Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Asmodeus

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Asmodeus (talk · contribs · logs)

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Statement of the dispute

In brief, this user has been on a campaign of what can only be called bullying, for the past few months (since July). User:Byrgenwulf nominated an article on a "fringe theory" for deletion, and User:Asmodeus took exception to that. User:Byrgenwulf has written an account of the ensuing events, which he keeps here. User:Byrgenwulf believes that because he has over 60 references to back up what he wrote, his right to keep these notes falls under this ArbCom finding. Asmodeus, however, feels differently, as evidenced by [1] [2] [3] [4]. In particular, he has been harassing User:Anville, trying to bully them into not linking to the document. It is up to the Wikipedia community, however, and not any single individual, to decide whether Asmodeus' ongoing bullying is something we need to tolerate. Hence this RfC.

Description

The most comprehensive description of Asmodeus' conduct can be found here. However, because that document is rather long, I shall summarise. Asmodeus has been personally attacking myself and others for months, and it needs to stop. Particularly worrying is the manipulative and deceitful manner in which he conducts himself. No doubt this very RfC is going to be rapidly filled with his polysyllabic screeds, attacking and lying about me and anyone who disagrees with him (but in such a way as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth).

In short, there is strong evidence that he and another editor have been using Wikipedia as a soapbox to shill for various things (IQ clubs, fringe theories, etc.). When confronted or challenged about this, they respond by attacking the user who has questioned them, and trying their utmost to discredit that person by means of distortion, deception, misinformation, and sometimes even lies, all wrapped up in sarcasm and passing verbosity. Asmodeus' entire userpage reads like a personal attack on the members of WikiProject Pseudoscience and WikiProject Physics.

Asmodeus' most recent activities have been disrupting the Wikipedia:Fringe theories policy proposal, and using schoolyard bully tactics to try to suppress the record of his activities. This is a final straw, and what has motivated this RfC.

Evidence of disputed behavior

A tiny handful of hostile edits by User:Asmodeus:

[5]
[6] (note the edit summary)
[7] (edit summary, again)
[8]

And since this RFC started:

[9] ("official warning" to User:Anville about WP:NPA, unintentionally (?) unsigned)
[10] (a similar "official warning" to User:Byrgenwulf, similarly unsigned)
[11] (threat to instigate wikilitigation against User:Anville, well after being informed of this RFC)
[12] (attaching {{db-attack}} to Byrgenwulf's evidence page); this speedy delete request was denied by an admin
[13] Asmodeus, in his defence here, calls Byrgenwulf's initiative in nominating the Langan-related pages for deletion "terminally confused and pathologically aggressive" (the Wikipedia community would seem to differ, since they were all deleted), and says that Byrgenwulf is a "viable contender for worst-of-breed"

Asmodeus has been blocked before for incivility, but the block seems to have done nothing to abate his behaviour.

Asmodeus also, as looking at his contributions list reveals, has editing only articles (and AfDs, talkpages, etc.) pertaining to his favourite theory, its inventor, its inventor's IQ clubs, and has caused disruption on the Wikipedia:Fringe theories policy proposal.

Read the document linked to above, and find over 60 references and a description of the full extent of the bad behaviour of this user.

Applicable policies and guidelines

and possibly

WP:VAIN (read the document)

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

[14] by Byrgenwulf (talk · contribs · block log) — a request for civility
[15] [16] by Anville (talk · contribs · block log) — an attempt at compromise

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

Other users who endorse this summary

Jitse Niesen (talk) 06:36, 14 October 2006 (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.

Asmodeus

To begin, please note that this RfC was initiated only after I complained about an attack page recently posted by User Byrgenwulf. Thus, it is clearly designed to cover Byrgenwulf's haunches regarding that attack page, the culmination of a vendetta by User Byrgenwulf against me, DrL, Wikipedia bio subject Christopher Langan, and Langan's theory, the CTMU.

On July 10, 2006, Byrgenwulf received a "heads-up" about Wikipedia's CTMU article on the website of the Brights, which is controlled and largely populated by militants of an atheist-materialist philosophical persuasion. After declaring that his interest was "piqued" by reading that "Langan is linked to ID", Byrgenwulf proceeded to make numerous disparaging but incorrect or vapid remarks about (one particular informal exposition of) the theory, boastfully holding his own technical ability superior to Langan's. Immediately afterward - on that very same day, July 10 - he initiated a focused attack against that article on Wikipedia. In editing the CTMU and Langan articles, Byrgenwulf tarred the CTMU as "pseudoscience" despite the fact that it had always been clearly presented as philosophy [1; note that Tim Smith is the author of the CTMU article attacked by Byrgenwulf], and Langan as a "crank" [2], something specifically forbidden by the head of the Wikimedia Foundation. These actions and circumstances show that Byrgenwulf's behavior in this affair is rooted in philosophical bias, personal antipathy, vanity, and braggadocio (something to bear in mind given his deceptive strategy of feigning neutrality and scholarliness, and his habit of pretending to be victimized by those forced to defend themselves from his attacks).

