User:Plattopus/DCB

This is an out-dated draft of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Daniel C. Boyer

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(Daniel C. Boyer | talk | contributions)

Statement of the dispute

This is a summary written by users who dispute this user's conduct. Users signing other sections should not edit here.

Mr. Boyer has repeatedly and consistently used Wikipedia as a platform for self-promotion, while denying any such intention and attacking those who claim it.
Mr. Boyer has repeatedly interjected into every discussion regarding whether an article about him should be on Wikipedia, attacking the reasoning of those arguing against such an inclusion while denying that he is arguing for it.
Mr. Boyer has used anonymous IPs on two documented occasions in an attempt to restore an article about himself that was properly deleted. He has actively denied this despite the fact that both IPs can be traced to his hometown and were used to edit his userpage without reversion by him.
Mr. Boyer's user page is an excessive vehicle for self-promotion and advertising in violation of the user page guidelines.
Mr. Boyer has abused WP:RfC to attack another user who criticized his self-promotional tendencies.
Mr. Boyer has made personal attacks against many users, including Plattopus and Postdlf, and borderline attacks on Classicjupiter2's credibility. Many other comments he has made towards other users in the context of himself as a Wikipedia subject have been unduly hostile and evasive.
Mr. Boyer has persisted in inserting his comments into the middle of those written by other users in discussion threads rather than after, even breaking up sentences in the process, and has ignored repeated requests by numerous users to stop doing this.
Mr. Boyer has shown himself to be completely unable and unwilling to constructively deal with the above legitimate concerns, which have been raised by numerous users in numerous contexts over a long period of time.

Description

Self-promotion and anonymous attempts to undelete "Daniel C. Boyer" article

Mr. Boyer is an artist who has used Wikipedia as a platform for his own self-promotion. As described in greater detail below, he has added information about himself and his work to numerous articles. There is no absolute policy against this on Wikipedia, though it is generally disfavored because it not only threatens the objectivity of the Wikipedia project, but also serves to negatively color the relationships a Wikipedian has with other users.

In this particular case, Mr. Boyer has persistently entered discussions on regarding whether or not he should have an article while denying that he has any such interest. Even worse, he has done it anonymously and then has disclaimed or ignored evidence of connection to those IPs. Mr. Boyer has also used his user page in a self-advertising manner that goes far beyond policy guidelines. Many users, in many contexts, have come to him with legitimate concerns as to what they perceive to be self-promotional conduct, and have stated that they question his neutrality and wish him to avoid participating in these discussions/efforts. He has universally dismissed these concerns as resulting from "bias" against him or "lies." This is all conducted by Mr. Boyer in a hostile and defensive spirit, often with blatant personal attacks, and often by means of evasion of the issue by obsessive focus on one word or a literal interpretation of a statement that is reasonable in context. Or, he has claimed that people can't read his mind to know why he has done anything, which evades and distracts from the very real and legitimate concerns that were explicitly based on his conduct as the source of any conclusions about his motives.(see, e.g., the second comment added here).

If, as Mr. Boyer claims, he truly does not care whether he is described in a Wikipedia article, he would cease active participation in these discussions and leave the question of his notability up to the general Wikipublic. That he has denied any attempt at self-promotion[1] yet continued to intervene in every discussion that occurs regarding himself as a possible article subject shows a hidden or even dishonest motive that is unbecoming a Wikipedian. It has fostered hostility and disruption in these discussions, as he repeatedly protests his innocence and detachment while aggressively engaging in selective attacks and personal insults. That he has furthermore initiated at least two of these attempts anonymously is simply a shameful attempt to dodge process while evading responsibility.

Daniel C. Boyer article

Mr. Boyer extensively edited an article about himself, and then became very involved in its deletion debate. As the discussion describes, the article appears to have been the source of significant edit wars between Mr. Boyer and other users (this cannot be confirmed independently, however, as there is no undeletion history saved). Throughout the VfD discussion, he aggressively attacked those voting to delete, while nevertheless denying that he was engaging in self-promotion or advocating for an article about himself.

This discussion, though dated, is included in this description as it provides a context for his present disputed conduct so as to demonstrate a clear and persistent pattern, as described below. This was also the first interaction many users (including Postdlf) had with Mr. Boyer, and so formed the basis for their subsequent interaction (and the only possible source of the "bias" that Mr. Boyer has claimed Postdlf, among others, operates from).

Mr. Boyer had also created an article on a book entitled "Surrealist Subversions," in which he included a link to his article as a contributor. That article has since been deleted as well.[2]

Anonymous undeletion attempt and involvement in undeletion discussion

Mr. Boyer subsequently submitted his article for undeletion in August, 2004, through an anonymous IP. Compare [3] with that IP's contributions, which include unreverted edits to User:Daniel C. Boyer. The IP resolves to a server in Hancock, Michigan, which is Mr. Boyer's hometown according to his user page.

