User talk:JBW

Cannabis in South Africa

Hi JamesBWatson. You removed quite a bit of content from Cannabis in South Africa which was added as result of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daggafari with this edit. It was subsequently re-added so I removed it, but it has been re-added again. Would you ming taking a look at it and seeing if it needs to be removed again? If not, then that's fine with me. MickeyDangerez seems to be under the impression that your AfD close was for only certain content in the Daggafari article and not the entire article itself. That might make sense if the close was a merge, but it doesn't seem as that is what you intended. Maybe I'm wrong, so I apologize if I am. -- Marchjuly (talk) 12:19, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: Thanks for pointing this out to me. Another editor has removed the content again. If that had not happened I probably would not have done so, as I don't wish to get into edit-warring. However, to me this was the last straw from an editor for whom the question was almost certainly when, not if, an indefinite block would come, and I have blocked the account. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:35, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for taking a look. FWIW, I did try to discuss this content, among other things, with the other editor at Talk:Cannabis in South Africa, but they seemed to take a WP:BATTLEGROUND approach to Wikipedia from their very first edit. A block is unfortunate, but was perhaps, as you say, inevitable given that approach. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:40, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Hi again JamesBWatson. Unfortunately this editor does not seem to be able to move past WP:NOTTHEM and trying to WP:RGW against the "dictatorship" of Wikipedia, etc. He had another unblock request declined and his immediate respnse was to cry foul and claim the reviewing admin was not being helpful. In addtion, the editor has continued to make claims against others and try and engage them on his user talk, instead of focusing on WP:GAB and figuring out how to get unblocked. I was going to try to explain to him why these things are not a good idea, especially when currently blocked, but I decided that would likely only add more fuel to his already burning fire. He has filed another unblock request, but I'm not sure that unblocking the account without some strong conditions would be wise. Perhaps offering WP:OFFER to be followed by topic ban on anything related to cannabis/South Africa/images for an additional six months or so might be warranted. Once his time is up, he can be encouraged to find other ways to be WP:HERE would be a way for the editor to learn more about Wikipedia (especially WP:NOT) and give the community a chance to monitor his edits and assess them. If after all this, he is able to demonstrate a better understanding of Wikipedia, all the conditions can be removed with the caveat that reverting back to his previous form would lead to an immediate block. I figured I'd ask you about this since you are the blocking admin, which means you can create the conditions for an unblock, and because I'm not sure if it needs to be discussed at WP:ANI. FWIW, if this latest unblocked request is declined and the editor still continues to rant, I believe that his user talk page access might need to be revoked. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:01, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

He just blanked his user talk, which he can do, but in the process removed declined unblock request which is not allowed per WP:BLANKING. He also left a non-English edit sum which may be more lashing out. I was going to restore the declined unblock request, but that will almost certainly lead to edit warring on his part. It seems like there's not many options left other than removing user talk page access. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:05, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Last unblock request was declined and this time user talk page access was revoked by Max Semenik. FWIW, the subject of a topic ban and the standard offer was brought up by Deacon Vorbis, but that was rejected. Anyway, sorry for bringing this drama to your user talk page. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:41, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Marchjuly, I swear I didn't see your comments here, and I made those suggestions completely independently. Maybe that means I've been hanging around here too much and have been assimilated. --Deacon Vorbis (talk) 01:49, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: No need to apologise for bringing this drama to my user talk page, as it's really rather amusing. As for your suggestions, you are clearly more optimistic about the editor than me. I have long been under the impression that he has no intention whatever of changing his attitude, and is never likely to be WP:HERE, no matter what offers we might make. Having said that, however, I am not against giving editors a chance, even if it seems unlikely that they will take it, unless "unlikely" becomes "virtually inconceivable". As for talk page access being lost, I always felt the same about the prospect of that as I said above that I felt about the prospect of an indefinite block: it was a question of when, not if. It's a real pity, because some of what MickeyDangerez said was reasonable, and he could have been a useful contributor if only he had been able to (a) listen to others (b) realise that in a collaborative project one has to compromise, rather than insisting on getting 100% of what one thinks is right, and (c) realise that "neutral point of view" doesn't mean "whatever I personally am convinced is the correct point of view".

@Deacon Vorbis: Hmm. The idea of the Wikipedia community gradually assimilating its members into a collective mind is an interesting one. I suppose the ones we indef-block are ones that we decide are unsuitable for assimilation for some reason. Did the Borg ever make that decision about any "life forms"? I don't remember it happening, but surely it must have done. There has to be a limit to what one will let into one's own mind.