Dubiously presenting himself as an expert in "the philosophy of physics", Byrgenwulf also denounced what he described as "logical errors" in the CTMU. Some of these are dealt with in the protracted CTMU debate that he eventually managed to wheedle out of me on his talk page. Of course, arguments regarding the content or validity of a theory are irrelevant to the criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia; verifiable notability is all that really matters. In fact, the CTMU is inarguably notable by Wikipedia standards, having been seriously described and/or mentioned in various high-circulation mainstream periodicals (Popular Science, the London Times, etc.) and broadcasts (ABC, the BBC, etc.), and now getting between 10 and 20 thousand hits on google (under Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe). By introducing such forbidden content/validity arguments very early in the debate, Byrgenwulf quickly made it even more obvious that he had attacked the article not only because he dislikes its author, but because he disagrees with the theory.

Upon getting the worst of it in the technical discussions that he initiated on the CTMU article's discussion page, Byrgenwulf quickly nominated every article having to do with Christopher Langan (except Langan's bio itself) for deletion. The ensuing AfD/DR debate regarding the CTMU was particularly contentious. Because Byrgenwulf misrepresented the CTMU as "pseudoscience" in order to recruit support for his deletional initiatives at WikiProject Pseudoscience and WikiProject Physics, the keeps were numerically overwhelmed by the deletes (see the CTMU Deletion Review, and specifically 3, 4 regarding systematic irregularities that were simply ignored by closing administrator Xoloz). Most of the votes for deletion came from people who knew nothing about the CTMU except that a paper about it had been published in the journal of an organization (ISCID) friendly to Intelligent Design, a set of ideas which many of them despise as "anti-evolution" (ironic, given that the CTMU explicitly acknowledges the reality of evolution). (Here is Arthur Rubin's frank admission that he judged the CTMU "guilty by association" with ID, following Byrgenwulf's deceptive lead.)

I admit that at several points during the CTMU AfD/DR, I became impatient and even angry, and it showed. However, I was given plenty of provocation. For example, those opposed to the article falsely accused those in favor of presenting "forged archives", using big red letters to trumpet their allegation [5]. They also made numerous false accusations of sockpuppetry [e.g., 6] - ironic, given that they greatly outnumbered the keeps - and incivility, depite numerous examples of incivility on their own parts. They accused me of being Langan, intimating that I had authored the CTMU article and my own biography (I authored neither article). They even accused me and DrL of commercial "shilling", apparently for (1) daring to remove slurs and correct falsehoods in two Wikipedia articles (Christopher Langan, CTMU) in full compliance with WP, and (2) writing a couple of stubs regarding a nonprofit charitable-purpose foundation and one of its projects, with which we may or may not be affiliated. Obviously, this cannot be legitimately described as "shilling", and neither DrL nor I owes anybody an apology for it. This is a representative sample of Byrgenwulf's own comments to/about me and bio subject Christopher Langan on Wikipedia (please see WP:NPA, WP:CIV, and WP:LIVING, all of which are clearly and dramatically violated by this characteristic burst of hostility).

Even after Byrgenwulf had succeeded in deleting all of the Langan-related articles, he continued to complain that although he had invited me to engage him in a content-oriented debate regarding the CTMU, I had avoided doing so. Therefore, I went to his talk page and gave him the debate he desired. In the course of this debate, Byrgenwulf - self-described expert in the philosophy of physics - was caught in 70 errors, some of them fundamental in nature. (Of course, he claims not to have made even one of them, but this is unsurprising given his narrow mindset and the low level of logico-philosophical expertise he actually succeeded in demonstrating.) In all probability, his ongoing attack is at least partially a reflection of his resentment over having bungled this debate.

After Byrgenwulf stopped arguing and archived the debate, things died down. Gratefully, I turned to other (off-wiki) pursuits. But just when everything seemed to have returned to normal, Byrgenwulf suddenly attempted to renew the conflagration by publishing his attack page, prompting one of his confederates in the CTMU AfD/DR debacle (Anville) to link it to the talk pages of people more or less involved in certain related negotiations. My recent contributions to this site consist almost exclusively of trying to get him to remove it, and his confederate to remove his/her links, in compliance with WP:NPA and other core elements of WP. The timing of this RfC strongly indicates that it was conceived and initiated to ward off these attempts (7,8 ; 9, 10, 11).

