Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Raintheone

The following discussion is an archived record of a user conduct request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

A summary of the debate may be found at the bottom of the page.

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Raintheone (talk · contribs · logs)

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Statement of the dispute

The purpose of this Incident notice, is to report the disruptive behaviours of Raintheone vis-à-vis articles falling under the scope of the G.I. Joe WikiProject. At some point Raintheone became the WikiProject's self-appointed content supervisor, and his actions have quickly escalated from simply providing comments on the WikiProject and various article talk pages, to an active campaign of harassment including an Article for Deletion nomination (result: keep) on one of the most notable characters in the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero franchise, and culminating in a Good article reassessment on one of our two GA-rated articles. I don't know what the source is of his enmity, and although I must assume that he was acting in good faith at the outset, it has become readily apparent that he's moved well beyond that. I also won't be addressing the specific points of the content dispute, as that has been discussed at length elsewhere, but will instead focus solely on Raintheone's conduct in this matter. I'm hoping that by bringing this to RfC/U that we can resolve this situation and be allowed to edit the articles to the standard they deserve, rather than having to expend time and effort on administrative matters.

Desired outcome

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.

The editor will reform the conduct outlined in this RfC:

the editor will cease with his attempts to use AfD and GAR as blunt-force instruments, in his attempts to effect changes to any the articles within the scope of WikiProject G.I. Joe
the editor will cease with his attempts to use AfD and GAR as punitive measures for perceived failures by the articles' editors to adhere to his standards and timelines
the editor will voluntarily limit his/her contributions to any articles within the scope of WikiProject G.I. Joe to making suggestions on the article and WikiProject talk pages

Description

AfD and Merge requests

As far as I know, the earliest appearance of Raintheone in the "G.I. Joe space" was 24 February 2011. On that date in the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fictional characters/Archive 1#Wikipedia:WikiProject G.I. Joe Concern thread, he posted "can anyone do a mass AFD on the non notable characters" and displayed an utter lack of courtesy by doing so without actually discussing it with the G.I. Joe editors first. Although it is not strictly required, the AfD guideline does recommend the notification of supporting WikiProjects and substantial contributors. This is a pattern he repeated with the Zartan AFD, and again with the G.I. Joe: A Real American hero (Marvel Comics) GAR, where both went up without any notification to interested parties.

At one point, Raintheone made a post [1] where he suggested that "I think it may be best if you merge many character articles into a list of characters because they are not properley [sic] sourced. Some are fine, most are not. You also need to assess them on your own WP quality sclae [sic] and WP Fictional Character's". I would note that since then:

over a period of about a week in mid-late March, one of our editors did in fact perform a quality assessment on every article in the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero space, and
a significant amount of merging of the G.I. Joe articles has in fact occurred, as can be seen here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, and here [2]. And while his attention may initially have been focused on the character articles it has since drifted onto the non-character articles (which in no way impacts the Fictional Characters WikiProject).

Lack of Manpower

Despite the fact that the G.I. Joe WikiProject has at most three active editors - including myself (who only became a regular/active Wikipedia editor since early March 2011, having posted perhaps 3-dozen edits maximum in the preceding two years) and another editor Cerebellum (who has been inactive for almost a month now, due to RL commitments) - we've still managed to accomplish much in a very short time frame (less than a month), including the aforementioned merges (kudos to Fortdj33) as well as our recent work to continue improving the article G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel Comics) in the hopes of nominating it to FAC at some point. This despite that fact that we all have other interests and commitments both within Wikipedia, and of course in RL. Given our manpower shortages, especially when compared to the overall size of the WikiProject (at one point well in excess of 300 articles, now a somewhat more manageable 238 articles, as of 19 April 2011, and still shrinking), I would have expected some consideration, but Raintheone appears to be working to some internal deadline that he's failed to inform the rest of us about:

Here [3], right off the bat his first statement is "So the merging has halted" (which I must emphasize, occurred shortly after the start of Cerebellum's inactivity, and my own increasing involvement in several other non-G.I. Joe articles) indicating on Raintheone's part, impatience with the WikiProject, despite our trying to explain to him on several occasions that claims of WP:NOEFFORT aren't particularly helpful, and the fact that in Wikipedia, there is no deadline.
and in the AfD discussion [4] where he states that "At least something good came of this and it has had a little work done top it and some sources added", a further indicator that he was simply gaming the system in order to make us work faster (i.e. force us to work to his own timeline).

