Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 04:23, 15 June 2008

MartinPhi restricted

Moved from WP:ANI - thread over 50k - D.M.N. (talk)

See: User talk:Vassyana#A user you have dealt with previously. Martinphi (talk · contribs) has shown himself unable to disengage from ScienceApologist (talk · contribs) of his own accord. For glaring example of the problem, see User_talk:Vassyana/Archive009#SA and User_talk:Vassyana/Archive009#Again. It's obvious, that intentionally or not, Martin treats reports about SA as his chance to get one up in "the war". As such, Martinphi is prohibited from injecting himself into reports and conversations about ScienceApologist unless it directly relates to actions taken towards or against him, or directly relates to articles in which they are both currently involved. To prohibit circumvention of this restriction, his is further prohibited from newly inserting himself into content and policy discussions where ScienceApologist is previously involved. If Martin has not participated in several weeks or some months in a topic, rejoining the discussion to counter SA will be considered "newly inserting himself". Enough is enough already. Vassyana (talk) 10:36, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The restriction is logged on the ArbCom case page, and Martinphi has been informed. Vassyana (talk) 10:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Martinphi posted a response on my talk page, to which I responded. Vassyana (talk) 20:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Vassyana has put me under a restriction which amounts to a near complete ban from paranormal articles, and which gives ScienceApologist a completely free hand to do with them as he likes. I am asking for your input, as this is otherwise the complete end of my editing on Misplaced Pages. Here is the link

For details on why it is actually a ban, see this section. ——Martin ☎ Ψ Φ—— 22:50, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Martin, but I hardly think that you're objectively or accurately describing either the effect of this ban on you, or ScienceApologist's effect on the encyclopedia. Reports of Misplaced Pages's demise are greatly exaggerated. Also, I think someone who specifically admitted that he was editing WP:CIVIL a while ago in order to add a list of "actionable" words that you took from ScienceApologist and other people you didn't like,(Foor full details, see: Misplaced Pages:RFAR#Request_to_amend_prior_case_Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration.2FMartinphi-ScienceApologist I think you're on damn shaky ground. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 22:59, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

My comments on Vassyana's talk page on why it is actually an effective topic ban:

• "Not currently involved". Your restriction doesn't come into play yet. The problematic scenario would be if you made no edits to the articles in your watchlist for several weeks or months, and then ScienceApologist makes edits you feel strongly against. Then you're not allowed to edit it, because you'd be "injecting" yourself. Or if you took a wikibreak for any considerable length of time. That's when it'd suck for you and you could consider yourself effectively topic-banned.

• Or rather, as worded, you can edit content without restriction, but you can't participate in discussing the content.

The restriction (as worded) is essentially a "gag" order telling Martinphi he's not allowed to talk anywhere ScienceApologist decides to talk, provided Martinphi hasn't talked there in awhile. In other words, if ScienceApologist simply waits a few weeks after Martinphi comments, Martinphi is no longer allowed to talk there until ScienceApologist decides not to talk for a period of time, after which Martinphi is allowed to talk about anything but what ScienceApologist was talking about. Considering this is supposed to apply to policy discussions as well, might as well ban Martinphi because that's what this restriction does for anyplace SA decides to make a remark.

• Simple fix would be to change the restriction to discussions on noticeboards regarding ScienceApologist, but not directly involving you or a topic you are both editing. It's the restriction on discussing content that effectively topic-bans you.

--Nealparr 23:46, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I feel it might be helpful to clarify the possible reasons for the restrictions placed recently on MartinPhi and to clearly delineate past behavior from present behavior. Although, I can understand the level of frustration bred by this situation, at this point only clear delineation can provide solutions for right now, today.

• My understanding was that this restriction came about as a result of this. . Since Martin vehemently denies that this was directed at Science Apologist, and if Martin is anything he’s honest even to his own detriment, and since on reading the diff I also can see no reason to feel that this was directed at SA, consideration might be given to having neutral admins. look at the diff, and adding their comments/ judgments to those of Vassyana.

• If the restriction is for ongoing disruption I would like to suggest that in my recent experience on the Remote Viewing article, for example, Martin has handled the situation over there with calm and civility. I have no desire to comment on any other editor on that article but it may worth looking at the exchange between editors. . I am not sure that a restriction should be placed on an editor for past violations assuming there are any, and if that is the case, when there are no present violations.

• If restrictions are to be placed on Martin for past behavior and violations I would suggest that such restriction be evenly meted out to SA. Removing Martin from discussions he and SA are jointly editing, or trying to edit, will adversely affect the balance of many of the articles, since these editors often represent the opposite ends of the neutral scale. This dance has been ongoing for a long time, and it most certainly takes two to Tango.

• If restrictions are truly placed to prevent further confrontational situations, then both parties should be restricted; otherwise, another set of equally difficult problems will be created.

• Its difficult to see how Martin at this point in time has come to be restricted, with utmost respect for Vassyana's decision, unless past and present have become tangled and mixed together with an added cupful of high levels of frustration all around from everyone involved. I believe it would be worthwhile and fair to the editor involved to clearly untangle and to further assess the situation.(olive (talk) 23:21, 12 June 2008 (UTC))

The admin is obviously uninformed about the situation. SA is a point-of-view editor dedicated to correcting any article that he, in his infinite wisdom, deems to be fringe or contrary to his views of what mainstream science accepts. That means that he will likely show up on any article that proposes new theories and certainly any paranormal article. I see that there is a steady flow of requests for his heavy hand in articles by other editors, so he is being used as a thug, as well. His edits are hardly ever content, but focus on tone or whatever is necessary to assure that the reader goes away understanding without a doubt that the subject is impossible and therefore cannot be.

Martian, on the other hand, attempts to provide content, but as I see it, he finds himself too often trying to mediate SA's radical edits. We are here now because he is one of the few who will stand up to SA. If there were as many of him as there are of those SA adherents, you would have a much more balanced Misplaced Pages. It is almost impossible for anyone interested in paranormal articles to avoid SA, and for a moderate editor to simply stop editing in those articles is to give control of POV to SA and his friends.

Is that what you intend?

If you want to separate the two, then I suggest that you give SA the fringe mainstream science articles and ban him from paranormal and human potential articles. In turn, ban Martin from the mainstream fringe articles and let him remain in the paranormal and human potential ones. Tom Butler (talk) 01:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

MartinPhi is under arbcom restrictions for POV-pushing:

The arbcom also found that:

ScienceApologist, meanwhile, is only under civility parole. Frankly, it's about time MartinPhi's arbcom sanctions were actually enforced. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 01:33, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem with that rationale is that according to the ArbCom, Martinphi can be restricted from a page or set of pages where he's being disruptive. It's not fully established here that he was being disruptive at all. What's more, this new restriction restricts him from every policy page, content page, or discussion where ScienceApologist decides to post a comment first (whether Martinphi is being disruptive or not). ScienceApologist is a prolific editor and edits many policy pages. Martinphi would be essentially restricted from even talking about the core of Misplaced Pages. That's a little overboard, for such a flimsy case of "disruption". --Nealparr 02:33, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

What did I do what I did? I thought the first three full sentences of my first post to this section made that fairly clear, including linking to a fairly recent and more egregious example of Martinphi's tendencies. It may not be intentional, but it doesn't really matter. It's problematic and disruptive, only serving to reinforce the battleground environment of the topic area and continue to rub old wounds.

Enough of the invalid arguments already! Has SA been injecting himself in the same manner in matters about Martinphi? If so, provide some direct evidence. Has SA been recently continuing long-standing patterns of problem behavior? If so, provide some direct evidence.

Nealparr made a perfectly reasonable suggestion on my talk page. MastCell also made a perfectly reasonable suggestion/observation. MastCell also hit the head on the nail about why both sides can be mind-numbingly frustrating to deal with in this area. Vassyana (talk) 04:52, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

So you're taking that suggestion, viz "Simple fix would be to change the restriction to discussions on noticeboards regarding ScienceApologist, but not directly involving you or a topic you are both editing." ?

And just a comment that Nealparr provided a diff showing SA poisoning the well against me just recently . Why are you still asking for evidence? ——Martin ☎ Ψ Φ—— 06:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

MastCell is quite right , but I do not see what could be done about it, except one of us is banned or withdraws. If anyone will tell me how to act as a completely exemplary editor when SA is above all wiki rules (without withdrawing completely from my favorite topics), why, I'll do it. Vassyana has had a lot of criticism of me, but never addressed the basic question:

ScienceApologist is above Misplaced Pages rules. Martinphi is not above Misplaced Pages rules. Just as civil society breaks down when the police enforce the law for one part of the population but not another, so has this wiki broken down.

