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Create your own section to provide evidence in, and do not edit anyone else's section. Please keep your evidence concise, and within the default limits. If you wish to exceed the default lengths, you must request the agreement of the arbitrators to do so on the /Evidence talk page before posting. Unapproved overlength evidence, or inappropriate material and/or diffs, may be refactored, redacted or removed entirely.

→ Important notes for all contributors to this case This case is contentious and has the ability to devolve very quickly. So, this is a heads-up on the procedures that have been adopted. First off, the clerks have been instructed to be very proactive in removing any inappropriate comments. These include: a. meta-discussions about policy b. any allegation unsupported by evidence and c. any allegation (whether supported or unsupported) against non-parties. Furthermore, the case will use a "single warning" system: clerks are authorised to issue an only warning to any editor who posts inappropriate comments; if the warning is not heeded, the editor may either be restricted from participating in this case or be blocked at the clerk's discretion. This applies to everyone, which includes the parties, involved onlookers, semi-involved onlookers, and people who wander in randomly (whether truly random or not). Finally, to prevent "drive-by" attacks and attempts to devolve this case, the case pages will be semi-protected and additional scrutiny will be paid to accounts that haven't participated in this dispute beforehand. If a new editor or an IP editor genuinely has something that needs to be said, they may ask a clerk to post it on their behalf. For the Committee, Salvio 09:08, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Any autoconfirmed editor may add evidence to this page, irrespective of whether they are involved in the dispute. Create your own section and do not edit another editor's section. By default, the evidence submission length is limited to about 1000 words and about 100 diffs for named parties; and about 500 words and about 50 diffs for non-party editors. While in general it is is more effective to make succinct yet detailed submissions, users who wish to submit over-length evidence may do so by posting a request on the /Evidence talk page. Unapproved overlong evidence may be trimmed to size or removed by the Clerk without warning.

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Evidence presented by Kiefer.Wolfowitz

Current word length: 256; diff count: 0.

Participation would be a waste of time for me.

Oliver Keyes, who operates both the Ironholds (talk · contribs) and Okeyes (WMF) (talk · contribs) accounts, is a Misplaced Pages administrator and a WMF employee. On IRC he made a comment about bringing a lighter along with oil already supplied by another administrator to use on me. When it was reported, I responded by writing that he was welcome to come to Sweden, try his chances, and suffer the consequences (using dialogue from The Crying Game). Neither of us made a threat, but the remarks were uncivil and apologies have been made, by all parties.

His supervisor and the community are aware of this incident and others on IRC, and Keyes has indicated that he is staying away from IRC. This would suffice were Ironholds never to have had a history of discussing violence.

Kww blocked me for 3 months, and I served roughly half a day before I was unblocked by Fram, who seems to hold the belief that even enforcement of civility would be a good thing to try. If Kww and Fram still disagree, they can ask for other members of the community for other opinions; failing that they can go to AN/I or other mediation fora; if they believe the issue is important, one day they could end up at ArbCom.

Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:57, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Ironholds misuses IRC

Most of these display multiple problems. I'll probably create a matrix for each diff, checking off which discusses violence, other BLP violations, inappropriate sexual banter, etc.

Violence

Ironholds (talk · contribs) advocated shooting Sharon Osbourne, Jennifer Aniston, the Popes (sequentially), in a log (Misplaced Pages-en.20090305) with links to concerning excerpts at Wikipediocracy,---the last link contains Keyes's discussion of killing a woman in a way that her cries for suffering are prolonged.

In that diff, there's also a confession of his enjoyment in frustrating others. I'll add more declarations of similar interests.

Other BLP violations

• against Joseph Reagle : "narrow-minded beardy fuckwit who understands half of what he's talking about and can communicate maybe a quarter." (Tue Jun 28 23:37:23 2011) "rammed hard from behind by Joseph Reagle" and "will there be lube?": Mon Jun 27 12:48:13 2011,

Other sexual banter

• "physically possible to suck that many cocks in that period",
• "fuck NEWT and its participants with 30-feet double-ended dildos coated in acid and razor wire"
• "masturbating furiously to fan art of dolores umbridge", a character in a children's book (wikipedia-en.20120115).
• Joking about slapping a woman, leaving her bruised, etc. (Link, already deleted per WP:BLP)

Inflamatory

• Sockpuppetry and baiting: "I've been socking for 2 years.... I'm secretly both Kiefer Wolfowitz AND ParrotOfDoom" (wikipedia-en2013-06-29)

Evidence presented by Ironholds

Current word length: 708; diff count: 0.

