Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
This page is for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems. Before posting: Read these tips for dealing with incivility If the issue concerns a specific user, try discussing it with them on their talk page Try dispute resolution Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly. Be brief and include diffs demonstrating the problem Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead go to Requests for oversight. When starting a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page; pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:ANI-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. You are not autoconfirmed, meaning you cannot currently edit this page. Instead, use /Non-autoconfirmed posts. Closed discussions are usually not archived for at least 24 hours. Routine matters might be archived more quickly; complex or controversial matters should remain longer. Sections inactive for 72 hours are archived automatically by Lowercase sigmabot III. Editors unable to edit here are sent to the /Non-autoconfirmed posts subpage. (archives, search)
Start a new discussion

Vintagekits blocked for 1 week

Vintagekits has been unjustly blocked here [1]. The very maximum length should have been 24 hours, and that is debatable considering the circumstance and context. 1 week is unjust and worrying, one wonders why? The reasons given for such a long length are untrue and grossly exagerated, so the block cannot hold. Giano (talk) 15:18, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

With a minute of me posting sandstein, with whom I am in conflict declines the block - how much longer are we to have to put with this so called Admin? Giano (talk) 15:23, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Just for the record, I came across the unblock request while browsing CAT:RFU, and was not aware of this thread prior to declining the unblock request.  Sandstein  15:48, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Of course you did Sandstein, no doubt you are again completely susprised by the instantaneous support your decision has received as you delve innocently into political minefields. Giano (talk) 15:52, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

One week for Vintagekits sixth block seems lenient. Tan | 39 15:24, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Tanthalus and with Sandstein. A more appropriate block length would have been indefinite. See also this section above. --John (talk) 15:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Sixth block? I think this is more like 30! GiantSnowman 19:19, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Good block, I took that article off my watchlist this morning, when it was clear he was simply going to try and edit-war his way around the on-going discussions about the possible BLP issues. --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:27, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I also agree with Tanthalus, this user has had way too many chances. Perhaps next time it should be indef? Jeni ^(talk) 15:28, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes. That is generally the case with editors whose block log is several screens long.  Sandstein  15:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

• How speedily you all arrive. It must be just like old times for Sandstein! Giano (talk) 15:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

How speedily Giano arrives. It must be just like old times... Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 16:06, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I didn't arrive speedily but I note that Bastun did. Kell supreeze as the French would say. Sarah777 (talk) 22:35, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Giano, I hope you don't feel that I am in any way biased against you or VintageKits, but it looks like a perfectly sound block to me. VK's block log is extensive, to put it mildly, and the three-revert rule is a very bright line that he was well aware of. His edit warring is pretty indefensible. I think it may be best to let this one go. HiDrNick! 17:05, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

No, it is not a fair block. 24 hours would have been fair, questionable, but fair. A week is suspect - does he have a long long history of 3R? No. One cannot sentance a man to 25 years for speeding because he has previous convictions are for shoplifting, which is what you are all advocating. Sandstein's presence here is very suspect, but then again, I suppose no one is surprised to find that while most editors are busy writing content Administrator Sandstein is monitering a page listing even more people for him to punish. I also find the speed of all the responses interesting - more intersting, in fact, than Administrator Sandstein who sets himself up for such things. Giano (talk) 17:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

"One cannot sentance a man to 25 years for speeding because he has previous convictions are for shoplifting" You can on Wiki. There is little logic or proportionality from these admins. The support the arbitration committee has given to gangs of score settling cabals only encourages this kind of behavior. These admins are totally unwilling to try to alleviate disputes in a collegial and civil fashion. They are Wikicops run amok. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:04, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

• WP:Don't abbreviate Wikipedia as Wiki. Equazcion (talk) 17:55, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

• Seems like a decent block to me. I also don't want to have this thread turn into garden variety shit talking and whinging about admin abuse. We already know the opinions and positions of the usual suspects, it doesn't really help to remind us incessantly. Protonk (talk) 18:08, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

  Good block. →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

There is a serious issue with civility on Wikipedia (and I'm not talking about calling someone an idiot). Abuse of tools and lengthy blocks of good faith contributors is very damaging. Did Sandstein engage in discussion with the editor before declining their unblock request? What efforts were made to resolve the issue amicably? Vintagekits thinks the terminology Northern Ireland is problematic and violated 3RR. Asking them to revert themself should have been the first step. There's also page protection and warnings. There are lots of tools that don't involve belligerence and abuse towards colleagues. Try treating your fellow editors with more respect instead of patting each other on the back your take-downs. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:14, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Just answer me this. Is there a way out of this where I can say "this doesn't look like an abuse of the tools, rather it looks like a decent block" and not be accused of colluding to support some admin? Is that possible? Protonk (talk) 18:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

If you were able to note that appropriate dispute resolution was tried first in a collegial and collaborative manner, appropriate warnings were given, and that Vintagekits was unresponsive or refused to self-revert, then you would be in a better position to justify a one week block for a 3RR violation. (post ec) I trust Tarc's trolling will be met with an appropriate response. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:22, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

With CoM? Not a chance, no. This has be come another annoying habit; hopping around AN/I and making martyrs out of blocked users, esp if the block has come from or is supported by Sandstein. I really hope that this behavior is dealt with soon. Tarc (talk) 18:17, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

This is not about Sandstein's lurking about looking for people to punish (though, I suppose, that cannot be ignored) this is about the old adage: "give a dog a bad name and hang him", it's a simple as that. And Oh my! Don't Wikipedia's Admins love to show their power and do that? If it flatters them, they will ignore even the most obvious. I thank God, I was never tempted to be an Admin. There is something seriously wrong with this project and its justice system. Giano (talk) 19:29, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I reported Vintagekits and support the Admin action, he was obsessed with his edit and also got a bit uncivil, I was suprised that such an experienced editor was attempting to make the edit, perhaps if he understands why he was blocked a reduction would be possible. Off2riorob (talk) 20:00, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh I can so understand where you are coming from [2]. It's just awful when people become obsessed isn't it? How dare you? Even comment - do you think we are all so stupid? Giano (talk) 20:05, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

If you want to discuss my edits I suggest you do it on my talkpage Giano. You ask me, how dare I comment..I can comment like anyone else...I have commented in support of the Admin action and that is the issue here, isn't it? Off2riorob (talk) 20:20, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

No we can do it here because YOU are the ne who reported VK for this "crime". Giano (talk) 20:36, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

The three-revert rule does not apply to reverts of obvious vandalism, biased, unsourced, or poorly sourced controversial material which violates the policy on biographies of living persons. That is based on the "Definition of the three revert rule." --Domer48_'fenian' 20:05, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

(response to Domer) There is no obvious revert of vandalism.

There is no obvious revert of biased unsourced information.

There is no obvious revert of poorly sourced controversial material.

What exception of 3RR do you believe applies here? Valenciano (talk) 20:37, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, and the oppoint I am trying to make (poorly) in the link above [3] is that it seems quite OK for some to do (those who report VK for this "crime"), but not for VK himself. Just the usual rank hypocrisy, as usual endorsed by Administratir Sandstein. Giano (talk) 20:21, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Vintagekits was blocked for edit-warring to insert multiple derogatory nicknames into the infobox of Audley Harrison. Per BLP policy, that cannot be considered an exception to 3RR by any means, even if those multiple derogatory nicknames are all sourced. Also, this has nothing whatsoever to do with his "Northern Irish" edits, despite that inference from this section's heading. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

This is my fault, I combined these threads thinking them related. –xeno^talk 20:18, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Is it a big thing to put it vack where it was? It's biasing VK here. Giano (talk) 20:21, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Not at all (done). Again, my apologies, I misinterpreted John's statement. –xeno^talk 20:23, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Easily done! Giano (talk) 20:34, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Is it now suggested that negative information on a BLP is prohibited? That we must only use positive information? That sounds like bias to me, and to remove correctly sourced information, either positive or negative is vandalism. --Domer48_'fenian' 20:35, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, no, Domer. Just because something is sourceable doesn't mean it's encyclopedic. For example, if you dug enough, you could probably find a newspaper clipping about my participation in the state Math Team, but it would hardly be appropriate to stick in here...--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:38, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Here here Domer. I can here everybody reaching for their 'xyz is a terrorist' sources as we speak, given this new epiphany in understanding of policy. MickMacNee (talk) 20:55, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Domer, with respect you are wrong. Removing well sourced information is not vandalism. Simple. End of matter. It happens all the time to make articles clearer. Just because information is reliable and verifiable does not mean it must be included. I have many quality secondary sources that there is a tree in my garden (planning applications, third party images, secondary reports from councils etc.) Should we include this fact on Wikipedia? No. I don't dismiss your arguments but you need to be more dispassionate here about what value is created by adding facts to an article.

As to the block, which I believe is the point of this thread, Vintagekits is a problematic editor with a foul mouth. So am I. As a supporter of Giano, COM and Sandstein (yes - it is possible to be all three) I feel a reduction to this hideous "time served" concept may be viable. I regret that I suspect it is only a matter or time before VK meets the indef. block line, and I for one would prefer we at least get the benefit of his quality article input before that, somewhat inevitably, happens. Or maybe VK can prove me wrong in my gross asumptions of his future on WP? Pedro :  Chat  20:57, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

• The simple long and short of this is that VK has been well and truly screwed for screwing up. He should not have 3Rd, but before anything could be done along came "Administrator Sandstein" adjusting his peaky cap, and upholding an overlong silly block to the echoes of delight from the well orchestrated heavenly chorus. In a nut shell that is it. Giano (talk) 21:03, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I didn't get a peaky cap... Tan | 39 21:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Be glad, perhaps they only get made in certain sizes Giano (talk) 21:49, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

• I think Vintagekits is one of the few for whom cooling off seems to work, at least for a while. 24 hours is not long enough for this. Indefinite blocking is not warranted at this time IMO but he is skating on thin ice. Giano is usually a good judge of quality of content writing so perhaps a mentor will come forward to help VK with his recurrent problems. To some above, baiting Giano is a really bad idea so please just don't. We're used to his ways and the best thing is to let the hyperbole wash over you. Guy (Help!) 22:05, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Yup. I had a look at this earlier this afternoon but decided I didn't really have the heart to enforce BLP on Audley Harrison, quite possibly the worst boxer ever to enter a ring. Objectively, however, a week is probably fair enough. Such things don't really belong in infoboxes. Moreschi (talk) 22:18, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

In my view all info boxes are all horrible, but anyway all sorts of amazing things are allowed in info boxes. Giano (talk) 22:33, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

A hat-trick of toxic personalities, all pleading for poor behaviour to be ignored. Delicious. NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 22:28, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

• • A mentor for Vintagekits? A splendid idea! I'm shocked that no-one's tried it ever before.. (for those of you are aware of the history, I apologize for the massive amount of sarcasm that's dripping from this post). From what I understand, another editor let VK know that he was going to help him in getting info to support him, and VK just charged in anyway. Which is, if you're aware of the whole thing, status quo. VK's first reaction to someone opposing him isn't to seek consensus or to get other eyes on it, it's to edit war. Maybe a 1 RR rule, or requiring him to seek 3O before getting in an edit war? SirFozzie (talk) 22:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Vintagekits is good when he isn't heated up. But if you think mentoring would work for this editor, what is there to lose?--Sky Attacker Here comes the bird! 23:14, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah, figured I would have to explain where the dripping sarcasm was from. Vintagekits had a mentor in the distant past (two years ago, now?). That poor soul was me. When I was a wet-behind-the-ears newbie admin. I fugred VK was getting a rough shake, and all he needed was someone to run interference for him, and smack him upside the head when he got out of line. That was 21 blocks ago. SirFozzie (talk) 23:28, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Something has to be done though. With all due respect for this editor, this is a never ending pattern that is doing more harm than good. Like I said, as long as this editor is out of the heat, there are no problems. But he needs to be pushed back into line far too often for comfort.--Sky Attacker Here comes the bird! 23:32, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Assuming that we don't have consensus (yet) for an indef block, 1RR followed by 3O might be a valid last chance for this editor who says he has retired from content work and now just does all the stuff he gets blocked for, and is proud of his block log. Just that he has had so many last chances already. But sure, why not? --John (talk) 03:54, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

It was I who blocked Vintagekits for edit-warring. I have read the comments above.

I based the duration on standard practice in responding to reports of edit-warring at WP:AN3 and upon the policies regarding blocking and edit-warring. Some people commenting have suggested that the block was too lenient; I would reply that a corrollary of assuming good faith is to err on the side of lenience. I have no opinion on whether, as some have suggested, Vintagekits ought to be indefinitely blocked and even had I any opinion it would be outside the scope of a run-of-the-mill edit-warring report to make such a block. Other editors have argued that the block was too harsh or was completely unjustified; this opinion I disagree with as not in keeping with either practice or policy. For that reason, I think their arguments would be better made at the relevant policy talk pages since a change in policy appears to be what they seek.

I have been trying to assist at the edit-warring noticeboard recently as it has been frequently backlogged since Dr Connolley ceased to be an administrator. I am not naive regarding the unpleasant consequences of responding to some of the reports that occur there but it would be helpful if more administrators could look in occassionally. CIreland (talk) 04:01, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

VK is unsurprisingly taking the advice of Giano QC and lawyering it up big style for his third unblock request, attacking Sandstein and claiming he did not edit war and he is not an edit warrior. If you were to suspend belief and pretend he has no other issues but edit warring, and were just concentrating on this 'I am not an edit warrior' claim, I simply scanned his last 500 contributions, which go back to 11 August, and found evidence of edit warring (using the proper definition, not the lawyer's one) on the following articles (reverse chronological order):

• Audley Harrison
• Shea Campbell
• Martin Rogan
• Joseph MacManus
• Matthew Macklin
• Derriaghy Cricket Club F.C. (and 9 other similar articles)

And if you do ingore that edit warring, in the same period alone by my reckoning he could have been blocked about 5 times for various other seriously tendentious behaviours, if admins were actually monitoring him properly. MickMacNee (talk) 10:49, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Not at all MickMacNee, were I a learned QC, I would point out that in cicilised place QCs present evidence to a learned and wise judge. Here on Wikipedia counsell is shouted down and sentance handed out bu the ignorant mob. Giano (talk) 12:51, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd take mob-rule using the clarity of direct experience over special pleading to an uninformed judge anyday. MickMacNee (talk) 13:42, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I think myself or one of the other editors at the Audley Harrison discussion, should've requested page-protection there. That way 'nobody' would've been blocked. GoodDay (talk) 14:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh my gosh. Clear violation of 3RR, with the number of previous blocks about the length of my cell-phone bill. Would he have supported "only" a 24 hour block for someone editing against him with such a history? WP:BLOCK#Duration of blocks (a policy, btw) clearly states that penalties increase over time, not just stay lenient for the 6th, 7th, 8th, etc. times. Magog the Ogre (talk) 15:02, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

While I note that 3RR is not an entitlement, this editor did not make 4 reverts in a 24 hour period. Edit warring, yes, 3RR violation, no. –xeno^talk 15:04, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

1 maybe 2 3 4. Magog the Ogre (talk) 15:43, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

"maybe 2" seems to be an unrelated edit. I was basing my comment off the actual EW report which stretches beyond the 24 hour window. However, not to ruleslawyer, there was edit warring, but it just wasn't over 3RR. Just wanted to point that out. –xeno^talk 15:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

This is just another example of Wikipedia's law-ignorant mob rule mentality. "If he has erred in one way, he must be punished for another" The mob wants blood so the mob is given it regardles of of any laws, justice or procedure. A project run in this way has to ultimately fail - the way justice is dispensed here is ignorant, without format, account of precedent and standards. In short, it's a beauty and personality contest. I think one only has to look at the Moreschi/Ottava Rima fiasco down below to see that. Giano (talk) 17:42, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

So Vin did not violate 3RR but is still blocked, and not one Admin has seen fit to unblock them. --Domer48_'fenian' 11:39, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. There is no consensus to unblock him; there is a consensus that the block was just. Don't edit war or you get escalating blocks, is the message to take away from this. 3RR is not an entitlement. --John (talk) 16:56, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm surprised that someone would defend all of this. Today, I have also seen people defending an editor that celebrated someone's death. Joe Chill (talk) 17:07, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Nobody who understood Wikipedia's mission could defend an editor who boasts about his block log. Doing so is a clear statement of intent to further disrupt. I see he has blanked his user talk after unsuccessfully requesting unblock and "retired" again. We shall see. --John (talk) 17:44, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

What amazes me, with this particular editor, is that he has been blocked perhaps 30 times now, over a period of years, by at least 19 different administrators. The blocks have been for transgressions that span the entire range of antisocial, disruptive behavior: sockpuppetry, meatpuppetry, personal attacks, personal threats, off-wiki abuse, edit warring, pointy disruption, BLP.... Yet every single time a campaign is launched to attack the blocking admin with claims of bias or conspiracy.

