Forum:Formal request to permanently ban Ch'vyalthan

I formally put forward the request that User:Ch'vyalthan be permanently banned from this wiki.

(The Dragon Demands Neck Lifts Ch'vyalthan, and continues speaking...)

I did not want it to come to this, I have tried to be understanding, patient, tolerant, and merciful, but Ch'vyalthan has abused our trust too many times, and his continued editing now or at any point in the future is a serious hindrance to the operation of this wiki, which I love. Thus I am compelled to act as The Mailed Fist of the Wiki:

Why Ch'vyalthan must be banned
My report: Ch'vyalthan is unfit for editing by any measure

The reasons for this are multiple and a long time coming; part of the problem is that his actions were not outright "abusive", but are best described as "pervasive and extreme incompetence" combined with "ignoring all criticism and warnings from admins to correct the quality of his editing". While we normally tolerate such things in small amounts, but Ch'vyalthan has been burning through literally hundreds of edits in a single day, so fast that we simply could not keep up. The count currently stands at around two thousand since just October when he signed up. This is tantamount to spam posting, because these constant errors were simply repeated no matter how many times we complained, and it made more work for the rest of us.

Ch'vylathan, by chance or design, came upon this wiki in late fall, when I think many of us were too busy to respond (and Hurricane Sandy shut down my ability to respond in late October to early November, at which point finals season started). I personally was too busy with end-of-semester projects to significantly respond. But for those of you who were here (the dozen or so regulars on here) I believe you remember the blizzard of edits Ch'vyalthan was making from October through December. He only stopped in the past month because I (and I think other users) had enough of a break from school or work over Christmas holiday to start actively addressing the high number of awfully composed edits Ch'vyalthan was making.

I shot Christmas break systematically going through Ch'vyalthan's Contributions tab to check articles he'd edited and to fix them; I have wanted Ch'vyalthan banned since Thanksgiving or so in late November, but he was editing too fast for me to respond -- so I at least kept a running list of links to bad edits he made so I could fix them over Christmas Break. This took weeks to fix. I have blanked, sponged, purged, and when needed, blasted all of Ch'valythan's awful edits off of this wiki. He has contributed nothing of value to it, and now, nothing of permanence.

As I said, I started feeling that Ch'vyalthan must be removed since late November, but I didn't take action because I felt I needed to make a stronger "case", seeing as he wasn't being overtly abusive....he's simply a talentless, utterly inept editor who ignores all criticism even from admins to follow basic wiki-standards, and with bizarre spelling and grammar mistakes; he has no regard for the other users here, and seems oblivious to how much of everyone else's time he wastes when we have to go back and correct bad additions he's made.

Ch'vylathan's edits are the pinnacle of ineptitude, to the point that I more than half seriously suspect that he's just a very subtle troll, making bad edits that are just "presentable" enough that they simply come off as sloppy writing. Well, that's just a suspicion, and even if not true, does not change the need to get rid of him forever.

In short, Ch'vyalthan has systematically broken almost every standard of wiki-editing and quality we have, shown utter incompetence at every aspect of this wiki; he has no idea how to add images so he just points in inappropriate ones, he doesn't know how to write "in the books" sections so he just writes in a jumble; recaps that read like direct transcripts rather than actual recaps.

Were I to hypothetically describe the antithesis of a quality editor, similar to Bizarro-Superman being the antithesis of Superman, I'd come up with something approximating Ch'vyalthan: Ch'vyalthan is not a "contributor" to this wiki, not an editor: Ch'vyalthan is so alien a travesty that actual "contributors" are made more obscene for the vague resemblance.

It wasn't just the mistakes Ch'vyalthan made, but again, the sheer volume of bad edits. Just yesterday, he added incorrect categories to literally 200 articles, then when Admin Gonzalo84 ordered him to fix them, he ignored him and kept editing an episode recap until Gonzalo84 had to demand that he stop.