No one denies that this is the problem. The problem is not with either SA or myself. He is what he is, and I am what I am. If you were to deal with both of us in the same way per our actions, there would be no problem. ——Martin ☎ Ψ Φ—— 06:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

To be very blunt Martin, melodrama is not going to help your case. The bold text above is exactly the kind of thing that drives people up the wall about this subject area (as MastCell observed). I imposed a restriction based on a long-standing pattern that I have witnessed. I'm quite willing to be fair, but I can only act upon what I know. I keep asking for evidence about ScienceApologist and it is not forthcoming. I'm sorry but a single diff does not establish a pattern (and regardless, the one provided is anything but convincing in and of itself). Show me a pattern (without digging back several months or more). It's not enough to simply say say it is so. Pretend I'm completely clueless about recent actions and that I've seen no diffs from SA for the past three months. Show me clear evidence of a problem. Vassyana (talk) 12:52, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Vassyana, you say, "I imposed a restriction based on a long-standing pattern that I have witnessed." You then ask for diffs and evidence from MartinPhi for what he is saying. Above, I see you have provided a variety of links to support your imposing of a restriction on MartinPhi. Do you think you could gather all your evidence on one page, with diffs, as a courtesy to MartinPhi, to provide the same standard of evidence that you are asking him to provide? It is difficult for others to judge this, looking in from the outside, when discussion is spread out and standards of evidence varies. The onus is on you as well as MartinPhi, to present the evidence in as conclusive a way as possible. You also ask MartinPhi to provide evidence "without digging back several months or more" - are you holding yourself to those same standards as well? Carcharoth (talk) 13:12, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

That's perfectly fair, though I believe the egregious example I provided in the initial post is a sterling example of the problem. To be honest, a similarly acute incident and just a couple of further actions showing a pattern would suffice for my demands for evidence. Regardless, I will take a little time to collect everything together, ta? Vassyana (talk) 13:34, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I have NO idea what is going on here. You just balled me out for merely defining the situation. Now you ask me to present evidence against SA. What does that have to do with my situation? Are you going to let me off because of what he does?

The evidence is too massive to gather quickly, as it involves attacks, setting himself above wiki rules, disruption, edit warring, and other stuff.

You're still assuming bad faith. In my mind, the diff you see as so bad had nothing to do with SA at all. I told you this. So I don't see that you have an open mind. I see extreme bias against me. You might tell me it isn't so, but at this point I can't believe you- sorry. If you want me to believe you have good faith toward me, then say you believe that in my mind, I was merely helping Ludwig, and that I had no intention of doing anything at all relative to ScienceApologist.

Till I have some reason to think there is good faith and even a small sliver of chance that anything I say or any evidence I present will be heard or considered without more than 90% bias against me, there isn't anything I can do here. I can work with the 90% bias, always have.

As far as I can tell, if I presented evidence against SA you'd turn around and block me for harassing him. ——Martin ☎ Ψ Φ—— 18:54, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe that you didn't intend for it to be about ScienceApologist. However, I do not believe it "had nothing to do with SA at all". Intentionally or not, it is obvious you are having some difficulty refraining from interjecting in discussions about ScienceApologist. You best said it yourself: "Why was I following Ludwig around? Because we were recently involved with SA on other articles." Good faith does not equal good action (the road to hell and all that). Regardless, please look at Neal's "fix" below and let me know if that would be acceptable to you. Vassyana (talk) 21:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

From Vassyana's talk page

I really wish that Martinphi would stop doing things like this to ScienceApologist. One could easily read that diff (in context) as telling another user how better to nail ScienceApologist in the future. With effort, of course, one could convince oneself that this is simply friendly advice. But given the timing and location of that advice, it seems poorly advised. I'm not posting this on ArbCom Enforcement because I don't think this needs enforcement. I'm not posting it to Martinphi because he clearly knows what he's doing. I'm posting this here for you because I think you're neutral enough to tell me to stop whining. Thanks, Antelan 00:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Antelan- always following me around and saying I do things wrong. Trying to get me banned. Surely you know it was general advice, as no one can block SA. Getting him is not an option. Even if it were, Ludwig is a newish user, and he's been a help recently. I give him the advice on how to get things done which I had to learn myself. I feel quite right about helping to make impossible the see/hear/say no evil attitude of the admins who don't have cojones to do anything about anything even when it's within their domain- I mean, even when the issue is not one of content and they have a clear mandate. If that means spelling it out for them so they can't pretend blindness, that's what one has to do.

Please note that if I'd been trying to get SA, I'd have informed Ludwig about SA's ArbCom restriction, which he doesn't seem to know about.

Perhaps you put this here because you know Vassayana thinks I'm out to get SA. That of course is the wrong way of putting it because I just want SA to stop hassling me so I can get to more real editing. ——Martin ☎ Ψ Φ—— 01:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

That's it. Martin, you are prohibited from injecting yourself into reports and conversations about ScienceApologist unless it directly relates to actions taken towards or against you, or directly relates to articles in which you are both currently involved. To prohibit circumvention of this restriction, you are further prohibited from newly inserting yourself into content discussions where ScienceApologist is previously involved. If you have not participated in several weeks or some months in a topic, rejoining the discussion to counter SA will be considered "newly inserting yourself".

Your snotty and demeaning message linked above is bad enough, but worse yet, in this instance ScienceApologist was trying very hard to be civil and politely discuss the issue and OrangeMarlin was not even remotely uncivil in the linked sections. Certainly, SA and OM have had issues with civility, but this opportunistic tar-slinging is intolerable, as it treats Misplaced Pages like a battlefield and worsens the situation more than any off-hand insults could. Vassyana (talk) 10:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm curious what was snotty, demeaning, or tar slinging about the diff in question ? Clearly Martinphi was talking to Ludwigs2, and telling him how to provide better diffs. That's the complete extent of the comment. Martinphi is restricted from disruptive editing. The linked comment was constructive advice, to a newer editor. The part about people having the attention span of fleas is general commentary on why diffs should contain the important stuff. It's not directed at anyone in particular and certainly isn't an attack on ScienceApologist. As for Martinphi butting in on a conversation unrelated to himself, all three (Ludwigs2, Martinphi, and ScienceApologist) edit remote viewing together, which was recently locked because ScienceApologist jumped in.

To the point (this is the reason I bothered commenting here at all), it is ScienceApologist we're talking about. The restriction imposed by Vassyana makes it seem like SA needs protection from Martinphi or something. People in glass houses don't need protection when they throw stones randomly, everywhere, even so much that they have to put a disclaimer at the very top of their talk page saying they intend to continue doing so and require one explain in personal detail why the stone thrown at them hurts before they'll take it seriously. If no complaint of incivility on SA's part is ever taken seriously, then seriously no perceived incivility against SA should ever be taken seriously. If one expects everyone else to have a thick skin, they in turn should be required to have one themselves.

Both ScienceApologist and Martinphi have no moral high-road to complain about each other, and admins would have to cherry pick diffs to impose sanctions against one and not the other. The above "attack against ScienceApologist" -- which is really constructive advice to a newish editor on how to deal with disputes more effectively -- is completely overshadowed by the recent overt "poisoning the well" attack on Martinphi diffed here . Frankly, either both should be directed to not interact with each other at all, or perceived slights towards one another on both their parts should be ignored entirely as them trying to game the system against each other. Anything less is picking favorites despite the fact that there's no moral high ground justification in picking one over the other. Both would equally like to see the other banned, I'm sure.