Now perhaps some of these blocks were without merit, and perhaps some of the blocking admins had an axe to grind, but all 19, all of the time? Logic dictates that the common denominator is the issue, and the common denominator is VK, not the admins. Moreover as Mick McNamee rightly points out, the "poor Vk is being victimized" argument doesn't hold up. For every time his is blocked, one can find multiple examples of blockable behaviour that is ignored, simply because it isn't worth the mud slinging that will follow from the defense team.

The usual justification trotted out for his continuing participation is that he is an expert contributor on boxing articles, yet this time we are seeing a very questionable interpretation of BLP and our policies on censorship to justify adding insulting nicknames to a boxer, then edit warring over it. So this the kind of expert editing to boxing articles we are keeping him here for? Rockpocket 18:28, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Rock and John; neither of you appear to understand the issue of systematic bias on Wiki despite my best efforts to explain it in single-syllable words. You (plural) never fail to disappoint. But the fact that you are both totally predictable doesn't mean you are consistent, or right. That you are lining up with such as Mick McNamee should give you pause, but self awareness appears to be an insight neither of you have. WP:CIVIL allied to the Admin "hanging judge" system of policing is a goon's charter and anyone relying on a "block log" for their decisions isn't fit to be an Admin. Nor is anyone defending or excusing such an Admin. Sarah777 (talk) 22:49, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Given he has been given more second chances and returned from more indefinite blocks than any other editor, the suggestion that there is some bias against him is laughable. Every single other editor who has edited the way he has is blocked indefinitely, yet he is still here. But then again, every other editor does not have the loyal defense team that Vk does. Seems to me that you should be looking a little closer to home for evidence of systemic bias.

I cannot speak for anyone else, but am not and have not used a block log to make a decision on any given transgression. However, its entirely appropriate to use one's knowledge of a lengthy record of transgression to argue that there is a pattern of disruption that is not being resolved by short blocks. Rather than throw mud at me and John (neither whom have had anything to do with this block and thus who's self-awareness, of lack thereof, is entirely irrelevant) why don't you address the key issue here. Being aware of out polices, I expect (hope) you are not suggesting you support the actions of Vk in this instance. Assuming you don't, how do YOU suggest we stop it continuing? Because, guess what, insulting me will not solve the problem here. Rockpocket 23:22, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

And I might mirror the Bastun remark to Giano and ask why you both keep turning up here to attack an Irish editor when so many real problems within the orbit of both your Wiki-worlds get no response at all? Sarah777 (talk) 22:56, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Presumably the same reason you felt the need to turn up here to attack us. Rockpocket 23:26, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Sarah, your posts here sadden me. That you see this as my "attack[ing] an Irish editor" says an awful lot more about you than it does about me. I truly could not care less whether Vk is Irish, Lithuanian, Puerto Rican or Scottish like me. His behavior up to now does not give me any hope that he can reform, so I think it would be better if he was removed from the project. Anybody who supports edit-warring to add derogatory nicknames to an article on a living person, as you are implicitly doing with your comments above which criticize me and Rock but say nothing about Vk's behavior, has no place on this project. Anybody who sees every single problem in narrowly nationalistic terms as you appear to be doing, has no place on the project. Think about it. --John (talk) 03:46, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Seeking clarification: Will Vk's block expire after 1-week, even though he's retired? GoodDay (talk) 23:29, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Yup. MickMacNee (talk) 23:41, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Mick. GoodDay (talk) 23:44, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Vintagekits unblock request

Could someone have a look at this, please? It's been outstanding for a long time now. I'd do it myself, but my inclination is to unblock and I've been involved with VK before, so I can't really do it. Black Kite 10:39, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

• I was just doing it when VK blanked the page and put up a retired notice. For the record I would have declined it giving the reason: The default for disputed material is to exclude it until there is demonstrable consensus for inclusion, whether it is sourced or not (it might, for example, be decided that it violates WP:UNDUE). The WP:ONUS is on those seeking to include material, to achieve consensus for inclusion. As such, your unblock request does not address the problem and gives no kind of assurance that you understand the problem and will not repeat it. Guy (Help!) 16:45, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

user informed of this discussion, he is still active on wikipedia. Ecoman24 (talk page) 18:09, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

• I had asked Vintagekits a question (seeing as how there was opposition to unblocking, and also support for blocking indefinitely) with an eye to lifting the block , but they did not respond. –xeno^talk 18:11, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I think that two pages on a block log from January 2007 till now is worth the block (maybe even indefinite). Joe Chill (talk) 18:50, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely, yes, write the laws as we go along - never mind what the transgression, but he has a long block list so ban him for ever - don't bother to look at each "crime" individually - some of you people are totally amazing. I suppose where you all come from, five convictions for speeding and you can be sent to the electric chair for murder. Giano (talk) 21:32, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you such a dick in real life? No way that your comments are civil. Joe Chill (talk) 21:46, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

• What an interesting choice of words. Twice in one day [4]. Good job I'm not a suspicious type of person - who ever it is you are - I'd be more careful in you choice of words if I were you. Giano (talk) 22:06, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

You should choose your words carefully. Do you really expect anyone to believe that you were being civil? Also, that talk page comment isn't mine! Joe Chill (talk) 22:07, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll quote another editor, "The blocks have been for transgressions that span the entire range of antisocial, disruptive behavior: sockpuppetry, meatpuppetry, personal attacks, personal threats, off-wiki abuse, edit warring, pointy disruption, BLP." Don't you think that he would have learned by now? Joe Chill (talk) 21:50, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

There is no reason to contemplate indefinite block for his small crimes. Vintagekits has been offered two olive branches, one admin said if he would remove the retired template then he would look at his unblocking request (why unblock when a retired template is at the top of the page?) Vintagekits resisted this and said he would rather sit the block out, Giano removed it, but that was not the point, also User Zeno has offered him a 1RR condition and if he accepted then unblocking, to this offer Vintagekits has not even responded. He has been offered avenues of opportunity, he could have easily been unblocked by now. Off2riorob (talk) 21:55, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

What are small crimes? Why can stuff like that get people blocked for a long time and not others? Joe Chill (talk) 22:18, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me, from you posts over the last 20 minutes (here and elsewhere) Joe Chil, that you have turned up here, with completely unconnected issues and proplems of your own that you feel are unresolved. Attacking me, VK or indeed anyone else is unlikely to resolve them. You clearly have a grudge against me, yet I have until 30 minutes ago never heard of you - I suggest you sort yourself before attempting to sort others. Giano (talk) 22:51, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I called you a dick. All of your comments here were uncivil and you said that I posted an uncivil comment on your talk page when I didn't (it seems like you were calling me a sockpuppet). I don't need to know an editor for a long time. I just need to see the type of comments that they make. You're the only one that I attacked. My comments about Vintagekits are similar to the other comments. Do you think that you are being civil? Joe Chill (talk) 22:59, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

This is interesting. Same with this and this. Joe Chill (talk) 23:16, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

It has obviously escaped your notice, but this thread is not about me, but VK. You clearly have some aother agenda, and quite what the link to Sandstein is supposed to prove, one can only speculate.As usual when anyone othet than the chosen few are "uncivil", Administator Sandstein is concspicuous by his absence. Giano (talk) 07:26, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't have an agenda. The link to the ANI added on to your blocks from 2006 till September 2009 show what I mean. I really don't take you seriously when you have been blocked so many times and you're attacking me (with zero blocks) and other editors that disagree with you since 2006. Joe Chill (talk) 07:37, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

• No one has attacked you. No one is bothered about you. I shall not be responding to you. Giano (talk) 07:51, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

"I suppose where you all come from, five convictions for speeding and you can be sent to the electric chair for murder." was towards me and others. If that was it, I wouldn't even bother. But I have seen more than that from you. You ignored "and other editors that disagree with you since 2006." Joe Chill (talk) 07:54, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

The fact he has ignored those two olive branches shows what type of editor he is, and what type of editing he is likely to return to. For one, I'd support an indef of this user, the kind of incivilities that come out of his mouth are not welcome on WP. Jeni ^(talk) 23:26, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

So you are saying: "Damn the content of the encyclopedia, my sensibilities are more important." That he has not (so far) picked up the proferred "olive branches" (for that read conditions) do indeed show the "type of editor he is" - one with some principles. A weeks block for 3R was ridiculous, and the fact that no Admin has had the guts to lift it, says more about Wikipedia's Admins than it does about VK. Giano (talk) 07:26, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

There are over 1,000 admins from all walks of life who could lift it if they wanted, so I think it says more about you to be honest. And yes, I am quite sure you are going to take that as a compliment. MickMacNee (talk) 10:15, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

In view of Vintagekits' most recent response [5] and a lack of willingness to lift what is only a 1 week block (WP:DEADLINE), this issue seems to be moot. Rd232 ^talk 08:02, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

The retired template in this case is utterly meaningless. He was retired for most of the period of edit warring and other behaviour detailed above. When his block runs it course there is no reason to think he won't be back. The entire template should just be deleted to be honest, if its proper use cannot be enforced on the project. Interesting to note that Giano can freely remove it from VK's page, yet an editor was blocked for adding it to his page when he declared he had 'retired'. MickMacNee (talk) 10:08, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Other than to also note that this comment, as with several on this and related threads, is profoundly unhelpful, I will explain. VK and Giano are well disposed toward each other, and Giano's actions are in good faith and quite possibly with VK's approval - while the incident regarding Giano's page was done without Giano's permission and quite possibly in a bad faith attempt to get the reaction it did. Furthermore, the use of the template itself does not fall under any policy - it is only a courtesy notice which sometimes do not reflect the situation. Perhaps you should make a representation to Jimbo Wales that persons misusing such templates should be sanctioned, although I should note that Jimbo had a wikibreak notice on his talkpage until quite recently even after he had become active again. I am sure that such a fair minded and undiscriminating person as yourself will not allow such minor points to distract you. LessHeard vanU (talk) 10:40, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

This entire thread, and his talk page, is prima facie evidence that pointing out that VK does not use the template in the way it is widely understood, is helpful to others, because they quite obviously didn't know. This is a notice board after all. Yes, sadly because the way this place works, the template is next to meaningless, a fact anybody with any real wikitime eventually realises, but you won't find that explained for anybody who does't know that (or has not found that out the hard way). And no, it is unlikely Giano had permission to remove it, given VK's previous comments to others pointing out the exact same thing he did, and the fact he replaced it immediately anyway. MickMacNee (talk) 20:28, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

And I hadn't even noticed this either. MickMacNee (talk) 20:32, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

• I removed the "retired tag" because it was being used by others as a silly excuse to not unblock him. I also knew that he would not see me removing it as an attack or an anoyance, he may not have liked it, but he would have known I was doing it with the best of intentions. He eventually replaced it, when his justifiable frustration with the project became too much for him to endure. I very much hope he will be back, obviously most of you here do not. So yet another editor bites the dust for failing to conform to a culture of manners which he finds alien. Whatever, it's a pity. Anyway You seem concerned Mick - has he complained about me or is this just another tangeant on which for you to complain? Giano (talk) 22:05, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that the "retired" tag was being used by Vintagekits as a euphemism for "You can't fire me! I quit!" And since he's evidently so intent on retiring, why don't we just remove his option of returning by giving him an indef block? After 30 blocks by 19 different admins, the guy has had more lives than three cats put together! – PeeJay 23:18, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes, and to your final point, the issue is not resolved because an excessively long block still stands. The fact the editor says he has retired does not resolve an injustice, or are you suggesting it does? Giano (talk) 22:11, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

This isn't a court of appeal. ANI's purpose is not to seek justice, but to ensure the project proceeds without disruption. A retired editor, whether blocked or unblocked, will neither help nor hinder the project, so our work is done (until Vk returns from yet another kneejerk "retirement", and we all reconvene here to dispute unfair block #31. See you then, Giano) Rockpocket 00:33, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

On the contrary, Rockpocket, the purpose of this page is to assist the aims of the project, and ensure it proceeds fairly. What we are seeing is one editor, Vintagekits, victimised and bullied with excessively long blocks for comparitively minor crimes born out of frustration. People here are always quick to condemn him never so quick to help him. Giano (talk) 06:21, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

So, Giano, what would you say was a "fair" block for edit-warring to restore derogatory nicknames on an article on a living person? --John (talk) 06:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I would say so long as something is well sourced and accurate (which it was) - no block at all. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia of fact - not a world of "lovely lovely la la land." However, he was blocked for 3R, not the material - so at the most 24 hours. Giano (talk) 07:30, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Twenty-four hours is a typical block for a first offense. Per WP:3RR: In cases where a block is appropriate, 24 hours is a common duration for a routine first offense; administrators tend to issue longer blocks for repeated or aggravated violations, and will consider other factors, such as civility when doing so. This seems to be VK's seventh or eighth block for edit warring (not counting the even more numerous blocks for incivility). A one week block is a lenient remedy.   Will Beback  talk  08:26, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me, that certain Admins are now digging deeper and deeper to find reasons to keep him blocked. The original blocking reason was wrong, so it's now a desperate scramble to find other reasons to back it up. Giano (talk) 12:14, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

We're talking about a 1-week block of a frequently-blocked user who has declared himself retired. Go and do something useful. Rd232 ^talk 12:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Vk has retired. GoodDay (talk) 15:32, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Has he? that retired notice has been there for months and I can't see where he makes such a statement after his block. --Cameron Scott (talk) 15:52, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

An assumption, sorry folks. GoodDay (talk) 19:10, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I took this edit by VK to his talk page on 10 October to be a (re)declaration of retirement. However it is true that the user page RETIRED notice seems to have been there a while. Rd232 ^talk 09:22, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Vin did not violate the 3RR rule, and should not have been blocked. End of story. Now deal with this and not be scrapping around for alternative reasons. --Domer48_'fenian' 13:04, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

As a quick look at his block log would reveal, he was blocked for edit warring rather than 3RR. Do please feel free to comment further once you have researched what it is we are talking about. --John (talk) 13:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Even if Domer doesn't know the difference (hard to believe to be honest), VK certainly does - in his own unblock request, he stated "... I accept that I was edit warring and problably deserved a block ...". Domer doesn't need to read up about edit warring, he needs to study the blocking policy and our essay on wikilawyering. Or failing that he should just read this entire thread a few more times, accepting that by now over a hundered admins must have read it and not once come to the same conclusions he has. 'End of story.' MickMacNee (talk) 15:18, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The end of this story, a very sad story, will be, MickMacNee, when VK is unblocked and returns. Giano (talk) 20:48, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

2C-B-FLY - someone please watch

According to a source on a forum [6] the alleged proprietor of a company thought to be involved in the distribution of this drug is supposed to have died from incautiously sampling his own wares from a batch which is postulated to be contaminated. Two IPa and User:Cegli have attempted to add the info to the top of the article, on the possibly good faith grounds that they are issuing a public health warning. They are arguing on my talk page that by reverting them I am somehow responsible for the death of anyone who might die from consuming an overdose of the product from the alleged faulty batch.

