Steven Walling wrote:
First try putting in a RFC to get some more voices in on the debate. If he is being obviously unreasonable (or you're overreacting and you're too hot to realize it), getting a few outside opinions is a good way to make people see sense.
If getting more users in on the debate doesn't work, first try Mediation before you go to ArbCom.
Someone else in the debate already tried requesting mediation, it was rejected as an attempt to get a mediator willing to ignore rules to override the guideline under dispute. When I went to AN/I to get an outside administrator to look at some rapid-fire unilateral edits he was making while the debate was still going on, and this too was considered an attempt to recruit people to oppose him (the _last_ thing I wanted to do was to have to block him myself). This is why I've been vague so far and have avoided giving any names, I wanted to avoid giving any more of that impression.
I was hoping for a more philosophical approach rather than a legalistic one, but I suppose it's possible there really isn't any other way to solve things. Though I just found an RfC about this user dating back to 2004 that's about the same pattern of behavior, which leaves me even more depressed.