Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive475

Banned editor engaging in edit warring and block evasion

Banned user User:Ovlem (also previously operating as User:Wikipéire and multiple other socks) is engaged in block evasion, 3RR evasion and disruptive editing under IPs of: 78.16.164.111, 78.16.173.227 and 194.125.71.23.

Evidence of link to previously banned editor can be seen in pattern of editing (user is a WP:SPA bent on piping every instance of Republic of Ireland - even where this impacts clarity), IP Address, overlap between edits (see own talk history), etc. Guliolopez (talk) 15:58, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Could someone investigate? This fiasco with serial sockpuppets is a wiki-scandal! Djegan (talk) 16:47, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Please file a request at WP:Requests for checkuser. If abuse of muliple accounts is confirmed, all will be blocked. — Satori Son 17:10, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I think this ip may also be a vandal. In any case their is a coordinated attempt at vandalism here. Please dont stand back and quote "policy", a good 20 articles are been changed here against the consensus of others by ip jumpers! Djegan (talk) 17:24, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

As much as I'd happily open a checkuser, I'm not sure there is much value. A checkuser was already opened on this puppet master only a few days ago. See: Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Ovlem. And now he's just hoping from IP to IP evading both the previously imposed blocks which arose from THAT checkuser, and the previously imposed blocks from his previous puppet master account. When strict policy is followed to address this disruptive editting, he either makes a mockery of it (like for example opening dozens of appeals), or just comes back when the temporary IP blocks expire. Personally I'm not sure what to do, as reasoning with him doesn't help either. But another checkuser puts too much weight on the editors who are trying to be reasonable and measured in their approach. I'm not advocating banning him without review. Just that a quick review will show what we're saying - without having the overhead of a checkuser across. (Especially given that a checkuser will just show that he's jumping IPs anyway). Sigh. Guliolopez (talk) 17:52, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

(DEINDENT) Can an admin please have a look at the editing history of this editor, and his 3 or 4 associated socks 194.125.21.43, 213.202.164.162, 78.16.164.111. And either consider protecting the pages that this behaviour is being measured upon, or by blocking these IPs for block evasion, 3RR evasion and related nonsense? It is very frustrating when one is constrained by the 3RR guidelines, and a brazenly disruptive editor can evade blocks, bans, and censure under 3RR. In particular when a quick look at the history of the pages in question or the IPs contributions list shows how obvious the abuse has been. (In particular when we went through all the hoop-lah of a checkuser and related "multi account abuse" procedures only a few days ago. And it proved no deterrent what so ever). Guliolopez (talk) 18:25, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi guys. Is anyone actually going to help us deal with this nonsense? I don't know how many different ways to advise this editor that this behaviour isn't appropriate. I don't think protecting the pages is appropriate (because it will lock out measured and reasonable anon or new editors for dozens of pages). So unless someone can actually block this little sock farm for a while, and force this editwarring, socking, disruptive, ban evading, spa into the consensus building approach he claims to be espousing, then this will continue until productive/measured editors lose all faith. As any admin will quickly see, this puppet farm claims to be making edits based on some notional consensus, but hasn't ONCE opened a talk thread to build this CON, nor has he responded to any requests to agree a compromise. As noted above, I remain a little annoyed that this warring can continue (because he jumps from IP to IP) and yet I am constrained by 3RR. This may not be direct vandalism, but is certainly vandal-like behaviour in spirit and needs to be dealt with. Guliolopez (talk) 15:54, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Second opinion please on edits by User:Yartett

Yartett (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is using Wikipedia to network those sharing his political agenda by adding external links pointing to non Wikipedia sites. Originally posted to the deleted version of Talk:Bristol palin. Post on User talk pages. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. Posted to article talk pages here. And here. And here. And here. And here. I have reverted some of his edits. Have explained that this is not appropriate on his talk page--User talk:Yartett.But he feels that my concerns are not well founded and that I'm being unreasonable. Dlohcierekim 17:26, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict):

I started to post the following here but Dlohcierekim beat me to it:

Yartett (talk • contribs • count) is a new user with a lot of energy and has been drawn to Wikipedia by the Sarah Palin phenomenon. He took the initiative to created these 4 now-deleted pages:

• List of Wikipedia articles of Barack Obama in other languages
• List of Wikipedia articles of Joe Biden in other languages
• List of Wikipedia articles of Sarah Palin in other languages
• List of Wikipedia articles of John McCain in other languages

unaware we have interwiki links in the left column (heck, it took me a month or two to figure this out when I first started editing). Perhaps further frustrated by the protection on the Palin-related redirects here, he created some pages off Wikipedia. He then started leaving notes on article and user talk pages inviting folks to both his sites and some others. (examples:[1][2]). I left a note for him explaining WP:NOT; others and I reverted his edits. He continued with his talk page messages so Dlohcierekim and I then left him additional cautions. In retrospect, I may have been a bit heavy-handed and some of these cautions were redundant if you look at Yartett's edit history. Now Yartett is pretty bitter and saying he's leaving.

I think it would help if some others got involved and perhaps helped Yartett -- I sense he has a lot to contribute but may need someone to run interference for him and help him with our rules.

I'd also like a review of my actions.

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:40, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

In particular, I'm concerned about screwing up "Please do not bite the newcomers" with this one; others' diplomatic skills might help here. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I'm Yartett, the editor in question.

The language thing was quickly corrected,
though I might add that I was intending,
in my list,
to add the sizes of such articles and include other Wikimedia parallels..

The issue for me is that seeing that the articles in question have been either locked or redirected,
if I could post links to parallel articles,
to other sites using MediaWiki software,
so others can contribute in those sites,
instead of being frustrated with whatever appeals processes,
or arguments,
in trying to get articles like Sarah Palin or others in the election unlocked, or un-re-directed;
or filling up discussion pages.

As to the politics,
while Libertarian Wiki has the word "Libertarian"

---and yes I'm a Libertarian and 'tis the season,
there is the thing that because Libertarian Wiki
---a Media Wiki software site
---and perhaps other sites seem to have so few editors,
that it would serve as fertile grounds for those Wikipedia editors who are frustrated,
or indeed have an ideological axe to grind
---one imagines Conservapedia or its reaction Rational Wiki.

Keep in mind,
that my recent postings were not in the actual articles,
though granted,
such articles were locked;
and a few days ago,
I gave up posting them on the article discussion pages,
save perhaps those of the pages of articles now re-directed,
and in the discussion pages of User pages I selected,
because they seemed that they might be sympathetic enough as not to consider such spam.

Keep in mind, that none of those Users complained.

Thank you for your attention.

Yartett (talk) 18:40, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Did you just reply to an ANI thread in verse? That is extremely awesome. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 19:21, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

There's more to verse than hitting return at every punctuation mark. Looie496 (talk) 19:59, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

It's his way. :) Cheers, Dlohcierekim 20:41, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I hope that it makes it easier to read, at least aloud. ;-) Yartett (talk) 21:50, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

• Awesome, but please use Haiku in future. --Rodhullandemu 23:43, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

  I make a motion that, henceforth, only complaints in haiku or limerick shall be addressed! — Coren ^(talk) 01:07, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

  There once was a hermet wikipedian named Dave... Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 17:08, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Nangparbat, round three

Once again, I'm having some issues with User:Nangparbat and am requesting reviews of my actions. For those unfamiliar with the story so far, Nangparbat is a POV warrior with a chip on his shoulder who likes to make biased edits to Pakistan-India related articles; accuse just about everyone who doesn't agree with him of being biased, anti-Indian, Islamophobic, or just outright racist depending on how irritated he is at the time; and hop IP addresses as soon as he realizes he's been blocked. He has been on over 100 IP addresses within the past month or so. A full list of those we are aware of can be found at User:Hersfold/Vandal watch#Nangparbat. Roughly every other day for the past week or so I've gotten a new section on my talk page about this guy and I'm frankly sick of it. We can't rangeblock him because he's on BT Internet and we'd end up blocking half of Great Britain to no useful effect. I've filed an abuse report at Wikipedia:Abuse reports/81.15x.x.x and 86.1x.x.x ranges, but as seems typical of that project, nothing's being done.

Today's Nangparbat message was from Cityvalyu (talk · contribs) complaining of abuse from these IPs on his talk page. I reverted all the recent abusive comments and blocked the IP. I also semi-protected Cityvalyu's talk page for two weeks at his request. Shortly thereafter, two more IP addresses showed up in succession, both being abusive. I consider this user to be banned (which is partly why I'm opening this, more in a moment), so I reverted all edits from both IPs and blocked them for two weeks. To stop further abuse, I have also semi-protected the articles K2, Srinagar, and Pakistan-administered Kashmir for one week. As I've been typing this, he has come up with another IP address. I have not blocked this, as Nichalp (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has become involved and wishes to try to discuss with Nangparbat (something I and other users have tried and failed at). I have informed Nangparbat that I will not revert any edits under that IP to Nichalp's talk page or his own, but will be reverting any edits of his I see elsewhere. I will also permit him to comment here, provided he does not get abusive.

Summary

• Blocked for two weeks:

• 81.151.101.146 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 86.153.129.194 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 86.163.154.165 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

• On strict editing limitation for duration of discussion:

• 86.154.151.176 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

• Semi-protected:

• User talk:Cityvalyu (edit | user page | history | links | watch | logs) (2 weeks)
• K2 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (1 week)
• Srinagar (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (1 week)
• Pakistan-administered Kashmir (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (1 week)
• Northern Areas (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (1 week, added 20:42, 12 September 2008 (UTC))

I am requesting review of all of these actions, as well as calling for official recognition of a community siteban against User:Nangparbat. The {{banned}} template is currently on his userpage - I have placed that there based on the "no admin willing to unblock" guideline, but I would appreciate an actual consensus on this. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 20:40, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

If administraters (besides hersfol) look at my edits there is nothing abusive about them im only correcting a few sentences and challenging nichalp who only adds the administered tag to pakistans portion of kashmir page when i do the same to srinagar he reverts without offering a explanation hersfold is also not helping the situation by deleting and blocking me even after i told him several weeks before my ip is dynamic he is not prepared to listen to i keep on have to restart my pc to get my message across talk pages so please look at the edits on K2 and PAK which clearly shows im just adding fixing comments not abusive ones which hersfold claims i am also cityvalu also called me a racist and gave a sly comment comparing me with terrorists i dont beleive this trivial issue made big by some editors like hersfold deserves your time as im only reverting a couple lines not whole article like nichalp who keeps on adding the tag of administered to pakistan and reverting them when they are placed on India so a nationalist editor must not get his POV across cheers 86.154.151.176 (talk) 20:56, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Edit summaries like these aren't abusive? [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. Those are just from today. I can look further if you want. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:06, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

• All I see is a long term pattern of abuse. No argument from me. — Coren ^(talk) 15:13, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

There's no point blocking all those IPs. He will evade them. Semi-protect his favourite articles instead. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:39, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

HersFold

to hersfold those edit summaries are not abusive firstly the second edit summary was a response to your chum citvalyu the other edits dont even include abuse unless your trying again to put false claims on me 86.151.127.43 (talk) 09:21, 13 September 2008 (UTC) P.S look at the battle of chawinda pakistan won that however hersfold seems to think india did i beleive he has a underlying hatred towards Pakistan or me to looie what have i dont wrong please state i only get abusive when people either call me "terrorist or Paki" of hersfold doesnt agree with me defending my self i dont really give a dam i have the right to as for hersfold i would appreciate if you actually were more neutral or atleast but out of my business and stop blocking for sending message on talk pages im not canvassing for votes like kashmir cloud who you famously let of the hook 86.151.127.43 (talk) 09:43, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I definitely don't want to condone these practices, but a complicating factor is that the changes Nangparbat is trying to make are valid ones. Referring to the part of Kashmir that belongs to Pakistan as "Pakistani-administered Kashmir" is quite provocative, sort of like referring to New Mexico as "American-administered Mexico", or, perhaps a bit better analogy, like referring to Northern Ireland as "British-administered Ireland". Looie496 (talk) 21:34, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The territory of Kashmir is disputed. The other alternative is Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. This title as been derived after consensus among several editors from both sides, and is also the term used by the United Nations and BBC. Should you wish to wade in the quagmire of India-Pakistan disputes, please check Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pakistan occupied Kashmir :) =Nichalp «Talk»= 07:04, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

If the territory is disputed WHY DO YOU ONLY PICK on the Pakistani side of kashmir and when someone does the same to lets say srinagar or jammu you revert the edits and then you have the nerve to claim that kashmir is disputed. Answer this isnt Srinagar disputed your happy to add the disputed tag to all pakistani kashmir articles like northern areas but purposely ignore the indian ones i tell you the reason your Nationalist and in some way or another your going to be biased this bias will not go down well with anyone well maybe cityvalu and kashmir cloud who are after all abusive users themselves which HERSFOLD COMPLETELY IGNORES 86.151.127.43 (talk) 09:43, 13 September 2008 (UTC)This shows clear bias and favouritism to india while he claims all kashmir is disputed he fails to include this is srinagar while editing like mad on pakistans side that little srinagar sentence is pathetic it should include the sub heading indian administered kashmir below the main title like it does in northern areas courtesy of ip 11786.151.127.43 (talk) 09:51, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Hersfold sanity: check. To nichalp for wading into a heavily-charged ethnic conflict: kudos and good luck. From what I've seen of the Talk pages, this editor simply isn't interested in good faith discussion. I support a ban on India/Pakistan articles. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 21:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Sanity check is partially why I'm here. If you feel any thing I've done is out-of-line, please let me know and I'll undo it. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:58, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Nanga Parbat: To answer your questions:

• I reverted your *all* your edits, including the Srinagar page. [8]
• On retrospective, I should have checked what edits you were trying to make. I notice you were trying to make it more neutral. I apologize for the revert on the Srinagar. I have tried to address the issue, please take a look.
• Do feel free to neutralise more such areas in India, while keeping the grammar in place. Indian-administered state might not fit in correctly at all places.
• Looking forward to seeing you make constructive edits.

=Nichalp «Talk»= 07:04, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Nichalp please read this clearly the reason i am editing Pak is because it states "also known as POK" it makes it out as the whole world calls it POK but in fact only India does please get this into your head pakistan also refers is at IOK however its been explained that ONLY Pakistan does please wake up. SECONDLY you seem to be adding the disputed tags to northern areas while removing them from indian administered territory doesnt this show clear discrimination and bias towards Pakistan while defending india you vandalise pakistani article however when i do the same to indian articles you completely loose the plot and revert like mad P.S srinagar is not good enough it should clearly state that its administered territory like it does on Northern Areas having a large amounts of disputed tags on the pakistani side and only 1 tag on the india side is totally unacceptable im not being abusive so hersfold can rant all he wants i will continue to make indian and pakistani article neutral and weed out propaganda86.151.127.43 (talk) 09:33, 13 September 2008 (UTC) Im not adding indian administered state im adding indian administered kashmir please stop making excuses i also challenge you to be more neutral and less anti pakistan 86.151.127.43 (talk) 09:45, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

NangaParbat, I have no idea if you have trouble in comprehending my above post. This is your problem:

1. I have replied to specific point of yours, yet you drag your reply for articles that I have not explicitly commented on. Am I supposed to know that your grudge on the PaK page regarding POK applies to me reverting your above edits?
2. You are quick to assume bad faith on my part without even discussing the matter with me in a logical matter and seeking clarifications. I am certainly open to making the Srinagar page more NPOV and have taken cognisance of your post to come up with this version.
3. You refuse to take an apology seriously with the use words such as "stop making excuses", "get this in your head". If you cannot be WP:CIVIL, I shall not bother to talk to you.
4. In your bid to NPOV stuff, you leave gaping grammatical errors. Read this if it makes grammatical sense
5. Drag an off-topic region such as Arunachal Pradesh into the Kashmir dispute [9]. That was hilarious!
6. With regards to the usage of Indian-administered Kashmir vs Jammu and Kashmir for the Indian state, you need to open an RFC somewhere to discuss the usage of the term, not revert as we use the proper administrative noun. If your case holds true, we would have to knock off Azad Kashmir too. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:28, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

admin abuse: block on wikitionary

This is Wikipedia, not Wiktionary. Wrong venue. Stifle (talk) 18:14, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism on Hutong page

Resolved

 – Admin, Zzuuzz deleted the vandalism by M00t is a fgt (talk · contribs) who is indefinitely blocked accordingly.--Caspian blue (talk) 14:51, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Could admin knowledgeable of coding fix a serious problem on Hutong, one of Chinese architecture pages? Some weird colorful images dominates the page. Given the praise, Got Grawp? I believe some vandal inserted inappropriate codes on the page. --Caspian blue (talk) 14:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

To bypass the inappropriate image, use this edit link. Tohd8BohaithuGh1 (talk) 14:35, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

no, it's template vandalism to something used by 'convert' [10] as it occurs if you try to view thattemplate. haven't worked out what tho (it isn't template:convert cos that's protected & hasn't been edited)--Bsnowball (talk) 14:43, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I've tried looking at the various templates convert uses and haven't found anything yet. almost everything linked to it is protected--Crossmr (talk) 14:47, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem is resolved by admin, Zzuuzz.[11] I believe the vandal who did such thing is M00t is a fgt (talk · contribs). Thank you for the help. --Caspian blue (talk) 14:50, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. User:Bsrboy for a change. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 14:54, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Ahmansoor and Midtown comics AFD

After nominating an article for deletion, I thought I noticed that IP User:202.59.80.153 had !voted twice in the afd. I assumed good faith that it was a genuine mistake and removed the keep and indented to indicate it was merely a comment from the same IP address. Now I look back it was in fact User:Ahmansoor commenting, then returning to comment further as 202.59.80.153. I assumed that it was a mistake and adjusted the indent (incorrectly having looking over the history) so that it flowed as one statement.

However recently I noticed that User:Ahmansoor had also voted a third time [12]. After being reverted by User:Wisdom89, User:Ahmansoor has put back his third !vote. I believe that it is clear User:202.59.80.153 and User:Ahmansoor are sock/meatpuppets since the IP voted to keep on the users own article at AFD as well. Although I am more than happy for the article to be kept through consensus, I feel there are minor issues with this user, I feel that given the user self proclaimed COI regarding search engine optamisation on his user page, it is clearly an issue with this user creating articles on people and organisations given the likely COI. Even if what i have mentioned are simple mistakes, I believe the COI cannot be ignored. I am after some comments on what other peoples views are on this. Seddσn ^{talk Editor Review} 17:44, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I've struck out the duplicate "vote". Reverting it wasn't a very good idea, striking is better. Stifle (talk) 18:09, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

User:WLU

Some time ago, a project was started to create subpages to Chronic fatigue syndrome since the article had grown too long. Unanimously, it was decided by all the regular contributors to use the compound term ME/CFS in these subarticles, to avoid the need to create a double amount of them. The project also contained the intention to resurrect the Myalgic encephalomyelitis article. ME and CFS are related diagnoses, with of the two only ME in the WHO classification.

Now, User:WLU, who is not a regular editor to Chronic fatigue syndrome and related articles, unilaterally decided that the diagnosis ME needs to be removed from all the subarticle titles and carried this out immediately without consulting the regulars and despite protests. As a result, titles and contents no longer match, and disputes have arisen at most of them as well as on the main CFS article. Several times, dispute templates were removed.

In my opinion this is disruptive editing behaviour. We have tried to reason with him, but he acts as if he is the owner of these articles, and claims that WHO classification, CDC and expert statements to the effect that ME and CFS are different entities are completely irrelevant. WLU has also started to edit the content of the articles to match his view, causing additional upheaval.

I am prepared to seek dispute resolution along normal channels, rather than reverting everything and restore consensus titles immediately, but only if this steamrolling stops.

Users Bricker and Tekaphor quoting the CDC: Various terms are incorrectly used interchangeably with CFS. CFS has an internationally accepted case definition that is used in research and clinical settings. ... The name myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) was coined in the 1950s to clarify well-documented outbreaks of disease; however, ME is accompanied by neurologic and muscular signs and has a case definition distinct from that of CFS.[13]

• The main CFS article
• The ME project

Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 15:59, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

• You might actually want to try dispute resolution here. AN/I isn't a part of that process. Cheers. lifebaka++ 16:09, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

WLU's actions have quite a lot of support from other editors on Talk:Alternative names for chronic fatigue syndrome. Guido is basically on his own although ME-flavoured editor Tekaphor has now come to his aid. This is a content dispute, and dispute resolution is needed. Mediation may be the way forward. JFW | T@lk 18:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, content dispute. AN/I is not the place. This can, and should, be settled with sources. WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 18:22, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The reason for this report was that you didn't wait for that. If you can indicate that in retrospect you agree that you may have acted too boldly, and that you are willing to slow down, this incident can be closed. Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 18:27, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Guido, since you were only unblocked two days ago, with several admins expressing doubts about the wisdom of doing so, it is quite discouraging to see how much trouble you have already stirred up. I'm not an admin and don't have a crystal ball, but it's pretty easy to see that the next block is likely to come soon and unlikely to ever be removed. Looie496 (talk) 18:38, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Is that really helpful? There is an insiduous form of WP:BITE whereby editors who get off on the wrong foot here find it very hard to recover. People assume bad faith due to the initial block or incident, and things spiral downwards from there. Admittedly, Guido could behave better, but not all users twig straightaway to how Wikipedia works, or the right way to conduct themselves. At some point, if an editor does show potential, some encouragement has to be given as well. Carcharoth (talk) 00:22, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Your latest remarks, WLU, are however not very promising, so for the moment this report stands. Your reaction to someone asking you for sources is to have that person topic-banned and calling him a single-purpose account. Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 19:08, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I have no fundamental allegiance to "myalgic encephalomyelitis"; however, quoting the CDC's brief glossary entry to demonstrate equivalency of the two terms, without considering what the CDC have actually discussed at length elsewhere on the issue, seemed unbalanced. Mangojuice does a good job at explaining: [14] - Tekaphor (TALK) 05:40, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I am extremely disturbed by this comment by WLU which is not only a vicious personal attack, but also a breach of privacy. Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 10:39, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

How is that a breach of privacy? He stated you have two active hours per day, an obvious assumption based on viewing your contributions. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 11:31, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I was reading over previous discussions - the 2 hours per day was posted by Guido, here. The SPA is actually erroneous, Guido is very focussed on his contributions to areas he thinks himself an expert, but is not a single topic area. I'm not sure where vicious is coming from, but whatever. My good name has been defended, I don't see much reason to post here anymore. WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 17:57, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Describing that comment as a "breach of privacy" is patently absurd. Tim Vickers (talk) 00:12, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, WLU, for disclosing the same private information here further. Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 00:17, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Zaphraud (talk · contribs) recent edits

This user seems to be making some pointy edits. His talk page shows a history of some potentially disruptive edits and plenty of warnings. Not only is he changing Digital rights management to digital restrictions management creating links to a redirect, they're rather point of view and soapboxy. Some here [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], etc etc. He's even gone and created a category called Category:Digital restrictions management which he created as a redirect to the category on digital rights management, yet put articles in it as well, seemingly to attempt to hide what category articles found themselves in, honestly it makes little sense. There is an obvious problem here, and with the apparent history of contentious editing, I felt it should be brought here.--Crossmr (talk) 05:07, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

The purpose for the redirect is to avoid breaking anything until all the editing is complete, a task which could take a very long time even as others join in fixing the existing problem, as it stands to reason that if this error has already been repeated this many times (calling it digital rights management is illogical and misleading), it will continue to be repeated for quite some time into the future.

Also, it should be noted that I have attempted to avoid changing the names of trademarked services and companies that incorporate the misnomer "digital rights management" into the name of their product or company. This is why a simple, automated correction procedure is not possible, as changing company names or trademarks, or company-named descriptions would then give the product the wrong name. For example, the sentence "Examplecom Digital Rights Management Server is an example of Digital Rights Management (DRM)" should be corrected to read "Examplecom Digital Rights Management Server is an example of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM)"; only one of the two misnomers should be altered. If I have erred in any of the articles in this manner (changing named things), I did not intend to do so - only to correct the inaccurate descriptions. Zaphraud (talk) 05:21, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

And where do you get your consensus for these changes? All reliable sources I've seen mainstream press, etc refer to it as digital rights management, not digital restrictions management. The companies themselves would refer to it as digital rights management as well. Digital Restrictions management is just a clever name to take a dig at a scheme that some people disagree with.--Crossmr (talk) 05:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Even though I do agree that Digital Restrictions Management is a better term in practice, it is still called Digital Rights Management as that is what the products were ostensibly designed to do. Zaphraud, not only are you being pointy, but your edits are fundamentally biased. If you want to rant about DRM, do what everyone else is doing and go to amazon.com. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Ed, a cafe facade!)} 05:36, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Even after being told this he continued on making this edit [20]. A google search only reveals one instance of the term used in regards to silverlight and upon visiting the page I can't find the reference (and the cache doesn't exist).--Crossmr (talk) 07:35, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

The phrase "DRM Enforcement" was never a contested point in the above section, which was why I restored it without restoring the use of the word "restrictions". Furthermore, you should be aware that the industry does describe its own product using the term "DRM enforcement" in applications for US patents and internationally as well (WIPO) - so its not like the term violates NPOV either - the concept of "DRM enforcement" is one that is accepted by all sides, but does not carry the highly offensive message that "DRM support" does - I can't think of a *single* instance where the end-user of a product has felt *supported* by the presence of DRM, and as a purchaser of digital content myself, I am very familiar with the frustrations of both DVDs that can't be fast forward/rewinded, unskippable ads and warnings, as well as games that have to be reinstalled completely, sometimes several times, due to compatibility problems resulting from bad DRM implementations. Support is *definitely* wrong here, but even the pro-DRM industry uses the term enforcement Zaphraud (talk) 22:30, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

If people used that term, it should show up on a google search. It does not. Compare this: [21] with [22].--Crossmr (talk) 01:11, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

As well compare these [23], [24], [25], [26] which show that drm support is the more common phrase at about 87000->2000. Support in this case had nothing to do with the end user, I read it to mean that DRM was supported in that edition of Silverlight in that the developer could chose to use it.--Crossmr (talk) 01:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Snoopen is usual I see

Resolved

Snoopen is usual I see (talk · contribs) is an SPA whose only edits are too randomly vandalize the user page of another banned user. My guess: it's just a sock of that user. In any case, a vandal with a confusing user name. NJGW (talk) 18:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

At the moment, his only visible edits are to his own page, and he is not blocked. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 18:56, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

That's because Kurykh (talk · contribs) just deleted the other user page in question. NJGW (talk) 19:00, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Kudos. I just wonder why he's still not blocked. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 19:14, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

An admin his since blocked the account. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 20:05, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Is an attack page in User Talk a Speedy Deletion Candidate?

Could I get some advice please, I wasn't sure where to post this. Is User talk:Romaioi an attack page and a suitable candidate for speedy deletion?

The background to this is that User:Noclador and I were investigating a sockpuppet circus generated by User:Generalmesse, this Romaioi's edits fitted the pattern of the sock puppets but he was cleared by a checkuser. Unfortunately posts by another sockpuppeteer seemed to implicate him again but again he was cleared. It has been to WP:WQA (here and here and WP:AN here. I've tried to explain to this guy that it was nothing personal and to move past this but only been accused of shit stirring for my troubles.

For info, there is much more on the Talk Page but it is hidden as comments. To be honest I'm not sure what to do about this, it would appear that any action I take is only going to inflame matters. Advice would be welcome. Justin talk 20:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Any attack page in any namespace can go under G10, but given it looks like a complex page with attack and non-attack and semi-attack parts, I'd recommend going to WP:MFD for the best result. MBisanz ^talk 20:48, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I would follow M's advice above. MfD is usually the best course of action for complicated, non-mainspace issues like this. (Comment given on quick flick through page and read through explanation above). Caulde 20:51, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Or, you could just ignore it, let him blow off a little righteously indignant steam, avoid the drama, and comfort yuorself in the knowledge that no one is ever going to read that. --barneca (talk) 20:54, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys, I have somewhat of a dilemma, do something and there will be more drama, ignore it and it'll continue to fester. I'll sleep on it I think. Justin talk 21:25, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Seriously, I wonder why so many people get worked up about pages in userspace. I think we should give users a lot of room to do what they like in userspace. Once it gets outside of userspace, however, then we need to act. Just my opinion. --Tex (talk) Vote Bishzilla for Arbcom!! 00:55, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Thats why I came here first before acting, the problem is that User:Romaioi wants to edit the same article space as User:Noclador. I have a feeling it will end it tears unless its nipped in the bud. Its been through WP:WQA and WP:AN already. Justin talk 20:05, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Well as of now, userspace is as googlable as any article, so anything bad showing up in the userspace would also show up in google searches on the subject. MBisanz ^talk 01:45, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

If I've read this correctly, this can now be changed. Is there any good reason that all User pages shouldn't be shielded from indexing? Ed Fitzgerald ^{t / c} 05:52, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

It is possible now, but given how poor our internal search engine is, there is some debate as to whether or not it is a good idea to disable external search engines. You may want to look at the debate at Wikipedia talk:NOINDEX of noticeboards. MBisanz ^talk 19:56, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Ed Fitzgerald ^{t / c} 06:31, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Open MascotGuy account

Resolved

 – Blocked a few days ago and everything reverted. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 06:23, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Someone might want to take a moment and both block and revert all contribs by User:Chromevision. It would appear to be yet another MascotGuy sock with his ad nauseum edits to his pets such as Atomic Betty and Eloise: The Animated Series among others. Signed, a former editor and occasional lurker at --70.104.7.231 (talk) 06:04, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Review of the unblock of Dark Tea

Relevant discussion at

→ WP:FTN#Caucasian race

Dark Tea (talk · contribs) was today blocked for three months by Moreschi (talk · contribs) with the following reason: "Incredible amounts of disruption: this user has basically fouled up our entire "race" topic area". This was Dark Tea's first block.

