Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Betacommand 3/Evidence

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Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Create your own section and do not edit in anybody else's section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum of 500 words and 50 diffs. Giving a short, concise presentation will be more effective; posting evidence longer than 500 words will not help you make your point. Over-long evidence that is not exceptionally easy to understand (like tables) will be trimmed to size or, in extreme cases, simply removed by the Clerks without warning - this could result in your important points being lost, so don't let it happen. Stay focused on the issues raised in the initial statements and on diffs which illustrate relevant behavior.

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Evidence presented by ASCIIn2Bme (formerly Have mörser, will travel and ʔ)

Current word length: 278; diff count: 0.

First, let me say that I don't feel qualified nor am I particularly inclined to judge an extensive edit history like that of Δ which antedates my own by many years. So, I'll limit my comments to my own experience interacting with Δ. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 03:12, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Impressions from my brief encounter with Δ

I came in contact with Δ in September when he added some Google Books links and publication dates (month, day) to some citations found in an article on my watch list. Although I was not aware of Δ's editing restrictions at the time, the edit did look fairly automated to me and a bit indiscriminate as the links were to the book cover pages, and may of those GB entries did not have preview available to me. Δ's edit was pretty similar to what http://reftag.appspot.com/ produces in that respect. The talk page discussion, which quickly involved more than two participants, can found at User talk:Δ/20110901#Google Books links and subsequent sections; it is a bit disorganized probably because several other editors decided to complain and did not scan the previous sections before commenting there. A few days later, there was an AN thread Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive227#Δ (Betacommand) and community restrictions opened by someone else, and which seemed to be a general concern about use of [semi-]automated tools by Δ. As I had looked at a few other edits of Δ in the mean time, and because yet another editor had complained about the Google Books links while AN thread was ongoing, I was rather dissatisfied and concerned about Δ's prolonged non-consensual edits in that respect. However in the AN thread, Δ agreed to cease adding those links, so the mattered was settled amicably. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 03:12, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Nagle

Current word length: 120; diff count: 0.

Recap of Betacommand's history

Betacommand's accounts

BetacommandBot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - Bot account, indef blocked in June 2008 to enforce sanction against running bots.
Quercus basaseachicensis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - Sockpuppet account, indef blocked in May 2008. For a period of time, Betacommand was banned from Wikipedia, and used this sock account to evade the ban. See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Betacommand_blocked_for_sockpuppetry.
Betacommand (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - Previous main account, not used since 2010. Extensive block history.
Betacommand2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - Alternate account, not currently blocked, not used since June 2008. Previously blocked for misuse of alternate accounts.
Δ (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - Current main account, used since 2010. Extensive history of short blocks.
Δbot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - Current bot account, used to update Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations.

Those new to this problem may find reading the block logs useful. Also see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Betacommand, the centralized ANI section for Betacommand-related problems. --John Nagle (talk) 05:28, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Sven Manguard

Current word length: 351; diff count: 1.

June 2011 Incident

Almost all of my involvement with Delta and AN/I threads involving Delta was in June 2011. The incident in question (I am referring to multiple threads in a short period of time as one incident) began in the middle of June and continued through to the middle of July. The first AN/I thread was "Questionable block of Δ" (archived here), which was followed by "Inappropriate edit warring by Δ over NFCC issues" (archived here), and concluded with several more threads, beginning with "User: Δ / Betacommand violating community imposed sanctions" (all archived here). All three of those discussions should be read in full, as it's just too easy to get a distorted picture without doing so.

I'll be the first to admit that I was not a model of civility during these discussions. I believed, and still maintain, that Delta was wronged over the course of this incident (the initial block was overturned as a bad block, for starters). I stand behind the comment I during the discussion observing that the repeated blocks for minor offenses was serving as a de facto indef ban, something that the community was not in agreement over (diff).

As to my other comments, while I still believe that threads against Delta, Damiens.rf, and Future Perfect (all NFCC inforcers) all in a short amount of time is suspicious, had this discussion happened today, I would not have pegged it to a group of bad faith actors working together to take out NFCC enforcers. Looking back, that part of the statement was pretty off. I also owe Crossmr an apology for being outright hostile to him back then.

Finally, I'll note that about halfway through the discussion, I realized that it was becoming a massive flame war, and I didn't like it, or how I looked in it. I dropped out halfway through the discussion and haven't really made any Delta related comments since, until the Request for Clarification was started. This whole thing is uncomfortable, and so unless someone has specific questions/comments for me, I will now follow it only from afar. Sven Manguard Wha? 09:35, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by CBM

Current word length: 479; diff count: 36.

Community concerns leading to the imposition of the current sanctions

I was a member of an "ad-hoc committee" that wrote the sanctions in 2008. Chronic problems led to a situation where Δ would either be sanctioned or banned. Ad-hoc committee proposal

Failed proposals to lift sanctions:

Two further opinions [1] [2] from a thread [3] in October 2011 with substantial opposition to many requests by Δ

Δ has not voluntarily complied with sanctions

Community sanction

I can find only three requests by username "Δ" on WP:VPR: [4] [5] [6]. Two of these are responses to warnings after he violated the sanction.

