*'''Oppose''': Redheylin has been saying things (diffs above are evidence) that a number of people have objected to. Cirt on the other hand has never engaged in personal attacks or undesirable behavior as far as I know for the little time I've known him. Thats why Cirt was able to collect diffs as evidence against Redheylin while I bet no one can do the same for Cirt. I came new into this whole Osho related business only a few days ago. I was impressed by Cirt's ''constant'' patience while dealing with Redheylin and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Off2riorob Off2riorob] and even Jayen in the old days ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Osho_(Bhagwan_Shree_Rajneesh)/Archive_7#Bhagwan_Shree_Rajneesh_was_deported_from_the_United_States]). I suggest we give 2 or 3 more weeks to Redheylin and see if things are still the same as before. If they are, then it would be time to file an RfC and go from there. Cirt should not be punished by disallowing him to talk to Redheylin about Osho-related articles because they both edit these articles. Its Redheylin who has to improve his conduct. Red its simple: stay focused on the article, not the editor. See how Cirt does it. People have been editing controversy related articles with differing viewpoints for a long time and it can be done. --[[User:Matt57|Matt57]] <sup>([[User_talk:Matt57|talk]]•[[Special:Contributions/Matt57|contribs]])</sup> 05:17, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''': Redheylin has been saying things (diffs above are evidence) that a number of people have objected to. Cirt on the other hand has never engaged in personal attacks or undesirable behavior as far as I know for the little time I've known him. Thats why Cirt was able to collect diffs as evidence against Redheylin while I bet no one can do the same for Cirt. I came new into this whole Osho related business only a few days ago. I was impressed by Cirt's ''constant'' patience while dealing with Redheylin and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Off2riorob Off2riorob] and even Jayen in the old days ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Osho_(Bhagwan_Shree_Rajneesh)/Archive_7#Bhagwan_Shree_Rajneesh_was_deported_from_the_United_States]). I suggest we give 2 or 3 more weeks to Redheylin and see if things are still the same as before. If they are, then it would be time to file an RfC and go from there. Cirt should not be punished by disallowing him to talk to Redheylin about Osho-related articles because they both edit these articles. Its Redheylin who has to improve his conduct. Red its simple: stay focused on the article, not the editor. See how Cirt does it. People have been editing controversy related articles with differing viewpoints for a long time and it can be done. --[[User:Matt57|Matt57]] <sup>([[User_talk:Matt57|talk]]•[[Special:Contributions/Matt57|contribs]])</sup> 05:17, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' sanction as presented. This is not about Cirt and Redheylin, but about Rajneesh. Any attempt to institute this ban would be counterproductive, because it would, basically, be completely dependent on the level of Cirt's activity involving that content at any given time. There are ways to deal effectively with matters like this. One is to call in other editors who deal with religion. I think I got involved because of Cirt's doing that, myself being an active religion editor. Should that fail, in all honesty, either an RfC or formal mediation would have a much better chance of effectiveness, and, with any luck, much less rancor. "Straight and blunt speaking" and its equivalents are as often as not used as euphemisms for other things which have policy or guideline pages named after them. Cirt has probably been subjected to more harrasment than most any of us for his contributions to wikipedia, includinhg off-wiki harrassment, and I can and do understand how it might give him, at times, a quick trigger finger. I'm not saying this is one of those times, however. I haven't reviewed the matter to that degree. In all honesty, I think the best approach in this instance would be for both to disengage for a while, maybe file an RfC or mediation on whatever they decide the core disagreement is, and go on from there. [[User:John Carter|John Carter]] ([[User talk:John Carter|talk]]) 14:11, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' sanction as presented. This is not about Cirt and Redheylin, but about Rajneesh. Any attempt to institute this ban would be counterproductive, because it would, basically, be completely dependent on the level of Cirt's activity involving that content at any given time. There are ways to deal effectively with matters like this. One is to call in other editors who deal with religion. I think I got involved because of Cirt's doing that, myself being an active religion editor. Should that fail, in all honesty, either an RfC or formal mediation would have a much better chance of effectiveness, and, with any luck, much less rancor. "Straight and blunt speaking" and its equivalents are as often as not used as euphemisms for other things which have policy or guideline pages named after them. Cirt has probably been subjected to more harrasment than most any of us for his contributions to wikipedia, includinhg off-wiki harrassment, and I can and do understand how it might give him, at times, a quick trigger finger. I'm not saying this is one of those times, however. I haven't reviewed the matter to that degree. In all honesty, I think the best approach in this instance would be for both to disengage for a while, maybe file an RfC or mediation on whatever they decide the core disagreement is, and go on from there. [[User:John Carter|John Carter]] ([[User talk:John Carter|talk]]) 14:11, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
::Re: Jayen's '''"Yes, I do deny that"''', why then do you still use your sanyassin title? how come you don't make a statement about this on your user page (like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jalal Jalal]). From information I see online, you left the movement following a leadership rift, (Keerti V Osho Foundation International?) can you clarify this for us? I think it would be helpful to know exactly where you stand on this matter. [[User:Semitransgenic|Semitransgenic]] ([[User talk:Semitransgenic|talk]]) 14:20, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Be brief and include diffs demonstrating the problem
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07:27, 19 November 2009 User:Gogo Dodo (talk | contribs) deleted "Team touchdown FC" (A7: Article about a group or club, which does not indicate the importance or significance of the subject)
19:36, 19 November 2009 User:Kinu (talk | contribs) deleted "Team / Touchdown" (A7: Article about a group or club, which does not indicate the importance or significance of the subject)
09:25, 19 November 2009 DMacks (talk | contribs) deleted "Team Touchdown FC" (recreation of unreferenced article about non-notable subject that has previously been deleted after AfD)
Not sure how much good that will do; I suspect these are meatpuppets, not socks. IIRC, Team Touchdown is a made-up football group; this is probably a bunch of guys trying to get their little club on WP. GlassCobra23:48, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Though the duration of the lock may be effective enough for now, it will not be as effective hereafter, as when ever the lock is then removed, anyone will be able to recreate the article. An indefinite lock is effective and should be done to prevent any future recreations such as this. If only I had the power to block those responsible for the recreations....--Boeing7107isdelicious|SPRiCh miT meineN PiloteN 05:15, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Can someone take a look at Gibraltar for some time we have had Spanish editors trying to make the article 'more Spanish' involving long discussions which are currently stalling in informal mediation;
Today we have a repeated attempt to include a long list of allegedly notable Spanish people under the heading who are most certainly NOT Gibraltarian people, as these are by definition British Citizens.
The editor responsible for this is user:Ecemaml who has previously been blocked for misbehaviour on Gibraltar related issues. User:Cremallera may be a sock of his - can someone check this.
I'm involved in trying to help mediate the disputes at Gibraltar. As I'm involved in the mediation and I've been an admin for less than a week I hesitate to use any tools but I've been watching over the situation. The only person who has violated 3RR at this point is User:Justin A Kuntz, but he informed me that he is taking a 2 day Wikibreak so I don't think there's any point in a block. Anyone who wants to help out and intervene, however, is more than welcome, as the heat on this article (and History of Gibraltar) seems to be rising. -- Atama頭02:02, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Although you are doing a good job in trying to mediate in the Gibraltar article, it looks like there is an orchestrated attempt to disrupt that and other articles on Gibraltar and set up Justin and myself. Its very unproductive but frankly typical of the sort of harassment tactic continually used by the Spanish Government against Gibraltar. --Gibnews (talk) 07:58, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've fully-protected the article both articles for one week while mediation is ongoing; it might take the heat out of the situation if editors can discuss things without needing to worry about what others are doing on the article. FWIW, I see no immediate reason to think that Cremallera and Ecemamlare are sock accounts, although an WP:SPI might be helpful to settle that. EyeSerenetalk11:55, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
{{editprotected}}... I hope you don't mind me asking, but you're not a new editor. Is this a serious objection to what you must be aware is standard procedure in hot content disputes? Your userpage notes that you retired a couple of days ago; I can't avoid the impression that either you're making some kind of point, the reason for which is lost on me, or I'm being trolled. EyeSerenetalk13:01, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. So now pointless personal attacks, Spanish bashing, attributing "orchestrated disruptive intentions" to other editors, unfounded accusations of sockpuppetry and vilifying the Spanish Government is considered fair play in the Administrators' noticeboard? Still can't believe it. PS: actually, protecting the articles isn't a bad move given the current climate, in my opinion of course.Cremallera (talk) 14:05, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, this is Ecemaml, the man who seems to have shot Liberty Valance. Well, I see this is not the place to discuss on the content of the blocked article, but I'd like to make it clear some of the accusations I've received:
I've done an only semi-reversion (explaining why, dropping one of the persons in the list and including references to justify notability in those who didn't have an article yet). BTW, the edition summary in the removal of the information I had created was as explanatory and related to the Wikipedia policies as "ridiculous entry". No further information was provided in the talk page (I'm supposedly the disruptive editor).
There are solid explanations to my editions in the talk page. You can agree or not with them, but my editions are far from being arbitrary. To sum up, I argue that, as long as there is an only article for Gibraltar (that is, there is no article for the town of Gibraltar and other for the British territory of Gibraltar, much in the like of Taiwan and the Republic of China), it's valid to include in a section named "Notable people from Gibraltar" any notable person from Gibraltar from whatever period, either Roman, Visigoth, Vandal, Moor, Spanish or British. If a list on "Notable Gibraltarians" is wished, its place should be Gibraltarian people. Moreover, from the 13 people currently listed in the section, only 4 or 5 may qualify as Gibraltarian (the rest being British subjects accidentally born in Gibraltar as their parents were military garrisoned in Gibraltar, none of them known to have asked for "Gibraltarian nationality", quite sensible since they're are full British people.
An odd sign of what's going on can be seen here. It seems as if any person in the phone directory in Gibraltar is more notable than any Spanish person born in Gibraltar.
That's all, I'll wait until next December 3, although given the long quarrel in the talk page, the section we're talking about should carry an obvious {{NPOV}}.
Maybe there is precedent elsewhere. Notable members of the British Empire, such as Kipling who were born in India are not described as being Indian, although when listing their birthplace one should correctly say that Kipling was born in Bombay. It follows that Kipling could be included in a list or category of notable people whose birth occurred in India (or even in Mumbai), but not in a list of famous Indians. This would suggest that notable people of any nationality who were born in Gibralter should go in the list or category of people born in Gibralter. To exclude notable persons who are or were not citizens of the current regime in Gibralter would be unreasonable and incorrect.Elen of the Roads (talk) 10:30, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you've seen my point. The most weird issue is that in the current list most of the people listed cannot be described as Gibraltarians since that term applies only to what was/is the civilian population of the town and not to the members of the garrison and their families (which are obviously only British, even if they could apply, if they had wished, to the Gibraltarian status). That is, in its current status the list only comprises people (either Gibraltarian or not) born in the city since the 18th century, when it was transferred to Great Britain (now UK), but notable people born before are simply "banned". Nobody intend to list Spanish Gibraltar-born people as Gibraltarians, but just as Gibraltar-born notable guys (of course that notability may be discussed in a case-by-case basis, but it has been excluded since the beginning). --Ecemaml (talk) 11:47, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds eminently sensible to me. Perhaps splitting the section into "Notable Gibraltan citizens" and "Notable people born in Gibraltar" (or something similar) might also be worth considering, if it's felt necessary to make a clearer distinction? EyeSerenetalk11:06, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your proposal also sounds sensible to me. The issue here is that there is no an equivalence between periods in the history of Gibraltar and nationality (that is, although all the notable Gibraltar-born guys in the Spanish period happens to be Spaniards, notable Gibraltar-born guys in the British period may be, usually, either Gibraltarian or British), so that option might be sensible. Other alternative could be including an only list, alphabetically ordered, including the nationality of the notable guy (for instance: "X (1850-1900) - British military engineer", "Y (1900-1950) - Gibraltarian painter", "Z (1600-1650) - Spanish cardinal"). --Ecemaml (talk) 21:37, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Removed PROD (reason given "Not notable for English encyclopaedia"). I hold no brief for the Spanish, but there is no way this deletion would be non-controversial. Advise Gibnews to use AfD if he wishes to delete any more Spaniards from Gibralter (as none would be non-controversial) and to consider the content of WP:POINT before making any nominations, particularly of figures who were of any significance in the history of the Catholic Church - which is very much a subject for the English encyclopaedia. Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:11, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, just to let you know that I've reverted the PROD template (which were not removed when Elen explained to Gibnews that his attempt to make Diego de Astorga removed was inappropriate), on the same grounds, in Juan Romero de Figueroa and Gonzalo Piña Ludueña (both, as Diego de Astorga y Céspedes, created by me). I don't know the inclusion of the PROD template is a disruptive action or not in itself. I simply want to let you know that the former, Juan Romero de Figueroa has been in wikipedia for more than a year (I created it in September 2008). The latter, [[Gonzalo Piña Ludueña], had a {{underconstruction}} template as I created it yesterday. In none of the occasions I was notified as the template requires. --Ecemaml (talk) 21:37, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see a problem with this. If Gibnews continues to feel the articles are without merit, he can try AfD - but it would be worthwhile reading Eye Serene's comment's above before he does. Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:01, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
These been created by Ecemaml to provoke a dispute by including obscure people from prior to 1704 were born in Gibraltar on the Gibraltar main page. There are a number of articles on Wikipedia about Gibraltarian people however, the list on the Gibraltar main article does not include all of them, just a handful of the more prominent ones.
Inclusion of obscure people like Gonzalo Piña Ludueña who does not (currently) merit an article in the .es wikipedia simply for the purpose of starting an edit war is something I think deserves looking at carefully. --Gibnews (talk) 09:50, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you believe it is of no value, WP:AFD is thataway. Also, per your note on my talkpage - Gibralter is a bloody great rock. Attempts to argue that it did not exist before the Brits arrived is ludicrous. As there is not two articles, one on the current situation and one on the rest of history, or one on the current regime and one on the geographical location, it follows that the article ought to be about the whole history of the rock. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:43, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You miss the point, the article IS about Gibraltar the whole history of the Rock, including periods of occupation by the moors and Spanish is in History of Gibraltar. However the section in the main article on 'notable people' is very restricted and creating nonsense articles to justify adding obscure people of no consequence in the history of the territory is only done to provoke a dispute. And that is why its mentioned on this noticeboard. --Gibnews (talk) 10:11, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, you miss the point. I'll assume this is down to my phrasing it badly. The article Gibralter is about the bloody great rock. It's not about British-Ruled Gibralter. It includes information about the current regime, a summary of the history (for which there is a longer article), the geography, the climate etc. By that definition, you cannot define people from Gibralter only as citizens of the current regime. See also the notes above about Kipling - its anyone notable of any nationality who was born on the Rock. I also recommend that you stop being WP:POINTY about people born on the rock before the Brits arrived. Again see the notes above - if you think they are truly not notable, go to AfD. Otherwise, I strongly recommend you let the matter drop. Now I am going to the talk page to recommend that we put the pre British persons back into the article, perhaps using subheadings to distinguish some time periods. Given that I am a Brit and have (as far as I know) not a drop of Spanish blood, nor any political view on Gibralter, nor any reason to advance a pro-Spanish viewpoint, I would appreciate a cessation of the personal attacks. Thank you. Elen of the Roads (talk) 10:52, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, I think you're missing the point, adding a whole bunch of obscure people to the Gibraltar article purely because they are Spanish is being pointy. The purpose in doing so was being pointy and to provoke a dispute, the next stage of which when the people are suggested to not be notable enough to be included in what is an overview article, will be to scream that the Brits are censoring the article. Why else do you think that the editor added a stack of redlinks, how many other articles think a goat herder is of sufficient merit to be included in an overview article, or perhaps the local parish priest of a town with less than 4000 people. Notably there was nothing to even say many of the proposed additions were even born in Gibraltar.
The same editor who added 5 obscure people to the article, was edit warring the previous day to change the start of the second world war from 1939 to 1940, for an entirely specious reason. That is being pointy. The pointy edits are continuing see this diff [4] and this diff [5], the second is purely intended to be provocative.
To also make a point, this occurs during mediation at the start of which all of the editors involved agreed to an undertaking not to disrupt the article. They also agreed to discuss any changes in the talk page first. This isn't happening.
I'd also make the point, that on the British side, the editors involved made a offer to draw a line under any possible misunderstanding from the past and to work together in the future. That offer was flung back in their faces. There seems to be a tactic of disruption, edit warring, talk page posts to escalate tension, then turning round and expecting things to be discussed reasonably.
And whilst I am a Brit, I'm also half-Spanish my mother being one of the 3000 Spanish refugees who fled Franco's Spain to Britain. You suggest on the article talk page that there should a consensus discussion about who to add, the people suggested might be notable enough to justify a stub article, they're not notable enough to suggest inclusion in the overview article on Gibraltar. Now I would suggest that if you're planning to intervene, you stick around, because when the personal attacks accusing people of censorship and suppressing the truth start I would hope you'll intervene. For me, I've had a gutfull of being attacked as censoring the article because we respect NPOV and refuse to allow the article to be edited to favour a particular viewpoint.
The second reason I hope you stick around, is that I have a very strong suspicion that there is collusion off-wiki on these articles, because the actions of the editors involved is just too co-ordinated to be co-incidence. There is also an entry on the talk page that alludes to communication by email. I would really appreciate a neutral admin sticking around to ensure fair play. Not a personal attack but for me, writing was the "view of AN/I" on the talk page is questionable.
Purely for the record, Gibnews use of PROD was pointy and I don't support it. It doesn't help to adopt the same tactic of disrupting wikipedia to make a point. I do support locking the article, I would suggest it continues until ALL OF THOSE involved respect the undertaking they signed at the start of mediation, stop the personal attacks and work toward improving the article, using the talk page to discuss edits and adding consensus material to the article. Justintalk13:03, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, my only accusation relating to WP:POINT was Gibnews's attempts to PROD the articles in order to get them out of the list. This is the very essence of point - it is disruptive because it fails to follow Wikipedia's own rules. Given that as it currently stands neither the short nor the long list contains any Spaniards, the concern that there is a deliberate effort to remove all evidence that Gibralter has ever had any connection with Spain has prima facie validity. A (well conducted) discussion on who belongs in the short list would not be pointy, but should not include "Spanish" or "from before the British arrived" as a category for exclusion. I am not sure that Gibnews would agree to this, but a fruitful discussion could be had by others with knowledge in the various areas, to allow us to compare say Penney with the Spanish Inquisitor - neither of whom I've ever heard of, but at least the Inquisition is something I have heard of, so that's probably influencing my decision at the moment. Personally, John Galliano is the only person on the list I'm familiar with instantly. Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:30, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Prior to 1704 Gibraltar was a small town of a few thousand people, it wasn't exactly a pleasant place to live and the Spanish monarchs had to compel people to live there. To be blunt it was the arse end of the universe. That there may be few Spaniards to go on that list might have something to do with that. Thats a more rational explanation than to assume bad faith and that they've been deliberately expunged.
A rational discussion on who should be included is perfectly possible but not I fear with the editor who made these changes. They were introduced purely for the reasons of being pointy. Gibnews can be stubborn when his back his up but he is amenable to discussion otherwise. And having Ecemaml tell him that Gibraltar doesn't exist was intended to do precisely that. As I've suggested, any discussion that concluded that some or all of those do not merit inclusion would result in accusations of suppression and censorship.
Stick around, you might find it interesting. May i suggest that the article remains locked until there is a consensus on the edits under mediation. Justintalk19:25, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Going back to the point we're discussing, I'd like to say something:
With regard to the mediation process, it was always understood (at least by me) that it applied to a specific disagreement (how the capture and exodus of the Gibraltarian population after the Anglo-Dutch takeover in 1704 has to be described). For me, introducing five "notable" guys that happened to be Spaniards in a list already containing 13 people, was not intended to be controversial. Upon my only reversion I explained carefully my edition and provided references for the articles not created yet.
With regard to the five "notable" guys (described as "obscure"), I'll list them just to highlight why they're notable (more verbose explaination can be found in their articles):
Simón Susarte: lead one of the attacks over Gibraltar during the first Spanish siege. He's notable for two matters: it's the only Gibraltar-born guy that lead an attack to the town and the only that did it over the top of the Rock. It fulfills the criteria listed in WP:NOTABILITY. However, as the section under discussion seems to list people that were notable "outside" Gibraltar, I have no problem (and I've said that above) if he's not included.
Juan Romero de Figueroa: the "local parish priest of a town with less than 4000 people". That town happens to be Gibraltar. That town happens not have reached again 4,000 people until the 19th century (that is Henry Francis Cary, John Beikie, Don Pacifico and John Montresor were born in a town smaller than Spanish Gibraltar). That parish priest happens to be one of the 60 people that remained in the town after the Anglo-Dutch takeover. That parish priest happens to be the only eye-witness of the siege and takeover from the inside. That parish priest happens to be the primary source of what happened in those events by all the historians of Gibraltar (yes, including William Jackson, the British Governor of Gibraltar) That parish priest happens to be the responsible of that the current Cathedral in Gibraltar stays where it stays and has kept Catholic worship for five centuries. That parish priest was the first Vicar General of Gibraltar (that is, he was no longer a parish priest). That Vicar General happens to be especially respected by the Catholic Dioceses of Gibraltar and buried in the Cathedral (here). However, same comment applies.
Diego de Astorga y Céspedes: Archbishop of Toledo, Primate of Spain, Grand Inquisitor, sponsor of one of the finest Baroque artworks in Spain (the Transparente). It fulfills the criteria listed in WP:NOTABILITY. I don't think further comments are needed.
Gonzalo Piña Ludueña: Spanish conquistador, governor of the province of Venezuela, founder of several colonial cities in nowadays Venezuela. Founder of the only other town in the world which shares the same name (as it was given it by Ludueña). Same comment as before.
Juan Asensio: General of the Mercedarian order, president of the Council of Castile, bishop of Lugo, Ávila and Jaén. At the moment, as he has no article, I don't object to include it.
So, to sum up, two guys from the Spanish period (in which, BTW, the statement "it wasn't exactly a pleasant place to live and the Spanish monarchs had to compel people to live there" is plainly false, since it happened only after the first Christian capture of the town in the 14th century). I can't see how such an inclusion may be controversial. Best regards --Ecemaml (talk) 22:47, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand, I'm beginning to feel really unconfortable about the constant personal attacks and defamation I'm receiving. I'm trying to stick to a strict "no personal attack" behaviour, but the way I'm being defamating, as if I were a putching ball, seems to be far away from the Wikipedia principles. We can discuss about NPOV, strongly and fiercely support our positions, but personal attacks again and again are simply outside the usual behaviour in Wikipedia. Only in this discussion it's been said that:
"it looks like there is an orchestrated attempt to disrupt that and other articles on Gibraltar and set up Justin and myself" (Gibnews)
"Its (..) typical of the sort of harassment tactic continually used by the Spanish Government against Gibraltar" (Gibnews)
"[Articles have] been created by Ecemaml to provoke a dispute" (Gibnews)
"[Articles have been created] simply for the purpose of starting an edit war" (Gibnews)
"[Ecemaml is creating] nonsense articles (..) only done to provoke a dispute" (Gibnews)
"The purpose in doing so was being pointy and to provoke a dispute" (Justin)
"the next stage of which when the people are suggested to not be notable enough to be included in what is an overview article, will be to scream that the Brits are censoring the article" (Justin)
"The same editor who added 5 obscure people to the article, was edit warring the previous day to change the start of the second world war from 1939 to 1940, for an entirely specious reason" (Justin)
"There seems to be a tactic of disruption, edit warring, talk page posts to escalate tension, then turning round and expecting things to be discussed reasonably" Justin
"I have a very strong suspicion that there is collusion off-wiki on these articles, because the actions of the editors involved is just too co-ordinated to be co-incidence" Justin
"A rational discussion (..) is perfectly possible but not I fear with the editor who made these change" Justin
"[The notable Spanish Gibraltar-born guys] were introduced purely for the reasons of being pointy" Justin
Most of the items are IMHO at least blatant assumptions of bad faith, but I'd like to highlight items 8 and 13.
In item 8, Justin claims that I've intended to change the start of the WWII from 1939 and 1940. Here you have my edition (explaining in the edit summary that it intends to talk about the "Gib[raltar] involvement in WWII") and my explaination ("stating that there was no active involvement of Gibraltar in WWII until 1940 is a "disruptive edition" (..) You possibly know about the Phoney War, that conscription was introduced in Gibraltar in 1940, that evacuation plans were drawn up and implemented in May 1940, that Churchill considered the evacuation of Gibraltar in June 1940 or that the City Council was suspended in 1941"). It could happen that, as long as my explaination was in Gibnews talk page, Justin sincerely thought what he misleadingly describes. But I did explain it to him ("Stating that the active involvement of Gibraltar during the WWII started in 1940 is possibly something that could be denied, even if it's true"). Yes. All this seems really stupid, but it's really disappointing to listen to the same misleading description of something that has been already clarified.
In item 13, Justin claims that I've told that "Gibraltar does not exist". Well, the problem here is that he fails to quote the whole sentence that says "Gibraltar does not exist from the Public International Law point of view, so a sovereign state cannot dispute anything but with other sovereign state)". I clarify that the discussion was about a dispute on territorial waters around Gibraltar. In order to clarify that such waters are British and not Gibraltarian, since only a sovereign state (the only subject, along with supranational organizations, in the Public International Law, the branch of Law dealing with international relationships between states) can "own" territorial waters, I simply mentioned Public International Law. As the statement was shocking (I didn't intend to), I duly provided a verbose explaination in here. Possibly Justin is not aware of this, but anyway, my edition has been misquoted.
Sorry for the verbose message, but really, I feel upset. May I ask for some shelter from this? Best regards --Ecemaml (talk) 22:47, 29 November 2009 (UTC) PS: Elen, I'd be really glad if you'd stick around the article[reply]
Actually the above in many ways the above summarises the problem. See [6] you could have just explained, instead you choose to respond with a bad faith presumption. That your edits were reverted might have something to do with the fact that the previous day you changed the date of the start of WW2 and then edit warred to keep it. I find the explanation above less than convincing, particularly when after being reverted you never chose to give it, edit warred to keep it and it only became apparent after it was pointed out as needlessly disruptive. Given your history of a negative interaction with Gibnews, not even a charitable interpretation would assume you were simply misunderstood in your comments about Gibraltar being a none entity. Noticeably you can suddenly become very eloquent when you want to be.
Seeing as we're listing examples of edits that apparently "upset" you:
If you ask me, everybody needs to stop attacking everybody else. Lets leave all the nationalist viewpoints out of this - the rock was once run by the Spanishes, currently the Brits are in charge, perhaps in the future, it'll belong to the Chinese. Our role as Wikipedians is to record the current state of knowledge about the subject.Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
All of those carefully highlighted diffs were in response to other's comments, just to put things into perspective. I would prefer to concentrate on articles but it feels like being backed into a corner under a number of editors who want to skew the POV of articles for nationalist reasons. I've simply asked for a neutral admin to look at the articles, with no attempt to pre-influence them with diffs. Justintalk09:41, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This thread is getting into tl;dr territory. You're not going to get more than a few, if any, uninvolved editors to read so much verbage and make a thoughtful comment. I suggest you do two things:
Consider recourse to WP:SPI. I think I remember investigating a very tenacious sock puppeteer who was disrupting Gibraltar articles in the past.
If there are disagreements among editors over content, try third opinion, neutral point of view noticeboard, or mediation. This board, WP:ANI is only for issues where administrator intervention is required. I don't see that resulting from this thread.
Yes it does verge into tl;dr territory, the point raised at AN/I is quite simple, that an ongoing mediation attempt is being disrupted by editors who agreed not to make ANY contentious edits during mediation. That is now spilling onto other articles, see here for example, while the disputed article remains locked. I suspect when the lock expires we'll see more of the same. So I was suggesting the lock remains until everyone calms down and agrees to work constructively. I'm leading to the suspicion that if this isn't dealt with now its only going to escalate. I would also suggest locking other articles until people stop the bickering and edit constructively. Is there any objection to that simple proposal? Justintalk09:41, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your interest, Jehochman. Let me just point out that there is an ongoing mediation process already. Recent complaints refer to uncivil behaviour, which is quite one-sided in my opinion, not to content disputes. As for "our contentious editions spilling onto other articles", sorry but I can't see the contentiousness in the Spain – United Kingdom relations talk page albeit being one of the editors involved in the current discussion. And I don't think of myself as being a particularly insensitive person. However, I do apologise if some comment of mine has been offensive to any editor. Finally, Justin please notice that I do not really enjoy the accusations of sockpuppetry, nor being described as a wind-up merchant to the mediator, neither being systematically labeled as disruptive and the like, the last time in a row being the above comment. Have a nice day. Cremallera (talk) 10:22, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Meat puppet, as in co-ordinating activities off-wiki, it was expressed as a suspicion not an accusation. Noticeably I did not specify any particular editor! I'll resist the rather obvious inference that could be made there. If you don't wish to be described as a wind up merchant, then cease the provocative postings in talk pages. Simple. Justintalk12:29, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No. You didn't specify. You blamed all three editors you didn't agree with instead ("All of sudden, three Spanish editors are all ganging up together, rather like they're co-ordinating off-wiki. This screams meat puppet to me"). Sorry if I consider myself alluded, as one of those three persons. As for the inmediately prior sentence ("not to mention an editor we haven't seen in months suddenly turns up stoking tension"), tell me who is he?
I'd like to know as well if, when you said "Forget it, from past experience Cremallera is a wind up merchant" to the mediator you were referring to me or to another "Cremallera"? A simple apology would have been the sensible approach here, if you ask me. Cremallera (talk) 13:36, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry? I can't see how exactly having to ask you uptofourtimes to stick to the content of the discussion instead of attacking the editors can be interpreted as "admitting to be on a wind up". Whatever. What strikes me most is that you are still trying to justify your resorting to personal attacks by blaming me for it. Please, stop. And I genuinely mean it. Cremallera (talk) 22:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A simple example, I admitted to an error in naming a source, your response "Yeah. Right. Of course." So can you please explain to me how that wasn't intended to raise tension? What actually strikes me most, is that so often your posts are intended to stoke a dispute, yet you try and blame others for it. Please stop, given that agreement is apparently so close in mediation. Justintalk23:31, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Jesus Christ. And that's how you rationalize your constant violations of WP:NPA for 12 days already? How exactly is that my fault? Just in case I've not made myself clear enough earlier: personal attacks are not allowed, and you are responsible for every word you have written. Period. Cremallera (talk) 00:02, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have no problem whatsoever in accepting responsibility for what I have written. I would be perfectly content for some neutral admin to look over the talk page history. Somehow I doubt anyone would come out of it with any credit, given the bad tempered discourse that has taken place. However, I'm not asking for people to only consider the carefully edited highlights. And as I don't see this going anywhere productive, I'll draw my participation in this particular discourse to a conclusion with the suggestion that you should listen to your own advice. Justintalk00:26, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
UNINDENT
Again as it keeps being hidden by verbage, the suggestion is to keep the lock on those articles until an agreement is reached in mediation. Does that not seem sensible? Justintalk12:29, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've extended the protection indefinitely on Gibraltar and History of Gibraltar; I think the above suggestion is a good idea and I'm seeing signs in this thread that resolution is still some way off. I further believe that edit-warring is likely to resume once protection has expired. This is slightly unusual in that we don't normally protect pre-emptively, but I think if it's made clear that there's no choice but to resolve this content dispute peacefully, hopefully all parties will be motivated to do just that. I think it's also worth making clear that, should the edit-warring widen to other articles (such as Spain – United Kingdom relations noted above), blocks will be forthcoming. The spirit as well as the letter of WP:3RR is expected to be adhered to. EyeSerenetalk12:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, EyeSerene, I must say that I strongly disagree with such a measure and I'll explain why. My main concern is the double standard that might be deduced of the indefinite block of both articles. In the first one, there was a disagreement about the interpretation of a given part of the history of Gibraltar and the text was removed while a consensus was made (sorry to consider the inclusion of Spanish guys in a list of Gibraltar-born guys as controversial... it would be as if someone considered controversial to add a notable woman to a list of notable men from a given place). In History of Gibraltar, as far as I've been involved, it has happened just the opposite. Justin has introduced a controversial text (which was reverted and explained by me once) and duly restored by Justin. Your block leaves it. As the block is indefinite, there is no possibility to include a proper {{disputed}} template (as there is a strong disagreement about the factuality of what Justin has introduced). Therefore, the indefinite block leaves the article such is. Obviously, it's up to you. I just wanted to object :-) --Ecemaml (talk) 22:49, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, EyeSerene, this is Cremallera. I was previously for the temporary full-protection of both articles as it is a standard procedure intended to cool down a little a heated debate, and also to avoid the possible (albeit brief) unbalance between the pleading parties as a result of an editor deeply involved in the discussion deciding to take a short break from wikipedia the night before the blocks.
