Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Yorkshirian

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

A summary of the debate may be found at the bottom of the page.

In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 14:05, 5 May 2008 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 11:43, 7 December 2024 (UTC).

Yorkshirian (talk · contribs · logs)

Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Statement of the dispute

This is a summary written by users who are concerned by this user's conduct. Users signing other sections ("Response" or "Outside views") should not edit the "Statement of the dispute" section.

Desired outcome

This is a summary written by users who have initiated the request for comment. It should spell out exactly what the changes they'd like to see in the user, or what questions of behavior should be the focus.

The end of abusive name-calling, such as “trolling”, pejoratively referring to people by location or other abuse through edit summaries and talk pages.
The end of ownership of Yorkshire-related articles, exhibited through reverting of any additions by other editors (with rude or blank edit summaries)
Commitment to 1RR on Yorkshire-related articles.
Commitment to make use of polite and descriptive edit summaries.
Commitment to make polite and constructive use of talk pages.

Description

{Add summary here, but you must use the section below to certify or endorse it. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries, other than to endorse them.}

Yorkshirian contributes to Yorkshire and northern England related articles and the quality or content of his contributions is not disputed here. It is his conduct with other editors I ask for comment on. Yorkshirian has incredible difficulty working with others and the vast majority of his talk page contributions and edit summaries (where used) have been terse, rude or abusive. He does not accept the consensus of other editors and reverts multiple times, ignoring discussions that are ongoing, or only contributing to them once he is near to breaching 3RR.

Evidence of disputed behavior

(Provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.)

[1]: Edit summary refers to Pichote as a "troll" [a dispute about an image fair-use rationale]

[2]: Edit summary refers to MRSC as "some Londoner injected POV" [a dispute about changes backed up by citation]

[3]: Edit summary refers to Jza84 as contributing in "bath faith" [a dispute about an infobox]

[4]: Edit summary refers to Jza84 as a "troll" [a dispute about an infobox]

[5]: Rude talk page comment to KeithD ("KeithD has decided to deface") and Jza84 ("Some random person from Lancashire, Jza84") [a dispute about an image]

[6]: Edit summary refers to good faith edits as "boring" and "vandalism" [a dispute about an infobox]

[7] [8] [9]: Confrontational exchange [a dispute about and infobox, which appears to have started because of a misunderstanding by Yorkshirian]

[10]: Edit summary refers to Jza84 as a troll again [a dispute about a category]

[11] [12]: Talk page comment appears to be referring to me or the publishers of academic works as "anarchists" and then goes on to mimic our child-like speech [a dispute about validity of sources]

Applicable policies and guidelines

{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}

Evidence of trying to resolve the dispute

The first phase of attempted dispute resolution involves myself and other editors approaching Yorkshirian on his talk page.

I approached Yorkshirian on three times to address my concerns:

[13]: 10 December 2007
[14]: 13 January 2008
[15]:15 January 2008

Jza84 approached Yorkshirian about 3RR:

[16]: 1 April 2008

Harkey Lodger tried to draw Yorkshirian into using the talk pages of Yorkshire article instead of edit warring:

[17]: 26 April 2008

Jza84 initiated a Wikiquette alert:

Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#User:Yorkshirian_.28again.29 on 3 May 2008

Evidence of failing to resolve the dispute

My initial talk page comments on 13 January 2008 was rejected as a joke. [18]

Futher comments met with a statement that there was no desire to cause offense. [19] This I hoped would be the end of it.

However, further problems were summariesed in the Wikiquette alert filed by Jza84 on 3 May 2008. A third party reviewer found his behaviour to be at fault. Following this there has been no undertaking to improve his behaviour and rude edit summaries and talk page comments have followed:

[20]
[21]

Finally, he has explicitly rejected the comments at the Wikiquette alert, claiming the whole thing to be a "witch hunt":

As the Wikiquette alert wasn't getting anywhere I asked those involved if they felt things should move on to a third stage (RFC) and found Jza84 and Harkey Lodger to be agreement. So thats how we ended up here.

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

MRSC • Talk 14:43, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
--Jza84 | Talk 15:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
--Harkey Lodger (talk) 15:50, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Other users who endorse this summary

— KieferSkunk (talk) — 15:25, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
PhilKnight (talk) 16:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Gwen Gale (talk) 16:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
--Cameron (t|p|c) 16:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
^┌_Joshii^┐_└^chat_┘ 16:12, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response

This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.

I feel that MRSC has painted a largely unfair and uneven description of the situation. He and Jza have been just as much part and reason for this dispute as I have, one can't tango by ones self. To save time, I will repost a link reporting on MRSC unfortunately hostile conduct towards me that an admin suggested I do on WP:WQA.[25]

Despite several warnings,[26][27][28] MRSC has attempted to bully me around Wikipedia and has violated Wikipedia:Edit war, Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, Wikipedia:Harassment, Wikipedia:No personal attacks, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, amongs others only this morning, in his all consuming crusade against me, an obsesive crusade in which he is attempting to drag me away from peacefully editing articles.

Examples of violation of WP:EDIT WAR can be found on Saddleworth White Rose Society, where he also violated WP:VER by removing material[29], which is sourced[30][31] without discussing his controversial change on the talkpage first.
Examples of violation of WP:POINT, WP:NPA and WP:TALK can be found here[32] on the talk page of the article Yorkshire, where violating the "comment on the content, not the editor" philosophy of WP:NPA. He disrupted Wikipedia in order to make a point, violating the purpose of WP:TALK which is to discuss the article and its content.
Examples of continuous violations of WP:HARASS can be found in the fact that he, along with Jza keeps antagonising me in regards to my RFC both on my talk[33][34] and in MRSC's case the harassment and disruption has spread to talk pages of articles.[35][36] This despite the fact that MRSC has been made fully aware of the fact that I have 30 days to completely compile my countering evidence for the RFC (which he began only last night), which understandably takes some time and thus why the "Closing RFCs" timeline policy is in lane.[37] And the fact that this morning, I have discussed it with administrator KieferSkunk [38].