GAR

On the subject of the current GAR, I would note that the guidelines themselves state that "requesting reassessment during a content dispute or edit war is usually inappropriate: reviewers are rarely content experts, nor can they reassess a moving target. Wait until the article stabilizes and then consider reassessment". The article in question was only passed into GA on 2 March 2011, and yet Raintheone feels that it has already drifted sufficiently in barely a month for GAR to be required. While I can see the value of a GAR when an article has been worked on by many editors over a protracted period, and with many random/unrelated edits, in this case of this article the vast majority (probably > 95%) of edits in the past month have been by Fortdj33 and myself, and with the concerted purpose of bringing the article to a standard that can withstand FAC nomination at some point hopefully not too far into the future (so in other words: hardly a series of random edits). And while I agree that the article isn't currently ready for FAC, it's unreasonable to put the article through GAR when it's still being worked on.

Furthermore, the article recently underwent a thorough peer review at the end of March, so a significant amount of additional editing has been done over the past few weeks to address the deficiencies raised. It's interesting to note that Raintheone here [5] accused me of “You have just had a peer review and not started working on it, rather contesting the content to be okay. I just see complaining about the guidelines and no real indication of willingness to change” when in fact Fortdj33 and I have been working diligently to address those very points, and an examination of the article’s talk page and edit history would bear that out.

Additionally, we lost a week of GAR working time waiting for Raintheone to properly enumerate the deficiencies he has found in the article. Although the GAR was posted on April 11, it was not until April 19 that Raintheone finally responded to my request for a specific detailing of all deficiencies which in his opinion needed to be addressed. On April 12, I posted the following:

"Per the GA Reassessment instructions, you are required to "leave a review on the reassessment page detailing the problems with the article in comparison to the criteria, and save the page." As such, the burden of proof is yours. The rationale given at the top of this page is nothing more than a generalization of what you perceive the problems to be, and is lacking in specific details and the comparison to GA criteria as specified. -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 02:34, 12 April 2011 (UTC)"

To which he responded:

"That is individual reassessment not community. Rain the 1 BAM 02:40, 12 April 2011 (UTC)"

And to which I replied:

"Community assessment: "If you believe a current good article does not meet the criteria, try reassessing the article yourself (an individual reassessment), and only request a community reassessment if a disagreement arises." Have you done actually done that individual reassessment, and if so, where is it? -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 02:53, 12 April 2011 (UTC)"

Raintheone finally responded to my request this morning, and although I’ve been working throughout the day to address his review points, he has since added additional points to the list. I ask you: when will this end, as it seems that nothing can ever be done to his satisfaction? He's currently hiding behind the fact that it's a community reassessment to avoid taking responsibility over the final outcome of the GAR, but I contend that since he's the instigator, that he's responsible for it proceeding in an equitable manner, and should set a reasonable benchmark for the GAR to be closed.

Evidence of disputed behavior

Please see above, under "description".

Applicable policies and guidelines

Wikipedia:Disruptive user, see above, specific examples include:

calling for AfD on Zartan, and
calling for GAR on G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel Comics)

WP:DE, see above, specific example: [6] where he went straight for the deletion rather than attempting to find an alternative sources or replacing the existing reference with a {{citation needed}} tag.

Evidence of trying to resolve the dispute

This has been discussed ad infinitum with the user. See above and below.

Attempts by certifier Jake Fuersturm

Attempts by certifier name Fortdj33

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject G.I. Joe#Duke, specifically this edit
Wikipedia talk:Good article reassessment#G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel Comics), which carried over to...
Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel Comics)/1

Other attempts

Evidence of failing to resolve the dispute

(Provide diffs to demonstrate that the disputed behavior continued after trying to resolve the dispute. As with anywhere else on this RfC/U, 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.)

GAR was posted here, despite trying to preempt/resolve it here

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

Other users who endorse this summary

Response

So basically as I already knew, this editor wants to remove an editor contesting the inclusion of material failing to meet WP:RS. A big fan of the show disagrees with policy, but is happy to use policy to rid of anyone opposed. This is long and detailed, but you can see the obvious set of attacks and here why I think this: Background
Background: I started to help out a little after the GI Joe WP had over over 100 character pages without references. At the WP Fictional characters, there was a clean up taking place. In comparison to other projects, GI Joe held the most articles with cause for concern. The reception was frosty from the start and there have been many times conversing has become heated. I've constantly been accused of harrassment because I am trying to help a set of articles meet many of the guidelines, which they did not in more than one editors opinion. However I am the one who monitered source input more closely and therefore I have been accused of many a thing throughout the duration of the dispute.

