Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tennis expert

The following discussion is an archived record of a 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.

In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 19:36, 26 April 2009 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 18:57, 22 April 2025 (UTC).

Tennis expert (talk · contribs · logs)

Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Statement of the dispute

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.

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.

Special attention should be paid to the violations of good faith and the "Three Revert Rule" (both in actuality and in spirit) on the part of Tennis expert. Previous attempts to bring in outside (i.e. nuetral) parties have failed, most recently with Editor Assistance being unconvinced that he would be reasoned with. (See Wikipedia:Editor_assistance/Requests ('BRD, User Disruption at Serena Williams' section)) Editor has shown an unwillingness to cooperate with fellow editors.

1.Tennis expert should agree to abide by the spirit and suggestions of the Daniela Hantuchova peer review in regards to tennis biography articles, specifically Serena Williams.

2.Tennis expert should agree to refrain from accusing other editors of bad faith (specifically his use of 'tag-team editing', deceit' and other loaded statements).

3.Tennis expert should agree to restrict edit summaries to matters of the edit and refrain from any personal attacks or assumptions of motivation. Further, the editor should agree to abide by the spirit of WP:BRD (which is acknowledged to not be a binding Wikipedia guideline, only a respected and known essay) and respond to edit reverts with good faith and begin a discussion in regards to aforementioned reverts.

4.Tennis expert should agree to cease any personal attacks/accusations of other editors (i.e. 'meatpuppetry, 'sock puppetry', bias or motivation based on age, etc.)

Description

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Tennis expert has disruptively edit warred and blind reverted changes to the Serena Williams article. A peer review of the Daniela Hantuchova article was recently completed, with the anticipation of tennis editors being able to apply suggestions made within to various other tennis biographies. Various editors over the last ten days have collaborated to do just this with the Serena article, with specific focus being given to Summary Style, references, 'intricate detail', and a stronger narrative structure. (All of these are suggestions resulting from the aforementioned peer review). Tennis expert has engaged in disruptive edits and reverts seemingly intended only to return article to state before new consensus had been reached in regards to length, style and detail. Good faith was assumed by editors in initial reversion, with hopes (and suggestions, by way of edit summaries) that WP:BRD would be followed. Instead, blind reversion and more same-styled reversions to previous paragraph- and detail-laden sections were inacted.

In addition, Tennis expert (by way of edit summaries) has assumed bad faith on the part of editors and has shown little cooperative effort. 20:17, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Evidence of disputed behavior

(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.)

Expansion of summary style in section (A) here. Reverted by editor with explanation here. (No BRD initiated)
Same style-expansion to different section (B) made here and reverted by different editor with explanation here (No BRD initiated) Blind revert to expanded section (B) made here (No explanation), here (plus a statement of being "clearly better written", and threats] and here (Plus odd statement of trying and failing for consensus, and accusations of edit warring)
Same style-expansion to different section (C) made here (No explanation)
Same style-expansion to different section (D) made here (No explanation) Reverted by editor with explanation here (No BRD initiated) Blind revert to expanded section (D) made here (Accusations of dishonesty/bad faith)
Tennis expert also made a series of unwelcome edits to another user’s subpage User:Greg L/Delinking links. All had been reverted by other editors, which he refused to honor. They had to e-mail User:Greg L about it. When Greg L removed the unwelcome material and told Tennis expert that his edits there weren’t welcome, Tennis expert responded with OK. I will pursue rapid deletion of your biased subpage (entire exchange on his talk page here). He then followed up with his threat and started an MfD (Miscellany for deletion petition) to have that userpage rapidly deleted here: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Greg L/Delinking links. This resulted in this ANI against Tennis expert. An administrator snowballed the MfD page after only twelve hours (everyone in the community was against Tennis expert’s move) and warned him not to edit on that page again, along with this bit of information: “Please don't do anything like that again. It was spiteful and disruptive.”

Applicable policies and guidelines

{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}

Attempts by editors to end disruption by suggesting WP:BRD ignored.
Disruptive editor has ignored cals to stick to the Manual of Style, specifically Wikipedia:Summary style.
Editor has disruptively engaged in edit-warring.
Editor has broken the Wikipedia:Three-revert rule, both concretely and, through an unwillingness to talk or engage in discussion, in spirit.

Evidence of trying to resolve the dispute

(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.)

Attempts by two editors to resolve issue with editor made here.
Attempts by same two editors and a third to resolve issue made here.

Evidence of failing to resolve the dispute

(Provide diffs to demonstrate that the disputed behavior continued after trying to resolve the dispute.)