Ch'vyalthan effectively shut down this wiki for the past three months, and I question any editor to say otherwise. Yes, we've gotten some things done, but we're essentially in "standby mode" because for ever one step we took forward, we had to take three steps back. For every hour I've spent writing new material, I've have to spend three hours revising and correcting mistakes Ch'vyalthan made. I know this has taken time away from many other editors I could mention by name here: who attempted to walk Ch'vyalthan through step by step how to do processes like "load an image" or "write a relationship article" or "how to write an in the books section", wasting hours of work-time only for him to get it wrong anyway, AT BEST throw up his hands and say it is impossible and stop doing it (in the case of "in the books"...even though other new editors get the hang of that very quickly), and AT WORST, ignores our criticisms and advice, and simply going on doing it the wrong way.

I am in all honesty convinced that were a paid saboteur hired to intentionally disrupt this wiki, their attempts to shut down this wiki would very nearly match the degree to which Ch'vyalthan has hamstringed and stalled the ability of its editors to function.

Why then, did I wait until now? Partially because I realized that Ch'vyalthan robbed us -- ROBBED US -- of three months of work-time that we can't get back, and the Season 3 premiere is only two months away now. Partially because out of a respect for the rules, he hadn't overtly broken one particular rule, just clogged us up by making dozens of mistakes a day. Partially it was, as I said, because I had to build up enough evidence of his bad edits to present that objectively, he has no idea how to edit, isn't getting better, and is obstinately ignoring out criticisms (though he makes token apologies along the lines of "sorry I'll try harder" then promptly makes the same mistakes again - I think he just says that in the hope that it will shut us up and make it go away).

If I tried to make a request for banning without a strong case, even I barely succeeded, there would be controversy over banning such an editor. But Ch'vyalthan's editing has been so horrible, such an affront to the rest of us, so inconsiderate that he's taking time away from everyone else on here, that support had to be widespread if not unanimous. Ch'vyalthan needs to be shamed and made a pariah, specifically as a deterrent so future editors will be afraid to simply slap in such low-quality edits without fear of the repercussions.

For you see, I am an American.


 * America is a very all-or-nothing society. We like the big win, the touchdown, the knockout in the first round. We like to know, and for everyone else to know, that our victory wasn’t only uncontested, it was positively devastating. -- World War Z

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that a user long established should not be banned for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown, that other users are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by lightly banning another. But when a long train of abuses becomes evident, action must be taken.

Adding images
Ch'vyalthan had no idea how to add images to the site for months. Instead, he'd bizarrely try to re-use images already on the wiki out of context on other pages, i.e. if he didn't have a good photo of Petyr Baelish from "Valar Morghulis", he'd re-use a crowd shot from the victory scene with Littlefinger standing about Tywin's shoulder, in the background and out of focus. He did this numerous times. When I finally, in exasperation, explained point by point how it's done, he said his iPad can't save images, so it isn't really his fault that he keeps trying to use images that way. Which begs the question...why not just spend that time on writing text? If you can't contribute good images, and indeed can only find out of context ones, why bother?

Wiki conventions
Ch'vyalthan has shown a pervasive disregard for numerous minor conventions on the wiki, things such as that episode titles need to go without quotation marks. I can find hundreds of examples. He did wise up eventually...as in LATE December, but even now, it's a problem he continues to make, as seen in this edit from January 8th:

Also: ,

"in the books"
He's so ridiculously bad at editing "in the books" that he officially abandoned attempting to write them. As opposed to trying to get better at it, he simply stopped trying to, and insisted that there must be a skill to it...no, no, even new editors quickly grasp that the "in the books" section isn't just a COMPLETE re-iteration of a character's profile from A Wiki Of Ice and Fire.

Case in point, the travesty of what he did to the "Tyrion Lannister" page - - an "in the books" section as long as a main article, describing even minor or tangential difference from the books by going into detail about how the Battle of the Blackwater was different...on Tyrion's page.

As Gonzalo84 has pointed out, "Character articles are about the characters, not the entire episodes or scenes)"

and Gonzalo84 also said: "(removing speculation and stuff about OTHER characters... the "in the books section" shouldn't be a long summary, thats why we link to the wiki)"

Categories
Ch'vyalthan started randomly adding categories to pages, in what I'm CERTAIN was an asinine attempt to increase his wiki points ranking. Either that or he honestly doesn't understand that we DON'T HAVE AN IMAGE for "Tysha" or "Luthor Tyrell".

