Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 2

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(Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters | talk | contributions)

Statement of the dispute

This is a summary written by users who dispute this user's conduct. Users signing other sections should not edit here.

Description

I am very reluctant to bring this RFC, so soon after the first one against this user. However, I feel that LLOTLE's behaviour is out of order, far more so than in that first dispute. Where the first RFC may not have been wholly deserved, this one, I believe, is. It centers around LLOTLE's attempts to provoke me into breaking 3RR, breaking the no-personal attacks rule, reverting my removal of personal attacks, and an abuse of the protection procedure.

I shall give a brief summary of what has happened.

Evidence of disputed behavior

(provide diffs and links)

Whig lists Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters for deletion at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Requests for comment/Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters
An anonymous user (141.154.154.22) makes an unsubstantiated vote of "merge with Hoax", clearly a vote in bad faith, particularly as the anon signed it "Sockpuppet. I removed the vote, as I would any vote made in clear bad faith, for or against my opinion. [1]
LLOTLE then reverts this action, with the edit summary "What fun, Smoddy wants to 3RR a VfD page".
I revert again. [2]
LLOTLE reverts again, edit summary: "One, two ...", an obvious reference to his attempt to make me break WP:3RR.
Ugen64 reverts.
LLOTLE decides to merge the anon's vote with his own. [3] Does this suggest that the anon is a sockpuppet of LLOTLE?
I see a personal attack on LLOTLE's user page, relating to jguk and his RFC. It had previously been removed by both jguk ([4]) and Whig ([5]), both citing WP:NPA.
With LLOTLE having reverted twice ([6], threatening jguk, and [7], reinforcing his personal attack), I remove the personal attack myself. [8].
LLOTLE decides to revert me, but adding {{Vprotected}}, when it wasn't. I guess this could be construed as impersonating an admin. [9]
A revert war goes on, involving LLOTLE, Fawcett5, and myself, over the protected template and the personal attack. It is easier to see the page history. I would note that LLOTLE made at least 5 reverts during that time.
LLOTLE takes the dispute to WP:RFPP. See this exchange.
During this time, I make a request of LLOTLE not to continue with the vandalism of the VfD page. He proceeds to attack me, citing my age. [10].

Applicable policies

{list the policies that apply to the disputed conduct}

WP:3RR
WP:RPA
WP:NPA
Arguably he also impersonated an administrator.

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

(provide diffs and links)

The conversation on LLOTLE's talk page, which he promptly deleted as "boring".
The conversation at WP:RFPP, where he ignored my response.
[11],

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

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Other users who endorse this summary

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Making personal attacks is one thing, but repeatedly reverting their removal whilst impersonating an administrator and pretending to have administrative privileges over pages is entirely another. Lulu has demonstrated by his recent actions (such as his "joke" certification of the previous RfC about him, his unconcealed contempt and derision for the entire RfC process, and his apparent attempts to annoy other editors to such an extent that he can report them for breaking the rules) that he considers Wikipedia policies and procedures to be a joke - things to be played with and laughed about. It's clear that, unlike the rest of us (including Whig, with whom Lulu seems to have been lumped together, who, even if his methods can be frustrating, is obviously acting in good faith), Lulu is not here to write a serious encyclopaedia, but takes joy in playing the system, provoking others, and causing endless disputes, and is obviously making absolutely no attempt at all to fit in with the Wikipedia community. Proteus (Talk) 12:17, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It's difficult not to agree with everything said above. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 12:30, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Although I've been somewhat sympathetic to LOTLE in the course of the style wars (in which partisans on both sides have acted with such astonishing duplicity and childishness that it makes the head spin — I'll say no more on that matter), I cannot help but conclude that LOTLEs personal attack on the user page crossed a line, although I dispute he was pretending to be an admin, it seems clear he just was not familiar with procedure. My impression from his comments in various places is that LOTLE was perhaps attempting to have the last word before moving on to getting back to substantive editing elsewhere, I certainly hope this proves to be the case. Perhaps we would all be well advised to do so? Fawcett5 13:27, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Lulu's behaviour has at this stage passed from the annoying and the provocative, as well as the disrespectful of fellow Wikipedians, to full scale contempt for users and Wikipedia. The previous rfc page existed in the hope that Lulu would learn from the observations of others and amend his treatment of people. His behaviour, far from calming down, has got worse, from using his page to launch a personal attack on another user, and trying to provoke credible users into breaking the three revert rule, to impersonating an admin and setting up a phoney lock on his own page to ensure no-one could remove his abuse of another user. That in my opinion is a step way too far. I have disagreed strongly with Whig, but while he was misguided and mishandled things, he is a credible contributor to encyclopaedia. Lulu has shown no evidence of being little more than a vandal with a user page. I think we have to draw a line and show clearly that such behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated by the community. FearÉIREANN^(talk) 18:58, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This behavior has frustrated me to the point of a wikibreak, and now seems to be increasingly troubling. Bratsche^{talk random} 00:56, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
The previous RfC was frivolous, but this one is clearly justified. RSpeer 15:17, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

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.

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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.

Zocky's view

This is becoming silly. Both camps in this pointless proxy-battle of the Very Glorious And Even Lamer Style Wars of 2005 should go and do something better with their time.

