Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Goa Inquisition

Can someone please review my actions on Goa Inquisition. I first became aware of the problem when Rumpelstiltskin223 reported Xandar to AIV for repeated blanking (see this edit for an example, it's basically just a revert war between those two versions: [1]). When I reviewed the case, I decided it wasn't obvious vandalism and was actually a content dispute, and blocked both users for 3 hours for 3RR violation. I also reverted the page to Xandar's version, since I felt it was best to have the version which didn't make controversial accusations be the one visible while the issue is discussed. User:Bharatveer then reverted my revert, giving a very similar edit summary to mine (how his version can be considered the safer version, he didn't explain). I reverted him and left a message on his talk page asking him not to revert again and saying I'd protect the page if he did. He did revert again, leaving a message on my talk page about placing disputed tags rather than removing the text. I reverted again (my 3rd revert, for those counting), and protected the page. Opinions, please. --Tango 15:46, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Good catch Tango. I endorse your actions. The last 100 edits all seem to be edit-wars. I also see a lot of 3rr evasion and gaming going on. - Aksi_great (talk) 16:02, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

This might be related to the Joan of Arc vandal. Akhilleus has included Xandar in his checkuser request on suspected JoA vandal socks WP:RFCU#AWilliamson. One day after a different checkuser request specificially related to Goa Inquisition got declined I spotted CC80 on the list, whom I strongly suspect of being a JoA vandal sock. Durova^Charge! 16:39, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I think Tango (talk · contribs) used admin powers in an incorrect way to further the edit war. He could have merely protected the article in interim but since he reverted a user on the article, I dont feel he had ample right to protect it. Xandar's version is the vandalized, censored version of the article. Wikipedia doesnt publish what is "safe" it publishes what is verified. With durova's new evidence. I smell trolling on the part of CC80 (talk · contribs) and Xandar (talk · contribs) (who most probably are the same person).Bakaman 18:56, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Generally, I would agree that admins should protect whatever version is showing when they get there but, in cases of controversial accusations, I think it's best to play safe. There was debate on the talk page as the whether or not the accusations were verifiable, so playing safe meant I assumed they weren't and removed them. I didn't investigate to see if they were valid or not (I since have, and I don't think the source given is very reliable, it's an opinion piece.) - that's a content issue and is "not my job" for want of a better phrase. --Tango 20:28, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

The Checkuser request mentioned above has been done. User:CC80 is a sock of AWilliamson, and has been blocked. User:Xandar is probably a different user than CC80. For more details see WP:RFCU#AWilliamson. 05:50, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Moving discussion from below, I see now reason not to keep it all in one place. I know people check the bottom of this page, which is why this section was put at the bottom when I first created it. There is no point putting it at the bottom again. --Tango 18:21, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Tango and use of admin privileges

In a edit-war that ensued on Goa Inquisition, User:Tango who is an administrator, used admin tools to revert-war three times with another user. Misuse of rollback and then reverting to his own version – [2] [3], [4], and then protecting the page – [5]; after reverting to his own version, calling it a safe version in his edit. A discussion over this is avaiable here – WP:ANI#Goa Inquisition. However, instead of apologising for this misuse of admin tools and intimidating non-admin users he insists that it was a safe move and within admin discretion; hypocritically warns them of a block here – [6] and asks them to assume good faith. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 17:30, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree with nick - I feel like I cant post my replies anymore on that talk page, for fear I will be blocked for "incivility". I myself have found an academic journal to source most of the page (do refer to The Goa Inquisition. Being a Quatercentenary Commemoration Study of the Inquisition in Goa - Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 84, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1964), pp. 483-484) but am afraid if I quote sections of it and comment, I may be insulting people an therefore will be blocked under a variety of false premises. Instead of encouraging informed debate, Tango is stifling it. Bakaman 17:37, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Protection_policy#How → Admins should not protect pages in which they are involved. -- Szvest - ^{Wiki me up ®} 17:39, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh dear, this seems to be a bad month for administrative... contention. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 17:39, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

As I told Nick on my talk page, this has already been discussed here. Try scrolling up a bit and put your comments there. --Tango 17:40, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I have provided the link to that discussion here. I believe this location would provide a view to a larger audience. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 17:45, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

This is the same page. How can it provide a view to a different audience? --Tango 18:05, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

That's not the point of the discussion really. Users/admins tend to look at the bottom of the page, rather than coming down from the top. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 18:07, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

The earlier discussion focused on sockpuppetry.Bakaman 17:49, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Though i have not edited Goa Inquisition myself, i am compelled to comment here. User:Tango appears to have prematurely blocked the article without an objective analysis of its recent edit hostory. Goa Iquisition of late has been plagued by POV-pushing-sockpuppets. While check user on User:Xandar may have been inconclusive, his edit patterns do bear striking similarities to CC80 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)'s...

User:Xandar though largely civil, seems to be highly prejudiced and obtuse in his dealings with Indian editors. He for one simply rebishes every argument and reference presented to him as "unrealiable". The situation has become unworkable and i doubt whether discussion on the talk page would be conclusive. अमेय आर्यन DaBrood^© 18:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Tango protected an unsourced version of the article. I disagree with his actions. article should be either protected to the correct version, or uprotected. He protected xander's version who seems to be vandalist troll.--D-Boy 22:22, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Whatever might be the issue here, m:The wrong version is not. Don't complain about the wrong version getting protected. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 22:24, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

What kind of talk is that? I'll remember that when try to go for admin. Keeping false info protected like that and abusing admin privileges hurts the credibilty of wikipedia.--D-Boy 06:15, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Let's put to rest one recurring complaint: although CC80 was a sockpuppet of the Joan of Arc vandal butXandar isn't. The checkuser came up unlikely and my investigation also determined they're probably different. This article has several problems and I've only cleared up one of them. Durova^Charge! 15:55, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

---

I object to the behaviour of Nick. He initially asked me for an explanation on my talk page and when I asked him to be more specific he responded sarcasticly (bordering on uncivil) and reported me here without actually discussing the matter with me first, what was the point in going to my talk page if you weren't going to actually talk to me? He then created a new section which has the only effect of giving his comments more weight that those that have gone before. He has misrepresented my actions in his description - he says I called my version the safest version, which is nonsense, when I used that edit summary it was my first edit to the page, how could it be my version? I was never in a content war, I was simply determining what version should be there while the discussion takes place, I have no opinion on what version is the better one, only which is the safer until consensus is reached. Also, he quotes me as saying I used "admin discretion", I never used that phrase or anything similar, I have no idea what he's refering to. He says that I didn't apologise for my actions when I explained them here - that's because I was the one that brought the matter here. Why would I apologise when I hadn't been told I'd done anything wrong (other than by someone already involved on the page)? I was asking for a 2nd opinion (and the one I got was that I'd done the right thing), if I felt I had anything to apologise for, I simply wouldn't have protected the page in the first place. Nick is trying to make out that I've refused to listen to criticism, which is complete nonsense, I was the one that came here to ask for criticism in the first place! --Tango 18:32, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply - Dont lie. You made three reverts rv1rv2rv3 and then protected to your version. After that you threaten me [7]. I should have reported you on AN/3rr (at least for going against spirit of 3 revert rule). The worst part was the threats, I was afraid of getting blocked by an abuser of admin powers. I demand that Tango (talk · contribs) recuse from harrassing editors on the page, and to find another (preferably impartial) admin to take care of it. You're back on ANI for threatening users after abusing admin powers.Bakaman 22:38, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Tango saw that xandar kept repeatedly deleteing sourced material. He not only rved a couple times but he protected it. and imparital admin would be better.--D-Boy 03:57, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

I am concerned that this seems to have turned into a kick-a-man-while-he's-down incident against Tango, by what seems to be users with similar interests. I think that until a neutral admin reviews this, neither side should attack the other any further. – Chacor 04:20, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Are you accusing us of POV-pushing? I find it incivil on your part to examine users' motives through your POV on the matter. I happen to be the main contributor to the Goa Inquisition page and have worked for months to fight vandals and find reliable sources (refer to the one I discussed above). If were kicking Tango while he's down (for abusing admin privileges) then I could theoretically assume you are here to back up a fellow sysopstruck out see below. Note that at least two admins have posted here attesting to the findings.Bakaman 04:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I am neutral, and have not looked at the article. NEither am I a sysop. It is very inappropriate to mischaracterise my actions as you have done. – Chacor 04:44, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

And accusing me of "kicking someone when they are down" is appropriate? especially when they threatened to block me? Quite hypocritical on your part.Bakaman 04:47, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I did not accuse you of kicking someone when they're down. I said I'm concerned a group of users seem to have turned this into such an incident. – Chacor 04:51, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

It only looks as if User:Tango seems to be bent on justifying his protection of the article, after misusing his rollback and revert-warring on it. Bordering on incivility? (Although, I don't think I ever was), I believe that it is better to be uncivil rather than abusing your admin privileges. We are not given muscles to protect/endorse our own versions while asserting neutrality and intimidate non-admin users with blocks. Period. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 04:58, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I read Chacor's comments and did not think they were directed at a specific group of people. However, I did notice a group of people responding as though it was directed at them. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 04:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

What is done, is done (unfortunately)

This is my assessment of the situation and some comments; feel free to respond below.

• There was an edit war on the article page Goa Inquisition – [8] , User:Tango protected the page – [9].
• User:Tango used his [rollback] tool in order to revert another user, – [10], [11], and reverted once manually – [12], calling this a safe version.
• Tango then protected the article to "his own version", so the talk regarding the "The Wrong Version" is not really the point of discussion here, Amarkov. Not material at all.
• This is where Tango says that he meant to keep the article safe, as the did not believe the source given was reliable enough. – [13], – Nothing but exercising your discretion and protecting your own version.
• I requested Tango to explain what he meant by this – [14], and his reply was rather convenient – You're going to have to be more specific... that's just a history page. – [15], I did not see any point of discussing this with him any further.
• In a single edit, Tango tackles the content dispute and warns other users of a block in general to assume good faith with him. – [16]. I am monitoring this discussion, and will be handing out 24 hour blocks to anyone violating these guidelines.
• In his complaint about Nick's behaviour – [17], – he states He has misrepresented my actions in his description - he says I called my version the safest version, which is nonsense, when I used that edit summary it was my first edit to the page, how could it be my version? I was never in a content war, I was simply determining what version should be there while the discussion takes place – I am not even sure if Tango understands what really is a content-dispute and how administrators are expected to behave in/respond to a particular situation. I have no opinion on what version is the better one, only which is the safer until consensus is reached. – well there's his point of view. (see the diff)
• Regarding Chacor's comment here about kick-a-man-while-he's-down – The man has kicked himself once again, by repeatedly showing that he disregards the community's guidelines and policies.
• I never wanted Tango to apologise to me, or any other person for that matter. Just express his sincere regrets to the incident and give his assurance that it would never happen again. The matter could have been sorted out, there and then.
• The point in having this conversation was that the community should be aware of the facts as they happened there; as I, personally see no point in unprotecting the page and having the other users revert-war over their own version.

Thanks, — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 06:01, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

You do mean that m:The wrong version is really the point, right? -Amarkov ^blah_edits 06:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

"His own version" is precisely my point. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 06:09, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify my thoughts from above: I do agree that Tango should not have used rollback on a content dispute, neither should he have protected the page, but rather gotten someone else to look at it. – Chacor 06:04, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion a better way User:Tango may have approached this by requesting protection at WP:RFPP or ask other admins to protect the page since he reverted the article OR revert then immediately protect, WP:PPol did say that admins are allowed to "Reverting to an old version of the page from a week or so before the controversy started if there is a clear point before the controversy.". Though I would say the outcome of the page is likely to be exactly the same as it is currently, so I would say this is more of a procedural issue than an abuse of admin power. --WinHunter ^(talk) 07:28, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

The article in concern has been experiencing an onslaught of edit-wars from 21^st August 2006. Tango did not revert to that version at all. He has admitted that he reverted to what he termed a safe version. Regards, — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 07:37, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Ach, this isn't good at all. It's always better to get a second opinion when tools are needed in a content dispute, and I think Tango got involved wrt content here. RFPP would have been a good neutral option if the page needed protection. And mentions of blocks really just ends up escalating the situation [18] -- Samir धर्म 07:33, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Rollback is to be used only to revert vandalism. Pages should never be protected if you're involved in a content dispute.--MONGO 08:11, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Please stop repeating yourselves, you're just wasting everyone's time. I know I reverted three times and then protected, I said exactly that when I initially brought the matter here. You don't need to accuse me of something I've admitted to doing. I've given an explanation of why I did it, and so far no-one has even tried to explain why they think that explanation is flawed. If you have a problem with what I've done, argue against the points I've made, don't repeat things I've said myself... --Tango 13:50, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

What are you trying to prove? You are not only assuming bad faith but your comments are audacious. You never admitted that you used the rollback tools. Do you have any idea what a content dispute is? Kindly familiarise yourself with the admin how-to guide. In case you did not notice, I have also responded to the comments you made before this. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 14:47, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

You have not responded to my comments, you have simply quoted them. Tell me why it was wrong to revert to the safer version. As for using the rollback option - why should I revert manually when I can revert automatically? The only reason I can see is to give an edit summary, but it's fairly obvious that I did the 2nd and 3rd reverts for the same reason as the first. --Tango 16:17, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

/me facepalms. I will wait for somebody else to comment here. Keep watching this page. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 16:32, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Rollback is only to be used for removing vandalism. If you're mechanically reverting someone thrice over, you might want to take a step back and realize, that while technically not violating 3RR, you are violating the spirit of it. Ideally you want to cool-off revert wars; one good way to do that is to put further rationale in your edit summaries. If you don't provide any new information and use a standard admin rollback edit summary, they're just going to keep pushing back. Please stop using admin rollback except when dealing with the specific situations it is authorized for. --Cyde Weys 17:48, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

There's a problem at that page. It desperately needs some serious intervention by uninvolved parties to try to clean up/mediate the dispute. It's also obvious that Tango should never have protected the page after getting involved in a content dispute, and definitely should not have reverted it after protecting it. The important question is "what next"? Tango has reverted to what he called a "safe version". That would be ok if this were a BLP issue, or some other libel issue. However, the version he reverted to lacks sources, while the one he reverted is sourced. A quick look over the talk page suggests that the issues have been discussed and the sources are fairly reliable.

1. Page protection seems reasonable. Tango shouldn't have been the person to do it, but that's just bureaucracy. He did the right thing even if he broke some rules.

   I think the page should be protected until the issues can be sorted out finally and more outside editors involved.

   I trust that Tango will bear in mind these issues in the future.

2. Reverting after protection was uncalled for - there were no burning legal issues, as far as I can tell (I may have missed something, there's an awful lot of back and forth here). The other version is better sourced, but per "wrong version" that shouldn't be the issue here.

   Assuming that there are no legal issue, Tango's revert should be undone. The page should spend its "protection" in the version that was actually protected.

What do people think? Guettarda 16:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I can see some WP:BLP issues; butThere are none. This is one of User:Tango's reverted edit – [19]. I see removal of sources, whether disputed or not; and then revert-warring once manually and two times using rollback tool. Tango should have ideally protected the first version he came upon or asked some other administrator to exercise his discretion without getting himself involved. — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 16:59, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

All right I'll speak frankly: Tango stepped into a very rough situation and did (his?) best. As Sir Nicholas states, I agree it would have been better to have either protected whatever version was current or to have asked other administrators for input. Any page protection during a content dispute is likely to draw accusations of administrative bias or misconduct (no matter how spotless the administrator's conduct and reputation actually are). So by rolling back or reverting for anything other than the most narrow paramaters such as WP:BLP compliance, an administrator runs the risk of inflaming the dispute rather than quelling it. I think I see the point Tango was trying to make in the caution, and I also see how that went over: sysop tools seem much less important to people who have them than to people who don't. Administrators are expected to have the wisdom of Solomon in the messiest situations, so even when I might choose differently I usually respect others' decisions. Yet I've been uneasy about this particular action because it's right at the outer limit of what's acceptable, maybe a few inches beyond it. I wonder what's the fairest way to take a few steps back and defuse the dispute. Durova^Charge! 17:18, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

(I'm not an admin, and I'm involved in the discussion on Talk:Goa Inquisition.) I don't think the page should be changed at this point. The edit war is stopped and users are discussing sources on the talk page. The wrong version got protected, but at this point, any version will be wrong--the edit wars have been going on for a long time. I'd recommend letting the discussion run its course, but if another admin could step in and monitor the procedings, that might be helpful. (Or we could go to some form of mediation.) --Akhilleus (talk) 17:39, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

No one here wants to change the page. :) — Nearly Headless Nick ^{{C} {L}} 17:49, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I wasn't clear--protecting a different version (which Guettarda suggested above) would be changing the page. I think the page should be left as it is now until discussion is completed. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:53, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Whoops. Yeah. However, let us discuss on the talk page and then go by consensus. — Nearly Headless Nick 18:01, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I apply the principle of WP:BOLD to administration, just as I do to editing. I do what I think is best (within my interpretation of policy, and using WP:IAR where necessary), and then if I think what I've done might be controversial, I come here and ask for people's opinions. In this case, I recieved two responses in the first couple of days, one was an admin endorsing my decision, and the other was a non-admin involved in the page who questioned it and then didn't reply to my response. If what I did was so terrible, why didn't anyone say so when I first brought this matter up for review? This page is watched by a large number of admins, I'm sure plenty of them saw my message and they obviously decided it did not require comment, which is an implicit endorsement of my actions. Had an admin suggested I undo the action when I first made it, I would probably have done so (depending on their reasoning), but no-one did. There is now a discussion going on on the talk page, and hopefully those involved will soon reach a consensus, if not the matter can be refered to the dispute resolution procedures. Undoing an action like mine 2 days after it happened would do more harm than good. I strongly support admins reviewing eachother's actions and speaking up if they disagree, but reviewing days old actions is of limited use. Try monitoring this page more closely in future, and perhaps your opinions can be taken into account before a decision becomes difficult to reverse. --Tango 18:07, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Tango, it is fine to be bold to stop a revert war. It is not fine to become involved in a revert war, use your admin rollback button in that revert war, and then protect the version you prefer. I can understand the accidental use of the rollback button to revert something that is not obvious vandalism, but twice? And protecting an article where you have just been engaging in an edit war is unacceptable. We hold the admin tools in trust. You have betrayed that trust. I normalloy would not be commenting on this, but you do not seem to understand the seriousness of what you have done. Your actions, and your refusal to acknowledge how wrong they were, cast a cloud over all admins. -- Donald Albury 18:22, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not believe I was involved in any kind of content dispute, and I have explained my reasoning for that. Until someone at least tries to refute my points, why would I acknowledge any wrongdoing? --Tango 18:35, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Then why did you keep reverting? It was an edit war. You used your admin rollback button. Are you claiming you were reverting vandalism? That's the only excuse for doing what you did. But, protecting an article that you have just reverted three times is the biggest problem. Once you reverted the article the first time, you were obligated to not use your admin tools. If you wanted to stop an edit war, you should have protected the article without making any edits to it. Appearances are, in a sense, just as important as intentions. You have created the appearance that you have used your admin tools to gain an advantage in a content dispute. You may say that it was not a content dispute, but I don't understand then why you were edit warring. -- Donald Albury 18:52, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll accept that every version is wrong and a discussion of sources would do this article much more good. If keeping the current wrong version helps that discussion move forward then so be it. Tango, the reason I didn't speak up sooner was that when I saw this I scratched my head a bit, wondered whether the uneasy feeling was just me, and moved on. I noticed this was ongoing today and realized I wasn't the only person who had some misgivings. Maybe I should have spoken sooner, in which case I apologize. I hope you'll take the candid feedback to heart. Respectfully, Durova^Charge! 19:13, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, let me try and work out exactly what the problem is here. Consider this alternative: Rather than reverting 3 times, as I did, what if I'd protected after the first revert (the manual one, so rollback doesn't come into it)? Is the problem that I chose a version to protect, or is it that I reverted to that version a few times before protecting? --Tango 21:27, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

The second one, and your threats on the talk page. First you abuse rollback, then you threaten to abuse the block button?Bakaman 23:21, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

The simple solution I use is to just hit "protect". Nobody from the Goa Inquisition is alive today. After an initial burst of eep, that's wrong the editors usually settle down to discussing their differences. Since I haven't altered anything - and reject any thanks or complaints - the editors usually accept me as a neutral party if I need to give block warnings. Durova^Charge! 23:59, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

The next time I see him doing this, I will apply his very own principles of WP:BOLD and WP:IAR and drop the banhammer. Period. — Nearly Headless Nick 07:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

At the risk of repeating others here, since you still don't seem to grasp it, this is the problem. First, you shouldn't have been edit warring at all. No matter what the problem was, that is not how we solve disputes; we use calm and amicable dispute resolution. There should be no admin who doesn't hold that opinion. You shouldn't have been using rollback on good faith content edits. It's rude and furthers ill-will. You absolutely shouldn't have protected when you were involved in the edit war, and even more so should not have protected to your preferred version. That isn't really negotiable at all. Administrators are expected to protect the version they encounter, not the one they prefer. Finally, after all this, clear involvement in the dispute, you shouldn't be making threats to block other editors on that article's talk page. You seem not to be understanding the distinction between your involvement as an editor and your invovlement as an administrator; don't mix these. To answer the specific question: no, neither of those are good options. Why is "talk," rather than hitting your admin buttons at all, not one of your solutions? Dmcdevit·t 10:03, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I won't repeat what Dmcdevit and others have said above. I would only like to say that I do not endorse the use of roll-back. I would have protected the article as it was if there were no concerns about BLP. The use of roll-back combined with protection looks bad and makes it look like Tango wanted to protect his "own version" after revert-warring. I appreciate what Tango tried to do but it is now obvious that one side of the edit-war will never see Tango as a neutral admin. So I advise Tango to allow any other admin to mediate the dispute. I am willing to look into the matter if no other admin is currently mediating the dispute. - Aksi_great (talk) 10:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I was never involved as an editor, as I've repeatedly said and no-one seems to understand - I've never even read the article, I've just looked at the diffs and the talk page. I was reverting to what I felt was the safer version to have showing during discussion - I know there is no BLP concern, but a quick look at the talk page will tell you there are some very strongly held opinions on the subject nevertheless. Even if I was wrong to select a safe version in this situation, that doesn't change the fact that I was acting as an administrator, not an editor and was not involved in any content decisions. And how you can call Bharatveer's reverts "good faith", I don't know. He was using misleading edit summaries and reverting when as administrator had specificly asked him not do. I don't think it quite counts as vandalism, but it wasn't done in good faith. --Tango 15:31, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Tango, I understand why you don't think you were involved in the editing dispute, and honestly, I don't think you chose a side or have a preferred version of the page--to me it looks like you were trying to get editors to discuss whether a controversial source should be included or not. And personally, given the tone of some of the comments on the talk page, I also think a warning about incivility and personal attacks was warranted.

