Talk:Charles Darwin/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Re-instate very recent comment from 20JAN05

About the original question:

• Even a mere trivia like the shared birthday establishes a connection between the two persons that is just not there. It would imply that there is some more of a connection beyond the coincidence. That would be misleading. I even think building those coincidental bridges would actually cast doubts on our selection of the factual data in the article. Unprofessional!
• The factoid doesnt say anything specific about either Darwin or Lincoln because so many people were born on the same day. And if I keep looking I will find someone else who is considered a historical celebrity born on that day. But if it is not specific it is not interesting or relevant. We might as well include that they both had two hands and needed to eat once in a while.
• That many people believe in the significance of coincidences and write about it on websites doesnt make something eligible for an encyclopedia.

So, I am for removal.

About the discussion:

• This is one of those rare examples where a compromise in the decision itself is not an option. Either the factoid is in or not. As there is apparently no one prepared to make a final judgement and Vincent doesnt want to accept the majority vote, but none of the parties want mor e attrition editing, there is only one option left. Someone has to back down! Someone has to go over all the arguments and admit that the other side has got better ones; say f... it, at least I had a good discussion that is preserved for eternity and then move on honourably. Because,
• This thing has been, and is, sapping resources from wikipedia. A lot of people have devoted a lot of their time and brainpower on this discussion. So, I would ask you to ballance the weight of your cause against the effort that insisting further would demand from everyone. I think it is time to stop now and fight for other causes.

Floflei6 09:36, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Debate proposal

I'm back again. I propose to make a debate for solving this with a defined structure. How can this help? Mainly, we'll know what the other's saying in an ordered way. I don't like to use the pointing system here (thus, there won't be winners and losers), because debates are not used in disputes resolution.

The idea is: there will be two parties a Proposition (pro trivia) and an Opposition (against trivia), with a max. of 3 members. Both parties will have a section devoted for arguments presentation, where the members of the party expose why or why not the trivia should be in the article. Then, the replying process begins, beginning with a member of the opposition being replyed by one of the proposition. Then, it's the turn for the proposition being replyed by one of the opposition, until each party has done three replies.

If you agree with this, I'll search a judge for this, present it to you, and, if you like him/her, we start! --Neigel von Teighen 17:54, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have one question: how are you going to be able to find three people 'pro-trivia'? Given that the vote is now over 5:1 against including the fact at all, and all that Vincent is doing is disrupting Wikipedia in a vain attempt to wear down the thirteen or more people that are prepared to revert him, wouldn't your time be better spent encouraging him to work on improving Wikipedia in the many other areas that he presumably worked on before, rather than stopping us doing that by having to pay special attention to this article?

I don't see the point of a debate. All we ask is one more corroborating fact that establishes a linkage between these people. If Vincent can supply that single fact – they met; they did the same course at university with the same teacher; they both had a keen interest in natural history for a sustained period – then the debate wouldn't be needed. Noisy | Talk 18:35, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there's much worthy of debating here. This is the case of a single person vigorously pursuing an agenda against a majority which has already established general consensus on the matter. Previous debate and argument does not seem to have swayed his opinion. Contrary to his pleadings, I don't think it's necessary to seek a compromise on this matter. His version of the article, though factually correct, simply makes for bad writing as it goes off on a tangent completely unrelated to a general exposition of Darwin's life and works. I'm perfectly content to continue reverting his edits until he either gives up or until Wikipedia policy is changed so that his behaviour becomes actionable. Psychonaut 18:55, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

First, there are three pro-trivia: Vincent, Sam Spade and me. Anyway, I said that the maximum is three (this is not an arbitrarily chosen number for giving us an advantage; see debate). The point to do this is for giving a solution to this without the present edit war nor personal attacks (I recognize they have been decreasing). It's a safe way to know the others' arguments. Then, the on-going discussion will consist in discuss who was better and what should be done, after 'hearing' what everyone had to say. In short terms, a kind of Popular Arbitration made by the users after a debate between the involved parties.