However, an indefinite protection of the articles is another kettle of fish, as I see it. I acknowledge that the intention is to motivate the parties to settle the content disputes peacefully, but I do think that the parties are not in equal positions here as can be seen in the reversion history statistics of Gibraltar's article (editions in History of Gibraltar's article are more evenly distributed, though). One party being comfortable with the current content of an indefinitely fully-protected article has no incentive to resolve any argument about it. In my opinion, unlocking the article and letting the ongoing mediation run its course may be more fruitful. It would probably be helpful to keep track of the articles as well, but I'm confident in Atama's diplomatic skills. Thanks for your time. Cremallera (talk) 01:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I welcome the block it seems to have cooled things down and the talk page is being used. However, given the heated comments are still being exchanged it would be premature to remove it now. Justintalk09:47, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, seems coherent, since it was you who proposed the indefinite block. Additionally, I'd like to remark that the talk page has been profusely and uninterruptedly used to discuss on the details of Gibraltar's capture as of the 4th of October 2009. Cheers. Cremallera (talk) 10:06, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The talk page discussions weren't being productive, mediation kept losing ground as whenever it appears agreement was near, the goal posts were moved. Also the outbreak of edit warring and increasingly bad tempered comments helped no one. As soon as one article was blocked, disputes seemed to break out elsewhere. It might have been my suggestion but it took an admin to accept it as reasonable and all credit to EyeSerene it appears to be working. Justintalk14:38, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keeping it short, because there is ample evidence on the talk pages etc Ecemaml shows up with an agenda of promoting Spain on related Gibraltar pages whenever there is tension, as there is now over the waters issue. Read the talk pages and you can see in one place he refers to the Spanish inhabitants as 'Gibraltarians' {highly provocative, it only refers to the current ones) and in another place denied he did. He also frequently me a liar, which is uncivil.
He was previously banned for stalking and causing trouble about Gibraltar articles. Adding a number of Spanish non-entities to the main Gibraltar article is a tactic designed to provoke trouble, which is precisely why I raised it here. Gibraltar is more than 'a rock' it is the home of 30,000 Gibraltarians who are still being harassed by their neighbour in relation to a 300 year old irredentist claim and although being attacked in cyberspace is preferable to hot cannonballs, its still not what I think Wikipedia should be about. Asserting that Gibraltar does not exist is unhelpful.--Gibnews (talk) 13:25, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not I feel a helpful interjection at this point. While you may or may not be right about a particular editor, that does not give you the right to deny that Gibralter has a history prior to the installation of the current regime. After the Norman Conquest, England never went back to being a Saxon country, but that doesn't warrant removing Edward the Conqueror, Harold Godwinson et al from a list of notable people from England. Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please read the articles Gibraltar and History of Gibraltar The Spanish period is included. What I am complaining about is adding articles about insignificant people to justify including them as 'notable' just because of their nationality. --Gibnews (talk) 00:55, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Elen, thank you for your statement on the content issue of this dispute. However, I've got a direct question, that is therefore related to administrator intervention (something that Jehochman has mentioned previously). You've made a request previously: "I would appreciate a cessation of the personal attacks". Although I've tried to stick to your strong advice (and I think that I've got it) I see that personal attacks (against me, as usual) are the 90% of the content of, for instance, Gibnews edition: "there is ample evidence on the talk pages etc Ecemaml shows up with an agenda of promoting Spain on related Gibraltar pages whenever there is tension", "in one place he refers to the Spanish inhabitants as 'Gibraltarians' {highly provocative, it only refers to the current ones)" (mind that Gibraltarian in Spanish, "gibraltareño" does not have such connotation, this statement by Justing is clarifying in which he says "Gibraltarian is problematic when it is applied to the Spaniards living in Gibraltar before 1704, there is tension related to the term caused by the claim that the people living in Gibraltar are not the real Gibraltarians", outside that context, where is the problem in using it once?), "He was previously banned for stalking and causing trouble about Gibraltar articles" (I was banned for breaking the 3RR, something that I've never done again and that, as Atama's points out above, is what Justin and not me has been the one getting closer breaking 3RR), "Adding [Spanish guys] is a tactic designed to provoke trouble, which is precisely why I raised it here.". Finally the usual deliberate misquote of my words about Public International Law which has been duly explained (simply by offering the whole quotation). Is that fair? Is WP:NPA suspended in here? Should I just simply resign myself? --Ecemaml (talk) 22:43, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the comments of Elen of the Roads are particularly helpful here. Ecememl's stated aim on his user page is to edit Gibraltar-related articles. He seems to have adopted a WP:BATTLEGROUND attitude in his editing patterns. I have no idea how he justifies that somebody born in Gibraltar after 1704 is not Gibraltarian, but that is what he has done here [8] in what he describes as a "minor edit". Edits like that are non-neutral and show all the symptoms of nationalist POV-pushing. Surely, considering the huge number of articles on en.wikipedia, Ecemaml should be able to find articles to edit here that do not involve Spanish-British conflicts/controversies. Mathsci (talk) 20:48, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ecemaml actually states in his user page that he is currently focused "on the creation, expansion and neutralization of Gibraltar-related articles". I can't see what's wrong with that. Regarding gibraltarian status, you may want to read the quoted article and/or this discussion, for instance. His edits may show all the symptoms of nationalist POV-pushing (or not), but you can bet they are reasoned and properly referenced. And at the end of the day that's the only way to avoid subjectivity. Cheers. Cremallera (talk) 22:01, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Reading this row i've noticed that in comparison with Justin andGibnews Users Cremallera and Ecememl have remained pretty civil in their conversation in the face of somewhat aggressive replies. From my own experience with justin and gibnews i've found if you don't agree with them then your either a troll or a nationalist or anything but someone who doesn't agree with their opinion.--English Bobby (talk) 16:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
How do others deal with unresponsive editors?
By unresponsive I mean not using edit summaries, talk pages, etc. In this case it is Yongle the Great (talk·contribs). I moved Kingdom of Dazhou to Kingdom of Da Zhou - the first time simply explaining in the edit summary that this was what was used in the sources I could find, the second time going into some detail on the talk page as well as posting to the editor's talk page. He's reverted me both times. Now he's created Factory Guards and Template:Factory Guards which are again naming convention problems. And Government of the Ming Dynasty with no link to Ming Dynasty and which is on unnecessary fork from that article (he's copied the text from perhaps New World Encyclopedia, so it may be from an earlier version of Ming Dynasty. I'll notify him of this discussion, perhaps that will draw him in. Ironically I asked him for help with another editor creating unreferenced Chinese history stubs who is also unresponsive. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dougweller (talk • contribs) 06:39, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Experimental solution-- This seems to be a good case for just-finalized-yesterday new CSD-A10. I put it on Government of the Ming Dynasty, as it literally meets the description word for word. Almost too easy. Trial by fire is always good. ...If the A10 is declined it's still more than appropriate for normal deletion process. The other two creations, when combined, seem tricky. They're redundant, meaning only one of the 2 exist...... at least with the Factory Guards is that formm. Because I'd like to AGF for now on it and the notability I can make no fair decision on, my opinion is that it's acceptable to have that there as a stub, even if it's an article version of a category. Since it has no formatting I can't start to guess what the intention was. This is far from an official opinion, but on the assumption that Factory Guards will need to grow and prove notability , for the time being... since it's just a list right now, same as the function of the template, CSD-T3 likely matches... however, I'm going to go with just removing it from the pages with a normal edit including a link to this in the edit summary. as an explanation.
Since the 'Guards' article is going to have to be largely expanded and presumably articles for the other 3 redlink'd entires has at least some kind of chance of later use there's no extra point to deleting
I'm looking at it this way-- the article can grow and might end up with all 'Guards' without separate branching articles for each. The template is, until the Factory Guards page is substantially enhanced and there are justifiable separate article for each entry that would be there, the template is entirely meaningless. Need to post some tidbits a few other places concerning this and I'll check again a bit later. If you (and author, too!) could give statements on what to do with the Guards article and template, please do! ♪daTheisen(talk)10:27, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One thing we don't do is assume good faith indefinitely. If an editor is editing against consensus and good faith attempts have been made to communicate with them, via edit summaries, their talk page, article talk pages, etc and they won't answer after a reasonable time, then their actions have become disruptive. There could be a variety of reasons they might not respond, in the past I've had editors who come from other language wikis to insert stuff but create some kind of a problem and continually revert it, but don't speak english. If you think this might be the case see if you can determine if they speak another language and find a user to translate, or use google.--Crossmr (talk) 11:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Indefinitely? Of course not, but for a user without a bad track record and before any of the "questionable" content has been reviewed there's no reason to change the AGF push while the process is going on. Incidentally, decision of my A10 nomination was a redirect to the Government section of the parent article without any content changes needed. Good learning experience. ...And yea, if it's endless non-responses to requests for reply that can start to wear on good faith as well.
My extremely unofficial way to test AGF in random conflict is similar to how 3RR is violated. Original actions were onfounded? -1AGF credit. Apparent unwillingness to discuss or at least explain at some legth a rationale for those actions? -1 more. In this case, if the user in question has still been contributing to the encyclopedia and ignored our request here, or has deleted the delivered courtesey message of the ANI off their talk page, well, -1 is "3AGF" and I'll start looking at things a lot more firmly. Naturally, extreme events can skip or extend the system. Also, if I'm coming in to a dispute fresh even if 10 involved parties are at 3RR with final warnings on harassment and civility, since they haven't been uncivil to me they get one shot at a good impression at least. About the situation on the renamed article-- could make a redirect on the opposing page and ask for a lock on it? Naturally, an admin would want pretty overwhelming evidence that it is the "correct" version, or if deciding this run itself out, disruption and incivility warnings would swiftly become more justified since any other options appeared to have have been exhausted. ♪daTheisen(talk)12:13, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The user is not using edit summaries and not communicating. They aren't referencing their articles. I don't think everything they are doing is a hoax and I'm glad you responded on the renamed article, all I wanted was a justification for the spelling. But when I make a change that I explain and get reverted with no reason given, go to their talk page and to the article talk page and they still ignore me, that's wrong and leads to edit warring. I still think that Factory Guards if it is worthy of an article needs an unambiguous title (more than just a capital 'G') and that we need to get the editor to start using edit summaries. Dougweller (talk) 15:07, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Total agreement with above. Even if you have totally opposing viewpoints you can usually bend some things around to find a little middle ground the majority of the time if you talk. If persons never communicate, you can't actually do a thing. I believe it's the matter of just blindly moving an article for what seems like the fun of it that starts the trouble, and though not "wrong", it isn't encouraging. The lack of communication is after that is possibly elevating it all since it's pretty hard to justify what you did in direct opposition to another editor when they never speak. Looking at their edit count... 6 total usertalk messages? I'm not having high hopes on the "team player" angle. That'll make this a bit harder. Edit history as a whole suggests a WP:OWN type of feeling, but I don't think with all that much malice. I don't know. Something feels amiss and it's hard to drop that feeling without any statement. There's more for me to look into ... wow I can't believe I forgot to sign before ♪daTheisen(talk)00:41, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's not that I don't trust the very large and mostly awesome contribution history, it's if the efforts or opinions of anyone else cannot don't seem particularly compatible once encountered. In virtually all this user's high edit count articles there were highly unopposed, on occasion lone and extremely similar IPs hopping along. A few times a number of edits were done in opposite directions the user's next edit was section blanking. Yea, more research. Still really can't do anything for now besides trying to beg for comments. Even worse than someone avoiding communication?
It's interesting that he knows enough to start a stub with an 'unreferenced tag' such as Li Zicheng Uprising but there's no link to Li Zicheng - which actually does a better job of covering the same thing. One of my concerns is that he is creating articles which are more or less duplicates of existing articles. Hopefully he'll be back on line in a few hours and start communicating here. Dougweller (talk) 16:37, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Communication is the foundation of collaboration, and absolutely fundamental to the way we work here. If they simply ignore all attempts to engage them, the only recourse we're left with is to block them indefinitely with an explanation as to why; this either forces communication or they find something else to do. I've left them a note explaining this, so hopefully we'll get some sort of response. If not, then we can think about taking other action. EyeSerenetalk18:07, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oooh nonono, indef blocks over just some article content disputes are so depressing when a solution might be something as simple as getting a NPOV reweite and both users agreeing to never touch (one of?) their contested articles again. Socks? Both agree that they're open to random CU checks vs users that edit suspiciously. No... Too easy, right? A few days ago and ANI came up about a mountain. It could not be agreed what it's "official" location was. I suggested they just add every imaginable category to it that was factually correct so no one could complain a POV bias. I mean. It's all there. I later learned the pair had issues deeper than that, but it's never good if someone is so fixated on "victory" (in an encyclopedia!) that they'll fight so hard over one mountain that even the idea of an overload with somewhat redundant categories to make it as neutral as possible to allow some relaxation... and still not find that extreme amount of a NPOV from an uninvolved party, knowledgeable random responder editor...? That's not good enough? To offer as much neutrality as possible to deliberately put it away for awhile for discussion later... that mountain is important than it's worth ignoring the good faith of others and very unusual attempts to try to help... it's just hard and discouraging for me since since it about flags things as "wasted time" it leads me to even more time researching to try to figure out why this is common to this user. I will never understand how only one article-- no matter how much it might mean to you if you're the largest contributor-- is worth the sometimes high risk of a complete removal from Wikipedia. And stillllll waiting for a comment over here... ♪daTheisen(talk)00:41, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You can't get both users to agree to something if one user refuses to communicate, that is kind of the point here. You absolutely cannot work with someone if they refuse to discuss any edits, especially if what they are doing goes against consensus.--Crossmr (talk) 05:35, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My own technique for dealing with non-responsive editors, is I assume that they are just completely unaware that anyone is trying to communicate with them. Sometimes they don't know about the history tab, and the orange bar "you have new messages" is just a permanent fixture on their browser, which they ignore because maybe it looks like an ad to them. As for reverting, I've talked to new editors who were genuinely perplexed why their "new" information suddenly disappeared from an article, so they just assumed it was a software glitch, and re-added it. If it "disappeared" again, they re-added again, and sometimes would get quite persistent (and frustrated) as to why the software kept "losing" their edits. They didn't know that others were reverting them, they just knew that the article was strangely changing when they weren't looking. ;)
When push comes to shove, usually it's a 3RR block that'll finally get such an editor's attention. Like someone will add {{cn}} or {{cleanup}} or AfD tags, the non-responsive editor will remove the "bizarre" templates (which from their point of view just appeared out of nowhere), then other editors add the tags back... Eventually the non-responsive editor gets blocked, and then, finally, they may notice that they have a talkpage. But in the meantime, unless they're really adding bad info, or charging ahead completely unaware of a talkpage consensus that they're violating, I'd say to just leave them be, in their own little wiki-worlds. :) --Elonka07:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The problem there is when it's an article no one else is interested in, and 3RR works both ways - so unless it's a copyvio or BLP issue, this approach could get messy. Dougweller (talk) 08:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Noticed your latest on their talk page. Elonka's suggestion definitely has its merits, but copyvio can't be taken lightly (and I don't read her post as suggesting that it should be). If they don't respond this time, I think intervention is in order. A short block would be preferrable, but typically I go for indef on evidence of persistent copyvios after a warning and with no response to that warning. EyeSerenetalk12:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
User has uploaded a number of images that might need to be checked. The general logic used on the file pages has no violations due to image age (as in, the 700+ year variety), but things uploaded don't particularly look like scans or images out of a museum. License and copyrights aren't listed on a few... though a polite random editor fixed a few. Some are linked as from a museum in China, and I have no idea what their copyvio standards are... others look digitally altered/enhanced with no original for comparison, but again I have no idea whatsoever on their copyvio, or how we deal with it overwrites in any way because of our server location, etc. ♪daTheisen(talk)13:45, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wait...GRRR... Ooh, now I'm grumpy. It's on to premeditated disruption besides the copyvio text matter now. One of the user's new articles was something seemingly CSD-able under the brand new A10, and yesterday I listed it here. Responding admin made me realize that most A10 decisions could be redirects (I felt very dumb) and changed the article without new content to a redirect to location I'd earlier specified here. ...User apparently didn't remotely care about this despite the warning appearing on their talk page and an edit summary mentioning the appropriate change of the article to a redirect, later putting all the old text back in here. Does this could at the "magic bullet" step mentioned about of how usually someone hits a 3RR violation by mistake? Oh, and Dougweller caught this a bit ago and changed it back to what it should have been, though his politely-detailed edit summary wasn't really needed given an official admin article action was reverted without a reason given. I'll let the admin know. ...Reverting an official admin article action related to an incident report without any reason given is bad, right? Why do I get the feeling something is going to happen fairly soon... ♪daTheisen(talk)13:45, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Although they haven't edited since Dougweller's latest note to them about copyvio, they were active since the earlier warnings and have clearly ignored them. That revert of a perfectly valid redirect, again with no attempt at communication, is I think the point at which good faith becomes unduly strained. I've blocked them for 24 hours. They're active enough that they should notice, so we'll see what the response is. EyeSerenetalk18:36, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm coming late to this discussion, but from earlier threads it appears that the best practice for this kind of problem is a "good-faith" indef block until the unresponsive editor decides to talk to the rest of us. I'd say DougWeller is well within his rights to do that now. -- llywrch (talk) 21:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that's normal procedure; this is the first less-than-indef block I've tried in this sort of situation... it was kind of experimental. Because they seemed active enough to notice a shorter block, my aim was to try to provoke some kind of response without the stigma attached to an indefblock (even a good-faith no-prejudice one). However, there's been no response and the block has now expired, so I think my experiment was a failure :) I've now upped the block to indef. EyeSerenetalk21:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with indef. Though keeping with AGF, there's always a chance that an un-responsive editor might choose to wait out their block. GoodDay (talk) 22:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
In the interest of full disclosure I am currently engaged in a discussion to which the user in question is party to on several abortion-related articles. Fortunately, the pro-choice side has many articulate users whose opinions I respect and who have been productively contributing to the discussion, Caroline's absence would not detract from its quality.
The user wikistalked me for a bit, following me to places as diverse as the talk page of a Canadian military scandal and a Sockpuppet investigation. After that fun she started back into the abortion articles. Though she later apologized after a RfC was filed, she has denigrated the Christian religion and attempted to discount the opinions of its followers. She has waged a long edit-war and worst of all, has repeatedly reinserted false material into an article for no other discernible reason than that it was removed by editors who oppose her political outlook. In that last one she reinserted the statement that "there are no American pro-life Jewish organizations", this is damagingly false and is in no supported by, or even insinuated by the source. But rather than look at that source, Caroline just punched the revert button. Later on in the same edit she reverted the tense in the sentence about George Tiller to say that he is alive for reasons that I cannot comprehend. George Tiller is very much dead, he has been for a while and we have been embarrassed for things like that in the media.1, 2, 3 After I explained, curtly, albeit, the reasons for these changes on the talk page she just reverted them again 6 hours later, compromising the integrity of that article to an unacceptable extent.
After that, yesterday she filed an ANI on me (withdrawn after a lack of community support) and against policy, she never let me know.
It is possible that this user has productive contributions to make in other fields but nothing good has come of her actions on abortion-related articles and she has caused A LOT of damage. For the good of the encyclopedia, I think Caroline should be topic banned from abortion-related articles. - Schrandit (talk) 08:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(We have senior editors? When do I become one?) I have no comment about the pro-choice vs pro-life edit warring, but I do see a problem in calling another editor's workplace to uncover his/her identity. That's entirely inappropriate.--Atlan (talk) 09:03, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Schrandit, please, just drop this matter? First you and Paul came to Wikiquette alerts, asking that we help resolve the apparent personal attacks, Caroline promised not to make comments about you that could be construed as offensive in future, problem solved. But no, you then go on to RfC demanding an apology and redaction of a statement, which naturally Caroline gives you. Yet still you seem to be taking issue with the matter, you've now taken it to AN/I to have Caroline topic banned. Not only will that result in you "winning" your edit war, but it will also annihilate any good feelings Caroline has remaining for this project.
Through out this Caroline has shown extremely good judgement and good faith, and it has been made clear that she herself has been acting from good faith in all cases. However you seem determined to keep bringing the matter up time and again.
Caroline has apologized for the statements she made in regard to you, which is what you asked for. So please accept that apology and move on from the matter, its counter-productive to keep bringing the issue back up.
As for this whole outing accusation. Well, yes, Caroline has phoned someone's work place, and mentioned that she's done as much on wikipedia, if however, we take some time to examine the incident, we can see that Caroline's comment in regard to her phone call was very specific about not revealing the names, numbers or locations, except those freely available on the internet already. Therefore if we punish her for the phone call, we're as good as saying: "all editors on wikipedia must maintain a strict etiquette on and off the project, otherwise they get blocked", since the accusation was about something that she did off the project, it is completely irrelevant to the project. Save for the fact that she made a post that basically revealed the following: "I made a phone call to try and find out whether this user could be a certain person; they're not", that reveals next to nothing.
Just as a note: there is currently an RFC for CarolynWH where the phone call to the editor's workplace is being discussed (and poo-poo'd by a couple of editors), and a long discussion on my own talkpage (including a couple of entries that I removed) about the same issue. I agree that the incivility seems dealt with, but the User:Ecoleetage-like phone call to an editor's workplace is highly problematic. (talk→BWilkins←track) 10:46, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The phrase "forum shopping" comes to mind as to the number of places this matter has been discussed, Wikiquette alerts, RfC, AN/I, user's talk pages, project talk pages, etc etc. Also, I wouldn't say we've "poo-poo'd" the accusation, we've pointed out why its not a valid complaint, if you just scanned over that and disregarded it as, uh, "poo-poo'ing" then maybe that explains why its become rather hard to communicate effectively. SpitfireTally-ho!10:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not worried about outing, as that hasn't been the case, but would you like it if people from the internet call you at work for no other reason than to check who and what you are IRL? Calling someone's workplace you have a dispute with on Wikipedia could be considered real-life harassment. For reference, User:Ecoleetage was banned for such actions.--Atlan (talk) 10:50, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Can we stop bringing up this thing about Ecoleetage, he was banned for an incident that was unrelated to the real-life harassment (sock puppetry, I think...). And this incident is completely different from that one anyway, SpitfireTally-ho!11:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. Ecoleetage was banned for harassing a user by calling his work place. Pastor Theo was banned as his sockpuppet. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this phone call. What was the purpose? AniMate11:06, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec)No, the harassment was exactly what he was banned for. Saying, "sock puppetry, I think" gives me the impression you have put no effort at all in looking into that matter. I will not stop bringing up that matter, simply because you find it undesirable to discuss it. I think the parallels to that issue are relevant.--Atlan (talk) 11:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec with Atlan) Hmm, maybe he was, still, the two are very different (Caroline and Eco). The purpose of the phone call was to work out whether an IP user was the same person as a previous sock master, something that interested Caroline as she had previously been accused by Schrandit of being a sock of the user. SpitfireTally-ho!11:11, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(unindent)We have checkuser for such investigations, which allows everyone to remain anonymous. I think you trivialize the phone call too much. Yes, Ecoleetage's call was pure harassment, while Caroline was investigating an IP editor. I still think that's taking things too far, and it creates a chilling effect to other editors. But that's a matter for debate.--Atlan (talk) 11:27, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What do we want to achieve here? A block is meant to be preventive not punitive, although I still think what Caroline did wasn't something terrible, I doubt she'll be doing it again. So what constructive gain is there by discussing the issue like this? SpitfireTally-ho!11:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"It already happened, there's nothing to prevent". You can get away with anything but blatant vandalism with that reasoning. I wasn't arguing for a block by the way, I'm merely discussing the appropriateness of calling someone at work.--Atlan (talk) 11:56, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That wasn't what I said. What I said was more alone the lines of: "the user won't do it again, so forget the matter", if the user was likely to do "it" again then you could block them as a preventive measure, if they are not likely to do it again then any blocking becomes punitive. Anyway, I'll be leaving the discussion for a while, I may get back this evening. Kind regards, SpitfireTally-ho!12:04, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
PS, I didn't mean to imply that you were calling for a block, and I do realise that you're just discussing the matter, my question however was: "will anything constructive come out of the discussion"? To which I personally think the answer is no. Kind regards SpitfireTally-ho!12:07, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I don't really like discussing here, while there's an Rfc about basically the same issues going on right now. In that sense, I agree with you. As for what a block would prevent: I can understand if editors Caroline works on articles with, have concerns about such intrusive investigations. We don't want an atmosphere where people have to worry about their personal lifes being investigated, simply because they take an opposing stance on abortion related issues. You may assume she won't do it again, but the die has already been cast, I feel.--Atlan (talk) 12:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The user account has been active less than a month, although she did edit anonymously for some time before that. In that time she's been willing to issue an apology and retraction based on community feedback at WQA. At my request she immediately withdrew the WQA she posted regarding Schrandit. It seems reasonable to assume that she would agree to refrain from making phone calls relating to Wikipedia if asked. Would such a commitment be sufficient to allay your concerns? If not, what would? Gerardw (talk) 13:04, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What is problematic to me is that based on the posting on my talkpage, CarolineWH still fails to see that making the phone call was a problem - they continue to justify it. The defence and minimalization of the phone call by others is just as bad. If, when presented with a clear and similar case, the user still "doesn't get it", how do they move forward? (talk→BWilkins←track) 13:13, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
All phone calls to people's places of work should result in immediate indef blocks. It's chilling, and wrong, and failing to take immediate action will spread more nonesense beliefs like spitfires that this is acceptable. Bali ultimate (talk) 13:49, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I concur, there seems to be a misunderstanding regarding what preventative means, it is not only so that the user in question does not cause further direct damage but also to ensure that other users are aware that such actions has consequence. Tracking down an IP editor in order to gain satisfaction within wikipedia is by no means 'off-wiki'. Unomi (talk) 14:05, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Can somebody provide a reason not to block CarolineWH indefinitely for attempted outing? Why shouldn't she remain blocked until she agrees not to attempt to do such a thing? This does not look like an edge case. JehochmanTalk14:30, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, all. Now that I know that this discussion exists, I'd like to contribute.
I'll say three things briefly, then answer any questions. First, I have no intention of making any phone calls in the future. Second, I am absolutely certain that my actions in no way threatened the privacy of any editors and therefore was not an example of WP:OUT. Third, please note the context of this accusation. CarolineWH (talk) 15:31, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, here's the context: your supporters feel that the phone call to someone's place of business does not belong in the RFC. Fine then, based on the section of WP:NPA that I have quoted both in our discussion on my talkpage, and I believe I left it in the RFC, this is an issue that requires immediate intervention - if there is indeed action to be taken. Indeed, when I became aware of the situation in the RFC, I should have brought it here myself. You have had about a full day since the end of the interactions on my talkpage to reflect - based on the above, I'm not sure you used the time wisely. (talk→BWilkins←track) 15:37, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A couple of weeks ago, I voluntarily revealed the fact that I did this research, while carefully avoiding any revelation of private information. My motivation was to demonstrate that yet another checkuser conviction was mistaken.
Weeks passes without a whisper, until the now-departed User:Paularblaster digs it up to try to add substance to an unpersuasive RfC/CU that he and Schrandit launched. There was no haste or cause for it, just an ax to grind.
Now, I said outright that I won't be doing this again, and whether or not you agree with the action, there was never any potential to harm anyone, much less an intent to do so. All this talk about a "chilling effect" is well-meaning but simply mistaken. No matter how you add it up, the situation is one that requires calm reflection, not urgent action, because there's a risk of knee-jerk reaction without actually understanding what happened.
