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WP:Wikihounding by User:Viriditas that intensified after User:Viriditas was blocked from editing for 48 hours six days ago for WP:Edit Warring, that has spread to other articles and noticeboards, including a extemely long campaign of combative uncivil accusations to nearly every other editor, deletion of talk page comments of other editors, open harrassment, overt baiting, threats, HUSH practices, false accusations and open admissions of POV editing.
(note: notice of this RfCU was provided to Viriditas here.
(note: this RfCU on Viriditas was brought at the request of Administrators and editors, such as here, here and here.)
Wikihounding intensifies after Viriditas was blocked for 48 hours - I apologize in advance for the long description, but understand that it's actually a tiny fraction of what's been going on, making it virtually impossible to edit on Wikipedia. I and other editors need help regarding some openly brazen WP:Wikihounding that literally takes up now several hours a day over numerous articles and boards. In fact, it has just caused one excellent editor (Wildhartlivie) to declare that he is "Done" attempting to edit an article, wondering "I keep wondering why an administrator hasn't intervened with what is being said and the attacks upon me and the two of you." This Wikihounding campaign intensified after Viriditas was blocked from editing for 48 hours six days ago for WP:Edit Warring on Human rights in the United States, including falsely accusing at least two editors of "NPOV" and "plagarism", the Wikihounding, which had existed before, was increased.
Spread to Jonestown, with admission that it was because I had previously edited that article - After his/her block time ran out, Viriditas then began a series of tagging and openly combative Talk page sections at the Jonestown article, which I had previously edited mostly a year or more ago and Viriditas had never before edited, with three editors. When another editor raised his suspicions that this was part of Viriditas' continuing attempted dispute with me, Viriditas actually admitted "yes, my attention was drawn to this article due to the actions of another user who has been active here, referring to me. Viriditas' most sizable campaign there involved the inclusion of a POV tag over the entire article because the article did not do more than discuss for one sentence and link to the article Jonestown conspiracy theory, a fringe CIA conspiracy theory first espoused by cult leader Jim Jones himself to hs followers.
Spread to Noticeboards and other venues - Unfortunately, it has now spread even further:
Talk Page Comment Deletions of multiple editors - The WP:Wikihounding includes repeatedly deleting my comments on Article Talk pages -- along with those of other editors -- in gross violation of WP:TPO, so much so that Viriditas was seperately made to stop such Talk Page comment deletions by an administrator at ANI-3RR here in a separate instance.
Combative, Uncivil Accusations and Charges to nearly every editor - Unfortunately, in the Jonestown article, which has now suffered from this new part of the WP:Wikihounding campaign, the Talk page alone has ballooned in size by over 1,100% in three days -- from 10K to over 115K -- by the now highly combative many-hours/day Talk page campaign that Viriditas is waging with me and other editors. Just one click on the page reveals the now nightmare state is has become. This includes violating WP:Assume Good Faith and further WP:Disruptive editing on that page and other talk pages:
Understand that this is just a TINY SAMPLE of the combative bloat that the Talk:Jonestown has assumed since Viriditas brought the Wikihounding campaign there three days ago.
False allegations of sock puppetry/meat puppetry - too numerous to collect all of them, all blatant violations of WP:Civil and WP:Assume Good Faith. Here are a few:
False conspiracy theory allegations and Tag Team charges - again, almost too numerous to count, and they appear to arise against everyone who does not agree with Viriditas:
Blatant Threats - The campaign also includes numerous threats. After filing two baseless ANI sections (only a small fraction of the total Wikihounding), Viriditas threatened "There are currently two open ANI reports on your disruptive behavior, and I expect to open three more in the next 24 hours. Please do not continue to act disruptively in this article." Another threatened that failing to answer his/her questions would "get you in trouble": "Please stop ignoring my questions per talk page guidelines. Failure to answer them but continuing to make the same points will get you in trouble."
