Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/John Gohde 2/Evidence: Difference between revisions

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• [1] describes an edit he dislikes as vandalism
• [2] characterises this arbitration case as a grudge match (n.b: I don't think I ever encountered Mr-Natural-Health)

• [3] advances the thesis that Wikipedia admins are mentally ill

• describing others as a "mob" [4]
• response to a block [5]
• [6] - page is looking like it will be deleted per concerns raised.

Note the comparison with a rape victim harshly treated in Iran. I think Gohde does sincerely believe his treatment to be comparable, despite the many, many attempts made over the years to help him not to run into these problems.

• using his user page as an advertisement and fund raiser for his personal fork [7]

• [8] John Gohde appears to assert parity between minor complementary and alternative medicine topics, and the entirety of mainstream medicine. Surely an exaggeration on his part, but an illustrative one (see also WP:ALLORNOTHING)

As an example of seriously problematic editing, this [9] is a doozy. Replaces a Wikilink with a weblink to the same article, and replaces {{fact}} with a self-referential citation of a WikiProject subpage largely written by himself, Wikipedia:WikiProject Alternative medicine/Classification Systems (edit | [[Talk:Wikipedia:WikiProject Alternative medicine/Classification Systems|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). This might be forgivable in a newbie, but this user has been active for over four years.

Being that I happen to have a life, and being that I have had almost no edit contact with the editors bringing this action, I basically have better things to do with my time than try to respond to these editors who apparently have nothing better to do than make complaints.

This case can best be described as a bogus action by a handful of disgruntled editors who apparently still want to pick a fight with User:Mr-Natural-Health]. (Such as this rather recent example of Guy picking on a Project Page written by User:Mr-Natural-Health.[10])

The parties filing this case, clearly have not pursued any of the usual dispute resolution methods.

It was mostly due to User:Fyslee trying to force his/her partisan point of view on several articles related to alternative medicine[11].

So, I will just respond to each statement of the principle parties, one by one.

Who is Guy? I do not recall ever running into him.

Bearer of truth? Wikipedia:WikiProject Rational Skepticism. I never met a skeptic that did not introduce themselves as a "bearer of truth."

My editing on Wikipedia during my third stay can hardly be described as being disruptive. And, certainly has been far less disruptive than the parties to this case who have essentially filed the exact same bogus case in three different places.

I managed to go over the limit on reverts only one time on only one article. There was one MfD on a portion of the CAM Portal, during which User:Fyslee had made a blatant personal attack[12]. The MfD ended with a Keep Decision. There have also been a couple of attempts to merge a couple of articles that I have been editing. All the merge attempts were dropped. The last time the user making the request to merge, himself dropped the request. The only editor that I have been having problems with was User:Fyslee[13] because of the above mentioned personal attack, that was made by him. But, after I figured out that User:Fyslee was trying to goad me into making personal attacks, I have been exceedingly careful to avoid anything that be construed as a personal attack.

I have a user page, just like most editors do. If Guy refuses to create a user page for himself, that is his problem.

As far as I can see, I have not received a single referral from those nofollow links. Nor, was I interested in promoting those websites of mine on my user page. They are simply background information on what I have done and what I am interested in.

As far as the comments on the bottom of my talk page go, they were there to point out an analogy that was recently in the news that applies to the RfC. No names of editors were referenced at all. Therefore, they are perfectly acceptable. Doing a search on Google [14] ,[15] I see no evidence that those comments were ever seen by anyone except by those who have a guilty conscious. Those comments of mind were never in Google's index. Nor, will they ever be.

See the messed up hyperlinks with their exceedly long titles in the lead of the article.[16] They positively represent a messed up display that needed to be corrected. Nothing strange about me fixing the damage done by another editor at all.

What I write on my various other websites, as long as I leave out the names of specific editors is entirely my own business.

I have absolutely no interest in being a martyr. -- John Gohde (talk) 00:07, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have had next to no edit contact with this editor. Orangemarlin filed the exact same bogus complaint in a Request for Clarification[17], and was likewise reviewed in Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement[18]. Apparently, Orangemarlin is not interested in comprehending what User:Newyorkbrad told him: "It appears that the remedies in the earlier arbitration case expired three years ago (although it may still be relevant as background). Therefore, any problems with this editor should be pursued through usual dispute resolution methods, culminating if necessary in a new request for arbitration. You can also take the situation to WP:ANI if you believe there is an issue warranting administrator attention."[19] The facts are that I have gone out of my way to be civil to absolutely everyone for a couple of weeks prior to all of this complaining. Therefore, as all of the alleged behavior has not persisted, was in fact not taking place at the time of all the complaints, nor have any new problems arisen; there is absolutely no basis for seeking a remedy, here.

I find it totally incongruous that Orangemarlin knows the differences between being "cautioned" versus "put on probation" for RfCs[20], but did not know that the remedies in the earlier 2004 arbitration case had expired some three years ago.

