Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Florentino floro

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

A summary of the debate may be found at the bottom of the page.

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In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 21:29, 17 July 2008 (UTC)), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 00:30, 16 July 2024 (UTC).

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• Florentino floro (talk · contribs · logs)

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

Statement of the dispute

There is a long term dispute over the way that User:Florentino floro adds content to wikipedia. He has a pattern of adding non-notable news and non-neutral content to articles. I have written on his talk page numerous time in good faith (as have many other editors), but he stubbornly refuses to change his behavior, instead denigrating me for suggesting that he change. He also has an agenda that has come to light: he is self-aggrandizing, and has carried a vendetta against particular Filipino figures into wikipedia in his choice of subjects to edit and the type of content he adds. He has been adopted twice through Wikipedia:Adopt-a-user, and I have tried to get his adopters to engage with these issues with limited success. Each adopter built a page dedicated to concerns about floro, [1] and [2] but they seem to have backfired by hiding the dispute and the issues from the wikipedia community at large. One difficulty here is that the edits form a pattern, but they are spread through multiple articles. Other editors often don't realize the depth of the issue looking at only one or two questionable edits. maxsch (talk) 21:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Cause of concern

1. This edit probably summarizes the cause for concern: [3] In it, he goes off into a long rant about how maxsch's most recent edit is misleading and detrimental to Wikipedia. The claim he makes, among others, is that max deliberately changed the number 1864 to 1870 to mislead people. The fact is, the edit Floro is complaining about was made by Floro himself! See here: [4]. The edit demonstrates his incoherent rambling, active assumption of bad faith, and failure to even read and comprehend his own sources properly--for both edits and for the accusations he freely throws out. Even barring all that, Floro's edit is wholly irrelevant to the subject at hand anyway, yet he insists on making a huge deal about how historical and notable it is simply because he read about it somewhere. After being confronted with proof that he is responsible for the error, he refuses to apologize, and links to an essay he wrote about how the best thing to do is to ignore maxsch and me [5].
2. A general pattern of adding non-notable news
   1. some applicable diffs: [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15]
3. A fixation on specific Filipino figures and a pattern of exaggerating negative news about them.
   1. some applicable diffs: [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22] (note: if you look at the news story, you will see that he significantly exaggerated the seriousness of the accident, and look at the talkpage note accompanying it [23]), [24], [25] goes with this[26] for context, and these for emphasis[27], [28]. It’s edits like this one [29] that led me to figure out that he was making biased edits.
4. Self aggrandizement and desire to leave a legacy. Particularly alarming are his claims of prophetic power and his insistence on adding proof of the truth of his alleged prophecies.
   1. some applicable diffs: [30], [31]
5. Responds to criticism with long off topic autobiographical rants, usually without addressing real issues.
   1. some applicable diffs: mostly see his talk page, here [32] and [33], but also in article talkpages where it clearly doesn't belong, [34], [35]

Applicable policies and guidelines

List the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct.

1. WP:NPOV
2. wp:notable
3. wp:relevant
4. wp:blp

Desired outcome

This is a summary written by users who have initiated the request for comment. It should spell out exactly what the changes they'd like to see in the user, or what questions of behavior should be the focus.

1. I would like to see user:Florentino floro stop adding news items indiscriminately to wikipedia. Though occasionally news is useful, too often he adds it to pages where it doesn't add to an understanding of the subject and ends up just being clutter.
2. I would also advise him (per npov) not to add any content to pages of anyone who was involved with his disbarment, or those of anyone against whom he has ever filed a lawsuit.
3. If his adopter is willing, I think it would make sense to have a period of time where Floro would only make 3 edits per day, and he would show them to his adopter before actually posting them. In this way he could get advice about what content he should add. I think the fewer edits restriction would force him to be more discerning. However, if Floro is unwilling to change his behavior and listen to criticism, he is a menace to wikipedia, and the only remaining option is that he be blocked. maxsch (talk) 18:33, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute.