Obviously, I don't want to impose you to do a debate. It's a proposal to reach the long-wanted solution to a very long edit war. The solution here is not as simply as to revert and keep reverting until we've got an Arbitration made by the against-trivia party against Vincent. --Neigel von Teighen 19:11, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

My impression is that you misrepresent Sam. I don't read that he is pro trivia but that he is against removing stuff which adds to the totality of value that wikipedia presents, in terms of information. The only difference between Sam and the rest of us is that we make a distinction between adding something that 'trivialises' what should be one of the showpiece articles on Wikipedia: we think it is better to leave out an acknowledged fact in order to present a more scholarly impression. I have no idea what your motives are for standing in the face of a 5:1 majority. I note that you also don't try and supply that additional piece of information that might make this whole thing evaporate. Noisy | Talk 20:00, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

No a debate isn't needed - Wikipedia already has an established range of procedures for dealing with article disputes. This issue has already been decided via and WP:RfC on the issue, as well as a vote. The decission is against the inclusion of birthday coincidences (and potentially other trivia). The fact that some editors are ignoring that decision and continuing a revert war means that they are inviting an RfC against themselves with escalation to arbitration and possibly blocking. As it happens I don't believe that Vincent is being deliberately obstructive. If it wasn't for the fact that he is getting increasingly eloquent in his arguments I might have started the RfC against him myself. -- Solipsist 20:09, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've got nothing against votes, but, in this case, it increased the violence in here. I see you don't like the debate, and I accept it. Again, it's a proposal. Anyone with a better idea (and surely there is someone) is welcome if the idea is focused on building consensus between both parties. Also, RfC helped bringing more vandalism, RfM was not answered and RfAr, declined. There's no other method I know that can help (if someone contacted Jimbo Wales, we would have another method). Again, I want this edit war solved with a decission built by both parties. --Neigel von Teighen 21:28, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There is one more method. That is an RfAr against Vincent himself. It should be apparent that we don't want to take it that far, because that may extend bad feeling beyond this single article.

Consensus (a central, mutually agreed path) is not an option, as has been stated by others. This is a yes/no case. Vincent has closed off the vote by archiving it, so it remains at 5:1 against inclusion.

I ask again: can you propose some other corroborating fact? If you can't, what are your reasons for wanting to include this trivia?

Please also note, that even though the calendar date of their birth is the same, that doesn't necessarily mean that they were born in the same 24 hour period. Noisy | Talk 09:01, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

I answered you below one hour before you wrote "I asked again". Debate in the absence of a judge doesn't work. You won't listen to my reasons (I claim) just as I won't listen to yours (you presumably would claim). Vincent 09:19, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No debate is required. A few vandals here and there whose spraypaint is consistently washed away is trivial. Adraeus 22:45, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Noisy wrote "All we ask is one more corroborating fact that establishes a linkage between these people".

Please recall that the word "coincidentally" was stressed from the beginning. This means there isn't another linkage, nor did I ever argue there was. However, here's something: Lincoln and Darwin were both against slavery, with Darwin being its more passionate foe and Lincoln its more effective one. Furthermore, Darwin wrote of black slaves in the Americas whom he met while travelling there and was sympathetic to their plight.

Now, I would be the first to agree that creating a section about Darwin's views on slavery simply to add the birthday factoid would be overkill. It's a coincidence, nothing more, but it is an interesting coincidence and it is culturally relevant, as demonstrated by the 4000 Google hits. People out in the world notice the coincidence and mark it. Trivia is a nice bucket for things like this. But if no one wants a Trivia section, a parenthetical mention in the body text is not inappropriate, and because birth is the first public event of one's life (public event I said, so let's not start a life-begins-at-conception debate here!) then it's appropriate to put in in an early life section.

BTW, like Sam Spade I am not so much pro-factoid as I am anti-deletion. The factoid was on Wiki for four months before someone decided to delete it. If I had introduced it into the article myself, I probably would not have made such a case about it.

