Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Theresa knott vs. Mr-Natural-Health

This is a record of the arbitration case between User:Theresa knott and User:Mr-Natural-Health from February 2004.

Timeline[edit]

6 Feb 2004 -- Referred to the arbitration committee by Jimbo Wales on 6 Feb 2004, in accordance with the emergency session rules of the arbitration policy then in place.
6 Feb 2004 -- Fred Bauder, Martin Harper, Sean Barrett, and UninvitedCompany vote to accept the case, so it is accepted.
11 Feb 2004 -- Decision made, prescribing a 30-day ban for Mr-Natural-Health (i.e., until 12 Mar 2004). The vote was 6-2, with 3 abstensions. See #Judgment of the committee immediately below for further details.

Judgement of the committee[edit]

Findings of fact:

we find that Mr-Natural-Health has behaved inappropriately on a consistent and excessive basis
we find that Mr-Natural-Health has made personal attacks in violation of Wikipedia's policy
we find that Mr-Natural-Health has misused edit summaries in an effort to intimidate other editors

Remedy:

therefore, Mr-Natural-Health’s privilege to edit Wikipedia be revoked for a period of 30 days, effective beginning 11 Feb 2004 18:32 UTC
This revocation to include all Wikimedia wikis, and enforced using technical measures only if necessary. (It has been pointed out that this decree can only apply to Wikipedia sites in English)
Further, all editors are encouraged to revert any questionable edits made by Mr-Natural-Health without discussion or concurrence of the community for a period of 30 days following his return to the community at the end of the revocation period.

Concurring arbitrators:

Opposed arbitrators:

Delirium - Agrees with the three findings of fact, but disagrees with the 30-day ban. Proposed instead an unequivocal ultimatum with a probationary period to ensure compliance. See also an earlier draft proposal.
mav - I agree with the three findings of fact but I disagree with the remedy. I think that a week long ban followed by a month of probation would have been more likely to reform MrNH. Detail

Abstaining arbitrators:

Camembert - I've been unable to find the time to look at the case as closely as I would like, so feel unable to vote.
Nohat - I chose to sit out because it was the first case.

Arbitrators yet to vote:

The Cunctator

Discussions and Evidence[edit]

The remainder of this page is the text of the discussions that took place and evidence that was presented during the course of this case.

Public discussions by arbitrators will take place at Wikipedia:Matter of Theresa knott and Mr-Natural-Health/arbitrator discussion. All are welcome to view, but only arbitrators may edit. Additionally, there is some private arbitrator discussion.

Please add signed evidence and testimony to Wikipedia:Matter of Theresa knott and Mr-Natural-Health/evidence

Clarifications by arbitrators[edit]

I would like to clarify one point for anyone who may be confused. Arbitration, unlike mediation, does not have to be consensual. Thus, our right to arbitrate this case comes from its direct referral by Jimbo Wales: not from Theresa Knott, and not from Mr. Natural Health. Martin 18:32, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Furthermore, the scope of matters under consideration and possible remedies are not limited by the consent of the parties. We may ban users where neither party asked for a ban, and may consider issues not directly raised. We will take into account with significant weight both sides' opinions, but the consensual phase of conflict resolution is over by the time things get to the arbitration committee: once it's here, that indicates there is a major problem that needs to be resolved, so we try to find a solution to the problem, and impose it (acting, of course, in accordance with community opinion). --Delirium 22:46, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)

Statement by Theresa knott[edit]

I am here on behalf of a number of different people because of the problems we have had in working with user:Mr-Natural-Health at alternative medicine . My original request for arbitration dated a week ago follows:

Mr Natural health has made numerous personal attacks to members of the wikicommunity. He refuses to work with people. He has admitted to trolling. He lists people on conflicts between users all the time even when they are not in conflict with him. He writes derogatory comments in page summaries. I would like the arbitration committee to force him to be polite, co-operative and inoffensive. theresa knott 11:53, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

In the meantime, there has been an attempt at mediation. Mediation never really got off the ground as Mr Natural Health appeared to have some kind of problem with the mediation process itself. Anyway mediation has failed to resolve the conflict, and Mr Natural health would not agree to mediation over his behaviour anyway.

I don't know how arbitration is going to work, or what if any sanctions you will impose. The ideal outcome for me would be for Mr Natural Health to see the error of his ways, and work with people instead of against them. It doesn't look to me, at this stage, as if he is willing to do that of his own accord. theresa knott 00:12, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Statement by Mr-Natural-Health[edit]

The issue for arbitration, here, has been narrowly defined by Theresa Knott and myself, Mr-Natural-Health. It is a result of my request to Jussi-Ville Heiskanen for the request for mediation filed by Theresa Knott to be split up into two separate issues.

Theresa Knott requested mediation, to-wit:

"I would like the mediation committee to see if they can perseude [sic] user:Mr-Natural-Health to work with myself and many other users on alternative medicine and a number of related articles. In any situation where Mr NH has disagreed with anyone else, he starts dishing out insults, listing out names on conflicts between users and reverting out work. theresa knott 20:30, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)"

I, Mr-Natural-Health, requested to Jussi-Ville Heiskanen that:

A)the issue of "alternative medicine and a number of related articles" continue to be resolved by mediation, while

B)the alleged "conflicts between users" narrowly defined to work on "alternative medicine and a number of related articles" be resolved directly by arbitration; so that the historical facts can speak directly for themselves.

