User:Taiwan boi/Esoglou RFC

• I'm putting together a request for comment on User:Esoglou, and I'm logging my links here.--Taiwan boi (talk) 04:04, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

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• Esoglou (talk · contribs · logs)

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Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Statement of the dispute

This is a summary written by users who are concerned by this user's conduct. Users signing other sections ("Response" or "Outside views") should not edit the "Statement of the dispute" section.

Desired outcome

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I would like Esoglou to stop violating guidelines and policies. I suggest an action that would really get his attention, as previous attempts at dispute resolution by several editors have been unsuccessful. WP would be better directly and indirectly if Esoglou were banned. WP would be even better off if he would just play fair.

Description

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Esoglou promotes and defends a pro-Roman Catholic POV, and he repeatedly violates WP guidelines and policies in doing so. Despite numerous objections by independent editors, he continues to violate WP guidelines. His pattern of behavior is well-established over a year of editing on various religion-oriented pages, including purgatory, original sin, baptism/immersion baptism, history of the Eucharist, etc. The particular conduct that prompted this RfC is his conduct on the "Baptism" and "Immersion baptism" articles.

Esoglou approached thes articles from his personal POV, which is that although it was previously believed that submersion was the baptismal practice of the early Christians, this has been "overthrown among scholars (even if not for everyone) by study of the archeological remains, as well as by a more attentive examination of the literary evidence" (Esoglou (talk) 04:46, 26 October 2010 (UTC); note to self, add diff). To date he has failed to substantiate this claim, and the available evidence is overwhelmingly to the contrary, yet he has consistently resisted inclusion of WP:RS in the article which present this evidence.

Concerning my involvement with the editors endorsing this RfC:

• User:Leadwind and I have had our disagreements on articles but he has also recognized my other contributions; we are currently cooperating on a couple of articles to which Esoglou is not contributing, and have never been involved in "tag teaming" against Esoglou

• User:LoveMonkey and I have worked on only three articles at the same time (all of them involving Esoglou), but there has been no tag teaming on any of them, and my conflict with Esoglou predates my contact with LoveMonkey by months

Evidence of disputed behavior

(Provide diffs. Links to entire articles aren't helpful unless the editor created the entire article. Edit histories also aren't helpful as they change as new edits are performed.)

Disruptive conduct

Disruptive conduct as experienced by User:Taiwan_boi.

1. Repeated claims that I was attempting to make the article reflect only my POV (bold emphasis mine):

Walter, I think it is better to let Tb have his way about Calvin (although Calvin is an extremely weighty source for some Protestant traditions), so as to spare energy for matters such as Tb's other attempts to limit the article to one-sided sources, as if no other view but his existed. Esoglou (talk) 15:25, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

2. Responses which avoid the issue under discussion by making irrelevant statements or misrepresenting what has been said:

• In response to a request that Esoglou meet the burden of evidence for his claim, he made an irrelevant response which implied I was contesting the applicability of WP:BURDEN to statements made on Talk pages (diff), whereas this had never been in dispute, as I pointed out (diff).
• In a response to a request that Esoglou demonstrate that Youtube videos of baptisms constitute WP:RS for the claim that a particular form of baptism is normative in the Eastern Rite, he made an irrelevant response which represented me as as making a claim I had never made (diff), and did not say anything to address the issue I had actually raised

Disruptive conduct as experienced by User:Leadwind.

1. Later, Esoglou is still messing with sourced information on the Baptism page and using primary sources (scripture) as comparable to scholarly sources. [1]
2. Here on Baptism he straight-up deletes a referenced sentence about Jesus not baptizing. He's deleting referenced information that doesn't square with his POV in favor of primary-source references, after the Wikiquette alert. [2]
3. Unwarranted tagging (diff)

Disruptive conduct as experienced on the article by Editor LoveMonkey.

1. This diff Esoglou again insists that his sources that are outside the Orthodox Church and contradict what is stated by the Orthodox should be used. Diff [3]
2. This diff Esoglou says that this author Fergusion (whom is not an Eastern Orthodox Christian) is a better source for the baptismal practises of the Orthodxo Church than the Orthodox Church is. As Esoglou moved his non Orthodox source to before the Orthdox Church's statement in the article. Diff [4]
3. In this diff I added a statement from the Orthodox Church. Esoglou insists that his non-Orthodox source that contradicts the Eastern Orthodox source has to be included.