1. TheCoffee (talk) 08:35, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
2. Migs (talk) 13:12, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

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Additional users endorsing this cause for concern.

Questions

Any users may post questions in this section.  Answers should be reserved for those certifying the dispute.

Q. While Mr. Schmelling has identified what he claims to be several problematic patterns in the edit history of Mr. Floro, I would be interested if he could also identify some positive aspects to Mr. Floro's contributions to Wikipedia? This would be helpful as it would show that this RFC was made in good faith. Algabal (talk) 16:14, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

A. I'm a little confused by what you mean here. The RFC is, in fact, about these problematic patterns, or, if you prefer, allegedly problematic patterns. Is it necessary for me to congratulate Floro at the same time as I bring up issues with the content he adds? I'm not sure why you would think that my creating the RFC is not in good faith. It seems to me that it is obvious that my actions stem from a concern about the quality of content on wikipedia. If that is not clear, let me restate it: I am concerned about the net effect of User:Florentino floro's contributions on the quality of wikipedia. I have never said that he never adds useful content (he does occasionally add useful content); I have never accused him of acting in bad faith. What I think he needs is a little more education, and especially he needs to be open to that education. maxsch (talk) 21:32, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

For background on this issue, and to show that I have been acting in good faith, this sequence of diffs should provide a narrative of my and Floro's history. Here is our first encounter [36], and then this is when I first became concerned about his editing [37]. Then he was adopted the first time [38], and I tried to talk to his adopter about what I saw as problematic tendencies,[39]. Here is an example where I tried positive reinforcement [40]. And then I tried very specifically to help him learn [41], [42] and [43]. maxsch (talk) 18:37, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

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Response

{This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed.  Users not named in the request or certifying the request should post under Additional views below.}

Response to concerns

{Add summary here.}

Applicable policies and guidelines

List the policies and guidelines that apply to the response.

Questions

Any users may post questions in this section.  Answers should be reserved for the user named in the dispute.

Q.

A.

Q.

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Additional views

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.

Florentino Floro is a highly valuable contributor to Wikipedia. Alienating him would be a big mistake. The vast majority of the news information that Mr. Floro adds to articles is both important and relevant. Take, for example, the following edit which is very typical of his work: [44]. It's short, notable and well written, but this appears to be the sort of "pattern" that has annoyed Mr. Schmelling.

Mr. Floro's edits are always short, well-written and neatly backed up with nicely formatted citations and references. I see no problem whatsoever with his edit history after browsing through it and examining the differences. I have, furthermore, examined some of the edits that Mr. Schmelling thinks are problematic, and to be frank I think it is much ado about nothing. Most of them are on talk pages, anyway, and all appear to be non-disruptive and in good faith. The patterns he identifies are simply not there. I am disappointed that User:Maxschmelling would attempt to lodge this complaint against such a fine Wikipedia user. Algabal (talk) 16:10, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Vivio Testarossa^{Talk Who} 15:27, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
2. Personally there's nothing wrong with him, he's just a confused Wikipedian. Although, I got to say that he loves creating never-ending, irrelevant, cryptic, insignificant and again very very long statements, which are practically speeches or like court orders (which are also very long), which are both a waste of time in creating and reading. But if he's happy with it, and it makes Wikipedia better why block him? -- Felipe Aira 14:12, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment Well, what I'm saying is that it doesn't make wikipedia better, it makes wikipedia worse. Why would you say that he makes wikipedia better? I'm happy to have a discussion on that subject. maxsch (talk) 20:24, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it's your imperative to show why it makes Wikipedia worse. IMO, he makes it better with his many additions, such as noting the deaths of important people, as I show above. Algabal (talk) 05:54, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I have plenty more arguments on the talk page as to why Floro makes Wikipedia worse; check the primer if you don't want to bother going through all of max's links above or my links in the talk page. Again, we never said all his edits are bad, we said many of them are. --Migs (talk) 11:33, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

1. Mr. Floro's edits are well-written with quality formatted citations and references. He does his research. He is a great asset to wikipedia.Susanbryce (talk) 21:56, 30 August 2008 (UTC

Comment Susanbryce: What do you think of the documented violations of NPOV where floro has written negative things about people he knows (and sues) in real life? And well formatted referenced edits are one thing, but they may still be irrelevant clutter to the article they get put in. If so, they are not an asset. Have you really looked at the evidence here? maxsch (talk) 15:41, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Additional view: Rkitko

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.

