Wikinews:Requests for arbitration/Brian New Zealand vs. Amgine/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.

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.

Be aware that the Arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to refactor the page, let the Arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the arbitrators to move.

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.

Userboxes are part of Wikinews
Userboxes first appeared on Wikinews on the June 6, 2005. Since then there has been no complaints on Wikinews about them until this message appeared, after this, everything went downhill.

Amgine disrupted the site by deleting them
  Amgine, repeatedly violated the WN:DG, and the WN:SD. Below, are examples of this behaviour have been gathered: Amgine's deletions Deletions of templates:

  

Wikinews is not Wikipedia

 * Amgine stated: “Wikinews is not Wikipedia. Our policies, and community needs, are different”
 * But also said: “…watching the developments on WP, and measured the benefits versus the drawbacks of userboxes…. The user use of category and template namespaces… userboxes should not be on Wikinews”

One this does not if in with the "Wikinews is not Wikipedia", and I agree Wikinews is not Wikipedia. Wikinews is a different community, different policy. Different needs, different proposes. How can what happens on wikipedia be what is necessarily the best for Wikinews?

Deletion was out of process
The entire deletion of the Userboxes/babel templates should have gone through WN:DR. Amgine is an admin, and a respected editor, but in this case he used his privileges in a mass deletion campaign - breaking links on user's pages - and set a bad example for other users and administrators.

Userboxes are beneficial
Babel templates are helpful. They can show a user's language skills and, if you need help on a Spanish article, you can track down who speaks it to ask for help. The same applies with Userboxes. If you were writing about US politics, you can get help from someone who knows about how the US system works, etc. Therefor how can userboxes make Userpages be offensive, if it's imforming you infomation.

Amgine was disruptive
Amgine's actions violated the sense of community and collaboration that is Wikinews.

Re: "Wikinews is not a free wiki host or webspace provider" (WN:NOT), the policy also states "Wikinews is not a theater of war." Mass deletions don't reflect that Amgine was behaving civilly, calmly, and in a spirit of cooperation.

Evidence presented by Amgine
Due to the nature of an Arbitration Committee, decisions are largely based on accepted practice, written policy, and previous decisions in similar cases. The Wikinews ArbCom has not had previous cases, so it is difficult to find evidence showing specific practice on Wikinews. This case is also about learning from the example, and mistakes, of our sister project en.Wikipedia. I plan to use some examples from Wikipedia where policy between the two projects are similar, and where there are particularly clear examples, as well as evidence from Wikinews.

Userboxes are disruptive
Userboxes developed from the original Babel templates from en.Wikipedia. The experiences of en.Wikipedia are instructive due to their longer, and more severe, exposure to userboxes.

Current wheel wars
Admins on en.Wikipedia are currently disputing enforcement of policy regarding userboxes originally proposed by sannse and made policy by Jimbo Wales.


 * RfAr
 * Evidence
 * Administrator's Alert regarding wheel war between admins Guanaco and MarkSweep
 * Administrator's Alert regarding wheel war between admins Babajobu and MarkSweep.
 * Administrator's Alert regarding blocking of admin Babajobu for disruption re: userbox categories.
 * Administrator's Alert] regarding one user's spam attack, using a userbox category, over one userbox edited by MarkSweep during this wheel war.
 * History of the Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion showing the edit warring within an established policy.

5 users de-admined

 * Signpost article regarding de-admins over the paedophilia userbox wheel war.

Disputes, polls, and proposals
The extension to the Criteria for Speedy Deletion is only one of many incidents of instruction creep related to userboxes on en.Wikipedia.


 * Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates - undeletion of userbox debates
 * Wikipedia:Proposed policy on userboxes - proposed policy
 * Wikipedia:Userbox policy poll - fail poll attempting to gain consensus on proposed policy
 * Wikipedia:Proposed policy on userboxes/Proposals - earlier proposed policy, failed to gain consensus
 * Wikipedia:Userfying userboxes - proposed policy
 * Wikipedia:WikiProject Userboxes - a project organization to lobby for policy/promote the use of userboxes
 * Wikipedia:Userboxes - instructions on how to create, use userboxes, official lists of userbox templates.
 * Admin alert regarding personal attacks of "racism" regarding the deletion/dispute of a userbox.

Requests for comment, arbitration, current admin notification incidents

 * RFC Kelly Martin - original
 * Admin alert - User:Alibabs
 * Admin alert - Userbox deletions
 * Request for Arbitration Tony Sidaway, still open.
 * Request for Arbitration Pedophilia userbox wheel war, closed

Userboxes on Wikinews
At the request of ArbCom Chiacomo, I checked the use of the templates I deleted, examining the date of initial creation and the userpages which connect to these templates.

The majority of user boxes were initiated, or rewritten, on 23 February 2006 (note: this was technically a violation of GFDL, copying from en.wikipedia or meta.) Likewise, a majority of user categories were created, all by User:ClaesWallin.

There are currently 82 user pages (including talk pages) linked to userboxes. This number is probably reduced from 4 days ago, when the userboxes were initially deleted. This does not reflect the actual number of user pages on which the templates appear as most of the pages which have any userboxes have more than one. One quarter of these are the native english speaker userbox.