Antelan may have in good faith posted this request, but come on, it is ScienceApologist we're talking about. If he doesn't have a thick skin, he really shouldn't be here "to combat pseudoscience" (his words). At the very least, a weakly figured "attack" on him shouldn't result in restrictions when strong overt attacks are made by him all the time. Goose and gander and all that. The rationale for the restriction was "treat Misplaced Pages like a battlefield and worsens the situation more than any off-hand insults could." It is ScienceApologist we're talking about. He says all the time that Misplaced Pages is a battleground and makes off-hand insults repeatedly. --Nealparr 13:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Enough of these tu quoque arguments. I'm tired of this fallacious crap from both sides. This has nothing to do with "protecting" anyone. This is not the first time he's done this, nor the most egregious, but it simply needs to stop. Martinphi apparently cannot disengage, so I'm making a formal restriction for him to disengage. Vassyana (talk) 14:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Further comment: It baffles me how someone can fail to understand the problem with Martin's comment about attention spans and the openly encourage essentially cherrypicking "the worst" from the diffs (which tends to ignore context, etc). Also, the one link you provide about "poisoning the well" appears to be some kind of response (edit summary "r") and doesn't seem to even come close to crossing any lines. The problem was not that Martin was making personal attacks, but rather that he constantly sticks his nose in reports about SA, regardless of its appropriateness. It's disruptive and needs to end. Vassyana (talk) 14:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Look, you or Antelan can make it out to be that Martinphi is the sole problem all you guys want. That's your perogative. But Martinphi commenting in a noticeboard post about ScienceApologist being disruptive isn't the reason ScienceApologist repetitively shows up in these noticeboards. Whether editors are right or wrong at a given moment in their beefs with SA, it's obvious that ScienceApologist earns being in the noticeboard all on his own, independently of what Martinphi does. Martinphi doesn't post all those notices, all those dozens of notices.

I've been watching the interaction between the two for almost two years now. They are both at each other's throats. The difference is that Martinphi is always seen to be the bad guy. ScienceApologist always skates by. They both do the exact same thing to each other.

Regarding the "r" diff, it's not a reply. Check both ScienceApologist's talk page (no conversation between Hrafn and him remotely around that date) and the article's talk page (no conversation between the two at all). It's not a reply. It's a "helpful hint" about how to effectively deal with Martinphi in an unrelated content dispute. Regarding Martinphi's comment, why not get some outside opinion on whether it's disruptive before assuming it is? Saying that Martinphi is instructing someone to not present the context of the dispute is, in my opinion, stretching the issue quite far. --Nealparr 15:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I've whacked people on both sides of this dispute with cluesticks and I've received enough harassment to last a lifetime just from the blatantly obvious cases. I don't need a lecture about evenhandedness. Show me some solid evidence about SA if you wish to continue harping on him or I'm quite done responding. Thanks. Vassyana (talk) 15:27, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Well that got ugly real quick. Sorry I commented at all. PS Asking you to consider outside opinion isn't harrassment. --Nealparr 15:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec) My tolerance is admittedly low today. However, I would have usually found the tu quoque arguments and the like far less irritating, though still problematic. Regardless, you are earnestly welcome to provide some solid evidence of recent problems. I will pay attention to it. I will review it. I will act directly on it as seems necessary and/or bring up a potential solution for discussion and review. I don't pretend to be aware of everything that happens and if something substantive is brought to my attention, I will attempt to do the right thing. It's just that I'm not interested in hearing the same complaints and logical fallacies, over and over from people on sides. Bring me something with some meat, preferably with a minimum of commentary, and I'll sink my teeth into it. Vassyana (talk) 16:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Neal, I sincerely did not mean to imply that you were harassing me at all. It was more a statement that I've been fair in this area and I've "paid my dues" for it, thus I don't need to be told about being fair. It was a statement of frustration, noting some offense taken, and I should have been more careful in my phrasing and presentation. On the point of outside opinion, I did post a note to AN/I, expecting other sysops and the community to review the decision. Vassyana (talk) 16:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Understandable that your tolerance level is low. Respectably, no, I'm not going to post a bunch of diffs against SA to demonstrate something with some meat on it. It's sort of my point that there's no meat on any of it. SA takes digs at Martinphi. Martinphi takes digs at SA. Both are contentious editors. I don't think it's right to give SA the upper hand by restricting Martinphi from any article SA gets to first. More to the point, I don't think that's a real solution to the problem. Restricting each other from each other probably won't help either. All that will do is create a "gold rush" to claim articles.

The only real solution is to ignore any request to intercede on either's behalf. This thread was started with Antelan asking you to help make Martinphi "stop doing things like this to ScienceApologist". Why? ScienceApologist does the same to Martinphi. Both have been at each other for a long time. There's no meat to any of these requests, and like I said, it's not like SA is squeaky clean on the matter. So why do anything for him at all? It doesn't take me posting a bunch of diffs to establish that he doesn't need support. One thing I will take the time to do is post the list of articles that have been locked down in recent months after SA decided to "participate". I have four that I remember off-hand, parapsychology, electronic voice phenomena, what the bleep do we know, and remote viewing. I know there are others, but I can't remember them all. In each of those articles, SA comes in and makes changes he knows are going to piss people off, edit wars with them for a bit, and boom: article locked down. It happens all the time. Should he be restricted? I don't personally think so. Really, I don't care. My point is this: He deserves exactly what he gives... that is, he deserves to be treated with the same "I don't care" attitude he gives to everyone else. In other words, if ScienceApologist goes around saying things and making edits without caring what people think, why should he get any community support in turn? Why should you care if Martinphi did pick on him? Requests to intercede on his behalf (like this one) should be completely ignored.

That's my point ^ Ignore any complaints about Martinphi in relation to ScienceApologist and any complaints about ScienceApologist in relation to Martinphi. All complaints are meatless and attempts to get the other blocked, banned, restricted, or otherwise gamed out of the system. My (unsolicited) advice is to simply don't buy into it. --Nealparr 21:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Background: I have copyedited Remote Viewing and so keep an eye on the article despite my lack of knowledge in the area, I came into the discussion yesterday to possibly shift direction when balance in the discussion was deteriorating. I also did not view MartinPhi’s comments to Ludwig as in anyway insulting to or referring to Science Apologist. Antelan’s comments initially made no sense to me, although I can now understand how he might have arrived at the understanding he did. I am aware that Ludwig is a new editor as one can see on the discussion on remote viewing and that MartinPhi is coaching him somewhat.

• You are an admin I respect. Out of respect rather than disrespect I make the next comment to you in a straightforward way. Is there a possibility that your recent judgenent is based less on the diff Antelan presented rather than on an accumulated level of frustration one might rightly feel in this situation.
• Might it be appropriate to ask two or three completely uninvolved admins who know neither SA nor Martin to view the diff. with the background information that one editor had been coaching another as obvious and so provide a judgment that cannot be attributed to the frustration those of us aware of this situation feel.

NOTE: As I post this, I see you have asked for outside assistance

• If a ban is placed on one editor for other reasons than this diff., and I have to say watching remote viewing, I thought Martin was handling himself pretty well, then that restriction be placed on both editors. Not to do so leaves an open-ended situation, and tips the balance in any discussion both editors are involved in. At least with both editors on equal footing, some balance can be maintained. Until Antaean ‘s comments SA and Martin were handling business as usual.
• Where I not feeling well today my better judgment might have kept me off your user page. As it is, I am commenting and hope you can take the comments with the respect and understanding I have written them with.

Am I supporting Martin in this case? Absolutely, yes. Do I edit at his request and ignore my own judgment and the level of integrity I strive to maintain? Absolutely, no.

I don’t require any kind of reply … Just adding comments for your consideration.(olive (talk) 16:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC))

Just wanted you to know that I have read your message and I am earnestly considering it. Vassyana (talk) 16:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

There has probably never been a more clear-cut case of two users who should disengage, or at least not seek out opportunities to insert themselves into disputes with each other. Admittedly, they share some topics of interest, and if their paths cross on such articles then so be it. But Vassyana is absolutely right; while I didn't find Martin's message overly condescending, the fact that he's inserting himself into the dispute is the issue. Look at the facts:

• The dispute was on alternative medicine, an article which Martinphi has never edited. It is reasonable to believe that his interest was solely based on ScienceApologist's involvement.
• The user filing the alert considered it resolved, after which Martin interjected with the predictable effect of reopening and prolonging a resolved dispute

OK, I understand Martin feels picked on. This time it was him; ScienceApologist has, I believe, done similar things in the past. It's very simple: they should both avoid one another except as pertains to specific issues on articles which they both edit. Neither one should go out of his way to inject themselves into a dispute involving the other, or to give helpful "advice" to other parties on how to deal with their opposite number. That's really not too much to ask; it's reasonable to make it a two-way street, but otherwise Vassyana is completely on target. MastCell  18:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Consider this crap from SA's page:

"I act to mitigate, redesign, and occasionally destroy the offerings of users who think that a particular "breakthrough" or "notable idea" deserves more consideration than it has gotten in the academic world. Such grandstanding is forbidden by a variety of Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines (WP:V, WP:SOAP, WP:NOR, WP:FRINGE, WP:WEIGHT, WP:NOT, and WP:REDFLAG to name just a few). Misplaced Pages is inherently a non-innovative reference work: it stifles creativity and free-thought. If Misplaced Pages had been around at the time of Galileo, his ideas would have been subject to my incisive commentary and editorial braggadocio -- even if I agreed with him. I am a status quo promoter. NPOV-PUSHER."

