Wikipedia Mediation Cabal | |
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Article | Relationship between religion and science |
Status | closed |
Request date | 12:34, 2 September 2008 (UTC) |
Requesting party | Unknown |
Parties involved |
Hrafn (
talk ·
contribs)
Ludwigs2 (
talk ·
contribs) |
Mediator(s) | User:JeremyMcCracken |
[[Category:Wikipedia Medcab closed cases| Relationship between religion and science]][[Category:Wikipedia medcab maintenance| Relationship between religion and science]]
I came here on the recommendation of User:Admiral Norton per discussion on Talk:The Christian Virtuoso. Since I began making contributions to Relationship between science and religion back in June of this year, User:Hrafn has sometimes nitpicked my other articles in apperent retaliation for something I did at Relationship between science and religion. Both sides with examples are fairly well summarized on Talk:The Christian Virtuoso. I believe the problems have to with a movement among some scientists, as quoted in the Relationship between science and religion article itself. Hrafn literally seems to be on a crusade to run down human worth and often mine as I interact with him or her, while editing Relationship between science and religion. A recent example is his or her usage of the word "stupid" [1].
I would like User:Hrafn to recognize the basic editing policy WP:IMPERFECT, to stop nitpicking other articles in retaliation for things that happen at Relationship between science and religion, and to recognize human worth towards others in his comments and actions, while editing this article. I believe two other editors User:Ludwigs2, User:ScienceApologist have recently joined Hrafn on his crusade on the Relationship between science and religion, making edits to the article's lede that don't really follow the standard scholarship and which appear to be motivated by some sort of scientism. I would like them to stop following Hrafn on his or her crusade. User:dave souza has also sometimes seconded Hrafn from time to time on Relationship between science and religion and now on Talk:Issues in Science and Religion. User:Eldereft has also seemed to join Hrafn, whom I consider to be part of the wrong crowd for any editor to join with (these reasons will become apparent per core wikipedia policy).
Perhaps these editors don't realize that they do appear to be on crusade. I would like them simply to recognize it and perhaps stop themselves from doing so in the future.
I'll mediate this case. JeremyMcCracken ( talk) ( contribs) 01:50, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Okay, some basics to get things started. First, be sure to assume good faith. Let's not assume people are coordinating an attack. Comment on the edits, not the editors. With that in mind, could Firefly322 post some diffs showing some changes made by these editors that are in contention? JeremyMcCracken ( talk) ( contribs) 02:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
I see things rather differently from Firefly322. My concerns over his/her editorial style are as follows:
A number of articles that Firefly322 has created and is the sole substantial editor of, e.g.:
[Further examples may be forthcoming when it is established what IPs, if any, Firefly322 has been editing under]
Hrafn Talk Stalk 16:00, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
I've made precisely one edit to this article here. The writing was poor, confusing, and added nothing to the article. I'd accuse the editor of having a POV, but the writing was so confusing, I had no idea if there was a POV. I guess you could say that makes a perfect NPOV, but I don't think the intent was to endorse bad writing. Oh, by the way, I've cooperated with editors whose first language was not English to get articles to FA status. So, I have no particular feeling one way or another. Anyways, I can't believe we're wasting everyone's time on a revert of poor writing. Firefly should chill out, accept that everyone can edit this encyclopedia, and there are many individuals who are great writers around here, and close this thing out. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 20:59, 6 September 2008 (UTC) Just to put a final nail in the coffin of some sort of conspiracy, Ludwigs and I agree on nothing, except maybe Wikipedia is spelled "Wikipedia." Otherwise, the rest of the editors have common interests, and will always have common interests. What's hysterical is that I had no clue who these people were, until I was reading an article (not even sure which one), and links lead me to find a group that was harassing Hrafn. However, now they are on my radar. I still don't understand the need for this mediation. We are talking about poor writing, which I guess is peripherally a content dispute, but just marginally. If someone is willing to give some writing courses to Firefly, then this could be a useful exercise. Otherwise, it's really wasting some good people's time. IMHO. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 16:35, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
This is an odd situation, and appears to be a time wasting exercise. Hrafn is a diligent editor who does a lot of work in trimming out unsourced or inadequately sourced stuff, while doing his best to first check and add sources or correct the statements where possible. From the few interactions I've had. Firefly produces astonishingly undeveloped work that lists things without explaining them or adds unsourced but incomprehensible statements to articles.
