Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Johan Magnus, Ruhrjung, Tuomas

In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with these users and have failed. This must involve the same dispute, not different disputes. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 20:25, May 2, 2005 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 03:24, 5 November 2024 (UTC).

Statement of the dispute

I am filing a joint RfC because these users more or less act like one, ganging up to support one another no matter what. I don't suspect sock pupeteering, but their behavior seems to be focused mostly on agreeing with one another and adhering to privately held opinions and gross misenterpretation to facts rather than to NPOV or reasonable verifability.

The three users have consistently been involved in reverting most of the attempts made by Peter Isotalo to make edits to the articles Swedish language, Swedish phonology, Standard Swedish and Scanian language as well as refusing to accept attempts to make the articles NPOV or even factually accurate. Everything from article layout to basic facts of linguistics has been questioned or reverted more or less on sight. Attempts to propagate use of the same IPA characters as in most Swedish-language phonologies as well as the one in the IPA Handbook have been questioned on the basis of personal opinion. Extremely questionable and clearly regionalist (or even seperatist) material in Scanian language has been fiercly protected and to some degree the POV:ing has worsened during the course of the dispute. All three users are hostile to varying degrees, and constantly support one another's edits by reverting any edits that are deemed too bold while being uncivil, occasionally making personal attacks, refusing to cite sources and being generally unverifiable and fiercly territorial about articles about Swedish.

Description

Since I started editing articles on Swedish in general and Swedish phonetics in specific, the only regularly active participants in discussions have been these three users. After I made edits that mostly concentrated on the Sounds-section of Swedish language and later moved most of it to Swedish phonology, the conflicts began in earnest. The general behavior has been one of superior posturing and condescending comments about respecting older editors (and edits) rather than trying to concentrate on confirming the factual basis for those edits. The burden of proof is always placed on others and old edits are always assumed to be right until actually proven otherwise, despite the lack of sources.

Very basic notions of Swedish standard language, the amount and transcriptions of phonemes [1], the validity of a handful of Swedish phonologies; all have been questioned with little or no sources and usually deemed too complicated or academic when not fitting the views of J, R or T [2]. Usually the claims are questioned when others present them, but when presenting claims of their own, little or no source material is provided and all burden of proof is placed on others. All three users have also accused Peter Isotalo of making edits that are inherently (even if unintentionally) Swedish nationalist and anti-Finland-Swedish, anti-Scanian, etc. The general attitude for the past weeks has been that all edits that actually add new material or removes old content should not be reverted immidiately and at best partially reinstated after J, R and T have approved of it. If they don't, it is immidiately removed without any real attempts at compromising. Even simple layout issues are bitterly disputed, despite precedents that support them in other articles. [3], [4].

I (Peter Isotalo) can't see any substance in any of their accusations. I will admit that I might've been a bit rash in the beginning, but I've not engaged in edit wars, I've not tried to simply counter-revert and I've tried to include their suggestions when editing. I've tried to encourage dialogue at the article talkpages, but most, if not all, of my suggestions have been ignored or scoffed at with condescending comments. Most importantly, I've brought forth a great many reliable sources on the matter of Swedish phonology, most of which have been ignored or questioned as academic "opinions".

After a very long period of mediation facilitated by Inter with no real progress or improvement in behavior, it seems as if an RfC is the only option. The decision was endorsed by Inter. I have no objections to Inter's mediation and I believe he has done all he can to be as neutral as possible.

Evidence of disputed behavior

Johan Magnus

Labeling comment about unique Swedish sounds as "nationalist proudness" [5]
First making hidden comments on a talk page [6], and then scolding for revealing them and replying - [7]
Auto-reverts of NPOV-banner at Scanian language along with uncivil edit summary - [8], [9]
Revert in support of Tuomas and Ruhrjung - [10]

Ruhrjung

Uncivility ("pain in the ass") - [11]
Non sequitur answer to attempt to explain basic matters of phonetics - [12]
Uncivil and condescending comments in the form of "Advice to young Peter" - [13]
Indirect accusation of vandalism - [14]
Hostile reply to a request to stop constant reverting of edits - [15]
Uncivil comments hinting at chauvinism - [16]
Supporting anonymous and unmotivated revert [17] with motivation that it's a way to instruct how to behave properly [18]
Reverting RfC for Scanian language - [19]
Reverting edit proposal and inserting Tuomas' version instead - [20]
Overruling references to linguistic sources by claiming personal experience and other non-scientific argumentation - User talk:Ruhrjung#Phones_and_phonemes

