Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/King James I of England

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Main link from WP:ANI has been archived, so this should be as well. Please continue in new section or elsewhere. Carcharoth (talk) 11:55, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] King James I of England

There seems to be a declaration of edit war on this article, with ICarriere and Korismo colluding to remove sourced material from the article because they don't want his homosexuality mentioned. They no longer seem to care to discuss the issue, and both have clearly implied they will revert without discussing on the article's talk page. Korismo has also been decidedly uncivil on his talk page to a solid editor who attempted to discuss the issue.Some help to keep the Wikipedia process going would be appreciated. Jeffpw (talk) 08:03, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

ANI is not for resolving disputes. I've protected the article, now you should try to reach consensus on article's talk page or start a RFC. MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 08:11, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not asking you or anybody to resolve this dispute, MaxSem, and frankly, your protection was not needed at this time. What was needed was a word from an admin on those two user's talk pages about edit warring. Both are novices here with less than 500 edits, and one is not even registered. They seem to not understand or not care about Wikipedia's policies regarding consensus and reliable sources. Further, ICarriere has a talk page littered with 3rr and sockpuppet discussions. I suggest you either unprotect the article or read up on the conflict before you involve yourself in it as you now have. Jeffpw (talk) 08:14, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm sort of tempted to agree. There's no doubt James had very close relationships with men, and there's very strong evidence that he had sex with them (this is all links to the murder of Thomas Overbury, where the prosecution were terrified that details of James's relationship with Viscount Rochester (Robert Carr) would come out in court). This can all be sourced, too, and it should be a fairly straightforward case to resolve. Moreschi ^{If you've written a quality article...} 09:57, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

And that's just the crux, Moreschi: The original text was diputed as undue weight, even though it was sourced; the article was split and a summary paragraph was written explaining what the daughter article included. The two editors who are edit warring refuse to let that summation stand, even though that was the agreed upon compromise on the talk page. I fail to see why the article was page protected in the non-consensus version, and a heterocentric version by editors with a history of tendentious editing is put into place. MaxSem leaped before he looked, as far as I can tell. Jeffpw (talk) 10:07, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I feel that you acquaint yourself with admin actions in relation to edit disputes; MaxSem did exactly what is required - he protected it (in the Wrong Version, naturally) and requested that the parties either discuss it on the article talkpage or take it to a RfC. This board is not part of dispute resolution, it is for requesting admins to use their tools in the proper manner. MaxSem did, and now you can pursue those options.

I suggest that the discussion regarding Rex Stewart and his undue weights be taken to the proper venue. LessHeard vanU (talk) 11:38, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

And I would suggest you reread what I wrote. I did not come here asking for page protection or to discuss the content dispute, but rather to ask for a look at the actions of two editors who seem to be colluding. Did I not make that abundantly clear????? Jeffpw (talk) 11:47, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Then I don't understand why you are here. This is not the dispute resolution page. Corvus cornix (talk) 22:17, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

He asked for intervention with the users to caution them against a bad path. That's legitimate enough. No one in the follows should be discussed how gay James I was: it's not the point. (By the way, "homosexual" doesn't exist as a stable category in his day, but he was as close to gay as most of the monarchs got. Contemporaries noticed it, groused about it, and saw parallels to Edward II's Gaveston.) Geogre (talk) 22:36, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

The request was straightforward and I have done so. If Korismo, and to a lesser extent ICarriere, take the hint, this will be resolved. ··coelacan 00:18, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

For what it is worth, there was an earlier declaration of an intent to edit war from someone on the "other side". See this comment by allstarecho (talk · contribs): "I'm not down with this plan at all and feel the article should be left as it were, except to expand it. I have no qualms saying that any attempts to remove the homosexual depth, will be met with reverts. Thanks." I warned that editor not to engage in edit warring, but the situation had deteriorated by the time the later posts were made. This time from the "other side". My views on all this are clearly stated on the talk page of the article, and I would urge anyone commenting here to read that first and comment on the content issues there, not here. More voices over there may help resolve this. I feel that the balance of a well-written generalist article, where the primary editor has already considered these issues, is being disrupted by editors with a specialist interest in LGBT issues, who want to overdo the focus in the generalist article on the sexuality (the undue weight business that Jeffpw refers to). I am disappointed though that Jeffpw still sees this as a "heterocentric" issue, a view that will not help to resolve the dispute. When editors trying to get the balance of an article right are accused of being anti-gay, then that verges on LGBT POV-pushing. In short, summary in the general article, details in the specialist article (Personal relationships of James I of England). That article contains the Carr trial story that Moreschi refers to, though it should be noted that qp10qp has said (on Talk:James I of England), that the personal relationships article "contains serious factual inaccuracies, since Carr never threatened to expose a homosexual relationship with the king". Carcharoth (talk) 01:28, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Block of ICarriere

