Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Commodore Sloat-Biophys/Evidence

Create your own section to provide evidence in, and do not edit anyone else's section. Keep your evidence to a maximum of 1000 words and 100 diffs. Evidence longer than this will be refactored or removed entirely.

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Create your own section and do not edit in anybody else's section. Please limit your main evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs and keep responses to other evidence as short as possible. A short, concise presentation will be more effective; posting evidence longer than 1000 words will not help you make your point. Over-long evidence that is not exceptionally easy to understand (like tables) will be trimmed to size or, in extreme cases, simply removed by the Clerks without warning - this could result in your important points being lost, so don't let it happen. Stay focused on the issues raised in the initial statements and on diffs which illustrate relevant behavior.

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Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as Arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.

He did it by targeting at least twelve WP contributors instead of criticizing their contributions:

1. Silverback April 2005: "For fuck's sake." [1]
2. User:Ed Poor June 2005: "you keep pretending to be an idiot" [2] [3]
3. User:RonCram: October 2005 "RonCram's little jihad " [4] June 2006 "Don't play dumb." [5]
4. User:TDC: June 2006 "what the fuck did that conversation have to do with you? You are the one stalking." [6] July 2006 "cut out the ridiculous personal attacks" [7] July 2006 "stop lying about me" [8]
5. User:Martinp23 December 2006: "I identified three prior personal attacks" [9]
6. User:Isarig: October 2006 "I was trying to save you further embarrassment" [10] October 2006 "stop making shit up" [11] December 2006 [12] May 2007 [13] August 2007 "Your stalking goes way beyond the border of civility." [14]
7. User:Elizmr February 2007 "stop playing dumb" [15]
8. User:Karl_Meier June 2007 "be careful what you accuse me of" [16]
9. User:Armon: February 2007 Your claim that I am being disruptive is both false and hypocritical. [17] August 2007 "You were the one edit warring." [18] August 2007 "Armon is simply lying" [19]
10. User:Humus_sapiens August 2007 "POV warriors are bent on turning this article into a battleground" ..."I agree, Humus -- you are one of them" [20]
11. User:Bigglove August 2007 "you need to stop the nonsense... You don't like me, fine. You don't like Muslims, fine. ... I'm sorry I have pissed you off..." [21]
12. User:Biophys September 2007: "Are you really going to keep lying about this?" [22]
13. Everyone (August 2007): "it just pisses me off when they blatantly lie to get their way" [23]

I included some relatively old links here together with recent ones, because the behavior of Cslaot apparently did not change over the last two years, in spite of two RfC about him (by Bigglove and TDC) and failed enforced mediation with Armon. Of course, Csloat is well aware of relevant WP policies, since he suggests that other editors should be blocked for disruptive editing: [24] (see end of his reply), and he reminds others to be polite [25]

I do not know what problems Csloat had with other eleven users, but his actions in my case included several phases (in chronological order).

Phase 1. An editorial conflict We had a serious disagreement over article Operation Sarindar. Csloat did not like this article and nominated it twice for deletion, instead of following normal DR process. When the article was kept, he "won" by deleting large segments of text with all supporting reliable sources, such as a scholarly book by Yossef Bodansky [26].

Phase 2. Chasing me away. Once I tried to edit Criticism of Bill O'Reilly, but Csloat warned me that he will report me to ANI for wikistalking: [27], so I stayed away of any articles he edited. Next time, I restored a more neutral version of article The Intelligence Summit (because it is linked to Operation Sarindar), and Csloat immediately reported me as a "wikistalker" to WP:ANI: [28]. Administrator commented that his ANI report was unfounded [29], and recommended to stay away of Csloat, which I did but Csloat did not, as one can see from "Phase 3" below. Clearly, Csloat successfully chased me away instead of discussing my contributions in articles .