Firefly points in particular to The Christian Virtuoso, seeming to think that one uninformative sentence and a picture was enough to justify leaving it as a stub and doing no work on it for over a month. [2] When Hrafn followed normal procedure and redirected it to an article with all the information, Firefly argued to keep it as was rather than doing the sensible thing and expanding it. The article now has an astonishing two sentences, and could easily be expanded to a third using a cited source that I've just glanced at. I urge Firefly to do that work. Hrafn gets exasperated, understandably, and shows it more than is ideal, so a gentler touch would be desirable in edit summaries and comments. However, the basic problem appears to be an unwillingness of Firefly to co-operate and produce informative work. . . dave souza, talk 22:07, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
I came into this particular disagreement late. I've had this article on my watchpage for a couple of months (because it interested me), but I only started editing recently because I happened to notice an RfC had been opened.
First, let me say that any an examination of my only history with Hrfan (over at intelligent design, and not to mention the stormier interactions I've had with some of the other editors cited here) should clear up any misconception that I am working in concert. I can provide diffs, if asked, but I'd rather just let bygones be bygones. I can understand how firefly might make that assumption (because he's sounding a little beleaguered at the moment), but I just want to make it clear that I am only editing on this article out of interest. I consider myself an uninvolved party in this case, though I will (of course) cooperate with the mediator.
With that being said, let me point out that I have had (at the time I post this) possibly two exchanges with Firefly - enough to clarify that he doesn't like the revisions I made to the lead, but not enough for me to have figured out precisely what his dissatisfactions are. I am more than happy to work with him, and will continue to do so. If he'd like to take the time to get into a detailed discussion of the problems he sees, either on the talk page or my user page, I'd enjoy that, Beyond that, I can't really speak to the particular issues that are bothering him in this case without making unwarranted assumptions. -- Ludwigs2 01:30, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
This is a joke, right? What a waste of time. To accuse me of being in league with Ludwigs2 is just about the silliest thing I've ever seen! I have a simple way of resolving the dispute: show Firefly the door. (S)he is a terrible editor anyway. But for what it's worth, I am on a crusade with everybody else on Wikipedia to make Firefly's experience as painful as possible as long as the terrible edits persist!
That's the last you'll hear from me here.
ScienceApologist ( talk) 06:50, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Who in Hades is "Firefly322"? •Jim62sch• dissera! 17:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
The point was that I didn't recall the edit or the editor. Having reviewed the edit, I reverted it because it was crap. 'Nuss 'Nuff said, I think.
•Jim62sch•
dissera!
20:20, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Okay, let me make a couple of points. First, I should stress that WP:BRD is an essay, not any kind of guideline. However, it's never helpful to revert war. At some point, one of the parties needs to stop reverting and discuss it. If somebody reverts your addition, you shouldn't revert again. If you revert an addition, and the adder reverts you, you shouldn't revert again. Thankfully, somebody finally did stop, and you had some discussion. In the future, just avoid re-reverting; if someone reverts your revert, it won't become anything but a revert war if you revert again, so stop. It's very possible that the other user is being disruptive, but if you revert war, you're adding to it. Remember, you can always have it protected at WP:RFPP in the event of a serious edit war.
On a second note, I ought to point out to Firefly322 that reverting the addition of a maintenance tag, in this case for notability, is often considered vandalism. In fact, there are talk page templates for warning users not to do this. You're supposed to discuss the issue at hand (in this case, a user believing an article lacked a statement of importance), before you pull the tag.
With that out of the way, let me look at the other users and IPs that seem to be involved. First, here are IPs that look like Firefly322. Firefly, could you look at these and confirm or deny?
