Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Tkorrovi and Paul Beardsell

message: Without prejudice.  I suggest that arb com immediately rule that neither Tkorrovi nor Psb777 be allowed to edit the article "artificial consciousness" for a period of one year.  Paul Beardsell 22:58, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Request for Summary Judgement

message: I request that an advocate for the plaintiff be appointed so that the case can be made cogently thus allowing the court to decide if there is indeed a case to hear and allowing the defendant the reasonable possibility of making a defense.  Paul Beardsell 00:09, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Request that Advocate for Plaintiff be appointed

message: I ran into the debate over the AC article about a year ago and had some initial impressions that I'll try to restate here.  I should warn that I've only briefly skimmed more recent developments.  And I should say that generally I have scrutinized Tkorrovi's behavior more carefully than Paul's.
Both parties seem to be at fault.  From what I can tell, Paul is indeed unnecessarily abusive towards Tkorrovi and should probably know better.  Further, in dealing with this case, his attempts (as I see it) to have the arbitration dismissed on technical, nit-picking grounds do him no credit.
However, I continue to be inclined towards Paul's side.  My observation (but not direct participation) at the AC article leads me to conclude that Tkorrovi is difficult to deal with reasonably.  He consistently adopts the position of a victim, usually complaining about personal attacks even when no real offense is meant.  Meanwhile, he is just as serious an offender in terms of revert wars and uncooperative behavior.
Tkorrovi's participation in WP is essentially limited to this one article.  He has also fought, in the past, to include links to his personal online forum and articles on AC in the WP article.  And he tends to be extremely proprietary about "his article" article (as many of us, but to an uncommon level).  My past conclusion was that Tkorrovi considers WP simply an additional forum to push his own expert opinion on this topic.  This is only my impression.  I can't be sure whether more recent developments agree.
Finally there is the minor point that Tkorrovi's English is not good enough to be left alone.  This is not meant as a putdown.  Tkorrovi's English is miles ahead of my own ability in any second language.  But the fact is that Tkorrovi does not always express himself clearly, so that copy edits are necessary.  Occasionally, Tkorrovi's point will be distorted or destroyed by these copy edits, no matter how well meaning the editor.  Sometimes, the editor may even have to revert Tkorrovi's changes, asking for more clarification on what he intended to say.  This is something Tkorrovi must accept.
I would support the measure suggested by Paul (!) that both editors be banned from the article for a year.  As punishment, banning is Paul's desert for abusing Tkorrovi when he knows better and letting his frustration get the better of him.  As rehabilitation, banning from his pet project will perhaps give Tkorrovi a chance to explore the rest of WP and learn that his management of the AC article is not the way that things are supposed to work.  He will also perhaps come to accept that his current way of dealing with people frustrates more than just Paul, Matt, and myself.
Comments "lost" during the recent revert war:
These comments triggered a lengthy discussion between Chinasaur and Tkorrovi, and then argument between Tkorrovi and Paul Beardsell that can be found here: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Tkorrovi_vs._Paul_Beardsell/Tangents  but this movement is said to be the cause of the revert war so the move has been reversed.  Follows comments that are pertinent.  Chinasaur continues...
One point that Tkorrovi made that I think is important is that contrary to what I wrote above, he never tried to link to his own AC articles, only to other peoples articles and the forums at his site on AC.
::Not true, Chinasaur, he did try to link to his own article and insisting on continuing to do so even when the prohibition of merely self-promoting links on Wikipedia was pointed out.  What happens is that Tkorrovi creates such a smoke screen of bleating about supposed insults and unfair treatment that people just don't see his contributions are, err, not of encyclopaedic quality, to coin a phrase.