Diff [5]

POV editorializing

• Misleading removal of text identifying a minority view; asked to prove it he refused to provide support for his edit claiming the burden was mine, though I had already supplied evidence. When I restored the text he replaced it, avoiding informing the reader that Johnson's is a minority view

• Misleading view of a source; an attempt to represent a source's definition "to plunge, to dip, or to immerse" as meaning anything other than submersion, despite the fact that as noted in the article "immerse" in such references sources as these typically means "sumberse", and this is the normative use in English (see dictionary definitions cited in the article), Esoglou cites irrelevant uses of the word "immerse" in sources other than the one in question as evidence that the source in question may not be using the phrase "to plunge, to dip, or to immerse" as a reference to submersion (he refuses to address the source itself)

WP:OR

• WP:OR use of Youtube. I opposed this edit but Esoglou replaced it twice, until another editor opposed it on the basis that it was "an open/shut case of violating WP rules, in this case on WP:RS and WP:OR". Esoglou took it to the WP:RS noticeboard, where he was told "No. These videos are not subject to editorial control, and as such, are not reliable." and "Making an inference from unreliably edited PRIMARY sources is ORIGINAL RESEARCH in Theology, Studies in Religion, or Sociology.".

Use of sources which do not meet WP:RS and/or WP:NPOV

Numerous examples here; references identified by footnote numbers for convenience. Esoglou shows a preference for Catholic and Anglican sources which represent the liturgical POVs of these churches, sources which are years out of date, and sources which do not meet WP:RS. The POV of the sources would not matter if Esoglou had identified the fact that they were actually only representing that POV. However, Esoglou never did this. He quoted from them as if they were authoritative NPOV commentary on the subject, instead of being POV sources.

• [10] Written from a Catholic perspective, POV
• [11] Not an independent source, quotes Davies (this is a duplication of sources to make it look like two independent sources are being used)
• [12] A Catholic work written from a Catholic perspective ("This vision, then, is the heart and purpose of this book: to find appropriate arrangements and considerations for church buildings that are infused with the true spirit of the Second Vatican Council")
• [13] A tiny 73 page Anglican work written from the Anglican POV, not a WP:RS, does not meet WP:NOTE
• [14] An Anglican work explaining the Anglican theology and liturgy
• [16] Not a WP:RS, yet another Anglican work, explaining Anglican theology and liturgy and thus POV; it simply quotes the ODCC, so this is a duplication of sources to make it look like two independent sources are being used
• [36] Represented as saying "The Didache does not say, however, whether immersion or pouring was recommended when using running water", when in fact it does not say this at all
• [37] Dated 1971, not a scholarly work, does not meet WP:RS, published by the Reformed Church of Scotland and representing their theological and liturgical POV
• [38] Dated 1903, not considered authoritative by the scholarly archaeological community, completely outdated and contradicted by modern professional archaeological studies
• [40] Not a WP:RS, "This is the Faith' is a Catholic work which declares its Catholic POV explicitly ('So the book becomes a handy sources of information about the doctrines and practices of the Church'), the work by Duchesne which is cited is "Churches Separated from Rome", dated 1907 and written specifically to argue the primary of the Roman Catholic Church and prove the Protestant churches heretical, blatantly POV
• [43] Actual title "The Church's Liturgy", this is a Catholic handbook of Catholic liturgy in the Catholic book series "Handbooks of Catholic Theology"; Stenzel's work cited was written in 1958 and is not an archaeological work ("Stenzel's introduction identifies his interest as liturgy, not theology or parallels from the history of religion", Ferguson, "Baptism in the early church", 2009)
• [44] Dated 1944, not an archaeological work, completely outdated and contradicted by modern professional archaeological studies
• [45] Cites outdated studies from 1958, 1959, 1960, and 1971, addresses none of the relevant modern studies, contradicted by modern professional archaeological studies

Misrepresentation of sources

• Misrepresentation of the significance of a source: Esoglou described Duchesne's work (written in 1907), in a manner which makes it look like a reply to an article by a modern archaeological commentary (written in 1981), gives Duchesne an unsubstantiated WP:PEACOCK description (Duchesne is not even quoted by typical modern studies on baptism, let alone treated as an authority), and gives the impression that Duchesne is still alive:

Rice's claim of the existence of these unspecified depictions that show total immersion is denied by Duchesne, who has been described as one of the greatest authorities on early Christian archeology:

• Misrepresentation of sources as "scholarly reference sources": in a section which was specifically describing what scholarly reference sources say (see "Scholarship" and "Reliable sources"), Esoglou repeatedly added works which were not scholarly reference sources; Bower's work is an Anglican companion to the Anglican Book of Common Worship, Meakin is an Anglican church dictionary of liturgical terms, Schloeder is a commentary on the liturgical meaning of architecture to the Anglican Church

