Wikipedia:Wikiquette assistance

Wikiquette alerts are an option for a quick, streamlined way to get an outside view.

Procedure

At the bottom of the list, just post:

• A single link to the problem or issue as you see it (for example, a single posting or section of a talk page).
• Label the comment neutrally but do not sign and do not use names (type ~~~~~, which gives only a timestamp).
• Please avoid embarking on a discussion of the points raised on this page. Carry on discussing it wherever you originally were — editors responding to posts here will come to you!

If you would like to get an outside view on your own behaviour, please post it here too.

Outsiders who visit the link are encouraged to make a constructive comment about any Wikiquette breaches they see. Postings should be removed after seven days.

(Old alerts moved to /archive.)

Active alerts

August 25

• Further abuse (see July 1 entry).

August 26

• User:Arrigo == User:217.140.193.123. As the disruption seems to continue everywere I'm considering a RfC/user conduct - but I'm not sure that would be the best course of action. If anyone feels like certifying or endorsing such RfC listing, please do so at User talk:Francis Schonken/Arrigo disruption
  • User:Arrigo has been moving pages without discussion [1], despite warnings [2]. Rude and condescending to almost all the users who have ever had to deal with this user [3]. Also likes to remove naming tags before there is an end to any discussion [4], [5].
  • 217.140.193.123. Abusive, insulting, vulgar, highly resistent to discussion of entry content [6]. Arrigo has been accused of being 217.140.193.123 and vice-versa [7].

• 68.35.229.38, who is Sean Howard, commenting in the talk page for his own entry. Second time (see first). It's an article about him, and he views many edits with suspicion and responds with anger and vulgarity (for latest example search for "68.35.229.38 19:46, 26 August 2005 (UTC)" on the talk page).
  • Also, he just groundlessly accused another user of vandalism.

August 27

• User:Lapsed Pacifist is repeatedly inserting NPOV comments in the MI5 page here [8], he seems to have an Irish axe to grind and his talk page Talk:Lapsed Pacifist shows this is not the only page he is doing this to. He refuses to enter into the talk page and just reverts the page repeatedly while using NPOV as an excuse.

August 28

• The article Broadbandreports is under an apparent edit war for the greater part of a couple days. The communities links are being removed and wikipedians keep reverting. See the talk page for more information on AMA assistance and temporary page protection requests.
• User:garywbush and user:alibadawi are suspected to be related hence socketpuppetry at kafir. See talk:kafir.

August 31

• User:ThomasK has been changing the Category:Cult films category on hundreds of articles and getting into revert wars with editors fixing his changes. Doesn't seem to be malicious, but it is very disruptive. See Category_talk:Cult_films.

It is yet not really a revert war, but I suggest a wp vote. --ThomasK 04:24, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

• Editors at Hubbert_peak_theory are having difficulty achieving a consensus on how to improve the article. Outside opinions and improvements are welcome. Johntex 17:38, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

September 1

• After an edit war concernig the insertion of an NPOV tag had raged through Anti-Polonism the page was blocked (history). Then, the discussion on the talk page got to be very lenghty and entangled on a single issue (despite of the fact that there are many more). This may mean that the parties do not assume good faith. A summary of the issue has been done here. The community should watch how the policies are obeyed during the new chapter of the discussion.

• Two Christian fundamentalists want the Genesis account of the origin of clothing included in the Clothing article, which at present gives a scientific and archaeological approach to the matter. It has been suggested that they write a NPOV article summarizing religious and mythological explanations for the origin of clothing, which could then be linked, but they are demanding equal time in the main Clothing article. 22:34, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

September 3

Rafti Institute has been vandalising the BME page again. He is involved in an ongoing conflict with BME over his unauthorized use of BME's copyrighted material in his publications (which are for sale). I reverted to the previous version, but I'd appreciate of others could help protect the page from his revisions. It's clearly a conflict of interest for him to even edit the page, given his personal situation. He has vandalised this page in the past, between February 17 & February 25 of 2005. After a 5 month hiatus from Wikipedia he has uploaded almost 100 images today, all of which I'd consider potentially in violation of copyright. his contributions are here. Glowimperial 05:37, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

September 4

User:Baphomet. is damaging Wikipedia: he his trying to label Religious articles as Superstition (from a POV view of positivism, that he calls Science). At the article Reincarnation he just went on to add to category "Superstition" and later on without discussion put a POV msg in the article. Please see the discussion page between both of us Talk:Reincarnation#Superstition.

I tried to reason with him but his Point of View is irreductible as it shown by his actions at the above referred article and at the discussion page Talk:Prayer#Category with other users who tried to put some good-sense in his mind. "::There is no scientific evidence that prayer works. They only people to claim that have been a few US religious nutters, who wanted it to work, it has never been reproduced by independent researchers. As a doctor you should be ashamed of yourself pedling such rubbish.--Baphomet. 11:20, 4 September 2005 (UTC)"

And, please, also take a look at his user page discussion User_talk:Baphomet. with other users on this subject.

