User talk:David Newton/Bird Dispute

The following is a part of the Bird/Brain affair. Please see User talk:Bird/Brain and stuff for more details. Check the page history if it appears to have been blanked or tampered with.
Unattributed portions of text on this page are likely left by User:Bird, or an alternate login/anonymous user controlled by the same.
This is getting very hard to follow. I'm trying to reorganize this. Fennec 04:45, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Sannse's Summary

(previously mistakenly attributed to David Newton)

I think like most of us I don't really understand the roots of this dispute. But a couple of points seem at least possible:

"Bird" is an account set up to test the review process of Wikipedia.
Some of Bird contributions may be inaccurate or plagiarism and designed to test whether this would be noticed by the Wikipedia community.
Bird was angered by discussion of image placement rather than what he/she saw as the important issues of accuracy review.
Bird wishes to remove all his/her contributions.
- That claim is contravened by the record of Bird's activities in reverting articles. A careful review might reveal Bird's level of self-doubt roughly correlated with the rising level of accusations that the users earlier well-intended and high quality work product was in fact an effort to sabotage a community.
In order to facilitate this, Bird is claiming all his contributions are inaccurate or plagiarism (and in some cases is claiming other's work as part of this).
Bird is reverting in a damaging and indiscriminate way (blanking pages etc.)

A reply (by Bird?)

I'm not sure exactly who wrote this, but I'm fairly sure it was Bird. -- Fennec 04:45, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

By the time one finishes reading this list, it is easy to forget David Newton introduced the allegations by stating that he did not know what is going on and that he was only speculating.

Since this is a time sensitive statement, a passive voice cannot accurately describe the process. User bird has been active and innactive and there have been times when a user logged in as Bird was as combative as were those who boasted on their user pages about their roles in combat but no damage has been to the database, to the software or to the servers. Whoever wrote the articles signed Bird might currently be contributing to pages and intervening and resolving disputes elsewhere at wikipedia, about which User:David Newton would know nothing.

Those bullet points make it much easier to grasp the plausibility of what you claim, but it appears you have configured the page so as to put your conjecture ahead of any statements that summarize what the user said about the users motivation. It is not difficult to read the user's replies and trace a change of conscience about the level of accuracy in the stories. The user repeatedly attributed the lack of confidence in accuracy to specific incidents of disinterest by editors that claimed to be interested in the topic.

That is the historic summary of the users own account of their motivation in this matter, available in the collection of texts in this campaign to react to user Bird's effort to do exactly what is being proposed as the outcome of this matter - that the articles be reverted to the elementary and grossly flawed tomes the encylopedia offered before Bird offered to service the community.

The user habit makes it obvious the user apparently contributed in good faith articles intended to advance human understanding of the human organism. There is no basis to imply any other motive, regardless salient proffers of malicious motives.

If this user is the professional writer it appears to be from the scope, detail and accuracy of the material, questions about the provinence of its own work product would be routine. To publically pose those topics is to call the question that these articles have been developed with little expressed concern for accuracy or content beyond placement of some bawdy images the user appears to have been experimenting with.

The user appears to have placed those who found compliance so important in a tactical quandry, by refusing to validate content. Others can either speculate about motivation or attempt to discover motivation. It appears the former option was chosen.

It appears there has been little effort to explore the user's interest in validation of content, but a large interest in assuring the user's compliance with the will of others. I found no record of anyone asking what the user meant when the user testified to doubts about the originality of the content. There was no discussion of how much material is original, no asking for sources, the user was at once trusted to contribute profound articles on the funciton of the human brain, and privately scorned by an editor who stated he beleived the user habit to reveal a mania. (the accusing editor exhibits a similar usage pattern).

The tactical quandry forces those who attempted to control the users actions to repudiate content they once appreciated, offending not only anatomy articles, but profound revisions of articles in which Wikipedia had displayed an abusive naivitee toward minority communities. Neither does Wikipedia know the provinence of these articles, either before or after the editor in question began making edits. Wikipedia knows little about the provinence of any of its content, except for the faith it maintains with its members, and one apparently profound contributor demonstrated when the user felt other editors were acting in bad faith.

