Wikipedia:Wikiquette assistance

Welcome to wikiquette assistance
Wikiquette assistance is a forum where editors who feel they are being treated uncivilly can request assistance. The goal here is to help all parties in a situation come to a mutually agreeable solution. It is designed to function via persuasion, reason, and community support, rather than threats or blocks. Your first resort should be a polite attempt to discuss the problem with the other editor(s). No binding decisions are issued here. If you seek blocks or bans, see WP:ANI instead. Sections older than 5 days archived by MiszaBot II. (For help, see Wikipedia:Purge) Please notify any users involved in a dispute. You may use {{subst:WQA-notice}} to do so.
Search the Wikiquette archives Additional notes: Before posting, see that you've made every attempt to follow the advice at Guide to avoiding disputes. Consider the helpful advice here and see the dispute resolution process. Include diffs that show the situation. See the Simplest diff guide for help. The conduct of all parties will be taken into account. Assistance may involve suggestions for altering your own behavior to avoid conflict. Volunteers are welcome. See the volunteer instructions.
To start a new request, enter a name (section header) for your request below:

Active alerts

User:Nubula

On the page for List of creatures in Primeval all users except for User:Nubula agree on alphabetizing the page, like most other lists are. I went ahead and alphabetized the page. However, despite being overruled in the vote, Nubula removed to alphabetizing and changed it back. Since then, Nubula has been reverting every edit I have done on the Primeval (TV series) articles, even though they may be constructive and helpful, as well as naming me a 'troll'. I have tried to declare peace and stop the arguement, only to result in more name-calling and such. When I updated the infoboxes, Nubula reverted and stated in the edit summary; It's quicker to revert everything you've done to try and fix it. There were only a few picture links that needed to be changed. This user does not seem to respect other editor's work, reverting it almost every time. Please help me. I want to be able to edit these articles without being attacked! ----- Cuddly Panda (talk · contribs) ^{review me! |my chatroom]} 01:58, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Could you please provide diffs of the problematic behavior? I see disputes, but not personal attacks or the like. Showing us where those happened will help us assess things. --Cheeser1 (talk) 02:03, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Here is a diff where he reverted everything I had spent a fair chunk of my time doing. Here is an arguement where Nubula took priority over everyone else's opinion. Finally, here is the bursting point where he once again tried to ignore me. I wouldn't say it goes as far as personal attacks, but I must say that being called a troll (it's somewhere in the history - I just can't find it at the moment), being ignored and having all my hard work wasted is not acceptable, in my opinion. ----- Cuddly Panda (talk · contribs) ^{review me! |my chatroom]} 12:04, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

For beginners, I've left a civility warning on his talk page, to begin with. We'll see how he responds to a warning of a blatant policy violation before we start trying to mediate the less clear-cut stuff. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 12:13, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

User:IZAK

After a month of continued hostility, incivility, and religious slanders from User:IZAK, I am turning to this page for help. I have tried to deal with this problem in several different ways: discussion[1], calm confrontation[2], peace-making[3], civility reminders targeted to editors in general[4] , notes on talk pages[5] and simply ignoring bad behavior[6]. Nothing seems to work[7].

His latest attack accuses me of bad faith (intending to "hack and chop articles") simply for raising concerns about sourcing of an article (a 15K article with only two citations from the same non-academic source). Particularly offensive to him are suggestions that we rely on academic secondary sources such as historians and sociologists (a standard practice in departments of religion), and the suggestion that we seek help from other projects that might be able to provide specific kinds of expertise.

Though I am sure I am no saint, this kind of behavior seems way out of line. User:IZAK is one of the founders of Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism and it seems that he above all people should be acting in a manner that welcomes all points of view and favors none. To the contrary he has made it amply clear that he thinks there is only one legitimate point of view and academic or non-orthodox views are simply distortions. Furthermore, he is utterly convinced that his viewpoints are consistent with Wikipedia policy. I realize he is not an appointed representative of Wikipedia. However, his enormous contributions rightfully garner him considerable respect so a higher standard of "role model" ought to be applied. Egfrank (talk) 13:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Egfrank - could you provide us with some diffs to User:IZAK's hostility, incivility, and religious slanders? The diffs above don't show much of that, but I gather that's because they're links to your response to the behaviour rather than to the behaviour itself. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 15:58, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Putting this list of diffs together was not fun - I find each of these statements painful to revisit, but here they are:

Religious slander/bias:

• Unfortunately, a lot of what I read on the Progressive Judaism page is nonsense (no offense) as it makes it sound that the Progressives are upholding a great Torah and rabbinic "tradition" when it is just a movement to rationalize why pork can be eaten by Jews, that God probably did not give the Torah to Mosheh and that the mitzvot do not have to be observed by Jews.[8] - claiming that one has no other motive than eating pork is probably the height of Jewish insult - to a Jew this is equivalent to saying "You don't give a damn about Judaism or anything except your own self gratification". This statement is a blanket rejection of the religious commitment and self-concept of a significant number of Jews (approximately 1.7 million). These groups do indeed see themselves as living and teaching a Judaism that is consistent with Torah however strange that may seem to IZAK (mission statements for denominations around the globe are cited in the opening paragraph of Progressive Judaism).

• I know about all these grandiose rationalizers, no doubt he probably had bacon and eggs for breakfast too as he was preparing for that speech.[9]. This statement was said about Eugene Borowitz - one of the leading theologians of the US Reform movement.

• No! Firstly, what other kind of "Jewish reformers" are their besides "religious" ones? Secondly, the name could also imply that the "reformers" were "religious" when many of them were decidely anti being (traditionally) religious...it will by-pass the serious and very importnat reasons and consequnces behind many of those "reforms" -- Jesus and his followers tried to "reform" Judaism and look what happened there. Similarly, the Karaites tried to "reform" the Judaism of their day and look what happened to them. And, one cannot deny that the founders of Reform Judaism etc did do it and created a movement, so what is the point of whitewashing and airbrushing the ugly facts out of Jewish history [10]. The above was IZAK's response to the suggestion that we categorize the leaders of the Reform movement in Judaism (e.g. Israel Jacobson, Abraham Geiger, Leopold Zunz) as "Jewish religious reformers". While IZAK stops short of saying their motives were not religious, he also equates them with Christians and Karites (each of which created a separate religion).

• The Reform has lost it's left wing to assimiliation and intermarriage (yes, to be frank, they have married Christians and have become "goyim" often by adopting the faith of their Christian spouses, it's all been proven by the National Jewish Population Surveys of 1990 and 200),[11] - when one Jew calls another a Jew a "goy" it is a major insult, as are insinuations that they do not value continued Jewish identity or have converted out en masse. Given the mention of a survey, this might simply appear to be a disputable claim, but the context says otherwise. The link was misleading: neither the wikipedia article nor the powerpoint presentation on the NJPS home page[12] broke down statistics by denominational affliation or made claims in that direction. More importantly, the claim was off-topic - the discussion was supposed to be about missing information in the description of the relationship between US conservative and reform Jewery. The nature and status of US reform was not under discussion. An editor who wished to rebut was in an awkward position, because a rebutting these highly predjudicial claims in situ would have taken the discussion off-topic.

• Presently everyone wants to hire gay lady rabbis and support Hillary Clinton, and they call that "tikkun olam" or some such nonsense.[13]-This is from the same diff as the above accusation. Tikkun olam is a core value for Progressive (known in the US as Reform) Jews[14] - it is not to be treated lightly or dismissively or reduced to a political preference. Calling the desire to hire gay rabbis nonsense, I think, is arguably gay-bashing. Calling the desire to hire women rabbis nonsense, I think, is arguably sexist. At the very least it is insulting to the congregations that work very hard to find the right rabbi for their community.

On one hand it could be argued that each of the above statements represents a notable point of view and therefore is valid as part of Wikipedia discourse. This is certainly IZAK's position, as demonstrated in this post made to explain why User:Malik Shabazz's belief that there is an "orthodox bias" is an unjust personal attack:

But now that you have brought up this subject, and I know this may come as a surprize to you, but there really is only one Judaism in the absolute sense...Judaism has always been defined as that religion or way of life that submits to the Torah, the 613 Mitzvot as explicated in the Oral Torah and preserved in the Shulkhan Arukh and the Halakha. Whenever a movement has arisen in Jewish history that has wanted to change that status quo it is automatically defined as a breakaway movement from Judaism, regardless of how it self-describes itself...As for my statement that "Unfortunately, a lot of what I read on the Progressive Judaism page is nonsense (no offense) as it makes it sound that the Progressives are upholding a great Torah and rabbinic "tradition" when it is just a movement to rationalize why pork can be eaten by Jews, that God probably did not give the Torah to Mosheh and that the mitzvot do not have to be observed by Jews"-- I stand by it, but with the qualifier that it was part of a dialogue with a user in the context of debate and discussion and I was trying to make a point, and that this is not "my" critique but it's one of the oldest critiques of the entire Reform movement, that they wished to rationalize away all of Jewish observance and the rituals to free themselves of the guilt and restrictions of the Torah and its commandments so that they may eat forbidden foods, inter-mingle with gentiles in ways not sanctioned by Judaism theretofore prohibited by Jewish law, and even to open the road for mass apostasy and mass conversion to Christianity as happened in Western Europe and as is presently happening in the USA...

[15](Note: Malik has a user box claiming to be an alumni of JTS - the conservative rabbinic institute - telling such a person that it should come as a surprise shows a polite but profound disdain for Malik's training)

On the other hand, each of the diffs above presents this critique as if it were fact. A neutral user who truly was only documenting a notable POV would couch things in more moderated terms: "Orthodox believe...", "Some Jews claim...." and he or she would hardly use it to disparage a noted scholar and theologian. It is also my understanding that WP:NPOV means points of view stand side by side rather than one being selected as normative and in judgement over the rest. The blockquote above makes it quite clear that IZAK believes that there is one Judaism (the one that believes in the Shulchan Aruch, i.e. orthodoxy) that stands in justifiable judgement over all other flavors of Judaism.

As for other diffs - I'm exhausted at this point. I find this whole process of reviewing past arguments and searching for diffs painful. I didn't enjoy participating in these discussions in the first place and I don't enjoy revisiting them. But if you really need more, I'll go get them. Egfrank (talk) 00:09, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Egfrank - thanks for your effort. I agree that the above diffs are profoundly out of line, and I think you've handled things pretty well so far. I'll leave a note on User:IZAK's talk page expressing my opinion that he's crossing a line, and we'll see how he reactss - then we can take it from there. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 00:23, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

This doesn't stop - now he's adding his opinion of Reform Judaism to edit messages: Reform has abandoned all mitzvot so it makes no sense to have each one talk about it in the lead)[16]. Egfrank (talk) 00:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Response from IZAK

In close to five years on Wikipedia I have dealt fairly with editors from all sorts of POVs and walks of life, but when a new editor like User Egfrank (talk · contribs) comes along who is an avowed and blatant Reform/Progresssive Judaism point of view pusher, someone needs to confront her, as painful as she may think it is it is but the mirror-opposite of what she is doing herself, and seems that she has decided that that someone is now me. I am rather saddened that User Egfrank (talk · contribs) yet again goes outside of the usual discussions among Judaic editors, and seeks the input of people not familiar with the issues in order to attack me. If anything, she should thank me for giving her the time of day by responding in great detail to her posts and suggestions but instead she is misconstrueing my willingness to engage her in open debate and instead runs here and elswhere to sound false and misleading alarms. This is not constructive editorial behavior. 99% of what she quotes above is from lengthy discussions on talk pages where there is always much more of an informal give and take at work. If there are specific editorial disagreements in articles where she differs with me she is free to discuss them (in fact there are almost none, because I have never had a content dispute with her in the body of any article, which makes her complaints here even less plausible.) In sum, yes, I admit to having been open, honest and what diplomats call "frank" with Egrfrank in discussions, but it has not been directed against her personally. Unfortunately, she personalizes theological arguments about religious issues and she feels she is the "embodiment or defender of Reform/Progressive Judaism" which then makes it hard to speak up openly on the many of the real divisive issues within Jewish denominations. Her attitude harms the ability of other editors of being frank when they fear her personalised reactions rather than scholarly academic responses that would be more appropriate. At the same time, in the course of ongoing discussions, I do not believe that I have said anything that is new or is unusual from an Orthodox perspective, which adds balance to her POV campaign. Again, she is being too thin-skinned and running from pillar to post complaining, rather than dealing with specific issues at hand. IZAK (talk) 02:46, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Point by point rebuttal by IZAK

1. Egfrank has a tendency to personalize debates. At no point did I make any personal attacks against Egfrank that could be called "hostility, incivility, and religious slanders" -- she cites no real facts that can be called a "slander" or anything of that nature.
2. Egfrank and one or two pro-Progressive Judaism POV editors did indeed recently hack and chop the Reform Judaism [17] article that has existed and been evolving for over six years. In acts of revisionistic fervor, she has almost single-handedly imposed the revised view that Progressive Judaism is the "true" Reform Judaism reducing the latter page to a pathetic skeleton of its former self and trying to depict it as a "disambiguation" page.
3. Egfrank claims: "Particularly offensive to him are suggestions that we rely on academic secondary sources such as historians and sociologists (a standard practice in departments of religion), and the suggestion that we seek help from other projects that might be able to provide specific kinds of expertise" when nothing could be further from the truth. And this reveals her mindset, that she will take on established articles in Judaism and aims to destroy them (as she did with the Reform Judaism article going against long discussions, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism#Concern about duplicating Reform and Progressive labels), if she can find academics to agree with her point of view. This is about preserving the integrity about all articles relating to Judaism, where academics can be cited, but not at the cost of usurping the citations and sources of religious and Judaic authorities who are the core of the religion itself. There needs to be a balance at times, but religious sources cannot be dumped because 100 professors wrote a 1000 books. This is not a surprise except to someone who wishes to create a view of Judaism and religious subjects that do not match with reality.
4. This is such a pathetic personal attack that is simply false: "... he has made it amply clear that he thinks there is only one legitimate point of view and academic or non-orthodox views are simply distortions. Furthermore, he is utterly convinced that his viewpoints are consistent with Wikipedia policy. I realize he is not an appointed representative of Wikipedia. However, his enormous contributions rightfully garner him considerable respect so a higher standard of "role model" ought to be applied." If she is able to cite instances in my editing where what she imagines to be my interference in any way, then please do so. We all hold personal views, but as editors we also function in a WP:NPOV manner. Unfortunately, like many others, she thinks that "NPOV" must stand for "NO Point Of View" but that is not what NPOV means, it means that when we edit or write it must be in a "NEUTRAL Point of View" manner, and we are still free to have our personal opinions and express as much as we want on talk pages or in any informal discussions. Or does Egfrank wish to deny me freedom of speech as well so that her Progressive Judaism POV pushing can go unchecked?
5. It is 100% true and factual that Reform Judaism has dropped the requirements of keeping the Jewish dietary laws of Kashrut and that they do not object to the eating of pork, so her hysteria is mystifying. Instead she puts words in my mouth that I never said or intended with her own slander against me that I am accusing the Reform that "You don't give a damn about Judaism or anything except your own self gratification... This statement is a blanket rejection of the religious commitment and self-concept of a significant number of Jews (approximately 1.7 million)." And again she seems to talk and behave as if she is the one elected to talk and act on behalf of Progressive Jews on Wikipedia and if anyone stands in her way she will call them "slanderers" which is disgraceful.
6. It is not deniable that "Eugene Borowitz - one of the leading theologians of the US Reform movement" do not keep the Jewish dietary laws because Reform Judaism does not require it, so they PROBABLY all eat bacon and eggs at times, a very usual secular breakfast in America, if not then a ham sandwich or a pork chop at other times. Note, I said "probably" with good reason, but Egfrank does not note that.
7. Egfrank says: "The above was IZAK's response to the suggestion that we categorize the leaders of the Reform movement in Judaism (e.g. Israel Jacobson, Abraham Geiger, Leopold Zunz) as "Jewish religious reformers". While IZAK stops short of saying their motives were not religious, he also equates them with Christians and Karites (each of which created a separate religion)" was all part of discussion as to how to categorize certain people, it would be the equivalent to a content dispute so I don't even know why she mentions it here. Does she deny that Reform was a break with normative Judaism that had existed for thousands of years? Evidently she does, that is why she is talking about it as oh, just some innocuous "reform" rather than the major official "Reform" that is was. But again, there is nothing out of line here by me as far as "Wikiquette" goes, in her efforts to launch personal attacks against me.
8. Sorry, but it is not "me" that is "sexist" or "homophobic" (I have never personally insulted any gay people online or anywhere at any time, so she is attacking me personally again based on her own personalization of a theological argument!) but it is true that Orthodox Judaism rejects and denounces gay clergy, lady rabbis, and the Reform interpretation of "tikkun olam" all of which illustrates the point of how Egfrank cannot handle a rival POV from the Orthodox perspective, even when that view is expressed informally on a talk page related to that subject. Orthodox, Haredi and Hasidic Judaism cannot be remade or rejected in real life or on Wikipedia. And by the way, who said anything about "insulting to the congregations that work very hard to find the right rabbi for their community" when the discussion was not about them? Maybe everyone will learn something by tuning into these debates rather than having Egfrank foist her POV only in the body of articles, something which I have never done.
9. I am entitled to my beliefs as much as anyone else is entitled to theirs. Egfrank is entitled to believe that there are a thousand of anything. Since when have I questioned that? But she has no right to criticize the views someone expresses on a talk page trying to explain notions that are not from "me" but have been part of standard Judaism for over three thousand years. Again, this is a matter of content and has nothing to do with "civility" issues.
10. What does she mean when she says this?: "Note: Malik has a user box claiming to be an alumni of JTS - the conservative rabbinic institute - telling such a person that it should come as a surprise shows a polite but profound disdain for Malik's training." Does she think I look on every user box, and why does she think that I am saying the wrong things to him? This is the height of not assuming good faith.
11. This is another wild accusation: "The blockquote above makes it quite clear that IZAK believes that there is one Judaism (the one that believes in the Shulchan Aruch, i.e. orthodoxy) that stands in justifiable judgement over all other flavors of Judaism." Oh, and she has already told us here that she is "no saint" so what is she talking about? Is she questioning anyone's right to hold a view in a discussion? How would she expect anyone to explain their views if her wishes are that they have "no" views? This is the height of folly amd illogic.
12. Her final complaint is baselss and desperate: "This doesn't stop - now he's adding his opinion of Reform Judaism to edit messages: Reform has abandoned all mitzvot so it makes no sense to have each one talk about it in the lead) [18]" It is not "my" opinion when I removed a sentence about Reform's rejection of a Jewish law put into an article by another pro-Reform POV warrior that said: "The ritual had virtually been unchallenged within the religion until the nineteenth century advent of Reform Judaism" because once that is allowed then to be fair it would require that more statements be added such as "Orthodox and Conservative Judaism have still practiced and allowed it" or that "The early Christians who were Jews also abandoned it" so that it would create POV warring and my intention was to get the one-sided view about Reform's rejection of circumcision ourt of the lead, so that the other POVs wouldn't demand equal time creating chaos in the lead paragraph, which in any case should only describe and explain the subject and not what it isn't or who has rejected or attacked it.

Thank you, IZAK (talk) 04:09, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi IZAK - thanks very much for your response. Confining this to a very narrow subset of what's going on - because that's all I'm familiar with - are you suggesting that there's context that can justify the sort of denominational attacks made above? All of what you say above may well be true, is it necessary to denigrate Progressive Judaism in its entirety in making your arguments?

I also fully acknowledge that I know next to nothing about Judaism, and I wouldn't claim to act as arbiter in any content disputes you may be having (although you suggest that there have been no such disputes - so what is at the root of your arguing with each other?). My only concern is that disputes be resolved within the limits of Wikiquette. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 03:55, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Sarcasticidealist: Thanks for looking into this. I have posted a more detailed rebuttal above. We have had, and still have many Judaic editors from all sorts of POVs, and those of us who have survived over the years have learned to live in peace with each other with a balanced editorial approach. But along has come User Egfrank (talk · contribs) with an aggressive agenda to write and promote her Progressive Judaism POV, see User:Egfrank/Workroom and User:Egfrank/Workroom/Workroom/Bible. Her pushiness in the course of the very lengthy debates, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism#Concern about duplicating Reform and Progressive labels, and her open adherence to Progressive Judaism can be very frustrating and tiresome and only makes a mockery of her complaints against me. She has taken one or two sentences out of very lengthy near-essay responses that I have bothered to write to her on talk pages and has chosen to use that against me by twisting statements out of the contexts of larger discussions. She personalizes all comments that had not been directed at her but were part of controversial theological issues ironically often introduced by her, and then conflates them into global issues at which she takes umbrage. She induces frustration and anger (and I could quote a hundred things that User:Egfrank has written that would be openly offensive to Orthodox, Haredi and Hasidic Jews and Judaism -- but that is not my way to run and complain -- as I believe in thrashing the issues out where they belong), and when another editor wishes to make a point, she huffs and puffs and gets hot under the collar. I do not believe that her complaints have any merit whatsoever and she should focus on rebutting based on facts that would be more constructive for all concerned. IZAK (talk) 04:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Simultaneous with the above edits, IZAK has called me "pathetic" for seeking out help [19]. I don't see how wikipedia can function properly if one user can insult another for seeking help.

And this edit in the Wikiquette alert section of his user page beginning "Hi all:..." I would read as saying that he believes that he has widespread support for his actions and has no respect for the concerns expressed about his actions (though maybe it is just saving face?). Perhaps I am too "tender", but I experience these two posts as an attempt at intimidation or isolation. Even if this was not the intent and IZAK is merely reporting to a loyal following, I can't imagine how they contribute to a warm and welcoming editing environment likely to encourage a plurality of points of view. Egfrank (talk) 11:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I think in this case perhaps you are being a little bit too "tender" (good choice of words). I think all "Hi all" means in this context is "Hi, anyone who might be reading this" which is not unreasonable given that he has no idea who might have followed the Wikiquette warning over to his talk page. Please do whatever you can to assume good faith throughout this process. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:09, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I have tried to assume good faith - which is why I put possible alternatives and described how I reacted to it rather than claiming that my reaction was someone's intent. And I am willing to accept that in this case I was being "too tender". But please also note that I have refrained from responding to any of the rather negative portrayal of myself above, even though I think it distorted and unfair. I challenge anyone to examine my edit history for evidence of that.

IZAK (and HG) have been accusing me of POV pushing since they discovered that, god-forfend, I use the word "Progressive" rather than "Reform" to describe various Jewish figures. Oh, and I expanded the content of the article Progressive Judaism.

Yes. I have an interest in Progressive Judaism - the modern day denominations and the various thinkers that have developed the thought of those denominations. I am interested in the history that lead to the creation of the modern Ashkenazi denominational scene. I have an interest in this topic because it is a field I know something about on both a personal and academic level and feel I can add value. I also have gone out of my way to use reliable sources and present as many sides of the picture as I know about - good and bad. In doing so, I have never insulted any orthodox position - certainly not intentionally. But I leave that to those who wish to review my edit history to decide. Egfrank (talk) 20:54, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Moving on

Thank you both for your detailed responses. It's taken me a while to work through them, and I've had to put a fair bit of thought into how to proceed. There are obviously a lot of content disputes that are beyond my ability to help meaningfully with, and I hope you'll explore other means of conflict resolution as needed. As for the Wikiquette stuff, could I ask each of you to provide a brief (~3 or 4 items) but specific list of changes you'd like to see in the other person's behaviour? Nothing like "User:IZAK needs to stop pretending that Orthodox Judaism is the only real Judaism" or "User:Egfrank needs to stop misconstruing everything I say" - those are too general. Try to come up with things that the other person could agree to do without abandoning their position - for example "I would like User:IZAK to refrain from mentioning Progressive Judaism's deviation from X laws unless such deviations are directly applicable to the subject being discussed," or something similar. Your editing relationship is obviously in very poor shape, but you both seem to be good-faith editors, so let's try to repair it to the point that you can at least work with one another. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:07, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I belatedly noticed this thread. I think my own wiki-et discussion with Egfrank was archived. I'm wondering if maybe I could be added in here? Or should I just un-archive the other discussion to deal w/current issues? Thanks. HG | Talk 20:17, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi HG - can you remember whenabouts that alert was? I'd like to track it down, for context. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 20:20, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I can help - I seconded the alert. The situation goes as follows:

* I proposed that the Reform Judaism article be split up to allow its subsections growing room. The article was over the recommended WP:LENGTH recommendation and despite that several sections were missing quite a bit of important information.

* The proposal was made on Wikipedia:WikiProject Progressive Judaism and an announcement of the discussion was made on Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism to insure exposure. A week for discussion was suggested.

* Very quickly there seemed to be a consensus that several sections should be spun off into separate articles. However, since a week had been proposed for discussion, no action was taken. It should be noted that during this week User:HG never expressed any objection to the split.

* After that week User:Jheald spun off a section of Reform Judaism into the article German Reform movement (Judaism).

* Upon seeing the spin off, User:HG complained of a content fork.

* I felt this was legitimate but also felt the spin off was legitimate - the early German reform period was choked for space in Reform Judaism. To avoid a possible content fork, I deleted the spun off material from Reform Judaism.

* User:HG objected to this action and filed a Wikiquette alert. He also AfD'd the spun off article. When he discovered additional articles had also been spun off he filed additional AfD's. He seemed to feel the spin off predjudiced a debate about whether Reform Judaism or Progressive Judaism should be used to refer to a group of denominations that self-identify as Progressive Judaism but are more familiar to HG as "Reform Judaism" (and he would argue to the rest of the world as well).

* I seconded the alert, hoping at the time that some outside voices might help.

* User:IZAK suggested that AfD's might not be the best way to handle a content dispute and User:HG withdrew the AfD's. He has however continued to argue for an article named "Reform" that acts as an umbrella article. That is a content dispute however and I think out of the scope of this wikiquette.

The wikiquette link is [20]. Egfrank (talk) 21:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Egfrank is correct insofar as the context has passed. Plus, I do feel generally that Egfrank and I currently are managing to be pretty civil in our heated dispute(s). Still, my ongoing concerns are not unrelated to IZAK's. I'd like Egfrank to "stop misconstruing" what I say and stop personalizing the debate(s), though both are happening less often. Also, to stop lumping me with IZAK when (mis)characterizing viewpoints (unless he volunteers to be my sock, LOL). (For what it's worth, as I've told him, I also wish he'd tone down the intensity of his Talk comments.) I'd prefer to deal w/my concerns here but, I'm willing to pursue it on our Talk pages if need be. Thanks. HG | Talk 03:52, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Egfrank's wishlist

Here is my wishlist:

1. I would like IZAK to refrain from making negative statements about the motivations of Jews unless (a) those motivations are relevant to the content of an article under discussion and (b) the statements are attributed to reliable, verifiable sources. For example,
   • suppose there was an article named Progressive Jewish attitudes towards the eating of pork. It is OK to say "According to Rabbi Foobar, a notable Orthodox rabbi, Progressive Jews are just rationalizing the eating of pork". It is not OK to say, without qualification of the source, "Progressive Jews are just rationalizing the eating of pork".
2. I would like IZAK to refrain from making negative generalizations about the behavior or moral or ritual choices of Jews of any denomination unless (a) those generalizations are relevant to the content of an article under discussion and (b) the statements are attributed to reliable, verifiable sources. For example,
   • Suppose we are writing an article on intermarriage together and Progressive Jewish intermarriage rates will be part of the article content. Then it would be appropriate to discuss the intermarriage rate using verifiable statistical sources - even if those sources attributed very high rates to Progressive Jews.
   • Similarly, if the article covered the consequences of intermarriage, it would be appropriate to say "Study X shows that only 30% of intermarried couples raise their children as Jews". It would also be appropriate to say "Rabbi Foobar, a respected family counsellor in the Orthodox/Conservative/Reform/Reconstructionist/purple-polka-dotted community, reports that children of intermarried families often struggle with problem X". It is not appropriate to say any of the above statements without sources.
3. I would like IZAK to avoid making disparaging claims about denominations in edit summaries. They should instead be placed on talk pages where they can be discussed and rebutted if necessary. If the disparaging claim is the reason for the edit, then a simple "-see talk" can be used.
4. I would like IZAK to avoid disparaging appelletions of any individual or group, be it editors in Wikipedia, or theologians or rabbis respected by one or more denominations. Rather critiques should be limited to specific actions, behaviors, or attitudes and accompanied by reliable, verifiable sources. In the case of an editor, that would mean providing diffs of specific problematic edits. In the case of respected rabbi or theologian, that would mean using sources that conform to WP:V and WP:RS. If the charge is complex and it would take considerable time to gather the appropriate sources/diffs, then they may be omitted, but the claims should not be made unless IZAK is willing, upon request, to assemble the required diffs or sources. For example,
   • if I or any other editor indeed personalize comments, I would like to have those claims attached to specific debates, at least upon request.
   • if I or any other editor is POV pushing, then I would expect IZAK to be able to present information that shows that editor's behavior conforms to the Wikipedia definition of POV pushing behavior.
   • if Borowitz is indeed grandiose and we are discussing an article where Borowitz's grandosity or lack there of is relevant, then I expect a cited source demonstrating that he fits the definition of grandiose, along with behavior illustrating that appelation.
5. If statements are a case of "one man's garbage is another man's treasure" - e.g. claims that someone is pathetic, hacking and chopping, etc. - then I would like IZAK to be silent on the editor and focus instead on the content. For example,
   • It is OK to say, I feel this article lacks continuity and needs more narrative.
   • It is not OK to say, "User X chopped the article into bits"
6. Important "counselling" exception: if IZAK feels negatively about X or their motivations or behavior and needs the feedback of person Y as a reality check and/or emotional support and/or suggestions of how best to handle the situation, it is appropriate to state his concerns to person Y.

I would, of course, expect myself to behave in a similar fashion. And I believe I have. Egfrank (talk) 20:36, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Egfrank. I think that's a very helpful start. Let's see what IZAK puts on his/her list, and then we can continue. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 20:44, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Egfrank, if I understand your wishlist correctly, you are asking IZAK to be NPOV in his personal opinions on talk pages. NPOV doesn't actually require that editors hold or express neutral personal opinions, only that the article proper (talk pages don't apply here) presents documentable points of view in a neutral tone. In other words, the narrative voice of the encyclopedia article should neither endorse nor reject any particular viewpoint, only state and attribute what the various viewpoints are. Do you have any examples of IZAK making article edits in a non-NPOV fashion? While IZAK's (and your or any editor's) personal opinions about particular Jewish movements are not really relevant to the article, they are not forbidden to be expressed on talk pages. Now if an editor is making any personal attacks against another particular editor (and I haven't seen evidence of that in IZAK's case here), we would surely want to correct that behavior. However, we don't need to correct each other's personal opinions. The best route is for all editors involved to try to keep the talk page discussion focused on how to best present what reliable sources say on the topic and refrain from debating personal opinions on the topic itself. --MPerel 00:40, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you sum it up nicely when you say The best route is for all editors involved to try to keep the talk page discussion focused on how to best present what reliable sources say on the topic and refrain from debating personal opinions on the topic itself. While you're quite right that there's no obligation to be WP:NPOV in your talk page edits, there is an obligation to edit in the way that best serves the encyclopedia. If I (a pretty devout atheist) started making legitimate edits to the Benedict XVI article, but over the course of justifying those edits on the talk page referred to God as "Benny's imaginary friend," that would be a clear breach of Wikiquette." Now, User:IZAK hasn't done anything nearly that extreme, as far as I'm able to tell. But I think the request that editors' personal religious views be left out of discussion to the extent that it's practical is a reasonable one. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 00:58, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I find myself agreeing with MPerel here. I'm not going to say IZAK has acted with perfect civility, but some of the statements in the wish list could be construed as statements about IZAK's general opinions and views regarding the content of articles rather than statements about etiquette or civility. The first few items appear to be claims that IZAK is engaging in original research and not sourcing or properly attributing certain content statements. I think that IZAK sometimes does this, and this can be a problem, but I do not understand how it is an etiquette problem. I agree with the need to distinguish actual personal attacks, which violate policy, from the expression of views an editor may find personally annoying and disagreeable, which don't. I particularly agree that because Wikipedia is not censored, viewpoints merely have to be "significant" (per WP:NPOV) and reliably sourced, they do not have to be what an editor considers "civil" or agreeable. I think MPerel expresses this very well. I don't believe that viewpoints critical of liberal religious theology etc. are insignificant in conservative religions generally or Orthodox Judaism in particular. I would suggest paring the wish list to focus only on actions aimed at other editors as distinct from article content and adding a diff or two for each item. I don't expect such a pared list to end up empty, but I think it important to separate IZAK's conduct from what one thinks of his views and his approach to article content. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 01:49, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Rereading what I wrote above I can see why User:MPerel and User:Shirahadasha may be thinking that I am applying WP:NPOV, WP:SOURCES to the talk page. I should probably have added the following to each statement:

• the claim is supported by reliable sources
• -or- the claim is raised with the purpose of finding or evaluating such sources
• -or- given concerns about the quality of available sources, the claim is being discussed to assess WP:UNDUE.
• -or - the claim is stated as a personal opinion and is used to clarify potential biases in a discussion. It is not uncommon in modern academic journals - especially in religion and the social sciences - for articles to say something like "The author is a white, female, ....". As much as we try to be unbiased, we cannot be. By owning our biases it is hoped that we can share experiences and insights that help each other get past them to a more neutral article.
• prejudicial claims made in support or against WP:NOTABILITY or WP:UNDUE should be sourced, at least upon request. It hardly helps the discussion to move forward to buttress an uncited claim with yet another uncited claim.

WP:TALK explicitly says (in bold letters):Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views. It is my understanding that the looser guidelines on the talk page exist only because it may take teamwork and discussion to evaluate a claim/resolve a dispute about a claim. To insist on citations on the talk page itself would give us in a chicken and egg problem: We can't discuss it because we don't have sources. We can't get the sources because we can't discuss it.

I don't believe IZAK's particular views are at issue here. As I stated above I hold myself to these same standards (i.e. with the above clarifications about talk page content). Clearly this would limit my ability to express prejudicial views not specifically related to discussions of article content as much as it would limit IZAK's.