Still, if a page is undergoing an edit war it's best to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Once you revert an edit, no matter what your intentions, it looks like you've made a decision about what the content of the article should be--in other words it looks like you're no longer neutral. Like Aksi_great said, some of the editors in that dispute will never see you as impartial now, so it would be best if Aksi_great or some other admin could step in. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:06, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Now that is something I can agree with - to someone who is thinking very emotionally about the issue (as those on the talk page are), my actions could easilly be mistaken as a conflict of interest. That's one of the reasons I came here - if another admin endorses my action (as they did), it gives me more legitimacy in any subsequent arguments. However, the recent comments here have not been about appearences, they have been stating as fact that I was involved in the content of the article, which is simply incorrect. --Tango 18:57, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

As a protecting admin, it is not your job to decide which version is safe, which is not. Both are wrong. You protect the first version you come up with and not revert other users edits. — Nearly Headless Nick 07:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, so you disagree with my judgement on an administrative decision - that's fine, and I can certainly understand where you're coming from. I fully intend to follow that guideline in future - trying to protect a safe version clearly causes more problems than it solves. However, that doesn't mean that I was involved in a content dispute - I was acting as an administrator the whole time, incorrectly at times, but I was still handling administration, not content. --Tango 14:33, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Bluntly: so? If I and everyone else here accept that you were acting as an administrator, that doesn't change the fact that you were acting poorly as an administrator. You are evading the issue. You should not have been using rollback, should not have protected after reverting the article and to that version, and should not have threatened a block. This isn't something we can agree to disagree about; this is about sound administrative judgment, which, as long as you defend any of those actions, I must conclude that you lack. Dmcdevit·t 09:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

When I reverted with an edit summary saying not to revert again, I considered that a kind of "soft protection". It allows people to continue to edit the article, but makes it perfectly clear that they should not continuing reverting. It seems such a soft approach doesn't work and I should have just protected it from the start. I've already said that reverting to a "safe version" was, with hindsight, a mistake. As for using rollback, if people feel that strongly about it, then fine, but to me it's just a convinience - the automatic edit summary doesn't say it's vandalism, it just says it's reverting edits, I could type that edit summary myself after a manual revert and it would be perfectly acceptable and there would be no way for you to tell the difference. If you can't tell the difference between two things and one is acceptable, then they both are acceptable - that's simple logic. And I will not apologise for threatening to block people for incivility - that's simply enforcement of policy. --Tango 12:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of incivility, is anyone monitoring the discussion at Talk:Goa Inquisition? The situation does require some kind of oversight--the users who were edit warring are calling each others' edits "hate speech". Since everyone seems to agree that Tango is no longer the best person to handle this, could some other admin please step in? --Akhilleus (talk) 16:07, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Discussion seems to have dried up there recently... perhaps they are following the principle of "If you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say anything at all". It's only a few edits a day at most at the moment, it's not hard for someone to monitor. --Tango 16:56, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I am absolutely flabbergasted that you seem to see no difference between "threatening to block people for incivility" and threatening to block people you just reverted for incivility. That is not simply enforcement of policy; that is out of bounds. Dmcdevit·t 19:22, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Nothing about my decision to revert had anything to do with the people making the edits, so there is no issue of bias or conflict of interest or anything else that would mean I shouldn't enforce basic policies. --Tango 21:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Tango, the point is "you just don't seem to get it". You do not revert when you are a neutral party, or simply acting like it. Why are you continuing with your lame arguments? At one point you are saying that the administrators saw that and did not comment means that it was an implicit acceptance of what you did. When they commented, you have been asking them to "stop repeating yourselves". — Nearly Headless Nick 12:36, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

That's simply not true, in a WP:BLP case, a neutral party would certainly revert while something was discussed. I've accepted that it was probably unwise to apply a similar principle in this case and said so repeatedly. It was not so much people repeating themselves that bothered me, it was more them repeating me. When you are arguing with someone, you don't parrot their own words back at them, it's completely pointless. --Tango 20:41, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

AfD running out of control

Could someone please take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human rights of Kurdish people in Turkey? This AfD ran out of control when one deletion proponent got rather upset about what he suspected to be a WP:POINT article creation and a votestacking campaign on the keep side (an unproven but not quite baseless suspicion). Debate ran extremely hot bordering on personal attacks; then the article was moved and merged with other material while the Afd was still running; wherupon some votes were changed and the whole picture is rather muddled now. Right now, spirits are hopefully quieting down again. I've suggested an early provisional close, for later reexamination. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:00, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

<edit conflict> You beat me to it... It would be better for them to continue on the article's talk page for the time being. yandman 16:04, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I've closed it - you're right, it was out of control. Hopefully the discussion about the article can continue on the talk page, the vote stacking claims elsewhere, the Turkish discussion on the Turkish wikipedia and the personal attacks nowhere. Yomangani^talk 16:31, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

There are some concerns over vote stacking at that spesific afd. The concern is that there are way too many greek voters on a topic that isn't about Greece but about a 'historical enemy' Turkey. I hereby request an independent review of the vote stack claim. --Cat out 16:26, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I've seen a lot of votestacking in the past on both sides when it comes to Turkey-sensitive articles. This is hardly new. Patstuart^talk|edits 17:18, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

This way to Deletion review → Guy (Help!) 17:18, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

As per star trek deletions I am absolutely certain WP:DRV and AfD are both broken procedures. --Cat out 23:34, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Why are they broken? Because you didn't agree with the result? Please consider taking the time to express any concerns you may have about these procedures at the village pump, as you may have valuable insights other Wikipedia editors may have missed. Proto::► 12:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not mind it when people disagree with me, I just find the entire afd procedure broken for quite some time. Star Trek afds are a mere example.
Think it this way: if vote stacking did happen in the afd, history will simply repeat itself on deletion review.
--Cat out 13:16, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd say the recent Star Trek afd+drv rather show that these two processes work. In spite of "I like it" (!)votes. I know that saying "process X is broken" has been on fashion for some time (e.g., it's commonly repeated on the mailing list); however, that does not make it true. Tizio 13:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

There should be a deletion process with an extended probationary period to allow for discovery of reliable sources, and then an objective decision based only on the multitude, reliability, triviality, etc. of the sources. —Centrx→talk • 10:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• This presumes that any topic with reliable sources is worth having an article on, an opinion that, at the very least, is controversial. --Improv 04:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
  • If you mean that topics for which there exist reliable sources should not have articles, this would be a deletion mechanism alongside AfD, to cover the many AfDs where sourcing and notability based on sourcing is the problem and reason for deletion. Articles that belong deleted even with sources could still be deleted on AfD. —Centrx→talk • 02:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Captain Thomas Graves

In the article on Captain Thomas Graves

someone added irrelevant material that should probably be in its own seperate article.

Quote:

"William Solomon Graves was a full-blooded Cherokee whose parents died on the Trail of Tears. His name appears in the Guion-Miller roles along with other Cherokees with the surname Graves. The Graves family was kind enough to adopt the young boy into their family. The full family chronology of this branch of the family has been ignored by the Graves Family Organization who prefer not to embrace this part of the family's pureblood heritage." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Natwebb (talk • contribs)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome.

NLP article specific examples of promotional obscuring of facts and relevant views

Hello again everyone. Further to admin Guy’s helpful pointers I understand that some may be scrutinizing the NLP article already. Here is more easy to access information for admin who find themselves far to busy to scrutinize the confounding amount of edits that are occurring on that page every day (on average about 30-40 a day and recently as much as 70 odd). I’m posting this up here because it seems to me that core facts and highly relevant views are still being systematically obscured. Here are a few examples:

• I added straight and representative quotes (with the help of user BenAveling) [20]) and user Comaze seems to have minimized it. [21].

• I added this set of straight sourced definitions to the introduction in order to give the reader some idea of what NLP practicers do (eg assessing eye movements and postures…) – Comaze removed them from the intro to criticisms section adding something more promotional to the intro (what NLP authors say NLP can do for you) [22].

• User 58.178.195.26 limiting controversy to therapy only (not representative of the article at all) [23]

• User 58.178.195.26 obscuring the basic facts again (moving them out of opening) calling them “peacocking”. [24] and again (note) erroneous and unsupportable label- skepticism based psychologists [25]. No idea who added that last point and its too much work to search the edits.

• Some more by other unaccountable editor [26]

• Use of argumentative writing (claims and other commentary) [27]

• Selective editing (the negative end of the paragraph is omitted) [28]

• User 58.178.195.26 denying that there is a problem and actually encouraging the behavior [29]

I think all that’s required is to find a way to ensure the basic facts are presented without any sort of minimizing – overloading with unsourced commentary – moving out of context – de-emphasizing - or negating science with hyperbole – testimonial - and non-sequitur. Apart from the recent helpful scrutiny of Guy, I get the feeling I’m pretty much working on my own on the NLP article and the relevant facts are just not getting presented properly with due weight. Promotional obscuring of facts seems to me to be an overwhelming problem and part of it seems to be achieved by persistently overloading the article with edits. I know I have more to learn here - so if any admin thinks my assessment needs qualifying in any way – please contact me here or on my talkpage. Thanks. AlanBarnet 06:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a content dispute. User AlanBarnet obviously hasn't read the instructions on this page. Indeed AlanBarnet seems to have trouble following any of the Wikipedia guidelines towards collaboration. 58.179.175.12 14:01, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

No 58.179.175.12 this is not about content. This seems to me to be evidence of a group of editors who are obscuring relevant views by overloading the article with edits. There are multiple dubious edits that are hard to identify because of the overload. There also seems to me to be a lot of editors making edits based upon their own opinion (eg they think Tony Robbins does not do NLP despite the stated views of researchers). There also seem to me to be a lot of very similar edits going on and people praising each other for insignificant changes that obscure dubious ones. I am presenting this for the benefit of admin and for the benefit of the article. AlanBarnet 12:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Please lighten up and use the proper channels, there's no conspiracy. You seem to be under the impression that admins have content resolution authority. This is not the case. Like it or not, the condoned procedure is to put your personal irritations aside and work with the other editors to form a consensus. 58.179.135.173 22:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm as light as a Christmas fairy. Nevertheless - you are trying to deter me from notifying admin of a problem. I requested admin to reply here or on my talkpage if my assessment needed qualifying and they did not - so I assume that my assessment is at least fairly accurate. Already an admin has raised concern over editors with proven conflict of interests working on the NLP article. I've shown evidence of one of those editors persistently removing valid edits and refusing due weight on the fundamental facts. You (an anonymous editor) seem to be actively encouraging that activity and discouraging the notification of that activity. The presence of so many anonymous editors conducting such activities on the NLP article raises the question -exactly how many editors there could have a conflict of interest? Those anon editors are certainly not telling editors with known conflicts of interests that Wikipedia strongly discourages such activities. I can only assume my notification here is helpful to admin. AlanBarnet 04:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

AB has posted in discussion that I am in violation of WP:COI. I don't think WP:COI applies to me in full because I no financial interest in this topic. I am willing to confirm this by disclosing details to a third party. Althought I have training in this topic which I have disclosed. I will seek to hold myself to a higher level of responsibility when it comes to wikipedia policy. I have already started by working other editors to check facts and remove any sythesis or conclusion not attributed to a verifiable source. This is a difficult topic because there are many competing and disagreements between authors that need to be described. There are also different criteria for evidence in the different disciplines where NLP has been applied. --Comaze 07:41, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

More evidence: I think its fairly probable with just a few clicks on Google that the above editor (User Comaze) is either or a close associate, who is in Australia. Even after reminders from admin that there is a proven conflict of interest – user Comaze continues to persistently obscure facts. Now Comaze even denies the conflict of interest despite all the evidence and views to the contrary. User Comaze keeps removing (even today) perfectly clear - reasonable and supported edits and replacing them, minimizing them, or obscuring them with promotional gloss. It seems to me that to sensibly reduce the chance of promotional obscuring of facts it would be advisable to actively stop Comaze from editing articles related to NLP and stop all non-accounted editors from supporting Comaze's promotional obscuring of facts. If Comaze has any desire to help edit Wikipedia it can be done on articles that have nothing to do with NLP. There are plenty of them after all. AlanBarnet 11:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I have never posted my personal details on wikipedia and wish to keep it that way. I do not wish to disclose my personal details on wikipedia except to a third party administrator. Furthermore I have already responded to this editor on his talk page and the discussion page. I have agreed to write in a more descriptive tone and be very careful with checking facts. I have been working with a number of unrelated editors to restore the article after it was discovered that the banned editors wer every creative with the facts and references. [Talk:Neuro-linguistic_programming#Summary_of_editor_blocks_for_breach_of_Arbcom.2C_sockpuppet_and_meatpuppet_use]. --Comaze 12:35, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Giano's rampant incivility

Okay people, this talk is escalating into argument for argument's sake. Please, let's take a step back and realize something: Wikipedia is not a battleground - we are not here to make war with each other, we are here to work together to the betterment of the Encyclopedia. This "IRC vrs non-IRC" argument is divisive and unfair. People will communicate however they want, and that cannot, nor should be stopped. We should be working together, and communicating, after all. Everyone that edits on Wikipedia, from the newest editor all the way back to Jimmy Wales, are valued and respected editors, and we should be helping them to contribute to the Encyclopedia and helping keep the environment positive. All of us together can improve this encyclopedia, and arguing over communication media isn't going to help that.

As Piotr and Ghirla are in Arbitration, and Jimbo has endorsed and overturned the block of Giano, I don't think this conversation, saving the last section, serve any further purpose. I respect all of you greatly, so I beseech you, please, let us work together to better the encyclopedia instead of taking time here in such a divisive argument. ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 20:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

---

When did posts like this become acceptable? It seems to take years of established history of WP:CIVIL and throw it out the window. I'll reproduce it here, so you can see what I'm talking about:

Kindly refrain from littering my talk page [30] with your infantile and hostile warnings in the future, or you will find yourself de-sysoped and banned. Irpen and Bishon were quite correct to revert your antics and your revert warring with them did you little credit. Giano 13:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

This all stems from a simple boilerplate civility warning I left him (which is apparently "infantile and hostile") after he was getting too out of control on Mackensen's talk page. Now he turns his glare on me. Threatening to have me desysopped and banned? C'mon. And yeah, the usuals (Bishonen, Geogre, Ghirlandajo, and Irpen) are going to step in now and defend Giano ... but they defend him no matter what he does because they're all in this little back-scratching clique together. I'm posting this here to solicit some response from other administrators: is this kind of behavior really acceptable? Do you want to work in an environment where users routinely have blow-ups like this and are only encouraged by admin inaction? --Cyde Weys 14:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Unlike some people, I am going to spell out exactly what it is in your above post that is a personal attack. "he usuals (Bishonen, Geogre, Ghirlandajo, and Irpen) are going to step in now and defend Giano ... but they defend him no matter what he does because they're all in this little back-scratching clique together." is a personal attack. Consider this a warning. If you persist in this type of mischaracterization and denigration, you may be blocked. HTH HAND. Geogre 18:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no incivility in Giano's posting, just a mild warning. "This little back-scratching clique together", however, is blatantly incivil and I demand apologies. Such comments may indeed lead to desysopping. If your posting is expected to trigger an uproar from all sorts of IRC fairies who habitually indulge in incivilty on IRC and then pontificate about civility during their occasional appearances on-wiki, I suppose it would be nice to see them here. Foundation employees have no wild card for incivility, for what I know. The community is aware that your dispute with Giano goes back to the time when your energetically defended Kelly Martin's postings demanding "an enema and a major fight that flushes 20-30% of the en-wiki community". This page is not part of dispute resolution procedures, so I advise you both to move your dispute to Requests for comment. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 14:20, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I rather feel Cyde may have a gone a step too far this time "they defend him no matter what he does because they're all in this little back-scratching clique together." I think that is rather a serious charge to make. Perhaps Cyde would like to withdraw it and apologise while it can still be contained to this page alone. It is Christmas and I am in a forgiving mood. Giano 14:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

If I ever make a manual in civility or diplomacy, the first rule on that list will be: Never, ever, ever tell another person to be civil, and never, ever, ever, accuse another person of being incivil. We can work backwards from there. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, from other administrators? I'm page banned from your posts on ANI, perhaps? That's all right, Cyde. The way you speak of me, you must be a civility expert, so I'll just listen. Bishonen | talk 14:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC).

The problem is that incivility does happen, and incivility is harmful to the community especially when it results in ever-increasing tension between two groups. It would be nice if there was a way to address incivility before it gets to the point that arbcom gets involved, and before it gets to the point where people leave. --Interiot 20:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to comment on the persons here (not least because I'm guessing I've already been pre-emptively dismissed as an 'IRC fairy', which Ghirlanajo won't consider to be uncivil). But, please, if we are going to have a conversation about civility, can we perhaps compete to outdo one another in civility, rather than the reverse? We all know where this is heading unless we cool it.--Doc^g 14:24, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

This time I concur with Doc. There is no need in pressing the issue, although the real grounds for Irpen's irrational block above should be eventually investigated, to prevent further outbursts in the future. We need to put an end to gaming WP:NPA and WP:CIV policies for pursuing one's personal vendettas. Everyone may read incivility in the postings of his opponent, however courteous they may be. We should understand that endless appellations to WP:CIV is a bad ground for solving long-standing differences. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 14:35, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your effort to de-escalate the situation. Thank you. Luna Santin 14:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

"...or you will find yourself de-sysoped and banned" is hardly a "mild warning," and "they're all in this little back-scratching clique together," is hardly going to calm anything down. This continued squabble is disrupting the community, and has been for too long -- everybody, please take a step back and breathe. -- Luna Santin 14:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Both sides telling the other to stop being incivil? This appears to be a case of WP:KETTLE. >Radiant< 14:30, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Agreed... I'm not an admin and I'm not familiar with the history of this dispute, but neither side is helping themselves much here. It's sort of hard to argue that the other guy is wrong when you are engaging in behavior that is no better. You both need to chill.--Isotope23 14:32, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with the above, If he would just stay off my page I would gladly ignore him; unfortunately though this time he has allowed his obsessive hatred of me to overflow and has now insulted others. Is this the behaviour of an admin? Giano 14:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Just walk away. All of you.Geni 14:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Particularly in the light of Cyde's edit summaries on User talk:Giano II about letting Giano defend himself, I'm not clear why Cyde got involved in the first place, he was not a direct party to the discussions at User talk:Mackensen and given what I've seen of their history his intervention was hardly like to calm matters. David Underdown 14:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I find Cyde's reverting of the removal of the talk page warning particularly ironic when he asked whoever posted it to leave it and let Giano deal with it himself. By that logic, shouldn't he have left Giano to undo the removal of the warning, and limited himself (Cyde) to posting a new message pointing out to Giano that the warning had been removed? Carcharoth 22:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• I think this needs some type of dispute resolution such as RFC or MedCab. This is not going anywhere if this is going on and on. Both sides should stop fighting and this is getting the community tired of all this. Just cool down guys, we can settle this. Nothing both of you say makes any difference, just be civil to each other and don't tell each other to be civil or vice versa, like what Sjakkalle said. Both sides are telling each other not to be incivil, this doesn't sound too right. I suggest both parties stay away from each other for a while to cool down. Edit conflict again... Terence Ong 14:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm rather surprised to find out that the discussions on my talk page have prompted this affair; if there's any mediation to be had, it's between Lar and Giano. I've never seen a civility warning have it's desired effect--no one likes being told their being uncivil. At the same time, I don't see the need for allegations of de-sysoping. The Arbitration Committee has set ample precedent that you have to abuse your admin tools for that. Finally, I agree with Cyde on one point: Giano is more than capable of taking care of his own talk page; we all are. If I think someone's cluttering my talk page I can do it myself without anyone else's help. Mackensen (talk) 15:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be discussed at WP:PAIN? On another note, we seem to need a policy on civility notes. Who can issue them, and who can rever them. It seems that recently there is a trend to remove such notes (ex. [31], [32], etc.), which in turns causes other users to complain that they were removed... I'd suggest that only certified editors of WP:PAIN, who should be elected like admins, should have the right to issue such notes, and that in those cases the notes issued by them should not be removable by non-PAIN certified users. This will put an end to the problem.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  16:04, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but the problem is who may be considered a "certified editor of WP:PAIN". Who is supposed to "certify" these guys? The problematic warning you cite was added by a non-admin who is active on WP:PAIN. When I attempted to discuss the issue with him, he simply removed my messages from his talk page on several occasions. Do you consider yourself a "certified editor of WP:PAIN"? I see you have been commenting on each message posted there during the last day or two. Do you want to run the board and "issue" warnings to your opponents? If so, I would rather oppose your proposal. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 16:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it is so broken that we need to introduce a new class of user. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 16:34, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Whew, is there something bigger going on here or is this really just a tempest in a teapot? From my experience at WP:RFI and WP:PAIN I suggest petitioning a neutral third party to review contested user warnings that arise from a dispute. This isn't policy or even guideline, rather practical experience: deletion of a user warning by an involved party often fuels more quarreling. If parties in this dispute accept me as suitably neutral (I've collaborated with Ghirla a few times and handed him a barnstar) I'll volunteer to be the template referee here. And please stay away from hot button words such as infantile - no good comes of them. Durova^Charge! 16:55, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

No No No Not another bunch of wiki legislation to enforce civility. You can't do it. Civility needs to be caught and taught not enforced like that. Speak nicely to people and perhaps it might catch on, ignore people when it doesn't. Personal attack blocks should only be used in open and shut cases....and even then (as I found out) it seldom works. Has anyone known any of these processes do anything bar escalate the problem? I've put the template in question up for deletion [33] --Doc^g 16:55, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• No to turning this section colors and saying it's over and settled. Cyde has announced that "it's time to stop" another user whose primary crime is making Cyde unhappy, apparently, or saying things Cyde seems to dislike. There is no divine right of admins. If there is, then my divinity is as great as his. Geogre 18:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
  • No one is trying to do so; it appears to be the result of a formatting mistake about halfway up the page. Mackensen (talk) 18:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you, Mackensen, for that clarification. To the issue at hand: What I see, so far, is personal. Cyde is taking things very personally and becoming personally involved in trying to "stop" persons, etc. This is counter to the spirit of Wikipedia. The fact that, above, he would even try to reach back to the Giano RFAR to mischaracterize Fred Bauder's rejected finding on the meaning of a policy is simply more evidence that Cyde is extremely angry rather than anything else. He had not been involved in interactions with Giano II on Mackensen's talk page, had not been involved in any interactions with me, and yet his vote on my ArbCom run, his desire to "stop" "people like" Giano, etc. is showing a very deleterious mindset at present. I hope that I am wrong (I often am), but I honestly cannot see any justification whatever for Cyde's words. I would love to "assume" good faith, but my imagination is not sufficient for finding a way to do that when someone comes along and announces a campaign to "stop" another user. It's rather like those people who want to "stop filth on television": they should not watch the show. Similarly, Cyde can not scanning everyone's talk page for "evidence." A good administrator waits for a complaint. He doesn't go looking to create one. Geogre 19:06, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

At some point there needs to be a conversation about persistent incivility and its effect on the environment we work in. It is not clear to me why we tolerate so much of something we don't really want. Tom Harrison ^Talk 19:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

In other contexts, other issues, with other disputants, I've objected to "double standards" where one or more parties held others to stricter standards than themselves, and I've argued for keeping a single standard. Now I begin to think that may not be sufficient to the needs. Better still would be to hold oneself to the stricter standard, and extend leeway (and some forgiveness) to others. That way the waves of mutual recrimination would be dampened out at the start, rather than growing, heterodyning in a feedback loop, as seems to be happening at present. Just a thought. – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 19:49, 22 Dec 2006 (UTC).

• I can't understand a word the person above is saying, but he probably agrees with me. I have been reading and re-reading various posts of Cyde's mostly admittedly those concerning me, and have come to the conclusion we are dealing with someone fairly young here, at most a late teens. We all get out of our depth at that age, so lets all say Happy Christmas and forget it. Perhaps though at some stage during 2007 we need to have a big think about junior editors and ages and responsibilities. IRC seems always to be a problem eternally with us, I know James Forrester has decreed IRC conversations off limits but that was in the days when wikipedia was much smaller - and he was more powerful. I think the time has now come to re-think that policy too so 2007 promises to be an interesting period in Wikipedia's history. Wikipedia is going places in internet history, it must not become a victim of it's own history. So lets wish each other a happy Christmas and productive new year. Giano 19:55, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

"I can't understand a word the person above is saying, but he probably agrees with me." That is probably the funniest thing I've read all day... thanks for making me laugh (and I mean that with all sincerity!) --Isotope23 20:00, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, from your username and the physics metaphors you were using, I can understand Giano (who I think writes on Italian architecture, among other things) not understanding what you were on about. Maybe wikilink your metaphors next time? heterodyne and feedback loop were probably the most obscure terms. Carcharoth 22:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Point taken, Carcharoth, though Isotope23 is not the person who used those metaphors. I'm sorry for assuming a more general familiarity with those concepts than actually exists. – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 23:15, 22 Dec 2006 (UTC).