At the time, however, Mr. Boyer claimed he was not supporting the listing[4], implying that he had no connection to the IP. Yet he nonetheless argued against some of the reasons put forth for deleting/keeping deleted [5] while claiming that he was not pursuing the article's undeletion.[6]. He rejected concerns voiced by many contributors as to his lack of neutrality.[7]. Template:VfD-Daniel_C_Boyer also contains a reconstruction of the entire undeletion discussion.

When Postdlf attempted to get a response from Mr. Boyer regarding his surreptitious use of the IP,[8] which was suspected at the time but not discovered until later, Mr. Boyer gave no response.

Anonymous attempt to add his article to Wikipedia:Requested articles

Mr. Boyer subsequently used a second IP to add his article onto requested articles. Compare [9] with that IP's contribution history, which once again includes numerous unreverted edits to User:Daniel C. Boyer. The IP resolves to a server in Houghton, Michigan, which is about a mile from Hancock. Postdlf yet again confronted Mr. Boyer with this.[10] Mr. Boyer responded instead by attacking Postdlf for his opposition in the original VfD, and stated that he was consequently ignoring any comments made by Postdlf.[11] He later denied that he had requested his article, dismissing it as "lies" without actually addressing the evidence.[12]

Mr. Boyer's art as illustrations on surrealist techniques

Mr. Boyer has inserted images of his own artwork into the surrealist techniques article. This appears to have been done originally after at least one request from another user. However, based on Mr. Boyer's general conduct, concerns have arisen that this article is being used by him for self-promotional purposes as well. Mr. Boyer states that these are meant only as a demonstration of a technique, yet nevertheless insists on citing the full title of the artworks and listing his own name in the caption.

Wikipedians regularly use images that they have created, particularly photographs, to illustrate the subjects of articles. While it is of course proper (and expected) for authorship to be included on the image description page, it is inappropriate to include this attribution in the caption of a mere illustration of a technique, particularly given the broader context of Mr. Boyer's overall conduct. Identifying these images cannot serve as any point of reference for Wikipedia readers because they are not notable applications of a technique (for example, the Sistine Chapel appearing next to a paragraph on fresco), and so cannot give a historical point of reference based on the reader's familiarity with the artist or art.

Once again, this is a matter that Mr. Boyer cannot approach objectively, divorced from his personal interest in self-promotion. When Postdlf removed the captions,[13], Mr. Boyer reverted the removals without an edit summary and labeled the change "vandalism."[14] (second comment) He claims he has been "singled out for unfair treatment" because no attempt has been made to remove the caption information of works by Richard Genovese. That artist, however, has his own article which has survived VfD, and so can be assumed to provide a real point of reference to readers in a way that Mr. Boyer cannot.

Second undeletion discussion and RfC abuse

On April 21, 2005, an anonymous IP (this time, one that has not been tied to Mr. Boyer) again listed his article for undeletion. Given the source of the prior undeletion listing, Postdlf concluded that it was Mr. Boyer once more, but another user subsequently claimed credit. Nevertheless, Mr. Boyer yet again interjected in that discussion to argue with users voting to keep deleted, while claiming that he was not advocating for his article's undeletion. (See full discussion). Consider also how neutral this comment of Mr. Boyer's is in light of how soon it was made after the undeletion discussion.

In that context, Plattopus asserted that Mr. Boyer was not notable enough for an article, and said that he "performs auto-fellatio with enough vigour on [his] user page" to make a main namespace article unnecessary.[15]

However offensively phrased that comment was (Plattopus later apologized for the wording [16]), Mr. Boyer's subsequent attempt to turn it into the sole basis of a Wikipedia:Requests for comment proceeding against Plattopus was completely frivolous.[17] He posted it without first discussing the matter on Plattopus's talk page—a requirement, according to RfC guidelines. SPUI said in the VfU discussion "talk about frivolous rfc!", and it was duly removed five hours later by Jerzy, who considered it a "personal attack" [18]. This is an abuse of RfC policy simply used to prove a point.

Mr. Boyer tried to list a second RFC against Plattopus, this time for making "statements about Daniel C. Boyer he admitted were factually false".[19] The "false" statements can be seen on User talk:Plattopus. While attempting to explain why Mr. Boyer's user page inspired his "auto-fellatio" characterization on the VfU, Plattopus stated that Mr. Boyer's user page "documents practically every material you have ever used, every work you have created, every magazine you have been featured in..." Mr. Boyer asserted that the user page "only mentions a small minority of each" and demanded a retraction. Plattopus refused, considering it irrelevant as to whether Mr. Boyer's user page indicated self-promotion on his part. This was the extent of the "factual" dispute, and like so many of Mr. Boyer's disputes, resulted from his insistance on literal interpretation of someone's (at most) hyperbolic statement in order to evade his lack of response to the actual substance of the comment.

See this later comment by Mr. Boyer as conclusive proof that the second RfC pertained to nothing more than what was described above.