Finally, I don't think diffs are relevant at this point. As SarcasticIdealist has said, this is about moving forward. If IZAK and I can agree that these are rules of the road moving forward - whether interacting with each other or with other users, then the past is past. Egfrank (talk) 09:09, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Egfrank, wishful thinking! You cannot make up all sorts of rules that you alone understand and will apply and then ask the world (in this case me) to abide by that. Wikipedia has enough rules without you adding more. Kindly refrain from reinventing the wheel (as Wikipedia rules do not need a bout revisionistic interpretations just because you can't handle a straightforward honest discussion on talk pages!) My policy is and will be to abide by known and clear Wikipedia policies and not by what you or anyone else may think the rules should, could or would be. IZAK (talk) 09:22, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

2nd response from IZAK

Thank you for taking the time to respond, even though this may be an inconvenience. In response to the above:

1. I did not call Egfrank "pathetic" it is her efforts to rabble-rouse hatred against me that I deem pathetic.
2. She even claims to be able to read my mind when I say ""Hi all" when it was my way of responding to two posts, from her and from Sarcasticidealist. I do not have a fan club that I run to on Wikipedia and I am not delusional as she would like to paint me. How dare she say about me: "has no respect for the concerns expressed about his actions" just because I say "hi all" -- how nuts is that?
3. I have not stood in her way of getting a "warm and welcoming editing environment likely to encourage a plurality of points of view" in any way. Do I control hundreds of Judaic editors? Which ones? She has no compunction in attacking me, after she requests open communication. She has had sharper content differences with other editors. My concerns have been that she is attempting to assert only her Progressive POV and demand that all others prostrate themselves to her personal and POV wishes.
4. Why would I want to draw up a "wish list" of how I would like others to respond to me or to any subject on the table? The only way to assesss and understand the thinking and positions of other editors is by their honest comments, often via lengthy discussions on talk pages, which as I have said, I have bothered to do for her and for which she has yet to thank me (it can't be a warmer welcoming gesture than that, that an established editor gives a new one lots of feedback.) I have no wish to limit or control what Egfrank says, and will never write a silly "wish list" of how I would like another human being to talk to me or to anyone else.
5. I much prefer and agree with the summations of the more experienced and balanced Users MPerel (talk · contribs) and Shirahadasha (talk · contribs) above. I have had many interactions with them. They are probably personally way to the "left" of my personal positions, but we have never discussed those issues and inspite of many disagreements they have never seen fit to react the way User:Egfrank is doing at this time. They neither personalize nor globalize comments and discussions but focus on the issues at hand. They have no wish to crush editors who disagree with their personal POVs.
6. So my wish is that Egfrank, as a new user, take mentoring from User:MPerel and User:Shirahadasha, and that she bounce any problems she may have with them and not run from pillar to post trying to tar and feather me or anyone else when she has disagreements or faces opposition to her POV pushing, and that she recognize her own POV attitudes which are causing her ship to bump into others in the middle of the night.

Thank you, IZAK (talk) 03:28, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Izak -- Looks to me like Egfrank has been a user since March 20, 2007, ~8 months. HG | Talk 03:56, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I didn't check her history, but my dealings with her have been for about a month when she got seriously involved with the Judaica issues, and my impression is that she is still going through a learning curve. IZAK (talk) 04:12, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

In response to Egfrank's "wish list" against me:

1. Egfrank request's: "I would like IZAK to refrain from making negative statements about the motivations of Jews" -- and my response is, I do not do so in articles, and have never done so, but that does not mean that I cannot express opinions that may also be relevant, critical and important in discussions and talk pages. Egfrank does the same when she flings mud at Orthodox rabbis and issues, but editors forgive her, something she is not willing to overlook when the process is applied to her POV. (By the way, it is not "Rabbi Foo" who forbids eating pork, it is God who fobids it in the Torah, see Leviticus 11:7–8 and Deuteronomy 14:7–8, see also 613 Mitzvot. Therefore any Jew or person can openly state that those Jews who are against it are wrong or worse according to the Torah, and of course a Progressive Jew can just as much say that they don't care about this and will do as they please. Everyone has their rights in this scenario.)
2. To her "wish" that: "I would like IZAK to refrain from making negative generalizations about the behavior or moral or ritual choices of Jews of any denomination unless (a) those generalizations are relevant to the content of an article under discussion and (b) the statements are attributed to reliable, verifiable sources" -- my response is that I am incredulous that she even says this, and in any case, my reply is the same as above, where have I done this in an article? And why would I not be able to comment on talk pages if the issues merit it? The more this discussion continues, the more Orwellian these bizarre suggestions on her part become. She controls only her mind, not mine or anyone else's.
3. She asks: "I would like IZAK to avoid making disparaging claims about denominations in edit summaries" -- which is an outright falsehood. Can she cite examples?
4. Reading Egrank's "wishes" in her point 4 that conflates and combines so many issues, that they really go way beyond the scope of a "civility" or "Wikiquette" issue and are matters that have to do with writing or editing of articles, and so far I have co-worked with her in only one or two. Has any editor ever been presented with such an outlandish "order of battle" from an opposing editor that reads more like a "terms of surrender to my POV" list than anything that is expected of a normal Wikipedian? I would be able to respond in detail to each point, but at this time it is just plain going beyond the pale to get into this tangent that has nothing to do with the price of tea in China.
5. Egfrank says: "I would like IZAK to be silent on the editor and focus instead on the content" -- says it all, she would like me, or anyone else around her "to be silent" so she can have a field day with her POV pushing. Nice, but no cigar.
6. This is a violation of WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL by Egfrank against IZAK: "Important 'counselling' exception: if IZAK feels negatively about X or their motivations or behavior and needs the feedback of person Y as a reality check and/or emotional support and/or suggestions of how best to handle the situation, it is appropriate to state his concerns to person Y" -- and just another sign of the chutzpah which it clearly is.

Thank you, IZAK (talk) 04:10, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the purposes of this was to give you two a chance to continue to exchange insults and accusations. You've taken Egfrank's good-faith participation (as I see it) in this process as nothing but slander, accusations, etc. Your "wish list" could have easily been construed in such an inappropriate fashion too. If you don't want to participate in this process, then don't. If you do, then do and do it right. I'm going to just say it right here and now: if either one of you responds again to the other in a way that continues to exacerbate or enliven this back-and-forth that you two have been having, this issue is going to get escalated off this alert board. The WQA is not a place for you to battle about who's the better Jew or who is more Orwellian or who's the bad guy. Seriously, it's childish and totally wasting your time and effort, and now ours too. I've been watching this issue develop, and I've been impressed (not in a good way) by how out-of-hand this argument is, and how being here hasn't changed that. --Cheeser1 (talk) 04:33, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Cheeser1: I do not have a "wish list" and I don't need a "Santa Claus" to come and solve my or anyone else's problems. I was not consulted if I wanted to come here, I was "informed" and asked if I wished to respond. So I have. I have only responded insofar as the lengthy accusations against me, with which I respectfully disagree, which is my right. All this time and effort by Egfrank could have been spent in discussions and positive work in articles where this debate took off from, namely at Talk:Relationships between American Jewish religious movements where the editors (including a couple of admins) are experienced and mature enough to deal with all contingencies, so that the issues being debated here should not have become a waste of your or anyone else's time. So, I would be agreeable to revert the focus back to where they belong, without anyone having to run to forums like this to self-righteously slander editors with whom they have editorial and POV disagreements. IZAK (talk) 04:47, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Fine, and this is not a binding or mandatory process. If you don't want to participate in this process in good faith, then don't. Immediately interpreting this WQA board as a slander forum is not going to get you anywhere. --Cheeser1 (talk) 05:43, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

As you can see, I have taken my time to respond very carefully. I have said nothing against this forum. What I have said is that User:Egfrank has come here as a means to attack me outside of the regular talk pages where the issues causing the difference of views are being debated. If you cannot be neutral in this process, kindly recuse yourself. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 06:11, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

You've taken the time to continue your bickering. There is a difference. I would have responded in exactly the same manner if your roles had been reversed. Since you clearly have no intention of taking this forum seriously, interpreting my actions as automatically not "neutral" and requiring that I "recuse" myself, I will be happy to let you dig yourself a bigger hole. I have no interest in engaging in this process if you've already decided that anyone who asks you not to unnecessarily exacerbate or fuel the conflict is non-neutral. --Cheeser1 (talk) 06:16, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I think I have stated my case. If I am asked to respond (as I was by User:Sarcasticidealist at least twice), what would you suggest? IZAK (talk) 06:28, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, SI never asked "Please break down every point Egfrank makes and take each point as an opportunity to insult or accuse her of something else." You could have just kept doing that in the places you two have been fighting already. You want to participate in this process appropriately? Stop making references to her being a false Jew. We aren't stupid. When you say that she's looking for a "Santa Claus" to come solve her problems, it's a shot at the legitimacy of her Judaism, and it's totally inappropriate. And it's exactly the source of the conflict here (or at least one of them). But this is the last response I have on this matter. My wiki-time is limited and I have no further desire to spend my time doing the run-around in this absurd, pedantic, senseless conflict. I asked you to stop what you're doing and participate appropriately. You think I'm fostering a slander forum? Fine. Whatever. --Cheeser1 (talk) 06:46, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, I never accused you of anything so I cannot imagine what is bugging you. You have no right to tell me how long or what my responses should be. Had I been confronted with a few short points, I would have responded accordingly. But I am forced to respond to lengthy diatribes against me for things that I have not committed. Your accusation that I have accused her or anyone of being "a false Jew" is sheer nonsense. The discussions at Talk:Relationships between American Jewish religious movements are based on divisive and schismatic matters within Jews and Judaism that are real and cannot be wished away by anyone. I said that "I" am not interested in running to a "Santa Claus" with a funny "wish list" to solve my problems or what I perceive to be false failings in others. I did not accuse you of "fostering a slander forum" but I am saying that Egfrank is using this forum to lob attacks at me when she should be keeping the discussions where they belong and where she and I and a number of other very serious editors have been debating for weeks. I don't know you and you have never introduced yourself so I do not know what you do or what your role is here, and you should not expect anyone to jump and salute you the minute you show up because some of us have been around a long time and we can't know everyone. If one is impatient and is short of time, they should not enter into lengthy complex debates that they cannot do justice to. I thank you for your time and understanding. IZAK (talk) 07:02, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

For someone getting uppity about me telling you how to behave civilly (the point of this board), you sure do have a way of telling me what to do. The point of this board is for you to have people tell you how to conduct yourself civilly. If you don't want that, then you are not going to get much out of it. --Cheeser1 (talk) 07:10, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Cheeser1: For a guy who has no time for this, you sure do find the time to debate with me. Feel free. I haven't seen you make one positive suggestion yet, besides telling me that I should not be talking. Kinda funny, don't you think for someone who is supposed to teach the way of civility, peace and harmony? This process takes maturity and it also requires that you can understand theology and that when matters of religion get discussed, someone is bound to feel offended, and so far that somone is not me, even though I have every right to be as much as the other party complaining here. IZAK (talk) 07:28, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Attempting again to move forward

Well, I'm not certain that this is going very well at all. That said, I think a great deal (although not all) of the issues might be resolved if both of you would simply refrain from debating the merits of the various branches of Judaism, even on talk pages. I'm sorry, but even if you infer quite correctly from somebody's religious views and cultural identity that they are likely to have eaten bacon and eggs for breakfast, nothing is accomplished by making the suggestion. It cuts both ways, of course: you might think that Orthodox Judaism is a sexist, homophobic, anachronism, but there's no reason to state or imply as much (I repeat, even on the talk page), because such a statement or implication does nothing to improve the encyclopedia. I think this was a recurring theme in User:Egfrank's "wish list", and I don't think it's an unreasonable request for the sake of maintaining civility. For the rest, I'd encourage both of you to simply be extraordinarily polite with one another, and to avoid taking offense too easily (if the other editor says something that you find inappropriate, as yourself "Is it possible for me to look past this?" rather than "Does this technically violate a Wikipedia policy, and would I be able to score points at my opponent's expense by pursuing it?" On the mentoring issue, User:IZAK does make an interesting suggestion. User:Egfrank, are the two editors mentioned by User:IZAK editors that you think you can work with? When in conflict with another editor, I find it is quite often a good idea to consult with relatively disinterested editors as part of the conflict resolution process, so involving them in some way in your approach to User:IZAK could be a very positive move. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 03:52, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

• Be an optimist Sarcasticidealist. I respect your views and your very thoughtful approach, and above all your patience, which in this case is a virtue. If anything, we need to hear more from you. I think that what you have suggested so far is good. The only issues I have is that it is not realistically possible to avoid discussing divisive matters on the talk pages. It's like asking for surgery without blood, which is only possible for the patient if he's unconscious (since he will "not see it") but in reality it is on the table for everyone else. But yes, we can all try to tone down, which does not mean that Egfrank has a green light to move and edit articles in the aggressive and provocative manner she did with transforming the Reform Judaism article into multiple articles spread out all over the place before the discussions that had been taking place were concluded to everyone's satisfaction, particularly all the hard editorial work from User HG (talk · contribs) that was not given the due it deserved. (I even had to calm him down after he instituted AfDs out of frustration with Egfrank's work, and at times I sided with Egfrank to resolve an impasse.) So yes, let's move forward, and thank you for your wise words. IZAK (talk) 10:59, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

No one has suggested not discussing divisive matters - but rather (a) limiting them to content discussions (b) expressing them specifically as someone's point of view (c) only mentioning them when cited (in situ or upon request) or for the purpose of finding and evaluating citation. Are you willing to agree to this? Above in my "wishlist" section you stated that you viewed any compliance as wishful thinking. Have you now changed your mind?

I would also like to explicitly ask you to stop casting distorted and untrue aspersions on my editing behavior or intent. The break up of the Reform Judaism article was a decision by 3 editors who waited a week for feedback. You were active editing the Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Progressive Judaism page at the time. You even complained about the discussion and the project's very existance on Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism. If you objected to the breakup of the article, why didn't you post the objections then? We waited a week for feedback before taking any action! As for characterizing your involvement as calming User:HG down - may I quote your words from the time? The creation of these articles is legitimate at this time when there are active editors who wish to expand and research the articles[21]

If you have cause for believing that I am a POV warrior, or have added material without citation, selectively considered sources, broke up articles for reasons other than WP:LENGTH or good encyclopedia organization, failed to give time for developing consensus, or have insulted any religious point of view, or for that matter committed any other indiscretion, please name specific diffs. If you do not have real cause, I ask you to hold your peace. I am tired of being accused of things I haven't done. Egfrank (talk) 11:32, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I can attest that IZAK did help calm me because I also perceived your restructurings as POV-oriented and contraindicated for consensus-building. While I don't happen to laud it personally, it is common on Wikipedia for editors to hold and express their POV outside of articles. Egfrank, at times you've been admirably upfront about your POV and you might as well be open here, too. For instance, didn't the 3 editors you mention set up a WikiProject for Progressive Judaism in order, among other editing reasons, to discuss your POV and collaborate together? That may be fine, the problem is then how you all move to implement vis-a-vis the rest of us. Thanks. HG | Talk 14:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

An example of your being upfront about your POV: "Statement of my own bias: I am one of the editors in favor of the use of the term "progressive". I am also an active progressive Jew born in Uganda, raised in the US and living in Israel. So I may not be representing the other position fairly." Of course, advocating a POV and being a "warrior" are different. HG | Talk 16:25, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

We set up the project so that discussions of article content focused on this topic would not take place on user pages. User:A Sniper initiated the project and I did the wiki work for the project page. It is not uncommon for editors with an interest in a particular topic to coordinate via a project or attempt to find others with shared interests by creating a project. There was no intent to push a POV - both user:A Sniper and myself are 2nd degree holders who appreciate the importance of neutrality and the academic methods used to achieve that. Nor is it wrong to be especially interested in articles where one has knowledge of the topic and access to reliable sources. In my case, living in Jerusalem I have access to several Judaica libraries, including the one on the Hebrew Union College campus. Egfrank (talk) 14:19, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

My impression is that the Progressive Project wasn't just about collaboration, which is terrific and much of why I love Wikipedia. I greatly welcome your collaboration. However, it also sounded like you folks wanted your Project as a safe space. You said in support of the separate Project: "The second reason, quite frankly, is moral support. I think the orthodox editors may simply not be aware of how tiring it is to have what is common knowledge among the people you pray and study with suddenly be challenged as unjewish by one or more editors." That sounds like you didn't want to be disturbed in dealing with the disagreements etc found in the overall Project Judaism. HG | Talk 15:15, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow! Wanting moral support is a crime? Being tired gets in the way of good editing and promotes less than tactful responses. So people can want moral support so that they have the emotional resources to be able to handle constant negative feedback with grace and diplomacy. Which is exactly what that meant - no more, no less. That conclusion of yours is assuming bad faith, in a very big way.

Furthermore, the assumption of hiding from criticism is completely inconsistent with the offer given to you and IZAK to join the project:

• From User:Egfrank to User:IZAK at 7:44 UTC October 28: "You have expressed a rather significant interest in the topic to date (or rather its non-existence). I invite you to become an active member of the project. You will be most welcome to express your views and sources."[22].
• From User:A Sniper to User:HG at 19:58 UTC October 28 (12 hours later): "Those who disagree with edits are welcome to be a part of the project, hence Egfrank's invitation at the main Judaism project."[23]

Yours and IZAK's posts directly above are own are visible in the diffs. We really do have short memories here. Egfrank (talk) 16:19, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Egfrank, perhaps you're over-reacting? I haven't said it's a crime or that you did it in bad faith, which means to harm Wikipedia. I'm only saying that it certainly seemed like you folks wanted the Prog Project as a safe space to discuss a progressive point of view. As A Sniper said in the above diff: "I would rather talk, discuss & collaborate... everything Progressively Jewish HERE than debate and argue at the main project, perhaps with nice-intentioned folk...." That's neither a crime nor bad faith, it's asking for the Project to be a space away from the heated debate. For me, one problem that arose is that, from what I can tell, you would assume that when the 3 of you agree, then some consensus was reached on such matters as vastly restructuring Reform Judaism. Plus, while not bad faith, it does indicate a kind of POV way of approaching the editorial mission. HG | Talk 16:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

PS. I did take A Sniper's invitation as a good faith gesture and I joined your Project because I did/do want to collaborate with you all. (I didn't add the Userbox due to the misimpression that the Ortho one had caused.) What bothered me most is that, despite discussions on various Talk pages, I felt blindsided by the intense restructuring. (Of course, my own reactions were misguided and I reiterate that I made mistakes -- certainly with the AfDs and maybe for the Beliefs/Practices spin-off which you're angry at me about.) Thanks. HG | Talk 16:53, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

HG I'm sorry you felt blind sided but as the diffs requested below will show, you did have plenty of opportunity to object and even gave indication that you were comfortable with the idea of splitting up the article. Egfrank (talk) 21:25, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'll look. Meanwhile, teensy pet peeve: You have a tendency to outdent yourself when commenting, but the style is to indent responses. It makes Talk harder to read and may make you appear in an unflattering light. HG | Talk 23:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I also find it rather strange that you would view collaboration as something negative. Didn't you offer to speak on behalf of User:IZAK here[24]. Egfrank (talk) 14:56, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Um, what?! Look at that diff again! I'm actually speaking to Izak on your behalf or at least for your benefit because I agreed with you that he was being too harsh. I said to IZAK: "I feel like you are coming on unnecessarily strong.... you just posted your set of challenges yet again, this time on Egfrank's Talk page. Please, can you sit back a bit and chill out with this? ...it looks like you are pestering them" The notion that I would/could "offer to speak on behalf of IZAK" (as you say above) is your misreading. You seem to constantly lump IZAK together me, and this is a big reason your communications with me are often "misfiring" and off-base. HG | Talk 15:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't think you and IZAK are one and the same. However, you did offer to speak on his behalf. "One idea would be to contact another active Judaism editor (or me, if I'm around)" and expressed (unspecified) partial agreement with him. In fairness, you also suggested a neutral admin as a spokesperson for IZAK as an alternative to yourself.

However, my only point here was that people work together for many reasons. If you can have constructive reasons for wanting to work together with IZAK, don't you think it possible that the people who formed the Progressive Judaism project also had constructive (good for wikipedia) reasons? Egfrank (talk) 22:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, your reply surprises me. Basically, I was asking Izak to find a facilitator or go-between for your conflict, and offering to so serve if need be. What I said to him: "If you feel there is something highly unusual (I can guess at what you might mean), perhaps even then you don't need to intervene yourself. One idea would be to contact another active Judaism editor (or me, if I'm around), another idea would be to request a neutral admin via the usual open channels." Believe me, I was not offering to represent him, though I was naive in thinking that the issue would be resolved with some brief discussion. Anyway, I do think we all have constructive reasons to edit here. Still, I have concerns with, for instance, how Izak interacts with folks. With you (Egfrank), my concern is how you go about working on topics in which you have a strongly felt point of view. HG | Talk 00:31, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I think we were all naive - I never imagined in a million years that a word that is just a word to me with no other significance than some people use it to identify themselves would turn into a hellstorm. HG, the strange thing is that I don't have a strongly felt point of view on Judaism except maybe the belief that it isn't my place to decide for people how to arrange their relationship with ---- or even what they should call ---- and most certainly what they choose to call themselves. But that cuts both ways - I would no more judge a haredi woman who covers her hair and has 10 children than I would the woman who enjoys tanning her body on the beach in the skimpiest bikini known to man. And I would defend them both equally should one try to cast judgment on the other. Egfrank (talk) 04:50, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. Scylla and charybdis here. If I don't accept what you say at face value, then will you claim again that I'm assuming bad faith? On the other hand, I can't honestly say that your actions and statement reflect somebody to whom "Progressive" has little significance or you don't have a strong point of view on Judaism. If that were the case, why be so offended by Izak? Why tell me how you feel about your Haredi friend's jokes about "Reform" Jews? Etc. Maybe we should make a wish list for dealing with each other. Thanks. HG | Talk 20:16, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Assumptions about editor POV or knowledge

Adding break and outdenting. ok? HG | Talk 00:37, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

On miscommunicating: Egfrank, you seem to have jumped to the conclusion that I'm Orthodox and part of an Orthodox cabal. As I recall, you thought this partly because I belonged to WikiProj Orthodox Judaism. (Revealing that you viewed such Projects partly as POV spaces.) To avoid this impression, I removed myself from the Ortho Project. (Also, I realized it just splinters WP:Judaism.) Or maybe you jumped to a conclusion from my editing history -- but such "sleuthing" can be completely wrong. You also seem to think I'm Orthodox because I happen to partially agree with Izak on (1) the naming dispute of Reform vs Progressive, and (2) concerns about how you handle your POV. However, I think you'll be much more effective in working with me -- and many similar editors -- if you would avoid making assumptions or inferences about my religious views (if any). You are welcome to broadcast your own religiosity or POV bias as you wish, but I decline to represent myself as having such views. HG | Talk 16:03, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if you are orthodox or not. What I do strongly suspect is that you have little close personal experience with either US Reform or any other progressive denomination. Or if you do have experience you were one of the many who were raised in a congregation that had little or no proper Jewish education or have such people as friends (sigh - it is a big problem among my generation of Reform Jews - fortunately it is getting a lot better as reform Jews are taking the idea of education more seriously). I came to that conclusion because as a third generation US Reform Jew who pretty much has considered Hebrew Union College as her home congregation for round about 40 years, you seemed to doubt a lot of things and make a lot of statements about reform Judiasm that indicated a different set of "common knowlege" from myself and those I know. Egfrank (talk) 16:33, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

It is no different than the assumption that you and I would both make if someone didn't know what the word "mizvah" or "shomer shabbat/shomer shabbas" or HaShem meant. I think we would both suspect they probably aren't an educated Jew. Egfrank (talk) 16:43, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Do you notice what just happened? I'm trying to ask you politely to stop speculating about me. You respond by writing in Wikipedia what you "strongly suspect" about me. Please respect my anonymity and stop such conjectures about me. (Also, your comment feels to me like an unnecessarily snide swipe at my supposed lack of experience or education or "common knowlege" (sic). Maybe I'm just touchy, or maybe Sarcasticidealist can comment on tone?) Again, please, please keep your suspicions about me to yourself. On article Talk pages, please just stick to the substantive merits of editing choices. I would be grateful. HG | Talk 17:03, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

HG I'm sorry if I offended you. Weren't you the one who made the assumption that I (a) was assuming you were orthodox (b) had sleuthed to guess it? If you didn't want an explanation of what I do and don't believe and why, you probably shouldn't have voiced assumptions of your own about what I did and did not believe and why. How did you expect me to answer such a challenge?

And please don't read what I said as a swipe at you. It wasn't intended that way. You don't have to be a life long Progressive Jew or even a Jew to have something valid to say about Progressive Judaism. Plenty of academics write on topics they have no personal experience with. However, they do put in a lot of work compensating for that.

Knowledge and experience do affect understanding and communication and it can be quite hard to communicate when people aren't up front with what they do and don't know. Perhaps you will consider with me two scenarios. Suppose you were trying to have a conversation with someone about halakhah with who quite obviously didn't know what b'deavad or l'hatchila (forgive my horrid transliteration) meant or how it affected halakhic reasoning. Suppose also they didn't understand the difference between minority and majority opinions.

• Scenario I:Consider the situation where a very bright person, such as yourself, is up front about what is and isn't new to them and trusts the knowlege of the other person. In this situation, once the preliminaries were out of the way, their reasoning could fly and the conversation might be very fruitful -- precisely because they have a fresh view on the basics. At Princeton, senior professors are expected to teach freshmen seminars. When I was a student I thought it was just because Princeton was a great school. In youngish middle age (scary I'm that old - sigh) I've come to realize that this wasn't a favor to us students. It was a way of making sure that professors didn't get stuck into intellectual ruts. The fact that even professors (who are experts) need fresh voices says how important it is sometimes to have someone in the mix who doesn't come from the same background or knowlegebase.
• Scenario II:The person insisted that their personal background meant nothing and you weren't supposed to come to any conclusions about it. How effective do you think that conversation would be? Not very.

b'deavad and l'hatchila are important concepts. The nuances of what they mean comes gradually by looking at and discussing a lot of different talmud debates and halakhic discussions. But explaining things is useless - the person doesn't trust you.

well, maybe you could cite sources? Nope. Your discussion partner denies the existence and validity of certain rules about who outweighs whom. Nor are they willing to discuss the possibility that we have two notable POV's about what rules apply - lets assume both POV's are notable and find sources that speak from each POV. Instead they distrust your knowledge about minority and majority sources and any time you try to build an argument based on it or cite sources they discount them.

No matter what you said, it wouldn't get very far. The combination of lack of trust and different backgrounds would lead to stalemate after stalemate.

So bottom line - your background is not a qualification-to-participate issue. However, it does affect the discussion and by hiding it, you don't really help the discussion, you complicate it. Egfrank (talk) 21:25, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Um, what are you saying sorry for? Your reply is confusing me. Are you sorry that you've mischaracterized me and my views? That would be nice, but it's sounds more like you're defending yourself. I'm not sure I want to find the diffs, rather put this behind us, provided you feel you can avoid working that way. Are you sorry that you generalize about my supposed lack of education, comparable to somebody who doesn't know from mitzvah? That would be nice, too.

Your scenarios about qualifications are interesting. I'd like to hear comments from the WQA folks here. If a person doubts what we edit about a topic (e.g., "autonomy" or "liberal"), then the solution isn't usually a claim to one's qualifications. Instead, we explain in Talk, we cite 2ry sources, etc. My difficulties (and successes) in trusting you have little to do with your qualifications. Instead, I start losing trust in you when I see edits that appear to be strongly motivated. And I regain trust when your writing ore re-writing strikes me as neutral and descriptive, which is often.

(Further, I lose trust when -- from where I sit -- you use your viewpoint on the Truth as the yardstick to evaluate my edits. Or to deduce my supposedly inferior education. Sometimes you don't seem to notice that you are judging on a True/False scale what just might be a valid analysis from another perspective. But how much of this can be discussed without an example?) In sum, I think the conversation on Wikipedia depends more on intellectual humility, patience, and verifiable analysis than on qualifications. Thanks for hearing me out. HG | Talk 01:13, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I have never said you were uneducated. I'd be a fool to say that - you do great work on lots of articles, especially complex ones that require a great deal of technical knowlege about things like halakhah or political issues. I was not comparing you to someone who didn't know what a mitzvah is and I am very very sorry if I seemed to be saying that - my point was only that we both would have come to that conclusion about a third imaginary person person who didn't know what a mitzvah was (and I used the word educated only to avoid the conclusion that the imaginary person was not a Jew - there are many Jews with strong ethnic identity but little knowledge of religion). It was supposed to be an analogy - not a claim about you, me, or anyone else.

Nor is saying you have different common knowledge an aspersion. Different means, well, different. You have something I don't have. I have something you don't have. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Nor is anyone claiming that the solution is qualification - the whole vision of wikipedia as I understand it is that anyone can edit. But since editing does require reliable sources and the ability to assess WP:UNDUE - I would think that under the covers actual knowlege and experience (not qualifications) do make a difference. Finding sources, assessing the reliability of sources, and making judgment calls about weight do require something more than the raw capicity to reason - whether achieved through lived experience, personal study or formal training. And the presence or lack thereof does affect the quality of discourse.

On the Christianity and Judaism article we are able to have many difficult discussions. Why? Because Christians don't claim they can define Judaism as well as Jews and Jews don't claim they can define Christianity as well as Christians. We understand that we come from different knowlege bases and assumptions and we trust the "other" to fill in what we don't know. I think this trust is especially important when what we are documenting is a group's self-concept (which is pretty much what one does when documenting a religious denomination: that has to be there out on the table before you can critique it from the outside - otherwise you are critiquing a straw man). And as IZAK has aptly pointed out elsewhere in everything, not just Torah, there is a written tradition and an oral tradition that has to be lived or felt. We can study to get at the written material but we can only get at the oral stuff by trusting the "other" who is part of that "oral tradition".

So, no it doesn't matter whether you are "qualified" in the eyes of someone else. But whether or not you actually are knowlegable "under the covers" will affect the discourse and your ability to recognize verifiable analysis when you see it. I wouldn't pretend to be able to follow a dispute in chaos theory - I don't know enough about it and I'd only cause trouble if I pretended to myself or others that extended study of chaos theory didn't matter and were to say to myself "I can participate if I want because wikipedia editing is open to everyone". In the same vein there are many articles you edit (well) that I wouldn't dare join in on - I just don't know enough.

A large part of intellectual humility is admitting what you don't know - even to others. Hence we are back to disclosure and transparency. Not for the purpose of judging - but rather for the purpose of pooling resources and working together more effectively. Egfrank (talk) 01:43, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

On guessing someone's POV. The interesting thing about it is that if you said to me "Hey, I'm orthodox" I still wouldn't know a thing about your POV. There are so many different kinds of orthodox out there. There are as many different orthodox Jews as there are human beings. Even if you called yourself orthodox, I wouldn't really know a thing about you.

By the same token, you really know nothing about me. Do you really know my beliefs? My practices? My sympathies? My motivations? Or have you just drawn conclusions from a label I assign myself? Or the label I use for others? What exactly is this POV that you think I am pushing? Egfrank (talk) 03:03, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with you on methodology. You say above that Jews should define Judaism, Christians define Christianity. In other words, "native informants" should describe their cultural system. While this view is rampant on Wikipedia, it is contested by critical scholarship. Instead of informants, articles should describe religious topics based on best available outside sources -- ideally, critical theory may suggest that informants should not do this work. Wikipedia would improve if the informants (aka POV adherents) could operate at far greater critical distance or else recuse themselves. <Of course, you also valorize scholarship, so I recognize there's a tension or complexity in your various statements.> Maybe we should continue this theoretical discussion on our Talk pages, or maybe it's central to our Wikiquette difficulties.

About you. Why even ask such questions? Ok. You've self-identified strongly and repeatedly with a POV and //I feel as if// you've edited aggressively on it. By aggressive, I include several levels: the ProgJ Project, the dispute over naming, the restructuring, and (occasionally) editing judgments within the articles. Despite everything, I still have a warm regard for you, your enthusiasm and your abilities. But I think you overplay your experience as an informant and, at times, //I feel that// you act as if you are critically unreflective of your biases as an informant (i.e., POV motivated edits). Of course, you also often advocate the use of high quality sources and a scholarly standpoint, so we have common ground, too. HG | Talk 18:35, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

• Requesting advice from WQA folks. For reasons I don't understand, Egfrank is upset with me and does not want to participate in the WQA. Here is Egfrank's comment on my Talk and a reverted comment here. I'm curious about how I might have handled my comments here differently. Though I slip at times (see //..// above), I am trying to make "I statements" when I describe my difficulties in trust. I am not accusing Egfrank of being a "POV warrior" (as stated on my Talk) nor do I believe that Egfrank is untrustworthy. (I.e., I recognize the difference between my feelings of (partial) distrust and whether the person is trustworthy.) It does seem like Egfrank would appreciate my expressing similar distrust or disapproval of editing by Izak or Orthodox editors. If asked, I am willing to do so, though I'm not sure why my problems with Izak are germane (since I'm not in an editing dispute with him). Egfrank also seems to think that I have concerns or thoughts about her religious beliefs or observance. This never crossed my mind -- it does seem to be a point of contention betw her and Izak, but I don't quite see how it enters into my conflict with Egfrank. I'm somewhat baffled by her abrupt end to this conversation and I'm concerned about how we will interact on the articles we're editing. Thanks for your input. HG | Talk 01:06, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Sequence of restructuring dispute

Break from thread above, continue here. Ok? HG | Talk 00:37, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Egfrank, I'm curious about your claim that you waited a week for feedback before breaking up Reform Judaism. Can you show me the diffs? On Nov 2nd, I started a discussion at Progressive Judaism entitled Avoiding a POV fork. On Nov 4th, Jheald created the Germany spin-off. On Nov. 6, here's where you announced that you were refactoring the Reform Judaism article, where you state yourself that IZAK and I still disagreed. (Saying you were opposed to Reform Judaism as "an umbrella article providing an overview of a movement (User:HG and User:IZAK).") Or am I misreading this? Maybe you waited a week on another Talk? Please fill in the picture. Thanks. HG | Talk 14:42, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've just looked at the diffs and I notice something interesting, and I think I may now understand your surprise - as well as the confusion of others at your surprise. It appears a spin off for the Israeli Progressive and UK Reform were discussed for a week[25], but the spin off of North America and German Reform were only added to the list at 3:35am on November 4.[26].

