User:Sideshow Bob Roberts/DraftRfC

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Raggz (talk · contribs · logs)

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Statement of the dispute

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Description

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Raggz persistently violates WP:V and WP:OR by making controversial claims without citing sources. Many of these claims are clearly false. When challenged, he invariably fails to provide a source to support his claims, and demands that other editors provide evidence that his claims are wrong.
He adds material which is factually incorrect, often because he hasn't made the effort to understand the subject matter. When challenged he fails to engage or correct his edits, instead diverting the discussion in another direction.
He systematically deletes material critical of the US government, often for patently false reasons.
He fails to assume good faith and makes false accusations about other editors.

Desired outcome

This is a summary written by users who have initiated the request for comment. It should spell out exactly what the changes they'd like to see in the user, or what questions of behavior should be the focus.

Raggz has the potential to become a valuable contributor, but only if he understands and embraces Wikipedia's core policies. We would like him to:

stop inserting controversial claims into articles unless he can cite a reliable, published source that explicitly agrees with him. When one of his claims is challenged, he should immediately either remove the claim or cite a reliable source.
try to understand the subject matter more thoroughly before making edits and if he is unsure about the facts of a matter, to raise it on the talk page before editing the article.
When other editors claim that he has violated WP:V or WP:OR and revert an edit, he should resolve the issue on the appropriate discussion page and reach a consensus before restoring his edit.
When deleting material critical of the US government, he should clearly explain his actions on the talk page.
assume good faith, and stop accusing those who disagree with him of "POV warring". He must never make a negative claim about another editor without providing a diff.

Evidence of disputed behavior

(Provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.)

There's far too much evidence to include here so I'll restrict this to just a few examples from articles where I've encountered Raggz — International Criminal Court, United States and the International Criminal Court, The International Criminal Court and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, 2003 invasion of Iraq, Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and Legality of the Iraq War‎ — though it appears from his talk page that this pattern of behaviour extends to other subjects as well.

Evidence of violations of WP:V and WP:OR

1. Raggz has repeatedly claimed in various articles, without ever citing a source that agrees with him, that the United Nations Security Council's decision to not act in regard to the 2003 invasion "definitively settles" the question of whether the invasion was illegal (for example, [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10])

It has been repeatedly explained to Raggz that this is false, that it is original research, and that there is a consensus against making this claim. (See, for example, this discussion, from the "Massive Update" section down.)

He has ignored these detailed explanations, and he attempts to use his theory to silence all debate about the legality of the invasion: he has claimed on the talk page that Wikipedia's discussion about the legality of the war "only requires one paragraph"[11] and he has repeatedly removed the statement that "A dispute exists over the legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq" [12] [13] [14].

At one point in the discussion, he falsely claimed that "we have consensus that the legality of the war is a long-settled issue" [15]. When it was pointed out that there was a consensus against including his claim and that Raggz was "the only one who has voiced disagreement with this consensus", he claimed a "consensus of one" [16] [17], cited WP:NOT#DEMOCRACY as an excuse to ignore the consensus [18] [19] and carried on inserting his false claim into various articles.

2. He has repeatedly claimed that UN personnel were accused of war crimes (or other crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC) and that the ICC prosecutor was ignoring this. [20], [21], [22], [23], [24]

3. He has claimed in various articles that the ICC Prosecutor has stated that all war crimes committed during the invasion of Iraq were "properly investigated and prosecuted by national governments". [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30]. He states, incorrectly and without citing a source, that "The report of the ICC Prosecutor that there were no known crimes related to the Iraq war to prosecute disapointed the radical left". [31], [32]

4. He has made dozens of false claims in articles about the International Criminal Court, without ever citing a source that agrees with him. For example:

"there are no appeals"[33]
"there are no nations who oppose the ICC"[34]
The US Government "lacks constitutional authority" to enter into the Rome Statute[35]
Human Rights Watch "tacitly admits" that the Rome Statute violates Americans' basic constitutional rights[36]
"No constitutional authority rests with any organ of the US Government to enter into a treaty that would permit any judge to try any American, Americans may not be tried, except before juries"[37]
"There is no doubt that these measures [bilateral immunity agreements] are fully legal" [38]
"Many ICC advocates expect the ICC to soon exercise "universal jurisdiction"" [39]
"The three political appointees acting as judges have no checks or balances upon them beyond their own interpretation of law" [40]
The ICC Prosecutor appears to be pursuing a political agenda in Iraq [41]
The ICC Prosecutor "exceeded his authority" in Iraq [42]