Now, I'm going to ask you, Bwilkins, the question you refused to answer before, and which you deleted from your talk page. Bwilkins, how could my phone call have caused anyone to lose their job? CarolineWH (talk) 15:57, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(@ CarolineWH) Do you understand why we would be concerned with your off wiki sleuthing, and how that could have a chilling effect? In other areas it would be bad enough, but considering that you are editing abortion-related articles (some of which likely document the murders or stalking of abortion providers) makes it more so. Syrthiss (talk) 15:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec):It was uncalled for sleuthing. You clearly indicate investigating the workplace of either Spotfixer or Phil Specter, even if it eventually didn't turn out to be their workplace. Had it happened to me, I would consider such intrusive investigations into my private life just to one-up me in a content dispute, harassment. Despite saying you won't make such phone calls in the future, I see no indication that you understand how serious and inappropriate it was.--Atlan (talk) 15:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The "I have no intention" phrase is what sports coaches famously say when asked about their interest in another coaching position...the day before the big announcement that they're changing jobs. Take this user's carefully nuanced response, add it to the complete inability/unwillingness to recognize that the previous act was harassing and inappropriate, and you have one very problematic user here. People who cannot conduct themselves properly in hot-button topics should simply be removed from the topic area. Tarc (talk) 15:55, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Blocked
I have blocked CarolineWH indefinitely. This shouldn't have even been discussed this much. Completely inappropriate behavior; no real indication that the editor realizes why it is wrong. Tan | 3916:04, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Don't lean too hard on that phrase, it might break. The problem here is that the moment WP:HARASS is mentioned everyone gangs up for a witch hunt, when WP:HARASS has actually been violated, then maybe its fair enough that they do, however, on this particular occasion the policy has not been violated. Starting with this accusation of privacy violation, at no point did Caroline actually intrude upon the person who she was trying to "find out" about. She rang a work place, and asked if anyone by the name of the person she was looking for worked there. They didn't, thus, no ones privacy was violated. Now you're probably thinking: "Okay, but what if that person had worked there?", the answer to which is: they don't, so it doesn't matter. (also note that Caroline has said she won't do it again)
Secondly, WP:HARASS states: "This policy is aimed to protect victims of genuine harassment which is meant to cause distress to the user, such as repeated and unwanted correspondence.", Caroline obviously didn't mean to cause distress, there was no victim, as the person she was phoning up about didn't actually work there and so her phone call had no effect upon him, and finally, it was a one-off isolated incident, which brings us on to WP:HARASS#Consequences of harassment: " editors are encouraged to ignore or respond politely to isolated incidents". I request an unblock. Kind regards, SpitfireTally-ho!16:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Pardon me, Carolin recently said that she: "did not ask for anyone by name. I asked about recent hires who were graduates of my schools. In this way, nobody in specific was mentioned. I then hung up and used their automated system to check for any employees named Specter; none were found. So even if he had worked there, the receptionist would not know that I had checked." SpitfireTally-ho!16:49, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Any call to a work place, under any pretense or justification, is harassment in the wikipedia sense and would have the tendency to very much chill the editing environment if tolerated. Indeed, one can almost see the implied threat in the innocuous call to the office. Maybe the next call won't be so innocuous, hey, if your editing doesn't shape up... The user in question continues to prattle on about her "intent" (as you appear to be doing) as if any of the rest of us should care. We don't. Until she provides a statement along these lines (I welcome her to copy paste this) she should remain indef blocked. "I understand that calling that person's place of work was wrong. I promise I will never, for any reason, try to call the workplace or home of another wikipedia user again. I now understand that there is never any justification for actions like the ones I recently took. I understand that i will be indefinitely blocked if i break this promise and that i won't be given a second chance to come back."Bali ultimate (talk) 16:47, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As someone driving by I must say I agree with Bali. Spitfire's dependence on the fact that CarolineWH didn't violate anyone's privacy exempts her from having tried. Whether she was succesful or not is irrelevant, the fact remains that she tried to discover the identity of another editor. I, for one, would not feel comfortable knowing that other editors are allowed to investigate my background with impunity. It does not directly violate any wiki policies but I'm not sure it should be condone (or even embraced as your postings seem to indicate). Just because she failed doesn't negate the attempt. Padillah (talk) 16:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec)As a completely uninvolved party, I completely agree with Bali Ultimate and Padillah. There is no wiggle room when it comes to this type of privacy violation. Tan's block here is sound. --Jezebel'sPonyoshhh17:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
RE: to Bali; Firstly, the use of the word: "prattle" only causes to further inflame the situation, please be careful when dealing with sensitive matters. Secondly, you're supporting the block on the possibility that she might call someone's work place again (not "home", some please don't use that word), however, you say that you're willing to let the matter pass if Caroline says she won't do it again, therefore I suggest you observe her previous comment in this discussion; "Now, I said outright that I won't be doing this again." SpitfireTally-ho!16:56, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
RE: to Padillah; I don't embrace violations of policy, please don't suggest that I do. Another thing I don't embarace is editors getting unfairly blocked just because someone yells outing. you suggest that Caroline tried to find out another editors identity, this however is false, what Caroline actually did was try to find out if and identity she already had matched a certain editor. she did this in an extremely careful and sensitive manner, see this edit. You also say that just because she "failed doesn't negate the attempt", yes, she "failed" (or from her point of view succeeded in showing that the editor was not working at that place), however, as she didn't find out anything, there was no harm done, no harm done provided she doesn't make this a pattern, which she won't (see above comment: "I said outright that I won't be doing this again.") Regards, SpitfireTally-ho!17:03, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
First, I don't mean to suggest anything except what your continued justification and defense of these actions suggests: that you condone the actions. Since you are, in point of fact, condoning them and justifying them, it's really the only conclusion I am left with. As for her failure, that is secondary to her attempt. As RaseaC points out below Attempted Murder is still a capitol offense. Just because you suck at shooting doesn't mean you weren't really trying to kill. You argue that she already had the identity she was just trying to match it to an editor - for me this statement calls into question the very basis of this discussion. If you are trying to equivocate the discovery of someone's identity by "matching" vs discovering someone's identity via other means then we have a serious problem. There should be no circumstance under which one editor is allowed to investigate the real life identity of another. No amount of wikilawyering should allow any amount of investigation under any circumstances. That this isn't painfully and obviously clear to both CarolineWH and yourself is a great concern to me and, I hope, to others. Padillah (talk) 17:19, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but if you meant to miss and you did, then that wouldn't be a problem, particularly if you fired the shot into the ground at your feet (although a lot of people would probably argue that you'd been trying to hit the person, but really really really sucked at shooting), Caroline didn't aim to find out where the editor worked, she aimed to find out where they did not. As I said, I don't condone a violation of policy. The problem is that policy is debatable, and I have not seen proof that Caroline's actions were a violation. Kindest regards, SpitfireTally-ho!18:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Spitfire, enough! Caroline is not going to be unblocked because of anything you say here. Padillah, I think you should feel free not to have to prolong this ridiculous argument (just a thought). Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:05, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Elen, enough! Spitfire is not going to shut up because of anything you say here. Although, I'm starting to think that maybe its time to let this die, I can see that no one is going to change their minds, and as your argument is the one supported by an administrator (who apparently reckons that consensus doesn't matter: "While consensus isn't a vote etc etc etc, this rings in at Caroline and Spitfire vs. Everyone Else.") there's not a lot to be gained. Regards, SpitfireTally-ho!18:15, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah seriously, as soon as you go off-wiki and start looking for people you've crossed a line and don't belong on the project. The 'she didn't find them' argument is ridiculous, if I go and shoot my neighbour but miss I'm still going to have some questions to answer. The editor obviosuly doesn't understand that what she did was wrong and that is probably the most worrying part of all of this, for that reason alone it is probably best that they stay away from WP for a very long time. It's all well and good trying to educate people, but when the issues are as fundamental as Caroline's I think the only possible route is an indef. I've been following this discussion and have been amazed at how long it's been carrying on, Tan, or any admin, should have issued a block a while back. raseaCtalk to me16:58, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Spitfire -- If you don't like being accused of prattling then stop prattling. As for caroline - real, extended grovelling, and iron clad evidence that she understands why calling the home, work place, church, former school, etc. etc. of any wikipedia editor is very clearly wrong. Then promises that she will never, ever try to track, either by phone or internet records or any other means, the real life identities of any wikipedia editors. Perhaps an essay making it clear why these sorts of violations are so harmful is in order as well. All i've seen on her talk page so far is surliness and self-justification. Again, a prolonged, full prostration is needed to come back from a violation of trust this serious.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's a good block. Any attempt to contact the workplace of an editor with whom one has a conflict – successfully or not – is entirely unacceptable. This is a 'bright-line' rule. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
She didn't have a conflict with the editor, which immediately throws that "rule" out of the situation. Also, she was only trying to see whether or not some one she already knew worked there, her aim was to prove that they did not work there, not that they did. SpitfireTally-ho!17:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Who are you, her wiki-lawyer? You are sure doing a lot of poking and prodding around the edges of policy, looking for gaps to exploit. The moment someone attempts to "investigate" another user in this manner, that crosses the line into harassment; there is no wiggle room here. This approach to editing in what is supposed to be a collaborative project is simply cancerous, and should not be tolerated n the slightest. Tarc (talk) 17:15, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No just an editor who doesn't like to see people unfairly accused of things they didn't do. You people sure do a lot of "assuming" about policy that isn't actually there, apparently just so that you can justify blocking people. The policy actually states: "editors are encouraged to ignore or respond politely to isolated incidents", I haven't seen any proof that this is a pattern, and certainly no proof that policy justifies a block, SpitfireTally-ho!17:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't matter. While consensus isn't a vote etc etc etc, this rings in at Caroline and Spitfire vs. Everyone Else. There's no need to convince Spitfire of the appropriateness of this block. Let's all move on. Tan | 3917:18, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"etc etc"? As an admin you kind of have a responsibility to justify your blockes, I am left in extreme doubt as to whether you can when the only response you've made is "There's no need to convince Spitfire of the appropriateness of this block". Regards, SpitfireTally-ho!17:29, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
While I indicated at the RfC that the forum was inappropriate for bringing up material not related to the dispute, I believe the block is completely appropriate. I also attempted to discuss the phone call privately and found that Caroline was either unwilling or unable to understand why the behavior was such a serious concern. Checking up on an editor in real-life, no matter how well intentioned, is completely inappropriate. I'm very concerned that Caroline is continuing to defend her actions; she doesn't appear to realize the seriousness of her intrusion. Shellbabelfish17:04, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Might help to look up: Wikipedia:HARASS#Private_correspondence. She has already shown that she appreciates how serious any actual off-wiki harassment is, and she has said she won't do this again, even though she doesn't think it qualifies as harassment, which shows that despite her own feelings on the matter, she is prepared to let you (the community) be the judge of whether or not certain behavior is appropriate. Kindest regards, SpitfireTally-ho!17:14, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry but I don't believe that's the case. She's just called her actions harmless and repeatedly stated that she didn't break any rules; there's just nowhere we can go from there. That's some serious stubbornness despite copious feedback; her actions were inappropriate, full stop. Shellbabelfish17:19, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One last try Spitfire. While i can't demonstrate harm to any particular person, that sort of action is very, very harmful to wikipedia's editing environment. In theory, a productive editing environment is the most important thing here. Actions like hers are corrosive to this most important thing.Bali ultimate (talk) 17:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I can, easily. It has irrevocably damaged my ability to trust that I can edit articles like Abortion without fear of being investigated, outed or harassed. How's that? I don't say this to "win" the argument, I say this as an honest response to the question. You are looking in one specialized spot and saying "There's no harm" but you are failing to see the effect these actions have on other editors. Do you not see that condoning the investigation of editors in Real Life, however innocuous it may seem to you, tells other editors that they are subject to the same consequences? Don't you see the harm in this? Padillah (talk) 17:45, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, no, what I am saying doesn't deserve a block is when the investigation has no harmful consequences and none are intended (provided there's an understanding that future investigation will lead to a block), what would deserve a block is if the investigation did have consequences, intended or not. So really, Caroline's edits will only make people feel that they can investigate people so long as they don't find anything out and they don't aim to, and no one (except under cicumstances like this incident regarding Caroline) really sets out to investigate people not intending to find anything out. If that makes sense. Regards, SpitfireTally-ho!17:53, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fantastic block - why anybody is arguing this is completely beyond me. Contacting an editor's workplace is completely out of line - This is one of those situations where even a "sorry, I won't do that again" wouldn't be good enough. What Caroline did completely crossed the line and then some - the only answer is to swiftly show her the door and make sure it's securely locked. Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter17:31, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For the last time: she's said she won't do it again! WP:BP states very clearly: "Blocks are intended to reduce the likelihood of future problems, by either removing, or encouraging change in, a source of disruption. They are not intended for use in retaliation, as punishment, or where there is no current conduct issue which is of concern." However, you seems to be justifying the block on the ground that what Caroline did at the time was shocking, however, she won't do it again, so the block is punitive, SpitfireTally-ho!17:47, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Outing, or anything that resembles outing, is one of those situations where it doesn't really matter if the editor says they won't do the said crime again - the fact of the matter is that they've already done something which most people consider to be the most serious thing you can do here. I'm not going to get into the intricacies of whether not she outed the editor, but it does come under that umbrella. Is this is punitive block? I don't think so because of the seriousness of the charge. Ryan PostlethwaiteSee the mess I've created or let's have banter17:52, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A bit late to the discussion, but I'd like to quickly state my support for this block. Any sort of off-wiki investigation is completely inappropriate, over the line and indicates a severe lack of propreity. GlassCobra18:47, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Late to party but absolutely support this. I said at the RfC that this was an immediate block rather than a discuss first. Calling up the person you believe to be another editor's employer/professor/priest/mom because you want to find out who they are, is right out. Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am leaving the discussion. I'm sorry that the discussion couldn't have had a more productive outcome, in my opinion a punitive block is about as far from productive as is possible. But, as I said, its clear that no amount of discussion is going to change the matter, and so I'm regretfully going to have to leave it as it stands as the discussion is becoming counter-productive. Kind regards to everyone involved, and thanks for your time and opinions, both of which are valued, SpitfireTally-ho!18:15, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Since 1) this is winding down into a pissing match between one fan and everyone else, 2) the user in question is unable to find fault in their off-wiki stalking actions 3) the user is no longer contesting the block, can this be marked resolved? Tarc (talk) 18:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Spitfire, I think you should reflect on how it is that community consensus seems to be behind this block. The likely outcome of appealing to excerpts of policy is unlikely to result in having the block overturned. I agree that perhaps language regarding the unacceptable nature of trying to deduce the workplace or identity of an IP editor should be spelled out more clearly. It is unfortunate that it should be necessary, as most hold it to be self-evident. I also do not see this as a punitive block but rather one aimed at protecting wikipedia from further harm. Allowing attempts at breaches of privacy, which I believe CarolineWH's actions constitute, would be to invite harm to wikipedia and its editors. Unomi (talk) 18:12, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I see when I said "let wiki-lawyering commence" up there, it was taken as an invitation to do so. Clearly consensus is for the block to remain. This discussion isn't going anywhere else from there.--Atlan (talk) 18:14, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Waste / CarolineWH
While I do not condone the activity I do not feel an indef ban is the appropriate response. The losing of a potential good editor in a rush to judgment is a waste and does not benefit the Wikipedia community. To summarize the consensus position of community as I understand it, the issue is not that Caroline refuses to agree not to repeat the activity but rather that she is defending herself and refusing to take the position that she should have known a priori that making the call was an improper activity. I have been involved since the WQA on 24 Nov and have found Caroline to be willing to listen to advice and counsel when presented in a respectful manner.
Meaning depends on context, and interpretation of action should be made in that light.
To start, let's consider the original post by Caroline herself
I doubt it, since CU is immune to oversight and has no reason to be honest, but I'm sort of proud of myself so I'm eager to brag. I might have very limited computer skills, but I'm tops at research! I clicked a few links here until I got the company name behind the IP (which I won't mention here in case they Google), then found their phone number on their web site and gave them a call. All I had to do to get their cooperation was explain who I was, including my role in the student paper, and say that I was researching where our recent graduates went off to and how they're adjusting to the real world. I didn't say so, but I'm sure the receptionist assumed it was for a story.
She states her skills are limited. Therefore, saying 'she should have just done a checkuser' presumes she even knew that checkuser existed. This is not reasonable
She is clearly cognizant of the need to prevent breaches of privacy. She intentionally did not post the company's name and provided a cover explanation for why she was calling. At no point does she mention Wikipedia is this account.
Therefore it is understandable to me to she is unwilling to state that she someone should have known the making a call was unacceptable before being told.
Meaning depends on context. Caroline had gotten engaged in disagreement over Abortion page content with Paularabaster and Schrandit.
The history here is intervention postings, focused not on the outing but rather on unrelated Abortion page discussion, by Paularbaster on WQA 24 Nov, and Paularabaster on WP:RFC 25 Nov and finally here 29 Nov by Schrandit. Both BWilkins and Elen of Roads have stated they should have escalated the issue to AN/I but in fact they did not. I infer from many of the comments above that is is obvious to the community here that Caroline's activity should have resulted in a block immediately. In contrast, no one reading either the WQA nor the RFC brought the issue to the attention of AN/I. Therefore it seems to me that what is obvious to the experienced administrator community was less obvious to the general editor community. Therefore it is unreasonable to expect that it would have been obvious to a new editor.
under attack
Multiple factors came together that likely resulted in Caroline feeling attacked:
The fact the AN/I was posted by Schrandit rather than a third party editor despite the fact the activity had been known for days
her action was compared to stalking abortion providers
reference was made to countries where Wikipedia activity could result in harm, although I believe the call was not made is such a country
why the haste?
Based on past interactions I considered it likely that if Caroline was forced to respond without having an opportunity:
to have explained to her the mores of this new community she was part of, and
given time to reflect and digest the reasoning behind those values
that she would not "get it." To which extent I counseled her to wait before responding [[10]]... I had hoped to have an opportunity to talk her through this. Unfortunately other editors demanded she respond immediately, to poor results.
When a person feels both attacked and pressured to respond quickly it is significantly less likely they will respond in an insightful way.
What I don't get is why the rush? Why the need for haste? An explanation of Wikipedia's point of view, concurrent with positive validation of Caroline's intent while making the call while disapproving of the method, coupled with time for her to process, could very well have resulted in a much more positive outcome.
The justification of the ban as a deterrent against future misbehavior presupposes that a new editor such as Caroline would both be aware of and review past Case_law of AN/I. This is inconsistent with the anyone can edit model of Wikipedia.
Therefore I respectfully request the indef ban be mitigated. I don't think any block is necessary at all; however if the community feels some cooling off period is justified my past experience suggests a few days would be sufficient. Gerardw (talk) 22:06, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Gerard, the user was given all day yesterday to rethink as per a discussion on my talkpage. You don't call someone's work/church/home, period. When politely confronted and shown a similar case, you don't continue to justify it. Arguably, Spitfire's discussion absolutely shot down any chance for her, however, she was provided more than enough opportunity to realize her bad, bad, bad judgement. She chose to justify it instead. (talk→BWilkins←track) 22:21, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No mitigating circumstances. Caroline sought real-life personal information of other editors to be used to her advantage on Wikipedia. Her totally unapologetic response when asked about it, sealed the deal.--Atlan (talk) 22:25, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
She called what she thought was another editor's place of work and refused, despite repeated prodding, that this was a major wrong hereabouts. She continued to insist there was no problem with her behavior. Excellent block. Prevents more possible instances of same from an editor that crossed one of the brightest red lines here and pour encourager les autres (one can hope).Bali ultimate (talk) 22:30, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Linking to "case law" is missing the point entirely. This isn't a government and no laws are being enforced. The intent is to protect Wikipedia and its editors. Tracking down and contacting an editor's employer is so far over the line that there's little point in debate. If I thought that such things were given an inch of tolerance I wouldn't want to participate in Wikipedia. That kind of thing is scary. -- Atama頭01:25, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am aware of at least one underage editor who felt she had to leave because of being publicly outed here. I think many of us are aware of one very prominent editor who retired for a time because his real name was announced elsewhere. I know that if anyone ever revealed or sought in a way I could find out any real information about me, and I found out about it, my next and final edit here would be to announce my retirement. She was repeatedly told that this sort of thing is not acceptable, and yet she continued to argue that it was. If she can do that once, she can do it again, probably for other reasons which she would find equally acceptable. Whether the people she was attempting to basically "out" would find that acceptable is another matter entirely. We cannot allow one editor's being unable (or refusing) to "get" something potentially drive away other editors, and the record will show that she has already driven away one. She has been told how to appeal the block. Whether she chooses to do so is another matter. However, if she does choose to do so or not, she is being given a good deal of time to come to understand how and why such actions are unacceptable. If she indicates that she does understand to the ArbCom, the block may well be lifted. If she doesn't, then the risk of further misconduct by her along these lines is a very real one which could do some form of harm to virtually any other editor here and I cannot she why we should run that risk for any single individual. John Carter (talk) 18:05, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Gerardw for bringing this continued discussion to my attention. One of the most disturbing things for me about this whole sorry saga has been the way it has been conducted all over the shop in various forums. I am no newbie here, but I have found it very difficult to keep up with all the various threads of the discussion in all these different places. In my opinion this is an abuse of process. It has been nothing more than a gaming of the system by two experienced users (one who has since flounced) who have taken exception to an oposing opinion about a content dispute. People here who should know better have allowed these two to dig for something that could be turned into a hot button issue and responed unthinkingly when they had no compunction in pressing that button. Certainly CarolineWH's actions deserve censure, but she has been denied natural justice by all this forum shopping - which surely should have raised some alarm bells with people here - which has made it impossible for her to respond, especially given the pressure that has been applied to elicit a rapid response from her. Frankly it looks like a kangaroo court to me. I have stated in the link supplied above by Gerardw what I think should have happenned. It is not too late (I hope) for this precipitate action to be reversed and more naunced approach to be tried.
Finally, there remains the issue of the two who started all this, whatever CarolineWH's actions deserved, this sort of simultaneous multiple forum attack on her is unjust and unconscionable. We cannot afford to allow this sort of abuse to continue. The two perpetrators of this should not escape with their actions unsanctioned, especially given the way the current case for a new user has been dealt with. - Nick Thornetalk02:00, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
CarolineWH has been told how to contest her block. I can't see any administrator willing to unblock under these circumstances, so she can always take it to ArbCom. AniMate02:28, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Gerardw, your entire argument falls at your very first note (why would she even know there was such a thing as checkuser). Read the text you quoted - that bit about CU not being subject to any kind of oversight. CarolineWH had in fact had a disagreement with a checkuser in an SPI prior to the events described, which was why she decided to conduct her own off wiki research. Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:47, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Does anyone know who they're likely to be? I notice that their only edits are those personal attacks which makes me suspect they might be someone's sockpuppets but I don't spend enough time on ANI to speculate as to whose. HJMitchellYou rang? 09:40, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There are a number of idiots who hang about on /b/ getting other, bigger, idiots to cut-and-paste this type of boring vandalism. It's, quite literally, random idiots. Not socks and not really even meatpuppets. Just random idiots. ⬅ ❝Redvers❞09:59, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You know, contrary to popular belief (and mounds of empirical evidence) not every idiot on the internet is from /b/. I was on there all night and saw no wikipedia raid threads. Please stop besmirching our name. We can do that just fine ourselves. Throwaway85 (talk) 10:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not trying to document it. But you'll just need to take my word for it. And Alison's word. And SirFozzie's. It was /b/. ⬅ ❝Redvers❞11:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Trying to look for threads about Wikipedia on /b/ is the equivalent of trying to look for variously placed needles in 50 haystacks which are moving at 30 miles per hour. Threads on /b/ are added so quickly, virtually nothing stays on one page for more than about 5 seconds. If you were to constantly refresh and refresh the page, anything that was there on the previous refresh is already gone... and that's during the less active times. The thing that should not be16:26, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
←I took a screencap last night. You can see it here, FWIW. I've redacted Foz's personal info, though it's still NSFW :-O BTW, I'm a proud on-and-off /b/tard myself & can tell you that most people on there don't care for that 'Personal Army' nonsense - it's really only n00bz and the really, really bored that care about these things. I'll probably write up an essay on it at a later date, so people know how this stuff works - Allie❤21:56, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Diana Napolis, Do No Harm, attempted outing, and maybe sockpuppetry
I tried to remove Diana Napolis's blog as an external link from her article because I found it to add no encyclopedic value whatsoever. i further reasoned that in the spirit of doing no harm, it could possibly be psychologically harmful to her for wikipedia to link to her site, as she might misconstrue our linking to her as an encouragement and verification for her delusional ideations. you'd have to read her blog and article for context on how profoundly disturbing her paranoia and delusions are.
Diana Napolis is notable, and has a wikipedia article, because she stalked steven spielberg and made death threats against jennifer love hewett because she believed that jennifer love hewett could read her mind.
her blog has postings such as "“They” and a mass of other personalities are underneath my home and the surrounding area. It might be their home base. I need assistance getting the good guys out. They have plans to expand. Their weaknesses are flickering lights – (strobe lights would work) - sent with negative energy; spinning, and cold temperature. It appears that my opponents can “mind-upload” or “mind transfer” anyone into the program that I see into, contrary to the belief of various officials that it can’t be done."
after reading her blog, i tried to remove it from the article. but it was added back with the other editor's reasoning that it's permitted under policy. i started a discussion on the talk page [[12]] where the other two editors disagreed with my assertion that linking her site might be harmful to her. i reasoned that her site is unecyclopedic, does not benefit the article in any way, and also might allow her to misconstrue wikipedia linking her site with somehow legitimizing her paranoid/delusional ideations. after the two other editors disagreed, i decided that it would be better to get more experienced help, so i posted on the BLP noticeboard for further advice. User: Scott Macdonald was the only editor to come to the article from BLPN, and he supported its removal and wrote "Do no harm" seems to me to be a perfectly good principle for not allowing our encyclopedia to be involved in encouraging mental delusion. Placing it here simply encourages people to stop and stare at an ill person. That's not what Wikipedia is about. and here's where things got weirdUser: Hipocriteaccused me of being diana napolis, which makes no sense. and then an IP accused me of the same [[13]] - it appears to me that both the IP and hipcrite are the same person. i suppose this is a technical violation of wp:outing, but it's such an illogical accusation that i think the situation now requires much more outside scrutiny. there are probably more sockpuppets here than just hipocrite and his/her IP.
Er, I'm not the IP, the IP was the one that said it first, and I thought you had made it public that you were Mrs. Napolis. Given that, apparently, it's neither true nor public (I guess), I've removed my statement. I suggest you remove this section as well. Hipocrite (talk) 17:39, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
hipocrite, please provide a diff of where i've claimed or intimated that i'm diana napolis. writing things like "apparently, it's neither true nor public (I guess)" just shows your intent to continue with your tactics. for the record, i'm a male in my 20s, not an aging woman named diana. if anyone in this bizarre situation is actually diana napolis, it's certainly not me. i'll leave it up to the other admins and editors to see through your ruse and sockpuppetry. Theserialcomma (talk) 17:50, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
and what are you doing removing the IP editor's comments? if that isn't you, you probably shouldn't be touching other people's talkpage comments [[16]]. and by the way, do you think no one can figure out your passive aggressive intimations when you use edit summaries like "apparently TSC is not napolis". do you think we are fools? Theserialcomma (talk) 17:55, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm trying to remove the violations of WP:OUTING. I suggested you do the same in this thread. I swear from on high that I have no intent of engaging with you, or the article about Mrs. Napoli ever again, ever. You are obviously not Mrs. Napoli, and I apologize for beliving the IP editor, who, by the way, is located in a totally different state than I'm in. Hipocrite (talk) 17:58, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
TSC was very worried about outing (see this report). I redacted lots of outing. He undid all of my redaction - so, while I was scrambling to fix my mistake, he was scrambling to return it. I did my damndest to remove as much of the outing as possible, with the slightly sarcastic comment that it must be ok for the stuff that I left to stay. Hipocrite (talk) 18:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
An interesting argument. However, I refer to the policy, which you clearly have not read, WP:OUTING. "If you see an editor post personal information about another person, do not confirm or deny the accuracy of the information. Doing so would give the person posting the information and anyone else who saw the page feedback on the accuracy of the material. Do not treat incorrect attempts at outing any differently from correct attempts for the same reason." Perhaps you should spend less time following the contributions of people you have previously been in disputes with and move on to other practices. Thanks! Hipocrite (talk) 18:50, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I will be honest with you here, I do not recall having been in a dispute with you. I think the closest thing to that was when you came to my talk page after I had commented on the jzg/guy rfc, demanding to know how I came to be aware of it and voicing concerns of your edits being stalked. We had a brief exchange on rfc page but certainly nothing that I would consider a dispute. I am not looking at your contributions because you are Hipocrite but because you are a user that has been presented as having made questionable edits here on ANI and I wanted to see if such allegations had merit, upon seeing your choice of words I asked for clarification as the wording you have used in your edit summary and posts could indicate that you have indeed not relinquished the desire to intimate that TSC could be Diana Napolis. I have read WP:OUTING and I am sure that TSC has as well. I respect his decision to react against attempted outing and/or personal attacks. Should you have read WP:OUTING previously then you should have known that repeating the allegations of the IP editor(I assume that this is how you come to curious notion) without diffs that clearly indicated self-outing would be against policy. I apologize if this strikes you as us having a dispute, now, I consider it a clarification of how I perceive the situation. Unomi (talk) 19:28, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is a fairly simple case as regards the link to the blog. If the article is upheld at AfD, then the blog remains per well established content policy. As regards outing, it was not a good idea to speculate if any Wikipedia editors might be the subject of the article. I know we do it often when we suspect COI, but its one of the really troublesome aspects of our COI policy. This is clearly a particularly strong case where we would not want to make the speculation because of the possible harm to an editor, but the contraction to OUTING really occurs every time we do it, unless of course self-admitted. Once the decision is made about the article, some courtesy blanking and possibly oversight would be in order. DGG ( talk ) 20:18, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I second what DGG said about outing and COI, it's sometimes a tightrope. Generally if you need to err, err on the side of caution and don't out someone even if you're pretty sure there's a COI. What I see from this is an IP did the outing, and Hipocrite thought the identity was previously disclosed and was no big deal. When he realized that wasn't the case he tried to clean things up. While he made mistakes, his intentions seemed good the whole time and as soon as he realized he might be violating policy he tried to fix it. He should at the very least be commended for that. -- Atama頭23:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(outdent) Getting back to the BLP issue, I'd like to mention that Template:Satanic ritual abuse (linked to at the bottom of the Napolis article) has led me to some serious BLP violations, especially under the "Notable People" section. I've removed a couple of egregious examples, but I will crosspost this to the BLP noticeboard for further review. I think some of this may be residue from User:ResearchEditor and his merry band of socks. Skinwalker (talk) 01:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm the article's creator, FWIW, as well as {{satanic ritual abuse}}. I don't know where all the attention is coming from or why - in my mind there is extensive support for the status quo page. Per WP:EL Napolis' blog clearly should remain and per WP:N she is very clearly notable. This is basic policy and guideline stuff and I'm quite surprised to see the quality and quantity of the objections. There's nothing not available on a news site, most of the sources are outright linked (I have copies of unlinked news articles as I say on the talk page), and it's not like the page is being used in a disparaging manner. Napolis has edited wikipedia (there are two templates to that effect on the talk page) but never the Diana Napolis page proper including the Diana Napolis page itself - one of which moved the link to her blog in the EL section. The IP addresses comment seemed like a simple case of mistaken identity, one that I saw but didn't even bother to comment on. I don't believe TSC is Diana Napolis, based mostly on the fact that I usually recognize editors who have worked on the satanic ritual abuse pages and TSC's handle didn't ring a bell. WLU(t)(c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex02:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think Theserialcomma is right to want to tiptoe very carefully around the mental health of apparently a very fragile person. If DN feels strangers are reading her mind, yet she is essentially posting her diary online, well, there's a self-fulfilling prophecy, but we for our parts shouldn't be "immanentizing the eschaton" (helping bring closer the inevitable end of things). Visiting Bedlam to taunt the inmates is so passé this season, can't we watch bear-baiting instead? — Sizzle Flambé (☎/✍) 06:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
i would ask, how does linking her blog benefit the encyclopedia article? i don't think it does anything good for the article, other than the fact that WP:EL allows it. on the other hand, could it possibly hurt her psychological balance by letting her think that wikipedia somehow accepts and gives credence her delusions? this seems plausible, considering she's a paranoid schizophrenic. this is why i believe it should be removed, but it's an editorial decision that consensus will have to decide, i guess. Theserialcomma (talk) 07:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That hypothetical about spielberg and hewett that you've presented is actually 100% fallacious logic and therefore logically irrelevant to my argument. furthermore, WP:THERAPY is about WP not being therapy for editors, the guideline has nothing to do with how to deal with BLP subjects, which is what we are discussing. Theserialcomma (talk) 12:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia isn't therapy for anyone. No serious article could be written about any person (or many topics) if our primary concern is "will this affect this person's mental state". Witness Susan Boyle (and again), Britney Spears, Star Wars Kid, and any other potentially embarrassing, but highly notable events and people. There are good sources, extensive discussion and nothing unreasonable on her page. Also note that nowhere does it say she is a paranoid schizophrenic.
For every argument that "x page could affect the subject's mental balance" there is a speculative counter-argument: it might make the subject seek out help. It might make the subject take their medication. It might make the subject go on a shooting rampage. It might make the subject take a vacation. But we don't know. We're not doctors, nor should we try to be. WLU(t)(c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex12:39, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We're not trying to provide therapy for her. We're telling people quit poking her with a stick to see if she reacts. As you say, we're not doctors, and we shouldn't be pointing people to her personal blog just for the hell of it. It doesn't add anything to the understanding of the subject. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite16:35, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Who's poking anyone with a stick? As WLU has pointed out on the article talk page it appears that Napolis reformatted the placement of her blog link in the External links section herself -- without removing it. Your statement strongly implies an assumption of bad faith. If you do not wish to imply that someone is intentionally poking her with a stick until she reacts I suggest refactoring your comment. There may well be an argument against inclusion based upon what it does or does not add to the entry but that is a content question and not a BLP concern. The editor who brought this matter here initially removed the link on the basis that it was SPAM. Only after being rebuffed did they post on the talk page with a BLP concern. The two arguments are completely contradictory, since one suggests that Napolis is spamming the entry with her blog for her own benefit and the other suggest that we're causing her harm by linking to her page. If anything the manner in which this matter has been brought forth and has now been forum shopped around the encyclopedia bares some scrutiny. I don't mean to suggest that there is any impropriety here but simply that a bit of forethought before making arguments or insinuations might benefit this discussion immensely.PelleSmith (talk) 17:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, Star Wars Kid purposely censors out the kid's real name, as does Genie (feral child). these are not examples of people using WP for therapy to benefit the article's subjects, but editors deciding to lessen any potential harm to a living person, which is what i'm arguing for.
and your counter-argument examples are logically flawed arguments - no one knows what allowing the link will cause or not cause. your attempt to use a counter argument with modified premises and conclusions completely changes the argument, which is a logical fallacy. i'm arguing that X might cause Y. you're arguing that X might cause Z, Q or even -Y. You also mentioned in the talk page -X causing Y. There is no possibility that what you have presented as counter arguments would ever pass any scrutiny from a logician. This is not good logic.
but back to the issue: the burden on editors here is to do no harm, not ensure her article has a link to her blog. are we potentially doing harm? i don't know. wouldn't it be better to play it safe, though? i say yes. by the way, to respond to why i called her a paranoid schizophrenic, it's because one of the court documents i found while googling called her so. Theserialcomma (talk) 13:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some of you may already be aware of User:Editor XXV. Originally, he was just another vandal who was blocked within hours. Since then, he has used sockpuppets and anonymous IPs to evade his block and continue vandalizing Wikipedia.
It is obvious that this user has no intention of stopping. He has at least two dozen sockpuppets and could be creating more as we speak. (write? type?) I doubt that any administrator will unblock this user.
This user is obviously no longer welcome here, but I don't think he gets it.
So, in accordance with WP:BAN, I am starting a discussion here. Should we consider this user effectively banned?
He wants to be up there with Grawp, Willy on Wheels and Bambifan101. RBI is something we should apply while dealing with him. What we need is something that will tell him "go away, we don't want you here". A ban is just that. --Decepticon Shockwave, signing off. (talk) (contributions) 20:07, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I've been involved with this user since near the beginning. The problem is that he has a dynamic IP, so normal blocks only stop him for a short time. I'm not too sure how a community ban will kick him out for good, but RBI and DENY don't seem to work so the least we can do is try in my opinion. I've tried to keep him contained but the last three times he's appeared recently (I seem to be a rapid target for some reason) I've been away from the computer and unable to help out. --ThejadefalconSing your songThe bird's seeds15:35, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is a more or less a neutral !vote. I'm sort of torn between the benefits of a ban, and the potential escalation it could cause. To be perfectly honest, I don't see much benefit in banning this guy. Some, but not much. He seems to get a high from defying authority. Banning may only make him want to vandalise more. On the other hand, it would be helpful to have his name on WP:banned users (but it may have the opposite effect), and the banning notice may give him some idea of how serious the thing is. Right now, he thinks he's just annoying a few random editors, but if he realises the whole community wants him out, he may be a bit intimidated and leave. Or not. Lord Spongefrog,(Talk to me, or I'll eat your liver!)17:32, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Approve Community Ban - Is there consensus yet? No matter, lets !vote here. There is nothing that I've seen from this user that is productive, he is annoying and useless, the project is better off without him. --Rockstonetalk to me!11:40, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In addition, he removed two times a speedy deletion tag (and the tag was removed a third time with a similar edit summary by an "anonymous" IP). The article has been in his userspace for quite some time, but yesterday (at least once) and today (at least three times) he copied it into article space several times, including to Adamantius (theological journal). --Crusio (talk) 19:14, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure. First, shouldn't he be asking for it to be userfied instead of doing it himself (if that is what happened)? And we do need a time limit on articles in userspace, and in fact I'd much prefer them to be in the article incubator. I'm not happy with that behaviour being rewarded by letting it be in his userspace where it will be found via Google. Dougweller (talk) 19:22, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I see nothing wrong with userifying an article oneself. Since userification is essentially automatic except for copyvio and libel, requiring someone who is able to do it is adding unnecessary steps--except possibly when the existence of something has been exceptionally controversial, and this was not. It;s essentially equivalent to an admin deleting pages in his own userspace. Normally, I do not delete single-handed myself, because I know I make a certain percentage of errors and I do not want to risk doing damage to someone' else's work unless some other Wikipedian agrees (not necessarily an admin), but in almost all cases userifying does not have the same sort of negative consequence. I argued against that journal, & it is possible that what I said about it may have been decisive, but it might be possible to show it notable and I have no objection to it being in anyone's user space. anyone who wants it removed can go to MfD, but in recent decisions there we do not remove pages that have any potential at all from the space of bona fide editors for at least several months. They normally do not harm. Using the incubator is a matter of choice; it is hardly an established feature of Wikipedia at this point. I would not want to place any procedural obstacles in the way of improving possible articles.
Obviously the other things done were not good things to do; I do not know to what to attribute it except a short lapse from an otherwise excellent admin and editor. It was right to bring this here, but I think perhaps enough has been said. I can;t imagine it will be repeated; if it should, then some action would be required. DGG ( talk ) 19:48, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, my main problem with userfying is the ability to use userspace to get publicity through Google. You've confused me a bit here, who are you talking about when you say excellent Admin and editor? Dougweller (talk) 19:59, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think the incubator idea is a good one. I think just having it somewhere it can be worked on is good, and satisfies the noindex issue. We all agree this is a good outcome? And given this is the sole sticking point, we can agree a block at this point would be unnecessary? Casliber (talk·contribs) 20:13, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
sorry about that; when it was said he userified it himself I thought you meant "undeleted and userified", and i did not check. Some of my comments are therefore irrelevant, and I struck them. Cannot any particular page is user spae be NOINDEXED? DGG ( talk ) 00:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Any page can be NOINDEXED by a variety of means, the easiest of which (in my mind) is adding {{NOINDEX}} to the page itself. That template is also transcluded in a number of other userspace related templates including some for userdrafts. Protonk (talk) 02:38, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Contra the thread starter (whose good faith I don't doubt), I am opposing (inadvertent) admin obstruction to the improvement and maintenance of the encyclopedia. Admin merely enact the completed decisions of past consensuses and provide a point of contact to reopen discussion should new evidence arise. If I am mistaken, and individual admins have some intrinsic authority, then criticising their actions ought to be protected speech, not wilfully slandered as "obstruction". But I am not mistaken.