Editor continued to disruptively edit war in the middle of discussion here.
Editor again disruptively edit warred in the middle of discussion [1], with accusations of dishonesty.
Addendum: In the midst of this RfC, which has been generating productive discussion, Tennis expert seemingly ignored the spirit of this RfC and continued the original dispute here and here. (Result of his incident reports was 'stale')

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

Other users who endorse this summary

I strongly agree with the summary. I have, however, not tried any dispute resolution. I have probably taken up a too defensive and passive attitude, but I have almost never experienced anything but trouble from this editor recently (i.e., a few years)—so I am in fact contemplating just giving up and letting him "win". He may be knowledgable about tennis, but I think his net contributions to Wikipedia have been clearly negative in the recent year. I was so delighted to see a collaborative effort on improving the Serena Williams article (initiated by editors who have more stamina than I), and I gladly helped out between April 16 and until today. During that period everything went smoothly. Disagreements were discussed productively, and the article developed fast into something that could soon pass GA status (a goal that Tennis Expert apparently also think is against consensus). But today, User:Tennis expert started editing the article for the first time sinece April 16, and everything went hostile. Again, whatever he disagrees with, he labels as "against consensus", and the more who disagree with him, the more he is convinced that it is "tag-team" efforts or the like. I have recently witnessed similar destructive and confrontational behavior by him during the ArbCom case on delinking. Any editor in diagreement with him there has been massively accused of breach of most, if not all, rules on Wikipedia. My conclusion is that this user is simply not fit for environments like Wikipedia, which is based on collaboration.--HJensen, talk 22:08, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with HJensen's statement. I was the most recent editor to call for a push to get this article up to FA standard. There is general enthusiasm for this push, and over the past four or five day, much work has been done in collaboration with the others. It is so disappointing to see that Tennis Expert directs his expertise into adversarial reverting and warring, for no good reason I can see. This leaves me with the impression that it's a territorial issue that has been going on for a long time. Why? Is this editor a total loner who gains satisfaction only from "beating" other people? May as well lock all of the major tennis articles, because no progress will be made until TE takes a more collaborative attitude. Tony (talk) 03:24, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's more fun to be all pulling in the same direction. Te's persistent aggressive behaviour is detrimental to the project. There should be AN3 complaint against him if he continues in this disruptive vein. There is plenty of work to be done in the entire Tennis project in general, including some sourcing/ref issues in the Serena article in need of expert attention. Ohconfucius (talk) 05:15, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The project needs collaboration which I thought we'd achieved during the recent improvements to Serena Williams. Then a whole bunch of the work was single-handedly modified and then reverted again and again by Tennis expert. These unilateral disruptive acts to do nothing other than push other editors away from tennis articles which is exemplified by the fact the project is bereft of any featured content. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:57, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. The behaviour here is typical of that demonstrated by the User:Tennis expert during the previous year in the date-delinking dispute (751 reverts for crying-out-loud). Having suffered at the whim of this user, it is now clear to me that he demonstrates behavioural and ownership issues that render him unsuitable to work in a collaborative environment such as WP. HWV258 23:12, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also troubling is TE's preoccupation with constantly pointing out other's faults rather than focusing on improving articles or his own behavior. Just look at his response—he spends more time pointing out the "disruptive behavior" of those who endorse this summary than on the meat of the issue. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:00, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse especially since the talk page revealed a troubling possibility that an IP was the same user [2] [3] [4] 3RR in 24 hours, and including warnings then to me at [5] and carefully deleting my response at [6] indicating a rather strange attitude. Then as Tennis expert with [7]. If the users are not the same, I shall gladly strike this all out. Collect (talk) 11:32, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have run up against hard-headed editors before. But Tennis expert’s mean-spirited disruption takes much of the fun out of this hobby. Greg L (talk) 15:52, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is with some hesitation that I comment here, as I have never edited any tennis articles and cannot give an informed opinion as to TE's conduct there. However, what I have seen of TE elsewhere does not show him/her in a good light. I refer to the ongoing Date Delinking arbitration and the flinging about of unwarranted accusations by TE that have caused much harm to the project. The latest such instance being the resignation of The Rambling Man as a bureaucrat in response to the relentless attacks on him by TE. If nothing is done to rein in TE, I fear that more good users will be affected.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 20:47, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Response

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.