Dark Tea subsequently requested to be unblocked. Upon my review of his request, it became apparent that Moreschi had been engaged in a content dispute on Caucasian race with Dark Tea, as shown here and confirmed in the block notification. This means that the block patently violated the blocking policy, which states: "Administrators must not block users with whom they are engaged in a content dispute".

I have therefore lifted the block without consultation with the blocking admin, but I am reporting my action here for community review. I'm also notifying Moreschi of this thread. (I have not reviewed the underlying content dispute, whose subject matter does not interest me, which means that I have no opinion about the merits of either side's arguments).  Sandstein  22:34, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, come Sandstein. You knew better than just unblock without at least making an attempt at talking with Moreschi. I agree the block might be iffy, and should probably have been lifted, but doing it that way is a call for drama. Wheel wars start like that. — Coren ^(talk) 22:39, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll dually agree with that. There is no rush to unblock, given the incredible messes Dark Tea has created. At least, we could have gotten some dialogue from the blocking administrator before performing an unblock -- to which you know the only end result would be disdain towards the unblocking administrator (you) and possible wheel warring. There were many other ways you could have handled this better. seicer | talk | contribs 22:45, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I would normally have contacted Moreschi first. However, WP:APB allows for unilateral overrides of clearly unjustifiable blocks. My lifting of the block allows Dark Tea to participate in the present discussion. If consensus develops here that the block was indeed justified, or that another sanction (such as a topic ban) is needed, I will not oppose it and indeed help enforce it.  Sandstein  22:45, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I think in the interest of all parties involved, we should gain new consensus on whether a block of three months (+/-) is required. seicer | talk | contribs 22:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

There is pretty much never ever a need for an involved admin to block. Taking it here first would have been the way to avoid drama. IronDuke 22:48, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

• As I say below, involved how? If I actually thought ANI would get a profitable result and had much faith in my fellow admins to recognise the problem, I would indeed have come here. To seicer: thank you. A block will not be needed if we can agree to a topic-ban from race articles. Moreschi (talk) 22:50, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

• I appreciate your efforts in trying to maintain the quality of our articles about this obviously difficult topic, but as soon as you removed content by Dark Tea on the basis of its (perceived lack of) encyclopedic merit, you became involved in a content dispute with him, and ought not to have blocked him. You might, however, have asked another admin to do it, or you might have suggested a topic ban in an appropriate forum.  Sandstein  22:57, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Well, per the diff Sandstein cites. I see that there is much you reverted. How much was nonsense by Dark Tea, I have not checked deeply enought to see, but I don't think it all was (not even saying, BTW, that I disagree with your reversion). But saying you don't have faith in your fellow admins means that you are essentially out of step with policy consensus. Is your way better than this consensus? Quite possibly. But most admins -- most editors -- feel that way as well. If they all acted on it, this place would simply shut down. IronDuke 23:00, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

• As I say: Number 46 - this barely qualifies as a "content dispute" at all. Moreschi (talk) 23:02, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I find you quoting yourself persuasive here, nor does it answer why it is that you won't use a community aproved forum to double-check your actions. I also see (correct me, please, if I'm wrong) that you never even warned him -- your block was the first communication on his talk page. IronDuke 23:08, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Arguably he was warned at the FTN thread. He chose to ignore that, and the fact that consensus found his edits unacceptable, and started reverting. Moreschi (talk) 23:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I see no warning there. IronDuke 23:16, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Admin agnosticism

I'm getting increasingly frustrated. Here we have one user - Dark Tea (talk · contribs) who, over three years of editing on obscure racial and UFO articles, has managed to mess a huge amount of them up. Take a look at at this - the bits in italics and the lengthy quotations are usually all him - [27] (admin only this, the rest aren't) [28], [29], [30], [31] not to mention Stereotypes of white people, Afro-Asian, and Mongoloid race as they stand. You don't need to know anything about race to see that Dark Tea is creating havoc here. So, I have a go at cleaning some of this hopeless junk up, and he starts reverting. I block him for 3 months for his 3 years of disruption: Sandstein promptly unblocks, citing the miserable blocking policy. I'm sorry, but this may just be one instance where the encyclopedia trumps procedure. I don't mind Dark Tea getting unblocked per se, but if so, I desperately need some help cleaning up his various messes. Moreschi (talk) 22:38, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Have you considered bringing this editor to the attention of another admin, then? While I very much disagree with Sandstein's unilateral unblock, I am forced to agree that a three month block from an admin who has had content disputes with the blockee was an iffy move. You were under no obligaton to effect a block yourself, and it's understandable that another admin might think you were too involved to act impartially. — Coren ^(talk) 22:44, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

What content dispute? There's a difference between a bona fide genuine dispute and me trying to remove this useless crap and him trying to retain it. This is classic Number 46, again. This is ordinary maintenance/disruption prevention: no rational person could possibly think that any valid content was under dispute here. Moreschi (talk) 22:46, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, please. This is a perfect case to WP:IAR. That guy is worthless and will probably end up blocked again, and again, and again, until he gets indefed. Jtrainor (talk) 22:48, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Moreschi may well be right with his assessment of the value of Dark Tea's contributions, but may I please strongly suggest that we do not call other people "worthless"?  Sandstein  22:54, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

• Oh, no, Dark Tea is certainly not worthless. AGF is perfectly valid here: he's quite sincere. Unfortunately, his bizarre mix of racialist and non-racialist theories make it bloody hard to work out what's going on: his writing style is unbelievably unencyclopedic, and his contribution quality is generally awful - it's quotefarm after quotefarm, occasionally POV-pushing, with no attempt to establish context. What's worse, he has a terrible habit of uncritically reporting the very worst of archaic (centuries-old) sources, and then claiming they're somehow reliable and thus sacred. And the UFO stuff was so left-field I'm still recovering from the shock. Wikipedia:Competence is required applies here, I think. Moreschi (talk) 22:57, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

1. Was the original block appropriate? Probably not, but irrelevant since it has already been undone.
2. Was the unblock appropriate? Probably not, since there was no discussion about the suitability of the original block.
3. Is a block for disruption appropriate. Discuss. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 22:58, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

A new block seems appropriate. Verbal chat 23:01, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The block was improper, and I don't believe it would be correct to go straight to a block at this time even if Moreschi's analysis is entirely correct. First, let's determine whether there is a problem; then, if the editing is found to be problematic, let's hope that Dark Tea will take the right lessons from that. A block might be appropriate down the line, depending on how things go, but not now. Everyking (talk) 23:39, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Topic-ban from race articles

I have submitted the necessary evidence above. Please look carefully through all my links (also worth noting that Dark Tea is a classic SPA. Discuss. Moreschi (talk) 23:04, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I think there's room for at least one warning before any topic ban, no? IronDuke 23:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

He's already been told at WP:FTN#Caucasian race that his editing is not on. He just ignored that with a snarky comment and started reverting. Also, this is not a newbie: he's been doing this since August 2005. Concerns must have been raised before. Moreschi (talk) 23:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

There was no warning there that I could see. IronDuke 23:15, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

well, arguably, two people saying "this article you wrote is horrible - and your style is horrible too" counts as a warning that you need to rethink your approach. And it's reasonable to assume that he read the thread, which contained lots of warnings, before he started reverting today. Moreschi (talk) 23:18, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I read the thread as full of complaints -- most likely quite well justified -- but a complaint is not a warning. "Dark Tea, knock it off or you will get blocked" is a warning. IronDuke 23:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and that's exactly the sort of warning we don't need for a topic-ban. He's already been told his editing is horrible and sanctionable: judging by his reverts today he won't change it. Furthermore, someone who has messed up an entire topic-area can surely be topic-banned without warnings (which he got): and after 3 years, too. What more do you need? Moreschi (talk) 23:24, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think a topic ban is out of line. The diffs are damning, and there does appear to be a long-term pattern of doing poor edits with little or no discussion, no care for consensus, and quite a bit of dismissive attitude. There might not have been any explicitly worded warnings, but that does not mean that the editor wasn't very well aware that his behavior was unacceptable. (Which is, after all, the point of a warning: not as a ceremonial "rule of engagement" or as a Miranda warning, but as a genuine concern that the editor might actually not know his behavior is out of line— something which is not an issue here). — Coren ^(talk) 23:51, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

No, the point of a warning is that it carries an "or else." That's what makes it different from "user is not listening." It isn't ceremonial, it's how WP works. IronDuke 00:07, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

No, it is not. It is a courtesy borne out of assumed good faith and a presumption of ignorance, rather than avoidance, of the rules. Someone who has been here for years either knows the rules he choses to break, or they are beyond his understanding. In either case, an "or else" will only delay the inevitable sanction and cause more damage to repair: he either already chose not to behave or is incapable of doing so. — Coren ^(talk) 00:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Most "or else's" do delay the inevitable. Nevertheless, people who contribute here for three years are entitled to at least one warning. That's just common sense. IronDuke 00:52, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that's entirely backwards. Vested contributors are one of Wikipedia's biggest problems; and someone who's been contributing for years definitely should know better already. A warning is neither useful nor required. — Coren ^(talk) 01:04, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

That link didn't work for me. I believe it is you who have it backwards. The warning may not prove useful, but it is absolutely required in situations such as these. IronDuke 01:28, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree and disagree with different thoughts here: First, I agree that Moreschi made a bad block. I see no attempt by Moreschi to post a caution to Dark Tea's talkpage, or indeed, any communication there whatsoever. Instead, Moreschi jumped straight to a 90-day block, with a clearly emotional block message.[32] However, I also agree that Sandstein should have posted a note to Moreschi's talkpage first, before overturning the block. Then again, this was a block that pretty clearly needed to be overturned. I disagree (with respect) with Coren, who says that a warning is not necessary to a vested contributor. In my opinion, we should always try to issue warnings, especially to vested contributors. Only with anons and obvious vandalism-only accounts should we block without notice. See also WP:BLOCK#Education and warnings. --Elonka 01:38, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

That's pretty much my point, Elonka. The point of warnings is to educate, and they are pointless one someone who unarguably already knows what you'd warn them about. — Coren ^(talk) 01:53, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Looking at recent history, it seems most people have talked about him, not to him. Would it kill us all to start there and see what comes of it? AFAICT, this user is making decent contributions (possibly in tandem with rather not-so-decent ones). I think he's owed a tiny bit of leeway, considering how we give obvious trolls chance after chance after chance. IronDuke 02:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Coren, the "unarguably" is the problematic part there. Moreschi says that Dark Tea has "messed up" race-related articles for three years. Well okay, where's the paper trail? An editor causing that many problems would normally have multiple warnings on their talkpage, a swath of blocks, complaints, ANI threads, RfCs, mediations (or attempts), and so forth. A few of which Moreschi could have diffed to Dark Tea's talkpage. Instead, there's one very vague message from Moreschi, which makes it look like Moreschi has just decided all by his lonesome to block a longstanding contributor for three months, without warning, from a topic area where Moreschi is active. This is a very very bad idea. What if all admins did that, made unilateral decisions to block long-standing contributors without warning? No, WP:AGF requires that we assume people are acting in the best interests of the project. If someone's behavior is veering off the road, then they deserve at least a warning shot across the bow, to let them know that there's a problem. We shouldn't just assume, "Well gee, they should've known it was coming." --Elonka 02:03, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

That's not an unreasonable position, although I'm a more than a little sceptical that it is, in practice, more than an extraordinarily rare occurrence. At any rate, I agree that in the present case a warning would have been a Good Thing; and that Moreschi has probably jumped the gun in frustration. I'm disputing that there is a sine qua non requirement that a warning be explicitly given, especially to longstanding editors. — Coren ^(talk) 02:11, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

• Look, of course there's not going to be a paper trail of ANI threads. Dark Tea hasn't been editing Barack Obama: he has been editing very, very obscure articles, populated by nutters, which sane people, even if they do know something about the odder quirks of 18th, 19th, and early 20th century thought, are naturally going to avoid because they fear a nest of flamewars. Quite rightly, too. Ultimately I don't care what you guys do this chap, so long as he stays out of my way as I waste my valuable time (which really should be spent sorting out Afrocentrism topics, which is what I'm supposed to be doing at the moment) clearing up the crap he's left behind over the last 3 years. I do not have the time for revert-wars over this. If he starts trying to interfere, I will be furious - not with him, but with you. He's not a troll, just a rather clueless obsessive: you lot should know better than to give him any credence. Moreschi (talk) 13:20, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Conclusion

After reading through pretty much all of the diffs here I have concluded that a topic ban from race-related articles is completely justified here, and I have placed a note to that effect on the editor's talkpage. Black Kite 23:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The matter hasn't been discussed in depth, and I don't see consensus for a topic ban at this point. I'd much prefer to see this user given some suggestions on how to improve, with a caution that the existing editing problems could not be allowed to continue. There is no need to risk frustrating or alienating anyone at this stage. Everyking (talk) 00:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Not only has it not been discussed in depth, the user in question has not had a chance to reply. Yeesh. I find myself getting frustrated when problem users are given ten "final" warnings before getting booted -- but this user is given none, and no chance to explain/apologize/promise to mend ways. IronDuke 00:05, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Seriously, have a look at the contribs. He's broken so many articles with his mish-mash of pseudo-scientific claptrap that it's untrue. If this user really wants to contribute to the encyclopedia, he can prove that he can do it on other articles first. Having said that, if an uninvolved admin wants to try a different tack, feel free to remove my topic ban and mentor him (or similar) - I'd be fine with that. Black Kite 00:14, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I took a quick look, found this, which looks like a pretty good edit, this edit looks fine to me – I could be missing something. And this?. Again, I’m just skimming, but is that a bad edit? Bad faith? Removed this uncited statement, which is fine by me. I’m sure there must be examples of nonsense, people are probably not getting fed up for no reason, but again, a 3-year contributor gets the benefit of our process. IronDuke 00:47, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I've been here over a couple years. How many good contribs do I have to trade in to insult you? How about if I want to edit war to put some far left-wing sources in to the George Bush article? Sorry but that kind of logic is just absurd. This mentality of "he or she has been here awhile, let them run all over the project" has to stop. The fact that they've been here this long should mean they'd be held to a higher standard than the guy who just showed up. If we'd string up a "newbie" than we should certainly be stringing up someone who has been here for 3 years. I'm all for a topic ban.--Crossmr (talk) 04:28, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I know you meant that facetiously, but time served on WP = slack being cut for you. It may be that we should change that culture, but that is our culture and has been ever since I've been here. I don't think we should be stringing up newbies either, and indeed, if this were a newbie, I'd still be arguing that at least one warning should be given before getting all draconian on him. I can't see why that's controversial. IronDuke 15:36, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Because the amount of time this editor has been here takes an extreme stretch of good faith to believe he's not familiar with the relevant policies.--Crossmr (talk) 22:45, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

He may well be familiar with them, but if he's never been told specifically, "You must comply, or else," then you can't blame him for thinking they don't apply. Many editors here would ignore policy if they could get away with it; being told that you can't get away with it is the first step to understanding that. Apparently, no one told Dark Tea he could be blocked or topic banned for his behavior (and I still think those are both extreme measures, from what I looked at). IronDuke 17:41, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

• I have informed the editor in question of this thread. It seemed the polite thing to do. DuncanHill (talk) 01:30, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I also see no consensus for a topic ban. Black Kite, the only times that an admin can place a topic ban on one admin's say-so, are when dealing with areas that are in an ArbCom enforcement area. To my knowledge, race-related articles do not qualify for any ArbCom sanctions. And even if they did, every such case that I know about, requires that the editor be formally warned beforehand with a specific message to their talkpage. For example, see WP:ARBPIA#Discretionary sanctions. The ban would also need to be logged at the appropriate case page. Barring that, a topic ban could be instituted if there were community consensus, but you would have to provide a link to that consensus. A ban would also have to be instituted with certain parameters, such as stating how long it was supposed to be in effect. But just going to a random editor's talkpage and stating that you've decided to topic ban them?[33] No, that's not how it works. --Elonka 03:59, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Pseudoscience, broadly considered? Tom Harrison ^Talk 14:23, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) This has been discussed by several editors and administrators following the posting on WP:FTN. Procedural details are necessarily not the foremost priority when the concern is over content fairly well typified by the surreal paragraph below from Mongoloid race, made up entirely of a meaningless patchwork of quotes. This should ring alarm bells for any wikipedian. It is disingenuous to call DarkTea a "random editor". Please see WP:FTN and try to take into account the extraordinary method used for adding content. Wikipedia is not a jigsaw puzzle for randomly chosen quotes, it is a scholarly encyclopedia.

"Native Americans are clearly derived from an Asian population with affinities to the Mongoloids.^[1] However, Native Americans retain certain non-Mongoloid features.^[1] These might represent the genetic legacy of a pre-Mongoloid, Australoid-Caucasoid population, swamped by a later Mongoloid immigration;^{1] more likely, they reflect the broad range of physical variation found in early northern Asian populations, before Mongoloid traits became predominant." ^[2] "When we compare Native Americans with the other living races of mankind, we find them to be most similar to the Mongoloid peoples of Asia.^[1] Among the visible physical characteristics that these groups share are coarse straight black hair, relatively hairless faces and bodies, light brown skin, brown eyes, epicanthic folds (only occasionally present in American populations), high cheekbones, and a high frequency of shovel-shaped incisor teeth^[1] ... The distribution of patterns of invisible genetically determined traits offer less clear-cut evidence of relationship."^[1]

Mathsci (talk) 09:27, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I entirely agree with Elonka, and more, with Sandstein's action. This was not an iffy block, but a bad one. Process, particularly standard and successful process, is important, particularly when an editor has been treated in an unusual manner up til then. As she says, We shouldn't just assume, "Well gee, they should've known it was coming." - why should DT have known? In this rare situation, DarkTea has formally adhered to content rules, but has successfully introduced eccentric positions and edits into many articles - for years. People naturally judge what is acceptable and practical by their own experience, and DarkTea's SPA experience has been quite unusual - there just hasn't been the opposition one would expect. One can't just say without proof that there must have been warnings, and apparently there were none. Talking to, not just about, as IronDuke points out, is essential and obligatory. Did "the consensus" find his edits unacceptable to the point of actually reverting them, of backing up Moreschi - apparently not, although it surely would have in a little while. Note Moreschi's statement, when he says that he doesn't mind the unblock but desperately needs aid in cleaning up. Rushing to block, using quick but ultimately weak administrative powers rather than the superficially slower but infinitely stronger exercise of consensus backed up by the 3RR if need be, is a pointless procedure and a bad precedent.John Z (talk) 11:24, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

• Support Topic Ban - we should act as if we were real researchers and educated people "The scientific support for terms such as Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid used widely in these earlier theories has fallen steadily. ... the Negroid/Caucasoid/Mongoloid paradigm has fallen into near-total disfavour." (That's actually one of the pieces of text reverted back in by Dark Tea!). We should stop tolerating the kind of demeaning ethnic labelling going on here: "added racial ancestry of Xxxxxx Xxxxx because it was pertinenet to the citation about him being Asian with white blood rather than white with Asian blood". I can't go far into these diffs without feeling physically sick, we're seeing a dangerous and unpleasant obsession at work. And we've no longer any excuse, we do know where it leads. PR^talk 13:26, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support only if the behavior continues; I think that a minimalist approach will yield the best results here. I looked into DarkTea's contributions to the area when the matter was posted to FT/N before getting distracted by useless gits. If someone is willing to mentor them in NPOV to the extent that fair and proportionately weighted edits start emerging, we might get another quality editor out of this debacle. Now that experienced eyes are monitoring the problem, bad edits can be swiftly reverted and warnings supplied. - Eldereft (cont.) 17:39, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
• Comment Elonka has, technically, a point. But as I said, the alternatives are a block or some form of mentorship. This editor can't be allowed to continue on his/her merry way. Black Kite 19:45, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
• Support - I've said above, but I'll say here. I support a topic ban. This editor shouldn't be editing these kinds of articles at all.--Crossmr (talk) 22:45, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
• Further Elonka has taken it upon herself to revoke the topic ban. That's fine. As I've said on her talk page, she is now responsible for monitoring this editor's work. I will say this, though - if the tendentious editing continues, I'll have no problem in restoring Moreschi's block. Further illuminating reading here - User_talk:Elonka#User:Dark_Tea. Black Kite 23:02, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
• Elonka seems once more to be out of her depth. When will she learn? Her experiments so far have shown that she has no intellectual grasp of serious content problems. Some day she might realise what this encyclopedia is all about. It is hard not to see this as some kind of vendetta for criticisms by Moreschi. Will MastCell be her next victim? Mathsci (talk) 23:38, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
• Comment. I'm still not seeing any justification for a topic ban, let alone a block. What exactly did Dark Tea do? I've looked at all the diffs here, and I'm not seeing the problem. Instead, I'm seeing an editor who is extremely careful to provide sources for any addition, and to remove unsourced information. There may be some WP:UNDUE issues, but (so far) I'm not seeing any solid proof of that either. Instead, I've seen a colossally bad block by Moreschi. He made a massive change to an article, where he deleted many citations to what appear to be reliable sources.[34] An hour later, he was reverted one time by Dark Tea,[35] then a half-hour later Moreschi reverted,[36] and one minute later, Moreschi blocked Dark Tea, a longtime contributor, for three months,[37] without so much as a single warning to Dark Tea's talkpage. If Dark Tea was as disruptive as Moreschi claims, I'd really like to see some diffs, either of actual policy violations, or of proof that Dark Tea was disregarding talkpage consensus or RfCs. --Elonka 00:54, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
• I agree that the block was really bad and Moreschi should have got someone else to do it, but I also agree that this user is damaging articles and needs to be stopped. Last night I looked through her previous account, User:Dark_Tichondrias, and between the two accounts I feel she has had warnings and admins and editors have raised concerns about her edits, such as misrepresenting sources and continuing to do so even after it's been pointed out to her [38] [39], original research, which apparently includes adding self-portraits to articles [40], inventing neologisms [41] [] and "hover[ing] over virtually all race related pages and constantly reshape them to suit [her] point of view", garbling sources [42] and synthesis [43]. I'm not sure if there's also an image problem but dozens of notices have been posted to the former account. There were warnings on the previous account, albeit apparently not recently and not directly related to the current issue, but saying this user has never previously had a warning is not correct. [44], [45], NPA warning. I support a topic ban for this user. Sarah 01:23, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Sarah, with all due respect, nearly all your diffs there are from 2006 and 2007. What current activity in 2008 would justify a topic ban to protect the project? --Elonka 01:45, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

My diffs all relate to the prior account, abandoned in February last year, which is why they're old. I haven't had a chance to properly go through the history of the new account yet but I think it shows that there is a sustained and long term problem with this user's edits, that there have been warnings and discussions going back over quite a long period of time, but that they still haven't "got it". Sarah 01:49, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

• Right, Elonka, you just got yourself placed in my clueless category. You clearly cannot understand that sources are not all equal, and superficially sourced content can still be utter crap. I've seen you push this all-sources-are-equal agenda before: no, no, and no. In other news, you are not a one-woman AMA. With an editor with such a confused racialist agenda as Dark Tea, education in Wikipedia ways - which after three years she should know already - is fruitless. Unless you're willing to correct her confused views on race, which is the real problem here. BTW, Sarah is correct: Dark Tea wrote a huge of amount of White Canadian/Australian/X articles, all of which got killed at AFD. And she's done much the same sort of stuff this year at Mongoloid race and Caucasian race. If you can't see the problem here, after all of that - shrug. Moreschi (talk) 19:23, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
• As I've said on Dark Tea's talkpage, Elonka clearly appears to have only poked her nose into this item because of her previous interactions with Moreschi, with whom she clearly has a dispute. This is made even worse by the the fact that she is clearly incompetent in this editing area, as proved by the fact that she could not identify any problematic areas of Dark Tea's editing. It is probably time for yet another examination of Elonka's administrator credentials. Black Kite 23:58, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Lol, I have no problem with Elonka following me around ANI. Go to it, and good luck. What I DO have a problem with is the fact that Elonka cannot see that we actually have a major problem here with Dark Tea's editing. I do not want Elonka mentoring Dark Tea, something for which she is patently incompetent. Jagz, anyone? Zero g? You remember these guys? Moreschi (talk) 00:06, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe Elonka has agreed to mentor DT, so the gratuitous personal attacks on her deriding that idea are probaby not necessary. IronDuke 04:07, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

What next?

There seems to be widespread agreement that Dark Tea has caused serious problems. What is actually being done to prevent further problems? -- ChrisO (talk) 22:59, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

• I am keeping an eye on their edits, and despite the problems caused by Elonka's unwelcome interference, as soon as the editor starts editing disruptively again, I will block them. It's as simple as that. Black Kite 00:00, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I have not been involved in any of this, but in trying to learn what it is all about, I notice that Dark Tea has not made a single edit since his block was removed -- two full days (plus a few minutes) before ChrisO started this subsection. Where's the crisis? It seems to me that the real problem here is not Dark Tea anyway. Obviously, if he edits disruptively in the future, action should be taken, but the comment immediately above mine assumes that this is going to take place. Is that how this is supposed to work? 6SJ7 (talk) 03:59, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

That point is well taken: Dark Tea has not yet responded to this. I realize having to wait to pile on takes some of the fun out of said piling on, but if people could take more of a "Hmmmm... is there a way to correct what's wrong with this user's editing" approach as opposed to gleefully rubbing hands together in anticipation of future punishment, better results would be achieved for all. IronDuke 04:11, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

That's what I attempted to achieve with a topic ban, hoping that the user could take some time away from this subject to improve their editing. As far as 6SJ7's point is concerned, given the length of time that the user has been contributing, and the fact that they contribute irregularly, I am assuming they will resume at some point. Black Kite 09:17, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Michael Lucas (director)

Resolved

 – J jackson blocked. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:08, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

The banned “Gay Pornography vandal” (ban date: March 6, 2008) is back on Wikipedia on a different IP range. The it is the same range that has been vandalizing Lucas photos with MAJOR BLP violations on Commons. Can someone please softprotect that article (Michael Lucas (director)) for a month. There is a long, voluminous, and threat-laden history to this page and its talk page. I suggest the longer soft-protect, the better. He is banned, yet he is editing and creating BLP violations. He is also editing warring[46],[47], [48]. --David Shankbone 19:33, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

• It is now over 3RR with another editor. --David Shankbone 19:49, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
• J jackson (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has now involved himself in the edit war post-protect, and reverted to the Gay Pornography vandal's version of the article. Can an admin please block User:J jackson, at least until a checkuser is run, for clearly editing against consensus, and also a likely sockpuppet of the Gay Pornography vandal. He hasn't edited in two years, and now every edit has to do with me. --David Shankbone 00:37, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I have blocked this user based on their behaviour, which has been disruptive and narrowly focused on harassing two other editors. WJBscribe (talk) 00:50, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Revert Wars on List X-Americans

See also Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Threat below.

About a year ago, there were numerous nominations for List of X-Americans. Several ended in no consensus, a few in delete (but were then overturned in deletion review). The general result for keep was done under the conditions that the lists be cleaned up. A year has passed and nobody has made an attempt. Several days ago, I posted the following notice on Wikiproject:Ethnic Groups (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups). I was ignored, and so proceeded to remove improperly sourced (or completely unsourced) material on List of Danish Americans, List of Norwegian Americans, List of Russian Americans etc and redirect the smaller lists to a revised list I had made on a few mainpages (Danish Americans, for example). I was met by a barrage of vandalism accusaions from User:Badagnani (who has held a grudge against me for a while now). See: User_talk:Bulldog123/Archive1#Harassment_by_Badagnani_section. A few others (notably, the previous deletion review participants) had joined Badagnani, conducting revert wars with edit summareis such as "revert vandalism" or "Please discuss in talk" (when I do edit talk, there's never a response, such as here: Talk:List_of_Swiss_Americans) - so most of these seem to be blanket excuses with no real meaning. When I try to contact a user with the intent to discuss, they blanked their userpage (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Termer&diff=238053922&oldid=238052944). This complete lack of communication and an utter disregard of the verification problems on these lists is totally unacceptable (especially given the year that has passed). It would seem nothing was done because these users have WP:OWN issues. Admin intervention is necessary to prevent continued readdition of unsourced or incorrectly sourced material. Bulldog123 (talk) 20:01, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

The solution to this is very simple: do not delete entire articles (as here, here, etc.) and do not blank huge areas of sourced text without first using "Discussion" to propose removals of individuals from such articles, whom one or more editors may believe is not of the heritage purported, developing consensus for such removals. For additional background, see Wikipedia:Editor_assistance/Requests#blanking_list_articles.3B_replacing_with_directs_to_categories.