Warnings about tasks performed without approval:

September 2010
October 2010
16 Jan 2011
18 Jan 2011
13 May 2011
27 May 2011 - more "cleanup" edit summary [7]
25 Sep 2011

These don't include edit rate violations (e.g. [8]) or NFCC image removal.

Block logs showing pattern of violations:

Skirting NFCC topic ban

Δ has skirted his topic ban on NFCC enforcement.

He prepared list of files for other people to delete; see [9] for his comments on the purpose of the list.
On 2011-11-8, Franamax blocked Δ. As Franamax said, the only plausible purpose of this edit [[10]] is NFCC enforcement.
Note from Xeno
Δ again voluntarily enters an NFCC discussion [11] on User talk:Franamax (!).

Pre-block communication

Tristessa de St Ange contacted Δ to warn about the "cleanup" edits. [12] [13].
I now realize exactly the same issue was discussed in May 2011. I explicitly warned Δ to get permission for suchjobs. [14]. I didn't follow up on that, assuming in good faith that Δ would request permission before continuing. In particular [15] and the two comments above it in the diff.

Edit summaries

In September–October 2011, Δ made 1,981 edits in main namespace with the identical edit summary "Cleanup".

Examples of AGF

Comments by me, spanning 12 months, where I give Δ another chance or de-escalate a situation: [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23]. Even in the last diff, I offer him the chance to prove he followed his restriction, rather than assuming he didn't.

Queries on Δ's talk page: [24] [25] [26]. In the last one, May 2011, I intentionally didn't block him to give another chance.

This diff [27], listed by Δ, is a follow-up to [28]. Arbcom later banned Δ from NFCC enforcement for this sort of edit. "Careful editor" is directly from the edit restriction.

Failure to "get the point"

My position in this RFA was shaped by observing, over years, how Δ has failed to improve his editing despite many attempts at dispute resolution.

Compare diffs from 2008 [29] and last month [30]. Δ fails to acknowledge why people are complaining about his edits.
In the August 2008 discussion above, other editors, including me, were forced to defend Δ's edits. In December 2008, a different editor was designated for policing Δ's edits [31]. In 2009, two other editors were appointed "mentors" to supervise Δ [32]. During the recent block, another editor was defended Δ [33] while Δ made inflammatory remarks [34].
The community sanctions, written by the ad hoc committee, were accommodating, so Δ could easily work inside them. He hasn't done so despite warnings and blocks documented above.

Evidence presented by Δ

Current word length: 357; diff count: 2.

I am going to keep my evidence short, Anyone familiar with me can see an ongoing case of stalking, harassment, assuming bad faith, and personal attacks. For the most part 99% of those issues go un-addressed. This pattern of ongoing abuse directed towards me has led to drama and countless pages of discussion. However it as also created an environment where people can completely abandon the core values of Wikipedia, Civil, Assume Good Faith, and other policies when they are interacting with me.

CBM points to a diff where I reference http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard&oldid=452780109#.CE.94_.28Betacommand.29_and_community_restrictions and where I get frustrated. Its a classic example of how a group of editors including CBM have done their best to get me banned/drive me away from this project. 27 September 2011 (UTC) it was determined that my actions where not an issue in regards to my general article cleanup. However on 23 October 2011 (UTC) I was blocked for the exact same actions that where acceptable less than a month before.
As to make some points Ive made 8,193 edits with the summary "Cleanup" of those 983 are still the most recent revision or ~12%. Ive earned several thank yous and at least one Barnstar for doing that.
User:Δ/Example is proof that my edits are viewed prior to me saving them. It provides 23 diffs. One on the left is my original edit and the one on the right is just the script edit.
CBM has posted repeatedly to my talk page even after asking him not to.
repeated troll like behavior
[35] example where CBM twists the meaning of my restrictions to mean something that it doesn't.
[36] CBM states that adding {{dead link}} should be done by a bot, and that I cannot do it (No such bot is doing this task). in a special position compared to all the editors I wasn't asking for special treatment rather just to be treated like a normal editor. CBM has repeatedly tried to degrade/disrespect and insult me by attempting to make me a third class editor who shouldn't be allowed it edit
see below for Hammersoft's evidence for yet more examples of bad faith and miss-conduct by CBM

Evidence presented by Fram

Current word length: 380; diff count: 6.

Δ uses as evidence of the quality of his cleanup edits the fact that some 12% of them are still the last edit to that article. Considering that this includes pages where errors he made have been pointed out to him over a month ago[37], not much value should be given to this "last edit = no problem" theory. This is an example of such pages: he adds a defaultsort to a page that previously had two cats sorted one way, and two sorted another way. The effect is that e.g. in Category:Political riots the other Jos Riots are sorted by year, but the 2008 ones by "Jos". He did attempt to correct another error I pointed out in that same comment, but this for some reason still uses cite book for a magazine article, adding the name of the magazine as author, title, publisher, even though the original (badly formatted) ref had the correct name of the author and the title in it. So, even after an error is pointed out, the following, supposedly checked "cleanup" edit gets it completely wrong again...