(1) Mendaliv has not tried to resolve this dispute; therefore, his certification of the basis for this dispute is invalid. In addition, Mendaliv is an involved and biased editor who has encouraged the filing of this RFC, not once but at least twice.
(2) The four editors who endorsed the "Statement of the dispute" (The Rambling Man, Tony1, Ohconfucius, and HJensen) are the subject of a pending arbitration. Their ongoing disruptive behavior, incivility, edit warring, and block evasion are front-and-center issues there. The evidence of their collaborative tag team edit warring concerning date delinking is overwhelming. This is a pathetically transparent effort at "pay back" by those editors; therefore, they should have zero credibility here.
- (A) The editor who encouraged Alonsornunez to file this RFC and canvass for responses ("It's worth sending out calling notices to everyone concerned in these disruptive edits") is the very problematic The Rambling Man, who has a self-admitted, well documented, and ongoing history of edit warring (including harmful blind reversions), incivility, disruption, abuse of the good article and feature article process, and fostering of a hostile editing atmosphere concerning tennis biographies. The Rambling Man has consistently rejected the civilized editing method embodied in WP:BRD, claiming that it is a mere essay and should be ignored in favor of "good Wikipedia guidelines and policies". See also this disruptive post on the Ana Ivanovic discussion page, which he also placed in several other tennis biography discussion pages. His method of editing is to employ drive-by tagging, exaggerated and false edit summaries (see the polite request for him to stop doing that), shaming and berating editors into believing that articles must be changed to satisfy unstated GA and FA criteria even though those articles have not been nominated, denigrating the contributions of editors who disagree with him, and encouraging others to edit war. It is a puppet master strategy that is highly unconstructive and damaging to Wikipedia. The Rambling Man is simply using Alonsornunez as his latest tool to harrass one of those who have complained about his behavior in that arbitration. Note The Rambling Man's damaging fostering of bad faith by the allegedly inexperienced Alonsornunez: "Hello Alonsornunez. I've seen with considerable sadness the goings-on in various Tennis Wikiproject articles. It seems inconceivable to me that such a large project with so many keen contributors cannot produce a single decent article.... Various edit wars and continual reversions have left the articles in very poor states.... While I will continue to try editing one or two articles, I fear that my attempts to produce a featured-quality article will soon be thwarted. So, in answer to your question, sure, I'll have a look but until the various RFCs, requests for mediation etc have any kind of resolution, I think most of us are wasting our time.
- (B) The arbitration evidence clearly shows that Ohconfucius is disruptive, incivil, unconstructive, and a repeated block evader. For more evidence, see, for example, (1), (2), (3), and (4).
- (C) The arbitration evidence clearly shows that Tony1 has repeatedly edit warred to delink dates, including blind reversions that harmed Wikipedia. The evidence also clearly shows that Tony1 has been disruptive and incivil for more than a year. For more evidence, see, for example, (1), (2), (3), and (4).
(3) The peer review of the Daniela Hantuchova article has nothing to do with the Serena Williams article. Any anticipation of using that peer review to cover other articles was unstated before this RFC was begun and purely in the mind of Alonsornunez. And a peer review is nothing more than an outside opinion. It is not binding on editors, as Alonsornunez erroneously implies.
(4) I have neither "disruptively edit warred nor blind reverted changes" to the Serena Williams article. Alonsornunez has not provided even one diff that actually supports those allegations.
(5) Alonsornunez has been disruptive for months. Despite several requests to stop, Alonsornunez is continuing to vandalize and disrupt tennis articles through blind reversions. For example, this user did not like the official names of certain tennis tournaments and prefered to use Wikipedia-created and unverifiable names. Despite having expressed only this one disagreement with my edits, he reverted all my edits, apparently to make a point. See, e.g., the following edits of his: 2007 Sony Ericsson Open, 2006 NASDAQ-100 Open, 2000 Ericsson Open. This user exercises unconstructive ownership of articles he has created, such as the Williams Sisters rivalry article, where he edit warred my suggested improvements into oblivion. He also publicly trashes the motives and edits of other editors, despite being warned not to do so, and then lobbies to ban those he disagrees with. Another example of his disruptive behavior is his use of blatantly false edit summaries, where he claims to be merely reverting a previous editor's edits but in actual fact he is introducing and disguising his own changes.
(6) There have been proposals at various times to chop down the Serena Williams article (without forking) based on the erroneous belief that tables count when determining whether an article is "too long". None of those proposals were adopted because several editors in addition to myself objected. In the latest round, both Ordinary Person and myself objected on the discussion page of the Serena Williams article. Notwithstanding those objections, The Rambling Man, Alonsornunez, and HJensen made those cuts in violation of WP:PRESERVE when I was away from Wikipedia for 8 days. When I returned, I restored some of the information while preserving their reorganization of the article. Assuming bad faith and hurling insults at me, they then decided to employ Alonsornunez's tactic of edit warring objectors into oblivion instead of further discussing the chops. The latest example is Alonsornunez's unilateral and undiscussed series of edits on April 26, 2009, to bring the Serena Williams article back to his suggested version, as he bragged about here. He is obviously not content to await the results of this RFC, in complete disrespect of the proceeding that he himself started.
(7) In response to Ordinary Person, the only sockpuppet allegation I have ever made that turned out to be incorrect according to Checkuser was the allegation that Alonsornunez is a sockpuppet of Musiclover565. And even in that case, the conclusion that Alonsornunez is not related to Musiclover565 probably is explained by the fact that Checkuser evidence exists only for the last three months. When the Checkuser was conducted on Alonsornunez, the Musiclover565 account had not been used for about 5 months. I still believe that the circumstantial evidence and editing patterns support the conclusion that those two accounts belong to the same person.
(8) In response to Ordinary Person, tags can be edited or deleted just like any other edit.