Misrepresentation of sources, including by omission of words: I objected, and Esoglou defended his misrepresentation of a number of sources (though he conceded one had been misrepresented); he has misrepresented sources expressing certainty, as sources expressing uncertainty", some examples of which (from the diff), follow:

Esoglou quotes one source as saying "Although the descriptions of New Testament baptisms indicate that baptism occurred with both the officiator and the candidate standing in water, they do not state specifically what happened in the act"; Stanley J. Grenz, 'Theology for the Community of God', 1994), p. 530; on the very next page we find Grenz's conclusion, which Esoglou has concealed in a blatant misrepresentation, "Nevertheless, we conclude that of the three modes immersion caries the strongest case - exegetically, historically, and theologically. Therefore under normal circumstances it ought to be the preferred, even the sole, practice of the church."

Esoglou quotes one source as saying "It can be questioned whether the NT proves immersion was used at all"; Eerdmans 2009 ISBN 978-0-8028-2748-7), Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible, p. 148; in reality, he has truncated the sentence, which actually reads "It can be questioned whether the NT proves immersion was used at all (though almost certainly it was)" (the intent of this sentence is to express certainty, not uncertainty)

Esoglou quotes one source as saying "Tischler says that total immersion may not have been the only mode in use. Tischler, ‘All Things in the Bible: An Encyclopedia of the Biblical World’, volume 1, 2006"; this is a misrepresentation of Tischler. He also says "In the early days of the Church, total immersion, often in streams or rivers, seems to have been most commonly used (Mark 1:9; Acts 8:3)", so it is completely misleading to offer this quote out of context as evidence that "Even among those who express a preference for one view or another, some indicate that they only consider that view likely or probable", which Tischler never says.

• of the ODCC: on the right is my removal of Esoglou's misleading claim that the ODCC "goes beyond accepting that immersion can be either total or partial (a distinction that is not in dispute), differentiates immersion from submersion, as well as from affusion, applying the term "immersion" exclusively to forms of baptism that consist of submerging only the head, but not the whole body, in water, or of placing someone partially in water and pouring water over the rest of the person's body"; the ODCC does not say this at all

• Sources misrepresented as using the term "immersion baptism" with a particular meaning, when none of the sources actually used the term "immersion baptism"; after I objected Esoglou added more sources misrepresented in the same way (I objected again after he failed to address the misrepresentation, and later demonstrated that his sources were misrepresented)

False claims of sources as "authorities"

False claim of the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church as the most authoritative work on the subject.

• As an authoritative publication giving up-to-date scholarly knowledge with precise terminology, the ODCC outweighs dictionaries that must include the less precise terminology used in less scholarly works, as also the terminology used in scholarly publications up to the first decades of the twentieth century, when it was still presumed that early Christian baptism was by submersion, a belief overthrown among scholars (even if not for everyone) by study of the archeological remains, as well as by a more attentive examination of the literary evidence. Esoglou (talk) 04:46, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

False claim of sources as "authorities" for the Greek word "baptizo" when none of them is even a standard lexicon, let alone an "authority" on the word (diff); details of each source:

• A book by a Reformed Christian which presents the Reformed perspective of baptism, published by a self-publishing service, a clear breach of WP:RS; this is not even a WP:RS, still less an authority

  An amateur theological commentary of no academic standing whatsoever, published by a Christian ministry, a clear breach of WP:RS

• The link given is to a Lutheran view which gives an opinion without any evidence whatsoever, and which is contradicted by standard professional lexical sources; the book itself is a WP:RS, but this article in the book is only a WP:RS for the Lutheran view, not for the meaning of the word baptizo, and it is certainly not an authority
• An WP:RS, but it does not say "in the New Testament βαπτίζω does not necessarily mean total submersion", and the work is not an authority on the meaning of the word
• A Lutheran work published in 1910 (which Esoglou concealed by omitting the publication date), providing a Lutheran commentary on Lutheran beliefs; it is not even a WP:RS, let alone an authority
• A book by a Reformed Christian which presents the Reformed perspective of baptism; even worse, not only is it not an authority, the statement quoted is not supported by any evidence whatsoever, and is contradicted directly by the fourteen scholarly lexical sources cited earlier in this very section

Investigations of sock puppetry

• 28 January, 2010

False citation tags

Esoglou tagged the following referenced statements "not in citation given" (Baptism in early Christianity).

• "A recent Bible encyclopedia speaks of the "consensus of scholarly opinion" that the baptismal practice of John the Baptist and the apostles was by immersion.[75][not in citation given]"

The citation given is "Lexicographers universally agree that the primary meaning of baptizo G966 is 'to dip' or 'to immerse", and there is a similar consensus of scholarly opinion that both the baptism of John and of the apostles was by immersion", Jewett, "Baptism", in Murray (ed.), "Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, volume 1, p.466 (rev. ed. 2009). Clearly the statement is in the citation given.

