Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sam Spade/Evidence
Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.
When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-conciousness rants are not helpful.
As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey use this form: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anomalous_phenomenon&diff=5587219&oldid=5584644] [1].
This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.
Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs, a much shorter, concise presentation is more likely to be effective. Please focus on the issues raised in the complaint and answer and on diffs which illustrate behavior which relates to the issues.
If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.
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The Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies voting by Arbitrators takes place at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.
Evidence presented by Infinity0
Sam Spade edit wars at Socialism
Examples from March 24 to April 1, 2006:
- [2] - reverts and accuses me of POV in edit summary
- [3] - reverts the WHOLE day's work and fails to mention reversion in edit summary
- [5] - calls my reversion "foolish"
- [7] - reverts whole day's work again
- [8] - reverts the WHOLE day's work; decides to work on his own version - revert to his version once again
- [10] - another unexplained reversion
- [11] - deceptive edit summary - in fact a revert
- [12] - reverts after I replace with suggested version saying that there have been objections on the talk page. [13] - no objections on talk page at time of Sam's revert.
- [14] - deceptive edit summary
- [15] - talk page at that time shows NO OBJECTIONS to suggested version, not even from Sam.
- [16] I ask him on his talk page to explain reversions. [17]
- [18] - reverts to POV version, but removes the POV-because notice.
- [20] I ask him again on his talk page to explain his reversion.
- [21] - reverts, yet does not explain his reversions for 30 minutes [22] - and then gives a half-assed explanation [23] saying I didn't provide sources (which I did) and that I use weasel words (which his version uses far more of)
- [24] - removes POV notice for no reason
- [25] - adds TotallyDisputed tag to the top of the page even though only one section is disputed.
- [26] - reverts to his version after three editors have AGREED to the other version on the talk page [27] and removes the POV tag
- [28] - User:Webmaster@sgovd.org restores the consensus version, pointing out Sam Spade's deceptive edit summary
- [29] - reverts to his version, yet again WITHOUT POV tag
- [30] - WGee asks Sam Spade to explain reversions
- [31] - User:Webmaster@sgovd.org notes that "User:Sam Spade seems not to be interested in user discussions nor in a consensus"
- Please note that this evidence has been pasted in by me at the request of User:Infinity0, who is currently on Wikibreak. Bishonen | talk 02:38, 7 May 2006 (UTC).
Evidence presented by {Sam Spade}
First assertion
I have been a copious contributer of long standing, contributing a great deal to the wikipedia's content:
Second assertion
I have responded to the concerns described in my RfC, and have ceased all edit warring subsequent to discussion there.
Third assertion
I edit controversial topics almost exclusively, rigorously striving for NPOV.
Fourth assertion
I am unusually willing to discuss my edits and the concerns of others, as particularly evidenced by my willingness to discuss Socialism with Socialists, on and off the wiki:
Evidence presented by Pjacobi
This section is work in progress. I'm slowly going through old diffs. Please don't use as evidence or respond to it until this notice is removed.
Vril and Nazi mysticism
May 6, 2005
July 29, 2005
Link to copyvio (subsequently deleted from website)
Evidence presented by Bishonen
Sam Spade responds to his RfC with contempt and "chastisement"
From April 4 to April 14, 2006
The criticism most often voiced at the RfC is that Sam assumes bad faith and makes ad hominem attacks. His own behavior at and during the RfC illustrates this. I apologize for walking the ArbCom through part of an RfC that is already linked above, and I'll be as brief as possible, but it seems to me that the timeline of events of these ten days is telling, and the RfC format tends to obscure it. The following examples form a chronological narrative, although I've avoided indicating clock timestamps, as people tend to merely get confused by the timezone issues.
April 4: In his response section, Sam Spade expresses disdain for the people who initiated and endorsed the RfC, referring to them as "hoodlums" and a "hydra" of troublemakers, and regretting that he doesn't have time for "the usual [sic] dirt-digging" on them.[35] User:Daycd posts a (formally incorrect) protest in Sam's section, which is quickly endorsed by many people. I post an outside view describing Sam as always impugning the motives of his opponents.[36]
April 4: Sam posts civilly on my talkpage and I respond in kind. Rather than through separate diffs, the ensuing dialogue on my page can be most conveniently seen in this diff, where I delete the whole of it (please look left and scroll down a little).