The verifiable facts regarding this stub are:
it was speedied while the subject area expert who created it was unavailable--perhaps a little unwise and precipiate, but so be it, it's permissible and the speedy proposer did the right thing by notifying me, so no harm done, I later restored sourced content that had been removed without adequate discussion to form any consensus for such an action;
it was relisted for adequate (which should mean at least both informed and reasonable) discussion--absolutely fair enough--again I was absent, sorry;
after some time only two responses had been posted, one of which proposed a reasonable "litmus test": is it peer reviewed? if not, ditch the thing, but if so, it deserves a chance: the score was "creater for, proposer against, 1 I don't know, default to delete, 1 I don't know, here's a basis for making a decision" and quite rightly, it was relisted because inadequate discussion provided no grounds for consensus to form, so no grounds to mandate any administrative action on behalf of the community;
two brief posts were made after the manner of the first response--don't know if it's reviewed, should assume no and delete;
these two posts which added nothing to the discussion were taken to constitute consensus and the article was deleted: it is this I believe is standard but wrong practise--if article creators are considered too partial to count their "votes", deletion proposers (and discussion closers at reviews) need also to be so considered--BUT it's not about voting it's about quorums, adequate documentation of reliable evidence and rationales, sufficient to bring all parties to a point of "no dissent", this is what consensus means sometimes it takes time, what's the rush?
I happened to drop by a while back and saw the deletion, checked the discussion--all documented in good faith according to policy robust enough to handle quibbles like this--but saw the discussion was inadequate, since basic sources had not be consulted, subject area experts (like librarians first of all) had not been sought, etc. etc., again no harm done, I restored (contacting the closing admin as requested);
the closing admin defended his own action, ignored mine, and was uninterested in discussion--rather poor form I think--fortunately John put together even more evidence than I'd gathered in the brief time I was online, a deletion review was proposed, and closed (hopefully) on the excellent advice of DGG, for there was little else of substance against the article, and nothing else that interacted with John's considerable evidence.
This brings us up to date. It is my own clumsy fault (and happenstance of being offline for a long time) that I didn't find the link to the deletion review which had been provided in good faith by the closer of the original discussion. Thanks to the kind offices of another responsible and good faith deletion proposer, I was able to see the deletion review and that, despite a good case by DGG, it was still not really complete. So I restored again and requested that anyone interested in deletion propose that so adequate discussion could be documented and a final verdict reached.
Unilateral actions by admins ensued, operating on hearsay, without examining discussion critically, and without taking into account my real life credentials offered freely to this project. The improvement and maintenance of the encyclopedia cannot be held to ransom by gung-ho (good faith but misguided) administrators. I'll not report them, or put them through requests for comment. It's a waste of time. There are too many other admins that would feel their own tenure threatened and so I don't believe a fair hearing would be possible. Also, I'm simply not vindictive.
Finally, the appropriate place for the article is in the mainspace. This article is not my article, it is our article. Italians will know much more about it than any of us. The research group is already cited at Italian Wikipedia. Userfying is as good as deletion, because the article is so low on my priority list I am quite likely not to come back to it. Wikipedia is a co-operative excercise, not a competition to score featured or good articles. Nor as Doug suggests so cynically (and untypically), to pick up hits from Google.
I don't particularly care whether or not the ignorant comments regarding my editing above are struck or not, because such hearsay should never be used in evidence. It might, however, be wise to strike them, because should others act on that hearsay, it becomes evidence of defamation. I am not a public figure, not notable in any way, so there is no protection for unfounded allegations regarding what I publish at this project. Such allegations need to be proven or withdrawn. Let's just cool it. I can still assume good faith at this point. It would be well if others could do the same. Alastair Haines (talk) 03:05, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"The appropriate place for the article is in the mainspace". But it has been deleted per an AfD discussion, so the appropriate place is not on Wikipedia unless it is significantly changed. Is your view that everyone at AfD and DRV was wrong, you're right, and you get to unilaterally ignore process and consensus? It feels like you're Reichstag climbing here. Fences&Windows03:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am perfectly willing to put it in my user space is Alastair would prefer that. A case can perhaps be made that publications of this type should be on Wikipedia. The criteria for scientific journals was not really intended to cover newsletters of this sort, and we might find a way of handling them. But Alastair, the repeated reinsertion under multiple alternate titles does seem a little pointy, and has an unfortunate resemblance to what COI editors of properly rejected articles sometimes do with their company names and the like, so perhaps it would be helpful if you simply acknowledged as much and apologized for it. An unknown contributor doing that would probably have been blocked very quickly--I don't hesitate to do so in such circumstances. DGG ( talk ) 13:13, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
@Fences and windows: only DGG and John Vandenburg interacted with any evidence, so yes, what others said counts for very little, certainly less than the reliable sources I have access to.
@DGG, thanks for your kind offer, I already have a copy in my own user space. I'll be posting that as an article on the group, rather than the journal, and simultaneously proposing it for deletion to ensure adequate discussion occurs. I'll time that so I will be available to participate in the ensuing discussion. That will be some time away, since I have other priorities.
I'm very confident of your judgment in the actions you take DGG. In the current case, salting of the original namespace left no place for additional evidence, which is plentiful if diligently pursued with access to theological libraries. Repeated deletions (which also removed my article talk page comments) without discussion (on my personal talk page) by deleting admins also denied any opportunity for any evidence to be presented. Orangemike should have posted to my page first, before posting here. I'm happy for you to be right that I handled this incorrectly, but I'm quite comfortable that the error was on the part of the involved admins. It's no big deal though.
One aspect of the difficulty is that I suspect some admins believe content editors ultimately work "provisional on admin support", whereas I believe administrators work "provisional on content editor support". I saw this very soon after openning an account at Wiki, and resolved not to request to be an administrator. There are many who already do this job well for a start, but there are times systems need to be scrutinised from the outside.
There are many complex issues involved that won't be resolved here.
The important thing will be getting things right next time, when I post the article about the group.
Yes, and I removed some of the personal attacks, but as far as I can see all of these NPAs came from random dynamic IPs that in all the cases I looked at haven't edited since. As such, blocks on the IP addresses would appear to be pointless. Is there something else I've missed? Black Kite19:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Stale only in the sense that no one really ever did anything about it. Continuing personal attacks against me. I've moved some of them to my talk, not all of them. I really am disappointed that I should have to be subjected to this. I've done nothing wrong, and am being vilified for my views about content. This is no way for any editor to be treated. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Thank you. For a start, please take another look at the archived part, where I provided a huge number of diffs, and some of them, actually, were from registered users, then go forward through those users' contribution histories. If you'd like, I can then round up more diffs. P.S. after the edit conflict: yes, thanks for that too. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:59, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this was what I was talking about. Hasn't edited for over 48 hours, and is a dynamic IP. The only remaining IP still talking (unless I've missed something), is the 24.x.x.x one which is being slightly brusque but hardly incivil. If it was actually continuing the personal attacks which the other ones were, I would block it. Black Kite19:57, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) I just now actually looked at those diffs. In fairness, I have to say that the later one was made by reverting my removal of the first. (And that was very mild, compared to the diffs that I reported earlier.) But the whole business arose from off-site instigation at what is basically a hate site. I've been wondering about sockery in other contexts (an IP says something awful, then another editor immediately comes on with crocodile tears after making attacks earlier, etc.), but I don't see how I could make a strong enough case for CU. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:13, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A day later: the user you see in that link appears to be following me from page to page, and has put the anti-hate speech header that was recently on the article talk page onto his user talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:31, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I recommend in future that you don't pick stuff like that up from the article and cart it back to your talkpage. It looks so much worse on an article talkpage, you're more likely to get something done about it. One of the IPs vandalised my talkpage and got offed by Materialscientist for its pains. I've thrown Yzak Jule off myself - so far he hasn't been back, though I don't know if he's been bothering the Fish. Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:56, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Elen, I'm unsure what you mean. Are you referring to where I moved the bogus accusations about me to my talk? My reasoning was that it had nothing to do with the article talk page, and my replying to it was necessary but also unrelated to the article talk page. This is getting awfully tough for me: I get criticized when I say that I do not object to leaving the bad stuff on the article talk page, and then (if I understand?) I get criticized for moving it off. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:02, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wasn't criticising you (sorry if it sounded that way), more along the lines of not taking stray dogs home. That rubbish may have been aimed at you, but leaving it on the article talkpage and ignoring it may have been a better option than shifting it to your talk page where, after all, you didn't actually want some of it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:14, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What I didn't want at my talk has been reverted. My experience has been that rubbish that stays at the article ends up getting repeated as though it were true. Anyway, the admins don't need to read this (so maybe I'll move this to my talk -- joke!). --Tryptofish (talk) 23:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You are quite correct Tryptofish, anon users and IPs frequently post slander that is repeated as if true, and administrators are untrained in dealing with this. What you need is a third party willing to delete talk page posts that add nothing to discussion of the article and malign you in attempt to discourage you from editing. Please feel free to drop a note at my talk page any time and I will evaluate posts you believe to be useless and injurious. I cannot promise to agree with you in any particular case. I might be a disappointment. But such posts breach the copyright license and the Foundation is duty bound to protect you, even if, as you do, you opt to exercise your right to publish anonymously. Alastair Haines (talk) 03:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Alastair, you might want to refactor that slightly. I agree that IPs in this case posted a great deal of uncivil nonsense. I don't think it's an issue about admin training. If anything had been said that actually constituted slander (as opposed to abuse) Tryptofish was free to highlight that. But what you're saying about copyright license is just....nonsense. Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:44, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, both of you. I appreciate that both of you are sympathetic, and I trust that the admins, will, in due course, do what they believe best helps Wikipedia. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And, at this point, I'd just like to check back about where we stand. As Sky Attacker so very correctly said, we have yet to really scratch the surface of a significant problem here (not just for me personally, but for the good of the entire Wiki). So, I'll repeat Sky Attacker's question: can someone please do something about this? Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 17:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly what is to be done? The civility and WP:NPA issues on the talk page have now subsided. Blocks are used to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, not to punish users. If the disruptive behavior has stopped, then there is no reason to hand out blocks. —Farix (t | c) 22:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Farix, it hasn't stopped. It may be moving more to my talk page, but it hasn't stopped. And per above, there may be other issues including sockery. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the history of your talk page, that's already been dealt with with your talk page semi-protected. If it continues, you need to cite specific diffs rather then vaguely cry that someone needs to "do something". —Farix (t | c) 23:08, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I need to ask this, and I realize it sounds kind of obnoxious, but please understand that I don't mean anything bad by it. Farix, you aren't an admin, are you? (If I'm wrong, please accept my apology for even asking!) If you aren't, please let the admins continue to look at what I think they are looking at. Again, sorry for the way that sounds. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:44, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Few administrators are going to act on anything until there is clear evidence. If you have an issue with an editor, you need to bring it along with the diffs. —Farix (t | c) 01:59, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Copy editing, help with sourcing, and a joke? Why, that's the most uncivil thing I've ever seen. Certainly this nefarious user should be banned from Wikipedia forever for helping out other articles noticed under a user's contributions while checking to see if he was violating consensus again. Also, why is this on ANI?Yzak Jule (talk)
Agreed, those edits are a copy edit, a source and a non-offensive joke (PETA in Anime indeed). Tryptofish you need to calm down. Yzak Jule, you've got the poor boy (boy? well I think he's a boy) all in a tizz and he's panicking every time he sees your name. It's unfortunate, you've come in on the tail of some truly offensive IPs, so I think you're getting the reaction to them. Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:54, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like a potential WP:STALKING case to me. Yzak Jule, I advice you to completely disengage from Tryptofish, that includes not following him around in his edit history. It doesn't do either of you any good. Tryptofish, if Yzak Jule keeps following you around, start a new complaint with the diffs. —Farix (t | c) 01:59, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent advice from these people Trypt, if you ask me. Certainly I couldn't help better with what you've posted. If there's serious stuff, it can take forever to go through processes designed to screen out trivia like these last three diffs you've posted. Too many people cry "Wolf", and genuine pleas for assistance go unheeded. If there's serious stuff, I volunteer to be your first "informal" attempt at mediation. Don't hit people with clubs when a simple third party could clear it up. Relax, enjoy, there's plenty of people here being really supportive to you. Three cheers for them! :) Alastair Haines (talk) 04:42, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Is 1414 characters, 1159 over the limit, not only that, it obscures surrounding text. I realize this isn't the signature he uses most often, but please, please prevent him from using it ever again. I myself wish to refactor instances of said signature, as they are unquestionably disruptive and there is really no purpose for a signature that blatantly disruptive. For full transparency, I happened upon this signature twice; it was called to my attention per a page I am watching. As a note, I did notify him of this report.— DædαlusContribs22:32, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Such would be a pointless endeavor, as every time I have ever posted a message to his page(except for a single exception, but this message had nothing to do with edits he made, but another refactoring them), he has deleted it without addressing the points brought up in it or responding. I trust the same would happen with this, hence, I ask for assistance of those whose words have more weight.— DædαlusContribs22:39, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, you will do nothing of the sort. Really, don't be silly. "Disruption" is a term used for serious things like nationalist flaming, wikistalking, etc. Or perhaps for starting baseless ANI threads. Not for one-off signature use. Moreschi (talk) 01:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
At the time of writing this, his most recent contribution was to a talk page, and used a fairly normal signature (see here). So, it may not be a problem anymore. Although, a friendly notice is not a bad idea either, since he might not realize that there was a problem with the old one. Plastikspork―Œ(talk)23:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is a definite pattern of this editor ignoring administrators repeated warnings to stop certain behavior. That is probably were some of Secret's frustration comes from. The only problem is administrators never follow through with these warnings. Ikip (talk) 01:24, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not to be rude, but I think the pot just called the kettle black. You've been told your obsession with JM has gone way too far, and yet - here you are. Moreschi (talk) 01:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not to be rude, but I didn't know that only editors such as yourself and AniMate are able to comment here. If that is the case, you should put a tag up above that this is the case, "Only traditional supporters of Jack Merridew allowed to comment in this section". After you responded here Morschi, an editor who has always been an obsessively staunch supporter of Jack Merridew, I felt like I should comment. I can see now why White Cat absolutely did not want you as a mentor.
I recall once that Jack Merridew was specifically warned before about his signature, by Secret? Can't seem to find it though, maybe I am wrong.
Secret, if you feel like this editor should be booted for ignoring your repeated warnings, you should, you would be the first administrator to do this in my experience. Ikip (talk) 01:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What Tiptoety said. He seems to have used it twice, a day or two ago, apparently as a bit of a joke. All his sigs since then have been normal. The fact that long ANI threads are being generated, and block threats are being bandied about, is disappointing. Lighten up people. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. Jack's not particularly happy over the attitude certain people have taken towards him recently, and this ridiculous thread is hardly going to ease his sense of being persecuted, is it? Secret: please try cooling things down for once rather than fanning the flames. Moreschi (talk) 01:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And on that note, let's not imply that Secret always fans flames. Secret is a good admin. Let's keep things in perspective all the way around. Tan | 3901:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Grins ;)
Many here would know the backstory; this is drama surrounding my unban review. What does Daedalus want? He want's permission to go refactor a few of my sigs. Many will recall the retired tag he placed on a neapolitan mastiff's user page and the barnstar I offered to the 'zilla that flamed him. And one of the other strident voices (nods @ threads south && Sir Fozzie's talk page) just went off for mebbe two days; we'll see...
So, I like the feedback about the 'overlapping' text and have figured out how to fix it.
Ya, I've made a few posts where I paste a bit of extra code around five tildes to generate the datestamp. This is maybe a dozen times over a year. This is not disruptive; it's funny. Calling it disruptive is strident battleground behaviour. Daedalus is known for this and for his perseverationsee here re sockpuppets, and Ikip has a thing for me; obviously.
Damn; cutting-short as I see a more important thing to comment on...
This has nothing to do with the fact that you're a sock puppet, it has to do with the fact that your signature is 5 lines, 1414 characters of text, and is clearly disruptive. Calling a disruptive signature disruptive is not battleground behavior. I don't care to sort through five lines of code, and I'm sure neither does anyone else, hence why secret agreed with me on the manner. Please stop trying to skew the facts.— DædαlusContribs09:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hai, Dae. Terima kasih; someone had mentioned the text overlap concern, elsewhere. It was not doing so for me, so expect it's the usual reason: your platform and user agent. Anyswayz, I haz fixed it gud. gheerz, Jack Merridew09:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I first discussed Jack Merridew's signature on Nov. 24 on his unban review[24]: "Signatures like the one he used today [25] are not really evidence of "helping the wiki through his contributions" or benevolent editing." I raised the problem again on Nov. 30[26], when he used that signature again: "To highlight Jack Merridew's use of a very poor signature (content and format, overlapping text)?". I reposted that comment (which was drowned in off-topic discussion) a few hours later[27]. So it's not as if he was unaware of any objections wrt his signature (which he used at least four times, not two as said above). Despite all this and despite this section, his most recent edit is more of the same. If anyone can inform him that being deliberately provocative is not helpful at all (with a trout or with a more powerful cluebat), we can perhaps end this aspect of this sorry mess. Fram (talk) 09:48, 2 December 2009 (UTC)'[reply]
What's that supposed to mean? Do you refer to Moreschi's "Not for one-off signature use." comment? It's not really one-off anymore, certainly not when you continue it despite requests to stop, and being clearly against the WP:SIG guideline. Fram (talk) 10:19, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Contrary to what has been said below, IAR is probably the most abused term on Wikipedia. Can you explain how your (continued) use of your extremely long signature meets: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." ? How would using a much shorter sig prevent you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia? Fram (talk) 10:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Disruptive" is probably the most abused term on Wikipedia, and Daedalus could be the editor most worried about other people's talkpages.(You came to regret it last time, didn't you, Dae? [28] ) Jack Merridew is welcome on my page, Fram. There must surely be various more useful things to do around here than worry about JM's sig on my page, where I for my part don't by any means find it "deliberately provocative". Chill, please. Bishonen | talk10:36, 2 December 2009 (UTC).[reply]
I wasn't worried that he was provoking you Bishonen, you sided with him against Daedalus previously. When it has been pointed out repeatedly, by various people, that a specific signature is a problem, then it is provocative to use it again during that discussion, even on a page of a supporter. Fram (talk) 10:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So, it looks quite obvious that Jack Merridew isn't going to stop using his 1400+ character signature...[29] unless someone makes him stop. Fram (talk) 11:04, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And that would be dreadful? We'd better block him indefinitely, then, perhaps. More to the point, I sided with..? Eh? I did? Memory failing, sorry. When did I side with JM against Daedalus? Do please tell. Bishonen | talk11:13, 2 December 2009 (UTC).[reply]
I don't recall, either; there was this, but I don't think Fram's looking for that. It's *so* under the bridge these days. Cheers, Jack Merridew11:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC) (do we need a sig-example, here?;)[reply]
Fram, that's his TALK PAGE. Editors are traditionally afforded wide latitude as to what they do there. So long as he doesn't do this at DRV or AFD or ANI, where I acknowledge long sigs are a real pain in the butt, this thread is so much vindictive drama-mongering. Moreschi (talk) 11:44, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, ALL CAPS! I love the wikilawyering that is used by all kinds of people to continuously defend Jack Merridew. Any reason you believe he continues using that sig except to continue the "drama-mongering"?
Um right. Don't you think that if Jack wanted to stir the pot, he'd do rather better than occasionally using an OTT sig? On his talk page? No, I think we can safely assume the drama-mongering here is done by the small but obsessively devoted crowd who want to see JM banned for a year of mostly drama-free editing, mostly, as far as I can tell, for either ideological reasons or just personal vendettas. Moreschi (talk) 12:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No I don't think so (about his actions, not about the reasons for many of his opponents). He is (in my opinion) the kind of user who is smart enough to stay just below the line where even his wiki-friends have to admit that he is deliberately stirring up trouble. Ask yourself: why would he use an extremely long in-your-face signature, highlighting his socking career? And why would he continue to use it, after repeated remarks about it, and during an ongoing ANI discussion? Oh, but his last uses were only on his own talk page and on a canvassing attempt friendly editor's talkpage, no one can complain about that, surely...? It's just a case of "I'm doing it because I can and because I know a number of people will support me anyway". Encouraging such baheviour is not really the purpose of mentoring, I believe... Fram (talk) 12:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Because that's the way his sense of humour functions, Fram. For whatever reason, David gets a kick out of referring to himself as "sockpuppet first class", and surely such candour about his history is to be encouraged? If I did the same thing on my talk page every now and then, with a long and in-your-face sig referring to my myself as "meatpuppeteer first class" (in reference to the recent Ottava Rima RFAR), nobody would bat an eyelid.
David is not being wilfully offensive here. It requires incredible contortions of logic to find that signature offensive in any way at all. It's not even that long, not in comparison to Esperanza-crowd signatures era mid-2006. Instead, the anti-JM crowd are being wilfully offended. It's annoying as hell, frankly. Moreschi (talk) 12:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not that long? Well, only 5 times the max length... That there have been worse in the past is hardly an argument, it's not as if I supported those longer ones. And do you really believe that if, during a debate about the alleged hounding of A Nobody and the impact it may have on the editing restrictions imposed after being banned for hounding another editor, e.g. A Nobody would find it "humorous" to be adressed with "Cheers! — Happy Editing!! — Have a nice day!!! — Best!!!! — Regards!!!!! —Sincerely, Sockpuppet First Class, Jack Merridewthis user is a sock puppet", or that it takes "incredible contortions of logic to find that signature offensive in any way at all"? Apart from the obvious and unadressed WP:SIG violations, this only has the intention to spite people like A Nobody. I don't see the humour in that. Fram (talk) 12:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your ArbCom case from July? The one where you said that "I agree that calling Daedalus a little shit was wrong." (on July 20), but were more than happy to put Jack's "barnstar" commemorating the fact on your user page on July 22[30]? Fram (talk) 11:42, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
He knew how you felt about Daedalus. You knew how he felt about Daedalus. You congratulated one another with calling him a little shit. And when there is a thread by Daedalus about Jack Merridew, he comes to your talk page and posts a link to it, and you immediatley come over here (first post you made after Jack's message). Liek you said, I don't think I need to continue this, everyone can see this for what it is... Fram (talk) 12:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse me? This thread is starting to remind me of the Ottava Rima RFAR, where I was also informed (by OR) that I "knew" this, that and the other (compare my evidence section "It Was Not a Coincidence"[31]) and had to try to guess what it was even about. What are you talking about, Fram? "You knew how he felt about Daedalus. You congratulated one another with calling him a little shit"... I'm starting to feel terribly ignorant, because no, I didn't know that. (Didn't know what Ottava Rima was talking about, either.) I don't edit that much lately. If there is a pre-existing conflict between JM and Daedalus, or between JM and you, Fram, then I did not know that. I still don't know it. I am not, perhaps sadly, a major conspirator and plot spider. If you're determined to quarrel with me, I have no idea why. All the opinion I've ever had about you is that sometimes when I see your sig, I think "Oh, cool account name." (Like Nansen's ship, you know?) Please refrain from those WP:ABF comments: "Everyone can see this for what it is, dot dot dot..." Actually, *I* can't even see it for what it is, since I'm not aware of it being anything. Good-bye. Bishonen | talk16:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC).[reply]
Something tells me you weren't around in 2006 to see the Esperanza crowd and their 6-line all-singing all-dancing sigs in full flow :) Moreschi (talk) 12:37, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My user page sported a sock box for eight months while I was en:banned. I *was* still here and I made 10,000 edits; they just were on WMF projects other than this zoo. My unban terms directed me to use this account, so I do. It's a sockpuppet account, so I say so. It's been on my user page all year long, until this long week of shit-slinging kicked into gear. Jack Merridew is a sockpuppet. Some have a hard time with this concept. I do not fucking care. Deal with it. I am *not* being disruptive, but the torch and pitchfork crowd *is* and none of them are doing themselves or the project any good. Someone box this stupidity, please? Here's teh sig, for great justice and epic lulz, as an example, and just this one on ANI.--Jack Merridew12:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC) (see User:Chaser/Jack Merridew's signature)
p.s. Fram, would you consider undeleting all the bits of my user space that I delete-tagged on the 25th or so? If not, I invite any interested janitor to please do so; sorry for the fuss.[reply]
Users have big wiki-sigs for the same reason middle-aged men buy sports cars; over-compensation. There is no valid or viable reason to sport that ridiculous monstrosity. Tarc (talk) 16:13, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If signatures of that length were not disruptive, we would not have had so many threads regarding their use, threads which ended with the user being forced to use a normal signature. Further, you do not need 1400 characters to say that your account is a sockpuppet, Jack. Being the smart person that you are, I fail you see how you could fail to see such a simple thing. The fact of the matter is that sigs like the one above are unquestionably disruptive. I'm not rooting for anyone's block here, I just want the damn thing to be gone. The sig is disruptive, and no amount of wikilawyering will change that. It isn't much to ask to use one which doesn't break 255 characters, one which will say the same, but with less ornaments.— DædαlusContribs22:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Another example of WikiSoapOperaEternal - surviving even the Guiding Light. If Merridew is your bete-noire of the day, just let him be left alone. With the folks being active here being the same ones active in other pages about Merridew, it certainly appears that the primary interest is not in preventing a bad sig, but in chasing him. Time to close this unproductive sideshow. Collect (talk) 12:30, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Shopping for an appropriate forum
Hey, the shopping season has officially started, right? I'm looking for the right forum in which to discuss my concerns about a particular editor. There are several issues that touch upon many categories, while not fitting neatly into any single category. Do I shotgun my concerns to the various distinct but applicable noticeboards, or is there an industrious admin with significant free time reading this who can formulate a comprehensive, single course of action? Here's the background information followed by my specific concerns:
On November 6, User:96.231.137.242 added a paragraph to the Bill Maher BLP article. I removed it because it violated several WP:BLP policy stipulations including sourcing, verifiability and inaccurate contentious material. This was my first interaction with this editor. He repeatedly reinserted the content, so I warned him against edit warring and BLP violations. He was blocked for 31 hours for 3RR and edit warring. Immediately following the block of IP96.xxx, User:DyadTriad appears and continues arguing for the inclusion of that same paragraph, eventually re-adding it. Shortly after that, User:Valerius Tygart picks up the same argument, and starts re-adding the same content. I heard ducks quacking, so I initiated a Sockpuppet Investigation here. Checkuser confirmed 96.231.137.242 = DyadTriad = Valerius Tygart, among others. The editor admits using the many registered and unregistered accounts, but denies using them abusively - contrary to the findings of the SPI case page and the checkuser results. Several of his sock accounts were blocked, and the case archived. Since then, Valerius Tygart has resumed re-inserting the contentious paragraph into the Maher article once per day, each day, for over two weeks now — despite objections from editors on the talk page. In addition, this editor has been attempting to modify his archived Sockpuppet Investigation case page, to the point of getting himself blocked yet again for disruptive editing. Despite (and during) this block, as I type this, he is still maintaining his slow-burn edit war on the Maher article with his Tygart account.
As for forums, I could post on the WP:BLPN so that other editors can tell Tygart what he already knows: he's trying to insert poorly sourced content into a BLP that intentionally misrepresents the subject's views, against policy. But that doesn't stop the repeated reverts. I could post at the 3RR/Edit Warring noticeboard, but the once-per-day revert war doesn't technically violate 3RR, does it? Perhaps I should go to WP:RFPP and request page protection until the BLP violations are resolved? I could go to the SPI noticeboard and say, "Hey - this confirmed puppeteer is editing with some of his accounts while his other accounts are blocked for disruptive editing - what gives?", but the case is already closed. Any suggestions? Xenophrenic (talk) 22:34, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If what you say is true, then this reeks of gaming. I would suggest a longer than usual ban just to beat it into people's heads that no, we aren't idiots, and we can see what you're trying to do. Things like a once per day edit to avoid 1/3rr is clearly an attempt to skirt the rules. Give them a long ban, and keep them on a short leash when they get back. If they can't play nice, then indef-block. Throwaway85 (talk) 23:22, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest that User:Valerius Tygart be indef-blocked for disruptive editing. Using an IP to tamper with his own sockpuppet report takes the cake. (If you're trying to convince people that you're an incorrigible sockpuppeteer, that's a good way to do it). He should be told that the block could be lifted if he would agree to edit with only a single account, and refrain from editing the Bill Maher article. He could still participate on the article's talk page. EdJohnston (talk) 02:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was the admin who blocked IP 96.231.137.242 for edit-warring at Bill Maher, recommended the filing of the SPI, and then blocked the confirmed sock accounts after confirming that they were being used abusively. At that stage I blocked the sockmaster Valerius Tygart (talk·contribs) only for 31 hours in order not to be punitive, and assuming that the socking and disruption would stop. Given that the sockpuppetry has been goind on for over two years and has continued even after the SPI confirmation, I support EdJohnston's suggestion above. Additionally, the Bill Maher article can be semi-protected, if needed to prevent such disruption. Abecedare (talk) 03:32, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Tygart has used at least these 2 IPs since the closure of his SPI case: User:96.231.137.242 and User:140.139.35.250. They appear to be static, not dynamic IPs. Tygart claims to use multiple accounts "legitimately", but I stopped assuming good faith after checkuser J.delanoy confirmed Tygart = 140.139.35.250 = Dogwood123, but Tygart denies ever being deceptive or saying, I am not "Dogwood123". Either Tygart or J.delanoy is lying, and I know where I'd put my money. Xenophrenic (talk) 19:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
62.16.204.103 (talk) has been repeatedly making unattributed changes to an attributed listing in Isaaq. I see this as disruptive editing, and I have left warnings in the past (several in October, and a final warning in November). However, I am not so sure I should impose the block myself, because the attributed version was my initiative, in order to prevent the list looking like it did before (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Somalia#Clan lineage). This does seem more an issue of disruptive editing, rather than a content dispute (in which case WP:BLOCK says a can't make the block myself), but I figure I would err on the side of caution. -- Gyrofrog (talk)00:55, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Call me a weenie if you want but I hesitate to call that vandalism. It may be bad editing, but I can't call that deliberate disruption, even if the information is unattributed. It's more like being bold than anything else. Even disruptive editing, if done in good faith, is not considered vandalism per WP:NOTVAND. -- Atama頭02:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
From my experience, the articles about Somali clans make up one nasty swamp of unattributed information & endless questions of notability. (Combine the usual problems with articles about US high schools & micronations -- that's what one gets to tackle with these articles.) If I could find one solid source which covered most of them, I'd tackle the challenge -- but all I've found are brief overviews & the occasional description of a few of the larger clans. And I doubt no one but our Somali editors even care about this sinkhole at the edge of Wikipedia -- & they aren't the most objective editors to leave these articles to. -- llywrch (talk) 00:27, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have suggested on the WQA that both editors should be banned from that article for some months and let other editors have a go at it. I think banning both would lead to least rancour between theeditors and hopefully let them both go off and do something more useful instead. Editor User:Malik Shabazz concurs with this view. Drsmoo agrees but CarolMooreDC is not happy with such a ban. Can this be done or is there a better way of dealing with a problem like this please? Dmcq (talk) 01:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In fact CarolMooreDC now says at the end of that WQA they agree with a voluntary block for two montrhs but wants something stuck in the article. your call. Dmcq (talk) 01:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As Dmcq noted above, I support banning the two editors from the article, either temporarily or permanently. I tried to work with them on a compromise in April, but nothing came of it. Full disclosure: I've made a handful of small edits to the article. — Malik ShabazzTalk/Stalk05:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the article ban, I don't think any changes should be made to the article per any of our wishes before the ban though, or any sections deleted by admins not working on the article. If the other editors working on the page feel that a section should be removed and changed, then they should do that themselves after discussion.
Similarly, earlier this year there was a 6 month lock on the article. Immediately after the article was unlocked, CarolmooreDC proceeded to remove a whole section, and the edit war resumed exactly as it had been. Along with the constant personal attacks against me on noticeboards. With a 2 month ban, it will just be the exact same thing again.
