Drhankh

January 2011

Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to make constructive contributions to Wikipedia, but at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to Gunfighters of the Northwest, did not appear to be constructive and has been automatically reverted (undone) by ClueBot NG.

• Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Note that human editors do monitor recent changes to Wikipedia articles, and administrators have the ability to block users from editing if they repeatedly engage in vandalism.
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• The following is the log entry regarding this warning: Gunfighters of the Northwest was changed by Drhankh (u) (t) ANN scored at 0.963094 on 2011-01-08T21:57:38+00:00 . Thank you. ClueBot NG (talk) 21:57, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

March 2013

Hello, I'm MrX. I noticed that you made a comment on the page Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steve Cottle that didn't seem very civil, so it has been removed. Wikipedia needs people like you and me to collaborate, so it's one of our core principles to interact with one another in a polite and respectful manner. If you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. - MrX 00:55, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Your email

Your email to me was a bit harsh. I'm not especially fond of being accused of a cover up or of incompetence, but at least the latter is within the realm of reason. To avoid such misunderstandings in the future, let's keep our discussions in the open (on talk pages).

Your comments at the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steve Cottle AfD (Articles for Deletion) were entirely inappropriate, regardless of what you think of Samrolken. There's a time and place, and that wasn't it, which is why I collapsed your comments. Please read WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL to understand what our policies are, and why we have them. Also read WP:VANDALISM, because I don't think you quite understand the narrow definition that that term has here. Finally, read WP:GD for the guidelines on how to participate in an AfD discussion.

If you believe that Samrolken has acted inappropriately, or violated our policies, the first recommended step would be to discuss it with them on their talk page. If that does not yield a resolution, then you can post it to WP:ANI, however, you should make sure that you understand Wikipedia's purpose, policies and guidelines before you do. Please rest assured that I am not trying to diminish your concerns, but there is a proper way to handle things, and making accusations about an editor/user at an AfD discussion is not one of them. Please feel free to ask questions after your read some of the linked help tutorials, and I will do what I can to help you. - MrX 03:39, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

MrX's Highly Questionable Actions

A Wikipedia user, Drhankh, reported a serious breach, an extremely blatant Conflict of Interest, with sufficient details and documentation to back it up. What did MrX do? Did he look into it? Did he take any action to correct it? Did he report it anyone? Did he ask for more information?

No, he did worse than simply ignore it. He hid it.

He then made totally unfounded accusations against the user, Drhankh, who reported the CoI.

He then attempted to control the discussion by demanding that the CoI violation and the vandalism it entails be ignored. He did this by demanding "... please discuss the merits of the content, not the editors who created it."

His accusations are all of a nature that are either entirely subjective or the repeated use of references to generalized, lengthy articles with no specifics at all.

MrX accused Drhankh of engaging in a "Personal attack ..." What is his evidence? Drhankh reported in a very civil, factual manner, an extremely blatant case of a serious Conflict of Interest (CoI) by user samrolken attempting to get an article about his close personal friend, deleted, an Afd initiation that was simply an act of vandalism.

It's very easy to make baseless attacks by resorting to generalities, totally subjective accusations or conclusions and making vague references to lengthy articles but offering not ONE specific quote of anything in the articles.

MrX wrote: "... regardless of what you think of Samrolken."

Let me make this crystal clear. Until I heard about the AfD, I had never heard of Samrolken. Any opinions I may have of him are largely based on (1) reading a series of email messages posted by subject Steve Cottle, and some members of two Yahoo groups, (2) analyzing all of that material, (3) reading the Afd, (4) reading some of Samrolken's past history regarding two previous Afds, (5) interviewing Mr. Cottle extensively for several hours using written chat software where transcripts were maintained, (6) reading and getting a copy of the complete chat transcript between the individual that is almost certainly Samrolken and Mr. Cottle, (7) obtaining screen printouts from Facebook to verify that the transcript is accurate, which came from Facebook, and occurred in the time frame of the Afd and thoroughly reviewing and synthesizing all of that material and conducting a review of applicable Wikipedia policies.

The CoI that was reported was done in as neutral a manner as possible, but inasmuch as the misconduct by Samrolken was a serious breach of Wikipedia guidelines, there's no way for a reader to read what he did and not see what he did in a negative light, because it was clearly improper behavior.