So I understand your surprise a bit better - you were expecting the UK and Israeli spin-off but not the US and German spin-off. Now I understand why you AfD's the German and USA but not the UK and Israeli. But also try to understand how JHeald must have been seeing things:

• Jheald was more interested in content than naming. From the point of content development, the USA and 19th century German movement needed their own article.
• The basis of yours and IZAK's original argument wasn't umbrella article, but POV split. And you specifically mention that as the key issue in the WQA. By removing the spin-out material we would only have the material that was in common for the four spin out articles but not specific to any one. That was the only information that could possible cause a risk of a content/POV split - so by removing the material we actually made it easier to assess the situation and genuine risk of POV split, not harder.

So I do apologize for claiming that you had a week warning for the German and US split off when you only had it for the Israeli and UK spin offs. My bad. But I also think you should judge JHeald's decision on the merits. Egfrank (talk) 04:09, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

(Main reply below. FYI. You write: "The basis of your... original argument wasn't umbrella article, but POV split." Incorrect. My concern was about the (POV) split of two umbrella articles, Progressive Judaism and Reform Judaism. Now there's a third, Reform movement in Judaism (yes, I realize you personally might not see it as an umbrella article). HG | Talk 18:03, 30 November 2007 (UTC) )

But let me ask you this - as I have elsewhere - don't you think it is time to stop worrying about the name "Reform" vs. "Progressive" or monster scope umbrella articles and focus on developing focused articles that have a narrow enough scope that we may actually get something to good article status before the next millenium? You have so much to offer these articles via your research and writing skills. Why not make that your contribution? Egfrank (talk) 04:09, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I accept your apology for claiming that I had a week's warning. I felt blindsided since it appeared to come in the middle of several ongoing discussions (at ProgJudaism, bias page, maybe WP:Judaism). Perhaps I should have called you on your claim about the timing earlier (I try to ignore ad hominem stuff in general). You made this claim in various places against me, so if you happen to notice it, I'd appreciate your retracting (not deleting) it there.

I have accepted Jheald's spin-outs on the merits. But I was stunned at first, hence my erroneous AfDs and AN/I. As you know, I retracted and apologized. However, I still feel some distrust about the big restructuring without reaching consensus. From my seat, you guys have made sweeping changes without sufficient regard for consensus-building and it makes me nervous about what will happen next.

Next steps. It is unhelpful for you to ask me, or others, to "stop worrying" about the Reform vs Progressive nomenclature. Why? First, because this has been a significant, time-consuming dispute carried on in several places. You share a fair degree of responsibility for the dispersion of this dispute. We all deserve to bring this to closure. Second, the naming dispute now casts a shadow over the new spin-out articles, perhaps the whole Category. (Izak focuses on the Category name.) I don't want to see my (or your) contributions continue under a cloud, not knowing which articles might be deleted or vastly reframed (due to a name chg) or subject to new spin-outs. This was my point going back to Nov 2nd, that it is our editorial duty to avoid overlapping content (forks) as best we can. Shirahadasha has made renewed attempts to do resolve this dispute, e.g. Talk:Reform Judaism and I've tried at Talk:Reform movement in Judaism. So far, I feel that you've avoided responding to either overture. If you don't mind my saying so, it would be better if you'd contribute to enabling a broad consensus to be reached. Maybe we need to go to MedCab with these disputed questions. Thanks. HG | Talk 17:55, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Canvassing complaint

NB I moved this here because it seems like a new subtopic. Thanks. HG | Talk 15:18, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

And while we're talking about collaboration, what about User:IZAK's requests for feedback on the Progressive/Reform issue? He was rather selective about who he notified. He only notified selected wiki project members. He explicitly notified User:MPerel and User:Dfass of the debate. Interesting that User:MPerel shows up here as part of the discussion.

On the other hand, he did not notify User:JerseyRabbi - who is (a) a rabbi (b) on the participant list and (c) has had interactions with User:IZAK in the past. Oh... but maybe we do have an explanation...User:JerseyRabbi is a Reform rabbi - surely he doesn't have anything interesting to say on Reform/Progressive Judaism. Do I smell WP:CANVASS?

And if I were a nefarious POV pusher - why didn't *I* request feedback in the debate. I did the first time arround when I first raised the Reform/Progressive Judaism issue on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism page (long before the creation of the Progressive Judaism project). Yet when I was the target of a complaint and should have been canvassing I never did. In fact I never even asked him to join the Progressive Judaism project - something that would have been logical to do and even appropriate. So if I'm a POV pusher I do a pretty bad job of it. Egfrank (talk) 14:56, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

• Hmmm Eg, going back into past history now are we? Well, it was after you arbitrarily opened a second front, or is it a third, counting the "Progressive Judaism Project" you started, and then you went over to "WikiProject Countering systemic bias" that I asked a couple of editors to join the debate at that time but what does it have to do with now? You are making a mishkabibbel of everything now to blur the real problems we are having. They are established and very respected editors and I don't even know their affiliation because it has never been an issue even though I am sure they are different to me, we have never gotten into struggles over assertion of their or my POVS. This is the original message: "Please see the present discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/open tasks#WikiProject Judaism needs help - geographical bias concerns. Your input would be greatly appreciated. (They are the result of discussions that unfolded at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism#Concern about duplicating Reform and Progressive labels.)" I do not see any problem with this request. This is becoming like a bad marriage, when do we get our divorce? IZAK (talk) 16:09, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Your message was indeed neutral as per guidelines. And I trust you are being absolutely honest here that you simply asked editors because you trusted them and not because of their views.

But here's the problem. This discussion should have been focused on content and that means that the right people to approach would be people that might know something about the issue. In fact, both the people declined to participate, one with the explicit reason that this wasn't something they knew very much about. On the other hand, the one user you could have approached who might know something about this - being a Reform Rabbi - you didn't approach. If trust was your criteria, then this means you didn't trust him/her and this begs the question why?. If knowledge of subject area was your criteria for selection, then you approached 2 people who didn't know and overlooked an obvious choice of someone who might.

I'm going to assume good faith here and assume you just forgot that User:JerseyRabbi existed and that it never occurred to you to scan the participants list before you chose who to (validly) canvas. The main problem I see with this is that you are a leader in the wiki Judaism project and you keep referring to yourself as a mature participant whose judgment should be trusted against this greenhorn.

However, if you place upon yourself the mantle of role model or leader, that gives you certain responsibilities. The project has lots of orthodox/interested in or sympathetic to orthodoxy(but maybe not orthodox) editors and very few non-orthodox editors. A successful NPOV project needs a balance of interests and a mix of POV. You don't seem to be working very hard to get and encourage participation of the few non-orthodox/sympathetic to non-orthodoxy(but maybe not non-orthodox) contributors available to you (e.g. User:JerseyRabbi). And now you also want to give me a get and get me to go away. (for non-Jewish readers: divorce in Hebrew means send away) Egfrank (talk) 23:59, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm Eg, I have never heard of User:JerseyRabbi and we can stay "married" if you insist! Can't you even see humor when it is staring you in the face? Shabbat Shalom. IZAK (talk) 09:29, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

3rd response from IZAK

I would like to put on record, that three times in a row now, Egfrank has very unhelpfully to the workability of Judaic editors, has tried to drive a very calculated strategic wedge into the functional and functioning consensus of the active editors at the long-established non-sectarian and non-denominational editors associated with Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism.

1. The first blow to unity was when she actively joined User A Sniper (talk · contribs) to create Wikipedia:WikiProject Progressive Judaism against the advice of the more established editors. At the time, and even now, I say it is their right to do so, but when seen in light of a strategy of leaping outside the paramaters of the Judaic editors rough cohesiveness, it can be judged to be detrimental.
2. Secondly when discussions were not going her way during the Reform Judaism reorganization débâcle she suddenly and without consultation went and jumped into Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/open tasks#WikiProject Judaism needs help - geographical bias concerns that did not get any attention from anyone over there, but just embroiled the same set of editors in acrimonious discussions at that uncalled for location.
3. Then thirdly, during lengthy discussion at Talk:Relationships between American Jewish religious movements#Primary and secondary sources she went ballistic when I stated clearly that academic sources cannot over-rule Judaic sources when it comes to matters of Judaism and she then openly denigrated and belittled me and threatened to call in the opinions of editors in no way connected to Judaic topics: "...if we are serious about writing a wikipedia policy compliant article and we are concerned about academic bias, we may need to look outside of our usual project circle...But that difficulty doesn't give us permission to go write joint opinion pieces. It means we need to either learn the research skills/methodological issues ourselves or find fellow wikipedians who have those skills and methodological maturity and are willing to help out. Egfrank 06:57, 26 November 2007" [27] After she wrote those insulting and scathing comments directed at me for suggesting that there are many primary Judaic sources to rely upon [28] and when I then gave a response, "Hi Egfrank, thanks for taking the time to answer. There is no need to preach the "gospel" of Wikipedia to me or to anyone, I am well-aware of the policies and I have never diverged from them..." that in spite of academic sources there are still and all vast primary texts and sources that belong to classical Judaism that are available on Wikipedia itself, predate and even run concurrently to the goings on in academia and which are as legitimate as any sources are in a subject about the Jewish religion and theology.[29] It was at that point that she then got caught up on phrases I used here and there and used that as an excuse to leapfrog an important discussion and launch this present series of time-wasting and acrimonious accusations against me here, and now she still has the temerity to ask if I will submit to her one-sided POV hostility to traditional Judaism, its texts, sources, Orthodox rabbis and teachers.

And that is why I call it not only pathetic but absurd and even comical that she uses the metaphorical editorial strategic axe so violently, and then when someone stands in her way, she hacks and chops, runs from pillar to post, opens second and third fronts, wasting time and efforts, and threatens to open more new fronts in the hope of a "divide and conquer" of Judaica on Wikipedia and of its merry band of hard-working editors. Well, sorry, tough noogies, it ain't gonna happen on my watch. She has to be stopped! I rest my case thus far. Thank you! IZAK (talk) 15:08, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

IZAK, I am not hostile to orthodox Judaism. I think all Jews have a right to read and study the sources and come to their own good faith conclusions about what those sources mean. I fully understand that orthodox Jews are trying as hard to be faithful to Torah as any other religious Jew - reform, progressive, liberal, reconstructionist, masorti, conservative, or purple polka dotted with green strips. Please don't project your hostility towards Progressive Jews back onto me. Egfrank (talk) 03:11, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

"purple polka dotted with green strips" Jews? Where are they located? Probably in someone's imagination. Oh, and could you define a "religious" reform, progressive, liberal, reconstructionist Jew please. That should be kinda fun. IZAK (talk) 10:06, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Eg, I do not have "hostility" to ANY Jews! You see, that is the way you create a personalization of issues. When one debates ideas, notions, beliefs, concepts, principles, ideologies, dogmas, logic, abstractions, phenomena, people, places, and things, and if one takes things apart and analyzes, explores, thinks, and debates them from multiple angles, sometimes positively and sometimes negatively, it does NOT mean that one is either "hostile," "friendly" or "neutral" at that point because processing and working things though in discussions is not the be all and end all of what one's true beliefs on a subject really are. To truly know what another thinks or believes about a subject, one would need to be a mind reader, and since neither of us is one, we need to assume that we are both fair human beings and that no matter what we say or do in the course of long conversations and dialogues, at the end of the day we can respect each other. You seem to think I have an agenda to be mean or "hostile" as you say to Progressive people or to whomever, when I have nothing against ANY people, I love them as part of loving humanity and ahavat yisrael, but that does NOT mean that I have to personally "love" their ideas or personally accept their ideas in any way whatsoever and thus criticisms, coming from me or from you or anyone, in the course of much broader discussions does not mean that they have been dealt "mortal wounds" that requires you to file official complaints like one seeking comfort at a First Aid station. You are mature and strong enough to hold your own in the discussions where they could and should have remained, at WP:JUDAISM or at article talk pages, or on user talk pages (that's what they are there for), where I tried to do that but you said you did not feel comfortable talking on your user page but you have a nasty habit of personalizing relatively minor comments, that are tiny fragments, in much longer discussion threads and cutting and chopping them up, and bringing it as "testimony" that the "poor little Progressives" have been attacked by some "big bad wolf" and just like those stories are myths so are many of the tales you make up and seek to tell to anyone who will listen to you. Guess what, so far I need to get a prize for listening to you and your POV's a lot longer and in responding in greater detail than almost anyone (except User:HG). And what do I get in return for this from you? More crying, attacks, insults, personalization and globalization of comments not directed at you, and all sorts of belly-aching that is simply a great big nuisance. Hope we can all move on from this waste of time soon. Thanks a lot. IZAK (talk) 09:54, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

A final word on HG's attempt to join this WikiAlert

This wikialert did not concern HG but he has chosen to make it his own. I unwisely took the bait and responded. I will not discuss this matter further with HG on this page. I have deliberately let him have the final word in each debate as a way of saying I no longer wish to participate in this conversation. Readers should consider the fact that there may be another side of the story to each of his statements. His having the final word neither signifies my agreement or disagreement with any of his statement. Egfrank 00:46, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

It's ok if you choose to bow out of the conversation. However, this isn't a kind way to end it. Before entering the conversation, I asked: "I'm wondering if maybe I could be added in here?" (03:52, 28 November 2007) I only got more involved after Egfrank disagreed with Izak about whether Izak had "calmed me" during the dispute. (Egfrank 11:32, 29 November 2007) I certainly agree that Egfrank has another side of the story, and I'm open to the possibility that her side may be better and more correct than mine. Nonetheless, it's unfair to say that I baited Egfrank and somehow tried to "own" this wikialert. Thank. HG | Talk 17:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Another attempt to move forward

IZAK, at issue isn't just how I would respond. It is how this kind of interaction might look to others. Consider the following from the above:

Oh, and could you define a "religious" reform, progressive, liberal, reconstructionist Jew please. That should be kinda fun..

Talk pages are not a platform for personal positions (see WP:TALK) so what possible reason do you have for making that claim?

• Are you planning to argue for its inclusion in an article?
• Are you asking people to help you find citations for it and to evaluate whether it should be included in an article?
• Do you intend it to set the tone of the page? If so, doesn't such a statement act like a "stay out - you're not welcome" sign to a Jew who believes themselves religious (whatever denomination)? Are you proposing that making the edit page uninviting for Progresive, reform, liberal and reconstructionist Jews is good for wikipedia? Are you suggesting that most Progressive Jews would find such a statement sets a positive tone for the talk page? That they would feel that editing on such a talk page would be a harmonious experience?
• Do you intend it to "team-build" so that we can cooperate better and be increasingly biased towards good faith? If so, how are "Progressive Jews" going to feel part of a team where team-building statements cast aspersions on their religious convictions?

You have a right to your opinions. You do not have a right to use them to create an unfriendly environment for other editors. Wikipedia's quality depends on having a mix of editors from different backgrounds and point of view.

You might want to think carefully about how you answer the above questions. It will affect my decision about whether or not I should push this up to another level.

And to the helpers on this page, pending IZAK's response, I would appreciate feedback about what to do next. At that point I hope it would be clear that IZAK's response to me so far has more to do with the fact that I am objecting to his behavior and not the way I am objecting to his behavior (see response to User:Cheeser1 above for comparison). Excessive politeness is not a solution to someone's strongly held belief that they can say anything they want and it anybody bothered by it is a cry baby, running "pillar to post". Egfrank (talk) 12:05, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

4th and final response from IZAK

Eg, you know it's very strange, so far, you have heard from others here, such as User:HG, User:MPerel, User:Shirahadasha without me telling them what to say and how to say it and who know me well as an editor having worked with me for many years, and with whom I have even had sharp disagreements in articles, AfDs, CfDs and countless other talk pages over the years, yet none of them have either evoked in me or responded to me the way that you have to the degree of hysteria that you have. Why is that? I take you seriously as you can see from the lengthy and laborious responses I write to you. You say lots (way lots) of things that bug me, I overlook it, but heaven forfend if I utter even the slightest line, clearly often in jest and of no major import, and kapow there you go galloping on your horse, waving your sword to skewer me. Now why is that exactly? Just see what you have done right here, instead of taking note of my serious responses to your comments, and taking to heart the input from three serious and experienced Judaic editors, like HG, MPerel, and Shirahadasha who know the issues well and how to handle hot potato subjects, you jump to point out how I responded to the rudeness of User:Cheeser1 yet you conveniently overlook the maturity, civility, and suggestions to you, being displyed by User:Sarcasticidealist who reveals a greater willingness to be patient and earn everyone's trust. It is very confusing and frustrating dealing with you or taking your assertions seriously when you are so sensitive and selective in pushing your own interests and your own POV. It is all compouneded as you then take it personally as well as you globalize discusions by speaking as if you represent this or that segment of world Jewry. You need to calm down, not expect the world to agree with you, learn that "NPOV" means "Neutral Point of View" and NOT "No Point of View" on article talk pages, and that above all else, the ways of peace are far better than the ways of confrontation. Unless of course you wish to make yourself into the "poster child" of WP:BITE, which I highly doubt. A final alert, by now it should be obvious that this alert is more about you than anyone else. And as you would say, kol tuv. Thank you, IZAK 08:59, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

NOTE: I have given User:Egfrank my utmost attention here and elsewhere. I have tried to explain the who, what, why, when and how of my responses here and elsewhere. I have said everything I possibly can. We are thus running around in circles. From this point I shall not add anything else here, unless it is a matter of an extreme nature. I can be contacted via my talk page. Thank you all for your kind patience. IZAK 10:03, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Craig_zimmerman

On two talk pages [30] [31] (both loosely discussing the same issue), user Craig_zimmerman has displayed venomous and persistent incivility, in at least the following regards:

1. Abundant personal attacks:
   1. "Just goes to show that arrogant presumptive censorship comes in many flavors"
   2. "When asked to explain what his point is, he yammers that "he already has.""
   3. "your undoing the revert was simply an arrogant immature act"
   4. "...after demonstrating both immaturity and arrogance..."
2. Assumption of bad faith:
   1. "He does not actually have a point here, just an agenda"
   2. "you are now just being petty, and it's clear you don't care whether your point of view has merit"
   3. "his modifications are based not on any logic or reason but on an agenda"
3. Disruption of discussion. User:Dbachmann made an edit to one of the above-mentioned talk pages, adding a signed comment. I wrote a response, but at the same time he expanded his comment, causing an edit conflict. To resolve the collision, I added my reply under the part of his comment that had existed from the start, reasoning that he presumably had no problem with it standing alone since he had originally submitted it that way. It wasn't the best way to deal with the collision, but I had no ill intent, and would go back to make the split more clear if not for the facts that Craig_zimmerman already did so (in as derogatory way as possible) and that any changes now would require large restructuring of the comment tree. To antagonise me, Craig_zimmerman is now exclusively responding to my comments by breaking them apart wherever he wishes to reply ([32],[33]), and accusing me of deleting his comments with ill faith ("deliberately deleted comments I have made in a discussion page the content of which he did not like") when I revert his insertions and urge him to stop responding in this way.
4. Changing of section headings to fit his view. He has repeatedly changed the heading "Capitalisation of 'god'" to "Capitalisation of 'God'", despite that this breaks direct links to the section.

With every comment that he makes, he spends far more energy impugning my character than addressing the issue at the heart of the dispute, and dealing with him is demanding far too much of my time. Ilkali (talk) 17:04, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Ilkali has made edits to pages that were reverted by admins, and then has gone back and put them in again despite a consensus that his edits were unwarranted and violated NPOV. When the subject was discussed (on multiple pages), he has deleted comments made by myself and others because he didn't like the way they were formatted, even though they used the same style of interjection he admits he employs. "Assuming good faith" only goes so far, and this user's repeated insulting behavior is the problem here. Accusing people of not understanding his point simply because they disagree with it—"You don't understand the simplest linguistic issues involved here" is a typical response when you disagree with him. And the simple logic of saying "you may want to look at God (word)#Capitalization. When monotheistic Singular God is intended, God is spelled with a G. When a polytheistic deity is intended, we spell it god, with a g. Please consult any major dictionary of English" is lost on him. How can you assume good faith with someone who goes out of his way to violate any such faith incessantly? Censure me if you think this is warranted, but please put a stop to the nonsense this person is persisting in perpetrating. Craig zimmerman (talk) 18:52, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, we're off to an exciting start - thank you both for participating. If I could ask you each to respond to the other's allegations against you, without mentioning the other person, that should get things rolling. Would you each be good enough to do so? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 18:57, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Sure.

"Ilkali has made edits to pages that were reverted by admins, and then has gone back and put them in again despite a consensus that his edits were unwarranted and violated NPOV"

1. They were reverted by an admin (dbachmann), acting as a normal editor.
2. There was no consensus against me. I only restored my edits at the point where only dbachmann and myself were involved. 1 vs 1 isn't a consensus.
3. As far as I remember, only one person has accused me of violating NPOV, and it is not the person with whom I was disagreeing at that point. It's not clear to me how I even could be guilty of violating NPOV. I've asserted nothing about the nature or existence of any gods. Most of my edits have been stylistic, and the others have been to correct over-specific definitions.

"Accusing people of not understanding his point simply because they disagree with it". I have not done this. I've claimed that others don't understand my point on the grounds that they've argued against a position I do not hold, such as that the proper-noun 'God' should not have a capital.

"the simple logic of saying "you may want to look at God (word)#Capitalization. When monotheistic Singular God is intended, God is spelled with a G. When a polytheistic deity is intended, we spell it god, with a g. Please consult any major dictionary of English" is lost on him". I presented my counter-argument to this on the relevant talk pages. The point of this Wikiquette alert is not to discuss the validity of either person's position.

"How can you assume good faith with someone who goes out of his way to violate any such faith incessantly". I've seen no evidence presented that I do not have good faith. Ilkali (talk) 19:48, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Ilkali. Over to you, Mr. Zimmerman. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:55, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Sarcastic.

• The act of deleting other people's words from a discussion page, for whatever reason, is an attempt at censorship, in addition to being a flagrant violation of Wikipedia protocol. Claiming that this act was performed because the deleter did not like the style of comment interjection does not suffice as a justification for such deletion, it is merely a rationalization. Claiming that this is a reasonable justification for such an act is both presumptive (assuming that the deleter knows better than the original author whether his text ought to be there) and arrogant (erroneously believing that the deleter has authority and credentials to warrant such acts of deletion). Thus it is not a "personal attack" to call such action "arrogant presumptive censorship," it is a valid description of the action, and not in any way a smear on the character of the one who took such action. In any case, the charge that there were "abundant personal attacks" is fabricated, unless criticizing another person's position, statements, or inappropriate actions can be called a "personal attack."
• The point in saying that such behavior "comes in many flavors" simply notes that this kind of censorship occurs across the religiopolitical spectrum, not only in religious conservatives but in atheistic liberals as well. No one gets a pass automatically absolving them of such charges owing to their political or religious affiliation.
• When clarification on points in the course of discussion or debate is requested, it is unfortunately a much too common tactic for the one thus challenged to assert that s/he "already has" clarified. This seems to happen regularly, on Wikipedia and elsewhere, even if the challenger says quite clearly that they don't get the point that person is trying to make. The one challenged engages in an act of seeming auto-absolution from their responsibility as a participant in a two-way communication to clarify at the request of the person they are talking to. When this request comes from multiple sources, as it did in this case, it indicates that clearly it is not a failure on the part of those being spoken to (despite the person's dismissive assertions to the contrary regarding their failure or inability to comprehend), but a failure on the part of the one speaking to make himself clear. When "I already have" is repeated excessively in this scenario, it is reasonable to drop the assumption that the one using that canard is operating in good faith, since the reasonable request for genuine clarification is being summarily ignored. The further acts of deliberate deletion represent additional reasons for dropping this assumption.
• The notion that I followed a particular style of comment interjection, one that is not only in common usage but was used by the very person complaining about this style, for the overt purpose of "antagonising" that person, is absurd. The further notion that such usage disrupted a discussion is even more preposterous. The discussion continued unabated and unrestrained despite my insertion of comments. However...
• The deletion of points added to the discussion that were relevant to that discussion and that were as a result of the overt deliberate deletion not responded to, was indeed a disruption. The fact that those points still have not been addressed, even after they were reinserted following the deliberate disruptive act of deletion, is another fair reason to drop the assumption of good faith. The contorted explanation required to justify/rationalize this act stretches the limits of believability.
• As for the changing of the heading "Capitalization of 'God'" - I stand guilty of that. I erroneously believed that a third party also participating in this discussion created this heading in the page, and that the plaintiff actually made the change to suit his views. I thought I was changing it back appropriately.

In conclusion, if criticism of another person's position, noting their repeated failure to address points and acknowledge rebuttals to their position, and citing of their inappropriate behavior (e.g., arbitrary deletion of other people's text, making false accusations) represents "venomous incivility," "impugning their character" or an example of "abundant personal attacks," then mea culpa. If we are summarily prohibited in the course of discussion from criticizing positions we feel are false or unfounded, from making note of failures to respond to rebuttals, and likewise from noting failures to abide by Wikipedia protocol as previously mentioned, then we have eviscerated the whole idea of open discussion, allowing verbal bullying and mob rule to win the day. I participated in a discussion where a person made unwarranted changes to pages and, when asked to provide and clarify his reasons for doing so, he at first gave flawed examples easily rebutted, and then reacted by claiming he wasn't obliged to clarify further (despite multiple repeated requests) and by deprecating the abilities of those requesting such clarification. I did not act abusively or derisively in response. I simply made note of what was going on and tried to get the discussion back on track, explaining that clarification and explanation were required and that disagreement is not the same as failure to understand. (The assumption apparently being that if we understood, we would "naturally" agree.) I responded with counterexamples and rebuttals that were summarily and deliberately deleted and ignored. I'm sorry, but I have to assume that is not the way discussion of topics is supposed to work on Wikipedia. Craig zimmerman (talk) 20:23, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) I think we're making some progress. User:Ilkali, am I correct in believing that your removal of comments stemmed from your belief that those comments were being interspersed with yours solely to antagonize you? For what it's worth, WP:TALK says that "In some cases, it is OK to interrupt a long contribution, either by a short comment (as a reply to a minor point) or by a headline (if the contribution introduces a new topic)." That seems to preclude extensive use of the style of commenting in question, so User:Craig zimmerman, I'd encourage you to try to refrain from it in the future. User:Ilkali, with respect, I'm not sure that User:Craig zimmerman has forfeited his entitlement to good faith: remember, WP:AGF doesn't require that you actually believe somebody is acting in good faith, just that you behave as if you believe that. Besides that, if User:Craig zimmerman was doing that only to antagonize you, removing his comments would seem to do nothing more than validate his desire to antagonize you. As for the civility issues, I think there have been some (minor) breaches of WP:CIVIL on both sides. Rather than dealing with them in much detail, I'd prefer it if both of you simply made a great effort to be extremely polite moving forward. I'd appreciate both of your reactions to what I've written. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 03:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

"I think we're making some progress. User:Ilkali, am I correct in believing that your removal of comments stemmed from your belief that those comments were being interspersed with yours solely to antagonize you?". No. I reverted his additions because the practice of inserting responses within comments:

1. Makes it difficult for others to respond on a point-by-point basis. It's impossible for more than one person to use this method - they might want to divide at different places, and how would that be resolved? So should the first person's responses be inserted within the text, and subsequent people's inserted below? There is no good solution.
2. Obscures who wrote the snippets - any person trying to follow the discussion has to scroll through potentially pages of discussion just to find the signature associated with that text.

"I'm not sure that User:Craig zimmerman has forfeited his entitlement to good faith"

In general? Sure. I can act as though his general intent is to maintain quality within Wikipedia. But in this one instance? He objected through his use of language ("torn apart by Ilkali") to my dividing Dbachmann's comment, which kinda suggests he doesn't think that's an appropriate method for responding. Either he's rapidly changed his mind, or he's intentionally doing something that he doesn't think others should do. There aren't many possible motivations for that.

"if User:Craig zimmerman was doing that only to antagonize you, removing his comments would seem to do nothing more than validate his desire to antagonize you"

At this point, anything I do will be taken by him as validation of his desire to antagonise me.

Here's the primary problem: At the moment, every comment he makes, regardless of where it is or what it's a response to, accuses me of the same things: Refusing to explain my position, deleting his comments, operating on an agenda. I'm willing to address these accusations, but it doesn't matter if I do. I've explained that my reversion of his talk page edits is solely because of his placing his comments inside mine, but he continues to assert that I am "deleting" his contributions because I disagree with him, or because I don't like what he has written.

If he is willing to restrict discussion to the content of the comment he is replying to, rather than continually inserting the same accusations, and if he is willing to assume good faith and remain civil, I am willing to forget what has happened up to now. I've recently created a new section ([34]) in the talk page discussing specific examples of 'god'/'God' uses that have proven controversial, and I'd be interested in hearing his perspective on them. Ilkali (talk) 09:23, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

To demonstrate that my intent is neither antagonism nor disruption, I will employ the very style this person claims causes disruption and serves only to antagonize, tediously repeating the entire block of text that I would have simply injected comments into directly. This style is used throughout Wikipedia and throughout the history of the Internet, for the opposite reasons offered by this person: it actually makes it easier to follow the flow of a discussion, and indentation levels make it clearer who wrote and said what; plus it prevents discussion pages from becoming bloated with unnecessary repetition. A contribution consisting of a series of points is best responded to point by point, in place; the alternative is repeating entire sections over and over again with reference fragments scattered haphazardly. Sarcastic, I believe the concern over unnecessary bloating of pages, as well as the desire to see rebuttals properly placed in context, warrants the use of that style in circumstances like these.

"I think we're making some progress. User:Ilkali, am I correct in believing that your removal of comments stemmed from your belief that those comments were being interspersed with yours solely to antagonize you?". No. I reverted his additions because the practice of inserting responses within comments:

1. Makes it difficult for others to respond on a point-by-point basis. It's impossible for more than one person to use this method - they might want to divide at different places, and how would that be resolved? So should the first person's responses be inserted within the text, and subsequent people's inserted below? There is no good solution.
2. Obscures who wrote the snippets - any person trying to follow the discussion has to scroll through potentially pages of discussion just to find the signature associated with that text.

As I just mentioned, both these assertions are not true. This user apparently feels that the "sanctity" of his text demands that it not be responded to in the most efficient and compact way, that interjecting comments taints the purity (or something) of his original text. I find it hard to comprehend how such a person can operate in the Wikipedia community, where one's text is most definitely not sacrosanct and immutable.

"I'm not sure that User:Craig zimmerman has forfeited his entitlement to good faith"

In general? Sure. I can act as though his general intent is to maintain quality within Wikipedia.

"I can act as though..." This is plainly a deliberately disparaging remark. The implication is that "obviously" my intent is not to maintain quality within Wikipedia, but that he would deign to act "as though" this was true. This kind of overtly snide remark is unfortunately typical of what has transpired here. Perhaps my coming out and saying that he is plainly not acting in good faith based on the evidence is a heinous breach of etiquette. Sorry. I will say it again if the subject comes up and I will back up the statement.

But in this one instance? He objected through his use of language ("torn apart by Ilkali") to my dividing Dbachmann's comment,

This is absolutely not true. At no point did I make any such statements about his splitting up of dab's comment to insert his own rebuttals! Quite obviously not! In fact, my point throughout is that if this style of response is good enough for him, it should be good enough for others responding to him. The things "torn apart by Ilkali" were the original articles whose content he arbitrarily altered!

which kinda suggests he doesn't think that's an appropriate method for responding. Either he's rapidly changed his mind, or he's intentionally doing something that he doesn't think others should do. There aren't many possible motivations for that.

See above. It would seem that this whole line of complaint is based on the erroneous assumption that I flip-flopped on the usage of that style of commentary. Indeed, I recommend that style for clarity and compactness. It would seem this is another example, like the notion that I do everything to antagonize him, of his viewing things through a filter of his own making.

"if User:Craig zimmerman was doing that only to antagonize you, removing his comments would seem to do nothing more than validate his desire to antagonize you"

At this point, anything I do will be taken by him as validation of his desire to antagonise me.

This comment certainly qualifies as an overt assumption of bad faith, does it not? And much more. Since I have no overt desire to antagonize this user, and have not done things for the purpose of deliberate antagonization, and yet he insists that I must be doing things to antagonize him, well...

Here's the primary problem: At the moment, every comment he makes, regardless of where it is or what it's a response to, accuses me of the same things: Refusing to explain my position, deleting his comments, operating on an agenda.

I document each such accusation and continue to do so. Again, deleted comments (which I finally reinserted yet again) still have not been addressed or responded to! Is this the behavior of a person operating in good faith to have an honest discussion?

I'm willing to address these accusations, but it doesn't matter if I do.

Another example not only of assumption of bad faith on my part, but of rationalizing his not explaining and clarifying himself: he's willing, he says, to address things, but it doesn't matter if he does, so he doesn't bother!

I've explained that my reversion of his talk page edits is solely because of his placing his comments inside mine

And since this was done to compact and organize the conversation properly (not to antagonize he keeps on claiming), he had no valid reason to do this. In any case, deletion of what another person has said in a discussion page is an egregious violation of the principles of Wikipedia discussion. It is an arrogant act of censorship because it presumes that the deleter has some sort of authority to decide that what others have said isn't worthy of inclusion or of further discussion. The deleted text also contained rebuttals he no longer had to address (because Winston Smith had rewritten the history of the discussion so that they not only disappeared, they seemed to have never existed). How can such behavior be rationalized so boldly as reasonable?

but he continues to assert that I am "deleting" his contributions because I disagree with him, or because I don't like what he has written.

Why is "deleting" in quotes? Was the text not removed from the page? Is that not a deletion? It seems there is an attempt to spin this as something other than what it was through creative use of quotation marks.

If he is willing to restrict discussion to the content of the comment he is replying to, rather than continually inserting the same accusations, and if he is willing to assume good faith and remain civil, I am willing to forget what has happened up to now.