It looks like there are other identifiable people that have recently edited under IPs. They have a different writing style. The IPs are:
Just to be sure those people don't get mixed into this. (I stress the writing is different; these are in a similar geographic area.)
Confirm or deny what exactly? -- Firefly322 ( talk) 12:21, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Looking at the edits of this article, I do now see the contributions of ScienceApologist ( talk · contribs) (and nondistinguished ( talk · contribs), who is an indef-blocked sock of ScienceApologist, that turned up further back in the edit history) and Ludwigs2 ( talk · contribs). I do not, however, see anything relevant by Dave souza ( talk · contribs)- Firefly, can you provide diffs?
I am also going to include Orangemarlin ( talk · contribs) based upon this, and Jim62sch ( talk · contribs), based upon an involvement in the reverting back in June.
I think the involved users should also disclose any involvement with each other. Some of your edits make it appear that some of you know each other outside of this article. Was there any off-wiki canvassing occurring? Firefly has made an accusation of users being on a "crusade" (pun intended, I am sure), and this needs to be examined. JeremyMcCracken ( talk) ( contribs) 20:38, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
OUTDENT Okay, I think we've established that we're best focusing on content differences; not looking for connections between the editors. JeremyMcCracken ( talk) ( contribs) 04:08, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
I apologize in advance for the length of the following. I have been documenting this material offline for a while. I brought it together at my user space on September 4, 2008 with the idea of making an AN/I report against hrafn. On Spetmeber 6th, on finding this mediation discussion in progress, i realized that this mediation page is a far better place to post the results of my reasearch.
In the interest of full disclosere, i will also note that right after i placed this material online at my own user sub-page sandbox and asked three or four editors to look it over and help me with typos and grammar, i was brought up on an AN/I report by dave souza, one of the accused "cabalists" here.
Souza was aware of my tentative work on an AN/I report against hrafn, as he noted here, on my talk page.
My private AN/I sandbox page also received an uncomplimentary drive-by visit from Jim62sch.
And here is the possible "cabal" participant Orangemarlin warning possible "cabal" editor hrafn about my AN/I sandbox. He found it "boring," or so he said. So, again, they seem to be playing tag with one another. Wether this is evidence of cabalishness, i leave it to the reader to consider.
Neither dave souza nor Jim62sch nor Orangemarlin was previously known to me. The only editor i was trying to understand was hrafn. I was actually surpised to see the four of them named together in this mediation request, as i had only learned of their interconnection through their mutual discussion of my sandbox. They do seem to know each other and they may indeed work together.
I beleive that these four editors were viewing my sandbox as a result of their having become involved in deleting some edits that my husband recently made, in his first attempt to edit at Wikpedia in a year or more. (He created a POV-fork that he called "Psudoskepic target" as a sort of demonstration of what he found unaccpetable among the anti-religion folks because some religiouse topics had been categorized as "pseudoscience." (His method of demonstrating this was more or less an "Other Stuff Exists" exercise, but he is not familiar with Wikipedia mores.) They may have been following my husband's edits and found my sandbox about hrafn, where my husband had commented -- but, in any case, i had not previously conflicted with them.
As i said, what i offer below is simple evidence of hrafn's months-long use of non-consensual deletes and redirects that effaced or eliminated useful Wikipedia pages about small, minority religions and spiritual beliefs, including Unity Church, Church of Divine Science, and so forth.
I am not a member of any of these religions, just an editor who noticed something disturbing enough that i documented it. I hope it is of use in this mediation discussion.
And, again, my apologies for the length.
cat yronwode (updated Catherineyronwode ( talk) 08:20, 7 September 2008 (UTC) )
Editor hrafn is engaging in a disruptive, biased, tendentious, and POV-pushing war against New Thought and Christian pages.
My main purpose here is not to enforce civility rules, but i will note that hrafn is given to incivil laguage and to making threats:
"I would (...) suggest that he takes his irrelevant intellectual masturbations elsewhere."
"If you want this article to exist, prune it back to a cited stub."
