were still valid disputes on the table. This was discussed extensively in talk, and Biophys withdrew completely from the actual discussion, choosing only to edit war rather than respond to the arguments there.

The Southern California InFocus content dispute is a very different case that Biophys was not involved in, except that he came there to revert me three times without ever participating in talk. I can certainly discuss that page too if ArbCom thinks it is necessary, but I do not see how it is related to this dispute other than that it provided more evidence of Biophys stalking my edits to revert my changes and then lying about his edit-warring. (For proof of the latter claims, see the paragraph above that begins "Biophys' second link"...).