Through the use of a Culture created by extremism in Science, he is clearly trying to do the job that the Inquisition did in the Middle Ages in a Culture created by extremism in Religion. He is damaging Wikipedia in a subtle invious way!

Please, I request for the User:Baphomet. to be immediatly stopped. Thank you. --GalaazV 20:03, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

How old are you?--Baphomet. 20:39, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

It appears to be that I am older than you... I am not against you or your convictions, my friend, but fighting a battle not seen yet in the eyes of your mind for the future, through a Science more spiritual and a Religion more scientific: in order to bring some peace to the world and within each one of us. [9] --GalaazV 21:03, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Are you perhaps an acid fried hippy?--Baphomet. 21:07, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

According to the Wikipedia, Baphomet is an idol or image of a being typically described as demonic. Baphomet, as Lévi's illustration suggests, has occasionally been portrayed as a synonym of Satan or a demon, a member of the hierarchy of Hell. Is it just my impression or you use the conception of your nickname to do a sort of ironic "holy (satanic) war" of your all-powerfull Science against the Supertitious Religion? Are you going to use that same process when facing or getting through the gates of Death (is it Death or Life after Death, or even Rebirth?) --GalaazV 21:31, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

One of the side effects of intelligence is awareness of mortality. It's when you really face up to that, you'll stop peddling this opium.--Son of Paddy's Ego 22:26, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

See categoriees for deletion. Rich Farmbrough 22:56, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

We are all going to die.--WholemealBaphomet 23:52, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

REQUEST to Administrators of Wikipedia:Religion as main category at the Main Page. --GalaazV 00:04, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

• • There is no requirement that either of you accept each other's POV. There is, however, a requirement that you treat each other civilly. Our NPOV policy requires that our articles respect all points of view, whether you personally respect them or not. If you consistently refuse to play by the rules, you can eventually be banned from Wikipedia. By the way, there is no such user as Baphomet. His user name is WholemealBaphomet. His signature is deceptive. – Quadell ^(talk) 19:15, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
    • No it is not deceptive. The account used to Baphomet.. I was asked to change it by Ed Poor. I Have done so. However it doesn't go change the sigs I had already produced.--WholemealBaphomet 20:21, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
    • I apologize for my hard words toward WholemealBaphomet. They came not from antipathy toward the individual but from disapproval of his actions; anyway it does not serve as an excuse for some of my less polite words toward this user. --GalaazV 04:52, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
• User:Antaeus Feldspar refuses to attribute his claim and then argues that he doesn't need to bother because the article is going to be deleted and then makes a personal comment based on his own speculation. See his comment here: [10]

September 5

• Talk:Lacerte Does a prior VfD result of "Keep" restrict an article from being merged later? 01:14, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
• [11] repetitive page-blanking, replacing with a loopback redirect to the article linking to it - essentially unremitting deletions w/out a vfd or even deletion request. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 01:52, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
• User:Oasisfanatic is spamming WP by adding his link to multiple martial arts pages. The link itself points to a website that has only just started with no content and is business advertising. I have asked Oasisfanatic to stop spamming the articles and reverted the edits. --Paul Laudanski 03:48, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

September 6

User:Felix Frederick Bruyns has apparently, without seeking my approval in any way, chosen to delte several msgs from my user talk page User talk:DESiegel. I have reverted these changes. This seems to have been done because thsoe msgs concerned a dispute this user was having with User:Moriori, and they have apparently decided to delete mutual recriminations. Taht is all very well, but I do not consider that this entitles them to delete parts of my user talk page without so much as a polite request to me, merely a notice that it had been done. I am particualrly disturbed that this ahppend at mroe or less the same time that this user sent me a series of quite hostile msgs, threatening me with a arbitration proceeding, all because of one msg which i posted on his talk page which he chooses to consider "monstrously obscene" because I included the name of an image constining sexually related materiel, an image recently on IFD, to indicate my views on wikipedia censorship, which was the subject of the then ongoing thread of discussion. I welcome comment on this matter, and i ask if anyone considers that I am in any way acting incorrectly in connection with it. DES ^(talk) 14:44, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

September 8

I'm afraid that I'm losing my patience with a fairly new but rather self-important user, who is usually civil but isn't apparently particularly enthused about working with other people and doesn't seem to be catching on to how Wikipedia works. For the latest example, see:

• Talk:Bully Kutta
• Bully Kutta history

And from Tuesday:

• Talk:Olde Englishe Bulldogge
• history for that page

Thoughts or opinions on the Bully Kutta page (to which he added a huge collection of links to individual external photos) or on his more-frequent strategy of reverting complete sets of edits, or on my responses, might be helpful. Because I'm completely immersed in the dog project world and have been for a year and a half and that's where he's making many edits, I keep encountering him, so he's hard to avoid. Thanks. Elf | Talk 00:44, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

September 10

User:Dragons flight is a sysop who evaluates WP:RM votes, and then, depending on the result of such vote, decides whether or not to do the technical stuff for moving the page (which in some cases even doesn't involve sysop powers). Today he wrote on talk:William the Silent:

This article has been renamed after the result of a move request. I have decided to move this to William the Silent, even though I have some significant misgivings about how this vote was conducted. My count based on the above and comments below is 10-4, but if were to discount all the users whom Francis recruited from nl.wikipedia by leaving messages on their talk pages there, the count would be 4-4. However, none of those accounts on en seem to have been created solely for the purpose of this vote, and two actually have fairly substantial edit histories here. Given this, I have decided to allow their opinions to tip the balance towards moving, though I would regard this result as a very marginal consensus given these circumstances. I would strongly caution Francis against rounding up his friends in order to sway polls in the future, as I am unlikely to give much credence to such votes if I see this repeated. Dragons flight 06:26, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

This statement is highly POV, based on non-evidence:

• The Fourth NoMove vote Dragons Flight included was that of Arrigo, the "expert" of going around on user talk pages to invite people to side with his vote - the fact that this user didn't do that for this vote, shows how much this makes a difference: less people sneering at those who defend a more reasonable approach of Exception #2 of wikipedia:naming conventions (names and titles) - Arrigo has been criticised several times for disruptive behaviour in voting procedures, see: User_talk:Scimitar#Hi_Scimitar.2C - considering the possibility that Arrigo should've been included as a voter when he didn't vote seems all too ridiculous, so the vote is and was 10-3 and that should not be doubted with subjective rant;
• The accusation that "Francis would've gone around on user talk pages of Dutch wikipedians recruiting for the William the Silent vote", and thus would have triggered at least 6 extra votes is self-invented POV. The only user talk page where it was mentioned was that of Errabee Känsterle, a regular contributor to English wikipedia, and I only had mentioned it sideways, when making him attentive of another minor problem at English wikipedia, which he should've solved, and indeed solved soon after.

Apart from these two there's still the implication in Dragons flight's comment that voting is something for an "in-crowd", completely contrary to general approach of avoiding conflict, which advises to seek outside expertise. In sum I'd ask Dragons flight to withdraw voluntarily from anything that has to do with sysop end-evaluations of votes, as he appears not to be able to do that in an impartial manner. --Francis Schonken 11:09, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Francis's vote gathering:

• Kansterle: [12]

*Errabee: he admits. Corrected that above also, my last talk with Errabee was more than a week before the start of the vote --Francis Schonken 19:23, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

• Post on the NL Village Pump: [13]

I can't find direct posts for the others from NL (I actually can't find one of the identities either), but when you get a half dozen native NL speakers, some of whom rarely participate on EN, it is clear to me that their votes were recruited regardless of how it was accomplished.

Since, Francis disputes it, here is Arrigo's vote: [14]. The only issue there is that it was not placed in the "correct" section of the page, which is certainly not a reason to discount it.

I do see evidence that Arrigo (talk · contribs) has tried to gather votes in the past, but the message he left in the cases I most recently observe was neutral (i.e. not advocating an outcome) and he explicitly contacted a number of people who had just voted against him. I am not a fan of vote gathering in any case, but it is tolerable if one attempts to do so neutrally. If you have evidence in any particular vote that Arrigo is trying to shape the outcome through non-neutral vote gathering, please do call my attention to it. However, I stand by my conclusion that your efforts certainly were not neutral.

As to the "in-crowd" remark, of course it is not an "in-crowd", but the naming conventions and policy decisions on EN should be based on the consensus resulting from a fair sampling of the views of participants on EN. Your actions attempted to skew participation both by recruiting people who agreed with you and bringing in people who were otherwise unlikely to participate in an EN discussion. The fact that they came from NL wikipedia and had preexisting accounts here (though in several cases rarely used) only makes it a few steps better than the people who posts on "BigHunkOfCheese.com" that Wikipedia is about to delete the entry on "BigHunkOfCheese".

Oh, and unless someone should be confused, I did in fact move the page as Francis wanted.

I have no intention of recusing myself in this or related matters. Dragons flight 16:00, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

I posted on Dutch village pump, which is seeking outside expertise, general, not pushing any direction. I even explained that "William of Orange" was no longer a choice. Also, the message on Känsterle's page was not pushing in any direction w.r.t. the vote, just mentioning the vote was going on. Even re. Känsterle's I had no idea what way he would vote: he never took part in votes in which I participated, nor did I even see any vote in which he participated on Dutch or English wikipedia.