Since hrafn's war on both religious and secular New Thought pages is a gradual process, it is difficult to document, but i suggest that anyone interested in how this technique has been applied should start by checking the page for Wallace Wattles and the page for Charles F. Haanel. Both were New Thought authors. Read the revision hisory of each page for the byte-count numbers. Watch them grow as editors contribute and then gradually shrink as hrafn plays the "verifiability" card to trash the work that others have added in good faith. If you have time, read the talk pages for the two biographies.
Hrafn's technique is to engage in hostile cite-tagging (placing multiple fact-tags on the page, generally one per paragraph) followed by spurious tagging, spurious redirects, and undiscussed deletion.
If he bothers to post to the article's talk page, he usually starts with a "warning" like this:
This article is in flagrant violation of WP:V. Material that is not cited to a source is unverifiable, and may be challenged and deleted, per wikipedia policy. Please do not make contributions without citing them to reliable sources. HrafnTalkStalk
The fact-tags insist on "verifiability" and at first he poses as one who is simply "enforcing verifiability." If no other editor wanders by to add the cites, he eliminates the data and a second round of hostile cite-tagging ensues. Byte-count can drop 75% in a month or two.
If no editor defends the page, the destruction escalates.
This article on a New Thought writer was stripped of its image with no justification. Compare Charles Haanel page, edited by Hrafn (Talk | contribs) at 04:20, March 31, 2008 with Charles Haanel Page, edited by Hrafn (Talk | contribs) at 17:51, June 25, 2008. Removal of images further reduces byte-count. (see here and, after the now-stubbed page was restored, see here for a second example).
False reasons were used in edit-comments to support these deletions:
17:51, 25 June 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (1,605 bytes) (tag -- source is not reliable ( commercially-motivated source of anonymous authorship & unknown editorial & fact-checking standards); template -- no WP:RS = notability not established) (undo)
The source above-mentioned was said to be of anonymous authorship. In fact, a check of the source shows that it was authored by C. W. Evans-Gunther (so stated on the top page). Furthermore, the site itself contains a long reference-list of books that were utilized in its creation. Note also hrafn's "non-notability" tag. This is spurious as well.
More information on the attempts to destroy the Charles F. Haanel page can be found on the Charles F. Haanel talk page.
This page, about The Master Key System, a book by Charles F. Haanel, was deleted.
Non-notability of a biographical subject can be spuriously heightened by removal of connecting wiki-links. In the case of Charles F. Haanel, there was at one time a page about a popular book he wrote in 1912 (still in print) called "The Master Key System." That page has already been deleted and in order to even learn what was there, i will have to find an admin who will give me a copy of the version of the page when it was at its highest byte-count. I am not saying that the missing "Master Key System" page is notable, only that it was deleted by hrafn without discussion by being merged into the author's page, and then the author's page was incrementally cut from 4,000 bytes to 1,000 bytes, and then tagged for non-notability -- so i am very curious about that deleted page, as you can imagine.
The article on the International New Thought Alliance should never have been a bone of contention. It simply gave the 100-year history of a notable spiritual and philosophical organization that is low-key, non-contentious, and does not proselytize.
Compare this version of the International New Thought Alliance page to the current version, as of Sept. 4, 2008
The earlier version of the INTA article was footnoted according to earlier versions of Wikipedia sourcing guidelines and did not reflect the latest version of Wikipedia in-line sourcing guidelines, but the sourcing of the article could have been remedied and brought up to current standards. Instead, hrafn deleted material, incrementally, against the attempts by the editor Madman to source the article, until it had been reduced from 6,330 bytes to 1,791 bytes over a period of 3 1/2 months.
INTA 15:15, 7 July 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (1,791 bytes) 8:56, 21 March 2008 Globalprofessor (Talk | contribs) (6,330 bytes)
As is typical when hrafn attacks a New Thought article, 75% of the INTA article text was removed incrementally, over a period of two or more months.
In the case of the INTA article, you can see that along the route to taking a probable C-class article to tagged-and-flagged stub-hood, there were complete deletions and restorations of the article, as a close reading of the article's revision history will disclose.