MrX wrote:

"If you believe that Samrolken has acted inappropriately, or violated our policies, the first recommended step would be to discuss it with them on their talk page. ..."

MrX doesn't seem to recognize that Drhankh has already researched various pages, and while that is the normally recommended first step, Drhankh doesn't feel that it is his role to directly confront Samrolken. Partly this is based on reading the entire chat transcript between him and Mr. Cottle, which Drhankh found extremely unpleasant to read initially. His assessment was that Samrolken was completely unwilling to listen to reason.

In any case, since Samrolken initiated the Afd, it seems he himself could have read Drhankh's Keep comments and responded in some fashion.

MrX wrote:

"If that does not yield a resolution, then you can post it to WP:ANI". The problem here is two-fold; based on MrX's previous actions, Drhankh lacks confidence in him and the process. MrX proposes that Drhankh engage in time consuming laborious steps while ignoring the CoI, with a pending seven day deadline with only about three days remaining.

And finally, MrX has made several accusations with a complete lack of specificity, generalized references, and lack of any details.

It seems apparent that if user Drhankh simply decides to do nothing more regarding either Samrolken, the CoI, or the Afd, then quite simply his report will be completely ignored, because MrX has no intention of doing anything about it.

Steve Cottle

Hi, Drhankh. I'm really sorry you had to spend all that time investigating chat transcripts and interviewing Steve Cottle(?!) for no reason. But even if your allegations are true (they mostly aren't), it is not relevant. There's no such policy or guideline on Wikipedia that disallows or even recommends against an AfD being nominated by someone connected with the article's subject. Policies and guidelines on verifiability and notability, however, are crystal clear. Since it's obvious that for some reason it's very important to you to keep the Steve Cottle article on Wikipedia, I'd suggest you focus your efforts there and stop concerning yourself with me personally.

It's true that Steve Cottle is a long-time personal friend of mine. And my nomination of the article about him for deletion was based on a belief that as of this time he is not (yet?) notable enough to make it possible to write a verifiable article about him backed by reliable sources. If you can help out by providing some reliable sources for Steve Cottle and the information in the article about him, I would gladly change my mind and insist on keeping the article. Thanks.

samrolken (talk) 07:40, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

samrolken Responds

Hi samrolken,

Thanks for your comments. In general, they are appreciated.

"... I'm really sorry you had to spend all that time investigating chat transcripts and interviewing Steve Cottle ..."

I didn't have to DO anything. I volunteered myself because I perceived a true injustice occurring, and there was simply no one else available to intervene to correct matters.

"... for no reason."

Flatly untrue. Mr. Cottle reported what you had done, he did so in writing, and I received a copy. I knew who he was and what he has done, why he is notable, what he's accomplished, had visited his archive and found invaluable information, and discovered the Wikipedia article about him on Jan. 9th, found it useful, informative and true, and downloaded and saved a copy.

I've been familiar with who he is for years, and read plenty of his messages, but had never contacted him until after you initiated the Afd.

Unlike you, I have a detailed knowledge of the comics field and communities, and a true appreciation of newspaper comics and strips as an artform, which you clearly do not.

"It's true that Steve Cottle is a long-time personal friend of mine."

In fact, it's your ONLY nexus in connection with this article.

You're not interested in comics and wouldn't even be aware of this article except he's your friend. And it appears you only got the idea to initiate the Afd during your chat with him on Facebook.

Do you remember everything you said to him?

Well I do have a copy of it, all of it, and I read everything you wrote.

"There's no such policy or guideline on Wikipedia that disallows or even recommends against an AfD being nominated by someone connected with the article's subject."

Untrue.

You initiated this:

"Fails all notability guidelines. samrolken "03:16, 26 February 2013 (UTC)"

Note that you do not volunteer that you know the subject of the article, let alone that you are his friend. You keep this CoI hidden. Further, you offers ZERO specifics or facts in your statement.

By contrast, look at all the detail and specific references I provide:

"* Keep - I discovered that the user who initiated this Articles for deletion (Afd) action, samrolken -- is actually a close personal friend of the subject of the article, Steve Cottle.

"Mr. Cottle was interviewed extensively and the two of them have been friends for over 15 years. In fact, samrolken's only connection with Mr. Cottle is his personal friendship. samrolken apparently has no interest in comics and no appreciation of them as an artform.