Users may not use Wikinews as a webhost
This element of Wikinews policy has been unchanged since its first draft:


 * Wikinews is not a free wiki host or webspace provider. You may not host your own website or blog at Wikinews. If you are interested in using the wiki technology for a collaborative effort on anything other than writing journalistic news articles, even if it is just a single page, there are many sites (such as SeedWiki or Riters.com) that provide wiki hosting (free or for money). You can even install wiki software on your server.


 * First draft of the WN:NOT policy
 * Part of Wikipedia since 15 June 2002.

Use of categories and templates should be for the project
From the first formulations of Wikipedia policy to the latest discussions it has been clear that all pages, including user pages, are intended to be relevant to the project. The earliest mention of userpages in policy specifically state they are to be used for working on the encyclopedia.

Use of template and category namespaces for personal use does not work toward the goals of Wikinews. Wikinews Mission statemen

The Catholic Alliance of Wikipedia used categories contained in userboxes to attempt to bias the content of Wikipedia through vote stacking. Likewise, StrangerInParadise engaged in the same behaviour, which also led to this memorable quote from David Gerard:


 * Grossly non-encyclopedic categories in userboxes have been considered a bad thing since they first showed up. (ibid)

User pages must not be offensive
Wikinews does not have a written userpage policy. Practice has been to request a user remove offensive material, and in rare cases for an admin to remove the offensive material. (Looking for cases, I remember one late spring 2005 plus the discussion with User:Neutralizer by Eloquence, et al.)

Other policies are relevant:


 * Etiquette
 * Be polite.
 * Recognize your own biases and keep them in check.
 * Be civil.
 * Don't label or personally attack people or their edits.
 * to be open and warmly welcoming, not insular,
 * Make others feel welcome (even longtime participants; even those you dislike)
 * Create and continue a friendly environment


 * Username
 * Don't create user names that are offensive
 * Out of courtesy to other users, please do not create usernames that may be misleading or confusing.

Ignore all the rules
WP:IAR is a concept, if not a policy. To state it simply for Wikinews:


 * If the rules prevent you from working on Wikinews, ignore them and go about your business. Remember the purpose of Wikinews is to report news; use common sense and don't be a dick.

This concept has a long tradition in the wiki communities, predating Wikipedia. It is closely related to the mantra "Be bold!". In both of these guidelines is the implicit instruction to improve the project no matter whether what you do is "outside of process". If it works toward the goals and missions of the project, it supercedes the policies and traditions of the site which have developed. Product is more valued than process.

First assertion
Amgine has a long established pattern of arrogant abuse of administrative privilege ,site disruption and rudeness as shown here;


 * Amgine abuses administrative authority consistently and has done so for at least 9 months. Here are a few examples of administrative abuse.


 * Dan100's list of Amgine's "bullying and poor behaviour"
 * 

Second assertion
He will not stop abusing administrative privilege; as this blatant out of process unilateral deletion of his yesterday shows; Amgine went "out of process" and unilaterally deleted an article (which he had tagged days earlier) without submitting the article through our Deletion Request process. The article clearly is not elligible for speedy delete and had been in develpment for days before the unilateral out of process deletion. The fact Amgine placed the article in a user's space is particularly worrisome as other editors had been participating in editing and discussion.


 * 'Summary' of the 2 assertions; I think the evidence shows Amgine is a wiki-troll; just playing with the site to manufacture his own rules and hand out 6 month blocks etc. at his whim and when it comes to his own behavior, to ignore all rules equally at his whim. He relies upon the good nature and gentleness of most contributors (as well as turnover) to co-dependentize his behaviour. Few of the Arbcoms here ever knew DV or Simeon or the other great wikinewsies Amgine pushed out; Just read the DR histories concerning Amgine's behavior over the past year. Now that's in evidence too. I suggest that Arbcom read it before making a final decision. Neutralizer 22:36, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * If I remember corectly, DV leaving had nothing to do with Amgine's behavoir, and more to do with the limits of NPOV. Simeon left before I came. Bawolff ☺☻[[image:smile.png]] 22:40, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


 * If you go back through DV's history you'll see it all; he was just too much of a nice guy to leave a critical comment when he left. He'll tell you himself if you get in touch with him, I'm pretty sure. He could stand no more of Amgine's hypocrisy. Simeon was even a sadder example of pure harrassment, wikistalking and even 3RR trap setting (Dan100 referred to that). Its all in the histories of DV and Simeon.


 * I'd suggest the committee even interview Simeon if you really want to do an exceptionally thorough job. Neutralizer 22:47, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry; I left out Mateo"I can not contribute to a project where I am not allowed to edit in peace."; there's been so many border-line blocks and rule quoting by someone who enlists "ignore all rules" in his own defense. Mateo's final edit on wikinews is kindof ironic given this Arbcom; ""Email me when the vast majority of good administrators get a tighter hold on this place." User:Neutralizer|Neutralizer]] 23:03, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * An intreasting kinda unrelated comment I saw . Bawolff ☺☻[[image:smile.png]] 23:06, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


 * by Edbrown05 04:47, 12 March 2006 (UTC):
 * In answer to the notion that userboxes inform and are therefore not offensive, I would note that there are instances where information is offensive. For instance, on an advertising-free website such as this, I would be put off to click on a contributor's user page to find it full of advertising banners (where an "Advertising banner" is an evolved userbox). For example, "Edbrown05 speaks no Spanish, but will paint your Spanish-speaking home" in a flashing font on the banner trailing an airplane as it crosses your browser window.


 * It could be argued that since it is my user page, I can post what I want. But as Bawolff noted, where do you draw the line?