Concerning other objections, the birthday paradox does not trivialize the coincidence. The paradox refers to finding in a group of people some who share a birth date. There is indeed a high likelihood of this in small groups of people. However, Lincoln and Darwin, two of the most prominent figures of the 19th century, share a birth day. There are 366 dates in a year, but there are 36,524 days in most centuries, making the coincidence more worthy of notice. Vincent 08:00, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

On another note, there is massive oppostion to including the factoid, but no one seems opposed to the Darwin award mention. Now what does that have to do with Darwin? Or is it simply that something should be deleted because I include it? Vincent 08:40, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Darwin award....and Darwin...how are they related? Did you eat lead paint chips as a child? Cburnett 08:52, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, turn it around "Darwin and Lincoln sharing a birthday and Darwin? How is Darwin related to his birthday?" No I didn't eat lead chips as a child. Now aren't you being insulting here? On the other hand the relationship between Darwin and the Darwin awards is that a comedian, whom Darwin has never met, decided to name an award after him.

BTW, it took only 12 minutes for someone to change an edit simply because I was the one who added it, citing that the text (about Darwin's interest in fortuitous events) was not part of his legacy. Fortuitous events are part of his legacy, e.g. lungs being both breathing organs and swim bladders, a random coincidence. The random nature of Darwin's theory is also part of his legacy. Before Darwin we thought of ourselves as the result of some divine plan or of an inevitable rise towards perfection. After Darwin we can plausibly think of ourselves as the product of an impersonal process driven by the accumulation of minute random variation.

But did the above editor deliberate about this? Or did he just simply change my edit in a knee-jerk response to me? Vincent 09:09, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Vincent there are 21,000 Google hits mentioning that Darwin was an Aquarius, so that would seem to be even more relevant than any coincidence with Lincoln. Perhaps we should put discussion of his star sign into the article - its a fact, its true, its got some Google hits. We could include an infobox with astrology readings on all biography articles, and whilst we are at it, list their estimated Myers-Briggs type too (INTP for Darwin?). User:Floflei6 was saying this is a case where compromise isn't possible, but actually I think compromise is possible. Whilst this factoid doesn't contribute to the Charles Darwin article, it would have a place in an article which discussed birthday coincidences. I've given you another birthday coincidence above, along with a link to the maths problem on the likelihood of shared birthdays. Also I for one am not too keen on linking to the Darwin Awards - again Darwin is relevant to those awards, but the awards aren't that relevant to Darwin's biography. - Solipsist 09:40, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, the astrology point is a better continuation of the debate than previous meandering repetitions have been, I admit. But there are good reasons for not including his sign: astrological signs are seldom mentioned in Wikipedia but birthdays always are, at least when they are known, and there are very few birthday coincidences. I looked up ten dates at random and didn't find one between prominent 19th century personalities. (BTW, what was your birthday example?)

I suppose we could start a Notable birthday coincidences page AND include a bullet under "See Also" linking to that page, preferably mentioning why. Vincent 09:52, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The astrology example was to be my next step the the reductio ad absurdum argument (now archived on a sub sub page), but the discussion moved on too quickly for me to keep up. You will find the other birthday coincidence there - and there are bound to be more. It doesn't have to be just birthday coincidences either. Date of death + birthday coincidences are often interesting to people who believe in reincarnation, most especially the Dali Lama. You can look for other temporal coincidences too - for a while I've had a soft spot for the quirky featured article Exploding whale, but recently noticed that the first Oregon beach incident was happening at almost exactly the same time the 1970 Bhola cyclone was killing about half a million people on the other side of the world - for me that rather makes the homour in the Exploding whale article ring a little hollow.

I don't know how other people would feel about a 'See also' link to Notable birthday coincidences from here, but I personally wouldn't particularly encourage it. - Solipsist 13:31, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hey, the trivia is very trivial but it remains trivially actual :) The proble is that this is getting slowly into a personal war against Vincent over here and that is not acceptable. We want a solution. You may don't want the trivia and I'd like to see it. I don't have any other corroborating fact, I only think it's not anything scandalous nor anti-encyclopaedic nor disrupts the artcile's integrity. I see some reasons of deleting the trivia, and think they're as valid as the reality of the existance of the coincidence. Coincidences are important and, added to the fact that CD and AL were against slavery (I wouldn't make a new section for it), it can increase the style of the article.