And, how SA has made an effort to circumvent the civility rules on the top of his talk page. Consider that SA gang edits with his supporters, such as the ever present OrageMarlin, Fyslee and Antelan. Consider that SA has diligently worked to eliminate editors with views he does not agree with. Then take a look at his block record and tell me that you honestly think he is faultless.

To not edit in articles SA is involved with is to simply give Misplaced Pages to him. Trust me, Misplaced Pages is already sliding on the scale of respectability in the world--especially in the academic world. You do not want it to be identified as a skeptical platform to protect the status quo from new ideas.

Martin is about the last editor opposing SA's SPOV editing. I for one have given up and am taking the argument to the public. Where do you suppose the other banned or driven off editors have gone? Tom Butler (talk) 19:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

OMG! Tom, don't you realize that what you call "this crap from SA's page" is basically a rewording of the highest form of Wiki wisdom? You can read more about it here:

• Rouge admins

That you consider this to be "crap" is understandable, considering you promote OR of the worst kind and consider it your mission to use Misplaced Pages as a vehicle for promoting your OR odd notions. It is therefore natural you would oppose anyone who tries to apply Misplaced Pages's NOR and FRINGE policies, which apply to your editing and subject matter. You just don't have a clue about what Misplaced Pages is about. NPOV must be an obnoxious stumbling block to you, since you obviously fail to understand it. Your latest suggestion reveals you are truly clueless about the need for articles to be edited by editors who hold opposing POV: "If you want to separate the two, then I suggest that you give SA the fringe mainstream science articles and ban him from paranormal and human potential articles. In turn, ban Martin from the mainstream fringe articles and let him remain in the paranormal and human potential ones." You are again proposing that articles be written in a totally non-NPOV manner. You just hate that any criticism of your fringe ideas appears in the articles, even though NPOV requires it. Someone needs to give you a cluestick. BTW, taking your arguments to the public, if it involves discussing and criticizing Misplaced Pages editors, is a bannable offense. Make up your mind - either you edit here according to the policies here, or you take your OR and "new" ideas to the public and leave Misplaced Pages alone. IOW don't edit here at all. BTW, I don't know why you mentioned me above as I haven't been involved with you or your articles very much at all, and not for a long time. -- Fyslee / talk 06:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

"take a look at ScienceApologist's block record and tell me that you honestly think he is faultless"?!? No one is claiming he's faultless. I explicitly said otherwise. There may not be a good guy and a bad guy here, hard as that may be for a partisan to accept. There are just two editors who feed off of each other in a negative, disruptive fashion. Your comment, and the strawman embodied in it ("If you're not with Martinphi, you must be making excuses for ScienceApologist") is exactly why people are tired and frustrated with both sides here. MastCell  20:34, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

What in the world are people talking about? I was helping Ludwig, and nothing I said related to SA. I looked in, I saw that he obviously hadn't presented things right, and I helped him. Had nothing to do with SA, except the complaint itself.

What, I repeat, are you talking about Vassayana? It had to do with admins not reading diffs, not SA.

Why was I following Ludwig around? Because we were recently involved with SA on other articles.

If you have even a single reason to think I was slinging tar at SA, then please bring it forth. As it happens, I was merely talking to Ludwig, saying how to do things. Since I consider him a friend, that accounts for my being there, not getting SA in trouble.

Vassayana, be reasonable: if I'd been wanting to get SA in trouble or sling tar at him, here's what I would have done: I'd have emailed Ludwig, told him about SA's ArbCom restriction, and collaborated with him to get SA at Arb enforcement. Duh. Just how dumb do you think I am? If I'm going to try and get SA, I'll do it properly. And I would be far too smart to sling mud at him in the meantime, because I already knew how that is perceived.

In short, this is a completely egregious lack of AGF on your part. I ask that you remove this restriction, and also remove it from the Arbitration page. You have absolutely nothing to go on, unless you think I'm a complete idiot.

Now, perhaps I am an idiot, but if I am it is to think that there is indeed an assumption of good faith on this wiki. I assumed that I could make an innocent comment, or actually a snarky comment about the attention span of admins in general, without it being construed as my trying to get SA.

Again, look at the situation there: there was no chance of getting SA. I'd known about that thread for a long time: do you think I don't watch that page? I can send you my watchlist. Do you think I would not have inserted myself earlier if I'd wanted to get SA? Do you think that I believed there was the least chance of getting SA? Get a little good faith. I was there for a brief comment to Ludwig, and nothing more.

I was restricted from an article once for doing exactly what SA did in this diff of Nealparr's . In that case, SA complained, in exactly those words, that I'd poisoned the well. But you can't see it. You won't do a thing to SA.

But anyway, I avoid SA as much as I can, and that includes trying not to go to articles where he is. Show me one place where I followed him (if you look hard there might be one or two articles), and I'll show you people begging me to help (literally).

Of course, because of this, it is a completely easy restriction to follow, but it is also completely unfair, and I think it only shows your frustration with this situation. Frankly, I think you know that I'm not anything like SA, yet you want the situation to stop. Well, you can make it stop easily, by just banning everyone who disagrees with SA. But is that what needs doing? You gave SA an indef block, so you know what the reality is basically. Do you really think that SA needs to be protected against me...... even assuming you still insist that what I said at WQ had anything to do with SA?

I ask that you get this reviewed. Get other completely uninvolved admins to review that diff, and see if it is really me wanting to "get" SA. See if they really think it believable that it was my belief that such a thing could do SA the least bit of harm. Vassayana, the more I think about it the more I see that even if you consider me to have no good faith at all, and therefore that my little comment was trying to get SA, you also have to think I'm completely STUPID. Let me assure you, I know how people perceive our interaction, and I wouldn't be that dumb if I were trying to get him. Which is why I almost always avoid these discussions on him at AN/I and Arb enforcement. Which is why I avoided that one till it was already closed. I haven't even emailed Ludwig. Go ask him. But he could have made a good Arb enforcement request if I had asked him.

Please ask reviewing admins to read what I just said here. ——Martin ☎ Ψ Φ—— 20:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec)If you had not repeatedly and inappropriately injected yourself into complaints and reports about SA, I would be willing to assume a whole lot more good faith. To be blunt, one assumes good faith as a starting point and it goes away in the face of contrary evidence. It's not a matter of one diff, but just another blip in a long-standing pattern of interaction. I did not block you. I did not even topic ban you. I did not even completely prohibit from you dealing with ScienceApologist. I simply prohibited you from injecting yourself in discussions, disputes and reports that involve SA where you are not already involved. If that restriction is truly that much of an issue to you, its necessity becomes even more clear to me.

I clearly posted a link to AN/I where I notified everyone of what I did. I will link to your message here, but you're free to comment on AN/I, like anyone else. Vassyana (talk) 20:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I am banned

If that's what you did, it's completely unfair. I completely object to it's being on my record, because I have done nothing wrong.

But that's not what you did. Rather, you handed all the paranormal articles to SA. What you did was say to him: you have complete freedom to edit without Martinphi being involved anywhere Martinphi hasn't been for a while. Remember, we edit very low traffic articles. You just handed most all the paranormal articles to him. Completely, as I am the only one who bothers about his POV pushing on most of them. He can completely remake the paranormal articles because of this. You think he won't notice? ——Martin ☎ Ψ Φ—— 21:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

In fact, you just banned me from Parapsychology and a number of other articles, now that I think about it. Yes, you did ban me, on most of the article where I edit. ——Martin ☎ Ψ Φ—— 21:56, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

And you show obvious bias by shrugging off Nealparr's diff. I think you are completely biased against me. ——Martin ☎ Ψ Φ—— 22:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

"Not currently involved". Your restriction doesn't come into play yet. The problematic scenario would be if you made no edits to the articles in your watchlist for several weeks or months, and then ScienceApologist makes edits you feel strongly against. Then you're not allowed to edit it, because you'd be "injecting" yourself. Or if you took a wikibreak for any considerable length of time. That's when it'd suck for you and you could consider yourself effectively topic-banned. --Nealparr 22:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Um, yeah, you mean like nearly everything on my watchlist, including EVP and Parapsychology (I edited there today before I realized the implications of this, but before that I hadn't edited since 19 May. And on EVP since 7 May) and most everything else? No, this is a topic ban from nearly everything. SA has the wiki to himself now.

