Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Louis Epstein

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Complete request for arbitration with comments:

Louis Epstein

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3A12.144.5.2&diff=22632661&oldid=22598610

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

User talk:12.144.5.2#Spaces_after_periods_and_commas

User talk:12.144.5.2#Forking_and_style

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/12.144.5.2

Statement by Susvolans

Louis Epstein has been editing since August 2003[1], and has accumulated more than 3000 edits. He has never created an account, but consistently uses the fixed IP address 12.144.5.2. As early as September 2003[2], he was asked to put spaces after punctuation, as is normal. His response was By now you should realize that NOT typing spaces after punctuation marks is a habit I have had for decades,and stick to fiercely. He has stuck to this. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:12.144.5.2&diff=22588969&oldid=22588280 ] More recently, he got into repeated reversion wars over Supercentenarian and National longevity recordholders, where his response to any complaint he might want to make was always to revert to his preferred version. He also systematically and unapologetically replaces dashes with hyphens in articles he edits, landing himself with an RFC. His recent edits and comments have shown no signs of contrition over formatting issues. Susvolans ⇔ 17:24, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Louis is still revert warring despite pleas on his talk page.[3] Susvolans ⇔ 17:00, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by party 2

Since the arbitrators appear willing to accept this despite the apparent skipping of the "mediation" stage,I suppose I had better write in here.

The punctuation issue is trivial;anyone who differs with my style can alter it without prompting reverts from me,and I think Oleg's "Mathbot" even is designed to do just that.The conceit of using HTML commands instead of hyphens is in my estimation silly,though Susvolans seems to regard it as a righteous cause to use seven characters to do the work of one or two.Given that the expressed programmer intent is to make the keyboard commands be parsed as the HTML commands he seems to be wasting both bytes and time.

The two articles that I originated from nothing on subjects which I have studied for years and have been invited to multiple international conferences concerning are of considerable importance to me.Where I have made (and explained ad nauseam on talk pages!) reasoned decisions on what should be included and what should not be,in terms of both content and presentation,and no counterarguments made have made sense to me,I am not inclined to yield to the lowest common denominator.(I note that Fred Bauder formed his own fork of Wikipedia,and I have considered doing the same,just to get away from an environment where bloating articles with irrelevances is considered a virtue). As I see it a lot of the opposition to my maintaining my preferred format is based on primitive herd instinct:apostles of Wikicommunity react negatively to the very idea of someone not surrendering when outnumbered,even when those who created alternatives to my version have essentially nothing invested in them and have moved on elsewhere,while I wish to continue actively updating and correcting just so long as my preferences are respected.No attention is paid to just how much the matter means to someone or how qualified the person is in the field.

I am willing to listen to proposals for compromise but have no interest in unconditional surrender,which is what was laughably proposed on my talk page as an alternative to seeking a potentially better resolution.--Louis Epstein/le@put.com/12.144.5.2 18:04, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by third party

That Louis stubbornly refuses to listen to the pleas to use normal typographical rules for punctuation (spacing after periods and commas) and that he replaces mdashes (—) and ndashes with -- and - is not enough of a reason for a RfAr. That he still continues to use the Lynx browser fully knowing that it damages pages containing Unicode (and today that is most pages, due to interlanguage links) implies that he cares of his own comfort more than of the project, but even that is not really grave.

I would support banning Louis because even now, after this RfAr is in full stream, he still continues his revert war at National longevity recordholders. When asked what will make him happy about this article, his reply on his talk page was that:

I can see accepting an outcome significantly different from the fork alternative to mine but not completely identical to mine;simply giving in completely,however,is not an option.--Louis E./le@put.com/12.144.5.2 17:25, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I interpret this as saying that unless people agree to his version with minor corrections, he will keep on reverting the page. Oleg Alexandrov 17:38, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by TenOfAllTrades

I will echo much of what Oleg Alexandrov has said. Mr. Epstein's determined adherence to his own unusual typographical conventions renders him no more harmful than our thousands of other editors who make keying errors. His firm grasp of the English language makes him much less difficult to clean up after than many of our other contributors.

However, Mr. Epstein's behaviour becomes unacceptable where he actively undoes the cleanup work done by our other editors; his removal of HTML entities for em- and en-dashes (— and –) because he doesn't like the extra characters in his text entry box is disrespectful of the work done by others, and affects the experience of our readers by breaking with our house style.

Most harmful is his tenacious refusal to accept any substantive change to the format of 'his' articles. Mr. Epstein is without question an expert on human longevity recordholders. I would without hesitation defer to his knowledge on questions of fact or credibility regarding any longevity claimant. However, that is not what is at issue here. By refusing to accept any changes to the style of the articles–the substance is rightly left largely to him–Mr. Epstein stubbornly ignores a consensus that has arisen and perpetuates an edit war.

Ultimately, our purpose here is to build an encyclopedia for the benefit of our readers. Our articles should present information in a way that is clearest to those who read our work, and we should be willing to make (very minor!) sacrifices to ease of editing if necessary to achieve that goal. The lay editors–who probably approximate the lay readers–of Wikipedia have reached agreement on how the information in supercentenarian and national longevity recordholders can be arranged to be clearest to their eyes. They have done so without introducing changes to the factual content of those articles, which is the usual concern about changes made by non-experts.

I would ask the ArbCom to impose a revert parole on Mr. Epstein, barring him from reverting non-vandalism edits to the two named articles, or to any related articles which may arise in the future. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:31, 12 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by third party Nandesuka

I've been keeping one eye on this since the RFArb was initiated, and I just got done crawling through the talk history on the page, and reading some of the edit summaries. A few things came out of that experience:

  • As someone who just tried to make a single edit to the page, the constant wholesale refactorings of the page are horrific. Regardless of the issue of whose format is "right" or "wrong", the fact that Mr. Epstein mixes his formatting changes with "substantive" edits is damaging to the editorial process: it makes it harder for other editors to review his work, and makes it more likely that worthwhile contributions he makes will simply be lost in the noise when his changes are reverted to remove the errors in punctuation. At a bare minimum, Mr. Epstein should be separating his edits for formatting from his content edits. Anything less is, in my opinion, absolutely unacceptable.
  • In every conversation about the topic, both on the talk pages and above, Mr. Epstein always makes a point of noting that he originated the articles in question. This concerns me because it seems as though he believes the fact that he originated that articles should translate into some enhanced control over the articles. But as we see every time we click "submit": "If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then do not submit it." (emphasis added). I appreciate that Mr. Epstein is an expert in his field. All the more reason that he should be able to convince others through reasoned discussion, rather than through unilateral action.

As to the punctuation issue, well, Mr. Epstein's punctuation style is clearly wrong along just about every axis — it seems to me to be a mixture of eccentricity and a willingness to elevate a personal bad habit over proper writing technique — but I think that issue is much less important than the other items I raised above: transparency of substantive edits being obscured by massive formatting changes, and a disbelief that other editors "own" the topic just as much as he does. Nandesuka 12:45, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (4/0/0/0)

Further discussion

Louis Epstein's departure from Wikipedia

Arbcom members, I promised you I would let you know if for any reason I stopped performing the Louis Epstein punctuation patrol. Well, yesterday Louis left a "Farewell, Cruel Wikipedia!" message on his userpage [4]. I e-mailed him to discuss his departure and also to ask that he let me know should he choose to return. Until then, the LE punctuation patrol will cease. Thanks for your decision in November; in the interim we have gotten some useful contributions from Louis. Regards, Babajobu 20:24, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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