Noisy, RfAr can't be performed if no one answered the RfM. --Neigel von Teighen 20:21, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Lincoln vs. Queen Victoria

Is the following a common view of Lincoln among UKers?

A career politician who is most known for his declaration of war on his own people

Do people object to a trivia section or to Lincoln? If Queen Victoria & Darwin were born the same day, would it be worthy of being trivia? --JimWae 06:41, 2005 Jan 22 (UTC)

I don't believe it is a common view, but I do think there is a slight amount of anti-American bias. I have made this point before. Vincent 07:48, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No this is a red herring. I would be quite surprised if the majority of users voting against inclusion are not in fact American themselves. If the birthday coincidence involved Darwin and Queen Victoria, the only difference would be that two would more likely have known about it and it could have affected their lives. - Solipsist 09:44, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm voting against it, I'm an American, I'm against any meaningless coincidences. If the two birthdays in question are people with no connection to one another, even thematically, then it is a meaningless coincidence. Doesn't matter who it is. --Fastfission 16:55, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, I said slight :)

Arbitration or Debate?

Noisy wrote "There is one more method. That is an RfAr against Vincent himself. "

Actually, it would create no bad feeling on my part. I sought arbitration myself if you'll remember. I would welcome arbitration for the same reason that I find my advocate's proposal a good one: a moderated debate to a third party will have a result, but an Us vs. Them argument doesn't always. (Of course, finding an judge we would both agree on would be difficult.) Vincent 09:37, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Vincent, are you aware that there is a 5:1 opposition to your inclusion of a birthday conincidence? Do you care? Also, I think an ArbCom case against you is warranted, and hopefully would lead to you only being able to edit Charles Darwin once in 24 hours. That would help you not break the 3RR on this article, and stop causing a disruption. It is a red herring for you to say that you will listen to anyone else. You have stated that you will keep inserting this fact every day, no matter what. *sigh*. I had hoped that your block would have given you some time to reflect. In fact, it only meant that the great emancipator wasn't mentioned for 32 hours, in an article about charles darwin. --Mrfixter 12:13, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It's clear to me that no one wants the debate, but an arbitration. It sounds good to you, but an arbitration can solve against anyone. Obviously, massive inclutions and deletions of the trivia is not the way. That's clear... I propose (yes, non-official) but good way to keep some order, but you might want arbitration and I respect it (hope Vincent also does). Only a little comment: I'm surprised that no admin is here protecting the page...That's not too official. --Neigel von Teighen 20:28, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It's clear to me that only ONE user is consistently trivializing this article. After his three reversions are done, this user usually has the sense to stop. Whether arbitration would 'solve' against me, who knows? I would call it a lukewarm edit war, certainly nothing to protect the page over. Ask on Wikipedia:Requests_for_page_protection, why not? Be bold! --Mrfixter 22:39, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Mrfixter wrote Vincent, are you aware that there is a 5:1 opposition to your inclusion of a birthday conincidence? Do you care?.

Yes, I am aware and I stated very clearly that I did find voting inappropriate.

I had hoped that your block would have given you some time to reflect.