This editor (User:Bulldog123) had formerly proposed many dozens of such articles for deletion (s/he seems to have an antipathy for any article showing intersections of ethnic or national identity), and when those pages were voted on as "keep," s/he decided to simply be "bold" and delete huge areas of mostly sourced text without prior discussion, or to delete the articles entirely via (again undiscussed) redirects. In a recent edit, s/he stated that because the AFDs hadn't gone his/her way, s/he had been "forced" into such "unorthodox" deletion (see edit summary here). Whatever the case, it's highly disruptive, as all other editors have been asking is for prior discussion and consensus in the case of such huge deletions. Badagnani (talk) 20:09, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

First, User:Badagnani's intentionally misrepresented my edit summary and intentions in order to peg me as a vandal. The summary "I've tried the ulterior method" refers to me leaving messages in talk (ie. Talk:List of Russian Americans (and other lists like it)) and on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ethnic_groups#Proposal_to_Remove_List_of_X-American_lists that Badagnani ignored. Interestingly, I have never nominated these lists for deletion, despite User:Badagnani's claim. He seems to be mistaking me for User:Noroton (Here) and User:Richfife (Here). I have only relisted per request on those AfDs. Anyway, it doesn't matter what users believe. We don't edit based on that. You need the appropriate sources in order to add people to these lists, which you have not provided in your reverts. This method of sourcing has been discussed before on these pages by User:Jack O'Lantern. It is nothing novel and there is no "consensus" concerning a person's heritage. Should also be noted that User:Badagnani has had rage issues concerning the deletion of these lists, once suggesting an admin be banned for closing an AfD opposite to his liking.

The problem here is that Badagnani appears to think wikipedia editors have the power to reach a "consensus" on the inclusion of who is Danish/Dutch/Finnish instead of finding the appropriate source that identify them as such. Bulldog123 (talk) 20:30, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

The discussion mentioned above is here. Most of the content removed by User:Bulldog123 was, indeed, properly sourced. Again, all that is being requested is prior considered discussion regarding individuals whom one or more editors may wish to remove from a given article. In nearly all cases, sources already provided, or the individuals' own WP articles, clearly stated their heritage. Badagnani (talk) 20:32, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

• Again, User:Badagnani either hasn't read what I wrote or still doesn't understand. The sources were "not" proper because they described parents, grandparents as of that background, not the given personage. Read Talk:List_of_Danish_Americans#Sources, made by a previous user. Bulldog123 (talk) 21:10, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
• Again, all that is being requested is prior considered discussion regarding individuals whom one or more editors may wish to remove from a given article

• And yet again I say to Badagnani "we, as editors, cannot decide who is or isn't X". It should be also noted that attempts to intiate discussions have been completely ignored by Badagnani. These are attempts at filibustering a status quo instead of truly engaging in a clean-up. Bulldog123 (talk) 21:12, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with Badagnani, Bulldog123's edits have been incredibly disruptive. Rather than blank entire pages and delete huge amounts of sourced content, the civil thing to do would be to place in-line {{cite}} tags and discuss major changes on relevant talk pages when it becomes clear there is no consensus for the change. This hasn't occurred, Bulldog123 has edit warred his changes without seeking consensus. He needs to be blocked for 24 hours to make him understand he has to work more cooperatively with other editors. Martintg (talk) 21:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Inline cite tags stay to infinity. It's been a year of this; it's time to move on. Should be noted User:Martintg is an associate of User:Termer, possibly canvassed to help User:Termer avoid resourcing List of Estonians (Dare say, this, could suggest Martintg is an alternate account of Termer [49]). Again, there is no "consensus" concerning who should be on the list and who shouldn't, because we can't rely on our own research (WP:NOR). Bulldog123 (talk) 21:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

See what I mean? Bulldog123's combative attitude and assumptions of bad faith indicates he has no understanding of how to collaborate or cooperate with other editors. Martintg (talk) 22:01, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Do you deny being an associate of Termer then? Have you seen your contrib intersections? Is this just a coincidence? Bulldog123 (talk) 22:07, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

No, tags really weren't added. Let's do that if it seems necessary, then improve the articles if it seems necessary to do so, one by one. All along the way, discussion and consensus should be utilized. Badagnani (talk) 21:55, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Tags have been added BEFORE in the history of the articles, and adding them again just brings us back in a circle. You can also see most of the articles have a "Sources" talk page message, requesting the same thing be done that I've been saying. One reason so many people wanted these lists deleted was because of the endless revert wars with the WP:OWN users and the "please find a consensus" arguments (which have no applicability to sourcing). This appears to continue to this day. Bulldog123 (talk) 22:07, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

This doesn't belong here. File an RfC on the articles. DGG (talk) 01:17, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

These articles have always been incredibly problematic, filled with unsourced or poorly sourced material, including, as Bulldog123 has pointed out, sources which don't prove what they claim to prove. Citation tags aren't an indefinite reprieve from removal of poorly sourced or unsourced information. Bulldog123 is doing the right thing here; WP:BLP applies, and if I see people adding poorly sourced or unsourced information to these articles, I'll be warning, then blocking them. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:24, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

This comment is off base. Most text removed was properly sourced, and the first dozen or so edits actually involved deleting the entire article, not through AFD, but through straightahead blanking of the entire articles. From the above comment, I don't believe the actual edit history has been examined. Once it has, please comment here further. Badagnani (talk) 03:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

From this comment (a response to these edits), it appears that this is not an impartial admin (which would be needed in this case). This admin, who is throwing his/her weight around in a highly threatening manner, appears to have worked with the editor asking for sanction in the manner of requesting said editor to attempt to delete certain articles related to ethnic groups. This is simply not ethical. Badagnani (talk) 03:47, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:BLP is not a matter for debate, nor is it something that can be overridden by Talk: page consensus. I didn't block you for your on-going WP:BLP violations. Don't add the unsourced/poorly sourced material again, and you won't get blocked. That's more than fair. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:57, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Personally I find these particular articles rather worthless. What do they do that a Category couldn't do? There tends to be an overuse of lists on wikipedia and an underuse of Categories. The solution is simply to remove these kinds of articles and use categories. IF someone is notable enough for an article, they can get in the category and easily show up with their compatriots if someone really needs to find a giant list of notable danish americans, etc.--Crossmr (talk) 03:46, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

We either acknowledge the existence of immigration and ethnic communities, or we do not (and many editors would like to eliminate all such articles, in a hope or wish that nations are made up simply of citizens of that nation, with their ethnicities unimportant). However, articles such as Jamaican American or Macedonian Australian (one of our best articles) help make this an encyclopedia. Multiethnic nations have ethnic groups with their own histories, notable individuals, etc., and we document them in our encyclopedia. Categories serve one purpose, articles serve another, and templates (such as Template:Ethnic groups in the United Kingdom) yet another. All serve to enrich our project and provide different information in different formats, with articles providing the greatest level of detail. Badagnani (talk) 03:56, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

an article on Danish Americans is different from a list of danish americans. An article which discusses the history of danish americans is perfectly fine here and appropriate. I don't see the use of a list of danish americans. It covers nothing a category couldn't cover.--Crossmr (talk) 04:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

List articles are often split out of the main ethnic group articles when they get too long. Further, categories cannot include sources. Categories serve one purpose, articles serve another, and templates (such as Template:Ethnic groups in the United Kingdom) yet another. All serve to enrich our project and provide different information in different formats, with articles providing the greatest level of detail. Badagnani (talk) 04:59, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Categories don't need sources if the article is properly sourced. Lists of notable people of a certain ethnicity shouldn't either, as each individual should have a page on wikipedia if they're notable and that information should be sourced in their article. Again I see no benefit of a list of a category in this case. We're not creating a list which contains several different pieces of information. We're creating a simple alphabetical list of notable people with a certain ethnicity. There is no second column. It does nothing to 'enrich' our project. It serves to be redundant.--Crossmr (talk) 07:59, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• It seems this administrator User:Jayjg issued blocking threats in an edit dispute without making any attempt whatsoever to obtain the truth in the matter. Instead, he took one side of the matter and accepted that side as "true". Is this the normal way for this admin to act? Regardless, without this administrator's unwelcome and untimely interference, we are on our way to resolving the matter, at least from my point of view, and for the benefit of WP. Hmains (talk) 04:14, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I looked at the reverts, and saw that they obviously introduced many un-sourced or poorly sourced claims about living people into articles. If I see it again, I will block the people doing it, in accord with WP:BLP, and for the benefit of WP. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:19, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - From this comment (a response to these edits, requesting that the blanking editor attempt to delete various ethnic group-related articles), it appears that this is not an impartial admin, but instead one issuing a threat based primarily on political concerns against two long-time, productive editors who always edit in good faith. The failure to warn the blanking editor for actually deleting entire articles (as here, here, or here) is similarly telling. Badagnani (talk) 04:25, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

You still don't get it. WP:BLP says

Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons — whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable — should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion, from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space.

No attempts to smear me will change that. Also, your groundless complaints have been decisively rejected, below. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Most of the blanked text was properly sourced, entire articles were blanked, and the ancestry information was not contentious (at least no "fact" tags or "Discussion" posts stated this). Badagnani (talk) 05:10, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Checkuser

Because we are having checkuser finding:"Brzica milos etc (talk · contribs) is located in the same large metropolitan area as 71.252.106.166, which is also where Velebit edited from, and they are both at least  Likely based on behavior to be Velebit." (Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Brzica milos etc) I am asking banning of this 2 accounts--Rjecina (talk) 20:22, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

• What behavior? The large metropolitan area where I am from - has several million people - larger than Croatia or Ireland. This man is not doing anything else except baselessly accusing people as being the ones that were already banned. Just go through his Requests for checkuser and Suspected sock puppets cases. Also he got some strong warnings from administrators - related to this uncivil behavior.

See [50]

Stop these tendentious attempts to get people blocked. There is nothing that has changed about this case since the summer: the recent checkuser says nothing about Velebit that hasn't been said before, and in fact much of the CU request was dismissed as a "fishing expedition." And note that September 1 was Labor day, and a very typical time for people to come back from vacation, especially students. Mangojuice^talk 17:38, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

and [51]

You, however, Rjecina, are very clearly engaging in a campaign of harassment in order to get as many opposing editors blocked as possible. You're apparently even keeping a list of trophies ([2]). I'll wait for comments from others here, but I'm seriously considering handing out some fresh sanction under WP:ARBMAC against you at this point. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

--71.252.106.166 (talk) 02:19, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of User:Rjecina's broad allegations, there is some similarity between User:71.252.106.166 and User:Garcon0101, both reverting heavily at Ivo Andrić. I'm staying out of this mess as my last foray got me into about five or six separate WP:ANI notices. Otherwise, I agree that User:Rjecina needs to be warned (preferably by someone a little more experienced in this area) that these constant allegations are broad enough to be classified as uncivil. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:37, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Let me see.... During last discussion when somebody has used this Fut.Perf. statement there have been multiple blocking and banning. User (user:Joka) which has started similar attack on my edits in July 2008 (Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive456) is confirmed and blocked is puppet of banned user. IP which has used this Fut.Perf. during July discussion is blocked by checkuser Thatcher (all IP from 66.217.131.0 through 66.217.132.256) (section harass account).

I can show similar examples where other puppets have used this Fut.Perf. and they all has been blocked.

About Mangojuice statement my only answer is his "escape" from discussion after IP edits on his talk page [52]

About my constant allegations that are broad enough to be classified as uncivil, before taking actions my proposition is discussion with checkuser Thatcher (which want to "kill" me because of so many my check demands) or it is possible to look User:PaxEquilibrium blocked puppets in last 45 days (50+)

I want to end this discussion again with my question: What is problem with last checkuser finding which is very clear about Brzica milos etc (talk · contribs) and 71.252.106.166 (I will not comment anymore this case) ? If somebody need more evidence what about 71.252.106.166 knowledge of 5 month old discussion ??--Rjecina (talk) 04:01, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Because, like I told you, likely does not mean guaranteed. And there has been some discussion and talk from the anonymous user and the other one has stopped editing completely. The edits is not pure vandalism per se (regardless of how you see everyone who disagrees with you). Two people from the same large city who edit on similar topics isn't enough for me (especially when I know nothing about User:Velebit, the sockmaster in question), which is why I said that I would leave it to User:Thatcher who is on a wikibreak. Instead, it seems that you decided to come to WP:ANI to try to get them blocked. I am starting to tire of this as well. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:27, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I've given Rjecina a final warning. Enough is enough already. A vacuous new SSP request, multiple individual appeals to admins, and now this, all without any new evidence. Rjecina needs to stop focussing on this issue, it's become disruptive. Mangojuice^talk 05:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I want to add this "banned user" allegation from Talk:Ivo Andrić. While Rjecina has a point, the choice to revert everything done instead of what was discussed isn't helpful. I'm adding to your warning about anyone. This incivility has gone on long enough. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Hello, I'm copying a message that I posted on another editor's discussion page in regards to Rjecina. Even though you guys don't know me, or have never talked me before I would like to share my experience with the user Rjecina. Overall the experience has been negative. About a year ago when I opened up an Wikipedia account the user kept calling me a nationalist. This was very untrue since my additions were NPOV. Under this entry I've provided a link to tonights discussion with Rjecina. Tonight, for example, Rjecina removed a piece of information that was cited by University of Maryland, United Nations and US Department of State Human Rights. Please read the section "University of Maryland", in which user argues against sourced information solely based on his opinions without providing any sources. Lastly, this user needs to be punished or monitored by an administrator in order for his provocations to stop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Serbs_of_CroatiaMike Babic (talk) 07:50, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Denialist troll

Resolved

 – Sock of a banned editor has been blocked. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 08:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not completely sure if this is ripe and appropriate for admin attention, but I know that other users have been blocked for similar actions (cf. EliasAlucard (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Bannedtruth (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)). I've just about had a bellyful of Valliant1967 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). If you're interested in diffs, the answer is all of them, but here are some gems to start off with. [53] [54] Now I'll readily admit that if you take a close look at the histories of Talk:Holocaust denial and Talk:Rodney King, you'll see that those who oppose him have not been pristine and blameless where civility is concerned, but it is indisputably clear from our histories that we are here to edit an encyclopedia, not solely to aggravate other users. This cannot be said of Valliant.

Now that I look a little more closely, I see that he's likely a sockpuppet of Bannedtruth. Compare this edit by BT and this by Valliant. Compare also their areas of interest and the fact that Valliant's account was created seven days after BT was indefblocked. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 03:16, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Is that... a duck I hear? ThuranX (talk) 03:33, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

CU says it is extremely  Likely that Valliant is Bannedtruth. I've blocked this sock of a banned editor. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:48, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Iloveyouyesidoyay

Resolved

 – Blocked and user pages are now protected. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:19, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Now comes Iloveyouyesidoyay (talk · contribs), whose first edit was to place a pornographic image on their User page [55], second edit was to place an inappropriate comment on another User's Talk page [56], third edit was to report themselves on WP:AIV and asked for a spanking [57], and fourth edit was to report themselves on WP:UAA with a silly comment: [58]. I've left a message asking them if they're planning on actually doing any editing and to knock off the nonsense, but I'm just leaving this here for others to keep an eye out. Corvus cornix_talk 03:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I think he needs a hug. Iloveyouyesidoyay (talk) 03:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Zot. --barneca (talk) 04:02, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Good hug. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:16, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Is that anything like good touching? (Wow, something we don't have an article on!) Corvus cornix_talk 04:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Touché. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 07:47, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

This guy is actually a serial sockpuppeteer and long-term troll. Sadly, someone appears to have hardblocked his IP address for some time ... - Alison ^❤ 07:56, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

User:I'm not schizophrenic and neither am I

Resolved

 – Blocked by PhilKnight for 12 hours, further to an AIV report. Anthøny ✉ 13:57, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Although I'm not schizophrenic and neither am I (talk · contribs)'s edits seem correct, this edit summary makes it clear that they are not here for valid purposes. Corvus cornix_talk 21:53, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Talk to the user on his talk page first, no need taking preemptive action. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 22:04, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

It's ridiculous, but I left them a question for explanation on their Talk page. I don't expect anything good to come from them, though. Corvus cornix_talk 22:12, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I posted this at WP:AIV. We'll see who takes action first. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 22:15, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Admin issued a 12-hour block to cool that character's jets for now. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 22:21, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Either this is a massive co-incidence or this user was watching the same film i am right now(What About Bob?) where they made a joke with that username as the punchline minutes ago--Jac16888 (talk) 22:29, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Funny film. I vaguely recall that line. Can you tell us more details? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 22:37, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Or the ubiquitous ads for My Own Worst Enemy (TV series). Corvus cornix_talk 22:35, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

When the doc commits bob, he ends up making friends with the entire staff, he tells them a rhyme, something like "roses are red, violets are blue, i'm not a schizophrenic, and neither am i" was funnier than it sounds--Jac16888 (talk) 22:46, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, yes. A variant on the Oscar Levant quote. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 00:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Tagging as resolved. Anthøny ✉ 13:57, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Poeticbent and Skin Hunters

Resolved

 – Advice and cautions issued to all involved.
Specific incident is too stale to warrant sysop. action at this late stage. Anthøny ✉ 13:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm concerned by Poeticbent's actions during a content dispute on the Skin Hunter's Article. Background to this dispute can be found:

• On the article's talk page
• The AfD which it survived.
• Poeticbent's talk page: [59], [60], [61], [62], [63]
• My talk page.

My concerns are two fold:

• Poeticbent is not entering into any constructive discussion about his changes and is constantly restoring the article to his prefered state. Myself and another editor, Malick78, have reverted these edits a few times and I'm afraid this is becominga bit of an edit war. Both myself and Malick78 have stated our reasoning on the talk page, at the AfD and in my case direct to Poeticbent but he does not seem to want to answer our points instead just quoting wikipedia policies at us despite us saying we didn't think they applied. As such his edit's, IMO, are beocming disruptive due to his failure to properly discuss them.
• Poeticbent's edits seemed designed so his POV wins and possibly also to avoid WP:3RR. He waits to quite some time has passed before making changes to the article, presumbly hoping we've lost interest. I also fear that this may be to avoid 3RR.

I ask for an administrator to reviews the actions of all editors of this article (including myself - I'll take and criticism as a learning experience) and do as they see fit. I am aware that this is not the place to raise the dispute over the content itself and am looking for a review of user actions rather than content. Thank you, Dpmuk (talk) 23:33, 13 September 2008 (UTC).

Reply by Poeticbent

The article is difficult as it is. It caught my eye originally as incompatible with the very first principle of wp:live which is wp: neutral point of view meaning an unbiased, accurate, and proportionate representation of all positions. Meanwhile, User:Dpmuk, who came on the scene at a later time, from the start engaged in just one method of editing after me. That is to blanket revert everything I put in, includind reliable sources. No other way of editing seems to have been good enough for him so far. Two blanket reverts of my edits were followed by long drawn-out speeches filled with inuendos and accusations of incivility and bad faith, including copy-pasted comments by other users without their consent. Examples:

• First groundless accusation of incivility, (22:21, 7 September 2008)

• Second note to my talk page beginning with: “stop editing the article to push your point of view” including copy-pasted comments by three other users from AfD, (00:49, 11 September 2008)

• First blanket revert of my edit as of 00:24, 11 September 2008

• Unsigned comment to my talk page demanding that I stop editing this article, (09:52, 11 September 2008)

• Second blanket revert wiping out my references, (08:59, 11 September 2008)

I’ve improved on this article considerably using encyclopedic language. I’ve given User:Dpmuk time to chill out and refrainded from editing for a few days. And now, instead of his usual revert warring, he reports me to WP:ANI with no expressed desire to search for the middle ground. --Poeticbent talk 02:57, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment by Malick78

• As the creator of the article and a reverter of some of Poeticbent's edits, I feel I should say something too. It seems to me that Poeticbent's edits have been less than constructive, and at most times he has failed to engage in discussion regarding them. Furthermore, when he does discuss things, he invariably quotes WP policies which have little relevance to the actions being discussed. He has also broken protocol, such as nominating the article for AFD (for being "NPOV" in his view) when tagging would have been a more constructive thing to do. When this failed, he has edited with disregard to consensus, and when his 'references' have been pointed out to be out of date, has made little attempt to explain their worth (specifically, he has reffed sources which are 3 months old, whereas my ref which contradicts him is 2 months old and has different information - yet he has failed to explain why his ref is good enough to significantly change the article). Many of his actions have been IMHO 'disruptive'.

• I would also like to make the point that I feel that Dpmuk has edited and behaved constructively and reasonably at all times. Malick78 (talk) 09:20, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

• Rather than take action at this late stage, where any sanctions applied to individual users involved in the dispute on Skin Hunters (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), I would rather extend a general amnesty with regards to this matter, as well as some general advice. I will provide some advice to all involved parties on their user_talk pages presently. Anthøny ✉ 12:39, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Cautions and advice issued to all involved (User talk:Dpmuk^I; User talk:Malick78^II; User talk:Poeticbent^III). The full text of the caution is provided below.

Text of caution

For reference: Skin Hunters (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) AN/I thread, #User:Poeticbent and Skin Huntersperm My comment on that thread. I have opted to take no formal action in response to the Skin Hunters dispute, further to the AN/I thread inviting scrutiny of the editorial conduct there. However, I do wish to issue the following advice: When disagreements arise over the content of an article, the appropriate response is to open discussion with the "other side," on the article talk page. Should extensive talk page discussion bear no fruit, the parties to the dispute should then seek outside opinions (for example: third opinion; requests for comment). As a further option, seeking informal mediation of the dispute is also possible. Throughout editorial content disputes, the parties should remain absolutely civil towards, and respectful of the opinions of, their fellow editors and the other parties. Although tempers may flare at times, one should seek to keep cool and collected; getting angry is simply counter-productive, and as such may be met with a block. As a contrast to point one, the appropriate response to an edit which you don't agree with is not to revert or undo that editor's change to a version of the article content you "like." Articles belong to nobody, and everybody is entitled to their opinion. Edit warring is the least helpful response to editorial content disputes possible, and will, in future, be met with a block. If you have any queries, or require assistance or further advice in the future, please feel free to contact me, either publicly or privately. Good luck with your editing at Skin Hunters, and try and work on the concerns raised in the future. Anthøny ✉ 13:25, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Regards, Anthøny ✉ 13:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Image disruption

Resolved

 – Issue is too premature to warrant administrator intervention. Anthøny ✉ 11:51, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Bull-Doser is on a new streak of disruption, adding incorrect images to various pages. I warned him about this and he paid no heed (as is the case with most things on his talk page, I'm not certain he even reads it). I gave him a "verror4" warning after another one, and he proceeded to add yet another incorrect image. Most recent edit here, others found here (wrong decade), here (wrong decade), here (wrong model of car), and here (wrong year). There are no doubt others I didn't catch. --Sable232 (talk) 04:48, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible that these are good faith errors? Those are pictures of cars. Have you tried talking with the user and offering to help them place these images in appropriate places. They seem to have gone to an auto show and are excited to add their images. Perhaps they don't know as much about autos as you do. Jehochman ^Talk 05:11, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Bull-Doser is a longtime editor and has been taking automotive pictures (for better or worse) for quite a while. This has not been a problem until recently but suffice it to say other editors have had issues with him in the past. This may be intentionally disruptive, it may be laziness. Either way, it's not good. --Sable232 (talk) 05:16, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

If it's laziness, no administrative action is possible until the problems are pointed out. I recommend you talk to the user, and if that fails, try requests for comment. If those methods of dispute resolution fail, then we can see what to do next. Jehochman ^Talk 05:33, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Second opinion, in addition to Jehochman's: I do not see any issue here that warrants administrative action. As advised, I suggest you open a dialogue with the editor at User talk:User:Bull-Doser, outlining the concerns that you hold (you should provide examples, and go on to explain for each example what specifically Bull-Doser did incorrectly), and asking him to remedy them in his future contributions. When approaching him, please word your comments in as friendly and patient a way as possible (insofar as you can reasonably avoid sacrificing the effectiveness of the message). Should, after extensive communications, the problem still persist, it would at that point be reasonable to re-request on this noticeboard administrator assistance. Anthøny ✉ 11:51, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Oops

Resolved

 – This seems a very fair explanation. Anthøny ✉ 11:44, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to note, I accidently clicked on the rollback link in this edit. Entirely an accident, I have rolled back the rollback. Just putting this out there in the unlikely case anyone wondered what on earth I was doing! - Tbsdy lives (talk) 07:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for letting us know. In future, if you accidentally hit the rollback button, undo the revert with an additional edit summary like "woops, pressed revert unintentionally". If you do that, there is no need to report it here. Cheers, John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:17, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. - Tbsdy lives (talk) 07:36, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Guido_den_Broeder

This user has been blocked 5 times for edit warring and general uncivil behaviour, and another few times for legal threats, and he is causing more problems.

Yesterday he posted a false and malicious complaint against me, accusing me of adding "false information" and hurting patients, neither of which I did.

If you have a look at his edits you'll see that I actually just neglected to put in some references for some changes I made to the psychosomatic article (as I thought they weren't needed). When asked by a few people to add them I did so, but Guido still refuses to allow my changes. At the request of mangojuice I have refrained from removing guido's pov tag in the article, but as Guido refuses to discuss things reasonably there is nothing that I can do. Also see here.

He has also just made a complaint against WLU for something that is just a content dispute and shouldn't be listed here. WLU hasn't done anything wrong.

It is impossible to work with Guido, as he [refuses to talk reasonably with other editors, instead pushing his own pov, making spurious complaints when he doesn't get his way, insulting editors, etc. His past history suggests that he isn't going to change. It would be better for everyone if he was permanently banned. He can then work on his wikisage project and everyone will be happy. --Sciencewatcher (talk) 16:26, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Guido recently tagged this as a minor edit when it clearly isn't. I asked him on the talk page, but he didn't respond. It may have been an oversight rather than deception, but if so why didn't he apologise? --Sciencewatcher (talk) 16:35, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea what y'all are fighting over, but as an aside, there is a setting in preferences that checks the "minor" box as the default. Sometimes people forget to uncheck it. -- Avi (talk) 16:41, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

And here is another example of his uncivil behaviour, refusing to discuss what he had changed and instead just telling me I didn't understand diff. --Sciencewatcher (talk) 16:41, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

This might be worth discussing - Guido is a problematic user who doesn't really understand or like the consensus-building process. I don't know if there's a topic ban warranted, but he keeps skating on thinner and thinner ice in my opinion. WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 18:45, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

It looks like a content dispute to me. I'm not 100% sure that Guido is the best person to be editing some of these medical articles, but I'm uneasy that some people seem to have Guido marked out as "problematic". Once you get a reputation like that, whether justified or not, it is very hard to get rid of it. There are problems, I admit, but no more than we see with others. My experience of Guido on chess articles is that he can edit calmly and productively, and the options should be either to encourage him to edit that way on all articles, or to explore a temporary topic ban. But if others are editing poorly on the other side of this dispute, then they should face temporary topic bans as well. Carcharoth (talk) 19:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Sciencewatcher, would you consider taking a closer look at Guido's block log? The first edit warring block was back in December 2007. The next four block log entries culminate in a "not edit warring" verdict. Then we have two edit warring blocks. The "legal threats" blocks are complicated and should be considered separately from the edit warring blocks (not everyone agreed with the second "legal threats" block). Personally, when someone points to someone's block log as evidence of anything, I always look at the log entries in detail, and would suggest taking what is said there with a pinch of salt - it is not always an adequate summary of what happened in each incident. As I've said above, the current incident looks like a content dispute. It would be better to concentrate on resolving that by dispute resolution, instead of requesting someone on the other side of a content dispute from you be banned. Carcharoth (talk) 20:06, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I had another look at his block log. As far as I can see he has indeed been blocked 5 times for edit warring and being disruptive. He was only unblocked once (by mangojuice) with a comment of "not edit warring", but apparently the other admins thought he was edit warring. --Sciencewatcher (talk) 21:14, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Then you need to learn how to interpret block logs. Seriously, no offence intended, but the logs are quite clear:

• 16:45, 16 January 2008 - blocked by Tariqabjotu for 40 hours - Edit warring: on Chronic fatigue syndrome
• 16:46, 16 January 2008 - unblocked by Tariqabjotu - lengthening...
• 16:46, 16 January 2008 - blocked by Tariqabjotu for 48 hours - Edit warring: on Chronic fatigue syndrome
• 18:52, 16 January 2008 - unblocked by Mangojuice - not edit warring

On the surface at least (no way to be certain without digging up the original discussions and block notices and editing history), that looks like a rather pointless unblock to lengthen a block by 8 hours to, presumably the "full tariff" of 48 hours, followed by an unblock around 2 hours later with what looks like a complete exoneration. The fact that you characterise the unblock and reblock as one of the "5 blocks" you mention, and didn't even point out that there appears to be an exonerating unblock, demonstrates that you are not taking the block log entries into account, and are waving around a number of blocks (5) as if that means something. If you are going to point to a user's past history as justification for a block, the least you can do is actually do the work to find the original incident that led to the blocks and unblocks on 16 January 2008, and provide diffs. Unless you do that, you are just, as LessHeard vanU has said, block shopping. I'm not normally as blunt as this, but that really is what it looks like to me. Both you and Guido need to work together on this article you both want to edit, not fight each other. Carcharoth (talk) 00:09, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I looked more carefully and it seems there were 4 separate blocks for edit warring and related stuff - I didn't realise one was just an extension: 14 Dec 2007, 16 Jan 2008, 1 May 2008, 29 May 2008. The number of blocks certainly does mean something...if a user has been causing trouble this many times in the past, it is unlikely they will change. Sometimes it's better just to do a permanent ban. And I'm not sure why you say I didn't mention about his unblocking, as it is in my last comment (above). --Sciencewatcher (talk) 00:37, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

OK. I missed your comment as well. I would still say three not four, as it is rare for an uncontested unblock after 2 hours, of a 48 hour block, to mean that the original block was justified. I would also discount the first block, as many people only learn how things work around here when they are blocked for the first time. I don't think two block after the first one, in nearly a year, indicates an unrepentant edit warrior. In response to your "Sometimes it's better just to do a permanent ban." I would say: sometimes it's better just to try and work with people and try and understand what they are saying. Try phrasing things a different way if you feel your point is not getting across, and ask those you disagree with to do the same. Carcharoth (talk) 09:38, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

• Why is this being brought here, when the original discussion would have been the the appropriate venue? I note both that the previous discussion has not been archived, and that you are not bringing any new focus of complaint (let alone new edits to complain of). I simply do not see why you need another venue to pursue this matter. I am also surprised that Guido den Broeder has not yet responded... unless you have neglected to advise them of this conversation. I am not saying that there is no basis of complaint - but I am saying that I don't really care to get involved in trying to resolve it when one or other of the two of you go forum (or, as apparently in this case, block) shopping. I feel that, in this instance, it is you that is stretching the good faith of the community in widening your campaign against the other party. Please stop. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:04, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The previous complaints were about me and WLU. This complaint is against Guido. It's up to you and the other admins to judge who is at fault. Have a look at Guido's talk page and you'll see I notified him about this complaint, and he has said there that he will not respond to it. --Sciencewatcher (talk) 21:14, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I, personally, don't do the fault thing; I attempt the "limit the disruption" thing. I repeat, there is no need for a separate thread - open a subsection in the existing discussion (since the respondents there are already familiar with the situation). I would also apologise for inferring that you had not advised GdB. That's my lot in this matter. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:19, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

If you or someone else wants to merge the 3 topics, feel free. I'm not sure what's best. I agree it's best to limit the disruption, but sometimes that is not possible. --Sciencewatcher (talk) 21:27, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem is getting worse. Have a look here and here. It is not a content dispute. The problem is simply that Guido will not work with other editors. I have been very patient and reasonable, and made many attempts to discuss disputed content with him, but instead of discussing anything he simply resorts to snide comments, false accusations and 3RR skirting (his current tactic is to keep putting in pov tags rather than reverting, but it amounts to the same thing). Any further edits from me are simply going to provoke an edit war with Guido, so I'm just going to stop all editing of these articles until this situation is resolved. --Sciencewatcher (talk) 23:37, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Those tags are not supposed to be removed until things are resolved, and they are supposed to be placed on in lieu of edit warring. Guido is using them correctly. I've seen you removing them inappropriately. But I agree -- in the end this is not a content dispute, it's a personal dispute between the two of you. The best way to get that resolved is for both of you to calm down, remind yourselves that both of you are only trying to help and merely have different viewpoints, and see what you can't find in terms of common ground. Mangojuice^talk 05:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly what I've been trying to do. If I have removed any inappropriately I apologise, I didn't realise I had. I removed one on the psychosomatic page after I added the references that were requested, and I removed another here as it was clearly inappropriate (see the talk entry). Anyway, Guido appears to be making more of an attempt to collaborate so I will try to work with him and see how it goes. --Sciencewatcher (talk) 14:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

How many warnings does a vandal have to have?