"Mr. Cottle and samrolken engaged in a text chat on Facebook on the evening of Feb. 25th, during which time samrolken decided to initiate the Afd and told his friend that he was going to see to it that it would be deleted and would be gone in seven days.

"'You should not create or edit articles about ... your close friends. ... You should also not write about people with whom you could reasonably be said to have an antagonistic relationship in real life.'"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest

"Extensive interviewing of Mr. Cottle, as well as a detailed review of the chat transcript confirm that not only was samrolken a close friend, but there was clearly antagonism during the chat, which timestamp records from Facebook and Wikipedia show that samrolken initiated the Afd while chatting with the subject.

"Wikipedia:Vandalism

"Abuse of tags

"Bad-faith placing of non-content tags such as {afd} ... or other tags on pages that do not meet such criteria."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vandalism

"Inasmuch as samrolken's sole nexus related to this article was his friendship with the subject, and the Conflict of Interest (CoI) is "clearcut and blatant, yet hidden in this Afd page

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Steve_Cottle

"a reasonable conclusion would be that this is simply an act of vandalism, which should be prohibited, rejected, and rapidly "withdrawn. Drhankh (talk) 23:47, 1 March 2013 (UTC)"

Now back to you:

There is "no such policy" you allege?

There is a prohibition against:

"Bad-faith placing of non-content tags such as {afd} ..."

There is a prohibition against obvious CoIs:

"'You should not create or edit articles about ... your close friends. ... You should also not write about people with whom you could reasonably be said to have an antagonistic relationship in real life.'"

These are quotes from Wikipedia guidelines.

Common sense should tell you that if you should NOT write about, create, or edit articles about your close friends, then you also shouldn't be involved in trying to get them deleted, either.

You shouldn't be involved in any way, shape or form regarding that article. You must recuse yourself, and withdraw the Afd.

Deleting an article or proposing its deletion, is a form of editing, and believe me, I know enough about law, logic and programming to know this is true.

There is an underlying reason for the Wikipedia restrictions regarding CoIs.

"Any external relationship (any secondary role) may undermine that primary role, and when it does undermine it, or could reasonably be said to undermine it, that person has a conflict of interest. A judge's primary role as an impartial adjudicator would be undermined by her secondary role as the defendant's wife. A journalist's primary role as a disinterested investigator would be undermined by his secondary role as business partner of the subject of his investigation.

"Any external relationship - personal, religious, political, academic, financial, and legal - can trigger a conflict of interest. How close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern is governed by common sense. An article about a band should not be written by the band's manager, and a biography should not be written by the subject's spouse."

The CoI restrictions are there for an underlying purpose, to insure that editing and decisions are done impartially and with neutrality, something you cannot possibly do. Even if in your own mind you think you are doing this for 'legitimate' reasons, you must understand and accept that you need to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

You simply have to recuse yourself.

"... even if your allegations are true (they mostly aren't) ..."

You say 'they mostly aren't'. Be specific, like I am being specific.

What do you allege is untrue?

"Since it's obvious that for some reason it's very important to you to keep the Steve Cottle article on Wikipedia ..."

This was your conjecture, and it is false.

For me personally, it is not terribly important. As I said, I've known who he is and what he does for some years, but I had no relationship with him until after you submitted the Afd.

What's important to me was to prevent a clear injustice.

Even from the notability standpoint, you are clearly wrong.

However, just from general knowledge of law, I knew right away from Mr. Cottle's report that there was an obvious and blatant CoI that should have precluded you from tampering with the article about your close friend.

Do you think I simply read a bunch of articles and stumbled upon this one?

Wikipedia:Conflict of interest - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest

Hardly. I knew what to look for and found it.

Just because there is no exact wording regarding Afds, is irrelevant. Any statutory construction would render the same conclusion as what I just told you.

"I'd suggest you ... stop concerning yourself with me personally."

I'm not particularly concerned about you personally; I never even heard of you until after you initiated the Afd.

I am concerned about your blatant CoI, your improper tampering and your vandalism.

"And my nomination of the article about him for deletion was based on a belief that as of this time he is not (yet?) notable enough to make it possible to write a verifiable article about him backed by reliable sources."

Do you forget that I have written transcripts of everything?