Disruptive Editing and Baiting By Repeating False Statements To Attempt To Draw Angy Responses - The WP:Wikihounding also involves WP:Disruptive editing that was open outright WP:Harrassment, including several false accsations repeated, ignoring all statements made, just to attempt to bait some aggressive responsve, such as the following (just one of many examples) regarding the potential citation of an article by Dr. Rebcca Moore, which I never opposed:
Again, this is merely one example of combative disruptive editing and baiting via false statements that occurs throughout the Talk page.
HUSH practices - The campaign also involves engaging in WP:HUSH, leaving numerous warnings on both my talk page, as well as user:Yachtsman1 here, here, and here
False Plagarism Assertions/Forum Shopping - The campaign further includes makinge false "plagarism" accusations, at times as an attempted pretext to delete text, including at WP:Content_noticeboard, where he/she was told "If it's paraphrased sufficiently, it isn't plagiarism. It is paraphrased sufficiently." For the record, as Viriditas was told by others, it is plainly obvious that it was not plagarism, yet Viriditas repeatedly deleted the text based on this false basis, such as here, here, here, here and here. Note, he/she continued the false accusations of "plagarism", here, with [As for your continued plagiarism of content, that is a fact that is not in dispute. In fact, she did so an another board not just about one editor, but about two here: Both the content noticeboard and the copyright cleanup board agreed that you (another editor) and Mosedchurte are engaging in plagiarism.
Openly admits to POV in editing - Viriditas also overtly admits POV in editing, such as with regard to the tendency to include violations over advances in Human rights in the United States, where he/she admitted "Mosedschurte, do you understand that the positive advancement of human rights in the U.S. has come out of the criticism of negative incidents?" Mosedschurte (talk) 11:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(note: this was first raised at ANI, where admins directed that it be raised instead at RfCU, and this comment was copied therefrom. That editor has edited and added to this comment.)
I should open this statement by saying that in the past, the few exchanges I had with Viriditas were not contentious or concerned any disagreements whatsoever, although they were few. Viriditas made made increasingly incivil posts and personal attacks to and about me. "You're not following the discussion. To refresh your memory... My next post objected to tone and requested that it stop, and explained that the editor's posts were bereft of diffs to check what was being posted [1]. The response was to finally repost the diff that had been posted some 150 posts earlier and suggested I "try to read the discussion". I protested the tone and incivility and again requested that the "contentious and attacking" posts stop. That post provoked a response that included "You must be kidding. Please do yourself a favor and actually read what you wrote above, at 03:27, 28 June 2009. Your entire comment was one long demeaning commentary, contentious, and attacking ... Seriously, take a break or something because you aren't making any sense at all." Later, when I again challenged the editor's ability to conduct a neutral assessment of content involving Mosedshurte, the editor denied issues with neutrality and claimed that I would have to show "a non-neutral concern or edit" and referred to my repeated expressed concerns as "a neat trick, but it's painfully transparent". The editor claimed "there is a mandate to discuss the conspiracy theories here, per Wikipedia:NPOV#POV_forks", I responded with a somewhat thorough examination of that here, which Viriditas dismissed in a demeaning and patronizing manner, saying "My concerns were directly addressed by a neutral third-party from the NPOV noticeboard, so I have no idea what you are going on about now." The attacks and incivility actually worsened at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard, where I made this initial statement. My involvement on Talk:Jonestown was dismissed and characterized as stemming from my being "very upset at me because I pointed out that your chosen referencing format was unwieldy and inefficient and I recommended the use of shortened footnotes in its place. You then threatened to leave the article if I changed anything", both of which were factually untrue. The editor then posted this, which effectively minimized my overriding concern with the actual involvement of the editor him/herself constituting an issue with POV, trying to direct the discussion back to only what points he/she wanted to cover, frankly ignoring that larger issue. Viriditas then mischaracterized my statements and POV concerns with his/her involvement on the article at the noticeboard as "an angry response from Wildhartlivie" and dismissed all the other editors' posts as "more POV crud". At that time, an uninvolved editor reviewed the page and claims being made and concluded "I see no real NPOV issue here" in response to Viriditas' charge of NPOV violations. Even after that, Viriditas continued contentiousness, stating "The burying of comments under repeated "crud" without actually addressing the