• "a standard Bible dictionary says that baptism was normally by immersion.[77][not in citation given]"

The citation given is "Baptism was normally by immersion either in the river or in the bath-house of a large house", Dowley (ed.), "Eerdman's Handbook to the History of Christianity", p.10 (1977). Clearly the statement is in the citation given.

• "Grimes says "There is little doubt that early Christian baptism was adult baptism by immersion".[79][not in citation given]"

The citation given is Grimes, "Deeply Into the Bone: Re-Inventing Rites of Passage", p. 50 (2002). Clearly the statement is in the citation given. All three citation tags were completely spurious. These references were tagged falsely.

Applicable policies and guidelines

1. WP:V
2. WP:NOR
3. WP:SOAP
4. WP:DE
5. WP:EQ
6. WP:RS
7. WP:WEIGHT

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

(provide diffs and links)

1. Esoglou has a lengthy record of editors warning him about problematic edits and behavior on his talk page; the talk page of his previous profile "Lima" shows an extensive list: [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. However, he has changed his profile and removed from his new profile many of these objections so that they are not immediately visible, and continues to edit his current talk page so that casual readers do not see criticisms of his conduct and therefore do not see evidence for complaints about his regular editing behaviour.
2. Many attempts by various users to engage Esoglou in productive discussion or warn him about problematic edits and behavior on article talk pages.
3. Opinion of other editors sought (Leadwind, Woofboy, Sankari Suomi, Swampyank)
4. In one case, four independent editors agreed with my edits (Swampyank, Leadwind, Sankari, woofboy), and rejected Esoglou's, at which point Esoglou finally agreed to let my edits pass without reverting them

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

Other users who endorse this summary

I'm not sure if I am putting this under the correct heading, but I want endorse Taiwan boi's summary of events. Esoglou has repeatedly presented a specific denomination's views as the norm in the Baptism and Immersion Baptism articles, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary that other practices are generally normative. Particularly, his early edits in the Immersion Baptism article were very frustrating to deal with when he insisted that his definition of "immersion" was the sole legitimate one, despite being in the minority. Very much wasted time for all involved because of his POV. Swampyank (talk) 19:10, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I endorse Taiwan boi's position. LoveMonkey (talk) 05:57, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Response

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Users who endorse this summary:

Outside view

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. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.

Outside view from Phatius McBluff

This comment is highly modified from its original form, which can be found here. I modified it due to concerns that it violated WP:COAT, as well as a talk with Esoglou that convinced me to retract some of my accusations against him.

1. Based on the evidence presented by Taiwan boi, it appears that Esoglou did engage in some inappropriate behavior. I am troubled by some of the instances in which Esoglou appears to have removed sourced material and, perhaps, misrepresented sources.

2. However, not all of the evidence cited in this RfC is equally damning. For example, consider Taiwan boi's complaint regarding an article that Esoglou used as a source. Taiwan boi says, "The book [in which the article appears] itself is a WP:RS, but this article in the book is only a WP:RS for the Lutheran view, not for the meaning of the word baptizo, and it is certainly not an authority." This does not look like disruptive editing to me. Taiwan boi himself says that the article appears in a book that is a reliable source. Perhaps the article was not an appropriate source in this context. But that's something that should be worked out on talk pages and then forgotten, not used as evidence in an RfC against an editor. Also, consider the Youtube incident mentioned in the RfC. I agree with Taiwan boi that Esoglou was wrong to use a YouTube video as a source. However, it appears that the situation got worked out: Esoglou took the issue to the WP:RS noticeboard, the folks there rebuked him, and that was the end of things. An editor's misunderstanding of WP:RS is not appropriate evidence for an RfC against the editor.

3. I should point out that those of Esoglou's critics who have posted comments on this RfC do not represent a united argument against Esoglou. We should carefully distinguish between

a) those who were involved in the baptism-article disputes and who endorse Taiwan boi's account of those events (e.g. Swampyank)

b) those who are critical of Esoglou regarding other, separate incidents (e.g. LoveMonkey)

c) those who were involved in the baptism-article disputes but who are also critical of Esoglou regarding other, separate incidents (e.g. Leadwind)

Critics of all three kinds are relevant here. After all, this is an RfC about Esoglou, not about baptism articles. But we should take care to interpret each critic's position correctly.