If this is not changed, I will leave WP. I will ask to be blocked indef so as not to be tempted. This is completely egregious. ——Martin ☎ Ψ Φ—— 22:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Or rather, as worded, you can edit content without restriction, but you can't participate in discussing the content.

Simple fix would be to change the restriction to discussions on noticeboards regarding ScienceApologist, but not directly involving you or a topic you are both editing. It's the restriction on discussing content that effectively topic-bans you. --Nealparr 23:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Pardon me for interjecting where I perhaps "do not belong", but I find this situation puzzling and disturbing. People should not be discouraged from offering advice to new people -- or to experienced people. Now, I'm not sure I entirely understand the restrictions on Martin, and I don't have any real experience with Martin, but I've had some experience with ScienceApologist and find him to be tendentious and disruptive, and fairly given towards edit warring. For example, he recently tried to add unreferenced trivia to the lead of water fluoridation opposition; when I reverted it, he reverted me (diff), and I let it stay because I know he won't stop. He seems to constantly try to push people's buttons. I'm sure Martin and ScienceApologist can go round and round "discussing" and getting nowhere, but when push comes to shove and ScienceApologist tries to edit in things which don't belong, or unbalance articles, then it is good to have a balancing opinion. It appears here that there is a bias against Martin in favor of ScienceApologist; hopefully I'm just misreading. ImpIn | (t - c) 04:09, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we need to move this away from this talk page, as Vassayana tried to blank it. If there are no objections within a reasonable time, I'll move it to AN/I. ——Martin ☎ Ψ Φ—— 04:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Vassayana attempts to "blank" their own talk page...Why Martin, how dare they do that! The ignomy of it all. Shot info (talk) 04:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

It does not seem polite to me to in a way decree that "discussion on this is over" -- I was surprised. Clearly there is some interest in discussing this. If Vassayana is uncomfortable with the discussion cluttering up her talk page, then it should be moved to AN/I, sure. ImpIn | (t - c) 04:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Simple fix

The discussion surrounding Martinphi's restriction is getting a little overboard (eg. "I am banned"). This is probably because the restriction itself is a little overboard (eg. He is essentially banned depending on where ScienceApologist chooses to comment). The restriction is disproportionate to the problem: in a nutshell, Martinphi and ScienceApologist simply do not get along but otherwise can contribute to the project in a productive manner. Vassyana considered my "simple fix" suggestion, so let me elaborate here.

1) Martinphi should not enter into discussions solely to fight against ScienceApologist, or vice versa. That was the intent of the restriction in the first place. I think that's a given considering how much they don't like each other, and since any comment they make against each other is just white noise at this point (it's all been argued before). "Poisoning the well" against each other is also inappropriate at this point, considering the circumstances, and neither should do that. Both editors should refrain from posting messages to other editors that make oblique references to the other or their past history. Call it a "restraining order". This is especially relevant in various noticeboards where one of the editors is not directly involved, and in policy discussions where "poisoning the well" could effect other editor's decisions regarding policy decisions when the policy changes should be evaluated on its own merits rather than past histories of the editor posting the content.

The simple fix here is to not restrict the editors from conversations, but restrain them from "poisoning the well".

2) Martinphi should not make a comment that references ScienceApologist himself, and vice versa. This is a back to basics proposal. We're here to discuss content, not editors. If the above proposal were to apply to noticeboards and policy discussions, this one would be about content. The core of WP:CIVIL concerns addressing content, not editors, and while ScienceApologist is frequently accused of being uncivil, I think Martinphi has forgotten this core principle as well as he frequently makes comments about ScienceApologist himself rather than what he feels is wrong with ScienceApologist's edits. Back to basics. Talk about content, not editors. If the restrictions are meant to get them to stop fighting with each other, we really need to get their coversations off each other and on point.

The simple fix here is to not restrict editors from content discussions they are involved in, or potentially will be involved in, but rather restrict them from talking about each other. You can put the hammer down on this one and word it in no uncertain terms, the strictest possible way, because they shouldn't be talking about each other at all. On the other hand, they shouldn't feel disenfranchised from content related discussions either.

3) Martinphi should broaden his Misplaced Pages contributions, voluntarily, as a show of good faith. Part of the reason editors have a problem with Martinphi is that they feel he's only here to fight with editors on fringe topics, ie. WP:TE. As a show of good faith, he should voluntarily get involved in a wider spectrum of topics that need improvement. This probably shouldn't be a "restriction", but rather some good advice that he should voluntarily embrace. Like many editors (myself included), he's probably just a wiki-junky on topics he's into. But I'm sure he has other interests that he could spend some time on, and that would go a long way towards assuaging people that he's not here just to quarrel. Nearly everyone on the planet has a culture, religion, geography, history, sociology, etc. topic they can improve. Alterntatively, if Martinphi wanted to continue in his chosen area, paranormal topics, he can help out on folklore, culture views, beliefs, and so on, rather than making edits primarily centered around the fringe science aspects of paranormal topics.

The simple fix here is to change the environment where Martinphi and ScienceApologist would bump heads.

--Nealparr 13:11, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

That's all good. Problem with my branching out is 1. I have only time to fix paranormal articles: they get attacked so much by .......editors...... that all my time is taken up with that. Second problem is I really don't have time for WP and want to leave. Just like, you, if I could really contribute and edit, it would be fine, but I can't so I'm restricted to what I do. But my expertise in keeping POV out of fringe articles causes other editors to keep dragging me back in, even to articles where I have no interest.

If you want to see what I do when left well alone, go see the Astral projection article as I left it a few months ago.

I've tried to branch out, for instance to the Chiropractic and Fetus articles, but in that case JzG came along when other editors were editing a draft in my userspace, and unilaterally deleted the page saying I was a POV editor, even though I wasn't editing the page myself.

I was just getting out of Misplaced Pages before the last ArbCom against me, and at that time ScienceApologist came back from wikibreak and started in on fringe articles, and then started that ArbCom. I'd be long gone otherwise.

I'm here not because I want to be, but because I'm needed so bad and because I don't want to give up on articles I care about. Otherwise I might do a bit of editing once in a while, put in some content.

I stopped giving content long ago, because of the attacks.

I don't actually feel my expertise is needed anywhere but the paranormal or fringe. Otherwise, I have a life that needs attending to, and there are lots of people who can do that work. ——Martin ☎ Ψ Φ—— 19:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments?

Holy crap Heh, none of this was here yesterday, and I thought it was resolved. Anyway, I just want to comment on this, which olive said was the reason for the restriction. I actually did not feel the "fleas" characterization was directed at SA, but rather to me (or anyone else who might have responded to the Wikiquette alert). However, it was also clear to me -- even though I had never met Martinphi before -- that his motivation for jumping in was due to past conflicts with SA.

Since his core advice was sound (if you think someone has been uncivil, provide a diff and possibly a quotation), and since I really didn't want an already-resolved issue to flare up for no reason, I chose to ignore the bafflingly unnecessary and insulting comment. However, at the same time I admit I was very relieved when I saw the restriction from Vassyana. I was worried Martinphi was about to make a federal case out of an issue between two other users that had already been reasonably resolved, and this restriction, I felt, gave me the option to revert&ignore any other unhelpful commentary he might add.

So, no comments as to whether the restrictions to Martinphi should apply in article talk space... but, as a previously uninvolved user, I can say that I thought restricting Martinphi from jumping into noticeboard discussions that don't involve him is a damn good idea. --Jaysweet (talk) 13:30, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Well I'm surprised you took it so seriously. The situation was closed, done with, and since I was wikistalking Ludwig I came in and told him why the thing didn't work. I don't know what evidence he might have come up with. But if there was evidence, the way he presented it was bound to fail to convince. Restricting me for such a good faith edit- funny thing go advocate. ——Martin ☎ Ψ Φ—— 19:13, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Here's why I thought it was an attack: 1) The "attention span of fleas" thing seemed to be disparaging those who did not listen to Ludwigs' complaint; 2) if it really was advice I thought Ludwigs' talk page would be a more appropriate venue, where as posting it at WQA seemed to be a subtle way of getting in a dig; 3) when I saw the comment I said to myself, "Who the heck is this guy, and what does he want?", and searched your contribs -- and after a cursory inspection, Occam's razor answered back, "This guy is a sworn enemy of ScienceApologist and he wants to discredit anyone who defends him on any level."

Sometimes, I suppose, the simplest explanation is not the most accurate, so maybe you did mean it in good faith. It's impossible for me to know for sure. If you really did, then I apologize.