Tennis expert (talk) 10:35, 27 April 2009 (UTC), revised by Tennis expert (talk) 12:47, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(9) Alonsornunez made seven reversions to the Serena Williams article in a 16-hour period. Where's the RFC or the outrage about his behavior? Where is Mendaliv's lobbying for an RFC to be filed on him? Where is the due process or natural justice, i.e., fundamental fairness? It's certainly not coming from Mendaliv. Nor is it coming from administrator EdJohnston, who warned me about edit warring and then chose to do nothing about the edit warring by Alonsornunez and instead made the ludicrous statement that "Since this is not an actual 3RR case, I won't do the analysis. But whether others went over 3RR too would normally be checked. The actual closing admin, looking at the big picture, might well conclude that you were on one side and everybody else on the other. It's hard for you to argue that your edits have consensus in such a case." When it was pointed out to him that "Tag team edit warring is not an exception to 3RR, consensus or not. Nor is individualized edit warring an exception to 3RR, consensus or not. I'm surprised that an administrator would take the position you have. Perhaps you should study this further. Here is a quotation from WP:3RR: 'Legitimate content changes, adding or removing tags, edits against consensus, and similar actions are not exempt.", the response was "silence". This makes one wonder about his good faith or sense of fairness.
(10) When The Rambling Man, a bureaucrat and administrator, was asked to comment on Alonsornunez's reversions, his response was "silence" (imagine crickets chirping on an otherwise silent, warm summer night). When The Rambling Man was asked again, his response was "silence" (more crickets chirping, with fireflies flitting about). This is merely the latest instance of The Rambling Man's shocking and long term failure to live up to the standards expected of bureaucrats and administrators. More specifically, this requirement: "Administrators are expected to lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others. Administrators are expected to follow Wikipedia policies and to perform their duties to the best of their abilities. Occasional mistakes are entirely compatible with adminship; administrators are not expected to be perfect. However, sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia is incompatible with the status of administrator, and consistently or egregiously poor judgment may result in the removal of administrator status. Administrators ... should especially strive to model appropriate standards of courtesy and civility to other editors and to one another. (I)f an administrator finds that he or she cannot adhere to site policies and remain civil (even toward users exhibiting problematic behavior) while addressing a given issue, then the administrator should bring the issue to a noticeboard or refer it to another administrator to address, rather than potentially compound the problem by poor conduct of his or her own." Where's the RFC or the outrage about his behavior? Where is Mendaliv's lobbying for an RFC to be filed on him? Where is the due process or natural justice, i.e., fundamental fairness? It's certainly not coming from Mendaliv.
(11) HJensen made five reversions to the Serena Williams article in a 4-hour period. Where's the RFC or the outrage about his behavior? Where is Mendaliv's lobbying for an RFC to be filed on him? Where is the due process or natural justice, i.e., fundamental fairness? It's certainly not coming from Mendaliv or administrator EdJohnston.
(12) As usual, Ohconfucius made this incivil comment on my discussion page concerning administrator EdJohnston's biased choice not to act concerning the edit warring by Alonsornunez and HJensen: "Well done for piercing Tennis expert's smokescreen, EdJohnston! The responses by Tennis expert are indeed risible. Over the last 6 months, I have learned all about his modus operandi - his conspiracy theories ... and attempts to pervert the truth by calling black white, and cooperation 'tag-team warring'. Of course, Tennis may sincerely believe what he's saying, in which case he appears to inhabit a rather different reality than the rest of us. Optimistically, he may be brought back into the same universe as everyone else, but then, pigs might fly. Pretending to be an administrator or perhaps mixing up this universe with the alternative universe in which he actually is an administrator, Ohconfucius then improperly closed as "stale" the complaint I made about HJensen's edit warring. Where is Mendaliv's lobbying for an RFC to be filed on Ohconfucius? Where is the due process or natural justice, i.e., fundamental fairness? It's certainly not coming from Mendaliv. Nor is it coming from EdJohnston, who did absolutely nothing in response to Ohconfucius posting the same incivil message on the former's talk page.

