A summary of the debate may be found at the bottom of the page.
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This is a summary written by users who are concerned by this user's conduct. Users signing other sections ("Response" or "Outside views") should not edit the "Statement of the dispute" section.
Asgardian is an editor who is knowledgeable in his primary field of focus, comic books, and has shown the ability to research and work hard to write and improve articles. In that sense, he is valuable to the Comics Wikiproject and Wikipedia as a whole. However, a number of editors have found it difficult and frustrating to work with him on the articles he chooses to volunteer his time at, for a variety of reasons detailed below. Some of the editors of the Comics Wikiproject, and editors who work on comic book related articles, feel that certain aspects of Asgardian's approach are disruptive.
This is a summary written by users who have initiated the request for comment. It should spell out exactly what the changes they'd like to see in the user, or what questions of behavior should be the focus.
We would like to see Asgardian work with a more collaborative and less controlling spirit. If that does not happen, then perhaps mediation may be in order; if that does not work, then editors may need to seek sanctions through arbitration. As Tenebrae puts things, "we see hope and potential in Asgardian and are genuinely trying to work with him to encourage the better angels of his nature".
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Disclaimer: Much of the behavior described below may describe not only Asgardian but sometimes other editors involved in disputes with him as well, in "it takes two to tango" situations. Often enough, it is not black and white, as Asgardian is not the "bad guy" while the other editor is not the "good guy" –those roles are not always so easily defined. However, given the sheer number of disputes that Asgardian has been involved in over the past few years with multiple editors, it is very concerning that he seems to be the common denominator.
Asgardian has been accused of taking ownership of certain articles. That is, once he begins to clean up an article in a manner he finds satisfactory, he leaves other editors feeling that he will only "allow" changes that he agrees with. Asgardian denies this practice, however, feeling that the version of the article he promotes is the "correct" (sometimes posited as "wiki-correct") version. He has made statements such as "this article is almost complete", which have been read as him thinking he is the only one to judge how an article should look, rather than him being one collaborator amongst the whole. He and another editor have recently been page banned from two articles (Abomination (comics) and Rhino (comics)) for a month period.
Asgardian is often involved in what appears to be edit-warring with other editors. As seen in the evidence below, he will undo someone else's changes when he disagrees with changes that have been made, which is only acceptable to a degree under the provisions of WP:BRD. Asgardian feels that he is not edit-warring, because either his changes do not comprise a true revert (such as reverting to his prior preferred version, but making some other changes as well), or because he feels the other person was wrong in the first place. While neither of these actions are wrong per se, they will often occur multiple times in succession on the same article, and often over a period of time. Numerous examples can be found by examining patterns in the edit histories of articles such as Juggernaut (comics), Galactus, Dormammu, and Mephisto (comics).
Asgardian often uses incomplete or inaccurate edit summaries to describe his changes. That is, he will use no summary at all, or a brief edit summary that describes only a small portion of the changes he is making, while the rest of his edit will make significant changes to the article – often reverting parts of the text that other editor(s) have made. Asgardian also makes comments, sometimes negative in tone, about other editors in his edit summaries.
It has been suggested that Asgardian has gamed the system at times. For example, Asgardian will sometimes enter into a discussion with the aggrieved editors he is engaged with, but even after discussion he will sometimes resume with the prior behavior on at least part of the article when it appears the disagreeable editor may have lost interest in continuing the debate. Sometimes when he interprets policies and guidelines in his own way and acts upon them, he discards input from other editors. Sometimes he is warned to disengage from a certain activity and will try to find a way around the warning to continue doing as he wishes.
When a consensus seems to have formed regarding a certain approach towards a style guideline, editing practice, etc, or perhaps what is to be done in a specific case on one article, Asgardian has been said to act against that consensus. That is, if say a few editors on an article's talk page have agreed that this article should contain "Foo", Asgardian has been observed to remove "Foo" regardless (or remove it when others agree to keep it, or what have you).