Your Facebook chat, my extensive interviews of Mr. Cottle, the messages posted by several people on two Yahoo groups?

There's nothing that isn't in writing.

Do you remember everything you said to Mr. Cottle on Facebook when you proposed the Afd to him and told him you had done it?

You probably didn't even bother to retain a transcript.

Well I have one and read it more than once.

So I know everything you said, and it's clear to me exactly what your motivations were, and your claim above is disingenuous at best.

I certainly reread everything you wrote before I posted my Keep comments.

"... he is not (yet?) notable enough ..."

You ridiculed him repeatedly, and it had nothing at all to do with the article about him, but the fact that there even was an article. It had everything to do with your personal relationship and personal knowledge of him and nothing else.

I will tell you my professional opinion, which I have put in writing elsewhere. You were motivated by jealousy or envy.

There's an expression:

"misery loves company

"Misery is easier to bear when one is not the only one miserable."

misery loves company - Wiktionary http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/misery_loves_company

samrolken, it's simple, you are his friend, for many years, and how you view him from knowing him in real life, personally, intimately, colors your view of him. It cannot be otherwise.

You cannot be impartial, so you must step aside.

"If you can help out by ..., I would gladly change my mind and insist on keeping the article."

I will make you a counter offer. If you agree to step aside, and withdraw this Afd, then I would certainly be willing to continue the conversation with you, in writing, on this talk page, and provide the kind of information you seek.

I cannot promise it would change your mind, but I do have plenty of information.

There is hardly any reason or rationale that requires the deletion of the Steve Cottle article within three days.

We can discuss things civilly without time pressures.

If someone else (not you) still thinks it's important that the Steve Cottle article be deleted, then someone else can initiate a new Afd.

Does this sound like a fair proposal?

Drhankh (talk) 09:14, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

samrolken Quits the Discussion

I'll repeat my suggestion that you add your reliable sources to the Steve Cottle article, and quit ranting on about stuff that nobody at all except you cares about. None of this stuff you're going on about is at all relevant to the matter at hand, and it won't fix the lack of reliable sources about Steve Cottle. Since you're rude, you don't understand Wikipedia, and you seem intent to write pure lies about me and my motives, I'll not be interacting with you any more. samrolken (talk) 16:22, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

samrolken Sets the Stage for the Next Step

Hello again samrolken,

Thanks for posting additional comments.

You say:

" ... quit ranting ..."

You do know this not at all true. This is my first time interacting with you, but I do have some understanding of your skills and educational background, and I am studying you as you participate, and as you interacted with Mr. Cottle on Facebook.

I studied argumentation at the academic level, and I certainly do recognize your rhetorical tricks. While they do show some cleverness (you have obviously learned to use them, and resort to them frequently, so your use of them is fairly well-honed, they may not always work, depending on the forum and the skill of your opponent, especially at seeing through them.

All you are doing is trying to use rhetorical tricks to attempt to confuse and mislead readers with false characterizations of my comments. In the end, I do not think you will be successful.

My section, "samrolken Responds" is filled with details, specifics and most importantly, quotes from specific sections of Wikipedia guidelines that you have violated.

You had a totally free hand to respond or not, in any way you chose, yet this is your choice.

You say:

" ... about stuff ..."

Again, you try to be clever and mischaracterize my material, to suggest it is 'junk'.

"9. worthless things or matter: to clean the stuff out of a closet. Synonyms: junk, debris, litter; refuse, waste, rubbish, trash.

"10. worthless or foolish ideas, talk, or writing: a lot of stuff and nonsense. Synonyms: blather, gibberish, rigmarole, nonsense, twaddle, claptrap, balderdash."

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Stuff?s=t

I really don't think your techniques will be successful.

Others are quite capable of reading and will perceive what you are doing.

You say:

"... that nobody at all except you cares about."

You seem to forget that I have reported on this page that Mr. Cottle reported what you had done in a message that was sent to three Yahoo groups. These groups have hundreds of members. (In fact, the total number of members is well over 1,000, with 733, 358, and 188 members, for a total of 1,279, which could somewhat less in total as some individuals may belong to more than one group.)

Several people in the groups responded (in writing) and many people have commented on your actions, well before I ever entered the fray.