I have no objection to both of us being permanently banned from the article, IPs included, to prevent any sock puppetry. I have confidence that the Wikipedia community will ensure that the article follows guidelines. Drsmoo (talk) 12:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It was your Wikiquette alert that precipitated this. That you decided to completely impose your POV changes, re-lengthening the article you claimed you had shortened (which you shortened only technically, almost sarcastically, and that was about 3-4x longer than the Hipcorite and SlimVirgin edits) despite no one agreeing with them is another of the reasons this is where it is. You haven't waited for a single noticeboard to make a decision, or accepted any of them. I mean you were even working behind the scenes with other editors on your talk page, outside the article talk page, and badmouthing other editors http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Carolmooredc&diff=279500434&oldid=279498060 "Also, what to do about Rance? He's been rather sneaky about getting his own writings in there without his name being mentioned (going to fix that now) but not as bad as THF and Drsmoo" Why are you so unwilling to let the rest of the wikipedia community, outside the two of us, work on this article by themselves? Drsmoo (talk) 16:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Drsmoo, you are bringing up inaccurately described or irrelevant issues from before the 5 month protection period. The only relevant issue from that time is an Admin's advice on April 6 that Drsmoo was being “unnecessarily confrontational” and, after further incidents, on April 9 against “derogatory views" against Atzmon or other editors. Obviously I should have come to Wikietiquette immediately after Drsmoo's first accusation against me once the article was unprotected. I see that Wikipedia:Civility#Dealing_with_incivility may recommend it more quickly than I originally had interpreted. I have learned my lesson. CarolMooreDC (talk) 20:13, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And I should have reported you for incivility when you began attacking me over a year ago (October 2008) which you have continued until today http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Drsmoo&diff=prev&oldid=247998967 "your questionable edits which delete sourced material and defend only with POV personal opinions" http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Gilad_Atzmon&diff=prev&oldid=247805478 "pushing your personal POV opinion" and on and on and on for over a year, even when you were censured for editing with "an appalling lack of good faith" you continued attacking me. This is the last time I'm going to trade back and forths with you, period. Please explain why you are so unwilling to let the rest of the wikipedia community, outside the two of us, work on this article by themselves? Drsmoo (talk) 20:41, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Most definitely a legal threat. IP blocked for two weeks (should it be longer? Seems like a static address...) Tan | 3904:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Tan, on the face of it, this doesn't appear to be such a good blocking move. The guy said his legal representative had actually written to WMF. If he's done that, he;'s done what we ask people to do, so I'm not sure why you are blocking him. We don't block people while a legal argument with WMF takes its course. Also, Has someone checked that the article doesn't contain a potential BLP vio in amongst all the NPOV stuff. If he was involved in the case (or his kid was) that is a distinct possibility. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WP:LEGAL states, "Do not issue legal threats on Wikipedia pages." Stating that you sent the "letter" to WMF legal (this is implied; he didn't state that it was WMF), and then following that up with "a ban will just make it worse FYI", causes my AGF to DIAF. Tan | 3916:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(EC) I see a somewhat heated discussion, but that does tend to happen with subjects such as this. You may wish to seek dispute resolution. (And I feel compelled to add that, for the record, the Holocaust claimed many victims other than Jews; although many of the victims were Jewish, it was not exclusively Jews who were persecuted.) SeraphimbladeTalk to me05:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am not seeking content mediation. I want him to cease his behavour. The issue is not as to if they are Jews or Gentiles, but his accusations of trolling, assumption of bad faith, personal attacks, and incivility.--Die4Dixie (talk) 05:27, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
After reading this, I've come to the conclusion that this was a premature close. Slrubenstein IS an administrator, and his actions in this case were inappropriate. WQA is useless, I know from experience. I think this would be solved if Slrubenstein was given a friendly reminder about civility from an administrator; then Die4Dixie would no longer have any reason to complain. --William S. Saturn (talk) 05:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This edit, which appears to be designed to get a rise out of others.
Filing a frivolous complaint against a content opponent (this thread).[33]
Including personal attacks in the complaint ("an admin with a dubious history"). [same diff as prior]
Block log shows multiple prior blocks including one about 64 days ago for WP:POINT that was lifted early in good faith, and one 14 days later for disruptive editing. You've been put on notice about how to behave at Wikipedia, but the clues aren't getting through. [34]
You're continuing to battle on this thread even after told you have no case.[35]
Actually I'd like to +1 the call for a civility reminder to Slrubentein. I'm not going to argue OP's block, as that is an entirely seperate matter, but my impression of Slrubenstein from my dealings with him have left much to be desired. I found him to be hotheaded and emotional, and quick to use his tools without bothering to gain a full understanding of the situation. Perhaps a friendly reminder by an established editor would encourage more appropriate behaviour. Throwaway85 (talk) 06:11, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see it as venting really... If I were reprimanded by two admins whose names sounded to be of a similar ethnicity, especially when the topic of dispute was ethnic-related, I might suspect impropriety as well. And what did he do "months ago"? Equazcion(talk) 06:36, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
I think William meant "Was the user warned that further 'venting' would result in an increased block duration?" Equazcion(talk) 06:41, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Also like to hear an answer to my concerns further above, kindly. Equazcion(talk) 06:42, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Could you provide diffs or links to previous discussions about the user's behavior? It would be easier for you to find such things if you know of them (or Protonk who seems to have had previous experience with this user) than for me to go searching blindly through the contribs listing. Equazcion(talk) 06:48, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
I mean, don't take this the wrong way, but permission granted not to leap to the users defense if you don't know any of the history. Protonk (talk) 06:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"I know the reason; and that's all you need to know." --Well how much easier our lives could be made if that were a valid response. You've blocked someone indefinitely and this is ANI, so I'm asking for your reason. I find that a somewhat acceptable request. Equazcion(talk) 06:57, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
It's totally reasonable for you to ask. My point was that if you are going to ask for diffs and insinuate I have some personal history then it behooves you to acquaint yourself with the arbcom case he has been involved in, his block log, and the numerous AN/I threads about or instigated by him. Protonk (talk) 07:00, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't insinuating anything beyond the fact that you might be the best person to ask for links, since you mentioned that the user should have been indeffed long ago. I assumed you had some reason to say that. Thanks for eventually giving me at least some clues to go on now, as difficult as it has been to pry actual information out of you. Equazcion(talk) 07:09, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Strong support, no disrespect to those above but you cannot make accusations based on editors perceived (or real) ethnicity, no way, no how. Sometimes it's ambiguous, here it isn't. Consider an unblock if he sincerely apologizes. Mackan79 (talk) 06:41, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, he wasn't. He's been expected to behave in a collegial manner since he got here. instead he has spent his entire time here angling to construe conflicts as grand conspiracies. At some point you reach a level of disruption and malfeasance where it isn't worth the effort to put up with you. he has been there and beyond for some time. Protonk (talk) 06:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't object on that basis at all, but there's no doubting here that this could have handled a lot better than it has (or in fact, should've) been. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't suggest that -- but rather than being offered the link you just provided us, the user who was so concerned was blocked indefinitely for possibly making the insinuation. Equazcion(talk) 06:44, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Give me a break. He asked that only gentiles review his unblock request. Completely inappropriate and I fully support this block. AniMate06:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Let's get back to the initial block. D4D came here to ask that Slrubenstein be cautioned for using the term "trolling". William S. Saturn, for one, agreed that this is in order. Jehochman then blocked D4D for bringing a frivolous case, and for persisting in it? I'm a bit taken aback here. Not happy about the slur, of course, but first things first.--Wehwalt (talk) 06:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
^Agreed. The user in question is certainly not my favorite person, but the sequence of events that led to the indef is out of whack. Equazcion(talk) 06:55, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) How thoroughly have you reviewed the contribution history and block log of Die4Dixie? He's been blocked twice since the end of September for disruptive editing. He was posting flamebait at Talk:Holocaust.[36] When an editor predictably responded, he ran here to file a complaint against the editor. That's cynical, battlefield behavior. We do not need such editors at Wikipedia. JehochmanTalk06:56, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What you call "flamebait" I rather see as evidence that the user is either dumb or inexperienced with regard to Holocaust information. Perhaps AGF? Unless there's more in his contribution history to support the accusation of deliberate trolling, which so far hasn't been forthcoming... Equazcion(talk) 07:00, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
That's... a really great point. Way to be constructive. Equazcion(talk) 07:03, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
I'm not going to get lectured by someone who sees "This doesn't seem to be an image of Jews, as they are not circumcised.Perhaps, unless we want to expand the Holocaust to include non Jews, we should just stick to pictures of Jews for this article" on Talk:Holocaust and insists that he's not trolling but instead he's just conveniently ignorant of the holocaust. that doesn't pass the laugh test, sorry. Protonk (talk) 07:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not insisting he's ignorant. I'm just suggesting it as a possibility. This is how AGF works; we try to assume the best scenario rather than the worst. Sorry for my errm lecturing. Equazcion(talk) 07:11, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
And my response is that such a suggestion doesn't even pass the laugh test. AGF is not (quoting spartaz paraphrasing Posner) a suicide pact. Asserting that his comment was made out of some innocence of the context requires a heroic assumption of good faith which would at best be extended to an editor who didn't have a history of trolling or who didn't respond to his block by suggesting that the jewishness of the admin made it illegitimate or that the two jewish admins conspired, devised if you will, to block him. No. Sorry. I'm not buying it. Protonk (talk) 07:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I might be inclined to consider your "laugh test" assessment, if the comment could be considered offensive. As I said below, I don't quite see how it could be considered that. In order for trolling to be evident, the user would have had to say something offensive, in order to incite an argument. I'm not sure what was so offensive about the statement to begin with, that would make us question the motive behind it. Stupidity alone doesn't seem a likely candidate for bad-faith. See me comment further down, that starts with "(edit conflict)Another problem I have..." Equazcion(talk) 07:57, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Comment: Administrators should not be so quick to block due to their perceptions of bigotry in an individual. In matters such as this, there should be a community consensus. --William S. Saturn (talk) 07:04, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For reference, I am a "gentile" (I presume an atheist counts?), and I'm fully in support of the block. Bigotry is not acceptable here, whoever it may be directed against. SeraphimbladeTalk to me07:06, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can see, D4D was initially blocked for bringing this matter to AN/I, persisting in it, and having a block history. That is what Jehochman says. I do not see that these are blockable offenses.--Wehwalt (talk) 07:16, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)That's my interpretation as well. His comments may be inappropriate, but I do not see them as blatantly racist. Saying that one jewish editor was leaping to another jewish editor's aid is not helpful, but its not racist. Similarly, asking to have the case reviewed by a non-jewish admin, if one honestly believed that you were being discriminated against because you weren't Jewish, isn't racist either. It might even be downright appropriate. His other behaviour was not at issue here, and seems to have played an inappropriate role in the chronology of the indef block.
Look, the guy doesn't appear to be the sharpest crayon in the box, and maybe wikipedia is better off without him. i'm simply concerned about the conduct of the blocking admin(s). Throwaway85 (talk) 07:24, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)Another problem I have with this is that the comment itself doesn't actually seem likely to offend anyone. It just doesn't make sense to anyone who knows anything about the Holocaust. He suggested sticking to pictures of Jews unless the Holocaust involved other races. Is that offensive? I mean I know it's stupid, but offensive? Is it really? Could someone explain to me why it would be? Equazcion(talk) 07:19, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
I concur. It's dumb and tinhatty, but I can't see that being offensive, unless those offended were a little too eager to read offense into things. Throwaway85 (talk) 07:27, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
D4D stated baldly that Jehochman made a block not on the merits of the situation, but rather because he's a jew acting in defence of another jew. I despair for those who cannot see what is so utterly offensive in that. It's not "tinhatty". It's not "stupid". It's totally offensive and completely unacceptable. When viewed in the context of D4D's editing history it demonstrates that he should never be unblocked. Crafty (talk) 07:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See Throwaway's comment in response to Wehwalt above. The mere suggestion that one admin might be acting in defense of another admin for ethnic reasons isn't worthy of an indefinite block, though it isn't a smart thing to say either. We should also be also more inclined to allow leeway when it comes to someone's response to the frustration of a block. Also none of this changes the fact that the comment that sparked all of this wasn't actually offensive, and the initial block came simply because the user brought a complaint to ANI -- and one that had nothing to do with ethnicity. Equazcion(talk) 07:51, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
That's fair. And I'll note that accusations of ethnic conspiracies aren't uncommon (they are par for the course on most of the nationalist conflicts and the same goes for political accusations w/ american left/right politics disputes). But I'm not blocking him for the comment alone. I'm blocking him because I feel he has worn out his welcome. Protonk (talk) 08:01, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Jehochman blocked today (2 December 2009) for 5 reasons. Let's look at each of them:
this comment which was made on 30 November 2009. Was it really offensive? Foolish yes, but offensive? Regardless, do we usually block so much later for such a comment?
"frivolous complaint against content opponent". Do we usually block for that reason, or doesn't that happen often enough that it does not warrant a block?
"personal attacks in complaint ("an admin with a dubious history")" If an editor makes an allegation, particularly against an admin, do we usually block them or ask them to substantiate?
Block log with blocks for point and disruptive editing...a fancy way of saying blocking policy allows a block if the conduct continues. And...where was the discussion for that? Was there even an RfC/U that some frequently encourage users to use in lieu of ANI and binding measures?
"continuing to battle on this thread even after told no case". One user felt there was a need to remind/warn Slrubenstein, while another felt otherwise. Battling aside, how is it in any way reasonable to expect a filing party to agree with a user who disagrees with him, particularly when someone else felt some justification in the filing party's concern? Meanwhile, Jayron32 closed this making some correct statements (about using dispute resolution) and incorrect statements (those regarding Slrubenstein's sysop rights).
Does this blocking rationale stand up to scrutiny? If it actually does, great. Personally, I'm inclined to think that more discussion prior to admin actions may have resulted in this being handled much more appropriately (and without the escalating drama). There may have been other reasons that resulted in the block, even an indef one that I'd have fully supported. However, as those reasons were material to this block, those reasons should've been stated in the rationale to begin with (if they existed at the time of blocking in the mind of the blocking admin). Personal assumptions do not override discussion. Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to get too deep into it, since Jehochman and I are both ArbCom candidates, but there needs to be more emphasis on discussion rather than unilateral actions, and I wish Jehochman had waited. It is very possible that Wikipedia would be better off without D4D, I couldn't say. But "better off blocked" is not a reason to block. I suggest that D4D be unblocked, with a caution as to his language. I also suggest that Slrubenstein be cautioned that "trolling" is a word likely to be provocative.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:00, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please comment on the following two edits. Are they helpful or unhelpful, given the backdrop of an editor who's been blocked repeatedly and recently for disruptive editing?[37] The way this case has been handled is strictly routine. JehochmanTalk08:08, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that using the word "trolling" is not wise. It tends to make a situation worse rather than better. However, this error is quite mild compared to the provocations by Die4Dixie. JehochmanTalk08:11, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Correct. For the reasons stated above. Die4Dixie has a contribution history evidencing a particular point of view. His comment appears to have been flamebait. He hooked a fish and brought it here for frying. No, we don't allow that sort of game on Wikipedia, especially not by editors who already been warned and blocked at least twice for disruptive editing in the recent past. JehochmanTalk08:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Unless the original comment can be shown to have been somehow offensive, which no one's explained yet, there's no reason to think he was baiting. The comment was just stupid -- not offensive. Equazcion(talk) 08:23, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Both of those comments have been addressed above. The "circumcised" comment, again, was stupid but not offensive, nor worthy of a block. And again, merely suggesting, in the frustrated aftermath of a block, that one admin was acting in defense of another admin for ethnic reasons, is also not worthy of a block, let alone an indef -- though it may still have been ill-advised. Equazcion(talk) 08:16, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
@Jehochman; decidedly unhelpful. I've seen D4D before; one of the other incidents, but I don't recall the details and do not believe I was in any way involved or even commented; but it was in this same vein.
I have a question of my own: Is there anything good coming out of this user? Because if there's not, Jehochman and Protonk have this done right. Cheers, Jack Merridew08:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I see plenty of constructive edits in his history; though even barring that, the "net positive/net negative" argument has never held much water when it comes to users. Equazcion(talk) 08:27, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Was the following edit constructive?
This users is pleased with the changes in the status of Juan Almeida. One down and several leftists to go![38]
Not helpful, but also not worthy of blocking indefinitely (though maybe blocking temporarily following a warning, which I think is what happened). That wasn't a personal attack against another editor; just a case of bad taste, saying things out loud that most of us confine to our heads instead. There was a user a while ago who posted a box on his userpage that suggested all Americans should die. It sparked a lengthy controversy on whether or not the user should be forced to remove the box, but no mention of a block. There are plenty of uncouth editors that aren't indefinitely blocked for being so. It might be better to reconsider the actions that led to the block in this case rather than searching for reasons to rationalize it. Equazcion(talk) 08:45, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
You seem to be suggesting blocking a user indefinitely for something they did two months ago, were already blocked temporarily for, and haven't repeated since. Of course I have to disagree with that. Equazcion(talk) 08:53, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Looking at the dialogue on Holocaust, D4D's responses to Slrubenstein were completely inappropriate. Here is the interchange about the non-free image File:Holocaust123.JPG just so that editors can get a little sense of perspective. D4D was quite clearly trying to WP:BAIT Slrubenstein. Whatever William S.Saturn may say in D4D's defense, D4D's "objective editing behaviour" is reminiscent of the kind of discussions that got Fourdee (talk·contribs) permabanned by Jimbo (he suggested that Jewish historians were incapable of evaluating the holocaust).
This doesn't seem to be an image of Jews, as they are not circumcised.Perhaps, unless we want to expand the Holocaust to include non Jews, we should just stick to pictures of Jews for this article? Die4Dixie (talk) 17:36, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Excuse me, but what is the point of your comment, unless you are trolling? (1) which people are not circumcized? (2) this article does as you must know include the suffering of non-Jews. Please explain. Slrubenstein Talk 19:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Excuse me, but your comments were not civil, were the opposite of WP:AGF, and were definately uncalled for and not appreciated. If you examine the genitalia carefully, it will be self evident the corpse to which I refer. The introduction makes reference to the exclusivity in certain circles to the term. If you aren´t interested in my input, it is a big project and plenty of communist propoganda for me to rectify elsewhere. I really don´t have much more time for attitude and maudlin sensibilities.--Die4Dixie (talk) 04:21, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Excuse me, your saying that victims of the Holocaust are not Jewish, and making a tendentious comment about circumcision, are not civil, and are the opposite of good faith. I am sorry you cannot appreciate it. Obviously you are not going to answer my question, about which individuals specifically are not circumcised, because you cannot. Proof enough of your bad faith. Slrubenstein Talk 17:31, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Excuse me. The dark corpse in the bottom half of the picture. Follow the white hand that is at approximately 6 o´clock along the darker cadaver that points towrds two o´clock. Follow it until you reach the external gentile genitalia. Use the larger picture that you can reach by clicking on the image.--Die4Dixie (talk) 05:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
I haven't seen anyone point out that the lead for the article they are discussing excludes nonjews from the victimes of the holocaust, pretty much. Given this, it does seem that Die4Dixie's comments make sense in a race/religious neutral context. He was observing that the photograph doesn't depict what the article is discussing. The admin then informs him that the holocaust includes nonjews (something I thought as well) however this seems to contradict with the main definition of such in the article's lead. I agree the admin should be warned for civility, and I think the ban was excessive. It seems people are reaching to show incitement, where a perfectly rational explanation seems plain. The picture shows something that appears inconsistant with the subject. In any case, the ban now given seems grossly excessive when viewed in light of bans given to vandals and obviously bad faith editors who act with plain malice, and I question seriously whether any disciplinary action was appropriate at all.--Δζ (talk) 12:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So, a user known for being inflammatory makes his own interpretation of a small portion of a photo and posts a comment of poor nature... and then defends it to the point of bringing it to ANI... and we're still debating this? It was a masterful troll that has ANI in a tizzy and I see no reason to unblock. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite17:39, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well I haven't seen how the prior comments establish these as violating any of the rules. Certainly he could have malicious intent and he could be breaking the rules, but I don't think that's been demonstrated. My understanding is that anyone's allowed to question the content. Maybe he's a holocaust denier (which I would hope isn't against the rules here, at least not for reasons of offending people) or something, but that's not obvious from the post. I fail to see how making a comment, even if irrelevant as you contend, questioning a photo is deserving of this type of ban.--Δζ (talk) 17:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looking forward
I've advised Die4Dixie that they need to ponder what's happened here.[39] After a week if they post a convincing unblock request, they might get another chance. They need to demonstrate an understanding of what Wikipedia is for, and that they recognize what mistakes they made. Those apologizing for Die4Dixie are doing the user no favors. Die4Dixie needs to understand the problems and correct them. JehochmanTalk08:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You're skipping some steps here. Per the discussion above, it doesn't seem all that clear what the user did "wrong", or at least what they did that was worthy of a block. So far, he said something stupid at Talk:The Holocaust, which it has been suggested was a baiting attempt, though no one has been able to explain how it could be seen as such. He then responded to one admin defending another by suggesting they were doing so due to common ethnicity, which while an ill-advised thing to say, also isn't worthy of a block. Perhaps you could respond to the challenges in the above discussion rather than skipping to your own conclusion? Equazcion(talk) 08:59, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Die4Dixie explicitly stated that an image by the official Jewish memorial Yad Vashem on the victims of the Holocaust does not represent Jewish people. Basically, he's restating arguments on holocaust denial on Talk:Holocaust. The sole aim of that comment is to inflame, as he well knows how sensitive the issue is. Now tell me, how is that not baiting? Then, when he's blocked, he automatically assumes the blocking administrator is Jewish without any prior evidence. The block is deserved. —Dark09:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It was blatant baiting. If it wasn't for the user's history (Allende was "congressionally appointed" not "democratically elected", Pinochet wasn't a fascist, anti-semitism includes hate against Arabs, ...) I would be prepared to assume good faith: that it was unintentional blatant baiting. But not in the case of what seems to be a highly intelligent extremely right-wing user.
If you, Equazcion, don't see what's wrong about telling editors at Talk:Holocaust (who obviously include relatives of those who survived or died in the Holocaust) to magnify the photo of a stack of dead bodies and examine their penises to see if they are circumcised (as if that was even relevant – people were killed for their descent, not their religion), then I don't know how to help you. The overall attitude shown by Die4Dixie in that thread was also clearly that of a Holocaust denier. I am surprised that the reactions were so relatively cool. HansAdler09:35, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
@Dark: I now see where you're coming from. However it seems like a jump contrary to AGF to assume holocaust denial based on the statement. It could be as you claim (and thank you for being the first to finally step forward and explain this), but still, it could as easily be ignorance. Unless there's prior evidence of an antisemitic editing slant, I don't feel this warrants assuming the worst, yet.
@Hans: I indeed dont see what's wrong with telling editors at Talk:Holocaust to magnify a photo of dead bodies in order to investigate a claim of inaccuracy. If the editors participating at Talk:Holocaust are emotinally involved to the point that they can't handle objective scrutiny of the subject without becoming offended, they might want to consider editing elsewhere -- though I doubt that's actually the case, and rather seems a stretch. Equazcion(talk) 09:45, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
User:Equazcion should reacquaint himself a.s.a.p. with the wikipedia guideline WP:OR. In this case, rather than making comments on and analysis of an image like this (and continuing for example with the completely incorrect assumption that only circumcised people could be classified as Jews by the Third Reich), the only relevant thing here is to look at the sourcing for the image on the original site. That is how wikipedia is edited. Considering the source (Yad Vashem), I don't quite understand what could have prompted Equaczion to write justifying such disruptive editing behaviour. Mathsci (talk) 11:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
OR is a content guideline and has nothing to do with the theories wikipedians may construct about motivation or anything else. What should be said is that the more convoluted and bizarre the defense of trolling on Talk:Holocaust gets, the less likely outside observers are to believe it. Protonk (talk) 11:35, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That had nothing to do with any sort of objective scrutiny. Remember what the claim was: One of the dead men on the photo wasn't circumcised. So what? I am not aware that the Nazis routinely circumcised men before (or after) killing them as Jews. Therefore this doesn't even prove that this one man wasn't killed for being Jewish (whether he considered himself that or not). Let alone all the others. And it's not even relevant unless you argue from a Holocaust denial POV.
This was clearly meant to function [the same way as] telling someone that they would make a nice lampshade – only calculated to stay just below the threshold where it becomes actionable. Well, it was a miscalculation. HansAdler09:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC) [grammar corrected 11:34, 2 December 2009 (UTC)][reply]
It's not even relevant from a Holocaust denial POV. (correction -- it could be, but...) The guy could just be a moron who doesn't know anything about the Holocaust, which makes this case less "clear". If there were a demonstrated history of antisemitic editing I'd be more inclined to waive AGF, but I see no reason to do that yet. Why are we assuming the worst of this thus-far isolated incident? Equazcion(talk) 10:07, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
"Unless there's prior evidence of an antisemitic editing slant, I don't feel this warrants assuming the worst, yet." Apart from the username, an editor whose fourth edit is to defend the Stormfront website[40] ceratinly raises red flags wrt an "antisemitic slant". Changing "Blood libels are false accusations that Jews use human blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals." to "Blood libels are false[citation needed] accusations that Jews use human blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals."[41] may be an indication as well. Fram (talk) 10:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Suppose we twist AGF to assume "This doesn't seem to be an image of Jews, as they are not circumcised" in regard to this image was not either trolling or denialism. Fine, but then Die4Dixie files a pointless complaint here; that is definitely outside AGF and the five reasons explained above show that the initial one-week block was reasonable. The subsequent discussion at Die4Dixie's talk shows that future contributions from this user are not going to help the encyclopedia. Johnuniq (talk) 10:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I see editors above who have vehemently prosecuted suspected anti-semitic editors before too. If there's a conclusion to be drawn from the former, perhaps there is one to be drawn from the latter as well.
In response to Mathsci further up, violation of OR or the like is not in dispute. You don't get blocked for discussing a perceived problem with an article that might stem from a purely OR concern. This is about an "intentional baiting".
Regarding the blood libel, speaking from a purely objective standpoint, the blanket statement that blood libel claims are "false" seems rather unprovable, and again this is from a purely objective standpoint, the word "false" should probably be removed. It's enough to say that it's an "accusation" without making baseless claims about how true they are. Changing the statement as D4D did again might be evidence of something larger, but it also might not, as I can see a legitimate reason for it. If there were a statement in an article that no cow ever stepped on a land mine, that would similarly be rather unprovable and I don't think anyone would be complaining if it were altered or marked with CN. That said I can see the tendency to suspect something else by connecting that edit with this incident, but still, there's enough doubt to warrant AGF for now.
In response to Johnuniq, filing a complaint that others see as being pointless is not generally something people get blocked for, and some editors have expressed the opinion that it was warranted. As for statements following the block, I feel like they're being used as an excuse in the case, when in most other cases we don't normally extend blocks based on users' reactions; rather we usually grant leeway for the understandable frustration users feel when blocked. I'm also not even of the opinion that the user's follow-up statements were all that terrible. Suspecting impropriety based on common ethnicity sounds bad, but there aren't really any grounds to say it couldn't possibly be a valid concern -- not that I'm saying it was; just that it's not an entirely unthinkable thing to worry about when an administrative action has been taken against you. Equazcion(talk) 11:56, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Equazcion, it's extremely hard to see this as anything other than baiting and deliberate disruption. I tried to find the original source for the image with its accompanying information. However, there are too many images of this kind to sort through in the photographic archives at Yad Vashem. Mathsci (talk) 12:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Equazcion, consider D4D's request - that a bunch of amateur writers, and that's really what we are, armchair quarterback 65 years of historians, archivists, and researchers; that we take a digitized image thoroughly out of the context of all that documentation and scholarship; that we spend a great deal of time staring at a dead man's limp dick, and make a determination of our own over that of the Reliable Sources to agree withD4D that at least one cock in the pile is NOT circumcised; and that we use that conclusion, if we can ignore WP:RS, and WP:OR, and WP:SYNTH, to determine that because one prick might not be clipped, then ALL Those bodies are non-Jews, and therefore, by extension, the image should be removed. If we indulged him on all this, and tried to think as he does, we would them be asked, no doubt, to prove the bodies are from the WW2 era at all. One - defending the presence of a strongly emotional image on the page is quite different than insisting others stare at it ad nauseum to try to 'debunk' it, Two - this editor has a history, amply demonstrated above, of looking to provoke others, and by your own admission, it's stupid set of things to say. Stupid comments plus a history of calculated 'stupid things' is trolling. Your defense seems to rely, like D4D's comment, on examining one dick out of context to all the things around it. Sure, one comment MAY just be stupid, like one dick MAY be uncircumcised, but in context, one comment may just be the latest bit of trolling, like one dick, looked at for even a moment, shows that it's clearly circumcised. Further, consider it this way. EVEN if that first block, for saying things designed to be BAIT for the Jewish editors, was questionable, the fact that the blocked editor's reply is to immediately imply that Jews all act to protect each other (the popular Sekrit Joozish Conshpeerasy) demonstrates that in this case, scratch the surface of a 'stupid edit', find the race-baiting editor beneath it. It's been said here that D4D is good at making edits that stay just shy of the threshold of a block. Even if true, it appears he miscalculated, as was also said above, and then showed his hand ... flat, face down, at the end of an extended upward arm. And he got blocked for it. Good block -Encouraging vilations of RS, OR, SYNTH through BAITing others? please. ThuranX (talk) 12:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Equazon - have you read the comments D4D made? It's possible to ask questions about an image that includes (possibly) an uncircumcised male on the talk page of a holocaust article without doing so in a manner that you *know* is going to annoy the fuck out of many people. D4D's ignorance is not the problem. D4D's possible OR is not the problem. D4D's provocative manner in asking the questions is. That, combined with a the username, and with other edits, shows that the editor is incapable of editing for the enemy, will push a certain pov, and will do so provocatively. The username combined with some of the edits is enough for an indef block. He was allowed to keep the username so long as he did not engage in this type of editing. He failed that test, and failed it hard. NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 13:04, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
@Thuranx: If the history of trolling is as unquestionable as you imply, then maybe you're right; I just haven't seen such a history demonstrated here. Otherwise, as you say, the comment could just have been stupid. Also, the block wasn't actually for the supposed baiting, but for bringing a so-called frivolous complaint to ANI -- one which, as was also said above by multiple editors, may have had some basis. Disregarding a supposed history of trolling that, if it exists, Slrubenstien probably wasn't aware of or acting on, personally I think Slrubenstein's reaction was not ideal; though still not worthy of an ANI report, but also not entirely un-worthy of some complaint by an editor who might not have known better the threshold for which concerns belong at ANI -- at least not to the point of blocking him for making it.