Sometimes Asgardian will edit anonymously, making the same sort of edits he does to the same articles he has been observed to work on, and continuing the same behaviors as described above. When questioned about this, Asgardian states that this anonymous editing is not intentional, and that his computer timed out and logged him out. He has used one known alternate account, User:Obsidianblackboard, to continue editing when he was temporarily blocked.
Asgardian has removed maintenance templates numerous times, claiming that they are not needed despite other editors claiming that the issues have not been resolved. When another editor places the templates back on, he will often remove them again, sometimes along with a significant edit to the rest of the article and often with an incomplete edit summary.
In one particularly contentious instance, Asgardian admitted that he "deliberately wrote an article (Abomination) in the in-sentence style and it becomes dry, didactic and hard to read." In this case, the article in question was rewritten by Asgardian in a style that was protested against by multiple editors (including myself), and the above admission has been viewed as indicating that he was deliberately editing against consensus to prove a WP:POINT.
(Provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.)
{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}
(Provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.)
{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}
This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.
The section Desired Outcome BOZ states: We would like to see Asgardian work with a more collaborative and less controlling spirit. If that does not happen, then perhaps mediation may be in order; if that does not work, then editors may need to seek sanctions through arbitration. As Tenebrae puts things, "we see hope and potential in Asgardian and are genuinely trying to work with him to encourage the better angels of his nature".
I think this is actually already happening. There are many, many examples of attempts by myself to work with others. Here's an example of my repeated attempts to explain to Ghidorah why some changes were necessary to an article [44]; my congratulating an editor who was previously using sockpuppets and chose to work with me on picking a new image for a SHB [45]; attempting to find some middle ground when other editors are in dispute [46]; and complimenting and encouraging a fellow editor [47] (despite being repeatedly insulted and constant requests to cease). Tenebrae was also mentioned, and I'd say we have had an amicable meeting of the minds and have co-collaborated on an article recently [48].
My overall Edit Summary in recent times will reflect (note the constant additions to Talk Pages to attempt to encourage others to discuss changes) nothing but cooperation and an effort to gain a resolution that is in the best interests of the articles.
In the section Description, BOZ adds a disclaimer and states that "Much of the behavior described below may describe not only Asgardian but sometimes other editors involved in disputes with him as well, in "it takes two to tango" situations. Often enough, it is not black and white, as Asgardian is not the "bad guy" while the other editor is not the "good guy" –those roles are not always so easily defined." I thank him for this objective and charitable comment.
As to the claims, the first is that of ownership. I would dispute this, as these examples which were cited above - [49]; [50] and [51] - show I am willing to compromise.
With regards to the mentioned articles - Abomination and Rhino - I can only repeat what I stated on my Talk Page [52] , which helped to over-rule a block:
"The editor Hiding was in error for applying a topic ban [53], and once again, an administator just assumed that both parties were in error and deserved a ban. DrBat was being disruptive by making blind reverts; using sockpuppets to keep making more reverts and even called me a troll. Hiding took none of this into account, and attempted to reinforce sanctions, which was dismissed. It should be noted that I continued to work on the articles and improve them, even finding and placing the much needed third-party sources."
I stated in conclusion that "All I would ask of the administrators is to keep an eye out for those "random" editors that come out of left field and do make the blind reverts and throw up brick walls for the rest of us. Also note that if one or more of us are trying to reason with them and it is getting messy, please don't automatically assume that everyone is at fault." The unblocking administrator apparently agrees.
Other articles are mentioned, although Galactus is a non-issue as I have not been involved in any edit warring there. The disputes are between one version maintained by two editors and another supported by a single editor. I have only attempted to maintain some quality control. Mephisto is also a non-issue as I haven't edited there extensively for some time and rationales were provided. The information has stood as is for weeks now [54].