Spelling Errors
Ch'vyalthan makes frequent, embarrassing spelling mistakes. Excuses he's given are partially that he's admitted he contributes exclusively with an iPad, which isn't good for word processing (but how is that his fault?, he says)....OR vague mentions that he's working late. Given that he's in Florida and I'm in the same time zone, I can confirm that I've seen him editing from 11 pm to 2 am when I might be on...but even edits I make at 2 am don't contain the pervasive errors he's committed. Even if he's using an iPad and can't type well, he makes no effort whatsoever to proofread his contributions before or after he's submitted them.

"Night's Watch"
Worst of all...I honestly think he has no idea how "Night's Watch" is spelled. On literally (seriously, literally) dozens of occasions, he has used pretty much every conceivable variant except for the proper one, such as:

"Night Watch" -

the uncapitalized "night's watch", or combining the two to achieve "night watch" -

"King's Road"
Repeatedly, Ch'vyalthan has misspelled "Kingsroad" as two separate words, "King's Road" -- which wouldn't be that weird, except he sees it in TYPE, written-out, all the time...how he's gone on for so long and so many times misspelling it is baffling:

Distinguishing plural "s" suffix from apostrophe-s possessive
Ch'vyalthan pervasively confuses the plural ending "s" ("Starks") and the possessive "s" ending for plural nouns ("Starks' "). This has been done in all conceivable combinations. Using possessive when it should be plural subject - "the Lannisters are fighting the Starks' " and making it plural subject when it should be possessive, "the Lanisters are fighting the Stark's".

Examples: "Stark's and Direwolves" -

"Lannister's" instead of "Lannisters" -

Bizarre and persistent "Transcript" recap style
Ch'vyalthan - despite weeks of criticism and being explicitly told that wikis are not written this way - has the habit of not so much writing "recaps" but "transcripts" -- simply writing down word for word the sounds of the episode, without setting them off as is done in standard prose...making for a bizarre, stream-of-consciousness writing style.

He pervasively quotes dialogue by simple inserting it into the flow of a sentence, instead of setting it off with quotation marks. This means that he bizarrely makes direct quotes of sentences using "you", even though wikis are written in the third person:

Specifically, instead of writing: "Viserys says that next, Daenerys will probably want him to do his hair like the Dothraki" he will write: "He insults her dinner and the gifts of clothes she tries to give him (he is still dressed in his now ragged clothes from Pentos - Daenerys wanted to dress him like a Dothraki Lord so others will respect him). He says next you will want to do his hair like theirs, but Daenerys mistakenly says no he can't wear his hair like that, until he wins victories in battle he would not have the right.

Other examples:

"She tells him he should be the new Hand of the King, but he doesn't want the job. He feels there is too much work, and too little satisfaction. Cersei accuses him of taking nothing seriously."

Ignoring direct warnings and criticisms from other contributors, even admins
Ch'vyalthan just ignores all criticism and keeps right on going with his mistakes. Even when admins tell him to stop

Notice how he's also removed "delete" tags that admins have added, with no explanation

In another instance, I warned him that women with married names are referred to as "Catleyn Stark, nee Tully", not "Catelyn Stark, formerly Tully"....naught but two weeks later, he made the exact same mistakes and I had to revert them yet again: Part 1, Part 2 - note that, despite his constant sycophantic hand-wave that "oh hush, I'm doing better now"...this last incident with "nee" happened only two weeks ago.

He's also in the habit of making token apologies, at which he goes write on doing things. Sycophantically. I don't know if he honestly thinks the meek half-hearted and glib "apologies" dupe us about his behavior. Gonzalo84 has also noticed this: he gives glib, shallow "progress reports" saying "see I'm doing better and trying harder" when he's doing nothing of the sort.

Bizarre writing style of using long sentences with ablative absolutes and commas, alternating with short, choppy sentences
This is one of the biggest complaints: a fundamental, baffling flaw in Ch'vyalthan's writing style and grammar choice. Prose isn't written this way.

Basically, and this is not only "pervasive" but a persistent and fundamental character of his writing style,....he makes alternatively really long run-on sentences, or short, choppy sentences....it's as if he has no idea how to use contractions such as "and".

