Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Husnock

Case Opened on 04:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Case Closed on 00:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

You may add to the #Log of blocks and bans as needed, but closed cases should not be edited otherwise. Please raise any questions at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Requests for clarification.

Involved parties

Husnock (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
Morwen (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
Thebainer (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
CBDunkerson (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
'Lieutenant Colonel Dan Rappaport'
Durin (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Statement by Colonel D.R.

Posted from an old message as this person is now in Bahrain and also does not wish to become involved in this website too deeply. He stated to me his original letter stands. -Husnock 04:07, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Wikipedia-

My name is Dan Rappaport, I’m a Lieutenant Colonel attached to CENTCOM currently serving in the Middle East. In real life, I know who Husnock is and he is a pretty great guy. I’ve been on Wikipedia off and on over three years and I saw this conversation after hearing about it from Husnock. I had at first sent a strong worded letter to “Morwen” who started this thing by saying Husnock wanted to kill her. It was pretty sad that this was removed from your website as an “attack” when my point was to show to Morwen how ridiculous it was to state that a United States Naval officer, stationed in the Middle East, would want to kill her. Also, it was a slap against Husnock. The man is married and has a kid on the way. Why the fuck would he go to England to hurt some girl because she posted some crap about Star Trek? Right after all this, Husnock decides to leave this site but gets beat up even for that. His webpage is messed with, blocked from the site, and it seems the same people are showing up over and over again to run him down and say he’s wrong. Now, lets take a look at what’s happened in the last few weeks. My understanding is limited to what I can find, but here goes: 1) Husnock gets told by a guy named Durin that he’s been uploading bad images for months and he will be investigated and then he is asked to hand over addresses and phone numbers of everyone he’s talked too, including his dead grandmother or something like that. That same day, he learns that someone’s sending e-mails trying to find out who he is and then a week later his pregnant wife gets threatened when’s he overseas. Yeah, that would piss me off, too. 2) Okay, so the Durin affair ends and then he gets drawn into these articles about Star Trek. I took a look and it seems he came around about those. I don’t know your policies that well, but the whole point with that nonsense appeared to be references being called false and then, yeah, people got pretty mean with Husnock. I saw a couple of edits where he’s called names and one where he’s called crap. So, point 2, yeah that might piss me off too. 3)Now, here we are with this whole death threat bullshit. Husnock threatened no one. He told a punk kid in the UK that she had no right telling a United States armed forces member that he couldn’t edit this site. Good for him. The girl then posts for anyone to see that Husnock threatened her life and she now fears him. News flash since folks don’t know, that drew real world attention and Husnock was talked to by some authorities, including NCIS. After all, a citizen of the United Kingdom posted on a public website that a U.S. Naval Officer had threatened to kill her. Maybe you all don’t see how serious that is but I do and, you bet, that would ROYALLY piss me if it happened to me. 4) Last we come to Husnock leaving. He says he’s leaving, he tries, but again gets beat up since he came back to vote on one of your pages and then someone screws with his webpage. He tries to stop them, gets blocked, and then here we are all, beating him about it, going back to the death threat issue, and saying things about those stupid images, half of which I think Husnock deleted from your site. So, where do we stand? I think you guys have treated this fine man like total shit. But, hey this is a website, not real life, and I talked to Husnock at lunchtime he was cool with everything. He knows this is not real, do most of you? He is gone now, he really is not coming back. I just wanted to stop in and share my thoughts. I hope everyone is proud of themselves because you really have run him off for good. That’s my two cents. God Bless the USA. -Dan

P.S.: Husnock gave me his account password so I could post this letter since half the ip addresses in Dubai are blocked by this site. You guys should really do something about that. No one can log on or create a new account. -Dan

Statement by Husnock

At last, here is the person from which everyone wants to here. I am finished actively editing articles on this site but wanted to come here one last time and write a full description of what’s been going. When I am done, I think everyone will see a pattern of just general nastiness towards m by people that on this site which will, if not justify, at least explain some of the things I’ve done. The charges against me are lengthy, so too will be my responses since I want to clear my name. In the end, I am asking that any block against me be dismissed and I will even go so far as to ask for my admin powers back. As it stands right now, I stand on a ban from this site with all admin powers removed. Here goes with the statement of what lead us here today.