Mr. Boyer's user page

CJ2 counted approximately 140 artworks listed on DCB's user page [20], with only around 20 or so having anything to do with articles on Wikipedia (which, in themselves, are of questionable value), and there is also a list of many materials he has used. These go far outside the spirit of the user page guidelines (after all, do we allow everyone to list each item they use at work during the day?). As these guidelines state, one's user page should be about them "as a Wikipedian", and not as an artist who happens to use Wikipedia.

Mr. Boyer furthermore lists CD designs and T-shirt designs that he has created with his art on his user page. These are commercial products that are linked to other websites outside of Wikipedia and serve no purpose other than to advertise products bearing Mr. Boyer's name.

As Mr. Boyer's talk page documents, more than one user has suggested to him that his page is at a minimum violative of the spirit of user page guidelines. Mr. Boyer has made no attempt to comply with community concerns let alone to sufficiently address them.

Personal attacks and disruptive interactions with other users

Many other tendencies of Mr. Boyer's have made him extremely difficult to deal with. His discussion techniques are diversionary and evasive, and he tends to fixate on trivial aspects of a user's comment and divert attention to that rather than addressing the legitimate concern or argument that has been raised.

Many of Mr. Boyer's comments to others have been outright hostile. Other comments are clearly baiting—attempting to provoke hostile reactions from others so he can feel vindicated in his claims that those who disagree with him are simply biased against him.

He accused Plattopus of being "totally illiterate" on CJ2's user talk page [21], and also accused CJ2 of being anti-surrealist [22] [23] (lower edit), despite CJ2 going out of his way to explain to DCB that he has no problem with his art or surrealism in general [24] [25]. He has also continued to level a variety of inaccurate and irrelevant personal attacks at Postdlf, particularly that he is a "lazy" or "shoddy" researcher,(see, e.g., [26]) an attack apparently deriving from a skewed interpretation of Postdlf's arguments from the original VfD about why Mr. Boyer was not notable enough to deserve an article. See also this subsequent discussion on this issue which makes it all the more surprising that Mr. Boyer would still bear such a hostile interpretation of Postdlf's comments in that VfD.

What makes all of this worse is that Mr. Boyer is very quick to express offense towards any comment he believes is insulting towards him, as both RfC attempts illustrate. He is particularly very quick to accuse other users of lying,[27] even over disputes that most would consider academic. (see, e.g., [28])

Vandalism of talk page comments

Mr. Boyer has repeatedly broken up comments posted by other users in thread discussions by inserting his own responses in their midst, even to the point of breaking up individual sentences others had written. See Template:VfD-Daniel C Boyer for extensive examples of this, particularly his breaking up of comments in which Postdlf had just said he believed this to be a rude practice.[29] See also [30], [31] and [32], and compare Jerzy's clear anger at having to restore the integrity of his comments with the disregard shown by Mr. Boyer's immediate repetition of the same conduct.[33]

This practice not only makes it difficult to tell who wrote what originally, but it makes subsequent readers only able to see the original poster's comments in the context of Mr. Boyer's criticism of them. More importantly, he has been repeatedly asked not to do this, but has reacted with hostility and scorn to the idea that this is a reasonable request,[34], and yet again ignored the thrust of what was communicated to focus on the usage of a single word.[35]

Evidence of disputed behavior

See description generally above in addition to specific references below:

Deletion discussion of Daniel C. Boyer article.
Use of an anonymous IP (compare [36] with [37]) to request undeletion of "Daniel C. Boyer", August 12, 2004.
First undeletion discussion of Boyer article, August 12-16, 2004.[38]
Use of an anonymous IP (compare [39] with [40]) to add "Daniel C. Boyer" to requested articles after it had been rejected on VfD and VfU, March 11, 2005.
Second undeletion discussion of Boyer article, April 21-28, 2004.[41]
First RfC listing, April 28, 2005. Mr. Boyer lists Plattopus on RfC for "gross incivility" [42]
Second RfC listing, May 2, 2005. Mr. Boyer lists Plattopus on RfC for "false" statements about him.[43]
Mr. Boyer's user page.
Mr. Boyer's illustrations, with full attribution and titles, listed at Surrealist techniques.
See generally User talk:Daniel C. Boyer, User talk:Plattopus, and User talk:Classicjupiter2.

Applicable policies

{list the policies that apply to the disputed conduct}

Guidelines in WP:RfC
WP:NPOV
Wikipedia:Civility
Wikipedia:No personal attacks
Wikipedia:Assume good faith (semi-policy)
Wikipedia:Sock puppet (semi-policy)
Wikipedia:Autobiography (semi-policy)
Wikipedia:User page guidelines

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

This can be seen at User talk:Plattopus, User talk:Classicjupiter2, and User talk:Daniel C. Boyer, as well as all the deletion and undeletion discussions listed above.

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

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Classicjupiter2 20:09, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
Postdlf 03:26, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
plattopus^talk 05:59, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

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Response

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Discussion

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