Phase 3. Escalation. An RfC was filed about Csloat by user Bigglove [30]. I made a couple of comments in this RfC [31]. In response, Csloat apparently decided that it is not enough to chase me away, and started following me personally and my edits.

First, he came to my talk page with inflammatory claims [32] [33] [34]. I asked him several times to stop, but he continued reinserting offensive claims to my talk page, even after my attempt to delete them [35]. He stopped only after intervention of an administrator: [36].

Second. I came on ANI noticeboard to make a comment about User:Armon who was a subject of the ANI post. Csloat attacked me instead of discussing Armon [37]

Third, he came to edit article Communist terrorism that I was working with. He never edited this article before. He started making massive deletions of relevant and perfectly sourced text [38], ignoring all objections by others [39] [40], and finally, nominated this article for AfD, as he did previously twice with article Operation Sarindar.

Finally, I asked Csloat not to follow my edits on Russian politics and history, since this is far from his interests and expertise [41], but he refused, and I had to bring this case here [42].

I had significant interaction with Csloat only in two articles. In the both cases he followed the same three-step "algorithm": (1) nominating an article for deletion, instead of following normal DR procedures; (2) when AfD fails, removing all undesirable referenced views from the article (including books by notable experts on the subject); (3) keeping deletions of sourced views by sustained RR warring.

One of these two articles was Communist terrorism created by user Mamalujo.

Step 1. Csloat nominates this article for deletion.

Step 2. When AfD was soundly rejected [43], he resorted to deletion of sourced materials. In a single edit [44]. Csloat deleted numerous mainstream views on the Communist terrorism taken from reliable secondary sources (books by the best experts on the subject). He deleted views of (1) Ion Mihai Pacepa; (2) Professor Martin Rudner; (3) Robert Conquest (4) Karl Kautsky; (5) Edvard Radzinsky; (6) Richard Pipes, (7) Karl Marx.

Step 3. RR warring against consensus. Csoat continued deletion of the sourced text even during this RfA request [45]. He thinks he can delete whatever he wants by making unsubstantiated claims that all the sources he deleted (see above) are WP:FRINGE, or that citing such sources is WP:SYN. Csloat provided no valid arguments at the talk page to justify his actions. He did this against consensus, since Hardyplants, Mamalujo and me made their disagreement clear at the talk page or by reverting the unjustified deletions of text. He did this after a warning: [46]. He has been already blocked for 24 hours for offensive modifications of other user comments - at the talk page of this article [47] [48]. He came back from the block and continued the "battle", regardless to this standing RfA request about him.

Another article was Operation Sarindar created by me.

Step 1. Csloat nominates it for deletion [49]. The result was "keep" (21 April 2007). In a couple of days (on April 26), he nominates it for deletion again. The result was "keep" again [50].

Step 2. Deletion of referenced views [51] (note complete deletion of sourced views of Yossef Bodansky) in spite of my objections [52].

Step 3. WP:DE. In this particular case I renamed this article to its present name, which was a mistake. Two users, Turgidson and Piotrus, came and noted at the talk page that article should be renamed back, with some modifications (see comment by Piotrus here, for example [53]). Therefore, I tried to rename the article and modify the content accordingly. But Csloat reverted me several times [54], clearly against consensus. When I objected, Csloat replied: "do not blame your actions on other editors" (meaning Piotrus and Turgidson) [55].

One can compare version deleted by Csloat [56] and current (Sloat/SmB) versions [57] of this article. The current version is one prepared by Csloat. I did not try any WP:DR procedures here, because this article describes a minor controversy. Let it be Cloat's version - I do not care. This RfA is not about any content disagreements.

A similar behavior pattern can be also seen in other articles [58] [59] [60] [61]. In the last example he was involved in RR warring against several users (hence against consensus) and "won" the "battle" by asking to protect the article.