Durin and the copyright violations

To start with this, this dispute began over a sub-page of my user page displaying flag images of places I’ve been. Some time ago, this page started getting blanked and I did not know why. I at first restored it because I didn’t know why it was being blanked but it was later said I couldn’t use fair use images on a user page. This I accepted and began a campaign to locate totally free images. I did this work for several weeks, writing various cities and other agencies trying to find copyright free flags which could be posted and used by anyone. Then, Durin reappears. Now, before I go any further, understand that it is known now that Durin meant no harm, he was trying to help the site not hurt it. But, at that time, I didn’t see it that way Durin began by challenging where these images were coming from, seeming to imply that I was falsely stating where they were coming from. I explained to Durin that I had gone to great lengths to find copyright free images. An issue was then raised about imges I had gotten from the JAG offices of CNFK and CNFJ. I had been told by lawyers that these images were free. Durin stated that I and these lawyers were wrong. The final blow was when Durin seemed to ask me for the phone number of my ex-finance and a friend of my late grandfather so he could call them and talk to them about images. This sent over the edge, it really made me upset. I went to the Wikipedia and begged them to stop Durin from following my edits, especially after learning of a page he created. Very shortly afterward, I had something happen which still chills me to the bone. Someone (and I stressed at least four times since then it was not Durin) e-mailed two cities I had gotten flags from asking for my real name and e-mail so they could “find me”. The very next day, I learned from another person that someone had sent an e-mail to my current employer (my Navy command), stating that I was posting military secrets on Wikipedia. Thank God this was dismissed at as a joke. The very next day, my wife calls me long distance from the US and says someone sent her an e-mail calling me a “bastard” and her a “bitch”, referencing my work n Wikipedia. We responded to this email account that the police had been notified and have not heard anything more of it. Anyway, after all this was over, Durin and I have tried to bury the hatchet. I deleted the flag page and went through his page, fixing the images I knew about. I deleted a lot of Star Trek images and updated a few more. His page, though, has hundreds of images on it. I have not had the time to update all of them yet. However, the dispute I thought was closed. When recent issues began to arose, at least three people brought up that I had committed copyright violations and one person openly stated “Husncok has posted dozens if not hundreds of copyvio images with fake PD tags” or words to that affect. It almost seemed as if people were trying to “dig up dirt” as if to show I was a bad person.

Star Trek AfDs

This one people have me on, I was fifty percent wrong, but there were things going on that have to be discussed. It begins with a long standing article, Warrant Officer (Star Trek) getting AfD when Coolcat and myself (the primary contributors) were not contacted about it or asked to improve it. Coolcat defended the article with all of his might and, when it got deleted, over turned it at a deletion review. A user then openly stated that this had upset them and, to solve the problem, they would AfD the parent article Conjectured ranks of the Starfleet. So, another AfD begins and when it is brought up that this article is well sourced with 17 references, the references themselves are challenged. Things then get uncivil with statements made that Coolcat and Husnock are trying t pass over “hogwash”, that they are “crufateers” and their edits “crap”. Coolcat also stated, via private e-mail, that he received goading and baiting e-mail messages through the Wikipedia e-mail system. Then, in the middle of the AfD on the conjectured rank article another article Coolcat has worked on gets brought for AfD by the same people who had been uncivil and according to Coolcat, posting baiting messages for him. Then we have the article of Starfleet Security which, after being heavily rewritten and expanded, is first called a copyright violation , once declared that it is not, AfDed. Moren apeaks of this copyvio and how I stated it was bad faith. At first, I thought it was. I had finised a major rewrite, the article looked nothing like its memory alpha counterpart and then we see a copyvio notice from Memory Alpha. This was resolved and, I cant recall when, but at some point I stated publicly that Morwen had been right and the copyright vio had not been faith.