Meanwhile, on the relevant INTA talk page you will see hrafn's aggressive intentions, clearly stated with the threat "If you want this article to exist, prune it back to a cited stub."
I think if you read the talk page, the level of hostility and aggression will be more than evident.
Over the course of 3 months, hrafn took the bio of the New Thought writer Napoleon Hill from this long B-Class Napoleon Hill biography which merely needed some sourcing per new guidelines to an about-to-be-deleted Napoleon Hill stub.
The byte-count and date recap tells the story:
Napoleon Hill, once a B-Class biography, now a stub 15:37, August 17, 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (2,439 bytes) 02:02, April 19, 2008 Johnlocke2 (Talk | contribs) (7,695 bytes)
Here you will find a complete account of how hrafn deleted the entire New Thught religious denomination of Divine Science without going through any standard Wikipedia discussions and how User:Madman recreated the article and named it Church of Divine Science.
Afirmative Prayer is a specific form of prayer used in New Thought religiious denominations. It is not supplicatory prayer.
Here the Affirmative prayer page was said to have been deleted by hrafn without discussion.
I know Affirmative prayer existed because i once did some edits on it. It now redirects to Prayer -- but the New Thought text about Affirmative prayer was deleted when the reditect was made. This was done without discussion or concensus agreement.
Because this page dealt with specific New Thought religious techniques and was deleted-through-redirect it should be restored so that the lost textual matter can be inserted as a sub-section on the Prayer page.
Affirmatons are a form of self-talk used by secular and religious New Thought adherents, and other groups as well. (They are not the same as Afrirmative prayer.)
The Affirmations page was said to have been deleted by hrafn without discussion. I know Affirmations existed because i once did some edits on it. It now redirects to the dab page Affirmation with no mention of the text or the meaning assoicated with Affirmations in New Thought religion. Here is where the redirect-and-deletion occured :
# 16:03, 30 April 2008 Low Sea (Talk | contribs) (1,113 bytes) (removed terminology implying negative biases and removed erroneous use of supplicatory (which is contrary to affirmation)) [an editor simply tried to remove the negative word hrafn had added] ["supplicatory" was a term added added by hrafn] # 16:05, 21 April 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (1,142 bytes) (rm self-link) [it became a "self-link" because hrafn had redirected the page out of existance] # 22:40, 19 February 2008 Vernon39 (Talk | contribs) (1,146 bytes) (add link to "Affirmation" article) [Affirmations article existed at this point, hence the link from the dab page]
This is a technical religous term among some New Thought religious denominations, i believe. I copy edited it but am fairly unfamiliar with the page. Apparently text was deleted by hrafn, as per this commentary.
This may be typical of was was being noted in the request for help. These edits are sequential and took place on one day, with no talk-page concensus:
06:27, April 19, 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (10,705 bytes) 06:25, April 19, 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (10,686 bytes) 06:13, April 19, 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (13,868 bytes) 02:13, April 19, 2008 69.22.232.176 (Talk) (14,265 bytes)
A converstion about page deletion and restoration of the Malinda Cramer biography is here.
Examples of repeated redirects of the page by hrafn, each time trashing all text it contained:
# 14:32, 16 May 2008 Madman2001 (Talk | contribs) (941 bytes) # 14:15, 16 May 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (25 bytes) # 14:12, 16 May 2008 Madman2001 (Talk | contribs) m (505 bytes) # 14:10, 16 May 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (25 bytes) # 14:01, 16 May 2008 Madman2001 (Talk | contribs) (505 bytes)
Here was the unsourced but generally accurate bio of Charles Fillmore, the founder of the Unity Church denomination as edited by 71.247.78.33 (Talk) at 01:50, February 15, 2008 with a byte-count of 7,318 bytes.
Tagging it for lack of sources would have been appropriate. Deleting it piecemeal, over the course of several months, was not.
At some point, hrafn actually deleted the entire page, prompting this dialogue over the loss of the page between an IP editor and Madman.