The problems with Byrgenwulf's self-justificative attack screed include the following:

(1) The page contains numerous examples of blatant incivility and character assassination. DrL and I are called "nasty", "liars", etc. (largely because we dared to call attention to Byrgenwulf's own numerous departures from WP).

(2) The page contains rank speculation on the motives and mental states of DrL and me at various junctures. All of these speculations are counterfactual and transparently designed to slant things against us. These pejorative speculations violate NPOV and fail to reflect the assumption of good faith.

(3) The page contains numerous misrepresentations of other kinds. For example, it labels a certain nonprofit publishing house, which does not accept unsolicited manuscripts and does not charge to publish, a "vanity press". This highlights the author's generally disparaging intent.

(4) Many of the references are given in a misleading way, without sufficient attention to the falsehoods and/or provocations which preceeded them.

(5) Commenting on an unattributed quotation about Langan, Byrgenwulf frankly admits that he is incapable of assuming good faith on my own part (not only a non sequitur, but another blatant violation of Wikipedia guidelines).

(6) The page contains remarks which threaten to disrupt certain negotiations now in progress. Similarly, the page contains certain remarks regarding other personal interactions which do not involve Byrgenwulf himself, and these too could easily turn disruptive. Disruptive behavior is against Wikipedia Policy.

(Et cetera; see this exchange)

I have no interest in engaging in a point-by-point refutation of Byrgenwulf's offensive screed, which he posted under the pretext of creating a "record" of his own terminally confused but pathologically aggressive initiatives and their various sequelae. That would be a time sink; since all of the administrative intervention regarding Byrgenwulf's activities has thus far seemed to favor Byrgenwulf and his comrades-in-arms, I am no longer willing to bank large amounts of time and effort on the prospects for administrative understanding and fair treatment here at Wikipedia (with all due respect, of course). I now regard Wikipedia as seriously "broken" in this respect, the victim of systemic bias, collective naivete, and random purgative frenzies of an intensity sometimes approaching mob psychosis. However, that does not mean that I will sit quietly by and countenance the serial abuse of this highly public site by people who insist on using it to prosecute their defamatory vendettas and absurdly bloated claims of "expertise". In this respect, User Byrgenwulf is a viable contender for worst-of-breed, and the less interaction I am forced to suffer with such people, the happier I will be.

As I've observed elsewhere, Wikipedia has a serious problem, and the users who initiated this RfC are at the very center of it [12; see the fourth paragraph labeled "6,9,10"]. This problem does not arise from the removal of slurs and falsehoods by the subjects of Wikipedia biographies, or the correction by theorists of misleading remarks about their notable theories, or the writing of innocuous stubs about nonprofit, charitable-purpose foundations by those who know them best, or even the use of pseudonyms by celebrities trying to avoid the sort of harassment, stalking behavior, and open hostility to which I have been subjected by users like Byrgenwulf and Anville. It involves the determination of content through the deliberate pressing of philosophical "hot buttons" by militant users who engage in calculated misrepresentation while feigning expertise and speciously claiming to be in conformance with NPOV, and administrators who allow them to do so. As I and many others understand the Wikipedia Project, this is not what it is supposed to be about. When this kind of travesty can be committed with total impunity under the noses of multiple administrators who at times appear to be running interference for the perpetrators, despite the revelation of serious improprieties [3, 4], against an initially accurate and well-written article about a notable theory which has appeared in numerous mainstream publications and currently receives 15,000 specific hits on google, and when the travesty in question can be followed with months of harassment by an instigator who vindictively festoons his main user page with personal attacks against those he has wronged [13, 14], the end would almost seem to be nigh. It is my sincere hope that Wikipedia can do something about this problem before it grows worse, and thus continue to serve the public as it was intended to do.

I'll come back and add links and further information as time permits. Thank you, Asmodeus 18:00, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE: A couple of days ago, User Hillman - the same Chris Hillman whose name once appeared frequently with John Baez on physics newgroups - suddenly withdrew from Wikipedia. Hillman (CH) was instrumental in Byrgenwulf's (and Anville's) misbegotten attack on the CTMU article. Fortunately, this lays to rest a certain dispute involving the unauthorized disclosure of personal information in contravention of WP. It seems that just this morning, Byrgenwulf decided to follow suit, making good on his repeated threats to leave Wikipedia. Very soon after Byrgenwulf submitted his request, User Xoloz obligingly blanked all of his user pages. Unfortunately, since Xoloz also invited him back, he returned shortly thereafter to post another vicious personal attack on his newly rewritten User Page (to which this document links). This personal attack - the targets of which are painfully obvious - should be removed, and this user should be banned from Wikipedia. Would any nearby adminstrator, Xoloz for example, care to assist me in removing the attack and initiating the necessary proceedings? Asmodeus 18:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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.