You forget that I voluntarily stayed off a few days over the New Year, hoping that everyone would take a breather. That did not work, so I have had to continue. Sorry. Vincent 03:23, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I think Vincent should be strung up alongside Sam Spade and Neigel; however, arbitration seems to be a standard procedure when dealing with trolls and vandals such as them. Adraeus 23:14, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Vincent, why do you continue to disrupt wikipedia? Take a deep breath and walk away. Your block for breaking the 3RR has clearly not helped you. You have a choice, you don't have to continue anything. When you were blocked, trivial nonsense was not in this article. The only positive thing I can see is that the talkpages are still being used, there is hope yet...--Mrfixter 03:37, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Mrfixter, why do you continue to disrupt wikipedia? Take a deep breath and walk away. You too have a choice, you don't have to continue reverting. I am adding an interesting instance of noteworthy trivia, not nonsense. The only positive thing I can see is that the talkpages are still being used, there is hope for you yet as well... Vincent 07:41, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As far as 27 editors of the Charles Darwin article are concerned, you are indeed disrupting what you call "Wikipedia". Mrfixter is not to blame for your headstrong, unreasonable and irrational crusade. You are responsible for the edit war and the article's recent protection status. Any decently intelligent person would determine you, Vincent, as the problem. Adraeus 00:00, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well I briefly thought the discussion was heading for an amicable solution, but now it looks like the argument is just starting to repeat elements of the previous archived page. I was going to say that the next step is mediation, but I see that has already been tried. Am I right in thinking that User:GK was the mediator? And given that GK seems to have left Wikipedia, the mediation is now dead?

If so, with the page protected and the argument going in circles, I guess we will reluctantly have to go for Arbitration against Vincent. -- Solipsist 09:18, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, surely User:GK can't have been the mediator he was in the discussion from the start. Was a mediator found? -- Solipsist 09:28, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

So, the actions of one disruptive user has caused the protection of this page. It is clear that Arbitration is the only way forward. An indefinite ban from inserting trivial, non-noteworthy, coincidental nonsense into this article by Vincent would be a satisfactory outcome of arbitration, so lets have our fingers crossed! His block for breaking the 3RR and disruptive behavior certainly count against him already. We should start an evidence page, but I don't know how to do this...Thanks! --Mrfixter 14:08, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Vfp15_and_Charles_Darwin/Evidence Dunno if this is appropriate, but it is a starting place. --Mrfixter 18:45, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The first person to come forward as mediator was Mgekelly. He takes a low profile. He has blocked the page once before for 24 hours. Blocking is fine, but when the page is unblocked, I will continue with 3rr, and will do so until an acceptable compromise is reached, or until arbitration results in a decision. As long as this remains a battle between two camps, I refuse recognize the opposition's mob mentality as rightful authority. The opposition is wrong and offended and thus wants to shout me down and bully me into submission. I will accept the result of an impartial board, but the opposition cannot be called impartial, can they? Vincent 00:20, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't think you understand the purpose of arbitration. Arbitration rarely if ever settles content disputes — that's why your own request for arbitration was quickly rejected. If there is a new request for arbitration, it would not even discuss the pros or cons of any proposed content changes; rather, it would focus on your insistence on conducting a pointless and sterile edit war. Perhaps Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Cantus vs. Guanaco may serve as precedent. Based on this precedent, I believe that a possible outcome may be that you could be banned from editing Charles Darwin for a period of time.

There is no such thing as an "entitlement" to 3RR daily until the end of time. Especially if there is a open threat to do so blindly and mechanically until you get your way singlehandedly even though you have readily acknowledged that the consensus is overwhelmingly against you. I believe this amply satisfies the definition of a pointless and sterile edit war even if you strictly kept within the 3RR rule, which incidentally you have not.

I'm not sure what the next step would be, but one possibility would be filing a fresh request for comments. Unlike the previous RFC, this would not be a question about the content dispute, rather it would focus on your user conduct. See Category:User conduct disputes for some examples of these.

The content-dispute mediation request at Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation#User:Vfp15_vs_Many_on_Charles_Darwin_dispute appears to be moribund. There has been no edit to it in more than a month, and no mediator has stepped forward. Is there any evidence that User:Mgekelly is acting as a mediator? Protecting the page doesn't count, any admin can do that. Since you initiated the request for mediation, you presumably have an urgent desire to see a successful mediation take place to completion, and therefore it is up to you to push the process forward if it seems stalled. However, it doesn't appear you have done anything beyond initially filing the request — you haven't even specified the names of the "many"... a mediator needs to contact people to see if they agree to mediation, which is hard to do if the mediator doesn't know who these people are! Unless some significant progress happens there soon, it will be time to declare that mediation process dead and request its removal to the archives.