Oh, and regarding Giano's speculation's about Cyde's age, it doesn't really matter what age he is. Judge him by his words, not his age. FWIW, I have seen pictures from various Wikimanias and similar meet-ups that identify someone they claim is Cyde, but again, that is neither here nor there. When we edit and interact on Wikipedia, we are just words. So look at the words, not the person. Carcharoth 22:31, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• It's sort of pointless to bring it up now, but I was asked (via the much-maligned IRC, no less) to note that I think the community should strongly prefer using tailored warnings to communicate with experienced users, rather than templates, since templates are definitely written with new users in mind. Given the heated conversation above, I don't know if it would have changed anything, but anything that can be done to keep a conversation cool is good. --Interiot 20:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

convenient break

We hear a lot of talk about 'at some point' or 'they can't get away with this'. But I've begun to ask myself: what is the end game here? What solution are we realistically wanting? Cyde banned? Giano blocked? Perhaps others too? The problem is that loose cannons go off, and the various groupings raise the defcon in defence or attack. Where does this end? Actually, when all cools down, I find I actually agree with folk like Geogre on far more issues than I disagree. And some civil conversations with others (yes, in IRC!) convinces me it doesn't have to be this way. I don't want to be sanctimonious, but perhaps all of us could work on cooling it. Are certain people uncivil at times. Yes, and we all know who they are? Are certain people sometimes hostile to the point of trolling? Yes, and we all know who they are. Can these people be otherwise? Yes, I think so. We all know it would be better if it were. Please let's all use whatever influence we have (particularly on those we think might listen to us - and not on those who are likely to react negatively to us) to cool things. It really doesn't take Time magazine's 'man of the year' to work it out--Doc^g 19:58, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Yep, we need a level open playing fields for all. No IRC, we are either all there - or all out, editors, admins, crats and the rest. Let the Arbcom have their mailings (confined to reigning members) in camera everything else open to scrutiny. I'm sick of reading "I discussed this on IRC" IRC counts for nothing here, and when all realise that, then we can progress, until then we are in for permanent fighting. Giano 20:10, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• And you'd agree not to use e-mail either? Actually my point is that the most productive civilised conversations I've had today have been on IRC, and have been with folk I've previously fought with on-wiki. So, I'd actually draw the opposite conclusion. But that's a side issue. Frankly, human nature is human nature: the medium be damned. We either want to fight, squabble, factionalize and and point score, or we want to move on and co-operate. I'm rather hoping we can go for the second option. Hoot if you're with me.--Doc^g 20:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree 110%, especially on your main point. (and on the side point, I agree that IRC has been the one place where I've had very pleasant and civil conversations with those I probably wouldn't have had otherwise). --Interiot 20:25, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• I'm glad you are all having such a good time there, and good luck to you, but why do so many Wikipedia admin decisions on blocking etc have to be made there? Please do not insult our intelligence by saying they are not. Giano 20:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm sure bad blocking decisions have been made via phone or email as well. As Doc said, address the person, not the medium. --Interiot 20:50, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• You have to be joking! I've been there and have the T-shirt to prove it. They conspire together and come out with WP attack, WP civility and WP anything else the next one can think of. I'd rather fight a nest of vipers than take on the IRC gang, but I frequently do. No lets have the source "eliminate the nest and kill the pest". Giano 20:56, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• • Doc, I agree with you, and I meant what I said above sincerely and at face value. I know folks assume that I'm always up to some rhetorical trick or something, but I'm not. People take things personally, and that's no way to operate. I don't know what "incivility" is in cases like these. Words? Words are just symbols. Intentions? None of us can judge those. Actions? Ok. Worse still, we have taunt and counter, badger and follow, charge and countercharge, and all that can occur then is that the people behind the names get angrier and angrier, and then someone says "booger," and the other person blocks, and then we're at ArbCom. Seriously: when you find yourself scanning other people's talk pages for evidence, you're probably trying to make a complaint rather than addressing one. Geogre 20:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Oh, and the IRC side issue: IRC is a great place to be pleasant, to banter inanely, and to burn some time. It's a fun place to blow off steam, too. How could it not be? That's the function of all chat. It's a horrible place to argue, in both senses of the word. I've never been against bantering with my fellow Wikipedians. I'm generally an amusing and mellow fellow (I got top 2 percentile in chatter and banter on the GRE), but IRC is a terrible place for formulating on-wiki actions unless it is followed by on-wiki deliberation and transparency. It's not that fine a distinction, either. Wikipedia actions have to be established and accountable on Wikipedia. People on IRC should have the sense to know that, whatever IRC says, they have to find their evidences and provide their rationales on the project. Geogre 20:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Why is IRC rather than the person to blame if someone decides the conversation is over and that there's nothing to discuss on-wiki? --Interiot 20:59, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
      • The person is to blame, but our vagueness is more to blame. Having an ArbCom that lived on IRC didn't help, either, as we had tremendous reluctance to spell out coherently and clearly best practice. Additionally, the much touted "gang" and "herd" mentality at IRC is very much to blame, too. While Cyde maligned the "back scratching" of a few of the academic writers, if such a thing existed (and it doesn't), it wouldn't have a patch on the self-defense instinct of people on IRC who rush to defend their pastime and/or IRC "friends" (quotes around friend because of my views on the illusoriness of all this mess). So, if a person is found out acting plainly on the basis of non-accountable process, we will see some very shrill defenses. It is disappointing that so few people think independently and weigh the issues dispassionately. Geogre 12:33, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Hoot Hoot Hoot to All. Paul August ☎ 20:54, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I beg your pardon? Are you going to share with us your views on IRC with us, or just make owl noises? Giano 21:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I see what you did there, Paul. Bishonen | talk 21:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC).
        • I'm with you too Bish. Hoot Hoot. Paul August ☎ 22:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC) P.S. to Giano: You don't have to beg you can have my pardon for free. As for IRC, I don't use it. I think it is best if Wiki related business is done on-Wiki, and hoot hoot to you too.
          • What is this? An example of a conversation held in a secret medium? —Centrx→talk • 23:09, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
            • See Doc's Hoot if you are with me above. Paul August ☎ 03:49, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh look everyone [34] another little IRC kid has turned up! Now lets see if I get banned for kicking him off my page. It does become very tiresome Giano 22:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

If I may make a suggestion, a RFAR concerning the behavior of Cyde, Ghirlandajo, and Giano is certaintly appearing to be a good possibility/remedy, as I can safely say that there has been a depressing lack of assuming good faith here, and this incivility on the part of all parties involved is simply disruptive. Thank you Ghirlandajo for trying to cool down the situation up above at your second post, but I think the fact that we are even here in the first place shows that there are some blatantly obvious problems between editors that needs to be addressed. How would a RFAR sound, then? Cowman109^Talk 22:56, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. I for one would love to see a productive discussion about the policy and accountability implications of IRC's lack of transparency -- in particular the "on-wiki actions should be justified on-wiki" school of thought appeals to me quite a bit, as a rule of thumb if nothing else, and I try to stick to that. IRC is a medium, it's a tool, and like any tool, it can be used effectively to better the encyclopedia, or it can be abused. I think it is a damned shame that the discussion has become so heated -- all of this incessant name calling accomplishes nothing and only makes the problem worse; it encourages "factions," scares people away, and hurts any chance of reaching a consensus of any real sort. As I said, I'd love to see a productive discussion, but I can say for sure that when I see a phrase like "IRC fairy," my blood starts to boil, and the chance of a good talking-over is inherently diminished -- I'm not trying to defend anything, or single anybody out, here, and I'm sure that any number of other examples could be brought up, on all sides. I guess what I'm asking for is this: those of you who really care about Wikipedia, please try to put your petty squabbles behind you, and strive to reach a legitimate agreement. I implore you, all of you, act your age and let the anger go. We have more important things to accomplish, all of us. Luna Santin 23:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

As a reminder to myself, I have just added the following to the top of my talk page:

"A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger." Proverbs 15:1 King James Version

I recommend this sentiment to everyone. -- Donald Albury 23:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• An RFAR? <cough> For what, exactly? I've been aggrieved, too, but I don't see anything but bad interpretation of the blocking policy and Cyde being very, very angry. He's entitled. I am reminded of what Mark Twain said: "When angry, count to ten. When very angry, swear." The problem is, we're now getting to the point where no one can be very angry. I'm not suggesting "drunken sailor -pedia," but let's get over this false Polyannaism. We are on the Internet, after all, and the very people offended by someone seeming to be angry are jokingly referring to goatse. You can't be jaded and prim. I don't use the pottymouth words, myself, but I think we ought to wait for people to violate Wikipedia policies, get warned, get negotiated with, have some mediateion, and repeat their mistakes before we block folks. Geogre 03:41, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

A less painful alternative?

Piotrus left me a friendly response to my proposal about playing template referee and invited me to the PAIN and RFC. Since this has escalated to a proposed ArbCom case I've proposed a less painful alternative: namely that I step into this hornet's nest and try to mediate. Durova^Charge! 23:41, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Chairboy's block

Chairboy has blocked Giano for 48 hours. Giano is saying on his talk page that this was all decided on IRC. I've asked Chairboy to unblock, particularly if he was involved in an IRC discussion. I'm requesting two things: first, and most important, that Cyde stay away from Giano from now on, and in particular that he stay away from any warnings or admin actions; and second, that people stop discussing admin action against Giano on IRC. It starts to look like harassment, and whether it's intended that way or not (and I'm sure it isn't by at least some of the parties), that's what it looks like to some bystanders and probably to Giano too. Admin actions like this, especially controversial ones, shouldn't be decided on IRC because it leads to nothing but trouble. That's surely a lesson that must have been learned by now. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

To be blunt, it looks to me that every time he get or the users that have associated with him get in trouble, they complain about secret IRC discussions they cannot prove happened until the decision is repealed. This is, at best, disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point. How long are we going to let them bully sysops out of their decisions? Who are the ones making the decisions here? Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 23:56, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

My understanding of the IRC rules is that public logging is not allowed, but that shouldn't prevent people telling us what was said and who said it, so long as the actual log isn't posted. I hope someone will therefore elaborate, and say who was involved in the discussion. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:00, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

If they can actually back up these claims, then we can weigh them on their own merits. If they're just complaining "OMG IRC CABAL" it's silly - we are not in kindergarten anymore, there is a certain code of conduct expected. That these editors are getting away with it on technicalities and unsubstantiated claims is damaging the wiki, in my biased opinion. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 00:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

"Who are the ones making the decisions here"? Certainly not the IRC clique of several non-editing sysops and lots of wannabe admins, of which you are one. The decisions are made by the community, by the ArbCom elected by the community, and by Jimbo Wales. If the janitors with mops are to make some vital "decisions" in this temple of knowledge, I will be the first to walk away. Admins are not priests but janitors. When janitors prevent priests from performing their duties (i.e., editors from writing the articles), priests should evacuate the temple. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 08:56, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Being an occasional resident of the IRC channels, I can tell you that IRC is just like real-life and on-wiki- there's no close-knit clique (or if there is, it's two or three close friends, and others dissent). Most of the time in controversial situations, there's a significant amount of discussion on more than one side of the issue. And frankly, I've dissented more than a few times on blocks that I thought were unjust, etc., leading to continued discussion on the blocks both on and off-wiki. The thought of an IRC clique controlling Wikipedia is just absurd. Ral315 (talk) 10:02, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

If you read my message carefully, you will see that what I spoke about was contrary to what you've been able to read into my message. I was responding to these inflammatory questions: "How long are we going to let them bully sysops out of their decisions? Who are the ones making the decisions here?" --Ghirla ^-трёп- 16:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

There was no conspiracy. There was no plotting against him. The claim is inaccurate, and if the logs are reviewed, they will show that to be the case. I hope he will excercise good judgement in whom he shares his illicit copies with, and I hope he provides complete transcripts without any editing, but that's that. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 00:23, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The copies wouldn't be illicit; it is only public logging, by which I assume is meant public posting, that's prohibited by IRC rules, at least that's my understanding. I stand to be corrected, of course. Chairboy, can you say whether you were involved in the IRC discussion, and who first suggested the block? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Since, after an IRC discussion, Jimbo has both endorsed and lifted the block, I think it is all a little moot now.--Doc^g 00:29, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad Jimbo has lifted the block. I don't think the discussion about IRC will be moot until people stop organizing blocks there, particularly if it's anything likely to be controversial. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm supposed to be on a wikibreak but I do have a question: has it been verified that this block was organized via IRC? All I've seen is questions asked of Chairboy and Giano's accusation. Thanks, Mackensen (talk) 00:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

No, it's not verified. I've asked Chairboy here and on his talk page, but he hasn't responded. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:37, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I responded to your questions both here and on my talk page, please clarify "he hasn't responded". - CHAIRBOY (☎) 00:49, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I meant that you hadn't answered the question. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I just saw this on Recent Changes, and i'd suggest that you just have public logging of these secret IRC rooms, that would prevent the conspiracy theory stuff.Just H 00:38, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

It would certainly save a lot of trouble. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The block was not organized in any way on IRC. The only involvement IRC had before everything exploded was that an admin gave me a diff of Giano being incivil to someone. After that, the decision to block based on his subsequent actions was mine and mine alone. There was a discussion on IRC where I counseled someone _not_ to block him because the block rationale they provided was improper, and another user in the room appears to have misinterpreted that as planning/coordination, but that is absolutely not the case. In response to the assertion that sharing the logs with Giano was proper and licit, I'll have to disagree. It's a violation of the channel rules and undermines the privacy expectations each participant has agreed to. While I know that I have at all points operated on the channel in a manner completely consistent with the ideals and ethics of the project, the fact that someone would make such a gross violation of trust is very disapointing and personally troubling. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 00:47, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Chairboy, can you say who gave you the diff of Giano allegedly being uncivil? Also, can you say exactly what the channel rules are? We can't have a situation where a channel that operates in absolutely secrecy has any effect on Wikipedia administrators. I can see the rationale for no public posting of logs, but for no one to be allowed to say anything whatsoever is absurd. This isn't an in-camera hearing of the UN Security Council. :-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know who gave the diff to Chairboy. But I subsequently gave the same diff to Jimbo Wales on IRC. The 'channel that operates in absolute secrecy' (which, incidentally, any admin can join) had an effect on that particular administrator. Indeed based on conversations there, he endorsed the block and, after discussion, agreed to lift it for the wider good of the project. A course of action (that I believe I) initially suggested to him, again on IRC. Any problems?--Doc^g 01:00, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know what your post means. I asked Chairboy who gave him the diff, because it'd be useful to know whether it was any of the people who've previously tried to get Giano blocked. And I asked what the privacy rules were on the channel. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:08, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, my laptop timed out while I was asleep, so I don't have the relevant logs. When I asked, earlier, if the block was planned on IRC, Chairyboy said "absolutely not" and Bishonen said "you'd better believe it." Don't know who to believe, and I don't have the logs. =\ Luna Santin 01:15, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

If that's the case, then bishonen has called me a liar. I find the claim offensive, incorrect, and a gross miscarriage of WP:AGF. I have attempted to reconcile with the user off-wiki, and she has rejected my attempts. I hope it doesn't spill into the project, we've got enough work already as is. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 01:33, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I fail to understand the logic here. A block is either a good call or a bad one. The blocking admin is alone responsible for his/her call. This call was a reasonable one (although I think ultimately unhelpful). I'm not sure what is meant by 'people who previously tried to get Giano blocked'. I've previously blocked Giano, does that count? Since everyone in the channel is an admin, anyone who believes someone should be blocked can just do it. However, it isn't the first time I've asked people to take a look at a diff I've caught (wanting a second opinion), and found someone blocked the offender before I did.

All that aside, Jimbo's action was designed to de-escalate this conflict and ask us all to play nice. I'm not sure going through Giano's edits, or IRC logs to see who said what to whom and when, is quite in that spirit. Lets move on.--Doc^g 01:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Just a point of information: not everyone in the channel is an admin, and most admins aren't involved in it, so it's a little misleading to call it an admins' channel. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:25, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth (which may or may not be much depending on Ghirla's decision regarding my offer), I'm not on IRC and don't have any plans to join that channel. Durova^Charge! 01:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

As an aside, the fact that Giano got blocked yet again tells me we learned absolutely nothing from Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Giano. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:50, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

You mean this? Funny, it seems to suggest just the opposite. Or perhaps you meant this? I'm not seeing a "Get Out of Jail Free" card anywhere in there. --Calton | Talk 02:00, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• This is disgusting. How long do we get to bandy about a diff? Can I now block Giano on the same comment and then claim, "Hey, it was just me by myself?" The "any admin" channel is similarly ridiculous, as there are at least two people who are not administrators who are on there, and there are people who are who won't go near it. The very existence of the thing was an attempt to gain greater secrecy, and that means opacity. Playing legal games now to say, "Well, someone showed it to me on IRC but I made the decision" is disengenious. Anyone ever heard of the bias of the first move? Basically, if I go to your talk page and say, "Oh, my goodness! Look at this horrible personal attack" and link, then you go to read specifically a single comment looking for the attack. If you are not skeptical (say, the person telling you is someone you've bantered pleasantly with for days), you may indeed see that vicious personal attack. Now, if all this happens on a talk page, there is some chance that the "attacker" will show up to explain the context, the intent, and the standing. If it happens on IRC, though, you're just getting that biased view. When a person makes a point of attacking IRC coteries, that person's going to be hunted and hounded extra especially. Doing anything "by the attention of someone on IRC" is a horrible, disgusting move. Confer! Confer some more before you block and confer openly. What is AN/I? What is its purpose? IRC blocks are, if ever, justifiable only in emergencies. Hours old diffs of Giano being mean are hardly emergencies. (Oh, and then the "Help, Bishonen's not assuming good faith" is really terrific.) I'm very disappointed. Geogre 04:20, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• I want to make clear that I don't doubt Chairboy acted in good faith. However, in general, I wonder why people discuss blocks on IRC rather than on AN/I or by e-mail? AN/I has the benefit of being public, transparent, and can be quoted. E-mail is private for anything sensitive. IRC is neither fish nor fowl. It's public enough to invoke a gang mentality in those who use it, yet not so public that we're allowed to quote from it, which just strengthens the gang mentality. There's no point in denying this, because I've seen it time and again, and I've been stunned every time I've witnessed it (and the two facedness takes your breath away!). There's no gang mentality by e-mail, or at least it's harder to create it given the limited numbers. Anyone who can't see IRC has a potential for creating that atmosphere doesn't understand human nature. Even if we think we're not succumbing to it, we might be. Doesn't it therefore make sense to use AN/I for most blocks, e-mails for anything sensitive, and IRC for general discussions not involving individuals? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Well said. Paul August ☎ 04:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• • I have no aspersions to cast on Chairboy's intentions, but the process was awful. It's common sense to deliberate, to use AN/I, to make deliberations especially for blocks as transparent as possible. Not doing that is absolutely wretched, whatever the intentions of the person doing it. Instead of accepting this point, which would certainly make me feel better, we're getting another battle, which doesn't help my peace of mind at all. Insisting that one's actions are above reproach is rarely helpful. If people are reproaching you, there's probably something you could have done better. (Unless you assume bad faith in every single person questioning you, but, if you do that, you're really off the path.) Geogre 15:07, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• "There's no gang mentality by e-mail" ... Are you sure about that? If there actually are conspiracies afoot, the conspirators will conspire by whatever means necessary. And it's a lot harder to hide the evidence on IRC, in a channel that 1000 people can join if they want to, than it is by private email. With private email, all you see is the circumstantial evidence. If that. I don't really think you need IRC to get two faced behaviour. Human nature being what it is and all... IRC is a tool like any other and can be used or misused, like any other. ++Lar: t/c 05:45, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• The nature of IRC lends itself to the herd mentality in a way e-mail doesn't, or at least much less so, because the latter's private and the numbers involved much smaller. With IRC, there may be dozens or even hundreds of people watching, and there's a certain amount of grandstanding. I've seen more experienced editors basically issue instructions to very young or inexperienced ones, and minutes later, they're off doing the thing that the experienced editor didn't want to do himself. It's all very well for people to claim that everyone on IRC acts of their own freewill, but how realistic is that when the age and experience differences are very significant? The important point is that IRC-related blocks frequently cause trouble, so why not just avoid them? If someone raises the possibility of a block on IRC, directly or otherwise, the sensible thing to do is for one of the admins present to initiate a discussion on AN/I to see whether the off-IRC voices concur. That's particularly important in the case of a controversial block. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:56, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Geogre, the truth does not require your approval. You can assert that I've misbehaved and conspired and cabalized all you want, but it's simply wrong. If you feel I have acted improperly, if you feel that I'm lying or otherwise doing wrong, then put your money where your mouth is. Open an ArbCom case so that the logs can be reviewed by disinterested parties. JWales reviewed the situation and endorsed the block. I corresponded with SlimVirgin in email regarding some of the specifics of the discussion. Either make a formal complaint and follow it through or apologize for your inappropriate insinuations. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 07:23, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Indeed, the truth does not require approval, and it is similarly not your possession. You have been asked, several times, to answer germane questions. You still want opacity. In what way does this help? As for "apologize for inappropriate insinuations," you'll have to tell me what they are, just as you really should tell Giano what you are blocking him for. Oh, and giving him a chance to explain would have been nice. Giving him a chance to reduce the heat would have been nice, too. You have, indeed, behaved inappropriately by following along the well worn path to unilateralism. You will note that my comments were directed at this affair, and not so much a single person. This affair illustrates, again, the use of stale diffs and, most distressingly, the refusal to confer. You indicate, one place, that you did confer, but it was on IRC (where no one may see or say), but then you say that you made your decision solus. I repeat: before blocking consult and confer and do so on Wikipedia. This is good practice, and it does require approval. All administrators should (must, except in emergencies) confer and deliberate in any shadowy area. This was a very shadowy area, and yet you felt that, on the basis of a first move call for action, you could act without warning and mediation and resolution and conferring. That can only be done if you believe you have a pipeline to the divine truth or divine rights (or if you are acting unthinkingly, of course). Geogre 12:23, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Again, you're calling me a liar. This is grossly incivil and an injust mischaracterization. What are your motivations here? I didn't block Giano because of a conversation on IRC. I got a diff from a novice admin who wanted to know if the text in it was a blockable offense. I told the admin that it was not, but volunteered to ask Giano to be nice. I then went to Giano's user talk and left him this request to be civil. Giano blanked the civility request with an edit summary that told me to "Go away tiresome shild^(sic)", then left a message on my talk page telling me to go and 'learn some manners'. As a response, I restored the warning and told him I was blocking him for repeated incivility and personal attacks against me when I asked him to knock it off. At no part of this was there any IRC collaboration to plot his blocking. As far as I can tell, another admin in the group misinterpreted my counseling to the novice admin as some sort of plot, but anyone who actually reads the log will see that it's ridiculous. At one point I mistook Giano for someone else and characterized him as a wikilawyer and said something to the effect of "If you block someone, you need to make absolutely certain that it's a proper block. You can't just block based on a feeling, there needs to be a specific policy violation", and mentioned that Giano would properly assert against an improper block. Blocks are bad juju, and I don't like doing them, that's why I counseled the new admin about how to avoid getting into a crapstorm and blocking innocent users. Between you and bishonen, my actions have been mischaracterized and you have whole cloth fabricated motivations and conspiracies that simply do not exist. Create an ArbCom request, Geogre, please. I beg you. If it's the only thing that will get you to stop libeling me and the only thing that will help us begin healing this weird rift in the project that you and bishonen seem determined to create, then let's get it over with. The logs can be privately reviewed by the Arbitration Committee without violating the trust of the admin IRC channel (which exists not to plot and make Wikipedia policy, but as a place where people can bounce ideas off each other and either get a positive sanity check or a thwack on the back of the head to correct a mistake) and breaking its effectiveness as one of Wikipedia's heroic inanimate carbon rods. Apologize for your gross mischaracterization of my motivations and actions, open an ArbCom case (which I will gladly assist with in any way possible), or you stand ready to clearly communicate to everyone here that your goal is not to create a better project, but is instead to disrupt and impugn innocent folks with whom you personally disagree for one reason or another. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 16:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Uh, what "characterization of motives?" I don't see any, unless you count way up there, where he says that he doesn't have any aspersions to cast at your intentions. You mean he should apologize for that or else you'll link "civil" and "personal attack" some more? Sheesh. Crowbait 18:40, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, there was no characterization of motives. There was a characterization of behavior. When Betacommand was called out for his improper block (blocking without warning, blocking without conferring), he conferred with Chairboy, whose measure of conferring was to think it over and just block without using AN/I or consulting with another administrator. That is bad practice. There have been no personal attacks here, just tremendously bad actions. When blocking, confer and do so openly. How hard is that to take to heart? Chairboy, you can keep begging for an RFAR, but I am not "accusing" you of anything. I am flatly stating that your actions were bad practice, improper, and invalid. They were. Take that as a "personal attack" only if you consider community input to be always harmful. Geogre 00:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Geogre, Chaiboy's block was entirely justified by Giano's disruptive incivility. If he hadn't beaten me to it, I would have blocked Giano myself. Tom Harrison ^Talk 00:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• For the benefit of anyone who still cares about this project, the truth of this affair is being outed here [35] Giano 17:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Can anyone tell us exactly what the rules are regarding privacy of logs on the so-called admins' channel? Giano's source appears to have one understanding and some of the people posting here have another. It would help if we could be told for certain what's allowed and what not, in terms of disclosure. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 09:11, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Most major Wikipedia channels, including #wikipedia and #wikipedia-en-admins, allow logging for personal use only. Thus, keeping copies for one's own use would be fine, and, presumably, reading logs to generalize a situation and responses would be fine. Quoting logs, making logs public, or sharing logs without the permission of all participants in the discussion is prohibited. (It may be worth noting that even private logging is illegal in some jurisdictions, but that's another story.) Ral315 (talk) 10:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Ral. I'm still not sure what it means in practise. Would someone be allowed to say "It was User:X who suggested the block"? Would they be allowed to say it on AN/I? By e-mail? And I mean without X's permission. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 12:37, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

And when you say "illegal" and "jurisdictions," what do you mean? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 12:39, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

---

Good news: both Piotrus and Ghirla have agreed to let me mediate. Durova^Charge! 14:38, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

May I quote your bit of the log re:Giano to show how to the block was discussed?