Resolved

 – Editor blocked indefinitely by jj137. --Kralizec! (talk) 08:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Umair22 (talk · contribs) has been blocked twice already in the last two weeks for vandalism, and yet here he comes again to vandalize. I reported him at WP:AIV, and was told, "but, nobody has warned him since he came back from his last block." Well, yes, do we have to keep warning people who have already been blocked for vandalism, to stop vandalizing? Corvus cornix_talk 03:03, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

uh-no..we don't repeatedly warn people who have been blocked. The admin who did that should really come here and explain him (or her)self as that is patently ridiculous.--Crossmr (talk) 03:24, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I find it's best to give a test4im warning in those cases and that is usually enough to justify a block. --Sable232 (talk) 04:50, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

He's been blocked twice already, and warned plenty of times. There is no indication further warning would stop him.--Crossmr (talk) 04:52, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

No, but it beats trying to get action without a prior warning. Some admins are much more lenient on vandals than others. --Sable232 (talk) 04:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

He's been warned and blocked for the same behaviour. How was there no prior warning? When someone comes back from a block do we just assume they've forgotten all previous warnings and unlearned any policies they read, etc?--Crossmr (talk) 06:36, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Seems he's already been asked. I just asked him to comment for everyone to see. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Part of the issue was the report. "Continues to vandalize" is a different report from one saying that the same article is targeted in similar ways. Maybe I've got IP reports on the brain, but IMHO, going straight to AIV without a warning should be the exception and not the rule, so that's why I commented like I did. By the time I realized the same article was being targeted—and I'll admit that is an exception situation—he was already blocked. —C.Fred (talk) 05:56, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

He was warned several times and blocked for it. I'll repeat the question: Do we assume that he's forgotten everything that happened to him prior to his block?--Crossmr (talk) 06:38, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks like this was just a mixup on the part of the first admin to review the AIV report. As the editor has been blocked indefinitely, I am marking this as resolved. --Kralizec! (talk) 08:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

This thread wasn't about getting the user blocked. it was more about addressing the troubling comment from an admin, which honestly hasn't been addressed. I can't see how there was a "mix-up" as the admin stated in his comment since his last block so he was well aware that the individual was blocked prior. So frankly I don't really believe this has been resolved, and C.Fred still hasn't explained his comment in a satisfactory manner.--Crossmr (talk) 10:47, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

To which I point out this text from WP:AIV's instructions: "The user must be given sufficient recent warnings to stop." When I opened the talk page and the last thing I saw is a week-old block message for a two-day block—and visually, since the first block didn't use a uw-*block* template, that was the only block message I saw—I did not interpret that sufficient recent warnings were present. That's why I commented on the AIV page. I left the report for other admins to investigate, but I expressed my concern about it. Coupled with off-Wiki things to deal with out the house, by the time I'd finished looking into his contribution history and block log—at which point I would have at least revised my comment if not blocked the user outright—he was already blocked.

There are a few situations—including severe racist (or other *ist) vandalism, threats (including legal), and very high edit-rate vandalism—where my initial reaction is to block first and ask questions later. Yes, blocks are preventative, but they're also stigmatizing enough that I like to make sure the block will serve its intended purpose before issuing it. —C.Fred (talk) 13:29, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Obviously then we need to nail up recent. In 2 weeks he received 5 warnings and 2 blocks all on his talk page for a grand total of about 2 dozen contribs. That seems pretty recent and clear to me.--Crossmr (talk) 14:36, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Savolya - repeated copyright violation

Resolved

 – User blocked 72 hours.

I have attempted to engage Savolya (talk · contribs) on their talk page about their repeated cut and paste copyright violations. So far, they haven't made any sensible response and they have continued editing. I can go through their history and remove the copyvio, but there seems little point if they don't acknowledge that they understand the policies and agree to stop. Can someone get their attention, please? Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:58, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

The user's been editing here since late December 2007 ... there really is no excuse for someone to be editing that long and not know that we have zero tolerance for copyvios. I would think at least a 72-hour block is in order. Blueboy96 16:06, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

No objections so far--user blocked for 72 hours, with a stern warning. Blueboy96 17:03, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Blueboy96. I'll work on tracking the rest of the copyvio when I get a chance. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Asking a review of a block

Resolved

 – Duplicate discussion to what is already ongoing at #Agenda accounts

As an occasional reader of talk pages not recently involved with the enciclopedia I would like the neutral administrators to review this block of a person who is apparently a newcommer and has been indefinitely blocked:

• Block log: "POV-warrior, likely returning banned user or sockpuppet"
• Here is the talk page

it's obviously entirely possible that the person above is a sock but are we really indefinitely blocking him just becouse an admin think that he "likely" is a sock?--Pokipsy76 (talk) 17:34, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

See above. User:MichiganMilitia is described there. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 17:39, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Ops, sorry...--Pokipsy76 (talk) 17:46, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Agenda accounts

I just blocked a couple of agenda / sockpuppet accounts active on 9/11, the contributions make it pretty clear that these are not new nebies but, rather, old hands. If either can show that they have a good reason for suddenly changing accounts then I have no objection to unblocking, but I suspect that they are a couple of the usual suspects. Accounts are: MichiganMilitia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), Mass driver (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Guy (Help!) 16:10, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

"Michigan Militia" is probably a username violation that should remain blocked regardless of what good reasons are given. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 16:17, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

i am not sure about htat part. While group affiliation names such as 'Michiagan Militari' are unrecommenable via WP:USERNAME, they are not specificaly prohibite dunless they were promotiona l or in nature or that if they were have a substantial conflict of itnterests (an example would be that if someone called 'Microsoft' started posting extmrely promotional textage to the Microsoft accopunt.). Smith Jones (talk) 17:01, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

User:MichiganMilitia is a sock of User:Bofors7715 - see Wikipedia:Suspected_sock_puppets#User:Bofors7715 Bofors also posted a request on 911blogger for help with the 9/11 article, hence it's likely that User:Mass driver is a meatpuppet.

Also, the WP:SSP page has a backlog. I have another request there, pertaining to the William Rodriguez, that really needs attention - Wikipedia:Suspected_sock_puppets#User:Wtcsurvivor. This involves BLP, socks, COI editing, personal attacks, incivility, edit warring, and outing/intimidating users, so some due diligence and attention from uninvolved admins is needed there. --Aude (talk) 17:11, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, but shouldn't he be given the possibility to defend himself?--Pokipsy76 (talk) 18:58, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

He can defend himself on his talk page like anyone else who's been blocked. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 19:21, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Isn't it strange that he has to defend there when the discussion about him is here and possibly he is not aware of this discussion?--Pokipsy76 (talk) 21:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• Contrivance (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) looks like something of a problem. What do others think? Guy (Help!) 19:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm convinced that Contrivance is not a sock, but has edited problematically per WP:BLP and edits just one article. --Aude (talk) 20:20, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Two, I think, but yes, disruptive WP:SPA is my reading. Anything to be done? Guy (Help!) 20:39, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it's disruptive, and maybe the arbcom decision should apply. The edit warring is unacceptable, as are BLP violations. What I would really like to see is the article adhere to WP:BLP, and be fair to Mr. Rodriguez, but I'm not the best person to be mediating and maintaining the page. --Aude (talk) 21:22, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Also, we most likely have other related IPs editing - 67.82.153.235 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) --Aude (talk) 21:24, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Help over at AIV

Resolved

 – Queue has been cleared.

While it is only two reports, one has been there for almost an hour, if someone could come over to AIV and wipe these two out and anymore that pop up, it would be appericated. - NeutralHomer • Talk 16:42, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Done; the {{adminbacklog}} tag should be added in the future to call admin attention to these matters. Stifle (talk) 18:52, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Assistance please

Resolved

 – Foot fetishism article semi-protected for two days

This anon Special:Contributions/24.35.91.14 has repeatedly removed an image from Foot fetishism with no discussion or explanation despite repeated requests not to do so. Can somebody apply a cluebat please? Exxolon (talk) 17:46, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Could it be indicative of something (perhaps a sockpuppet IP) that the IP has avoided 3RR? Caulde 17:59, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I've semi-protected the page for 2 days. That should cover it off. Stifle (talk) 18:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Clarence Thomas Edit War

Resolved

 – Protected by Useight

User Wallamoose has repeatedly tried to delete portions of the section on Thomas's sexual misconduct. He also tried to insert a personal comment into the article complaining about people who "protect" (use the watch feature, presumably) the page. I have added many references to the section backing up the wikipage's text, but Wallamoose repeatedly just tried to delete the whole thing, and then he shifted to using POV language. I would suggest a sockpuppet check, as he is a new account that does nothing but make partisan edits on political issues. RafaelRGarcia (talk) 18:29, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Page protected by Useight. Stifle (talk) 18:42, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

71.238.201.6

Resolved

 – Blocked 55 hours by LessHeard vanU‎

Not quite an AIV case. Despite numerous warnings on his talk page, 71.238.201.6 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) continues to add unsourced (and generally unsourceable) charts to When I Grow Up (Pussycat Dolls song) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and make disputed edits to Pussycat Dolls discography. His edit history shows that this is a static IP, so semi-protection of the page isn't the right answer, a short block is.Kww (talk) 18:50, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

They've left a huge trail of this. I've undone some of the edits. He/She also tends to change chart names and remove sourced material. Definitely blockworthy. There was another edit to When I Grow Up diff after your last warning so I reported to AIV too. justinfr (talk/contribs) 20:33, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Connection issues

I am having trouble sustaining a connection and am now getting "lost session data" several times per attempted edit, so I will have to call it a day. Anyone who wants to amend the block of Yellowbeard in any way has my full permission to do so, provided that there is some kind of commitment to drop the nonsense with Abd, or some kind of binding dispute resolution (including arbitration if necessary, which it probably isn't). Guy (Help!) 21:08, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

John Bull (locomotive)

There's a serial vandal hiding the page, after the name was blocked they created another and are now on the fourth. One of the names (Tjjj33 (talk · contribs)) even went through my contribs and reverted the last several edits I made to other pages. Could the page be blocked, as it's the featured article? JoshMcCracken (talk) 03:38, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Disregard, someone just got it —Preceding unsigned comment added by JoshMcCracken (talk • contribs) 03:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Pagenomore

Resolved

 – — Athaenara ✉ 06:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

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

Anyone want to sort this guy out? He's moved his user pages to "User:Pagenomore" and "User talk:Pagenomore" (no such user) and tagged them {{db-u1}}. — Athaenara ✉ 06:09, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I've moved the pages back and protected them. I've also asked the user if he wants to change his username. Gwen Gale (talk) 06:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. — Athaenara ✉ 06:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Sockpuppet? No.

Resolved

 – Sockpuppet report to be withdrawn - nothing else to see here. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi, not sure where else to post this. Could an admin please end the silliness here? An editor is accusing me, without any basis other than a similar edit (which was, actually, an error), of sockpuppetry. Ta. Prince of Canada ^{t | c} 07:55, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

In all likelihood, you will simply need to await an administrator visiting that page with an extra half hour or so, and clearing all outstanding cases; such is the usual nature of the suspected sock puppets page. My advice is to not become worried or stressed by the case: if you have truly not practised disruptive sock puppetry, no action will be taken on those grounds, and you need not worry. The case should be processed, and the result posted, within a day or two. Regards, Anthøny ✉ 11:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not worried, it's just incredibly annoying to be accused of something like that without any basis. Either way, the editor has asked that it be removed, finally. Prince of Canada ^{t | c} 18:37, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Block evader alert

Resolved

 – Blocked.

User:MsTopeka, User:Nukeh and User:68.103.31.116 is one troublesome user that is adding a lot of crap to my user page and to User:Aunt Entropy's talk page, as well as evading a permanent block (on user Nukeh). Please do something about this, thank you, Gabr-el 05:53, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

• user 68.103.31.116 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

(See also User talk:Athaenara#Looks like block evasion.) — Athaenara ✉ 08:12, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I've soft blocked the IP for 72 hours, owing to the harassment. Gwen Gale (talk) 08:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Tinbin

Note: This was originally up on AN, but seems to be escalating, and thus is being posted here.

This user is a SPA who edits the Jiang Yuyuan page. He has been blocked for 3RR, and since then, has used a grand total of three IP addresses and two different socks to evade his block. All in a few hours. He's currently using a sock over on WP:EA to try to get others to revert the page for him. The article itself has been protected but at this point, something needs to be done. Editors have taken a lot of time to try to explain things to him, and he doesn't get it; he just keeps going and claims that everyone is 'biased' and treating him unfairly. First IP: [64] He simply came back with a second IP a minute or two later, [65] and a sock a few minutes after that, [66] and then a third IP, [[67] and now another sock. [68] DanielEng (talk) 09:09, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I've lengthened his block for 3 days and semied the article. I don't think we can do more at that stage :) -- lucasbfr ^talk 09:33, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Understood. :) The user actually just left me a long note on my Talk where he tries to explain that he doesn't understand the policies, etc. Perhaps when the block is over he will have cooled down and will be able to work with us. I hope. DanielEng (talk) 10:20, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

User:MickMacNee and persistent incivility

I encountered this editor when the sordid little video game Muslim Massacre was nominated for deletion. For full disclosure, I was for speedy keep while MickMacNee was for deletion, and the discussion ended in a classy non-admin snowball keep. Much of the AfD consists of responses by and to MickMacNee, and to my eyes he comes across as hostile, confrontational and belligerent.

In the AfD, Mick calls for the deletion of the article on the basis of his blunt, unwavering interpretation of some policies, mainly WP:NOTNEWS. His arguments do not gather support. Fine so far, but it's not all he does. Let's start with the borderline or open incivilities...

• "And lastly to humour the other stuff argument..."
• "That is a completely simplistic and quite naive interpretation of the principle of the no self promotion policy."
• "The game is crap,"
• "its [the game is] as lame as they come,"
• "I suggest if the people voting based on notability here realy know what they are arguing for..."
• "What nonsense. ... You frankly do not know what an encyclopoedia is, that is the be all and end all of the issue. I am sad that you don't even understand this basic concept, and even more sad that you honestly seem to need a specific policy regarding video games to be written for you before you will even begin to understand it. But if you think you are right, which you sadly do... Somehow, I doubt you will, because I think you and I know, in the grand scheme of things, you are defending a steaming pile of shite of an article that does not belong here."
• "There is an essay here somewhere that says if a hundred people talk absolute shite and one doesn't, then per policy, it's still shite. Well, that's what is happening here, although its only about 5 users who are peddling the shite. I can't stop you all if you think wikipedia is Google news, but I will try."
• "amateur pile of crap ... Please, just try to add this as a paragraph in video game controversy, be a man about it, put your "notability" where your mouth is, rather than coming up with the same tiresome other stuff exists arguments, which don't apply as you haven't even been smart enough to compare like for like."
• "If you think that co-operation is accepting that this as a worthy article based on numerous flawed and uneducated arguments then by all means consider me highly uncooperative. I will not ever accept that an empty infobox is a valid addition to a 2 paragraph stub. Such nonsense should be stamped out immediately."
• "Do you honestly think that..."

MickMacNee links other editors to WP:NOTE, WP:V and such like and tells them to educate themselves. He accuses the article creator of spamming, and when I tell him to lay off, he claims the right to accuse people of spamming to uphold policy and adds an inexicable "I don't need clearance from you as to whether to make that point or not in an Afd." (I reply; That's the extent of our interaction.) RGTraynor reminds him of civility and asks him to "dial the venom down a good bit." RGTraynor also notes that "there is no need to link believing this subject meets WP:V/WP:N with a desire to shut Wikinews down" and asks him to calm down because "It isn't merely that the consensus is running heavily to keep, and it isn't that we don't understand: we just don't agree with you". (Mick responds to the latter with the abovementioned quote about the majority "talking absolute shite.")

Then Mick accuses User:Geni of having a hidden agenda to bring down WP:N...

• "So let's just ignore it and let little bits of crap exist, because you can't get consensus for a proper list to exist. I think this fits your tactic perfectly. Junk additions, little by little, chipping away at the notability guideline until it means nothing at all, bar "Google news rules"" (unsigned)

These are from a single AfD and as far as I can tell happen without provocation - without the people arguing with MickMacNee insulting him or treating him uncivilly. User:A_Link_to_the_Past and Mick trade words for a long time, in the AfD and on their talk pages, and Link ends up stepping over the line, so I have not included the statements Mick has made after that time. (02:11 September 13th as both MickMacNee and Link timestamp their messages, 05:11 September 13th server time.)

A look at Mick's contributions list reveals that he does plenty of valid edits, and can act civilly with people he agrees with, but...

• "Do you even have a clue as to whether this strawman you serve up is even a remotely similar comparison?"
• "This whole "article" is creating duplication of pre-existing content, through people's belief that they think they are properly playing the interactive game called wikipedia by copy pasting text. ... What absolute amateurish rubbish."
• "Leaving it to the asylum ... I can't compete with this kind of ridiculous opinion."

Mick has been blocked twelve times since he registered in October 2007, stated reasons being edit warring, disruption, harassment, incivility and personal attacks. The stated reason for the ninth block is that he "doesn't seem to get that his actions are detrimental to a collaborative project." I agree. Mick's behaviour in the AfD is a problem. It is not just being blunt, it has very little to do with cooperation, common politeness, and how people are supposed to act in a collaborative project if they want it to get anywhere. His diff'd comments elsewhere and his block log suggests a persistent tendency. Please contribute your more experienced and/or more numerous opinions on what we should do about this. --Kizor 11:21, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't have much to add to Kizor's comprehensive evidence, but there's part of a response to me he did leave off: "Hey, who ever said consensus was right?" Well, WP:CON does, actually. Twelve blocks in less than a year suggests that Mick either doesn't get or doesn't care how Wikipedia works, though, and I'm pessimistic that even a severe block would get his attention.  RGTraynor  12:45, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm aware that I stepped over the line, and I should have taken my own advice and stepped back and took a deep breath. But as for that statement, while it is definitely stepping over the line, he makes many more statements like that about peoples' motives (accuses Geni of trying to "take down WP:N, me of not knowing any better because I only edit video game articles). I don't want to say that it's entirely my fault that I resorted to making that accusation. - A Link to the Past (talk) 16:37, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the exact purpose is of Kizor's very elaborate post about MickMacNee. Is it to try to get Mick a civility block..? RGTraynor—him/herself part of the angry AfD dialogue referred to—suggests that "even a severe block" would probably fail to get [Mick's] attention--are you seriously proposing an indefinite ban for the edits quoted, RGT? That's absurd. Rhetoric does tend to run rather high on WP:AfD altogether, and the whole dialogue on this particular AfD is pretty "hostile, confrontational and belligerent". It doesn't look to me like Mick's comments "happen without provocation." Few of the phrases Kizor quotes from Mick are even a little uncivil, and those that are should be seen in context, not in fragments. Note also that A Link to the Past is a lot more confrontational than anybody else on the page. Furthermore, I'm a little surprised to see yet another editor, MuZemike, taking the very same AfD to Wikipedia:Third opinion, while simultaneously threatening MickMacNee with an RFC "if this does not work" (work..?). That's a lot of forums for one AfD. I strongly suggest "no action" here. Bishonen | talk 18:33, 13 September 2008 (UTC).

Actually, I "threatened" both Mick and LttP. I admit my wording was a tad harsh, but I didn't intend to try to come off as threatening. (In the future, I will exercise more caution in not throwing the "RFC" acronym around when I tell users that I am sending situations to WP:3O.) I was trying to achieve closure on the matter. MuZemike (talk) 20:35, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

With that said, I am not sure why this discussion is here and not at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct, as there are multiple users who tried and failed to resolve this, and plenty of diff evidence is present; my guess is that it's the number of blocks this user has received. In regards with this discussion, I agree with Bishonen and recommend no action be taken. MuZemike (talk) 20:46, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't say an indefinite block would be appropriate either, mostly because if it was, I wouldn't have even been here in the first place a while back when I was being blocked much more often (though my block log is unfortunately overstuffed from a bad situation I had with an admin - though I was in the right in that part, I could have had better conduct in that situation). I do think that there should be something to try that would maybe make him act more appropriate, but the problem with that is I can't imagine a solution that would address the problem fully. I can understand, since even though my block log allows for me to be blocked more easily for incivility or personal attacks, I find it hard to control myself on Wikipedia. I've made great stride, but I lose my cool sometimes. - A Link to the Past (talk) 03:12, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Having actually looked at the block logs, I do now believe that administrative action should be taken against this user (User:MickMacNee) in the form of a block for a minimum of one month. This user meets the definition of an Internet troll and needs to be dealt with as such per policy. MuZemike (talk) 08:28, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense. Actually? I guess I was assuming everybody arguing here had done the minimal job of looking at the block log. Unfortunately that log doesn't say much. You need a lot more and better evidence before you call somebody an "Internet troll", MuZemike. Please don't post personal attacks on this board. Bishonen | talk 14:13, 14 September 2008 (UTC).

I'm completely with you here pointing at block logs without evidence shows absolutely nothing. For all anyone knows the majority of his blocks may be down to meat puppeting, or other underhand maneuvers by unscrupulous admin who have seeked him out. And to go through all that information would be time consuming anyway. I find this block log pointing for a convenient authority ridiculous and I'm wondering because he has brought it up, has he got a history with Mickmacnee? Honestly if that is the best he can do, hence point to an authority, then this to me suggests he is frustrated and may know he has a weak case.--77.97.69.24 (talk) 02:05, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. We shouldn't be allowed to be dragged down to that same level. Apologies for the uncivil comment. I should know better. MuZemike (talk) 19:31, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

A troll by definition is bad faith. Mick is definitely not bad faith, and not a troll, just extraordinarily hostile and abusive in making the points and arguments he does. I've brushed with him once. Orderinchaos 12:54, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I suppose it depends whether people care or not that egregious, repeat offenders are greenlighted to continue their offenses. Looking back over his talk page at his most recent block, I was regretfully unsurprised to see Mick's immediate response to the blocking admin who cited him for gross and repeated obscenity to another editor: "F*** him and f*** you." I'd be curious as to what Bishonen does propose ought to be done about this, barring "Put up with it and pretend he isn't there."  RGTraynor  05:32, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Reply to RGTraynor: (Ah, yes, I must be doing this because I don't care, that's nice.) You seem to be requesting advice, or measures, for two separate problems here: Mick's argumentativeness at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Muslim Massacre: The Game of Modern Religious Genocide, and Mick's many blocks. (I was going to write "many civility blocks", as that was my impression from your posts, but they're actually mainly edit warring blocks.)

The first isn't IMO a real problem, as I explain above. If you want "closure" (per MuZemike) on it, in the sense of getting Mick to stop arguing, I have a simple suggestion: stop arguing with him. The AfD has now been closed.

The second may be a real problem, or not; I can't tell; you haven't given any diffs or other background for it, and Kizor's diffs lack context. (The block log is very little help here; it doesn't supply diffs, because there isn't room for them—it refers, at best, to "user's talk page"; and finding an unblock discussion back in March in the user talk history is ... well, just please don't ask us to do it.) Let me emphasize that I have no particular reason to think Mick is right and you're wrong; but I have no particular reason to think anything, when you give me so little to work with. No diff for the "gross and repeated obscenity"; no context for the "fuck him"... "fuck you"; nothing on the interchange between Mick and the admin that led up to it. I'm sorry if I sound a little terse here, but I did specifically mention above that no-context quote fragments are useless for evaluation. I realize a proper complaint with diffs is a lot of work, but unfortunately that's what we need. Bishonen | talk 14:13, 14 September 2008 (UTC).

P.S. "Obscenity"—yes, including "fuck you"—yes, even without the asterisks—is culturally conditioned; Wikipedia is a world-wide project; not everybody here abides by middle-class US cultural norms. Many admins have gotten away with equally, or more, salty language than Mick.

Mm, glad to hear that's it's okay to tell other editors to fuck off ... with that being the boundary, that should ease up my self-censorship some. That being said, my concern is this fellow's repeated and ongoing incivilities, not his actions in a particular now-closed AfD nor closure for the same - a casual glance should have revealed that I wasn't the one getting into it with him, nor would his actions in that AfD, taken in isolation, strike many as egregious.  RGTraynor  15:28, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I would agree with RGTraynor's assessment here. It's an ongoing problem with this user's behaviour, not a single flare-up under provocation or whatever is being argued. Incivility is incivility. Orderinchaos 12:56, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Edit War at Now Museum, Now You Don't & Request for review of actions

Following a report at AN3 [69] I have blocked A Man in Black for edit warring. Because his opponent has few edits and was not previously warned I have settled on a final warning and protecting the article. In view of the long standing nature of AMIB's contribution to the project and possible clains of unequal treatment I am listing my admin action here for review. I'm happy for any admin to alter the outcome of the 3RR report without reference to me if there is a consensus that my actions were incorrect. Spartaz ^Humbug! 15:05, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... is there a reason to keep AMIB blocked if the article is protected? Heimstern Läufer (talk) 15:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. I realise that blocking and protecting is unorthdox. That's why I felt inviting early review was advisable. However, 3RR is a bright line that users must not cross and AMIB has an enormous block log for edit warring and should know better. If you feel that protecting the article is wrong of course, you are welcome to alter the protection level. Spartaz ^Humbug! 15:23, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the article should be about one eighth the current length merged to a list, and that blocking AMiB is not especially productive. But that's just my opinion. Either way, if there is going to be blocking then BigGator5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) should also be blocked as he appears to e the catalyst here, persistently reverting the removal of bloated "popular culture" cruft from articles about popular culture cruft, e.g. [70]. I urge other admins to look at this series of articles, I didn't find any form Series 3 that had any independent sources at all and I'm guessing the others are similar - someone seems to have mistaken us for a fan-wiki and a venue for original analysis of the programmes. Guy (Help!) 15:25, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

yes but the blocking policy tells us to warn new editors instead of blocking them and this user has less then 100 edits and was not warned about edit warring before this. I otherwise would have blocked them for their part in this. I see there is not universal support for the block. I'll hang on for a bit more feedback but I'm not averse to a different outcome and I can see which way the wind is blowing here. Spartaz ^Humbug! 15:34, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

3RR is a bright line that requires foreknowledge (warnings). You cross it, you invite a block on yourself. And commenting on the content ramifications of BigGator5's actions is pointless: this is a conduct, not a content problem, and content disputes are dealt with through the wiki process, not who we block. --Tznkai (talk) 15:43, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd prefer we discussed the merits of my actions rather then criticising others for making good faith contributions to the discussion. Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:41, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Biting and edit-warring with newbies is not a good look either and needs to be discouraged. Problem is my view is not neutral, but neither is JzG's...never mind, part of life's rich pageant. :) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:44, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

within administrative discretion. AMAB should know better by now. As the removal was a section on cultural references, the persistent removal was considerably pointy. Not relevant to the block, but the section that does need editing is the overlong plot description. DGG (talk) 17:22, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

We'll get a better encyclopedia with A Man in Black editing, and BigGator5 blocked. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:46, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

It's a fair block. The quality of the contributions doesn't matter when it comes to 3RR. Considering the block history, 24 hours is light. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 20:30, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

This block was highly inappropriate and punitive. Above, there was a concern that the other user (BigGator55) should've also been blocked then. The blocking admin's justification was "the blocking policy tells us to warn new editors instead of blocking them and this user has less then 100 edits and was not warned about edit warring before this. I otherwise would have blocked...." If that's the stance you take, warning + protection should be sufficient. Even the most experienced administrators sometimes say/do some things in the heat of the moment and one poke is enough to make them stop - which is the entire purpose of blocking. The fact that he was blocked in November 2007 for edit-warring is ancillary; warnings can be just as persuasive on experienced contributors, as they are on newbies. If he continued despite that warning, then the block would've been appropriate.