@NotAnIP: He might not have *known* it was going to annoy the fuck out of people. As I said, it could simply have been a stupid, ill-thought-out remark (or the user could be a dimwit to begin with). You're assuming he knew that the statement would be taken as provocative, but I'm not. As for the username, I'm not entirely sure why that should automatically be counted as evidence of antisemitism, if that's what's being implied. Equazcion(talk) 13:09, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Have you read his comments at the talk page? They're *clearly*, and I cannot understand how anyone can think otherwise, baiting. There are ways to ask questions about what appears to be an uncircumcised male in a picture of what's supposed to be all Jewish people in an article about the Holocaust (when you're confused about the use of Holocaust to refer to the death of Jews but not homosexuals or Gypsies) - but D4D's questions were absolutely not the way to do it. So, so far I'm accusing D4D of blatant trolling. If you were to say that some editors are being too quick to accuse D4D of anti-semitism; well, I might agree, but he's clearly using that as a button to push to annoy people. And about the username: Die4Dixie was reported at UAA. People were worried that a username like that would be pushing a racist POV. Others asked for AGF. D4D has shown that AGF was optimistic. NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 18:19, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In my unsolicited opinion, this whole thing is pretty absurd. The comment on his user page is not per se antisemetic, and I see no reason to stretch to reach that result. It was insensitive, but so what? He is asking for someone that doesn't have an ethnic/religious association with the claimed offensive actions to decide on the disciplinary action. He didn't claim a conspiracy or any of the other nonsense, and certainly didn't slur folks. Good lord. Maybe he's a raging bigot, but it ain't evidenct from this stuff. Finally, the article lead for the holocaust pretty much excludes nonjews from the definition thereof, and the talk page observation was therefore quite relevant: the pic was unrelated (allegedly) to the subject. The admin then claims, contrary to the lead, that the holocaust includes nonjews (something I thought as well) with no explanation for how he squares that with the article's lead's proclaimed scope. Seems to me that people are looking at insensitive comments and straining to see malice where it isn't plain on its face. I hate to be one of those people (seriously, I really do) but this looks like political correctness gone wild (and usually I'm criticising those who make such allegations, yeesh).--Δζ (talk) 12:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please go read the lede of that article, all the other groups are prominently mentioned in the second paragraph of the lede. Your comment is as disingenuous as his. ThuranX (talk) 13:11, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This comment again assumes bad faith. Δζ simply made a mistake, or at least that's what you should be assuming; yet you're calling him disingenuous. Furthermore this may have been the same mistake D4D made. You could assume they're both being disingenuous... we could assume intentional misdeeds as opposed to mistakes across the board in all cases... but that's not our policy. Equazcion(talk) 13:20, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
I understand the second paragraph mentions other groups, but the first one seems to advance the "jews only" view as the more prominent and general use of the term. In any case, how am I disingenuous? I can only interpret that one way, which is a pretty ridiculous assumption on your part. Should I trot out my jew street cred? Mention all the unverifiable friends/survivors I know? Not everyone who has a different opinion or makes an understandable mistake (as Equazcion observes) is doing so out of malice. I feel like I'm being baited into condemning views nobody has any business assuming of me in the first place. Chill out.--Δζ (talk) 13:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Equazcion, are you reading the diffs carefully? D4D requested a citation two years ago for the edit: "Blood libels are false[citation needed] accusations that Jews use human blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals," [44] which means he thinks Jews might use human blood. Now he's making comments about Holocaust victims not being circumcised (and therefore what?), and complaining because he is blocked by an admin who he thinks is Jewish. I'm not seeing a reasonable doubt here. SlimVirgin13:35, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Already responded to this. See my response to Black Kite above for my thoughts on that edit. Equazcion(talk) 13:38, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Endorse block. The history of events that led to the block is not a monument of due process, but the end result appears okay to me given D4D's long term edit history; cleary he isn't here to improve Wikipedia. Pcapping13:16, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse a block, but the trigger finger may have gone a bit too quickly towards an indef. Let the dust settle a bit and see where this user's head is at in a week or two, where an unblock request can be more thoughtfully considered and less emotionally reacted to. Tarc (talk) 13:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the block. Whether this user is simply ignorant about the Holocaust or consciously trolling, he's not helping to improve Wikipedia. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:36, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, I'm curious, it seems some supported these actions because of antisemitism (or maybe they were just outraged by it). Is this against the rules per se, or only trolling? I'm just curious if viewpoints of certain types are not allowed to be had by editors. I'm not asking if wikipedia may be used as a platform for delivering those viewpoints or debating them, but whether if viewpoints are discovered of an editor, do they ever run afoul of policy by that fact alone, or by them having had them? From my understanding, antisemitism alone doesn't violate any existing policy, though it may be relevant to interpreting comments like those at issue here.--Δζ (talk) 15:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know you are allowed to support "Nuking the gay whales for Jesus" as long as you do not edit that POV into articles or intentionally antagonize other editors with it. DSRH |talk21:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
I've unblocked, based on the discussion. We must only block when an editor is in clear violation. Jehochman's block, never mind the post hoc statements, was for bringing this matter here, persisting in it, and having a previous block log. The upgrade for indefinite, for asking a non-Jewish admin to look at it, was inappropriate. Incidentally, I am Jewish, and if that causes Die4Dixie to roll in anguish at having his editing privileges restored by such, good. I will leave an appropriate caution on the talk pages of both Die4Dixie and Slrubenstein.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Huh? If anything, what we cannot have is admins who provide clumsy rationales for their actions and expect them to stick. An unblock request was posted; any admin reviewing it gets to decide, unless it was a formal community sanction (which this was not). There's no point in complaining on that point. However, you are welcome to start a formal discussion for community sanction/ban at the appropriate venue (particularly in an appropriately named section). Though, I thought you were complaining last time a community sanction discussion happened at ANI.... Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Procedural oppose. I'm sorry, but inflating this incident as if it rises to that level is not good enough [when others have received not even a warning for similar conduct in other disputes]. If there is another more compelling reason for this proposal, which is what the above supports seem to allude to, no RfC/U or evidence trail has been presented. If this user should be community banned, it should not be difficult to present the trail of misconduct to justify the ban. I'll make a view on the merits of this upon that happening. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC) A better evidence trail exists now so I cannot oppose on these grounds, if any. The more general point I've raised here (but more explicitly in the a later subsection) really does need to be addressed by the community though. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:02, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support lengthening the block for Dixie's inappropriate comments that violated Wikipedia:Assume good faith. Dixie's comments assumed (possible) bias on the part of a (possibly) Jewish administrator, without substantial evidence--and Wikipedians should be judged based on decisions, not ethnicity. Oppose making the block indefinite. The decision to up the block to indefinite seemed too abrupt, and the difference between a week-long block and an indefinite block is too great. --AFriedman (talk)15:57, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support block/ban, bad unblock. Whether D4D is an antisemitic asshole or just a moron (as per User: Equazcion's suggestion, although I'd like to add that these are in not way disjoint categories), he or she is unlikely to help building an encyclopedia. See also [45] and the rest of his history. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:01, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I obviously oppose a ban. I've been looking through this user's contrib list, and found a remarkable lack of edits to Judaism-related articles for an editor who's being accused of antisemitism. Aside from the blood libel edits nearly 2 years ago (which I've brought evidence to support their being legitimate), and some subsequent edits to the same article, there isn't much else to support this claim. This editor's supposed long history of trolling is also rather unsupported. People seem to be flying off the handle when it comes to edits that might be construed as antisemitic, when if the same sort of edits occurred regarding other subjects, they'd not be taken this way. And I'm Jewish, in case that should matter, but it really shouldn't. I'm concerned, among other reasons, that being oversensitive about this only trivializes other cases where there may be actual cause for concern. Equazcion(talk) 16:02, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Oppose as well. If you want a ban, take a deep breath, and then go do a RFC/U. At the present time, you have a very result oriented appearance, which isn't want this is all about. Cancel the order to the stick factory, don't put any stress on that dead horse, then go think about it for a bit.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:06, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think we need to draw a line that attacks based on an editor's perceived race, ethnicity, religion, or sexuality are very seriously forbidden, just like making legal threats. When somebody makes such an attack, they should be blocked indefinitely until they retract the offensive remark. At any reasonable non-profit organization, volunteers and employees are expected to uphold such minimal standards of interpersonal conduct. Wikipedia should do the same. JehochmanTalk16:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think that is an excellent idea. Let's get that put into policy, and if D4D violates it, we will block him! But he can't be blocked for an unstated idea of yours ...--Wehwalt (talk) 16:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)\[reply]
I cannot, in good conscience, support that idea simply because of the enormous subjectivity that would need to be applied to every statement a person made. If I were a member of the Flat Earth Society and you tried to tag that article as pseudo-science, I could call for your indef block for being offensive to me and my views. does that sound even remotely logical? I hope not. Padillah (talk) 19:36, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support for community ban; D4D needs to go. I also want to express my profound disappointment with admins and long-time editors who seem to believe that this kind of nonsense is in any way acceptable. In the words of one of WP's greatest admins: "AGF is not a suicide pact". I wouldn't normally quote Machiavelli either, but in this case it seems that the ends do indeed justify the means; It's more important to quickly and efficiently remove a dedicated troll than it is to follow the exact letter of policy. Kudos to Jehochman for taking proper action. Doc Tropics16:41, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We can add it to written policy right now, if it is not there already. We have traditionally indef blocked accounts that cross that line. I've left a message on your talk page suggesting an alternative resolution for this thread. See what you think. JehochmanTalk16:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have a problem with asking D4D to strike specific statements, and if he refuses to do so, jointly starting an RfC. It may take several days for me to write one up, though, busy busy, Jehochman, I know it is the same with you.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)Okay, I ask the community to suspend this proceeding and place an archive box around it. Wehwalt and I will deal with Die4Dixie and make sure things are fixed up, or else we will initiate an RfC that may result in a community ban. JehochmanTalk16:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Jehochman, I really like your idea. These types of comments are already covered on the policy page for Wikipedia:No personal attacks, sort of--"Using someone's affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views [is a personal attack]...Speculating on the real life identity of another editor may constitute outing, which is a serious offense." Perhaps we could make it clearer, in "No personal attacks," that this is a serious offense? --AFriedman (talk)16:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I also really like this idea. It would go a long way in resolving some disputes involving problem-editors a lot more quickly and efficiently. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Frankly I'm against that change as it's meant to apply to situations like this. Equally as frankly, and it seems at the risk of being labeled a bigot myself, were I a gentile, being reprimanded and then blocked by two people in power who were Jewish, for my supposed antisemitic remark, I would probably feel compelled to call attention to that fact as well, un-PC as it would be taken. Also frankly, and here's where it gets real touchy, but I'm going to say it anyway, I'd suggest that Jewish administrators think about recusing themselves in such situations, just as bakers should recuse themselves from situations involving editors insulting the baking industry... and so forth. I'm not sure why there should be a difference in an ethnic situation; and really, the more potential for personal offense exists, the more careful we should be in avoiding the appearance of potential impropriety. Anyway, any policy changes should probably not be discussed here. Equazcion(talk) 16:40, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Based on three requests from other people at Wikipedia: [46], I have reopened this thread. Please continue to spend more time on this. Thank you. --Jayron3217:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support community ban Editors examining genitalia to determine race and ethnicity smacks of something that is really hard to AGF. We're better off without that sort of thing. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 17:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note - Jayron reopened this thread mistakenly, in response to concerns regarding his original close located way up this thread. It's already been agreed upon by the blocking admin and the unblocking admin that his matter be handled outside ANI. Equazcion(talk) 18:04, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
So, because Jehochman and Wehwalt have decided to file an RfC we are no longer able to discuss a community ban? Sorry, but I was not aware that those two represent the community in totality. AniMate18:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
They are the blocking admin and the unblocking admin. They agreed to offer the user an ultimatum, and if he doesn't accept, to open an RFC/U where a community ban would be discussed, and you'll be welcome to comment. Equazcion(talk) 18:20, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Right. My unblock related to the process that was undertaken, that could have been done better. We are now addressing D4D's actual conduct, giving him a chance to back off and improve things, and if that fails, the community will make a decision on whether he is welcome at Wikipedia. I suspect I know how that will end.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for thinking community bans should be decided based on community input and not just the whims of the blocking and unblocking admins. AniMate18:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, gee, go start your own RfC then. But I think when the two admins closest to the picture are waiting for a response from the editor in question, I think people will wait on that. There is no huge hurry, if D4D starts editing again, and doesn't respond to me, or if he responds negatively, we know what to do, and if he doesn't resume editing it is a moot point.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:38, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You're so close to the picture you forgot to inform the blocking admin that you reversed his block. Considering Protonk's involvement I think it fair that he be allowed to weigh in here. AniMate18:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I, as an uninvolved editor, am uncollapsing the discussion. I would recommend that future commentors take into account the discussion between Jehochman and Wehwalt (link ?), but it was inappropriate for an editor participating in the discussion (User:Equazcion) to short-circuit and collapse a ban discussion that they opposed. Abecedare (talk) 18:39, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't the one who collapsed it originally. I only re-collapsed it following Jayorn's mistaken reopen. See here. Equazcion(talk) 18:43, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Anyone want to re-collapse this mess again, since my doing so is clearly an attempt to short-circuit a ban discussion that I oppose? Equazcion(talk) 18:47, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Support with comments. Excusing an editor for "venting" is a rather bad proposition in any situation. More so when it carries overtones of bigotry. Durova37120:13, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support a community ban for Die4Dixie. Since enough people have commented in this discussion that it can no longer be seen as being between the blocking and unblock admins, their agreement to continue in another forum has no bearing on whether this thread proceeds to a community ban consensus. Nathan T 20:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Nathan. Jehochman and my agreement has been overtaken by events. I will take no position on the community ban. Howver, I would ask that participants check WP:BAN and make sure that Die4Dixie is notified and that the process go the required amount of time before an uninvolved admin closes the matter.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:44, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose community ban, because he helps make articles better (eventually), but support long-term block of 6 months to 1 year for racist remarks. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:45, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support community ban for Die4Dixie. I have long admired this editor's ability to capitalize on disagreements between admins and to thereby emerge unscathed from contretemps that would have quickly done in lesser rhetoricians. However, his/her entertainment value has been depleted. — goetheanॐ21:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose if by "community ban" we mean an indefinite involuntary bye-bye from the project. Surely there is a more constructive, targeted approach, if required. I've known D4D as an editor for quite a while and initially tangled with him, but personally I've found that some goodwill and patience pays off. He's here in good faith and does make sincere, positive contributions to the encyclopedia. He is also passionate in certain beliefs about politics and race, from a conservative point of view (forgive me if I don't quite have it right, but the specifics aren't the issue here) and has tended to blow off steam if challenged. But if approached calmly he usually knows when he's gone too far, and backs down from the objectionable behavior. I don't see the holocaust / circumcision comments as necessarily antisemitic, at least not in intent. Assuming good faith rather than assuming trolling, these are legitimate questions: (1) should our conception of the genocide in the holocaust be limited primarily to Jews (and perhaps gypsies and gay and disabled people) or should we also include other victims such as resistance fighters, Russian civilians, etc., (2) were most Jewish victims of the holocaust indeed circumcised - an uncomfortable but possibly legitimate question, and (3) was that particular photograph authentic - it is, but D4D may have simply been asking an honest question about that. I'm not saying he should have posted such an uncomfortable question in such a sensitive place, just that doing so may have been innocent or simply insensitive rather than out-and-out racist. I think a factual explanation of the truth of the matter, coupled with a calm request to please respect people's sensitivities over discussing the most morbid details of the holocaust, would settle this with a lot less fuss and loss to the project as tossing yet another editor over the side of the boat. If we think the long-term incivility has gone too far then some kind of civility parole or mentorship would be a lot more helpful. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Per LHvU's comment below, is there a diff or link to the "ongoing campaign" - I know of the other two but have not noticed that, and it would be troubling. If there is to be a ban, why not limit it to the problem areas of race and politics? Both articles of the same, and any derogatory comments about the same. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:34, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support community ban My recollections of past Noticeboard discussions re Die4Dixie; Username concerns - it was decided that a name evidencing an apparent strong allegiance to American Confederate sentiment was not inappropriate (or simply misunderstood, I cannot recall, as a mistaken perception). Flagrant celebration of death of Communist leader/icon/whatever, with commentary that inferred that liberals and socialists were the kin of such people and whose demise should likewise be celebrated. Ongoing campaign regarding Jews and the Holocaust, including suggestions that denialist claims should be included per WP:DUE or that general claims upon figures of Jewish deaths should be cited. I cannot recall specific references to either homosexuals or Catholics, but surely this would be a matter of time for such a stereotypical Southern States bigot?
Further, while there is a (good) practice of allowing individuals to "let off steam" immediately post block - vis a vis comments regarding the blocking admin or those held responsible for producing the block - I am extremely concerned that there was an instant accusation of Jewish conspiracy. In vino veritus... anyone know the Latin for "anger"? LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support community ban. Wehwalt's unilateral unblock against consensus has unfortunately made me change my voting in the ArbCom election: what he has written here seems extraordinarily clueless. Mathsci (talk) 23:01, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support community ban and trout, at the least, Wehwalt for his/her unilateral unblock against consensus: I, too, am going to re-check my vote. The obvious trolling by Die4Dixie was bad enough, but the knee-jerk support for him has gone far past "reasonable doubt" into WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT excuse-making territory. --Calton | Talk23:16, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support community ban. Examining genitalia of Holocaust victims to determine whether they're Jews, complaining about being blocked by an admin he perceives as Jewish, and earlier in his history requesting a source to support that Jews don't use human blood in religious rituals. [48] There's no benefit to the project in harboring this kind of attitude. SlimVirgin00:33, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Multiple explanations have been provided for the blood libel edit (mine originally, and finally D4D's recently), but you still point to it unilaterally. I can do that too, ignore further explanation in favor of continuing to express my initial disgust at something, but while that's easier it also hampers progress in any situation. As for the genitalia, I don't see what's so terrible about pointing out genitalia in a photo, even one as gruesome as this, in order to voice factual concerns. I might've done the same thing, had I the misconception about the article D4D did. Granted I would've approached the subject more delicately than D4D did -- if he had, we might not be here -- but frankly he doesn't seem to possess the language skills for it. Should that mean he's condemned? There's plenty of benefit to the project, because for two years the user made unproblematic edits. You're just focusing on two isolated incidents that occurred 2 years apart. Equazcion(talk) 08:56, 3 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Wehwalt's unblock did not follow consensus in any form whatsoever. I support the community ban on the basis of D4D's destructive behavior, and his failure to understand what is wrong with his actions. —Dark05:51, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The comments were not per se antisemitic or violative of wikipedia rules that would deserve a ban. This is essentially people presuming a motive where none is apparent, and I feel that is insufficient justification. Questions about the content of a picture are not deserving of a ban, no matter what views of the editor may be plausibly inferred. Wikipedia is not censored as to viewpoints, and a presumably good faith comment on a talk page about a picture where no personal attack was made is not grounds for a ban.--Δζ (talk) 09:27, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support community ban. After everything that has happened, posting this ("First I ran a search for Hochman using his first name that he gives here on Wikipedia. The article that pops up is about bull riding and has plenty of in-group humor of the "Nice Jewish Boy" type...") and similar shows that the editor is not going to be an asset to the encyclopedia. Johnuniq (talk) 09:39, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ummm. That was supposed to be where we could discuss that. I´m not following your logical leap from A to B. My explaining to the offended editor how I arrived there is more evidence of why I should be banned? Oy Vey(smacks head). A Jewish publication specifically mentioned "Nice Jewish Boy" and bull riding. here, you read it and see if I mischaracterized it: http://www.jewishmag.com/102mag/bullrider/bullrider.htm--Die4Dixie (talk) 09:52, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose community ban. We are all of us (in part) products of our environments, and I am too well aware of what sort of material circulates in the American South; should Southerners in general be banned from Wikipedia because so many have been raised in a background distrustful of Jews? D4D, believe it or not, seems to have managed to emerge affected, but relatively mildly and reasonably (by comparison), by that background. This progress, even though incomplete, should be taken into consideration. The blocks of him, on the other hand, quickly bypassed any other form of dispute resolution, and may easily have served to only harden his beliefs about bigotry against him. Perhaps rage was not helpful here. — Sizzle Flambé (☎/✍) 09:45, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support — per Jehochman; per Durova, too, whose talk page I just looked at. We could have had closure yesterday. Cement this, please. The piece that utterly convinced me was the urging to scrutinize the image for details of the genitals of gruesome corpses. *That's* trolling 101. Sincerely,Jack Merridew10:12, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support: LHvU has a better reasoning than I have. Additionally, I will note that I remember him trolling the Obama articles, where he was convinced that Obama was a secret Muslim communist who stole the election because of ACORN. Anyone who seriously believes that belongs on Conservapedia, not here. Sceptre(talk)13:07, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not quite how that went down. One to nurse a grudge, Sceptre? I am sure, bright young fellow that you are, that you know exactly what you have done. Building the strawman is not particularly crafty this late in the game. I had expected something a little more thoughtful from you after a year. Sigh. Are the tellietubies not on yet?--Die4Dixie (talk) 13:54, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Alternatives to a ban
Note: Jehochman and Wehwalt are currently discussing alternatives to a community ban for the user. Please see the discussion here before adding your !vote to the discussion above. Abecedare (talk) 18:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Instead of unblocking and then offering D4D a compromise whereby he retracted his remarks, otherwise we go to an RFC (in other words, another complete waste of many editors time and effort), why on earth wasn't he left blocked until he withdrew those remarks and promised not to re-state them? Serious failure of WP:COMMON there, methinks. Black Kite19:01, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, it is, because an RFC/U is inevitably subsumed in a large amount of bickering, most of which isn't actually about the subject in hand. And a lot of the time it leads to a unanimous agreement that ... er ... something should be done, but we're not sure what. Black Kite19:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The one favoured by most contributors to this thread (i.e. leaving him indeffed until there's some evidence that there is recognition of the behaviour that caused the block, and some evidence that it won't recur). Black Kite21:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Moot point. The community seems to be taking it out of our hands, which is its right. I can only say I didn't think of it, and it wasn't proposed at the time. Whether I would have done that had I or someone else thought of it? Hmmm, not sure. Possibly the best course was to defer decision for a bit and urge D4D to strike the language before making a decision. But hindsight and 20/20 and all that. Hard to say.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:32, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well that's easy. Unblocking him forces the discussion, because only re-blocking him is wheel warring. :| Protonk (talk) 19:05, 2 December 2009 (UTC) <comment restored after being accidentally removed in an edit conflict. Sorry about that> [reply]
My response was eaten in an edit conflict, but he was unblocked because the structure of wheel makes only the reblocking wheel warring. Protonk (talk) 19:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of what WP:WHEEL says, it's always been very bad form to undo another admin's block without the blocking admin's consent and when community discussion is strongly supportive of that block. I can tell you that I probably wouldn't be as conciliatory as Jehochman about it, if I were in his shoes. MastCellTalk19:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting characterization, MastCell. I read the discussion as deeply divided, and very powerful arguments made that no valid blocking rationale had been stated. That's what I limited myself to. Consent? I don't think that is the standard. That leaves things in the blocking admin's hands, which is not how things work. The blocking admin and I were part of a discussion at AN/I, and I looked at all the arguments in making a decision to unblock that I knew was not going to be wildly popular, but which was doing the right thing by an editor. It is the decision you have to make sometimes, even if you know you are going to take heat for it. Sorry if you feel offended on behalf of Jehochman, but he and I then engaged constuctively on how to move forward.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)I don't see community discussion as being "strongly supportive" of the block. There's definitely some issues with D4D's conduct, but there's also been some serious questions raised as to the manner in which the block was applied. The issue at hand is not D4D's conduct (which seems to have been blown out of proportion) but rather whether the block was applied in an appropriate manner. I contend that it was not. I'm not offering support to D4D, I'm expressing my reservations as to how the block was applied. Throwaway85 (talk) 19:36, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
While I'm extremely unimpressed with D4D's conduct in general and am sitting on the fence regarding the prospect of a community ban, it seems clear to me that the original block was not applied correctly. The solution linked above looks like the right way to be moving. Brilliantine (talk) 20:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Had an editor stated any other nationality/religion/ethnicity/cultural identity regarding any other editor-admin, I am sure that many members of the admin community would not have escalated it in the same way. That is the problem. The only way to be fair is to make policy tighter on these issues and enforce it more consistently where applicable. Being less conciliatory than necessary is counterproductive, particularly for a discussion where established editors are deeply divided on a matter of principle and approach rather than on the matter of an individual. There are very limited situations where in such discussions we can afford to focus on improving principle and approach prior to reviewing the individual, and I firmly believe this is one of them. But I fear that we're so used to focussing on the individual that the principle and approach is slowly being forgotten and is gradually going to cause even more problems for future disputes, including those that end up in front of ArbCom. Oh well, not our problem I suppose. Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's a very salient point, ncm. I've been involved in articles on Irish nationalism, and there have definitely been times where an admin was accused of using their tools to ban people on account of nationality. Never was it considered racist. I feel I must make this very clear: Insinuating that a Jewish admin was rushing to another's aid on account of their 'jewdom', rather than the merits of the case is not, repeat NOT racist. It may be wrong, or it may well be right. Either way, it's a legitimate concern, and one's particular religious or ethnic background does not give one immunity from such accusations. In no way is such an accusation a blockable offense, unless it contravened other established policies. Nor is it a personal attack, and must not be viewed as such. If an admin takes offense to an editor's claims about the motivation for their conduct, they need to seek a second opinion from another, uninvolved admin. Throwaway85 (talk) 20:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Concur. The only thing separating this from other such cases is the specific ethnicity concerned; and that's a very, very bad state of affairs. Equazcion(talk) 21:01, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Not sure this is true. I'm fairly certain there would be immense outrage if he requested that no black administrators review his block. In fact, I'm fairly certain that if it was any other ethnic or religious groups besides Jews, this block wouldn't be an issue. "I don't want any Asians reviewing my block". Indef without any objections. "I don't want any Jews reviewing my block." Fair enough.AniMate21:11, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's skewed phrasing in favor of your point. He said "Could a non involved gentile please look at this?" If someone were block by an Asian-sounding name on the belief that he insulted Asian culture, and said "Could an uninvolved non-Asian please look at this?", I don't think racism would've been suggested. Equazcion(talk) 21:12, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I disagree. Asking for uninvolved administrators is fine. Any administrator who reviews a block has to be uninvolved. We don't get to cherry pick by race, nationality, gender, or sexual orientation. No admin is infallible, but to disqualify an entire group of admins based on their religion, race, gender, or sexual orientation is flat out wrong. AniMate21:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I see nothing wrong with requesting an uninvolved admin of a different ethnicity than the one you feel is conspiring against you. Throwaway85 (talk) 21:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Problem is that there wasn't a conspiracy and acquiescing to these kinds of demands is an insult to editors of any faith or race. AniMate21:30, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's really not, and despite the term conspiracy being thrown around here, he didn't use that word in his request. Furthermore he wasn't disqualifying an entire group *period*; he was rather disqualifying the group that his comments were perceived as offending. That makes his request a COI concern rather than racism as you imply. Equazcion(talk) 21:33, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
No, you aren't entitled to choose the race, ethnicity, or religion of admins to handle a matter. The US has considered the matter many times (for example here) with respect to court trials. Claiming that you can't be a fair administrator on a matter if you're Jewish is just wrong. The request is inappropriate but not terribly offensive on its face, but it does tend to inflame a delicate situation - best to give a firm "no" and move on. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:41, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Irrelevant since I didn't make any claims about whether policy supports the request. This isn't a question of whether or not it should have been granted -- only regarding whether or not it necessarily constituted racism, and whether he deserved to be blocked indefinitely for it. Again it was a COI concern and not racism. Unreasonable request maybe, racism no. Equazcion(talk) 21:49, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
This is getting pointless. The reviewing admin thought it was anti-Semitic and the majority of users here agree. The only place I can see major disagreements is over whether or not Jehochman's original block was warranted and if that tainted the indef block. Split hairs all you like, I'm pretty much done here. AniMate21:55, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Equazcion and I are saying the same thing, I think. A comment can be racially offensive without being intentionally so. To those who consider it anti-Semitic and worthy of sanctions, I urge them to think twice about whether it is better to simply punish people for causing offense, or to educate them as to why you're offended. The first approach doesn't really change anything. My two cents is that both the original block and the indef were within the blocking administrators' discretion and should not have been undone without discussion. Not that I agree with them, but undoing other admins' actions unless they are clearly erroneous often triggers a lot of unnecessary hand-wringing, this discussion being a case in point. What's the hurry to unblock? There's no deadline here. - Wikidemon (talk) 22:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Basically yes, except on the procedural concerns of unblocking, which I don't have much of an opinion on. This is part ignorance and part not having thought about it... discussion prior to unblocking seems reasonable, but I also don't see much harm in unblocking as it seems to not have been preventative. It seems more harmful to me to keep someone blocked who might not deserve it, unless they're a potential immediate threat, and I didn't get the impression that that was a concern. This seemed to be one of the more "deterrent" type blocks. Equazcion(talk) 22:14, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Request for non-Jewish admin "possibly legitimate"
Resolved by the Official Soviet Red Herring
This resolution deserves special comment. Many Wikipedians choose usernames that are unrelated to their religion, etc. Also due to adoptions and quirks of inheritance quite a few people even have surnames that bear little or no connection to their actual heritage. It is inappropriate and bad faith to presume that such types of coincidence impede administrative judgment. Durova37102:15, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(unmarking resolution)
I actually think granting the request for review from a non-jewish admin would have settled the matter quicker. Think about it: You have a belief that jewish admins are teaming up against you due to their ethnicity. What's going to do more good: Having an uninvovled gentile admin say "no, you were wrong", or having the two jewish admins say "no, you don't get to have a non-jew look at it". I'm not saying policy should be changed to reflect this, simply that in this case it might have prevented escalation. Throwaway85 (talk) 22:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is dubious value to validating such a request in any way. Among other matters, the inheritance aspect of Judaism comes through the mother's side while surnames generally derive from the father's. So through intermarriage quite a few people with Jewish surnames belong to other faiths. Also names (both rl and usernames) may be selected to honor an individual's achievements (as opposed to religion or ethnicity). We wouldn't take such a demand seriously if it referred to gender or nationality, and indeed when blocked users presumed I was Russian it never garnered more than a belly laugh. Nothing has changed since then. Durova37102:33, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine. At this point I'm just commenting on people's objection to D4D's request for non-jewish review, which people took exception to. I still think more discussion prior to your indef block would have been proper, but that's a seperate issue. It's also a moot one, as a course of action that allows D4D to acknowledge and apologize for his actions has already been undertaken. Throwaway85 (talk) 22:38, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Doesn't count unless you tell him you're granting his request; plus the problems stated above of your reason for doing so; and the oddity of extending a block as a result of an unblock request, which makes your claim of granting the request seem rather after-the-fact; and there is the fact that it actually is after-the-fact; oh and you're right, this is the perfect time for flip and facetious responses to your opponents, what with the lighthearted nature of the subject matter. Good call. Equazcion(talk) 22:42, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
I'm not being flip or facetious, at least not in this comment. I'm unconvinced by your claim that unless I literally edit the unblock request it doesn't count. Besides, it is all premised on the absurd notion that D4D is somehow entitled to demand that a unitarian unblock him, or what-have you. Protonk (talk) 22:55, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you consider the demand unreasonable (and I don't necessarily disagree), then your response implying that you granted it ("it" being the request for a non-jewish admin) is facetious, especially considering that you added the fact that you extended the block instead as a result of an unblock request. You were being humorous. It would've been good, had we not been in the lengthy argument we're in. Equazcion(talk) 23:07, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure we are connecting here. I wasn't joking when I suggested that indeffing him was an implicit unblock review, where the unblock request was that a non-jew review the block. Why we are even having an argument w/ the assumption that such a request is something done in polite society is pretty unclear to me. Protonk (talk) 23:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We are having the discussion because there's a couple of members of said polite society who believe the request could have some legitimacy. Throwaway85 (talk) 23:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I remember at some stage Alison (talk·contribs) was told by a fellow administrator that her Irish background meant that she should probably not administer issues connected with the Troubles. These statements about presumed Jewish administrators are similarly disturbing. This is a sad day for wikipedia. Mathsci (talk) 23:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Aw, it's not that bad! It's not a sad day, just an impermissible request for which a firm "no" is called for. I have chosen not to reveal my ethnicity, race, gender, nationality, location, political beliefs, etc., on Wikipedia (although some would be an easy guess). In this particular case it's moot because I'm not an admin, but in a more general sense if I have decided that ethnicity / religion is not part of my editing experience, I don't think that issue should be forced on me. That's a corollary of the right to edit anonymously, not to have your religion called into question. On the other hand if I loudly proclaimed everywhere that I was an activist on Jewish causes, then by my statements I was declaring a personal position. That's different, and it would be reasonable for someone to assert that this gave too much of an appearance of bias for me to pass judgment on someone's statements about the subject. If D4D were truly concerned and had a legitimate fear of being ganged up on, a more delicate thing to request would be to find administrators who do not have a content stake on articles reflecting Jews and the holocaust. - Wikidemon (talk) 00:05, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Always the dramatic, Mathsci :) I view this portion of the discussion as more academic, as the main issue is really whether or not the request itself was enough of a problem to block indef for. Whether or not it should actually be granted in the future is an interesting subject, and I don't see it being "sad" to discuss it, but it's sort of beyond this particular incident. Equazcion(talk) 00:07, 3 Dec 2009 (UTC)
I wouldn't be surprised if people commenting in favour of D4D in this thread were themselves blocked at some later stage. What some of them have written here seems ill-considered. Mathsci (talk) 00:17, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Am I to understand that those calling for additional blocks don't see how that behaviour contributes to the perception, rightly or wrongly, that there are special interest groups on wikipedia who will band together to ensure that their views become official policy? Are you kidding me? You want to dole out a block for my saying that D4D's request for a non-jewish admin to review his case in light of his belief that he was being discriminated against could be valid? That I'm being anti-semitic? You are doing nothing to help your own position or wikipedia by so arguing. You are, in fact, lending credibility to the bigots and racists out there. Throwaway85 (talk) 00:39, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Let's just end this. What administrative action is required for this specific issue? To me this appears to be a policy discussion and AN/I is for incidents that require administrative action. If you want to change the rules for Jewish administrators, start a discussion at WP:Administrators or file an WP:RfC. The only aspect of this that we can really do anything about here is the community ban. Let's focus on that. AniMate00:46, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with your assessment, especially in light of the new action being taken in regards to D4D. For the record, I'm not saying anything about Jewish admins, just questioning the hasty remarks some editors have been making here. Throwaway85 (talk) 00:58, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some users appear to have suggested on-wiki, and have requested clarification off-wiki, as to whether I'm "sympathetic" to Die4Dixie, or an "apologist" of anti-semitic commentary. The plain answer on both counts is no. I do hope that Craftyminion (talk·contribs) will take more care in his/her future on-wiki comments to avoid sparking something like this again. I don't recall interacting with Die4Dixie previously, nor have I expressed a view on the merits of anything beyond a block rationale, and I certainly don't find any sort of offensive commentary acceptable. What I am sympathetic towards, as my earlier comment was hinting at, is the inconsistent enforcement by the community at large. Be it the admins or the established editors who've responded here, none had responded as aggressively as they did here (if at all) to similar accusations of bad faith in some other cases, whether it's a European ethnic conflict (English/Irish), an Asian ethnic conflict (Indian subgroups), or some other conflict involving race/religion/ethnicity/nationality/cultural identity. Is there inconsistent enforcement because some people are more aware about history relating to a particular type (Jewish), and not others? Or is it because of how "well known" the individuals involved are? Is it a lack of clarity/awareness in policy? Or finally, is it because there is an genuine (but very unfortunate) divide in the community on this principle? Frankly, I don't know - I just want that to be remedied so everyone who makes a particular type of comment or demand is treated in the same way, regardless of which race/religion/ethnicity/nationality/cultural identity they touch on, and regardless of which individual (be it editor or admin) that the accusation goes against. Misrepresenting this as being apologistic to what is broadly unacceptable simply add heats to a discussion, not light. Sometimes users who raise an issue for community awareness are doing just that - nothing more. Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:13, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nmvocalist: grotesque discussions of the type that D4D was having about pictures of what Yad Vashem would normally classify as a "pile of corpses" are just not acceptable on wikipedia, nor are the ensuing Jewish conspiracy theories. Likewise a grotesque discussion about a picture of comparable atrocities elsewhere in the world should elicit a similar reaction. That is for example why Fourdee (talk·contribs) was banned by Jimbo. Indef blocked MoritzB (talk·contribs) for example was inserting material in Lynching from contemporary newspaper reports to suggest that the lynchings were merited. It's probably worth looking more carefully at the whole of D4D's recent contributions, including the remark left on Durova's talk page. In addition, there are others opposing the community ban such as William S. Saturn (talk·contribs) whose alternative accounts have been involved in Holocaust denial. [49] I think that in a more general context you are making a valid point; however in this particular case the extreme nature of D4D's remarks, just like those of Fourdee in the period leading up to his ban, go beyond reasonable limits. That is probably why Protonk extended the block to indefinite. Mathsci (talk) 07:47, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Mathsci. Raising the point in a more general context unfortunately does not receive enough input from the community and does little in the way of raising awareness effectively to those who need to be aware of it - the editors and admins who intervene to help resolve these sorts of issues. That's why I raised it during this incident when there is deep care and a lot of eyes, so that the process of addressing the issue finally begins. I hope that you will, at least in time, appreciate that it would not have been possible to do so effectively, without Wehwalt's intervention. In the meantime, I've struck my procedural oppose as it can no longer apply to this specific case. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:18, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why not just ask D4D how he meant it? It's a troubling subject no matter how one comments on it - all talk of the Holocaust is difficult, and should be so. But did D4D mean to cause trouble, or were his comments earnest but insensitive? - Wikidemon (talk) 08:14, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
EC x 2. Look, you will always be able to find something to be offended at. Hochman gives his name, posts his picture, links to his Linkdn page all from his userpage. That google search is not offensive in the slightest. I have not engaged in any Jewish conspiracy theory. No mention of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, no holocaust denial. Nice try at the association fallacy by suggesting that I am like someone like Fourdee. I never knew what the yad vashem was that keeps getting invoked here until I clicked on the link. The picture was put there to be looked at. It is a grotesque picture. I have struck those comments hours ago now. Please see the discussion on my talkpage that explains. What ever Saturn has done with his account does not mean that I am Saturn. Can you not do better than these tired ad hominems? Collect the diffs on this history of jew baiting, because that is what you are acusing me of, right? You are way too invested in this. Go have a cup of tea or read a book. You may think that your attacks are ok because you are discussing banning me, and twisting something to make it appear that I have claimed some conspiracy to try and tar me with antisemitism, but it is not. Nice trying to poison the well with mentioning lynching too.--Die4Dixie (talk) 08:22, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
D4D, if you didn't / don't mean to offend why not just say that? Intended or not, you upset some people who have good reason to be offended. Some here lost loved ones in the tragedy, and even those who did not are keeping the memory alive so it won't be repeated. Whether you intended to bait or not your line snared some deep fish. I think it would be helpful to separate that question from the related issue of whether you were unfairly treated here for speaking your mind. If that's the case why not just apologize for having upset people and in the future try not to step on those landmines. Perhaps take your lumps? Sorry if this sounds PC but some subjects deserve deference to people's feelings. - Wikidemon (talk) 08:55, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
D4D's explanations are not helpful, here or elsewhere. In the original discussion, he mentioned that he clicked on the image. At that point he could see all the data on the image in front of him, including a reference to the original photographic library from which the image was apparently copied. In fact for images of this kind that site uses captions which refer to "prisoners" without further qualification. The wikipedia article Holocaust is similar. Mathsci (talk) 09:20, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I clinked the link from ANI. I didn´t examine the pedigree or providence of the photo. I looked at the penises. Wikidemom, adversus solem ne loquitor. The hive is agitated. Axes were ground today. This is a bonding ritual for some. Have fun. You can read thaat tally up above.--Die4Dixie (talk) 09:41, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
BTW Jehochman lives in Connecticut. Here is his linkedin page [51]. The Jonathan Hochman D4D unearthed lives in Texas. This seems to be his linkedin page [52], judging by the references to Mensa, information technology and rodeo riding. This is the kind of unfortunate error that happens when editors start writing about conspiracy theories. Mathsci (talk) 09:54, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And I apologized if it was not him. Nothing is going to satisfy you but a sacrificial rite. Where was the the conspiracy theory. I was concerned that he could not put his feelings aside, just like you can´t seem to do. I struck the G*d damn comments on the penis page, I have been roundly abused and all kinds of motives have been ascribed. You sound like I was writing some treatise on Some International Jewish Conspiracy. I wasn´t , and I didn´t. Me, I´m going to eat a bagel. You should have a cup of tea. And thank goodness I didn´t invert that order or you would have cranked up the Hague.--Die4Dixie (talk) 10:09, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is surreal. No, a request for a non-Jewish admin is not legitimate. If you think so, would you be willing to entertain requests for non-white admins on anything that has to do with slavery (well, we want non-black there as well) or the third world? For non-American admins on articles about the Iraq war, the Vietnam war, Waterboarding, or the election campaign? For non-Christian admins, for, say, work on Jesus? For non-male admins on Marie Curie or Divorce (where you could also ask on non-female ones, or non-divorced ones...). The suggestion that a whole large group of editors is biased because of their ethnicity, or gender, or hair color, is inherently offensive to all civilized society. . --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:42, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
These are poor analogies. Are you suggesting that anyone who doesn´t share your rigid world view is uncivilized? Is that not the hight of cultural elitism? The least tolerant attitude that I have yet to see tonight? Are you suggesting that I am not civilized, herr Schulz? Unvarnished prose is to be perfered.--Die4Dixie (talk) 10:56, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
They're poor analogies for another reason too: People in those situations wouldn't be nearly as likely to offend as easily due to the subject matter. Jewish admins acting on a perceived antisemitic remark, particularly on a Holocaust article, and particularly on a photo of dead Holocaust victims, is much more understandably called a possible conflict of interest. Not that I necessarily think D4D's request should have been granted, but still, it wasn't entirely disgusting either, nor worthy of the racism label. Equazcion(talk) 11:14, 3 Dec 2009 (UTC)
I suggest that you (D4D) are intentionally offensive to make a WP:POINT, both in this last reply, in the original scuffle, and in your request for a non-Jewish admin. You may or may not be civilized, but with your behavior is not fit for civilized society. WP:AGF is not a suicide pact. You have exhausted my good faith a while ago. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:19, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Retreating to the original accusation doesn't advance the argument. This is the equivalent of "I still think you're wrong". Equazcion(talk) 11:26, 3 Dec 2009 (UTC)
(ec) Are you joking? This guy has just been released from an indef block on condition that he starts behaving, immediately goes around saying "Oy vey" and "Herr Schulz", and you accuse Stephan Schulz of "retreating to the original accusation" when he points out the obvious problem? Are you from some strange civilisation where that would be considered normal or even deescalating behaviour?
