Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Abu badali

message: I saw this on WP:AN/I and thought the arbcom should be aware since it involves two of the involved parties here: 
: has been blocked for a month by . Picaroon (Talk) 19:35, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I reported that as soon as I saw it. Threatening to beat somebody with a baseball bat is not cool. —Chowbok ☠ 19:44, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It took over a week and half to respond to that? Even though physical threat is not cool, the delayed punishment is also not correct. Are you really sure that 1 month ban, starting 12 days after the comment, is necessary here? If anything, this at least should have retroactively started on the day of his attack. (And the fact that he was cited as a party means that he should at least be unblocked for Arbitration pages) - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps 07:34, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: He seems to have left, anyways. If he requests unblocking on condition of best behavior, and only to edit the case pages, I'll do it if I get there first. Picaroon (Talk) 20:31, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  HE is a SHE. The Parsnip! 02:47, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I concur, Penwhale.  It should be reduced down to 18 days. hbdragon88 20:07, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: She already is unblocked to comment on the arbitration. That was a real nasty personal attack btw. Garion96 (talk) 21:03, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What?  I was being very tongue-in-cheek.  Penwhale seemed to be very exact, such as wanting to start it retroactively from the day it started.  Becuase he said that the block started 12 days after the initial comment, I suggested that the block should thusly be reduced down to 18 days (12 + 18 = 30).  I meant nothing else than that. hbdragon88 21:55, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I didn't meant you! :) I meant the comment TechnoFaye made for which she was blocked. Garion96 (talk) 19:23, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by third party Paul Cyr

message: In recent days Abu badali has nominated several important images related to Polish history for deletion (see Wikipedia:Images_and_media_for_deletion/2007_May_13#Image:Pianist2.jpg and following entries; his arguments (non-notability of images) and comments (replying to others' arguments that they are nothing but PAs) have not been helpful, and attempt to delete such important images, clearly acceptable under fair use guidelines, is damaging the project (claiming that images are not notable w/out any policy backing in attempt to delete them seems like disruption to me).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:07, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You might want to present this on the evidence page, then. Picaroon (Talk) 20:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: From the 5 images nominated for deletion in the above link, 2 were deleted and the other 3 were discovered to be in Public Domain (they were originally tagged as fair use). The accusation that I replied to other arguments "that they are nothing but PAs" is baseless. --Abu badali (talk) 21:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by third party Piotrus

message: There isn't much to say here beyond what I've already said in his [RFC]. 
Badali specifically tricked a new editor User:PageantUpdater, by her words, "in such a way as to claim I agreed with his position". This is what I was commenting on with my comments that Abu badali mentions above.
His behavior regarding the fact that multiple editors disagreed with his tagging of certain images was wrong. He generally refused to rationally discuss any of his tags, simply stating that the images weren't free, although a number of people stated that the images were acceptable under fair use. Some editors attempted to change the RFC about badali's behavior into an argument over unfree images, which it was not. I, personally, recognize that a policy is a policy (however much I disagree with it), however if someone is going to attempt to enforce that policy, they need to be civil, they need to be open to the fact that they may have made mistakes, and they should not be digging through the contributions of editors they have disagreements with and mass tagging their uploads. Abu badali HIMSELF states on his own user page that this is what he does.
Abu badali openly mocked the RFC on his user page, and by proxy mocked the concerns of the filer and contributors, which, in my opinion, caused a significant disruption.
For evidence of his perceived wikistalking, see here 
Above, Abu badali makes some comment about how I thought he was an admin. This was just a typo I made ages ago, and constantly redirecting to this admin (deleting) vs nonadmin (tagging) issue is neither here nor there. The log-digging and mass-tagging of images uploaded by a single editor is certainly enough to make that editor feel as though they are being harassed, whether they are in the wrong or not, and this behavior is, I feel, highly disruptive. 
The basis of my statement in this case is that Abu badali, while believing himself in the right regarding the fair use policy, is behving in such a way as to cause a significant disruption. The fact that an RFC was necessary at all and that it was signed and contributed to by such a huge number of people attests to that. TheQuandry 15:18, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by TheQuandry 