Attempts to edit the article Juggernaut were hampered by an editor who materialized out of nowhere, made no attempts to communicate with myself but instead blindly reverted and then disappeared just as abruptly. To me, these actions have all the hallmarks of a vandal [55]. I also attempted to speak with DrBat, who was also making blind reverts [56]. It should also be noted that BOZ was thanked by me for asking DrBat to stop making blind reverts on Juggernaut [57]. I also explained that I had made things very clear in the Edit Summary on said article. Unfortunately, the response I received was "I don't want to hear it." That said, I think that it is more an experience issue, and I have spoken with BOZ regarding this. David A also had issues with the article, although this resulted in a suprising block from the article for a month for both he and myself. I have already advised BOZ that this was unwarranted and that base minimum Dave - who had not edited the article for several days - should have this block lifted (he queried this here [58]) In fact as of today, BOZ has lifted the block, and I thank him again for this.
BOZ also stated that "...given the sheer number of disputes that Asgardian has been involved in over the past few years with multiple editors, it is very concerning that he seems to be the common denominator." On the surface, that would appear to be the case, but the comment does not show that dozens of my edits pass unchallenged, and this is usually only the more inexperienced editors that have difficulty coming to terms with my contributions. All the examples presented above show good faith on my behalf, despite a lack of communication and general incivility in return.
Scott Free states on this page that "I briefly checked out a couple of articles, I think the Rhino & Abomination - and basically, it looks to me that Asgardian is doing decent work and has gotten into some disagreements with mainly less experienced users. Overall, Asg. seems to do a lot of plot summaries and characters descriptions - and the writing is at least organized and understandable to me(and I'm not even familiar with current superheroes). So overall, his work has improved a lot of neglected articles of some secondary characters...' In a way it's understandable that Asg. gets complaints; because he gets his feet wet and does add a lot of content to articles, but they're usually not major articles, and they don't necessarily have a lot of traffic."
Note I also adopted this user's suggestion and implemented a tag that indicates to others that there is major work in progress on an article [59].
The other claims made are fairly nebulous. I can see no proof that I have gamed the system. I also make attempts to make Edit Summaries clear, but would question the assertion that there is some kind of misdirection. This comment would appear to be purely opinion, and ignores the behaviour of thousands of other users, who make no effort to even place a rationale in an Edit Summary. It is also not a Wikipedia requirement (possibly a Guideline, but not a hard rule) to do so, although is appreciated and I make every effort to extend this courtesy.
As to editing anonymously, where in recent times are there examples of this? Multiple examples that clearly indicate a pattern? My computer - like no doubt many others - times out occasionally, and I will have signed with an IP instead my user name. This is no crime, and again, thousands of editors do this, in fact preferring to use only an IP to remain anonymous. Again, this is not an offence unless they are involved in a negative activity such as vandalism.
There is also a final, random claim about one edit on an article [60], which seems a little odd as I'm not sure what this proves. Several editors were discussing various styles, and I presented one option. What BOZ neglects to mention is that I then spent hours rewriting the article in another format that was ultimately preferred and accepted. There is no crime here, as I can hardly be accused of vandalizing myself. Given the amount of work that was placed into the article, I would have thought thanks, and not a recrimination, was in order.
The Evidence of disputed behaviour is also subjective and unfortunately flawed.
The first is actually very reasonable, and advice to a serial offender. Two more are from 2008. 2008? This is reaching. I've learned a great deal since that time, and while I believe that those two editors were in error, would frame things another way. I am happy to apologize right now. The last is a tad smarmy, but again was in response to some not so good editing. My comments to inexperienced editors have changed considerably, as evidenced here: [67].
I'd also like to note that adding this point to the argument was ill-advised, given the recent abuse I have been repeatedly been subject to. There are many, many examples: [68]; [69];[70]; [71]; [72]; [73].
The Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute is also tenuous at best.
The last two links are all problematic as they are subjective. The first relates to a comment made by Hiding, who applied a questionable block, and as the evidence shows failed to take into account evidence presented later with regards to supposed edit warring on two articles and I also feel misread the situation again with the aborted Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Asgardian-Tenebrae#Request for clarification: Asgardian-Tenebrae.
As I noted in my comments on my Talk Page when successfully negotiating the removal of a block:
"All I would ask of the administrators is to keep an eye out for those "random" editors that come out of left field and do make the blind reverts and throw up brick walls for the rest of us. Also note that if one or more of us are trying to reason with them and it is getting messy, please don't automatically assume that everyone is at fault."