There is no evidence that the outcome was preplanned, and it is probably a reason to question the intervenor that the solution offered is bases on speculation that contravenes the offended user's statement about why the user lost confidence in material earlier submitted, and in the provinence of material in the encyclopedia in general.

This site states at the very top of the page that anyone including you can edit an article now and repeatedly states that user names are not required, and I assert that invitation when I contribute this review unsigned.

Sannse's plan

It seems to me that the best solution for Wikipedia is to agree to the removal of all Birds work. There is a risk that inaccuracies are there, and with the technical nature of the work it will be difficult to separate out the accurate facts. Yes, we would be loosing a lot of potentially good stuff, but I think it's worth that to resolve the problem. After all, with Wikipedia's amazing growth rate one person's contributions can soon be replaced!

The main argument against this as far as I can see is that it would be setting a bad precedent. We don't want every disgruntled ex-user insisting on us removing all their contributions. And, after all, by submitting his edits Bird agreed to them being licensed under GFDL.

We revert these to the last version before Bird and replace any contributions by other Wikipedians.
Where an article has only been worked on by Bird we replace it with a short stub, verifying any information in that stub.
We blank and list for deletion any "Bird only" articles that we cannot verify.
In all articles we replace any information that we have personally verified, noting this on talk or in the edit comment.
While this process is progressing, we protect any articles that are being reverted in a damaging way by Bird - protection can be removed to allow controlled reversion and replacing verified information.

There is a list of the articles concerned at User:Sannse/List of Bird articles

Comments? --sannse (talk) 12:18, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

David Newton's suggestion

That sounds relatively reasonable. However, I would be disinclined to replace content that can be verified with stubs unless we have to. I agree with removing content that cannot be verified, but to remove content that can be verified would indeed set a dangerous precedent. I also think that if we are to remove the content, then it should be done through the normal Wikipedia channels, ie votes for deletion. That was the thing that most annoyed me about Bird's attitude: the refusal to follow Wikipedia norms. As for protecting articles, I've done a lot of that already, but I might not have covered everything. David Newton 14:17, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I should have said "Where an article has only been worked on by Bird we replace it with a short stub or verified article, checking all information before including it." (perhaps you can word this better)

I also agree deletions should go through VfD, we need to be sure people know of the history though - or it will seem that we are asking for deletion of what appear to be perfectly resonable articles. -- sannse (talk) 15:08, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree with this and made similar suggestions on my talk page. Note that it will take a long time, as whatever one thinks of Bird, s/he is a hard worker and has contributed thousands of edits over the last few weeks. Note that there is no guarantee that this will resolve the issue (from the point of view of Bird/Raptor/Socal etc.) He/She/They will probably continue in the same way. Washington irving 16:03, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

there is no way it will resolve the issue. When you start revertin edits that to write an encyclopedia that says a pueblo is a mud hut, you will start an edit war with people bird never dreamed existed. "You're other option is to treat bird with respect and hope bird regains some respect for you. Because all the time you are reverting, any new user name can be bird or somebody that learned similar tactics. Bird could have other identities, and could begin a pogrom of repudiation that could start a landslide. Better to admit you offended another writer, spend a few days back from the scene and see what happens. It should be more than apparent the user has all the capacity to play any way it chooses and you probably would rather have this camel pissing inside the tent than outside, if you know that old metaphor.

That is essenetially a threat intended to affect the politics of personal destruction and it is absolutely reasonable to think the user would find ways to challenge the offense.