In his reply below Csloat does not admit any serious wrongdoings. He said that some users were "liars" or "trolls" and therefore deserved his uncivility. In other cases, he thinks his behavior was appropriate, even though he clearly targeted contributors rather than their contributions. He said that many incidents are "closed" and "inadmissible". How come? Did he apologize to the users? Were the apologies accepted? Yes, he recently apologized to user Bigglove, but only to conduct sustained RR warring with the same Bigglove [62] [63] and with other users [64] [65] just a few weeks later (note how persistently he deletes "Criticism" section from the same article). What kind of apology is that? Two RfC did not help and an enforced mediation failed.

Before discussing the specific charges raised here I'd like to note that I am now changing my response yet again due to the fact that Biophys keeps changing his statement. A week ago he made the false claim that he had finished editing this section. Since then he has made many substantive changes, as well as changes in the headings, order, and wording of his "evidence" in a manner that undermines this entire process by shifting the ground of discussion after I had already spent quite a bit of time writing my response. I ask that admins take this into account when evaluating the statements here.

This RfAr is the result of improper escalation by Biophys of a content dispute. There was no need for this and he never tried the usual steps of dispute resolution. He took advantage of the fact that I have had conflicts with other users in order to "win" his content dispute on the other articles. This is the definition of WP:BATTLE, and should not be overlooked by administrators.

Biophys cites 12 people above I have supposedly been uncivil to (and then adds #13 "everyone"). Many of these examples are 1-2 years old and most of them represent disputes that have since been resolved. None of them suggests a need for any extreme measures to discipline me or suggests that I am some kind of threat to Wikipedia. I will not defend every post I've ever made to talk - 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. And it is fairly evident to anyone who has worked with me over time that I have learned from past mistakes. I believe it is unfair to resurrect comments from a year or two ago and use it as evidence against my actions now. The examples he gives are not relevant to any dispute I have with Biophys, and they are completely misrepresented here:

1. Silverback. Yes, I had a disagreement with him back in April 2005 -- over two years ago -- and used the "f" word. I should not have used the "f" word. I was responding to a user -- Silverback (talk · contribs) -- who was making a completely illogical argument. I will add that I was later part of an RfAr about that user's conduct and that user was reprimanded for his conduct during those discussions (his conduct at the time involved borderline vandalism, deception, and abuse of the RfC process during a conduct RfC that was filed against him prior to the RfAr). I just don't see how this thirty month old dispute is relevant at all to the current discussion. This is not indicative of any current dispute I am involved in.
2. Ed Poor. Biophys links to comments Ed made over two years ago accusing me of personal attacks. As I explained in response to Ed, those comments were not personal attacks. They were a bit heavy-handed, and I don't tend to write in this manner anymore. Ed and I have interacted a few times since then and I think those interactions have been very congenial, even when we have disagreed, so I'm not sure why Biophys is bringing this up.
3. RonCram. I had a dispute with this user too. I was not especially uncivil and this is also 2 years old. RonCram 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. And again, it is too old to have any relevance, as it is not in any way similar to anything going on now.
4. TDC. A very long time ago; another user who took delight in insulting his political enemies. He made false accusations against me and numerous other personal attacks, and, over a year ago, I grew very frustrated and lashed back at him. Picking such instances out of context for an RfAr a year later is a little ridiculous. This user had been stalking my edits and appeared to be taking pleasure in reverting them. That occurred in June 2006, well over a year ago. I was responding to incivility from that user, and I regret to say that I sunk to his level. 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.
5. Martinp23. This is just a lie from Biophys. There is no attack on Martinp23 in the link; there is only a discussion of Isarig's personal attacks against me. Totally invalid evidence for anything here.
6. Isarig. A known sockpuppeteer and troll who took delight in provoking me. It is true that I had uncivil interactions with him; in each case, however, I stuck to the facts and was only reacting to his attacks (which included stalking as well as extreme personal attacks). We have since learned that Isarig was running sockpuppets the whole time, using them to evade Wikipedia rules. The sockpuppeteering led to a rather lenient set of restrictions on his behavior plus mentorship; he has since been found to have violated even those lenient restrictions and has been blocked. I don't think my interactions with Isarig were something to be proud of, but I don't think I personally attacked him and I also don't think it is relevant at all to the situation with Biophys.
7. Elizmr. Long time ago; another user who teamed up with Isarig to provoke me. They were unfortunately successful all too often; I've learned a lot from their attacks on me and I believe I have been much better at staying above that sort of thing in the recent past. That's why this RfAr is so perplexing to me; it's as if Biophys wants me punished for things that happened a long time ago and have been resolved.
8. Karl Meier. Like with the Martinp23 link, Biophys is simply "padding" this here with phony evidence that is totally inapplicable. I was not uncivil to Karl at all. I was complaining about the incivility of another user, whom I quoted. It is a total distortion of the facts to use this as evidence of some kind of incivility by me.
9. Armon. Only one of the three links listed is actually an uncivil claim, and it is one I made amends for a while ago when the RfC was settled. Biophys cites a personal attack on Armon where I accused him of Islamophobia. That was an unfortunate comment that was part of the RfC against me brought by Bigglove. I unconditionally apologized for those comments, acknowledged they were wrong, and agreed not to do it again. The RfC was closed and the matter was settled amicably; the dispute resolution worked. It is really unfair for Biophys to keep bringing these comments up in the current RfAr; they are simply not relevant at all. In addition, I have since publicly announced that I would treat future interactions with Armon with assumptions of good faith (a courtesy he has yet to return).
10. Humus Sapiens. Biophys cites my comment agreeing with a statement by Humus about "non-compromising POV warriors" (Humus' words). If there is a personal attack there, it was Humus who attacked, not me; my comment may have been a bit snide but it was not a personal attack. Again, this so-called "evidence" is totally inapplicable -- it is not a personal attack and Biophys appears to be padding his case in a totally illegitimate manner.
11. Bigglove. my comment to Bigglove was inappropriate and unfortunate, and I apologized unconditionally for it in the RfC and the RfC was resolved in a satisfactory manner. I think the successful RfC on that matter showed that dispute resolution has worked. It is absurd to bring this up now as evidence against me here; it smacks of double jeopardy.
12. Biophys. I accused him of lying because he was lying. I offered the links to prove it. I was not uncivil about it. There is no personal attack there; just a statement of truth. More on that below.
13. "Everyone". This is nonsense. The edit he links to is me telling Durova that I would rather live and let live than have to continue responding to nonsense allegations every time I try to make an edit. There are no personal attacks there; it is true I point out that Isarig and Armon were lying about their edits -- which they were -- but stating such a fact is not a personal attack. And in the edit I continue on that I would unilaterally back off of the argument on the MEMRI page in order to make peace. I don't understand the problem with this.

His list of 13 supposed victims of my alleged abuse turns out to have very little substance; most of the links are not personal attacks at all and many of them are 1-2 years old and more. Biophys then states "Csloat is well aware of relevant WP policies, since he suggests that other editors should be blocked for disruptive editing: [24] (see end of his reply), and he reminds others to be polite [25]" The first link (numbered 24) is me pointing out disruptive editing by specific users and offering evidence to support my claim. I never said "everybody but me" is disruptive; I simply said those editors were, and I backed up that statement clearly. His second link (numbered 25) was my response to a user who told me to fuck off and compared me to a famous Nazi, and elsewhere threatened to "pound" me. I think my response was extremely polite under the circumstances.

This may explain why Biophys treats me like an enemy and Wikipedia as his battleground. 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 stalking 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 above (his second example of my alleged incivility) 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.

He points out that I accused him of stalking me on the O'Reilly page. Biophys showed up on that page, having never edited it before, and his only action was to revert my changes. He did not say anything in the talk discussion around those particular changes. So, yes, I thought it was stalking, and I warned him to stop.