In a follow-up post the next day, I noted further problems, e.g. here he changes the year of a book from 2001 to 1975. That error is still in the article today. Here he changed the capitalisation of a book title, an error which also still is in the article today. This is another example of an instance where his cleanup is still the latest edit, but the error that I pointed out in September (turning two different books into two identical citebook templates (somehow mixing up the two along the way) is not corrected.

In general, many of his cleanup edits don't contain errors, one or two useful things, and many unnecessary or even unwanted changes (like adding quotes around all refnames). However, a significant number have errors which often go undetected or aren't even corrected after being pointed out. The problems caused by the errors often seriously outweigh the minimal benefit of the cleanup. Coupled with the long history of similar problems with his semi-automated editing, I don't see any benefit in lifting or even lessening the restrictions. Making them clearer, fine, but not by giving him more room to create problems. Fram (talk) 08:53, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Hammersoft

Current word length: 55; diff count: 2.

CBM

#1 inaccurate

Block inappropriately applied for conducting edits that a month earlier had been deemed ok.

#2 inaccurate

I was not "forced to defend" Δ. I volunteered. Effort applauded by member ArbCom.

#3 inaccurate

Violation of restrictions for "pushing the limit"? Limit established in restrictions; no qualifiers about coming close.

#4 inaccurate.

NFCC enforcement? No. About improper use of {{OTRS pending}}.

ArbCom Failure

This section moved here.

Evidence presented by Masem

Current word length: 484; diff count: 2.

Lack of good faith assumption towards Δ even while under restrictions

It is understandable that Δ is going to be under deep scrutiny while under community and/or ArbCom editing restrictions, and such many of the times Δ has been blocked since the last case were for going over his edit rate (40 edits in 10 minutes) restrictions, and that, one can't defend Δ for. But as evidenced by the events leading up to this case, there appears to be a number of editors that refuse to even assume that Δ is trying to improve the encyclopedia from these edits. Yes, he still makes errors (Fram's points above are well-taken) and that's not perfect, but the restrictions are not there to make him edit perfectly, but "edit like a human".

Consider the latest instance. Δ was blocked by Tristessa_de_St_Ange (talk · contribs) for violating the first editing restriction, making a "pattern of edits" on over 25 articles without seeking VPR approval. [38] However, part of Tristressa's block reason was for purported "lack of communication", but the user never approached Δ about the specific edits in question, instead assuming on past history that Δ would be unresponsive. Regardless of whether the edits were a pattern of edits, assuming that Δ would not communicate is bad faith. Further exampled by this is the discussion that broke off, initiated by Hammersoft (talk · contribs), to outline what tasks Δ could do at VPR as to comply with the community restriction regardless if these were a pattern of edits or not. [39] As you can read through the comments, there are clearly editors that believe Δ is unsuited to do any of the tasks listed, and even questioning if the VPR was valid, despite this being part of the community restrictions and assuming bad faith on Hammersoft's part. And even when these tasks are ones that are difficult to screw up on editing, there are editors that believe since a bot can do it, Δ shouldn't be doing it at all.

If we are going to put restrictions on an editor, we should not be assuming that every action they make is in bad faith; if that's the case, then you might as well ban the editor to remove the issue altogether. But when this bad faith is taken, in addition to what is becoming obvious as vague restrictions, you get situations exactly like this. I don't believe the restrictions can be lifted, but strong clarity is needed to assure that Δ's attempts to edit within them in good faith are not treated as bad faith and willful disruption of the work. --MASEM (t) 16:12, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Adding in this most recent block [40] by Franamax (talk · contribs), in response to this specific note that Δ made to Hammersoft on the generation of a list of NFC problematic images generated by Toolserver, but otherwise taking no steps to actually enforce the NFC policy [41]. When "broadly" is used in these resolutions, and there is lack of good faith, this is what happens. --MASEM (t) 03:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by Black Kite

Current word length: 232; diff count: 1.

The latest block of Δ by User:Franamax, currently being discussed on WP:ANI, is an example of how polarised this situation is becoming. Franamax, in the said thread, makes his view on WP:NFCC enforcement clear ("A group of editors uses this report to start NFCC battles") - a completely bad-faith observation of many more editors than Δ - yet still feels he is uninvolved enough to block. Unsurprisingly, later heavy consensus is that Δ hasn't violated his restrictions and the block is overturned. If ArbCom is going to look at this case from both sides, they need to be very clear that;

Yes, it is clear that Δ has his group of defenders, and sometimes they may be a little too forgiving of him;
However there is also clearly a number of editors that are determined to ensure that Δ is banned, and whilst those that are doing so purely because they've had previous run-ins with Δ are obvious (and can be safely ignored), I am starting to wonder whether there is a more concerted campaign starting to emerge. It would be useful if this latest particular block (amongst others) could be looked at by ArbCom, I think. Black Kite (t) 15:06, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

CBM

At this point, I note that CBM's mention of Franamax's block of Δ does not mention that it was undone and vast community consensus agreed that the block was incorrect. Black Kite (t) 19:01, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence presented by {your user name}

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