message: Unfortunately it has been almost six months since the trouble with this editor began which makes it a bit fuzzy on the memory, but I will state from the outset that overall my dealings with Abu badali have left a worse than negative impression on me.  Abu badali appears to be fixated on ridding Wikipedia of fair use images, regardless of their worth to the project, and in order to achieve this aim he appears to have no qualms in trampling on the opinions of other editors.  He also appears to lack any ability to listen to reason or attempt to reach compromise.
I first came in contact with him when almost one hundred images I uploaded were tagged with the RFU tag.  This was in the early days of the replacable fair use policy being implemented, and this was the first I had heard of the policy.  The comments at User:PageantUpdater/Use of Images show my line of thinking at the time... when the policy reasons were explained to me (all these images had been tagged without any explanation by Abu badali) I accepted that most would have to be deleted.  Abu badali then tried to trick me into accepting that the images were not required ().
A small number of the images, specifically those showing a beauty pageant titleholder being crowned, or taking her first walk etc were found by User:Quadell to be acceptable under the fair use regulations.  To make these work, some changes were made to the articles (expansions of the main article and captions).  However Abu badali disagreed with this finding and argued his point forcefully, completely disregarding the opinions of other editors.  These conversations can be seen at .  Even after lengthy discussion about these images, Abu badali again re-added RFU tags to that image and when another editor reverted his actions he added it again( ).  The image was eventually kept by Quadell .
All this happened in November, when the RFC was started.  It is difficult to accurately remember and record Abu badali's actions so many months on, but I remeber feeling persecuted and extremely frustrated at his refusal to listen and respect the opinions of myself and other editors.  Eventually things calmed down and I was able to enjoy Wikipedia without the hassle of dealing with such an aggravating editor.
That all changed in January when Abu badali edited an article I had written, Melissa Lingafelt, selectively commenting out an image and accompanying text based on the fact that the "reference is a 404".  What he apparently failed to notice, I suspect because he was so focussed on the fair use image used in the article, was that the 404 was the result of poor coding by myself.  Because of a missed pipe link in the reference, the url that lead to the 404 read: http://www.missteenusa.com/press/08.15.06.htmlpublisher=Miss.  I cannot believe that any attentive editor who would go to the trouble of commenting out sections of an article would not noticed the cleary visible error in the url.  What irked me more was that Abu badali had clearly singled out an article I had written months after our initial trouble.  
I heard no more from him until a few weeks ago, when he nominated :Image:KatieBlair.jpg for deletion based on an incredible detailed reading of the terms of conditions of the website on which it was found.  This again made me feel that I was being stalked by this editor.  I could see no reason for him coming in contact with this image again after all this time. The image was eventually deleted, despite the comments of other editors agreeing that Abu badali was being ridiculous.
Finally, I logged on this morning to find that yet another image of mine, :Image:ChelsiMissUSA.jpg had been tagged as RFU by Abu badali.  Although I accept that at this point the fair use rationale was poorly written and the use of the image in the article as it was was fairly questionable, I put effort into rewriting the rationale and significantly expanding the article and repositioning the article within it, as well as adding it to another related article.  I disputed the RFU tag and made comments to this effect on the talk page, to which Abu badali rabbited off his general line that the historical use of image is unneccessary in the article... a point which goes back to the long discussion at :Image:FarrellMTUSA03.jpg back in January, and at the Katie Blair image talk page (now deleted).  Why Abu badali chose this image as a target is beyond me as he clearly has no interest in beauty pageants, other than trying to delete images related to them.  Again, I feel I am being persecuted.
There is a further concern which I cannot definitively tie to Abu badali but which feels like his style, and which another editor has also described it as "suspicious".  On 14 May, an anonymous editor removed the fair use image from Melissa Lingafelt ().  This was and is currently the IP address' only edit.  Within an hour, Abu badali had tagged the image itself as orphaned fair use (). How he even noticed that this image had been orphaned is beyond me, unless he noticed the anon remove it from the main article.  If that is the case, I do not know why he simply did not revert he vandalous anonymous edit, rather than go to the trouble of tag the image as orphaned and warn me about the image.  Within another hour, two editors had discovered the trouble, with one reverting the tag and fixing the image, and the other replacing the image in the article.
In conclusion, I am pleased he has replied to this artibritation case, because I was extremely frustrated that despite the numerous comments of other editors at his Request for comment, he did not make any statement there.  I feel that Abu badali steadfastly refuses to consider or accept any interpretation of the use of fair use images other than his opinions on the matter.  He appears to treat articles as if he is an automaton, without considering the value of an image to an article on an individual basis.  He is extremely dedicated to tagging fair use images and removing them from articles, but does not appear to notice basic mistakes or take any wider interest in what he is tagging.  He also has a habit of stalking myself and other editors.  I feel harassed and persecuted by this editor, and I want it to stop.
::Can I just add that I had my tonsils out just over a week ago and I'm still tired and tetchy.  All I want to do is edit pageant articles... I really don't have the strength nor the desire to get stressed about this editor.  I only just got the RFC process and find this whole process to be over my head.  Apologies if this wasn't formatted properly etc.  I just feel that I have wasted too much time on this guy already and despite the fact that he is currently the one thing getting in the way of me enjoying pariticpating here, spending hours trawling through diffs (particularly where some stuff has been deleted) is beyond me.  Hopefully in a few weeks I'll have more of a desire to do so, but at the moment I'm hanging back. PageantUpdater User Talk  Review me! 11:13, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement by PageantUpdater 

