Wikipedia talk:Association of Members' Advocates/Requests/April 2007/Jefferson Anderson

It seems to me this user has a victim mentality, that everyone who comments about his behavior is out to get him, and/or is involved in a conspiracy against him. I, like many editors involved in various projects, have many of the same pages on my watch list as are edited by other members of those projects. JeffersonAnderson's page of evidence, prior to him "leaving" wikipedia was a thinly veiled attack page. His recent commentary, repeatedly referencing the civility policy, seems to be an attempt to fan the flames and push people into commenting to and about him, in order to look more like the victim. This is one example.--Vidkun 19:51, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Which I've stuck and redacted. It is considered rude to continue to beat a dead horse after that has been done. I also consider the above a personal attack. Please stop. That is all I am pleading for. Just leave me alone. Discuss my article edits in a mature adult way on the article talk page, but stop harassing me as you have just done. Stay off my talk page, I've not posted on yours and I am not interested in discussing this with you. I have not invited you to discuss this with me. I want you to stop discussing me as if I am an object that you dislike. Get it? Jefferson Anderson 20:05, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

More examples: He calls this incivility. I gather that there is NO criticism of his behaviour that is civil, in his opinion.--Vidkun 16:31, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

My comments

Jefferson has had a habit in the past of causing edit wars,

Response: not true. It takes two to edit war. IMO, MSJapan has a habit of quickly reverting my changes without discussion.

and was quite close to being banned as a sockpuppet during an ArbCom case (See Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Jefferson Anderson; the case was Starwood).\

Response: untrue and a misrepresentation of the facts. Several parties tried to drag me into the Starwood arbitration even though I had never edited any of the articles involved. The arbitrators decided that I was not even a party to the arbitration. There was no suggestion of banning, though I was temporarily blocked. MSJapan repeatedly uses the wrong terminology to represent past events in the worst light, even though he has been informed that blocking and banning are not the same.

Jefferson instead left during the case, leaving inflammatory remarks on his userpage about both the editors of the Masonic articles and the editors of the Neopagan articles. I started an MfD on said material (as polemics) - it closed with no consensus (default to keep), and an admin subsequently removed the material diff. Upon his return, Jefferson added a link to that diff on his user page ( here in direct contravention of that administrative action.

Response: again, MSJapan misrepresents the facts, presenting them as if I were a party to the arbitration when I was not, and representing a user's informal action as an administrative action when it was not. MSJapan made a number of attempts to have a formal administrative action taken: they were all denied on the basis of it being a personality dispute and not a policy violation. Consensus in all cases was that no action was needed.

At that time, Jefferson also claimed on his userpage that he was going to use WP:CIVIL wherever possible (wikilawyering) then went right to an AfD on a page that he was heavily involved in before he left Obligations in Freemasonry where he had in the past not been constructively editing at all (See Talk:Obligations in Freemasonry.

Response: IMO my edits have always been constructive. But they have been repeated reverted by MSJapan without any reasonable attempt at discussion. I am happy to explain and justify any edit which MSJapan might want to point out. He tends to deal in generalities, but I don't think his assertions will stand up if he has to point out specific edits.

On the AfD for said article, he posted a comment he later redacted, and is using my response to that comment before he redacted it (check the timestamps) as his excuse to open this AMA case.

Also note that Jefferson was the instigator of Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates/Requests/February 2007/Frater Xyzzy when he was not the party involved; the person on whose behalf he filed the request (violating protocol) who was banned at the time, was later banned as a sockpuppet, and that ALR and Blueboar are being inserted in here as collateral damage, as they have not dealt with him since his return save for one comment by Blueboar. It would be wise to speak to Mackensen and Blnguyen regarding Jefferson's behavior.

Response: the word "instigator" is inflammatory. I opened an AMA request for a friend. As far as I know, there is no rule against that. Again, MSJapan is intentionally confusing banning with blocking. Xyzzy was blocked at the time, not banned.

As I directly told him, an editor with his history cannot behave as he did and expect to come back with a clean slate.

Response: yes, I can. I can expect civility from all other editors. It is required by Wikipedia policy.

JA then proceeded to wikistalk my contribs, commenting at List of Masonic temples, Provincial Grand Lodge of Baleares, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MOCHIP and Fiat Lux 78, Lodge, all of which I either AfDed or prodded today, and all of which, save the Obligations article, Jefferson never edited before. Positive edits or not, he did not have to follow my contribs; that pattern of behavior strikes me as veiled provocation, and now he claims to be a victim, when in fact he is the perpetrator. MSJapan 06:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Response: I am being maligned my MSJapan in violation of WP:CIVIL. Wikistalking is defined as making edits intended to be disruptive. It specifically excludes following someone to correct errors. IMO, at least 50% of MSJapan's deletion nominations are misguided. I have every right to express my opinion in his AfDs. I do not have to put up with the unveiled and aggressive tactics being used by MSJapan. I want him to leave me alone. By this I mean stop making posts like this one, which clearly violates WP:CIVIL in numerous ways. Jefferson Anderson 15:32, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Notice

If Jefferson is unwilling to follow proper procedure, I will not participate in this process. He had a chance to make his case when he opened this proceeding. My comments are just that, comments, and are not made so he may have as many chances as he likes to rebut. MSJapan 16:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I have every right to respond to your comments, here or elsewhere. Show me the rule that says otherwise. Who is wikilawyering now? Your attempted reversion of my comments along with a snide edit comment is a further violation of WP:CIVIL on your part. In point of fact, no one has asked you to participate in anything. My request is that you stop slandering me as you did again on this page. Jefferson Anderson 16:02, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