Death Threat Accusation

This is where things started to get very nasty. After the initial copyvio problem, I tried to approach Morwen and become somewhat friendly. I posted to her talk page that was of English descent and invited her to help me improve my own user page. These requests were met with, how shall I say, a cold shoulder. Then we have Law in Star Trek which was an extensive rewirte of yet another Star Trek Afd started by the same people who were going around to the Coolcat articles. Morwen began challenging the source material once again. When given the names of books (Klingon Covert Operations Manual for ne) she would say that the sources were not valid. Then there is a strange statement about me not “allowing her” to edit articles. When I ask what she means, she states for all to see that I had threatened her and she is in fear of her life. I thought I was going to be banned at once for making a death threat. I went at once to the admin board and stated what had happened. Then, much to my horror, the exact same people who had been involved with the Star trek AfDs and had been uncivil (in my opinion) appear and start defending Morwen. I am told that, yes I made a threat, I was wrong, etc etc. Now, bear in mind, I saw this threat as incredibly false and I personally think anyone who makes a statement on Wikpedia that they fear for their life because of another user should have their facts in damn straight order before they say something like that. I also was deeply insulted by it. I am a military officer, I have a wife and an unborn child. I tried to be friends with Morwen, I tried to be nice to her on her talk page. She responds by saying I threatened her life and the same people involved with the AfDs then appear as if they were following my edits. Yes, I was very VERY upset about that. So, this conversation about this continues until at last I say I am sorry. Far from an evasive apology, I think I said something like I was sorr for everything, Morwen had done no wrong, the copyvio was not bad faith, and I would source my articles from now on. Now, this is where it gets good. Less than 12 hours later an e-mail shows up in my real world account saying that NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) had received a report that a United States Naval Officer had threatened the life of a citizen of the United Kingdom on the internet and that they thought it was me as my real e-mail had been given (to clarify, my real e-mail address is buried away in my user page history but I don’t want to say where). This was cleared up rather quickly but again very upsetting. The next day I choose to leave Wikipedia.

Leaving the site

So, I thought I was done but then was contacted by two users who wanted me to come back and help defend one of the previous mentioned Star Trek articles which was AGAIN up for an AfD. I did so still with the pledge I would not edit articles. I gave my opinion to this, but then a message was posted to my talk page that I was lying about leaving Wikpedia. He user in question statied that my departure notice was a “flat out lie” and this message, obviously, was only to serve the purpose of baiting me. The enxt day, I put a disclaimer on my page stating I was stil going to participate in AfDs and revert vandalism but would not edit articles.

Then we have another User who arrives and removes my departure statement stating it was a personal attack. Not only is the Morwen info removed, but so too is the material about being Wiki-stalked I the real world (unrelated to Morwen or Durin and nowhere did I name names but simply stated what had happened. That statement was quite mild, not a personal attack, but simply saying why I was leaving. I reverted this change and asked the user to please not censor my user page. The user then reverted the change and, when I asked again not to edit war on my user page, the user blocked me for a month. This I felt was wrong beyond belief as I had been blocked by a user in the other side of a dispute in an attempt to silence me. I had never had this happen before and though I ws within my rights to unblock myself. So I did, but have been told this was wrong. I simply didn’t know the rules and was quite outraged by another admin blocking me after blanking my user page.

Colonel posts

Then we get to this person. I will state right now on the honor of everything I hold dear, this is a real person. I have known him since my days in Korea and he uses this site for its material but doesn’t really edit. During the Death Threat thing, he posted a talk page message t Morwen. Apart from him calling her a “little girl”, I don’t think his message was a personal attack. And, he was pretty pissed off at the time since he kenw about the NCIS thing and was (and still is) of the opinion that Morwen contacted them (I’m not saying that’s true). So, why did I not admit I knew him? Because, at the the time, I was surprised he had posted. It would also be a serious thing for me to confirm his real name, rank, and state that yes I knew him and he lived in Dubai. He has since said I can say this but at time was worried about hi security. So, instead, I tried to get people to see his comment not as threatening. I think it was seen as such because it went against Morwen’s versions of things and posted something people didn’t want to see.