I feel this is a real issue for Wikipedia: administrators acting in a subjective fashion and making decisions based on what they "feel" is correct.
The second link is very weak. One editor offers guidance and another seeks comment. A final editor asks a question re: Secret Wars, which is quickly resolved. There's really nothing there that indicates anything.
With all due respect to BOZ, the offered proof shows a degree of inexperience. None of these examples are outrageous or blatant violations of any Wikipedia Guidelines. Most of the evidence is based on a point of view and several subjective interpretations of my editing style. I could also refute the additional evidence offered, as it is largely subjective (and would shed light on other editors' conduct and mistakes), but I think I have submitted a sufficiently strong case (not that this is a trial).
Please also note that, and this goes to my point about subjectivity, that while there is comment here on myself, there has been almost nothing from the involved parties here about those who have committed true offences (with these individuals being mentioned here). I had to pursue a case against one editor for using sockpuppets and to have another spoken to regarding etiquette on Wikipedia myself. This unfortunately demonstrates that the quorum here are far from impartial, and may do well to heed outside counsel.
I also think BOZ committed a blunder contacting anyone and everyone who has had even the slightest contact with me over the last few months, and then send reminders encouraging them to participate. This smacks of a witch hunt, and gives the appearance of reaching - trying to make a case where there was never one to be had. That said, I still respect BOZ and certainly don't take his efforts personally. He simply wants the disputes to cease, as do I.
BOZ, despite adding his signature (to what is a subjective list made up of largely well-meaning but fairly inexperienced editors who may only have in fact participated because they were contacted or unfortunately hold a minor grudge; and others who I feel have misread situtations) made an impression, and I said as much here: [74].
I will also take on board the advice offered by Cutno here and "listen more."
Asgardian (talk) 02:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Users who endorse this summary:
On this page's Talk Page, I have offered my response to several of Asgardian's statements, along with six questions I have for him. Nightscream (talk) 07:36, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.
See the talk page for the same evidence section, but without the need to click the links.
I briefly checked out a couple of articles, I think the Rhino & Abomination - and basically, it looks to me that Asgardian is doing decent work and has gotten into some disagreements with mainly less experienced users. Overall, Asg. seems to do a lot of plot summaries and characters descriptions - and the writing is at least organized and understandable to me(and I'm not even familiar with current superheroes). So overall, his work has improved a lot of neglected articles of some secondary characters. I'm not sure he'd get the same complaints if he was doing that type of work in the film or novels projects. There's a lot of strict focusing on correct formatting among the comics people that you don't generally see elsewhere.
Basically my suggestion is to discuss content more. You can have all the adminstrative dispute resolution procedures you want, but when they're over, it still remains for two sides to reach an agreement about specific content- and neither party should expect to have everything they want. There has to be some concessions on both sides. For example, explain why such and such addition improves the article in terms of content. Avoid criticizing people, ad hominem logical fallacies and just try and work the article in a logical manner.
So really, I think it would be better to look at it in a case by case scenario - (and also work on diplomatically explaining how the comics project functions to newer users). Like if there's a problem at an article, just work it out, like 'OK let's list six powers' 'Maybe six powers is redundant, let's list four powers'. 'That episode is important because it affects later events, but maybe two paragraphs is too much, let's try and say it one paragraph or this section needs expanding, etc....' In a way it's understandable that Asg. gets complaints; because he gets his feet wet and does add a lot of content to articles, but they're usually not major articles, and they don't necessarily have a lot of traffic.
PS. Here's a template that might help - if there's an article that is being revised - Asg. or whoever might want to put this up - so people know what's going on -
Users who endorse this summary:
OK - On the Bizarro article Asg. put the under construction template - (meaning that he's doing revisions) - which is a good step - I think - to avoid further misunderstandings - here are a few more suggestions -
1- Try to avoid doing blow-by-blow reversions behind his edits - wait a while - look a the changes in a larger context -
2- Stop accusing of minute violations - it's a genereal revision process - wait to look at the finished results - don't worry about edit descriptions - edit descriptions, in this context are pretty redundant - just look at the diffs.