On a different note, I have just read your last post at User talk:MickeyDangerez, and I really don't think anyone could have made better attempt to reach out to the editor and try to give him every chance to come back. However, there's no helping those who won't be helped. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 08:02, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

As an editor who has been repeatedly, falsely accused by this user of WP:COI, WP:Promo and deliberately misleading people, accusations I take very seriously, I too have decided not to engage with him so as to avoid adding fuel to his already burning fire. I agree with Marchjuly that a topic ban may be the only way forward if an unblock request was ever granted. However, judging by his article main space edits (6.4%) vs talk page edits, I'm not so sure he is here to build an encyclopedia rather than to push his own agenda. Robvanvee 09:06, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

@Robvanvee: I agree with everything you say except for one detail. You say you are "not so sure" he is here to build an encyclopedia rather than to push his own agenda, whereas I would say that I am sure that he isn't here to build an encyclopedia rather than to push his own agenda. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 11:18, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Teahouse

Please see Wikipedia:Teahouse#How to get started if you feel like explaining the deletion. I would respond myself, but I can't see the thing. GMG^talk 13:10, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Reverts

Could you check your reverts of the IP before clicking "save"? In some cases you are restoring blatant spelling errors. Thanks. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:59, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@Ghmyrtle: Assuming you are referring to the editor that I guess you are, I explicitly included an invitation to restore good edits, because I was aware there were some, and where I was aware of them I avoided reverting them. However, I made a calculated decision that the damage due to reverting some of those would be less than the damage which would be caused by leaving the disruptive editor's edits as they were, and it would have been impracticable to individually check every edit from an editor who has made thousands of edits, many of them harmful. There is also the fact that conveying the message that every edit is likely to be reverted is the most effective tool we have for discouraging an editor with a very long history of evading blocks from continuing, which shifts the balance of benefit further towards reverting almost everything rather than leaving almost everything. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 11:11, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@JamesBWatson: So you're forcing us to proofread you instead? That's not any easier. The majority of your edits have been restoring spelling or grammatical errors. Please proofread before you revert since deliberately introducing grammatical and spelling errors is disruptive to Wikipedia. Thanks. Smartyllama (talk) 15:28, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Which part of what I said above do you disagree with? You evidently don't think that what you are referring to is a matter of making mistakes, either by misfortune or by negligence, as you used the word "deliberately". The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 15:53, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

One error could be a mistake. Even a few errors over the course of several thousand reverts could be expected. But when over half the reverts are erroneous, that's not a mistake. At best, it's recklessness. Smartyllama (talk) 16:45, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

My sandbox/Dagga Couple article

Hi James. Am I correct in assuming you fixed the history of the 2 above mentioned pages to better reflect their individual histories? I did notice when I created the page, some of my sandbox history was there too. If so, thanks for that! Robvanvee 13:31, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@Robvanvee: Yes. I tried to check the early history of Dagga Couple, and found a lot of stuff there which had nothing to do with Dagga Couple, and to prevent other editors getting confused by it I decided to remove it from the editing history. It would probably have been good enough to just delete it, but I have sometimes known doing that to lead to future confusion if there are further deletions and then something happens which leads to an administrator needing to check, or even to restore, old deleted revisions. I doubt that will ever happen for Dagga Couple, but rather than make a judgement each time, and sometimes get it wrong, I prefer to always move the old revisions away from the article's deleted history. Moving it back to where it originally came from (your sandbox) and then deleting it again seemed to be the most obvious way to do that. Perhaps I should have let you know, as it involved editing in your user space, but it didn't seem important since I was going to delete it anyway. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:59, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Great, thanks again! Robvanvee 14:12, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Looks more like N is for NOTHERE

Hi, JamesB. Just a heads-up regarding 2607:FCC8:BBC0:9800:BC5F:AE0:1EB:522E. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 15:59, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Persistent vandal @198.62.68.218