So there is an additional audience, and unless I am greatly mistaken, anyone can read my Talk page, as well as any messages posted to Yahoo groups reporting on the progress of this case.

And I can prove that others do in fact care, so your comment is obviously false, but I'm sure you knew that anyway, because you often just resort to rhetorical attacks containing false characterizations to confuse and mislead readers.

You say:

"... Since you're rude ..."

This is both subjective and non-specific. You simply make claims, allegations, that lack any detail at all, while ignoring all my DETAILS.

You say:

"... you don't understand Wikipedia ..."

Flatly untrue.

You say:

"... you seem intent to write pure lies about me and my motives ..."

Totally untrue. I have never written a single "lie" about you anywhere, either here or elsewhere.

And to be perfectly blunt, I'm sure you actually realize this fully.

If anyone has lied, written intentionally false material, it's you, as I have outlined above with SPECIFICS, not with broad unsupported allegations.

What is your motive to do so? I have presented a prima facie case of serious misconduct which is strongly documented, and I'm sure you fully realize that.

Your conflict of interest (CoI) is blatant, and you have essentially admitted the most important element, when you wrote:

"It's true that Steve Cottle is a long-time personal friend of mine."

You can try all you want to wriggle out of this dilemma with rhetorical tricks as much as you want, but in the end I don't think you will be successful.

I think your concern is that you risk being embarrassed or humiliated if the truth about what you did in initiating this Afd about your long-time personal friend's article, is generally understood.

In my opinion, this is simply a matter of time.

Now back to what you said:

"... you seem intent to write pure lies about me and my motives ..."

This is rather cleverly worded, samrolken. You don't directly accuse me of writing "pure lies" or even of intending to do so, but rather that it "seems" that way (to you I suppose). Yes, it is clever, but not clever enough I think.

I have explained your motive; you do not want to admit fault, you do not want to admit to having engaged in misconduct, in effect you do not want to tacitly admit to guilt.

While this is understandable, it is regrettable, because it shows a flaw in your character. A more honorable man would admit his mistake and attempt to move on. Instead, you dug a bigger whole for yourself, and hope these tricks will succeed.

Yet, what would be my possible motives for lying about you?

Can you name a single one?

I doubt it, because I have none.

In contrast to you, where Mr. Cottle is your admitted "long-time personal friend," I had zero knowledge of you before you initiated the Afd on the evening of Feb. 25th Central Time.

Is there anything in the Afd page that you wrote that would be any possible motivation for me to lie about you?

Hardly.

So really, our first interaction was today, when you posted your "Steve Cottle" section in this Talk page of mine.

Is there anything there in your polite introduction to motivate me to "lie" about you?

No, nothing.

Unlike yourself, while I have been aware of Mr. Cottle for several years and do know what's done and why he is indeed notable, we were not friends or even acquaintances.

Yes, I had read MANY messages he's written, at several forums or groups, a number of them received via email, but until sometime after you initiated the Afd, I had no personal contact with Mr. Cottle, not one bit.

So essentially I am unencumbered, and unlike yourself, an admitted close friend of his, who clearly has a major conflict to interest, I am much better equipped to be neutral and objective.

The article you tried to get deleted is about someone else, not me, so really, the only motivation I have is justice. I really would prefer to see that the proper thing is done.

You close with:

"... I'll not be interacting with you any more."

Suit yourself, though please feel free to reenter the discussion at this page if you change your mind.

I would point out that earlier on this page, MrX wrote:

"If you believe that Samrolken has acted inappropriately, or violated our policies, the first recommended step would be to discuss it with them on their talk page. If that does not yield a resolution, then you can post it to WP:ANI ...."

Your Talk page hasn't shown any entries since 2004 (over 8 years ago), so I don't think it makes any difference that we talked on my Talk page, and since you have now stated in writing that you are done interacting, that clearly frees me to move on to the next stage.

And I am sure there will be one.

Hence, I that you kindly for your cooperation. Drhankh (talk) 18:44, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

samrolken Tries Various Strategies

On the Afd, samrolken posted this comment.

"Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Drhankh has been canvassed to this discussion. samrolken 17:07, 2 March 2013 (UTC)"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Steve_Cottle

If there is any such editor, the editor should post his own comments.

And where are these comments discussed, if anywhere?