The second instance of stalking was on the The Intelligence Summit article. He completely misrepresents what happened there. He claims to have "restored a more neutral version" of that page but what he actually did was mass revert several changes that I had made over time, explaining each change in the edit summary (see intermediate links between changes in this diff). His own deceptive summary in the mass revert was "(rv to Mike18xx at 19:09, 18 June 2007. Some changes made by cslot are possibly O'K, but let's discuss them first to find consensus.)," ignoring the fact that I was discussing each of them and that there was an ongoing discussion in talk about the issue. The admin who commented on my AN/I report did not simply dismiss the report as Biophys claims; the admin stated, "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.

A third instance of stalking occurred recently; it was clear that he was emboldened by filing this RfAr to stalk my edits further in order to fish for things he could complain about. He dug up a controversy about a page that an administrator deleted about a year ago because of WP:BLP concerns that I had brought to the attention of WT:BLP. He posted a note to the administrator's page criticizing that decision and virtually demanding that the page be restored (even though its relevant content had been merged to Juan Cole about a year ago). I have Centrx's talk page on my watchlist, so when I saw his note, I responded, politely explaining what happened and why the page was deleted, and asking him why he was suddenly interested in this page. He responded that he had decided to "research your contributions in connection with arbcom request" -- in other words, he was stalking my old edits and controversies I was involved in a year ago to try to fish for evidence to make a case against me. I suggested that such action was inappropriate, and invited him to the Juan Cole page if he had any meaningful information about Juan Cole that he thought should be added. He replied that he wasn't technically stalking me, and I replied to this claim pointing out that he is technically correct that not every instance of following a user's edits is "stalking," and that his actions were in a grey area, but that in this case I had asked him to stop following my edits around and that an admin had specifically asked him to stop as well, and that permissable edit-following per WP:STALK probably does not include fishing for controversy when you get mad at another user so you can make a case at arbcom. He ignored those points and reiterated his false ultimatum. During this discussion, Armon went to Biophys' talk page to explain that his actions were unhelpful, and in the process made several false claims about my actions. I responded to those claims and reminded Armon that I had announced publicly my intention of assuming good faith when dealing with Armon and requesting that he try to do the same with me. Biophys completely mischaracterizes this entire series of events as some kind of personal attack by me, yet he hasn't offered any evidence of any such personal attack.

Biophys suggests that our content dispute on Communist terrorism -- where he has defended multiple WP:SYN violations -- is evidence of battleground but he doesn't explain this. He falsely accuses me of mass deleting there but I explained every single deletion in the edit summaries and made multiple comments on the talk page. 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).

Biophys says that he "tried to negotiate our problems with Csloat [41], but it did not help [42]." This is false. What actually happened was he came to my talk page and threatened to file this RfAr if I did not lay off of the two articles where we were having content disputes. That to me again smacks of ownership feelings towards the pages in question. Biophys states that an "uninvolved administrator had to intervene." That is also false. Durova came to that page and added her comments after I had solicited advice on her talk page. She is not an "uninvolved admin"; she mediated the CEM with Armon and I have been in touch with her about other disputes; her participation here was directly solicited by me because I trust her judgement. And she did not come to "intervene"; she came to make a polite suggestion.

Biophys is actually engaged in WP:POT here. He has treated the disputes over his original research as battlegrounds, and in several instances shown signs of ownership of the articles involved. I am not the only editor to notice this; for an example, note Parsecboy's comment and the ensuing discussion. On Operation Sarindar, he has given up completely on bothering to justify his position; he just comes back every week or two and mass reverts the article blaming "disruptive editing by csloat." In that particular instance he also reverted a host of changes with clear edit summaries from another user that had taken place in between my last edits and Biophys' mass revert. To explain overruling all that work from another, Biophys explained in his edit summary that he "could not finish" his version of the article due to unspecified "disruptive editing" by me. Another example -- in an unrelated discussion, Biophys attacked me by claiming that I had "made a permanent mess only from one of the articles that I have created." This sort of action again smacks of WP:OWN issues.