3- Asg. - it would be good etiquette, if you do major revisions, to leave a note on the talk page - it doesn't have to be long - just explain what you feel needs fixing - how you're proceeding - and how long, roughly it should take.
I don't see any fundamental problems with this situation - one editor choses to do revisions which is their right - and another editor is just disagreeing with the edits - it's up to them to work it out productively - discuss - work it out in terms of content.
--Scott Free (talk) 22:38, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was asked to comment here by User:BOZ. I've never participated in one of these RfC's before, and I don't know what the prescribed scope is for the examples you wish to know about, so I'll focus on four incidents from the past 15 months:
Example 1. Asgardian has expressed a personal aesthetic against mentioning the titles of books, storylines or issue numbers in comic book-related articles. In September 2008, he attempted to remove them from the Black Bolt article. I attempted to discuss it with him on that article's Talk Page. Reading that discussion should illustrate the type of behavior he displays when people attempt to talk to him. In this discussion, he attempted to use WP:CRYSTAL to justify his removal of this material, and as you can see, I refuted this claim. He tried to claim that articles have to be written in-universe, and I corrected him by pointing out that the opposite is true. I pointed out that he made assertions in his Edit Summaries that such things could not be mentioned in the sections in question, and challenged him to justify this. He reacted to administrator warnings I placed on his Talk Page by saying, "Finally, please, no more threats," as if placing such warnings is not a legitimate purview of administrators for disruptive behavior. (Had he explained why the warnings were not justified, that would be fine, but he does not do this; he simply acts as if he can dismiss legitimate legitimate policy-based attempts to address violations of site guideline, as this was not the first time he had done this.) I also show how he made personal comments directed to me during this matter. Ultimately he left me a message saying he would request another opinion on the matter, but then abandoned this, as we never heard back from him on this matter. He also ignores/blanks attempts on his Talk Page to contact him in such matters, often without responding to them. This is part of his overall pattern of evading the collaborative process in favor of making unilateral edits, against attempts to discuss, and in contrary to consensus.
Example 2. The next example is the ANI review of my block of Asgardian in February 2009, his fifth one overall, which was, IMO, incorrectly reversed. Here I detail, with copious Diffs, many examples of his behavior. Of particular interest is the Points of Contention section, because I respond to a number of Asgardian's lies, his use of logical fallacies, double-standards, etc. It's a lot to slog through, and I apologize, but the amount of material is determined by what Asgardian provides us. If you go through it and verify the Diffs (there may be an error or two on my part), they may prove valuable. One important point is that he claimed that there was a discussion on the Comics Project page that supported his practice of removing titles and issue numbers from articles. (He had abandoned his attempts to use WP:CRYSTAL to justify this personal whim of his, and was now attempting this new line of reasoning.) I went to that discussion page and saw no such thing, so I asked the participants on that page (scroll down to my 2.13.09 post) about Asgardian's assertion, and they made it clear to me that they had never discussed this matter at all (disproving Asgardian's assertion), and when I brought up the matter, they agreed that it was perfectly reasonable to occasionally mention important book and story titles and issue numbers in comic book-related articles. A total of four people agreed on this point.