Tennis expert (talk) 06:59, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(13) I have presented evidence in an ongoing arbitration case concerning the disruptive and unconstructive behavior of eight of the nine who signed the "Other users who endorsed this summary". I have presented evidence concerning six of the nine who endorsed the "View by Mendaliv". The "View by Ohconfucius" was written by an editor whose behavior is probably the most outrageous of any in the arbitration case. I have presented evidence in the arbitration case concerning six of the nine who endorsed the "View by Oldepaso". A seventh endorser is by a self-admitted sockpuppet of the long problematic Musiclover565/Whitenoise123. The "View by Musiclover565" is, well, by Musiclover. That says a lot about their suspect motivations here, in my opinion.
(14) The Rambling Man voluntarily resigned as a bureaucrat. I am not responsible for his decision. Also notice that Goodmorningworld did not specify even one "unwarranted accusation" that I have made in the arbitration case. In any event, it is up the arbitrators to evaluate the evidence I have presented, not Goodmorningworld. He apparently believes that anyone who disagrees with him in that case is "causing harm to the project". Preposterous!
(15) Evidence of disputed behavior 1. WP:BRD provides for an edit, a reversion of that edit, and then a discussion in lieu of a reversion of the reversion. Alonsornunez provided a diff for my bold edit and then a reversion by Alonsornunez. Where's the violation of the WP:BRD "essay" (LeaveSleaves's and The Rambling Man's characterization of WP:BRD when they were advocating that it be ignored)?
(16) Evidence of disputed behavior 5. According to Wikipedia policy, third parties are not allowed to revert or edit a person's contributions to a user page. Despite this policy, several third parties reverted my edits before the owner of the page ever said anything. And Alonsornunez's characterization of the dispute is shockingly incomplete. It was Greg L, the owner of the page, who got nowhere at ANI and then had a meltdown. Read the entire sordid affair for yourself, not Alonsornunez's biased link to the incomplete discussion.
(17) I have made it very clear that I object to editors ignoring WP:PRESERVE as Alonsornunez, HJensen, and The Rambling Man did in the Serena Williams article and certain other articles. WP:Summary style does not authorize or encourage the permanent deletion of information. The Rambling Man, at least, has finally recognized this principle, as he has been forking tennis articles instead of chopping them.

Tennis expert (talk) 13:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

{Add summary here, but you must use the endorsement section below to sign. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.}

Users who endorse this summary:

Outside view

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.

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View by Mendaliv

I ~~say~~ initially said "semi-uninvolved" as I had stepped in and provided commentary and suggestions in this and related disputes, but had only done so from the position of attempting to provide highly informal mediation. (addendum)However, as Ncmvocalist has rightly pointed out, this was somewhat contradictory, and in the interest of helping this RfC move forward I agree to this view being placed in the section for involved viewpoints and agree to be considered an involved party.(end addendum 14:57, 27 April 2009 (UTC))

I first got involved in this issue via some recent requests at WP:EAR, including: Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests/Archive 45#Question about Tags, Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests/Archive 46#Steps Towards Consensus?, Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests/Archive 46#Fansite tags causing editors to delete information instead of moving it Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests/Archive 46#Question re:Tagging and removal, as well as the most recent request which resulted in this RfC. However, as this RfC was started in regards to the summary style/article forking issue, I'll limit my view to that matter.

The main problem here in my view is a misunderstanding of how consensus building works on Wikipedia. This problem is most apparent when viewing Tennis expert's problematic edit warring. Frankly, the April 16 3RR violation on Serena Williams should have resulted in a temporary block as a preventive measure, especially considering the current 3RR violation (April 26) on the same page.