The background to Chairboy's block of Giano last night was Betacommand's recent block of Irpen. Looking at the admin channel logs from last night, I see people asking me how the issue of blocking Giano started this time, and me saying I couldn't remember. Now that it's no longer the middle of the night, I do remember: the background was Betacommand's extremely dodgy block of Irpen, which has been criticized here on ANI for being done without warning, for giving only the vague reason "personal attacks", for coming without a block message, and for being imposed at the last minute before Betacommand went off line. (On Betacommand's talkpage are many more queries and comments, including this trenchant summary by Geogre: [36].) Betacommand's block of Irpen was pretty soon undone, but Irpen remains crushed by the way his block log now looks. I saw clearly last night on en-admins the usual old callousness about such things, exhibited by some admins (those most active in the matter): the too-frequent incapacity for understanding the amount of harm done to good-faith editors by blocks. :-( Blocks were actually discussed in terms of editors wanting to be blocked, "wikilawyering" to be blocked, "dancing" to be blocked; rather than in terms of the shock and pain of getting an enduring black mark (so very easily inflicted!) in the block log. Whatever. Giano was one of the people criticizing Betacommand over the Irpen block, and Betacommand's reaction was apparently (not that he needed to take stock, being a new admin, and reconsider doing such blocks) but that he needed help from more experienced admins in putting a stop to such Personal Attacks against himself. He joined #Wikipedia-en-admins to ask, and Chairboy advised him. Considering the rate at which Chairboy's accusations against me personally seem to be escalating above, I'd really like to go into more detail at this point, and to preferably use exact quotes from the discussion of the blocking of Giano, but I confess myself unnerved by the different things different users are saying about whether, or how much, the logs can actually be quoted in public. Let me go out on a limb, though, and ask the following editors if they will permit me to quote their words here on ANI. If that question itself is improperly revealing, you'll just have to hang me. Betacommand, Doc glasgow, Royalguard11, Chairboy, Naconkantari, Interiot, Luna-San, Jwales, could you please indicate here whether you're OK with having your words from the log quoted by me here? Bishonen | talk 17:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC).

If you feel you need to make a point, then go ahead. I release my contributions, my only requirement is that you include the entire log, from beginning (when Betacommand asked for someone to block someone for NPA) to Jwale's leaving the room after endorsing the block, not just a cherry picked segment with "helpful editing". - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:29, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't fully understand this what's going on here. Giano's recent edits seem to indicate he already has logs (though I can't confirm if it's genuine, but I'll assume so). Have you already shared them with him? Dmcdevit·t 19:17, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I haven't. I don't know where Giano got his logs. (I asked and he wouldn't say.) I logged the channel when I was in it, and I'm asking if I may share suitable bits of the log here. On ANI. Nothing to do with Giano. Right now I'm taking some deep breaths and trying to decide whether anything will be achieved or improved by my replying to Chairboy in the same spirit in which he speaks to me. I think not. Bishonen | talk 19:29, 23 December 2006 (UTC).

With respect, you've been accusing me of lying, and I've had the temerity to object. Look, we're all volunteers here, that's part of why this whole thing is so silly, and the personal nature of the attacks are unwarranted. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 19:50, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• • Does not compute: "entire log" makes no sense. How do you know when someone began logging and quit? Weird. Everything is "cherry picked." Crowbait 18:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that would be most helpful for those who wonder where Wikipedia is going. I have been told so many times how civil and helpful that abode of "wikilove" they call #Wikipedia-en-admins, that I would really like to see a sample from logs of that "wikilove" (or is it "wikievil"?) to assess the situation. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 18:59, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Well you can obtain a flavour of the log here [37], where you will see some of those concerned are grabbing at straws and seem reluctant to discuss the situation further. Oh and for the benefit of those who seem to suspect Bishonen passed me the log - she did not. It came from someone altogether closer to my home, and that is the only hint. Those concerned know what was in it, and they seem to be anxious to rephrase their meanings, I do hope so because "kill me cleanly" is a very unpleasant term indeed. Obviously nothing uncivil intended there. Giano 19:59, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

"Kill you cleanly?" Is that what this is all about? It appears you do not actually have a copy of the logs, if you did you wouldn't be making these claims. I was counseling an admin about administering blocks. I told him that any block administered must meet specific criteria and be completely legit to ensure a "clean kill", in the sense that the alternative is that people get blocked who shouldn't have been. Bishonen interpreted this in just about the worst possible way, and if my language was unclear, I apologize, but saying that I was plotting to kill you or otherwise conspiring as part of a big mean IRC cabal is just flat out wrong. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 20:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Good Lord, in what way can "clean kill" be interpreted? Honestly, you're great at reading menace into my words, but your own...even when you use violent language...that's just no biggie? Yikes! Geogre 00:28, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Aside from obvious vandalism, blocks of established editors should be discussed here or on AN. Using IRC to determine if a block is appropriate or if an unblock is a good idea simply needs to stop. Consensus is decided on wiki, not IRC.--MONGO 20:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Exactly right. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:38, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• I agree. If an established contributor is to be blocked, at the very least they should be given a chance to defend their actions. I feel the "anti-IRC" argument is misplaced however. Plenty of blocks have probably occurred by AIM/MSN/YIM group chats too. I would even conjecture more happen there as more Wikipedians I know use these messenger services as communication media than IRC. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 20:11, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

..........and the reason I dismissed Chairboy with such a curt message [38] was because I already (very reliably) knew he had been made the stooge of an IRC plot. He was referring to the incident Cyde had already posted here (on this page) hours before. All very odd isn't it? Giano 20:17, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Perhaps, but I see irony in the fact that you were unblocked per an IRC discussion in the admins channel as well. If anything, I would suggest you be happy it was IRC - there are plenty of people who have logs (of which you seem to be one). If it was AIM/YIM/MSN it would be "he said/she said." Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 20:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Was I? I didn't know that. Not often someone can tell me something I didn't know. So what else was said in that IRC discussion? I'm sure we would all love to know Giano 20:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Jimbo interceded on your behalf. As I understand it, he endorsed the block for the reasons given, but repealed it because of the issues related to IRC (with a strong warning in the unblock for you to act in a civil matter - you can read the block log if you wish.) I am not sure of the contents of the discussion, as I was not a party to it, but I know for a fact that it was conducted over IRC. For my part, I also discussed the matter with him. While don't want to say anything Jimbo said without his permission to say it, I commented to him that the whole matter seems to have gotten vastly exaggerated, that you were a good contributor, and that you simply seem to have misplaced your suspicion of IRC. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 21:45, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

A quick correction. JWales did not unblock Giano because of issues related to IRC. He unblocked Giano because he feels Giano is a valued member and he wants everyone to be happy. Whether or not it is the right thing to do is a concern that must take a back seat to diplomacy. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 22:43, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Any admin who thinks diplomacy is not the right thing to do or is unimportant, should be summarily stripped of their mop, which should then be broken in twain and the pieces lovingly shoved where the sun don't shine:).--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 23:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

And that's your idea of being 'diplomatic'? Perhaps you should follow your own advice.--Doc^g 00:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, this is what I was getting at about people being a bit hypocritical. People who go on search and destroy missions for "incivility" and "personal attacks" should at least be consistent in seeking to exemplify civility (and not talk about getting quick kills or escalate situations with volatile editors and not admit no fault) and avoid itching for fights. RDH doesn't go hunting civility breaches, and neither does Giano. Of course we should all be civil, but when we make ourselves wardens of everyone else's behavior and not our own, when we go hunting for what we are sure must be personal attacks, then we get distorted into the monsters we claim to want to destroy. It's far better to be laid back. Geogre 01:05, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree. No one should go hunting for incivility breaches. I certainly don't.--Doc^g 01:14, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, that was a non-starter. A question about sharing the en-admin logs.

Well, that was apparently a non-starter. Only Chairboy has replied so far, and, Kerberos-like, in a way that would make it necessary to ask several more people for permission to quote their words (pointless quoting, but required by Chairboy to avoid my putative evil and dishonest cherry-picking). I've suggested to Chairboy on IRC that he might like to do the editing himself, to shorten the very long section from Betacommand's question to jwales's exit, and especially to remove the irrelevant people, but he doesn't wish to. OK, I would have liked to explain how I see what happened on en-admins yesterday, but meh, forget it. I'm only sorry Slim's questions are destined to have no replies. Hey, could somebody who's sure they understand the rules tell me, though: is there any objection to my e-mailing the logs to SlimVirgin? She's an admin, she might as well have been there and doing her own logging, though in fact she was not. Right? Bishonen | talk 21:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC).

For my part I pointed out to Jimmy that there was a request for his permission to have the logs reviewed pertaining to him, but he has been busy today. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 22:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm sure "Jimmy" is very grateful to you. Regarding your point above, it rather seems my suspicions of IRC are far from "misplaced" Giano 22:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Jimmy is jwales on IRC and User:Jimbo Wales here. You can read about him on wikipedia. He happens to be it's founder :) Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 22:27, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• don't worry, I know who he is, I have been here a short while. Giano 22:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

For my part, I have no objection if you release the logs of that conversation, Bishonen. I thought it was a helpful talk. I can only speak for myself, though. If you get the permission of all involved, I don't see why it would be any problem at all (even getting past our general paranoia about it). Luna Santin 22:32, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

And If people won't answer, I don't see the harm in emailing the logs to anyone who requests a copy Giano 22:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think I would see a problem with it, either, but the person releasing the logs would be making themselves vulnerable, under the prohibition on public logging; if at all possible, I'd prefer to avoid forcing that on anyone. Luna Santin 22:44, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Giano, I would suggest you didn't do that without permission. The reason is alluded to above. If you give out information given in confidence without the permission of all involved, then there could be legal implications, and I certainly wouldn't want that happening with anyone here. We have Bishonen's implicit permission and Chairboy and Luna-Santin's explicit permission, let's wait until doc-glasgow, Jimmy, and Betacommand reply and do this the "right" way. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 22:48, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

You'll have to read Chairboy's "permission" more carefully, Peter. It contains conditions that make it unusable. There were several people there whom a publication would be likely to embarrass. I simply wouldn't do it, even aparat from the fact that they'd be highly unlikely to give permission for it. They're not relevant to this, but as long as Chairboy insists on every dot or nothing, they'd be part of it nevertheless. Bishonen | talk 23:02, 23 December 2006 (UTC).

I've just seen your edit here [39] are you daring to make a legal threat to me? Please consider your answer very carefull before you answer. Giano 22:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm curious how you could interpret that diff as a legal threat in any way, shape, or form. Unless you're referring to this edit, where he specifically says he's not hoping for that. Luna Santin 22:57, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I was refering to his edit directly above, where he and I know full well what he is implying. The reason IRC Logs are not used on Wikipedia is because James Forrester decreed it so. I have an IRC log of him boasting about it, I must dig that one out, it makes amusing reading. Giano 23:16, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Giano, I've commented there to keep things short here. – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 02:41, 24 Dec 2006 (UTC).

I know I'm going to be shouted at for this but if you really want IRC logs published, propose a change to the policy in the normal way and let the community decide what happens rather than keep banging on about IRC logs here where it's just annoying and upsetting other users and where your making new enemies for no reason. I'd really like to see a proper discussion about IRC logs after all the complaints from the past week. --Kind Regards - Heligoland | Talk | Contribs 23:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Giano, with all due respect, I still don't see how you can possibly interpret that as a legal threat, when he explicitly said he didn't want anyone to get into legal trouble. Perhaps you're reading a subtext into it that I'm not, but at this point focusing on details like that is only going to kill everyone's chances at quickly resolving this with as little drama as possible. Please, just let it go so that we can move on to working this out. If you want the "last word," fine by me. Luna Santin 23:35, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Non-involved non-admin here, and FWIW I interpreted it as a legal threat. Anchoress 02:45, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Anchoress, please also see here. – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 06:48, 24 Dec 2006 (UTC).

Giano, I wish to take this opportunity to apologise for using sarcasm in your presence, as it is obvious unhelpful. I will attempt not so to do in future (though I imagine I will fail, sadly).

Yes, it is theoretically my call as to all of the rules in all of the IRC channels (that's my job). Yes, it is my job to oversee the enforcement of said rules. No, I did not actually make this rule up. Yes, I support it personally, but it would be utterly inappropriate to use my position to further a personal objective of mine. No, I do not enjoy "power", and would not boast about it. Yes, I sometimes make a joke of it. Further questions are welcome, of course; transparency in this role is not necessarily a bad idea.

The rule and its rationale are as follows: IRC is not Wikipedia. IRC is not under the control of Wikipedia, or any part thereof (the me-who-is-on-IRC is not the me-who-is-on-here; such is the nature of having various hats). Things that happen on IRC are equivalent to things that happen on MySpace, or in a telephone conversation, or in a pub. They are meant to be analogous to e-mail - all participants get a copy, but it is utterly morally vile (and generally illegal) to forward private correspondance to another party without permission of all those involved. Were we to publically log the "private" IRC channels, they would, err, cease to be private, and all these "cabal"-like discussions that so many people seem to think occur there (wrongly, as far I am aware) would move to somewhere that they cannot have as many people take part in the discussions (by the very nature of having a private channel), and, as they wouldn't be part of the official Wikipedia IRC network, I would have no ex officio ability nor authority to be in said channel, and so wouldn't be able to monitor such things.

I think that it is very sad that those people who choose not to use IRC (it takes very little effort in most circumstances) consider those who do do so to be part of some microscopic group that plot against the rest. It is not really very in-keeping with wikilove, AGF, and other core parts of what our community is about (for those that have forgotten :-().

Finally, please note that #wikipedia-en-admins is not an "official" channel (as said above), but is for informed discussion, so various particular people who are no longer, or have never been, sysops are still welcome there - and, by extension, people who are sysops but are disbenefits to the discussion could be asked, or forced, to leave (though I do not believe this has happened yet).

James F. (talk) 10:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation, James. You've explained the rule — that it's analogous to e-mail, with all participants receiving a copy. Two questions: first, whose rule is this? Second, can the rule be modified so that anyone who would be entitled to be on the list (basically, any admin) may ask to receive a copy after the fact, assuming a copy exists? In that way, situations like the above would be avoided. The secrecy is breeding suspicion. A number of us here have tried to deal with this situation, and are having to feel our way along in the dark. I have not seen the logs. I don't know who said what. I would like to know, not so I can blab about it, but so I can inform the way I approach the situation. If admins could request the logs in future for any situation that turns controversial, the people on the channel will be more careful not to do controversial things on it, and if they do, it'll be easy to see how it evolved so it can be more easily avoided in future. Do you have any thoughts about that? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 10:28, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The rule is that of the IRC community. It has been the rule for longer than I've used IRC for the Wikimedia projects (that is, it's been a rule since at least 2003). I'm sure it can be modified, but in the same way that any policy in Wikimedia can - consensus has to be convinced of the need for and appropriacy of change. As to the particulars of your proposal, I would observe that it violates the primary point of the logging ban (that what is said in private, stays in private), and so I doubt the community would be terribly in favour of it. You can ask, of course, but I don't fancy the proposal's chances.

I'm also somewhat unsure of your implict premise - that each and every single sysop can be trusted with such information. By "trusted", we mean trusted not to react adversly to it, not to leak it to other people or organisations such as "Wikitruth" - in essence, not to bring the project into disrepute (that is what we're all here to do, isn't it? ;-)). This is in general an exceedingly difficult thing to ask of people - for example, I would not necessarily feel comfortable seeing logs about myself, or about something "politically sensitive". I would say that the ability to trust all sysops with such information is not something that can easily be handed down - it is up to each conversations' participants to judge for themselves whether or not they trust the people in-channel at the time to. Given the rampant lack of trust and factionalism present in the sysop cadre, a rot that has been festering for quite some time now, I can see no way of getting to the point where such a thing would be possible. :-(

I don't think that it would be appropriate for me to comment about the individual cases that come up here, of course, so I'm afraid that I might not be of as much help as you might expect in solving this right now; I have had a quick look, and it seems that I was not in-channel at the time of this conversation (there were a few problems with IRC servers), so I'm just as much in the dark as everyone else. Sorry. :-(

I'm sad that you have seen people become suspicious just because they do not know everything; it seems somewhat petty to my mind, really - but then, I'm used to the concept of circles within circles and all that from my extra-wiki life. :-)

James F. (talk) 12:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you James so your statement on IRC: that if you were to make personal attacks you would do them on IRC because you control it, and had personally ruled it was not under the Arbcom's jurisdiction" was not true then? Giano 11:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that was a sarcastic observation. Anyone who knows me even vaguely would be able to tell that. :-) I would not make personal attacks about others - ever - so the question is moot. I was, yes, part of the Committee when we observed ("ruled", if you prefer, though I don't) that IRC is outwith Wikipedia, but the observation was not novel.

In this particular case, I'm not terribly fussed about you revealling the contents of my privileged discussions, but please do not do so again without prior consent of the parties involved.

James F. (talk) 12:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

James, if making the logs privately available to any admin who asks isn't tenable (and I take your point about trust and Wikitruth, and other venues), would it be easier to request, or to introduce a rule (I don't know how the channel works and what rules exist, or how they are introduced) that no-one is allowed to discuss on the IRC admins' channel the proposed block of an established editor, and that anyone doing so will be asked to leave the channel, or some such? Not including proposed blocks of vandals, or drive-by editors, of course, but the blocking of anyone established in the community should not be discussed at all on IRC. Would that work? I think it would go a long way to re-establishing some trust. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 14:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I actually liked this idea so much that I went ahead and made it. Hopefully this will make people happier, but, far more importantly, work to improve the project.

James F. (talk) 22:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I was not involved in the discussion prior to the block (as Bishonen can attest), my only involvement after it was to counsel against the block. However, I explicitly deny permission for the publication of any of my contributions. That is not a precedent I wish to set. --Doc^g 23:13, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

A suggestion for the future

My understanding is that any admin is entitled to use the so-called admins' channel. Therefore, any admin could be present at any time and be watching or logging for themselves. My recollection is that Danny set it up for the benefit of admins. Therefore, it makes sense that any logs may be passed to other admins by e-mail with or without the permission of the participants. This would get round the absurdity of Wikipedia admins trying to discuss an admininstrative issue on the Wikipedia admins' noticeboard, but not being allowed to know what was said. In future, I suggest that any admin may request a copy of the logs from any other admin who happens to have them. Who are the channel operators so I can check this with them? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:46, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's my understanding that the channel is not restricted to enwiki admins, but is rather open and devs and commons admins get access too. Does that mean they get the logs if they ask for it? – Chacor 02:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I still don't understand why it's not allowed to just publish these logs in any case (with the exception of confidential stuff, of course), soo.. what if we allow logs to be published whenever an admin action was involved (same exception)? Whenever someone says "I discussed this on IRC and then blocked him/protected the article/whatever", it should be possible to find out what was said by whom, IMHO. --Conti|✉ 03:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, my suggestion is that anyone who would be entitled to access to the channel may request a copy of the logs from anyone who has a copy. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:17, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

One of the long-standing rules on #wikipeida channels on IRC is that publishing a log = ban on IRC. Another issue that hasn't been brung up is that the conversations on IRC aren't released under GFDL. (not a big issue, but it could turn into something someday). ---J.S ^(T/C) 03:18, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I didn't say "publish." I meant that anyone entitled to access may request that they be privately forwarded a copy. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:17, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

"Brought". ;) – Chacor 03:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I know it's a rule, I just don't understand why it's one. I think publishing the log in this case would've prevented a lot of bad blood between all participants. --Conti|✉ 03:23, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

So, out of curiousity, who holds the copyright to them? Picaroon 03:25, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm guessing that IRC chats have the same status as telephone calls, and in North America you may record your own telephone conversations and allow others access. You may not do it unless you're part of the conversation. However, I find this resorting to legal questions pointless. We're not children and we're not enemies. We should be able to reach an agreement that ensures these IRC block controversies don't pan out in the same way in future. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

You may record your telephone calls and allow others access if you inform the other party or parties prior to the conversation that the conversation is recorded and may be used for whatever purpose, at which point they can disconnect or communicate elsewhere. —Centrx→talk • 09:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

If you're a participant in the conversation, the only consent you need is your own. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 14:37, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I have not participated in this discussion, and have never yet been on a Wikipedia-related IRC discussion, but for the record, the law about recording phone conversations varies greatly from one place to another. In the USA, for example, in some states ("two-party states") both sides to a conversation must consent to any recording, exactly as Centrx says, but in others ("one-party states") either party to the conversation may record unilaterally (at least as far as the purely legal aspect is concerned). When the two parties to a call are located in different states with different rules, of course, things get complicated. If one then tries to extrapolate to an IRC channel with hundreds of participants, it becomes clear that this is not going to be a useful analogy one way or the other, for better or worse. Newyorkbrad 12:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

A useful analogy is chatting around a table. You know who is present, and that they are trustworthy enough not to record your real-time conversation and advertise it elsewhere. If they were to record it, you would not speak freely or comfortably, and you may just go sit at another table altogether. If there is official business to be conducted, it can be done at the WP:AN table, but if a certain table is logged, people will simply choose to go to an unlogged private table, a private table that may be unsupervised and to which you have no guarantee of entrance. It is one thing to take notes at a board meeting, and another thing entirely to record every business (or totally non-business) lunch and post the transcripts in the company lobby. Surveillance will not solve the alleged problem, it will just send it underground, and has other effects besides. —Centrx→talk • 22:43, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I understand that my contributions in IRC are not released. They remain my copyright. If anyone were to log them and offer copies to over 1,000 admins that would surely be a breach of copyright, freenode policy, and the law in certain countries. I would strongly resist that, for a whole host of reasons. With 1,000 potential logs (even if for private use) it would impossible to enforce a 'no publications' rule. If logs are published, then they are searchable. If someone can search through my informal chatting on IRC, then they can almost certainly compromise my pseudonymity. Slim this is dead in the water. I would seek to enforce my copyrights.--Doc^g 09:52, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

That's why I propose to only publish logs (or hand them out to everyone who was involved) when an admin action was involved. I understand your point, and I also don't see a point in publishing day-to-day chit-chat, but discussions that lead to a block should be available to those involved, IMHO. --Conti|✉ 15:50, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe you have any copyright over that material, but as I said above, that really ought to be beside the point. If secrets are being discussed, they should be discussed privately by e-mail. If they're not secrets, but ordinary admin business, then any admin should be able to see the logs. The current situation, where they're sort of secret and sort of public, is untenable, at least for admin business, because it leads to absurd situations like the above. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 10:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Am I wrong to thank that the best place for further discussion would be the talk page of m:IRC guidelines? As a note on confidentiality - right now the channels are considered a private place, and anything said in there is between the parties therein. Releasing it without the express permission of everyone therein is a breach of trust, which is punishable to various degrees in various countries. ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 17:26, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Westlife

The westlife page has yet been again vandalized. I suggest semi-protection because it's the same IP range that vandalized the page. [Please Revert the vandal] --Cahk 02:10, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

File a protection request at requests for page protection. The edit in question has already been reverted. | Mr. Darcy talk 02:13, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Lucky 6.9 blocking good users

Hi! I am a mediator with WP:MEDCAB, and I just came across a strange case. It was named Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/User:Lucky 6.9 reverting his own Talk page, but it seems to reach much further. It appears that Lucky 6.9 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) is fighting people who disagree with him by various actions up to deleting mediation pages and blocking users who, as far as I can see, have done nothing wrong, other than they could be dangerous to him.