Example 3. Then there's the Red Hulk matter from late August-September 2009. During this again began reverting titles, issue numbers, etc., from the article. I tried to talk to him about this, but he ignored me. Despite the earlier Project Page discussion, I started a second one on that topic on the Red Hulk Talk Page in order to accomodate him. I contacted over 20 people to invite them to it (adhering to WP:CANVAS), but only three showed up, not counting Asgardian. Again, four people (though not the same four as in February) agreed that occasionally mentioning important book titles or issue numbers was reasonable. Despite this, Asgardian continued reverting the article against the wishes of these four people, and while the discussion was ongoing, despite the fact that he was aware that this was a violation of Wikipedia's collaboration policies, as he had been blocked for this before. He insisted on September 3 that we needed yet another discussion to bring it to a wider audience, so I again went to the Comics Project page. He was again arguing against a "laundry list" or "minefield" of dates and issue numbers that he felt would make the article unreadable. I tried to point out that no one favored this, but only mentioning them occasionally, which was not a "minefield" or "laundry list", and was a nice middle ground between that and not mentioning them at all. When I tried to ask him on September 3 if he understood this, he refused to answer this, saying we should discuss that on the Comics Project page. He never answered this question there either. I should also mention that during the course of this, I protected the article in order to encourage discussion and consensus. It was opined by the others that I shouldn't have done this because I was involved. I apologized for this, having not known that it would matter (though I've since heard contrary opinions on this). In any event Administrator Mangojuice tried to desysop me for this on the AN Board. Here is my post in which I defend myself (I was not desysopped, and Mangojuice apologized to me for this), and in so doing, I detail Asgardian's behavior with respect to ownership of articles and consensus. Unfortunately, the two other admins that in that matter, Mangojuice and Xeno, exercised poor judgment in their refusal to find any fault with Asgardian, with Mangojuice claiming that no evidence was presented that he did anything wrong, even though I furnished him with the relevant Diffs. They indicated that four people was not a consensus, completely ignoring the fact that even if this were true, he still reverted during a discussion. When I attempted to address this on the ANI board, they refused to address the matter, claiming that the matter was settled--even though the issue over my page protection and Asgardian's reverts during discussion were two separate issues. Apparently they figured that resolving one issue somehow served to resolved a completely unrelated one simply because they originated from the same edit dispute. Xeno claimed that this was better handled at the then-ongoing discussion over titles and issue numbers, despite the fact that that content discussion and a discussion over an editor's behavior were obviously two separate things. Asgardian, again tried to make the matter about me, claiming that the discussion should be on my aforementioned error in protecting the article, even though that matter had been resolved. (Not surprisingly, he cited Mangojuice's statement that he did nothing wrong, but had no difficulty in ignoring Mangojuice's statement that my page protection matter was settled.) Asgardian also claimed that he was willing to discuss the issue of titles and dates on Red Hulk when he had stated the opposite previously, that my attempt to address this matter there was "not conduct becoming an administrator", and that I was being "abusive" and "uncivil" because of the criticisms I leveled at him for his behavior (this is another common tactic of his).
Example 4. Last, Asgardian claimed in October that he doesn't "ever" make blind reverts. In fact, here is one example in which he did do so, during the aforementioned Red Hulk matter a month prior, and here is my revert of it. When I pointed this out (as it was only one month to the day prior), he reacted badly, leaving these silly taunts on my Talk Page, implying that my pointing this out was not proper admin conduct, was something for which I could lose my admin privileges, would "go to an overall pattern", and so forth. Asgardian attempted to couch these posts in a supposedly friendly, concerned tone, but given his history of evasive and intellectually dishonest behavior, this was transparently insincere, as these were clearly just veiled (and quite hollow) threats by him, because he simply did not like the fact that I pointed out a recent example of behavior on his part that he insisted he never engaged in. It illustrates how he reacts when someone dares observe and criticize his behavior. He could've just said, "Oh, okay, I forgot about that. My bad." Instead, he is so dismissive of the normal checks-and-balances to which all editors are subject that he reacts by alleging that noting such behavior by him is itself somehow a violation of policy.
These examples illustrate Asgardian's persistent contempt for the collaborative process prescribed by Wikipedia. Nightscream (talk) 18:25, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Users who endorse this summary:
I'm too short in time and focus to give something as comprehensive as Nightscream's impressive summaries above, but for a start:
I would like to add that my own ongoing annoyance mirrors his own in noticing the consistent false concern and politeness dripping with venom and sarcasm literally the manner of "I'm so concerned about David, given his horrible horrible handicaps and all, but it really would be best for his nerves if he could take a break from this, and since he's got them let's please ban him on principle shall we? Hmm? Regards; All the best; And do you need a bubble-bath or a massage?", while at the same time doing his best to stress said nerves. (I've had to deal with him for around two years now.)