User Byrgenwulf seems to be intent on dragging me into this RfC. I would ask that mention of "DrL" be removed from this page as each RfC is supposed to address a single user. In an RfC regarding Asmodeus, the behavior of DrL is quite beside the point. Instead, it speaks to a pattern of harassment and stalking by user Bergenwulf. Since the rules clearly state that an RfC is directed at one user only, I have moved the irrelevant information to the talk page.

Users who endorse this summary:

--DrL 21:33, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Outside view of Tim Smith

As the creator of the article at which this dispute began, I'd like to provide some background. The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe, or CTMU, rose to media attention in 1999, when its author, Christopher Michael Langan, was profiled in Esquire magazine. Since then, the CTMU has been described or mentioned by Popular Science, The Times, Newsday, 20/20, and other mainstream media sources.

The Wikipedia article I posted about the theory in September 2005 proceeded mostly peacefully and largely unchanged, save by my own additions, until July 2006, when Byrgenwulf arrived. The article described the history of the CTMU, overviewed its structure, and summarized its take on various philosophical topics. As well as being referenced, accurate with respect to its topic, and (eventually) footnoted right down to the page number, the article was careful to qualify the claims of the theory to the theorist, presenting Langan's arguments rather than asserting them as truth.

Byrgenwulf first edited Wikipedia on July 2 and began editing the Christopher Langan and CTMU articles on July 10, quickly tarring Langan as a crank and the CTMU as pseudoscience, and denouncing the theory on the CTMU talk page. Asmodeus and DrL stepped in to respond. Byrgenwulf then added the CTMU to List of pseudoscientific theories, linked it at WikiProject Pseudoscience, and nominated it for deletion, just four days after first editing it.

There followed a chaotic AfD filled with one-edit users and IPs on both sides, loud accusations of forgery, a large anonymously-added table, personal attacks, irrelevant debates about the validity of the theory, an anonymous user having a conversation with himself, and more. Meanwhile, the CTMU article had been swarmed by members of WikiProject Physics and WikiProject Pseudoscience who condemned it as unsalvageable gibberish, and, despite my offers to work with them to make it more understandable, embarked upon a goal of erasing the bulk of the text, never gaining consensus for their sweeping changes. These editors displayed no understanding of the theory at all, even rewording the material to attribute to Langan positions the opposite of those he actually holds. The article remained in a state of edit war for the whole course of the AfD, and finally had to be protected.

The article had racked up 140 edits during the discussion, and depending on when users viewed it, they could have seen a page anywhere from 9 KB to 27 KB in size, with anywhere from 7 to 12 sections, 5 to 12 references, and 0 to 42 footnotes. Amidst such chaos, consensus would have to be very solid to justify deletion, and that's not what the debate showed. Nonetheless, the closing admin opted to delete, believing that the CTMU could be "covered completely" at Christopher Langan, perhaps basing that judgment on the version of the article protected at the time. That version, which was rammed through during the AfD without talk-page consensus, was a mere fragment of its predecessor, and utterly useless as an explanation of the theory.

The article then underwent a deletion review. Prior to the AfD, Byrgenwulf had linked the CTMU article at WikiProject Pseudoscience, and now linked the deletion review at WikiProject Physics. Since the CTMU is not physics, but metaphysics, and not science, but philosophy, the relevant project would have been WikiProject Philosophy, which was not notified. Byrgenwulf later explained in his (now-deleted) "CTMU saga" that

The WikiProject Philosophy is, I am sorry to say, a sham, with various New-Agey metatwaddle ideas being put on an equal footing with Nietzsche and Hume. So critical thought and a decent level of expertise were unlikely to be forthcoming from that quarter.

The AfD had closed with 61% for deletion, and the deletion review closed with a one-person majority for endorsement. Both discussions showed a lack of clear consensus, but deletion was enforced nonetheless. There followed a number of residual engagements eventually leading to the current RfC, which concerns Asmodeus's role in these events.

Regarding the specific allegations, I don't see Asmodeus's behavior as bullying, or shilling, or soapboxing. Rather, I see his actions as mainly defensive, in reaction to:

1. the addition of pejorative labels and unsourced criticism to the CTMU article
2. the nomination of the CTMU article for deletion
3. the edits by CTMU opponents to the notability criteria at WP:FRINGE
4. the (now-deleted) speculation about his personal identity at User:Hillman/Dig/Langan
5. the personal attacks at Byrgenwulf's now-deleted CTMU saga

That said, I do see some regrettable instances of incivility on both sides of the dispute, and I advise all involved to read Wikipedia:Truce, to stay patient, cool, and civil, and whenever that is not possible, to take a break. Tim Smith 21:17, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page. has ongoing problems with incivility and bullying 16:56, 7 October 2006 (UTC)