In any case, I was still relieved when I saw the restriction, even if you were acting in good faith. --Jaysweet (talk) 19:28, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps "Why now?" has to be established

I want to reiterate in somewhat more concise wording , what I believe has to be established here. Why this restriction now? If it references back to the "flee" quote , then we have to establish if that was an innocent comment. If this judgment is based on ongoing disruption we have to it seems to me at least discern if Martin has been recently disruptive. If his editing practices have improved in the last while, then we are closing the barn door after the horse has left. If we are placing restrictions two editors are involved, and Vassyana's suggestion to find diffs for the other party involved in making inappropriate comments or editing disruptions seems necessary. Although I think Nealls' comment is a wise one, it assumes Martin's guilt, and only includes one editor, if I understand him correctly. If Martin's comments in the last day or so seem emotive perhaps he can be forgiven for that , since he came back to Misplaced Pages to find a restriction placed on him for something he says he didn't do,and perhaps feels misunderstood. Is it possible that any of us might have been thrown off whatever kind of balance we had achieved in such a situation?(olive (talk) 15:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC))

I wanted also to make something clear. I am not out to get SA. If a restriction or solution can be found that allows both Martin and SA to edit, while monitoring behaviour so that articles can be written fairly, and no one is hurt well, that's the best, and most positive scenario I can imagine. I do feel that restrictions on only one editor though, in this situation will increase the problems and create imbalance.(olive (talk) 16:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC))

next step

Vassyana, it now your turn: do you accept nealparr's three italicized fixes above? If you do, perhaps you could modify your restriction statement on the various pages accordingly. if you don't,can you explain why you think it might not be enough--for at first glance it does strike me as a reasonable solution. DGG (talk) 19:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

They seem perfectly reasonable and actually a very good set of recommendations. I would like to wait and see if any other outside admins provide further feedback (though I know it unlikely). However, the comments of MastCell and your support of solution both mean quite a bit to me. I would also like to respond to Carcharoth's quite reasonable request and see if anyone can provide some relatively recent evidence about ScienceApologist, though they're not really necessary for the fairly common sense approach Neal proposes. Also, just for future reference, I openly welcome any uninvolved admins to alter or overturn my actions in general (silly acceptance of human fallibility or something). I will modify the restriction statement accordingly later this evening, if no uninvolved sysops object. Vassyana (talk) 20:47, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for considering it. Btw, I never meant to imply that you weren't even-handed in your dealings. I've always considered you fair minded. As a Misplaced Pages editor who spends too much time on wording, I tend to pick words apart and overthink how they're used. It was the wording of the restriction I was questioning, not you or whether something couldn't be done towards the Martinphi-ScienceApologist quarrel. Although I still maintain that ignoring requests to intercede on either's behalf would probably work too, the above is probably more community-building. --Nealparr 21:03, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

As another outsider, I'd say that Nealparr's modifications of the restrictions are entirely reasonable and actionable. The bottom line is that we've two editors that are unwilling to disengage on their own, repeatedly and fatiguingly exothermic in result. I'm reasonably certain a mirrored set may be warranted for SA, pending evidence of recent similarly-fomenting behavior. — Scientizzle 21:37, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Sheesh. It didn't occur to me that what I was commenting on might be taken as a comment on the admin.'s action here. Since I'd already given Vassysan an earful on his page, I was addressing all of us I guess hoping to keep things in perspective as I saw it. I apologize if anything I said seemed to be critical of Vassyana. I actually felt I was dealing with an admin who was open enough to listen or I wouldn't have commented at all.(olive (talk) 22:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC))

• mildly confused* I did not find your comments out of place or overly critical. As far as I can tell, you went out of your way to indicate your respect for me while disagreeing. I sincerely apologize if I did something to make you feel otherwise. Vassyana (talk) 22:41, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

No, no.... just wanted to make sure. On line like this, things can be misunderstood.(olive (talk) 23:02, 13 June 2008 (UTC))

Martin is being a disruptive editor and is now being taken to task for it. Admins need to act on this rather than being confused by the noise "SA is just as bad" when in fact the ArbCom completely disagrees with this. Martin is doing a good job (and aptly enabled by Neal it must be said) of creating enough smoke to make him out to be a rather innocent victim of his ongoing campaign to get SA, rather than the actual protagonist. Admins need to judge him on his actions and the ArbCom rulings, rather than Martin's rather successful conflagation of himself and SA into two halves of the problem. The ArbCom didn't see it this way, it isn't this way and admins need to treat them differently. Don't allow yourselves to be fooled by the editor who is smoking up a storm. Shot info (talk) 03:08, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Comment about civility probation versus disruptive editing probation

Martin and I are being treated in Neal's proposal as if we are under equivalent probations. We are not. I am on civility probation, he is on disruptive editing probation. My goal through November is to be civil. However, that does not mean I can pretend as though Martinphi is "just another editor". My volunteering at Misplaced Pages takes the form that I outline at the top of my userpage, and Martin is unfortunately totally opposed to this activity while using almost every chance he can get to disrupt my attempts to improve the encyclopedia in that fashion. As Vassyana pointed out, at some point good faith becomes exhausted. When Martin exhibits disruptive behavior, I have taken to calmly and politely pointing out the disruptive behavior. I wish that Martin would stop being disruptive, but he refuses categorically and seems blind to the issue. In contrast, I have instituted a policy of refactoring perceived incivility to directly address the behavior problems that have been brought to my attention. Martin acts as though he has free license to continue disrupt articles and violate the content guidelines and policies of Misplaced Pages. He has even said as much even in the discussions in this section. If I notice him acting that way and point it out politely in edit summaries and on talk pages, I am not poisoning the well. However, I am certain given the laundry list Martin has paraded out of instances where I civilly reminded him that he was being disruptive and violating his arbcom restrictions that he will simply claim that any mention of his problematic behavior even when it occurs after the fact is somehow poisoning the well. It isn't. Given our history, I imagine it will be just a matter of time before Martin or another editor who is opposed to my activities here starts complaining about this at WP:AE. Think carefully about what the consequences will be for instituting rules that can easily be gamed.

Secondly, restricting users from "talking about each other at all" is ludicrous. We are all involved in a community and sometimes in a community we have to discuss other people's actions. We have to talk about other people. While WP:NPA is explicit about talking about contributions rather than the contributor, this is clearly not meant to be a gag order on discussing editor behavior when it becomes problematic. Since Martinphi is under disruptive editing probation, it is important that we be able to discuss when he is being disruptive. Since I am on civility probation, it is important that we able to discuss when I'm being uncivil.

ScienceApologist (talk) 23:28, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Failure to disengage from one another is as much a civility issue as it is a disruption issue. Failure to be civil is disruptive. Since you're trying to be more civil as a wiki-goal, allow me to elaborate. Civility isn't simply being polite. It's striving for peaceful co-existence with those you wholly dislike, for the common purpose of writing an encyclopedia. You can be as polite as you'd like, but if you're out to get someone, that's not exactly being civil. Spamming the edit summaries with (paraphrasing) "you're being disruptive, remember the ArbCom restrictions" and posting notices to other editor's talk pages saying "hey, that guy's under restriction, shouldn't something be done" in an otherwise normal content dispute isn't being civil, no matter how politely it's worded. The reason Martinphi was further restricted from you is because Vassyana felt he couldn't disengage from you, because of a diff that was seen as him reminding other editors of your civility restriction. OK, so if that's true, that's disruptive. But how is it any less disruptive if you're going around, at the same time, reminding editor's of his restriction? It's certainly not civil to be doing that.

It is an equal probation issue because you're not being civil, and he's being disruptive, because neither of you can disengage from the other. The above is a reasonable approach to addressing that problem. It takes the ability to complain about one another out of yours and his hands and places it in the capable hands of objective third parties. If Martinphi's so bad, as you contend, rest assured that someone else will complain about him at some point. When people complain about you on noticeboards, Martinphi doesn't need to be there interjecting his biasing opinion. That's what the above proposal is about. You guys don't need to be talking about each other. If there's an issue (as I'm sure you both feel there is), third parties will undoubtably discover and address it. It's not like it's undiscovered issues anyway. Neither of you are "unknowns" at Misplaced Pages. Neither of you need to point out the other's flaws. As I said above, it's all been argued already, ad naseum, we get it. I think that was Vassyana's point in imposing the further restrictions.