message: When notifying Abu badali of the Arbitration case Jord cited "continued tagging of justified fair use images" (i.e. any tagging of images, even those above without sources) "refusal to participate in a fair and open minded debate" - (i.e. failing agree with whatever he said), "stalking and harrassment of users".
I see no evidence diffs that indicate Abu engaged in "stalking and harrassment", unless of course we consider that following foundation policy and deleting out of policy content is "harrassment". 
The only questionable action is Abu not responding to the RfC, which was a badly formed forum for beating him up.  
====:Image:Bobrae-premier.jpg is disputed as being outside policy by a number of editors====
The fair use status of :Image:Bobrae-premier.jpg is disputed by a number of editors Jkelly Angr 
Ed g2s. As of May 18 it has no source information (a criteria for speedy deletion alone) and no article specific rationale justifying why it is unreplaceable.
====No communication before opening the RfC====
The users concerned didn't exactly try to resolve the dispute before opening the RfC. 
It was certified by Tvccs whose only attempts to communicate with Abu on his talk page where the day before the RfC the first of which was  not exactly civil. Irpen's only entry on Abu's talk page before certifying the RfC was in reaction to Chowbok's RfC which was also regarding tagging fair use images as replaceable and resulted in  Jimbo stepping in. Finally we have PageantUpdater who only spoke twice to Abu on his user talk page before opening the RfC.
====The RfC became a hostile environment====
* ,  ,  ,  ,  . Apparently these outbursts are perfectly fine in the eyes of TheQuandry. I'm sure if Abu had produced similar outbursts he would have not looked at them quite so kindly.
I would contend that a user has a right not to be involved in a forum constructed entirely to beat them up.
====Are photographs of a beauty queen being crowned historic images?====
Is this image :Image:FarrellMTUSA03.jpg of a beauty queen being crowned a "historic event" - such that it allows us to override the original photographers copyright via fair use law ? I think not. And I believe that the foundation thinks the same way.
===The real issue===
People will always feel a little WP:OWNish towards their contributions. When someone tags them for deletion they are going to get offended even if the tagging is entirely justified. Abu has tagged a large number of fair-use images for deletion which has attracted a large number of users who feel antagonistically towards him. 
People will react by either trying to 1. prevent the deletion, 2. change policy, or 3. attack the user in question. 
For 1 - see endless discussion on image talk pages.
For 2 - see the policy pages: Jord Abu  Jenolen
For 3 - see Abu's RfC, which was votestacked    etc by technofaye. 
And now this arbcom case - which was largely opened on the basis of the votestacked up RfC numbers.
===Conclusion===
This is a policy dispute, that has spilled into this forum as the result of a number of users not understanding the core purpose of wikipedia and ganging up on a user who is correctly enforcing policy. The RfC was an attempt to scare Abu into stop tagging images. When he didn't stop tagging, this Arbcom case was opened up. 
If anything comes out of this - it would be a clearer office statement about the degree to which we limit fair use. The foundations vagueness (even after the additional statement) wastes a huge amount of time of both the pro-free-content and pro-fair-use lobby. Megapixie 14:46, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just in response to this, though I disagree with the image policy and have argued against it, I respect it so long as it is Wikipedia policy.  The images that are being deleted that I uploaded are all relatively old because I have since given up on uploading images because the process of finding proper tags for non-free images has become too cumbersome.  Those images that I have uploaded that are tagged for deletion and have no justification I am quite happy to see deleted.  Other images which have justification I have tried to defend because they added to the quality of Wikipedia.  I have no protest and dispute with any users who have tagged images of mine or of others for deletion in general, however Abu badali has been unique in his adversarial and uncooperative approach to image tagging.  When an image is tagged by anyone else, I protest and they either explain why there is no justification or help me to properly phrase and provide a justification.  In Abu badali's page he simply says it must be deleted and then removes comments justifying the image, marks images for speedy deletion, etc, etc hidden in minor edits and without notice. - Jord 18:39, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Care to provide diffs? --Abu badali (talk) 16:58, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a bunch on the RFC. I assume everyone has seen that. Trevor GH5 00:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't disagree with anything Megapixie has said, but I do think it sidesteps the question of whether or not Abu badali's actions have needlessly antagonized other users. My recommendations below deal with that. – Quadell (talk) (random) 14:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Statement by Megapixie

