Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Tothwolf

Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk) Case clerks: MBisanz (Talk) & Dougweller (Talk) Drafting arbitrator: Stephen Bain (Talk)

Additional statements

The following statements were offered whilst this case was in the requests for arbitration stage,. They are provided here for ease of reference, and should not be changed. Dougweller (talk) 06:30, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Jéské Couriano

I will not say anything on this matter aside from this - Theserialcomma and Tothwolf have a history stretching back a few months; I've tried to amass enough diffs in a timely enough fashion for Tothwolf to use in any RFC/U, but after Theserialcomma butted into discussions I was having with a blocked user, I was obliged to try and disengage. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Stop... at a WHAMMY!!)} 14:28, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Question by uninvolved Spartaz

Has it now become a tradition to skip the RFC and go straight to arbitration these days? Seems to be a worrying recent trend & is not for the good. Spartaz ^Humbug! 15:27, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Elen of the Roads

I have seen every one of those go by at ANI and concur that the ANI noticeboard was entirely unsuited as a venue to untangling the mess. My perception is that the root cause is a different view of the importance/notability of a class of topics, and the problem has mushroomed because all the editors have preferred to make things personal, rather than hold discussions with the possibility of a compromise view. Given this, and given all of the editors outright refusal to engage in any form of DR, I would have thought the other option available is to block all of them until such time as they agree to (a) stop accusing each other of the seven deadly sins and (b) agree to some form of mediation regarding the topic group. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:51, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

@ Miami33139

There are a lot more diffs in this case than that one, so your question appears entirely pointless. If all of you could for a moment put aside your accusations of each other, and establish what is the basis of your disagreement about editing the encyclopaedia (because there is one, and I would say it's to do with how notable some topics are, and how they should be handled), this can be settled with an RFC on the subject, and all of you (a) agreeing to abide by it, and (b) agreeing not to flame each other all the time. ArbCom won't look at who is right or wrong with regard to content. They will only look at your behaviour, and from what I've seen will have no option but to sanction the lot of you.Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:03, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved SoWhy

The ANI reports demonstrates two reasons why arbitration is the most reasonable next step:

1. The users named by the filing party have demonstrated repeatedly that they are completely unwilling to consider that they might be incorrect. While RFC has not been tried here, we already know that those editors are unwilling to reflect on their conduct voluntarily from their comments in both ANI reports.
2. The community has demonstrated their lack of willingness to resolve the situation in those ANI reports as well and there is no reason to believe that they will act different if an RFC is attempted. The first ANI report was even taken to its own subpage where it was left and ignored afterwards. I tried to raise the matter again but no one commented further. The second ANI report demonstrates an equal lack of willingness to handle the situation.

For those reasons, I think RFC, while not tried before, would be unproductive in this special case since it requires a certain level of willingness to communicate with the opposite parties and to reflect on one's behavior. I cannot see such a willingness to exist in this case no matter how much good faith I am willing to assume, so I would urge ArbCom to take this case to resolve this conflict which the community demonstrated to be unable to resolve. Regards SoWhy 22:44, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

@ Stephen Bain

Per WP:RFAR/G#PRIOR, a request can be directly accepted without prior steps of dispute resolution if the filing party explains why those steps would likely be pointless and fruitful. As Jehochman has explained in it's opening statement, the community has already demonstrated that it's unwilling and/or unable to resolve the dispute themselves. Furthermore, all involved editors have demonstrated their unwillingness to talk to each other or to consider that they might be incorrect in any way. But all steps of dispute resolution before arbitration require that the editors involved are willing to resolve the dispute or at least that they are willing to listen to neutral third-parties. Since Jehochman has laid out why other steps prior to arbitration would be insufficient to resolve the problem (as have I), I think it's inappropriate to imply that directly requesting arbitration is based on the laziness of the filing party. Regards SoWhy 13:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Ncmvocalist

I'm technically inactive and I haven't looked at this request, but despite this, I want to note 2 things that may be relevant. (1) It is difficult to conduct a community discussion due to the fashion in which Tothwolf structures some of his comments. Regardless of the outcome of this request, can someone please please PLEASE teach/tell/make Tothwolf to habitually sign directly after his comment and get out of the habit of putting a signature 2 lines later? It's possibly fine during a statement, but it's impossibly distracting (and off-putting) during threaded discussions, be it at AN, ANI or talk pages, and there's only so much I'm ready to do in formatting at such discussions. (2) See Sept. ANI - particularly section 1.8.1 onwards. The discussion did not reach a conclusion as users kept bringing up more things later. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:57, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Juliancolton

I encourage ArbCom to accept this case. I've followed the activity related to the dispute over recent weeks and though I've remained entirely uninvolved, to the best of my knowledge, I don't see how an RFC will help in this case. Certain parties have violated behavioral restrictions on several occasions, and once a debate fails to resolve itself following several ANI threads, a review by the committee is likely the best way forward. Essentially agree with SoWhy and a couple others. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 04:09, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved editor Blaxthos who had past interaction with Tothwolf

While not a party to this particular action in any form or fashion, I would like to add that I personally have been the victim of off-wiki stalking and harassment from Tothwolf based on an article content disagreement. I have witnessed him attempt to votestack and canvass, and have received threatening emails and messenger communications from him and his IRC pals. I also received notes from several notes from other uninvolved editors warning me not to get involved with Tothwolf at all due to their experiences with his harassment. While none of this is evidence of anything germane to this proceeding, it should serve as a cautionary tale when assessing the proper level of good faith and benefit of the doubt accorded to Tothwolf. //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 19:05, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved author Alainr345 who had past interaction with Tothwolf

While not a party to this particular action in any form or fashion, I would like to add that I personally have had no bad experiences with Tothwolf in the past.
--  Alain  R 3 4 5 
^{Techno-Wiki-Geek} 21:53, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Log of clerk actions

Any actions undertaken by a committee clerk in his or her official capacity may be logged here, for the purposes of reference. Clerks will remove discussions which are unhelpful (especially those that are not relevant to the case scope) and will sanction editors whose conduct is disruptive. Dougweller (talk) 06:45, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Collapsed or deleted discussions

• Editors cautioned

User:Tothwolf was warned against making edits that appear to be outing and accusations of paid editing by User:Dougweller
User:Miami33139 and User:Tothwolf were both warned not to revert each other's edits by cleark User:MBisanz Dougweller (talk) 07:10, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Editors banned from case