topic or saying anything is a common tactic of POV pushers." I again posted a protest regarding the personal attacks, mischaracterizations, and contentiousness [2], to which Viriditas replied "I have no idea what you are talking about, but that's an interesting fantasy world you live in." When I posted these comments to the WP:AN/I report filed, Viriditas then accused me of having ownership issues, stating "from that first discussion and until the end", based on the bad faith assumption that I was responding in anger because of the citation style discussion and did not act at any time in good faith and refused to respond to his/her claims, despite the fact that I had stated clearly I did not want to deal with the specific content discussion and initially only engaged in the rest of the content discussion with posts regarding my concerns with his/her neutrality. He/she further claimed that I "made many personal attacks against my character" without bothering to submit one diff that substantiates that I made any personal attacks, displayed ownership issues, or refused to discuss content, although I did make responses, albeit ones Viriditas chose to ignore. He/she stated "It's not honest to show only one side of the dispute", but is that not the purpose of the other editor's responding to noticeboards and RFCs, to show that editor's side of the dispute. That is the responsibility of the person who said it. However I did post diffs to some of the posts to which Viriditas responded. So now, Viriditas is making an accusation of dishonesty as well, in a noticeboard post concerning his/her own behavior toward other editors. Viriditas then again avoided the actual issue of user behavior by defending his/her edits on the main page, although the only discussion about main page editing was in regard to tags. It should be noted that after this was taken to WP:NPOVN, one of the final statements by the outside reviewer, Jaymax, was "However, the (correct IMO) point was made repetitively by others that the content under debate best belonged in the conspiracy article - and Viriditas refusal to accept that seems to have consumed a lot of effort that could have been better spent improving that article and the short mention of it in the main article." That was stated by the neutral, uninvolved editor whose opinion was sought by Viriditas at the board.
Viriditas attacked a source linked to a caption on a photo essay on the Time magazine website [3], claiming it could have been plagiarized from Wikipedia, that the Time content was "backward sourcing" and attacked the reliability by demanding an author's name and dating from the site, although the photo essay was clearly titled "Mass Suicide at Jonestown: 30 Years Later". I stated that "the event happened in November 1978 - when then would 30 years later be?" The response was patronizing and quite odd and ignored the clear evidence of the date of the essay [4]. A different source was then found, and Viriditas refused to support or discuss her/his rather odd claim that Time magazine was plagiarizing content from Wikipedia by copying from here and publishing it without proper terms of use attribution, despite being repeatedly asked. Instead, Viriditas simply blew off the repeated questioning regarding that by saying another source had been found and refused to discuss what is basically a serious charge against Time magazine further.
Based on the gross incivility, personal attacks, bad faith assumptions and contentiousness shown by Viriditas, I believe this RFC is well supported. This is simply outrageous and unacceptable and editors should not be required to endure personal attacks, incivility, contentiousness or confrontational bad faith of this scope. Wildhartlivie (talk) 00:18, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really want to beat the proverbial dead horse, and the linked comments above act to frame this issue rather nicely. Douglas Adams wrote a well quoted piece in So long and thanks for all the fish which runs "like trying to attack a lunatic asylum with a banana". That is pretty much the situation we have in this case. How can one resolve a dispute and achieve a collegial atmosphere with the examples shown above?
The underlying problem is the marked hostility and incivility of user:Viriditas, as demonstrated here: [[5]], here: [[6]], here: [[7]], here:[[8]], here: [[9]], and here: [[10]]. The user's comments were the subject of debate here as well: [[11]] by user:Colchicum, and was admonished by an adminsitrator. I could go further, but the fact remains that user:Viriditas is a shockingly rude editor whose comments are, by an standard, not civil. I personally sought that the user act civilly here: [[12]], which was removed on the user's talk page here: [[13]]. The claim of "plaigarism" has been a constant accusation, yet when this claim was examined against user:Mosedschurte on the Content Noticeboard, it was found not to be plaigarism. See: [[14]]. Notwithstanding the finding that the cited material was not "plaigarism", user:Viriditas continues to make this claim against not only user:Mosedschurte, but against me as well without a shred of proof to support this allegation, and after one editor informed user:Viriditas the exact opposite. As for wikihounding and personal attacks, here is another example: [15].
