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This Request for Comments is about the behavior of user Pastorrussell (talk · contribs) in editing the article on Charles Taze Russell: primarily POV pushing, and breach of Wikipedia guidelines to that end.
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Charles Taze Russell was a 19th century minister. The article, as currently written, appears to several Wikipedians to be non-neutral. Pastorrussell is a member of the Bible Students, a religious group following and promoting Russell's teachings, and his edits attempt to keep the Wikipedia article closely based on the biographical page at his own website Pastor-Russell.com.
After previous collaborative editing, this version appeared in May 2005, first via an anonymous editor 65.28.248.240 [1] and then explicitly via Pastorrussell ([2] "Pastorrussell (Bio (c) 2005 ... Suggest changes at: webmaster@pastor-russell.com").
Since then, edits by other editors have been persistently reverted except for trivial paraphrasing and Wikification. Pastorrussell has asserted that he and his religious group, the Bible Students, have control of the article because they have a unique factual insight into the subject due to access to primary sources. This stance makes it impossible to make relevant edits that significantly alter the article: for instance, to include alternative views, religious or secular, of his life and actions (as required by NPOV#Religion).
Despite this claim to sources, he fails to cite them.
An NPOV banner has been put up on the article five times within a 24-hour period and removed each time.
At 05:30, 23 July 2005 (UTC), after ignoring an admin warning, he was blocked for 24 hours for breach of the Three Revert rule [3].
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Ownership of article and editing conduct
Legal threat
Failure to cite sources
NPOV
Original research and verifiability
As Talk:Charles Taze Russell/archive1 shows, several users have asked the user in question to stop removing the NPOV banner. There has been a suggestion that a vote be taken.
The talk shows that the user in question, while saying that discussion is the way to resolve disputes and claiming to desire a compromise, nevertheless makes clear that any such compromise must be based on other editors' acceptance of the accuracy and NPOV nature of his version [16] .
He repeatedly dismisses specific questions as minor, fails to Cite sources, and will not agree that there is a POV issue.
On User talk:Pastorrussell, K. has asked him to stop removing the NPOV tag and to discuss the situation, and Tearlach urged him to read the NPOV guidelines. Currently (13:44, 20 July 2005 (UTC)) there has been no response.
In response to the RfC, discussion is ongoing (21:34, 20 July 2005 (UTC)) at Talk:Charles Taze Russell/archive1#Discussion arising from 2nd RfC with uncertain tone. Pastorrussell has expressed an interest in compromise and discussion, but his commitment to NPOV looks questionable as he views credible sources by Wikipedia standards - the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed., Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, 2005 and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church - as biased
He is also continuing to delete the NPOV tag [19] [20] [21] with a unilateral claim that "All NPOV issues have been fixed".
Multiple reverts in five hours time [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] with the claim that "NPOV issues have been & are being resolved " on 22 July 2005 (not a basis for removing a NPOV tag).
One of the authors of this RfC has advised the user in question that, if he thinks the majority are being unreasonable, he should request mediation. There has been no response from the user in question.
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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.
It is important that a neutral and unbiased article reflecting on the life, ministry, and legacy of Pastor Russell be created, and maintained. Any edits reverted by me have been edits harmful to the facts, and not simply to the article itself as it now reads. There have been a dozen efforts to remove all forms of POV from the article, but others keep insisting on adding additional material that has nothing to do with Pastor Russell, or connecting him with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Although they claim him as their founder, he was merely the founder of the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, and not the current religious movement. Thus, to connect him with the JWs, or make it appear that they are one and the same goes contrary to historical fact. To connect him with the JWs would be a non-neutral POV, which everyone seems to be talking about. I am anxious to work with everyone, and have said that from the start. Many have been hostile to these attempts, and have made edits which are highly inappropriate to the facts, or again, biased towards the JWs. It is my desire the article reflect a fair, balanced, neutral, and factually correct record of the life of Charles Taze Russell, not the JWs or Bible Students, or any other group.
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This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute.
Having reviewed the pages, all I can say is that the editors dealing with this problem have shown incredible patience. Pastorrussell has continually violated the 3RR, unilaterally declared NPOV problems have been fixed, when, in fact, all he has done is revert to his preferred version, and has made declarations of special, uncitable, knowledge. Currently he is blocked because of a 3RR violation. His behavior is almost a paragon of the phrase "Pove troll" (see Talk - Tearlach 15:33, 24 July 2005 (UTC)) in that he has not merely attempted to enforce his POV, but has made statements which seem almost calculated to provoke, or at the very least are made without regard for civility and collegiality.
Several editors have repeatedly attempted to bring the page to consensus, and work within the discussion process, and each time Pastorrussel has refused in terms which are both high handed and arbitrary.
The present situation is intolerable, and the recommendations from the editors involved indealing with Pastorrussel should be taken, and acted on upon quickly with the support of the community. We should not be allowing individual abusive editors to waste the time of so many valuable contributors for as long as this edit war has dragged on. Stirling Newberry 06:05, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
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It seems fairly clear that User:Pastorrussell is a POV warrior and is convinced that everyone else is filled with bias. I have no knowledge of the content of this article and had never even heard of Russell until two days ago, but when I blocked Pastorrussell for his second 3RR violation (after letting him slide for the first violation with a warning despite a whopping 14 reverts) he accused me of being biased against his POV. Until Pastorrussell is capable of writing in an NPOV manner and learns to play nicely with other editors, I don't think he should be editing this article.
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