Hrafn incrementally shrank this bio to less than 2,000 bytes (removed approx. 75%):
# 17:17, March 23, 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (1,833 bytes) # 17:15, March 23, 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (2,038 bytes) # 17:03, March 4, 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (5,645 bytes) # 14:28, February 19, 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) m (7,316 bytes) # 14:27, February 19, 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (7,302 bytes) # 01:50, February 15, 2008 71.247.78.33 (Talk) (7,318 bytes)
It has since rebounded to 2,981 bytes, but the material that hrafn removed has never been restored.
Editor Julia Rossi asked editor Madman's help in defending the Shinn article against hrafn.
Hrafn worked for the article's deletion on grounds of non-notability, but failed.
An example of hrafn's massive cuts on the bio of a New Thought writer and the restoration of the material by the editor Madman.
05:12, 17 August 2008 Madman2001 (Talk | contribs) (5,300 bytes) 05:00, 17 August 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (1,631 bytes) 21:44, 16 August 2008 IceUnshattered (Talk | contribs) m (5,300 bytes)
Hfrafn later tried to delete the page for a variety of reasons, including non-notability.
Talk about the cutting of the Wattles page is here.
This is a book by Wallace Wattles. It was a nice, short piece, but hrafn decided to redirect it out of existence several times. Note that his redirects (to Wallace Wattles, which he was simultaneously cutting and trying to delete as non-notable) involve complete loss of the text; not a merge and rediect, rather a blanking of the page and redirecting. The following edit-pairs show him blanking and redirecting the page within 24 hours of the page being worked on; there was no discussion with other editors; he acted alone.
# 05:14, 9 July 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (29 bytes) redir.; trashed into # 23:51, 31 August 2008 64.142.90.33 (Talk) (3,204 bytes) new start by new ed. # 05:14, 9 July 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (29 bytes) redir.; trashed info # 22:29, 8 July 2008 Friarpuckrory (Talk | contribs) (568 bytes) new start by new ed. # 0:54, 4 March 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (32 bytes) redir.; trashed info # 08:48, 22 February 2008 SmackBot (Talk | contribs) m (725 bytes)
Further details on hrafn's campaign to redirect this page out of existance and its repeated restoration can be found on The Science of Getting Rich talk page.
Quimby is accounted as one of the founding thinkers of New Thought religion. Again, it is best to view this history of deletion in terms of editing pairs. Four editors have added varying amounts of text; hrafn has made large cuts each time:
06:00, 8 July 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (8,899 bytes) 22:41, 7 July 2008 79.97.246.219 (Talk) (10,171 bytes) 11:48, 2 May 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (7,874 bytes) 23:55, 17 April 2008 Lindsay658 (Talk | contribs) (8,266 bytes) 07:31, 17 April 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (8,266 bytes) 22:02, 16 April 2008 149.171.241.39 (Talk) (9,610 bytes) 03:29, 25 February 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (7,564 bytes) 20:50, 30 December 2007 Triwbe (Talk | contribs) m (25,456 bytes)
Phineas
Thomas Troward was an early New Thought writer. Here we see that hrafn uses his watchlist to delete material within an hour or two of each addition, no matter how many different editors try to add material, or what they are adding. I have placed the additions and deletions in pairs, for ease of viewing the byte-counts:
17:48, 3 September 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (2,699 bytes) 17:19, 3 September 2008 64.142.90.33 (Talk) (3,352 bytes) 17:21, 21 August 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (2,699 bytes) 16:59, 21 August 2008 87.127.18.198 (Talk) (3,120 bytes) 02:19, 5 June 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (2,676 bytes) 01:39, 5 June 2008 66.108.106.248 (Talk) (3,042 bytes) 04:40, 19 May 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (2,676 bytes) 03:28, 19 May 2008 Madman2001 (Talk | contribs) (3,929 bytes) 14:21, 17 May 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (2,639 bytes) 13:56, 17 May 2008 66.108.106.248 (Talk) (3,929 bytes) 11:40, 2 May 2008 Hrafn (Talk | contribs) (2,639 bytes) 21:26, 9 April 2008 69.22.232.176 (Talk) (3,963 bytes)
As can be seen from the various talk pages cited, a number of editors have tried to reason with hrafn. Some have been inexperienced editors and merely asked why he deleted their edits -- and then left Wikipedia. Others have quietly restored material he deleted, only slowly concluding that he was actually waging a war against religion pages. Some, including myself, have directly confronted him, and have been treated with incivility (i admit that i eventually responded a bit uncivilly as well, for which i apologize). However, until this page was created, there was no one place where all the affected pages were logged and all the affected editors could post examples of what hrafn has been doing.