Also, I should point out (since it's my proposal) that the "simple fix" simply says Martinphi shouldn't be doing such and such bad things to you, and vice versa. The part that pertains to you is the "vice versa". If such and such bad things being done to you are really bad things, you shouldn't be doing them to him either, whether you're probatitively restricted from doing them or not. They are, after all, bad things. --Nealparr 03:27, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to have to disagree. The Arbcom ruling cites Martinphi for "a variety of disruptive behavior, including, but not limited to, using Misplaced Pages as a soapbox, threatening disruption of the project, and making deliberately provocative edits." Compared to that, a citation for civility looks pretty minor. Also, the "soapboxing" seems to imply that MartinPhi was judged to be a POV-pusher by them. I dont' think you can suddenly turn around and say that in order to ban MArtinphi from articles - the prohibition that the Arbcom specifically encouraged admins to do if he caused any problems - you must also ban ScienceApologist. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 07:00, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

In fact, I'm going to make a procedural point here: ScienceApologist is a distraction, any discussion of him should happen in a new thread. This thread should be about MartinPhi; the rest is just throwing up smokescreens and refusing to look at the issue and diffs at hand. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 07:08, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I think you may be misreading my proposal similarly to how ScienceApologist misread it. My proposal is specifically about not banning any editor from the project over a profound distaste they seem to have with each other. Vassyana banned Martinphi from any article, policy discussion, or noticeboard where ScienceApologist is participating. The rationale for doing so was failure to disengage from ScienceApologist. Of course it's also about ScienceApologist. This proposal doesn't ban ScienceApologist from anywhere. It says that in order for Martinphi to disengage from ScienceApologist, ScienceApologist should disengage from Martinphi. The only thing the both of them would be restricted from is essentially harrasing each other, something all of us are supposed to be restricted from anyway. If you personally think Martinphi is being disruptive at an article, you could pursue that per normal. There's no reason why ScienceApologist has to be the guy who does that. Repetitively claiming Martinphi is being disruptive in content disputes is harrassment.

If it's not at all about ScienceApologist, then we really don't even need to be here and Martinphi shouldn't be further restricted, because Martinphi didn't do anything wrong when Vassyana put the hammer down on him. The "wrong" is dependent upon a supposed harrassment of ScienceApologist. That was Antelan's request to Vassyana: "I really wish that Martinphi would stop doing things like this to ScienceApologist". A request like that automatically asks, well, what is ScienceApologist doing? It's not a smokescreen to take the heat of Martinphi. Martinphi is already further restricted and will continue to be under my proposal. This "fix" clears up loose ends, that is, it targets the restriction clearly to where Martinphi was supposedly being disruptive, clarifies the restriction, and then moves on to other relevant issues, namely well, what is ScienceApologist doing? If it's a procedural point, the process already dealt with Martinphi and moved on. The "vice versa" part of the discussion is post-Martinphi because he's already been dealt with. It doesn't take a new thread starting with "I really wish that ScienceApologist would stop doing things like this to Martinphi" to move on.

And finally, let me reiterate this to make it clear. No one is being banned. No one is being unduely restricted. It's a "stop harrassing each other" rewording. Appealing to "just civility restrictions" doesn't hold any water. The issue here is harrassment. We're all restricted from harrassing each other. It doesn't have anything to do with what so and so's ArbCom restrictions are. Any admin can move to keep editors from harrassing each regardless of whether they're under probabation or not. --Nealparr 13:28, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Begfore you can punish ScienceApologist for harassment, it must be demoonstrated he is harassing. This has not been done. MartinPhi's "evidence" evaporates away on the slightest investigation - a good two thirds or so of it is quoted out of context. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:06, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

What do you need to be convinced of the reciprocal harrassment? One good enough? That's all that led to Martinphi being further restricted. Five, six? Give me a number between 1 and 10 and a few hours to refresh my memory and I'd be happy to oblige to close this out. --Nealparr 16:28, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal status check

Are the above collapsed diffs and the one I provided earlier enough evidence of reciprocal harrassment from ScienceApologist to push this proposal through? I don't want to assume that everyone else sees what I feel is obvious. Since there's been so much discussion, let me bullet point the proposal principles again.

• Martinphi should not enter into discussions solely to fight against ScienceApologist, or vice versa.
• Martinphi should not make a comment that references ScienceApologist himself, and vice versa.
• Martinphi should broaden his Misplaced Pages contributions, voluntarily, as a show of good faith.

The objections I read were regarding the "vice versa" part. The objections argued that because SA's civility ArbCom restrictions were minor compared to Martinphi's ArbCom restrictions, that the equality of vice versa was unjustified. My contention is that the issue of harrassment doesn't have anything to do with the previous ArbCom restrictions, and that any admin can impose harrassment restrictions regardless of previous restrictions. This status check is to see where we stand, and whether there needs to be more discussion or if we can wrap this up. --Nealparr 14:37, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

The first proposal is subject to interpretation and will cause endless headaches for administrators trying to determine when and if someone entered into a discussion for what purpose. The second proposal is absurd as I pointed out above. There is no reason for the vice-versa remarks either. I'm not a disruptive editor according to arbcom. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:46, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Clarification of Vassyana's restriction

This is only my interpretation, so take it with a grain of salt. However, Martinphi, I don't think Vassyana's intent is to restrict you from editing articles or article talk pages. I think you can freely edit articles and article talk pages even if SA has recently edited there and you haven't, as long as you're in discussions about article content and not in discussions about SA. The only thing you can't do along those lines is: if there's a discussion about SA, for example on an administrator's noticeboard, you can't, after that discussion begins, start editing an article SA has been editing and then also use that as an excuse to participate in the noticeboard conversation on the grounds that you're involved in the issue. You can, however, simply start editing the article, focussing on content, ignoring the existence of such a noticeboard conversation. That's what it seems to me that Vassyana means. I could have it wrong.

I very much welcome Martinphi's input at Talk:Chiropractic. Martinphi has been opposing editwarring and generally helping bring a tone of calm rationality to the page. Not previously familiar with the topic, Martinphi has taken the time to read background material and provide thoughtful input to the discussions. The article has been subject to a lot of editwarring and contentious debate and we need more editors like Martinphi to bring stability to the article. I would hate to see Martinphi effectively banned from Chiropractic, or from any other page if his input is anything like what he provides at Chiropractic. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:54, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Resolution

I've put some serious thought into this. I propose (text liberally borrowed from Nealparr):

• Martinphi should not enter into discussions solely to fight against ScienceApologist, or vice versa. "Poisoning the well" against each other is also inappropriate at this point, considering the circumstances, and neither should do that. Both editors should refrain from posting messages to other editors that make oblique references to the other or their past history. Showing up to revert each other is disruptive, regardless of claims about protecting the wiki from each other.
• Martinphi should not make a comment about ScienceApologist himself, and vice versa. Comment on the content, not the contributor. Certainly, both parties are under ArbCom restrictions, but contrary to some assertions there's no need for Martinphi and ScienceApologist to be the ones to raise potential violations. If the problem is actually egregious enough to need to be raised before the sysops or broader community, another editor will do so. There editors work in a topic area that has plenty of other active contributors.
• Martinphi should not edit policies or guidelines based obviously on his interactions with ScienceApologist, and vice versa. Dragging personal conflicts into policies and guidelines that broadly cover activities on Misplaced Pages is incredibly disruptive. It's practically a textbook case of disrupting the wiki to make a point. If the problem is limited to a single person or a very small topic area, this can be handled with a bit of sense and reasonable applications of already-established principles.
• These restrictions should be enforced with limited, but escalating, topic bans. For example, if the problem arises on Chiropractic, then the offending party should be prohibited from contributing to the article and its talk page. If a second offense occurs on Veterinary chiropractic, the ban should be extended to all chiropractic related topics, broadly construed.

As a further recommendation, but not restriction:

• Martinphi should broaden his Misplaced Pages contributions, voluntarily, as a show of good faith. Part of the reason editors have a problem with Martinphi is that they feel he's only here to fight with editors on fringe topics, ie. WP:TE. As a show of good faith, he should voluntarily get involved in a wider spectrum of topics that need improvement. This is not a "restriction", but rather some strongly recommended good advice that he should voluntarily embrace. If Martinphi wants to continue in his chosen area, paranormal topics, he can help out on folklore, historical context, cultural views, beliefs, and so on, rather than making edits primarily centered around the fringe science aspects of paranormal topics.