I'm not entirely uninvolved as I have spoken with Floro in the past about this, but I share some of the concerns of the editors who have opened this RfC. Floro appears slow to understand policy (not a problem in and of itself; patience is required) and he does note that he is relatively new to computers and Wikipedia (though I think he stretches the claim that he's a newbie quite a bit, after being here for over a year). Earlier, he had a problem identifying what constituted a copyright violation with articles like coconut healing oil, but through several rounds of discussion, the notion that copying and pasting websites into an article was a bad thing finally sunk in. I had hoped similar discussion would help with his recent and ongoing irrelevant "news" edits, but so far he remains adamant that his contributions are helpful and completely relevant. I agree with User:Maxschmelling and User:Cma that some of his contributions give undue weight to certain events. Further, many of his edits can be seen as simple trivia that has been added to the narrative as a current event, but will rarely have lasting significance. It is true that Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia and therefore has more leniency on what is included, it is also true that Wikipedia is not for news reports. Some of Floro's more recent news edits have followed the pattern:

1. diff - While the quote is indeed very nice, I agree with Maxschmelling's assessment diff that this is one of many speeches and that the speech itself has not been proven to have any lasting notability and would have been eventually removed from the article as irrelevant fluff later if Maxschmelling had not removed it.
2. diff - Floro also doesn't seem to understand that while many events occur, not all are notable, such as this example, which clearly does not belong on the municipality's article.

I'm also concerned with Floro's assertion that this (the RfC, Maxschmelling, Cma) is all a conspiracy against him from other Filipino editors. He has even appealed for my help in battling them. I'm not sure exactly where this idea originated, but I can't locate any evidence that it is accurate.

Of course this is not all Floro's fault. He's suffered an ineffective first adopter, User:Ianlopez1115, and a relatively absent second adopter, User:Diligent Terrier. Still, there is no reason for Floro to continue adding these irrelevant news items after lengthy discussions with all involved. He refuses to acknowledge the irrelevance of some of his edits (many others are just fine) and perhaps is unable to determine which are notable and which should be left out. Maybe this is due to an incomplete guide or explanation given to him. I would suggest a block the next time a conflict of interest edit is uncovered, such as the pattern of edits seen in Miriam Defensor Santiago, and possible blocks for successive news items that violate WP:NOT#NEWS. Floro should be able to recognize which items are notable by now. Adding non-notable and irrelevant information to the encyclopedia reduces the quality of what we have achieved so far (admittedly, a struggle, but to do destroy the integrity of what has be achieved willingly is not acceptable).

I hope Floro takes the above advice into consideration and alters his behavior. I have pointed to relevant policies and guidelines. I would also ask that he use common sense in his approach to editing. Before each edit, ask, "Is this a significant piece of information that will improve the article or will it just clutter it up?" If the answer is "no, it's not significant" or "maybe, but not sure", then allow time to pass before proposing it be added to the article. Ask the opinion of others before editing to get a better feel for what is and is not considered good editing. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 00:27, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Well put. maxsch (talk) 14:38, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
2. Yep. --Migs (talk) 14:46, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Additional view by Cma

I wasn't sure where this belongs, as I also have a history with Floro. I had quite a lot to say, but writing it all would have flooded this page. I've put most of what I wanted on the discussion page so as not to bloat this page. However, I would like to say this--(my sources have all been linked previously, or in the talk page):