I was going to say "I'm going to try and keep this brief, and fail", but since I know I'm likely to fail it seems silly to make promises I can't realistically keep. I've split things into 2 sections, instead. It is not (and for this I apologise) the structure of a normal evidence section - more of an extended statement. Thanks, Ironholds (talk) 21:54, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

On Kiefer Wolfowitz, and the "dispute"

What we've got here is commonly reported in one of two ways - either as a two-stage problem (I made a thoroughly inappropriate joke, Kiefer struck back, we ended up at the Arbitration Committee) or as some long-running battle. This is not how I understand the situation, so I'm going to try and explain it from my point of view.

I have no particular liking for Kiefer - to be blunt, he strikes me as someone who delights in drama. But I don't have a long-running dispute with him, either - we don't even encounter each other most of the time. The relationship could probably be summarised best as mutual annoyance without, at my end, any particular desire to cause harm.

Inasmuch as this dispute can be said to have been a series of back-and-forths, my inappropriate joke on IRC was me airing my frustrations at some, frankly, vile accusations that Kiefer made about me. The transcripts of these have been provided to the Arbitration Committee privately. The accusations struck me as thoroughly offensive and without merit - moreover, they struck me as comments deliberately intended to cause harm. Frustrated by those accusations, I made my comment on IRC. Kiefer responded on-wiki, and the rest is history.

I have no particular desire to associate with Kiefer. Not out of a feud, or anything else, but simply because his recent actions strike me as those maximised to cause drama while allowing for an escape clause. I have avoided commenting on him, I have even nixed attempts by other users to discuss the case with me.

Kiefer writes above that the current situation "suffices for peace." I would genuinely like to believe that Kiefer's indication here - that he will stay away from me, and cease making the sort of assertions that kicked off this dispute - is a true one. That he genuinely intends to avoid me, and avoid commenting on me. Unfortunately he continues to pursue me, even after his statement here. Again, I have provided the evidence to the Arbitration Committee privately - and again, I dearly wish for him to stop.

On my actions

I've noted already that my joke was inappropriate, but I'd like to expand on that. My comment was completely unacceptable; whether Kiefer annoys me or not, whether he has made offensive statements or not, it is inappropriate for me to air my annoyances. I don't think there's anyone amongst us who isn't frustrated by other users, on occasion, but there's a line that has to be drawn between being frustrated and airing that frustration. That I aired my frustrations in a private venue is secondary to the fact that I did so in front of other editors.

I've been on IRC since I was around 17, I think - possibly earlier. I'd like to think I've changed a lot over the last few years, and that comments I made back then in the naivety of youth aren't comments I'd make today. It remains clear, however, that I still have some progress to make around how I conduct myself. Until I have resolved those issues and grown to the point where others are comfortable with my approach, I have voluntarily withdrawn from wikipedia-related IRC channels, save those I am involved in due to my work duties.

More than offending Kiefer, however, it's become clear from comments made by users at this RfAr that I've offended a lot of other people, too - people who, outside occasional disagreements, I very much respect. Wehwalt, Dennis Brown - In airing my temporary frustrations in such a cavalier manner, I've caused permanent damage. All I can do at the moment is apologise for that, and assure you that I am working to improve. If any user has been offended by my commentary and is not willing to post as such publicly, please do email me. I will not bite: I will apologise, and I will move forward.