And I have learned that assuming the good faith of this person is a fool's errand. I have explained and documented why. He makes disparaging statements based on his apparently somewhat paranoid assumption that I am "out" to "antagonize" him, that everything I do and say has this purpose and goal. He rationalizes egregious violations of protocol based on his apparent personal distaste for a compact and efficient style of discussion breakdown. And he has the nerve to cite me for violating Wikiquette! I hope others take up the mantle of dealing with this person, and I wish them luck (I think they will need it!), but I am not likely to force myself to endure more of his irrational behavior. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice... well, as W said in his erroneous conclusion to that maxim, "you can't get fooled again."

I've recently created a new section ([35]) in the talk page discussing specific examples of 'god'/'God' uses that have proven controversial, and I'd be interested in hearing his perspective on them. Ilkali (talk) 09:23, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I noticed this section yesterday. I honestly appreciate the effort, and the backpedaling away from the stance of "I'm under no obligation to explain or clarify anything for the likes of you who is incapable of understanding the simplest points I make." (Yes, this amalgam represents the content of actual comments he made to us; I will gladly go back and dredge up the originals, but I think this has gone far enough already.) I expect that perhaps further discussion can move forward. But most likely not with me participating. I have better things to do with my life than subject myself to someone who frantically believes I'm out to get him, who reacts to this assumption by making disparaging statements and willfully deleting my comments under some presumed delusion of authority, and then reports me for rules violations. Good luck to you, Ilkali, and even more so to those who have discussions with you in the future. Craig zimmerman (talk) 16:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Craig zimmerman, I strongly encourage you to refrain from breaking up User:Ilkali's comments in the future. Not only does it go against WP:TALK (which, yes, is a guideline, not a policy), but Ilkali has specifically stated that it's a source of grief for him. I think agreeing to respond to his comments in a single block as recommended by WP:TALK is probably a reasonable way to meet him half way.

Other than that, I'm sorry we couldn't bring things to the point where you're comfortable working together. There's clearly still lingering assumption of bad faith on both sides. I'd like to see Craig zimmerman take Ilkali up on his offer to start completely afresh (with new assumptions of good faith on both sides), but obviously I'm in no position to force it.

In any event, it appears that this alert has reached the end of whatever usefulness it may have had. Again, I'm sorry that the outcome wasn't more positive, and I wish you both the best of luck. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 18:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Sarcastic, I've invoked "fool me once," as I think I have the right to do out of self-preservation, so you have no worries about my "doing things that deliberately are done to antagonize Ilkali" (in other words, "doing things to facilitate smoother and more efficient organization which Ilkali takes offense at and irrationally assumes are done for the purpose of upsetting him"). We cannot be expected to bend over to facilitate a single user's notion of what brings him "grief," especially when that user has expressed irrational beliefs that I am "out to get him" and that "everything I do is intended to antagonize him." Is it reasonable, or for that matter possible, to expect someone to even attempt to deal with someone like that? I think not. Thank you, Sarcastic, for trying to bring closure here. Craig zimmerman (talk) 18:32, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts here, Sarcasticidealist. I too hoped for a better result, but I'll settle for this one. Ilkali (talk) 19:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Incivility by User:Starkrm

This user has finally ceased his harassing posts on my talk page (User_talk:Dlabtot#Depleted_Uranium), however, my entreaties to maintain civility on article talk pages seems to have had the opposite effect: diff Dlabtot (talk) 17:25, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I've not harrassed this editor on his talk page. I would invite anyone to examine it and give an example or state an opinion. I've not been uncivil with this editor on the DU page either. I was trying to educate and have a discussion about a subject. Apparently this editor would rather try to create a straw man argument than discuss the subject. Starkrm (talk) 18:43, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to say that the diff User:Dlabtot provided is a little uncivil, User:Starkrm. Please try to tone down the snark a little. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 21:13, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Conversely, I feel that Dlabtot could also stand to tone down his own responses. (Directing to Dlabtot now) I think you've been unnecessarily hostile toward Starkrm at times as well, no doubt as a result of one or more heated exchanges in your discussions. You both should consider cooling down and perhaps taking a break from each other for a while, and come back to the discussion when you're in a calmer state of mind so that you can focus on the content discussion at hand. As long as you're emotionally invested in the topic, you'll both feel that the other is behaving irrationally, harassing you, etc., even when that may not be the case. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 22:49, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you've been unnecessarily hostile toward Starkrm at times as well Could you please give an example? Thank you. Dlabtot (talk) 22:56, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm referring specifically to this diff, in which Starkrm appears to have apologized to you for coming across as harassing, and your response, which came across to me as unnecessarily mean. As I said, I'm pretty sure the whole exchange is a result of both of you getting heated up at each other, and that's why I suggested you take a break from the discussion in general for a while. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 23:07, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I just don't see in what way my response was mean or uncivil. It actually seems to me to be more polite than the previous time I asked him to stop, or the time before that or the time before that (when the Request of Checkuser was still open and Starkrm appeared to me to be fishing for evidence that I was a sockpuppet). At the time I made the response to which you are referring, I was just very relieved that it looked like the exchange was finally over. I'm open to suggestions as to how I could have phrased my response more politely. Dlabtot (talk) 23:45, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting it. The way I saw the exchange was something like this: (Starkrm) "I'm sorry." (Dlabtot) "So you DO see that I'm feeling harassed now. Good!". Basically, it seemed as though your response to his apology was somewhat vindictive - I personally would have replied with a "Thank you" or "I accept your apology", but that's me. In any event, this particular comment aside, I still think it would be useful for you both to disengage for a while. It does appear there's a history of Starkrm following you around, but the little jabs and insults look like they've been flying both ways, so it's difficult to say more about it and remain fair. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 00:32, 29 November 2007 (UTC

Well, I agree that if I had said "So you DO see that I'm feeling harassed now. Good!". - that certainly would have been less polite then what I said. But actually, I was hoping for some advice on being more polite, not less. And, as long as we are speaking of fairness. I really would like to see a diff that shows me insulting someone, since you've made the accusation. BTW, other than the exchange on my talk page, it would not be accurate to say that there's a history of Starkrm following me. Dlabtot (talk) 03:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

BTW, I want to acknowledge that you have given some advice on a more polite response. The only problem with simply saying "Thank you" or "I accept your apology" is that those responses would not actually have been sincere. So while they would have had the form of a polite response, they wouldn't have had the substance. I was indeed relieved that he had acknowledged my repeated requests for him to stop repeating questions that I had already answered, and I wanted to make sure there was absolutely no confusion about the matter. My frustration may have been evident in my comment despite my best efforts to remain civil. Dlabtot (talk) 03:13, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I would also like to point out that saying "I'm sorry you feel harrassed." is not actually an apology, since it contains no element of contrition or remorse. "I'm sorry you feel that way" is a far cry from "I'm sorry for what I did". Not that I expected or desired an apology - I just wanted the behavior to stop. At the time, I didn't yet know if it had - but now I do, and I do sincerely thank him for stopping the posts to my talk page. Dlabtot (talk) 03:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind - I recuse myself from this WQA because apparently I'm misinterpreting the situation. I haven't had time to fully review it, so it'll probably be better for me to let someone else handle it from here. It looked to me like there was a bitter exchange going both directions between you two, but perhaps that's not the case. Sorry for the confusion. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 19:49, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Reference to Advance Fee Fraud on Nigeria pages

Hi all, I have been debating with another editor WhisperToMe (talk) on the following issues:

1. Do crime references belong on a city/country page?
2. Is Advance fee fraud significant enough to mention on the Nigeria page?
3. Is Advance fee fraud significant enough of an economic issue to discuss it under the Economy section?

We are unable to reach a compromise on these issues and I would appreciate your opinions on how to best resolve this matter. Ajisekanla (talk) 09:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

If it's just the two of you in the dispute, try WP:THIRD first. Failing that, head over to WP:RFC. If, in addition to the content dispute, there are serious interpersonal issues developing, then we can talk about them here. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 09:14, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, a third editor (Wizzy…☎) has stepped in and we appear to be making progress now. Ajisekanla (talk) 10:50, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Indian Rebellion of 1857

User:Bobby Awasthi used these words for me on Talk:Indian Rebellion of 1857 in this edit

• you invisible shallow smelly bundle of sh*t
• Thanks for enlightening me (about the existence of morons like you)
• PATHETIC MORONS LIKE YOU]
• I DONT RECOLLECT ANY MORON EXCEPT YOU...

And when I provide a book as a source, here is what he said:

• THIS IS PATENT BULLSHIT BY AN INVISIBLE LIAR

Does Wikipedia has any mechanism to tell their users to behave nicely? Or is it a free-for-all mud-slinging ground? 125.16.17.151 (talk) 15:47, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, gee, it's nice to see people getting passionate about history.

In answer to your question, this sort of behaviour is blockable if it persists. I'll leave the user a fairly strongly-worded warning on his or her talk page, and we'll see what the reaction is. Hopefully it's an apology and a correction of behaviour. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 17:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Nick

Work in progress; comments welcome

I was having a civil conversation with User:Nick and then he erased our discussion and called me a troll. Isn't this a classic case of WP:ABF? I'd like an apology.--STX 00:37, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

While the distinction you make between calling a person ignorant and calling their argument ignorant may technically have some validity at an abstract level, in practice, it's not really very polite, and I've found that pejoratives should just be avoided altogether. Most people will feel insulted when you insult their argument. It's much more productive to just state why the argument is in your opinion wrong. Just my two cents on the matter. Dlabtot (talk) 03:49, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the advise. I'll try not to ever use the "I" word again. But I really think that Nick overreacted, perhaps he was having a bad day (I've been there before). It just hurts to be called a troll especially when you have the best intentions in mind. A few months ago I called User:Balloonman a troll but I apologized and now he helps me out.--STX 04:20, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Arcayne

I have detailed below just a few incidences of Arcayne breaking Wikipedia policy. He has been blocked seven times for this--although two blocks were lifted. He has also exhibits WP:OWN on the 300 film article.

Incivility

Arcayne accused me of having a "merry little band", and having a "frail post-Persian psyche". Arcayne has told me to use my "noggin". [36] He has called me and other editors at the 300 article "Petulant, vengeful children" [37]

Arcayne has accused those that disagree with him of being "a pro-nationalist group of editors".[38]

Alteration of other users edits on talk

[39] User Arcayne has changed the header of a section on his talk page, even though I created it. The original header was "Stalking". Please see [40]. His edit summary was "May [sic] talk page - if I wish to change contentious edits, or headers, I will." This is very misleading since I never accused him of stalking me (that is, until months later when definitive evidence was provided), which the changed header "Who's Stalking Who?" implies.

He removed my answer to his question from his talk page. [41]. And called the answer, which was sourced from ArbCom, vandalism (rvv).

Sniping in talk pages

Arcayne sniped me on Dmcdevit's talk page and recieved this admonishment by Dmcdevit: "Please do not refer to other ediors you disaree with as vandals, as this is uncivil". Furthermore, to his accusations of harassment he responded "The proper response to harassment is not response in kind."[42]

Sarcasm and tone that has been disruptive

"That I find little patience for proven POV editing is not against Wikipedia policy; while I choose to be perhaps a bit insulting of the POV nonsense and not at all sensitive to the frail post-Persian psyche, I would remind you and others that it is not my job at WP to make you feel better. You have mommies for that, and I am not your mommy" [43]

"I am presuming you read it, since you track my edits." [44]

Prejudice comments

"...your problems likely run deeper than nuclear instpections and snagging up Brits", [45] Arcayne later claimed he was talking to the Iranian government, but could not explain why he was talking to the Iranian government on my talk page. You will see further examples of him saying he was referring to other people when he is attacking me.

Accusation of Stalking

Arcayne has accused me of stalking on multiple occasions. Please see [46]. He also accused me of stalking The Behnam and harassing him on Dmcdevit's talk page. I did not stalk in either cases.

Arcayne stalking me

Arcayne recently followed me to the Persian Gulf article and tried to argue with me there. He had never edited that page. This happened during a dispute on the 300 film article. Please see [47]. This is a prime example of wikistalking. I decided not accuse him of it until there was definitive evidence (I did not want to violate AGF).--Agha Nader (talk) 02:28, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Perhaps it would be important to point out that all of these instances (but the last, referring to the comments in Talk:Persian Gulf) are more than six months old. It's my understanding that the source of his Wikiquette alert is from a sub-page of his user account called RFC/User:Arcayne, created back in April of this year. Talk about holding a grudge. I believe he was inspired to submit this here because he would have found some difficulty with finding someone who would agree that a six-month-old RfC was worthy of consideration. And even 6 months ago, Nader's own conduct (and misinterpretation of events and statements taken out of context) would have sunk him in any RfC proceeding.

It also bears mentioning that Nader is currently arguing in the 300 article (which became FA after all the partisan editing went away) that we should be using the word 'Iranians' to replace 'ancient Persians'. And has been scolded by other, established editors for edit-warring and initially refusing to discuss a contentious edit. When he finally made his way to Discussion, he began making fairly impolite comments, which have become increasingly uncivil.

As far as the contributions to Persian Gulf, there have been three I've made in over 2 years. the first was to tell folks to essentially calm down, and the second was to counsel Nader for accusing someone of sockpuppetry (where RFCU and SPP are immediately available and can resolve the situation quickly and without the perception of personal attacks). The third time was to point out that Nader needed to read the earlier post, as he accused me of wiki-stalking, which is odd, considering that he then followed me to another user's page and commented there.

It is unfortunate that Agha Nader seems to consider those who disagree with his point of view to be targets for incivility and unwarranted accusations, and not just in one article, but across the spectrum of his edits. I say unfortunate because, when he isn't pushing a nationalist point of view, he can perform very good edits. Where his nationalism comes into play, he becomes somewhat narrow-visioned (which is fair to say of anyone, I guess). I do wish he would learn to recognize when his point of view is compromised and withdraw accordingly. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 03:22, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Although I have serious concerns about Arcayne's behavior, I am no longer pursuing this claim. I do this because Arcayne and Fayssal have requested me to. I also do this in hopes of resolving this problem.--Agha Nader (talk) 05:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Request for Comment

Not a Wikiquette issue, referred elsewhere

 – This is a content dispute, and has been referred to the RfC process. --Cheeser1 00:27, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Please see here and here. The question is: Should whole sections be erased because a user just likes it so, or if other users object other methods such as tagging the disputed section be employed? Thank you. Dr.K. 22:56, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Hello Dr. K. What you have here is a content dispute. To file a request for comment properly, you can follow the instructions here. Regards. --Cheeser1 00:27, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Cheeser1, thank you very much. I was never good in procedural matters but thanks to great people like you I can finally find my destination. Thanks again and take care. Dr.K. 02:39, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

user:83.67.73.117

Not a Wikiquette issue, referred elsewhere

 – Referred to the ANI. --Cheeser1 17:38, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

• 83.67.73.117 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Fairly new editor that fits the description of a WP:SPA, who has been blocked once for inserting misinformation. Editor is now contributing solely to Talk:Bosniaks‎, where his comments are consistently in violation of WP:TALK, and often WP:SOAP and WP:BATTLE as well. Editor has been warned multiple times but persists. --Ronz 17:12, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

An editor not editing in bad faith really doesn't have alot of hope on this board. The best we can do is ask him/her to be polite and to follow the rules. With multiple prior warnings and no sign of wanting to contribute appropriately to the talk page in question (or to contribute anywhere else at all), this is much more suited for the an administrators' noticeboard. --Cheeser1 17:38, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but wanted to get another opinion first. Thanks for the help! --Ronz 17:59, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Please be advised that any opposing argument of the "Serb and Russian view of the world" isn't automatically inappropriate. Although I do appologise if I've appeared very strong with my oppinions. 83.67.73.117 11:39, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Who are you all? What is going on, why did you tell me to go here. Do I know you? 70.234.133.124 01:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

On the photograph of the Members of the First Majlis of Iran

Just wish to report the following odd incidence which in my opinion points to a dishonest appropriation of my earlier work by User:Mrostam (please see below for this user's page address on Farsi Wikipedia — I have no dealings with Farsi Wikipedia). By chance I discovered that the photograph that was first uploaded by me into Wikipedia, on March 18, 2007, has been overwritten, without any trace of this action having been left in the history file of this photograph, by the last-mentioned user on August 25, 2007. Please compare the following two histories of Hasan Taqizadeh (expanded from one sentence to its present form by me): http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hasan_Taqizadeh&oldid=116018662 and http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hasan_Taqizadeh&oldid=116020471'. In the former page there is no photograph of the Members of the First Majlis to be seen and in the latter there is this photograph to be seen. This makes evident that the photograph at issue could not have been uploaded as late as August 25, 2007. How is such an incidence possible? Aside from the dishonesty involved here, how is it possible that someone (whether this person be Mrostam or anyone else for that matter) could have appropriated the photograph at issue without leaving any trace in the history file of this photograph? In this connection, it is relevant that I point out that the file which apparently has been "uploaded" by User:Mrostam, has exactly the name that I had given to my file, namely First_Majlis_MPs.jpg; interestingly, even the underscores in this name, between "First", "Majlis" and "MPs", coincide with those in my original file name. To correct for this injustice, I have now uploaded my original photograph again and named it First_Majlis_MPs_1.jpg. I have subsequently changed the name First_Majlis_MPs.jpg into First_Majlis_MPs_1.jpg in all Wikipedia entries that cite this photograph. I hope that in due course my original file (carrying its creation date) will be restored.

I should like hereby to request that appropriate action be taken against User:Mristam who has so blatantly attempted to take credit for my earlier work. In this connection, please also consult: http://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%AA%D8%B5%D9%88%DB%8C%D8%B1:First_Majlis_MPs.jpg. You will notice that the copy-right statement of this photograph on Farsi Wikipedia refers to English Wikipedia! User:Mrostam is registered with Farsi Wikipedia and his Farsi Wikipedia page address is: http://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A8%D8%B1:Mrostam. The question arises as to how a person who has not made a single contribution to English Wikipedia could have uploaded a photograph to this Wikipedia for the sole purpose of subsequently citing it on Farsi Wikipedai (please note that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:First_Majlis_MPs.jpg gives "Mrostam" as the User who must have uploaded the photograph at issue on August 25, 2007).

For completeness, please also consider: http://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%AA%D9%82%DB%8C%E2%80%8C%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%AF%D9%87 and note that the photograph on this page is also taken from Hasan Taqizadeh, which was again uploaded by me. I hope that you will demand from Mrostam that he discontinue with his dishonest practices on Wikipedia. With thanks in advance, --BF 03:52, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

user:TenPoundHammer

Resolved

 – The complaining user has received an apology and a thorough and sensible explanation for what is at worst a marginally uncivil edit summary. --Cheeser1 03:54, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Please note that this user is uncivil and rude as demonstrated in the following comment: (cur) (last) 06:27, 2 December 2007 TenPoundHammer (Talk | contribs) m (8,217 bytes) (Reverted 1 edit by WBoutros; What part of "MUST BE SOURCED" do you not understand?. using TW) (undo)

There are far more civil ways to communicate, and editors who act like children should be banned. WB 02:06, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Please provide us with the diff of this edit so we can properly contextualize it. It appears that he is quoting an already-existing reliable sourcing notice. --Cheeser1 01:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

It's this diff from 03:27, 2 December 2007, and in this case, I am inclined to agree with TenPoundHammer (talk · contribs), given that all of the other entries in the article, List of musical works in unusual time signatures, are well cited. It is expected that in this case, per WP:CITE, should be cited as well. WBoutros (talk · contribs), please provide reliable citations on all future edits wherever possible. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 03:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

This is also the same notice essentially given by TPH on WB's talkpage: diff. It would be great to heed the advice. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 03:27, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

• My apologies to the user above; it was only one comment and I definitely don't think I should be banned for it. The user in question repeatedly added the same unsourced info, and repeatedly asked that it not be removed -- despite the big warning on that page that states that all info must be sourced -- and I guess I snapped a little. Again, my apologies to User:WBoutros. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 03:33, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

user:Lima

Work in Progress - comments welcome

Here is Lima altering two cited sentences and leaving the citations in place. [48] He's implying that the RS says what it didn't say. He came in about an hour after I had added the citations and altered them. This is just the last, clearest example of his campaign of opposition against me. He apparently defends a pro-Catholic POV. Meanwhile, I'm consulting reliable sources on religious topics (purgatory, baptism, early Christianity, etc.). I've got a POV (who doesn't?), but I'm happy to use RSs and simply want Lima to do the same. I want to use several RSs to fashion a standard definition of purgatory; Lima wants to quote the catechism. I can sing a long song of grievances, but let's start with him altering cited information. This has got to be a faux pas, and I hope someone can tell him so, please. Leadwind 03:09, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Leadwind (talk · contribs) on this, given that Lima (talk · contribs) is misinterpreting the citations for a non-balanced viewpoint. Other editors seem to agree with this stance as well. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 03:22, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

For what I did wrong, I apologize. When I edited that text, it seemed to me that the statements (which are not between inverted commas) attributed to the source could not have been exact. Does the source say simply: "Jesus did not baptize"? Surely the author of the source knew of John 4:1–2, which says it was reported that Jesus baptized (not personally, but his disciples did). In any case I did not change what was attributed to the source, which is what Leadwind accuses me of: I, in a way that I recognize was wrong, gave an interpretation of the apparent contradiction between the 20th-century source and the 1st-century source to which I drew attention. I thought that infelicities in what I wrote would be ironed out by other editors. With regard to the second change from "doctrine about baptism" to "forms of baptism", I thought this was necessary, because the examples that followed were, I thought, only about the manner in which baptism was administered (the text itself uses the word "form"), unrelated to doctrine (what baptism is, what it does). Does the source really speak of the variable forms of early Christian baptism as variable doctrine? (In view of the touchiness shown, I have since then refrained from correcting a more obviously false attribution of incorrect information to a source.) These two changes, done perhaps rather too hurriedly, followed the other change that I made and that I thought was made necessary by Leadwind's insertion of the word "immerse" as if it were the only meaning of the word "βαπτίζω": the article itself states that the meaning of this word was broader, as Leadwind too indicated when he reported his source as saying that the usual method of baptism was by pouring water over the upper part of the body of someone standing in water. This is not baptism by immersion as usually understood. Now that I have explained myself, I will add that I hope the Wikipedia community will reprimand me for what I did. Certain people, who have now got together here and here, have been making me spend too much time on Wikipedia, and I would love a pretext to retire. Lima 05:37, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Please stop, you're creepin' people out. Eschoir (talk) 02:47, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Don't get me started on Lima - he has reverted Eucharist 13 times without saying what he challenges among the new material, if anything, deletes sourced content and substitutes distorted paraphrase, constantly argues a position using primary sources, won't answer yes or no questions in Talk, defends a pro-Western Catholic POV, doesn't understand basic editing like usage of [sic] in text, has tried to have me banned first as a sockpuppet, then as a sockpuppeteer, tried outing my private Identity, and generally wastes a lot of time dealing with him. Eschoir 05:11, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Anyone who views the corresponding Talk page can see that I have indeed been pressing Eschoir to discuss our differences of opinion. Lima 05:41, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

If there's any question as to whether Lima's errors were innocent, I'm happy to provide context to show that they weren't. But I don't want to jam this page with my litany of wrongs. I'll happily respond to direct questions. Leadwind (talk) 00:25, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Some further comment is found here. Lima (talk) 05:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Leadwind has asked me to comment here-- and I I can substantiate that Lima and I have very different points of view about what a NPOV, Verifiable article looks like. Our specific dispute has been over the article Purgatory. I made major rewrites to the article, but Lima reverted them wholesale. One two other occiasions, I've tried to make similar changes, only to find that my changes were wholesale reverted-- leading me to withdraw from the page until there's the edit-warring situation resolves itself.

I can't go so far as to say Lima's POV concerns are completely without merit, but the net effect of interacting with him led me to seek other places on the project where I could be more useful without having to fight so hard to improve things. Whether Lima's behavior is problematic or whether my changes were problematic is, of course, something neither he nor I can objectively comment on-- but if others have found him to be a little POV-pushy in other context, perhaps he should be looked at just a tad, so see if ya can help him stop. --Alecmconroy (talk) 07:47, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Now that Alec's brough it up, let me jump in and say that Lima's repeated pattern on Purgatory is to make life unpleasant for editors that he disagrees with until they leave. That's what Alec did, twice. I've also seen it with other editors. He's been in mediation twice with me, and we've done at least 4 RfCs. The page has had the POV tag since February, and Lima has been the most active and unpleasant in attempts to keep others from fixing the page. Like I said, making cited information wrong is just the latest and clearest transgression of Lima's. I was hoping that a word from an objective third party would help straighten him out, so I set up this alert. Leadwind (talk) 08:39, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Please stop engaging in original research. Please stop making uncivil and snarky comments, especially as editor notes in article space. Also, please do not make edits to prove a point. I implore you to deal with me politely and to work productively towards article improvement. If there's a content conflict we cannot resolve, we can take it to dispute resolution. However, the disruptive and rude attitude you've taken is not acceptable. Vassyana 14:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC) [Best not to respond to this objection to counter-arguments being inserted in "editor notes in article space" (<!-- ... -->) to balance the arguments inserted in the same editor notes by the objector. On alleged Original Research, see below.]

Original research is prohibited. You cannot use primary sources, like the Bible, to argue against secondary sources. You cannot advance your own position or form your own interpretation. You must cite reliable sources to put forward such arguments and discussions. This has been repeatedly explained to you. Please take the time to read and understand our content policies. Vassyana 03:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Eschoir (talk) 22:39, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Eschoir quoted Vassyana. Vassyana had been the mediator between Lima and me when we were in mediation. V has since taken a wikibreak and drastically limited their participation, partly because of obstructionist editors on WP. --Leadwind 70.102.136.132 (talk) 00:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

With two editors on record trying to get Lima to stop using OR, and two on record trying to get him to stop being snarky, would we be well-served to bump this up to an RfC on Lima? Maybe we wait to see how this Wikiquette alert turns out first? Leadwind (talk) 00:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Lima got to be too much for me for a little while. I developed an aversion to Wiki in recent days because I might have to deal with him. He is an attention seeking missile who would be on "ignore" in a chat room. He has affirmed that he reverted edits even though he did not challenge the content, which he agreed with, to get me to "discuss" them with him, yet he won't respond to any questions put to him when the invitation to discuss is put to him. I've read his work and mine togeter and it sucks because it is the product of edit warring. His attitude is real drama queen, he is inconsistant, and can't just go about his work and entertain a neutral POV. HE is going to drive away more editors than he brings in. Just my opinion. Eschoir (talk) 04:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

What now? It seems as though we've said our respective pieces. I hope that the Wikiquette alert leads to some experienced third party sharing their perspective on these conflicts for our benefit. Leadwind (talk) 14:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

User:ADouBTor

This user has been engaged in a dispute over the history of China template. He seems to believe that showing the Republic of China as continuing from 1912-the present to be POV pushing, and that separating the People's Republic of China from it with a line somehow suggests that the PRC is subordinate to the ROC. He first accused me of inadvertent vandalism [49]. I then contacted him on his talk page [50]. Subsequently, he (properly IMO) moved the discussion to the template talk page. He has since accused another editor of adding incorrect information [51]. Discussion there has been met with insults [52] [53]. There also seems to be a case of not getting the point regarding the discussion that other users have been trying to have as well as ownership of articles.Ngchen 14:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

User:NgChen

Please keep in mind that I was representing the on-going situation and wrote/modified based on factual documents, not by opinion based information (opinion of Taiwan island doesn't belongs to PRC by Taiwanese) which this user was trying to promote. On the contary, the information this user stated was baseless and without supportive evidence neither by official documentations nor agreed course of historical events.

As all of the editors/contributors here might known, delibrate addition of opinion material (not being NPOV) is an act of vandalism.

Thirdly, at which point did I made insults (insult of personal integrity like "You are a waste" or "Go back to kidergarden and relearn the facts, you are just like a small kiddo", etc). Those references you pointed out shows me making remindals of the basic operations of Wikipedia which wasn't opinion of myself and wasn't baseless. Also, I did not claim ownership in anyway. If two parties are engaged in a debate, supportive or unsupportive, that doesn't make it a claim of ownership.

Lastly, with regards to me not getting the point, it seems to be this user not getting my point and keeps posting his opinionised points. My points was picked up by user:readin later which was rebutted.

All I can about this debate as, or if, I was an observer, was nothing but senseless misunderstanding of the interpretation of the lines used, which i pointed it out in one of my post.

However, instead of ceasing the senseless debate, this user continues the senseless onslaught(everything about this debate is senseless after a serious thinking) here in Wikiquette, which I am left with no choice but to defend myself here, when I am planning to make my life happier and cease fire =D.ADouBTor (talk) 05:50, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Words to NgChen. Please try and understand the meaning of each phrase and sentences before trying to make an empty 'rebute'(or how-ever you spells it). It's a fact only Readin has understood me.

User:Ronz

Resolved

 – User not in violation of WP:PROFANITY; NeutralBosnian has dropped the request.

This user has repeatedly battled to retrieve sections which are already covered in Previous Archives and in this way is repeating the same sections in each Archive which to me qualifies as spam, as people can list archives easily and chose what topic they want to read. So I am reporting vandalism & spam. Further - this user is supporting dismissal and 'Peakocking' of famous anthropologist to satisfy one-sided non-neutral perspective. I doubt this user is interested in dialogue as he/she has resorted to vandalism more often then discussion. This user's behaviour is in evidence particularly in: Talk:Bosniaks. NeutralBosnian 17:53, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

See User talk:NeutralBosnian, WP:Third opinion#Active disagreements, and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR#User:NeutralBosnian reported by User:Ronz (Result: ) 18:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Further - The content which Ronz is war'ing over contains swear words by user Frvernchanezzz in Talk:Bosniaks#Ethnic make up to dismiss Genetic evidence and further the Slavophile agenda by trying to therefore airbrush a people and their Government/Uni based references which claim that Bosniaks have Illyrian/Goth/Celt Genetic heritage almost exclusively... NeutralBosnian 18:54, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy to discuss the situation. I don't believe I've vandalized anything in any way, let alone spammed. I archived old discussions and some inappropriate discussions. When NeutralBosnian restored some of them, I sought third-party opinion. As for "dismissal", I simply asked for verification, which is what another editor had already requested in his edit summary, in order to try to make some progress with a dispute. When NeutralBosnian removed my, and others' comments from the talk page, I restored them as legitimate discussions. If NeutralBosnian has a problem with Frvernchanezzz, he should discuss the issue with him. --Ronz 19:03, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that Ronz is unable to remain Civil, and is promoting a narrow one-sided propaganda as well as foul and unprofessional language via repeated undo's of comments with adult language. Wikipedia does not endorse bias especially bias with evidence. Ronz has failed to take action against adult language while Ronz has not failed to take action against perspective on history other than his own. 83.67.3.166 21:18, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm unaware of any effort on your part whatsoever to discuss, much less support, such assertions. Please read WP:TALK, which is already linked on your talk page, then either remove your accusations above, or follow WP:DR. Thanks! --Ronz (talk) 02:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

83.67.3.166, your very dispute is laughable, and most level headed Bosniaks would not agree with you. No prominent Bosniak Wiki-editors, (such as Kseferovic), have ever made any such ridiculous claims, and never will, because they accept, and our proud of, the truth, which is, Bosniaks are Slavs. This is 100% factually accurate, and only those who operate on the very fringes of science try to suggest that Bosniaks are anything other than Slavs. Please don't try to insert any ridiculous pseudo-historical "facts" about Bosniaks being "100% Illyrian/Aryan/Blonde-haired blue eyed Scandinavians but we just speak Slavic language" because it is complete rubbish. There are a lot of people who believe many of the lies and half truths presented on Wikipedia, but no one in his right mind would ever believe anything so blatantly erroneous. - Frvernchanezzz (talk) 08:31, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

The following was moved from WP:THIRD:

User Ronz seems to be very unreasonable and uncivil, with active deletion of any content which doesn't favour Slavophile agenda. In that biast direction Ronz has dismissed and therefore insulted famous anthropologist and any possible Bosniak perspective. There is space for everybody's point of view, not just the Slavophile one. I have tried to reason with Ronz and have given up. Ronz has repeatedly Spammed and Vandalised Wikipedia pages which I tried to retrieve because they were repeats of topics already discussed and resolved in previous archives. I suggest Admin action on this. Please see Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#User:Ronz and Talk:Bosniaks. NeutralBosnian 18:37, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Can an Admin please stop user Ronz from modifying my discussion comments and changing what I typed, he has now done it repeatedly without warning in Talk:Bosniaks. 83.67.73.117 (talk) 17:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

After a cursory look in at the talk pages mentioned, I don't see evidence of incivility by Ronz. Rather I see a long list of requests for discussion and appeals to policy. It is clearly a contentious and emotionally charged issue, and there have been refactorings of the talk pages in question by Ronz and by his accusers, but I would like to see some diffs in order to follow precisely what specific instances of incivility being complained about. --Bradeos Graphon (talk) 17:44, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I think he's talking about this, but it's nothing more than comment splitting. I see no error in Ronz (talk · contribs)'s contributions. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 18:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Disagreements do not equal incivility, as implied by this alert. I consider the issue closed. --Bradeos Graphon (talk) 18:34, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Bradeos Graphon, I cannot fatham why you have ignored the fact that User:Ronz has undone comments with Adult Language via a WP:BATTLE? —Preceding unsigned comment added by NeutralBosnian (talk • contribs) 20:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

This is coming from a NeutralBosnian (talk · contribs · count · block log) who has a 3RR block and incivility warnings. Also, please cite a DIFF where he has used "adult" language. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 20:22, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

look at the bottom of the page for 'bull' And those incivility warnings are initiated by this user who seems to have reversed biased and contents with adult language, as well as Frvernchanezzz who has written adult language in Wikipedia.NeutralBosnian (talk) 21:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

So? Wikipedia is not censored, and given that the word bullshit is not used to shock or intimidate the reader, WP:PROFANITY does not apply here. You were given warnings for repeated blankings and reverts, and an administrator felt that you were not heeding your warnings. It would be appropriate if you would stop deleting, removing or reverting content that contains "adult" language. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 21:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The user who used the word "bullshit" was commenting on a content issue at that point, not another user. Some previous refactoring of comments by Ronz would seem to have been in aid of interrupting a cycle of ad hominem statements. A person is allowed to express opinions germane to article content on the article talk page, so deleting an entire section of discussion will be seen as disruptive. --Bradeos Graphon (talk) 21:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. It's news to me, at the moment usage of Adult Language is not to be frowned upon by Admins especially as it by default leads to negative reactions and aids to further problems. NeutralBosnian (talk) 22:53, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Language like that is frowned upon if it specifically violates policy. As a means of expression, any given admin may or may not care personally, but administrators will react to issues that fall under the umbrellas of WP:AGF, WP:NPA and WP:PROFANITY. Those are your benchmarks. Unilaterally assigning motives to others working with those policies but whom you personally disagree with will not help your argument. --Bradeos Graphon (talk) 01:50, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I've read all three of those in detail and the section which Ronz kept reverting had WP:AGF, WP:NPA and WP:PROFANITY. You've not even warned or banned Ronz at or Frvernchanezzz at all. Case closed. NeutralBosnian (talk) 13:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

NeutralBosnian has been indef blocked as a ban evading sock. Frvernchanezzz (talk) 04:53, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Not surprised, seeing as Admins are taking sides, why should anyone follow the rules? The reason Admins should avoid taking sides is because they are doing it on behalf of Wikipedia. So this exposes Wikipedia to unnecessary things such as DDoS, or new exploits. Lessons should be drawn from IRC which has been around far longer than Wikipedia, which is almost identical in the kind of social dynamics it has to deal with. Overall, by far the best approach is to be neutral and never take sides, this should be the only practice as there is no alternative. I have noticed that Bradeos Graphon has taken sides in this case, as he/she failed to even mention the faults of the other side and proceeded to warn only one side, where the other side has clearly broken many rules of engagement in Wikipedia and broken the Good Faith approach. It all looks fishy to me. 64.251.31.248 (talk) 15:25, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Totally agreed on that one.207.239.220.113 (talk) 15:40, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe the dispute is not entirely concluded, if anybody disagrees, make your views expressed, otherwise the 'Resolved' part seems redundant. 207.239.220.113 (talk) 19:12, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Mayalld

I'd like to document the problems I've been having with this user. The user removed a lot of text I had been writing on the Grandiosa-page, which I thought was unnecessary. And later, I think the user was harassing me. I'll copy from the discussion:

'[edit] I really don't think that we are getting anywhere fast The problem that we have is that Johncons has an agenda here. He suspects foul play, and is determined to say so in the article, one way or another.