Wikipedia has a culture of ignoring the personal lives of its editors. I understand why, and I completely respect that. However, in this case, I feel that Floro's personal life is very relevant. This is not some case of creepy internet stalking. All of this can be found in the article about him, or in sources linked from the article. Florentino Floro is a man who was disbarred from the Philippine judiciary because he claimed to base decisions off advice from magical dwarves. The court ruling stated that Floro suffers from a psychosis which renders him unable to make objective assessments and is prone to delusions. This psychosis clearly bleeds onto Wikipedia. Apart from his frequent negative editing of the articles of politicians involved in his case, he makes several bad judgements as to what constitutes notability, and freely tosses out accusations of conspiracy against those who disagree with him. Max and I have been accused of being sockpuppets, co-conspirators, and at one point, were even accused of being involved with plane crashes in India.

This is not some secret either. He flaunts all of this--on several blogs he has, and, by his own admission, on hundreds of internet message boards, where he was often banned after derisive laughter. He emailed at least one Wikipedia editor with a copy of A BOOK HE WROTE which is nothing more than an archive of replies to forum threads about him. What he is now doing on Wikipedia is exactly what he's been doing to other websites, and more significantly, to the Supreme Court. Even the Supreme Court of the Philippines has asked him to stop pestering them with his rambling, lest he face charges of contempt.

The prevailing mentality for bad contributors who are acting on good faith is to help them along until they improve. Floro's improvement has been extremely minimal, considering that he has been here for two years, and in light of his case, I must wonder if there are limits to just how much he can improve. I understand that he cannot be given any kind of penalty simply for bordering on being legally insane (he was never officially declared as such, but the court proceedings linked from his article heavily imply it); however, given how heavily this condition imposes on the quality of his contributions, I think that any further shows of insanity on his part should warrant much more decisive action than more messages on his talk page. --Migs (talk) 13:32, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. I am hesitant to condemn anyone for their personal life, but Floro has brought his personal issues to wikipedia, and something (maybe just stubbornness) is preventing him from learning wikipedia policy. maxsch (talk) 17:33, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment My experience with Floro has shown he is capable of learning our lengthy policies. It may take a bit longer than with other users, but no one should be condemned for that. And while he does mention his personal life frequently (I assume he's proud to be who he is), it's best if we leave that untouched. It only weakens the argument that he's been disruptive. As long as Floro is making referenced edits that comply with policy, I don't care what his personal background is. Strike that, I don't care what his personal background is even if he's not complying with policy. The problems this RfC addresses are his editing habits and how they're disruptive or counter to established policy or guidelines. Treat this RfC as you would if Floro had chosen to use an anonymous screen name and had never revealed his identity. There's a clear pattern of poor editing and no need to mention his personal life. --Rkitko ^(talk) 21:48, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment I understand that, but he himself is the one who's been choosing to publicize his personal life here, ceaselessly rambling about how he is jobless and a laughing stock, and going so far as to email and message editors just to tell them about how unfair his life is. And if he insists on bringing up his personal life, then I feel I should emphasize the part where this personal life reveals a long history of disruptive behavior--one that has gone on for the last decade and not just the two years that he's been on Wikipedia.

Additionally, his personal life is very much tied in with his edits. Let's not forget that he likes to note down "omens" about people who have contributed to his current situation, and that he uses his claims of psychic ability to defend these edits as well as the accusations he throws against us. --Migs (talk) 05:37, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

1. A person that is editing articles according to the instructions of alleged magical dwarves is going to have a very hard time being a productive editor. It may be best that Mr Floro avoid editing any article directly, and instead confine his work to very brief suggestions, complete with references, on talk pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:33, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Outside view by Casliber

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.

