Case Opened on 18:32, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Case Closed on 10:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
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I started helping out on a Wikiquette Alert regarding User:Yorkshirian in the beginning of May, and so far have not seen any satisfactory change in the situation since guiding the affected users through two different forms of dispute resolution. The main behavior that we'd like to see changed is the fact that Yorkshirian seems to continually assume bad faith in other people's edits and seems to believe there is a conspiracy of sorts to further a regional agenda in the various articles in which he edits. He has more than once referred to other people's edits as "ethnic cleansing" and called other editors "anti-Yorkshire" (most recent known example), while the editors in question have denied having any such bias (see discussion on Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Yorkshirian). In my opinion, Yorkshirian's behavior is clearly hostile and disruptive, yet has not stepped far enough outside the line that direct action is warranted yet. I will let the directly-involved parties state their cases, as they are more familiar with the issue at hand than I am, and at least one of them has been reluctant to escalate the issue. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 21:00, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Jza holds fringe views in regards to the former administrative entity Greater Manchester which was put into place in 1974, before its county council was abolished by Margret Thatcher in the Local Government Act 1985.[1] Due to this attachment to an entity which was in administrative practice for only 12 years, Jza insists on launching a Wikipedia wide fatwa on anything to do with Yorkshire (a cultural entity which has been around for over 1000 years), Lancashire and the culture of Great Britain prior to 1974. His attacks would not be accepted against regions of other countries such as Brittany or Catalonia for example, but he thinks he can target these.
Jza, along with MRSC constantly attack people who are interested in writing of British culture. I can present that the two often "tag team" users who write about Britain's culture, disuading them for doing so; examples are against myself, Howard Alexander,[2] Lancsalot[3], Logoistic,[4][5], for a start. The two also insist that anybody who does not agree with them is "a minority", "outsider" or a "fringe view" despite no evidence or stats to prove their inaccurate claim. In fact I can exemplify the exact opposite with the users Tangerines, Gladius Terrae Novae, Lewisdg2000, Owain, Arcturus, M A Mason, El Pollo Diablo, Bayerischermann, Modest Genius, Jmb, Heavens To Betsy, Sigurd Dragon Slayer, GSTQ, Marsbar man, White43, Bailrigg, Gal Lass, Ausbusinessnetwork, Snowy 1973, AleG2; who hold the oposite view to them, and this only includes the ones who have spoken up on their page; putting Jza and MRSC in a complete and utter minority.
Jza openly describes himself as a "social authoritarian" on his page.[6] In practise this is how he acts, forcing his minority stances onto a majority. If I point this out he calls it an "attack". Similar behaviour is his actions and clashes against the people who edit Irish articles such as; BigDunc, Windyjarhead[7] and Domer48[8]. BigDunc describes Jza's contribution to Wikipedia's Irish articles as "disturbing",[9] while MightyWarrior describes him as a "hot headed reactor".[10] Due to Jza's edits to sectarian articles; such as the Orange Institution[11] and supporting Rangers F.C.[12] this may go deeper. Below are examples of Jza and MRSC's harrassing me, violations of WP:OWN and "culturally cleansing" views they do not agree with from Yorkshire articles and others. Yorkshirian (talk) 20:31, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Clerk note: Statement trimmed to meet the 500-word limit. Original statement can be found in its entirety on the case talk page. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 18:23, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
As most clearly outlined at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Yorkshirian and (importantly) Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Yorkshirian, Yorkshirian has a crystal-clear history of abuse on Wikipedia. His disregard for others dignity, his committment to using edit summaries ONLY when attacking others, and his lack of willingness to collaborate with others has festered. I'm not going to repeat all of the example diffs of Yorkshirian's hostilities again (they are all at the aforementioned RfC). However, I want to make clear that Yorkshirian has labelled me a "troll", "vandal", "bad faith editor", "authoritarian" and now a racist ([13]). Let me make this absolutely clear, this is disruptive, this is rude, this is EXPLICITLY forbidden by multiple (and none-negotiable) policies:WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, and WP:NPA.
OK, hostilities aside, Yorkshirian has a rather strange, fringe, and minority view on the geography of the United Kingdom, particularly, the counties of England; an issue which is dealt with clearly in our naming convention here. His refusal to work in the spirit of this guideline lies at the heart of Yorkshirian's distruption. I believe that that convention is there for the benefit of our readers. I've actually been accussed (by Yorkshirian) of doctoring this naming convention two years before I came to Wikipedia (see here)! And, in addition to his "traditional"-counties nonsense, I should also like to point out that Yorkshirian had a significant presence at my request for adminship.
I believe Yorkshirian's presence on WP has been a net negative, i.e. he's made it a stressful, hostile and unappealing place to be. His continual ownership of articles does no justice to Wikipedia's mixed international reputation. A committment to change simply isn't good enough here; it's been tried, tested and failed to bring about a net positive with Yorkshirian's conduct (see the RfC and it's talk page where he agrees to fundamental behavioural committments of change). That said, I'm a realist and I actually have no strong ill feelings towards Yorkshirian (a user I have - I mean really have been perfectly civil with). I doubt an indef block is likely or appropriate from an outsider view, so I suggest a ban (6 months/1 year?) from all content regarding the counties of England and the minority views touted by outsider groups like the Association of British Counties. This includes content on Yorkshire and all the metropolitan counties, their districts and their daughter content. I expect a 110% adherance to WP:PLACE - both in spirit and to the letter. I'd like mentorship and a committment to 100% future edit summary usage to be considered.
