Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Netoholic

message: (copied from related talk pages)
Is it common practice, or is there precedent, for accepting an Arbitration case on the basis of 3 Accepts and 2 Recusals?  Arb Policy says that it requires four votes to accept or reject.  Even if you extend that as a percentage to accommodate the recusals, 4/9 is 44% and 3/7 is only 42%.  In this case, one vote changed from reject to accept only recently, one vote admits some bias, and one vote accepted only to "clear the queue".  If all three votes were strongly adamant about accepting the case, perhaps you'd have room to test the "flexibility" of the Arb Policy.  In this case, I don't think you do.  -- Netoholic @ 18:37, 2004 Nov 4 (UTC)
:4 of 9 is one less than a majority which would be 5 of 9. Likewise 3 of 7 is one less than a majority which would be 4 of 7. That is the basis upon which the case was deemed accepted. Fred Bauder 23:45, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)
:: Can you please point me to other cases where the "one less than majority" standard was used?  Can you also show me where that standard has been discussed before?  Without this, I don't think you should be interpretting the Arb Policy in such a way. -- Netoholic @ 00:19, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)
:::Why didn't you just ask User:Jwrosenzweig to recuse? Sam [Spade] 00:48, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Precedent 

message: Hello,
I'm a new user, and not directly involved with the dispute here (Netoholic has never deleted any of my comments, edits, as far as I know, and I don't know any of the users involved in this dispute personally, nor have I talked to any of them regarding this dispute).
However, I have voted against Netoholic's VfD of the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy article, so I'm not completely unbiassed here, I'll admit.  But I do think I'm relatively unbiassed, for the reasons stated above.
I have not personally read through the history of comment and edit deletions that Ta bu shi da yu, FT2 and Zen Master have alleged Netoholic carried out.  However, I have followed the entire ugly debacle that was the VfD for the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy article, where some of these allegations were made, and what spilled over in to these users' talk pages, where more allegations were made, and finally this RfC and RfA.
So, for what it's worth I would like to offer my appraisal of this situation.
Because I have not personally gone over the alleged history of edits, I would like to offer the final disclaimer that my opinion here rests on them being true.  But, if true, I personally would not only not have hesitated to put a temporary injunction on Netoholic but would have banned him long ago.  I view such actions, again if true, to be highly disruptive, antisocial, and offensive; with, from what I can see, no defenses of his actions or even attempts at civility coming from Netoholic.
Now, since I'm a newbie to Wikipedia, I grant I am ignorant of the ways you do things here.  Perhaps bans are not viewed as the appropriate response to unapologetic, inexcusable attempts at disruption of your community.  You do seem highly tolerant and willing to go to admirable lengths to foster constructive dialogue.  So, I defer to more senior users as to what you may see to be the remedy here.  And, I should say, Netoholic's behavior might be mitigated in my eyes, were he an otherwise productive contributor to Wikipedia.  If he is not then I personally would not waste much time in banning a user who's sole purpose seems to be disrupting and offending other users (ie. a troll).
Now, I hate to start off my stay at Wikipedia with so negative a weighing in on a users' actions which only peripherally affect me (only in so far as I am interested in seeing the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy article flourish (from a NPOV and in the Wikipedia way, of course)), but I simply find Netoholic's alleged actions to be completely outrageous, and feel compelled to express my resentment at the hostile disruption of what to me is a very noble enterprise: my new friend, Wikipedia.
Finally, I should like to reiterate that all my comments above rest on the assumption that the allegations of the behavior that Netoholic has engaged in are true.  If they are not then please consider my commends above to be null and void (except in respect to my general ideal that a community such as this should not be hostilely disrupted), and I would in that case readily offer Netoholic my sincere apologies.
I hope this was the right place and time for my comments.  Noosphere 01:31, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  An newbie, outsider's perspective 

message: Can I add to it? Or does it have to stay the same? - Ta bu shi da yu 11:58, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Ignore this. Its not constructive for me to add to the complaint. I'll try talking to Netoholic, as he's not entirely unreasonable (I've come to to that conclusion after a few things have happened). - Ta bu shi da yu 11:52, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statement of complaint 

message: Personally, I think I handled this entire situation badly. Firstly, I should have tried mediation. Secondly, I inflamed matters by copying his talk pages. I've since deleted them. Thirdly, I discussed the evidence I presented with Netoholic, and we came to some amicable conclusions and resolutions. He listened to my criticism and has taken it on board (esp. wrt to his talk page) and I have listened to his criticism of myself and I've also taken this on board. This whole situation has gotten out of hand, and rapidly. IMO I  think we should just close this arbitration with a warning to all parties that should this get to this point it won't be tolerated. 
Just one last thing: Netoholic is not unreasonable. In fact, after dealing with certain other editors on this site, I find him to be a positive saint. I would NOT recommend a block or ban for ANY of the percieved things he has done. I know he's annoyed a few ppl, but then so have I. Blocking and banning would not be appropriate for Netoholic. He's a good editor: let him stay. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:48, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  This whole case