We are never going to get anywhere if we start off from the position of "I want the article to say this, how do I achieve it". That is POV pushing, and can only lead to further edit protection of the article, and blocking of Johncons from editing to protect the article from further POV pushing.

Johncons, if you really want to improve this article, please enter into a discussion here. A discussion is NOT simply demanding that your questions are answered, it is not adding reams and reams more text to the discussion trying to prove your case, it is not crafting questions to try and "win" an argument by getting a yes/no answer to a question so that you can extrapolate out to suport what you want to do.

Unless you can edit the article from a NPOV, it is best that you don't edit it at all.

Mayalld 16:10, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Ros0709 16:16, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I've already mentioned my agenda.

There were many things to comment at once.

So if we could take one thing at a time, then that would be fine I think.

Johncons 16:18, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, so here are three points for you to take one at a time;

Please stop typing your replies with many paragraph spaces. It just makes the talk pages longer and longer Please keep your arguments short. More words doesn't mean more right Please accept, once and for all, that Wikipedia is NOT the place to pursue your agenda. Mayalld 16:25, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Grandiosa"'.

I don't think the user is acting civil or in good faith. I think the user is harassing me, and also trying to dictate the editing. And I think this user and also an other user, Ros0709, is trying to 'overflow' me, with information on the Grandiosa discussion-page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Grandiosa

I'm quite new on Wikipedia, but I hope I've proceded in the right way regarding this. Thanks for the help in advance! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johncons (talk • contribs)

I don't see the etiquette issue. It appears to be a content dispute. I would urge you to review WP:CONSENSUS and WP:DISPUTE Dlabtot (talk) 22:58, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Example of not having good faith and also not acting civil I think, because these answers, weren't with the case, these were advice not asked for, I would say they are patronising, person attack and impolite:

'Please stop typing your replies with many paragraph spaces. It just makes the talk pages longer and longer Please keep your arguments short. More words doesn't mean more right Please accept, once and for all, that Wikipedia is NOT the place to pursue your agenda.'.

Example of not having good faith (I had already explained my agenda): 'The problem that we have is that Johncons has an agenda here.'.

And there were examples of overflow of information from both mentioned users. Thats impolite and not civil, I think. These are the etiquette issues, and more can be found on the page in the link. I can have a new look on a later occation if someone wants more with the etiquette issue. Johncons (talk) 01:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

No, he's giving friendly advice per WP:TALK. Your comments, such as what you made here before I condense them, took up a considerable amount of real estate. You began new paragraphs with essentially every sentence. Per #Others.27 comments, I reformatted your posts because it was difficult to read. In future posts, please indent using a colon, which can be found at WP:TALK#Layout, and sign your posts with four tildes (~~~~). Seicer (talk) (contribs) 01:54, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

In my book, if someone are giving you advice, that you haven't asked for, then thats called to patronise.

Johncons (talk) 00:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I read those comments the first time you posted them here. I don't see any etiquette issue. Some other pages that might be helpful for you to review are WP:TALK and WP:DIFF. Dlabtot (talk) 01:55, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Response by User:Mayalld

When I happened upon this mess, User:Johncons had been on a 220 (yes, two hundred and twenty) revision editing spree attempting to add two paragraphs to the article. The edits contained a great deal of WP:OR, WP:POV and the references were mainly related to discussion boards (and not WP:RS). Every attempt by other editors to clean-up the additions to remove the worst excesses of unreferenced POV had been met with further determined editing to re-add the content. Other editors had already started a discussion about a user with an agenda blitzing the article.

I reviewed the editing, and it was as clear a case of POV pushing as I've seen, so I reverted the whole thing back to where it was befor the POV pushing started, and issued a level 2 warning for adding unsourced material.

The reversion was promptly undone, with a demand to discuss it on the talk page. I reverted back to the last known pre-dispute revision twice more, issuing a unsourced level 3 and a vandalism level 4 in the process. I also explained on the article talk page that as the edits were contentious, the right way to proceed was to discuss first, rather than add contentious unsourced material and demand discussion before it could be taken out again.

Following the level 4 warning, the vandalism ceased (subsequently my RPP request was accepted, and the page protected for a week), and User:Johncons started talking on the article talk page.

It was clear from these discussions that the user has an agenda (and admits to having an agenda), and wishes to soapbox a personal theory that he has about the maker of these pizzas.

The user is also convinced that the fact that another editor connected him with his posts in an off-wiki chatroom on the same subject is evidence of stalking and harassment.

I attempted to explain policy on original research, reliable sources and POV pushing. I also suggested that given the fringe theory, it was hardly surprising that the other editor had made a connection.

My attempts at explanation have borne little fruit. User:Johncons has an agenda and will discuss only to the extent that will allow him to get his additions into the article. Anything else is dismissed (at great length) as not answering his questions.

I have remained civil throughout, but have concluded that there is little hope that we will make any progress. The user adds huge volumes of text to the discussion without saying anything different, and refuses to accept that he cannot use Wikipedia as a soapbox. I have asked him to try and contribute to the discussion more productively and to accept that he cannot soapbox in an article.

His response has been to bring this complaint. It seems to me that, given the history of accusing another editor of stalking him, there is an emerging pattern of attempts to smear editors who stand in the way of his soapboxing, in the hope of removing people who might undo his POV pushing.

I can only hope that somebody else can achieve where I have failed dismally, and convince User:Johncons that he cannot proceed like this. If not, it seems inevitable that on expiry of protection, the POV pushing will start again, and User:Johncons will end up blocked.

Mayalld (talk) 08:24, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment by User:Johncons

Hi, this is also a reply, for your message on my talk-page, since I hope you agree with me that we should only discuss these issues at one place at a time.

I appriciate your time and effort very much, so thanks very much for that!

I also appriciate very much the importance of getting the articles correct, and in line with the Wikipedia policies.

That I fully understand.

But since this section, is about netetiquette, then I will focus on the netetiquette issue in this answer.

I think that even if it is important to get the articles correct with the rules.

I think that even so, one should do this in an atmosphare, that isn't out of line with the netiquette standards in the Wiki comunity, (and of I would also say in normal society, I would think that these rules applies in here also).

I will try to write a new example.

Like in your text above:

'I can only hope that somebody else can achieve where I have failed dismally, and convince User:Johncons that he cannot proceed like this. If not, it seems inevitable that on expiry of protection, the POV pushing will start again, and User:Johncons will end up blocked.'.

Here you are in fact writing, that I am difficult to teach. (If my understanding of the English language isn't failing me).

And that's called harassment.

If one are saying that someone are more difficult to teach than others.

Then one are putting them on a lower level, compared with the others.

This can be an example, with the others, that I've written earlier, above, on what my point is in this section.

I'm not sure if I managed to explain this in an understandable way, but please just write me an answer here, if there is something that I haven't managed to explain good enough.

So thanks very much in advance for the reply!

Johncons (talk) 00:29, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Edit: I managed to write the answer before users signature, that I was answering, so had to edit. Sorry about this.

Johncons (talk) 00:32, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Reply by User:Mayalld

No I'm not saying that you are difficult to teach. I am saying that I have failed in my efforts to teach you.

Having said that, I refuse to pollute this page with even more text, as people really do have better things to do,

Mayalld (talk) 06:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment by User:ros0709

I became aware of User:Johncons's activities a little before Mayalld when I was reviewing then recent edits. I am also briefly mentioned in the complaint. Two other editors have also briefly contributed to the debate, expressing concern at the edits (by either removing them or flagging them POV). Initially User:Johncons responded to other editors by simply reverting to his text, removing tags and refusing to listen to the opinions of the other editors. Mayalld has responded fairly, sensibly and entirely accoring to Wikipedia's principles, finally encouraging User:Johncons to enter into discussion, and is to be commended for his contribution. Ros0709 (talk) 11:42, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Follow up: it appears User:Johncons continued to pursue Mayalld by taking this (three times) to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents (first archived already), continued to meet with disagreement and finally got himself suspended. I believe this item can be closed. Ros0709 (talk) 16:43, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Michaelbusch

This user has repeatedly deleted well sourced statement, and misquoted statements from reliable sources. See list in his talk page. Please help us address this issue. Pcarbonn (talk) 06:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Copying the text from the talk page to here for easier access. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 06:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Michaelbusch, for the sake of making wikipedia a WP:reliable, WP:NPOV source of information, please stop deleting relevant, well-sourced statements, like you did here:

1. cold fusion theory vs experiment, and here (see talk)

2. cold fusion patent (see talk)

3. cold fusion bibliography (see talk here and here)

Also, please stop misquoting reliable sources:

4. cold fusion and hydrino (see talk

5. hydrino and Quantum Mechanics and here (see talk

The best way to defend your opinion that cold fusion is "bollocks", as you say, is to provide reliable source to that effect. Pcarbonn (talk) 06:03, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Pcarbonn (talk · contribs). Michaelbusch (talk · contribs) is removing cited sources and is misquoting texts after doing a general query on the books. The removal of the citations alone, and the revision of text to remove any critism, is pointing to an unbalanced viewpoint that violates WP:NPOV. Michaelbusch has so far refused to engage in discussion and has taken it upon himself to revert-war on several articles, and has also violated WP:3RR. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 06:23, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Hated to do this, but Michaelbusch has revert warred: AN3 case. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 06:41, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Fringe theories noticeboard is thisaway. ➪HiDrNick! 18:47, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd thought I'd remembered to count, but now I see that I may have run over - depending on what is counted and what is not. I'm afraid I don't understand Pcarbonn's statements, however, and note that he seems unduly partial to various forms of pseudoscience - in particular hydrino theory and cold fusion. I have been trying to enforce WP:PSEUDOSCIENCE and generally ensure that scientific validity isn't compromised. Please see the full discussions at Talk:Hydrino theory and Talk:cold fusion and let me know if I have exceeded acceptable bounds. Michaelbusch (talk) 19:44, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Dennis-from-accounts

Resolved

 – User banned indefinitely for repeated vandalism and incivility.

Hi there, User: Dennis-from-accounts has been using some rather harsh language and tactics, and it's gotten to the point where it's disrupting discussion. Recent examples include [54] and [55] and [56], but you could look at pretty much any contrib of his on any talk page he has frequented and get about the same flavor. I have tried to ask him to lighten up the rhetoric over on his talk page ([57]), but he has made it abundantly clear that he "don't give a flying fuck about your policies" ([58] and [59], [60]). I thought perhaps a gentle reminder from some other sources might be in order. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.9.8.150 (talk) 14:24, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I've taken care of it. I've reverted or deleted his personal attacks on other editors and on talk pages, and have restored deleted comments from talk pages. He's also been left with numerous notices, and upon his next attack, let me know personally. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 16:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you to both of you. Please note, this is a woman so don't refer to me as "him" and "he" you knobs. Dennis-from-accounts (talk) 20:50, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

You know, pronoun mistakes happen, especially when your username contains a traditionally male name. On the other hand, calling people "knobs" is inappropriate. Please do not call people names anywhere on Wikipedia, especially the etiquette alert board. It's vulgar and intentionally denigrating language that could have no sensible justification. --Cheeser1 (talk) 21:39, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

And even more detrimental to (her) case of incivility. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 21:54, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the prompt and courteous attention. I hereby take back 1/2 of all the nasty things I've told my students about using Wikipedia. :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.9.8.150 (talk) 03:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

lol, just so you know dennis from accounts is from this television ad from New Zealand, you can watch it if you want: http://youtube.com/watch?v=dKJIg3EXHOs. I'm so happy that this matter has been resolved, it makes me so giddy. But what the fudge? I haven't closed my account obviously, I'm just going to take hard earned Wikibreak. I love you all. Dennis-from-accounts (talk) 02:44, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

You are dangerously close to having your account reported to WP:AIV if your vandalism persists. Blanking of comments, vandalism of article status, etc. are not acceptable uses of your time. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 12:55, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Make that 'more than close.' An admin stepped in and has blocked the user. Kudos...I guess I'll have to take back as much as 3/4 of the nasty stuff I tell students about Wikipedia. Y'all are still hideously unreliable though. :)

User:Mikkalai

Resolved

 – Apology issued, complaining party considers matter resolved. --Cheeser1 (talk) 13:48, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Mikkalai is attacking me on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Korphai without provocation. Not only calling me biased and lazy, but when I objected, made further attacks. Corvus cornix_talk 03:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Kind of weak and I really don't see much incivility just yet, outside of calling one lazy or saying one should do some "reverting" elsewhere. Let me know if it escalates. I left a note on the Mikkalai (talk · contribs)'s talk page as well. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 03:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

And Mikkalai removed your comments from his Talk page without comment, and has removed editing tags from Korphai as "trolling". Corvus cornix_talk 16:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

And now Mikkalai has expanded his incivility on the Articles for deletion discussion to including attacks on other people who have come to comment. Corvus cornix_talk 16:57, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I still don't see incivility. It's weak at best. And a user is allowed to remove comments from his/her own talk pages as they please. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 18:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

You don't see labeling others as trolls incivility? I agree that a person can remove other people's comments from their Talk pages if they want, but he did so without addressing this problem. Corvus cornix_talk 18:04, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Not if its on his own talk page. If we have a user who is pushing to label a user as incivil for whatever minute reason, then the responding user has every right to remove comments from his own talk page and label it as a trolling comment. This is probably a great reason as to why he removed the WQA notice from his page and has deferred from replying here. User talk pages give a lot of leeway. But I can't find a diff for that; can you provide one? Seicer (talk) (contribs) 18:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

This is where he called another editor's edits as "trolling". Corvus cornix_talk 18:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Gee, I wonder why. You piled on the tags, yet did no real work to the otherwise short article. For the amount of time you spent applying tag after tag, taking up real estate (screen), you could have improved the article and be done with it. Furthermore, some of the tags make no sense at all (additional sources, when nearly every sentence is sourced?). There are many editors who are tired of others coming along, tagging up an article, and leaving, doing no real work outside of that. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 19:41, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The only tag I put on it was the afd tag, and the additional sources tag was there for over a year, before Mikkalai and others added sources. And I did do some work on The Overture, but again, I didn't do anything to the article in question because I couldn't find reliable sources, and didn't want to add anything from unreliable ones. And as of yet, nobody has added any reliable sourcing. Corvus cornix_talk 21:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

This is what the article looked like before I got anywhere near it. Corvus cornix_talk 21:19, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

To look back on the AfD post, it does seem that Mikkalai's language was probably needlessly inflammatory. I'm not sure it's necessarily a personal attack, but the message could certainly have been conveyed in a more civil tone. --Bfigura ^(talk) 18:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Mikkalai has apologized. I consider this matter finished. Corvus cornix_talk 02:48, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

User:I AM JOHN SMITH

Resolved

 – user:I AM JOHN SMITH no longer contribs.

This brand-new user has come into Wiki with guns blazing: trying to speedily delete/merge sourced major articles [61], leaving somewhat impolite edit summaries [62] and trying to delete correct information because he personally thinks it's "stupid". His edits are easy to clean up, I don't think he's a troll (although he's been here for four days and knows how to use cleanup and speedy deletion tags?!), and I don't think there's any admin intervention needed, but I do think it would help if another editor or two could have a friendly chat with him about how things work around here and how it's important to be civil and keep NPOV. I've offered some suggestions myself [63] but since I'm working on one of the articles he's fighting about, he might not be listening to me. DanielEng (talk) 07:40, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Left a talk page note and reverted two unsupported edits. The remainder have mostly been reverted in relation to the speedy delete proposals. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 18:39, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

It still bugs me about "artistic" gymnastics. Fine,you win. I'll leave it alone. There's plenty of other stupidly named articles that bug me, and I'll try to be nicer about them......"guns blazing"? LOL--I AM JOHN SMITH (talk) 22:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, this Alert isn't so much about any one article but your attitude here in general. If you approach other articles and editors with the same "if I don't like it or know about it, it must be wrong and stupid" mindset and lack of civility, and you try to disrupt other articles with speedy deletes, you'll just end up reading lots of warnings on your Talk Page and eventually you'll be blocked. And your incorrect edits will just be reverted. That's your choice, though...it's your time to waste. DanielEng (talk) 03:34, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Let's take this edit summary as an example. You're nitpicking grammar - calling someone "retarded" is highly inappropriate anytime, but especially when either sentence is grammatically correct. Furthermore, I'd say the prior version was better than yours. You need to seriously adjust the tone of your editing, and also to not go around deleting things you don't know about, when they have well-written, properly established articles. You might think an article is "stupidly named" but artistic gymnastics is a recognized form of gymnastics, sort of in the sense that ice hockey is a type of hockey. "I don't think this is an art" does not suffice. --Cheeser1 (talk) 16:16, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

124.191.92.25

Resolved

 – Disruptive user banned for bad-faith disruption of RfC. --Cheeser1 (talk) 05:07, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I am an admin, and came to the Ed_O'Loughlin to review a 3RR request. I am now involved as an editor so I do not wish to exercise my admin powers (with the exception of having semi-protected the page).

The user has thus far been warned on numerous occasions for violating WP:3RR, WP:NPA. Three editors (including myself) have reviewed the article and all felt it was questionable under WP:BLP, and that some of the sources of criticism on the individual were not impartial. 124.191.92.25 responded by adding this section to the talk page Unethical_Editors_bring_Wikipedia_into_disrepute.

The user repeatedly demanded an RfC to assess the "unethical conduct" of myself and Eleland. I explained to 124.191.92.25 how to initiate the process, but the user did not do so. I eventually created an RFC:BIO over my own concerns.

On the article RFC section I summarised my position about my concerns with the article. The user deleted my summary, and then cut and pasted a comment from a different discussion into the RfC section. See the diff page here.

Manning (talk) 22:43, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Update - after another extensive rearrangement of my RfC comments, I have reported the user to WP:ANI. Manning (talk) 04:05, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's way past etiquette - it's definitely disrupting the discussion in bad faith. Your actions seem appropriate. --Cheeser1 (talk) 05:07, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Eusebeus

Stuck

 – Taric came to ask whether Eusebeus's comments were civil. He has been answered, but there is no consensus about whether Eusebeus's comments were civil or not. Editors have expressed their belief that this matter seems to have degraded into a word-by-word peer-review, well outside reading of WP:CIVIL, sensible or otherwise. --Cheeser1 (talk) 21:38, 10 December 2007 (UTC) & Taric25 (talk) 23:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Eusebeus, made the following comment on my talk page.

“Ok Taric, let's review your transgressions here:

1. You have filed what is among the most fatuous sockpuppet notices ever recorded. It is incumbent upon you to have solid evidence for a sockpuppet case. I am going to assume in good faith that you are too new to know what that means and that in making such an accusation against a seasoned regular with 25,000 + edits you are simply a victim of your own ignorance. Your sockpuppet case has been deleted by a rouge admin. You should thank him profusely for helping clean up your mess and post a notice of apology on TTN's talk page. And you should do that now.
2. There is no requirement for a user page to keep up this, that or any tag that the user does not want. Got that? You're ignorant sockpuppet filing is now compounded by a juvenile reversion of a tag that no longer applies. I am going to assume woeful ignorance in this as well, instead of the more serious case of deliberate vandalism. But that will now cease as well. Got it?
3. 3RR. You are in danger of being blocked. That would be salutary in my view, but at any event, consider this a warning. in fact, I am probably going to report you to 3RR, since it is an electric fence rule and you are clearly over the line.

So let me summarise: your sockpuppet allegation is completely without merit and comes across as whining adolescent exercise because you didn't get your way in a content dispute, as does your childish 3RR on a user's talk page. Read our rules and abide by them. You will now stop this and find something more productive to do. Got it? Eusebeus (talk) 19:06, 7 December 2007 (UTC)” (diff)

Is this comment uncivil? I'm not sure how to proceed. Please see User talk:TTN, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of locations in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 December 7#Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/TTN, and please advise. Taric25 (talk) 19:33, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide diffs (copy the URL of (last) in the revision history)? Seicer (talk) (contribs) 20:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, you may want to look at the history for User:TTN's userpage.

21:11, 4 December 2007, I add {{sockpuppeteer}}, per Wikipedia:Sock puppetry#Tagging. My edit summary is "{{sockpuppeteer}}".

02:55, 5 December 2007 User:Eusebeus reverts. The edit summary is "Undid revision 175783905 by Taric25 (talk)".

07:38, 5 December 2007 I revert. My edit summary is "Undid revision 175846854 by Eusebeus (talk) Per Wikipedia:Sock puppetry, the notice may only be removed after at least 10 days".

05:05, 6 December 2007 Eusebeus reverts. The edit summary is "Not when it's a completely bogus claim. See WP:TEMPLAR and be warned that sockpuppetry is a serious accusation. Have better evidence next time for your suspicions". Notice WP:TEMPLAR an essay, neither policy nor guideline.

15:32, 6 December 2007 User:Maniwar reverts. The edit summary is "Reverted 1 edit by Eusebeus; Wait until issue is resolved, per Taric25's last comment. using TW"

17:00, 6 December 2007 User:Seraphim Whipp reverts. The edit summary is "Undid. "The templates serve as a convenient shorthand only and are not part of this policy" from Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Tagging. Sorry if I've misunderstood this."

17:00, 6 December 2007 I revert. My edit summary is "Undid revision 176179456 by Seraphim Whipp (talk) I am very serious by the evidence I have presented."

17:16, 7 December 2007 Eusebeus reverts. The edit summary is "sockpuppet case was dismissed. This is vandalism. STOP FORTHWITH!"

17:45, 7 December 2007 I revert. My edit summary is "Undid revision 176396657 by Eusebeus (talk) The case was not dismissed, and the case's deletion is up for review."

Current revision (as of 17:50, 7 December 2007) Seraphim Whipp reverts. The edit summary is "Per Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Treatment_of_the_editor Aggressive approaches applied to protect the encyclopedia from sock puppets ordinarily should not be applied to the an editor in goodstanding"

Are editors, like TTN, in good standing if they have three RfAs? Please advise. Taric25 (talk) 05:15, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

At first glance, he appears to be making appropriate points. He may be a bit frank, but at least from what I see, it's not terribly uncivil. I mean, it's potential as uncivil (or less) as filing a sockpuppet complaint (depending on context). --Cheeser1 (talk) 20:59, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

There is some missing history here. User Eusebeus seems to be a bit hypocritical when he has come (if not already broken) close to breaking the 3RR himself. There is an issue here and here with another user, TTN. Eusebeus has been the chief defender for this user, and that is why he gave the strong warnings on Taric25's user page. Some things to clarify:

1. the 25,000+ edits that Eusebeus points out for TTN is under scrutiny by RfA here[64] and here[65], here[66] and lastly here[67] as being disruptive.
2. the sock puppet issue is being reviewed here, so it is uncertain whether Taric25's actions are wrong or right at this point.
3. The so called "rouge admin" that Eusebeus says deleted the article was in fact notified of the issue by Eusebeus here[68] and again here[69]. Please note the uncivil language that he chooses to use " ...he is apparently not blessed by abundant self-awareness " in asking for JzG's help.
4. Eusebeus committed a similar offense here[70] and was mildly reprimanded on his own talk page by Punkguy182.

I do not support blocking either party or the sock puppet accusation by Taric25, but I do want to bring the missing evidence to the table so the full picture can be seen by all. This is just a side bar issue of the bigger issues surrounding user TTN. [added later] and really is not about either of these two, so I would say forget this and let the issues with TTN play out. Things just got a bit over heated, in my opinion. --Maniwar (talk) 03:17, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and I also think neither myself nor Eusebeus should be blocked. I am curious if Eusebeus' comment is considered uncivil and what do to about it. I agree that this whole situation happened because TTN and I were not able to come to a consensus on List of locations in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, however, I do not believe he should asked for cleanup at WP:VG/C only to use a sockpuppet list the article at AfD, thereby disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point. That is why I listed it at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets, and that is where this situation between Eusebeus and I arose. Taric25 (talk) 05:15, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

• Of course I am not going to be blocked. You are labouring under yet another ignorant misapprehension if you think this forum has such authority. And I would hope interested editors remind Taric that not only are my comments in no way a breach of civility, but further that filing a misinformed sockpuppet accusation is tantamount to a personal attack and is grounds for sanction and censure. My remarks are fully justified. Eusebeus (talk) 14:54, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

What about the alternative of BOTH of you being uncivil? Someone (uncivilly and falsely) accuses you of sockpuppetry, and you become uncivil right back. Rather than edit war over a bogus suspected scok puppet tag, maybe you should have filed a report at AN/I? Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but anyway.Ngchen (talk) 15:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Please be sure to review the evidence. I did not accuse Eusebeus of sockpuppetry. I accused TTN of sockpuppetry, and I do not believe I did so falsely, since I presented what I believe to be a good amount of evidence. Also, this is suspected sock puppetry, because I believe the evidence warrants suspicion. I would like the community, not me all by myself, to examine the evidence and make a decision. Never during my course of action did I believe I was being uncivil, because I believe I read the related policies and procedures and always followed them my best as I could interpret them. For example, Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry indicates the use of sockpuppetry templates. I placed the template on TTN's userpage, because I had seen users do that before, and I honestly believed that's what I should do to. When Eusebeus reverted my edit without a descriptive edit summary, I reverted with the relevant policy in the edit summary. It was at this point it became an edit war involving four editors, because we interpreted the policy differently (except for Eusebeus, who did not cite policy). I did not file a claim with WP:ANI, because the pages indicated that I should use WP:DRV and this page before I consider ANI. Taric25 (talk) 16:44, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Please understand it is never my intention to make a personal attack. I believed that I had a good reason to be suspicious based on the evidence I gathered, so I brought my suspicion to Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets to allow the community to examine them. It was never my intention to circumvent AfD or anything like that. In fact, User:Guyinblack25 was the most vocal at the article's entry on AfD, not me. Furthermore, Guyinblack25 is extremely diligent in his efforts from WP:VG/C to help, and users praised that the article is looking better already, just during the course of the AfD. Also, if you believe that your comments are justified, then please be sure to cite policies and guidelines and use detailed edit summaries. Thank you. Taric25 (talk) 16:44, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

The only question for me is how much longer we put up with Taric25's querulousness before he gets blocked for it. Guy (Help!) 16:01, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

It is never my intention to be quarrelsome. I did not understand why you deleted the case I presented without archiving it, and that is why I posted it for deletion review. It is never my intention to disrupt wikipedia to illustrate a point. I honestly believe that Henke37 is a sockpuppet of TTN, and that is why I presented the evidence. All I'm asking is time, at least 10 days per WP:SOCK, for the community to examine the case and let a decision be made. Whatever decision the community makes, I would like WP:SSP to follow process and archive the discussion, just like it does with all the others, not delete it. If you believe otherwise, then please see the SSP's entry on WP:DRV and argue why you believe you were right to delete it without CSD, PROD, and AfD. I will be more than willing to respond to your comments. If you believe that TTN should not have {{sockpuppeteer}} on his userpage, then please discuss it on his talk page, and I will be more than willing to reply to your comments. Taric25 (talk) 16:44, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

A block would be a most appropriate form of sanction for the nasty personal attacks and "who me?" gaming of the system this user is systematically attempting. He has wasted too much time with these childish antics and jejune fractiousness. Should this be solicited at AN/I? Eusebeus (talk) 23:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

To anyone who read what Eusebeus just wrote above, is that uncivil? Please advise. Taric25 (talk) 08:24, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Not really. It seems as though Eusebeus was trying to make constructive commentary on your editing, something that is perfectly appropriate (if not absolutely necessary). He seems to have been acting in good faith, and correctly, in opposing your repeated addition of the sockpuppet tag (even after the deletion of the case). You should really read WP:CIVIL and try to get a better understanding of what incivility actually is - asking us every time Eusebeus says something whether it's civil is pretty strange. This board is a place to discuss the conduct of others, as are user talk pages. His comments are not personal attacks or inappropriate, and you've got to consider his criticism as something more than some sort of hostility that you must reject and even bring here to hash out. He's trying to explain how your actions are inappropriate, and has assumed good faith even if his tone is a bit less than sugar-coated. --Cheeser1 (talk) 13:36, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, but I was refering to his tone. I don't understand how words like “nasty”, “childish antics”, and “jejune fractiousness” are civil, or how accusing me of “personal attacks” and “gaming of the system” is assuming good faith. Also, I had already read Wikipedia:Civility, thank you. You should read Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 December 7#Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/TTN, since the overwhelming consensus is to overturn the case's deletion, so this asserts my intepretation of Wikipedia:Sockpuppets to include the tag after JzG deleted the case. I am asking if Eusebeus' comments are civil or uncivil because I am trying to understand what the community thinks. Taric25 (talk) 20:02, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

You are asking and I am telling. Saying you are gaming the system is not a personal attack. Calling you "a big fat ugly moron who should leave Wikipedia" is. There is a difference. Commenting on your behavior ("antics" or "gaming") is appropriate and allowed on the WQA and elsewhere. It is relevant and he doesn't have to candy-coat what he has to say to keep it from being a personal attack. --Cheeser1 (talk) 23:03, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say it was a personal attack. I am basically asking if this is propper Wikiquette. Is Eusebeus assuming bad faith? Also, you did not answer the first part of my question. I stil do not understand how words like “nasty” and “jejune fractiousness” are civil. Aren't we supposed to use words like “please” and “thank you” instead? You claim that users do not have to “candy-coat” what they have to say, but I do not understand why it's okay to be impolite. Taric25 (talk) 00:58, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I know what you're asking and I'm explaining to you the answer. You were being nasty and you arebeing fractious. Saying "your actions are immature and you are disruptive" is not uncivil. Saying "you're a big baby and you should kiss my ass" is. There's a difference. He's trying to make a relevant point about your editing - it's not incivility. You came here to ask the question - if you don't want any answer other than "yes, he's being uncivil" then you should really let it go. Sure, many Wikipedians are over-polite but etiquette is not the same as saying "please" and "thank you." --Cheeser1 (talk) 02:53, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Even if Eusebeus believes I am being nasty and fractious, it is never a good idea for anyone, even you, to say that to another user. I believe civil response would be, “Hello, I noticed your recent edits to User:TTN's userpage. I do not you support adding the sockpuppet tag because [insert specific part of policy or guideline, not an essay, asserting why you believe that and why here], and I have removed the tag. I understand that you may consider adding it back, but before you do, would you please discuss it on his talkpage? If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a message on my talk page. Thank you.”, not calling me "fatuous", "too new to know what… [solid evidence] means", "a victim of your own ignorance", that "You should thank" "a rouge admin" "profusely for helping clean up your mess", "You're ignorant", "juvenile", "woeful ignorance", "You are in danger of being blocked. That would be salutary in my view", "completely without merit", "as whining adolescent", and "childish". None of that helps Wikipedia. Period. I am absolutely shocked that you think it's perfectly ok to call someone "nasty", no matter what the reason. It's rude; it's impolite, and it's uncivil. If a user does not agree with another user's edits, then the users should discuss calmly and politely citing specific portions of policies and guidlines and why they believe that, not call each other nasty for any reason whatsoever. Also, per Wikipedia:Etiquette, the users should use detailed edit summaries and discuss their edits on the talk page if someone disagrees, something Eusebeus failed to do time and time again. Since you have stated that it was ok for Eusebeus to call me nasty, I do not believe you are qualified to answer this query and am requesting comment. Taric25 (talk) 09:45, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

At the polite request of User:Egfrank on my talk page, I have withdrawn the RfC. Taric25 (talk) 16:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

• I suggest we close this, Taric25's querulousness is unhelpful here. Guy (Help!) 13:51, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I am not attempting to be quarrelsome. I'm trying to understand what the community defines as civil and uncivil. Taric25 (talk) 20:02, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Focus on civility

As user:Taric25 has pointed out - the validity of the warning is beside the point. The only issue is how it was delivered. Given that this is a civility board, I think we need to hear that. The civility goal here is to find a wording that both User:Taric25 and User:Eusebeus can find acceptable.

