RationalWiki:Chicken coop/Archive73

The "James Earl Cash" problem

(This qualifies under: "conflicts which cannot be solved through normal talk page discussion")

So... recently for me editing is getting more and more difficult because of the actions of @James Earl Cash.

You can find many examples on the history of the page on Linda Sarsour, where I tried to add information like the fact that Sarsour wished to take away a FGM victim's vagina, that she was honored to be on stage with a convicted terrorist, and other controversial things. The dispute was partially settled by the intervention of moderators. But then it started again when I tried to add information about Sarsour's protest and arrests.

In all the cases my edits contained factual information, supported by reliable sources, but they were immediately reverted by James giving motivations like "we're not doing this Islam fearmongering bullshit", "you're trying to make her out to be an antisemite", or no motivation at all. Engaging in a discussion on the talk page with James is futile, because he keeps talking about what he thinks my intentions are, instead of the actual content of the page ("I'm more concerned about Lankaster making apologetics of what appears to be reverse racism or trying to paint Sarsour as anti-semitic", "your initial inclusion of the quotes was flat out scaremongering", "You earlier tried to include her support for Odeh as an accusation of antisemitism and you'll still crouch it in language to try and paint her as an antisemite", "Says the guy who race baits on the rape culture talk page. What a fuckin hypocrite", "you're using it to overshadow everything about Sarsour", "Lankaster is, ahem, sympathetic to some of Sam Harris's ideals and that's enough, and I'm sure mostly everyone here has seen some of the things he's said to be (or they should be) suspicious of what he's really trying to get across", "Milo Yiannopoulos for example has still cried wolf over and over again even after it was revealed that he was a pedoshit apologist that even NYU started to buy into his bullshit and offered him a place for a "debate." And guess what, Lankaster started off writing misogynist nonsense, defending Brett Kavanaugh, and race baited on the rape culture talk page" all here).

This behavior forces me to call the moderators to avoid edit wars, but of course they cannot intervene each time. @Bongolian pointed me to invite other users on talk page asking on the Saloon bar, but this doesn't seem the usual process and it takes a lot on time.

In short, editing for me has become extremely difficult, to the point that I have to write pages, call the moderators or other users, just to write a single line. And all it takes is one user that consistently reverts my edits and "argue" by attacking me personally, because apparently he thinks I'm a fascist.

Recently there was a discussion about how to make RW more appealing to new editors, surely this kind of problems are something to be fixed.

-Lankaster (talk) 17:52, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

First, I would like to request a temporary modlock on Linda Sarsour just so we can put a stop to the edit war there for the duration of the case. @Spud @LeftyGreenMario RoninMacbeth (talk) 18:02, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Reviewing the edits James Earl Cash has made, and the edit summaries that explain them, they seem fairly straightforward in their reasons, and you just don't like getting reverted. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 18:05, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I actually see no problem with Lankaster's inclusion of Sarsour's arrests, for precisely the reason JEC removed that information. Documenting how an activist has been reacted to by authority figures should be a part of our pages on civil rights activists if we want to fulfill our mission statement of documenting and refuting authoritarianism, especially in the modern US. RoninMacbeth (talk) 18:10, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

@Ikanreed "Reviewing the edits James Earl Cash has made, and the edit summaries that explain them, they seem fairly straightforward in their reasons" How? Take for example his first reversion. He deleted the fact that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a victim of FGM (the context is Sarsour saying that she wished she could take away Ali's vagina!) and his explanation is "nor are we going to give a pass to ayaan hirsi ali of all people." -Lankaster (talk) 18:48, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I guess I get that. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 18:54, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think those statements of arrest should be included but I don't think we need a ton of detail. Just say she has been arrested several times for being disruptive such as (include some examples). I really don't think the authority figures arrested her for illegitimate reasons (if they were, that would be a comment on authoritarianism), so I'm not sure if it's worth commenting.