Tuomas

Revert with uncivil edit summary - [21]
Revert with poorly motivated edit summary "TOO bold" - [22]
"...textbooks are evasive and Swedes are cronically confused..." - [23]
Very uncivil reply entirely in Swedish - [24]
"And you treat the Finland-Swedes as shit." - [25]
Asserting personal views over that of academic literature and making generalizing remarks about Swedes - [26]
Asserting own opinion over that of academic sources and dismissing them as "opinions" - User_talk:Tuomas#Mediation_and_Leinonen
"Isotalo has not yet quite mastered to persuade and contribute in the consensus decision-making. Significant of this is his appearant inability to discuss on other terms than his own, i.e. to contribute to the seeking for compromises. This have seemingly led to the creation of a little mob, flock, or pack that by now is rather suspicious of anything that originates from Isotalo. This is sad!" The mob/flock/pack refered to in this quote is made up Johan, Ruhrjung and Tuomas themselves. - [27]

212.181.86.29 - this anonymous account displays edits that indicate that it is actually being used by Tuomas

Two edits [28], [29] are made to Swedish language, reverting edits Peter Isotalo made and one [30] to Talk:Swedish language, signed only as "J.O.".
This edit [31] is made right in the midst of Tuomas' busy editing his own version of a Swedish phonology as a subsection of his user page on April 23. The rest of the edits of this account match the interests of Tuomas quite accurately. This includes edits about Sweden, Finnish issues, Malmö, Lund, and World war II and a much earlier edit to Swedish language [32].
This edit [33] shows that whoever was using the account knows Swedish.

The most relevant talkpages are Talk:Swedish language, Talk:Swedish phonology, Talk:Standard Swedish, and Talk:Scanian language.

Applicable policies

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

User:Inter's mediating mainly at Talk:Standard_Swedish#Mediation and at Talk:Swedish phonology#Mediation.

User:Mustafaa, an experienced editor with a solid knowledge of linguistics made an attempt to clear up some issues of IPA-transcription [34].

User:Etxrge, a native speaker of Swedish, commented the situation at Scanian language [35].

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

(sign with ~~~~)

Peter Isotalo 20:25, May 2, 2005 (UTC)
Inter\^Echo 09:18, 10 May 2005 (UTC) See below.[reply]

Other users who endorse this summary

(sign with ~~~~)

Inter\^Echo 00:20, 3 May 2005 (UTC) By "endorsing" I do not mean that I support an rfc against these users, it simply means that I want outside opinions, as we have discussed for a long time and have had some healthy discussions but sometimes that may not be enough. I am also signing in the "Other" section because of this very reason.[reply]

I would like to point out that it has been over a week since this RfC was filed. All three users have been notified on their talk pages, but so far only Johan Magnus has replied, but still hasn't submitted a proper response. I think it's difficult for outsiders to submit decent comments when only one side has submitted a statement.

~~Peter Isotalo 23:24, May 9, 2005 (UTC)~~

Response

This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete.

{Add summary here, but you must use the endorsement section below to sign. Users who edit or endorse this summary should not edit the other summaries.}

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

This RfC is a childish implementation of Attack as the best Defence after my warning

You, Peter, has repeatedly been informed and warned that your lack of Wikipedia:Wikiquette and Wikipedia:Civilty is not only to the disadvantage of your standing but also to the disadvantage of the involved articles. Your behaviour does now start to approach the limit after which at least I would begin to consider collecting examples suitable for a Wikipedia:Requests for comment.

that is timestamped 16:02, May 2, 2005 (UTC). Four and a half hour later, Peter informed me at User talk:Ruhrjung#RfC that I'm encouraged to respond to his RfC.

The RfC signifies the failure of my effort to convey what I consider a more efficient and suitable mindset for how to cooperate with fellow Wikipedians. In my view, Peter exaggerates Wikipedia:Be bold to a degree that risks putting off not so few other contributors, which I fear will decrease the probability for correction of errors and bias in articles Peter are involved with. He is productive, energetically pushing his ideas and misconceptions in which he has an unlimited confidence, fearless of the shame most would feel after proven wrong on points in which they have invested their credibility, and without any appreciation of the cooperative nature of Wikipedia or the value of the critical reading earlier generations of Wikipedians have exacted on articles. He appearing to be a Swedish nationalist and chauvinist is a lesser problem for me, since Sweden is, after all, not a particularly important corner of the World — however, a corner I fancy. I believe that might be more of a Finnish-Swedish problem[36] than a concern for anyone else.