There are only two people at Wikipedia that Drhankh has communicated with, MrX, who was first approached on his Talk page, as he was the second person to respond in the Afd, and samrolken, who chose to contact Drhankh at his Talk page.

It has already been well documented on Drhankh's Talk page, that he did receive a copy of an email written by Steve Cottle, the subject of this article, notifying members of three Yahoo groups, that his friend samrolken, has proposed deleting the Steve Cottle article.

Several people responded to Mr. Cottle. Then Drhankh replied to one of the members, explaining his perception of what was going on.

Drhankh contacted Mr. Cottle by private email, to obtain more information.

Drhankh was already aware of the Steve Cottle article independently of anyone, having downloaded a copy on Jan. 9, 2013, and time stamped.

Drhankh interviewed Mr. Cottle as stated, gathered information, identified information, and made his own independent judgment to intervene, especially due to samrolken's blatant conflict of interest and impropriety in attempting to delete the article about his friend.

Drhankh has had no contact with any Wikipedia members other than MrX and samrolken.

He has downloaded and read the article:

Wikipedia:Canvassing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Canvassing

samrolken's accusation is baseless.

At the same time, samrolken in real life joined subject Steve Cottle in an online chat that had been scheduled with Drhankh. samrolken persistently tried to engage Drhankh in the discussion, which Drhankh declined.

samrolken also sent Steve Cottle a lengthy email letter.

It appears to this reader, that samrolken is improperly attempting to manipulate his friend, Steve Cottle.

Drhankh is an independent Wikipedia user who stumbled upon an apparent injustice, and his sole objective is to rectify it.

If anyone has consistently acted improperly, take a look at samrolken's actions. MrX requested, "To avoid such misunderstandings in the future, let's keep our discussions in the open (on talk pages)."

That's exactly what Drhankh has done.

Yet after samrolken failed to get his way on Drhankh's Talk page and said there "I'll not be interacting with you any more," he engaged Drhankh on his friend's chat room.

Within a very short time frame, samrolken emailed a lengthy letter to Mr. Cottle, then injected himself into an online chat between Mr. Cottle and Drhankh, that was supposed to be private. samrolken then kept refusing to leave (to the present). Drhankh (talk) 21:52, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Steven Cottle Response

I Lilreader (talk) never thought the actions happening would happen. All I hoped for was the chance to save the page created about me, and not an overall attack on others. I thought it would be a good idea to get a 3rd party involved for a clean viewpoint. All I really wanted was help saving the article regardless of why it was up for deletion. It seems everyone is on the attack side right now.

This should be noted for everyone involved in the matter

• Personal misunderstandings between longtime high school friends (Samrolken (talk) & Lilreader (talk)), and private conversations, should have been kept private and not shared with others.
• Samrolken(talk) nominated the article out of a good faith belief that there were problems with its verifiability and notability.
• This should not be personal, and any discussion should be about the content and verifiability of the article itself, and not of any people involved. Lilreader (talk) 03:08, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest and Harrassment Need to Be Addressed

There is no "overall attack on others" (at least not by me).

Unfortunately I uncovered clearcut misconduct by your friend, samrolken. I explained clearly to him and to you that he engaged in a prohibited conflict of interest. Users should not be writing articles about their close personal friends, editing such articles or trying to have them deleted, as samrolken did.

It is totally immaterial what explanations he gives for his motives.

"A Wikipedia conflict of interest (COI) is an incompatibility between the aim of Wikipedia, which is to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia .... COI editing is strongly discouraged."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest

The action of those editing articles or trying to delete them should be strictly neutral, impartial and beyond reproach and anyone who has a close personal relationship must be influenced by his longterm perceptions of the person he knows firsthand. This is prohibited conduct and needs to be understood and addressed.

I made samrolken a very fair offer, and one that would have also saved the article about you. I wrote earlier on this page:

"You cannot be impartial, so you must step aside.

"'If you can help out by ..., I would gladly change my mind and insist on keeping the article."

"I will make you a counter offer. If you agree to step aside, and withdraw this Afd, then I would certainly be willing to continue the conversation with you, in writing, on this talk page, and provide the kind of information you seek.

"I cannot promise it would change your mind, but I do have plenty of information.

"There is hardly any reason or rationale that requires the deletion of the Steve Cottle article within three days.

"We can discuss things civilly without time pressures.