Hi James, There hasn't been a single constructive edit from this address since it was registered in Dec. 2015. Could you investigate, as you did recently? Sweetpool50 (talk) 19:05, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@Sweetpool50: Yet another example of a very familiar situation. An IP range is the source of many hundreds of vandalism edits over many years (in this case more than five years). A few of the individual IP addresses get blocked for a while, but most of them don't, because nobody thinks to check the contributions for the whole range, so they see only a few vandalism edits from one IP address, rather than seeing the whole picture. Except that this time there is one slight difference: the whole range did once get blocked, but for only a month. I don't see any point in that, as the few vandalism edits it stands to stop are trivial in proportion to the hundreds that it allows to continue. Anyway, I have blocked the range for several years. Thanks for letting me know. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:37, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@Sweetpool50: I wouldn't have bothered to explain all that to you if I had remembered that Mzilikazi1939 was your alter ego, as I had already explained it to Mzilikazi1939. Oh, well, never mind. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:40, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

A good story always bears repeating! Thanks again for your thoroughness. Sweetpool50 (talk) 20:27, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

You ruined my fun!

good reads such as this. Jim1138 (talk) 06:57, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

You should have kept quiet about it, Jim. Reading your message here prompted me to look at the editor's editing again, and I have now ruined even more opportunities for you to have fun. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 08:09, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Aargh! Jim1138 (talk) 08:20, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Block evading IP

James, I noticed you spent the last few days chasing the LA area IP who adds poorly spelled/grammatically incorrect contributions all over enWP. It appears he's evading his block again, this time as User:2605:E000:151E:C335:0:E921:46FA:32B7. ----Dr.Margi ✉ 07:55, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

@Drmargi: The edits from that IP address do look rather like some edits I have recently seen while checking the editing history of some other IP addresses. However, a quick look over a sample of the edits didn't immediately throw up any obvious problems, and I didn't notice the kinds of spelling and grammar problems that you refer to. Can you be more specific as to why you think this is the same person? The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 08:26, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Wide range block

Hey. Could you elaborate a bit on what caused you to range block 107.77.128.0/17? That's quite a wide range from a major mobile provider in the United States (AT&T). The collateral appears to be quite large. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:43, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: I did it in connection with long-term persistent disruptive editing by a serial sockpuppeteer. That person has been editing disruptively, using a number of accounts and IP addresses, since at least as far back as January of this year, and has used IP addresses in the range in question since at least as far back as June. When I checked the most recent edits from the range I saw that virtually all of them were either from that disruptive editor or else vandalism apparently from other editors, such as these: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. That persuaded me that the risk of collateral damage was minimal. However, checking now I see that the same proportion of vandalism edits does not hold further back down the editing history. I may possibly have checked a sample of earlier edits and by chance happened to get a high proportion of vandalism, but I am more inclined to think that what happened was that on the basis of what I saw I intended to make a short block, and making it a month was a mistake. Any way, whatever the reason was I agree with you that the likely level of collateral damage is too great for a block of such a length, so I shall unblock. Thank you for drawing my attention to this. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 22:29, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

For future reference, there were 4 ACC requests from this range in the ~48-72 hours since the block, and this range is edited on so heavily be registered and unregistered editors that the CU tool literally cannot check the full range to get a true sense of the collateral. In an active period of disruption, a short-term (~31 hour) block may work, but anything longer term will be very iffy. Thanks for taking another look! ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:34, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: Obviously unlike you I can see only the unregistered edits, and I also have to take your word about the CU tool, but even on the basis of what I can see I would not normally have made a block like that. Having thought about it more, I am almost certain that I intended a 24 hour block. Any way, as you have no doubt seen I have lifted the block, and I will be careful to avoid doing the same sort of thing again. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 22:41, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, appreciated. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:45, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

My article

I wrote an article on myself to put me down, but ithe was deleted, and now I can't be depressed 😤🅱OI BlueZed (talk) 05:00, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Hey