In the time since the first post, the person n question has been trying to establish an account but cannot do so because apparently all the ip addresses where he lives are blocked for one reason or the other. According to what he told me, he tried over and over again and e-mailed at least two other people, he then called me and asked if he could post a letter using my account, stating his inability to establish a Wikipedia account. I attempt to unblock his ip as well, and cannot. So, the time frame goes somrthing like this. Within five minutes, he has my password, logs on, posts his letter, and logs off. He is honest about it and states who he is and how he was able to post. Five seconds after he logs off, I change my password. I’ve known this man for five years and have no reason to expect anything bad from him. Then, after this is done, I am told that I am permanently blocked from this site (without even a warning) as if I had committed some terrible serious offense like post a legal threat or real death threat. The letter from the Colonel is removed in less than a minute as “trolling”, again as if people didn’t like what it had to say. Is there a policy saying one cannot share their password this way? I did not know of any.

Actions since the ban

Since I ws blocked, I’ve done hardly any editing. However, looking at my talk page, I see two uses who have posted what appear to be baiting messages and “kick you when you’re down” postings. One openly calls me stupid and a liar another starts a deletion discussion of an image I uploaded months ago knowing that I am blocked and will not be able to participate. Then I see people have targeted another user who has nothing at all to dow tih this but is simply guilty of living in the same area that I do and establishing an account while this is all going on. I will state for the record that I have no idea who this Camel Commodore is. I also observe an entire discussion ws started about him, but nobody actually asked the user what the deal was. His ip address is traced, a message is postes saying people “know” he’s me and then this por soul goes to the Main Page and posts a frightened message that people are saying these thing about him.

There is the entire statement. As I am facing a permament ban and total removal o my admin rights, this had to be lengthy. I have thousands of edits on this site, have created some outstanding articles and have barnstars. I don’t see where this hatred came from but now people can see why I did the things I did. I also add that people have defended Morwen left and right, saying how evil and wrong I was. But nowhere a word about how Morwen said these things about me insulting my honor and my family. Nowhere about the real stalking incident. You will also notice, I havnt filled the statement up above with links to other discussions or inlines to edit histories to prove what I am saying is true. That would take far too long and I have a little bit of hope that it isn’t necessary but people will just read what I wrote and deciede. With that, I bid everyone goodnight and hope this can get resolved. -Husnock 19:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Morwen

As background, I've a number of disputes with User:Husnock, all on Star Trek-related articles. The initial concern was that User:Husnock was adding material from memory, rather than having access to sources. As an example here, he explicitly cites his memory as a source

With the article Starfleet Security, myself and User:EEMeltonIV had been trying to explain to him why certain information was original research or speculation and not appropriate for Wikipedia (such as extrapolating details about the internal organisation of a fictional entity based on the costumes in the show). In the middle of this, I notice that the entire page was, and always has been a copyvio. I tag it as such, as the instructions at Wikipedia:Copyright problems state. For some reason, even though I made it clear the copyvio had been their since the very first version, User:Husnock interprets this as an attack on him, and reports me here at WP:AN, claiming a "possible bad faith copy-vio". The admins there agree that the article is a copyvio, and it is decided instead to fix the problem just by removing the offending sentences, rather than go through the proper procedure of deleting the page and starting again. Fine, ok. Whatever.

Then, the very next day, despite being corrected, and the examples of the copyvio sentences used verbatim being pasted on the talk page he is continued with the lie that I had accused him of copyvio and blanked the page without good reason. I challenge him on this, User_talk:Husnock/Archive_6#Question, and he claims that he doesn't have enough time to investigate whether or not he was flinging around bogus accusations or not. But he did have enough time to continue editing lots of other articles.