"Taking away the vagina" comment is, well, it might not even be relevant to bring up FGM unless the target specifically had the vagina damaged (and not like the clitoris as when most people think of FGM). Basing womanhood off what's literally called a "sheath" (i.e. dick purse) in a human body, nevertheless, is silly. I think we really need to rewrite the part where it says "Sarsour was asked about her tweet at a 2017 event. She did not apologize or even acknowledge the tweet was real. She also incorrectly said she was in her 20s at the time." with the next quote. It's a poor summary. She may be dismissive, but these statements insinuate she's a liar, and I don't quite accept that compared to just that she has poor memory and poor grasp of numbers. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 18:57, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I need to bring up some history of edit warring. I had to protect Ayaan Hirsi Ali. @James Earl Cash also engaged in an earlier edit war with Nerd with roughly 10 reverts combined from both of them, which is completely unacceptable conduct. I did engage in Nerd's user talk page, though I gave both of them a "heads-up block" indicating a major no-no. James Earl Cash has a very troublesome history of edit warring on three different pages. If James Earl Cash doesn't stop edit warring like this, I'm afraid something will have to be done. That's not to say Lankaster also has a history of edit warring with me in Cognitive differences between sexes and contributing to the edit war too. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 18:57, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what redress is being desired by Lankaster here. Other than the edit warring on both sides, there isn't too much that's offensive except for James Earl Cash's calling Lankaster a fascist; this was uncalled for but unless it continues and rises to the level of harassment, I don't think it's a big deal. Speaking more generally, even if one generally agrees with someone, such as Sarsour, we at RW need to be calling the person out on things that they are wrong about. Bongolian (talk) 19:46, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Agreed, though perhaps we should refrain from discussion of redress until James Earl Cash has gotten a chance to state their case. RoninMacbeth (talk) 20:41, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

@LeftyGreenMario I sincerely don't understand what do you mean by ""Taking away the vagina" comment is, well, it might not even be relevant to bring up FGM unless the target specifically had the vagina damaged (and not like the clitoris as when most people think of FGM). Basing womanhood off what's literally called a "sheath" (i.e. dick purse) in a human body, nevertheless, is silly."

Regarding the part "Sarsour was asked about her tweet at a 2017 event. She did not apologize or even acknowledge..." I did not write that, I think it has been written by @CowHouse. What I wrote was much shorter. Anyway, I don't want to discuss specific edits of the page on Linda Sarsour, but the general behavior of James Earl Cash that makes editing increasingly difficult. You can see it also on the talk page on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, where I gave up after I was told that I should not write a statement because it's "inflammatory", no matter that it is true, and again I was personally attacked by James for what I wrote on other pages: "it's like JAQing off about black guys being criminals, which, oh that's right, is something you have actually fucking done, nevermind that the whole point of the section is to dispute what she's saying, the poor style choice of putting your input in after everything that's been said in the section notwithstanding. I seriously can't believe anyone is willing to entertain your notions with an uncritical eye after that, and that's not even getting into how you started on this site."(click)

@Bongolian "I'm not really sure what redress is being desired by Lankaster here." Well, at least understanding that an user who deletes information consistently -without engaging in a discussion on the actual truthfulness of such information but only saying they are inflammatory or personally attacking me- is a problem to RW, would be starting point. Right now, I find very few reasons to make an edit on RW, knowing that it will take me hours of futile talk page discussions, and calls to moderators or other users; not because I'm writing false or unsupported things, but just because somebody dislike me. -Lankaster (talk) 21:42, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Considering a number of you here have experience with Lankaster's, ahem, difficult personality, and some of you are aware of his politics, well, you shouldn't be giving him the benefit of the doubt, and whatever "transgressions" I've committed should look like chump change by comparison. As in, Lankaster has said, "Fuck you," to Mario and race-baited on the rape culture talk page. That anyone here can even begin to find issue with me on something as banal as edit warring relatively speaking, y'all are practically rules lawyering right now.

As for our latest dispute on the Ayaan Hirsi Ali page, what Lankaster proposes isn't just inflammatory, it's also rampant speculation in a section that has no need for it. Especially considering the section is devoted to debunking Ali's claims, putting it there is both inappropriate, bad writing and on top of that, unfounded. Truth has nothing to do with it. While I don't know much about Sarsour, I do seriously take issue with putting in statements that are guilt by association. Painting a long litany of grievances against someone without further context or blowing them up to absurd degrees given that most civil rights leaders and activists have at least done or said one questionable thing when quibbling with ideological opponents or have been on the wrong side of the law, especially when Lankaster has views on Islam close to Sam Harris, I certainly take issue with that and see that his intentions cannot be trusted, and intentions do matter when it comes to representing content in terms of context. If I have to edit war when he refuses to debate and insists on smearing his shit all over articles, then guess that's the way it has to be. Sometimes there's no nice way to do things. Sometimes edit warring isn't malicious or coming from someone trying to lord their power over anyone, it is literally coming from one side outright refusing to address someone's points. Speaking of Nerd, seeing how he handles things on other talk pages, I definitely now see that I was right of accusing him of arguing in bad faith, hoo boy. You people need to stop playing this both sides card. James Earl Cash (talk) 06:27, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

"That anyone here can even begin to find issue with me on something as banal as edit warring relatively speaking, y'all are practically rules lawyering right now." Umm... Edit warring isn't really banal. Lankaster's personality is not what we are discussing here. What we are discussing is your tendency to revert when no consensus has been reached on the talkpage, with comments like kthxbai. Just...please don't?