::I removed this  link on this  edit and I removed it again here  and again here  and did a null edit here  where I called for assistance.  The link is to an article written by Tkorrovi and the discussion during which I realised this is here.  The old target has been moved but here is a link to the same article .  I believe Matt Stan tried to download and run the software from SourceForge with very unsatisfactory results.  Chinasaur, don't be blinded and deafened by this parody of injured sounds and floods of stage blood from Tkorrovi.  Trust yourself, your memory of events and content will always be more valid than Tkorrovi's account.  Paul Beardsell 03:38, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no link to my article now. Matt Stan downloaded the software and said that it run correctly. I don't screen anything, the question is only what is relevant for the article. Paul didn't like anything which I wrote, and came like to crusade to remove everything, instead of developing it further. Just all that crusade was totally unnecessary, it was possible to solve everything peacefully.Tkorrovi 05:30, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Misrepresentation / prevarication:  Matt Stan said no such thing.  See .  But evry sentence from Tkorrovi is misleading:  I "came like to crusade to remove everything" yet when I started editing AC it was but this derisory stub  and it had been nothing but that for months.  If it were all deleted it would have been little loss.  Yet when I gave up on it it was this much more substantial article .  Many of the contributing edits and much of the discussion re content was by me.  Just look at the edit history.  Word count the talk page.  Tkorrovi misleads a second time in the above paragraph.  The lies per sentence quotient in his arguments in this case is just too high.  Paul Beardsell 06:54, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Matthew Stannard said "I downloaded, installed and ran this program on my PC running Windows XP. It loaded without error." Now you claim much of the content to be yours, but very often, when you found it useful, you claimed the article with all that your content, and other users' content, to be "my" (Tkorrovi's) article.Tkorrovi 12:19, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: He said it "loaded" without error and then, if I remember correctly, he went on to say other things about it.  I am looking for the reference.  You seem to have it at hand, please provide a link.  Paul Beardsell 21:30, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments from a disinterested party ([[User:Chinasaur]]) 

message: I also edited a few other articles in Wikipedia, but I think everyone agrees
that this is for me to decide, what articles I edit. Mostly I edited artificial
consciousness indeed, so banning me from that is equal to banning me from
Wikipedia. No, I don't advertise any of my own articles, there are indeed two
SourceForge projects, these are in fact all open source projects at present in
SourceForge, related to artificial consciousness, yes I'm developer in one of
these. But I think that links to SourceForge projects must be in Wikipedia,
especially when there are not much of these in certain field, this is the only
code one can get for free, and this is valuable, so often there is only a theory
and a lot of talk, but no code. But in spite I develop an open source project,
it was never my intention to write the article anyhow related to that particular
project, what I want is an article about what is known today about AC based on
scientific papers, and what principles there are. This is necessary also for me,
because whatever theory I have, I want it to be based on what is known today
based on the peer-reviewed papers. Was my intention to write such article 
something which caused a crusade by Paul Beardsell and others, or is a
person who wrote some code regarding AC not allowed to participate in editing an
article about AC in general? Yes it might be that I have my own bias without
wanting so, as well as Paul Beardsell has, but I helped to incorporate into the
article even his views such as "Genuine AC", only in the name of consensus, in
spite that I considered them wrong and that they shouldn't be in the article.
Yes I had maybe not the best idea at first about AC as it is known in general,
but this is the process of editing, I maybe did not put the things completely
the right way at first. This was a dearing attempt anyway, as before that a long
time no one could even start the AC article, though there was a link to it in
psychology topics. But in the process I learned how in the papers the
researchers put it, so gradually the picture of what is the understanding of AC
today becomes more clearer. It is not so simple, yes you supply quotations and
references, but it is difficult from these make the article as more or less
whole picture, rather than just a set of fragments, and that this picture is
correct and corresponds to what is known based on the papers. It is especially
difficult because AC is new field, though many peer-reviewed papers are
published, but not many people attempted an overview. But exactly because of
that it is valuable for Wikipedia, as there is no such article in many other
encyclopedias. In
fact, finally Paul could insert into article everything he wanted.