This does not ignore the fact that AMIB was indeed edit-warring and that this conduct is problematic, particularly for his status as an admin. If his conduct is inappropriate to warrant being desysopped, then a user conduct RFC or ArbCom request is needed. But as a whole: not blocking the newbie, protecting the page, and blocking AMIB for the stated reasons was unnecessarily punitive, and I consider that the blocking admin exercised poor judgement in taking this series of actions. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:59, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback. I would have reversed the block had there been more groundswell against it. I think this is shortly to be historical. I would generally agree with the view against the block except for the fact that 3RR is a bright line that experienced users should not cross - especially those with previous history. I'm interested by the stark divide between those agreeing with the block and those supporting it. Spartaz ^Humbug! 15:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome. Yeah, 3RR is a bright line but that doesn't eliminate the fact that least restrictive measures should be used where possible. Whether it's an established user who has offended before, or otherwise, warnings need to be reasonably recent and they often have that desired effect. For example, if he continued editwarring elsewhere even a month after a warning (let alone a few days), then I'd fully endorse a block. All that aside, given the duration of the block, and the fact I agree with you in that it'd be more historical by the time you got back, I didn't see the need for asking that it be lifted - and above all, AMIB should've known better. It's just as a review for the future - where possible, least restrictive measures should be tried first, (blocks are the most restrictive measure). Ncmvocalist (talk) 00:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

This was an appropriate block. I should have been more aware of what I was doing. I violated the 3RR, so I was blocked to prevent further reverts, and BigGator5, who was not aware of the 3RR, was warned and the page was protected to prevent further reverts from him. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:48, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Just as a side-note to this discussion, I've just been going through that series nominating all episode screenshots for deletion. I stopped somewhere in the middle of series 2, having no further energy for wading through these intellectual wastelands, for now. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Tip of the icebege...

For the record, there is more history of this at [71] and [72] (4 reverts each), which resulted in blocking Flatbland. Clearly a new user and an SPA but is it ok to block someone like this one is in an edit war with? I am just not impressed with the strongarm tactics really. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I've taken a look at these, and I find them totally inappropriate. Regardless of the intrinsic merits of the block, and the nature of the editor, this is one of the principal things an admin is not supposed to do. I would remove that block except that I tend to have a position on this content exactly opposite to AMIB, and I am not going to behave as wrongly as he has been doing. DGG (talk) 01:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, me too. I ain't impartial either, so other opinions are more than welcome. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:15, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Please don't use a good faith request for review as a device to attack AMiB. The block wasn't for 3RR vios and was upheld by 2 independent admins following block reviews. Please stick to the matter in hand. My block. Spartaz ^Humbug! 08:13, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

This is germane to the matter at hand as it is an extrapolation of the same behaviour for which you blocked. You thought it was blockable for one occasion, however it has occurred more than once. Now it is highlighted here. I consider the behaviour pretty poor form, however I am conceding I am not impartial. Hence this is a forum for discussion. What about this is an attack? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:53, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Was he warned on these occasions? Or didn't anyone notice this until now? Ncmvocalist (talk) 00:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Flatbland was a sock made specifically to edit war, and was blocked as such, which has been since upheld. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:48, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Is that your justification for edit-warring? Or is that your justification for not passing it on to someone else to block? Ncmvocalist (talk) 00:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

New user. Lots of vandalism last few hours. See:

Resolved

 – Indef blocked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/XroXazX

--Hordaland (talk) 05:03, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

And that user is playing tag with this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Geckoman343 --Hordaland (talk) 06:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Indef'd XroXazX. Cheers. lifebaka++ 12:48, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Xgmx (talk · contribs) has returned

Looks like Xgmx has returned as 4.245.78.170 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). It's been about 6 months since he was originally indef blocked, and 4 months since his last appeal. He has been known for sockpuppetry in the past, so I can't say when his last "bad act" was. Looking over his recent handful of edits, he has behaved himself so far, so I figured this august group should be made aware of the situation. Burzmali (talk) 12:10, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Mascot guy

Resolved

 – Bagged and tagged. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ has nothing to declare except his jeans 14:35, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Not sure this is an appropriate place to bring this up, but is this list of new users related to Wikipedia:Long term abuse/MascotGuy? Deli nk (talk) 13:00, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm no sockpuppetry expert here, but it does seem suspicious. Notice he's doing the same edits as Chromevision, an account blocked as being MascotGuy. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

This would also not be the first time he creates more accounts while signed in - see here. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:36, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Whether it's him or a wannabe, no good can come of it, so all blocked and reverted. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ has nothing to declare except his jeans 14:35, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Advertising

The Sifl and Olly Show article has been subject over the lsast week or so to the addition of advertising by User:Beaviswuzhere, as well as several different IP addresses, all adiing the same text. see diffs [73] [74] [75] [76]. Request assistance, please. -Brougham96 (talk) 13:56, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I've semi-protected the article for a week. That'll stop the IPs. As for the user Beaviswuzhere, if the spamming continues, finish out the spam warnings, and then report him at WP:AIV for faster assistance. - TexasAndroid (talk) 14:27, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Threat

I have just been threatened in this edit; can action please be taken in this regard? Many thanks, Badagnani (talk) 03:37, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I will be taking action in that regard. Please re-read WP:BLP. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:39, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Can someone supply pertinent diffs so we can see if BLP was violated or not and if rv was or wasn't warranted? — Rlevse • Talk • 03:46, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

From this comment (a response to these edits), it appears that this is not an impartial admin (which would be needed in this case). This admin, who is throwing his/her weight around in a highly threatening manner, appears to have worked with the editor asking for sanction in the manner of requesting said editor to attempt to delete certain articles related to ethnic groups. This is simply not ethical. Badagnani (talk) 03:44, 14 September 2008 (UTC) 2008 (UTC)

Hi User:Rlevse; there are a great many examples in the history. Some are:

• diff 1
• diff 2
• diff 3
• diff 4
• diff 5
• diff 6

As you can see, most of the names have sources and the rest typically have the information about their heritage in their own WP articles. What we've asked for is prior use of "Discussion" or "fact" tags instead of massive blanking of text (or the entire articles themselves, which happened again and again over the past couple of days). The threat to block the restoration rather than the blanking is inexplicable, but becomes clear from the admin's bias, shown in the diffs above in his/her apparently long-standing wish to delete such ethnic information from Wikipedia. There are many such editors at WP, and have been active in attempting to remove dozens if not hundreds of articles via AFD; often unsuccessful, they resort to blanking of huge areas of text or the entire articles themselves, refusing to utilize prior "Discussion" or "fact" tags. This has proven highly problematic. If you'd like more diffs, just say the word, or simply look through User:Bulldog123's history over the past 2-3 days. Badagnani (talk) 03:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec)I believe we are dealing with edits such as [77], [78], [79], I count over a dozen re-insertions of living people in that first and second edit, with no references to support their addtion. Looking at the contribs, I see probably 10 or so similar edits out of the last 50.

Per WP:BLP Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons — whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable — should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion, from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space.

I therefore concur fully with Jayjg in his warning. Please don't do things like this again. MBisanz ^talk 03:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Addressing the issue of Jayjg's involvement Administrators may enforce the removal of such material with page protection and blocks, even if they have been editing the article themselves. Editors who re-insert the material may be warned and blocked.. MBisanz ^talk 04:02, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

In most cases, the information about the individual's heritage was indeed properly sourced, not contentious, and usually contained in the biography section of the individuals' own WP articles. The failure to address actual instances, or the warning admin's previous communications with the blanking editor (asking the blanking editor to attempt to delete articles on particular ethnic groups), showing the warning editor's lack of impartiality in this matter; as well as the blanking editor's blanking of entire pages, repeatedly, by the blanking editor, are highly problematic. Badagnani (talk) 04:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

You forget that the The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia, but especially for edits about living persons, rests firmly on the shoulders of the person who adds or restores the material. If Jayjg needed to get unsourced material out and the only way to do it quickly and thoroughly is through page/section blanking, that is entirely permissible under the BLP policy. Now your reverting to restore some sourced and some unsourced material is explicitly against the BLP policy. MBisanz ^talk 04:09, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

It would be much better if you would examine the actual history before commenting here? The blanking was by User:Bulldog123, not User:Jayjg. Badagnani (talk) 04:11, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so Bulldog123 was enforcing the BLP policy by removing unsourced material, you were revert warring to keep it inserted, and Jayjg was warning you about violating the BLP poliocy. Do I have all the roles right now? MBisanz ^talk 04:18, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's it. Bulldog123 has apparently been trying to remove this unsourced or poorly sourced material for several days, and been reverted by several editors, including User:Badagnani, User:Termer, and User:Hmains. He brought the issue to this noticeboard, I noticed it, and warned the policy violating editors. I've never actually edited the articles in question. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:22, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

It would be much better if you would examine the actual history before commenting here? Most of the individuals did have sources for their ethnic heritage, and those who did not typically had mentions of such in their own WP articles. "Enforcing" BLP by blanking entire articles (as was done repeatedly and aggressively, apparently as a substitute for AFDs which simply had not gone the way of the blanking editor), or blanking text that was in fact sourced really isn't something we promote at WP. We all want the same thing: to build the best, best-sourced encyclopedia possible. That means getting our sourcing as good as it can be. In the best case scenario, that involves working in a collaborative manner, using "Discussion" and "fact" tags rather than massive blanking of sourced text, or the deletion of entire articles, as has clearly happened over the past few days. Once you have a chance to look through the history, you will see this. Badagnani (talk) 04:21, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

The edits we are dealing with here are the edits that got you final warned for violating the BLP policy. They show you re-inserting living persons into an ethnic group list without having a reliable source for the attribution. The BLP policy requires every attribution MUST be sourced and that we MUST get it right. {{fact}} tags are unacceptable in a BLP and the content tagged with them should be removed on sight. This is not a "best possible" scenario, but a "precisely accurate" scenario. It gravely concerns me the laid back attitude with which you are approaching these articles. MBisanz ^talk 04:28, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - I am a long-time and productive editor who always edits in good faith and has the highest standards of editing, and an implication to the contrary is highly problematic. This reading of BLP is incorrect; it deals with contentious claims. Ethnicity seems contentious particularly to "anti-ethnicity" editors, who surreptitiously attempt to delete ethnic-related articles or text, and who ask other editors to attempt to do so on their behalf (or to threaten editors who do not agree with this fairly extreme POV on their behalf). Badagnani (talk) 04:36, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

"Most" and "typically" and "in their own WP articles" isn't good enough. I did, in fact, look through the "actual history before commenting here", and the edits I saw were removing that improperly sourced material, as is quite proper in WP:BLP situations, not to mention WP:V situations. And you still don't seem to be understanding WP:BLP. I'll quote it:

Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons — whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable — should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion, from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space.

The bold stuff is in the original policy. This isn't a matter for debate, or "Discussion" or "fact" tags or "collaborative manner" actually. If you want to restore any material to those articles, make sure it is properly sourced first. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:27, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

It would be much better if you would examine the actual history before commenting here? Most of the information about the ethnic origin of the individuals who were blanked from the articles was indeed properly sourced, and the information that did not have external sourcing was generally mentioned in the "Biography" section of the individuals' WP articles. The information was not contentious, and contentiousness was not stated via "fact" tags nor on "Discussion," which is where editors point out improvements that they would like to propose to individual articles. What does seem clear is that User:Jayjg is not impartial in this matter, and is simply supporting User:Bulldog123 (despite the latter user's highly improper manner of editing, including the deletion of entire articles s/he does not like, which have survived AFD), for political reasons--namely, a shared interest in eliminating ethnic-related content at WP--itself a highly contentious proposal. See this comment (a response to these edits). Badagnani (talk) 04:31, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Why do you think that repeating yourself in every edit will somehow make people take you seriously? The edits are obviously contentious, or nobody would be removing them. I don't see anybody supporting your position. Corvus cornix_talk 04:34, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Have you looked through the history? The answer would seem to be "no," because if you had, you would have seen that many editors, from many walks of life, have been reversing User:Bulldog123's repeated and aggressive removals of sourced text (and many blankings of entire pages) over the past three days. Some diffs have been provided just above, in response to User:Rlevse's request. Please comment here after you've taken a look through that history. Badagnani (talk) 04:37, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Considering our own categorizing policy for ethnicity Wikipedia:Categorization_of_people#By_gender.2C_religion.2C_race_or_ethnicity.2C_and_sexuality says The placement of people in these categories may be problematic., I find it hard to believe that you continue to assert that such additions were non-controversial, especially after having been reverted and warned. MBisanz ^talk 05:00, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe that Badagnani is asserting that the additions were sourced. I don't understand why he should be warned for inserting these sourced additions. Martintg (talk) 06:14, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, your above post doesn't make sense to me. Can you address the actual issues at hand? You again fail to mention the issues raised above, showing that you perhaps haven't yet looked through the history and seen exactly what was blanked. Badagnani (talk) 05:02, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I also did get the waring even though I had pulled out from the articles after things turned very strange. So please explain me, why exactly is it OK for Bulldog123 to add not only purely sourced names but complete nonsense in violation with WP:BLP and that 3 X in row [80] [81] [82] without receiving any such warnings? The edits that basically called Kiino Villand Hungarian American journalist on List of Estonian Americans even though the source [83] added by Bulldog123 speaks about Estonian-American journalist Priit Vesilind. I hope you guys know what is going on exactly, I must admit I don't. In case there is a formula found: what exactly is a proper source for X-American lists, please let me know, I might consider contributing to those lists again.--Termer (talk) 05:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
PS. Most of the editors involved, including me, did not get any formal notices about the related threads over here.--Termer (talk) 05:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

More inflammatory threats to a productive WP contributor

See User_talk:Jayjg#Blocking_warning and User_talk:Termer#Formal_warning. Badagnani (talk) 05:12, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, and I warned Hmains too. I warned all three of you, at the exact same time, for the exact same thing; violating WP:BLP by inserting poorly sourced or unsourced material about living people into Wikipedia articles. Rather than continually complaining about "inflammatory threat" and "productive WP contributor", or various silly attempts at smearing the admin who is enforcing policy, why don't you instead devote your "productive" energies to actually finding reliable sources for the material you have been continually inserting into articles? Because no amount of complaining or wikilawyering here is going to get you out of complying with WP:BLP, or save you from being blocked if you insert that BLP-violating material again. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Such hyperaggressive rhetoric, directed at long-time, productive, and good-faith contributors, is not helpful to our project, especially when directed by an admin who appears to be doing this due to a political agreement with User:Bulldog123 (see this comment, a response to these edits). It is telling that no similarly aggressive warnings (or any at all, for that matter) were issued for User:Bulldog123's wiping out of several entire articles, nor for his/her blanking of much properly sourced text. Most of the blanked text was indeed properly sourced, and not contentious, as the WP articles of most of the individuals in question state their ethnic heritage. All that is requested is the use of "Discussion" prior to massive blanking, a quite reasonable request in light of our favored working process at WP. Badagnani (talk) 05:31, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Requests for "discussion" are not "quite reasonable" in light of WP:BLP policy, which states quite clearly

"Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons — whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable — should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion, from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space."

Also, hyperaggressive whining and wikilawyering about your WP:BLP violations is far worse for the project. If you again insert any WP:BLP violating material into these articles I'll block you, per policy. I've said my last word on the subject. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

RE:Jayjg Yes, I've been busy adding mre refs to articles. And there have been more editors than "3 of us" who have found User:Bulldog123's edits reckless and think like I do that User:Bulldog123 has removed well sourced text from WP. The cases when no sources have been added to the lists, they are available at the main articles where everything has been spelled out. Yet User:Bulldog123 has removed even names from the lists that are sourced with 2-3 refs such as [84] etc. reverted for ex by ExRat. Shortly for long time User:Bulldog123's logic of removals didn't make much sense to me. and after he re-added 3X Kiino Villand as Hungarian American journalist on List of Estonian Americans even thogh the source spoke of Estonian-American journalist Priit Vesilind, it didn't make any sense, that's why I pulled out from editing the lists.--Termer (talk) 05:46, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

It was a paste problem, buddy. I already explained that. If you hadn't blanked all the messages I left you on your talk page, you'd know that. Bulldog123 (talk) 08:09, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Most of the blanked text was indeed properly sourced, and not contentious, as the WP articles of most of the individuals in question state their ethnic heritage. User:Termer, you have outlined the issues quite well; it is problematic that a WP admin, in whom we have all placed our trust in the maintenance of proper conduct at WP, has stated that s/he will not comment further. I've seen, so far, no comment on the repeated and aggressive page removals and blanking of properly sourced text by User:Bulldog123, with whom User:Jayjg has apparently had a long-standing relationship and kinship; but instead we see strongly aggressive threats directed in an apparently politicized manner only against the productive, good-faith editors working assiduously on ethnic articles, and objecting to the blanking of properly sourced text and requesting the use of "Discussion." This seems highly problematic. Badagnani (talk) 05:50, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I said I wasn't going to comment again, but this nonsense is a bit much. Not that it's relevant in any way, but the "apparent... long-standing relationship and kinship" I had with Bulldog123 consisted of two comments I made on his Talk: page, and one he made on mine, in June 2007. O.K., back to your wikilawyering, I'm really done responding. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:56, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm sorry to see that you keep ignoring the evidence given to you regarding User:Bulldog123's behavior. I still hope that the case can be resolved reasonably and doesn't need to go all the way to ArbCom.--Termer (talk) 06:11, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't find you, User:Jayjg know anything about the matter. WP:BLP is obviously to prevent slanders/libels against living poeple and is a good thing. This whole discussion, however, is about whenther a person is of x nationality or x American nationality and whether there is sufficient proof to say one way or another. Hardly a matter of slander or libel. Further, it is a matter whether an editor can just decide to delete all the names in a list, even if they are properly sourced as x-American (which he agreed was the case), and decide to make the article a re-direct to a category. You should read the facts instaad of just repeating nonsense. The editor who was blanking out the articles is now suggesting he will cease to do so and instead engage in proper editing. This is how it should be and with no help from you. Your behavior turned this conversation into one about you: not what an admin should seek to achieve. Hmains (talk) 06:17, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I should have thought that our own admins would be fully cognizant of what our policies are all about. You are correct in stating that BLP exists primarily to prevent slanders/libels against living people; I have followed the policy's insitution and development over time, since its institution for that reason. I should reiterate that all we have been asking for, since the first articles were blanked several days ago, was calm, considered, detailed prior discussion on the text the blanking editor felt was inaccurate. This is quite a reasonable request. It really is important to take the time to stop and discuss, even if it can be a bit time consuming. It's how our encyclopedia gets built, and built into the best encyclopedia it can be. Our fundamentally thoughtful, deliberative, and collaborative process is something to be protected and nurtured. Badagnani (talk) 06:32, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Since Bulldog123 has dared to suggest that Martintg is an alternate account of Termer, I've initiated Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Termer--Termer (talk) 06:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, because you WP:CANVASSED your friend to come and revert war for you. Don't tell me he's not your friend, you two have 250 contrib intersections. Bulldog123 (talk) 08:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• No, I keep an eye on all Estonia related articles via WikiProject Estonia in order to maintain them. Termer is from Estonia. Therefore our contributions intersect. The only notice I got from Termer was about the existence of this ANI report [85]. Please rein in your bad faith assumptions. Martintg (talk) 11:16, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

What is the procedure for the recall of an admin's tools/powers? I don't believe the admin acting in this threatening manner (now against several productive, good-faith editors) is behaving in a manner proper to the tools with which s/he has been entrusted. In addition to basing his/her threats on a fundamental misreading of WP:BLP, I don't believe s/he has actually carefully examined the edit history before taking a side and behaving in a manner that does not show the deliberation and calmness an admin does need to have in order to hold this position at our project. Badagnani (talk) 06:38, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Before thinking about recall, wait until this ANI thread has been resolved, let it go for a day or two, and then reconsider if you think recall is appropriate. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:10, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

This repeated message by Jayjg says that 1 2, and 3 are a BLP problem. I have quickly looked at them, and I see Bulldog123 redirecting list pages to topical pages, and doing massive provocative page blankings. Bulldog123 is more interested in removing the entries than adding sources. For example, Josh Groban was restored to List of Norwegian Americans by Termer; it doesnt have a source on the list article, but that nationality is documented on the biog page. If it is wrong, then the biog page is where the {{fact}} tag is needed. Jayjg, could you please explain what parts of those edits you consider a BLP worthy of a block? John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:04, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I came directly to this thread without noticing the prior thread, but even after reading the above section, I see an unnecessary dispute. All parties should spend more time adding sources, and Jaygj's warnings dont appear to have helped any because the issue isnt as much a clear cut "BLP" infringement that it warrants curt block messages. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:36, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

John, I wasn't simply blanking the pages, I was moving the ones that had proper sources and weren't living people to the sourcepages. Here's an example on Hungarian Americans#Famous_Hungarian_Americans. I didn't dare redirect that list after this broke out obviously. Also I had requested discussion beforehand and was ignored. Bulldog123 (talk) 07:55, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

No such discussion nor consensus for such a plan can be located at either Talk:Hungarian American or Talk:List of Hungarian Americans. Further, the edit history does not bear out the story of merging rather than blanking, as with this edit. Badagnani (talk) 07:58, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Please provide a diff where I redirected List of Hungarian Americans. Bulldog123 (talk) 08:00, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

While he does that, can you please provide diffs? Particularly of when and where you requested discussion. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:02, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok. On September 7, I posted this here to foment some discussion Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ethnic_groups#Proposal_to_Remove_List_of_X-American_lists. This is where User:Badagnani regularly checks, and so was done on purpose. I was ignored by him (and continue to be now, still). So I made these: Hungarian Americans#Famous Hungarian Americans, Dutch American#Famous Dutch Americans, Danish Americans#Famous Danish Americans, etc, and redirected the lists (not blanked them). Once it was clear the redirects weren't making anyone happy, I instead removed everyone who was sourced improperly, a BLP concern, or had no sources at all. Was met with a barrage of harassment from Badagnani (here: User_talk:Bulldog123/Archive1#Harassment by Badagnani section. (who seems to have a long-standing grudge against me for re-nominating List of Norwegian Americans on AfD a year ago). I also have diffs below to show how I tried to contact the users and never got a reply. Bulldog123 (talk) 08:19, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - The "Proposal to Remove List of X-American lists" indeed appears not to have been received enthusiastically at WikiProject Ethnic groups, most likely because those active there are aware of the proposing editor's thoughts on this subject. In my case, I did not respond because I did not believe this proposal to have merit, and because I already knew the proposing editor's thoughts on this subject, which can be very clearly seen in his/her edit history. Badagnani (talk) 08:25, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comment That's not an excuse to ignore it. A year ago you overturned the deletion of List of Norwegian Americans, despite a seeming consensus to remove the list (or at least improve it). Since then there's been a hedgemony held over them, in such a way so that no changes could be made. You ask for "discussion" and "consensus" and then ignore people when they attempt to reach them with you. Bulldog123 (talk) 08:29, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - Improvement of our articles are always welcome, and I am happy to participate in such improvement if concrete tasks are outlined at the "Discussion" pages of various articles regarding perceived inadequacies of any of our text--but not in a threatening manner, as in, "You'd better add sources for these, or I'm removing them all," that sort of thing, which we've seen a lot, a lot of over the past three or so days. Clearly beneficial changes, and the addition of sources, are never objected to, as implied above. Badagnani (talk) 08:33, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Can I also note the persistent refusal by User:Termer and User:Badagnani to listen to the arguments and respond calmly.

Here I explain to User:Termer why I removed the names I did. He responds by blanking his talk_page of my message: [86]

Here User_talk:Badagnani#How.27s_This.3F, I attempt to initiate a truce with User:Badagnani; he never replied. Bulldog123 (talk) 08:09, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Would either of you consider mediation? Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• Can we please put this on pause until tomorrow? I seem to live in a different time zone and I'm utterly exhausted. Bulldog123 (talk) 08:55, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Sources

User:Badagnani and User:Termer (and his canvassed friend User:Martintg) keep making claims like "Most of the blanked text was indeed properly sourced, and not contentious". I had already explained to them perhaps an 3 times (Here [87], Here [88], Here [89]) why this is not true, and indeed, it has been explained to them months ago by these previous discussions , Here [90], Here [91], Here [92] - it goes on forever). Bulldog123 (talk) 08:45, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

So in other words, you're saying some sort of synthesis has occurred? Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:00, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

An extra step is being taken, so, in a way, I'd say yes. Bulldog123 (talk) 09:13, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment - it is high time we had a policy on ethnic labelling, and strongly discouraged most of it. In many cases it appears to be a symptom of racism, even when the information itself cannot be contentious (eg labelling parliamentary representatives in ethnically divided nations). I don't know whether being an Estonian (or a Hungarian) is used as a mark of shame, in public life or in the playground, but we could act like responsible editors and stop thinking (and acting) in these terms. Some long term editors who may not have thought this before seem to be coming round, perhaps realising that lists such as this can only cause problems to us - and perhaps problems elsewhere. PR^talk 08:58, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Though it's not always racism that plays a part here, but a sort of WP:COI sometimes. The lists are being used as a facebook group for people. "Hey, BLANK is X. I'm X too." It energizes the critics of wikipedia's reliability as a standard academic source. Turns it into a game. Bulldog123 (talk) 09:13, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. Wikipedia is not an RS, because anyone can edit, not because of the fact that knowledge can be used for a myriad of purposes. Ethnicity is a prominent factor in our world, and its fitting that Wikipedia (in a sourced manner) provides a mention of ethnicity on biographies.Pectore^talk 03:54, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Tbsdy lives view

While not a violation of BLP, I'm very saddened to see that sourcing has taken a back seat here. If you can't provide a source, don't add the material! - Tbsdy lives (talk) 07:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Everyone wants proper sourcing for all of our articles. However, it doesn't seem that you have examined the history of what is being discussed here before commenting. If you had, you would have seen that most of the removed text was already properly sourced. Please return to comment once you've examined the history. Badagnani (talk) 07:46, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Quit telling everyone to examine the history. We have. Now—all other attempts at distraction aside—most of the removed text was not properly sourced. Some of it was sourced ("properly" being a relative term) but a great deal was not. Whether it needs to be sourced in the bio article vs. the list is certainly debatable, but I think everyone has heard enough of you telling them when they are or are not allowed to participate here. This is an Administrators' noticeboard, not a Badagnani's noticeboard. If you only want to hear comments under the terms you dictate, you've come to the wrong place. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 08:51, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Simply not true, most of the entries were sourced, either in the list or in the article about the person. This BLP violation argument is a classic straw man. Martintg (talk) 10:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment I counted how many once removed entries on List of Danish Americans by Bulldog are sourced without even checking the quality of the attached references. In turn, 53 people are unreferenced over referenced 13 people. So what Martintg and Badagnani have commented on the matter is not even true. This is a typical example of how Badagnani demonizes people who remove just to unrelated materials or unsourced ones to keep articles from violating policies of WP:V, WP:BLP, WP:OR. He also claimed that the closing admin should get one-week block[93] for deleting Category:Japanese citrus(see: Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2007_November_26) This hyper-exaggeration and bad-faith by him are saying just contractions for his own claims. Sadly, there are too many cases like this.--Caspian blue (talk) 15:12, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I guess thats the second time he asked an admin be blocked for closing opposite to his liking. Look (Here) with Badagnani's request for a "Overturn and one-month block for the admin who deleted this article blatantly against consensus. " Bulldog123 (talk) 19:57, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm sorry but I'm not getting it from where those numbers provided by Caspian blue come from? Out of 38 removed names [94] 22 had sourced references, if it's poorly sourced, anybody should feel free to request additional sources. Out of 14 that didn't have refs attached:

• Brigitte Nielsen, actress was born Gitte Nielsen in Rødovre, Denmark. source provided in the main article.
• Morten Lauridsen is of Danish ancestry, want to remove him from the list, fair enough, please bring it up at the talk page.
• Mike Tramp (Born Michael Trampenau January 14, 1961) is a Danish singer and songwriter
• King Diamond (born Kim Bendix Petersen, June 14, 1956, Copenhagen, Denmark

Just few examples that removals were based on not sourced or poorly sourced criteria is baseless. this doesn't mean that the list has no names on it that wouldn't be questionable. But only the names should have been removed then to justify the claims made by Bulldog123.