The way MRSC and friend address me on my talk page, is in a "can do no wrong" condoscending, and "holier than thou" manner, which is in itself offensive and a cause for friction. MRSC's almost trance like obsession with me, unwillingness to let old disagreements go, is exemplified in him following me around from article to article only this morning, when I was add information to them. It is an uncomfortable feeling, to the point of weirding me out that, every edit and move I make on Wikipedia is being watched over my shoulder by MRSC and friend, ready to jump on me at any moment in an act of harassment and Wikilawyering in an attempt to get legislation against me for the simple reason that the two disagree on some elements of content disputes. Concerning the most recent behaviour, and given he is ignoring talk page comments about it, what can I do? - Yorkshirian (talk) 06:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I stated in the report itself, I felt the WP:WQA process was a failure, not throught lack of cooperation on my part, but because MRSC and Jza were completely unwilling to discuss or address anything of the content of my replies on the report.[39] Essentially that avenue failed because the two frustrated me, by refusing to discuss any of the issues I brought up at all while I offered the coutesy of replying to anything they brought up directly. I feel MRSC's claim that I have not engaged in talkpage discussion to be an embelishment of the truth, statistics show that I have engaged in discussion on the Yorkshire article alone 39 times.[40] Lets get this straight, this is born of a content dispute. The opinion of Jza and MRSC against my stance, and that others have voiced previously[41] (link shows a similar "tag team" effort in a content dispute) in regards to the historic counties.

And it should be noted that throughout my contributions, any claim I make is backed up fully by sources. For example in a dispute Jza and MRSC disagreed with me on in regards to government, I provided sources from Prince Charles and Minister of Local Government and Inner Cities Michael Portillo to back up what I was saying,[42] while they provided no direct quotes from senior politicians for their claim.[43] As Wikipedia:Verifiability is the core of what this website is built on, I would like an explination as to why this is being ignored in such article places? Verified statements surely defeats personal editor politicial opinion.

I admit that my red blooded way of talking can sometimes be mistaken as insulting, this is in all sincerity not my intention, it is just hard to "robotize" and "deflower" talk page words, though I will promise to try and keep my wording more "watered down". I feel that MRSC, a person directly in one side of this dispute setting out the guidlines on how I should to act is completely unbalanced. However, should MRSC and Jza too completely agree and comit to following "Desired outcome" as an act of good faith to show that they want to resolve this, then I too will be all too willing to do the same. An additional point I would like the two to comit to is, when discussing contentious issues to directly address any points brought up, rather than avoiding or ignoring them, as avoiding is not how disputes are resolved.[44] Thank you. - Yorkshirian (talk) 18:17, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also I would like an apology from Jza for him calling me "racist", which is a breach of NPA. I was man enough to apologise when I made a mistaken accusation on WP:PLACE talk. He should show the conviction and offer the same.[45] - Yorkshirian (talk) 18:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this summary:

Outside view

This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

Outside view by KieferSkunk

I responded to the Wikiquette Alert regarding User:Yorkshirian and, after spending a fair bit of time reading over the diffs and examining the edit histories of several of the affected articles, along with their talk page histories, I found myself in agreement with the people who had filed the WQA. My own assessment was that Yorkshirian displayed an open disdain for people outside his own region, specifically what he considers to be minority groups. Furthermore, the original complaint included a mention of possible "racist sentiments" in Yorkshirian's comments and edit summaries. Yorkshirian had taken great personal offense at this - understandable, considering how emotionally charged the word "racist" is - but I couldn't find fault with the comment considering edit summaries such as "revert a trolling edit made by a Lancastrian".

I advised Yorkshirian that, while I had nothing to contribute to the content discussion itself (I have no knowledge of the subject), I found his behavior to be quite uncivil and in violation of several Wikipedia policies, including WP:OWN, WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, and more generally, WP:CON. I strongly suggested that he go back and read those and other policies, make sure he is familiar with them, and that he "play by the rules" when editing Wikipedia. He does not have to agree with another editor's viewpoint, but he does need to abide by WP's policies of working toward consensus, and from what I can see, it appears he much prefers to work unilaterally on the articles in question instead.

Yorkshirian has since replied to me, saying that my advice to him was completely one-sided, and further referring to the "racist" comment as an "extreme" personal attack, even after I explained how I perceived its context. From this, it appears that he still does not believe he owns any part of this conflict, and as long as he doesn't, I believe the conflict will continue.

I'd like to add that, throughout all of this, I have found Jza, Harkey Lodger and MSRC to all be quite civil, both during the initial dispute and in the WQA page - they have done an admirable job of keeping the discussion focused on addressing Yorkshirian's behavior in a polite manner, keeping their comments limited to their own observations of his behavior, and not engaging in flame-warring. I believe they are using the dispute-resolution process well, and I find it unfortunate that Yorkshirian is not cooperating with them. Thank you.

Users who endorse this summary:

— KieferSkunk (talk) — 15:36, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
—--Jza84 | Talk 15:44, 5 May 2008 (UTC) (and, on reflection, perhaps "racist" was too strong a word, My concerns were that Yorkshirian seeks to polarise and disparage users according to geographic locale (or "homeland" as he uses), in a way which is not disimillar to the "r-word".)[reply]
— MRSC • Talk 15:47, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
--Harkey Lodger (talk) 17:21, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Gwen Gale (talk) 16:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.

Summary

Proceeded to ArbCom.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.