I objected to the name "Communist terrorism" 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.

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. He has periodically returned to edit war (as I noted above) without participating in talk, and then he moves the page, blaming his move on something he thinks other users have endorsed (even though those users have not participated on the page in months).

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 discussion, see above).

This is what I think this RfAr comes down to. Since the overwhelming majority of so-called evidence that Biophys has brought against me is both old and inapplicable, the only real question regarding my behavior is whether or not I am willing to work with other users civilly in the future. The RfAr process is not meant to be punitive, and Biophys' attempt to make it punitive is a very substantive problem here.

He claims that my responses do not admit any serious wrongdoings. That is not true. My response has been that Biophys' alleged evidence is mostly inaccurate and in some cases wildly distorted or simply made up. Nevertheless, there have been problems with some of my comments in talk over the past 3 years, and I have acknowledged them. But I don't think these problems show that I am unwilling to improve -- in fact, I have been far more willing to acknowledge wrongdoing and alter my behavior than many editors Biophys cites. Biophys claims that I said other users "deserved my incivility." I defy him to provide a link to such a statement from me. I never said anyone "deserved" incivility; I said that I sometimes unfortunately got dragged down to the level of someone who was provoking me. These things are in the past however and I have several times announced my intention publicly to WP:AGF even when dealing with such editors.

Biophys again brings up the RfC with bigglove as evidence of some need for arbitration now. But that 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. I have not repeated the behavior since then. He says that I edit warred against Bigglove and other users but that is not relevant at all to the issue that was at stake in the RfC. The edit conflict I had with Bigglove has also been resolved, so I am not sure what the issue is here. The RfC was not about edit warring. The RfC was about specific insulting comments that I should never have typed. I apologized (somewhat profusely) for making the comments and the RfC was settled. The fact that a content dispute continued after the RfC was settled is not evidence of any malfeasance on my part -- as everyone knows, one person cannot edit war on their own. I deleted material from that article that did not meet WP:RS, and those edits have withstood the test of time. He then says "Two RfC did not help and an enforced mediation did not help." However, neither RfC or the CEM had anything to do with this content dispute. Biophys is really stretching to turn content disputes into a conduct issue. The only thing I am guilty of in the "evidence" he points to is insisting that original research be kept off of Wikipedia. csloat 17:36, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am adding a note about the CEM that Durova attempted to mediate between Armon and myself. Both Durova and Biophys have brought this up as some kind of evidence of the failure of dispute resolution and the need for some kind of punitive action. I don't think that CEM is applicable to the current situation at all -- it focused on a different content dispute on a different article. But I want to stress that the CEM failed because the other party stalled it and eventually left without attempting to resolve it. Another admin even noted his failure to engage constructively. It did not help that the mediator was absent for most of the proceedings. But rather than asking arbcom to sort through who said what in the CEM, let me stress that I would welcome the opportunity to resume mediation with any willing admin.

Durova has added a statement to this page. She does not actually present any evidence here; she only claims that this arbitration is the culmination of longstanding disputes. I respectfully disagree. The problem is that Biophys is taking advantage of longstanding disputes I have had with other users. My dispute with Biophys is very different from the disputes of the past that led to CEM with Armon. And the main complaints raised here - that I have personally attacked people -- are complaints that have been resolved already. Particularly since the RfC with bigglove, I have meticulously avoided personal attacks, even in situations where I have been personally attacked myself. It is very unfair of Biophys to bring in links from years ago and from disputes with other users as some kind of evidence against me -- it's totally inapplicable, as I have shown above. Durova may believe that there are disputes between myself and other users that belong in arbitration, but the relevance of those disputes to Biophys' attempts to fill Wikipedia with original research essays is unclear.

