Wikipedia:AMA Requests for Assistance/Requests/December 2006/rob77

Case Filed On: 15:21, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedian filing request:

• rob77 (talk · contribs)

Other Wikipedians this pertains to:

• khaosworks (talk · contribs)

Wikipedia pages this pertains to:

• Whoniverse (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Questions:

Have you read the AMA FAQ?

• Answer: Yes

How would you describe the nature of this dispute? (policy violation, content dispute, personal attack, other)

• Answer: Content dispute, administrator refusing to respond to reasoned argument and abusing administrator status by reverting edits he disapproves of which are extremely pertinent to the article itself.

What methods of Dispute Resolution have you tried so far? If you can, please provide wikilinks so that the Advocate looking over this case can see what you have done.

• Answer: Have endreavoured to be reasonable on the relevant talkpage, which has only resulted in arrogant dismissal of my point of view.

What do you expect to get from Advocacy?

• Answer: An objective assessment of my point of view rather than the bullying approach being pursued by khaosworks in this matter.

Summary:

I am a fan of Doctor Who, and have contributed on a number of occasions to the "WHoniverse" article. I added a paragraph yesterday which "khaosworks" dismissed out of hand and has deleted on at least two occasions, accusing me of adding "original research" and "trivia" despite the fact that it describes fundamental aspects of the relationships that dominate that universe. I find such an approach from an administrator both breath takingly arrogant and akin to cyber-bullying- surely all wikipedians should be accorded some respect and their point of view taken into consideration, rather than somebody thinking they have carte blanche to delete user contributions which they don't like.

Discussion:

Rob77:

First off, I would like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind.

1. Would you prefer discussing this privately or not?
2. Have you contacted the parties involved and notified them of this request for assistance? (Don't worry: If not, I'll do it.)
3. Other than this incident, have you engaged in an argument or dispute with khaosworks before?
4. From my understanding of this problem, you are making good edits to the article Whoniverse, but the admin Khaosworks is reverting your edits, citing WP:OR and WP:TRIVIA. Is this correct?
5. What is the content you are trying to add into the article?

Feel free to answer as many or as little of these questions as you like. I hope that I can help you and khaosworks come to an agreeable solution. Also, if you don't mind, I would like to see a couple of links showing the reverts. -ŞρІϊţ ۞ ĨήƒϊήίтҰ ^{(тąιк|соήтяївѕ)} 22:39, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Please look your information over before you present it; according to the page history, Khaosworks has only made one revert. No harm done; don't worry. You could also have taken this to RfC. --ŞρІϊţ ۞ ĨήƒϊήίтҰ ^{(тąιк|соήтяївѕ)} 00:02, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Khaosworks:

First off, I would like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind.

1. Would you prefer discussing this privately or not? Either one doesn't particularly matter to me.
2. Have you been involved in past disagreements with this user? The closest was when he tried to upload a non-licensed image a couple of weeks ago.
3. You are justifying your reverts under WP:OR and WP:TRIVIA. Correct? Not exactly, although some of it applies. The edits are not really relevant to a general article about the features of the fictional universe; they are specific to recent events in the television series and have not shown themselves to have any significant impact that they need to be mentioned so specifically. They are out of place, basically.
4. Can you explain how the edits involved were original research? This is the edit in question. You might note the specificity of it to one particular event in one particular episode whose impact has not extended beyond that. You might also note the "remains to be seen" bit when there doesn't seem to be any evidence to show that it might even be mentioned again. Do read the discussion on the talk page to get a flavour of it all.
5. Did your reversion make the article a better one? Obviously I'm going to say yes, because it trims down the fancruft, at least in that area.

Feel free to answer as many or as little of these questions as you like. I hope that I can help you and Rob77 come to an agreeable solution. --ŞρІϊţ ۞ ĨήƒϊήίтҰ ^{(тąιк|соήтяївѕ)} 22:49, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I only note a couple of things:

1. If you glance at the page history, I have reverted the edit in question a total of once. The remaining reverts have been by Zythe (talk • contribs), and everything else I have contributed regarding this edit has been on the talk page, although it appears Zythe and I are of the same opinion on this particular issue. So it's not just me, despite what he might think.
2. As a possible next step in dispute resolution, I did suggest that he solicit for other opinions. He's welcome to file a content RfC if he wants to. But this hardly requires an advocate of any sort. He's not followed any of the standard steps of dispute resolution open to him. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 23:05, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt response. I'll see what to do next. --ŞρІϊţ ۞ ĨήƒϊήίтҰ ^{(тąιк|соήтяївѕ)} 23:29, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Conclusion

Rob77, it has come to my attention that, sadly, you are wrong in the assumption that your two sentences as they are now should be put in the article Whoniverse. First of all, the second sentence implies that the acquirement of the Void Ship by the Daleks is a significant event due to the Void Ship's technology. However, how do we know that it will make any difference at all? You see, we would need a reliable source before assuming that. Without a source, I'm afraid it's classified as [WP:OR|original research]]. So that sentence has to go. Also, I would recommend putting some citations in the first sentence.

However, the purpose of the AMA is not to say, "Person X is right. Person Y is wrong. Good day." The purpose of the AMA is to help involved parties come to an agreement. Now, what I propose as a compromise is that this section be edited and put into the article Dalek, while being left out of Whoniverse. I'd like both of you to comment of this solution; would this be feasible? I can't claim to be a Doctor Who expert, never having watched any of the shows myself. However, after reading some of the articles, it seems that it would work to merge these sentences into Dalek. Do you think this would work? What changes might we need to make? Discuss. --ŞρІϊţ ۞ ĨήƒϊήίтҰ ^{(тąιк|соήтяївѕ)} 00:13, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, if you look under Dalek#History within the show and History of the Daleks#Return of the Daleks and List of Doctor Who vehicles#Void ship, all the verifiable, non-OR info is right there, and in the relevant contexts. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 14:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Followup:

When the case is finished, please take a minute to fill out the following survey:

Did you find the Advocacy process useful?

• Answer:

Did your Advocate handle your case in an appropriate manner?

• Answer:

On a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best), how polite was your Advocate?

• Answer:

On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective do you feel your Advocate was in solving the problem?

• Answer:

On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective do you feel the Advocacy process is altogether?

• Answer:

If there were one thing that you would like to see different in the Advocacy process, what would it be?

• Answer:

If you were to deal with this dispute again, what would you do differently, if anything?

• Answer:

AMA Information

Case Status: open

Advocate Status:

• Case taken by Split_Infinity (talk · contribs) at 22:27, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Hiya, No I haven't. I haven't come across khaosworks before, but I object to his high-handed editorial manner. The edits I was proposing are shown in this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Whoniverse&action=history

which were an expansion and contextualization of the article in question. Khaosworks took it upon himself to criticise the content and delete the proposed change en masse.