Incidentally, mediation works best when there is a one-vs-one content dispute between only two users; a one-vs-many mediation is unlikely to succeed in finding unanimous agreement among the "many", who will each have their individual point of view. However, one-vs-many mediation should rarely arise, because a one-vs-many dispute is ipso facto evidence of the existence of a consensus.

Formal proceedings can be tedious and everyone would prefer to avoid them. And once again, such formal proceedings would no longer be about content disputes, but about your user conduct. I hope you will reconsider the course you seem to have chosen. You have already acknowledged that the consensus is overwhelming against you, but you simply don't care. But Wikipedia operates on consensus... how else could a website that allows anyone to edit possibly operate? Will you not acknowledge this?

-- Curps 03:30, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

So, lets analyze these two so-called "camps", in this exciting new game called "Lets look at the editors in the past month who have taken out or put in a birthday coincidence!":

Taken out:

User:Robert_Pendray - 00:18, 22 Dec 2004 3 times

User:Noisy - 10:02, 22 Dec 2004 5 times

User:William_M._Connolley - 11:46, 22 Dec 2004 4 times

User:Duncharris - 10:24, 24 Dec 2004 2 times

User:81.179.199.87 - 00:02, 29 Dec 2004 1 time

User:Solipsist - 10:03, 29 Dec 2004 3 times

User:Fredrik - 23:57, 29 Dec 2004 4 times

User:Jonathunder - 05:36, 9 Jan 2005 6 times

User:Nunh-huh - 03:24, 10 Jan 2005 3 times

User:Steinsky - 20:26, 10 Jan 2005 1 time

User:Adraeus - 05:19, 11 Jan 2005 4 times

User:Mrfixter - 03:28, 12 Jan 2005 2 times

User:Fvw- 07:45, 17 Jan 2005 7 times

User:Psychonaut - 10:25, 21 Jan 2005 1 time

Put in:

User:Vfp15 - 00:13, 22 Dec 2004 37 times

User:218.176.34.86 - 10:30, 24 Dec 2004 2 times

For what it's worth, User:218.176.34.86 is almost certainly User:Vfp15 himself. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Charles Darwin-Lincoln dispute/Evidence. -- Curps 19:32, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

User:Sam_Spade - 12:37, 29 Dec 2004 3 times

User:Cburnett - 07:42, 14 Jan 2005 1 time

Please make sure you read the summary of my revert that incidentaly put the trivia in. It was a "protest" against Adraeus' incomplete edit summary. Cburnett 08:07, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This is a game you can play at home, dear viewer. Which one of the so-called "camps" represent wikipedia community consensus, and which one represents willful and implacable resistance to wikipedia community consensus?

--Mrfixter 03:46, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think I've removed the trivia three times too. Adraeus 04:07, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sorry Adraeus, just did a month, from 22 December onwards. Didn't have the patience to do more. --Mrfixter 04:35, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I removed the trivia four times between the 10th and 13 of January 2005. Adraeus 05:20, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You're right of course. Logging off now, feel free to add yourself! My list was never meant to be authoritative, if there are mistakes, fix 'em! Sorry for leaving you out tho, nothing personal. --Mrfixter 05:46, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Camps

Against trivia

reverts: 18 Fvw, Psychonaut, Mrfixter, Nunh-huh, Jonathunder, Adamsan, Fredrik, Solipsist, aaarrrggh, Robert Pendray, Duncharris, Noisy, William M. Connolley, Adraeus, 80.250.128.5, Mgekelly, gK, PxT

no reverts, but voted against: 15 Floflei6, Cburnett, Curps, Nasrallah, Joe D, BM, Neutrality, Peter O., Zero, Jerzy, Dan100, Morven, Tuf-Kat, Fastfission, PaulHammond

talked against, but no votes or reverts: 9 XmarkX, JamesMLane, Rd232, Cortonin, Janust, dave souza, jguk, Cortonin