So Dragons flight only adds more unjustified incrimination about techniques of attracting voters.

As far as I know there were no other posts or whatever attempt to attract voters. Most of the other voters I don't know, so I don't even know which one "could" be connected with the post on Dutch Village pump. Anyway: "all the users whom Francis recruited from nl.wikipedia by leaving messages on their talk pages there" adding up to SIX votes according to Dragons flight's calculation was a lie, an unfounded surmise, that can not be proven while it's a hoax based on his own unjustified assumptions, so NOT IMPARTIAL, so Dragons flight should stop writing that kind of inflammatory vote count analyses, and is just not suited for that kind of job, since he even doesn't seem to think about correcting his lousy comments on the William the Silent talk page.

Arrigo was constantly falsifying the "fair sampling", while often rallying support as an anti-Francis message. I had no idea whether Dutch people would agree with me, while I'm not Dutch. There I belong to the small minority of wikipedians who has no root whatsoever in Holland. William the Silent does not belong to Belgium where I live, so the only thing I know is that Dutch wikipedians from the Netherlands that are also active on English wikipedia would have more expertise than I had.

And the result of the vote shows that the "regular" voters of WP:RM votes connected to royals, have few chances of knowing what they're talking about. They're just lowering the quality of wikipedia, see the "personal attacks" they listed as vote comments here and here. And then Dragons flight doesn't even omits the votes showing such insulting voting behaviour.

Dragons flight is just not suited for the job of "vote results interpreter". Period. I'd like other wikipedians to comment on that, maybe a request for comments is the most suited for that.

Dragons flight is the last one I would report Arrigo's disrupting behaviour to. That has been done elsewhere. To apparently less biased sysops. --Francis Schonken 19:23, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I would encourage you to open an RFC as Wikiquette Alerts is in fact not well suited to the current discussion. If in fact that is your intention, I will hold off commenting further while you do open such a discussion. Dragons flight 19:44, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Firstly, I'd just like to say that I think Dragons flight has behaved perfectly correctly here. And that I quite dislike it when people gather votes from users of other wikipedias. that being said, Francis's complaint seems to be based on the premise that DF is behaving in a "POV" manner, which is unacceptable. But this is absurd. There is no rule against being POV on talk pages - POV is a policy which applies to article content, and nothing else. Dragons Flight is allowed to call it however he sees it, and the fact that he doesn't see it your way, Francis, does not mean that he is biased against you. (Obviously, the fact that DF actually moved the article suggests that he is not biased against your position.) john k 20:04, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Religious bigotry

An un-logged-in user using a variety of IP addresses has made repeated personal attacks and expressed general disdain for anything contributed by users with a religious background, or for material from sources with a religious background, and has displayed a general disregard for basic wikipedia etiquette. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Icon#Answer , and surrounding comments. In editing the article, the user has repeatedly censored or reverted any changes that do not conform to his or her POV. See the edit history of Icon for the last month or so. 16:40, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

September 11

• User:82.35.232.241 may be linkspamming. He has been adding links to the same website over and over again in several articles. From what I can tell, these are the only edits he makes. -- LGagnon 19:01, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

• User_talk:68.80.133.163, an unlogged-in user, is making numerous POV edits and is writing edit summaries which refer to Muslims and Arabs as Nazis (cf diff [15]) and include offensive falsehoods about Islam (cf diff [16]). Can some action be taken? 11:32, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

• Looks like a full scale edit war going on at the article Kathleen Blanco. 00:05, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

• Will someone please check out the "conversation" at Talk:Fruit#Stupid Fruit Facts. An anon has been persisting in deleting a statement in the article Fruit he just does not like (will not correct it if wrong). When I advise him (on anon talk pages) that one cannot just delete facts that are true becuse of a POV, he has moved to attacking me. I did not enter the "offending" fact, and his responses seem increasingly irrational to me. His ISP is from somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area, so his accusations that I am a typical Eurobashing, "racist" American are a real mystery (since he knows nothing about my sex, race, politics, or nationality). I finally blocked him after several warnings, but his/her responses to discussing why he/she cannot do what he/she wants seem way over the wall. I really am only trying to uphold the civility of our rules and could care less about carrot jam. Are these sorts of personal attacks permissible here? This one has gone on far too long - 00:08, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

September 15

• User:Calton reverts[17],[18],[19],[20],[21],[22],[23],[24],[25],[26],[27],[28] just to oppose or annoy or something. He also makes personal attacks/comment or otherwise uncivil remarks in edit summaries.[29],[30], and has deleted this entry in Wikiquette.[31] 23:06, 15 September 2005 (UTC)