One the points here is that I have been disruptive by creating one AFD and putting a GA to community reassessment. I don't see that as disruptive, fansites do not meet WP:RS and after request to look over the sources - the GI Editors disputed that they were fine. Blogspot, A Forum, 11 Fansites, some of which discussed at the RS:Noticeboard were disputed. All along I have been trying to improve via suggestions. If a mass of articles are not complying with the policy on notability and verifibility of the sources - Is an editor meant to just leave because a group of fans tell them to go? Because I decided to adress a few mopre issues I was again accused of having a vendetta and told if I take the article to GAR they would revert the whole article back to the day it passed it's GA. A lot of work has been done on the article and a fellow editor of the GI Joe project reminded Jake that it would appear that article ownership was then taking place.

Wikipedia talk:Good article reassessment
So Here we have a talk about the article. There has been many suggestion that because I tried to explain fansites do not meet WP:RS that - ultimately that is my opinion. I have been told repeatedly that therefore it is my duty to replace the sources. On one article I decided to add some reliable content - On G.I. Joe: Resolute I started adding OOU information and citing with reliable websites. When Jake was notified about this point he said:

"Haha, I love how you're "helping out" by editing the low-hanging fruit. Resolute - released 2009 (mature internet) vs. A Real American Hero - released 1982 (pre-internet). You really want to be helpful? Find replacements for the citations that you disagree with. -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 03:01, 12 April 2011 (UTC)"

After much of this behaviour, and I am open about this fact, I adressed the editor by simply calling him "a bully". I think it is evident on that page to see that Jake is attempting to "swing" Admin User:Nikkimaria's views. As any good admin would she remained on the fence and reminded both of not to make it personal.

Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel Comics)/1
At the articles GAR Community reassment page - Here the worst of Jake's behaviour has come to light. The top half of the discussion starts of with GI Joe editors contesting - on the grounds they think I am harrassing them. Which creating a GAR because a group of editors believe an article should have fansite material - isn't agaisnt a rule. It is obvious I am disliked by Jake for creating a GAR - It passed a good GA review before Jake added fansite material.

I explained my rationale - as it was Community GAR there was no reccomendation I should bullet point every issue.

In one case I said that I should not be told to leave GI Joe articles because this is wiki and anyone can contrib - I recieved this response: "And for the record, I'm not telling you to go away because you don't read G.I. Joe ... I'm telling you to go away because you don't understand G.I. Joe. ... and likewise, I would never dream of editing Coronation Street etc., because I have no understanding of those. -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 02:10, 14 April 2011 (UTC)"

So with that I let Nikkimaria know I would refrain from comment at the article in order to difuse anymore dispute and requested assistance from another GA Reassessment reviewer, Siltork - which is allowed as it states so in the guideline of the GAR. Source

So Yesterday a request was made once more that my review was not concise enough - so I came back to adress the points only. Then Jake started his personal comments back up - this time I made sure I included no personal feeling - what has ensued is absolutely outragous.

This one was the request that a website hosted by blogspot should be removed, it was, yet another source from this website was added - Jake's reply - Again, you don't like this website, then get it blacklisted. But just to humour you, I've changed put in a new reference -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 20:39, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Request that Forums are not used as a source gained a reply from Jake reading: Hid it. Didn't delete it outright, as it's important, and I'm still hopeful of finding a source that meets Raintheone's exacting standards -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 22:48, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I noticed a source was compiled of student and amueter views - Jake's reply - I just did some digging, looking into the edit history for this article, and the edit that brought this reference into use actually predates the final pass into GA. So if it's good enough for the GA reviewer, then it should be good enough for you. -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 21:15, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

One source was a magazine one, however it did not cite any of the required parameters. To assume good faith of a source, it is generally required that journal name, page number, issue, volume, title and author are cited - or atleast some - Jake's reply - "Well, if you'd bother to do a little checking, you'd know that it's a magazine article reprinted online. Since you're such an expert, why don't you tell me what the proper citation format is? -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 22:20, 19 April 2011 (UTC)"