As for the long run-on sentences....he uses a bizarre, strange writing pattern in which he separates clauses out using a string of ablative absolutes and participles -- I know these grammar terms from Latin, but it means he'll just making a run-on sentence that looks like "with the Lannisters controlling the capital city, Yoren begrudgingly goes up the kingsroad, yet following goldcloaks, searching for Gendry, attacking them kill them all" etc. That's a made up example, but here's some solid ones:


 * Yoren - "Even if he had to leave the wagons and give up the possibility of continued recruitment, he wishes he had hired passage on a ship. It is because the Night watch was supposed to be neutral and left unharmed, but now he takes his recruits on difficult paths to avoid groups of soldiers who would take their wagons supplies and possibly forced conscription besides."
 * "When Tyrion is told that a man of the Night's Watch wants an audience he firsts asks if it's one named Yoren (as they are friends and he is unaware that Yoren is already dead because of Cersei's orders to find and kill Gendry). When he is told it is Ser Alliser Thorne, Tyrion remembers his distaste for the man and tells the guards to make him wait for days in a shabby room. It's weeks before Ser Alliser gets an audience, and by then the hand rots to pieces, so the royal court does not believe him."

Arya approaches Rorge and Biter, she is looking for Jaqen -

Alternatively, he'll follow a long sentence with a short, choppy sentence, which should have been combined with another using a comma or the conjunction "and":

"She is reading letter, Lancel asks her if it is about the war, and tells her that it all exciting. He asks what "our next move is." Cersei is irritated and tells him to stop talking and get back into bed." 

"They can sell the eggs and travel. Ignoring Jorah's pleas, she strokes his cheek. Daenerys sets the pyre alight and then calmly walks into the flames. She stands below the pyre as flames appear to consume her." 

Worst of all
Worst of all, he took off work on the wiki last week for what he claimed was "the Hamburglar's Birthday"...on both Monday and Wednesday! Which is it?!

Conclusion
Ch'vyalthan effectively shut down this wiki for three months.

We were able to make some edits but projects we need to get to before season 3 were ground to a halt, and the wiki largely went into "standby mode" from October to December. Only in the past month, during Christmas break when we had more time, have we had any hope of reacting against Ch'vyalthan.

But this is still a serious drain on our increasingly limited time.

Ch'vyalthan has contributed absolutely nothing of value to this wiki. He has grievously harmed it and shown no regard for other users. Multiple users have taken time away from their editing to try to advise him and walk him through editing; he has failed in every attempt. Again, new users quickly grasp concepts he has not in months, to the point that I wouldn't be surprised if this is a warped form of trolling -- going onto a wiki and acting like a fool, albeit an innocuous fool, to drain time away from the other editors. I think this is unlikely, but a startlingly plausible theory.

We have been more than patient. Ch'vyalthan took advantage of our mercy and our tolerance.

He hasn't learned the most basic of editing concepts in three months; is it fair for the rest of us to waste over a year more attempting to train him? He isn't listening, he's ignoring complaints and warnings, even from admins. What's more, that's just "twelve months" reckoned as the last three months of "off season" -- once Season 3 premieres, we're in for 10 weeks of what others have called a "Cambrian explosion" of new edits....one-off edits by an influx of anonymous users (usually meant in good faith, but we need to integrate these edits). Even if other editors weren't coming in (which they are), we'll have our hands full with Season 3. Ch'vyalthan already shut us down in the Off Season. IN THE OFF-SEASON! Do any of you think we can handle his nonsense, spamming dozens or hundreds of crappy quotes, in the busy time ahead?

But that's just stating the obvious, and I don't want to use Season 3 as an excuse for removing him; even if these were twelve more months of "off season", just look at how productivity has dropped off since October....not simply because editors have left. Even among you few editors who are still regularly editing, ask yourselves...just how much has Ch'vyalthan affected your regular editing?

List of Lords Declarant

 * I formally request that Ch'vyalthan be permanently banned from this wiki. Then I will mount his head on a spike right next to LovelyChrys--The Dragon Demands (talk) 22:48, January 22, 2013 (UTC)