It's getting more and more obvious that I was right before: That guy simply tries to stay just below the level where it gets actionable. (The technical term for this is of course "trolling", and I am usually quite reluctant to use it. Here it's obvious by now.) HansAdler11:45, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Pointing out the obvious problem" again isn't helpful. Providing rationale to back up why one sees a problem is a better way to go. Otherwise we're all just repeating ourselves ad nauseum. Equazcion(talk) 11:50, 3 Dec 2009 (UTC)
In other words, in your last response you didn't answer the last point brought, nor did you provide any further rationale to advance your argument. You instead repeated your feeling that the user was being intentionally offensive, which I think everyone already knows by now, and doesn't help the discussion. Equazcion(talk) 11:38, 3 Dec 2009 (UTC)
To Schulz: Now what did you find so offensive about me requesting that you clarify an extremely offensive post. Don´t even try to say that you came to this discussion with your good faith pants on. You have been twisting everything you could get your hands on to contort it to the least favorable and most inflammatory extreme that you possible could. You have engaged in logical fallacies, reductio ad you name its, and general nastiness. What were you so offended by? That someone you tried to minimize and dehumanize wasn´t inclined to entertain your melodramaticly waxing poetic bull shit?--Die4Dixie (talk) 11:40, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In fairness I think you're "contorting to the least favorable and most inflammatory extreme that you possible can" too, D4D. Summing up your opponents' arguments as bullshit isn't helpful. Most people in an argument with opponents they don't care for think similarly, and saying it doesn't help anyone. It's probably best to stick to intellectual arguments rather than resorting to hostile classifications. But I'm probably wasting my time, aren't I. Equazcion(talk) 11:48, 3 Dec 2009 (UTC)
I think that I have suffered a great deal of abuse at this man´s hands. Pointed abuse, over the top personal attacks. If I crossed the line with BS, ok. Perhaps I might not be helping myself here now. But his civilized comments and dichotomizing was a little over the top. Your call.--Die4Dixie (talk) 11:56, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In my view most of the people commenting here are over the top. I've probably been guilty of the same at some point. Let's just all try to keep it under control and keep it civil/rational/fact-based, rather than seeking to strike emotional blows at one-another. Equazcion(talk) 12:00, 3 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Equazcion, stop enabling this obvious racist troll or we will have to start a discussion on what to do about you. I am not familiar with you and therefore find it hard to judge if your current behaviour is in good faith or not. It certainly doesn't look as if it is. HansAdler12:06, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Whether or not this person is an "obvious racist troll" is precisely what we're trying to determine, through discussion, which is all I'm doing. I don't see anything particularly wrong with that, even if lots of people disagree with me. When it's a majority against a minority, flinging "you're wrong"s and "youre obviously this or that"s is unfortunately all that's needed, since the majority has more bullets. My "enabling", as you put it, is an attempt to level the playing field and get rid of the back-and-forth accusations in favor of forcing more intelligent discussion. Feel free to start a discussion about me though, if you feel that's a bad thing. Equazcion(talk) 12:16, 3 Dec 2009 (UTC)
I guess obvious racist trolls need love, too! Seriously, if you're looking for a chance to get your Fightin' for the Underdog ya-yas out, you've picked the wrong cause to champion. --Calton | Talk14:19, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment, I've tried to stay out of this but would like to say some now. First, asking for a non Jewish administrator is never acceptable. Googling to find information about any editor is also very much against policy. I won't classify anyone but I was very angry at both of these things happening. I am also upset to read this whole thread to find that no one, not one editor or administrator comments on the searching admitted to. Dixie, I have no problems with you personally but these two things really irked the hell out of me. I just had to let Dixie and others here know that their are some of us lurking. These things need to stop asap. Thank you for your time, --CrohnieGalTalk12:52, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's a bit uncouth to bring up, in a dispute with another editor, personal details that you've found out about them through off-wiki methods, and in the case of revealing specific identifying information could be considered outing. The googling alone isn't against policy though. You can google whatever you want whenever you want. Equazcion(talk) 13:00, 3 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Arb
I agree with equz. If you want to vote, vote. But enough of the attacks and melodramatic flairs. If someone has a concrete thing they would like me to do, suggest it. If not, I´ll concede the field. What has happened here is and was wrong.--Die4Dixie (talk) 12:10, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I began a discussion above about an admin who had not done a proper review of my case and refused to discuss the matter. He now says he has been fired from his job and my case is not a priority. Naturally I feel sorry for someone who has been fired but that shouldn't affect wikipedia's handling of my case.
I was asked above to clarify and then the discussion was cut off before I was able to. Instead I was attacked by people who appear not to have understood the history or digested fully the last few days' exchange. Why do I get a feeling of deja vu? I would be happy to answer the question asked if the close on the discussion above is lifted. I consider it discourteous to be asked a question and then not allowed to answer. Neither was I allowed to address the faulty block history which was quoted when this began (admitted now by more than one admin) and which clearly influenced the mind of "the community". I hope wikipedia can do better than this. Kevin McCready (talk) 09:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Diffs on the personal attacks? I don't see anything uncivil in that last ANI. Seriously, would you please back away from the situation and especially that admin for awhile? He even admitted they're in no position to handle your situation, which is what a good admin should do. If you have evidence to present in an ANI, put it in your first post, because as you've seen you may well not get another chance to. Note that he said he was busy, not that you were not a priority. Wikipedia is 100% volunteer work and often editors can't get done everything they want. That's "community". No admin or anyone else "owe you priority" by default. ...It was suggested in the last ANI you filed on this, yesterday, it was suggested your take this to WP:ARBCOM. Another ANI isn't going to accomplish much. ♪daTheisen(talk)10:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
– There are separate notice boards for all of the concerns raised below. ANI can't do anything they can't and won't knowingly without more attempted dispute resolution ♪daTheisen(talk)11:12, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Could you offer diffs or at least some kind of "where" on the RR violation? Actually scratch then. Either deliberately or not, the user manually went through it all. Even if I assume all the -size edits... hmm. Okay, there are 4 instances where only changed or previous-changed content was placed back. 5 of "some" changes? They did mix it around pretty well. Not to say there isn't serious evidence of deliberate disruption-- or at least doing so without any explanation or edit summaries-- taking a look at this, being the comparison of all edits since this new user had at it, the net results of the edits are actually against the SPA editor. That's really the only thing working in their favor, and it's impossible to deny the pattern. I'd say any further inexplicable edits and that's it, since it'd have been after warnings/ANI so they'd have shown no interest in an improved attitude. The POV and BLP matters are just icing. You could ask for a CU on the IPs now but this looks like it'll probably end in self-destruction already. I'd ask if there were a prior version a revert to would be good, but since it's garbled somethings might get missed. ♪daTheisen(talk)10:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I move close this as I don't think this is an issue for this noticeboard. Several warning templates on their talk page is not trying to resolve a dispute. Note that 3RR or edit warring reports should be made at WP:AN3, and BLP and NPOV issues also have their own distinct noticeboards (see this pages' instructions and header for links to these boards). Nja24710:39, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have noticed that Xaronyr has been making a number of offensive edits. The user has has a level 1, 2 and 3 warning in the space of eight hours! As all of these edits have been made in such a short space of time I'm not quite sure what would be the best course of action, but I draw your attention to the nature of the edits (some racist, but all potentially offensive). [54] and [55].
The full list is here. Perhaps something to keep an eye on? Willdow (talk) 10:55, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No sense in warning them if nobody actually showed the the rules. I've given them a {{Welcomevandal}} for now. It's pretty standard-looking vandalism - maybe when they sign in again, they'll see that people actually pay attention. (talk→BWilkins←track) 11:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, I blocked this account indefinitely, as it looked like a run-of-the-mill disruption-only account, and the edits were egregious. If anyone disagrees with the block, they have my permission to take the action they deem appropriate. decltype (talk) 11:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to have to object, but for very unusual and rather complex reasons. First, my disclaimer is that you're allowed to entirely ignore what I say. Originally I just wanted to check on that "8 hours" for 3 warnings as being suspicious (it's too slow for the average vandal) and found far more odd. Really, I think you're 120% supposed to ignore anything I suggest as a non-admin, but, a change to 12 or 24hr from final article edit would seem better give another shot to see if they're serious about Wikipedia or not. They literally has confirmation of incorrect policies (see below). BWilkins has a good within-Wiki-AGFable-grasp view on it with the welcome message today. Basically, Since the situation is a lot more complicated than normal, nothing to the blocking admin since obviously it was in good faith. These details are far, far out of view. Depending on the admin this might have been no block? Not my place to judge.
There haven't been any edits at all since that welcome notice was put up; had been 7 hours and the user long gone for the night. No mainspace edits at all since the cluebot lvl1 warning. Actually, the user's first edit was evening of 30 November, and was what I'll call "kinda AGF vandalism intended as humor to select audiences". It went untouched for over a full day! I was wondering why there was no welcome or warning on a talk page from then, but that's because I just now undid it. Of course the user didn't think they'd done anything bad. They made 1 edit their first night, came back 24 hours later and everything was exactly the same. Not only did they not know the actual guidelines, they had developed beliefs in an entirely wrong set of guidelines. This alone is reason to remove the def and significantly reduce length, because this is flat-out our faults. ...Moving on, the user might have seen HamburberRadio's lvl2 warning, and even if they did, they stopped editing for the night, meaning they "obeyed" technically.
Bigger question to me was why were there no welcomes or warnings or at least notices about the first few edits? Well I already explained the first. The first edit last evening was caught on a Huggle patrol, but for some reason no warning template was sent. Looking at the (Huggle) user's history, s/he obviously has automatic warnings turned on, but maybe has create new talk pages turned off maybe? Pains me a bit to say, but this was a comical string of tiny gaffs all around on our end... including me since this is my third write of a different opinion after I discovered something depressing (the missed vandalism, this time). However much I figure I'll run across this user again somewhere, this was really not their fault since they did nothing against policy after the time they knew of policy. 12/24 or remove completely and leave them a note. ♪daTheisen(talk)15:34, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You can only stretch AGF so far. I refuse to believe that the user thought his second edit was a legitimate and appropriate one. His third edit is libel of the worst kind. Note that the editor has already gotten into the habit of using innocuous edit summaries to disguise his edits as legitimate ones (m "Just some cleaning up"), and his fourth edit is in the same vein. Having looked at the particulars one more time, I have to stick with my indefinite block, which is in accordance with the blocking policy for disruption-only accounts, both in terms of duration and the number of warnings received. I see no indication that the user is interested in contributing constructively. But again, if consensus is that this user's block duration should be reduced, I shall not object. However, even an indef block may be appealed, so the door is half-open, anyway. decltype (talk) 15:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Concur with indefblock. If the user is incapable of realising that those edits are utterly inappropriate in any public forum without having it explained to them, I question their suitability to be here at all. We can perhaps do them a favour by applying Hanlon's razor, but that doesn't mean we're obliged to keep them around. EyeSerenetalk17:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You'll get no disagreement from me, but I always figure I should be judicious in a first ANI reply post to explain the details of things past the short starter description. I just reeeeealy want to give people 1 more shot on AGF after an ANI posting so any blocks don't look punitive and there's a prior and current pattern to look at. Wow, I must look absolutely evil for how much I try to balance a starting evidence posting. ♪daTheisen(talk)03:05, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
BLPs, ethnic origin categories and an IP hopper, redux
Okay, I'm slowly being driven (or driving myself) mad with this. We've got an IP-hopping uncommunicative editor who is making very very many weird edits to WP:BLPs. I previously brought this up here, where the consensus was to revert on sight, as I and a couple of others have been trying to do. But it's hundreds of edits a week, and the edits have frequently been helpfully tidied up by other editors (they don't look like abuse on first glance), making reverting painful and slow.
The IP in question is adding ethnic origin categories to BLPs. But the mental leap required to make these categories even begin to make sense is massive.
For instance, Tom Kenny is a New York comedian. But for the IP, he's English American - possibly because of his surname. He doesn't identify as English American and he isn't called English American by any other source. Dick Van Patten is a New York actor. But his mother had Italian forebears, whilst his father had Dutch ancestors. So, for the IP, he's Italian American and Dutch American. He doesn't identify as Italian or Dutch American and he isn't called Italian or Dutch American by any other source. Victor Webster is a Canadian actor. The IP says - without a source - that he's of Italian, German, English, French, Scottish and Spanish descent. He doesn't identify as any of them and no other source identifies him as any of them.
Now, this isn't the biggest run of vandalism we've ever had, and some of these categories may be correct (although the maths to work it out - American X's grandfather's cousin's daughter married a Mexican, so that makes American X Spanish-American really - is far too complicated for me). The IP in question is non-communicative on any of their talk pages.
Rangeblock the first set of addresses. I don't know if it's possible to edit filter like that without catching other users, particularly if he is indiscriminately hitting BLP pages. Ironholds (talk) 11:38, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Huh. Wireless network. The set covers a lot under it. ...The last two separates up there in the same area but that doesn't necessarily mean much. Not sure how literally to take each IP even if there's the obvious habits of all. Could be someone playing a large trick on us. ........Looks like the range was hit with a 2 week block. Hope that doesn't make anything explode. ♪daTheisen(talk)13:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well if that doesn't solve the problem, can we not just identify problematic IPs and create an edit filter to flag up each and every revision they make so rollbackers and others know to revert on sight? HJMitchellYou rang? 13:55, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The problem would be that the filter would have to hit every IP. A filter hitting IPs after we find them is not much help, since finding an IP doing this sort of crap is five seconds away (via huggle) from reverting it. Ironholds (talk) 14:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
<-Thanks, Rjd0060 - most welcome. Now, a general question for everybody. Having brought this here, having spent weeks reverting (with others), does the community class me as "involved" should the IP return and another block is required? Should I, if it is needed, do it myself... or report it to AIV with a link to this discussion for someone else to do it? ⬅ ❝Redvers❞08:37, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was reporting one myself (not a bad one mind you, so don't worry about the one I reported) but I noticed that Biker Biker has correctly flagged a bunch of especially nasty usernames which should be taken care of. Hoping a wandering admin can take a look. Thanks. 711:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Okay - maybe not a big deal because none have contribs yet (at least none that haven't been deleted)... but still worth a look. 712:04, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
7, you have a username that violates current policy. You are only allowed to use that name because you're "grandfathered" in. Please would you consider not reporting usernames under these circumstances? NotAnIP83:149:66:11 (talk) 18:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The notion that he shouldn't be allowed to report inappropriate usernames because of his own name is rather ridiculous, quite frankly. GlassCobra18:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not getting where you're getting that his username is a policy violation. So far as I can see, the name is not misleading, promotional, offensive, or disruptive, nor is it particularly confusing. How is "7" an inappropriate username? bibliomaniac1503:55, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
NotAnIP, the username filter isn't the same as the username policy. For one thing, the username filter is enforced by a computer, while the username policy is enforced by people. I don't know why the username filter prevents one from registering names that are only made of digits, but it's really not a big deal and it's not in any way a statement about policy. rspεεr (talk) 04:08, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate everyone's comments and I certainly hope that there is no policy violation with my username, however I would like to address NotAnIP's concerns as s/he appears to have had them for a while. When NotAnIP mentioned this as a reason for a neutral vote in my RFA the explanation that someone gave me (sorry, I can't find where) was: after a group of vandals registered usernames that looked like IP addresses or were obfuscated IPs a check was put in place to prevent the user from registering it directly. However as mentioned above these names can still be usurped and policy does not disallow them. Furthermore, I believe these accounts can still be created via ACC with error-checking turned off. I am active over at ACC, as are a lot of other strong editors so I am sure if someone wanted to put this to the test we could. I just did a check, and all single digits 1-9 are already registered with the exception of 4. (doubt that will last long) If someone wants to request an alternate account or wants to CHU'd to that account we can put this to the test. As far as I know, nobody has grandfathered me on anything (and I'm still mad I missed the 18-21 drinking age grandfathering by a few years back in the early 80s). My username was only recently changed and followed the required procedures. I agree with Nja247 that we should all move along now, but I'd also like to address NotAnIPs concerns so this doesn't haunt me (and the 34 others who have single number or letter usernames). 704:31, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One caveat - 4 is available on en.wp - but SUL won't be available as the username is already active on a few other wikimedia projects. 704:34, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Unsupported attacks by Redheylin after warnings
Redheylin(talk·contribs·deleted contribs·logs·filter log·block user·block log) has received multiple different warnings from admins and established editors over a long period of time to cease making personal attacks and unsupported claims about other editors which amount to same. He has continued to do so [56]. Admin action is required here, as the multiple "final warnings" have had no effect.
After an ANI thread was closed by admin Jehochman with a warning to Redheylin [57], I had hoped that the issue would be resolved. However it appears this is not the case, as Redheylin continues to make wholly unsupported claims that I "make changes to a page with a view to making a WP:POINT on another page", that I use "inadequate citations", and that this is "disruptive" [58].
I tend to agree with the above comments, that the editor in question has in fact continued to engage in what is clearly disruptive and tendentious editing, even after being warned repeatedly to cease such behavior. Unfortunately, I also know that I would be perceived as having a conflict of interest in actively imposing the deserved sanctions myself. John Carter (talk) 16:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should invite the editor to comment here. If we cannot reach a mutual agreement with them to stop pestering you, then several of us can certify an RfC, and based upon the results there, we may be able to implement a community sanction forcing the editor to disengage for you or the topic areas where they habitually get into trouble. I recognize that this is a potentially time consuming process, but I think it is the only way to generate a solid consensus for a remedy that will provide lasting relief. Escalating blocks to the user will just result in more grief; I'd rather not kick the can down the road. We should deal with this problem seriously and decisively. JehochmanTalk16:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
All of the above admin/editors have intervened on behalf of Cirt. Cirt has a long history of edit-warring on "new religious movements" and has been in dispute with many editors. I think you'll find that, outside these pages, these things do not happen much to me. On the other hand, as I say, these things "happen to" Cirt with many editors. This experience conditions my impression of this affair. Although I have spent only a short time involved with these pages, Cirt has secured several warnings from admins who allege that all objections to disruption, poor citation, incivility and lack of good faith are "personal attacks" on Cirt, whereas Cirt's own comments are above reproach as she is "highly respected". Well, she may be, but her application for sysop status drew great concern owing to repeated blocks for those very faults on these very articles. I have had no contact with any of these editors other than when they intervened on Cirt's behalf. Their minds were, I fear, made up, and their approaches often questionable. Just now user John Carter has ventured to forbid me ALL bold editing for no clear reason. As for Georgewilliamherbert, here's how we met on my talk page:
Redheylin - It has been suggested that this exchange of correspondence lead to you acting as Off2riorob's proxy, or collaboration between you two, in complaining about Cirt's conduct (your recent ANI posting). Given Off2riorob's recent disagreement with Cirt the combination of behavior is sort of suspicious. Would you like to comment on ANI regarding the nature of this discussion you two had? Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 03:53, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
This is to say, as Cirt has been in edit-war with ANOTHER editor YOU must be acting in bad faith. This IS an assumption of bad faith, based on another editor's asking to confer with me on some matter - I do not know which as the contact never occurred. But the above admin used this allegation to turn MY ANI report on Cirt's misuse of citations, which he avoided by repeatedly asking me to define the way in which the information claimed was not present, into a witch-hunt based on his own unsupported accusations of some unnamed nefarious collaboration. This stuff is hard to take seriously - and that seems to make these folks very mad. That's all. Redheylin (talk) 22:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This comment violates WP:NPA, as it makes attacks not backed up or supported by anything. It violates WP:NOT#FORUM, as it is use of the talk page space for discussion not related to further improvement of this article but rather to increase drama and drag out attacks. And per both of those, it violates WP:BATTLE. I asked Redheylin to remove it. He refused, saying: If you think it's an attack, report it.. Cirt (talk) 02:25, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Disagreement with Cirt's analysis
Stating that content isn't supported by the citations used is a personal attack? Since when? And I don't see saying someone has a POV as ideal, although it's sometimes accurate and worth pointing out. Is Cirt denying he has a point of view? I don't see how any of this behavior is blockable, but Cirt's aggressive battlefield approach has been extraordinarily disruptive. If accusign someone of having a POV is blockable then the diffs of Cirt saying the same thing repeatedly are problematic. He's also made numerous statements ascribing bad faith to others and accusing them of collusion. This ANI report is outrageous and some sanction against Cirt and his suitability to have admin tools may be worth considering. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Since it was about matters which had been resolved already, and the editor in question has continued to basically continued to beat a dead horse, which is a form of tendentious editing, which itself is a violation of WP:DE. I would have to think that calling someone an "outrageous hypocrite" is itself almost certainly a violation of WP:NPA, by the way, as you so clearly do above. Perhaps we are to take that as being an indication you are unable to understand the meaning of "personal attack"? John Carter (talk) 18:27, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here we go again with Cirt's accusations against those he disagrees with. I do not support Redheylin's views and I don't even know what they are fully. I've encouraged him and Cirt to use the dispute resolution process rather than ANI boards and accusations and counter accusations. When someone accuses someone else of doing something they themselves are doing that is by definition hypocrisy. And here again we see Cirt accusing me of something that isn't true after I've explained myself repeatedly (see my talk page). A block of Cirt and a desysop may be appropriate at this point. John Carter is involved and along with GWH has a long history of disruptive and unhelpful stoking the flames and side taking in this type of dispute. I encourage both of them to try to resolve disputes fairly and collegially instead of going after one side while failing to enforce the same standards on other parties (ie. their buddies). ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But there are reasonable and acceptable terms which could be used instead of "hypocrisy", and you have yet completely and utterly failed to even offer a weak justification of the word "outrageous", which in context makes it a even more pronounced attack. I have to assume by failing to address that point you are in effect acknowledging misconduct. If that is so, the reasonable action to take would be to correct the mistake by removing it, rather than offering a rather self-serving defense of yourself. John Carter (talk) 19:05, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
When I quoted ChildofMidnight on his talk page:
"That's one of the reasons I didn't think it was important for me to read up on all the discussions, articles, and issues involved."
I pointed out to him that unless he reads discussions, articles and the issues involved, he's not really qualified to comment on those disputes and also he has not been asked to give input on these disputes it would be best if he stayed away from them. CoM, for your own good I would advise you to focus yourself on the articles you edit and the disputes related to those articles othewise what you're doing may be seen as disruption. It looks like you're ignoring all the diffs that Cirt has pointed out above which include comments about Redheylin's conduct from other editors. --Matt57(talk•contribs)19:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:NPA I have amended the subtitle on this thread. Will not edit war if the poster wishes to restore the original wording, but please consider that a calm and factual expression of one's opinion is more likely to be persuasive. Durova37119:16, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Diffs please? It should be noted that John Carter is involved and has a long history of disruptive and confrontational behavior that I have pointed out to him.
The irony of this whole outrageous thread is that Redheylin has moved on to other projects and the diffs are days old. I have no idea why Cirt is continuing his disruptive campaigning and battlefield behavior. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:06, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For the love of God/Buddha/FSM, yes - What this stems from is Cirt's issuance of warnings to ChildofMidnight months back, due to violations of Obama-article Arbcom restrictions. CoM has a long history in unrelated policy discussions of directing antagonism towards those that have had to use the stick against him in the past. Tarc (talk) 19:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Tarc was warned for his personal attacks and incivility related to the Obama articles. He was recently blocked for edit warring on those pages and has been trolling my contributions for a long time inserting himself in discussions where he has not involvement to pursue a vendetta. If John Carter and George William Herbert cared even a tiny bit about civility and stopping the battlefield disruption engaged in by POV warriors they would have put a stop to Tarc's behavior long ago. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:12, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Distortions and half-truths are very unbecoming of you, CoM. That ArbCom case gave a mild reminder to myself and several others to be a bit less snippy in edit summaries, that is all. Yes, 1 24h block (shortened to "time served" after ~15 or so) in several years of editing. I'll match that up against your checkered log any day. Finally, I have AN/I watchlisted, and contribute here regularly, there is no stalking. When you name pops up in a header, I'll certainly pop in to see what's up and provide evidence of your past transgressions and egregiously bad behavior as warranted. I have not done anything wrong by participating here, so please stop with the misdirection. Tarc (talk) 19:23, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If the editor simply copy-pastes the entire bottom window to the top, they can. Also, even when I've picked out my edits to paste into the new version, I can sometimes delete the last contribution (when the last contribution was SineBot). --ThejadefalconSing your songThe bird's seeds19:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That isn't what happened here. The last edit was by john carter, but protonk's comment is the one deleted. I've seen this happen as well, but its always undoing the last edit, not some random comment.--Crossmr (talk) 21:24, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support block of CoM or any other action to make him stop trying to solve people's disputes when he is not asked to give his input. Below he's asking for de-adminning of 3 admins. Only a block will solve this in my opinion, or a warning to stop. --Matt57(talk•contribs)19:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support permanent restriction of CoM to articles directly concerning food. CoM's presence on political and administrative pages is pure useless drama, and the same horns tooted over and over. PhGustaf (talk) 20:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose indef block, Support block of any other time period other than indef. I understand your position CoM but you have to learn that you butt-in in every ANI conversation. Especially if you are not involved or you don't not know what is going on. Im reluctant to support an indef block as he has not done anything harmful to the encyclopedia though.--Coldplay ExpértLet's talk19:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you're going to block for not knowing what's going on then you should start with yourself Coldplay. Your statement that I'm involved in "every" ANI thread is obviously ridiculous and false. I am very selective and most of my time is spent working on articles. I am well aware of the situation having been involved in the previous discussion and have tried to help the involved parties work through the dispute resolution process as the discussion on my talk page, the content noticeboard, and Redheylin's talk page indicate. It has been pointed out REPEATEDLY to Cirt that the dispute was over content and required no admin intervention. Cirt was asked REPEATEDLY to stop making bad faith accusations, yet he continues to go on the attack and to engage in disruption. I edit in good faith and I try to offer helpful comments. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:42, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well I tried at least (watch him find a rollback mistake of mine and request my rollback be taken away) CoM If I were you I would tell the community that you are sorry and don't butt-in were your comments are not needed. PS im not an admin.--Coldplay ExpértLet's talk19:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You wrote: "I understand your position CoM but you have to learn that you butt-in in every ANI conversation.". Thats what I've been trying to tell CoM on his talk as nicely as I could but it looks like this will end up in some kind of action since he's not stopping and he escalates disputes in his attempts to resolve them. --Matt57(talk•contribs)19:39, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I believe a substantial block of COM is called for. Calling for de-adminning three respected admins because he disagrees with their positions is disruptive, over-the-top drama that gives Wikipedia a black eye. Enough! Jusdafax19:44, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No one said it would be an indef block. The question is whether something should be done. This poll wont go anywhere though, like most consensus seeking ventures on WP, but hopefully this will bring a change in CoM and Redheylin's conduct because now they know that a number of editors would like to see that change. --Matt57(talk•contribs)22:05, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Content creation is not a license to freely make personal attacks and harass. This is like saying it's right to pardon people like Bernie Maddoff simply because they're educated. -FASTILY(TALK)05:30, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I do not know who ChildofMidnight is or how s/he became involved, but I do know that others on the ANI page agreed with me (see the talk-page barnstar) that this editor has mediated with kindness, good faith, good humour and accuracy here, and it is getting ever harder to avoid the conclusion that it is these very qualities that have caused these present attacks.