I have interacted with User:Biophys and User:Commodore Sloat on pages Operation Sarindar and Communist terrorism in recent weeks, having arrived at each using the what links here function. In both instances, I found Biophys' behaviour, not CSloat's, to be disruptive.

On September 9, over a two-and-a-half hour period, I made some twenty-five edits to the aforementioned page. This involved searching for, finding, and inserting sources where there were not any [66][67]; tagging expired links so requesting active ones [68]; giving unique identifiers to several footnotes [69][70][71][72]; removing repetitive statements [73]; and making several other helpful edits. [74] On September 30, Biophys reverted all of these changes and more, bizarrely stating in his edit summary: "restoring older version that was under construction. I could not finish because of disruptive editing by csloat". [75] In fact, CSloat had only made three edits over this period, whereas I had made twenty-eight. Biophys had taken ownership of the page.

Biophys has also twice renamed Operation Sarindar to Russia and Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, citing a stale and outdated agreement, yet ignoring a fresh consensus to merge it elsewhere [76][77] (partly, WMD theories in the aftermath of the 2003 Iraq war‎).

I do hope Arbitrators will examine this construct closely, and Biophys' thinly sourced contributions elsewhere.

Update: And as this episode is moving to close, Biophys restores the Operation Sarindar / Russia and Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq controversy material. Biophys owns the page. There's no stopping him. [78] smb 08:25, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here too, in the present, CSloat's editing has been quite reasonable. His objections are expressed clearly on the talk page, and he provides informative and accurate edit summaries. The same cannot be said for Biophys, who has thus far failed to respond in a substantive manner to the stated objections, particularly WP:SYN.

To this extent I'm not sure why this case has been brought. A number of intermediary steps appear to have been ignored and skipped.

There may be issues with User:Commodore_Sloat's behaviour, but they sure don't come out in the evidence presented here. I watched in astonishment when he was taken to RfC with an "Accusation of Islamophobia" for saying "you don't like Muslims, fine". He'd apologised for "any offence caused" by this trivial misdemeanour, but was being hauled over the coals for it anyway. As best I could tell, csloat's edit "Southern California InFocus is biggest Muslim newspaper in California" was perfectly proper, and the objections indeed smacked of Islamophobia. I detect the same thing is happening again, editors who have content disputes with csloat are abusing process to get their own way. In particular, I see no evidence he's "targetted editors" as claimed. I've been to the discussion page on Operation Sarindar, where it is alleged that csloat is "defending his turf", and I see nothing like that, csloat is only one of several editors opposing what Biophys is trying to do. (If I've misunderstood anything, please notify me at my Talk, I'm quite happy to make corrections if I'm wrong). PR^talk 08:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It has been nearly one calendar year since the Commodore Sloat-related conflicts first came to my attention. Due to the generally high intellectual level of discourse I postponed an arbitration recommendation as long as possible. This situation was one of the things I had in mind when I originally proposed community enforceable mediation. The precise names involved have changed somewhat, but the disputes have been consistent and have ranged over a series of articles. While I wish to maintain neurality toward the content portion of this dispute, the bottom line is established editors should set a harmonious example rather than a contentious one for the site's newcomers. This is one of the situations that ArbCom is uniquely equipped to resolve. Durova^Charge! 02:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Having met this user a few times before, it was of course not particularly surprising to see him at work at [79]. Biophys wholeheartedly believes that the KGB have taken over Russia through the personage of Vladimir Putin. It is his perfect right to believe that, but he should not allow that personal view to permeate the articles he is writing. At times, I even think that he is treating the opinions of any contributor, whether Westerner or Russian who does not believe his theory as WP:FRINGE, and that is unacceptable.

Biophys has on many occasions stated that well-source material should not be deleted. He does this because he knows most of his opponents consider his theories at least controversial, and are using WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE to tone the articles down. However, he himself has no problem deleting sourced material presented by others in mass-scale deletion rounds, which often make it difficult to restore the material. [80]--Paul Pieniezny 14:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.