To put it in plain language, I have a distinct fear of Peter being too fond of bossing around for the gratifying effect of feeling in charge, in control, or just superior. This doesn't improve the cooperation between Peter and other Wikipedians who contribute to the articles in question. Talk:Voiceless uvular fricative#German example is the latest example of this that I've come across, and given the bad relations between us I have no hope that trying to contribute to the discussion would lead forward, particularly not as I already have aired my disillusion in Peter's previous attempt to remove the example; an attempt[37] that I then interpreted as the effect of pure ignorance when motivated with: "Someone seems to have confused this sound with voiceless velar fricative as the German 'ach'-sound." Needless to say, I have a very limited confidence in Peter's expertice with regard to German. I would guess that any teacher of German as a second language must put at least some emphasis on the difference between the uvular, the velar, and the palatal fricatives. A, in my view, similar situation was Peter's insistence on the "uniqueness" of certain Swedish sounds (or even phonemes)[][][38]. When Peter then realized his error, there was in his view suddenly no reason to mention the matter at all, not even to avoid a repeated inclusion of this popular misconception by some other Wikipedian.[39]

Peter's ignorant handling of the clearly expressed principles for handling of RfC, that is his moving[40] of an uncertified RfC to the list of certified when it in fact should have been speedily deleted, maybe also can be explained as exaggerated boldness, what do I know?

I believe someone who have energy to go through Peter's history of communication will find plenty of example of ignorance of certain Wikipedians as a strategy. My initial experience was: User talk:Karmosin#Thanks for the Swedish "sj" pronunciation!, where my question has remained unanswered since March 18th, although commented by User:Johan Magnus at User talk:Karmosin#dialects and standardized dialects on April 13th. I have the impression, that User:Tuomas has experienced this strategy as more stressfull than I have, and one could guess that Peter's unsmooth relations has not been limited to the three Wikipedians that are adressed by this RfC. Hints may be noted at User talk:Karmosin#Old Norse - Old/Runic Swedish and Talk:Scanian language#Anonymous revert.

Factually, I think Peter has very little (if anything at all) to complain about.

His rather insensitive move to create new articles on Swedish phonology and Standard Swedish as fait accompli without any degree of forehand councelling although involved in discussions on the relevant talk page have neither been reverted nor received anything but much milder criticism than deserved, despite it being obvious that he has far from convinced anyone about the possible advantages of a division of Standard Swedish from Swedish language.
Peter's edits have chiefly been reverted in relatively few cases when he has introduced or re-introduced un-wikipedian style or actions, as for instance [41][42][43], or when he has introduced obvious errors[44]. (The to my ear quite strange assertion that the English Phew! sound should be dorso-palatal velar fricative has not been reverted, although from the talk page it's obvious that what's questioned is rather how frontal the sound referred to as non-dorsal may be articulated. Peter's wording has been let in the article's despite the criticism.)

It can however not be denied that Peter has been adviced in clear words when he's not understood hints of more diplomatic expressions, and that this transition in Peter's case has gone much faster than in many other.

Ultimately I've had one superior priority in my interactions with Peter, and that has been to ensure both Peter's and other valued Wikipedians' continued contributions, a theme first taken up in Talk:Standard Swedish#Words of advice to young Peter. It seems as if I've failed.

--Ruhrjung 14:28, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

I do chiefly agree with Ruhrjung above. It can however be noted, that I am the one who has been visibly provoked by Isotalo's in my opinion tragically anti-Finnish bias - particularly tragical as he bears a clearly Finnish surname. There is no use to deny that some of my reactions maybe could have been better and more diplomatically expressed if I'd waited longer, but on the other hand, Isotalo was pretty eager to criticize when responses didn't arrive fast enough and I didn't feel less provoked by waiting, why I have come to the conclusion that I better stay away from the errors and chauvinism introduced by Isotalo.

I did inform Ruhrjung and Johan Magnus on this my conclusion in a somewhat lengthy e-mail, where the chief points were that I do not see that anything anyone of us have said really seems to have any potency to be correctly understood by Isotalo, and that due to the way the Wiki-software works and the great amount of energy and time Isotalo obviously has to put in, maybe it was the best to silently withdraw from the project, or at least from those parts of Wikipedia where Isotalo could be expected to be encountered.

I may very well be interpreting Wikipolicies wrongly, that's not really my cup of tea, but I tend to agree with Ruhrjung that this page ought to have been speedily deleeted a long time ago.

I do not have any need to see my very wordings prevail at Wikipedia, and I consider encounters with personalities of Isotalo's type to be unrewarding, which sums up to a strong incentive to spend my time and energy on more rewarding activities.