In order to forestall any penalty - such as would be in my view an injustice brought about partly by myself - it is only decent that I offer this forum myself to resign for any decided period from wiki-editing. I know the worth of my contributions, I have nothing but contempt for anything and anyone that seeks to prevent or disrupt dedicated, good-faith editing in pursuit of narrow points of view, but if wikipedia cannot find a consensus of contributors able to see this matter in such a light, I prefer to resign rather than be responsible for the blocking of an editor who, without previous contact or article-involvement and without any obvious rancour towards any other party, but rather the opposite, has offered such a high standard of contribution on this page. Take this as oppose, I suppose. Redheylin (talk) 21:38, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Going by what an editor and his buddies say about him on his talk page is just about the worst way one can form a judgment about an editor's actions." - I said "this shows (and the present page shows) that I am not alone in the first impression I got". Somehow what I said must have got twisted in your mind - maybe it's something to do with Obama - I do not care. I am simply saying, I prefer to go myself than have another editor blocked for what seems to me clear-headed, mediative wikipedianism. And that stands: that is my offer. Redheylin (talk) 22:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose . Calling for excessive blocks against editors in this way is plain silly. This whole drama should be closed, there is nothing actually going on here, one editor disagrees with another editors standpoint and a bit of adult communication has occurred, but there has been nothing excessive here... (imo). Off2riorob (talk) 21:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment- I would only say that, as the originator of this thread, I never gave an indication of the time span of the block I proposed, and I actually have no real agreement with the lengthy periods proposed above. However, I can and do believe engaging in blatant personal attacks, as this editor has repeatedly done, on noticeboards no less, has to receive some degree of sanction. John Carter (talk) 22:23, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
@Off2riorob. And what good will that solve anything? This only puts off the problem for later (sort of like how the US congress was putting off the healthcare debate for so long) and inevitably, we will have to deal with it. CoM's track record is strongly suggestive this will only happen again if it runs unchecked. -FASTILY(TALK)05:35, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please no, everyone. This whole drama is not productive. Blocking one of our best creators of interesting new articles from namespace is not going to help the project, nor is continuing this whole bruhaha. Let's go back to working on articles, please. Jonathunder (talk) 23:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Even the good editors (Betacommand, ScienceApologist, Ottava) don't get a free pass in the end for their uncivil disruptions. Giving a simply prolific editor a free pass for the same would be setting the bar quite a bit lower for acceptable behavior. Tarc (talk) 04:23, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose block. While the editor was, on one occasion in the past, rather impolite to me, the editor: (a) respected my request to stop; (b) seemsto try to be genuinely civil (although more success in this regard would be better); (c) is a very productive editor. Regarding the last point, it is my understanding that the issue of productivity vs. civility is an open ArbCom discussion (albeit regarding another editor) - until this issue is resolved (and policy updated), I think it fair to give productivity some weight in deliberation of blocks. I wish established editors, who should know better, would be nicer to other editors, but acknowledge that WP:AGF is really hard, sometimes - I'm assuming that something other than blocks and bans can lead to improvements in general civility. Cheers, --4wajzkd02 (talk) 23:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
comment can someone point me to the policy page where it says if you're productive you're allowed to ignore other polices and guidelines?--Crossmr (talk) 00:13, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
which is an extraordinary circumstance involving the second most productive editor last year, who is not under prior ArbCom sanctions, as CoM is. There are remarkable differences between the two. John Carter (talk) 01:09, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"not under prior ArbCom sanctions" - fair enough. My understanding from that case, however, was that ArbCom is considering some response to the appearance that contributions can trump civility requirements. I would like there to be some clear mandate on this (and I am in favor of rules applying equally to everyone) - but my view of reality is that the rules don't apply equally to everyone right now. --4wajzkd02 (talk) 01:27, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
While ArbCom may be considering such sanctions in that particular case, that is not necessarily reason to believe that they would necessarily be extended beyond that case. Also, as that is an existing case, and likely to be resolved fairly soon, even an indefinite block, which as I have now said I would myself oppose, could very likely be shortened by that ruling. I really don't think it makes sense to not act on the basis of current problems because of something ArbCom is factually only considering in one other extant case. John Carter (talk) 01:49, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, block The whole point of a final warning is that if the user does not stop violating the policy after a final warning they get a block, that is why we call them final warnings. When we give a final warning and the disruptive behavior continues we need to follow through. Civility is simply not optional, and nobody has ever gotten consensus that it should not be blockable, or that contributors of content should get a free ride. I hope this discussion is read by the acting admin in light of policy and not as a head count. Chillum01:31, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose idenfinitely blocking per User:A_Nobody#Favorite_userpages on which the subject is listed and as he has largely been nice to me. Please note, I am not condoning incivility or personal attacks and strongly urge that all involved refrain from any such edits, but it seems unseemly for me to speak (write) against someone who likes basset hounds and has generally been nice to me. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk01:35, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I tend to agree, particularly considering the somewhat unusual nature of several of the comments here. I note that people have repeatedly opposed only an indefinite block, which I myself, the originator of this thread also oppose by the way, but that those other comments are made in such a way as to give the appearance of being opposed to any block. Like I said, I don't think an indefinite block is called for. I was myself thinking of something along the spectrum of 1 week to 1 month. If I had meant an indefinite block, I would have specified that. I did not state any terms because I did not think under the circumstances I should be the one to suggest them. I should also note that my own suggestions are not necessarily binding to the rest of you either. Perhaps in this way delimiting the terms we might be able to stop the extremist posts and actually reach some sort of solution to this matter. John Carter (talk) 01:44, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose block ChildofMidnight is an excellent contributor to wikipedia. Just because a few people dislike some of his actions does not justify preventing this exceptionally fine editor from improving the encyclopedia. Wikipedia would be much worse off if the block happens. Grundle2600 (talk) 03:33, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So because I've made a few edits, you would be okay with me calling you an idiot or leveling other kinds of insults or attacks in your direction because I disagree with you?--Crossmr (talk) 05:17, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be okay with you saying those things, regardless of how many edits you had made in the past. I certainly wouldn't want you blocked or banned. Grundle2600 (talk) 06:26, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that kind of sums up ChildofMidnight's approach to editing; he can be productive and sugary sweet in one forum, and then positively vile and destructive only minutes later in another venue. This good hand/bad hand approach is the epitome of disruptive. Tarc (talk) 04:23, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That is a bizarre comment, given that Atama's and Cirt's comments related to the same actions by CoM; what Atama praised as diplomacy, Cirt castigated as "interjecting". Go figure. --JN46604:38, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Of his last 500 edits, I count 44 AN/I edits, with the majority of the remaineder being front page edits on numerous articles. Blocking an editor because you disagree with, at most, less than 10% of his activity is counter-productive and unnecessarily harsh. If CoM's AN/I contributions are a problem, then a reminder should suffice, especially for such a prodigious content creator. Throwaway85 (talk) 04:18, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Endorse, unfortunately. Child of Midnight has been given more than enough chances, and yet is granted amnesty each time. CoM is undoubtedly familiar with our core policies and despite the ridiculous number of blocks, continues to repeatedly flaunt our policies, particularity when there are opportunities for drama mongering. Why, how many ANI threads bearing CoM's name are there? 10, 15, 20? It's almost as if this user is above Wikipedia's policies! We're here to build an encyclopedia, not make drama. Wikipedia is not meant to be, and was never meant to be a "4chan" or "Encyclopedia Drammatica". -FASTILY(TALK)05:21, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. CoM can be lovely one moment and vile the next - the work he's done with a "lovely" persona should not exclude his vileness. Ironholds (talk) 10:10, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Perhaps a topic ban-like what MoP suggested-would be a better idea. Unless it is an obvious breech in policy (Editwaring, Uncivility ect), CoM cannot be engaged in ANI disscussions unless he himself is affected or under discussion.--Coldplay ExpértLet's talk11:26, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Actually all that is needed is that ANI discussions initiated by the user and specifically found meritless may then be followed by a one week block ... so this is an oppose as presented. Overkill is not warranted. Collect (talk) 13:02, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Initiated by who, CoM himself? As far as I can recall, he never has initiated a discussion in these parts. The disruption stems from his participation in the threads of others, most notably when he hounds admins who have taken action against him in the past. Tarc (talk) 13:30, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The extraordinarily disruptive and confrontational approach to editing taken by these admins is inconsistent with our civility policy and our core values. I think some sort of action may be warranted to rein in their behavior, especially in light of the loss of so many content contributors. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:08, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've had some complaints about your comments in the past Protonk, but I haven't seen anything too outrageous from you recently. In fact I agreed with you on a subject recently, which came as something of a surprise to me (sorry I can't remember off the top of my head what it was). So keep up the good work. I'm optimistic that you may be on the right track going forward. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
CoM, I think you're going overboard now and perhaps need some kind of disciplinary action to make you realize you're on the wrong path. None of these admins has involved themselves in any objectionable behavior. --Matt57(talk•contribs)19:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
CoM is also failing to follow even basic etiquette now, such as well, notifying at least me of my being the subject to a thread here. My terms of desysoping are quite straightforward. I have said I will ask an uninvolved administrator to review the actions in question and go by their judgement. I am therefore asking User:Protonk to review the complaint. Nor did CoM give notice to Cirt of Georgewilliamherbert, or even give the latter of even using his full name. I have now myself rectifed that clear violation of etiquette, considering CoM apparently had no interest in doing so. John Carter (talk) 19:16, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You're not aware of this thread? You just left me a note about it on my talk page. Is this type of dishonest behavior allowed from admins? I don't think I'm going overboard at all. I think this type of outrageous conduct is why we are losing so many content contributors and why have so many disgruntled editors. This is a content dispute that was over and it's been reinflamed by Cirt's relentless battlefield campaigning. His accusations and assumptions of bad faith against me are almost as bad as Tarc's. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:24, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is basic courtesy' to at least notify people that you are requesting that they be desysoped. Although you had the time to post the above comment, you apparently didn't think it worth notifying either Cirt or Georgewilliamherbert of this request. I think I'll let your own choice of actions speak here. John Carter (talk) 19:32, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In response to the allegation that I made a false statement, I note this quote from the top of the page: "You must notify any user that you discuss." CoM gave no such notice. I also note that Protonk has declined to review my actions. I therefore request any uninvolved admin seeing this thread to do so. I will abide by that decision. John Carter (talk) 19:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I already requested that you refactor your false statement once, and instead of doing so you now repeat it. I notified the editor who wasn't aware of the thread and I'm happy to provide a diff if necessary. Please refactor both your false statements pronto and cease your disruptive and civility violating behavior. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm closing this entire thread. This has degenerated into mud-slinging, finger-pointing and bickering. Nothing useful is happening. Tan | 3919:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't been involved at all here and don't know what it's about. But I just felt the need to comment on the demand for notification: I believe that courtesy only applies to editors who weren't already participating in a given thread. John appears to have been aware of this thread already, having commented within it. I don't really think admonishing CoM for not notifying him is warranted, and probably goes to show how much this thread has deteriorated into a slugfest on all sides. Equazcion(talk) 19:56, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
(sorry, I conflicted with the closing -- feel free to move it into the collapse) Equazcion(talk) 19:58, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
My statement was made on the basis of a new discussion taking place regarding me, and Cirt, and Georgewilliamherbert, specifically calling for us to be desysoped. It has been my understanding, perhaps erroneous, that if one were to start such a discussion, even as a subthread of a thread of which they were already aware, that, considering they themselves were not the subject of the prior thread, that the courtesy ruling extended there too. To my eyes, that would be the logical call in cases such as these, because even if one had commented on one section before, that does not mean that they would necessarily think to return to that page, particularly if they were involved in doing something else which might cause them to miss the discussion. If I am wrong in that, I apologize. And I do note, after the fact, that CoM did give Georgewilliamherbert some apparent indication that he was to be desysoped, although inclusion of that notice in such a literally parenthetical way made it at least to me unclear whether that were a warning of a request or a reference to a previous discussion calling for that desysoping. I apologize for my misunderstanding of that matter, but, if anyone does see this discussion, think it might be a good idea to amend the top of the page to indicate that notice should be given any time a new thread regarding an individual, or subthread in which they are themselves not clearly named as a party, would be a good idea. John Carter (talk) 20:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That'd be some major WP:CREEP. Erring on the side of over-notification is of course the best idea, probably, but my point was that it wasn't so clearcut an underhanded or negligent tactic as to warrant being admonished, is all. It more seems like you were peeved for other reasons (probably understandable) and tacked this on. No offense intended, I might've reacted similarly in this situation. Equazcion(talk) 20:35, 2 Dec 2009 (UTC)
Actually, the first bit of it makes sense. Leave it for a bit to see if something good comes of it (Wikipedia might get a bit more drama but then the BBC hasn't suffered for that). GARDEN20:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
When this finally fizzles out, please ping me with any useful resolutions that occur as a result of this bullshit. I won't hold my breath. Tan | 3920:39, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This particular subsection should be closed, yes. Quibbling about who notified who when is getting a bit pedantic, and a call by the subject of the previous section for desysops of admins he has disagreements with is beyond disruptive. More eyes should be on "Requested block of User:ChildofMidnight", which has not seen a single oppose (other than an oppose of just the indef part). Tarc (talk) 21:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest that what might come out of it that would be useful would be a system of sanctions against using ANI and other such pages as a means of disruption, so that wanton, disruptive, mischievous or POV-based actions would be subject to sanction without further action, and that this would particularly extend to admins who work in packs, who engage in baiting, side-taking, gang-buddyism and summary threats, with the ready possibility of sysop suspension at least. Otherwise these pages just become a sophisticated means of edit-warring that removes the debate from the subject of the article, which is clearly to the advantage of the weaker argument, and replaces it with lawyering, policy manipulation, dirty tricks and lynch-mob mentality, encouraging time-wasting argumentation at the expense of what we're supposedly here to do. To those who habitually represent this kind of sentiment as a "personal attack" - you know what to do. Redheylin (talk) 01:53, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's okay, CoM. When I was new I was way overly arrogant and headstrong. You'd be better if you take a deep breath... take a break for a few days.. realize no one is perfect, and assume good faith by just being nice and not jumping the gun to demand sysopping perfectly fine admins. k? :) A8UDI11:34, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Proposed: Redheylin topic banned from Cirt
Preamble: I don't think anything remotely good is coming from this sequence of events.
Proposal:
Redheylin(talk·contribs·deleted contribs·page moves·block user·block log) has engaged in sustained disruption regarding Administrator Cirt. Redheylin is henceforth topic banned, interpreted broadly, from User:Cirt - may not respond to comments on Wikipedia, leave user talk page comments, mention, file ANI reports on, or revert article content changes by Cirt. Redheylin is not banned from common articles but must use dilligence to avoid responding to or confronting Cirt. This administrative sanction shall last for 90 days after enactment.
Administrator User:Cirt is deemed an involved party and requested to disengage equally on-wiki from Redheylin, without finding of fault.
Oppose For posterity's sake, if this course of action is to be proposed then it should not be proposed by one of the parties named in the initial complaint. Throwaway85 (talk) 03:22, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A. I'm not involved in the original complaint - Redheylin is upset with me for having intervened in the original complaint as an uninvolved administrator and attempting to resolve it; per WP:UNINVOLVED this specifically does not cause an admin to become involved and disqualified from actions. I have nothing to do with the content dispute that initiated this.
B. Anyone, even involved parties, can propose a community response.
C. As a community proposal, I'm not using any administrator powers to do anything here, anyways.
Do you believe that this is truly not past the time at which we need to disengage the parties who are butting heads? Do you believe that anything but further disruption will follow from these two continuing to interact on-wiki? If you believe that their relationship will suddenly become collegial and productive, working towards consensus, that's a perfectly great reason to oppose. But I believe the alternative is not only likely but obviously already true.
You seem to be indicating there that this goes back to bad blood between Cirt and you and others in the latest Arbcom case on Scientology... This does not make sense as a reason to avoid separating the parties now. If anything it seems to argue more strongly for it... Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:04, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Previously arbcom sanctioned editors showing up here without prior involvement, who are personally involved in the topic (Osho / Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh ) which seems to actually underly the dispute, seems to provide strong evidence for Cirt's comment above that this is not tied to any editor but is a group activity by Rajneesh followers. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:35, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
George, to the best of my recollection, the only editors to have commented here and to have been parties to WP:ARBSCI are Will Beback, Cirt, John Carter and I. Will and Cirt presented evidence against me at ARBSCI, and John Carter supported me. John Carter and I were, more recently, in broad agreement at the Matisse arbcom case, and generally get along well. Will and I have our ups and downs, but he knows that I respect him as an editor, and he has been kind enough once or twice to say the same about me. This dispute is not about any fault lines left over from ARBSCI. --JN46604:31, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Are you denying the claims made in the ARBSCI case that you are a member of the Rajneesh movement? Arbcom made a finding of fact citing Rick Ross' claim to that effect, and your rejoinder to Ross did not acknowledge or deny that part of the claim. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:38, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I do deny that. For your information, I could cite you diffs where I have been accused of being a follower of Prem Rawat and of Scientology as well. --JN46604:41, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In response to Jayen's comment about ARBSCI, there is one other editor from that case who has commented here: the filing party; myself. In order to avoid appearance of partiality I have commented only procedurally. It is an example which, in good faith, might be best if others also followed. Durova37106:43, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Cirt's a hardworking, detailed, resourceful article writer, as I've said many times. I for my part have done a great deal of work on "Indian" articles, including recategorising all Indian music, providing illustrations, maintaining a watchlist and rewriting quite a few major articles such as Kabir panth, Meera, Ravidas, Kaula, Saiva Siddhanta and a dozen more. Indian religion has its share of factions and fanaticisms, but the record shows thousands of my edits on dozens of articles and very little friction. I am sorry to say I have found it impossible to reach consensus with Cirt, who seems to find a "personal attack" in every issue raised. I am absolutely capable of conciliation but, like Jayen and every other editor I've seen working on this group of articles, find myself in cases like this time after time, find myself reverted, insulted or met with blank denial. Perhaps it is a failure of mine also - we talk straight and blunt where I come from and won't be bullied - but I can neither negotiate nor walk away from articles that, according to my lights, are being subjected to a strongly negative POV. From my own view, with my own wiki history, I'd welcome any kind of oversight or mediation that achieved balanced articles, constantly improving by consensus. I am sorry, though, but I cannot perceive myself as solely to blame for this affair, and all the admins of wiki and all the blocks they can block cannot change that. However, if a way can be found to achieve harmony without abandoning the said articles to a single editor's viewpoint, I think you'll find me very tractable indeed, because I believe in what I am doing just as much as the other guy. When we are both working for the same goal.... so I'd ask for a more balanced summary of this affair, and, if I show impatience or even contempt, I apologise: I do not mean any offence, I do not have any POV to push, I just want a better wiki and a modicum of civility on the side. Thanks. Redheylin (talk) 04:33, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Redheylin has been saying things (diffs above are evidence) that a number of people have objected to. Cirt on the other hand has never engaged in personal attacks or undesirable behavior as far as I know for the little time I've known him. Thats why Cirt was able to collect diffs as evidence against Redheylin while I bet no one can do the same for Cirt. I came new into this whole Osho related business only a few days ago. I was impressed by Cirt's constant patience while dealing with Redheylin and Off2riorob and even Jayen in the old days ([65]). I suggest we give 2 or 3 more weeks to Redheylin and see if things are still the same as before. If they are, then it would be time to file an RfC and go from there. Cirt should not be punished by disallowing him to talk to Redheylin about Osho-related articles because they both edit these articles. Its Redheylin who has to improve his conduct. Red its simple: stay focused on the article, not the editor. See how Cirt does it. People have been editing controversy related articles with differing viewpoints for a long time and it can be done. --Matt57(talk•contribs)05:17, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose sanction as presented. This is not about Cirt and Redheylin, but about Rajneesh. Any attempt to institute this ban would be counterproductive, because it would, basically, be completely dependent on the level of Cirt's activity involving that content at any given time. There are ways to deal effectively with matters like this. One is to call in other editors who deal with religion. I think I got involved because of Cirt's doing that, myself being an active religion editor. Should that fail, in all honesty, either an RfC or formal mediation would have a much better chance of effectiveness, and, with any luck, much less rancor. "Straight and blunt speaking" and its equivalents are as often as not used as euphemisms for other things which have policy or guideline pages named after them. Cirt has probably been subjected to more harrasment than most any of us for his contributions to wikipedia, includinhg off-wiki harrassment, and I can and do understand how it might give him, at times, a quick trigger finger. I'm not saying this is one of those times, however. I haven't reviewed the matter to that degree. In all honesty, I think the best approach in this instance would be for both to disengage for a while, maybe file an RfC or mediation on whatever they decide the core disagreement is, and go on from there. John Carter (talk) 14:11, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Re: Jayen's "Yes, I do deny that", why then do you still use your sanyassin title? how come you don't make a statement about this on your user page (like Jalal). From information I see online, you left the movement following a leadership rift, (Keerti V Osho Foundation International?) can you clarify this for us? I think it would be helpful to know exactly where you stand on this matter. Semitransgenic (talk) 14:20, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Today, in Macedonians (Greeks), Alex Makedon has started to make some dubious and unexplained edits, which I cannot revert all the time. This user has been accused of suckpuppetry and has been blocked several times in the past for his edits in Macedonia-related articles. Could anyone help? - Sthenel (talk) 16:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It would appear to me that there is more at work here than some strange edits.
This "does" look like a normal content dispute. What content? ...I have no idea. The first "revert" here is a grammar/syntax correction. At least it looks like that. There's no reason to not think it's just that. Entirely normal. On this, I can't see how you could give a 3RR violation to Sthenel as has been suggested. If anyone would like to make the case that to AN3 on that, I guess I can't stop you. Ironically, that was minor, but User:Alex Makedon marked most all his edits as minor. Unusual when actually changing things, yes?
The word in question at start was "region" at start. As to why someone would place a {{fact}} next to several things in the lead sentence and repeatedly garble and mess up the line mentioning disambiguation, I don't know. Then I ran into this at the article talk page from nearly a day ago. To summarize-- this editor is literally asking for proof of existence of these persons. As in, are they people? Toying around with "region" is an attempt to remove the idea of the persons bring from that land, and replace with the fact that some people accidentally happen to live in a same place and they may or may not share some common traits. Trying to strip any persons of their concept of 'homeland' has, well, not been looked upon favorably here or in history. User:Sthenel reverted an edit that made the article subject look like Prince. Fair. Edits get weirder with insertions of {{fact}} placed next to statements of ethnicity. Apparently "are a regional population group of ethnic Greeks" needs a source. A bit more, and one more revert. Both users are at 3RR, stop.
The talk and edit style have the MO of the indefinitely blocked User:Pyraechmes who has an endless history of edits regarding Greece and Macedonia which came to a peak on this where that string of edits would appear to be literally stripping the ethnicity off of people. This seems to have started the process toward blocking. I reverted the page to last version before this all. No content from other users were lost; article body was not changed. I've exhausted all I can do, and though you can leave me a message for questions I think I covered everything (just in shortened form.
This needs a serious looking over. Help, please. ♪daTheisen(talk) 21:19, 2 December 2009 (UTC) -- Few edits: ♪daTheisen(talk)22:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Pyraechmes has repeatedly asked to be unblocked, most recently asking in October to be allowed back. But the Alex Makedon account has been around since 2007, longer than Pyraechmes. I can't imagine that an editor would create a sock, have the sock banned, then have the sock beg to be unbanned while their original account remains free to edit. That doesn't make sesnse.
As to the racism question, I just don't see it. Oddness, maybe their edits aren't great, but it still seems like a content dispute and I agree with Toddst1 that this needs to be hashed out through dispute resolution, not administrator intervention. -- Atama頭00:30, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No. I'm familiar with Alex Makedon's editing pattern and he has no love for Greeks, trust me. This really was flagrant trolling on his part, battleground mentality taken to extremes. Such nationalistic flaming is not acceptable: under WP:ARBMAC (he must be sick of the sight of that case) he's blocked (yet again, this is something like his 7th block on 2 accounts?) for 1 month, and topic-banned for 3 months from all Balkans-related articles.
Sthenel, I'm going to let this one slide. You were reverting edits of truly terrible quality, yes, but in the future please report such disruption before you run up 4 reverts. This is the only warning you will get. Happens again, and I will block you and put you on revert parole. Understood? Moreschi (talk) 01:25, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Moreschi for clearing things up before I had to try and explain the whole of the situation for everybody. It would have taken some time to do so. Datheisen, or anyone else interested can check out the history of WP:ARBMAC2 and the naming convention WP:NCMAC that was upgraded from what was previously a centralized discussion page. Fortunately the situation is stabilized now, not thanks to edits like the ones from Alex Makedon. Shadowmorph^"^
just to set the record straight:
Pyraechmes was on the other side of the argument than Alex Makedon. His disruptive edits were not about denying the subject of the article but rather about the purity of the article. He was picking up whether certain people should be presented in the article if they weren't of - I don't know - proven Greek Macedonian blood, maybe. So he was on the extreme of the other side.
I think Sthenel did 3 reverts not 4. I just checked it out carefully. It seems to me they are 3 but anyway Sthenel should remain his cool at all times because edit wars like that escalate sooner or later with the involvement of other "allies" and then there is no telling who reverted who how many times. I think he was fairly mild and civil in his responses even though he was dealing with a highly aggressive editor so I give him that.
About the racism thing, I can't say I have met myself with the best treatment since I created the article in question and after I had to declare myself a Macedonian (i.e. a Greek from Macedonia, Greece) during the ARBMAC2 Arbitration case. But to be fair I think Alex was more like acting along the course of the naming dispute and wasn't acting because of racial reasons. He was being discriminating though. He seems to have a strong politically anti-Greece attitude. Hope he chills out. Thanks. Shadowmorph^"^01:48, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
An eager editor has apparently built an impressive package of content. The articles all seem to be at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Quinton Caruthers which also lists a template and category. My hunch is the closer can delete those as well but those items are currently untagged as potentially being deleted. Any suggestions as to the path of least drama? -- Banjeboi20:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If a category includes no articles I think it can be deleted. Not sure on a template, but a Miscellaneous for Deletion can always be done after the AfD closes. No rush. I think it's best to let things run their natural course. FYI, sometimes editors can be sensitive about postings regarding active AfDs because they think it can sway discussion or be used as a form of canvassing. I'm not accusing you of anything, and I know this post was made in good faith, but I do think it's worth being aware of. Perhaps best to follow up after it closes or to ask the questions more generally as a policy matter unrelated to a specific case (although even that can be touchy with all the paranoia going around). :) ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure you mean well however that doesn't address any of my questions concerning this case involving an AfD that is cross-listing an CfD, RfD and Tfd without actually tagging those items for XfD. As they are all dependent on the articles, which all seem likely to be deleted, is this an IAR where the AfD can be cited for deleting these other items as well rather than sending each of those through SNOW processes. -- Banjeboi01:08, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Disruptive Editing and User Talk page abuse by Scientus
For the past several weeks, user Scientus has been obstructively editing the Alan Grayson page. He has persisted in editing in blatantly NPOV language and extensive soap boxing. Multiple times, we have reached a consensus on the talk page, only to have Scientus ignore our discussions and then persist in his NPOV editing. The best example of this is in this section: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Alan_Grayson#More_NPOV_language_from_Scientus
Scientus has additionally persisted in filling my talk page up with unconstructive allegations against me. These are summarized here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Trilemma&diff=329253240&oldid=329038550
I would additionally like to request an IP check of user Sam Albrecht, whose only editing was on the Alan Grayson page and whose NPOV language was suspiciously similar to Scientus'. I also have concerns that, given the doggedness with which Scientus has persisted in his NPOV edits, he may be officially connected with Representative Grayson. Trilemma (talk) 20:39, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Might be a little heavy handed, at least on 359's part. While he may have been heading towards a 4th revert (which obviously we won't know about), it does seem to ignore the rather long history of disruption that Mr X appears to have on F1 articles. A stern word might have worked for both of them just as well. Though it is done with now. --Narson ~ Talk • 21:01, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The way I see it is that I can't apply a sanction unevenly when an edit war is in progress, hence both were blocked. Both have been around long enough to know the 3RR by now, hence the short block. That said, I'll be ameniable to an unblock request as long as both editors realise that edit warring is wrong, and there is discussion of the issue on the article's talk page (none so far) to obtain consensus. Mjroots (talk) 21:06, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm inclined to drift toward The359 (on the content! blocks are fine). There was a perfectly acceptable existing version and no call for that information. ...It is really ridiculous extra information. Would be kind of like reporting the results of scrimmage games during NFL practice. +1 on content, -1 on attitude? No matter. Wikipedia is not a timekeeper, never mind that we don't do databases or endless info collection anyway, and neither seem to want to get along. ...Just let the blocks run off, or if someone is to unblock it should be both just to keep whatever type of zen balance in data formatting there should be. If you inform them both that their counterpart is also blocked for a day they'll probably relax. ♪daTheisen(talk)21:36, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Officially Mr X, I have not given myself superiority to dish out edit bans. The tools were granted to me, as with all admins, by the consensus of the community in an RFA. WP:3RR is a bright-line rule, which you broke. You have been around long enough to know this, hence the short block. I checked the talk page of the article being warred over and saw no discussion there. Mjroots (talk) 21:39, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Copied text ends
IP used for reverts in Israeli-Palestinian disputes
By the looks of things, this is an experienced user who's reverting things with an anti-Israeli perspective (they call it "consensus") without logging into their account. Reasons could be from laziness all the way up to being a topic banned or site banned editor undercutting their sanction. In any event, such conduct can only induce similar behavior from the other side of the conflict and could easily degenerate any discussion into an electric fence gaming where everyone's trying to figure out who's using an IP to get his favorite version into the article. Here's a sample of said IP fighting in such a manner with another IP and, just recently, this IP has made a revert on an article I'm discussing issues on that is very sensitive and could easily degenerate. Putting it succinctly, I'm concerned with said IP and was wondering if there's any suggestions/thoughts on the issue as how to handle such drive by possibly banned editors best. Warm regards, JaakobouChalk Talk23:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your question is vague and unspecified. The answer (to your non-question "I .. was wondering if there's any suggestions/thoughts on the issue as how to ..." etc etc), so far, is: 1st: Please specify --illustrated with diffs; multiple ones if you want to point a 'trend'--. 2nd: no, there are no "suggestions/thoughts" at this level. PS You are not new on Wikipedia. -DePiep (talk) 00:46, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This matter is both a case of vandalism and possible sockpuppetry and so for ease am going with this more general board.
Could someone else help me with watching Karaoke Revolution (2009 video game)? I keep reverting IP and new user borderline racist and homophobic vandalism to that page, including such absurdities as:
They're clearly the same editor, so I've given the IP a short block as well, though the autoblock from the username block should've taken care of that anyway. Black Kite00:04, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, sounds reasonable. I posted a request at the Video Game Wiki Project for other members to perhaps help watch list as well should the problem re-occur after protection ends. Take care! Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk00:14, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This type of abuse is the reason why people can never really trust Wikipedia.
I am posting this because I want other administrators, who are not so corrupt and morally bankrupt, to see this behavior for what it is: Poison to the reputation of Wikipedia.
Will someone please review the behavior of Gamaliel regarding the blocking of the account I just created, Technical_reasons. I posted anonymously to the talk page of this article [[66]], which User:Gamaliel then deleted and immediately banned the IP I had posted from. I then created an account in response to his concerns of anonymity and reposted my topic in the discussion page, which user:Gamaliel then called wp:van and removed. After contacting him on his talk page, he then proceeded to ban my account citing block evasion. An indef block with no coherent reasoning given.
When I posted on his talk page that I felt that he was misusing his admin privileges, the posting was immediately removed by newyorkbrad(talk) with no reason given. I reposted my concerns on Gamaliel's page and another admin, Craftyminion(talk) immediately removed it again, but this time with the potential threat "Don't do this..." Perhaps I should have listened to the voice of the Wikimafia because my account was quickly banned when I tried to follow the WP guidelines regarding my concerns. I assume the threat was in reference for trying to bring to light the unseemly abuse of Wikipedia and admin powers.
I'm not sure whether Fastily is doing that because he is deliberately or accidentally logged out at the time. The only issue I have is with the replacement of the IP signature with Fastily's signature. A better way would be to add a link in brackets after the IP signature. Mjroots (talk) 07:27, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Deliberately logged out. I'm busy in real life right now so I'm attempting to take a Wikibreak which hasn't been all that successful thus far. I usually end up spending less time on-wiki editing as an IP without the tools so I do that. Please feel free to email me if you need me to confirm this. Regards, FASTILY(TALK)07:50, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Njirlu (talk·contribs·logs) is a single-purpose account (apparently active also on other, non-English wikis), intent on changing/adding a number of very dubious ethnonyms to the Aromanians page and related articles. His edits have been reverted many times, for reasons explained to him several times in no uncertain terms by a number of users in his talk page. He has responded by rants and personal attacks (he recently called me a Nazi), and has been blocked repeatedly for his behaviour. He's back from a month-long ban now, and I don't see any signs of him changing his pattern of editing. Despite repeated admonitions and warnings to either find credible sources or stay off the page, he does the same things over and over. Aside from changing the names in the lede and adding a large chunk of bibliography, his contribution to the rest of the article is zero. Constantine ✍ 12:11, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have, but the problem is not that he needs to be educated in Wikiquette. The relevant policies have been repeated to him over and over, and he is at times capable of a relatively civilized discussion, but the essence is that he does not or does not want to understand that he is doing something wrong. He is a very dedicated fringe POV-warrior who fights (in his own eyes) for the truth against the likes of me, Greek and Romanian Nazis who hate Aromanians... He is not likely (understandably) to change his views on this issue... Constantine ✍ 12:59, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Confirmed - a whole bunch of accounts at the SPI case here - Allie ❤ 06:26, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Resolved
2nd opinion requested
Unresolved