Timeline:

time (UTC)	what happened
about 20 December	mediation case was created
21:52, 22 December 2006	SebastianHelm asks Lucky_6.9 if he accepts mediation
01:08, 23 December 2006	Lucky 6.9 blocks SamAndrews indefinitely *
01:12, 23 December 2006	Lucky_6.9 replies with WTF???. Does not reply to question if he accepts Sebastian as mediator.
later on 22 December 2006	Lucky 6.9 deletes the mediation case

* The reason for blocking SamAndrews was given as "Trolling, vandalism". However, I do not see any evidence for this. Here are all edits from Special:Contributions/SamAndrews:

time	article	edit summary	edit as summarized by Sebastian
21:09, 20 December 2006	Regina Peruggi	updated, new position	meaningful edit
21:01, 20 December 2006	Regina Peruggi	started page	created nice page - at least I don't see anything wrong with it
20:35, 20 December 2006	m Rudy Giuliani	link	inserted relevant link
20:34, 20 December 2006	Judith Giuliani		meaningful addition
20:33, 20 December 2006	m Donna Hanover	fixed typo	fixed typo
11:01, 20 December 2006	Kashrut	hyperlink for trafe	hyperlink for trafe
09:42, 20 December 2006	User talk:Lucky 6.9	Please do not revert your own talk page, it is meant to be an accurate historical record.	reinserted long list of alleged reversions

Please also take a look at WarthogDemon (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), who often works very closely together with Lucky 6.9. — Sebastian 02:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I will investigate this matter. If these claims reveal themselves to be true, I recommend immediate desysopment. With all due respect, of course. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 02:33, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

"Immediate" desysopment is for emergencies. I see no evidence that this is an emergency, and I am not confident that it is even well-founded. —Centrx→talk • 02:35, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Way to overre4act, messedrocker. User:Zoe|(talk) 02:43, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

User:SamAndrews is clearly a sockpuppet of someone; his first edit is to start up on Lucky 6.9's talk page referring to previous discussions. At least some of these reverts are reasonable, the latest user's comment ends with "Maybe Lucky should go get a life." Leaving a message "WTF???" is not cool, calm, and collected, though it would be an understandable response to a mediation request by a disruptive user being taken seriously. —Centrx→talk • 02:35, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Working closely? I offered to help him get rid of the abusive comments from his page. I've tried to be selective and not remove legitimate comments (and on those where I noticed I had, I either replaced them or apologized to the user who's message I deleted). I've stated it was because of Lucky's request so it people would know I wasn't wikistalking or whatnot. Seriously, if this is against policy or something, an admin need only tell me on my talk page and I'll stop at once. -WarthogDemon 03:29, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I see nobody had even bothered to let Lucky know that he was being attacked and threatened with desysopping. I have taken care of what I am sure was merely an oversight. User:Zoe|(talk) 02:43, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Zoe. We were all the victims of a calculating and very knowledgeable troll who is familiar with this sites inner workings. I hope we can all continue on trying to make this crazy site work. - Lucky 6.9 02:57, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

It's been suggested by Zoe that I just let this thing run its course and refuse mediation. This is a non-event by an extremely clever troll who threw in a few legit edits to cover his tracks and whose very first edit was to my talk page, folks. If you wish, I can restore the complaint, but it's pointless IMO. - Lucky 6.9 03:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, impersonator just appeared at the WoW wiki. His name? Lucky 6.9. He did try and impersonate me. Coincidence? I don't think so. Besides, I spell better.  :) - Lucky 6.9 03:19, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the countering viewpoints, thank you for pointing out I overreacted, let me do the investigation though and I will come to a conclusion as an uninvolved administrator. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 03:20, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Judging from the user's first edit and Lucky's explanation I am inclined to believe that this block is valid and no wrongdoings is involved. --WinHunter ^(talk) 03:22, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I see this. Are admins now allowed to give out blocks because they think that someone's a troll? Things seemed to have been changed in the couple of months I've been away. Looking at Luck's Talk page, and following up some of the exchanges, it's clear that he has a very odd notion of what counts as insulting language and behaviour, that he overreacts regularly, and that his judgement as to who is and isn't a troll is far from dependable. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:18, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• Most of the "OMG admin abuse" complaints on AN/I are bunk. I agree that we can never let that blind us to the ones that aren't bunk, but those usually come with corroboration, usually from long time users. Lucky 6.9 is a pest hunter as well as an editor, and he regularly does the brave and time consuming business of swatting the vandals. For that reason, a complaint against him requires extra time and care. In the past, Lucky has been accused of every crime in the laws of nature or man, but I've never seen him be guilty of anything worse than a salty word. This looks like just another newborn account with amazing knowledge of Wikipedia's rules and processes. That should sound alarms. Geogre 03:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Lucky seems like a decent person, but I am someone whom he has offended not once, but twice. In both cases, I had done about 15 minutes of sincere, well-meaning work (first, trying to improve a squirelly article about "Alaska cruises", then second, trying to comment on this apparently hoax-driven mediation), which Lucky decided to unilaterally delete, without really checking to see if anything valid was in progress. Then -- and I think this is the worse thing -- he deletes any criticism of his actions on his Talk page, then threatens the critic to "ease up" or risk being blocked. The guy merely needs a break; some time for self-examination. --JossBuckle Swami 03:37, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I must admit that this is a familiar story; I had exactly the same experience a few days ago: I'd followed up a speedy notice, found that the article wasn't speediable, took of the notice and did some tidying, only to find when I tried to save that the article had been deleted by Lucky. I recreated it, left a message at his Talk page, went back, and he'd deleted my recreation (without contacting me). When I left another message, I received an intemperate reply, but when I went back to respond to it, he'd deleted my first two messages from his Talk page.

My impression is that he's sometimes much too eager to speedy-delete articles, and is too short-tempered and defensive to accept legitimate criticism — though in my case, after an exchange of messages, he did finally calm down. I'm sure that he does a great deal of good work, but pulling back a little wouldn't hurt. This isn't anything like grounds for de-sysopping, but it would be nice if people who create articles in genuine good faith (as was clearly the case in the example with which I was concerned) could be treated with more courtesy by admins. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:14, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Investigation so far... I am not going to jump to conclusions about trolling or not, but the mediation page was not really... needed. Blocking of SamAndrews may or may not have been warranted... and page deletions seemed pretty cromulent. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 03:56, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Can someone please restore Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/User:Lucky 6.9 reverting his own Talk page. It is common sense that a party involved in a mediation case should not delete the mediation case without reason. — Sebastian 19:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Can we move this page as per WT:AN#Linked subpages for discussions? (We could either create a subpage of this page or of the mediation page. Or does anyone have a better idea?) While we're at it, I would also like to change the title which currently only expresses one of the dubious actions I listed. (If this is to become a subpage of this page then I'd propose to call it simply WP:ANI/Lucky 6.9.) — Sebastian 19:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• As some one with both unpleasant and pleasant interactions with Rallph (AKA Lucky9.6) for parts of the last eighteen monts, I dacn say that his heart is in the right place, although he might be a bit sensitive. Vive Miami! Wikkibrah 20:17, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Repeated incivility despite warnings

I'd like to request some kind of intervention by an uninvolved admnistrator for help with a user who is repeatedly uncivil despite warnings. On December 19th, mentioned in a thread above, Argyriou, gave a vandalism test warning ({{test2a}}) to admin Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington for a good faith edit (removing a YouTube link) that he disagreed with: [40]. Nick responded by noting the inappropriateness of the vandalism accusation: your warning, to a edit made in good faith came as unwarranted. Later, on ANI, he again accuses Nick of bad faith: [41]. In response to both of these, I asked Argyriou to remain civil and not make acusations of bad faith: [42]. In reply to this Argyriou again repeated claims of vandalism, this time inserting "Do not remove without first discussing on talk page. Failure to comply will be considered vandalism." into the article itself, commented out. I warned again, but to no avail. Today, Argyriou again placed a vandalism warning, {{test3a}} on Nick's talk page [43]. He has had the reasoning for why calling others' good faith edits vandalism is insulting and uncivil explained to him repeatedly, and he repeats the behavior purposefully. There is an issue which Argyriou is involved in debating (YouTube link deletions), and which I'm sure he considers me involved in, so I'm simply bringing it here for uninvolved administrators to intervene. The problem is that there is a legitimate debate to be had, but when I and others are instead bombarded by accusations of bad faith and demeaning vandalism warning templates, that discussion can't happen. Dmcdevit·t 10:08, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism templates should be used for vandalism, and not to unnecessarily inflame a complex content dispute -- Samir धर्म 11:25, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I've left a message on Argyriou's talk page. Proto::► 11:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[44], [45], and many bad-faith edits on my talk page. — Nearly Headless Nick 11:39, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Again, let's not reach for blocks. Instead, we do need to mediate. The YouTube removals have general consensus, but the minority is substantial enough and certain enough that some will feel justified in fighting to keep the links. To some degree, removing the link without consensus is wrong. However, everyone here is fighting over invoking the holy words of blocking ("vandalism" and "incivility"). Really, that's not going to help anyone. Geogre 12:12, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I haven't blocked anyone; no one has. Was this directed at me? Dmcdevit·t 21:28, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

From what I can see, the You Tube links removals defintely do not have community consensus. The issue here seems to be a particular link which has been established as not a copytright violation at all, and which Dmcdevit and Nearly Headless Nick keep purposely deleting as if they want to upset people at the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cindery#JSmith.2FDmcdevit_user_conduct_RFC_draft. It seems like pretty ridiculous behavior for admins/a member of Arbcom to be engaging, sorry. It should stop, and Dmcdevit should apologize. Repeatedly removing content without discussion is vandalism. Mumblio 04:30, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

There is consensus that YouTube should generally not be linked to. See WP:EL WP:SPAM and WP:COPYVIO. A lot of people don't seem the know that even a independantly-made film link posted can be COPYVIO, see:

“ What's copyrighted? Copyright exists automatically upon creation in a tangible form. An author does not need to apply for or even claim copyright for a copyright to exist. Only an explicit statement that the material is in the public domain, licensed with the GFDL, or is otherwise compatible with the GFDL, makes material reusable under current policy, unless it is inherently in the public domain due to age or source. ”

Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 21:58, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it's explicitly not vandalism. Read WP:Vandalism, under "What vandalism is not": "Some users cannot come to agreement with others who are willing to talk to them on an article's talk page, and repeatedly make changes opposed by everyone else. This is regrettable -- you may wish to see our dispute resolution pages to get help. However, it is not vandalism." Even if you accept Cindery's formulation of the dispute, the link removals are clearly not vandalism as defined on the relevant policy page. MastCell 05:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

According to the vandalism policy, bad faith edits which are inarguably bad faith edits are vandalism. I'm overwhelmingly convinced that Nick's edits were in bad faith, and that there is ample evidence--in the user conduct RFC being filed against him, it seems so--a lot of people agree he lied, which is inarguably bad faith, and it was reasonable for Argyiouto point that out, to try to stop it--he was acting in good faith, and brought the issue here himself after issuing the vandal warnings. Mumblio 06:54, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Not only have I not been removing the link "as if they want to upset people at the article" (please read WP:AGF), I think you'd be hard pressed to find a diff of me even removing the link besides the original edit more than a month ago; because I haven't been. These accusations are unfounded and distract from my query, which wasn't about the content dispute at all. Dmcdevit·t 06:29, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

In the edit history of Barrington Hall, you made an edit on Dec 19--what was that edit? Mumblio 06:56, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Mumblio, are you referring to this? – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 16:20, 24 Dec 2006 (UTC).

Never mind, Mumblio is an abusive sockpuppet of Cindery; see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Cindery. Dmcdevit·t 01:18, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Draft RFC deleted by admin

Please note that the draft RFC that Argyiou and Cindery were working on — User:Argyriou/SirNicholas — "has been deleted, and protected to prevent re-creation" by Pilotguy (talk • contribs), with the comment "nonsense deleted". ("Nonsense"? Rather a POV comment on an RFC draft, isn't it?) I question the propriety of such a deletion; it amounts to denying the right to draft a user-conduct RFC. Argyiou, at least, has never been blocked, yet this seems very much like a disenfranchisement... and seems much too disturbingly similar to the "blanking content" sense of "vandalism", though I'll happily listen to anyone willing to persuade me otherwise. – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 17:01, 24 Dec 2006 (UTC).

While I don't know what the page contains, I would like to say that there is a difference between a RFC draft and character assassination - and far too much of the latter happens in the guise of the former. ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 17:51, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Neither do I know what the page contained (past tense), since only an admin can see deleted pages. But a draft in progress is not necessarily what will be posted (possibly many revisions later) as a finished product to RFC. If it did contain PA's, wouldn't the procedure be to warn the user to remove them from the document, rather than delete the entire document without warning or notification? Why the rush? Why the absence of communication to the user? Would it relate to the sequence of this and then this? – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 18:22, 24 Dec 2006 (UTC).

Also please note the sheer irony: during a debate about whether admins are improperly deleting others' contributions and improperly using their power in content disputes to protect their preferred versions of pages — an admin deletes-and-protects an RFC draft on precisely that issue from the userspace of the spokesman for the other side. What better example could there be? – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 17:28, 24 Dec 2006 (UTC).

And please note that Pilotguy did not post to Argyiou's talk page: no warning, no request to change or delete anything, and no notification even after the fact. Was this due process? Is Argyiou being treated fairly? – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 17:35, 24 Dec 2006 (UTC).

• It is worth noting that blatant breaches of any policy are often not given warnings, simply blocks. I'm really undecided as to the effectiveness of that, but that seems to be the standard. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 22:02, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Note that this issue is also being discussed in a separate thread below. MastCell 22:06, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

(At "User:Pilotguy's deletion of userspace User:Argyriou/SirNicholas", for the sake of any text-only readers.) – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 23:12, 24 Dec 2006 (UTC).

Cindery (talk · contribs · logs)

This user was blocked by Tawker yesterday for personal attacks against User:Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington. She responded with the following:

• it appears possible he may have some sort of personality disorder re controlling other people, and/or lacks the maturity to appropriately interact with others, and should definitely not be an admin/alienates productive editors and detracts significantly from the project. He seems to lack sufficient ego-integrity to withstand normal discussions. He interprets questions, and disagreement with him personally as intolerable "narcissistic injuries.
• Nick has opinions which he has translated in his mind into "facts," which he then attempts to unilaterally impose on situations, without regard for the situation, the people involved, policy, guidelines, reality--nothing. Hopefully this stark contrast: the copyright holder's statement v. Nick's rant makes the absurdity of his inappropriate behavior apparent.
• (Love to see the attack page and the IRC freakout, too. :-) Mimsy's moronic/obscene/juvenile IRC chats should be read far and wide...the sheer witlessness is staggering
• Indeed I view almost all of her comments on User talk:Cindery to constitute an attack page against Nearly Headless Nick. I've asked her to remove these comments, and she's responded with wiki-lawyering: [46].

In view of this second violation of NPA in 24 hours, I've blocked her for 72 hours and submit my block here for review -- Samir धर्म 11:54, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks like a solid block. Those are quite obvious attacks and shouldn't be tolerated. – Chacor 11:59, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

All of this is couched as being an RfC against Nick. I understand the need for organization in such circumstances, but this is more like an attack blog against him -- Samir धर्म 12:02, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Also see this – User_talk:Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington#Lennon/ — Nearly Headless Nick 12:08, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I think your responses could have been handled with a little less sarcasm and a lot more tact. —Malber (talk • contribs) 06:04, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about the personal attacks warranting a 3 day block, but it is disruptive. Proto::► 12:10, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I noticed all this, at some point, since I've got Sir Nick's user talk watchlisted. I hadn't looked at everything involved, and wasn't aware of a prior block until now, but I agree the user was being pretty confrontational. If they're planning on starting an RfC or RfAr, the proper course of action is to just do so; no need for rummaging around so harshly on various user talks. Is there a reason the block is 72 hours in particular? Luna Santin 12:15, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The previous NPA block was 24 hours; I viewed 72 hours for a second volley of attacks in <24 hours since the block to be appropriate -- Samir धर्म 12:17, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I've just given the user's contribs a cursory glance, and I don't think we should be accepting disruption and incivil edit summaries like [47], [48], [49], [50] and [51]. This message to Samir was also definitely not in good faith,

"It is possible that you will face some sort of bummer at ANI, as you are Nick's friend, acting-out in an argument with me in which you are not neutral, and clearly in the wrong".

Just my two cents. – Chacor 12:39, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I stumbled in here because a user informed me a couple of days ago that Cindery was on vacation. However, that doesn't appear to be the case, given her recent activities. I did some digging and found a few diffs that might warrant consideration.

• Revision as of 22:07, 21 August 2006 on Talk:Mifepristone
• Revision as of 20:00, 22 August 2006 on Talk:Mifepristone
• Revision as of 11:26, 22 August 2006 on User talk: Severa
• Revision as of 16:07, 22 August 2006 on User talk:Andrew c
• Revision as of 22:07, 28 November 2006 on User talk:Cindery
• Revision as of 23:07, 28 November 2006 on User talk:Cindery
• Revision as of 12:21, 28 November 2006 on User talk:Lyrl
• Revision as of 22:58, 21 December 2006 on User talk:Cindery. Edit summary, "FOAD," means "fuck off and die" (see List of Internet slang phrases).
• Revision as of 23:42, 21 December 2006 on Talk:Barrington Hall
• Revision as of 23:49, 21 December 2006 on Wikipedia talk:External links
• Revision as of 21:27, 21 December 2006 on Wikipedia talk:External links
• Revision as of 00:10, 22 December 2006 on Talk:Barrington Hall

-Severa (!!!) 12:54, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

No objection to the 72 hour block here. If the user continues this behavior after the block expires, take it to a week. | Mr. Darcy talk 15:50, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[Disclaimer:Cindery and I have not seen eye to eye in the past - see Talk:Emergency contraception and Talk:Depo Provera.] In general I'm not a huge fan of listing a bunch of diffs, as they can be taken out of context, but what you're seeing in this case is the tip of the iceberg. I'd encourage anyone questioning the validity of a block for personal attacks/disruptive editing to review Cindery's contribution history. A pattern exists. Addressing another editor with "Whatever, spaz", shortly after completing a block for personal attacks, suggests that a longer block is warranted. When a sympathetic editor tells you that your valid points are being drowned out by your strident incivility, and your response is that "My style is intentional", there's a problem. MastCell 18:18, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Until this YouTube thing Cindery was basically a singe issue editor... ---J.S ^(T/C) 19:39, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

This might be of some interest to you, J. Smith. -Severa (!!!) 21:20, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Its well worth having a trawl through his/her talk page history - s/he seems to remove a lot of adverse comment that s/he doesn't agree with and has been challenged for a lot of incivility and suchlike. --Spartaz 21:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Spartaz's observations are correct. I suppose I should disclaim the fact that Cindery and I've had editorial disputes at Talk:Abortion and Talk:Mifepristone. I am willing to admit that both of us were probably frustrated, that all Wikipedians are human and have at one time made an error in judgement, and that the subjects we were dealing with are contentious and divisive ones. But, when I made some effort at dispute resolution ([52] [53]), Cindery's response was as follows:

• "i tried to put it to you in a no-fault/maybe we just don't like each other way, but if you would like to force me to be explicit--at this point,i do not like you, i do not like the way you behave towards others, and i have zero obligation to or interest in interacting with you in any way, unless i choose to discuss a proposed change to an article with you. ...i find further communication with you pointless, kindly leave me alone. i will ignore you etc in the future... you are officially not invited to further gratuitously share your opinions with me."

If this were a one-off incident, it might not be such an issue, but she has also stonewalled discussion before:

• Telling MastCell to "leave me alone," and then deleting MastCell's perfectly civil second attempt at resolving their conflict from her user talk, using the edit summary "delete persistent harassment/refusal to disengage or respect requesr for disengagement."
• More recently, she told Spartaz "This is a content-over -community site; anything you say on my talkpage will be deleted and ignored. You are not welcome or invited;I have no interest in your opinions, insults, etc., nor do I have to feign interest: they are called boundaries. Get some." (and also told him to FOAD, or "fuck off and die," in the edit summary), then removed his response from her userpage with the edit summary, "delete harassment, following warning", and again, using the edit summary, "continue to discourage harassment/stalking behavior/refusal to respect boundaries."

I understand that Cindery is welcome to edit her user page as she sees fit, but the avoidance of dispute resolution, and the level of incivility with which it is refused, is not in keeping with Wikipedia's open and collaborative spirit. -Severa (!!!) 21:37, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I look forward to reading the RFC/UC when it's done. Should be amusing. ---J.S ^(T/C) 22:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Following the results of Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Cindery, I've blocked Mumblio (talk · contribs) indefinitely, and extended the block on Cindery (talk · contribs) to another 92 hours. Luna Santin 12:00, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Not the first time this has come up. -Severa (!!!) 13:01, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

'Stop fair use' => what is the appropriate action regarding this

User:ROBERTO DAN is spamming Wikipedia-space pages with a notice regarding a WikiProject aimed at 'stopping fair use'. What is the appropriate response to this action on the editor's part? I considered reverting as trolling - but I wasn't sure if this qualified, rather being spamming in the service of a WikiProject. Sorry to be so wishy-washy - just wondering what the best course of action would be. Regards --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 17:50, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I would give spam warnings, I will if the user has not been warned already(After reading the contributions of course). HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 17:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see now it is just one page, well this does seem like an ambitious start for a new user, but not really in violation of policy that I can see. I would ask the user what experience he has had here before and in what form. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 17:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I jumped the gun a bit ... the editor has only 'spammed' two Wikipedia space pages - which doesn't constitute spam ... my apologies (it's the caffeination) - but the general question still stands ... thanks, BC; the related question would be what to do with the additions - remove or retain? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 17:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The user is proposing a policy change, albeit by casting a vote in poor English, but this seems to be in good/misguided faith. I would let it sit for a while and the user will be told the same by those who participate. It does not seem disruptive to me(currently). Of course I invite others to disagree. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 17:59, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Dosn't the german language wikipedia prohibit fair use? That might be where this user is from perhapse? ---J.S ^(T/C) 18:15, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

He is from the Spanish Wikipedia ... see Commons:User:ROBERTO DAN and es:Usuario:ROBERTO_DAN. --BigDT 19:29, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

While this petition to stop fair use on the English Wikipedia is ill constructed, the issue does have proponents on both sides. I for one would rather not have to worry about if an image is fair use when I want to use it on a template, or my own website.

I am not sure which end of the debate I would end up on if a serious attempt at consensus was made. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 18:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

It would sure solve alot of problems, but articles about books, movies and games would be alot less interesting. ---J.S ^(T/C) 18:25, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

True, The Dark Side of the Moon comes to mind. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 18:28, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Spanish Wikipedia stopped using fair use images fairly recently, so I think this person wants the same result on English Wikipedia. Though I personally feel that fair use should only be used if we have to, I do not think we can get rid of it completely. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 20:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I've always wondered what might happen if I gathered an army of meatpuppets from here to swarm into the Spanish or Portuguese Wikipedia to tell them that their featured articles should be referenced. ;-) Grandmasterka 04:23, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The Smackbot robot is making ISBN changes that are no good

The Smackbot robot changed the 10 digit ISBNs to 13 digit ISBNs in UK Dispersion Modelling Bureau and in Unit Operations of Chemical Engineering. As a result, one could no longer click on the ISBNs and then look them up in the Library of Congress or other libraries ... whereas one could do that with the 10 digit ISBNs. I don't know how many other articles have had the same change made by the robot. (I reverted the changes made in the above two articles).