Since Bulldog123's words and actions were not in sync, his edits got reverted.--Termer (talk) 03:57, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

"Source provided in the main article" is not acceptable. We do not use Wikipedia articles as references for other Wikipedia articles, and by the same token a source used in one article does not automatically extend to another. They need to be separately sourced in each place. And it is not necessary to "bring it up at the talk page". It gets removed immediately, without discussion, period. The burden of proof (and the task of providing a proper citation) is on the person who wants to add the information, never on the person who wants to remove it. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 04:04, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm still missing something, how do you explain removals that were sourced directly on the list, the 22 out of 38 total? I mean lets say Viggo Mortensen - Half Danish, wholely Danish-speaking, That Viggo Mortensen the Danish-American actor. I just don't see a clear pattern or logic in those removals, in case you do, please explain.--Termer (talk) 05:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Is ghoulskool.net a reliable source for determining a person's nationality? I'm not sure, but I'd say probably not so much. And the same goes for theonering.net and buffyguide.com or whatever that stuff is. I don't know about each specific one, but as the policy says, "Be very firm about the use of high quality references." When in doubt, it can be removed. It can always be replaced later... it's up to you to start the discussion on the talk page defending the sources. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 05:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I never knew this was about nationality, it's about peoples heritage, the roots, that's all there is to it. Also, since a lot of "dead people" got removed, for example from the List_of_Norwegian_Americans. People who were born in Norway and died in the US. Such as Thorstein Veblen, Sven Oftedal, Jacob Tanner etc. how does that fit with the pattern?--Termer (talk) 05:33, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Everything on Wikipedia needs to be verifiable through a reliable source. Alive or dead, animal, mineral, or vegetable. BLP sets out a somewhat more aggressive position on living persons, but other content can still be removed per WP:V. Removing those names without first placing a fact tag might not be friendly, but it's certainly not in violation of policy. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 05:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Wrap up

Everyone calm down. This has degenerated into finger-pointing and a pissing contest. Here are my observations:

• MBisanz is correct that all BLP material, whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable must be sourced.
• User:Badagnani was adding BLP material, some sourced well, some not sourced well, some not sourced at all
• User:Bulldog123 was removing same material
• Admin User:Jayjg did warn people, but BLP allows admin actions in BLP areas even if they are involved in the issue: Administrators may enforce the removal of such material with page protection and blocks, even if they have been editing the article themselves.
• This one diff shows the crux of this whole issue: [95]. Here we see the edit warring over unsourced material and material with a good source as I'd certainly consider http://www.norway.org/News/archive/1998/199808ellis.htm a valid source-it is an official site. I also saw in some diffs sources such as yahoo and nndb. These are not valid sources. I never use yahoo, youtube, nndb for a source. They are not reliable.
• What obviously happened here is that Badagnani and Bulldog123 got into a dispute or have an ongoing dispute and got into wholesale actions (ie, edit wars) without looking at the merits of each piece of information involved. Each bit of info and each source needs to be evaluated on its own. These wholesale insertions and deletions of BLP material do no one any good at all. I see Jayjg trying to control this and I for one am glad it was brought here so more eyes can be brought in to look at the situation.
• If this dispute continues, I'll protect the pages and block people myself. Evaluate and valid source each BLP item. Don't edit war. — Rlevse • Talk • 12:34, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• Nobody has ever questioned that materials must be sourced.
• The reason I personally reverted Bulldog123 edits was due to he removed names randomly that wasn't based on sourced-not sourced criteria on selected X-American lists List_of_Danish_Americans etc. without touching others that are full of not sourced names like List_of_Mexican_Americans or have no sources whatsoever List_of_Czech_Americans etc.
• After asking to bring up any issues Bulldog123 might have with the selected lists at the relevant talk pages he continued to spam my user page that included not exactly civil arguments to support his opinions like:if I wanted to, I could slap you with a WP:VANDAL warning...you're not proving to me that you're behaving in a civil manner.
• I quit editing the lists about 24 hours before receiving a formal warning from User:Jayjg. The reason for quitting was due to Bulldog123 adding 3X Hungarian American to list of Estonian Americans based on a source that talked about completely different person. [96], [97], [98]
• I'm not intending to ever touch those lists again unless a clear policy for the lists is generated, unlike the current situation that some of the lists, like pointed out above, have no sources whatsoever, are like it seems considered OK . At the same time other selected lists, names get removed even though materials in many cases are sourced just fine.--Termer (talk) 17:37, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

That some lists don't have sources is probably due to no one bothering (caring?) to work on them. — Rlevse • Talk • 18:15, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I can't speculate on what were Bulldog123 motivations to target certain lists and ignore the others. For my part I hope I made it clear to Bulldog123: I can always admit that for someone who considers something common knowledge like the listed names in the article, might miss the necessity to source it even further. this doesn't mean that anything here shouldn't be better or more clearly sourced, so feel free to help out and list the names that you think would need better sourcing.--Termer (talk) 18:31, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

The sheer stupidity of complaining that I only targeted certain lists, when my attempts to do the same to other lists were reverted by User:Termer himself is imcomprehendable. In any case, I'm done here. We're going to open up a wiki-wide discussion on what to do with lists in general. I ask everyone to join in. Bulldog123 (talk) 19:47, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

So it's OK to call other editors stupid now? Although I think it would have been wise if you'd started up your agenda with open up a wiki-wide discussion on what to do with lists instead of just jumping in and removing names without any logic. A logic that could have been tied to a single reason -poorly or not sourced claims, that's not what you did, your removals were random on random lists and for some reason about 4-5 editors didnt get it what exactly are you after. Other than getting the lists deleted, the task that you failed in about a year ago--Termer (talk) 20:44, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Is there a language barrier here? This is an honest question, because it seems you may be an Estonian. If there is, it explains why we're not communicating here at all. I don't see how anyone can say "the names were removed without any logic" as there has been pages written now to help you understand (pages you blanked from your talk page). It doesn't look like you're reading anything. You have repeated yourself maybe five times now, with the same maddeningly repetitive statements like "Other than getting the lists deleted, the task that you failed in about a year" despite the four times I showed that I didn't nominate the lists, I only relisted per an agreement on the AfDs or "open up a wiki-wide discussion on what to do with lists instead of just jumping in and removing names without any logic" despite the numerous times I have linked you to that attempted discussion.

Am I wrong in saying that when you finally did see why your sources were wrong, you canvassed User:Martintg to come revert for you, because you knew full well that a significant number of the people on List of Estonians might never have the proper sources found (as those sources might not exist)? There's no other explanation for why Martin would jump in and revert at the time he did. You refuse to listen, you blank your talk page when I try to explain. We're done here. I do still hope you will cooperate on Talk:List of Estonians though. Bulldog123 (talk) 21:31, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

you canvassed User:Martintg to come revert for you? keep it coming, I think I have enough evidence of your false accusations uncivil statements etc. to start up an arbCom case against you.--Termer (talk) 21:38, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Termer, good luck; I've seen much more serious and prolonged harassment ignored. Bulldog, please stop throwing accusations that are based on bad faith alone and can't be proven.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll stop, but it is hard to assume good faith from someone who refuses to communicate and just edit wars. Bulldog123 (talk) 22:01, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

How about just denying it? You haven't done that. How can I know I'm wrong if you have yet to deny you did not bring Martin to come help you. Bulldog123 (talk) 21:51, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

-refuses to communicate, yet another false accusation. There are enough attempts to communicate with you on relevant talk pages not only by me but several other editors. In case you referring again to your bullying me around posts at my talk page, sorry but I have no reason to keep such posts filled with threats questioning my good faith on my talk page. Regarding you accusing me of meat-puppeting and also earlier directly in sock-puppeting, that's part of the pattern that you've used to justify your actions against number of editors who haven't agreed with your opinions.--Termer (talk) 23:53, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• Bulldog123, I already told you here that the only notification I got from Termer was to inform me of this ANI report, I also told you to rein in you gross assumptions of bad faith, yet you continue to do so with yet more baseless accusations of meat/sock puppetry. List of Estonian Americans is a part of Wikiproject Estonia, hence I can detect when people vandalise related pages by removal of sourced content against consensus, which you did. You accusation that I assisted Termer in edit warring is silly because Termer edited a wider range of List of XXX Americans articles, while I restricted my edits to a single article List of Estonian Americans, which is a part of Wikiproject Estonia. Seems to me that your activities are rather WP:POINTy in wake of a failed AfD. Martintg (talk) 01:46, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

• It should be also pointed out that I consider the filed X-Americans AN/I case backstabbing by Bulldog123 to gain the upper hand in the content dispute, since not me or anybody else was notified abut the case filed against the editors involved who had opposed Bulldog123 behavior. That was the reason I took the liberty to notify all the editors involved about the AN/I, and not just Martintg.--Termer (talk) 02:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Please comment: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ethnic_groups#Proposal_to_Remove_List_of_X-American_lists. Thanks!--Termer (talk) 18:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Personal information needs removing

Resolved

Hi. I've blocked the user who vandalised Gerald Dixon. However, some of the vandalism includes personal information, which unfortunately remained on the page for quite some time, and through a number of edits. I'm still quite new to these tools, so I'd be happier if someone with a bit more experience could go through the page and permanently remove that from the pages history. Could someone help, please? Thanks! StephenBuxton (talk) 11:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, a comparison between the last pre-Jamboree1968 version with the current one has produced no differences, and a glance over the list seems to suggest that all intermediate edits were vandalism+revert. I've deleted all recent revisions of the page. Additionally, it may be a good idea to request oversight. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:00, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I've contacted Oversight advising them of the revisions that need removing. StephenBuxton (talk) 16:01, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

It appears all of the deleted contribs of Jamboree1968 need oversighted. First one was August 25. — Satori Son 16:06, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

John Donahoe edits

Resolved

 – semi-protected for a week --Rodhullandemu 16:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

An edit from various IP addresses contains the following content regarding the current CEO of eBay, John Donahoe and has been repeatedly entered as follows: <BLP redacted - applies here too> I have requested a reference several times, particularly as this impugns a living person. I am requesting semi-protection of this article to keep the anonymous editor(s) at bay. Thanks, Alanraywiki (talk) 15:40, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Legal threats

Resolved

 – Not a legal threat per User talk:Seicer#"Take it further". seicer | talk | contribs 11:57, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

User Bravo Plantation has made legal threats aginst me on a now-closed Afd [99] and my talk page [100]. Edward321 (talk) 04:27, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Requested comment from the user. seicer | talk | contribs 04:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

If this is resolved, why has Bravo Plantation made an additional accusation saying I have libelled him [101] continued to press the issue [102] [103] [104] [105] [106] and been less than civil to Siecer [107]? Edward321 (talk) 23:41, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Block review

Resolved

 – BannedTruth, Valliant1967 and Dwnndog are hereby community banned --Rodhullandemu 23:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I've just indef'ed User:Dwnndog as a likely sock and a Nazi apologist without any useful edit. Since there has been no warning, please review. Most of my decision was based on reading Special:Contributions/Dwnndog. Thanks. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:54, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, this alone is worth a block, but it's such an obvious sock that it doesn't really matter anyway. I removed that diff from Valliant1967's talkpage and locked it. Black Kite 16:59, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
• Agree, Looks like indef blocked User:Bannedtruth again. No warning required. --Rodhullandemu 17:02, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
• Actually, I have some doubts about the sockpuppetry, since BT seemed to understand the function of his caps lock key, and his posts were a little more comprehensible. Also, Dwnndog was around before BT got blocked, posting very sporadically over a relatively long period of time. However I won't be sorry to see him go as he hasn't brought anything to the project but ineffectual talk page rants. The trolling alone is reason enough to be rid of him. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 17:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Regardless of sockpuppetry, it appears to me at least to be the only solution to editors like this who will not provide reliable sources is to block or ban them outright. I say that because the historical evidence appears to be sufficient to establish a position and that any editor seeking to change a long-standing and commonly-accepted historical viewpoint has an uphill struggle; I do not say that lightly, but if cogent evidence is adduced, it should be assessed impartially. --Rodhullandemu 23:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Community ban

Having said that, I'd like to discuss a community ban on BannedTruth/Valliant1967, as Valliant has vowed to return and continue his previous activities. [108] This will make it possible to revert on sight any further contributions he makes to any part of the project. Is this the right venue to begin such a discussion? --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 17:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

• You can do that anyway. A sockpuppeteering indef-blocked user who makes comments like that above is about as banned as you need to be; nobody's going to be unblocking that account any time soon. Guy (Help!) 18:05, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
• As Guy says, he's not going to be unblocked, and it seems a little moot anyway as practically all his socks' articlespace edits get reverted straight away. Black Kite 18:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
• Agreed. He's banned by default ("no admin willing to unblock") and from what I just saw, there's nothing we wouldn't revert on sight anyway. It doesn't hurt to make sure there's a consensus for the ban, sure, but in this case it is unnecessary. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 18:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
• Concur with the proposal, as redundant as it is: we don't need to formally rubber-stamp a motion to ban this user, what with the huge likelihood that no administrator will be willing to lift a block on him. As we're being asked to discuss a ban here, then yes, a ban is clearly justified, Steven. Anthøny ✉ 19:51, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
• Seems to me he's already banned, seeing that no admin is nearly ready ot lift the indef block. A community ban would be a mere formality at this point. Wildthing61476 (talk) 19:56, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
• Comment - Ok, then, I'll consider this resolved and that all further edits to any namespace from this user's socks can be reverted on sight. That should save a lot of drama at the talk pages. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 20:11, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Kairixd Eyes/Drawer Needed

Kairixd (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

already indef blocked as a vandalism-only account, see the last version of I Hate Wikipedia. Clearly not a new account, but I'm not sure which drawer he needs to be in. TravellingCari 01:05, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Disruptive edits from User:Goethean

The following discussion is an archived report. Please do not modify it. Subsequent reports should be made in a new section.

Content dispute. Please pursue dispute resolution ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:22, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

---

I would like to report the disruptive, tendentious edits, and uncivic, personal attacks of User:Goethean. I have recently noticed this (past 1 month or so) when editing the articles : Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Ramakrishna, Kali's Child. Before mentioning my views, I would like to cite other editors and warnings on the talk page of Goethean.

Warnings on his talk page

• User_talk:Goethean/2008a#Assuming_good_faith
• User_talk:Goethean/2008a#Careful...
• User_talk:Goethean/2008a#Word_of_Warning this is what the editor User:LoveMonkey says -

His edit warring, personal attacks, frustrating conduct and article squatting is nothing new, but defending him is taking wikipedia to a whole new level of hypocrisy.

• User_talk:Goethean/2008a#Obama_.2708

Sir, Your characterization of my edit was less than civil in the edit summary and bordered on an attack. If you want to revert, then let us talk on the talk page. Very cordially,--Die4Dixie

• User_talk:Goethean/2008a#That_wasn.27t_vandalism

Now I will briefly describe my own observations:

Ramakrishna aticle

Goethean's POV can be understood from his own edit, as follows :

Two editors have decided that the scholarship of the last 40 years should be rejected in favor of one hundred year-old sources that the Ramakrishna religious organization finds more amenable.

The point I am trying to put forth is that there is difference between improving an article and preventing it from becoming amenable to the Ramakrishna Religious organization. Improving the article may make it amenable or unamenable to someone. But here the POV is to make it unamenable against the guidelines of wikipedia... no matter if there are other scholarly works. I would like to mention that I am in no way affiliated to the Ramakrishna Religious organization, but this anti-religious organization POV prevails in majority of goethean's edits! Note: Above its 40 years.

To push this POV, it is interesting to note that guidelines of wikipedia have been breached. For ex: There is no guideline in WP:BIO which tells that the century old books are unreliable. But Goethean does exactly this here, also pls note the edit summary - "+{{totally-disputed}}. you have essentially destroyed the section by filling it with religious propaganda from the Mission. Sources from 1898 and 1929 are not reliable sources in the year 2008.". It is interesting to note that the books from 1898 and 1929 are from Max Muller a renowned indologist and Romain Rolland (who holds a nobel prize), who are no way associated with Ramakrishna mission and are notable third parties! but just because adding these books gives a +ve dimension, their inclusion was attacked as religious propoganda. This is clearly tendentious. A totally disputed tag was added just because the above scholarly works were referenced in the article! This is clearly disruptive. And moreover my additions were termed as - "What a mess. The new additions by Nvineeth are disasterous. It is comical that he thinks that..."[109]

Further its very important to note that when at a later point of time, other editors started contributing to the article, other books by Christopher Isherwood (1965) was being cited., And moreover there are majority of references from the journals, books from the recent time period ( there is no wikipedia guideline related to this though). Despite this, Goethean adds a totally disputed tag again with with edit summary - This tag stays on until you start using Ramakrishna scholarship from the past 30 years. Its interesting to note that what was 40 years above now has become 30 years, because the Christopher Isherwood (1965) falls in the range of 40 years! And moreover, a quick glance at the Ramakrishna#Notes makes the above claim untenable. Well this is not a place to discuss the reliability of source, so I will cut short here and talk further in the corresponding article.

I would also like mention the crude personal attacks made on the editors and the Ramakrishna Religious organization :

• Not an evil empire, just a bunch of liars. - [110]
• Ah, the work of those industrious swamis again, with their "nobility of character, dedication to truth and honesty, and other fine character traits"[111]

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna article

The personal attacks , POV pushing continues here,

• A well referenced article was termed as Deceptive editing.
• Here it is interesting to note that the same references which were used by Goethean before were termed as unreliable by Goethean himself, because it supported the relevant article in a positive manner. For example in this edit on 14:57, 3 May 2008, goethean added a reference from Neeval 1976, but when the same reference was used in the The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna article, its reliability was questioned because it came from 1976 - "Quotations from 1976, and two from 1943? You really expect editors to accept this as a neutral summary of the relevant scholarship pertaining to the subject? These tactics won't get far in any Wikipedia article."[112]. Why this hypocrisy?

• Personal attack alleging my religious POV.
• Another personal attack, and an edit which is not present in any of the wikipedia guidelines, and calling "pure mindless bhakti, you should be very suspicious of anything coming from the Ramakrishna Mission. "[113]
  • If you read the entire sentence from which Nvineeth very characteristically and misleadingly picked out a few words, you will see that it is not a personal attack at all: "If you are interested in the historical record rather than pure mindless bhakti, you should be very suspicious of anything coming from the Ramakrishna Mission." — goethean ॐ 16:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Kali's Child

The same story continues here, additions were termed as religious prosyletizing. How can adding academic content be termed like this? I honestly agree, there were POV in my edits, but this is no civic to attack a editor.

I have just touched upon just three articles, probably other editors from other articles can throw more light on this. Hope to see a fair investigation from admins. Pls indicate my mistakes if any. I am sure that wikipedia has very good admins, without bias towards religion, country etc., who can investigate this.

Thanks. -- vineeth (talk) 11:55, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

the content in question in Kali's Child was not neutral & did not in my opinion represent appropriate weight. A NPOV tag on that article in its present form seems highly appropriate, though the edit summary was unduly provocative. I haven't yet examined the other articles. DGG (talk) 18:15, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I have tried to correct my mistakes and those mistakes which were introduced later. Kindly see my comments, and I have tried to make corrections according to the NPOV guidelines of wikipedia. I request another editors to review the POV status now. -- vineeth (talk) 11:33, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

All additions to that article include Reliably Sourced references that discuss the book's scholarship (positive and negative). At the time, the book was controversial, and drew an extraordinary amount of well-aimed criticism by scholars (religious, psychological, and language). It's been almost 3 weeks since Goethean put the NPOV tag on the article. The specific problems he mentioned on the talk page were addressed long ago. Most of his 'discussion' consists of inflammatory edit summaries while adding tags, with no attempt to discuss on the talk page. This is also his recent pattern on the other articles. ~ priyanath ^talk 20:57, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

"The specific problems he mentioned on the talk page were addressed long ago."

Well, even I was under same impression, and was confused with POV words like claim, indicate, argue, allege, say etc., :) , but today when I read the NPOV tutorials - Words to avoid , Mind your nuances, lot of things got cleared. -- vineeth (talk) 15:25, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I just now saw this extensive critique of my editing history by User:Nvineeth. I hope that it prompts more experienced users to examine the group of pages that Nvineeth is editing. He has been editing in a highly POV fashion which dismisses the past 30 years of scholarship on south Asian studies in favor of thirty-year old sources which are favored by the Ramakrishna religious organization This organization has very blatantly shown that it has no commitment to honesty or to an accurate historical record. I trust that anyone who is familiar with the contributions of User:Lovemonkey or User:Die4Dixie will no be impressed by the attacks on my usertalk page which Nvineeth brings up here. Anyone who is familiar with Indian history, please look at the changes that Nvineeth and Priyanath have made to the Ramakrishna articles. They are systematically removing the scholarly sources and substituting sources more friendly to a purely religious organization. In doing so, they are impoverishing and in fact falsifying the article. All of Nveenth's edits should be reverted and the article should be re-written with NPOV in mind. — goethean ॐ 16:47, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Goethean, please stop making personal attacks against another editor[114] - an editor who has significantly improved the Ramakrishna related articles, using a very wide range of Reliable and academic Sources. The Ramakrishna article currently gives much more weight to those sources considered mainstream, but still includes the recent scholarship attempts to psychoanalyse Ramakrishna, which you added to the article. Look to the Britannica article on Ramkrishna for a reality check of how a mainstream, non-POV encyclopedia treats his biography, and how much weight it gives to the 'scholarship' of the last 30 years (hint: none). A look at the Ramakrishna footnotes shows arguably a strong over-reliance on some of the recent, and questionable, scholarship, if anything.~ priyanath ^talk 17:22, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Goethean, I can straight away provide proofs to make your arguments above untenable:

• [115] - I have added things which are clearly not amenable to the Ramakrishna Religious Organization, but provides valuable insights in the translation debate.
• [116] - Includes the recent scholarship, in fact a psychoanalysis.
• [117] - A recent journal of 2003.
• [118] - Another recent academic scholarly journal study of 2004, by Hawley.
• [119] - Removed highly POV, unencyclopedic content. and its very easy to know who added this. The presense of "My Ellipses" in an wikipedia article, indicates its quality and sense of ownership one has towards the article. Remember we dont own articles.
• [120] - I have added sil here, who is anti-ramakrishna mission
• [121] - I have added refs to Sil, Kali's child.
• [122] another recent scholarship of 1995 related to psychoanalysis.
• [123] - I have moved the Sil's view to the corresponding section.,
• [124] - When I was told that my ref was not reliable, I removed it, without further disputes.
• [125], check this addition, and read it carefully, one of the refs say, "His speech at times was abominably filthy.....", and any person doing religious propaganda would avoid this. In this edit I ensured that the major POVs are added, both for and against ramakrishna. How can this be a religious propoganda??
• [126] , I have removed the advertisement flowery language of the mission and improved its quality. Now, How do you prove that I am doing religious propaganda?

If the above examples are not sufficient, I can give more. -- vineeth (talk) 18:18, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Update, [127] check this latest addition of mine, it includes a variety of recent scholarship. And one scholarship is from 2008. Thanks. -- vineeth (talk) 18:37, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

What a load of horse manure. Goethean has been doing an excellent job trying to keep mainstream academic sourcing on these pages. Mark this as resolved, keep an eye on the complainant, who's obviously tendentious, and move on. --Relata refero (disp.) 18:55, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

No, what you're smelling is from Goethean's personal attacks, and previous history of giving undue credibility and weight to a hypotheses that has been rejected by mainstream Asian Studies scholars: Huston Smith, Gerald James Larson, and William Radice—and mainstream psychologists: Alan Roland and Somnath Bhattacharyya. Even then, Goethean's material is still included and covered in the Ramakrishna article, in the section Ramakrishna#Views_on_Ramakrishna. That's where recent scholarly analysis of Ramakrishna belongs, even if it is not accepted by the mainstream. Vineeth has not only kept that material, but referenced it and added more recent academic material. In fact, the "Views on Ramakrishna" section, which is nearly all recent scholarship, is the largest in the entire article, even larger than Ramakrishna's biography (details of Ramakrishna's life). That biography of course depends on sources older than 30 years—Ramakrishna died 122 years ago! The article as it stands is a fine balance of original bio sources and recent analysis, thanks to the efforts of Vineeth. The article is neutral and factual, and the tag should be removed. ~ priyanath ^talk 22:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Priyanath, please don't make me lose all respect for you. Per WP:NOR, every section of the article should be referenced to contemporary works of scholarship, not primary materials ("Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources"). Why? Because you and I (not to mention Nvineeth) are not scholars who are trained to use and analyze primary materials. And by the way, your list of Ramakrishna Mission-friendly (and RISA-unfriendly) scholars is downright comedic to anyone who knows the debate. The simple fact is that devotees of Ramakrishna don't like Ramakrishna scholarship and do everything in their power to suppress it. Stop asking Wikipedia administrators to help you. — goethean ॐ 06:32, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Why should we "move on"? There are several things still unresolved; the personal attacks should be investigated, instead of sweeping them under the carpet... isn't it? I can prove again and again that I have added more recent academic sources, scholarship than Goethean, so instead of saying "load of Horse manure", just check the proof I have given above. But this discussion is not just about the academic sources related to Ramakrishna, this is about personal attacks, disruptive editing. Even when there is ample evidence indicating the presence of recent scholarship, a untenable "totally disputed tag" is added! There is no question of moving on. -- vineeth (talk) 06:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Your POV changes to the article must be reverted before any progress can be made. — goethean ॐ 14:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Comments

This noticeboard is not useful to resolve content disputes. Please pursue dispute resolution and/or by seeking help from Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Hinduism. You can also start by requesting input from other editors via WP:3O or WP:RFC. Granted, sometimes tempers flare in these disputes, and it would be best to relax and have some tea. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:28, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Jossi's comment (which I read after I posted my reply to Goethean below). ~ priyanath ^talk 15:51, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Goethean, per your comment above regarding Primary Sources - the biographical material of Ramakrishna in the article is almost entirely from secondary sources. Look at the footnotes—the vast majority are from Isherwood, Rolland, and other academics. Those that are cited to original biographical sources can, and should, be cited to the secondary sources also.

The modern psychoanalysis of Ramakrishna is not biographical, but instead qualifies as commentary and analysis. Those things do belong in the article, and Vineeth has done a good job of collecting them in the 'Views' section. Far from being 'swept under the carpet', they have been collected in that 'Views' section, in a neutral way, with references. Note that those 'views' (including some biographical claims) are not widely accepted in the academic community - they are speculative, with many mainstream academics (Huston Smith, William Radice, and Gerald James Larson questioning their scholarship, translations, and integrity. ~ priyanath ^talk 15:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Speedy Deletion Of The Page 'Firestarter Mini Monster (Truck)' On September 14, 2008

Resolved

 – Creator of monster truck article has dropped the case. seicer | talk | contribs 04:10, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I am posting this in an effort to be taken seriously, and not to be immediately dismissed by administrators abusing their powers...specifically Renata3.

It began when I posted a legitimate page describing the history and technology involved in building an actual monster truck, named 'Firestarter'. Renata3, a self described 'deletionist' in her profile, decided to delete this page due to the fact that 'it was not about a person of note', a statement which I found interesting as my page is about a truck, not a person. (Stop laughing, you have pages and pages on monster trucks on Wikipedia...just type 'List Of Monster Trucks' in the search engine!)

Comments by other administrators, left after I posted my concerns to the Renata3 Talk page, addressed a misuse of authority by Renata3, and interestingly enough, one of her replies to a comment referred to 'avoiding the red tape' in the normal process involved when reviewing a page of this sort...aparently she has become judge, jury and executioner all in one.

I have an original, one of a kind vehicle I would like to introduce to the users of Wikipedia, it is new, it is groundbreaking, it is relevant, and veterans in the field of Monster Trucks were involved in it's making.

I hope you give it a fair shake, details on the 'noteworthy' aspects of this vehicle can be found on the Kildare2 Talk page in response to Renata3's claims and as an appeal to be involved in the dispute process.

Thank You. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kildare2 (talk • contribs) 03:16, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I've left a comment on your talk page. Dayewalker (talk) 03:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

For reference, also see this DRV request, where current consensus suggests the article should be restored and taken to AFD instead of the speedy delete. Kildare2: you need to read the notability guidelines to determine whether your truck is notable enough to be included. Tony Fox (arf!) 03:31, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

• While the criteria of A7 in this spirit was not proper, I see no administrator abuse. It was an error, to which we all make at one point or another. The article, though, is crap and doesn't deserve to be included in an encyclopedia because it is not notable. Sending it to AfD would result in its snowball'ed closure and would be a waste of everyone's time. I'd agree on reopening the article just to speedy delete it with a proper rationale, though. Furthermore, Deletion Review is not a venue for rants against administrators, and taking this to multiple administrators is seen as forum shopping. seicer | talk | contribs 03:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

• I went ahead and recreated it to redelete it under G11, as it was nothing more than spamming of his YouTube videos and web-site. If anyone wishes to overturn it to take it to AfD or whatever the consensus may be at DRV, go right on ahead. seicer | talk | contribs 03:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Are You Kidding Me!!!???

First, please allow me to thank Seicer for his comments, and referring to the subject of my page as 'crap.' Great input from another wonderful administrator!