I'm going to bed. Could someone keep an eye on the article.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:25, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

• Watchlisted. Crafty (talk) 00:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Reports of at least two deaths appear to be genuine despite having not yet been picked up by mainstream media sources (the Danish dead guys family and friends have set up a facebook memorial site for God's sake) so I added a brief note in the "Dangers" section. Agree a "Warning" section right after the lede is hardly appropriate though! Meodipt (talk) 02:16, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

And not surprisingly I have been reverted already. I would cite cases such as this and this as precedent that WP:IAR can and has been in the past applied in the public interest to try and protect people from death under specific unusual circumstances. Certainly there are differences on which the cases can be distinguished, as in the cases of the kidnapped journalists there was a definite risk to an identified individual, whereas here we have a risk to an undefined class of individuals of unknowable size, but similar principles apply. It appears that a contaminated batch of 2CB-Fly containing an impurity which may be lethal at milligram levels, has already been sold to many people around the world before the "bad batch" was discovered due to the death of the person selling it. Obviously this has not yet been reported by reliable sources but when it does, those reliable sources will be reporting deaths that might have been prevented merely by allowing wikipedia's flexible rules to be bent temporarily. Can we get some consensus on this? Meodipt (talk) 02:58, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, for my money the info should only be added if reliable sources pick it up. How do we know the source in the forum isn't trying to damage the company's reputation? Protonk (talk) 03:47, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Meodip, you reverted back at a few minutes later, giving the very poor explanation "pending discussion"; pending discussion would be a reason to have the material deleted pending sourcing. My own view is the same as Protonk's. DGG ( talk ) 03:57, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

By pending discussion I just meant I expected it would be discussed here and consensus reached. The bluelight forum on the deaths is only reporting what is being said at a Danish drug forum psychedelia.dk which is a members-only Danish language forum, as many people are members on both sites. Reading it with google translate is slightly hard going but it appears a lot of people knew the guy personally and he is definitely dead after ingesting what was meant to be 2CB-FLY. There may be reliable sources already linked off there but they would be in Danish I suppose, foreign language newspapers were deemed good enough sources when the first deaths from mephedrone and bromodragonfly cropped up a while back though, as they were also in Scandinavia. It was the boss of the RC company who died so discrediting the company seems unlikely! Meodipt (talk) 04:04, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I've removed this content for lack of sourcing (saw the note, then came here). Just because something is mentioned on a danish drug users forum doesn't mean it should be here until picked up by sources. (I'd be happy with one in Danish, but google didn't turn up anything that mentioned the drug). And besides Wikipedia is neither a how-to guide, or place for medical advice. --Bfigura ^(talk) 04:12, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Google didn't pick up anything? Look at this 2cbfly death search. Out of the top 7 results, 6 mention it, and one doesn't (that'd be Wikipedia, folks).

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 05:13, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

PS Wikipedia may indeed be be neither a how-to nor a place for medical advice, but given IAR (and basic human pragmatics), maybe we should try and come up with a way to make it fit, at least for the time being. Maybe something similar to "On October 07, 2009, many internet forums suddenly began discussing reports of the death of a Danish distributor and purchasers of his products which were labeled as 2-cb-fly."^{Reffed with a bunch of message boards.} And yes, policy says "Primary sources may be used to make descriptive claims."

Relax, no one is going to be sitting at home thinking "now just before I pop these pills, I'll drop in to Wikipedia to see if the pills might kill me". If such a person finds the rumor online somewhere, they have been alerted, and the fact that it is not in Wikipedia (nor any reliable source) will not influence them. If in a day or two it turns out that there is some basis for the excitement in an Internet forum, we will again have not been a news outlet; so be it. Johnuniq (talk) 06:36, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

@Peace and Passion: the top hits are not reliable sources as far as I can tell. Guy (Help!) 17:03, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

That's why I say word it as such. I clearly realize what reliable sources are, I don't need to be linked there; why'd you think I suggested it be phrased in such an epistemologically-sound way as "On October 07, 2009, many internet forums suddenly began discussing reports of the death of a Danish distributor and purchasers of his products which were labeled as 2-cb-fly." I was just trying to be realistic and look on the situation in a healthy way. I fully well realized it wasn't fully in line with policy, that's why I phrased it the way I did and mentioned IAR. Nicely, Meodipt quoted the de facto standard of quashing something if it was believed to help someone, but it's now clear that such a "quashing" needs to be initiated by a newspaper editor and Jimbo at the upper levels of Wikipeida, not by us "regular" editors who are supposed to be the "flesh-and-blood" of Wikipedia.

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 21:51, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

We do not fix the problem of lack of reliable sources by saying "according to unreliable sources, X". The way we deal with stuff not covered in reliable sources is by removing it. That's a core value of the project. End of, I'm afraid. Guy (Help!) 18:39, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Well actually if you look here page views for the 2CB-FLY page have gone up considerably since the guys death on the 7th, so it seems that quite a lot of people may be looking to wikipedia for information about this incident, perhaps precisely because it has not yet been mentioned in the mainstream media. But as I said I came here for consensus and that is clearly that this information should not be added until a suitable source is found, so I guess we will have to wait until some Danish newspaper picks up the story. Meodipt (talk) 06:46, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Nice sleuthing, Meodipt :) Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 18:07, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

The argument that IAR should allow the publication of unsourcable (as far as reliable sources go) rumors is actually self defeating. In the examples given where reports of the kidnapping of journalists was concealed for their own safety, the suggestion of potential harm was based on reliable, if somewhat private, information. And the purpose was the opposite - to remove, not add, mostly unverifiable information. The reason we have rules like verifiability and reliable sources is that, as one of those pages mentions, anyone can go on the internet and make a claim. Wikipedia is not in the business of investigating rumors, and it would tarnish the reputation of the Encyclopedia to place warnings on the page of every chemical ever claimed by anyone to have caused a death. Alarmist email chains have achieved great followings in the past, so the fact that lots of people on the internet are pushing this is irrelevant. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:47, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

After reading this discussion, now I'm really interested in what happened with this "kidnapping of journalists" story on Wikipeida, as I've never come across it, though it sounds significant. Could anyone point me to a link which discusses what happened, if one exists? I'd be curious to read it!

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 18:12, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

PS, I'm giving up on this one as the experienced consensus seems to say otherwise; but, Someguy, just a friendly reminder to be careful brandying blatant strawmen ("place warnings on the page of every chemical ever claimed by anyone to have caused a death.")!  :)

From the horse's mouth: NY Times — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 15:32, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Wow, then, a case where it was decided that one person, based on a bit of circumstantial conjecture and newspaper influence, should have their article "influenced" on Wikipedia in order to "protect" them→and Jimmy raises a mini-cabal to suppress the info. I'm basically okay with that, but it's more than slightly debatable. Here, a case where many lives are much more clearly at risk, and this previous situation is not allowed as an analogical example of de facto policy here? Weak double-standards, community.

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 21:47, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

...It's not like we took a poll and agreed to let jimbo do that. Also the two situations aren't really analogous. Protonk (talk) 02:31, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh the situations are certainly analogous, in that they involve a definite risk of death to people in the real world which is potentially amenable to manipulation of the information posted on wikipedia. The difference is really in the remedy requested, and obviously adding unsourced information is a much bigger no-no (i.e. an explicit breach of the rules), whereas secretly disallowing the addition of properly sourced information is much more of a grey area, it may go against the spirit of established policy, but is not specifically forbidden by any rule I am aware of. My reasoning is that there was a greater degree of risk in this case (i.e. risk of death to an undefined class of individuals rather than a single person) although obviously without reliable sources there is no way of proving that the class of people supposedly at risk even exist, let alone estimating how many of them there are. So I didn't really expect the "bad batch warning" would stay up, but thought it was worth a shot and certainly worth testing what the community consensus was on the matter. Meodipt (talk) 05:31, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Moot point now seeing as someone has added the information back just using the erowid warning page as a reference and that seems to be ok with everyone! Not that a newspaper article would really be any more reliable than erowid I suppose...Meodipt (talk) 05:39, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

The real problem is that we have no reliable information about the toxicology of these phenethylamines. Hence we cannot and should not say that they are "safe" or "dangerous", and there's little point in saying that we simply don't know. There's speculation that this was a 'bad batch' of 2C-B-FLY, but that's all it is – speculation. Physchim62 (talk) 19:07, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

• very few refs, tag should be inserted to warn users of unverifiable claims in the article. Ecoman24 (talk page) 13:35, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Request for uninvolved administrator to close a slightly messy RfC

Unresolved

[7] will spiral out of control if it is not ended soon. Thanks, Dabomb87 (talk) 00:18, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Jake, could you offer some commentary? I don't think it's an outrageous request to let the RfC end of its own accord. The debate seemed to be making some progress despite certain disruptions. And on handling said disruptions, any advice would be appreciated. Doctor Sunshine (talk) 04:24, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I saw a lot of discussion and no chance of getting the criteria removed. There is consensus to close the RfC in the last section. Please just let it die. — Jake Wartenberg 13:25, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Look, I'm not enjoying this either. I can understand that the FLC regulars are tired of it, I've seen arguments going back to 2006, but the fact of the matter is that the RfC was opened to get community input. The regulars have had years to figure it out where the community received less than ten days. And this sets a very bad precedent when five oppose votes—all regulars too, I believe—can shut down an argument which closes in their favour. Forget every other argument, forget that criteria 5 contradicts the last part of 5a, forget that there is community consensus stating that red links are good and none labeling them "ugly" or "distracting". I will let this matter drop if you or anyone can show me that there is a consensus that minimal means definition 1c and not a or b. Going through the FLC logs I've seen about half a dozen regulars that oppose based on red links and everyone else either doesn't care or reads it the same way I do. Maybe Dabomb can confirm that as his name appeared quite frequently. Otherwise, I would ask that you reopen or restart the RfC, possibly with a reminder of its purpose—even the FLC director seemed confused about it. I'm sorry that it's "messy" but I didn't ask regulars to repeat themselves ad infinitum, or to attack my character or insult newcomers. A couple more days isn't going to hurt anybody. Doctor Sunshine (talk) 22:19, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Requesting a second opinion. The editors asking for a close are "tired of the debate", the debate is long and muddled, this is not a recipe for "spinning out of control", this is a recipe for fizzling out. The ones who wanted it closed are young and don't listen to me as I'm "the enemy" but they respect authority and an admin will do. If you could reopen with a note briefly explaining the purpose of an RfC and why more than a week is desirable (honestly don't think they're familiar with the process) and as soon as comments dry up I'll close it myself an you'll never have to think of this again. I'd like a few more days as the subject of compromise and clarifying the wording had come up which had been little commented on previously. In my opinion, most had got hung up on stubs. It may well get zero new comments, that's fine and I'll close, but shutting it down early because a couple editors who voiced their opinions before the RfC even started and don't want to wait for more than a week of outside opinions is a bad idea. Thanks. Doctor Sunshine (talk) 19:20, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

"The ones who wanted it closed are young and don't listen to me as I'm "the enemy" but they respect authority and an admin will do..." what? If you tried not to patronise the community so much, people may respect your arbitrary re-opening of this RFC at FLC and your arbitrary re-opening of this AN/I thread, on both occasions without notifying the closing admins. Think again if you believe we're all "young" and we "don't listen to [you]". The overwhelming and startlingly obvious consensus was that there was no consensus to change our criteria. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:18, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

That was bluntness, I wrote that on my way out the door. Excitable would have been a better word. If you're familiar with WP:Requests for Comment, you'll know that the purpose is to get community input in the form of opinions, ideas and dispute resolution. Not everyone checks the RfC lists every day, so leaving them open for a couple weeks at minimum is par for the course. If a handful of regulars are tired of the debate—why wouldn't they be if the issue has been coming up again and again for years?—they are not required to participate. They've stated their opinion, it's been counted, they're free to go about their business. The discussion is so muddled by this point with the interruptions and that bout of infighting at the end that it may well not get anymore comments, but there might also be a good idea out there somewhere. If no action is taken by tomorrow I'll cut through the red tape myself. I can only assure you that this is not a big deal. A week or two from now this'll all be ancient history. Doctor Sunshine (talk) 16:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Antisemitism on Phyllis Schlafly

Elstong (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been edit warring to add "Jewish" labeling and general antisemitic content to the Phyllis Schlafly article; when I reverted his partial page blanking/sourced content removal and inappropriate content, he very oddly started calling me a vandal, accusing me of abusing him, and has made the allegation that I'm anti-Semitic on the article talk page and in edit summaries. He is, to put it bluntly, obsessed with Jews. I request someone take a look at this SPA and Schlafly fan and see what can be done. IMO he's here to whitewash her article, malign Jews who dare criticize her, and call anyone who attempts to prevent him from doing so names. Were I not arguably involved I would indef as a disruptive account. I could, of course, be in error. Contribs include the telling edit summaries (most recent at top, as in History):

1. 15:10, 10 October 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:Elstong ? (remove inappropriate abuse from KillerChihuahua|talk) - this is removing a warning I left him
2. 15:09, 10 October 2009 (hist | diff) Phyllis Schlafly ? (remove false jewish comment by KillerChihuahua|talk)
3. 02:45, 10 October 2009 (hist | diff) Phyllis Schlafly ? (?"Stop ERA": removed anti-semitic accusation against Critchlow)
4. 23:56, 9 October 2009 (hist | diff) Phyllis Schlafly ? (the weasel words were written by the Jewish columnist about a Jewish issue; see the talk page if you want to change it)
5. 06:56, 9 October 2009 (hist | diff) Phyllis Schlafly ? (?"Stop ERA": jewish columnist complained about ignoring jewish winking)
6. 23:41, 12 August 2009 (hist | diff) Phyllis Schlafly ? (?"Stop ERA": change jewish accusation to what NYT said)

Followed by [8] and [9]. thanks for your kind attention - I will be offline for a bit but please post questions here anyway if you have any and I will answer when I return. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 23:19, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Blocked for 1 week for now, but if he comes back with the same crap I suggest indefinite next time. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:47, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I have unblocked him after further reflection. His edits are problematic, but a block is a bit premature at this point. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:18, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

So edit warring and violating 3RR doesn't rate a block? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 06:29, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Of course it does, but new users also deserve proper warning about why their actions are inappropriate before jumping to a block. People aren't born knowing the rules. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand the substantial issues at stake here, but the editing pattern is that of a disruptive, ideologically motivated single purpose account. If it were up to me, I'd just indef-block it, but won't do so without further discussion, so as not to wheel-war with ThaddeusB.  Sandstein  07:17, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

+1 for that. We need agenda-driven WP:SPAs on WP:BLPs just slightly less than we need page move vandals. Guy (Help!) 18:26, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Sandstein and Guy. John Carter (talk) 16:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Sandstein, Guy, and John Carter. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:49, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree fully that the pattern was one of disruption, however after reflection I decided it wasn't obviously disruptive enough to warrant a block without attempting to resolve the issue. Elstong was "correcting" what he/she viewed as a biased statement, and genuinely doesn't seem to understand the issues with the edit. He has not (yet) returned to disruption after the warnings.

I do not think it is particularly likely that Elstong will edit productively, but I think he/she deserves a chance to prove otherwise before being re-blocked. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, except as it turns out, this is an alternate account of an established user previously blocked five times for personal attacks, COI, and edit warring. I'm blocking this one for abusing multiple accounts. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 20:43, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Policy/guidelines on user page deletion?