It's also important to take this opportunity to express my thankfulness to Johan Magnus, most of all, and others for their attempts to calm my tendencies to call a spade for a spade and not beat about the bush, which I in retrospect often can realize to appear as bad, and too literal, translations of how things are expressed in my mothertongue.

I wish all the best for the Wikipedia project, including either Isotalo's speedy maturing or disappearance.

/Tuomas 10:13, 17 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Outside view 1

Since nobody else commented -- I don't know how helpful this will be. Well, I'm afraid I cannot sympathize very much with either side in this case. I see no clear example in Peter's diffs above that show the rfc-ees in a condemning light. The case is a question of an ongoing pattern of edits, not easily visible to the outsider, and rather unsavoury to research. Ruhrjung does seem rather harsh and condescending, which did nothing to alleviate tensions. Tuomas, by saying

"Isotalo has not yet quite mastered to persuade and contribute in the consensus decision-making. [... which has] seemingly led to the creation of a little mob, flock, or pack that by now is rather suspicious of anything that originates from Isotalo. This is sad!"

(quoted by Peter in his evidence, no less) shows his ability of self-criticism, and an awareness that the situation is unhappy, and I do think Peter has to blame himself in parts that editors look at him with suspicion now. I have no doubt that both sides are acting in good faith, and I would wish that, seeing Peter is outnumbered, his opponents would restrain themselves, and make suggestions for compromise on how he could properly include his point of view ("writing for the enemy"). Even the obscurest of opinions have a place on Wikipedia, and I do not think Peter's attempts were frustrated because his points are without value, but for his failure to collaborate and compromise. My suggestion would be to stop the tedious name-calling, and get back on topic. I would advise Peter to compose a list of points he wants to add to the articles in question, on subpages or in his user space, with references. After that, his opponents could argue against each point separately, or make suggestions how they could be included. Direct the explanations at outsiders, so we'll get a clearer picture of what's at the core of the dispute (which I'm not sure I quite understand). You've reached a dead end. Take it slowly, one small step at a time, from here. Let me emphasize that I think Peter is competent on the subject in question, and it would be a pity to frustrate a knowledgeable editor. However, expertise is not the only requirement of an excellent editor of Wikipedia, you also need indulgence and some good grace. I am confident that if you people sort out your disputes, the result will be an excellent, best ever online repository of the Swedish language, so I really hope you'll find a way to collaborate. dab (ᛏ) 14:00, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Users who endorse this summary (sign with ~~~~):

--Wiglaf 21:57, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
None of the involved parts have been acting consintently out of order, IMO. --Fred-Chess 10:01, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Outside view 2

Provisional: I would like to comment on this RFC, but it's difficult when there has so far been no response from Tuomas and only a draft posted to the talk page from Johan Magnus. The RFC was opened 9 days ago, and still the community doesn't have much of a chance to comment on it, which is rather unsatisfactory. I do appreciate that RL can get in the way, but I would really like to encourage Johan Magnus to provide the promised diffs (see talk page), and Tuomas to please respond at all. Or all three to post a combined non-draft response (I don't feel I can usefully comment on a draft), that would of course be fine too. In my view the only officially posted response, Ruhrjung's, presents his case in a poor light, with accusations unsupported by evidence. Please try to give outside reviewers something to go on! Ruhrjung's opinion of Peter is not helpful as such—what's wanted is diffs that allow the reviewer form an opinion. Also please note that personal attacks like "being too fond of bossing around for the gratifying effect of feeling in charge, in control, or just superior"—an example of a really very insulting comment—reflect more badly on the person making them than on the target. --Bishonen | talk 19:03, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I also agree with Bish; the only way forward for all editors involved is moving on, concentrating on content, and showing mutual respect. dab (ᛏ) 09:35, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this one too.--Wiglaf 10:56, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly disagree with the professional haters, bishonen, dbachmann and wiglaf. They are a clique of wrongdoers, who can be found on many request for arbitration pages; they just provocate wikipedia editors trying to get thru their primitive and perverse hatred on humanity. Simply disgusting.

Comment added but not signed by Aalien. See contribs for explanation of patent nonsense / Peter ^Isotalo 21:18, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Discussion

All signed comments and talk not related to a vote or endorsement, should be directed to this page's discussion page.

Because of the delay of any responses or comments, I submitted Swedish language to be peer reviewed. It has received quite extensive commments from one user so far.

Peter Isotalo 14:41, May 11, 2005 (UTC)