Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/John Gohde

Case Opened on 26 March 2005

Case Closed on 16:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on a proposed decision at /Proposed decision.

Involved parties

• John Gohde
• Snowspinner

Statement by John Gohde

Please limit your statement to 500 words

I seek to open an entirely new and separate arbitration case against Snowspinner.

User:Snowspinner has been engaging in stalking, harassment, and making threatening messages on my talk page, against me (i.e., User: John Gohde) since my recent return to Wikipedia. And, has been systematically attacking and/or destroying the Wikiproject on Alternative Medicine infoboxes with repeated use of the admin-only "rollback" (anti-vandalism) function in furtherence of edit disputes, for reasons that have no basis in reality. The project's infoboxes are certainly not against any Wikipedian policy, guideline, or style guide. Snowspinners actions rises to the level of vandalism with his activities revolving around the bogus Template:CAMInfobox template. Finally, Snowspinner tends to have a megalomaniacal perception of reality that greatly diminishes his effectiveness as an administrator. -- John Gohde 07:04, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/John Gohde v. Snowspinner/Evidence

• Snowspinner has been notified on his talk page. [1]

Statement by Snowspinner

Please limit your statement to 500 words

I urge the arbitration committee to accept this, however I wish to make some counter claims. John Gohde, formerly User:Mr-Natural-Health, who has been twice sanctioned by this committee, has returned to the behavior which got him in trouble twice before. He is particularly fond of personal attacks, revert wars, disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point, incivility, and using Wikipedia as a vehicle to promote his own website. I request that the case be accepted, but with an equal eye towards looking at John's misbehavior as to any misbehavior that may exist on my part. Some notes towards an evidence page (I'll add to it and reformat) can be found at User:Snowspinner/MNH Evidence. Personal attacks include [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. Snowspinner 05:16, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

Preliminary decisions

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (5/0/2/0)

• Accept to consider the issue of Snowspinner's counterclaims aganist John Gohde. Neutrality^talk 05:18, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)
• Accept John Gohde as a split case. I'm not seeing anything accept-worthy against Snowspinner. Ambi 05:37, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Recuse as I was the person who brought the first arbitration case against MNH last year. Theresa Knott (ask the rotten) 07:31, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Accept - this does need to be investigated (see below). -- Grunt 🇪🇺 19:47, 2005 Mar 23 (UTC)
• Accept Nohat 04:02, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Recuse (I brought the second case against MNH last year) - David Gerard 10:59, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Accept ➥the Epopt 04:49, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Agree with Ambi - accept John Gohde only. →Raul654 18:14, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

Final decision

All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)

Principles

Manner in dealing with other editors

1) Wikipedia editors are expected to behave in a calm and mutally respective manner in their dealings with other users. When disputes arise, users are expected to use dispute resolution procedures instead of merely attacking each other.

Passed 8 to 0 at 16:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Personal attacks

2) Personal attacks are expressly prohibited because they make Wikipedia a hostile enviroment for editors, and thereby damage Wikipedia both as an encylopedia (by losing valued contributors) and as a wiki community (by discouraging reasoned discussion and encouraging a bunker mentality).

Passed 8 to 0 at 16:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point

3) Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. State your point, but don't attempt to illustrate it experimentally.

Support:

Passed 8 to 0 at 16:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Assume good faith in the absence of any evidence to the contrary

4) Wikipedia editors are strongly encouraged to assume good faith in the absence of any evidence to the contrary in keeping with our long-standing tradition of being open and welcoming.

Passed 8 to 0 at 16:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ownership of articles

5) Wikipedia pages do not have owners or custodians who control edits to them. Instead, they are "owned" by the community-at-large, and come to a consensus version by means of discussion, negotiation, and/or voting. This is a crucial part of Wikipedia as an open-content encylopedia.

Passed 8 to 0 at 16:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Findings of Fact

Removal of infoboxes I

1) A central issue of this case is whether or not the removal of the so-called "CAM infobox" (e.g. [7]) from CAM articles should be considered valid.

Passed 8 to 0 at 16:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Removal of infoboxes II

2) Template:CAMInfobox was deleted via the TFD process on 22 March 2005; this demonstrates community opposition to the concept of maintaining such an infobox on these articles. [8]

Passed 7 to 1 at 16:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Removal of infoboxes III

3) Several infoboxes removed from CAM articles [9] were verbatim duplicates of Template:CAMInfobox.

Passed 8 to 0 at 16:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Revert warring of infobox

4) Despite community consensus to remove the CAM infobox from CAM-related articles, John Gohde has revert warred with Snowspinner et al. over the inclusion of the infoboxes. [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35]

Passed 8 to 0 at 16:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Personal attacks

5) John Gohde has engaged in personal attacks during the course of this dispute. [36] [37] [38] [39] and [40]

Passed 8 to 0 at 16:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Has added very little new content

6) User:John Gohde, since returning from his previous ban, has made very few edits that have added new content to the encyclopedia. These edits have mostly been concentrated on only one article, Wellness (alternative medicine).

Passed 7 to 1 at 16:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Overall opinion by sannse

The following is an overall opinion of this case, which explains my decision to support a year ban. This is a complex case, and one that doesn't easily fall into the usual pattern of principle, findings, and remedies. I feel that the listing of findings here does not effectively show the reasons for my vote below, which may seem over-harsh when looking only at the individual edits cited. Links given here are examples, and not intended to represent the whole complex picture.

I think it's fair to say that Snowspinner has, at times, been somewhat over zealous with monitoring John Gohde's return to Wikipedia ^[41]. But this doesn't negate the real problems caused by John's difficult and idiosyncratic style of interaction. John does not, in my opinion, show a clear understanding of how to work with others on this project ^[42]. His interpretation of other's actions and intent is often faulty and is clearly at odds with that of other contributors ^[43]. He has a tendency towards article ownership and appears to feel that his (undoubted) expertise should allow him to ignore community opinion ^[44][45] - a position that the Wikipedia community has clearly rejected ^{[46][47][48][49][50]}. MykReeve's evidence, and that of John himself have been important in clarifying this case, and showing that this is certainly not a case of exaggeration on Snowspinner's part as John has suggested. John's continued attacks on Snowspinner and others^[FoF5], his distorted understanding of other's comments and actions, and his lack of consideration and respect for other contributors seem clear ^{[51] [52]}. John's mischaracterization ^[53] of Snowspinners heavily sarcastic remarks ^[54], is a prime example of the key problem. This may have been the result of cultural or language difficulties, a genuine lack of insight into the motivation and intent of others, or a deliberate attempt to "spin" the evidence. Whatever the cause, the result is an inability to work effectively with others. In my opinion, John Gohde's attitude and lack of ability to work with others continues to be the problem it was in the previous two cases.

• sannse (talk) 00:52, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

John Gohde: One-year ban

7) John Gohde is banned from Wikipedia for a period of one year (to run consecutively with any other remedies passed).

Passed 6 to 0 with 1 abstention at 16:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

John Gohde: Attack parole

3) John Gohde is placed on personal attack parole for a period of one year. If he engages in edits which an administrator believes comprises a personal attack, he may be temporarily banned for a short period of time of up to one week.

Passed 7 to 0 at 16:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

John Gohde: Understanding policies

4.1) User:John Gohde must read and acknowledge he has read Wikipedia:Ownership of articles and Wikipedia:No personal attacks and write 200 words each on the implications of having custodians on Wikipedia and on the implications of allowing personal attacks on Wikipedia before being allowed to edit Wikipedia again.

Passed 5 to 2 with 1 abstention at 16:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Log of blocks and bans

Log any block, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision here. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.