An Alternate Discussion

Hey. I was unaware of this spiffy little page/discussion archive that you have set up until I noticed a link on the Pump (under something about User:Bad faith, whom I had just begun to consider connecting with this affair). As a result, I independently moved the content to User talk:Bird/Brain and stuff, and distributed general notices regarding the affair pointing to that page, to those who have been involved. I have since updated that page to direct users here, and I'm thinking of making it into a redirect instead- I'd welcome thoughts on this plan. And in the event that Bird blanks it again, here's a quick link to my comments and summary from the page history. -- Fennec 14:48, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A redirect would solve the duplication, might be a good idea. This is quite a confusing set of events! The redirect could be in the other direction if that's preferred by all -- sannse (talk) 15:08, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Users involved in this dispute

The background to this dispute is quite difficult to trace as it spans several pages in the main, talk, user and user_talk namespaces. To get the full picture you need to refer to the contributions and edit histories for the following users:

Note that in many cases the current versions of talk pages etc. have been edited . It is necessary to refer to the histories to get the whole picture. I wonder if this dispute has its roots in earlier disputes. User:Bird first signed up on 22 February. His first contribution to the disputed Brain page took place the following day. User:SoCal first signed up on 11 Feb. User:Washington irving signed up 1 Feb. Washington irving 16:58, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Chatter from the village pump

I am finding it hard to deal with the unreasonable personal attacks from this user or users (see my talk page and those of the pages to which I have contributed). Do I have any support. What should I do, because I feel like quitting? Washington irving 07:35, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Why do you think they're the same person? Oh, and a quick look says thatBad faith appears to be living up to the username. Check user contributions. Isomorphic 08:02, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It appears Bad Faith is throwing down more truth than Isomorphic cares to tolerate.Bad faith

I am not sure that they are all the same user. For more information, check out the talk pages/histories of the following pages:

And see below... Washington irving 08:16, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Personal attacks by Bad faith removed by Angela.

NOT. Legitimate participation censored by Angela from England, who rarely contributes anything of substance and only shows up to interject herself when there is conflict and she has an opportunity to take sides. Angela should recuse herself from this conversation, or at least restrict her activities to contributing her bizarre comments and "STOP CENSORING OTHER PEOPLE" The British Empire is OVER, honey.

Bird and SoCal look to me like the same person. The others I do not know. Pfortuny 08:32, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Please see User:David Newton/Bird Dispute and the talk page User talk:David Newton/Bird Dispute for talk on the problem and suggested solution -- sannse (talk) 12:28, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

the comments USER:Angela deleted were exactly germaine to this discussion. Washington irving is the sole editor and author of pages that are plainly point of view and have no basis in scholarly research. The pages were laced with links to another left-leaning site which in turn is networked to direct-mail fundraising efforts of Democrat organizations.

While Irving was busy creating those political pages, at least one of which is buried in comments about bias and lack of foundation, he overlooked for several months patently erronious information on a brain page he claimed to be watching. When someone showed up to correct the errors, Irving still stood back. He later explained that he thought bird was insane and was afraid to collaborate in an open editorial process with bird, who was writing several profound articles that still don't rise to Bird's high expectations for accuracy, despite Birds earilier best efforts.

Yet, admittedly beleiving insensitive interaction might seem abrasive to another user, Irving chose not to go to battle over something substantive, like whether the cerebellum is part of the archipallium, an issue bird was tediously trying to sort out, but rather, Washington Irving felt he was better qualified to wake up and make a snap judgement about image placement with images Bird had been studying and experimenting with for several hours. Washington Irving's position, like that of slanderer David Newton, is that Bird is insane and that they have no obligation to consider Birds concerns. Would that bother bird? Has lack of consideration ever stopped Bird from delivering a message? I doubt it.

So now Irving and Newton are down here campaigning against a contributor and Newton has the pages locked in a status in which at least Irving knows there are gross errors. I wonder if there is a reason some people might want Wikipedia readers to remain ignorant of science but be interested in political writing? Bird

Bird's reply to the proposed solution

Yeh, I've looked at David's proposed solution, and it would never work. It assumes dismissing that a human was motivated to sign valuable contributions with a name he is now trying to discredit will stop the user from advancing their concern.

The alternate solution would be to unlock the pages, quit tampering with the user's account, allow the user to remove what portion of the the contribution the user has no confidence in, including images.

