Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/66.20.28.01 and other accounts

User:66.20.28.21 contribs and other accounts

The above user has engaged in a edit war that's epic in scope (stretching from June 2004) and completely flies in the face of consensus. Specifically, he has targeted the articles Phil Gingrey and Rick Crawford, inserting material that is extremely POV (he asserts that Gingrey is a war criminal for his role in Guantanamo Bay) (diff). Upon first seeing this material, I reverted in June 2004 and attempted to discuss the matter on Talk:Phil Gingrey (June 23 version of Talk). However, no matter how much discussion was done, there was never any willingness to compromise. I believe the material to have essentially no place in an article on Gingrey, and so removed it. I considered the matter closed, as the anon user did not edit again for some time.

In July 2004, he returned (I believe) as User:168.9.250.3 (contribs). He repeatedly inserted the same material into the two articles, and was reverted by several users, including myself, User:Hcheney, User:Alteripse, and User:TacoDeposit. This pattern continued through August and September, during which he was also reverted by User:Khalid and User:Isomorphic. No users wanted to include any of his material.

In September, several new accounts began editing the two articles, such as User:GreatLeapForward, User:Dreisshh, User:AMoll, User:InHere, and User:EasyMassood. They all made exactly the same edits to the articles, and all displayed the same refusal to discuss their edits, despite repeated requests (User talk:AMoll, User talk:EasyMassood). I believe them to be sockpuppet accounts.

On September 25, Phil Gingrey was protected; it was unprotected on October 8. During the interval when it was protected, the same edits continued to be made on Rick Crawford. Immediately upon unprotection, the pattern continued on Phil Gingrey.

Recently, the intensity of the editing has increased; over a few days, a reader had an equal chance of encountering the neutral version and the POV version (which includes sentences like "Gingrey's single-minded focus on social issues misses the mark" diff). He has also taken to attacking articles that I have listed on my user page, such as inserting his own opinion of the electoral college in swing state (diff). In addition, he has begun using misleading edit summaries, such as "New link", for inserting the same inaccurate and biased material (diff).

I really don't know what to do about this. There would seem to be a few options, none of them very palatable--permanent blocking of the IPs, permanent protection of both pages--so I'm hoping the arbitration process will provide a solution. If there is no possibility of discussion, then permanent blocking would seem best, but I'm willing to defer to the wisdom of the committee--any ideas would be helpful.

After repeated requests on article talk and user talk, there has never been any compromise or, recently, even willingness to engage in dialogue, and thus I believe mediation would not be helpful. I respectfully request arbitration. Thank you. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 17:04, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

I support banning this editor and sockpuppets, not because of his political views, which are probably shared by many here, but because of offensive behavior.

• He refuses to honor or even acknowlege our NPOV policy.
• He usually refuses to discuss changes.
• He reverts without negotiating content even when factual errors have been pointed out.
• His edit summaries are frequently dishonest, misrepresenting reversions as new material.
• Ample examples in the history of Phil Gingrey and Medical torture.
• Very few of his edits add anything of value to the articles.
• This person does not appear to be here for any reason other than political advocacy, if not just to exasperate and annoy, and has been given many explanations, requests for improved behavior and warnings.
• He has no respect for this project and the other editors here and I resent the time wasted for the rest of us.

This is the kind of behavior that drives away good editors. Please, can we show that we can protect ourselves from this? Alteripse 19:40, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hi there. My first introduction to this guy was an edit marked 13th October "revert: OK lets stop the edit war by leaving it this way" on the medical torture page. At that time, he at least gave one or two good edits. Since 19th October, it has been a pure revert war. As far as I know from his comments, the version I revert to does not contain anything he finds objectionable. It is the lack of Phil Gingrey he finds objectionable. He has used two new sockpuppets in this fight, User:ShepsleH and User:PippaNipple, the latter of whom has created the Representative Gingrey article, a copy of the Phil Gingrey article with the disputed POV edits inserted. Kyz 17:50, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)