I would like to point out that a committment to change has already been tried and has failed. I was promised I would not be abused and I have been.
As they say, "there are two sides to every story" - I have no doubt that Yorkshirian will hold a different view, but I would like to point out that he's been warned, he's been blocked, he's been at ANI, he's been the subject of a lengthy RfC. The RfC showed: a) that all the involved editors agreed he is (or rather has been) distruptive, incivil and inappropriate, b) that no other editors agree with his views, c) that he himself agreed he has behaved inproperly and promised to change, d) that his promises mean nothing.
--Jza84 | Talk 23:33, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
As a result of an exchange over the past few hours, I have just now imposed an indefinite ban on Yorshirian diffs here for his persistent personal attacks on other editors. I had this drawn to my attention, reviewed the evidence as outlined in the RfA (links provided above), and particularly in the light of the long ongoing history of the attacks, I issued a block unless and until he was prepared to give an undertaking to stop personal attacks and apologize to others for engaging in them. The history of this was that I initially asked Yorkshirian to stop making the personal attacks and to send me a message apologizing for them and giving a promise not to repeat them. This resulted in a message making allegations about my own motives. Since sufficient warning had been given, I issued the block. I note he has asked for an unblock alleging that I did not provide diffs and that I have a conflict of interest in knowing and communicating with Jza84. I view this as playing the system to discount and attack the action I took. DDStretch (talk) 08:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
In response to Yorkshirian's original statement, mostly where it is about me (Yorkshirian has subsequently been asked to trim his statement): User:Rlevse has asked me here to do some trimming to this statement I originally made at this point. Yorkshirian in his (untrimmed) statement makes a number of unfounded and new allegations about my motives and behaviour in blocking him. I consider they are sufficiently serious to have required a statement rebutting them of which this is a trimmed version. He attempts to state that I do not know policy whilst he confuses a ban with a block, he assumes that WP:CANVASS applies when it does not, and accuses me of dishonorable tactics in blocking him because, he incorrectly says, Jza84 asked me to, or because we are friends. He incorrectly states that the block was undone because it had been wrongly imposed, when messages in response to his requests for unblock and elsewhere show that other administrators would have done the same thing or had no objections to the block: it was lifted so he could respond and take part in this arbitration procedure. These allegations about myself were made solely as a result of me trying to require Yorkshirian to make a commitment to civility and no personal attacks. I took no part in the dispute resolution procedings up to the warning and then the blocking action on 26-27 June, 2008. There are other highly misleading allegations made in his statement, and I needed the space to rebut them, since they are potentially very damaging and misleading. A more lengthy description of them can be found here. DDStretch (talk) 00:36, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
My view of Yorkshirian's conduct remains unchanged since Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Yorkshirian which details all the problems we've experienced with him and our attempts to resolve any dispute. Yorkshirian's summary in that RFC included a number of serious claims about myself and other editors and I am glad to see no other editor has endorsed it. On the whole, I find his manner incredibly confrontational, rude and adversarial. It is impossible to discuss content matters with him as the response consists of personal attacks and claims about malevolent motives. Similarly, when editors point him towards adjusting his poor conduct (such as in the RFC and here) he does not deal with the points raised, but instead makes a range of serious and unfounded attacks in complete disregard for our rules involving use of talk pages and civility. MRSC • Talk 22:48, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
I have encountered the same sort of pro-Yorkshire edits in Robin Hood, wherein he argued for days and weeks on end to insist that the subject of that article was in fact a Yorkshirian. He was hard pressed to arrive with any neutral sources to that effect. I didn't find the tone of the editor, or the complete willingness to edit-war his version into the article. I finally gave up, as it wasn't worth the effort to me. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 19:07, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
All numbering based on /Proposed decision, where vote counts and comments are also available.
1) The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors. Use of the site for other purposes, such as advocacy or propaganda, furtherance of outside conflicts, publishing or promoting original research, and political or ideological struggle, is prohibited.
2) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users; to approach even difficult situations in a dignified fashion and with a constructive and collaborative outlook; and to avoid acting in a manner that brings the project into disrepute. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, harassment, disruptive point-making, and gaming the system, is prohibited.
3) Wikipedia works by building consensus through the use of polite discussion—involving the wider community, if necessary—and dispute resolution, rather than through disruptive editing. Editors are each responsible for noticing when a debate is escalating into an edit war, and for helping the debate move to better approaches by discussing their differences rationally. Edit-warring, whether by reversion or otherwise, is prohibited; this is so even when the disputed content is clearly problematic, with only a few exceptions. Revert rules should not be construed as an entitlement or inalienable right to revert, nor do they endorse reverts as an editing technique.
1) Yorkshirian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has engaged in a variety of unseemly conduct, including personal attacks, incivility and assumptions of bad faith ([14], [15]); edit-warring ([16], [17], [18], [19], [20]); and attempts to use Wikipedia as a battleground along geographical, cultural, and ideological lines ([21], [22], [23], [24]).
Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.
1) Yorkshirian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is banned from Wikipedia for a period of one year.
Log any block, restriction, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision here. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.