Orangemarlin reverted two of my edits on Christmas Day, which I celebrate, so that he could report to "ArbCom of editor's behavior" in order to seek remedies for the 2004 ruling. At the time of Orangemarlin's reverts there was clearly no edit war going on. In fact, I had stopped editing complementary and alternative medicine for a few days since I had been mainly editing the complementary medicine article[21],[22]. Furthermore, Having wised up to the editing tactics of the editors posting complaints on my talk page, I had been for approximately two weeks extremely careful not to post anything that might be construed as a personal attack. So, at the time of the filing of this specific RfC I was being very civil to everyone.

So, I rightfully ask why Orangemarlin went out of his way on Christmas Day which I celebrate to revert two of my edits and to file this RfC? In my opinion, there is only one possible answer: Orangemarlin was intentionally using his two reverts along with his RfC as an editing tactic that would keep me from editing complementary and alternative medicine for a couple of days. In order to gain an editing advantage on complementary and alternative medicine that would allow Orangemarlin to make changes that never reached any consensus in the respective talk page.

I was asked to once again participate on Wikiproject on Alternative Medicine[23]. That is the only reason I have been editing a few articles on CAM.

I happen to have a life. And, I certainly do not spend most of it, editing on Wikipedia. Nor, am I going to memorize all the ever changing rules on Wikipedia, as if they are necessary for the minor editing that I have been doing.

I edit a few articles, now and then. And, I have asked a few fellow participants to vote on certain issues that they might be interested in, but I have never ever dictated how they should vote on those issues.

And, I was asked to advise one editor on how he might better edit an article that he was developing on one of his user page sandboxes[24],[25]. And, Yes, I pointed out that he could in the future avoid a lot of unnecessary bickering over his sandboxes, if he would simply give them a nondescript name.

I think some editors need to take a vacation from Wikipedia, once in a while, so they can keep things in their proper prospective.

"Any non-NPOV editing made today, can always be corrected next week." [26] Except, what Mastcell left out is more telling than what Mastcell quoted. A very poor attempt at deceptive editing by Mastcell, if I am permitted to say so.

Editors are in fact trying to harass me on Wikipedia. I am aware of at least two bogus accounts that some people have started which are an obvious play on my last name. Somebody created these accounts. It certainly was not me. Their existence is evidence of background harassment.

1. User:Gohde Alone Knows
2. User:Gohdeilocks

He's been the subject of 2 prior Arbitration cases: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Theresa knott vs. Mr-Natural-Health way back in 2004, and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/John Gohde. In both cases, his behavior was deemed to have substantially violated Wikipedia's code of conduct; in the second case, he was banned for 1 year and subject to an additional year of probation.

I first encountered John Gohde in December (contrary to the "vendetta" assertion), when he was canvassed to !vote in a contentious AfD. Shortly thereafter John Gohde canvassed 2 editors, selected for their known viewpoints on related topics, for a fairly contentious MfD discussion: [27], [28]. I asked him to respect WP:CANVASS ([29]); he deleted this message as a "nasty rude threat". After Shortly before the closure of the MfD as "delete", John advised the creator of the deleted article to game the system by simply recreating it under a more difficult-to-detect name ([30]). He has been blocked twice in the past few weeks, once for edit-warring and once for a range of unconstructive behavior, both times by uninvolved admins; hardly the track record of someone who's turned over a new leaf.

Additionally, John Gohde seems to have a flawed understanding of WP:3RR and WP:CONSENSUS. Here he advises another relatively new editor: "Making 3 reverts in one day will get you kicked off of Wikipedia for 24 hours. But, waiting 24 hours between each revert wont. I would advise that you edit boldly and correct all errors and all non-NPOV edits made by Guettarada. The article is what counts, rather than the talk page."

I have not interacted with John Gohde beyond this limited sphere; it is my understanding that there are other indications of incivility, edit-warring, etc (for which Thatcher blocked John Gohde recently), but I will leave it to others to present evidence of those as they see fit.

John Gohde was blocked for 48 hours by an uninvolved admin as a result of a WP:AE thread. He responded by comparing his situation to that of a woman raped and then sentenced by an Islamic court to be flogged ([31]), stating he had been "publicly violated".

Subsequently, an apparent throwaway account left a blatantly anti-Semitic message of "support" for John Gohde ([32]). One might have hoped that an editor who revises his talk page so aggressively to portray himself in the best possible light, and who writes at the top of his talk page that "Nasty, rude, threatening, and / or impolite comments, or postings by editors that I just plain do not like because they have NOT been nice, will be deleted", would perhaps remove such a comment. Instead, John Gohde amplified on it by further comparing himself to the tiger which escaped from the SF Zoo.

John Gohde has also displayed an attitude toward his talk page which veers beyond the wide latitude traditionally allowed into inappropriate WP:OWNership ([33], [34]).