But in spite of my so many efforts to have a consensus in the article, how Paul
Beardsell reacted was with inserting NPOV label on the article without
explaining, and by continuing personal attacks, so all my efforts to reach
consensus remained futile with Paul Beardsell and his friend Matthew Stannard. I
mostly had no conflicts at all with other users editing the article, and none
which was serious or not solved. I did not want to argue over small things with
him, but as he just wanted to delete what was written, and refused to discuss
(it was what I asked him several times before the edit war, "please discuss"),
and then when he finally started to discuss, he didn't want to talk about things
in general, but talked a lot about some minor details, or even redicilous
issues, like this argument by Chalmers that thermostat is conscious, about what
Chalmers himself said that this is very speculative. And in general, he often
even don't exactly discuss, rather his only intention is to make me redicilous,
and attack me personally, so that others would have as bad impression of me as
possible. It is not possible to work constructively in such conditions, when a
person uses regularly personal attacks against you during more than a year, this
is why I think it is necessary to ban Paul Beardsell from at least editing
artificial consciousness article, and at least for a year, as it lasted already
a year, and any shorter ban in such case is just not reasonable. No,
this is not what any user does, personal attacks cannot be justified, the
conflicts must be solved by discussion, and if it is indeed not possible,
through a dispute resolution process, not taking action against personal attacks
means that they are a legitimate way to achieve an unfair advantage, with by far
much more damage to others than any such advantage may be. More than that, the unfortunate people who were attacked, may be thrown to the dustbin together with these wo attacked them, as an easiest way to end the conflict. It might been, that
Paul Beardsell justified his actions by some crusade against controversial
topic, but this by itself does not mean that the article caused the conflict,
there are many controversial articles in Wikipedia, not difficult to choose
another one, and it is also not difficult to find a reason for crusade. (BTW, I saw him trying at least one other controversial article, "space elevator", there he also started a long discussion, without wanting to find consensus, so that he could afterwards say that because such long and futile discussion, the article is wothless, and must be deleted or re-written by him. But unfortunately for him, there was more than one editor there, who did not allow him to make confusion, not how in artificial consciousness I was at first the only editor more or less regularly present.) And it
is exactly so that I am just a user he stumbled upon, who didn't want to do
everything he said, one of these users who happen to edit controversial
articles, and so are more vulnerable, and can hope for less support by other
users, than others. Therefore this arbitration case is about the behaviour of
Paul Beardsell, and has nothing to do with Artificial consciousness article.Tkorrovi 16:55, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If Paul is really trying to control things this much, and cannot find a way to work with others, then you are right that the case should address this.  But right now it is just you versus him and I'm not so sure that there are many others who feel as strongly as you do that it is only Paul's behavior that has caused this conflict.  --Chinasaur 19:11, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I provided my evidence. And I didn't see no evidence yet about my personal attacks against Paul Beardsell, no one which I initiated, I also did not respond to his attacks with mine, almost never. Maybe you may consider two cases, but these were also not attacking back, but rather naming Paul's attacks with a proper name, maybe exaggerated, but not directed against person, but remarks. And both of these are not even presented as evidence. So based on what can you make a decision now, that it is just I versus him? You show one my personal attack against Paul Beardsell. Personal attacks are not my way to achieve things, I hate this, these are extremely unfair, and I hate achieving any advantage using them. People sometimes use personal attacks instead of arguments, always when they have no sufficient arguments to defend their position.Tkorrovi 20:38, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, my evidence is in preparation and will be presented.  Many of the faults Tkorrovi ascribes to me are his own.  Tkorrovi has often  prevaricated / misrepresented the facts / been shown to have a poor memory of the truth / (substitute your favorite euphemism here) and he continues to do so in this case:  He forgets he called me a racist?  Paul Beardsell 21:15, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes this is the one I mentioned, I just had to wait when Paul will say that. I don't remember calling Paul a racist, I only remember asking him to stop the racist remarks, and one of his remarks was that an anthropologist would be necessary to find out who I am. Unfortunately, this happened on 10 Apr 2004, but the article's talk page history goes back only to 28 Apr 2004. Find it somewhere here , search "anthropologist". Unfortunately not all conversation seems to be there, Paul Beardsell made many remarks concerning my nationality, or whether I am human or not. Maybe I wrongly called them racist remarks then, as I had no understanding then of the reasons of his personal attacks against me; I didn't realise then, that Paul Beardsell simply uses every possible way to attack me personally. So this, as I said, was how I named his remarks, not an attack by me. This might been exaggerated, but not entirely wrong when one compares you with monkey.Tkorrovi 22:15, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't quite do that.  