"If someone else (not you) still thinks it's important that the Steve Cottle article be deleted, then someone else can initiate a new Afd.

"Does this sound like a fair proposal?"

Was it not fair?

Also, I suggest you look at the comments posted by Sangorshop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Steve_Cottle

Had I been treated fairly, I had planned to write two or three Keep comments, with one of them along the lines of what Sangorshop wrote.

I am sure that there are many articles within Wikipedia that don't have tons of footnotes but that doesn't mean the subject isn't notable.

And when I declined to play things the way your friend wanted, he invaded our chat, violating my personal privacy and refused to leave, not allowing us to communicate privately.

I have since gotten a report that he's trying to delete articles that I have simply edited, as retaliation.

He may be your friend, but he simply hasn't acted properly, and I am sorry, but he is simply misleading you.

As to the article about you, you are free to post your own comments on the Afd page about why you think it should be retained.

I do not see why I should have to intervene to try to prevent your friend from seeing to it that his plan to get it deleted succeeds.

I regret that we were unable to communicate privately, but I think you are largely on your own now.

As to samrolken, his misconduct still needs to addressed, and what he's done lately seems like harassment to me. Hopefully someone in authority will review it and come to a similar conclusion.

I am sorry, but I am a member of the Wikipedia community, and I do feel his misconduct is quite serious and needs to be stopped.

Trying to delete articles of his friends and people he doesn't like (e.g., myself) is wrong. These articles are for the benefit of everyone, and there was no reason for him to initiate a deletion of the article about Russell R. Winterbotham simply because I updated it recently (including adding that he wrote the Chris Welkin, Planeteer comic strip). This action is simply despicable and indefensible. Drhankh (talk) 04:02, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

samrolken Tries to Retaliate by Deleting Article Edited by Drhankh

A user at a Yahoo group posted a message alerting me and other members:

"I see that samrolken is now trying to have articles that [Drhankh] has worked on removed!"

I replied in part:

"Thanks for the alert! Yes, that does seem to be the case.

"He certainly has initiated an Articles for deletion (Afd) for the 'Russell R. Winterbotham' article that I edited.

"R. R. Winterbotham is a known published science fiction author, who wrote the Chris Welkin, Planeteer SF newspaper comic strip.

"And yes, I did update the article recently, adding material, though I didn't create the article.

"- Article "Winterbotham, Russell Robert" p. 1335 The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (John Clute and Peter Nicholls, 1993)

"- Article "Winterbotham, Russell (1904-1971) " p.703-704 The World Encyclopedia of Comics (Maurice Horn, ed., 1976)

"Yet [samrolken] has the unmitigated gall to write:

> Fails all applicable notability guidelines samrolken > 00:07, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Russell R. Winterbotham - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Russell_R._Winterbotham

"I also own some of his SF novels.

"How did you discover this? Did you spot others?

"This guy is engaged in prohibited vandalism and harassment and believe me, he's not very nice.

"If anything should be deleted from Wikipedia, a good start would be him.

"And the thing is, he could write 'Fails all applicable notability guidelines' all he wants with near impunity. He's pretty malicious."

Of course I would attempt to be more circumspect for something written here, but I didn't want to try to rewrite the last couple of lines much.

Of course I see he happened to refer to me elsewhere as 'a total loon' which I suspect is not actually based on his sincere belief but just being derogatory. I have seen that he has two sides to his conduct, much more decorum here at Wikipedia, much more shall we say not so nice in chats. He seems to currently be trying to taunt or bait me. Drhankh (talk) 04:26, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Questions for MrX; Is samrolken an Editor?

MrX wrote:

"Please feel free to ask questions after your read some of the linked help tutorials, and I will do what I can to help you."

What makes you think I hadn't already read much of this material before I ever posted my Keep comment?

I see no evidence that any of the referenced pieces are "tutorials."

Wikipedia:Civility looks like an article to me, and does not even contain the word "tutorial."

Since I've been encountered you, you write this that appear clearly questionable to me.

You wrote: "... please discuss the merits of the content, not the editors who created it."

I presume this refers to Afd for the Steve Cottle article.

As far as I can tell, the Afd was created by samrolken.

I have found no evidence that he is an "editor."

I have been to his Talk page several times.

Who are "the editors who created it"?