Additionally, see this edit where he suggests there was "no consensus" to shorten the article. His responses in Talk:Serena Williams#The Serena Slam section show the problem excellently (here, which also shows WP:IDHT problems). WP:OWN is definitely a problem with Tennis expert (wholesale reverts of my work).

Tennis expert is certainly an expert when it comes to tennis, but unless he reforms his behavior when it comes to disputes, he's only going to be a net harm to the project, by driving away editors and wasting time.

Users who endorse this summary:

(as author) —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:38, 26 April 2009 (UTC) Moved; when you certify the basis of the dispute, you are involved. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:41, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(with the caveat that I think he has used up his credibility by now, so I dare say that he is already a net harm to the project despite his knowledge about tennis)--HJensen, talk 22:11, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(as involved party) AlonsornunezComments 23:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There are clearly ownership issues being asserted over the article in a detrimental manner. Edit warring to bring this about is not acceptable. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:20, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Rambling Man (talk) 06:52, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Tony (talk) 15:18, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Dabomb87 (talk) 01:57, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Collect (talk) 11:22, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Greg L (talk) 15:50, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Outside view by Ordinary Person

I'm calling this an outside view because I am not particularly for or against Tennis expert. He or she has made a great contribution to the coverage of tennis on WP, and has provided assistance to me. I usually find myself in agreement with TE on issues such as consistent and correct nomenclature, and it is clear that TE is someone who wants to improve Wikipedia, so intent is not the problem.

It seems that:

1/ TE has a minority view with regard to the desired structure, detail and length of articles on tennis players.

2/ there has been a communications breakdown between TE and a fairly small number of other contributors, leading to an abandonment of civility.

Although a democracy is one of the things that Wikipedia Is Not, it does seem to me that TE, as the contributor with the minority view, should take a more conciliatory and cooperative approach. Because of the amount of work he or she has put in to these articles, this may be a bitter pill to swallow but unfortunately that is how collaboration is, sometimes. It is never going to work without compromise.

I have two criticisms in particular:

1/ In the Serena Williams article, TE has removed warning tags before a discussion has resolved the relevant issue. Removing warning tags without consensus is against Wpolicy: placing warning tags without consensus is NOT against Wpolicy. This might seem unfair, but I note that the fansite tag says "This article may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may only interest a specific audience." (My bolding for emphasis). It is, if you like, a suggestion, not a conviction. It alerts the reader to a possible problem, while (ideally) a discussion takes place about whether the article needs to be changed and what changes should be made, and should normally stay up until the matter is resolved.

2/ TE has made accusations of sockpuppetry. I don't know whether any or all of them are correct accusations but it does seem as though the evidence in most cases is not damning. It's a serious accusation to make in the context of Wikipedia and not one that I would make without extremely good evidence, as it is likely to cruel further collaboration with the accused. If wolf is cried enough times, you run out of people to work with. TE has also, it seems to me, used the word "vandalism" too readily, and in general terms has not assumed good faith.

On a counterposing note, I think it is relevant to a discussion of TE's conduct to mention the conduct of his or her interlocutors: I do not think that TE has been the only contributor guilty of incivility during these troubles, and I think that some of these transgressions have made it harder to bring him or her back to the table. This is, I believe, a disgreement between honest contributors operating in good faith and the communication lines should be kept open.

Finally, I think that discussion of TE's conduct is not as important as discussion of concrete qualitative and quantitative guidelines for tennis player articles, and that perhaps most of these issues will go away if we can reach a formal published consensus on the structure, detail and length of these articles.

Ordinary Person (talk) 04:58, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this summary:

Ordinary Person (talk) (as author)
—/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 09:36, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
--Orange Mike | Talk 23:33, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oldelpaso (talk) 15:49, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

View by Ohconfucius

I've always been interested in tennis, and responded to a request at WP:TENNIS to get its first featured article. The article's such a much-viewed pig's ear (2.5k hits daily) that makes it an ideal candidate.

As Tennis and I have already crossed paths elsewhere, I was initially fearful of getting myself into another conflict, but the the challenge of my first FA collaboration proved too strong. Thus, I posted a message on the talk page, in trepidation. Between the day that request for FAC was posted and today, there have been over 200 edits from various editors, and the article has seen a major improvement... The rest is history.