I explained the general reader will not know where to look if it is not cited correctly, so how will they assume good faith? - Jake's take on it - "If you'd bothered to check, you'd know it was there. Or else googled it. -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 22:40, 19 April 2011 (UTC) " I wasn't aware the reader had to verify the claim? Any how I said Jake was making good progress and he replied - "Why thankee massa, I sure is pleased youse approvin' of the progress. -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 22:50, 19 April 2011 (UTC)"

User:Jezhotwells then reminded Jake to keep it civil and assume good faith - he did not and tried to sway Jez's opinion - Jezhotwells then concluded he should stop making personal comments - however it persisted. I did not respond other than explain GAR and request he stops personal comments - Nikkimaria had previously said the same.

I recieved a sarcastic response from the word go, Jake likes to think on Wikipedia you can bargain with nominators

"Comment - Raintheone: fair enough - and if I address all of the points above, either by finding a better source, or deleting the claim, are you going to drop the harrassment? Or are you going to remain ensconced in your role of self-appointed content supervisor? -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 13:53, 19 April 2011 (UTC)"

After suggesting more be added, which again i comlied with - "That's it. Forget about it. I refuse to edit anything more unless I get a solid commitment from Raintheone that if these final points are addressed, that he's going to drop the matter once and for all. He can't just keep adding stuff to the list, that's just being ridiculous. I have too much to do in real life than to come here and be his whipping boy for his amusement. -- Jake Fuersturm (talk) 02:24, 20 April 2011 (UTC)"

More personal comments. I am certainly not amused by all of this either, far from it, I'm disheartened Admin's had not noticed this sooner.

Edit Summaries
Jake has been questionable with his edit summaries of recent, and has linked me personally in many - at what appears to be a disregard of my opinion

[7] - taking out some stuff that user:Raintheone didn't like

[8] - Another edit to make Raintheone happy

I'm sure there is no point in continuing adressing those.. you can see for yourself the various ones.

Straight quotation marks are also used to show that he does not take another editors views seriously when refering to my views - a popular one with him is to put "Review point" and "More replies to you-know-who" are demonstrated here

Canvassing
After I asked two admins too get involved, which one was to stop dispute the other a ready GA reassesser - Jake preceeded to canvas top GI involved parties: This, [9] and this.

After I mentioned to Nikkimaria that canvassing may be happening, Jake preceeded to take talk about me to Email with Fort. [10]

It appears to be starting up again, asking editors to sign in which he knows will - [11] [12]

User Fort constacted admins involved heavily in Comics - whereas I contacted to admins at appropriate/uninvolved with the subject matter.

Concluding
So there have been attempts to disfuse this.

So after I let Admin Nikkimaria know that I would be removing myself from the situation. I then offered Jake a very human response at User_talk:Jake_Fuersturm#Raintheone. There also features a section about me discussing if I should be reported - I recieved no response from my kind words.

So after the request I come back and make a detailed point by point review at GAR, I did, then Jake attempted, and tried really hard to get a response - on a personal level.

I enjoy editing wikipedia, but I have read through many of the guidelines on WP:RS to ensure content I introduce to articles is of a good standard. I've also had a background in dealing with GA. I have been told to remove iffy sources before, I did it without this such drama. So yes I made it personal by adressing the vendetta tag lebelled on me, on more than one occasion and I swiped at Jake by calling him a bully, that is what it felt like. These kind of things esculate, the good mind on editing can be blurred in such cases. As you can see a week away from the GAR did good, however Jake kept on to this. So I am guilty of trying to enforce policy, I think I went about it in the right way. One AFD of an article without sources and a GA put foward for reassessment on the ground there is fansite material in it, along with removing 9 unsourced claims from articles - in my opinion has not been a this big vendetta and disruption I have been accused of.

I'd like to suggest my opinion on this. I have been baited into coming back, Jake tries too create a drama to report me. Simple. Only my conduct was to the point of the GA. Two admins, a GA reviewer and myself requested Jake stop making it personal - but that did not happen. I don't think I have a vendetta agaisnt GI Joe, I think the vendetta has been canvassed, emailed, baited - in order to remove me. A point Jake has openly wished for. I think Jake should be held account for his actions throughout.Rain the 1 ^BAM 15:54, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I've requested comment from GAR on this matter.Rain the 1 ^BAM 22:37, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this summary:

Outside views

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.