That defeats the purpose of including the ISBNs in the book citation template. Please ask User:Rich Farmbrough to stop the robot from changing to the 13 digit ISBN's until a solution is found to this problem. I have placed this same request on his Talk page.- mbeychok 18:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

What administrator action are you requesting? It sounds like you have done exactly what needs to be done. ---J.S ^(T/C) 19:20, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

In reponse to J.S, the User:SmackBot page (which I assume was created by User:Rich Farmbrough) has a big red button on it to stop the robot, but it is only for admins to use. It instructs others to post a message here, which is what I did and I expected some admin to stop the robot ... which has now been done (see just below). - mbeychok 20:16, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Having seen three different users complain about this, I've stopped (blocked) the bot for now to at least give Rich a chance to explain/justify this. Dragons flight 19:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

In response to Dragons flight, thank you very much. - mbeychok 20:16, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

If I can interject, 13 digit ISBNs are set to be the standard in less than 10 days. Shouldn't there be a software fix put in place to handle them? --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

If I understand the complaint correctly, we do handle 13 digit ISBNs, but many of the resources linked from Special:Booksources do not (e.g. the Library of Congress online index). As such people are questioning whether it is wise to replace valid 10 digit ISBNs with 13 digit ones that are not yet widely supported. Dragons flight 20:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I follow. I hope the LOC gets with the program, then, if that's the case. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:01, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

ceyockey comment: In response to badlydrawnjeff's comment ... is it not wise for Wikipedia to follow rather than lead in an area like this? In other words, should Wikipedia not persist in utilizing the old standard until the new is in use across the majority of the heavily used resources (such as LOC)? That might seem stuffy from a technology standpoint, but it is consistent with maximum resource accessibility, which is important for Wikipedia as a whole. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:17, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree, there is being up to date, then there is being so up to date that your system does not work with others. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 23:21, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The word "standard", as in "International Standard Book Number", seems to me to imply something that is widely used. If 13-digit ISBNs aren't currently recognised by some of the significant relevant organisations, then they're not really "standard" and we shouldn't be using them until they are. To use Ceyockey's wording, we should definitely be following in this case rather than leading; others may have a responsibility to lead, but our responsibility is to our readers. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 00:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it (and books are my profession), this *is* the lead. We would, in fact, be following. We, of course, are in a position of ease, being able to handle both easily and without any troublesome operations overlap. Given that the standard doesn't go into effect until 1 Jan 2007, perhaps that's why places like the LOC aren't allowing searches by it yet, but no one's expecting Wikipedia to be first on the block as much as up to date. --badlydrawnjeff talk 05:06, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

My impression is that if we're in front of the Library of Congress - and the official date when it goes into effect - we're leading. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 11:38, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I seem to recall reading on the official ISBN web page that it is prudent to use both forms during and immediately after the transition period. Why don't we do this? We could provide both the 10- and 13-digit ISBNs in the articles themselves. (We might even be able to do this automatically, if wiki markup can do simple arithmetic and conditionals; we would have a template which took an ISBN in either form and produced output in both forms.) Alternatively (or in addition), we could change the Wikipedia:Book sources syntax so that instead of MAGICNUMBER, each entry uses either MAGICNUMBER10 (for book sources that require a 10-digit ISBN), MAGICNUMBER13 (for book sources which require a 13-digit ISBN), or MAGICNUMBER (for book sources which can use either format). Whatever engine converts Wikipedia:Book sources to Special:Book sources would obviously need to do the ISBN conversions as well. —Psychonaut 11:34, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi guys, as you can imagine I have goven this matter some thought over the past year. The "problem" is not without solutions, and the "solutions" are not without their problems.

The first thing to say (s that the transition period is 2005-2006, effectively everyone should support 13 digit by the end of the year, and from the beginning of 2007 no one need support 10. Clearly support for 10 digits will continue for a considerable time: Why would anyone remove it? However the next crunch point is when 979 ISBNs come into play- they have no 10 digit equivalent.

So our options are (most of the pros and cons are obvious if not mentioned above or below):

Conversion

1. Do nothing (not compliant with standard, may not look good)
2. Convert to 13 digit now (not compliant with book sources)
3. Convert all to 10 digit (retro ?)
4. Convert to 13 digit later (compromise)
5. Supply both (Which does the user click on? Good for providing info though)
6. Use the {{auto isbn}} template or similar to set everything up with a changeover date to be decided by concensus (Good in lots of ways - but consesnus may be indef. delayed)

Editing

• Encourage people to add 13 digit ISBNs as things are changed
• Encourage people to add 10 digit ISBNs as things are changed
• Let editors do what they like

External commuications

• Contact the book sources people to find out what's happening, and encourage them. (I have already contacted 3.)

Book sources

• Change the book sources page to coerce ISBNs to either 13 or 10 digit depending on the book source.

Magic

• Change the magic word ISBN to dislay 13 digit and pass 10 digit (for now) to book sources. (Note that ISBN magicword has changed a bit over the past few weeks, I think it is.

Meanwhile SB is currently doing 1. in the top set of options, and stand ready to do any of the others apart from 3. (Although I may be a bit scarce over Christmas.)

Oh, yes, you can stop SB, by leaving a message on User talk:SmackBot. Rich Farmbrough, 12:23 24 December 2006 (GMT).

I'd like to toss in a lone voice here against conversion, at all. Sure, give ISBN-13 in preference for books printed in 2006 and after (though even many 2006 editions are missing ISBN-13, says my cataloguing experience) but leave earlier books as ISBN-10. The systems will still support querying for ISBN-10 - they have to, as no-one is going to recatalogue and recalculate every ISBN in their records - and we avoid the conceptually messy issue of giving a reference number to a book retroactively, which is what originally worried me. Shimgray | talk | 13:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

First, let me say that I am no computer guru and I really don't understand much of the above discussion. However, I agree with Shimgray's comments. My engineering text (which was self published and has been on the market for over 10 years) is now in its 4th edition. In one of the first few pages, all editions of my book display the 10-digit ISBN. It does not have a 13-digit ISBN to my knowledge. If Bowker (the company that assigns ISBN numbers) converts my ISBN to 13 digits, my inventory of books will still include only the 10 digit ISBN. I am sure that the large publishers also have thousands of books in inventory that display only the 10-digit ISBN. So no matter what deadline has been set for the conversion to be complete, thousands of books printed pre-2006 will still display only the 10-digit form. That is the reason why Wikipedia must find a way to let us use 10-digit and/or 13-digit ISBNs and some way of making sure that sources such as the Library of Congress can find the book no matter which form of ISBN is used in the Wikipedia {{cite book}} template. - mbeychok 18:58, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Zarbon

Severe revert war going on here: participants include User:Dodoria, User:Zarbon, User:Dasnedius, User:SUIT and User:TTN. All except TTN appear to have violated 3RR by now. Maybe protection is in order? (I'm posting here because it seems a lot faster than making three or four 3RR reports and making a page protection request.) Heimstern Läufer 20:33, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I went ahead and added it to WP:RFPP too. Heimstern Läufer 20:38, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I just blocked User:Zarbon for two months - this is at least his fourth block for 3RR violations, and there's a post on his talk page where he calls another user an "idiot" and a "maniac." I'll try to work through the history here for the other users to see if anyone else merits a block, but Zarbon's long history of 3RR vios clinched it for me. | Mr. Darcy talk 21:33, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Article has been protected by Nishkid64, so hopefully this'll die down. Heimstern Läufer 21:47, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. I blocked Dodoria 48h (although I really think it's a sock of someone else), SUIT for three hours, and warned Dasnedius (no evidence s/he knew the rule). | Mr. Darcy talk 21:54, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to close the loop here, Zarbon and Dodoria were confirmed by RFCU as editing from the same IP, and both have been indef-blocked (Dodoria as the sock; Zarbon for being the master, repeated 3RR vios, and incivility). Hat-tip to Deskana for some major assistance. | Mr. Darcy talk 00:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Admin's unblock request pending review

Please note the unblock request at User talk:Centrx, whom User:Philwelch blocked for one week based on what seems to have been confusion about keeping vs. deleting some redirects. Newyorkbrad 23:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

23:30, 23 December 2006 Ral315 (Talk | contribs | block) unblocked Centrx (contribs) (No discussion on this; please take to WP:AN.) Khoikhoi 23:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes; I've unblocked Centrx, with the understanding that there will be no edit-warring or wheel-warring on the issue; I encourage both sides to reach an agreement. It seems to be a simple understanding. Ral315 (talk) 23:35, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I was not involved in any edit warring or wheel warring in the first place. —Centrx→talk • 23:40, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I'm a bit confused. Was there any prior contact between Philwelch and Centrx, prior to the block? The tone of Phil's block notice seems to suggest it's their first exchange of words. If that's true, why leap straight for a block, and a week-long block, at that? Luna Santin 23:52, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I honestly expected to unblock him myself once he had admitted his mistake, which I had made clear in my message. It was more a means of getting his attention—I didn't expect it to really even last the week. Philwelch 00:00, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Please read WP:BLOCK. Blocking someone inappropriately is much more "reckless abuse" and a "significant mistake" than deleting your favorite redirects. Everyone else here, though, is reasonable enough not to block you for a week for it, though your personal attacks are not acceptable. —Centrx→talk • 00:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't give a fuck about those redirects personally. I think they're a bit borderline myself, but they were referred to RfD and the RfD was closed as a "keep". You can reopen it if you'd like, but apparently it's also perfectly acceptable to ignore that and delete it yourself. Who would have guessed? Philwelch 00:34, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• Endorse unblocking. Please resolve disputes on the appropriate talk pages instead of resorting to blocks without discussion. Naconkantari 23:37, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
  • You know, we have a specialized talk page called Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion where this dispute was resolved before Centrx went along and deleted things withoutH explanation. I guess I shouldn't blame an "experienced administrator" for not knowing that, though. Philwelch 23:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
• Endorse unblocking. User:Philwelch has issued inappropiate blocks in the past, and has been warned against such actions.

[54] [55] [56]. Dionyseus 23:54, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• • I would like to take this opportunity to again point out that Dionyseus has wikistalked me, both here and on AFD, for some months now. Philwelch 23:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, so it's okay to delete multiple pages with no explanation in the deletion summary and in direct contravention to the results of deletion discussions? Cool. I will take advantage of this privilege liberally from now on. Philwelch 23:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe Centrx explained (in his unblock request, not now currently visible as far as I know) that he had not been aware of the results of the RfD discussions. I agree that it is better for admins to include a deletion summary when deleting. What I don't understand is why the question of why these deletions was not addressed to Centrx before blocking for one week. That sort of block without an opportunity to explain, in a non-emergency situation, shouldn't be applied to any good-faith user, much less an experienced administrator. And I am concerned that your comment above plus [57] auger an upcoming WP:POINT violation. Is there someone who knows both these users who could step in here before this spins out of control? Newyorkbrad 23:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I was being sardonic. Here is a definition of "sardonic", at least until somebody deletes it without giving any explanation. Just in case you're too lazy to click the link, I'm not going to actually go around deleting things without explanation, I just suggested that I would for rhetorical purposes. Here's a similarly deletion-prone definition of "rhetorical". And yes, I am still being very sardonic. Philwelch 23:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Which still brings us to the question: did you ever warn Centrx, or even ask him for an explanation, before blocking him for a week? Luna Santin 00:02, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

See you replied above. That's what I get for not checking page history.Luna Santin 00:03, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

To give background, these pages[58] were listed on User:Zorglbot/Shortpages and were on visual inspection clearly implausible typos (e.g. "Hole in One (or Two) (The Price is Right Pricing Game)", not even possible as typos), and had no RfD notice on them.

Right now, after scouring through the RfD logs now (as there is no indication in page histories on which day in the preceding 3 weeks the RfD occurred), I found the discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2006 December 4#Price is Right redirects, in which User:Philwelch states at the end "Despite high support for keeping, many of these were improperly speedied as G6's. This is an abuse of CSD and I would like to advise Gh87, as well as the deleting admins, never to do this again." I'm not sure whether his "advice" means he was going to block anyone who had been involved in the previous discussion or deletion, but I received no advice from him and was not involved in the discussion or previous deletions. I come back today merely to find "This is a reckless abuse of your administrative privileges and you have accordingly been blocked for a week. If you promise to be more careful in the future I can unblock you, but you made a pretty significant mistake without explanation or justification"[59]. "Reckless abuse" is an absurd claim, and this is a punitive block; if one simply made a mistake and need only go hat in hand to Philwelch to promise not to do it again, there is nothing that would warrant blocking. Recurrent vandalism is dealt with less ruthlessly than this singular offense against Philwelch. —Centrx→talk • 00:07, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should be more ruthless against recurrent vandalism—or maybe we should have higher standards for administrators. If there's an RfD specifically closed by an administrator other than myself as a "keep", you don't delete. If there's an RfD ongoing for redirects that don't fit the Criteria for Speedy Deletion, you don't speedy delete. And if you do delete something, whether or not you're bending the rules or applying the "snowball rule", you should at least put some explanation in the deletion summary. All that I've been doing here is cleaning up after admins too careless or lazy to check the page history for edit summaries clearly labeled with things like "2006-12-15— RFD closed as "keep". Philwelch 00:14, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The explanation for anything deleted with the auto "Content was..." rather than a specific summary is the relevant speedy deletion criteria. Any cleanup or questions related to it can be directed to the deleting administrator. A "higher standard" for administrators would entail knowledge of blocking policy. Do you still think I am a danger to the encyclopedia, or did you actually never think I was? Did you block me because you thought I was a "sanctimonious ass" or did you block me to protect the encyclopedia in accordance with policy? —Centrx→talk • 00:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

There's a speedy deletion criteria that applied to these? Which one? "Centrx disagrees with the result of this RfD"? And to answer your question—I think you're a reckless admin with a history of misusing the "delete" tool. I think this is a tendency that needs to be corrected. But if your actions were perfectly acceptable, than I apologize for being the one in error and will not make the mistake of abiding by deletion discussions ever again. Philwelch 00:26, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

If you actually thought that I was a "reckless admin", why have you never brought it to my attention before? Prior to your block notice after the fact, you have never made any edit whatsoever to User talk:Centrx. Shouldn't I have been blocked earlier? Your mistake has nothing to do with the deletion discussion, it has to do with your blocking (and subsequent personal attacks). —Centrx→talk • 00:37, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I only found out about your recklessness when you deleted a bunch of redirects without any explanation. Before you did that I had idea you even existed. Those were good times. Philwelch 00:41, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

RfDs, AfDs, and any other past discussion/pseudo-vote is not a "Get Out Of Being Useless Free" card. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 00:25, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Wonderful. Well, I should get started on all the "keep"s that I disagree with then... Philwelch 00:27, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• Seriously... A little discussion is usually preferable to blocking someone for a week. That's generally the way things work around here. It's easy enough to "get someone's attention" by leaving them a talk message and triggering that nice big orange banner. Grandmasterka 01:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
• I've come to a bit of three-pronged conclusion: (1) admins should, as has been encouraged for my entire tenure here, check page history and "whatlinkshere" before deleting, as doing so can reveal vandalism, disruption, or prior XfDs, and Centrx probably should have done so in this case; (2) one should not block a fellow administrator without first attempting to resolve the situation through less draconian means, blocks are preventive, and we have talk pages for a reason; (3) with best possible respect, this may be a good time to consider an RfC regarding Philwelch's apparent abuse of the block tool. As both users have certified, there was no contact between the two of them, prior to the block, which indicates to me that no attempt was made to resolve this before blocking -- see WP:POINT. Luna Santin 01:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, he keeps deleting my comments from this noticeboard, see [60] and [61]. —Centrx→talk • 01:34, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I removed them because they're unnecessary harassment over two cases that have already been discussed and resolved. *This* case has already been discussed and resolved. I suggested in no uncertain terms that you leave me alone when you harassed me privately, on my talk page. That does not give you license to harass me publicly here. I came here, briefly discussed the reasoning behind my decision, and let it go. I advise you to do the same. Philwelch 01:39, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm more concerned that Philwelch blocked Centrx while he was in a wheel war with him as under no circumstances are administrators to block someone they are in a dispute with. This is grounds for a RFAR case if there is indeed a history of questioned administrator actions, so I would suggest that you take that avenue to settle things quickly. Cowman109^Talk 01:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't in a wheel war with him, and as far as I am aware, things are settled. He was unblocked. I'm letting it go. Philwelch 01:44, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

If those previous cases were discussed and resolved you could have and can still direct me and others to those discussions. This case here is clearly not resolved, and I hope your "advice" here is not the same warning you have given others before, i.e. you threatening to block those who disagree with you. —Centrx→talk • 01:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

This case clearly is resolved—you have been unblocked and I have chosen not to contest the issue. I even concede that the initial block was in error. What else do you want of me? As for the rest of your message, I am not going to dignify your harassment and personal attacks with any further response. Philwelch 01:53, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The ArbCom has just set a record for the most cases accepted in one week, and is going to have a horrible backlog when the new arbitrators are appointed soon, so I hesitate to recommend sending any more disputes in that direction if there are any alternatives. I do have thoughts on the blocking history here, but don't know whether sharing them would help solve an issue or just fan the flames. Newyorkbrad 01:50, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Somethingoranother (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Problematic user, please review. I erred by assuming good faith and inexperience yesterday and only blocking him for 3 hours for POV-pushing and edit-warring on Ireland. He has since moved on to Argentina where he recently made (I think) his fourth revert in trying to change the map from a png to a gif he has made. He made a complaint about me here yesterday for what I think he sees as my interference with his aim of changing several fairly controversial articles (Northern Ireland and Falkland Islands have also received his attention) to conform with his own POV, without any regard for consensus or discussion towards such. I said at the time it would be better if his next block came from someone else; I think the time has now come for other admins to review his edits and take whatever action they deem necessary. Thanks in advance. --Guinnog 23:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the combination of his behaviour and apparent political motives are worrying. As he's been blocked once before for a short period, I've blocked him for 24 hours for WP:3RR violation, in the hope that he will take the day off to understand what is expected from contributors. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 00:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

At time of writing, Somethingoranother is requesting unblocking based on the fact that only two users disagreed with him. (For some reason, presumably brevity, he leaves out the fact that zero users agreed with him.) (Wrong, actually, someone did agree but didn't participate in the revert war - and the objection was purely political anyway, the reasons against the change being far more clearly expressed.) --Sam Blanning^(talk) 00:22, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Sam. Yes, some (though still a minority I think) of his ideas are actually quite reasonable ones, and some of his edits before he got into these controversial areas were of good quality. It is the people skills that seem to let him down and I think he may need mentoring of some kind if he is to survive here, assuming he wishes to continue after his block. --Guinnog 04:17, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Nationalistic bot

User:Ganeshk has again unleashed his WikiProjectIndia template-adding bot. The bot is tagging hundreds of articles re Bollywood actors and actresses with the India template. Here's an example: [62]. The bot was stopped on November 6 and he restarted it on December 23 ([63]). This is just plain pointless! It fills up the top of the talk page with huge templates (you have to scroll and scroll to get past them into actual discussion) and it's unnecessary. What possible good does it serve, other than the egos of the Indian editors (we own XXX,XXX articles nyah nyah!). This sort of thing spreads. A Pakistani editor tried to claim Salwar kameez for Pakistan (even though the items of clothing in question are worn in many countries) and one editor insists that Dhoti belongs to India and Hinduism. This is bad enough when you have one editor adding project templates one at a time -- fending off an attack by a bot is hopeless. Can we please BAN template-adding bots? And revert the dang bot edits? If it isn't important enough for someone to spend the time to add it by hand, after discussion with the regular editors, then it isn't important to the project. Zora 00:47, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll second this. I'm fed up with this high-level project nonsense, where people in some special-interest clique make decisions and then enforce them on dozens of articles they've never worked on, regardless of the sentiment of those who are. A bot to do this? Terrible, terrible, terrible. This is how we loose good editors who just work away at one or two articles. Can we block the bot, and ban this type of nonsense? --Doc^g 00:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:1.0/I depends on these templates. It helps editors identify at a glance which articles need more work on, and as a result, are not suitable for inclusion into any of the stable releases. Zora, if any editor is saying, "ooh, we have 100 articles, and you don't, nyah nyah", go have a chat with that editor. Doc, I haven't heard of one case of an editor leaving Wikipedia because a tag is added to a talk page. That neither one of you finds adding more organization to pages useful does not mean that others share your opinion. Titoxd^(?!?) 01:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I've blocked the bot for now. I wouldn't be against rolling back the edits. Grandmasterka 01:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I feel the bot block is really unfair without a discussion here. The bot tagging helps out with WP:1 and also help identify articles that need improvement. There are about 250 projects participating in this. Ganeshbot works under automation project of the India project tagging India-related categories with India project banner. This discussion here is not about this particular bot, but about whether assessments are needed for Wikipedia. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 01:15, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I would be. Titoxd^(?!?) 01:14, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Um, what exactly is the problem here? If it's just a concern about template bloat, it would be trivial to have the bots/people/whatever use the small-form templates, avoiding the whole "scrolling past the templates" issue. Is there some fundamental problem beyond that? What's wrong with letting interested WikiProjects enter relevant articles into their assessment process? Kirill Lokshin 01:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I see no evidence that the "assessment process" is producing any results. We had a list of "to-do" items at WP:INCINE and the response (even from me, and I should be be more dedicated) has been tepid. WP:INCINE is the project devoted to Indian cinema ... if we can't get editors to work on actor/actress articles, then what good is an India template going to do?

If adding templates doesn't help produce better articles, then it's nothing but ethnic/religious/nationalist tagging of the sort that has mired thousands of articles. Are we adding US templates to all the US actor and actress articles? NO .... but I did find a great example of the idiocy of template-mania: have a look at Talk:George Clooney. He hasn't lived in Kentucky since 1982, but someone has claimed him for WikiProject Kentucky.

We let anyone start a project and plaster templates all over heck and gone and there's absolutely no discussion or approval required. This is something that can't be done with links? or even categories? No, we have to have a great big graphic that says "Kilroy wuz here". That's bad enough, but automating it? The last time Ganeshk turned his robot loose, it was tagging articles related to Iranian history with WP:IN templates and the Iranian editors were extremely upset. Please, let's turn off the bot until we can have some high-level decisions about projects. Zora 02:01, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, did you notice the part where I pointed out a way to make this a small, out-of-the-way graphic? If it's merely a layout issue, we have technical solutions for it. ;-)

As far as producing results: it's been my experience (with WP:MILHIST) that the process is very helpful in motivating and tracking improvement (if not, perhaps, in an entirely predictable way). Your experience may, of course, be different. I don't entirely disagree with you on the subject of projects not getting discussion or approval; but I think that going after one particular project (and WP:INDIA doesn't seem like a project whose existence would be controversial, in any case) is hardly the best way of approaching the issue. Kirill Lokshin 02:50, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't mean to poke into other people's affairs,but Ganesk has been doing this for along time now.The last dispute ganshk had(along with an edit war) was with user:Szhaider when he put Indian tags on Pakistani history articles.Again i don't mean to come in uninvited or anything,but Ganshk why not inform other editors of what you're about to do before randomly tagging other countries history pages with indian tags?You seemed to have upset more than just Szhaider and I by continuing this random tagging.If more than just Szhaider and I are complaining about this to you,then shouldn't it mean something?Please think about it. Nadirali 02:15, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Given that the bot-tagging is (presumably) driven by categories, I'd guess that there's something funny about the category structue involved that's bringing in unrelated articles. Kirill Lokshin 02:50, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Kirill, The bot always runs on India-related categories. In Zora's case, it was Category:Indian actor stubs. Nadirali is pointing to Indus Valley Civilization that is part of Category:Indus Valley Civilization which is a sub-category of Category:History of India. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 03:01, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

"Ownership" of Indus Valley Civilization is hotly contested subject. Claiming it for India without even considering that this claim might be controversial is thoughtless. It's also not at all clear to me that if someone is an "Indian actor", the Indian part of the concept takes precedence over the actor part. Why pick India, instead of cinema?

Real-life is not a UNIX file structure, with everything neatly hierarchically arranged. A particular article may be relevant to many categories or projects. Grabbing it for ONE project and ignoring any other areas of interest or relevance is provocative. That was exactly what was wrong with the Pakistani editor trying to claim salwar kameez. Since it's provocative, you don't do it by bot. If you want articles assessed, put up a SMALL assessment template, that doesn't claim the article for any one project. Zora 03:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Who said anything about "ownership" or "claiming"? There's nothing unusual about having multiple projects add their tags to the same article (although you seem to be complaining about this as well?); and all the tags I've seen now say merely that the article is "within the scope" of a particular project, avoiding even the mildly controversial "part of" a project wording used in the past. That Ganeshk is only applying one project's tags is not intended as a slight to other projects; they're perfectly free to add their own tags (or even get a bot to help them do so). (While there have been some bots that have tagged articles with multiple projects' tags in a single run, this usually requires more coordination than it's worth, in my experience.) Kirill Lokshin 03:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Zora, Tagging does not mean "ownership" or "grabbing" or "claiming". It means taking responsibility to substantially improve the article to FA-standard. Indian actors are tagged with cinema=yes parameter so that they fall into the Cinema workgroup of the India project. If someone is a Indian actor, both Indian part and the actor part apply. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 03:39, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with the indie bot tagging bollywood stuff. Indian cinema project is listed under the wp india. The actors are also indian. this is perfectly acceptable. As for indus valley civilization, it has the word indus in it. islam and the islamic state of pakistan didn't even exsist. indian women also wear salwar kameez. there's nothing wrong tagging it.--D-Boy 06:06, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, the template should be made as small as it could be. If possible, it could have a show/hide option defaulting to hide, so that those not interested see the discussions straight away. I thought adding a project template does not imply ownership, and that articles can be tagged under several different projects. As far as the bot is concerned, since the project templates/assessment, etc. are relatively new things, we do have a big backlog of articles, and so a bot is handy. Of course, merely tagging doesn't achieve much, and it's true that many bot-tagged articles run at the risk of being forgotten again. deeptrivia (talk) 07:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

"Ownership" of Indus Valley Civilization is hotly contested subject. Claiming it for India without even considering that this claim might be controversial is thoughtless.