Today I am forgetful. After speedy deleting a non-notable autobio (David A Provost) created by Drewprovost (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) (and earning myself a delightful riposte [10]), User:Drewprovost put the deleted text on two subpages of his user page, here and here. While trying to AGF, I seriously doubt this completely unreferenced autobio will be shaped into an acceptable basic article in the future. Somehow I can't remember what guidelines cover the preferred course of action in this kind of case. Could someone point me to them? I'm just a little thick tonight. Thanks, Pigman☿/talk 01:08, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

This is an awful lot of information to be putting out there. I'm not sure why the user wants to write such a tell-all biography for all the world to see. Do we have the subjects permission (assuming the writer is "Drew" and David is the brother? I would lean towards deletion for privacy reasons here. –xeno^talk 01:16, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Way too much personal info, even though he's an adult. And one of the longer single-paragraphs I've seen here. →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 01:23, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Middle name of David A. Provost is "Andrew" = Drew and so probably User:Drewprovost. That info is somewhere in that humongous para I think. Deletion of those user pages reproducing the content of the article for privacy might be a good enough reason. User seems to be a SPA for only this article. I just wasn't sure whether that was the right way to go. I'm always leery of deleting user pages in what I consider a borderline case. I'll delete them now but I'm getting offline right afterward so if there's an issue or complaint, someone else may have to deal with it for the next 10 hours. Thanks for the input. Cheers, Pigman☿/talk 04:14, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I note the pages were deleted, but no communication was made with the editor. Might explaining the issue to him have been a good idea? --Elen of the Roads (talk) 10:50, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Urgh. Thanks for the pointer, Elen of the Roads. Doing admin tasks while tired is a bad idea for me; I forget to attend to details like that. Correcting now. Thanks again. Cheers, Pigman☿/talk 16:21, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

No worries. I see [11] and note that it may not have been worth the effort. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:41, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Sadly, I had made the same evaluation. Still, politeness and explanation to new editors isn't a wasted effort in my opinion. Not, at least, until they become persistently trollish and abusive. Even then, civility and politeness are my watchwords. I was nonplussed by the argument that deleting the article was "unpatriotic," one of the more unencyclopedic claims I've ever heard on WP. Cheers, Pigman☿/talk 16:55, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Child Of Midnight inappropriate block

Resolved

 – User unblocked. Ruslik_Zero 17:42, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

CoM was blocked for incivility. [[12]] I find this block to be totally inappropriate. No where in this was CoM ever incivil and ask for an admin to overturn as blatantly wrong. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 09:34, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Keegan, who keeps me close by cellphone contact knew that this was a bad idea. COI and and shitty block. the_undertow ^talk 09:38, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

(copied from CoM's talkpage). I have an entirely different view on the recent sock puppet shambles to most of the acolytes who gather around whenever this contributor is involved in controversial issues. I support no one or everyone, but not any particular tribe, if you know what I mean. However, in this particular instance the highlighted reason for blocking CoM for half a day cannot be construed as incivility. I share his sarcastic outlook, so if I had responded with an equally sarcastic but opposite contribution would I have been blocked? Of course not. It does look slightly reactionary and you could have let it go or waited until it developed into something genuinely uncivil. (but I may have missed something). Leaky Caldron 09:39, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I don't consider that diff incivility. However, it was very nasty and a hair's breadth away. CoM should be unblocked, but warned in the strongest possible terms that making casual allegations of that sort against another editor is (as Keegan said) not conducive to a collaborative environment, and absolutely out of line. ╟─TreasuryTag►ballotbox─╢ 09:40, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The response to the block by the_undertow (recently disgraced Law (talk · contribs)) seems inappropriate, and possibly block worthy, but the incident that started this off doesn't. Of CoMs recent misbehaviour, this is very mild. Verbal chat 09:42, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I resent the fact that you consider me disgraced. I can deal with the 'Lex Luthor of WP', or 'mentally unstable' or just about anything else, but NPA still applies. I outed myself. There is nothing lacking grace with wanting to rid my own making. Just because I am blocked does not give you free reign to make such an assertion. Never. "Disgraced" is subjective. With that, you deserve your own admonishment. the_undertow ^talk 09:51, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I believe you are using two different meanings, or at least nuances, of the word "disgraced", undertow. Verbal seems to be referring to your recent loss of the tools, which can be categorized as "disgrace". As your post referenced the recent events which led to that, this is most likely. I do not know how you're interpreting it; but I see no implications beyond the meaning I have given. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 10:45, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I stand by the description of this twice banned and desysoped, by arbcom, editor as disgraced, and for the record I would find calling him mentally unstable to be a personal attack. However, disgraced is backed up by the facts. Verbal chat 10:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not overturning it because I was chatting with CoM in the hour or so before this happened. As such, I don't want the appearance of a conflict of interest on my part (A Wiki admin that is worried about showing bias, imagine that?). Still, the block was obviously a bad idea and should never have been made.Trusilver 09:42, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any incivility there either. Agree CoM should be unblocked. Keegan doesn't seem to be very active though. Mjroots (talk) 10:55, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Hence why we are here. Someone should unblock with an admonshment that it was towards the dge. Let's defuse this while we still can. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 10:57, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

• Note: CoM has not requested unblock nor has he disputed the block. He's not a noob; he knows about {{unblock}}. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 11:02, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Perhaps CoM has gone elsewhere for 12 hrs. Mjroots (talk) 11:05, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

If I'm correct he hasn't requested it yet because it's still the ass crack of dawn in his neck of the woods. How do you think he's going to react to something this blatantly stupid. It'll probably go over as well as a fart in church. Also if I have a problem with this block I can bring those concerns here, today it is CoM tomorow it could be you or me and I['d be pissed. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 11:06, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

• Obviously a bad block, not justified by any element of blocking policy or civility policy. Moreover, it was the last actin of Keegan before signing off for the day (see his contributions), giving no effective recourse. This is especially ironic in the context of [[User:Keegan/On administrators#Blocking|Keegan's own stated view on administrator blocking]. ^Bongo_matic 12:18, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

• The problem is that it wasn't nearly long enough, as the last one was for an identical 12hrs, and he's apparently slept through most of it. Our dear CoM has been running his mouth for weeks in various forums here about the evils of admins, the cabals that are out to get him, the fantasized stalkers, harassers, disrupters who are "out to get him" etc... You can only go so long in slagging, insulting, and denigrating anyone and everyone who has ever disagreed with you before it comes back to bite you in the ass. Keegan's name will be tacked on to the list for the next round of insults that flows from CoM's direction. Tarc (talk) 12:41, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Somebody with 3 bad overturned blocks, and a possible 4th dislikes admins?--Otterathome (talk) 13:15, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
    • Many Admins are out of control when it comes to blocking. Sometimes they forget that being an editor is different than being an admin, and they put the two together without thinking it through.--Jojhutton (talk) 13:37, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
      • I disagree with your comment Jojhutton that "many admins are out of control when it comes to blocking" most admins do a good job quietly. The policing aspect of the job is always going to be denegraded, no one much likes being told off or having your privileges taken away for a while, but sometimes it is a necessary evil. Off2riorob (talk) 13:52, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

• Regardless of whether or not it could be considered incivility, why was he blocked for one comment, though? Don't we warn people and then see if they do it again? On the question of civility, I've seen much worse. WebHamster got away with stuff ten times as bad as this for years before he was finally blocked. The fact that CoM was talking to admins in this case probably had something to do with it, and it really shouldn't have. Equazcion (talk) 13:43, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
  • If he was making those comments for weeks, I assume that he was warned multiple times. Joe Chill (talk) 13:47, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
    • That would be a nice assumption but I don't see any such warnings on his talk page. I just see a block notice. Equazcion (talk) 13:50, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Hey folks.

Well, I don't consider this a conflict of interest because if I did, I would be like Mr Wales and never be able to use my block function.

I don't take blocking lightly, and I don't block often. Maybe less than a couple hundred in three years.

I can understand the jaw dropping and calling it a shitty block, it seems random and inappropriate.

From my view, what was inappropriate and incivil was the comment on the undertow's talk page. Don't get me wrong, I am in incredibly sarcastic person that thinks and sometimes says things along the lines of what CoM says. What happens when I do say these things? I am appropriately admonished to prevent me from being such a dick again. Well, at least for the forseeable future. Eventually I slip up again, it's human nature.

It was a 12 hour block to prevent further "snarkiness" for the evening, well within my descresionary bounds. I think that is reasonable, but I can understand why others think it isn't. Bottom line is that I was working towards something amicable, this user is not. Plain and simple. The block expires shortly after what I assume was a good night's rest for CoM (please note:Do not read that as a cool down block, it wasn't) and we can all get on with our lives. I'll take whatever lumps ANI chooses to give me, I'm a big boy, but I do not regret what I did at all.

We are trying to work in a collaborative environment. Tempers flare, there is drama, I get that, I have plenty of experience on this website. This is an encyclopedia, not a shooting gallery. Happy editing to all, Keegan (talk) 14:43, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Any response as to the lack of a warning though? People aren't generally blocked for one comment, as I've mentioned above. Even assuming the statement was undoubtedly uncivil, a block still seems like an excessive immediate response. Equazcion (talk) 14:53, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

It's his seventh block this year. He's been previously blocked for incivility. Those could probably be considered "fair warning". Note that I am not condoning the block here; I'm merely stating that if the comment did indeed violate policy, a warning would have been superfluous. I remain neutral for the moment. Tan | 39 15:21, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

What Tan said is the reason for my lack of warning. Keegan (talk) 15:27, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I also find Keegan's response troubling as it sounds to me like he's saying the block is so short that we shouldn't be concerned about its appropriateness, and that he's not so concerned with what people have to say about it. Being willing to "take your lumps" at ANI is only an honorable stance if you're also willing to participate thoughtfully and re-examine your actions accordingly. Equazcion (talk) 15:28, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, you have obviously made your stance clear. Thank you; no need to reiterate a dozen times - if you want other people to "participate thoughtfully" and examine their actions, you need to be able to do it yourself. Tan | 39 16:09, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't see where I've repeated myself, except once, regarding my concern with the lack of a warning. Keegan neglected to mention that in his statement, so I felt the need to bring it up again. "A dozen times"? Exaggerate much? Equazcion (talk) 16:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I've unblocked with 2 hours of the 12 remaining, (a) because the single snarky comment does not appear to meet the standards required of a single comment to justify an incivility block (b) the block was unaccompanied by a reason, which is problematic for future interpretations of the block log. In addition, I would say that if CoM does have a pattern of making these kinds of comment, that pattern might be construed as uncivil (in the broad sense of creating an uncivil collaborative environment). That would (a) require more substantive evidence, perhaps via WP:RFC/U; (b) justify a longer block. Rd232 ^talk 16:27, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

The block seemed proper to me. ChildofMidnight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has a history of disruption and a long block log. CoM is also under multiple ArbCom restrictions about getting into dust-ups with other editors, not to mention a topic ban. Granted, CoM's comment on Law's talkpage was not within the realm of any ArbCom restrictions, but it's obvious that CoM has shown a pattern of disruptive behavior. CoM's comment was highly inappropriate, and has already been deleted as such.[13] If CoM repeats this kind of "pot-stirring" behavior, I would support a longer block. --Elonka 17:33, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

This is the sort of situation which lends credence to the view that civility blocks are ineffectual. I don't happen to subscribe to that view in a general manner, but this way of applying it definitely is ineffectual. An editor who picks up a block roughly once every six weeks for most of a year engages in habitual sniping, and one of many instances garners a 12 hour block. 12 hours of rest might correct a one-off problem, but not this situation. It is pretty much guaranteed that a variety of editors will line up on both sides and the block will become more trouble than it's worth. If something is the proverbial 'straw on the camel's back' then put a brace on the spine rather than removing or adding individual bits of straw. That is, after seven blocks in a year either propose a community sanction or let it go. Miniscule blocks for habitual problems make a mockery of process. Durova³²² 17:47, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Well put. A short-term block should be applied if there is an appropriate short-term problem of sufficient severity. If there is a long-term problem which is sufficiently documented and agreed upon, it warrants appropriate sanction, and a short-term block isn't it. Rd232 ^talk 17:52, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Its the standard civility block paradox. Blocks can't literally be preventative without precognition, and ex post blocks can't modify behavior. Either we accept some nuance and block only where obviously necessary or we cut the gordian knot and indef editors who agitate and provoke in such a way that short term 'civility blocks' are the only solution. Protonk (talk) 22:17, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Indef block or short-term block are not the only possible responses to short-term or long-term civility or civility/disruption issues. Rd232 ^talk 23:33, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Rd232 puts it well, and this is distinct from the garden variety civility problem. A civility block can have an effect when a normally collegial editor gets hot under the collar because a particular discussion hits a raw nerve. Most of us have a sensitive spot somewhere; that's just human. When an editor is getting increasingly worked up and rude and polite interaction fails to curb the problem, a day off for rest and food and fresh air can solve the problem (and demonstrate that limits do exist before the overall tone turns poisonous and other editors pick up on it also). When the outburst seems out of character and continues despite attempts at engagement, blocking can be preventative before the editor digs him/herself in any deeper. Durova³²² 00:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Right, hence "either we accept some nuance...". As Durova said, different folks, different strokes. Protonk (talk) 01:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair point. Durova³²² 05:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I am in agreement that multiple short-term civility blocks are not an effective solution. However, neither is it helpful to say, "Civility blocks don't work", without proposing some alternative. It is my opinion that when an editor engages in a chronic pattern of incivility, and appears unwilling to moderate their own behavior, at some point we need to say "enough" and simply remove them from the project as a disruptive influence. However, where do we draw the line? I am in agreement that sometimes good editors just have a bad day. But for me, when an editor has received warnings from multiple administrators, has recently been blocked for disruption, and is spending more time sniping on various users' talkpages than actually working on the encyclopedia, that's where I think it's time to consider a lengthy block to remove the user from our environment. Otherwise we just get into an endless revolving door of second chances, where our policies mean nothing, as the user knows that no matter how poor their behavior, there are never any truly serious consequences. Without consequences, policies are meaningless. --Elonka 18:21, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I was always under the impression those block lengths were supposed to get progressively longer. I would hope by the time someone has hit block 7 for the same thing, they should be looking at a 2 month block or more. It might have a greater effect as a deterrent and preventative measure both for now and in the future if people realized there were genuine and lengthy consequences for their behaviour instead of a couple days vacation.--Crossmr (talk) 04:09, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

• It seems CoM is destined to have a block log with multiple blocks that have been reversed as problematic, flawed or unjustified. Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:33, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Block review request

• Rain City Blues (talk · contribs · logs · block log)
• See previous ANI listing

On 13 September 2009, this contributor was blocked for two weeks for violating WP:NPA and WP:Harassment. He came back today and among some 18 or so decent contributions also did the following: [14] and [15]. I interpret this as a clear indication that he intends to continue disruption, since he has immediately resumed the activity that got him blocked, evidently without further provocation. Accordingly, I have blocked him again for the same term as his previous: two weeks. I'm inviting review of this block to determine if others agree this is the appropriate handling and duration. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Comment - blocking ok. Ecoman24 (talk page) 13:12, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

May I ask where I am in conflict with him? So far as I know, my only interaction with him has been in commenting at the last ANI thread. (Perhaps you have mistaken me for the recipient of this message?) (evidently, a misunderstanding) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:04, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Comment. From a review of the edits made previous to Rain City Blues' ban in September, one can conclude that the editor cares deeply about the material they edit. However, when attempts are made by other editors to correct, clarify, or attempt consensus, the editor takes the edits as a personal affront with an unhelpful combative attitude. In fact, the colorful language used by the editor against others does not have a place in Wikipedia. I would support this ban until the editor displays the ability to work with others. Additionally, I would like to suggest that someone volunteers to coach the editor after the ban expires so that we do not lose any good faith edits that Rain City Blues would further contribute. Inomyabcs (talk) 13:11, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Good block, although two weeks may be too short a time in which to grow up. LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:26, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I am not sure how I got to be the Evil Nemesis in this situation, and didn't want to block him myself, but I was disappointed to see that he came back from the block to immediately start hassling me on my talk page again. I'd noticed that he had some useful edits going, and had hoped that he would come back ready to focus on those rather than on his dislike for me. And all this because, months ago, I declined his request for unblock and explained about not edit-warring to him. I wasn't even mean. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 16:01, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

The correct block here would have been an indefinite one. Tan | 39 14:30, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

If you (or others) feel that way, I have no objections whatsoever to you adjusting the length. The e-mail I received from him this morning would suggest he does not intend to alter his behavior unless I "get this admin off...[his] back", which is a bit difficult given that she hasn't made contact with him in a month. He tells me that "Else, we can go back and forth like this for eternity." --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Overlinking