I've listed examples of John Gohde violating WP:CANVASS and advising other editors to violate the spirit of WP:3RR, disregard article-talk discussion, and sneakily recreate deleted material to circumvent an MfD. This arb-enforcement thread provides a number of examples of edit-warring, incivility, personal attacks, and disruption. An uninvolved admin saw enough there to block John Gohde. All of these are recent, not ancient history. Those are not "content disputes"; those are user-conduct issues. The underlying issue is, and has always been to my reading, that this user is a tireless on- and off-wiki advocate for a specific POV. When such an agenda assumes greater importance than any interest in abiding by Wikipedia policy and custom, then there's a problem, and it has nothing to do with a specific content dispute.

... is marked by several inaccuracies. First of all, contrary to his assertion, we do have an article on the inventor of the photographic flash. His name is Harold Eugene Edgerton. See his obituary in the New York Times. Secondly, a "martyr complex" is not a mental illness; it's a pop-psychology term describing a personality/coping trait. On second thought, this is off-topic and I'm starting to feel it's a bit petty as well.

JzG's argument insisting Gohde's talk page comments have violated (?) WP:UNDUE and Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions should set off bells and whistles in the arbitrators' heads.

MastCell: "The underlying issue is... this user is a tireless on- and off-wiki advocate for a specific POV" = content dispute. Get rid of the editor espousing a POV we don't like helps get rid of the content reflecting that POV. Yes, he recently served a 48hr block for the problems we are going back over again,[35] the talk page incivility/sarcasm and the misleading "rv vandalism" comment.[36] [37] [38] He should be reminded not to do that again. Of course, despite that reasonable block, the knives were immediately being sharpened: "Excellent action. Hopefully, he gets the point, but I don't believe that will happen. I'm preparing the RfAr as we speak." per User:Orangemarlin.[39] And so here we are.

Bizarrely, JzG in his evidence accused John Gohde of having a mental illness[40] (a martyr complex) while in the same breath complaining Godhe has made a similar, though completely impersonal complaint about Wikipedia's admins. Even if JzG takes Gohde's opinions about the project personally, although there's no reason he should, apparently he can dish it out but not take it.

I've tried it; there's no way to hammer in the last nail. Sure, Gohde feels persecuted, but that seems to be the result of editors actually persecuting him, not as a result of mental illness as JzG contends. See, for example, the present case.

I'm not sure why stating this fact deserves some sort of punishment, and I'm not sure the harm done by John Gohde in stating this. See WP:NOT#DEMOCRACY and mob rule if you are unclear on this. Next we'll want to punish editor's for stating the sky is blue, I imagine.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with this. Calling it an "attack" is an attempt to invoke WP:NPA, but of course, there's nothing personal there.

There's actually nothing in the diff JzG provided to support this accusation. [41] All Godhe does is mention that he runs his own for site for a penny an hour. There's nothing even remotely resembling solicitation.

In response to MastCell's accusation, see Wikipedia:CANVAS#Types_of_canvassing, in particular the section entitled "friendly notices." Furthermore, John Godhe stopped when asked by MastCell. There's no reasonable remedy for behavior which doesn't violate our policies, and MastCell's threat to have him blocked for the innocuous behavior, especially while acknowledging he was talking to an editor with years of experience,[42] actually was rude, IMHO.

The WP:TIND essay encourages this behavior, and, as such, the MfD of a User's sandbox page was highly irregular to begin with. The User's response seems to explain everything sensibly; he had removed all the cruft that got the original article AfD'd, etc.[43] When asked for advice by the User, Gohde suggested what he would do under such circumstances. I'm not sure what alternative advice he could have even given here, if one WP:AGF that the editor actual would complete work on the article; renaming the page would have fixed the page-rank complaint that was part of the rationale MastCell gave for the MfD. If that's a violation of WP:GAME, it seems a minor infraction. Instead, if I'm reading all this right, now we don't have an article on the guy who invented Flash (photography). Go team! -- Kendrick7^talk 21:18, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, MastCell is correct that available sources are sketchy. The only secondary found I found to support the low-power flash assertion is from a vanity press: Bollin, Bill (2003). Downwinders: Your Personal Survival Guide to an Uncertain Future. New Century Press. p. 11. ISBN 1890035289. There's a primary source, the patent itself, here, though it's hard to know if this is the same Robert C. Beck, or if this patent was actually implemented in modern cameras. But, really, my point isn't to rehash the MfD; my point is User:John Gohde's advice wasn't completely unreasonable if he took MastCell's complaint about PageRank to be the most pressing reason to delete this User's sandbox. -- Kendrick7^talk 22:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that Gohde's comments -- immediately after getting blocked, and on his own user talk page -- in comparing our justice system to Iran[44] is shortsighted and demonstrates an unfortunate xenophobia and cultural bias. I'm sure if his belief became widely known beyond his own talk page, Iranians everywhere would be deeply hurt by the comparison. Here too though, I'm not sure what an appropriate remedy would be; perhaps he should send his local Iranian embassy a formal letter of apology?

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