Hey James. I was surprised, to say the least, to see your scathing response on Gabinho's talk page. It came across as though I had insulted you outright with my reply. I was shocked to see you dismiss my message as a "non-answer" that you were already anticipating. I genuinely tried to be as thorough as possible in explaining why I issued an edit warring block in that situation, and I invested a significant amount of time in trying to be as helpful and detailed as I could in responding to your inquiry. I even invested time in providing an in-depth explanation and analysis of the edit war itself, so that you could understand the nature and type of the edit war that was going on. I assumed that if you understood the context of the slow-moving edit war, you would better understand the block. Needless to say, I was despondent to see you reduce my good faith efforts to me merely providing a "general article history" as an empty substitute for a block justification. Look, I don't know about you or Boing, but one of my primary areas of involvement is AN3—I'm pretty familiar with the community expectations and norms regarding edit warring enforcement by now. My experience in this area is what led me to execute the block as I did. Firstly, what you interpreted as a "general article history" was an attempt to bring you up to speed on the the confusing underlying dispute. I'm sorry you interpreted this as a bad thing. However, I thought it was important context in recognizing the edit war. Secondly, I referred you to the entirety of the article's history. I expected that, once you understood the context of the dispute, the long-term, slow-motion edit would be extremely obvious to you. Instead, you made the shocking statement that "there had been no edit warring". I'm at a complete loss as to how you could come to that conclusion. This editor took part in an ongoing edit war. There's literally no denying that. The entirety of the article's history is marred by a singular edit war over a singular issue. Slow-motion edit warring is edit warring. Tag team edit warring is edit warring. Users who revert are expected to use the talk page (again, "I didn't look at the talk page" is not a valid excuse if you're reverting). Users partaking in an edit war can be blocked without violating 3RR. These are all things that you didn't address at all while criticizing my block. Now, look. I'm open to dissent, and if someone disagrees with a block for a user who only reverted once, I'm open to hearing that criticism. I would have explained that disproportionate edit warring blocks are highly frowned upon by the community, and this user was blocked alongside of the other two edit warriors in the interest of fairness, in accordance with community norms. You would be free to disagree, and I would be more than happy to bow to your dissenting perspective. However, that wasn't even your criticism. Your criticism was that there was no edit warring. That's simply not true. If you had actually read my reply, you would understand that there was an edit war going on, and this user was one of the three recent editors who were continuing it. That should not be a point of contention. Your reply gave the impression that you ignored what I said, and spun it as me trying to justify an empty block. I'd be happy to hear, specifically, why you feel there was no edit warring, because I could not agree less with that. However, I'm sure you have valid points that will only help me improve. Swarm ♠ 05:05, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
CC: @Boing! said Zebedee: Swarm ♠ 05:07, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Swarm, I have to say I'm even more perplexed (and disappointed) by your response now than I was yesterday (shocked, in fact, that someone with your experience can get this so badly wrong and so completely misunderstand what people are saying to you). JamesBWatson clearly did not say there was no edit warring! Where on earth did you get that from? What he said was simply, and clearly, that Gabinho did not edit war. That's a very big difference, and I really can't understand how you can not see that. And again, the entire edit-warring history of the article is utterly irrelevant when it comes to judging whether Gabinho was edit warring. You still have not explained how this individial editor was warring - and you can not, because he was not. We simply do not block an editor because some other folk have been edit warring for ages - you were right to block those other two, because they had been edit warring, but Gabinho clearly was not. Secondly, your insistence that a warning on an article talk page is a sufficient warning before blocking someone is, well, so far away from Wikipedia's blocking policy and blocking norms that I'm amazed that you can come up with such an absurd claim. Even in such serious cases where discrectionary sanctions are in force, a sanction can not be placed on an editor unless they have previously been informed of those sanctions on their user talk page. There are two simple facts here, which you seem blind to:

1. Gabinho was not edit warring.
2. Gabinho had not been warned.

I think it's fair to say that JamesBWatson and I are among the most experienced of admins here (both with plenty of experience in reviewing unblock requests and in understanding edit warring and blocking policy), and when we are both telling you that you are wrong, don't you think you should at least listen to what we are saying and consider if perhaps we might be right? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:13, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Just an additional comment. Do you know what I expected, Swarm, after JamesBWatson's question to you at Gabinho's talk page? I was honestly expecting something along the lines of "Ah yes, I blocked three of them but it seems only two of those were edit warring, so I'll unblock this one." Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:52, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

@Swarm: Like Boing! said Zebedee, I am perplexed by seeing such a message from an experienced administrator whom I have always thought of as a good administrator, totally missing various points and seriously misrepresenting others. Three times in your message above you claimed that I said that there had been no edit warring, and yet I never said that, I said only that there was no edit warring from this editor. Edit-warring is repeatedly reverting in the same page, it is not making a couple of edits on an article where other people have been repeatedly reverting in the same page. Gabinho had not been repeatedly reverting in the same page, that is to say Gabinho had not been edit warring. That is the central point of all this. Several other things you say are astonishing, but rather than dwell on every detail I shall just mention one of them. You said "This editor took part in an ongoing edit war. There's literally no denying that." How can you say that when two experienced administrators have denied it? Boing! said Zebedee has denied it again in his message above, and I shall deny it again: whatever anyone else may have done, Gabinho was not edit warring. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:36, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Persistent vandal @173.162.252.29