User:Jagged 85 has a long history of overlinkng. On Muslim Agricultural Revolution I have in the past removed hundreds (sic!) of superfluous links. I have warned him on his talkpage, but he continues to add repeated or trivial internal links to this article. I am unlinking them after his edits. I admit that I have unlinked a few examples that are arguable (but not more than arguable) as well, as I have admitted on my talkpage. But that doesn't remove the problem: that this editor is overliking and unwilling to listen to reason. Debresser (talk) 04:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, it is okay to link possibly unfamiliar terms again in a new section of an article if it is relevant to that section. Despite this, I have attempted to avoid duplicate links, although you seem to be removing some links that don't even have a single link in the article to begin with? I think that might possibly qualify as underlinking? However, I admit that in my recent several edits a few other terms were linked again because I was copying some text over from another article, although I was already in the process of editing it before you de-linked them yourself. I can assure you that I am making efforts to avoid overlinking, but that does not mean we should underlink either. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 04:21, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I am happy to see that you are now more aware of this issue. According to wp:linking a link might indeed be repeated "where a later occurrence of an item is a long way from the first". But all that pertains to relevant "links that aid navigation and understanding". No need to link the name of an author or a publishing house in a reference (and certainly not more than once). And why link words that are familiar to the reader, and therefore do not contribute anything, like "lemon", "rice" or "paper"? Debresser (talk) 06:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Context is important when linking. For example, it is appropriate to link to paper in an article such as History of the book, since paper was integral to the development of the book, and a user reading about books might well want to read about the development of paper next. On the other hand, the link to paper in Business continuity planning is inappropriate since users will most likely not be needing to research paper in the course of reading that article. Abductive (reasoning) 07:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• User:Jagged 85, it is good that you have admitted your errors. Q will you be happy for me to advise you when you go wrong? I will not write essays for sure. one advise at a time. Ecoman24 (talk page) 11:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Systematic bias, conflict of interest & racism on the Somalia Affair article

Yesterday, as I was going about my usual rounds of editing, I was attracted to the Somalia Affair article by an anonymous IP who, for some strange reason, felt the need to replace the word "teenager" with the word "monkey" in reference to Shidane Arone, a Somali teenager who was beaten to death by a group of rogue soldiers in the Canadian army. I then noticed the continued gratuitous use of the offensive word "nigger" in the article's text, an epithet whose presence in the article the principal wiki-editor, one User:Sherurcij, has justified (and not for the first time either) by claiming that replacing that word with a simple allusion to so and so using "racist language" is tantamount to "water[ing] down the accuracy" of the passage at hand & is a "personal summar[y]". If that weren't enough, this editor also de-linked the word scandal from the article's lede, ostensibly to hide the fact that what was described in the same sentence as "Canada's national shame" is anything but that. He also removed sourced material (taken from this New York Times article) indicating that one of the soldiers implicated in the beating was "deemed to be "willfully blind" to the beating" and "was also demoted to private", that another "tried to hang himself after being arrested and suffered serious brain damage" (he also de-linked the word suicide in reference to this attempt), and that still another was "dismissed from the army". In addition, he later re-arranged that same portion of the text (a table), apparently in an attempt to conceal the quite noticeable removal of that material I just alluded to, & he even put the individual convictions meted out to the rogue soldiers in question in between so-called "small" tags, thereby making them less noticeable to the casual reader. Please note that this is the same user whom another editor and I as well as an uninvolved administrator have had problems with in the recent past (e.g. 1, 2, 3) over his unjustified & still unresolved use of copyrighted images of torture on this same article (images which are still prominently displayed there, btw), including one this editor himself again, with no external prodding whatsoever, voluntarily titled "Somalia breaking arms and legs of niggers". Just to give you some additional perspective, this is also the same editor who added an image of David Irving to the Wikipedia article on that infamous white supremacist & anti-Semite, and did the same for Ian Verner Macdonald (an article he himself created), a man also often accused of anti-Semitism & of having ties to neo-Nazi groups. He even added a quote from Macdonald on the Ku Klux Klan article basically expressing sympathy with their "cause". Taken together, it's pretty obvious what is going on. I therefore think it's time an uninvolved administrator stepped in and had a look at the issue, as there is clearly bias and quite likely a conflict of interest at work with regard to the aforementioned editor. This editor has already indicated to another editor that he would like to nominate this dreadful article for Featured Article status, but I don't see that being possible if he keeps reverting any and everyone that does not share in his desire to selectively exonerate convicted criminals & engage in pointless race-baiting. Middayexpress (talk) 04:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Update: As predicted, the editor has yet again just reverted all of my changes under the same absurd and disingenuous pretext as before. Middayexpress (talk) 04:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Three points. One - you didn't notify Sherurcij about this post - I've done this for you. Two - you've not posted on his talkpage about this. Three - you haven't posted on the article talkpage either. To be fair, he hasn't done either of the latter two actions either. Without digging into this it looks like a content dispute/edit war with zero discussion. Suggest protecting the page to force the editors to discuss this. Exxolon (talk) 04:44, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

quick note of context, Middayexpress has some strange vendetta and has been warned before not to "accuse respected long time users of being racists"...that from the same sort of "uninvolved admin" he just demanded should "step in" and sort things out for him. And the only user I have reverted on the article is Middayexpress, so it's definitely not true to claim I don't allow other opinions or editors to contribute to the evolution of the article.

For context (since it "appears" to be without discussion), User:Middayexpress earlier tried to have all the image/videos removed from Wikimedia Commons for being "offensive" and thus a large amount of conversation took place there - not on WP - as community consensus was that he was wrong in suggesting the images didn't belong and should be removed. He strangely summarises his own nearly-identical-to-this complaint there to be proof that I have a history of this...yet you'll notice in the conversation he links...all the images were kept and it was determined I was right and he was wrong...an administrator just promised to look into the images for him.

I find it strange when people run immediately to ANI to resolve issues - but since Middayexpress is so fond of diff links, I notice that users on their talk page warn that "she will attack you personally, gleefully, viciously, relentlessly - and with no regard for actual facts. It's her way." So I guess that explains the ANI.

I have to say I find claims like suggesting I'm engaged in "pointless race-baiting" to be grossly in violation of multiple WP policies. The word "nigger" only ever appears in quotation marks, and only ever while reporting the (offensive) actions of the Canadian Airborne which were subsequently played all over Canadian television news programmes for nearly four years. Should we rename Niggas With Attitude to "Social perjorative terms with Attitude" to meet his "cleansing" standards? The quotes are only used in their proper context, and if anything, paint the Canadian Airborne in a negative light...how the article could possibly be construed as offensive to Somalians is beyond me.

The claim that I am a White Supremacist based on the fact I have added images to random articles is amusing, of course, since a quick look at my userpage will show that I believe Middayexpress just chose about the only two white people about whom I've written biographies and 95% of my work is dealing with controversial Canadians of all stripes. I mean...I wrote a (fairly damning) article that portrays Canadian racists in a terrible light and shows them at their worst moments...and I get accused of "supporting" them? If I wrote the Paul Bernardo article, would Middayexpress similarly accuse me of supporting the rape of young schoolgirls? He also claims that routine aesthetic work (such as using HTML break tags or font tags) is somehow a conspiracy against him to mitigate the seriousness of criminal charges...rather than to make an in-line template fit onto users' screens. Similarly, the only information I removed was from a table that offered "guilty" or "Not guilty" for each soldier, and he went and edited in personal biographical information on them thus screwing up the table's size and scope. There's hardly any malice on my part - I even agreed with him that one use of the quoted word "nigger" in a video title was extraneous and removed it myself, changing it to "racist language". But it's hard for me to understand hi attempts to justify the belief that exact quotes should be boiled down to something less vulgar than their historical truth to avoid offending sensisibilities. The soldiers charged in the affair used the word "nigger", the newspapers and government inquiries re-printed the word in its exact context within quotation marks...but WP shouldn't do the same? Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 04:55, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

PS: Just a quick note to explain/correct the erroneous statement above saying I haven't used the article's talk page to help shape its progress - I'm actually the majority-editor on the talk page (Talk:Somalia Affair) and have been since June 2009; it's Middayexpress who's never wandered over to it. I created a To-Do list there, I requested help with footnotes there, I asked opinions about article-merges there, and SimonP and I both spoke with each other about Middayexpress's continued "revert to my version because your version has swearing in it and you're a racist" disruption to the article. SimonP even suggested to Middayexpress what possible routes he could take if he had a legitimate grievance to help us "understand" his problem and he never did. Anyways, just didn't want anybody thinking I'd avoided the talk page. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 05:23, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Exxolon - This is not just a random "content dispute", and this issue has already been discussed ad nauseam (follow the links above). This is a case of an editor with a proven history of editing & even creating articles on racist and anti-Semitic figures deciding to upload images -- ones that he has yet to prove are copyright free -- of race-motivated torture, voluntarily naming one of those images "Somalia breaking arms and legs of niggers" although he is already well aware of Wikipedia's policies against inappropriate names (an image which, incidentally, he has had months now to try and get renamed, but hasn't even so much as lifted a finger in that direction), knee-jerk reverting sourced statements which outline the legal punishments meted out to the offending soldiers involved in the race-motivated torture in question, refusing link throughs that suggest anything even remotely close to the well-established fact that this was a major scandal, and gratuitously including the word nigger when less inflammatory language works just as well (for example, he insists that the following phrase in reference to the offending soliders which goes "one using racist language and loudly complaining about the presence of black soldiers in the Airborne" doesn't capture his preferred "one stating loudly "We're not racist - we just don't want niggers in the Airborne" -- other than the all-important presence of the word nigger, which Sherurcij insists on using throughout the article, just as he insisted on including it in that torture image's title, anyone can see that the two phrases are virtually identical) , a word which he has already demonstrated in my previous discussions with him that he is not at all shy about using. That's what's going on here. Middayexpress (talk) 05:41, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Sherurcij - Niggas With Attitude are a rap group consisting of several black men who voluntarily elected to call themselves that. That is the name of their actual group. It is not something someone else called them in order to disparage them & a Wiki editor then felt it just imperative to parrot. Moreover, the niggas in their name is a term of endearment where they come from. It is not the same as nigger; hence, the two separate Wikipedia articles devoted to what are two separate topics. What you've just described bears no relation to the race-baiting you are gratuitously pushing on the Somalia Affair article wherein certain Canadian soldiers are racially taunting people(s) of another race, at least one of whom they would go on to kill. Really lamentable analogy, but oddly appropriate and predictable considering the circumstances and your own previous remarks on this issue. Middayexpress (talk) 05:41, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I actually voted in favour of renaming the video clip back in July 2009, as you may have noticed at commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Somalia breaking arms and legs of niggers.ogv - do you have another argument? Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 05:55, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

That wasn't a "request". That was a statement of fact. And that link above doesn't work, FYI. Middayexpress (talk) 06:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Is there anything here that admins can help with? It looks to me like a WP:CENSORED argument over a content dispute. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:30, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I would agree it's a content dispute, page protection and such are out of the question over-the-top-interference. I think this ANI was likely just blowing off some steam (although interestingly, it was only 24 hours after the dispute arose) Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 22:36, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's part of the problem. Basically, what I would like to do now is simply to add the source I have described above without this other user attempting to remove it as he has repeatedly done. Could you help me with that? The reliable source in question is this New York Times article, and the statements I would like to add are featured in this edit. I would also like to add an internal link to the scandal article in the lede, as it isn't linked to anywhere else in the article despite the Affair being a major military scandal, as well as render the sentences meted out to the offending soldiers in normal wiki-code rather than in between so-called "small" tags so that readers can clearly see what became of the accused\guilty parties. Middayexpress (talk) 22:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I have added both. Sherurcij ^{(speaker for the dead)} 23:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, you only retained (not "added") one sourced statement that I first added to the article, but only after having first stripped it bare (you changed the phrase "Deemed to be "willfully blind" to the beating, Boland was also demoted to private" to a bland "Demoted to Private"). In doing this, you reverted for the fifth time in less than 24 hours the entire edit in question. You also did this after both myself and another user explained to you on the article's talk page via Wikipedia policy the exact problem with your continued gratuitous use of the word nigger (the rest of your edits I've already addressed above), and even after I had warned you that you had breached 3RR. Middayexpress (talk) 00:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Request clarification

[16]. An admin who had reviewed my block came to a page that I was editing, and in the course of my saying that a group was non notable and shouldn´t be included in the article, he created an article about the non notable group. I nominated it for deletion, apparently in the wrong place, and he speedy closed it. Is it appropriate, if in the wrong place, for an admin to speed close something in which they are involved, or should they allow someone else to do it?--Die4Dixie (talk) 04:38, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• Eh. It's a perfectly valid close. You sent a mainspace page to MfD. That's not the right venue. Any registered editor is free to make that close. I mean, hell, should we look at your nomination of his article as improper? Where does the cycle stop? Protonk (talk) 05:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Why would it be improper? It is a non-notable group. I just wanted clarification, as I thought any deletion nomination, regardless of where, should not be closed by the person who created the article. I suppose we should look at is it improper to create a specious article to try and make a non notable group look notable during a content discussion? I am certian you can´t be implying that it is improper for me to have nominated it under those circumstances? Or, hell,should following me there after USER:ChildofMidnight defended me be pondered on? I assumed that your question was not rhetorical, so I have attempted to answer it. I really wasn´t wanting to know anything else, but if you want to open that door.....--Die4Dixie (talk) 05:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:AFDHOWTO? Or is this thread just a coatrack for some other dispute? In any case, I do not see any admin-type actions needed here, so this should probably be closed. - 2/0 (cont.) 05:36, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the link. I was unaware of it. Go ahead and close it. I cerainly didn´t want any action, just clarification. Now I know where to go.--Die4Dixie (talk) 05:39, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Funny that you say you're unaware of WP:AFDHOWTO, when I linked to WP:Articles for deletion immediately after I closed the MFD, telling you that you could renominate the article after reviewing it. I'll WP:AGF and say this isn't a coatrack, though.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 11:32, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, the MfD was incomplete - it was never added to the daily log. If it had been, someone probably would have beat me to closing it. :-)--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 11:39, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't implying it, but the fact that you skipped from the close to the creation and missed the nomination when listing improper actions leads me to believe that it wouldn't have been a fruitful discussion. Protonk (talk) 05:45, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

2012 Summer Olympics

Resolved

Section on Partners has been vandalized with "NAOOOOO =DDD Much luuurve xx" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Summer_Olympics Nick (talk) 08:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC) Nick

Ryulong (talk · contribs) got it. Thanks.  GARDEN  09:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Renaming of lists to outlines, and outlines

Resolved

 – admins are not magic fairy pixie dust to resolve content disputes. Spartaz ^Humbug! 14:49, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I believe this was closed improperly. This thread is not discussing content disputes but is discussing Verbal's actions. (although it did become slightly derailed) -- penubag  (talk) 15:33, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The thread was closed in your interest and The Transhumanist's. Are you sure you want it reopened and the behaviour of all parties examined? We have clear guidelines about what to do before a contentious move, they were not followed, and their purpose is to avoid exactly the kind of situation that we are now in. Hans Adler 15:38, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Extended content