Thoughts? Comments? Vassyana (talk) 15:58, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

While I agree with these, I'm a little uncomfortable with dragging ScienceApologist into this with no real evidence he is being harassing or behaving in anything but good faith. I think we also need more eyes on both of their content contributions. Perhaps WP:FTN would take on this task? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:10, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I would think that content questions would be separate from behavioral questions. The part everyone's tired of hearing about is so and so did such and such to the other. I think you guys should talk about the content disagreements, but I'd like to see the behavior stuff wrapped up first because I don't personally have any desire to get into the content related discussions (so burnt out on that). --Nealparr 16:22, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not uncomfortable at all with a known fight between Martin and SA resulting in equal restrictions for both. Because restricting Martin and not SA would result in an open field for SA to then "get back" at Martin and we might have to start this whole debacle again (if he did so). Why not simply restrict the contact between both of them now? It just makes sense. As far as "no real evidence" that SA is tugging on Martin's tail, look no further than here: . A mutual restriction is fair and prevents having to do this all over again if SA reciprocates. Supertheman 16:38, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what that link's supposed to show. Have you given the right one? Because ScienceApologist isn't in that diff. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 17:34, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I support almost all parts of this. Much of it is what every editor here should be doing anyway. No one at all should be entering a discussion on an article or policy in order to to fight against a particular editor; no one at all should comment about another editor in the context of a policy or content dispute. And broadening one's range of contributions is of benefit to everyone personally and of benefit to the encyclopedia. Like Neal, I'm a little less than happy with the principle of linking behavior and content areas, but in practice for the people involved I think it's the best sanction. And I'll even suggest that the targeted quality of these proposal would be a very good model for arbcom. Had they done something like this initially, perhaps a good many of the recurrent problems that beset them would have been settled a good deal earlier. DGG (talk) 20:25, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

This set of resolutions is, I think, specific enough to be useful and broad enough to be reasonably applied in a variety of situations. These two seemingly have no interest in disengaging in the slightest. — Scientizzle 23:27, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

This is generally fine with me (don't know as I violate it anyway). The stupid thing here is that, obviously, the diff that started it is not attacking SA, but no one has any good faith about that. I reserve the right to complain about things he does which are disruptive, and I think that's allowed for.

The first part says "Martinphi should not enter into discussions solely to fight against ScienceApologist, or vice versa." will give rise to a lot of mis-interpretation. For example, on Astral projection, I got the article in shape, SA edit warred in a very different version. What if I hadn't edited in a while?

The problem is that you are restricting both of our ability to deal with content. In other words, after a few weeks where neither of us edits an article, then you give the article to whichever one of us gets there first. If the other comes along and edits in a way which opposes, then the other goes wailing to an admin. Often, we are the only two people interested in these articles. If the article is already being edited by both, then nothing changes. What's the use of this?

Do you really intend that I should "own" an article if SA hasn't edited in a few weeks? Do you really intend that SA should own an article I haven't edited in a few weeks? Do you really intend that nothing (in terms of content) should change if we've both been editing?

If you say "Oh, you can edit, just don't oppose" that will be a fun article, alright. I'll be able to put in anything I want, and SA will be able to put in anything he wants, and wow, what an article.

And how are you going to enforce this against SA? There is nothing in his ArbCom sanction which allows for it. Don't know what you'll do.

I'm not sure I'll stay around to see the carnage of this, but then it's tempting to go edit my list of "in-need" articles without disruption. Right now, I don't edit them because whenever I edit, SA comes and disrupts. Just like at Astral projection. I stayed away for months because I knew he'd follow me, and the minute he saw I edited it, there he was edit warring. Hmmm. Be nice to have protection from that. But it's terrible for Misplaced Pages overall. ——Martin ☎ Ψ Φ—— 22:21, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

P.S. To be clearer "Martinphi should not enter into discussions solely to fight against ScienceApologist, or vice versa.... Showing up to revert each other is disruptive, regardless of claims about protecting the wiki from each other."

That means whoever gets to an article first, the other can't revert him or discuss with him.... which means the one who loses the race is out of the article, if no one else is there (as often happens). Unless we're in agreement, of course. It also does nothing about the articles where we already edit. ——Martin ☎ Ψ Φ—— 23:44, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Well heck, if neither of the editors involved like it, it must be a pretty damned good restriction : ) Note: I have always had a problem with revert happy editors and edit warring. It's very, very frustrating, especially when you're in the middle of editing an article and the first response is revert rather than take it to the talk page and discuss what the problem is. Eventually the article ends up locked down and then no one is editing. It's irritating.

Out of the bulleted restrictions by Vassyana, the only one dealing with content is the first. It doesn't restrict you from editing content, like you are under the current restriction Vassyana imposed. It doesn't restrict ScienceApologist from editing content either. It restricts simply reverting. Though it wasn't in my proposal version, I have to agree with Vassyana on this one. The excessive reverting by the both of you is a problem. Maybe you're not aware that it's a problem since you picked that restriction against reverting and made it out to be a restriction from editing. Editing is not reverting. If you think it is, maybe that's a sign you are too revert happy. There's many productive ways of dealing with content you don't like besides reverting, like, I don't know, pointing out what's wrong with it on the talk page and getting editors to agree with the merits of your revision. That's productive, and nowhere in the proposal are you restricted from doing that so long as you discuss the merits of the edits rather than each other. The two of you simply reverting each other all the time is not productive.

Note: What people are considering to be "too open to interpretation" is the following:

Martinphi should not enter into discussions solely to fight against ScienceApologist, or vice versa. "Poisoning the well" against each other is also inappropriate at this point, considering the circumstances, and neither should do that. Both editors should refrain from posting messages to other editors that make oblique references to the other or their past history. Showing up to revert each other is disruptive, regardless of claims about protecting the wiki from each other.

It seems pretty clear to me. Neither Martinphi nor ScienceApologist should post messages to other editors referencing the other or their past history, and they shouldn't simply be reverting each other on articles. That's extremely clear and there's no other way to interpret it. Further, it's not a content discussion restriction. It's a revert restriction. --Nealparr 04:23, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Beating a dead horse

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I have to say that although Neall offers a solution (that I think will have problems in implementation), I can't see how we can logically accept this solution. There are two cases here. One, is the alleged "flea" incivility . That "case" has not been proven to be a deliberate incivility, and Martion has not been judged guilty of that. One has to assume then that the restrictions to be placed are based on past behaviours. Yet we haven't discerned what time period this refers to. I felt the editor, Martin had been improving. Yet he is now restricted. Can we just take a time period, any time period and say, hey, you were misbehaving there so we want to restrict you now. There are holes in this equation. Sure everyone is fed up with the ongoing disruptions but where are they coming from and in what time period. If we are judging this editor or either editor for a specific time period, and on the second case, because remember we didn't deal with the first one, then we need diffs that prove either has been disruptive. With respect for the intelligence it diplays, I couldn't disagree with Neall's anylses more, actually, because it refers to past problems, but does not specify anything in terms of time... the past two weeks, or month or what? . Again there are big holes in the logic we are employing here. What are we judging. We are placing restictions before a judgment is in place, or has been clarified.

I believe that Vassyana believed that Martin was in violation, if the "flea" incivility was real, and I believe he thought it was real, but the editor says its not .... so how did the rest of us jump from that, to restrict the editor for his "general" past. Both SA and Martin if they are to be restricted need to be so based on a time period in the past which is specified and based on diffs. That's a different case from the one that originally brought us here. If those editors, either of them show improvements, in that time period then I can't see how there can be a case against that editor.

I do sincerely apologize for stirring up this pot, but I think we have been hasty and I think possibly unjust. We have to be careful to not place restrictions out of an inability to deal with a difficult situation. I don't know if I am making sense but this doesn't feel right to me, and I felt that I would be remiss in, at least, voicing those concerns.(olive (talk) 23:59, 14 June 2008 (UTC))

Hear, hear. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:21, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I think it is fairly well established that SA is editing with a fairly narrow agenda and that he is doing so with belligerence toward editors who disagree with him. Just the statement at the top of his personal page and the rules for complaining about his incivility at the top of his talk page should be sufficient to support this observation. We are advised that we should tell the person being uncivil toward us before taking the issue to the admins, yet he has set unreasonably complex demands before he will even listen.

SA's actions and attitude incites other editors to respond more aggressively than they might like as the only way to exist in his combative world. Any decision that points out Martin as the offending person must also take SA's aggressive disregard for other people into account and this one has not. I have to agree with Martin that it will do more harm than good. Yes, it is an easy way out but is it the right thing for Misplaced Pages? Perhaps it is time to open another arbitration. Tom Butler (talk) 01:23, 15 June 2008 (UTC)