Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/John Gohde 2/Evidence

John Gohde has been engaging in an awful lot of refactoring that creates confusion and possibly hides evidence. Others have made comments in response to the original versions of his comments, which he has then refactored or even removed. This places his opponents at a disadvantage as it amounts to historical revisionism. His constant refactoring can force his opponents to constantly revise their statements. His actions can be seen as a diversionary maneuver that is designed to confuse them and waste their time. Whether that is the intention or not, that is the result. It is highly unfair. In this case we shouldn't have to depend on using the edit history of these RFAR pages. This type of refactoring should not be allowed. He should refactor by using strike through instead, as well as properly descriptive edit summaries.

I request that the clerk or ArbCom members instruct him. -- Fyslee / talk 08:02, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was informed that my original evidence was 1,500+ words long on my talk page.[1] And, that I had to cut out at least 500 words of it. So, this resulted in the above changes in reorganization.

Furthermore, the parties to the case have changed their evidence in response to my presentation which resulted in more changes in my evidence. As the parties keep on changing their evidence, I am sure that I might have to change mine again.

But, over all the essence of my presentation has remained exactly the same. My final version will be whatever remains at the end of the seven day period. I am not a professional filer of arbitration cases, unlike the parties to my case. -- John Gohde (talk) 21:21, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for that background information. It does help to explain one possible reason for your refactoring.

That you deleted comments that could reflect badly on you is also worth noting. They can of course be used in this arbitration case since they are typical of some of your more mildly negative comments made elsewhere. Editors who choose to do so can just use diffs to those comments if necessary. Here are three of them:

[2], [3], [4]

I expect that many such diffs from elsewhere will be introduced as evidence, even though you have later (not of your own volition or contrition, but only after being warned and/or advised to do so) deleted them. Here are a few such diffs:

[5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]

-- Fyslee / talk 07:35, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, he already did a 48hr block, and has apologized. I'm a little surprised actually one of the diffs he was explicitly blocked for, and which has been repeatedly brought up here is something he actually rewrote 3 minutes after he posted it.[12] I'm certainly adding that to my evidence. -- Kendrick7^talk 07:53, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kendrick7, I don't understand. If I am mistaken I will gladly refactor. It wouldn't be the first time I have made a typo or inadvertently screwed up an edit! To me, the victim of those insulting slurs (some of many, which has had a cumulative effect which you apparently do not appreciate or understand), there is far more difference in time than 3 minutes. He wrote them on Dec. 14 and removed them on Dec. 21. Please explain. I wouldn't want to get this wrong. -- Fyslee / talk 08:16, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ohh. Nevermind. My brain isn't on... -- Kendrick7^talk 08:20, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No problemo, amigo. Welcome to the club. I've done the same myself...;-) -- Fyslee / talk 08:27, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Users are free to change their evidence statements as they please, up until the case closes, and bad-faith inferences to such action have never (to my knowledge) been drawn in the past, and should not be unless you can prove that John Gohde is doing it maliciously to disrupt this case. If you wish to respond to a piece of evidence and have sufficient concern that it will be refactored or removed in the future, address it using a permanent link in your response.

However, on the workshop and evidence/workshop/article talk pages, unless there is a pressing need or exceptional circumstances (ie. no-one else has responded to the comment or is discussing the content of the comment), comments should not be removed but rather stricken (example). Furthermore, I thank John Gohde for attempting to shorten his evidence per my request on his talk page.

If you need any assistance or guidance on this issue, please contact me either here, on my talk page or via email. Thanks, Daniel 08:24, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Daniel. Thanks for your response. I guess my point is that RFAR Evidence and other pages are essentially governed by the same rules as talk pages elsewhere. They are nothing like article pages anywhere else, but consist of statements, comments, rebuttals, ad libitum. They function very much like talk pages. The reasoning for what you are saying (stricking rather than deleting comments) is that by actually deleting comments, the responses can easily be placed in an unfavorable light, and editors on all sides are forced to constantly refactor their comments because of what amounts to historical revisionism. Sure, we know that the diffs are found in the edit history, but the actual page will still contain what looks like mild statements that are being unfairly attacked. Since they are functioning as talk pages, they should be governed by many of the same rules. You are quite correct that changes are allowed, it's just a matter of how they are done.