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. User:Verbal decided on his own that outline articles needed to be "renamed to be more conventional". He has started moving numerous "Outline of" articles without any discussion even when pleaded to stop (he violated 3RR). Edit wars have occurred on pages as a consequence of this, but he still insists on moving the outlines because he says "there is no consensus for outlines". Outlines have been around since Wikipedia was set up so there isn't any consensus for outlines, as there is no consensus for other entities such as Lists. Regardless of who is right on the fate of outlines, the actions he is preforming are unacceptable; other opposers haven't even agreed that this is what should become of outlines. I suggest that User:Verbal not be allowed to preform any more controversial page moves without consensus. Here is where this issue was discussed with him: Talk:Outline of chocolate (also in edit summaries), Talk:Outline of water (also edit summaries), and User talk:Verbal (his entire page). He continues to make these controversial page moves and after a brief edit war on Outline of water he went to WP:RfPP and got it move protected although consensus on is strongly opposed to his actions. Thank you for handling this matter. -- penubag  (talk) 09:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC) User:Verbal has been notified. Crafty (talk) 09:26, 12 October 2009 (UTC) I've mostly reverted renamings done without consensus, and against the lack of consensus at WP:OUTLINE, the mathematics wikiproject, and against WP:CLT guidelines. I've also removed the lead of several of these lists which were copied and pasted from other articles, which is a GFDL violation (I believe). I do not believe I have violated 3RR, but WP:AN3 would be the place to discuss that. If some community consensus for these renamings could be provided that would satisfy my concerns, but nearly all discussion is against them (including the discussion at the failed essay WP:OUTLINES). If these people stop moving pages without consensus then these moves will not be undone. Note one member of this project has also accused me of "libel". The controversial moves are the ones I am reverting. I'm simply following WP:BRD. I don't see any need for admin intervention, what I do see a need for is community discussion in a neutral venue (ie not here and not under this heading). A more accurate, and more civil, name for this section would be "Renaming list articles to outlines without community or local consensus". Verbal chat 09:33, 12 October 2009 (UTC) May I point out that Outline of water was created with the title "Outline of water" and you moved it to be otherwise. What you also claim above is not true. Regardless of who or what is opposed to outlines, you need to at least have a discussion before you rename the outlines (there are thousands). Also do not derail the topic of this matter; this is not requesting for comment on what to do with outlines or a review of the civility of a member's comments; it is discussing your controversial page moves. -- penubag  (talk) 09:39, 12 October 2009 (UTC) Also, there are policies and guidelines for lists, but not for outlines. That demonstrates consensus for "lists". Please simply demonstrate consensus for "outlines of". There are many objections and many objectors. I see no benefit to this discussion, it is the wrong discussion and the wrong forum. Consensus for the individual article could be established at the water portal or locally, but a community wide consensus would address the issue much quicker. Note though that the WP:OUTLINE essay recently had the proposed policy tag removed by consensus. Thanks, Verbal chat 09:44, 12 October 2009 (UTC) Need I repeat myself? There is no consensus, they have existed from the beginning and has only experienced a recent influx. There is also definitely no consensus for removing or renaming them at the moment. This is the right place to discuss your page moves; we are not discussing the fate of outlines at the moment. -- penubag  (talk) 09:51, 12 October 2009 (UTC) By the way, I think I've undone (with the uncoordinated and spontaneous help of other users) all the recent burst of non consensual list renames, so I see no likelihood of doing any more moves. It looks as if the outline project wanted to present this as a fait accompli, however they will now have to establish WP:CONSENSUS. If they were more open about their page moves then it wouldn't be so hard to track them down. I don't think there is anything left to say here under this heading. Verbal chat 09:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC) Now that penubag has admitted above that there is no consensus I see no further point to this discussion. I'll not be commenting here again unless requested by a neutral or trusted editor. Thanks, Verbal chat 09:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC) Again, don't derail the subject of this discussion. I'm not commenting on the integrity of outlines, but your actions. -- penubag  (talk) 10:10, 12 October 2009 (UTC) I'm a neutral editor, and I should remind you that the burden of evidence is on the one arguing for a change to the status quo. Whether or not there is consensus to "keep" the outline articles is irrelevant: if you want to make a change it's you who needs to get consensus for that change. Jafeluv (talk) 10:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC) I fully agree. I have undone the renamings, and the status quo is lists - per practice and guideline and policy consensus. I believe the recent renamings by the outline project have all been reverted, but it is hard to find out and the transhumanist has so far refused to document recent project renamings. Again, as it has been admitted above that there is no consensus for these renamings, I think this matter here is closed. Verbal chat 10:20, 12 October 2009 (UTC) Actually I've just found a few more renames without consensus, such as Outline of radio. I'll not revert this move, and the others, for now so tempers can cool. Verbal chat 10:27, 12 October 2009 (UTC) Neutral - DEFINITIONS A list details subject which are not related to one another. You can read one and ignore others, and you will be satisfied. Articles such as List of parapsychology topics do not qualify to be a list. This article even states that "The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to parapsychology:". That article should be an Outline of parapsychology. A good example of a list is List of U.S. biological weapons topics, which should not be an outline An outline details subjects which all needed to be studied to gain a good understanding. a good example of an outline article is Outline of geography. all topics needs to be studied to gain a good understanding. Ecoman24 (talk page) 10:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC) I would counter that Outline of geography is a list, whereas Geography provides an "outline of Geography". Your List examples rely on the lead text, which in the parapsychology case was a direct copy of teh parapsychology article, with "outline" tagged on. I've removed it as a GFDL problem. Verbal chat 10:44, 12 October 2009 (UTC) I changed the section header to be more neutral and accurate. - 2/0 (cont.) 10:59, 12 October 2009 (UTC) brother, you are renaming articles which have been written by thousands of people. are you telling me that you are more knowledgeable than those thousands of editors who created those articles? the amazing thing is, you are changing outlines to list and list to outlines. wiki is free, but if we find ourselves in possible edit warring, best thing to do is, to stop doing that which is perceived to be wrong by others. you will loose nothing, but gain peace of mind. you have already spent so much time defending your renaming actions. No good please. lets move on as friends with a common purpose to share knowledge more freely on wiki. good day my friend. Ecoman24 (talk page) 11:04, 12 October 2009 (UTC) Hi, I'm sorry but you're a bit mistaken. I have restored the original names, the status quo, and have been reacting against what you describe - the unilateral renaming to outline without consensu. If you look at the article history and talk for the two you mention in the list section, you will see I have restored the original name and there was no consensus established for the change. Most of the edits to these articles happened under the name I have restored. Basically, I agree with you! I'm against changing any list to "outline", and haven't done this. Cheers, Verbal chat 11:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC) Thank you brother for your understanding. Ecoman24 (talk page) 11:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC) Will you please explain why Outline of Water needed to be renamed to List of water topics? It was created as an outline. The same goes for outline of chocolate which you are trying to get renamed. Your claim that you are "undoing" the renames are false. -- penubag  (talk) 13:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC) case concluded for now Case concluded. however, most people still have interest on the subject of which articles should be a list and outlines. may i suggest that you start a new thread. for now, original case, which i have renamed to its original tittle of User:Verbal's renaming of outlines is concluded. Ecoman24 (talk page) 11:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC) The case isn't concluded. Until Verbal gains consensus he cannot rename the outlines and shouldn't do so until he has. I would like to proceed undoing his renames. -- penubag  (talk) 13:57, 12 October 2009 (UTC) According to this, there is no recent history of page move as at now. please, read his responses above. all should be done to avoid edit warring. lets make peace and move one. verbal seem to have moved on, understood every one's concerns about edit warring regarding page move. Will you agree with me to close this case please, unless new evidence of page renaming concerning ONLY List and Outline come to surface?. Thank you for your understanding and voluntarily contributing remarkable knowledge to Wikipedia. Ecoman24 (talk page) 14:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC) Ecoman24 please review these links create, move move protect and tell me if you think that the original names have been restored and status quo have been achived. --Stefan talk 14:42, 12 October 2009 (UTC) the case was closed in good faith. user:verbal has stopped renaming pages. there is no need to continue antagonizing each others. lets move one gentlemen, there is loads of work that need editing. lets do it. well done all. Ecoman24 (talk page) 16:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Elektra Records

Anyone who knows me knows how much I hate these boards, but I'm ill and I really don't have the time or energy to deal with this. A gallery of non-free logos is continually being forced into the above article, obviously contrary to our non-free content criteria and our non-free content guidelines. Despite being removed several times by myself and others, it keeps getting added back. As I write this, it's in the article. Any intervention/help reverting appreciated. (I've made a note about this post on the article talk page.) J Milburn (talk) 10:38, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

There's a perfectly proper venue for settling this. It's FFD. Please use it, rather than edit-warring. Jheald (talk) 10:45, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, as I indicated at WP:NFCR, there is a strong case for thinking these logos do usefully help user understanding, and therefore do satisfy NFCC#8. To quote what I wrote there, "Branding for record marketing is highly visible and notable, hence the interest we take in it on WP. Furthermore, showing the logos allows people to approximately date releases, which in itself may be useful to readers given the collectability of the product. It is not unusual for an article to show a number of logos, to trace the evolution in the branding history -- it's validly encyclopedic. Also, the changes from logo to logo are substantial, not just minor detailing. So in my view, yes these logos do add valuably to the understanding the article conveys about Elektra, and therefore should indeed be retained."

To re-iterate: we have a mechanism for disagreements about which side images fall of NFCC#8. Please use it, and take the question to the community to decide, rather than trying to bulldoze your personal view. Jheald (talk) 10:51, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Concluded I like the way you guys have resolved this issue on article talk page. well done Jheald for taking a break from editing the article in question. Thank you user:Redvers for protecting the page. Ecoman24 (talk page) 11:55, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Concluded? What? What we basically have is someone claiming this is a "content dispute", which legitimises the idea of galleries of non-free content, and two weeks before the next reversion. Great. I'm reminded of why I hate the noticeboards... J Milburn (talk) 13:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Ecoman, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but please gain more experience on Wikipedia before declaring matters 'concluded' on the various noticeboards. –xeno^talk 14:54, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I support JMilburn's views. Logos can, as Jheald says, be illustrative of a company's history. A discussion of this with references to reliable sources would be great. In the case of Elektra, surely there are books or magazine articles discussing the evolution of this famous name, with some references to the logo(s)? However, non-free images without such accompanying critical commentary are a breach of our policy. One of our five pillars is that Wikipedia is free content. They must certainly not be in galleries, or dotted around the article next to random paragraphs. We need to actively remove content that violates our goal of being a free encyclopedia. The JPS^{talk to me} 16:39, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• Concur with J Milburn. The question we need to ask isn't "could the images provide/illustrate critical commentary" it's "could the images provide/illustrate critical commentary and is there no free way to do this?". In this case, as JPS says, there must be reliable sources discussing the company history and the name with reference to logos. A claim that this there is no free way to deal with such things is one that is going to raise a lot of eyebrows. Ironholds (talk) 17:10, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Linda Ronstadt discography issue

About a few hours ago, I reformatted Linda Ronstadt's singles charts up to standards, so they could meet the Wikipedia:WikiProject Discographies/style, however my edits are being continually reverted by user User:Don1962. He or she continually adds the old singles chart that does not include the rest of the Canadian chart positions, as well as the other separate singles charts. The user claims I have failed to add who originally recorded the song (as Ronstadt has recorded many cover versions of songs by other artists), but this is not required on a singles chart and it keeps getting reverted. It was not discussed and if they need to see who originally recorded it, they can look on the song page, right? It is Ronstadt's version that matters after all because it's her discography. Please help me. Dottiewest1fan (talk) 14:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

All opinions aside, you have both violated WP:3RR on that page. --Smashville^talk 16:29, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I seriously had no idea there was a rule for that, but now I know, thank you. I think the matter has been solved, but for next time, I will not revert more than three times. =) Dottiewest1fan (talk) 17:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Note: Ecoman, please do not mark ANI threads as "resolved" when they very clearly are not. The situation at hand hasn't even been discussed here yet. --Smashville^talk 19:38, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

User:27 Juni

Resolved

 – User indefinitely blocked --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

tranferred from WT:AN --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
27 Juni (talk · contribs)

Posting this here because the noticeboard has been protected: I'm starting to get the feeling that 27 Juni (talk · contribs) is a troll or a sockpuppet. All of his/her edits have been undoings to articles that have seemingly randomly been picked from Recent changes. The user refuses to discuss any edit and refuses to use talk pages. When I left a note on his/her talk page, the user replied in fluent English: "Im so sorry but i speak german! NOT english! Please translate your english words in german words and write only german on my talk page!" I'm doubting good faith here, this is verging on trolling and WP:POINT. 94.212.31.237 (talk) 14:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems likely that User:27 Juni is the user of the same name who was indef-blocked on German Wikipedia in March 2009, for vandalism [17]. User:27 Juni was created on 11 October, focussing on recent changes patrols. The contribs look fine (without checking each one...), but 27 Juni's revert of the above anon's removal of unsourced material at FK Velež Mostar led to this disagreement, which seems grounded in a lack of English as much as anything. Not sure what to suggest, but I can translate if necessary. PS The blocking admin on German Wikipedia is still active, so we could ask him for clarification, if necessary. Rd232 ^talk 15:12, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

If the user is able to write "Im so sorry but i speak german! NOT english! Please translate your english words in german words and write only german on my talk page!", I don't believe that he is unable to read English. And what is someone who can't read English doing on the English language wikipedia? 94.212.31.237 (talk) 16:45, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

There is a requirement to use English on en.Wikipedia talk pages. The editor cannot insist that you speak to them in German (this user is Elen of the Roads, making an edit on the move) Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:23, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

To be absolutely fair, there was a recent case of users communicating in Tagalog and it was decided here that they should be allowed to continue. That said, the user clearly speaks perfect English and is just invoking German to be disruptive. ╟─TreasuryTag►directorate─╢ 16:54, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

TreasuryTag has left the appropriate warning on this user's page. And if he can only communicate in German, then he has no business editting on the English Wikipedia -- & would be subject to an immediate ban. (That said, can someone who knows German history & culture explain the significance of 27 June? I looked at the appropriate Wikipedia article, & I found no clear reason for the date. I can't shake a bad feeling about it.) -- llywrch (talk) 17:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

PS -- The interested should have a look at this earlier version of his talk page, before he blanked it. -- llywrch (talk) 17:21, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• Can someone please block this editor? He is continuing to revert good edits without discussion, and is doing so after the warnings issued by the users above, simply blanking his talk page. My good faith is all used up, but even for those who want to continue to extend good faith to him, this cannot go on. If he cannot commnicate, he needs to find another website to contribute to, or at least another way of contributing here. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
• Support block per deliberate disruptive behaviour. ╟─TreasuryTag►consulate─╢ 21:00, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
• There are two possibilities here - either the user doesn't know English and are bungling things up because or it, or they do know English are are purposely being disruptive. Either way, I think an indefinite (not infinite) block is in order until the user can demonstrate they understand the problem with what they are doing, and have so blocked. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

WoWWiki

I'm fairly sure this isn't the right place to post this - but not sure which is the right place ... hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

The WoWWiki article was converted to a redirect per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WoWWiki (third nomination) in November 2006. Now, HooperBandP (talk · contribs) has recreated the article, and reverted the change pack to a redirect with the edit summary "this site has grown considerably since the previous RfD, and this page is done better since".

Compared to the original version (archived here), the new version appears to be sourced even more poorly; but due to the age of the original AfD, I'm not sure if it's appropriate to request the user send this through WP:DRV, or if I should create a new WP:AfD to determine current consensus? Can someone with more experience with old AfD'd content please provide some advice? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:09, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Attempting to apply CSD G4 after three years would be unwise. However CSD A7 may apply. I would just do a new AfD if I were you. Mike R (talk) 15:21, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you - I've gone ahead and created Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WoWWiki (4th nomination) based on your suggestion. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:19, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Probably not an A7, but consensus at the AfD is already pretty clear... –Juliancolton | ^Talk 17:43, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for page protection decline reconsideration

I requested that Tedder reconsider his declination of semi-protecting WP:VPP. After a little discussion, he suggested I bring it here "stating that [I] have requested protection, and that [we] wanted to make sure other admins felt it was appropriate."

The problem I'm trying to solve is blatant sockpuppetry by someone (SPI request already filed). By semi-protecting, it will prevent the sockpuppeting user (whoever it may be) from using multiple IP addresses to avoid WP:3rr and/or bait me into violating it and getting mself blocked.