If I wasn't invited to participate, what's the point of opening this mediation? Do you really think if you open the AMA that the other party is automatically going to be censured? It doesn't work that way, and if that's what you think is going to happen, you might as well drop this right now and save the advocates the work. If you really want to solve this whole issue (as opposed to trying to win some "victory" that you think will give you carte blanche to do what you want), you can simply just stay away from all of the Freemasonry articles. If our paths don't cross, there is no way to have a problem. MSJapan 16:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Again, please learn to use the correct terminology. I have applied for an advocate, someone to assist me with a problem. Your first response is to attempt to malign me to my advocate. You do not own the Freemasonry articles, and I will not be intimidated by you any longer by your rude and unconstructive behavior. You are a wiki-bully. Jefferson Anderson 16:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

You created the problem! You went away for over a month, came back, and immediately set about to cause as much trouble as possible. I'm not talking about article ownership - you had a perfect opportunity to go work on something else on the over one million articles on Wikipedia and become a positive contributor, and instead you went right back to the same articles where you had problems with multiple editors before and restarted those same problems. You provoke people and then say you need advocacy because you have a problem? I'd say this is more of a persistent issue - when you don't get your way, you bog everybody down in bureaucracy in hopes that they'll give up and leave. ALR hasn't even said anything to you (much less edited an article) since you returned, and yet you listed him on this case. You listed Blueboar on this case, even though he hasn't done anything either, by your own admission on the case page. That's really not good faith at all, and you want to point fingers at me and call me a bully and tell me that I'm violating CIV? "Pot, kettle, black," anyone? You aren't in this to resolve an issue; if you were, you wouldn't have walked right into it in the first place, and I'm not going to participate in a bad faith AMA case just to waste people's time. MSJapan 16:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

You have a problem with article ownership. All I did was register my opinion in the AfD and restore an alternate solution to Duncan's which had been previously discussed and was the proposed solution from your side. Your response had nothing whatsoever to do with the actual edits or actions, but was to again make it into a personality dispute by misrepresenting my motives. I resent that and will no longer tolerate it. Please stop discussing me, your opinion of me, etc. Discuss the edits. Period. Jefferson Anderson 16:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, this is not a bad faith AMA case. I don't know how to handle your aggression. I am asking for help. Stop misrepresenting my motives. You haven't a f'ing clue. Jefferson Anderson 16:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and thank you for providing such a good example of the problem in all your posts and comments above. Now my advocate will have no problem seeing where the problem lies. Jefferson Anderson 16:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Uh... a note:

1. "reversion of my comments along with a snide edit comment" shows you rv'ing someone else's comments, a pretty bad thang;
2. "You haven't a f'ing clue" is a pretty f'ing personal attack, IMHO... Grye 00:37, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Why am I being dragged into this?

Once again, I find I am being accused of some sort of colaberative misconduct by Jefferson Anderson. I was not happy that I had been accused of sockpuppetry on his talk page when he "left" the project and, now that he has returned, I find I am acccused of "triple-teaming" him. I have always tried to be civil with him (I am glad that he acknowleges this), and am a bit perplexed by such comments.

Yes, I have been involved in some hard fought content disputes with him at several articles... but in each case, the extent of my involvment with him focused on the content of the articles and the reliablility of sources used. As far as I know, I engaged in conduct would merit such accusations.

Jefferson seems to have a some sort of grudge against me, simply because I am a Mason and edit articles on Masonic topics (a natural thing for a Mason to do). I keep getting dragged into his conflicts with MSJapan, and the only thing MSJ and the only reason I can come up with is that MSJ and I both belong to the same fraternal organization.

I admit that I have expressed strongly held views as to the content and sources in several articles relating to Freemasonry... views that are often contrary to Jeffersons views. And it is true that other editors who happen to be Freemasons have expressed similar views as mine... but this is because we have a common shared experience and knowledge and not because there is a concerted effort to 'gang up' on Jefferson. It is simply a case of several editors who agree getting involved in content disputes with one editor who does not agree. Blueboar 17:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Blueboar, my inclusion of you was intended to prevent future problems. I will review some edit histories and perhaps have a comment about some specific past incident. I'm sure we can discuss it civilly. You may be right that I am unfair to lump you with MSJapan. Give me a bit of time to review... Jefferson Anderson 17:10, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've reviewed the edit histories and I owe you an apology. You are right that I lumped you in with MSJapan and ALR. It was ALR that was supporting MSJapan with teamed reverting. It looks like you actually made productive edits and that we worked back and forth to improve the articles that we worked on together the way I think that Wikipedia is supposed to work. I will remove you from the problem description as I am certainly willing to admit when I have misremembered something. Jefferson Anderson 17:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I will close out with some food for thought - make of it what you will ... Could it be possible that what you are seeing "double-teaming" and "team reverts" is also based on a misconception? Isn't it possible MSJapan, ALR, and I make similar edits and make similar reverts to your edits because we have similar understandings of the content involved and agree? Are you perhaps reading more into our opposition to some of your edits than there really is? No need to answer... just think about it. Blueboar 18:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Just an offhand reply. I have no problem with discussing edits, coming to a compromise, etc. The incident I am thinking of involve wholesale reversion in quick repetition without discussion [1], [2], [3], [4]. I attempted to discuss on the talk page, objecting to the fact that an assertion was not being cited with the source which made the assertion, but rather with a source which refuted the assertion. My position was that BOTH needed to be cited. The response was to ignore the issue I brought up, but instead to accuse me of being anti-Masonic, imply that I was a sockpuppet and otherwise to respond with personal attacks rather than attempt to understand what I was trying to do and work with me to improve the article: [5], [6]. This is the unconstructive approach I would like to see cease. Jefferson Anderson 18:28, 11 April 2007 (UTC)