A way to avoid recurrances would be to leave the user alone unless the challenger can phrase a credible question about the provinence of the content of articles, and about how the material is arranged and presented.

It appears the episode arose when bird began selectively pruning earlier contributions. Other editors complained at their inability to control Birds action, but at that time, bird was selectively pruning birds own work, and responding with honest answers when others demanded an explanation.

The so called damage has been primarily the manner in which user identities related to bird have edited user talk pages. These have been responses to accusations and actions by members who have no interest in the matter accept to chase so called vandals. User bird is as likely to confront this sort of behaviro using that user name as any other.

Deleting the articles in ignorance only compounds the ignorance about which bird so loudly complained. Open the account, stop meddling with the user and let the user decide what of the user's work should be there if nobody else can offer a valid reason it should be there or it should go. Any other behavior is a personal attack against the user and an affront to the faith presented in the claim that anyone can edit an article.

(comments below added by two non-loged in users (64.81.204.135, later editied by 195.137.69.149) . Replaced by sannse on restoring the above deleted discussion -- sannse (talk) 18:17, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC))

Middle class liberal racists are more dangerous than any night riding Klan mob ever dreamed of being. No non-violent tactic is off limits when confronting liberal racists, who have the political savy to implement what Klansman could never do with a rope.

If you racists are so determined to restrain this writer and speak on thier behalf, you should probably start by deleting navaho nation pueblo and native american. When the articles are reverted to their original racist form from to reflect native americans as something from the past that is not relevant today, that describe native american music strictly in white anthropologists terms, and that say pueblos are mud huts, then the Red Youth Faction can see the true color of racists that are behind this project. Yes, let your hateful heart delete tribal sovereignty.

Either respect other writers and give them some space to realize human emotions, or expect to be confronted in kind with tragic parody of your own know-it-all, our-kind-should-rule-the-world behavior.

(comments by 200.32.83.74 restored by sannse (talk) 19:17, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC))

Episode identified as symptomatic of racism at Wikipedia

A mob of Wikiracists is threatening to delete parts of Native American, Pueblo and Navajo Nation out of revenge against a contributor who refused to play their way by promising complete confidence in several detailed neuroanatomy articles.

Liberal racists are more dangerous than any night riding Klansman because Liberal racists have the political savy to enforce their paternalistic will. These racists are unable to recognize their oppressive behavior because they do not appreciate personal boundaries that give an individual, not a peer group, sole authority over an individuals opinions.

If they intend to begin deleting articles on cultural conflicts, they should start with tribal sovereignty. That would be to delete the only document available in the publc domain that accurately describes the legal status of Native Americans. The other articles would be reduced to racist, naive and misleading tomes that existed before a very concerned author came along and corrected the articles. After that, you could go on a witch hunt in an effort to identify the hundreds of other articles this author created under different user names and ISPs.

Anyone who cares to mediate or resolve this dispute would need to recognize both parties beleive the other opened the door to disregard of personal boundaries, though the wikimob probably claims it was their group boundaries that were violated by not consenting to ad hoc group demands.

I don't know if I'm talking to Bird or not here. But I wanted to make another attempt at communicating. I made the above suggestions because I hoped it would be a win-win situation. Bird's contributions would be removed as s/he appears to want, but in a way that kept others in the Wikipedia community happy. I would be very happy to modify the suggestion to relate only to Brain and related articles if that is any help. We certainly need accurate and informative articles on Native American etc. and I'm not advocating deleting any articles that Bird is happy with. Maybe I can make another suggestion: if Bird would be willing to communicate with me privately perhaps I could act as mediator here. I said before that I felt mediation wouldn't help, but perhaps I was too hasty and mistaken in that. The e-mail link on my user page is valid. If Bird prefers not to use e-mail we could set up a page for discussions separate from all the current conversations. Or we could use the mediation bulletin board. I would genuinely like to help here and to try and find solutions that everyone can feel happy with. -- sannse (talk) 19:17, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)~