April 5: When 12 people have endorsed Daycd and an equal number have endorsed my outside view, Sam posts on my page again in a very different tone, accusing me of "abuse" and inviting me to "think about [my] role in where this project is going". I can only suppose that it's the endorsements of my RfC summary that make for his change of attitude, or perhaps the fact that I have signed Daycd. I reply sharply, taking issue with being accused of "abuse" and inviting him to stay off my page. Sam "chastises" me for what he calls my unfortunate involvement in the RfC, and makes suggestions for how I can become a better contributor. He says that if I don't want to dialogue with him on my page I ought to "remove myself from the situation" — remove my outside view, I presume, since that's the whole of my involvement — and assures me that he won't leave me alone until I do. (This is the only interpretation I can offer of his message, but since it's so outrageous that I can hardly believe it myself, do please take a look for yourself. When I ask him if that's what he means, I get no reply.) I reply sharply again, accusing Sam of harassing me and tersely inviting him to stay off my page. In several posts, we both reiterate our points. Sam says he won't make the mistake of speaking to me as a human being again, I tell him for the third time to stay off my page, and he repeats that I have an obligation to either keep dialoguing with him, or remove my RfC input. The basis he gives for insisting on this is that "a RfC is designed to provoke dialogue, and is to be engaged in only by those willing to communicate. If you are not (willing to communicate), I again ask you to remove yourself from the proceedings".
April 5. User:Fuzzie asks Sam to stop attacking me on my page[37],[38], a concern which Sam rejects with extreme haughtiness.[39] In a familiar move, he ignores the matter at hand and turns instead to scrutinising Fuzzie: "you do not appear to be an admin"[40], "Please explain your presence here."[41]. He continues to post angrily on my page, and User:Cyde blocks him for 24 hours[42]; however, he is quickly unblocked by User:Andrevan[43].
April 13. After this quarrel and block, Sam takes a week-long complete break both from the RfC talkpage and from editing the contentious pages he's being accused of "owning"; then he returns in the role of of embittered, blameless victim. "When was the last time you've seen me edit any of the articles in question? You've successfully chased me off, huzzah for mob justice (so much for NPOV, Consensus, and encyclopedic standards...)"[44]. Others on the talkpage will not accept the way he makes a virtue of avoidance (as he seems to be doing also in his evidence section above, and his statement on the main RFAr page) or his undented self-righteousness. User:Silence argues that "avoidance is still a form of ignoring and escaping the issues; if they are not dealt with, they will just recur again and again in other places in the future, even if you stay clear of the articles that have historically been troublesome in the past. This RfC was clearly not created to try to 'chase you off' of any article".[45], A long haggling about taking the issue to RFAr now follows, with Silence and User:WAS 4.250 fervently inviting Sam to start dialoguing constructively.
April 14. Frustrated, I write a second outside view exhorting the community to make up its mind to request arbitration against Sam before the laboriously collected RfC evidence grows stale. Many sign it. User:Silence "replies" to it with an outside view generously interpreting some of Sam's brief and enigmatic talkpage posts as expressing good will; therefore Silence considers an RFAr premature. Opinion on requesting arbitration is now divided, as four users sign Silence's view; but Sam re-unites it by continuing to post bitterly on the talkpage about his own services to the project and his opponents' many collective failings and misdeeds. All four signatories, including Silence himself, cross out their signatures under Silence's statement, User:Daycd with the comment "This contempt is worrying".
Conclusion: Sam Spade doesn't offer to attempt to edit in a collegial way, to work with others, or to respect the efforts of others, neither in the RfC nor on these arbitration pages. He continues to point to having not edited certain articles as a great concession, on April 20[46] and again in his statements in this RFAr. He acknowledges no problem with the way he interacts with his peers (I don't indeed see any sign that he thinks other users are his peers), even claiming that he "immediately ceased the behavior discussed in the RfC upon its creation"[47], or with the way he edits. So presumably, the RFAr once over, he wouldn't feel any obligation to change his demeanour or editing practices, unless compelled by restrictions.