My final wish is that the editor in question learn WP:CIV, stop WP:WIKIHOUNDING, and modify his or her behavior accordingly. Thank you.--Yachtsman1 (talk) 05:06, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, the aggressive WP:Wikihounding has continued even after the creation of this RfCU.
The entire matter has taken a turn from the aggressive to the bizarrely aggressive, and like the other editors, we just wish for the entire multi-page WP:Wikihounding campaign to stop.Mosedschurte (talk) 00:30, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Viriditas, acting yet again in yet another accustion, has just now started an alleged "sock puppet" complaint against Wildhartlivie. Note that the alleged "sock puppet" was not involved in any way with Viriditas. Mosedschurte (talk) 01:19, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I came by my involvement with Viriditas unintentionally, having had some recent first-time positive exchanges with editor Mosedschurte. As is my habit regarding newly encountered editors, I looked at what they had been working on. Human rights in the United States piqued my interest based on my study of international treaties et al. and their effect on domestic law with regard to the Baltics—a mechanism which would be at work in any country, including my own—the US.
My first contribution was a comment and (some intervening diffs left out) my sentiments in more detail here.
A RfC was open (to include international or not) and I stated my editorial sentiments (I did sign immediately after). Note MishMich thought my suggestion was a “sensible compromise.″
My first interchange with Viriditas was responding to the conspiracy theorist diatribe (theirs above my response) attacking Mosedschurte... "same disruptive behavior as your predecessor"... "I have to wonder if there is any connection between you and him and others"... "I find it interesting that your tag team partner, Yachtsman1, created his user account just days before Raggz disappeared"... "What are the odds".. and so on. Disputing content by attacking editors and slinging innuendo about is all too common on Wikipedia—and so I indicated such postings were not productive and that Viriditas should make their accusations directly or desist, also adding a comment on their disparaging contention of "silliest." And so I received my first "put up or shut up" including accusations of "backchannel canvassing" by Mosedschurte and being bad-faith attacked as a meat puppet—myself knowing neither Viriditas nor their position nor (as I came to learn) their combativeness.
I'll leave out some of the intervening dialog seeing conspiracy (my perception) behind everything, including that my signature intentionally obfuscates my Wikipedia username and I and others represented a problem which would be "dealt with." Perhaps as my WP username is my real name—apparently a most unfortunate choice—I'd simply rather it not be spread all over the Internet in Wiki-clones.
In the end, I was, as the Brits say, “gobsmacked″ by the thread here where I expressed my disappointment at being beaten about the head by Viriditas—whose response was a request to provide diffs, to which I responded indicating if that was their attitude, I'd need to address in an appropriate forum, namely here, which I was aware of but had no appetite to participate in. This interchange, and its evidence that Viriditas is ignorant of their editorial conduct, is the sole reason I have felt it necessary to comment here. I have no stake in how this is resolved other than Human rights in the United States returning (if that is even the right word) to an atmosphere of spirited yet collegial editing.
Separately, with minimal involvement on my part, I would also point editors to this litany of consparitorial bad faith here. PētersV TALK 20:00, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My involvement with Viriditas was limited, thankfully, but it was enough to form a very negative opinion of the user. Basically it appears that Viriditas has some serious problems with ownership of some articles and when other editors step into "his" articles he reacts aggressively. In my case this was limited to verbal abuse and personal attacks but then again, I only made some limited edits on "his" article. I can easily see how the verbal abuse and PAs could have escalated into Wikihounding in the case of Mosedschurte who was much more involved in Human rights in the United States and who put up with a lot more than I did (I basically left it alone, figuring I don't need the headache - i.e. let Viriditas have his way. A bit lame of me, but we're all time constrained). Specifically, Viriditas made the following comments to me on the talk page of Human rights in the United States (link to proper archive here [17]):
Additionally, Viriditas also insulted me on my talk page - which I then removed - [18] by saying I'm going to drop this because you don't appear to understand what I have written, after accusing me of edit warring for making a SINGLE edit on the article.