I'd like to see the two of you negotiate a wording that is mutually acceptable but still communicates what User:Eusebeus feels needs to be said. I'm going to start the process by repeating User:Eusebeus's statement with some parts crossed out. Now, for User:Taric25: two questions:

• Would you have found the following acceptably civil? As you think about the answer, please keep in mind that no warning is ever going to feel great, so we're looking here for an acceptable wording that preserves the content of the warning rather than something that feels good.
• User:Eusebeus is clearly pretty frustrated. By removing these phrases I've also removed much of what communicated this frustration. Can you suggest an alternate way for this user to have worded his/her frustration so that you would have heard it clearly?

“Ok Taric, let's review your transgressions here:

1. You have filed what is among the most fatuous sockpuppet notices ever recorded. It is incumbent upon you to have solid evidence for a sockpuppet case. I am going to assume in good faith that you are too new to know what that means and that in making such an accusation against a seasoned regular with 25,000 + edits you are simply a victim of your own ignorance. Your sockpuppet case has been deleted by a rouge admin. You should thank him profusely for helping clean up your mess and post a notice of apology on TTN's talk page. And you should do that now.
2. There is no requirement for a user page to keep up this, that or any tag that the user does not want. Got that? You're ignorant sockpuppet filing is now compounded by a juvenile reversion of a tag that no longer applies. I am going to assume woeful ignorance in this as well, instead of the more serious case of deliberate vandalism. But that will now cease as well. Got it?
3. 3RR. You are in danger of being blocked. That would be salutary in my view, but at any event, consider this a warning. in fact, I am probably going to report you to 3RR, since it is an electric fence rule and you are clearly over the line. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Egfrank (talk • contribs) 11:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I would have found the following acceptably civil, or at least close to it. I would have changed “Got it?” to “If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a message on my talk page.” “I am probably going to report you to 3RR, since it is an electric fence rule and you are clearly over the line.” to “Please understand that someone, including myself, may report you to 3RR, since it is an electric fence rule and that Wikipedian may believe you are over the line. Thank you.” It still doesn’t feel great, but I believe that is an acceptable wording that preserves the content of the warning. Taric25 (talk) 16:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Now your turn User:Eusebeus - would User:Taric25's suggestions allow you to have communicated the warning and its importance? If not, what would you add? Please keep in mind that we are trying to come up with a mutually agreeable wording. Egfrank (talk) 17:12, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

---

I think this is absurd. Nit-picking every single word when civility is not about word choice. Striking things like the words "in fact"? Are you serious? When someone comments on some clearly bizarre behavior, it should be honest and frank. And you strike "ignorant" in one place but leave it in another. This is not what civility is supposed to become - ruthless deconstruction of every single thing anyone ever says. It creates the opportunity for any minor conflict to explode into a flurry of "well you said this and you said that and this particular word I consider uncivil." Eusebeus had something to say about Taric's sockpuppet accusations. This was not a personal attack, it was not commentary on something outside of Taric's own actions, and if someone is juvenile, we're allowed to say so. The sockpuppet complaint was grossly misinformed. Am I being uncivil by saying so? Absolutely not. "Cleaning up [someone's] mess" is a common way to refer to administrative duties ("wield the mop" much?). This complaint has spiraled into silly nit-picking when civility and NPA are not invitations to comb everyone's comments to find things that you could spin to be rude, mean, or whatever, when people are in fact making well-needed commentary on some rather odd behavior. This complaint started with "I am curious if Eusebeus' comment is considered uncivil and what do to about it." Answer: Not really, even if it was a little frank. Take his advice as little or as much as you'd like. Your actions seem quite questionable, and he has questioned them. The fact that he didn't do so in flowery prose is not evidence of personal attacks, incivility, or anything of the sort. --Cheeser1 (talk) 16:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

The material I crossed out simply separated "tone" material from content material as much as was feasible without rewording the message. This lets Taric25 comment on civility issues while still recognizing the content of the message. And it lets Eusebeus explore alternate ways of being forceful. Egfrank (talk) 18:47, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes but the point is that "tone" and word-choice are not to be nit-picked. That's not what civility requires. Picking through a person's word choice in the hopes of taking offense does not seem like a great way to be productive, and is going to create problems, not solve them. This user came here asking if this was even an example of incivility or not. Picking apart every single word Eusebeus said is not productive - it's a red herring. Eusebeus made relevant commetns about the Taric's behavior. His tone is his to make. If his tone was not flowers and puppies and fields of sunshine, so be it. "Please" and "thank you" are not required to be civil, nor is any other sort of "tone" - so long as the comments are relevant, and are not attacks on Taric but rather (necessary) commentary on his actions. --Cheeser1 (talk) 21:25, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll add that there is no need to "come up with a mutually agreeable wording." This isn't articlespace, it's talk space. Eusebeus's comments do not need to be worded in a way that is "mutually agreeable." --Cheeser1 (talk) 21:26, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

If you believe that the words "please" and "thank you" are not required to be civil, then you really are not qualified to judge civility. It is always a good idea to use words such as "please" and "thank you" when one Wikipedian disagrees with another. Being polite strengthens your message by focusing on the problem rather than the rage it caused, which causes further rage that hurts Wikipedia. It is never, ever, ever ok to call someone "nasty" or resort to any other name calling, such as refering to someone's size, race/nationality/citizenship, sex/gender, sexuality, or age. For example, it is never ok to call someone "childish", "jejune", "juvenile", or "immature", because those terms are demeaning towards youths, just like "bitch" is demeaning towards women, which is still uncivil even if the user is elderly or male. Those words hurt people's feelings. This invariably causes a user's depressed attitude towards the project as a whole and hurts Wikipedia. It is much better to just carefully select words in the first place to explain the situation in a way that both parties can mutually agree is calm and polite. Sure, it may not feel great, because no one likes a warning, but it will get the message across a lot more clearly, since it focuses on the issue rather than inciting rage and causing even more problems. Taric25 (talk) 00:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Good grief. Find something else to nit-pick at, please. Per WP:CIVIL, there is no guideline or policy, or even sentence, that states the words "please" and "thank you" must be used to be civil. I've disagreed with many Wikipedians, but I don't go around saying pretty please or gracious thank you. As for the tit-for-tat nonsense that is going on, you have dragged this on long enough that it is now a moot point; how much longer are you going to continue to debate this? If it really bothered you and violated WP:CIVIL, this would be at WP:ANI, not at WP:WQA. If he made a mistake, let it slide and go find something else to edit. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 00:14, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Wow, I'm shocked to find you've misquoted WP:CIVIL. Per Wikipedia:Civility#Reducing the impact,

“Please. Thank you. I'm sorry. You're welcome. You're a good person and I know we'll work this out. Treat your fellow editor as a respected and admired colleague, who is working in collaboration with you on an important project.”

Please be sure to refer to the policy, because it has wide acceptance among editors who consider it a standard that all users should follow. Also, I read WP:ANI before I came here. Do you know what it says in nearly all bold letters in a big lavender box at the top of the page?

“To report impolite or difficult communications with other editors, see wikiquette alerts.” Taric25 (talk) 19:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Taric, that section of WP:CIVIL is a set of guidelines/suggestions about how you are supposed to respond to incivility. --Cheeser1 (talk) 19:45, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Given that I have not had a chance to review the evidence file (now deleted) on the alleged sockpuppetry of TTN, I would like to make the following observations which hopefully will be my last.

First, allegations of sockpuppetry are serious. Since I haven't looked at the evidence file, I have no idea how credible the claims against TTN were, and whether or not the claims were made in good faith. If there was a reasonable basis for making the claim, then IMO assumming good faith applies, and the vitriol spewed at Taric25 was totally inappropriate. OTOH, if the sockpuppetry allegation had no real basis, then Taric25 is in the wrong. For something along these lines though, IMO he should've been reported to AN/I for making bogus charges rather than be flamed the way he was.

Second, related to this are notions of edit warring and the prohibition against it. There is a page describing what the suspect in a suspected sockpuppetry case can do. Everyone should abide by those rules. Again, if the allegations had no basis, then the user initiating them ought to face severe sanctions.

Finally, complaints against one or more admins perhaps can begin here. IMO the admins handled this case poorly in two ways. (1) They flamed away, without explaining their rationale as to why the sockpuppetry claims were unmerited, and (2) they never addressed the civility issue. Admins are held to a higher standard as ArbCom has repeatedly noted, and IIRC if tehre is an issue with the misuse of admin powers, it should go to the User conduct RfC or ArbCom.Ngchen (talk) 02:36, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and that is why I would like the community to examine the evidence I have presented. I have also apologized to both Eusebeus at User talk:Eusebeus#Apology‎ and TTN at User talk:TTN#Apology for my edit warring on TTN's userpage. I did not apologize for reporting TTN at SSP, because I really do believe he is guilty of sockpuppeteering. Taric25 (talk) 19:27, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Your evidence for the latter is thin at best. Guy (Help!) 00:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Personal attack against another editor on article talk page

Stale

 – User:Harald4244 may have gone offline. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 04:03, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure how to handle this and I'll be away from the computer for the holidays, so I would appreciate it if someone could watch this and make sure it doesn't escalate.

On Dec. 2, User:Harald4244 posted out of the blue a personal attack against User:Jesusfreund at Talk:Die Feuerzangenbowle. I pointed out that he had accidentally overwritten the talk page with his comment and he commented on the article talk page: "I think this was done by someone called Jesusfreund, a German Wiki-colleague of yours, an ardent communist and an almost professional IP-faker, and I am now going to sue him for the latter." I felt this comment was way out of line (political slur, accusations of fraud and a lawsuit threat all in one against a user who had not even contributed to the discussion at all), so I posted back a suggestion to remove the comment. That hasn't happened yet and it appears Harald4244 hasn't even logged into Wikipedia since posting it.

Digging around some, I found that there is indeed an editor User:Jesusfreund, but he hasn't edited since May and never touched the article in question. He probably doesn't even know it's there and I don't feel like stirring things up by telling him. User:Harald4244 didn't start editing until October, so there are no pages on the English Wikipedia where these two editors interacted. However, looking at the German Wikipedia, I found that de:Benutzer:Jesusfreund has been a long-term contributor since 2004 while de:Benutzer:Harald4244 has been blocked - apparently after being reported by Jesusfreund on Dec. 2 which explains what triggered his spiteful comment on the English Wikipedia on that date. Regardless of that explanation, I still feel the comment should be removed from the talk page, but I wasn't sure where to report it and how to go about that. Suggestions welcome. - tameeria (talk) 06:33, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I say go ahead and remove the personal attack. If you want, you can leave a note on the perosn who posted the attack's talk page reminding them not to make such attacks in the future.Ngchen (talk) 20:25, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, it doesn't sound like this user is behaving civilly. It would be helpful if you could provide diffs to help us isolate and examine the behavior more closely. Additionally, I always forget exactly what to do when people start threatening others with lawsuits, but that is a whole separate issue that requires additional treatment - threatening people with lawsuits on Wikipedia is very much not tolerated. One of the other regulars can (hopefully) recall this better than me and give you a suggestion about that. If you provide me with some diffs of the insults/attacks, I'd be happy to look them over and leave a suitable warning/suggestion on the rude user's talkpage. --Cheeser1 (talk) 21:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Here is the questionable addition. The attack wasn't directed against me but against a totally unrelated editor not involved in the article at all. I was puzzled by the out-of-the-blue spitefulness against this editor at first, but finding the report and ban on the German Wikipedia ([71], [72]) shed some light on it. - tameeria (talk) 22:29, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I've left a note. --Cheeser1 (talk) 13:19, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Legal threats are quite serious - see WP:LEGAL. Egfrank (talk) 19:33, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

That's the one I was looking for. This user may need to be indef-banned until the legal issues are either resolved or dropped, but that's outside the scope of this alert board. I'd suggest going to the WP:ANI if anyone thinks this issue needs to be addressed. --Cheeser1 (talk) 19:37, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's necessary. He doesn't seem to have signed in since posting that comment, so it appears he has stepped away and taken a Wiki-break to cool off his frustration, if he hasn't even lost interest in Wikipedia completely. - tameeria (talk) 21:59, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Mshake3

Resolved

 – user:Justa Punk is moving on, per final post.

I am making this report due to recent edits by the user concerned. He has been behaving in a manner that I consider to be rude and probably a violation of WP:CIVIL.

I asked a question about 411mania.com and it's status under WP:RS on the Wiki Project Pro Wrestling talk page. The user - per a previous debate over the status of another website - promptly used this question to deride it "And I know how much you love that site" in the context of mocking my view of the other site. Which was irrelevant in this instance. I asked other users for opinions "without personal backchat" and the user again repeated his behaviour - ordering me to remove all sources if "I didn't trust it". I was trying to do the right thing, and this person's attitude leaves a lot to be desired. I requested him to cease on his talk page here only for him to revert the edit here and continue the mocking behaviour in the edit summary. Just now I tried to restore the edit here with what I consider to be a resonable point in the edit summary, but he has reverted it again here and citing WP:DRC. Whilst that may be a fair comment, he is still refusing to acknowledge his conduct is not appropriate and he may need to be pulled into line.

I hope that adding this here will help resolve matters and I don't have to take the matter further. !! Justa Punk !! 02:53, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Just as a precautionary note, per WP:TALK, users are allowed to delete comments, notices, etc. on their user talk pages. If this extends into discussion pages elsewhere, that would be a valid concern.

The citation in question, [73], is a blog entry. Note that the entry was "posted" by a username and not a journalist, and that it was credited to a more authoritative news source. Cite _that_ source if it meets WP:V, WP:CITE, etc. (PWInsider.com). I trust that it can be met; if not, the source should not be used. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 03:07, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

SERVED! SERVED! SERVED! SERVED! I kid, I kid. OK now. The issue at hand was over the blacklisting of PWInsider.com, which in turn lead to a separate discussion on whether or not the site is reliable. After dealing with what I felt were "circular arguments" from Punk, I left comments on his talk page that I felt were acceptable, but in the end probably shouldn't have been left. Flash forward to this week, and Punk brings up the reliability of 411mania. A quick look at it's use in the Brock Lesnar article shows that the "articles" were merely cut and pastings from the PWInsider site. Remembering our "conversation", I brought up how much he hated that site, with a wink, basically to say "we both have our opinions on that site." Even though I answered the question at hand, he decided to remove it because I was a "smart ass". And after my clarification (I know you don't trust that site, so remove them), he then threatens me with this. As for the message being left on my talk page, apparently he doesn't want me to comment about these sites. Not sure why, as I have an opinion on them just like everyone else, and I certinally have the right to express them. So to recap, yeah, I can be a bit of a hardhead, and my attempts at humor might not come through in a typed format. At the same time, I feel that Punk should be showing a better sense of humor. Mshake3 (talk) 05:42, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

As a neutral party, I see Punk's point. I know you don't trust that site, so remove them sounds like an order to me rather than a clarification. And I don't see the humour. How is your conduct funny? Surely you realise that not everyone will see that? GetDumb (talk) 08:27, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, GD! It's not funny at all. Worse still, MShake just won't acknowledge my offence to his conduct. I had a serious query about a site and WP:RS and he comes in and in effect derails the query. Not a time to "lighten things up" especially with the previous argument still relatively fresh. I maintain my edit referring to his diversion as "smart ass" was correct under the circumstances. He knew the subject was to be avoided and yet he re-introduced it anyway - which he now explains as an attempt at humour. I'm not laughing. There's a time and a place for humour - and this was not it. I agree with GD that MShake was in effect giving me an order. I am due an apology and a statement that he will not broach the subject with me in any way whatsoever again. And it has nothing to do with my opinion of PWInsider. That is not relevant to this current issue. !! Justa Punk !! 08:57, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

As I mention below, it's not really an "order" when I tell you to do something that you yourself said should be done. Mshake3 (talk) 18:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Could somebody please provide diffs of the actual comment(s) that was/were allegedly uncivil? All I see is some reverting of talkpage comments (which Mshake is allowed to do, it's his talkpage). In fact, Mshake seems to refer to a moment where JustaPunk removed his comments (made in good faith) from an article talkpage because they may or may not have contained humor that he didn't like (I'd like to see diffs for that too). I'm not so sure of this issue, and I think "giving orders" is not exactly something we can extrapolate from a decontextualized quotation (or something that's necessarily the biggest no-no around - people "give orders" all the time in ways that are perfectly acceptible). Note that this is also relevant. --Cheeser1 (talk) 13:06, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Well there's this, which shows his opinion on PWInsider (and yes Punk, this site is quite important with this issue), citing "If it's a PWInsider mirror it should be [blacklisted]". While there are no official "mirrors" of this site, it is common for other wrestling sites and blogs to repost this information on their own. Therefore, in his stated reasoning, if an article cites PWInsider as a source, then it is unreliable. So when he questions the reliablility of 411mania, and I point out their sources, and tell him to do something that he himself said should be done, I don't expect there to be an issue! Mshake3 (talk) 22:10, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

OK Cheeser, I thought I'd provided enough. This took me some time, and hopefully you'll follow it.

As stated, I was checking the WP:RS status of 411mania.com. MShake came on and said this. I found this comment to be innappropriate and divisive, and I removed it. I feel that referring to the comment I removed as "smart arse" was correct and appropriate. He then restored it ignoring my annoyance and request for serious assistance here. He also ordered me not to remove his comments per the edit summary. A clear indication that he didn't care that I was offended by the first edit. It refers to a previous dispute which I'll talk about in a moment.

This caused me to go to his talk page and post this. He removed it and his edit summary was rude and unfunny - and again showed no respect for my offence to his conduct to this point.

I restored it in order to push home my point. But he removed it again citing WP:DRC, which is not policy incidentally.

Back on the Wiki Project page, MShake said this. It was rude and continued the previous line - including orders (telling me how to react to a situation - it's the same thing) and rehashing the issue which as far as I was concerned was closed (see further down). This was after I asked for serious opinion and not "personal backchat" thus.

I then referred him to WP:NAM and WP:WQT to further drive home the point that his behaviour was offending me. I also mentioned WP:WQA as a warning in this edit. It was when MShake posted this that I brought the matter here.

The original dispute was associated with an RFC over WWE Smackdown spoilers. Providing diffs for this is not possible because in sheer edit load it's long way back (mid to late November) with the initial edits as well as the RFC itself (in which there were no edits by me directed at MShake). The best I can suggest in this respect is to go here and scroll down. My sig is easy to find. There's nothing here except a reasonable debate.

But on my talk page, MShake posted this. It was a reference to PWInsider breaking the news earlier this year that New Year's Revolution had been cancelled for 2008. There was nothing to confirm this on WWE.com. I felt this question was a bit silly to be honest, and then he added this. As I recall, I never expressed a solid personal view of PWInsider's accuracy, except to agree with some other opinions that referred to it as a dirtsheet. This edit insinuated that I'd added the references, and I was furious at what I saw as a hasty conclusion.My response expressed this clearly.

He came back to my talk page and failed to apologise for my offence and acknowledge his error. Instead he sought to correct it, and again associated my personal opinion with an action that he felt I should take (which is the beginnings of his move towards the "orders" later).

I returned to his talk page and asked him to control himself. This is the first edit that MShake refers to above, and I was talking about my view of blacklisting on WP - not the reliability of PWInsider. MShake has taken that comment out of context, assuming that I was saying the references should be removed. I was not saying that at all.He didn't control himself. I considered this to be a violation of WP:CIVIL and I removed it thus. And I also told him on his talk page.

But he returned with another rude comment. I removed it again citing WP:CIVIL thus, and I warned him again.

That seemed to be the end of that, and I assumed he'd got the message. This latest dispute shows that I was wrong.

Hopefully that helps, Cheeser. I find MShake's conduct offensive and at the very least he should stay away from me and understand that not everyone finds this funny. !! Justa Punk !! 00:04, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Eh, this whole thing seems to be nothing but misunderstandings. And looking at it, I might have confused Punk with another user, and thus misdirected my rage. As for staying away... I'm still going to post at the project, and I'm still going to comment on wrestling websites. If we cross paths, then hopefully you'll have good arguments to your statements. Mshake3 (talk) 00:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

hopefully you'll have good arguments to your statements

THAT remark demonstrates the very sort of behaviour that I consider unacceptable, MShake. It's confrontational at an inappropriate level, and that's why I want you to stay away from me. I already told you once back in November. I'm not stopping you from editing at certain pages completly. Just don't get involved in any conversation that I am involved in - especially if the subject is dirtsheets. I'm still don't think you are understanding the situation as it stands. Even in a misunderstanding, you don't try to inject humour when it's clear the other person is hardly in a mood for it. !! Justa Punk !! 02:43, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree, because when it comes to other websites, I've seen some god-awful reasoning from you and others. If you don't like that, oh well. As a member of WP:PW (and even if I wasn't), I have every right to comment on issues related to the project, especially one as important as reliable sources. Mshake3 (talk) 02:54, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

JustaPunk, you need to cool it. You are the one who's stepping across community-accepted boundaries. You're removing peoples comments (not acceptable) and then disrespecting others' talkpages (also unacceptable). The worst he did was tell you that you don't know what your talking about, which (if true) is actually probably the most appropriate thing to do. I suggest you take a break from this conflict, instead of putting so much energy and fuel into a meaningless and insubstantial conflict. --Cheeser1 (talk) 03:05, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

How is it the wrong thing to remove comments that I consider offensive from my own talk page? The others - all right I'll cop that, but I claim provocation. And further it was NOT meaningless and insubstantial. Are you saying I haven't been insulted? MShake even did it again calling my reasoning "god-awful". That's extremely personal, and if you are saying I have no right to be offended by such behaviour, then I shall have to do more than just take a break. I'll have to leave WP altogether. WP:POT is not applicable beyond the reverting edit issue, which as I said I'll cop. But I will not tolerate MShake's conduct over the dirtsheet issues. If he stays away from me as previously indicated - then OK the matter is closed. If not then I shall have no alternative but to depart WP once I deal with a couple of outstanding issues. !! Justa Punk !! 05:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I attacked your arguments by calling them god-awful. And I still think they are. I have every reason to doubt your arguments. And just to be fair, we could go through the entire PWInsider debate again, right here, so it's crystal clear what everyone's opinion is. Mshake3 (talk) 06:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

This is not the place for a debate. Why doesn't anyone see what's happening here? This is getting worse!! On second thoughts I won't bother. MShake - do not speak to me ever again on any subject. You create too much stress for me because you won't listen and understand and accept my offence. (This alert should be labelled as permanently unresolved - thank you) !! Justa Punk !! 09:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

You're getting offended because he disagrees with you and does so because your arguments seem to make no sense. Saying so is not a deathly personal attack. I strongly suggest that you take a break, instead of issuing some sort of restraining order demanding that another Wikipedian never speak to you again. --Cheeser1 (talk) 16:28, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Macktheknifeau

Work in progress; comments welcome

Macktheknifeau maintains what he calls a "people who fail and noobs" list here in his archive, and I am a party of it.

The dispute happened when I nominated Cold War Crisis for AfD(Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Cold_War_Crisis). This user, who was keenly in the interest of defending the article, repeatedly ridiculed an example i made that I felt was needed to show the unreliability of blogs/reviews. I then said that his sources weren't adequate, and he replied with sources, but phrased it in a very condescending tone, while not being logically connected in any way. I looked at the talk page, which he put up a tag claiming he "saved" the article from AfD when it was still up for discussion. I dissected his paragraph, told him he was being pretentious about that claim, and told him that his editing was inadequate because he failed to post his sources onto the actual article. However, because he did provide sources, I added them to the article and retracted the AfD, thinking that the issue now is not a question of deletion, but how to improve the article.

Macktheknifeau seemed to think that since I retracted the AfD of an article he "saved", he has somehow "won" and "I lost", while making myself an "arse"(User talk:AKFrost). He also told me i was being incivil when I told him his editing was inadequate and that he was being pretentious.

I accused him of inadequate editing because he thinks that just by providing a source to an AfD, somehow the AfD has already been defeated.

He under no way added his sources to the article, which is why I told him he was being pretentious about his claim about "saving the article" (which still had no citations or external sources at the time. There were two magazines named, but no page numbers or scans were linked (he provided the scans, but he didn't bother to put them up)). All this I told him in my accusation.

He further asked me, in a very sarcastic manner, to tell him how to measure up his edits to my editing of "crappy japanese children's cartoon," referring to my Bleach edits (User talk:AKFrost).

I replied to him in his talk page, which he promptly declared that he doesn't care, and moved it to an archive which has the heading of "Archive of people who are noob and/or fail."([74]).

I feel that this is a clear breach of WP:CIVIL, and that while I may have acted in a manner of questionable civility, his actions are by no means the right answer to it. I thank you for your comments. AKFrost (talk) 20:09, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide diff's to simplify the discussion? Seicer (talk) (contribs) 03:13, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

---

Wikipedia: Serious Business. Alert the Internet! Let me first point out that AkFrost is one of those fun happy-go-lucky types who have to try and dissect every single word in an article, quote them all, and then reply in big words, whilst ignoring anyone who he disagrees with.

1. AkFrost claimed the people who ran the game of the page I had made had bribed the sources I had included in the article. This is blatant lack of Good Faith. None of the articles I had used were "blogs" anyway. I don't see what the problem with the magazine scans were, I thought that it would be some kind of IP breach and the type of "non-free" images that get deleted in the hundreds every month.

2. His entire basis of my claim of "pretension" in my userpage was false. 2a. He believes I was mocking his own AfD and claiming it had failed before it was finished. No. I had the "saved from AfD" up for months previous, when I re wrote the original article when it was brought up on an AfD after being started by fans of the mod who were not familiar with wiki articles. Sorry AKFrost, but you were not what I was referring to. Once the Article was improved again, and the AfD finished, I wrote that I had saved it from two AfD. A simple check of the history would have made AKFrost perfectly clear that I was not stroking his ego.

3. I don't see how he can summon me up on charges of "incivility" when he was on the one who called the hundreds of edits I had made "Pretentious" and "Inadequate". I simply compared my own edits, ranging in areas for Militaria, Sports, Food/Cooking, Technology, Gaming, Television as well as participating in wikipedia administrative issues (such as debates on content/consensus, participating in AfDs, improving articles and so on), to AKFrost's edits, which appear to be limited to a crappy Japanese children's cartoon. If AKFrost wants to charge my edits with being inadequate and pretentious, I will damn sure show him where he has gone wrong.

4. The people in the archive are or were noob and/or fail, and I show that in the section. I was under the impression an "archive" for a userpage was only able to be seen by the user themselves. I will edit the archive section heading as this is clearly not the case. In fact, I've done it now.

5. Anything else? Oh. I don't see what this is going to achieve. I'm not going to change my editing style because of some over-serious wiki-lawyer screaming HELP HELP I'M BEING INCIVILITATED! and I don't think anything I've done warrants any sort of ban. My edits are on the whole good, well sourced and useful for the articles being edited, and nothing a few randoms like AKFrost might say will change that.

I move for this to be closed immediately (can I AfD this "Wikiquette" alert?.Macktheknifeau (talk) 03:05, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

---

Um. No. I did not accuse anyone of buying any columns. I'm stating that it's a possibility which means that in order to be completely reliable, it has to have sources from places other than just columns, which was what the article only had as sources. Again, you've based your harassment off an incorrect assumption, and you accuse me of the same thing?

What you did for Cold War Crisis was inadequate. You may have made a lot of useful edits before this point, but those don't matter, what I saw was you providing sources without adding to the article, and then proceeded to call it a done deal. If that doesn't show inadequacy, I don't know what does. AKFrost (talk) 04:43, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Finally, I rarely log into this account when I make my edits. You making a judgement on me based on my edit history is completely baseless. I never bothered to look into the AfD process or anything else during the majority of the time here on wikipedia, and if you think that makes me an editor of lesser caliber than you, it's again extremely pretentious. AKFrost (talk) 04:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, I think this might have been a misunderstanding: I meant your handling of the CWC article was inadequate, not your entire edit history, which I didn't bother to look at because I don't believe in past quality would somehow make current quality better than what it is. If you have made valuable contributions to Wikipedia, good for you, but that does not cover your editing of CWC. Until I tagged the entire article with "Citation needed" after I retracted the AfD, it had nothing even resembling a citation. Again, is that adequate editing of someone of claims he saved the article? AKFrost (talk) 05:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

---

Please stop using the annoying page indents. 1. "They could have easily just bribed one of the columnists at those sites to write reviews." AKFrost (talk) 09:00, 29 November 2007 (UTC). But noooo you never accused anyone of buying columns. Strike 1.

2. When did I call it a "done deal"? Everyone should know that wiki articles are constantly improved and update. But since it's now survived TWO AfD's, I think I've done a pretty adequate job on it. Instead of looking for citations and improving the article on your own, you decided to plaster it with "citation needed" and then drag myself and other editors into a pointless, failure of an AfD. I always thought it best to improve wikipedia by construction, rather than knocking editors down and calling their work "inadequate" and "pretentious" especially if I can't be bothered to improve an article on my own. Strike 2.

3. So you admit you are a Sock Puppet? Strike 3 yooooooooour outta here!. If I had the time I'd report you to the admins/checkuser, but I'm not a sad wiki-lawyer like yourself.

In short, this user goes out of his way to be obstinate, often acting without good faith or with civility towards articles and users.

I move that aKfrost be censured, and that his account is investigated for any possible sock-puppetry on any of the articles for which he has been involved in AfD's or disputes. Macktheknifeau (talk) 06:53, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

---

Now you're not making any sense whatsoever. Did you happen to see this line: "I am not accusing the modders of buying or authoring the columns. I am using that to dispute the reliability of columns as a source.AKFrost 17:15, 1 December 2007 (UTC)" Or did you deliberately miss it just to misconstrue the facts?

From what I can see from your second point, you think there should be someone to finish your job for you after you move it in the general direction? Also, how many people own the magazines you posted, especially seeing that it's in German? This is your failure to assume good faith. You assumed that I nominated the AfD just to get it deleted without any attempt to try to improve it. Well, if you don't know already. Not everyone has your level of access to materials concerning an obscure mod. I tried to find sources that I feel are reliable, and I didn't find any. Now, my interpretation of reliable might not be the same as yours, but that does not mean I'm just there to disrupt. That's why they have AfD's, so people can discuss its merits, not to have an edit war.

Your last comment makes no sense whatsoever. I edit anonymously as an IP, how does that make me a sockpuppet? Do you even know what a sockpuppet is? In fact, you need to read your own arguments. I'm tired of trying to explain everything to you, especially given the fact that you choose to ignore everything I say. AKFrost (talk) 08:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

---

I could post another point by point destruction of AKFrosts moronic ramblings, but I'm not going to bother. Like I said before, nothing that is going to be said here will effect me. AKfrost, go edit some children's cartoon articles and then AfD articles you lack the intelligence to improve which to you that means an instant AfD. Oh noes it's in German! AFD AFD AFD! To any admins who might read this, AKFrost is someone who take wikipedia mega-seriously and also failed to constructively improve the notable articles he dragged into an AfD. He has also admitted to being uncivil towards me (whilst being completely mistaken in the reason he needed to insult me), and if he wants to play with fire by insulting people he should expect to get burnt. To be honest, I think he needs to harden up and not go crying about "Civility" to the admins when he tries to bully/insult someone who then hits back. Peace Out. Macktheknifeau (talk) 09:16, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Now that we have that out of our systems, is it possible to get some diffs? I've looked through some of the pages linked, and at first glance it seems that the vast majority of the incivility is on Mactheknifeau's side, but he's made some claims against AKfrost above and should have a chance to present evidence of those claims. Diffs will also make it easier for commenting editors to get an idea of what is going on without having to dig through old pages scattered all over the project. Incidentally, let's move to indents from here on out rather than horizontal lines to better separate the fighting from the solution. --jonny-mt 09:39, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I've presented all my evidence. As for his claims against me, aside from what I admitted to in my posts here, they are all false AFAIK. AKFrost (talk) 23:54, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I've presented all my evidence. As for his claims against me, aside from what I admitted to in my posts here (the archive name), they are all false AFAIK. Also, this is (from the top of the article) meant to be "an informal streamlined way to request perspective and help with difficult communications with other editors". AKFrost can make his communications very easy and simple, by not bothering me again. I'm personally going to go down that route, and in fact already would have if he had left well enough alone and called me neither pretentious or inadequate Macktheknifeau (talk) 07:58, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

My attempt at being neutral at this Case

For what it was worth, I'll try to provide the facts to the case. I'll keep the comments to a minimum. I don't quite understand what you mean by diffs, so I'll just copy the disputed stuff verbatim.

• How it started was this AfD Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Cold_War_Crisis, an article which Macktheknifeau claim he saved from a previous AfD (at the time, I didn't know).

• During this Afd, I made this remark, which in hindsight was not very tactful and easily misinterpreted: "They could have easily just bribed one of the columnists at those sites to write reviews." They referring to the creators of the mod. My rationale was that because it is a possible thing they could do (albeit very unlikely because having a wiki article is not really an accomplishment that they could go to lengths to falsify), we should exercise more caution before claiming these sources are reliable.

• I followed it sometime later with a bolded explanation after another editor complained, "I am not accusing the modders of buying or authoring the columns. I am using that to dispute the reliability of columns as a source." At the time Mack was not a party to the debate. He added his first entry on December fifth, while my edit was December 1st.

• Mack then entered, claiming he re-wrote the article. It can be viewed at the diffs here [75]. His full text:

Keep CWC, re-write the rest I re-wrote the CWC page from it's original incarnation, I don't really have any idea about the other mods notability, as I don't play the original game, I don't have anything to do with any of these mods or the community, and thus don't know the notability or possible notability of the non-CWC mods. CWC has clear notability, real-world and online articles by well known magazines and websites, as well as actually releasing their mod (it's not vapourware). What makes a book notable? What makes a anime TV show notable? What makes a person notable? What makes a band notable? I can't go and say "I don't know who these bands are, they are non-notable, and what makes them notable anyway" on a band's page, so there is no excuse for it here. Macktheknifeau (talk) 13:21, 5 December 2007 (UTC)"

(He may have meant from the last AfD which I was unaware of, but I don't know.)