But if the cap fits:  Strange how you did not choose to identify yourself with either of the pedestrians in the cartoon.  And, of course, the cartoon is long after you called me a racist, but that is not the impression you give.  And the one rather lighthearted nationality remark made by me was _after_ you called me a racist.  And my anthropologist remark was a reference to Matt Stan, who is one.  It is he who brought your nationality into play, in a discussion about some basic English errors you refused to have corrected.  Not me.  And the deletions of the racism allegation about me by you was deleted from the Talk page by you and this is why we have difficulty finding the trail now.  Wrong, wrong, half-truth, wrong, misrepresentation.  This is just more typical prevarication by you.  Every time you open your mouth you make your position worse.  Is that a personal attack?  Paul Beardsell 23:42, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is just a lie. I'm not going to expose all that. It takes too much time to discuss when your opponent lies. So only about this monkey thing.  On the mediation page, when Matthew Stannard said to Paul: "Paul, why don't you take your own advice posted elsewhere and not take any notice of Tkorrovi, i.e. just don't respond, just let him have the last word, and focus on the content of the articles?" (ie he talks about what Paul should do), Paul responded "In the cartoon that is what the chatting pedestrians should do too. Easy to say, more difficult to do." (responding to the question what *he* should do against someone else)  thus identifying himself with the pedestrians, anyone other than pedestrians on the cartoon were only monkeys, to whom, by Paul, the pedestrians did not have to respond. This exposes that Paul meant me as a monkey. Tkorrovi 00:01, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: By then, of course, Tkorrovi had identified himself with the monkey. It's as if you show a Laurel and Hardy cartoon and a fat man exits the auditorium. "They're getting at me," he sobs, falling into the arms of the stupid man, who has also left in tears, "No, it's me they're getting at!", he insists. Paul Beardsell 03:11, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further response by Tkorrovi 

message: Both editors seem to take wikipedia too seriously for their own good, and the good of the project.
Proposed solution.
0. Member's advocate's are appointed for both sides, as they are both excessivly verbose. 
1. Tkorrovi and Paul Beardsell are banned from editing AC for three months.
2. After the ban is over, for six months they are limited to 1 revert per day on AC and enjoined not to engage in personal attacks. Admins can enforce this with appropriate actions.
I am somewhat opposed to ArbCom's handing out long nonspecific bans for people judged to commit wikicrime, which does not involve the destruction of information. The trouble caused by these users is limited to one article and so the proposed injuction should also be limited to that article.
Klonimus 04:17, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  My view [[User:Klonimus]] 

message: :Seems to me at least as many words are needed to answer the charges made as there are words in the charges themselves.  I do not see how Klonimus could say that my responses are "excessively verbose".  They are not but I reserve the right to make them so if I wish.  In the interim I suggest that Klonimus count the words written by each of the parties.  I am puzzled too as to how taking Wikipedia "too seriously" could be held to be a bad thing, assuming that is what I have done.  Regular (small but non-trivial) financial support presumably counts as "too serious" so should I stop that?  Someone who takes Wikipedia seriously would presumably be in favour of an informative NPOV artificial consciousness article.  And would support someone who has worked had to make it so.  Sometimes that required telling Tkorrovi off.  I did that.  Paul Beardsell 17:03, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Paul Beardsell here. It's sometimes necessary to be verbose when there is a dispute, as it helps to explain the problems better, and may help to avoid misunderstandings. But the problem with "telling me off" was that Paul tried to do that with personal attacks, and sometimes did it, as to personal attacks there is often no response, if one wants to be civil, and expect the best from the other party, in trying to give it a possibility to continue normal discussion again. These personal attacks were the only reason why I submitted this request for arbitration, because in spite of many efforts during almost a year, it was not possible to stop Paul doing that, and without stopping these attacks it is impossible to continue the work normally any more. If this question would not be addressed, then it is equal to considering personal attacks as a legitimate way to "talk off" a user in Wikipedia; and the rest of this arbitration case, in discussing a minor mistakes made by me or Paul, is more or less nonsense, enough to tell us, and we are both smart enough to understand.Tkorrovi 18:28, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not I who is being overly verbose in this arbitration request.  Count the words.  That I have criticised Tkorrovi is without question.  That the attacks were personal or not, punisable or not, or, given either of those, recent or frequent enough to be brought to arbitration now is the question.  I say:  "No, no or, if so, no."  Paul Beardsell 07:19, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments on Klonimus's view