You might want to look closely at User:Nadirali's contribs (which include claiming Panini for Pakistan]] & running an off-wiki meatpuppetry forum)... No one is claiming IVC FOR INDIA. We already have different project tags for pre-1947 India.

Seriously, i find Zora to be mildly Indophobic ( See [64]). She assumes bad-faith with virtually every Indian editor. She seems to be on one-man crusade to rid Wikipedia of what she considers to be assertive Indian nationalism. अमेय आर्यन DaBrood^© 11:19, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Ganesh's and Deepak's comments that template tagging does not mean ownership. The literal meaning would be "This article is associated with this WikiProject." The size ohwever, is a contentious issue. Since some articles will have many templates, a size reduction is inevitable and necessary. As others have mentioned, the bot is extremely efficient compared to humans and only a small proportion of the articles it tags would be considered controversial "taggings." At times you can't blame the bot. Take Dhoti as an example. Zora mentioned that Dhotis are worn by people outside of India but the all but one sentence in the entire article talks about Dhotis being worn outside of India and even that sentence is unsourced and randomly inserted. Someone should be bold and write firstly about Dhotis being worn in other parts of the world in Wiki-style. Personally if I read the article, I would have doubted that they are worn outside of India. Most importantly, more than one template can be added, therefore template tagging does not suggest ownership but rather association. Gizza^{Chat ©} 13:12, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Zora is merely indophobic. She should stop seeing Hindu fascists/Indian imperialists/etc. around. She accused a very neutral Indian editor of acting like "a tank division heading from Islamabad. Just because documented India-bashers are upset is no reason to stop a bot which is organizing things to make the pedia better. Wikipedia shouldnt fall prey to fringe, politically charged, rants.Bakaman 17:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

A) Whether or not someone is an "indophobe" has no bearing as to whether they can edit or comment constructively (we all have our biases). B)Labelling someone an "Indophobe" is a great way to create "Indophobia".NinaEliza (talk • contribs • logs) 18:05, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• Bots that are disputed can always be taken to the BAG or a b'crat for deactivation. As to Nina's comment, I would merely point out that, unfortunately, some users are simply disruptive, in such a large environment as the English Wikipedia, that is inevitable. While we respect everyone that contributes here, some simply aren't able to truly contribute because of their negative attitudes. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 18:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Whats more, it irrates me when i'm accused of claiming my own cultural icons. अमेय आर्यन DaBrood^© 22:18, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. Feel free to have at James McCune Smith. NinaEliza (talk • contribs • logs) 22:22, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Ahem these are Indian actors being added with a WP India tag. Its logical. Editors that disagree either have not fully understood the rationale for tagging or have issues that need to be worked out. Judging by the consensus formed (in which only one editor thinks tagging Indian people with a WP India tag is offensive) I think Ganesh's bot should be reinstated with all priviledges, and Zora reprimanded for disruptive behavior and blatant racism.Bakaman 01:09, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Newbie biting

Can someone take a look at [65] and [66] and talk to StuRat (talk • contribs • count) about it if appropriate? He's appears to me to be wrong on policy, and using his incorrect impression to harass an anonymous user who's trying to contribute—and it's not his first such comment. Since he and I butt heads on the ref desk so much, it may be that I am wrong about this, and certainly he won't listen to me... but I am loath to let it pass when it looks to me like he's biting an anonymous user based on assumptions of bad faith. -- SCZenz 01:37, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the previous incident... see this edit, which I did attempt to talk to him about on his userpage. -- SCZenz 01:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah smells like a sock to me as well! Sturat has a very good nose for them. No action required!--Light current 01:44, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:AGF says we need evidence, not a "good nose." -- SCZenz 01:49, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Nah, 'good nose' is fine—to a point. Wikipedia necessarily handles a lot of stuff using 'sniff tests'. If StuRat – or anyone else – puts forward some diffs that support the notion that this (these?) IP is a sockpuppet of another editor, then it's a snap to request a Checkuser to confirm the identity. I'll even help write the CheckUser request. (Heck, I'd write the damn request myself; the Ref Desk talk page has gotten so touchy lately that I'll personally bludgeon to death anyone who's playing games with socks to screw with discussions.)

On the other hand, if the only reasoning at work here is of the form 'An IP editor on this page disagrees for me, therefore it must be a sockpuppet'...well, that doesn't smell fair. At some point, you have to put up or shut up. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:03, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's a valid point. "Similar editing styles," which is the most difficult evidence of sockpuppetry to accumulate, does require a "good nose." But that's not the kind of "good nose" we're talking about above, is it? -- SCZenz 02:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Since when is either one of you a checkuser? Does either one of you have any evidence, or are you just trying to discredit the poster? Since when are anonymous posters automatically sockpuppets? Titoxd^(?!?) 01:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Im sure evidence will be forthcoming! StuRat is the early warning radar 8-)--Light current 01:51, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

It should be. I contributed extensively under an IP myself, including in various non-article-space discussions. IP addresses change, and a lack of contributions should not be held against this user. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz, would you please stop being the RD police and the attack StuRat monitor? User:Zoe|(talk) 02:38, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely not. I'm trying to improve Wikipedia by making suggestions on the reference desk. And I never tolerate newbie biting anywhere I see it. -- SCZenz 17:23, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'm gathering evidence now, this while take a while, be back in a bit... StuRat 02:50, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

To start, he doesn't appear to be a newbie at all, he seems well versed in Wikipedia editing, Ref Desk policies, etc. He apparently has a dynamic I/P address (I didn't know this initially), which means he has a different I/P each day. I know of at least 3 of the I/Ps, but there are probably many more. They all seem to start with 87.102. The three I know about are User:87.102.4.34, User:87.102.4.227, and User:87.102.22.58.

Here is where he admits to having all three I/Ps: [67].

First, he made this charming contribution: [68]:

Fuck off - that's an insult.87.102.4.227 14:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Then, he followed up with this: [69]:

You are a totally time wasting twat - why don't you fuck off and stop wasting everyones time with your pointless words - I had doubts at first - but now am am absolutely certain - you are a total fucking twat - fuck off.87.102.22.58 17:01, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Given the nature of his contributions, I think I've been more than patient with this dynamic anon I/P. He also is firmly in the "deletionist" side on the Ref Desk debate, and makes it appear that there are many people on that side, as he has a different I/P every day and they all, of course, support the same deletionist POV. I don't happen to think that's right, to use multiple anon I/Ps to make it appear that the consensus is different than it really is.

As for SCZenz's motives in filing this AN/I, you will notice that, just 3.5 hours before, I signed a petition to recall his fellow Ref Desk deletionist Admin buddy User:Friday, and this is apparently SCZenz's attempt at retaliation: [70]. StuRat 03:37, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I have been keeping track of this for a while, so here is an incomplete supplemental list...:

• 87.102.4.34 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 23 December 2006
• 83.100.158.78 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 22 December 2006
• 87.102.4.227 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 20 December 2006
• 87.102.5.69 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 19 December 2006
• 83.100.250.252 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 18 December 2006
• 87.102.13.235 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 17 December 2006
• 87.102.4.180 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 16 December 2006
• 87.102.8.141 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 15 December 2006
• 83.100.174.70 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 12-14 December 2006
• 87.102.37.17 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 8 December 2006
• 83.100.174.147 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 7 December 2006
• 87.102.32.250 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 5 December 2006
• 87.102.32.183 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 4 December 2006
• 83.100.253.140 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 3 December 2006
• 83.100.253.51 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 2 December 2006
• 83.100.138.110 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 30 November 2006
• 83.100.158.227 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 28 November 2006
• 83.100.138.7 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 26 November 2006
• 87.102.36.82 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 22 November 2006
• 87.102.20.119 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 21 November 2006 <-- [71]
• 83.100.138.99 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 19 November 2006 <-- [72]
• 87.102.13.221 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 17 November 2006
• 87.102.18.252 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 17 November 2006
• 87.102.1.174 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 16 November 2006
• 87.102.23.108 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 15 November 2006
• 87.102.19.179 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 14 November 2006
• 87.102.6.241 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) 5 November 2006

This is likely the same single user operating out of two IP ranges, 87.102.*.* and 83.100.*.* - there are two links where this user follows up on the same thread on the reference desk which establishes this. This user has been editing Wikipedia for some time, and most likely discovered the reference desks around mid-November. In fact, this person has been a daily contributor to Wikipedia for around 2 months - it's possible to extend this time even further back, but it's difficult to show as conclusively as the links below. Essentially, it's necessary to go through each of the IPs and their edits, and over time, you will see a general drift from gaming topics on Wikipedia, to those related to the reference desk. The diction, vocabulary, grammatical structure, and style of the posts is reasonably uniform, with a few exceptions which can be explained either contextually, or assuming that there is another unrelated user in the same range (which I consider to be somewhat unlikely). It's more difficult to establish that the IP is a sockpuppet of someone participating on the reference desk talk page with this information, so my inclination is to conclude for now that this is not the scenario we are dealing with here. --HappyCamper 05:34, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Both ranges, 83.100.138.0 – 83.100.138.255 and 87.102.0.0 – 87.102.7.255 are registered to the same ISP; Kingston Communications. It may be worthwhile to refer this matter to WP:RFCU if there are any additional suspected sockpuppets. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 11:30, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Is there a policy on dynamic I/P usage ? I find it quite unacceptable that they can say or do whatever they want, then, even if they get banned from Wikipedia, they have only to log out, log back in under a new dynamic I/P, and continue the abuse. I would ban all use of dynamic I/Ps without a screen name. StuRat 12:47, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes. We allow it. -- SCZenz 17:25, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Why are we investigating someone when no reasonable evidence has been provided that they did anything wrong? Ok, yes, perhaps the IP has been uncivil, which I'm not saying is ok—but it was in response to harassment by StuRat. Maybe we should just drop the entire matter, and be nice to anonymous users from now on? -- SCZenz 17:25, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

So you would not have a problem with one of the regular editors telling you:

You are a totally time wasting twat - why don't you fuck off and stop wasting everyones time with your pointless words - I had doubts at first - but now am am absolutely certain - you are a total fucking twat - fuck off.87.102.22.58 17:01, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

That seems extraordinarily lenient. Would you have let me get away with even one thenth of that? I think not. please act consistently SCZ.

--Light current 19:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, "uncivil" doesn't begin to describe his behavior. And there was no harassment by me, I merely suggested the possibility that these numerous accounts are socks of a registered user, which certainly is, indeed, a possibility. StuRat 00:21, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Calling my edits "bullshit"

Among other things...[73] --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 01:46, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

What other things? HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 01:51, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

A rv saying I was "pushing an agenda." Telling me to "grow up." Then, even when I have a talk page section trying to generate consensus regarding my edit rather than edit warring, my edits are called "bullshit" as opposed to "legitimate controversy." --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 01:54, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Try WP:DR, it has worked wonders for me in the past. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 01:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

LOL, if ever I decide to call a peer's edits "bullshit," I'll be linking right here for my "Pass Go." --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 02:01, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

"This is not wikipedia's complaints department" - see either WP:PAIN or the dispute resolution process if you actually want to solve the dispute instead of just trying to get your "opponent" in trouble. ---J.S ^(T/C) 02:05, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I've started a dialog on the respective talk page instead of edit warring, so I'll take my Get Out of Jail Free card and think about who's edits remind me most of bovine excrement. --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 02:09, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

False blocked messgaes on talk pages

User:N8a8y8r8a has posted a false banned message on my talk page (see diff). Can they be blocked and this erased as opposed to reverted? Thanks, Regan123 02:36, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The user has been blocked. Naconkantari 02:44, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Someone else was doing that the other day, signing Jimbo's name. If it keeps up, drop me a note with the suspects on my talk page and I'll hunt out an IP to block. Essjay (Talk) 03:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

He also did it to Hillock65 here. TKD reverted and Sam Blanning blocked. Jd2718 23:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Block not showing up in block log

I indef-blocked User:Zarbon earlier tonight for confirmed sockpuppetry/multiple 3RR vios/incivility, but for some reason, it's not showing up in the block log. I just tried to block him again, but the system is telling me he's already blocked. Anyone know what's going on? | Mr. Darcy talk 04:18, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Same thing happened to me a while ago [74]. Thoughts, anyone? --²¹⁰physicq (c) 04:22, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I had a similar thing happen to me when I blocked an inappropriate username yesterday. I can't find it in my logs, otherwise I'd link. Alphachimp 06:57, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

"I can't find it in my logs, otherwise I'd link". I just had to laugh at this. Folks, this illustrates the difficulty in proving a negative :) Philwelch 07:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Two ideas come to mind. First, we should report this on Bugzilla if it hasn't been already. Second, I wonder how you were able to unblock him. Did he appear on the IP block log? If not, how did you unblock him? Philwelch 07:22, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I unblocked him normally - if you look at his block log, you'll see two consecutive unblocks, because the interim block isn't showing up. | Mr. Darcy talk 15:50, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Blocks not showing up on the block log have been an uncommon problem for quite a while already. special:ipblocklist still reports the block though, if it is still in effect. Kimchi.sg 11:26, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Holodomor is moved again - fourth time, same user

Holodomor has been moved to Soviet Famine of 1932-33 twice in the last six hours, both times by the same user (Jacob Peters (talk · contribs)). This is the fourth time he's moved it since November 30. It's a rather controversial topic, so I've reverted him the second time, and will hold myself to WP:1RR. The reason I reverted is that this move has been made before, and unmade before, and there was no discussion on the talk page about it this time. I'm not going to request protection, but I thought I'd make note of this here, just so some admins can keep an eye on the situation. See also the Talk:Holodomor#Moved to Soviet Famine of 1932-33 section on the talk page. Picaroon 04:19, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I have move-protected the article and referred the editor to WP:RM. -- tariqabjotu 04:28, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Jacob Peters has been a disruptive force for weeks on this and other articles - NPA violations, grand mal sockpuppetry, refusal to sign his talk comments, and on and on. If he keeps this up for much longer I think a community ban is called for. - Merzbow 05:05, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

All recent edits from Jacob Peters (talk · contribs) have been reverted. The original changes were not valid to begin with (e.g. for his page move [75], he claimed that no pact called "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" was signed in spite of the fact that the name is in common use [76]). He also was tagged for sockpuppetry.[77][78] --Sigma 7 06:56, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Evasion of block

I have reason to believe the user Ullr Siffson (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is evading a recent block which was set upon the IP user 67.170.33.237 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) by (aeropagitica). This person appears to be the same in both instances as they both revert to the same version of the article, which appears to be in violation of WP:NOT, as it is guidebook material. The article in question is Alpental. Two diffs follow with notes:

1. [79] - The diff referred to by (aeropagitica) in the notice on the IP user's block page
2. [80] - A zero byte difference with a little over an hour's time between the IP's block, and the Ullr's reversion to the edit.

I have explained WP:NOT to the IP user as best as I could prior to issuing a longterm4im upon another subsequent reversion to an edit that was not in compliance with WP:NOT (guidebook, specifically), which the user subsequently disregarded, leading to the block. Just over thirty minutes later, presumably the same person reverts to the same edit, calling his actions "censorship restoration", a deceptive edit summary in my opinion.

I have decided to step back from this situation, and was advised to make an entry after conversion with another admin about this same issue as I was unsure as to whom to notify at the time. Kyra_~(talk) 10:04, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Blocked 48h for 3RR vio. If Ullr is the same editor as the anon IP editor - seems obvious that he is - then all four of his edits are reverts, and he's in violation. | Mr. Darcy talk 17:26, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Wholesale spelling changes

User Snozzer (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) is going around and making wholesale spelling changes to articles from "-ize"/"-ization" to "-ise"/"-isation", claiming that this is "the more acceptable spelling for International users", a belief that is also reflected on his/her user page. When reverted, he re-reverts. User has been asked to stop but does not acknowledge the validity of these requests.  --Lambiam^Talk 10:53, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

He seems to have stopped for now -- whether that means he's actually stopped, or gone to bed, I can't say. Left a message at his user talk. Luna Santin 12:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Look down. #Needless reverts. – Chacor 12:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, heh, you noticed that section >_> – Chacor 12:11, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Heh, took me a bit. ;) I haven't looked to see "who started it," but my main concern is that the reverting should proooobably stop before things get ugly. Luna Santin 12:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:MOS#National varieties of English is a useful read, on the subject, especially the notes at the bottom discouraging revert wars over it. Luna Santin 12:23, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Snozzer's edit summary here seems to be deliberately provocative. I left this message for him at Talk:Human, and his response was this. He does need to be watched carefully. -- Donald Albury 14:35, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Update: thus far at least eight editors have posted on his talk page with links, information, and requests - even pleas - to stop this disruptive behavior. He has yet to acknowledge that he may be in error; and in fact continues to assert he is correct, calling American English "a regional variation of English" which he seems to concede might be acceptable for specifically American subjects, maintaining that in all other cases he is changing to "International English, not North American English" - with the clear implication that UK spelling is International and Preferred. This is now spread over at least three user talk pages and I don't know how many article talk pages. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:56, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I blocked him 24 hours, since after several warnings/requests, he ripped through Corporation and left an uncivil note [81] on User talk:TheFarix. The fact that he has ignored all of these requests, and at times responded with taunts, is what I found most bothersome - would have gone with a shorter term, but he already has one block, 24h in November for 3RR. | Mr. Darcy talk 15:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it uncivil. But I don't think it was appropriate for him to make that demand from me. --TheFarix (Talk) 17:19, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Follow-up: Kenosis just left an outstanding note on Snozzer's talk page, putting the lie to Snozzer's claim that British-English spellings are "preferred." I would hope that such a friendly, clear, and fact-filled note would be enough to get Snozzer to ease off on the spelling wars. | Mr. Darcy talk 18:47, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Zombir (threats, vandalism, personal attacks)

Zombir (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appears to be a new account used only for nationalistic vandalism [82] and racist/nationalist personal attacks [83][84][85][86]. Zombir has made threats to another Wikipedian, saying "I know where you live in Vancouver, see ya soon" [87]. Though the account was created today, the user seems familiar with user warning templates [88] which leads me to believe that the account is a sockpuppet, possibly of a banned user. —Psychonaut 11:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Update: Mufljuzi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appears to be another sockpuppet making identical edits. —Psychonaut 11:11, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Both blocked indefinitely. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 11:19, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

If you don't know who the main account is/was, the implied threats are probably sufficient to have a checkuser run at WP:RfCU. Newyorkbrad 12:02, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Needless Reverts

User:Lambiam is making needless and wholesale revisions to my edits that are correcting spelling mistakes and refuses to make any compromise on this issue. I have warned him on his talk page here User_talk:Lambiam#Spelling, but the user hasnt even the courtesy to reply, he just reverts Snorkel | Talk" 12:04, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

See also #Wholesale spelling changes. Luna Santin 12:09, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

User:YuRiPa

YuRiPa (talk · contribs) has done the following:

• Created a article (Singapore Girls (Singapore Airlines)) which basically was a cut and paste copyvio from two websites in its first revision (see Talk:Singapore Girl).
• Since there was no clean revision I tagged it as {{copyvio}} and after User:YuRiPa removed the tag a couple of times as {{db-copyvio}}. It was deleted here.
• After that User:YuRiPa reposted portions of the copyrighted article, which made the idea of creating a clean page history without material derived from a copyright infringement difficult. I tagged the article as {{db-g4}}.
• I also replaced two fair use images (Image:SIA Girl.jpg and Image:SIA Stewardess.jpg) uploaded by User:YuRiPa with a free image (Image:Singapore Airlines flight attendants.jpg).
• User:YuRiPa then created a sockpuppet, IanFuller (talk · contribs), in order to impersonate a account at Flickr (Ian Fuller) and to create the impression that the copyright holder has released the copyright to a image uploaded by the sockpuppet: Image:SIA Cabin Crew.jpg (diff).
• User:YuRiPa also seems to assert ownership over the article in question and does not seem to fully grasp the concept of copyright and fair use, but those are common newbie mistakes. However asserting permission to use copyrighted text and images for which that user is not the copyright holder is fairly serious --Oden 14:26, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Soliciting 'endorsments' for a recall 'vote'

StuRat (talk · contribs) has been inviting users to 'endorse' a recall motion for User:Friday. Is this cool? Anchoress 14:47, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The recall process is unofficial, but Category:Administrators open to recall suggests that five endorsements are needed. Now, since there is no centralised 'requests for recall' page, the only way to find endorsers, apart from solicitation, is to expect users to stumble across Friday's talk page randomly, which doesn't make much sense.

Frankly I think Friday shares part of the blame by inviting others to troll him in this way - which is all it is. Look at the 'petition' - it only needs one more endorsement and yet it's so flimsy a dragonfly's breath would blow it out of requests for arbitration, the real forum for serious cases of sysop abuse. (There are more opposers, but they don't seem to subtract from the support under the supposed 'process'.)

What we should do about the solicitation, I don't really have an opinion. What Friday should do is make it clear that he will not be risking his ability to help the project for the sake of an insignificant spat and a stillborn pretense at accountability, and withdraw himself from the admin recall category. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 15:46, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd say an RfC was the way to go, but given the egregious trolling by LightCurrent on StuRat's Talk I'm tempted to simply go and nuke the entire thread there. Guy (Help!) 16:06, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Zomg admin abuse, and too temporary for my liking. To be truly rouge we should remove Friday from the recall category ourselves, protect the page in The Right Version and use the electric fence to stop Friday adding himself back in :o --Sam Blanning^(talk) 16:39, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

This will work best if we can gather a posse from the Cabal to tag-team it, of course... Guy (Help!) 20:38, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Am I the only one who does not think it the best idea to be open to recall through a process that has not been formalized yet? You won't catch me adding my name to that list. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 16:57, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Since the process is voluntarily, it's entirely up to Friday to decide how to handle this. He might decide the solicitation makes the petition invalid, or he might not. He might decide to listen to users who are so substantially misrepresenting his actions and intentions, or he might not. There's no need for intervention on anyone's part. Personally, you won't find me anywhere the recall list either; sometimes doing our jobs makes people mad, and I know good admins who would be recalled in a hot second if they were on it. -- SCZenz 17:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• Regardless of our process or lack thereof regarding recallable admins, vote stacking is disruptive. >Radiant< 23:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Longterm IP - Vandalism

For quite some time a group of kids from a school in Germany have vandalised articles by inserting the name of their teacher, their own or names of classmates in articles about various football clubs or towns (as famous players/managers/mayors ect). Also they included facts they made up, so that they would be picked up by the various wiki-mirrors. These are a little more difficult to spot and I noticed them only after investigating due to finding the obvious vandalisms. Yesterday 217.230.5.19 got blocked. At about same time the whole 217.230.xxx.xxx range got softblocked in leu of semi-protecting the three articles currentlyinvolved. The user in question has managed to escape the blocks due as he changed his IP-Range to 217.82.116.128 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) to carry on. Obviously 217.82.116.128 will need to be blocked for blockevation at the moment but further advise/action is needed (the admin who handled the protection request appeared off-line, but is notified. Agathoclea 14:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

See here for further background. Agathoclea 15:05, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

As the rangeblock didn't work, I've semi-protected the three articles currently involved. This strikes me as having less potential for collateral damage than bigger rangeblocks - though if he moves on to other articles we might still need one. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 15:30, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism on Main Page

Can't work out what the image is or how it got there. Can anyone help? Carcharoth 15:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Check templates. Anchoress 15:34, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Good god, someone fix that! KnightLago 15:36, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. Suggest an indef block for Panpel (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and protection for Wikipedia:POTD row/December 24, 2006 (edit | [[Talk:Wikipedia:POTD row/December 24, 2006|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Demiurge 15:39, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• Now revert warring, can an admin block and protect urgently? Demiurge 15:41, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
• Also {{Newpagelinksmain}} is transcluded onto the main page and unprotected. Demiurge 15:43, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

From what I can see, that template is not transcluded. It is in html comments, and thus not active. It seems to have been left as a historical record of what was there, for some reason. It is also a deleted template, and was deleted on 30 November 2006. The deletion debate is here. It has also been previously discussed here (plus the reasons for its use). I haven't managed to find the edit yet where it was put into HTML comments. Carcharoth 16:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• • That would be 02:09, October 27, 2006 CesarB --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 16:14, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
• Also blacklist (if used elsewhere) or delete (if uploaded by vandal) the pictures: Image:WikiHell.jpg; Image:Wikipain.jpg; Image:WikiPef.jpg; Image:WikiReal.jpg; Wikicolor.jpg (obvously not work-safe). The trouble is, I can't find deletion or upload records for these pictures, and I haven't been able to track down the actual image used. Anyone? Carcharoth 15:54, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

They've been deleted, but they were most likely just random Last Measure images. Shadow1 (talk) 15:57, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The images were uploaded to Commons (if the en log is empty check the log on the relevant commons page). Shadow1 your assumption as to what the images are is right...--Nilfanion (talk) 15:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah. [89]; [90]; [91]. Thanks. That's three of them. I still can't find Wikipef and Wikicolor. The vandal linked to Wikipef here and to Wikicolor here. Are the last two images typos or red herrings left by the vandal? Carcharoth 16:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I think I'm going to write a bot that checks for unprotected Main Page templates and generates a status report that goes somewhere. Sound like a good idea? This probably won't be the last time this happens, as it's not the first. Shadow1 (talk) 16:11, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• Sounds good... including a section for the main page FA would be helpful too perhaps. --W.marsh 16:12, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll work something out. It'll probably just grab all wikilinks and templates and check for protection. Shadow1 (talk) 16:15, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• Please do the same with Main Page images; I have seen unprotected Main Page images several times. Also, it would probably be a good idea to check for Featured Article and Picture of the Day templates a couple days in advance. -- tariqabjotu 16:18, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

For future reference, the following is the transclusion list for the Main Page as of 1 minute ago.