(He has also made countless false claims on the ICC talk page — for example, that Clinton's signature of the Rome Statute and Al Gore's signature of the Kyoto Protocol were legally "equivalent to forged signatures"[43]; that the US never signed the Rome Statute [44]; that "The Government of the United States has always been a strong supporter of the ICC and continues to be."[45]; that "There never was anything to investigate, but the ICC prosecutor was politically pressured into a pointless investigation" into British war crimes in Iraq[46]; "It is a fact that without proper legal cause, an ICC criminal investigation was launched"[47]; "I can offer evidence showing that the ICC undertook an investigation for political rather than legal cause"[48]; "The UN has impunity under international criminal law in fact, if not in theory."[49].)

5. When he does cite sources, he frequently misrepresents them. For example, he has repeatedly claimed that "Judge Philippe Kirsch, President of the International Criminal Court states that "balancing the disclosure of evidence necessary for the defence to prepare its case with the need to redact information to protect victims and witnesses" remains an ongoing challenge." [50], [51], [52]. According to Raggz's source, this is what Kirsch actually said: "One of the significant areas of activity has been balancing the disclosure of evidence necessary for the defence to prepare its case with the need to redact information to protect victims and witnesses" [53] (PDF).

6. He refers to the claim that the White House misrepresented the Iraq WMD intelligence as a "conspiracy theory" [54]

Evidence of POV deletions

Raggz systematically deletes material he perceives to be critical of the United States government, often for patently false reasons. A few examples:

He removed a link to this New York Times article about a State Department memo, calling it an "unreliable citation".
He deleted a well-sourced opinion by Benjamin B. Ferencz (a highly respected Nuremberg prosecutor) that President Bush should be prosecuted for waging an aggressive war, with the edit summary "OR deletes, fact updates, cites".
He deleted the claim that "Former CIA officials have stated that the White House knew before the invasion that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, but had decided to attack Iraq and continue to use the WMD story as a false pretext for launching the war", saying it was "not supported by the citation" (read the source here).
From the section called "Countries supporting and opposing the invasion", he deleted the statement that "Leading traditional allies of the U.S. who had supported Security Council Resolution 1441, France, Germany and Russia, emerged as a united front opposed to the U.S.-led invasion, urging that the UN weapons inspectors be given time to complete their work", calling it "unsupported extraneous material". As a result of this edit, the section only discussed the countries that supported the invasion.
He deleted a paragraph consisting entirely of direct quotes from a single source, calling it "original research"
He deleted well-sourced statements by Human Rights Watch and US Ambassador David Scheffer, claiming they were not reliable sources "for lack of fact checking". He repeatedly deleted Ambassador Scheffer's quote, falsely claiming that "the citation is used out of context and introductory sentence is partially incorrect factually" [55] (read the source here and decide whether the quote was taken out of context).

Evidence of false accusations about other editors

Raggz has made many false claims about me, Sideshow Bob Roberts.

He claims I'm a "POV warrior" [56], I remove content to protect my POV [57] [58], my POV blinds me [59], I'm "on a POV campaign" [60], I use citations incorrectly "to advance a pov", [61], and I use the "citation strategy" to do my "pov warrior thing" [62]. (I've defended myself against the charge that I'm on a POV campaign [63] but he has totally ignored my comment and continues to repeat the accusation.)

Just because I disagree with his edits, he presumes I opposed the Iraq war and wanted the UN Security Council to take some sort of action ("the UNSC ruled against you" [64]). He believes that I disagree with the UN Security Council's decision [65] and suggests that this is because "your side lost. When one side loses in court, they rarely agree with the court, do they?" [66]

He frequently misrepresents what I say. For example, when I called one of his theories "nonsense", he replied that "Calling the UN Charter "nonsense" will not work" [67]. He claims that "Side Show Bob suggests that the Security Council has not decided to ignore the 2003 invasion" [68] and "quoting the UN Charter is an appropriate source in regard to what the UN Charter says, despite the claims of Side Show Bob otherwise" [69]

He claims that I said I was following him around [70] and I revert without communication [71]. He claims I'm confused by the law [72] and I don't understand the policies I cite [73]. At one point, he imagined I'd agreed to make an edit. I replied that I had no idea what he was talking about and that this was "yet another case of you completely inventing things I'm supposed to have said", and he accused me of a "memory lapse" [74]

Applicable policies and guidelines

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Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

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Response

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Outside view

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Discussion

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