4. In some cases, Esoglou's critics may want to consider whether Esoglou is the only person responsible for their grievances. I say this because I have observed Esoglou's past interactions with LoveMonkey, one of his critics. A personal animosity seems to have developed between Esoglou and LoveMonkey, making it difficult for either to compromise during disputes in which both are involved. (The situation is now hopefully under control, thanks to an admin noticeboard agreement.)

5. This RfC mentions a ban as one possible remedy. I currently oppose any effort to permanently ban Esoglou. In my experience, Esoglou is capable of editing constructively and this discussion even making significant compromises. The focus should be on getting Esoglou to stick to constructive editing; the focus should not be on banning him.

Users who endorse this comment:

1. Phatius McBluff (talk) 21:30, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
2. Pseudo-Richard (talk) 17:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Outside view from leadwind

I'm familiar with Esoglou's practices from years ago. While it's no surprise to see any particular editor reveal a bias in their editing, Esoglou's editing practices are often deliberately underhanded. On Baptism, for example, he lost an editing dispute, pretended to accept the decision, and then weeks later returned to the page where he restored his version of the text. Furthermore, he used a falsely innocuous description for the edit so that it would be less likely to be noticed. I caught him, but one wonders how many times he's gotten away with such tricks. He has the habit of altering a properly cited statement so that it agrees with him, no longer agrees with the source, and looks legit to everyone who didn't see the original source. Of all the biased editors that I've had the displeasure of working with over the last 4 years, only two have been so detrimental to Wp that I've launched complaints against them, and Esoglou was one of them.

Under considerable pressure, Esoglou was able to start using better sources for his work. I can say that much for him. Esoglou had the misfortune of taking his early lead from a bad POV editor, but he showed some ability to rise above his early ways. I hoped that Esoglou would learn to edit fairly.

If Taiwan boi is having this much trouble with Esoglou now, it probably means that Esoglou is not becoming a better, fairer editor as he becomes more familiar with Wp policies and standards. If he's not getting it right these days, his transgressions are willful and I see little hope for improvement.

Esoglou has wasted the time of a lot of good editors, has prevented a lot of good editing from being done, has undone a lot of good editing, and serves as a poor model for newer editors. Wp would be better off without him. Leadwind (talk) 15:26, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Outside view from Pseudo-Richard

I generally endorse Phatius McBluff's comment. I will not repeat the points he made but I will add just a couple of my own.

Like Phatius McBluff, I have had no involvement with the relevant articles but I have had extensive experience with Lima/Esoglou. My interactions with him have always been positive and cordial; however, I have seen him be tenacious to the point of obstinacy when he thinks he is right. He was accused of "trolling" on the Catholic Church article due to his insistence that "Roman Catholic Church" was one of the names used by the Church to refer to itself. He was right (at least, I think he was) but was having trouble getting his case made. It took a year-long mediation to sort that one out. My point here is that he often makes valuable contributions but, unfortunately, he sometimes gets tangled in conflicts along the way.

A quick glance at the evidence presented by Taiwan boi suggests that there was some unacceptable conduct. I haven't taken the time to look at them closely. My general feeling is that the conduct is questionable but not bad enough to warrant a ban. A ban doesn't just "get an editor's attention"; it's a statement by the community that the editor's participation is unwanted. That's overkill.

I also want to comment that it is inappropriate to dig up history of ancient behavior. For example, Phatius McBluff expresses concern about this alleged removal of sourced material. First of all, I would like to assert that sourced material is not sacrosanct. Just because it's sourced doesn't mean that it is relevant to the discussion. There is always room to debate the appropriateness of sourced material to the article. That's what article Talk Pages are for. Looking closely at that one edit, it was unclear to me exactly why the sourced material was removed but I was having trouble relating the sourced material to the flow of the argument. However, more importantly, it's important to note that the edit in question occurred three years ago. Let's not be pulling up every questionable edit made by an editor as a reason to critique his current behavior. Let's focus on recent behavior (say, the past 3-6 months).

--Pseudo-Richard (talk) 17:15, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Further comments:

I haven't looked closely at every one of Taiwan boi's diffs nor at LoveMonkey's diffs. A cursory glance at just a couple has yielded mixed results. It's clear that Esoglou is actively disputatious but his arguments aren't uniformly unfounded and his interlocutors (Taiwan boi and LoveMonkey) are not uniformly right. That is, on some issues, there seems to be room to argue that the question is worthy of discussion and the text might benefit from some clarification. I'm not saying every issue listed by Taiwan boi is unclear. I'm just saying the couple that I've looked at so far sometimes suggest that Esoglou may be right or partially right. That wouldn't excuse violations of WP:3RR but it might explain contentiousness.

--Pseudo-Richard (talk) 18:29, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

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