I have blocked ICarriere (talk · contribs) for 3 days following checkuser evidence that the accounts Korismo (talk · contribs) and DSuchet (talk · contribs) were sockpuppets of his - see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/ICarriere. Korismo and DScuhet I have blocked indefinitely as abusive sockpuppets. Using multiple accounts to edit war and attempt to distort consensus is unacceptable. Given these blocks protection no longer seems appropriate and is it was ICarriere's socks that allowed the edit war to draw on - I have accordingly unprotected the article. I hope however that productive talkpage discussions between the remaining intrested editors will continue. WjBscribe 01:09, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Someone should probably tag the comments or leave a note over there as well. Blanket reversion will probably be unhelpful here. Sockpuppetry is obviously unacceptable, but I fear that this development will be used as an argument for supporting the changes ICarriere was opposing. Though it seems ICarriere was taking an extreme (and insupportable) viewpoint that nothing should be mentioned in the article at all. Carcharoth (talk) 01:28, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

What I'm about to say is a bit of a rabbit chasing, but your previous statement is on the money. The king's habits are political. There is no private person in that era. Therefore, the king's sexuality is important inasmuch as it shows up in political actions -- peculiar blindspots, peculiar favoritism of Villiers, rapid promotions of alleged lovers -- just as it is with a priapic and heterosexual Charles II. The fact that people saw Buckingham as a new Gaveston means that the same issues were at play: elevation of the "unworthy," "weak" kings, etc. At the same time, making him some kind of icon of homosexuality would be bizarre, anti-historical, and just plain queer. There is no such thing as "homosexual" as a category of male life at the time, and placing a contemporary political sieve on the dead is just bogus. I hope that I was not understood to support any kind of "James is a great gay man in history, and the straights don't want you to know that" agenda, because that would be silly. I just think that the man's homosexuality leads us to such persons as Giles Mompesson. It, in a way, leads to the violent reaction against the crown that led to his son's decapitation. Geogre (talk) 03:05, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

My thanks to the administrators who took action on this issue. Editing here is thankless enough without being given the brushoff when you complain your edits are being targeted. Perhaps now that the user and his socks (and I think there were actually 3, since an anon IP was also supporting ICarriere's position) have been blocked this dispute can actually be resolved with discussion, rather than underhanded tricks. Jeffpw (talk) 05:43, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More polemics

Sockpuppets on one side, comments like this on the other side (needless to say, that comment paints an incorrect picture of what happened). How do you explain to someone claiming the need to remove a so-called "heterosexual agenda" that they just might possibly be pushing an LGBT agenda? Or even that they are missing the point entirely, so focused are they on trying to detect a "heterosexual agenda". I tried on the talk page, but seem to have failed as far as this (fairly new) editor goes. <sigh> Carcharoth (talk) 05:00, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it paints an incorrect picture as long as you have to be right and your way is the only way. You don't own the article. The fact is, the homosexual references have been removed and replaced with hetero-agenda blabber. We go from [this edit that includes sourced/references homosexual affairs] to [this edit that turns male relationships into generic ones that could be conceived as just plain ole friendships with no "love"] and topped off with making sure we talk about his marriage to a woman, "whom he fathered his children". Heterosexual agenda indeed and you dare have the nerve to blame others for pushing a homosexual agenda??! I still stand by my statements. It's outrageous what has been done here - but I'm done with it.. because it's all about what you want. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 14:43, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

And a final update. In a stunning turnabout, moving a footnote up into the article seems to have resulted in peace breaking out all round. See this edit, where Allstarecho agrees with three other editors that the new version is acceptable. It looks like that old canard, actually discussing things calmly on a talk page, actually works. Carcharoth (talk) 22:31, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

No, what worked is that people stopped trying to remove all references to homosexual relationships in the article. If that hadn't occurred, we'd still be having an issue I assure you. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 02:50, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Whatever. It was abundantly clear that I was not trying to remove all references to homosexual relationships from that article. I've pointed out several times that the words homosexual and bisexual were in the article when you were saying "all references" to such had been removed. Carcharoth (talk) 22:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Last year I was a medcab mediator concerning this dispute, and stating the obvious somewhat, I didn't exactly completely solve this. I stayed involved after the case closed, which resulted in accusations that I was biased towards and against mentioning his homosexuality. In this context, I have considerable sympathy for Carcharoth - just about any good faith editor trying to maintain NPOV will eventually be accused of being biased in both directions. In this context, I would recommend formal mediation. Addhoc (talk) 17:03, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Things have calmed down somewhat. A stable section is in the main article (James I of England), and work has just started at the daughter article (Personal relationships of James I of England). I'm going to archive this now, as the main link on the noticeboard has been archived, so this should have been as well, see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive329#King James I of England. Carcharoth (talk) 11:53, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.