No other issues were raised by Theresa Knott in her above cited request for mediation.

Furthermore, as I responded to Ms. Knott's request for mediation, I am requesting relief on the "conflicts between users" noted in my response to Theresa Knott above cited request for mediation as well, to-wit:

A)that User:David Gerard made an improper request to have Alternative medicine protected because David (1)reverted Off-topic POV comments, that were written by another user, in the research design sub-section, (2)declared that there was an edit war when in fact none existed, and (3)then had Alternative medicine protected.

B) that a yet to be identified user moved Mr-Natural-Health's Wikipedia:Conflicts between users conflicts to Wikipedia:Conflicts between users/Mr-Natural-Health, while this yet to be identified user clearly added a lot of material from elsewhere which was not from my conflicts listed on Wikipedia:Conflicts between users. Further, the yet to be identified user put my conflicts on the very bottom of this page so that visitors to it would first have to page through a lot of unrelated garbage before they could see the actual list of conflicts.

My specific objection is to the addition of material that clearly was 'added' rather than 'moved' directly from Wikipedia:Conflicts between users conflicts.

In short, I have only consented to the above narrowly defined issues for both mediation and arbitration.

Amendments to my above original response:

In regards to the Articles in dispute, I am currently in official mediation with Theresa Knott on these articles. The mediator is Jussi-Ville Heiskanen. It is my understanding that the mediation process is working on the Scientism article, in order to remove the POV from the Critique Section or second half of this article.
In regards to " Scientism February 6, 2003, (rv POV version) Followed a revert (rv POV version) by User:David Gerard", David reverted my cleaning up activities of the current mess at Scientism because (1)I merely clarified what had been previously written under the so-called "Scientism is more often used to mean the acceptance of" definition., and (2)I added a missing definition cited in Talk:Scientism and used the identical descriptive style that had been previously written under the so-called "Scientism is more often used to mean the acceptance of" definition. Ergo, I restructure existing text in order to removed POV while David uncritically changed it back to a version full of POV due to its structure.
1. In short, David Gerard, once again committed misconduct against me by his uncritical reversion of my improvements to the article, which clearly improved the professional quality of it.
The material inside User:Snoyes/sandbox is outside the scope of the above narrowly defined issues that I have consented to for both mediation and arbitration. Inclusion of this material, would require me to add specific instances of misconduct committed against me by User:RK, User:Ed_Poor, the yet to be identified user who inappropriately protected my user page, among other possible users.
1. In short, I never agreed to any open ended 'witch-hunt' by the 'gang of thugs.' I certainly do not have time to waste on researching what, when, and where both RK and Ed Poor among others acted inappropriately towards me on numerous occasions a month or so ago. I do not have time to waste on an extended arbitration process especially, since I have received no indication to date that anybody is monitoring their latest atrocities, let alone what they perpetrated against me on day one.
2. At this time, I would like to extend my request for relief to include sanctioning Fred Bauder and others who edited this page, for their deliberate attempt to expand the scope of this arbitration process to something that I clearly never agreed to.
3. But, at this time, yet again, I would like to extend my request for relief to include sanctions against those who have edited this page, for their deliberate violation of my user privacy rights and for them clearly degrading this arbitration process into some kind of a public farce. Some kind of public apology by the officals of Wikipedia is definitely in order.

-- Mr-Natural-Health 06:54, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Clarification by Mr-Natural-Health

My arbitration response is made directly in response to a message sent to me (13 Feb 2004, 19:43. Martin 19:50, 6 Feb 2004) on my talk page with the header of Case of Theresa Knott and Mr. Natural Health. So, if this matter is not in reference to my previous demand for arbitration, then I have no idea what so ever of what I am responding to, since I do not have any problems with Theresa knott that are not currently being resolved by mediation. Ergo, I cannot respond to a secrete arbitration process that has in fact not been unequivocally explained to me. -- Mr-Natural-Health 19:10, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Links to evidence relevant to this matter raised by Mr-Natural-Health

Response to Statement by Theresa Knott by Mr-Natural-Health'

Contrary to comments made by Theresa, mediation has gotten off the ground and is currently under way. If mediation has failed to resolve the conflict it is due entirely to her lack of cooperation and lack of timely responses. She seems unwilling to cooperate or to even tell the truth. Plenty of complaints have made against her by others.

As far as I am concerned, Mediation is on and is active. And, I am patiently waiting for the mediation process to continue from emails from Jussi-Ville Heiskanen. -- Mr-Natural-Health 06:30, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

To date, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen has not emailed or sent me a message saying that the mediation is off. It is extremely rude and offensive of Jussi-Ville Heiskanen to apparently call off mediation without notifying me. Jussi-Ville Heiskanen apparently wasted a lot of my time. I followed his ground rules to the letter. Theresa violated them the first opportunity she got by reversing an edit of mine without justification of any sort in Scientism. She lied about it in Mediation, as far as I am concerned. She lied in her above statement. And, she is now posting more lies in Talk:Alternative medicine. So, far the entire Wikipedia mediation / arbitration process has been a total joke. Meditation means that YOU guys have to do something for me. It does not mean that I have to agree to any of your nonsense. Theresa clearly thinks that I have to accept all of her nutty ideas in mediation. Disagreements are to be expected, Theresa, in mediation. That is why it is called mediation. -- Mr-Natural-Health 17:59, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)