Another case needing your detection skills. Intermittent edits since 2010, mostly vandalism. Continual warnings and short blocks in 2015 and 2016. Probably another school which will reveal much more such activity. Sweetpool50 (talk) 18:36, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

@Sweetpool50: Yes, I agree that it looks rather like a school, but it may not be. However, in more than nine months since the last block expired there have been only five edits, two of which were unambiguously vandalism, and two were unexplained removal of unsourced content, probably vandalism but not necessarily. That is not enough to justify a block. Checking edits from related IP addresses found some more vandalism, but a lot more constructive editing, and the editing from most of the IP addresses did not look like the typical pattern from a school. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:43, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello?

I've seen that you mentioned me in the page of another user of Wikipedia called "Lommaren" who has been blaming me for doing "vandalizations" on Wikipedia just because I linked 2 non official sources to the climate pages of Benidorm and Gandia, but they're the only sources available for it, and they aren't just amateur blogs or something like that.

My last edit on the Lampedusa page was more than 2 years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lampedusa&oldid=679719516 and i've been as well discovering sockpuppets of User:Gaditano23, some of those who are vandalizing Lampedusa as well as others. For example I discovered this user: User:Farangizsaifi who was a confirmed sockpuppet of Gaditano23. I don't know if you asked if i'm a sockpuppet of someone (I understood that while reading your comment on his talk page) but i'm a member of Wikipedia since 2012 and I never used any other account. I even had a small block in the past for an edit war and I waited for my 3-day block to expire. Anyways, I explained in Matthew's talk page what is happening here. Not sure who that "Lommaren" is and why is he blaming me for sourced edits on 2 non-related articles. He calls me a "vandal" and stuff which is senseless. --TechnicianGB (talk) 15:06, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

@TechnicianGB: I noticed that an editor had mentioned you, and I recognised your user name as one that I had come across while I was checking a sockpuppet investigation. As I said in the talk page post you saw, there was no indication that your account was in any way linked to the ones I was investigating, so I didn't look into it any further. However, when I later saw that an editor had suggested that you had been responsible for vandalism I did check your editing history, and I found nothing in any way suspicious. Since that editor had made an allegation against you without any substantiation, I asked him or her what evidence there is. I actually have no reason to suspect you of anything apart from that editor's unsubstantiated word, and I am not accusing you of anything, but I would like to know whether that editor has any reasons for suspicion or is just making accusations without any reason. I should probably have told you right away what I had in mind, and I apologise for not doing so. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 16:42, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

No problem! i'm even more surprised than you are. I don't even know that person and he says I told him who knows what in "a forum". He's acussing me on vandalizing the pages of Gandia and Benidorm probably just because he doesn't approve the climatic numbers (yet they're real but stated that one is just of 3 years and the other is maded up between 2 sources) and before even trying to discuss with me, he took profit to write that on Matthew's page, as Matthew just asked him something about the page Lampedusa- I'm even more surprised than you are, all of this is pretty senseless for me. Someone who I never "crossed" before in Wikipedia, starts directly to blame me for vandalizing 2 pages where I've put sources to prove those numbers. Weird situation but anyways, I don't have any problem! Regards --TechnicianGB (talk) 17:20, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Re

In the event it's helpful. Any chance Weathereditor (talk · contribs) could be involved? Tiderolls 17:52, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

@Tide rolls: Could well be the same person as 134.225.100.129. As I mentioned in a comment which is now at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Weathertrustchannel/Archive, that IP address is from England, and so are IP addresses believed to be IP sockpuppets of Weathereditor. There is also far more similarity in the choice of articles to edit between 134.225.100.129 and /Weathertrustchannel & socks than there is between them and Weathertrustchannel & socks. However, I haven't yet seen enough to make it certain. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:27, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

TechnicianGB

I just ask you to check the sources for Benidorm and Gandia and judge if they are legitimate or not. It is evident the user is fairly nervous about this since he pretends he does not know who I am and starts talking about other Mediterranean edits he has made in the past for no particular reason, when I have been trying to remove his unreliable/unsourced material several times. Having said that, now I have reported it and you can check Benidorm and Gandia and decide. I would just like unsourced material removed from Wikipedia. The norm is 15 or 30-year weatherbox averages, three years are not an accurate sample. Best wishes! Lommaren (talk) 20:33, 24 October 2017 (UTC)