• User:Jmax-bot/FACount.js
• Wikipedia:POTD row/December 24, 2006
• Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/December 24
• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 24, 2006
• Template:*mp
• Template:Click
• Template:Did you know
• Template:In the news
• Template:MainPageInterwikis
• Template:Main Page banner
• Template:SelAnnivFooter
• Template:TFAfooter
• Template:WikipediaOther
• Template:WikipediaSister
• Template:Wikipedialang

Posting this since people who can only view the source of (s)protected pages cannot see the transclusion list (Someone may want to tickle the devs into changing that.) Kimchi.sg 16:18, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

What? When I click "view source", I've always been able to see the transclusion list. Carcharoth 16:23, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Wasn't sure... when I was editing with an alternate account that didn't seem to be the case. :/ Kimchi.sg 17:00, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Please vote for bug 8322 to make it easier to find and revert this vandalism. --NE2 16:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Not sure if that bug is the best way to fix the problem. Just protecting templates that are on the main page, and those being used on that day's featured article then unprotecting them when they leave the main page, is probably best. Incidentially, a status report on unprotected main page templates could be used by vandals, so it might be best to restrict access to admins somehow. Carcharoth 16:38, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Vandal's already onto it... most of the shock images uploaded by him are single use so the file links for each would show only a single article even if 8322 was implemented. Kimchi.sg 17:00, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, that vandalism lasted on the Main Page for about 8 minutes. Then further vandalism lasted 3 minutes and then 1 minute, before protection was put on the page. See the page history here. Carcharoth 16:49, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I've written a bot that checks the protection status of pages transcluded onto the Main Page. Anyone think I should ask for bot approval? Shadow1 (talk) 17:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I would ask for approval, since it only reads and I suppose writes a single report it should be apporved quickly. Thanks for building it, question, does it go into the templates on the main page and look for templates transcluded in that one and so on up the chain? Or does it only check the first level? HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 17:11, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

It only checks top-level transclusions, but I imagine it wouldn't be hard to iterate down the chain. Shadow1 (talk) 17:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, well, I've got the request for approval up, but I'm thinking it might be a better idea to use Special:Emailuser instead and have admins sign up to receive the report. Anyone have any thoughts on it? Shadow1 (talk) 18:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should keep further discussion of this proposal to the bot request page? --Sam Blanning^(talk) 18:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I've written and posted something on this general situation here. Please comment there on how you think we can tighten up the checks and balances we need to have in place. Carcharoth 22:37, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Brya is back

I've just blocked User:Clyb for being a sock of indefblocked User:Brya. Just sayin'.Circeus 16:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I've unblocked him per Eugene van der Pijll, but the whole wikiproject is on high alert level. Circeus 16:40, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, Brya is not known to use sock puppets, so I'm willing to give Clyb the benefit of the doubt for a few more edits. I'll keep an eye on him, though, as I did see the similarities between them. Eugène van der Pijll 16:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Clerk note - Best bet if you think someone is a sock is to report it at WP:RFCU. Neither user has been subject to a CU before. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 18:14, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Brya's last edits were in october. Isn't that too late for Checkuser? Circeus 18:45, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Not if they are editing disruptively under a sock. Perhaps you could better explain the situation to me, so that I could more accurately judge? That would be much appreciated. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 19:15, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

It is too late for a checkuser. We have to run it within weeks of their last edit. Essjay (Talk) 20:34, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Jacob Peters

(Moving this here from WP:AIV, in my opinion the situation is too complicated for that venue Mangojuice^talk 16:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)):

• Jacob Peters (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) This user was blocked once before for making undiscussed page moves to Holodomor and major undiscussed edits to same page. Continues to press POV edits, deletes images en masse from page and once again is making undiscussed page moves. Blanks pages. Has been blocked 8 times for edit warring, undiscussed moves, and other offenses. Obvious vandalism-only account. TheQuandry 16:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• This topic is also further up the page at #Holodomor is moved again - fourth time. -- JLaTondre 16:30, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

And the reason we haven't blocked him for a month is ... ? | Mr. Darcy talk 17:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Let's give him one last chance. The Holodomor article has been move-protected and Sebbeng (talk · contribs) (TheQuandry) has given him an official final warning. -- tariqabjotu 17:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, but if he persists, I'd advocate a long block, as I see no sign to this point that he has any intention of following our policies or norms. | Mr. Darcy talk 18:41, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Yup, this has to be his laaaast chance. I've rarely seen a user more unwilling to compromise on anything. - Merzbow 20:39, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

He's at it again. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 01:05, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I have blocked him for a period of two million seconds. -- tariqabjotu 01:10, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

That's...555 hours, 33 minutes, and 20 seconds, or a bit over 23 days. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 01:12, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I just did the math too. It's shorter than it sounds. Newyorkbrad 01:16, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I was familiar with the length of the block. I have a page devoted to satisfying my sadistic needs (as they pertain to block lengths). -- tariqabjotu 01:22, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Oussma and User:Nostramaroc blocked indef

I had blocked Oussma (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for a week on Dec 15th, 2006 because of copyright issues after a dozen of warnings. I am now blocking his sock Nostramaroc (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) indefinitly for the same reasons and for evading block. -- Szvest - ^{Wiki me up ®} 16:54, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Clerk Comment - If you have evidence they are socks (or there was an unarchived CU request), please lend RFCU a hand and post it so we can archive it for future reference :) On behalf of RFCU, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 18:37, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Is Vandalism Reversion For Robots Only?

I'm just wondering because robots have beaten me to the punch the past few times. Thanks. Just H 17:01, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Nope, they are just getting good. ---J.S ^(T/C) 17:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Gotcha, i'll leave it to them. If they start welcoming though, i'm in trouble. :-) Just H 18:17, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

It isn't time to start cowering under our afghans just yet, there's still plenty of creeping vandalism that can be zapped. I notice that Sarah Connor (fictional character) remains intact, so they aren't quite omnipotent just yet. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 22:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

<groan> Does that terminate this discussion? – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 23:49, 24 Dec 2006 (UTC).

User:Pilotguy's deletion of userspace User:Argyriou/SirNicholas

Also discussed above at WP:ANI#Draft RFC deleted by admin. – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 23:31, 24 Dec 2006 (UTC).

I'm curious about the deletion and protection of this userspace page. The content was not an attack but a compilation of evidence to be presented in a future RfC. I'm also curious about how Pilotguy became aware of this page. I see no notices on his talk page and there is no listing at WP:MFD or WP:ANI. I get the impression that this was an action taken after discussion in IRC. —Malber (talk • contribs) 17:11, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of WP:POINT, why do we have to have a user subpage containing stuff that would be discussed/duplicated elsewhere as in WP:MFD or WP:ANI? -- Szvest - ^{Wiki me up ®} 17:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The draft was being prepared there, to be posted at WP:RFC when it was complete. – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 23:39, 24 Dec 2006 (UTC).

Alternatively, someone could look at your contributions and see that you edited the page earlier today. I contest whether the page was truly an attack page. Certainly, some of the accusations were a bit harsh and exaggerated, but I'm not sure I'd call it an attack page. -- tariqabjotu 17:44, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't look like an attack page to me. Kimchi.sg 17:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The discussion is here here. You have to realize that you do not own your userpages on Wikipedia and if an Administrator (Sysop), in their discresion, deems it to be inappropriate, it may be removed. Your best bet is to approach the sysop that deleted them, and discuss it with them. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 18:03, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Malber discussed the issue with Pilotguy. Of that whole exchange, what I found notable was Malber's "Okay, please illustrate how it was an attack page. Here's your opportunity to do so".... — and Pilotguy's response, "I'm not going to talk to someone as arrogant as you. It's Christmas, and the community has spoken on ANI. Bye bye." What an exemplary willingness to communicate with others and explain his decisions. – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 00:09, 25 Dec 2006 (UTC).

Should PilotGuy be disinclined to undelete (which disinclination would not be unreasonable), you might also try deletion review. Joe 18:50, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Joe, do you think the above quoted-and-linked response was "not unreasonable"? – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 00:09, 25 Dec 2006 (UTC).

I'm curious, why wasn't this sent to MFD? Just H 18:19, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

If it had been an attack page, it would have been speedy deletable (General point 10). --Sam Blanning^(talk) 18:45, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Is this expressed by "nonsense deleted", as though it had been a collation of Cab Calloway scat lyrics? Why no notification to the user, even after the fact? – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 23:39, 24 Dec 2006 (UTC).

No, it's expressed by the deletion log. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 00:22, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Compare MastCell's comment below (21:28, 24 December 2006): ..."last I saw Argyriou's subpage (some time before it was deleted), it was primarly a compilation of diffs by Sir Nick, rather than an attack page per se." – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 00:35, 25 Dec 2006 (UTC).

Great, thanks for the clarification. I'm curious though, is there a review for speedy deletions for those who would disagree with that compared to deletion reviews? I cannot see the page, so I do not have any opinion one way or the other. Just H 19:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

That's probably right, but I don't know that it's altogether clear that there is a consensus for the application of G10 to userspace pages that be understood as attacking other users with the same stridency with which G10 is applied to pages generally, and mainspace pages in particular, that serve to attack biographical subjects or groups. Whilst the former may tend to be more disruptive than the latter (to be sure, IMHO, the instant subpage was not unnecessarily disruptive or devoid of constructive purpose), they do not tend to compromise the quality of the encyclopedic content. At the very least, I think it fair to say that there are reasonable objections essayed by many in the community to the deletion of pages that serve to compile information for a forthcoming RfC or RfAr (as against those that serve to compile information with which to harass other users or to compile material that will necessarily prove inflammatory), such that speedy deletion is disfavored for such pages; there have surely been several MfDs the disposition of which evidences the breadth and number of such objections. Joe 19:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Surely such a draft could be done much more tactfully on a local copy of Notepad or in email than on wiki. My opinion, anyways. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 19:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, on the one hand, such drafts could be composed more privately on Notepad etc. On the other hand, last I saw Argyriou's subpage (some time before it was deleted), it was primarly a compilation of diffs by Sir Nick, rather than an attack page per se. In general, I agree with SAJordan that if the reason for deletion was personal attacks/incivility, a warning before deletion would have been appropriate. Precipitate action by an admin in this kind of situation only feeds into what appears to be an established persecution complex. At this point, I agree that the most appropriate forum, should Argyriou want the page back, would be deletion review. MastCell 21:28, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

You can't use Notepad to collaborate on a project. The reason you would want it in userspace is when you would like other editors to collaborate on compilation of evidence and to share their experiences with the administrator. By deleting and protecting the page, User:Pilotguy has stifled this discussion. If it were a page where editors were dishing on Mimsy and listing personal attacks I could understand the deletion, but this was not the case. —Malber (talk • contribs) 22:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe there's a misunderstanding about the WP:RfC process, then. The idea is that others (including other involved/aggreived parties) chime in after the RfC is filed with their comments on the RfC page. Collecting diffs is one thing (it was my impression that this was what User:Argyriou was doing); creating a subpage in your userspace where a variety of people go to "compile evidence"/complain against one particular editor/admin is different, and blurs the line with an attack page - such a page will inevitably end up as a place where people go to "dish" about Mimsy. Creating such a page also circumvents the existing dispute resolution process. MastCell 22:58, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Using userspace allowed compiling a draft over several sessions and then posting a well-formed RFC, rather than typing into a live RFC at the first session and saving the work there while still rough. It also allowed removing any heated or ill-considered comments before the text was posted to RFC. I think we'd have fewer feuds if more people put their posts through such a cooling-off period. – SAJordan ^talk_contribs 23:24, 24 Dec 2006 (UTC).

Channing Tatum

(section moved from WP:AIV --Deathphoenix ʕ 17:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC))

Several sockpuppets have been repeatedly vandalizing the Channing Tatum article, even after repeated warning by myself. User:sam Syms, User:Don Zering and User:Sam Zannino all make non-notable, unsourced edits designed to elivate the profile of a certain model Vincent De Paul. You will see these edits in the history of Tatum's article as well as my warnings on the offender's talk pages. I think it's obviously sock puppets since it's unlikely that three seperate users would collectively have such an obscure agemda. However you may be able to help in this matter is greatly appreciated. If any action is taken I;d greatly appreciate some notice on my talk page. Thank you for your time. -FateSmiled&DestinyLaughed 17:39, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• I've blocked Sam Syms and Don Zering indefinitely as sockpuppets, and will issue a 3RR warning to Sam Zannino (as the first account). I'll be logging off in a little while, so if you guys disagree with my blocks, feel free to unblock without further discussion with me. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:02, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Help with a user User:Giantsguy46

Giantsguy46 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Hello, last night on my Talkpage I asked for help with a user who vandalized several pages. nn editor responded to my helpme and said he could not find the vandalism even though it is very obvious looking at the affected articles. I am on vacation and do not the airtime to edit all the affected articles vandalized by Giantsguy46. He editted Nick Johnson who is on my watchlist. If you look at the revert edit I did, you will his pattern of double editting a page to cover the first level of vandalism. Please review his contributions and reverse his edits. Ronbo76 18:23, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

If you provide diffs, people here could look into it more thoroughly and help. Cheers, ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 18:32, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Not necessary. Blocked, totally obvious vandal-only account. For future reference, WP:AIV will usually give you a faster response on these. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 18:34, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Welsh Nationalism revert war

Hello, I have never posted here, so bear with me. On this page, a disagreement towards the subject matter has caused a war with important information being added, then removed. I have done a 3RR as the other party has themselves caused 3RR removing content, but wish further assistance moderating the differences here. Thank you, Drachenfyre 19:27, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I just put my two cents in on that article's talk page, with a compromise proposal. Since you're both in violation of 3RR, but at the same time are the only two disputants, I think that blocking you both will hinder us finding some sort of resolution, so I'm inclined to let it go - but am posting here in case any other admins think I'm getting soft around the holidays ... | Mr. Darcy talk 20:10, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Personal attacks and formal warnings

It seems odd to me that a person has to receive two formal warnings before one may bring a matter to WP:PAIN This edit by BabyDweezil (talk · contribs) is almost as blatant a personal attack as I have ever seen on Wikipedia. My own view is that he should be blocked for this. I was not the target of the attack, but since I have been somewhat involved in tussles with him in the past, I'll recuse myself from taking an administrative role in the matter.

More generally though: doesn't this requirement of using {{npa2}} and {{npa3}} before bringing a matter to WP:PAIN mean that someone effectively gets two opportunities to make personal attacks, no matter how egregious, before a matter can be brought there? That seems to me to be downright insane. - Jmabel | Talk 20:39, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I just blocked the user 24 hours for that completely inappropriate comment, on top of a history of uncivil edit summaries and a lot of revert-warring (I thought I saw several 3RR vios by him to Fred Newman, but he's only had one block for it). | Mr. Darcy talk 21:03, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I suppose 24 hours is a gesture in the right direction, but it seems to me to be incredibly mild. Also, I'd appreciate some discussion on the more general issue I raised here: doesn't this requirement of using {{npa2}} and {{npa3}} before bringing a matter to WP:PAIN become a license to make teo personal attacks? - Jmabel | Talk 23:12, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Jmabel and thanks for you long involvement with Fred Newman. I agree with MrDarcy, that BabyDweezil has certainly been uncivil in the past and deserves a 24 hour block. As it happens, WP:BLOCK has recently been modified to allow blocking without any warnings for severe threats. Obviously, under the current system, if an editor is uncivil and makes a personal attack, they could be processed via an RfC and then ArbCom, which is reasonably fair... Addhoc 00:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Misuse of admin powers by Jayjg

User:Jayjg has protected David Irving[92] without giving a justification and despite the fact that he has recently been involved in editing the article. (see history).

User:SlimVirgin has removed the protection tag[93] without unprotecting the article. 87.117.199.132 20:44, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Which account were you trying to edit from? HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 20:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The reason given by Jayjg was {{sprotect-banneduser}}. This guy is clearly a sock of whoever that banned user is (User:Kgeza67 by the looks of it). I've blocked the 87.177.199.0/24 range. -- Steel 20:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

It appears to be User:Wik, who hates Jayjg because he's put some effort into blocking all his sockpuppets. Anyways, I don't think 87.177.199.0/24 is him - according to Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Kgeza67, the user is currently using a different range. Khoikhoi 21:02, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Someone complaining on ANI about misuse of admin powers shortly after an article is protected due to some banned user sets off the alarm bells for me. If you're confident it's not said banned user unblock the range. -- Steel 21:09, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I removed the tag by mistake when I made an edit. I've returned it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:04, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I find no reason to censure Jayjg. He was merely protecting the integrity of the article.Bakaman 01:33, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Revert war on {{Infobox road}}

A revert war has broken out at {{Infobox road}} over the formatting of the infobox. Ed g2s (talk · contribs) continues to change the design of the infobox, despite requests to leave the template as-is and reverts by numerous editors to return the template to its prior formatting. Ed g2s refuses to discuss this situation with other editors and it appears that he will not settle for anything less than his design, even if it flies in the face of obvious consensus on Template talk:Infobox road to leave the template at status quo. An uninvolved third party view is welcome. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 21:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

A peculiar bit of axe-grinding

Justin322 (talk · contribs)'s entire contribution history is a bit...odd, all 20 edits of it. His first edit is to slap a {{db-bio}} tag on Panaca, Nevada (yes, it's a town). After that's removed as bogus, he nominates Panaca, Nevada for deletion. The nomination is speedily closed -- though not before he's had time to delete someone else's "Keep" comment. Stymied, he's resorted to blanking the article in favor of a redirect to Lincoln County, Nevada, which I've reverted, with him labelling his subsequent reversions as "rvv". Next stop is WP:AN/3RR, where I'm reported as a violator, with the claim that his bete noir article should be merged into Lincoln County, Nevada -- not that he was doing that, either (the 3RR violation report has been rejected by User:Alphachimp). The rest of Justin322's contributions are deleting various warnings and messages from his talk page, calling them vandalism from a "troll". In short, an {{spa}}, albeit a peculiar purpose. I assume this will peter out now, but just in case... --Calton | Talk 22:03, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks like a very possible sock, from my perspective. ✎ Peter M Dodge ( Talk to Me • Neutrality Project ) 22:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Indefinitely blocked as a disruptive vandal and troll. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:29, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Friday recall petition

While running for admin, Friday said he would resign his adminship and request re-adminship if sufficient numbers of users requested it. A petition was put on his Talk page requesting his resignation, as per his own statement. User:Hipocrite, who is deeply involved in all of the RD drama, has deleted the petition. I am not about to get into an edit war over this, but I think that Hipocrite's action is unacceptable, especially as there were several supporters of the petition in good standing, and Friday certainly had the opportunity to remove it from his Talk page if he so wanted. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:25, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The petition became worthless when talk page spamming of everyone Friday had ever blocked became the method of "advertising." Trolls do not get to harass our good editors by doing things like finding unrelated parties to latch their "concerns" on to - I mean, one wouldn't want to support editors who disliked a hypothetical editors contributions to 9/11 conspiracy theories getting them desysoped by teaming up with a bunch of retards who like internet drama, right Zoe? Hipocrite - «Talk» 23:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• • Note that there is a related discussion above. Newyorkbrad 23:44, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Badlydrawnjeff has restored the petition, and I lose £10 for betting that it would be a Rootology sock to do the honours. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 00:18, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

And, for the record, I think the idea behind it is absurd, but simply that it's not Hipocrite's place to decide whether it has standing. I have my disagreements with Friday, but he's no dummy and I'm sure this will be relegated to the trash bin at the proper time. I'd toss you some money to cover the bet, but my American dollars aren't worth that much to you. d;-) --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:20, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

"New" user User:Just another editor deleting sourced material from Daniel Brandt

Supposed new user Just another editor (talk · contribs) has just made a controverisal deletion from the Wikipedia criticism section of Daniel Brandt claiming that the well-sourced material is unsourced and original research. I have restored the material. Immediately, an anon came in and reverted the deletion, I have blocked that anon temporarily. Best to keep an eye on Just another editor. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:52, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Compromised account?

Undertakerlives (talk · contribs), having been gone for six months, suddenly shows up and starts vandalizing. I have indef. blocked until an explanation is forthcoming. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:31, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• Well he did some vandalism during his first period here [94], [95]. Probably just a returning vandal. --W.marsh 23:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

User talk:$295,040.16!? I CANT BELIEVE IT!!

Hi, I was wondering if I could get some more opinions on this situation. It doesn't seem clear why this name is blockable under WP:U(i've seen longer names), and WP:AGF wasn't followed since the account didn't commit any vandalism. I'm fairly neutral, but I was wondering if we could have a reason here so this person doesn't become disgruntled and have an excuse to vandalize due to an axe to grind. I have asked for an unblock for this account until then, but if there's a good reason under policy I have no problem removing that tag. Just H 23:37, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

A person/group of persons has been creating usernames with a number that is whatever amount is shown in the fundraiser bar on top of this page at the moment (unless you've dismissed it already). That is being trollish. Kimchi.sg 00:05, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I noticed my blocked username above, so I thought I'd comment. I see nothing wrong with mentioning how much we've raised in my username along with my sandbox only (cause it is for experimenting) contributions. Last year I did this and had mixed results. Some people simply dont "get" my sense of humor. This I understand. However, to my knowledge there is nothing in the username policy that prohibits these names. Except for having multiple sockpuppets, I dont see the problem. If you want, I could pick a less attention getting name (such as this one) and stay in the sandbox. Deal?TheAnonomousFundraiser 01:04, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorin Cerin sock alert

In the course of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sorin Cerin (Dec 2006) I have noticed that Alinaro (talk · contribs), L.Marchis (talk · contribs), and Mircia (talk · contribs) all have similar user pages, similar bad use of punctuation, and all appear to edit only on matters related to Sorin Cerin. Pattern on User:Rolineseem is slightly different, but notice same bad punctuation and the odd pattern of starting off with an edit to his own user talk page, then a vote on Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2006 November 28, then recreation of the Sorin Cerin article.

It would astound me if these are not all one person. It would not astound me if they are all D-ul Cerin himself. - Jmabel | Talk 00:36, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Shakesphere17

Could someone check out what this user just did to Age of Reason? S/his recent edits have been borderline vandalism (changing section headings, altering categories) and I don't know what to make of the move that just happened - I am tempted not to assume good faith but I confess that page moves/redirects etc. confuse me. --Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 00:48, 25 December 2006 (UTC) :S/he is going through a ton of related articles and changing links to match this redirect - again I dunno what to make of it.--Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 00:50, 25 December 2006 (UTC) ::AND user is engaging in simple vandalism, I will post this on the appropriate board, but I would appreciate it if someone would look at that redirect.--Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 00:55, 25 December 2006 (UTC) This looks like it was just all unvarnished vandalism and another editor has posted to the appropriate message board. --Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 00:57, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Latest User:Mactabbed sockpuppet=Open stakes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Would an admin kindly indef. block the latest User:Mactabbed sockpuppet=Open stakes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)? This has been admitted. Please see this ANI archive and this ANI archive. Also please delete the RfC against me that this user has started. Thanks. (→Netscott) 01:32, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

User: Netscott is a vandal: Netscott (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

As he has repeatedly tried to delete the request for comment against himself, in fear that the evidence against his vandalizing behavior will surface to other administrators. He does not have to right to delete a request for comment on the false grounds that I am a banned user, which I am not. Open stakes 01:37, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Regret

I regret to inform you, that due to the insufficiency of goodwill this season, I am unable to visit Wikipedia. --Santa on Sleigh 01:47, 25 December 2006 (UTC)