Grand total: 42 (or 88%)

For trivia

1. Vfp15
   218.176.34.86 (also Vincent:"<sigh> Fighting the ignoramuses three times day 'til me dyin' day!!!")
2. Neigel von Teighen 21:54, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC) (you forgot me)
3. Sam_Spade
4. Willmcw
5. chocolateboy
6. at0
7. User:LizardWizard [1] (very first edit was for the Charles Darwin trivia and subsequent editing suggest strong familiarity with Wikipedia procedures—possible sockpuppet??)
8. User:Kevink [2] (a grand total of four edits. Probable sockpuppet?)

Grand total: 5 or 6 (or 12%)

Overwhelming concensus:

No trivia! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Consensus:

1. majority of opinion: The consensus of the group was that they should meet twice a month.
2. general agreement or concord; harmony.

Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease [3]

—It looks like there is an overwhelming "majority of opinion", although there to be no "harmony". Should a very small minority obstruct the very clear wishes of the majority in this case?

Arbitration unknown for the ArbCom!!

Hey, I think you did the request in the wrong way! There's no request put in the WP:RfAr but a subpage calling for evidence. I don't care who did the requst, but I'm sure he doesn't know how to perform one. Thus, I'll make the request as it must be done. You surely know that the ArbCom must approve (I think now it's by 7 or 6 votes) the request before. --Neigel von Teighen 22:04, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No, you are getting confused by the previous WP:RfAr that Vincent started. It was turned down because Mediation hadn't been tried. User:Mrfixter was pointing to it as a starting point for collating the evidence, much of which will be the same. -- Solipsist 22:36, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm talking about Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Vfp15_and_Charles_Darwin and its subpage Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Vfp15_and_Charles_Darwin/Evidence. I did the request by myself, specially against those who Vincent wanted (I'm his advocate and it's my job. I don't like to do this sort of things...). Now, we're officially making a request. --Neigel von Teighen 22:42, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oh, you're openly admitting you're Vfp15's sockpuppet? Okay. Thanks. Adraeus 23:44, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No, I'm saying I'm his advocate. Do you remember me? I also was in the Atheism dispute with you. --Neigel von Teighen 17:17, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration From The Light Side

See WP:RfAr. Adraeus 00:08, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee case opening

There is now a Charles Darwin/Lincoln dispute case before the Arbitration Committee to investigate the behaviour of the disputants here. If you were not contacted via talk page, you may still wish to add evidence toWikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Charles Darwin/Lincoln dispute/Evidence to support your case. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 03:36, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)

jump in or stay out?

I arrived late to this whole dispute, but I have formed a definite opinion as to whether or not the disputed factoid belongs in the article. Since the vote here has already been archived, does it make sense for me to add my opinion to the Arbitration area, or is that really exclusively concerned with user behavior? (I'm wondering to what extent user consensus on the inclusion/exclusion is relevant evidence.) I have no stake whatsoever in either side "winning". Skyraider 01:38, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You can find the vote at Talk:Charles_Darwin/Lincoln/LincolnArchive01#Vote. I don't think anyone would object if you add your vote (signed and timestamped), but an archived page will be seen by fewer people than before it was archived.

I don't think the arbitration will rule in any way on content disputes, I believe it will focus on users' conduct. -- Curps 01:59, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I had been under the impression that archived material was to be considered frozen, but if I can still get in on the vote there, that seems like the most appropriate action on my part. Whatever the outcome of the arbitration, I hope all involved will be able to accept it and continue to contribute to Wikipedia. -- Skyraider 02:47, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Lamest edit wars ever?

The Charles Darwin/Abraham Lincoln debate has now made it to Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars ever. 4.232.141.25 12:25, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I should start a revert war to put it at the top since it's the lamest one of all! Though, the oddnes of 3 is pretty classic. Congratulations Vincent, huzzah! Cburnett 18:42, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)