Now that the data is assembled, i think it is time to act.
I would like to see hrafn blocked from editing any pages that fall in the New Thought category, and possibly other religion versus sceince categories as well, due to obvious bias, tendentious editing, disruptive editing, POV-pushing, incivility, and repeated violation of Wiki guidelines concerning the need for consensus before making deletions and redircts. He is apparently wreaking the same kind of havoc in the Christianity/Evolution/Creationism pages, but i do not have time to log examples of that.
cat yronwode Catherineyronwode Catherineyronwode ( talk) 05:31, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
As I stated in response to Catherineyronwode's accusations on AN/I here:
They are based upon confirmation bias, inaccurate hearsay repeated as fact, and misinterpretation of core policy (specifically WP:V). Her claims of "a hegemonic philosophical viewpoint" would appear to be directly related to her husband's ( User:Self-ref) and her POV-pushing on Category:Pseudoskeptic Target and its CfD. I could provide lengthy difs correcting and clarifying many of her claims on User talk:Catherineyronwode/ANI-proposal [which she now repeats, apparently verbatim here], but (i) this would take a great deal of time & (ii) [they are likewise off-topic for this page -- as none of the pages listed in her post are at issue here]. I will however note that I apply my "hegemonic philosophical viewpoint" of attempting to see that WP:V is rigorously enforced, not to the "one-purpose" of New Thought articles, but to a wide range of topics, including my own editing speciality (articles relating to Creationism -- in which area an article of my creation, Academic Freedom bills, was recently favourably mentioned in the August issue [p11] of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology newsletter), as well as articles relating to the Unification Church, the woollier reaches of speculative Cosmology and other topics. Hrafn Talk Stalk 07:42, 7 September 2008 (UTC) [Modified for this page Hrafn Talk Stalk 08:00, 7 September 2008 (UTC) ]
That Catherineyronwode:
Hrafn Talk Stalk 08:26, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
There is no way that you can convince me that deleting pages on entire religious denominations, with no consensus sought from other editors, is a matter of "enforcing verifiability." Tagging the pages as in need of sourcing is the appropriate response; thousands of pages are thus tagged at Wikipedia (and thousands more ought to be). Mass deletions of content is not appropriate, and when a pattern of such editing is shown to center on religious topics, it paints a picture of a disruptive, biased editor. When that editor has three friends, and all four of them leave tracks around my unpublished sandbox dealing with the problem of disruptive editing by one of the our, it paints a picture of a tag-team of editors. cat yronwode Catherineyronwode ( talk) 09:16, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
You really don't seem to have the hang of Wikipedia:Verifiability – The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true.
Just picking at random one example you complain about above, Charles Fillmore (Unity Church), in your preferred state, [3], waffles on including effective advertising "Unity House has been able to offer them in hardcover at trade paperback prices", and directly contradicts the much more concise biographical information in the Charles Fillmore Home Page linked under External links. The sole reference is a publication by Southern Methodist University Press, cited for a brief statement. Hrafn tagged the article as needing sources, and only edited out the cruft after no reliable sources were forthcoming.