In the interests of transparency, there are other issues being addressed in other forums, but this is all I am asking from WP:ANI: is such page protection warranted or not? — BQZip01 — ^talk 17:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• (copying and pasting from WP:RFP) Recommend denying the request. The "high level" of IP vandalism has to do with two edits to WP:VPP [18][19] that BQZip doesn't like. BQZ's been attempting to force merging of a discussion he started into an RfC that I started, even though I separated the discussion (which BQZ undid twice), CamelBinky separated (which BQZ undid), the IPs separated (which BQZ undid), and Mr.Z-man separated (and BQZ has yet to undo). Instead of protecting the page, BQZ should be given a warning regarding edit warring, especially against multiple editors trying to keep the discussions separate, and perhaps even a caution to stop going to WP:SPI when he doesn't like the edits being done against his preferred version (see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/TomPhan). This isn't about vandalism. It's about a preferred version that BQZ wants and a content dispute. Protection is unnecessary. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:29, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
• There are two issues here.
  • Sockpuppetry. It's entirely possible BQZip01 is correct; he has been subject to harrassment by an IP-hopping sockpuppeteer, and this could very well be him again. I think accusations of "trying to win an argument by claims of vandalism" might be a misunderstanding of what he has been dealing with.
  • Semi-protection. That said, what effect would semi-protecting the page have? Surely, BQZip01, you aren't planning to revert the page again, when multiple non-sockpuppeting editors have reverted you? This is not an issue that has to be resolved in the next five minutes; discuss meta-issues like this on WT:VPP. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:27, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
    • Floquenbeam, thank you for the prompt reply. No, I have no desire to re-re-revert at this time as someone other than hammersoft as weighed in on the matter (not counting IPs and a user who doesn't want to talk about it). The person who is sockpuppeting has accused me of murder and threatened harm to me along with other things that have been oversighted (hence the extended protections on my user & talk pages). Again, all I am asking for here is semi-protection. That will not prevent discussions with the primary users, but will prevent banned user sockpuppet intervetions. — BQZip01 — ^talk 17:41, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
      • • Just to make sure I was clear; I have no doubt you are being harassed; I think I remember seeing one example of this on an old AN/ANI thread before it was oversighted. I don't know if these two IP edits are the same person or not; I wouldn't be too surprised. However, even if they are, I think semi-protecting WP:VPP now would be trying to lock the barn door after the horse has escaped. If further IP edits to VPP are more clearly harassing, semi-protection could be re-visited, but I don't think I'd recommend it now. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
      • And if it had been semi-protected before, it would have stopped a whopping TWO edits, edits that other logged in users had already performed, which you kept reverting. I fail to see the service being provided by semi-protecting the page when no vandalism is occurring, and you are attempting (via several days of edit warring) to push your version. The problem here, frankly, isn't the IP. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:46, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
        • He's already said he's not going to re-revert; at least maybe try to have some sympathy for what he's having to put up with, even if you really disagree with him about other stuff? --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
          • I don't have to have sympathy for him to recognize that what the IPs did on that page was not vandalism, just something he didn't like that he's been edit warring over for days now. For the rest of his problems, frankly I don't care. I'm not involved, don't want to be involved, and this particular dispute has nothing to do with it. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
• I declined it and recommended that BQZ bring it here, so a consensus on protecting it (short term) could be made. In other words, protecting VPP isn't something I wanted to do without more opinion on the matter. tedder (talk) 17:32, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Warsow article

A set of IPs - 209.242.227.160 and 68.185.182.117, and a recently-registered user "Gmandaman" have been have continually re-added opinion and original research into the article for little over a week now. They've been warned, but are totally unresponsive. Eik Corell 18:24, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

User:Bostonbrahmin20's conduct

He is adding his own personal analysis to topics of sensitive nature e.g adding a reported date 8 October to an event which took place on 10 October, with no mention of the event in the stated report! He has been given a final warning on this count but still keep reverting the edits. Please act as early as possible as the article is now the main page currently. --yousaf465' 18:33, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Diffs and, at the very least which article, would be quite helpful. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:32, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Trolling and POV-pushing in race-related topics

I've been discussing this issue with the admin user:Dbachmann on his talk page here, and he suggested that I bring it up on this noticeboard. There are several aspects of this issue, but the most obvious one is that the user Alun / Wobble has a history of trolling these topics and making personal attacks on other Wikipedia users. He’s been warned about this behavior both by Dbachmann himself, and by non-admin users involved in the articles he edits. I've linked several examples of this from my post about this on Dbachmann's talk page, and quoted one particularly obvious example there.

The article Race and intelligence in particular has numerous issues, some of which I've described here and here. I've been accused of edit warring on this topic, which I may be guilty of, but the underlying issue here is the various forms of POV-pushing that are going on. Several users keep making obviously POV edits to this article, such as removing properly sourced information without any explanation of what's wrong with it, and at the moment I seem to be one of the only people who cares enough to revert these edits. This aspect of the article would definitely benefit from some admin attention. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:57, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Please be cautious about using the word troll, which means something very specific, as in deliberately antagonizing other editors just to get a rise out of them. It's not a term that should be used simply because someone disagrees with how an article is written. So you may wish to refactor that part of your complaint. Also, when you say "personal attacks", it would be helpful if you could provide specific diffs of what you feel are the more egregious violations. --Elonka 19:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

This recent debate does also seem to be part of this discussion. --Saddhiyama (talk) 19:07, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Another related thread is this 3RR report.[20] --Elonka 19:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I am not seeing any comments whatsoever from Captain Occam (talk · contribs) to the talkpage of Wobble (talk · contribs). Generally it's best for users to try and work out their disagreements on talkpages, before requesting attention at ANI. This is looking more and more like a content dispute. Recommend pushing this back to Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. --Elonka 19:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I used the term "trolling" for this editor's conduct because it's the term that Dbachmann used; I'm not sure whether this term is an accurate description of it or not. But either way, his conduct definitely fits Wikipedia's definition of personal attacks.

Here is one example of this behavior, about which Wobble previously received a warning, and here is another example. While the latter comment was not directed at anyone who was currently editing the article, several of Gene Expression's authors (such as Quizkajer) are editors at Wikipedia who have edited these article in the past, so calling them "fascists" is still a personal attack on Wikipedia users. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:33, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

"I am not seeing any comments whatsoever from Captain Occam (talk · contribs) to the talkpage of Wobble (talk · contribs). Generally it's best for users to try and work out their disagreements on talkpages, before requesting attention at ANI."

The reason I haven't contacted him about this is because other users involved in these articles have already done so, the most recent time being three days ago. All I would be accomplishing by contacting him there is restating what Fixentries already said. (Incidentally, Wobble's conduct since then hasn't improved.)

• This is extremely complicated and difficult, and I recommend especial care to anyone poking their noses in here. It's a tricky balancing act between the outright racists and the contentions of a minority of respectable scientists who do see a link between genetics and intelligence. WP:FRINGE or WP:UNDUE? It is not helped, IMHO, by people like Muntuwandi (how the hell did he get unbanned?), who is certainly not a fit and proper person to be editing such an article. Moreschi (talk) 19:23, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
• It is a very complicated situation, of which I am only aware of a portion. I will add, however, that having read through and participated in the discussion at the RSN, Captain Occam shows distinct signs of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT-type behaviour, which along with the edit-warring, clear 3RR breaching reverts of multiple editors[21], suggests to me that s/he is a significant part of the problem. --Slp1 (talk) 19:42, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

This issue has been discussed elsewhere, particularly on my userpage and here. I've agreed to no longer edit war on this article as long as the larger POV issues can be addressed.

However, the two instances of personal attacks from Wobble that I linked to were on articles about which I've had very little (or no) involvement, so I think that issue should be decided separately. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:49, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

You come at ANI complaining of personal attacks of Alun against you, yet of the two (dubious) examples you provide, none is directed at you...????--Ramdrake (talk) 19:52, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

You have indeed stopped reverting but "I've agreed to no longer edit war on this article as long as the larger POV issues can be addressed" is not terribly encouraging. What happens if the POV issues you see are not addressed by the community to your satisfaction? The precedent set at RSN of Captain Occam being able to listen to other voices is not terribly encouraging, unfortunately.--Slp1 (talk) 20:00, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

At this point, I think they're likely to be addressed, so I'm not sure it matters what would happen if they aren't. I'm not sure what I would do if they aren't, but based on the amount of frustration I've experienced over this, I've considered giving up on editing Wikipeda altogether.

If you look carefully at the discussion on the RS noticeboard, you'll see something rather odd there: the arguments against the NYT cite being reliable were not based on any specific policy. The other editors there would raise one policy that they thought it violated, we would discuss it at length, and eventually they would abandon their argument based on that policy. Then they would raise another, unrelated policy that they claimed it violated, and repeat the same process again. By the end of the discussion, they were recycling arguments that they had already previously abandoned after the previous time I refuted them, without even attempting to address the earlier refutations. (Some of the earlier refutations are on the R/I discussion page, which is where this dispute started.)

If there were one specific policy that everyone were in agreement was the reason why the NYT citation is inadmissible, that would be one thing, but in this case there never any consensus about what policy disallowed this. I pointed this out in more detail in the explanation of this on my userpage. Eventually I basically gave up on trying to include this citation in the article, but only because I didn't think it was worth the amount of time I was putting into this.

Can we please discuss the issues that I initially brought up here--the POV-pushing and the trolling--rather than having to rehash an issue that I've already more or less given up on? --Captain Occam (talk) 20:18, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say the personal attacks were directed at me. I said that he's been making personal attacks and possibly trolling, and the reason I care about this is because it's disrupting the articles in question, not because it's directed at me. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:59, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• As someone who has been involved on the talk page from the beginning of the above mentioned issues, I would have to say that Captain Occam can be stubborn, but that they eventually have come to understand most of the policy issues in question. The disputes between C.Occam and others seem to be genuine content disputes... more appropriately handled by discussion/RFC/mediation/arbitration than by admin actions. Fixentries (talk · contribs) however (whom Occam has inextricably described elsewhere as "uninvolved") has been extremely antagonistic and pointy, causing several editors to raise comparisons with Jagz (talk · contribs). T34CH (talk) 19:54, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Based on my limited experience in the dispute, I agree with the above. Content dispute inflamed by (assuming good faith) a lack of familiarization with standard wiki codes of conduct. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 21:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Can an administrator please address the issue that I brought up here originally, about trolling and/or personal attacks? The discussion here has gotten pretty far off-track, from people bringing up issues that are only marginally related to this, and my original complaint about Alun/Wobble’s conduct has not yet been addressed. I don’t want to have to post another new section here in order for this issue to receive an admin’s attention. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:45, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

You have administrator attention, for example, um, mine.  :) And I am not seeing any trolling here. As for personal attacks, I see a few comments which were more sharply worded than probably necessary, from multiple parties, but I'm not seeing anything that requires administrator action at this time. This noticeboard is really for requesting administrator attention in cases of blatant and unambiguous abuse. For content disputes, or non-blatant abuse, it is better to work through procedures at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. --Elonka 01:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

And these are the diffs I linked to from Alun / Wobble that you’re looking at? The administrator who directed me here, Dbachmann, said that he thought that these diffs probably warranted a block; the only reason he hadn’t blocked Alun himself is because he occasionally edits the same articles that Alun does, and Dbachmann thought it ought to be done by an uninvolved admin. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:08, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Careful Occam. It seems you are totally "misreading" dab: User talk:Dbachmann#Alun_.2F_Wobble. If you want action, you need to post diffs (read that, as you seem to be confusing diffs with wikilinks) showing the exact comments you have issues with. To speed things up, here is the tail-end of the relevant conversation: [22][23][24][25][26][27]. I hadn't read it earlier because tldr, but I now see that actually Wobble accuses Occam of trolling, POV-pushing, and socking (well, implies the trolling part). T34CH (talk) 05:44, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

No I did't, go and read the diffs again. I have never accused anyone of trolling. I haven't said he's pov-pushing, I have said "I can't help but feel that mostly you're here to justify a single point of view, much of it your opinion, and much of it unsupported by any reliable source." If there's something tremendously wrong with that, then I don't want to edit here any more. I didn't accuse him of socking either, what I did was say that I am suspicious that he is the same person as another editor (do you know the difference between a suspicion and an accusation?). That is not an accusation of sockpuppetry. Sockpuppetry is when multiple accounts are used for nefarious purposes, such as trying to rig a vote, or trying to influence discussions on talk pages. I never made that accusation. T34CH, you have totally misrepresented what I wrote. Well done. Alun (talk) 06:13, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

T34CH, I already posted two diffs earlier, this one and this one. While these comments weren’t directed at me specifically, they’re still good examples of the disruptive behavior I was trying to demonstrate here. In his second comment, Alun accuses a group of several Wikipedia editors (those who also contribute to Gene Expression) of being “fascists”.

The first edit was the one for which Dbachmann said that he believed that a block for Alun would be justified. Dbachmann said, “This diff alone would buy you a block if I was in the habit of going to AN/I crying 'NPA!'" Putting that together with what Dbachmann said on his userpage about the blocking needing to be done by an uninvolved admin, I don’t think I’m misconstruing the opinion he's expressed in those two places. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:13, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Once again occam, you only give half the story. The comment I made about backmann I appologised for, [28] and I hardly see how it is relevant here. Your second point is just irrelevant, I called a racist websirte racist. Big deal, that's not a personal attack, it's a statement of fact. Indeed I'd suggest that it is far more disruptive for Wikipedia when editors continue to cite blogs (which is becoming something of a habit for you), rather than when edtors point out that these blogs are unreliable. Frankly I think you're wasting everyone's time trying to get me into "trouble". There's a word for that, oh yes wikilawyering. Alun (talk) 06:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

As has been pointed out before, several of Gene Expression's authors (such as Quizkajer) are editors here who contribute to these articles, so calling them “fascists” is a personal attack on other Wikipedia users. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:01, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm totally unconvinced by that argument. If I knew that a specific editor was a contributer to that site, and called them a fascist on a talk page, then that would be a personal attack. But your claim is without merit as far as I can see. Alun (talk) 07:53, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Besides which Quizkajer hasn't contributed to Wikipedia for three years. So now I'm personally attacking someone who isn't even involved in the talk page discussion? Go and read Wikipedia:PA#What_is_considered_to_be_a_personal_attack.3F, because as far as I can see you're trying to claim that no one is ever allowed to critisize any editor or any publication ever because that's a personal attack. And no, I'm not telling you what you believe, I'm telling you what it seems to me you believe. I did that before and you called that a personal attack. I really think this is an absurd waste of AN/I time and space. Alun (talk) 08:00, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Copyright on (mainly) film articles

I originally brought this up at Wikipedia_talk:Copyright_problems#Plot_summary_copyrights, but that page seems a bit quiet at the moment, and this is the first chance I've had to look at it again since I posted there.

I came across an article, Smiling Irish Eyes, created by Coin945 (talk · contribs) last week, and noticed that the plot section appeared to be a copy of The All Movie Guide and the trivia section was taken directly from the IMDB's trivia section on the film. I edited these out, replacing the plot summary with a brief paraphrase. Having a look through the editor's contributions, I found a number of other apparent copyright issues, some of which I listed at Copyright problems (listed below for convenience); I wanted to confirm that this was a copyright issue (the individual source pages are marked (c), but I wanted to make sure there were no exemptions on, for example, user-generated content on the IMDB). I also left a message on the user's talk page, to which they haven't responded, except to re-add the trivia in what appears to be a fairly close paraphrasing. Since then, Coin945 has created a number of other articles, including Perth Hebrew Congregation which is a copy of that organisation's website ([29], [30] - NB. I can't find any explicit copyright claim on this site, nor can I find any free license) and Innocents of Paris, which copies the trivia section from the IMDB and the plot section from a user comment on the same site. I have not checked all of Coin945's contributions yet, but they have created quite a few articles on films, and I am concerned that they do not fully understand the issues on copyrights, plagiarism and close paraphrasing.

The reason I am posting here is to a) confirm that this is a problem; and b) if it is a problem, is there a process for dealing with this? Coin945 has been editing since 2006: I'm not sure how far back this kind of editing goes, but there may be a significant number of edits affected.