Lulu, you can't screw with VfD and things where people actually do serious work. It's bad form, rude, boorish. It's just not done. And the whole issue of sockpuppetry raises so many people's blood pressure that it's simply not funny. So don't screw around with that either, even if you're not really using it for multiple votes. It's dull, boring, uncouth. If you want to help write the encyclopedia, please understand that screwing around with stuff and challenging ways things are done for the hell of it is not much help.

And the rest of you, please stop looking at his user page. It has absolutely no effect on the quality of the encyclopedia. As far as the big picture goes, it's meaningless and pointless. Why would you care if somebody calls you boorish on their user page? Why would you or anybody care if he puts any kind of tag on his user page? Why would you edit war over stuff like that?

Normally, a user's page is his own business. If you felt that his comment that Jguk is boorish (which, assuming good faith, means "rude and clumsy in behaviour" [12]) is a personal attack which requires some sort of action, you could've asked him to remove it on his talk page and, failing that, filed this RfC, without edit warring over it.

Also, everybody involved, please understand that while this is a virtual community, its members are real people. If you're rude or make fun of them or things they find important, they get hurt and retaliate. If you gang up on them, they get defensive and find it difficult to give up, especially if the other side is not offering concessions nor accepting apologies. And remember, none of this is really important in your lives. Go do something fun in real life and ignore the whole issue for a week or so. You'll probably find it ridiculous when you look back on it.

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Zocky 13:25, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My response to Zocky

I appreciate your comments, Zocky. Firstly, a couple of points of order: boorish means like a boor, which is clearly a personal attack. I fail to see how it is otherwise. Wikipedia has a policy no personal attacks, and a guideline to remove personal attacks. I care about others' user pages if they are against policy. Secondly, I have not taken part in any style wars, nor would I. I voted in the debate, yes, and I opposed the method of debate, yes, and I opposed Lulu, yes. Yet I hold nothing against Whig, who conducted that survey. Look above. My comments refer not once to that survey.

Perhaps I should have tried talking to Lulu. However, I had just been somewhat put off that course of action by his vandalism and his deleting my attempts to communicate. That ain't wiki. You think that Wikipedia is unimportant. You think that ignoring its policy will be something to laugh about. You will forgive me if I don't. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 13:48, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

He called him "boorish", not a "boor". As long as we're quoting policy, let's be generous and say he meant the one that's not a real personal attack, but arguably his interpretation of Jguk's editing style as "rude and clumsy". And indeed, I would say that not only Jguk, but also some of the other people who have been in constant and often concerted conflict with Lulu (which, let's not forget, did start over genuinely disputed matters) have occasionally been both rude and clumsy about it.

Smoddy, his behaviour, especially towards you, has been bad and counterproductive, and I understand that you are mighty annoyed about it. But please don't overlook that he has been faced with rudeness and hostility since the day he started dealing with an issue that he (and many other people) obviously finds genuinely very wrong, and try to understand that he must be mighty annoyed too. I'm not saying that you had anything to do with that -- you more or less stepped into a fight and got a black eye. Not that that excuses Lulu in any way.

The other thing: Is Wikipedia important? Of course it is, it's one of the greatest projects ever, that's why we're all ready to spend our time and nerves making it. But is it important in the way that your family, friends and real life in general is important? Obviously not. So, if you can, don't get real mad about stuff on Wikipedia. Get wikimad and use the energy to try and do what's best for the project, which may not always be the obvious thing. Would it satisfy cosmic justice if Lulu was named, shamed, blocked and banned for his behaviour? Probably yes. But wouldn't it be better for the project if he's allowed to calm down, retreat with some dignity and proceed to do some useful work on articles? He's got a PhD, he must know something. Zocky 14:25, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I can agree with these sentiments. Thank you, Zocky, for being rational here. All that I would really need to placate me would be an apology from Lulu. Yesterday, I spent around 6 hours fighting vandals. But Lulu sees fit to mock and incense me. It is this that I am complaining about, and merely his acknowledging his error and apologising, with a committment to work more constructively in the future, would satisfy me. I am not doing this RFC out of malice towards Lulu, but out of a deep desire to provide a healthy working atmosphere for all contributors to Wikipedia. I understand that I have perhaps failed to see some of Lulu's good faith, and I apologise to him for that. As I say, my only real request of Lulu is that he acknowlege his error. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 15:58, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Phils' view

I agree with Zocky that this RfC is pretty useless, although for very different reasons, and certainly not out of sympathy for the user concerned by the RfC. While Lulu certainly has committed some minor violations of policy, there's nothing we can do about it but message him and tell him "not to do it again". However, the previous (equally useless, but also injustified) RfC, as well as many messages on Lulu's talk page show that he has little consideration for people who point out his mistakes, and believes the entire RfC process a worthless masquerade. His edits indicate that he genuinely believes most of his critics are nothing but "teenaged ruffians" (sic), or POV-pushers harassing him because of the so-called Style Wars; he seems quite prompt to label these people childish, when he himself was not less ridiculous in insisting to keep the description Jguk as boorish on his page despite other editors' warnings, among other things. Nevertheless, it is good that Lulu has decided to distance himself from flame wars and focus his attention on editing actual content; if he really believes his behaviour was more fitting than that of other users involved in disputes surrounding his last RfC and the Style War (I do not), it is his own right. I think he would do good to better cooperate with other users and have a more friendly, less conceited attitude. But for now let him edit in peace.

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Phils 14:49, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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