This is the context the exchange happened in. See Talk:Law in Star Trek. I said

We can't just leave uncited material there for months in the hope you will remember it. If you don't have access to sources, then you simply should not be adding this type of stuff from your memory, please leave it to those of us who do

He said in response to me that

I would be careful telling a deployed member of the military they shouldn't edit on Wikipedia for whatever reason.

This implied threat scared me. I consulted a few people and decided that it probably wasn't an actual death threat, it was just a creepy intimidating statement. I decide that, for the time being, it is better to let it rest?

I brought this up again, on Talk:Starfleet Security#Starfleet Dynamics (by the way in this section I discover that one of the publications he was citing is in fact an unlicenced fan publication, but that's by the bye.) I noted that he was having WP:OWN issues on the article. I try to explain the hostile atmosphere he was creating.

And frankly, your comment on Talk:Law in Star Trek that I should be careful advising you what to do because you are a "deployed member of the military", put me in fear of my life (and this comment from somebody who deplores bullies on his userpage!).

After this he basically portrayed himself as a victim, as if I was committing some horrible offence by being frightened by his vague threats. He or his friend even puts forth the argument that it couldn't possibly be a death threat, because it would be a gross inconvenience for him to come over here and kill me! Matters escalated. He pretended to leave, left a very nasty message on his talk page saying that he had been hounded out - if anything it is his own inability to accept he is fallible which is the problem. User:Thebainer removed the message and after some warnings blocked, him, he unblocked self, then the drama explodes to a new level. Within this are personal attacks from some Lt. Col, who User:Husnock initially claimed not to know, and now is a "good friend" - a good enough friend indeed to give him the keys to his sysop account - which he used to leave an abusive message on WP:AN/I about me. Morwen - Talk 16:47, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As an addendum, whilst there are many parts of User:Husnock's statement that demand factual correction (I will at some point put together a timeline), there is one particular gross distortion that I feel I must correct. Plenty of users who had not contributed to Star Trek AFDs stated to him that his comments were at best unfortunate or at worst unacceptable. These include User:Kelly Martin, User:CBDunkerson, User:Thebainer and User:Isotope23 (I've not checked contrib history fully so some minor stuff may have happened). It is not some bizarre anti-Star Trek clique ganging up on him, as he seems to wish to portray. Morwen - Talk 22:30, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thebainer

There are many issues at play here; I for the moment am concerned only with those immediately relating to my block of Husnock.

The block followed a lengthy discussion on the administrators' noticeboard last week. The situation was an unpleasant escalation of what was almost universally recognised by those who commented on it as nothing more than a simple misunderstanding that could have been immediately resolved peacefully. Ultimately, after much intervention by several previously uninvolved parties (including myself, both directly and on the noticeboard; Kelly Martin, directly; and several users including CBDunkerson, Viridae and Carcharoth on the noticeboard) the issue was resolved to the satisfaction of all, and the community moved on, regarding the dispute as closed.

Throughout my attempts to resolve the dispute at this stage, I believe that I made an extremely fair and neutral effort to reach a peaceful resolution. I tried to de-escalate the situation by reiterating that it began solely with a misunderstanding and that the community recognised the incident as such. I attempted to convey to Husnock that his legitimate concerns could be addressed if he was willing to participate reasonably in reaching a solution.

This is the point where opinions diverge. Husnock added a message to his user page announcing his supposed departure, in which Husnock persisted with his original line of argument from the preceding dispute, suggesting that the incident was not a misunderstanding. This message may have been considered uncivil or disruptive by some; but I would even consider this statement a relatively reasonable expression of his concerns (which had been recognised by the community as legitimate) and the reasons for his wikibreak.