It's a crying shame that editors are only capable of working cooperatively and in good faith when someone is absent - so it's almost certainly something to do with chemistry. There are still some obvious areas of improvement to be made, such as sourcing (note the rather original researchy 'Playing style' section), that edit warring to reinsert huge chunks of rather intricate detail would appear best left to a lengthy discussion. The lack of FAs within the Tennis Project is nothing to be proud of; it is a real indictment. As for pending arbitratration, kindly leave your prejudices at the threshold. Ohconfucius (talk) 09:04, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Outside view by Philip Graves

While I have not observed the particular disputes in question at all, my experience of working with TennisExpert elsewhere has been only positive. I have worked in closely mutually responsive collaboration with him on the page *List of Female Tennis Players* since early last year, and together we hugely improved the page by establishing co-operatively agreed and subsequently rigidly adhered-to criteria for the inclusion or exclusion of players on the list. The result has been that what had been a mish-mash of personal favourites and some excellent players has been evolving into an objective, unbiased and comprehensive list. It has recently been further enhanced presentationally by Maedin and TennisExpert together, and while they were not always in agreement with each other on the style of table etc., by thrashing out preferences and ideas they have arrived at a greater solution than either would have managed alone.

I would urge moderators to think twice before barring TennisExpert from Wikipedia. In my experience he is a strong asset to the community, and though he does not beat about the bush in expressing his opinions, they are always well-founded and worth listening to. In short, I strongly believe he is absolutely not a wanton troublemaker, but rather someone who really cares about establishing standards of excellence in the tennis pages on Wikipedia, and the site would be impoverished without his contributions.

For the record, I do not maintain any personal contact with him outside or within this site, so I have no biased agenda in endorsing him as a contributor. I stumbled on this debate only because I was looking up Ordinary Person, who has recently become a regular contributor to the page of List of Female Tennis Players too.Philip Graves (talk) 12:04, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this summary:

Philip Graves (talk) (as author)
—Locke Cole • t • c 16:10, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Outside view by Oldelpaso

I have witnessed some of this situation unfolding from a distance, having posted some suggestions for sourcing on Talk:Serena Williams. I was also a contributor to the Hantuchova peer review mentioned above.

At first glance this looks like a content dispute. But in reading pages like Talk:Serena Williams, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis and indeed the talk page of this very RfC, it quickly becomes obvious that this goes deeper than just the article on Serena Williams. As Ordinary Person put it on the Serena Williams talk page: "Trying not to sound like a den-mother, but this discussion has descended into personalities somewhat". It continues to do so, for example today it manifested itself in a (rejected) report on WP:AN3.

Tennis expert's response above comes across primarily as argumentative attempts to discredit or discount the views of others involved in the discussion. "Invalid", "biased", "pathetic", "problematic" and various other negative adjectives. A general attitude of "I am right and your opinion doesn't count". Bridges have not so much been burned as nuked from orbit. This acts as an unnecessary distraction from the actual point of discussion, and reading other pages the same pattern occurs there too. The obvious solution is to take several steps backwards and make comments solely on content, not contributors. However, I can be certain that this has been requested before without success. It is difficult to suggest any more than what has already been suggested.

So what do we have to work with? Both Tennis expert and the filers of this RfC want to see good tennis articles. However, the idea of what comprises a good tennis article is one of the largest sources of disagreement. In particular, article length is a sticking point. Tennis expert is in favour of the status quo. He strongly disagrees with suggestions that tennis biographies such as Serena Williams are too long or verbose. Others (myself included) hold the viewpoint that the level of detail is excessive, and may provide a barrier to such articles becoming "good" or "featured". The featured article process is by no means perfect, but as it has been identifying articles as "examples of Wikipedia's best work" for something like five years plus, it has a reasonable claim of representing the consensus of what an article ought to look like. More comment by people with no involvement in tennis articles but involvement in writing featured articles may be helpful. The creation and discussion of Wikipedia:WikiProject Tennis/Tennis article format looks like a step in the right direction. Whether it can satisfy Tennis expert is uncertain, but it ought to make the consensus clearer.

Users who endorse this summary:

Oldelpaso (talk) 15:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Rambling Man (talk) 15:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
AlonsornunezComments 15:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Right on. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 17:37, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nice and balanced summary.--HJensen, talk 18:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Dabomb87 (talk) 02:45, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nice ~~smelling~~ coffee! Ohconfucius (talk) 04:39, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
good summary --Armchair info guy (talk)
Tony (talk) 15:20, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Greg L (talk) 15:49, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. Tennis expert has been permitted to unilaterally impose his preferences for tennis articles, while completely disregarding consensus, for far too long. 92.0.235.202 (talk) 18:43, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely. M C 10 | Sign here! 00:29, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

View by Musiclover565

Having taken a complete break from Wikipedia's tennis articles for seven months, I have to say I find it amusing that Tennis expert is apparently STILL up to his old tricks.