message: This is a policy dispute, that has spilled into this forum as the result of a number of users not understanding the core purpose of wikipedia and ganging up on a user who is correctly enforcing policy. The RfC was an attempt to scare Abu into stop tagging images. When he didn't stop tagging, this Arbcom case was opened up. 
If anything comes out of this - it would be a clearer office statement about the degree to which we limit fair use. The foundations vagueness (even after the additional statement) wastes a huge amount of time of both the pro-free-content and pro-fair-use lobby. Megapixie 14:46, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just in response to this, though I disagree with the image policy and have argued against it, I respect it so long as it is Wikipedia policy.  The images that are being deleted that I uploaded are all relatively old because I have since given up on uploading images because the process of finding proper tags for non-free images has become too cumbersome.  Those images that I have uploaded that are tagged for deletion and have no justification I am quite happy to see deleted.  Other images which have justification I have tried to defend because they added to the quality of Wikipedia.  I have no protest and dispute with any users who have tagged images of mine or of others for deletion in general, however Abu badali has been unique in his adversarial and uncooperative approach to image tagging.  When an image is tagged by anyone else, I protest and they either explain why there is no justification or help me to properly phrase and provide a justification.  In Abu badali's page he simply says it must be deleted and then removes comments justifying the image, marks images for speedy deletion, etc, etc hidden in minor edits and without notice. - Jord 18:39, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Care to provide diffs? --Abu badali (talk) 16:58, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a bunch on the RFC. I assume everyone has seen that. Trevor GH5 00:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't disagree with anything Megapixie has said, but I do think it sidesteps the question of whether or not Abu badali's actions have needlessly antagonized other users. My recommendations below deal with that. – Quadell (talk) (random) 14:23, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Conclusion