Articles originally listed at WT:CP

• Hot for Paris = [31]
• Carmencita (film) = [32]
• A (1998 film) = [33]
• Wicked (2011 film) = [34]
• Follies (film) = [35]
• The Forward Pass = [36]
• The Rainbow Man = [37]
• Why Bring That Up? = [38] & [39]
• Oh, For a Man! = [40]

I will be notifying the editor in question momentarily --☇Kateshortforbob _talk☄ 19:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I missed your listing at WT:CP, which I typically try to keep an eye on. Been some crazy days in my part of the world & wiki lately. There is no exemption for user content at IMBd. Their terms of use makes clear that user contributed content is licensed for use by IMDb and sublicensees, but it is not public domain. There are processes for dealing with this. Although it is sorely in need of more contributors, WP:COPYCLEAN does have a page for listing contributors who can be shown to have infringed in multiple articles and whose contributions may need more thorough review: Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Contributor surveys. (Did I mention that it is sorely in need of more contributors?) Typically, when I see plot sections copied, I remove them with a note directing contributors to the talk page and leave {{plot2}} to explain why. And with [41], lack of explicit copyright notice isn't the problem; it's lack of explicit licensing compatibility that's the issue. Unless we can verify it is public domain, it's a WP:Copyvio without that. Any contributor who is violating copyright should be cautioned, as persistence at this is likely to lead to blocking. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:00, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I've found several more examples already. I'm going to have to run a contribution survey to organize this. :/ --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:35, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

It's at Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup/Coin945. For the record, I've spent over an hour digging about here already and so far I've found copyvios in every film article I've viewed but one. Primarily these are straightforward pastes, but some are WP:NFC violations, with entire summaries or reviews copied. Anyone want to help out? It's all organized at that link. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:43, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

IP problems again

The problems with certain range IP reoccurred. I have already informed community on the issues surrounding 124.190.113.128 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and its "supporting" IPs like 203.56.87.254 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), 211.28.47.151 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) earlier [42], [43] and I was advised to reach out community if the problem resume. Currently IP 124.190.113.128 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) resumed his "clean up" of certain articles:

• On Adam Mickiewicz removal of references without any expatriation [44]
• On Franciszek Smuglewicz removal of references without any expatriation [45] (the artcile was already semi protected due to this IP actions)
• On Tadeusz Kościuszko removal of references without any expatriation [46]
• On Władysław Syrokomla changing meaning without explanation [47].

Basically he is following my contributions: I fixed reference [48] after some time he removed that content; I inserted references [49] after some time same IP came and removed that [50], [51]; I reinserted references after some time same IP come [52] and removed them. Can anybody finally stop such harassment, and deliberate damage to the articles' content? Thanks, M.K. (talk) 19:52, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

walmart class action suit

Resolved

 – WP:SOFIXIT :-) Tan | 39 20:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

someone hacked in and put some not very nice language in the first paragraph. someone should correct it. this is what give Wikipedia a bad name and questions the legitimacy of something that would and could be for the common good.

anyway -- you'll see it -- refers to "menopausal c#$%s...etc." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.65.93.16 (talk) 19:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• Could you please provide a link. also, don't you think it would be good to sign up for a wiki user name? Ecoman24 (talk page) 20:12, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. It's been fixed; definitely not something ANI worthy. Tan | 39 20:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Jungle Island Advertising Campaign

Unresolved

I was working on RC Patrol when I noticed an IP turning the Jungle Island article into an advertisement. I reverted it a few times, but the IP added it back. Then another IP showed up to revert my revert, writing in the edit summary that I was a vandal. Now WP:SPA User:Maxitup16 and seems to be continuing the campaign. I have not alerted any of the IPs or the users of this discussion, as I am not sure who, if any, of them should be alerted. I don't want to violate WP:3RR so I am asking for someone to look over the edits and page and decide how to handle it. --Odie5533 (talk) 21:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• article tagged appropriate for now to identify the culprit, should the template be removed. Ecoman24 (talk page) 22:09, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
• I've also toned down the language some, and removed some of the spammier sections. --Bfigura ^(talk) 22:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Ecoman23 and Bfigura. I know it's a lot of work going through and removing all the ad stuff, and it is much appreciated. --Odie5533 (talk) 22:21, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The SPA User:Maxitup16 appears to have put back most of the advertisement. Another user reverted the ad, but I don't think it will last. --Odie5533 (talk) 23:14, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I have sent the article to AfD. It doesn't appear particularly noteworthy, even separate from the promo copy. <>Multi-Xfer<> (talk) 03:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Template removal & incivility...

Back on September 20, 2009, Chao19 (talk · contribs) was blocked for removing article maintenence templates and incivility. He was removing {{fact}}, {{refimprove}}, and {{references}} templates from assorted Creed articles... he was given fair warning, and his only replies the the warnings were that no references were needed and I was an asshole for restoring the templates. After the block, that user was inactive for a while, although there were one or two IPs (67.167.33.47 (talk · contribs) and possible others) that continued the pattern, even going so far as to continue the incivility on my user talk page (this and the following half dozen revisions)... within a minute of the IP's last comment, Chao19 had logged in, and replied to his own IP comment (Chao19's first edit since the block)... Since that edit, the IP has not made any further edits, and Chao19 has continued the incivility[53] and removal of maintenence templates without reason... I filed a report at AIV, and was going to file a report at SSP, but was told it would be better brought to ANI...

It is obvious that the IP is a sock of Chao19, and it is also obvious that Chao19's original block did nothing to change his editing habits... his counter-productive editing and harassment of other users has become more than an average bother to me, and I would like someone else to look into this... - Adolphus79 (talk) 22:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Deleting talk comments

Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) has made good on a threat to begin deleting my talk page comments [54]. Nothing I have posted on the talk page comes even remotely close deserving to be deleted as per WP:TALKNO. I had suggested that we seek arbitration or mediation to resolve a dispute over the content of an article, but this suggestion was deleted.--Dbratland (talk) 23:26, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Huh. If I were Delicious carbuncle, I would have just stopped responding to you in that particular section of the talk page, and merely ensured that anything put into the article itself was within policy. While I disagree with what I opine are hair-splitting statements over a minor facet of a minor topic, I don't think this should have been forcibly removed from the article talk page. Tan | 39 23:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Other than me simply giving in, I would appreciate any suggestions on how to resolve this dispute without any more drama.--Dbratland (talk) 23:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

There are several options available to you; see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. IMHO, your best bet might be to post a neutrally worded request at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Motorcycling for people to drop by and give their opinion. Technically, you've got 3 opinions already, but you could bend the rules slightly and request a fourth at WP:3O. It seems there is some question on reliability of sources; you could ask for input on that particular issue at WP:RSNB. I think if everyone involved tries hard to compromise, instead of insist that they're right, you'd all be able to come up with a compromise wording. Arbitration is not an option; the ArbCom only deals with user conduct, not content issues, and anyway thinks have to get a lot worse than this before you'd want to even think about heading there. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's proper for one person to remove the talk page comments of another involved in the same dispute. I've therefore reverted the removal. No opinion on whether or not the discussion really needs to continue, but this manner of forcing it to end seems improper. As Tan said, the other parties could have simply stopped responding, which would have been the way to go. WP:Just drop it. Equazcion (talk) 00:32, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I already tried WP:RSNB and Motorcycling -- we only have about 5 active members, and I'm the only one with a morbid fascination with the motorcycle gang articles, in spite of their overwhelming popularity over articles about actual motorcycles. So I'll see what WP:3O can do. The reason I don't want to drop it is not because I care one way or another about what is said about motorcycle gangs. I do care about being able to write and maintain the articles in the scope of the Motorcycling Project, and if you're not allowed to say "outlaw" can include a non-criminal subculture, then you have to throw out two thirds of the books and journal articles on the subject, and all you have to work with are police press releases and unreliable true crime books. It's easier to write articles if you are allowed to cite all authorities, not just some.--Dbratland (talk) 00:48, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Just for the record, I wasn't telling you to drop it, Dbratland. I was saying that if your opponents wanted to end the discussion, they only needed to stop responding to you. That's what WP:JDI is about. I haven't read through your dispute in detail but I'll have a look and comment if I can. Equazcion (talk) 00:54, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I realize what you meant. I just wanted to vent, I guess.--Dbratland (talk) 02:29, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Let me briefly outline what is happening on here. Dbratland has split Outlaw motorcycle club from Motorcycle club. He has then selectively edited out references which suggest that "outlaw motorcycle club" is synonymous with "outlaw motorcycle gang". (Note that Motorcycle gang is a redirect to this article). Dbratland has inserted references to support his position that there is a distinction between non-criminal "outlaw motorcycle clubs" and allegedly criminal "motorcycle gangs", which is a distinction not supported by news media or law enforcement references. As you will see in this edit from Talk:Outlaw_motorcycle_club, he has misrepresented the positions of some of the references he seeks to use. Similarly, in this discussion WP:RSN#Sources for special meaning of the word "outlaw", he twice misquoted a source and failed to corrct his mistakes when they were pointed out to him. The WP:RSN discussion is the precursor to the one on the talk page and is similarly a discussion about the specific application of the word "outlaw".

Dbratland wants to debate whether or not outlaw bikers should be considered criminals. This is a philsophical debate and Wikipedia is not the place for it. He has been asked, clearly and politely, to stop using the talk page as a soapbox, but has persisted. As evidenced by this concurrent discussion at [WP:RSN], Dbratland has a specific agenda and decidedly not neutral point of view with these articles. He seems to be what is generally called a "polite POV pusher" or tendentious editor. There is no reason to allow him to use the talk page as a soapbox. I reverted his comments per WP:TALK on that basis, after telling him that I would do so. 01:45, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I've responded on the article talk page, which I think is the more appropriate venue. Equazcion (talk) 02:06, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

180.149.208.124

Resolved

 – 24 from Kralizec! (talk · contribs). - 2/0 (cont.) 23:51, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• 180.149.208.124 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) - created talk pages and vandalized some non-talk pages. Sorry if this is not the place to report this. I think this requires attention. — Andy W. ^{(talk/contrb.)} 23:35, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:AIV is what you're looking for. Tan | 39 23:36, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

User:Durwoodie

Resolved

 – Blocked 48h. MuZemike 00:20, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Durwoodie (talk · contribs) has been inserting unsourced POV statements in the articles Psychiatry and Biopsychiatry controversy. He was reverted by several users (in the process violating 3RR) and pointed to relevant policies concerning reliable, independent sources. Durwoodie now has posted violent personal attacks on my talk page and on the Psychiatry talk page. Given the way this user acts and reacts, I don't think mediation is helpful and as the pharmaceutical industry has neglected to pay me in recent years, I don't really like to be called their whore... Assistance is welcome. --Crusio (talk) 23:45, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Blocked by Tan39. First unblock request declined by yours truly. MuZemike 00:20, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

He's made a more substantive unblock request on his talk page, offering Crusio a full apology.--chaser (away) - talk 02:27, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

"Rayman Advent" and related hoaxes

IPs 70.188.151.191 (talk · contribs) (oct. 11-now) and 68.0.235.112 (talk · contribs) (oct 3-10) have been going around and adding to various BLPs' voice/filmography things like Rayman Advent, which, near as I can tell, don't exist. Help cleaning up after them would be appreciated Cleanup done, would appreciate an admin looking into this and taking appropriate action. Nifboy (talk) 00:39, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

• Adding to the list 68.0.233.245 (talk · contribs) (August 12-16). Nifboy (talk) 00:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

RfA that could use an early closing

Resolved

 – Belongs at WP:BN, if anywhere.

Durova³²⁵ 04:40, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Extended content

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Tango 2 The tally is currently 10/53/8. I'm not alone in thinking this has no chance of succeeding. I would close it myself, but I've participated in the discussion. Maybe someone uninvolved could have a look? Equazcion (talk) 02:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC) I think you have to ask the 'crats about this. Crafty (talk) 03:46, 13 October 2009 (UTC) According to the main RfA page, a SNOW closing can be executed by any member in good standing. Only RfAs closed as passes must be done by crats, according to the page. Equazcion (talk) 03:48, 13 October 2009 (UTC) True, it's just such a nasty situation that the Solomonesque adjudication of a 'crat might be beneficial in this case. Crafty (talk) 03:58, 13 October 2009 (UTC) It's possible Tango might be using the RfA to reply to past criticism. (He may be looking to rehabilitate his reputation and may not care about the vote totals). If Tango is not complaining, why not let this one continue? The comments by the RfA voters may give some general insight as to what the community expects from its admins. EdJohnston (talk) 04:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC) Tango has stated in no uncertain terms he wishes the RfA to remain open. With new editors, there can be a slight urgency to close a tanking RfA because they didn't know what to expect. That is not the case here. I don't understand why there's a rush, or concern. If he wants the opposes and criticism, he's entitled to it. Tan | 39 04:27, 13 October 2009 (UTC) He stated that he wanted to keep it open within the first few hours (when even then people were suggesting he withdraw). He hasn't had any new contribs recently, so it's possible he's not aware of how bad it's gotten. There's no particular rush in closing it, but I don't see any particular point in leaving it open, either. It's like watching a dead horse take a beating. This seems like what WP:SNOW was made for. Just my thought. Equazcion (talk) 04:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC) What's the harm in it remaining open? If people don't want to bother with a dead horse then the don't need to comment. Grsz11 04:35, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to add to a resolved thing. The candidate asks for wider editor involvement - they left a message on the RfA talk page saying they'd left a notice on CENT. (I've worded this as neutrally as I can. Feel free to strike or remove if it's not appropriate.) NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 07:15, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Legal threat by User:138.88.255.130

Could someone uninvolved deal with the legal threats here by User:138.88.255.130. I suspect it's one of the prior users there again arguing "I think I know copyright law so I can make up whatever lyrics I want" earlier up that page. I'd also ask that the poorly sourced (and BLP-violating) lyrics be removed with protection anew, if that's considered appropriate. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:45, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this is a threat of legal action. Perhaps incivil, yes. -----J.S (T/C/WRE) 04:00, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty harsh when it comes to legal threats and I'm not really seeing one here. He's trying to cite law but nowhere does he say it's being violated. --Golbez (talk) 05:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

• Certainly not a legal threat. Simply mentioning the law != legal threat. His post is about as much a legal threat as this one is. Ironholds (talk) 07:24, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

User:213.171.34.244 running an unapproved bot?

After deleting three very odd talk pages made by this account (they were talk pages for nonsense strings of characters, whose only content was a blank speedy deletion template) I checked this ip's history for any other recent weirdness, and found that the majority of their edits have "robot adding" in their edit summary. Looks to me like they are sporadically running an unapproved bot of some sort. I've never tangled with this specific situation before, so I'm bringing it here. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:23, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

It looks like an interwiki link bot which I would guess is being run from the Ukrainian Wikipedia (its edit summaries were first in Ukranian). Icewedge (talk) 06:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I just ran a search (with this) and the IP has has thousands of edits on dozens of different projects. Its kind of suspicious, there is a lot of "Робот добавил: [interwikies]" ("Bot added: [interwikies]") but also a lot of nonsense page creation too. Icewedge (talk) 06:43, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

It created a userpage on et.wikipedia.org ([55]) with userboxes indicating fluency in Russian and a very basic grasp of English. Icewedge (talk) 06:51, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what to do. It seems static so if you think its doing more harm than good a block could be effective. I don't think we are going to able to easily contact this fellow, although no harm in trying. Icewedge (talk) 06:55, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Does WP:RUSSIA have any members who are also admins? Mjroots (talk) 07:54, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

blanking my user space

Resolved

 – Attacker (User:Bunns USMC) blocked for 48hrs, for issuing threats & blanking another user's page. Ecoman24 (talk page) 09:08, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Right now, User:Bunns USMC has been blanking my userpages, after calling me an idiot. Considering that this user mostly hasn't edited since 2006, and was a fairly decent contributor at that time, I think his account may be compromised. However, either way, I'd like to get some admin intervention against his edits to my userpage. Thanks. bahamut0013^words_deeds 08:13, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

This edit in particular worries me...  GARDEN  09:02, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I've issued a 48h block to stop the blanking and personal attacks for now. Situation perhaps should be monitored.  GARDEN  09:03, 13 October 2009 (UTC)