After the lovely comments make by Seicer, and the lack of concern for proper proceedure shown by Renata3, I'm going to go ahead and ask that any information I've uploaded to Wikipedia be respectfully deleted from your Database. It's been made very apparent that this is not the place for me. Thanks for your time. Kildare2 (talk) 03:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - without getting into a debate on the inclusion of the article, referring to it as "crap" is unhelpful and bitey - it would've been better to say just "The article though doesn't deserve to be included in an encyclopedia because it is not notable." - it wasn't necessary to use an abusive term. Exxolon (talk) 15:02, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

• Anyone who calls foul and claims administrator abuse (and all of that nonsense), and then posts this on numerous talk pages is forum shopping and seeking attention. seicer | talk | contribs 15:18, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

How does that justify calling an editors contribution "crap", exactly?198.161.173.180 (talk) 21:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Seicer, with all due respect, that was kind of uncalled for. He wasn't forum shopping, he was trying to find an admin who would provide him with a copy of his work (something I believe one of our many templates tells him he can/should do). There's a difference between enforcing our guidelines on appropriate articles, and treating new people that don't know how things work here like dirt. --barneca (talk) 22:12, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comment I would like to personally thank Exxolon and Barneca for their comments, and especially showing me that all administrators on Wikipedia are not abusive and have some respect for the guidelines they are supposed to enforce. And yes, I will be reposting the page concerning the truck after it's debut.

Kildare2 (talk) 04:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

What do you do when a name per se isn't a violation of the naming conventions, yet...

Somehow Hymie Lebowitz (talk · contribs) doesn't strike me as being this user's real name, nor a valid name. Corvus cornix_talk 02:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Attempt to talk to them first. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 02:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I've left them a warning about blanking the section on the Antisemitism article, but I have no good faith that they're here to help build an encyclopedia. What do I say, "Please don't use a stereotypical Jewish name?" It isn't a violation, per se, as I said above. Corvus cornix_talk 02:45, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

A problematic username coupled with vandalism augments the username concern usually. They could probably be blocked as a vandalism only account if they continue in such a manner. I wouldn't even bother with the username. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 02:47, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

BLP violation on Talk:philosophy

I recently removed an off-topic discussion from Talk:philosophy here [128]. This discussion contained what I consider a BLP violation (eg, the comments by 271828182 about Jimbo Wales). Another editor, Snowded, then decided to restore this BLP violation to the page [129]. Could someone please talk to both these editors and suggest to them that this kind of thing is not appropriate? Skoojal (talk) 06:41, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

That edit can ideed be reverted as much as needed, 3rr has no sway over BLP worries. The edit also carried a blistering personal attack, which was no more helpful when leveled against JW than it would have been if made about any other editor. Gwen Gale (talk) 06:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried the compromise of only removing the IP's personal attacks on Jimbo while keeping the comments of other editors? Removing offtopic talkpage discussion usually serves mostly to annoy people, so it should be done only for egregious violations of code of conduct, not for simple offtopicness. Kusma (talk) 06:56, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

This edit by Snowded was also somewhat over the edge, both a personal attack and straying from AGF, saying straightforwardly that Wales had done something out of cronyism. At the very least, there are much more civil, polite and helpful ways of putting across such worries. I wouldn't support restoring the thread. Gwen Gale (talk) 07:04, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

This is getting really silly. Anyone who knows the history of the debates around Peter, some of which have taken place here, knows that it was tied up with serious issues about Wikipedia. Several admins felt that Peter was being unfairly treated, in part because he had fallen out with an Arbcom member. It was not possible to make any comment about his final ban so I placed a tribute to his work on one of the pages he edited and also expressed my opinion that wrong had been done. If there is a better forum for that tell me, no one should be immune from criticism in Wikipedia. Kusma's suggestion is a good one. --Snowded TALK 07:31, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's silly to ask that a tribute to one editor not carry a personal attack on another editor. If you have worries about how it all was handled, there are much more helpful ways of talking about them. Gwen Gale (talk) 07:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Interestingly it was impossible to make comments on the talk page when Peter was banned, the history was deleted. I am happy to agree that one of the comments that followed mine was excessive and should be deleted. Mine I think was fair comment and I didn't say anything that I will not say to Wales in public the next time we share a conference platform. I would also point out that moving the issue to this notice board before any real dialogue on the talk or user pages concerned is surprising to say the least. There are far more significant issues on many pages on a daily basis that never come here. We saw something similar with the speed with which Peter was banned before the final incident. That resulted in the admin concerned having to withdraw having been seen to have acted prematurely and without justification. It does look like a case of sacred cows, rather than the normal egalitarianism of Wikipedia. In my judgement Peter was unfairly treated. The tribute should have been left (possibly with one deletion) and then left to archive. Raising it here almost immediately is what is silly and smacks of censorship/threat. --Snowded TALK 07:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think anybody minds a tribute to another editor, banned or not. Maybe bringing it up here was hasty but please keep in mind, you were restoring a rather blistering personal attack and personal attacks aren't allowed. What you might say to someone's face in a meeting doesn't fall under WP:BLP and WP:NPA. How you edit with your user account does. Is it ok to drop this now? Gwen Gale (talk) 07:57, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I reverted a whole scale deletion, not just a deletion of offending material so I think it is unreasonable to imply I was involved in a "blistering attack". However its OK to drop it, it would have been on the page concerned with a civil exchange rather than immediate posting here by an editor who has had prior exchanges with Peter. I would use "imtimidatory" rather than "hasty" but so be it, its over.

Two points: (1) The initial comment by Snowded was criticism of Jimbo Wales, and can not in any way be construed as a personal attack. (2) It seems a bit of a reach to use BLP concerns to remove criticm of Wikipedia's self-described "constitutional monarch".

That said, the entire conversation was off-topic for that talk page and a legitimate candidate for removal on that basis. Ed Fitzgerald ^{t / c} 08:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Exactly right on your last point, Ed. BLP and CIVIL issues aside, an article talk page is a wholly inappropriate forum for such a grievance. It was correct to remove the entire section per WP:TALK#How to use article talk pages, which states "Keep discussions on the topic of how to improve the associated article. Irrelevant discussions are subject to removal." — Satori Son 15:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) possibly, but comment on the talk page of the banned user had been prevented for anyone who was not an administrator, so there was little alternative but to place some tribute on the page where the user had over the years made a major and significant contribution. It also lacks civility to (i) remove without discussion and (ii) run directly to this page without conversation. A simple posting to the talk page with "anyone mind if I delete this as its not what the talk page is about" would have been civil. --Snowded TALK 19:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

If the user's talk page was protected, presumably you could have posted your "tribute" using the "editprotected" template, although it might be tough to get an admin to post it with the criticism of Wales included. Surely there are other places on Wikipedia where that part would have been more appropriate? Ed Fitzgerald ^{t / c} 22:27, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I tried that template, and I was simply told that only an admin could post the template. Your reference to criticism of Wales is I think the issue here. --Snowded TALK 06

32, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The 'criticism' of Jimbo was a defamatory personal attack. Posting it wasn't appropriate; removing it was. Skoojal (talk) 07:39, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Really? Are you talking about my comment or that of another editor? If you are referencing my comment then you are talking nonsense. Even the "constitutional monarch" can be criticised you know, and I don't think he would have any problem with it. I think what we have here is that you had a run in with Peter and were involved in some of the controversy and can't cope with the fact that some people still respect Peter, and have little respect for the way he was hounded into committing a technical error so he could be banned. Given that the edit history has been expunged its not even possible to trace and publish that involvement, which is to my mind a blot on Wikipedia's record. --Snowded TALK 08:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking mainly of 271828182's comments, not yours. My motives aren't important; it only matters whether I did the right thing or not, and in terms of BLP policy I obviously did. Skoojal (talk) 08:08, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you did. This is not such a big deal, in that Wales often winds up as the handy target for all that is amiss with Wikipedia, but those comments, about any editor or BLP topic, had no place anywhere on the wiki, much less should they've been restored. Gwen Gale (talk) 08:14, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

You are right, its not a big deal and given the above clarifications I look forward to similar prompt action and reference to the Administrator's notice board when the offense is not against Arbcom or a ban directly from Wales (so its not a handy target issue). --Snowded TALK 08:28, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Massive copyright violations by NickNbeezy

NickNbeezy (talk · contribs) has been uploading massive amounts of copyright images using false/fake licenses for weeks now. I've left him messages and so have tons of other people and bots. What else can be done? JBsupreme (talk) 02:16, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I've left him a more personalized note on his talk page, asking him not to upload anything else without a full understanding of copyright policy. If he continues, he should be blocked. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 03:15, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any image uploads in his contrib list. Is this because they've all been deleted? Ed Fitzgerald ^{t / c} 03:47, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

To be direct, yes. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I suspected that was the case. Ed Fitzgerald ^{t / c} 07:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Legal threat

Hi there's a vandal making legal threats [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Long_term_abuse/Universe_Daily&diff=next&oldid=238766762 I've reverted due to blanking and am reporting the incident here. ϢereSpielChequers 08:21, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, this idiot. IP blocked for a couple of days, LTA page and talk reverted and semi-protected. If he doesn't want us to write bad things about him, he needs to not be a filthy spamming git and to not send me mailbombs. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ has nothing to declare except his jeans 08:27, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

That is one of the most persistent abusers of Wikimedia projects, he has, over a period of years, abused the project for promotional purposes including rampant domain hijacking and spamming. His sites are an uncontroversial instant blacklist on Meta. He might be able to get the LTA page blanked if he leaves us alone completely for at least a year, I will pencil in the likely date of his stopping in my diary now. On the other hand, we do not need to say that "X is an evil spamming bastard" or words to that effect when the abuse can be documented in neutral terms. The facts are quite damning enough. Guy (Help!) 08:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Facecrusher

Please note all the contributions made by User:Facecrusher (also the user name they chose) and consider if action is warranted.

Wanderer57 (talk) 13:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Already blocked indef. Thanks. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Support the block, although I don't understand what the name has to do with it. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:41, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Hello Od Mishehu - I consider the name to be in the "Offensive usernames" category covered in Wp:Username. Wanderer57 (talk) 17:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Not that clearly an unacceptable name per Wp:Username, but that is really up to the opinions of editors. Edison (talk) 20:20, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

How is "Facecrusher" offensive? Sounds like a 1970's wrestler...do an ARV if you really think it's bad in some way. BMW(drive) 23:19, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't seem offensive to me, either. I still stand by what I say above. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:14, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

This project is supposedly based on cooperation and civil discourse. If you think that choosing a pen name that threatens violence is a okay thing to do, fine. Wanderer57 (talk) 13:39, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Requesting experienced editor assistance

Could some experienced editors (especially those without American politics axes to grind) help out at Wasilla Assembly of God, and especially Talk:Wasilla Assembly of God. Coatracking has been a problem since the article was created, and the talk page environment is getting a bit too toxic. Yes, this is another Sarah Palin related mess. GRBerry 17:58, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that pretty well sums up the editwar going on here between some very experienced editors. Actions are now veering into Wikipedia:Tendentious editing. FWiW, I think it's time for an admin to step in and administer some "take a deep breath" and "retreat to neutral corners" logic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bzuk (talk • contribs) 19:07, 15 September 2008

I agree it needs admin attention. I've got no axe to grind one way or the other but had to step away cause it was just getting out of hand. What about an RfC or similar? Jasynnash2 (talk) 12:14, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Majorly revising history on old RFAs

Resolved

 – Content dispute should be settled through RFA talk page and dispute resolution - i.e. not through edit-warring. No admin action required, although, views welcome on the merits of the content dispute when they begin trying to resolve it properly. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:26, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

For reasons that aren't clear to me, User:Majorly is revising the tallies on RFAs. Despite the fact that the RFAs closed long ago, and !votes that happened after the closure weren't counted in the tally, Majorly is now going through them and using his own method for determining which !votes were valid. For example, on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Nandesuka it clearly says at the top, in bold, ending 18:46 15 September 2005, yet he insists on adding in two !votes that occurred after that time.[130] Similarly, on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/TShilo12, though it clearly says ended 18:27 11 December 2005 (UTC), he insists on adding a !vote that occurred after this time.[131] I see now he has done this on many other RFAs. I'm not sure what to make of it, but I'm not comfortable the fact that he's arbitrarily deciding when all these RFAs actually closed, and over-riding the tallies of the actual closing admins. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:58, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried talking to him? DuncanHill (talk) 02:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I understood his rationale, but disagreed with his reasoning and actions, and wanted community input, particularly as he appeared to be revising large numbers of somewhat important pages, and reverting those who disagreed. Talking to him wouldn't provide community input. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:26, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I have gone by the time the user was promoted, and the bureaucrat closed the discussion. The ending time is merely a guide. Since closes were often late, late votes were added. I'm simply updating the tally to reflect this. I don't think this is a problem... Majorly ^talk 02:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not a problem at all - As long as the votes were cast while the discussion was open, they are valid. Majorly is merely trying to improve accuracy. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 02:06, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

How are bureaucrats supposed to be able to close discussions without running into some sort of infinite regress, if they have to consider votes that have come in while they were deliberating? And isn't it up to the closing bureaucrat to set the tally? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:21, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

That's what I thought; are these revisions over-riding the tallies of the closing bureaucrats? Jayjg ^(talk) 02:25, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

No - if the votes were not to be counted, they should be stricken. The tallies simply weren't updated. Majorly ^talk 02:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

And how do you know for sure that was the case for each of these RFAs? Jayjg ^(talk) 02:34, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Because the bureaucrat would have stricken any vote that wasn't counted. Majorly ^talk 02:38, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

That's a logical fallacy known as begging the question. How do you know that all admins would have explicitly stricken (rather than just ignoring) uncounted !votes in these RFAs, aside from your belief that they would have done so? Jayjg ^(talk) 02:42, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

It's standard practice, that's how I know. If the closing bureaucrat intended anything different, they should be more helpful and either strike the votes that were late, or make it explicitly clear that they don't count. As those RfAs stand, to the casual reader, it looks like the tally is simply wrong - and it is, so I fixed it. Majorly ^talk 02:46, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

In other words, you have no idea, you're just making a bunch of assumptions about how each bureaucrat should have acted and thought, and then revising the history of the RFA to suit those assumptions. This, in my view, is both inaccurate and unhelpful. You are not the arbiter of bureaucrat thinking. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:59, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

You aren't the one to say if I don't know what I'm doing with this; please stop making assumptions yourself. I'm updating the RfAs to ensure they are all presented accurately. This, in my view, is incredibly lame drama mongering, and your conduct here has been rather disgraceful. Majorly ^talk 03:05, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but you're assuming they were presented "inaccurately", because, according to you, the bureaucrat should have stricken out any late votes he/she wasn't counting. You don't know because you can't go back in time and read the minds of those bureaucrats when they made their decisions. As for your personal comments, they, if anything, are the "conduct" that has been "rather disgraceful". Rather than attacking those who disagree with your position, address the issues they've raised. And this time, use something better than begging the question. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I addressed the "issue" already, but you didn't like my reasons. I can't do much about that. Majorly ^talk 03:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

You didn't address the issue, you just asserted that bureaucrats should have acted a certain way, and therefore revised the final tallies on dozens of RFAs to match the way you believed they should have acted. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:18, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't really know what the issue is, to be honest. Updating the tally to reflect the votes on the page, that were made before the bureaucrat closed, shouldn't be a problem. Why are you making it one? Majorly ^talk 03:24, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The issue is that you don't know how the bureaucrats tallied, and you shouldn't be over-riding the tallies of bureaucrats and admins who were actually there at the time. There's no reason to change these tallies; why are you inventing a problem where none exists? Jayjg ^(talk) 03:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't have much of an opinion on the matter—my own RfA was closed a day early, just shy of WP:100 (back when that was still significant) and I didn't cry myself to sleep about it—but I am wondering how this serves to improve Wikipedia, one way or the other. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 02:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Meh. I don't really see the use of updating the tallies, but I have no intention of warring over the matter either. After all, they are 3 years old and serve little use other than historical purposes. bibliomaniac15 02:59, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, as an example, one could also use them to try to modify policy. For example, if an editor was promoted by a !vote of 72-28, and after the !vote ended, another 6 Oppose !votes came in, one could use it to claim that standard for promotion was actually 68%. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:04, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

You're kidding right...? Obviously, despite 4 years here, you're still unfamiliar with the RfA process. Majorly ^talk 03:07, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

You're kidding right...? Comment on content, not on the contributor. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

If you're going to come up with imaginary scenarios, basically accusing me of doing this for malicious purposes you can't expect me to be pleased about it can you? Majorly ^talk 03:14, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I haven't come up with imaginary scenarios, or accused you of doing this for malicious purposes. I was asked how it could make a difference, and pointed out how it could make a difference, and, in fact, be abused. I don't think you're doing it for this reason, but you can't stop others from making use of it this way if they want. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure it Majorly's actions here are at all related to this RFA dispute at Meta m:Meta_talk:Requests_for_adminship#Upgrade_closed-request_template. MBisanz ^talk 03:08, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Not in the slightest. I'm updating these, as I gather some stats which I will presenting at RfA talk in due course. What is everyone's problem? Shall I stop helping? Majorly ^talk 03:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

No, how about you just stop revising tallies to include !votes that occurred after the end of the RFAs? Jayjg ^(talk) 03:18, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

RfAs end when the bureaucrat closes. Any that come after that I have removed, and any before that I have added on to the tally. How about you stop trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, and let me get on with this? Majorly ^talk 03:24, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Rather than continually asserting your personal beliefs, please read GRBerry's comment below. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:39, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

• Let me put it this way. There is no benefit to adjusting the tallies of old RFAs. Neither Majorly, nor anyone else except the closing 'crat, can know exactly which votes were given how much weight. Indeed, for those from 2005, not even the 'crat would be able to say that. Majorly, your actions are pointless at best and potentially harmful at worst. GRBerry 03:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the mainpoint here is that this is not actionable. What administrator intervention is required here? Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 03:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, lesse, if I restore these RFAs to the way they were before Majorly made his at best useless, at worst harmful changes, will Majorly revert me, as he has done three times already? Jayjg ^(talk) 03:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The edits should be reverted and Majorly should feel free to add additional notation, perhaps on the RFA talk page, to reflect their view of the "correct" count. Then when they eventually present their stats at RFA talk in due course, other people will have a clue why they're doing it. Then there may be consensus to change the figures left in place by the 'crat who closed the RFA. Franamax (talk) 03:48, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

What earthly benefit is there to such historical revisionism? Is there nothing at all in Wikipedia that needs editing, so that skilled editors must spend their time revising the final admin votes from years ago to totals different from what the closing 'crats reported? How can this possible improve Wikipedia? Please leave the totals alone. Edison (talk) 03:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

In my view, it is harmless. But I honestly cannot figure out a reason why it matters at this point. Especially RfA's from 2005. Resolute 03:55, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The actions of both Majorly and Jayjg are solutions looking for a problem. Who cares? WP:LAME anyone? --B (talk) 03:58, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

And drama in search of a timeslot, perhaps?   user:j    (aka justen)   04:05, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Lame indeed. A lot of time and energy (on both sides) that could be better spent writing an article. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 04:10, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

• And what administrative action is required here? seicer | talk | contribs 04:06, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

None, I suggest somebody marks this as resolved. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 04:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Oddly enough, GRBerry, Franamax, Edison, ThuranX, Stephan Schulz, and I all disagree with you. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with the close here, as jayjg seems to be seeking a community consensus that these edits should stop, and be reverted. I happen to agree with him, this statistical monkeying seems harnless on the surface, but I can see subtle exploitations growing out of it... 'Actually, admin approvals used to be lower/higher/the same as they are now in terms of percentages of vote, and there is/isn't a trend for the votes to go a/b', which can be used as leverage to change policy in various places. I think these should all be rolled back. ThuranX (talk) 04:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

There you go! That's the admin resolution I'm looking for. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:34, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Ummm... thank you? or am I being mocked? ThuranX (talk) 05:01, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I was enthusiastically agreeing with you. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:19, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

• Given that all those RfA's have a big notice placed there by the closing bureaucrat that says "The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a successful request for adminship. Please do not modify it." (my emphasis), I would strongly expect and recommend to abide by that request and long-standing practice and not modify it. It's not a vote, anyways, so the tally, correct or not, is not necessarily even used in the decision. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 04:46, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
  • One would expect that, wouldn't one? DUnno why no one's interested in supporting the enforcing of that though. ThuranX (talk) 05:01, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Several people are, actually, at least based on this discussion. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:19, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
      • Pile-on support: No reason to change them, please change them all back. Majorly was bold, he's been (or will be) reverted. No harm no foul all around, ok? - brenneman 06:26, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
        • I agree, too. But Majorly wasn't wrong to give it a try, and nobody has broken any rules at this point, so I just don't see what admin action is needed. The issue has been raised and now we can revisit it if and when there's ever a problem. Nobody is going to forget this discussion; of all the sins Wikipedia has been accused of, a short memory is not one of them. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 07:10, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
          • On the topic of memory though, who actually does monitor edits to Archive pages and "preserved ... please do not modify" sections? Don't these generally drop off watchlists? From a very few accidental spots where I've seen it on usercontribs, I suspect it may be not uncommon. It could be called revisionism aka don't believe what you read in the archived discussion, our institutional memory. It may have been subtly changed. Of course you should always check the page history - snap poll though, how many of you obsessively check pagehist when consulting archives? (No admin action required for this particular post - just something that's bugged me for a while) Franamax (talk) 07:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, if someone tried to use it to change policy somewhere down the line (as is the supposed possibility), I'm sure lots of people would look at the page history and immediately see it was changed. Then someone at that hypothetical discussion would remember that we had this discussion today, because that's how it always goes. They would add a link to this discussion from that future discussion, everyone there would crucify the person who suggested the change (especially if it was Majorly), they'd write a blurb about it on the Wikipedia Signpost, and that would be the end of it. And if it never gets used to alter policy, then it doesn't matter anyway. Either way, it can't be abused. And, either way, it's completely pointless to change them in the first place. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 08:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

There are so many problems and so many things to do on this pedia, yet, you're both arguing over how the tally should be on some ancient RFAs...eugh! Jayjg, if you're in a (obvious content) dispute and want community attention, you need to do what any other user would have to do: make up an RFC on the RFA talk page (and if you need additional admin input, make a note at the WP:AN requesting more input) - this isn't the venue! My own view is similar to that of B and others: this is a complete waste of space on ANI, it's unnecessary drama, and does zilch for the pedia. But as several users have indicated already, no admin action is required. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:24, 16 September 2008 (UTC) (Just coming to the discussion...) Wow, people are still voting on my adminship 3 years after my RfA ended? I think I'm flattered! Nandesuka (talk) 13:10, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request for admin to evaluate survey at Talk:Sarah_Palin#Brief_Survey_--_Religious_Perspective.

We recently completed a brief survey in the Sarah Palin article. The survey was to find consensus on whether to delete a section called "Religious Perspective". While editors were discussing the survey, an editor deleted the section before the survey ended, on false pretenses. Regardless, I would like to get closure on the survey and need a fair minded admin with experience determining consensus to review this article and make an assessment and close the survey. (Who has not participated in the survey) Regardless of the outcome, I don't have any inclination to edit the article again anytime soon. Please see Talk:Sarah_Palin#Brief_Survey_--_Religious_Perspective. A quick Consensus, or No Consensus evaluation would be appreciated. Atom (talk) 12:34, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

User:69.110.68.30

Could I please have someone look into the behaviour of User:69.110.68.30? Currently they have accused me of being a troll and vandal, has totally ignore my warnings about the 3RR (has been reported to WP:AN/3RR and in their latest action has reverted a reasonable rewrite of article Right Now (Van Halen song) with the edit comment of "Repair of damage caused by busy body". Rather than a block, however, I would prefer a semi-protection of the article. - Tbsdy lives (talk) 12:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

My total rewrite where I have attempted to address the anons concerns has now been reverted with the edit comment Repair of damage caused by busy body. I was wondering if I could get an admin to look into this a bit further? I don't feel that my edit was unreasonable, and this is now the 5th revert. - Tbsdy lives (talk) 13:06, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

left a note on his talk. Xavexgoem (talk) 13:10, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Backlog at WP:AIV

Resolved

 – WP:AIV has been polished clean once more

Could some admins please help clean up the log over there? Thanks!

Peace! SWik78 (talk • contribs) 13:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

 Done Pedro :  Chat  14:23, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

TTN nominating large numbers of pages for deletion

User:TTN is at it again rapidly and pointedly mass nominating articles for deletion/voting to delete. Notice these edits from September 11 through 15. Many of those discussions appear to be merge or redirect in the actual consensus, thus one has to ask why is this user not trying talk page discussions first? --172.167.135.61 (talk) 07:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Judging from the articles he listed under Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Deletion, his nominations have significant support for merging/deletion. Like every wikipedian, he has the right to nominate (which sufficiently alerts any concerned editor) any article for deletion or merger that he wishes - and that's what he does. I don't see any reason where or why an admin should step in. – sgeureka ^t•c 09:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

FYI, his arbcom imposed restriction expired 5 days ago. MER-C 13:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps he didn't try talk page discussions first because he was prohibited from starting discussions for 6 months? Or because talk page discussions on such articles are invariably a waste of time, because they attract primarily people that think the topic of the page is interesting? When the page is bad enough, taking it straight to AFD is usually the only effective technique.Kww (talk) 13:59, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Shotgun nominations are never a good way to do things. Jtrainor (talk) 17:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

If by "shotgun" you mean "widely scattered, without aim", I disagree with the characterization: so far, none of the articles he has nominated are getting "keep" votes, much less a consensus to keep. That's a sign of pretty good aim. If by "shotgun" you are referring to force, I disagree as well. Over 90% of the articles I nominate at AFD get deleted, and opening the discussion on the talk page would just slow the process down. Even if you reach an agreement on the talk page to delete, you still have to take it to AFD to get it done.Kww (talk) 17:24, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Its still obnoxious/disruptive. Of the 18 active afd discussions in WP:ANIME, this dude has started 16 of them. The majority of them in under 24 hours. 208.245.87.2 (talk) 19:00, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

That, I am afraid, is an indication that Wikiprojects are very often inclined to turn corners of Wikipedia into fan-wikis, and lose sight of the fact that Wikipedia is not supposed to be a repository for original plot synopses and the like. If it would offend you less for the project to prune its own cruft, feel free to suggest that. Guy (Help!) 19:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Also, spot-checking the articles he's AFD'ing, they've had (not all, but most) cleanup templates for a month or more. While there's no deadline, if people want a topic so much but can't be bothered to clean up something tagged as such, it's likely material for deletion. Nothing I've seen him doing seems to be against the spirit of the general discussion of the ArbCom case at this point, thus no reason for concern. --MASEM 19:32, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

In regards to having the project members do their own pruning: Good luck. That was tried with Wikiproject Warhammer 40,000, and all it resulted in was a lot of abuse directed at the pruners from the project members. Eventually, one-by-one the people working to clean out the rat's nest of largely copyvio in-universe cruft got banned/harassed/tired until they stopped trying. Hooray for collaboration! --Jaysweet (talk) 19:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd love to say that surprises me, but sadly it does not. As we see here, fanboys are very defensive of their pet topics. Guy (Help!) 20:32, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

There are some best practice areas. The area I am (rather obviously, by my name) a fan of is in some ways a poster child for that (lots of short stubby articles and breaches of WP:PLOT and WP:OR). I won't say a poster child for the clean-up efforts as the efforts are rather slow. I also won't say a poster child for non-notable stuff, because so much secondary literature has now been written about the works of J. R. R. Tolkien that it is no longer easy to genuinely assess non-notability and whether things are original research unless you've kept up with the literature. For example, this edit claimed something was OR, when in fact there are plenty of sources for that if you know where to look (the AfD got closed as keep, we recently decided there is actually no deadline, which was one of the more hilarious [in a good way] closes I've ever seen at AfD). Getting back to the issues here, there must be examples out there of good "cruft" (to use a rather pejorative term) editors and good projects that improve an area of cruft? I do find that people intuitively assume that lots of short stubby articles are the way to go, and it takes a while for new (and old) editors to find out that appropriate lists and redirects pointing to sections of lists (and categorising the redirects) can help (though like anything, this can be overdone). Hopefully the "best practice" of using redirects and lists has spread. Whether adequately sourcing such lists (to secondary literature) and avoiding WP:PLOT (the other types of "best practice") have spread, I don't know. Carcharoth (talk) 04:46, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I disagree with this - the 40k project is now mostly tidy, and the goals established last November (by the project members, no doubt) have now mostly been met. Most of the stop energy over the last few months (when the AfDs started really coming in thick and fast) was from Le Grand Roi, who is no longer with us. I see the 40k project as pretty much the poster child for fancruft cleanup. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

How is that obnoxious or disruptive? I've started a bunch as well, and I'm even a member of said project (we are actually working on cleaning up articles under our helm, but limited number of members makes it slower going). If you look at all of the AfDs for the project, you'll likely find that most in the last year were actually started by the project! And, as already noted, many were already pinged for issues, including notability, and did not have much of a clear target to merge to. Most he's started I believe have also generally been leaning towards delete or merge. TTN is also actively participating in several merge discussions regarding merges of characters to a single list, and I'm pretty sure he even started some himself. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 19:59, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

As much as having WP:ANIME (which I am a member of) compared to the 40K project saddens me (given the giant disparity in quality articles between the two and all the work being directed towards cleaning stuff up), I don't see anything particularly disruptive with the AfD nominations. It's not like the the grand majority of those AfDs are even going to be contentious, given that they have had cleanup tags for a while and are probably going to be deleted. sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 20:40, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I was going to say something a lot like what Collectonian just wrote, but a lot less succinct and a lot pithy er. So instead I will just "ditto" what Collectonian said. --Kralizec! (talk) 20:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