Side note, were the pages in question modlocked when it became clear that the discussion was at a standstill? If not, we should do that in the future. RoninMacbeth (talk) 06:57, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I move that we warn both Lankaster and James Earl Cash not to edit war in the future, keep the relevant pages modlocked for the time being, and generally try and keep a closer eye on future edit wars involving these two. RoninMacbeth (talk) 07:01, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

To clarify some things that James wrote:

"a number of you here have experience with Lankaster [...] and some of you are aware of his politics" I never spoke about my political views on this site.

"As in Lankaster has said "Fuck you" to Mario" That's true, and it was to make a point that some users are allowed to insult other users and they can revert with childish motivation. Indeed the whole quote is "Junk this sexist garbage. Fuck you LeftyGreenMario" (while of course I didn't think that was "sexist garbage"), coming after ikanreed's "Junk this sexist garbage. Fuck you cheeseburgerface..." Anyway, I'm not engaging again it such behavior, so it's not a problem to be discussed.

"Lankaster has views on Islam close to Sam Harris" First, I only said that "My position on Islam is something like Sam Harris' concentric circles". Second, my views on Islam should not be a concern, the issue should be about what I write on RW. -Lankaster (talk) 09:08, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

@RoninMacbeth "I move that we warn both Lankaster and James Earl Cash not to edit war in the future, keep the relevant pages modlocked for the time being" Although a move in the right direction, I'm afraid it shouldn't be enough. Because if a make an edit and it is reverted by James with motivations like "nor are we going to give a pass to ayaan hirsi ali of all people" then to avoid edit wars I have to contact moderators who modlock the page and, again, this makes editing extremely difficult for me (and stopping my edits extremely simple for James). To solve this issue it is necessary to address the motivations for reversion. If somebody reverts my edits because I wrote something false, or because he thinks that my sources are not reliable, I'm fine with that (see for example here, where Spud asked me for a better source and I found the original video of the quote). If somebody can revert by edits because he dislikes them or dislikes me, no matter the truthfulness of the content, then I don't see a point to edit. -Lankaster (talk) 09:23, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Ah... and still a thing before I forget it: A good example of how James is moved by ideology and doesn't care about truth. In the page on Ayraan Hirsi Ali, he insisted (click, click) to use data about terrorist in US to confute a claim of Ali about bloodshed in the world, despite at least four users pointed out that US is not representative of the world and that bloodshed is different from terrorism (1, 2, 3, 4). But then, after the collective effort made a better refutation of Ali claim, James disagreed with adding a note that maybe Ali was thinking of jihadist terrorism in the world, and in such a case her claim would be supported by Global Terrorism Index. In short: data about terrorism are good only if they go against Ali. -Lankaster (talk) 09:39, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Hmm. Perhaps I should make this clear. I don't care about the ideologies of either of you. If I did, it would definitely not be to your benefit. I'm not going to address to fundamentals behind JEC's behavior yet. All I think we can do is ensure that the mob is encouraged to weigh in on future disputes. RoninMacbeth (talk) 15:08, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree with RoninMacbeth on this. I don't care what either of you two did elsewhere and I don't want to know. You could just as easily be impersonating someone with the same name. We have to judge you by what you've done here. We have one proposal so far from RoninMacbeth. Unless someone else wants to propose something, we should put it up for a vote soon. Bongolian (talk) 18:00, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

It is good that ideology is not to be considered. There should be sanctions for those who are abusive. If not now, then in the future. Facts should not be expunged because they "let off [the subject] too easily." Biographies should not be controlled by ideologues. Ariel31459 (talk) 18:18, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

@Bongolian "I don't care what either of you two did elsewhere and I don't want to know. [...] We have to judge you by what you've done here." What do you mean by "here"? Because if you mean "on Linda Sarsour page", then I'm afraid you missed my point: the behavior of James makes my editing difficult on any page.

"We have one proposal so far from RoninMacbeth. Unless someone else wants to propose something, we should put it up for a vote soon." Shouldn't be better to address this point first? I'm fine with RoninMacbeth's proposal, but I think by it's own it would not solve the problem. -Lankaster (talk) 18:52, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘By "here", I mean all of RationalWiki. Bongolian (talk) 19:13, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

"it was to make a point that some users are allowed to insult other users and they can revert with childish motivation"

There are better ways to get the point across rather than to be disruptive and edit war. Poor justification for your actions. Naturally, since you're a newer user, you don't have a reputation so you will be judged much more badly on bad actions at face value. You aren't engaging in the behavior but you're constantly acting obtuse and unyielding. I don't think you get to claim "truthfulness" in your content as you initially failed to discern sources when someone else (ikanreed) pointed out how badly you corroborated them in cognitive differences between sexes.