• The editor Oni Ookami Alfador posts the following comment, which I'm assuming is what Mack got my first statement from. For what it's worth, it's here: "Better be careful there... according to AKF, the videogame illuminati have infiltrated the magazines and news sites!--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 19:44, 5 December 2007 (UTC)"

• I replied, not really satisfied with the result and his claim of a save:

"Comment How do you demonstrate the reliability and independence of those sources? And as of time of writing, CWC still doesn't have any citations. The sources cited are:

  * http://planetcnc.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Previews.Detail&id=36
  * August Edition of PC Games Magazine.
  * August Edition of PC Action Magazine.

It goes without saying that the magazine citations are of questionable relevance because nothing in the article tells us what is pulled from these megazines. I didn't bother reading the column, but it's still problematic to assume reliability on this one post. Can anyone provide more instances of CWC in other forums? I believe WP:N requests for significant coverage. These three sources hardly seem significant if you can't even tell us what it said. I actually disagree with Huon, Shockwave at least put up some semblence of an article with citations, whereas CWC have nothing. AKFrost (talk) 00:57, 6 December 2007 (UTC)"

• His reply: "Comment um.... the articles establish it's notabilty, and the article is written around the facts of the mod itself. "nothing in the article tells us what is pulled from the magazines"... what does that matter? The magazines showed the mod, the article shows what the mod is. Unless the reverse vampires and the rand corporation infilitrated the magazines as well Macktheknifeau (talk) 13:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)" The bolded part I found was annoying, because that's not what I meant, but he's beating a dead horse.

• My response: "* Comment um.... no. Unless you can provide the page which the magazines refer to the mods, you can't establish the relevance of the magazines. On top of that, the article lacks citations. WP:NOR Requires every claim/statement to be sourced and property cited. How about providing a page scan, or even just a quote or a page number? I'm certain most people who post here, especially those who vote for keep, would have a vested interest in these mods, and perhaps have the magazines to provide more sources. The burden of proof is on you to establish verifiability and relevance. You can't just put a random magazine and claim it talks about the mods without a proper citation. If these magazine sources are valid, then it would be trivial to provide page numbers and quotes, something I'm not seeing in these articles, despite having its notability challenged back in november. AKFrost (talk) 20:05, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• Also, I suggest you look at Wikipedia:Citing sources#Full references. They clearly required page numbers from printed material. AKFrost (talk) 20:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)"

• At this point, I believe he got annoyed at me. His response:

"*Comment "Notability challenged"? I see nothing to that effect at all. In short, the mod is notable, the articles shown are from notable magazines or websites. There is NO reason to delete this article. Yes, it can be improved. But so can every other article. As well as that, Wikipedia:Citing sources#Full references is "Generally" accepted and "is not set in stone" and should be treated with common sense and The occasional execption. I think this is clearly a case where common-sense should prevail and the exception made. These clearly show it did receive the printed press coverage. Please, if you have another wacky conspiracy theory, maybe the mod makers paid the game magazines to do the article, or maybe it's photoshopped and ninjaed into the full magazine by a elite stealth team of modders, do share with us.

   http://www.cold-war-crisis.de/pics/press/pca1.jpg
   http://www.cold-war-crisis.de/pics/press/pcg1.jpg
   http://www.cold-war-crisis.de/pics/press/gs1.jpg
   http://www.cold-war-crisis.de/pics/press/gs2.jpg
   http://www.cold-war-crisis.de/pics/press/gs3.jpg

Macktheknifeau (talk) 06:36, 7 December 2007 (UTC)"

• At this point, I was extremely ticked off that he again pulled the thing out. So I dissected his post. If this is bad practice, I apologize.

"* Was it so difficult for you to provide the scans so you could substantiate your claim? Or do you think that making snide comments about what I said somehow make the article worth a keep? Can you get back on topic and stop beating a dead horse. Now, please. Put these on the article and have done with it. Finally, WP:IAR and WP:UCS only applies if you have good reason, which, again, you've neglected to state. I can't read your mind, and I certainly did not know the existence of these prints until now. Don't assume that what you know, everybody else knows. Bring out the evidence. AKFrost (talk) 06:58, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

• Finally, you'll note your style of debate is fundamentally flawed. I will dissect what you said and hopefully it will become clear on you.
• ""Notability challenged"? I see nothing to that effect at all." This is your personal opinion. Your opinion counts no more than mine, do not make it sound like it's a fact, or somehow your judgment makes it right.
• " In short, the mod is notable, the articles shown are from notable magazines or websites. " Again, this is a claim. I don't care how self-evident you think your arguments are. Don't assume I can fill in all your blanks for you. Why is it notable? What articles? What websites? Can you please specify?
• "There is NO reason to delete this article." Based on previous faulty logic, you have not convinced me at all.
• "Yes, it can be improved. But so can every other article." Is this even necessary? Am I even debating this point? I agree it can be improved, and if you haven't noticed yet, the reason I asked for evidence is to improve the article. What you had before does not satisfy WP:N in any way. When you argue, you have to use hard facts, not something easily fabricated (This being putting the name of a magazine without any scans, page numbers, etc, which was the case at the time.)
• "As well as that, Wikipedia:Citing sources#Full references is "Generally" accepted and "is not set in stone" and should be treated with common sense and The occasional execption. I think this is clearly a case where common-sense should prevail and the exception made." Just because it's "Generally" , "is not set in stone" and the existence of WP:IAR does not mean they don't apply at all. Rather, you'll have to show us why it doesn't apply. Since you provided the scans and page numbers, these policies can be followed. I don't know what you're trying to argue, but whatever it is doesn't make any sense.

* "These clearly show it did receive the printed press coverage." Again, what are "these"? Do I have to play guess what it is every time I talk to you? Can you please be specific?

• "Please, if you have another wacky conspiracy theory, maybe the mod makers paid the game magazines to do the article, or maybe it's photoshopped and ninjaed into the full magazine by a elite stealth team of modders, do share with us." Um. I don't, and this fails WP:Civility. I don't know why you think it's okay to make such comments repeatedly, but it doesn't help the discussion any.
• Finally, When I went to your talk page, you claimed you saved CWC already. This issue is not dead yet. You're being pretentious about your own editing, inadequate as it is. AKFrost (talk) 07:09, 7 December 2007 (UTC)"

• I then added his sources to the article as sources and retracted the AfD on CWC and Shockwave, satisfied that these articles finally have some kind of citation. The next day, I find this message in my talk:

""You're being about your own editing, inadequate as it is." AKFrost 07:09, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

That is not very nice of you. If you had bothered to look at the history of either the article itself, or my userpage, you might find that I was referring to the first AFD this article was saved from. It would have most certainly been deleted had I not rewritten it the first time, and I am glad it has survived your pointless AFD. I have now updated the userpage to reflect the change in AFD's saved from the previous "One", to the current state of "Two". Looks like I right either way. It also looks like you made a bit of an arse of yourself with your claims of my pretension.

I'm sorry if my editing is inadequate to you, how I can measure up to your edits on a crappy japanese childrens cartoon followed by your AFD nomination which you lost. Please.. Please. Tell me how to become a better editor.

Macktheknifeau (talk) 17:27, 7 December 2007 (UTC)"

• Normally, I would have just let it slide, after all, everyone likes to taunt their defeated opponents. He had the sources, my AfD wasn't valid, etc, etc. However, the bolded parts ticked me off yet again, and I decided to pursue it further. I posted the following on his page:

"* Um, I did not lose the AfD because there is nothing winning or losing about AfD's. The point of AfD's is to bring it to attention to people who care that their article fails a quality, and that if they don't improve the article, it should be deleted. You provided sources for the claims, so I retracted the AfD. I don't know what meaning you hold about "losing" the AfD. As far as I'm concerned, there was no win or loss. Wikipedia has two of its articles improved, nothing more.

• What you have here is a failure to Assume good faith. I am not nominating the articles because I have a personal vendetta against any of them, but rather they aren't up to par with other articles and doesn't seem to have anybody updating it to conform. Had I not nominated the AfD, are you really going to provide the scans that convinced me of its notability? Again, you suffer from the assumption that you don't have to explain yourself because everything you do is self-evident. Well, guess what, nobody can read your mind. If you don't speak it, it will be ignored.
• As for accusing me of incivility, I distinctly remember you beating the dead horse about my statement that it is possible that the articles can be bribed. If you actually read WP:CIVIL to begin with, you'd notice that rudeness is the first thing on the list. Also, what you wrote on my Userpage was complete taunting. I don't know what made you think you can talk down to me, or that somehow rules only apply to me and you're free to ignore everything if it doesn't suit you.
• Finally, You realize you can get censured just for your comments about me being an arse and that Bleach is a "crappy japanese childrens cartoon". You'll notice that Bleach is making more money than your mod ever will. You have no right to belittle a multi-million dollar franchise while pushing your own freeware, beta-stage game. To each his own. You don't like Bleach, that doesn't mean it's crappy. Again, you're pushing your own judgments over other people and construing as fact. You think it's crappy? Well, substantiate it, why is it crappy? (Not why YOU think it's crappy. Your thoughts count no more than mine).
• Neither of what you did is even remotely allowed by WP:Civil You accuse me of being incivil about pointing out that you can't edit adequately (going so far as posting sources on the AfD page but not the main page).
• Again, you're still being pretentious, that somehow your judgment is better than mine. In fact, the only edit you made after I nominated the AfD was add a claim (which you substantiated later, after I accused you of being pretentious). that alone does not make the article any more improved. In fact, if there is anything that saved the article, it's me putting your links up as sources. Nobody will go to the AfD to look for sources, they would expect it in article.
• From what I've seen below, you yourself aren't under fire from just myself. For once, consider your own faults before making accusations that someone else is being an arse.
• Finally, enjoy your own hollow "victory" know that you only won because I retracted the claim. I am interested in improving wikipedia, while you're here apparently just to push your own views. Compromise is a skill you will need to learn. AKFrost (talk) 20:06, 7 December 2007 (UTC)"

(Not exact the most calm and civil, I understand)

• His reply: "Don't care As an aside, it's not my mod, I don't play the game it's based from or even own it. And if I did, it would not bother to me if it was not making money, because mod makers do not make mods to make money. Bleach is a crap japanese childrens cartoon. Retracting the claim? Either way you lose.I've been "underfire" from 1 other person like yourself who thinks they know everything. Now go away. Macktheknifeau (talk) 06:57, 8 December 2007 (UTC)"

He then moved it to his archive, titled: "people who fail and noobs".

I hope this makes it more clear. AKFrost (talk) 00:28, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

This does help, thanks. From reading through the conversation above, the AfD you linked to, and your respective talk pages, it seems like the best thing for the time being is to simply disengage from each other for a while. Mactheknifeau has suggested this above, and I've left a message on his talk page to see if he's still all right with this as a solution. If he agrees and you agree, I think we can consider this matter settled.

I also suggested that he watch his civility in the future, as one need only look above to see that it's not exactly under control right now. That being said, I think there are lessons to be learned on both sides here. From reading through the AfD, it seems that you tended to badger some of the people voting "keep"--as of right now, more than a quarter of your total contributions are to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cold War Crisis. I think the same advice I gave to Macktheknifeau applies--present your evidence, add some related commentary, and let the facts speak for themselves. If you feel someone's opinion is not fully qualified or they are not aware of all the facts, simply ask them for clarification or politely point out what they may have missed. Otherwise you risk coming across as combative or pushy, which is not conductive to XfD discussions.

As for the issue of the talk page archive, he's changed the title to "Archive of my very best wiki-friends whose truth and knowledge shine across the world wide web." It's not exactly subtle sarcasm, but neither does it seem worth getting too worked up about. I simply suggest you ignore it--after all, your contributions are what define you as an editor, not the title of a talk page archive. --jonny-mt 03:25, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I agree with the disengage. Thanks to Jonny-Mt for taking the time to deal with this. Stay alert, but not alarmed. Macktheknifeau (talk) 13:42, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

User:GusChiggins21

Resolved

 – Page has been redirected to Handicapping.

I've been the subject of repeated personal attacks and uncivil comments from User:GusChiggins21 because he disagrees with some of my edits. He has called me obnoxious, a spammer, and told me he doesn't like me. He's also accused me of not liking him. He's also used strong profanity and all caps on my talk page. He has also accused me of starting an edit war. I've never dealt with quite this level of unreasonable behavior, so I'm not sure how to handle it, but I'm going to step away from the situation now after reporting it here. Here are links to the pages with the personal attacks and uncivil comments:

Talk:Sharp_betting, Talk:Bonus_hunting, User_talk:Rray

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. Rray (talk) 20:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

For easier access, GusChiggins21 (talk · contribs), Rray (talk · contribs). Seicer (talk) (contribs) 21:09, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

This user has been following me around wikipedia and editing my contributions in a negative way. He acknowledges this "I watch your edits because a lot of them are bad edits". See Talk:Sharp betting. This user does not contribute to these articles, he merely reverts my edits, and disputes what I write. I caught him spamming an article: bonus hustling; he replaced several links to a reliable site that I put in with a link to his personal homepage. He has deleted several sourced statements without grounds, and has even deleted sources on several occasions. He has reverted edits of mine several times, without getting consensus from the other editors of the article, and without cause. I believe that this user has a problem with me for some reason, and I have asked to be left alone. Nothing would make me happier than to never deal with this user again, and consider this issue settled. GusChiggins21 (talk) 21:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems as if GusChiggins21 (talk · contribs) is insisting ownership, though comments like [76], and inserts citations whereas there is no mention of "sharp betting" such as [77]. "Common knowledge" is also not an acceptable citation, as Gus indicated in this edit. Per Rray's comment, one edit doesn't constitute a revert war, and removal of a spam link does not constitute grounds for a "ban." Seicer (talk) (contribs) 21:41, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Look at the context. This user has been editing every article or edit I make for weeks, and then comes into an article I wrote, and demands a citation for whether two terms are exactly synonymous, then reverts a citation because it didn't explicitly equate the terms; it just equated the concept that a skilled bettor is known as a handicapper. At a certain point, one gets fed up with the antics. In the interest of ending this whole thing, I will freely admGusChiggins21 (talk) 22:12, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

After a certain point, I did not assume good faith with this user, and accordingly got sarcastic on some talk pages, and asked the user to leave me alone. It was after the user made a number of edits, reverts, and deletions that I believe were based on POV issues with me, and made some edits which were spam. I believe that this user also acted inappropriately, by editing my articles from the POV that I am a bad editor that needs to be policed. I also believe that this user is unevenly applying wikipedia policies, by demanding extremely rigorous citations for facts that he knows to be true on my articles, and not doing so on anyone else's articles. Again, nothing would make me happier than for this editor to stop editing my articles from an extremely hostile position, and leave me alone. GusChiggins21 (talk) 22:23, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Outside view- I happened to be visiting Rray's talk page and was shocked to see the two personal attacks in swift succession from GusChiggins21. Gus, Rray is a good editor who's been here a while. Try not to take other's edits personally, take a look at RRray's edits on their own merits rather than judging them based on who they're from or whether or not it's an edit of yours he's altering. You might find the edits are ok really or even good.:) Certainly try not to take wiki so personally or get so upset about it, and you will enjoy your time here a lot more. Happy editing.:)Merkinsmum 23:06, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Merkinsmum. Gus, you need to tone it down as far as personal attacks go. You should not contribute to Wikipedia unless you agree to have your contributions mercilessly edited. It's the nature of Wikipedia. You need not be aware of all the policies that might motivate the removal of links or reversions of your contributions, but when someone cites such things you have to acknowledge their right to do so and abide by the community-accepted guidelines (e.g. external links). --Cheeser1 (talk) 23:23, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

This and [78] this (to a lesser extent), comments by GusChiggins21 (talk · contribs), are considered incivil and should be refrained by all means. To reply to Gus' reply, your citation must explicitly equate the terms; to quote an entire web-site where no such term or phrase can be found is not acceptable. Either link to a specific web-site where the term can be explicitly mentioned, or remove it and the phrase, per WP:PROVEIT. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 00:23, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Panda

There is an ongoing dispute over the article Swedish language which primarily involves myself and panda, but has lately expanded to include many other editors. It's centered mostly around the content of the Swedish langugae article and to a great extent referencing, but also a lot of other minor issues like date formatting and the likes. The problem as I perceive it is that panda is tackling the business of trying to improve the article by nitpicking certain issues to death. Often there is a distinct feeling that there is an acute lack of experience or knowledge of the linguistic topics debated. When confronted with replies that argue his points, the reaction for the most part has been to keep arguing with new, yet mostly irrelevant ad hoc arguments, or to cite policy over and over again. Another very disconcerting tactic is to simply turn every single argument presented to him around and throw it back at his opponent. All of this is often followed by claims that failure to comply with panda's suggestion (or anyone else's opinions that he happens to agree with) is tantamount to being biased, trying to own the article and breeching guidelines or policies.

There's not so much a problem of name-calling and overt rudeness as a frustrating lack of tact in the fact of counter-arguments, no matter how good or bad they may be. I have lost my temper with panda more than once, but I have apologized for it at his talk page.

Examples of the behavior that I find most problematic can be found in these threads:

• Talk:Swedish language#Sample
• Talk:Swedish language#Reply to tags

Peter ^Isotalo 03:27, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

If Peter gets upset at having has comments directed back at him, it may be because they actually apply to him. If someone could show me how this is a breech of wikiquette, please let me know where this is stated.

Peter has been very uncivil to me, see

1. User talk:Panda#Swedish references
2. User talk:Panda#Fact tagging

and other editors who he has content disputes with by participating in edit warring/reverting over trivial issues. For example:

1. date linking in the Swedish language article: see Talk:Swedish language#Date reversion and Talk:Swedish language#Date autoformatting is sick and not being fixed as well as [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] [85]
2. reverting citation templates: [86] [87] [88]

only because he doesn't like them, and removing reference requests without adding references

• recent examples: [89] [90] [91]
• past example: [92]

He's also been known to exaggerate (see Wikipedia talk:Featured articles#Can an article lose its FA status?), which he has continued to do here claiming that "failure to comply with panda's suggestion (or anyone else's opinions that he happens to agree with) is tantamount to being biased, trying to own the article and breeching guidelines or policies." He's made it clear that he's the primary editor of the Swedish language article [93] but doesn't give respect to other editors with opposing views, which other editors have commented on: [94] [95] [96]. It's really difficult to take his apology seriously when he chooses to attack me again soon after by claiming that I'm "Hell-bent on altering the sample section to the exten [sic] that you're willing to change your arguments to suit your goals."[97] (Interestingly, he hasn't given me any examples of how I've changed my arguments to suit my goals.) And apparently he's using this wikiquette alert to try to intimidate me by publicizing this in Talk:Swedish language#Wikiquette alert. [98]

I really don't understand why Peter is upset about being asked for more references in the Swedish language article for verifiability. He doesn't seem to believe it's necessary and has been fighting this by arguing in the talk page (or reverting edits that are not incorrect, but he opposes anyway, such as [99]). Instead, other editors have had to help find references or modify questionable text. –panda (talk) 05:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

From my interactions with him, also on Swedish language, Panda is a tenacious editor who will rarely concede a point and will continue to flog the horse far too long. He has a confrontational attitude and is quick to point to his opponents transgressions (as you can see above), while not recognizing that a less confrontational attitude may be more productive. His comments are generally civil and on topic, but often include accusations of bias and quoting of policy, and little or no attempts at deescalation and finding a compromise. Like Peter, I've found this to be frustrating.

I believe that Panda is genuinely trying to improve the articles he works on, but I wish he would adopt a different attitude while trying to do so. henrik•talk 08:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

After henrik's comment, I'd like to add that there is no real accusation of panda acting in bad faith. The problem is rather that panda appears to be seeing bad faith in just about any consistent opposition to many of his suggestions. I think his outbursts[100][101] at henrik's attempt to intervene are particularly unfair. The interpretation of a wikiquette alert as a mere intimidation isn't particularly helpful either.

I'm also worried that panda is slanting the truth of this conflict a bit too much in his own favor (or, rather, my disfavor). He has roundly ignored mentioning that I have respected a lot of his suggestions and padded the references here and there and tried to make occasional clarifications in the prose. The problem is that panda often demands references for things he simply doesn't understand or isn't experienced with, which is not something I find reason enough to add a footnote for.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:30, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

His comments are generally civil and on topic, but often include accusations of bias and quoting of policy I'm not going to comment on the alleged accusations of bias, as this matter is somewhat subjective. However, I would like to know why quoting policy is a bad thing. It's not as if panda is quoting policy without giving a reason why the policy should be followed. Lurker (said · done) 17:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

"Alleged accusations of bias?" Did you read the diffs I posted above? "Henrik: Your comment clearly shows your bias." isn't a particularly oblique statement.

Policy citations generally need to be accompanied with a reasonable interpretation or specification, especially if contested. For example, if verifiability policies say that statements "likely to be contested" are to be cited, simply saying "I contest this statement and now you have to cite it or the article is unverifiable" is pretty much gaming the system. When it comes to panda, the discussions of things like verb endings, gender terminology and population statistics were more about refusal to argue sources he wasn't prepared to check out himself or by applying very convoluted logic to prove himself right. For example, accusing me of OR concerning the verb endings was quite un-called for.[102]

Peter ^Isotalo 18:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Both Peter and Henrik have made many accusations and I will address each of them below.

For disclosure purposes, Henrik has backed Peter on just about everything in the Swedish language article. Henrik has "collaborated with Peter before and respect him as a good article writer" [103] and has even claimed that I've "made some questionable decisions before regarding this article and has driven the main author to a wikibreak"[104], without any evidence of the so-called questionable decisions and despite the fact that Peter was edit warring with other editors about date linking. Apparently he blames me for asking for outside opinion about the date linking issue (see Template talk:Cite web#Why is the date wikilinked?), which has drawn several editors to the article, with whom Peter has edit warred. Henrik apparently realized how uncivil he was being towards me as he choose to apologize on my talk page.[105] But not so long afterwards he choose to attack an editor who was linking dates by only asking him to stop reverting, [106] even though Peter was also reverting.[107] When I pointed out how biased his comments were,[108] Henrik went claimed that editors who oppose Peter's opinions are participating in "low-level harassment and wikilawyering" and that "he [Peter] shouldn't have to deal with crap like this."[109] So it's no surprise that Henrik is here defending Peter.

Henrik claims that:

• "Panda is a tenacious editor who will rarely concede a point and will continue to flog the horse far too long." There are several points that I've brought up and not continued to discuss, such as all of points brought up in Talk:Swedish language#Reply to tags that are still not addressed and missing page numbers for text from Crystal's book which was brought up even earlier in Talk:Swedish language#Modifying reference system?.
• I have "a confrontational attitude and is quick to point to his opponents transgressions", however Peter does this, considering the above diffs. Henrik has even admitted that "Peter can be a bit abrupt at times" and "Unfortunately, Peter has a low tolerance for edits which he doesn't think improve the article, so a revert war ensues." And yet he defends Peter and is here to complain about my actions when I have not been edit warring. Henrik also admits that "His [Panda's] comments are generally civil and on topic", but the comments that Peter has been made on my talk page show that Peter has not been civil or even on topic at times.
• "His [Panda's] comments ... often include accusations of bias and quoting of policy, and little or no attempts at deescalation and finding a compromise." Bias that is as obvious as this should be pointed out IMHO. I see nothing wrong with quoting relevant policy, such as WP:V. Asking for references shouldn't have to be a compromise, especially considering the primary author is around and knows where he got his info from. Most editors would just find and add the references instead of arguing about whether or not a ref is needed. Since I haven't been uncivil, as Henrik has affirmed, I see no reason to apologize for being uncivil as a deescalation attempt, which is the only deescalation attempt that I can see both Henrik and Peter have done for being uncivil towards me. I have asked for outside opinion from different sources, such as an individual editor [110] and WP:3O [111] but didn't receive outside comments for those issues partly because the editor understandably didn't want to get involved [112] and because Henrik started to reply to the 3O request, which resulted in my request being removed from 3O,[113] even though Henrik couldn't possibly give an outside opinion considering his relationship with Peter. However, Henrik and I were able to successfully resolve one of the issues while Peter was away (the % of Swedish speakers in Finland) which was an issue we both compromised on.

Peter claims that:

• "The problem is rather that panda appears to be seeing bad faith in just about any consistent opposition to many of his suggestions." When I've refuted every argument that Peter has given for why something shouldn't change and Peter still doesn't want it changed, then there must be some alternative reason that he's not stating and I believe I have a right to question Peter's motives. (See Talk:Swedish language#Sample)
• "I think his [Panda's] outbursts at henrik's attempt to intervene are particularly unfair." Of course Peter would think that my so-called "outburts" were unfair since Henrik was solely defending Peter. Henrik's comment vs my reply and Henrik's comment vs my reply
• "The interpretation of a wikiquette alert as a mere intimidation isn't particularly helpful either." Then what was the purpose of posting the wikiquette alert in the talk page where everyone can see he is having a dispute with me?
• "I'm also worried that panda is slanting the truth of this conflict a bit too much in his own favor (or, rather, my disfavor). He has roundly ignored mentioning that I have respected a lot of his suggestions and padded the references here and there and tried to make occasional clarifications in the prose." Few changes to the Swedish language article have been made without opposition from Peter. Despite the many points I brought up in talk:Swedish language#Modifying reference system?, he didn't make any changes for issues I brought up. When I edited the text, he only reverted my changes and removed citation templates [114] plus re-fixed a year that he reverted [115] [116] (I had found and fixed the year error. [117]) It wasn't until after I tagged the article with {{fact}} tags that he started to add any references or clarify the text. Peter added a total three references, (1) the 1976 edition of Barfotabarn,[118] which doesn't match the text (which is from the 1933 ed of Barfotabarn) (2) a link to a specific page at kommunerna.net to replace the link to the main page of kommunerna.net [119], and (3) a ref to an entry in an encyclopedia [120], but there were many more fact tags that he removed without giving a citation, or he removed the tagged text so that no citation would be needed. It obviously upset him to do this as he then went to my talk page to complain that I shouldn't add {{fact}} tags to the article [121], even though when I wrote that I was planning to tag the article in the talk page, [122] his friend Henrik had even stated that I was welcome to do so. [123] Bringing up the topics in the talk page only resulted in endless arguments about why something did not need a reference (see talk:Swedish language#Modifying reference system?) as well as accusations that I didn't state what needed to be referenced [124] even though several points were brought up in the very beginning, such as [125] [126]. (There is text quoted from a book called Barfotabarn that I've asked Peter to give page numbers for several times. Peter claimed that he told me that "I [Peter] don't have the book at hand" [127], when in fact he never did so.)
• "panda often demands references for things he simply doesn't understand or isn't experienced with, which is not something I find reason enough to add a footnote for". It's irrelevant if I understand or have experience with something. Anyone can ask for references, whose purpose is to make the text verifiable. Why Peter doesn't want the text to be verifiable is beyond me. Another editor already commented in April 2007 about how Peter has been disrespectful to other editors who ask for references/tag the article [128] [129] [130].
• "When it comes to panda, the discussions of things like verb endings, gender terminology and population statistics were more about refusal to argue sources he wasn't prepared to check out himself or by applying very convoluted logic to prove himself right." That's another exaggeration as I did check my source for the gender terminology issue [131] and the sources Peter eventually listed for the population statistics [132]. I was justified in calling the verb ending issue WP:OR as I was able to give many examples of it not being true,[133] which contradicted that it was a "very productive method of creating new verbs". That another editor reworded the text [134] shows that my concern was valid.

–panda (talk) 18:40, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Peter has also claimed:

• "simply saying "I contest this statement and now you have to cite it or the article is unverifiable" is pretty much gaming the system." I have always given reasons for why I have contested a statement when asked, such as [135] and [136], which is not gaming the system. Peter has even changed the text for some of the contested statements, such as Swedish being "officially recommended for local and state government."[137] So claiming that it's "gaming the system" when someone requests for citations is ridiculous but does explain why he reacts so negatively when editors ask for citations. This is obviously a bad faith accusation.

–panda (talk) 18:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Battleground

I see the discussion on Talk:Swedish Language as unconstructive, and after studying the page, I have to agree that Panda, no doubt a well-meaning editor trying to improve the article, gives few constructive responses; s/he is very defensive and embattled. I will give just one detail to illustrate how that affects other editors: citation templates, which Panda insists be used, per WP:MOS. Now The Manual of Style isn't the word of God, it's a guideline. More urgently, in this case, WP:MOS doesn't actually especially recommend citation templates, but is scrupulously careful to presenting different legitimate alternatives in a neutral way:

• The use of templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged by this or any other guideline. Templates may be used at the discretion of individual editors, subject to agreement with other editors on the article. Some editors find them helpful, arguing that they help maintain a consistent citation format across articles, while other editors find them unnecessary, arguing that they are distracting, particularly when used inline in the article text, as they make the text harder to read in edit mode and therefore harder to edit.

Panda accuses Peter of reverting citation templates "only because he doesn't like them",[138], as if not liking citation templates is disgraceful in and of itself. But it's really not. Many content writers don't like these templates. They require much coding and (comparatively) high-level coding skills, compared to the simple <ref></ref> system. The templates make the footnote, as seen in edit mode, opaque and impossible to add to for new users. And not only newbies have trouble with them, they certainly defeat for example my own coding skills. It's true that I'm exceptionally stupid, but I have nevertheless written 9 FAs using the simple ref code, that anybody is free to add to, and most people ar able to add to. The templates are probably fine to use once you've learned how, but most content contributors of my acquaintance never did learn how. And why should all writers be forced to learn to play with programmers' toys? I emphasize again that it's not as if WP:CITE expresses a preference for templates. Peter Isotalo has argued on the talkpage and in edit summaries for the advantages of non-template citing as more convenient. It's frustrating that Panda has not responded or offered arguments of his/her own, but only reverted and pointed to the mere existence of citation templates, as if that existence in itself carried the force of a compulsion to use. So, erm, which of the editors is it that lives by WP:ILIKEIT? This is just one minor example--I don't have time or indeed inclination to go through all the small, medium, and large bones of contention between Peter and Panda--but it's a telling example. Panda, please take part in a bona fide discussion on the talkpage, instead of laying down what you take to be law. To hear and reply to the other person's arguments is the way forward. The battleground is not. Please. Bishonen | talk 00:35, 11 December 2007 (UTC).

Bishonen claims:

• "I will give just one detail to illustrate how that affects other editors: citation templates, which Panda insists be used, per WP:MOS". Please provide a diff for this as I have never insisted that citation templates be used. When Peter asked "Also, is it really necessary to use all that excess code for web citations?"[139] I replied "The web references don't need all of the excess code if someone wants to rewrite it with all of the info that is now included. Previously they were missing a lot of details and not formatted uniformly."[140], which obviously contradicts what Bishonen claims.
• "Peter Isotalo has argued on the talkpage and in edit summaries for the advantages of non-template citing as more convenient." Peter has not "argued on the talkpage and in edit summaries for the advantages of non-template citing as more convenient." He has, however, claimed that they are "huge swathes of wikicode for very little benefit" and that they lead to "staggering redundancy".[141] In edit summaries, he only writes "reverted unnecessary citation templates"[142], "Same result without the huge template"[143] and "Same result with less code is always preferable; templates aren't mandatory."[144] It's apparent that Peter doesn't like them because of the extra code they introduce, not for the long rationale Bishonen is claiming.
• "It's frustrating that Panda has not responded or offered arguments of his/her own, but only reverted and pointed to the mere existence of citation templates, as if that existence in itself carried the force of a compulsion to use." Please provide a diff. As already stated in the first bullet, I obviously responded when asked about citation templates and haven't insisted that they be used. I have never "reverted and pointed to the mere existence of citation templates". When Peter removed the templates, I didn't add them back. I may have modified the dates though, for consistency purposes, which I explained in the talk page.[145]

If Bishonen wants to critique my behavior, then he should at least not make up stories.

Also, for disclosure, Henrik, Peter Isotalo and Bishonen are obviously friends since Henrik and Peter Isotalo have complained about me on Bishonen talk page.[146] [147] So it's easy to see why he chose to side with his friends, even if it means using false claims to attack me with. That said, I welcome any critique that can be backed up. –panda (talk) 04:25, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who is viewing this WQA for the very first time, who doesn't know any of you, and who has not yet taken the time to read any of the referenced conversations or diffs, it looks to me like you're proving the points of Henrik, Peter and Bishonen. They've all pretty much said that you're indicating bad faith in the comments of others when there doesn't appear to be any, and based solely on the way this conversation is going, I find myself agreeing with them. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 06:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Then I would recommend that you read the referenced conversations and diffs before judging. Drawing a conclusion from the discussion here in which the two sides (Peter et al and I) are in disagreement is very likely to give a slanted view of the entire situation since they are obviously here to accuse me of wrongdoing. –panda (talk) 06:38, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, KieferSkunk, I think so, too. This is the first contact I've had with Panda. Panda, I don't think you can realistically expect outside reviewers to pay for the pleasure of commenting here by first making themselves masters of all the battleground and "no, you are!" on Talk:Swedish language. For my part I unfortunately couldn't spare the time for more than random dips there, so (like KieferSkunk) I've assessed the situation more by what I see you write on this Wikiquette alert page. For instance, I commented on your remark above that Peter is "reverting citation templates: [148] [149] [150]

only because he doesn't like them". I'm a little taken aback to be told, for my trouble, that I "make up stories", and that I'm in an anti-Panda conspiracy with Peter Isotalo and Henrik. (Yes, btw, I do know them, to the extent of being Swedish myself, which has brought us into some interaction—I think I may even, scandalous intimacy, have supported Henrik's RFA.) Bishonen | talk 08:48, 11 December 2007 (UTC).

panda, I have a question that I think is rather relevant to the complaints about your behavior: could you point out even a single instance where you have openly conceded a point in a discussion where you have been opposed?

Peter ^Isotalo 10:21, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Bishnonen- No-one is saying you should be familiar with the "battleground" before commenting here. But if you are not familiar with affairs, you should not make sweeping statements like It's frustrating that Panda has not responded or offered arguments of his/her own, but only reverted and pointed to the mere existence of citation templates, as if that existence in itself carried the force of a compulsion to use. Even a cursory glance at the talk page in question shows that to be untrue. Panda has given good answers to the questions asked of him/her, and even gone to other pages to get advice. For example, I got involved in the article because panda came to the talk page for cite:web and asked why the date was wikilinked. On the other hand, Peter seems to be mainlt interested in reverting and arguing (looking at the edit history, Peter seems to have reverted about as many times as everyone else in the edit war put together; and he has at least as many aggressive comments as panda). Who exactly is turning the article into a battleground.