I posted the following message on the WikiProject Tennis discussion page on 5 October 2008. While many of the specific disputes I reference have long since ceased to be relevant, it is clear to me that the user is still exhibiting the same overly-aggressive tactics now.

The quality of many of these articles are extremely poor. So many people treat the articles like a news service, putting every single match result on there, using tabloidese language and occasionally, even using the tennis player's first name - and these terrible changes have often stayed for months and months. On the occasion that a user (myself and numerous others) has tried to take a tennis article by the scruff of the neck, giving it a scrupulous clean-up, re-writing some particularly poor parts of the article but retaining the essence of the original article, User:Tennis expert has waded in in almost every case, bullying the "daring" user into submission.

I have been working on the Maria Sharapova article since the beginning of the summer, the article has improved from C-Class to being seriously considered for Good article status. However, Tennis expert did not take kindly to having his work changed and edited, and therefore, ever since, has been embarking on a mission to try and restore his preferred version of the article, reverting hundreds of edits, and employing gutter tactics to get his way - his bringing up my past errors to discredit my present work on Sharapova despite my legitimately exercising a clean start. His trying to get someone who disagreed with him on wikilinking years banned on a petty technicality is another example of the tactics he regularly employs.

Not that Tennis expert's bizarre behaviour is limited to the Sharapova article. The Serena Williams article is another prime case - that article is poor, mountains of unreferenced statements, poor writing in many places, and most crucially, a complete misweighting in terms of the material for each season - 2002-2003 (when Williams was absolutely dominant in women's tennis, winning five of the eight Grand Slams during this period) has just a few lines each, whereas 2007 (when Williams was ranked just #7 at the end of the year) has about four times as much, listing every single tournament she played in. So, myself and numerous others tried to give the article a radical change, to make it more accessible to the average user... but each time, Tennis expert came in and tried to shout them down, reverting and reverting. When a discussion was held, Tennis expert again bullied people into shutting up, citing an apparent consensus despite himself being the only person in favour of the previous version. In particular, take a look at Dinara Safina, the current world #3 and who is moving close to #1, and honestly tell me that is up to Wikipedia's standards. I would try and give that article a cleanup, but I am under no illusion that Tennis expert would not once again try and revert me incessently. There was a similar situation on Rafael Nadal (a dispute I was not involved in) - see here. On the rare occasion that someone does not give into Tennis expert's intimidation, he scrapes the bottom of the gutter in an attempt to get his own way, as I have already shown.

I have always believed that apparent "consensus" should not get in the way of improving the very poor quality of many of these articles. However, I have now personally lost patience and am not willing to just sit around putting in good work just to have it incessently reverted by Tennis expert. Wikipedia is obviously a great project, and the tennis articles have a massive potential. What a shame that that potential will never be realised, due almost entirely to the bizarre, bewildering and frankly rather disturbing overpossessiveness and control-freakery Tennis expert exercises over these articles.

When I returned to Wikipedia several days ago, I made a fairly radical edit to the Dinara Safina page. It went unchallenged for several days, therefore implying consensus; however, Tennis expert then swooped in, once again citing the mystery consensus for the previous version to stay, consisting of him only. (Discussion about the future of that article on the discussion page would be welcomed btw.)

It is my opinion that Tennis expert's actions severely restrict the massive potential Wikipedia's tennis articles have, and more than anything else, he has absolutely no respect for the consensus-building and community spirit of WP. 92.0.235.202 (talk) 19:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sideways view by Locke Cole

I've only had interactions with Tennis Expert regarding the whole date delinking debacle, but in my experience he's been both thorough and reasonable in his approaches to the project. What is more troubling to me is the pile-on of people from the current arbitration. It's unfortunate that any random editor who happens by will be faced by what (at first sight) appears to be a consensus that his behavior is questionable. But what needs to be realized here is the connection most of these editors all have (see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking, where many of the names, myself included, should be familiar). I believe most of these editors are acting in bad faith here, trying to use this as an opportunity to "get" Tennis Expert. This is both vindictive and unfortunate. Please carefully consider the statements presented before blindly supporting them based on the word of these editors.

Users who endorse this summary:

—Locke Cole • t • c 16:15, 9 May 2009 (UTC) (as author)[reply]
— Hex (❝?!❞) 03:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder to use the talk page for discussion

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Summary

Tennis expert invoked his right to vanish on 18 May 2009. This RfC is closed per agreement on Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Tennis expert. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 11:50, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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.