message: These image tagging issues seem to have crossed over into a content dispute here with Tony the Marine asking me to take a look as he feared he was going to roll over the 3RR limit. The subject of this Req4Arb seems to have had an issue with an image on the above-linked article, and subsequently entered into a minor content-dispute and a couple of reverts. I am sure at the moment that it is under control, and I have an eye on it, but I thought it ought to be linked to here just for informations sake, and in case it means more to those involved in this Req4Arb. 
He has also removed an image from Puerto Rican migration to New York, the fact that he cited the same reason for that removal as he did for the one mentioned by me above, and the fact that both articles were written by Tony the Marine, made me think that it may be targeting of some sort.
Incidentally, Abu badali has been rather civil and comment-on-content-able so far in this minor issue that I am looking at.... SGGH speak! 21:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed dozen of images from dozen of articles in the last days. Actually, in the last years. Articles relate to each other by categories in common, editors in common, images in common, image-uploaders in common and lot of other kind of links. Images that I act over in the same period will likely be linked by one of these kind of links. Clicking Random article is not the only acceptable way of doing image clean up. Please, avoid the "targeting of some sort" suspicion. Overall, thanks for the balanced event reporting. --Abu badali (talk) 22:09, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm glad you appreciate that I have to call everything as I see it, even though my own personal encounter with you hasn't been unpleasant. SGGH speak! 17:23, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Small side note

message: As I continue dealing with image-deletion concerns, I am discovering that Abu's interpretation of our non-free content policy is not as unusually strict as I had previously thought. At any rate, I seem to be as far from the average (on the liberal side) as he is (on the conservative side). To put it another way, consensus disagrees with me about as often as it disagrees with Abu. 
If the evidence convinces the ArbCom that Abu has been personally inappropriate in how he enforces policy (making bad-faith nominations of a user's images in response to one of that user's images being kept, for example), then a warning or sanctions are in order. If the evidence doesn't show this, then I don't see any reason to censure him. – Quadell (talk) (random) 12:55, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Addendum

message: Please, ArbCom members, I know there's a lot to read. But please see Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Abu badali/Proposed decision#Quadell's grave concerns before you vote. Thanks, – Quadell (talk) (random) 14:55, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Grave concerns

message: While I am not a party to this case, I am one of the editors targeted by Abu badali.
On April 1, 2007, he tagged two of my contributions,  and , then submitted them for deletion.  He claimed that the copyright status was not stated.  Yet the page actually contained a standard rationale listing these as non-replaceable publicity photos. 
At the time I told him that we are here to build an encyclopedia that is freely constructed and available. We are not here to make a point about open source licenses except as a means of facilitating the writing of an encyclopedia. I suggested he do something to build the encyclopedia rather than tear it down.  This did not deter him from his campaign to delete my contributions, which were properly used under current Wikipedia policies and guidelines.  Yakuman (数え役満) 21:03, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Note: this user has been confirmed by checkuser to be the same as , who, a day after making the above post, posted on another page related to this case, making further complaints against Abu badali's image tagging. The same checkuser also found another sockpuppet , created to evade a block issued to Mosquera. ElinorD (talk) 21:55, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments by Yakuman

message: This arbitration is starting to attract the kind of edits that ruined (from the begging) the tentative RFC on me. Some users are already posting up-to-date news about my latest deletion nomination, and we already have diffless accusations somewhere in this talk page. I hope we don't start to attract the personal attacks. 
Is this arb case moving on in the usual pace? --Abu badali (talk) 00:37, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move on? 

message: Considering that this wasn't a unanimous result, and that there were editors who seriously believed Abu Badali should have been put on probation, I think Howcheng's "congratulations" and barnstar given to Abu badali was a bit much and that his comment that he was "rather disappointed that there were no remedies addressed towards the parties who opened the case in the first place" was pretty inflamatory.  I could probably have kept my hat on were it not for that comment of his.  I think this illustrates the pro-Badali prejudice from the image patrollers which overran the "meek others" who had justified complaints against him but who appeared to be largely ignored.  I would hope that Howcheng will be less inflamatory in the future. PageantUpdater  talk • contribs  00:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hmmmm