Kieferskunk- Speaking as someone who is viewing this WQA for the very first time, who doesn't know any of you, and who has not yet taken the time to read any of the referenced conversations or diffs, it looks to me like you're proving the points of Henrik, Peter and Bishonen. Is this a joke? Lurker (said · done) 17:46, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

panda and I clashed over a dozen other factual matters which had infinitely more relevance to the actual content of the article than those dinky dates will ever have. The edit war over the date linking (which is pretty close to being a candidate for WP:LAME) was at best a sideshow that happaned to attract a slew of editors who otherwise had no interest in the article or my dealings with panda. Considering the date issue isn't the reason that I filed this report, I would appreciate it if you didn't muddle the issue by dragging that conflict into this arena as well. The moral high ground you indirectly claim by lambasting Bishonen and ridiculing Kiefer isn't helping either. It seems more like an attempt to force everyone to dig trenches and avoid reconciliation at any cost.

Peter ^Isotalo 18:42, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

In reply to Lurker: I think you missed my point. I stated that I'm not an interested party in this dispute, and I have not gone into depth into the specifics of the dispute, but I'm seeing the very pattern that is being disputed playing out right in this WQA. Panda seems to be very defensive and very willing to say that everyone is ganging up on him, and I'm pointing out that it's not necessary to go into the article talks and diffs to see that pattern. I believe it would be to everyone's benefit (most particularly Panda's) if he were to ease off the trigger a little and realize that easily-recognizeable patterns of behavior can be easily addressed with a very small attitude adjustment. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 18:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

All of my comments above having been said, now that I have had a chance to read through some of the conversations, I believe all parties involved in this dispute should take a step back and cool off for a little while. The pattern I'm seeing right now is the result of a personality clash mainly between Peter and Panda. I'll address both of you in turn.

Peter: The initial dispute appears to have grown out of a content dispute - very common here - but I found your way of addressing Panda to be fairly antagonistic. While I can certainly appreciate when people are direct, you appeared to be accusing Panda of bad faith toward the beginning of the dispute, and when he responded in kind to you, things started to get blown out of proportion. Remember, folks, attack the content, not the editor. I would suggest that you read back over your messages to Panda and look at them as though they were directed at you - that will generally help to keep things civil. In particular, commenting to an editor about their modus operandi is generally a bad thing, as it sounds accusatory, even if it wasn't meant to be.

Panda: Likewise, I saw a tendency for you to jump to conclusions fairly quickly about what other editors were trying to do, and/or whether they were trying to gang up on you, as well as defending your work almost to the point of raising ownership concerns. I'd recommend that you ease off the trigger a bit - content disputes are going to arise virtually everywhere, because different people have different ideas of how an article should be written and organized, how citations should appear, etc. I am not in any position to speak on this particular dispute or to take sides, since I have no knowledge of (or interest in) the subject, but from a policy standpoint, I think you owe some responsibility in this dispute as well.

I'm pretty certain that later portions of this dispute have their genesis in the beginning part of it - after initial hostilities, both sides are likely to just automatically dismiss each other as hot-headed jerks without really giving much thought to the discussion, because they're both mad at each other already. Again, I think the best thing is for all of you to disengage for a little while and come back when you've cooled off and are ready to address the content and put your personal differences aside. You're all good editors, and we want to encourage you all to keep editing Wikipedia, but it's important for you guys to do so in a way that avoids edit wars and personal conflicts - otherwise, we're going to get nowhere.

Thanks. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 19:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I've been watching this, and I'm glad to see a little more balance now in the commentary, prompted by Lurker's observation of some conclusions that appeared hasty. I haven't followed the issue closely, but I have been aware since almost the beginning. In very good faith, and acting very civilly and appropriately, panda has posted many places asking for help and advice on how to approach the issues with this article. The first post I saw was at the talk page of WP:FA, and s/he later posted several times to my talk page seeking advice. I counseled panda to not put the article up at WP:FAR, rather attempt to first work the issues out on the article talk page. Panda apparently followed my advice, and began good faith negotiations on the talk page. Of greater concern, Isotalo then put the article up at FAR, in a move that was labeled by others as pointy and bad faith. Wikipedia:Featured article review/Swedish language/archive1 The end result was that the article was removed from WP:FAR because of what was called Isotalo's "bad faith" nomination, leaving panda without the normal recourse for featured article review. I've observed uncivil commentary directed at panda throughout, although s/he appears to be only acting in good faith and attempting to resolve issues with the article, and unfortunately followed my advice to go this alone on the talk page. I'm disappointed that Isotalo's pre-emptive pointy nomination at FAR means that a review with outside input couldn't be conducted. My advice to panda is that this is a lose-lose situation, and it's time to walk away; his/her good faith is apparent and it's falling on deaf ears. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:23, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) (outdent) Reply to Bishonen: If you hadn't fabricated a story to support your statement, then maybe I would have taken your comments more seriously. There's also a big difference between claiming that you've studied the talk page and only taken random dips.

If you want the quick and short version, then read the comments Peter made to me on my talk page: User talk:Panda#Swedish references and User talk:Panda#Fact tagging. Things don't happen in a vacuum and if you claim that I've been behaving badly, then it's very likely that the opposing side has provoked it. Don't forget that WP:AGF states that This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. To illustrate, here's an exert of an exchange between Peter and I:

• 18:49, 25 November 2007 (Talk:SweLang panda): "I removed the following sources as they are not cited in the article: ... Statistics Finland ... Please replace if they should be listed for some reason."
• 09:01, 26 November 2007 (Talk:SweLang Peter Isotalo): "Please reinsert the souces you removed. For anyone that reads the article through in its entirety, it's obvious what those sources have been used for..."
• 10:56, 26 November 2007 (Talk:SweLang Peter Isotalo): "Also, is it really necessary to use all that excess code for web citations?"
• 15:24, 26 November 2007 (Talk:SweLang panda): "Statistics Finland: ...no clue why it was cited. Doesn't matter if you read the article. Please explain. ... The web references don't need all of the excess code if someone wants to rewrite it with all of the info that is now included. Previously they were missing a lot of details and not formatted uniformly."
• 17:21, 26 November 2007 (Talk:SweLang Peter Isotalo): "kommunerna.net is and Statistics Finland are as far as I know the sources for the first paragraph of "Geographic distribution". ... Web references do not require cumbersome code masses to be uniform; all we need to do is correct the notes that aren't conforming. There's also the very annoying date linkage that serves absolutely no practical purpose. The date that one looked up a website is in no way relevant to the articles about those dates or this article."
• 04:01, 27 November 2007 (Talk:SweLang panda): "...then there should be a specific URL that is cited, not just a general link to the main page of those websites. If you can find the specific URL, then please add it. In the mean time, I can add them to External links as I haven't found any relevant information on those web sites. There are also other references that can be used instead for that paragraph, such as [151]."
• 04:04, 27 November 2007 (SweLang panda): added general Statistics Finland link to External Links.
• 09:19, 27 November 2007 (SweLang Peter Isotalo): reverted citation templates
• 15:57, 27 November 2007 (Talk:Cite web panda): "Why is the date automatically wikilinked? Is there some way to turn off the automatic wikilinking of dates?"
• 16:41, 27 November 2007 (Talk:Cite web Lurker): "According to the Manual of Style, all dates with a day, month and year should be wikilinked. See also this page. ...and it shouldn't be turned off as it is useful and mandated by the MOS."
• 17:21, 27 November 2007 (Talk:Cite web panda): "It would be much nicer to have a flag that allows you to turn off auto wikilinking of dates. At any rate, I'll see if bringing up the MOS changes this other editor's mind about wikilinking dates."
• 17:27, 27 November 2007 (Talk:SweLang panda): "It turns out that full dates should be linked, according to the MOS and WP:OVERLINK, for preference formatting purposes. So I'm changing the references that you modified back to reflect this."
• 16:56, 27 November 2007 (SweLang panda): fixed US Census info (data is from 2000, not 2004) + dates in refs modified to international format (because the date formats were inconsistent)
• 17:44, 27 November 2007 (SweLang panda): fixed Kuosma ref and linked full dates per MOS (as stated in talk page)
• 18:09, 27 November 2007 (SweLang panda): added specific Statistics Finland link to article
• 18:29, 27 November 2007 (SweLang panda): removed general Statistics Finland link from External Links since more specific link added to text.
• 19:21, 27 November 2007 (Talk:SweLang Peter Isotalo): "MOS is a recommendation, and not every single aspect of it is a requirement. The date someone looked up a web reference has has absolutely nothing to do with the article topic and is there for nothing but a distraction. Insisting that they be linked serves no encyclopedic purpose."
• 19:25, 27 November 2007 (Talk:FA Peter Isotalo): "...it is disturbing to see how many of panda's complaints are merely over-zealous demands that certain aspects of the MoS be followed slavishly. ... I should also point out that panda has actually been removing references merely because they aren't specified with a footnote (but clearly cited in prose)."
• 20:02, 27 November 2007 (Talk:Cite web panda): [To Lurker] "I mentioned your points [about date linking and MOS guidelines] and the editor [Peter Isotalo] doesn't seem convinced. Could you please make a comment about this in Talk:Swedish language?"
• 20:27, 27 November 2007 (Talk:FA panda): [To Peter Isotalo] "Let's not exaggerate. I moved the references to the talk page until there was a clear reason for why they should be included. There was only one case of a reference mentioned in the text that I removed since I didn't see it when I skimmed through the text, but I have since then replaced it."
• 23:46, 27 November 2007 (SweLang Peter Isotalo): reverted all of my edits (6 total), which included removing the specific Statistics Finland ref from the text and re-adding the general Statistics Finland link to External Links. edit summary: "revert irrelevant date linking, removal of sources and de-clarification of the number of immigrants and ethnic Swedes"
• 00:05, 28 November 2007 (Talk:FA Peter Isotalo): "I had to revert your last edits because you just kept removing the same reference over and over, even after being explained how it was referenced in prose."
• 00:09, 28 November 2007 (Talk:FA panda): "I have no clue what you're talking about so diffs would be helpful."
• 00:39, 28 November 2007 (Talk:SweLang panda): "Regarding the last set of reverts: Besides the date linking issue, you've now removed the reference that I added from Statistics Finland that supports that 5.5% of the Finnish population speak Swedish [152]. And no, it's not the same one you replaced it with. What's your rationale for that?"
• 01:55, 28 November 2007 (SweLang Peter Isotalo): reinserted specific Statistics Finland ref
• 01:58, 28 November 2007 (Talk:SweLang Peter Isotalo): "That the insertion of all those citation templates obscured the addition of a footnote. It's been reinserted."
• (Edit warring about date links starts around 19:00, 28 November 2007 between Peter Isotalo and other editors.)

If we examine the above exchange, Peter reverted text I added in good faith twice. He accused me of:

• making "over-zealous demands that certain aspects of the MoS be followed slavishly" when I had actually mentioned the MOS only once, and only because another editor mentioned it to me.
• "removing references merely because they aren't specified with a footnote" when I only moved them to the talk page until it was clear what they were for. I re-added them when requested to External links, and moved them to appropriate locations in the text when I found the specific link.
• "removing the same reference over and over, even after being explained how it was referenced in prose", which I had actually never done. I had found a more specific reference and added it to the text, thus there was no longer a need for the general reference. This was also made clear in the edit summary.

This is an exchange from the very beginning of our interaction. Considering all of Peter's exaggerated claims and bad faith comments made in those 2.5 days, I could have easily posted a wikiquette alert about him, but I didn't see it as possibly being helpful.

Reply to Peter Isolato: I already have, not only in a previous reply but in the exchange above. Why don't you point out a single instance when you've openly conceded a point in a discussion where you have been opposed?

Reply to KieferSkunk: See my reply to Bishonen. If you don't want to go read the talk pages and diffs, then an excerpt is now posted here for you to examine.

–panda (talk) 19:17, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

To KieferSkunk: You commented that I'm being "very defensive and very willing to say that everyone is ganging up on" me.[153] When the accusing editors are attacking me with false accusations and they all know each other, am I not allowed to defend myself and disclose their relationship? Should I ignore them and assume that you and everyone else will figure out that there are many false accusations be thrown at me? Please explain how you would react. –panda (talk) 19:32, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I can only really go on what was posted, so I don't have the entire history available here. I based that comment on what I was able to see, which did appear to be mostly hasty reactions. Based on feedback from other editors addressing this WQA, it appears there's more to it than that, so I apologize for misconstruing what's going on, if that's indeed what I did. My point was not to also accuse you of wrongdoing, but rather to point out that the argument here wasn't going very well and to try to suggest a different approach.

I've been accused of acting in bad faith before as well, and generally what I do is ask the person to calm down, back away and explain their reasoning, as well as to explain mine. Usually it helps, though there have been a few cases where it hasn't gone so well on both sides. I do think you've remained pretty civil through all of this - I don't see any evidence of you leveling personal attacks against the other editors, for instance. My main concern is an apparent perception of bad faith on the part of multiple parties in this dispute, and that's the main thing I was trying to address. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 21:31, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

panda, "false accusations" might actually be how others view your behavior, and even if that's not your self-perception, it doesn't automatically make it pathological lying and conspirative slander. I was impatient at the beginning, because I felt you stomped in on the article while completely refuting most of my arguments and I made reverts that were too hasty. But other reverts were merely instances of you simply removing detail that you weren't aware of. You appear to have seen that as mere hostility and ownership, but I don't see that it was.

What I feel is the biggest hump in reaching a truce here, though, is the issue of WP:DEADHORSE. It's difficult not to bring up the specific fact disputes here, but the issues over the gender terminology, the verb endings, the sample dispute and most of the exchange over the Finnish statistics were completely blown out of proportion and this is a major reason why I felt that panda's involvement wasn't improving the article.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

In an exchange on panda's talkpage concerning another future attempt at a featured article review, where the discussion was primarily on that issue, panda dropped this unprovoked comment. This is exactly the kind of snide remark that brought on this deadlock to begin with, whether it was from me or panda. As long as these kinds of attitudes keep being voiced, it's very difficult to focus on anything substantial.

Peter ^Isotalo 11:06, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes the truth can be hard to accept. One only needs to take a cursory glance at the archives of Talk:Swedish language and the history of Swedish language to see how many well-meaning editors you've reverted. Even if you consider "Reverts are only as hostile as your [sic] perceive them",[154] WP:Wikiquette says "Avoid reverts whenever possible". So if you believe you've had to write the Swedish language article on your own,[155] it may be your own doing. If you think you're innocent of making snide remarks to me or that you haven't provoked me, then you should re-read your comments on my talk page. Regarding blowing things out of proportion, perhaps you should consider re-reading Talk:Swedish language#Colon to see who has blown such a small issue out of proportion. That you continue to come here to complain only shows who is beating a WP:DEADHORSE, especially since we have an offer from Marskell for informal arbitration on my talk page [156], which I'm happy to accept. Can you accept it and start moving forward? –panda (talk) 15:44, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I haven't been clear enough. I have admitted that I've been too hot-tempered with you and I haven't claimed that I'm innocent. I even apologized[157] at your talkpage, and I can do it again if you're not convinced: I apologize for making personal remarks when I should have addressed the issues you brought up with factual arguments and calm discussion.

I don't see how we're going to get a decent dialog going, though, if you keep taking potshots at me.

Peter ^Isotalo 20:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

You commented that I was beating a WP:DEADHORSE, blowing issues out of proportion and making snide remarks and when I say the same back to you I'm the only one who keeps taking potshots...? That's interesting... If you don't want me to use your remarks back at you, then don't make them to me.

Personally, I'm just interested in moving forward, which I've already indicated to Marskell. We're just waiting for you. –panda (talk) 21:56, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

User:DionysiusThrax

Resolved

 – Article is being cleaned up to meet WP:BLP.

The article on Bernie Ward has always been a hotbed of controversy because of disputes over his political and religious views. Now that an, arguably quite controversial in itself, federal child pornography indictment, to which Mr. Ward has pled Not Guilty has just been handed down from the government he regularly lambastes, his detractors seem intent on having a field day dragging the man through the mud. I personally -- I want to make this VERY clear -- have mixed feelings about Bernie Ward, but I do not think this occasion constitutes Open Season on Bernie Ward. I WISH TO ASK THE PROPER ADMINISTRATORS TO INTERVENE AND FREEZE THE EDITING OF THIS ARTICLE NOW, as it seems absolutely DOOMED to spark an Edit War! RESPECTFULLY, EVERYBODY PLEASE SHOW SOME RESTRAINT! AND ADMINS: PLEASE CONSIDER FREEZING THE ARTICLE NOW! Thanks for your consideration. DThrax (talk) 05:18, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Good grief. There are several blogs listed as "credible" sources, which fails WP:EL and WP:BLP. I'll do cleanup. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 05:25, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Wetman

Sorry to have to report this, but user Wetman has chosen to insult myself over a post on Wetman's personal page in which I stated that I found Wetman's last edit to be "interesting". I then demanded an apology from Wetman, who ignored my request and dismissed my request for an apology as "ravings".

I hope that this was not a pattern of behavior for user Wetman, nor a developing pattern of rudeness and insult. Oroblanco (talk) 05:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

For easier access: Wetman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) and Oroblanco (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). Seicer (talk) (contribs) 20:41, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide diffs? If this event occurred solely on his talk page, there is not much that can be done, per WP:TALK. Best just to forget and move on if that's the case, unless it is widespread. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 20:43, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I concur. You (Oroblano) posted something sarcastic, he (Wetman) replied sarcastically, and you took a huge deal of offense. I'm not seeing it. Is there something else? --Cheeser1 (talk) 21:19, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

User:74.33.197.125

This is reference to the article Jacob Klock (colonel). This user is engaging in a personal attack on an external website [[158]]. User has placed a link to this website in the discussion page. User may have recruited a "meat puppet". I don't care that much what happens to this article. Based upon my interaction and the fact that the user is willing to escalate the dispute to an external website I don't feel it is safe for me to have any further interaction with this user, since I believe this user is capable and willing to post personally damaging information about me on an external website. BradMajors (talk) 08:14, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

• For reviewers: Previous related discussion took place at Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests#"Jacob Klock" content dispute. I dorftrottel I talk I 10:24, December 10, 2007

User:Zorgness

User has engaged in a number of uncivil and hostile edits. He first called me a "revert whore" and I warned him about being hostile. Additionally, he refuses to follow citation methods, and is openly against it. After my warning him here and here, he was openly defiant by saying that references are "a low priority job that can be done at a later date" (ref), and was defiant again in this edit summary. The user has been warned a number of times about following Wiki policy by me and an administrator. On a side note, the user seems to have an attitude problem, calling himself awesome here and here, where he cleared his talk page. I've tried several times with this editor; can someone lend a hand? — HelloAnnyong [ t · c ] 17:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

User made another edit with a hostile edit summary. — HelloAnnyong [ t · c ] 17:54, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

User was warned of this WQA here, but has since removed it (and redirected his talk page to Awesome). — HelloAnnyong [ t · c ] 18:19, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Not to mention his outright refusal to use proper citation templates. See the following edit summaries: [159], [160]. — EagleOne\^Talk 18:46, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I applied an appropriate note on his talk page. Note that per WP:CITE#Full references, citation templates are neither encouraged nor discouraged. If a user encloses a link inside reference tags, and the link is a valid citation, then that is acceptable -- although I would encourage any user to expand upon that into either a citation template or one with Harvard referencing. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 20:40, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

My mistake. I only glanced at the WP:CITE page, and didn't see the part that proper citation templates aren't required. I was referring more to Zorgness' attitude towards the guideline, as expressed in the edit summaries, than the lack of citation templates in his edits. I should have made that more clear. — EagleOne\^Talk 19:51, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I have left the editor a note regarding his editing of your prior notes, Seicer and HelloAnnyong. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:55, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Filll

Resolved

 – User has apologized for what was really not an uncivil comment. --Cheeser1 (talk) 20:18, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I probably should not have participated in the discussion at Talk:Criticism of Wikipedia, as it in hindsight was not likely to lead to an improvment of the article. However, User:Filll's response seems a bit over the top. Thank you. Ra2007 (talk) 19:37, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

See also this response when I provided a link from the Economist. Ra2007 (talk) 20:03, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

The fact that this editor took offense at me wondering if he was joking by complaining about an AfD 18 months ago (and referring to it using an acronym as though everyone should know what he was referring to; I had to search hard to guess what he even meant and I still might not be correct), and then implying some sort of terrible conspiracy and skullduggery behind the high Google rankings of Wikipedia articles says a lot about this editor. Even more is said by the fact that this editor did not even know to place this complaint at the bottom of the complaints, rather than the top. I apologize if I have somehow offended anyone, but I believe that this should not be taken seriously. If I am wrong, please let me know.--Filll (talk) 20:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with Filll's comments. Claiming, without proof or substantiation, that Google is in collision with Wikipedia, conspiring to promote something or another - that's a pretty serious claim. I might have guessed you were joking. "A bit over the top" may characterize his response, but you set such a tone by making an accusation that was way over the top. --Cheeser1 (talk) 20:18, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

• It's a bizarre claim, it sounds almost as if it's Daniel Brandt's conspiracy theory! Guy (Help!) 00:25, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

User: Randy Blackamoor

On November 6, 2007, this editor was blocked for personal attacks as noted on his Talk Page left at my User Talk: LonelyBeacon, which I have since deleted but are still viewable in the edit history. Since then, there have been at least three instances of incivility:[161], [162], and [163]. The second and third cases were personal attacks, with the second case involving the statement you are an abhorrent person who wants to sell water to sick people and you should kill yourself at the first opportunity. LonelyBeacon (talk) 23:32, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

This user has been following me around to various pages because he mistakenly believes I referred to him with an anti-gay slur. He has no grounding the context of most of the pages I have worked on, and has absolutely no qualification to judge whether anyone's edits, or the tone of their discussion, is commensurate with the issues at hand. If anyone should be disciplined, it is him, for trying to get the Wikipedia administrators to enforce his delusional grudges. Randy Blackamoor (talk) 00:11, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Point 1: This is not an administrator board. Point 2: He can edit any page he wants - if you think he's following you, you're being paranoid (and if he were following you, it shouldn't matter - there's nothing wrong with editing the same pages as another user). Point 3: His "mistaken belief" and his "following [you]" is irrelevant. Your comments are way out of line. Control your behavior, or you may be banned for such inappropriate comments. There's no excuse. --Cheeser1 (talk) 01:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

What is your expertise on the homeopathy fraud, on collegiate quizbowl, or on television stations in Houston? You don't know what's appropriate for those articles any more than LonelyBeacon does. Trying to adjudicate who is being reasonable or intemperate in their comments when you have no basis on which to judge which claims regarding an article's subject are "good faith" and which are preposterous or false is the exact problem that LonelyBeacon has. The idea that having a lot of edits on Wikipedia actually makes you knowledgeable about anything besides the best ways to game the system of Wikipedia cliques (e.g., to carry out vendettas against people whom you incorrectly believe insulted you) is the fundamental hubris of this project. Randy Blackamoor (talk) 03:02, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

You don't seriously think any of what you just wrote justifies calling someone "an abhorrent person" do you? Or that someone would be incorrect in believing that's an insult? Everyone is allowed to edit all of the articles here. It's hard to get more egalitarian than that. Maybe some chilling out is in order? Rray (talk) 03:13, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's fully justified, and again you are refusing to familiarize yourself with the background facts and get context. Homeopathy kills people; people who promote it make money by duping others into committing suicide. There is a moral responsibility here, which conveniently dovetails with the supposed goal of having factually correct articles on Wikipedia. It's ridiculous that we have pro-homeopathy people editing the homoepathy article; it's exactly equivalent to trying to stay "neutral" as to the question of whether the Holocaust happened, and having a two-page debate with Holocaust deniers every time you wanted to edit that article. You would be aware of these things if you knew about the actual subjects of the articles in question, and weren't trying to play referee based on knowledge of nothing but Wikipedia procedures, which of course is no knowledge at all. I called that person an abhorrent person because he IS an abhorrent person--but as in many other aspects of Wikipedia, the actual truth is seemingly very low on the list of what is valued here. Randy Blackamoor (talk) 03:19, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

What I think you fail to realize is that your arguments can and should be able to stand on their own merits. Making personal attacks like that just reduces your ability to make the changes that you want to see, because it will result in your being blocked from editing. If you can't edit, how can you help make the article more truthful? My suggestion is to try to be pragmatic and actually do something constructive instead of getting yourself blocked. Rray (talk) 03:29, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I want you to explain why I should HAVE to "argue" with people who believe in homeopathy just to edit true, cited things into the homeopathy article, any more than I should have to argue with Holocaust deniers to edit true, cited things into the Holocaust article. Randy Blackamoor (talk) 03:42, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

You don't "have" to do anything. Everyone who contributes here is a volunteer, so nothing you do here is compulsory. But if you make personal attacks, you will be blocked from editing. That's just reality here. Good luck to you, however you decide to handle the situation. Rray (talk) 03:44, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Davesf

Recently, I've been trying to clean up the article on Randell Mills, a pseudoscientist who claims to have violated much of modern physics. He is notable in that he has raised fifty million dollars, which he is spending freely. I have greatly revised the article to adhere to WP:NPOV and the ArbCom decision on pseudoscience. Davesf has taken issue with several of my changes, claiming 'this is the most incredible POV hacket job'. I do not have a problem with his holding this opinion, although I disagree with it. However, he has said many other things which I begin to consider personal attacks. Could you please review his postings to Talk:Randell Mills and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard‎#Randell Mills and advise me if his edits are past the bounds of acceptability? Michaelbusch (talk) 03:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Although I'm sure the discussion is frustrating to you, it seems fairly civil. What language did you understand as a personal attack? Egfrank (talk) 10:46, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I just looked for all the uses of the word "POV" on the page.

• The phrase "this is the most incredible POV hatchet job" occurs in an either/or statement by User:Davesf: "either Michaelbusch is NPOV or this is....". The intent appears to be rhetorical, however with the implication that the later is true. I can see how that would be perceived as rude.
• However, User:Michaelbusch has several times labeled others as POV pushers. I can also see how that would be perceived as rude.

Perhaps the solution here is to focus on discussing the reliability of sources rather than the reliability of each other? Claims and counter-claims of POV pushing are rarely productive. Egfrank (talk) 10:57, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

P.S. If you need help determining what sources are reliable, you might want to try Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Egfrank (talk) 12:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Davesf has included such statements as claiming that I have an 'agenda of removing anything that is insufficiently derogatory towards Mills'. This is not justified, and I am afraid that I dislike it when people make false claims that I have a vendetta. Regarding POV-pushing: I'm afraid anyone who would support blatantly false statements has to be pushing some form of POV. If Mills' claims were not complete nonsense, which they are, then Davesf's edits might be justified. As it is, he has accused me of a vendetta when I have only been trying to make Wikipedia in accordance with reality. Michaelbusch (talk) 20:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

User:124.186.231.205, User:124.185.68.29, User:121.222.134.233, User:58.169.183.64

Resolved

 – Not an etiquette issue so much as vandalism, but the AIV blocked the offending IPs and this seems to be resolved. --Cheeser1 (talk) 16:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

All related. Started on December 9 after I reverted vandalism to The Courier-Mail, then the next day to Children's Court of Queensland, both related to a current event (being this). My user page was edited/vandalised on both days, and again today with this (showing multiple edits reversed). All warned, and now still being edited/vandalised as I write this.  SEO⁷⁵ 11:11, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Reported to WP:AIV. User:58.169.183.64, User:124.185.68.29 and User:124.186.231.205 blocked for 31 hours (thank you User:Kralizec!).  SEO⁷⁵ 11:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

User:IrishLass0128

Resolved

 – user:IrishLass0128 has apologised.

(moved from AN/I) —Random832 16:47, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

• [164] my original post (that started all this)
• [165] removal. Accuses me of an "inflammatory posting", does not understand what user talk pages are for.
• [166] response on my talk page
• exchange on her talk page - archived with edit summaries of "taking out the trash"[167] and "dumping the garbage"[168].
• User_talk:CelticGreen#One edit removed - exchange on another user's talk page. Had also removed a previous comment from someone else that I wasn't aware of at the time I commented with the edit summary "Undid vandalism" [169]. Accuses me of "acting as a superior person" just for trying to help someone correct a common math mistake.
• see also User_talk:Taemyr#Your_recent_edits.

I think these diffs speak for themselves. —Random832 16:06, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I cleaned up my talk page and archived materials. Warn me if you want. That's fine. I just met rudeness with the same. IrishLass (talk) 16:13, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Archiving stuff from your talk page is not a problem. Calling it "trash" and "garbage" is. —Random832 16:20, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any need for admin action on this. Altho, I don't see that the original post was rude. And, we should not meet rudeness with the same, even if the rudeness does actually exist. Friday (talk) 16:16, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Very true. I should have just removed the comment that I knew would piss off CelticGreen (she's already railed against more than one person over the issue) as she has requested of me and I of her and left it at that. My apologies for addressing the person, but not for doing what has been asked of me. IrishLass (talk) 16:19, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, when you removed the original comment, you labeled it as vandalism in your edit summary. [170] It was in no way vandalism. Please watch your edit summaries. They seem misleading and uncivil. Jeffpw (talk) 16:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

That was yesterday. Many miles of river have passed under that bridge. IrishLass (talk) 16:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

As I've acknowledged this "issue" can we mark this as resolved and I'll consider myself warned. IrishLass (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 16:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of the merits or otherwise of each side (and I think that severe incivility is putting it rather strongly - If I were asked to put a label on it, then "testy", "grumpy" or "grouchy" would be as far as I would go!), it ought to have been clear from the start that no admin actions were required here. As such, WP:WQA would have been a better place to take this. Mayalld (talk) 16:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

---

My understanding is this is for conflict resolution. The only conflict now is in the mind of the originator. I've moved on. I've said as much and done as much (with the exception of making this statement). I'll let others deal with him over his comments. Regardless of his impressions, I was trying to keep the peace.IrishLass (talk) 16:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Analysis

Having had the benefit of viewing this already when it was posted at AN/I, it seems to me that;

1. User:Random832 wasn't acting in any way improperly by posting the original comment to User talk:IrishLass0128
2. User:IrishLass0128 over-reacted, and was irritable, and borderline uncivil in subsequent talk page comments
3. An edit summary referring to trash or rubbish is capable of being seen as uncivil, although it is far from clear that it was intended in that way. According to the writers idiom it could simply mean "stuff that I don't need any longer"
4. User:Random832 over-reacted in taking a storm in a teacup to WP:ANI
5. User:IrishLass0128 has appologised
6. Both users are editors in good standing

Mayalld (talk) 17:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Resolution

Suggested resolution;

1. User:IrishLass0128 should accept that other editors are allowed to send messages to her talk page, and that such messages can take issue with things she has said elsewhere.
2. User:IrishLass0128 should accept that the use of terms such as trash, rubbish or junk in edit summaries may be taken as uncivil by other editors, even if not intended that way, and should avoid these terms.
3. User:Random832 should accept that whilst Wikipedia has a policy that requires us to be civil, making a big deal out of a minor breach of WP:CIVIL can potentially be more damaging than the original incivility. De minimis applies!
4. User:Random832 should attempt to be concilliatory when another editor takes offence unexpectedly
5. Both users should draw a line under this and carry on with their contributions

Mayalld (talk) 17:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I am more than willing to walk away and go on about my business. I know this is of no solace, but I didn't "delete" any comments from Random, I moved them to my archive page. This shows I read them and filed them away, but I did not delete them. One edit got lost for a time, but it is now in my archives. When I archive, I acknowledge that a discussion should go no further as the only place it can go is down. Deleting it all together, to me, is wrong but there are times you know that continuing to speak will only cause the problems to get worse. It's like my talk page is stuff I'm using and archive is stuff I'm done with. I could just have easily said "moving it to storage" and probably upset Random just as much. Either way, I would have upset him by the simple fact that I "deleted" it. So, moving on. I'll go clean up woefully needed pages and move on. Thank you. IrishLass (talk) 17:29, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The analysis doesn't seem to take into account behavior at User_talk:CelticGreen (I never accused the user of "deleting" anything from her own talk page, since that was archived), including, in addition to the actual removal, the accusation of making an "inflammatory" post, and the apparent belief that users (namely CelticGreen) have a right not to be approached on their talk page about things they don't want to hear about, even when they are legitimate concerns. Also, the accusation that I'm "presenting myself as a superior person" simply for insisting that 3500 is 50% of 7000 rather than being .5%—Random832 20:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I can't see where the user has apologized either, other than "I'll consider myself warned" (and she seems to think the issue is about archiving material from her own talk page, which was about the _least_ of the issues I brought up, and only then due to the edit summaries) —Random832 20:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

In the discussion on this page, she says My apologies for addressing the person, but not for doing what has been asked of me.

• It seems to me that the heart of this is that IrishLass has used wording in edit summaries that are potentially uncivil.
• Neither the act of archiving your comments from her own talk page, nor removing comments from User talk:CelticGreen if the two have agreed this between themselves are a problem
• Whilst the wording in the edit summaries is potentially uncivil, it could also be read in a more charitable light.
• At the end of the day, this is really not an issue that ought to have come this far. Disengagement was the answer.

Mayalld (talk) 21:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Good grief. You are all taking Wikipedia far too seriously. So if a user has a few incivil edit summaries, that's not need to drag this discussion out with step-by-step analysis and resolution headers. What's done is done; Irish has apologized, let's move on. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 21:57, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I just want to address the whole removing comments from my page. I have asked her to do that if she sees something she knows I'll flame at and since there was already an issue over the percentage thing, she was right to remove it. She emailed me first, so I knew, but she did it so I wouldn't get my foot caught in my mouth telling people where to go. Sorry such a simple favor that I asked to be done caused such an issue, but it might have gotten bigger and more noses out of joint if the comments had been left. CelticGreen (talk) 23:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

User:MeMutu

It seems pretty obvious that this user: [171] (MeMutu) Is just a new account of this already indefinitely-blocked user: [[172]] (Dennis-From-Accounts) Does this notification go here, or not? If not, would someone who is more knowledgeable please forward it to the proper authorities? Thanks muchly. 71.9.8.150 (talk) 22:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)