In almost all cases it would seem that merging or redirecting is a reasonable solution and one that almost all editors would support. Since deletion policy is that these are preferred to outright deletion, I think bring these to afd without at least having tried to obtain consensus for that was clearly against WP:DP. So much of the drama here can be avoid by compromise. As is, the impression given is that the people are deliberately moving first by the strongest and most aggressive route. some people may not think that at least shows an inclination towards disruption. DGG (talk) 03:34, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

When we have articles like 'background filler characters in a cartoon', about 'guy with red hair' 'woman in green blouse', do we really need to merge 'characters appear in the background of shows set in cities.' into the 'main article'? Please. These articles were long tagged, long neglected, and are non-notable. I found a couple worth cleaning up in there, and said so, supported a couple merges, but a lot are outright deletions. TTN is now having a number of articles widely discussed. Further, as noted above, no one responded to the prodding tags previously added, why would they react now? Good on TTN. ThuranX (talk) 03:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

If the minor character is named, then a redirect is helpful. If the character is not named, then a redirect is probably not needed. More generally, Thuran, do you use Wikipedia to actually search for information? The way I think of this, and the way I hope others think as well, is when I search for some obscure topic where we don't have an article, I want to be taken to the most relevant article. If a redirect is left in place, or recreated after deletion (just redirecting is infinitely more efficient), then that helps people who search for that term. The alternative is for them to be told we have no article, and for us to assume they will click search rather than give up. Carcharoth (talk) 04:28, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Oooh... thank you Carcharoth! If you weren't ALWAYS so condescending, I'd take that as a personal attack. Simply put, there is no reason for rampant holidstic inclusionism. Most of these articles have nothign to offer in terms of information, but we can be assured that the same crufters who disregard all tagging will revert war over redirects, insisting the article was both 'fine like it is' and 'important to the fans, and to anyone who wants to become a fan'. Consensus on many of these is clearly delete, on others, redirect, cleanup or keep. If you think the entire AfD and article review system of wikipedia is that awful, i really suggest you find greener pastures. Conservapedia is certainly missing some topics. I for one support TTN continuing this pace and productive improvement of the encyclopedia.ThuranX (talk) 04:43, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Thuran, I apologise for the personal question. I was trying to say that some editors don't always think from the perspective of a reader searching for information. I didn't mean to make it personal. If you think I'm condescending, could you tell me that politely? I'd be much more likely to change my posting style if you did so. I do try to be clear and helpful. If that comes across as condescending to some, others might appreciate it. I don't consider careful use of redirects to be rampant inclusionism. If people revert war over a redirect, it can be protected. The point I'm making is that if something has a name, people will search for it. If a redirect is in place, that can discourage recreation. I'm not saying it works all the time, but there are areas that are mature and developed, that have redirects in place, and where edit warring over redirects does not occur. Sometimes you have to show people what you mean (by performing a redirect, and possibly a merge) instead of discussing whether a redirect or delete is better. Carcharoth (talk) 04:54, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

So now you're insistign that TTN instead Bold, Revet, discuss, over and over at pages that are almost entirely neglected, over and over, dragged into the same morass of bullshit edit warring that you want to see him in trouble for. So instead he goes with process, gets community input, nad you yell at him for that too. This is a catch22 for TTN you're constructing. If he'd BRD'd, you'd accuse him of edit warring outside process, when he goes in process, you accuse him of policy gaming. Forget this. More condescension from you topping all that off, it's not worth replying any more to your baiting comments. ThuranX (talk) 04:58, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

<sigh> For the record, I have not yelled at TTN and I'm supporting TTN's actions in principle (I said below that AfDs for now are probably best). I'm trying to point out that diplomatic merging and redirecting can work. There are loads of AfDs that I would merge and redirect, but I don't do that because it would disrupt the process. Thuran, I've had arguments with you before, but they were so far in the past (months ago) that I thought you wouldn't react to my postings like a red rag to a bull. I was wrong, and like you I'm going to walk away from this now. Carcharoth (talk) 05:10, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

DGG, I think the reason for the debates is that TTN probably realises that resuming 'blanking-and-redirecting' without discussion would be less than helpful. I hope no-one encourages TTN to do so, but at some point, if someone's judgment on whether discussion is needed (ie. whether to redirect without merging, to merge, or to start a discussion) has improved, then they should be allowed to exercise that new level of judgment. Assessing whether they have that level of judgment will need a few AfDs, probably. Personally, I always merge and make sure the destination article at a minimum has a mention of the redirect name, if not a section on the redirect. If you do that, then when someone follows a link, or does a search, and end up at some anime show article, and then do a search on the page for the name (eg. when there is no goo section to redirect to, though redirecting to a "minor characters" section is good), the search should at least find a mention of the name. It is extremely annoying when following a redirect to find that the article you end up as doesn't mention the redirect. Carcharoth (talk) 04:28, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

These days I think TTN gets on people's nerves more because he's User:TTN than because there's anything wrong with his noms. I would like to take exception to the claim that WikiProjects are full of fanboys though: the active collaborators on WP:MANGA are all quite rational about deletion of crufty pages. --erachima talk 04:38, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Random response to some comments above. In my view (I hope I can still express my views without sounding or being accused of being condescending), it is best for "fan" editors to work on the main article for a show or topic area, rather than create or try and improve stub articles on minor characters and minor topics. Deletion nominations and discussion can put new editors off (some might say that is a good thing, but remember that people that come here to edit fan article can sometimes go on to edit other areas and develop other interests). That's why I think careful management, with redirections, merges, and channelling efforts towards the articles that we need and that will be kept, can be a better approach. I'm not trying to overturn years of AfD culture, but just trying to explain the reasons for some of my views. Carcharoth (talk) 05:05, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Please note that I have opened a Request for Clarification in relation to the lapse of TTN's recent Arbcom restriction, and the creation of high volumes of XfDs since. You can find it here. Many thanks, Gazimoff 18:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Vision Guided Robotic Systems

I'm having fun and games with User:Yingz who appears to not notice or wish to respond on his talk page to my concerns. He's uploaded a bunch of images here and on wikicommons which do not appear to be free, despite his tagging them as such. When he uses them he adds an attribution of "Provided by RNA Automation and SVIA". I've reported this on the image Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. However he also appears to be adding what smacks of advertising in "his" article; on a particular system. I've removed the section, and what I feel are non-free images, but he keeps adding them back in. I don't want to hit 3RR myself and I believe he's editing in good faith, if somewhat misguided over what is mean by free images, so could a higher power (*grin*) weigh in please? --Blowdart | ^talk 14:59, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

That's an uncategorized robotic article that had gone unnoticed by the robotics community. I added it to Category:Industrial robots, which should, over time, get it more attention and move it away from an article about a single vendor. --John Nagle (talk) 17:07, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Sockpuppet blocks needed

Request some sock blocks based on Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Dstern1. Thanks. Kelly ^hi! 04:17, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Why are we blocking the main account indef? I'd be more inclined to say many days since I don't believe the socks were used for civility abuse, just trickery.--Tznkai (talk) 14:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The user can post an unblock request, if he/she wishes. --Aude (talk) 18:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Need adminstrator e-mail assistance

Resolved

The JroseTN (talk · contribs) has been created to purely send an e-mail to me concerning blocked sockpuppet Cowboycaleb1 (talk · contribs). Could an administrator possibly send an e-mail to me as soon as possible to discuss this with me via e-mail. Thanks, D.M.N. (talk) 16:21, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Done. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:38, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

User:151.188.213.175

The above unregistered user has vandalised several pages today, and I think he should be blocked. Kraxler (talk) 16:32, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks like the IP has stopped for now. WP:AIV is where this belongs, though. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:39, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

IPs keep on blanking logos from an article

Hi, can someone help out with this? I don't really get what the beef is, but some IP addresses keep on blanking out logos from the Office of Strategic Services article. This is one of the diffs [132]. They keep saying the logos are trademarked by some OSS Society in Virginia but when I checked on this the logos seem to be genuine (I guess??, theyre on the National Park Service website and also on the cover of a book about OSS). Its just IPs so I cant even e-mail them to ask them to clarify :-( those same IPs are also vandalizing commons the same images. Schweingesicht (talk) 21:09, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

A quick WhoIs search shows the IP they are using is from "TD International, LLC". According to their website, TD International "is a strategic advisory firm providing clarity and direction to corporate and governmental clients". So, I don't think they would know if a logo was copyrighted or not. I say Warn4im them, readd the logo, and ship them off to AIV. This is just the opinion of an non-admin though. - NeutralHomer • Talk 21:15, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Neutralhomer, and simply because vandalism is not an appropriate way to challenge the copyright/trademark status of an image. I'll inform the latest IP to contact OTRS if he has a trademark complaint, which all future IPs should. Someguy1221 (talk) 21:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I added the OSS page to my watchlist. A couple ago, Chrismichelle, once again, removed those images from the page. I reverted and added a Warn1, but this appears to be a way to go around the IP user. - NeutralHomer • Talk 19:25, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I have requested a checkuser to see if the IP user, 68.165.208.42, and the registered user, Chrismichelle, are in fact one-in-the-same. - NeutralHomer • Talk 19:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

PLEASE PLEASE HELP

Resolved

 – blocked -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

can someone pleeeaase help me !!; my user ID is "yogagates" - recently a spam user created a username similar to mine with a added s in the end "yogagatesss" and vandalsing each of my post and edits. He create hoax messages and deletes what ever I edit. The discussion page of the topc is overflowing with edits and deletion of name yogagates and yogagatess.

Can someone block this user or request him to change the user ID - please helpp —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yogagates (talk • contribs) 18:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

S/he even made a re-direct to Yogagates' discussion-page[133]. Clear vandal only! --Floridianed (talk) 19:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Blocked. You can report these to WP:AIV or WP:UAA in the future. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Apparent block evasion

Resolved

 – Blocked, tagged, put back in the drawer

It appears from what is posted here that the user admits he is a sock of banned User:Wikinger? Karenjc 19:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah...getting most of them as they pop up - FPaS blocked him, I've tagged the pages. Thanks. _Gb^T/c 19:46, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Possible move vandalism

Resolved

 – blocked - what a naughty giant

Could someone look at Special:Contributions/JGDddad. I don't understand what's going on here (I know very little about vandalism) but it looks like moving articles and putting obscene comments. JASpencer (talk) 19:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Account blocked and vandalism reverted. Pedro :  Chat  19:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Tohd8BohaithuGh1 (talk · contribs) recent edits

I guess it is my day to stumble across completely bizarre edits. I just spotted the above user making an edit to an article in which he cleaned up the cites but the edit was labeled just edited page (well obviously?) [134]. That in itself while strange isn't bad... however I decided to check the rest of his contribs to see if this was a habit and I should leave him a message or what. I found something truly bizarre. He's got plenty of warnings regarding deletions, userfying things, etc. He appears to be using an automated tool of some sort, but whats most bizarre are some of the other edits he's doing. Like reverting a new user in the sandbox [135], creating this truly bizarre redirect [136] and other things. I'm not sure it needs admin attention, but I see a lot of communication coming at him about some of his behaviour and nothing coming back from him through a few page search of his contribs. He's does have a tendency though to mark a lot of his edits minor with an edit summary of "edited the page" which isn't particularly helpful. Many of his edits do appear helpful, just some seem out of place or strange.--Crossmr (talk) 13:08, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I've undone the edits to user sandboxes; Tohd8BohaithuGh1 cleared several user sandboxes and replaced them with Wikipedia Sandbox templates, and there was no evidence the sandboxes were inappropriate or that there had been any discussion with the users. --Snigbrook ^(talk) 14:44, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

He's continuing to make bizarre edits -- creating a new page Astrick as a redirect to Asterisk, creating Talk pages for users telling them that they are blocked or putting welcome templates on which thank them for their contributions in "Wikipedia:changing username" etc. This new business with talk pages looks worrying.Doug Weller (talk) 16:32, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I have left a note telling the user his edits are being discussed here. DGG (talk) 17:29, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

apparently this had already been done, but I sure would like to hear from the editor. DGG (talk) 01:30, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

He edited the section below, yet hasn't responded here. From my skimming of his contribs, he doesn't seem to engage in 2 way conversation. As I said there is a lot of talk coming at him, but not going the other way. This edit is a little weird [137]. He's tagged the vandal from below as temporarily blocked, but he was blocked as a sock. Perhaps someone wants to put the right template there.--Crossmr (talk) 01:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Should we be making these kinds of redirects? [138] article space to wikispace? I was under the impression, no.--Crossmr (talk) 01:41, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

His creation of Astrick was seemingly to link this page [139]. With the excuse he was doing it to avoid the redirect... yet he redirected Astrick to Asterisk.--Crossmr (talk) 02:15, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Also, this user welcomed User talk:Tonytunnycliffe with the {{welcomespam}} which confused Tony. Could an admin confirm with a check of Tony's deleted contribs to make sure there are no speedied pages or other welcomespam worthy material, and let him know what if anything. I took a look through and saw nothing that would warrant a spam notice. The only way I could understand this was that Tohd was spamming with welcome messages, and not welcoming/warning users who had put up spam material. The edits and the lack of responses are confusing, but I'm just chalking this up to relatively new user. Would a second notice with a pointer to this specific section help? I'm not sure the notices got his attention here. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:25, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

He's copied a welcome template from User:Cocoaguy to User talk:Westhydeian - no problem, except that the template invites the user to contact Cocoaguy for help. Doug Weller (talk) 07:38, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

He had a second message from DGG, I'd already left him one. he's had 2 notifications and has been to this page (See section below) I can only take that to mean that he doesn't wish to explain himself.--Crossmr (talk) 07:56, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

So, what would be the appropriate action to take now? Doug Weller (talk) 08:28, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I can easily admit that some of his edits are helpful (cite cleanup) but that doesn't give him permission to be a nuisance otherwise. If he continues to make these other troubling edits (on other uses pages and and articles) we don't have much choice.--Crossmr (talk) 08:46, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I've left him a notice to make sure that he sees this specific thread. He hasn't made any edits in several hours, so hopefully he'll respond here and this will be all cleared up. -Optigan13 (talk) 09:09, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd already left him a direct link to this thread. After leaving it for him, he came here and edited the section below this. The only other option would be for someone to call up the page and prop his eyelids open in front of his monitor to make 110% sure that he's seen it. I think we've more than gone out of our way to ensure he's seen it and edited since being notified of this thread.--Crossmr (talk) 10:44, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

He's come on to make a couple spelling redirects then disappear again...--Crossmr (talk) 07:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

He's still failed to come and explain his edits but come back to make puzzling edits like this [140]. He claims to be bypassing the redirect, but just sending it to another redirect...--Crossmr (talk) 22:05, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Well he's gotten multiple warnings, to no avail. At least the pace he is fairly slow, I've pulled similar errors with redirects in the past only with AWB. Unfortunately I think a block may be necessary to get some kind of response out of him, even if it is just a whoops, my mistake type of response. The problem is these edits are mildly disruptive by confusing other users and forcing people to correct his mistakes without limited acknowledgment/change from him. Could some admin review this users edits and see where to go from here? -Optigan13 (talk)

I've given him a level 4 warning, if that doesn't get his attention, nothing will.--Crossmr (talk) 08:55, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, well sorry about the edits if you think they are disruptive. This edit was a mistake and I apologize for any inconvenience caused. If you want to block me, go ahead and do so if you want to just block people randomly. Tohd8BohaithuGh1 (talk) 18:49, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

It's probably important for you to realize that this would definitely not be a case of "blocking people randomly". In fact, it would be the textbook useful block: when an editor, despite good intentions has a negative net effect on the project, we block him until problems are addressed. You seem unwilling to admit mistakes and unwilling to listen to concerns and adjust your editing. Currently, the effort that others are forced to put into monitoring your edits and repairing the damage outweighs the benefits of your good edits. You can stubbornly refuse to listen but don't expect others to put up with it. I'll copy this on your talk page with a few extra problems that were not mentioned above. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 20:32, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Update: I've warned the user that I will block if he screws up on newpage patrol again. He's been completely unresponsive for weeks, despite repeated detailed complaints. I also note that he has AWB access, which should also be removed if the pattern of mistakes and unresponsiveness continues. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 20:53, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I'll admit that I was wrong. I will now adjust my editing as a result. Tohd8BohaithuGh1 (talk) 21:06, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

You've been making far more mistakes than just that. Editing other users sandboxes, reverting new users in the main sandbox, etc.--Crossmr (talk) 21:32, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

And could you stop with the misleading edit summaries? [141] This is NOT link repair. You're creating redirects.--Crossmr (talk) 21:34, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Then do you label the edit summary "Redirected page"? Tohd8BohaithuGh1 (talk) 21:38, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

With the page that you've redirected to, yes. That would be a far better edit summary so someone knows what is going on.--Crossmr (talk) 21:56, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I just had to refer his edits of Decipherment of rongorongo as he completely broke the referencing system, rendering it illegible. However, I am not clear that was on purpose. I left him a note of explanation on his page. —Mattisse (Talk) 23:17, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Well Tohd8BohaithuGh1 is now responding to issues and admitting mistakes and working on it which was the issue here. I've pointed out adoption since Tohd8BohaithuGh1 could use the help as they try new things and find their niche. At this point I would say the edits could be better, but so could a lot of new users. Would anyone else consider this resolved? -Optigan13 (talk) 00:40, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Improper username? "BristollovesLevi" blocked indefinitely

Per discussion with GRBerry, I undid his 31 hour block of BristollovesLevi and indefinitely blocked, on the ground that the username violates WP:BLP since the man who impregnated the daughter of Sarah Palin, Bristol Palin, is named Levi Johnston. I invite comment to see if this action is in accord with the understanding of the community as to what makes for an inappropriate username. Edison (talk) 03:42, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Good block, since that user was disruptively editing Wasilla, Alaska. Just more Palinsanity. Kelly ^hi! 03:42, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Not sure how inappropriate the user name is, but I have a Null opinion on that. However even if that wasn't an issue, 31 for edit warring is light considering the likleyness this is a bad hand sock and general incivility. If the community decides that the user name is kosher, I recommend a 48 hour at the very least.--Tznkai (talk) 03:46, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Considering the context now, I think the username block is a good one. If the guy really wants to come back and be productive, he can do so under a clean slate that a new account brings. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 04:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe that's actually Bristol Palin??... Nah. Endorse username block, no reason to stir up more Palin-related drama. L'Aquatique[parlez] 04:53, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I do concur with the username block, as Edison said above. I also suspect, as Tznkai does, that this is a bad hand sockpuppet. The problem there is that I have too many possibilities in mind and no significant evidence as to whose puppet it is. If anyone has evidence, please file a SSP case. GRBerry 13:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Palinsanity? You should trademark that one, Kelly. caknuck _° is geared up for football season 01:31, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Possible range block?

Please review the history of The Pentecostal Mission, List of Chief Pastors of the Pentecostal Mission, and their related talk pages. There has been a persistent soapboxing attempt by an anon user that moves between IPs on the 168.187.176.xxx range. Since this disruption appears to be coming from a single person, blocking would be preferable to protection. Also, protecting talk pages sucks. Is this too large of a range to consider a range block on? --Onorem♠Dil 12:41, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I discovered that this IP-hopper has used 18 different addresses so far from the given range. (He tells us that Satan is very angry). I have range-blocked 168.187.176.0/24 for two weeks, after a spot-check that did not reveal any good-faith IPs working in the range lately. Let me know if anyone thinks the block is excessive. There is a heavy burst of nonsense comments at Talk:The Pentecostal Mission that needs daily or more-than-daily reverts from the Talk page, so semi-protection of that page for a month or so might be the fallback strategy. EdJohnston (talk) 16:02, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. --Onorem♠Dil 22:01, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

It's odd that the IP range resolves to Kuwait. I'm not sure how big of a Pentacostal minority Kuwait has, so I'm thinking this is an expatriate Westerner. The ISP owns the whole /16 range, but they may allocate those addresses geographically. caknuck _° is geared up for football season 01:29, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Talk:James Randi

This page is continually being trolled by User:Harry Mudd, a long-standing SPA (July 2005) whose specific single-purpose is (or has become) to attack James Randi.[142] He's already been blocked twice for edit-warring on the subject, though not recently. Currently he's stirring up an edit war on the James Randi talk page. Any advice would be welcome. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 13:14, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Coincident with this edit skirmish, the red-link has deleted postings from his talk page from the last year or so that warn him about his activities, possibly thinking that they won't be noticed. [143] Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 13:19, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I've listed certain facts which Bugs hates. I've given cites for all of them. Bugs may hate the facts I've given, but they are simply true. So he keeps deleting them. Harry Mudd (talk) 14:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

He has deliberately distorted the so-called facts, and several other users agree. Mudd is waging a lone war on this subject. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 14:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I see that you have once again deleted a section that does not agree with your view of the world. And you refuse to see the simple obvious fact that Randi lost the case. Harry Mudd (talk) 14:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Those items were previously removed by two other users as being BLP violations and of no contributory benefit to the article - in short, trolling. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 15:03, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

What is with this comment:

The IP again demonstrates that he's either a troll or an idiot, or both. [[User:Baseball Bugs|Baseball Bugs]] ^{[[User talk:Baseball Bugs|What's up, Doc?]]} 14:02, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[144]

Hardyplants (talk) 17:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

What's with that comment is that a guy who can't write English was criticizing the article's subject for being insufficiently educated. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:26, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Harry Mudd has violated 3RR by reinserting his trolling and BLP violations at Talk:James Randi. 1st revert 2nd 3rd 4th --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 17:13, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I reinserted facts with cites that Randi's followers don't like, so they deleted them. And perhaps you would also care to list the times that Bugs reverted the page. Harry Mudd (talk) 17:22, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

A. As has been pointed out to you repeatedly at the talk page, they're not facts, they're fabrications. B. Bugs reverted three times, which does not violate 3RR. Furthermore, reversions to enforce BLP are not subject to the 3RR. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 17:27, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

• Disruptive WP:SPA blocked for now, see what he has to say for himself on his talk page. Bugs, no need to act like 500 copies of Stella here, you have anded this off, let's let others do the rest. Guy (Help!) 17:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I am not nearly as concerned about this problem as you seem to think I am. :) You blocked him, it's fixed. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:26, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

To close out this, at least for the time being, I reverted the wholesale deletions on the Talk page. I don't see any reason to remove debate on the matter. I have also chided Baseball Bugs for the comments "You can't even write proper English. What college did you go to? ", and "The IP again demonstrates that he's either a troll or an idiot, or both." FYI, Madman (talk) 19:25, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I have handed it off to WP:ANI, and the above user has been chided by one of the original deleting users as to why that junk should be deleted. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:18, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Too rapid of RfD nominations

Resolved

The redirect Wikipedia:BRIT was nominated for deletion on 12 August 2008 and 1 September 2008, both times it was kept. The redirect once again has made its way to deletion at 15 September 2008. Shouldn't there be at least three months between nominations to establish a change of circumstances? If proper, please early close 15 September 2008 with a suggested wait time between deletion nominations. Thanks. -- Suntag ☼ 19:44, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

No, no requirement of minimum time between deletion noms. MBisanz ^talk 19:50, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

There's no technical requirement in terms of a minimum time between a "keep" closure of a debate and re-opening the debate. One day (as the second one went) is obviously too short and it was rightfully closed. Two weeks is still pushing it, but in the end it's up to the discretion of the reviewing administrator whether or not to early-close due to rapid renomination, rather than doing so by default. Shereth 21:02, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm closing the thing early. By looking at the links and the attitude of the delete voters, it seems to be more of a steamroll rather than obtaining consensus.--Lenticel ^(talk) 00:44, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Barack Obama extreme level of vandalism by IP 67.182.14.118

I'll let the history speak for itself. Duuude007 (talk) 00:57, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Reverted and warning given. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 00:59, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

blocked 31 hours. --barneca (talk) 01:00, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Same editor as 67.182.14.118 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) (likely) just showed up and started vandalizing the page as 76.200.73.9 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) - Wikidemon (talk) 01:41, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

They both WHOIS to small towns in California. Pretty likely the vandal has a dynamic IP. Erik the Red 2 (AVE·CAESAR) 01:43, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

At the risk of getting sucked into a game of Whack-a-mole, I'll keep the talk page wathclisted and block similar edits with no warning. Who knows, maybe they'll get tired before we do. --barneca (talk) 01:50, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Kimberlyvang

• Kimberlyvang (talk · contribs)

This user has been constantly adding a "Personal life" section to Menudo (band), where she claims to have a relationship with one of the group's members. After removing it as unsourced a few times, I left her a OR-note template which was promptly ignored. The user doesn't display any interest in trying to justify her actions via any kind of communication. Now, I think that she is most likely one of those fans that like posting such nonsense to articles, but I won't take any action without a second opinion. Mostly because it isn't clear if there is malicious intent or if the allegation might be plausible but handled incorrectly due to lack of knowledge regarding our policies. - Caribbean~H.Q. 20:36, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks like a typical "fan edit", wouldn't treat it as anything but simple vandalism. Wildthing61476 (talk) 20:42, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I've given them a "vandalism 2" warning. If/when it continues, give them the 3 and 4 warning and then report it to WP:AIV for action. - TexasAndroid (talk) 21:04, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

That didn't work... She just reappeared posting the same stuff after the test2, I upgraded the warning, but my next step will most likely be just block as a vandalism-only account, this user obviously couldn't care less. - Caribbean~H.Q. 04:57, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

At this point, it looks like a throw-away account anyway, I'd support a block. Wildthing61476 (talk) 12:18, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Back at it. I just blocked the account, she will keep coming here daily just to post that, block reviews are welcomed. - Caribbean~H.Q. 03:20, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Potentially too much personal information about where the poster's namesake lives (assuming that part of it is factual). Perhaps the user's contribution history should be deleted from public view? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 08:43, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Blocked?

Hello. I hope I am at the right place for this. Recently someone called "Garzo" blocked an account over the "three-revert rule" (whatever that is). However, it appears that this account user is on the same IP address as me (and thousands of other users too). This does seem rather odd. if one person using an account committs some real or imagined violation, should everyone on the same internet provider as that account be blocked as well with that person? 41.245.165.140 (talk) 09:06, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

This is a protection mechanism against the user logging out, possibly creating/logging in as a new account, and continuing the disruption. If you create an account, use it over time, and later get blocked due to this mechanism (called an autoblock), you can request an {{unblock}} on your talk page, and are likely to either get the autoblock released or get your account to have an IP block exemption. Unfortunately, if you don't have an account, or if your account is too new and not used enough, we can't distinguish between you and the user who was blocked. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking that Dr Rgne (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is the person that was blocked[145]. Funny, Dr Rgne's edit history (e.g., on TNA World Heavyweight Championship looks very similar to this IP's 41.245.165.140 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). Block evasion? They certainly didn't wait the 24 hours before using the IP to edit... justinfr (talk/contribs) 12:02, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

User talk:196.25.255.218?? seicer | talk | contribs 12:22, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, was that a reply to me? The only person User:Garzo has blocked (for edit-warring) in the past month is User:Dr Rgne. Now User:41.245.165.140 shows up to complain about being accidentally blocked, and this IP likes to edit the same articles as the blocked user (e.g., wrestling articles, see contribs of both). I expect they're the same, and the IP is crying wolf where none exists, and block evading. Oddly, the block was only 24 hours and it could have easily been waited out. justinfr (talk/contribs) 12:29, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

See WP:SSP##User:Dr_Rgne. justinfr (talk/contribs) 12:39, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh no, it was meant as a peek into similar abusive or non-constructive IP addresses. seicer | talk | contribs 12:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Now Dr. Rgne is putting provocative messages on his talk page [146] [147] while removing my reply to them [148]. Just keeping everybody updated. justinfr (talk/contribs) 16:04, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I have only discovered this page through looking through your "contribs" history. Note the way this person is now copying what others have said about him/her almost word-for-word. I removed that comment of yours because it was just a diatribe which served no valid purpose as to the issue at hand. Anything else relevant can be seen at this users' talk page, my own, or the "special case" he/she has created. Dr Rgne (talk) 16:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Your hyperbole is amusing. My comment was hardly a "diatribe", especially compared to this and this. I think I'll bow out now until the SSP case is resolved, to avoid increasing the drama. justinfr (talk/contribs) 16:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

•  Confirmed, no evidence of shared edits. Thatcher 22:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I am the person who started this section. This user "justinfr" has accused anyone on the same server as being a sockpuppet of a user. "justinfr" has also made personal insults against various people, and checking his/her history one finds a series of accusations, some of which he/she has admitted to having been wrong. Now quite apart from this issue, one also has to wonder why "justinfr" is so interested in this. To sum up, yes there have been different editors and names using this IP, as this is a shared IP address. In addition, many users on this server find their IP changing from time to time. I have posted different messages today, and 2 different IPs came up under the history. I have also received 3 different messages today from admins about edits that I know I did not make (eg. Kyrgyz language and Jacob Zuma, as well as somebody deleting a message that someone else posted on a user talk page). So, my questions are : Is it right to attack an entire IP range because of one person on that range? Does it constitute "sockpuppetry" when someone's IP changes through no doing of their own(ie their provider changes IPs)? And lastly how and why did "justinfr" become so interested in my IP range/server? 41.245.165.140 (talk) 09:09, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Further, I have just been warned for vandalizing an article about "Ryan(name)" which I have no knowledge of. 41.245.165.140 (talk) 09:27, 17 September 2008 (UTC)