I see now that you have added the part about AGF and whether a change is done maliciously or not. By not allowing actual removal, there will be no suspicion. Arbitration cases have gotten this far because a significant number of editors have usually become confirmed that AGF is becoming a suicide pagt. In these cases we shouldn't have to be placed in that dilemma. We want to be freed to simply present evidence and respond to it without having to determine good faith or bad faith because of evidence that has been presented and then seemingly changed or manipulated. That makes things much more complicated. It's kind of like a COI situation in court. A judge who is related to a party to a case should not even begin to try the case. That way no questions will ever be asked about whether a decision was a simple one or a malicious one. -- Fyslee / talk 08:56, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think an explanation to this [13] deleted by JzG on Dec. 26,2007 should be done. It was deleted on Dec. 26 as stated here. I cannot locate the actual notes since this deletion but it seemed to be a list of editors that Mr. Gohde didn't agree with and an accumulation of a bunch of postings to be used against a lot of editors listed in this notes page. I am an outside editor that was brought here. I think this notes page attracted a lot of editors that are now posting on this ARB. --CrohnieGal^Talk 18:15, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was brought to the articles, the users page and to this by outside editors. I am not involved but I find it very difficult to understand with all the deletions and removals going on. Is this necessary? There are some editors trying to keep up to make comments, I suspect both pro and con and this has been very difficult to understand. Thanks, --CrohnieGal^Talk 21:10, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I consider this an act of social engineering, and it can also be construed as building a page to be referenced from outside of WikiPedia. Igor Berger (talk) 17:14, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Being that I am trying to maintain a life, I have no idea whatsoever about social engineering. I have better things to do with my time than to dream up plots. -- John Gohde (talk) 21:53, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You just contradicted yourself in this sentence. You said, "I have no idea what is social engineering," "I have better things...with my time." I think you do know what I am talking about, and many Internet users do it conciously or subconciously. Hey we just want the story to look good for everyone to see! Which in itself it is not a crime, but how determined one is to make it look good, setting oneself with multi user accounts with different accounts acting as sockpuppets for the primary account. John have you ever had more than one account at the same time on WikiPedia? Igor Berger (talk) 22:47, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as my user account Mr-Natural-Health goes, when I was using that account everybody made it into a big deal that they had discovered my real name. So, I started to use my real name informally. Then I threw away my password for Mr-Natural-Health. So, when I decided to come back for the 2nd time I had to set up a new account.

Then there appeared what I call the Hate Blogger. So, I added a third account which is the other variation of my name just to prevent the hate blogger from claiming it. I have never used it. But in my opinion, the hate blogger has registered at Wikipedia with at least 2 different account names.

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

My personal websites which so many editors have been complaining about were created because of the hate blogger. Had it not been for the hate blogger my page on Wikipedia would not have been there at all. I needed to add pages for SEO reasons. So, a page on Wikipedia was a natural. I suspect that the hate blogger will eventually try to impersonate me on Wikipedia. And, will be trying to add more account names that are a variation of my last name.

As far as you go, I understand that you operate a travel agency in Thailand. So, your ISP should document an user residing in Thailand or perhaps somewhere in Asia. We parted company about 6 months ago with bad blood between us. So, I would not exactly call us the best of buddies. We both share an interest in Search engine optimization(SEO) rather than CAM. -- John Gohde (talk) 21:20, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1. User John H. Gohde, you identified usrself as a Sockpuppeteer using alternative Sockpuppet user accounts violating the WikiPeida policy which prohibits a user to engage in sock puppetry. While having an alternative user account on wikiPedia may be acceptable under WikiPedia policy, your behavior does not constitute WP:AGF.
2. To the people who have created the Website to redicule John and his family, I would advise you to stop and desist. If any of you are WikiPedians you are hurting WikiPedia by what you are doing.
3. What John does outside of WikiPedia is his personal business and non of WikiPedia. If he is This Master Puppeteer and trying to social engineer the society through his bent attributes and you are under his Magic spell, I would say wake up!
4. John, I did not come to these venerable halls to defend you but to defend WikiPedia! Everytime you come into my life I feel like I am being struck by a meteorite.
5. To the Arbcom I would recommend not to ban or block John, because I doubt he will abide by the enforcements, he will surface somewhere somehow as Mr. Z X Y or whatever other alias he wishes to claim for the Carpe Diem!
6. My recommendation is that John, goes into a self impossed exile and temporary hybernation. I know he will not be able to abstane himself from tempering with Knowledge ™, but at least we will know who and what he is and why is he here.
7. John, the world is big, take a vacation, travel within yourself and out. There are so many undescover places on the Internet and as well as some still well preserved gems in physical society.
8. Hey, as an senior and respected editor, come say hello and apply your great wisdom to WikiPedia from time to time, I am sure we all can learn a lot from you, especially in these turbelant times. But please put down your puppet for a while, because the puppet has become your Master today!
9. I hope this will close these precedures in the amiable matter, but I will leave this decission to the appointed steward of this arbitration committee.
10. Please excuse me, but this whole affair has been very taxing on me. And I thank you all for allowing me the chair to voice my concern. Igor Berger (talk) 04:32, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am getting a major headache, trying to figure out what exactly your point is. As far as I am concerned, I have exactly one account which is: John Gohde (talk).

If no longer using the User:Mr-Natural-Health account was actually an issue than that issue should have been brought up when I first started using John Gohde (talk) some 3 or 4 years ago. And like I already stated before, the preference at Wikipedia was for me to use my real name, plus I no longer have access to User:Mr-Natural-Health due to not having the password.

My current account is John Gohde (talk). And, that is the only account that I am using.

In my opinion, any other account that is a play upon my last name that is currently being used is probably being used by the hate blogger. Which of course can be easily be verified by checking out the geographical location of the ISP. -- John Gohde (talk) 16:50, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]