I am not familiar with the person or case. At this stage, I think discussing the background complicates rather than simplifies things. I wonder who else contributing has odd ideas or suffers delusions. Ultimately, this should be irrelevant if someone is able to add sources neutral material. At the end of the day what the community needs to know is this - do the sourced, neutral and generally uncontroversial contributions outweigh material which has to be vetted and corrected by other contributors (and resulting arguments etc.) i.e. Wikipedia:Tendentious editing and Wikipedia:Disruptive editing. If the answer is 'yes', then the person is a net positive, and if no, then sanctions may have to be taken. Note that I have not reviewed the editors' contributions thus far. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment I've stressed in the past that he does have worthwhile contributions, but that these are few and far between all the noise he generates. He always cites sources, yes, but what he adds in is often very selective and usually unnotable. These include edits about: minor injuries suffered by people whom he has personal grudges against (he claims it's notable because it's an omen of their downfall) and completely irrelevant snippets of news that he deems notable simply because it's in the news (a rhino was named after Kofi Annan). Neither of these are particularly serious in isolated cases, but he does this en masse. He adds a dozen of these a day without contributing anything that is truly of note, and then he responds very harshly when he is told about it and politely asked to be more discerning, going so far as to accuse the involved editors of a grand conspiracy to bring him down "because of crab mentality," as he puts it. --Migs (talk) 05:25, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

Outside view by SMcCandlish

I had no dealings with this user until yesterday. I can confirm that the user does add trivial "news" to articles, often with extended rambling quotations that have nothing important do with the topic at hand, and including copypasting the "news" from article to article (I can confirm the above notes that they always seem to have something to do with the Philppines). I cannot agree that Floro's edits are categorically "well-written" and "valuable" (they were in this case sloppy, with grammatical errors, incomplete citations, and citations to sources that did not in fact support the material being added). They also constituted copyright violations in several cases and concomitantly violated WP:NPOV, as passages from one or another of the sources were copy-pasted verbatim, including loaded journalistic language that does not belong in an encyclopedia. I have attempted to clean up this material at Niels Feijen, Wu Chia-ching and Darren Appleton, and have a lot more to do at Ten-ball where the real mess is. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:43, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary:

1. Endorse What this comment tells me is that Floro has actively refused to learn from this RFC and from good faith advice from users all over wikipedia. The edits in question here came after Wizardman "closed" this RFC with the admonition "If they [his edits] don't satisfy WP:N and are trivial additions, do not get annoyed if they are removed." And well, he got annoyed, threatening to edit war here [45] saying "Maybe, this month, I will review and revert all your edits, since last year, with Wikipedia rules citation, under the guidelines of 3-r revert rules on blocking." and here [46], saying "For example, I plan to revert all Max September reverts of my edits". The fact that he can say such things with impunity, while he is still making edits that violate WP:COPYVIO and WP:N, as SMcCandlish points out above, indicates a failure in wikipedia's ability to police itself. Something must be done. axschme (talk) 04:24, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposed solutions

This section is for all users to propose solutions to resolve this dispute.  This section is not a vote and resolutions are not binding except as agreed to by involved parties.  

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Discussion

All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.

Conclusion

After reading through the evidence, opinions, and diffs of the RfC, I have come to the following conclusion. User:Florentino floro is noted to make sure the additions he adds to articles satisfy the guidelines of WP:N. If they don't satisfy WP:N and are trivial additions, do not get annoyed if they are removed, remember that we are building an encyclopedia. I ask that when Florentino makes explanations on talk pages of his opinions or editing patterns, to keep them pithy, and not not write statements that take 10-15 minutes to read (we are volunteers after all). The dispute between User:Maxschmelling and Florentino is very evident, and I strongly urge the two to avoid direct confrontation if they can. While there is no consensus on how problematic the behavior of Florentino floro is, I urge him to take the constructive aspects of his dissenters to heart and try to make himself a better Wikipedian. Lastly, I urge User:Diligent Terrier and Florentino to work together more as adoptee and adopter. I would not like to see this go to the Arbitration Committee, so hopefully we can all become better users from this. Wizardman 23:22, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.