Another is the constant regulation manipulation for personal benefit. For example in the Juggernaut edit-war stating "not to violate consensus and the spirit of the 3-revert rule" and that he has never done this, while simultaneously doing just that in Dormammu. Or making constant cases of "incivility" as an all-purpose shield against anyone who simply states exactly what he is doing, including instantly trying to get Tenebrae banned, even though the admins he contacted considered it ridiculous: [75]
Another editor suggested that he does fall within the troll spectra, using "fear", and system manipulation as a weapon, which would fit with the ongoing deeply satirical "system weakness illustrating" bent in his edits, provocations, and tone.
He is also making a great amount of extremely misleading edit-summaries, including the ones stating "No OHOTMU" as a validation for removing a considerably greater amount of references that had nothing to do with this at Dormammu, but that is just the latest in a long line.
This is in conjunction with recurrently inserting or reinserting inaccurate information, or replacing word-by-word sourced information with unsourced summaries involving misleading personal opinion.
Yet another is that his word apparently cannot be trusted. If he gets a warning for deleting valid references to replace them with opinion, he will return at a time when interest has waned to do the same edit once more, and when we cut a deal that he should stop doing sweeping deletions and instead make compromise suggestion text reconfiguration attempts, if structure or accuracy was his actual aim, in return for myself treating him as completely redeemed with full benefit of doubt, to give him yet another chance to prove himself trustworthy, he almost immediately diverted from it, despite that I continued to give him consistent chances for a few weeks. Now that this entry is up he has finally started to compromise in the manner I wanted, but I have no illusions whatsoever that he will do what he always does once he's talked himself out of it, and do the same reverts once again, once interest has diffused.
Given that he has in fact been proven to use sockpuppets, I have sometimes suspected him to use temporary IP addresses when his own reverts have been enforced by such, but that may just be my personal paranoia speaking.
The reference-censoring have also tended to have a very specific slant on heavily favouring certain characters and disfavouring others, but unless he is still using sockpuppets he has apparently turned better about this specific point.
Given that my own fundamental problem with him is that I cannot synchronise the idea of someone we know for a fact to be very dishonest (in a broader sense than Asgardian himself, i.e. including any calculated rather than accidental sockpuppet users who employ these to edit the same articles) to be allowed to edit something people rely on for accuracy, I do find the "civility" charges to be a silly focus. As noted above Asgardian generally goes to extremes in the other direction with complete incoherence between deliberately overstated smarmy ingratiating acid words, and dishonest actions. Well, he did call me "shrieking, unbalanced, and unhinged" once, so I suppose in theory it could apply, but I don't really care much about that sort of thing. The important thing is to be honest. Being so underhanded that he's trying to use my handicaps as a weapon on the other hand can tend to annoy me, and the ongoing cheerful smarmy manipulative dishonesty even more so. This is what I believe should be the main focus of this page: Asgardian is a completely unapologetic known deliberate serial-liar who is somehow allowed to edit an encyclopedia.
I'm inserting an old short link list if this is of any help:
This one mentions an edit-war on Red Hulk along with the ongoing "incivility defense";
This has J.Greb mention that he has also noticed the misleading edit-summaries, referring to this case: [76], along with Asgardian stating that he wll continue to do so as long as he gets away with it in the following edit;
This mentions edit-wars on Abomination and Rhino pages, and also mentions Stewie Griffin;
This mentions the ongoing problems with removing multiple valid references from Dormammu on false grounds; Here he can be seen just recently doing exactly the same thing over and over on Doctor Strange, despite Talk page clarifications.