What's all this guff about leaving tracks around your "unpublished sandbox? Have you forgotten that you've published it on Wikipedia, and provided links to it in user talk space? The actions under your name and your IP number together with those of Self-ref, Firefly322, and other friends paint a picture of a tag-team of editors trying to keep unverified fancruft in Wikipedia by attacking those acting properly according to policy. That's unacceptable disruptive editing. . . dave souza, talk 11:02, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
I am well aware that it is quite impossible for something as irrelevant as facts to get in the way of your one-eyed demonising, and "convince" you of anything Catherineyronwode. So there's little point in you reading the following. But for other interested parties:
Hardly unilateral or precipitous action.
Affirmations was never anything other than a redirect -- so I couldn't possibly have "deleted" an article there. Catherineyronwode simply didn't bother checking Madman2001's inaccurate accusations before repeating them.
These are the most ludicrous examples of Catherineyronwode's ill-considered rant. What her examples all have in common, is that the editors who created these articles, like Catherineyronwode herself, couldn't be bothered complying with core wikipedia policy by providing adequate (or in most cases any) sources. Now a few of them, again like Catherineyronwode herself, are howling like an infernal host that, because of their own inattention to WP:V, and in accordance with that policy, this unsourced material is being challenged and removed -- often without bothering to get their facts straight. I leave this page with this quote from WP:V:
I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons.
–Jimmy Wales
Sound like anything you've just been reading about? Hrafn Talk Stalk 11:09, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Okay, people are missing the point of MEDCAB. Let me make this clearer:
Mediation is a venue for users to find a compromise in disputes. That, of course, requires users to be willing to work with certain things. Whether or not a user has engaged in improper behavior, if they don't actively admit to improper behavior, there is nothing that MEDCAB will change. I am not going make any statement as to whether I believe there is factionalizing, ganging up, wikistalking, etc. The fact of the matter is, it's just not relevant to what we're actually going to be able to accomplish here.
It is for that reason that I added the additional users. Since they had taken a side in the content dispute, they could give their own perspective. Instead, of course, some have simply gone on the attack against Firefly, which is not helpful. Would you please, without attacking them, just say what's wrong with the edit?
The whole reason I asked if the users if they were coordinating was because I knew you would say no, and we'd just be forced to move past it and talk about the content concerns! For crying out loud, if all of the editors had (not sarcastically) said, "Yeah, we're members of a secret society aimed at destroying Firefly, but we'll change", we wouldn't be here at all. I am only trying push everything out except the original content dispute, since we actually can work with it.
With that said, two things about the newer additions. Catherineyronwode, unless you've edited the article in the infobox at the top of this page, this isn't something you have any involvement in. ScienceApologist, your comment said nothing about your actual edits, just sniped at Firefly. If you had a problem with the edits, say what it is. Orangemarlin and Hrafn have stated their concerns with the edits already, in terms of content guidelines.
One more thing- there is way too much incivility and attacking going on, both directed at myself and the other users. STOP, or I'll close this, and you can explain to ARBCOM why you're acting like you're twelve. This is not a forum to air grievances or hurl insults, it's a venue to discuss a content dispute at the aforementioned article. That is all. JeremyMcCracken ( talk) ( contribs) 16:14, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Response to Firefly322's accusations |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
I will then take the liberty of repeating my response to Firefly322's claims that he has repeated from WP:AN/I
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(undent) ok, in the spirit of reasonableness, let me see if I clarify the issues going on here:
in other words, I think this is entirely a miscommunication/misinterpretation problem. I don't know if that will help resolve it or not, but... -- Ludwigs2 23:12, 9 September 2008 (UTC) In fact, Hrafn is being cited for his behavior here.
Taking a 30,000' view of this MEDCAB "case", it reads like a tag-team attack on User:Hrafn. RfC it in that case. This isn't coming across as a content dispute at all. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 01:55, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, a quality and formerly indefatigable editor has announced retirement. Can we thank JeremyMcCracken for his efforts (this part is not sarcastic) and consider this case concluded to the satisfaction of all remaining parties (this part is sarcastic)? - Eldereft ( cont.) 11:39, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
Okay, so short and sweet question- to you want to continue this MEDCAB with the other users, or close it in light of Hrafn's retirement? JeremyMcCracken ( talk) ( contribs) 20:58, 12 September 2008 (UTC)