I have been to your Talk page, and you state clearly that you are an editor.

However, you did not create the AfD page.

I do not see the word "editor" anywhere on his talk page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Samrolken

As far as I know, I am simply an user, though I have edited articles.

Are you alleging that Samrolken is an editor?

If so, on what basis?

I have noticed that you spell his name with a capital "S" when you posted on my Talk page. This is also how it's spelled on his Talk page.

Yet when he posted to the Afd and twice on my Talk page, his username is spelled with a lowercase "s". Can you explain the discrepency?

This creates confusion about the proper spelling of his username and spelling it two different ways seems like a poor practice that can lead to inadvertent misspellings of his username.

Thank you. Drhankh (talk) 06:44, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Drhankh (talk) 03:00, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Your questions on my talk page

I'm not interested in a lengthy interrogatories that have nothing to do with editing articles, and seem to have everything to do with stirring up drama. I'm sorry, but I am unable to help you further. Kindly refrain from posting further to my talk page, and will reciprocate in kind. - MrX 04:38, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

MrX Deletes the Questions

Interested readers may notice a section entitled "Your questions on my talk page" posted by MrX.

It seemed ok to me. However, I happen to look at his Talk page, and I could not find the questions I posed to him.

Then I checked revisions, and saw that he had deleted the material.

In the earlier section, "Your email" posted by him, he wrote, "To avoid such misunderstandings in the future, let's keep our discussions in the open (on talk pages)."

I had done that, in particular to comply with his wishes, which seemed reasonable. I must say that I was a bit dismayed that he reneged on what he told me to do. Anyhow, so that the record is complete and easier to follow, I will add my questions to him to appear before his reply.

MrX wrote:

"Kindly refrain from posting further to my talk page, and will reciprocate in kind." Obviously, with such hostility, there's no reason at all to ever post anything on his Talk page. I will just say he made this offer to answer my questions. It wasn't me who initiated the idea, but rather him.

At an off-Wikipedia chat, samrolken gave his response, in effect to two of the questions posed to MrX that samrolken had apparently read there:

"Are you alleging that Samrolken is an editor?

"If so, on what basis?"

Here is samrolken's response.

"Is samrolken an editor?"

"Yes. Everyone is an editor."

Then I suppose I have been promoted. :)

I suppose it could simply be a complete coincidence, but I was wondering if samrolken just happened to see those two questions on MrX's Talk page (they weren't up too long), was watching the page, or if there was some unknown means of communication employed between the two of them. Drhankh (talk) 06:46, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Drhankh. You have new messages at Shaun9876's talk page.
Message added 02:35, 4 March 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

§haun 9∞76 ^༆ 02:35, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

samrolken's Formal Notice of ANI Post on Conflict of Interest, Harassment and Vandalism

Hello samrolken,

"But, I do encourage you to keep wasting your time."

As per your repeated requests via Mr. Cottle's chatroom and based upon the suggestions of MrX and Shaun9876, I have posted a section at the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents (WP:ANI).

Based on the way you seemed to be tracking my every move at Wikipedia, I'm sure you are already aware of this, however, just to be fair and on the safe side, this constitutes your formal notice.

The specific address is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Conflict_of_Interest.2C_Harassment_and_Vandalism

(I see from your comments at the chatroom, you've already found it.)

Incidentally, you claimed, "... nobody is going to take a thing you say seriously, Drhankh."

It appears that Shaun9876 took it seriously, since he replied as follows:

"... However, I would suggest bringing this to The Administrator Noticeboard or the Incidents Noticeboard."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Shaun9876#Conflict_of_Interest. 2C_Harrassment_and_Vandalism

Yes, I do read your little taunts at Mr. Cottle's chatroom. Do I have your permission to quote you from them here at Wikipedia, since they are your writings about us and Wikipedia?

Thanks in advance. Drhankh (talk) 04:54, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

This was copied from samrolken's Talk page after he deleted it.

The section was originally titled "Your Formal Notice of ANI Post on Conflict of Interest, Harassment and Vandalism." Drhankh (talk) 05:20, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

See (cur | prev) 05:05, 4 March 2013‎ Samrolken (talk | contribs)‎ . . (5,227 bytes) (-1,457)‎ . . (Removing troll content) Drhankh (talk) 05:23, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

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