Evidence presented by Kurtis

Kiefer and RfA

Over the past several months, I have observed Kiefer making numerous offensive remarks at various different RfAs. This is part of a longstanding pattern and demonstrates a general difficulty in getting along with other users, but it is particularly egregious in this context. As a result of his continued disruption, the community resolved to impose a near-total ban on engaging in extended discussion at RfA. I think it is important to note for contextual purposes. To list some of the more prominent examples:

• Anna Frodesiak — Kiefer initially supported, but this coincided with a couple of optional questions he had posted: the first one was to summarize her contributions at the "Suicide of Amanda Todd" article and how it demonstrates her qualifications for adminship, while the second called her username into question, specifically asking if it complies with WP:USERNAME and WP:CHILDPROTECT (Kiefer was obviously unfamiliar with both the content and the substance of the latter policy; it pertains to the privacy and security of minors, not the censorship of usernames to preserve their innocence). However, he subsequently switched to oppose because of her answer to Pedro's question, which pertained to Kiefer's recent indefinite block and subsequent topic ban from RfA; bear in mind, she spoke positively about his "obvious intelligence and his many, many good edits", and although RfA is not quid pro quo, his oppose based on the way she answered the question still strikes as needlessly harsh and dismissive. Afterwards, Kiefer expanded his rationale, referencing the "abusive behaviour" of The Rambling Man and calling Pedro an "administrator/troll". At the time of this incident, Kiefer had already been banned from extended conversations at RfAs, so he was not permitted to reply to any of the comments left in response to his oppose.

• Mattythewhite — Kiefer received a lot of heat for his oppose on that one, and his general involvement there was abrasive at best. Basically, he felt that making significant edits to association football did not qualify as "contributions to traditional encyclopedic content." He also saw Matty's writing skills as being subpar by comparison to other GA or FA writers. Most of the extended discussion about his oppose rationale was moved to the RfA's talk page. Aside from that, he also responded to a few of Matty's supporters who criticized his oppose — including Ironholds, who explicitly supported "on behalf of Kiefer Wolfowitz" before proceeding to berate his argument for its perceived elitism.

• Paulmcdonald — This is one where I was personally involved. He was the second editor to oppose, with this for a rationale (subsequently amended); it seemed as if he was opposing because Go Phightins had been the nominator. I questioned him about it, but Kiefer's reply did not help clarify things, to say the least. AutomaticStrikeout and Tazerdadog chimed in as well, saying that they were also confused by what he said. Kiefer subsequently responded by listing out two concerns that he had with Go Phightins: 1) He found the nomination to be poorly written, and 2) Go Phightins had previously nominated AutomaticStrikeout for adminship, which apparently reflects poorly on him. Kiefer justified this portion of his rationale by using the John McCain/Sarah Palin analogy to illustrate that nominating or accepting a nomination from someone with dubious qualifications is an ominous sign. I don't think I'm out of line in saying that Sarah Palin is known for giving confused, uninformed responses to important political questions. Speaking for myself, if someone compared me to her - even implicitly - I'd feel very offended.

• Miniapolis — This one passed despite a sizeable oppose camp, and Kiefer's specific rationale was not called into question. That said, it did partially reflect on the merits of Hahc21's nominating paragraph: how else would "fluffy nomination and statements" be interpreted? He also mentioned concerns with "prose" and "maturity", but failed to substantiate on either claim.

• Salvidrim — Very much the same idea as with Mattythewhite, Kiefer dismisses Salvidrim's contributions to video game articles because they do not qualify as "traditional encyclopedic content." He even went so far as to say that altering the focus of his article writing would help to demonstrate "sufficient intellect to be an administrator." Kiefer also responded to Vacation9's original weak oppose, which was innocuous enough in the beginning; however, his subsequent four responses were needlessly condescending and offensive.

• Northamerica1000 — This one also failed, and Kiefer's oppose wasn't particularly controversial here, but I thought it'd be worth mentioning. I have no idea what he meant by "Oppose per usual 'allegiance', 'fanclub' membership, and 'enabling' (thanks for the civility, NPA, and AGF, administrators!)" — was he referring to any specific group of editors? It's this kind of cryptic oppose rationale that causes all the frustration people have with Kiefer's participation at RfA.

• Then there are the ones that are just nonsensical: Binksternet, Darkwind, Apteva, etc.

Previous RfC/U

Kiefer.Wolfowitz was previously the subject of a user conduct RfC in 2011: Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Kiefer.Wolfowitz. The concerns listed there include incivility, personal attacks, patronizing comments aimed at younger editors, and a complete misunderstanding of copyright policy. Unfortunately, his overall attitude doesn't appear to have changed very much since that time, as the following reports seem to illustrate:

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