Case Opened on 19:31, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
Case Closed on 19:47, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.
Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.
Maoririder has been disrupting the Wikipedia community in a unique way. He seems to highly enjoy creating an extremely high volume of new articles, but almost always created incredibly short stubs. Examples: [4] [5]. Sometimes, he will tag his own articles for cleanup or expand [6].
He has created his own stub templates, usually with incorrect style and grammar, without checking to see if a more appropriate template already exists, or building consensus within the appropriate wikiproject. For example, Template:Route-stub. Detailed discussion of his stub templates can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Discoveries#Newly discovered, August 2005.
He has on several occasions posted to a VfD discussion's talk page, rather than the discussion page itself, even though it has been pointed out to him that this is improper. [7]
As of late, he has taken to disrupting Wikipedia:Reference Desk by asking inane questions, often several in a short period of time. [8] [9] [10] are three examples from a slew of edits made within minutes.
Further examples of his disruptive editing are listed at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Maoririder#Evidence of disputed behavior.
It seems plausible that Maori is a child, autistic, or otherwise developmentally challenged. With that in mind, many users have been extremely patient and attempted to mentor him into a more productive user. Once it was obvious that this effort was futile, and the RfC was drawn up, he began to evade any attempts of communication, often by logging in as new sockpuppets. Several users have now put many hours each into cleaning up after Maori, as well as attempts to mentor him. The ongoing problem has been a serious drain on good editors and Special:Newpages patrollers.
I think this edit: [11] in which Maoririder seems to acknowledge the annoying behavior of one of his sock puppets is a good reason to not assume good faith --CVaneg 20:05, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
As others have said, it is a strong possibility that Maoririder is very young, or perhaps suffers from some sort of developmental disability. With that in mind, it's truly unfortunate that this issue has gotten to the arbitration stage. However unfortunate that might be, I strongly recommend acceptance of this case. Obviously he has a very strong interest in contributing to this encyclopedia, but if he wants to continue being a part of this community he will have to make some radical changes to his behavior. Since other attempts at helping Maoririder become a better editor are obviously not working, the only apparent conclusion is that, at this point, he will not respond to anything less serious than arbitration. sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m ] 18:43, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to add to that, but feel free to remove this if it is out of course. Reviewing Maoririder's talk page and from seeing the large number of peopl trying to be helpful, I see a disturbing pattern of Maoririder saying he'll take comments into account, and doing nothing of the sort. I don't know much about the relevant disorders, but I have a really hard time believing this is anything other than a case of knowing behavior on Maoririder's part. Even if it is not, the behavior has got to stop. - Taxman Talk 22:38, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
Maoririder's contributions to the encyclopedia seem to me to be good faith contributions and are for the most part accurate. Looking at his talk page I see the following:
There does seem to be a serious problem here.
I look further and see this:
Let the person who wrote that, and anyone who endorsed it, hang his head in shame, for surely he has utterly failed to understand the meaning of "Wikipedia community standards". (stricken Tony SidawayTalk 09:13, 13 October 2005 (UTC))
I suggest that the arbitration committee investigate this as a possible case of harassment. As far as I can see, Maoririder is just being himself, he's adding good content to Wikipedia, albeit in bite-sized chunks, and he needs to be left alone to do what he does, which can surely only be good for the encyclopedia: adding small bits of information where previously there was nothing. --Tony SidawayTalk 23:03, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
I have no shame for stating the opinion that Maoririder's juvenile behavior may be consistent with mental retardation, which millions of people across the world suffer from. Regardless of anything else, one look at Maoririder's Talk Page can say it all, Maoririder has been told time and time again by other editors(myself included)what to do in order to live up to the encyclopedic standards that Wikipedia is based upon. An illness of any sort is no excuse to break those standards. I am personally offended by Tony's comments and would like an apology for what he has said above and what he said here. I personally believe his comments are in violation of WP:NPA, and I will follow up if the negative remarks directed toward me continue. Karmafist 21:40, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
I have no desire to get in shouting matches here, and I appreciate Tony's apology to appreciate getting back towards that. I myself have Asperger's Syndrome, so I share some slight feeling of brotherhood with Maoririder, and that was ultimately the big thing I was offended at. Accomodation for those with disabilities is always welcomed and in many circumstances is required, but the ultimate goal is integration into "regular" society beyond the disability to the best of the disabled person's abilities, both in positive and negative ways. It seemed like Maori was being held to a different standard here because of the way he responded to comments and his edits. Don't patronize him by believing he should set a lower bar for himself, help him get to a higher level -- he has the will to want to become proficient editor, but appears to need extensive mentoring and externally added focus to get there. Hopefully despite our differences of opinion on wikiphilosophies, we'll be able to help create a niche for Maori here in Wikipedia where he doesn't lower general encyclopedic standards. Karmafist 03:40, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
MENTAL WHAT?????????????? WHY dont you help me
1) "Stubs are articles which "[are] clearly too short, but not so short as to be useless. In general, it must be long enough to at least define the article's title."[Stubs] don't yet contain enough information to be truthfully considered articles. The community believes that stubs are far from worthless. They are, rather, the first step articles take on their course to becoming complete." Wikipedia:Stub, a guideline, does not prohibit stubs, nor does it incorporate the generally negative community opinion regarding very brief stubs that do little more than define their subjects, but does strongly suggest that they "be long enough to at least define the article's title, which generally means 3 to 10 short sentences".
2) Editors are expected to be cooperative with other users and to assume good faith on the part of others.
3) Personal attacks are expressly prohibited because they make Wikipedia a hostile enviroment for editors, and thereby damage Wikipedia both as an encylopædia (by losing valued contributors) and as a wiki community (by discouraging reasoned discussion and encouraging a "bunker mentality").
1) Maoririder (talk · contribs), new Wikipedia editor, has created a large number of stubs, some of which were no more than a sentence in length and offer no more than minimal definition of their subjects. This is shorter than recommended by Wikipedia:Stub, which offers a guideline of "3 to 10 short sentences". ([12], [13], [14], [15])
2) Maoririder has been generally polite in his response to criticism of his creation of stubs, and has made very gradual but good-faith efforts to improve his performance, as can be seen by User talk:Maoririder and a comparison of an early edit [16] to an edit of roughly a week later [17].
3) Maoririder has been blocked several times due to his prolific creation of stubs, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Maoririder/Evidence#Third_tranche:_Blocks_applied_to_Maoririder
4) Maoririder is known to have created two sockpuppets, Bluejays2006 (talk · contribs) and Sandove89 (talk · contribs) which, due to his distinctive editing style, were fairly easily identifiable. These were evidently attempts to evade continuing negative attention rather than for the purpose of evading a block, as their creation did not coincide with any blocks. One separate editor was misidentified as a sockpuppet.
1) Maoririder is to be assigned a mentor as outlined in Wikipedia:Mentorship. Mentorship of Maoririder will include guiding him to edit according to accepted article standards and helping him resolve disputes with other editors.