In my case, I figured it just wasn't worth bothering with, deleted Viriditas' insults from my talk page and moved on. However, combined with the evidence presented by Mosedschurte and others above, I think it's pretty clear that this user either does not understand Wikipedia policies on discussion, consensus building and most importantly civility and NPA, or chooses not to follow them. The fact that this kind of behavior can escalate from verbal abuse to Wiki-wide hounding of editors that disagree with him is pretty disturbing.radek (talk) 13:01, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Anything that will make the Wikihounding end would be GREATLY appreciated, and I can't stress than enough. Some have suggested blocks of Viriditas, while perhaps an admonishment not to edit articles that I edit (excluding Human rights in the United States, which he/she had edited first) would do, as we have never before edited the same articles. Perhaps the same sort of protection for Yachtsman1.Mosedschurte (talk) 11:46, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It would be truly wonderful if the conduct described above could be related by an impartial observer and/or contributor to user:Viriditas as intolerable, and that he/she learns to respect WP:CIV, as opposed to edit warring and insulting others, without the need to take this matter to WP:ANI for a block. --Yachtsman1 (talk) 02:45, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(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.)
(Provide diffs to demonstrate that the disputed behavior continued after trying to resolve the dispute.)
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Note: The following message was added after this case was closed
See concerns raised about stealth canvassing at: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list. This RfC was opened by User:Mosedschurte at 11:30 (UTC), 29 June 2009. Approximately one hour later, at 12:29 on June 29, 2009, User:Biophys used a closed private mailing list to invite subscribed users to comment here. [20090629-1229] List member User:Vecrumba received this e-mail and responded to the RfC at 20:00, 3 July. At 23:02, on July 11, list member User:Dc76 made an inquiry abut Mosedschurte on the list. [20090711-2302] Biophys responded at 23:20 describing Mosedschurte in favorable terms and pointed Dc76 to this RfC. [20090711-2320] This was the second time Biophys referred list members to this RfC. Subsequently, Dc76 arrived and responded to this RfC several hours later at 01:46, 12 July, and list member User:Radeksz responded at 13:01, 12 July. On July 14, Biophys informed the mailing list that he had sent e-mail back and forth with Mosedschurte, and according to Biophys, Mosedschurte needed help dealing with me.[20090714-1444] All evidence enclosed in brackets is accessible to arbcom. Viriditas (talk) 01:44, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(note: this was first raised at ANI, where admins directed that it be raised instead at RfCU. In fairness to User Viriditas, this editor replied in that section, which can be read at the above link until he/she comments here.)
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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.
I am an outsider. I stumbled upon this because I was looking for a past contribution on some other subject, which I still can't find, but that's my problem. Now, since I spent about 40 minutes reading some of the above, I humbly drop my two cents. I would like, here and now, to state that I haven't read and checked all links. I just checked a few selected things. But I stumbled upon a "dialog" in a talk page that IMHO is very eloquent, and humbly would like to share it with you. Enjoy it:
I don't know how about you, but I read it as: "Need source to say 2+2=4." "Yes, but it is not clear on which page that is written." "Yes, but we needed 2+2=4 not in the case of apples, but of peers. In any case, the question is the source only says 4-2=2." Interpreted this way it is actually very funny. But I imagine it is not at all funny if you are the one being Wikihounded with such objections. Again, I am basing this only on a partial read of the evidence in this case. We should not waste our time with such non-sense and rather concentrate on more productive things. This is why I refuse to read more of such non-sense dialogs, it's clear they are all the same. Dc76\talk 01:46, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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