Outside view by Mabuska

There appears to be a lot of personal issues in this RfC, more than i could hope to understand, however going through some of the talk page arguements, especially in regards to the GI Joe GA assessment, i think that all parties involved here could handle the issues in a far more diplomatic way. Nikkimaria made good points in regards to both Raintheone and Jake Fuersturm in that GA discussion.

Canvassing editors along with what could be considered as a couple of uncivil and bad faith edit summaries by Jake Fuersturm as pointed out by Raintheone really doesn't help the matter. However some of Raintheone's actions didn't help it either.

I myself can get dragged into adding a personal element into discussions with an editor who i feel may be blocking progress, however i do try not too and do apologise in an attempt to return to the diplomatic path as much possible for once you step onto that downward path there is little chance of turning back as any editors involved end up with only bad faith towards each other and are constantly antoganising each other which really doesn't help. It can be hard when that editor to you does seem to be antagonising (even if they don't think they are being), and its easy to start with little snipes as i'm guilty of many times. But then again as they say "patience is a virtue".

I don't believe that all three wishes of the desired outcome as outlined above would be entirely beneficial. Rather i think that all three editors should try to be more civil and focus more on the issue at hand and try to work it out diplomatically without going to extremes and getting very personal. The project does lack sufficient active members, as does several other WikiProjects of similar nature - however if a couple of outside admins could be tasked with overseeing any discussions to keep it on track and provide their opinion, then that would help a great deal to resolving disputes. To help facilitate this, Raintheone should raise issues at the G.I. Joe WikiProject for easy finding by any appointed admins.

Users who endorse this summary:

Outside view by Seth Kellerman

The content dispute part of the situation is an unfortunate reality of wikipedia. Fans of a work come to wikipedia to write about said work, and may put a large amount of effort into their writing. If that work is related to pop culture there is often a dearth of reliable sources for that work, often quite disproportionate to that work's popularity, causing the fans to loosen the definition of "reliable" in order to add citations to the related articles. Then a user shows up and brings a stringent adherence to reliability to the articles, often deleting large amounts of information cited to these "suddenly-unreliable" sources. My sympathies are with both sides of this - while sourcing is of the utmost importance it is discouraging at best and maddening at the worst to watch someone methodically dissect your hard work even if their reasoning is altruistic.

As for the users involved, I'm personally not impressed with the conduct of either Raintheone or Jake Fuersturm. Harry Blue5 and Fortdj33, despite being on opposite sides of the debate, should be commended for their conduct, and if Rain and Jake were following their example we wouldn't be here.

Raintheone is engaging in another often ignored form of tendentiousness - a low key taunting, derisive tone hidden behind the veneer of civility. His rebuttal to the RfC is full of sneaky little jabs at the GI Joe wikiproject, and at Jake in particular (I'm not going to dig for difs to support this claim, since everyone reading this should have already read that and noticed it).

In the Zartan AfD, Rain at least tacitly admitted using the AfD as a weapon. These two diffs [13] [14] reveal a wikiphilosophy towards AfD that could become extremely problematic if it continues.

Meanwhile, Jake is engaging in incivility, particularly some ad hominem attacks. Mind you, I don't consider any style of editing intending to insult or belittle other editors to be any better or worse than any other kind of deliberately insulting editing, but I do strongly urge Jake to, well, stop that.

In addition to the Gavin.collins situation referenced by BOZ, this is beginning to give me uncomfortable reminders of the Ryulong/Mythdon meltdown over Power Rangers articles. So far Raintheone's positions have been eminently reasonable (separating him from Mythdon for the time being), but the actions, aggression and impatience less so.

I have not looked at the canvassing issue and so I have not addressed it.

Users who endorse this summary:

Seth Kellerman (talk)
BOZ (talk) 14:31, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Outside view by ExampleUsername

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Summary

Raintheone (talk · contribs) has agreed to stop using content processes to make a point, and to voluntarily limit his editing on topics related to G.I. Joe (excluding Resolute). Raintheone and Jake Fuersturm (talk · contribs) have mutually agreed to put aside their differences and treat each other with respect, even when their opinions differ. Nikkimaria (talk · contribs) has agreed to act as a witness to this agreement and to talk over the GAR discussed in this RfC/U to avoid further animosity.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.