User:Tcaudilllg states that Asgardian's tactics correspond to those of a troll, and in the same case User:Duae Quartunciae calls his manipulative use of regulations (to create either fear, or annoyance, such as later putting a complaint against Tenebrae) "self-serving" and warns him that he might get banned. The former would fit in with the old comment that Asgardian finds annoyance with manipulation funny, and that he admits to goading me to get easily linked quotes, in conjunction with threats of "shooting oneself in the foot";
And perhaps most noteworthy, there was an extremely lengthy (and dull) ongoing debate about that he appeared entirely willing to vandalise multiple pages just to make an exaggerated satirical point, and following talk about that he just keep sticking to (more sophisticated versions of) the same behaviour no matter how many chances he is given (likely a few specific examples in the J.Greb talk, if I remember correctly): [77] [78] [79];
His ban list should mention plenty of other cases, and he has received a lot of notices over the years without any change beyond turning more subtle in the same approach. Dave (talk) 21:17, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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Asgardian does seem to genuinly care about cleaning up and correcting articles, however s/he does tend to merge sections of articles together that should be left apart. S/he claims that this is to help make it easier to read - and that sub-headings somehow "impeded easy reading" - however his/her actions do the exact opposite; selecting various articles and changing how some sections are ordered means that there is no clarity or coherence between articles.
This becomes most apparent with 'other versions' sections of several Marvel characters. These sections tend to be separated into sub-sections, so that articles about alternate realities can link directly to the intended alternate version of character. For example, Hank_Pym#Ultimate_Marvel links directly to Ultimate Giant Man. However, by removing headings and merging paragraphs about different versions together makes it impossible for articles to link to the intended versions, and also makes it harder to find the information about appropriate alternate versions of the characters.[80]
S/he claims that s/he is doing this to make it easier to read, but instead it makes it harder. I've tried to explain how separating the versions makes things clearer, but attempts to correct these incidents by myself[81][82] and others (such as Tenebrae[83][84] and anons[85][86][87]) have lead to a couple of minor edit wars.[88][89] After some have tried explaining their views, Asgardian has, in the past, simply reverted their edits without explaining why.[90]
I'm not trying to get at him/her or anything, as s/he does at least appear to work hard to improve several articles on this wiki, but some edits seem to hurt more than they do help, and his/her logic and reasons for his/her changes seem kinda confusing at times. Wikikaye (talk) 01:58, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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For me, this really breaks down the level of ownership, disruptiveness, and dishonesty exhibited out weighing the good done and good intents held by Asgardian.
The Description notes at the end that Asgardian did admit to editing an article to prove a point. When this was discussed, they backpedaled - [91] - claiming the statement they made on the "Red Hulk" talk page were misinterpreted. Both these statements capped the past history and resulted in this RfC.
The Description, Evidence, and other (to date) "Involve view" do a fair job of pointing to the ongoing ownership and disruptive editing issues.
The dishonesty though... David A points to a good example of it in the "The Infinity Gauntlet" edit -[92] - where, yes, "(Added list of crossover titles)" covers part of the edit. But the removal of a section that included a reference was not addressed. Either Asgardian was editing from [93] (their previous edit), felt the deletion was to minor to mention, or the revert would be over looked if not mentioned. Similar situations have occurred in their edits at Bizarro:
It is also worth noting that when Asgardian filed a Wikiquette alerts against Tenebrae, the editors that initially responded also had trouble with Asgardian's edit summaries. The article reviewed was Juggernaut (comics) and the section of the history - [98] - is December 15. And to be fair, this snapshot coveres all 3 of the basic issues - it involves ownership, disruptiveness, and dishonesty on the part of Asgardian.
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Same crap, different day.
This same thing has been going on for several years now. Once upon a time, Asgardian acknowledged stirring things up in Wikipedia for experimental purposes, and it just seems to go on and on. Asgardian seems to improve only enough to drag this out. It's difficult to explain the problem to those who are not directly involved or to show clear enough examples that can independently illustrate the scale of what's wrong. It doesn't help that those who most consistently feud with Asgardian most have racked up quite a list of errors and emotional outbursts themselves. The desired outcome requested in this RFC is so vague and mild that I have difficulty seeing what can come out of this that will really accomplish much. If I thought it would really make a difference, I could go into far more detail, but I foresee having these same discussions in 2011, 2012.... Frankly, ongoing Agardian-related squabbling is the main reason I don't do much editing in the comics project any more. I have better things to do with my time. I should hope other people, including Asgardian himself, would too. Doczilla STOMP! 22:32, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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Proceeded to arbitration. Ncmvocalist (talk)