However, this edit, in my opinion, was absolutely crucial. With that edit, the message crossed a line from being a legitimate expression of grievances, framed in passive language, to an indication of an intention to reignite an already resolved dispute, directed at a particular user, and framed in active language. In my opinion, not only was this edit disruptive within the boundaries of this individual dispute, but it was disruptive to the community at large: it represents an utter disregard for and repudiaton of the community's efforts to peacably resolve disputes. This discussion followed, as a result of which I blocked Husnock.

I don't know whether the Committee is prepared to make findings on such a confined issue as the propriety of an indivudual block, but that is the extent of my involvement here. --bainer (talk) 01:42, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by CBDunkerson

This case began as a series of misunderstandings and failures to assume good faith / move on / behave with tolerance towards others... and grew into the indefinite block of the admin Husnock for giving his password to another person. Husnock has indicated that he is leaving Wikipedia, but would like the option to return at some time in the future and therefor wishes to be unblocked. Several admins have expressed concern that sharing his password, and subsequent statements defending the action, make it difficult to unblock with confidence that the account will be used only by Husnock. There are also concerns about Husnock's recent unblocking of himself on another matter (he has apologized for that and allowed the most recent block to stand), the original dispute about a hostile comment Husnock made which was taken by Morwen as a possible death threat (though it now seems generally accepted that was not the intent), false statements about not knowing the person (Dan Rappaport) whom he later gave access to his account due to their close friendship, and older issues with the copyright status of many images he has uploaded. For his part, Husnock has questioned the propriety of the original suggestion of a possible death threat, efforts by Thebainer to remove Husnock's complaints about this from his user page, the one month block placed by Thebainer following that dispute, and 'general hostility' from various editors. There are valid reasons for complaint, of varying significance, on most of these disagreements. However, the central issue at this point is the question of whether the account should be unblocked with admin status intact... which ironically might also be needed to allow Husnock and/or Dan Rappaport to respond to this request. --CBD 16:21, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Husnock's admin access has subsequently been removed and I have unblocked him as there is no longer any danger of mis-use of admin powers. This may greatly reduce the need for ArbCom involvement unless Husnock plans to stay and appeal the de-sysoping. --CBD 19:04, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Durin

I am uncertain as the scope this case is intended to cover. If this case is to cover all of Husnock's behaviors over time, especially with regards to his time as an administrator, then my comments would be of use to this case. If the case is to cover only the latest series of events covering the compromising of Husnock's account and abuse of admin privs by unblocking a legitimate block of himself, then I have no role.

With respect to areas where my comments may be of use; Husnock and I had a long dispute regarding the proper sourcing and tagging of images that he has uploaded and/or modified. The core of the dispute, that of the proper sourcing and tagging, has for the most part resolved though a large number of images remain uncorrected, and a much larger number remain unreviewed. Husnock appears amenable to these corrections at this time and I consider the core of the matter to be resolved. As part of the dispute, Husnock raised at least nine different accusations against me ranging from violating WP:AGF to stalking him and his family in real life. Husnock has mostly retracted the stalking in real life accusations, but many of the other accusations were never retracted. I considered this not central to the larger issue of the copyright status of images he has uploaded, and never really expected a retraction. Some related material may be found at User:Durin/Husnock images and User:Husnock/Durinconcerns. If the ArbCom requires more information on this series of events, I'm at their disposal. --Durin 17:36, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Preliminary decisions

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (6/0/0/2)

Accept, to look at both admin and the wider issues that have been brought up. Dmcdevit·t 21:39, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept Fred Bauder 22:11, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. Charles Matthews 22:57, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. SimonP 21:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Accept. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 23:44, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Voting. Kirill Lokshin 20:25, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Will be voting on this case. (now active arb) FloNight 20:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Temporary injunction (none)

All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)

Principles

Admin passwords should be kept secure

1) Admins should not share their Wikipedia passwords with others. Doing so risks exposing Wikipedia to considerable disruption and thus may result in emergency de-sysoping.