Nevertheless, beyond content disputes you two are edit warring. I believe James Earl Cash is abusing the revert button and should really take a good read why edit warring is bad: edit warring is disruptive and achieves nothing, clogs up recent changes and the page's history, and the logs discourse is not useful to refer back in the future. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 19:45, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

@LeftyGreenMario " don't think you get to claim "truthfulness" in your content as you initially failed to discern sources when someone else (ikanreed) pointed out how badly you corroborated them in cognitive differences between sexes" So no matter what sources I will provide for my future edits (let's say for example these), I cannot claim "truthfulness" because of my first edits on RW? That's preposterous. If a make an edit, then it must be judged by the sources I provide for that edit, no matter what I wrote on RW months ago. -Lankaster (talk) 21:41, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Without much of a reputation beyond 3 political pages, we don't have a lot else to judge you on, @Lankaster. We were new here once. When I started, I was careful not to edit war and I made careful decisions about what was worth fighting over and what wasn't. You may decide that these pages are worth fighting for but it's certainly going to be an uphill battle for you. A better decision in my view would be to move on from these and similar pages, and edit something else to build up your reputation first with high-quality edits. For example, try pages in Category:Pseudoscience, Category:Religion, Category:Science, Category:Fallacies. After a spending time there then maybe return to political pages. From my perspective, the political non-authoritarian articles are among the least important articles on RationalWiki. Bongolian (talk) 01:24, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

@Bongolian "Without much of a reputation beyond 3 political pages, we don't have a lot else to judge you on" You don't have to judge me, you have to judge my edits, and you can do that by looking at what sources and arguments I provide. "A better decision in my view would be to move on from these and similar pages, and edit something else to build up your reputation" So it doesn't matter what sources I provide, I have not enough reputation to make some edits? Also, it's the second time that you reply ignoring the second question of my previous post. Why do you do that? I repeat:

@RoninMacbeth "I move that we warn both Lankaster and James Earl Cash not to edit war in the future, keep the relevant pages modlocked for the time being" Although a move in the right direction, I'm afraid it shouldn't be enough. Because if a make an edit and it is reverted by James with motivations like "nor are we going to give a pass to ayaan hirsi ali of all people" then to avoid edit wars I have to contact moderators who modlock the page and, again, this makes editing extremely difficult for me (and stopping my edits extremely simple for James). To solve this issue it is necessary to address the motivations for reversion. If somebody reverts my edits because I wrote something false, or because he thinks that my sources are not reliable, I'm fine with that (see for example here, where Spud asked me for a better source and I found the original video of the quote). If somebody can revert by edits because he dislikes them or dislikes me, no matter the truthfulness of the content, then I don't see a point to edit. -Lankaster (talk) 08:05, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ So totally ignoring the RationalWiki characteristic flame war involving swear words, political slurs and institutions that other people are less worthy; this is just a dispute over some content. I fail to see why it can't be dealt with by some kind of vote. — Dysk (contribs) 14:46, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. RoninMacbeth (talk) 15:00, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

RoninMacbeth's Proposal

The proposal to warn both Lankaster and James Earl Cash to stop edit warring, with the knowledge that future action might be taken. Also, to keep the pages they warred on modlocked for a week, and to monitor future interactions between the two. RoninMacbeth (talk) 16:14, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes

1. I did propose it, so yes. RoninMacbeth (talk) 15:00, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
2. Yes. Spud (talk) 16:17, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
3. Yes. Bongolian (talk) 16:30, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
4. Yes. Cosmikdebris (talk) 16:55, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
5. Yes, it seems to cover all the bases in this instance. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 16:58, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
6. Yes, after having discussed with RoninMacbeth, I'm fine with it. ^{— Unsigned, by: Lankaster / talk / contribs}
7. Sounds good to me. Avida Dollars^{her again} 20:37, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
8. Yes. Eminently sensible. — Dysk (contribs) 21:23, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Results

There seems to be no opposition. So the motion passes. I've modlocked Brett Kavanaugh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Linda Sarsour was already modlocked. The coop case has ended; please try to avoid coming back: it's no fun. Bongolian (talk) 06:09, 17 November 2018 (UTC)